MOTHER-TONGUE LITERACY

In the MT service group we have been working on two different projects, one with the entire group, and one with just the leaders. With the group we have been visiting the primary school for their poetry units. Each member of the MT group brought a poem in their language with an english translation and was assigned to a group of grade 4 students. Within that group we taught and analysed the different languages. Doing this with the primary students sparked an interest within them for the different mother tongue languages we offered and definitely increased language use amongst the primary school. This fit into our main goal by being able to spread our knowledge of language amongst our community.

The second project myself and the other MT leader have been working on is a new addition to the school. This will be a sign/banner for the main school entrance. On this banner there will be written in all languages of the nationalities in our school, welcome. The banner will include colors and diversity and will contribute to making our school seem more inviting hopefully.
We are currently still designing the content and finding the list of all nationalities as well as brainstorming possible solutions to if new nationalities join after the sign is already up. We have gotten permission from the Head of School, and even an offer from him to fund it.



(Pictures will be posted asap.)

BADMINTON

Although at the beginning of this sports season I had signed up for Girls Basketball, due to injuries I had to stop. Instead I decided to try out for SAIA badminton as the trainings are a bit less intense and wont pressure the injury as much  or make it worse.
This is my first time trying this sport but I do enjoy it. It challenges me as it involves skills I have never been required to use before and hopefully participating in badminton this season will help me grow as a person through commitment and risk taking.
The SAISA tournament for Badminton is in Dhaka Bangladesh this year and hopefully with a lot of training and improvement I will be able to travel, although I will need a lot of work.
So far I have only been to about 4 trainings and so development will be made along the way.

SGA

So far in the SGA we have been able to organize some spirit days to celebrate certain celebrations, and or to promote an event. We have had a Nerd day, Halloween dress up, Breast cancer awareness, and OSC SAISA spirit days. The amount of student body dressing up is increasing every spirit day, meaning that this is something we have to continue to do in order to get more of the students involved. For the halloween dress up day we tried to do something differently by offering a prize to the class with the highest percentage of students who dressed up. We have tried to promote these spirit days through videos, posters, sandwich boards, both amongst the school community as well as online. The next big event coming up by the SGA is the Gecko Factor. For this we are planning better advertising to try and get more people to come and watch as well as try out. 

SAISA SWIMMING

The swimming tournament at the American International School of Chennai was a great success. I travelled as the co-captain together with Gyungmo from 10th grade. I had never been captain of a sports team before but I noticed that especially the younger swimmers listened to me a lot more, and i was able to take on a leadership position amongst them. 

All the gecko swimmers did incredibly well, everyone managed to improve their personal bests, some even as much as 20 seconds faster. Our coaches were all at awe by our improvement during the competition. 

I was able to place in the B finals for every single one of the races I swam, placing between 7th and 12th place and being able to earn points for the team. It felt good being able to contribute to our teams overall score, however, I feel like I did not swim at my fullest potential. 

I am really proud of the way that our swimming team came together during the tournament, no matter the ages, 6th, or 12th, grade, we were all able to come together, make jokes, play games, and enjoy each other's company. A team like that is very difficult to find but I am so happy that our swim team was able to connect in the way that we have. 

The 3 days passed by way too quickly but a lot of memories were made. The geckos were always kind and supportive to athletes from other teams, and were often seen exchanging sportsmanship pins or just talking and hanging out. The younger swimmers were always eager to chant cheers and to jump up and down screaming when one of our team members were in the pool, the atmosphere was amazing. It was nice being able to get out of our usual school community and come together during this tournament and have the fun we did. 

During the award ceremony there were 2 possible trophies for the age groups and gender, and 2 trophies for the overall scores, meaning, that there were 16 possible trophies to give out, we managed to receive 2 of those trophies by earning the 10-12 age group boys and girls runners up. 

This was a huge achievement and scored a lot of points for the team, although we placed last overall we were not disappointed because we knew that every single person on the team was able to step up and earn points for the team and able to enjoy themselves doing so. 

This was my last SAISA swimming and by far one of the best ones I have been a part of. As captain, in order to thank the coaches for their support throughout the season, I wanted to give them something, from the entire team. Which is why with the help of other older members, we were able to get kick boards and cards and have the entire team sign them in order to thank them and give them something to remember this season by. 

Below are some pictures of SAISA swimming 2014: 

MOTHERTONGUE SERVICE

Thankfully the primary school had replied to our requests and we were able to start pairing up mother tongue members with classes and specific students to start sharing their knowledge on their language and culture.
We had set up an open google document with the primary school teachers showing them our plan and requirements allowing them to add in suggestions or pick certain mother tongue members for activities. Most people have now been able to have an activity planned for a certain date. Myself however was unlucky as there were no other dutch speaking children or events in the primary school. This leaves me to join in the primary poem unit in november, and until then I have planned to work with the Geckozine to try and work with them.

SERVICE

In Mother-tongue we have been working on sending out requests to the primary school to be able to get a program started with them, either with their mother tongues or teaching them ours. Though this interaction has not been initiated yet, we hope to hear back soon.
Meanwhile we have been busy with presentations within our group on possible teaching material and activities for the primary school, giving each other feedback and evaluating these presentations.

