CAS Reflections

Activity Wall Climbing

Date August 24th, 2019

Where Universidad Pre Lima

Learning Outcomes

2. Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken.

4. Show commitment & perseverance in CAS experiences.

5. Demonstrate the skills & recognize the benefits of working collaboratively.

Wall climbing is part of my daily life. At least three times a week, for around three hours, I spend my time at the Universidad Pre Lima. There, for the past two years, I’ve been amongst a group of university students and other friends of mine who make training all the more fun.

But what’s most helpful of having these people around, is how we help motivate and challenge each other. Whenever someone’s around the end of their route we cheer them on, whenever someone didn’t feel like they tried their best, we joke around so it doesn’t feel so difficult, and whenever someone’s confused, we help them understand the route. Personally, that’s been an aspect of my training that I always look forward to, and it’s something that’s gotten me through these past two years when I’ve struggled.

Every time I have to remind myself why I love climbing so much, I strengthen my commitment towards it. When homework gets overwhelming or when I have people depending on me to work on projects, climbing’s an escape that allows me to keep going—in work and in the sport. Climbing’s a break in the middle of all that stress, and it allows me to reflect on why I keep climbing

With every time I go climbing—just like I did this Wednesday—I practice trying my best at it. From that, I learn to channel that same feeling I get, to move forward with all my other projects (be it personal or for school). I learn from climbing and apply those lessons to my school life, meaning that: cooperatively, through commitment, and by carrying out with challenges, I've combined these two areas of my life to make my junior year a little easier.

Service CAS Workshop

Date September 14, 2019

Where Gabriela Mistral (Colegio)

Learning Outcomes

1. Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth

4. Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences.

6. Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance.

This workshop was focused on: Working with students so they could create a website (using weekly), where they could share their thoughts, feelings, and goals. Be it about life, school, their friends and family, anything. We wanted to make sure they had a platform where they could go to, to remind themselves of how much their worth, what they value in life, and what they can accomplish.

And although I knew what we were going to do, I had no expectations and I was very nervous. I wasn’t aware of how many people we were going to work with, I felt super awkward, and I didn’t know how I was going to teach these students anything. Very doubtful, was basically my emotional state.

But, weirdly, I’m glad to have had that feeling. I didn’t have any expectations and whenever I’m like that I’m almost always transparent—I don’t try to put on a filter or fake anything I say or do—I’m 100% myself, it's like a strength of mine. And I think I got that feeling from the girls I was working with as well.

The workshop ended up being around 8-9 girls, each member of the CAS team partnering with one girl, and spending around 2 hours with them. I ended up working with a girl named Sol. I loved talking to her, sharing worries and passions of ours, laughing, making jokes with her friends, talking about literature, and what we liked from the workshop.

It was an experience that reminded me why I'm committed to practicing CAS, it reminded me of the irreplaceable experiences I've always had with every visit or workshop I've been a part of. It showed me directly, again, the effects of global issues that I hear of every day. I love practicing the most mundane way of connecting and impacting global issues: sharing, talking, and being there for someone. It reminds me to continue practicing that, and to continue trying my best to connect with others.

Creativity Operación Mamá Victoria: Proyectos Artísticos

Date November 2nd, 2019

Where Hogar de la Esperanza--Mamá Victoria

Learning Outcomes

4. Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences.

7. Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions.

3. Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience.

Something we had planned amongst the cabinet of Operación Mamá Victoria (which we introduced during today's visit), are "Artistic Projects": For part of November and December, we want the kids to work amongst their tribes (groups we established between members of the club and the kids) to create a project. A project that is in any way artistic with a Christmas theme. We gave the kids a free canvas: It could be a song, a dance, a painting or drawing, or an act.

We started planning this because we wanted to establish a piece of work that all of us could collaborate on (with our tribes), with the purpose of bringing everyone closer together, committing the kids and their captains to the experience, and knowing that this was a piece of work that they could call their own. Something they worked hard on and that they could have fun with. From these ideas, we then focused on themes, types of projects, and we ended up landing with the ideas previously mentioned.

