Monday, August 15, 2011

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.


Tuesday, March 29, 2011

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.

Monday, February 21, 2011

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

Sunday, December 5, 2010

1st November - 28th November 2010



This month wasn't a pretty big one in terms of CAS.

Service wise, DAWG had their annual sterilization and vaccination campaign, our goal for the year. It was very effective and we helped out a lot of dogs and cats. For Recycling I just continued doing whatever they needed me to do.

For Creativity I don't remember doing anything of note

For Action I don't remember doing anything of note

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

18 October - 31 October 2010

The past two weeks have been pretty good for me in terms of CAS

We had holidays from the 18th to the 24th, no CAS during the holidays

After the holidays the SGA continued organizing halloween

DAWG began preparing to sell refreshments at the Primary School Musical

However the biggest event for me was ISTA, 3 days of theater workshops that lasted upto 10 hours each day that were held in Jakarta, Indonesia. We left on the 27th and returned on the 31st. ISTA was a great experience and I gained a lot of Creativity recognition on ISTA as I interacted with many students from other schools (worked collaboratively with others), Developed new skills as I learnt about new forms of theater such as modern clowning, I worked with issues of global importance such as poverty as one of the performances at ISTA was from a circus of children who were living in slums and were in a circus program designed to improve their lives, I undertook new challenges and also increased my awareness of my own strengths and areas of growth in terms of theater. ISTA taught me a lot and it was a great experience for me.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

4th October - 17th October 2010

Over the past two weeks in CAS a lot has happened.

The DAWG movie night went ahead and it was a moderate success. We managed to raise around 14,000 rupees and the movie was pretty good.

I went to Recycling over the past two weeks and basically collected stuff from the Primary building.

With the SGA we've continued to plan Halloween.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Reflection 27th September - 3rd October 2010

This week was a pretty standard week for CAS, with a little something extra added in

On Monday the 27th, the SGA had its weekly meeting. We began this meeting by focusing on our Halloween Disco which we plan to have on the 30th of October. We already had a committee set up and we just talked about ideas for decorations etc. Later in the week, on Wednesday the 29th, the committee itself met. The committee tightened up some of the ideas for decorations and came up with a budget. To make sure the decorations are of high quality, we've arranged to borrow the US Embassy's Halloween decorations. Doing this also allows us to save money on decorations, allowing us to profit more from the event.

On Tuesday the 29th, DAWG met up after school. Our main issue was concerning our food drive and how it wasn't generating much excitement within the primary and secondary school. What we decided to do was to collect what we had from the classrooms, and to speak to the classrooms about bringing in more food and supplies. We also decided what movie we're going to show at the movie night which happens on the 8th of October. The movie is going to be: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.

Unfortunately I missed Recycling for the 3rd week in a row because of a SGA Leadership Seminar I had top attend after school on Thursday the 30th. The Leadership Seminar was quite boring overall, but we did do some team building activities. The Leadership Seminar went on from 2.30pm-6.30pm.

I missed Football on Friday the 1st as I was sick.

For next week I need to work with the SGA concerning Halloween and DAWG concerning our movie night.