Fitness Club - On a Roll

Shaun , Vinit, Stefan, Peter and me have used our lunchtimes to organize a fitness club. At first we concentrated it on metal and some sports, however not many people came. We reorganized the club making it more concentrated on torso workouts and bar exercises with some metal (which sadly only me and Stefan do). We use the Insanity Asylum and P90X programmes. The club is aimed at making the school more fit and just generally so people can have some fun and actually get some of their stress out of the way. We had about 20 people turning up on the first day and, approximately, the same amount on the next day.We use the upper part of the gym (the second floor) and soon will be moving on to the broader area on the first. By doing this we increase our awareness of strengths and weaknesses, as well as developing new skills, working with others and showing perseverance and commitment in our activities.

Weather Club

The IB has been continuing on running the weather club.. We measure the maximum and minimum temperature for each day, current temperatures, snow fall, cloud cover and  pressure. The devices are reset every time readings are taken. Running the weather club will allow us to graph our values and analyse the temperature in moscow, write down some records, possibly calculate averages and also compare the chart that will be drawn this year with the charts from previous years. The weather club and using the data obtained and comparing it with previous years we could even perhaps make some conclusions about global warming. By participating in Weather Club we have shown perseverance and commitment in our activities, as well as contribute to issues of global importance and develop new skills.

Hockey - The End is Near

This is it, the last two games are left in, possibly, my last hockey season, I am not ready for the end and although I know it is close I continue to do my best. It is only at this moment in time that I realized how important hockey is to me, it's my drug, a drug I cannot live without and it will be practically impossible to find a sport, which gives me dramatic peaks of adrenaline, pain that you learn to overcome and the taste of victory, sweeter than any wine, when won against the odds. The speed and the hard hits are impossible to forget, the competition is always high, but so is the reward; this sport does not take kindly to those of cowardly nature, neither to those who do not know the meaning of sacrifice. This sport has taught me to work with others it has taught me to live up to the challenge with the words "never back down" playing in my head,  it showed me my strengths and my weaknesses, on my long path I have encountered obstacles, which developed new skills and made me undertake new challenges and I have shown that I was worthy of moving on. This sport is practically my whole life now and I will take any chance to keep it. 

Winter Day

It may seem strange that the IB students organized Winter Day at the start of Spring, but accounting for Moscow's harsh weather, it was a good time to hold it. The temperature was just below zero and we had the sun look out at the end of the day, so you could say that the weather took our side during this event.

The IB planned and initiated activities throughout the day, I was focused on the obstacle course me, Vinit and Stefan, with some help from Shaun Lehane, who organized another activity later on. Overall the four of us spent 5 lunchtimes (this adds up to 5 hours in total) in order to get it prepared.  The obstacle course started with a few holes in the snow which were to be jumped into. After that the students had to crawl under the net, run around the snow hill and go through a tunnel (made using snow and an old whiteboard). After entering the tunnel they had to take a U-turn an accelerate in order to jump over the snow hill, after that they followed through under the net and around a mountain of snow. The participants were then required to crawl and jump over barriers, then a straight and finally the finish on the top of the mountain of snow (approximately 2.5 metres high). We timed the students and for each mistake an extra 3 seconds was added to their time. The teachers also took part and also everyone was allowed to shoot snowballs at the person running through the obstacle course in order to slow him down. By doing this I believe we have undertaken new challenges, as well as worked collaboratively with others.

Most people that attempted to complete the course hit a "snow storm" along the way, I have no clue how some teachers managed to crawl up the final  slope, after and avalanche of snowballs came down on them and I won't neglect that some of those snowballs were thrown by me. Overall, we spent approximately 6 hours outside, throughout the day we developed new skills and simply had fun, I sure hope that this will not be the last event that the IB students organize, since these events are not only enjoyable, but they help us increase our awareness of our strengths and areas for growth.