In terms of the club, we really value this accomplishment because we've found a way to include everyone, not just through games or helping kids with their homework, but through collaborative work, through which members can strengthen their commitment to the club and through which we can evaluate the kids' creativity and cooperation.

Service Operación Mamá Victoria

Date November 2nd, 2019

Where Hogar de la Esperanza--Mamá Victoria

Learning Outcomes

1. Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth.

2. Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken

5. Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively

I didn't know what to expect when forming a new, official FDR club. I wasn't sure what my end-result would be by the end of the semester, nor what the process was going to be like. Meaning, that this reflection is not just based on this visit, but on visits from this whole semester. It's based on the three learning outcomes that have resonated the most with me after these past four months: Recognizing the strengths and weaknesses our group has to then build upon them, Understanding the challenges we face with these kids, with Nely (the manager of the home), and amongst our own group, and finally, Understanding the benefits of working together as a group and strengthening those skills to make our group more connected and productive with each visit.

One of the main aspects I recognized, were the strengths our club holds as a whole: communication and commitment. Not even from the beginning did I feel like we had a problem with brainstorming and sharing ideas with every visit. Whatever we needed to tell each other was told in a respectful environment, and we have always built upon each other's ideas. In addition, the commitment I saw in every person was much better than I expected. I thought that gathering people for visits at 8:15 in the morning was going to be a struggle, but it ended up being that we had more members to go around. Although we have had a few issues every now and then, it was very comforting to understand that each member's commitment to the club wasn't a real issue.

From recognizing those challenges, it's important that we addressed them and tried to improve them. This was mainly about presence, organization, and preparation. From the start we had rules, and from then we created more guidelines, that focused on being present with everyone at the home. These focused on no use of phones, on engaging with the kids as much as possible, on collaborating with your peers,

and on following the guidelines we created for each visit. We also prioritized organization, an area to improve on specifically for our cabinet. We needed to be organized with the plans for every visit, with the materials certain people were responsible to bring, with special visits (events) we wanted to include over the semester, and also with how we’d support the club financially (ex. through bake sales, by selling chocotejas, etc). And finally, we needed to focus on preparation. One thing was to be organized, with responsibilities outlined for each member, and another was to carry through with them, ensure that members were aware of the commitment they not only shared to the club but to specific members as well. For example, we worked on punctuality—being at school every Saturday morning at the right time, and with everything they were possibly required to bring—as well as being ready to participate in the guidelines we set out for every visit.

Last but not least, probably the biggest learning outcome that came out of this semester, was learning the skills and benefits of our club members working as a whole. When Operación Mamá Victoria first started, it was mainly an individual project, it hadn’t been founded by many people and never that many people were involved. The idea of having more people inputting to the club’s growth was alien to me. For that reason, working with more people was super helpful: More ideas were heard, the kids had a lot more fun, and every meeting and visit became progressively more productive.

Service Baking cookies for doctors

Date April 15th, 2020

Where My apartment --> Jacksonville Memorial Hospital

Learning Outcomes

4. Show commitment to & perseverance in CAS experiences.
6. Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance.
7. Recognize & consider ethics of choices and actions.

I love to bake. Aside from the fact that I can eat whatever food comes to mind, I love that I'm making food for others and that they're just glad to have something made for them. I think everyone has that feeling when it comes to food. They appreciate it, as well as whoever put in their time to make it for them. So as other things that seem selfless, this was a fun and selfish thing to do. :))

As the first learning outcome, I showed commitment and perseverance throughout this experience, because this wasn't actually my first batch of cookies. I had attempted to make Brown Butter Toffee Cookies firstly, and as you can tell by the following photos--I was too embarrassed to take photos of them at the time and fully rejected them ever reaching the public. Of course, that was for five minutes and then I realized that I wasn't going to waste food, therefore my mother chose--against my will--to bring those terrifying batch of cookies to the doctors at Jacksonville Memorial Hospital (where she works). Although they appreciated them and she came back with no cookies in hand, it was my duty to redeem myself and make much better cookies than the ones those doctors got.

