Alzeihmer's
Our group recently carried out a treasure hunt for grades 2-5 in the primary school. The surprising complexity involved in organizing such a seemingly simple event was a new experience for me. We needed to have six different routes to the treasure, to allow for some competition. This meant fanning out to all parts of the school, marking eye catching land marks as clue spots. We also had to market the event properly to attract as many primary school kids as possible. Another key difficulty was digging the treasure hole, more physical than mentally challenging.
The event on the whole went off successfully, although the kids did prove to be a little cleverer than we believed, finishing off in less than half an hour. Our total gains from the event was roughly 12,000 rupees, which is pretty successful.

Saisa Basketball Nepal

Our basketball team ended our season coming in fourth place overall out of eight teams. Admittedly this is dissapointing from last year, but the amount the team has grown together and fought hard at most times through the season has been rewarding to watch. Travelling to Nepal was also a new experience to me, and was something I also loved. Flying over the breathtaking himalayas, living in the magnificent hospitatlity of our host, the cheerfully cold weather and the new school were all mememorable experiences. Hopefuly, next year the team will grow and reach past heights once again.

BASKETBALL
My second try out for the basketball team has recently begun. This year we are decidedly with less firepower than last year, nevertheless the enthusiasm and determination of younger students are positive. Training is as usual both mentally and physically challenging but it becomes extremely rewarding to meet the challenge and makes the activity more fun.

Sri Lanka Alzheimer's Foundation Walk
Our elective group from the Overseas School of Colombo participated in a charity walk organised by the SL Alzheimer foundation. The majority of particpants were elderly so the teenagers from our group helped provide a bit more energy to the event. The walk was a short 4 kilometers, with lots of music, red&white balloons and large banners. This was the first time we had actively participated with the larger alzheimer foundation group and it was pleasing to see the fairly widespread response the event recieved.

Alzeihmer's Elective

In addition to the raffle, the SL alzheihmer foundation is also organizing a 'Walk for Alzheimers' on the same day. Our first step to get people to the walk was to put up posters literally everywhere in the school! We then asked all our members to also bring a friend along to the walk, which should increase our numbers. Unfortunately, my co-leader will not be able to make it since he is attending a SAISA swim meet in Mumbai, India.

Cancer Hospital

We recently visited the hospital after the summmer. The new play room is much cleaner, 'spick and span' and rather alluring as well! The kids, however, were not there on that day, so we improvised and cleaned the area outside the playroom - lots of wet sponges, mops and brooms!   

Leadership Workshop

Recently, the school organized (for the first time ever) a leadership skills building workshop for all OSC service leaders and the Student Government. We were made to carry out several abstract tasks in order to provide a vivid description of what leadership is, which was beneficial. For example, we were asked to describe a picture of cow dung upclose, with fungi growing on it and pleasant trees in the background. This led to several good examples of what a leader should observe and do, most importantly being able to look beyond the short term. On the whole we were able to understand the demands and responsbilities of a leader in better terms and I don't think I will forget the 'definition' provided for leadership, as someone who creates "an enabling environment" with a "shared purpose", advice that I found to be true and I will keep to help me in future endeavours.      

Alzheimer's Elective

We've been doing a lot of work recently, very active. The SL Alzheimer Foundation is organizing a raffle for which we have been asked to sell 20 booklets. To do this we have been making posters that were put around school. We then sell the tickets straight after school with two people from the elective volunteering to help me and seong. The ticket sales have been quite rapid as well as another fun experience in raising funds. And i believe we've created a shared purpose with an enabling environment in selling these raffle tickets :)

Grade 12

We're now seniors..our final year. The summer went pretty well for me. I got invloved with an advertisng agency (LeoBunett) for about two weeks which was extremely fun and useful experience. 

I also managed to stay true to my aim of keeping my tennis skills alive, by practicing atleast once a week and sometimes even twice or thrice a week. It was great, I love playing tennis  and it was a good way to keep fit as well, so that I wouldnt be completely out of shape for basketball later on in the year. 

