Creativity
Piano
Description: I attend piano practices once a week with my piano teacher. Each week it's for about 45 minutes per session. There are two concerts that happen each year, one at the beginning of summer, one at the beginning of December. Pieces I practice together with my piano teacher are in order to prepare for the concerts.
Goals: For the winter concert of 2016, the piece I am playing is Valzer No. 14, by Frederik Chopin.. The piece itself is not that hard, despite its relatively fast tempo. The main aspect of the piece to focus on is to hand perfected sounds and not end up playing anything sloppily, I've generally played usually slower pieces, so this will be relatively new for me.
CAS Outcomes:
Planning and Initiation: Attend all practices and make sure I practice enough at home. I'll try to manage my tight schedule and find times devoted to piano practices for myself.
Development of New Skills: Practice and perform a new style of music for me (waltz).
Increased Awareness of Strengths and Weaknesses: Realize which parts in the piece I am unable to play or play poorly and do my best to correct the mistakes for the concert.
Commitment to Activities: Go to all practices.
Chopin Waltz in E Minor (left), Rachmaninoff Prelude in C# minor (right)
Reflection: The final two punctuating points in years of piano practicing and playing lead to the two main concerts every year, and for my time as an IB student that results in 4 in total (December 2016, June 2017, December 2017, June 2018). On top of that, there are some lesser performances, such as choir accompaniment, although this doesn't mean by any means that there is less practice required.
The thing about piano is that while the performance lasts only a couple of minutes, if not less, the practice, building up to it, and dedication I have to put into it is months and months, essentially all 10 years of playing it. Per week I have to practice for full performance ideally at least 4-5 hours per week. Besides IB and my other activities, it can be hard to sometimes find the time and motivation to practice piano, something that can require effort and concentration.
As far as keeping up with my goals goes, I managed to keep up pretty well. However, there are a few points where I would criticize myself. For some piano accompaniment songs, I was a little behind and didn't practice as much as I could've, and made some practices rather unproductive for myself. Also, because I wasn't 100% confident in my abilities, the final performances for these choir events could have been better. Also, I ended up not attending the June 2017 concert as that overlapped the exact same day as our Classroom Without Wall trip to Croatia, and all the effort and practice for this moment was pretty worthless. I was also supposed to play originally more songs for all of my concerts (usually 2), but I ended up always having only 1 piece which I could play solidly, so I was left with only one song to play.
On the other hand, it sometimes feels like all the effort and dedication of 10 years sometimes simply is not worth it, and it's just a pain. And also that it's sometimes almost underappreciated. It's not only until you pull off a really worthwhile experience (with all that effort and dedication poured into it), that you get to see and feel the audience's reactions for yourself. That's the best part of it all, and the fact that you yourself can make yourself happy with simply a piano. Piano will definitely be with me for the rest of my life.
Band
Date: Whole School Year
Supervisors: Mr. Yoder, Mr. King
Overview: Assigned practice being only once a week during lunch, with the inclusion of many other sessions organized by us for practicing, the band this year has 8 members. Scheduled performances will take place throughout the year, in school as well as out of school.
Goals:
Planning and Initiation: Be at practices and performances, and make sure I know the material I'm supposed to know.
Development of New Skills: Working together as a unit band, and also learning completely new instruments (bass, guitar, a little drums).
Increased Awareness of Strengths and Weaknesses: What do I excel at when I'm part of a band. How to improve my bad qualities within a band?
Commitment to Activity: Be at all practices/performances
Collaboration with Others: Work together in unison with the rest of the band members for success.
Open the Mic Performance (November 30th)
Reflection:
The entire event, about an hour long, featured us as the band. We played a total of 6 songs, in which I was featured in 5 of. Three songs I played the bass, while the other two I played the keyboard. I've been playing piano for a while now, so the keyboard parts aren't very difficult to play. Same goes for the bass parts. The thing is that I've never had an bass/guitar lessons and/or experiences until now, only a little from last years band. Due to this, I'm always very happy to be able to play bass and do something new for me. Aside from getting short quick lessons from the other band members during practices on how to play the bass, there is no other external knowledge of the instrument upon which I'm being endowed.
All in all, all songs went very well, and there was a very positive reaction from the audience as well, which was rather large. Despite having played a different pattern/chord progression for the last part of the first song (which still sounds legitimate), my parts were pretty solid. Being able to be on stage and perform songs which I actually like in front of people I actually know is a welcomning good experience. Working together as a band, I really am able to enjoy such events, even if for only 6 songs in total.
Open the Mic Performance Performance (April 11th)
Reflection: For this performance I played piano for 4 songs, and bass for 1 song. All the piano parts of substantially easier than performance pieces note-wise, but here it's bout fitting with the band and keeping the rhythm and flow going. For this performance I feel like we were very well prepared, except for one song (Purple Rain) where we were still practicing the day of to make sure we had it down, and I was still scrambling to study the chord progression for the chorus/bridge/verses, etc.
I don't recall doing any major mistake, and in general I wasn't all that nervous, more excited and happy to be there. It was awesome to have everybody come, friends, family, teachers, and play something nice for them. The experience is a whole lot different from solo piano playing versus band piano playing. The center of attention is not nearly on you, even if the piano is leading the song (The Kooks - See Me Now). Instead, your job is to contribute to the atmosphere, and that still is a very important job. This concluded the 2016-2017 year Band, and for next year, sadly, I am the only band member staying for next year, with everyone else either graduating or leaving. Though that be said, I am possibly looking forward to next year's band even more because we'll be having a whole new set of people joining us with complete new sets of skills. It'll be fun, that I know for sure.
