Final CAS Reflection

CAS Reflection

This year for CAS I have done many different activities regarding CAS. For Creativity i’ve done Even Crew and Drama Stage Manager for Yerma. For Action i’ve done SAISA Basketball,Friday 3-3 Basketball and SAISA Volleyball. For Service I’ve been apart of Gecko Inc.

Throughout the year i’ve learned so much about myself and where I excel in and where i still need to grow. In basketball i’ve learned about how I still lack in mental preparation and staying prepared for all games. I realised this as well in Volleyball where my mental status got in the way of my physical game. My strengths unpredictably are my ability to take on a lot of work and still come through, something I learned through event crew.

Gecko Inc and Event crew were the two activities I did this year where I had to plan and initiate activities. I planned the adopt a team process and sportsmanship for Event crew along with some activities for the school that we are interacting with for service. I’ve learned that i am pretty resourceful when it comes to planning activities since i have good intuitive ideas along with a sense of responsibility.

I collaborated with a team in mostly all my activities besides when being a Stage Manager for Yerma. In both SAISA teams I really bonded with the team and worked collaboratively with them all to win every game we did and lose and reflect on the games we didn’t. In Even Crew I worked effectively with Greta to plan sportsmanship and the Adopt-a-team process, along with some key roles in both the opening ceremony and line judging.

Throughout all my sports activities i had to fight through a bad ankle injury and it took a lot of perseverance to get through to the end of each season. Event Crew really pushed me as i had to host 4 Dhaka players, do my EE along with returning home late every day.

Throughout every single activity i’ve gained new skills. I’ve learned to use my left hand in basketball, plan activities in Event crew, learned to be a responsible student in being a stage manager and learned new socialising skills when meeting new people in all the activities in CAS.

I hope to have a successful next year as I did this year.

CAS Reflection

My understanding of CAS goals was slightly off last year.

I haven't been sky diving, but I've achieved the other 2 personal goals. That's 2/3

Haven't achieved a 7 in econ or french but I did pass TOK. That's 1/3

Been fit throughout the year, made the starters list in both volleyball and basketball. That's 3/3

6/9 of my goals were accomplished but I feel that for the upcoming year I need to set goals that are more Creativity/Action/Service rather than personal,academic and athletic.

Goals set in August 2013

Personal 

To go Sky Diving. 

To improve in my thinking and application of knowledge.

To be more dedicated and contribute more to formative assessments 

Academic 

To get a 39 in the IB. 

To get a 7 in French Abnitio. 

To get a 7 in economics. 

To pass TOK.

Sports 

Make the starting 6 of the Volleyball Team.

Make the starting 5 of the Basketball Team and be the leading scorer. 

Be fit throughout the 2 years of the IB 

Event Crew : SAISA Batminton

April 25th-28th

I was part of the event crew for SAISA Badminton and it was a huge learning experience for me. Until now i'd always been a SAISA athelete and therefore never really knew all the components required for a successful tournament. Maybe now ill be more sympathetic towards the event crew in different schools. Throughout the 3 days I was a part of the Adopt-a-Team, Photography,Day 1 BBQ, Sportsmanship and a lot of other little jobs. I did feel quite stressed throughout the few days since I also had to host 4 AIS-Dhaka players. It took a lot of perseverance and dedication to come through at the end and to have OSC host an amazing tournament. With obviously a few mishaps that were controlled and evaluated by the talented event crew.  

Through this experience I also made a lot of new friends, in other SAISA schools and also in the event crew. People I had no idea were actually interesting. 

Senior Production Stage manager

As I mentioned in a post earlier I am the stage manager for the senior production. My job is to keep all props on the stage organised, the stage and anything else Mrs. Jackson wants me to do. This job takes a lot of my time but I actually enjoy it. (I also save on buying a ticket for the production :P )

I've been to the rehearsals on Friday and Saturday. Now the remaining rehearsals are on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I really feel like this is helping me get ready for university where i'll be trying to manage so many things at once. Recently i've been swamped with work for Environmental systems, Event Crew, the production , Extended essay, English and all this over the weekend. It's been hectic. I feel like I've come through though.

Anyway the Drama production helps me be more organised which was the key complaint in my 3-way conferences. Also I'm learning to undertake new challenges and be able to balance all my extra curriculars.

Which I guess is the point of this blog :D

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