Grade 11 - Athletics Highlight - WCISVC

Over the October long weekend I participated in the Western Canadian Independent School's Volleyball Championship hosted at Crofton House School. This was a great learning experience for myself and the team.  Click here to visit the WCISVC website.

Grade 10 - Arts Reflection - Photography

This year I have really taken an interest in photography. Although I wasn't eligible to take the course in Collingwood's timetable this year I always seemed to make time for my hobby in my spare time. I love to take photos of nature, so Vancouver is a great place to enjoy taking pictures!

My love of photography started when my Grandfather left me his Nikon film camera.  I was 9 and loved to experiment with this new gadget. I loved the anticipation that came with waiting for the film to be developed, but soon realized that in order to take more pictures and have them more easily accessible to show my friends and family, I would need a more reliable camera. Two christmases ago, my Dad bought me a Canon Rebel T1i camera and I have been in love ever since!

Photography is a great way for me to express myself and I am so excited to continue with it in the future!

Grade 10 - Choice Highlight #3 - Volleyball Nationals

 For the past 2 years I have played club volleyball with the North Shore Stars.  This season we had the change to travel to Toronto to participate in the U16 National Championships.  It was an exciting 4 days of play, and in the end we came 10th in Tier 2, which was a very good accomplishment.  We played well as a team and persevered through all the matches coming out with some strong victories.  Go Stars!

Grade 10 - Academics Highlight - Pre-Calc 11

This year I was in Pre-Calculus 11. I found it to be a huge step up from Math 10, so I struggled throughout the year with grasping concepts and applying them to do well on tests.  I was really worried about my mark and how it kept dropping with each test, so I began going in twice a week at lunch and doing 30 minutes of practice each night at home. Around exam time I studied hard and worked to understand and improve each unit.  By the end of the year, even though my mark wasn't exactly where I wanted it to be, I knew I had tried my best and worked hard to improve, which I was proud of.

Grade 10 - Athletic Reflection - Track and Field!

 For the past few years I have been a part of Collingwood's track and field team. At the start, I only competed in high jump, but this year I have really started to branch out and try some new events!  This season I tried 400m hurdles, 100m hurdles, 100m sprint, and long jump in addition to keeping with high jump.  I was very proud of myself for trying the new events, especially when in my first 400m hurdles exhibition race, I came first!

Last season and this season I had been having some mental issues with high jump. I knew I could make the height, but for some reason my body wouldn't listen and I was too scared to even attempt many heights. At the North Shores qualifying meet, I really didn't want to compete in high jump because I thought I would embarrass myself or not jump to my abilities.  In the end, I forced myself to jump and i qualified for the North Shores.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend the meet because of some scheduling problems, but in the end what mattered was that I pushed through and faced my fears.

Grade 10 - Academic Reflection - Model UN Trip

During the Model UN Trip in Grade 10, I learned a lot about the global community and myself.  I chose to write about this trip for my Academic reflection because it was really an eye-opening experience for me.  I really enjoyed meeting so many people from all over the world and I learned that even though people can be from such different backgrounds and places, they can still agree on one simple initiative or idea and work together to produce a common goal.

Working with others during the Model UN conference helped me improve upon my negotiation and listening skills. To come to a common realization or goal, everyones opinions and thoughts need to be heard and taken into account. At the start of the three days, it was difficult for me to really contribute to the conversation because everyone had such strong opinions, but I feel like as the hours passed I felt more and more confident in the environment. By the end I was involved in debate and I even was a sponsor on one of the resolutions produced by our committee! 

I learned a lot during the tourism portion of the trip as well. We visited the 9/11 Memorial, which really put into perspective the severity of the events that I couldn't really understand at the young age I was when the attacks happened.  Also, we visited the CBC stages in New York. It was very interesting to see how and where many famous TV shows and movies were filmed!  

I loved New York and Im sure I'll be going back there in the near future!

Grade 10 - Choice Highlight #2 - Pomegranate Art Piece

In second term of Grade 10, in Studio Art 10AP, we were tasked with a bredth project. We could do anything of our choice for this project, which at the start made me a little bit nervous.  I am used to being given at least some guidelines and working within them.  I chose to draw a pomegranate and grapefruits with Prismacolours (blendable pencil crayons) and I was very pleased with the result. At the start I was worried and having trouble with the project, but I kept working at it and in the end I was very happy with the piece!