Reflection

      This past semester have flown by and from these past four months I can honestly say that I have learned alot and grew alot. First of all in RCCI RCCI is a sevice project I have been in scine ninth grade and I can say from where I have started to where I am now I have changed a lot. In ninght grade all I did was just go to the service do what had needed to do and go back home but this time the service demanded more from me because I am the second oldest student there next to the service leader and the current service leader was preparing me this past four months to be the next service leader. So from that experience I have been exposed to leadership and I can say that I have gotten some leadership qualities like keeping the group in place when they wander off task. Also I am personally close to some of the children that come to play here.

     First of all in RCCI RCCI is a sevice project I have been in scine ninth grade and I can say from where I have started to where I am now I have changed a lot. In ninght grade all I did was just go to the service do what had needed to do and go back home but this time the service demanded more from me because I am the second oldest student there next to the service leader and the current service leader was preparing me this past four months to be the next service leader. So from that experience I have been exposed to leadership and I can say that I have gotten some leadership qualities like keeping the group in place when they wander off task. Also I am personally close to some of the children that come to play here.

     Knitting. I joined the Knitting service group in this last quater because beleive it or not I love sewing and I desgin costumes for my younger cousins in my spare time as a hobby and since this quarter have been so busy I have barely enough time to commit to my hobby so instead I joined the "sewing and embroidery" after school activity in order to continue my hobby

  Archery I am very commited to this sport as I am determined to continue this in the future. It requires a lot of patience ( which I lacked in the begining because I am very immpatient by nature) Also it reqires precision and a good eye to aim and these skills aren't only useful in archery as it could be applied at any given circumstance. Increased their awareness

   My time in RCCI have really opened up my mind to what these kids and their parents are going through. It made me greatful for what I have and it made me think of how many people would actually accept these kids to our society. I have learned that the RCCI school had asked alot of schools to help them out atleast once a week but they all turned them downe because they were afraid of how these kids would act. Our school was the only one that took the risk to help these children and it made me really proud. 

    Undertaken new challenges When the RCCI CAS leader was away because she had examination so I had to take over for the time being and I really learned on what it took to be a leader of a programme. 

   Planned and initiated activities Before April break on the same week the CAS leader was away I had to make the arrangements to buy gifts for the children and make sure everyone knew what they were bringing for the end of year party ( eg;- food, drinks,music...etc) I had to manage my time wisley in order to make sure these things will go smoothly. 

   Worked collaboratively with others Also in RCCI-- I had to work with a lot of people . The more I work with a lot of people the more I am comfortable with working with more people. Shown perseverance and commitment in their activities I have been in this CAS group since 9th grade and since then I've gone to every single CAS meeting and since I've started the sewing group I have been going to that too and the same goes for my commitment in archery.  Engaged with issues of global importance RCCI- These are children in need and as I said before not many people wanted to help them because they were afraid and I'm glad to be part of this small percentage who is actualyl doing something to help these children and my time here have made me want to research more about the children with dis-abilities and whethere there are any ways or on going research to help them.. or cure them.  Considered the ethical implications of their actions Archery- As much as I love it as a sport I am well aware of the implications. It is a dangerous sport. For example when I'm shooting I have to make sure there isn't anyone infront of me even if they are a meter away. the same goes for wandering animals like cats or dogs. I don't want to accidently hurt or kill anything. Also my coach had told me to introduce archery to maldives and I had to say no to that because it will go horribly wrong there. Already the country is in political turmoil and people are carrying knives and cutters to inflict damage or kill innocenve. Just imagine what would happen if archery were to be introduced?  Developed new skills - My growing leadership qualities.

Dare to Dream

Dare to Dream" is all about dreaming big, and turning the seemingly impossible into reality. . It's a group started by Harshini Karunaratne and I am a volunteer for the group. I was assighed to design the cover photo of the group's facebook page. Im an aspiring illustrator and this was my first official assignment. I was challenged with finishing this according to the clients specification and I had to manage my time as well as they wanted it finished by the end of the week.

Service Leader

I have been in the RCCI( Rehablitation Center For The Communication Impaired) service group for two and a half years now and I can say that I have learned alot. I'm going to be honest. When I first joined the group as a 9th grade student back in 2011, I was pretty nervouse, because I had never interacted with these children with dis-abilities before. I kept wondering how I would communicate with them and how I will interact with them in the end I managed to pull through. I knew some of the basic Sinhala words ( Language spoken in Sri Lanka ) and there were two children who could speak english but on the days these two children did not come to the weekly play sessions in our school I had to communicate to the children with my basic Sinhala skills and body language. In grade 9 I was just a new comer to the service group, In grade 10 I got used to interacting with these children, Right now in grade 11 I'm the treasurer of the service group and next year I am anticipating on taking over the leadership of the whole service group. Last session instead of playing in the gym we decided to test out the artistic side of the kids as creativity of the mind is just as important as getting physical. Here are some of the impressive paintings they have done.

