REFLECTIONS
OPERATION SMILE
2. Demonstrate that challenges undertaken developing new skills in the process.
3. Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience.
5. Demonstrate the skills and recognise the benefits of working collaborative.
Last year I was a part of many clubs and did countless hours of creativity, activity and service. I stopped. I realized that I could go to clubs like Fugaz or Bridges, teaching and drawing with kids, building stairs for those who live on the very top of the mountain, but I felt like I wasn’t making a big difference. And there, at the CAS fair, it was: Operation Smile. I have been only to one visit at the hospital and it is more than enough to say that Operation Smile is by far the greatest club I have ever been a part of.
You see, since not too long ago I said that I wanted to become a doctor and before setting my mind to it my dad told me that studying medicine is very different from being a doctor. I really have no idea if I want to be a plastic surgeon who will be in the hospital performing surgery on people who were shot some minutes ago or a dermatologist who will be giving acne pills to teenagers from the comfort of my chair. Little did he know, that I had actually gone to El Hospital del Niño and worked there, learning how to organize the patients with my peers and the workers of the hospital and watching the surgery for cleft palate.
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Here is a video of me in one of the visits, saying how much I like the club and why. The video was taken for the country's annual operational video:
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https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1wdAvf1-giqEh3JXA0WF-060KpgpvO2Kq
THE BEGINNING OF A JOURNEY
1. Identify own strengths and develop areas of growth.
3. Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience.
4. Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences.
5. Demonstrate the skills and recognise the benefits of working collaborative.
6. Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance
I have just started to plan my CAS project and I could not be more excited for it. As I have said before, my favorite school club is Operation Smile and what better idea than to make a project with this organization. For this, I will be working with Francesca Abusada, president of the Operation Smile FDR club, Jorge Albin and Sabrina Pflucker. We will organize an massive event to raise awareness about the cleft palatte and fundraise as much money as we can to provide surgeries for kids. This will ideally also be in collaboration with as many Operation Smile clubs in Lima so that we can have as much support as possible and spread out the word too as many people as possible and raise as much money as possible. I chose to do this because my greatest strength is organization and event planning as I love logistics and won't feel that this is a forced project.
(NOT) BUILDING BRIDGES
5. Demonstrate the skills and recognise the benefits of working collaborative.
6.Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance
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Bridges is a club which some people find very misleading since you don't build literal bridges as they describe. However, you do. Maybe you build houses, stairs and many others things that aren't literally bridges, but you build bridges with the people of the neighborhood.
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Our school is many times judged for kids living in their own bubble, that they don't know about the real world and the problems in society because they have money and don't experience them. I won't agree or disagree with this but I know that Bridges fights to get over this problem. When you go to Bridges, you work along the people you know from the school, as well as other school and university volunteers, and also with the people who live in Pamplona Alta (where you build), who work hard to make their neighborhood a better place. You get to know these people personally, as well as share some food and drinks with them after the hard work, which really makes you build a bridge between you, a kid who goes to Colegio Roosevelt and them, hardworking people without the same opportunities as us, but at the end of the day, just two people.
BOXING
2. Demonstrate that challenges undertaken developing new skills in the process.
3. Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience.
4. Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences.
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Since KO wasn't the right fit for me, I had to find another sport to keep me active. I talked to my friends and one of them said they had begun doing box and that he really enjoyed it. They said, "You would get only good from it; it's very stress relieving". I laughed because I thought it was obvious, but they answered to my laughing, "Seriously, you hit things and it releases a lot of bad energy that you have pilled up in you." I thought about it and since I wanted to do activity right away, I decided to go for it.
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I began my classes and as soon as I got out of the first class, I wanted to quit. It was so intense and I had never been so tired and sweaty since I went to the gym for the first time. However, I had not bought my gloves for one class and wanted to continue until I could no more. Eventually, I got used to getting tired and sweaty and I have been practising box for four months now and don't plan to stop anytime soon.
BEING PART OF THE NAHS
1. Identify own strengths and develop areas of growth.
2. Demonstrate that challenges undertaken developing new skills in the process.
3. Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience.
4. Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences.
5. Demonstrate the skills and recognise the benefits of working collaborative.
6. Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance.
7. Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions
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I thought that joining the NAHS meant doing the lengthy application the require and, if accepted into the group, be part of a community that got a bib on their graduation picture. I thought that a National Honor Society just showed universities that you were good at something. However, I didn't realize that it would take so much work to stay in the honor society. We were told that first we had to make a piece in a month to be sold in our welcome ceremony, which at the same time worked as an auction... it was a bit confusing.
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However, it didn't end there. They informed us that we had to be involved in art related activities of service three times per semester, which doesn't sound like too much, but most certainly is if you have to paint a mural with few people, as seen in the evidence below.
REDESIGNING MY KITCHEN
1. Identify own strengths and develop areas of growth.
2. Demonstrate that challenges undertaken developing new skills in the process.
3. Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience.
7. Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions.
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When an event is made at my house, we hold it in the garden. The problem that has bothered my family for the last years is that to get to the garden you need to go through the entire house and people end up sitting in the living room, in the dining room, going upstairs to the bedrooms, etc. and we don't want them going through the house. For this, I decided to help my mom and redesign the kitchen.
There’s a hallway that goes by the side of the house, but it stops when it reaches the kitchen; therefore I need to rearrange the kitchen, so that a hallway can fit in the side. Nevertheless, this is very challenging because my kitchen is 7m x 3m and the hallway would be 85 cm wide + 15 cm of the wall’s thickness separating the kitchen and the hallway. This would make my kitchen 7m x 2m, a very unconventional, long space that will be required to fit all the things my parents think are necessary.
