Creativity
Creativity is a huge part of CAS since it is one way for students to stay active when it comes to creativity. We always strive to be open minded, and be able to brainstorm on the spot, which is what the creativity aspect helps with. In DP1, my creativity was taking part of COMUN and Voice on Tuesday lunchtimes. I was dedicated to these two activities even though towards the end of the year, we weren’t able to participate in them anymore. As of this year, CAS has become a very independent thing since the school won’t be able to offer activities such as COMUN and Voice to support our creativity; therefore, I have taken it upon myself to learn something new. I hope to learn how to create a scrapbook/journal of my senior year. During quarantine, I had started taking pictures of events and documenting family events. I wish to continue this throughout the year, and hopefully create a scrapbook out of it. I wish to make it a weekly journal, where I dedicate my Sunday evenings to collect pictures and memories from the week to put into my scrapbook as well as write paragraphs on how my week was etc. I think this will help strengthen my creativity skills as it will make me think of aesthetic ways to put my scrapbook together, and help me remember what I have been doing the past week. Not only will this enhance my creativity skills, but it will also be beneficial for my future as I will be able to look back at it and reminisce all the great memories at OSC!
Action
Due to SAISA being cancelled (for at least the first season), my personal goal is to start exercising on a weekly basis. I have always tried pushing myself to do this, but as the year went on in DP1, the work started piling on, and it became harder to find time to exercise or find the motivation to go to the gym. During quarantine, my family and I made it a mutual goal to exercise everyday, which we can proudly say that we did. Every evening we would go downstairs in my apartment to play football, volleyball or swim. We had done this for almost 2 months, until some of us started working, or going out etc. Since school reopened, our schedule changed, where we find ourselves starting school at 8:30 AM. This is our second week at school, and I find myself waking up at 7, having nothing to do. My goal this year is to wake up extra early, exercise for 40 minutes at least 3-4 times a week in the morning, whether it is at the gym or swimming in the pool. This will benefit me in many ways; firstly it will support the action part of CAS, then it will help me focus on school as it has been seen that exercising on a daily basis helps with focus and concentration. This goal for the year will definitely be hard, since I am definitely not a morning person, but since coronavirus has affected all of us, we also all have to adapt in different ways. Staying active is very important for both our physical and mental health, therefore I really want to push myself to achieve my goal for the year.
Service
RCCI has been a part of my OSC life since I got here in MYP5. I joined the service group and quickly grew attached to the ideas and intentions of the group. RCCI stands for Rehabilitation Center for the Communication Impaired; the role that OSC plays in this center is that it creates a sense of communication for the RCCI members that come onto campus every Thursday. We help heighten their cognitive skills, their social skills and most importantly we provide fun and entertainment for them. This benefits both the OSC members of the service group and the RCCI members since OSC members have just as much fun as they do. They bring a smile on our face every Thursday afternoon, after a long hard week. OSC members have always been dedicated to RCCI, as leader of RCCI in DP1, and continuing to be the leader for the second year; I have been able to see how much the OSC members and RCCI members appreciate each other.
However, due to COVID-19, the RCCI members are not able to come which, of course makes it hard for us to support them as much as we wish we could. My goal for this year alongside the other RCCI leader is to make sure that even though they are not on campus, we are still ensuring their safety and happiness. We had big plans last year, before we went into lockdown; we wished to create a “Buddy System”: creating name cards for everyone with their favorite food, hobbies, their name and a photo of them. We thought this would help them feel as a part of our community, and help everyone fit in together and recognize each other. We also wished to create T-Shirts, we had designed logos and decided the colors on the T-Shirts, we were ready to go through with our plans and send our designs to a clothing company; but we couldn’t.
I think that the role of the leaders this year is to ensure that everything runs smoothly so that the leaders of next year will not be left with what we had a year ago. Since the two leaders are seniors, we have to ensure that the next leaders are able to pick up where we left off. Hopefully, by next semester, we will be able to have the RCCI members back on campus; but for now, the goal is to stay in contact, ensure that we are doing everything we can to help and support them, and of course contribute any sort of money or help we can.
