Action: Yoga

Twice a week on Monday and Thursday nights, I attend a yoga class with my mom. By doing yoga I am undertaking a new challenge as this type of exercise was previously unfamiliar to me. These yoga classes last one and a half hours and each class has a different goal. Often we focus on a single body part that needs stretching and relaxation, such as the back, the legs, the arms, etc... We also do rain and sun salutations which build strength and increase flexibility.

Creativity: UN Day Performance

On the 14th of October, OSC held its annual UN Day celebration, which underlines the importance of multi-culturalism, a prominent factor at OSC. At the end of the day we held an assembly and a few of us performed "We are the World". This song was chosen because as students and children, it was appropriate, in addition to being able to be sung in several different languages, a bonus as international students. We each sang a verse in a different language-Nadeera (Sinhala), Camie (Spanish), Chrisni (Mandarin), Mo (Thai) and I (French) and then sang the verse together in English with the help of the audience. As a group we met up several times for rehearsals and through this I worked collaboratively with others and showed perseverance and commitment in my activity.

Service: Primary Movie Event

On the 23rd of September, the OSC CAS group, Habitat for Humanity held a primary movie event. Camie, Damien and I, as leaders of this group, organised this for weeks before-hand. The idea for this event started when a Habitat for Humanity correspondent of ours emailed to notify us that it would be very much appreciated if we could find some way of donating shoes to the under-privileged children in the Moratuwa area of Sri Lanka. We thought about what a great cause this was and decided that the best way of collecting a large number of shoes would be a primary movie event. Part of our preparation for this event included: buying popcorn and juice to give out to the primary students, sending an email out to the primary parents and teachers giving them all the details of the event (i.e. if no shoes are donated than a ticket can be bought for 300rps.), giving an announcement during the primary assembly, setting up big mats on the floor of the auditorium and checking that the movie worked with the projector.

Although we found the start of the event quite chaotic since a lot more primary students attended our event than we had expected, we managed well with the help of a couple primary teachers. In the end the event was actually quite a success; we collected 55 pairs of shoes, raised 18500 rps.(185$) and were told that the primary students who had attended had really enjoyed themselves. By organising this event for a good cause, I have been engaged with issues of global importance.

Creativity: Singing at Assembly

On the 14th of September, Camie and I sang a cover of "Skyscraper" by Demi Lovato in Assembly. I showed perseverance and commitment in this activity and worked collaboratively with others by meeting up several times over a two week period and practicing: doing harmony, changing up the song from the original and just generally creating a performance we hoped the school would enjoy. Although we don't have a video of the actual performance we recorded a video later that day with the piano at my house. I've included it below, enjoy. (:

More hands-on work for Habitat for Humanity!

This year instead of doing fundraisers, we are going on builds, which involve the hands-on physical work of those included in this CAS. This made me consider the ethical implications of our actions in that when we were doing fundraisers on a fairly regular basis, we would have to ask our OSC community for financial aid and donations. Although we were raising money for a good cause, we felt that we would feel better if we were doing more hands-on work and that is why we decided to try to go on more regular builds.

Goals for 12th grade year!

Summer has now come to a close and with that I must re-enter the CAS mindset and note down some goals I hope to achieve in the coming year. Last year I was quite successful in completing the goals I had set for myself and now, once more, I am excited to work on achieving these goals again.

Goals for 12th grade year:

• Creativity: My goal last year was to reach a basic level of competence in a musical intrument and I achieved that goal by practicing guitar regularly at home. This year, in addition to continuing with the guitar, I would like to take some piano lessons at the local Yamaha store. I will look into doing this but with the workload I have this year and school activities, this might prove difficult to find the time.
• Action: My goal last year was to go to the gym in order to stay healthy and fit but I found that the location and hours of the gym by my house was not convenient and now, this year with the added workload and responsibilities I need to find a different way of incorporating action into my life. Similarly to last year I am a leader for Habitat for Humanity and therefore will be participating in monthly builds. This is a great way for me to get exercise since it demands rigorous heavy lifting and such.
• Service: As mentioned before-hand, I am a leader of the Community Service group Habitat for Humanity and similarly to last year my goal are to focus on going on builds and trying to build as many houses for the less-priviledged as possible. Another goal that I hope to accomplish for Community Service is to create a blog for Habitat for Humanity so as to reflect on our builds and achievements. We hope to do this so that instead of having reflections of our builds on many individual blogs, it will all be on one.

End of the year reflection

This year has gone by remarquably quickly and with it many great C.A.S. opportunities.

For creativity, I have participated in a great number of activities including guitar lessons, performing at the OSCars, acting in plays and much more...

For action, Habitat For Humanity has given me lots of opportunities to be active and get a ton of hard work done. In addition, I helped out with an active after-school activity for young primary students for a couple weeks and helped out during the Food and Fun Fair with our grade's soccer booth. Week Without Walls was also a chance to do some active work.

For service, this year has been great since I have gone on many builds as one of the leaders of Habitat For Humanity. As mentioned above I also helped out Mrs. Shipley with active activies for primary students.

At the start of grade 11 I set some goals for myself that I hoped to achieve throughout the two years of IB. I am glad to say that they have mostly been reached.

My Creativity goal was to reach a basic level of competence in a musical instrument which I did with the guitar from regular practice at home.

My Action goal was to stay fit while having fun and I initially signed up with a trainer at a gym and did this for several months but found that it really wasn't a very practical location nor did the times available at the gym fit in with my busy school schedule and academic demands. I semi reached my goal since I tried to participate as regularly as possible in Habitat builds and enjoyed swimming and yoga on the weekends.

Finally, my Service goal was to take a break from the fundraisers often held by Habitat last year and really get my hands dirty. This we have done with almost monthly Habitat builds which I have considerably written about on my blog in the past year. Overall, I feel that I have made a very good attempt and completion of the goals I set for myself at the beginning of grade 11.

In terms of the 8 criteria outcomes I feel I have done a very good job of relating them to most of the activities I participate in. I have mentioned 6 of these outcomes in the past year and am sure I will have no difficulty integrating the last 2 into my blog during my 12th grade year.