Personal Training

My fellow classmate is having a hard time trying to find some Action elements for his Community and Service program requirements. He’s been going to the gym and I have thought about encouraging him to continue as well as to create a workout routine for the next three months for the time he has left in Sri Lanka. Thaim is keen on coming to the gym and working on his body in hopes of looking well-conditioned for university. I feel that it would be beneficial for his own sake, because working out is a good source of exercise and it also releases built up tension. Personally, I am a very active individual that visits the gym daily to work out. Therefore, I believe that my training my friend Thaim I will not only increase his general fitness level, but also increase mine in the process. Its always good to have a workout partner or trainer because it gives you support and someone around to help you.

Since I have not done anything creative, and I heard Thaim was taking the gym seriously, I thought I might help him out. This way his getting action done and Im also getting creative done and this is a challenge I can undertake.

SAISA Football

SAISA boy’s football is usually during the month of February but it’s starting early this time around. We started to have practice on the 18^th of October and our tournament is on the 1^st of December. The tournament is going to be held in Dhaka once again. This would be my third time in Dhaka in my six years of SAISA football.

Our first few practice sessions went well but it was da ga vo as we didn’t have enough people trying out again. Within the first few weeks, we had 21 people trying out for the team. But during does few weeks. It was raining a lot and we had most of our practice sessions in the gym due to the field being wet.

We had a few practice games with CIS (2), Royal Institute, Mori, Gateway. We had a good run of matches before by winning four out of the five we played.

After about two weeks of training, Mr. Shipley sent us an email naming the 16 players that would be traveling on SAISA.  The team consists of only five 12^th graders, four 11th graders, four 10th graders, two 9th graders and one sol 8th grader.

After a month of training and six practice matches, we are ready to travel on SAISA. We had to leave early morning the airport and our flight was around 7:30am. We had to transit
After a month of training and six practice matches, we are ready to travel on SAISA. We had to leave early morning the airport and our flight was around 7:30am. We had to transit in Delhi for a few hours and then we left to Dhaka. As we arrived in Dhaka around 5:30 and I was hosted with James Peters and my host family was the same from last time, the Perarra Family. The Pererra Family are also Sri Lanka so I felt like I was at home in away and I know their son Meshan really well as I have met him in three other SAISA football events. The first night at the host family we were tired and it was homework night so we just chilled and did our work.
 
On Thursday morning we all got together in our tent and were all ready for the opening ceremony for the last time for our 12^th graders. This SAISA was special for me because it was my last and for once my brother Yannich and I are playing together for the first time in a SAISA event. This year it was different as we played all our matches on the Dhaka school pitch because other teams were complaining about the other pitch outside school. We were in the tough Group with Lahore, Bombay, and Karachi. We had our first match against Lahore, the favorites for the tournament. 
 

Sun Flower Village Term 2

In this semster, we have a different bunch of kids this year. Today its going to be our thrid sunflower village in this semster and the children are getting better at swimming. We are trying to help them swim and they are improving a lot. This time around we are letting them use the computers to improve their typing skills and letting them play games before they hit the pool. All of us in Sunflower have seen an improvment in the childrens computer skills and swimming talent and the most important thing is that they are happy to be doing all that.

The week after the december break, we didnt have Sunflower Village but the following week on the 2nd of Febuary we had a meeting and we talked about what we should change in Sunflower Village and we talked about playing cricket once in a while and also continue with the swimming and also give them some time in the tech labs to develope their typing skills.

Last week on the 23rd of Feb, we played cricket, this was the first time the kids got to go on to the field. Cricket is a very popular game here and as you would know, I play cricket myself but almost every kid in Sri Lanka can play cricket. This made our job easy as we just needed to make two equal teams and this went well as the kids looked like they were having fun and they liked that we did something different rather than swim everyday.

I have been the after school active football/soccer. This is a new after school active as its a part of the OSC athletics program. This has been going on for five to six weeks (Action). We are short on some people as SAISA swimming is going on at this time of the season but we are all ready for next season when we have our Boys SAISA football yet again in Dhaka. For my CAS. OSC was suppose to be in the under 19 international football tournament which starts on the 20th

Im still working with Sunflower Village but its yet to get underway and will probably start next week. For my action I have been playing sevral cricket tournaments and gone downsouth near Hambantota and Galle. I have been in such teams as Sweduwa, Tamil Union and NCC (Nondescripts Cricket Club). These are first division clubs in Sri Lanka so I have been playing in the top level of cricket for my whole summer and im still playing until the tournaments are over.

This is a picture of me batting against an under 19 South African side on the 1st of September at P. Sara ground. P. Sara ground is a very first test ground built in Sri Lanka. Its very historic. We lost this match but it was a good experience to play on this ground and against a forigen team.

2011 - 2012

Goals for this year 2011 - 2012

Last year I did a lot of action and service but not enough creative. This year i want to do more creative work such as being on the Girls Volleyball event crew and other OSC related things. Im really look forward to this year as SAISA football is early in December and the whole team is looking forward to it.

New Goals for 2011 - 2012

* Interact more in school and particiate in events OSC have to offer.
* Keep workig in SunFlower Village as my CAS.
* Do my best on SAISA football as it would be my last one from my 11 years at OSC.
* Do something creative this year like take part of the event crew in SAISA Volleyball.

8 Critical Learning Outcomes

The IB developed a list of 8 critical outcomes to act as a criteria of sort for the CAS program. Any aspect of CAS that you interact with has to connect to one of these learning outcomes. By doing this the IB allows you to reflect on why you do what you do in the CAS program, rather than just doing CAS to accumulate hours and be done of it. Below are the 8 critical learning outcomes:

• Increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth: They are able to see themselves as individuals with various skills and abilities, some more developed than others, and understand they can make choices about how they wish to move forward. 
• Undertaken new challenges: A new challenge may be an unfamiliar activity, or an extension to an existing one. 
• Planned and initiated activities: Planning and initiation will often be in collaboration with others. It can be shown in activities that are part of larger projects, for example, ongoing school activities in the local community, as well as in small student-led activities. 
• Worked collaboratively with others: Collaboration can be shown in many different activities, such as team sports, playing music in a band, or helping in a kindergarten. At least one project involving collaboration and the integration of at least two of creativity, action and service, is required. 
• Shown perseverance and commitment in their activities: At a minimum, this implies attending regularly and accepting a share of the responsibility for dealing with problems that arise in the course of activities. 
• Engaged with issues of global importance: Students may be involved in international projects but there are many global issues that can be acted upon locally or nationally (for example, environmental concerns, caring for the elderly). 
• Considered the ethical implications of their actions: Ethical decisions arise in almost any CAS activity (for example, on the sports field, in musical composition, in relationships with others involved in service activities). Evidence of thinking about ethical issues can be shown in various ways, including journal entries and conversations with CAS advisers. 
• Develop new skills: As with new challenges, new skills may be shown in activities that the student has not previously undertaken, or in increased expertise in an established area.     

Through out the year im going to try and meet all these learning outcomes. To reach this goal im going to join SAISA'S, work on CAS and interact with other groups and get involved with what they are doing.