C.A.S.

Reflections Essay

Adil Khan 000431 026 May 2011 11/03/11

Reflecting over having done over 200 hours of Creative, Active and Service hours, I truly believe that they have helped to achieve things that I would have been unlikely to do had I not had the motivation of completing them behind me. In total, I completed 80 hours of Creative, 120 hours of Active, and 70 hours of Service, for a grand total of 270 hours, 70 hours over the required amount. With the pressure of completing them, I hiked over 100 kilometres in some of the harshest conditions the Britain has to offer, I helped found a charity for relief aid, and I spent innumerable hours doing a variety of sports and other activities.

For Creative hours, I first of all attended a conference in Caer Llan, Wales on a course designed to create and develop leadership skills necessary for work, school and social environments. We did rock climbing, abseiling; we went on a fivekilometre hike through the woods which required orientation, group decision, and leadership skills. The most exciting part of the course came when we did caving. We crawled through about half a kilometre of caves, which was home to several bats and in some places, the ceiling was less than a foot off the ground. We even conducted a play to demonstrate the plant aspect of the Beldin values. The whole event was very challenging as it required planning, accuracy, teamwork and most importantly leadership. For creative hours I also did the accountancy for the Tuck Shop for which I put in countless of hours tallying up totals and processing data.

Although for active hours I said I had completed 30 hours, this is probably a great under-exaggeration, since many of my hours were not logged. In reality I probably completed thrice that amount and I have gone to great lengths to train and work hard. I benefited greatly from this. The Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award was one of the toughest but most auspicious experiences of my life. We were in Exmoor for four days and it was very good. We walked about 100 kilometers. The first day was arduous but uneventful. The second day was very difficult however. The first part of that day was mostly uphill and the scenery was sparse making it difficult to navigate and it was very cold. We soon came to our checkpoint after which we had to cross a river. Searching the river banks however for almost half an hour we failed to find a bridge and we learnt that in fact no such bridge existed. We were forced to jump the river as best as we could and a couple of us even got slightly wet. We then had to climb a very large and extremely steep hill, which we found very hard and this was 1

possibly the lowest point of the whole expedition. At the top of the hill though it only got worse as it started to hail, horizontally. That day because the conditions had been so bad and was in fact much higher than the level required by Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award we were permitted to spend that night in a youth hostel - a luxury which we all appreciated immensely. The next day though we again carried on walking until we reached our final destination and were able to go home.

As part of the Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award, we were required to do a Service project. We decide that, living in a dormitory full of starving children, it would be a good idea to start a student-run Tuck Shop. Two other friends and I went out one weekend to buy supplies. We made a makeshift counter and in no time at all starting making money. Today, the Tuck Shop has evolved to become self-sufficient and the dormitory has even built a dedicated room for the sale of goods in the dormitory. This year we were able to donate 250 to charity with the hope of donating to Japan next year in a bid to remedy the effects of the recent tsunami. For service I also took part in a project to renovate a block of bathrooms for homeless children. I helped to sand down the walls apply paint, clean the floors and make the entire facility as hygienic as possible, given the dire conditions in which we found them in. In addition to this I also helped in conserving the local Woodland on the ACS campus by chopping down foreign trees that were harming the native flora.

CAS, despite the burden it poses on every International Baccalaureate student for a period lasting eighteen months, has given me many memories that I will never forget for as long as I live.