Gym

Action: Gym

These days, my trainer has created a new schedule for me which involves weight training. I do some weight exercises and use some machines, but they aren't helpful as i don't overdo it too much and i don't use heavy weights. Kind of hard as the only muscle work i used to do was push ups or pull ups, but now I am using proper machines. Hopefully, I will get used to it. 

Soon, i will mail my old trainer; Achala Fernando, asking him to make my a proper work out, as it's harder to explain to the trainers here, they don't really understand english properly. 

Creativity: VFX Forum.

Creativity: VFX Forum.

The forum have been published online. The outcome was amazing, over 50 members joining in one day. People seems to like our concept and we are getting artists from all over the world to join our forums.

Here is the link: VoodooFX

We are trying to spread the word about this forum as much as we can. Hoping that we get good results.

Gym

Action: Gym

Today i went to the gym. Was my third day, and did some cardiology with some simple weights.  It went good as i did not overdo the exercises. I asked the trainer to make a schedule for me, so I will probably get it by tomorrow.

Here are some pics in the gym:

Service: Big Brother.

Dear CAS students,

There are 2 needs at ACST : helping 2 young boys (one in elementary and one in 6th grade) complete their homework here at ACST after school, twice a week or once a week.
If interested, please let Ms Hart and let me know URGENTLY.
To sign up, answer this mail, fill in a CAS Proposal Form and take it to Ms Hart and then to me for record keeping.

Thanks a lot for your service spirit!

Ms KOUKI

Ms. Kouki is ACST CAS Supervisor. I had received a mail from her a week ago, and decided to join this activity. I did wait for the student on Tuesday and today after school, but maybe it wont be happening once the Tunisian Studies are finished with. I thought that this might help me with understanding the concepts of organization properly. No harm in helping him organize his work and can help him out with his studies. Will post about this more once i have a lesson with him/her and know how to tackle this situation.

Gym

Action: Gym 

Today was the first day of my gym. I followed my old routine today to see how fit i am, so i started off with a treadmill and then did cross-trainer.  I did them for 30 minutes. I tried not to overdo it as it has been some months since i haven't even ran properly. Did some biking, and then moved on to the weights section. The gym trainer basically introduced me to different machines, there uses and how they benefit me.  It took me an hour today. So, i will go to gym tomorrow and check out my new routine.

Creativity: VFX Forum.

Creativity: VFX Forum

So basically, we have decided for a name for our forum. VFX= Voodoo Graphics Form.

The layout of the forum is going well and now i have come up with guidelines. The best thing is, that we are posting posters on forums and popular websites to advertise the launch of our forums. The two designs are made by me:

Looks good for now, and we are getting applications.

Grade 12: Plans

As i have transferred to a new school in a new country, i will be having different CAS activities than last year. The school has just started so i have been making plans for my CAS activity.

However, there are some activities which i can continue this year as well, like:

Creativity: GFX Website

Action: Gym

Service: None for now.

I have been getting offers from some of my friends to re-start a gfx forum, amending the mistakes which we made last year. Work on the forum has already started and the layout is ready. Right now, i am making guidelines for the forum and what sections we should have and what not.

The staff recruitment is also a crucial issue as the activity of the forum depends on how good the staff is. Therefore, i am creating guidelines for them as well. Hopefully, once proper outline of all the requirement is created, i can post it on the forums and deviantART for advertisement. I want to recruit efficient and active staff for the forum as soon as possible. This will minimize any more further changes while the forum is up.

Whereas for action, i have found gym near my house. I have talked to the trainer there and can now get my schedule once i get the membership, and thats going to be soon. So basically, i am all set for creativity and action, but i need to get a Service activity soon.

End Of The Year Reflection.

This year, the entire CAS project has been wonderful. There was so much to gain from the activities, especially the experiences. 

Creativity:

- SGA (Student Government Association) 

i gained experience of being a class representative. It is very easy to make promises about making changes in school, but it is truly difficult to carry out those promises that have been made to the school students. I believe that SGA is just a (smaller/simpler/easier/nice) version of real politics in our countries.  The concept of candidates, awareness, elections and class representatives are very much similar to what happens in real politics. SGA provides such exposure which gives a general idea of how things work out in administration. I feel that i know how things work and that it is generally not easy to carry out such jobs.  SGA this year has been fantastic, especially with the achievements which we have accomplished. The Welcome Back Mingler, House Competitions, SAISA Events, Spirit Days, OSCARS etc, were spectacular and well appreciated by the student body. The new changes which were made this year have brought some positive remarks within the students and have started to assist SGA.  We have not only strived to bring changes within the school, but also encouraged extra-culicular activities. However, studies has and will always be a major part of SGA decissions and something with which we will never compromise. This year, claimed by many, SGA has been extremely good and that credit goes to the team effort which everyone had put in. I surely learnt a lot about leadership and hoping i get this similar chance to my new school i am going into.

