Anxiety by MedlinePlus

Earlier this year I was diagnosed with severe anxiety. For more than 2 years now I have become more aware of the symptoms and I do acknwoledge that living with anxiety, and its episodes, isn't a walk in the park.

Anxiety is considered a Mental Disorder, which means that it involves significant disturbances in thinking, emotional regulation, or behaviour.

In 2019, 301 million people were living with an anxiety disorder including 58 million children and adolescents (1).

The post that I shared was about anxiety: how could you react to a anxiety attack and the ways you can help someone going through an anxiety attack.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Chef Burger® (@chefburger)

I reposted it with the intention of helping people who follow me on my socials that can be experiencing the same situation. Since I have a social platform that I can use as a means of conveying a message and raising awareness about this topic, I shared the post. 

The reason why I am sharing this experience now with you it's because a girl, 21 years old, responded to my storie expressing her grattitude for me sharing the post.

I was shocked at the moment, because I was not expecting a reaction like that at all.

She told me she has been with anxiety for more than 3 months now, and that she is still trying to comprehend how her body reacts to this feeling.

I took the time to listen to her experience and thoughts on this topic. By the end of the conversation she typed: "thanks for listening<3" 

That message made my day. It felt so good to help another person. I hope we become more aware of our environment. 

People are also humans, all of us feel different ways, be more emphatic, respect, love, listen, caress. I promise everything's going to be fine at the end of the day.

Please pay attention to your body, it is wise. Listen to how your feeling, and if you're feeling unwell please make sure you get the professional attention.

(1) Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation. Global Health Data Exchange (GHDx), (https://vizhub.healthdata.org/gbd-results/, accessed 14 May 2022).

La Virgen del Panecillo by Ecuador Turismo

Have you ever went to an event, been into a situation or problem? Did you know that all of those events represent a experiencie that actually shapes your life?

Well, all of us, even if it was once in a lifetime, have had a experience that had an impact on us.

The IB defines Experience as "events, situations and problems that happen to us and have an effect on what we feel or think".

Actually, experiences tell stories of those events, experiences and journeys that shape our lives.

How do experiences shape our lives?

Let's talk about a experience that I had a while ago:

Back in 2018, on december, I traveled to Ecuador. It was my first time getting on a plane. I went with my dad and mom. We actually went to visit my aunt.

I visited a very large statue named "La Virgen de El Panecillo". There we ate "bollos", wich were made of sweetcorn, but it look like a "tamal". 

Tamal by Recetas Nestlé

During the whole trip I drank sparkle water. Also it was pretty cold there. That is why I was wearing cozy clothes.

Definetily it has been one of the greatest experience in my life, for now, I got to visit a new country. 

Now I know that I have to take a medicine to calm my stomachache in order to enjoy the trip.

The Importance of Friendships by Open Minds

Perceived as the connection with someone and defined as the way in which two or more concepts, objects, or people are connected, or the state of being connected, according to Oxford Languages, relationships are considered an important aspect that shapes our identities, whether they are relationships with neighbors, family or friends.

But, did you know that there are different types of friendships out there?

In class, we identified three of them, which were:

•  Best friend: more than a good friend. Someone with whom I share things I like.
• Good friend: someone I really get along with, with whom I can have a conversation.
• Close friend: a friend I can trust. Someone with whom I can be totally comfortable sharing my thoughts, who doesn't judge me but tries to help instead.

Do you have all three types of friends? Consider reflecting on that and perhaps ask your friends too.

IA generated image on March 16, 2024 at 11:47 PM. Representing the title of this blog.

It is actually 23:21 at night and I am still here. There are days on this journey when you can feel lost, when you cannot find the road you should be following.

Today I didn't feel my day as the "weekend" that it is, but as a normal academic day. I woke up very early in the morning just to get ready, have breakfast and do my homework.

Then I had lunch and came back to continue my work. Later in the evening, I was feeling tired and I was wondering if I should continue or if I should just leave it at that.

This morning I wrote down my to-do list, which helps me stay on track. I didn't even finish 3 big tasks on the list, but I worked all day.

After my night shower I almost gave up for today, but somehow I managed to get back on track. Without mentioning that I feel kind of sick, I sit at my desk in front of my computer and write about how I feel on a normal Saturday.

I came up with this because it is very likely that you are experiencing these moments like I am right now, when you feel like you can no longer go on, when you are about to give up, when you are tired and want to sleep, but at the same time you know that you have to get your tasks done.

