Charades tournament

During the past month I had a great pleasure to participate in a school held Charades tournament. The start of this great adventure was quite unexpected yet I am glad that I had a chance to participate.

One month ago few of my friends saw a poster about this charade tournament and our group of friends decided to participate in it. After only a week we started to compete with other teams and everythin went splendidly. A few of my friends had experience in Charades and taught everyone the key things to understand and remember. At the start, it was hard for me to keep up with the pace of this word guessing game but as the tournament progressed it was easier and easier every time.

It happened, that we were placed first in this tournament and it was a great suprise after all the perfect experience I had from it. I certainly find a new activity that I would not believe to be as entertaining as it is.

Learning to shoot the bow is hard

I am glad that my classmates are so active and they are one of the reasons why I am active too. My classmate Delija has proposed that we join her in a bow shooting practice and learn to do it ourselves. I had wanted to do some sport’s activity for a while, thus I accepted her proposal and joined other classmates in this great introductory to archery.

                We went to the archery club Delija is going to, where we met her coaches and other students that are having practice at the same time. One of the coaches has explained to us all the basics of the right way to shoot the bow and gave us the equipment and we started our practice. For me it was really hard at the start and there was one compromise that made even harder. Since it’s indoors club (well of course it is, it is winter right now), the ceiling height is low and when you look at the track to the shooting target, as closer you get to the target, the height decreases. Since, I am a quite tall person and the tallest from my group I had the longest bow that was chosen to match my height (somehow the bows length is proportional to the person’s height and arm length). We were beginners and everyone went really close near the target, something like 5-6 meters near, so that they could actually hit something. It wasn’t the case for me since my height and the length of the bow meant that it was too narrow for me to shoot from that place, since I couldn’t extend my arm fully without hitting the ceiling. For that reason, I was shooting twice as far as others from the line that people who do this sport professionally shoot from. You could even imagine that my shoots were so off the target. However, after a few tries I tried to really focus and progressed a little. I learned that my accuracy could be off most of the times but if I really try, then I would actually hit the target. When I actually hit the center that one time, I couldn’t believe myself, but it was only for once. Too bad for me, but I liked the challenge. It really made me try my best and that’s why I learned something new and even developed some accuracy.

                This activity was great and everyone should try this. When you shoot the bow you feel really great and it just look badass. I will somehow try to organize a second practice and I hope that I will succeed.

Trying new activities: mind games!!!

                At the end of the last week, my friend offered me to participate in a competition called “Auksinis Protas” and I was quite interested about it. It can be translated as “Golden mind” and I thought that it will be like a competition between teams who answers tricky organizers questions. I quickly answered “Yes!” to my friend since CAS thought me to try anything new and exciting, and I am glad that I made the decision to participate in this activity.

                The whole competition was really fun and quite new for me. There were 5 rounds and on each round there were different tasks for every team. On the starting 2 rounds we were answering questions about a set theme in every round. Those questions were really tricky and I was amazed that other could answer them. I tried my best and focused, however I was able to answer only a few of the questions on my own. Next, on the third round there was a lighting round. There were 20 questions with 4 anwser showed and we needed to choose the right one. This round was easier for me, but still the fast pace was quite challenging, since you had 30 sec to write an answer and half of those 30 sec you actually read the question, thus I tried me best to keep up with time. The fourth round was a music one. There were 10 questions and they all relate to some song or track played and you need either to know the answer through your knowledge or find some clues in the song that would help you to answer. These questions were so interesting and creative. It’s amazing to think that somebody created them, since they were like a piece of art and also because of the originality they were the hardest ones. The final round was as same as the 2 first ones and it was really the most intense one, since at the end, when you still can do something for your score, you try your hardest to answer correctly.

                We finished 14^th between 25 teams, and I would say that a great achievement. I trained a lot of my skills in this competition such as critical thinking, creativity and for sure time management. Also, I learned to see questions from quite different perspective, always finding for something hidden, that would help me to answer the question. Overall, this experience was perfect for me.

                I will certainly try to compete again, since this is not a one time event and actually it’s a league. I hope my friends would invite my again and that I will experience it again.

Photo of my team:

Doing something beneficial to the society and deceased people

                Our IB classes and other school students collaborated and did something great. We saw a problem that in autumn, when the leaf fall down, most of the public spaces aren’t cleaned, especially the graveyard in Antakalnis. Hence, we decided to contact them and agree on our participation in the clean-up of the graveyard. It was done on a Saturday morning and during the day we managed to gather most of the leaves in the graveyard and it really made it look cleaner and more appropriate to the dead people graveyards.

                I saw a great importance in this event, since we need to take care of these kinds of public place. The environment of graveyards should be as clean as possible to ensure that we give our respects to the deceased people and I would say it was my main aim. During the whole activity I worked as actively as possible and with the good teamwork of our group we managed to do the hard work.  The whole process was not that challenging physically, but one thing was hard to do. The area of graveyards had also many leaves on them and the problem is that it’s not ethical to step on them, thus I had implemented hard work in order to clean them without doing that. We done a few things to make it possible and I am glad that we had succeeded to do that.

