Liam's CAS Journey

Karting has always been a fun past-time but I didn’t expect for me to have a large passion for it. In 2019 I qualified twice for the monthly race that the track has because I was in the top 10. And last year I competed in the national championship. I came 6th out of 12 which was eh but I was satisfied with it. Unfortunately the coronavirus taking over the globe, I wasn’t able to partake in one of my favorite past times. I recently went again as I will be taking part in a championship that is taking place on the 3rd of April, 2021. There are 2 kinds of karts you can use if you’re going to kart just for the fun of it. The red karts and the black ones. The black ones are the faster ones and harder control so in order to qualify to be able to use them, you have to get a sub 47 second time in the red kart. On the day I went to practice, I had one of my friends, Induwara, who is a race car driver and has a lot of experience in Karting. I decided to watch him do his laps first to see how he takes his lines. The idea is to take the most straight line possible through the turns. So basically go wide and cut in as close as you can to the corner. This  After his 10 minutes were up, I had a go while being accompanied by him in his car ahead. I was very happy when I learned that I was only 0.7 seconds behind him. His time was 45.666 and mine was 46.382. The day after that, I went back for more training and I used a black kart this time. My time dropped to 43.648. The black kart is much harder to handle and I spun out twice which did not help my average lap time. I look forward to April 3rd and seeing how well I do.

In continuation with learning how to skateboard, me and my 2 friends, Enya and Naadira decided to go back to the racecourse parking lot and try and improve our skills. Unfortunately my friend Anouk couldn’t make it but that didn’t stop me from stealing her skateboard (don’t worry I returned it later) and using it for myself. We started off fooling around as usual because we’re kids at heart, but after about half an hour of just messing around, I decided to actually focus on trying to improve my balance. I realized that my feet are too big for a penny board. Though it is doable on a penny board, one of my feet are nearly completely hanging off the side which impedes my ability to balance. The skateboard on the other hand is much easier to balance with. After practicing for about 30 minutes I was able to complete a whole loop of the track. I was super happy because I was figuring out not only how to balance but also turn. I realized that keeping both feet parallel to each other, both at an angle made it much easier to balance. I also learnt how to do a flip trick where I flip the board with my feet and land on it perfectly.

IMG_4154 – The trick that I learnt.

 

After a few hours, it started pouring rain so me, Enya, and Naadira went and got cheesecake and discussed about our skateboarding achievements. We all came to the conclusion that while we were absolutely trash, we were a lot more productive than we were last time.

 

LO1 Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth

 

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

Ever since Online School started, I have barely been active. One of my close friends asked if I would be interested in learning how to skateboard with her. I hadn’t met her in months and having been bored at home, I said yes. I had a skateboard around 8-9 years ago but I never really got fully into it. Unfortunately, I no longer had possession of this skateboard so I had to borrow one of myy other friends’ penny board. The friend who I was going to learn with, Anouk, was also not very skilled at skateboarding so I was curious to see if any of us would get injured. We brought in a 3rd friend, Enya, who also had interest in skateboarding. We all met up at independence square and immediately came to the conclusion that all 3 of us were absolutely trash and had ZERO skill. We then walked over to the Racecourse parking lot as I knew that would have a smoother surface and we found things much easier. We spent a good 45 minutes just fooling around and testing our limits. There were a few falls and close calls with passing cars but thankfully, no one was injured, hurt or killed. After we had got too tired we went to KFC and got drinks to cool down and had deep conversations about the meaning of life. I quite enjoyed, not only skateboarding, but also fooling around, meeting my friend after months and just getting out and doing something I wouldn’t usually do. We planning to go again and hopefully that time we end up being more productive in actually learning how to skateboard rather than be immature like little kids.

I’m not the only person in my household who needs to be more active. My overweight beagle, Jackson, is also a couch potato. So last Friday, I decided that enough was enough and it was time for not only me, but also Jackson to get out and go for a walk together. Bonding with him is something I feel I should do more of so this excursion to the great outdoors, better known as the Thalangama lake, was perfect. I met up with a friend who has a white Puppy and we took both dogs on a relaxing stroll around the beautiful lake. It was oddly refreshing. I don’t usually do something like this so it really cleared my mind. I think moving forward, I might make this a weekly occurrence with Jackson and hopefully other dogs in the neighborhood. IMG_3362

Life often throws many unexpected things at you that you might not always be fully prepared to face. Turns out, my dad’s car had a flat tire and whilst i’m overly obsessed with cars, sad as it may seem I have never changed a tire before so… I decided to take up the challenge and see what I can considering that during my CAS block I had to get something productive/ active done. OK to be fair I did kind of expect this since I was out the day before and was aware that the tire was losing pressure at a substantial rate but I thought it would still be a good experience to get my hands dirty and see what it takes. Turns out, not a lot. A long reach and a jack was pretty much all I needed. Still, I had a big fear of the car collapsing since I hadn’t done this before but thankfully, it stayed in place. Luckily the tire wasn’t so severely damaged and only had a puncture so it was an easy fix.