Choir at Pancakes with Santa/Public Christmas Bazaar/American Embassy/Public International Day of Languages @Bratislava Old Town/Winter Concert
Date: December 10th, 2016
Supervisors: Mr. King, Mr. Yoder
CAS Outcomes:
Development of New Skills: Singing is definitely not one of my strong points. Therefore upping my singing abilities, which are minimal, is definitely something new for me.
Increased Awareness of Strengths and Weaknesses: How is my singing actually? Am I better at singing melodies, or lower octave tunes?
Undertaking New Challenges: Singing is entirely a new kind of activity for me. I do enjoy music, but I've never gotten into singing.
Collaboration with Others: Sing together harmoniously as a choir.
Overview: Prior to the these events and showcases, the choir has practices during lunch on weekdays, and you're required to come at least twice a week. In total there are about 10 songs which will be performed.
Reflection: Since singing has never been my thing, I had to get used to it at first. My voice is very low, and that's why I eventually stuck with singing lower octaves and avoiding melodies. I could only come maximum two times a week because all my other lunches are taken. Practices involved running through songs, but all the time changes and edits were made to songs, and I had to take notes on what to do and what not to do. Verses were swapped, doubled, deleted, so I had to pay attention. At the actually Pancakes with Santa event, we warmed up our voices 10 minutes before, and our singing exhibition lasted about 25 minutes. It definitely was a refreshing experiences to have, and even though I won't grow up to be a singer, such events are worth the time.
@QSIB Facebook, Christmass Bazaar performance (big crowd to be honest, waaaaaay bigger than I expected)
For the rest of the events, we essentially played the same reportoire. The hardest part of it all was actually getting the entire choir to come to practice, and that even includes me. This was during rather busy times, and some lunches I simply was not available. Then again, when I was available, others weren't. Also, because there were slight time breaks in between performances, my piano pieces which I accompanied and even the songs I sang somewhat got exacerbated skillwise, and I was somewhat rusty at some points to be honest. Next time, even though I had a lot to be doing and couldn't always practice as I wanted, simply 10 minutes a day reviewing and keeping my memory and skills fresh will help tons.
The performances themselves were actually pretty solid. When performing in front of super large crowds (sometimes as just a kind of background performance for passerbys), the details don't have to be perfect, and pretty good is, honestly, enough. The overall impression was that everyone enjoyed, performers or audience members. I've done such performances music quite a lot of times that I don't get all that nervous, simply excited, and at times only a little jittery from that. However, at the Christmas Bazaar, and even for about 3-4 thousand people, I did get a little scared, and my hands were shaky. My performance on piano wasn't all that great, but, it was pretty ok. I'll for sure continue to perform in such bands, choirs, groups, and performances, just next time maybe pay a little more attention (not only right before the performance) for practicing.
Cubing
BISB Cubing Demonstration:
Date: May 5th, 2017
Supervisors: Mr. Owen
Overview: I will be going over to another school to give a cubing demonstration for about 300+ 5 to 11 year olds, including teachers and other spectators. This will include talking a little about myself and cubing, how/when the cube was invented. Most importantly, I will be doing spotlight cubing demonstrations and solves, as well as a blindfold attempt (the hardest part by far). There will then be a Question and Answer session involving me, my cubing life, and my competition experience.
Goals:
Development of New Skills: Entertaining a very large group of kids will be something not all that familiar to me, and will require constant enthusiasm, appeal, and very quick fingers (not getting nervous/spotlight fright).
Undertaking New Challenges: At first I wanted to not participate in this, but after all, not many experiences like this arise. I'll be in charge of impressing a very large group of kids, which is a new challenge for me.
Reflection: Having arrived a tad bit earlier than expected, the assembly itself featured me only towards the end, so there was quite a bit of waiting time. When it was finally my turn, I talked about some background Rubik's Cube info, and then proceeded to show an example 3x3x3 solve. After all, I was conscious of a lot of eyes on me, and my cube ended up actually popping due to my slightly shaky hands. That was unfortunate, however, the most important, the blind solve, was a success (unfortunately no picture).
I wasn't necessarily in perfect condition for cubing (I still have a lot of school work and my next competition is a month and a half away). Next time for an event like this, which was more formal than I was hoping for, I should at least have prepared a script or repertoire. Most of the presentation was impromptu, which went pretty good, yet could have possibly been better with more practice beforehand, yet that isn't the real importance here. The big aim here was to inspire some kids and "show off" or at least get people to know that something like this exists and how exciting it is, which went pretty good.
Drama (Annie)
Date: Winter-Spring of 2017
Supervisors: Mr. King, Mrs. Valerie
Overview: At first only vocal practices a couple of times per week, but then "on-stage" practices more often towards performance date. We will be having a school performance, but also we'll be inviting some other schools and have mutual performances for each other.
Goals:
Development of New Skills: Since this is a Musical, I will be required to do some singing, which is not my strong point.
Increased Awareness of Strengths and Weaknesses: Even though this is not my first time in drama, I still inconsistently fail at some thing more than other things. Being sure to have all lines memorized, perfect choreography, and correct communication with peers are aspects I want to perfect.
