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.