Final Reflection

As the final two years come to end, the time has come to look back and reflect on over the years of creativity, action, and service and my initial as goals, and how these reflected on the 8 learning outcomes.

Undertaking New Challenges:
 
All throughout the two years, I have been constantly trying out things and challenges that are new to me, from making shirts (surface embellishment) to my first SAISA (basketball) to ping pong to teaching primary kids about Sinhala (Mother Tongue Service Group). From doing this, slowly, I have seen myself push myself out of my comfort zone and try out new things more confidently with a positive outlook on it. Which I believe is a vital skill that will benefit me both in the present and the future.

Developing New Skills:

I have developed quite a few new skills over the past 2 years, and also have significantly improved on existing ones as well. Through surface embellishment, I was challenged to see art in a different perspective and move out my comfort zones for art, by making shirts through stitching, stencil making, etc. I also learned the skill of patience, which is something I learned and realize over the years of my involvement in the arts, as things may not always work out the first time and you may not achieve the result you desired, but you have to keep trying and learn from your mistakes. Through different sports, especially SAISA Basketball, I was able to truly understand the value of teamwork (working collaboratively with others), and how it is an essential part of the game. Even in service, I was able to develop leadership skills, especially since we had to teach our classes to younger, primary kids, who sometimes can be quite the handful! I think all these new skills I have learned along the way will help me in the future, with not only future activities, but life in general as well.


Greater Awareness of Areas for Development and Growth

This outcome was achieved through all activities done, as there is always room for improvement. I was able to identify and become more self aware of my weaknesses and strengths, without having a coach or teacher to point it out for me. This was especially seen in Drawing Club, and the sports I tried out (Basketball, football, etc.), as I was always reflecting on how I could drawn the piece better, or how I could have played the game better, individually. This awareness has helped me improve a lot on myself as a person and within these activities, but more importantly I was able to develop the skill of self-reflection, and how this leads to improvement.

Planned and Initiated Activities

This was only seen in a couple activities, since only a few activities I partook in involved planning. The main ones being the two service I partook in; The Forgotten Children and Mother Tongue Service Group. In TFC we often had to plan fundraisers such as bake sales or movie nights and such, and also plan our trips to certain places (such as the good market) to help spread awareness. In Mother Tongue Kevin and I always had to plan out our lessons before hand, and decide what we were going teach and how to engage the kids at the same time. This really showed me how much a little planning can go a long way and become a great benefit in the future.

Showing Perseverance and Commitment in Activities

All the activities I took part in were always either a semester or year long commitment, however the activity I took part in the longest was drawing club, doing it for three out of the four semesters available. Due to this commitment I was really able to explore the realm of art from artists like Francis Bacon to just my own themed drawing to making shirts, and from this I have really improved this activity the most. It required a lot of patience, especially when I messed up one of my pieces, however, I managed to pull it off due to my hard work and commitment.

Engaged in Issues of Global Importance

This was mainly achieved in the services of Mother Tongue Service Group and The Forgotten Children, since the primary focus of these activities were to better the community we lived in. In Mother Tongue we were mainly focused on spreading language and culture within our community since all over the globe language, and along with it, cultures, are dying every second, and we want to help preserve the culture we have available to us. We also wanted to focus on giving back to the community we lived in. While in TFC we were focused on a much more mature issue of child sex tourism in Sri Lanka, since we realize it is a major problem (not seen by the public as it is often kept underground away from the public) both locally and globally, and we wanted to help spread awareness on this topic since we felt like it needed to be addressed.

This was also seen during IB orientation, as we were split into groups and each group would interview someone in the local community. My group were able to interview a local judge for the local villagers. From this I learned, about the struggles they had, just to get access to clean water and plant tea leaves, issues always arose and the judge had to involved to help the villagers. This helped me realize lucky I was to have grown up in a comfortable environment, with all the resources I needed, and how we always need to look after one another, as we need to appreciate everyone and everything for what they have.

Consideration of Ethical Implications

This wasn't achieved in many activities, since it wasn't one of my goals, however, this was seen in my service group last year; The Forgotten Children. Since we were dealing with such a sensitive topic of child sex tourism, we always had to be careful of what were going to do and say. For example, at the primary school bake sale and movie night we did, we e-mailed the parents saying the reason for our fundraisers and our objective, and how we wanted to, in addition to the movie and bake sale, educate the kids on safety in public, the parents got quite afraid. We later received numerous e-mails saying that they didn't want they kid exposed to such topics (as they thought we would discuss about the topic of child sex tourism with them, even though we were not going to), so we had carefully plan and organize our activities and what we planned on doing.

