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.

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.

Pie Day

Hey hey hey!

On 16th December, another beautiful event took place in Lyceum - Pie Day! It was not only a nice and cozy celebration for eating a lot of pies and feasting early Christmas, it also had a very meaningful purpose - money that were collected from selling pies were donated to poor children in Rwanda, Father Hermann Schulz's Mission. This year during the event, which was organized by our IB1 class, record amount of money was collected, thus we were very happy that we succeeded to organize such an amazing event. However, we had to put a lot of efforts and work in this.

First of all, in order to clarify our aims, the meeting with IB2 class, which organized this event last year, was held. They told us how they managed to do everything, what were the biggest difficulties and what should be changed. After listening to their advice, we made a plan of the whole Pie Day celebration and distributed the work. And there were a lot of it, since we were planning to hold not a simple day when everyone could buy pies and leave without knowing what the real purpose of this event was - we wanted to make clear that all the money would be donated. We also wanted a real celebration with interesting competitions, cozy places to drink tea, we also wanted to generate different activities for people like a nice wall decorated with beautiful paper pies were everyone can take pictures, or a table were people can ornament cookies with edible paint. We also decided to make the main hall with beautiful pie, candy and Christmas decorations. 

We had some meetings where different groups that were responsible for different jobs talked about their works, how and when they should be done. One of these meetings was the one for the group which was responsible for advertising Pie Day, encouraging people to participate in it. Me and three other girls were in this group. We figured that we had to think of an interesting and original way of advertising to draw everyone's attention to this event. That's why we created a small performance that we showed it to every class a day before the celebration. It was a funny but also informative show that a lot of students and teachers liked; it was clear that they paid attention to it and that was our main goal.

Another activity that I participated in was IB1 chorus that was created specially for Pie Day. It was organized by one of our classmates, Zivile, and surprisingly a lot students decided to join it. Singing in chorus or singing at all was quite a challenge for me, because I had never tried it before and I didn't even know what type of voice mine is - soprano or alto, but Zivile helped me to determine that and it appeared that it was alto. We prepared two songs for our performance. It wasn't much, but we still had a lot of work learning to sing together to get a nice sounding. In the end, it was really worth all the efforts, because our singing helped to create homey atmosphere and a lot of people really liked it.

In the morning of Pie Day, everyone was very busy preparing everything for the celebration, decorated the hall. It was so nice to see how everyone was concentrated, working together. We really managed to create a day to remember. There were a lot of bakers and consumers, many teachers came to see this event and it's program. We heard a lot of positive comments about Pie Day and we collected so much money which we donated to children of Rwanda and this all made that day so special. 

Organizing and participating in Pie Day made us all work together with a lot of concentration. It also let us try new activities ( for some - singing, for others - organizing, making decorations, working together with others). The purpose of this event also made us to think of other people who are poorer and to try to help them even a little bit. Overall, Pie Day is the wonderful event.

This activity integrate all three aspects of CAS - Creativity, Action and Service.

Let's Feel the Christmas!

Hello there!

It's true that sometimes Christmas spirit just takes over you out of the blue, but most of the time you have to create that convivial mood yourself. That's what we did in the afternoon of 9th December, when we were decorating our class coordinator's and IB coordinator's doors.

In the beginning we had three ideas of how to decorate our class coordinator's door (we had to adorn only one door at first), so we arranged a voting. It was strange because two ways of decorating collected an equal number of votes, so we decided to carry out Christmas spirit on two doors.

So on Monday, when our lessons were over, we started working. Some of us went to the shop to buy some material for decorating while others were planning the work. At first there were about 8 students wanting to contribute to this job, but in the end there were only 3 of us left. However, it was enough, because others would only be standing without work or wouldn't have a place near the door to work.

Even though we had the sketch of our ideas, we still had to figure out how to transfer everything on an actual door. It wasn't an easy job, because we wanted it to be not only beautiful but also stable that it could remain till the beginning of Christmas Holidays.

When the decoration was finished, we were really pleased about our work, although one of door had to be corrected many times till holidays. Our class and IB coordinators were really happy about their nice doors and we heard a lot of good responses to our decorations.

Thus, we really succeeded in carrying out Christmas spirit, also learnt to implement our ideas from the sketch to reality.

This work involved an aspect of CAS - Creativity.

Dance Marathon '13

Hey, everybody!

On 15th November me and nine other students from my class took part in one of the most exciting events that everyone had been waiting for months -  Dance Marathon. Although I didn't want to  participate at first, now I'm very happy that I did, because it was an amazing event that not only brought me and my classmates together, but also was a real challenge for me that I overcame.

