Volunteering in the Charles Darwin Foundation: Field trip in "Fisheries" Project

GCE requires students to complete at least 50 hours of extra-curricular work in order to graduate. To complete my hours I decided to embark myself in a series of activities such as Seminars, volunteering jobs, workshops, etc. This is a small retailing of a volunteering job I participated (and am still participating in) in the Charles Darwin Foundation.

I have been volunteering in a project called "Ecology and Evaluation of Fisheries" for the past 7 months, in the CDF. This project seeks to increase the knowledge of the ecology, life history and population dynamics of major fishery target species and the habitats they occupy in the Galapagos Marine Reserve. The goal of the CDF is to provide up-to-date information for the improvement of fisheries management on the islands.

I participated on a 3-day field trip to the island of Floreana, in a small fishing boat together with two fishermen and a co-worker from the CDF. The purpose of the field trip was to record the time and place were the fishermen caught (or didn't catch) fish, as well as data from the fishes such as the specie and their longitude to further broaden the knowledge of the different species, as well as their average fishing rate. Fishermen don't usually have a need to get down on the island but rather fish around it, which is what we did. We never got off the boat, and ate, slept, and did everything else on the little boat throughout the journey. Even though I only walked on the island once (In a lunch break when we anchored the boat on a small bay with a beach in the protected area of the island), I got to know Floreana and its wildlife more than any $1,000 cruise could have offered me. I also learned a lot about the life of a fishermen, and its privileges (your diet is based on the famous refrain "from the sea to your table") and getting to know all of this and living their life for three days considerably expanded my vision of life.

Floreana is also a funny island because there is only 201 inhabitants and the town is about 8 blocks. So Floreana is mostly one big forest! And being able to go all around it and seeing so much endemic and new flora and fauna for me was simply magical.

ISGP Seminar

GCE requires students to complete at least 50 hours of extra-curricular work in order to graduate. To complete my hours I decided to embark myself in a series of activities such as Seminars, volunteering jobs, workshops, etc. This is a small retailing of a 10-day seminar I participated in called Institute for Studies in Global Prosperity (ISGP) in December of 2017.

ISGP is an Institute that offers a 4-year seminar, which seeks to raise the youth's capacity to participate in the prevailing discourses of society. The program deeply introduces the participant to the different efforts done by the Baha'i community to contribute to the progress of society, and explores some of the concepts and fundamental principles that sustain the Baha'i community's work, to finally reflect about the different ways the participant can raise his capacity to contribute, in ever greater levels of sophistication and efficiency, to the progress of civilization.

This was my first year participating in ISGP, and Year 1 has the following table of contents:

Main areas of activity: This section refers to the different efforts conducted by the Baha'i community in favor to the advance of civilization in all its multiple dimensions, categorized into three main categories: expansion and consolidation, social action, and the participation in the discourses of society. These dimensions construct a conceptual framework within which youth can seek their spiritual and intellectual growth, and to contribute to the advance of civilization with higher levels of sophistication and effectiveness.

Basis concepts: This section introduces a series of concepts such as "attraction to beauty", "the investigation of truth", and "service" that are useful to consider when participating in a "discourse of social action", or the general flow of such conversations.

Harmony between science and religion: This section is about the relationship between science and religion, and their interface with development. Participants here create the ability to craft and  promote a discourse on science, religion, and development.

Culture and communication: This section is about how communication gives form to common understanding, creating and recreating culture, and how these two notions of communication and culture are crucial for the process of construction of communities.

Conversations: This final section enforces participants with the ability to engage and elevate the state of a conversation.

More than 80 youth from across the country participated in the seminar, and it was an amazing experience to learn and consult about such deep topics with people my age. These ten days gave a perfect ambiance for the construction and strengthening of friendships, and I keep contact with many of my fellow participants to this day, participating together in different activities that serve communities.

Self Portrait

I am studying a course called "Systems & Models", and this is my first Action Project. In this unit I studied about the different tools psychology offers to better understand who we are as individuals. I reviewed a number of personality tests and questioned their objectivity, as well as different research experiments that have shaped the way we understand personality and behavior. For this Action Project, I had to gather all of the information I learned throughout the unit to create a meaningful self portrait, accompanied by an artistic declaration. I thoroughly enjoyed every single step of this AP, and I am very thankful for this opportunity.

“Self Portrait 1”
Mixed Media Art (Graphite, Carbon, Watercolor Pencils)
 420×297 mm

In the midst of creating this piece of work, I decided to write a small poem that further described the way I see myself and my belief in transcendence:

La Eternidad 

y su irresistible invitación

me llamó a una copa de vino

y me embriagó de amor por la humanidad.

