Final International Day

Planning

 Initially my year group was assigned to help the newcomers to IB. Since it was a good chance for them to meet the CAS objectives. However, there were some issues with activities, especially the one which had a theme of China, where they didn't have enough people. So the other Chinese student asked me to help him so I did in addition to my other duties.
 I have learn from the past that a good activity on the day needed a good plan. So I scheduled 10 minutes sessions with participants for brainstorming.We came up with few ideas such as origami, speaking Chinese and writing Chinese characters.But after considering the time each small activity takes, she shortlisted them and ended up with three core ones: power point on China, writing and speaking Chinese.
 Furthermore, in order to make the day to happen, I had to find some sheets designed to write Chinese calligraphy and pencil but lucky I found some in my house. In addition, we had few small activities reserved as plan B such as teaching them a Chinese tongue twister.
 Finally, my initial duties were helping out in the hall to serve food to the rest of the school. The gym was set up by us the day before in order to be used on the day.

The Day  

"China" 

The Chinese themed activity started great. The power point made by my partner was entertaining for the participants which helped to warm up the atmosphere. As initially planned, he has fully responsible for it and I have responsible for the second part which was writing.
 

Me waiting to write the next character

My part was to teach them how to write basic Chinese characters. Improvising a little, I started with three characters which constructs the sentence "I love you" when said together. This helped to keep the activity interesting.

Students writing characters 

At times, some participants said it was too difficult to write, but I tried to show them that Chinese character are just like any other script is easy to write. I wrote them step by step, waiting for them to see the progression of Chinese characters.

Students participating in a quiz  

To make it more challenging, I made a small quiz on the characters that I have already taught them. It was a joyful learning atmosphere and they seem to have enjoy it.

The international lunch 

Right after I finished the activities, I rushed down the stairs to help out in serving food. Many people contributed by bringing their national food to the school. Big thanks to those parents and students because the food was amazing.

I replaced my friend who had some other duties in the stand. With friendly approach I served some Bulgarian food which I later found out was very delicious. 

The Talent Show 

On the day, organizers asked all year group to bring a chair to the gym so they have somewhere to sit. I and my classmates took 2 each for the parents that were coming that day. 

Final set up

Hosts on the Talent Show

 After all year groups took their chairs and gone to their tutor rooms, year 13 helped to roll up the carpet, move the stage blocks and any musical instrument or equipment that was used in the show. 

Reflection

• Increase awareness of your strengths and areas for growth: In understood that I had strength in planning and improvising for the entertaining purposes. I could be more involved in the overall planning and tried out different types of activities rather than ones I am strong at. 
• Undertake new challenges: I have done a different type of activities which involved explaining and demonstrating compare to the previous year one.I felt that was a good challenge to my nervous nature. 
• Plan and initiate activities: I have planned and initiated an activity which went well and as planned. 
• Work collaboratively with others: I have worked with my classmates and my activity partners to come up with ideas and initiate necessary actions depending on situation. 
• Show perseverance and commitment: Using lunch times and my personal belongings I have made the activity possible.
• Engage with issues of global importance: I tried to break the invisible barrier many people have about Chinese. Due to relevance of China in the global economy, I feel that Chinese soon will become a international language similar to English. Therefore, breaking this fear of complexity hopefully with lead to interest in the language.
• Consider ethical implications: Since I am senior in the school, I tried to show the other year groups how IB students must behave in activity days like international day. I was always doing something and asking if I could help.During the activity, I asked students who were shy in order to give everyone a fair chance.
• Develop new skills: I have develop my skills in presenting and teaching others which were lacking comparatively to last year. I have became more proactive in helping others with addition of friendly attitude to everyone on the day. I would like to keep those new skills and improve them in the next activity.    

Another Week, Another Point :D

Week 5 

This weak was a good workout for the me and the club. First let's start with the club. From the last week's change to the format, this week's games were even across the board. I believe this is an indication of effectiveness of team making, not forgetting about the 1st 3 week's data collection process. 

 

The format is the same one, because it was easier to used the template which I have constructed last week. 

All the data has been updated through excel and word processing. I have learn those skills from previous years in ICT classes which are very handy when it comes to data analysis.(Thanks Mr.Bailey and of course Vlad :D)

Behind the scene

Now I want to show you some of the data processing I have done in my worksheet. 

