Final CAS refection! A complete journey

Final CAS reflection

As my two years of IB begins to end my CAS program begins to end as well. Before writing my final CAS refection I sat down and thought back to how I have improved, grown and become a better person. Through the three branches of CAS being creativity, action and service I am first to comprehend how I as a student have become more well rounded and gained a holistic education.

I am glad to say that I have achieved all the goals I set for my self as a student and person at the start of my CAS life.

 

 Creativity-

 

For 11^th grade the goal for myself was to “be persistent” and still keep in touch with my drama. As I have engaged in drama for over 8 years it was truly enjoyable to pursue this further by taking part in the senior school production. The “challenge that I overcame “ was changing my acting and skills from examination, confined stage acting to a larger scale production. However as I worked “collaboratively” with my cast mates I was able to pick up on the nuances, and tactics that would help me transition better and overcome this challenge. I “developed a new skill” during the 5 months of rehearsals I learnt how to embody the personality of a harlot as well as learn how to feed off the energy of others and improvise; skills one can only pick up from being part of a larger production. The end of 11^th grade creativity was a successful and rather informative experience.

 

For my 12^th grade CAS I decided to “engage in something new and step out of my comfort” and thus I decided to sign up for MUN and Student Government (SGA). SGA was a great experience as I got to hone my skills and “ demonstrate skills as a leader”. I was elected as the finance officer and to be honest I didn’t realize how challenging it would be. I “developed new skills” such as learning to plan ahead, organizing and budgeting. Coming to think of it I would definitely be using these newfound skills my whole life. As a SGA we were pretty successful and I was able to earn great amounts of profit because the whole student council was able to work “ collaboratively”. As I have a few more weeks to go I will continue the goal I set for myself as a finance leader.

I also set a goal for myself to “challenge myself and try to new things” and taking part in MUN was one of that. I have to say that being part of MUN “exposed me to Global and ethical issues world wide”. It was a “challenge” getting use to the different speech/ lingo manner of perspectives however the “persistence” shown” by me during practice helped me overcome this challenge. “Working with kids from other schools collaboratively” truly made this MUN experience one to cherish forever. The 4am set-ups were experiences that showed me a “new skill” I did not know I had and that is extreme dedication and passion. At the end of the MUN conference and after 6 months of work I can say that I have truly developed into a more all round person.

I have achieved the goals of challenging myself, engaging in new things, becoming more aware though the above creativities during the past 2 years.

 

 

MY COM for MUN 2014

ACTION

 

The main goal I kept for myself throughout the action part of CAS was to still keep playing competitive tennis. As much as that was a challenging to keep the competitive and extensive tennis hours up along with my studies it’s a tough goal I’m glad I stuck with. The “new skill” I’m glad I developed was my serve and precision, I changed my backswing for more pace and spin and at first it was hard I wasn’t as precise as I wanted to be however with persistent practice I mastered it! The goal I’m glad I achieved with my tennis was “donating the winning money to the disabled soldiers, it was a moment where I was able to tie my tennis (action) with issues of global importance and evaluate the ethical impacts of my decisions”

 

I was volleyball captain of my senior year a feat I am extremely proud of. It was a great moment where I could showcase my leadership skills. We came fourth in the whole tournament a feat not achieved unless we all worked “collaboratively”. There were so many close matches and we were named the most mentally string team and it felt really nice for people to see this competitive side of us. We got 2 overall team SAISA awards for our sportsmanship, which truly reflected on “how we saw the ethical impact of our decisions”. We were a strong team that kept calm, cool and collected and chose to play fair at all times and these awards reflected our ethics and morals during such a competitive atmosphere.

 

SAISA volleyball team 2013-2014

 

Its funny thinking back how I got into volleyball. I wanted to challenge myself and try something new, which is how I ended up trying put for the volleyball team; it was a welcomes surprise when I turned to be very good at it. All the skills I learnt in volleyball were new but they really helped me become a better sportsman overall. The challenge was to compress a lifetimes worth of volleyball knowledge into 3 months. I could only have done this because I was open to criticism, help from the coaches and my teammates. In reality thinking back CAS really helped me explore myself. I was engaged in things I didn’t ever think I would see or develop new skills that I didn’t think was possible.

 

 

 Service-

 

