Singing for the first time! :)

Kuval and I before the performance

Singing has always been something I wanted to do but it was also something that I was not really good at. But, this Diwali (an important festival in India), I wanted to try singing with my friend Kuval. The function was held by the Indian Embassy in the Taj in Colombo. We were given the chance to sing. (I couldn’t get a picture of us singing though, I have a video but it is not much clear to see). We sang a Hindi  song and tried our best to impress the audience. I realized that I had this other strength in me which I was not aware of before. This challenge was something I voluntarily took and now I was able to prove that I could do it.   I was happy and satisfied that I could do something that I thought that I cannot achieve. Also, I had to wear a saree for this performance, this made me involve myself more with my Indian community and our culture.  I wanted to develop this skill but right now I won’t have time to do that. However, I plan to do this in future. 

Raising toys for RCCI

 END OF YEAR GIFT FOR RCCI KIDS

At the end of the last year we decided to end the school year for the RCCI kids satisfactorily by trying to getting gifts in the form of toys, play boards, soft toys, and cartoon figures, sports equipments like balls, bats and skipping ropes. This was quite challenging as this was going to be my first fund raising activity. So we decided to make an announcement in the primary assembly and asked the kids to donate their old toys for the unprivileged. We even sent letter home so that it reaches the parent. This activity also made the OSC community aware of the global issues faced in this world, so they actively responded.It turned out to be that the primary has been really generous to the kids. We had just kept one box in the primary office for the kids to donate. But we got to know that the box is already over flowing in two days. There were a number of ethical implications with this because we had to make sure all the parents who came to donate their belongings were treated with respect, if anything goes wrong, they might be disappointed. So we took this challenge by making sure we thank everyone for their donation. This made us really happy and we collected a lot of toys in the one week notice. We even got lot of brand new toys for them. I realised that this strength in our CAS team can make us capable of achieving more. 

Toys we gathered for the kids

We later separated the good ones as in the ones that don’t scare these kids. We separated the Dinosaurs toys, scary animal figures and army figures. These toys often scared the RCCI kids. So we decided to give them rather simple board games, soft toys and the ones they would like. We gifted them on the last CAS day and we even gave a box of toys for the center. We still have some stored. We plan to give more this year.

Cooking aims for September

For September, I decided to learn with the basics of Indian food. This might include making "Pongal" which is a meal eaten usually for breakfast with a sauce (preferably a coconut one). This has been my all time favorite dish and is best when served hot. Learning to make this from my mother will be a good idea as she is really good in making this. This will also make be independent as I would not have to ask her to make it every time for me. I can prepare it with  more of the kind of taste I like (which has less spiciness). A picture of is shown to show how it looks like.

CAS presentation for the OSC kids

All the CAS leaders after the presentation

There was another awareness program about CAS this year. This was specially held to inform the primary kids who just joined MYP. We thought that it is necessary for them to know what different CAS activities do. This will help them choose the CAS they want to participate in, in the following semester. This activity will increase awareness to the OSC community and also at the same time make me work collaboratively with my CAS members in planning the activity.  Our CAS is involved with such an important global issue that it is necessary to update the people about what we do. This activity made me proud that I’m involved in this CAS and I was satisfied with the number of people who wanted to join this CAS. 

            

        Goals for grade 12

             This will be my final year in IB and I want to make sure that I work efficiently in all my CAS activities that I will be participating in. This is year I will be continuing with yoga for action. I'm done with the course, so I will practice it at home as it is both good for my health and also relieves from mental pressure. This time I plan to practice all day unlike the last year where I practiced only during the weekends.

 For my creativity I plan to do something new, I always wanted to learn to cook but never got enough time for it. So I thought for this CAS year I should learn to cook. I will aim to learn a new dish every 3 weeks. This will give me enough time to learn the dish at the start and later practice to make it myself. There is not any particular genre of food that I want to learn. But I have to make sure I find vegetarian dishes as I'm a vegetarian :). I will learn to make most of the dishes from my mother. I will post pictures of the dishes I have as this will show what my dishes looks like.

For my service, I will continue my leadership in RCCI and the post of a director in Key Club. Last year we have done fund raising and also toy collection from the school and the primary school. This has been of a great help to the centre. I will aim to continue doing the same this year and also try to do more for them.

CAS Evalutaion for Grade 11

REFLECTION

It's been almost one year since i started my CAS program and started learning different skills in life. I have learnt a lot doing CAS, I realised that I had more talent than before. As mentioned earlier, for my CAS I was part of the school community and service RCCI, went for Yoga classes as part of my action and learnt to make Indian clothing for my creativity.

I have mostly achieved all of my goals I had set to achieve this year. I learnt Yoga’s beginner level. Yoga makes me feel more fresh mentally and physically, I will make sure I will also practice Yoga in my future too so that I don’t forget what I learnt. I almost attended al the Yoga classes in the ICC (Indian Cultural Center). I will try making full use of what I learnt. I started to learn to make Indian clothes but couldn’t make a salwar kameez by the end of this year, so I plan to achieve it during the next year. The best thing I was proud of  bring part of this year was leading RCCI. Our CAS worked hard this year, we fund raised in Food And Fun Fair and also asked for toy donation in the Primary assembly. We were able to collect enough funds and toys for them that we even gifted some to the children of the centre.

For the next year, I plan to continue practice Yoga, learn and complete my goal in making Indian cloths and try painting the RCCI center so that they can have a better environment to stay in. I hope I can achieve these goals with as much efficiency I had out in this year. This year has taught me so many new things which I wouldn’t have been able to achieve if there was no CAS. I’m happy to be doing these works and services and I’m waiting for the next year.
End of Grade eleven

Visit to RCCI centre

We visited RCCCI centre this Thursday. We went there to experience their way of school life. We played with them in their park and did a lot of action related activities because this is very important for their health. We planned this activity before so that we can be prepared with the activities we will be doing with them. It was very important to show commitment with this activity, all the members in my CAS were focused and were enthusiastic through the time we spent with them.

Playing with RCCI kids

Playing with them also got me engaged in physical activities, which made me develop new skills. Over the time, I’m getting more comfortable with these kids, they can recognize me now. This gave me a satisfaction that I was successful in undertaking this challenge of interacting with them.