February 13

Culturama Brasil LO-1,3,4,5

As last year I had a wonderful experience in being part of the cCukturama show, this year I decided to rejoin and try something really different from usual. I have always liked challenges and this was one of the biggest I have ever faced. Hence, I decided to join The Brasilian group and enjoy the good bit and melody of the Samba dance!!!

I only have good memories from this experience and I feel blessed to have had the opportunity to participate actively. I tried to get the most from it and I recognize it helped me a lot. As a leaving student, not only did it gave me the chance to form one of my last good memories of the school but it also challenged me and my skills.

Culturama inspired me a lot and I am really proud of the amazing job we did as a team by helping and motivating each other one another, never letting us down even when the situations seemed impossible to solve.

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December 12

Carousel Reflection

In these past weeks, we have been attending some workshops aimed to give us the tools and life-skills necessary to overcome possible unpleasant situations that might occur during our future life in Uni. The sessions were really interesting as they gave us the opportunity to further develop and understand the reason for some quite common issues, like cybersecurity.  The thing that I appreciated the most is that none of the teachers leading the sessions had a judgemental approach or told us not to do certain things. This choice of being kind of “liberal” in their sessions, allowed us students to feel more comfortable to share our experience and developed the discussion with our personal opinion about the different topics.

Overall, I feel grateful for the opportunity the school gave us. I fell the sessions were pretty helpful and taught me life-skills that I would definitely use in my future.

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December 4

RC3 Viva Voce

After receiving my written feedback, I decided to change my research question and made it more relevant to the topic I was discussing. Besides, I modified the register I was using to make my writing sound more like a research paper. During the process, I tried to use diverse sources. In particular, the articles, the interviews, and the source papers were crucial for the scope of my research as they allowed me to use information focused on the life of Italian communities of the 1st and 2nd generation emigrated to America. If I had to go back and change something I would have done more primary research and interviewed Italian emigrants to America during the period. This would have allowed me to get more information about the culture and the environment in which they lived and to draw a more accurate comparison between their culture and the Southern Italian one. However, I feel quite happy with the work I have. This experience allowed me to feel closer to my culture, to discuss a topic that was completely new for me but that I found interesting to explore and, lastly, to improve my writing English skills.

Category: Extended Essay | LEAVE A COMMENT
November 5

PSE reflection

Has the positivity challenge had an impact? Have you considered different ways to view happiness? Has any of this changed your outlook? Are you still a cynic? Tell us. Remember, journalling about a positive experience can be beneficial, and failing that, having a good moan also feels good! Reading one of the articles below might help you prompt your thinking.

 

After having experienced our first term of school, I can definitely say that our PSE classes with Mr. Lacey helped me to have a more positive approach towards challenges. This allowed me to enjoy the journey more than just enjoy the result. I am really happy about the opportunities we had this year.

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October 14

Changing the world through photography reflection #2 LO-4,1

As the activity season is coming to an end, I can definitely say that the experience in the photography club allowed me to develop my areas of interest and made me more aware of the things I need to improve. I had the possibility of challenging myself and grow as a person and I think this is the best learning outcome I had from this experience.  In addition, I developed my social and collaborative skills as I was always working with someone else in different projects. We had the opportunity to give feedback to one another and get better and better every time. Therefore, I would say that this experience gave me the skills to be a good photographer that could impact people with her pictures and eventually change the world! Take a look at some of the pictures I took during my last holiday in the Philippines! These are the fruits of my work!

 

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September 28

Changing the world through photography reflection #1 LO-7,2

To start my G12 year, I decided to join the photography club lead by Mr. Caleb. I wanted to experience something that I had not done before but that at the same time interested me, therefore, I chose to do photography. After the first few sessions, I developed my knowledge in photography a lot as not only we are able to try our skills on the field (Mr. Caleb let us go outside and take some pictures) but were also learned the theory behind it as well as some professional useful techniques. We have been told that soon we are going to start our own project and I am looking forward to that. I am really interested in starting a project that could show people the food waste occurring every day at lunch and persuade my audience to limitate it. I also appreciated the group activities we did during these last few meetings are they allowed me to develop my collaboration skills.

To conclude, I am looking forward to continuing my experience!! I will keep you updated!

Below are some pictures that our teacher asked us to click to practice the subject at the corner and different angles techniques!

