Basketball

The school Basketball practice started on the 5th of December 2010. I have never done basketball before so this is completely new to me but I'm enjoying it a lot!

So far we have had practices every Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday for about one hour and a half each time.

On Monday 20th of December, we had a practice at the British School of Colombo from 9 to 5. I found it really tiring but I had a lot of fun.

In doing basketball, I am undertaking new challenges because I have never done basketball before. I am also working collaboratively with others because basketball is a team sport and working as a team is really important. By going to practices I am showing perseverance and commitment and overall, I am developing new skills.

Piano

Now I am practising this song. It is called 'River Flows in You' by Yiruma. I adore this song, it is beautiful.

The criteria I am fulfilling: showing perseverance and commitment and developing skills.

Piano

I started Piano when I was 6 years old so I know how to read music, which is why I don't take classes anymore and I prefer to pick a song that I like and teach myself how to play it. If I attend classes, I have to practice songs that my teacher makes me play so I am practicing individually with the songs I actually want to play.

In practising the piano, I am showing perseverance and commitment because I am committing some time everyday to practice. I am also developing skills since I still have a lot of room to improve.

Now I have begun practising this song. It is called 'One Summer's Day' by Joe Hisaishi. Here is the sheet music for it:

Book Drive For China!

Last week I received a thank you letter from the Chinese students of Juang Cheng Second High School.

Here is the original letter, which they wrote in Japanese:


ゆうこさん　けんとさん　ボコさん　テスさん　シェイマスさん　へ

こんにちは。みなさんお元気ですか。
私たちは、中国の山東省鄄城県第ニ中学の生徒です。以前、私たちにたくさんの
本を送ってくださって、本当にありがとうございます。これらの本は日本語の勉強
の役に立ちます。とてもうれしいです。みなさんに感謝しています。私たちは日本
語が好きです。これからも努力して日本語を勉強しようと思います。
　　みなさんに、いくつかの質問があります。
みなさんは、どこの国の人ですか。いろいろな国の言葉を話すことができますか。
普段は何語を話しますか。今までどこの国に行ったことがありますか。中国に来た
ことがありますか。みなさんの学校に中国人の先生や生徒がいますか。ゆうこさん、
スリランカはきれいですか。ゆうこさんは中国で武術を習いましたか。川村先生は
今中国で武術を習っています。みなさんは中国の武術が好きですか。みなさんの将
来の夢は何ですか。
　たくさん質問して、すみません。私たちの中には、将来日本に留学したいと思っ
ている人もいます。そのとき、会えたらいいですね。
　もし、よければお返事をください。それから、私たちの写真も送ります。
　では、これからもお互いに日本語の勉強を頑張りましょう。

　　　　2010年11月22日
山東省鄄城県第二中学
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　3年生日本語学習者一同

I translated the letter:
Dear Yuko, Kento, Boco, Tess and Seamus
Hello. How are you?
We are students of Juang Cheng Second High School in Shan Dong. Thank you so much for the many books you sent us before. It will be very useful for studying Japanese and we are really happy that you sent them. We love studying Japanese and we hope to improve with these books.
We have some questions we would like you to answer.
Where are you from? Can you speak many different languages? What language do you usually speak in? Which countires have you been to? Have you ever been to China? Are there any Chinese people in your school? Is Sri Lanka a beautiful country? Have you ever learnt Chinese Martial Arts? Because Ms Kawamura is learning martial arts at the moment. Would you like to learn martial arts some day? What are your dreams for the future?
We are sorry for asking so many questions. We hope that some time in the future we will be able to study abroad. Maybe we will meet then, which would be really great.
If you have time, please reply. And we will send some photos of us.
We will work hard to improve our Japanese skills.

2010.November.22
Shan Dong Province Juang Cheng Second High School
9th Grade Japanese Students

I think it is so great that they enjoy learning Japanese and they wrote the actual letter in Japanese. We are going to write a reply letter to them now and we hope we can keep in touch in the future!

Book Drive for China

Over a period of a few months, I did a book drive for students in China. Since my father works in the Japanese International Co-operation Agency (JICA), I asked him to see if there were any problems that I could work on and there was a co-worker in Shandong Province in the East of China who worked as a Japanese teacher for Chinese students, who needed some easy Japanese books to read. The school name is Juang Cheng Second High School and the Japanese teacher there is Ms Michiyo Kawamura.