Commitment to Activity: Be at all practices (and of course performances)
(@QSIB drama production, under superivision of Mr. King)
Reflection: For this years, I played the laundry man, a servant, Bert Healy (radio host), a trash man, and a radio announcer. Many of my roles were here and there, scattered throughout the play. We had only one full dress rehearsal at the place (Dom Kultury) itself. Many of us were given roles with prop moving directly before the play, so that was quite stressful. Overall, many things did not go as planned during the actual performance. For example, my laundry basket got stuck on a mattress, sound didn't play when it should've, causing me to awkwardly continue my lines, movement of radio host table was a failed attempt since it was my job, but someone decided to go for it instead, and put it in the wrong spot, causing an extra (noisy) delay. However, in retrospect, these small things don't really matter, and are essentially only noticed by me. Big events like these are definitely fun, and I really do enjoy being part of them, and sometimes it's better to not fuss about little details, and instead go with the flow.
As for my goals, I actually attended every single practice, but I do think I could have done more individual review at home. As for my strengths and weaknesses, I feel that I'm becoming increasingly more comfortable engaging in drama than years previous, and every year I enjoy it more and more. Still, my singing isn't the best, and I am not that great at memorizing lines. Lastly, development of new skills is an ongoing process for basically anything I do. Every mistake is a learning experience, and every accomplishment is something to think positively back on in retrospect. I always enjoy performing with new people and doing something fun, engaging, and above all, different. I'm probably not going to become an actor, but that's not the point, it's to have fun and do new things. That's why I do this.
Choir
Date: June 2nd (performance), practices in May
Supervisors: Mr. King
Overview: Practices at last twice a week, and will be performing 3 songs in total, me singing bass lines together with the boys.
Goals:
Development of New Skills: Singing has never been my strong point, but this time I think I can perform decently since there is no falsetto needing to be used.
Undertaking New Challenges: Singing, performing, and memorizing vocal lines is not something I do regularly.
Collaboration with Others: The choir features many different singing voices and levels on which the song is based off of, so discipline is required.
Reflection: I actually came into the choir quite late, probably as last in the entire secondary choir. In fact it happened quite randomly and I was lucky enough to join in. For the first practice I had to be told exactly what the boy parts were, where to sing, when to stop, etc for the three songs. Over the following weekend I was studying for where and how to sing the parts. Only actually towards performance date did I get to concisely memorizing the lyrics. As for the performance, I must say it was pretty fun for the while that we were up there, with the best song being NaNaNaNa, where everyone sang together. I kept up with the lyrics pretty well, except for maybe 1 short part during the first song where all the boys came in a little bit late.
In general, having gone to more practices would have definitely been more beneficial, but at least I made sure to learn my parts properly and not have an embarrassing appearance. Hopefully I'll be joining choir sometime next year and I'll attend all practices and perform with higher confidence still.
2017-2018
Band
Date: June 2nd (performance), practices until about May
Supervisors: Mr. King, Mr. Yoder
Overview: Practices once a week, but individual practices have to take place at home to be prepared and productive during practices. Performances on Winter Festival, and other indie performance(s).
Goals:
Commitment to Activities: Attend practices and be sure to know my parts for practices.
Collaboration with Others: Have good chemistry, help others with parts they are unsure of (namely piano parts), and work in unison during practices.
Reflection: This year's squad was much larger than last year's, with a lot more willing members and "active" members. Though it may seem as a good thing, it actually is quite limiting, as some people won't be able to play on songs which have limited instrumental parts. Such was the case for many songs. Practices this year were even rougher than last year, and having only one practice once a week for a mere 20-30 minutes really isn't optimal. For next times, it would be better to meet longer for more often. Besides the practices on campus, practicing alone is always tricky. Of course one must drill down his/her part in order to be productive at practices, but then there's the element of practicing all together, and getting comfortable with such teamwork. Also, for example, if I have a bass part in a song, I have to practice on a guitar instead (I don't have a bass at home), so that's somewhat a bummer.
Regardless, band could be a little stressful at time, but all in all it's really fun and definitely developed many skills and more instruments. Even if I have a question about music theory or any sort of music related question, it can get answered, and we each help each other to produce quality music. It's not only fun, but really rewarding experience, teamwork, and entertainment wise.
Choir
Date: Multiple Performances, Practices twice a week
Supervisors: Mr. King
Overview: Practices twice a week, with me playing piano accompaniment mostly (my singing is bad). Multiple performances will take place, with some larger events (Winter Concert), or just smaller one time things (Pancakes with Santa).
Goals:
Development of New Skills: Piano accompaniment is something I've never really done. Practicing my rhythm, chemistry with the rest of the choir, and not lagging behind will be some aspects I want to work on and make sure I have prepared.
Commitment to Activities: Attend all practices and practice at home.
Collaboration with Others:
Increased Awareness of Strengths and Weaknesses:
(@QSIB Facebook page)
Reflection: With practices anywhere between once to four times a week, and many performances, I sang, played piano accompaniment, and even played bass on two songs (yay), overall, I had a pretty good time. We performed at the National Day of Languages in front of public, at the American Embassy in front of delegates, at a local Bratislava Christmass Bazaar (in front of thousands of people, no joke), and finally at our own QSIB Winter Concert
Cubing
Date: Individual Practices, Competitions throughout the year
Supervisors: Mr. Varney
Goals:
Development of New Skills: Learn megaminx, 4x4 blindfold success (and 5x5 blindfold success??), go for 12/12 multiple blindfold
Increased Awareness of Strengths and Weaknesses: A lot of the events I have already done, but now it's just about learning new methods, drilling new algorithms, and simply getting better constantly, and not hitting plateaus. I want to also beat my new records of course and retain my National Records.
