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Solar Pi | Installing Electric-Powered Computer Lab

After the electricians finished with the wiring of the lab, it is time for our team to finish it up. On the 19th of May, 2018, eight of our teammates had been to the Toul Brasat Sen Sol High School to install the computers and training the teachers and the students. 

As a member of the installation team, my role was to set up the monitors as well as connecting the necessary wires. Most of the time there, I was setting up the screens, connecting them with the Raspberry Pi and finally test the screens whether they are working or not. During the testing process, we had found that a few of computers are not working well because of the broken cables and there are so many mouses that are not working.  Due to the short amount of time, we eventually had to fix it later. 

Although there were so many obstacles from the installation, this lab will be using as soon as it finished. In addition, this lab will be used by 245 high school students. Nevertheless, by installing this lab our team are hoping to see more interests from Cambodians in technology field. 

 

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Bike Experience Exploration – Journeys of Change

My second exploration of this is year Bike Experience, which we named it later on as Journeys of Change. The goal of this seven weeks long project is to turn this idea of running a bike tour into a successful business. Moreover, the bike route will contain the theme of change that occurs in Cambodia as it mentioned in our business name, Journeys of Change. Mission: Our mission is to share insights into the lives of everyday Cambodians by creating a tour for visitors and locals, of the Phnom Penh area. The tour will focus on explaining the changes that have occurred and are occurring in this country, while simultaneously supporting local businesses, being environmentally conscious,  training tour guides in responsible tourism, providing cross-cultural exchanges, and creating job opportunities for Liger students to help further and fund their education, after high school.

Our team members.

In order to start this business, our team has divided into three smaller teams that were working on a different part of this business. For me, I was working as a business plan member, that focused on writing the report about the whole idea about this business and to keep it organized. Also, I’ve been working on calculating the expense and decide how much I charge our client per tour and how can we the money. Most importantly, my team had created a lot of forms and documents such as liability waiver, feedback system, and three job descriptions (tour guide, office director, and marketing manager).  

Another team was the tour guides, which they were focusing on the stops for our bike route as well as design training course for the additional 20 tour guides. Moreover, after the finished finalizing the stops, they will need to write the script for each stop in order to make it easy for the trainee guides to summarize. 

Our last team was marketing. In this team, they were trying to use many ways to advertise our bike tours. At the end our exploration, they had created a website and a Facebook page. Additionally, they were trying to partner with some of the hotels by the riverside of Phnom Penh, which is close by our starting point for our bike tour. 

Since we were trying to turn this project into a real business, we had hired our office director and marketing manager to keep track of our progress. Also, all of the students that involved in this exploration will be our official tour guides and we will have 20 more tour guides coming soon. 

 

Our first tour with finalized stops. 

Battambang trip: At the start of this exploration, we’ve been to Battambang for our one week trip. During this trip, we got to learn from one bike tour company, Soksabike who is our mentor. We learned almost everything about their business which gave us so many ideas of our how our bike experience should be.  

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Creative Writing

Creative writing is one of my expertise classes for this first term. Each week, we were focusing on different types of writing, such as poems and short stories with different themes and topics. It was quite hard for me at first, however, later on, I’m getting better and better with my write. I got fewer grammar mistakes and get to improve my vocabularies usage. Below is one of my essays that I did about the year of 2563 where I need to include of some the vocabularies such as, space station and distribute.

 

“Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen! I just have a quick…surprise… announcement and I’m sure y’all will love it!” declaimed the space station director.

Everyone is all looking surprised and giving the director their attention.

“Every single of you have worked so hard for our latest mission to distribute the water supplies to Mars. I am really impressed by your hard work to make this a really big success. So, you all will have a 2 month holiday starting from tomorrow. And…yet, please don’t forget to come back our incredible, impressive, marvelous scientists! Thank you and good luck!” continued Mr. Aldrich with pride toward all of his staff.

Here it begins…….

“It is now 5:59 AM and my journey will begin in a minute,” said Cathy with excitement.

Oops! By the way, I haven’t introduced myself yet. Ummm….so here it goes!

“Hi! I’m Cathy, 27-year-old. I am a scientist who is currently working at NASA space station. As a scientist, I also like going on adventures on my own. Fun fact, I’ve got this one weird habit which is…I really like wearing dark lipsticks. Moreover, I was born with this special power where I could transform into whatever I want but sadly only for 30 minutes,” greetings by our beloved Cathy.

The mysterious wood…..

It’s almost noontime, but this mystery is still as dark as ever. The sound of the wind keeps whispering stronger and stronger in my ears. However, Cathy has no idea what will she get from this mysterious wood adventure because just come without any plan.

“Are you tired now, Major?” asked Cathy to her white horse. Major seem tired but he continues the adventure anyway.

Finally, she comes to a stop for a rest and hearing the beautiful voices of a multitude of birds singing with the trees blowing as its rhythm. With those beautiful voices, it had made Cathy fell asleep for awhile.

As she wakes up, the wood only getting darker and darker. The wood seems to be creepy and creepier, but that didn’t bring Cathy into fear. She carries on her adventure and keeps wishing to see something cool and mysterious.