SAISA SWIMMING

The SAISA swimming team will travel to Chennai on october 29th. Our team has been improving a lot, especially due to the weekly swimming meets. It gives us a lot of experience with race styled swimming as well as improving our diving and flip turns.
I hope to be able to boost spirit within the team in the coming week and hopefully find new cheers for us to use at the event.

My times for this season are slower than last, but i am hoping to improve them throughout the next month.

SGA

The first SGA event we had was the Back to school Barbeque and the Back to school Movie Night. The SGA booth was a huge success, especially the coconuts. We ran out of stock for all drinks we were selling, coke, sprite, water, coconuts, all except the milos. Even though we did make a lot of money, I feel like we could have raised the prices a little more and still sold the same amount. As co-treasurer this is something that will help plan for the next event and be able to determine what we can do that will be most beneficial. 

Although not as many people attended the movie night as we wanted, the people who did go seemed to enjoy it a lot, there were more older people than younger people so that would also be a factor to keep in mind in planning. 

So far in SGA, we've had one spirit day, Nerd Day. A lot of people dressed up and hopefully we'll be able to advertise and popularize future spirit days even more. 

Mother-Tongue Literacy

Last session even though our faculty leader Mr. Mueller was not present, The other student leader and myself got together with the group to come up with an overall goal and statement that our group would try to follow. After listing some of our smaller goals and discussing possible activities we came up with the following statement


Mother-Tongue literacy:

"Using our mother-tongue languages we want to create more cultural awareness and diversity in our community through collaboration with a variety of activities and games"

Goals for Academic Year of 2014-2015

Action Goals

To start off with the swimming season begins next week. I have been participating in SAISA swimming since 7th grade. This year will be my final year competing and the tournament will be held in Chennai, India. Previously, there had been medals for places 1 through 6, however they have changed it so only places 1-3 get medals. Which is why this year I hope to improve my 50m freestyle time in order to move from 6th place to 3rd. As well as that my 50m butterfly. 

I have been having a recurring problem with the breaststroke, as i get disqualified every IM race i compete in (Mixed strokes). I would like to try and permanently solve that issue this year and be able to compete and place for those two races without being disqualified. 

Last year was the first year I took part in the 200m backstroke race and would like to try the same this year hopefully being able to improve my personal best. 

If i am able to receive the captain position this year, then I feel like I'll be able to contribute more to the team through a leadership position and after my commitment to the team I feel like I'd be proud to represent the team during SAISA. 

Later in the year I might also try to participate in the SAISA basketball and football teams, however have not made a decision about this yet.

Other than SAISA's, throughout the year, I will still regularly twice a week be visiting the gym, Lifetime Fitness, in order to maintain fitness and work out. 

Creativity Goals

Since Last year OSC's swim coach Ms. Ramberg has started a new activity amongst 11th and 12th graders to design and create specific workouts and lead one of the groups during practices. This helps both to observe swimming techniques, leadership positions, as well as adding onto creativity for CAS. 
I am also currently Co-treasurer for the student government association. With this role I hope to help the sga with all their events and activities to help them make profit and be able to organize events which the school community will all enjoy 

Other than that, I hope to be able to join another after school activity which is creativity based, if not trying to experiment with projects at home. I haven't been extremely strong with creativity in the past and hope to be more involved this year. 

Service Goals

Even though I am no longer a part of the Gecko Inc. service group, I do hope to join a new group in order to contribute to the local community. I have taken up a leadership position in a new starting up service group called Mother-tongue Literacy. This service group is made up of students whose mother-tongue is not english. We hope to be able to promote these languages around our school community and even base activities around them in collaboration with the primary school's mother-tongues. The leader of this activity, Mr. Mueller, sees the group being able to be involved in the school's magazine, website, week without walls preparations, individual studies, and language B activities. Since it is a start up group it will both be easier but also challenging this year as we have no foundation to start off from but also we can try to make the group how we want it. I would like to, with the other student leader try and make this group more popular and be able to make a noticeable difference in our school with the mother-tongues present increasing our cultural awareness and international student body

FINAL CAS REFLECTION

Creativity:

• Gecko Inc Leader
• Event Crew Badminton

Action:

• SAISA Swimming
• SAISA Basketball
• Scuba Diving
• Gym 

Service: 

• Gecko Inc 

This year has been filled with many activities both academic as well as the creative, service and action aspects of CAS.

 This year I have been strongest in participating in action based activities and can confidently say that I have improved and met most of my goals I had put down for most of those activities. Even when the SAISAs I participate in had ended, I continued to exercise and got myself involved with another sports community in order to keep up my own health and participation in work outs. This shows my commitment to sport and the responsibility I take for myself. 

I also went out of my comfort zone, risk taking by getting myself involved in scuba diving. Once I was able to qualify for a certified open water PADI diver, I was able to take those skills and experiences and apply them to adventures elsewhere in the world. 

