Ending of Basketball SEASON

"We're are the champion my friend.. Ta ta tahhh.. We keeping on fighting till the end...ta ta tahh.. " So, that was the song we were singing on the way to the airport after recieving the first place trophy from the SAISA Girl's Basketball of 2012.

Throughout the tournament, we had worked our hearts out to compete with the other competitors. It was not easy, playing each games. In fact, we had to play 2 games per day, 3 days in a row. Our legs were sore, our knees were bleeding. But, that did not stop the perseverance and commitment that every players on the team put into each game.

Most of my jobs in the team was to be the first up front defender. It was not easy, really. I got fouled out once in the tournament, which is an iprovement from last year. (where i fouled out every single game) It backs up the point that I have developed the skills. Other than being a defender, I was also a right wing in the offensive. In order to be a good offensive player, I had planned and initiated strategy with the others teammates and worked collaboratively with them in the game. It hadn't been so easy for me, because i accidently jammed my most important finger during the third game. It swelled up like a sausage. But, with all the commitments that i put for the team and the tournament, i decided to play on no matter what. And We Won! Undefeated!

I think i have achieve most of the goals i have set earlier in the beginning of the season. Although, we still don't know who the co captain was. But, does it matter?

Next season, FOOTBALL, Dhaka! Here I come.

Its all about ACTION in Volleyball

      Volleyball season was truly a challenging excitement. We trained hard throughout two months time and arrived at the second place in the tournament. There were many things I have learned and developed from participating in the team. First of all, being a leader requires more than just a badge that says ‘captain’. It requires all the patience, perseverance and commitment, all time involvement and strength to be able to lead the team forward. Leader has to work collaboratively with others. If the leader falls, the whole team will fall. Second thing, I have developed new volleyball skills, agility-wise. I was able to control the ball and knew my positions on the court better than in the past.

      It is a shame that this is my last year in the volleyball team at OSC. However, there is a possibility that I might be able to carry this skill and adapt to another sport such as basketball for the next season.

DAWG Pawn Visit

After the long weeks of organizing the food drive, I thought it would be a great idea for the DAWG group to get out of the school and feel the outside world and rewarding them for the perseverance and commitment in the activities. I really thought they would learn a lot from this trip, especially the truth that is out there. It took me awhile to organize the whole trip. It was not easy; from booking the time at the pawn, booking the bus, writing punch of permission letters to parents, teachers and head master to carrying all the 100 kg of dog food from the third floor to the bus. I felt like I truly did Developed new skills in planning and initiating the activities a lot more than I should have been considering that I was not the only one who was in charge of the DAWG campaign.

The pawn was heart shaking. The condition was poor and the place was filled with 150 dogs and 50 cats. As soon as we arrived at the gate, there were dogs barking and fighting all over. It was quite frightening for the kids. Stephanie, Sorrel and I decided that we would be the only one entering the pawn due to the security issue.

I knew at that moment that the kids did learn something. They finally saw it with their own two innocent eyes. It would be grateful if they can learn to realize that this is just the beginning. There are a lot more for them to learn and to truly get engage with issues of global importance.

SportsDay (Action)

I have participated in many sports during the sportsday at OSC. It is one of my favourite day at school. No thinking required, just do it!
I'm in the green house, each house competed each other in differnt types of sport:
Voleyball, Football, Kickball, basketball and swiming (optional). I was in a lot of games throughout the day. During games, Work collaboratively was one of the major ibjective we need to focus on. Sports is all about team work. It is a team sport, there is no such thing as one man show in a good games. Sports day also allow me to  Developed new skills by practicing during real games (well.. it was sportsday).
At the end of the day, the winning house with the most point was annouced to be the Red House. Dissapointment at first, but i realized, we can't always win. Ah well..at least we really did show perseverance and commitment in the activities.

               Camie and I

 Getting in ACTION!

