Go Vegan!

I've started new activity in my life. I hate cooking but because I'm becoming older and older and I would have to be an independent adult when I go to collage I decided that this is something that I need to be able to do. I have started to explore the world of vegan cuisine, because it is healthy and suitable for my allergic problems. I'm not saying that I went totally vegan, but I thought they it would be nice to implement a few recipes like this to my diet. I wanted to start with something quite easy so I decided to do vegan chocolate and bean cookies. Here is the recipe:

• 1 and 1/2 cup of red bean
• 3 and 1/2 spoons of peanut butter
• 3 spoons of cocoa
• 4 spoons of grinded Xylitol
• 1 spoon of flax meal
• 1 teespoon of glutenfree baking powder
• 1/4 cup of water or vegetable milk
• toppings: almonds, cashews, vegan chocolate

I did a lot of them so I was able to treat my family with those sweets. Surprisingly they really like them and do did I. There is a saying on all vegan forums that vegan sweets does not fatten. It might be funny but in fact a bit true, because for example in this recipe there is no sugar added. Vegas cuisine is very healthy for the organism if substitute all the products that are forbidden to use on a right way. My sister, which inspired me to implement a bit of vegan cuisine in my life, is on this kind of diet for over two months right now and the examinations that she recently has went very good, much better that it used to be. In this way I decide to take care about my health and change my eating habits a bit in order to deliver to my organism important vitamins, minerals and others and also to remove sugar and and other not healthy substances entirely from my life.

Tasts great with coffee

Learning Outcomes:

• Undertaking New Challenges
• Developing New Skills

Chocolate and bean cookies

Kennels

Recently I have been to the kennels near my neighbourhood in order to give a dog food there. I decided to go there, because my dog has died lately and I had a lot of accessories that otherwise would be binned and it is better to reuse some things, in addition that I had full, unpacked 10kg bag of dog food. I went there together with my sisters and it was quite difficult experience for all of us. Firstly, because it reminded us about the loss of our dog and secondly, because of all the other dogs that were at the kennels. After the winter they all looked sickly and peaky. This is the most difficult time for places like this. We had a small conversation with a lady that was working there and she had explained it to us. Kennels collect food and blankets for dogs for the winter, because there are usually a lot of actions connected with this and many people that want to help poor dogs. However after the Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve there are a lot of new dogs that drift into the kennels. Firstly, because kids get puppies as a present from Santa Claus and then they get bored after some time. Puppy is not just a sweet mascot that kids can play with and then leave alone, because they had changed their mind. But there is parents’ role that is the most important here. They should educate their children in the sympathy and sensitivity for other living creatures. Other problems that the kennels experience in this time are the escapes of the dogs during the New Year’s Eve fireworks’ explosions. Dogs are afraid of the noise that is made and there are a lot of cases when in the act of panic they run away. That is why it is advised to keep your dog locked, under the special care and also you can give to it a tranquilizer.

So I got to know that know it is a very difficult time for kennels and they need a lot of help, but unfortunately only a material one. This particular one now has an excess of volunteers and they do not need any more, but they need dog food and old blankets, so my help was on point.

Me and my sisters in front of the kennels.

Learning Outcomes:

• Undertaking new challenges
• Engaged with issues of global importance
• Consideration of ethical implications

4 Design Days

This weekend I've been to 4 Design days in International Congress Centre in Katowice. This was connected with my current plans according to new house they me and my family are building. We all together think about the solutions they could improve our new place of living but also we were searching for some inspirations. In this place there were exhibitions of many companies that were providing solo ruins for interiors in the houses but also simultaneously there were exhibitions of independent art, like some furniture or other accessories to the house and some lectures conducted by specialists in this topic. I was participating in two lecterns. The first one was about how to live trendy but practically. During this time a person that specialize in the interior design was providing many solutions according to the accessories in the house that could not only be use to look good but also to have certain functions for house-dwellers. The second lecture was provided especially for my family. It was made on an example of house for five-person family. In this lecture in was said how to effectively manage space in the house. This is something that would be specifically helpful for my family as there are my parents, two of my sisters and I that are going to live there. We need to discover the way that we should organize our rooms because till now we only have lived in block of flats and we had far smaller space for all of us than we are going to have in the nearest future. However not only lectures were important. During this event there were a lot o exhibitions of certain building companies. We, as a family, live very close to each other and it is important for all of as to actively participate in the family's life. Because of this we were all engaged in other issues connected with our future house. First of all there was a problem of fireplace. We got to know that now there are new, innovative solutions for this case. We decided that gas fireplace is much better for as than the one for wood. It is not only because of design (gas one looks really amazing, it is glass enclosed and make an impression of fire floating in the air) but also, because it will allow us to refuse costs and emission of pollution. Another problem was with floor in our house. We wanted to have wooden parquet but we got to know that it is not a good idea for family especially with small kid (the youngest of us is 5 years old) but also it costs a lot. We were suggested to use a floor made of certain kind of resin. This would cost less and last for a longer time, because it is more resistant to any damages.

During second lecture

During first lecture

I found this event very informative according to my future choices connected with new room. I am not very interested in architecture but this experience was very quaint. A think that the exhibitions and lectured allow me to choose wisely and enable me to design a place that is going to look great, will be organized well and last for the rest of my life. I believe they people need this kind of events especially when now we have a great place for organizing them. Entrance does not cost a lot, because it was 5 zloty for an adult and 3 zloty for a child, and it is worth much more because of the experience and knowledge that it gives.   




Learning Outcomes:

• Developing new skills
• Engaged with issues of global importance
• Undertaking new challenges
• Increased awarness of strengths and areas of growth

Social Experiment - Development

The purpous of our experiment has changed a bit. We decided to investigate the problem of gender inequality and feeling of being underestimated. The effects of our social experiment was very surprising for me. I thought they we will get explicit results and we will be able to see if our community is biased or not. But not this time. Views were divided and some of the people that were questioned really surprised me. What can be clearly seen from this experiment is that girls themselves feel a bit underestimated and sometimes they also, maybe unconsciously, promote gender inequality. I think that this gender differences are rooted in our society and to change them we have to start from the bottom. Maybe some special classes in primary school should be provided in order to make little girls aware of the fact that they are not worse than boys and they can also handle with some situations as best as the boys can. We are going to have a movie that shows all the results that we gained and in this was we want to show the attitude to this problem im our community. I belive that it might change some people's approach to life and opposite sex.

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.