The Talent Show

The Talent Show went really really well! It seemed like everyone really enjoyed themselves and even though it ran for about 3 hours with all judging and a 10 minute intermission no one seemed bored. It was really nice to see everyone so excited about the arts and it really makes me feel like artsco is doing its job! When everyone got on stage to dance at the end it really showed how the school can come together and I really hope that this will also increase people's attendance at other school music concerts for the rest of the year. After the show we started thinking and maybe next semester we'll organize a talent show for teachers and parents because that would be really fun and we know there is a lot of talent there!

Macbeth

I feel like this play is coming up SO FAST, less than a month! I'm quite confident though and i think it's going to be a good show. It's really really challenging to make Shakespeare approachable and not unimaginably boring especially for a mostly teenage audience, but using lots of audience interaction and building in really strong characterization will, I hope, help the audience to feel more involved in something they might not understand fully. I'm also really excited about the costumes and sets and how they're coming together. The lines is my other issue, I'm confident with them up until the end of Act 2, so I still have a lot of work and it's so daunting but i won't give up! I know i can do it! But honestly, the 20th of November, when this is over couldn't come any sooner, it's been fun but very stressful and I can't wait to be reminiscing and looking back on this as a very positive experience :)

Tennis

I've been practicing with the German School Tennis Team every Saturday and I am so happy with the amount of improvement that I've made. While it was hard for me to even get the ball over the net and into the court at the beginning of the year, I now feel much more confident and have even won a few matches. The coach as really helped me improve on my swing, I never realized that i was just doing wrong! It took sometime to adjust to a new grip because the movement felt a little awkward at first, but I'm really getting into the feel of it now and I must say i really love Tennis. The coach is trying to organize for us to start playing matches against other schools soon so I'm excited about that, as long as we don't have to face ISK!

Organizing the Inter School Talent Show

This year it is Artsco's responsibility to organize the annual ISK Inter school talent show. This has been a really stressful job, especially since we had so many people come to the 3 auditions we held. It was really hard because in order to keep the show around 2 hours we had to cut a lot of good people, and it was even harder when they were my friends, but i think this has taught me a lot about taking charge and standing firm by your decisions even when your friends beg you to reconsider after you had to cut them. We narrowed it down to 20 acts, which is already quite a lot but I think we're going to have an excellent show! We're having a dress rehearsal on Wednesday the 26th and on Thursday we will meet up as a group to do decorations before the actual show is on Friday the 28th. I'm really happy with how much Artsco has been able to accomplish over the year and after this I'm hoping to organize another service opportunity before the December break.

Swim Galla

I had my first swimming Galla of the year on the 15th and 16th of October, NASA's AAA Galla. Despite feeling really sick on Saturday i still went in to swim the 200 IM (Individual Medley) and actually ended winning it despite feeling terrible so i felt really good about that! I did feel horrible afterwards though, was dizzy and almost threw up. Sunday i felt much better and came in to swim the 100 IM, 50 Breast and 50 Free and ended up winning the 100 IM and placing third in the 50 Breast. Again, good results :). Due to Macbeth taking up so much of my schedule, I haven't been at nearly as many Gallas this year as last, but it was exciting to compete again and I'm hoping to be able to participate in more after Nov. 19th when Macbeth goes up. Until then, its just lots of practice!

Working at the PTO

The artsco booth at the PTO picnic was face-painting, tie-dye and hair braiding. While I didn't do braiding, as I'm really not very good at it, i was doing face-painting, helping the kids out with tie-dye as well as supervising for the entire 3 hours. The tie-dye was really fun, we had looked up some designs beforehand and it was really cool how most of the shirts turned out. Costumers would buy a white t-shirt, we would then help them tie it up into a cool design with ruber bands and let them color it. All of our costumers seemed really pleased with the outcome! Face-painting was much more stressful, as it takes pretty long to give a child a full face make over, turning them into a tiger, a pirate or a butterfly, and the lines were always really long. However, it was also really fun, especially since all of the kids were happy with their new selves and happy despite how long it sometimes took! We made about 12,000 shillings from this event, which we will use for our service projects, buying paints and supplies so it was very successful.