Working Collaboratively with Others

This was seen in many of the activities I took part in, even activities that would be considered only for individuals (such as drawing club). As often I realized, that even individual activities, needed collaboration with colleagues and teachers to truly succeed and improve in the activity. In drawing club, I would always receive advice from my peers and teachers on how to improve my drawings, and sometimes I didn't understand their perspective, however, through collaboration I was always able to improve my drawing and feel truly satisfied.
This was also achieved in Basketball (both SAISA and ASA), as basketball is a heavily based team sport, to the point where if teamwork is not there, then it is an automatic loss. Even the greatest basketball players such as Dwayne Wade, Tim Duncan, Micheal Jordan, etc. all were part of a team and had to co-operate with their team, as otherwise they wouldn't be able to reach their point of status and skill. I learned this as well through first-hand experience from games and practices. As when we ran a play as team and worked the ball around, the ball would always find its way into the hoop, and there is a much higher score rate when we worked together as a team.

Mother Tongue Service Project: First Week of a New Start

Last week, our other Tongue Service Group started our first session with the primary kids after school activity (planned and initiated activities). We planned to introduce ourselves, our languages, and countries to the kids, and learn ore about the kids' backgrounds as well. We also wanted to find out what languages the kids wanted to learn.
Unfortunately, no one wanted to take up Sinhala at the moment , however we agreed that maybe some days we could do a lesson where everyone did a Sinhala lesson, since Sinhalese is the mother tongue of our host country. For this time (after school on Thursday), we thought we would stick around and take part in some lessons (last week we partook in German lessons), and hopefully learn something about other cultures and languages, in hope to further the spread of language and culture (engaged in issues of global importance).
We also wanted to continue our lessons with Pre-School and Grade 3 from last year, as Kevin (my colleague) and I felt like the class and us, as a unit, have made quite a bit of progress, thus it would be a shame to let that go to wastes. We already I have been able to create a basis foundation with these classes, both educationally and mentally, and thus it is optimal to continue to teach them since we could progress much quicker (working collaboratively with others).
However, we are always willing to teach any other kids that want to on Thursdays after school, as we are always willing to spread the language and culture of our host country throughout our community, and give back to our community (engaged in issues of global importance). Also, we have already gained a better understanding on how working kids goes (from our previous experience with the other classes), and thus feel like we have a better understanding on areas for improvement and development with our lessons (such as we need to incorporate more games and activities to engage the kids to learn better and make it more fun for them). Thus, we feel like we can do a better job than when we first started, as we have developed new skills from our previous experiences.
Hopefully, this new start will provide for good, fresh start to the new semester!

First Week for Pinhole Photography

On Friday 13th, we had our first session of pinhole photography. We began the lesson with a short and detailed demonstration on the physics behind pinhole photography and the origins of this type of photography, giving everyone a better idea of what we could expect to come and how this type of photography works. 

Pinhole photography dates back to the 5th century B.C., in China."The philosopher Mo Ti (later Mo Tsu) was the first – to our knowledge – to record the formation of an inverted image with a pinhole or screen. Mo Ti was aware that objects reflect light in all directions, and that rays from the top of an object, when passing through a hole, will produce the lower part of an image ." (See reference below) 

Later, we began to try out our first photo, with Mr. Lockwood, initially giving us step-by-step instructions on the process to produce a successful photograph goes. Once we were confident enough, we moved on to taking our own photographs. I started off with taking a simple picture of a stuffed falcon, that I found in the art room, thinking it would be suitable for a picture.

Each of us timed the duration we exposed our tin can (our camera), and proceeded back to the black room to produce the photos. The initial photo was decent in my opinion, as I was able to capture the falcon quite well. However, Mr. Lockwood pointed out that I would would probably need more exposure time to make the picture more sharp and a bit darker (increased awareness for areas of growth). So taking his advice into account, I later tried the same shot, except with more exposure time (Results shown below). There was a problem with the production of the photo along the process, as clear line smudges started to appear, and I have yet to pinpoint the problem (increased awareness for areas of growth). 

First Attempt at Pinhole Photography

Second Attempt gone wrong

I haven't done anything like pinhole photography before, so it is quite a new experience for me and something that I am relatively unfamiliar with, but I also think this is a great opportunity for me to develop new skills and undertake new challenges, and push myself out of my comfort          zone.

Work Cited

 Grepstad, Jon. "Pinhole Photography History and Guide from Photo.net." Pinhole Photography History and Guide from Photo.net. Photo.net, 1996. Web. 16 Feb. 2015.