The knowledge gained through scuba diving has opened a whole new door for me. I was able to, during my spring break, dive at an amazing site. This military ship had been active in WWII and had sunk by an underwater attack. Over a few amount of years it had washed back ashore. Then, a volcano on the island of Bali erupted and sent the ship back underwater. It is now a popular diving site and the environment and life around the wreck is incredible. I will definitely continue to scuba dive and visit many new places all around the world. 

The service group Gecko Inc, though having huge difficulties at the beginning of the year was able to pull itself together and regularly get involved with a local community. I am extremely proud of the group and what we were able to achieve in time. Hopefully for next year the group and its members can continue to let this group grow and achieve great things. 

My creativity is the aspect of CAS which is weakest. Since taking chemistry as a group 6 subject, i am automatically not exposed to any of the arts and lack creativity based activities. However, I feel that if I am able to involve myself in groups such as the SAISA event crews, that I am able to complete my creativity requirements while growing as a person and learning new skills. 

GOALS FOR NEXT YEAR:

Action: 

• Be involved in 2 SAISAs 
• Continue to visit the gym twice a week
• Visit various countries and scuba sites

Creativity: 

• Be involved in an Event crew 
• Contribute to planning activities/events in the school

Service: 

• Join a new service group 
• Contribute to my best abilities in that group 
• Stepping out of my comfort zone
• Helping the local community 

GECKO INC SERVICE

Our service group has had two more sessions where the group of children came to OSC to do various activities. In my opinion, the group has grown. Every individual has had a chance to work privately with one of the kids and interact with them through small conversations. Though not completely there yet, all members have gotten more comfortable with playing with the children and all taken up some sort of leadership roles. One of the sessions we started off with a team game, the parachute. With this we wanted to make it more educational, and focused our games around calling out the colors in english, and having the kids both listen and call out the colors for themselves. We then tried to have a team building activity with putting kids in groups based on colors but we had trouble explaining the rules of the game and decided to move on. 
We then split up and partnered up with one of the kids and played frisbee. Every group did their own thing and made up their own games and gave each of us a chance to interact with the kids we were in a group with. 
The other session we went by the wishes of the kids and spent time playing volleyball. All the children were really enthusiastic about the sport and enjoyed the activities. They requested to have an actual competitive game against us for next session. 
Since the session this week will be the last for the year, we decided to do something different. We are going to have a normal session, again with volleyball until about 3:45 and then take the kids to the pool to teach them how to swim and have a goodbye party. We think that we have built a good relationship with the group and their supervisors and that we will be able to continue this for next year. 

Taken by: Nishant Gr. 11

Taken by Nishant Gr. 11

GYM

There was a bit of a gap during april with the break and saisa afterwards when I was too busy to keep up with my usual gym routine and wasn't able to go for about 3 weeks, however, when returning this week, my trainer helped create a new routine for me to get back into shape. I go to the gym monday afternoons and wednesday mornings as well as occasional saturdays, my new routine is as following:

15-20 minute warm up on the bicycle 
10 minutes on the stepper
12 reps on the machine for triceps (x2)
12 reps on the machine for hamstrings (x3)
12 reps on the machine for biceps (x2)
15 reps on the abdominal machine (x3)
20 reps on the lower back machine (x3)
20 reps on the upper back machine (x2)
12 reps on the machine for calves (x2)
20 squats (x5)
20 sit ups (x5)
Cool down stretching 

This routine helps me target the muscle groups that need most work and it is a good cycle. I will continue to go regularly and work with the trainer until the summer, and start again afterwards. 

Here is the link to the Lifetime Fitness Official website where pictures and information is available:

http://lifetimefitness.lk

SAISA BADMINTON

The tournament as a whole went very well, there were no problems concerning the housing of students and everyone seemed satisfied meaning my job was well done. For the most part there were no complains about the phones either, the coaches didn't seem to use them as much as we thought they would have but it was the thought that counted. During the tournament I was a line judge for 2 hours each day, as well as that I helped out with posting certain results and announcements on boards. Basically I was a person who simply helped out with any task that needed assistance 

The pictures and video of the SAISA tournament can be seen HERE

GECKO INC SCHOOL VISIT

Last thursday we were finally able to get a new local school to come visit OSC for an activity session, thanks to Mr. Shipley, Ms Lilani, and Greta for their involvement in getting the school to come. A group of about 10 or 11 kids came ages ranging from 9-14. When they arrived,  they were first given a tour of the school by Diana and Greta. Anthony had planned out and led the first activity of Baseball/Softball with a few more of the guy members of the group. The kids seemed to enjoy this activity and understood the concept with minimal english skills. However, the sky looked very grey so we decided to move on to a game where everyone was involved with each other more. Capture the flag was the choice. This game took a while longer to explain but in the end, everyone understood the rules and seemed to have fun doing so. To my amazement everyone participated and interacted with the children, especially those usually too shy or scared to do so. In my opinion this increased the group's leadership and risk taking skills. These two games took up most of our time so in the end we brought the children inside to provide a drink and some snacks. This was a lovely group of kids and we  enjoyed getting to know them and playing games with them. Hopefully we will be able to build a better relationship with them. 

