That's How You Do It!

Hey there!

I'm writing to express my joy of winning the badminton match! It was on 3rd of February. I'm really happy about this, since me and my partner had lost the previous one. To be honest, we had been crushed. But not this time! We have been practicing before this match and showed a really good game out there.

 

Since me and Martyna have been really disappointed of ourselves, we've decided to have some practices. My personal task was to learn how to serve. It was not easy at first, but I managed to do it finally. I also wanted to learn to hit the shuttlecock right so that our opponents could not beat it back. Those were really useful practices. And, apparently, successful ones.

 

Me and Martyna and our opponents, who were 10th garders, gathered at school at 8 a.m. We did a warm up at first and then started playing. There were 3 games in total and the score was 2:1. We lost only the second one of three games. I guess, we started to feel too confident. However, we pulled up and won the crucial game.

 

I'd say it was a deserved victory, since we have been practicing for it. And yet, it was only one match, we cannot start feeling too confident again and try and win the other ones.

 

This activity included one aspect of CAS - Action.

 

 

Forget-me-not

Hello!

I'd like to tell you about the "Forget-me-not" initiative that I've participated in on 13th of January. It was already the second time that me and my classmate brought this beautiful event to our school. It was an honor for me to be the one to encourage people to remember and be thankful for Lithuanians who made huge sacrifices for our country to become free.

 

Just like the last year, my classmate Martyna was the one who offered me to join this initiative. We gathered at the school at 7 a.m., prepared flyers as well as forget-me-not flowers, the symbol of this event, and started giving them out to people.  We encouraged them to stick the flowers on their clothes and this way pay respect for brave Lithuanians.

 

It was amazing to be the part of this initiative, since people seemed really happy and enthusiastic about it. Of course, not all of them took our offer and fastened the flowers with a pin given to their clothes. Nevertheless, I'm still feeling really positive about this initiative as it served its main purpose - to show gratitude for living in a free country and having many wonderful opportunities because of it.

 

This activity included one aspect of CAS - Service.

A Ball and a Racket

Hello, you all!

This time I want to tell you about the sport that I did this semester. It's funny, that all the sports I've engaged with have one thing in common - they are all played using a ball and a racket. These are tennis, squash and badminton.

 

The sport that I've started to do first, in the beginning of the summer, was tennis. I've never done that before, so I was really interested when I found out that a new group of people who would like to try out this sport was being gathered to play in the tennis court just near my house. In order to understand this game and to learn whether it's worthwhile for me to even start play it constantly,  I had a personal lesson with a tennis trainer. I was surprised how fun it was. To be frank, I was not so bad at it as I expected. At the end of the lesson the trainer even commended me about my playing. That was how I've decided to start doing this sport constantly. During the summer, I used to go to these practices twice a week. However, when the school year started, I didn't have enough time to do that two times a week, so now I go to play tennis only on Saturdays. I enjoy it really much and I've became pretty good at it. It allows me to blow off some steam after a hard week and to stay in shape.

 

Another sport that I've tried about four months ago was squash. My classmate Martyna used to tell me about it and she was the one who offered to try and play it sometimes when we had free periods during lessons. Since she had been playing it before, Martyna was like a trainer to me. Pretty good one, I could say. As I was already playing tennis at that time, it was no that difficult for me to readjust my skill to this game. However, we only had four squash practices as it turned out to be a little bit hard them with lessons. And yet, I really liked it and Martyna taught me some valuable ball hitting techniques.

The final sport that I've tried was badminton. Since me and Martyna have already tried playing together before, we've decided to sign in a badminton tournament. We had one practice where we readjusted our skills from squash and tennis and then, on 6th of January, we had the first match. It was against two 11th graders who turned out to be really good at badminton. So, we lost this one. Yet, it was probably for the best, since we have learnt our mistakes and we are going to work on them. There will be another match soon and we will be ready.

Trying out these new sports made me realize that I can be really good at games with a ball and a racket if I put enough effort in it. Also, I really enjoyed them all and understood that I have to learn from my mistakes. As they say, "practice makes perfect".

These activities included one aspect of CAS - Action.

Pie Day (From the other side)

Hi!