What I did, with four of my classmates, was collect Japanese books from different people and then do a fundraiser to raise money in order to send the books to the school. We collected picture books, magazines, comic books etc. that were easy to read. In total, we collected about 60 books.

In order to raise money, we held a movie night for the elementary school kids at my school. We booked the auditorium and showed the movie 'UP' and served biscuits and popcorn. The money we raised from the event all went to sending the books. Our goal was initially to raise Rs 10,000 but we managed to raise over Rs 20,000.

In this process, I increased awareness of my strength and areas for growth since it was my first time leading a fundraiser like this. That being said I also undertook new challenges and developed new skills by planning and initiating activities. Because we did this as a group, I managed to work collaboratively with others and show perseverance and commitment in my activity.

MUN

In MUN we are having our first practice debate. We have each been assigned a nation to represent at the debate and my nation is Norway. The topic of our debate is the question of same sex marriages and whether it should be made legal or not. Norway is definitely for same sex marriages, being one of the very few countries that have legalized it.

I hope in this debate, I improve my speaking skills and work collaborately with the people who are debating on my side.

Ceramics Workshop!

On Saturday 13th of November, I went to University of Moratuwa to do a ceramics workshop. A co-worker of my father is a ceramics teacher there and he held a workshop for me and some other people who were interested. I really enjoyed the workshop!

What I made that day was a candle holder and a clay flower. To make the candle holder I used a pottery wheel to make the basic shape of it and to make the clay flower, I just used my hands to mould it into shape. The pottery wheel was actually really difficult to use because it required a lot of patience and strength to keep the shape in proportion. The process of making the clay flower also required a lot of patience because the clay kept drying and cracking. But I had a lot of fun making these things and I enjoyed the workshop a lot!

In this workshop I think I showed perseverance because the whole process of it required quite a lot of patience. This was my first time working with ceramics so I learnt some new skills with it as well. The things that I made are not complete yet, since it takes about 3-4 days to dry and then we have to heat it to dry it completely. Then when it is dry we will put colour and varnish it. I am really excited for doing all of this!

UN day at OSC!

On the 15th of October 2010, OSC held a United Nations Day where everybody dressed up in their traditional clothes and brought the food of their country. Me and some of the Japanese people in this school dressed up in a Kimono to represent Japan.

I really enjoyed this day because I got to see how international our school was as well as seeing the cultures of the people in our school!

Japanese Fair at Galle, Sri Lanka

On Saturday the 16th of October 2010, a Japanese fair was held at the Municipal Council Hall of Galle, in the south of Sri Lanka. It was mainly hosted by 'Hirosha Japanese School' in Galle and had different booths showing Japanese tradition, like Japanese food, Origami (Paper folding), Judo etc. Since this was mainly hosted by the Hirosha Japanese School, I looked around for the most part, but I helped out a little bit in the origami booth and the Japanese alphabet booth.
This is me and my dad with the head of Hirosha Japanese School


This is a T shirt that was designed by the Japanese volunteers. I love how it brings Japanese and Sri Lankan culture together!
This is me with a group of Sri Lankan students who study Japanese as one of their languages. They were really sweet and I could tell they were really devoted to learning Japanese which was great! It made me realize that I should learn Sinhala as well to keep up with them!

This is me with one of the Sri Lankan students in Hirosha Japanese School in Galle

This is a booth that presented information on the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945

This booth taught Sri Lankan students how to write Hiragana and Katakana (Japanese alphabets).

This booth showed the Kimono, the Japanese traditional clothing, and the names of the different parts of it.

I helped out in the Origami booth

Painting For Fun!

Over the past few weeks I have been painting and drawing, separate from my IB Visual Arts course. I really love art and painting and here are some of the pictures I have drawn/painted recently.

With the art that I have made, I learnt and improved my painting skills and since creating a piece of art is quite time consuming, I think I showed some perseverance as well.

Library Service

In Library Service, basically what we do is make the library a more efficient and accessible place, by putting books in order, adding labels etc.

This is our Library Service blog:
http://www.libraryserviceosc.blogspot.com

This is a very relaxed and calm CAS project and I have fun every thursday, when we have Library Service.

MUN

Last Monday, UNICEF's chief of Field Operations, Ms Derdre Kiernan came to talk about the role of UNICEF in natural disasters. UNICEF is one of the major UN organizations that rely on funds from people, which is why we had all heard of them in MUN. Ms Kiernan gave a brief presentation of the actions that UNICEF takes in an emergency and how they focus on children, their education, health and sanitation by providing tents, clean water, vaccines etc.

