SENIOR YEAR!! CAS goals for 2011-2012

2011-12 CAS goals

My last year of high school is finally here! its going to be a really hectic and challenging year but i'm ready to face the challenges. Even though its my last year, and academics are first priority i will still be involved in CAS activities. These are my objectives for the year :

1) Football Team: I hope to make it onto the football team again this year and contribute majorly towards the SAISA boys football tournament. I am already attending after-school football to get myself ready for the tournament which is still months away. I am extremely dedicated to football and take it seriously. I have already attended about 6-8 practice sessions, not having missed a single one. I have also led training sessions when the captain of the team has not been at training.I hope to be a footballer that the younger players can look up to and learn from as a senior. Taking up a role of leadership is a new challenge for me as previously i was one of the important players in the team but was never a leader. I feel more responsible this year and i think i can help the captain take our team to new heights and maybe even win the SAISA boys football tournament. I am working hard on developing my skills as a striker so i can score as many goals as possible and help lead my team to victory.

2) Cleft Palate Organization: This year, i plan to focus a lot more on community service since last year it was inadequate. As the leader of the cleft palate organisation i plan to organize trips to the hospital to meet the affected children and gain knowledge on the problems faced by these children from the doctors there. I also want to spread awareness about this problem among the students and teachers of OSC because the effects of this problem are not well known. Also one of our main goals this year is to raise a sufficient amount of funds so that a few children can get the surgeries that they cant afford. This year we are planning to have a concert in the auditorium to raise these funds. The planning is still in the initial stages and therefore there is not much to write about now.But in coming weeks, as it starts coming together i will post information about our plans. I also plan to create a blog specifically for the Cleft Palate organization which will have weekly updates about our meetings,discussions and plans. This envelops almost all the 8 critical learning outcomes.

3) Guitar : This year i want to develop my guitar skills further and be able to perform on stage more often as well as upload more guitar videos to YouTube to get feedback and non biased opinions. i have shown commitment to playing the guitar as i have self-taught myself almost everything i know about the guitar. I have never given up because of lack of a teacher, actually i prefer learning by myself as it is a challenge and gives me freedom to learn whatever i want. I am also responsible for however good i become in the end as i have had no help from  anyone. It is up to me to keep practicing and to get better at it.

4)Academics: Along with all these different activities i still need to manage my time and keep my grades up as this is the most important year of school. I have to be organized to submit my assignments on time and also have time to revise my lessons. I hope to do well enough to make it into a university with a decent scholarship amount. Keeping that in mind i know that i cannot spend too much time on extra-curricular activities. Therefore i dont plan on trying out too many new activities this year'.

I have a few other goals in mind for this year but they arnt concrete goals yet. i hope to take part in SAISA athletics as i did not get to do that last  year because of malaria. Also i plan on taking part in the drama productions my classmates have to put up for their IB drama grade. I took part in it last year and helped Fillipo with his play. This year too i plan on helping the classmates who ask for my assistance in acting or writing a play. I also hope to form a band this year but that depends on how many other musicians are willing to form a band this year.

These are my goals for senior year. For now it does not look like there will be too many more additions to this list but as the year progresses opportunities might present themselves, and if i do take part then i'll make sure to blog about it.And so senior year begins...wish me luck!

CAS for the month of April

In April i was still recuperating from malaria and was not allowed to take part in any physical activities for the month. So i spent time working on developing my guitar skills and managed to post two videos on YouTube. I was also busy planning the Fundraising part for the cleft palate service.

Cleft Palate Fundraiser: "Aloha Hawaii"
Cleft Palate is a serious problem faced by newborn children that can cause life-long impairments in speaking and facial deformities. It is caused by abnormal facial development during the gestation period of a fetus.It causes discomfort and difficulties with speech. In Sri Lanka there are quite a few children affected by this who go without any kind of surgery and are forced to live with the problem because they cannot afford the cost of the surgery. This community service helps raise money for these surgeries and donates them to a hospital that brings a Doctor from London every year to perform these operations. Last year our group contributed 210,000 rupees towards the operations of these children. Each surgery costs about 15000 rupees , so we managed to finance quite a few surgeries. Though the group is called "The Cleft Palate organization" we finance surgeries for Cleft Lip and Cleft Palate both. The following are images depicting the two deformities:

In April, The fundraising party was held in the Taj Samudra hotel but it did not go as well as planned. At the last minute there were quite a few problems faced by our group and there were some issues raised by the school administration on the day of the party that needed to be taken care of urgently. After overcoming all problems the turnout was still quite disappointing. A lot of people who had promised to come did not show up.Even the previous leaders of the group, who were supposed to come and bring their grade did not do so. Therefore the turnout was pretty poor and so were the funds raised. A total of 30,000 rupees were raised out of which fee had to be payed to the DJ as well as the hired security. In the end the sum total deposited into the account for the Cleft Palate organization was just about 20,000 rupees. We were also unable to make a visit to the hospital like we had done in December because exams were fast approaching and the bus to take us to the hospital was very busy. Also the doctor who would take us to meet the children was out of town.  after the party we spent the last few sessions deciding on what we do in the next year to raise funds as well as decided that we would try to make a trip to the hospital once in every one or two months.

