CAS blog of L. G.

Today the weather was finally nice again, thus a group of classmates and I decided to head to UNO park and spend some fun time together while distracting ourselves from any exam-related worries. There were various kinds of routes with increasing difficulty marked by colour. Of course, we started with the easiest green one. Then followed the blue and the red ones. At first, I was confused and kind of scared to trust the ropes but after a few obstacles, it got easier and more enjoyable. Of all the routes, the red one was the most challenging because it required a lot of balance, coordination and arm strength. It also included my least favourite obstacle which was a mountaineering wall. Actually, I was always very keen to try mountaineering as a sport because it seemed extremely entertaining but in reality, it was so much harder to move from one artificial "stone" to another. I tried jumping from one to another and it kind of helped to move faster but there were a f

I constantly feel responsible to help animals in one or other way. This time I thought of doing a few postcards encouraging to adopt pets from shelters and leave them in a local library. As it wasn't the first time of me doing some crafty postcards I wanted to try something distinct this time. I looked for some inspiration online and found a postcard with a cut out dog figure representing the "emptiness" of human heart that can be filled with the love for an adopted pet. I found this idea to be exclusive and very touching and made up my mind to challenge myselft to try and recreate the online postcard.  Generally, it was something different to try and I enjoyed the process of creating a simple though full of meaning postcards. I have to admit, that at first I was frustrated when cutting out the figures because I couldn't figure out how to cut out the thin details but then I changed normal scissors to small nail ones and it was much easier. As I liked the techniqu

Not a long time ago, I tried the art of doodling and really enjoyed this type of drawing. It is traditionally drawn with only a black pen but I decided to improve my doodling skills by including some colours. To be honest, it was hard to think of the object to draw that I would be able to colour later because usually it's a very small and detailed drawings. So after some time searching of inspiration on the internet I found planets and clounds coloured in various ways and instantly thought of recreating those pictures. It wasn't hard to draw the figures but it was challenging to mix up pastel colours for the clouds. I tried mixing normal colours with white to make them the way I wanted but it didn't rea lly worked out and the colours weren't as pastel as I anticipated them to be. Despite this, I think the end result turned out quite cute which is exactly what I was trying to achieve.  As for the planets I didn't want them to be realistic in any way and tried

Today I had my last IB exam and my joy is beyond words. I will admit though that the joy is more of a mental realisation rather than a feeling itself because this week's exams were very tough for me and all I truly wanted to do is to sleep instead of jumping of happiness . However, it would have been a sin not to celebrate reaching the finish line at least in some way. So together with some classmates we decided to go on a hike in the forest near Regina's house. At first it was very relieving to share our ups and downs of the exams and there were plenty of time to listen to each of the girls. However, later it became boring for me to simply walk the path without any purpose. Moreover, I quickly became very tired and sleepy as well as hungry. Luckily we had some snacks and to properly enjoy them we stopped for a little picnic which was very satisfying after a an hour of waking. Overall, the hike wasn't as pleasant as I expected it to be but we had a great workout as we

A bus ride to school is my sister's and mine routine for nearly two years now. We usually ride two or one stop depending on the bus stop we choose to walk to on that particular day (they're pretty much equally far away) after parents drop us off on their way to work. However, we were always curious about how long it would take us to walk the same distance we ride by bus each day. The reason is that even though it seems not a far ride, the bus still takes around 15 minutes to get us to school due to usual morning traffic. Therefore, last week to decided to try leaving the home earlier by ten minutes and walking to school. Surprisingly, we discovered that walking takes at most 15 minutes, nearly the same if not faster than by bus. We both found this kind new way of starting the day very enjoyable because the weather is getting nicer with each day and 15 minutes of physical activity really get us woken up (which is our daily struggle these days...). Additionally, we get to ch

