Liam's CAS Journey

2 years of CAS have zoomed by (That was a terrible joke i’m sorry). It seems like it was just yesterday that we were young, naive DP1s sitting in Mr. Lockwood’s classroom where we were just setting up our CAS blogs. Unaware of the crazy journey we were embarking on. Filled with lockdowns, power cuts, and other crazy events. As I near the end of my CAS journey, and also my time at OSC, It’s only fitting to reflect back on the times I’ve had writing about CAS.

Creativity –

With the pandemic sweeping in and out of the country, it was tricky to keep school open for the entirety of our DP journey. This made things difficult for me being a passionate singer and drummer. ASAs were absent up until February of 2022 so performing opportunities were rather limited. I decided that this time would be good for me to work on my drumming, considering I had a kit in my room. I practiced almost everyday for nearly an hour. It helped me clear my mind and relieve the stress associated with IBDP.

I definitely feel like the lockdowns did some good for my drumming. My hand to food coordination improved significantly.

As far as my singing, There was little opportunity for this. Thankfully however, COVID died down after our last lockdown in September 2021. An opportunity presented itself that December in celebration of the school’s coffee shop being opened. My first performance at OSC in nearly 2 years.

Another singing opportunity arose in April in the form of the Spring Gala. Being that I was also a drummer, I was placed in majority of the performances as part of the ensemble. Further helping me improve my drumming skills.
Overall, these opportunities improved my confidence in singing, as well as drumming in front of an audience.

Activity –

With Sri Lanka constantly running in and out of lockdown, it proved difficult to stay active and fit. However, during the times where we were free to roam around freely, I made every effort to get out. My primary source of activity (and my favorite) was taking my overweight dog for a walk. Initially I would take him to the Thalangama lake due to the peaceful nature of the area. However, the opening of the beach park at Port City proved less of a trek and for the remainder of my CAS journey, I always went there.

I also took time to work on my volleyball skills as I was keen to try out for the volleyball team (A plan that couldn’t make happen as I had to prioritize concert band. I had played volleyball during lunchtimes at school, playing with team members like Chloe and Kaalep. It was apparent that my form was not the greatest.

In this short period of time, I felt like I had improved my serving skills and felt satisfied with the physical activity I had taken part in.

Service – I became service leader of my service group; OSC’s Room To Read, at the beginning of DP1. I was extremely grateful for this opportunity to improve my thinking and confidence skills with engaging with other members of the community. We hosted a number of events including literary afternoons, book drives, and our most recent event, a weekly session of books n cookies.

Throughout the years of being service leader, I feel more involved and willing to express my opinions and ideas when partaking in group discussions. I also owe it to my co-leader and classmate, Zoe Pringiers, and of course Ms. Lockwood who both helped me improve my confidence and encouraged me to have more input on the group.

My CAS project was also service based. I hosted a car maintenance workshop during our “Life-Skills” lessons for CAS/SAC. I was asked to do this by Ms. Fleming as I am known throughout the grade as the car guru. I was excited to take up the challenge as I was able to input my own knowledge to my peers and provide a service to them that would be useful in the future.

This helped me engage with my class in a way that I hadn’t done before as I am not close to every one of them. It was a unique experience, not only for me but also my peers as I was keen to educate them on something I was so passionate about.

Conclusion –

To conclude, my CAS journey has been eventful, fun, and challenging. My confidence and thinking skills for certain situations ranging from all 3 strands of Creativity, Activity and Service have been greatly improved since I first joined OSC in September of 2019. I am truly grateful to my teachers and my peers for assisting and guiding me throughout this journey that wasn’t always easy going. CAS showed me to think outside of the box and be resilient in times of lockdowns and power cuts. It will definitely be useful to utilize the skills gained from this journey in my future endeavors, either in university or in the workplace.

After School Activities (ASAs) at OSC are finally back up officially! I say officially because my service group; OSC’s Room To Read was already up and running last semester. Albeit it was just Ms. Lockwood, my classmate and co-leader Zoe. However, we can now function as a whole with new members and more importantly, new ideas!

During our first meeting, Zoe and I had prepared some ice breakers in order to get to know our new members. I was excited to finally be interacting with my service group in person for the first time in a long time. Prior to this, the only way I was able to interact with them was through a computer screen where it was much more difficult to get to know people without actually meeting with them face to face.

With this being my final semester at OSC, I feel like this service has helped me greatly over the 3 years i’ve at this school. Now being service leader, I feel more confident when speaking to members of the group as well as interacting with peers outside the group. Our second meeting where Ms. Lockwood was absent due to quarantine, Zoe and I led and I had never felt so confident in addressing the group and instructing them in what we had to do. This semester, we also started advising our next generation of leaders for Room To Read; Thevuni and Eleez from DP1 and enlightening them with the work they will have to input to ensure the group functions efficiently and effectively as a whole

Looking back on the time i’ve had with this service group, I feel satisfied with my inputs and contributions. The guidance both from Ms. Lockwood and Zoe have been extremely helpful in helping me reach this point. All that’s left to do in the final few months of is help our partner schools the best we (Zoe and I) can before we leave for good (A day i’m low key dreading) and hopefully our contributions will be a useful guidance for the next generation of leaders.

