Today I was helping Filip solve a MOCK exam prepared by Operon in 2019.
Filip found this one really easy at the beginning, so I almost did not have to propose solutions to him, however near the end there were a couple of exercises which he just could not do.
I explained them to him and after that he was able to solve them himself.
I think I am doing a good job with helping him and hope that it will be reflected in his final exam results.
Unfortunately, the tennis courts are closed again due to the Coronavirus pandemic, which makes it impossible for me to practise or do this for my CAS activity at the moment. I will come back to playing as soon as the courts are open again, which I hope will happen very soon.
Today I learnt how to play a piece by P.Tschaikowsky, a very famous composer known for Swan Lake, Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy and Seasons as well as many others. However, I was not playing any of these. I was playing Chanson Triste which translates for 'sad song'.
It indeed is sad, but as it usually is with sad song they are the most beautiful ones.
I have learnt few new techniques using this song, which was a great way to cheer myself up after it's melancholy sound.
At this week's training I have played a lot of matches.
We started off by playing two doubles. Me and my mom versus the couple who is also taking part in our training. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly we lost (they are more experienced than we are), but it was still great fun and a priceless experience.
After that we played one on one matches, so that everyone would play twice. I have won the first one, but sadly lost the second.
I do not get discouraged with my loss as it gives me more space for further improvement.
Today at my lesson with Filip I had to face the fact that he thinks differently than I do, and that it has an effect on the way he chooses to solve a certain exercise. I had to force myself not to interrupt him and propose my solutions just because I thought them easier.
Still, after he solved them his way I showed him in which direction I would go while finding the solution. I hope that he is learning a lot from me, although I cannot say anything just from looking at him during our classes.
Today I was learning a second Shanty entitled Dashilla's Sea Shanty. It is written in c minor and tells the story of a sea monster.
This really dark piece looks really simple, however it requires the same atmosphere kept through the entire duration of it. The most tricky part is when two fast notes appear, which happens only once in the entire song and thus it is hard to keep the right pace when it happens.
I like playing challenging pieces as I feel this is where I can improve, as I surely do.
Yesterday at tennis my trainer decided to focus on the forehand technique as I have been getting pretty good at the backhand hits.
We spend around the half of the lesson practising this and although modifying moves and reflexes one is used to is hard and annoying after some time the new ones are made.
For the next few weeks I will have to remember to focus on every part of the forehand move, but after that I probably will not even have to think about it.
It is really good to know that my technique is getting closer and closer to those of professionals'.
Today I had another hour with Filip, who is preparing to his 8th Grade Exam.
We were solving another one of past papers. Now he still needs a lot of my help but I hope that in time I will be barely talking as he will be able to solve all the exercises on his own.
I can say that he is dedicated and determined to write his exam really well. It will take place at the end of May so I still have almost three months to help him prepare.
Having a class is something really different from anything I have done before and I can see that when I try to explain certain aspects of Math to him, he does not necessarily understand what I say the same way I do. It shows me what challenges teacher must face and it makes me more open to their side of school.
Today I started to play a song from a famous musical. It's called Memory and comes from Cats the Musical. The music to this song was written by Andrew Lloyd Webber.
I started the lesson by playing one of basic scales - a minor, in which the song is set. After practising many variations of it I went to the song itself.
This song, however short, has an interesting part. The kind of notes called 'duola' occur in it. They are two notes that take as long as three. It is the first time ever I met something like this and it felt really unnatural to me.
Every time I played them I had a feeling that I am doing something wrong, but my teacher said that is the way they should be played, and with practise it will stop sounding so weird. I hope it does, but at the same time I'm glad there are still some entirely new things in the art of violin for me.
At Today's lesson, after the usual warming up exercise we have played a set of matches.
I am attending those lessons with my mom as well as two other people, with all of them I have played. I have won just 1 of those 3 matches, however I did so with a great advantage - 10:3.
The scores of following matches were 10:8 and 10:4. It showed me how much more room there is still for practise, and that I must not get discouraged to keep making progress.
Today I had my first lesson with Filip.
It was happening over zoom, I was worried about the way in which to organise it, but he helped me saying that he will just share his screen and write on it, so I can see his solution to the problems.
I am there to provide him with some explanations, tips or just to check his work. This all is meant to help him write his Exam well, which I surely hope it does.
It was a weird experience, much more unusual than the one with Maja, who is significantly younger than Filip. However, I can see the point of having lessons with both of them.