Service: Last Few Encounters for the Semester

For the last couple weeks, Kevin and I have been continuing our Sinhala classes with Pre-School and Grade 3 kids. It has been quite a success for both, us, and the kids. And we hope to continue these lessons into the next semester  (showing perseverance and commitment for activities), as it is a good learning experience for both of us, and we can continue to help cultivate language and culture in our community and give back to our community (engaged in issues of global importance).
We have continued to become more comfortable with the kids and vice versa (work collaboratively with others), thus giving us the opportunity to teach more challenging lessons for the kids. We also got to improve on leadership skills (developing new skills), which is a great as we hoped to take this opportunity to improve on this particular quality, mentioned in my previous post on service. Over the weeks we planned and initiated further lessons and taught both classes various words. Grade 3 learned more about fruits, animals, basic sentence structures, pronouns, etc. While we taught pre-school about Christmas, animals, the senses, etc., incorporating them through various games like charades and pictionary to keep the lessons entertaining ad well, as we are teaching young kids.
Overall I think it was a great semester for both us and the kids, and we look forward to the next!

Basketball....After while!

The last couple weeks, I've been participating in basketball (planned and initiated activities), a continuation from last semester (showing perseverance and commitment in my activities). 

This semester we only have half the court, so mainly we have been playing half court basketball, a variation of full court basketball. One consequence of this half court is now the area is more crammed with people, thus it is more difficult to play, and requires a lot of skill and teamwork to succeed. While last semester I focused more on leadership skills and basic skills (like lay-ups or three point shots), this semester I have been and will be focusing more on more intermediate skills and teamwork and communication within the team, as that is what I feel needs more work (increased awareness of areas for growth and development). 

Through the past few weeks, I have mainly focused on improving on my teamwork and communication with my team, so that we could make better plays and make more points.So far, I have seen more improvement in the communication within my team and myself, which lead to more points, which my team and I were pleased about (developing new skills). Also I think this improvement in communication has also improved my overall leadership skills. In the meantime, I have also been trying to improve on skills, however, this is a bit harder than communication thus the results are a bit slower. Yet, I think with enough perseverance it will be possible! 

Service: The First Couple of Encounters

The last few weeks we started our first service 'encounter' with the primary kids on Thursday 23rd and Monday 27th, with Grade 3 and Pre-School D respectively. Making us engaged in issues of global importance, as mentioned in previous in my previous service post, since language and culture are dying in the modern world, and although we are not influencing the encouragement of language and culture on a large scale, we are doing it on a small scale and every small bit counts. Also we are giving back to the community we live in.

Our first session was with the Grade 3 on Thursday, Kevin (my peer and co-worker) and I we quite unfamiliar with type of service work, especially since this service is relatively new within the community, and we had to exercise high leadership skills since the kids were much much younger than other candidates we had led (example: me in after school basketball), but we saw this as an opportunity to develop new skills on this particular quality (undertaking new challenges). But, overall, I think it went pretty well, we focused on introducing ourselves and getting to know the kids a bit better, while giving them a feel for how the Sinhalese classes will be like. We planned and initiated to teach them how to say 'my name is...,' 'my age is....,' and the basic colours all in Sinhalese, and the kids caught on surprisingly well; I think one the main reasons being we, as a group gelled really well (working collaboratively with others), and also since the kids were really good group.
Later, next week, we had a session with Preschool D, Kevin and I had a similar plan with Preschool as with Grade 3, get to know the kids and introduce some basic terms (but a little less due to the younger age). However, when we arrived it was a lot tougher than we thought, as the kids were a bit active and yet extremely shy of us. So we had take the lesson a bit slower than anticipated. However, we taught them 'my name is...' and the basic colours in Sinhalese, however most of them could not remember. Thus Kevin and I decided we should refresh their memories about things we had learnt the week before, every week. But we saw real potential in all the kids, from both Grade 3 and Preschool D.
Judging from all the excitement and fun from these last previous two session, I can tell there is a lot of good things to come from these kids and our service!

Kevin and I with some of the Preschool D kids!

First Couple Weeks of Ping-Pong

The last couple weeks I have started to participate in the Ping-Pong after school activity, on Wednesday. This is something I have never done before (undertaking new challenges), so I thought it would be a great area to try out, especially since many of my peers play Ping-Pong (developing new skills).
When I first started, Ping-Pong was really difficult, which was unexpected since it seemed like a ‘relaxed’ sport. This really proved me the English saying: “Never judge a book by its cover,” which I really took to heart.
However through the sessions, I have quite a lot about Ping-Pong and its techniques and skills. I learned the rules of Ping-Pong quite quickly and easily, which was a good start. I also learnt more about, from my peers (collaborating with others) how to hold the Ping-Pong racket, how to serve, and how to direct and handle the ball. Soon I was able to play matches better, and win some as well, in both singles and doubles games.

