November 2011

During this month I basically continued going to the gym every week, I try to go 3-4 times a week depending on how much homework I have. Ideally I would go on mondays, wednesdays, fridays and saturdays but there are days where this isn't possible so I have to double up on the weekends. I am getting closer to my goal of 5 miles in 20 minutes, I can already do 5km in 15 minutes so it's just a matter of continuing to do cardio and hopefully I can reach my goal. After I reach my goal, I plan on setting a new goal and continuing with the gym. In terms of weights the progress hasn't been as visible, mainly because I started with barely any muscle. But I'm getting there.

The Cleft Palate Battle of the Bands was on the 26th of November and TY2D (Too Young To Die) won it. We had around 250 people attend and the night was a huge success in terms of fundraising and the talent that was on display. I did my part on the night by MC-ing the concert and I had done my part earlier by finding us a place to print tickets. Combining our sponsorship money with the money from tickets, we raised around 400,000 rupees, some of that was lost based on spending though, so today we'll find out the final amount fund raised. I'll try and find some pictures of the night that I can post on the blog.

Renewed sense of Action - 10th November 2011

Upon being told that I hadn't had enough action this year (SGA work + the internship at the hotel that involved a lot of sweating and hard work apparently did not count), I decided to start going to the gym. I've never been a huge fan of going to the gym and participating in physical activity however I do see the benefits that spending time at the gym will have for me. Therefore I set myself the goal of being able to bike 5.5km in 20 minutes an exercise bike as well as lifting 25lbs in both hands before the school year ends.

By doing this I will undertake a new activity, which is basically working out at the gym. Being an asthmatic who's had it rough with the condition, I look forward to working out and getting more physically fit as well as achieving the goal I set out for myself.

Below are some pictures of my first day there, pictures taken by Yariq Captain:

17th September - 8 November 2011

During this period I did a couple of CAS related things

I started taking pictures of the boys football team for the yearbook. On the 28th of October they played their first match and I got a lot of pictures of that. I've never been a great photographer even though I've had a passion for the field and therefore I undertook this task so that I could develop a new skill. 

With Cleft Palate a lot happened, we recently went to the hospital to gain a better understanding of the kids' conditions and the care they need and receive. This helped us understand the ethical implications of our actions. We got to see the results of our fund raising and the ethical benefits behind our work. 

In terms of the Cleft Palate concert, progress has occurred. We've got the date set for the 26th of November 2011, and we have raised approximately $2000 through sponsorship. The auditions were held on the 14th of October and 5 out of 9 bands were selected for the concert, as well as two professional bands. I recently went down to the poster and ticket printers to get some work done. The stuff has yet to be printed but at least progress is happening....

Reflection - 12th August to 16th September

In terms of CAS there have been some interesting developments for me during the school year.

Starting with the school production, after beginning my time as Assistant Director I started to find the job quite pointless, which may be a bit extreme a description but still matches my feelings concerning the post. I had expected a job with a lot of work and responsibility and I had also expected all this work and responsibility to give me something to talk about in my TPPP but unfortunately my hopes were somewhat dashed away. What ended up happening over the two weeks that I was Assistant Director was that I show up at rehearsals, sit around for a while, read a missing character or two's lines, make photocopies if necessary and then leave. After the auditions I did not even get to voice a meaningful opinion considering casting and this irked me. What was the most bothersome was the fact that being the Assistant Director meant that a lot of my time was taken up by being at rehearsals but I wasn't doing anything Action or Creativity related, basically I was wasting a large amount of time. In the end I quit as Assistant Director and signed up as Dramaturg, a position that involves me researching Jewish customs, Tsarist Russia and the village of Anatevka for the play. The position may be a less of a time commitment and may have less responsibility on face value but the truth is that I will actually have more responsibility now and be doing more work for the play.

I talked to the leaders of DAWG and they seem to be doing alright without needing any help from me right now so nothing developed in terms of DAWG, fortunately however Cleft Palate is a different story. In the first meeting the leaders laid out their plans for a charity concert in the style of a battle of the bands to raise funds. The concert would involve multiple schools around Colombo and we wanted around 400 people attending on the night with around 8 different bands, maximum two from a school. This event has been planned as a professional one and I have a lot of different things to do for it from MC-ing with Camille on the night to making sure the auditorium is ready as well as finding sponsors that can offer prizes (we need around 10) that will be part of a raffle draw. During the short breaks between performances, the MC's are going to inform the attending audience about the issues surround cleft lip and what the Cleft Palate organization does. The concert  date has been planned for the 11th of November, 11/11/11: the symmetry looked nice. This event is going to be quite draining but hopefully it will be a success. 

