CHA!

During the summer, myself and 3 of my friends went to the 'consortium of humanitarian agencies' or CHA to do some volunteer work in the summer. As well as developing our communication skills and giving us an opportunuty to work independantly as well as in cooperatively, we had a chance to help establish help lines for people in need.
This involved compiling databases of contact details of people the CHA could recieve sponsorship from in the future. We also had to call each of these contact and confirm all their details. The working hours were 3 times a week from 9 till 2. Although the job was tedious and boring at times, knowing that indirectly, we were helping people in need made it feel worth it. We also got the opportunity to accompany our supervisors to a village about 2 hours away from colombo as they were carrying out a need assesment of the place. This village is one of many that was created for the families of the soldiers who fought in the recent war in sri lanka. Some of the women there had lost their husbands, other's husbands had disabilities and were be physically unable to work. It was a sobering experience and made us all realize that we must all do something to help these people financially as they had their electricity cut off as they havent paid the bill for 2 months. This meant that the computer classes their children were recieving were terminated as the computers could not be used.
One of my goals this term os to keep in contact with the CHA and ask them what the general public could do to help the situation.

Exercise!

During the summer, when i felt like i needed some exersize, i went for bike rides. This may seem a relaxing activity in which not alot of energy is consumed but i cycled near my house where the roads are steep so it was very tiring going up and down these roads.
I also went for some walks with my mother but i found that walking is not for me so i decided i would rather do something more active.
So, i decided to find some new things to do for excercise. To check if it was effective, i started excersizing in my house for an hour every day. I put on some music and found some space where i could move around. As i used to go for dance classes when i was younger, i know all the warm up routines by heart so i did a few of those stretches and excersises. I felt much better but once i started school i found i didnt have time. My goal is to become organised enough to be able to spare half and hour a day excersizing, whether it be a bike ride or dancing or any other form of excersize.

5 K run

The 5 K run was overall, a success. The money raised (approx 100000 rupees) was donated to Habitat for humanuty as well as the Alzheimers foundation (around 30 000 each) with a little left over for Habitat. The run was disorganised, there were lapses in communication, and although alot of people found the experience enjoyable and a good way to raise funds in conjunction with promoting excersise, there were the odd few who complained about the lack of organisation. the lesson taken from this is that before hosting a public event such as this, every detail should be looked over and confirmed so every person involved is clear on what is happening. there were some things that were out of our control though, such as the chief guest arriving late. There is nothing anyone can do about this so in the future back up plans should be made. I was put on the route to direct the runners towards school (the finish line).

Regarding alzheimers, i have been selling raffle tickets during the summer. I went about 3 or 4 times each for around 2/3/ hours. I was very busy so i didnt spend as much time as i would have liked to on that. The raffle draw is later this month, so i should start selling the tickets i have soon. think i'll make an announcement in assembly or put it in the daily bulletin.

Piano and concert

The piano concert, on the 19th of june was quite a success. I made a few mistakes in the dance i was in, however i managed to play my piece with no mistakes. I was extremely pleased about this and happy that all my hard work paid off! I was commited to the task and i performed the piece well!
Also, I completed grade 2 theory, which i found simple but tedious and at the moment i am doing grade 3, the exam for which is in october.
I have managed to complete grade one, 2 and 3 in 8/9 months and i am happy that developed my musical skills in this short period of time.

I 'UNDERTOOK A NEW CHALLENGE!'

Although this is not technically CAS, i found that during a biology trip to sinharaja, the class had to climb this gigantic mountain. As i usually start off a challenging task by complaining about it, on reflection i was happy that this task i started off thinking 'i WILL do this'. and i did! i did not not give up half way although i had to stop as at one point i couldnt breathe, but i managed to make it to the top. This challenge showed me that i am extremely unfit, despite my efforts to stay healthy. i used to do alot of excerise at my old school, but i have become very lazy. I was also surprised at my dedication as i only stopped to rest once.

