My Route to Perfectly Baked Profiteroles

About a week ago I have posted about my unsuccessful attempt to bake profiteroles. In the post I mentioned that I will strive to achieve perfectly baked profiteroles until the end of 2012.

I have attempted to bake these three times since then and today, on 31st of December, I have finally achieved my goal. To be honest I was very surprised with my patience each time I took out trays of flat dough but I never stopped: I continued altering the recipe a little, or using a completely different one, experimenting with temperatures and proportions.

I am a huge follower of Gordon Ramsay's work and I have no idea why I haven't thought about it earlier but today I have decided to follow his profiteroles' recipe to bake mine. With the help of master chef I was able to bake today's profiteroles and achieve my target.

This is the link to his recipe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCeiz0PdGls

Overall on my route to success I have used 3 different recipes and wasted:

- 700 ml of water
- 525 ml of milk
- 850 grams of butter
- 17 eggs
- 800 grams of flour
- 1450 ml of whipped cream
- 10 pods of vanilla

- 10 hours of personal time

However, every time I repeated the recipe I have:

- developed new skills
- increased awareness of strengths and weaknesses
- shown perseverance and commitment to cookery 

New Action Activity - Gym

A couple of weeks ago I have posted an update about the fact that my dissatisfaction with my coach's attitude made me drop my tennis class. In search of a new action activity I have found out that there was a fitness club in 20 mins walking distance from my apartment block. I have never gone to any fitness center on a regular basis but a little bit of independent research as well as talking to the managers of the club convinced me that I should try that out. Consequently I asked my parents to gift me a full year membership at Kimberly Land fitness center for New Year. 

My parents decided to surprise me and give it to me earlier i.e today. I did not hesitate with my first visit. 

During today's gym session I have ran 2 km on a treadmill which may not be too impressive but I think it's a good start for a person who doesn't do much jogging in her everyday life. I have also done regular aerobics for 50 mins using offered equipment such as exercise mats, weighted hula hoops and toning bars. I finished the session off with some stretching yoga asanas. 

 

My thoughts of this experience are nothing but positive. I feel like this activity could increase my overall stamina greatly and may potentially give me a future opportunity to improve from my current results. I will definitely maintain this activity. 

CAS Objectives targeted:

- undertaking new challenges

- increasing awareness of strengths and areas for growth

- planning and initiating activities 

- developing new skills   

My Failure in Baking Profiteroles

Today I have been baking profiteroles. At least attempted to do so but failed miserably. I was watching a cooking program on the television and they were making these so I thought that since I already have some experience with baking eclairs, profiteroles should be an easy one for me.

Little did I know that baking profiteroles something is that truly requires full attention to proportions, temperatures and ingredients.

I can not recall the original recipe but let's just say I went slightly off it here and there (6 eggs instead of 8, somewhere in between 200 and 250 grams of flour in place of desired 150 grams and so on). Not surprisingly I ended up wasting all of the ingredients because my profiteroles turned out to be insipid. Further more the dough didn't rise and I took them out of the oven looking so flat that there was no way I could pump them up with custardy.

I feel like this unfortunate experience reminded me that no matter what you do you have to put your heart into it, metaphorically speaking of course. Especially when it comes to cookery.

I have set myself a goal to repeat the recipe however many time it takes to get the perfect profiteroles until the end of 2012. I will be keeping posts coming about that.

By baking profiteroles, even though unsuccessfully, I have:

- increased awareness of my strengths and weaknesses
- undertaken new challenges
- shown perseverance and commitment to cookery
- set myself targets that I intend to achieve in a limited time period 

Bake sale in BISM 3

Today along with several others I have held a bake sale at our school. Yesterday I have gotten together with my sister (http://polinasemochkinacasblog.blogspot.ru) and Natasha (http://nataliaivanovacasmoscow.blogspot.ru) and working collaboratively with them we have baked muffins, biscuits, cheese cake and a pudding. We have also chosen Guzal', a young beautiful girl with vascular malformation to help with the fund that the we would raise from selling our pastries.

