CAS Long Term: CBOB- S

At this point, it has been about a year since I helped start our school's chapter of Children Beyond Our Borders. Last year was pretty frustrating trying to motivate everyone to actually put plans in to action. However, it was a valuable learning experience, and this year as president of the club I am hoping to be much more efficient. By the end of summer, I had already planned the first three meetings of the year and selected possible fundraising options (3 hours). Our first three meetings- the only ones we've had up to this point- have been a great success (3 hours). We have 48 club members, an elected executive board, a t-shirt designed, and plan on having our first big fundraising event in less than 2 weeks.

Being involved with this club has taught me that persistence pays off... eventually what you hope would happen will happen if you work hard enough at it. I also know that it is important to be dynamic and active, mostly to maintain interest of club members, but also to be as effective as possible. We have a cause to support, and the worst thing would be to not fulfill our responsibilities doing so. This year we want to send 9 kids through a year of mentoring in Medellin, Cali or Bogota, so we need to raise $1500. It's completely viable, and everyone seems excited enough already.

4th of July pies- C

I have been enjoying baking since the beginning of my CAS projects, and I decided it was time to switch to a new kind of baked good. I have memories of my grandmother and I making pies for past summers and other holidays, but this time I was on my own! The crust was the most challenging part, and since I made 5 double-crust pies, it was a strenuous (no sarcasm there), frustrating, and rewarding experience (4 hours). Since the recipe for the crust is only flour, frozen butter, and a little water, one can imagine how difficult it is for the crust to even stay together, much less spread to fit a 9x9 inch pan. Additionally, the cleanup was very time consuming because of the flour all over the counters, the melting butter on the pastry cloth, and the spilled egg that I used for glazing... plus all the dishes! Despite the tediousness, the three blueberry and two peach-ginger pies were delicious and proved a huge hit at the party I went to. I plan on making more pies for my friend Nick's birthday, Thanksgiving, and Christmas later this year.

Nicaragua- C, A, S

My trip to Nicaragua with a few classmates was the most successful of all of the CAS projects that I've completed! It really impacted the way we all see our lives, and was not always the most fun, but certainly the best over all. I had the role of organizer, translator when necessary, and at times babysitter... Needless to say it was a little stressful. But through everything, I learned about leadership- a good leader doesn't do things for others, but empowers them to do things for themselves. Ironically, that was paralleled to the message that the San Lucas Foundation wanted us to learn. Their job is to give Nicaraguan communities tools and opportunities to better their situation or condition, not provide a temporary 'band-aid' solution like handing out money to anyone that says they need it. I will take every moment, good or bad, from this trip with me in the future, and I feel as though all of my co-travellers will as well.

Our activity hours were as follows:


JUNE 11
soccer, mango picking and ping pong with my cousins and kids from the neighborhood (3 hours, A)
buying 1,100 plants from a local nursery to reforest the area of the Banco de Tierra that was burned by fire (3 hours, S)


JUNE 12
Iglesia de Renovacion Nazarena- Nicaraguan Protestant church experience
ping pong with the neighbors (1 hour, A)
hiking Volcan Masaya- Crater Santiago trail (4 hours, A)



JUNE 13
planting seedlings in the Banco de Tierra at La Conquista-  (10 hours, S)


JUNE 14
planting seedlings again, as well as taking care of the 2 team members that got sick (10 hours, S)


JUNE 15
planting seedlings (5 hours, S)
translating meeting with Banco de Tierra members and service brigade from Kansas in La Conquista (5 hours, C)
pizza dinner with San Lucas Foundation members and service brigade

JUNE 16
sports with at-risk youth in La Conquista community park (10 hours, A)


JUNE 17
6 hours La Casa activities with kids- board games, sports etc. (6 hours, S)
visit to Masaya's historical artisan market plaza


JUNE 18
learning how to play ultimate frisbee at Playa Maderas, San Juan del Sur beach (2 hours, A)

JUNE 19
church and 'relaxation'- also known as greeting my 50 relatives that stopped by the house we were staying in to celebrate my Tia Nora and Abuelita's birthdays, which fall on the same day


JUNE 20
ferry to the Isla de Ometepe from San Jorge and seasickness on the only lake in the world with freshwater sharks
hiking on the Isla de Ometepe- Punta Jesus Maria, Charco Verde, Ojo de Agua (4 hours, A)


