What's Changed

In the course of this semester, a few things have changed.

I am still a student leader for DAWG, which proved to be a challenge for me. I've had to learn how to lead a group of much younger children, in collaboration with the other student leaders. Our sterilization campaign is coming up soon, in two weeks time. We have collected almost all of the money that we needed by having a bakesale during the SAISA girls' basketball event that was hosted here at OSC. I think that my goal for the sterilization will have to be adjusted, seeing as last year there were less than one hundred sterilizations. So my new goal is to just make sure everything during the sterilization itself works smoothly and handle any stressfull situations that might emerge. I want to learn how to handle the pressure that comes with such events.

Action-wise, I have undergone a slight bump in reaching my goal. I suffered an injury just one week before the SAISA tournament, which meant that I was not fit to travel with the team. I was very frustrated about this, since I had started training towards this even from the beginning of the year. I hope that I will be able to travel next year, as team captain. My new pursuit for action is to regularly participate in Pilates. I regularly have problems with my knees and back while practising sports, this is a problem that I consulted with a professional athletic doctor in Germany last summer. According to him, most of my problems come from a lack of muscles in my back and core. For these exact reasons, I have taken up pilates and will continue this for a long while. My goal is to strengthen my muscles, so that the risk of injury will be smaller for me, but especially focus on stretching my harmstrings, because these are very stiff as of now. I go to pilates once a week, it is a class with an instructor, who is paid for.

My creativity part has undergone slight changes as well. I have talked to my english teacher, Ms Abeyawardene, and asked her to help me out with my poetry, which she has gladly agreed to. She's giving me advice on how to structurally improve my writing, which is exactly the goal that I am pursuing. I still write roughly one poem or song a week, which all will eventually go to Ms A to be read and get feedback on them. I have also continued to practise my singing, which has suffered slight bumps, because I've had a cold and sore throat and therewith couldn't practise for a while. However, I am now advancing again. My goal for this particular part is to perform in my friends' band this summer, as singer. I also still play my bass, I have learned how to play two new songs and have also been practising finger techniques. My goal for this is to learn two more songs before the end of the year, so I have a steady learning curve. I will challenge myself in the way that I will choose songs that requier a slightly higher skill level than I have, which will then push my skills to exactly that level.

I think I'm well on my way :)