Parents always tell their children not to play with their food and my parents used to repeat this every time I was making an entertainment out of food as well. We all grow up out of this kind of childish phase; however, it's always enjoyable to remember even such silly moments of your childhood as food-play. Today I did just that and even though some might not consider fruit "carving" equal to playing with food, I still think it's more of a game rather than art.  D espite being fascinated by the concept of making different objects out of simple fruits or vegetables since I can remember, I have never before tried carving fruits. Today I finally got my hands on this activity and tried to create working conditions as much favourable as possible. First of all, to successfully carve fruits I had to have properly sharpened knives which my dad kindly took care of; second of all, those knives should have preferably been specialized for carving meaning they would have been

In the past I’ve tried a lot of various kinds of sport but came to conclusion that from the active group I like simple exercises with or without weights the most. Therefore, as summer is already near the corner, my sister and I decided to atted some kind of a fitness class in the local gym. We choose the press and back workout as it was one of the shortest ones and we definitely don’t have a lot of free time at the moment as exams are coming.  It was confusing at first because the trainer kept telling  us what to do but I was too slow to manage to follow the instructions. However, after the first 10 minutes I got kind of used to the pace and could adapt to new exercises pretty quickly. Despite this, it was still challenging to complete all the exercises for a certain period  of time due to me being physically unprepared. What helped me was that my sister and I kept cheering each other bot to give up and this motivated me to keep going.  Overall, I truly enjoyed the experience but at

It has been a while since the last time I participated in any kind of Olympiad and to be honest, I kind of missed the feeling of competition during and satisfaction after the contests. Luckily, today I got an opportunity to feel the atmosphere of upcoming Česlovo Kudabos Geography Competition held at Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences.  Initially, I had an imagination that this will be a small competition for a few hundred people from my town. However, only later at the University I found out that as much as a thousand people are going to attend it. This really shocked me and brought to the reality of how much work has to be done. Luckily, there were a lot more volunteers than the three of us (the usual - Kamilė, Ignė and I) as I imagined it would be. At first, we had to wait for instructions for a good half an hour or even more and I found it extremely boring to just observe confused teachers trying to figure out what task must be completed. Nevertheless, the time of w

A photo from other practice that I didn't attend The long-waited prom is coming and this means that we, graduate students, have to not only think about the clothes to wear but also learn to dance waltz,  most probably the most classic of all dances, which is sort of a compulsory dance with one of the parents (girls with dads and boys with mothers). I was never confident about my dancing skill even though I attended recreational dances (only for half a year actually...) at fifth grade. Luckily, a few of my classmates, who have much more experience in dancing than I do, organized special classes to learn to dance waltz. I couldn't participate in the first classes as I was away at the time but as soon as I got back I jumped straight into the classes whenever I could. In all, I attended only two classes before the mock exams started which is not that much but I still got to practice my skills. I was nervous that I didn't have a partner before going but it was fine in the

I've already lost a count of which time I participated at the "Food bank" but I definitely didn't feel like a newbie anymore. This time I decided not be a leader of the shift and get back to the tasks of an ordinary volunteer. It came out that the 'manager' of my shift was my sister, which made it much more challenging to volunteer. I felt the need to help her at times to distribute the tasks or simply take initiative at completing certain work because one of the volunteers didn't show up and we certainly felt the lack of hands. Surprisingly, this time there were no additional problems with people visiting a supermarket because usually there's always several of those who are not content with the project or anything related to it. Consequently, three hours were pretty smooth and calm but still a little boring. I don't remember when was then last time I volunteered at Friday because I usually chose Saturdays to have more energy and motivation. Howe

Long days at school require proper lunch to fuel the brain and the body for the most efficiency at classes. My sister and I are vegetarians and this restricts our choices of lunch in the school canteen. The only options are usually some kind of soup or rice with veggies. This kind of food isn't nor nutritious neither delicious, thus we like to take meals from home. We are used to taking meals prepared by our mom but this usually means that after school you have to eat the same meal or make something on your own, which is not an option for us with all the school work. Taking all of this into account I figured to try out making quick meal for the two of us to take to school. Each day of the previous week I made something to eat for the next day and my sister was the one evaluating the taste and the meal itself. As we take meals in special food thermoses it was impossible to take proper photos and to be honest, I always forgot to do that. The only time I remembered in the morning was