I was part of the “ Hope for kids” children’s cancer hospital for my two years of service and it is without a doubt the most rewarding and enriching experience I have had so far. In 11^th grade it was like treading the waters, I was unsure how to act, what to say with the children. The moment I realized they just wanted people to be themselves and have fun with them I was able to truly form bonds and attachments with these kids, true fighters. As a group we worked “Collaboratively in order to truly fulfill the needs and desires of the children” and their family living at the cancer hospital. It went from donating clothes to dry rations, to painting the cancer hospital what ever we could do to improve their lives, we did! The cancer hospital gave me a strong look into the issues of “global importance” as well as helping me understand the “ ethical implications of my decisions” Cancer is the largest medical epidemic and it’s growing fast in the kids community. It’s not an isolated statistic but one that can apply to the whole world. Working at the cancer hospital helped me realize to what extent we as individuals can help ease/reduce these problems. I feel more conscious (ethical implications) and less selfish after my work at the hospital. In 12^th grade I was given the privilege of becoming a service leader, which was a great opportunity to “demonstrate my skills as a leader” as I’d have more of an input into the work of the service group. Our main goal for this year was to spread the core message of the service group outside and I am extremely glad that we as a service group “collaboratively” were able to achieve this goal for the year 2013-2014. We sold t shirts to gyms, schools, companies and really spread the word of our hospital and gained donations. These donations were used to buy the family’s food and transport back home. One main factor we notice was that the families didn’t have money to being children, aunts, and spouses from the village’s to visit the kids. By giving them money for this we were help realizing their dreams and desires, a decision (ethical) that I am very proud of. “The hope for kids really helped me explore the 8 learning outcomes”

 

 

I didn’t realize that I was “developing new skills, overcoming obstacles, working collaboratively, working on issues of global importance, evaluating the ethical importance of my decisions” they all happened naturally through my CAS journey. I can say with certainty that I am a better, happier and better-rounded person due to my CAS journey. I’ve realized new things about myself; I have realized how important community is due to this great experience.

 

As I say goodbye to CAS I know that the lessons I learnt will carry me in good stead throughout my life, and college is another opportunity for me to engage in the experiential learning that is CAS.

SAISA Football 2014

For the second semester of 12^th grade the action I partook in were SAISA Football practices. I knew I lacked the skills to play any of the positions on the field, skills I was eager to improve on and attain new skills therefore I decided to try out for the position of Goalie. I understood my strength as a goalie due to my tennis background and even the coach realized my strength would be for this position. As a newbie the only way I knew I could improve and make the team was by working with the others on the team collaboratively and improve on my skills. The biggest obstacle of the training was trying to gain the skills necessary in a short period of time, where as the others had played this sport for a long time and these practices were almost a touch up on their skills. I tried my best and worked hard during the practices diligently and constantly.

One skill I am proud I developed during my practices was my ability to dive and defend, it’s a small skill but I really liked being able to anticipate and react to the kicks of the players. Unfortunately I had to quit the SAISA football as SAISA and most of my college interviews were during the same week and I had to make a decision based on this. I am glad however glad I engaged in a new activity and moved out of my comfort zone, it truly was a rewarding experience.

Avurudhu Celebrations At the Cancer Hospital

This term the hope for kids service group decided to spend a large portion of our time in “ planning and initiating” the Avurudhu celebrations. Avurudhu is a celebrated cultural event of the Sinhalese and Tamils, it’s also called the Sinhala and Tamil new year. Our “ Goal” for this year was to help the kids at the Hospital celebrate their respective religious festivals as we realized throughout our constant visits how important religion is to these kids. We did this for Christmas and we are glad to have done it again for the Buddhist and Tamil kids.

One of the main obstacles we came across was the singing of “ avudrudu” songs as some of the service members are not Sinhala speakers and thus we had to translate it into English or teach them. However after hours of practice I was glad that I and another native Sinhala speaker were able to overcome that problem by teaching them individually the tricky pronounciation.

It’s through our persistent effort into the Avurudhu celebration, which helped us achieve what we have now.

Personally we all felt this would be a great event to open to the public and spread the message of the hope for kid’s service. We realize the importance of getting others outside our school community involved in this project, thus we have sent out invitations out. (Shown below) Working “Collaboratively” with others, especially other cancer foundations will help us create more of a long lasting impact on the life of the kids.

 

Hope for KIDS semester 2!

AS I mentioned earlier in my goals for the year, my main priority this year was to spread the word of the “ Hope for Kids” Service beyond our school. We struck luck this semester as we all managed to “ collaboratively” get sponsors for the cancer hospital. MAS holdings which is an extremely famous marketing firm was interested in out efforts to make the lives, albeit how short of these children the best it can be. It was “ a difficult challenge” to overcome, getting bigger companies and schools to visit the hospital with us and see how hard it is for these children and parents. After a visit they realized the magnitude of this illness and its consequences on the child and family.  “ The ethical implications” and “ global awareness” aspects are the main two that I as a leader of the group want to spread. We all see these children and think, “ it cant happen to us” however I feel its my duty to show how widespread this illness has become. It’s spread because of bad nutrition, UV rays and others and most of the children I speak to always wish someone told them about” cancer” so they wouldn’t feel so lost now. I was touched by this statement and I realized this is what I need to “ improve on (skills) spreading the news and consequences” to a wider range of people. By doing this not only have I accomplished (collaboratively) with my service spreading the message of cancer, but also gained a lot of help for the kids at the cancer ward. This is a good second semester start and I cant wait to keep helping!!

Here are some links, to articles that can really sum up what it is to be a patent of cancer. I hope we can understand how necessary it is to keep helping kids suffering from cancer and remind them that they are never alone.