Guzal'.

The sale was a success. The demand was high and absolutely everything that we have baked was sold out. To watch the video from the sale please proceed to Polina's CAS blog: http://polinasemochkinacasblog.blogspot.ru .
As far as I'm concerned we have raised as much as 8000 rubles. We also got several positive feedbacks from our consumers. It feels amazing to know that the efforts put into cooking were granted and that the money raised from the sale would contribute towards changing Guzal's life to the better. Natasha volunteered to be responsible for cash transfer for Guzal' medical treatment and here you may see the proof of our donation being transferred for a genuinely good cause.

Feedback.

CAS Objectives:
- increasing awareness of strengths and area for improvement
- undertaking new challenges
- planning and initiating activities
- working collaboratively with others
- engaging with issues of global importance
- considering ethical implications of my actions

All-planned-by-me Tutoring session

Last Thursday I have posted about my plans to fully organize one of our Russian language lessons with Mme Merlet. I haven't changed my mind about that and today I have done a fully organized lesson for her.

I have spent my entire Wednesday evening thinking about what I could do to teach russian in a engaging and interesting way. I have then decided that I would have an interactive discussion with my "student" based on a rather controversial image of kids playing in the street. I was glad to realize that Mme Merlet was enjoying this activity and was attempting to suggest well balanced arguments about the context of the image and the sociological views on the issue of poverty.

I have asked Mme Merlet to give me some reflection on the past lesson and she confidently said that she liked it and would like to give me another opportunity to plan our first lesson after the holiday. I will spend my holiday planning lessons ahead: printing out materials, researching discussion topics etc.

By systematically tutoring russian I:
- develop new skills
- increase awareness of strengths and areas for growth
- undertake new challenges
- consider ethical implications of my actions
- become a more caring, communicative and open minded IB learner.

Last Tennis Lesson with my Coach.

I have just returned from the last tennis practice that I will ever have with my current coach. I shall explain why.

I came to practice with rather positive attitude and played very well in the beginning of the practice but then out of the blue I felt like my coach wasn't putting much effort into our practices, as if he wasn't enjoying practiced with me at all. It's hard to explain but I got a little bit upset by this and told my coach I won't be training with him anymore. I might have made a mistake by doing so. Nonetheless I am currently on the fence about whether I should look for another coach or get a membership in a fitness club instead in order to satisfy the action aspect of CAS as well as to stay in shape. 

Nevertheless I have gone to my practice today and I believe that by doing so I have:

- developed new skills

- increased awareness of my attitude towards tennis

- shown perseverance and commitment to my activity

Reading Russian Detective Novels with French teacher.

Last thursday, it slipped my mind to make a post about the latest progress that Mme Merlet has been making in Russian. Together with her, we have been reading a detective novel by a famous russian writer Boris Akunin named "Azazel'.

Unfortunately we did not have time to finish the whole novel because Mme Merlet preferred to move on to doing something different this week however I got very intrigued by the novel's plot and will most likely continue reading it at home. I was impressed with Mme Merlet's reading skills and I am very proud and pleased with her progress so far. I feel like by occasionally helping her with her learning of Russian, I am also making her life in Moscow much easier because she is now able to talk about basic things fluently and I know a lot of teachers in our school struggle with that.

After our last teaching session Mme Merlet asked me to prepare something of my choice for us to study this week. I have found a picture of three colored skin children playing in the street for us to talk about. I hope this will provoke some discussion for us and encourage Mme Merlet to think outside of the box and to attempt explaining more complex thought in Russian. We will see how that'll go on thursday.

I believe that by tutoring I:

- am being caring, open minded and reflective
- increase awareness of my strengths and areas for growth
- plan and initiate an activity
- show perseverance and commitment to my activity
- consider ethical implication of my actions

Feeding Stray Dogs.