Senior CommonRoom Murals (creative and Service)

It is a senior privilege to get the use the common room at school. However, it was decorated in such a horrible way and nothing was working in that room really. So, Sascha, Camille, Sandushi, Yuko and I decided to engage with issues of global importance by planning and initiate activities by coming up with the service of maintenance for our common room, aim to create better atmosphere for people who use the common room. We started off with informing the principal to fix all the electrical objects like the microwave, refrigerator, fans, air conditioner, and lights (that’s pretty much everything in the room). In order to achieve the goal, we worked collaboratively with others. We collected all the money required to buy the paints and started working. During the mural session, all participants showed perseverance and commitment in the activities. It is considered to be, not just service, but also creativity. It required my art skill in mural painting. In fact, I also have developed new skills in painting on walls since I was only used to painting on paper, but now, large area of a wall needed my art skill on them!

Senior Year CAS Objecives

This is the last DP year of my High School, hence this will be the last year that I would have to be involve in CAS. Of course, although I would no longer be at school, all those things will happen as a part of my future life (just not written down on a blog like this). So, i would like to use this opportunity to set new Goals and some aspects I would like to achieve for the entire semester (due to future changes that will occur in the middle of the year). 

Action: 
To continue my sport activities such as SAISA -> ASA
First SAISA season (Volleyball), second Basketball and third volleyball:
Attend all the training
Keep fitness upward
Developed new skills and learn new skills about volleyball such as different attack and defence strategies
May be also consider to take the leadership roles which I then have to make sure that I Work collaboratively with others.

Creativity: 
Paint the murals on the common room wall.(also community and service) This will show perseverance and commitment in their activities upon the class of 2012.
Continue the guitar practice to developed new skills such as learning guitar tabs and more advancing knowledge about guitar.

Service: 
Become the leader of Dog Awareness Welfare Group and work collaboratively with Stephanie Van De Burgh.
Planned and initiated activities:

Fund raise list that we have created. 

-Food Drive for dog pawn in Colombo

-Try to sell DAWG logo souvenir during the Volleyball SAISA
-Bake Sale
-Movie Night
Organize the sterilization at the beginning of December 2011.  This event is aimed to be the Engagement with issues of global importance and in the local community in order to reduce number of dogs and cats with rabies and other transmittable diseases. 

Musical Show.. Creativity!

Camille Raguin and I were engaging with issues of global importance, we were asked to perform on the Farewell assembly for the Grade 12 which will be graduating soon at OSC. We performed 'Un peu d'espoir' by Joyce Jonathan. It is French, meaning that Camille would be singing the song together with her piano play and myself playing a guitar. After months and months of learning how to play chords and tabs, I managed to put the song together and worked collaboratively with Camille to form a beautiful song.

Here are some photos taken by Ms. Shamilla

Yearboooook. >> Creativity

     It was a shame that I could not participate the Activity in during the first two SAISA seasons of the yearbook. The training time and the yearbook time happened to be on the same day. But on the third season i was able to attend the shift and started to create yearbook pages. This is my first year and the reason why i joined yearbook was, i want to learn and Developed new skills (especially using photoshop). Coming up with new ideas about the page was Difficult. You want the page to be 'unique', but not too over crowded. In fact, i've never use photoshop to create any of my work before. This is going to be a big challenge to learn and use the new skill at the same time.
     I consider yearbook as a project which Engaged with issues of global importance since we're doing this for service, creating the yearbook for the whole school. We really Shown perseverance and commitment our time to the activity. We spent about 3 to 4 hours after school creating pages and pages of yearbook.
     In the final, I've created about 8-9 pages (can't remember which ones). It's nto much, but at the time limit, it was the best i could have done. Plus, at the end of the session, it really makes you feel like you've done something, creating something useful, not just for yourself but the whole community of OSC.

