Quarter 1 Reflection - Creativity

SGA

The Student Government Association was very busy this quarter. As Communication’s Officer I’ve had to make a ton of posters promoting SGA and sports and drama events. It’s been a lot of fun, and I’ve gained a lot more experience on digital design as well as on paper. I’ve also gained a bit of experience on how business meeting are run and how meeting minutes work.
The first SGA event of the year was the Back-to-school event. We decided on a movie night this year, playing Shrek 2. My first promotional poster was a digital one made with Photoshop and posted on Facebook.

The next SGA even was a spirit day which we had themed as Nerd day. This time I made several small A4 posters and put them up around the school as well as employed the help of some of the reps to make digital posters to post on Facebook.

Our next spirit day was in support of the various SAISA teams and the senior drama production competition. This time it was Halloween themed and I employed the same methods of advertising as last time, with the addition of sandwich boards to use as walking, talking, advocating advertising. I think that the sandwich board method worked best as they were very flashy and unorthodox so it stuck in people’s memories and reminded them to show their support. For this spirit day we also made it a contest for the grade who had the most people dressed up, and the prize would be a mini party with cakes and candy. This spirit day was by far more successful in terms of people who dressed up, most probably because of the advertising and prize, not to mention the fun theme.

Next, I made a lot of posters (both digital and handmade) promoting the sports matches and meets, and the drama production, as well as some good luck posters for the players and performers from the SGA.

One of my other duties as Communication’s Officer includes taking the meeting minutes every week for the SGA meetings during lunch on Wednesdays. By getting advice from my dad, the internet and the other SGA members, I was able to make my own template to summarize the discussions during the meetings and to efficiently give out jobs and assignments.

Drawing club

This quarter I used up a lot of my drawing club time making posters for the SGA. I have not really been able to fulfil my goal of trying to improve my drawing skills. This is something that I definitely need to work on next quarter and semester.

Private piano lessons

I forgot to put this in my DP1 goals at the beginning of the year, but I have been taking piano lessons since last year at school. My goal for this year is to play a piece completely without marking the notes on the paper or the keys on the piano. So far, I have improved a little bit by not needing to write down the notes for the treble clef but I still struggle to remember the bass.

Quarter 1 Reflection - Action

This quarter was very eventful in terms of action. I joined the SAISA Girls' U19 Volleyball Team. I had been on the team last year, and so my main focus this time around was improving my individual and teamwork skills. My serving and receiving were already pretty consistent, so I mostly wanted to focus on my spiking and being more aggressive, which I have a bit of a problem with in all sports. In terms of teamwork, I wanted to work a bit more on combos with the setters mostly, but the other member as well. One combo that we worked on a bit was a quick, where the setter sets a ball quickly to the spiker, to surprise the other team. I think we had a pretty good team this year in terms of teamwork as well as our awesome powerhouse captain Greta. One problem that came up a lot was support for the team, and so as my combined roles of team member and SGA Communications Officer, I made a few posters in support of our team and to encourage people to come watch our matches.

The SGA Spirit Coordinators made a promotional video, with video from one of our practice session, to play during assembly and on Facebook to spread the word even more.

Later on, we made our way to Mumbai, India for the SAISA tournament. I think that this was the time when our team bonded the most, through sharing cheering and chants and junk food, through dance parties and slaps on the butts, and through winning the entire tournament undefeated. Our toughest matches were probably the last two, especially the second last one against Dhaka. We were close to losing and making silly and avoidable mistakes, and we fought and shouted a bit at each other before our coach intervened. That was when we decided that winning did not matter unless we were having fun and enjoying being part of the team, and through our more relaxed outlook we won!

(Image credit: Diana Vargas)

This was probably my favourite SAISA to date, not just because we won, but because I really felt part of the team and genuinely enjoyed the sport and everyone’s company. I can’t wait until next year!