Overview: Practices as much as possible at home, and then competitions. On the other hand, this is simply a hobby I do for entertainment and personal well-being and social communication. Unfortunately because of this, I can't prioritize it for school and other stuff like that.
Reflection: I attended a total of 10 competitions in total, with 8 being within the time slot of me as an IB student. It did take up some school time, but I made sure to keep it as a hobby seperate from the "more" important.
Anyways, I managed to set 4 national records (and beat those a total of 9 times), and continue to get new records. In some events, however, I didn't improve any much after the first few competitions, but some a took a big leap. Besides the physical muscle skill of turning the cube, it also teaches and gives fantastic experience about pressure. From cubing I've had some of the hardest, most pressured, and stressful situations, but it taught me to simply concentrate and do it. I honestly didn't achieve everything I wanted. but in some events (4x4 blindfold, 3x3 multiblindfold, 3x3 blindfold single, and some 3x3 one hand results) I faired really well, and honestly am rather happy I got them. Cubing as a whole was a simply fanTAStic character building, learning, and terrific experience in learning something new, getting used to it, doingmy best, pushing myself after failures. and in the end doing something worthwhile that I can be proud of. From other peoples' point of view it may seem like I'm a natural prodigy and just simply good at it. What they don't see is the hours, days, weeks, months, years of practice and pushing myself even if I was failing (a lot). It was worth it. For the nearest future I want to focus more on school and getting into college, but in college I want to pursue this hobby again, and become competitive again.
Speech and Debate
Date: Practices once a week, CEESA Tournament in November
Supervisors: Mr. King, Mrs. Valerie
Overview: Practices once a week, with the final CEESA meet in Vilnius, Lithuania in November. I'll be competing in Impromptu and Oral Interpretation.
Goals:
Commitment to Activity: Go to all practices and, of course, the final meet as well.
Development of New Skills: Impromptu I have done, but I never really followed a specific structure of speech. Oral Interpretation I've only ever done somewhat casually, so this is definitely something new for me.
Undertaking New Challenges: Public speaking (Impromptu and Oral Interpretation) can be stressful, but is a great experience.
Increased Awareness of Strengths and Weaknesses: What are my flaws in impromptu/oral interpretation? How can I be better and have better public speaking skills?
Reflection: Being my 2nd speech and debate, I was used to the formatting and style of the competition. However, this time around I was a lot more rushed when it came to preparing and getting ready for the tournament. While Impromptu doesn't require that much preparation beforehand (funny), Oral Interpretation does, and unfortunately I didn't have that luxury.
The host family was fantastic and the environment was very lively and fun. I made loads of new friends and talked with all sorts of cool people. My impromptu rounds got better and better as the tournament progressed, but I dropped out in the semi finals of impromptu because I choked insanely bad (and still until now is it taunting me). Oral Interpretation I didn't get past the preliminary rounds, as expected. Though I didn't do as well as I would have hoped for, the overall experience was very refreshing and fun, and I genuinely had a blast. I'm glad I decided to do it after all as it was really worth it :)
Morning Announcements
Date: School year 2017/2018, as is needed throughout the week
Supervisors: Mr. Varney
Overview: Saying the morning announcements for the whole school.
Goals:
Development of New Skills: Strong, firm voice (no shakiness/nervousness) and adequate and pleasurable voice volume and voice dynamics for an interesting and appealing morning announcer voice.
Undertaking New Challenges: I've done announcements for the whole school a couple of times, but not regularly and for that long.
Collaboration with Others: There are a couple of us, so, for example, if someone can't come one day or is running late we have to facilitate discussion as to who will be reading the announcement.
Reflection: Honestly, this is just a simple small task that occurs 3-5 times a week. I did not expect to be actually somewhat scared to speak for the entire school. It took a couple of days but after that I gained confidence, and towards the end I simply enjoyed being able to announce the school headlines. Public speaking like such can be stressful, but practicing gets you through it and then it becomes 10x as fun. Even if this is something small, still worthwhile and fun :)
Pixel Federation
Date: April 17th, 2018
Supervisors: Mr. Varney
Overview: With a squad of 4 people (me, and 3 imperial maths students, big brains...), we're going for a tour/overview of a game company, and simply to learn about anything we possibly can and have an interactive and interesting experience.
Goals:
Engagement with Global Issues: Visiting a company, a decently large one at that, provides the experience and visualization I will really need. Learning about how companies work, how they're organized, what to expect at a job, income, planning, and everything that this company must do is great experience and knowledge for the future, including college, internships, or jobs.
Increased Awareness of Strengths and Weaknesses: What exactly is working at a (game) company like? What to expect, what are qualifications for the job, and how does it all work there? Would I have what it takes to work at a job like this?
Reflection: Initially I had no idea what to expect. Our tour guide turned out to be fantastic, and after only about 5 minutes I felt I was actually having fun at this tour. We ended up bombarding the tour guide with questions, and gained incredible amounts of new knowledge, getting down to nitty ditty details of how the company works and what to expect from a job position. We then even got to ask workers questions about their job. Everyone was super friendly, and the atmosphere was amazing.
