Goals for this year..!

Creativity

Nail art course: I thought it'd be really interesting to try something completely new so I spontaneously signed up for a course in nail art. Let's see how it goes!

Action

Badminton: I have played badminton for five years in my previous school but did not continue it here last year because I chose the Yearbook elective. Now I signed up for badminton every Monday after school and am looking forward to playing again :)

Service and Creativity

Leader of the 'Hope for Kids' Cancer Hospital service group: We have our concert coming up and a lot of organising to do. We have a lot more members this year so it'll be more challenging as a leader to ensure everyone does their fair part of the work. After the concert, we'll also need to confirm what we're going to use the money for. We're hoping to visit the playroom once every Thursday after school to meet the kids although I doubt we'll have the time until after the concert.. Fingers crossed!

Summing up Grade 11

Now that it's time to start a new year, here's how I think I managed to achieve the Critical Learning Outcomes in Grade 11:

Creativity

My perseverance and commitment to playing the piano has allowed me to reach my goal of passing Grade 6 with merit which was more than what I hoped for. I gained an increased awareness of my ability to play under pressure although I still need to work on my sight reading which is an area for growth.

Performing in the dance the Sri Lankans organized for UN day, has increased my awareness of my ability to dance and allowed me to work collaboratively with others to put it all together. Despite letdowns and flaws, our commitment and perseverance resulted in a very successful performance that the audience thoroughly enjoyed!

Joining the Yearbook elective this year was a new challenge which helped me develop my photoshop skills as I have never used them seriously before. I had to work collaboratively with others, listening to and supplying criticism and working on the same page together with another member.

Action

Climbing to the top of Sigiriya has increased my awareness of my level of stamina and was able to reach the top without feeling to queasy about the height, unlike most other climbers! It also developed my understanding of my country’s history which I did not know in great detail before.

Starting to swim again enabled me to work on my areas for growth which included corrective my freestyle and backstrokes and working on my butterfly stroke which was a new skill that I developed.

Service

Tutoring a younger students mathematics for the first semester has made me more aware of my ability to teach comprehensively even though it is something I do informally on almost a daily basis with my younger brother and fellow students.

Becoming a member of ‘Hope for Kids’ Cancer Service Group allowed me to get engaged with an issue of global importance which made me more aware of the suffering that goes on in the world. Often we had to consider the ethical implications of our actions when it came to fundraising. For example, our principal had to remind us that it is morally wrong to have a bake sale for raise funds when there are so many malnourished children elsewhere.

Creativity and Service

I received my first taste of leadership during out Week Without Walls trip to Hambantota when I was made a sub-leader to be in charge of games due to my ability to converse in Sinhalese with the school children. I had to plan and initiate games that the children would enjoy and understand, for they would not be familiar with what we are used to, which required a lot of collaborative work. A part of this involved narrating a mute play performed by the rest of the group in front of the children and their parents which was a new challenge for me as I was not completely confident in my fluency of Sinhalese nor was I comfortable speaking in front of an audience though the experience did allow me to develop these skills.

I was given the opportunity to become a leader of the ‘Hope for Kids’ Cancer Hospital Service group at school. Having never been a leader for an extended period of time before, this was a completely new challenge for me which allowed me to exercise my leadership and organizing capabilities to the fullest extent. A major project that ‘Hope for Kids’ worked on was the fundraising concert which we initiated as a group. It required an immense amount of planning and creative thinking to reach to where it stands now at the beginning of Grade 12. It gave me an increased awareness of my ability to work collaboratively with fellow group members and others who were also involved such as the auditorium manager, security guards, school secretaries, sponsors and of course the performers. This experience has undoubtedly aided me to develop my communication and interactive skills although they are still areas for growth that I hope to work on next year. This project also let me raise awareness of childhood cancer to the Colombo community which is definitely an issue of global importance.