As a result, I committed myself to a new recipe: Ginger Molasses Cookies. I forever dreamt of ones my beautiful friend Erin once made, and as a token to those cookies, I made ones off a recipe online. After baking probably around 30-40 cookies, I wrapped them up in plastic wrapper and shipped them off with my mother for her to bring them to work fresh that day. Thankfully, they were much tastier than the previous recipe and consequently, I received positive comments from my mother's friends. It was definitely worth the commitment.

Furthermore, a second learning outcome from this experience was, what I would call: an indirect way to show my appreciation for the unbelievable decisions doctors make every day to go to work. This learning outcome will easily merge into the third one I've mentioned, referring to how I've recognized the ethics of my choices and actions behind baking these cookies. It sounds very silly, but it's basically a random act of kindness or generosity..? Whatever you want to call it, personally I just see it as one of the small ways in which anyone can make anyone's day better. Food has a way of doing that. I've always loved to share whatever baked goods I had prepared--by bringing them to school, or by filling up my friends and family members with desserts over the weekends. Now, the main difference is just how much doctors really deserve anything that can brighten up there day, or their patients' days. This is of course, including my mother. She is a pediatrician among many of her coworkers, who deals with kids whom she won't know, in most cases, what they have. Testing isn't available here, so regardless of the worse possibilities, there isn't much that can be done before it becomes more severe. Because there aren't any other options right now. Florida, although being one of the worst states in the country, is where it isn't taken seriously.

All of that is tangled together: Make small choices to cheer up our daily heroes, because now more than ever, they don't have a minute to rest.

Activity & Creativity Coach Counseling

Date April 15th, 2020

Where My apartment (over Zoom)

Learning Outcomes

1. Identify own strengths & develop areas for growth.
5. Demonstrate the skills & recognize the benefits of working collaboratively.
6. Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance.

Throughout this quarantine, my climbing coach has been committed to keeping his students engaged. He's sent us videos about stretching, dynamic exercises, mobility exercises, as well as messages from other international coaches and schedulings for meetings with them. Out of all this, there was a session scheduled yesterday (Wednesday, April 15th), at 7:30 pm, for counseling. Specifically, sports-counseling, and the counselor being Jessica Glados Peschiera.

Without getting into too much detail, she is a well-known life coach but she mainly specializes in coaching athletes. In this sense, she doesn't work on athletes' physical evaluations but more so on any psychological issues they may be dealing with, that prevent them from performing at their best. And because quarantine has probably involved a lot of self-reflection for a lot of people, it seems that my coach took advantage of that time and advised us to have a meeting with her.

What's important to mention is that Glados is less able in the climbing world, she is not an expert in this field. But that was helpful because she didn't focus on specifics. In a way, I was able to distance myself from the objective and therefore be able to look more clearly at the journey it takes to get there.

As my first learning outcome of this meeting, I learned more about what my strengths are and how I can still improve upon them, as well as areas of mine that are especially in need of growth. This is especially because of how she explained a few things that caused us all to inquire about those ideas:

She elaborated on how we all have little things that we're always telling ourselves, sometimes even before starting that journey. Things that blocked us from achieving any sort of motivation. And following that, she told us to write down four lists on a paper: our goals, our achievements, our needed improvements, and our fears.

Understanding that I wasn't the only one to have irrational fears--those things I'd tell myself that undermined my possibilities--and then writing it all down on a piece of paper, just to realize that one list carried everything I ever thought..? It was kind of liberating. Weirdly. It just carried away all the power those things had. Especially by discussing it, emphasizing only more the barriers between all those sections. And that strongly correlates with my second learning outcome from this experience: I realized a lot of the skills and benefits there were as a result of working collaboratively. I realized that I did have things to improve upon, that I had accomplishments, that there was something I was striving for. It made things easier to understand, and it opened up communication between my coach and me, as well as with other climbers I train with.

Basically, that request kind of wrapped the meaning into pointing out those little concerns of ours. It was like an introduction to what we didn't realize blocked our capability to pursue the objective.

