Recycling - February 2013 - A new group... but the same commitment!

The Recycling and Sustainability service programme commenced in the second school semester. 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. We may add glass to the items we recycle in order to increase our school's eco-logical footprint.

The following students will be taking part in Recycling and Sustainability for Semester 2:

Anaath Jacob

Anna Schosser

Arnont Singsathitsuk

David Tchoumak

Januda Muthugama

Malaika Salman

Nisala Saheed

Nitika Singh

Sarocha Vitthayakrai

Varun Menon

The first session was held on 7^th of February. On the day, a previously planned introduction and many organized ice-breakers were carried out to start the activity in order to promote group bonding and community service spirit. Recycling material collection was initiated at 3:10 pm. There was also a small  reflection session in the end. By the end of the day, I developed new skills of addressing students with a formal introductory speech by overcoming the challenge of speaking in front of a group as a leader, and guiding the students by leading as a role model. However, I also realised that as the eldest students in the group other than myself and Jenn are 7th graders, it will be difficult to look for future recycling service leaders. Thus, this will be one of the challenges me, Jenn and Mr. Lockwood will be working towards.

Recycling sessions have been going well since and I am happy with the active participation of our current team. While new types of challenges have been coming up, we have tackled and overcome them efficiently in collaboration and they have not caused any hindrance to our weekly sessions.

Some photos of one of our sessions this month are given below:

Helping in packing recycling material before it is sent to the recycling center.

Some primary school children enjoyed learning about our service.

Ready to go!

This month was packed with service based action for me as well. As a leader, I (along with my co-leader) have been challenged both physically and mentally. Regular sessions are planned differently according to special requests or different scenarios. Thus, spontaneous planning, organization, and teams and task distribution test me mentally as a leader. At the same time, actively keeping track of all students, keeping records of collection before, during and after sessions, as well as participating in collection and cleaning tasks myself test me physically as a leader. All these tasks have enabled me to develop a very useful set of skills as a leader which will be useful to me in the distant future as well.

Now, I look forward to the final lap and hope it will be as exciting as this month!

Guitar - February 2013 - Always a joy

My guitar classes had temporarily come to a halt during the January examination period. However, after the exams, I have regularly attended my classes and continued independent practice. All my 1 hour class sessions were extended by a minimum of 30 minutes each for continuation of practice and this reflected my perseverance towards achieving my goal of becoming a fluent guitarist.

While the initial two classes this month were dedicated to practicing previouslty learnt skills on the same songs, the most recent classes were focused on developing new skills. These mainly included new classical guitar fingering and strumming techniques. As music is only limited by a man's creativity and ingenuity, there can potentially exist an infinite number of rhythm techniques which relate to a large variety of strumming patterns. I learnt three different strumming techniques and I practiced them with the pieces of musics namely 'Podmoskovnye vechera', 'Romanza' and 'Barcarolle'. I am also working on memorizing 7-8 guitar scales in order to increase my knowledge. However, this will take time not only due to the nature of tasks related to memorization, however, also (and mainly) because of my academic commitments in this last lap of my school career.

I feel that I am on track for achieving my semester and year goals. However, I feel that next month I must record some videos of myself playing music on guitar in order to create records of my development since the beginning of my guitar classes around one and a half years ago.

I am looking forward to guitar classes in March now. However, my independent practice continues irrespective of class timings.

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.