CAS Blogs

 For my senior year, my friends and I decided that we wanted to plan a fun independent A-term as a send of for us. We are still figuring out what exactly to do. We are in the very beginning stages of planning. Because this is not planned by the school or run by the school, we need to plan how we will survive where we are by ourselves. We have first created a doc where we have laid out all the connections that we have in other cities and countries. We will then try to narrow it down to one international and one domestic option. Because of COVID we don't know if we will be able to travel internationally so it is best to be prepared. We also have to figure out a learning outcome of the trip. However that is a bit farther into planning. Hopefully we can finish by the end of this semester.

 I was volunteering with the Boys and Girls Club of Houston through GHCF. They were trying to make Thanksgiving meal kits for under privileged families. I decided to hold a food drive in my high school community to get as many donations as possible. I put out a basket labeled thanksgiving donations and sent out an email to the whole school including the middle schoolers and made announcements at both schools morning meetings and padlets. However the first week, the basket still only had the mac and cheese that I donated. That is pretty disheartening. I did not give up. I sent out more emails encouraging people to help these families celebrate Thanksgiving. I appealed more to the emotional side and urged people to be empathetic and realize that without these food kits, these families probably wouldn't be able to have a Thanksgiving meal. I added some more of my own donations to the basket to show people that there are donations so they shouldn't be scared to put something in the

 This year is my senior year which means (cue dramatic music) college interviews. Interviews are scary in general for anything. To prepare I decided to practice with Mr Dorsey. We ran through some practice interviews. I did not know what to do. I just made sure to take deep breaths through it and answer honestly. The one big thing I knew about interviews is to be genuine. Many people just say what they think they want the interviewer to hear but if you don't believe in what you're saying then you shouldn't be saying it. That is the only thing I know about interviews. After some practice interviews I got some feedback from Dorsey. He told me to keep eye contact which has always been a problem for me. He also said to make sure to have a lot of background and explanation which he said I was already doing pretty well. Basically not only say the what but the why with anything no matter how nuanced. My mom also gave me some feedback giving me ideas on what I can say about my lead

Last year and this year me and my classmates have been having the issue of an absent math teacher. It caused added stress to our already stressful senior year. I decided that this needed to be addressed by the teachers because this isn't a personal issue this is something that is affecting the whole school. I talked to my advisor today about the issue and forwarded her an email he sent us yesterday about cancelling the lesson less than an hour before we had it. Ms Harrison, my advisor, agreed that this was a problem and took it to the head of school. This decision to speak up about this issue could be seen as selfish by some and even Mr Grisbee. This is because I do not know his home life, many times he cancels because he has to take care of something at home. However only a few times does he specify that it is because of his child. If this was an issue just affecting me and I brought this up to my advisor instead of talking to Mr Grisbee directly then it could be said that I was b

 I have previously written three other blogs about my A-Term that I planned, I am writing one last one to go over the aftermath and effect it had on some students and myself. Personally this A-term helped me become a better teacher. Due to the fact that I knew my classmates the best, my fellow coaches expected me to take charge a little more to help explain things to them and familiarize them with the way of the gym. This helped me come out of my shell a little more and be more comfortable in an authority position. It mostly helped me learn to be more comfortable talking in front of a big class. Just the other week I started the class at jiu jitsu. This is a big deal. This is where the head coach calls for everyone to line up, then attention and then take the class through their warm-up. And I did that! I projected my voice and I felt comfortable. However I do still have some things to work on such as being more professional. Sometimes I am not as strict sometimes with the kids as the

So I am in youth leadership organization called GHCF and we just finished our spring semester cycle about veterans. However there is a group of researchers who are doing a national study of leadership service programs: see what works what doesn't and all that good stuff. They said that our group is very different because it is led by young adults and they wanted other programs to do that because it is very helpful for the kids to learn these skills. They asked Eesha and I to help because we are the presidents and Ashton because he has been in the group the longest. We had to help plan the interviews and meetings with the youth leaders. However it was a bit hard because this is the end of the school year and the end of our cycle so the youth leaders were getting busy and so was I. It became harder for me to finish the work that they asked me to help them with. But I, with my great time management, found time to meet with them and finish the work before the meeting with the rest of t