Emotions: I want to be satisfied with the way I handle my emotions, and how it affects my relationships. I want to be able to reach out for help whenever needed and regulate it in non-self destructive habits. Instead of scrolling, I could read a book or journal. This can ensure that I don’t have mood swings or act impulsively.
Spirituality: I want to be in a community where I can be myself and I feel good. By choosing the right friends, building a good relationship with my online community and Bible studies community, I can become a better version of myself and help others become the best version of themselves.
Rest & Play: I want to have more hobbies that I regularly do, to keep myself away from scrolling but also improving myself in various ways.
Resilience: I will be satisfie with the way I handle stress, in health ways not engaging in self-destructive ways, so I don’t get too stressed.
Care for Body: I want to be satisfied with the amount of time I put in to take care of my hygiene and mental health, and movement in my body. I also want t be more mindful about the food I consume, while keeping body positivity in mind.
Organization: I want to be on top of my schoolwork and manage my time well for school, play and rest to be balanced and not rush all the time.
Schoolwork: I want to participate and pay attention in class, and prepare homework for my classes/extracurriculars/volunteer work/job and put in a lot of effort.
Relationships: I want to maintain healthy relationships with respect, honesty and trust. These relationships include my family, friends, classmates, teachers etc.
My wellness compass statement I’m working towards healthy relationships is “I am satisfied with the amount of time I spend with the important people in my life.” My wish to “spend more time with my important friends and family members that I don’t see often.” It seems difficult to do so but through online communication and scheduling times to meet up I have talked to many important friends I don’t talk to often anymore.
Evidence
I have a good friend who is from another school in Shanghai. We had a basketball match and also communicated so that we could hang out after the match to catch up on some things. We ate ice cream together and chatted for an hour, and it was really fun catching up.
I also texted my friends and cousins who didn’t live in Shanghai. I got to talk to them by sharing things with them such as little things that reminded me of them, and small acomplishments that they helped me with before.
I also had a few friends visiting Shanghai in the Spring Break. We scheduled activities for the few days they were around and hung out. It was very fun.
Conclusion
My wish did come true, and I got to talk to many good friends that I didn’t talk to often. I chose this wish because I felt like because of transferring into a new school and a lot of friends moving out of China because of the quarantine, a lot of my good friends have left me. I had a lot of obstacles such as time differences, but I managed to schedule things to make it work.
What I learned from the OCD mental health project By Caylen Wang C1
Introduction to OCD
Learning about Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) has changed my understanding and view on mental health conditions. Before, I thought OCD was just about being very neat or liking things in order. But now I know it’s a serious condition that can make life difficult.
Stigma and Misconceptions
Caption: The illustration above shows misconceptions about OCD, such as cleaning and being overwhelmed. In reality, repeated thoughts and obsessions over anything could be signs of OCD.
I used to think that OCD was just about being tidy, but now I think it’s about having thoughts that you can’t stop thinking about (obsessions) and doing things over and over (compulsions). According to the Mayo Clinic, these obsessions and compulsions can really disrupt daily life (Mayo Clinic). I used to assume things about the conditions, which I learned was wrong.
I also learned about how people with OCD often face stigma. Stigma is when people judge people for many small things and sometimes even discriminate tham. I used to think that stigma came from others, but now I think that people with OCD might also feel bad about themselves and even hate themselves for it. Self-stigma can make it hard for them to ask for help and accept being unique. Some celebrities such as Harrison Ford and Charlie Puth have this condition, and they share their experience with public, which helps them to cope with stress and dealing with it. They say that being open about it has helped them a lot by accepting, embracing and spreading the message. (American Psychiatry Association, 2024).
Caption: Social media can cause a lot of stigma. According to Mind.org in the UK, social media plays a large role in spreading misconceptions and negative messages. Hate comments and even illustrations of OCD that have accidental or purposeful stigma can perpetuate harmful views of this. This can cause more obsessions and compulstions over harmful things on social media.
I used to think that social media can spread stigma through only hate comments, but through research,I found a lot of people with good intention of clearing misconceptions and trying not to have stigma towards any mental conditions in social media, so now I think that social media can be positive towards patients with OCD and communities with people diagnosed with OCD.
Conclusion
The presentation showed me that there are effective treatments for OCD. Talk therapy can really help by sharing their experience, making other people have empathy to understand them and talk it out. Sometimes, medication is also needed. Sometimes, both are needed. I used to think that treatment was just about taking medicine, but now I think that therapy and medication together work best. Places like the Center for OCD and Related Disorders at Harvard Medical School offer specialized care. Combining different types of treatment can be very effective. (Harvard Medicine).