This year me and seong (my fellow leader) will continue to lead the alzheimers elective, with no senior help to turn to :) We've already done our presentation to the school and we have seven people in the elective, which is pretty good, and more than the first sem. last year. Leading this elective is something that excites me this year since we constantly have to use so many skills to make it successful including public speaking skills, organisational skills, responsibility as well as keep the group and its members continually excited to be part of the elective. 

I also plan to continue my involvement with Cancer Hospital Project. OSC's has recently completed a newly refurbished play room for the kids there and we hope to go visit it sometime. 

CAS Over the Year

I have participated in several activites this year, that have engaged me in their own ways, and have also managed to excite me enough to pursue them fully.

For sports, SAISA Basketball and making the varsity team was a huge achievement and task accomplished this year, that I wholly enjoyed. I will always remember every moment of it, from the nervousness about making the team, to the grinding practice sessions, to our TWO trips to New Delhi and MUCH, much more. Next year, only four us will still be here, but we still hope to put together a competitive team, which should be helped with the completion of our new gym.
Tennis, which I have struggled to find time for consistently this term, is also a priority for me. I aim to very consistently attend sessions over the summer and become a better player.

I have been involved in two service activites this year, Cancer Hospital and the Alzeihmers Elective. Visiting the cancer hospital has definetly taught me a lot about how privelged I am and the great need for people like me to help the less fortunate improve their lives.
Taking on the leadership of the Alzeihmers elective this semester has uptil now actually been a fun and very helpful experience. I have seen the need to be creative when you are in charge as well as being organised enough to carry out the tasks. Next year, I hope to strengthen our group making sure that it proves to be healthy choice as elective for everyone as well as continuing to help spread awareness about alzeihmers and raise funds.

In terms of creativity, I did participate in MUN this year, yet only as an administrator. Through this I did learn a lot about the intricacies of the U.N. and being a diplomat, yet I know did not get the utmost out of this event, having not been a delegate. Next year, possibly, I might choose to do more in terms of organising the event, which I observed to be a highly challenging task, having recognised some things that I could do to make it a better experience for everyone.

Cancer Hospital

Our last visit for the year. Since we have funds to refurbish the kids play area, on our last visit, we participated in some strenous physical work. By this I mean packing everything in the room (toys, books, stationary, small furniture) into boxes. We then had to move the heavy boxes out of the area. Working as a group we managed to get the place emptied in just under an hour.

For me it did not feel like we had been coming here for a whole year, time does fly by. I think coming here over the year has been a seriously good experience in terms of meeting people so completely different from you, quite underpriveleged, and helping to brighten up their daily lives, which I have seen that we actually do with our visits. I will try to continue this service in senior year, hopefully not being too pinned down by work.
(me in the center with blue shirt, grey shorts)

Alzeihmers - Presentation to School

Over the past few weeks the some students have worked on researching articles on alzeihmers and making awareness posters, to put up around school. Others worked on posters that gave information about what we have done as a group i.e. visiting homes etc.

As for me and seong (my fellow leader) we were tasked with making a presentation about our activities to the secondary school during assembly. As such, we made a quick five minute presentation (that was all they gave us!).

Cancer Hospital

We have consistenstly been visiting the hospital this quarter without many interuptions. We mostly go to the kids playroom and either help clean it up or simply play with the kids. It has been quite a fun experience for this year, just watching the kids draw some pretty eye-catching sketches or playing cricket with the more active ones.

Alzeihmers - Food & Fun Fair

Our first event carried out as leaders was setting up a stall at the Food & Fun Fair. Initially, we planned to have a 'sweet stall' i.e. selling ice cream floats, ice cream, candyfloss in addition to drinks. To do this we required that each member bring a box of ice cream and we had to talk to the PTA as well as our principal to set up the stall.

