Here's a reflection on my CAS progress so far that I have to pass into my CAS supervisor.
The CAS component of IB has been quite an experience
and not one I had entirely expected to be so impactful and beneficial. Many of
the activities I have participated in are in different subjects and areas that
I wasn't familiar with or hadn't considered "my kind of activity".
CAS has forced me to push past my boundaries, try things I never would have
tried otherwise and push me towards being a well-rounded person. Since October I have become a writer in the
book section of the school newspaper, participated in a worldwide scavenger
hunt called GISHWHES, jump-started the yearbook and became co-organizer of the yearbook
committee, joined my first dodge ball team and started to take yoga classes.
School
Newspaper
I joined the school newspaper "The Rural
Reader" as a writer in the book section this past October and since then
have written four articles. By doing this activity I had hoped to improve my
general writing and organization/deadline skills, to develop journalistic
writing skills and to really make a commitment every to the project and attempt
to have an article in every issue. I believe that I have accomplished most of these
objectives. When looking back on my first articles compared to the most recent
it's obvious that my writing skills in general have definitely improved and
I've become more comfortable writing short, concise articles. However, along
with general writing skills I've developed new journalistic writing skills
pertaining especially to writing articles. Writing book reviews is an art that
requires a certain language, a certain comprehension of the book and an open
mind. Over the past few months I've managed to develop these skills that book
reviews require. Despite my growth in the writing area of being a part of the
newspaper, my organization and deadline skills have been lacking. I've only
missed the deadline once and it was ironically the only time I finished my
article well in advance, but I forgot to send it in. Every other time I manage
to forget about until the day before or the night that it's due and I end up
scrambling to finish it at a decent hour. Even though I've managed to finish
the articles in time I need to work on not procrastinating and learning to be a
bit more organized. To do this I plan to start using an agenda again and try
and stay on top of things. Ultimately I have learned from this experience that
being part of a newspaper take time, commitment, creativity and an open mind.
Furthermore, I look forward to accomplishing my organization objective and
writing my next article.
GISHWHES
During a week in the month of October I, along with
the majority of my classmates, participated in the Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen. The
idea is that you register and make a team or get put on a random team (with the
proceeds going to a charity) and for one week a list of 100-200 items will be
posted on the GISHWHES website. Then, you and your team will have to take a
picture or video of whatever is indicated by the item. Each item is worth a
certain amount of points depending on difficulty and points will be given for
accuracy and presentation creativity of the item. The team with the most points
win. Many of these items were extremely
bizarre and problem solving skills were needed to figure out if and how we could complete these items. Teamwork was extremely important
in the scavenger hunt also; we had to get together and plan who would do what
item and there were group items that we completed. The group items demanded
that every member be part of the item and it took some real organization to
pull it off. All in all, this activity forced my creativity and problem solving
skills to improve.
Yearbook
I've always been interested in yearbook and was part
of the committee in junior high. So, when I went to the first yearbook meeting
in high school I was immensely disappointed by the lack of creativity I found.
We were told that if we wanted to take pictures for the yearbook we weren't
allowed to mess around with format or colours and pictures were basically the
only thing we could do. My friend and I both left at this point. The best part
of yearbook was taking the pictures and making a page to display them and
neither of us wanted to be a part of something so restricting. So, this year
after having a conversation with our CAS coordinator, my friend and I decided
to take over, plan and initiate the yearbook. A proposal was written and sent
to the school principal and soon enough we had taken over the yearbook with the
help from twp other teachers in the school. Since we started much later in the
year than we should have our main objective was to get pictures of things that
we missed and the things we were going to miss if we didn't get a move on. Within
a few weeks I had already gone to take my first pictures for the yearbook and,
despite the cold, it felt great to be taking yearbook pictures. Not too long
after this the committee had its first meeting and I was greatly surprised and
slightly disappointed. When my friend and I proposed to take over the yearbook
we had hoped to put some creativity into, but there were people in the
committee who opted against most changes. I had originally and naively thought
that everybody would want a cool cover and unique pages and that the only
reason it was so boring last year was because there was little student
involvement. My perspective has changed however, I now realize that there are
many different viewpoints and that it's their yearbook too and they should have
a say. I believe that since starting this I've started to have a more open mind
and become less selfish and self serving, not just in yearbook, but in the rest
of my life too. I hope that I will continue improving in this way for the rest
of the year. Right now in yearbook we have members who are taking pictures of
various events happening around the school and we just had our first session
working on format. All is running smoothly and I hope this will continue for
the remainder of the year.
Dodge
Ball
Every year a dodge ball tournament is held and up
until now I never had any interest in it whatsoever. It seemed to me that it
was mainly just a group of athletic kids hitting each other with balls.
However, in hindsight perhaps it was just that I didn't have a team that
prevented me from considering this as an activity for me. This year when the
tournament came up an IB team was proposed and I jumped on the idea. I'm not a
very athletic person, but isn't that a good reason to join a team? I had hoped
that not only would I be able to bond with my classmates, get some exercise and
have fun, but that I would be able to integrate into the rest of the school.
All the IB kids and I have the same classes' everyday with all the same people
and our breaks, other than lunch, aren't the same. So, there is little chance
to really make new friends or even feel like you're a part of the school. After
the tournament I definitely feel closer to the rest of the school and less like
there's a difference between the IB kids and everybody else.
Yoga
Yoga is my newest activity and I have only been to
three classes so far. I've never tried yoga as I'm not particularly flexible
nor am I usually comfortable doing exercises in a large class. AT first I was
little wary of it, but after my first class I fell in love. I had assumed I
would spend the whole class being self conscious or worrying, but I realized
that everybody else was so focused on their own breathing and concentration
that I was barely even there. Aside from stretching and sweating, yoga is a
great way to de-stress and there is a huge push to focus on breathing. How
long, how loud and how deep you breathe is all very important in the classes.
In my first class there were certain poses in the standing series that I was
unable to do because I had no balance and couldn't stay on one foot for long
enough. By my third class I'm still a bit unsteady, but I'm now able do every
pose in the standing series without falling over. I hope that I will be able to
further improve my balance and flexibility through this class and that the calmness
and lack of self consciousness I feel in the classes will spread to my everyday
life.