Pictures were taken by Max, and are to be uploaded soon. 

Creativity: Event Crew

I joined the SAISA Badminton event crew in the hopes that I'd be given a task which would increase my creativity of CAS and challenge me in a way I am not used to. I was put in charge of HOUSING as well as other smaller tasks when possible. The housing task was the most important for the tournament, without placement of houses the athletes would not have a place to stay throughout the tournament. The first thing that was to be done was to find enough houses to host at least 56 athletes and 8 coaches. This was more difficult than i thought it would be as when announced a couple times, we had no more than 8 houses. This process took a long time, and was not completed until the week of the tournament as a lot of people in this school community had things going on which prevented them from being able to host. The second thing that had to be done was getting all the names and information from the traveling schools and putting them together in an excel document. Although this wasn't super challenging, it was time consuming as the information had to be  typed in individually in each column and couldn't be copied and pasted. The next thing was to be able to match up the athletes with their host based on gender preferences. Then, we had to double check the athlete pairings with pets and allergies to find the best matches. This was difficult with the limited housing options we had. As well as that, the information from one of the schools was sent into us very late which made it very difficult to be able to match up the houses. After this long process, the athletes and coaches were finally placed with appropriate hosts. The next thing to be done was for me to call the mothers or fathers of each family to confirm their ability to host and whether appropriate transportation were going to be provided. This was a huge responsibility and I am super relieved that I were able to, my myself and some advertisement help from others, complete this task. 

Even though this took up most of my time, another thing I was put in charge of finding cell phones in order to give to the coaches. Even though I was not given specific instructions, I myself went and organized the information of each school into one of the phones, and after receiving sim cards, was able to give the phones to the event crew before the first teams arrived on campus. These phones are for calling the hosts where the athletes will be as well as to use for emergencies. We thought it'd be effective for us to provide these as it is always a challenge and expensive to use their own phones and find the information themselves. 
This was all work that was completed before the actual tournament, once the tournament starts i will be involved with Line Judging as well as helping other members of the event crew with any tasks they might have difficulties with. 

ACTION BASED

Since I was not involved in any of the Saisa this or next sports season, I still had to find a way to fulfill the Action based part of CAS. Therefore, I got a membership to a gym called "Lifetime Fitness" located 2 minutes from my house. There they have great equipment and at least 3 trainers to come around and help you as well as train you based on your goals. I have been going regularly twice a week with ixana, a friend, and sometimes a third time if i have free time on the weekends. My sessions last between an hour and 90 minutes. During this time I do all sorts of things from cardio to muscle building and exercises for joint problems I have. I am very satisfied with the personalized work out created for me and the motivation given to me at the gym. i plan to continue regularly for the next year. 

GECKO INC LOCAL SCHOOL VISITS

The Gecko Inc. thought that it would be good to build up a relationship with a nearby local school. One not even 2 minutes away from colombo. As a group we travelled there two times in the hopes of being able to communicate and teach local students. To our surprise we were greeted by the cricket team training at that time. This was an unfamiliar situation and both our group and the cricket team felt a bit uneasy. We decided that this session we would have the cricket team try and teach us some basic throwing, catching, and batting skills of the game of cricket. This was definitely a risk to take for most of us as communicating with local boys older than us didn't particularly fall under our comfort zones. An amazing job was done by Jack, who went off on his own to talk privately with two of the cricket players the entire session and learn more about the sport without being shy or holding himself back. This was definitely a good example for everyone to follow. This session was simply to introduce ourselves and get familiar with the school. The second time we went we were again, only given time with the cricket team. But this time we decided to split up into mixed teams and play games of football and frisbee. We really felt as if we had the potential to build up a relationship with this school and wanted to invite them to the OSC campus for the next session. 

Here are some pictures of the second session taken by myself

Although, the next session, our hopes of being able to build a relationship with this school were put down when we did not get a visit from the group we'd been working with, but from the principle and athletic director. 

They came bearing a list of equipment and decorations that they wanted us to buy for them for an event they had coming up, prices on the list added up to over 200,000rs. 

Of course we did not agree to this request and decided to cut off communication with this school and try and move on to a new one. This was a disappointing yet great lesson for everyone in the group. To teach us how certain actions we may see as helpful, can be perceived very differently from the other side. Which is why now we are working on finding a new local school with which we can do educational and fun physical activities with for the remainder of the semester. 

WEEK WITHOUT WALLS

For this Week Without Walls I was put in the Jaffna group. This was my first choice and I was very satisfied with this placement. The group was very small, merely consisting of two teachers, four 10th graders, and seven 11th graders. The goal of this group was to travel up north to Jaffna and broaden our knowledge about the civil war that ended only recently. This trip was mostly history and english based. In a way where our learning and knowledge inference would be revolved around history and what the history classes were learning about the world wars in relation to this civil war. As well as applying a creative input of the information learned up in Jaffna through writing, and visual representation. I definitely enjoyed this trip and learned a lot. It helped me learn more about the history and culture of Sri Lanka and helped me understand the situation much better from a different point of view compared to simply learning and hearing "facts" back in colombo. 