For sure, I want to go to more excursions like this in the future, not only to have fun and have a cool experience, but also because I could start planning and initiating some sort of internship for this summer, or for some other time. I will need to get a job at some point in time, so I'd need to be well endowed in such areas. For this immediate summer, though, I'll definitely plan on doing more of such excursions.
Description: I attend piano practices once a week with my piano teacher. Each week it's for about 45 minutes per session. There are two concerts that happen each year, one at the beginning of summer, one at the beginning of December. Pieces I practice together with my piano teacher are in order to prepare for the concerts.
Goals: For the winter concert of 2016, the piece I am playing is Valzer No. 14, by Frederik Chopin.. The piece itself is not that hard, despite its relatively fast tempo. The main aspect of the piece to focus on is to hand perfected sounds and not end up playing anything sloppily, I've generally played usually slower pieces, so this will be relatively new for me.
CAS Outcomes:
Planning and Initiation: Attend all practices and make sure I practice enough at home. I'll try to manage my tight schedule and find times devoted to piano practices for myself.
Development of New Skills: Practice and perform a new style of music for me (waltz).
Increased Awareness of Strengths and Weaknesses: Realize which parts in the piece I am unable to play or play poorly and do my best to correct the mistakes for the concert.
Commitment to Activities: Go to all practices.
Reflection: The final two punctuating points in years of piano practicing and playing lead to the two main concerts every year, and for my time as an IB student that results in 4 in total (December 2016, June 2017, December 2017, June 2018). On top of that, there are some lesser performances, such as choir accompaniment, although this doesn't mean by any means that there is less practice required.
The thing about piano is that while the performance lasts only a couple of minutes, if not less, the practice, building up to it, and dedication I have to put into it is months and months, essentially all 10 years of playing it. Per week I have to practice for full performance ideally at least 4-5 hours per week. Besides IB and my other activities, it can be hard to sometimes find the time and motivation to practice piano, something that can require effort and concentration.
As far as keeping up with my goals goes, I managed to keep up pretty well. However, there are a few points where I would criticize myself. For some piano accompaniment songs, I was a little behind and didn't practice as much as I could've, and made some practices rather unproductive for myself. Also, because I wasn't 100% confident in my abilities, the final performances for these choir events could have been better. Also, I ended up not attending the June 2017 concert as that overlapped the exact same day as our Classroom Without Wall trip to Croatia, and all the effort and practice for this moment was pretty worthless. I was also supposed to play originally more songs for all of my concerts (usually 2), but I ended up always having only 1 piece which I could play solidly, so I was left with only one song to play.
On the other hand, it sometimes feels like all the effort and dedication of 10 years sometimes simply is not worth it, and it's just a pain. And also that it's sometimes almost underappreciated. It's not only until you pull off a really worthwhile experience (with all that effort and dedication poured into it), that you get to see and feel the audience's reactions for yourself. That's the best part of it all, and the fact that you yourself can make yourself happy with simply a piano. Piano will definitely be with me for the rest of my life.
Band
Date: Whole School Year
Supervisors: Mr. Yoder, Mr. King
Overview: Assigned practice being only once a week during lunch, with the inclusion of many other sessions organized by us for practicing, the band this year has 8 members. Scheduled performances will take place throughout the year, in school as well as out of school.
Goals:
Planning and Initiation: Be at practices and performances, and make sure I know the material I'm supposed to know.
Development of New Skills: Working together as a unit band, and also learning completely new instruments (bass, guitar, a little drums).
Increased Awareness of Strengths and Weaknesses: What do I excel at when I'm part of a band. How to improve my bad qualities within a band?
Commitment to Activity: Be at all practices/performances
Collaboration with Others: Work together in unison with the rest of the band members for success.
Open the Mic Performance (November 30th)
Reflection:
The entire event, about an hour long, featured us as the band. We played a total of 6 songs, in which I was featured in 5 of. Three songs I played the bass, while the other two I played the keyboard. I've been playing piano for a while now, so the keyboard parts aren't very difficult to play. Same goes for the bass parts. The thing is that I've never had an bass/guitar lessons and/or experiences until now, only a little from last years band. Due to this, I'm always very happy to be able to play bass and do something new for me. Aside from getting short quick lessons from the other band members during practices on how to play the bass, there is no other external knowledge of the instrument upon which I'm being endowed.
Open the Mic Performance Performance (April 11th)
Reflection: For this performance I played piano for 4 songs, and bass for 1 song. All the piano parts of substantially easier than performance pieces note-wise, but here it's bout fitting with the band and keeping the rhythm and flow going. For this performance I feel like we were very well prepared, except for one song (Purple Rain) where we were still practicing the day of to make sure we had it down, and I was still scrambling to study the chord progression for the chorus/bridge/verses, etc.
I don't recall doing any major mistake, and in general I wasn't all that nervous, more excited and happy to be there. It was awesome to have everybody come, friends, family, teachers, and play something nice for them. The experience is a whole lot different from solo piano playing versus band piano playing. The center of attention is not nearly on you, even if the piano is leading the song (The Kooks - See Me Now). Instead, your job is to contribute to the atmosphere, and that still is a very important job. This concluded the 2016-2017 year Band, and for next year, sadly, I am the only band member staying for next year, with everyone else either graduating or leaving. Though that be said, I am possibly looking forward to next year's band even more because we'll be having a whole new set of people joining us with complete new sets of skills. It'll be fun, that I know for sure.Choir at Pancakes with Santa/Public Christmas Bazaar/American Embassy/Public International Day of Languages @Bratislava Old Town/Winter Concert
Date: December 10th, 2016
Supervisors: Mr. King, Mr. Yoder
CAS Outcomes:
Development of New Skills: Singing is definitely not one of my strong points. Therefore upping my singing abilities, which are minimal, is definitely something new for me.
