Today, I woke up feeling very musical. “Musical” in the sense that I literally woke up, played ‘bop to the top’ from high school musical, and just sang it. This nostalgic moment lead me to remember that I actually had a keyboard. It was a struggle finding it as I’d stored it in the depths of my wardrobe and once I did find the keyboard, it took me about a solid hour to find the correct charger for it. That was totally fun!

After all of this struggle, I finally got it out, cleaned it, and took a glance at it. At this moment, I had started reminiscing about the times I used to play the piano in new york. My sister would ask to borrow it and younger me would never let her since she wouldn’t let me touch her shiny brand new violin. But, the emotions I think that I felt when I was staring at my keyboard were probably sad and disappointed at the fact that I’d gotten so busy with school work that I had completely forgotten about my keyboard.

This CAS wellness day gave me the opportunity to rekindle one of my favorite old hobbies. To jog my memory, I decided to number the natural keys since I’d forgotten how to read and play a bit. After this, I decided to start off with a beginner’s version of “Married Life” by Michael Giacchino since it had been about 5 years since I played. Eventually, I decided to skip to something harder since I like more fast-paced songs. I have learned the intermediate version of the beginning of ‘Fur Elise’ by Ludwig van Beethoven so far. It’s been going well.

I plan to finish learning it by October end since I have too much workload this week and next week to do anything but study, eat, netflix, and repeat 🙁 !! That isn’t a problem though because I constantly listen to classical music when I study as it helps me focus. Hopefully, listening to the piano helps me play the piano? That logic makes sense to me, honestly.

Learning outcomes observed:

1. Strength & growth
LO1 Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth. Students are able to see themselves as individuals with various abilities and skills, of which some are more developed than others.

2. Challenge and skills
LO2 Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process
A new challenge may be an unfamiliar experience or an extension of an existing one. The newly
acquired or developed skills may be shown through experiences that the student has not previously
undertaken or through increased expertise in an established area.

3. Initiative & planning
LO3 Students articulate the stages from conceiving an idea to executing a plan for a CAS experience or series of CAS experiences. This may be accomplished in collaboration with other participants. Students may show their knowledge and awareness by building on a previous experience, or by launching a new idea or process.

4. Showing perseverance and commitment
LO4 Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences. Students demonstrate regular involvement and active engagement in CAS.

7. Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions
LO7 Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions Students show awareness of the consequences of choices and actions in planning and carrying out CAS experiences.