Group getting ready for our afternoon trip. 

We travelled to Jaffna from colombo by plane. This was a new experience for me and most other students on the trip as I had never taken a flight within a country in a smaller plane. The plane however landed in Trincomalee from which we were picked up in a bus and were brought to Jaffna. 

Before reaching our hotel, we stopped at our first landmark which was a natural bottomless well. The area around the well was beautiful, nature incorporated with human infrastructure. The water in the well was very blue and there were various types of sea plants and fish present in the waters. This well had and continues to have a lot of history relating it as it was also referred to as "the water of suicide". The story behind this was that for years people have been coming and committing suicide in this body of water. This is because the well is bottomless and continues on to either underground waterways or the ocean. I then began asking the question of:

-What state was this well in during the civil war

-Was this well used for war purposes

These questions weren't able to be answered at the time asked which allowed me to interpret the information at the end of this trip to make assumptions about the answers to these questions. 
After this we travelled all the way to the northern point of Sri Lanka called Point Pedro. Here we walked along the tip and talked about the historical aspects of the name of this town, its colonization, its state during the civil war and relation geographically to india. The sight was absolutely beautiful and it was definitely a beneficial learning space very much different from learning history in a classroom. We were also able to interact with some fisherman who were working there on fixing nets.  
After this landmark we continued on to the hotel because everyone was very exhausted from all the traveling  The hotel was small yet very luxurious which surprised me because I didn't expect Jaffna to be as developed as it actually is. We settled in and had lunch at the hotel right before continuing on a short walk to the dutch Fort which was only 5 minutes away from our hotel. We didn't have time to go into the fort on this day as the sun was going down but we were able to talk about its history a bit. The fort was built by the Dutch before being taken over by the Portuguese as well as used by the LTTE and SLA. The walk to this fort was really interesting because we were in one of the suburbs greatly affected by the war. It was very bare, not many trees or greens visible, many open spaces and damaged houses and buildings. We discussed different effects on the war on children in the area and families and how the lives of innocent civilians were disturbed. After the fort we took a detour on our way back to the hotel in order to see the famous Clock Tower, built by the british and the Jaffna Library which if i remember correctly was either bombed or taken over during the war. It was very interesting to see these historical landmarks and imagine how the area was used during the civil war. 
We went back to the hotel and discussed what we had learned that day and formulated more unanswered questions we had. We then updated our twitter account (https://twitter.com/osc_jaffna).  This twitter account was continued from the group who started it the previous year. There were some really interesting tweets from the previous group as well as our own. 

The second day was a long tiring but educational day. First we visited these natural springs. They are believed to be healing waters based on an old legend. This day was really dedicated to the historical aspect of Jaffna and when these things were created. There were two springs, one for men, one for women, with green blue clear water. People believed that swimming in these waters would cleanse their souls of bad, and heal any wounds they might have internally. The girls had a chance to actually dip our feet into the waters. It was a magical place. The springs were surrounded by various temples with pillars of gods. The whole area seemed to be a peace sanctuary. The springs were also right in front of the ocean. Here we got a chance to experience the beliefs of others and what they live by and believe in. I definitely learned a lot more about religion than I knew before. 

After this we visited Nagadeepa Island. Which was an island where legends believed Buddha visited. On this island there were two Bhuddist temples and one Hindu temple. We first visited the bhuddist temple and learned more about the history of its creation and that Buddha visited in order to bring peace between a tribe with two family members fighting for a throne. The architecture and decoration of the temples were absolutely breathtaking. Especially the Hindu temple with all its vivid colors and animal gods. On the boat there were people of all ages visiting these temples to be able to pray there at least once. I learned about the importance of religion in some people's lives and the scarceness of being able to make this life changing journey for them. 



The 3rd Day of this week without walls was less intense. We started the day off by going to the beach. On our way to the beach however Ravin and I focused on the garbage islands that had formed on the outer bounds of Jaffna. Since we are both in Environmental Systems and Societies Class we were able to talk about this issue in a different way from the others in the group. As well as the way at which fish and prawns were caught. Once we were at the beach we had some relaxation time before being attacked by crows and jellyfish. On our way to the beach we were able to see some war distraught sights and some trees that Jaffna is famous for. It is definitely heavy to drive past empty broken down houses with bullet holes in almost every wall and tree. Mostly because it makes one think of who was here at the time and who was affected, children perhaps? 
After the beach we went into town in the heart of jaffna to roam the shopping streets. As tourists we were given a hard time but we learned a lot more about the culture of Jaffna and how they have developed since the war. 
This was our last day in Jaffna and we had still to visit inside the fort, which we did in the evening. 
Walking into the fort was very interesting for me as it was built by the dutch and a lot of the buildings and walls reminded me a lot of structures in my home town. Walking into the fort felt familiar to me whilst for the rest of the group they felt the affects of the war. The fort was bigger on the inside than it looked which was really intense because I couldn't have imagined how badly this would have been used for war purposes. There was a lot of debris from broken down churches 

