The last weeks

During the past few months, since my final reflection in January, I have remained to pursue some of my CAS activities, at least the ones that I still could pursue.

I've continued writing poetry, which can be found on the blog that I posted a link to earlier. I've further improved my bass playing techniques, by practicing the so-called spider technique. I've learned more chords on my guitar (I can now play 10 different chords) and have continued to write music.

I have also played football. I had the chance to join a school team in a competition with local schools in and around Colombo and did so. We won one match by 5:1 and lost our semi-finals by 1:0.

I've dealt with some issues concerning passing on CAS leadership. I passed it on to two eleventh-graders, both of whom were happy to take it on. As soon as the first responsibilities came around however, they wanted to push it off to me. I made it clear that I have officially passed on leadership and that it is now their job to take care of DAWG, but offered to answer any questions they may have.

Overall, I feel that I have remained to be active, even though most strongly in Creativity. Nevertheless, I don't see a reason why I should completely stop anytime soon. I'm planning on being active in my future community, wherever that may be.

Hitting the CAS Criteria

This post has the purpose of summarizing how I have met each of the 8 criteria.

Taken from an official document:

As a result of their CAS experience as a whole, including their reflections, there should be evidence that students have:

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

During my IB CAS programme, I have done this intensively. Through my action I have become more aware of my physical strengths and weaknesses and worked on improving this. Pilates helped me keep a healthy body, while football served for mental balance between academics and outside-of-school life. Through my intense study of guitar and bass I have realized that if I put enough effort into something, I learn very quickly, given that I enjoy what I am doing. I have grown as a musician. My involvement with DAWG has helped me become aware of what responsibilities I have as a leader outside of the classroom, as well as the fact that I needed to grow in terms of improving my leadership skills.

• undertaken new challenges

The new challenges I undertook during my IB CAS programme include: Pilates, coaching the girls' football team as well as teaching local children about football, playing guitar, engaging with physically and mentally challenged children and being in an active leadership position for DAWG. My biggest challenge over the course of this time was learning how to write my own songs, which I have don on GuitarPro.

• planned and initiated activities

I have been involved in planning school events, such as one of the SGA discos last year, where I was one of the DJs, the DAWG sterilization as well as the trip to the Mama Papa orphanage down south. I was the one who initiated the trip to that orphanage, and will be the one to initiate a continuation of this throughout the next few years.

• worked collaboratively with others

I have worked collaboratively with others in football training, being in a band and especially in DAWG. Specifically the football training included both my own participation (action) as well as planning training methods (creativity) and the actual teaching of football (service), thereby making it my most connective activity throughout my IB course.

• shown perseverance and commitment in their activities

I have always attended regularly in all of my activities, even the ones that I pursue on my own, such as writing poetry, music and short stories as well as playing instruments. I have shown commitment to all of my activities not only by attendance, but also by carrying them on through the years, such as DAWG or training the girls' football team.

• engaged with issues of global importance

The issues of global importance that I dealt with mainly focus around the presence of dogs without owners within communities. The dangers that they are associated with (e.g. spreading of rabies or other illnesses to other animals or even humans) are some of the things that we aimed to work on during this project. Sterilizing and vaccinating dogs for no charge has enabled to us to decrease the number of street dogs around the school area, as well as making sure that some of the serious diseases are contained to a certain extent.

• considered the ethical implications of their actions

The ethical implications that I have dealt with in my actions are very broad. Teaching football to Sri Lankan children especially faced me with having to choose ethically correct training methods that would both discipline the children and let them have fun while learning how to play the sport. I often asked myself how ethical it is to take street dogs and sterilize them against their will, but at the end of the day we humans are selfish beings, and sterilizing those dogs serves our own comfort. Relationship-wise, I think that I have maintained professional relationships with all of the participants involved, from teachers to younger students. I have not heard any complaints about my leadership styles, therefore I can say this with confidence.

• developed new skills

The new skills I developed are easily listed.
I have learned...
- different exercises in pilates
- how to conduct football training with both males and females
- how to write poetry
- how to write short stories
- how to write music on GuitarPro
- how to maintain a good working atmosphere within groups
- how to lead people of different ages
- how to deal with setbacks in terms of expectations and outcomes
- how to organize events, from discos to training sessions to sterilizations
- how to communicate efficiently with others
- how to be more aware of my own actions and their consequences.

More proof

Here a screen shot of one of the songs I wrote in GuitarPro:



Here a photo of the girls' football team, another school's team and I (in the background, red shirt):



Here a download link to one the vocal covers I did, credit for the real song goes to Demolisher, the original is titled Windy City Takeover.


http://www13.zippyshare.com/v/65273987/file.html

Here a photograph of one of the puppies brought to our sterilization campaign to be vaccinated, with one of the DAWG members in the background:

Proof!

