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.

Summer of Dancing

Hello You All!

I hope You are all enjoying your summer as much as I do! I've already done a lot of amazing things this summer and taking dancing lessons is one of them.

I used to take dancing lessons three times a week during a school year when I was in 10th grade, but I stopped doing that as I started my 11th school year. I did that because I figured I should spend more time studying rather than dancing. Therefore, it was amazing to be able to go to dance lessons again during this summer.

Lessons took place once or twice a week for 1.5 hour and they were mostly house dance and dancehall lessons. Personally, I prefer dancehall lessons as I find this dance much more emotional and passionate. This dance also requires better control of the whole body, therefore I always have an incentive to work out, go to every lesson and even improve my skills at home. Furthermore, we had a chance to show our creativity skills and prepare short choreographies during lessons, which made it all even more exciting.

Since this summer has been amazingly hot, you may imagine what it's like to dance when it's about 30 degrees Celsius outside. I used to be completely exhausted and wet from sweat after lessons. However, it's another reason to be proud of myself as I managed to endure such heat while dancing.

One of the choreographies created during a lesson

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

Good Morning, Vilnius!

Hey there!

I was going through the old photos of mine and found the ones from one amazing event that I've participated in and haven't told you about yet. It was called "Good morning, Vilnius!" and was dedicated to mention the International Day of Greeting. It was a wonderful event that brought smiles to a lot of people's faces.

 

I've heard about this event form my classmate who is a member of Vilnius Volunteering Center. Couple of days before there had been made a lot of origami flowers and cranes in that center, thus when we were informed about this event, they were looking for people who could give those paper works out to people on International Day of Greeting  (21st November). Of course, we happily agreed to volunteer and be a part of this beautiful event.

 

On 20th of November we were given four huge bags full of paper flowers and cranes. Next morning at 6.30 a.m. we were supposed to give them out to people in the bus stops of Vilnius. So, as soon as me and my classmate went to the bus stop that we were assigned to go, we started giving people our little presents and wishing them good morning. It was amazing to see how a honest smile and a paper flower in the morning can make people turn from drowsy and gloomy to happy and kindly surprised.

 

Therefore, volunteering in this event made me realize that a sincere smile and a greeting can cheer people up and make their day better. I understood that we should be nicer and friendlier to people around us as it makes us all feel happier!

 

This activity included one aspect of CAS - Service.

Fashion Epidemic

Hello, guys!

Another event that I would like to tell you about is the 'Fashion Epidemic', organized by some of my classmates. Even though such event initially has been held 10 years ago, it hasn't taken place for a while now, yet I can say that my classmates have succeeded in bringing it for a new life and I'm happy that I could help them with some organizational and technical matters.

 

The idea of this event was that there had to be two fashion designers who created costumes for two models who presented those costumes in the main celebration on 2nd May. The team that showed the most original clothes' collection  won a professional photo-shoot for the whole class. 

 

The students of Lyceum have been quite pessimistic about this event and thought that there would be no people interested in participating in it. When my classmates made flyers to encourage people to take part in the "Fashion Epidemic", people were still not interested in participating in it. Therefore, we came up with an idea to create a short commercial show to stimulate people to take part in the event. Since I and two of my classmates have done this kind of a show before a 'Pie Day', we volunteered to do it again.

 

As the name of the event was 'Fashion EPIDEMIC', we created a show where one of us was had an epidemic of fashion (she was dressed up with clearly tasteless clothes) and the two others were doctors who asked people for help to fight this epidemic by creating a clothes collection and testing it on two models. I could say that people really liked our mini show and four classes decided to participate in the event. Therefore, we accomplished our task quite well.

 

I also helped to do some technical works, like making decorations and preparing the room for the celebration.

 

All in all, I could say that "Fashion Epidemic" was a great event and it was a challenge for us as we had to figure out how to deal with occurred problems, like how to encourage people to change their opinion and participate in it.

 

All in all, this activity included one aspects of CAS - Creativity.

'Food Bank' (Spring edition)

Hey, you all!

It has been more than two months since my last post was written, so I have quite a lot to tell you!

First of all, I want to report about the second time that I've participated in project 'Food Bank' on 12th April. It was a smaller program than the one in autumn, yet it was still great to be a part of it! This spring project of 'Food Bank' was organized in the shops of 70 Lithuanian cities to help poor people, which is really amazing, when you think about it!

 

The main organizer of this project, Modestas Bastys, has been aware that students of Lyceum always participate in the events of "Food Bank" with great enthusiasm, so he showed up in your our school and told about this this spring project. To tell you the truth, there has been a full room of volunteers who wanted to participate in the program!

