Journal Club: During #2

This week, I was asked to write my Journal Club article for the term. It was about my class’s Spanish A Individual Oral Commentary (IOC) examinations that took place during the week of February 22nd. These were very important for us, as they were our first official IB tests that would determine a 15% of our final Spanish A grades. Therefore, it was a good topic for me to write about, as I had to live through the IOCs myself. In the article, I talk about how the exams went, how we prepared for them, and I also tell some funny stories about mistakes that occurred during the exams.

Again, I had trouble keeping the articles short and concise, but my Journal Club manager told me that I could write a little over the word limit, and I graciously accepted his offer. Another problem I had with this article was that I was given a very tight deadline: only one week to write it. Luckily, I did not have a lot of homework during that particular week, and I was able to manage my time very successfully. Finally, I questioned whether I should include some of the more embarrassing stories regarding the IOCs at first. Still, I easily solved this problem by asking the people involved for permission before writing about them and their mistakes.

All in all, I am very happy with how this article turned out, and I can’t wait until I get to write my final article for the year next term!

Pilates: During #2

Unfortunately, I was not able to keep up this activity very well during the months of December and January. This was partially due to the holiday season that came between them, but mostly because I was taking care of a lot of other activities outside of school. Most notably, I was taking many French classes and working to prepare for the French B2 exam, which was extremely hard and time-consuming for me. However, I am pleased to announce that, ever since I completed my exams on the week of February 8th, I have not missed a day of the activity, and I am starting to enjoy it more and more!

At first, it was hard to get back into the rhythm of going to these classes, and the exercises proved to be a little harder than usual because of my lack of practice. However, this past week everything has started to become much easier for me, and I think I’m already in better shape than what I was in before.

Lately, we have been focusing on balance and waist exercises in class. To train our balancing skills, we have been trying out different poses taken from yoga, such as the tree pose. We have also been standing up on small surfaces, such as balls and cylinders, and trying to maintain our balance there. Meanwhile, the waist exercises consisted on leg rotations and stretching. Furthermore, I have also noticed that I’ve been getting significantly better and some of the exercises that seemed more difficult to me before, such as the dog pose.

All in all, I am very happy to be back on track with this activity, and I am eager to improve my abilities more and more in the weeks to come.