The supervisor of my Service work at Centrum Kultury Wilanów came up with the idea in which we can do our voluntary work during the pandemic - by providing lessons to younger children in areas we are good at.
I said that I am able to teach primary school students English and Maths, and I got two students of my own - a 5th-grader Maja and an 8th-grader Filip. Both of them I will be teaching maths and Maja I will also help with English.
I already had a meeting with her during which we talked in English and I explained long multiplication and long divination to her.
Something like that is entirely new to me and I believe it will be a learning experience for me as well as my students.
Today I was playing a waltz from The Sleeping Beauty written by P. Tchaikovsky.
The waltz is a form I have not yet played this year and I love the way it sounds.
The most important thing for me to focus on is the dynamic in which I play it - I have to work on it so some parts will be quieter and the other lauder. This is a challenge for me as most of the time I simply forget about it until it is written in the sheets that I should change it, and then it is definitely too late for that.
I will try to work on that in this piece as well as all my future ones.
This week I have come back to my tennis lessons as it was finally possible. Although I have not forgotten anything, it was visible that I was out of practise and I was not at the same level as I was before.
However, it is nothing to worry about as at the end of the lesson I was playing just as I was before. Tennis is like riding a bike - you do not forget the abilities you've gained.
I hope the pandemic situation will allow me to attend the lessons every week now, so I can master my abilities.
Today at Amnesty International meeting some members presented the cases from AI or other international organisations that are working in the field of human rights.
I also talked about the news I found on official AI page. In Denmark the definition of rape in criminal law was changed to 'sex without consent'. Earlier for the crime to be recognise the prove of additional violence was required. This change happened on 17th December 2020. It is awful and frightening that even in European countries which are proud of how obedient they are of human rights and how much gender equality they have achieved this change is happening only now and not years ago. What's even more frightening is that Denmark is only the 12th country in Europe that recognises sex without consent as rape.
While visiting my friend I've been going on regular walks with her dog. Of course, some of them were rather short, but still they're taking me around an hour a day.
This week it was snowing so we had a run through the snow, it was really nice, although quite cold.
At week's Amnesty International Meeting we summed up the 1st semester and further discussed the topic of total abortion ban in Poland.
This topic is still on top, as the protests are ongoing, and additionally the Constitutional Tribunal finally published the justification for what it said in October, and the ban was published in Polish Dziennik Ustaw.
Today's violin lesson took place online as all previous lessons did. After the experience from two weeks ago, I really felt how in-person meetings are indeed better and more valuable than those via zoom, but it was still a productive time.
We started by practicing a C major scale, followed by further practise of Canon in D minor, to, at the end reach a new musical piece. Quite well known and great fun - The Entertainer by S. Joplin.
It was a challenging piece (at the very beginning, the part that we went through) as it starts off very high, I had to go to 4th position on E string. It is so high I hardly ever used it before, if ever. I still need to practise this A LOT to produce muscle memory for that high notes.
Due to the lockdown in Poland I cannot attend tennis trainings right now, so I decided to start going on walks. I live in a forest so there's lots of nice paths I can go on.
I am planning to get back to tennis as soon as possible, so I will not undertake more organised activities, the weather now is very nice, and it even snows sometimes so it is so walks are not only an activity but also a pleasure.
Last week me, my sister and my dad visited DeepSpot. DeepSpot is a newly opened indoor pool, BUT it is not a usual pool. It is the deepest pool in the world right now - over 45 meters deep!!! This is a spot for divers to dive in, and that is exactly what we did.
This trip was very exciting and an amazing experience. My last dive happened few months ago, during summer holidays in Italy, so I had quite a break from diving. Still, this experience was like nothing else.
The main differences to what happens in natural waters was that
1) the visibility was much greater - you could see everything up to the end of the pool which doesn't happen in natural places
2) the water was warm, and not red-sea warm, but between 32 and 34 degrees - we could dive JUST in bathing suits.
It was just the most amazing thing ever! We spend around an hour time underwater and I didn't even feel the time.
Today, because the Christmas time is upon us I learned a new song entitled Greensleeves. This song was a nice way to feel the Christmas spirit and forget about pandemic that surrounds us everywhere. I really liked playing it, as it has a great melody, that is familiar but not quite.
What I also liked about it is that the rhythm is not monotonous and gets the music going as well as makes the song really enjoyable.
Today, as this is the last training before Christmas and probably one in the really long time thanks to the upcoming lockdown in Poland we spend most of it on playing matches.