Day 4 was a busy hectic day, we had to get up really early to leave for Trincomalee. On our way there we were going to be passing through Kilinochchi which was another place really badly affected by the war. We first stopped at the bombed down water tower which was destroyed by the LTTE. I had already once visited this site but it was still interesting seeing the group's reaction and comments on learning about it. We then went to what most of the group will agree was the most breathtaking monument we visited. The LTTE swimming pool now held by the SLA. It was a giant pool, more than 23 meters deep. It was once used by the LTTE for suicide scuba training. In the bottom of the pool were small windows where the training would be watched from. It was terrifying seeing this and thinking about how once it was still used. It was also hidden deep in a forest and once covered by a roof with leaves so that it was not able to be seen from the air. The language used on the signs around this site was also really interesting and maybe not appropriate since it was all bias. 
Next we went to the war museum where we saw many guns of the LTTE, submarines, boats, flamethrowers, and even cages that hostages were kept in. I didn't particularly enjoy seeing these things, though they were interesting because I felt very uncomfortable around all the equipment. Eventually we reached the hotel in Trinco and were able to have lunch and relax until the evening where we had our daily discussion and shared our thoughts on the trip and our experiences. 

The final day we left early to drive back to Colombo from Trincomalee. Everyone was exhausted but we still had a few sites to see before we went back. First we visited a natural sanctuary where there was a war memorial. Around the area they restricted infrastructure or any type of development as they wanted the nature, or what was left of it, to stay in that state and not had anything build over it. We then visited a couple more war memorials about soldiers of the SLA who sacrificed themselves for the nation. Lastly we drove past the mine field which also shocked everyone. They were still working on de-mining the field present day and as we were driving past. We spoke a lot about the affect that this had on the people living there and how some of the de-miners were being forced to do the work which was really sad to hear as they were putting their lives in danger. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this trip. It was super insightful and I learned a lot more about Sri Lanka and its history than I knew before. Jaffna is an extraordinary place and I would love to visit again



Week Without Walls Jaffna group Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Doo2LjRPYU

CERTIFIED PADI OPEN WATER DIVER

The Scuba Diving course is finally completed, with in total three pool training sessions and four ocean dives taking place over two days. The course took longer than expected and should've been completed before the winter holidays, but due to some delay I was only able to complete it January 19th, 2014. The first trip to the ocean was quite nerve wrecking But i knew I had to be more open minded  about how far I wanted to stretch my comfort zone while I have all these great opportunities available to me. By the second dive I felt more comfortable working with the equipment underwater and being able to handle the breathing and buoyancy control under water. There were so many beautiful corals and fish to see on the reef that I got inspired to get more involved with programs working to save coral reefs. The day was tiring but I felt accomplished. After doing the first two dives in the ocean we were required to take the written task which was made up of 50 multiple choice questions purely based on your knowledge.  The questions included knowledge about the equipment, safety regulations, physics factors underwater and finally calculations for breathing time and oxygen control under water. I passed this test on my first try and felt very comfortable with the knowledge I gained. 
The 3rd and 4th dives were much easier in my opinion because I was more experienced at this point. I was able to put my equipment together with no difficulties and successfully complete the dives receiving my open water diving certificate.
After each dive the diver is required to fill out a dive log based on the water conditions, the sights seen and much more. This gives the diver a chance to reflect on the dive and be able to determine what knowledge was gained and what new things there are to explore for future dives. 
I look forward to being able to go diving in different countries and being able to see new beautiful coral reefs and sea creatures such as those in the Maldives and in Jamaica. 

Creativity, Action, Service: Semester 2 Goals

Semester 2 Academic Goals:

The goal that I have been striving for continuously is to be able to raise my grade point average to be able to receive the honor roll. I have only been off by 1 point for both the intern report card and the first semester report card. After the intern report card, having received a 4 in economics, I was determined to work harder and improve my grade. I was able to achieve this at the end of the first semester and manage to have a report card fully of 5s and 6s. Although I improved the grade that was keeping me from achieving my goal, I also went down in spanish from a 6 to a 5, which i was very disappointed about. But I know that that was my own fault for slacking off and that I need to get back on top of things to ensure that my organization and work is top notch. 

Because of this, my goal academically for semester 2 is to be able to maintain my 5 in economics, bring up my 5 in spanish and hopefully either maintain or improve my other subject grades as well. 

Creativity Goals:

I have realized that most of the activities and programs I am involved in don't focus much on creativity. Though I have my Gecko Inc service leadership to account for the creativity aspect of cas, I would also like to do more activities to try and get more creative. I have two ideas that will help me achieve this. One of them being volunteering to be a part of the SAISA Badminton event crew in april. I have been part of the event crew for track and field a previous year and got a lot of different responsibilities for managing the event and making sketches of certain ceremonies or layouts. I think that another opportunity like this will definitely get me more involved in creativity. 