LO 1 – Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth

Traveling has always been one of my favorite things to do during my spare time. Exploring the country I live in and seeing how different life is away from the big city.  few weeks ago, my family and I took a road trip down to Yala. I’ve been to Yala 2 times before and loved it so I was excited to head down there again.

We left early on a thursday morning. Total time took us around 4 hours to get down there. Far cry from the early days of traveling to Yala where it would take 6 sometimes even 7 hours to get there. Being an ESS student, I wanted to see if I could apply some of my knowledge that I had gained in that class. We were staying at Wild Coast Tented Lodge. Basically fancy camping or “glamping”. The rooms were well constructed tents, kitted out with, AC and so on. The Interesting aspect of it was how hot water was provided for showers. The AC had to run at a temperature below 21 Degrees Celsius. Any excess water produced by the AC was disposed into a small bowl just outside the room where you could use that water to wash your sandy feet after walking to the room

In the afternoon, we headed into the park. To do this in your own car, you need to have a tracker with you. The tracker I got knew a lot about birds and showed me the many different types of birds that were visible throughout the park. I was eager to see how much of my ESS knowledge I could apply on this trip as the last time I visited Yala, it was during the summer break between MYP 5 and DP 1 So I hadn’t had any ESS knowledge at the time. As we entered the park, out first siting was Spotted Deer (Axis Axis). Unfortunately they were so far away so I couldn’t get a proper picture of them. I remember my ESS teacher, Mr. Lockwood, speaking about them in our lessons in the past. For day 1, majority of our sightings consisted of birds. Peacocks predominantly, along with a fair share of monkeys running along the tracks.

The following day, I got a different tracker to accompany me. On this day we saw a larger variety of animals functioning in their eco system.  We came across a fair number of bulls and they made me somewhat uneasy cause my car is the most red thing in the entire park. When we came across elephants, my tracker taught me something really interesting that I did not know prior to this trip. Apparently, after living together for roughly 10-12 years, the female and male elephants separate into their own packs and begin living on their own. We came across more Spotted Deer (Axis axis) again and this time I got a much better video of them as they were crossing the road. Unfortunately the file is too large for me to upload. The highlight of this day in the park was the leopard we spotted. My tracker told me that it was likely that his name was Atlas and was 1 of 2 leopard brothers known be roam the specific area which we witnessed him in.

Looking back on this trip, I enjoyed applying my knowledge gained from being an ESS student as it allowed me to view Yala from a fairly different perspective and one of which I would never had done if I wasn’t an ESS student. I also enjoyed gaining knowledge about the wildlife in the area from my 2 different trackers and how their ecosystems functions, etc… I hope to go back to Yala again sometime soon and not only apply the knowledge I currently have, but also gained even more knowledge that I could perhaps apply in my ESS class.

LO1 – Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth

LO2 – Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process

It’s officially here. My last year of high school. I remember when I was in like 7th grade, I’d see seniors and think “Wow they are old It’ll take so long for me to get to that point” and well, here we are. It’s not off to the greater of starts if  i’m being honest. We are still in DLP so we couldn’t meet each other in person. I did meet a few of my friends over summer break however which was fun. But this year I really want to make it worthwhile. DLP or F2F. It’s my senior year. It’s supposed to be the more exciting, the most eventful, and of course the most emotional. One thing i’m really not looking forward to is being separated from my friends. I’ve grown to love all of my friends at OSC and to be honest, I don’t want to drift apart from them, considering i’ve only known most of them for just under 2 years. It seems surreal that I’ll be graduating in just 9 months. Hopefully in person.

This year, I hope to be more engaged in school activities. Service, ASAs, Productions, etc. I also hope to improve myself as a person overall. Improving my grades, thinking skills and my participation. Should school reopen sometime soon, I really hope there will be  either Basketball or Volleyball try outs. 1 thing I always regretted was never doing sports at BSC. Corona hit shortly after I joined OSC so there was no proper chance to participate in sports.

Another activity I want to be more involved in is service. As this is my last year, I really want to bring good ideas to the table as service leader along side my classmate Zoe. Being service leader helped me further understand the service group as a whole and who we were helping, especially through the hardships with the coronavirus. Should we open up in person, I want to ensure that we do as much as we can to help the surrounding schools in our area, as well as set an example for the next generation of service leaders after Zoe and I leave OSC for good.

And finally, I want to enjoy my final year in school. DP2 is going to be challenging for sure. But I want to embrace the fact that this is our last year of high school. After this, most of us are going our separate ways and may grow apart. That’s why I want to make the most of in person time (if we have any) with my peers to really make it a school year that I will never forget for the rest of my life.