Holiday Fever! :P

With the start of the holidays,I know it will become harder and harder to continue with my CAS activities so I think I should outline what I plan on doing when we get back to school in January.
1)  First of all,the Dance Club. It was an absolute disaster if I have to be totally honest. So we decided that next year,we'll go into classes during register period on Monday's and actually speak to people about the dance club and let them know what we'll be doing and how we'll be doing it. One of my friends, Alyona, suggested that we also making colourful posters that appeal to the eye. I refuse to give up on the dance club and I will not give up until we have at least 6 new regular members. :D
2) In our last CAS session,Mr. Gray gave us more suggestions or instructions rather,about how to improve on our CAS achievements and whatnot. One of the suggestions was that we begin to do projects that last between 2-3 months instead of activities. I have a pretty good idea but I'm not entirely sure how it will work out. It will require the entire year 12 class to work together and bring in all out different skills in order for everything to be perfect. I will post the entire plan as soon as I've thought about everything that can go wrong and how I'll be able to fix it.
3) Last but not least,I need to find the energy to finish my er.....'cover' of Fallin' by Alicia Keys. I realised that this might be a problem as I will be attempting to juggle too many tasks as well but I will try as much as I can to try and get it done.  In the mean time...Happy Holidays :D

Hockey- Progress at last

Today I played hockey. Just like I do every Monday...most of the time. I think I did pretty well today,I was on a role! Unfortunately, I couldn't capture one of what I would describe as the most perfect goal ever, on camera. Basically,Mr Short passed the ball to Mr. Hubbard who then passed the ball across the court to Mr. Gray who then passed it to me and then I gave it my all it went right into the left corner of the goal. The synchronisation of the entire process was SO cool! :P Anyways,today was much better than most. I passed the ball around more,I scored more and I tried to make myself available for passes. Hopefully next term,I'll be able to gather some evidence of my progress...that's all :)

Mission Impossible

It's been a while since I posted anything on my blog regarding my progress with my CAS activities but I have been doing them all ,I swear! :P I've decided to learn how to play 'Fallin' ' in the style Alicia Keys on my keyboard. I think this will take a lot of concentration and perseverance but I'm sure I'll feel pretty awesome when I accomplish the task. I have already managed to master the 3 main chords but I can't seem to synchronise my left and right hands. If I don't have any treble with this,I will be playing like a pro in about 1 1/2- 2 weeks. I have attached a link to the video I am using.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miIFkYTJmb8

Time for a change!

Since last week,we changed our playing strategy by beginning to play half court. It was a bit difficult to get the hang of it at first but after that,we all really enjoyed it. The basic idea is that we have 2 teams on each side of the court who all score in the same hoop (obviously). If the ball goes out or if the other team scores,then we have to take it back around the green line before we can score again. I only managed to score 1 goal so far as this strategy requires quick thinking and sometimes I buckle under the pressure and just throw the ball to get people away from me. This is entirely my fault but I definitely plan on perfecting my tactics. This week my teams passing skills weren't as swift as they were last week but hopefully,next week we'll be able to communicate better and pass the ball around quickly in order to build team-working skills. Practice makes perfect!   

Rainbows and Ponies

It's been a long time coming but here is the silent movie :)

Thus the students became the teachers.

The Year 11's and Year 10's will soon have to begin their exams and our Psychology teacher thought it would be a great idea for the Year 12's to give a few tips on how they got through all their extremely stressful   exams. Then we stuck them onto the board and made them look pretty. Now all we can do is hope that they take our advice into consideration

Let's Dance!

This is our latest dance that we came up with and plan on teaching our VERY few students. The song is "4 My People" and it's still a working progress :) enjoy :)

International Day!

International Day turned out to be a success! We had year 8's first and they proved to be..uh....very active. We began all our classes with a presentation containing the most basic facts about Namibia then we proceeded to play "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" based on the presentation which was very straight forward. After the questionnaire ,the students were given 'vet koek'...one of the staple foods found in Namibia as well as other Southern African countries. After this the children gave us feedback on the entire lesson and most of them were pretty positive! :D Even though we had to put in a lot of extra time into the decorations,I think it all went pretty well. Not to mention the fact that I learned to have A LOT of patience but perhaps next time it would be better to time and practice the presentation before hand because at time were very quick and then the class was left with nothing to do and we had to improvise :O

A few samples of the feedback

The 'vet koek'

The Namibian flag in all it's Glory

The African flag

"shitenges"

Lights! Camera! ACTION!

For our CAS assignment,we have to produce a SILENT 3 minute film in groups of 3. Ours is going to be extremely juicy...if all goes well. We haven't started filming yet but if things go as planned,we should be finished by tomorrow. We have all our props,our 'scripts' and I THINK we have a cameraman :P All I can say for now is that our short film will contain a little bit of violence but hey,it's all in the name of entertainment :)

Can you see a pattern forming here?

