FINAL CAS REFLECTION!

These past 18 months of CAS has been interesting, hard, fun and rewarding amongst other things.  From my long-term project of helping an upcoming musician to being in student council and MUN, each of these activities has taught me a lot and I am proud to have done each one of them. The main thing that I have learned from CAS is that it is good to take part in things that you would never normally do. For instance, before CAS if I had heard that there was a run, I would have normally ignored this but instead CAS has pushed me to do things such as the Rotary Cancer run which taught me that it is important to involve yourself in different things as it will help you become a more open and well rounded person. Some of my favorite activities that I did was helping out at the local NGO Kampala Kids League as I enjoyed writing their weekly newsletter and helping out with all the kids that were in the league. I also really enjoyed being the editor of the poetry anthology because I had never been so involved in something like that and I definitely underestimated how hard and time consuming it would be but it was a really nice thing to see the final product. If I were to do  all of it again I would have liked to take part in more action activities. If I were to give any advice to future CAS students I would tell them to be organised and to make sure to do all of their reflections straight after an activity as this is something I definitely struggled with sometimes. Overall, I think that CAS has been an important part in my IB course as it does teach you to be a more well rounded person, be active in your society and to do things you would not normally do. Although it was challenging at times, I did enjoy taking part in all of my activities as I learned many new skills and undertook new challenges.

Project Arnold-Final Reflection

It has been a really good experience working with Arnold. I never thought that I would be involved in a project like this but it has truly taught me a lot. I feel as though we have helped Arnold grow as a musician and brought him one step closer to fulfilling his dream and to be a part of that process has been very rewarding. At times it was a challenge as I did not realise how much time it would take to first of all record and produce the songs and then performing them, but in the end it has all been worth it. I think that I have met all the learning outcomes that I targetted at the beginning of this process. I undertook a new challenge as I had never had any experience with something like this, it was a whole new territory for me and because of this it allowed me to learn a lot at the same time. By working with Karan and Eddy, I feel like we worked well together and collaborated well as we all realised our roles quickly and carried them out as best as we could. In terms of planning and initiating activities, this was also my first time organising my own activities to raise money such as the non-uniform day that we organised. These fundraisers were successful but also a challenge as we had to be very organised. Even though the CAS project of helping Arnold is over, I still intend to be very much involved in helping him as I genuinely feel that he has a lot of talent. I will definitely keep in touch with Arnold and help him whenever he needs it as he has become a good friend throughout this process. However, because we will be at university next year, we have passed on the project to IB1'S so that they can continue helping Arnold. Overall, I have really enjoyed being a part of this project, it has been a good learning experience and I am happy that we managed to help Arnold.

Badminton Tournament

Targeted Outcomes: 

-Undertake New Challenges

-Consider Ethical Implications 

 

I took part in a badminton tournament held by my friend, Tripti. It was the first time that I played badminton,  I had always wanted to try badminton thus I saw this as a new challenge. I was excited for the tournament, although I did not make it very far, it was still a fun experience that I would do again. I thought that it would be easy but it was actually more difficult than I thought it would be, if I were to do another badminton tournament I would definitely practice more before the tournament. I also helped by being the announcer for the event and organizing the individuals who had to play. All of the proceeds from the tournament went towards buying mosquito nets and blankets for children, since I live in a country where Malaria is a key cause of death, I felt as though this was an important cause and one worthy of support. Overall, I really enjoyed the tournament and I would definitely do it again.

Tennis at Lohana Sports and Cultural Festival

Targeted Outcomes: 

1. Increased awareness of your strengths and areas for growth
2. Undertaking new challenges
3. Show perseverance and commitment

Each year, my community (Lohana community) has a cultural and sports festival in East Africa. This year, it was held in Uganda and I took part in the tennis tournament. Prior to the actual tournament, I practiced by playing tennis once a week for a month. I used to play tennis when I was younger, therefore I found that the tournamentt was a challenge as it had been quite a while since I've taken part in a tournament yet alone play tennis! Thus, this required commitment as I had to practice every week, although I was quite nervous for the tournament I knew I had to stick to this commitment and at the end of the day I knew it would be a good experience. Because I had played tennis when I was younger, I found that this allowed me to develop my strengths as well as identify weaknesses, such as serving, before the competition. The tournament took place over the course of two days, unfortunately I only played the first day as I only got up to the third round. Although I didn't make the quarter finals, I really enjoyed this experience as I have never really taken part in such an event for my community, thus I felt proud to be a part of it and it made me realise that  I should be more involved in more events like this for my community. Moreover, this  made me want to get back into tennis and  play on a more regular basis as I feel with more training I could do much better as I would be able to develop my skills and learn much more.

Project Arnold- Performance

In order to introduce people to Arnold's music, we organised for him to perform at school. He came to our school and performed two of his songs- Heartbreaker and Accident. This was important as we needed to see how people would react to his songs, they really seemed to enjoy it which was encouraging as we then realised that when his album was finished it could do really well. Although it was just a small performace for our school it did require plannning as Arnold is not always in Kampala so at times it becomes difficult to arrange meetings with him, therefore arranging performances requires quite a bit of coordination and communication on both parts. Overall, the performance went really well and this was hopefully the first of many to come. 

Project Arnold-Arnold's first Interview

Radio Interview: 

One of our aims was to gain Arnold exposure, to do this we managed to get him an interview with 97.0 FM RadioCity, this was not only exciting for Arnold as it was his first ever interview but it was also exciting for me as this was an activity we had planned since the beginning and to see him there was quite rewarding. It was a one hour interview and Arnold was on the segment called 'Celebrity of the Day.' He did a countdown of his top 10 favourite songs, the interviewer asked him why these were his favourites and this gave Arnold an opportunity to let people know a bit more about him as he talked a lot about his childhood and how music has always had a great influence on him. We also managed to play a few of his songs on air, this gave Arnold's music exposure as it had never been played on radio before. During this process, it was the first time I had ever seen Arnold nervous, therefore it was my job to keep him calm and provide support and encouragement for him as he was quite nervous to speak on live radio. I'm glad that we were able to be there and support Arnold as after we calmed him down the interview went really well and Arnold spoke incredibly well and enjoyed himself a lot.

                                                   

Project Arnold- Recording Songs

Now that we had the money, we started recording some of Arnold's songs. Personally, this was quite an interesting and exciting process for me as I had never really seen how the recording process was. We went to the studio quite a few times with Arnold while he recorded songs called 'Accident', 'Prayer', 'Heartbreaker', 'A Thousand Ways to Die'. I would also put in my input of what I thought of them. This process of recording the songs required a lot of collaboration with the producer, communication with him started to become quite difficult as he often wouldn't give Arnold the time that he required or the assistance. This lead us to find a new producer that would give Arnold the attention that he needed, this was probably the first challenge we faced in this process as our main priority was to keep Arnold happy and if he didn't like the producer it was necessary to find another one that would put in all of his effort into helping all of us. This again required collaboration with others as we had to consult various people and again work together with Arnold to find someone that would best suit him.