Formulas such as SUM function and IF function are used to automatize the calculating process. In this case the member's score will be added together and then using the IF function I can sort them accordingly for the High score.

Here is how the program calculate the points for win/tie/lose. The "I" column is hidden usually, because it is not necessity to show the column but it is essential to the calculation. 

 In conclusion, I want to discuss about my personal growth in playing basketball. From last week's 2 points to this weeks 6 points, I have improved in my accuracy, but not by myself alone. Before this week started, I asked my teammate and good friend Johnny on some tips. He told be that the long shots are not for me, at least for now. I should shoot close range, near basket shoots. Lay ups would be good as well if there is a gap in defense. Following those tips I scored more, but there is still a long road ahead of me. Now I should focus on my strengths in basketball and look for potential places that I can grow, of course never forgetting to collaborate with teammates and pass as often and as accurate as possible. 

 My goal for next week is to score 8 to 10 points for my team. As for the Club, I will add a section on my worksheet to accumulate the weekly points to a table. 

 At last, a few food for thought: the road to passionate life starts from doing what your are interested as often as possible and still be able to continue.How do you imagine your passionate life?  

Basketball Team Games!

Creativity+Action+Service

The new format

By observing the quality of the games, member's skill level and people's feedback, I came to a conclusion that the format of games should be changed. Instead of having training session, I felt that shooting and passing practices are not in demand, and by forcing it would result in members leaving. Due to this possible issue I have reoriented the club to a game focused one. 

 My plan was to make 3 fixed teams, each being approximately equal in strength,so they could compete every week toward a championship title or something along those lines. About time management, I though it would be good to have 4 sections of 3 games, allowing each team to play two each section. Between sections there would be a interlude period, when players can drink water and rest a little bit. 

  

 This is first 3 week's personal shoot statistics. 

Even though this is more professional, but I feel that our club can't accurately record this, because for accuracy one person should be dedicated to do that. Nevertheless, this is good evidence of personal skill level of each player which I have incorporated in team making process. 

The Week 4 games 

Last weeks games went accordingly to my plan. Most members were happy with the new team, but like any collective of human beings there were some complains, mainly focused on refereeing. On this problem I would try to assign few people, who have potentials to referee as just as possible or ask some teachers. 

This is the final product which has been put up on the wall. For the layout I got the inspiration from the football club.(Thanks guys!)

I have accordingly filled in the colours for each team and added an overall high score for all the members.(Right side). 

Overall, this was a exciting experience and I felt more confidence into it because of past experiences gained throughout first 3 weeks running the club. 

I still have many things to improve on, such as my own skills (I only scored one, very disappointed) and mastering the the new routine. 

I believe I have achieved:

• Increased Awareness of strengths and areas for growth: through analyzing club members' performance and making the new teams.
• Undertaking new challenges: by experimenting with the new team and calibrating from incoming feedback.
• Planned and initiated activities: by planning the new teams and putting them to use.
• Working collaboratively with others: through listening to feedback and involving others to refereeing, time keeping and score writing tasks.
• Showing perseverance and commitment: I have listened to feedback and have attended the club regularly, even disregarding my opportunity to play the game. 
• Developing new skills: I learn how to make displays and manage the club at the basic level.  

ALLEY OOP!

First attempt

 From the last Monday, when I and my fellow basketball members realised that the basketball club manager is no longer here, we have decided to run the club on our on. Last week, even though it's a bit late to say now, but we have did some basic planning for the first session of the new school year.

 Basically, we made a rough draft of a plan, involving the possible activities we will do on the session and how the game will play out. Frankly, I wasn't involve as much in the first draft of the planning but I sure was involved applying it on the day (last Wednesday).

 As the result, the day was fairly good, but there were some complaints from the members and the whole section lacked structure.

The "new plan"

 Therefore, I have made a newer version of the plan yesterday, just before the second session. In this plan, I have redesigned the warm up section into more detailed drills which is an improvement from the last time. I addition, I have also added a register for the club, in order to see how frequent and punctuate are the members of the club. Finally, as sort of a manager ( I guess I am the manager, I don't fully know) of the club, I have delegated some of the work to fellow members. Those delegations involve: 

•  Splitting the people into two groups, thereby making the drill be more time efficient (delegated the work to the other leader of the group)
• Assigning special tasks (recording the score-miss table for each participant, taking a video (still working on this) and recording the score) to the players who are not playing at the time, because two out of three teams will play, leaving one team to watch. 