 

I chose to volunteer in another, bigger supermarket than the last time. That's one reason why this project may have seemed different to me. Of course, our responsibilities were the same - some of us had to give out the flyers and encourage people to donate, while others had to collect donated products, give a warm gratitude for generous people and mark those products in given document. I had the chance to try out both of these responsibilities; however, like the last time, I enjoyed collecting the products and thanking people more.

 

It was a strange fact that even though it was a bigger supermarket than the last one that I have been to during this project, the people were less willing to donate. Maybe it was because of the time (people tend to be saving more in winner and after it). Therefore, it made me feel really unpleasant as a lot of people were disgruntled and didn't want to be a part of this wonderful project. On the other hand, there were still some people who were willing to donate and even to do it in great amounts. Because of such people and because of ability to challenge myself in encouraging people to think of poorer ones and to donate at least a couple of products for them, I don't regret that I've participated in the project 'Food Bank' one more time. What is more, I had a chance to meet some really nice people who also volunteered in the event.

 

This activity included one aspect of CAS - Service.

100 Days Until Graduation

Hello, people!

As I have mentioned in my previous blog entry, 100 Days Until Graduation is one of the most expected event of the year where  11th graders have a chance to show themselves, what they are capable of and 12th graders can enjoy and remember for a long time after they graduate. To be honest, I was kind of relieved when it was finally over. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed being a part of this event and having a chance to know other 11th graders better. However, it was a huge responsibility and we all had to put a lot of effort to create a celebration to remember.

The first task was to think of the theme of the whole celebration. There were a lot of ideas, but the thee main ones were "the Space", "Uninhabited Island' and "Dreams". After two voting, the last one was elected by a very small margin. To make it more sophisticated, the final name of the celebration was "One-third of Life", noting that people spend one-third of their lives sleeping. It was a very promising theme, because were a lot of interesting ideas how to fulfill it.  
 

From the very beginning I knew how I wanted to contribute to celebration - I wanted to dance. However, everything didn't turn out as I planned...
 

The process of preparation we started by making four groups that were responsible for different things: theater, music, decorations and dancing. As you may guess, I signed in the last group to participate in house dance and show dance performances. Very soon rehearsals started. The meetings were usually held on Saturdays and on some Fridays after school, because it was hard to find other times that would be suitable for all dancers. After a couple of Saturdays practicing performance of house dance it turned out that a girl who had created a dance didn't have enough time for it, thus our elected dance coordinator decided not to have that house dance performance after all. Although it was a bit sad, we had more time to prepare a show dance performance. And that was quite a challenge! The guy who created a dance wanted it to be as perfect as it could get, thus we were practicing it every Saturday and some of the Sundays. Even though it was hard and irritating sometimes, it was also really fun to come to school on a weekend and to see people working on their tasks. However, on the last weekend, when the biggest preparation works were being done, I went on a vacation to Andorra for skiing with my parents. Because of this, I missed a lot of rehearsals where the rest of the group finished a big part of the performance. When I came back two days before the event, the dance was done and I had to learn it during the night if I still wanted to participate in it. In fact, I was prepared to do that, but then I found out that there was going to be a funeral of my cousin's dad on the day of the celebration, thus I wouldn't going to make it to the performance. That was how all the work on weekends went for nothing. At least at first I saw it that way. But then I realized that it wasn't for nothing. I got to know a lot of interesting people during rehearsals, I saw how plans became reality and had a chance to be a part of it.

The month before the event was full of different preparation works. Every time we had free lessons we did decorations. I also volunteered to be a part of group who was supposed to find people who had to write letters for 12th graders. It was a very nice idea that they would get letters from their friends congratulating them with the celebration. However, it was surprisingly hard, because not all of the friends of 12th graders wanted to write a letter, some of them had promised to write, but didn't do that. Thus, it was a really responsible work, because if someone wouldn't get a letter, while others would, they would fell really disappointed and we for sure didn't want that to happen, therefore we had to figure out solutions from such situations.

The day before the event most of the 11th graders were finishing decorations, rehearsing dancing and music performances and, of course, turning the whole school into a huge "dream". Since I was no longer in a dance group, there was a lot of work to do with decorations and other things. That day I did a lot of different tasks. I contributed to making paper stars and schedules of the celebration, creating labyrinths which were two of about 8 stations where 12th graders could visit on the day of the celebration. I also helped to put on a wall decorations. There were a lot of work, thus we stayed at school as long as we could. Some of us left at 9pm., others stayed until 12pm. After such a long day, next day we had to be at school on 6 a.m. or at least at 7.30 a.m.


