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.