Creativity

A lot has changed, obviously, with our new school situation and our learning styles. We no longer have after school activities making it hard to decide what we can put our creativity into.

However, even though there might be a lack of OSC productions and Gala concerts I am still holding out some hope. IF there is a production this year I am aiming to be involved whether it be as an actor or backstage crew. We had a musical production last year which completely took me out of my comfort zone but luckily this year its acting focused. This is still very up in the air whether it is going to happen or not but if it does I will be very excited to be a part of it. Being a part of the production will also help me with future theatre project such as the STP which will definitely help with creating ideas and improve my skills as a performer. Another area in which I would like to participate in my creativity is being the backstage crew for the Gala concert. Even though this might be unlikely to happen it will allow me to focus on my organization and planning skills. As well as being aware of factors such as focusing on what’s happening on stage as well as preparing for the next act.

What is for sure going to contribute to my creativity is TAFA. TAFA is a football academy which was created and named after Thaabit. he has developed an academy which allows kids of all ages to play and work on their football skills. He also works very largely with the manchester United team, he also had many sponsors which are known to us such as W15 and Surf Excel. I had the amazing opportunity to be asked to intern/coach at the academy for the upcoming year. I had previously been a student at the academy looking to travel to Abu Dhabi for a 3-day competition which unfortunately got cancelled due to the pandemic. Since I didn’t get to participate and I am too old to play he asked me to help out with coaching the younger kids. Therefore I have the opportunity to create lesson plans so that the kids can work on their skills. This is definitely out of my comfort zone as I am not very experienced with being a coach and a teacher figure to all of these kids. We also do many activities out of football training such as beach trips to Weligama where we do summer camps. This consists of pool activities, planning treasure hunts, fitness sessions, etc.

My last option for creativity is painting. I have found a passion for creating aboriginal paintings after my personal project. Ever since then I have been experimenting with paintings and creating stories through the art that I make as well as looking at galleries based on aboriginal art and looking following many art pages. I hope to continue this as an outlet to be both closer to the Australian indigenous community as well as focus my creativity into painting.

Activity 

Being an OSC student makes it incredibly easy to be active. With things such as SAISA’s as well as all the activities and facility that our school provides. In past years I have participated in every SAISA but again due to the situation we are in, I am lucky enough to even be in one. Luckily my favourite SAISA (SAISA football) has a chance of happening. I am also constantly practising my football skills at TAFA as we play fun matches between each other after practice. My aim is to be capable of playing other positions such as defender and midfielder, as well as working on my foot coordination. Whenever we are allowed to play football again some of the boys usually organize a Thursday football session after school which will also be another way for me to focus on my skills.

Being part of the TAFA team has may perks such as being allowed to go to TrainYard which is a gym in the Shangri- la mall. We will usually participate in workout classes such as TRX and cycling classes. This will allow me to continue being fit even without SAISA training. Especially with sitting in class all-day its a nice outlet to be active for a couple hours before I sit at a desk again to finish up my work.

Lastly, one of my hobbies that I want to develop is surfing, it’s like a right of passage especially living in Sri Lanka, being Australian, and having a family that lived at the beach and surfed all day. I hope to develop my surfing skills and move onto a smaller board and be able to turn. At the moment I am on the 6-foot board and I am completely capable of surfing down a wave alone, but I need to learn to be in more control. Luckily I have an amazing teacher (also known as my dad) who has offered to dedicate his beach time to teaching me some more surfing skills so I can shred the waves.

Service

I am the service leader for Housing & Habitat (arguably the best service, I’m not biased). Our goal is to aid our local Sri Lankan community by building useful items. We also teach our members to use their hands and build motor skills by doing carpentry work. This would be like working with a hammer, nails, saws, and drills. We hope to still do the annual 5K run if it is possible depending on when we start service again. We also lost our advisor last year so we are at a little bit of a standstill. The plan is to simultaneously continue working on our project uplift over the next year. As well as work on our Jenga project. One of my goals that I didn’t fulfil this year was working on our social media posts. During COVID-19 people have been stuck staring their screens. This will hopefully allow me to be more active on the page and spread awareness about movements that I see fit with our service. Especially during that fact that social media is such a large part of our lives.