Increased Awareness of Strengths and Weaknesses: How is my singing actually? Am I better at singing melodies, or lower octave tunes?
Undertaking New Challenges: Singing is entirely a new kind of activity for me. I do enjoy music, but I've never gotten into singing.
Collaboration with Others: Sing together harmoniously as a choir.
Overview: Prior to the these events and showcases, the choir has practices during lunch on weekdays, and you're required to come at least twice a week. In total there are about 10 songs which will be performed.
Reflection: Since singing has never been my thing, I had to get used to it at first. My voice is very low, and that's why I eventually stuck with singing lower octaves and avoiding melodies. I could only come maximum two times a week because all my other lunches are taken. Practices involved running through songs, but all the time changes and edits were made to songs, and I had to take notes on what to do and what not to do. Verses were swapped, doubled, deleted, so I had to pay attention. At the actually Pancakes with Santa event, we warmed up our voices 10 minutes before, and our singing exhibition lasted about 25 minutes. It definitely was a refreshing experiences to have, and even though I won't grow up to be a singer, such events are worth the time.
@QSIB Facebook, Christmass Bazaar performance (big crowd to be honest, waaaaaay bigger than I expected)
For the rest of the events, we essentially played the same reportoire. The hardest part of it all was actually getting the entire choir to come to practice, and that even includes me. This was during rather busy times, and some lunches I simply was not available. Then again, when I was available, others weren't. Also, because there were slight time breaks in between performances, my piano pieces which I accompanied and even the songs I sang somewhat got exacerbated skillwise, and I was somewhat rusty at some points to be honest. Next time, even though I had a lot to be doing and couldn't always practice as I wanted, simply 10 minutes a day reviewing and keeping my memory and skills fresh will help tons.
The performances themselves were actually pretty solid. When performing in front of super large crowds (sometimes as just a kind of background performance for passerbys), the details don't have to be perfect, and pretty good is, honestly, enough. The overall impression was that everyone enjoyed, performers or audience members. I've done such performances music quite a lot of times that I don't get all that nervous, simply excited, and at times only a little jittery from that. However, at the Christmas Bazaar, and even for about 3-4 thousand people, I did get a little scared, and my hands were shaky. My performance on piano wasn't all that great, but, it was pretty ok. I'll for sure continue to perform in such bands, choirs, groups, and performances, just next time maybe pay a little more attention (not only right before the performance) for practicing.
Cubing
BISB Cubing Demonstration:
Date: May 5th, 2017
Supervisors: Mr. Owen
Overview: I will be going over to another school to give a cubing demonstration for about 300+ 5 to 11 year olds, including teachers and other spectators. This will include talking a little about myself and cubing, how/when the cube was invented. Most importantly, I will be doing spotlight cubing demonstrations and solves, as well as a blindfold attempt (the hardest part by far). There will then be a Question and Answer session involving me, my cubing life, and my competition experience.
Goals:
Development of New Skills: Entertaining a very large group of kids will be something not all that familiar to me, and will require constant enthusiasm, appeal, and very quick fingers (not getting nervous/spotlight fright).
Undertaking New Challenges: At first I wanted to not participate in this, but after all, not many experiences like this arise. I'll be in charge of impressing a very large group of kids, which is a new challenge for me.
Reflection: Having arrived a tad bit earlier than expected, the assembly itself featured me only towards the end, so there was quite a bit of waiting time. When it was finally my turn, I talked about some background Rubik's Cube info, and then proceeded to show an example 3x3x3 solve. After all, I was conscious of a lot of eyes on me, and my cube ended up actually popping due to my slightly shaky hands. That was unfortunate, however, the most important, the blind solve, was a success (unfortunately no picture).
I wasn't necessarily in perfect condition for cubing (I still have a lot of school work and my next competition is a month and a half away). Next time for an event like this, which was more formal than I was hoping for, I should at least have prepared a script or repertoire. Most of the presentation was impromptu, which went pretty good, yet could have possibly been better with more practice beforehand, yet that isn't the real importance here. The big aim here was to inspire some kids and "show off" or at least get people to know that something like this exists and how exciting it is, which went pretty good.
Drama (Annie)
Date: Winter-Spring of 2017
Supervisors: Mr. King, Mrs. Valerie
Overview: At first only vocal practices a couple of times per week, but then "on-stage" practices more often towards performance date. We will be having a school performance, but also we'll be inviting some other schools and have mutual performances for each other.
Goals:
Development of New Skills: Since this is a Musical, I will be required to do some singing, which is not my strong point.
Increased Awareness of Strengths and Weaknesses: Even though this is not my first time in drama, I still inconsistently fail at some thing more than other things. Being sure to have all lines memorized, perfect choreography, and correct communication with peers are aspects I want to perfect.