In conclusion to this experience, I learned a little more about the importance of self-reflection, and how you just need to evaluate certain areas of your life. Especially in ones like this one, where I hadn't really thought about evaluating what I did in climbing. Hence, my last learning outcome.

I hadn't thought about "thinking over" climbing. When really, the fact was that multiple parts of my mind were not on the same page. It was like battling with myself, all during the process of reaching my objective, which could make me ultimately lose it. It was important for me to engage with this other side I hadn't explored, and which really does mind-block a lot of people in the world. It takes a moment to step back and get some perspective--cause you're doing what you love and you should love that you're doing it. It's not all about the struggle.

Activity Dancing

Date May 1st, 2020

Where My apartment

Learning Outcomes

1. Identify own strengths & develop areas for growth.

2. Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken.
3. Demonstrate how to initiate & plan a CAS experience.

For the most part, I've basically been in a "work-hibernation" state: I'm in a room, 24/7, all day and every day, going through assignments and assessments, dying. Genuinely. And it took me about two months to realize that, even if it cost me time to work, something may help me to separate time to not think about anything. Or at the very least, to think about one thing, and one thing only, without any other thoughts zipping through my head. So, I started dancing more. It's always been an output for me to just focus on one thing. Just one. And I thought that could be helpful in some way. It was, and I ended up with the following learning outcomes.

First of all, as much as any normal human being might just take this activity as a way to let loose and not really worry about what they're doing, in my case, I do still look at what I could improve in dancing and what I think I'm doing well. But I'm not focusing on this time as a way to necessarily learn something specific or to recurringly practice moves. It's more flexible, like when I do a kind of spin or turn or do a gliding step I liked. I take that moment and repeat it, see what can come out of it. And as an example, the videos below do show some of those moments when I was just trying out something for the first time, or when I was trying to make the same thing better. This part does seem pretty vague, I get the amount of "thing"s I've used throughout this paragraph, but it ultimately comes down to that. I freestyle, and when I see something I like, I repeat it, see where it goes and/or see where that could've been better. I pick a moment, and I could continue the move or go back to it and do it again. Essentially, that's where I see things that I could improve on and things that I've done pretty well.

As a following learning outcome, I've definitely recognized the challenge it is for me to just unplug. To think of taking time off and spending whatever amount of songs to simply focus on me and whatever creativity I get out of it, can be stressful. Multiple times I've thought to simply keep working, "not waste any time" and take advantage of what I have before it starts getting dark, and tomorrow comes along with more assignments and more work that I feel like 24 hours isn't enough for. So for the most part, I've usually been convinced to abide by this and think that there'll be time for other stuff later. But then I wonder--what's the harm? Even in school I could spend time with friends and think of stuff other than work. Why should this be any different... just to take some time for myself?

I repeat this over in my head. Every. Single. Time. Every single time I think of getting up and thinking of something else, applying my focus elsewhere, I repeat the same cycle over and over again. As an extremely stubborn and (I guess?) hard-working person, I can't stand to move around too much from my work. And this has stood true especially now, with my grades and big assessments, and my family and... BUT. There's always that "but". Because--I think, that at the very least--I'll establish this time I take, as the time to allow my selfishness come through, and as a result, to simply dance because I feel like it.

After all this, and this has all been pretty accurately stated through the same order by which I learned each outcome, I learned to organize my time for dancing. And by that, I mean that I considered little blocks of time, every day, for dance. In a way, it seems kind of ridiculous..? I mean, it's usually something that can be assumed to be done at any time, and it's not really necessary to make time for it, y'know..? That's kind of how I see it in my brain sometimes, all vague and messy. But weirdly, in this case, I realized that it was pretty useful. Not in every circumstance, but for the most part, it has been. It's usually during the evening when easily my family members are resting and everyone's kind of doing their own thing. And noticing that, as well as organizing time here to do the same, hasn't necessarily helped me with organization, but more so just given me permission to allow myself to spend this time on something different. I started it one day when I just felt like playing Corny by Rema, and I decided to go along with that every few days until I committed to it. Seeing how it made me happier than I was before, helped me make that decision.