As the event progressed, however, we saw that most people were not that interested in the 'candy' but were flocking toward the cool soft drinks we also had, being a hot day. Our limited drink supplies simply began to fly off. As a result, my fellow leader had to go to the supermarket in a hurry to gat some more drinks. Astonishingly, the 6 extra 1 litre bottles we baught literally disappeared in a matter of minutes. By this time we had no extra cash to buy bottles, so we decided to take a gamble and use some of the cash we had earned already, despite us knowing we only had around 45 minutes to go. This time, however, we increased our prices by 50-75rps from 25-50rps (small and big cups). Some customers did question our prices but nevertheless we sold those extra 6 bottles at whopping speed and more than doubled the profit. In fact, I remember some of us (annonymous :) charging upto 100rps for small cups of soda. It was certainly a fantastic experience for me in the serious power a producer has as a result of price inelastic demand!

By the end of the event, we had managed to raise a fantastic 8,800rps simply by selling soft drinks for a few hours! We hope to use the money later on next year in buying medicines for the people at the homes.

(me in blue)

TENNIS!

My tennis lessons (private) have been going on rather sporadically over the last few weeks. The purpose of these lessons is to make sure that I don't lose practice at the game and ofcourse to improve.
This improvement has also happened, with me learning a new grip for my backhand, and quite surprisingly I found that after years of having a rather undependable backhand, it was now much stronger and controlled... something that made me especially happy.

Me (in blue) and my fellow leader (in pink)

With us finishing MUN and several seniors who lead activities wanting more time before their exams, me and a friend of mine became the leader's for the Alzeihmer's elective. It was initiated this year by a couple of seniors who wanted to help the Sri Lanka Alzeihmer foundation as well as make students more aware of the problems associated with alzeihmers disease.

To help us get accustomed to the what our task would be, the two seniors invited us to a field trip they were going on to visit a home for alzeihmer patients, sponsored by the SL Alzeihmer foundation. Unlike all other service activities at OSC, this one does not work with kids, but rather senior citizens. This required a changed mindset for me, especially since I have been quite involved with the kids at Cancer Hospital. Eventually, however, we simply had small chats with the elderly group (marvelling at their own almost childlike enthusiasm to meet us) culminating with some sing-alongs.

Watching how our two leaders got the group of 7-10 grader's together to make proper use of the time, I was quite impressed and I know what will be expected of me as leader.

MUN finished last week. The three days that I participated as admin were a relished expereince. As admin I got to have a full overview of how the conference worked and what made it work. Our main priorites was to make sure that all delegates were seated in their proper commitees and typing up resolutions. Yet as I was a home schl admin I had to help the other admins as well in directing them around and just making sure everything went well for evryone.

In addition, when things got a bit dry, I was able to visit the three different commitees and observe how they were different and note the positives and negatives to making a good commitee chair.
Overall the conference decidely gave me a better view as to how the U.N works and the various 'nitty gritty' parts to it. I also observed some things I feel could have done better and next year I hope to play a bigger a role in the rather large, but interesting challenge of organising such a large conference, possibly as head of admin.

Increased their awareness of their own strengths and weaknesses
This is certainly something I learnt on the basketball court. I learnt that even if you are not initially able to cope with something a little persistance goes miles in improving the skill. For example, during basketball (before the team was chosen) in the early part of the season we did many suicides. Sometimes it just sort of felt like it was going to kill you, yet my desire to make the team kept me going, and I found that not only was I able to continue with suicides for longer later on, but I was also a lot fitter.

Undertaken new challenges
Making the basketball team was definetly a challenge.
Becoming the leader for the Alzeihmer elective is a fresh challenge for me where I have to work with professionals for whom taking care of Alzeihmer patients is their job, and organising a bunch of younger students.

Planned and initialised activities
The 5K service run
Cancer Hospital Movie night/ Card selling

Worked collaboratively with others
Definetly with Cancer Hospital to organise the events and with the Bball team.

Shown perseverance and commitment in their activities
Without this I most certainly would not have made the basketball team, which was quite a big goal for me this year. Hopefully, this will continue with the Alzeihmer's elective and being an active member of Cancer Hospital on Thursdays.

Engaged with issues of global importance
Helping underpriveleged communities with Cancer?

Considered the ethical implications of their actions
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Developed new skills
With Basketball as a player but also with persistance skills, and being part of quite a competetive team.
With Cancer Hospital I belive with every meeting with the children I am becoming better at interacting with people who are very different to me, with language etc.

