What time is it? PROM TIME!

Although the Beatles Prom wasn't the Octopus's garden, and it definitely wasn't in the shade, but we did sing and dance around. Now, enough with silliness. If I were to sum our prom in one word it would be a simple "Wow". All the effort and hard work did pay off and the result was incredible and I can proudly say that IB1's have achieved their aim and provided a memorable night to all our leavers. 
In our school there's a tradition where the IB1 organize the prom for IB2 as a leavers' gift and also year 11's. Our class started planning the prom from November, beginning with deciding on a theme and also an appropriate venue. We spent a lot of time deciding on the venue, changing from one to another, and trying to get it for free, similarly to the IB2's last year. Eventually, we decided on Kabira Country club since it was the closest, it had a new ball room built recently and of course we got the venue for free.
Even though, we still had to raise a lot of money to cover other costs such as food, drinks, DJ and decorations.
We organized a few fundraisers but our main one was the Dream Team. The Dream Team is a skilled basketball team of teachers and they are up to compete against the students' teams. Each team member had to pay 10,000 ugx in order to participate, and if the students team won they would get their money back. As well as organizing, I was involved in a team myself, called the Jew crew. Even though we haven't won, we still gave it our best and managed to raise around 800,000 ugx which was used as a deposit for our venue.
But the road was still long and time was running out. We quickly decided on the design of the invitations and printed them the Monday after. We began to advertise around the school that it was time to pay and that the deadline was 28th of March. We walked into classes each morning to collect the money and bugged those who didn't pay. 
Now comes the fun part! The making of the decoration!
With the guidance of a designer that came straight from Israel, we made decoration that corresponded directly to the Beatles' theme. Some of the decoration we made included peace signs out hula hoops decorated with flowers and spray painted bicycles.
And the moment we all been waiting for! Prom day! 
It was all very stressful, and we were all struggling with doing last minute touch ups. The night itself went pretty smoothly, with everything according to plan - the voting for prom king and queen has been counted by the teachers and the king and queen dance "Thousand Years" by Christina Perry was performed by Anna and Victor (2 students from my year) and made all listeners a little bit teary-eyed. 
To summarize half a year worth of work in 4 hours was hard to digest and although I was relieved, I was sad as well. The prom was a definite success that everybody enjoyed. This project has allowed me to show perseverance and commitment, work collaboratively, undertake new challenges and plan activities.
And most importantly, the prom and behind the scenes was an experience that I wouldn't forget so easily.

Tadaaaaah!

Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand?

Macbeth. The darkest and the most powerful of all Shakespeare's tragedies has been performed in Uganda's National Theater. And what role did I take in the production of the play? I volunteered to make the props which were used during the performance. 

I was presented with a list and together with my collaborator we set off to a journey.

We needed to either buy or make the following items:

Witches cauldron - custom made.

• 10 Swords - bought.
• 2 Daggers - bought and then painted.
• 5 spears - made from bamboo sticks, clothes pegs and foil.
• 2 battles axes - bamboo sticks, carton board and foil.
• A long thin mirror - bought.
• A big bunch of keys - didn't find suitable keys.
• At least six lanterns plus spare batteries - bought.
• 1 candle in candle holder for Lady Macbeth - bought.
• 10 Tankards - custom made.
• 6 Metal plates - bought.
• 3 Plain wooden trays - bought.
• A sack with a pumpkin in it - bought.
• Lots of fake blood - made about 3 liters of blood from cocoa powder, syrup maple, cornflour and artificial coloring.

Preparing the spears and battle axes

Most of the items on the list were easy to find on the Ugandan Market, while some more difficult, for example the keys and in the end we couldn't find any suitable ones that fit the description of medieval, big and jingly keys. 

Moreover, we found out that blood isn't as it easy to make as it looks. When we first tried it out it ended up being too runny, and the second attempt too sticky (which was a good thing at the end).
However, the most challenging part of this activity was time management. Some things was left for the last moment, and we struggled to get everything on time and yet somehow we managed to bring everything together before the first performance.
Overall, during this activity I showed perseverance and commitment in my activities and worked collaboratively with my fellow partner. Oh one last thing, I must admit that the most exciting moment was when we actually got to see our props being used on stage - Big Bravo to us! 