Anuradhapura art trip

DAY 1 we left colombo train station early in the morning at about 5:50am and we arrived in Anuradhapura a historical region in Sri lanka at about 10 am. That was a 5 hour long train ride which is an less that a bus trip to Anuradhapura. Even though the train ride wa bumpy and uncomfortable I would not have gone ona train in Srilanka otherwise. Our day began with a trip to a mueseum.. that did not go well because they would not let us in so instead we went to visit the temple called IssuruMulaniya. There I took pictures around the temple and out of the temple area and managed to produce pretty decent pictures in which i would have to edit once I get home. While at the temple I also sketched a picture of the front part of the temple itself. Today I produced some photographs and 2 sketches. my goal for this trip is to create 10 piecec of work. 4 photographs, 4 sketches, 1 painting,1 soft pastel. so tommorow I will try to sketch two more sketches so I would have completed my sketch goal and I will also take more pictures so by the end of the trip I will choose the four best onces. The reason I want to finish of the sketches is because I want to work on a painting the following day. This trip was all I expected- Sketching/photography and creating artwork. DAY 2 Today we went to a stone bridge at first there I took more photographs and experimented with different compositions and angles. Then we went to the Lova sabhawa temple area and we got a demonstration on how to use acrylic paint/charcoal. I tooka seat by a tree and then I started to sketch out a tree infront of me with my charcoal and then later i started to paint. Ifound it really reaxing and soothing to the mind. as for my artwork itself I could have done thin strokes as the grass. ocerall I still think my skills with acrylics could be improved but even so I found that I quite liked painting scenary. I find it easier to sketch the final piece out before painting the whole scenary I guess I could try paining a scene as a whole next time I try to paint a scenary. DAY 3 Today we went to mihintale which is a sacred and historical area of Anuradhapura. It took us about 30 minuits to get there. The first locaion we went to was really scenic and it was really inspirational. I think it provided more inspiration than all the other locations because it had a more variety of things to draw. It was not just trees, this location had a lake,mountain and different view points and angles to sketch from. I found that working outside was really peaceful but at the sametime it was frsutrating because the lighting kept changing and it was hard to pinpoint what tone/shade I should use in that particular area. After eating lunch we went to the main Mihintale area. One thing I learned from this trip was that that was the place where Buddism was first introduces to Srilanka and that was pretty interesting because I li

- Sketching at the temple ruins ke to know more and more about my host county and their culture. DAY 4 TOday we took 2 hours to reach the plce that has the largest Budda statue in Srilanka, like the previous days we sketched. I got to experiment with soft pastel and I quite liked how my finished piece turned out. Working in a quiet area like a temple was really soothing because everything was silent and everyone was working quietly. Once positie thing about this trip was that it was a trip dedicated to art. I think that I have developed my art skills to an extent because normally I would not have gotton out with a sketchbook and start sketching any onject infront of me but I think that this experience has actually helped me grow as an artist. This concludes my week without walls.

- Painting inside the temple grounds

Practicing for Archery Competition

My Archery coach has informed me that there is going to be a competition coming up really soon. The distance to shoot in the competition is 30ft and I can already accuratley shoot the arrow froma good 20ft. Starting from next week I am going to start practice shooting from 30ft. This shows perseverence because I am really commited to this sport and I intend to take it very seriously. What I need to work on is consistency. I always manage to hit the target but i need to focus on hitting the all the arrows at the same spot this shows my awareness of my streanths and areas of improvement and this will also help me develop a new skillI . Another aspect i need to improve is to strenthen my arm muscles by doing a few arm excesises everyday because Archery involves streanth. I have Archery only on Saturdays but I decided to practice by setting up m archery eqipment in my aunt's field and practice there every Monday,Tuesday and Friday as those are the only days of the week where I have even a little amount of time to spare for Archery alone because on the rest of the days I have to study, practice violin,go running and of course have some social time and alone time to myself.

WWW Anuradhapura Trip

For WWW ( week without walls) our group is going to Anuradhapura. The G10/11 trip to Anuradhapura will focus on exploring the local area and the many sites within the area. We are going to use this as an inspiration for the production of visual art. We would have the opportunity to develop our visual art skills through drawing, painting and photography and personal exploration. The goal of this trip is for me to respond to the experience of being in this major cultural, artistic and historical area of Srilanka through the creation of a series of artworks. We are going to be in Anuradhapura itself most of the time while we take a day trip to Mihintale which is a sacred area. An exhibition of the work done during the trip will be up for presentation after the trip. Since this trip focuses more on the creaticity aspect my goal for this trip is to:- - Have 10 finished pieces by the end of the week - 4 Photographs - 1 soft pastel painting - 4 sketches - 1 painting I want to improve my visual art skills, This will be useful for both my IB visual art HL course and for my future as well because I'm quite certain that it will have something to do with art. Being in a historical and yet artistic place I will develop my observation skills as I am not just going there for sight seeing. I need to produce artwork from these observations. I will also gain more knowledge about the history of Anuradhapura and know more about my host nation.

SAISA girls football

SAISA stands for South Asian Inter-Schools Association (SAISA). WHich is sports conference us GECKO ( name of our sports team) attend every year. This semester I am doing SAISA girls udner 19 football. I love the sport and I am hoping to get in to the team this year. Even if I don't get in this year at least I'll be getting some fitness by going for all the practices as I said in one of my goals I need to keep my fitness and stamina up in order for me to be healthy and avoid heart disese/diabetes which is common in both sides of my family. I also increased my awareness of my own steanghth and areas of improvement . I need to improve my stamina and how hard I kick the ball. One of my streanghts in football are defence and endurance. By going to all the pracices I am showing how commited I am to this sports. This is true because I do take football seriously as it is one of the only sports besides Archery that I like and would continue to do later in life. Also because of football I learned to collaborate with others . These are girls from grades 9-12 so most of the people I interact with in football are people who I don't interact with on a daily basis so it's good to work with new people for a change.