Guitar 
I focused a lot on developing my guitar skills this month and i managed to do a performance on stage with Camie in the final assembly of the school year as well as upload two videos on YouTube. For the assembly we performed a special song for Mr. Coles, our secondary school principal since it was his last assembly at this school. We did a piece by Nelly Furtado.

There was a Rock concert organised at school for which me and a few of my friends auditioned. This would be my first official audition at OSC for a concert which shows i like to undertake new challenges. Sadly we didnt not have any time to rehearse and therefore were not selected to perform in the show. 

The two videos i Posted on YouTube were both guitar solo's from famous songs. One was from "Nothing else matters"by metallica and the other was "Warmness of the Soul" by Avenged Sevenfold. I have been playing guitar for the past 3 years now and have never thought of giving it up because of academic or athletic pressures. This shows my commitment and perseverance  in all my activities whether they are creative or  action related. It also shows that i undertake challenges because these are my first ever videos of guitar solo's. My previous videos where mainly rhythm guitar. I still have a long way to go before i can call myself a true guitarist but im determined to get there. Here are the two videos i posted :

CAS for the month of March

The month of march was not one of the best months for me even though it contained a lot of service and action. This was because i was extremely sick with malaria throughout the month. I had malaria through the whole month but it was only detected in the last couple of weeks of march. Therefore i managed to do a lot when i was still going to school.

SAISA Track & Field
The track and field competition was at the end of march and so as soon as we got back from SAISA football i headed into track and field training along with a few other members of the football team. A lot of people tried out for the team and we had practices very regularly. I went for every training that i could go for even though i was already showing symptoms of malaria like fever. I only missed one training in the whole season until i was admitted into the hospital, showing perseverance and commitment in my activities. The first few training sessions were very rigorous and the coach had us building up our stamina as well as power in our muscles to help us run faster and longer. I learnt new techniques in the field events like shot and long jump and also undertook new challenges by trying out for discuss throw. I developed my sprinting and long jump skills by attending as many training sessions as i could. Sadly one week before the team left for the tournament in Delhi i was admitted into the hospital with malaria. I was very disappointed with the whole situation as i was one of the main contenders in the U-19 boys section of the team. My teammates were also very disappointed about me not being able to make it at the last minute. I felt like i had let the whole team down but the situation was beyond my control so i had to live with it.

Football tournament
There was a football tournament around the same time as SAISA athletics for which i was part of the team but again i could not take part in it because of malaria.Our team did well in the first few stages of the tournament but due to lots of injuries and absences.

After i was discharged from the hospital, i had to go through one week of recovery at home before i could get back to school ,which did not leave me with much time to do CAS activities in this month. I was also extremely weak and been told by the doctor not to take part in any physical activities.

So i dedicated the rest of the month to community service and guitar practice.

Community Service
The month of march was dominated by planning a fundraising party for our community service. Since i was the new leader of the service i had the job of organizing the whole fundraiser by working collaboratively with the rest of the service members. I assigned everyone a job and took it upon myself to find and organize a venue and a DJ for the party. Rasmus, my co-leader helped me with whatever needed to be done . We made posters to advertise the party and set a date for the party in April. We faced a lot of problems with the date, venue and many other factors but we persevered and worked hard and were able to organize the event properly without having to reschedule like we were forced to in the last semester. The group met every week to decide the different parts of the event and agreed as a group on the decisions to be made.

March was not a very productive month for me in action but it helped me catch up on my service and creativity which had taken the backseat in the past few months with all the sports activities.

CAS for the month of February

February was all about football and the SAISA football tournament in the beginning and after that was finished there was the OSCars's as well as the drama performance's of the Grade 12 drama students. I was a part of both these events.

Community Service 
Being made the leader of my community service group, i went ahead and invited my friends to join our cause and got around 3-4 new people to join. We spoke to our community service coordinator and were able to make Rasmus a co-leader to help me in leading our community service group. As my first job as leader i went to the hospital where the operations were conducted and met the affected children and the doctor who takes care of them. The doctor who performs the operations flies in every year to perform these operations. I was made aware of exactly what the problems related to this illness are and how much money each operation costs etc. This gave me an idea of what kind of fundraiser we had to plan to get the money required. After this trip, the rest of February was spent planning a fundraising party during our community service hours after school.

SAISA Boys Football Tournament 2011
Goals set before the tournament:
1) To be a team player in every match
2) To help my team to victory in at least a few matches
3) To play any position i was required to play by my coaches
4) Score 3 or more goals in practice matches and the tournament
5) Try and score a hat-trick (3 goals) in a single game
6) Not miss a single practice or practice match.

