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.