Yesterday we had a family dinner and my mother had roasted a goose. In the end of the evening we were left with a huge goose bone which would usually be thrown away with the rest of the rubbish. However I came up with an idea of feeding it to starving stray dogs outside. I love animals in general and helping a group of them nearby my apartment block was a real pleasure for me. 

Unfortunately I did not manage to take any pictures of the dogs since I thoughtlessly left my phone at home on my way outside. However I managed to get a picture of the actual bone that was fed to the dogs and I am sharing it with you. 

CAS outcomes met: 

• considering ethical implications of my actions
• engaging with issues of global importance 

Friday Football - Second try.

Today is Friday and as always Mr. Coach along with Mr. English and Mr. Brigstock were running the football club. Even though I have not been attending the club for three weeks in a row due to transport issues today I have decided to give it a second shot. 

It was absolutely great, I have enjoyed every minute of it! Firstly, I was incredibly pleased with my progress - I have scored twice into opponents (!) goal and made several assists to my team mates. Secondly, we had three teams this time (unlike two the previous time) and this gave me an opportunity to have water breaks that we craved for last time. Thirdly, despite the fact that I was in a completely different team to last time's, my team mates were nothing but supportive throughout all of the games that we have played (even that one team mate of mine whose occasional anger management issues really worried me). 

As I said, today was awesome, I will definitely attend the club next week as I feel like this activity can potentially really boost my overall stamina. 

Unfortunately, I was foolish enough to forget to take any pictures to post so you will just have to take my word on this one. 

By attending today's football club, I have: 

- increased awareness of my strengths and weaknesses, as well as my progress

- undertaken challenges

- worked collaboratively with others

- shown perseverance and commitment to football

- developed new skills 

Tennis: Progress + Video

As I’ve mentioned in my previous posts for Action aspect of my CAS I play tennis at a local court. I am confident that I have improved big time since September: my hits are gradually becoming stronger and more accurate, my serves have ameliorated as well. My coach is very pleased with my progress, says that I have missed my chance to become the next Kurnikova or something. He is really prone to flattery. 

Last week I decided to record myself engaging with playing tennis. Consequently I am attaching a short video clip to this entry. 

I believe that by maintaining my active activity and making a video out of it I have targeted the following CAS outcomes: 

• increasing awareness of strengths and areas for growth
• undertaking new challenges 
• developing skills 
• being active and creative at the same time! 

Another cooking session at school.

On monday I have attended and helped organize third cooking club session held on lunchtime at chemistry lab.


This week we cooked japanese sushi rolls. It wasn't my first time cooking them and I roughly knew all the steps that were taught to us by my classmate and friend Alyona.
As I've mentioned in the introductory sentence, I have also helped organize Monday's session by bringing in a lot of ingredients and setting up everything for the club. I also took pictures of club participants so that they could use them in their CAS blogs.

If for some reason you have missed Monday's cooking club but still want to try making sushi rolls like the ones I made, this is what you have to do:

- Lay a 10x15 piece of roasted seaweed on the bamboo sushi-roll mat.
- Place a hand full of pre-cooked sushi rice - tips here on how to prepare perfect rice: http://www.ingorohloff.de/sushi.html
- On top of rice place any ingredients that you want but in reasonable amount and all cut in thin strips (my favorite combination was crabs meet, cucumber and philadelphia cheese)
- After this bring the end of your sushi roll mat on top of all ingredients and keep on rolling pressing onto ingredients inside until you form a proper roll.
- Cut your roll with sharp knife.



I really enjoyed making these sushi rolls since I absolutely love Japanese cuisine and my rolls ended up tasting much better then what we are served in the canteen. Plus, we had lot of fun helping each other out during the process of cooking.



In addition to that I have also: 
- increased awareness of my strengths and weaknesses
- worked collaboratively with others
- shown perseverance and commitment to cooking
- developed new skills 

Henna Tattooing.