I needed to include more proof of my CAS program, so here goes my poetry :)

http://anecdotesofadyingking.blogspot.com/

Hopefully photos from the DAWG sterilization, football and other activities will be coming soon!

Update

Hello again,

a part of this year has already passed. I have started and even finished some events along the way, and will use this post to update on my activities and define my goals for future activities.

Creativity:

I have finally managed to improve my singing techniques. I have managed to reach the high-pitched tone range of shouting vocals, which means that I will now be able to try out more vocal covers of a broader range of songs. My goal for this will be to do covers of at least 3 more songs before I finish this school year.

Bass: I've been lucky enough to get my GuitarPro working again just yesterday. It is a program that enables me to view songs' tablature as well as the notes that go with it, meaning I have both musical and non-musical notation of the songs, which will help me figure our rhythms of songs. This program is very helpful in learning songs, so I am looking to learn at least 2 more songs. I have already fulfilled my goal of learning one more song, because I figured out a song by ear (Sonnet of the Wretched by Chelsea Grin), which is an accomplishment that I am very proud of, since it was the first time I've ever tried to play something by ear.

Writing: thanks to my Extended Essay, I have been able to improve my writing. My goals have been met: structure and breadth of topics have both increased. I have also succeeded in supplying my friends' band with further lyrics for their songs, which is amazing!

Guitar: now that I have GuitarPro running, I will use it to learn a few more songs. i will probably stick to chord-based ones, because anything else would be too evolved for me. Nevertheless, I want to try and challenge myself with a finger-picking song (e.g. Falling Slowly from the Once soundtrack). I have met my goal of learning how to play Children of Divorce and can now move on.

The poster design that I referred to in my last post has helped me with my visual art class. I have now moved towards producing more poster art, and my previous design has given me a strong foundation from which I can work.

Action:

Sadly, the boxing elective has not come around yet. It will be interesting to see whether it will after the December break. Since this seems unlikely to happen, I have approached a teacher at school and asked him whether he would be willing to lead an American Football elective, because he used to play it actively. He happily agreed. I've never played American Football before, so this should be a challenge. If it does happen and I get to join it, I will set a goal then, rather than set a goal now that can not be met.

I have been coaching the girls' soccer team, we are almost through the season. The final team is about to be selected, and I have had fun coaching the girls. Not only have I coached the girls, but I was also given the opportunity to repeatedly be a referee for their matches. I also did this at a few matches last year, but I feel that I really improved in comparison, because I have been paying more attention to fairness and technicalities, such as foul throws. I have succeeded in motivating the girls to be a confident team player and help them improve their understanding of the game. My goals have been met, so I will use the next few weeks to extend this effect as much as possible.

I have been working out every week and am already noticing the differences. I have grown stronger, but also more endurable. I've played two football matches this year, during the first I was exhausted after just the first twenty minutes, whereas I played almost the entire match the second time around. My fitness is improving, and it has helped me improve my health. I have not really been sick this year, definitely less than five times. In comparison to last year, that's a huge improvement. My health has improved, so my goal has been met. I will keep up with all my work for Action to keep it that way.

Service:

DAWG has been going very well this year. We organized a movie night, where we put on a movie and sold food and drinks. This event was not a challenge to plan, the challenge was and still is in learning how to motivate the younger kids. There is one boy in our group that says he is willing to work, but doesn't really do anything. He shows up late to the events, seems uninterested in what we do and really doesn't put a whole lot of effort into anything. My goal from now on will be to change his mind and get him motivated and involved. This should help me improve my leadership skills.

Thanks to the movie night and the food we sold during the primary play, we now have sufficient funds to start our sterilization campaign. If we succeed with this, then we will not have to run DAWG next semester, which will give me more time for academic work. I think this is a very good thing, because it has been years since any group of DAWG members has managed to put on a sterilization campaign in the first semester, which makes me proud of our accomplishments. However, the organization will not be easy. Therefore, my goal for DAWG is to make the sterilization campaign happen this semester rather than next.

Additionally, I went on a trip to the Mama Papa Home, an orphanage for mentally and physically challenged children. We went there during our IB Orientation trip in eleventh grade, many plans were made, but none of them came through. So a group of us got together and organized a trip to the orphanage to play with the children and spend some time with them. We took the CAS coordinator of our school, so she could witness the conditions of the orphanage first-hand. Shocked by this, she agreed to make something happen.

After lengthy discussions with other leaders and people involved, we will probably try to organize either regular visits to the orphanage including every-day cleaning supplies, or a one-off visit with a few doctors, so the children can receive medical care for the first time in years.

My goal for the Mama Papa Home is to make sure that something will happen. I don't mind what it is, as long as I know that there will be people here next year who will carry this on and ensure that the orphans are not forgotten.