En aquel estado de éxtasis

observé al mundo nacer

vivir 

al vivir morir

y al morir nacer;

vi al mundo trascender.

La Eternidad

lució su voz penetrante

para decirme algo que ya vagamente sospechaba

“no he hecho más

que abrir tus ojos interiores

no he hecho más 

que pulir tus ojos exteriores

no he hecho más 

que así hacer mímica de tu vida

eternamente cambiante, exquisitamente bella.”

Translation:

Eternity

and his irresistible invitation 

called me for a glass of wine

and made me drunk of love for humanity.

In that state of ecstasy

I watched the world being born

live

when living dying

and when dying being born;

I watched the world transcend.

Eternity

poured his penetrating voice

to tell me something I vaguely suspected

“I have done nothing more

than open your inner eyes

I have done nothing more

than polish your outer eyes

I have done nothing more

than make mimic of your life

eternally changing, exquisitely beautiful.”

I picture myself as an evolving being, constantly walking the road of excellence. The road of excellence is full of small, reachable daily tasks, as well as ups and downs, and varies greatly from the road of perfection, a circular road that takes you nowhere except to frustration. The road of excellence is never-ending, and yet full of small finish lines which lead us to the starting lines of a new day and a new goal. 

I picture myself as a being devoted to humanity, who drop by drop strives to empty himself as a fountain, and who wholeheartedly believes that by doing so (and by doing so only), he may be filled once again with the renewed water of life.

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In my self portrait, I contrast time with progress. Time is necessary for progress and progress is inevitable in time. This contrast is created by the old and ragged clothing on the right side of the drawing, and my figure, which includes: my face, my (long) hair, and the colorful neck of my shirt. 

The ragged clothing represents my suffering and the different life-tests that at one point limited my growth. In the case of my drawing, old clothing limits my appearance to something indecent and unclean, impure.  And yet, these very same life tests have gifted me with the power of change. They have been the cornerstones that have guided the construction of self into an “evolving being, constantly walking the road of excellence.” 

My face has special detail on the eyes, in order to express depth and vision. I decided to shape my hair much longer than usual as a symbol of healthiness, and I chose different shades of green for the shirt of my neck to symbolize renewed life, hope, and peace. 

 I used a photographic “grid” to set the aspects of my self portrait in place, setting my face just about in the middle between the two horizontal and vertical lines, and placing the torn clothing in the right vertical line. The pants are in the bottom right corner of the grid, and the shirt is in the top right corner of the grid. All of the far corners in the grid are focus points for the human eye. 

Something that I feel like my self portrait clearly represents is my perception of the principle of personality. I believe personality is, in its most primitive aspect, the unique blend of qualities and defects that a person possesses, and how this blend is manifested in social interactions in accordance to certain variables such as culture. Therefore, I believe that even though there are certain things in an individual’s personality that are more like to change and less likely to change in the course of his life, if the individual faces a situation where he must change his unique set of qualities and defect for his own betternment, he is capable of doing so. 

The most common personality theory states that personality is the series of consistent characteristics that uniquely define a certain person. In other words, at least the main “core” of an individual’s personality is bound not to change over the course of his entire life. However, for over a century this interpretation has been questioned by a number of experiments. For example, there was an experiment conducted by researchers Hartshorne and May in 1928 that researched honesty in children under a variety of different circumstances and settings. In this experiment, children were given the opportunity to lie/cheat in distinct case scenarios such as at school or at home. What they found out is that some kids who would take advantage and cheat in certain scenarios would often have a completely different reaction under different settings. Ultimately, this experiment is one of the many that bring to question the definition of personality adopted by most human beings nowadays.

Regarding that traditional belief, even though I favor the opposing side I’d like to include that I don’t believe it necessary for someone to constantly question his personality. I categorize everything in our personality as qualities and defects, but I don’t believe it is healthy for someone to excessively question his defects and demand a complete eradication of them. After all, we are humans and human beings are imperfect; this is our nature! The only way to truly walk the path of excellence is by firstly learning to love ourselves, human as we are. 

Even though the following quote is more centered towards loving others, I think it applies perfectly in the aspect of learning how to love yourself:

“You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly.”

