Disclaimer⌗

The presentation (actually, a series of presentations) I would like to talk about happend at the end end of 2022-2023 school year. Therefore, it begs a question why the report is being written so late? Well, I was simply busy and had no time - at the end of the day part-time job, plus internships consumes a lot of my time.

However, I have finally found a free period in my schedule and I’m ready to catch up with the updates.

Let’s get started!

(PS. Besides the cover, there won’t be any photos. I was occupied with the presentation. I hope you’ll forgive me!)

Initial stage⌗

I think it’s worth keeping a chronological order of events and describe how I came up with the idea of presenting Bury Miś Foundation to younger classes first.

Well, it all started with my CAS coordinator mentioning some bits of my CAS journey to first and second graders. She just likes what I do and wanted to encourage other classes to participate in service activities that would benefit them. It occured to me that I could show other folks what I do as service by myself - especially, because Bury Miś provides volunteers with a lot of different stuff that do not necessarily mean interacting with people with disabilities (good for people who may feel uncomfortable.)

So I went off to the CAS coordinator to ask about my plan of presenting Bury Miś Foundation. It turned out she was very excited and gave me her blessing. She sent me her timetable so that I could pick up hours when I would free for presenting. I chose days and hours and everything looked fine, but…

God damn JIA⌗

Juvenile Idiopathic Arthithis is a freaking mess. No one on God’s Earth knows what the hell it is and how to treat it properly. It’s a freaking lottery.

The point is, I am one of the “lucky” guys who have this arthrithis and need to take drugs that wreak havor my immune system. Because of that, I’m very to susceptible to any common diseases like sore throat.

If you can connect the dots, you will know that the previous section ended with “but” and this one started with me complaining about JIA because… I got sore throat and couldn’t make it to the presentation.

I had to wait almost a moth - untill my IO started - to be able to find another date for my presentation 😒.

Okay. Enough of old man’s talk, let’s jump to the good part.

Presentation⌗

I couldn’t do all classes in one day (two classes of first graders and two classes of second graders, making total of four classes) so I had to split it up into two days. No problem with that, it’s just for your information.

Anywhoo, I did presentation in the first class and everything was fine. I didn’t expect extraordinary excitement - after all, voluntary work is not “sexy,” but I got some questions and probably made some people think. As for the technical part, everything went smoothly.

Issues started showing up later…

When I opened my laptop before second round of my presentation, it didn’t boot. I got an error saying that my operating system failed to upload. Magnificent, innit? Initially, I thought that something was wrong with my disk - MVMe are incredibly fast, but tend to die randomly.

After some time, I gave up and borrow the coordinator’s laptop. I couldn’t show my PowerPoint presentation I made because I made it on my desktop, not in the cloud, as always, which was huge mistake. However, I made use of my portfolio - more specifically, photos from there - to illustrate my points. So on one hand, everything was fine. On the other, the thought of loosing my precious laptop was upsetting.

The plot twist of this sotry is that, after the third presentation/talk, my device became alive once again for an unknown reason. I felt a mix of anger and great relief. Strange combination, I would say - I do not recommend it. I had computer science at the time of this revival and everyone looked at me as if I was a psychopat - which is understable, cosidering that I suddenly turned silence into hard core metal festival, shouting all over the place. Besides that, the last group could enjoy my mesmerizing PowerPoint presentation 😝.

Overal,⌗

I believe I need to work my on stress-handling skills. I was so freaked out by this whole computer-failure situation that my heart rate just sored to the sky - unnecessary, as I discovered.

Another thing to learn is to switch focus of my presentations from me to the audience. My impression is that I spent so much time on outlining the possibilities that came with Bury Miś that I missed to engage my listeners. Some folks paid attention out of their kindness, but many were bored. Although it’s unavoidable in such a topic, I could put more effort into making my speech more appealing to the students.

Apart from that, I’m glad I could speak, especially for the purpose like that. We need to help and even something simple can mean a lot to others. I hope someone will do something similar with their activities… or maybe it will be me?

You can access my presentation here. Yes, I finally made a back up.

Announcement⌗

While updating on the Resource Center, I mentioned I applied for the Writing Team Member position at IBelieve. Well, I am officially part of the team now and I’m writing my first article. I’ll write about it as soon as I can! I promise!

Learning outcomes:⌗

  • LO 3 Initiative and Planning
  • LO 6 Global Engagement
  • LO 7 Ethics of Choices and Actions