Get a good playlist on Spotify and sit down. I want you to remember the reasons behind those sleepless nights, those afternoons when you couldn't go downstairs to play with your friends, the reason why you wrote that to-do list in the morning.

Academic success is pretty good and satisfying, yes. But you also have to make space to focus on how you feel. At the end of the day, it is just you.

Take all these things as motivation, but please TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF. There is no such thing as feeling fulfilled if you don't feel good. Take breaks, get some sleep. Make sure your to-do list includes time to REST. Even if it means doing nothing, going for a walk, taking a shower, having a good time with your friends, calling your family, but please TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF.

You will struggle with this, but I want you to always remember that YOU COME FIRST, your WELLBEING comes first, your HEALTH comes first. So now go and do those tasks and get some sleep.

I will do that now.

 Welcome back to my blog!

This time I'll be sharing with you an assigment we had for "Identities". It was listing adjectives that represented the person we chose to describe.

3 Steps

In this case, the first thing I did was to look at the picture in a very general way.

Then I identified the principal elements, dividing the picture in different areas. I asked myself some question to discover what element characterized the picture itself, for example:

How does she look? Does she look old? Does she have a youthful appeareance? Is she wearing a specific hairstyle? How does her hair look?

I wrote some answers to those question in the "Physical Appearance" section. (Shown in the picture below). Later I went for more specific features, like clothes and accesories.

In this section I was observing carefully each aspect of the person from my picture. I started by the face, the head, the torso and the lower body.

After all of that, I described my person by the following adjectives:

The person I was desribing in this activity, Anne Burrell in her book: Own your kitchen.

By the end of this post you know these 3 simple steps to describe a person, now with the help of vocabularies, you can start writing more about this elements in the picture.

Here you have some helpful links to help you enrich your vocabulary:

• For Physical Appearance:
• English Adjectives to Describe Physical Appearance. English with Harry.
• How to Describe Physical Appearance.
  
• Clothes:
• Learning English Vocabulary: Clothes Vocabulary.
  
• Clothes Vocabulary: Names of Clothes in English with Pictures.

 Since we came back to school, I've had to adapt, once again, my daily routine to the school's schedule. It has never been easy, but taking into consideration that this last year of high school, we, our IB group, have so many things to do and finish.

Throughout the years, the hardest part of getting back to school is my sleep schedule. As an IB student I have so many responsabilities this year, because I have to finish my Internal Evaluations, Extended Essay and different essays, so I am sleeping around 5 hours a day maximum. 

This is my routine now:

My weekly schedule (2024)

Ask Your Future Self "What Would Better Me Do?" By Sources of Insight

This is one of the most interesting assignments I've had during the first year of Diploma: acting as myself from the future.

For this activity, we had to be our future selves and pretend that we were having a reunion party with our high school classmates. We had to dress in a way we weren't used to.

The context of this activity was: "We graduated and moved to another country. We came back to Panama to have a get-togheter."

I wanted to be a doctor, but I didn't have clothes to wear and look like a doctor. So the night before I was in a hurry to get clothes to represent a profession, then I decided to dress as a bartender.

 

I borrowed my friends' clothes and dressed as one. Later the next day, during English class, I was the bartender in charge of the "drinks" at the reunion party. I actually served coke.

It was really funny to see my classmates dressed up as different people, but then I realized that we were not that far from that reality. Spending time together these years has been a great experience, but one day, not too far from now, we will have to go our separate ways to fulfill our dreams and become better people.

The purpose of this "reunion party" was to reflect and answer the question: How would you present your identity and personality as your future self?

After chatting with all our classmates and asking them what they did after high school, we introduced ourselves to everyone. We talked about "where we've gone to college," "where we work," "what we do for a living," and generally how we see ourselves in the future.

Some of my classmates were doctors, directors, engineers, politicians, architects, and so on.

In addition, after this "reunion party" we were assigned to write an "email" to one of our classmates. We researched the conventions to write one. This was because, apart from the big topics, we were learning about types of text.

This was my e-mail to Angie, my classmate:

My friend Angie,

I'm so glad we met again at the reunion. I just wanted to tell you a few things because we didn't have much time to talk at the party.

My mom was so happy when I told her you were here in Panama now. She said that she wanted to see you. We're having a family reunion this Sunday and she wanted me to tell you to come by. Let me know what you think.

Best wishes,

Angel.