Overlay Effect Practice

Posted on March 14, 2021 by cascoordinator under Video Edits

Continued Experimentation on VideoPad and Filmora 9 Pro

Hey, here’s an update on what I’ve been up to in my process of learning how to edit using Filmora 9 Pro and VideoPad for my video edit account.

General Update

The last few months have been a bit hectic in the editing scene, especially in terms of how much free time and inspiration I had which honestly wasn’t too much. On top of that Instagram introduced a new algorithm which limit’s an editor’s reach, for example, likes no longer matter and for more people to see your posts, more people have to save and share them. This can obviously be a bit disheartening considering that we put hours of our time into making videos that get under 500 views, which explains why my archives have more content than my actual feed, since how much your edit succeeds is pretty random. On the brighter side however, there have also been certain positive outcomes! For example, I just hit 1,266 followers and I had a video of mine pass 4k views! And as the icing on the cake… I got recognized by 3 players, two of who I look up to immensely and my favorite club, Manchester United WFC!!!

The players were Manchester United and the Spanish National team’s Ona Batlle, the USWNT and Arsenal veteran Heather O’Reilly and Sky Blue FC’s Paige Monaghan. In all honesty, I didn’t know much about Monaghan since I didn’t keep up with the NWSL anymore, but I do hugely look up to Ona and Heather. While Ona is one of the most skilled defenders in the league with amazing achievements in both in the FA and international games, Heather O’Reilly is one of my all time favorite veteran USWNT players who also played with Arsenal till her retirement in 2016. Which… come to think of it means she also shared the pitch with some of women’s soccer’s most iconic names like Abby Wambach and Shannon Boxx. Either way, she has somewhat of a legendary status in women’s football so I certainly found myself a bit stars truck that she knew my name.

Editing Practice

And now for the actual editing…

While I usually prefer to use only one software since it conserves a lot of time, I also know that using both to create an edit creates a much more sophisticated looking end product. I may have a decent following on my edit as of right now, but I am physically a long way away from the kind of editor I aspire to be. This takes days and days of practice especially when it comes to learning new transitions, overlays, effects and colorings etc. in order to produce smooth and creative posts. While in my previous blogs I looked at coloring and the velocity features, these past few months I have been trying to improve my use of the overlay effects.

Usually, any editing software has certain premade features which can be added on top of your regular timeline to create additional effect such as glow or grain, or even in Filmora’s case, certain color gradients.

So what would happen is that I would crop and add transitions to my regular video, but then drag in a gradient overlay say, for example the red one. I would then go to the tab called composting, choose a blending mode, such as lighten and then adjust the opacity in a way that you could still see the video beneath it, only now it would be tinted red. This way I could add multiple tints to my videos so that the coloring could change on beat, which gives a cool effect.

As a an experimentation edit (which I later ended up posting), I made video of the 2019 world cup. I had previously made the sequence on VideoPad and added the old film and glow effect to give it a signature black and white film look and used velocity to slow down and speed down certain parts that focus on skill moves. After exporting my clips, I then opened Filmora, changed the aspect ratio and began adding my overlays. At first I added the chromatic abrasion feature which separates the color spectrum and does so on beat, that can only be used in small amounts. As for the color gradients, I then proceeded to add blue red and white blank overlays, I chose darken as the blending mode and reduced the opacity.

Here are some screenshot of the final outcomes – (white didn’t make that much of a difference since that was the edit’s original color anyways):

Final edit snapshots:

Link to edit (you might want to watch this in HD and in the picture in picture setting) :

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zSuP10RYkFFegy0_sNqcGWkaH4cNI4nH/view?usp=sharing

Easing Into Normalcy – Sports Edition

Posted on March 14, 2021 by cascoordinator under Badminton, Biking, Surfing

SURFING IN WELIGAMA + BADMINTON TRAINING + BIKING

During the past 2 lockdowns, I have had limited access to resources that enable me to do two things I love to do; to travel and to be active. Unfortunately as a result of the pandemic many people including myself were limited to the confines of our houses with travel restrictions, lack of access to sporting facilities and training opportunities etc. As someone who likes to be kept on their feet all the time, the withdrawal of playing my favorite sports or even not being able to travel hasn’t exactly been my definition of smooth sailing; but thankfully, the provision of vaccinations has made it possible for me to slowly ease my way back into most of my favorite activities.

BADMINTON TRAINING

As I mentioned in my earlier blog post, football restarted and as did badminton only this week. This was exciting primarily because it’s been a while since I was allowed to go back into the courts since we trained in closed spaces with fairly large numbers.

A few things have changed however, in regards to how our sessions operate, though I can’t complain because it’s all being done in an effort to prioritize our health. For example, as opposed to group classes with a large number of students, my brother and I were given the option of private lessons, that is till it becomes safe for more people to be in close proximity again. Although the downside is that I won’t be able to compete at the moment with players who are at my level, I get more one to one time with my coach to perfect things like technique and focus more on fitness, similar to what I have been doing recently in football practice.