Mural Painting in Kibera

We had quite a good turnout for the trip to Kibera and i think it all worked out really well. The design for the mural was based on the idea of good/bad aspirations, so we had people who were drunks, addicts, criminals, etc. in black and white with red Xs over their eyes and people who were doctors, athletes and students in colour and happy. It was really really fun and it was nice to see the reactions of the SODAS foundations members, as it really seemed like we were helping them and giving them exactly what they wanted. They helped us translate slogans about drugs/alcohol and sexual health into kiswahili and so overall the mural just looked really good. We're planning on going back to paint the inside walls Wednesday as well collaborate with them even more in the future!


On our second trip to Kibera to paint murals we designed a four panel mural which would show the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly as we thought it was a nice symbol for the youth that would be trying to recover from drug/alcohol dependency in the SODAS program. It was really fun to see how well the members responded to the message and they also liked how we were able to make their dreary white/gray walls beautiful and welcoming to the community. Art is meant to bring a message of unity and to teach through symbolizing so i think we really managed to accomplish this in our mural painting!

Artsco

So this year I am head of artsco, the arts club at ISK and since the supervisor, Ms. Mackay, and I have decided to greatly increase what this club does in terms of service and activeness in the school, it has been really stressful so far, but fun! We have about 25 members, more than i expected, so the challenge will be to keep them all motivated and actually participating. Our main goal this year at ISK is to increase the attendance at arts events. We hope to do this primarily through greatly increased publicity, so each member needs to be active in their support of artsco events as well as attendance! Our other goal is to have 4 service opportunities a year. Our first one, a mural painting with the SODAS (Save our Daughters and Sons) foundation is happening next Saturday, which is excellent! Organizing this has however been somewhat chaotic as it is very close and we still need to organize buses/permission forms, etc. But it'll work out! The foundation members seem very excited to have us come and i'm hoping to have every member participate in this opportunity. I will post again after our trip. hopefully it will have gone well!

A New Year of Swim Team

I went to two swim practices on Wednesday and Friday mornings last week and wow they were so tough. I didn't realize just how unaccustomed i had come to these strenuous work outs over the summer. My legs were killing me after Wednesday, i've never had sore muscles like that, and Friday was bad too, but better. I can feel myself returning to my weekly fitness routine and its relieving and welcome as i do love swimming and it makes me feel bad to feel out of shape. I'm not sure yet when our first Galla will be, and i'm not sure if i'm looking forward to it, racing is always nerve-wracking, but since this is my Senior year, i'm hoping i do well! I'm going to practice again on Wednesday, and hopefully i'll be able to get back into my Wednesday, Thursday, Friday 3 times a week routine again.

First Macbeth Practice

So today was our first day of practice for Macbeth. It was only a read-through and we only got about half way into act 2 as Mrs. Hargreaves, the director, had to do a lot of explaining, but its already seeming really overwhelming. I have SO many lines and even though the production isn't until around November 22nd i'm already nervous. I've never had a part this demanding before, but I don't want to make it seem like i'm not totally excited about it either. I love theatre and this is exactly what i want to spend my time doing, it just seems a little daunting knowing that i still have so far to go. The cast is also super cool and i really feel like we're going to bond well over the course of these practices (we really better because on the schedule it says some of our practices will run all the way till 8 pm during the last stretch in November!)

Joining the German School Tennis Team

I haven't really played Tennis since I was in 5th Grade (and i mean playing Tennis, not just hitting a ball around for 5 minutes during the summer when i'm bored) but i have decided that since i do think it's a lot of fun, i want to join the German School Tennis team which meets every Saturday starting on the 27th of August. I decided to join the German School Team because being Macbeth in the school production takes up most of my time after school, so joining the ISK Tennis team is impossible, but i do still want to pursue it. In order to prepare for this team i've so far had 2 lessons over the last 2 saturdays with a Tennis teacher in order to brush up on the rules and to see if i could even still really play. It was super fun, although frustrating as i am, honestly, not very good. I struggled to hit the ball into the court most of the time, but i do hope to improve as the year goes on. I'll post again after my first session on Saturday!

Peru Trip with Rustic Pathways: Amazon and Lunahuana

Over the summer I went on a 16 day trip to Peru with the Service Learning Program Rustic Pathways. The trip was split into two parts, 8 days in the Amazon Rainforest and 8 days in the mountains of Lunahuana. I can honestly say it was one of the funnest, most rewarding and all around best trips I've ever been on.

