Hawks Swim Team Announcement - written by Ms Tomoe Fujise, Physical & Health Education.  After two swim try-outs, we are pleased to share our Hawks Swim Team. Here are our swimmers, well done all and good luck with your journey. We have started training  and are preparing for the ACAMIS 9-12 Swim Meet at XLIS in March.

- Year 4 Sarah Kang

- Year 5 Kivi Li

- Year 6 Olivia Ahn, James Peng, Ryan Kang

- Year 7 Grace Li, Easton Yan, Sophia Chan, Doris Kong

- Year 8 Luch Kang

Secondary School Ensemble (Orchestra)  Recruitment - Ms Krystal Jiang, MYP Music Teacher.  Students in the Ensembles will get the experience of working together in a small/big group, which builds musicianship and orchestral skills. Students will improve the aesthetic awareness and the study of music as well as providing entertainment.  We are looking for experienced players(e.g string, woodwind, brass and etc.), but also welcome beginners to join us as reserve players. All new members need to send a practice video to Ms.Jiang (krystal.jiang@his-xian.com) and the orchestra will practice after school on Thursday (4-5:30PM).

My 2023 Chinese Characters - Ms. Alina & Ms. Rae MYP Chinese language acquisition teacher.  On the first month of the new year, Chinese acquisition students looked back on what happened last year, chose a word that described how the year of 2023 was for them, write to share their lives. This is a great opportunity for students to summarize their experiences in 2023, and look ahead to the new year of 2024.

Students showed great enthusiasm for the exhibition, as they can share what is going in their lives with the whole Hanova Community. The exhibition board is displayed in the hall on 3rd floor now!

Photo(also in attachment)	English
	I chose "敢" as my keyword for 2023. This year, I've had a lot of challenges and pushed myself. Helen Keller once said, “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” Based on this, I haven’t been content with comfort this year, but have continued to move towards achieving the goals. As a result, I was brave and took a lot of challenges. Although I didn't get much achievement this year, it will help me a lot in the following years.
	Unlike other years, 2023 was a year in which I traveled a lot. I have traveled a lot within China over the past three years, but I think my trip abroad was more meaningful because it was the first time in three years since I came to China. The destinations I visited in 2023 were Kunming, Zhuhai, Macau, Beijing, Korea, Germany, the Czech Republic, London, and Thailand. In particular, it was my second trip to Europe after traveling to France and Italy four years ago, and I was really happy because the country I wanted to go to the most was London. My family also said that they had a really happy time during those 12 days. While living in China for three years, I had more opportunities to experience travel destinations in China than others, but I never imagined that I would be traveling to various foreign countries, including Korea, this year. Since next year is the beginning of the second semester of my year 11 and DP 1, I won't be able to travel to as many destinations as I did this year, but I still want to travel to various destinations next year as well. As someone who likes to travel, this year was really happy.
	I used to think every day about what I could do, this annoyance followed me every day because I didn't decide my future, but I started thinking about my strengths and weaknesses, so I will find out who I am someday. One day when I find who I am, I will be free from this anguish.

Hawks Sport - written by Mr Julian Barnsley, Director of Sports.  We are as busy as ever as Season 2 is coming to an exciting finish next week. Ahead of Season 3 registrations (U19 & U14 Soccer, U11 Basketball and U19-U11 Track & Field) opening on Monday 22 January, I would just like to take a moment to share some of the expectations that come with student-athlete participation at Hanova: the Athlete Agreement and the Parent and Spectator Charter.

I hope to see play or supporting!

Y7 Service project about ‘littering’ - written by Alex, Terry, Gabriel & Daria, Y7 students (edited for publishing).

Littering problem, is our locale safe from it?

“What do you see when you walk around in some streets? Maybe lots of people, motorbikes, buildings, and most unpleasant things, trash! There is trash all over the streets which has nasty smells. You would be displeased to see the trash, try your best to not smell it and run as fast as you could! But, have you ever, even once thought of how serious are littering problems in Xi’an?”

Seriousness of littering in Xi’an

“This graph shows the waste discharges of the population of millions of people living in Xi’an. This graph being in a straight line shows that the population of people and the amount of waste increases proportionally. According to the chart, 1 person in Xi’an produces 1kg of garbage per day.”

“These are pictures of garbage in Xi’an Wanke in Changan-qu on October 3, 2023. It also tells us how serious the littering problem in Xi’an is.”

“As you see, our locale is also not safe from the littering problem. Then, should we just stand and watch this hopeless pollution happening? No, there are some ways to solve this problem.”

“First, as everybody knows we can Recycle. Recycling is quite simple for you, isn’t it? You would think of putting trash into the correct recycling trash can. But have you ever thought of where the recycled trash goes? Not all of it gets recycled, only part of it. The trash that gets recycled becomes small pieces and gets used to other things. It could save valuable resources that go into making things.”

“The second way is to Reduce. Reducing is simply reducing the amount of litter you produce in your daily lives. It isn’t simple. It takes much time and needs much effort. We have to be careful not to waste stuff. But this is the most efficient way to make the amount of litter smaller.”

“The third way is to Reuse. We could reuse litter in many ways. We could do more things than you think with trash. We could create some artwork with them, make some furniture for homes and so on. Reusing starts with being aware of the littering problem.”

“As we researched this topic, we learned that we have to start with what we can do. So, as a service action, our group went to PYP (Y6 and Y3) and informed them about the littering problem. We prepared some activities for them such as drawing trash that goes into a trashcan with different color and matching it. These are some of the photos that we took.”

“If everybody realizes the seriousness of the littering problem, if everybody tries to stop this from happening, the streets, our locale, whole country, a continent, a whole world would be clean. Earth is not human, nor some other animals. Earth is for all of us, every creature who lives on Earth. We have to be responsible for what we did and the disaster we caused. We have to face the truth of this littering problem and solve it. We, as one person, could not do it, but as people gather and work together, this littering problem will be solved. So please, raise awareness of the littering problem. Please be thoughtful in your daily lives.”