I came at school at 7.30 a.m. and made the last preparations in the labyrinth that a had to watch during celebration, or at least until a had to leave to the funeral. In fact, it wasn't actually a labyrinth. I and one of my classmates were only creating it with two boards of plastic, but for a person with tied eyes it seemed like a huge labyrinth. It was really funny to watch, how people looked really lost and then relieved when we finally let them to found "the exit". 

When the both morning and evening parts were over, I was really proud of all the 11th graders that we all managed to create such a big celebration and overcame a lot of difficulties that occurred. Of course, there were a lot of things that could have been done better, that required more work than we put. Nevertheless, those things showed us what were the weakest parts of our work. We learnt that the celebration and the whole preparation process should have been more organized. We also could have start looking at all the decorations serious sooner, because most of them were left to be finished on the last days.

There were a lot of different comments on 100 Days Until Graduation celebration. Some people said it was too serious for a happy event, others said we could have done everything better. There were also people who liked performances and the stations. In my opinion (which may be a little bit inequitable), we did quite well and I believe that the most important thing was that 12th graders felt the mood of the celebration and marked the day when they had left only 100 days until graduation.

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



 

100 Days Until Graduation. IB version

100 Days Until Graduation is probably the most important yearly event in a school life. The problem is that IB students have their exams earlier then the rest of 12th graders, thus they have less than 100 days left until graduation when the celebration is held. However, IB1 students decided to solve this problem and surprise IB2 students by throwing them a mini version of this feast on the day when there are actually 100 days left until their exams.
 

To be honest, at first we foolishly thought that it would be easy. We had even worked out a theme of the celebration - it was supposed to be a little disco party. We wanted to decorate a class in which we were going to greet IB2 students with disco elements, to bake some disco themed pies or cookies and make a calendar out of 100 CDs. However, it turned out to be much harder than we thought. Most of us were busy with our classes and did not have time to plan this whole event. Nevertheless, we did not give up and still managed to organize a cozy meeting with tasty pies and a good mood.

I offered to create a symbol of this celebration - the calendar. Since there was no theme anymore, I talked it over with one of my classmates and decided to do calendar out of matchboxes. We figured that it would be original and not that expensive, yet still nice.
 

Me and two of my classmates put a lot of work into this calendar. First of all, we had to paint all 100 boxes so that the surface of them wouldn't be seen. Then we decided to decoupage those boxes to make them nicer and to glue them on a paper in a shape of ''IB". Yet, it wasn't the hardest part. Our idea was to open those matchboxes one in each day and that each day different adjectives about IB2 students, describing what kind of people they would become after graduation from IB programme, would appear. Hence, we had to think of 100 different adjectives and write them down inside the boxes. In was kind of interesting, actually, since we had a chance to expand our vocabulary. When the calendar was finally finished, we were very happy about our work and most importantly, IB2 students were also pleased.
 

On  24th of January, whole IB course met in one class and cheerfully celebrated 100 Hundred Days Until IB2 Graduation.
 

Preparing for this event, I've acquired experience how to initiate and plan certain activities (creation of calendar). I've also learned to work with others taking into account their opinion and trying to integrate their ideas with mine. Furthermore, this celebration kind of bonded IB1 and IB2 classes.

This activity included one aspect of CAS - Creativity.



Do Not Forget

Hello everyone!

On 13th January I and a couple of my classmates had a chance to be a part of a beautiful initiative "Forget-me-not". The purpose of this project was to express thankfulness for the Lithuanians who decidedly fought and sacrificed themselves in the battle for freedom in January 13th, 1991.
 

I heard about this event from my friend Martyna. She was the one who brought this event to our school and asked some of us to help her promote the spirit of it by giving out stickers of  forget-me-not flowers. People, who glued these stickers to their clothes showed that they are not going to forget the sacrifice of those great warriors.
 

We all had met about an hour before classes started and agreed how to present this idea. Then we stood near the main entrance and greeted coming students encouraging them not to forget to be thankful and stick forget-me-not flowers to their clothes. Of course, there were some people who walked away from us not listening what we wanted to say; however, they were a very small minority. Most of the students were positive and pleasantly surprised about this nice initiative. Some of them even asked for more than one flower to bring them home to their parents or friends. Thus, I was really glad to be the one who reminded those people about this beautiful occasion and to contribute carrying out national Lithuanian consciousness.

This activity included one aspect of CAS - Service.