Primarily our lesson this week consisted of agility training, quite a bit of cardio, and a 6 shuttle drill where you place them on 6 parts of the court and sprint to collect them before your opponent. As for personal areas for development I was told that I could work on my serving which I’m sure I can get down in no time, it usually takes some time to know where to make contact, positioning and stance etc. I practiced clearing shots from my coach as well and he was quite happy with my work although I missed two shots because of bad reaction time.

Overall, I’m really excited to get back into shape and hopefully I’ll be able to play some actual matches soon in order to be fully prepared by the time next SAISA season rolls by!

Video From Training: Clearing Drill

https://drive.google.com/file/d/14u35-5NoFWyWl_pktGverfqPlOSqOYI3/view?usp=sharing

SURFING IN WELIGAMA

Another thing I was able to accomplish this month was learning how to surf :))

I had been wanting to go surfing for the longest time since I was young, and even more so now that it was one of the only water sports that I hadn’t really tried out except for kitesurfing and water skiing. So being given the ability to travel after not being able to go to the beach for a very long time was the perfect opportunity for me to go catch a much needed serotonin boost at beach on the long weekend.

My experience with surfing began as we headed down to the Marriott at Weligama Bay for a little vacation after our trip to Hiriketiya for my beach cleanup.

After taking some much needed rest, we decided to wake up at the break of dawn to have some breakfast and then head down to a sparsely crowded beach at around 6 am. There, both my brother and I got introduced to our guides and we had land training where they taught us how to position ourselves on a board, how to catch a wave how to stand up and where to jump off before we reached the shore. My little brother, Dimitri, admittedly picked it up faster than I did because he had gone surfing before.

When we had gotten the technique down and tried it out in the shallow water, our guides took us over to the point where the waves form, for the first couple tries they would hold onto the board and give us a cue to push off and stand up.

Much to the amusement of my onlooking mother, my form was a little wobbly at the start and I had to do a lot of not so smooth looking jerky arm movements to retain my balance, but I swear that I eventually got the hang of it! It was a fun yet exhausting 4 hours, having to paddle all the way back to the wave point each time, and I even once forgot to jump off before it got too shallow and ended up getting a nasty cut on my knee, but it was time really well spent. I can safely say that I am no pro at surfing but I very much look towards learning how to a become better surfer thankfully I got good enough to move to a more challenging part of the beach which made my experience that much more exciting. Hopefully though, the next time around I’ll be able to catch some of the bigger waves and stay on with minimal struggle, because after seeing the older surfers on the beach I was a tad star struck, especially by this girl my parents pointed out to me who was maybe my age or a little older taking on some GIANT waves with ease and doing all these really cool flips on her board; which I have a gut feeling that it took way more than two tries to learn to do something of that caliber because it was so well executed.

Intro Session to Surfing ^

First try:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BMZnQOlkYBqDnVkX0RaaCTNTi8ykso36/view?usp=sharing

BIKING:

Another sport that caught my interest a while ago was biking, you might remember a post I made a few months ago on my time biking at Ullagala, well, thankfully, I’ve been able to do it much more frequently thanks to getting my own bike fixed. After getting back and getting it serviced, I’ve been using it quite frequently, in fact, it’s a pretty neat commute to all the nearest stores and this gorgeous lake / paddy field areas right next to my house! The roads close to home are fairly safe to travel on and are arguably well paved so I get the opportunity to take nice bike rides in the evening or even very early in the morning which is a nice change from the exercise bike that I had been using all lockdown long.

When we were on holiday, it was pretty amazing since even that resort had a bike service and all we had to do is ride it and return it before we left. Now, the views weren’t quite as nice as at Ulagalla but the track was seemingly a bit longer and had more routes to take which was great. It was extra fun this time around because all my friends who came on the trip had a lot of fun with it, playfully racing each other to the end or even trying to do cool tricks like riding with no hands on the handles. (We came away without so much as a scratch much to everyone’s relief!)

It’s been great so far being able to cycle around at different times of the day because it has an incredibly laid back nature to it especially when I’ve gotten a pair of headphones on and am just trying to take in the scenery by myself and of course, this goes without saying that it’s improving my general fitness and my lower body strength in particular :))

biking! ^

Tennis!

Posted on March 14, 2021 by cascoordinator under Tennis

Tennis Practice

If I’m being honest, I don’t remember the last time I picked up a tennis racket, in fact if I remember correctly, it would have most likely been sometime between the 4th and 6th grade. Now, nearly 5 years, 2 COVID lockdowns, and one Australian Open viewing later, something has prompted me to give the game another go.