Activity Walking my dog

Date May 3rd, 2020

Where My apartment complex

Learning Outcomes

3. Demonstrate how to initiate & plan a CAS experience.
4. Show commitment to & perseverance in CAS experiences.
7. Recognize & consider ethics of choices and actions.

As has been my last post, this little activity has been another way for me to unplug from work. Walking my dog

around my apartment complex, an activity that can take up to half an hour considering the number of times we

repeat the route, is an easy way to:

- have some time outside of (the cave that is) my apartment,

- make sure Bailey (my dog) gets a nice, long walk,

- and also to get some time for myself, alone, during the evening or the morning, whenever I really need it then.

As my first learning outcome from these walks, I've learned more about how to start and plan these kinds of CAS

experiences. In this case, it's been a benefitial decision for my family as well--I do my part in taking care of our

dog and I'm also having this time for myself--and this decision has also been a practical one, one where I've

taken a basic, daily experience and turned it into something better, with multiple purposes. Having established

all this, I planned out these little walks for a time (morning/evening) and I've carried it out, realizing the good

it did me to get out more.

From this, I showed commitment to continuing with these walks. Many times, this has turned into the typical "I-don't-have-time-to-take-out-Bailey" kind of situation. Where, with the excuse that is my work--because I was enveloped in a project, working on a big assessment, or I was finishing an assignment--I thought that I didn't have time to take out Bailey. Yet, with recognizing that this is the best I can do for myself and knowing there were time lapses that I should record for this awaiting CAS post, I pushed myself to continue doing this daily. And that's a typical responsibility that anyone goes through with a pet. I might not necessarily have more time to focus on this, but I need to contribute. So I let go of other things, I grab Bailey's leash, and I take her out.

^This idea merges with my last learning outcome: how I've recognized the ethics behind my choices and actions. Like I said, having a pet is a responsibility, and--especially with a carpeted-floor in an apartment--I need to assume that responsibility and put in my part. I love Bailey and aside from giving her the time she deserves and that she needs, I've also recognized that there's an important factor in me going out in general and having time just to myself. Dancing is my creative output, meals with my family are when we have the most fun together, and schoolwork is where I put most of my effort and where I've recently tried my hardest to prove myself--but focusing on simply walking out, with no obligations or worries, where there's just a beginning and an end to the walk, is also a peaceful time. And it helps to have that at some point throughout the day. As a result, it's been nice to realize that and continue with that in mind every day.

Activity & Creativity Dancing (including CAS Project)

Date September 4, 13, and 16, 2020

Where My apartment

Learning Outcomes

3. Demonstrate how to initiate & plan a CAS experience.
5. Demonstrate the skills & recognize the benefits of working collaboratively.
7. Recognize & consider ethics of choices and actions.

The videos I've published here range from the dates I've outlined above. During each of these, I brainstormed movements and styles for multiple songs I am going to choreograph to for my CAS Project. As a result, I've been able to recognize the learning outcomes detailed above.

First of all, with regards to learning outcome #3, each of these experiences give me a better understanding as to how I plan out a choreography and what works best for me. Each of these dates serve as pillars to guiding the kind of CAS experiences I'm going to have as I become more involved in my CAS project. This is due to the multiple approaches I attempted towards crafting the choreographies: freestyling, replicating moves, practicing multiple styles, playing off of certain techniques and movements... All of these approaches have contributed to the fresh and innovative thinking I can accomplish, despite working on the same choreography for hours. All of which, as a result, initiates the many CAS experiences I'm going to have over the course of my CAS project along with the planning I will outline for each choreography.