Starting the serve and game

One thing that was really difficult about Ping-Pong, was strength and control of one’s strength. Since the Ping-Pong ball is relatively light, it travels really quickly, quite randomly, and further than one expects, so this took me by surprise, since in most other sports I play strength is quite necessary, and thus I lost quite a number of points. Although, through the sessions I have improved on this skills of control, it is still something I need to improve on further (increased awareness of areas for growth and improvement). 

Me in 'action.'

The New Beginning of Service

Recently, unfortunately, I have discontinued TFC due to some ethical issues there were with our topic (considering the ethical implications of our actions), thus it was difficult to involve any 'real service.' Thus I have joined a new service called "Mother Tongue Literacy," where our objective is to spread language and culture across of our community, since we do learn in English it is difficult for students to incorporate their languages into their day-to-day life and forget their languages. This problem is that something that only takes place in our community, but in a global scale, thus we hope to better the problem at least locally (engaged in issues of global importance).

We hope to start with the primary students, as we believe there are the most affected and still the easiest to help (since languages are shaped and developed when younger), thus we have started to plan our activities that we hope to carry out with them in the future. 

Firstly, we set ourselves goals as a group that we hope to achieve in the future of our service, and we had all wanted to:

1. Give back to our community 

2. Make community more culturally aware through language and various activities 

3. Spread language throughout our community. Which is, hopefully, what will be happening throughout the course of this service.

Secondly, we created a shared document through Google Docs for the group from the primary teachers' request, where each language group had to fill out a table regarding: 

1. Who we were (what language group)?

2. Whom we wished to work with in the primary school?

3. How will we spread language, and what will we do with our audience (the primary kids)?

4. At what times we could work together?

Kevin and I (the Sinhala Language Group) had filled it out saying we wanted to work with primary kids who were native to Sinhala in grades 1-4 (since this way we could further develop their Sinhala skills through various games and activities that weren't too difficult for the students), and with non-native speakers in grades 3-5 (we aimed for higher non-native audiences since we thought it would be difficult to teach younger students from the very beginning). We wanted to achieve this through various games and activities such as UNO, board games, or sports, etc., or through food (since this is an activity that everyone would enjoy and learn the basics as well). For the non-native audiences we wanted to introduce basic material such as: alphabet, colours, animals, etc. through various fun activities (planning activities); this way we hoped we could work collaboratively with the primary students. (A picture of the Google doc is given below with our answers as well). 

After the teachers replied to our proposal and we agreed on times and such, the teachers had replied back saying that we could start right after the break. I have worked with children before in the past, but nothing in such context as this, therefore it is a relatively new experience for me, where I can undertake new challenges and improve and grow in terms as a person and leader, which is something that I look forward to within our service!

A Screenshot of the beginning of the Google Doc Page

Top: Our part (Sinhala Group) of the Planning Doc

Drawing Club First Few Weeks

This semester I joined Drawing Club, as I thought it is a great opportunity to improve on my drawing skills further more from last semester/year, but in different areas of drawing (ex: Pokemon, Francis Bacon artwork, etc.), (undertaking new challenges).

This semester I have decided to focus on Greek mythology characters (ex: Phoenixes, Minotaurs, etc.), as I feel this is something that I am truly interested and fascinated by, and a great way to explore and learn about an older part of history and also improve on my shading skills (improving and developing on skills). 

So far, I have been produced a phoenix artwork drawing seen below, and hopefully I can produce more pieces with more mythological characters later in the future (planned and initiated activities). My objective, is by the end, combine the pictures and characters I have drawn into one big picture, which can explain that part of history to people who may not know about it or tell a story about Greek mythology to others through the use of pictures (planned and initiated activities), which is skill I hope to develop and improve (developing new skills) on by the end of this Drawing Club activity, since it is something I have never done before.

You can learn more about the Phoenix and the stories about it, which is something I personally enjoy reading, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_(mythology). You can also learn more about the Minotaur here: http://www.pantheon.org/articles/m/minotaur.html, and other Greek mythology characters and stories here: http://www.pantheon.org/areas/mythology/europe/greek/

The Phoenix that I drew.