Point number 5 has been my dream my whole footballing career ever since the beginning but i had not been able to complete it before due to lack of skill and playing the position of a defender.
The first two weeks of February was the time for our intense training and teamwork building. Our coaches pushed us hard and organized a lot of football matches to help us get ready for the tournament. Our first practice match was nerve racking as i had a sick feeling that i would not perform well but i surprised myself. I played hard for the first ten to fifteen minutes and was rewarded with my first goal for the team which took a load of pressure off of me. At this point i was playing a central attacking midfield position which i had been assigned by my coach. After a lot of practice matches we were finally ready to leave for our tournament in Dhaka. I was very happy with my performance  in these matches and felt like i was ready for the tournament because i had shown perseverance and commitment  in every match and had scored an average of 2-3 goals in each match.

The first day of the tournament, we reached excited but also slightly disheartened because a few days before we left for the tournament our 16 man team was reduced to 12 players.Which meant that we would have only one substitute and a lot of our main team players would not be playing. We mentally prepared for an exhausting tournament but we were still excited to see how far we would get. A top-three position looked virtually impossible at this stage but we got together as a team and decided to give it our best shot.
Our first day turned out to bring us great hope and joy as we managed to win both our matches! Our first match was against the American School of Bombay. This match gave us the kickstart we needed because a few minutes after the start of the match we went a goal down and were forced to play on the back foot. Or so the other team thought. Even though we were one goal down we fought back hard and we equalized in a couple of minutes. We fought strong and hard throughout the match to win the game 3-1. This match was a great morale booster for the team and especially for me because i managed to complete a lot of my set goals in this match and reduced the pressure on myself. I scored all three goals in this game and gained a lot of respect from my teammates while also finally achieving my dream of scoring a hat-trick. I was committed  to my objectives throughout the match and managed to develop my skills as a striker rather than a defender which is the position i had always wanted to play. As a team we undertook the challenge of playing with less players and worked collaboratively with each other to win the game.

The second match was similar but having just one substitute in the first match was already starting to take its toll on everyone we took a good lead by some spectacular goals from different players. We were 3-0 up but soon into the second half i got a very bad cramp and had to be carried off the field. The coach told me that i did a good job of assisting players even though i had not scored but i was not satisfied with my performance. After a while the pain from my cramp started fading so i asked our coach to let me go on the field again. At this point the game was turning for our opposition as they were making a comeback. The score was now 3-2 and i was sent on in the last ten minutes. I managed to do myself proud by scoring a goal in the closing moments of the game to guarantee our team the victory and finally relieve the tension. It was my fourth goal of the day and i had managed to achieve almost every single goal i had set before we came to the tournament.
But i hadnt realized that the day had done a lot of harm to me. I was exhausted and thought that i would be fine the next day.
The next day turned out to be a great disappointment after a good start. All of us were undoubtedly very tired and sore but we played like a true team again the tournament favorites, the American Embassy School of Delhi. We played our hearts out in this match and where in the lead from the first few minutes because of moment of brilliance from our team captain and an amazing free-kick. AES managed to get a goal back and the game was a stalemate at 1-1 for a while. Then tragedy struck our team once more as one of our first team players got severely injured and we were reduced to 11 men. Which meant no substitutes or rest for a team running only on fumes and teamwork now. We managed to show our perseverance and commitment by completely frustrating our opposition and holding them to a draw till the very end. We were very happy with the result because we had done what no other team could. Our next match was against the hosts and this is where us having no substitutes and being exhausted started to take its toll on our efforts. We tried really hard but there were many injuries sustained by most of us so we could
 not give our 100% even though we tried. We were still committed to playing hard as this was an all or nothing match. The winner of this match would go through and the loser would get knocked out and would have to play for the positions from 5-8. I played as hard as i could but i had a lot of little injuries that prevented me from playing at my best. I was also heavily man-marked due to my performance on the previous day and was therefore unable to contribute much other than just pulling defenders away and allowing other teammates to attack which i did to the best of my ability.

We fought long and hard till the end but fate was not on our side. In the last 6 minutes of the game we lost the lead for the first time in the whole game and that was the end for us. I was extremely saddened and tired and when i saw them score the last goal against us i could do nothing more other than just collapse. Though i was saddened i continued playing till the final whistle. All of us were disappointed but were also proud of ourselves for having put up such a fight even though we were reduced to 11 men.We just told ourselves that this wasn't our year but next year we are going to take the cup! and that's exactly what we plan on doing in the next tournament.

