A New Year at the Day Times

Last week, the Day Times (our school newspaper) named the new positions for the next school year. I was happy to hear that I will be a senior editor for the 2010-2011 school year. The senior editor position in past years has been known as a “joke position” for seniors who were not named editor-in-chief, however I intent on taking full advantage of my opportunity to help the next generation of Day Timers and imparting the knowledge I have collected over my three years.

The sports section has been my passion for the last three years and I will need to be especially helpful next year because our sports editors have very little of sports in general. I feel an obligation to “give back” to my section, and have already in this last issue begun the process of guiding the way for the new sports editors. I am excited to see the new editors show much passion and efforts towards creating the best sports section possible. Being a year older and wiser, I have found it important to help the new editors become acclimated with sports like last year’s senior editors helped me. This helps me achieve the fourth IB learning outcome: Working collaboratively with others.

Another exciting aspect of my senior editor job is the honor given to us of creating the back page of the newspaper. I have always thought of the back page as the second most important page in the entire Day Times (behind the front page) and it is important to make the best page possible to attract other students to the paper. This less rule bound page has gotten my creative juices flowing, an opportunity I have seldom been given. For this next issue, the other senior editors and I have come up with a great idea which I’m sure the DCDS community will enjoy.

Summer in Costa Rica

As the summer approaches, I am getting excited about my upcoming trip to Costa Rica. During my four weeks in Heredia, Costa Rica, I will be staying with a local family, immersing myself in the Spanish language. After two weeks of study at the local college, I will be doing community service at the local school and environmental center. Of the many activities I will be participating in during my stay in Costa Rica, I am most excited to be helping the underprivileged children at the schools. I have been blessed to have an education which has put me in a prostitution to succeed in the future. I hope to give back when I go to Costa Rica, passing on the love of learning which has been instilled in me during my time at DCDS. This experience will help me achieve most of the 8 IB learning outcomes. I will definitely gain awareness of my strengths and weakness in the realm of leadership. I have never previously worked with younger children for an extended period of time and the time I spend at the school will help me learn communication skills which I can bring back to my local community when I return in August.

Along with working at the schools, I will be helping maintain the environment in Heredia by planting trees and taking weeds out of the soil. Not only will I gain an appreciation of the environment, but I will also learn the value of tough manual labor. This will help me understand learning outcome #5: Showing commitment and perseverance in my activities.

Another important aspect of my trip will be immersion in the Spanish language. I have always thought that in order to show proper respect in a conversation with a person of a different culture, I should be able to communicate with them in their first language. Seeing as Spanish is become of a prominent part of North American culture, I think it is best that I improve my Spanish speaking skills. This is definitely an issue of global political importance because communication cross culturally are severely limited. I hope that putting myself in a different situation and taking myself out of my comfort zone will help me gain self-confidence in unusual situations. Another skill I can use when I return to Country Day next fall.