KNITTING CLUB! The latest patch added to my  CAS activities. Every Friday,there'll be a knitting club at lunch time. The first one was last Friday and unfortunately,I couldn't take any pictures...I was too busy trying to tangle all the wool up :P Soon we'll knit scarfs (decent-looking scarfs,I hope) and sell them to charity. Let's hope they won't knit any frowns on anyone. :D

Namibia: Land of the Brave

This is the Namibian Coat of Arms

International day is coming up soon and this year,as year 12's,we get to help out :D We've all been divided into our native countries (each country has a class or 2) where we'll be presenting interesting facts about our country . So far,we've made a presentation,decided on exactly what we're going to do and what we're going to feed the hungry munckins that enter our class :P  Now all we have to do is wait.

Progress at last!

Our dance club may be small in number,but it's definitely full of potential. One of the 2 members (ha.ha) showed great improvement today. Honestly speaking,we didn't expect things to go so fast- today so we finished up early. We're finally finished with our first complete dance routine! Next,I plan on fishing for more dancers. Come hell or high water, on Monday, I will be scouting the school corridors for more dancers so us 4 don't get lonely.

Possible Journalist in the making!

So I have decided to join the school newspaper! What I'm going to do is a secret though :D I am supposed to hand in a sample of my work but I've been too busy to actually finish it. So more to come if I get the part :D

Is Hockey the sport for me?

So I recently joined the Monday after school club where we would do various sport activities but right now,it seems like we're concentrating more on hockey. But I'm being open-minded over here and allowing myself to 'enjoy' the game. I'll admit,it's a bit of a rough game and some of the players become a tad bit aggressive but that's nothing I can't handle. Honestly speaking,I didn't like the game very much before but that's probably because I only played it once or twice. Now that I've played it for 2 weeks in a row (much to my muscles protests) I'm actually enjoying it and I think it's safe to say that I've improved in a few of my skills like scoring :D :D. What I'm trying to focus on right now is my goal keeping. I plan on being able to block our star player's goals by this Christmas. Wish me luck! :)

This is us practicing our scoring skills after a few games

Basketball: Success at last!

I scored my first shot ! It felt pretty awesome. Usually when we played basketball last year,it was much easier and simpler but this year with Mr. Gray,I realised that it's much more complex than I had anticipated. This week I plan on scoring a minimum of 3 shots and I WILL.  I enjoyed how the games were arranged. We were in 3 teams and we were playing for 5 minute intervals. I think this was much more convenient because knowing that you only have so little time makes you play harder and better because you know that you don't need to save up energy for a long game. In the end,my team won but that was probably cos we had quite a few star players on our team. :D (sorry,no pictures today :( )

I wanna dance with somebody!

Our first dance club gathering did not really go the way I had planned. Maybe it was because only 2 people showed up,but that's better than nothing :D We began with showing our two 'students' a routine that we thought was easy. Emphasis on the 'thought'. We danced to the first 2 minutes of the song and then our time was up :O we danced to "Move Your Body-Beyonce (Swizz Beats version)". The two students were really good and persistent though. This week though,3 more people have PROMISED to join. Perhaps we'll have enough time to perfect the dance for International Day :D

Basketball: A sport for all

Where do I begin? Perhaps with the fact that my muscles feel as stiff as cardboard! That's probably because basketball was my first form of REAL exercise since the beginning of summer. Unfit didn't even begin to describe my condition. I was panting and dragging my feet 5 minutes into the first game. But,because of my love for the sport,I persevered and tried my best not to let my team down. In the end,that's really what it's all about. I learned that basketball isn't just about shooting the best shots or dribbling the ball like a pro. It's also about teamwork and synchronisation. I think what I should focus on is my defense. I tend to wander away from my zone and my hands don't always stay up but hey,if at first you don't succeed-try,try again. :)

P.S this is the only picture I have where I don't look like a dying walrus :P

CAS Initiation

We began our second CAS lesson with the task of teaching fellow students any simple thing that we know. Unfortunately, there's no evidence of this happening cos we somehow completely forgot to take pictures. I decided to teach my group a 'simple' stepping dance. It proved to be more difficult than I had expected. Some were stepping,others were sliding and others were just trying to ruin the wooden floors. :P  I must admit that it was a fun experience though. I learnt a different variety of things like kicking a football with a slight curve and making fancy napkins :D Honestly speaking though,we should have been more prepared and organised. From my point of view,I should have thought of what I was going to say BEFORE I started giving out instructions. That's something I can start working on for next time :)