The next day was a total disappointment.Everyone was exhausted and mostly injured and no one had any fight left in them at all. We lost both our matches by narrow margins and ended up 8Th in the tournament. We were not particularly proud of our position but we were proud of the fact that we gave it our all and gave every team a fight to the finish. Our team was called the "iron men" because of our circumstances which made us feel proud.
All in all i achieved all my goals that i had set for this tournament and even got to play in a few different positions.I also won the "Most spirited athlete" of the season award which shows that i worked collaboratively and showed perseverance and commitment.

Creativity
February was a CAS filled month so obviously there was a lot of 'C' which stands for creativity. There were two performances that i was a part of . One was playing the guitar at the OSCar's and the other was being the lead actor as well as assisting in the direction and writing of a drama production.

The OSCar's:

At the OSCar's Camie and i worked collaboratively again as we had done on week without walls to decide a song and practice after school and during free periods in school. We also had toni join to sing parts of the song. Again i improvised a solo on stage which is something i have developed as a skill in recent months and am now quite comfortable with.

We played the song "Hey, Soul Sister" by Train and the performance went quite smoothly with no real problems. The only reason i could actually improvise a solo on stage was because of long hours of practice and commitment to my guitar.

 12th Grade Drama Production: 
For the productions Fillipo asked me to be a part of of his play. When i got to the first practice is when i realized that we had to start from scratch and create our own script. So we decided to do a silent comedy with miming. We met for many practices and made changes to the script many times. I helped write,direct and also acted in the play all of which were new experiences for me as my only past performance experience in drama was years ago. We practiced hard and made changes till the last minute but we managed to pull it off in the end and the crowd loved us. It was because we were dedicated and committed  to putting on a great show. We were asked for an encore performance for an assembly the next week which the whole school could watch. Many of my classmates congratulated me on a great performance which made me believe that i did have some aptitude for drama and theater. The following are a few pictures of the the first performance:

February was another month that helped me achieve a lot of the CAS criteria:
1)Increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth: Guitar and drama performances, Football etc.
2) Undertaken new challenges: First time directing and performing silent theater, first time as a leader for a community service project.
3) Planned and initiated activities: Drama rehearsals etc., Football training activities.
4)Worked collaboratively with others: Worked as a team for the performances and as a core part of the football team.
5)Shown perseverance and commitment in their activities: Football training and "never say die" attitude in matches, attended all rehearsals and trainings.
6)Develop New skills : In Theater and music as well as football.

CAS for the month of January

January was a month filled with action as the preparations for the Boys SAISA football tournament were on. I was a part of the team that went to Dhaka to the American International School of Dhaka to participate in this tournament. This month was mainly dedicated to training and therefore did not leave much time for creativity though my guitar practice went on uninterrupted. The main feature of this month was Week Without Walls, a whole week dedicated to service in a under-developed area.

Action: Football training was rigorous from the first training onwards as our two coaches Mr.Campbell and Mr.Shipley  wanted to decide on our final team as soon as possible. Within the first week of training the players that were unfit to make the team were asked to try again next year and the 16 of us went through intense training all the way to the tournament in February. We went through fitness training that left us out of breath most of the time and then through some work with the ball and skill work. As we started to develop a routine and get used to the training we also started integrating teamwork exercises. Training was going well and we had a few practice matches against the Colombo international school and the Colombo lions football club. I scored a lot of goals in the practice matches and was therefore advanced into a more attacking position from a midfield position.
Halfway through our season we had to take a one week break in training as we had the Week Without Walls community service project.

Community Service:

WEEK WITHOUT WALLS!

On the 24th of january, early in the morning, grade 11 of OSC went to Hambantota for Week Without Walls. Week without walls is a yearly excusrsion to some underdeveloped part of Sri Lanka where people live under harsh conditions.Each grade goes to a different location to help certain primary schools with maintanence of their facilities like painting their school and repairing equipment like desks and swings.This is also a program that helps the students of a grade bond with each other as they work hard together. Week Without Walls was a great experience for me as i did a lot of things i never thought i would do and i learnt a lot of new things as well like methods of removing paint stains etc.  Week Without Walls turned out to be a very creative experience for me as well because i played the guitar as my classmates performed a song for the children on our last day. The following is a break-down of all our activities on daily basis according to the CAS criteria

DAY 1: 
Goals for the day: 
1) Making the little children who attended the school play a few games and make them have a good time. This required me and my group to plan and initiate activities.
2)Work Collaboratively with my group to make repairs and paint the school building.This was a completely new experience for me and therefore doing these activities was like undertaking new challenges  and developing new skills.
3)Help the other groups with their jobs once i was done with mine.

