VERSUS CANCER - Hope for Kids

The Hope for Kids CAS project was initially a group of five girls from grade 11 last year and that was myself, Christina, Malindie, Priyanka and Tara. We realised that we were in dire need of funds for our project in order to serve the kids in the childrens ward of the Maharagama Cancer Hospital better. So we decided to fund raise through a concert which we named VERSUS CANCER. Besides being in the organising comittee of the concert I contributed to it via performances as well. I got myself involved in three performances of the concert which were a group bollywood dance with Priyanka(12), Anishka(12), Devansh(12), Bharath(11) and Shashwath(10), another bollywood dance this time around a duo with Sandini(10) and last but not the least a solo kandyan dance by myself.
With a lot of hard work put into organisation of the concert and days and nights of hard practices the concert turned out to be a GREAT SUCCESS =) We managed to earn a profit of Rs 230,000/= and I must thank my team of five and other performers who performed from inside and outside OSC without whom this concert would not have been possible.

LEARNING EXPERIENCES - This concert brought me a whole lot of new experiences and taught me good important lessons. Specially in terms of organisation, I learnt how to work collectively as a group. Getting things done at that right time was a huge challenge and I realised you need a lot of patience and commitment to pull of such a concert of this sort. I was happy of the fact that I did this as a service for a worthy cause. On the other hand I could also improve my creativity skills through this concert by performing in three dance items. It was tough and challenging, tough because a lot of practice was needed to perfect the items and challenging because choreography for all three items had to be done on our own. Although I believe I succeeded besides all the hardships =D I really enjoyed experimenting and experiencing various different dance styles, that is kandyan and bollywood and choreographing on my won. We got a lot of positive feedback from our audiences for the performances and the successful concert we had.
VERSUS CANCER ALLOWED ME TO ACHIEVE TWO OF MY CAS OBJECTIVES AND THAT IS TO IMPROVE MY DANCING ABILITIES (CREATIVITY) AND GIVE MY FULLEST SUPPORT TO THE HOPE FOR KIDS PROJECT (SERVICES) =).........!!!!!!

Youtube links for the dancing items:
Bollywood group dance - DESI GIRL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_ZN61c4W-o&feature=BF&list=UL3T2YO4qQ4Co&index=1

Duo bollywood dance with Sandini
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Vf1VIri4KU&feature=BF&list=UL3T2YO4qQ4Co&index=3

Kandyan dance by me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwqV_U6Aqys&feature=BF&list=UL3T2YO4qQ4Co&index=2

summer goals - CONTINUED

Goal NO.3 - To take piano lessons
As I used to play the piano in my childhood days due to some reason it stopped, although I always wanted to continue for the love of music. So this summer was a great opportunity for me to fulfill this long term yearning of mine. With the help of fellow OSC students, Sandini and Nadeera in Grade 10, I found a renowned music teacher in Sri Lanka, Mr.Duleep Gabadamudalige to take piano lessons from. I have been taking a couple of lessons lately however I look forward to learn good music and accomplish my piano skills.

Lesson learnt - Do what you want and enjoy and make your dreams come true!

Delegates, Please maintain the decorum of the house!!!

MUN experiences

CO-MUN 2010 (Colombo Model United Nations)
This was my first ever Colombo Model United Nations Conference even though I had attended Sri Lanka Model United Nations Conferences previously. As this conference is organised from OSC itself, I was proud to represent the delegation of the host school. The delegation of OSC was guided through the elective program last year on Wednesday mornings. In order for the preparation of the conference we did research on relevant topics based on various countries mainly focusing on the issue of HUMAN TRAFFICKING as it was the official theme of the conference. We also had practice debates and guest speakers briefing us on the process year long. Finally it was the three days of conference. I must say this was a very competitive experience as there were so many other students (over 500) representing other leading schools in Colombo. The delegation of OSC was distributed to different committees and we had to debate in our own committees.

Learning Experiences - Competitiveness is one big lesson I learnt. Also being spontaneous and coming up with instant debates to argue was a challenge. Being confident and articulate to a larger audience was crucial. Last but not the least DIPLOMACY AND MODESTY are the two most important things to be successful and survive in the conference. This was also a very good avenue for me to achieve my CAS objectives and that is to improve my speaking skills and learn debating and diplomacy through MUN.

ACHIEVEMENT of summer goals!!!

Goal NO.1 - To learn how to drive (A-ccelerator B-reak C-lutch)
As I turned 18 this summer I became a legal adult and that gave me the ability to apply for driving liscence so the very first interesting thing i learnt during summer was learn how to drive. With the guidance of a lady instructor (Ms. Soma Wettasinghe), after 15 driving liscence and having faced the written exam here I am with my 'L' boards. So now I am only one step away from getting my liscence that is to successfully complete my practical exam (on the 18th of October) which is also the most crucial and important exam in order for me to get the liscence and then I'll become a legal driver of Sri Lanka.

Lesson learnt - I truly did learn alot of things through driving like patience, control and ethics which also helped me to apply them in normal day to day life.

Goal NO.2 - Riding a bicycle
Yes I have a confession to make that is, "I didn't know how to ride a bicycle all these years." So with the determination of riding a bicycle, first of all I got myself a new mountain bike as I didn't have one. With the excitement and constant struggling of getting the balance my first two days were not very successfull and fun. But I didn't give up, I kept practising constantly every evening and as they say "Practice makes Perfect", I'd be proof for it.