Last weekend my yoga teacher finally came back from India and she got me 5 tubes of henna paste as souvenir. I always noticed how girls from India tend to choose henna tattooing as their International Day activity and I thought that if they can do it then so do I. 

Achieving a beautiful temporary tattoo is a relatively easy task. 

You first need to get a tube of henna paste of good quality and carefully draw a creative image. After this you have to let it dry, spray it all over with hair spray and leave it over night for the brightest color. In the morning scratch the pieces of dry henna off and apply any oil ( I use Johnson's baby oil:) ) Et voilà! 

My creative design. Still wet. 

During this activity I have:

- developed new skills

- increased awareness of my strengths 

- undertaken new challenges 

Eco-Friendly Me.

A couple of days ago I went to my mother's workplace - a large office center in the North of Moscow. I was having lunch at the office canteen when I noticed the cleaning lady washing the coffee machine. I asked her if she could give me used coffee grounds instead of tossing them away in the bin. She did. 

I have heard plenty of ways to reuse coffee grounds and always thought it was an awesome way of contributing towards making our world a cleaner place to be. I was very excited about getting these used coffee grounds and was surprised at how easily accessible they are! 

If you follow this link: http://thegoodhuman.com/2010/06/08/16-ways-to-reuse-old-coffee-grounds/ you'll find 16 ways of reusing old coffee grounds.

This is what I did with mine: 

- used them as skin exfoliant 

- massaged them into my hair for beautiful shine (which frankly to my huge disappointment wasn't achieved)

- made post-washing-up hand deodorant

- used as a fertilizer for my window sill plants

- mixed with water to make "the paint" which I used for my "Live Green" poster

I believe that reusing old coffee grounds is a great way of making your life just a little bit greener. That is why I intend to start collecting them from the coffee machine that I have at home (not sure how that is going to work out since I get my coffee from those Nespresso capsules) and attempting other ways of recycling them. 

As for CAS Objectives, I think I: 

- undertook new challenges

- engaged with issues of global importance

- considered the ethical implication of my actions 

- was communicative, caring and open minded.

 

Mission Possible!

Last week we were introduced to a new challenge - a mission statement contest. Apparently IB board are concerned about the mission statements of international schools, BIS is no exception. Hence, our IB coordinator, Mr. Parker, has asked us to come up with a new mission statement for out school, something that would express the purpose of our school and emphasize it’s international community. 

As a very strong contributor to school’s community, I have accepted the challenge with no hesitation. This is what I have come up with:

"BISM 3 and it's community of competent staff warmly welcomes all international students aged 11-18 and aims to guide them towards becoming ambitious, balanced and knowledgeable individuals demanded by top universities all around the world." 

I believe that by participating in “Mission Possible” competition, I have:

• undertaken new challenges
• developed new skills
• considered ethical implications of my actions
• proved to be an inquirer and a risk-taker

Helping out with Wall Display.

Today I have contributed to the service part of my CAS by fixing up a wall display in one of the English rooms. It took me only around 20 minutes on lunch time and I was pleased to hear words of thankfulness in return for my work.

I believe that by doing this I: 
- concidered ethical implications of my actions
- was caring and proactive 

Sponge Nail Art.

Last saturday I have experimented with nail art again. This time I have chosen to do a sponge manicure design - something that I have heard a lot about but never actually dared to try out. 

The colors that I have chosen were pink and purple -  I thought the contrast of the two would look very attractive. 

Below you can see a picstich of photos that I took in the process. I am not particularly pleased with the result as I think that I went a little bit overboard with "sponging" and that turned my nails purple rather than pink gradually turning into purple. Something to consider next time. 

During that creative activity I:

- increased awareness of strengths and weaknesses

- undertook new challenges

- shown perseverance and commitment to nail art

- developed new skills 

Yoga Home Video.

I have recently realized that despite the fact that I said I was going to do yoga as part of my CAS I haven't been providing any proof of myself maintaining this activity. Therefore I have made a short video (relatively short - some might find 8 minutes too long and boring) of myself practicing yoga.