We left for the school pretty early in the morning and it took us quite a long bus ride to get there. Once we arrived we got off the bus and unloaded the equipment we were going to use for the day's work. Then we gathered round in a circle and met the children of the school. At first the children were very shy and wary of us but with the help of their teachers we got them to trust us more and got them to play games with us. Overcoming this kind of language and social barrier with such young children was a new experience for me and turned out to be more of a challenge than i thought it would! but overcoming this challenge helped me accomplish the 'undertaking new challenges' criteria.
Once the kids were comfortable with us we came to a conclusion as a group as to what games we could make them play. After a few minutes of planning and discussion we decided on a few games that would be easy to play and fun (planned and initiated activities). The kids at first were quite confused about what we were doing and seemed intimidated by us but gradually they started to understand the basic idea and started enjoying the games. Once we were done playing with the children and giving them the gifts we had got for them and singing them a special nursery rhyme we chose for them, we headed off to do our 'action' part of the trip which consisted of painting with all its intricacies which i didn't know even existed! and of maintenance of the swings and other components of their playground.

Like i said before, painting the walls was more complicated than i expected! i initially thought that all we would have to do was dip the paintbrush into the pain and just put it onto the walls.In reality we had to mix the paint with thinner in specific quantities and use specific brushes and paints for indoor walls and outdoor walls. Also calculating the amount of materials needed was extremely hard and several different trips had to be made to nearby stores for supplies. All these difficulties brought us closer as a team and we worked collaboratively with each other to overcome the problems. Every time we solved a problem a new challenge came our way which we overcame. After hours of planning and painting we finally finished our work for the day and went ahead to help the other groups with their work. I helped in painting the mural which was a creative activity and something i had never done before. I had to be given a lot of guidance by the artists but i managed to come of some use to them.

On the first day Mr.Lockwood gave the few of us who had finished our work a special job of building a small pathway out of wooden planks and ropes in the style of a train track to lead upto the entrance of the school. There were only 4 of us who worked on this assignment. This was again a new activity for me, my third new activity of the day which proves that i did step out of my comfort zone to undertake new challenges. This task turned out to be the most exhausting and difficult task of them all because we did not know the proper techniques of hammering nails into wood. It isn't as simple as it sounds. we managed to injure ourselves with the hammer a few times but in the end we got it done. This task took all my energy but i remained committed to completing it and by the end of the day i was the only one still working on it to complete it.My arms were sore but i was proud of myself for achieving something special on the day. Completing this strenuous task took a lot of will power and showed my perseverance and commitment in the day's activities. Doing this activity also helped me develop some basic skill about woodwork and craftsmanship.
Once we were done with all our work we decided to clean up the mess we had created. Cleaning up the paint and turpentine and other materials we used led to an ethical complication because disposing of them was not easy. In the end we decided to wash all our equipment and dispose of wastes in one corner of the ground surrounding the school where other wastes where thrown. We were not too happy with our disposal method but we could not come up with a better solution. The amount of pollution we were causing also came to my mind as we disposed of our wastes as it is an issue of global importance. I knew that we were polluting land and water but we had no alternative solution so we could not do much about it.
That evening when we were back at our hotel i organised a small football match with my friends in the front lawn of the hotel as a productive way to pass our time while other swam in the pool etc.Later in the evening Skylar ,Camie and I brought out our guitars and decided to practice a few songs that we could play in our last performance for the children before we left. So we practiced before and after dinner and we decided that i would do an improvisation on my guitar while Camie and the rest of our grade sang the song "hey soul sister" and then Skylar and I would do an guitar instrumental (Creativity). After we were done planning and practicing we went to bed. I think its safe to say i achieved more than the goals i had planned to achieve so i decided not to make any goals for the next few days and just do everything that came my way and would be of some help to someone.

DAY 2:
As i said, i decided not to set any goals and just wanted to be spontaneous. So the day started off in the same way with the first hour spent playing with the kids. On this day we gave them some coloring books and crayons and drew pictures with them. After that we went ahead with our days work as the day before. On this day we decided to re-paint all the swings etc. in the playground of the school. This was again a little problematic as we had to use special paints that would cover metal properly. But we managed to overcome that pretty easily and went ahead with our work. When i finished painting the swings i was assigned i went around helping with the other swings and helping with the mural again.

Then Camie and I decided to make a sort of a mural on the back wall of the school as well. So we got together and thought of something. Camie had the idea of us painting numbers and alphabets using our hand prints which was quite a fun task. Once we were done we were quite proud of the success of the idea. Then we went on to help the others again.As the day wore on we kept completing all the tasks we had been assigned and a few a extra jobs. The day went pretty much the same way as the first. The basic design of the main mural was completed on this day

When we went back to the hotel we decided to go for a swim and get our daily exercise and at night camie and i performed what we were gonna play at the performance which was followed by my performance with Skylar and then we just had an hour of music where i played a few famous songs on the guitar while the rest of the class sung along.We also practiced a song in Sinhalese that the whole class was going to sing at our performance. This was something new for most of us and we gave it our best shot though most of our pronunciations where way off the mark.

