Our FOBISSEA medalist is back!

Iman just returned back from Penang this afternoon and it was a successful games for her and the rest of the JIS team. Iman came home with nine medals altogether including one participant medal.

Iman's best event was probably the 800m in athletics which she won by a huge gap!

Here are a list of her medals.

Athletics
800m - Gold
60m dash - Bronze
4 x 100m relay - Bronze
Shuttle relay - Bronze

Football
U10 girls - Bronze

Swimming
50m Breast - Silver
4 x 25m medley relay - Silver
4 x 25m free relay - Bronze
Tyre relay - Gold

After that haul we have one very tired girl who's very happy to be home!

Kite making - The Bruneian way

For most children growing up in Brunei in the 70s and 80s, kite flying and making was a must holiday activity. I used to spend hours under the scorching sun often flying a rudimentary folded kite torn out from an old exercise book. Nothing as sophisticated as the coloured homemade kites flying around and I secretly had "kite envy"! I often tried to make my own but without much success. But as health and safety didn't exist then playing with sticks and penknives was part of the fun. 

Nowadays if you ask a child if he can fly a kite he is more likely to check his iPad if he has the app. So it was a great opportunity for Jack and Ayden (and me) to take part in making their own kite at an afternoon organised by our friend and kite-maker extraordinaire David.

What I never realised was that for the frame to be light, the bamboo has to be of a certain type - hence where I went wrong all those years ago! We started off with a 't' frame of two pieces of bamboo - with apparently the most difficult part of the middle knot done for us. 

Not that what we did following was any simpler. Following David's exact instructions, we tied knots at asymmetrical points to create the kite frame as below

By this point we had to stop the kits from their playing and running around to choose their colours of special kite paper (another fail from my childhood)

Next was to arrange and glue the paper together

Followed by cutting the paper to fit the frame and folding the edges over the frame

Here's the finished product which took us about an hour and a half to complete. Thankfully I had help with Ayden's whilst I made Jack's. By this time the kids were rolling around in the sand and us parents has to sit down for a rest before the test run

Qing, Jordan, Jack, Ayden, Christian and Hanna proud with the kites "they" made!

And Jack's kite passed the test, though I must confess it was not the kite frame I assembled, only the paper was expertly glued on.

And by the evidence of the smiling faces it was a successful afternoon. Many thanks to David and Helena for organising such an original and fun afternoon. I can now finally tick that box of making a coloured kite and for my boys one they will talk about for some time. They are talking about making more and I am sure it will come up in Ireland where we buy a kite on an annual basis! Not quite so sure how light Irish bamboo is?!

Jetting off to a sports meet

Iman has been waiting for this morning for months ever since she was one of six girls in her year chosen to represent the school at the FOBISSEA games. For the next three days Iman will compete in swimming, athletics, T-Ball and Football. It's was massively competitive to get onto the team and Iman as ever is hugely proud to be representing the school. Wishing our little girl all the luck in all her events!

Africa Rocks : JIS Style

A couple of weeks ago, the Primary School at JIS presented "Africa Rocks" with years 3,4 and 5 all participating. Iman and Jack had been practicing for weeks in advance and Iman managed to get a role as one of the main characters, with Jack providing backing vocals along with his mates.

Iman's character was "Mr FatCigar" who (ignoring stereotypes) was a profit minded boss of a mining company that were making money from the land but not helping the locals. Her line of 'It's all about Profit, Profit and Profit' was heard all over the school in the days following the show, so she clearly made an impression.

What surprised us as parents, was Iman's stage presence - she loved being centre stage and carried off her part while having a lot of fun. Could this be the start of something ?

A key component of the show was the participation of all the kids in years 3, 4 and 5. They all excelled and the show was entertaining from start to finish. We know the teachers who prepared and managed the show had worked very hard to ensure that these young kids could shine, and to their credit, that's exactly what they did - a big Thank You to the teachers !

Brunei 7-9 Swimming Championship 2013

We travelled to Mumong today for the second time in 5 weeks for a repeat of the Brunei 7-9 Swimming Championship 2013, the first meet being cancelled due to heavy rain.

As in previous 7-9 competitions, all swimmers are thrown into combined heats only divided by boys and girls. So even though Ayden was competing amongst 7 year olds and Jack amongst the 8 year olds, they swam in two races alongside each other as their times are in the same range and in both races it was a battle of the McCarthy brothers. Funnily enough there were another two brothers in the same races.

Overall in his group, Jack did well despite very tough competition to get a silver in the 25m Butterfly and bronze in the 25m Breaststroke. Ayden for the day was in a league of his own winning four gold medals for all 25m races. So proud of both the boys. And in typical Tiger Mother mode, all I can say is, more training to follow!!

Iman was there for the day too competing in the "Open" part of the competition. No medals were given out for that category but its all about breaking those PBs!

JIS Junior School Swim Gala 2013

Another Swim Gala to add to the list, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012. Its amazing going back the years seeing Iman starting to swim competively and Jack and Ayden in the shallow side of the pool. How they have all grown up in that swimming pool!

Ayden was very excited to be in his first proper gala and his year group were the first to start off the morning with their short freestyle and backstroke races and one fun race. Ayden was full of energy and came first in both race and second in the fun race. This year the gala took on a different format. There were no ribbons for 1st, 2nd or 3rd place but their placings counted as points for their house.

Both Iman and Jack did well in all their 25m and 50m races and gained points for Blue House. Did the children prefer the new format to the old 1st, 2nd and 3rd including best girl and best boy trophies? In our opinion competition is healthy even from a young age. Though it is important to earn points for your team, recognition must also be given to those that excel in their sport. If recognition is given to students that perform at academic levels then, shouldn't it also be give to students that perform well physically?