Lastly, I learned that it’s important to reduce stigma and encourage people to take care of their mental health. I used to think that physical health was more important, but now I think that mental health is just as important, because of many assumptions of physical health conditions being more “seen” and “tangible,” while mental health can be “fake.” Now, I disagree with this major misconception and strive for equity, understanding and aid for all patients with mental health conditions.
The purpose of my conference is to explain what I want to share with my parents about my learning journey.
I’d like to share:
What I’ve done and what I still want to achieve
Some areas of growth, struggles, and some of my work
My goals and how I plan to achieve them
My Vision Board
Some of the things included on my vision board are:
Basketball
Healthy food
Studying
Reading
These are important because they help me maintain a healthy lifestyle and have balance between work, play and healthy activities.
My Goals Are:
1. I want to stop procrastinating and finish all my work before doing other things because I need to learn to prioritize work before play. I will only use my phone during 7am-8pm, and make sure my weekly average decreases every week.
2.I want to try to exercise at least 4 times a week or get at least 10k steps twice a week so I keep being healthy. I will use my Apple Watch to track my progress and make sure I close my fitness rings when I don’t get 10k steps.
3.I want to read English and Chinese books for at least 20 minutes each every day so I can improve my literacy and comprehension skills. I will track my progress with a habit tracker, and my goal by the end of the year is to read 20 books.
Here is evidence of how I was able to start to make progress towards my goals.
This is the screen time average from my system settings on my phone, which shows how much time I spend on my phone. By reducing my screen time, I get more time doing things I enjoy or finishing everything I set out for the day, instead of procrastinating until the last minute.
2. The red ring represents calories burnt out of 270 calories, the green ring is exercise minutes out of 25 minutes, and the inner blue ring is stand hours out of 10 hours. This tells me if I need to work out or walk more during the day.
3. This is a table on my notion page that keeps track of how many books I’ve read so far. I am currently reading 3 books of 3 different languages and finished 3 books so far, so I’m pretty much on track.
Transdisciplinary Transfer Goal (TTG)
The TTG I chose to reflect upon throughout the year is SKILLFUL COMMUNICATORS – SAS students are skillful communicators who advocate for self, others, and ideas in more than one language by listening, responding, and articulating through multiple media.
I am good at finishing all my assignments before deadlines and emailing teachers if there are any absences in class. I don’t have any overdue assignments.
CHALLENGING MYSELF
I like to challenge myself in subjects such as doing optional homework or doing harder options in subjects, but also handing all my assignments in on time.
Areas of Growth
Some of the skills I would like to grow in are…
ORGANIZATION
I keep changing my organization method, from a paper planner to a digital planner to a paper to-do list, I’ve been struggling with one that works for me. So, I will try to stick to one method such as a simple online to-do list.
TIME MANAGEMENT
This school year,I have been struggling with my phone usage and other distractions. I will try not to procrastinate and finish my work before going on my phone. I will also set time limits on my phone so that I can’t use my phone after 7pm to get enough time for downtime and sleep.
Highlights of the year:
My favorite lessons, moments, activities, days of the year were: exploding the pumpkin in math, pumpkin carving in Halloween, SISAC and JPAC, High School Season 2 Evening Recognition, bonding day, and doing passion projects because we got to do some different things than school, such as exploring different places and doing exciting things while still learning skills. Through SISAC and JPAC I learned to collaborate, communicate, persevere and observe. It was a really fun experience.
JPAC @ HKIS (We got 1st place!) High School Season 2 Evening RecognitionSISAC @ Dulwich Puxi (We got 2nd place!)
Closing
Thank you for listening to my progress towards my goals over the last year. Do you have any questions?
Artifact 1: This is a project where Ying, Jayden, Mateo and I collaborated together to create a storyboard synopsis of our created story “Brotherhood Expedition” by writing detailed prompts to AI and generating images. We also expanded on the story that AI wrote by picking one single scene to expand into at least 500 words, which was challenging because we had to use lots of sensory descriptions and be detailed with small things.
Artifact 2: In Unit 2, we wrote literary analytical essays about 3 short stories and their ethical dilemma of our choice. We first came up with scenarios (paragraph 1) and then used AI to help us summarize the ethical dilemma. Then the AI bot also found stories that have this dilemma, and we analyzed it and wrote with academic language. It was quite challenging since we had to learn new academic vocabulary and write analytical sentences.
Artifact 1: Cover song of “Until I Found You” by Stephen Sanchez and Em Beihold, adapted by us!Through analyzing the structure of the song, the instruments used, time signature, key and chords used. In this activity, I had to learn to listen to parts very carefully and notate. From this activity I learned about how different instruments are used in a song, and how we would adapt it a little bit. I also learned how to sing harmony and play piano at the same time, which was a challenge, but through lots of practice it wasn’t hard.