Day 3
The days work started with us finishing up all the small jobs that were left around the school. Final touches were made to all the things we painted. Some things had to be painted again because the paint was already chipping off. We worked long and hard in the heat only to be foiled by a sudden rainstorm that we thought would ruin all our hard work. Thankfully nothing was too badly affected by the rain though final touches had to be made again. It was a fun experience scampering around in the rain trying to save the equipment we could and cover up the newly painted swings. I worked collaboratively with everyone and tried helping wherever i could.

Men at work

As we finished up with all the work and the time for our performance drew nearer we went and got our guitars from the bus. We practiced for a while and then the performance started. First the children put up a show for us and then we reciprocated by putting one up for them. We sang them a Sinhalese song and then i performed the two songs i had practiced. On the last day i did not help with the mural because the final and most delicate touches were being applied to it and i know i am not a great artist so i did not want to ruin all the hard work we had done by making a mistake so instead i practiced the song i was playing for the performance. The video for one of the songs is on YouTube and here is the link to it : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mj92mlEt8Z0

Once we were all done we said goodbye to the children and thanked the teachers for letting us destroy their school as we attempted to fix it. But we did pretty well especially since not too many of us had past experiences like this. We were proud and happy of what we had accomplished and also very tired by the end of it all.
We went back to the hotel and rested for a while before setting out in the evening for some swimming and a jog on the beach. Karl Camie and I jogged the whole length of the beach to get fit for our upcoming sports tournaments. Karl and i went a little overboard and decided to sprint a few times which was extremely hard to do on sand! We still tried our best and were completely exhausted by the end of it but we were happy we got a good workout and felt fit. That night there was a small dance party organised for us before we left for Colombo the next day. All in all it was a good trip.

What did i accomplish??

I accomplished all the goals i had set for the trip before we went there and many more. I also was able to fulfill all of those 8 CAS criteria that the IB has set. Therefore it was a very rewarding trip for me and i felt like i had actually made a difference in the lives of a few less fortunate people.


After Week Without Walls
The rest of January went by in a blur with a lot of football training and practice matches as well as a little community service in the Cleft lip and pallet group where i was made leader for the next couple of semesters. Now it was my job to recruit new members and lead the project by organizing fund-raisers and planning trips to the hospital to visit the affected children.

The month of January was quite a busy month in terms of CAS as i managed to have a lot of Creativity, Action and Service all combined into one month through a lot of different activities.

Summary of the 2010-2011

Honestly, i have not been able to keep my CAS blogging up-to date as i have a lot of important and large posts still in draft stage. Three main things that i participated in this year that i have not yet blogged about are SAISA Football , Week Without Walls, SAISA Athletics. 


How many of the goals that i set at the beginning of the year have i achieved?
1)My first goal was to undertake new activities which i have done this year a lot as i knew i would have more time this year than the next. I have taken part in many stage performances, something which used to intimidate me earlier. International Inter school sports competitions were something completely new to me and therefore i took part in the sports where i knew my strengths lay :  which are football and athletics. I also took up organisational roles of help with hosting a SAISA tournament as well as a fund-raising party. The details of most of these events and activities have not been posted by me yet but i intend to post them as soon as we finish our final grade 11 exams and over the summer.
2)My second goal was to help the community which i achieved by joining a community service for a rare cause. The cleft lip and palette organisation is not one you come across everywhere because people are unaware of this disease which can ruin a child's life. i learnt about this disease and helped in raising money for operations which helped children with this disease. I also spread awareness about it amongst my friends and in the second semester got them to join our cause. On week without walls i helped re-paint a school for poor children and played with the children. I got to see how these children live everyday and what facilities they have with the minimal amount of money the government spends on them. We cleaned up their school and re-painted their swings etc. It was a great experience.
3)Learning to work co-operatively with others has been one of my greatest achievements this year as i made a lot of friends at this school and worked well in many teams. I was able to make it onto the football team and earn the trust of my team mates. i also made it onto the athletics squad. I was made the leader of my community service in the second term and as leader i had to co-ordinate all CAS meetings and fundraisers we planned, along with the rest of the team.
4)As far as helping the saisa football team goes i think i did my part for the team twice saving the team from a potential loss or a draw by scoring goals. Even though we did not get a great position due to different circumstances, we got the respect of every other team. I also won the award for most spirited player of the season on the team which was a great achievement for me.
5) Learning to be more creative is another one of my great achievements as i did almost every kind of creative activity i could. I took part in dances, theater performances and music performances as well. In organizing the fundraising party also there were many creative aspects.
6)The last goal was to enjoy 11th grade which i did thoroughly. Making lots of new friends and taking part in new activities, being a part of groups and teams and sometimes leading them to achieve their goals. I did  i possibly could while maintaining an average GPA of more than 6. So i am pretty proud of my achievements in the 11th grade and hope to have greater achievements in the 12th grade

CAS for the month of December 2010

December was only half a month of school as winter vacations begun half way through December. Even though it was only half a month of school it was 'Action-packed' as football season was in full swing. The girls football season was coming to an end with the SAISA tournament closing in and the boys football season was to start just after that. As far as community service is concerned it once again took the backseat as organizing the SAISA tournament took top priority. Being a part of the event crew meant supervising and organizing all the events that were to take place. Therefore not much was achieved as part of community service since the plan for the fundraising party had collapsed in November and everything had to be re-organised.

