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Category Archives: CAS
CAS Second Reflection Voleyball
In this second reflection, I will be reflecting on the progress I have made on the goals I set for myself during the start of the sports season. It has been 3 months since the volleyball season has started and due to the unusual situation going on with the coronavirus, it has been very difficult to perform well during training due to the various restrictions. My goal is to become the captain of the volleyball team for our next year’s season. I was very fortunate as an opportunity came up in which I was offered along with some of my teammates the chance to coach the middle school boys team. However, a big challenge was that the middle school team trains from 6:30-7:30 in the morning on Thursdays. This is especially problematic as I have a local service from 6:30-8:30 in the night. This means that I would be in school for 14 hours!!
I had to get around this challenge by learning how to organize myself so that I could make the most use of the time I had on Thursdays. The first step I took was to organize all my bags and clothes from the night before so that I could wake up at a later time which would let me have more sleep. I also had to be very efficient in the morning as I had to do my yoga workout, eat my breakfast shower, and get ready all in the span of 30 minutes. I have to get to school by 6:15 to help set up the nets so that the middle schoolers would have longer to train. I think that this experience has taught me a lot of useful skills such as how to planning training sessions, leading people directly, and being able to communicate effectively, which is especially challenging as middle schoolers have a very low attention span.
I think that this will help me in achieving my goal to obtain a leadership position in my team as I can transfer many of the skills from my experiences coaching to help lead my current team like managing drills and, coaching new players who might want to join our team.
Another goal I want to adopt is to work more collaboratively with my peers in the SEASAC team so that we can help provide a better experience for the middle schoolers. Our current roster is made up of mainly grade 11s which means that once we graduate, our team will not have any players to represent us. This is why it is essential that we do a good job with coaching the middle schoolers as they will be the next generation of players that will play for our school.
CAS Activity Initial Reflection- Voleyball
In this post, I will be reflecting on some of my initial thoughts on one of the activities that make up my CAS Criteria which is volleyball. I have now been playing volleyball for almost 3 years and I have been a member of the SEASAC team for the last two years. One sad happening is that due to the coronavirus, all the big tournaments we were supposed to play in have been canceled. Regardless of this, I still feel that I need to stay fully committed and focused so that I can be in the best shape for next year’s tournament. I think that in the few pieces of training we have had so far, I have been able to persevere through challenges such as having to work in bubbles of 5 people only. We have also been short on time as we have to wipe down the balls after use this has led to more intensive lessons that require more effort. I have tried to keep our team’s morale up as a whole by always making sure to encourage everyone. (without physical contact…)
One thing I also want to work on for this season is to improve my collaboration skill with my coaches. I currently have two new coaches in charge of the team and I think that to create the best environment for everyone to thrive in, I need to be able to collaborate with them without creating any barriers. One way I have been doing this is by treating them and talking to them as ‘friends’ rather than as coaches. I think that this is working really well so far as I can tell they appreciate being treated as regular humans rather than the ominous presence one may normally associate coaches with. This has also helped instill a sense of trust between the coaches and our team which I feel will help us immensely once we get into playing tournaments.
I hope to continue with the progress I am currently making. My main goal for this season is to become the captain of the team by next year. I aim to this by being a leader for my teammates on and off the court. I have already shown some of these skills through my encouraging attitude during training sessions.
CAS Activity Inital Reflection- Gym
For the activity portion, I have decided to reflect on my recent efforts in the gym. I have been going to the gym for the last two and a half months and I have done so as my goal is to get a better-looking physique. I have been doing a lot of research by watching youtube videos to help improve my technique and this has been effective as I have noticed an improvement in the number of reps I can perform of exercises.
My goal when I started to go to the gym was to gain 12kg of pure muscle mass. I have currently gained 8kg and I aim to keep bulking in the gym until the end of November. I think that this definitely a realistic goal as I have seen many other individuals on the internet who have been able to gain the same amount of weight in a similar time frame. I understand that everyone’s body works differently and thus I do not expect my progress to be exactly similar to other people’s. My main aim is to make sure that I am putting in my best effort with every visit to the gym. I think that this goal is important as I feel that my self-confidence used to be really low due to the fact that I was ashamed of the way my body looked. As I started going to the gym and gaining weight, many people around me noticed an immediate difference in my happiness. As my self-confidence slowly grew, I noticed that I was able to talk to more people and make new friends which have significantly improved my mental health.
Some of my strengths that have helped me do a better job in achieving this goal are my resilience and communication. Having a lot of resilience has helped me as even in moments where I feel like my body is not changing or when others make fun of my efforts to improve myself. I am able to ignore those negative thoughts and keep pushing myself forward. Communication has played an immense role in my development in the gym. I have met a whole new community of friends in the gym and everyone there has supported me to help achieve my goal. Through my ability to listen and work with others, I have been able to gain a plethora of knowledge regarding certain exercises and techniques that will help improve my time in the gym. One example of this was when my friend Fynn, who graduated last year, thought me a new grip on my bench press which has helped me increased the number of reps I can do which allows me to improve my muscle growth.
This goal is easily measurable as I can use a weighing scale to track my progress throughout the entire journey.
Below is an image of me doing my pull workout in which I work my back and biceps.
CAS Service Initial Reflection- Jakarta Street Kids
This is my initial reflection on the service aspect of my CAS profile. I have chosen to do the Global Concern (GC) Jakarta Street Kids, which aims to provide funds to help educate the children trash pickers in Jakarta, Indonesia. I have been a member of the service group for 2 years and in fact, I am also the chair of the GC which means that I can play a much more influential role in terms of how the GC operates. This will also allow me to enhance my leadership and collaborative skills as I will be in a situation where I have to manage deadlines and regularly organize the members of the GC.
So far in the first few meetings, the group morale has been somewhat low due to the Coronavirus preventing us from doing many of the exciting things we would normally do like plan events, organize our funds and speak to the kids we help from Jakarta! However, I look at this challenge with an optimistic approach as this unfamiliar situation will help boost my adaptive skills as I will be forced to think out of the box to manage the GC.
One of the things I aim to work on is to improve the efficiency of my GC. During the last two years of being a member of the GC, I have noticed various instances where we could have done more work by perhaps, just changing the way did a certain task. I am to use this experience to improve the experience for everyone in my GC. I think that this is a realistic and attainable goal as I have already come up with ideas like introducing more leadership positions which have helped break down responsibilities further. This has led to more productive and focused meetings. However, due to the coronavirus, tracking this goal will be very hard as we will not be able to run events/fundraisers, which are great indicators of the productivity of our GC. Thus, I must think of other ways to be able to measure this goal.