Grade
ten has ended, flagged by the end of the IGCSE exam and I am now entering the
second semester of eleventh grade, which is the first year of the IB Diploma Programme,
taking higher level biology, physics and Indonesian and standard level
chemistry, mathematics and English. The period of time in between, was perhaps the
most arduous yet most valuable of my years so far; a process in His plans,
which purposes to prosper and not to harm, plans that gives hope and a future.
In the
tenth grade, Mr. Marisi said that I was going to be signed up to a competition,
and so, at the beginning of the school, with his supervision I begun my
research that is to be competed in the Young Scientists Competition or YSC. I
came up with a hypothesis. Mr. Marisi booked the lab in Surabaya University and
put my hypothesis to experimentation that costs two days of hard work and missing
my classes. But to my surprise, it failed. I came up with a second hypothesis,
but it failed just like the first. The same thing went for the third.
My heart
broke, three times, but I didn’t give up. I came up with a fourth hypothesis, a
very good idea and will be a great research topic if experimentally proven to
be correct. To my surprise, it works, and the results were outstanding. I
received a bronze medal for my research in the YSC and currently had had two
out of three coaching to prepare me to compete in the International Conference
of Young Scientist or ICYS in Serbia, in the midst of April 2014.
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| Bronze Medal, YSC |
This reminded
me of a movie I watched as a child that inspires me to pursue in the field of
science: Disney’s “Meet the Robinsons ” as well as what Thomas Alva Edison said
in response to his numerous attempts of finding the correct material of the
filament his light bulb: “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that
won't work.” The messages from the two combined tells that failure is a part of
success, we may look backwards to our failures, but not to dwell in it, but to
learn from it, so that we keep moving forward.
Participating
in the ICYS while in the IB Diploma Programme is a tough challenge for me. There
are a lot of things that needs to be done in strict deadlines. I sacrificed my piano
lessons to allow me to fully concentrate on the competition and my lessons at
school.
I missed
piano so bad as well as reading books, although I still had my piano lessons until
the midst of the first semester. I hope I can return back to playing piano next
year.
However,
it is an honor and blessing to represent my alma mater in competitions and to
be able to get all the experiences and lessons from it; it was all worth it. The
research and experiments allowed me to practice my research skills, technical
experimenting skills, and gave me an experience of how scientific research is
like, which may be useful for my future university study and career which will
be in the field of science, perhaps biomedical engineering.
I was also drilled in my presentation skills,
by having to do presentations in numerous audiences and being given lessons on presentation
and PowerPoint making techniques. I performed a presentation during the IB
night as a participation as well as practice for the competition. I am now more
confident and doing much better in presentations.
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| IB Night |
I also
learned to manage my time and myself better through facing the numerous tasks
given in strict period of time.
I am
trying to be as active as possible in OSIS. Although I was not taking any
important roles in the events, I pushed myself to give ideas and opinions to
find the best way in situations during the activity. Participating in OSIS challenged
my organization and teamwork skills as well as my perseverance quite well.
I
will compete in the ICYS this April, aiming for the best. I am now working and
praying hard. Please pray for me as well. God bless.
