Service Update

This years service has been very challenging for me as historically i have been very reluctant to involve my self with things that have to do with actively interacting with people in particular students. This meant that attempting to teach children chess was and still is undertaking a new challenge. At first me teaching partner, Sadira, and I were unsure of how to proceed with the teaching when we we could not communicate cross language barriers and were unsure of our opponent's level of knowledge. In the end we decided to play out a test game, two against two, and realized that they knew the pieces movements quite well but lacked strategy. Since then we have been playing quite high level games but instead of letting them make mistakes pointing out flaw in their strategy either with Sadira's limited sinhala or piece movement demonstrations. Their strategy even in the few weeks since we started has shown a marked improvement. Additionally interacting with them has given me a pace to practice my even more minimal sinhala. 

Sense the seem to be improving so markedly we hope that eventually they will be able to take their skills out into their communities and teach others. As our communication is getting better we hope to soon undertake the new challenge of teaching them how to teach chess.

Action Update

In the last few weeks our basket ball team has made some mazing improvements. We started out loosing every single one of the sudden death matches but by the end of last weeks session we had won three in a row (the longest streak of every team) and played the longest sudden death game yet (10 minutes). I think what really pushed us forward was that we insisted on playing and using all five of our team members rather than relying on heavy hitters. this meant that at first we played weakly because as a whole our sense of where people were going to be was weak but as we learned how our teammates played and started passing better our results improved immensely. We as a team dominated because we worked collaboratively with each other.

Individually, I have been steadily increasing my awareness of my strengths and areas for growth. I know that I am good at passing and quite good at seeing gaps in the lay that I can fill. However, I didn't make any meaningful shots during game play. My warm up shots are getting better but I still find my self scared to make them when my team is relying on them even when I am in optimum position to do so.  This weak my goal is to continue to practice my shorts during the warm up and making shots during game is my next challenge.

Activity: After School Fun Basketball

On fridays this ASA quater I am playing basketball withhte fun basket ball after school activity. It has been four or five years since I last shot a hoop so this very mcuh feels like I am learning new skills all over again. Last friday we spent about 20 minutes shooting hoops without focusing on other skills. I shot about twenty times and made 6 shots, for a ratio of 3:7 (made to missed). I hope to improve this to somewhere closer to 1:1 before the quater is over, however ot make this goal easier i am saying that i am only counting when shooting hoops not in game where other facotrs are at aplay. When we played short first to score games I was defense, playing the position that our team captain called "the big man". It was a postition that I played much better than offence, because I am good at getting in people's way but also good at always mainitaning the distance needed to keep from fowling. Additionally, I also foudn that from a defensive postion I could see the whole quart properly and give advice to my team about the other team's tactics and work colaborativly with them to develope plays and strategies.

UN Day 2015

UN day was last week and I was responsible for planning and initiating both assemblies. The beginning one required that I greeted fag bearers and handed out flags on the morning of UN day. This meant that I really got to greet and interact with every delegation. It was fascinating as it always was to see all the culture brought to show in the parade of nations.

I was also responsible for reading and preparing a speech to be read at the opening. Though it was only two minutes long it was still a new challenge for me as I have never been responsible for writing my own speech before. I have in the past been asked to speak add lib and to read speech prepared with other people, but never before had I been allowed to be solely responsible for my content. Writing for speech is very different for writing for the page, and it was an interesting foray into a new skill. The text of the speech is included at the end of this post. I think I did well in addressing the global importance the activities undertaken during UN day. Educating students about how to discuss and interact with international issues is deadly important in a interconnected world.

I was only partially responsible for planning of the classroom sessions. My role was mostly to be a sounding board and resource for the student leaders, as they were responsible for the content of their lessons. However, I do wish I had taken a firmer hand in insisting they used by suggested structures and recourses that I provided. A lot of the feedback on the classroom sessions suggested that they were largely improvisational in nature. I am going to make a suggestion to next years secretary general that they require lesson plans or some other sort of written plan from their student leaders rather than the verbal wall through we required this year.

    (me lighting hte Oil Lam in my position as Secretary General) [OSC school photographer]

Text of My Un day Speech 

In this age of constant interconnectedness, where news from around the world may reach us in minutes, it may seem like global citizenship is a given. Perhaps these days we all posses passports stamped with the seal of the united nations, declaring us international by merit of existence. Or perhaps sometimes it seems like there are no longer any borders at all.

It may seem like this, however, as the cultural social political and economic landscape that we all navigate grows in scope and complication, it is even more necessary that we work to foster global citizenship rather than assuming it’s existence. How we understand and interact with those spaces that exist between cultures and nations, where it is not clear which one holds power or if there is any governing rule at all, speaks to our merits as individuals and our preparedness to face a global future.

