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