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.

Colombo Operated United Nations Executive Comitty and Confrence

Sense last September I have been working with the COMUN ExCo. to plan and initiate the 2015 Colombo Model United Nation conference. It has taken immense perseverance and commitment form every member of the ExCo. as putting together and running a conference of this scale takes long hours and multiple meetings per week. However, the payoff has been well worth it as I think the 2015 conference was a big success.

It was a particular pleasure for me to work with and mentor a group of new delegates over the course of 3 months as we considered and engaged with issue of global importance such as nuclear disarmament and conflict resolution in the middle east.  Teaching and giving feed back to delegates was a new challenge I undertook this year as I have never been in a leadership position among my peers of this scale or importance before, and I believe I bonded with many of those who were in my committee. However, I know that next year I can do better and nurture an even better and more welcoming environment as I now have an increased awareness of my strengths and weaknesses as a leader. 

I am happy to say after a long ten months of working collaboratively with others to pull this event off I am ready to begin again planning next year conference in just a few weeks. 

COMUN PHOTOS By Amruta Behera

(Practice conference #2, Chairing GA4) 

(Addressing delegates during practice debate #2)

(The backstage video for COMUN 2015)

(Chairing during the final day of conference, the combined General Assembly)

Action: Scuba Diving

(Credit: Jurgen Hannak)

Two weekends ago I completed my first two dives in the open ocean since eight grade. It served both as a reassessment of my skills and as an additional action activity. Both dives were wreck dives and tested my skills at maintaining neutral buoyancy, which I have never been very good at. I did manages to do better than I had during eighth grade and did not damage any coral. Despite this I'm still setting out to improve my underwater motion control. This will also help with another goal related to scuba diving which is improving my air usage. At the moment I can just about complete an hour dive with a 200 bar tank. I would like to improve my air intake so that I can spend longer times underwater, a skill which will be important as I embark on completing my advanced open water dive training in March.

(Credit: Jurgen Hannak) 

1st Dive Details:
·         Time in: 10:52 hrs.
·         Depth: 20 m
·         Duration: 57 min
·         Temperature: 29 C
·         Safety stop: 3 min at 5 m

Surface Interval: 1 Hour 5 Minutes 

(Photo Credit Jurgen Hannack)

Dive details:

·         Time in: 12:56

·         Depth: 13 mtrs

·         Duration: 57 min

·         Temperature: 29 C

·         Safety stop: 3 min at 5 m

Best Pictures From UN Day

Cho and her brother, Korean Contingent, UN Day, October 2

Indian Contingent, UN Day, October 3

Weeks of School August - Novemeber Part !

Action:

Scuba Course, 4 Hours and First Scuba Dive of the Season, 4 hours: My first week of action was marked by the completion of my scuba refresher course. I had been out of the equipment for almost 3 years and the course marked a reengagement with skills that I thought I had lost. Amazingly over the two years I had not lost as much as I thought I had lost and over the course of the refresher course I managed to improve my buoyancy control which would has always been my largest challenge in scuba diving. It was a challenge to get back into the water but one that felt good to overcome. We worked collaboratively with the Hannack family to move the equipment.

Creativity:

Photography For UN Day 4 hours:
This was the first time I worked in the capacity as an official photographer attempting to capture the spirit of the event. It wasn't as easy as I thought it was going to be. Capturing the tone and spirit of the event is hard. At first I was trying to take pictures that had a wide focus and encompassed all the people that were present. However the best photos from the event ended up being the more intimate portraiture. It was a lesson in creativity that I plan to experiment with more in the future.
(Photos can be seen here: http://silmages.tumblr.com/post/99481752911/united-nations-day-osc-october-2014, http://silmages.tumblr.com/post/99481752911/united-nations-day-osc-october-2014)






Service:

Pursuit of Happiness Project

Border Lands Orientation Trip

The grade 11 trip was something I was looking forward to immensely but I was also something I knew was going to be immensely difficult for me as I have never been athletic or particularly comfortable with jumping off things. In both ways I was right, the trip was wonderful and fun but I also had to push my boundaries in a way that I had never done before.

Day 1: Day of Action

We started our trip with a short white water rafting trip. This was something I was and still am comfortable with, having done it several times before. Of all the trip this was my favorite part. I was fascinated by the way the guides described reading the river. I had never thought about making decisions in white water rafting before and had only ever worked to follow a prescribed course, nor had I been in a raft where more than the guide had to work to steer. It thus became for me a study in both collaborative work and river craft. Though I enjoyed the controlled thrill of the rapids I also immensely enjoyed the care free float down the river near the end of the day.

In the canyon I had to face the my anxiety about jumping, or rather about not being able to jump. I do fine with thing like white water rafting and water slides where i simply have to sit back and breath to calm my anxiety, but anything where i have to make my self take that last step off the ledge is hard for me. I have trouble making my self do something that is even vaguely like endangering my life even if i know on a mental level that I will be perfectly safe. In that way completing the canyon was a challenge for me that I had to meet head on. I'm glad to say I did though I know risk-taking will always be an area for growth for me at least in the physical sense.

Day 2: A Day in the Mountains

Of all the things the hike up to the cave where we would do ToK was actually the hardest for me. I had an anxiety attack on the way up the the cave after having  bad moment where car sickness and physical exertion meant that for a moment I couldn't breath. Anxiety attacks are an awful side effect of having bi-polar disorder. As much as I try to self regulate them the threat of them will always be there bellow the surface of my mind. It's an unfortunate reality for me. I'm glad that I got through that one, but it reminded me that controlling my anxiety and bi polar disorder through out the CAS and DP programs will be one of the challenges that I will have to meet head on, which is a challenge I am committed to face head on.

In the cave we began talking about ToK and about how things had transpired there long ago. It was fascinating. During the meditation we participated in a meditation, it was easy fro me to feel connected to the earth and to the humans that lived there.

Day 3: Oral History

I think of all the days this day was my favorite, though that may have been less because of what we did and more because I spent the least percent of this day car sick.

We conducted an oral history interview, which was not something I had done before, but wich was something I quite enjoyed, The man we interviewed, Tissa Mama, was a wood seller whom worked about a mile from the camp.