Visit to the Alzheimer's Center with new group

Yesterday was the new Alzheimer's groups' visit to the centre. This time, we were shown around by Mr. Tamitagama.

The visit was a great success, and it has enabled us to plan ahead for the group activities in the coming Year.

Mr. Tamitagama has offered us the priviledge of attending the patient's sessions with a Doctor and to conduct Memory Tests ourselves. This will be a great learning experience and oppurtunity especially since I am intested in pursuing Medicine in the future.

The centre is looking to officially open on the 21st and we have also been invited to the opening ceromony. However, since it is taking place during school hours, it might be difficult for us to attend.

Nevertheless, we have promised the centre that we plan to visit every month and take part in various therapy sessions with the patients such as cooking, art, music, etc., and our group eagerly looks forward to this.

Meeting for Community Service Leaders

Today we had our first meeting to kick off the Service activities for the academic year 2011-2012.

All student leaders were able to meet up with our supervisors and plan ahead for the Service sessions of this year.

The teacher supervisor for the Alzheimer's group for this year is Ms. Rossana Favero, who was in fact responsible for first introducing establishing this project at our school. Through her good relations with the Lanka Alzheimer's Foundation Founders Mr and Mrs Tamitagama, I feel that this year holds a lot of potential for us to work as a group in order to move our activity forwards.

All students were given a copy of the school calendar on which to plan the activities for the coming year.

So far, for the first semester from August - December, we have planned to sell raffle tickets, the remaining cards and pens from last year, take part in the annual Alzheimer's walk, visit the Center regularly; at least once a month, and finally attend the christmas party held for the patients in December.

Grade 12: Goals for CAS

During this final year in the IB, I plan to focus particularly on the Creativity aspect which was slighlty overlooked last year. I plan to join the year-long activity of Yearbook, as I've wanted to join this several times in the past year but have not managed to get a place.

I think the Yearbook committee is a great example of a team working together collaboratively. The aspect of time management is also of the utmost importance. I think by joining this, I will be able to enhance these aspects in the CAS criterion.

For Action, I plan to continue Tennis, as I have been doing throughout the summer holidays as well, in the International Club in Bangladesh. I am also looking forward to participating in a friendly tournament that my coach is organizing for all his current students. This will be a challenge for me, as I have never taken part in a Tennis tournament since joining the sport.

For the Service part of CAS, as a co-leader of the Alzheimer's group, I plan to initiate more activities than last year for the group to work on. This would be made possible more easily, due to the opening of the new centre in July.
Our group has been invited by Mrs. Lorraine; the co-founder of the Lanka Alzheimer's Foundation to take part in interacting with the patients by organizing and taking part in various activities such as Art, Music, Cooking, etc.
These activities and visits to the centre will take a lot more careful planning and involve enthusiasm in engaging the entire group, as well as working collaboratively with my co-leader Heesoo.

I hope this will be a successful year of CAS, and by the end of it I will be able to feel proud of what I plan to achieve.

Tennis during the summer!

Even though it is the summer holidays, I have not stopped practicing tennis. I am not in Sri Lanka for most part of the summer but I have been going to the International Club in Dhaka, Bangladesh for Tennis practices 2-3 times every week.

The coach here is must more fast paced and this has enabled me to quicken my own timing. I have also had to get used to the Dhaka weather which is a lot more sunny and hot than Colombo.

I am quite proud at the way I have been able to adapt to the new lessons and am having lots of fun playing!

Grade 11: CAS Reflections

As Grade 11 drew to an end, so did the first year of IB and the CAS program.

Looking back, I am happy that I was able to try out a few different activities and programs throughout the year, and moreover, that I managed to keep a continuous and ongoing CAS program without any major lapses in time.

For the Action aspect of my CAS, I had a weekly tennis lessons with my coach Mr. Chandaka, and from starting out as a beginner in tennis, I am happy to see that I have now learnt the basics of how to do a forehand, backhand and volley shot. I am also able to serve, though this is the aspect I'm least comfortable in and plan to improve it next year.

In terms of Service, I have been able to take part and then lead the Alzheimer's activity. While most of this year comprised of collecting funds, my co-leader and I have high hopes for the next year, where we can actually visit the newly built center to interact with the patients.

The Creativity aspect of CAS was the one I feel that I took least part in this year. In the beginning of the year, through to the end of the first term, I took part in the Primary Set Design activity where I helped paint the backdrop for the Seussical. However, after this, even though I was determined to do something else art related, I was not able to find a Creative activity that I would like to have taken part in, as a suitable opportunity did not present.

The Creativity aspect is what I want to pay particular attention to next year, while also continuing with both tennis and Alzheimer's.

Visit to the Alzheimer's Center

Yesterday was our first visit to the newly built Alzheimer's Center whose work was completed just recently. The small funds raised by the Alzheimer's group at OSC has been going to helping the construction of this site. As the co-leaders of the Service group of Alzheimer's at OSC, Heesoo and I have been very busy trying to organize everything that was required for the visit to happen smoothly, such as transport, parental permission forms for other group members, finding out suitable times for the visit to occur, etc.

The visit itself was both interesting and inspiring. To mention a quote made in the short speech given by Mrs. Tamitagame, the co-founder of the Lanka Alzheimer's Foundation, she said "[the center] has been a dream that we have been working towards for a long time. Over time, like a jigsaw puzzle falling into place, with a lot of dedication from everyone involved and little-little help from organizations and schools like yours, that dream has come true". It was truly inspirational that she was so dedicated and driven towards achieving this goal, and that alone accounted for a huge learning experience.

She further showed real enthusiasm for us working with her and being more involved with the patients, with more frequent visits to the center where we can engage in different activities such as cooking, sewing, art, or putting up small performances to entertain and amuse. This will undoubtedly involve more planning on the part of Heesoo and I, but we are both willing to step up to the challenge. With a sure place to go for our service program to take place, I believe that there will be a lot more happening in our Service next year.

Below are some pictures from our visit, and of the lovely, spacious center:

Key Club meeting

Today we had an informal meeting for Key Club where we made plans for the official meeting taking place next week. This will be our first big meeting of the term.

In it we will be discussing about updating the CAS website of OSC, and the reports that need to come in from the other CAS leaders.

As the Vice-President I will need to take an initiative role in the proceedings.