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.