Final CAS Evaluation
To start, I would like to bring up where I found myself at the beginning of this year, and add what I have done this year alone. I will then, after this, look at my entire CAS experience as a whole, from the criteria, and assess my development of skills, personal qualities, and physique due to my CAS.
After one year of CAS, that is to say at the beginning of this school year, I was here:
Action:
Gym magda- 4 hours
YogaX- 15 hours
Running- 4 hours + 5 hours
Swimming- 2 hours
Yoga Course- 30 hours
Mya Yoga- 1 hour
total: 25 hours + 31 hours
Final total: 56 hours
Service:
IVIK- 3 hours
Finnish Exchange - 10 hours
FeztFixare Fall Event (Project) - 16 hours
FeztFixare Spring Event- 7 hours
Wedding- 10 hours
total: 13 hours + 33 hours
Final total: 46 hours
Creativity:
Wedding- 10 hours
Hanna- 3 hours
Blogg designs- 5 hours
Project 1- 5 hours
Other photography- 10 hours + 5 hours
"Warrior" photos- 5 hours
FeztFixare Fall Event (Project) - 8 hours
"Candles" - 4 hours
total: 33 hours + 17 hours
Final total: 55 hours
In italics I have added what is new for this school year, and I have summed up the total hours below each category. As can be seen above, I have participated in a weekly yoga course throughout two semesters, and also an additional class outside of this, when there was an "open house" week at the new Mya Yoga studio here in Umeå. I also joined an independant "event-planning group" and assisted them in the planning, set-up, and clean-up of the event this fall, along with helping out at the event itself of course. We are also currently planning another event for which I have made a promotional poster, and helped with planning during a number of meetings. This is where I have dedicated my service time. I also took pictures at a wedding this summer and donated the photos to the couple, for which I also took service. For the creativity portion I chose to try and do something different this year, and not the same thing that I have always done. I tried new techniques, like taking picture from above, as in "Candles", and using my 50 mm and different angles and light tried to create dramatic and capturing photos in "Warrior". I also took random scatter photos with my new 50 mm and also my regular lens throughout the year, some of which I posted on here.
In total I have accumulated 157 hours of CAS over two years time. This is divided into 56 hours of Action, 46 hours of Service, and 55 hours of Creativity.
Looking at the criteria, I feel that I have accomplished almost all of these through my CAS. Below is an explanation of how I feel that I fulfilled ach criteria and my motivation.
1. Increased awareness of their own strengths and areas of growth: I believe that this is a very obvious statement, at least in my case. My mind first goes to my creativity portion of CAS where I feel that I have gained so much knowledge about photography. Not only about how to use a camera, what the different settings provide for the shot, or which setting is appropriate or what situation, but also the tools and techniques of editting photos to my liking. Since aquiring photoshop I have been actively trying to master the different options that it provides, by using actions, books, and experimenting. I have discovered that I have developed and come a long way tiwth my photography, especially compared to not only my starting point and the first few creativity posts, but also to my one year marker. From then I have grown even more within photography and I feel as though I am starting to know m camera "like the back of my hand".
2. Undertaken New Challenges: I think the largest challenge for me has been my own doing "Yoga-X" at home. Besides the program itself being Ashtanga-Yoga, one of the more physically demanding forms of yoga, the discipline required to continue doing it on my own without anyone encouraging me or pushing me to do it was a challenge. Photoshop was also a challenge for me, as I discussed above, with learing the new ways of changing different aspects of the photo, enhancing certain features, removing unwanted blotches, or simple things such as changing the size or readying the picture format for online use.
3 & 4. Planned and initiated activites & Worked collaboratively with others: I chose to combine these two categories due to the fact that I feel and they both relate to the same area of my CAS, so to avoid writing the same this twice and repeating myself, I will make them into one. Here I feel that my time with the FeztFixare- crew has its place. We together planned and initiated an event which included several different activites, food, music, and are currently in the process of planning another. This planning involved many hours of exchanging ideas with others in the group, brainstorming on a name, theme, time, price, and bands. We also had a budget that we had to maintain, and because of this we had to look at what was needed, what had to be bought, what we ourselves could contribute and who would be in charge of what areas. We had to set up for the events, both in the form of a stage, and also in the form of decorations and different areas for the various events. We also had to spread the world about the event through promotional fliers. Working together with a group involved compromising, being able to contribute ideas and materials/supplies, and a positive attitude.
