During the week of Spring break, I filmed video for the 2021 Mooto Taekwondo Competition. They are submitted before April 12th and are going to be assessed on April 20th, when the results for the preliminary round are going to be announced. In the beginning, I thought that an online competition would be relatively less stressful than an actual one because I am able to film several times before the video is submitted. However, because there were also several other students who needed to also film, I only got two tries at a time. Another factor that I had to consider was filming my videos before the due date. Since I was at Taipei at the start of my break and in Hsinchu for WSC in the end, I had to make sure that I was able to give myself sufficient time to film the videos for the preliminary round.
Mar 2021 (2) – Tutoring and Shelving Books
Towards the end of this month, I started to tutoring 8th graders during Wednesday breaks and shelving books during CAS Fridays.
TUTORING
To prepare for tutoring, I created a post-test review guide for the students based on their Physics diagnostic test. This was to help them become more familiar with the concepts behind the correct answers. Due to the time limit, I have to explain the concepts in a concise manner. I think that this is good practice not only for myself because I am taking Physics HL for IB, but also so that I am able to mentor students in clubs such as MUN (MS & HS).
VOLUNTEERING AT THE LIBRARY
I decided to propose this volunteering idea to the librarians after finding that most of my CAS was done outside of school and that my CAS Fridays should be put to a service activity. I began going to the library and checking out books more frequently than I did during middle school and my previous two years of high school. A goal I have set for myself this year was to consume more reading and explore different genres. I have done volunteering at the local library, but I have not been able to do so after school started. I was glad to find out that the librarians at school were eager for us to volunteer, and I definitely want to give back to them in some manner. From the previous time I went to shelve books with Kayla, we were able to finish shelving all the books at the library during that time.
Mar 2021 (1) – a week in my life vlog
This week I decided to film a week in my life vlog.
Throughout this experience, I realized that collecting and filming clips is actually harder than I expected. I really had to hold myself accountable for the number of times I film throughout the day. I began editing my video on Thursday right after school. Due to the limited storage left on my computer, it was difficult to transfer my clips from my phone to the computer. I managed to clear sufficient space eventually. Throughout the editing process, I had to delete a lot of footages in order to keep the video at an appropriate length. The raw clips were around 20 minutes long, but after speeding some clips up and editing other out, I was able to congregate a near 11 minute video. I included hand-draw clips to personalize the video more. In my next video, I hope to include hand-drawn animations so that the doodles look more animated.
Feb 2021 (2) – you were good to me
Last Friday, Heloise and I performed “you were good to me” by Jeremy Zucker and Chelsea Cutler at Cadenza’s Valentine’s Day performance.
Prior to the performance, we had a week-long Chinese New Year break. This meant that we had limited practice time. We had to make use of afterschool time and CAS time as well. The actual performance, I felt like could be better on my part. I think I was too nervous because I didn’t think we acquired enough practice time. Some words were really shaky and could be improved. One of the major things I have noticed is that my voice grows even quieter during a performance. I should fix this through watching videos on breathing exercises and strengthening my vocals.
Feb 2021 (1) – ProCREATE!
Before beginning to create any artworks, I started my research process on what kind of art I want to create first. I came across the video below on how to make digital versions of photos. I have seen these kinds of digital illustrations on Instagram and other social media platforms, and I thought that it would be something cool to start this CAS experience off with.
For my own digital illustration, I began with choosing a picture I wanted to transform, which was a picture of me and my friends. I copied what the tutorial did with outlining and filling in those outlines by directly dragging the top right color circle into the outlines. After filling out those outlines, I started to refine each of them. This was the hardest part as I had to make sure the edges are smooth, so I needed to make the actual photo invisible. Simultaneously, the proportions still needed to be correct. The colors sometimes were too dark since the original picture had pretty heavy shadows. This meant that I had to rematch some colors.
Here is the final product:
This was the original photo:
Jan 2021 (2) – Cadenza Cover
Cadenza offers its club members opportunities to record covers for Cadenza’s instagram page. I decided to sign up and cover Olivia Rodrigo’s “drivers license,” which blew up almost instantly.
Prior to actually recording the cover, I had to sign up on a Google Form and send in an “audition” recording. After being approved, I was able to take the microphone home and record the audio. The process of recording was extremely difficult. I live on a busy street, so I had to make sure that when I record, the microphone will not pick up background noise of the traffic. This was also why I could not play the backing track with my piano for the cover because there were too much traffic noise. Eventually, I decided to just use a karaoke track. I re-recorded many parts of the song since I didn’t like how a lot of the parts turned out. I finally got all the audio after about 3 hours. My voice in the final product sounds a bit more choppy as there was still a lot of static, so it was edited out. There were also harmonizing added, which makes the song sound fuller. I was really glad to see that there was positive responses to the cover. I hope that I will be able to cover another song soon.
