The Play

During the week of 23rd of February we performed a play by another 12th grader.  Skylord has been directing the play called Play-writing 101: The Rooftop Lesson by Rich Orloff. It is a scene about a depressed individual (played by Me) who wants to commit suicide and a good Samaritan (played by Emily), who is trying to dissuade him from jumping of a roof. During this conversation, a teacher (played by Karl) keeps rewinding and pausing the action, addressing the audience and giving his suggestions on what is good and bad playwriting. I was the main character in the scene and most of the play was about me so there was a lot of stress on learning my lines and actions well. Our whole group met often, two to three times a week in the weeks prior to the performance day. We all worked together, collaboratly and performed as one whole which worked out very well. Our play went first on the line and was actually the most humorous of all plays as it got the most laughs. The performances of Karl and Emily were also great resulting in a cohesive performance in which everything went according to plan.

Final CAS (New)

Here comes another final form. This one is the updated complete version which was checked by the CAS teacher.

Final CAS

Here is the photo of my final completed CAS form. :) Hope to continue my commitments in the future.

Me being creative

Last week we participated in a Fashion Show that was created to raise money for the Cancer foundation. It was called the Charity Chic Fashion show and was run by the schools Hope for Kids representative Sandushi. I was engaged with an issue of global importance since this service group helps children in a national cancer hospital located in Maharagama. The money that was raised reached about 700,000 rupees and it was a great help to the community and the cancer hospital.

We were directed by a stylist and fashion designer, Ms. Jacquie Mei who helped to choreograph the positions and the poses. We all worked collaboratively to work out the joined poses and helped to elaborate on the movement that we practised in the rehearsals.



As we worked together, we also developed new skills and attemped new challenges that helped to build the self confidence that I needed now close to the exams. The way that we learnt how to pose and how to walk with pride is a good skill to learn in later life to seem confident in one self.

I also showed great perceverance in the task by coming 2-3 times a week for rehearsals and the pants that are shown here are from Arugam Bay while the top pictures are from a local design, Avinash. He made them from designs that he drew and he called them Amour Love.

CAS on Thursday

Last week we went to the Hospital for our monthly visit to the Cleft, Lip and Palete children. We go there once a month to check that our funds are going to the people that need it, interact with the older kids and speak with the Doctor to organize what we need to do to help advertise further. Increasing awareness of the community that helps these kids is important to help them get funds as well as joining with our local community to encourage the families that have a child with the disease to look for help. This also links us to the Global Community to ensure that people in society are aware that quite a few kids that are born have this problem and we need to help make their lives as normal as possible.

We took some pictures with the permission of the families of kids that just had the operation as well as the ones being prepared for the operation. We talked to a mother whos child was only 18 days old and was given medication to help her sleep. This made us very sad but also happy that such a small child was being helped. The child looked so helpless which is why we felt sad.

Key Club

Key Club International is the oldest and largest service program for high school students. It is a student-led organization whose goal is to teach leadership through serving others. Key Club International is a part of the Kiwanis International family of service-leadership programs. Many local Key Clubs are sponsored by a local Kiwanis club.

On 24th Feb, our school partcipated in an exciting start of a new group called Key Club, an international student-led organization whic provides its members with opportunities to provide service, build character and develop leadership. It works under the mission:
"To develop competent, capable and caring leaders through the vehicle of service"

The service leaders from respective groups have come together the previous day and voted to nominate and elect the board memebers and directors. The leadership structure was thus formed: President (Damien Martin); Vice President (Harini Liyanage); Secretary (Annie Gillstedt); Treasurer (Terunaga Tamura); Editor (Heesoo Kim) with the directors(Aparna, Sandushi, Keisha, Maheshi and Avin)



Each color symbolized an aspect of the Key Club International objectives:

• Blue - Unwavering character
• Gold - Service
• White - Purity

CAS term plan

Action:

This term I am not joining an SAISA as I am planning to concentrate on my studies. However, I will be going to the gym and running on a regular basis to ensure that I don't lose what I have already worked hard for. I plan to go to the gym twice a week and running at least three times a week.

This will ensure that I keep up with the CAS criteria that have to be followed until mid March. This increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth, plan and initiated activities and Shown perseverance and commitment in my activities.


Service:

We have plans to raise awareness in the community around us so we are planning on placing panthlets and fliers around our school and around Colombo. This will help to tell people where there is available places where kids and older adults can get surgery done. The fliers will be very detailed with the number to the doctor and who they can contact for support. This will engage me with Engaged with issues of global importance, Shown perseverance and commitment in my activities and Undertaken new challenges. The global issue that is connected to the poverty of the people. Because the local families in Colombo and around Sri Lanka can't pay for the operation so we raise large amounts of money to pay for the operations, the recovery process and housing for the families from around Sri Lanka for the period of the operation. This really show how dedicated we are to the families that want to help their children's future. We continue this throughout the year, even during summer where we get reports on who is being payed from the doctor and we continue to try and raise money whenever we can. We undertook some new challenges this year with regular visits to the hospital which was difficult as some days the doctor was unavailable and the others he was operating. This made it a challenge in organizing the whole Cleft Palete team at the hospital.

We will also update Nadeera who will be taking over our Community Service next academic year. We think she will be the best for the job in our group because she is dedicated and well organized.

I will also be doing the Fashion Show this Saturday (the 11th) to ensure that I can raise money for another CAS group while feveloping my own skill in the process. Undertaken new challenges will work well with this as this is the first time I am doing something like this and it is helping me with my self confidence on stage. I hope it will be a good experience and help to raise money for that specific CAS activity.

Creativity:

The plan is to continue practicing the drama production that Skylor is producing called the "Rooftop lesson" below is a descriptive link to the play on youtube to see what it is about. I will be the main character that wants to commit suicide but is stopped by Emelies character.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtmzu1A3IM4

This will be a good way to link myself to the community as well as try something that I am not quite comfortable with. This is good though because it will help to remove some of my fear of performing in front of a crowd and also to learn something new.