Witches cauldron, spears and tankards

1000 Origami Cranes

There's an ancient Japanese legend that says; Somebody who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by a crane. However, it isn't that simple. One must complete the cranes within one year and all must be done by that person in order for the wish to come true. Sadako Sasaki, a girl who developed leukemia when she was 12 due to being exposed to radiation at the age of 2 during the time of the atomic bombing in Hiroshima. Hearing this legend, she tried her luck and tried to fold 1000 cranes in hopes of recovering. Sadly, she died before completing her goal and only managed to fold 644 cranes.

Carrying the cranes on mobiles

A "1000 Origami Cranes" was a long-term project carried out by our art teacher and involved both students and teachers in the creation of the cranes. The aim of this project was to grant the ill children's wishes, giving them a sign of hope.

At first, I was selected to be one of the folding experts in 2 assembly, specially dedicated to make the cranes. As an expert, I had to guide other students, explaining step by step how to create an origami crane. I found it difficult since my first group consisted of 20 oblivious students who didn't seen to care much about whether they are folding correctly and because I'm quite shy and quiet it was hard for me to control them. On the second assembly, I was lucky to get a different group who was more attentive and remembered most of the steps from last time. We managed to create about 20 cranes when the required was at least 10 per expert. 

Hanging the cranes

The last part of this project was delivering the cranes to Mulago hospital in Kampala. When we arrived we were surprised by the size of the hospital and by the amount of patients occupying (the patients were also surprised by our visit) it and thus it was decided it would be better to hang the mobiles at the entrance and at the children's section. We were divided into different groups and were in charge of different areas. The hanging of the mobiles required team work, one holding a mobile and passing it on to the person on the ladder who then attaches it to the ceiling. It required patience and caution since the mobiles are very delicate. Cranes kept on falling from their strings and I almost damage an entire mobile when I moved the ladder.

Overall, I felt that this activity has engaged me in issues of global importance and encouraged me to work collaboratively with others. 

"The Lion and The Jewel" Drama Production

From the start of September up to December, our school's drama department was very busy in organising and planning a new play called "The Lion and The Jewel" by Wole Soyinka. The play's plot centers around how Baroka, the lion fights the modern Lakunle over the right to marry Sidi, the jewel. 
During the course of this time, I have done several activities concerning the play. 
I auditioned for the play but I didn't receive a speaking role. Instead, I've got the part of a dancing villager.
Here's a video containing parts of the dance:

 Learning how to dance West-African dance was a completely new skill for me. I attended a few dance lessons when I was younger but I wasn't committed to it in particular way and I didn't like it very much. Once I joined the play and it became a routine I found it really enjoyable and stress relieving to dance along side with my comrades. It was sometimes hard to grasp the new steps in one go, so we had to repeat the whole dance until all was perfect. 
The last week of rehearsals was the most stressful. We stayed at school until 7 each day and we practiced our dance on location rather than in the drama room, which was a bit confusing and hard to get used to at first. There were always so many things to be done and be fix and the clock was racing. However, in the end "The Lion and The Jewel" was the best play KISU has ever presented! 

Dress Rehearsals

Performance Day

Another task I did for the production was to produce a poster;

The drama department were looking for somebody who will create a poster for the production of the play "The Lion and The Jewel" and since art is one of my favorite things to do I immediately agreed to do so! With the help of 2 year 10 students who did the lettering and the graphic design we managed to create a great poster!The girl in the poster represents Sidi, the mask on the left represents Lakunle and the mask on the right Baroka. Her crossed arms symbolizes the choice of who is she to marry?
The poster took about a week to be prepared and then had to go through several adjustments since I tried to do hand written lettering but I made mistakes at some words. Through this I had increased my own artistic ability since I created an image which aimed at telling a story and had some mysterious aura to it to draw the viewers attention.