 Those delegation shows that I have allocated the work to others in order to make the club run normally, otherwise I could not have done everything myself due to the fact that there is not enough time to perform them alone. 

 Today was a busy but exciting day. After the school has ended, I hurried to the gym to start the plan. In beginning, I was a bit nervous, due to my shy nature, but I found some courage in myself and started the club my announcing few important elements that my new plan had. 

Firstly, I took the register which I have made yesterday, and guess what; it was a great idea to know how many people came today, which will be helpful when it comes to splitting teams for games. I have also added two new member of the club, 2 year 8 girls. I guess my plan for the sign up sheet worked. Anyway, I found out the number of people and began the drills, everything went smoothly, until I and my friend found out the amount of drills was too little for half an hour. In panic, I quick asked one the older member of the club, if she had any good ideas, and luckily she had one. Next time I have something to improve on. 

 When the game has started, I took the responsibility of refereeing the first game, simply because it was my duty. Even though it was my first time doing this, but I did a pretty good job, hopefully not overly biased here, because of the times I watched how others refereed last year. 

 The part about recording the score-miss sheet, people picked it up very willingly, so there was no problem with that. Everyone was very collaborative today which really made happy and I hope this will continue throughout the year. 

 At last, it’s time for some criteria meeting session:

• I have successfully identified the weakness of the last plan and has improved upon it, but still open for further improvement. 
• The managing a club is a brand new challenge for me, because I have never done anything this size before. 
• I have successfully planned the activities and enthusiastically initiated it as much as I could.   
• On the route to today's small success I have learn the importance of collaboration.
• I have shown perseverance and commitment throughout the last year in basketball club and this will continue this year as usual.
• This maybe under considered, but in my posters I have welcomed everyone to join, regardless of the year, gender, which to certain extend attributes to the global issue of discrimination.
• Concerning about ethics, our club will always play fair games and trying hardest to minimise injuries and any form of bullying. 
• At last I have developed some managerial skills such as announcing news and applying theory into practice. 

Welcome to the basketball club!

The planning process

I have produced a poster for the basketball club after I decided I was going to run it. The poster was a sign which indicated the existence of the club so people can join. Although we already have some old members, but inviting new members to join is what a successful club should do in beginning of every new school year. 

Here is the poster and the sign up sheet which I have produced. I have been creative in making the poster, since there were many clubs doing the same thing. 

 By making the poster for the basketball club I have achieved:

• Planning and initiating activities
• Develop a new skill (making the poster)

P.S. a new post of evaluation and reflection will be up soon.

New school year, New plans

I am now in year 13

 This means that by journey to finish the IB is halfway through. As the new school year has started for few weeks already, I think it is a good time to revise the old plans and make new ones. (Side note: the shortage of post over the summer was due to limited access to Internet when I was in China, my apologies). Lets get back to the CAS.

Project: Basketball Club

In this year me and few of my classmate will take over the basketball club, since the our old CAS 

Coordinator and also manager or the club,Mr. Gray has sadly left the school. From the bright side, this opens an opportunity for me to be more involved in managing the club and initiating activities. This project will go as long as we, year 13 students, have time to manage it before the exams. I hope in this project I can learn some new skills and fulfill the necessary criteria for CAS. For more information, I will post regularly,once a week hopefully, on the recent changes and planning process of the project. 

Old activities 

Of course I wouldn't forget my old activities. Those are there to show my persistence to CAS. In this week I will reconstruct a new time table for my old and new activities as part of planning process. 

Currently, I am searching for good activity for Service part, if you have any good suggestions leave a comments. Even though the management of the club counts as service, but to fill on of the criteria for CAS, I need additional activities. Hopefully I will find it soon. 

For conclusion, I want to say to those who are doing CAS right now, CAS is a way to ameliorate yourself from the nonacademic side. In addition, CAS should be fun and new, where you try out new ideas, activities and where good fundamental qualities, like determination and persistence, are acquired. At last, for myself, I just want to say, that the blog will be updated more frequently as now I have Internet access, and I will try my best to enjoy and accomplish CAS. 

Art Fair @ School 9 Planning+ Reflection

Planning Part

Last week I was informed that on this Tuesday we have an opportunity to create our own activity for the School 9 children (it is a primary school). So I decided to sign up for an activity which I have never done before: play dough creations.