Cancer Hospital

We visited the hospital again last week. I played a game of cricket with one of the children inside the hall. It was fun to do this interaction and sort of relax after all our school work.

With the MUN conference coming closer, there have been three dry runs over the last three weeks.

TENNIS!

I hope to restart playing tennis this semester after laying off last semester, so I could focus more on basketball and work. I have always loved playing tennis and would like to say i am pretty good at it.
In tenth grade, during my time in Delhi, I made the junior varsity team for our school (the Falcons) and I participated in SAISA tennis, coming third among the fourth seed group while my fellow Falcon teamate from varsity came first.
I started playing last week (Jan 31) outside of school with a private coach since it is not played here at OSC.

Cancel Hospital

I signed up for the Cancer Hospital service project for the second semester as well.
We are hoping to plan events for the children this semester using some of the thousands of rupees we successfully garnered last semester.

MUN

The Overseas School of Colombo anually hosts an MUN conference at schl.
I am signed up as part of the administration staff for the MUN and this is my first time having anything to do with MUN. Being part of admin is not as important as being delegate representing a country.

There are still many positives from being part of admin since you get an overview of how the entire conference functions, and since this MUN is almost 100% student led, the admin staff play a crucial part in helping the delegates undertake a worthwhile debate.

Me and a beautifully finished cupboard

WWW (work)

What seemed intially like a fairly easily do-able paint job quickly turned into a hard, time-consuming test of patience. My group thought we had been put in charge of one the easier jobs (painting grill meshes that were there instead of windows) before we quickly realised it was definetly the hardest. We had to paint these horrible thin steel cylindrical objects (inside and the outside) a task made worse by the several cob webs and spider eggs that were etched into every nook and cranny of the mesh network. It was impossbile to just splash paint faster (like when painting a wall) since you would miss the side of the grill and your arms would just get tired having to search for missed spots.
On the first day I was rather sick of all the unwashable paint on my hands and feet and after a day of hard physcial work of the sort that I cannot remember ever expereincing I simply collapsed when we reached the hotel. On the second day, it was a pleasant experience to find that after the previous day of painting where I had tried several methods of doing it, I was much quicker today and able to get more work done. I would have never believed painting to be such a painstaking affair before this experience!

WWW continued...

The actual intent of our trip to Hambantota was for us students to help renovate two pre-schools that our school had funded in building. We were split into two groups, one for each pre-school.
For three days we spent about 45 minutes each moring playing with the kids before attending to the hard physical labor set before us.

Playing with the kids I realised the hard fact that you only feel that you are doing something worthwhile when you really get into it and interact. On the first day it was rather boring for me helping with the sports group as I simply helped retrieved the football or some such thing. The next day, however, I was with the arts & crafts people where I was forced to interact with the little children, all very enthustiastically being encouraged to open up by their mothers close by. It was amazing how genuinely happy both the mother and child were when I found a picture that the child liked and cut it out, for him to paste with the intention of making a collage. One of the pictures was of the elegant interior of a hotel I had actually been to just 3 weeks back with some friends. The mother and child both could not help just talking about the "extremely beautiful" images of dining and recreation depicted in the pictures, an experience that had not thrilled me to a large extent.

Week Without Walls (Jan. 19-23)

This expereince was definetly a useful outing, even though we were not in our classes learning math, english etc. We travelled as a group to the far south eastern town of Hambantota, where are school had been helping after the tsunami had struck. Reaching our destination the differences from the city life of Colombo to the starkly rural landscape of our destination was striking. In Colombo, you complain about the ruts in the road, the traffic jams, the cable not working properly etc. Travelling about the area surrounding Hambantota though it was like entering a different world where cable tv did not exist along with the many cars and other utensils that make up cities today. In fact, the historic inuagaration of President Barack Obama (Jan 20th) seemed to pass without even the slightest whisper, whereas if I was at home I would have watched it along with the rest of my family, as if I was right there in Washington.

Maybe this difference struck me so sharply simply because in recent years I had been only moving from city to city and had come to forget that that space of land in a country, especially those like India or Sri Lanka, only represent a small fraction of space and people.