Sarahs CAS blog

 Looking back at my Jamaica trip, I was able to see the affect the United States has on other countries around the world. America has a very bad rep in many other countries, mainly because of our president Donald Trump. Many of the people I met during my trip were blown away by the kindness and compassion shown from us as they assumed all Americans were ignorant and only visited Jamaica for the beaches. Through me and my classmates doing good for the community there we were able to make lasting connections with people in the community, but also I gained so many memories, skills, and lessons through everyone we interacted with. Jamaica is generally a very poor country, so it was very interesting to me how the community there lived day to day, and how they were able to be so happy with the very little they had. It was definitely a reality check for me, as I came back more focused on the connections with those around me and making ties with my community. 

  As the beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic left millions without access to masks, while I was locked inside for who knows how long, I thought I would use my free time to help my community. My mom and I decided we would learn how to use our old sewing machine and figure out how to make face masks. We picked out pretty fabric, printed out the shapes needed for our facemasks, and decided how we could work together in order to reach maximum efficiency. My mom took the job of cutting and shaping the fabric, while I cut strips of elastic and used the sewing machine to assemble our masks. Once we had made around 50, we looked on facebook to see if any hospitals or rehab centers had posted anywhere about looking for mask donations. One of my mom's friends works at a foster home, so we ended up giving them most of our masks. The leftover masks we had went to our grandparents. Being able to help my community in such strange times like this was so important and special to me, but even more r...

  On this day, we conducted our survey-study in the city for the first time. I gripped the clipboard with a pen in my hand, and I walked over to the first person I saw in the center we were standing in with a smile on their face. I began asking the questions, and I answered all of the clarifying questions they asked. It was so strange to me how friendly and willing everyone in Jamaica was, as I felt like if we were to have conducted our study in the United States I would have had to answer about 27947 questions before we even started with the questionnaire i had prepared. Many surveys later, I learned those who belonged to the more violent political party were more hesitant to answer to which side they did belong to. As well as that, many people who were belonged to the other side hadnt voted in the last election. The results we had found were very helpful, but the thing that stuck out to me the most was still the compassion and immediate sense of help I got from every single perso...

  In our second meeting, we realized how many people may not feel comfortable exposing their political views, so we added many other questions so our research would have something else to fall back on just in case. Through many future meetings we all worked together, and thought about what we could use our city-study for, and how we could positively impact the community of falmouth jamaica through our findings. I was really moved by this project we worked together on as we were visiting a new city, and using the people to figure out a solution to the violence and problems they faced. I learned that although something may seem easy and normal to answer for us, we have to take into consideration some things are very different culturally so it may limit what we are able to talk about in Jamaica. I was very excited to learn more about the Jamaican culture, but more importantly see what I could do as an individual to help the city we were visiting.

Its sophomore year, and I see I was chosen to go to Jamaica for J term. I was so excited, yes Jamaica is a beautiful country, but I love doing community service work. In our first J term meeting, we discussed how as this was the first J term community-study trip, they would need volunteers to create the city study we would be doing. I volunteered, as I love anthropology. Throughout the next few weeks, I worked with the other 3 volunteers, and we brainstormed a topic for our city study. We were thinking about how we could get the most participants. One prevalent issue in Jamaica is violence related to political parties, so we decided to base our study off of that. We came up with an entire questionnaire we would then bring with us and ask the community. 

 Prom committee had been something I looked forward to since I was a freshman, so when I was finally "elected" Vice President my junior year, I was ecstatic to be able to put my planning skills to work. I worked alongside my teacher to come up with a detailed list of everything that needed to be done, and I worked with the committee as a whole to pick people for each aspect of what needed to be done. We had sub-committees like lights, hype-committee, food, and more. As I was both on the sub-committees and overseeing them all, it took a lot of working on my leadership skills, as I was not used to telling people older than me what to do. I also had to help set tickets, which was very difficult for me as it required me to convince people who weren't planning on going to prom not just to attend, but to buy a ticket as well. I definitely strengthened my talking skills on the phone, as I had to make all of the reservations and coordinate with our vendors. 

  I came to school the next one day with a request to help out with more senior stolls, so I got more supplies and sat down and intricately painted a design on the next stoll I was set to decorate. I was inspired by the person who would be wearing this stolls love for art, so I did a keith herring esque piece. I traced his signature people on paper, cut them out, and then traced them on the stoll. I used colorful acrylic paints to fill them in and complete my piece. Hours later, it turned out perfectly, even better than I envisioned. I was thanked for my hard work, but the work I did was more valuable to me than anyone else. The skills I gained through utilizing my free time to complete a very time consuming project made it all worth it when I got to see how well it turned out. Knowing I was able to put my skills to use and make someone smile over a keepsake they would have with them forever was very special to me.

I do consider myself an artistic person, so when I received an email asking for help completing the senior stoles, I was very excited to help. At first, I volunteered to help with one. I sat down, sketched out my idea, incorporated the person whos stoll I was doings favorite songs, and her favorite flowers as well. I spent maybe 5 hours and many of my own dollars to complete it, and was so excited with the way it turned out. I bought a bouquet of fake flowers, destemmed them, and hotglued them on to the front side. I thought to make it extra special, I would do a hidden design on the inside. I sketched out the cover art for a travis scott album, and perfectly recreated it using paint. I was very excited with the way this turned out and glad I got to help my school community. 

At school, I have an internship at Artix. I teach kids around the ages of 2-4 how to do art. Each week, we follow a different country and select a different art piece we have the kids mimic during the class time. During my internship, i work alongside 3 employees and another student at the post oak school. This has led to me interacting more with my community, and helped me alter my teaching skills to fit the needs of the 2-4 year olds learning styles. Aside from all of the teaching I was doing, I also needed to work on my organizational and cleaning skills, as I had to maintain a neat workspace and set up, break down for each class. I definitely learned how to work along all kinds of people, from toddlers to adults, and the skills I gained through this I utilize day to day. Although toddlers are hard to keep focused, the tricks I learned to keep them on track Im able to turn around and use for myself time to time.