SAISA GIRLS FOOTBALL TOURNAMENT! 
After weeks of intense training the girls football tournament was finally here. As part of the event crew we were assigned the following tasks:
1) Organizing all the room for the teams to keep their belongings safe and for rest etc.
2) Organizing the social for all the participants of the tournament on the evening of the first day of the tournament.
3) Help with any odd tasks throughout the 3 day tournament.
4) Help organize the awards ceremony.
5) Show our support for our team!!

Friday-26th(first day)
All of us who were hosting people were informed to report to school bright and early so as to give the players enough time to have team-talks with their coaches and for the event crew to have enough time to set up the team rooms. So the 4 of us who were the main crew went into the gym and picked up the empty trunks and carried them to each of team rooms. Then we had to organize locks and keys for the trunks which turned out to be more confusing than it should have been because all the locks and keys were similar. We did manage to get it right after a few tries and we gave the coaches the corresponding keys.
After getting this done we moved onto our next important task of setting up the auditorium for the social that evening. This task was much harder than we expected it to be. First we devised a plan as to how we should set up the auditorium. We decided to split it up into two areas , one half would be the  dance floor and the other half would be a relaxation area with sofas and high jump mats used as beds. We also decided to put table tennis tables for the people who weren't too tired and still had an appetite for some sport. Next came the hardest bit of it all, actually moving the furniture and the high jump mats to the auditorium. This was a real test of our strength as each of those mats and sofas weighed much more than we expected. But we pulled together and through our combined effort and about 2 hours of physical labor we managed to get everything into to auditorium well ahead of time. As for the DJ we decided to make a playlist on one of our iPods and plug it in and let it play through the evening. After organizing everything we congratulated each other on a job well done and went to support our team and watch the rest of the matches.
Once all the matches were complete we headed back to the auditorium to make final adjustments etc. Once the social started there was not much we could do other than just enjoy the fruits of our labor along with the other teams. All in all the social went of well and everyone seemed to have a fairly good time. At least we know we gave it our best shot and we were proud of ourselves. Through the first day the critical CAS outcomes that i achieved were , Undertaken new challenges - organizing a social event for the first time and physically carrying large equipment. Planned and initiated activities - planning the whole social with the rest of the event crew and making sure it went smoothly.Worked collaboratively with others - the whole event crew had to work as a team to pull this off.Shown perseverance and commitment in their activities- organizing the whole thing took a lot of hard work and we did meet a few problems along the way but we managed to overcome them.


Saturday- 27th( Second day)
The second day was mainly spent supporting our team as there were nothing but football matches all day. We made a big group of supporters and beat our drums and yelled and cheered till our throats were sore. And then we cheered some more. Though half the matches were rained out we still kept spirits high as we watched our team progress into the semi-finals.some of us from the event crew decided to paint the letters OSC on our bodies to act like typical rowdy football fans which was fun. When the thunderstorm occurred, there was slight chaos for a while when no one knew what was going on. At this point even the event crew were helpless because we were not really prepared for such a big storm but we helped whenever we were asked.

Sunday-28th(Final Day)
On the final day the first half of the day was spent setting up the auditorium for the final awards ceremony while the semi-finals took place on the fields.We decided the decorations for the auditorium and helped organize getting them put in the right place. After setting up the auditorium and talking with the caterer's and making the final decisions we went to watch the remainder of the games. We were ecstatic when we found out that our school team had made it to the finals. We decided to put all organizing on hold to go and show our support. Sadly our team lost the final but we were still pretty happy because this was the first time our girls team had made it so far in saisa football. After all the commotion we went to get cleaned up and got ready for the awards ceremony. The awards ceremony went off smoothly and the saisa tournament came to an end. We were extremely tired but satisfied with our hard work.