CAS Goals 2011-2012

• Live up to my expectations as Assistant Director of the School Production of Fiddler on the Roof. Most Grade 12 Theater Arts students were expected to sign up and do something for the school production, not to fulfill any requirements for the course but solely so that we would have additional meaningful content for our TPPP meaning that any work we do on the production can count as CAS. I signed up to be the Assistant Director because I was somewhat bored with acting in school productions and I felt that this could be a new and meaningful experience that would teach me something. By doing this I would be undertaking new challenges as I've never helped direct something this big, showing perseverance as this would be a full time job, developing new skills and working collaboratively with others. I am somewhat worried about the workload that Assistant Director-ship would bring but hopefully I will not be overwhelmed and will be able to carry out my job well.
• Perform the tasks I am handed in my two service activities of Cleft Palate and DAWG. While I am not an official member of DAWG I did agree to helping them with whatever they needed outside of the regular meetings on thursday afternoons as I was a leader of the activity two years ago and therefore have some experience with it. I've also agreed to be at the annual sterilization and vaccination event which is the culminating result of DAWG's fundraising activities. Cleft Palate is the service activity that I've been officially signed up for and the reason I joined them was because I was a member of their activity at the end of the 11th grade and I wanted  a sense of continuity and despite the activity being somewhat problematic in terms of its service last year, this year they are under new leadership who seem a bit more motivated and therefore I wanted to join them and support the cause which I felt was a noble one. The critical learning outcomes I will be connecting with are: Undertaking new challenges as Cleft Palate has changed considerably this school year due to the fact that they will be visiting the hospital more, showing perseverance and commitment as I have unofficially committed myself to two service activities and being a senior student I will be accepted to take leadership roles despite not officially being a leader (the reason being that I was SGA President last year meaning that I did not have the opportunity to get well-versed in one service activity), planning and initiating activities as both service activities are fund-raising based we will need to get creative with our methods and finally I will have to work collaboratively with others as all these service activities revolve around the group.  

Summer 2011 (June-August)

During the summer I took part in a internship at a tourist resort in the Maldives, the name of the resort is Adaaran Club Ranaalhi and the internship involved me working in a myriad of departments. The reason I did this was because at the time I had considered a career in the hotel industry but after the internship I had changed my mind. The schedule for my internship was as follows, and it was an action filled, exhausting two weeks:


·        16th June ;               Orientation,  the Resort Tour and Reception.
·        17th June                 Front Office
·        18th June                 Central Reservations  &  Back Office  operations
·        19th June                 Housekeeping department
·        20th June ;               Laundry, Linen Room
·        21st June;                 Restaurant service
·        22nd June;               Bar operations and services
·        23rd June;                Types of Beverages,  Beverage Service andpreperation of cocktails
·        24th June;                Kitchen Operations ( No practicals)
·        25th June;                Stores operations
·        26th June;                Storing, Recieving and Issuing
·        27th June;                Maintenance department.
·        28th June;                RO Plant operations, Generators, Sewerage Treatment Plants. etc. and preventive maintenace

Below are reflections from each day that I had written during the internship as I was made to take notes as well as reflect on my working day.

16th June - We didn't do anything significant today in terms of work, we simply came to the resort, got a tour and got oriented with some of the staff and significant operations. I then got a look at the reception in anticipation of the work that would follow on the 17th. No significant work, I just relaxed today after orientation

17th June - Today I spent time at the reception and front office (they are basically the same thing however the Front Office (FO) is a lot more technical in terms of accounts and paperwork and such). I basically learned about the different kinds of forms that need to be filled out to confirm reservations, the software used to book and track rooms on the resort as well as incoming and outgoing trips to the airports. They also have tags to track different tourist packages i.e. half-board (only breakfast) full-board (all-meals) and special packages (complimentary drinks). I was then allowed to work with the software and assist customers with their needs for a few minutes and this was me undertaking a new challenge that was somewhat service based.

