WINTER BREAK 2019-2020

CREATIVITY:

This break wasn’t really a “vacation”, even though I did rest a lot and enjoyed it, I still had to do work for some of my classes. One of them being my art HL class, in art we thankfully don’t have to take an exam as part of the evaluation of the class; instead we do a study and a portfolio. For Higher level the process portfolio (worth 40%), consists of a 13-25 slide presentation; in which we’re  expected to record the making process of most (if not all) the pieces that we created throughout the 2 year program and comment on the medium, meaning behind it and such. We also have to make a comparative study (worth 20% of our grad), which is a 10-15 slide presentation in which we compare 3 different artworks, from different time periods, including formal analysis, reflections, connect to our own artwork, contexts and more. Other than that, we also do a final exhibition (worth 40%) of 11 art pieces that we created, all connected to a theme or two for focus. Due to the fact that we need to make 11 pieces, I decided to work on a piece over break considering there’s only 4 months left until the exam season and the final exhibition and depending on the piece it can take up to a month with work in and outside of class. I have a particular style in art, it’s overall abstract, but there’s a more cubist side and a more graphic style- colorful side. One day I stumbled upon a really cool background picture for my computer and I absolutely loved it. I thought of doing a piece like it  but I wasn’t sure if miss cat would like it, one day she saw my background and she loved it and I told her I wanted to make a piece inspired by it and she said absolutely. A main key point in art is that you can be inspired, but you can’t copy artwork. This picture is of what seem like mountains and a road, there’s sun rays and a sunset, e.t.c. I chose an image that I took earlier this year of a trip that I went to in Arenal Volcano and I loved the picture, so I decided to incorporate the background style which relates to mean a lot, and recreate that picture in a more abstract and colorful way. In total this piece took me around a week working around 3 hours everyday. All I still have to do is fill in the clouds with a lighter blue color and I am done with my 4th piece for my exhibition! I know that sounds like nothing but it was the class gal for the first trimester, we also work on multiple pieces at a time to save time and work outside of class and in my case on weekends. I am proud of it and loved how it turned out! and something extra I did this break was play with make up a lot, my sister gave me an eyeshadow pallet that was almost impossible to get and I am super grateful for so I did various make up looks (christmas, my brothers bday and New Years!)

ACTIVITY:

Before break started I told myself I wanted to work out at least every other day, but that didn’t happen. Around this time of the year it is really hard, specially for my family because we have a lot of guests and family over for the holidays and we go to the beach, have long breakfast, lunch, dinner, e.t.c Everyday there’s a different activity, so I did get to exercise but not in a routine which seems to ework for me because I get bored easily. Apart from that, I do go to dance the first week of break, it was actually the last week of dance before it was dance winter break, and I am happy to say that I enjoyed it but it was a little bit painful because of how sore I was. I had fun and enjoyed the classes a lot since I haven’t taken any in awhile (almost 5 months) I have been talking to my parents about coming back and once I’m done with school I will definitely go back full time, yet right now they are a little indecisive because I only have 5 months left of school and they are the most stressful especially when exam season is coming up. I talked to my dad and I told him I really wanted to go back at least once a week because I miss it a lot and my body needs it too. I am a very active person and instead of going back to comp season which was a lot of training, which I did all of the 11th grade, I can go back like once or twice a week and it wont give me stress because I will just go for classes in fact it might help me cope with the stress from school. We are still figuring it out. Other than that, though my family was here, we did go to the beach with them and some family friends. There I took long walks, swam a lot, played games e.t.c with my friends so that also counts as activity! 

SERVICE:

Normally over break, for the service portion of CAS I would always do something related to my project, or do a specific task related to giving back to my community. This break since I am done with my CAS project (apart from the fact that I still have some journal entries to do and the reflective essay to write. I don’t have much to do for my project itself, yet my mom and I usually give clothing and toys to the less privileged kids from our community. A fun fact is that we don’t just do this over christmas, we do it throughout the year. Sometimes when we have accumulated a couple bags, we also give some to the ladies that helps us around the house so they can also take some to their kids but also give to kids that know need some in their community. This year it was more toys than clothing because my mom cleaned out the boys closets (my 2 younger brothers) not long ago and had already given that clothing away, so because of christmas my mom and I clean out Sami’s toys (my 3 yr old brother) and also asked Miss Kalah, which is  a family friend our ours who also has a 3 yr old son and told her if he had any toys (in good state of course) that he doesn’t use anymore or he grew out of to please put them in a bag and give it to us. We did that and we gave some to the ladies that helps us around the house and the other 2 we divided in our community. I was hoping to help with the CEPIA christmas program this year like I did last year but I didn’t have the chance to, and surfbox also did a sort of food bank this year which was awesome but I didn’t have the chance to go to that one either. So I decided to in a way to create my own!