That's how far I've gotten this year, with a few months to go.

Paul

A New Year, a New Start

Hi there :)

Now I've started my final year of high school. During this year, I will obviously continue being involved in CAS in numerous ways, which I will outline in this post.

Creativity:

Last year, I fulfilled my Creativity part of CAS by playing bass, singing and writing. All of these will continue this year. However, things have changed. I brought my sister's old guitar with me after the summer and started playing it. I've never really played guitar before, which means that this will be my hardest task in the next few months, until graduation.

My goals for my Creativity activities are:
Singing: evolve. I spent several weeks with my friends during the summer, some of which are vocalists in bands. I got advice from them, as well as new music to inspire me. I have new ideas and want to take the next step with my voice: I can do low growls, I can shout, but I can't do highs. Highs are screams that are high pitched. They've always been the hardest to do for me, because I always end up hurting my vocal cords, which is not meant to happen. My goal is to cover at least one song that utilizes several types of screaming in such a way that it is presentable to people who listen to my kind of music. No one else will like it, anyway.

Bass: I have gathered some detailed experience about playing the bass and the role of the bass in the hardcore/metalcore genre, which means I now have a better idea of what I want to do. My goal for playing the bass is not aimed very high though: I want to improve my technique and cover at least one song of the genres mentioned before. part of improving my technique will be to master the "spider walk" which is a warm-up that requires finger movement and placement. I also want to learn how to mute my bass strings while playing with a pick, which is something that none of my bass-playing friends knew how to do.

Writing: over the summer, I have already started pursuing one of the goals that I have set myself: I want to stylistically evolve from using simple structures to paying more attention to detail. I want to extensively consider the choice and placement and diction within my work in order to make it more effective. My work has already been complimented by many readers, but I want to take it to the next level. One accomplishment that I've made over the summer was that one of my friend's band is using two of my pieces as lyrics for their songs. They will be recording an album soon and once done with it, providing it for free on the internet. This means that, at least in some way, my work will have been publicized. Furthermore, the band (called The Offshore Burial, visit their myspace!) will be recording the instrumentals to one of their songs and send it to me so I can write lyrics for it. I never actually thought that I would get this far with my writing! You can read everything I've put up on my other blog.

Guitar: since I've only just started playing the guitar, my goals for it won't be too hard. Because I have played the bass, playing guitar is not as hard for me as it would be for an all new beginner, nevertheless it is still very hard for me. The different sizes of the strings mean that I need to be much more precise with my finger placement than on my bass. My goal for this activity is to cover the song "Children of Divorce" by Jonny Craig, which you can listen to here. I think because I have only just started, it makes sense to set small goals, one at a time rather than to say that I want to be playing Canon in D by the end of the year. Once I can play this song, I will move on to the next.

One thing I had forgotten to mention last year, was my poster design. I had designed a poster for the band mentioned above and printed 20 copies of it, to bring with me to Germany. I paid for the posters myself and made sure that the band gave them to their fans for free. I used photoshop and several images to create it. During the process of it, I got to know photoshop a lot better, learned how to use gradient layers, blending options and several filters. Here the poster:



Action:

Last year, my Action creativity involved lots of things: playing football, training football, working out on my own and pilates. For this year, these have slightly changed:

I will, or am hoping to take part in the boxing elective. This is an after school activity. I've never done boxing in my life, which means that this will be completely new to me. I will wait until after my first few lessons to set myself a goal, because I have no sense of what to expect from it, but I'm sure that it will be lots of fun and also give me an impression of what real boxing is like. I've never even done any martial arts in my life, so I'm looking forward to this.

I have already talked to Mr Shipley, who will be coaching the girls' team this year, whether I could do that exact thing with him. He gladly agreed, which means that I will be training the girls' football team during their season, at least once a week. I have to make sure that I can keep up with my academics as well, which means that I will be flexible with how many times a week I will take part in the practices. My goal for this is to become a better coach on one hand, but also to better my own skills in football. Last year I think I did an okay job training the girls and it was great fun, but I want to have a system and make sure that I know what I'm doing, because it seems to me that this is the kind of thing I might enjoy doing way past graduation. I want to make sure that all of the girls know what they're doing technically as well as strategically, because I noticed last year that many of the girls had the technique that was necessary, but didn't quite know where to go or where to play the ball.

Additionally, I will work out at least once a week. Over the summer, I made up my mind and said to myself that I need to "buffen up". I have been at a constant weight for about a year now and I think it's time that I get bigger. This means that I will be asking the PE department to make sure that I can use the weights in their room, as well as I will be working out at home. After my injury shortly before the SAISA boys' football tournament, I was told by the doctor that my muscles were not strong enough, so my goal is similar to what it was for pilates: gain muscle. I have already taken steps towards this, I've sat down with my parents and talked about a protein and carbo-hydrate diet, which will help me achieve my goal. I had done intense research on this topic, to make sure I don't make any mistakes. In my eyes, the most useful information is to be found on this site.

