New Action and Creativity activities!

I joined the after school sports activity, Badminton and Cricket since the beginning of the semester.

I have taken up a leadership role in Cricket. So, because of this I would not be playing Cricket necessarily, but rather coaching. I would have to plan each lesson with my other two co-leaders, Shwetank and Shubanshu. Both of them have been doing Cricket since last semester as well, so this time, instead of resuming their leadership roles entirely, they have appointed me as the leader and they would act as my mentors. The reason is, I have more experience playing Cricket than they have because I have trained in a Cricket club called NCC for 2 years. I know some strategies which we can apply while in the field and my plan is to teach these strategies to the kids during the Cricket sessions.

I also chose Badminton because I hope to join SAISA Badminton which is to start in Season 4 (January). I have played Badminton before as well but not as rigorously as I play Tennis. By joining the Monday Badminton session, I am able to gain some more practice and hope to develop new skills.

Goals for Cricket:

- Design a proper lesson plan with the help of my co-leaders and show that I possess good leadership skills    in Cricket.

- Reflect on a semesters worth of leadership in Cricket and analyse all the new skills I learnt as a leader.

Goals for Badminton:

- Show that I have greatly improved my skills in Badminton and prove that I have the ability to play at a          competitive level.

- Get chosen for the SAISA Badminton team and reflect on my experience in Badminton at a competitive        level.

Me (in white) umpiring a Cricket match

Me (in white) and Shubanshu (in yellow) giving the kids catching practices

Shwetank helping the kids at the Nets

Me and Shubanshu helping a kid who is a beginner to bat the Nets

Drums: New Drums

On the 9th of November, I went and purchased a new Premier drum kit! With this new kit, I am now able to play drums whenever I want and practice far more often than before (I had to wait till we have lessons to actually practice drums). Also, with more independence I am able to search and try to play different beats than the ones I learn in class. This is very significant for me because this helps better me to accomplish my goals in the Creative field.

As of last year and this semester, this is how the beats learnt compare:

Last year:
- 4/4 basic Rock beat and 2 different drum fills.
- 3/4 Waltz beat
- Cha-Cha beat
- Mumba beat
- Hussle beat

(I completed my last years CAS goal, which was to show that I can learn 5 beats)

This year:
- 4/4 basic Rock beat and 4 different drum fills
- 3/4 Waltz beat
- Cha-Cha beat
- Mumba beat
- Hussle beat
- Bosonova beat
- Oriental beat
- Tango beat
- basic Punk beat*
- 'Funky' beat*
- Variation of the basic rock beat. 

(* indicates beats I learnt on my own)

By getting a new drum set, I was able to undertake new challenges and learn drum beats on my own. It also helped me understand and increase the awareness of awareness of strength and areas for growth, such as in the new drum beats and fills I recently learnt. I have developed new skills, as can be seen by the new beats I learnt and I showed great deals of perseverance and commitment during this very significant learning process. This process wasn't just the learning of new beats, but also the fact that I am able to learn new beats and fills on my own using other resources, other than my drums teacher.

Given below is an unedited video of me drumming (beats from last year).

Tennis matches

Today I went to another session of tennis at SSC, this time, we decided to dedicate the whole lesson to play matches. This was done so that we get enough practice in proper tennis match situation and so that we learn the different techniques, such as good movement around the court, areas where you should stop to play a
shot as well as areas where you should aim to hit the ball in terms of your current position of the court.

Since I was one of the senior players in my class, I was partnered with a someone who was not as experiences during the matches. This helped him to improve his and me to plan and initiate a game plan.

By the end of the matches, I had successfully worked collaboratively with my partner to win most of the matches, and this was due to us showing perseverance and commitment to the matches and with a goal of having a maximum amount wins and in the process, improving out tennis skills as well.