Basketball First Few Weeks

ASA Basketball on Fridays, something I did last semester, last school year, since it was something I enjoyed thoroughly and developed countless skills (developing new skills) and decided to continue it this semester also, as I could further improve on my basketball skills and learn new ones as well (showing persistence in commitment in activities).
One thing I noticed from last year is that, my shots and lay-ups are decent (yet still do need more improvement), however my ball handling and dribbling skills is something I need to improve on significantly (increased awareness of areas of growth and improvement). Thus, for this Basketball semester, I wish to focus on improving on my ball handling and dribbling, but still improving on my other skills (shooting, teamwork, etc.) (planned and initiated activities),
One way I believe I can improve on handling and dribbling is: taking my time, not rushing, and looking around for good plays and open teammates. As often when I have possession of the ball (and not shooting) I often get nervous and panic slightly, overall affecting, not only my handling and dribbling, but even other skills (awareness, shooting, etc.) (increased awareness of areas of growth and improvement). Thus, I believe calming myself is an effective way to significantly improve on my handling and dribbling, and also on my other skills (developing new skills and improving on existing skills).
 Last semester I was always a followed my team captain and his words of advice for plays and such, but this semester I have been drafted for captain for all existing occasions, something that I am not used to (undertaking new challenges). Therefore it is important for me to improve on my role as a captain, as leadership is an important role in, not only basketball, but in life. I have been giving advice to my teammates on how they could improve their game, and how they could make better plays, but one thing I need to work on as a leader is involving my whole team (increased awareness of areas of growth and improvement). As often, it is three or four players on the team making the plays and scoring points, with the other two or one playing more of a support role. Which is something I personally would not enjoy, thus I continuously try to involve everyone on the team (considering ethical implication of my actions), by making passes to each other, different people positioned differently to make different shots, etc., but sometimes I do fail in this aspect, and something I do hope I can eliminate fully.

(Insert Photos Here)

Semester Goals

Creativity: For creativity this semester, I hope I can continue on my artwork (showing commitment and perseverance in activities)  and challenge myself to create pieces that are unfamiliar to me, thus explore more of the art realm and push myself out the comfort zone in drawing club. This way I believe I can not only improve my art skills, but also explore various styles of art and different approaches. I also hope will be able to try something new in this year's drawing club and develop new skills, and undertake new challenges.
Action: For action this semester, I hope I can try different sports (undertaking new challenges), such as table tennis and basketball, which are two sports that are relatively new to me to develop new skills). Yet, at the same time, I would also like to continue on a sport I had participated in before later on in the year or semester, such as football or badminton, as then I can continue to improve on these sports.
Service: Unfortunately, I will not be continuing TFC this year, but instead try out a different service:
'Mother Tongue Literacy." Where I hope I can undertake new challenges and be engaged in issues of global importance while working collaboratively with others. Where I can continue to help those in need, in every way I can, and hopefully learn and educate myself on issues, not only worldwide, but also in my community, thus I will be able to understand how to counteract such issues. The main objective with Mother Tongue Literacy is to spread culture and language throughout our community, due to the fact that dying cultures all around the world has become a huge global issue. We hope we can stop this, at least within our community.

Semester Reflection

This semester was particularly good, I had the opportunity to participate and take part in lots of engaging planned and initiated activities, where I learned and developed countless new skills and learned a lot about different topics and areas (such as: sewing).
For TFC (The Forgotten Children) this semester we were able to focus on one of main goals/objective: spreading awareness on the topic of child sex tourism in Sri Lanka (engaged in issues of global importance). We were able to travel to different places in the local area (Colombo) such as: Crescat, the good market, etc. where we tried to hand out flyers about our service and our goals and objectives to different people and retrieve contact details of different people, so we could e-mail them monthly newsletters and different updates about our service (working collaboratively with others). Also, currently, we working on a collaborative video within our group that spreads awareness about general safety, targeted to children.
For action, this semester I tried two different sports: Badminton, and basketball, which were quite new to me (undertaking new challenges). Badminton was during the first half of the semester, which was quite fun and interesting, as it was a new sport to me. But with the help of my coaches and peers, I was able to develop a countless amount of new skills and participate in a internal badminton tournament, which a new experience for me. Basketball is still on going, but is quite fun (and competitive) of an activity, and I have been able to learn different techniques and skills of basketball from players who are much better than me, but overall it is a definitely a great learning experience for me!
Creativity has been quite unique and interesting this semester, beginning off with Surface Embellishment, which was new to pretty much everyone in the activity (undertaking new challenges), so it was quite a different experience from other creativity activities I had participated in, but it was really an amazing activity. Where I learnt, again, many new skills such as: sewing (cross-stitch, chain stitch, etc.), stencil making, t-shirt making, painting, and many, many more, from the supervisors from AOD (working collaboratively with others), which I would have never thought of doing before this activity! Overall it was a definitely a new, but fun experience for, not only me, but everyone in the activity! Drawing club is the activity I continued into the second half of the semester, and is still on going. I have learned more about this activity from my earlier experience with this activity in the first semester, such as setting a focus topic for my artwork, in my case: Pokemon, helping me create much better artwork, and I think definitely I have developed new skills and improved on my art skills and works.