English classes

English classes - i wanted to take a slightly different approach to teaching the kids as the books they use seem to be ineffective. So i took a book from home and began following the order used in that book. As they learn fast and are enthusiastic it is a pleasure to teach them and they make it easy for me by doing their homework on time etc. I am also working on being more patient with them and feel i have succeeded. I now calmly explain what they have got wrong instead of getting frustrated, however i lose my temper when they do not bother to do their homework.The fact that some of them don't appreciate the fact that i spend my Saturday mornings trying to teach them a language they will definitely benefit from knowing in this country irritates me as i am not doing it for myself or my cas blog but for their betterment, and when they seem indifferent to that fact it annoys me.
Recently i taught then verbs and the first, second and third person singular forms-present tense-of some common verbs. they grasped the concept soon and i have asked them to fill in a table for homework. Another goal i had was to make the classes interesting. While i now understand how frustrating it can be to teach an unresponsive student and the importance of doing homework as a form of revision, i also know how frustrating it can be for a student to sit through a boring lesson. It makes the student hate the subject. Even if the subject is a students favourite, a boring teacher really knows how to kill the passion a student has for a subject by teaching it in a boring manner. i was determined not to do this to the kids i teach. I also wanted to encourage a little competition between them as i believe a little competition can really raise the standard of a students work. Co-operation between student is essential for a class to succeed but the student also needs to feel some pressure to do the work given to him/her. This is true for me as in the classes in school in which the students are competitive i feel my standards have increased and the classes in which the students are lazier, i am slacking. Another thing i am happy about is the fact that i have got some of the lazier girls to start taking an interest in the work. Nowadays in Sri Lanka, if a person wants a decent job with a good salary they need to know more than one language and being able to speak good english can really help with getting jobs. because of this i am happy that the few students who used to give up instantly if they didnt know the answer to a question now seem to be deliberating over the answer and actually giving me a response. I am teaching the students tomorrow morning and i am looking forward to seeing what they have done at home.

School Extra-Curriculars

Choir: We practiced a song in choir, actually 2 songs: 'i believe' and 'wouldn't it be nice' to perform at the Food and Fun fair. I was still nervous about performing in the prescence of an audience and was scared i would not be able to sing. We practised during lunch times and after school and on the day too. I was very nervous before performing but it was comforting to know that people wouldn't be as focused on the performance as they would have been if it was a concert. They would be milling around buying things or attending to their children etc. Also, after out performance, there was another performace by the dance group'natanda' and as their performance was quite impressive, i knew that even if the choir didnt perform that well, the attention of the crowd would soon shift onto the dancers. Miss Kithmini, our supervisor also wanted the choir to perform during assembly so that the rest of the student body could knew that a choir existed and knew that they could join it. That performance was a little more daunting as this time we would have the full attention of the audience. We sang 'I believe' and i think it went ok. I was a little annoyed at one of the younger students though, as she, being a soprano was in the front row and got so nervous that decided not to sing but to stand and smile through the performance instead. This affected the soprano/alto balance and the alto's were heard more than they should have been. This irritated me greatly as i suffer from stage fright too and i managed to sing so as not to embarass myself and the choir. Why would you join a choir if you dont want to perform in front of an audience?

I need to learn to be more patient. I realised that she is younger and that all people dont react to the same situations in the same manner as me. Another performance the choir wanted be involved in was the grade 12 graduation. This did not work out, however, as the evening already had a busy schedule and we were told that if we wanted to, we could perform while the parents and family members took their seats in the auditorium. We decided that we would decline this offer so as to give ourselves more time to practice for a more serious performance at a later stage in the year. We discussed performing at out own graduation this coming may.

Dancing-One of the teachers involved in tha natanda dance group asked one of the dancers of he could come to school weekly with another dancer as an assistant to teach some interested students some oriental dancing. I was one of the students that was interested as i had seen their performance at the Food and Fun Fair and i was very impressed with the style. I asked the choreographer if he ran an open class and he said he did. I was considering joining that but when this opportunity arose i was happy as it would save me time getting to the location of the class as it would be held in school. Also i was in desperate need of excersise. I went for some classes and about 5 minutes into the first class i realized how difficult it is to pull off the style and make it look effortless. So much strength and stamina is needed to execute the steps that alot of practice is required. However, as i am passionate about dance i think i can find the time to practice the steps enough to get them right when needed. A performance was to take place during the last assembly of the year, however that didnt take place as we had exams and didnt have the time to learn a routine.
My goals for dancing for this term are:
I learn all the steps and practise them at home at least once a day so that by the next class i can do them properly.
i learn to pick up the steps faster and develop my co-ordination skills
i develop my core strength and stamina
i learn some typical steps from oriental dance and remember them for future use in choreographing dances of that style
the dance group learns a routine and is able to perform in front of an audience