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.