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REFLECTIONS
Music Therapy with Apex Harmony Lodge 2021 During Reflection
Kahaani 2021 After Reflection
Plan for Studying
In order to make my studying more efficient, I need to change some of my approaches to studying. During PSE we looked at some effective studying habits and ones such as retrieval practice and spaced practice would be most beneficial for me I think. I am used to highlighting and taking notes which the infographic says is actually unhelpful in some cases. I will make a study schedule to aid in sticking to these new studying tactics while also maintaining time for myself and my family.
PSE – My Definitions and Reflection
What is Self Advocacy?
The ability to speak for yourself, your strengths, and what is important to you.
What is Self Knowledge?
Understanding of one’s own capabilities, skills, feelings, and motives.
What is “Informed-Decisions”?
Making decisions after being aware of all possible outcomes, consequences, repercussions, potential benefits, etc.
What is Agency?
The capacity of individuals to act independently and make their own choices.
What is Choice?
Making decisions knowing both options provided.
What is a Career?
A profession for which one trains and usually is fairly permanent.
What are Goals and Targets, and Long and Short Term Planning?
Goals and targets are objectives one hopes to achieve. Long and short term planning can be a means to achieve our goals as one can plan their future into what is achievable currently and what will be achievable in the long run.
Where does a CV fall under?
I think a CV or resume falls under self-advocacy as you’re speaking about your strengths and abilities.
Where do relationship bank accounts fall under?
I think those fall under self-knowledge and informed decisions as you’re more aware of how you believe you should maintain relationships and the choices involved in making those decisions.
Where do professional and personal relationships fall under?
I think these types of relationships, similar to relationship bank accounts, fall under self-knowledge and informed decisions. Your knowledge about your own feelings etc affects decisions regarding different types of relationships.
Where does the Myers-Briggs and Holland Code test fall under?
I think it falls under self-knowledge and self-advocacy as you get to understand your feelings and motives better while also seeing some strengths you might not have noticed before.
Reflection of the Year so far:
I think I’ve been most proud of leading Kahaani this year. Leadership and dance are two things I truly value and being able to proudly showcase that has been my highlight. A somewhat unexpected challenge this year has been all the adjustments we as a community have needed to make due to COVID-19 restrictions such as social distancing in dances, lunch, and classrooms. I found the workload from IB pretty challenging but I was able to overcome it by using organizational and planning techniques to help beat the stress. I would like to focus more on Math and French as subjects. Those are my least favourite subjects therefore I tend to spend the least amount of time possible on them but I want to change that attitude in the coming future so I can flourish in those subjects. I would definitely continue to tell myself to continue to time-manage effectively and get enough sleep. Also to have enough time for myself to just have a break sometimes would be helpful. I want to set a goal that will ensure this time for myself and my family while also maintaining enough time for my studies and activities.
What is Success?
I think success is as simple as having peace of mind. The medium through which that success manifests itself may vary significantly amongst different individuals. Some may believe success is the number of accomplishments they achieve whereas others may measure it by their current happiness. Success is something that is extremely subjective and may look vastly different between individuals. For me, success is being content with my current situation and being proud of myself. Those are some things that I value highly and therefore they contibute to my idea of success.
What Lockdown Had Taught Me About The Environment
Being in lockdown, I have properly been able to see and understand the actual damage we cause to the environment on a day to day basis. Because of the lockdown regulations all around the world, there has been a huge reduction in carbon emissions and pollution. This really shed a light on the massive environmental impact of our everyday habits and is allowing us to be more conscious of how much energy we consume.
Carbon emissions have been reduced because of many things. Due to travel restrictions, there have been less frequent airplanes flying which have helped cut down CO2 emissions. Factories that pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere have been closed, fewer people driving cars, and many more.
What I find the disheartening part to be is that experts conclude for carbon emissions to rise and actually increase as we slowly return back to work. Since there has been a delay in most industries, firms will need to work even harder to profit, this means more consumption of resources at a higher rate leading to increased CO2 emissions. I just hope that while it is inevitable for companies to use resources at a higher rate, in an attempt to combat that, the general public will be more mindful of their consumption and keep an eye on it in an effort to save our planet.
