British School Talent Show (Creativity)

British School Talent Show (Creativity)

As for my other band, blood brothers, we were asked to be the guest performers for a talent show organized by the British school. For this concert as a whole band we practiced only 4 times which was not enough for us to play to out best potential. The songs we were going to do were Entersand man by Metallica, Living on a prayer by Bon jovi and Knocking on heavens door. We decided to play knocking on heavens door on the last day of out practice and i had to learn two new solos for this song which was a hard task to complete.

For this my goals were to
- Show commitment and perseverance which meant that i had to show up to all the practices on time and I have to be determines to what i am doing which meant that practicing other than just the practice times, and getting the solos almost to perfect or at least good enough to perform on stage.

- Work collaboratively with other band members, which meant to help them out when needed and also listen to what they have to say about me so that i could improve and this is exactly what i did when we were in practices.

We performed and i have to admit it was the best we have ever sounded as a band. I was really happy with my performance as well as the whole bands performance. I think the whole band was really happy with what we managed to accomplish with having just 4 band practices. I learned a lot from this experience as well and one of the main one was that being punctual is very important in being a successful band.

Battle of the Bands (creativity)

Battle of the Bands (Creativity)

Battle of the bands is a concert organized by Cleft pallet the CAS and it is a competition where 5 bands compete and which is something that "Still Thinking" has being practicing for the past few weeks. How the competition works is that every band gets 15 minutes, and the bands can fit any amount of songs in that 15 minutes. Then the bands have to perform in front of a panel chosen by the cleft pallet group and this panel is usually people who has being in the Sri Lankan music industry for a long time. They judge the bands in a criteria also provided by cleft pallet.

My first goal for the whole concert was to come up with a line up. I had already to talked to Bryce, he has being the drummer for still thinking for a long time and i still needed to find rhythm guitarist, a bassist and a vocalist, as the former band members left the band or were not in the country. So i asked around school to find a bassist and i heard Yo from the grade below was a bassist. So what i did was i told him to learn the songs that i was planning on doing for the concerts which was a Maldivian instrumental song called "your betrayal" by Fasy live and "Ecstacy of gold" by Metallica. Both of these songs are tricky songs but yo managed to get a hold of the two songs fairly easily so my next job was to find a rhythm guitarist and a vocalist. I asked the vocalist from my other band if he would be interested in playing with us, he said he will play with us if he can play the rhythm guitarist, and he managed to find a vocalist fairly easily and my first goal was achieved easily. So the line up was Me on lead guitar, yo on the bass, Prabodhya on rhythm guitar and Ray on vocals.

The main goal in our practice sessions were to practice the songs as much as we can, and to do this i had work collaboratively, with the rest of the band. I also had to show Commitment and perseverance which meant that even with all my school work i had to show up to practice on time and give my full focus onto practicing. From all these practices i managed to also Develop my skills in playing guitar as well as the bass because I learned the bass line that was for the Maldivian song as there are no Tabs online that we can follow so we had to learn the song the old school way by listening.

The Concert day came up and all of us were really excited to play and show what we have been practicing for the past few weeks. We got to play 3rd last. Before i went on stage, the goals that i set to accomplish was firstly to have fun and have a good time, secondly it was to win the competition and play with no mistakes
thirdly work collaboratively  and be as synchronized with the rest of the band as possible.

We played really well and we came of the stage with a big smile on our faces, the songs we played were Ecstasy of Gold to your betrayal and then seven nation army by white stripes. Although we didn't win we had a great time and in our hearts we won so that's all that counts, but i was happy to come second and i think the rest of the band was also happy.

I learned a lot from this experience, like i learned that having fun and having a good time is much more important than winning and i think that i accomplished thee two goals. I also learned to have a little faith in others when working collaboratively with others, because in the practices Yo did make a lot of mistakes when playing the songs but on that night his mistakes were to a minimum.

Habitat Build (Service)

Habitat Build (10th of November)

Background Information

The family we are going to help is the Ranjith Family. Ranjith is the father of two a daughter and a son. The daughter attends school but the son is too young to attend school. He lives in Minuwangoda which is 1 hour and 30 minutes from school. Ranjith fell from a tree and he legs are paralyzed, and he has being lying on the bed for the past 8 years. At the moment the whole family is living in a very small shed, with no walls or rooms. The pictures are shown below.




As you can see from the pictures they are living in very critical condition. They have no walls, and if it rains all the stuff would also get wet. I cant set the goals until we go and see the place we are working at which we will be going on the 10th of November which is a Saturday.





The Build

We were asked to go to school at 7.00 in the morning, and we left the school at 7.30. when we got there it was around 9 o clock and just as we went to the place we got a very warm welcome and we got straight to work.

