Badminton - February 2013 - Its going well

As my badminton sessions for February concluded today, I felt that I should reflect upon my experiences and development over the past month. As this was the first month of my last school semester, it is even more important for me to assess my growth in accordance with my goals for the semester as well as my goals for the year.

February has been a pretty academically busy week for me as I have my college entrance examinations approaching (for Indian universities) before the final IB examinations in May. Thus, while attempting to balance myself between academics and co-curricular activities, I managed well to attend all the badminton sessions punctually and with full perseverance. However, as I also attend guitar classes during weekends, I was not able to continue swimming practice, which for this reason will be one of my main targets during the next month.

Badminton sessions continued as usual for me because I rarely skip these fun-filled and action-packed breaks from my daily routine. I played singles and doubles matches mainly against more experienced players who challenge me to the brim of my stamina. However, the majority of the matches I played were doubles matches. Hence, using the collaboration and communication skills I acquired over the past 2 years due to my commitment towards the activity, I enjoyed applying myself to the sport and appreciated the reciprocated competition. Reflecting upon my strengths and areas of growth, I feel that my stamina, reflexes and overall communication and play tactics have improved. However, one area that I believe to be an area of growth requiring most focus is my spontaneity and variation in shots. Despite having my own plethora of orthodox and unorthodox shots, I tend to be quite predictable at times. Thus, this will be my main attention during next month's sessions. Also, as an 'knower' and an IB student, I believe that there is always room for improvement. Hence, other things I will work towards improving are my movement across the whole court, my body attack smashes as well as my backhand shot strength.

In general, I believe that I am on track to achieving my semester and year goals, respectively. As it goes for the global and ethical implications of any important task, continued commitment and perseverance is always fruitful. Thus, this will be my motto not only for the semester, but it will define my optimistic approach towards all tasks in life.

Photographs from one of my doubles matches are attached below (I am wearing a black shirt and camouflage shorts).

Reaching out to hit a short-court smash.

Responding to a low cross-court smash.

Serving ... but with a plan!

Responding to a overhead smash.

Some of my footwork at work.

Hitting a smash!

Responding to a drop shot with a well-placed cross-net drop shot.

Hitting a smash!

Being a good sportsman :)

This month has been very enjoyable and I now look forward to badminton in March.

Semester 2 - Goals

CAS Goals for the second semester

The senior year has entered its last phase and I have just completed my IB trial exams. After this short 'break', now I plan to continue my involvement in the IB DP CAS programme. Thus, before jumping into the CAS schedule, here I will develop my goals for the semester. My goals for the second semester will be modified from the goals I set in the first semester as I have identified specific areas of improvement from my experiences and report card feedback.

Guitar (Creativity): 

I have not been able to practice guitar during the past three weeks due to academic engagements. I feel that I have successfully learnt and understood the basics of guitar. Now, I will continue improving my guitar skills using primary resources such as my teacher, brother or friends who are experienced and fluent guitarists, and secondary resources such as the Internet.

My goals for guitar this semester are:

• Attend classes regularly and punctually.
• Practice properly and participate actively in class.
• Play guitar for at least 2 hours every week with minimum 30 minutes duration practice sessions. (Independent of class time)
• Learn and video at least 1 song every month.
• Be creative with my learning, i.e. attempt to vary the types of songs I learn and practice different techniques. 
• Recording and reflecting on my experiences regularly on my CAS blog.

Recycling (Creativity and Service): 

While me and Jenn will continue as co-leaders under the supervision of Mr. Ian Lockwood, this semester the OSC Recycling and Sustainability service group will welcome many new members. As the service group will be starting afresh, it will be important to build a team spirit and establish good communication in order to accomplish our service goals. These goals in general include continuing the recycling material collection within the school campus in an efficient manner, increase the environmental sustainability of our school community by recycling used (and non-reusable) paper, cardboard, plastic and some metals, and finally, help develop a responsible and caring attitude towards use of resources within the school community by setting up trays for reusable paper in all rooms and thoroughly filtering recycling materials obtained for reusable items.

My goals for recycling this semester are:

• As a leader, it will be most important for me to lead all my team members by setting up an example.
• I will improve my communication skills
• I will improve my team leading skills by planning tasks in collaboration with my co-leader Jenn and supervisor Mr. Lockwood.
• Participate enthusiastically, commitedely and actively.
• Successfully transfer the co-leader positions to two team members in order to complete my and the service group's transition from the IB CAS programme.
• Regularly reflect about my experiences on my CAS blog.
  

 Badminton (Action):

I will continue to take part in Badminton sessions at the D.S. Senanayake twice every weekend. This activity has enabled me to improve my stamina and challenge my body physically. These sessions are good for physical fitness and also for mental relaxation. Thus, its aptly said that "a healthy mind resides in a healthy body". In addition, these sessions will enable me to improve my badminton skills and become a better player and sportsperson. The timings for these badminton sessions will be:

• Saturday - 7 am to 8 am
• Sunday - 7 am to 9 am

My goals for Badminton this semester are:

• Be punctual and attend sessions regularly.
• Spend some time doing warm-up exercises and jogging.
• Take minimum breaks.
• Participate enthusiastically, commitedely and actively.
• Regularly reflect about my experiences on my CAS blog.

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While working towards achieving these goals, I will keep in mind all 8 critical learning outcomes in the OSC CAS handbook. These learning outcomes are:

• Increasing awareness of my own strengths and areas of growth
• Undertaking new challenges
• Planning and initiating activities
• Working collaboratively with others
• Showing perseverance and commitment in my activities
• Engaging with issues of global importance
• Considering the ethical implications of my actions
• Developing new skills

These aspects will always be incorporated in my actions and in my reflections and therefore, I will do my best to ensure I take great learning experiences and skills from the last semester of my school life.

