CAS blog of L. G.

FINALLY. The day of pay-back has dawned. One year ago I got to experience the loud outcry (and sincere greetings afterwards)  of Lyceum students, I got to complete various tasks in the city centre, I got to perform YMCA dance and in the end, I got to be drenched in water (while being sick). Fortunately, this year I only got to watch others experience all of this (ironically, once again, while being sick). Of course, before enjoying 'the show' everything needed to be prepared and I chose to take into advantage my artistic skills and contribute to the decor of the event. A few of my friends and I took the task of drawing waves as the theme of christening was ‘oceans’. I imagined it to be quite an easy and entertaining task, but it appeared to be completely opposite. I realized that to be able to draw realistic waves you actually have to know all the concepts of proper drawing and being a total amateur I failed at the very first attempt. The waves seemed flat and monoc...

Those who know my life story will probably understand why I chose to take Lithuanian lessons with Aušrinė who is an expert in this field. Over the lifetime I've spent six years abroad, during three of which I haven't learned Lithuanian at all. I remember, there was a period when my sister and I were even starting to talk in a foreign language with our parents at home. I'm glad that those six years were separated in two cadencies with a three-year gap, which helped me to get back into talking in my native language; however, I didn't manage to catch up some rules of spelling or syntax that I unfortunately missed, and to this day it bothered me and detained from getting the highest grades from my essays. So, these 45-minute lessons with Aušrinė seemed a pretty good idea to learn Lithuanian grammar and improve my writing skills. Plus, when chatting with my friends, I often doubt how to write particular words and this is a perfect opportunity to scatter the fog. I don...

There are several hundreds of nations around the world. Of course, no one is familiar with all of them, but let's admit, it's always fascinating to get acquainted with the outlandish language, traditions and history. That is the reason I was attracted to volunteer at the Nations bazaar. Ironically, in the end, I didn't even do anything related to nations. Organizers of the event offered a few zones that were in need of volunteers and I chose kids zone where little ones were meant to be painting on differently shaped pieces of foam. I knew that this definitely would be a true challenge for me as at this point of my life I'm not fascinated by kids and their sudden upsets. However, it appeared to be one of the most entertaining and beneficial volunteering activities this year so far. At first, we (volunteers) seriously struggled with the arrangement of the tent appointed to kids due to the insanely heavy wind. A plan to bring the "furniture" outside did no...

We live in a world where it's getting more and more expensive to live a qualitative life. It's always frustrating to learn that the price of your favorite bread, milk or product in general has risen, but from my yesterday's experience the increase of value is not necessarily a negative thing. Less than 24 hours ago I volunteered at the new Food bank project called "Great price - great job", which was initiated by "IKI" retail chain. This market raised prices of 12 popular products by 1 euro and all the additional money will be donated to Food bank for the infrastructure, warehouse equipment etc. For the past sixteen years this company collected and distributed thousands of tons of food a year to those in need without any payment. After this long period of time, all the equipment has outdated and now it's in need for renewal. I believe it's mandatory to help them because once they helped us as a society. So I felt it was my duty to particip...

Summer went by and all my promises to be active and do sports faded as if there were no any at all. So when the school year started, I took every possible opportunity to finally get rid of physical laziness. One of those opportunities was "Corny student run". I thought the distance of 3 km won't be challenging, but believe me, it was more than that. It appears that my physical abilities simply disappeared and already after the first kilometre I could feel the hard burden of running. The problem was not the lack of muscle strength but rather low endurance. However, I wasn’t ready to give up. My plan was to hold back last bits of energy till the last 100 meters and then to run with all the life left in me. Sadly, this strategy did not justify and my running time was 18:21, which is more than a minute slower than the last time. Despite that, I really enjoyed the actual running process, especially because the weather was nice, neither too hot nor too cold. Moreover, I had m...

To this day I remember the feeling of confusion that haunted me for at least a few months of my first IB course year. What subject to choose? What is Internal Assessment or Extended essay? What to do for CAS? These and many other questions tortured me for a while until IB2 arranged a meeting to share with us, at that time IB1,  all the information that could possibly be helpful to us. Knowing how much this meeting helped me when I was lost, there were not a slight doubt in my head whether I should attend it myself this year. Even though I did not participate in the organization process of IB course meeting, I felt obligated to come and share my experiences with newbies. It turned out that I even took part in a questionnaire that my classmates arranged. The rest of the time was dedicated to communication and a few get-to-know each other games. Surprisingly, I learnt a lot myself from former IB2 that kindly came to the meeting and shared their tips and tricks. I am extremely happ...

Even though officially it's the second of September, I still do not want to let go of the careless spirit of the summer. That's why the suggestion of friends to spend the evening roller skating was accepted without a single thought. To be honest, I have never been a huge fan of roller skating. I guess my childish 'trauma' of using too small of a roller skates with a result of sore legs each time played its role. However, knowing that, as cliché as it sounds, challenges only make you stronger, I decided to finally overcome my fears and acquire a proper skill of roller skating. Too ambitious? Probably yes. One evening of riding (or more of a standing?) on those four-wheeled human-creations did not help me to instantly grasp all the nuances of complicated art of riding. Nevertheless, the presence of close friends made the experience much easier and memorable as well. We had a nice chit-chat, laughed a lot and helped each over by holding hands. What is more, we got to tr...