I came up with this idea through searching for interesting fun activities for children and this one was approved by my classmates. For the planning part, I got some extra packs toothpicks at home and asked Ms Platt, the main person to ask for supply, for some play dough. She promised to make some herself and then colour them. 

We were separated into groups of 4 to carry out our activities, in a way to work as a team and support each other.

I anticipated some of the possible problems such as shortage of supply or insufficient time management but the last moment announcement about an increase of number of participants almost caught me off guard. 

Reflection

The day started great! Before going to the bus, Ms Platt suggested to colour the play dough. I never done this before so I used too much force on mixing the ink and the dough which resulted with a pair of blue hands.Luckily I was able to wash it off later. 

On the arrival to school, we went to the assigned rooms for each individual group. My group consisted of Johnny,Benny, Ho Jun(who left us for some random reasons) and I. 

  When the activity started the fact that there was 20 children instead of 12 really emphasised our shortage of play dough. Some of the members of our group asked the teachers in school 9 for some more supply, and luckily they had some for us. 

The time management was a challenge because some of the children were finished wit the task really fast. So ask them to make something new for the final display. 

 In addition, for safety reasons, we told everyone to be careful when using toothpicks. 

The afternoon activity originally Johnny's and we just helped him around. The main purpose was to make an animal mask by using plastic plates, strings and colouring pencils. 

In this activity Johnny was very proactive on asking what the children were doing which really inspired me and motivated me to follow his path. 

We also worked as a team because there were around 20 of them in the afternoon group when there were only 3 of us. Each person supported the children to make their final product by cutting eye holes for masks, cutting string and sticking in on mask or even giving some ideas for the mask.

There were some minor problems such as the string ripped the sides of the mask which caused the mask to fall. I overcame this problem by using tape to fix the string, rather than the traditional way.

Overall, the activity went very well and everyone was happy with the result. Even we have made some mask ourselves for the sake of demonstration.

In summary, I have planned my activity with helps from others and initiated it. I have also worked collaboratively: both making decision and supporting others. I have also taught children some ethics by telling them to be careful with sharp equipments and dealing with them myself most of the times. Finally, I identified my weakness in communications and supplemented it with my strength of demonstration. 
It was very fun day and I really enjoy it! 

P.S. Special thanks to Karina(super organiser), Johnny, Benny, Ms Platt and others.Without them there wouldn't be such a great event.

Some personal evaluations :D

After yesterdays success in making a weekly plan, I thought to myself, how can I understand myself better? Suddenly, an idea came to my mind: a personal evaluation.This would a good place to rest and evaluate my relative weaknesses and strength across subject and even some personal issues.
Without further ado, here is some screen shoots how does this file looks like:

This is just the front page and the beginning of the file. I started with my academics which includes 6 subject plus TOK and CAS. In each subject I assessed myself as objectively as I could. As you can see, the blue text represent what I currently doing well while the red text means my weaknesses within the subject.

In addition, you would ask what is that in green text then? Those are some my personal recommendations for myself on how to improve my weaknesses. Each recommendation should directly tackle each weakness.

Finally, those are some of my personal weaknesses in general. I may follow my own recommendations but I also may combine them with my present cas activities to make little changes at a time. This should a gradual process because people can't change that fast, at least I can't.
I conclusion, I have showed sufficient evidence of self-evaluations which reinforces with one of the cas objectives: increase awareness of personal weaknesses and strength. Furthermore, I have shown my commitment by making it a proper document(PDF file) and committing to improve upon my weaknesses. I feel that this activity give me a better understanding of myself which would be very useful tool in future because self critic is a quality employers look for.

New Weekly Plan ^_^

Recently, we have reached a term break. For us this a good news but not so much for year 13 because they have their IB exams. Good luck guys! 

Anyway, the thought of future exams alarmed me so I decided to make myself more organised. I remember I have made a similar time table for my CAS activities but because of my lack of determination and procrastination I have not fulfilled the aims I set. Looking at it now, I may have to start from a lower point, besides doing too many things at once may not guarantee the quality of work or take time from other equally important tasks but those are just some excuses, haha.