JUNE 21
hike to see petroglyphs (2 hours, A)
ferry back to the 'mainland'


JUNE 22
Youth and the Environment celebration at La Casa in La Conquista (4 hours, S)
reading to youth at Biblioteca Semilla, Jinotepe and pastries at Anke's House (3 hours, C)
futbol at the court with new friends from church (1 hour, A)


JUNE 23
walking around Grenada, getting a flat tire, last-minute goodbyes to the San Lucas Foundation and family members

Carved Watermelon- C

For the French Club picnic, I decided to try to make a snack that was refreshing and healthy, since I knew a lot of the other food would be junk food and it would be very hot outside. The first search result for 'creative fruit salad' was a carved watermelon, which was perfect since we had just bought three! I added other fruits to make it brighter, and used a mini scoop to take out the watermelon meat. I decided to make it pretty simple because I was afraid of messing up, but I added some decoration around the outside as well. The end result was an adorable dish to take to the picnic and a bunch of leftover watermelon which I used to make 'agua de sandia,' a typical Nicaraguan drink, for later (1 hour). I love the idea and I'll probably use this in the future as a healthy and energizing contribution!

Zumba- A

Since mid-April, I've been to three more zumba classes (3 hours). However, I've tried two different teachers, which all have completely different styles! One of them, Logan, is the one I'm most used to, but it's been good to switch it up and try new songs. By now I have a group of 5 people that I meet regularly. We all enjoy it because the hour flies by so quickly despite the hard work!

Biking Hawthorne Trail- A

My friends Alex and Ellie have talked to me about biking for CAS hours many times in the past few weeks, and we finally got together to bike to Hawthorne Trail on one of our days off from school. I hadn't ridden a bike since biking home from work last summer, so it was a bit of a painful reminder that I need to work on my quad muscles. We went from my house to the second overlook on Paynes Prairie and back, which was about 10 miles total. We also walked around a little bit on a horse trail that we found, but went back to the bikes after a banana spider almost scared me to death (total of 3 hours). It was short, but on a hot day seemed like plenty of exercise. We were even lucky enough to see wild horses from the overlook view, which was unfortunately also spotted with cars from I-75 and Highway 441.

One of the few things I like about Florida

Cooking and music- C

My friends and I thought it would be a good idea to continue the international food activity that we did at the beginning of the year. This time, though, we loosely followed a Mexican cookbook to make delicious fresh salsa and vegetarian refried beans, and then made up the rest of the ingredients to put in to tortillas (2 hours). The food turned out great, despite the long time it took to make! We even fed four of our senior friends as a reward for finishing their IB history test, and they thought it was delicious.

We decided to dance to latin music while cooking

Our delicious ingredients, including grilled chicken for Alex and vegetable protein for Ellie and me

After eating, Alex taught a mini-lesson on the guitar. We learned how to play the first chords of one of my favorite songs, Smoke on Water by Deep Purple, and the basic base line for rhythm and blues (1 hour). I used to play the guitar, but that was about 10 years ago, and this activity reminded me of how difficult it is! I don't believe Alex when he says that it's one of the easiest instruments, but he certainly makes it sound that way. He also played a Spanish Lullaby which was amazing, and if I had more time, I would certainly try to learn that song... but for now I'll stick with re-learning the piano, flute or drums.

Asian dinner- C

Because of our break for IB/AP testing, I decided to take advantage of having some extra time to explore my vegetarian cookbook that I got for Hanukkah last year. I've had a thing for Asian food since my trip to Japan over the summer, and decided to try to match how tasty the tofu tasted in it's home continent. I ended up making a rice vinegar, tamari and butter glazed fried tofu garnished with spring onions and toasted garlic, which even my brother thought was tasty. Of course, I had to add a bowl of Indian lentils, as it is one of my favorite healthy proteins to eat since I don't eat regular meat. I also used our new rice maker to cook rice with sea salt, one of Asia's staple foods (total of 2 hours). I had a lot of fun experimenting with food that was healthy, very tasty, and not too hard to make. My goal is to learn 2 new recipes each month for the rest of the year.

