DP 1 CAS Reflection

Looking back at my first post on this blog, “CAS Goals” for this year, it is time to reflect on what I have accomplished and learnt this year.

CAS	What I wanted to work on	What I have accomplished
Creativity	–          Some other factors in the art field that I have interest in is Drama. –          I can work on my skills and work on my confidence by doing Senior Production.	–          I was only thinking short term earlier; I completed senior production and developed my confidence and acting skills. –          I also joined small bites where I learnt to cook new dishes and expanded my skills in the kitchen because I love to bake. –          I also did Art Saisa which was an overwhelming yet exciting experience.
Activity	–          I have to work on my positioning and posture –          I have to work out different parts of my body to maintain the balance after archery. –          The positioning of my fingers needs improvement as well.	–          I did mostly accomplish these points in archery, however I decided to joing Personal fitness with Savi which turned out to be more helpful for m personal health and it helped me work on my communication and collaborative skills with Savi.
Service	–          There needs to be a more organized action plan that the group can follow. –          We need a more clear schedule with the Vidya Wardeyna school, our communication with them is not very strong at the moment.	–          We really tried to organize our schedule for our visits with the Vidya Wardeyna School, but we really cannot do more from our side because the school is always uncertain. –          What we have done is planned an alternative plan for each session, so we always have something as backup. –          We also completed the book drive and book sale successfully this year and now we are working on our new online bookstore which we will hopefully complete next school year. –          I was also in SGA which was also successful at servicing the students of our school.

 

Creativity

• I took part in senior production earlier this year where we Midsummer Night’s Dream. Taking part in a play was different as I had not done acting for a really long time, this was a challenge for me but as we performed, I was able to develop new skills such as improvising and performing without stage fright. This is a community-based creativity where I had to interact with the other performers and work together for the final performance. This allowed my growth in many areas such as my imagination, my passion; acting and it also improved my drama skills. Acting with others also allow me to demonstrate my skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively.  I wanted to meet all the deadlines for senior production and perform well in the final performance which is what happened. I did this by keeping a constant schedule for practicing my lines and going to all of my senior production session. I did this by managing my time properly and learning all my lines by the October break. I was able to see if I was successful or not in our rehearsals and surprisingly, I only messed up once or twice in the whole play (only during rehearsal). My attendance showed my commitment and perseverance in the activity.

  

• SAISA Art
  One of the major things I learned it art was how to incorporate my mistakes into my art piece. I like my pieces to be perfect so this was quite challenging however it really helped me expand my knowledge and skills in different ways through our workshop. I had stepped on my art work by mistake, and through the supervisor’s guidance, I learnt how to make it part of my work. I stepped on different areas a couple of times and it created a cool pattern since the sole of the shoe had patterns. I was able to recognize my weakness and strengths in visual arts when I could see I was struggling. Although I love and enjoy working alone, with so many people around I was able to communicate and interact with them. Since I was working on my project individually, I was able to initiate and plan what I had wanted to do on the first day in the workshop. Since we were limited by time, I had to plan accordingly and proceed with it. Trying new things in the workshop was challenging but it really helped me develop new skills which I can use in Visual Arts in the future. I was also able to apply my prior knowledge and skills. I had gained in visual arts in my plan and art piece which helped me complete my piece on time. I could definitely improve on my time management and develop more skills through practice.

  

   

• Small Bites
  I could see all of us individually identifying our weaknesses, for example I had trouble using the stove and this allowed me to focus on how to manage the temperature on the stove by asking my peers for help. With so many of us working together, it was helpful for all of us since we helped each other out on small tasks. If a group finished earlier, the group would help another group which working on something else and this made us move faster. We all worked collaboratively to make the recipes we got in the beginning of the lesson. With Ms. Nelson by out side, I believe it has deepened my knowledge on cooking and I have achieved my goal of improving my technical skills for cooking. These skills are very beneficial for me because I already had an interest in cooking prior to joining this activity and I have learnt a lot of safety skills while cook as well which I had not know about earlier. With the new equipment, I was also able to learn how to use an electric stove which I do not usually use. All of us also got constructive feedback by Ms. Nelson because she was able to recognize where we needed help and that really improved out presence and collaborative skills in the sessions.

  

• OSC’s Room to Read is a school-based creativity in which I am the service leader alongside Sanjana. I have identified some strengths, skills and areas that I can improve on in the table above and also stated where I was successful. We had a bigger task and therefore a more difficult goal to accomplish this year which was a challenge for my service. As a leader, I had been initiating and planning with Sanjana for our service this year, I have been building upon my previous experiences and learning more. I have to showed my commitment and perseverance through my regular involvement in the service. I have recognized the benefits of working collaboratively in my service posts and recognize the ethics of our choices and actions. Our goal is to create a well-resourced reading place for the community. Not everyone can afford books and computers, but everybody has the right to education, and we have the power to improve the current education in our local community. Our service understands this issue and to overcome this in our community we are taking appropriate action. We are helping local communities who don’t have the facilities or a place where they can read and educate themselves build their own libraries. This shows and will continue showing our engagement with issues of global significance but we can only overcome these issues to some extent in our local community.

  

• This year, I have been the class representative with Rashmi which is very exciting because I have never been in this position before. This is an on-going creativity because I can continue this and further extend and develop my participation in the SGA. Since I had not been a class representative before, this was a challenge for me and I have developed new skills, strengthened my current leadership skills, recognized the benefits of working collaboratively because we have successfully completed project by working together in the SGA. I was also able to show my commitment and perseverance by showing my involvement in the SGA throughout the year. We have had meetings every Wednesday lunch and I have tried my best to participate in all the meeting to help our school community as much as I can.

Activity

• For the first few months of this school year, I had been doing Archery and I will be continued this activity for semester 1. I had identified some strengths, skills and areas that I had improved on in the table above. I also joined personal fitness with Savi for semester 2 which was more beneficial. We overcame obstacles together, there was always something to improve on such as fixing a part of my form or building my upper body strength so there is always a challenge to overcome. I improved myself by watching videos on YouTube as well working collaboratively with Savi to improve my skills. Every fitness session determined if I reached my minor goals created based on previous sessions. This showed my planning before each session. My regular attendance and constant engagement with the activity also showed my commitment and perseverance to my physical health which I value greatly. I was able to demonstrate my skills by the end of this school year with Savi. This is an individual activity however working with Savi improved my form and collaborative skills showing that it is beneficial to work as a group for even individual sports.
• I still have worked out at home in which I would repeat Savi’s work out and do yoga from time to time. For this I have planned and initiated an exercising schedule for myself which I do in my personal time. It is quite challenging because it is very difficult to take out time when I have to complete a lot of school work. The activity I have chosen to do this year is mostly individual activity with some collaboration with Savi.

  

Service

• For OSC’s Room to Read, I am the service leader alongside Sanjana. I have identified some strengths, skills and areas that I can improve on in the table above. We have had a bigger task and therefore a more difficult goal to accomplish this year which will be a challenge for my service. As a leader, I have initiated and planned with Sanjana for our service this year, I have built upon my previous experiences in the service from last year. I have to showed my commitment and perseverance through my regular involvement in the service. I recognized the benefits of working collaboratively in my service posts and recognized the ethics of our choices and actions. Our goal is to create a well-resourced reading place for the community. Not everyone can afford books and computers, but everybody has the right to education, and we have the power to improve the current education in our local community. Our service understands this issue and to overcome this in our community we are taking appropriate action. We are helping local communities who don’t have the facilities or a place where they can read and educate themselves. This shows and will continue showing our engagement with issues of global significance, but we can only overcome these issues to some extent in our local community.