– Sam Keen

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To better understand the nature behind the art of sketching and how it may be used to express ideas, I interviewed Erika Solis, an artist and educator from the Galapagos Islands. She told me about the different aspects that define a piece of art, such as size, style, materials, colors, and symmetry/positioning. We reviewed the photographic “grid”, and the Fibonacci sequence/spiral, as well as the psychology of colors. This last aspect was new to me, for I rarely use colors on my art, and it expanded my thoughts and perception. I decided to use colors to highlight certain parts of my self-portrait and express certain principles that I feel like represent me. Miss Erika is a watercolor pencil artist, and she encouraged me to use watercolors for different reasons: Watercolor pencils are much easier to blend, and using blending techniques one can create new colors by merging them. She convinced me, and I am glad she did.

Reflecting a bit, I’ve realized that for some reason as a kid I decided that I was not good at drawing faces. Since then, I rarely tried doing so, and when I noticed that the first Action Project for this Course was a self portrait, I must admit I panicked. The first thing I did was dive into the art of drawing faces by reading articles and watching videos regarding mainly the symmetry of the human face. With the guidance of a step-by-step video, I began sketching my face. And impressively, my first sketch was pretty accurate! I gathered up my confidence, and I began drawing right away.

There were two new materials and techniques I used in this self-portrait:

I decided to use carbon for my hair, to add a different texture to my drawing. Once again with the help of the powerful tool of the Internet, I began sketching my hair with different techniques. After getting some right and some wrong, I  finally settled with a rather simple technique.

I also decided to use watercolor pencils for my collar. With the help of Miss Erika, I began to learn how to use watercolor pencils with some blending exercises. Using the color psychology code and with some extra guidance from of Miss Erika, I chose a set of colors which related well with each other and went along with the principles I wanted to portray.

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I hope for this art piece to be a symbol of hope, specially among youth. Some of us are either born, raised, or by our own actions driven to certain unfavorable situations, and sometimes no matter how hard we try to raise above these issues, we feel condemned by them. But may my story and the story of millions of others in history offer proof that life never gives us a test that we cannot prevail. And may art be our friend and companion through the journey.

Citations:

Sam Keen, To Love and Be Loved

“Perfectionism vs. Excellence” by Marc Winn, February 27, 2013.
http://theviewinside.me/perfectionism-vs-excellence/

“Is Your Personality Fixed, Or Can You Change Who You Are?” Invisibilia Podcast, June 24, 2016.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/06/24/481859662/invisibilia-is-your-personality-fixed-or-can-you-change-who-you-are

Survival Manual on How to Make a Music Album

From the “Endurance” course I am studying, this is my 3rd and last Action Project. In the previous unit that led to my 2nd Action Project, I made a rough design of a mission I wanted to pursue throughout my life, and I experienced in a small degree what that mission might feel like. In this present unit, I extensively planned my life mission of composing and recording a full album of nine songs that would permit me to both express and share my apprenticeships and my vision with the world, and permit me to use my art as a tool through which I can serve mankind. This planning contains key points such as timelines, what if’s and the resources/materials I will need.

I compiled all of my planning in a “survival manual”, which includes the life of two individuals who approached music similarly to how I plan to do so, and a series of quotes that inspire me to walk the path of excellence. I designed this manual in order to continuously strengthen my objectivity and fervor throughout the completion of my mission.

RS, Cover of Survival Manual, 2018

To access my manual, press here

The Pitch

I am studying a course called “Social Impact by Youth Entrepreneurs”, and this is my first and only Action Project. This course guided me through learning the extense definition of entrepreneurship and its vast implications. I also learned a lot about myself, and what I truly cared about and valued. I learned how to craft a mission and a vision, a hedgehog concept, and a marketing and sales plan. Most of the activities throughout the course had to be developed around a fake or real entrepreneurship of our liking and doing, and I decided to use a small granola business my brother and I have been working on for the last 6 months for the activities. These activities clarified many things for me, and as I progressed in the course so would the effectiveness and organization of our little business.

For my Action Project I had to write a 2-minute pitch presenting my company, its market context, financial projection, competition and the barriers it may face, along with a series of other criteria. The following video is my pitch/presentation:

This is a transcript of my pitch:

Slide 1

Scoggin’s Granola breaks the unhealthy schemes that rise incertitude on whether granola is a healthy way to start your day, offering a homemade baked cereal rich in natural sugars, fats, and flavour!

Slide 2

If you  are a regular granola consumer and you like to know what you are actually eating, you’ve probably heard of the terms “ Evaporated cane juice, molasses, brown rice syrup or oat syrup solids.” These are all sources of sugar you usually find in Granola, and yes, they are bound to be healthier than high-fructose corn syrup, but there is nothing like the raw, unprocessed panela Scoggin’s Granola uses as its only sweetener, along with raisins. Scoggin’s Granola is also baked in a slow-fire-like process, which permits the variety of oats to fully absorb the flavour of the panela, accompanied by peanuts, raisins, and dry coconut, which give you the right amount of energy to start your day.

