SAISA U19 Basketball Tournament - Dhaka

March 11th - March 16th

Tuesday morning at 4am the Basketball team met at school. 3 hours later we left on a Mihin Airlines flight to Dhaka, Bangladesh. This was the second time I have ever been to Dhaka and on both occasions I was visiting for a SAISA tournament. The first thing we did was meet the athletics director of AISD, the host school. The AD told us to go to the American Club and relax. After a friendly game of pick up basketball with the team and a gigantic meal at the restaurant we all laid down on pool chairs and passed out for about 3 hours. 

We met our hosts shortly after the American club and this year I was hosted with the same family I was hosted with last time. This was pretty cool since I was already close friends with the host student Ajwad. Unlike last time however, he was on the AISD basketball team and it was pretty cool that we were both competing for the SAISA championship. Amazingly though we spent most of our time talking trash about the other teams.

We then got off to an amazing start in the tournament and went the first day undefeated. the second day we lost to Bombay but beat Lincoln in our crossover game. We made a big deal about the crossover game since the OSC boys have not won a crossover game in a while. We called it the "Curse". The curse was really interesting because in 2011 when the boys came 2nd they got a bye on their crossover since they were the first in their pool. So to win this game felt amazing.

We then lost to Dhaka in the semis and lost the conciliation final to TAISM. It was hard and there were times when our team really fell apart but as we've been told many times, "Maturity"and "peace of mind" are attributes that gecko athletes still have to achieve. Throughout this tournament we as a team grew so much and learned a lot about each others strengths and weaknesses and also a lot about our coaches. I think an area that I personally need to work on is perseverance and commitment to my work. When it comes to basketball I do have a strong commitment but I need to find a way to export this commitment to my other activities and school work.

Overall though this was an amazing SAISA and I cant wait to play in my last two seasons next year.                                                                            

WWW : Dryzone "The Paradox"

"The Paradox"- As Mr. Lockwood called it is a accurate name to how our trip went. We visited the dryzone of Sri Lanka which consists of the upper half (Trincomalee and Anaradapura) and it was completely wet! We spent two nights going to sleep while listening to rain and had to climb Sigiriya's sister rock by the name of Pidurantalagala while trying not to slip.

Despite the rain though the trip was amazing. It consisted of night walks, open-jeeps rides through the city, climbing and some relax time at a 5 star hotel. Throughout this trip there were many learning outcome addressed.

Increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth.

Undertaken new challenges.

Worked collaboratively with others

Considered the ethical implications of their actions

So first off there were many instances on the trip where all we did was talk and get to know each other. In this time we got to know about everyones likes and dislikes, phobias and whatnot. This really showed when we were walking up through a forrest like area and you could clearly see a difference in personalities. One group would be talking and making jokes about everything around them while another group would be climbing up and jumping through rocks trying to make everything a competition. There was even a group that spend 80% of their time playing with stray temple dogs and giving them names.

There was a lot of challenging activities in this trip and its understandable when not everyone can do it. However the amount of people in our group who did things that they would usually never do was amazing. Climbing Pidurantalagala was a daunting task for even me. Taha even rapped on the way back which i'm sure was out of his comfort zone but it was one of the highlights of the trip.

There were a lot of instances where we had to work together with the whole group. For example trying to work through managing our luggage and trying to make sure we all make it to the bus in time. There was really no times when we were separated into smaller groups to work on anything since the total group itself was pretty small.

We had limitless discussions on ethics and it was really interesting since we all had a different religion and different mindsets to other religions. For example some of us would go to a temple just for the site seeing while others would go to take in the ideas of the religion and the culture(Not necessarily take up the religion). This seemed to be an issue but out late night evaluation sessions where we just talked as a group really helped in educating the whole group of the matter. There was also multiple discussions of free will and different dimensions that was inspired by Stephen Hawking book "The Grand Design"

Overall this trip was an amazing experience and I need to thank Mrs. Fert and Mr.Lockwood for planning it and actually making it more fun that any of the other trips in my opinion.

