Badminton First Week

     On Monday, I attended my first badminton session of the semester, which was more difficult that I thought it'd be, but hopefully I can improve this over the course of the semester.
    When playing I've noticed I need to improve mostly, my aim, as most of the time the shuttle does not land where I want it to (increased awareness in areas needed of growth), therefore I tend to waste opportunities to gain a point advantage in the game. Within the session, I have learnt when is the right time to smash the shuttlecock (which usually makes it difficult for the opponent to hit it back), from observing some of my fellow colleagues play (developing new skills). Deciding to test this out, I found a partner for a doubles game, with some of my peers as the opponents. It was a tough match especially since I had to work collaboratively with my partner, but my smashing has definitely improved a lot, (as before I didn't know how to smash), but it still needs work (increased awareness in areas needed of growth), as we did end up losing a good match.
    Towards the end of the session, I played one more game to try and apply all the newly learned skills into an actual game (the video below shows a part of this game), and I ended up winning, but I still had a lot more to work on!

Semester Goals

    The first semester for me was a good experience, especially with the different activities I took part in and explored. I now have a better idea what to expect and to achieve in the second semester (increased awareness in areas for growth).
     I will be continuing TFC and hope I will continue to be engaged in issues of global importance, undertake new challenges, and work collaboratively with others. As TFC has given more insight on issues occurring, not only in our community, but worldwide, and I hope this will continue to educate me. I will also try out more creative methods to spread awareness on this subject, therefore making it more effective. We will continue to visit the children in the World's Vision Children's Street Centre, and hopefully educate them and create an even stronger bond between us.
     For my action, I will be trying out new sports; badminton, etc. (undertaking new challenges), while trying to continue some of my old ones; swimming. In this section have I have definitely developed new skills, and improved on them, and hopefully that will continue through to the second semester.
     Art will be continuing on to the second semester, but I hope I can produce more pieces than in the first, aqnd experiment with more styles of drawing (undertaking new challenges) such as pen sketches, pencil shading, tc. (developing new skills). Hopefully I can also improve further than in my first semester, especially with some of my pencils sketches, which need more depth (increased awareness in areas for growth).

TFC Children's Street Centre Visit

    On the 12th of December, me and my service group visited the Children's Street Center, which is a center who shelters 42 children between the ages as low as 5 to as high as 17, who have been abandoned by their parents for different reasons. Therefore we thought it would be possible that these children have been or taken part in the sex industry in Sri Lanka, and thought it would be appropriate to help and educate them on, not the subject directly as that would raise concerns (considering our ethical actions), but their safety in general (engaged in issues of global importance).
     Although,we discussed early, that it would be too straightforward and too concerning to immediately educate them on safety, and that we should form a type of friendship bond with the children, so they trust us more and realize who we are (considering our ethical actions). Therefore we planned and initiated on visiting them every month or so to build a bond and be able to help them every so often. Eventually, we agreed on having an 'Arts and Crafts Day' for our first visit, thinking this was a good idea for bonding (planned and initiated activities).
    For the Arts and Crafts Day we decided to have three sections of various arts and crafts; a finger painting mural, making Christmas cards, and making 3D christmas trees and other physical crafts, and all the stations were well balanced in terms of the number of kids, making all craft stations a huge success, and I even got to use my language skills to use (sinhala) to communicate with them, which without doubt made a more friendlier relationship (worked collaboratively with others).
    After the activities were finished we said goodbye to our newly made friends, and asked whether they enjoyed it and whether we could come again; all of them said "yes." Making all the members of TFC feel good about, not only themselves, but realizing that the future of TFC is confirmed, with the center and TFC in general (increased awareness in areas for growth and improvement).

