YOGA (action)

I just started yoga this year and I am really excited about it! Yoga lessons take place after school each wednesday for 2 hours and are the best thing a student could do to relax after school. The teacher teaches us different ways of breathing, for different life situations. Specifically, my favourite type of breath is the "Full Breath" in which you breath both using your lungs and your stomach. This type of breath should be performed while you lie down and what it does is a "mashage" to your stomach and expands your lungs air capacity. I have also leaned different relaxing excercises that can be performed anytime to make you feel more relaxed and loose.Specifically, we learned that when we feel tired it is mostly because our eyes are exhausted.We then need to close our eyes and perform a really specific masage to areas arround the nose and by the eyes.These new skills I have now acquired are extremely useful, have proven to be really effective and I use them everyday whenever I can!Finally, we have been tought several body exercises that aim at increasing blood flow generally aim at preventing any minor injuries and generally keep your body healthy and fit!

Live Performance Music (creativity)

This summer I also performed live with my band "Gennetic Asymmetry" in Rhodes. We were preparing the songs for two weeks and in these weeks we managed to learn exactly 20 new songs and play them perfectly in our live performance!!However, this was possible for many reasons. First, I have the chance to be surrounded by really skilled musicians but mostly good friends.Our relationship is such that we are "connected" quite easily while playing and we understand eachother.This was though a tough challenge for everyone of us since we had to practice the songs every day and spent hours and hours.That challenge, I think, was the common goal we shared, and we pushed the limits to achieve it...and we did!

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HACCP and ISO 9000 (creativity)

During the summer I had the chance to work alongside the Total Quality manager of a Greek hotel for the quality assurance of ISO and HASP was incredibly stimulating. My main duty was to ensure that the quality of capital used in the production process met specific standards by judging the reports sent by each department in addition to visiting and checking the departments myself. Taking responsibilities in a professional environment was a challenge and managing to produce the work of a professional employee was rewarding.

Forensics-Debate (creativity)

Being part of the school debate team, involved participating in competitions, including the European Youth Parliament, which taught me to create strong arguments under time pressure. Since in debate competitions you compete in pairs, I enjoyed being able to construct arguments,a debate strategy and discuss with my fellow debate partner.Teamwork was really essential for our progreess in the annual "Deree" competition and because the debate competion was really exhausting, we needed always to work as a team to survive!!

Youth Enterprise (creativity)

Once I started the IB, I joined the so-called “Clubs” in which I took part in the Youth Enterprise. Being the head of marketing in the Youth Enterprise “Imagine” was a beneficial experience in terms of understanding the notions of equality and fairness within a firm. Our creative journey thrived when our enterprise achieved the 1st  place in Greece and 4th place in Europe! A summary of the project is shown below:

Fairy Tale cubed(our idea!)

An innovative fairy tale that combines creativity and fun!

It is a puzzle game which consists of little wooden cubes. Each side of a cube is a part of a page of the fairy tale. The child, places the cubes in order, creating a picture and reading the story.

Advantages:

• The pictures of the story are drawn by children of fifth and sixth grade.
• It's "green"! The cubes are made exclusively of wood and the packaging of recycled paper.
• This game is both entertaining and educational, as it helps the child develop it's creative and combinatorial abilities.
• There are two levels of difficulty, as the cubes are offered in two different sizes. In this way, the game applies to children from the age of 3 until 10 years old.
• The story of "The Tourlouboukou Witch" is enjoyable and emotional

GYLC-(creativity)

Representing my school at the Global Young Leaders Conference this summer, gave me the opportunity to meet students from around the world, exchange thoughts about world issues and see things from their perspective. It was then that I realized just how interconnected the world is...Most importantly, I had a lot of fun!

ACS (mathematics)-Creativity

I am very lucky to have taken part in the American Community Schools mathematics competition. It was a fantastic experience because I had the pleasure to solve mathematical problems working cooperatively with other students from all over Greece in intense group-competitions. I learned that working as a team, towards a common goal, increases enthusiasm and the total intellectual capacity, thus reducing the problem-solving time!