Cleft Palate 1st February - 30th March 2011

As Service activities resumed in the semester, I joined the Cleft Palate service, a service group dedicated to helping kids that suffer from cleft lips. I joined the service group because I felt it was a noble cause and I heard that the group had troubles being considered a legitimate service activity as they were not interacting with kids with cleft lips. However they were getting new leaders and I wanted to do my best to help them as a member of the group.

After speaking with the Community and Service coordinator, Cleft Palate got a couple of ideas of how they could improve. The coordinator basically wanted us to branch out from primarily raising funds and Cleft Palate started to do that

 On the 24th of February we had a girl come in who was born with a cleft lip. She had had all her operations but still had troubles with her speech and basically told us about her experiences. We then got to ask her some questions about what life had been like for her etc.

Our leaders also went to the hospital where the kids we had provided with funds had their cleft lip correction surgeries. They took a lot of before and after photos and put together a video that they plan to show at assembly. The service group also received more good news as we managed to pencil in a date for a doctor to come to OSC and speak to them about cleft lip correction surgery and the beneficial work our service group has done. On the day he comes in we plan to give him a check for around Rs. 225,000

As of now most of our attention is focused on the party we have planned for the 22nd of April, our primary means of raising funds. Our goal is to raise Rs. 75,000 so that we would have raised Rs. 300,000 in total for the year.

My experiences with Cleft Palate have helped me consider the ethical implications of our actions. Cleft Palate was too focused on fund raising and this narrow approach took away from the human aspect of our activity. By finally starting to interact with a community of people involved with the condition, Cleft Palate began to branch out and become a more legitimate service activity. Below is a video the leaders constructed of the before and after pictures of kids our money helped correct.

28th November 2010 - 21st February 2011

Unfortunately it has been quite a while since I have reflected on anything, however within that time a lot has happened CAS-wise

For the SGA we had to organize the OSCars, a type of informal awards ceremony where we award students superlative style awards e.g. "cutest couple", "most likely to win a hot dog eating contest", etc.

We began organizing the OSCars in December, and the date we had set was February 19th 2011. A lot was set to be done within that short time and as the President of the SGA I had a lot on my plate. In terms of the 8 learning outcomes this connected with Planning and initiating activities, showing perseverance and commitment to an activity and developing new skills.

I honestly learnt how to multi-task while organizing the OSCars, something that connected with Action and Creativity as we had to be creative in designing trophies and the auditorium space, as well as active in getting everything done by the time the deadline was approaching. In the past I've been a horrible multi-tasker, preffering instead to get little tasks done in chronological order. This wasn't possible with the OSCars as everything had to come together in the end, simultaneously, and couldnt just be completed one by one. To help me learn how to multi-task on such a large scale I downloaded an organizer application to my phone and this application was practically a life-saver as it helped me develop to-do lists for the day. I had to show perseverance and commitment to the OSCars as it was an annual SGA event and I couldn't give up and let the school down.

Another SGA event we had to organize was our annual valentines day handing out, which connected with the Action aspect of CAS. The Valentines day handing out is basically something the SGA does every year, we allow students to order chocolates and roses and we deliver them to students on valentines day. I had to help get an order card together, photocopy cards, cut them out and give them to the reps to hand out. Then I had to buy chocolates and roses for the school. Doing this connected with planning and initiating activites and increasing awareness of my strengths and weaknesses as I realized that I couldn't do this whole thing by myself and that I needed the help of my peers in the SGA.

For Creativity, I joined Tara Nelson's Play for her IP in Drama. Doing this helped me work collaboratively with others and further develop my drama skills. This play also had nothing to do with my IB Theater Arts class and i joined it just because I have a passion for Drama. Also, I recently took part in an inter-school history quiz that we placed 6th out of 17. My CAS coordinator informed me that this counts for Creativity. Taking part in the quiz connects with undertaking a new challenge (never taken part in a history competition before), working collaboratively with others (my quiz teammates) and I further developed my history skills.

The goal of me trying to get my PADI certification hit a bit of a speed bump as they needed me to take a medical due to my asthma. I have pushed this goal back to the summer as I will be in The Maldives during then