FINAL REFLECTION--Guitar Lessons

I happen to write this reflection immediately after returning from my last guitar lesson of the school year. We worked harder than usual today, and I learned the notes to Let Her Go by Passenger. In guitar, my primary objectives were just to be able to learn more sosngs. Sure I wanted to learn more skills, to get better at holding bar chords, to improve my knowledge of scales, but ultimately, what i wanted most was to just be able to pick up a guitar and start playing, and have people recognize the tune I was playing. I did a wide variety of things. Primarily each month i focused on a different song, and by learning that song I learned various advanced techniques. When I learned Seven Nation Army by the White Stripes, I learned plam muting, Hotel California taught me slides. I learned a multitude of songs from classic to classic rock to pop. Now I can profeciently play No Woman No Cry and Redmption Song by Bob Marley, and can play Hotel California and many other songs. I was very succesful in achieving my goals, I now know a couple of songs that I really like and can just play whenever I pick up a guitar. Whenever I started a new song, I encountered difficulties, a new chord i wasn't used to holding, a pattern of notes that just went by too fast. However, practice makes perfect and I got great satisfaction from eventually mastering these songs. From the activity i not only learned many more songs and developed my guitar skills, I also learned the value of determination, and even if a challenge seems insurmountable at first, keep at it and eventually you can overcome it.

FINAL REFLECTION--Weight Training/Fitness

My ultimate objective with my action project was to be able to get in much better shaoe and to generally feel more comfortable about my body and to be able to perform more strength intensive tasks. The activity consisted of a daily routine consisting of a total of 20 push ups and 100 crunches throughout the day. Once a week a personal trainer would come for an hour, saturday mornings, and with him i would do sprints, weight exercises, and intense ab worksouts. Now looking back, the differnce is night and day. I am able to do full repetitions of my exercises without getting too tired but more importantly they are deeply ingrained into my daily routine, so I am likely to continue the exercises. I am much stronger and generally have a lot more confidence. I was very succesful in achieving my objectives, I feel much better about my body and have more energy throughout the day. At first I had very great difficulties with motivation. I would wake up and had to get ready for school, and was just too sleepy to work out in the morning. Or at night id say that i would just work out extra hard tomorrow instead of working out before going to bed. However, i realized that if I wanted to imporve, I would need to be more determined, so every morning and night I would motivate myself to work out. At first i hated the plan but as I saw actual signs of improvement I became more and more enthusiastic and now I love my work out routine. Iv learned self motivation. Before I was not very determined and would procrastinate and put stuff off, however now I am much more focused and generally procrastinate much less than I did before. Thi activity has taught me many skills that could be applied to real life, the most important lesson is that if you actually want to accomplish something, you have to make it happen.

FINAL REFLECTION--Under Construction

I have concluded this school year's under construction project. Our objectives were introduced to us from the first build at the beginning of the year, where we essentially had to construct a soccer pitch for the students at Grace Harvest Academy in Kangemi. I was hoping to get to know the kids better and be able to understand their environment more. Overall, we dug out an entire hill for the soccer pitch, flattened out the land, constructed and painted a large fence around the pitch, and finally built and painted goals for the pitch. We finished all the tasks we had set out for ourselves except for constructing a large net around the pitch to catch balls flying over the fence but other than that we have successfully constructed a usable soccer pitch. At a physical level, I was very successful seeing as the pitch was fully built in the time we had. I also had the privilege of interacting with and even playing football with some of the schoolchildren at the school. This gave me an opportunity to talk to them and get to know them which I am very thankful for. My main difficulties that I encountered was exhaustion. Working 5 hours straight in the blaring sun carrying extremely heavy loads and digging away is very tiring. On my first build we dug into a sack of rotted material and the stench was so nauseating we could not even work. However, ultimately were doing it for the kids so I picked myself up, and worked hard until the build was over, with only a few breaks in between. I loved this activity, it allows me to get hand on and experience an area of Kenya that I am still largely unfamiliar with but want to know better. This activity has taught me to not give up no matter how im feeling because ultimately there are more important things to worry about than myself. I have developed a greater sense of selflessness and now want to do more to help the community around me. I could easily apply the skills I'v learned in Habitat in case I ever have to do construction work by myself.

creativity-Guitar!!!

