The school Badminton practice started on Tuesday 15th of February 2011. We have practices on Tuesday and Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings. I was on the Badminton team in my old school but that was the first time I ever did Badminton, so I am still fairly new to the sport. What we do in our practices is do some fitness training, running back and forth and side to side, stroke practice, eg. lobbing, drop, smash &c. and do practice matches.
I find the practices quite tiring but I enjoy them very much. In doing this sport, I am undertaking new challenges because this sport is still fairly new to me, working collaboratively with others because in doubles, I have to co-operate with my partner to perform efficiently, showing perseverance and committment by going to every single practice and developing new skills.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Colombo Model United Nations Practice Debate 3
On the 12th of February 2011, the Overseas School of Colombo hosted the third MUN Practice Debate. Again, what we did was the same as last time, which included giving opening speeches, discussing moderated caucus topics, writing up resolutions and debating over them. This time we were discussing the situation in Myanmar and the problems the country was having due to the refusal of the military government to accept democracy.
I felt that I was getting more involved in the debating process this time because I had had the experience from the past two practice debates.
the criteria that I am fulfilling in this activity are:
I felt that I was getting more involved in the debating process this time because I had had the experience from the past two practice debates.
the criteria that I am fulfilling in this activity are:
- Undertaking new challenges
- Working collaboratively with others
- showing perseverance and committment
- Engaging with issues of global importance
- Developing new skills
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Colombo Model United Nations Practice Debate 2
On the 5th of February 2011, the COMUN held another practice debate at the Overseas School of Colombo. This time I found it a little easier to follow, given the practice I had last time.
We were discussing the 'Threat imposed on international security by the Wikileaks website'. What we did was the same as last time; giving opening speeches, discussing moderative caucus topics, writing up resolutions and debating over them.
The criteria that I am fulfulling in this activity are:
We were discussing the 'Threat imposed on international security by the Wikileaks website'. What we did was the same as last time; giving opening speeches, discussing moderative caucus topics, writing up resolutions and debating over them.
The criteria that I am fulfulling in this activity are:
- Undertaking new challenges
- Working collaboratively with others
- Showing perseverance and committment
- Engaging with issues of global importance
- Developing new skills
Colombo Model United Nations Practice Debate 1
On the 29th of January 2011, the Colombo Model United Nations (COMUN) held a practice debate at the Overseas School of Colombo. The structure of MUN here is totally different to the other MUN conferences that I have attended so I actually found this extremely difficult to follow.
There were five conferences; General Assembly (GA) 01, GA02, GA03, ECOSOC and Security Council (SC). I was placed in Security Council as the delegation of Austria. The SC that day was discussing the situation in Pakistan, which involved the Islamic Extremist uprising and the conflict between the Taliban and the Al Qaeda. We all have to give an opening speech which is a brief 3 minute speech outlining the country's stance on the topic.
The other delegates issued several moderative caucus topics in which time, usually of about 10 to 15 minutes, was given to discuss a specific topic.
We spent the second half of the day writing up resolutions, which basically stated the methods in which our delegations were prepared to handle the problems. We then debated these resolutions, giving speeches for and against it, making amendments to clauses that needed fixing and finally voted for them.
During this debate I felt I was increasing my awareness and areas for growth, undertaking new challenges, working collaboratively with others, showing perseverance and committment, engaging in issues of global importance and developing new skills. Although I have done MUN before, the conference here was extremely intense and it made me realize the areas in which I need to grow in while helping me build my public speaking skills. I worked collaboratively with others when the delegates of certain nations got together to construct a resolution together.
There were five conferences; General Assembly (GA) 01, GA02, GA03, ECOSOC and Security Council (SC). I was placed in Security Council as the delegation of Austria. The SC that day was discussing the situation in Pakistan, which involved the Islamic Extremist uprising and the conflict between the Taliban and the Al Qaeda. We all have to give an opening speech which is a brief 3 minute speech outlining the country's stance on the topic.
The other delegates issued several moderative caucus topics in which time, usually of about 10 to 15 minutes, was given to discuss a specific topic.
We spent the second half of the day writing up resolutions, which basically stated the methods in which our delegations were prepared to handle the problems. We then debated these resolutions, giving speeches for and against it, making amendments to clauses that needed fixing and finally voted for them.
During this debate I felt I was increasing my awareness and areas for growth, undertaking new challenges, working collaboratively with others, showing perseverance and committment, engaging in issues of global importance and developing new skills. Although I have done MUN before, the conference here was extremely intense and it made me realize the areas in which I need to grow in while helping me build my public speaking skills. I worked collaboratively with others when the delegates of certain nations got together to construct a resolution together.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Week Without Walls
At the Overseas School of Colombo, every year we have an opportunity to do some extra-curricular activities outside of school. This year we went to the south of Sri Lanka, to a place called Hambantota, where we did some service work for two Sri Lankan pre schools that were built after the tsunami a couple years ago. On the 24th of January 2011, we made our way to Hambantota. My plan was to undertake new challenges, take part in planned and initiated activities, work collaboratively with others, show perseverance and committment and consider the ethical implications of my actions during this trip.
What we did over the course of two days was visit a couple post-Tsunami pre-schools in the Hambantota area. When we visited, we were able to meet about 15 young children and we played some games with them for about half an hour. We played musical chairs and drew pictures using the pastels that we brought for them. I really enjoyed playing with the children, they were so adorable and although at first some of them were very shy, after a while they became used to us and started enjoying themselves.
After that, we spent about six hours painting different areas of the school. Some of us painted the outside walls, some the inside walls, some the play ground equipment outside and the rest of us worked on a mural on the wall. I was working on the mural along with three others. Our mural theme was 'outerspace'. I had in fact never done such a large scale painting before so in doing this I was undertaking new challenges and developing new skills. The four of us planned and initiated this, as well as worked collaboratively with each other as we got together as a group and decided on what to draw and who was in charge of painting which part.
On the second day at the school, we played miniature bowling with the children, which was also really fun. We then spent another six hours continuing our murals. We actually finished quite early so I helped out by painting the doors and window sills of the classroom. Because we were using gloss enamel paint, we job was a lot harder than I expected, but I felt that I had developed a new skill by doing it. Over these two days, we as a group showed perseverance and committment as we worked for two days to complete this mural. Our whole group as a whole definitely worked collaboratively with each other to get the different parts of the school painted.
At the end of the two days we did a small play and sang a Sinhala song for the children. We also gave each of them a small gift pack which included school bags, pencil cases, pencils, erasers, colouring pencils, lunch boxes &c. I was really touched by their reaction to these gifts and it made me realize how fortunate I was. I am extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to help a school that needed it.
On the last day of our trip we visited Yala National Park, which was famous for its leopards. We got up at 4:30 to go there and we split up into small groups and went around the park in a Jeep.
These are some of the animals I saw:
- Elephants
- Crocodiles
- Jackels
- Deer
- Mongoose
- Peacocks
- Other birds
Unfortunately, I didn't get to see the leopard although many of the others did. But overall the safari was very enjoyable and I would very much like to visit Yala again!
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