Mrs. Peterson Help-Deep freeze updates

Where at first my jobs for Mrs. Peterson consisted of muscle labor, carrying projectors, ladders, and other physical activities this project was different. The computers in the school run on a system called Deep Freeze which stops things from being downloaded onto the hard drive and allows the computer to have a fresh start every day. Because things cant be downloaded while its "frozen" no programs can be updated on a daily basis. Mrs. Peterson showed me how to run these programs and update them when the deep freeze was down, giving me a job that was much more on the technical side than lifting ladders. To me, this was a big step towards a much bigger involvement in the Tech. department and another step closer to learning more things about computers. In order to update the programs accurately, not only did the Deep Freeze have to be down but there was a system to the updates, an order in which the computer had to first be thawed, then re-booted, all programs had to be updated, and then re-booted again for the updates to take effect. I enacted this system to all the computers in the computer lab, which took a considerable amount of time yet to me was quite the experience in computer learning. The fact that a computer can actually be in a stasis where it can run but cant keep information on the hard drive was new to me and since Mrs. Peterson was allowing me to work on thawed computers helped show me she trusts me. Through teamwork Mrs. Peterson and I worked though and finished the updating of all the computer systems, resulting in freshly updated systems capable of working even better for the future.

Adopt a Soldier box (after)

The photos above depict my Adopt a soldier box filled and ready to be shipped over seas. At first the filling of the box was slow, mostly due to the fact that few knew of its existence, but it finally caught the attention of a French teacher, thanks to the help of a friend, and i discovered that there had already been an attempt to fill a box of supplies for a soldier. The box had been filled with a considerable amount of supplies but hadn't gone anywhere. After a talk with the French teacher in charge of the box I used the supplies to fill my own and plans to fill future boxes were discussed. With the box filled its next destination is the Youth and Progress Driving school where it will be sent over seas to a US soldier stationed in either Iraq or Afghanistan. This activity taught me about cooperation because without the help of the French teacher the box would have taken a lot longer to fill. Now I feel like I have accomplished something great for a someone in need, someone who could gratefully use these supplies to get them through the next day, or battle. I learned from this activity however, that if Im to fill another box, Ill have to find new ways of making it known to the rest of the school, possible advertisements or fliers. This activity helped me to realize that I need to put myself out there more in order to make sure the box gets filled faster. Overall I feel that this activity was a success because now a soldier can receive a box of essentials that they may not have had before, including inspirational letters from students that can boost moral.

Mrs. Peterson CAS- Projector Help

Helping take inventory on the school's projectors for Mrs. Peterson was a job requiring organization and teamwork. This activity ran a span of two days, making the organization part essential to completely the job, and I learned that it was important to make preparations for tasks ahead of time in order to successfully accomplish it, not only on time, but efficiently and to the best of your ability. Teamwork played a major role as well and this was another essential part to getting the job done in decent amount of time and well. While one person read off the numbers on the projectors atop a ladder, the other held the ladder and marked off the numbers. I read off the numbers, and this provided some difficulty at first due to my fear of heights that have somewhat held me back most of my life. In order to finish this task though I made it my priority to overcome the fear and climb the ladder swiftly. By the end of the activity I had learned a lot about the projector, how it works and also, how delicate they are. With this knowledge of projectors, I hope to incorporate it into my future career somehow in the movie business, because a projector is the main machine used in movie theaters and I feel it essential that I know how it works because before DVDs and video sets there were reels on projectors. By knowing even little things about projectors I can be a little more self aware in the future about the mechanics and usefulness of them. This activity helped me learn about organization and putting aside dates to get jobs done as well as teamwork, which I learned can make the difference between a 5 day task and a 2 day one. This activity also helped a little with my future, giving me some knowledge of an important tool in film.

