Model UN

Model UN was truly one of my most favourite CAS activities. It combined my interest in foreign relations with my interest in arguing and i loved every minute of it. The conference took place in Fredericton and i met a lot of very cool people while there.
When we first arrived I was a bit nervous and intimidated by the amount of people and how amazing they all seemed to be at debate. So, my first initial speech was a little bit lacking, but once I got into the flow of things and we started forming alliances and drawing up bills i became a lot more comfortable. I learned so much about foreign policy and culture differences that i can honestly say it broadened my mind by tenfold and spike my interest even more in international relations.

Gardening

Food Drive: Results

It's been a while since I've updated this blog, but my experiences in CAS have anything but ceased. The last thing i posted about was the food drive that Josh (one of the grade 12's was planning) so this post is going to focus around that event. I had pretty high hopes about this food drive because i felt that we were prepared for it. Pat and I had made a poster and were told that it had been passed out, so walking up to the first house i felt assured that everyone knew about it. The last food drive i participated in ran into some problems because people didn't know about it. So, i had hoped to avoid any awkward conversations about not knowing it was going on by having the whole neighborhood aware of the food drive. Alas, this did not work as well as i had hoped. I had been in charge of making up the poster and not passing it out, so it seems that some people were left out of the know. This is one thing that i would improve upon if i were to ever organize or help out with another food drive because not only did it possibly hinder the amount of food that could've been collected and taken to the food back, but it also out extra pressure on the volunteers collecting the food. There is one thing that i do not pride myself on and that is responding to questions that don't really have an answer, but seem to require one and during this food drive i was put in the position a lot. Each time i went up to a house who hadn't heard about the food drive and therefore had to either go find some food or tell us they didn't have anything i heard the same comment over and over again. This comment was "i didn't know there was a food drive going on" and i was never sure what exactly i should say. Should i apologize that it wasn't better publicized or should i just give a sympathetic glance? I was always unsure of this, but by the end of the night i could field these awkward encounters like a pro and i really felt a boost in my confidence. When we were collecting the food the implications of a food drive really hit me. It just occurred to me as i was waiting on the doorstep of someone's house that this person who i had literally met seconds ago was going into their own cupboard, basically taking food out of their own family's mouth, to give to less fortunate people of whom they had never met. It was really quite amazing to see the goodness in people and this experience really opened my eyes. At the end of the night we convened and put together all the food we had collected and this was how much we ended up collecting

Food Drive

On the 24th I, along with a couple of other classmates, are going to be collecting food bank donations door to door. Already, Patrick and I have made a poster for the food drive and we may possibly be going to help hang them up. Hopefully, this experience will be enlightening to the needs of those who go hungry in our town.

Battle of the Books

This past Tuesday a fellow classmate and i competed in battle of the books. Our book was called "Before I Die" and even though we didn't win; i think  we had some very good arguments and perhaps if we hadn't been up against the always loved "Paper Bag Princess" we might have won. To prepare we researched the question what is a classic? because the topic of the debate was what book would become a classic in 100 years. So, we started with that and then using the guidelines we found (stuff about the ability to relate and timeless themes) we connected it to our book. We also made a video about our book so that the audience would know vaguely what our book was about. I'll post it at the bottom of this post. During the actual debate we took my laptop up and typed our game plan and discussed our defense arguments  which worked really well because the other team had to whisper (which of course allowed everyone to hear their arguments . Even though we ultimately lost, i think my debating skills have improved from this experience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vz6TVLLRzE

Retraction

So, i previously stated that i am a plant expert. However, this is not the case. So, i would like to do a retraction and clarify that i am not a plant expert, but merely a plant enthusiast. The reason why i am retracting the aforementioned comment is because i over watered a few of my plants and therefore can not be considered one. In other news my forget-me-nots came up!!!!

Jessica: Plant Expert

So, over the long weekend instead of studying i decided to make up a plant book with all the info we need about the plants we are and will be taking care of. I completely filled out the first 8 pages which are my own plants and then i left the rest blank (with just a page title) so that the others can fill out some pages too! This way we can keep straight how often the plants need to be watered or pruned and when they're supposed to sprout etc. I think this will be a great way to not only record our progress throughout CAS, but also a way to record what we've learned about each plant and what works better which we can either keep for the rest of our lives or pass on to the next generation of IB growers. Here are a few pictures of it. Please ignore the bad lighting, poor quality and the creepy face i'm making.

Also, my mom gave me a pinot gris grape vine and i love it. Here's a picture