After a great experience at the guided yoga class  three months ago, I wanted to try out yoga at home once again. Finally, this month I found some time to dedicate for finishing a 10-day yoga beginner tour of the app called "Daily yoga". It consisted of 10 videos (around 20-minute long each) with not only visual representation of the movements but with a voiceover as well, which was very convenient as usually I did unfamiliar poses and needed a little extra help with understanding which leg/arm goes where. Also, the voice with a relaxing sound background helped to clear my mind and breath correctly. Even though I enjoyed most of my practices, which I did after school, I definitely noticed the lack of muscle strength and stretching abilities (14 days of stretching last month didn't make a noticeable difference). Thus, I often couldn't do certain poses properly which surprisingly only made me more motivated to try harder the next day. Of course, 10 days is not enou

Already in the primary school children are introduced to the art of origami. As much as I remember from my own childhood, it's usually a boat and a hat the most two common figures to fold. They are already pretty easy to make for a child so I decided to try something more challenging in this sphere. I chose to practice a few animals: a frog,  a dinosaur and a shark. Initially, I anticipated to make many more figures but after spending more than half an hour folding these three I understood that the process is not as quick and smooth as I thought it would be.  I started with a from - the easiest one, as I naively thought before attempting it. At first It was pretty straightforward with simple folds in half or across the piece of paper. However, after three or four folds it became much more complicated, especially as my printing paper that I used became extremely thick and it was hard to make any fold with it at this point. It appeared that the figure of the frog is very small and

Having to spend most of my time by the desk I can really feel the lack of exercise in my daily life. Now, when the exams are so close I feel deprived of physical activities even more. However, it’s not an excuse to choose the elevator instead of the stairs or take a bus instead of walking. This month was supposed to be dedicated  to walking 10000 steps a day, but it appeared to be much more difficult than I expected. I assumed that I usually was walking most of that amount but I was surprised to acknowledge that I barely could get to half of that. Therefore, it was much more of a challenge to walk 10000 steps than I initially anticipated. First of all, I found it hard to keep up with the fixed number of steps. I always managed to get 5000 steps but to double that I had to make a significant effort. Sometimes it even required a few (or more) circles around my neighborhood before coming home form school. Before this moth I believed that I enjoy walking but it wasn’t that fun after all

We all know that it's important to move your body each day to be healthy, however at the moment I'm tied to my laptop behind the desk almost 24/7 and I can definitely feel the stiffness of my body due to the lack of exercise or simple walking. Luckily, I discovered stretching as one of the forms of exercise that does not require as much muscle strength as simple consistence. I decided to make a two-week-plan of different combinations of stretching exercises to help me in being persistent. To my surprise it actually made me stick to the plan most of the time as I didn't have to look for the exercises simply wasting time. Even though I skipped a few days, I still found that this was very beneficial for my physical condition and even helped me to sleep better. I didn't expect for my muscles to hurt though, but I could feel them the second day after stretching. Despite the unpleasant feeling, it made me feel that I do the stretching right and motivated me to continue to

For most people colouring books associate with childhood; however, there is a new trend going for a while now which is colouring books for adults. Books stores' shelves are loaded with such books and it seems that almost everyone has one at home now. The reason behind all of this is that it is claimed that colouring helps to relieve stress and even strongly assimilates meditation. As I have already tried meditating in the past and really enjoyed it, I thought it would be interesting to try out colouring as an alternative. Luckily, I already had a mandala pattern book at home which I didn't really get a chance to try out and it seemed a great opportunity to finally do it.  I coloured one mandala per week the whole month and each week I tried to choose more and more complex pattern. The first one was pretty easy and it required only a few colours, but the other ones got me really struggling while matching multiple colours together. I didn't expect that this supposedly rela