Potato Dinner

This activity is actually something new to me. Im no stranger to bake sales which consist of baking your goods ahead of time and wrapping them up for people to go while they walk by, but open house dinners at local churches have an entirely different system to them. I was assigned a specific job of serving coffee and running back between the food lines re-stocking the soda and helping to serve desserts. This job helped me learn about structure and having a specific duty so as to be part of a whole. Every helper at the dinner had their own specifics jobs all helping the others jobs in some way, building a foundation. I re-stocked the soda while another distributed it out to the people. Id serve coffee and the helper next to me would offer desserts, a specific order about doing things that in the end resulted in lots of people having free food and getting together to to just chat. The event held in order to help people meet new people, over a nice free dinner, and even as a helper I met new people and the whole event brought the group together. So as well as learning about structure and specific duties to perform I also learned a little more about team work, and feeling like part of a bigger picture, as opposed to the bake sale, which was for a foreign country, this activity was for the locals of Cape Cod, my own country.

Bake Sale Journal #1

This activity took place for only three hours but was well worth it in the end. People donated money to Haiti through 20 dollar bills even, just for a 50 cent brownie or cookie. This helped showed me how committed people were to helping others in need. It also showed who didnt care, since some people just laughed and walked away. The temperature was vvery low and I spent most of the time shivering however in my opinion it was necesary because I was helping a country that was probably feeling a lot worse. For the bake sale I made a variety of cup cakes ranging from lemon poppy seed to double chocolate chip and all baked goods sold for 50 cents. Baking the goods was relatively easy and I was driven more by the urge to contribute to this event in order to help the earthquake victims and actually selling them took even more concentration because in order for people to donate you have to show that you yourself are interested in the cause you are selling for. This activity proved to be very helpful to me because first of all it helped me with my organization skills, teaching me how to plan ahead and bake the goods as well as group together with others in a common area to sell the goods. Along with the organization I was able to feel important having helped donated a couple hundred dollars, possibly more, to a foriegn country in need. Overall I feel as if this activity was a success and it helped me feel like I was part of a bigger picture.

An image of the Adopt a Soldier box for collecting supplies. This is one of two boxes, one for each main entrance of the school. The box contains a detailed list of needed items as well as who is sponsoring the drive. Was made from an alcohol box and construction paper. I used bright colors so as to attract the eyes of passerby's so that more items can be received.

CAS Journal #5-Meditation

Ive now completed a second session of meditation and this time less people came, not sure if that was because they didn't like it or if they just couldn't do it, no matter the reason I plan on sticking with it since the first session had a great effect on me. This session was kind of a repeat since there were some new faces and so the instructors gave an overview of the hand gestures and body forms. My goal for the session was to work on my attention skills and drown out the sound of kids eating and the instructors talking. I found I wasnt as successful in this as I would like to have been but its just prove that more practice is needed. I underwent another fifteen minute meditation session and after wards I realized I had the same great feeling as last time. The trick is not to focus too much on the scene you create in your head, in my case I dont focus on what the trees on my beach look like or how light out it is because that can cause you to get carried away with thoughts and lose concentration so instead I focus solely on the water which blocks out all other thoughts until the only thing I can hear is the water and the silence of my own head. I felt I wasnt worrying about how I was getting home today or how I was going to complete my homework since I had a meeting tonight and other such thoughts that usually do nothing but annoy me and make me cranky. This also helped with the anxiety over driving and how I was going to do my driving hours next week, this had been clouding my mind all vacation and was now interfering with my school work so by drowning out the worries and focusing on my beach I realized that everything would work itself out and that the important thing is that I focus on things one day at a time, the driving is next week and so when it comes to time to drive Ill just up and do it. This club is really helping with my coping skills and Im actually finding myself excited for the upcoming class, its a little break from all the high school drama and work and it always ends in me feeling renewed.