What inspired me to randomly go grab my racket from the garage you ask? Well, that would be the Australian Open Finals which I randomly tuned into on TV on the 21st of Feb. Now, although I had grown up playing tennis, even competitively since the 2nd grade, I never really kept up with the professional aspect of the sport. However, what I did know was that Serena Williams being beaten by a rookie was without a doubt a big deal; Naomi Osaka was being called the future of the sport and taking the world by a storm.

So, I decided to put my work aside and sit down for a good 2 hours on a Sunday to watch the finals between Jen Brady and Osaka and then, the game which crowned Ivan Dodig and Filip Polasek the Men’s Doubles Champions.

It was only then that I had realized how much I had forgotten about the game and how satisfying it was to win a game. Although, I thrived in the sport when I was a kid, at some point I grew out of touch with it; primarily because I dedicated more time to badminton which is similar in many ways but still very different, and even though I missed it dearly, I never saw a window of opportunity for me to get back to playing it.

In fact I think that part of me stopping my tennis training had to do with the fact that one of my coaches said that playing both sports at the same time was not beneficial to one another; i.e. because of vast differences between grip and stance etc.

On another note though, watching Osaka bring home the trophy was sensational. It reminded me of how fast paced the game was and how heavily it relied on technicality and athleticism, i.e. precision, angling and power, whereas in badminton for example, the game relies more on the pace and ability to play the shuttle out of the opponent’s reach.

I was in awe watching the finals as a calm and collected Naomi Osaka kept her composure and then proceeded to skillfully and effortlessly win the game with copious amounts of technique and athleticism. It’s almost as if she knew all along that she would win and she saw Brady’s blind spots from the very start.

As for the men’s doubles, I was awestruck when I realized I had forgotten how intense a game could get and how quickly points could be won or lost and how it relied much less on rallies but placement. Once again, I was shocked by how each of them maintained such calmness while playing under such massive amounts of pressure when the winning duo recovered from a pretty bad lead.

Either way, I was delighted by both wins, I was rooting for Naomi from the start, especially since she had done so much to use her platform to promote the Black Lives Matter movement and her persona really shined in the way that she was humbled by the whole experience. Moreover, I found myself in awe of how much she has accomplished being an Asian, considering how much our culture tends to often times restrict the bounds of what girls like myself and many others from our side of the world can dream about achieving.

I had a renewed sense of energy and immediately made a pitstop to the store next to our house to get a tennis ball. Now, things weren’t ideal, I didn’t have a coach or a proper court close by , but if there was anything that lockdown had taught me, it was that you just had to make do with what was available to you. And so with a new sense of determination I vowed to myself to take 30 minutes out of each Sunday without fail to make 40 volleys each on forehand and backhand off a wall, 10 good serves and if my little brother was up to it, hopefully a little match which could never get too intense for the fear of breaking a window…

As to whether I want to play competitively again, I’m not so sure, but it’s most definitely a huge stress reliever for me and not to mention a really fun way to spend time, in fact I a part of me is even hoping that I would be able to head to a court with some of my friends sometime, since a few of my friends used to train with when we were kids all the way back in primary school!

Football Training :)

Posted on March 13, 2021 by cascoordinator under Football

Back on the Pitch

I went back to training for the first time in over a year today!!!

I can’t emphasize enough how much I’ve missed playing football with actual teammates, and how upset I was when I noticed that around 2 weeks ago we could’ve been on our way to SAISA for our tournament. Needless to say, though I am a little sad about not getting to train with my school team, it was refreshing to be back with a football at my feet.

Since it was the first training back for a lot of us at the academy, we spent majority of the session focusing on drills, simple dribbling, passing, skills and accuracy. It was clear that most of us had lost our top form so it was really a matter of getting us back to our regular fitness levels so that we could play full 90 minute games. The second part of our session was spent on cardio and stamina, i.e. running the beep test… What a nice well come back right? 😂 Even though I despised exhausting myself that early in the afternoon, it was clear I needed it, as a player it’s not just good enough to be able to kick a ball, you need the mental and physical capacity to grit through some rough plays and seemingly endless minutes on the pitch, and it was clear that a lack of playing time for near a year was taking a toll on most of our endurance.

And finally… the most long awaited part of the session, a scrimmage! YES, you heard that right, an actual 6 vs 6 game, with REAL players!! We played our hearts out channeling all the irritation of not being able to play into that one game and before we knew it my team had 6 points in the bag! The other team had 2 but that was a pretty good margin considering we played one man less in the goal. I managed to get 2 of our shots in on the top right hand corner while giving 2 other assists to two of the other players, Jehan and Nic.

All in all, by the end of the game I was beyond ready to get a full nights sleep and every muscle in my body was screaming for a rest but it was well worth it and I very much look foreword to going back again and being fully fit, hopefully by the time that next SAISA rolls around :))

Dribbling, first warmup back:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1igBeqkcIztaPs8QyfNdnC-XlmIXMzqyv/view?usp=sharing

IVY GIRLS – Pt. 2

Posted on March 13, 2021 by cascoordinator under Diving, Ivy Girls Lead, Reef Revival, Video Edits

IVY GIRLS – ACTION PROJECT

In my last blog post, I introduced everyone to the IVY GIRLS Lead project which I became a member of in late December 2020. However, although in my earlier post, my focus was on the guest speaker element of the project, another major part of the program that I want to talk about is the service task which we were asked to complete after our first 2 weeks as a trial to see how well we were able to apply what we were taught to real life.

