Final Reflection: SOS Orphanage

At the beginning of the year, I set out to achieve four goals for service. These are:

• Prove that I can follow the examples of the leaders in SOS Orphanage and achieve tasks with my best effort applied to them. Then, reflect on my experiences and of all the self accomplishments in the service sessions.
• Formulate my own service activity either in school or outside, or take up a leadership role in an already existing service activity.
• When the second goal has been accomplished; reflect on my first days' work as a leader as well as prove that I am capable enough to continue my leadership role.
• Reflect on my overall experience of service work by the end of this year and show how I have grown as a service volunteer as well as how it has affected me.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to accomplish the second and third goals as specified by the goals. However, I was able to take up a leadership role in an after-school activity; Cricket. Since this activity does not involve helping the community in need but rather providing a service students in our school, this activity only falls under the creativity aspect of CAS. But even though I did not take up a service leadership role, I'm still proud that I took up a leadership role. This is something I have never done before and so it was a great experience for me. I learnt to take more responsibility in to my hands as well as learnt to collaborate with my fellow co-leaders. I carried out my leadership role for the entire semester. The kids were always very enthusiastic to play Cricket and their favorite was doing the high catches practices (besides the match at the end). Overall I felt that it was a great learning experience and has definitely helped me out for my future. 

I strongly believe that I have accomplished my first goal. During the service sessions I learnt to communicate better with kids much younger than me as well as developed my English and Math teaching skills. I feel that I really tried my best during during swimming sessions. One of my favorite moments was when I was able to get a kid to swim complete laps, when before he wouldn't even stay away from the pool edge because he was scared of the water. This happened in just 2 lessons. He and I both tried our best to make it happen. 

Service at OSC has been a great experience for me. I took part in two service activities, Recycling and Sustainability and SOS Orphanage. In both activities I met amazing people and we all worked collaboratively to achieve all that we set out to do. Given the fact that this was the first time I have ever taken part in a service activity at a school, I feel that I have accomplished a lot during these two years of service. 

Badminton: on the team!

On the 10th of Monday, our coaches Mr Pradeep and Mr De Silva announced who is in the final Badminton team for SAISA. Of the 25 students, only 8 boys and 6 girls are chosen to be on the team. So it is a difficult task to get on the team and I'm proud to say that I have been chosen to be on the final 8 SAISA team. This is a big accomplishment for me because I have never been to Badminton classes before SAISA this year. Since the beginning of SAISA Badminton, I feel that I had shown great deals of perseverance and commitment to the sport, and it's this that allowed me to be chosen for the team. I've developed new skills and improved my existing ones such as in service, lob (hitting the shuttle to the far back), drop (hitting the shuttle close to the net) and the smash (hitting it hard vertically down). Since we have to play both singles and doubles matches, we are required to work collaboratively with others in order to advance in the game. I feel I have done this well in our practice sessions and will continue to do so.

SOS Orphanage: My Presentation on Pakistan

On our last SOS Orphanage service session, I was meant to give the country presentation for that session. The country I chose to present was Pakistan because I had lived there for 2 years and so I have some experience with the culture. Unfortunately, the kids were not able to come to the session and so the service was cancelled for that day. I will be giving my presentation on our next session.

SOS Presentation - Pakistan from 4kila

Sheet Music for Drums

Up until now, I have always played drum beats by memory and learned them by copying what my drums teacher demonstrated to me. Many drummers prefer to do this as opposed to learning how to read Sheet Music and play according to what it says. My teacher recommended that I learn to read Sheet Music as well because it would help me in the long run. I decided to take this opportunity to undertake a new challenge and started to learn how to read it in the previous lesson. I learnt a lot in that short time span. I feel that I have definitely developed a new skill because I am able to read and play the notes well according to my teacher. Since drummers to not have to exactly play notes, but rather a specific pattern, I think I should be able to learn how to fluently read Sheet Music very soon.