What Lockdown Is Teaching Me About Family
Surprisingly enough, the one aspect of life I feel as though hasn’t been affected by the pandemic is my family life. My parents are huge believers in bonding time and spending time with each other no matter the circumstance, whether is family game or movie night or debating different topics, we’ve always had time for each other. This lockdown is somewhat similar to what my family life would look like during study leave and the holidays. Of course, there are times of frustration between myself and other family members but if there is one thing to take away from staying at home during this virus outbreak is communication.
As cheesy as it sounds, the second my family and I learned to effectively communicate our reasons behind our exasperation it was as if most of our problems just disappeared. Since I’m not the best as expressing true emotions to the people around me, this did take a bit of work from my family and me, however, they were encouraging and understanding if I did have an outburst. Instead of lashing back, they’d realize that I was having trouble expressing frustrations since they too would be placed in a similar situation from time to time. We all tried our best to understand that we were irritated not because of each other but because of the circumstances we’re in.
I don’t think this pandemic has affected my family life much, instead, it has actually strengthened our communicative skills and in a way reinforced our familial bond.
AMK Minds Reflection
While participating in this service, I was able to learn about and how to interact with people who have ID. This was a new area of learning for me and I got to apply the new-found knowledge when meeting with our clients. This was incredibly eye-opening as I really got to have a deeper understanding of people who are different from me and allowed me to interact with a whole new group of people. I think a shortcoming was that it was quite far so it took some time to reach the centre and return which didn’t allow much time for us to actually teach them new skills and interact with them, however, I think that in the future we could use the long travel time to discuss what we learned in the previous session and how we can improve, etc. Another reason could be that the clients may not have that much stamina to learn for a longer period of time. This was an enjoyable service for me as I was able to use skills that I usually wouldn’t, which allowed me to step out of my comfort zone. I would definitely consider doing a service like this again.
Personal Statement
This year has been extremely enjoyable and exciting for me. Whether it be making new friends or being faced with a challenge I enjoyed most parts of it and have been able to overcome the stressful parts.
One of my main goals for the future is to be successful. Success for me means being happy, being in a stable position, being healthy and also having good relations with my friends and families. I am currently aware of my future careers but I think I want to do something related to dance, cooking or humanity. These are all my passions, therefore, I want to pursue these as future careers.
My goals were also to be more organized not only in terms of getting all my materials to school but also in organizing my time effectively so I don’t get too stressed when tests and assessments are due. I think I have achieved this goal pretty well as I have used the technique of to-do lists. The to-do list is on a board in front of my desk and serves as a physical reminder of the things I need to do and proved to be extremely helpful as I have found that I have been more organized so I definitely think I’m going to continue using this method since it has been quite effective.
However, it has been quite difficult to manage my time effectively during exam season or when there’s a lot of tests/assessments due in a week. I’ve found myself getting extremely stressed and having a lot of pressure to get all my work done by the deadline. I’ve understood that this is usually caused by me procrastinating and leaving my work till the last minute and that usually results in a negative impact on me. For the weeks leading up to exams, I made sure that I studied for my exams in the order that I would be taking them and I made sure that I was well prepared for each exam before moving on to preparing for the next one. That method proved to be successful as I felt well prepared and ready for my exams and am quite happy with the results.
I think one of my personal strengths is my confidence. I was able to display this strength through all my performances throughout the year. Culturama, Kahaani, The Dance Showcase and ITP recitals really help me develop my confidence and display it. I think another one of my strengths is being able to communicate well. I was able to showcase this through my services and GC and also all the activities I was part of. The GC that I was part of (Daraja Academy) gave me several opportunities to develop this skill because of the several events that we held throughout the year (Run for Rights, Family Festival, Service Expo, etc) and communication within the GC and to people outside of it was vital in order for the events to go smoothly. In my service, I also got the chance to display my communication skills by being the communications officer and organizing activities each week and coordinating with the service department.
Overall I think this has been a quite successful year as I have been able to develop and discover several new skills and also make lots of new friends. I definitely think compared to previous years I was able to befriend more people and expand my friendship group to people who I wouldn’t usually talk to. While there were challenging bits where things got a bit hectic in the year, I managed to work past them and learn from them to make sure I would be able to overcome them easily if they would come back again. I am looking forward to continuing to getting know more of my classmates next year and hopefully tackling more challenges and experiencing new things.