This week we started a new Project in the IA: the topic is freedom. We got together in interest-based groups and chose a subtopic within freedom; my group and I decided to focus our project on Peruvians in the lowest social class, who are held down by the barriers that the Peruvian society sets. As we continued discussing this topic, we touched a variety of points; one of them being that Peru is an extractive society. This point got me thinking about how unlike the US or Europe, which are places that have inclusive societies where the gap between the rich and the poor is not so great, and still live in similar social and economic conditions. Peru is a country where the highest-class people are supper rich, while the lower class lives in extreme poverty. We have a gigantic gap between the rich and the poor, and are lacking a strong middle class that can give unity to a country. We live in a country where if you are born rich you remain rich, and if you are born poor you remain poor; a country where the one who works the hardest isn’t the one that succeeds at the end. This happens because the poor are living in extreme conditions where they are not offered good education or health care, while the rich are receiving much more than that. This doesn’t only puts the lowest class in disadvantage, but makes them drown even deeper, not managing to get anywhere near success. With our project we are hoping to shine the light on those less fortunate who are being pulled down by the barriers of the Peruvian society. We are hoping to reach the hearts of all Peruvians, and make them conscious of the kind of society we all live in. We want to give a voice to those whose voice has been taken by out extractive culture.
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While I laid in my bed at night, I looked around my room; it was an extremely dark night where you couldn’t see anything. A slight feeling of fright rushed through my mind, but I immediately cut it out as I thought about how darkness is just the absence of light. Meaning that everything stays exactly the same, except that we just can’t see it. So I thought, why do we fear darkness so much? Could it be that the fact that we don’t know what stands beyond it terrifies us? It is unknown. Us human beings are terrified to face the unknown, we like to be in control of everything that happens around us. We like to take the safe way out even if it’s not the best one. W e d o n ’t l i k e t o f a c e w h a t w e d o n 't k n o w For example, I am the type of person who likes to have everything planned, this is because I don’t like to live with the uncertainty of what may happen next. One of the greatest decisions of my life has been to join the IA. When people were starting to apply, I feared to send my application. I feared that I wouldn’t get in, but I feared even worse that I would. I mean, what would happen next? The IA is a new program with only two generations ahead of mine, I had no idea what would happen when I sent out my application, and that feeling terrified me. Of course it would have been much easier and safe to stay in the MYP, which is a program we’re familiarized with, joining the IA instead was a leap of faith, it was unknown. After all, we have absolutely no control of what will happen next, life is full of ups and downs, chances and opportunities, and as hard as we try, it is impossible to predict.
Everything starts when Eleanor returns to Omaha Nebraska after being kicked out of her house by her step father Richie. As soon as Eleanor walks into the bus the first day of school, she instantly becomes the new victim to pick on. The moment when she thinks things couldn’t get worse, suddenly she realizes they can; she notices that the only seat left on the bus is besides a stupid Asian kid all dressed in black. As the days pass, the buss rides become less awkward as they find common interests such as music and comics. Finally one day they both realize that they have unexpectedly fallen madly in love for each other. But things weren’t perfect just then, Eleanor and Park were forced to keep their relationship a secret. Eleanor’s step-father Richie, wouldn’t let Eleanor have a boyfriend, and if he found out that Eleanor was seeing someone, he would surely kick her out again. Like every relationship, Eleanor and Park have their ups and downs, they have struggles they have to overcome, but it’s the penetrating love they both feel, that keeps them going. The moral of this novel is that true love has no barriers; it doesn’t matter how different they both are, or how many obstacles are on the way, but if it’s meant to be, it will be. I personally loved to read this novel, I liked how it portrayed the two realities that these characters were facing, from both of their points of views, this allowed me to look at one situation in two different perspectives
The first healthy habit I want to establish is discipline. Discipline doesn’t only help you work more effectively and use your time wisely, but it also helps you beat laziness in the way you think and act. In order to become disciplined, I decided to set myself the goal of jogging everyday the whole malecón de Asia. I know this is a really ambitious goal, especially for someone who has absolutely no experience jogging, but it’s challenging enough to serve my purpose, which is to become disciplined. I believe that the best way to establish discipline in someone is with sports, sports don’t only require physical discipline, but also they require a lot of mental effort. Now that summer is in and there’s plenty of time to spare, it’s easy that you can become bored or tiered of doing nothing. In my case, the disturbing fact of knowing that I’m doing nothing tortures me with guilt. In those weeks that seem endless, packed with stress and