In this video I have shown several asanas, outlined health benefits of each one and gave top 5 before-training advises. 

Hope you'll find it useful! 

P.S: once again, I apologize for the tech issues towards the end of the vid. 

CAS OUTCOMES:

- all three of CAS aspects targeted 

- increasing awareness of strengths and areas for growth

- undertaking new challenges

- planning and initiating activities

- showing perseverance and commitment to yoga

- considering ethical implications of my actions 

- developing new skills

Cookery Sleepover with Alyona and sis.

My sister (http://polinasemochkinacasblog.blogspot.ru/) and I have spent last night at Alyona's house (http://alyonasukhovabism.blogspot.ru/) and one of the many fun things that we did was cooking eclairs (or oversized profiteroles). 

First step was to make the pastry out of basic ingredients including flour, eggs, boiled water, butter, salt and sugar. After this we filled a plain-nozzle piping syringe with dough and piped out 5-7 cm lengths of pastry onto a cooking tray. It took it around 30-40 mins in a pre-heated oven to fully bake.

When we have achieved the golden color of our pastry, we once again used the same piping syringe but with a smaller diameter nozzle to fill the eclairs with vanilla custard. 

We could have just stopped there and served eclairs the way they were but Alyona has suggested another creative idea: to decorate them with colorful icing. Despite the fact that a lot of people who had an opportunity to try our "masterpiece" so to speak commented on the toxicity of the color, I personally thought that it was a great idea as it masked the holes from piping the filling and gave our eclairs an overall finished look. 

After spending the night at the kitchen we brought eclairs to school and decided to ask people around to degustate them and tell us what they thought. I have recorded some of the feedback that we got and Polina made a video out of the footage. I am of course attaching it to this post as proof. 

I genuinely enjoyed cooking eclairs and I believe that this activity was an excellent example of collaborate work. 

In addition to that I have: 

- increased awareness of strengths and areas for growth

- planned and initiated activities 

- shown perseverance and commitment to my activities 

- developed new skills

- been a reflective and caring communicator

DIY Decor.

Just like the majority of female population in the world, I wear make up. I'm not much of a make up guru however to apply my products I use special brushes. I don't tend to go overboard with it but since I do my make up pretty much every morning I like to keep my brushes in close accessibility. Therefore I have decided to decorate a random box that I have found in my apartment and use it for storing brushes. 

For this creative activity I haven't used a lot of materials:

- a box

- some weird looking dried-glass type of thing in colors green and magenta

- golden christmas beads 

- super glue

- a pair of scissors 

 I am very pleased with the result as the newly decorated box fits well into the overall decor of my room and it is a very practical storage item for me. 

I enjoyed every step of the process as it enabled me to express my creativity as well as:

- to undertake new challenges 

- to work collaboratively with others (my 5 year old brother helped me to separate the beads from the cord)

- to show perseverance and commitment to hand-made crafting 

- to develop new skills

Friday Football Club.

Quite recently I decided to start attending the football club held at our school after lessons on Friday. I believe that this would be a very good contribution to action part of my CAS.

I quite enjoyed the club despite the fact I was the only girl and probably the weakest player of all. I tried hard to get the ball from my opponents and dribble it, always forgetting about the "3 touches" rule. I also found it very difficult to run back and forth across the pitch for over half an hour and often felt like falling on the floor. Although I got several positive comments from our english and ICT teachers so I suppose I wasn't too bad but there is definitely room for improvement.

I believe that today I have annoyed quite a number of players by hitting them in places they don't want to be hit and by missing the ball a lot of times BUT I have:

- increased awareness of my strengths and areas for growth
- undertaken new challenges
- worked collaboratively with my team mates
- developed new skills
- proven to be a risk taker and an inquirer, balanced and communicative. 

Teaching Russian.

Every tuesday and thursday according to my CAS plan I have been teaching russian language to our french teacher, Mme Merlet. I have been doing it systematically however I did not have any proof material to attach to a post about it so this is my first post concerning this contribution to the service section of CAS.