-Chess :Surprisingly, Chess worked out very well. Being the elective leader, i knew that this second semester elective may not be as much as popular amongst the other choices. We started of with 6 members and by the end of the school year, we had 12 members. This success was truly remarkable as students in our school had once again started to show interest in chess. Chess is a tactical and hard game which i am very much fond of. Having played numerous times with my father, i grew interest into this game and thought of starting this elective. I learnt a alot from this elective, especially how to organize lessons. Each lesson would be designated to tasks, Mr.Pradeep would teach us different opening/closing/attacking/defending tactics and me and Raj would plan lesson in which each and every member uses the learning to his/her benefit. Not to mention, it took incredible amount of time to draw attention towards this new elective as people always have a pre-concieved idea about Chess and relating it to a 'boring activity'. By the end of the year, we had students who belonged to other electives joining Chess and playing. I believe that Chess was wonderful and leading it was very helpful.

-Graphics Core : The popularity of the website gradually decreased.  There were certain changes which were made in the website and also the bandwidth was not enough to host the amount of images which were being uploaded. However, it provided tons of tutorials and helpful materials on GFX tricks and methods. GC is affliated with DeviantArt and other big GFX sites which are far more advanced than us. Being the root administrator (creator), the burden of running online forums/website with more than 200 members was hectic especially with my studies. I learnt a lot of new stuff about managing websites, especially how to handle spamming trolls. Managing forums, checking if the discussions taking place were appropriate, holding competions, propoganda, affliations; i learnt a lot of stuff about it. I believe that this experience was very helpful as it encouraged my hobby of graphics designing and provided me an oppurtunity to go out of the box and take a big step of running my own site.  Having more than 9000 views, i feel that i have accomplished a lot. The end of this website does not mean that there is an end to my GFX work, i will still continue to learn and make art work on DeviantArt.

URL: http://twsigs.forumotion.net/ [the domain name of graphicscore was taken away as i ran out of money :( ]

-Dance/Theatre: I have performed a lot for my school along with my other dancers. Choreographing dances were fun but hard as well. Managing time, gathering everyone, finding a place for practice, learning new moves and teaching them; all of this was not easy especially if you are doing IB. Although it was hectic, i learnt a lot from this. Handling a dance group is not easy and more than that, maintaining order was essential otherwise we would never succeed in creating dance routines in time.  I always enjoyed dancing and in this school, i was provided with an oppurtunity to show my talent and with other students, spread awareness about Bollywood dancing. I believe that this year i have really performed well and have enjoyed each one of the performances. List:

UN Day Dance / WWW- Concert / HCI Diwali Function / HCI Republic Day Performance

They were time consuming, but payed off in the end and i am looking forward to continue with choreographing more dances in future.

Crucible: Even though i wasnt really keen about performing, i believe that Crucible exposed me further more into stage performances. I had never planned or wanted to do a theater, mainly because it was time consuming and in the beginning of my IB years, i didnt want to put my studies in jeapardy. However, the play went on pretty well as their was a nice outcome and the spectators really appreciate the play. My role of Giles Corey wasnt major but it wasnt minor either and my stage presence was consistent. After school practice and coming to school in weekends, all of it payed of.  I was always exposed to stage performances as i did many dance performances and some small skits, but now that i have done a proper school theatre,  i have much more experience and may look forward for more theater work. -Gym:

Action:

-Gym:  I have been going to the gym everyday since the beginning of grade 11. I feel a drastic change within myself and the image below can portray the change within me properly:

Gym is not only benefited to reshape my body but has also kept me fit. My schedule would be divided into 2 programs; cardiology and abs work out. I was not only determined to see the outcome of my work out but was also encouraged to keep my body fit. Thanks to the constant support from my gym trainers and my time management, i could see the effects within my body. That did not only increase my moral but also encouraged me to continue with my gym. I felt that going to gym increased my fitness level incredibly. I even started to regularly use the treadmill for jogging/running. I had started out with 66kg and by June of 2010, my weight is 58kg, total difference of 8kg. I never focused on weights, however, i made it a must to do push-ups as i wanted to keep my muscles warmed up. Gym has now become my habit and has become a part of my schedule and i will try to continue it in Tunisia as well.

