Juniors no more

The junior year for the Class of 2021 was one to talk about, starting at the beginning, we were fresh for the MVP system and we were all stressed and didn’t know what to anticipate from the DP program as we heard from students who are in and have passed the program they spoke of it like the devil ran the IB, and to an extent ( Using TOK vocabulary) it was something a devil would do but let’s not get into that.

I remember walking into school on the first day and hearing Mrs. Mcquillin saying the seniors have their extended essay due today and in the back of my mind I said to myself that’s gonna be us in a year, wow, but I also thought pfft it’s in a year I’m good ( how wrong was I). The start of DP1 was actually really nice the starting month was a very enjoyable fun month with the DP1 orientation which was designed for us to just have fun and do just get to know the new kids in our grade and

bond with the students in our grade and I thoroughly enjoyed that first month but as good things start they sadly need to the end, and that fun ended as a test over test started to pile up in each class, but yet it was still manageable and I was still waiting for the surge in work to come but meanwhile I was training for SAISA swimming and running my service Gecko Inc. —>

SAISA swimming and Geck Inc both have a close connection to my heart, firstly swimming has been my main sport ever since I could float as a 3-year-old and the fact that I can now help and teach other kids how to swim was a dream and furthermore, my brother was the founder of this service and for me to carry it on and do as good or even better of a job hopefully. The SAISA swimming tournament that our team was training hard day and night with morning sessions at 5 30 and doing 3-hour swim sessions on Saturday I couldn’t be happier with an outcome of a consistent 3rd place finish as our team fought hard down to the last points where we just snuck away with 3rd by 10 points.

Come December this was probably one of the toughest months of my school year where I saw the unexpected leave of 3 of my teachers in Maths, Economics and English all within the span of a week and this was especially hard for me and my fellow students as they leave of multiple teachers was very stressful for us. It started to hit me that this was gonna be the year where a lot of lasts will happen, one last for me was the Week Without Wall program, I have done 7 WWW and knowing that it was my last was somewhat emotional as my high school journey is coming to an end, the end of WWW also marked the start of EE and this was truly where the Diploma program has started, EE work, IA work started to pile on the fast. While this was going on also I had started training for SAISA Track where Jack, Talia, Alex and I were the captains and as the 3-time reigning champs, there was a lot of pressure to bring it back for the fourth so the team was training harder than ever and I can say that even though the outcome wasn’t what we wanted I’m still so proud of the team and what it has achieved. We broke several records and ranked it the most golds in the tournament and won multiple age groups but sadly we missed out by 2/3rds of a point the closest margin in SAISA history, but this only fueled our team for next year ( hopefully) for when we take back what is ours.

SAISA Track looking back is possibly the last SAISA that I will ever participate in with over 1o SAISAs, and I wonder is this the way I wanted to end my SAISA career in OSC ( hopefully not) due to the current Covid19 outbreak all mass gatherings have been canceled and that includes SAISA’s and schools forcing us to go into the DLP online learning. If you told me at the start of the year that I am going to do my last 3 months of school at home I would be in shock, because the last 3 or so months of online school has flown by.

My CAS experience has been also a journey.

Creativity sections of CAS I have participated in numerous activities to name some I performed a song on Gecko Factor with Louis and Jack, Played the piano, participated in Model United Nations Colombo and took part in the Duke of Edinburgh Silver program.

In Action, I participated in numerous activities, such as swimming, football, track, and field badminton. Where we placed 3rd in swimming and winning the 15-19 age group and for the group of boys Jack, Karven, Takuro, Ritheek, and I have won the age group we have been in for the 5th consecutive time.

In-Service, this was my first ever year being the leader of my own service, and being able to do help people in need.

But with every year there’s always someone who sadly has to leave and this year we saw the departure of 2 of my close friends Marco and Junsu, they left in December and I can truly say that I miss them and I hope only the best for them in the future.