Lesson learnt - Having determination and not give up in life. Also to have balance in life and keeping in mind the famous quote "Practice makes Perfect"

SUMMER GOALS!!!

So this summer I had a couple of goals to be achieved i.e
1)To learn how to drive
2)To ride a bicycle
3)To take piano lessons

Let's get SPORTY!!!!!

Basketball
This was another opportunity for me to actively get involved in a sport and this time it was basketball which I had no idea of. I thought I should participate in the sport not solely with the intention of being in the SAISA team but to learn another sport which would also help me to stay fit at least for a couple of days. So like the previous soccer practices this time too I attended the training sessions but I was able to be more regular this time as I had less school work and much time to commit for the sport those days. Even here I learnt alot of things from passing to shooting but I suppose I was not very skillful in this game may be because I haven't followed the game much and had less passion towards it compared to soccer. And again I was unable to make it to the team but I wasn't heart-broken as I knew I would not stand a chance and there were talented people than me. But I am proud of the fact that having all these in mind I still continued to do the sport as I learnt that sports is not all about winning and a true sportsman would have the will power to take both victory and defeat at equal levels.

Soccer
As I love the game as it is I thought I should give it a try this time for SAISA Girls Soccer. Having no experience of the game at all I started attending training sessions which was kind of hard for me to cope up with the UN Day practices and other school work taking place parallel. But anyhow I managed to attend a few practices and learnt quite a number of things such as tackling the ball, kicking, scoring goals, guarding the goal post, attacking, defending and what not. It was a great learning experience for me because I enjoyed playing the sport as much as I enjoyed watching it. Being a huge fan of football, watching the world cup matches, following the league matches and even watching matches at odd times in the night on TV and being a big time craze of my all time favourite football player Christiano Ronaldo and supporting his club, Manchester United as a great fanatic I never thought I'd even play the game for once in my life. But I did and it was simply but awesome. My aim was to involve in the sport by learning it and gain physical fitness. I tried my best to get selected for the team but I couldn't. However I believe my participation was more important and appreciated as I joined the sport with the intention of involving myself in action with true sportsmanship.

Badminton
I started off with badminton as my first CAS activity for action but sadly I was able to attend only one after school badminton practice. But I'll be glad to mention that as a beginner in badminton I started off pretty well. At first I had a few complications with giving the serve properly and hitting the shuttle with the right grip of the racket. Slowly but surely I caught up with the game and was able to play at a stretch with my opponent even though my opponents had more experience in the game than me. However I believe I failed to commit more time for this task because I had other commitments but I hope to catch up with the game during the second semester.

U.N Day Celebrations

When all the nationalities inside OSC were getting ready to do their performances for the big UN Day celebrations, the Sri Lankans too were jamming up to do a good performance. So as students of the host country we all got together with our teachers and started planning and we came to a conclusion that this time we'll do something unique. We all thought our performance should be something fun loving and outgoing which can entertain the audience. So we decided to step out of the frame of presenting something traditional which enhances our culture as the Sri Lankan students always did so for every occasion. After hours of discussions and arguments we thought we would do a performance which delivers the Sri Lankan spirit and the best way to do this is through our very own form of singing and dancing which is called "BAILA". But then we thought doing a baila performance solely would result in the loss of delivering true Sri Lankan culture and spirit as Baila is a very modern way of dance and singing.
So we preferred to be modest and our initial idea was to start off the performance with a little bit of traditional dancing as that has been the orthodox way and then sing an English song in the title of "We are Sri Lanka" and then move on to a baila song which is called "Rambari" (a current favourite song popular amongst the locals) where all of us would be dancing in groups of boys and girls because the song basically delivered the idea of boys flirting with the girls, teasing and trying to impress them.
So the plot for the dance had been set and now comes the difficult part of practicing, doing the right moves and choreographing. Since the item was to begin with a little bit of Kandyan dancing, me, Sandini and Nadeera were taught some steps by Ms.Jayawanthi which I later had to improvise because we thought we weren't doing much and good. Afterwards the whole group was guided by Ms.Kithmini to sing the song and when it came to the part where we had to dance for the baila song, the real trouble arose and it became truly disastrous as no one could come up with the right steps. So as we all were struggling with the dancing I was told by Ms.Nelson and the teachers to come up with some steps.
Now I have been given the responsibility of creating steps for the girls in the baila song along with the help of Ms.Thanuja. So amidst those moments of struggle and frustration I got along with Ms.Thanuja and came up with some really good and funny steps which delivers the meaning of the lyrics. It was really important to give prominence and listen to the lyrics of the baila song carefully in order to deliver the proper meaning of our song to the audience by doing the correct gestures and moves at the right time as the audience would not understand the meaning of our Sinhalese song. It was a crucial task but we succeeded. So I guided our girls to do the dancing with some good moves to thrash the guys and I must say they all were quick and good learners as I just had to show them the steps a few times and they grasped it.
So this way I was able to help my local community making use of my talent when in need by creating steps for the baila song an improvising the kandyan dance. I am really glad for my contribution to the item which helped me to be more creative in order to achieve my CAS objectives.