Food waste is a major problem of contemporary world. While ones throw away food on a daily basis, the others starve and struggle to provide food for their families due to absence of proper monetary means. This surprising paradox is still prevailing in my country despite its high level of development. Personally, I was raised to always finish my food and never throw it away, but seeing my friends constantly do so made me realize that the problem is much more prevailing than I thought it was. This kind of realization encouraged me to look for additional ways I would be able to contribute to decreasing food waste. Luckily, I was already familiar with 'Food bank', which is an organization arranging food gatherings in supermarkets twice a year. After volunteering at 'Food bank' for the second year in a row, I thought I knew everything about this organization, but it appeared I was completely wrong. One of my classmates shared that she was going to volunteer at their sto

It's not a secret that the world's 'health' is relatively rapidly deteriorating and the main reason for that is human-induced activities. People are often not even aware of the consequences that their actions bring to Earth and as a person of the new generation I feel accountable to awaken the sense of responsibility in such people. That's exactly what prompted me to make environment-concerning bookmarks. As always, it was a few of us who decided to cooperate and make enough bookmarks to be able to leave them in our school library for others to use and get informed or inspired to reduce waste, pollution or any other harmful activity that they might be contributing to.  In total, I made three bookmarks concerning industrial pollution, daily waste and deforestation. My goal was to make them simple in content but still bearing an important meaning. Overall, it wasn't challenging to draw the bookmarks because before drawing I spent a whole hour searching for suit

There's something special about being able to commemorate certain moments of your life and review them whenever you want. I always admired this about photography, but also found it bothering that nowadays those moments in photographs are usually artificially posed and do not reflect the real world. This time I decided to take it as an advantage and try creating something surreal out of real photos. For this I used an app called "Pic Blender" which actually gives away the whole idea behind this small experiment of mine. I wanted to try to overlap different pictures in order to create unusual and creative pictures. At first, I tried numerous other apps before discovering "Pic Blender" but even though they all seemed to have a variety of functions, the quality of the final picture was completely ruined. Luckily, "Pic Blender" maintained most of the initial picture's quality and I was able to experiment with it. It took some time for me to understan

I've always used to come across the word 'doodle' but it never appeared to me that it was a form of art until I actually searched what it looks like. It's a combination of simple drawings made with a black pen and not even necessarily bearing a certain meaning. The simplicity and freedom of choice in this drawing form instantly made me want to try it out myself as I've always been interested in drawing with only a black pen.  I'll be honest, it looks much easier that it actually is. It was extremely hard for me to draw without a pencil sketch as I'm used to perfecting the drawing with a pencil and eraser and only then outlining with something permanent. So, doodling was definitely a totally new experience for me but I truly enjoyed it. To ease my way into the new art form I firstly chose to draw space-related doodles which was quite simple as it was only a combination of circles and lines (also dots). I was very proud with the end and decided to try doodl

Whenever streets fill up with a fluff of snow it brings a lot of joy to little ones, however, simultaneously it brings a lot of inconvenience to adults, especially older ones and daily pedestrians like me. In suburbs where mountains of snow get cleaned off only from roadways but not from pedestrian trails the problem of hard accessibility of bus stops and grocery stores is especially prevailing. Last week I encountered with similar problem in my living area while walking to the bus stop and thought of cleaning it not for myself but more for others walking the same direction as well because I see a lot of elderly walking to the same bus stop. Imagine how hard it is for them when even I struggle to properly walk on that uneven surface! So the next day, after school my sister and I armed with some snow shovels and did our best to make the pedestrian trail as clean as it was possible. Even though the trail never seemed to be long, this time I did found myself wondering when will it alread

A brief sketch  Whenever a new film gets released for wide public access, naturally, it receives feedback from the viewers, not even including various professional critics in the film industry. However, most of those who criticize express their opinions through words, for example, comments, articles and similar. As for the movie "Mona Lisa Smile" that I watched most recently, I find it hard to describe in words but much easier in colors. That's why I decided to paint a review instead of writing one. If I had to name three properties of it as a painting I would most definitely say: colorful, extraordinary and unique. So that's what I tried to convey by my own version of famous Van Gogh's "Sunflowers". My painting also correlates with the main idea of the film itself. It lies in the words of the leading character, new teacher of history of art at women's private college,  Katherine Ann Watson, who said during one of her classes "You can