We were each asked to pick out a topic on which we wanted to work on and then assigned groups with random members based off of our interests. We were then asked to brainstorm a project outline, create an effective plan and then present it to a panel of judges on our final day of week 2. Once approved we were expected to complete our tasks over the span of 3 months (or more) to hopefully end up accomplishing the intended end goal.

I had a difficult time choosing between two topics, gender inequality and ocean pollution. The deciding factor in the end ended up being the fact that I had to choose something that was doable during the COVID situation, and while I was passionate about sport I had doubts that others would think the same way. This is why I decided to continue my efforts which I started out in the 10th Grade with my MYP 5 Personal Project, only this time, with added elements and it being more of a group effort. This would also ultimately help me in fulfilling my CAS goals.

Our progress check in was actually due yesterday, here is an excerpt from what I submitted on behalf of my group members…

Towards the start of the of Ivy Girls Lead action project, the Reef Revival group consisting of Thimanya and Ayesha and I took on a very venturesome initiative to raise awareness on to raise awareness regarding the issue of ocean pollution amongst social media users; while, taking a personal course of order to do our part in combating the issue in question within Sri Lanka’s oceans.

Over the course of the past few months we have done our level best to stay true to our goal despite many major challenges we were met with.

Here are few of the biggest obstacles we have faced:

Although I reached out to 5 dive centers in order to initiate underwater cleanups and only one responded, we were able to carry out two dives but they shut down too due to the lack of business and risk of COVID (i.e.. having to re-use equipment).
We could not have as much physical engagement as we liked considering the pandemic situation so we were forced to do this within our families and close friend circles in a much less official way.
Thimanya could not get a lot of beach cleanup participants considering the COVID-19 situation as well.
School work and distance interfered more with our project than we anticipated, while Thimanya and I kept continuous correspondence via WhatsApp and G-Mail our third group member who was supposed to take on the role of the researcher did not interact with us at all despite how many times we emailed her or used slack, which meant that Thimanya and I had to carry out her share of the tasks ourselves.

Overall, the obstacles that we were faced with, to a degree reduced our productivity and narrowed down the limits of how much we could achieve with our goal during this period of time, however, I am very proud of how we decided to stay true to our initial plan and took up our goals to the best of our ability.

Here are a few of our greatest accomplishments:

We officially launched our social media campaign, Reef Revival which gained the desired amount of traction and so much more than we anticipated we hit 50 followers in 3 days!
Our first post, which was a trailer / awareness edit that I made as an introduction to our initiative, reached many activists around the world who congratulated us on our efforts, our friends and family were also very supportive and reposted and shared our content etc. We were pleasantly overwhelmed by the support.
Thimanya who was in charge of the beach cleanups carried two out successfully at Pinawatta within her family and with the help of the municipal council in her district.
I was able to carry out two successful dive cleanups at Swami Rock, collecting over 30kg’s worth of debris, most of our haul consisting of plastic bags and bottles with additional surprising collections of a massive cement block, fish cage wiring, a few corroded poles, lots of rope and ceramics.
We came into contact with a major ocean pollution advocate and social media influencer named Arlian Ecker on Instagram. He’s only 16 and is already an ambassador for Project AWARE with over 2k followers! The Ocean Purpose Project panelist has been a great mentor and has actively encouraged us to follow through with our project. We even discussed the prospects of doing a Q and A or collaborative project with him in the near future! (which we are very excited for! )
Our project was kickstarted with the help of many other popular awareness blogs such as SEAFOAM , Bali Dive Time and Aqua5 who loved our content and helped spread the word about our initiative.
Our first post had a 36 person share rate which is pretty major for an Instagram post!
I was also able to carry out my own beach cleanup with the help of my family and friends at a beach in Hiriketiya which was very polluted to the begin with; the content we recovered ranged from bottles of poison to fishing lines and an overwhelmingly large collection of washed up shoes.
We were able to engage with our followers via the IG story feature, regularly quizzing and educating them on our action; we decided that stories would be more efficient than releasing posts because they get a bigger reach due to notifications that followers get, but we also release a few posts designed by Thimanya.
I was also able to log my Data successfully onto Project AWARE’s diver profile which is available to the general diving community and scientists who analyze the data that divers collect.