CAS-Action

One of my 'action' activities involve gym hours at school. We have gymnsastics once per week, when usually the boys play football and the girls volleyball.However, last time we all together played a football match with mixed teams which was allot of fun! Apart from the 'exercise' part,I like gym hours because I get the chance for some chatting with my friends and converse with children which are not in my classes. You see, time for discussion between your friends is quite limited because of the short intervals between each class.So,whenever you get the chance for some discussion, you should grasp it.But,...

Baby-Swimming

One day,we went to OAKA i.e. the Olympic Stadium of Greece,which is near our school.Specifically,we visited the swimming pool where an interesting activity was taking place: Babies swimming with their parents!
This activity is meant to increase the relationship and communication between children(babies) and their parents while getting also the babies used to water,swimming skills and resistant to difficult circumstances.Research has also shown that baby-swimming (the "official term) contributes to the neuromuscular and neuropsychological development of the babies.Water develops a relaxing feeling which helps the baby's sleep quality.With baby-swimming children become more courageous and independent. They also get the chance to communicate with other children,which is something thay develops social skills, children's personality and their intelligence.

These are some photos and videos from that day:

 

  

 

Baby Swimming 1 @ Yahoo! Video

CAS-Service

For my CAS, specifically for service,I play the piano in an old people's home.Althought initially my intentions were purely to collect service hours,it turned out that this activity was much more than this.The whole concept is as follows:Me,sitting in a corner and playing the piano with my old keyboard,and some old ladies aged from 85 to 90(to 93 to be more precise) sitting on the couches and listening to the relaxing music.However,apart from the musical part, there are a couple of other things I would really like to talk about.The interaction between the old ladies and me is something that really fascinates me...When I went to "Love"(that's the name of the place.Nice huh?)for the first I was warmly welcomed by the owners,who are some really polite people you have devoted themselves to give the old poeple as much love as possible.When I saw the old people,I felt really sad.These people cannot obviously get to the outside world.They are bound to live in a building for the rest of their lives.Live in a daily routine where only passiveness and inertia exist.But then I thought:"This is life.We are all going to face this someday in various ways."I reached to the conclusion that what matters is to make these people's last moments as happy as possible.When I arrived,I also noticed that there was a general lack of communication,so I also tried to 'fix' this.An old lady was said to be mentally deficient because staff members couldn't understand her and thought she was talking nonsense.However,after a while I realized that that wasn't true.From some distance it is true that you understand nothing of what she says.But when I went close to her, I understood everything she said, by making allot of effort.Then,of course,we started talking naturally with some slight justifiable problems due to her age.It is true that many things she says are quite funny e.g.she calls all men John (Giannis)(including me) and all women Helen(Eleni).Of course,I wouldn't expect her to call me Athinagoras(lol).So finally,these conversations with not only  Georgia(that's her name)but also with Mary etc are something along with the piano with which we all have a good time once a week.Finally,I would like also to say about Ioanna,who is an other lady somewhere around 80 years old and who really likes traditional greek music and loves singing,even at this age!Although this kind of music is not my favorite(what else would you expect from a guy listening to Dream Theater and Opeth),she makes me every week bring new songs and sing them with her while playing the piano :),which is something interesting because I had never got into greek music in the past and I think it is useful to know your culture and traditions.So,as you have understood,this thing is much more than two service hours per week.So,these are some photos from December 2009 when we were decorating the Christmas Tree and playing Christmas songs.

Me with Andreas(manager-friend)

  Me

 Some staff members.

  The lady next to me is Helen.She is 90 and has an amazing perception for her age...

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 This is Georgia from Crete

These are 3 videos of me playing the piano and talking to Georgia...

CAS-Service 1 @ Yahoo! Video

Hello!

Hi,
the existence of this blog serves the necessity of my CAS-related posts being separated from my main blog(ibfly)...anyway...you should always remember that for the 'full experience' you can always go to the main blog...