The goals i set before i started working were

- Work collaboratively with the local people and also with the other people who came with us on the build.

- Learn how to use new equipment.

- Get as much done as possible.

We got to the place and I noticed that the place they were living was in a very critical condition and a place that no one should live, I also saw the house they were building and it was about half way done but still there were a lot of things to do such as putting the foundation for two rooms, and the builders who are already there were building the walls. The job we were asked to do was to flatten out two rooms that were filled with sand and to get the rocks out of a sand bank. In order to complete this as fast and as efficiently as possible, what we did was we divided ourselves into two groups and one group worked on filtering all the rocks from the sand bank and the other group flatten the two rooms. and there were more people working on flattening the two rooms as it needed more man power. I was assigned to shovel all the sand and to put it into a container. As this is not my first build i had some experience in shoveling and from experience i knew this was going to be hard work and something that takes time so without wasting any time i started to shovel all the sand out.  As a team we managed to finish one room by tea break. After having tea and some bananas we went straight back to work and everyone worked on finishing the other room. This room had more work to be done as there were a lot of sand in it. This time we took turns in doing all the jobs and i got to do all the jobs which was shoveling, hitting the sand so it is soft and the transporting the sand and throwing it into the next room which needed more sand. By lunch time we were done with that room and we had done about 4 or more solid hours of good hard work. After lunch we were all very tired and we all were ready to go home but we still had one other task we had to accomplish which was to filter the rocks out from the sand. We managed to finish half of the sand, but because one of the people who came with us got sick we had to end out trip early and head home, i wasn't complaining much as i think i have done a lot of work and i think i have contributed a lot to the family.  From this build as with a lot of other builds i learned a lot, I learned to work with others and also to work collaboratively with the local community.

Electric Funeral Concert (Action and Creativity)

Electric Funeral

Electric funeral is a concert organized by a guy called Lasith Fernando, he is a very well known guy in the music industry in Sri lanka. This concert was held in New auditorium Theater, the tickets were 400 rs and on the day of the concert a lot of people showed up. Every band got 45 minutes to play, which meant that as a band we had to play any amount of songs that would fit into 45 minutes, this also included the set up time on stage. I played guitar for a band called "Blood Brothers". we played 4 songs of which i played in three of them and i played lead guitar for the three songs. In order to be perfect we had to practice a lot, but unfortunately due to people having other plans we only got practice as a whole band 3 times, but the practices we did were very good and long practices which lasted about 6 hours to 4 hours.

 We were told to go to sound check at 12 o clock in the afternoon. We went there on time for the sound check as from experience our whole band knew that sound check is very important to sound good. Unfortunately the sound guy arrived at 3 o clock and the concert was meant to start at 5 o clock which meant that only two bands got the sound check, and the bands that got to do the sound check were the headlining two bands, a band called "Rage" and "Angel Down". From the sound check we knew that the two headlining bands were very good and i personally got very intimidated to play. There was nothing to do but suck it up and do my best and contribute to the band.

 The goals i set before i played the concert were

- To show perseverance and commitment, because eventhough we got to practice as a band only 3 times, I did practice alone for a long time and also with the other guitarist, as we both had to get our timings right.

- One other goal was also to work collaboratively with the rest of the band. Which meant helping them out in learning the guitar parts and also accepting help from the other band members.

- My goal was also to develop my guitar skills, as the band i was playing for was very good it was a very good chance for me to learn from them.

- I also had to be aware of my strengths and weaknesses in this area, and to keep my strengths going and to do my best to improve my weaknesses. One of the weaknesses i notice was my stage presence, this has always being a problem for ever since my first band. The only way to improve on my stage presence was to watch other people play like Metallica as there stage presence has bee always very good. And that's what I did, i watched a lot of concerts from you tube and  i tried to improve my stage presence.

 

The song list for us was Living on a prayer by Bon Jovi, Enter sandman by Metallica and the evil that men do by Iron Maiden. Below is a video of us playing Enter sandman by Metallica. 

 

Founders Day Performance

Founders Day Performance (Creativity)

On founders day we asked Ms niederman if me and daisy could perform a song in the founders day assembly. We decided to do our own version of Call me maybe by Carley jepson, it is originally kind if a pop song and we decided to make an acoustic version of it and that took a lot of time as i had to figure out what kind of a strum pattern would go with the melody of daisy voice and I worked Collaboratively with Daisy to figure out what to do. And in the end we were not informed about a rehearsal and we couldnt get a time for a sound check and we had little problem with the sound but it was fixed instantly so it was not a big problem. We did a mini sound check in the morning but the mics were not on so we didnt do a proper sound check.

