During Christmas brake I went with my family to Bieszczady. It has been for several years now that we go there after Christmas. While grandparents are going on longer walks in the mountains and breathe fresh air, me and my cousins go skiing and snowboarding. Personally I do both of the sports, but this time I decided to snowboard. Together with my older cousins we made a small ski jump like those in snowpark. I really enjoyed the skiing and this freestyle element made it even better. With this great satisfaction that we were the creators of it. I am a big fan of “board sports”, so this activity brought me a lot of joy and it really made me recharge batteries after last few months of school and mocks. I even managed to learn to do grabs.

This time I was volunteering on a workshop about fear and how to gain the control over it. They took place in headquarter of MoneyGram in Warsaw. My job was mostly to “deliver” children to the lecturers and back to their parents. To enter MoneyGram you need a special admission card. Same one you need to move freely using an elevator. Besides me there were two more volunteers. One of them was standing on the ground floor and letting kids in, the other one was to “intercept” them upstairs and my job was to ride with them in an elevator. Except of that we also helped the lecturers. I think this is important for those kids to have such workshops, because they will earlier learn how to manage their own emotions in the future.

This time I decided to draw something containing trees. Lately I have been practicing tree drawing, that is why they appeared in my work. Apart from that I am also interested in roses and the technique you need to create them on paper. All that matching with the motive of night and darkness. The person, whom we may call a monk, is the most spontaneous part of the art. I used my two favourite and simple tools, regular pencil and coal. Lately I use coal a lot, because I really love the way you can smudge it and create the shadows.

On 8th of December I went with some girls from my training group on a small tournament organised by Middle School 72. It is an annual set of games that follows Mikołajki. I have to admit that I took part in it with great pleasure. Every occasion to play more basketball is good. Even though most of my usual team was away on other championship, we managed to create nice team and make a good performance. We won two out of three games, as three other teams did. Because of that the little points needed to be counted. After that summing up it was us to win the tournament. What made out victory better, is that despite of the fact that we never play in exactly this group, we managed to establish nice teamwork. If all people have the same passion, they can achieve their mutual target.

On this week’s meeting we’ve heard a touching presentation on how are dogs treated in some of the shelters. We watched a program about a pet shelter where dozens of dogs were crammed in one fenced area. They were also fed with some scraps and leftovers. This vision was so terrifying that it was hard to watch even. For me it is so awful that something like this can even exist.

As things with my ankle happened to improve, I could finally play with my team for the last game in this season. Unfortunately it was our opponent who won. Still this sport is not only about winning, but also getting on well with your team. This season definitely brought us closer as a team and hopefully the next season will be better. This time we did not pass to the finals, but it does not mean that the next one can not be ours. For me it was also important to come back and take part in the last match. Finally I resumed my trainings after nearly a month. This is what I am most happy about.

As I wrote in my previous creativity post lately I got interested in drawing different, colourful and exotic birds. I have also mentioned that my friend asked me to draw two birds. The second one is called Hemprich’s hornbill. I especially liked the idea of sketching particularly this bird, because when I once read a book on African wildlife I came across a photo of it. I got really interested by the animal, as it has this unusual shape of a beak. Second picture represents a red-bellied piranha, which I have also drawn at my friends request. While in the first drawing I simply used charcoal and felt-tip pens, in the second one I also dropped some sequins to achieve this shine which fish have.

Lately I volunteered on a series of workshops called “Will soap wash everything?” organised by Children University. Kids were about the age of eight or nine and were discovering the secrets of the effectiveness of soap for various substances. Classes took part at the Chemistry Department of the Warsaw University, so children could see how the real laboratory looks. My and other volunteers job was to help during workshops if needed and to check the lists. We also collected children’s opinions, mostly great. It is really rewarding to see the curiosity on kid’s face and how their niggling questions are answered.

On the last meeting of our group we decided on the topic of our next few gatherings. From given propositions we picked taking care and rising awareness of poor conditions in animal shelters. Now our task is to make some presentations on the topic and collect money or any other necessary equipment, such as blankets and food. I feel really motivated to help these animals and introduce this problem to more people.

Due to my injury of ankle I wasn’t able to play basketball or attend PE classes for a while. I had rehabilitation to come back to sport quicker. I had my ankle exercised and massaged with special electrode. Because I love sport, it’s really important for me to return in possibly shortest time and be back with my team. Therefore I am determined to recover as fast as it will be possible. I can tell that the rehabilitation is already helping me. I also exercise at home with a special roller. 15 minutes of rolling enables your cramped muscles to loosen. I hope that I will be back in training soon.