My sister and I, along with two other (more advanced) players played a bunch of them, both doubles (two players on both sides) and singles (one on one). I, with my partner, managed to win the first double one, but the girls soon had their revenge with beating us in the second match.
Double matches really help to improve teamwork skills and quick reaction. One must also realise where the ball will land to decide whether they should take it, or leave it to the teammate. This is a thing and skill that is not required in single player matches as there the player must just answer to all balls, otherwise they lose points.
This week my sister went with me for the lesson as she came back home for holiday break. She is who I started tennis training with so it was much fun to play with her again.
We started by passing the ball to each other which felt like going back in time, except of course we both improved since our last game like that.
Later, not to stop this progress we practiced hits, in series of 3 - 3 hits made by me, 3 by my sister then 3 by me again. It's a really good practise as the balls come in fast one after the other so one has to really focus on them.
Today was the last day of Maraton Pisania Listów this year. Although spend the day at online lessons I managed to write additional 9 letters, which brings me to total of 23 letters.
I am very proud of the number of letters I was able to write and send. Although I know much more can be done in the field of human rights, and there are many more ongoing fights right now, I am certain the Maraton will make a difference. I hope many people, not only from our school, took part in it and decided to help people whose rights were being broken all around the world.
Later I went to the post to pick up the stamps, after putting them on the envelopes the letters were ready to send them away.
Today at Amnesty International Meeting along talking about protests and updating on human rights cases around the world we made final decisions concerning Maraton Pisania Listów 2020.
The marathon will take place this weekend, but it will be different than all previous marathons due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Everyone will write the letters on their own, and we will add up the number of letters at the end. I will write more about it in a CAS Project post.
At the last few Amnesty International Meetings besides talking about most current situations concerning the violation of human rights around the world we were discussing and making final decisions concerning our Amnesty CAS Project.
The CAS Project by Amnesty will be Maraton Pisania Listów. The marathon happens annually and is usually similar to one the year before. However, this year must be different because of the Covid-19 restrictions.
The goal and purpose of Maraton Pisania Listów is to write as many letters as possible. The letters are written in favour of people hurt due to the violation of human rights during the span of 3 days (from Saturday to Monday).
Usually the marathon happens at school. For two days people interested in supporting those, whose rights are being broken come to the school and write and address the letters together. The letters are later stamped by people from Amnesty International Raszyńska, while the money for the stamps is raised during multiple bake sales happening through the first semester.
This year, however, everyone will write their letters at home and send them themselves. The atmosphere will be surely different than that a year ago, but the goal of the marathon stays unchanged - to help innocent people to get justice that they deserve.
At this lesson we focused on improving forehand, which is the more complex of two ways of hitting the ball (forehand and backhand).
The thing that is the most problematic for mw is hitting the ball in the right place. As every ball flies differently this is one thing that cannot be repeated, afterall there aren't two identical balls nor two identical hits.
This technique is crucial for tennis players as it's one of basic hits thus it is often used in a game.
Today we had another Amnesty International Meeting during which we discussed police brutality and how it should never happen. We talked about how to stay safe on protests, why the police has no right to attack the protestants.
We talked how this applies to the democracy and to the human right to express one's opinion, and how not right it is that police didn't act on 11th November march but attacks peaceful Strajk Kobiet protests.
Last lesson I finished working on the Pirates of the Caribbean theme. However, I will still continue to play it and practise in my free time.
Today we started a new piece, this time its a part of polish folk music, instead of world movie soundtrack. The piece is called Jado goscie, jado, and as one can see on the picture below the notes are three pages long.
It is not as hard as it seems, as in folk music there is a lot of repeats and returning themes. Thanks to this I could focus more on the more detailed parts of the art that playing violin is, instead of on pure melody and rhythm.
At today's tennis training I was trying to improve my serves. This is the part of playing tennis I have most troubles with.
To make a proper serve one must have to first throw a ball upwards in a correct manner and later hit it with the racket so it hits the right place on the opponents area.
I don't have troubles with hitting the ball, but it hardly ever lands in the right place, and, of course, bad serve means losing points. That's why it is really important to master this part of tennis play.
Of course, I can see progress with this move since I started, but it's still not even close of what I would like it to be. Still, I keep trying and hope I will get better at it.
At this week's Amnesty International Meeting we further discussed the ongoing protests in Poland. How the ban of abortion is a violation of human rights and why it is important to protest and show that there is no place in Poland for such violation of women's rights.
Today's goal was to further improve my performance. I have spend most of the lesson reviewing and practising harder fragments of the Pirates of the Caribbean theme.