5. Shown perseverance and commitment in their activities: This I see especially in my devotion to the art of Yoga. I have continued with yoga as my form of action for two years and gone in depth with my yoga. I feel that be staying with this instead of doing a variety of things, I have been able to really develop and engage in yoga, since I have a greater understanding of what yoga does for me, what I find in yoga, and how to find a calm in the storm, which I believe has been a usefull tool for me during two stressful and high tempo years of the IB programme.
6. Considered the ethical implications of action: Though I do not consider anything that I have done worthy of considering the ethical implications, I do feel that I am aware and attentive to ethical aspects of my insperational sources and I try to convey certain ethical dilemmas through my CAS. For example, the photo project entitled "Warrior" was my version of a war camoflage/ tribal face painting interpretation. I feel that war camoflage is related to so many of the world issues today, such as large power nations strive for oil control, leading to expensive, cruel, and unecessary acts of war. I connect camoflage mainly to this, and this was my intention when making these photos, to portray the "dark" sides of this ethically contreversial issue.
7. Devloped new skills: My new skills can be seen in places where I have put them to use, such as my blog designs for my personal blog, where I made use of photoshop and occasionally other photo editting programs to put together a collage of different colors, photos and text. Also the use of new actions and the use of different lenses is something that I have completely learned from scratch during this two year period. My knowledge of the concepts and ideas of yoga has also increased. I feel that I have a greater understanding with leads to a greater enjoyment and greater results from my yoga in practice.
These are the ways in which I feel that I hae developed over the two years that I have spent doing CAS. I am proud of all the accomplishments that I have made and the new skills that I have developed, all of which I will carry on with despite the end of my IB period. CAS has been a way to express myself and work together with other in order to acheive a common goal for others enjoyment. I have learned so many valueable traits and grown in both skill and mind.
After one year of CAS, that is to say at the beginning of this school year, I was here:
Action:
Gym magda- 4 hours
YogaX- 15 hours
Running- 4 hours + 5 hours
Swimming- 2 hours
Yoga Course- 30 hours
Mya Yoga- 1 hour
total: 25 hours + 31 hours
Final total: 56 hours
Service:
IVIK- 3 hours
Finnish Exchange - 10 hours
FeztFixare Fall Event (Project) - 16 hours
FeztFixare Spring Event- 7 hours
Wedding- 10 hours
total: 13 hours + 33 hours
Final total: 46 hours
Creativity:
Wedding- 10 hours
Hanna- 3 hours
Blogg designs- 5 hours
Project 1- 5 hours
Other photography- 10 hours + 5 hours
"Warrior" photos- 5 hours
FeztFixare Fall Event (Project) - 8 hours
"Candles" - 4 hours
total: 33 hours + 17 hours
Final total: 55 hours
In italics I have added what is new for this school year, and I have summed up the total hours below each category. As can be seen above, I have participated in a weekly yoga course throughout two semesters, and also an additional class outside of this, when there was an "open house" week at the new Mya Yoga studio here in Umeå. I also joined an independant "event-planning group" and assisted them in the planning, set-up, and clean-up of the event this fall, along with helping out at the event itself of course. We are also currently planning another event for which I have made a promotional poster, and helped with planning during a number of meetings. This is where I have dedicated my service time. I also took pictures at a wedding this summer and donated the photos to the couple, for which I also took service. For the creativity portion I chose to try and do something different this year, and not the same thing that I have always done. I tried new techniques, like taking picture from above, as in "Candles", and using my 50 mm and different angles and light tried to create dramatic and capturing photos in "Warrior". I also took random scatter photos with my new 50 mm and also my regular lens throughout the year, some of which I posted on here.
In total I have accumulated 157 hours of CAS over two years time. This is divided into 56 hours of Action, 46 hours of Service, and 55 hours of Creativity.