CAS journal #4-Meditation

With the completion of the first meditation club session my realizations were correct. Not only was it a calm environment with peers I knew quite well but the instructors, two guys with a great sense of humor added to the good mood. They talked about "Zen", a form of meditation that they were undergoing classes for, meditation itself is very diverse and different people prefer to do different ways depending on its use. For Zen a simple sit down is all that is required. I was taught different ways of holding my hands and body gestures that would help with concentration as well as breathing techniques that consisted of breathing in and out of the nose as if I was pushing the thoughts out of my head. When the meditation started I decided on a beach setting where as I breathed in the waves would wash over me and as I breathed out they would recede. I found this to be quite effective and before I knew it lunch was over. I went on to my next class calm and happy, even though this class takes place only twice a week I think its going to be a nice break in the middle of the day and week. And now that I had actually completed a session I could reflect on how its going to help and what things I can do to improve this skill. During this first class I found I could meditate for about fifteen minutes, not bad for starters Im guessing but ive decided that outside of these sessions im going to practice to improve my endurance and the amount of time and can successfully meditate without any interruptions. Im very satisfied with this club so far and I feel as if its going to do wonders for my attitude.

CAS Journal Entry #3

For a third activity I plan on joining the meditation club. When deciding on CAS activities I found myself being very picky on what activities I wanted to do, mostly because I wanted something that could overlap into my personal life and have a positive effect on my life. When meditation club was mentioned to me I immediately realized that this could be an activity that would help with the stress dished out in the IB. As a firm believer in Buddhism I already knew the basics of meditation but wanted to expand more and actually learn something more about it. This club seems like the perfect way to learn how to meditate properly and with a skill like this I can not only use it to help me relax before or after a major test or assignment but I can pass it along to someone else possibly. In a school program where intense work is frequent a skill such as meditation can become extremely useful, allowing for time where no thoughts enter the mind and calm, tranquil breathing is the only thing heard. I strongly believe this club will have a positive effect on me and that with it I will be able to survive the next year and a half of IB and even continue to use it in college to overcome the next level of pressure. I can take meditation with me for the rest of my life and with it can learn to cope with difficult situations without overreacting or losing my mind.

Journal 2: Planning the Newspaper Activity

For a second activity I plan on working on the school newspaper for Sturgis because I think it will be valuable to my creativity. I plan on writing about Arts and Theater within Sturgis, both of these being areas I have a strong interest in. But even with a strong interest I feel this activity is going to be a challenge because ive never worked on a newspaper before and Im not sure whats expected of me. My writing is published for the whole school and strong planning is going to be needed in order to create a suitable piece for the newspaper. I plan on applying much of what ive learned in English class on creative writing in order to possibly even persuade my readers to believe in a particular point. With this challenge comes the possibilities of new growth in areas of creativity and time management for me. Ive always had trouble with managing my time, especially with things that genuinely matter, through this activity I hope to work on this problem, setting aside time on the weekends and after school to set up interviews and plan trips to art galleries. Through this activity I also feel ill learn a lot just by taking part in these art shows and plays, Ill pick up different art styles while at the galleries and see how different actors portray their characters in plays, this being very important to me since I plan on being in the film business and knowing how to read an actor is vital to directing. Overall I feel like this activity is going to help me leave my comfort zone and discover new ideas and people.

Journal 1: Work with mrs. Peterson in the Tech. Dept.

Through only a few simple sessions of helping Mrs. Peterson the reasons for choosing this activity have been made clear. Through fixing projector wiring and smart board wiring atop a ladder ive seen that even simple tasks can have deeper meanings as well as great effects. having a fear of heights working on a ladder never sounds like a joyous activity but when im on it applying tape to hold USB connectors together my mind has no time to wander to the image of the floor beneath me. These simple tasks help me focus on little jobs going on at that very moment. Connecting chords is a very important job that does require some labour, not a whole lot, but attention must be applied or else the right connections arent made and if the right connections arent made the piece of technology doesnt work the way its supposed to. The small jobs ive done benefit not only the teachers using the piece of equipment since it helps them teach effectively but the students as well since its contributing to their education. The connecting of chords are also useful to me personally because im learning small tasks that will prove to be useful later on in life. Learning how to attach extra USB outlets onto a projector is useful because I never know when im going to need extra USB space on a presentation in the near future, instead of hiring someone else to do it for me I can do it myself, helping with individual growth while also saving me potential money. Even learning how to change the ink cartridge in a school printer is useful because its a basic skill ive now acquired and if the situation ever arises that the certain skill is needed, I have it, and i can use that skill to help other people.