Maria's CAS-Blog

After two year of CAS I have come to the conclusion that the most important part of CAS is, at least to me, Service. Before IB I liked to think of myself as a person engaged in the preservation of our planet and working for improvements in others less fortunate living conditions. Yet I had nothing to show for it, except for being aware I did not do much about it. It is very likely that is was something that had to do with my age as well, I do however believe that I would not have been so active and gained so much if I had not gone IB. I am always excited going to donate blood, the short pain is nothing compared to the thought of helping, maybe even saving lives. I was really excited when I heard I was 0- meaning I could donate to every other blood group that exists. By donating blood I was suddenly actually doing something that really mattered, and it felt and feels wonderful. This might sound as an old cliché but helping is wonderful. I have gained many great new friends and memories by participating in charity work. The film festival was although fun, enjoyable and challenging, it was nothing like I had imagined charity work in the past. When I started in the “Festfixargruppen” I also got the opportunity to contribute to the cause not just being directed or drained. Working together with a common goal, with all kind of different people and yet everyone on the same level was really nice.

P.E has never really been my sport, but Activity in CAS is much more preferred. P.E is always very controlled and demands that students have a certain level of interest in a few decided sports, most sports which I dislike. With activity you can instead exercise in the way that suits you as an individual. You can suddenly choose to enjoy exercising instead of being forced into it. It is all very interesting really, personally I enjoy the freedom of being able to the longboard out whenever I want to (at least if it is summer), or simply start my xbox360 to play dance central for an hour or so. It is very liberating not having to be at a certain place at a certain time. I have also come to the understanding that even if jogging is boring it can be rather refreshing and is more fun if you have a companion with you. Something which goes for most kind of exercise; be it playing dance central, biking, swimming or jogging.

I have in general considered myself as a creative person but throughout the IB I have had the opportunity to be creative in ways that I before haven’t even considered. I draw a whole comic which I earlier had simply rejected the thought of since it would mean that I would have to draw the same characteristic several times, which for an as uneven drawer as me is rather hard. I also learned how to make adorable amigurumis and crochet quite skillfully something which has given me great joy in the form of joy in others, as I’ve given away all my finished projects either as Christmas or birthday presents. I learned to play bass at least at a beginner level and got the chance to enjoy playing music in a group of people which have always been a secret dream of mine. I have also become much more skilled in sewing something that has come to use several times fixing broken fabrics and loosened threads. Making clothing lasting longer, both for the enjoyment’s and my own wallet’s sake. I also make a beset with old leftover material and it turned out great and my friend loved it and almost drowned me in compliments. All in all my creative skills have given me much joy and been very useful, and probably will continue to be in the future.

During the winter I have mostly been exercising by taking walks or playing dance central. But not too long ago a friend of mine asked if I would like to join her going to the gym swimming, which I did. If it had not been so costly I would have spent way more time swimming than I am currently. This time I did however feel that it was worth paying for a few hours of floating, swimming and diving at one’s own accord. It was definitely one of the highlights of this months and the fact that I had a friend with me only made things better. Now in the end of the month the weather had been terrific and the last week I have once again been able to resume biking. Sadly I will not be able to longboard until they have removed all of the gravel from the streets. I also spent some time playing dance central and took a few walks trying to become calmer and less stressed. All in all I have exercised about 5 hours this month.

Now I have been a blood donor for nearly one year and donated blood three times. After the first time they are a lot calmer and doesn’t expect you to faint as much as they maybe did the first time. I myself have also gotten a lot calmer donating blood but it still makes me feel glad. Every time I donate blood I also donate the small sum of money for compensating the donor to the union for blood disease, as I have a friend who has a blood disease. I do try to convince others to also become blood donors as blood shortage do sometimes occur. But I would still not like to guilt other into donating blood since there are some who are afraid of needles as such. However there are many who could donate blood and does simply not choose to. These people always make me reflect of what makes you ethical or unethical. Does the absence of an act make one unethical or is it only the act itself? When I think about that I just think of all the things that I should do that I don’t. I may be partly vegetarian, a blood donor and a person who usually takes the bus or bike but there is always more to be done. I am for example not donating as much I possibly could to various help organizations, I often take the cheaper food alternative rather than the more expensive and also more ethically correct choice. I am a consumer and it feels as if there is no way out of it. Many people defend their indifference with the argument that there is no difference if only one person does or does not do something. That is true but then there is also the argument that if many individuals do something it has an effect. Therefore I will continue to do my best for the world around me even if I am the only one doing it.

This month I haven’t been able to be as active as I would like to have been. Due to winter vacation and visiting my grandpa I was only able to play dance central for about 2 hours. I have however taken a couple of shorter walks getting some fresh air and getting some time to think about how pretty snowflakes are and how it looks as if the whole world is sleeping during the winter. So maybe about 3 and a half hour in general.