I found out about Dance Marathon about two months before an actual event, when one of my classmates told me about it and offered to participate in it together. Even though I dance for about five years now, I'm kind of afraid and a little bit shy attending such events, so I told her that I didn't think that was a good idea. However, I couldn't stop thinking about it, and after all I decided to face this challenge, gather a group of students and participate in the show.

First task for participants of this event was to prepare a dance. We started practicing about a month before an event. To do that, we had to find people who wanted to be a part of it. To be honest, there were a lot of them and at the outset we had a group of about 15 people that was definitely too much. However, when the real rehearsals started some people just didn't show up, hence in the end only a team of 10 committed people were left.

Another challenge was to decide on a music for a dance, since we all had different opinions about how our performance should look like. Trying to compromise, we split into two groups (6 and 4 people) according to our taste in music and ideas of the show. This way we created different dances and then joined them together with an idea of two battling crews.

I was the one who had to create a choreography in our group and it wasn't difficult for me, since I had done it many times in my dancing lessons. Furthermore, I had to teach the rest of the team that dance routine and it was a bit harder, because I hadn't done that before and other girls were dancing other dance styles in their free time. Nevertheless, I would say that we succeeded and in the end quite a nice performance was built up.

When the day of Dance Marathon came, we were all really nervous and had been practicing for about 3 hours that day. The result of  our efforts was really loud applause from spectators of the event and that was an amazing feeling.

Another task for participants was to create another performance, but this time in 15 minutes with given music and chosen teams. We managed to do this really well and once again attained a great support from viewers.

The final task was to improvise by the music played by organizers. I was kind of afraid of this task, but when I heard house music playing I decided to try and improvise a little, since I dance house dance for 3 years or so. And it went quite well.

All in all, Dance Marathon was a nice event and I was happy to be a part of it. I learnt to face the difficulties and nervousness, to work together with my team and, of course, I had a great time!

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

An Afternoon in the Antakalnis Cemetery

Hey, fellows!

On 23rd October, together with IB2 class, we were cleaning the environment in the Antakalnis Cemetery. It was actually kind of fun, and we really made an impact working together.

Once again, our CAS coordinator informed us about this possibility. Last year, she did this project with her class (current IB2) and this year she decided to take us together. We have been told that we would have to be prepared for a lot of work, including raking leaves and stuffing them into bags. And we were prepared.

Our journey to cemetery began quite funny, because instead of going from a bus station straight to cemetery, somehow we managed to get lost and instead of arriving there after 15min, we showed up after 40min... Thus, we had to start working quickly. And, to be honest, we succeeded. We were given rakes and plastic bags, divided into groups and told to clean particular area. It was not a very difficult task and easier than we expected, but we had a chance to work together as a team. We also got to know each other better during this project and, of course, we cleaned the cemetery. This way we showed our respect to all the people that were resting there and to their relatives, we made that place nicer and cozier. 

This activity included one aspect of CAS - Service.

Project 'Food Bank'

Hello there!

It's my first proper post about my first proper volunteering, so it's kind of big, isn't it? Well, it was a project 'Food Bank' on 19th October. It was organized to help those families who have lost their relatives and now are struggling to provide themselves. This year, the highest amount of money was collected - one million litas! Thus, it was really nice to be a part of such a special project!

Me and my class were put forward to join this project by our CAS coordinator. We met the organizer of this program about a week before an actual event and he introduced us to 'Food Bank' itself and to this particular project.  He explained that volunteers of this event would have to distribute flyers at the shops encouraging people to buy products for families of this project or to collect those products from donating people marking everything on given document and, of course, to thank people for their generosity. It all seemed very interesting and a bit challenging, so me and a bunch of my classmates volunteered at this project.

We met our coordinator on Saturday, she explained us how all this worked and we started! I had a chance to try out both responsibilities, but I preferred collecting products from donating people rather than giving out flyers. I don't mean that it was a bad job. It was interesting and really challenging, because even though some people were positive about these kinds of projects, others had low opinion about people distributing flyers, so they just walked away without looking at us or even said something not very nice thinking that it was only commercial and not actual help for people. On the other hand, I got an experience and understanding how all that worked and learned that preconceived opinion can be wrong. I found out how to be convincing, encourage people to donate, without being pushy. I also really enjoyed collecting food and being able to see how generous people are and to thank them personally. It really made me understand that there are many kind people who think about others and gave me an incentive to contribute some products myself.

Overall, volunteering in this 'Food Bank' project included one CAS aspect - Service.

A Little Bit About Me

Hey there, everybody!

I'm Greta Jurgaitytė and I'm 17 years old. I'm a student at International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme in Vilnius Lyceum and I'm going to write my CAS ( Creativity, Action and Service) reflections here. Hope you'll enjoy reading it!