Cake baking- C

I was inspired to bake for my friend Jon's birthday because I had a craving for cake and I thought it would be fun to decorate a baked good- something I hadn't done in a while (1 hour, April 14). It tasted so good that instead of just the original red velvet cake, I decided to make a lemon pound cake for my brother's birthday (1 hour, April 23). I made cream cheese icing (which I found out has an alarming amount of butter and sugar) and found a new enjoyment in making baked goods for friend and family birthdays, which I consider successful!

Zumba- A

I have continued to go to this class at the gym with my friends because it is so fun (3.5 hours)! Our Spanish teacher also organized a benefit zumbathon at school (1.5 hours), which about 60 people attended. It's been a great way to relieve stress and laugh with my friends!

Hiking in NC and Georgia- A

This spring break, instead of going to the beach or relaxing with friends, my parents decided to take me to colleges- UNC Chapel Hill, Duke, and Emory. I was upset that the trip would be a drag and not a real break from normality, but we ended up going to some great hiking trails in between college tours (8 hours). We went to Nantahala National Forest in North Carolina, which we frequent during the Thanksgiving holidays, but had never seen in this season. Actually, because it was rainy and foggy, and many of the trees still hadn't regained their leaves, it seemed more fall-like than the last time we visited! It was gorgeous, and I took plenty of pictures on our too-short breaks while walking up and down the slopes.

View from where we stopped to eat a snack

The days we went hiking were an average of 38 degrees... not so pleasant, but we kept warm while moving

The second day, we went to Gorges State Park, where we found a few signs of Spring despite the chilly weather. Part of the trail was about 1000 wooden steps, which I was dreading having to go back up. It wasn't too difficult, and was worth the view of the waterfalls!

Gainesville CARES- S

Since December, the UNICEF club at my school has been involved in co-hosting a 5K, called the Red Ribbon Run, with the Gainesville Pride Community Center to raise money for Gainesville CARES, a new non-profit that is dedicated to providing resources to people with AIDS/HIV and to prevent its spread in the area.

The process has been quite frustrating, mostly because I find it hard to fit the meetings in to my schedule since they have to be convenient for the working adults that are helping out as well as the high school students. At first it was very overwhelming, because the supervisor was very intense and the only people on board were him and about 5 of us kids. But as time went on we got more people involved that did lots of helpful work. In general, I helped with publicizing the event and getting word out to people that work with my mom's non-profit because she works with people with HIV/AIDS in the community as well. We went through a long process of selecting a logo, finding an adequate date, trying to organize the registration program and getting enough volunteers. I tried to get some UF organizations, such as ONE and a few fraternities and sororities, to become involved when I volunteered at the annual AIDS Awareness Night on World AIDS Day, December 1 (2 hours). The people were very interested at the time, but unfortunately as time went on they started dropping out because the schedule issues were just too difficult to deal with.
Up to now I've attended 11 meetings to plan and organize the 5K, and I have learned that it is much more difficult and complex than I expected (11 hours). I've also done some extra work that includes outreach, looking for sponsors, and mapping the event on mapmyrun.com (2 hours). There is a month left until the Red Ribbon Run, and finally things are starting to fall together after a shaky beginning!
Meeting dates (up to March 22, 2011):
December 2, 16
January 11, 18
February 1, 15, 24
March 17, 22

Conferencia- C

In addition to French, I am taking Spanish III this year. I want to perfect my grammar and communication skills in what used to be my first language, so I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to try out for Conferencia. I auditioned in December and was lucky enough to make the team. I was selected to memorize a poem, called La Marioneta de Gabo, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and to do extemporaneous speech in Spanish. This experience was probably one of the best all year! I got a perfect score on both events, and our team won first place in our division. This was the first time that I ever competed in anything like this, involving speaking or performing in front of judges. It really helped me become more confident in speaking Spanish and working under pressure. The teammates and coaches, Señor Avendaño, Srta Haedo, and Sra Zelaya, were a huge help. I met with Srta Haedo on 8 different occasions from January to March to practice my poem (2 hours), and practiced my extemporaneous speaking with my father and Sra Zelaya (2 hours). This doesn't include memorization time, though! I had to spend at least ten minutes each night for a while to memorize the poem and write all of my outlines for the speeches (4 hours). This was definitely one of the best projects I have been involved in during high school! Next year I am going to try to do declamation in Congrès, the French counterpart of the Conferencia competition.

