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 :) 

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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.