First Aid Course for the Swiss Driving License

On the 1st and 2nd of February I took the First Aid Course For The Swiss Driving license at ZIS. I've realized that taking this course will not only be useful for being able of taking my driving license in the future, but it will also be very important because I've learnt basic skills of first aid that can come useful when I babysit, or even in normal everyday situations. If any of the kids will get injured (it doesn't have something really serious) I will know what to do and in which way. The course has been really useful and iteresting because the theory was incorporated with a lot of practical work that challenge me to prove how I learnt new skills.
To me this course was very challenging as I found myself to deal with situations I had never been a whiteness of. For example I had to reanimate dummies with CPR which I have never done before and I did not even know how to perform it. Another important feature of the course was cooperation. In fact we learnt that in dangerous situations where there are people in need of help it essential to talk and make sure that other people know what you are doing. All of this in order to ensure the best "first aid" as possible. 

Guitar

From the beginning of the school year 2012/2013 I have been taking guitar lessons every Tuesday for 90 mins. This is a completely new experience for me, I have been playing different instruments since the start of my school life (piano, recorder, and clarinet) but I have never engaged the study of the guitar. This is being a completely new activity that will for sure enlarge my musical knowledge. I am also trying to balance my studying with practicing for the next lesson as I am really keen on becoming more skilled at this. 
After a two months break from my lessons, I have restarted just a few weeks ago. I was eager of restarting again because I feel this activity can help me improve my skills I already gain from taking piano lessons. This is a very important side-learning-activity that is helping me diving deeper in the knowledge I currently have. Despite stopping because of the shoulder brace I had to wear,  when I have restarted taking the lessons I have noticed that  that since the beginning I made a lot of improvements. I started almost not even knowing how to hold a guitar and now I know all the notes, how to tune it, and I have started to learn a few easy pieces. The last skills I learnt are strumming patterns and new chords. I will soon start to learn more complicated songs, if that will work well I will find out if I'm making further improvements.

Sport And Physiotherapy

Due to an injury to my shoulder that occurred after the last competitive match of volleyball I played with the school I found myself forced to drop the after school activity of Badminton. I was among to join the team as last year but as I dislocated my shoulder the doctor said that it is safer if I wait for another month before starting to lay agonistically again. I spent one entire month without being able to play any sport because I had to wear a shoulder brace 24/7 that held my shoulder in a fixed position. I stopped wearing this braces a few weeks ago and now I have restarted doing sports that do not involve moving the shoulder too much. I started to swam every saturday morning at the pool in Zumikon and I am only using my legs to move and to make sure I will not move my shoulder I am using a swim-board. Plus every tuesday and Friday I am doing physiotherapy for my shoulder so that I can strengthen the muscles of the left shoulder. I have started with simple exercises and now I also have to work in the gym for more specific and harder exercise. This activity looks easy but it is really challenging because I need to train the muscles in my left arm that have not moved for a whole month. This is really challenging also because it takes time during the week as I have to do the exercises regularly everyday so that my shoulder can improve as most as possible. At the end of January I will have a new meeting with the orthopedic and I might found more about my condition. Hopefully I will able to start doing sports again. 

Piano Piece (Agitation)

I have been taking piano lessons in the "Konservatorium Stadt Zürich" for more than three months now. I have learnt new skills concerning how to be more fluent while playing (doing exercises for my fingers to improve their reflex while moving on the keyboard) and I have started to learn new songs. The last one that I have learnt and I enjoyed has been this song that I posted on the left. This song is called agitation and it helped me to learn how to move faster on the keyboard and as there were many dynamics it helped me to master the exact strength to apply on the keys to make the right sound. 

Cas Evalutation Sheets

Here are the four different Cas Evalutation Sheets for the activity I have done till now:

Creativity: Piano lessons (every Monday)

Action: Volleyball (every Monday and Wednesday)

Service: Set and Design (every Thursday afternoon), wareness Committee (every Thursday lunch time and Pink Walk)

I have just joined the health and events committee, and Badminton I will soon write a reflection when I will have more details about my engagement with them.

Set & Design

Joining Set & Design I am helping the drama department to organize the BITE show that will take place at the beginning of December. I am going to these meetings every Thursday and I am working with a group of other students from my grade and the one above to organize the setting of the scenes for the play. It is essential that communication works well between all the helpers so to know what has already been done and what still needs to be done.  This is essential to make sure of making good use of the time we have been given. By doing this we are developing communication and time management skills which are always needed. Not only in this situation but also in the everyday life and in school. It is a really nice experience that helps to share your own ideas and make them stand out, cooperate with others and getting organized so that everything can be more and more efficient every time. It was great to notice how everyone in the team managed initiate a new activity to complete the work and how our initial planning was aced at the end of the day. At the moment we are working to advertise the play making posters and then placing them in different parts of the school and we are also creating more scenarios for the final performance.Many aspects concerning the real life world can also be learnt doing this activity. While creating the background for the show, we are getting to know better the play script. In fact it deals with the Vietnam war and three women that are struggling to make sense out of it. This really helped me to understand facts and issues of global importance such as the above mentioned Vietnam war. 

(in the picture you can see some friends and I painting boxed for some of the scenes)

Volleyball

The volleyball season ended a week ago and I believe that I learnt a lot during the three months in which I carried this activity through. First and most important thing I believe I have learnt is cooperation between my team members and coaches. I improved my communication with the team because I had the chance to give my opinion and explain my uncertainties if something looked wrong or had to be improved. This year I also found it easier to communicate with my coaches as they asked us a lot about our impressions; this gave me the possibility to express my ideas and show some leadership sometimes. Tournaments gave me the chance to meet new friends, give help if needed and receive some when in need. I met new friends while practicing in between the different matches; we started to talk and to share our different views on volleyball and on own different cultural backgrounds. Many people during the tournament got injured (me included) it was really nice to see how students and players from the other schools were always there to help and cheer you up. I also saw an Italian girl that sprained her ankle and I went there to talk to her, it was incredible how a simple conversation in ones mother tongue made her feel better. This year I have also greatly improved my volleyball skills as I learnt how to better move in the court and how to better place the ball when setting it up for my teammates. I have been really proud of being nominated captain of the setters to give them advices on how to improve their skills. I am really looking forward to restart the season as I really enjoyed this last one. 

(In the picture you can see whole volleyball team in the last tournament in Leysin)