 Cricket: Cricket has been a very interesting for me this year. It actually became one of my habits and i saw significant improvements in my cricket playing skills. Playing everday after school with my friends helped me a lot as i saw some rapid improvements in my playing style. I actually started to take cricket seriously and it worked out well for me as participating in a sport is important for physical activity. Unfortunately, i don't think that people in Tunisia play cricket.

Track & Field: I tried out for track not for the purpose of joining the team, but for merely testing myself if i had improved since the last time i tried out for track, and the answer was, that yes i had. Gym had not only helped me to loose weight but also improve my flexibility and cardiology. I actually managed to do all the running exercises. However, i quit after some 7 practices due to timing problems with my gym schedule and track, i felt that there was a drastic improvement within me. 

Service:

Mama Papa Home:

During the IB orientation, we did a service project in an orphanage for 'special' children at Mama Papa Home. We went there and played with the children, giving them coloring books, crayons, writing materials and some toys. I thought that this was wonderful as we got to spend sometime with the local kids who dont have any privileges like us and are living in a far worse condition than what we can imagine. It was sad to see the condition of their orphanage as they weren't getting much donations from the people. 

Hambantota Service Project: The service project for the Grade 11 WWW was incredibly fun. Repainting the entire school and organizing a concert for the locals was a thrilling experience. It was fun to participate in all the activities and re-pain their school.

Prison Babies: PB was one of my most regular activities throughout the year and certainly the most enjoyable one as well. I really dedicated myself to this activity and learned a lot as well. Organization played a major role as we would have to organize activities for the children and make sure that they were engaged in them. 

The children should not be punished for what ever crime has been committed by their parents, and this was the motive of our CAS Project. It was evident that the children were not getting freedom in the imprisoned environment, hence we decided to bring them out to our school and parks. We would also show them cartoon movies which they seemed to enjoy a lot and play with them as much as we could. I have achieved a lot from being a part of Prison Babies and will miss not being part of this activity again next year.

Cricket

Cricket: Action.

Unexpectedly, cricket has actually been one of my continuous activities. I have been playing cricket every break and lunch. New changes have been made, new teams and new rules. It is good to see variety of people joining in and many of us have improved a lot, be it batting or fielding. 

I feel that i have showed some improvement in my batting skills, however, i need to improve my balling skills. I need to time correctly where i release the ball. Otherwise, sometimes the ball goes above the batsman. However, if i try to throw slow-spin ball, i may get accurate.

Me and ashish were thinking of have a 20 Overs match, for us, that is equivalent to a test match which will probably continue for maximum 2 days. We can see how much we can tackle long games. The only problem which we will definitely face is the rain, due to it being monsoon season here (SL), we probably wont get a chance to play.  Anyway, we will try to make this T-20 take place.

Prison Babies: 10th Day

Prison Babies: In school.

The kids came to school today. We organized paper materials for the kids to make some necklace with. I didnt expect the kids to actually be engaged into that task, but they enjoyed it a lot and didnt complain even once. Later on we got them to watch 'Tom and Jerry', and they liked it.  Many members didnt attend the activity today, so we couldnt do much. But, surely looking forward to next week, and see if we could get them to go out in the field and play, for a change. Or, we might even go the prison to visit them.

Track Pracitse #4

Track and Field: Action.

Today was our second morning session. I liked today's practice a lot as it was only weight training. As usual, we started off with a warm up, 3 laps around the field. Then we did some running exercises, like: high knee up, hopping, sprint etc. Then we did weights. We used the medicine balls at first. We had to do the squats with the medicine balls. 

Track Pracitse #3

Track and Field: Action.

Today was a very hard practice schedule. Being in category 3, we ran most of the time. Starting with rally-600 meters and then later on group running, 800m. For the 800m one, we initially had 70 second to do a whole lap, then 60, then 50, then 40 and then 30 seconds. It was very tiring. After that we did some running activities on the stairs. We started of with running fast, to the 3rd floor and then coming back. Then we had to with one leg (hopping) and then jumping. That was really tiring. We were supposed to do running in the pool, but we ran out of time.

This was a very hard practice session, yet it was kind of fun. Looking forward to tomorrow morning session.

Track Practise #2

Track and Field: Action.

Today was a morning session. Like usual, we started with warm up, that was jogging 2 laps around the field. Then we did some light running exercises.  After that, we did plyometrics. It was the first time that i did something like this. Mainly for making our legs strong, calf muscles as well as hamstrings. It involved a lot of jumping. It wasn't as hard as yesterdays practice, so it went good. Practicing for one hour in the morning, right before school; could feel slight pain in my shoulders though. 

Track Practise #1

Track and Field: Action.

