Growing As A Person

My project right now is moving on a little slow , because we completed our collaboration with 5th grade and as an IB student I have been busy with school work so I haven’t been able to plant the rest of the mangroves that were left in the bucket. Since there isn’t much to talk about the project, and Felipe and I are still figuring out details for the event later in the year, I figured this would be a good time to reflect on how I have personally grown throughout the course of my CAS experience. It hasn’t been an easy journey. It seemed easy at the beginning, because I wasn’t even in 11th grade yet and I already had a project, which had been set up pretty well by Sebas and Mayan, so I had a solid base and I just had to continue. But that continuing part hasn’t been as easy as I thought. At the start I just did whatever Mayan and Sebas told me to, but now I am in charge and I have to make decisions and motivate/lead my team, especially my partner Felipe. It’s not always easy being a leader, there is a lot of responsibility, especially with such a large project that affects the environment and there is so much to consider before doing anything because you go back to asking yourself if it’s ethical for the environment or not. I am a hard worker and I always strive for perfection, but throughout this project I realized that I can’t always have perfection, no matter how hard I try, there will be people and there will be the weather in the way, preventing me from being able to reach that perfection. Perfection isn’t easy when working in a team, because first of all, not everyone is always striving for perfection, and second, we all have slightly varying versions of perfection anyways, so there is a lot of space for conflict when working with other people. I have a hard time working with others who don’t have the same work ethic as I because it frustrates me when others don’t try as hard as I do so I end up trying to do everyone’s job so it’s done the best possibly. Working with other people has taught me patience and it has taught me that working collaboratively isn’t easy, but I have stopped stressing so much about it, and embracing it so we can move forward. I am still trying my best and striving for perfection, but I have become more accepting if I don’t get the results I wanted, because I know that I did my best, and that I did my part, even if others didn’t want to help of if the weather (which is a big variable in our project) didn’t want to help either. This all sounds like it was a great learning experience and it all came super easily, but it didn’t. I stressed out a lot about the project not going well, and it piled up with my stress from other school work. I kept most of it to myself until one day in CAS class where my project was going downhill; my mangroves in the nursery were dying, there is too much planning for the event, I have so much work to do I don’t know where to start or what to do; and I simply cried and let it all out. I felt like I was on my own because I was constantly the one stressing about everything and working super hard as usual, but not getting the results I wanted. Ms. Amy and a few other classmates really helped me understand that everything will be okay and my work will pay off and I should ask for help when I need it because Felipe can help me with the work, he is supposed to be my partner anyways, so I shouldn’t feel like I am chatting this load all on my own. This all happened a few weeks ago, and so far, I can already tell the difference. I have been more understanding and patient, still working hard but accepting if things don’t go my way. I think this is such a crucial key for life, because if you always expect everything to go your way, the moment it won’t, it will really affect you in so many ways, and it is always better to be open to whatever the future has and be open to working with that. I see this not only in CAS but in my real life as well; I did a few surf competitions for fun and for my college applications, and I was doing surprisingly well during each heat but the same girl would defeat me every single time right at the end, which was really frustrating for me because I was almost there and I was so close, that it made it feel like a waste of time, money, effort and a waste of basically everything because I didn’t get anywhere with it. I accepted my results, even if I thought and a lot of other people also thought they were unfair, but that is how life is. Since we are approaching the end of the trimester and are overloaded with work and studying, I haven’t dedicated much time to the project, but the next step is to plan for the event, and Felipe and I still need to figure out more details before I start talking to my dad and Ernst about it, but I will post any further updates when we advance in the planning phase. PS. The last image I posted is a bunch of mangrove roots tangled up, just to show that life isn’t always easy hehe.

Learning outcomes: Commitment and perseverance, Global Importance, Ethical implications, Work collaboratively, Strengths and areas for growth, New challenges and new skills, Plan and initiate
Learner profiles: Communicator, Reflective, Open-minded, Knowledgeable, Risk-taker