This is my weekly plan :D

As can seem above, this is just a draft of a plan which I will use and change as I go along. One of the most important purposes of this plan is for me to start a good sleeping habit since I feel really tired in morning and believe this isn't a good thing. With regular sleeping regime I would like to achieve better mental and physical states in order to do tasks more efficient and energetic. All in all, I have considered my weaknesses and attempted to improve from them. Plus I have organised my working hours for a more productive way to study and do work in general, which I believe will be very useful in my future life.

Basketball Club Video!

I have delayed the basketball videos for a while now, so today I decided to finish my duties. This video is from January session, and I know it's April now.
 This week I will probably make few of those videos, but they take around 2~3 hours each and in addition of 1 to 2 hours to upload.
 From video editing I learned new skills such as cutting existing raw material into a watchable pseudo film. However, I need to organised my time better in order to be more efficient and leave time for other activities. For example, I could do other activities while uploading the video.
 Overall, it has been interesting experience and I feel that those video editing skills will be very useful in future: both academic and casual sense.

Piano progress

Just few moments ago I have finished my piano session of about 1 hour long. In this session I have finally finished the piece "Kiss the Rain" with little help from the music sheet.
 Personally I feel like this was a very successful session due to fact that I have spend a good mount of time practicing specific section of the piece which I struggled with before. This is a good indication of my weaknesses in piano and the way I have improved upon them hence achieving one of the CAS outcomes.
 Truth to be told, I really struggled last few sessions because of lack of practice which forced me to spend more time on relearning old section. This was an inefficient use of time which made me rethink the piano practicing schedule. I have decided to spent around 20-30 minutes per day to play the whole piece twice in order to have a better memory of the song for both my brain and my hand muscles.
 Overall,this session was one of the better sessions I had for long time and I have learned much about myself which made me reconsider about the deadline. If I feel it is not ready I will probably postpone the date to a week or 2 later.
 In conclusion, working towards a goal is really what I need right now. Setting a goal and constantly doing activities to reach it, in my opinion, is the best way to improve my lazy self.

B-B-B_Beatbox

For last months or so I have been attending beat box club created by David- one of my classmate on IB course. The club is basically him teaching us how to do basic beat box and how to create rhythm. So far it has been an interesting experience.
 I forgot to put this in my CAS plan but now it is a good time to announce that I will be attending this every Friday if circumstances don't change.

 As for any CAS activity, beat box club has been very entertaining but at same time very educational, at least for me. Beat box was something I have never tried before which makes it a new challenge for myself. Plus I always wanted to learn beat box due to the fact that it is such as unique skill to have which is a tool to shape who you are.
 I have only missed one lesson so far due to school work but overall I have been attending regularly and practicing frequently at home whenever possible. Fun fact: bathroom and toilets are surprisingly good places to practice due to the small space creating echoes. I guess any empty spaces will do as well. This can shows my commitment so far to the subject.
 As the strengths and weaknesses go, I have not mastered any basic beats yet but I can do them at a reasonable level. Like anything skill based, practice is everything. With our it you can't achieve anything. As they say, practice makes it perfect.
 For next month I would like to learn more sounds and how to make them. In addition maybe some new rhythms to widen my beat box knowledge. All in all. keep calm and b-b-b-beat box!
                   
p.s. here is David's blog if you are interested http://davideskelinen.blogspot.ru/

Awesome Day - Crazy hair day

Today I have participated in the crazy hair day, which is organised by my friend Julien. The core idea was to come to school with a crazy hair which you wouldn't come to school with or as we call "sleeping hair".
 I have been honoured to be a participant of this crazy but yet interesting event  and I have done my parts as I have planned.
 The initial plan was to delegate to pair of year 12s to collect the money from student for charity which Julien has planned. Of course he has already got permission from the CAS coordinator and the head teacher to issue the papers required to inform the students about this event.
 My part of this event was to around with Julien and collect money from the far side of our school which involved 4 rooms. However, the day before this event the weather suddenly became very snowy which cause several initial participant to be late. It was a good planning from Julien and I to go to the rooms 5 minutes before the initial time to cover the jobs or the late ones. As far as collecting the money for charity my classmates and I have done a good job and everything went pretty good.
 In addition, I have took some pictures of students who have spent their own time making all kind of crazy hair styles which will later used to judge for the "craziest hair style" who will get a prize from my friend Julien,
 As far I am concerned everything went the way it was intended and it was an unusual experience. He introduced me to this at a later stages of the planning process which shows that I have undertook an new challenge because this was something new to me.
 I also helped his on finalising the plan by dividing the work to different people for an more efficient process which indicate my organisational thinking and probably can be applicable in future events.
 Finally,the went really good and I am looking forward to more crazy days such as this one maybe even from myself but we will see. Organising events is a enjoyable thing to do and I will be more proactive in participating in future events.

p.s. here is a link to the post by the main organiser himself
http://juliencaronib.blogspot.ru/2013/03/crazy-hair-day-plan.html    

A small update!