My creativity project was a continuation of last year's. LAst year I started learning guitar and concluded by being able to play Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin. This year I continued lessons with my guitar teacher, Chris. However, as I know the basics, we were able to accomplish much more. We started the year by looking at classical peices and after two months I was able to read music fairly well and can play some classical guitar. However, after that we moved on to modern music. We learned pop songs such as Catch a Grenade by Bruno Mars and Beautiful by One Direction. This songs did not really intrest me so I slowed down with practice. However after christmas break we started looking at REdemption Song by Bob Marley and Hotel California vy the Eagles. These are two classic songs that I listened to heavily when I was younger and being able to learn them is truly a privelage. Redemption song is quite easy and fun so I got back into guitar by learning it and that also boosted my confidence. Hotel California has some advanced techniques such as hammer ons and slides but once i mastered them I felt very accomplished. I have improved exponentially this year. Guitar is a great creative outlet, and every lesson i do 15 minutes of improvised solo work. I love guitar and cannot wait to continue it next year.

Action--Weight Training

Rather than last year, when I worked on CArdiovascular fitness, this year I focused on improving my strength and general shape. I do a lot of weight lifting and routine exercises rather than runs now. My daily routine goes as every morning, 20 push ups and 40 crunches, and every night 20 push ups and 60 crunches. Though this has creatly improved my shape, it is primarily oriented at maintaing a good body. I am no longer improving from this, but I am maintaining my body shape and muscle. I am not too interested in building extra muscle, but this keeps me in good shape. Every Saturday, a personal trainer, Pius, comes to my house. First of all I do 5 minutes of stretching, followed by a 5 minute sprint around my garden. Then I do about 10 minutes of push ups of crunches. After that I work on my muscles, using weights I do chest presses, arm raises, and arm lifts. I do scissors for about 5 minutes after that, which greatly helps my abs. After that I stretch to cool down and thats it. So along with my daily routine, I have a saturday of vigarous excersize. In total, all of this means I am in much better shape than the beginning of the year. I have much more energy throughout the day, and generally feel a lot more self confident day to day.

Service- Under Construction build 3 (final)

I had my third and final under construction project on April 12th, 2014. We went to the Grace harvest School in Kangemi. This was the conclusion to our project there. Our overarching goal was to build a soccer pitch for the students there to enjoy. On the first two builds we leveled down the area shown in the background of the first image, before we dug that out it was a hill, and now it is flat. During this build, we painted that fence shown in all pictures. Yup, the whole fence, we painted it blue. Then we unloaded metal poles and constructed two soccer goals. Then we painted the soccer goals. The ball shown in picture 2 is a specail type of ball donated by a charity, they are virtually indestructable and highly resilient to weathering and harsh conditions. By the time we were done, the kids there were ecstatic. They were already playing football while we were painting the fence. It was a truly unforgettable and highly rewarding experience.  I cant wait to do under construction next year.

Service- Under Construction Build November 30th 2013

My most recent Under Construction build has been to Morningstar Academy in Kangemi Slum. Last year was a similar story, where all the builds apart from the first of the year alternated between Harvest and Morningstar Academy in Kangemi.

We arrived at the school a little before 8 in the morning and were debriefed on our objective. Unlike the first build, here at Morningstar we had a variety of different tasks. The overarching goal was to clear space and gather materials for a construction of a separate branch of the school. Morningstar is much more decrepit than Harvest Academy, having only about 6 small tin sheds to house over 200 students. A lot of the kids in Kangemi go to Morningstar so this build was of great importance.

We were first stationed outside of the school, tasked with whittling away and clearing a large mound of dirt that would be transformed into a new classroom. It was work much like that of our first build, where we were clearing away dirt. After about 2 to 3 hours of digging and hoeing, we finally succeeded in clearing the land, and had a nice piece of flat land to begin construction. But first we needed supplies.

Truck after truck wheeled in and deposited large mounds of construction material. However, because the alleways of the slums are too narrow and slippery for a truck to enter, they deposited the materials about 200 meters away from where we were actually working. In teams of two we trekked through the back alleys of the slum to the drop of point, and slowly started transporting the materials to the school.

 

After transporting all of the construction materials, we finally thought we were done. Yet to our surprise, even more trucks wheeled in and dropped of truckful after truckful of rocks, forming a mound so large it blocked the alleyway and towered over us. A rotating crew of about 3 to 4 people were stationed at the mound with shovels. People would constantly be running up with buckets or wheelbarrows, whatever they could find to transport the rocks. Their receptacles would be filled up, then they would run back to the build site, unload their cargo, and return back for more rocks. This grueling work took about 3 hours. Finally, we couldn't believe it but that mound of rocks disappeared and our work was finally done, all materials ready and convenient for a more skilled crew to do their work. Overall, the trip was long and hard, yet incredibly rewarding.