Commitment to Activity: Be at all practices (and of course performances)
(@QSIB drama production, under superivision of Mr. King)
Reflection: For this years, I played the laundry man, a servant, Bert Healy (radio host), a trash man, and a radio announcer. Many of my roles were here and there, scattered throughout the play. We had only one full dress rehearsal at the place (Dom Kultury) itself. Many of us were given roles with prop moving directly before the play, so that was quite stressful. Overall, many things did not go as planned during the actual performance. For example, my laundry basket got stuck on a mattress, sound didn't play when it should've, causing me to awkwardly continue my lines, movement of radio host table was a failed attempt since it was my job, but someone decided to go for it instead, and put it in the wrong spot, causing an extra (noisy) delay. However, in retrospect, these small things don't really matter, and are essentially only noticed by me. Big events like these are definitely fun, and I really do enjoy being part of them, and sometimes it's better to not fuss about little details, and instead go with the flow.
As for my goals, I actually attended every single practice, but I do think I could have done more individual review at home. As for my strengths and weaknesses, I feel that I'm becoming increasingly more comfortable engaging in drama than years previous, and every year I enjoy it more and more. Still, my singing isn't the best, and I am not that great at memorizing lines. Lastly, development of new skills is an ongoing process for basically anything I do. Every mistake is a learning experience, and every accomplishment is something to think positively back on in retrospect. I always enjoy performing with new people and doing something fun, engaging, and above all, different. I'm probably not going to become an actor, but that's not the point, it's to have fun and do new things. That's why I do this.
Choir
Date: June 2nd (performance), practices in May
Supervisors: Mr. King
Overview: Practices at last twice a week, and will be performing 3 songs in total, me singing bass lines together with the boys.
Goals:
Development of New Skills: Singing has never been my strong point, but this time I think I can perform decently since there is no falsetto needing to be used.
Undertaking New Challenges: Singing, performing, and memorizing vocal lines is not something I do regularly.
Collaboration with Others: The choir features many different singing voices and levels on which the song is based off of, so discipline is required.
Reflection: I actually came into the choir quite late, probably as last in the entire secondary choir. In fact it happened quite randomly and I was lucky enough to join in. For the first practice I had to be told exactly what the boy parts were, where to sing, when to stop, etc for the three songs. Over the following weekend I was studying for where and how to sing the parts. Only actually towards performance date did I get to concisely memorizing the lyrics. As for the performance, I must say it was pretty fun for the while that we were up there, with the best song being NaNaNaNa, where everyone sang together. I kept up with the lyrics pretty well, except for maybe 1 short part during the first song where all the boys came in a little bit late.
In general, having gone to more practices would have definitely been more beneficial, but at least I made sure to learn my parts properly and not have an embarrassing appearance. Hopefully I'll be joining choir sometime next year and I'll attend all practices and perform with higher confidence still.
2017-2018
Band
Date: June 2nd (performance), practices until about May
Supervisors: Mr. King, Mr. Yoder
Overview: Practices once a week, but individual practices have to take place at home to be prepared and productive during practices. Performances on Winter Festival, and other indie performance(s).
Goals:
Commitment to Activities: Attend practices and be sure to know my parts for practices.
Collaboration with Others: Have good chemistry, help others with parts they are unsure of (namely piano parts), and work in unison during practices.
Reflection: This year's squad was much larger than last year's, with a lot more willing members and "active" members. Though it may seem as a good thing, it actually is quite limiting, as some people won't be able to play on songs which have limited instrumental parts. Such was the case for many songs. Practices this year were even rougher than last year, and having only one practice once a week for a mere 20-30 minutes really isn't optimal. For next times, it would be better to meet longer for more often. Besides the practices on campus, practicing alone is always tricky. Of course one must drill down his/her part in order to be productive at practices, but then there's the element of practicing all together, and getting comfortable with such teamwork. Also, for example, if I have a bass part in a song, I have to practice on a guitar instead (I don't have a bass at home), so that's somewhat a bummer.
Regardless, band could be a little stressful at time, but all in all it's really fun and definitely developed many skills and more instruments. Even if I have a question about music theory or any sort of music related question, it can get answered, and we each help each other to produce quality music. It's not only fun, but really rewarding experience, teamwork, and entertainment wise.
Choir
Date: Multiple Performances, Practices twice a week
Supervisors: Mr. King
Overview: Practices twice a week, with me playing piano accompaniment mostly (my singing is bad). Multiple performances will take place, with some larger events (Winter Concert), or just smaller one time things (Pancakes with Santa).
Goals:
Development of New Skills: Piano accompaniment is something I've never really done. Practicing my rhythm, chemistry with the rest of the choir, and not lagging behind will be some aspects I want to work on and make sure I have prepared.
Commitment to Activities: Attend all practices and practice at home.
Collaboration with Others:
Increased Awareness of Strengths and Weaknesses:
Reflection: With practices anywhere between once to four times a week, and many performances, I sang, played piano accompaniment, and even played bass on two songs (yay), overall, I had a pretty good time. We performed at the National Day of Languages in front of public, at the American Embassy in front of delegates, at a local Bratislava Christmass Bazaar (in front of thousands of people, no joke), and finally at our own QSIB Winter Concert
Cubing
Date: Individual Practices, Competitions throughout the year
Supervisors: Mr. Varney
Goals:
Development of New Skills: Learn megaminx, 4x4 blindfold success (and 5x5 blindfold success??), go for 12/12 multiple blindfold
Increased Awareness of Strengths and Weaknesses: A lot of the events I have already done, but now it's just about learning new methods, drilling new algorithms, and simply getting better constantly, and not hitting plateaus. I want to also beat my new records of course and retain my National Records.