Not going scuba diving like we were promised was a bummer though :P

SAISA Basketball

So the end of our season is soon approaching and in a about a week we are going to be on our way to Dhaka. Training is getting more and more complicated as we are trying to introduce a motion offence. It takes a unbelievable amount of cooperation between our starting five, reserves and coach to reach the level of coordination and flow that we require to do any damage during the tournament. Throughout training we are trying to find out everyones weaknesses and find a way to use each others strengths to balance those weaknesses. I've been told that i travel before i start my dribble and i never changed it, later in one of our games against gateway the referee called me for traveling on 4 occasions and then i knew that i had to do something. So far i've been spending around 2 hours a day on my movement and even when i'm just walking around school i imagine that i have a ball in my hand and dribble before i lift my pivot foot. Coach said that he saw an improvement in my movement but i still have the tendency to travel. Guess it's hard to shake a habit you've had for 2 years. I need to show perseverance and commitment to this and i hope to shake this habit by next year, thats the goal.  One of the key outcomes of this SAISA is developing new skills and i've been trying to do that every time i play. I tend to do this by taking tips on different things from different team mates. Like i mentioned before.... we all have our own strengths :)

Secondary Production: Stage manager

I've taken the job of stage manager for the secondary production since i was low on creativity. My job will basically be sourcing materials and props for the play and also being in charge of having the each scene organised and set.
Just yesterday I was running through a marketplace trying to find rattan baskets and hand scrubs. Pretty interesting, i got to use my mediocre Sinhalese skills.  
I will also be running any errands that Mrs. Jackson needs. Currently the rehearsal times collide with my basketball practices, therefore I will not be attending any rehearsals until the SAISA season is over. Rehearsals will be on tuesday and friday.

Gecko Inc.

We've started going to this local school thats right next to OSC. The first time we went we played cricket and recently we went there and played a game of football. The learning outcomes expressed in these activities would be Planned and initiated activities and Working collaboratively with others. These activities were planned by our CAS Leaders and they initially had to request permission from the school principle for us to come and play with the kids. The discipline level at these schools are really high and the level of respect we need to show when visiting is a level that we are not used to. For example we were all asked to were long pants and play in such heat. this was a daunting task. The kids are really nice and they LOVE to play. You can see the how passionate they are about just having fun. It makes you think about how we are always over thinking things and being stressed about work and what not, where if we just concentrate on "having fun" we might be much happier. 

We are meeting them again today afternoon but this time they are coming here. We have planned a game of volleyball. When we asked them last time what they would prefer to play they immediately said volleyball. I guess since it's the national sport of Sri Lanka these kids might be able to annihilate us on the volleyball court. Lets hope we can teach then a few things though. 

Photography: Shanthi Haaze

Me standing in shade during the visit 

Photography: Shanthi Haaze

Group Shot of OSC Gecko Inc. with the local kids after a tiring game of football

Week Without Walls

WWW is coming up and i've selected to do the dry zones trip. The trip consists of about 8 of us going and exploring the ancient city of Ritigala. Activities include climbing the mountain NEXT to the famous Sigiriya, snorkelling, night walks and pigeon island.

There are ethics involved in tourism, especially when visiting an ancient city. We need to treat the area with respect and not be "drawing our names on the floor" as Mr. Lockwood says. Besides the city we need to also show respect to the hotel/rest house we are staying in and to the people running it.

Another important thing is to get to know the people in our group. Learn their strengths and weaknesses, learn now to use that knowledge to complete activities at prime efficiency. More importantly however, learn about my own strengths and weaknesses. I've been on a lot of school trips and learnt a lot about myself, but for some reason i tend to always learn something new about myself on every trip. I guess when i'm put in different situations i tend to adapt.

Anyway, i'm really excited about the upcoming trip and i think i need to go shop for some new stuff :)



Mr Lockwood's blog

The place we are staying :)

Saisa Boys Basketball

So this is season 3 and i'm doing basketball. It was pretty unsure whether or not i would be able to do this season because of my ankle fracture. Now after an 8 week out of action period and 3 weeks of physiotherapy i'm almost back to a 100%. Since i wasn't in school for the last 2 weeks of the last semester I was unable to register for a TSSL card. So I wont be able to play in the first tournament that our teams in. This actually might be a good thing so i don't rush my ankle into full contact play.

So practice is starting tomorrow and will be on Tuesdays, Wednesday mornings, fridays and Saturday mornings. I'm not planning on doing full practice tomorrow but ease into full practice over the next two weeks with clearance from my physiotherapist. I think this relates to undertaking new challenges and showing perseverance and commitment in my activities. The new challenge being to keep myself healthy for the next 3 months. The perseverance and commitment being the constant icing and taking care of my ankle after practices because it's going to be sore and not giving up on any practices and not letting the team down in any way. There is a chance that we will lose one of our star players and the rest of us need to step up.