Mme Merlet have already studied Russian before but that was a very long time ago and her main objective right now is to refresh her memory of this language. Therefore during our 20 minute sessions on lunch times we have conversations in Russian and practice writing.

This Tuesday we have talked about our holidays and the cities that we have visited. I found it very interesting to learn about the Estonian town of Tallinn and to share my NY experience. I am extremely pleased with Mme Merlet's progress and I have taken these pictures of her book to show what we've been doing.

I believe that by keeping up with that activity I have: 

- undertaken new challenges

- planned and initiated activities

- shown perseverance and commitment to my activities 

- considered ethical implications of my actions

- proved to be a caring, open-minded, knowledgeable and a communicator

Halloween Inspired Pedicure.

Today in the evening I have decided to be a little bit creative and practice my nail design skills on my toe nails. I have created this spider web design all by myself, with no help of YouTube nail tutorials or anything like that. The idea came to me very randomly: I was studying for my English oral activity and the ceramic pumpkin candle holder that you can see in one of the pictures was literarily staring at me and I thought I should do something both creative and holiday related for CAS. I am pleased with what I have achieved although I should have invested more time in drawing the spider web on my left foot's toe and drying it too as it turned out to be a little bit messy as well as smudged.  

These are the products that I have used to create this truly halloweeny design: 

- Christina Fitzgerald Bond Preparation for Color
- Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Hardener
- Christina Fitzgerald in shade "Cabe Butternut Pumpkin"

- OPI Shatter in black 

- Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in #670 "Midnight in NY" 

- OPI Drip Dry Lacquer Drying Drops 

I would also like to draw your attention to the way I have photoshopped both pictures to bring out a gloomy atmosphere of Halloween.  

CAS Objectives Targeted: 

- increasing awareness of strengths and areas for growths

- undertaking new challenges 

- showing perseverance and commitment in my activities 

- developing new skills

Keeping up with recycling.

According to my CAS plan every month I will be recycling paper. This month I decided to get rid of my old books from previous years of studies in an eco-friendly way. I have collected everything I thought was useless (mostly that were my IGSCE books from the subjects I haven't chosen to continue with in IB) and my sister and I gave them to a local recycling spot.

By doing this I have:
- planned and initiated activities
- worked collaboratively with others
- shown perseverance and commitment in my activities
- engaged with issues of global importance
- considered ethical implications of my actions

My stack of books ready to be recycled:

Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate.

Winter is near and it got very cold in Moscow within several days. To lighten up your mood and keep you warm and comfy, try following this recipe that I'm thrilled to share with you to prepare a perfect drink for late autumn time. 

A couple of days ago I have returned from New York City when my favorite morning coffee destination was, of course, Starbucks across the street. They have an amazing variety of drinks and my favorite was their Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate. I was inspired to recreate this drink for my sister, grandmother and myself. 

I started off by thinking about the ingredients for my future drink and writing up my own recipe.

After this I have collected all of the ingredients I needed and followed my recipe to prepare the drink. 

I personally thought it was a very successful first attempt but I'm prone to self-flattery so I decided to ask my sister to give me some feedback that I could use to reflect on and improve my recipe for the future. Down below you can see the video that we have recorded after her first sip. 

These CAS objectives were met: 

- undertaking new challenges

- planning and initiating an activity

- showing perseverance and commitment in my activities 

- developing new skills

- being a creative, reflective, inquiring, open-minded IB learner  

Feeding Birds in NYC

Today I have decided to contribute to the service aspect of CAS by feeding birds while sight seeing in New York City.

In the morning I went to the supermarket and got a lot of bread for that and then headed to the Central Park. There were a lot of starving ducks swimming in the lake and I couldn't miss a opportunity to help them. By doing this I have proved to be caring and a risk taker too because I lately realized that feeding wildlife was prohibited in the park. Everything for the poor hungry birdies.