Artifact 2: This is a scene composition for the “Chicago Train” video. I used loops in C minor and some other recorded parts. I also listened to some electronic/dark music, which I tried to match the vibe with . Through this activity I learned how to use iMovie and also how to compose scene music (because it was my first time.)
StayFocused is a Chrome extension that blocks or sets time limits on apps. I can personalize which websites I want to block or set time limits on, and how long I want my time limit to be. I can also see the analytics of how long I spend time on which websites, which makes it really easy to see if I need to shift more of my attention on my actual work of if I’m doing well on staying focused. It’s also very easy to set a time limit or put on nuclear mode. There is also an advanced feature, which is to completely block the restricted apps for a certain amount of time (nuclear mode.) There are no loopholes to cancel nuclear mode or increase the limit time, so I need to stick to what I put on the extension. In conclusion, StayFocused is easy to use and also very helpful for clearing distractions on my laptop.
Usefulness
My WOOP goal is to accomplish all tasks that I set out for the day by eliminating distractions. I always get distracted by websites like YouTube, Roblox, Pinterest and Skribble, so I make sure to set time limits on it. StayFocused helps me to develop the healthy habit of staying on task during work time and accomplishing the items I set out for the day, which improves my emotional health and stress resilience. This can improve my mental health by making me feel productive after doing what needs to be done instead of draining my battery on addictive apps. It makes me have less distractions while working, which means that I would have dopamine released for actual things like exercise, nature and music instead of social media and video games for instant gratification.
Design
The app has humane design and addictive design, which is to block specific content and sending notifications to keep annoying me to stay on task if I’m on a website on the time limit list. This app adds to the user’s life by making us more productive and on task. The long-term impact on this app is being completely undistracted when working and unbothered by any distractions during work, which is a positive impact.
PART 2
These are screenshots I took every day for 7 days. Note: the dates glitch or disappear sometimes.
Demonstration of time limit and nuclear mode:
That’s the end of my presentation, if there are any questions you can ask me now. Thank you for listening and I hope you are one step closer towards your WOOP goal!
Note: We have been working on our planning part of our passion projects for a long time and had just started our product creation.
Artifact 1: This is a mind map to brainstorm what I want to do for the passion project. I was focused on 3 main aspects: theater, fashion design and music. I wanted to combine the 3 aspects so I chose to do a mini scene wearing my costume that I designed. After thinking of how much time I have, I wouldn’t have enough time, so I decided to do a video documenting the process of making the costume and some posters. I won’t perform, or I’ll just do something quick inside the video. Through this activity, I learned about my passions better.
Artifact 2: This is a plan of what I have for the product creation so far. My materials had just arrived so I’m still making adjustments. Since I am making this dress all by myself, (before I had only made simple dresses with an adult helping, now I’m making a complex dress,) I will make plans that won’t be too tight so that I can make adjustments if I’m slower or quicker than the plan. Through this activity, I learned how to plan and make adjustments accordingly for a flexible timeline but to also be on track.
Artifact 1: This artifact shows a math project I did for section 2 of unit 3. Through this project, I learned about piecewise functions, how to calculate slopes and to identify the key components of a scatter plot. To improve, I should try to include parallel and vertical segments to get an exceeding. I should modify my question so that it is possible.
Artifact 2: COLs show my understanding of topics and I understood this topic of triangle congruence well. I should review more for other topics since I got 2.5-3s for the other COLs. I should also look over the questions I got wrong so that I know where I can still improve.
Semester 1 Comments: Caylen was a positive influence on her peers and collaborated well with a diverse range of students. She met the standard of being an effective collaborator, developing and implementing appropriate strategies to manage interactions with others. Caylen demonstrated basic swimming strokes and safety skills, which translated effectively into water polo games, where she was a valuable teammate. In the soccer unit, she showcased her ability to foot dribble with tactics and control. She understood basic gameplay concepts, displaying the ability to quickly transition between offense and defense. Additionally, Caylen transitioned well to her new school, embracing the challenges and opportunities it presented. Through her consistent work ethic and positive attitude, she recognized the value of physical education for health, enjoyment, challenge, and self-expression.
Artifact 1: This comment shows how I am putting effort into PE class and collaborating. I understood concepts and strategies in games. To improve, I should aim for exceeding and put more effort into answering questions in class and directly showing my understanding of concepts.
Artifact 2: This artifact shows me playing basketball, and since I play basketball outside of PE class I am in the harder class. To improve, I should communicate more with my teammates to come up with better strategies.
