Math Tutoring

We had the third math class on 27th of October, 2009. Like I mentioned earlier, he's working on factorizing and expanding at the moment. He seemed to be confused with expanding last week that I gave him 20 simple questions on expanding for homework to help him with better understanding the concept.
He didn't do his homework; he said HE FORGOT. So he and I went over them together. However, amazingly, he was getting the concept very well and he could do the part he usually struggled with last week. I could see a significant improvement this week. I felt proud of him ! haha.

He seemed to be doing ok with this chapter. We'll see how it goes and I'll try my best to help him.

Sunday Basketball(Officially sixfth day)

I played basketball last Sunday as well(25th of October, 2009) from 3:30 to 5:30.
Not so many people came last week because many of them lied ill or injured. It was only 10 people including only 6 seniors. We played several matches, but it wasn't so fun unlike usual. Besides, the local students had a conference and it was crowded around at 5. So we ended up early this week and dismissed.
Hope we'll play much more fun match next week.

Math Tutoring

I had the second math class with Alex last Tuesday, 20th of October 2009.
He had the test on the chapter, Area and Volume, and he said he didn't do so well even though we worked on it last class. As he started a new chapter on factorizing and expanding, I tried to explain the part he didn't get. He seemed to be weak at expanding the numbers in bracket. I tried to go over as many questions as possible with him so that it'll help him understand the concept better.
We were running out of time and he seemed to be not so clear about the concept. So I gave him 20 questions that I just improvised. He said it was too much, but it's not. He has to be used to those questions, was what I thought. (I'm so evil :P)
I'll see him how he did next class. He's listening to me pretty well and there's no significant improvement yet. I believe I'd see some improvement soon !

Prison Babies (Fifth day)

The children came to our campus this week. It's been two weeks we haven't seen them because of the one week-long summer break we had. There were more children came this time and I believe that's because we visited the prison last time and we opened their mother's minds to send their children to our campus. It's certainly good thing to have more children. Besides, they seemed to be getting familiar with us that they don't cry anymore!
It's really happy to see the smiles on them every week. :)

Sunday Basketball(Officially Fifth day)

Today, I AGAIN played basketball. However, the court we usually played were booked by the other local basketball team; I could have recognized two of them. One was the Asian International School basketball team and the other was Colombo International School basketball team.
So we went to other local school, Amal International School. There were many familiar Chinese friends whom we played basketball with several times before.
We played basketball with them today as well. They played it regularly and so they are well organized. It's always challenging to play with them since we have some younger children in our team.
I forgot to charge my camera that I couldn't take the photo this time.

Sunday Basketball(Officially Forth day)

I played basketball AGAIN this week. I couldn't play last week because of rain and football match, I was so excited this week looking forward to play. HOWEVER, the basketball court where we usually play were booked for other local girls' basketball teams because they had match there. So we had to wait for them finished that we couldn't play it properly for about 2 hours.
While we were waiting, we learned what are the roles of each position from the elders. I'm more like a Guard type basketballer as my strength is fast dribble and fast pass. As we learned, we also practiced to improve on our each strength.
After their match, we could have a match with the another local group who was waiting for the girls finished like us. We played for like an hour and half. I didn't really realize it, but today, I felt I'm improving slightly more and more. My pass and dribble which are my best strengths are getting better and better and I contribute more and more to the team to win. It was fun.

Bass Guitar class

I regularly take bass guitar class every Saturday for an hour. It's been about 9 months learning bass guitar from my teacher, Derek, who is the famous guitar player in Sri Lanka. I was absolutely a beginner at first; I've never played bass guitar before. (I used to play Piano, Violin and Drum before, but I have never played any sorts of guitar.) From August when we started our semester, I took about 9 classes with him which is about 9 hours.

My personal goal, at the beginning, was to do the church service playing bass guitar in the band. In the long term goal, I want to preach the gospel and do the missionary work in the foreign countries for the less fortunate people with my father who plays guitar.

At first, I felt that there's no significant improvement after each class, but then, now I'm able to play most of the songs by the chord and I believe that's a huge improvement for me that I'm coming closer to my goal.

Prison Babies (Visiting the Prison)

We visited the Prison today as we planned last week. This was the second visit for me and it has changed a lot. I saw they were building the school for children last year and this time the school has already built up. It was really good news for the children that they have this place to learn and have rest.
When we arrived, the children were learning Sri Lankan traditional dance. We took them to the other side of the school and painted the picture AGAIN. We tried to plan something different from last week, but then, we couldn't do anything about it since we were not allowed to take anything in the prison.
After painting, we took them outside to the field and played with them. Like I said earlier, there are many new children and fortunately, I felt that they were opening their minds to let us in. They didn't cry much compared to last week and the first week and I could have seen the smile on their faces this time. They are really adorable children, I realized that once again this time.
I'm unable to speak their language, so I didn't understand what they were saying, but still I could feel that they liked us. I was so happy :D

Math Tutoring

Ms.Huijnen asked me to tutor one of the younger graders math and help him understand better the basic concepts learning in class.
I had Alex Panduro from 9th grade and I had the first class with him yesterday, 6th of October, 2009.
I tried to explain how to measure the volume of the shapes since he has the test coming up on Thursday, 8th of October, 2009. I couldn't really explain fully becasue of lack of time, only half an hour.

Sunday Basketball(Officially Third day)

Today, in fact, I couldn't play basketball because of rain; it was canceled. Besides, there was a football match between JICA(Japan International Cooperation Agency) and KOICA(Korea International Cooperation Agency) where my father works for that I had to come cheer and participate in as a player.

I couldn't play basketball, but I played football instead. It was the third friendly football match between JICA and KOICA. We ended in a tie the first game with 3:3 and we lost the last game by 2:1. Therefore, we SHOULD win this match and that's why I played. :P

Warming up

We won at the end by 1:0. We had some troubles with the rain and as a result of it, I ruined my brother's shoes which I borrowed it for today. But I'm happy that we won this time and I participated in.

Prison Babies (Third day)

Last Thursday, 1st of October, six children have come from the prison.

As we planned last week, we first watched the Tom and Jerry with them in the Primary Library and painted coloring pictures outside. We tried to choose to show them 'less violent' chapters of Tom and Jerry, otherwise they may behave a bit violent imitating Tom and Jerry in the animation. We attempted to do something new instead of just playing randomly in the primary field like we did last year and it seemed that it worked pretty well. Children didn't seem that they were understanding the animation, but since they have never watched such thing before, they seemed that they found it interesting; they looked like they liked the music or the gestures that Tom and Jerry made.
After that, we came outside to paint. We have painted on the blank paper with them quite a lot before, but coloring the pictures was something new that we haven't done before. So I believe children liked it. The elders did it very well (even better than my own one! I tired to paint one, but it didn't really look good), but the youngers didn't really know what they were supposed to do that what they did were just scribbling. But STILL, I found the 'potential' artistic ability in them that they can be the second Pablo Picasso!