I have been playing the piece "Kiss the Rain" about 2 months now. I only practice on weekends and now I finally reached the third page of this four page piece. This most is just a quick update on my CAS activities that I have mentioned in my CAS plan.
 The ambidextrous training is still going, but not daily as I wanted because of various reasons, so I will probably change in to 4 times a week because it will be more convenient, as a way to show organisation skill developing as now I can change my plans according to the situation.
 The piano practices are going pretty well. but it would be good if I played more frequently so I can master the piece by the deadline, which is ides of April. I will try to reach that point, but not playing piano for 5 years really slows down the process of learning new piece. This indicates my weaknesses and strengths in this activity and this is also a new challenge for me because I haven't learn a new piece for a long time.
 This week I will go to the recycling station with my two full bags of plastic bottle and recycle them. I have accumulated a reasonable amount but that will be in detail in future posts.
  

CAS Plan Time Table

CAS Planning

Weekly Plan

 Every week I will do the the above activities, which I have mentioned in my CAS plan before. I have added specific details to my plan such as time spent and on which day I will do it.

 This is plan should improve my organisation skills and maybe even make me more responsible towards CAS. 

 I will try to do all the activities as they are planned but some external  factors such as illness will sometimes stop me doing so. This is just the first CAS time table I have made so if anything goes wrong I could just improve it as I go along. 

 P.S. A.T. - Ambidextrous Training

Monthly Plan

In this part of the plan I didn't go to detail due to fluctuation of homework and other factors. I hope this will clarify the amount of work I need to put in on monthly basis and help me to achieve CAS outcomes. 

 By making the CAS time table I think I have achieved several CAS outcomes which include planning and learning a new skill because this my first time making a real time table :D

Winter Day (EXTRA)

Creativity

This is a minor post, with a video being the main purpose, but nevertheless an evidence of CAS.
 This will show a better understanding of the kind of activity I have been involved on the Winter day. This video I have edited myself which compared with last time took less time. I felt that is an improvement form last time because this time I had a better understanding of what I am doing and what I wanted to achieve - which is a compilation of my perception of the winter day :D

http://youtu.be/I29RWP6bycs

Paper Rose!

Creativity

Today I decide to make an origami rose.Through this activity I want to develop my skills in origami, consistence and patient.
 This is a revisit to my old skills because I have made them in the past. The process of making one is not that difficult I should say, but it is sure time consuming! It normally take up to 20 minutes to make one if I want to make nice and neat. 
 This particular time I have not encountered any major problems others than the time consumption. In the grand scheme it went successful and here is how it looks like:

I felt that I successfully made a origami rose and achieved my goal.
 Next time perhaps I can use a colour paper to make the rose look more realistic or even a paper stem to support the rose. 
 I also learnt that my patient and concentration are rather good when I am doing something personally challenging. Furthermore, this can be applied in future challenges when those exact qualities will be required such as in group work, where people may disagree and possibly distract one's working process. 
 Finally, origami skills can be useful when I will be asked to entertain younger children , then origami will be my saving grace! 
 Overall, origami is a fun way to spent my spare time, besides I can learn every new origami like a new skill which is why this is good activity for CAS.

Winter Day Reflection

Action + Service

On this friday there was a "Snow Day" which was organised by year 13 and some year 12. Unfortunately I wasn't involved at overall planning but I join my classmate in one of their activities which was called "Capture the Pole" ( this is what I would call it). I proactively put the pole when ever it was needed: before every game and between each segments.

 In order to be more efficient I made a little snow passage for easier access to the playing field. Since the snow was really deep this little trick really help me and my classmate put the pole without delay the games, which could be considered as being aware of the possible weaknesses and problems and improving upon them.
 The communication between our team was also really important. Every time one of my teammates organised students against the wall in order to start the activity, I would ask them how many students there are. This way I could set up poles that is one less that the number of participant there were to make the game more competitive.
 After two rounds of this activity we would start the next segment which involved us to throw little plastic toys into the snow field and the task was find them in a relay format: one-by-one.
 Oh I forgot to mention we always split the students into to teams and reward the team which wins the most with chocolates bars.