Eventually, she had come to another stop. Cathy wondered, “Why is this book laying down here?” She continued, “There’s must be someone used to come here and bring this book here.”

Right after she finished talking, she saw a shadow running quickly in front of her.

“Who are you? Can you hear me? Why are you here? Please come.” said Cathy while knuckling her hands with scary looking.

No matter how much she tried to scream, there is no reply so she decided to give up on that. Afterward, Cathy begins to open the book slowly with a mind full of questions. She has no idea what will the book talk about and she has no idea what is happening to her at that moment.

“Whaaaaat!!!??? Wo wo wo…wooow! Is this book just magically open by itself?” said Cathy which shocked and can’t believe what did she just saw. Suddenly, the wood had gone so quiet. There’s no more Cathy voice, there’s no more the voices of the birds and there’s no more sound of the wind blowing.

Here it comes 2563……

“What’s happening? What is this place? Why am I here? Where am I?” said Cathy with confusion. Then, she starts to get up and explore in this new place, which is called, “Future time, The Year of 2563.”

After a long walk, she eventually finds out that she is actually living in the future. Where there are no trees, no more different nationalities, no one she knew and it’s the whole full of technology. Everyone is living in peace, no wars, no racism, no criticism and everyone has equal right. Every single thing in this new world was made out of modern technology like those lipsticks, horses and books buildings.

“I knew no one here, how am I gonna live here? I wanna go back to 2017,” cried Cathy.

Living separately from her family, friends and her favorite is really hard. Day by day, Cathy only thinking about of going back to the past like a crazy person. However, no matter how much she’s trying to think, there’s just no way for her to turn back in time. Instead, she just tries to adapt to the world she is currently living in. Moreover, her lifestyle had changed a lot, where she has to be all fancy.

Cathy blaming herself, “Is there any way that I can go back in time? Hmm…Cathy, you’re so stupid! Why would you open that book?”

“Oh, wait! I think…if I found that book, I could go back to 2017! But…how can I find it?” cried Cathy with depression.

Later on, she begins to walk around the city again. Cathy explores and checks building by building, but she still got no clue where the book could be. Finally, she’s here in front of the diamond building.

“This is the last building of this whole city, Cathy, I know you can find it. It’s here, it’s must be here.” Cathy whispered to herself.

Floor by floor, she couldn’t find it, no matter how hard tried. Cathy said with confidence, “Yes! I finally here on the rooftop. It must be somewhere here.” Again, she begins to look for that book and…surprisingly…she got it.

“Oh my god! It’s here. Yessssss!!! Wooo Whooo! I got it back now!!! I can go back to 2017 now!!!!” screamed Cathy with joyfulness. After getting the book, she immediately opens it up and hoping that it will bring her back to the past.

“1, 2, 3!” whispered Cathy while starting to open her eyes.

“Wait, what is this place? Aren’t I supposed to be in 2017?” wondered Cathy.

“Oh, what? Is it a dinosaur era? Let’s me flip the book again,” shocked Cathy after seeing Supersaurus far across in front of her.

I am back……

The house seems so silent and everything is such a mess without Cathy. However, she is now back to her home and there she is; lying on the bed like a dying person. Everything is back to what it used to be. Cathy is now back at work again as a scientist.

Cathy to her scientist friends, “Hello guys and gals!”   

Everyone is looking at her, greeting and they started to share about their holiday.

“So…it’s time for Cathy to share about her holiday. Cathy, what have you done for this 2 months break? Did you get a new car? New dorm? New everything?” said one of the men.

She explained, “If I’ll tell you what had happened to me, you wouldn’t believe me. Wouldn’t you?”

Everyone is begging her to reveal the truth with excitement. They are keep guessing, but unfortunately, no one gets it to the right answer.

Then, Cathy ended a conversation with just a simple answer. “You’ll find that out later.”  

 

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Khmer Sight Foundation Volunteering

The desire to change my country and help its people is hard. However, by joining many incredible opportunities as a volunteer will help that desire to come true. On Saturday 18th, November, a group 10 students (including me) were going to Camkids, Kampong Speu province as volunteers for Khmer Sight Foundation (KSF). KSF is a group of people including many doctors around the world, who are trying to help to protect the Cambodians’ eyes. 

Once we arrived, I observed that there are many people who had arrived since the early for the eyes checkup, but the doctors have not arrived yet. So, we just do what we can do such as organizing the seats for the patients, interview them about the problems with their eyes and did what the doctors told us. 

When the doctors arrived, we then assigned the number to the patients by asked them for their contact. Afterward, four of my friends and I were training of how to give the eyes test. At the start, I was so struggled of what should I do with the patients, like should I give the eye drop or not and what should I write in the report paper. Moreover, I have to explain the instruction to the patients which was so tired for me but I really enjoyed working with my elders and help to improve their eyes sight. After finishing doing the simple eyes test, the patients need to move to the next room where they talked to the doctors about the problems with their eyes. 

 

Finally, the doctors we discussed to choose the patients who will come to the hospital in Phnom Penh to get surgery. At the hospital, I had also learned how to precisely scan the eye that will need to do the surgery. Additionally, I also learned the different problems with the eyes and how will the surgery help with those issues. 