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Jan 2021 (1) – First Competition of the Year!
On January 9th, I had an opportunity to represent KAS in a competition to qualify for nationals. Spoiler alert: although I placed 5th in my group in the finals, I was glad to be competing after three months.
Being in the Senior group was definitely more difficult than when I used to compete in Juniors. The standards that judges score you on is drastically raised higher. In local schools, students who excel at certain sports join their schools sports team where they practice daily for long periods of time. Naturally, they would better than people like me who can only go to practice twice a week. I was surprised that I was able to rank just below the three athletes from the best team in the city for the first round. The day of the competition was around 10°C and all I remember thinking about was why the wind was so strong. The cold weather is actually quite dangerous if athletes do not prepare themselves well for it, so I made sure to constantly be warm whether that was through wearing more jackets or warming up for a longer time. Still, I felt that some of kicks were restricted and my stretches were tighter. One of my friends in the Junior group could not continue to compete due to his knee injury, which worsened with the cold temperature. During the finals, I thought that I could have performed much better because I was not as steady as per usual; however, this showed me that the process to achieving a higher rank or improvement requires a lot of time.
Dec 2020 (2) – Invisible Children Bake Sale
For the last Cadenza performance of 2020, Invisible Children had the opportunity of selling baked brownies and chocolate-chip cookies to the audience. The executive team, which I am a part of, separated into two groups—one for baking and the other for selling. I partook in the selling and was able to raise money for donation.
Fortunately, Cadenza’s audience of students and teachers provided a large number of buyers, which allowed us to sell the goods quite quickly. I think this can also be credited to the options of goods we had, which were favorable to the audience. Some teachers even directly donated money to help raise the funds.
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FLP Accounting Internship
Throughout the last week of winter break, I had the opportunity to attend our school’s Future Leaders’ Program as an internship at 2 accounting firms. The first firm that I attended was 喬治亞聯合會計師事務所, and the second firm was 眾智聯合會計師事務所.
Prior to the internship, I wanted to focus on the two learning goals. They were (1) to apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products or processes (thinking) and (2) to collaborate with professionals (social and communication). I accomplished the first learning goal through building connections between my tasks at the internship to some Business and Economics concepts. It was really interesting to converse with my friends who also attended this internship. We definitely saw things that we learned in a real-life context. As for the second learning goal, I felt much more comfortable in doing this in the second firm as they engaged with me more. Sometimes it was not about the work I was given, but more about my daily life. I believe these discussions helped create more amicable relationships and a friendlier atmosphere.
One important skill that I applied was problem-solving. Through repetitive tasks, I developed a few systems to help me. A particular one I was quite proud of was how I helped a colleague calculate the sum of 250+ receipts at the second firm. I remember seeing the stack and just wondering how long it would take me to find the accurate answer. I asked to use the computer and use Excel spreadsheet. From the first firm, I practiced how to input data; I used the same general idea to calculate. I entered all the receipt number in the first column, the original amount of money in the second, the tax in the third, and the sum in the fourth. When I highlighted the columns, there were large differences. To effectively check my work, I input a formula in the fifth column which added the original amount of money and tax together. Then, I input yet another formula in the sixth column that calculated the differences between the fourth and fifth column to see which rows were wrong. If the difference was 0, there were no problems; if there is difference, I can easily go back to the receipt and re-enter the incorrect numbers since I have numbered the rows.
The overall experience was impactful as it demonstrates to me what it is like as an accountant. Through this, I learned that I do not necessarily enjoy being in an office the whole day, so this is something I want to think about when choosing my future career path. As for other similar opportunities provided by the Future Leaders’ Program, I would definitely like to apply to them.
Flipgrid Reflections
Dec 2020 (1) – Trying To Dance
Since this summer, my taekwondo coach has been anticipating for my friends (in taekwondo) and I to start taking performance classes. These classes would incorporate taekwondo moves into dances. We have been looking forward to this experience as it would allow us to perform at events. For this particular class, we have two dance teachers that would guide us through the choreography. The experience is safe with the support of our coaches and dance teachers. The dance teacher told us about what she generally have in mind, but we were able to input any thought on more appropriate taekwondo kicks or movements, which allowed us to be more engaged in the process.
I have not danced since elementary school, so my dance experience is quite limited. Recently, I have only danced to some TikToks with my friends. Dance and taekwondo have their similarities and differences. While we have to memorize certain movements in taekwondo, dance choreography has to correspond to the rhythms of the music. Therefore, memorizing and keeping up with the choreography was definitely more difficult. However, I really tried to push myself to improve by focusing on one specific part of the song first, then combining them together. To better prepare myself by the next practice, I have been practicing the section of the choreography where I am not as familiar with.