I think it's amazing how people in UN organizations work so hard to help people who are less fortunate and I really admire them. I always hear of organizations thart succeed in raising money but use it in the wrong ways, like providing boats when what they really need is water, but Ms Kiernan said that UNICEF carries out research before they take action, which is a really constructive and effective thing to do. I think UNICEF and all the other organizations are so great for helping victims of disasters and I really really admire them a lot!

Swimming at OSC

The SAISA swim meet took place on the 24th and 25th of September 2010 in Bombay but unfortunately I wasnt a part of the travelling team so I didnt attend. This was the end of Swimming at OSC, which was really short for me but I think I improved in the strokes that I was struggling at and I definitely feel like I can swim for longee than before. Overall I had fun swimming and training with the SAISA swimming team!

Since there are no regular practices anymore, I try to go to a swimming pool in my own time at least once or twice a week so that I dont forget my strokes.

OSC Sportsday!

The OSC Sportsday was on the 16th of September and we had volleyball, football, kickball, basketball and some swimming relays. I took part in the basketball games and the swimming relays which I enjoyed, especially basketball since I havent played in so long. The swimming was fun but our team was short a couple of swimmers. My team was blue house and in the end we came in first place so that was really fun!

Model United Nations (MUN)

This is my third time taking part in the Model United Nations, but I still feel that I have trouble with public speaking, which is why I decided to participate at this school as well. My first conference was held in the UN building in Nairobi, Kenya, when I was a student of Kampala International School Uganda. The topic we discussed was Human Rights and I was the delegate of Australia. It was an amazing experience because I got to see what kind of things the United Nations did and I wrote and talked about a resolution, which I had never done before. My second conference was held at Marist International School in Japan, where I represented Cuba and we discussed the topic of Internet Censorship.

So far we have had two meetings, and we have begun discussing in groups different natural disasters that have occured recently, such as the Pakistan flood, the volcanic eruptions &c. My group is looking at the Si Chuan earthquake of May 2008 where over 70 000 people died. To gather information on this, I will search for articles on it, preferrably also to do with UN involvement, of any organization, like UNESCO, UNICEF, UNHCR and so on.

Swimming at OSC

The school swimming practice began on the 13th of September and I find it very challenging as the level of practice here is more intense than it was in my previous school. My old school was in Japan, and swimming is not such a major part of their culture perhaps because of the climates. However I lived in Uganda, in East Africa, from age 9 to age 12 where the school's major sport was definitely swimming, which is where I really learned how to swim.

I have known from way back that my weakness in swimming is definitely the two strokes, butterfly and backstroke so I always had trouble doing Individual Medleys (IMs). Most of my swimming practice in Japan was focused on improving my stroke for freestyle and improving my time so I never really had the chance to grasp the butterfly and backstroke strokes. But here, with the IM drills, I think I am getting good practice on the two strokes, which is very helpful, but I still find it difficult.

I hope that the more intense and specified practice at OSC helps improve both my strokes and my time.

Getting Startes on CAS

To get started on CAS, it is necessary to define exactly what CAS actually is. The CAS area of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme covers the creactive and active aspects of the academic life as well as Community and Service, hence it stands for Creativity, Action, Service. I will be working on my CAS activities as a student of the Overseas School of Colombo (OSC), which is located in Sri Lanka, currently in Grade 11.



CAS will give me a great opportunity to try out new things, develop new skills and increase awareness of the things around me, international problems, for example, or even learning to work collaboratively with my peers.



I plan on using this blog to keep track of some of the CAS activities I will be doing, which involves setting goals beforehand and reflecting on them whilst working on them. These are some of the activities I plan on taking on during this academic year (2010-2011)

• (Action) The school swimming practice, which has begun on the 13th of August 2010, meeting every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday
• (Service)The school library service, which started on the 2nd of September 2010, meeting every Thursday afternoon
• (Creativity) Piano outside school.
• (Creativity)Guitar outside school.
• (Creativity)Model United Nations, which started on the 30th of August, meeting every Monday after school
• (Action)Badminton - I was on the Badminton team at my previous school so I hope to make the team in OSC too
• (Action)Softball - Again, I was on the Softball team at my previous school and I would like to join the team at OSC as well

These are the activities I plan on taking part in this academic year, and I hope to achieve all of them, although it seems to me that it will be a lot of hard work. But taking part in these activities will not only help me develop new skills but also build friendships with my peers, because this is my first year at OSC.