Creativity
- MUN - I had the MUN conference this semester. This was the first year of MUN and so I have set the goal to improve in my debating skills and participate in some way in the actual meeting. I believe I have fully achieved my initial goal; I have learned how it proceeds and how to develop my thesis and stand out for my point. Besides, I have made the public speech to tell the delegates in the house the situation in my country, Zimbabwe, and to make them acknowledge the significance of the incidence to them. I also have tried to point out some crucial points and help writing the resolution to the global issue that we were having the debate on. So I believe this went pretty well.This was a good experience as well; I could have improved on my debating and critical thinking, but not only that, but also I could have made many new friends from other schools. However, unfortunately, I won't be able to do anything further in MUN next year again because I have missed so many school days and classes during this MUN and so I felt that have affected my school work pretty much. I really wanted to join again and improve more on my skills, but now I'm too afraid of missing more days.
- Bass Guitar & Church Music Contest - I continued taking the bass guitar classes and I believe I have improved even more on my bass picking and fingering. I believe I'm getting closer and closer to my ultimate goal which is to go on a missionary trip with my father, me playing bass and him acoustic guitar. We made the first step this time participating in the Church Music Contest. It was like the Church Concours where we all sang the Contemporary Christian Music(CCM). I played bass guitar and was the lead singer while my father played the acoustic guitar background and covered the chorus. It meant something for both of us because this was the first time we performed in front of the audiences and the first step to get close to the ultimate goal.
- Week Without Wall presentation - after the WWW to Hambantota, I made 4-minute long video clip to show what we did to the other classes at the school assembly. Since that was the initial goal, to present it to the school, I did achieve the initial goal. This was the first time for me to make the video for the assembly all by myself and so this also meant a lot to me. At first, I was worried when Mr.De Silva assigned me to make this because I have never done something like this before, but I believe I did pretty ok and so I was happy.
- Sunday Church Basketball - every Sunday, I have been playing basketball with my Korean friends from the church. My personal goal was to improve in my basketball position and so make the SAISA basketball team if I try out. I believe I did improve in my personal skills getting to know and understand better the 'game'. My team and the school team also had played each other several times. I also played for the yellow house where I belong to at the Interhouse Basketball organized by SGA, and they were good to see how much I have improved. However, I decided not to try out for the school team for the same reason than I have mentioned earlier; I will miss too many classes if I do so. So, I'd say I have achieved my goal only partially. I will continue playing basketball with my friends though, so that I don't lose the sense and keep me fit all the time.
- Week Without Walls - It has become a tradition that our school has been helping the local schools affected by the Tsunami struck Sri Lanka earlier and so our grade went on the WWW trip to Hambantota and helped the local schools. We wend there to play with the children and mostly to paint the wall giving them a new look. The initial goal was, of course, to finish painting the wall drawing murals on it and clean up the areas, and I believe our grade have achieved the goal very well; we all worked hard on what we were supposed to do and the final product was indeed amazing.
- SAISA Track and Field -I made the school Track and Field team to participate in the SAISA competition. My initial goal was to make the team and also to improve in my five events. I partially achieved my goal since I made the team and I did improve in the five events. However, I'd say, it's only partially done since I subconsciously meant I would place in all my events while setting the goal, when I meant by I would improve in my five events, but I didn't place in many of my events. I actually did better in long jump, shot put, 100m dash and 200m dash than my old personal record(didn't do so well in discuss though), however, this year all the athletes have significantly improved, improved way more than me, so I barely had chances of winning any events. I placed in the long jump and the 4 by 100m relay though, that I was pretty satisfied. I knew this would be the last SAISA event that I will actually travel as a team, so it was somewhat disappointing. But still competing with many good athletes was a good experience, I believe.
- Korean Reunion(sports competition) - every year, we have a reunion within the Korean Society in Sri Lanka at least twice a year. By doing so, we can get to know each other better, communicate more, and build the strong relationship with everyone within the community. We play football, basketball, kick-baseball, dodgeball, and do relays since sports is the best way of building the strong connections. I participated in all the sports events and also helped as a staff get it going smoothly and preparing props. My goal was, of course, to have fun and enjoy as well as to make new friends. I believe I did well on attaining my goal; I indeed had fun and made many new friends after all.