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/cancer/expert-blog/cancer-and-touch/bgp-20056335

http://www.sciencedaily.com/news/health_medicine/cancer/

 

Community service MUN!

As part of the MUN conference we are meant to do a service project and OSC decided to help out “ the foundation for goodness” this year as well. We are trying to donate as much stationary items for under-privileged kids in rural Sri Lanka. The ethical implications are that school children will get more access to school material and thus help them excel in their schoolwork. I liked the fact that this was smaller scaled project, as I knew I could make an impact on a greater group of people. It’s not an easy project to do, raising as much stationary for a whole village therefore we needed to involve the whole school community. To be honest it truly is a collaborative project. We are in the first stage of rasing the money for the service project and we already came across a challenge that we are trying to overcome! It’s one thing to just raise money for this project but it’s more important we make people aware of the level of poverty in the rural villages and make this project long standing. So far we have made two possible suggestions to overcome this problem them being,

1. Get people from the “ Goodness” foundation to come talk to people in the OSC community.
2. Take a few people out of Colombo to see the state of the education in rural areas and spread the word of this situation!

I’ll keep the blog updated as to how we are doing in this project!

Tennis! :)

Wrapping up the first quarter of tennis was pretty nice. My goal for this term was more mocks so I couldn’t play any of the tournaments but I worked hard on my training! The challenge for me this season was my serve.  Had to change it cause my second serve was not spinning as much as was necessary and my coach thought a change in the movement would be better. I had to switch to a more abbreviated back swing for the serve. it was a challenge at a first cause with this change I lost a lot of power and I was more inconsistent which was pretty annoying at first. I was getting annoyed and angry cause I couldn’t manipulate my serve at the start due to this change, but 5 hours of serving and 1000 serves later i finally mastered the serve and it was way better than before! It was working consistently and diligently at this change that allowed me to improve and i’m looking forward to testing it for tournaments next season!

OSCARS TIME :)

This is the update for my SGA which I am treasurer of! It;s OSCAR season and this is the planning process 🙂

MUN practice debates

Writing resolutions a MUN with the other admins collaboratively

The start of February indicated the start of “ MUN” season! The first and second practice debates were really informative as it’s the first time I got to see how a mock UN could work like. As a debater for 7 years I thought the experience would be the same, but I was far from right. By doing MUN I was moving out of my comfort zone and engaging in something new. I learnt how to draft and write a resolution and it was a “ new challenge” but one I was glad to have undertaken. Both practice debates required us to in the morning to run around and make sure that all the delegates had their placards, motions in order. As an Admin it was quite strenuous to ensure that everything was done perfectly. In order to ensure that the practice debates went perfectly the admins (me) and the MUN EXCO team had to “work collaboratively”. 

The goal I had going for the second debate was to learn more about the ICJ and crisis resolution committee. Luckily I was allowed to sit in on a few debates whilst doing admin tasks, and I learnt new skills of understanding conflicts and resolutions as well as how to tackle global problems. Plus by being an admin I was using my leadership skills bossing the delegates around!!

Volleyball Wrap Up!

Volleyball End!

 

This was it! The final season of volleyball and I couldn’t be happier at my team or my performance.

It was funny but the SAISA season made us all change. The game plans, strategies we had before each game was thrown out the window at time and we had to be more spontaneous. We had to think on our feet and play the game at that moment. This was the best skill I felt I picked up during the SAISA season! I was able to analyze and assess the situation at that precise moment and act on it.

A skill no doubt which will help me in my future and college!

 

Being the Co-Captain of the team allowed me to explore two aspects of my self. One was how well I worked in a unit (collaboratively) as well as honing my skills as a leader. There were a few close games and it was important that Greta and I kept up the spirit and encouraged every person. We were tired and scared but we pulled off some incredible wins and fight backs because as a group we worked well and shared the same desire to win.

Although we came fourth with only a two-point loss in the semifinal this experience taught me how important it is to fight. Not literally fight with words or fists but persevere and work hard to achieve something. To not give up when the scoreboard isn’t in your favor and to commit yourself to achieving a goal.

 

The final SAISA was amazing not because of the memories ( which I loved with the team) but because of what it instilled in me!

Wall Climbing!

 

 

For the second semester I decided to try out something new, to be a risk taker and push my self. Thus I picked “ wall climbing” as my second semester action.

 

It isn’t easy at all. I thought because of my tennis climbing this wall would be relatively easy. It requires skill and a lot of practice. The first day I could not climb more than five feet. I was a bit disappointed especially watching the little kids scale it like pros, but I realized this was area of growth.

I needed to plan; rock climbing was more than strength. If I planned my route of the climb I would do better. This was my goal for the next two sessions.

 

Working collaboratively with the others helped me improve. I watched Mehr and Alex and saw how they approached the wall climb. They helped me navigate my way and showed me which rocks to place my leg on. This help from them allowed me to reach my goal of climbing higher than 5 feet!

I think perseverance and dedication also helped me achieve this improvement!

 

Lets keep going and reach the top of the wall before the semester ends!!