UWC MALAYSIA SHORT COURSE
Day 2 // 19th August 2018
Jeeva s/o Gothadan
First from the left
My name is Jeeva. I want to share about yesterday’s activities. Yesterday we talked about identities, about what we think and about our experiences. Then, we did some relaxing activities to relax and focus our mind. In the evening, we also played obstacle games.
Nadhira Bt Zulkifli
First from the right
The reason why I joined the UWC Short Course was to meet people who also shared the same mind as me. Yesterday’s story is actually pretty interesting. We got up, had breakfast then began our first session. I was pretty excited to meet people (who I call friends now). It began with lots of ice breakers and then we started on the topic of identity. Identity for me is actually interesting because I am really curious about what others think about identity, and personality. We discussed our thoughts about identity and personality - we had some really cool thoughts. Then, we sat in our own ‘Umbrella’ groups and we talked about our one important personal items that we brought with us. In the evening, we did the obstacle course and did some kind of reflection - calming ourselves down from all the excitement. At night, we went deeper into the topic of identity. I got a lot of other perspectives about religion, skin tone, race and others. I hope I can use this experience that I’ve just learned, and adopt it in real life and share it with my friends.
Devon Lew Yu Xin
On the right
On Sunday, the theme explored and talked about was identity, which I personally felt was something that was dogging a lot of people regardless of age, gender, social life, financial background and all that. There were multiple sharing sessions that both reinforced what we were already comfortable with, aspects of our identity of which we were familiar, and ones that got us to cross that boundary. We talked about the philosophy of existence and identity, of how our identities ourselves can make an impact on the world. Later in the evening, there was another sharing session where we talked about parts of our identity that we were either aware of or uncomfortable with, at different stages of our lives. What was shared by the others within my group was heartfelt and honest, candid and bare. The facilitators were calm and encouraging, and everyone (the Archis!) had been understanding and nothing short of open and accepting. It’s a day where we suddenly got to know each other, see things differently, where we celebrated diversity, where we had fun and where I (maybe) learned a bit more about, and understood, myself.
Loh Guang Jun
It was a day filled with many different experiences. We understood the concept of identity and had many interesting discussions and also shared stories with other fellow Archis. A mind-blowing session was during our time with the guest speaker, Mr Hazman Baharom, who was a philosopher and also a teacher. He talked to us on the topic of identity and questioned on our proof that we actually exist and whether or not we were bring controlled by some being in our dream. Philosophy is very interesting but to me it is answering questions with no definite answer and it requires a lot of deep thinking and also reading to explore the way that you think. I questioned my own existence sand also thought that philosophy was ridiculous at first, but I realised that there is a possibility for anything in this world. As the saying goes, “The more you know, the more you realise you don’t know.” Mr Hazman introduced us to a few books related to some of the things we talked about and I think that he is a very knowledgeable person. After the discussion we had, we went through an obstacle course that required us to work with our team.
Nurul Afiqah
Bt Yunos
First from the right