Slide 3

Joshua Scoggin and myself have been working very hard for the last 6 months, taking the companies’ first steps with firmness and commitment. Scoggin’s Granola is sold in the following presentations: 60g, for a snack while in school or at work, or after a sports activity; breakfast sizes such as 340g and 400g, and family sizes such as 600g and 1kg.

Slide 4

We believe that separating the concepts of “business” and “world improvement” is a dichotomy. Presently, our business is developing in the Galapagos Islands, where hundreds if not thousands of tons of food are imported from the mainland every week. Scoggin’s Granola is implementing a project that supports local panela, peanuts, and coconut production, directly supporting the local economy, as well lowering the ecological footprint of the Galapagos population. Our company has an amazing sense of potentiality by the simple fact that there is presently no other local Granola producer in the Galapagos Islands; all of the Granola consumed in the Islands is imported. The Galapagos community has always stood out for its constant concern for the conservancy of this wonder of the world, and growing worries of the amount of imported food & goods continue to arise. Thus, a variety of initiatives that support local production have begun to appear. We believe that Scoggin’s Granola fits perfectly with the future trends that will further value sustainable, healthy, and local production. We know our product has the potential to grow and grow fast. We have planned an intense growth campaign for the next 4 months, expecting to also grow in profit that we intent to use mostly in the strengthening of the organizational pillar of the company.
After 4 months, both Joshua and I will be gone from the Galapagos Islands for at least a year, and our next goal is to leave behind a strong team of reliable individuals who will make sure of the companies’ continuity and further growth.
We are asking for what we believe to be a reasonably small amount: $5,000. Your return? A total of 8% on interest, yearly.

Song 1: Ornamento

I am studying a course called Endurance, and this is my second Action Project. In this Unit I had to let myself dream and craft a mission of my liking. This mission could take months or years. For my Action Project I had to dedicate 12 hours to completing a task that related itself with the mission I had chosen, documenting along the way, as an appetizer of sorts for the life mission to come. I chose as my mision to fully compose, produce and masterize an album of 9 songs. Consequently, I chose as my 12-hour-task to compose a song.

The following video is the documentation I did in the process of developing my task.

 
The following video is the song I composed, called Ornamento (Ornament is Spanish)

Song Title: Ornamento (Ornament)

Song Lyrics: 

Vecino, amigo, hermano

con ese cuchillo en el pecho

Cómo es que te has levantado

sin pena a vivirla de nuevo?

Cómo es que tu sonrisa le ha ganado al sangrado?

Se ha cicatrizado.

Te he visto danzando en mis días 

cambiando de sexo y de mira

te he visto danzando en el tiempo

brindando esperanza escondida

Cómo es que yo te miro, te escucho, y de pronto confío?

Y aparece al despejar 

mi certidumbre en la ansiada paz.

Percibo el perfume divino

que viene de tu vestidura 

me atrevo a llamarte el consuelo

que adorna los días, las noches

te cuento que ahora confío, con labios partidos, y aspiro tu aroma

y mi fuerza no da lugar

a la insustancialidad.

Translation: 

Neighbor, friend, brother

with that knife in the chest

How are you getting up

without regret to live it again?

How is it that your smile has beat the bleeding?

It has healed.

I've seen you dancing in my days

changing sex and look

I've seen you dancing in time

offering hidden hope

How is it that I look at you, I listen to you, and suddenly I trust?

And, as the day clears 

my certainty for peace appears.

I perceive the divine perfume

that comes from your vestment

I dare to call you the consolation

that adorns the days, the nights

I tell you that now I trust, with split lips, and I aspire your aroma

and my strength does not give rise

to insubstantiality.

Music is Service

I am studying a course called "Endurance", and this is my first Action Project. For this Action Project I had to write the first chapter to my own autobiography, 30 years into the future. I imagined myself being 47 years old, recalling all the goals I have achieved and difficulties I have endured. During this first unit, called "Morpheus", I learned a lot about myself. I identified my strengths and weaknesses, challenged my mental and physical abilities,  and learned about how other characters in history have coped with trials and difficulties of all kinds, such as Ernest Shackleton and his crew aboard the Endurance. My autobiography is titled "Music is Service", and its first chapter is found below, titled "Melodies of my Childhood ,Youth and Adulthood"