Tennis: Outsiders

On the 21st of Saturday, our coach Mr Chandaka called over two kids from another Tennis group to come and play a few matches with me and my partner Hemeka. This meant that I was given the opportunity to undertake a new challenge, since I have never done this kind of thing in class before. Since I was once again going to play doubles with my partner Hemeka, it gave me the opportunity to work collaboratively with others. The two kids, one of age 17 and the other of age 14 have had far more experience playing Tennis compared to both me and Hemeka. They also practice 12 hours a week according to my coach where as I only practice 2 hours a week (I hope to increase this time later this year). Because of this, playing a match with them was a great learning experience for us since it allowed us to challenge our self and push us to the limit. Both Hemeka and I showed perseverance and commitment during the entire match, which allowed us stay focused and play well. We also learned how to move faster around the court whilst playing and play much stronger, more confident strokes.

The final score was 6-4, with a win to them (we only played one set due to the lack of time). Although we lost the game, I was really happy with the final score because as I said before, these kids practiced a lot more tennis a week than us. To be able to win 4 of the games played was to me a great achievement. My partner Hemeka and I both thought that with more practice per week, we may be able to do much better in the tournaments to come, than we did in the previous tournament.

My CAS Goals for Grade 12

CAS So Far...

It has been a year since I started CAS as well as joined the IB programme. Through out grade 11, I have been able to develop my skills at both keeping up with my CAS Goals and making sure to upload my experiences and my reflections on each of them to my CAS blog. I hope to continue to always keep time for my CAS activities and to keep up with my goals since I feel it was a very worthwhile and helpful experience and that it has helped me to grow both as a person and as well as an IB student. This year I hope to take part in more sporting activities and spend more hours on my creativity activity (drums) as well. As I did the previous year, I will continue to attend all Service sessions (SOS Orphanage) this year as well, and also try to take part in another Service activity. At the moment, I am learning to play drums, attending Tennis practices and taking part in the SOS Orphanage service activity.

Creativity:

• Continue to work on all the beats I learnt the previous year and apply these skills to this year to show that I can learn a further 5, more complex beats. With the 5 beats I have learnt the previous year (4/4 beat, 3/4 beat, cha-cha, mamba and hustle), this would mean that a total of 10 beats has to be perfected by the end of this year. 
• Prove that I can compose a range of my own drum beats without the help of my teacher; this goal is a continuation from that of last years, which I plan to accomplish by the end of this year. The goal is to compose 1 or more drum solos (non-stop drumming with different beats played one after another) and present them via video, accompanied with a reflection on how it I got to that point.
• Play at a few school musical events and/or musical events in or outside school and reflect on my experience and what I accomplished from that experience. Then, compare and evaluate how I was in the beginning of grade 11 and and how I will be by the end of grade 12 in terms of my drumming skills and my confidence in the creative aspect.

Action:

• Compare and reflect on my skills at tennis by the end of this year with the skills I had when I started out the diploma programme.
• Take part in more competitions this year which include contenders with high amounts of skill. The previous year I completed my goal of taking part in a competition organized outside class where my doubles partner (Hemeka) and I made it to the quarter-finals. This year, I hope to take part in that same tournament-which is an annual event. I hope to reflect on my experience as well as evaluate my skills in Tennis and in all the competitions.
• Obtain a place in the podium by the end of a tournament and then by the end of the year, reflect on my overall experience that I had in Tennis during the course of two years and show the transition from how I stood last year and how I will stand by the end of this year.

Service:

• 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.

Tennis: SSC open grade 'A' tennis tournament

On Saturday the 18th, My doubles partner Hemaka and I played our qualifier match for the semi-finals. This gave me the chance to work collaboratively with Hemaka. I have successfully been able to address one of my CAS goals which was to take part in three tournaments, so this makes it 1 out of 3 so far.
We were up against some very skilled players as we had expected. Of course, we did not expect to win against them because the amount of time and practice they put in to the sport is much much greater than we put in to it. Yet we showed perseverance and commitment to the match and improving our techniques as we played. We did lose heavily unfortunately-although coming very close at certain points such as having three deuces  in the first three games. Since this was my first ever tournament, I was under a lot of pressure and while playing, I could see myself making very stupid mistakes that I usually do not do when playing matches with students from my tennis lessons and I also saw my partner not performing his very best either. However, the important thing is that we gave it a shot, we hit the ball hard, served to the spot most of the time and at the end of the day of course, the better team won. The two players we were up against even gave us some pointers after the match to do better in the next one, this was very helpful and so I really tried to take as much of their knowledge as I can so I can use them in my next tournament/match.