Today was my first track practise. I have decided to try out for the track team, to keep myself fit. Not really expecting to make the team, but it is a good excercise for me. Trying out for the team with friends is fun as well learning some new techniques for running. We did circuits with 16 stations, each having a respective excericise or an activity of its own. To go to the other station, we would have to run a whole lap after finishing our activity. Exhausted as this was my first practise. Looking forward to the practise tomorrow morning.

Republic Day Dance Performance.

Republic Day Dance: Creativity.

First time, i had to perform a contemporary dance. Yet: me, Ashish, Devansh and Shashwat managed to dance on a patriotic dance. It was amazing how we had incorporated traditional dance steps into a modern patriotic song which was appreciated by the spectators. It was a new experience and we had to work hard, but we still managed to create a good choreography. 

Chess: Elective

Chess Elective: Creativity

Me and Raj are the elective leaders for the Chess Elective. The purpose of this elective is not only to play chess, but more than that to learn new techniques in chess and the ways to win. Chess is a strategic game which requires a lot of thinking, and playing this game randomly without thinking isn't called proper playing. Hence, under the supervision of Mr. Pradeep, me and Raj are leading this elective. 

Not only is this going to help us in learning the game properly but also teach us some leadership skills. Like how to keep things settled, how to plan the lesson as well as how to teach some moves to the students. We have some 7 members who are really interested in playing chess, so its not that hard to control them as they dont make a fuss about it. Hence for the next chess lesson which is 2 weeks later, me and Raj will organize and plan out what to do. 

Cricket: After School.

Cricket: Action Hours.

For the past month, me and some of my other friends have been playing cricket after school in primary basketball court.  Though,we have made it a little more organized by making proper permanent teams and using proper cricket rules. We play everyday except wednesday and thursday from 2:40 pm to 3:30 pm. 

Group A: Devansh, Nikhil, Me, Omkaar, Tejan

Group B: Prashant, Ashish, Dhruv, Nimit, Ananthu

One of the best thing about playing cricket is that not only do we have fun, but i am we are also improving a lot. I know that there are some improvement within my balling, for example i used to chuck but not i can do proper balling which isnt that good, so i need to work on it. As well as i have improved some of my batting techniques as well. Realizing that it becomes a little easier to bat once you have faced some 5 - 6 balls. All of us bought a bat by contributing money and keep record of the games we won or lost. Not only that but the loosing team is responsible for the bat. Sometimes, some other people join us as well but we take it seriously. 

WWW: Hambantota (8th-12th Feb)

WWW: Service Project / Creativity.

This time for WWW, our grade went to Hambantota. A long journey, and very tiring as well. But not bad, as we stayed there for 4 days and accomplished a lot. Before going, we were told that we will be doing a service project there by painting a pre-school and at the end of the task, we will organize a concert. It was a memorable and learning experience. We were greeted very warmly according to Sri Lankan customs and would set off to work, knowing that the local people would appreciate for our small contribution. 

Planning:

Planning was an essential part of our task. Each day, for 30 mins, we would plan for the next day. We would first discuss about our progress and then what needs to be done. This way, we would all know what each one of us was responsible for and also save time for the next day as we wouldn't have to argue. The first day, we had planned that me and Ashish will perform our same dance 'Twist' with some new moves for the concert and Filippo and Young Jun will be doing a beat box and dancing routine as well. As we used to plan every evening, we would always be ready for the next day, which was one of the main reasons for us getting our job done quickly. 

Duck, Duck, Duck... GOOSE! / Coloring:

Everyday with the kids, we would play a game with them, and the most enjoyable one was duck duck goose. Which was properly demonstrated by YJ and Filippo. Some of the kids really liked it and some were too shy to participate, so we would try to make them play but not force them. Then, there was this another game that we played with them, i forgot the name of the game, but was something to do with running. It was fun, as most of the kids didnt enjoy it and just sat down.  Though, one of the best activity which we did with the kids was coloring. We presented each kid with a new sketch book and crayon colors. Some of the which were interested in it, were actually drawing properly. Some were just randomly scribbling, yet they would enjoy it and sometimes even encourage us to scribble with them. We all were assigned one kid, my one didnt enjoy painting, so he packed up and sat next to his mother. I tried a lot, but he didnt want to color. So i just sat besides YJ who was was actively interested in the activity along with his kid. We came up with the idea of smudging and the three of us were really enjoying it, and so was the kid.