Time for auditions…

We decided to hold the concert on the 4^th of September (Saturday) in our school auditorium. Once this was confirmed we got down to work: publicity, sponsors, sounds, printer, food stalls and lighting all had to be considered. In addition to all this, we had to audition everyone who was interested in participating since several schools had got back to us by then. We opted to have a separate one for OSC students once school starts next year as that was easier to organize. For everyone else, we got the auditorium booked for the 19^th of June (Saturday morning from 9-11) and informed the relevant schools about it. Dylan made us a fantastic poster to put up around all the schools as well so anyone who has not heard of it yet would be able to find out.

Christina, Thishakya and I arrived, eager to see the participants…However only one group turned up…but it had 30 people! The Royal College choir performed for us and they were instantly signed up. We then decided that we should have another audition on the 24^th of July so that the others can have another chance to show up.

And show up they did! The second time we had over 10 performances ranging from singing, by students from OSC, BSC and Gateway, to dancing (Sadini from OSC). I made a note of their names, schools and the approximate duration of their performance(s) to help us with future organizing. Plans were made to have another audition once school starts as well as a rehearsal. Our work’s far from over!

Investing funds in a larger scale project

We soon realized that all our awareness and fund raising have been restricted to the school’s community. We decided to target a wider range of people as we cannot expect the OSC students to make too much of a commitment to our service program when they have their own to take care of. Chris came up with a brilliant idea of having an open air concert, inviting local bands to play on our field, and immediately brought the idea up to Ms Chamila, the service coordinator. She was extremely enthusiastic but suggested chamber music concert instead and advised us against using the field since we would have to pay extra for sounds: we do have our own auditorium after all! After some discussions with Ms Williams, our Head of School, and Mr. Coles, our Principal, it was confirmed!

We opted to have a concert of various performances by schools around Colombo, as well as ours of course, such as choirs, musical performances, dances etc. This would be an affective way of spreading awareness over a lot more people while simultaneously encouraging OSC students to socialize with other schools’ students. School addresses were found; invitation letters were drafted, redrafted, printed on impressive paper (with the school’s letterhead!) and sent off to school all around Colombo. Then came the wait for replies…

Goal achieved! But nearly broke my fingers in the process…

The three pieces I practiced for my Grade 6 Piano exam were:

• Courante: third movement from Suite in C, K. 399/385i (Mozart)
• Adagio: second movement from Sonata in C, WoO 51 (Beethoven)
• Jazz Exercise No. 2: from Jazz Piano for the Young Pianist, Vol. 3 (Peterson)

Courante is played at a moderate speed and included a lot of chords which I had to play over and over again several times to familiarize myself with them. It also had to be played with some feeling although it was difficult to determine the dynamics of the piece as performance directions were not available. I had to rely on my teachers advice and the CD I bought which had all pieces played by professionals.

Adagio is a longer, gentle piece that’s played slowly with an incredible amount of feeling. What I found difficult was playing the left hand softly while simultaneously bringing out the right hand by applying more pressure on the keys. The dynamics here were very precise but I had trouble maintaining a steady slow pace, especially when I grew more confident about my notes.

The Jazz piece is undoubtedly my favorite of the three. I loved the modern, playful touch it had and it was a change from all exam pieces I’ve played in the past. It required a lot of power to play the notes as well as speed and dexterity.

In addition to this I had to master all major and minor scales, 2 staccato scales, 2 contrary motion scales, C major in thirds, chromatic scales and arpeggios. Admittedly, the large amount of scales does get rather monotonous at times although they help a great deal in familiarizing me with the geography of the piano and key signatures. There is also a sight reading test where the examiner would present me with a short unseen extract of music and ask me to play it at sight: this requires a lot of practice as this is my weak point.

Aural tests are included as well such as pitching, singing at sight, clapping a tune and determining the time all of which I was comfortable with. The challenge lay in identifying a particular piece’s composer and the period in which it was written. As I go to an international school I was not taught this section of theory as they do in local schools so I had to take a crash course! I realized that each period’s music has their own tell-tale characteristics that helped me identify them. For instance, the Romantic Period’s music is played with a lot of feeling, Modern Period’s ones have erratic chord changes and chromic scale features, the Baroque style has one part playing against the other while the Classical pieces have pleasant tunes.

