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.