Through my DP years, CAS has been an important aspect of my IB career. This class has allowed me to explore new areas of interest and broaden my horizons entirely. Additionally, CAS has improved my personality holistically and shaped me up to be the person I am today. Below, I will discuss specifically what areas I have improved:

 

Creativity

From DP1 to DP2, I have worked and improved on various skills which have helped me throughout my life. Some of these skills include cooking, designing logos, meditative coloring, gardening, making music (with online softwares and my keyboard), self-care and etc. Since I’ll be starting university in the fall, I needed to learn how to cook while living alone. To help with this, I decided to learn cooking through YouTube recipe videos and my very own mother. I was able to start easy and learn how to make carrot rice and then eventually chocolate cake, pasta, and stovetop pizza. This was an interesting start to my cooking career… well, maybe not a career but definitely a good start. In addition to this, connecting with my culture and heritage through cooking was important too. I learned to make a myriad of cultural dishes like pav bhaji, pani puri, bhel puri and etc. Growing up moving has been hard but throughout it, I always remember to keep in touch with my heritage and culture. I was also able to catch up with my arts as I learned how to shade better, do meditative coloring with my friend, and also design a logo, digitally. Another art that I am interested in is music and in order to improve that, I created a beat/tune for a song I made called ‘Moonlight’. I used an online music-making software called soundtrap to create this and fortunately, I had a keyboard. Using this keyboard, I was able to learn what tune I liked more clearly while also improving my piano skills. To exhibit my art, I think the DP art exhibition was an amazing opportunity to do it which is shown in the picture below. Lastly, gardening is an activity that I got into after I saw my mother planting a ‘golden pothos’ also known as a ‘money plant’ which holds the superstition that as it grows, the gardener will receive more and more money. Now, that wasn’t my main motivation haha but I mainly started gardening to connect with my family. Back in the summer, I was able to visit my grandparents in Chennai, India. To bond with my grandfather, an activity that we always do together is gardening on his terrace garden. This is a very relaxing activity where I get to spend time with my grandpa which makes me happy. Though the past few years have been difficult due to many reasons including the COVID pandemic, keeping up with creativity at home has been easier than I thought.

 

Activity 

Though creativity was easy to accomplish, doing active exercise and fitness has been more difficult due to the lockdowns. To keep up with my exercise, I’ve done activities at home. Some of these include hiking, yoga, morning jogs, walking, and going to the GYM. As I am not a big sports person, hiking in the wetland parks like the Beddagana wetland park and Diyasuru wetland park was a great beginning to this. Through these hikes, I was not only able to work on fitness but also bond with my family in the process. These walks also helped me relax and appreciate nature on another level especially when I saw the butterflies, lizards, and flowers. Yoga is another beneficial activity to do especially during pandemics as it is a way to meditate and focus on one’s thoughts. I used to take yoga classes in New York City therefore I was able to use my knowledge of different asanas and positions to do this activity. Another activity that I have thoroughly enjoyed doing morning jogs. For a week, I took my time to wake up and get coffee at Java Lounge. I was then able to go for quick jogs by the beach which proved to be a very good choice as it helped me relax from any stress. I also took part in a walking challenge where my goal was to walk over 3k steps for a whole week. I am happy to say that I succeeded in this challenge and was also able to work on my cardio at the same time. Lastly, going to the GYM was the main option. This GYM is a part of my building so it was open only to residents with COVID protocols. I was able to use the punching bag to let out any stress and the treadmill and stationary bike to work on my cardio and core muscles.  Overall, I think I did well for a person who gets tired very very easily.

Service

For the service component of CAS, I participated in a number of activities but I could’ve definitely done more without the quarantine rules being implemented. At school, we are required to join a service in our secondary years so I joined ‘Girls for Girls’ which I have been a part of for approximately 2 to 3 years. This service focuses on helping women who have been abused (emerge lanka) and spreading positivity through feminism. Through this service, we conducted a women’s week this year where we had activities for each day of the week from the 7th to the 11th of march. Planning these events with the service members was so much fun. We held bake sales to raise money for abuse survivors and create a positivity wall where the community could write positive comments like “You’re amazing” or “Keep going rockstar”. Outside of school, I decided to cook carrot rice along with my mother and package them in newspapers. We then donated this to homeless people in front of a local temple and their smiles made us smile. Lastly, I participated in an online event called “Design for Change”. In this event, we were to choose a topic to learn more about. The choices included Racial injustice, Education equality, and Climate change. After contemplating what to do, my decision was to learn more about climate change as this is an issue wanted to learn more about. Through this, I was able to educate myself on climate change and take action by planting a tree at a local park. Service is heart-warming and I look forward to participating in more events to make a change in the world.