CAS Reflection

During the past two years of the IB diploma program I have been very active with CAS. I have been involved in a large variety of after school activities including all SAISAs, Yearbook, SGA and the CAS group Gecko INC.

I was made the leader of the Gecko INC group while I was still on 11th grade and then the group was still new. I have been able to work and see how this CAS has developed and changed throughout these two years. Last year, the Gecko INC focused on raising money by hosting community basketball at our school every saturday. This community basketball was open for anyone who was interested and it turned out to be a big success. The turn up was good and Gecko INC was able to raise a good amount of money as a total. This year Gecko INC took a different approach and decided to focus on the OSC community as well as a trip up to the north of Sri Lanka where we could interact with the local community and donate local schools sports equipment. With the money raised last year the equipment will be funded and students of this CAS will take them to the schools located in the war affected area of Sri Lanka. Sadly I wont be able to participate on this trip but I still am apart of the planning of it.
This CAS has helped me develop my leadership skills as well as made me learn to stay committed to the proect. Working with the CAS group has been fun and overall I have enoyed this CAS. At the community basketball I was able to meet new people and it was nice to hear their positive feedback on the CAS. There are many young talented basketball players in Sri Lanka that really appriciated our CAS for providing a place where to practice the sport they love. Not only was our CAS serving the community but also promoting a healthy lifestyle which is always a plus!

In total I attended 5 SAISAs within the past 2 years. I achieved one of my goals that I set earlier and that was to achieve a leadership role in atleast one of the SAISA sports. I was made the captain of the volleyball team as well as the co-captain of the football team this year. This was a new experience for me and I believe I played my role as captain well. SAISAs allowed me to develop my skills as an athlete as well as made me a better team player. I learnt how to work better in a team than an individual.

I oined the yearbook team in the beginning of 12th grade because I wanted to develop my photoshop skills as well as this was a good opportunity for me to do creativity for CAS. I finished sports pages and a few others and I feel like my photoshop skills have improved thanks to yearbook and the creation of the pages. It was fun to plan out the layouts of the pages and finally see the finished products on print.

In the beginning of this year my homeroom elected me as the SGA representative. This required me to attend all SGA meetings and be a part of the planning of school events such as the OSCars, dances and food and fun fair. I spent time on the weekends setting up for the different events or helping out by selling drinks/tickets. SGA also has helped me develop my creative planning skills.

Being a part of CAS has helped me undertake new challenges, interact with others and encourage my personal creative thinking. I have also learnt how to better work together with other people. I have shown my commitment in all different areas of CAS and overall I have been able to develop my leadership skills as I have taken roles that require responsibility.

YEARBOOK

Here is a snapshot of the last yearbook page I finished. I was happy with how it turned out and I think that it is one of the best pages I have created. This is an example of how my skills on photoshop have improved throughout the year.

SAISA football

Pictures from SAISA Girls football tournament in Chennai.

Involvement with CAS

SGA responsibilities

The annual OSCars event is coming up this weekend and as a SGA representative I have been a part of the planning of it. At the weekly SGA meetings we have come up with the theme and program for the night including awards, a dance and dinner. I am going to be helping out with the setting up of the auditorium on saturday before the event. I will also have certain responsibilities during the night making sure that everything runs out smoothly. This counts as service as I am halping out with a school event.





SAISA Girls Football

I made the SAISA Girls Football team and I will be traveling to Chennai to take part in the SAISA tournament in March. I enjoy athletics and football is one of my favourite sports that OSC offers. 4 practices a week keeps me fit and allows me to develop my personal skills as an athlete. I was also made one of the captains for the team. This means that I need to be responsible and take a leaders role in the sport. As a offencive captain I must take care of warm ups and keep the team in control during games.

SAISA GIRLS BASKETBALL

We travelled all the way to Dhaka to participate in the SAISA girls basketball tournament. We came back home bringing with us 3rd place bronze medals as well as 2nd place spotsmanship trophy!! Overall my experience with basketball has been very positive. I was able to develop my skills from scratch and also make it to the starting 5 of the team. Our team really came together during the trip its self and this helped us to do well in the games. We were known as the "team that never gives up" which really does describe our team well.