Creativity Update

For this half the semester I decided to rejoin drawing club (showing persistence and commitment in activities) (since I have done that before).
One thing I realized and learned from the last drawing club is that I need to set myself an objective that I can achieve at the end of the sessions. A topic focus that I can continue throughout the whole of the drawing club (show persistence and commitment in activity). So I decided to focus on the topic of 'Pokemon,' as it is something that my friends and I are very fond of, especially throughout our childhood, so I thought it would be very interesting and cool to present throughout it in my drawing. Towards the end I hope to make a kind of 'collage' of different Pokemon on a single A3 piece of paper, to resemble childhood (since Pokemon was a big part of mine).
This idea is very new to me, since I haven't done a collage involving an idea like such (undertaking new challenges), and especially since collages are not very common amongst me (developing new skills).
It is definitely a new experience for me in the area of art, but I definitely feel it will be successful as long as I can dedicate myself and show commitment, and I feel like I can learn a lot of new skills and improve on a lot of existing ones. Overall it should be a very fun and memorable experience!

Badminton: The Last Week

A few weeks ago, after many completed sessions, I finally finished my last session (showing perseverance and commitment in activity) of badminton. Throughout the course of this activity, I have learned and developed many new skills and got the opportunity to experience different things, all within the realm of badminton.
I felt that throughout the course I really improved one a variety of techniques in badminton, in a particular my smashing skill (developing new skills), as before the activity I didn't know how to smash, but overtime I learned and improved on it and how to apply to games through the help of peers and coaches, which later helped score many points during matches. But I still feel I could definitely improve more on this skill; and learn to use more wrist and apply more power in the shot (increased awareness of areas of growth and development). Another skilled I learned is how to serve properly, which is a vital part in any badminton game and something that can score you easy points. I learned that you want to serve as close to the boundaries as possible, to make it hard for you opponent. When playing singles, you want to serve far, as the boundaries are more lengthy, while in double you want to serve wide, since the boundaries are set wider.
Towards the last few sessions, we started playing an internal badminton tournament, which was quite new to me (undertaking new challenges), where we could really test all the various new skills we had learned throughout the course, it also gave rise to all players to be able to play amongst other players we haven't played much against, giving us all an opportunity to learn from others and improve ourselves overall. During this tournament one of my colleagues advised me to improve on my stance and balance, as wasn't able to reach the shuttlecock in time to hit it back, and so I lost quite a significant amount of points due to this (increased awareness of areas of growth and development). But overall the tournament was a really great experience and great opportunity to test my skills in game, play against different opponents, and improve (a lot)!

Chadoo and I playing a match

Action Update

For the remaining month of the semester, I have decided to try out a different sport, Basketball (undertaking new challenges). 

For the most part I haven't really played basketball too much, thus I hope I can develop the basic skills I need to play decently in a match (developing new skills), through the coaching of players on the school's SAISA Basketball team. 

So far, I have been improving on my layouts as I often miss easy layups under the basket. They advised me to take my time and aim for the top right of the box, because often I panic and completely miss the target (Increased awareness of areas for growth and development) (Developing new skills). 

One thing I still need to work and improve on is my dribbling and control of the ball (Increased awareness of areas for growth and development), which hopefully I can take action on within the next few weeks.

By the end, hopefully, I will be able to play decently during a game and present and use some of my newly learned skills.

Surface Embellishment Update

A couple weeks ago, I finished my last session of surface embellishment, which was quite an interesting and engaging course.
We learned a variety of skills (planned and initiated activities), some skills were more difficult than others, but all of them were greatly helpful for the making of our shirts (developing new skills), some of the skills we learned were sewing, how to make stencils, how to use fabric paints, etc. Most of which I haven't experimented with or used before in the realm of art (undertaking new challenges), such as sewing and stencil making.
All the skills were quite a challenge and required quite a bit of practice before it could be applied to our shirts, but one of the more difficult skills was sewing for me (increased awareness of areas for growth). As there were multiple skills and techniques involved in this skill, such as the 'hem-stitch,' which was the basic stitch in sewing and held to fabric together, and was quite easy to tackle. One of the more harder stitches was the 'chainsaw stitch,' which added a design to the fabrics as well, and required quite a bit of practice, but I managed to get the hang of it after a lot of practice and the help of the teachers and other peers (working collaboratively with others).

(Insert photos here)

For the final product; the shirt, I started off by sketching out what type of design I wanted on my shirt on a piece of paper, and I deduced I wanted something simple, but still would stand out, so I went for a shape type pattern like the shirt shown below:

except my shirt will involve more shapes and such, but still uses the same idea as the shirt above. After I figured out my design I started to make a stencil for this design. Once that was done I glued my stencil to my shirt and painted it with bright colours; such as red, yellow green, sky blue, purple, etc. It turned out really good, especially the colour combinations, but it still needs work and some finishing touches, perhaps with some sewing. 