Progress.. ART CAS

     Every Thursday afterschool, the ART community group puts every drop of their sweats down to Planned and initiated in order to re- organize the whole Secondary Art store room. It is not easy as it looks. We all had to work collaboratively with others because dust dirt, junks and rotten stuff are everywhere and the only to work effictively, we need to coperate and Shown perseverance and commitment. Our work is to organize, clean and label them in proper place so that in the future, people who use the area would be able to access into all kinds of eqipments in that room and won't need to spend another hour trying to find a tool.

     So far, we only have 5-6 people coming in to lend a hand. We managed to clear up the cupboard which random stuff in it. On the other hand, the boxes are being re oragnise by other people. We hope that we will be able to finish up that room within this month and move on to orgnize something else. However, I set up the key words on my own, no matter how much time we have, quality always comes before quantity.

OSC vs. British

On the 4th of March 2011, the Overseas School of Colombo has been travelling over to the British School to form a small tournament. it is a tournament for Single Girl/ Boy, Double Girls/Boys and mix BADMINTON. Our school has sent about 9 people of grade 8 and above students to this tournament.
It was very exciting at first, because personally, i haven't attended any 'proper' matches in a long time. The first game started off with single boys. We were.. alright i guess, but not enough to defeat the opposite team. They had the national caoch to train them and thier team has been formed for many years.

The matches went on for 2 hours. We all worked hard and we have shown perseverance and commitment in the activities. When it comes to the final game, it was me against their best guy for single. I was frightened. Not the fact that I'd probably be defeated but the fact that I haven't had an intensive training. But well, the result turned out well, I won the match by 12-21 point. Planning and initiated the game was really useful, especially in the tactical part.

The whole tournament was great. We had a lot of fun and met a lot of new friends from the BISC school.

Here are some photos of the tournament taken by Sascha Shipley



The Team



Double with Georgia



Single

You Tie.. then you Die (dye)

     Sascha Shipley and I decided to sign up for the After School Activity on Monday since it is the only day we're available. We looked at different ASA on monday and the mojor thing that attrated us was Tie dye. At first we thought it would be a good opportunity to develop new skills. Even if i have had done tie dye before, this might allow me to learn new tricks and skills about tie dye in order to create a better result. 
Tie dye is run by Ms. Veena Fernando. She is really passionate about tie dye and so are we. Our group is rather very small, it includes Sascha, Musna and myself. 

     In the beginning, we Planned and initiated activities correctly so when it comes to the action part, nothing goes wrong. we had to Worked collaboratively with others because we had to work with reactive chemicals within the procedure. In fact, by the time we are comfortable with creating tie dye,I could still see the perseverance and commitment in the activity we are involved with.

   I have taken some of the pictures but sadly non of them have myself in it (because i was the guy with the camera!) But i will take the photos of myself with the objects that I managed to tie dye. 

Madam Veena with her DANGEROUS chemicals

      

 Our tie dyed clothes.

Basketball, Nepal'11

     The Overseas School of Colombo has been preparing or another word, starting its SAISA Third Season of Girls' Basketball since December 2010. 8 Weeks or less of attempting to bond up and create a Basketball team. At the beginning, yes, we were pretty much a chaos. Half of the team did not know what to do, not even know how to dribble or pass a ball. The first day, Mr. Tharindu Ferenando, the new coach of the Overseas Basketball team has put up two questions for us which needs to be answer before we even begin to stat praticing, 'Why are you here? What do you wish to get out of this season?'. Many of us said, 'for fun and fitness', myself said, 'for fitness and make the SAISA team.' "You're not here to have fun, you're here to play basketball as a team, as a weapon." he replied. The whole team didn't understand it, some even quit, but most stayed. 

     Weeks and weeks, the team finally Developed new skills.  ,Even if it wasn't so much to win the practice games with the Gateway Collage girls or the Sri Lankan National Team. But that was when we all began to see that the team was Working collaboratively with others and we were able to Considered the ethical implications of their actions.