ALWAYS ART
1. Identify own strengths and develop areas of growth.
2. Demonstrate that challenges undertaken developing new skills in the process.
4. Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences.
Since I can remember, my mom enforced art in my life and I didn’t reject it like many of my friends did; I loved, love and will forever love it. Not only did I always choose visual arts as my after-school activity and my type of art since I was in kindergarten, but I drew at home and made my other course’s projects as art related as possible. Also, I took a wide variety of classes during summer including painting, drawing, vitrofusion and art history. All of the things I just listed are ok, maybe even good, but the one thing I look back and say I am proud of doing is my life drawing project.
When we were told that we had to have an IA project last year, I had to make it about art. If you want to read more about it, click here.
Now, I am currently taking IBDP Visual Arts Higher Level in order for my skills to develop even more than they already have.
RUNNING TO THE GYM
2. Demonstrate that challenges undertaken developing new skills in the process.
3. Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience.
4. Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences.
If there is one thing that differentiates my family from others is that we are VERY healthy. I have been raised to think whether to eat something if it's organic, if certain ingredients are too harmful, if the proteins, vitamins and carbohydrates are enough or too many for my body, etc. However, this is all my family focuses on: nutrition. I don't complain because I have been raised to think this way and now believe everything that they told me not only because it's my parents, but as you can read in the Nutrition section of my website, I am very interested in this topic, even wanted to study it in university for a while. However, I had to step my game up and that's when I decided that I should go to the gym.
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I started going to the gym, sometimes my mom taking me on her car and sometimes walking or running, but this changed for the good. Very separately, I detest wasting time transporting from one place to another. I realized that I was doing cardiovascular activity for 15 minutes in the gym and that I was wasting that time while I could just run to the gym and I would have already done the cardio needed, wasting less time. Since then, I have been working to see if there are ways for me to waste less time, go to the gym and be efficient.
FINDING THE CORRECT EXERCISE
2. Demonstrate that challenges undertaken developing new skills in the process.
3. Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience.
Until not to long ago I went to the gym in order to be more fit and do some exercise for the sake of being healthy. However, I found it too forced since I didn't enjoy it at all and found what could be an alternative. I went to this relatively new place called KO (knockout), which offers yoga and KO classes. I had once gone with my cousin to a yoga class because she regularly practises this discipline and I had told her that I was stressed. I went but I didn't find it stress relieving like it did for the others in the class, so I never went back.
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I also knew what the KO classes consisted of, which was purely cardio and the last thing I needed was cardio because it makes you lose weight and I already don't weigh enough according to the doctor. Months after, a friend told me that she was going to KO classes but some that were special and included weights which meant building muscle.
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I went to these classes thinking: "This is it. An interactive class that you enjoy and where you build muscle too." This was not correct. I went to the class and all the exercise was cardio with minimum weight. I was disappointed and never went back because I didn't even feel tired at the end of the class; it was pointless.
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I am not going back but that's fine. I am in my way to finding what exercise is appropriate for me and I enjoy.
WISH FACTORY
2. Demonstrate that challenges undertaken developing new skills in the process.
3. Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience.
6. Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance.
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I was in the CAS fair and I instantly knew I wanted to join the club. Wish Factory is a school club, extension of the worldwide known organization Make a Wish Foundation. They help cheer up the children that have unfortunately been diagnosed with cancer. This sickness with no public cure has killed many in little time and these kids are no exception. Many of these have been told that they have few months to live and all they have left is hope. Hopefulness and happiness are the most important things that these kids need to have since it's the most important things that are needed to survive according to doctors, besides therapies that help, but don't assure the patients' lives.
So this is what the Wish factory does: give hope and happiness. In a country that has relatively high levels of child cancer, this club helps the children in the Hospital Nacional Edgardo Rebagliati by going all possible Saturdays to try and wish for the children to believe that they will make it through their sickness and make them happy for some hours through activities and conversation.
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Unfortunately, these kids are sometimes so affected by their condition that they don't respond to our conversation and activities and only want material things. It may seem shallow, but after all, they're kids, material things make them happy and that is what the club wants them to be. For this to happen, the club organizes fundraisers to make money to buy these children's gifts that will make their maybe last days happy.
REDESIGNING MY ROOM
1. Identify own strengths and develop areas of growth.
2. Demonstrate that challenges undertaken developing new skills in the process.
3. Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience.
4. Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences.
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I wanted to redesign a room that I would like to live in for at least the next five years following the rules of design. For this, I had to study about rhythm, distribution, purpose, storage, color theory, lighting, styling, details, focus and numerous other skills. In addition, since my room is actually being made into this design, I had to study budgeting and adapt it to work with the carpenter and make it happen.
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I talked to experts such as my mom (an architect) and Daniela Ghezzi, and interior designer, whom gave me feedback and I made the best out of it. I used to take feedback as something that was just "for decoration", since I was used to not caring about other people's opinion, but working in something I didn't know much about taught me that received feedback always has to be taken into consideration. In the end, comparing my final product to the first prototype, I can see an amazing amount of growth which I wouldn't have got if I hadn't done the prototypes, received feedback and applied it.
FUGAZ
3. Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience.
6. Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance.
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Fugaz is an organization whose slogan is "Arte de convivir", in English: "Art of living together". Fugaz functions in Castilla, Callao, a neighbourhood that used to have beautiful, yet badly preserved architecture, famous for its prostitutes and incredibly high rates of murder. Nowadays, the buildings have been refurnished by a private investor and the great Castilla is beautiful now again.
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The kids who live in this area have a poor education and since we have contact with the investors of the foundation, we help them by teaching them English and art through games. It began when I wanted to do something that combined service and creativity and the president of Fugaz asked if I wanted to go since it met the things that I was looking for... and it did.
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