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Badminton Half-Way Point

As we are approaching the half-way point of the badminton activity I wanted to reflect on how my skills (developing new skills) and overall badminton is improving.
I think one of the things I do well now, and am still improving on, is serving. Some of my friends and I have noticed I have been putting significantly more points on the board due to my serves, as they are low and close to the boundaries, making them hard for the opponents to receive (increased awareness of strengths). But one of the things I still need to improve is my responsiveness and stance, as we had a training regarding this and I struggled a bit (increased awareness of areas for growth), and due to this I lost a lot points, as I wasn't able to react quick enough or reach the shuttlecock quick enough. Hopefully with more training I will be able to improve on this further.
The biggest thing I still need to improve is my smashes, since I didn't know how to do one before the activity (undertaking new challenges), and I am still learning. Mr. De Silva and some of my peers (working collaboratively with others) suggested to use my wrist instead my whole arm when smashing, which is something that I still need to work on (increased awareness of areas for growth).
Another thing I need to improve on are my single games, as I have noticed that, generally, I win most of my doubles, but lose most of my singles. Therefore I hope I can improve on this further, and be better at it towards the end of the badminton activity.

Week Without Walls

On the last week of January some of classmates and friends from the lower grade and I went on the Week Without Walls trip, as you know from an earlier post on the WWW goals. Not all of the goals fulfilled, unfortunately, but it was still a really fun trip, where everyone enjoyed themselves, and become more aware of not only their host country (Sri Lanka), but everyone else on their trip and themselves (increased awareness).

Part of the eco-lodge we were staying in.

On the first day, we made our way to the eco-lodge, "Back-of-Beyond," ( http://www.backofbeyond.lk/locations/dehigahaela.php ), which is is very eco-friendly, as the huts and common lodge house were made out of mud and straw and all the food produce were self grown by the lodge, creating a very different and enjoyable atmosphere for all of us (issues of global importance). We received our WWW journals, a space where we could reflect on each our days, and identify and write down different plant and animal species we saw during the trip. Later that day we went down to the river/stream for a quick swim, so we could freshen up and experience the nature around us. Also we went on a night walk in a nature reserve, we we saw a variety of animals, such as deers, slender loris, and other animals, which added up to a good start to our journals (planned and initiated activites).

Us going for a swim in the river.

The second day, we mainly focused on learning and exploring more about Sri Lankan culture and its history, as we traveled to the ancient ruins of Ritugala, a beautiful place where nature and mankind bordered in the same place and explored the border between nature and mankind, as over the years much of nature incorporated itself to be a part of the statues and ruins, and it was a truly beautiful site to see. During this visit my friends and I also played a game, where the sand was 'lava' and where we couldn't touch the sand, making all the hiking much more entertaining and fun (collaborating with others).

Us outisde Ritugala

On the third day we headed up to Trincomalee, while traveling there we stopped at Medirigiriya, where we met the art 'Art on Wheels' WWW trip sketching a few Buddhist statues. The Medirigirya stop gave us an opportunity to observe Buddhist statues and ruins where we learned more about the religious background of Buddhism. After that we headed to Trincomalee, where we visited a Hindu Temple, which was located at the top of a cliff, and was relatively new. This opportunity really taught me about Hinduism as a religion, a religion I didn't know much about until now, especially about their beliefs and gods. For example: I learned that their leader of Gods (like Zeus), is their God of Destruction and the Universe; Shiva. Afterwards we were able to look around that area of Trinco a bit more, and purchase souvenirs and even climb trees, but unfortunately we were not able to carry out the service part of our trip: picking up trash across the streets, as we didn't have enough tiime in our schedule to fit it in. We headed down to the Chaaya Blu resort where we would spend the evening and night, and unfortunately we were not able to go to Pigeon Island and snorkel as it was the rough season for the sea, so it would have been dangerous.

Exploring the beach in Trinco.

Couple of my friends and I outside the Buddhist temple.