The first week we stayed in a jungle camp and were a group of 12 kids from different places around the world with one kid from England, one from Puerto Rico, one from the Dominican Republic and the rest from all over the United States. The group was really fun and the friendships I formed could validate the trip all on their own but there was so many more rewarding things that we did. We spent the first half of every day, from around 9 to 1, working with a man that the community had elected to help. He was building a new house for himself and we were there to help him tear down his old house, clear the surrounding area of bamboo and bushes with machetes and make a big sign to put on the river to landmark his home.

In the picture you can see the old house in the background and the new house that he was building in the foreground. Even though tearing down a house may not seem all that productive or difficult, it was actually really hard work because we had pull apart every piece of wood and not not break it in order for it to be used again on the new house. Except for the completely rotten wood, which broke almost immediately when touched. The machete-ing was also difficult but what made the whole process so rewarding was that we were working with the man and I could really see how much it meant to him that were helping him out. He was always laughing and joking around with us (even though he only spoke spanish we got by, which was extremely rewarding in itself) and it really just seemed like I was making a   difference in his life which felt great. Carving the sign was a mission as well, but it really was the best feeling in the world to be standing in front of it finished at the end of the trip.

While the community service aspect of week one was fun, the Amazon trip was also so much about a cultural, learning and adventure experience. We had only Peruvian food which was delicious, they eat this really amazing potato-like vegetable called yucca which we ate fried with almost every meal and all sorts of meat dishes. We took 2 walks through the rainforest where we learnt about different animals and plants, bust most excitingly we did a lot of adventure activities like a river rafting race (that took about 2 hours) on rafts we had built out of large logs and piranha fishing. We had down time everyday where we could go swimming or play football on the beach too. It was all around just a super fun experience because of the amazing people, the great service opportunity and the fun adventure.

Before we went back to Lima from the Amazon we spent one more day in the town of Puerto Maldonado and worked one day at an animal shelter where we put the netting on animal cages and helped make the food for the animals.

Going to Lunahuana, in the coastal mountains of Peru, was like entering a completely different world. We were now in this valley which had vegetation only along the river running through it, while the landscape of the mountains was a total desert. On the Lunahuana trip our main focus was working at a local elementary school. In the mornings we were with the kids for about 3 hours, playing with them and attempting to teach them. I'm saying this honestly because it was sometimes so difficult to get them to concentrate, but we did manage most of the time. I was really scared coming on the trip as a non spanish speaker that i wouldn't be able to have any impact on the kids but they were so eager to learn and so happy that i was there that it didn't even matter and we managed to communicate. I have to say that this was the most incredible experience of this entire trip, i could really feel that these kids loved what i was doing with them and even only being able to teach them the colors and the parts of the body in english was beyond amazing. They never made me feel like I wasn't getting through to them despite the language barrier.

During the afternoons we painted and cleaned out a room that the school wanted to turn into a multipurpose building. The room was a total mess and I really wish I had some before and after pictures because I feel it was really incredible what we could accomplish in only the 6 days that we were working there. We painted the entire room (i'd say about 15x5 meters) white, painted the windows (with this horrible black paint that wouldn't wash out of anything, even your skin) and sanded the furniture which would be put in the room. It was so rewarding because we could see how much we had accomplished while there.

Again Lunahuana wasn't all about service though! We had one day, Sunday Funday, where we white water rafted for 2 hours down the river, something I had never done before which was incredibly fun and exciting and then went on the longest zip line in South America (possibly the world, i don't remember exactly) in the evening was so exhilarating and amazing. The place we were flying over was like a moon landscape for parts of the zip-lines. We also visited some pre-incan ruins in the town of Lunahuana which was exciting and fun.

So, to wrap up this account, I have to reiterate that this trip truly was an incredible experience both due to its community service aspect and its just all around fun activities. I would love to travel with Rustic Pathways again, and maybe go somewhere else new in the world!

Welcome

Hi,
My name is Chris Ewell and I'm enrolled in the IB, part of which requires me to follow an extracurricular program which includes areas of creativity, action and service (CAS). This blog follows my CAS activities throughout the 2011-2012 year.