WOŚP

Last Sunday I participated in an annually event in my country called WOŚP. This is one day when Poland is full of volunteers collecting money for one, common purpose. This year we were collecting money for medical equipment for pediatric ward and deserving healthcare for older people. Together with two of my friends we were collecting money in the city centre of our city. But I think that it was a mistake. The city centre was full of volunteers and I believe they there were more of them that normal people. In this situation we were not able to collect a lot of money. But what was surprising this year was this that a lot of servicemen were volunteers. I think that it is because of our current political situation, but in my opinion every reason is good to help other people. In our country there are a lot of opponents to this event and I do not quite understand why. I think that we should help each other especially when this is all about the youngest part of society, because they are our future and the oldest part, because it is our future.

My identity card

Katowice Model United Nations Conference

Recently I took part in Katowice Model United Nations Conference. However this time my job was a bit different because I was part of crew and not one of the delegates. I was a page. This function is very important because during deliberations delegates are non allowed to talk to each other and the only way in which they are able to communicate is through page notes. They are small notes with addressee, sender and short message. In this way delegates are able to get to some consensus between each other and write a resolution at the end of deliberations. Usually this is for informal communication between delegates in order to exchange some opinions, views and ideas. Also they can be send between delegates and chairs of the committees in order to get on the speakers list. This was very exhausting job, because I was on duty from 7am to 9pm for the full three days, but I believe that it was worth it. I was able to see how the MUN Conference looks like from the other side, from the organisers perspective and I think they it was very enlightening experience.

Hungry and tired pages.

Learning Outcomes:

• Planned and initiated activities

Wroclaw Model United Nations Conference

Lately I've been to the Wroclaw Model United Nations Conference. This is a conference performed as the real one in United Nations Organisation but for young people from high school and university. This was my first experience like this and I was very surprised, because I didn't expect it to be so enlightening. But let's take it in turn. First of all I will tell about my council. Deliberations were performed for few topics in a few committees an the same time. I was in the Security Council and together with other delegates we were obligated to solve a problem of nuclear weapons in Asia, because the main topic was focused on the problems in Asian countries. The country that I represented was People's Democratic Republic of Lao. At a glance I thought that this is not good country for this conference, because it is small and tangential but as soon as I started my research about this country I discovered that I was wrong. My country had so much to talk in the issue of nuclear weapon. Laos is a poor country and not able to build a nuclear plant but also they use alternative energy source. Full need of energy they fulfil using water energy that they obtain from the biggest river in this country and also a part of this energy obtained is exported to some bordering countries. As a delegate of Laos I had to fully know current politics in this country and also support it. It could be ridiculous or controversial to me personally, but I had to act like one of the Laos' resident. At the end of all deliberations each committee had to present their resolution, so a stated solution to the problem that was discussed and Security Council did it great. Also as a delegate from Security Council I had to deliver welcoming speech and state a position of Laos for nearly all of the problems that were considered in other committees too. It was very stressful for me because I have a little problem with public appearance but now I can say that I managed to fight my fear and this is something very important in self development. The Conference was a great experience and I was able to meet a lot of fantastic people from around the world. In my committee for example was a girl from Mexico City and a guy from Lithuania. Also I was able to try and improve level of my English in a conversation and see how the world of politics looks like because all procedures were performed as in a normal Conference and everything was very official. The Wroclaw Model United Nations Conference lasted for three days and I believe that it wasn't a wasted time but a time that gave me a huge experienced and a time that I made a most of it.

Our crew.

Running

I've started a new activity, because I want to be in a better form before my prom, so I decided to run at least twice a week. I don't have good physical condition so I was afraid that this would be very challenging for me. Surprisingly it was not. What is important in this activity is good technique. It is not important to run as fast as I can, but to scamper in a moderate tempo and to keep up it. It is very good activity for whole body, and I feel full of energy after it. At the beginning I had no problems with motivation, but as the winter has came I suddenly felt like there is no sense of continuing this activity. I could always find an explanation like it is too cold, it is raining or snowing, I will be sick and similar. What kept mi up was my running partner. I do this activity with my mother or my sister and if one of us had some doubts connected with this if we should or should not do this today another one tries to motivate another. In that way this activity does not make any problems to me.

After running 

Our first run

Homemade Cosmetics

I have started something totally new in my life. I have a small chemistry lab in my house and I produce there homemade cosmetics. It is such a great fun for me, because this is something I want to do in the future. I run a separate blog for this where I explain step by step how to make something (http://alis-cosmetics.blogspot.com). It is very important to be particular careful while doing those cosmetics, because it is sometimes a work on high temperatures with oils, so it is easy to harm yourself. I have started this activity because I was thinking about my future plans, but also because I am an allergic person and I wanted to have cosmetics that will not cause a rush on my face. Not only I develop as a chemist with this action, but also I use cosmetic that have a known composition and does not contain harmful substances.

Learning Outcomes:

• Undertaking New Challenges

Social experiment

Recently my friends and I had a meeting, because of our social experiment that we want to conduct. It was kind of brainstorming. We exchange together some ideas and thought about social problems that we should introduce in the experiment. We spent a few hours discussing our further plans and we got to some conclusions. Firstly we decided who is who in this project, because there must be actors, camera operator and someone how is going to take care of the technical side of this experiment, someone how will be able to put all the scenes together and create one compact movie. The purpose of this experiment is to see how society will react on some issues of global importance if they react at all.   But what about the scenes that result from our brainstorming? Firstly we decided to raise an issue of intimate partner abuse, with a scene of two people fighting with each other (a woman and a man) and reactions of the society, because we are going to film it in public.  Then we thought about problem of poverty and homeless people. How society will react for a homeless one if he says he needs money for drugs and alcohol and what reaction will be if he says that he needs money for food or clothes. Another problem that we want to address is about old people and how unpunished they feel because of their age. There are some situations when there is someone that feels worse than the old man, but for him this kind of situation can’t happen. What we want to do is to see if an old man or woman will be able to move over for a young, pregnant lady that feels dizzy. I was a witness of this kind of situation and what I saw was terrible. The old man started to shout on a poor lady and he was screaming that a youngster like her shouldn’t talk like this to him. Then the woman felt on the ground because she lost her consciousness and suddenly old man became gentle and started to apologize her.

I believe that it is enough for now and the only thing that we have to do is to film it. We are waiting for a better weather, because it would be hard to film it in the rain. I’m so happy for this experiment but also full of concerns that some of the people in public will overreact.

The Gym

Recently I decided to go to the gym. I want to have better condition and I decided to go there with my sister. We both have really hard time this year and because of this we have lack of time spend together. To fix it we arranged to go to the gym 3-4 times a week for about 40 minutes to 1 hour. We go there after lessons in the evening so it is kind of work out before sleeping. We are both a motivation for each other, because there are some situations when one of us is so tired after whole day at school that she doesn’t want to go there and do some exercises. During this activity I realised that recently I neglected a bit my sister and it shouldn’t be like this. Family is the most important thing in the world and it always should be put first. I also see a change in myself. I don’t feel so tired all the time and have more energy during the day when a night before I went to a gym. It is important to do something for our body, because nowadays there are a lot of people working all the time to the detriment of their health. We should all slow down and think carefully about our priority.

Me and my sister after workout.

Learning Outcomes:

• Work collaboratively with others
• Show perseverance and commitment
• Increased awareness of strengths and areas for growth 
• Developing new skills