After enjoying delicious Christmas dishes and pleasant presents, I would like to remember the Pie Day, which took place on 15th of December in Vilnius Lyceum. This year, unlike the previous one, we, IB2 students, could only be observers of the preparation of this celebration. However, I've decided to participate in this event by baking some dainties.

 

I also did this last year, as I baked a pie and cookies with chocolate, so I figured I should bake something different this year. Thus, a day before the Pie Day, I looked into my family's recipe book and decided to bake muffins with chocolate and butter biscuits. I have tried baking muffins many times, so I knew they will be delicious, yet it was different with biscuits. I had to consult about amounts of certain ingredients, like butter or sugar, and about baking time with my mother. I also had a chance to try out our new baking shapes. It was a really fun process. I should say, that biscuits were a real success. I even had to keep them in a safe place so that my family wouldn't eat them.

 

 

In the morning of the Pie Day, I brought my dainties to the room, where the event was supposed to place later. It was a bit strange seeing how IB1 students were decorating the room, testing the music, and not be a part of it like the last year. Of course, we had a chance to tell IB1 students about our experience of preparing this celebration in the meeting held. Yet, they didn't show much of an interest in listening to us as they had already figured out how they wanted to do that. So all we could do was just watch.

 

To be honest, the Pie Day turned out really well. I should say that it was really different from what we organized last year, but I guess that's a good thing. The atmosphere was really great, the room was full of people wanting to buy pies. Yet, the problem remained the same as the last year - very few people knew the reason why and for what reason money was being collected. However, after the event was over and money were counted, IB1 students did a good work by putting a poster with a sum of money collected and reminder of were the money would spent - for Blue/Yellow organization to help people who suffered in Ukraine during the recent events.

 

Talking about my contribution to this event, my muffins and biscuits were worth about 9 euros. Considering that there really were a lot of people who baked something, I suppose this Pie Day was really successful.

 

This activity included one aspect of CAS - service.

Introduction to CAS

Hello, everyone!

It's been a while ago, but I want to tell you about a task that us, IB2 students, got form our CAS coordinator. It was to introduce CAS to IB1 students and to the whole Lyceum community.

It all started at the beginning of the school year. Our CAS coordinator reminded us that there would be a meeting of IB1 and IB2 students where we would have to explain what this CAS is and to share our experiences. In order to make this more interesting and involving, I've decided to make posters with CAS outcomes, IB learner profile and the pictures of IB2 students doing different activities to illustrate the whole thing. So, I took the responsibility for this project.

 

First of all, I had to collect money from my classmates to buy paper for the posters and pictures. Even though I had written emails and post in the Facebook to remind people to give the money, it was still a difficult task. Yet, when I finally managed to do that, the rest of the work was not that hard.

 

I asked my classmates to send me the pictures of them participating in different CAS activities. There were only about 15 of them who did that, but it was enough, to be honest. I printed about 50 photos. Then again I wrote emails to suggest people to join the process of making the posters. The next day five of us met and created eight really nice and, I suppose, informative posters. We hung them up on the walls and billboards all over the school. This way students and teachers of Lyceum could become familiar at least with one part of the IB student's life.

 

When the visual part of this project was done, there was a another left. We had to make a presentation, that we could show IB1 students. Again, I asked who would like to do that and two of the girls showed interest. Yet, they did not have much time to prepare, thus, even though the presentation was good, the girls forgot to ask for multimedia and they had to show the presentation through the computer screen. It was really difficult to see what was on the screen, yet, my classmates managed to tell all the important information out loud.

 

As I've mentioned, there were some difficulties while organizing this project, but on the whole I can conclude that it all went quite well. I believe, that we fulfilled this task and IB1 students together with Lyceum community learnt some important facts about CAS.

 

This activity included one aspect of CAS - Creativity.

 

Hujambo, Lyceum!

Hey there!

Five days ago, on 19th of September a great event took place in Vilnius Lyceum - Christening of freshmen ( 9th graders and IB1 students).

 

 

The first thing to do was to think of what the theme of this celebration will be. We came up with an idea of "Africa" quite soon, thus it was a great start. Of course, the part of preparing a plan for the celebration wasn't going that easy. Yet, a couple of enthusiastic 12th graders managed to prepare a plan that seemed appropriate for both teachers and other 12th graders.