On the fourth day, was quite a bad day for some, as a couple of my friends from the group woke up sick and incapable of participating in activities, so therefore not everyone could carry out the activities we had planned to do, which was unfortunate. In the morning, after having breakfast our group headed down the beach for a nice walk and to explore a bit, but as we ventured further away from the resort, the beach became more and more filled with all types of thrash, from shoes, to pencil cases, to water bottles, it was quite unpleasant, which raised the concern of Sri Lanka's environmental issues, where our group discussed about the problems and possible solutions, and how it could be dealt with, and some excellent suggestions came up from almost everyone in the group (engaged in issues of global importance) (considering the ethical implications of our actions)! Later that day we headed down to the Sigirya eco-ledge which was owned by the same owners of 'Back of Beyond' so this eco lodge was just as environmentally friendly, but was stiill quite a different experience from the other one, as this one was set in the middle of the forest. Before we made it out to the eco lodge we visited an ancient Buddhist Temple, which was quite calm and peaceful and was a nice addition after all the activities we did early! During this visit we started to raise the concerns of ethical issues as some of us didn't know the rules when visiting a Buddhist Temple, and others were quite offended and, as a group we discussed how this could be avoided and how this is an issue in the modern world (considering the ethical implications of our actions). When we made it to the eco lodge, we had free time, so we could relax which was quite nice, most our group played cards together, making our group come together closer and really bond. Later that night, we headed out to a small open field just a few hundred metres outside of lodge, where we gazed at the stars and reflected upon our day and us as a group, where we really bonded a lot as everyone got to know more about everyone else, and lot more about the trip itself and us as a group (planned and initiated activities).

The view from the top of Swami Rock (this picture
is not doing it justice)!

The final day we headed out bright and early to Swami Rock, after breakfast, to climb it. Swami Rock was located next to Sigirya Rock, which is quite a popular Sri Lankan cultural spot among tourists and locals (Sigirya). It was a nice climb (developing new skills), as we past through the forest of an ancient monastery, where we got to see what the monastery were like back then and learn a bit about the history of Buddhism, so it was a peaceful and calm walk. At the halfway point we stopped at an ancient Buddha statue, where the Buddha was in his 'lying pose,' they were some signs located around the statues so we got read a bit more of Buddhism as a religion. Opposite to the Buddha statue was a breath-taking view, which as nothing compared what is was like when we reached the top. The top was surreal. Everything was so calm and peaceful, but yet exciting and breath-taking at the same time, and was definitely one of the highlights for me on this WWW.
Overall it was a excellent WWW, where, not only me, but everyone in our group definitely enjoyed themselves and had fun, while still learning about Sri Lanka's culture and Sri Lanka as a country and its religious background. Although we could not carry out the service side of our WWW, there definitely a lot of creativity and action, where, not only me, but many people in the group, undertook new challenges, collaborated with each other, and developed new skills, and I enjoyed all of it throughout the trip. It was definitely a good note to end my first and last WWW!

Some our group at the top of Swami Rock!

Art Update.

    Last semester I had joined the drawing club in hope of getting new aspirations for my next art piece, and my supervisor Mr. Mactavish introduced to a new artist; Francis Bacon, of which many of his pieces were abstract, and me being more of a detailed artists, liking to draw from real life and abstract was a weak point of mine (increased awareness for growth), it interested me, and I decided to experiment a bit with some of his work.
    Going through his book a couple of his pieces really stood out to me, and really interested me (shown below).

The style, and way of art used in this pictures really was something I wasn't used to (as I am more a detailed shading artist) so I decided to challenge myself a bit and see what I could produce (undertaking new challenges). Using the middle picture and some of my ideas about society and life, I decided to make a piece based on what I saw society as. While producing the piece, I had a couple of difficulties, not with the working of the piece itself, but the abstract of it. Since it was new to me, I had some difficulty on really how to capture it on to my transcription, so I had to experiment around with that until I could settle on one I liked (showing perseverance and commitment towards the drawing). But finally I came out with a piece (shown below), which I was particularly proud of, since it was only one of the few abstract pieces done by me. As for the interpenetration of the picture, I'll leave that up to you.

     

     Next semester (the 2nd semester), I wanted to try something new in the art side (undertaking new challenges), and decided to sign up for surface embellishment, where we learn different and new skills (such as: how to make stencils, laser printing, stitching, etc.) along the course and combine them all to create a t-shirt the way we want (developing new skills). I thought it would really cool and interesting to experiment with different sides of art, instead sticking with something that is familiar and comfortable to me, and try and push myself outside of my comfort zone.

TFC Service Update

Unfortunately, we are not able to continue to visit the orphanage: Children's Street Centre, as the leader of the orphanage explained to us how she was concerned with the sensitivity of our focus/objective and getting the children involved or exposed to such subjects, although we didn't plan to.
This is quite unfortunate, but as group we understand the situation (considering of ethical actions). We therefore need to find other orphanages who are willing and able to permit us to visit their orphanages to carry out planned and initiated activities with the children, as we feel this is a huge part of our group as a service project, thus this is on our priority list at the moment (showing perseverance and commitment in our activities).
Simultaneously we hope to start working on our first newsletter and safety guides that we are going to send out to the contacts we collected from our visits to the Good Market, Crescat, etc. and we hope to visit another site to expand our contacts (to increase more awareness). Hopefully this way we can increase more awareness on the subject within Sri Lanka, and cause more people to take action.