Action Tennis

Will edit when heesoo gives me some pictures we took during october break and during november of tennis!!!

Library Service -Writing CAS Reports

This semester is almost over... meaning CAS is almost over!

For community Service

This year the all the community services have decided for all CAS leaders and supervisors to make reports on their members of their community service.

Today is one of the last days of CAS and Skylor has left to Dhaka for Saisa, so I'm in charge of his students! We have about 10 members so it's going to be a lot of writing for me. But I'm happy to do so since everyone in library service is extremely nice and hardworking.

Lets see how it goes~

Semester Reflection + a bit of CAS!

The semester of the school year 2011-2012 is coming to a fast end and what to do other than a good old reflection??

Below the reflection I wrote for my semester report card.

Like every school year, each semester goes by like a blink of an eye. However, this semester went by like the speed of light! During this semester I got to taste the real flavor of the IB Diploma Program and it was bitter. It seemed like there was a huge assignment due every week. Thankfully, I managed to get my all my internal and external assessments done, math portfolios but most importantly, my extended essay done.

This semester was filled with assignments and tests but, reflecting back on the whole experience, it left me with what I do well and what I don’t do that well. I realized that my study habits were off track when it came to time management. However, I realized that when I study, I can study from the beginning and study until I understand the concept.

I also collaborate easy with my classmates but struggle with working with my teachers or communicating my ideas properly to them. I saw that my thinking skills developed from the help of TOK. TOK has actually improved my thinking by making it more reasonable and made me justify my thoughts. From using TOK I am able to apply knowledge I’ve attained from other subjects and apply those to different areas of knowledge, for example, TOK into art and geography or my art into my geography.

From writing the Extended Essay and other assignments (like geography case studies and art) I realized that my use of information from sources was limited. Like many teenagers and in this age of computers, I heavily relied on the internet as a source of information. I managed to break away from this curse by visiting the library more often. Despite the small quantity of sources I used, I was and still am able to grasp facts and concepts easily.

Mentioning library, my CAS Library Service has developed me more as a person and as a leader. I have learned to collaborate with others and listen to others not only in my afterschool activity but with other activities as well. In particular, I collaborated with the Cleft Palate with organizing the Battle of the Bands concert to make profits for Room to Read. I have also kept up with my action, tennis with Heesoo however, do so at Royal Park (a complex where Heesoo lives).

Despite saying that the flavor of IB was bitter, in the end, it was really worth it and rewarding.

Cleft Palate Concert

Last Saturday (November 26) the CAS activity Cleft Palate held a Battle of the Bands concert to raise funds for surgeries for children with cleft palate. The Library Service originally had plans to do a movie night to raise funds however, due to the low popularity many CAS activities had with movie night, Skylor and I decided to go in a different direction to raise funds for Room to Read.

Since Skylor was already involved with organizing Battle of the Bands with Bharat and Rasmus (playing guitar and being an MC), we collaborated with Mr. Pradeep, the supervisor of the Cleft Palate CAS, and organized that Library Service would be selling drinks at the concert. Each week leading up to the concert Skylor and I went over with our CAS what we would be selling, how much of it, who would get cups for the drinks, and the shifts people would take during the concert to sell drinks.

I'm really happy to say that in the end, all of the Library Service was at the concert and respectively came to their assigned shifts. Alo brought about 600 cups (A HUGE thanks to her!!) and didn't complain about helping with her shift -in fact no one complained! It was a big relief for every member to have helped since this was a new challenge I've undertaken. I have never organized something this big with the community and it was really fun in the end.

Library Service made a profit of about 19,000 Rs. from selling drinks at the concert and selling leftover drinks to the canteen. We wouldn't have been able to sell any drinks without the help of Mr. Pradeep providing them though!

In the end, library service managed to make more money than originally planned with the movie night to donate to Room to Read. It really is fulfilling to raise money for Room to Read since it allows for me to be engaged with an issue of global importance, education and reading for children.

Throughout the whole process instead of just collaborating with Skylor, I collaborated with others, in this case, a whole other CAS Activity with organizing a part of their project. It was really interesting and a great experience.

Library Service Update!

Library Service in OSC has been normal for the last few weeks. Since the beginning everyone in library service has improved in their skills in organizing books and have become more comfortable in the library environment.

I'm really happy to say that the members of the library service (including myself and Skylor) have attended all community service sessions showing perserverance and commitment for our activity. I'm really proud as to how devoted we are despite going through IB (ahem, Extended Essay and Internal Assessments and SATs and World Lits and English Orals and tests that never seem to end...).

As the school approaches the Room to Read week, Skylor and I have to take a new challenge to raise funds. Room to Read is a program where schools raise funds to buy books and donate the books to less fortunate school. Skylor and I have collaborated with eachother and the whole library service group to make a fund raising event. This is Skylor and I undertaking a new challenge.

It was voted that we should do a movie night, previewing a movie for the whole secondary school on a Friday night while selling baked goods to also raise more money (a bake sale)! Every member of the group has decided to contribute to making the movie night happen or baking something to sell. The 11th grade Diploma Students have decided to take care of the movie (buying the movie, getting the auditorium ready for previewing, taking care of tickets and the cashier) while the lower grades students (mainly middle school students) have taken the opportunity to buy and sell baked goods and food -like popcorn and drinks. Skylor and I have decided to supervise everything and give a hand into what we do.

On Wednesday the 9th of November Skylor and I will be going infront of the Wednesday Assembly to commercialize our fund raiser. It will only be for the secondary students of OSC and it will be held on a Friday night (we are aiming for the 11th of November). We are planning to show the movie, Rush Hour 2 and showing the movie trailer in assembly. I really hope we can get a lot of people to come and watc this!

We still are in planning stages just in case something might go wrong. We have planned and initiated an activity and worked collaborately with others (teachers, the students, and staff of technology) to make this happen.

Fingers crossed!!