Second of all, with regards to learning outcome #5, I've recognized the benefits and the importance of including a new factor I've never practiced before (with my dancing): collaboration. In my CAS project, I'm practicing collaboration by working with people, first in a randomized way, and later, in a more personal and specific way. This, as a result, challenges me in the ways that I initially approach songs and in the ways that I will later improve on my choreographies. By collaborating with people in a very distanced form and then collaborating with people in a more vulnerable manner, at different points throughout the process, I am getting a very diverse experience that touches on skills and abilities I've never practiced before. For instance, I generally freestyle according to what I'm feeling at the moment and/or what kind of moves I want to practice, which is what directs me to the song I want to play. But if it's somebody else's responsibility to determine what song I choose and when, I am then forced to adapt to those circumstances, which is a challenge. It isn't natural for me, just as it isn't natural for me to go back to previous work and improve on it, which will be part of the final steps to my CAS project: being able to receive feedback on my dancing and then apply it to the song I would, for the most part, leave after having worked with it. All in all, I have practiced and will continue to practice these skills through the collaboration I undergo.

Last but not least, with regards to learning outcome #7, by being more particular to certain movements and emotions I use for a song, I've been able to analyze the reasoning behind choices I outline for myself for each dance, along with the decisions I end up making. In which case, I'm not practicing ethics that concern good or bad behavior, which is, for the most, a common understanding of ethics. What I am practicing, has to do with the kind of respect that ethics entails towards other subjects or practices. In other words, dance, in many ways, has to do with what each individual dancer believes as being the proper way to do justice to the song and what it makes them feel. Just as much as dance is a form of expression, it also serves as a reflection of a dancer's belief, the belief being that their performance is the best way the song can be visually presented. Therefore, I've been able to recognize the kind of decisions I make towards appreciating this unique presentation of ethics in my dancing.

10.

Creativity Session with my psychologist

Date September 24, 2020

Where My apartment (over Zoom)

Learning Outcomes

1. Identify own strengths & develop areas for growth.
5. Demonstrate the skills & recognize the benefits of working collaboratively.
7. Recognize & consider ethics of choices and actions.

Recently, my mother advised me to have a couple of "examination sessions" with a psychologist. I took her up on her advice and just completed my first session (and will continue to complete multiple sessions) with my psychologist.

I call these "examination sessions" because they're all about getting a sense of how my brain works. They focus on examining the ways I choose to complete simple tasks, and later on, how those kinds of decisions affect me in my day-to-day life. They lead me to ask: in what situations am I applying certain strategies, for better or for worse?

This brings me to learning outcome #1 and learning outcome #7. By being able to recognize and then examine the kinds of principles and rules I abide by in order to make decisions--in school, in my own home, socially--I'll obtain a better sense of how I work and how I want to work. Moreover, by forming an evaluation, something that will allow me to recognize the situations in which I apply certain skills and abilities, I will then be able to recognize the areas where I would be better off applying other methods along with areas in which I've been applying the correct methods. These sessions give me a better and more accurate chance of continuing my high school career successfully, by tweaking these small changes within my character and my behavior, that will allow me to apply myself in my classes more effectively.

And I am collaborating with somebody else in order to make all of this happen. The steps that I'm taking in order to improve my application in classes and outside of classes are being guided by my psychologist and the work I do with her. I'm able to make all of these decisions and consider all of these areas of my persona, just because I have a session or two sessions with her a week, which is a pretty big benefit. Especially when these are all things I've attempted to do before, but which I've never succeeded in. So instead, I've taken this time for me to understand the steps it takes so I can consider all of this correctly.

(The photos above show some of the simple cognitive tests I've taken with my psychologist.)

11.

Creativity Making a blueberry cake

Date September 26, 2020

Where My apartment

Learning Outcomes

1. Identify own strengths & develop areas for growth.

2. Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken.
4. Show commitment to & perseverance in CAS experiences.

So I had a lot of blueberries and decided to make a blueberry cake.

Is it aesthetically pleasing?

Not entirely.

But I did have a lot of fun making it, surprisingly, it tastes pretty good, and I have this as an example of a CAS experience.

This was my first attempt at making a layered cake, which basically ties in all of the learning outcomes detailed above: this blueberry cake, being my first attempt at making a layered cake, allowed me to recognize which areas I did best at and in which ones I could've been better, along with the challenges I had in making it and the moments in which I almost decided to stop the whole process and turn the dessert into something else.