 

Taking a free shot

Seniors

 

Final team picture

Half time

Prize ceremony

Yearbook!

I have been working on the SAISA Girls Volleyball yearbook pages with Sorrel. We are hoping to finish the pages by next week. Yearbook has allowed me to work creatively and improve my skills on Photoshop. I enjoy this CAS because I like to work with photographs and use my creativity to come up with layouts and the compositions of different pages. Being a Visual Arts Student definitely has increased my interest towards this CAS as well. I personally benefit being a part of this CAS as I can possibly (if I want to) apply the skills I learn at yearbook to my photograph studio pieces in Visual Arts.

Working on the SAISA volleyball page on Photoshop

 

SAISA Basketball

I made the travelling team for SAISA Girls Basketball! We will be traveling to Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 2 weeks time. I have shown commitment to this season and been attending all practices and games so far. I have developed my basketball skills and I believe I have shown improvement in this sport. Having to have never played before and making the team is already a big accomplishment for me. I hope that I can develop my skills as much as possible during this short season of basketball so that I can in some way help our team do as well as possible at SAISA. Being a part of the team requires me to work collaborately with others and not play as an indivual but as a team.

Playing a practice game against Gateway, a local school team, in Sri Lanka.

Action Plan for Gecko INC.

What is going on?

Gecko INC has taken responsibility with planning and developing the OSC athletics. There are four different projects that the gecko INC is working on:
1. Improving the OSC athletic uniforms
2. Advertisement and spreading the word to students and parents about on going games so that teams get support.
3. Improving the thursday after school athletics for parents, staff and olders students.
4. Planning the Week Without Walls trip where Gecko INC is actively involved with.

Adding to this we are also planning a trip to the east coast in March joined with the Cricket project that Harshini is working with. Gecko INC is planning on funding some of the supplies as well as visiting interacting with the local children. The sooner we start to organize the trip, the better it will be.

Basketball

Im trying out for SAISA Basketball this year. I have never played this sport before in my life and therefore I am undertaking a new challenge and developing a new skill! The team is getting picked today, if I make the traveling team I can further develop and improve my skills. If I dont, atleast I tried and experienced something new :)

SAISA volleyball tournament in Kathmandu, Nepal

 

The gecko girls volleyball team travelled to Kathmandu to play at SAISA and we came back and brought home with us BRONZE! We were really happy to come third in the tournament as there were over all 10 teams taking part. We really came together as a team and that is what made us win the matches and take home bronze medals. As captain, I fullfilled my rore as well as I possibly could.
Back in Colombo, I was awarded the MVP for volleyball.

Volleyball Captain!

I was able to reach one of my goals that I set in the start of the year which was to reach a leading role in one of the SAISA sport teams of OSC! I was voted the Captain of the girls volleyball team which is a great achievement of which I am very proud of. This role requires me to be a good team leader, communicate well with all team members and have responsibility over team related topics.

The OSC volleyball team has been practicing for 7 weeks now (4 times a week) for the up coming tournament. We have played 3 games against local teams which have been a good way to prepare our selves and get used to game situations.

Our team is traveling to Kathmandu, Nepal, for 4 days to compete at the SAISA tournament on 3rd of October. I am expecting to see our team improve a lot during the tournament. Our goal is to represent our school well and play to our best ability.

Busy Saturday!

My day started off with volleyball practice in the morning. Being a part of the girls volleyball team I am required to attend all practices and be committed to the team. We had a great 2 hour practice where I developed my skills in blocking and spiking.

I promised to help out with supervising our school gym during the Welcome Back BBQ that our school hosted. Sports equipment for table tennis, badminton, volleyball and basketball were available to be used by the people attending the BBQ and so my job was keep an eye on the gym and make sure everything was running smoothly. I enjoyed this job I was signed up for as I could interact with other students and staff memebers.

