Creativity #4

Last Sunday and Friday, I participated in this concert as a member of a chamber orchestra of my violin school, where I play second violin.

This was an interesting experience, because normally we join a choir group each year in December and play a few Masses, which has only string instruments and occasionally some wind instruments. However in this concert we had the opportunity to play in a symphonic orchestra because we were playing the Litaniae Lauretanae KV 195 by Mozart.

Although I have played in symphonic orchestras, playing in my violin school orchestra is always more special, because we rehearse MUCH more: we rehearse only with the violins beforehand, and we all have the same violin teacher who can conduct and wants to make sure we are "prepared to present" to the choir. We attain higher levels of performance than the average impromptu amateur orchestra.

Including the other annual concert, we rehearsed for over 24 hours over the last 3 months. Spending 2-3 hours twice a week rehearsing over these months has been an experience more energy draining than anything in the IB I have experienced so far. We even had a Saturday rehearsal, where we began at 9 and were told to remain  'free' until 1pm because we weren't achieving the standards the teacher expected of us.

This is how last Sunday and Friday, we were prepared for anything. All of us were tired, and although it wasn't a good mindset, somewhere in our minds wanted to get this over with. The first concert on Friday was amusing: it took place in a church, which helps us, because the sound resonates and mistakes are covered. The conductor made a mistake in concert, but overall it was successful. However the concert on Sunday, which was in a auditorium, started with a disaster: when we arrived, we found out that the seats for the orchestra did not fit on stage. We ended up with a queer formation, where people were isolated from their section (violin I, violin II, flutes...). I ended up in the front, too close to the conductor, and next to the violin II leader, when I was meant to be diagonally behind him. The sound of the auditorium was really dry, and people couldn't hear each other. Still the concert went fairly well, with no major disasters.

 Reflecting upon this experience, I feel slightly accomplished, but more exhausted. The choir was an amateur group, which to be honest, is not very inspiring, especially being used to play with an amateur choir each year. The orchestra is merely the accompaniment to the choir, and there is a limit to how inspiring we can make a concert. When playing violin isn't inspiring, it becomes a lot of just hard work. Nonetheless I think everyone gave their best, and I have no regrets.

Creativity #3

Although it's a sudden request, I'm going to play violin at the annual Marche Saint Nicholas at school next Friday. This event is an event to raise money for the PTA, and for children, a place to buy Christmas presents cheaply (which I used to do when I was in primary). The music committee was searching for musicians to play at this event, and although I haven't quite decided what to play, I think I will enjoy the challenge of a slightly spontaneous performance.

Creativity #2

For a creativity project, I've been working on a  poster for an annual humanitarian project at our school, the Gift Box Appeal.
This involves the whole school making gift boxes around Christmas to send off to children in less fortunate situations, in Ukraine, Romania etc.

I'm glad I'm helping out with this, because for years I've been helping out with making the gift box, and now CAS is giving me the opportunity to help out with running the project (the advertising).

The two posters I've designed here are designed separately for primary school and secondary school.
 I thought as in primary the students can be very young, I would try a 'picture book' style. For secondary, I kept the design simple and more mature. Since I thought it would be nice to have these posters in color, I kept these pretty white so that I could print them without worrying about color ink too much.

Service #3

Another new service project I'm involved in now is tutoring, which I started last week Monday.

The child I'm tutoring is a Japanese boy named Rei in 4th grade, who can't speak English. When I went, I found out there were many other kids who had trouble with English, but Japanese just was a language none of the language helpers were compatible with. My job is to come once a week during his classes and work on his school work with him, which at the moment he writes in Japanese, and improve communication between Rei and the teacher.

Last Monday (10th of October), the teacher (my old 4th grade teacher) wanted me to work on helping him translate a piece he wrote about an outing in Japanese. Rei seemed a little taken aback at first, not knowing how to react to me. I think the session went really well because by the end, he opened up more, and we got half of the translating done, which helped me also to see his level of English (some vocabulary but with no sense of grammar). I also noticed his personality and his age enables him to not have problems making friends  even without having to speak the language. However he's also learning French (also a new language) at the same time, which worries me.

Today we worked on the last half of the translating. I was glad Rei seemed to be happy to be doing this, and although he gets bored fairly easily, he learns quickly. Although I'm not keen on teaching him much grammar because he's still young and can learn without it, I want him to get a hang of past tense words, and learn words like "first" "then" "next" "because" "but". I also realized that according to him, his mother is keen on him learning English and she helps out with his homework etc. What I hope is that I'm not confusing him by teaching him English really differently from his mother.

Service #2

We (organizers of the Bosom Buddies project) held a bake sale on Thursday 6th of October, which was a great success. With the funds we raised, on Saturday 14th of October we went to buy fabric, cotton and necessary tools to make pillows.

Last weekend we then had a sleepover involving many other volunteers to actually sew up the pillows. Our minimum aim was to sew 20 pillows, and ideal goal around 50 for the whole project. The result: 26 pillows in one night, not including pillows to be sewn by volunteers who couldn't participate in this event :)

This event really made me realize how people will come together for a good cause (we had some non-CAS volunteers) and by working together, we can really achieve things we can't alone.

CAS interview #1

The first CAS interview went really well. 

First, my mentor and I went through what I've been working on so far and talked about my plans that weren't yet in action. Then we went through the different sheets in my CAS folder because my main uncertainties were there. I still had some sheets to fill out, but basically there were no problems in what I had planned. I have a balanced range of activities (creativity, action, service, long-term and short-term), which cover a broad range of learning outcomes.

What I have found in looking back at what I have been planning is that instead of being involved in larger already projects in school, I prefer working in smaller scale projects. For example I feel I've been more involved in the Bosom Buddies project, where I've been working with fewer people but am more engaged than the Action Aid project which involves nearly our whole grade, where I feel what I can work on is less focused. I feel there isn't much point in being passively involved in a project, because it isn't as rewarding. 

An aspect which I want to work on is getting more out of my comfort zone. This I'm hoping to achieve by tutoring, and working on creating a website for the SPA in Nyon. Working with children is one skill I'm not confident in, and meeting strangers and communicating is another. I feel I avoid these situations often, and in planning out CAS projects which force me into these situations, I think I can improve on my personal weaknesses.

Activity #3 & Creativity #1

Today was my mini goal for horse-riding: a jumping competition. The result: 5/21 for the 70cm category, and and 6/21 for the 80cm category! For horse riding in France the top third participants are 'ranked' (classé), so luckily I just managed to win prizes.

The best thing out of this was that I managed to do exactly what I aimed to do: do a clear round (sans faute) and get a good solid time, without rushing and trying to win, because this was the first competition my horse and I did in over a year. I feel this built up both my horse's and my confidence up a lot, because these results are already the best we have ever achieved in one day. 

The plaques and rosettes :) 

Also, happening all week was a music festival organized by my music school. I had no violin lessons or orchestra rehearsals due to this, as there were concerts and masterclasses taking place every day. I don't take part in this, because the performers of this event are mainly students from the "Academy" of my music school- the post-grad/professional violinists. Today was the grand gala, the finale of the week, where four outside performers came to play solos with the music school orchestra. 

Although I couldn't go to most of the concerts this week (because of school), I managed to see today's concert. It was really amazing: Angel Stankov (violin), Victor Pikaysen (violin), and Laurence Kayaleh (violin) playing with Suzanne Husson (piano). The first two performers are very venerated in the world of violin playing, and both were students of great masters when younger. Although now they were really aged, it was really interesting to listen to their music. The latter duo were simply amazing: I just have no words to describe these two women. This concert was really inspiring for me and motivated me to become better at playing the violin.