What the future holds for Reef Revival:

Hopefully we are able to continue our efforts in the following months especially with the COVID situation easing around the island, we are hoping that for the sake of the project and the local community that Dive Centers are allowed to go back into business so that we can have greater engagement with the community, have more cleanups and make it a more engaging experience. As for the near future, we are currently looking forward to doing the Q and A with Arlian Ecker (plastic free boy) and hopefully get many more activists involved in the project, maybe even at local capacity. We also plan on carrying out the installation of the bins in the beaches close by with the money that Thimanya has raised for that purpose and more generally, expanding our following and engagement.

Creativity – Designing Posts + Stories

Activity – Diving

Service – Raising Awareness + The Removal of Rubbish

Detailed Action Plan:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Cb46XrVRakONA2p7vJkNC-jin__8nwmI/view?usp=sharing

Progress Check- In ( click link for more images & details ):

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nabsBU7EQ7T7pRWvcbQKyxZjEjADtBiXa0jZ6PNACW4/edit?usp=sharing

^ hiriketiya beach pre-cleanup

[OUR LOGO]

IVY GIRLS Lead

Posted on March 13, 2021 by cascoordinator under Ivy Girls Lead

IVY GIRLS LEAD Pt. 1

(takeaways + the foreseeable future )

I realize that I haven’t been as active on here as much as I would have liked to have been, but I assure you that I have been taking every opportunity away from my blog to take on a new and exciting challenge.

In fact, one of the most notable activities that I have taken on since my last update was a project that Ms. Fleming (our school counselor) introduced to us late last year around winter break. Since then, myself along with 24 other girls from across the island and from school have taken part in a 4 month long initiative to empower young women in leadership positions, with the mentorship of over 7 notable international Ivy League graduates. This was an incredible honor since only 25 of us got chosen out of 200 people that enrolled island wide! As a result of this opportunity, I was able to make friends with a diverse group of incredible girls along the way and not only that but I got a once in a lifetime opportunity to come into contact with an immensely inspirational group of female leaders along the way.

The first two weeks of the experience consisted of introductions, team building activities and many guest speakers, who told us the intricacies of what it took to succeed as a female leader in the world.

The topics ranged from self affirmation to breaking gender norms and purpose finding, all of which I found extremely beneficial to add to my arsenal of knowledge.

My personal favorite was the very first session led by author Christy Rutherford, who gave everyone an amusing, but memorable talk on self affirmation and deciding the difference between coming across as arrogant and cocky and being confident and put together.

Starting out with the Girls Lead, I must admit that I wasn’t entirely keen on being put in a zoom meeting with a majority of strangers at first. I may seem somewhat extroverted at times but in reality I’m pretty shy and awkward in social situations, and as for me, having to step up to the role of a leader in a room full of very talented and outspoken girls seemed beyond daunting to me.

As I wrote down in my main goal for the Lead at the very beginning, I really wanted to improve my confidence, because it just so happens to be that I have a lot of thoughts but they unfortunately tend to become difficult to articulate the correct way when I’m under pressure or have to speak in a public context.

Thankfully for me, I got to grow in leaps and bounds in that aspect. There was a visible change in the way I carried myself along the the course program and it became evident to myself and the people I interacted with on a daily basis, that I truly had learned to step outside of my comfort zone and rise to the occasion.

A lot of people would not be granted such once in a lifetime opportunities to get such hugely informative lectures from such qualified, experienced and capable people that had succeeded so much in their fields of work, which is when I knew that it was not something that I could take for granted.

After that realization, I actively participated in each call, making sure to ask questions and share my thoughts every session and even took the initiative of leading my group’s service task. I even diligently took notes to make the most of what was being said, which in hindsight was a very wise decision, I look back it every so often for a boost in morale. It was clear that I had changed so much by the end of the program that even the CEO of the Ivy League, Swati Sahni, laughed on the last day when I told her about my initial goal and she responded by saying ‘We could’ve never guessed! You did really great.’ 😂

Overall, I am extremely proud of how much I managed to grasp from those two weeks of leadership development and am already applying it to real life, in areas like football where I require a certain sense of leadership whether it is to coach or to share my ideas on how we could improve our gameplay.

This program has been so effective and such a learning curve for as that the OSC batch in Ivy Girls Lead decided that we wanted to be able provide the same kind of opportunity our OSC student body as well!

Only this time, it will be us mentoring the girls! We felt this might be hugely useful as having gone through middle school myself, I know how difficult it can get for us to stay motivated or to be confident or feel welcome enough to share our own opinions, especially at this age where everyone is trying to figure their own identities out, I know I for one would have benefitted hugely with some time of guidance and support along the way.

And so it has come time that we introduced the new *drumroll please…* OSC Girls Rise Program!! We are very much looking foreword to launching the project in the near future where we, the former students will become the next group of mentors! (more on this in the upcoming posts)

Here are a few of my own session notes! Feel free to use them for personal reference, I promise they’re very conveniently useful 🙂

http://Session Notes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YG6ztn-Ebn9Bbyf2VrFKywubxkcgXJ99geCVYwl446E/edit?usp=sharing

CAS Activity Session!