Painting: ( Teamwork... and turpentine)

I started with painting one of the big walls inside along with Filippo, Anishka and Tara. We would have to sand paper the walls and then once we were satisfied that the wall was clean enough to paint on, we would start painting. Like wise, the other people in our group would do the same. After our first day for the service project, i started to help Devansh and Ashish with the walls outside, and we actually got a lot done. By thursday, our group had finished painting the walls. We also had some people painting the playground equipements as well as some people like Alice, YJ and Raj work on the mural. Our group ended up doing two murals and both of them were looking spectacular. Me, Christina, Grace and Ayla had to re-paint one of the murals done by a group which had visited a month ago.  We actually painted pretty well, considering the fact that we aren't professionals, we had successfully completed our task without complaining and teamwork. It all worked out properly due to our two group leaders: Raj and Christina who motivated us to work well. Everything went smooth, but then at the end of the day, washing our hands would be a major problem as for non- water based paints, turpentine was to be used to clean our hands. 

One of the other murals. I like :)

Concert: (Creativity)

For the concert; me, Ashish and Saba performed a bollywood dance which we only practised for some 1-2 hours a day before. The remarkable thing was that Saba who hadn't done the dance with us before had managed to learn all the steps and perform with us. Unfortunately, the speaker died out, and there was hardly any music, even us the performers couldn't make out if the music was even on or off BUT we did a good job :P So did YJ and Filippo, their performance was really refreshing. Though the joint class effort which was a puppet show brightened up the situation for everyone. It was well performed and the little kids really seemed to like it. The best thing about the concert was that even the local people took part in it. They actually did more than us and were really into the spirit. The mothers had dressed up their little children properly and even for the performances, they had proper costumes. At the end of it, we presented the little kids with their presents and all of them had smiles on their faces when they say bags :) 

----------

Evaluation:

This project was actually fun. We enjoyed a lot. We re-painted the entire school, played with the kids and presented the kids with bag and some stationary. More than that, our team actually worked together. No one was complaining about anything at all and worked equally hard. Though i mentioned a suggestion at last meeting which i would share on my blog as well. I thought that it was a little point less to re-paint a school which was painted a month ago by a group who came before us. I mean, yes the people will appreciate what we did for them, and we probably for the first time in our lives did something which is not for our sake but for someone else, yet how did it help them or the aim of a service project which is to help someone. The school wasnt in a bad situation when we first come, it just needed a little dusting. The walls weren't bad. compared to some of the schools i have seen in Sri Lanka. I think we wasted a lot of time in painting and gave less time to the kids and to other important necessities which should have been given more priority, such as:

- Pain the black board which was in a bad shape, and clean it properly which we did'nt do as well as fix the book shelves which were about the break.

- Fix the outside play ground equipments which would have made the kids happy. YJ fixed one of them, but there were still many which needed to be fixed and the ladies in the school might not be able to do by themselves.

- Play more games with them, especially their local sri lankan games which would have made the kids more comfortable. 

- Present with some teaching equipments that would help the teachers as well as the students.

I dont think that the kids will be happy because we re-painted their school, they might not even care about painting, but if the next time we go or someone else goes to the same location, then providing more time to the kids and the points written above would leave more of an impact. The locals would have even appreciated if we would have just given them money, but giving them something which would really help their condition is something which we should have aimed for.  

Prison Babies: 9th Day

Prison Babies: In school.

We had our first prison babies after school activity after WWW. Well, as most of the CAS after school projects for thursday were cancelled, many thought that today we might not even have it. But some, including me showed up. We had the kids come over to the school, but nothing was really planned. So we used our back up, which was the play ground, but then we thought of some toys which we had, and took the kids upto Ms. Skelly's room. The kids didnt really like playing with the toys, especially the youngest ones and kept on crying. It took a lot of effort from us to make them quite and to cheer them up, but it didnt really work. Kashidu and others weren't really comfortable in the room. Well that was kind of useful as we came to know that its better to play with the kids outside in the fresh air. Hence, the activity ended early. Hoping that we have something planned for next time, i will ask YJ so that we can keep the activity as interesting as possible for the kids. 

The Crucible: 1st Practise

Play Practise: Creativity

I took part in one of our literature departments production called 'The Crucible' written by Arthur Miller. I am playing the part of Gilles Corey, an old man who is pretty aggressive, quite the opposite of my personality. Today was the first play practice for me, part 1:E.  I had the script with me, so hadn't memorized my lines properly but i will soon. We managed to rehearse part 1:E today. I had some problems in saying  a particular war, 'discomfort' as i cannot pronounce it properly, so that wasted some 10 mins of the practice time.  The practice was on from 3 - 5pm. We have another practice the next Monday, so will go through my lines for it at home again.