CAS Blogs

For TOK we had to read a few quotes about history and then discuss and compare and contrast them in a group. Seminar is a different kind of team work but it still is team work to me, because you have a group of people with many different ideas and perspectives and you discuss them, seeing how they are different or alike and maybe even change someones perspective. That seems like a collaborative team activity. In any group project you have many people with different ideas and perspectives and you discuss them together to come up with an agreement of sorts. Anyway during this seminar we were discussing two history quotes, however not many people were talking, so I said what I thought about the quotes and then turned it into a more specific question so that it would be easier for people to answer. I learned in seminar that a conversation can go anywhere because many questions have many different paths to go down to answer it and then answer the sub questions, so I've found that statin...

 For the past three years I have been in this youth leadership group called GHCF that selects a global or local issue every semester and three non profits that help that issue, and we go do service work with them and give them donations; that's a watered down version of what we do. This semester we chose to focus on human trafficking. Unfortunately due to the pandemic, we can't go to site visits or Family Philanthropy Day, which is where we invite GHCF families to come and learn about human trafficking and the organizations that we are working with. Due to the pandemic we had to come up with different ways to spread awareness as well as do some service work. As the vice president, I had to help plan some new events to do over zoom as well as new ways to spread awareness online. Before the committee planning meeting, I was brainstorming some ideas to spread awareness of the issue and I realized that everyone has social media. I don't but others do. During the meeting I sugge...

 During this pandemic I have taken up the hobby of baking. I've always liked baking but during quarantine I have started viciously baking. As in a new dessert every week and my parents accusing me of trying to make them fat. I have made creme brulee, beignets, macaroons, cookies, you name it I've probably tried it. For each new dessert I have tried, I learned a new tip and strengthened my baking skills and now I am baking like a pro. Some things I've learned and improved at were being patient. Recipes would say to mix something for five minutes or until it is solid. I used to think that is bogus. How can mixing make egg whites a solid thing? I know it seems impossible. But while baking I learned that I need to be patient and listen to the little details because it makes a difference in the end result. This seems obvious but knowing and doing are two different things. I also gotten better at adding my own spin on recipes. For example for a souffle I made, I made it with stra...

 For this school year we no longer have an au pair for the first time in nine years and my older sister is off to college. We are down man power in the Ying household, so this means me and my little brother have to take on more responsibility. One of my new responsibilities is walking the dogs in the morning. I could either do it before school and wake up earlier or I could do it during our mid-day break but lose time to do my exercise routine. I didn't want to lose time to stay fit but I also didn't want to lose sleep. It did occur to me that I could just skip walking the dogs altogether and no one would find out. I pondered on this idea for a good bit. However my little angel on my shoulder kept nagging me. If I did that, I would be very selfish and not care if my dogs went to get some exercise or the bathroom. It also would be unfair to them because they've done nothing but been cute and shown me love. Although I was thinking about taking the selfish option, I decided th...

 This week was our first math seminar of high school. Very scary. We were given six problems that were open ended and you had to figure out how to solve them or at least try. Then later in the week we would talk about how we got our answers and agree upon a final answer. To figure out the math problems I worked on them for a little by myself but got stuck on pretty much all of them. I decided to call a friend so we could work on it together. We worked for what felt like hours, until my brain felt like it would melt, before we called it a day. However, during that time, we were able to come up with an answer for over half the problems as well as some work and ideas for the last few.  During the call, we were able to swap ideas and if we thought the idea was wrong, we would explain our reasoning behind it and then offer an alternate solution. Sometimes one of us would come up with an idea and then the other would build off of it and then boom, a solution. By working with them I ...

This week for my jiu jitsu practice, the head coach, decided that as a fun activity for this month, the students would learn how to use nun-chucks. When I first heard this, I laughed but also thought that it would a super cool and rare skill to learn. Soon after the announcement I went to go pick up my nun-chucks from the gym. Luckily for me, they were not real nun-chucks meaning that they were soft rubber and not hard plastic. That would have been painful to practice with.  The advanced jiu jitsu class is twice a week with the last ten minutes being nun-chuck practice/lesson. The first time I had the lesson we were learning how to do basic nun-chuck skills such as changing direction of the swing, figure eight and switching hands. Within the first thirty seconds, I learned that movies definitely overstate the simplicity of using nun-chucks. To change the direction of your swing, you have to ricochet one of the chucks (I don't know what a singular side is called) off your inner thig...

This week I've started practicing a new song for piano. I chose it because it sounded nice but mostly because my piano teacher said it would be a good challenge. Especially with the dynamics. The first few days of any new piece is sight reading. However that never posed much of a challenge for me. What was  challenging for me with this song was the small yet dramatic dynamic changes as well as the technique behind the wrist movement. I decided to put those aside for now and focus on the notes. Once I picked up the notes and chords and was able to do hands together I was ready to integrate the challenging parts. To deal with the dynamics, I discovered that playing hands separately with dynamics before putting hands together worked best for me. I think it's because it helps my brain and muscle memory remember the dynamics for each hand as a separate entity, which makes it easier to combine both hands later on. For the wrist movement, that would be more challenging. I have been pl...