pressure, I look back to the days where I had plenty of time to spare, and regret not doing anything. Now that I have two months to relax and enjoy, I decided to use them wisely and establish healthy habits and skills for the year to come, that will make my stressful days a bit less stressful. These vacations became the perfect opportunity to start the year strong. The second skill I want to work on, is to enrich my vocabulary. Me being Peruvian, and coming from a 100% Peruvian family where everyone speaks Spanish, I don’t practice a lot my English, specially during the summer break. In order to keep practicing my English and come with a wider range of English vocab, I decided to set myself the goal, of reading four English books this summer. Reading is known to be the most effective and useful way to aquire new and varied vocab, also reading helps you improve your spelling and grammar, which are two areas that I need to work on desperately. Finally, the third skill I decided to practice, was reflection. In life, reflecting can got you to look at your life from a totally different perspective, where you can reflect upon your errors and mistakes. In the IA we are constantly reflecting about the way we learn and how we do it best, but I decided to take this skill to a more personal level. I figured out, that I hardly ever reflected about my personal level, my feelings, my choices, and my mistakes. In order to practice this skill I decided to keep a summer diary where every night when I come home after what ever I do that day, I will write a chapter of my diary. There are absolutely no specifications as to what I need to write about, I simply need to get my thoughts on paper. I will think about my day, what went wrong, what went right, what could I have done better, etc. At the end of the summer I will read all the diary entries and reflect upon them. This will help me to look at my life from another perspective, look at the big picture, instead of focusing so much in the small details and faults.
I’ve always struggled with the feeling that my life has turned into a routine. As much as I tried to avoid this feeling, I couldn’t help it. Every day turned out to be exactly the same as the one before, to the point were I would forget what day it was. I was trapped within my own limits. This is how my life went: school, homework, worry about school, hang with friends, watch series and sleep. Life passed me by while I was trapped in my own worries.
I decided to look at my life from another perspective, look at the big picture. It’s funny how we think of our lives are the most important things in the world, when after all we’re just another drop in the ocean. I was so trapped in my own life that I never looked at what was happening outside. At about 2:00 pm, my dad and I got out of the office, and rode a Vespa around the city. While riding the Vespa, I paid close attention to all of the people on the streets, I tried to imagine what they might be thinking about, or what their life might be like. This made me feel so much more insignificant, I realized I wasn’t only one in 7 billion people, but I was one in 7 billion people, each one with their own hopes and dreams, worries and struggles. If I ever thought I was the center of the universe, then I was definitely wrong. That’s when a new fear started tormenting my mind…… THE FEAR OF BEING FORGOTTEN We’ve all sometime thought about how we want to be remembered when we die. So I thought, am I even going to be remember? There are so many people with so many different ideas and thoughts, is it even possible to leave your mark? Suddenly I felt a feeling of guilt and distress at the same time. I felt guilty of not living my life to it’s fullest potential, while I felt anxious because I knew this could change, I just didn’t know where to start.
Finally I got over with my POL. You see, presenting has been one of my weaknesses throughout my whole life. I wasn’t scared of presenting; I just didn’t believe I was good at it. When Mr. Bon started talking about the POL Project, and how we had to speak in a certain way so that the audience would get the message we wanted to transmit, my heart froze, I was terrified. I decided that there was no way I could possibly succeed in a project like this. Fort he last 4 weeks I have had this weird feeling inside my stomach, like a mixture of fear, nerves, and regret all mixed up together, this feeling didn’t let me think of anything else more than the POL. I don’t recall ever working harder in another project in my whole life. This Project touched two of my weakest areas, the media part, and the presenting part. I had no strengths or experience in any of them, but I wanted to do well on this Project, so I decided to work my but off so at least I could say I gave the best of me. In the thanksgiving break, I worked absolutely every day; I learned how to work with Keynote, I practice my speaking skills, to make sure they where clear, and most of all, I tried to make my presentation flawless. At first I used to absolutely hate this project, but now that I’ve got it over with, I look back and see how much this project has helped me improve and grow. You see that’s the thing, I was totally terrified and scared about this project, and that’s what pushed me to put so much effort on it. I felt like I was thrown to the water without knowing how to swim, I had no experience presenting, nor using Keynote, but just the desire to make a good job in this project motivated me to give my all. I look back 4 weeks ago, and see how much I have grown, it's amazing what motivation can do. I’ve never experienced so much growth as a learner, I feel like I was forced to learn new things if I wanted to make a good POL, and so I did. I seeked for nothing less than great, and I remain proud of my work.