Today, as we celebrate Un day, we take steps toward that elusive goal of internationalism, whether these are our first steps or only additional ones on a journey already undertaken does not matter. What matters is today we work to find a balance between the celebration of our own cultures, our own viewpoints, and an understanding of other’s.

Senior Year Goal Setting

Colombo Operated Model United Nations (creativity + service)

This year I will be taking on the role of Secretary General of COMUN. It is a huge responsiblity to run entire confrence. My primary goal is, of course, to plan and an iniate an confrence that can go off with as few hitches a possible, but above and beyond that I want to improve my skill at leadership particualry in how I work colaborativly with others. My goal is to learn more about how to properly deligate, when to take things on my self and when it is best to let otherrs help me, as this has been an area for growth I have been aware of in the past. I also wish to practice, improve, and stay dedicated towards my ongoing efforts to become more orgonized. In the past COMUN has run a minimal service project collecting donated school supplies alongside the confrence and this year I hope to expand it.

Theater: The Bugsy Malone Musical (creativity)

I not be acting in the Musical this year, instead I will be taking an auxilary position as Head Designer for the musical. In this role I will be designing the set and drafting that design, as well as designing, mangaging, and running the lights. My goal is to show persevereance in the lighting design field that I entered during Arabian Nights last year. I wish to pimporive my skills at running light boards and to take on new challanges such as drafting designs and creating gobos (inserts that create shadows and colors when placed infront of white lights). I also want to improve my comunication skills when it comes to working collaborativly with the panel of teahcers running the show, the actors and other student designers.

Theater: Colaborative Devising Project (creativity) 

Alongside my work with the musical this year I will also be working on a devised theater project for my own benefit with Nathan, a tenth grader. We will be meeting during lunch and on the weekends to devise a 15-25 minute theater peice from a stimulous. This project is not for a grade and is simply an attempt by both of us to expand our skills when it comes to devising and to create a piece that can be present in both our portfolios as we apply to colleges in the coming years. My goal for this is to undertake the new challange of writing for the stage and for planning and iniating a collaborative project with no help from a supervisor. I also just really want to create something beautiful that both Nathan and I can be proud presenting to the school at some time in the future.

Scuba Diving (action) 

This year I will be continuing to refine my skills as a scuba diver. This is an activty that I have enjoyed for the past 4 years and I am excited to continue it. This year I want to improve my bouancy control and to continue to work on my oxygen use efficency. These have always been areas in which I need to improve, so this year I hope to really dedicate my slef to improving them. I also want to continue to engage with the continued threats to the reefs here on Sri Lanka. In the past my work with the Hannack family has involved making recordings of damage we see done to the reef. I also plan to continue that.

Dance Class (action)

Over the summer I spent a lot of time working on improving my flexibility and getting more comfortable with my body.  This is year I will be taking a dance class at a local studio twice a month. My goal is to demonstrate comitment and persevereance to the task of improving my physicality. I am looking forward to developing new skills as it comes to dancing, which is an actiivty I neer thought i would have much interest in, but I want to becomes aware of my areas of improvement when it comes to my body. I also aim to use this activithy as an ability to engage with a wider comunity and to improve my ability to be open and anxeity free.

Outreach Writing for The Institite of Educational Leadership (service)

One of my cas activities this year is going to be doing out reach and article writing pro bono for IEL, a non profit focused on providing leadership and educaition trainging to those with disabilities and those who deal with disabilities. I will be writing about what it's like to grow up with multiple learning learning disabilities under the Intelectua Disabilites Act and writing articles for them discussing how to teach self advocacy from the students perspective. I will also be working to develope materials for them that they can provide to students and teachers around the globe. In my capacity as a volunteer for their orgonization I plan to engage with issues of golbal importance such as the awareness of learning disabilities and the deficite of teachers who know how to properly engage with children with learning disabilites. I will also be undertaking the new challange of non ficition and educational wiritng. My goal is to improve my comunication skills when it comes to personal writing and to get feedback on my writing for IEL. (read more about IEL at iel.org)

In School Service (Service) (to be updated)

I do not yet know what service I will be working with this year but where ever I may end up my goal is to engage in my service to the best of my abilities and to engage with both an issue of global importance and the ehtical implications of my serivce work.