Another idea I had, which I am not sure I will be able to achieve before next year was to start my own after school activity. I know that a lot of primary school students are interested in tumbling and gymnastics, and me having done gymnastics for 7 years have the basic skills and knowledge to be able to teach young kids basic skills as well. My idea was to have this activity once a week for an hour. Planning out lessons and completing the class could definitely give me more creativity aspects. Not only that but it would help me be able to improve my leadership skills and communicate with children not of my age group in a caring but helpful way. Hopefully I will be able to pursue this next year. 

Action Goals: 

I will not be able to be involved in any SAISAs this semester due to many different injuries and health problems, but in order to continue physical activity, I have planned to go for swim trainings once or twice a week. I would train by myself but this would be able to keep up my fitness as well as prepare me for the next SAISA swimming in august. Mr Janaka and  Stanley who work at the pool would supervise this. 

Another action goal I have for myself is to regularly attend a gym and get a trainer to help me get in shape. I have already got a membership to "Lifetime Fitness" In thalawatugoda and I will try to get 2 hour sessions after school once or twice a week. There will be a trainer there to supervise my activity and progress over this semester. 

Service Goals:

The trip for my Gecko Inc service group is coming up soon and I hope to take that opportunity to step up as a leader to ensure that the trip is a success and that we make a positive contribution to the local community up North. I also want to try and get the members of the service group more involved by getting involved with some local schools here in colombo before the trip. This will give them a chance to practice their communication skills and hopefully they'll be able to reflect and improve in a way that the trip will be beneficial to them and the kids we will be working with. I know that the service group hasn't had a clear goal so far because the trip had been so far away but we are slowly working towards defining a clear goal not only for the trip but for the preparation time as well. 

SAISA Girl's Basketball Tournament 2013

The time finally came round for the SAISA basketball tournament of 2013. The team gathered at an early hour the morning of December 3rd and set off to the airport to go to Dhaka. The tournament had been in Dhaka the previous year as well so the returning players were not as excited as the new ones. The majority of the team was made up of students that came new this year or students that didn't participate the previous year due to age or prior engagements.

SAISA Basketball Team picture taken at OSC by Mark Shipley

Though we arrived in Dhaka Tuesday morning, the tournament did not start until later that week on Thursday. So for those first two days, the team stayed in the Summer Palace Hotel near the American International School of Dhaka. Prior to the trip, after the last game the team received the feedback that we were not close enough as a team, which shocked most people because we thought we got along perfectly fine. Those two days at the hotel changed that view completely. Though we ranged from ages 14 to 17 we all stayed together. During meals and discussions, we were never in little groups or separated, we stuck as a group of 10. The night we spent on the hotel was the night that changed the way we connected as a team. We all gathered in one of the hotel rooms and pushed the beds together to watch a movie we all enjoyed. 10 girls laying together in 2 beds was quote "a crazy thing to see." During this time everyone can agree that we bonded. In a way that we had not bonded earlier in the season. The girls on the team showed a lot of Care  and compassion for each other for the rest of the trip. We all cared for each other as if we were a family. This was definitely one of the goals and outcomes for this sport season, not only to travel on SAISA and bring back a championship, but to be able to go through the tournament together, as a real team showing the best sportsmanship imaginable, without effort simply through friendships and caring approaches. Our meetings were filled with supportive comments and feedback amongst us, reminders not to blame each other and to enjoy playing and participating since we will not always have such opportunities. 

DAY 1:

Our first game of the day was set to be against the home team AISD. This was a very nerve wrecking situation as the entire Dhaka school would gather to support their team and the odds were not in our favor. Though constant reminder to block out the chants and screaming it is difficult when the gym is filled with excited, eager, angry teenagers all betting against you. We started the first game off really well. Everyone on the team got a chance to play and we kept up a lead of at least 4 points throughout the game. We obviously shocked both the bystanders and the dhaka team with this defeat. Although we beat them in this first game, we could tell that they were not playing at the best of their abilities simply because they underestimated us. We left the gym leaving the rest of the teams feared and us walking away with a satisfying win of 24-14 in the first game of the tournament. Though the first game wasn't as important, this was a great motivator for us and gave us reassurance that we'd be able to bring home the championship, especially after beating one of the strongest teams in the tournament. 
Livestream Recorded game OSC vs AISD
Me and Wenuri were hosted by a girl who was also competing but for the Dhaka team. Though in an awkward situation we both congratulated each other in the end carrying through great sportsmanship on both sides. It is a great experience being able to compete in an environment where you are close to the opposing team. 

My host and I hugging after the first game of the tournament.

The remainder of the time between our first and last game of the first day of the tournament gave me a chance to both interact with my team more as well as old friends from other teams. As well as that I had a chance to meet more new people which were great company throughout the tournament. 

Our second game was against KAS which is the Karachi American School. We knew that this would be an easier game but we did not want to let it get to our heads too much incase we didn't play as well. In this game especially I got more chances to play and try new things. I am personally really proud of this game and feel like individually I met a lot of my personal set goals. For example, in this game one of the proudest moments I had was making a 3-pointer. This had been one of my goals from the beginning of the season. I never knew i'd be able to find the strength and skill to make this shot and to be able to have made it in a game situation during the tournament really pumped me up and gave me more confidence. I felt like I finally contributed to the team in a way I had not felt before. We ended the game with a great score of 41-5 and ended the first day of the tournament with fantastic results. Pride was amongst all of us and our excitement but fear grew as well. 