I have most issues with the specific fragment at the end of my music sheet. The rhythm there is really tricky which creates certain difficulties for me, but I'm working on it.
I think the way to truly improve is practise, practise and... practise! So that is what I'm planing to do.
As I joined Amnesty International Raszyńska, I will also take part in their CAS project, which is Maraton Pisania Listów. In the past years the event was happening in December and required meeting at school, so we do not know yet how it will be organised this year, due to the global pandemic. We are waiting for official information from Amnesty International Polska conserning this matter.
Today, due to the current situation in Poland, where thousends of people went out on the streets to protest the last week's decision of Polish Constitiutonal Tribunal, instead of having a regular meeting, we were told to attend a webinar by Amnesty International Polska dedicated to the issue of abortion.
The main goal of webinar was reminding why the abortion is one of basic human rights. It took aproximately 90min, during which Karolina Więckiewicz and Sandra Grzelaszyk anwsered questions asked by Mikołaj Czerwiński. The webinar helped me to achieve deeper understanding of the problem currently accuring in Poland.
This week at my violin lesson I began to learn something I've wanted to know how to play for a really long time - theme from Pirates of the Carribean.
Unfortunately, due to the Coronavirus pandemic I was unable to have a face-to-face lesson, instead I had it via zoom. This way was surprisingly efficient, and as it is not the same as meeting in real-life it is much better than I thought it would be.
This lesson started by reminding me of the d minor scale, in which Pirates of Carribean are written. We spent on it almost two thirds of our lesson, which is much more than I have ever spent on one scale. Nonetheless, I can already very clearly see the progress I'm making thanks to these lessons.
Due to the pandemic situation new restrictions have been imposed in Poland to minimise the spread of Covid-19, which include closing secondary schools and more rules regarding social and cultural events. These result in calling off most of the events by CKW I was suppose to participate in, so I decided to rejoin Amnesty International in my school.
Today's meeting was dedicated to a discussion about polish right wing party's idea to banish abortion completely, even in the cases of severe and irreversible foetal defect or incurable illness that threatens the foetus’ life. After this in Poland there will be no access to legal abortion AT ALL. Tomorrow, 22nd of October 2020 the Connstitutional Tribunal will almost definietely approve the novelisation, which will have disasterous consequence for all women living in Poland.
Today I shared my tennis lesson with three other people, one of which was my mom (as always) and two others are beginners like us. Due to this, after usual warm-up and many exercises to practise the hit, we played a match two agianst two.
It was an entirely new experience for me as I have only played alone matches and only with my sister or mom. The game was really intense and we lost, but I think this experince really helped me improve some of my teamwork skills in tennis - as they haven't had a chance to use them before.
Today I attened my first official violin lesson, after few weeks of practising at home.
At the beginning of the lesson I have preformed few basic exercises, so my teacher could see the level I'm at, which allowed her to adjust the plan of our lesson to my abilities. This way I will be able to learn most during the lessons.
Later I was learning to play a part of new piece - a Canon in D major by Johann Pachelbel.
I'm really looking forward to our next meeting, as I can see the lessons will greatly help me improve my abilities.
Today, along with my mom, I atteneded my first tennis lesson this school year. I have started to play tennis just last year, during lockdown, so I still have a great area fro growth in that discipline.
This lesson was mostly spent on reminding me about basic moves and rules of tennis after my long summer break. At the end we played a match (me and my mom) in which she beat me 10 to 2, which really motivates me ro improve my tennis skills in the following weeks.
Today I attended a meeting with Marcin Kielak - the coordinator of volunteers in Centrum Kultury Wilanów. I, along with few of my friends, decided on doing our service there as an alternative to being a volunteer in a museum, which we are unable to do because of the Covid-19 pandemic. At Centrum Kultury Wilanów we still are able to have contact with art, although not to the extend we would have in Art Museums.
During the meeting Mr. Marcin told us about being the volunteer at the center. Our role would be to help with various events organised by Centrum Kultury, for example preparing the room for a theatrical preformance and checking the tickets.
The meetin
g lasted almost an hour. At the end we signed the documents making us the official volunteers of Centrum Kultury Wilanów, we also signed on for our first event.
I am really looking forward towards being a volunteer there, as I think it gives me much room for personal development. In the picture there is CKW's plan for the October, other months will probably be as busy as this one is. I only hope Coronavirus pandemic won't develop further and there will be no need for closing bigger events, so I will be able to do my Service at CKW.