I develop some organisation skills and more efficient communication with others which is useful in any team working activity.

I felt that I have achieved work collaboratively by doing my part of the activity well and communication with teammates to make the games run successfully. Furthermore, I organised the poles into one pile after every group of students which could be easily accessed when needed. This way I have showed my commitment to the activity and some planning even though I didn't came up with the activity.

Overall, I felt that Snow Day went not as well as last year's one due to little incident with a teacher getting hurt because of the chaotic activity we had after lunch. This maybe indicates the lack of organisational skills from year 13 and 12 but at same time not much help from the school and teachers. If I had to make the Snow day next year I would make a pseudo plan 2 weeks before the day in order to solve possible problem and make plan B if necessary. People who are making the activities must inform the CAS coordinator for necessary equipment beforehand not on the day.
Finally, we must warm everyone to wear warm clothing in order to make the day fun for everyone.  

CAS Project: Kiss the Rain (refined)

As I mentioned before, I will try to learn a new piece call "Kiss the Rain" by a korean composer. I decided to play 2 hours per weekend as a way to show my commitment to the subject which meets one of the CAS outcomes.
 The due date will be Monday the 1st of April ( not a joke! ) if the conditions allow, I would like to play this in music room to a group of my classmates and Mr Gray (of course others don't matter as long he is there) :D
 The reason I am doing this project is to challenge myself (CAS outcome). I used to play piano when I was 6 and played till 11. After that my family moved to a new place but didn't take the old piano. They didn't bother to replace it so I did't have the opportunity to played it back then. Last year my mom got me an electric piano and now I will try to prove that I can still play piano at an adequate level.
 This project is designed to improve my current weaknesses such as lack of organisation and commitment.Through this project I will improve on my piano skills and learn a new piece which is awesome because the this is a good practice for my memory and my fingers. Overall, able to play a piece is easily measurable by others and I would know the best if I learn it or not.

What? I can do that with my left hand!

Here is another post of my ambidextrous training, or just writing with my left hand. This time I still had some difficulties writing out the letters but it was much easier then last time.
The reason I am writing this sentence is due to the fact that this sentence contains every letter in the alphabet( I probable mentioned it before, I don't remember :P)
Next time I will try to write a paragraph of text. In addition this time my left hand wasn't so tense which allowed me to write a little bit faster, it's better than last time :)

Basketball 2nd session

This session was a real breakthrough for me. Many people came this week so we made into 3 roughly even teams, however I felt that our team was the underdog. 

 Maybe is just my pessimism although our team had a really good player from our year and his close shots are insanely accurate and of course we had Mr Hubber, who is just good all around.

 In the beginning we lost some games due to lack of coordination and simple tactics which were weak in front of other teams defence. As time went by, we started to gain some power and started to pass and shot as much as possible and this worked out pretty good.

 From the half way of this session, I felt that we cannot lose anymore so from then I pulled out some good shots from accurate passes from my teammates. This is how good collaboration fits in a basketball game. Unfortunately, no one was available to take the videos (not enough to be exact) so next week I will try to take some footage.

In conclusion, I felt a big improvement in my shooting skills and variety of shooting styles that I can perform. I still have some minor issues with my positions and movements but compare to how I was in the beginning of the school year, I became more willing to collaborate and better awareness of weaknesses in opposite teams defence.

Next goal: At least one point per game ( games are till 3 so 30% :D )    

Basketball club 2013

Creativity + Action

In this session more people came than last time which made it possible to play full court games. We have divided into two teams pretty evenly which produced some good games.

I have maintained some of the new learn skills from last year such as better court movement and position.

However, I still lack in stamina and not always aware where I could position myself in order to receive the ball.

Overall, we played one big game with subs and this was a challenge for my stamina. I felt that my team work is getting better and I hope I will keep it up.

The creativity part would be the video montage that I have created from this basketball session and here it is:

Hope you like it :)

CAS Projects!!!!

Projects are a good way to achieve CAS outcomes such as organisation and collaboration. So here are projects I am involved in:

"Kiss the Rain"

This is a beautiful piano piece that I always wanted to learn how to play and now it's a good time to start.

