June 2016 - Blog Post 2

I have continued to grow as a person, leader, and community member throughout all of my experiences for this CAS project. I gained so many new skills that will assist with my success in the future like time management, organization, and leadership. I was put in multiple different positions and I had to adapt to my position by adopting new skills and implementing different work methods to get the job done. I did a lot of creative, active, and service learning events that I have definitely learned a lot from and will help contribute to my abilities in the future. I have made new friends, learned so much, and participated in so many activities! I am pretty impressed with myself, if I do say so myself, because I approach this project using activities I have been doing my whole life or activities I have been doing before because I was genuinely interested. I don't just do these activities because they look good for collegea or because they fill up hours for CAS and service learning, I love everything I do and I am happy with what I have accomplished. All of the activities I have done which I will list out to show how amazing I am and to brag a little, including three different sports (cross country, track, and basketball), five clubs (Student Ambassadors, Mathletes, Science Olympiad, Lunch Buddies, IB CAS Club), three outside organizations (Youth Leadership of Greensboro, Indian Association of the Triad, and Girl Scouts), four musical instruments/activities (flute, voice, piano, and dance - Bharatnatyam), and the hard labor of IB on top of that has made it fun because each of these activities allows me to experiment with different opportunities and they act as nice outlets for me because of the stress of juggling it all! I have learned so much from these experiences, and this is in reference to life, and these are what I will be able to look back on in many years to come and think "I am so lucky to have been given this many opportunities because I was able to experiment with my many interests; I have learned so much from those experiences and am thankful they have contributed largely to the great and successful pediatrician (who has probably cured cancer) I am today."

June 2016 - Blog Post 1

IB CAS Hour Table

Experience (2016)	Creativity (hours)	Activity (hours)	Service (hours)
Bharatnatyam	23
Piano	23
Flute	11
Hospice			10
Indian Association of the Triad			25
Lunch Buddies			23
Youth Leadership of Greensboro		23
IB CAS Club			5
Basketball		30
Track		15
Total Hours Overall:	Total Creativity: 57	Total Activity: 68	Total Service: 63

May 2016 - Blog Post 1

I am an active dancer in the art of Bharatnatyam, and I have been since fourth grade (so I am going into my ninth year). Prior to that, I did ballet, tap, jazz, and hip hop at the downtown Greensboro Cultural Arts Center! I practice Bharatnatyam every Sunday morning for an hour with my wonderful teacher, Veena Argade, and my great dance partner (Janavi Mehta, one of the many classmates I have had over the years). Bharatnatyam is a type of classical Indian dance and it is something I thoroughly enjoy because the dances are complex, yet so meaningful and I feel a lot closer with my culture when participating in it. I am working towards achieving my Arangetram which is a grand performance (sort of like a graduation where you have to book a stage, typically at a school, hire catering, hire photographers, and invite lots of friends and family to see what is supposed to be your official introduction into performing) where you perform ten dances for a few hours, by yourself, to represent that you are officially ready to perform in public. I only have three dances left to learn this summer before I can finally set up and organize my Arangetram! I have learned an incredible amount from this dance class: I learned how to work on my toes to create new dances, I learned how to work diligently, I learned how to manage my time, and I have become much more disciplined because of the strictness of the art. Dancing is a side passion of mine and I am so happy to be able to participate in this beautiful dance with ties to my cultural background. (I have actually attached a picture to one of my first dances and a picture from a recent one)

April 2016 - Blog Post 2

On April 9, I also volunteered at the UNCG International Festival. I helped to set up booths and clean up after the event ended. I also got to watch the different performances and participate in the activities from the different booths. There were many cool, cultural dances and I actually knew some of the dancers from previous cultural festivals I had been to. There was also a performance by a diverse group of girls in the IB program in my grade and it was so amazing to watch! It was completely unexpected how talented those girls were in dancing because of how quiet they are in school and I truly enjoyed seeing them perform. I got to try different delicacies from different cultures, play games like ring toss and guess the country the displayed flag belongs to, etc. It was definitely a cool experience because I got to enjoy the event with my friends and I learned a lot from different cultures. I loved seeing the diversity among the crowd and it was so exciting learning about all of the places everyone came from. I definitely gained more knowledge on cultural backgrounds and I would say I learned about time management here too because I acted according to the schedule and had to learn when I needed to transition from setting up, to taking a break to walk around, to helping supply the booths, to watching performances, and finally to cleaning up. I loved the international festival and it was definitely a really cool way to learn about other cultures!

April 2016 - Blog Post 1

On April 9, I volunteered with the Earth Day celebration at the Kathleen Clay Edwards Library. I helped to set up the booths for the numerous organizations that signed up for the affair. It was a very exciting experience because there were so many different groups that came to talk about how their organization helps the environment and how they contribute to preserving the planet. There were clubs from school there to talk about projects they were working on specifically aimed at helping the planet, groups there to talk about different animals and their habitats, and groups there to set up fun activities like animal face painting, games, etc. It was intriguing seeing the different booths, I felt like I learned so much just from helping the organizations set up and briefly viewing the actual information on display. I felt like I gained some time management and organizational skills because I had to help the lady in charge keep track of all of the groups set up and make sure things were going according to schedule. I also had to work on my feet, like when groups didn't show up or when the parking lot was jammed but overall I had a lot of fun and learned an incredible amount of cool new stuff about our planet!