Nicaragua Trip- C

In the future, I would love to find a career in anything that involves public health, international relations, or environmental sciences. When I had the idea of taking some friends down to Nicaragua in the summer of 2011, I realized that this could be a dream come true; I could try out each aspect of my career prospects to see if I liked them. I decided to organize this trip through the San Lucas Foundation because my uncle, Francisco Moraga, and aunt, Reyna Sanchez, run the Nicaragua branch and had told me about other service brigades' great experiences working with the community. So, I now serve as the bilingual liaison between the Nicaraguan organization and the American students and chaperone.
The goal of this trip is to combine all aspects of the CAS curriculum, and all three parts of my interests, in order to get as much possible out of this. I started the planning in November by researching possibilities for ecotourism, which would serve as our Active hours, and to incorporate my interest of environmental sciences (2 hours). I found out about a sea turtle preserve about two hours from the town we would be staying in called Chacocente. We will spend a night there with the park rangers to help ward off poachers, hike in the forest, and guide the turtle hatchlings to the water. We will be learning about the local fauna and about ways to involve the local communities in preventing the depletion of an endangered species that they used to depend on as a food and income source. We'll be visiting other rainforest preserves and hiking up a volcano, called Mombacho, as well. The last Active aspect will be volunteering at a kids' sports camp for two days, where we will also bring new equipment for everyone to use. Alex Alty, one of the students going to Nicaragua, has already graciously asked his soccer team to start gathering cleats, soccer balls, uniforms, and anything else that can be used by the Foundation's sport's camp to give children an alternative to street life.
I visited my family in Nicaragua over winter break and had the chance to do some planning and conferring with the organization, plus to visit the location that we would be doing our Service aspect of the project at (7 hours). The program is called the Banco de Tierra and is basically a project trying to get 13 families to become economically independent by harvesting crops, cooperating with neighbors, being environmentally friendly, promoting community health, and maintaining family values on about 100 acres of land that were purchased by the San Lucas Foundation. The families' goal is to become independent, but they need money and help to build homes, reforest some of the land back to native flora, and build latrines in environmentally viable locations.

Some of the families have already planted crops, but are still not able to manage them at a subsistence level because they have no way of getting to their land, which they want to eventually pay off (without interest) to the San Lucas Foundation, which is 40 minutes away from their current residence. That's why they need our help! Each student involved is requires to fundraise $200, which is enough for zinc roofing for a family of 6.

This is a picture of part of the area of land that the families will maintain and live from. One third of each family's land must be kept in its original state to preserve the local flora and fauna, but it may be used to collect wild fruit or food sources as long as it agrees with the rules of conservation.

Gilberto Morales, the current caretaker of the land, is working with the Foundation to develop a cheaper way to use cow dung, which excretes methane, for cooking and heating. He has not graduated from any college-type education, despite being over 40 years old, but he serves as an economist, naturalist, farmer, community leader, spokesperson, volunteer and father. This incredible man is one of the people waiting for a home, and he will most likely be our guide for this part of the trip.

The group of students, which includes Alex Alty, Jesse Smith-Appelson, Jon Yoo and Nick Vander Meer, has met twice at school. I was in charge of the first parent meeting at my house, and I held another meeting which everyone, including the chaperone, Heather Christian, attended to choose the project we'd be working on and to solidify the dates (total of 5 hours).

So far, I have considered most of my work as Creative hours, because it has generally consisted of planning, and me researching and formulating new ideas for how to make this project as successful as possible. However, the meetings were more service-oriented, as they were based on educating and fundraising for the Foundation.

