CAS Exit Interview

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How did you make a difference to the communities ( local, college and global) and how did you
change in yourself?

In service, I worked with mentally disabled elderly clients to improve their social skills. I was Head
of Logistics and was responsible for planning the equipment to ensure all clients had fun
activities, based on their behavior. This made it easier for the students to help do activities with
the clients. I also think I made some meaningful relationships with some of the clients, and we
often had conversations that built off of ideas mentioned previously. I could see the progress
that the group as a whole was making as the students stepped out of their comfort zone, and the
clients became more comfortable with is. I think this is really important, being aware of the lives
that these people live which can be very mundane at times. The hour or so they have where they
can be creative and have fun is something very significant to them, and I saw the importance of
the work we were doing as we continued the service.

Pick 3 key moments or turning points in the past 18 months. Consider why they were key- What
were the obstacles you overcame, how did you achieve success?

The moment I learned in pottery, that perfectionism can sometimes be very limiting to creativity is
the most important lesson I learned in my creativity aspect of CAS. This came after I realized how
much time I was spending on minute aspects of my projects. I realized how frustrated I was
getting and ended up not having any projects that I was proud of or any at all since I would
always destroy them. After a while, I realised that I wasn’t as good as a thought I was and decided
to have fun, the experience that I had when making this little character with my friend was what
made me proud of one of the final projects I did and even helped me be more creative as I wasn’t
limited by my skills – even though the final project didn’t look as good as I hoped.

The moment I realized the progress I was making in the communication and conversations
between one of the clients in my service was a turning point as it made me realize how much the
small conversations that we were making mattered to the client’s social skills and happiness. At
first, I wasn’t putting as much effort as I should have been but when I saw Ian (the client)
remembering a lot of the information that we covered the sessions before, and I saw him
becoming more chatty and comfortable in the group, this made me make even more of an effort
to make their time here the best it can be.

The moment in Kahaani, when our final dance was being performed, made me realize how much
the effort and time put into the dance was worth it. The practices could often get very repetitive,
we would often get distracted, but seeing the dance come together was really satisfying, and is
something that will help me step out of my comfort zone in the future as I did with this dance.

Finally, how will you use the new skills, understanding, qualities and knowledge you gained in
your future- at University and beyond? How valuable were the lessons and why?

The ability to step outside of my comfort zone gained from Kahaani will be useful, as I can see
myself taking more risks in university, allowing myself to create meaningful experiences with
different types of people. The communication skills gained from my services will help me in my
emotional connection to people in general and helped me understand the significance of conversations – it also helped me understand emotions better. The idea of letting go of perfectionism will help me in my veterinary medicine university course as I know how stressful life can be, not being able to make all the clients lives perfect, and having to make sacrifices and cost-benefit analysis’.

Pottery Reflection 3

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LO5

LO4

LO1

In the spur of the moment, my friend Dylan and I decided to work together and make a statue of a gremlin instead of my pot. This decision was inspired by a bear looking statue that my friend saw walking in, and I suggested making a gremlin. I started making the eyes and he started making the body and face. After a while, I found myself falling into the trap of wanting perfection and kept restarting and getting more frustrated. I then just decided to use what I had – probably the biggest lesson I learned from pottery. I think this lesson is significant as it signifies how whenever I do something creative, I always want it to be perfect and end up becoming so engaged in the project, that I don’t stop until I’m satisfied. I learned from pottery a unique lesson that I could only learn due to how bad I was at it. I learned that if you just work with what you have, and don’t get so caught up in it being perfect, I project turns out better and the process is more fun. (this probably only applies to me as I don’t do pottery professionally).

After working on making the gremlin, I realized that it started to look like a minion. This is when our creativity shifted and we started working on that. From this, I learned how fun being creative can actually be when you don’t take yourself too seriously. This is our final product:

Pottery Reflection 2

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LO4

LO2

The idea I had for my simple pinch pot was to use the same technique I used with my last pot, but not bend it and keep it symmetrical. After that, I thought I’d add a base which was just a cube at the bottom of it. I started making the pot itself and found it to be a lot easier than last time. I also figured out how to use slip to connect the base to the pot by talking to my friend Dylan who is good at pottery. I decided to make the slip myself as well by mixing water with clay just for fun, but this didn’t work as well as the slip provided. With this pot, I found myself being a lot more patient, and the patience that I always have at the start of an art project lasted towards the end even though there were many issues such as the cracks, I managed to fix most of them up by using extra clay. However, I found that I got very annoyed at the symmetrical aspect of the base. I decided to learn from my initial trials and fails to go back to an ergonomic design for just the base. This symbolizes the learning from fails and successes in my progress. The base then turned into just a blob of clay with some similarity to a cube.

Pottery Reflection 1

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LO1

LO3
LO4

Initially, when I joined pottery, I had very high expectations of myself since I had done pottery before and had an image in my head that it was going to be extremely easy. My initial goal was to make an asymmetrical pot that curved over itself. I quickly found that this wasn’t going to happen after feeling the clay and trying to shape it. I realized that I had very little to no control over the movement of the clay and I kept finding cracks in the clay. I thought that this was happening because I was being careless, but then after watching videos of clay making, I realized that I was working the clay too much. I came up with an idea with a friend to start with a ball of clay and cut it in half then hollowed it with one of the tools. This idea worked initially, but then when I tried to curve the pot asymmetrically, it didn’t work as it just folded into itself.  This also happened when I tried to flatten the bottom of the pot. This was difficult for me to see as I really wanted to make a good pot, and my friends’ pots were looking good. I realized that to become better at making pots and leave with a better pot, I had to start with something a lot more simpler and smashed my original pot to motivate myself to make something better and more minimal.