Reflection: I attended a total of 10 competitions in total, with 8 being within the time slot of me as an IB student. It did take up some school time, but I made sure to keep it as a hobby seperate from the "more" important.
Anyways, I managed to set 4 national records (and beat those a total of 9 times), and continue to get new records. In some events, however, I didn't improve any much after the first few competitions, but some a took a big leap. Besides the physical muscle skill of turning the cube, it also teaches and gives fantastic experience about pressure. From cubing I've had some of the hardest, most pressured, and stressful situations, but it taught me to simply concentrate and do it. I honestly didn't achieve everything I wanted. but in some events (4x4 blindfold, 3x3 multiblindfold, 3x3 blindfold single, and some 3x3 one hand results) I faired really well, and honestly am rather happy I got them. Cubing as a whole was a simply fanTAStic character building, learning, and terrific experience in learning something new, getting used to it, doingmy best, pushing myself after failures. and in the end doing something worthwhile that I can be proud of. From other peoples' point of view it may seem like I'm a natural prodigy and just simply good at it. What they don't see is the hours, days, weeks, months, years of practice and pushing myself even if I was failing (a lot). It was worth it. For the nearest future I want to focus more on school and getting into college, but in college I want to pursue this hobby again, and become competitive again.
Speech and Debate
Date: Practices once a week, CEESA Tournament in November
Supervisors: Mr. King, Mrs. Valerie
Overview: Practices once a week, with the final CEESA meet in Vilnius, Lithuania in November. I'll be competing in Impromptu and Oral Interpretation.
Goals:
Commitment to Activity: Go to all practices and, of course, the final meet as well.
Development of New Skills: Impromptu I have done, but I never really followed a specific structure of speech. Oral Interpretation I've only ever done somewhat casually, so this is definitely something new for me.
Undertaking New Challenges: Public speaking (Impromptu and Oral Interpretation) can be stressful, but is a great experience.
Increased Awareness of Strengths and Weaknesses: What are my flaws in impromptu/oral interpretation? How can I be better and have better public speaking skills?
Reflection: Being my 2nd speech and debate, I was used to the formatting and style of the competition. However, this time around I was a lot more rushed when it came to preparing and getting ready for the tournament. While Impromptu doesn't require that much preparation beforehand (funny), Oral Interpretation does, and unfortunately I didn't have that luxury.
The host family was fantastic and the environment was very lively and fun. I made loads of new friends and talked with all sorts of cool people. My impromptu rounds got better and better as the tournament progressed, but I dropped out in the semi finals of impromptu because I choked insanely bad (and still until now is it taunting me). Oral Interpretation I didn't get past the preliminary rounds, as expected. Though I didn't do as well as I would have hoped for, the overall experience was very refreshing and fun, and I genuinely had a blast. I'm glad I decided to do it after all as it was really worth it :)
Morning Announcements
Date: School year 2017/2018, as is needed throughout the week
Supervisors: Mr. Varney
Overview: Saying the morning announcements for the whole school.
Goals:
Development of New Skills: Strong, firm voice (no shakiness/nervousness) and adequate and pleasurable voice volume and voice dynamics for an interesting and appealing morning announcer voice.
Undertaking New Challenges: I've done announcements for the whole school a couple of times, but not regularly and for that long.
Collaboration with Others: There are a couple of us, so, for example, if someone can't come one day or is running late we have to facilitate discussion as to who will be reading the announcement.
Reflection: Honestly, this is just a simple small task that occurs 3-5 times a week. I did not expect to be actually somewhat scared to speak for the entire school. It took a couple of days but after that I gained confidence, and towards the end I simply enjoyed being able to announce the school headlines. Public speaking like such can be stressful, but practicing gets you through it and then it becomes 10x as fun. Even if this is something small, still worthwhile and fun :)
Pixel Federation
Date: April 17th, 2018
Supervisors: Mr. Varney
Overview: With a squad of 4 people (me, and 3 imperial maths students, big brains...), we're going for a tour/overview of a game company, and simply to learn about anything we possibly can and have an interactive and interesting experience.
Goals:
Engagement with Global Issues: Visiting a company, a decently large one at that, provides the experience and visualization I will really need. Learning about how companies work, how they're organized, what to expect at a job, income, planning, and everything that this company must do is great experience and knowledge for the future, including college, internships, or jobs.
Increased Awareness of Strengths and Weaknesses: What exactly is working at a (game) company like? What to expect, what are qualifications for the job, and how does it all work there? Would I have what it takes to work at a job like this?
Reflection: Initially I had no idea what to expect. Our tour guide turned out to be fantastic, and after only about 5 minutes I felt I was actually having fun at this tour. We ended up bombarding the tour guide with questions, and gained incredible amounts of new knowledge, getting down to nitty ditty details of how the company works and what to expect from a job position. We then even got to ask workers questions about their job. Everyone was super friendly, and the atmosphere was amazing.
For sure, I want to go to more excursions like this in the future, not only to have fun and have a cool experience, but also because I could start planning and initiating some sort of internship for this summer, or for some other time. I will need to get a job at some point in time, so I'd need to be well endowed in such areas. For this immediate summer, though, I'll definitely plan on doing more of such excursions.
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