Your Polish DayDreamer

December 19, 2021

Christmas Reflections ft. The Christmas Setup

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Today's post will be rather short, but I came to the conclusion that I enjoy those the most - they do not include all those unnecessary comments and add ups, and are way more real, and way more my style. So I just wanted to share a few thoughts regarding myself and Christmas:))

Being ansolutely honest, nothing makes me more happy than the Christmas spirit. The decorations shopping, decorating my room - and absolutely going all out with it. Nothing lightens my mood more than the fact that I can drink a ton of Christamssy tea, gløgg, or eat æbleskriver while watching a good Christmas movie.

One of those this year was The Christmas Setup, and I can't even explain how happy I was with the movie. We all get so used to seeing the typical "the main character is confused, visits family, meets her guy/girl, blah blah, and they end up together", and don't get me wrong, I love those too, but they lacked representation for me, which this movie provied, being the first LGBTQ-themed Christmas movie.

And not gonna lie, made me tear up at the end, not only because it was absolutely adorable, but also because, in a way, I felt a connection to it.
***
This year being the first time I am spending my Christmas prep time living alone, far from my family, I discovered how insanely important it is to cherish who we are, and focus on what we truly want. This gave me the opportunity to engage into different experiences and activities with my international friends, and allowed me to truly not care what others could think, by taking matters into my own hands.

Fun fact: I absolutely love seeing Christmas decor and light in the city, so you could catch me going to the city center often a few times a week, just to enjoy it (this week it was 5 times for example). Because at the end of the day, what we should do during the Christmas time, is what makes us endlessly happy😊🎄

Merry Christmas!

April 05, 2021

Tips from your fellow IB students:))

Hi Everyone!

Today I got an 11.26 minute tips audio for you with advices for the IB diploma. I have worked collaboratively with 3 other IB students: Samia, Viraj and Anwarul to talk a bit about what worked for each one of us during the 2 years of study.

Hope you find it helpful and good luck!♡

February 24, 2021

"About time": Because each day is worth living as if we got a second chance from it + Movie review

Hello y'all!

Today I come to you with some of my thoughts after watching the movie "About Time" + it's short review.

A day passes by and it will never come back. We don't have such an opportunity as Tim, to be able to go back in time, and fix our mistakes. How great would it be to be able to relive the day, making it greater?

I think that life has a plan for each of us, and we should have a plan for life. Live everyday in a way that when going to sleep we can say, that that day was exactly the way it was meant to be. We are the ones choosing our path in life, and the most important thing is to live to the full and risk it. Because it's worth it ♡

***

The movie tells a story of Tim, who finds out that men in his family have a mysterious secret: they can travel in time... The movie shows the ways in which he uses this posibility to live his dream life and to fix mistakes that he and his close ones have done. The story proves to us that not everything in life can be fixed without losing something else instead.

I really liked the movie and the complications created by Tim's abilities engaged and all you wanted is to know if our protagonist can create the happy ending for all his close ones.

In addition the moral of the story can make us reflect - I definitely recomend it for these cold winter evenings♡

Movie trailer:))

~Dominika

February 17, 2021

My journey with IB in Denmark

Hey guys and welcome to my first blog post!

When my family first decided to move to Denmark in 2018 one of the first steps I had to take was applying to highschool. My dad who has been in the country for a few months already found a "gymnasiet" close to his work that had really great reviews and he suggested I apply there. I prepared the papers and applied late. I was relieved to see an email confirming that I got in.

We moved to Denmark in September and so I started the school a month after everyone else (School in Denmarks starts around the third week of August).

Choosing IB seemed like an only option for me when moving to a country with a language I am not familiar with and having studied in English before. I decided to apply to pre-IB as a preparation for the actual IB and it was the best decision I could have made at the time. My 15 year old self was definitely not ready to just start with IB due to the difference in levels from my previous school.

I didn't really know what to expect when I started. "Will I make friends?", "Will I manage with the curriculum?", "Will I be okay in a new country?" were only a few of the questions concerning me.

I was lucky to get into an amazing class, where right from the start I was surrounded by great people. I remember the first day as throught the mist - all of the memories are blurry as I was very much overwhealmed. I was surprised by the welcoming environment and how friendly everyone was.

Subjects in IB
What I like in IB is the free choice of subjects. While we all start with a similar core, we are then split into our own subject combinations. PE and History were obligatory in Pre-IB, but they were not in IB1/2. Different sections included: Individuals & Societies, Business, Science and Creative.

To my chosen courses I refer to as Societies-Creative, and I must say I have one of the weirdest combinations ever.

The subjects I have chosen for my IB diploma programme are: English A HL lang-lit, Spanish Ab-initio, Geography HL, ESS, Maths HL, Art HL and Danish Ab-initio (plus the obligatory TOK - which ends in January of IB2). Even though IB is hard in general I definitely made it even harder for myself by having 4 higher level subjects and an extra subject (Spanish). I do sometimes questions what I did this for, as I do not love the extra work, but I guess I wanted to take out as much as possible from my high school years.

(↑Sample subject choice table from 2019 - there are new subject such as Film offered now)

The IB allows various combinations for everyone's likings.

When choosing IB one has to keep in mind that it is said to be harder than other programmes. There is a lot of assignments, deadlines and pressure. There are assignments that are internally marked and ones that are externally marked.

Due to Corona many of my final assignments have been moved from IB1 to IB2 which put more pressure on me (This happened for many), however I did manage to complete most of them by now.

I must argue that having half of the IB taught online is not the greatest but it does teach discipline and allowed a little more loose schedule.

Social Life
The IB is not only about studying of course! (Before corona) we had a lot of parties and activities during which we could spend time with our friends and students from other programmes at the school (Sports day is one of the examples:)) My year is a total of 125 students from all over the world, and while we are split into 5 smaller classes (CAS classes) we all tend to spend the lunch breaks together in the common area - we all know eachoher. We also share most of the classes with different people.

IB might be a lot of work but it is managable, and I am so glad I joined such an international community♡
~ Dominika

Strony