Of course, it has been a tired day for me and my friends. However,  I was so glad to be a part of the team and help my elders to have a good eyesight. If there is another opportunity like this, I would love to join again. 

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Narrative Essay

For the first term of this year, our literacy class had started to write our narrative essay which talked about the coming of age. So, it was more personal to ourselves. Moreover, it explained about the problems, experiences and something that we learn during those years. 

For me, I had written about someone who played a really big role in my life, which is my grandpa. Sadly, he is now not with me anymore. He had passed away about 10 years ago. However, the words and memories that I had with him will never forget. 

Besides writing essay, we also were also doing a lot of activities to improve our writing. We were learning about how to make our essay more concise and using it in the correct forms. Furthermore, we also learn many new vocabularies that we include in our essay.  

 

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Artist of Cambodia

In Liger, exploration class is usually run by the learning facilitator. It mean, the the teacher will choose the topic and the students that will be in their exploration. This round of exploration are difference from other round. This round, students had chose their own exploration with different topics. For the whole exploration we will make a schedule for our class and we have one learning facilitator to help us if we have something to ask.

My first “Choose your own exploration” is “Artist of Cambodia.” In our group we have five members are Sovannary, Venghour, Vornsar, Sythong and I. Our exploration goal is to change people’s perspective of what they think about plastics.

To reach our goal, we had made many products from dry wastes. We also went outside and do the campaign at the market. We did the campaign at the market because, we think that people in the market use a lot of plastics so we wanted them to stop using it. Also, we showed them some of the products that they can use rather than plastics such as eco friendly bag and etc.

My challenge it to come up with new ideas to make new product. It is hard because there are many recycled ideas in the internet, so I have to up with new, unique ideas. Even though, it’s hard but I still enjoy my class.

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Liger Ultimate Frisbee

Every Tuesday, I had join Liger Ultimate Frisbee. In this after school activity (ASE) everyone can join to play. There are so many boys in this activity so while we play the girls don’t have a lot of chance to throw the frisbee. However, I enjoy playing with all my friends and also it is a good sport.

  • Our volunteer, Samantha.
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Humans of Cambodia

For round 3 exploration, I was in one exploration called “Humans of Cambodia.” This exploration is about writing about Cambodian lives. We got this idea from one blog called “Humans of New York (HONY).” Before there was a group of students had created a blog about Humans of Phnom Penh but wasn’t success so we decided to make our blog. Our big goal in this exploration is; we create this website to share to the world about how Cambodian lives look like.

We spent most of the time going outside to interview people for our blog. When we interviewed them, we asked a lot about their personal and insightful questions because we don’t want our reader getting bored after read the story on our blog. While we interview, we have job to do; one person ask question, one person take photo and one person recording. After we interviewed them, we will give our website card to them so the share to other people. Before we went out to interview people we have to learn how to take a good photos. Even before we go to interview, we learn about the photo categories.

As the members of this exploration, we learn how to opportunist. When other kids from others classes went outside, we will send 2-3 students to interviewed the people. I am one of the kids who went to Camkids that located in Kampong Speu to interview the kids who are learning there and some villagers.

Some of the people that we had interviewed in Camkids and some villagers:

Although, we spent a lot of time outside the class to interview but we also work one small project that about writing a story about strange animal. For me, I wrote a imagination story about the animal that have kitten head and penguin body.

I’m really proud of myself as one of the members in this exploration because I get to learn many things. I get to work with new classmates and share different ideas to each other. Also, we have to come up with a lot of good questions to interview people, it wasn’t easy. One thing I like in this class is; it improve my listening skill and translation skill because I had been listen to many audios in Khmer and in English.

Here are some of photos that shoots:

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Independent Discovery

          In  Liger we have Independent Discovery, which allow students to pick one topic that they want to work on in the own time. Also the topic or skill that they use will help them learning. I chose to do one independent discovery which is about drawing and designing fashion. Even though, my topic is about designing and drawing fashion but I also learn how to draw humans realistic drawing. My mentor is Jaime (Learning Facilitator), she help me a lot my giving me a lot of great ideas and sources that I could used to help for my independent discovery. My goal is to know more of great fashion design and I want to be better with using different kind of color such as watercolor and pencil color. The most important thing is to know technique of drawing realistic drawing and designing fashions.  

          I think it was fun to design and drawing your design but I think I’m not really succeed in this independent discovery. It not really succeed because I have so many ideas and a lot of things that I want to do in this independent discovery in short time. Also, I think if I were with one or two friends that want to do the same things as me so it will be better. We will have more idea and have specific things that we want to do. So, if I do next independent discovery I would like to do with some friends that can help me what I need.

          I spent a lot finding sources that will help me with this fashion designing independent discovery. Here is the two website that I like to use for search for some ideas:

  • Pinterest; This website allow me to search for things that I want such as fashion design ideas.
  • Skillshare; This is the website that my teacher gave me, it allow me to watch many cool video about drawing and designing clothes and many cool drawing.