What will happen to me doing pilates is still unclear, because I don't know whether the instructor is still here. If she is, I will certainly continue doing it ever Wednesday night, because it helped me a lot last year. I will state my goal once I know whether it will be happening.

Overall for Action, I hope to become a healthier person. As a high school senior in a rather western setting, it'd be considered normal to go out on weekends and have drinks with friends. I do not drink, nor do I smoke. I even go so far to refuse to eat anything that has alcohol in it. I think this is a very healthy way of living and will help me stay healthy. Why do I need to stay healthy? Because in the IB, being sick is very bad. If you miss out on a few days, it's already hard to catch up. With all the deadlines and homework, being sick is really not an option. My planned activities for Action will help me avoid this as much as possible.


Service:

Last year, I was the leader of two CAS activities, of which one was more successful than the other, DAWG being the more successful one. This year, I will remain as leader of DAWG. Due to schedule changes, all Wednesday electives are now in the afternoon, but because our supervising teacher from last year is already supervising one other CAS activity, we had to reschedule: we had a few talks and decided that we will choose a few people (group of 8 or 9 people) to work with us on another collection of food for the animal shelter, as well as another sterilization campaign. We also decided that we will only meet every second week, because even when we only met every second week last year, we still had some days where we had nothing to do, since everything was already done. Meeting in the afternoons now means that we can be very flexible with our meetings: we can meet for a shorter or longer period of time. This will help not only to maximize our efficiency, but to motivate people. I have already "recruited" this year's DAWG members, now we just have to hope that those people will be the ones in it.

As mentioned above as well as in earlier posts, the goals for DAWG will be to complete another food collection for the animal shelter and another successful sterilization campaign. This year, we have to make sure that enough vaccines are available for the dogs, because last year we ran out very quickly.

This DAWG activity deals directly with global issues of street dogs as well as insufficient health care for animals around the world. Being in DAWG has made me much more aware of this, even seriously consider being active in animal rights groups such as PETA after graduating. It has not only let me learn many new things, but also opened my eyes to things I didn't see before and changed me as a person.

Other than DAWG, I will be taking up chances to help people out every now and then. I have asked to take part in a build for the Hope for Humanity elective, for example. I did it, because I want to open up to other things, learn new ways in which to help my community and share with people who are less privileged than we are at this school. I enjoy putting a smile on peoples' faces.
I don't have a goal for this build, because I don't know what to expect and what exactly it is that we are trying to do. I just want to help out where I can, give back to the country in which I've been a guest for three years now.


That's it for now, I will post every now and then and give progress reports :)

Smile,

Paul

Summary of 2009-2010

This is where I give an overview of what's happened this year and what'll happen next year.

Creativity:
I've engaged in band practices, improving my bass playing skills and my creative writing (mainly poetry) skills. Next year, I will continue most if not all of these on a weekly basis. My approach towards these three things has been rather stagnant, I've been active whenever I felt like it, but I think overall I probably put in more than the 50 hours that were prescribed in the past. I feel accomplished, because I've managed to meet all of my goals in all of these areas.

Now I need to set myself some goals for next year:
Despite the increasing workload, I will continue playing the bass in a band and on my own, just as much as I will continue writing. By the end of the year, I want to be able to play at least 10 songs on my bass by heart. One of the bigger goals I will set myself is to try to go further with my poetry. I no longer want to only have it on a blog, but much rather get it in book form. I don't quite know how to be realistic, but maybe I can even find a publisher!

Action:
This year, I've trained girls for football, played football myself, was part of the wallclimbing elective and participated in weekly pilates classes. I've met many challenges, especially in pilates and wall climbing, because I had never done either before.
Next year, I will not be doing SAISA football, because my parents want me to focus on my studies. I will however continue going to pilates class every week, as well as I want to start going to a gym once or twice a week to build up external bodystrength.

Service:
For service this year, I have lead a football CAS activity, as well as the DAWG (Dog Awareness Welfare Group) elective, which also is a CAS activity. I've encountered numerous challenges along the way, because I was new to dealing with kids who couldn't speak english (football) and new to dealing with kids much younger than myself (DAWG). In the end, I think that DAWG turned out much more successful than the football activity, because I had more help from others, especially our supervising teacher Ms Huijnen. Thanks!
Next year, I will continue to lead DAWG, the goal for which is to complete another sterilization campaign and improve some of the conditions I discussed in earlier post.


Altogether this year has been very successful. I am proud of what I've accomplished. I've faced uncomfortable decisions and fought through them and am looking to continue this next year.

Have a great summer Mr Lockwood and thank you for all the patient guidance!