Later I helped out with the SGA event, “Welcome back to the island party”. Being a part of the SGA committee, I signed up to help with the event. I helped out by collecting money from the attendants as well as by taking photographs of the students enjoying the music at the disco. The photos were later posted on the SGA facebook page.

By helping out with the BBQ and the SGA disco I served the OSC community. Over all the day was busy but I was happy to be a part of the team making the day as successful as it was.

One of the photos I took at the disco

At the SGA event as a photographer

SENIOR YEAR!! Goals for my final year in high school

 

 

Its the beginning of my senior year and I have new goals that I hope to reach:

1. As a service leader for the CAS group Gecko INC stay focused and take responsibility of what the CAS wants to achieve this year. Benefit the OSC community by improving the extra curicular sports that it offers for the staff and adults. We will be undertaking new challanges that come with this new project we will be beginning.

2. Attend atleast 2 SAISAs -volleyball and football, possibly also Basketball. Achieve some sort of leading role in one of these sports.
Having never played basketball before this opportunity for me to try out for the team would allow me to develop a new skill. It would be a good possibility for me to try out something new as basketball is the only sport out of all five that OSC offers (football, volleyball, track and field, swimming and basketball) that I have not practiced before.

3. I was elected as the grade 12.1 SGA representative. This now requires me to stay committed and attend all SGA meetings and events.
"Representatives need to be organized, punctual, and ready to commit not only to your grade, but to your school as well." -OSC

4. I joined the after school activity YEARBOOK, which takes place every wednesday after school. This allows me to be creative as most of my after school activities so far have been sports related. Yearbook will also allow me to develop my skills in editing photos and creating pages on photoshop as well as photography.

All these activities will allow me to get involved with the following learning outcomes: 

• Show perseverance and commitment
• Work collaboratively with others
• Undertake new challenges
• Increase my awareness of my own strengths and areas for growth

Carnival - Face painting

I helped out with the carnival that was held by the SGA by face painting. This experience allowed me to be creative and use my skills to paint paintings and interacts with other students that I had possibly not met before.

Volleyball Pre-season

I signed up for volleyball practices that are starting the monday we come back from April break yay! The sooner we start practices the better, this way the team stays fit and wont lose all skills before the actual volleyball season begins next year.

I enjoy playing volleyball a lot and so I cant wait to get started :)

SAISA football tournament in Dhaka

Team Lady Geckos

SECOND PLACE !! and FIRST PLACE !!
Now we are back from Dhaka and football season has officially ended. It was my first time traveling with an OSC team elsewhere to compete at a SAISA tournament.. and the experience was great! All early practices and exhausting saturday games against the boys team turned out to be all worth it as we made it to the finals and barely lost at the penalty shoot out (by ONE goal) getting us to second place. Our team also won first place for sportsmanship which was an awesome achievement and proof of us playing fair and really coming out and working as a team.
This experience has taught me alot. My football skills have definately improved and team spirit and trust increased. The trip made our team come together even better than it was still back here in Colombo and it definately had an affect on how me played on the field.

Throw in

Mo and I getting ready to play

Posing with our second place price for football and first place price for sportsmanship wohooo

Girls Football Practices

Our team has been practicing 3, sometimes 4 times a week to get ready for the upcoming SAISA tournament in Dhaka. Its time to really work as a team and improve our skills to do well and make OSC proud ;)

GO GECKOS!

At practiceworking on our dribbling skills

Meee

Geckos, AWOSH!

MUN conference

Now its all over!
This experience has been great!
I have learnt so much from being a part of the MUN admin team. Hearing all the debates, seeing how conferences like this are organized, being able to help in organizing has all been a great opportunity for me.

I made new friends and got to know alot of different kind of people during these 3 days.

This experience has definately been very tiring. Not sleeping at all during the whole weekend, baring the pain of heels and struggling with the saree was all worth it in the end.

Experiences like this help me to improve my skills in working in a team with people I have never met before, committment skills and overall has allowed me to introduce my self to debates and bigger events like this.