On the day of the exam, I was nervous but quite confident about myself. All my scales but one were played flawlessly so that practice did pay off! Courante went well but I broke down in Adagio and had to start again! Thankfully, the Jazz piece was a lot better. I played the sight reading steadily enough and the aural tests went well although I wasn’t completely confident about my answers. I left with a sigh of relief: the small room with the unfamiliar piano is quite unnerving but my teacher reassured me it went well.

I passed with merit J

Movies, popcorn and brownies

We finally decided on showing ‘My Sister’s Keeper’ to the Secondary students, as it was a perfect means of raising awareness since it’s a heart wrenching story of how a girl deals with leukemia, and ‘Up’ for the Primary students (an animation: we didn’t want to show them anything too sad!). We spoke to the respective heads of school to get permission and advice on when to show the films. Mr. Rana, the auditorium manager was consulted on when it would be free for the Secodary showing while the Multi-Purpose Room was sufficient for the Primary one.

http://www.movie-list.com/posters/big/zoom/mysisterskeeper.jpg

Permission letters had to be typed up for the Primary school students to stay after school; Ms Tanuja offered to give them out to each teacher as she teaches a Primary class. We decided to buy popcorn from the canteen and get some drinks to give them before the movie. Sabagenerously agreed to make her famous brownies for us to sell at the Secondary showing so all refreshments were sorted! We charged 300/= a ticket for the primary (inclusive of drink and popcorn), 250/= for the Secondary and 50/= for the brownies. Nyira and Harini were put in charge of making publicity posters and Tara edited them.

www.impawards.com/2009/up.html

The turnout for the Secondary movie was somewhat disappointing, probably because it had to be held on a Monday; the Primary one was a lot more successful. We were quite pleased with ourselves as we had not just raised funds (over Rs 15,000) but have also taught ourselves negotiating and organization abilities.

Leaders!

Soon afterwards, Sush and Renato, our leaders, announced that they will be ‘making way’ for new leaders from Grade 11 so that they can concentrate on their exams. Christina, Tara and I all volunteered immediately but there can only be two leaders… In the end, it was decided that the person that has the highest attendance record would be given this position and that went directly to me! Christina became my co-leader as she came in second and we both eagerly made plans for a productive second semester. Unfortunately, we were unable to visit the hospital as frequently as we would have liked since the hospital didn’t allow many visitors due to an outbreak of influenza in the children’s ward. The immediate plans we had to have a movie night (or in this case a ‘movie afternoon’) for both the Primary and Secondary school students.

Food and Fun Fair – Exercising creativity…and plaiting techniques :)

On the 13^th of March, our school held a fair and each service was given the opportunity to have their own stall to make funds.

A few ideas we came up with for ours were:

· Face painting

· Selling t-shirts specially designed for Hope for Kids

· Selling postcards with the children’s drawings on them

· Making ribbon bracelets/ hair bands

· Games with fun prizes

Finally we settled for buying yellow ribbons, the ‘official colour’ of Hope for Kids, and making bracelets to sell since it is a plan that can be easily implemented in the limited time we had. Face painting was also very tempting but that was already taken by another stall. Refusing to give up on the idea, we decided to draw the Hope for Kids logo (the yellow sun) on people’s cheeks as we thought this was a great way of raising awareness.

On the day of the fair, Priyanka and I got down to cutting up the ribbons Ms Tanuja (our supervisor) was able to get for us when I suddenly realized that simply handing out ribbons and expecting people to pay for them isn’t enough. We should make a bit more effort! I suggested tying three ribbons together and plaiting them which looked considerable better than just plain ribbon if I do say so myself. J Thishakya soon joined us and we were plaiting away until it was time for us to move into the field.

We hadn’t made enough plaited bracelets so I stayed at the Grade 11 stall making some more with help from Tara, Pri and Thish while Chris ran about selling them. Anishka helped us out with the face painting and both ideas were a huge success! We raised nearly Rs 6000! Ms Tanuja informed us that the Primary School ‘Spooky House’ has agreed to donate their earnings to our funds so we ended up with a lot more than expected.

http://christinacas.blogspot.com/2010/03/food-fun-fair-13th-march.html

Learning..making mistakes..starting all over..

