Yesterday we had the first MUN meeting and I’m in advanced now so I’m a bit apprehensive as I feel like everyone else is better than me at debate. However, I’m very excited as this is the year they’ll start grooming us to run the club. I’m also very excited as the first conference this year I’ll be debating on Trump’s first 100 days in office, and if as a committee we can create a viable solution that would be wonderful. However due to the issues of sovereignty and so on, most likely our resolutions will not be as great as I hoped. By the end of the year I hope to be confident in debate and better at formulating well worded arguments. Learning outcome one is to “Identify their own strengths and develop areas for growth.”. I know that I’m in advanced now, and that got me to thinking about what my strengths are. In this reflection I realized that I tend to have a good grasp of the issues we debate. I’m good at writing resolutions that tackle the issues, and I’m good at writing speeches. I also have a lot of experience with MUN, and as a result know procedure rather well. However, there are some areas for growth. I’m extremely insecure in MUN which is why it took me a while to figure out why I’m in advanced. This insecurity makes me stutter when making speeches and blank in the middle of debate. This never happens when I’m speaking in front of crowds or debating someone outside of MUN. It only happens when I have to debate in MUN form. I also don’t have very extensive knowledge of random UN treaties and statistics. On top of that, I don’t read the news as much as I could and should. However, these are all things I can improve over the course of the MUN year.
LO1
The Beginning of Cross Country (LO1)
At this point in the year, I’ve been to only three cross country practices. To be honest they’ve been kind of intimidating. I’ve been running to get ready, but this is my first time really doing cross country and I’m very far outside of my comfort zone. It can be kind of discouraging because everyone’s a lot faster than me, but I think I can start keeping up better. In the future, I hope to be more confident in myself and my ability to face challenges. Maybe I’ll even be excited about doing sport next year. In the first learning outcome students are supposed to “Identify their own strengths and develop areas for growth”. I definitely know that I have areas for growth here. My track record in sport isn’t necessarily a great one. Not only do I need to develop my confidence, but also my perseverance. My general pattern is that I get really into a sport, I get really committed, and I work really hard, challenging myself a lot. That is a strength. However, those periods tend not to last for more than a couple weeks. Sometimes they last a couple months. So, a strength would be my ability to challenge myself and really do a sport to the best of my ability. However, one area for growth is my perseverance. If I’m still going to two practices a week by the end of the season it would be a nice change. An even better thing would be if I could continue exercising after the season. Lastly, even if I’m nowhere as good as the other kids on the team, I’m a lot better than I was in ninth grade, and I think that is also a strength because I was able to work on exercising on my own. I exercised without a team, even if it wasn’t as regular as possible.