Later in the day my sister and I visited the Empire State Building. At the height of 86th floor I noticed a pigeon and thought that it would appreciate some bread too. I was right, of course.

CAS Outcomes:

- planning and initiating activities

- engagement with issues of global importance 

- consideration of ethical implications of my activity

"Paranormal Creativity" for CAS

Last week during Wednesday's CAS session we were assigned to produce a 3 minutes long movie on a topic of our choice. My group (Polina, Natasha, Dina and me) have chosen to be creative and to make 

My group came across a lot of difficulties such as choosing an appropriate and achievable in terms of filming topic, finding effective music and costumes and editing the video. But by working collaboratively with each other we managed to overcome these problems and produce an entertaining piece of work. 

I personally was in charge of the music. I found that task quite challenging and time consuming because I had to watch dozens of creepy music videos on YouTube to find the perfect soundtracks for our movie. 

Overall, I enjoyed this activity because it enabled me to target a number of CAS outcomes such as: 

- undertaking new challenges

- planning and initiating activities 

- working collaboratively with others

- developing new skills

- being a communicable, reflective and organized

One of my group mates, Natalia Ivanova, has posted our final project on her YouTube channel and I'm linking it below: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=skY2LuyxdQ0

What Does my Tennis Coach have to Say about Me?

Today as normally on tuesdays and thursdays I have attended a tennis practice. I have decided to ask my coach to say a few words about my progress. Unfortunately he refused to embarrass himself with his English so he talked in Russian but you can follow my translation below the video.

Translation: 

Me: Stop it..Vladimir Sanich, stop it. (he was poking me)
Coach: What do you want me to say?
Me: A few words. A few words about me.
Coach: A few words? About how you played today?
Me: Yes.
Coach:You were quite good today. An "A" for your forehand shot, an "A" for the backhand one too. Your smash was outstanding. Still have to work on your serves though. Yes?

I admit, he over flattered me when talking about my smash but his comments in general gave me an understanding of what I should be aiming on improving. I thank him for that and set myself a goal to train hard to improve my serves.

CAS outcomes: 

- increasing awareness of my strengths and weaknesses
- showing perseverance and commitment to my activities
- developing new skills
- being a reflective, communicative IB learner

International Day Preparation.

As I have already mentioned in my one of my posts, I will not be able to attend international day this year.
However I have decided to be proactive and creative and do some decorations for the event. In this post I would like to share the wall decorations that I have made.

By preparing decorations I have:
- planned and prepared for an activity
- worked collaboratively with others (I had to ask my sister for help at one point)
- proved to be a caring and active member of school's community

Preparing Pesto in School.

Yesterday I had an amazing opportunity to cook Pesto sauce during cooking club on lunch. Alyona has brought in some of the ingredients and Mr. Gray kindly allowed us to cook in his lab. Below this post I have attached a short video clip from yesterday's cooking session.

Ingredients for Pesto sauce include: 
- basil (preferably green)
- parmesan cheese
- pine nuts
- garlic
- olive oil
- salt
- pepper

In half an hour we managed to prepare two portions of the sauce. The first one ended up being horribly garlic-y, but the second time's result was very enjoyable with whole grain crackers.
For the future I will remember that there really can be too much garlic.

CAS OUTCOMES: 
- undertaking new challenges
- working collaboratively with others
- showing perseverance and commitment to my activities
- developing new skills

A Muffin in a Mug!

Today according to my CAS plan I have been cooking. I didn't have much time because of the homework overload so I've decided to cook something unusual but fast. I chose to make a muffin in a cup. I've heard about it a long time ago and had a recipe saved on my phone and today I gave it a shot.

The pictures below show every step of the preparation (hopefully in the right order) but here is the original list of ingredients:
- 1 egg
- 3 table spoons of brown sugar
- 1 table spoon of melted butter
- 1/3 of a cup of flour
- any type of chocolate chips and/or Nutella

What I did is I first layered some butter on the walls of my favorite Starbucks mug. Then I mixed up all of the ingredients in it and put it in the microwave for 2 minutes. And voilà! I ended up with a delicious yet simple desert. Just in 5 minutes!

