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Action #2 Week 12 - March 23rd, 2014

We skipped another week for our session, but I suppose it's okay because today was the last session of our Action activity!

For our final session, we started off with the usual warm up and stretching routines, just like what we have been doing the past eleven weeks. After that, we moved onto the treadmill to walk for 10 minutes, run for 10 minutes, and go back to walking for another 10 minutes, which in total gave us 30 minutes. After that, we moved onto 10 minutes each with RPM and elliptical.

Following that, we exercised using this stool, and we had to step up and down the stool 90 times in a row, with a few short breaks every 30 steps. To complete it into 100 steps, we did the last 10 not by stepping but by doing little jumps. Although it sounds simple, it was actually quite tiring to do.

Then, we cooled down by walking on the treadmill for another 10 minutes.

I believe that this activity has helped me in developing new skills, such as how to exercise properly without pulling a muscle. I think I also have practiced my skill in showing perseverance and commitment in my activities, especially by keeping up with the sessions week after week. This was definitely a challenge for me, and I hope that I don't stop exercising even after this activity is over.

#Action 2

Action #2 Week 11 - March 19th, 2014

For the second to last session, we were told that we were going to be focusing on strength training, instead of cardio like what we did in the previous sessions. This included various types of weight lifting, which are also bicep exercises.

We did the weight lifting for 100 steps, but it was divided into 30 steps per turn, so we had a little breaks in between. Even though we did that way, it was still quite tiring, and I was very exhausted in the end. Then, we closed our session with a 10 minutes walk on the treadmill.

#Action 2

Action #2 Week 10 - March 16th, 2014

As usual, after the same warm up and stretching routines, we went straight to do 30 minutes in treadmill, which included about 15 minutes of running, and the other 15 minutes of walking split up to different parts between the running sessions.

After that, we moved onto the RPM machine as well as elliptical, and doing both in total of another 30 minutes. However, for the RPM, we had the weight a little bit increased so it became a bit heavier than what we were used to.

To cool down, we spent the other hour doing yoga again. Today's yoga involved couples' yoga, where had to partner up with another participant in the class in order to do all the routines, so evidently, I partnered up with Zarra.

#Action 2

Action #2 Week 9 - March 9th, 2014

Today, again we focused on cardio training. The warming up and stretching routines were still the same as the previous weeks, but today, we had to do 30 minutes of treadmill exercise. Within that 30 minutes, we had to walk for 10 minutes and run for 20 minutes in total, so it was pretty tiring.

After that, we moved onto the elliptical machine for 30 minutes. For me, I always thought that elliptical machine was harder to do than treadmill, because it really required me to work my arms. Today, doing it for 30 minutes straight was even more tiring for me than the treadmill exercise. Then, following that, we did more RPM training for 45 minutes.

Today's training was definitely one of the hardest that we did yet, because we were so focused on those three equipments for quite significant amounts of time. With an average of 30 minutes per equipment, I have to say that I was quite tired after the exercise today.

#Action 2

Action #2 Week 8 - March 7th, 2014

We actually missed our gym session last week because there was TOK essay submission, so we decided to make up for it today.

This week, we focused on cardio training, which included RPM (the bicycle equipment), elliptical, and the usual treadmill. We exercised using each equipment for 15 minutes, totalling for 45 minutes in the end, which was quite heavy for me.

Other than that, I was also introduced to some boxing exercises, which was really odd to do because I never did such thing before. To do this, we had another trainer to join us, and they each taught us how to properly kick and punch our targets (the trainers themselves). It was really a tiring experience, and I don't think I have the strength to actually box, but I'd say that it was a rather good first try. After that, we cooled down simply by walking on the treadmill.

#Action 2

Action #2 Week 7 - February 25th, 2014

This week, right after the usual warming up and stretching routines, we exercised on the treadmill for a good 30 minutes. That exercise included running, walking, as well as cooling down towards the end. After that, again with the trainer's instructions we moved onto the same core muscle exercises that we did last week, like squats, sit-ups, push-ups and planking. To be honest, I think these exercises have gotten just a tiny bit easier because we have been doing it for the past few weeks.

After the usual routines, we moved onto a full hour of yoga exercises, which was quite new for us since we never really put much focus on it before. The few poses that we did included warrior and mountain.

The full hour of yoga was definitely not easy to do, since we did several different poses than what we did in the previous weeks. But I believe that this activity has given me the opportunity to practice my perseverance as well, along with my goal to develop new skills.

#Action 2

Action #2 Week 6 - February 16th, 2014

As usual, we started with the same warming up and stretching routines, all complete with the sit-ups and push-ups. This week, we were only told to exercise using the treadmill for only 20 minutes before we moved onto the rest of the exercises.

After the treadmill, we were then told to do some core muscle trainings. With the trainer's guidance, we did some more sit-ups, push-ups, and plankings. After the tiring exercises, the trainer instructed us to cool down a little bit, so we moved onto yoga. As usual, the first few minutes were spent for meditation, and then we did the simple positions afterwards, such as seated twist and tree.

To close the exercise, we did more TRX training just like we did last week.

#Action 2

Action #2 Week 5 - February 9th, 2014

As always, we started off this week's gym session with the same warming up and stretching routines. However, instead of 40 minutes of treadmill, we only had to do 20 minutes. Other than that, everything was the same as last week.

This week, again we tried to to the RPM equipment. This time, instead of only for 15 minutes, our personal trainer made us do it for 30 minutes, which was twice as long. For about the first half of the time, I think that I did fine, but as I worked my legs, I felt really tired towards the end. Then after that, we continued with the same TRX routine that we did last week.