Saturday Football

Saturday Community Football (Action)    29th september 2012

Every saturday Pascal and Duncan organises football matches where anyone can join and a lot of people show up to play football. Every week this is what i look forward to as a lot of very taleneted football players show up and it is a very good opportunity to Develop new skills. I showed up an hour early because i wanted to improve my skills in shooting the ball, my stamina and also ball control. I played by myself for an hour, i took shots at the goal i tried to improve my aim towards the goal as well as how hard it goes. also i did some ball control drills. I also Worked collaboratively with others as i worked as a team to achieve a similar goal which was to win. 

 

Band Practice

Band Practice (Creativity)

I have a band that I had from last year and the band consists of Mr Riehm, Bryce, daisy and me, where i play the guitar, mr riehm plays the bass, daisy sings and bryce plays the drums. We had band practice on the Wednesday the 26th of september. In band practice we mainly practiced Hysteria by muse and we noticed that we had to do a lot practice sessions as we just needed more practice on the songs. On that day we also decieded to play a instrumental song which is either going to be Your betrayal by Fasy live or Canon rock. In band Practice i worked collaboratively with my other band members and it also really improved my skills and developed my skills in playing guitar, as we jammed and played some original stuff when we jammed.

Sports Day

Sports Day (Action)

In sports day i tried to be as engaged in the acitivities as possible, there were a variety of different sports happening such as football, basketball, sprinting and tug of war. I participated in sprinting, football and tug of war. Out of this tug of war was new challenge for me as i have never really done this acitvity before in my life i have always seen other people playing this sport but i have never really participated this and it was a very good experience for me as i found out about how painful it actually gets in your hand as you get friction burns. I didnt participate in basketball because while i was playing football my knee started hurting and it was impossible for me to run and i knew i wouldnt be an asset to the team.

For football i gave in everything i could, i played in every match and i think i was a very good asset for the team. By playing football i noticed my own strengths and areas for growth. I noticed that i needed to work on my stamina and i knew i needed to work on sprinting as i noticed i was getting slower. What i plan to do is go do more cardio in the gym and as well as on saturdays when i have saturday footbal just come ine maybe an hour early and work on sprinting and changing direction quickly as running fast and chaging direction with the ball is very important in being a good football player. By playing football i also worked collaboratively with others, as i tried to play more as a team.

Joining back to Habitat for Humanity

Joining back to Habitat for Humanity (Service)

Mr Lockwood suggested in doing both the CAS's, the football CAS James is organizing and also Habitat for Humanity. Mr lockwood suggested this because the school james tried to bring to the school didn't respond so Mr lockwood thought it would not happen so he said to be safe to be in habit for humanity and also because Habitat for humanity is something that is recognized all around the world and it is better for the universities if i have this as well.
After joining Habitat for humanity i have had a meeting and in the meeting we talked about having another fund raiser and we thought of doing another more well planned movie night for the primary because that time we actually made a lot of money and we thought it would be a good idea. This time we would know better to be prepared for the movie night by learning from last years experience. We also did a little bit of reflection.

Try out run for the Service project

Try out    (Action/Service)

Before we actually begin the service project Mr lockwood wanted to see how we are going to progress with the project and he suggested us to carry out a practice run through of how exactly we are going to run the whole service project so on Thursday the 30th, we asked couple of people in 9th grade to come after school for us to coach them, although not many people showed up we started off the project with a 5 minute warm up where we ran for about 2 minuets and then  we stretched for the next 3 minutes, and then we went warmed up by passing and then shooting at the goal. By doing this it improves there skill in shooting as well as in accurate passing, it almost becomes a stimulation for that in the real game and it really helps because you get a sense of the environment and how it is going to be like in a real game situation. After this we divided into two teams and we went into a more real life situation where we played 4 a side. We played for about one hour, and this counts as action as well as service.

Goals for this year

Goals for this year for CAS

For this years CAS i decided to try out a new CAS activity, so instead of Habitat for Humanity this year i am going to participate in the CAS James is conducting. In this CAS we have to do is every Thursday a local school will come to our school to play football and what me and james have to do is coach them to play football and try to improve there skills in playing football. Since these kids are underprivileged and they do not have a nice field like ours, so they can not practice football or play football that much so I think that we are doing a very good Service for the local community. At the moment the local schools are still out for there summer break so we cannot get any schools into the school for us to coach but as soon as the schools open we are going to start our CAS program.

The main goal for this yeah is to be more active in the CAS project, this is why i chose to change into the football CAS, it was because the builds were very irregular and as much as i like to go for habitat for humanity i think that i will gain more if i do the football activity, because as SAISA football is coming up it would be a very good pre season practice for me and it would also count as Action for CAS. Another goal that i want to achieve by the end of this year is being more active by playing in more concerts and i will try to concentrate in our band more this year which would count as Creativity.