CAS Long Term: CBOB- S

In May of 2010, the UNICEF Club at my high school recommended a workshop at UF that dealt with Internally Displaced Persons in Colombia and Uganda. The organization that ran the presentation and activities was Children Beyond Our Borders, a non-profit that started in Gainesville a few years ago. The experience was great for me, especially since I have a huge interest in working with non-profits, using language skills to interact with people abroad, and global education. Later, in August, I found out that a few seniors decided to start a chapter of CBOB at our school, and of course I decided to become involved. I became 'project manager' and decided to use this as my long-term project for CAS when I was offered the position of president-in-training for the 2011-2012 school year.
The point of this club is to educate, or spread the word, about kids in primarily Colombia that have little or limited access to education because of their situation of being displaced by the Civil War-like conflicts going on there. Also, fundraising is a big activity- obviously if we want to have a scholarship fund, buy supplies, and build schools, we'll need money! We raise money mostly through bake sales, potlucks and getting sponsors. Up to now, I've made brownies three times (total of 3 hours), and had fun experimenting with arepas, a typical Colombian food, for a potluck (2 hours). Our meetings, held about every third Tuesday (unfortunately pretty inconsistently because of the senior schedule conflicts) at school are mostly updates on what we're raising money for, and we've had six at B-lunch (total of 3 hours). Since I'm an officer, I've also been to three meetings at the regional CBOB office (total of 5 hours). I've also learned that I can't depend on fellow officers to get things done, however. I feel as though this has been my busiest year, but the seniors seem especially distracted. A month ago, I made a list of things I want to get done before this school year is over, and the other officers were amazed that I actually took time to do it. That was disappointing- the fact that they weren't willing to work towards this important project- but also helped me look forward to next year when I will be the one initiating activities instead of waiting for others to get things done. More to come on the progress of our CBOB chapter!

Here is the list of what we are currently working on:
-T-Shirt fundraiser designs
-New Horizons E-tutoring kids in Medellin, Colombia
-Getting sponsors for raffles and awareness campaigns
-Save the World Day in cooperation with Eastside's other service clubs (hopefully April 15-17)
-I Am CBOB Scholarship Fund (it costs about $250 for one year of college tuition in Colombia, and we want to raise enough for at least enough for two by the end of this year.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TngUpxOgCqY link to Jose's story, one of the young men  we're raising money for

Zumba- A

My Spanish teacher suggested going to a zumba class for fun. I tried it out with some of my friends, and we assumed that it would be embarrassing and awkward. As it turns out, zumba is both of those things, but they also play my favorite music- and the best part is that you burn 600 calories per hour. I've gone to 4 zumba classes at the GHFC and love going to relieve stress and vary my exercise (4 hours).

Photography at Kanapaha- C

Ever since I was little, I've loved going to Kanapaha Botanical Gardens to see the changes in season, however small they may be in Florida. I decided to go with my brother on a clear and cool day, which was perfect for taking pictures because of the stunning lighting (2 hours). I plan on going back in the later spring and summer to see how the same areas transform with different plants and sun.

Despite it being winter, Kanapaha still had some gorgeous blossoming trees

These cool plants looked stunning with the deep blue sky in the background

This pond reminded me of something Monet would paint because of the clear reflections and lily pads

Tennis- A

I started playing tennis last year for the school team. It was the first sport I had ever played, since the only other thing i had done was ballet. This year, I had wanted to play for the school team again, but wasn't able to because of time restrictions. However, I want to keep up my skills so that I can be on varsity next year. I don't play as often as I want, but I've done a lot of practice on my serves, which have always been one of my main problems (6 hours). If I can get past these, I have a better chance of playing a winning game.

Oceanography T-Shirts- C

This was another example of last-minute stress. My oceanography team captain called me and asked me to design a t-shirt for our competition that was a week away... It takes one week to get shirts delivered! Luckily I made some phone calls and explained our situation and was able to get everything taken care of in 5 business days, which meant the shirts would be ready the day before we left. Then the problem was getting a design by the deadline set by the t-shirt company. I decided to draw a horseshoe crab and called all the teammates for their ideas for a team name. I wish I had been able to take more time on this task, but the shirts turned out alright (total of 2 hours)!

Photo from Anastasyia Zolotukhin

Shirt back

UNICEF- S

I've been a member of Eastside's UNICEF Club since the 2009-2010 school year and decided to continue it this year. This is one of the few clubs that I'm a member of, not an officer; however, I was asked to help with ordering shirts (1 hour) in November and cooked Nicaraguan-style rice and beans for the potluck we held in the same month (1 hour) to raise money for the organization. The secretary has kept track of meetings at school as well (3 hours total). I like this club because my aunt is a journalist for UNICEF and I admire her work. I have learned that even though I may not have an elected position, I still end up doing a lot of work when I'm involved with groups- I went to the two officer meetings in October and November (2 hours total) to help get things started and make suggestions for goals to set in fundraising, ways to collect dues, and certain international dates, such as World AIDS Day, to plan events around. This cause matters a lot to me, and I'm glad to help out with the school's club. It has been another example of needing to take initiative, even if it's not my responsibility, to get things done.