End of the Year Reflection

COMUN
While at the beginning of the year of COMUN Executive community I was passingly familiar with most if not all off the issues that COMUN dealt with. However, as I came to learn over the course of the year that familiarity was only glancing. During my work with General Assembly 4 I spent a lot of time learning about the international law surrounding conflict resolution. Particular surprising and interesting to me was exploring the international law surrounding nuclear disarmament. I worked to engage with issues of global importance and to consider the ehtical impplications of every resolution passed. The angels which we aproached the issues, in the case of GA4 international law, were new to me.Executive Committee this year was a real crash course in leadership and organization. I learned how to organize and structure debate topics and how to lead delegates and inspire them. I learned a lot about the nature of commitment. It took a lot trial and error to learn to balance things in the role of a leader, balancing being jovial and strict, being kind and pushing kids to do their best. I had planned and initiated activities before but of course none of this scale and importance.   I think my strengths lie in my small group interactions, expeccially when working colaborativly with others, which was a huge part of the COMUN Executive comitty expeirence. I worked really hard to make sure the delegates of my committee this year felt comfortable coming to me to ask questions. I like to think that I am good with people even if I can’t always be comfortable around them one hundred percent of the time. I like to tell stories to, which means that in succinct debate I am not always in my element, but I means as a speaker to a crowd and as a speaker to people I am good. In order too suceed next year I am going to keep this improved awareness of my areas for furrther growth. There is so much I need to work on. I need to improve my focus when charring and my organization my consistency. I have tried many “cure all” methods of organization that haven’t worked for me, but I am committed to continuing to try and develop methods for my personal organization. That in turn I am sure will help me improve my research and my consistency as a leader and an organizer of events. I plan to take on the role of Security General for COMUN next year, which is a big job and which i hope will show my persiverance and comitment to the MUN comunity. 

SCUBA
This year was a year of learning for me when it came to SCUBA diving. I improved my skills in many way and focused on concertedly on improving those areas that I had already identified as areas for growth. I have always had a hard time with my bouancy control and have conistently over estimated or underestimated the amount of air needed in my Bouancy Control Device (BCD). This year I think I improved my use of the BCD, but not to the extent needed to become a true diving proffesional. In fact, I suffered awful coral burns on my hands this year due to a buyancy mishap. I did however learn many new skills this year and undertook new challanges. Diving to deeper depths requires many new skills sets, as well as search and rescue procedures which where mor chalanging than i had thought they would be, thoug that may have been sense I undertook that part of my training ununder the worst visibility conditions I have ever seem. The visibility distance was less that a meter, had II turned around I would not have been able to see my own fins.

THEATER: LIGHTING AND ACTING
This year two of my big items of participation with the school were the International School theater competition and subsquent highschool production (for which I earned best suporting actress award) and the doing the lighting for both Music Makers and Tales from arabian nights. Though I hadp rediced my participation with the former the later came as a surprisse to me and allowed me to add many new skills to my theater skill set. In the course of  this activity I learned to work 2 new different lighting systems and had to oprunity to do lights for a professional dance company. I also had to work colaborativly with both the middle school production and the mucisians to be able to create lighting plans that used the lights to thier full advatnage with the productions. 

Lighting Music Makers

I recently completed the lighting for this year’s Music Makers evening concert. While the work was an extension of the new skills I have developed this year in my work as stage tech and in preparing to peruse a career as a theater engineer, it was also an engagement with new challenges in role. It involved me improving my new skills as a lighting director as the scale was far greater than during the middle school production (I went from working with 15 preset sliders to 30) and making more executive decisions as to lighting. When I worked with Ms. Jackson on the middle school production she had a very clear idea of what was possible and what she wanted for each scene, whereas Ms. Duncan had only a general idea of what she wanted for each act and let me figure out the specifics.

In the next week I will light the culminating speeches of the TED talks after school activity and will light several productions next year including the musical which I will show perseverance and commitment to my choice of activities. 

Middle School Production Lights

This year, though I am not I'm middle school, I participated in the middle school production by operating and designing the lighting system for Tales from Arabian Nights. Operating the lighting system was definitely a new challenge for me. It's so very different from acting on stage. For one, the lighting system is less forgiving that being on the stage. Unlike actors lights do exactly what you tell them to without fail, if you make a mistake it is glaringly obvious. I had thought that the light board would be obvious and intuitive to operate, and in some ways it is since sliders do exactly what you think they would, but in other ways it is not. Despite my challenges I think I came out of this experience with new skills.

This week I will operate the lighting system for Music Makers, and next year I will operate the lighting system for the school Musical Bugsy Malone. I will also get the opportunity to work the lights for a professional dance company this week. By the end of next year I hope that I will have the skills and confidence with lighting to go on to light the productions I work on as I work towards my goal of becoming a theater professional.

Advanced Open Water Dive Certification: Action

The last two weekend I have been diving at Mount Lavinia to complete my advanced open water certification. The certification program involved completing five training dives where Arnold, my training buddy, and I undertook in new challenges in diving. The first two dives we both deep dives, where we practiced calculating safety stop times underwater. The two deep dives were both things that made me nervous before hand but deep diving is my new favorite part of diving as being that far under the water is both incredibly beautiful and isolating in a way i have never experienced on land.

In the last three dives we practiced new skills such as under water navigation and search and recovery patterns and learned to tie knots underwater. The final dive was a fish identification course; during the preparation for it we had to read about and discuss the ethical implications of diving in natural environments and our responsibility to protect and monitor the environments in which we dive so as to prevent the further destruction of reef ecology, which is of course a global issue.