Last week was a week packed with high levels of stress, where the week seemed endless. This week, I used the long weekend as a chance to catch up on everything I had to do. I have to confess that I feel like this weekend has been the most productive weekend of my life, in fact it has been the most productive time of my life. I managed to organize my workload efficiently while at the same time balance it with some free time to avoid stress.
I was amazed with how much work I managed to do in these five days; I did the same amount of work I would have been able to do in 2 school weeks. So I wondered, if I can work so efficiently at home, and I can’t at school, then why do we even go to school? I guess we all work at different paces and in different ways. In my case, I like it when I’m not pressured at all, this gives me more time to think deeper and analyze carefully without having to run. Also I can concentrate better when I work for long periods of time, when I get caught up into my work I hate to have to stop and work on another thing. That’s the thing with the MYP; there are SOOOO many deadlines and projects, that you can’t focus on anything. On schooldays I feel like my mind is overwhelmed with everything I’m forced to think about, that I can’t focus on anything at all, this slows down my productivity levels, and doesn’t permit me to produce quality work. I really like the idea of driving my own learning, it’s true, we all have different work habits and interest. When you drive your own learning, you have the freedom of learning the way you work best, and what you really want to learn. When driving your own learning it is essential to keep in mind that with freedom comes responsibility. You have to be mature and disciplined enough to make sure that you are pushing yourself to the fullest. For me that’s my greatest challenge.
I came to the conclusion that the best way to approach the audience was to point directly to the heart. Like David Fischman told us on his presentation on Monday, a good presentation has to be like an archer. The arrow is the way you transmit the information, you have to phrase it in a way that is engaging to the audience, while at the same time simple and clear. The bull’s eye is the audience, you have to point towards the center, so that the information gets in straight and forward. Finally the bow is the media you use to entertain your audience. Even if your information is really interesting and complete, it is nothing without some kind of media that backs it up. Following these characteristics you are on your way towards a great presentation.
I struggle every time I have to write something, I feel as if my ideas where running out and my brain was shrinking; in fact I’m struggling now, I’ve been sitting in front of this computer for thirty minutes now and I couldn’t get ideas, this is why I decided to write about the problem itself. Earlier today I was planning my POL presentation, I thought and thought for hours, but I really couldn’t find a topic; nothing came to my mind. I was in a really frustrating position due to that I was there looking at a white page with absolutely nothing on my mind, while I watched as the topics where getting chosen, and it kept getting harder and harder to chose one now.
I entered the IA having doubts about weather this was where I should be or not; after the last three months here, I cannot think of a place where better. I’ve never felt such a belonging sense where so much trust is shared among the community; I’ve never woken up in the morning exited to go to school. So if you ask me, the IA is definitely the right fit for me. Today I got into a dilemma of weather I should drop the IA and enter the IB, or weather I should continue the IA. I usually hate thinking about the future and the decisions approaching me, it gives me a twitchy feeling in my stomach I try to avoid, but today it was inevitable. I felt like I couldn’t spend one more day without knowing where would I spend the next two years of my life. The thing is, I want to make the best of my years in school, benefit from every second I spend there; I want to be in reach of the best future possible, meaning the best colleges and jobs. So I started thinking in which program would I have more opportunities, with the IB, or the IA? I thought about this for the rest of the day, while that twitchy feeling in my stomach kept eating me inside. Reflecting back on my day I finally got it, I finally understood, that my future isn’t depending on the program I take, but on what I decide to make out of that program. It is such a relieving feeling to know that my future is in my hands and only my hands. Of course every great thing comes with a responsibility attached, if I want the best future possible, then I have to work my butt off for the next two years in which ever program I choose.
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June 2015
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