Gilda

Different angles:

Subject at the corner:

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September 24

Reflective conversation #2

So far, I could say my research has been partially successful. After the first submission, my supervisor made me aware that adding my personal experience when justifying my points throughout my paper depart from the actual purpose of “doing research”, therefore, he suggested to wider my bibliography list and to change the structure of the paper. As a matter of fact, I decided to extend my sources and increase the number of sections in the paper in order to make my research more specific and focused. During the process, I had the opportunity to learn about interesting insights about my culture as well as to deepen my understanding of the origin of the traditions that are parts of my everyday life. Since my research was focused on culture and traditions, most of the information I was able to find was coming from non-academic sources, hence it took me a while to be able to find good sources to use. 

Category: Extended Essay | LEAVE A COMMENT
May 19

IFP Timor Lest #6 LO-1,2,3,4

Sunday, 19th May 2019

The IFP conference in Timor Lest is coming soon! Lots are the things to do and time is flying so fast! To keep up with our work we divided ourselves into few groups. I am involved in the group in charge of the applicant selection and we recently got all the application back! Each one of us read 21 applications approx. and marked them following four criteria: Self-awareness, Originality, Commitment, and Enthusiasm.

My experience in IFP so far has been really interesting and eye-opening. In the process of planning for the conference, I had the opportunity to put into practice all the concepts I learned during seasons 1 and 2. The applicant selection required a lot of previous preparation and effort. However, once the all process was completed and we had the list of the participants to the conference I felt all my efforts were worth it.

In the end, I can say that before starting the planning process, one of my weaknesses was the fact that I had to be more conscious of deadlines. However, during the process, the others and I tried to set some internal deadlines and we all met them! Therefore, I can definitely say this experience so far made me grew a lot and I am sure it will keep being food for my thoughts.

I am really excited about the conference in June!

Here is a pic of us!

Gilda

Category: CAS, IFP Timor Leste | LEAVE A COMMENT
May 17

PPIS local service #2, LO-2,4,5,6,7

Friday, 17th of May 2019

Today I had the first session of my new service with the kids.  Even though it was my first time and I was still confused about how the session was going to work, it went really good. At the beginning of the session, there was a little bit of confusion because of some misunderstanding between some of us. However,  I tried my best to engage with the children and entertain them while the others were resolving the problems that came up. I was really happy to see that the kids were really interested and engaged and it was easy for me to start a conversation with them. I sang one dance I knew from my Scouting group back home and I was pleased to see that the kids were following me without any problem. In addition, one of the things I realized about myself is that  I can easily adapt to new situations and people.

After the session, the others and I took some minutes to reflect after the session and, during the discussion, we all agreed that our actions are really impacting the kids and making a difference for them. All the kids are coming from a difficult background and coming to UWC is, for them, a way to have a break with their difficult realities. In addition, their purity, excitement and happiness helped us realize what is really important in life, especially in this period where we are all busy with IAs and EE assignments.

The differences I found between Lighthouse and  PPIS childcare is that, in the case of Lighthouse, the activities we were able to do were a lot less. This because the children had some sight/hear impairments and they were really sensible to shocks of any types. On the other hand, for PPIS we have a wider range of activities we can do making the planning of the sessions exciting.

I am really happy to continue my service experience with kids and, so far, I really enjoyed my short experience in PPIS.

Gilda

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May 10

From Lighthouse to PPIS #1 LO-3

Friday, 10th May 2019

I recently changed my subject, therefore, because of a clash in the timetable I had to change my service. For most of the year, I was in Lighthouse motor skills, a service that was focusing on improving the motor skills of some kids with sight/hear disabilities through activities and games organized by us. This experience has been incredible for me, I really really enjoyed it and that is why I wanted to continue my service journey with something related to kids. I got to know PPIS thanks to some of my friends that were involved in it and described it has a really good opportunity of growth. In addition, some of the people involved in the service are my friends and this made the change easier for me.

The expectations for the new service were quite high, especially because I was coming from a really good experience with the kids in Lighthouse. This afternoon I had the first session. Unfortunately, the kids were not there because the teacher that was supposed to bring them got injured. However, during the session, I had the chance to ask my friends and the teachers in charge more about the service and the kids. Even though I was new to the service, everyone was really nice to me and patiently explained what are the expectations for each session. I can definitely say I am really excited to have my first session with them next week. I am looking forward to meeting the kids and playing with them, especially because my friends told me that they love dancing and singing with them. I hope I will able to achieve the expectations and build strong relationships like the ones I had with the kids of Lighthouse.

Gilda

Category: CAS, PPIS | LEAVE A COMMENT