I think it will take  me around 1 and half to two months to learn the piece so by the start of the summer term this should be finished.

I will practise as much as I can every week but my regime is 2 hours per weekend.

Sports Day

My classmates and I have decided to plan summer sports day for our school. Sports day always was a tradition of our school. I have been in everyone of them since year 7 and as year 12 we should continue this good tradition.

We have decided on sport events, number of house and who is in which house.

A lot of organisation will go in to this project and I am ready to take this challenge.

Our next target is to produce a better concise plan for the sports day and discuss on possible issues and solutions to them.

CAS Plan v2.0 (Service Part)

There were some struggles on this part of CAS since we didn't know how many opportunities we had in front of us, or just that we couldn't see them as opportunities. After a long brain storm or thought shower (if you're epileptic)
here is my service part of CAS.

Service

Teaching a language(s)

• I am sort of multilingual which gives me a good opportunity to teach any second language speakers when they are struggling with the language.
• I know Russian, English and Chinese though not in perfecting but at least I can read books and newspapers and have a conversation with first language speaker.
• I will do this as much as possible, at least 3~4 lessons per month since find a student is a really hard task but if I find a good one who is passionate in the language I am teaching this activity can become more stable.

Recycling

• I recently decided I should start recycling since it is a good activity for CAS and it helps to create a better future or should I say cleaner and more environmentally friendly.
• I found a local Greenpeace station where I could bring the recycled products and I hope I could do at least once a month since I need to store a reasonable amount before going there.
• This meets final CAS outcomes which my other activities don't cover, also to mention that this will make be more responsible about my surrounding which is a great quality to have for an IB student or just anyone.

Projects~~~

• Projects such as the International Day in my school is a good platform to do CAS related activity and also covers all three areas of CAS.
• In projects students collaborate and organise together and is part of team work. One's commitment and others' help can create fantastic events or things that you have thought that you would achieve it.This is way projects are awesome.
• I planning to do make or participate in 3 to 4 projects this year as a start and hope this number can grow in future.

CAS Plan v 2.0 (Action Part)

Action!

Basketball

• I have always loved to play basketball and now I have chance to play it every week, isn't that wonderful? Since basketball became my passion I would like to continue following it. Anyway playing basketball is so much fun.Collaboration, team work, new skills and commitment, is there anything better CAS then this? (I bet you can come up with a better one but I will go with this one :P )
• I have already join the after-school basketball club in my school and I attend regularly (On Wednesdays)
• My goal is to improve my basketball skills and become an strong amateur player.

Physical challenges 

• Those challenges are set up by us- students to prove that we are the best.However, not many people participate in those challenges but this doesn't stop me from doing them. I already have some personal best and I will try my hardest to beat those in future.
• Some challenges require more that one person which give an opportunity for collaboration and team work maybe even some organisation.
• This is a challenge and I accept it! 

CAS Plan v 2.0 (Creativity Part)

After a whole term in the IB course I had the chance to experiment with the CAS activities so here is my refined CAS plan with more or less detailed explanations

Creativity

Origami

• I have already done some origami in past 4 months and I feel that this is a good activity for CAS because it gives opportunities for learning a new skill and maybe teaching it to others. Doing it on regular basis can shows my commitment in CAS and to this activity.
• I decided to do one new (if possible) origami every week, probably done on weekends at home. If possible I want to make them with my classmates at school which can link to the service part of CAS (teaching) or maybe they know some cool origami which I could learn from them.
• My goal here is to have at least have 10+ origami up my sleeves at any give time. 

Piano Sessions

• In the past I have some experience on playing piano and I think now is a good opportunity for me to continue this activity because practicing piano required massive patient which is a good way to show my determination and commitment to the subject. 
• I will try to play at least 3 times per week, alternate according to amount of work on that day.
• My goal is to at least learn 1 piece per season, this will be challenging.

Ambidextrous Training

• Last month I came up with this activity because I read on news that people who use their left hand frequently have a faster reaction and better imagination which is lacking in nowadays. This activity is something that I have never done before so it will be a challenge for me which is a reason why CAS exist.
• I will do this on daily basis since it normally will only take me 5~10 minutes. I will record my progress weekly since writing same thing everyday will be kind of boring ;)
• My goal on this challenge is to be able to write with my left at an adequate level, in case I somehow injure my right hand.

to be continued...