Reflection #5: Grading Quizzes

Mr. Meisner has asked us to see if anyone wanted to help grading quizzes, since we are a lot of students and so that he wont have much grading to do, so I decided to help. At first I thought that it would be fun grading other peoples responses and that it would be quick. Later on as I was grading them, I found out that it actually takes some time grading them since sometimes I had to look for the answers when I wasn’t sure. Also having to see how simple mistakes can take down your read. I realized that whenever you don’t study for something, you really can’t just write what ever you think the answer is because in the end you can notice who studied for the quizzes and who didn’t. While grading the quizzes I have also been able to study myself since I have to check every single answer like 24 times, so the information is bound to stick to my brain. In the future I hope to keep helping with the grading since it does help you study and also to start grading them as soon as I can or else other homework will pile up making it very hard to find time to grade them.

Reflection #4: Mandarin Classes

 Mandarin classes are a new extra-curricular activity that the school has implemented this year. In my opinion it is actually a very good idea because soon Mandarin will become one of the most important languages. At first I planned to start learning Mandarin, what I thought would be their different way of writing. But as the classes went by we were told that we weren’t going to learn that this semester, and I finally understand why. Mandarin isn’t that hard, if you practice you can understand it easily, but if we were to learn the writing as well as the phonetics and the word meanings we would never advance into the next lessons. What I hope for the future is that I can actually use what I learn outside of the class while talking with my friends, which are also in that class, so that we can become more accustomed to the language and so we will be able to talk it naturally. 

December 9, 2011

The Mandarin classes are over, at least for this semester. It was really fun and interesting to have those classes I learned a lot about the phonetics the words and a bit of the culture. We were able to write in chinese paper with their special ink and writing utensils, also the last class we brought in traditional chinese food which was really good. Ill miss the classes, but I dont think i will enroll in them again next semester due to the fact that important events will come up in school for our junior year that will take a lot of the extra time we have. Hopefully someday I will be able to continue learning the language. 

Reflection #3: Violin Classes

I have always liked music especially how it’s made. Since I’ve been little I’ve always been introduced to different types of music, and with this, all the different types of instruments that exist. Because of this I am now starting to take Violin Classes. It all really started when my Grandma gave me a violin as a present on my 15^th birthday after hearing that I liked them. So I’ve been going to classes starting this school year for about 5 classes, my hope for going to classes was to learn a new instrument and be able to play songs I enjoy hearing to in it. As I kept going to classes I realized that not only am I learning about a new instrument but also more on music and the notes on the pentagram or what we call ‘solfeo’ (I don’t know how to say it in English).  Also I have learned that in the violin it is only the strings that count, but the arc and how you hold it towards the violin. In the future I will hope to get better in the instrument and also to get to the point were I can play songs by ear using the violin. 

Reflection #2: Salvation Army

Up on till now I have been able to go on five different occasions to visit the kids the Salvation Army. At first, I must confess, that it was kind of weird and awkward for me at least, because I have never been the type to be with kids and play with them, but after a while I got used to all the kids running around and hugging me. The first time we went as a class we played with a lot of the girls different outdoors game, and we al ended up arriving very tired to our houses. Another time I went was when we took their new uniforms so that they could try them on. The girls took the longest because they were preoccupied on how they looked. The boys on the other had an easier time putting on their uniforms, but the downside was that most of the uniforms were already taken so many of them didn’t have their complete uniform. The most recent one was yesterday (Saturday-October 22, 2011). Not may people went so it was only Francisco, Stephanie, Juan, Domenico, and I. I was with Nilsa most of the time because she liked when I filmed her with my iPod. We ran around in the backyard and I helped Rosana with her HW even though she tried to trick us into doing it for her, it didn’t work out for her though :P By now I’m more comfortable with the kids and treating with them, I have even been able to stop a fight between them (which they do quite often). Whenever I go back I will make sure, or at least try, to bring tings like color pencils and paper so that they can more fun, because I have noticed that a lot of them like to draw but they don’t have enough paper/colors. 

1st Reflection: Back to School BBQ

             So, our first CAS activity that we did as a whole group, was the Back to School BBQ. It wasn't that bad, the only thing that was weird was that I did my proposal for Relay Races and in the end there was no relay races. Im not sure why that happened, but I ended up selling tickets for the inflatables. Fabi C and I were in the first shift so we had to get there early and look for the sticker bracelets that would be sold so that the kids could go in the inflatables.We agreed that I would take care of the money while she took care of the bracelets. At first it was slow but then when people started to arrive we were trying to do our best with the change, because everyone was paying with 50bs or 100bs and we ran out of change pretty fast, we ended up asking Mr Meisner for change. In the end it worked out pretty well and i think we actually did a good job, even though at first we were giving the bracelets to kids that were a little bit bigger than what the inflatables were made for because we didn't know, so the lady that owned the inflatables told us to not to let kids older than 8 enter the inflatables. Now that I think about it i feel pretty good about the work that we put in the BBQ, I think that for it to be our first time we actually did pretty good. If I were to do this again I think I would make sure to ask for smaller bills from the start so that it wont be necessary to worry about it later on. This event kind of taught me about selling and about thinking fast on giving the exact change.

Testing.Testing.

This is just a test....to see how this blog site works.....hopefully it will come out good and that at the end of these 18 months of IB/CAS I will come back and be proud of my work :D