Livestream Recorded game OSC vs KAS 

Karachi taking a free-throw at the beginning of the game (I am #15) 

Me taking a free throw during the OSC vs. KAS game

That first day we also had our SAISA Social. This was different from anything I had experienced before. The school had planned for all the schools to go to a Mall to a bowling alley. This was really new to me but ended up being really fun as well. Though the teams did not socialize with each other as much as everyone expected them to, the night still ended up to be fun for everyone with great memories. 

DAY 2:

During saisa every team is assigned to one of the primary school classes. These classes become your "fan club" during the three days of the tournament. We were assigned to the 3rd graders and were welcomed with posters hung all around our team tent and a parade of little children with gecko hats and pompoms. It was adorable. The kids were all super excited about the tournament and came to the majority of our games during school days to cheer for us non stop and chant out cheers. They even went out of our way to make us little hearts of paper and good luck charms and came to give us hugs between breaks. There also came a time where we were able to visit their classroom. This was a really interesting experience that I had never done before. We began with an interview where they asked us all kinds of questions about our school, our team, about basketball and we got the opportunity to ask them things too. This was a nice bonding session. Before leaving they asked us for our autographs and pictures and it was wonderful.

 Our first game of the day was against Ls, Lincoln, which was the last team in our pool before going on to mix pools to earn a spot in the semi-finals. This was one of the tougher games we had played but we were still able to walk away with a win of 33-18. This was the third game we had played and the third game we had won and we were all anxious to find out which team we'd play from the other pool. 

Livestream Recorded Video LS vs. OSC

Performing a gecko cheer after the game against Lincoln. (I am #15)

The second game of the day was against LAS, Lahore. Even though we were not overly worried about losing the game based on the results of Lahore during their first day, we were still a bit scared because this team played very rough and aggressive and had very physically strong players on their team compared to us. As well as that our team had been having trouble with being fouled and if receiving too many fouls, the player can be disqualified from playing in that specific game. We were able to pull through with a score of  40-17. This concluded the second day of the tournament with great results of two more wins for the geckos. That friday was dedicated to studying so we were brought to our host houses earlier than the night before. 

LAS vs OSC Livestream Recorded Game

DAY 3: 

The third day was most hectic, we had now placed into the semi-finals and found ourselves facing lincoln once again. We had a team meeting and discussed our attitudes toward these next two games. We knew that lincoln would play harder than they did before as this game was crucial to the tournament. Lincoln played outstanding during this game and made some beautiful shots which impressed all of us. Even though both teams played extremely hard with a lot of heart, we ended the game with a score of 38-25. I did not participate this game as much as I had before but I didn't let it get me down or take it personally too much as we were all a team and the coach had to do what he thought would be able to get the best results. I used this time to cheer on the players playing and make sure to be there for supporting my team. With this win we earned a place in the finals of the tournament having to face what we thought was the strongest team in the tournament, the home team of Dhaka. 

Team Photo at SAISA, Dhaka, Bangladesh. 

We had been undefeated so far with fantastic results but we didn't want to take this for granted. We had watched as dhaka improved their game by a lot since we played them 3 days prior. We were all nervous and did not know what the outcome of this next game would be. Of course, since the home team was in the finals, when the time came around, the gym was filled again with the majority of the secondary school and teachers, and once again, the odds were against our favor. 
We started off strong with a great lead but towards the 3rd quarter Dhaka didn't seem to back down and came at us strong, making the game tie. The score zigzagged a lot and it was a very close game until our star player managed to get one more free throw in at our overtime. We were told this was the first time ever in saisa that a finals game went into overtime. It was all very exciting and when the buzzer went off screams and tears came from the geckos and gecko fans. 
After a routine dance and a lot of hugging and pictures we were allowed to, as a team, cut off the basket we scored our winning point in. 
The award ceremony was also very exciting when the champions were announced and the sportsmanship award which we also received. This was a great end to a fantastic SAISA tournament. 

SPORTSMANSHIP PIN

There is a new tradition in SAISA tournaments involving sportsmanship pins. Each team, for basketball at least, is given three sportsmanship pins, one to give out each day of the tournament. The pin can either be given to a team or an individual athlete who showed either great athleticism, sportsmanship, or other qualities admired by you. We gave our sportsmanships to two teams who supported us throughout all our games and sat in the stands cheering for us each time. 
The gecko team, as a whole received the most amount of sportsmanship pins with 2 team pins, and 4 individuals. 
I received an individual sportsmanship pin from the Lincoln Snow Leopards team on the last day. One of their players, as well as a friend of mine was on the floor in the hallway crying due to an injury. I carried her to the nurse's office and stayed to make sure she would be okay. Though I simply did this out of friendship the team appreciated my caring gesture and found it should be rewarded. I am greatly appreciative of this pin being awarded to me that day and hope that I will be able to do more things for others simply because I want to help.