During today's cooking I have:
- been creative
- undertook new challenges
- developed new skills

Knitting Club.

Today I have attended a knitting club for the second time. I have developed a real interest in this skill and I think am also making progress. I am still messing the knots up at times but overall I can say that I have been noticing improvement.
During today's session I have been practicing doing the knots and our knitting mentor Ms. Danilina told me that next week we will be starting making a scarf. I am truly excited about that because I have never even attempted to knit and I love trying out new things.
My goal for next session will be to start my first even scarf flawlessly so that I will be perfectly satisfied with the final product.

By knitting every Friday lunch time I:
- develop new skills
- increase awareness of my strengths and areas for growth
- undertake new challenges
- become more creative and patient

HandMade Crafting Club.

When you visit clubs that others organize, it seems like a very easy-peasy thing to do until you actually get to do it yourself. That's when your opinion really changes.

Today during lunch time I have done my first ever crafting club. Well, what can I say? It was tough. Unexpectedly tough however I don't regret doing it at all to say the least. That is because I feel like this experience not only had helped me to learn to overcome difficulties but also taught me some life lessons too (you'll see what exactly do I mean if you carry on reading).

Polina, me and Natasha with bases for future christmas trees.

During today's club session I have taught a group of roughly 15 people how to make a very original christmas tree out of paper and music sheets. I didn't want to steal a whole lunch time from people who came to my club so I decided to break down the process of making the tree into two sections. Today I have taught them how to make a base for the tree and they've successfully done that. In a week's time we will be sticking pieces of music sheets on to the base and hopefully will get finished trees.

I had real difficulties explaining steps to each and everyone because a lot of people were late and those who came on time had to wait until I'd be giving next instructions and I found it very hard to control everything all by myself. I would like to thank Natasha Ivanova (nataliaivanovacasmoscow.blogspot.com) and Polina Semochkina (polinasemochkinacasblog.blogspot.com) for really being there for me today and helping me out with the club.
I have also learned only to rely on myself when organizing anything. Today I was let down by a friend of mine who I was supposed to do the club with (not mentioning any names) but I quickly got myself together and held the club myself in order to not disappoint the people who have been waiting for that activity to be taken place.

During that CAS creativity activity I had:

- learned important lessons of punctuality, reliability and organisation
- increased awareness of my strengths and weaknesses
- undertaken new challenges
- planned and initiated activities
- worked collaboratively with others
- developed new skills

International Day Planning.

Last Wednesday during our CAS session we were split up into groups according to our nationality and were asked to think of different activities that we could do for International Day on Friday 19th of October. 

My group has decided that we could teach students some of the widely used Russian expressions as well as slang. As native speakers the members of my group would also be acting out various situations that these expressions could be used at. We thought that a lot of people would find it useful and applicable in everyday life here in Russia. 

Another activity that we have come up with was playing charades. We thought that this activity would be very fun and enjoyable and again would help students to improve their knowledge of Russian language. 

To my deep disappointment I will not be able to attend International Day this year but in order to not miss a valuable CAS opportunity, I will be taking care of decorations and music for my group. Pictures below represent some of my ideas so far. 

During that CAS session I have: 

• planned activities
• worked collaboratively with others 
• proved to be a caring thinker and communicator 

Recycling waste paper.

Throughout the whole September as part of my CAS plan I've been collecting paper and magazines for recycling. I was surprised to realize how easy and effortless that was! In one month I have collected 20kg of waste paper and donated it to one of the Greenpeace recycling points next to my apartment block.

If you are interested in finding the closest point to your house here is the link to the map:
http://www.greenpeace.org/russia/ru/campaigns/ecodom/trash/recyclemap

During this activity I had:
- engaged with issues of global importance
- considered the ethical applications of my activity