                This activity really benefitted the Antakalnis graveyard because not only it was more appealing to the visiting relatives of deceased people, but also, as I said, we showed our respect to them and in doing that we showed that it’s an important thing to go. I hope that I will have this kind of an event in the future or even organize one, since it’s one of the things that helps to make our society and surroundings better and it was a great experience to have. The feeling of doing something beneficial is no of the best in the world.

Here my group is working hard in order to clean the graveyard:

 Here is me happily cleaning the graveyard:

My third “Maisto bankas” event

                It’s strange for me to realize, that I had participated in the third food gathering event, which aim is to gather food for those in need. I have this feeling because I was able to commit for this great activity and I really start liking it. My third event of the “Maisto Bankas” had passed similarly as those before. I have stayed for a day in a big supermarket and promoted passing by shopers to donate for our organization. One thing that I have found different this time is that I was able to help newcomers to contribute more effectively in this event. I explained them how to pursue people to donate, how to number and track the donated items and also I told them about my previous experiences

                My goal for this activity was as same as before. I wanted to spend my time differently, help others, have fun and meet other people. My presumptions were met and I am happy that I hadn’t missed this event. The whole experience from the start to the finish, when I was exhausted, yet delighted, was great and again I had challenged myself to be as active as possible, since the problem this event tries to solve is one of the biggest in my country. Many families have a hard time to meet their needs because the minimal wage is not enough to fully satisfy the needs of a new family and even if they get a few packets of food through this organization, they would gain great help in their lives. Poverty is horrible and I am glad that there are organization like “Maisto Bankas”, who actually care for the well-being of disadvantageous people. After giving out the message about this problem in this event, I feel that I had done something to end this problem and that my and many other people contribution to this problem is a one step to finally ending it.

                I will continue to volunteer the upcoming year and even next years, if I will be able to. In next events I would like to make an even bigger impact and become a supervisor of a team.

Here is the photo of my team:

Debating

                Debating was always interesting to me. I always thought about as the best activity to strengthen your speaking and critical thinking skills. Hence, when I saw an invitation in the social media to attend debating club classes, I was really tempted. For that reason, a few weeks ago I participated in an introductory class of this club and now I am a member of this club, and already I had 2 classes of in this club.

                Every lesson is really interesting to me. Although, we started from the basics such as the format of debate and how should you structure your speech, I grasped quite a few valuable insights about effectively showing your opinion. Already, I see progress in my thinking, since now I see everything through debater’s mindset.

                Next week I will if my progress is good since I will have my first debate. Even now, knowing that it will be only the next week, I feel that it will be hard and quite challenging. I will need to speak up to 6 min, since it’s the appropriate time for a speech in the format we debate in. 6 minutes are a lot when you think about it, but my teachers say that it’s nothing and they would speak twice as much if they could. Well, I will see for myself if they are right and definitely I will find out my strength in debating.

                I founded debating so interesting that I even tempted a few of my friends to go to classes with me and I hope even one of them will agree, since debating is such a great activity to do. It was actually almost compulsory in ancient times and was written by many of philosophers as a key of individuals’ mental growth. I understand them now.

Here is a photo from the oppening event:

Induction ceremony of the first years

                We have a great tradition in our school (I hope it’s the same in the rest of the world) to induce our newcomers in our schools society. It’s done by an annual event in which we make the first years to do various tasks in order for them to show if they are viable enough to be a part of our school. I was a participant of this event last year when I entered IB program and I am glad that finally this year I can be the one who does the induction. It was the number one thing that I was waiting for this year and the whole event was really wonderful and lived to my expectations.

                The event had two main parts: the morning part and the evening part. In the morning, we told everyone to go to Vingio Park – a huge park in Vilnius, and here we commanded them to walk around the whole park and do various tasks like dance something funny when rave music is played. In the evening part we had a big celebration in the school and we treated first years also the same. They needed to pass a tunnel in order to enter the event and before the start they were placed in our made cages of fence. The whole atmosphere was really intense and there were many mini shows by us, last years, also the first years needed to do an act themselves and at the end we acknowledged them as a part of our society and we poured water on them. The whole experience was amazing not only for me but also for the first years. I remember having a lot of emotion on my ceremony and this event really helps to make up friendships when you just enter a new school and also built up teamwork skills since they needed a lot of it in their task and preparation of their act.

                I was the one who guided IB students in the morning part and the evening part. I was like their commander and showed my knowledge as senior. I am glad that I have done this event and I have made quite a good relationship with IB 1 class, even though they are first years. I hope they will have as same of fun as me in organizing next year’s event and I hope that this tradition will carry out for generations.

This is our organizing team after the succesful event:

This the IB 1 that I commanded (unfortunately I wasn't in the photo since they were doing some sort of task I don't remember):