Posted on January 11, 2021 by cascoordinator under Workouts

CAS Workout Day

During the first CAS lesson of the week this week, we were encouraged to dedicate the lesson to completing a CAS event surrounding the theme of activity; our options were left open ended giving us the opportunity to take part in exercise as versatile as boxing or biking among many other things; however, thinking back on my CAS activity experience over the course of the DLP, I came to a realization that a heavy majority of my workouts had been cardio based and dynamic and while I had put my muscles to use each time, I hadn’t spent much time individually engaging specific muscle groups. Thus, I decided to carry out a stationary workout focusing on my abdominals, biceps and triceps in an upper arm strength and ab workout which may not sound all that extravagant but is to the point and effective nonetheless.

The first workout consisted of 7 exercises, each of which had 12 reps. I did the workout with the intention of successfully engaging my core muscles for brief periods of time in order to get more defined abdominals; ideally over the course of a few weeks. As the website says, if the circuit is continued for up to 3-4 times a week, with the correct diet and good form, results will show in about 6 weeks. Moreover at this point I intend to keep in shape during quarantine rather than aim for a full six pack or something of the sort at the moment.

The workouts went as follow, feel free to attempt them if you have the time and adjust the intensity and reps. to your liking :))

Workout 1 – Ab Definition Circuit

A series of crunch variations –

Basic Crunches
Reverse Crunches
Bicycle Crunches
Overhead Crunches

Followed by 3 plank variations –

Planks
Side Planks
Extended Planks

The second workout focused on building and strengthening my arms, specifically, my biceps and triceps. This was a longer workout with multiple repetitions and it primarily focused of the intensity of repetitions as opposed to the difficulty of the exercises.

Workout 2 – Arm Toning Workout

Source: Women’s Health Magazine

https://www.womenshealthmag.com/fitness/a20702885/arm-toning-exercises/

Bicep Curls
Upright Row
Triceps Kickback
Rear Delt Fly
Overhead Triceps Extension
The Dumbbell Floorpress
Kettlebell Swing

These each consisted of 12 reps of each exercise and 3 repetitions of the circuit for the completion of 4 full rounds.

Personally my favorite ab exercise was either the Overhead Crunch as it held the least strain on my neck and it engaged all of my upper body while on the contrary, I struggled slightly with the maintenance of good form during the Side and Extended planks as they were in the final stages of my workout meaning that I had already consumed up most of my energy by the time I had to do the final two drills.

Likewise, for the arm workouts I enjoyed the Upright Row and the Bicep Curl because I felt the two were most convenient and effective for me. Two exercises that I struggled towards the end with were the Overhead Triceps Extension and the Dumbbell Floorpress as I did a few more repetitions than what was asked of me and the Dumbbell Floorpress was my final exercise in the routine so I was rather drained by the 3rd round of the circuit.

Towards the end of my session I felt rather spent and my muscles ached but it also felt like a refreshing job well done. Naturally, I will continue to do the workouts as regularly as recommended in order to reap the best results, while perhaps extending my workouts to leg day and maybe even a session or two of yoga to even things out. I look foreword to my next workout and to seeing the final results in a few weeks time! :))

^ My workout equipment + music to keep me motivated!

Staying Active!

Posted on January 10, 2021 by cascoordinator under Football

Football Training + Biking, Trekking and Kayaking in Ulagalla

Ulagalla Trip:

During the December break, my family and I went on vacation to a region in Sri Lanka called Anuradhapura to a resort called Uga Ulagalla. This was not only a much needed break from the screen and the city but it also served as the perfect opportunity for me to take part in something other than my regular home workouts on gym equipment, as the hotel premises were surrounded by acres of land and nature and the only way to get to your villas aside from using a buggy was by biking a few kilometers from the reception. I made sure to make the most use of this as the biking trail was pretty magnificent; the roads were fully paved and every 5 meters or so you would be met with unique a different wild animal. They ranged from peacocks to horses, falcons to snakes and terrapins just to name a few. I’d say that in our 4 days spent there, my most exciting encounter while biking was seeing a large crested hawk eagle take down an even larger junglefowl for breakfast not 2 meters away from us!!!

This wasn’t the least of my physical activity while in Ullagala; two mornings in a row my family friends and I headed down at the break of dawn to a historic reservoir called Kalawewa for kayaking. We stayed paddling around the reservoir for around 5 hours while the guides gave us a run down of it’s history. It was a rather breathtaking sight as the waterfront faced a mountain range called Kinhirikanda and it was shrouded in mist when we got there early in the morning. Getting there had been a workout in itself since it required a long trek along a super muddy trail.

The history of the lake itself seemed pretty surreal to begin with, since the construction of it happened in 460 AD without the help of the machinery we have available in 2021.

