During the past two years I was completing one of the International Baccalaureate components which was Creativity, Activity and Service. For every strand I did something different, and everything I did has been a key factor in shaping me into the person I am today.
For Creativity, I painted, drew and made salt dough sculptures. At first, I wanted to learn how to paint with watercolors as it has always been my dream. After many months of trials, successes and failures, I have noticed that there are mostly failures. Therefore, I was trying to start painting with acrylics along with watercolors. After some time, I found acrylics to be too messy and time-consuming. Since then, I have been drawing and this is the best technique I found. I felt like I finally was successful and was truly developing my skills. I also mastered my own individual style. Overall, I am happy I had the experience and managed to find something that suits me.
For Activity, I did yoga and went on long walks. When I first started my journey with Creativity, Activity and Service, there was a pandemic in the world, and so I decided to do yoga. It was simple to do because there are exercises on various websites that helped me learn yoga poses. In the beginning I found it hard to motivate myself, however after some time the exercises came naturally to me. After some restrictions were lifted, I started going on long walks. Since then, I either went on a walk or did yoga as my Activity. It made me less stressed and helped me unwind.
For Service, my best friend and I founded a Debate Club. As we both have had experience with debating in middle school, we have decided that we wanted to teach others how to debate properly. At first the meetings could only be online and this was quite an obstacle, however we made it work. Unfortunately, after completing Year 1 of the International Baccalaureate programme, some of the younger attendees had to resign due to them starting the programme. In Year 2, the club meetings were held at school, and this came out to be a bigger difficulty. New people signed up for the club, but then after the first few months many dropped out. All in all, it was very rewarding and we can see how the people attending the club have progressed, especially the ones who were attending for two years.
There were also other experiences that made me reflect on my actions, like being the President of the Election Committee of my school or organizing transportation of toiletries to the Polish-Ukrainian border, in order to help the refugees.
To sum up, all of the things I have done during the completion of the Creativity, Activity and Service component shaped me as a person. I had to learn time management in order to be able to connect this component with schoolwork, all the Internal Assessments and the Extended Essay. It also encouraged me to do things outside schoolwork and for the school community. I am very happy with my Creativity, Activity and Service outcomes.