#Action 2

Action #2 Week 4 - February 2nd, 2014

This week, I exercised in the treadmill for 40 minutes, but that was including both walking and running. Still, this one was a longer duration than last week, but I think by now I have gotten used to it. Then, we moved onto core muscle exercises similar to last week, but this time it included exercises like lunges as well.

Another equipment that we tried using was RPM, something like a bicycle simulation of some sort. The good thing was that I only had to do it for 15 minutes, and it was okay for me because I needed time to adjust to it. It was mostly done as a warm up anyway, so it still felt good.

Another thing that we tried was called TRX, which is this sort of equipment that require us to pull ourselves up using these kind of ropes. One thing I know is that this was definitely used to exercise our muscles, so it was quite tiring in the end.

#Action 2

Action #2 Week 3 - January 26th, 2014

This week, as usual we started off with some stretching exercises, and then moved onto the treadmill, but this time for 30 minutes. Even though this time we were required to do the treadmill exercise a little bit longer, I think what made it seem like it was just the same is because I'm actually getting used to it.

Then, after that, we tried to do some aerobics exercises, which included a little bit of mini dancing. This was definitely my first time trying to do aerobics properly, and I must say that it was rather tiring, even thought I only had to do simple steps. But I think if I continue to do it constantly, I might be okay, just like the treadmill.

#Action 2

Action #2 Week 2 - January 19th, 2014

This week, apparently the personal trainer directed us more on the core muscles exercises. Just like last week, we began the exercise with various sets of stretching exercises like sit-ups, push-ups, and squats. After that, we moved onto the treadmill for 25 minutes. Following that, we did more muscle exercises such as skipping, wall-sits, more squats, and those exercises that utilises the gym equipments.

As for cooling down, our trainer suggested that we could take part of some yoga exercises. So at first, we started off by meditating for 10 minutes. Then, we were instructed to do this yoga position called 'downward dog', where I had to lift my body up and hold the position only with my hands and feet. It was actually rather hard for a first-timer like I am, but I managed through it. It was only one of the other various positions we had to do.

#Action 2

Action #2 Week 1 - January 12th, 2014

For the second Action activity, I will be doing exercises in a gym nearby, every Sunday. As the project requires, I will be doing different sets of activities that will add up to 2 hours per meeting, and also with my friend, Zarra.

In our first meeting, we started off with 25-minute treadmill exercise to warm up. Before, in the middle, and after the exercise, we also did a number of stretching, sit-ups and push-ups. This was actually one of the first times that I actually exercise excessively, so I got tired quite easily. Hopefully, this project will allow me to practice my own perseverance and commitment, as well as to develop new skills.

#Action 2

Service #2 Week 12 - February 3-7th, 2013

In the final week of this Service activity, we closed the study of Photoshop by concluding all the things that we have learned and trying to compose them all into one cohesive design.

This week, that required exploration on compositions which included various sizes and positions of texts and other pictures. We learned how to select specific parts of pictures in order to pick out the parts that we wanted to include. In order to do so, we also learned how to use other tools such as the lasso selection tool, colour filling, and various other cropping features.

This Service activity has definitely helped me in practicing my plan-making skills, as well as how to address the student, who is also my real-life teacher, properly. Hence, it also exercised my consideration of the ethical implications of my actions. That's why, I believe that I have undertaken new challenges in terms of finding new activities and topics to learn.

#Service 2

Service #2 Week 11 - January 20-24th, 2013

This week in the Photoshop studies, we continued on exploring the layers.

Multiple layers have been introduced last week, so this week, we learned about how to overlap them with each other and how to use the 'opacity' feature properly so that it would support the design that we wanted.

We learned about how to move the layers back and forth, as well as how to duplicate them as our wish. Other than that, we also explored how to create basic shapes from the tool provided, and how the other tools could help modify them to meet our expectations.

#Service 2

Service #2 Week 10 - December 16-20th, 2013

After a short study about Prezi, we moved onto Photoshop this week.

This introduction to Photoshop mostly includes the exploration of basic layers, what are their main purposes and how to use them according to the designer's needs. The teachers asked us to focus the learning mainly on poster-designing, since it is probably going to be the most useful out of the other purposes.

We explored various things that we could do just by mixing and matching the layers and how to bring each one on top or at the bottom of each other. This week, we mainly did that, along with some insertions of backgrounds as well as the play of opacity levels.

#Service 2

Service #2 Week 9 - December 1st-6th, 2013

This week, we continued on our exploration of the Prezi website. We caught up on what missed to continue last week and played around with some of the other features.

Just like in the Powerpoint studies, we explored more about how to include various medias in the Prezi. This includes short films, audio clips, and other relevant media platforms. We learned how to upload them from the desktop itself and/or simply include links to the video. There was also our finding out about how to include images that are copied and pasted directly from Google, so it will also take less time.

Here is the example of the whole feature:

#Service 2

Service #2 Week 8 - November 18th-22nd, 2013

This week, we left the Powerpoint studies and moved onto this website called Prezi.

It's basically a website that offers you another platform of presentation strategies, but this one is a little more customisable.

In this activity, we focused on how to utilise Prezi as a tool of presentation by maximising the charts and arrows features. Prezi is most useful to show step-by-step process, as well as structured informations. This week, we simply introduced all the basic features, which include the themes and fonts, as well as how to modify them according to the presenter's needs.

#Service 2

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