- Geography Field Trip - Our grade went on the geography/biology/environmental system trip to Sinharaja to do the field study for the Internal Assessment(IA). Since I'm in IB Geography class, I also went on the trip with my classmates. We climbed the mountain there to study the primary/secondary forest, the biodiversity and the energy consumption. My main goal was to get the data for my IA, but apart from that, I had to enjoy the beauty of the scenery of Sinharaja since it's designated as a world heritage by UNESCO. I did achieve both of my goals; I gathered the data which I need and really enjoyed the view while climbing up to the Mullawella peak.
- Math Tutoring - This year, I have started tutoring Alex Panduro, who is in 9th grade, in math as Ms.Huijnen and Mr.Tingley, my math teacher and school counselor respectively, asked me to do so. He has been struggling with understanding the basic concepts of the special terms, and so found math hard and not so interesting. My initial goal was to help him improve in his grade, and find the subject more fun like I do in class, then to improve my teaching skills. I TRIED, but he hasn't improved (as in his report grade) much throughout the year; the biggest reason must be my poor teaching ability. In fact, another reason is that he hasn't shown much enthusiasm when I taught him; he wasn't paying attention while I was talking, he was distracted or daydreaming most of the time :S I tried to entertain him explaining the concepts, which can be found boring when not understood, easily with many practical examples, but this didn't work so well. I'm not even so sure if I helped him find math rather 'fun' subject. Actually, he hasn't shown up for the class for last three months where I automatically stopped tutoring him. I did improve in my personal teaching skill though. At first, I didn't know what to teach or how to start, I couldn't even really make a proper conversation with him due to my nature of personality. Compared to me that moment, I have changed a lot and improved in my teaching skills, where I can say I have achieved one of my goals. I cannot continue tutoring him next year because I think I will be busy with my own school course, so this remains somewhat regretful to me. I hope he will find a better tutor next time and find the subject enjoyable, so improve in his grade.
- Prison Babies - I've been the leader of the school community service project, Prison Babies, this year. I have been involved in this project for last three years, we have made the most progress this year. This could've been possible because the new head of the prison was so much supportive letting us visit the prison and more communicate with the children. We had the donations from the language B department at OSC and from others personally, and so we could have bought the mattresses for the children there. We have tried to introduce something new to them as well; we watched Tom and Jerry and brought them to McDonald to buy them ice cream, where they seemed that they have enjoyed a lot. My initial goal was to organize something new and meaningful as the leader and also improve in my leadership which was not really my strength. Then, the goal was to build stronger connections with the children since it's been three years that I've known them, but I always felt some distance. I believe I have achieved both of my goals this year. The children, thankfully, opened their minds and we could become indeed good friends. Unfortunately, this year would be my last Prison Babies 'as the leader' for the same reason that I couldn't continue math tutoring; I will definitely continue it, but not as the leader. In fact, there's a slight possibility that this year would be the last year that we have Prison Babies project at OSC since the children may be moving to some other prison in Kaluttara, which will make it hard either for us to go or for them to come. I wish not though. Even if it is, I hope they also enjoyed being with us this year like we felt and they won't forget us.
- Christmas Santa - Last Christmas Eve, my friends and I went to the orphanage in Colombo 3(? not sure, nearby House of Fashion) to give them a surprise. We played with the children there, washed their clothes and blankets, cleaned up their rooms and finally cooked for them. My initial goal was to give them a surprise like a Santa Claus, like I said, by doing so. It didn't really work in fact, because they weren't surprised at our visit :S But it was really meaningful because it seemed that they don't clean up so often which is not good for the children, especially for those under 5-6 since dust may give them breathing problems or mite can cause them the skin problems. We also had fun playing games together and finally they like the Korean food we made :D
- Week Without Walls - Our grade went to Hanbantotta for WWW this year. We divided us into two groups and each went to the local schools where damaged badly by the Tsunami. Our initial goal was to give the children there a better working and playing condition by painting new and fixing the broken stuff. Our group divided ourselves again into several different parts so that we could distribute the works to do. I was genuinely in the mural group where I was meant to be painting the mural, but I was abnormally super-energetic that day, so I went here to there help everyone; one time, I was with the group who were playing the games with the children, then I went to help painting the inside wall as my pal asked for help since she couldn't reach the top. In fact, all the members in my original group, the mural group, worked so hard that we finished pretty earlier than we thought and so once we were done with our first task, the mural, I went to help painting the equipments at the outing place where needed some helps :D Then I found some of the equipments there were broken with the nails off the surface which seemed pretty dangerous, so I went to get the hammer and some nails to fix them. I did fully achieved the initial goal even though by the end of the day, I was half dying due to the fatigue.
