Coming Back from November Break

November 25th, 2013

Action:

This past week was when I came back from the 9-day long November break, so I have not been able to update this CAS blog from a while. I continued with football on wednesdays and did get some of my peers (Max and Laurence) to join in for this week's session.( As seen in the video below) The football game was more physical than the previous games since I did play with more people at my age group this time. 

Service and Creativity:

The day after was Hope for Kids service where everyone got into to groups of 3-4 and discussed about the 'Amazing Race' event we were going to hold. The new idea for this event would be to have it consist of different mini-games instead of just one activity that everyone would focus on, similar to the food and fun fair our school holds. Each group was a specific department for the event. My group was in charge of the logistics for the event. We haven't been able come up with the actual name for event yet, but we did discuss things such as companies that could sponsor since this event would be too big to only be hosted by OSC. We were also talking ways in which we can separate the teams for the various games there would be at the event. One of the ideas I came up with was for the contestants to have different colored wrist bands according to which team they were in.     

Service Meeting with Dr. Samadhi

November 4th, 2013

Last week during service, we at Hope for Kids were lucky enough to have a visit from Dr. Samadhi who runs the care for kids cancer organization. We had a discussion meeting with him where the topic was future events our service group we could hold to raise awareness of the issue. The photo below is a picture of the meeting where we sat around one table and had the group discussion. I am the person wearing the green shirt right upfront, the doctor is the person at the end of the table wearing the tie.

The Group Discussion Meeting

One of the ideas that came up in the discussion was having a group walk at a public area such as the boardwalk in Waters Edge or the road in front of the parliament. The whole group did approve with this idea as it was a great way to involve members of the school community as well as other communities for this cause. The group walk was not the only interesting idea as we also thought about having a type of scavenger hunt race activity. Kind of like in the reality tv show, "The Amazing Race", where a group would get into teams and search for clues to the next destination between different areas. So both of these ideas are still at work as this is the first time we are trying to start a major project at this scale. A possible way we thought of spreading awareness of the event would be to present it to other schools during their assemblies. I am quite excited to be a part of this event so I would like to see how our service group progresses in building the ideas for it in the future meeting sessions.          

After School Football

October 23rd, 2013

Today I took part in my first after-school football session where I was able to benefit with both creativity and action aspects. Action was a part of this activity when it came to physical aspects of running and dribbling with the ball across the field. All of the past physical activities I did this year so far such as volleyball and cricket, are both mostly focused on working on the arm skills. So starting football did give me the chance to focus on my legs as well. In terms of creativity, the teacher running the activity was Mr. Mueller, and he was able to give me some leadership tasks in this activity since all of the other students participating were at least two years younger than me. These tasks include teaching some of the younger kids with helpful tips and comments, placing equipment such as the goals and cones on the field, and also partnering up with some of the kids for warm-up exercises. Having a leadership role in this activity, was more helpful than being a leader in the cricket after-school activity as I did have more knowledge about football.        

A short clip on warm-up exercise:

Cricket After School Activity

October 11th, 2013

On Wednesday, I took part in my first session of the cricket after school activity. This activity did give me the opportunity to have a leadership role as all the other kids involved were at least two or three years younger than me. My classmate, Vaibhav and I were able to help and give tips to the kids playing such as how to improve throwing the ball and hitting the ball with the bat. I haven't actually played cricket in quite a while so this was a great way to get back to the sport. So not only did this activity give me a leadership role, but it also helped me do a physical action to keep fit. I feel I did use the Cricket after school activity to my advantage because of what I gained from it.  

First Week of Service Activity

October 7th, 2013

Last thursday I was finally able to be a a part of my first Hope for Kids service session, where we planned for a trip to the cancer exhibition which would happen on friday; the day after. Thursday was just discussing and preparing for the events that would take place during the exhibition, an example would be having practice singing for the songs we would sing the next day. Friday was the important day as it was my service group's visit to the cancer exhibition. I enjoyed helping out the children with singing songs and I even had to play the drums for a musical piece, which went quite well. We gave out presents and goodies in the end of the exhibition and that did put smiles on the kids' faces. My service group and I ended up staying there for about 2 hours and it was a helpful feel-good experience.

The Kids

Singing the Songs

Musical Piece

Giving out Presents

Goals for next two years

1st October, 2013

My goals for these next two years in the diploma program in terms of creativity, action and service:


Creativity

• To have a leadership role in at least one service or after school activity
• To have a helping role in a theatre production

Action

• To try out different physical activities such as volleyball, basketball, or track and field

Service

• Participate in a service that I have not tried out before

Volleyball Tryouts

30th September, 2013

On the first week of school, I started participating in the saisa volleyball tryouts. This was probably the third ever saisa that I tried out for. It was a useful physical activity for my body as it did include jogging and stretches when warming up before a game. The fast-paced movement of the sport really did help me with my reflexes and reaction times. I would play three times a week, on tuesday after school, friday after school, and saturday morning. Having this schedule helped me keep my body fit and strong. I stopped having this schedule after the 5th week of school as I was not able to make it to the final team. Overall, it was an energetic experience to help the fitness of my body so I did have some benefits from trying out.   

IB Orientation

26th September, 2013

Three weeks ago, my grade went on our DP Orientation trip to Borderlands. (Kithulgala) This trip was three days long and did give components to my CAS. (Creativity, Action, and Service) For creativity, we did an activity where there would be groups of two and one person would have to draw a picture blindfolded, while their partner would describe what it is that they have to draw. This was to help look at our skills related to TOK (Theory of Knowledge), such as the sense of sound and how different people perceive words that come out of another person's mouth into a drawing. It helped with our ways of knowing as well, for example, memory would have to do with memorizing where you drew a certain part of the image on your paper so you can go back to it to add any details. Action was a major part of this trip as we did a variety of physical activities such as repelling down a waterfall, canyoning, and even rafting.

These were all activities that did help me with keeping my body fit. The service component of this trip was when there would groups of 4-5 people and each group would go and interview different types of local workers to understand their experiences and get some background knowledge on Kithulgala. For example, the local worker my group interviewed was the canoe driver who would give rides to villagers that live on the other side of a lake. His job was to only give rides to the villagers back and forth from one side of the lake, to the other. So it was really interesting to learn about his different experiences and difficulties he had throughout his years on this job. This orientation trip certainly did help me get started on my different types of components in CAS and since the trip is over, it is now time to have these components to be applied in my usual school environment.