What I learnt:
So over all, this was merely my chance at experiencing some real world tennis first hand and challenging my self to take on the pressure. As this was my first tournament, I was very nervous during the match and as I said before, I did not perform the best that I could. However, as we played on the pressure slowly began to fade away and I started to feel a lot more comfortable with the environment. This increased my awareness of my strengths and areas for growth, both in my physical skill and mental capability for improvement. I feel that this is a great achievement for me because I am now able to put aside my fears of all the eyes looking down at me and taking on competitors who I have never met before. Though we lost very badly, We kept our heads up high and soon, even began to laugh about the whole thing. I hope to continue showing dedication to the sport and to always show sportsmanship during a competition.

The tennis court at SSC, as seen from the balcony

Reflection on Grade 11

I joined OSC at the beginning of this year through the scholarship program. This was a huge transition for me because in my previous school, education wasn't as free and very open-minded as it is in OSC and in the IB Diploma program. At the start, I barely had any clue as to what CAS or even TOK encompassed and I had a hard time trying to come up with CAS goals, writing up blogs etc. However, after about 2 months or so, I finally began to understand what CAS really asks from its diploma students.

CAS is about pushing the IB student to take part in activities that help both the student to grow as an active human being, as well as doing an activity that provides a service to the community we live in. Service allows to us to take in to consideration the different religions, the different races as well as the different communities that are in our world and to get an understanding as to how they live their day to day lives; these aspects help us to get out of that bubble we live in and to really see how those that are under privileged than us are living their own. Of course, if the service one takes part in is directed towards the environment, they will be able to understand the natural environment that surrounds us and why it is so important that we must do our best to preserve it. Since I was took part in both 'Recycling and Sustainability' as well as 'SOS Orphanage', I had the opportunity to experience both these learning outcomes.

Action allows us to bring out that animal inside of us! In most other high school education programs, the action aspect is almost completely forgotten and they would focus solely on the academic aspect of education instead. I feel that this would only make us very lazy human beings. Sports or any other action activity such as Dance is something anyone can enjoy and something anyone will enjoy if they remember to give their 100% to the activity that they are even mildly interested in; for me this is tennis, which I have shown interest in over 5 years now. I really like to play tennis because it not only allows my body to push itself to undertake a particular challenge but also. my mind as well. I would never give up tennis for anything, ever because it is simply an amazing feeling to win a match or to know that I gave my 100% to at least make it a good match if I lost. Over this year only, I've been able to refine a lot of my strokes, such that to making me feel confident enough to actually take part in a tennis tournament that will be happening over these few weeks.

Finally, Creativity. Being a very math and science oriented person, I would say that I thoroughly lack the creative side of me. I am definitely not a very artistic person which I learnt through my time in art class over the past few years and so I decided to simply stop it. However this year, with the introduction of IB and CAS, I thought I would try to improve the creative side of me which I know is there within me somewhere! but, through a different medium which is music. Music is something I love and I know that I would actually work hard towards learning music as well as possible if I was to actually do it. That is why I started learning how to play Drums; which has been both very difficult to do as well as really fun to do. As I have said in my previous posts, this learning process is quite slow for me. Nevertheless, I am improving my drum skills even if it is at a relatively slow process. So, I hope to improve on this and hopefully be able to grasp beats much more easily and quickly in the coming future.

Overall, CAS is about doing something important or worth while that could really encourage us to work hard on getting these activities done and in my opinion; I would say that CAS is that one thing, that separates an IB student from any other student and would love to continue doing CAS more and more in the coming year.