It’s time to set up new CAS goals for DP2. Having spent 12 of 18 years of my life as a student, I would like this last year to be a special one. Although I will focus especially on academics, which includes the final exams, I want to make enough time for CAS activities, which I know from last year help me stay balanced. With the experience of last year, it is a bit easier for me what to expect and I hope my goals will be more accurate and achievable. Again, I have specific goals for each CAS strand: Creativity, Activity and Service. As I still do not know exactly how the workload will look like, I might deviate from my goals slightly, but I do not see this as much of an issue as they are primarily to guide me.
Creativity
I am planning to participate in concert band as I did the whole of last year and I will also participate in the Oliver musical band, for which a small number of musicians were selected by Ms Duncan. As I do not have a music teacher for trumpet, I will practice the songs we play on my own as often as I can. I expect to practice on Wednesdays and Saturdays, as these are the days I usually have most time. Having played the trumpet for many years now, I can only
Activity
I will participate in SAISA boys volleyball training, and hopefully I will be able to travel with the team, depending on the workload and price. As I was captain of the team last year, it would be great to participate this year as well. Volleyball training is Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays and lasts 1.5 hours each time. This will therefore take up a big amount of my time the first term, especially because I often stay behind for some time after training to work on some of my skills such as serving. The tournament will be towards the end of the semester, so that is the main activity I am focusing on. Parallel to that though, I will continue my running training, which is working out quite well and I hope to be able to run a half marathon by the end of the semester. My progress in this though is highly dependent on the amount of schoolwork I have and I will try to find at least one training session a week.
Service
I will continue doing the Hope for Kids service. As I am service leader, this will take up more time than before, and I need to plan sessions with Seth, the other service leader, well in advance to always be up to date. Some things that I now need to take into consideration is having a timeline of what will be done in upcoming service sessions and a record of the things we have such as markers and scissors, etc., which we will use when interacting with kids at the CCC house. Working together with Seth will undoubtedly challenge and improve my leadership and teamworking skills, which I am grateful for, but it is also likely to be very time-consuming as many things need to be managed, which is why again I will have to manage my time very well. Since my service addresses the global issue of cancer, I feel very fortunate to experience this and one of my goals is to gain awareness on this detrimental disease.
CAS Project
The final, and new, part for me this year in CAS will be the CAS Project. This is a great opportunity for me to do something influential that I am passionate about. Since I have so many ideas on what I could do this project about, I am in t he process of considering pros and cons of each to come up with the best option. I already decided to work together with Milo to raise awareness and funds for deforestation, but are still deciding whether we should focus on Sri Lanka, which has the advantage of being something local, or Borneo, which is a more dire state and we are therefore more passionate about helping to protect. In the upcoming weeks we will plan out this project, ensuring that we each have our own aspect that we are responsible for and do the planning for. Depending on the amount of schoolwork (again), I am thinking of other projects that I could do.
Besides all these goals, I must say that if some things do not go according to plan, say for an increased number in assignments, I will simply follow Calvin’s approach, a character in my favorite comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/518547344580591146/