I first starting learning to swim when I was 10 and I’ve continued to practice for 3 years after my first lesson. By then I was convinced that I knew the strokes so I focused mainly on speed and improving my time. I joined the squad practices in my previous school for one year but I wasn’t satisfied with my progress since I couldn’t see a significant change in my time.
This January I joined a swimming class at the Otter’s Club and to my surprise, the coach there noticed that my strokes are wrong! I've spent so much time tying to swim faster that I've not been doing my strokes properly. No wonder I haven't imporved much! I'm planning on going to this class every Friday evening and my primary objective is to make sure I've perfected my strokes before I get too concerned about my timing. I've 'relearnt' freestyle, breastroke and backstroke in the past 2 months so I'm now focussing on my butterfly stroke which I find absolutely exhausting! :)

Week Without Walls at Hambantota

"Failing to plan is planning to fail."
Every year, OSC gives its students the opportunity to ‘get down and dirty’ to help the community by organizing ‘a Week Without Walls’ where we are taken somewhere that needs help for five days. Hambantota is a town on the southeastern coast of Sri Lanka that was devastated by the tsunami in 2004 and this is where the Grade 11 class was taken this year. Unexpectedly, our work started long before we got there because there was so much preparatory work to get sorted out beforehand. The grade was split into 2 groups (named ‘Shaaa’ and ‘Hunas’) and each one had their separate school to take care of. The main group leaders were elected within the groups; I was in the Shaaa group that had ThiSHAka and SaCHA as leadersJ. Our main objectives were to paint the school and playground equipment, give each schoolchild a gift parcel, paint a mural and to organize a concert for them. Each of these categories had their sub-leaders and I was put in charge of the concert as well as helping the games leader (who couldn’t speak Sinhala!) to communicate with the kids.
It was the gifts that required most work: each of us handed in Rs. 1000 and Christina (leader of the Hunas group) along with Anishka, Priyanka and Devnash combed Nugegoda’s pavements for suitable gifts. They managed to come across some unbelievable bargains which we quickly and efficiently sorted out into “boys’ gifts” parcels and “girls’ gifts” parcels. For the concert, we decided to sing “Surangani” (a popular Sinhala Baila song) and “Old MacDonald had a Farm”. After consulting my mum for more ideas, we thought of performing a small skit about a ‘Cottonwool baby’ who refused to eat her rice. J Thishakya, Prashant (games leader) and I got together and brainstormed some kids games we could play and on what days to play them: we settled with Duck Duck Goose, tag and a few other traditional Sri Lankan games. Aside from all this, we also had to be taught how to paint and mix the different paint types by the service staff who were all extremely helpful.
After putting everything we needed together in time, we all sat back in our bus seats for the 6 hour ride…

"I cried because I had no shoes…until I saw someone who had no feet."
Day 1: When we first arrived at the school we were greeted by all the kids with a small bouquet of flowers in their hands, lined up and eager to hand them over to each of us! We were touched by this simple, welcoming gesture. Not wanting to waste any time, we split the kids up into 2 groups for the games and I was in charge of one of them. The night before we decided that instead of Duck Duck Goose we should say Eluwa Eluwa Kotiya (Goat Goat Tiger) which the kids can relate to better. They loved the game although only a few understood what they had to do so we all had to join in to keep the game flowing! After a few minutes the kids got distracted and started playing on the equipment instead, allowing us to get down to business.

The rest of the day was spent removing the rust on the playground equipment and starting to paint some of them. Thishakya and I concentrated mostly on the swing while the others worked on the slide, see-saws and the mural.
Day 2: The second day was a lot more productive mostly because we knew what to expect this time. After the games, we immediately went back to our assigned jobs, determined to accomplish as much as possible. I finished painting the swing with Gurleen’s help and discovered firsthand how difficult it is to remove that kind of paint from skin (my hands didn’t look the same for at least a week)!! I then moved to the inside of the building to help Thishakya paint the pillars yellow: we finished this completely. Afterwards, Ms Fernando, Thishakya, Prashant and Sacha and I all started working on the green walls putting on 2/3 coats. The main problem we had was cleaning the brushes because there weren’t enough to go around but we managed to work around that without much difficulty. By the end of the day, the mural was completed as were most of the walls and equipment. We were absolutely exhausted but we had the next day’s goals set which we had every intention of reaching.