Kayaking was a little bit tricky to say the least since the lake essentially overflowed with lotus leaves which the oars got frequently stuck in the roots of and my kayaking partner and I had to constantly duck out of the way of overhead branches and maneuver carefully in order to not startle any of the birds. Needless to say, I was the definition of exhausted at the end of 5 hours, but I felt that it was time well spent. The most exciting part of kayaking? It probably HAD to be the bend in the reservoir which had a small island with a single tree on it that was flooded due to high tide. Unfortunately we had a bit of a difficult time making our rounds as the water was too shallow for our kayaks so there was a lot of heaving and communication involved to work effectively as a pair. Overall though, I had a lot of fun, I got in my dosage of an arm workout and, I learned a lot about my country’s history and about the flora and fauna in the region.

^ Biking!!!

Football!!!!

If there’s one thing I am sure of, it is that if you know me well personally, you would easily understand my excitement at being back on the pitch. I had missed the game dearly during lockdown, only being restricted to watching games on the tv and playing the occasional “scrimmage” with my little brother and dogs as my only opponents (for contextual purposes, lets just say that neither of them know very much about the game). So, after months of planning which required me to find a pitch or garden big enough for us to play in, to then reach out to them and ask if we could use theirs and to find a time convenient for us both, I asked Doga to come train with me.

We each did our bit of research and looked up different drills we could try including a few from previous SAISA trainings that we could use to help us get back in shape. During our 2 hours on the field, we warmed up, ran a few laps, did a few sprints (we ended up trying to kick the ball up the hill and we had to race to get the ball back so the uphill ascent was an additional challenge).

It was a little more difficult during the passing drills than normally would be, since there’s usually a lot more people involved; however, I was glad we were able to make do with what we had and we ended up practicing our touches, chipping, long and short passes. We even took turns being in goal for a bit taking penalty shots which only confirmed that I was never cut out for the position of goalie 😛 In all honesty though, I felt I needed to work a lot more on precision as a lot of my shots, although they were powerful, they kept sailing way above the net!

I should give us some credit though since it had been over 6 months since we were on an actual pitch. Next we practiced some dribbling, we had to creatively come up with objects that could suffice as cones so we used everything we had available from shoes to bottles and rocks. I’d say that we had both maintained our dribbling abilities pretty well as we completed those skills pretty competently. For the last 30 minutes of our session, we decided to do something more relaxed and I taught Doga how to do the rainbow and how to juggle and we ended up trying to volley the football in our rendition of ‘keepy uppies’.

All in all, it was a really fun but productive session and I look foreword to more (maybe with more people if COVID eases up)!!

^ Doga and I at practice :))

Faire des Bonhommes!

Posted on December 28, 2020 by cascoordinator under French

French CAS Project – Creativity – Making Christmas Bonhommes! (good fellows)

As a part of my French lessons, my classmates and I were asked to take on a strand of CAS in the form of creativity to both practice our French and to promote francophone culture during the holidays; specifically in the form of end of year celebrations and traditions.

Among the many options that were available, what caught my eye the most was making a Christmas food from a French speaking country. I had as of late been spending more and more time in the kitchen exercising my cooking and baking abilities; which for the record, I would say is neither here nor there (usually whatever I make is either shockingly delicious or quite frankly, downright inedible – there is really no in between.) Needless to say I understood that it would have been beyond useful to brush up on those skills before heading off to college in two years time. (LO1 & 2)

Thinking hard on what I could make given the resources I had available, one of the first things that came to mind was the amazing baked bread called “gritibenzen” I ate around Christmas time every year when I was kid and lived in Germany. The bread would be shiny and golden brown, in the shape of adorable little bread people decked in Christmas attire, often decorated with a generous handful of raisins or dried fruit. More importantly, I remembered my dad explaining to me when I was younger that the tradition came from Switzerland where the snack was instead dubbed “bonhommes”. Even thinking back on it, I would feel a sense of nostalgia, camping outside the stalls at Christmas Markets waiting for our warm “bonhommes” right before heading back home after doing our Christmas shopping.

It was decided then that I would give this dish my best shot – I had never attempted making bread before so this was a start for me and I just prayed that it would all somehow work out in my favor.

Here is a little explanation on the background and origins of my dish in French:

Pour mon projet CAS français, j’ai décidé de préparer un plat de Noël appelé Bonhommes de Suisse. C’est un pain sucré fait pendant la saison de Noël, préparé en général le jour de la Saint-Nicolas; célébré le 6 décembre. Ce plat provient des Celtes qui faisaient leur pain en forme de dieux et d’évêque. Le pain est généralement décoré avec des noix et des raisins et il y avait de nombreux noms différents dans différentes régions de la Suisse comme “Grittibanz” et “Stutenkerl”. Le pain ressemble généralement à un homme.

