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.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
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.
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.
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.
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.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Sunday, February 1, 2009
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!
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.
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.
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.
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