Day 3: Since we had to leave time for the concert, we opted to not have the games session but to complete our work as well as we could instead. The wooden furniture were taken outside to be painted while Yiseul, Thishakya and I worked on the doors. We also managed to finish the floor and get some balloons blown in time for the concert which we had to have outside because the floor was not dry. Despite its simplicity, the kids, parents and teacher loved our performances and were especially amused by the skit where we had to mime the ‘Cotton baby’ being blown above the clouds by a strong wind! Handing out the packages did not go as well as we had hoped because we only brought enough for the schoolchildren but there were other kids at the concert as well (siblings and older village children) who we accidentally gave some parcels to. Thankfully, not all the schoolchildren were able to make it that day so at least the kids who were present were able to walk away with something. Ms Malini, the school headmistress, without being satisfied by all the small treats she gave us consistently during our visits, organized a small feast for us at her home to reiterate her gratefulness for what we did. With great difficulty, we managed to convince them that it was late and we had to leave so we said our goodbyes.


"In the world there are givers and takers: the takers eat better but the givers sleep better."
Looking back at what we had achieved, I realized that adding so much colour into the learning environment of young children had effects on their minds that I’ve never considered before. As Ms Fernando explained, the first few years of a child’s life is when we form the person s/he is to become, the remainder of their schooling years are just fine-tuning what has already been formed. Both groups managed to achieve what we had planned before and we all agreed that it had been an enlightening and unforgettable experience. Special thanks to Mr De Silva (head organizer), Ms Craig, Ms Fernando and Mr Barla for being with us through every step of the way.

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Conquering Sigiriya!!

I have been attending international schools in Sri Lanka for nearly eight years of my school life which resulted in me not being exposed to as much of my country’s remarkable history as I would have liked. This Christmas holiday, I challenged myself to climb to the highest point of the rock Sigiriya, a world heritage site atop which the palace of Sri Lanka’s ancient kings once stood. I once attempted it a couple of years ago but couldn’t brace myself to make it to the very top so I had to settle with going up two-thirds of the way.

What made the experience all the more memorable was that it wasn’t merely just physical exertion: it was an exposure to the ancient history of Sri Lanka that remains in the ruins of the majestic palace and its gardens. What amazed me was the complexity of the architecture that was used over 1500 years ago when it was first built to serve as a fortress for King Kashyapa. Two moats surrounded the perimeter of the site although only the inner one was still filled with water. I had to pass the boulder, water and terrace gardens to get to one of the entrances to the rock (there were three: the Lion entrance, the Snake entrance, the Elephant entrance). What I found fascinating was that there were rocks that were naturally shaped like a snake and an elephant that graced their respective entrances!

And then the climb began! Surprisingly I managed to spring up the steps without much difficulty (it was nowhere near as hard as I remembered!) and the view was magnificent with the forest spread out as far as I could see with a Buddha monument rising above the canopy. On the way up, I was able to admire the mirror wall, on which some ancient writing could still be seen, and the marble staircases that are said to be visible at night as they shine in the moonlight. The most nerve-wracking part of the climb was trying to make my way up the rickety spiral staircase to get to the famed frescoes, or at least what remains of them.

When I reached the lion’s paw terrace, which was where I stopped on my first climb, I was more than willing to take the final and most difficult steps to the top. Although the sight of the sheer drop straight underneath was enough to make most of the other visitors rather uneasy, I managed to make it with no panic attacks! All that remains of the palace are simply two bricks…everything else has eroded away. I somehow anticipated something much more spectacular but I wasn’t disappointed because I made it! The climb down went quite smoothly so I was back on the ground in no time, exhausted but a lot more aware of how proud I should be of Sri Lanka’s history.