EE Final Reflection

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My extended essay accomplished its goal of analyzing and evaluating the different effects of the antibacterials on the E. coli. This is largely due to my strong research and critical thinking of applying this research. I was able to justify the reasons I proposed for different effects using research into the biology of E. coli. However, I feel like my experiments were my weakness. I was not able to find unique results mainly due to my simplistic methodology. To further investigate, I could use different bacteria such as S. aureus and E. coli and compare how they build tolerance differently. I would then be able to compare the dangers of the two bacteria on a global level and would be able to justify my different findings using more detailed and complex differences in microbiology of the two bacteria. My main takeaway from this process is that the initial stages of an investigation are the hardest for me to work through as I often do not know where to start my research due to intimidation of forming a perfect hypothesis. I found that the best way to go about this is by constantly readjusting a hypothesis through research and pilot tests. (200)

EE Interim Reflection

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My understanding of the research process has changed through writing my EE as I have learned the importance of testing the strength of a hypothesis before conducting experiments and further research for the investigation. This can be in terms of not only researching the independent variable being tested in the essay but also extraneous variables that (in this case) affected the growth of the bacteria such as temperature. This gave me a better sense of the mechanisms of the bacteria and helped me use the internet more efficiently. In addition, I had to use my critical thinking skills to apply findings and sources not necessarily investigating the same research question as me but had valuable information that I could use and interpret. Testing out hypotheses also came in the form of a pilot study which I previously thought was unimportant. Even though the findings were in line with what I expected, it is important to make sure a method works and the results have the potential to be analyzed. (169)

Persepolis Quotes

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“With all the jewelry you steal from us, you must be making a pile of money”  (Satrapi 143)

“I agreed with my mother. I too tied to think only of life. However, it wasn’t always easy: at school, they lined us up twice a day to mourn the war dead. They put on funeral marches and we had to beat our breasts.” (Satrapi 95)

“I didn’t know what justice was. Now that the revolution was finally over once and for all, I abandoned the dialectic materialism of my comic strips. The only place I felt safe was in the arms of my friend.” (Satrapi 53)

I have selected the first quote and I will be defending how it is morally just by it’s looking at it from a political/social aspect and religious aspect. politically, this comment made by Marji is not moral as no matter what culture an individual is from, elders should be respected. Due to the religious influence in Iran at the time, this comment has even more weight. Religiously, however, I can see why Marji would make this comment. From a highly western influenced educational background, it seems immoral that a teacher would take away jewelry from children as it is freedom of expression. This shows the influence religion has on a culture which I disagree with. Religion should not be imposed on a culture if individuals don’t agree with the values of the religion. However, saying this, Marji is only a child and her irrational conversations with God and her desire to be a protector, aggressor, and holy individual for her religion, at the same time show how she does not have a clear moral compass.

Project Week Rinjani Reflection

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Climbing Rinjani was definitely one of the most physically challenging things I have ever done and there were times where I didn’t think we were gonna make it for sunrise or at all. The end of the first day where it was lots of inclines was the first challenge and I had to take my time. I learned that trekking wasn’t as easy as I thought and it wasn’t just walking. The hardest part of the trek though was the summit, where the path was steep and full of gravel. This meant that for every 2 steps we made up which were already difficult, we would just slide back down one. We also only had around 2 hours to complete the final summit, so we could not take that many breaks if we were gonna make it for sunrise. Thankfully we made it there within the minute. Throughout the climb, some challenges we faced was helping individual challenges. For example, I found the end of the first day the hardest out of all my group and they helped me by taking breaks and slowing down their pace. The same had to be done for the final summit, which I did not find as difficult as some of the other members. Even though at some points, individually, we could go much faster, we had to slow down our pace for our other group members. This happened at the decline as well where Jake and I wanted to run down the mountain because it was easier on our muscles, but the other members wanted to go slower as it was safer and easier on the knees.

As far as the quality of the mountain goes, there was an excess of trash everywhere. Plastic wrappers, glass, and other unbiodegradable material were spread on the trail and at campsites. This is not only bad for the ecosystem but also makes the trail less appealing for tourists. In addition, trekkers that left trash at campsites attracted monkeys which makes them dependent on humans and also can lead to them attacking other trekkers campsites. Because of this, we made sure to pick up any trash we left behind and kept all our food and valuables inside our tents so the monkeys couldn’t get it and affect their ecosystem.

Christian Outreach 7

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Last Thursday’s session, I spent the whole time with Ian, who came to us with a comic that he wanted me to read for him. I found myself summarising the story as we went through. This allowed me to give him the gist of the story while engaging him at the same time. He asked lots of questions of specific vocabulary and to help him understand, I would use examples that he understood. I only knew to use these examples because of the past sessions and time we spent together. Over time, I have learned how he thinks and what some of his passions are. I learned that he really understands and enjoys any type of superhero story even if they only involve a protagonist and antagonist. With this, I was able to help Ian understand the story by giving simplified explanations and examples using a hero and a villain. For example, if the word he wasn’t sure of was “reporter”, I could use explain the word to him using characters in comics even if they were not involved in the comic we were reading.

There were also small and simple activities that were in the book which I thought Ian would really enjoy. I started by spending lots of time on these small activities like mazes and crosswords. He clearly understood these as he was able to complete the activities by himself. However, he grew bored of these and often asked me to skip and get back to the story. I learned that he probably doesn’t like activities that aren’t engaging or repetitive. This is why he is often not coloring but wanting to have a conversation. With this, I think next time I should try and do something different with him, like physical activities or making music.

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