Life often throws many eye opening experiences at you. Both expected and unexpected. This experience I had was both of those things. Back in April, my friend Keshan from my old School, BSC, contacted me with the idea to collect donations and give them to those who have been affect by the pandemic outside of Colombo. But the idea went quiet with not much being heard from it since life pretty much went back to normal with the lack of community spread of Covid-19. However, when this second wave hit, I remembered the idea and I contacted Keshan saying “Hey, now’s a good time to do this. Let’s make a move” and so began the project.

 

We created posters and advertised on social media, asking people to donate any old books, toys, clothes, and anything that would be of use. One Saturday afternoon, me and my friend Ayush, also from BSC spent a good 6 hours driving all over the city collecting donations from people. It was heartwarming to see how much stuff people were willing to donate. Books, toys, clothes and other items that would be of great use to the people who have been effected negatively by the situation ravaging the country. The back of my truck was filled to the brim with absolutely no space for anymore donations. But we weren’t complaining. In fact, we couldn’t be happier with what we had collected in the 6 hours we spent roaming the city. 1 week later, we spent another 6 hours organizing what goes to which family (there were roughly 50 that we would be helping) and we organized who would be transporting what. This proved challenging because we ended up needing more vehicles due to the number of people coming on the trip, as well as what we would talking on the trip. The toys, food, and books, etc. Thankfully, right at the very last minute, my dad let us use his car as it had enough space for what we needed. On the night of the 20th, I went over to Keshan’s house to drop off my dad’s car and load up my truck with what we needed. I would be transporting primarily the clothes that were donated. My dad’s car would be transporting the rice and other foods. Aysuh’s car would be transporting toys, and Keshan’s car would be transporting the books. We also had our friend, Devin, bringing his truck to for additional space.

 

And so on December 21st, 2020, our convoy, 5 cars strong, set off at 5 AM to Kurunegala. The drive was relatively easy and we made good progress. I was at the back of the convoy following Devin’s truck. Keshan’s car was at the front of the pack. Reason being is because his car has a flag pole and this would lessen our chances of being stopped for the Rapid-Antigen tests. Thankfully however, there were no check points even though I highly feared seeing one. After around 3 hours, we arrived and got straight to work.  Now I mentioned earlier that this experience was eye opening in an expected and unexpected way. Expected in the way that these people were in dire need. The pandemic wasn’t easy on any of them so it was great to see them being helped. The unexpected aspect of it was the reality check that it gave us. Yes, we were doing a good deed, but at the end of the day we got back into our fancy cars and went back to living the good life. These people had barely anything and they were so overwhelmed and appreciative of what we had done for them. It really puts things into perspective of how lucky we really are. Most of our problems are first world problems. Nothing compared to what these people faced on a day to day basis.Now this whole project didn’t come without its challenges. First finding out what goes to which family took an age. Second, figuring out who would transport what, who’s cars would be needed, whether we had enough space for the donations and the people coming on the trip, so on, and third, the safety measures we had to take throughout. We all made sure to be wearing not only our face masks, but also our face shields, maintain social distance, and sanitize our hands as often as we possibly could. It took us around half an hour to unload all of the donations we had brought. It was so great to see so many people helping each other out by distributing the boxes among one another. No one fought over anything. Everyone waited their turn and were profusely grateful for what they had received. It was truly a very moving experience for me and i’m sure for everyone else who went on this trip. I definitely look forward to hopefully doing this again sometime this year.

 

At the end of the day, we all drove down to Kandy to our friend Ashan’s hotel for lunch (and by chance, ran into Anya from my grade who was also staying at the hotel with her family), where we all reflected on the day and what we had accomplished. In true Christmas spirit, we were happy that we had contributed and made an impact to these people, even if we couldn’t greet them and meet them all personally. After a couple of hours of rest, we made the long drive back home. It took us about 4 hours but we all made it back safely. We stopped at Mcdonald’s Kiribathgoda to say one final goodbye to the group and we all went our separate ways.  I highly encourage anyone to do something like this because of the reality check it gives you and the feeling of satisfaction from giving back to the community.

 

Normally I would be highly against the idea of getting up early because I value my sleep. So for me to even think about getting up early to go for a walk really surprised me. I walked for about 40 minutes around my neighborhood totaling around 2,900 steps. I felt oddly refreshed and open minded when I returned home… Even tho I went straight back to bed since I had about an hour to spare before Homeroom. I think it was the difference in, I guess the train I usually take if you will. It’s usually wake up 7:30, eat, get ready for homeroom, do classwork. So to do something different made me feel oddly energetic and motivated. Although, I DO NOT want to wake up at the god awful hour of 5:30 ever again unless I have to. From now I might walk around my neighborhood during the evenings.