Starting with my strengths: I'd say distributing my time into each part of the cake and layering it. Making this kind of dessert requires that I organize my time according to each part of the process: the batter, the baking, the blueberry jam, the frosting, the layering, and finally, the clean-up. As a result, I had to organize each part of the process so I wouldn't end up overwhelmed or frustrated because I felt that everything was messed. Which I wouldn't say happened at all: I considered the process and went along with it, not fussing about each part of the cake nor how to organize each one along with the others. Moreover, I also found that I did the layering part--a process I've never attempted before--pretty well. Every layer was aligned with its respective layer(s).

Moving onto my areas for growth, I declare that the frosting was my weakness, which ties into an overall idea that I need to stick to in order to be successful with other recipes. This being, following the recipe just as it explains the process. I wanted to go "old-school" and decided to make the frosting without a mixer, which ended up being a definite fail, as the mixer was the exact tool that was going to provide me with the correct texture for the frosting. In attempting to be more manual with the process, I ended up changing the frosting for the worse, which led me to the following understanding: I should go along with each recipe, and only with my time, may I attempt to properly tweak them. Now, I can't try to change recipes, not when I know I don't have the proper understanding of what may happen if I do change them. What I'm missing is more experience, something that will help me understand the reasoning behind decisions made in a recipe and whether or not they can be changed.

Bearing all of this in mind, I've recognized learning outcomes #2 and #4. When I started realizing that the frosting wasn't going to end up in the way I wanted it to, I challenged myself, working as hard as I could to get it to its best form even though it wouldn't ever get to the proper texture. Which ultimately represents my decision to continue along with the process and not giving up on the recipe. I looked towards completing it, upholding the commitment I had when I started it.

12.

Service GABA Interview

Date October 23, 2020

Where My apartment (over Zoom)

Learning Outcomes

2. Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken.

3. Demonstrate how to initiate & plan a CAS experience.
6. Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance.

I take the IB Global Politics course, which requires me to complete an Internal Assessment, that focuses on exploring a political issue of my choice, at a local level, through some sort of engagement activity.

I chose to focus on eating disorders, for which I had an interview with the director of Grupo de Autoayuda en Bulimia y Anorexia (GABA). Having this interview involved dealing with the learning outcomes outlined above.

First of all, with regards to learning outcome #2, the challenges I undertook involved: practicing interviewing skills and the fact that the interview was online. I hadn't interviewed someone since last year when I was in the Innovation Academy, which meant I was missing a lot of practice in order to feel comfortable in this situation. As a result, during the interview, I had to deal with my nervousness and my loss for words. It was difficult to calm down, while at the same time, listening to what the director was telling me. I was recording the interview which gave me some reassurance regarding the fact that I wasn't going to miss out on any content, but it was important that I still play off of what the director was telling me, in order to frame my following questions and in case I thought of new ones. Therefore, I had to practice feeling calm during the interview while still being in it. Furthermore, the simple fact that this interview was online contributed to how nervous I felt, the impression I think I gave the director, along with how the flow of the interview went. When an interview is able to occur in person, I think it's easier to play off of someone else's energy, the kind of messages youre getting from their eye contact and their body language. But in this case, being online changes the situation so you're more inclined to observing yourself rather than the other person. I was surrounded by nervous energy and sometimes I couldn't get out of that "funk". Which definitely ended up affecting the impression the director received of me and the way the interview went overall.

In addition, with regards to learning outcome #3, this interview required that I plan beforehand: sending emails (including follow-ups), completing formalities (a letter from Ms. Lucrecia), writing down interview questions, and presenting myself in a formal manner. As a result, I recognize how I initiated and carried out this CAS experience pretty successfully, especially considering how it begun. I sent an email to GABA and over the course of that week, I received emails back that ensured that the following week, I would be able to schedule the interview. Fast-forward weeks later, I've sent two follow-ups to the previous thread of emails, and only after sending my second follow-up, did I receive a reply and schedule the interview that same week. Only because I decided to push this organization was I able to complete this activity. More than completing formalities and organizing myself for the interview, I think this was the most important part of my plan, the one which contributed the most to my learning, to my engagement with this issue of global significance.

Link to Interview Transcription