Semester 1 - Reflection

It was the first day of school today. This week is officially the last week of Semester 1 and thus, I will now reflect upon my experiences in my CAS activities during the past 4-5 months. I have been able to adhere to my personal CAS goals and participate in all my planned CAS activities in a successful manner. I have also regularly maintained my reflection blog and thus, succeeded in becoming a reflective IB student.

I have worked hard in the Creativity aspect of the CAS programme this semester. I had my last guitar class for this semester this Saturday. Now, I have completed basics, and learnt and understood many beginner guitar skills. Thus, I have completed the basics of guitar and am moving towards the moderate level. I have been able to tackle this challenge successfully. I adhered to my CAS goals and have been successful in achieving my goals. It has been an exciting semester for me and I really enjoyed developing new guitar skills. On the other hand, I took on the role as a leader in the OSC Recycling and Sustainability group and have learnt and identified a lot of new skills from my experiences in this short times. Meetings with the co-leader Jenn and activity supervisor Mr. Lockwood taught me the importance of planning, communicating and collaborating with students in the team during activities taught me about responsibility, leadership and setting an example as a leader, while many other events made me realize the importance of teamwork, the global importance and meaning of a small scale activity such as this in the real 'big' world, and the ethical implications of actions towards creating a more environmentally sustainable environment in OSC to the school community and to the host country. The teachings from this activity helped me to engage in both the Creativity and Service aspects of the CAS programme. I will continue to take part in the recycling group as a perseverant and commited leader next semester in order to develop new skills, continue to learn and improve from reflecting upon my own strengths and areas of growth, and to gain such special and one-of-a-kind experiences.

My Action activities this semester, both Badminton as well as Swimming, have been successful. I have been able to develop new skills, work collaboratively with others, and achieve my goals of improving my physical stamina and becoming a more tactical badminton player while enjoying the sport. I also recognized that while my badminton skills had developed and increased, my personal areas of growth that I will continue to target next semester are stamina, strength, agility and game tactics.

I will to continue to engage in all the aspects of the CAS programme in the next semester as well. I will cherish the experiences from the first semester. Now, I am looking forward to a CAS filled last semester of my school life starting next week.

Service - November - Recycling continues

Recycling was really successful this month. The Recycling and Sustainability group was able to collect recycling materials from all rooms and the collected materials were transported to the recycling centers every session. The team worked committedly and collaboratively to finish all tasks in a organized and timely manner. This month, me and Jenn as leaders implemented a new method of making teams and setting tasks. From our experience in the last two months, we knew that all students have become acquainted with each other. However, some specific student combinations are able to work more efficiently relative to other group combinations. Thus, we planned and initiated a group programme that specified student groups that would be sent to specific buildings for collection. This new plan was helpful as it reduced the time required for students to get organized into teams every session and it also helped students to become familiar with the buildings they visited. Hence, we used our earlier reflection on areas of growth to develop this new scheme which has made our teams' work more efficient.

I feel that this month has been one of the busiest and successful in terms of meeting our aim as a community service group. We were happy that there was no hindrance due to the weather this month and hope that the work continues in the same positive manner next month as well.

Below are photographs of our visit to our two main recycling centers. The initial photos have been taken at the recycling center on Pannipitiya road.

Unloading the collected recycling materials from the pickup truck.

Weighing a bin with paper.

Weighing another bin with paper.

Jenn and Hyung Suk wait while the paper and cardboard are weighed.

Photo of some of the cardboard outside the recycling center.

Jenn unloading cardboard.

Weighing cardboard.

Receiving money for sold paper and cardboard.

 The photographs below were taken at the Narahenpita Road recycling center.

Akila looks on as the recycling material is weighed.

Me standing next to bins full of paper for recycling.

I am now looking forward to recycling next month!

Action - November - Badminton!

November has been action packed for me. I played lots of Badminton matches, both singles and doubles, out of which most were against experienced players and some against players at the same level as me. The matches were all of a wide variety as I won some comfortably and also lost some with a tough fight till the end. I enjoyed all these matches as they helped me to challenge myself both physically as well as mentally. It has been an overall successful month for me in terms of action. Most of my badminton skills have improved in this month, however, I have now identified a new area of growth for myself. After observing my game play and reflecting upon it, I have realised that I tend to experiment too much with my service when under pressure. Even though variation is important in the game, some risky and very new serves tend to be less accurate and hurt my chances of gaining an advantage in the game. Thus, the opponents are able to overpower me/my team later. Now, my aim is to think in a balanced manner and to rationalize my decision of trying a new service that could be risky. Before trying a new serve, I will analyze a few factors such as the opponent's, i.e. the service reciever, position at the time, his/her reach, i.e. a player's ability to move to play differently placed shots usually determined by his/her height and agility, and his/her experience level as a player in order to judge the possible types of responses. Please note that it is more preferable to make the opponent play defensive shots and thus create pressure in order to gain points through their enforced errors, such as hitting the shuttle into the net or outside the court, or earning points through successful attacking shots, such as well-placed smashes, drop shots and cross-court overhead clears.

Other than this, I attended all my sessions punctually and consistently and played all matches with complete dedication and active participation till the end. I am now looking forward to an action packed December in which I can improve in the newly recognized areas of growth!

P.S.

Dear readers, I was unable to take any photographs of the action this month as my camera broke. I will add more photographs of my games, and maybe videos as well, as soon as it is fixed.