The last activity but not least, was to take upon the job of marketing and financing the play. The drama department lacked money since they wanted to create a well organised play. My friend and I took the responsibility to raise approximately 4 million Ugandan shillings with our fundraisers. We held several bake sales but our greatest fundraiser of all was our auction! An auction wasn't an easy event to plan. First, we had to go around collecting items, for instance asking for vouchers from restaurants and the art teacher to sell her work. After that we had to ask permission from our secondary head to book the assembly hall on a Tuesday (usually assemblies are on Mondays)! 
We went around distributing the posters and we were responsible for selling the tickets. Together with some sponsors help, the money from the fundraisers and the tickets were enough to cover for all the costs!
All in all, this was a challenging experience for me that required commitment, working collaboratively with other, developing new skills, increasing my own areas of growth (art and business) and planning activities.

Learning How to Play a Guitar

When I first started this activity I set myself a goal of learning at least one song on the guitar. I was on the verge of finally learning one after a period of 3 months, but couldn't. This was mainly due to not practicing enough during other times except when we have the club (the club was once a week). After we completed the stage of learning the chords, we started learning the beginning of songs such as "Sweet Home Alabama", which were appropriate for players at our level. 

Even though my goal wasn't completed I felt that I did learn some new skills and developed a lot of patience since playing requires great concentration and tolerance (fingers hurting from pressing too hard on the strings) for a beginner such as me. 

I hope that in the future I will show more commitment when learning how to play a musical instrument and actually fulfill the goals I set myself. 

"Run for Fun, Run for Hope!"

On November 18, I participated in the 5 km walk of The Hope Ward - Fun Run 2012. Hope Ward is a charity within Kampala International Hospital and their aims is to help and improve the lives of those who cannot afford medical treatment. Most of their patients suffer from cancer or HIV\Aids and are victims of the war in Northern Uganda and acid attacks.  

I arrived at Kololo airstrip at 6.30 in the morning and was thrilled by the amount of people who are keen in participating in such an event and making a change! And of course all the money collected is for the treatment of needy Hope Ward patients. It was a great experience since I haven't done something like this before. I'm hoping to participate in a Fun Run again, but next time I'll be fitter and will be able to do the actual run and not just the walk.

CAS Initial Self-Review

1. What is your greatest accomplishment so far? How has this affected your life? What did you learn from it? Moving to Uganda which is very different from my home country, Israel. And why do I consider this as my greatest accomplishment yet? As I had to leave everything that was familiar to me and undertake the challenge of going to a completely new environment and study in a language which was taught to me as a second language. Still, I don't regret a thing! During the past 2 years I've been spending in Uganda I met new friends from all different countries, improved my English rapidly and even manage to learn French! At my previous school there were about 200 students in our year and 40 in my class and so I didn't experience the same closeness I have now with my peers and teachers. I learned how to swim, play football and basketball and even got a chance to study art. What I have experienced in Uganda changed my perspective of different cultures and me as a person. 

2. What are you really good at? Art - whether it's drawing, painting or just going crazy with your piece.

3. Name one skill you have always wanted to develop in your life but that you haven't yet. Play an instrument.

4. Name one activity that you would like to try but that you haven't yet. Why would you like to try this? I would like to learn Japanese because I am a huge fanatic of Japanese animations and comics.

5. Name a person you admire right now. What qualities does this person have that you don't? I admire the current Israeli president Shimon Peres. I admire him since he is inspiring and has won the Noble Peace Prize in 1994 with Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat for the peace talks between them. I think it takes great courage to participate as the topic of peace is very delicate. I would like to not fear taking risks and stand for what I believe in order to achieve my goals. "I was learning, as I did in the Ministry of Defense. I never knew, but I always learned."

6. What's different about you now compared to what you were like when you were 10 years old? I am wiser and more focused.

7. Describe the kind of person you think you will be post IB. I'll keep my cheerful and playful personality but I'll know when to be serious and work hard. I'll become even wiser thanks to learning my chosen subjects in depth and experiencing CAS in IB. I'll be open-minded and a risk taker in order to gain more knowledge.

And here's a song to make the reading more enjoyable! :)