This month I have conducted very varied amount of activities, as mentioned before I am not a fan on jogging but due to the bad longboard/bike weather I’ve gone jogging twice this month. It is rather refreshing but I still consider it rather boring. So instead I have been playing dance central a lot, I am getting a lot better and know most of the dances rather well now. I even got a friend to play it with my and I think she liked it as much I do. I was also able to bike a bit in the beginning of the month before there was too much snow. I’ve spend about 4 hours on exercise this month.

After several afterschool meetings with fellow students we have finally done it. Our Halloween event! It has all been a lot of fun working together without the aid of adults; we all worked together doing almost everything by ourselves. Talked to the principal, contacted administration and gained help from others. And in order to complete this project it involved both creativity and service. We were always brainstorming trying to come up with the most fun games to play, the best competitions, how to arrange everything and make it go well together. All in all it was probably 5 hours planning time which counts both for service and creativity. On the actual day for the event we spend hours preparing, decoration to make it as spooky as possible and running around preparing for competitions. Naturally we also spent time afterwards cleaning up and putting everything back into place.

For the last three weeks it had been getting colder and colder. I really enjoy autumn, but I dislike not being able to longboard nor bike for that matter. I like being able to get where I want, whenever I like without having to worry about contributing to the greenhouse effect. Therefore I had been longboarded like a madman, before the long cold Swedish winter comes. I am not looking forward to the early mornings to catch the bus going to school. If there had not been for the snow I would have biked or longboard all year around. I wish in general that more people would bike more in general, even if you during the winter realize how many that bikes during the summer and then rides the bus in the winter. All of that is great; however, there are still many whom drive to work every day when there is no need. Here in Umeå no matter where you live you can bike to the other side of town easily, there are also many good bicycle lanes and more economical than driving. If you do not work or go to school outside of Umeå there really should be no need to not drive. I do of course understand that not everyone can bike all of the time but if more people did we would not only contribute less to the greenhouse effect but many would probably become healthier from the exercise. But for now I just longboard as much I as possibly can which all in all for about a month has become somewhat 6 hours or so. I even met a hedgehog once! He/she shyly sniffed my longboard and then wobbled away, adorable! I just hope he does not get run over and return to the forest before he gets in trouble.

I couple of weeks ago I spotted a poster about an upcoming film festival in my local community and I also noticed a small text saying ”seeking volunteers” I contacted the people in charged and well, volunteered! I have now been to three meetings preparing for the festival and helped advertise the festival during Saturday morning. I am really excited this time, being a film lover I am also excited over meeting new people and doing something I really enjoy and helping out at the same time. As a result I will spend a number of afternoons/evenings the upcoming week to help out with various chores for the film festival.

Service: 3 and a half hours.

After having a year of CAS I feel I'm really starting to understand why CAS exists and is a mandatory part of IB. I would kind of just tell everyone to do it. Everyone needs to exerciser, P.E at school is so very restricted and for many more of a drag. I'm happy to be able to turn my Xbox 360 and being able to exercise using a dance game or longboarding, biking, taking a walk, or twirling. I like being able to decide for myself and still exercise. Creative I've always been and it is really just to carry on as usual except now I think and reflect more about what I do. I think about what I can do to contribute to the world around me just by for example using recycled paper. And when it comes to volunteer work I've become so much more positive and now many of the things I'm really looking forward to is things I will do while receiving service. People are so grateful and the work is almost always fun even if it's simply cleaning. Because you're doing it for someone togethere to a common goal. For example will I be volunteer working at a film-week during October an I've been a excited for a long time. Just meeting the people is a great experience, everyone that does volunteer work seem to be so nice. I feel I'm really started growing as a person since the last school year begun and I feel I still have a lot to look forward to in the school year of 2011-2012.

 

Creativity: ~ 50h

Action: ~ 30h

Service: ~30h

Well, after Magda got back I took up twirling again to finish that short program we were talking about making. We now have an outline and I twirled a lot this week since I feel that I have the goal in sight and since the weather been so nice I have been able to go out and just twirl whenever I've wanted. I've longboarded for an hour or so as well so this week I think I have exercised for at least 3 hours.

 

Back to town and back to longboarding. I really miss longboarding when I am at my parents house. Since we live in the countryside there is not much asphalt to be longboarding on so I rarely even bring it with me. But now I can finally resume my longboarding. I really can not explain why it it so great since I am not making any tricks or anything just cruising. That is the thing, just cruising along the river bank is like an explosion of freedom. Like I could suddenly grow spread wings and fly. I have longboarded around 2-3 hours this week.