“Let’s go rattle the stars.”

― Sarah J. Maas, Queen of Shadows

DP 1 has been one eventful rollercoaster. From SAISAs to Galas to Week Without Walls to Sterilization Camps, so much has happened in one year that reflecting on it all…well, that’s going to take a while.

CREATIVITY

Creativity this year has ranged from a great experience in Hong Kong to taking part in two Galas and every one of these events have been a great load of fun! I took part in the ISTA TAPs workshop in Hong Kong last year where I collaborated with IB Theatre students from Hong Kong and Japan and made some unforgettable memories and made some truly wonderful friends. I watched ground breaking Butoh and Topeng performances and explored world theatre practices through a series of outstanding master classes.

Following this I took part in the UN Day Celebrations where I played my acoustic guitar alongside Aisha who sang in Dhivehi, the Maldivian dialect, and the lyrics talk about today’s generation and the problems with it. And then, I performed in both Spring and Winter Gala with my classical guitar ensemble group in school. Collaboration and planning were two essential components in the ensemble, and as much as we all love playing together, playing in perfect harmony doesn’t happen overnight. At least one person is almost always off-beat, misses a note, plays the wrong note, forgets a chord or even just forgets their part completely. But that is simply how it starts, and it always gets better: practice, practice and perfect practice individually and as an ensemble eventually brings the different parts together as one and builds wonderful pieces that our audience has undoubtedly enjoyed. I will be continuing the ensemble on even in my final year. Furthermore, I was my class representative in the SGA and was part of the organizing committee for OSC’s annual school prom, the OSCars and I developed my photography skills n this year’s week without walls trip to the Central Highlands of Sri Lanka.

ACTIVITY

I’ve been more active this year than I have my whole life. No, I’m serious about that.

From the DP 1 Orientation trip where I did rigorous outdoor activities such as white-water rafting and abseiling, taking great steps out of my comfort zone, to going for all three seasons of sports: volley in season 1, badminton in season 2 and football in season 3, and other events such as Home Run and Week Without Walls. Identifying my own strengths was key to my success in badminton as all our matches pushed me both physically and mentally and as captain, I had to carry the pains and losses of my teammates along with my own ones. I knew my strengths lied in the singles and doubles matches and I made sure to win all of them with an opposing score less than 10 which gave out team a big boost in terms of cancelling out our losses as we lost most our boys’ matches.

In terms of demonstrating that challenges have been undertaken and developing new skills in the process, I have to say that my biggest challenge was overcoming my losses faced in the mixed doubles matches. I can’t verbally explain how hard I pushed myself to win them and the loss felt much, much worse every single time. I only won the mixed doubles against Lincoln and sustained losses henceforth against Chennai, Dhaka, ACS and Bombay. Being first seat for mixed doubles didn’t help this situation. I broke down once due to the stress and pressure I had put on myself but I pushed through this and brought myself back up. I took my anger and frustration out on the court and gave it my all for all the matches. The same applied for football where initially I had to step outside my comfort zone and take on a new position and then had to seriously push myself to my limit in every game until either the game ended or I was substituted.

SERVICE

This year, service has been a major roller coaster that took up a lot of my time and commitment. We started the year with an anti-animal tourism pledge that was initiated by me, followed by a celebration on Animal’s Rights Awareness Day. By December we oriented our activities towards raising funds for our annual sterilization and vaccination camp which we organized for some time in March 2019. Our first fundraiser was a pre-order Christmas cookie bake sale that turned out very successful and then we had a dog food drive to save up money that would have been spent on buying food for the animals. Following, this we planned for our camp alongside the external organization, Adopt a Dog, and we held our sterilization camp in the Army Tri-force in Battaramulla on the 19th of March, 2019. It was greatly successful and we managed to sterilize over 45 community cats and dogs and treat and vaccinate over 50 of them. We had initially planned to do organize a re-vaccination camp at Asiri Uyana towards the end of this school year, however, given the disastrous situation in the country, we were struggling with limited time hence, it was rescheduled for next school year. Overall, this year was very eventful and we had many victories to be proud of!

I consistently demonstrated how to initiate and plan a CAS experience throughout service this semester. For example, in the sterilization camp, the core logistics were handled solely by me. Most of the communication aspect was handled by Disara and we both spent hours and hours planning ahead since the beginning of this school year in order to work our way towards this event. Given how successful it was, I would say we organized it effectively. I showed commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences as seen with all the events that I was a part of with relation to service and I demonstrated the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively with my young crew and I learned a lot about patience, acknowledging the efforts of others and designating appropriate jobs to different people. Finally, as a service we also demonstrated engagement with issues of global significance as seen with the Anti-Animal Tourism pledge and the Animal Rights Awareness day celebration.

LOOKING BACK AT MY CAS GOALS

To reflect on the CAS goals that I placed on myself at the beginning of this year, here is what I have accomplished and what I have not:

Creativity

1. Join the SGA committee
2. Compose at least two new guitar pieces and perform them in school events
3. Continue the classical guitar ensemble
4. Perform at Winter Gala
5. Perform at Spring Gala

I’ve been able to meet all my Creativity goals and gone further than them through the various other activities that I have been involved in such as ISTA TAPs.

Activity

1. Joining OSC’s SAISA Girls Volleyball team
2. Securing the girls doubles gold medal in SAISA Badminton
3. Taking part in SAISA Football

Events such as Week Without Walls are extensions of the pre-planned activity goals which I have been able to meet exceptionally well!

Service

1. Continue being service leader for Care for Paws
2. Sterilization Camp, 2019
3. Animal Rights Awareness Day Celebration
4. Establishing A School Pledge Against Animal Tourism in Sri Lanka

I was unable to organize the Embark Adoption Drive event as well as the second sterilization camp however, the lineup of other events such as the pre-order bake sale make up for it!

 

So. Yeah. DP 1 WAS GREAT!!