      Finally, off we left to Kathmandu, Nepal; to the Lincoln School. There were 7 teams in total. Everyteam are the same as us, they had couple of weeks to bond up the team and got ready for the competition.

     I must say that this season was HARD, EXCITING, COLD, INTENSE and CRAZY. At the end I came back to Sri Lanka with 4 bruises on my body. But throughout every single games, we had really Shown perseverance and commitment in all of the games. We Planned and initiated in every single minute of the game.

    

     As the result, the Overseas School's Girls Basketball team has came on the 3rd place.

ART_cas

     Terunaga and I decided to continue the Community and service which started last year by a group of 10 graders of the Overseas School of Colombo. The service is called ART CAS. Yes, we provide service directly to the Secondary  Art room at OSC. Terunaga as a CAS leader and myself as a vice. Planned and initiated activities


     ART CAS has aims to organize and clean the art room and make it a better environment for the students. In organizing the materials in good condition, we are indirectly saving our community money that, instead of purchasing new art equipments, could be used for improving other areas of school.

     The art teacher, Ms. Jane Barnett, has agreed to be the supervisor of this Community Service and we’re hoping to have this every Thursday afterschool from 2:40 p.m to 3:30 p.m. We are looking for about 8 students from grades 10 through 12.

     Through this community service project, we hope to achieve some of the 8 criteria, which are the objectives of CAS. As for everybody who will be involved in this activity, this will be something new and everybody will undertake new challenge. To confront this challenge, everybody will need to work collaboratively with others, and show perseverance and commitment in this activity. Through this activity, we hope that this will contribute to better environment in the art room and the students involved are also able to develop new skills, such as working in a systematic manner accomplish tasks in the most efficient way. This engages with some issues of community money being wasted.

Wack it. Smack it. Win it!

Reflection on my goals for Badminton

• To build up my basic skills that I have forgotten
• Able to help one of the player in the group in order to get into the school badminton team in the future.

After 4 sessions of Badminton, I could see theDeveloped new skills of people who I brought out individually to practise outside their play time. I realized how they all want to relax and play, but I only want their 15 minutes to help them blemish up their skills. I Planned and initiated activities, For example: 

• Serves 
• Overhead hit
• Backhand
• Drop shots (back-hand and fore-hand)

But in order to make this work, I need to push them to Show perseverance and commitment in their activities.

Now, since we only have 3-4 weeks left, Terunaga and I decided that we should have a mini tournament within our ASA group. We haven't decide any further information yet but soon will update. The goal for this competition is to see who would be able to overcome our expectations, meaning we're putting up rank from 1 to 10 then the competition would show who could possibly 

Week With Wickedness. [www'11]

     Of we went to Hambantota. Six hours ride each way. An hour or two to get to some where from the hotel. What an exhausting trip. Our aim for this WWW was to:

• Explore or learning outside classes (Visiting the new harbour in Hambantota funded by China, Whole day Safari at Yala) Engaged with issues of global importance
• Provide community and service to a primary school (Painting, renewing most of the play ground in the school) Planned and initiated activities
• Open up the views of other local area in Sri Lanka (Interacting with kids, the exchange mini concert at the primary school, travelling along two sides of rural Sri Lanka) Shown perseverance and commitment in their activities
• Learn how to live in different community in different place (Living with a whole bunch of people for 5 days)Worked collaboratively with others

 

There were two major words that we had settled to make this all work

  Community & Consideration

After 5 days of WWW'11, we've achieved all of the goals we had set earlier. The whole grade 11 of Overseas School managed to learn, explore, provide, give and take all the experiences throughout this trip. Even though, this is the last Week Without Wall, we made it memorable and gladly enjoyed all the hard work and every sweat we put down. 

 OSC class of 2012 Week Without Walls.

[_OSCars POSters_]

 

Creativity: I have designed the poster for the OSCars' 11 for the SGA, publication. 

Learning a new skills, using different programmes.