Looking at the criteria, I feel that I have accomplished almost all of these through my CAS. Below is an explanation of how I feel that I fulfilled ach criteria and my motivation.
1. Increased awareness of their own strengths and areas of growth: I believe that this is a very obvious statement, at least in my case. My mind first goes to my creativity portion of CAS where I feel that I have gained so much knowledge about photography. Not only about how to use a camera, what the different settings provide for the shot, or which setting is appropriate or what situation, but also the tools and techniques of editting photos to my liking. Since aquiring photoshop I have been actively trying to master the different options that it provides, by using actions, books, and experimenting. I have discovered that I have developed and come a long way tiwth my photography, especially compared to not only my starting point and the first few creativity posts, but also to my one year marker. From then I have grown even more within photography and I feel as though I am starting to know m camera "like the back of my hand".
2. Undertaken New Challenges: I think the largest challenge for me has been my own doing "Yoga-X" at home. Besides the program itself being Ashtanga-Yoga, one of the more physically demanding forms of yoga, the discipline required to continue doing it on my own without anyone encouraging me or pushing me to do it was a challenge. Photoshop was also a challenge for me, as I discussed above, with learing the new ways of changing different aspects of the photo, enhancing certain features, removing unwanted blotches, or simple things such as changing the size or readying the picture format for online use.
3 & 4. Planned and initiated activites & Worked collaboratively with others: I chose to combine these two categories due to the fact that I feel and they both relate to the same area of my CAS, so to avoid writing the same this twice and repeating myself, I will make them into one. Here I feel that my time with the FeztFixare- crew has its place. We together planned and initiated an event which included several different activites, food, music, and are currently in the process of planning another. This planning involved many hours of exchanging ideas with others in the group, brainstorming on a name, theme, time, price, and bands. We also had a budget that we had to maintain, and because of this we had to look at what was needed, what had to be bought, what we ourselves could contribute and who would be in charge of what areas. We had to set up for the events, both in the form of a stage, and also in the form of decorations and different areas for the various events. We also had to spread the world about the event through promotional fliers. Working together with a group involved compromising, being able to contribute ideas and materials/supplies, and a positive attitude.
5. Shown perseverance and commitment in their activities: This I see especially in my devotion to the art of Yoga. I have continued with yoga as my form of action for two years and gone in depth with my yoga. I feel that be staying with this instead of doing a variety of things, I have been able to really develop and engage in yoga, since I have a greater understanding of what yoga does for me, what I find in yoga, and how to find a calm in the storm, which I believe has been a usefull tool for me during two stressful and high tempo years of the IB programme.
6. Considered the ethical implications of action: Though I do not consider anything that I have done worthy of considering the ethical implications, I do feel that I am aware and attentive to ethical aspects of my insperational sources and I try to convey certain ethical dilemmas through my CAS. For example, the photo project entitled "Warrior" was my version of a war camoflage/ tribal face painting interpretation. I feel that war camoflage is related to so many of the world issues today, such as large power nations strive for oil control, leading to expensive, cruel, and unecessary acts of war. I connect camoflage mainly to this, and this was my intention when making these photos, to portray the "dark" sides of this ethically contreversial issue.
7. Devloped new skills: My new skills can be seen in places where I have put them to use, such as my blog designs for my personal blog, where I made use of photoshop and occasionally other photo editting programs to put together a collage of different colors, photos and text. Also the use of new actions and the use of different lenses is something that I have completely learned from scratch during this two year period. My knowledge of the concepts and ideas of yoga has also increased. I feel that I have a greater understanding with leads to a greater enjoyment and greater results from my yoga in practice.
These are the ways in which I feel that I hae developed over the two years that I have spent doing CAS. I am proud of all the accomplishments that I have made and the new skills that I have developed, all of which I will carry on with despite the end of my IB period. CAS has been a way to express myself and work together with other in order to acheive a common goal for others enjoyment. I have learned so many valueable traits and grown in both skill and mind.
Candles
Three photos from a photoproject earlier this spring. I got my insperation from Christina Perri's music video for a thousand years, and decided to try and capture candlelight on camera.