Voici est la recette que j’ai utilisée

(The Recipe)

https://www.bettybossi.ch/fr/Rezept/ShowRezept/BB_WEGE071101_0064A-40-fr

Here is my reflection I wrote after making the bonhommes:

Je viens de terminer la cuisson de mes bonhommes il y a environ une heure avant! Ils sont bien sortis, je dois dire. Bien sûr, ce ne sont pas les meilleurs bonhommes, mais ma famille les a goûtés et ils ont adoré. Cela nous a également rappelé à tous notre séjour en Allemagne, ce qui était vraiment agréable. J’ai fait quelques ajustements au plat, par exemple, j’ai fait un petit bonhomme de neige et une bonne fille aussi (même s’ils n’existent pas vraiment). Je n’aime pas trop les amandes, alors j’ai ajouté des raisins à la place qui sont généralement également présents dans la recette traditionnelle. Enfin, j’ai trouvé qu’ils n’étaient pas aussi colorés que je le souhaitais, alors j’ai utilisé le reste du glaçage de mes biscuits au pain d’épice pour ajouter un peu de couleur à mes pains.

Overall I really loved making them, and I was beyond relieved when they turned out good! I may be an amateur bonhomme maker for now, but I suppose I can add this to the list of Silva holiday traditions at home. I’ll be a professional baker before you know it!! (LO 2 & 3)

Ici sont mes bonhommes!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1k2CEZ_NbUHxvxvmLXV4-RKvbNKbVePdJ/view?usp=sharing

Winter Wonderland

Posted on December 27, 2020 by cascoordinator under Guitar Ensemble, Music

Final Guitar Ensemble Performance – Spreading the Christmas Cheer *virtually*

Although this year’s guitar ensemble sessions were far beyond unconventional, we certainly found a way to make things work. Towards the beginning of the semester we practiced for the Pink Panther theme song which we all learned but ultimately never pieced together for unknown reasons. However, in realizing we were indeed called the guitar ‘ensemble’, we agreed it felt necessary to at least execute one well rehearsed piece together.

Now, on a normal school year, we would have all been recruited my Miss. Duncan (the music teacher) to participate in the annual Winter Gala – one of the ensemble’s well anticipated performances, but naturally, corona deterred and we were forced to settle for a more unique performance. Instead; we decided to spread the Christmas spirit virtually! We felt this was fitting, especially since it was much needed this year, with a lot of us being isolated from loved ones and without being able to celebrate extravagantly like a lot of families usually do. (LO2 , 4 & 7)

So with a little coordination from Mr. Marlon, we spent roughly 2 (or in my case 1 and 1/2) Wednesday sessions rehearsing to play the classic “Winter Wonderland” by Bing Crosby. The first lesson was spent familiarizing ourselves with the chords and notation with the group members being assigned their parts, while, I, on the other hand had to miss the crucial second session where they played the chords together for another meeting!!

Regardless; I was eager to not let the rest of my peers down and immediately contacted Mr. Marlon who kindly initiated a make up zoom call lesson for me sometime around 10:30 pm (I may have panicked because I thought the video would be displayed at the end of year assembly the very next day) and we were on our way. I struggled minorly with the time keeping especially because in a usual ensemble setting you could hear the tempo of the other guitars playing and timing it accordingly but I had to do it by counting. (LO5) The last thing I wanted was to be too fast or too slow because I was playing the most recognizable chords to the song. After working our way through multiple unfamiliar chords and after learning how to track the tempo mentally, I finally called it a day at 11:30 pm, after completing multiple retakes of Winter Wonderland (so many that I was unwilling to listen to Bing Crosby for the rest of the Christmas season :)) and finally gave my guitar strings a much needed break. (LO 4)

Despite the rush to finish, I guess Mr. Marlon didn’t intend for us to show our pre-recorded video the next day because I received the video only two days ago (which might I add is a partial relief because we weren’t necessarily looking the most spirited in our pajamas and flimsy excuses for Christmassy outfits). It turns out our video was sent to the entire OSC staff instead on the 25th to celebrate Christmas and the work they have done for us in the last term! It was a rather thoughtful gesture and I hope we brightened up their day even by a little bit! :))

I felt proud of the group overall and especially of Mr. Marlon’s editing skills since it came out extremely well timed taking into consideration each of us had a different set of notation to play and recorded it separately without being in the same room as the other! It was quite a feat and thankfully resembled a piece that we would have performed in person. I feel like as a group this year, we overcame a lot, naturally in the same time frame face to face, we would have completed around 2 more pieces, but rehearsal time became limited this year. In addition to that we had less group members at the meetings so the compositions had to be altered and we practiced in rather strange formations from going solo to two person break out rooms to finally playing together. Overall, despite our many shortcomings resources wise this year, we jumped a lot of hurdles (musical and technical); a Christmas miracle if you will…

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xcT6RpCTjXbRVCF12CEe2_-IgCiGTFv5/view?usp=sharing

^ The link to our video!

Devanga's CAS Journey

Snapshots from my learning in the IB Creativity, Activity & Service (CAS) program

Author Archives: cascoordinator