Creativity:
These last few months i have been working hard on my guitar playing skills and have managed to learn quite a few new songs. i decided to record a video of a cover of the song 'One last breath' by the band creed and upload it onto the internet in hope to gain some constructive criticism.This is the video :

In December i was still in search of a band but there seemed to be a shortage of free musicians in the school. So i put my plans for a band on hold and concentrated on the football season that was about to begin. Uploading the video on the internet was something new for me as i finally mustered up the courage to show the world my talent (Undertaken new challenges) .Through comments from viewers i learn about what i was doing wrong and learnt how to improve my technique (Increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth). i practiced a lot before i made this video and had to re-do it many times to minimize mistakes but the end product was worth the effort (Shown perseverance and commitment in their activities)

CAS for the month of November

November was a full month of school and therefore provided a lot of time for CAS. My main goals for this month were too help train the girls football team along-with a few classmates and Mr.Shipley (their football coach). Mr.Shipley asked some of us to come to football training and help the girls with some fitness and skill tips and tricks.Also we were part of the event crew and we had to organize the whole tournament which included the social and the awards ceremony alongwith help with the different football matches.
As for community service all of our plans to raise money for the cleft pallet organization failed due to many reasons.
Football training:

In November our participation in training the girls team was more organized and efficient since we had spent the last week of October getting to know the team and finding out about their knowledge of football . At first we were made to show them some football skills and tricks which could help them during the game and we helped them build individual skill and ball control. Next we moved on to working on teamwork which comprised of everyone in the team putting in an effort and helping each other improve. We stressed on communication with teammates and practiced different game situations. After a few practices me and my companions were not of much use anymore since the team had already learnt all we could teach them about the afore mentioned parts of the game. At some points we just stood and watched them do exactly what we hoped for and pointed out any mistakes we would see. The experience of training and coaching a team taught me a lot of new things and helped me achieve 6 out of 8 of the critical learning outcomes which were : "Increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth", "Undertaken new challenges"(coaching for the first time) ,"Planned and initiated activities"(training sessions and routines) , "Worked collaboratively with others"(worked with a team and as a part of the team) , "Shown perseverance and commitment in their activities"(went for every practice even when it was not imperative for me to attend) , and "Develop new skills"(Teaching skills)



Community Service:
Throughout the months of October and November the cleft palette fundraising organisation would meet each Thursday after school for one hour to try and decide and make arrangements for our fundraising party to be held in November. But for some reason even after careful planning and organization at the last minute the venue had to be changed due to miscommunication and in all the confusion caused,the party had to be cancelled. The date for the party had to be reset but the mock exams of the 12th graders were very close and therefore our group leaders were busy with that therefore the party was postponed.


Other activities : Saturday afternoon community football continued and i tried attending every session in order to develop my football skills even further and learn new techniques.Shown perseverance and commitment in my activities.

CAS for the month of October

The  month of october was not as 'CAS filled' as September but that is mainly because the second half of the month was the october break which meant no school. Before school closed for the October break we had a UN day which was a completely new experience for me. Also I experienced being in the shoes of a referee for the first time as i was asked to referee a football game between two middle school teams.After the holidays there was only week of October left in which Mr. Shipley asked me and a few classmates to help him coach the girls team.


UN Day:

UN day is a day of unique celebrations at OSC where all students show their patriotism and love for their country by dressing up in their native clothes and learning new things about other cultures from different students. On this day i dressed up in a typical Indian "Kurta Pyjama" which is the casual wear of every Indian man. There was a feast prepared for all the students in our canteen where parents of students represented their respective country's and brought specific food items native to their homelands. This was an amazing experience as i found so many new kinds of food i had never even seen before and found out the roots of some of the foods that i loved so much!. But before all the eating began we were assembled according to our countries and made to march into the school auditorium. It was here that i really the true diversity in our school. There were students from every country i could think of! After the march and the gathering in the auditorium we were sent off to indulge ourselves into food from 'around the world'. All in all it was a very cultural and creative day.

Refereeing a football match :
On one early Saturday morning i woke up and got ready for a a football match but for the first time without feeling nervous about the outcome of the match because for the first time in my life i was going to referee a match! i was pretty excited as i felt all powerful and thought i would have total control of the match. I wanted to try to be a referee ever since i started playing football but i never expected it to be as hard as it was. This experience was an 'eye opener' for me as for the first time i knew what it felt like to be supportin no side and being completely neutral. It was hard because i was not used to blowing the whistle everytime the ball went out of play and many times i forgot to do so as i was so caught up in the game. I did not make too many mistakes though since i know a lot about football because i have been watching football since the last 5 years. But all in all it was a good experience and it helped me achieve some of the learning outcomes of the CAS programme like Increased my awareness of my own strengths and areas for growth,developed new skills and Considered the ethical implications of my actions.


Coaching the girls football team:
In the last week of October Mr.Shipley asked me and a few of my friends who have some experience in football, to help him coach and train the girls SAISA football team. We basically had to teach the girls what we had learnt over the years like fitness tips and ball skills. There were only two or three practices in october since the season had just recently begun.The first practice we went to was a shock to all of us. We thought we would be teaching girls who had already had some experience playing football competitively but the truth was that hardly anyone on the team had played any football at all! we took on this challenge but with half hearts as we thought our team had no chance of winning. But after the first 3 practices there was already a visible improvement in the team's form and the individual skills of different players. This was another new experience for me as i had never coached anyone before i had always received coaching but this new experience taught me a lot of valuable things about keeping team morale high and being a fair coach.