 

I decided to be a part of a dancing group which had to prepare an interesting dance that would match the theme of "Africa". One really great dancer, Elena, from the 12th grade decided to initiate this activity and gathered a group of 6 girls and 4 boys. Most of these people hadn't tried much of a dancing before, thus it was clear that we would have to try really hard to prepare a nice dance.  

 

Our group started dancing lessons about a week before the event. At first we were meeting only during long breaks, but later we figured that we had to meet after school too. Elena had a very clear idea of what our dance should look like, so our job was only to learn from her. Since it was mostly a house dance, I should say it wasn't very difficult for me as I have been dancing this style for over 5 years now. Yet, Elena's dancing style is quite unique, so it was really interesting for me to learn from her. The dance she created was special for one main reason - we were going to dance with sand. We had to use sand in different ways while dancing. It was a really amazing idea.

 

 

Most of our rehearsals took place some hours before the event. I should say we worked really hard to prepare a great dance. Furthermore, Elena though off not only about the dance but also about our appearance. We looked like true Africans, as you may seen in the picture below.

 

After our performance, people were all screaming and applauding. Despite some mistakes that all of us did, the performance was really incredible and I'm truly happy that I had a chance to dance it.

Sand Dance
 

Furthermore, since the morning part of the celebration was prepared to be the orienteering competition of classes, I decided to contribute by being at one of the stations. In our prepared station freshmen had to show their team work by figuring out how to turn over the blanket while standing on it. It was really funny to watch how people were struggling to do it. Furthermore, we got some bribes (chips, candies, drinks) from smart freshmen to make this task easier (we allowed some of them to step off the blanket). Being in this station, not only we had a lot of fun, but also had a chance to know freshmen. It was an amazing activity.

All in all, as always, there were various opinions about the event. There were some difficulties with the sound and the organizing during the event and I agree that this part should have been done better. Yet, from my perspective, we did quite well, since the main purpose of this celebration was completed - freshmen were shown what the Lyceum community looks like and christened to become a part of this community!





This activity included two aspects of CAS - Creativity and Action.

Changing Professions

Hey, people!

I want to share an amazing experience that had in the end of the summer and the beginning of the autumn with you.

 

My dance teacher asked me to dance in flash mob in the big event of celebrating new season of TV programs TV3, TV6 and TV8. I agreed to participate in this event right away since I knew it's always a real fun to dance in the flash mob.

 

Me and many other dancers received a video with dance moves that we had to learn personally. It wasn't a problem for me as I have done it many times before. It was an easy dance by a cheerful song by Taylor Swift. 

 

Since it was a very huge event, we had to came to the place where it took place about 6 hours before. It was done for us to have enough time to rehearse the dance and to do all the hairdos and make-ups. We were suppose to dance together with the people who would be dancing in the dance show "Dance with me"  in the new season of TV3. Some of those people hadn't tried dancing before, so we had to repeat the dance many times.

 

To make our flash mob a real surprise for all the guest of that event, we were given uniforms of waiters, that were serving those guest that evening. This way we dissolved in the crowd completely. People who came into this celebration had no idea that we weren't real waiters and even asked us many questions about the food that was being served and other things that we didn't actually knew, so it was quite a difficult task pretending to know all of those things.

 

 

 

All of a sudden, Taylor Swift's song started to play and the waiters started to dance in all of the corners of that room. The guests were stunned. It was clearly seen that they weren't expecting that. That was what made our flash mob even more exciting - the reactions of people. A lot of guests started taking pictures or filming, others were very displeased with this chaos, but the atmosphere was mostly really astounding.

 

Since our flash mob was a real success, a week later we were asked to do it one more time. This time in the event of the second birthday of Kempinski Hotel in the Cathedral Square. This time we were given uniforms of the hotel staff - chambermaids, spa workers, cookers, managers. And again, it was just amazing to see the faces of the guest when they saw us dancing!

 

 

 

This flash mob, not only allowed me to be a part of such importing events, but also gave a boost of good mood and energy!

 

 

 

This activity included to aspects of CAS - Service and Action.