The last couple of months have been nothing short of challenging for all of us. Everything about our way of life has been completely changed for who knows how long, I often find myself looking forward to the future, or I’m reminiscing about the older times when everything felt simpler. It’s a constant mindset I find myself in, past and then future. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been hard at work for these last few months with piles of school work. Amongst all the chaos of tuning in and out of school, meeting deadlines, and trying to maintain a social life, I try my hardest to find the time to be creative, exercise for my own well-being. If there’s one thing I’ve gained from the past couple of months it would be a newfound drive to put more time into my own creativity and well-being. Trying to be more present instead of letting my mind veer off into possibilities of the future. Not only do I have a personal drive, but I am also now given more time to exercise these new ideals with the CAS program. Rather daunting for myself, thinking about doing something is a lot easier than actually doing it.

For my CAS (Creativity, Activity, and Service) I have a lot of plans for the next two years. My main goal is to be creative, take more time to exercise, and (If COVID will allow) participate more in services around Sri Lanka for local charities, schools, and medicinal centers. To put that into more perspective, for my Creativity I want to create a portfolio of films, scripts, and artworks. My main motivation behind this is because film is something I am extremely passionate about and if I am not thinking about the past or future I’ll usually be thinking about making a film, the script, the characters, etc. Film consumes my mind every day and I want to spend more time getting those ideas onto paper and start filming them. With CAS I am given the golden opportunity to spend more school hours working on this, with the DP program I was well aware that my schedule would be busy for the next two years. But with CAS I’am finally given time to work on this more creative side of my life without having to worry about my other workloads. For activity, I want to do more routine exercise, meditation, yoga, etc, anything physical. I understand the importance exercise and other physical and mental activities can have. Especially right now, going into the Diploma Program in a World Wide pandemic, I think it’s important that I do these types of activities for my own well-being. I want to make a routine where I do exercise, yoga, meditation on a weekly basis. Now for service, I had a lot planned and I still plan to go through with my goals but with COVID there are now some added complications. I know I want to raise money for local schools and charities, this doesn’t need to be done in school, this could be more of a fundraiser or food delivery service. I know I want to give to the community and that’s my main goal for service, whether I do that in or out of school is yet to be determined, but either way, I know I’ll be able to help somehow.

I have to do CAS, obviously, but personally, I have more motivation than just thinking of it as work from school. I’ve been given an opportunity to work on things outside of school with class hours for myself and my community. I see it as the time given to me to be creative and productive which is something I sometimes struggle with doing. So now I finally have the time to do these types of things and share them with others. All of my activities and goals are things I am deeply interested in and want to participate in. I see CAS as a great opportunity to work on myself and take a step back from the Diploma Program and look at the bigger picture beyond school. I am also very thankful to be in Sri Lanka, there are so many more opportunities and communities I am able to work with and it’s something I don’t want to take for granted. I’ve found a lot of personal motivation in this course and that’s the main reason I feel so engaged and ready to tackle CAS.