Week Without Walls Goals

     In a few weeks me and my friends will be departing to Week Without Walls (WWW),which is a 5 day trip set up in different parts around Sri Lanka. For me, I will be heading to the Dry Zone, where will mainly focus on exploring the borders between culture and nature, things we don't really experience within our day to day lives.
     During the trip we will be doing a various range of activities; from rock climbing, to snorkeling, to seeing ancient sights/runes, and when participating in these activities we will be developing new skills and undertaking new challenges, but at the same time we have to work collaboratively with others in order for these activities to become a success, especially activities that require teamwork such as navigating our way through the forest, and making a map. Also we have to be ethical about our actions, since the area we are going to is very cultural and preserved by nature, therefore we have to show respect towards the area and the culture present there, as its a big part of not only the village there, but Sri Lanka's culture in general. The preservation of culture, not only in Sri Lanka, but worldwide has become a big issue, therefore we are striving to help and preserve the culture present there (engaged in issues of global importance).
     THe place where are staying is http://www.backofbeyond.lk/, which is also a very nature dominant lodge, contributing to our border of culture and nature experience greatly.

TFC Update

     Recently for TFC we have been talking about how to spread awareness on this serious issue, across the island (engaged in issues of global importance), and we agreed on starting in local schools, both national and international, as we thought young adults was an appropriate place to start, especially since they are the future of our world, yet we are still deciding on a fixed age group to discuss this issue (consideration of ethical implications).
     To aid of mission of spreading awareness, we developed a video, where our members and I discussed about the issues of child sex tourism, how everyone is effected by it, what happens to the children, and the significant facts, both on a international and national scale, to help people understand the country we live in. We plan to present this video to certain schools in Colombo (or even outside Colombo),to help our audience get a clear vision on our group (our aims and goals), and understand more about the frightening issue itself.

Football

     For the last few weeks for football, we have been focusing mainly on our in-game skills, and how to apply them into an actual game, as we've realized our match skills require a lot more improvement, (increased awareness for my own strength and ares for growth), therefore we have played a lot of skirmishes for the last few weeks (planned and initiated activities).

     There is definitely more improvement in each of us, therefore the skirmishes are becoming more and more physically challenging, for everyone, especially since more of my peers joined the activity, yet I continue to try my best and not let my team down, and encourage my teammates, especially those who are younger than me or are having a tougher time, even if we are losing (showing perseverance and commitment in my activities) (worked collaboratively with others).

     During the training sessions (trying to improve our in-game skills) (developing new skills) and a skirmish afterwards to try and apply learnt skills into an actual match.

Art First Few Pieces

     For the last few weeks of art, I have worked tirelessly on two pieces of art. It took longer than I had thought it would have, mainly because it had been a long time since my last piece, and I was a bit nervous starting art again, due to the break I had taken from art, yet I continued with my art (showed perseverance and commitment in the activities).
     My skills were a bit shaky, and I had to start over countless times, but overtime I started to regain  my skills, and soon I was learning new skills to incorporate in my artwork, and slowly started developing these new skills. Especially in my second piece (the strawberries), I learned to transform, something more realistic; such as strawberries, into something more cartooony; which is a transformation skill which I hope to develop throughout the course of my artwork (undertaking new challenges). Rather than merely coping a piece of work, like the first piece, which was merely to regain my skills back.
    When trying out this new technique with the strawberries in water colours, I encountered some problems, especially since it's hard to achieve a thick consistency with water colours, the cartoony effect required a lot of concentration, focus, and time to get it right, at sometimes I messed up, but I believe through more practice with this new style, I will be able to perfect this as my own style, and achieve in significant less amount of time. Also another problem with the cartoony effect, is due to the thick water colour consistency it mixes with any not dried water colours (since this paint is mixed with a lot of water), and messes the strawberries up. Therefore I have to wait till all my water colour paints are dried, until I can apply the thick consistency, which is really time-consuming, but hopefully overtime I can improve this style (considering the ethical implications of my actions).
    The first piece (the grapefruit), was done also in watercolours and pencil colours, as my supervisor suggested, so I could regain my skills back (since my most comfortable media is pencil crayons), and  prepare for the actual work to develop my own style (the strawberries), so I would be more comfortable with starting my own new style.

                        My first piece of artwork, done in watercolours and pencil colours
                                                          

                                       The original piece of the grapefruit piece (above)

                                     My strawberry piece, with my first attempt at the cartoony effect

                               The original piece for my strawberries photgraphed by my supervisor