Football   (Action)
I hope to get into the SAISA team and travel for the team and represent the school. I am already thinking about starting an after school activity where we just pre season train for SAISA. To get ready for SAISA i am also coaching football for my CAS project which would be a new experience that i would learn a lot out of. At home and also at school i have been trying to develop my skills to even better so that i would be able to give a valuable contribution for the team. Also this is my first time being the oldest in the team which automatically brings in a huge pressure because i always was in a team where there is someone else who is older than me and carrying out this new "leadership" would be a new experience for me and i hope to learn a lot from this.

Service Project     (Service)
For my service project my main goals are to be more involved in the service project and take part in more of a leadership role as it would be a new task for me and it would be a very good learning experience. I hope to help james in anyway i can to run the Service project and i wish to start coaching the kids as soon as possible.

Guitar (electric, acoustic and bass)        (Creativity)
My goals for guitar is that i want to develop my skills in playing guitar and also another goal that i have set is playing more shows mainly because this is going to be my last year. I am also planning on increasing my skills in playing guitar by learning a lot of new songs and also by learning new different techniques such as sweep picking, pull offs and harmonies. I am also planning on learning new chords and also new scales to improve my knowledge in music.

Academics
My goals for academics for this year is at least get a 5 in all of my subjects and also  mainly concentrate in maths and physics because those are the two lowest grades that i got. To improve my grade in physics and math i am planning on taking math and physics tuition so that it would be a push for me to put extra concentration on these subjects. I am also planning on doing a little bit of physics and math everyday because these subjects are subjects you get good at when you practice it a lot.

WWW

On week without walls I was able to do all three things, creativity, service and also action. For the service part we went to Hambentota and the class was divided into two and 11.1 went to one school and 11.2 went to the other school. On the first day all of us went to the two schools and we examined the place we figured out what was needed to be done, we figured out what exactly needed fixing and we determined what tools we needed. The school i was assign to needed re-painting of the walls, furniture and also some of the playground equipment such as the slides, the see-saw etc. Also there was hole that they dug as a sand box but around it was full of sand and so we had to clear that part out with shovel. On the second day the jobs were divided amongst the class students and then we started to work. My job at first was to clear out the sand around the hole created. Me and Georgio collaboratively worked together to accomplish this goal. My second job was to paint some of the equipment in the playground such as the see saw the swing and etc. Ms Neirdman really helped us to teach us how to paint, the way we did it before was just get a brush and paint but she taught us the right way to do it and it was a really good learning experience for me because this is not a completely new task for me but I don’t really paint that so I didn’t know exactly how to do it. We also played games with the little kids there. What I did was play guitar and it worked like musical chairs and but we just passed around a ball and when I stop playing guitar and the person who has the ball loses. I also helped the girls paint the mural as they were scared to go up the ladder and get the higher parts of the wall. I had the courage to go up the ladder and help them. Altogether all our tasks were accomplished. The last day of the service day we got together and did small show, I played guitar and we played a song with nadeera Rachel and sorrel.  

SAISA football

Saisa football is not a new thing for me as i have done Saisa football two years before, unfortunately last year i was not able to travel although i was in the team. Football is something that i really like playing and i was privleged enough to play for the school team. this task has consequences for not only me but also the coach, the school and my teammates. For me it was really good exercise and it was a really good way to keep myself active and fit as i have stopped going to the gym this was something that i really needed to keep in shape. By doing saisa I get more experience in playing football which means that i will be a better player. it also helped me be more punctual, as being on time for practices was mandatory. which also meant that i had to wake up really early in the morning on wednesdays, and i try my best to be on time. I also learned more about teamwork and more about working together with others to accomplish teh same goal which was to win. I also made a lot of new friends as my room mater was devin and i have never spent that much time together with and we eneded up being good friends. By doing SAISA i have acheived what i have aimed for and also it was a really good learning experience for me as I learned how to be more punctual and also to work as a team to acheive the same goal which was to win. As a team we came across some problems as one of our main defence player could not travel due to some problems, this became a really huge problem as there was no one else that could play to that position which meant that we had to figure out something else to solve the problem. What we did was we changed the formation adn the problem was solved, but becasue of this new formation it took us time to get used to it.

Afterschool Football

Every Monday and Friday there is afterschool football, but the problem about this activity is that people dont show up, but most of the days a lot of people do show atleast enough to play a game. What we do is we first warm up and then divide the group into two teams and play a match. My goal was to be fit until till the SAISA football starts, becasue i noticed my stamina going down in comparison to last year so i decided that i would do some cardio workouts and i think this is the best way of getting some cardio workout. also i wanted extra practice before SAISA because i knew the players who go to SAISA really good.