Swimming (by myself)

During the SAISA soccer season, which I did not participate in, I have been trying to keep my fitness up outside of school. I have been trying to swim at least once a week. To begin with, this did not always happen, but recently I have managed twice a week and even more. I have noticed an improvement in my fitness: I can now swim 1500 m without stopping, and managed to swim 3 km in a 1 1/2 hour session. I am particularly proud that this is entirely self-motivated, because I often have trouble making myself excercise on my own. Both of the life-guards, Mr. Devaka and Mr. Stanley, have been kind enough to help me set distance goals, which has really improved my endurance. Mr. Stanley is determined to see me swim 64 lengths non-stop (1600 m). I'm not so sure but I'll try and keep up some swimming (although a little less maybe) during basketball season. I'm going to try out for the team so training will leave me with less time and energy for swimming.

Bike Riding

I have been going for bike rides in the morning. It was really exciting to begin with because I kept getting very lost and not knowing whether I would make it back home to get to school on time. My map wasn't always very reliable, but I really enjoyed the navigation. Apart from helping with my pretty terrible navigational skills, it also forced me to get to know the area I live in a little better. For example, I now know that most Sri Lankan kids are driven to school in minibuses, and that they all stand outside their houses and wait at about 6 am. However, now I have worked out a route that takes me about 45 minutes and is (according to some estimation and google earth) about 10 or 11 kilometres. It's a nice way to start the day, and a very easy way to keep fit. I'm eventually going to try and work out another route, just to keep things interesting, but for the moment the one I've got is working well.
Here is a Google Earth map of my ride (can't work out how to get a better quality image).

Pin Hole Photography

Every fortnight, on a Wednesday morning, means ELECTIVES! I have chosen to do Pin Hole photography, because I have some experience with darkroom techniques, really enjoyed it, and couldn't wait to learn more. Pin Hole photography is different from most photography in that it doesn't actually use a typical camera. Instead, we use a light tight box (like a Milo tin) with a tiny hole in it, and a piece of light-sensitive paper. No negatives, and certainly no digital pixels!


Because there's no lense to focus the light, the images are fuzzier than normal photographs, and the exposure time is very long (about 1 min generally, although it varies). The round shape of the Milo tin also gives the photo a sort of distorted look, but I think that adds to the effect. Because the exposure time is so long, and you only get one chance (once the paper is exposed there's no going back), it forces you to really think about the composition of your photo. I think it therefore one of the more intelligent forms of photography: you can't just point and snap.

To explain the process a little:

• Place a piece of photographic paper in a pin hole camera, opposite the hole (done in a darkroom under safe lights so the paper is not exposed).
• Keeping the hole in the camera covered, leave the dark room and find something you want to take a photo of.
  
• Uncover the hole, making sure to keep the camera completely still (place on a flat surface).

• Expose the paper for approximately 60 seconds depending on the amount of light availabe. This varies alot and needs some experimentation to get it right!
• Recover the hole, and return to the dark room.
• Remove the paper from the camera.
  
• Develop the photo by placing the paper first in the Developer Chemical (60 seconds, agitating)
• Then in the Stop Bath Chemical (30 seconds, agitating)
• Finally, the Fixer chemical (5 minutes)
• Then rinse the paper with water and leave to soak to completely remove the chemicals. You now have negative image.
  
• Let dry and then scan onto the computer.
• Use photoshop to invert the image so you can finish with a positive image.

I found getting the exposure time right extremely difficult. I often ended up with photos that were either completely black or completely white. Because the process takes so long this can be very frustrating. On the other hand, when you do get it right, there is nothing more satisfying and exciting. Watching the image appear on the paper in the developper is like magic.

SAISA competition.

I really enjoyed going to Mumbai - despite generally disliking competition, I liked the whole SAISA atmosphere. I cheered very loudly the entire time and lost my voice... but that was part of the fun. The only things I thought could have been better were the social events: we didn't get much time to get to know anyone from other schools, which was a shame. The three days were extremely punishing physically. I was billeted with Shin and we barely talked to our host family in the evenings because we arrived back at their house and fell straight into bed. I was exhausted. In terms of my races, I was very happy with my results, as I placed in every single race I entered in.



Individual races

• 100 m Freestyle: 1.16.30 s. 6th place.
  
• 200 m IM: 3.21.09 s. 5th place.
  
• 100 m Breastroke: 1.42.27 s. 6th place.


• 200 m Freestyle: 2.57.75 s. 5th place.

Relays

• 200 m Freestyle Relay: 5.21.71 s (total). 4th place.
• 200 m Medley Realy: 2.40.50 s (total). 3rd place.
  

I swam the Freestyle leg of the Medley relay, and the last leg of the Freestyle relay. Given that there were maybe 20 people in some of the races (in heats of 6) I was very pleased to make the final for all of my races. This did mean I was very tired because I had to swim some of my races twice (the others were timed finals, which means they just place you according to the time you swam). The most exciting highlights of the trip were definitely when Constanz won first in her backstroke race and when Phil-Jin won first in his butterfly race. These were the only two first places that OSC achieved.

OSC acheived 4th place overall, which was good without being outstanding, but a pretty accurate placing of our abilities. There were some incredibly good swimmers there. However, we were also given the Sportsmanship Award, which was great! The only downside of the trip was the flight back, where we were delayed for about 5 hours and stayed the entire night in the airport. I felt that this was a really good conclusion to the 6 weeks of training I had put in.

SAISA Swimming

From the 24th to the 27th of September, the OSC swim squad will be travelling to Dubai, India to participate in the SAISA Swim Meet. We have been training since week 1 of this term (the week of the 12th of August). We train 4 to 5 times a week: Monday morning, Tuesday afternoon, Thursday morning, Friday afternoon and every second Saturday morning. Last weekend, the 12th of September, we had a friendly swim meet with the local swim squad. Unfortunately for us, they train quite a lot more than us and sustain training throughout the year. So they were exceptionally fast. However, it was good racing practice, and it was nevertheless an enjoyable day. My events and current times are:

• 200m Individual Medley ( 3.27.99 minutes)
• 200m Freestyle ( 3.06.38 minutes)
• 100m Breastroke ( unknown)
• 100m Freestyle ( 1.19.26 minutes)

At the moment these times are OK, but not fantastic. My IM time is about 12 seconds off the final time and my 200m Freestyle is about 6 seconds off the final time. Obviously this is quite alot to improve on, but my aim is to make it in to at least one final at the meet. I was quite happy with my performance at the meet - the times weren't fantastic but my tumble-turns have improved alot. So in the next few training sessions I will work on improving technique so that I have the best chance to acheive my best at the SAISA swim meet.

photos are coming - I am having trouble accessing them.

Mama Papa Home

From Thursday 10 to Saturday 12 of August, the entire year 11 decamped to the Mermaid Hotel for our IB Orientation Camp. As part of our introduction to the CAS program, we paid a visit to the Mama Papa Home. This is an orphanage complex where children live together in rooms with a small group of other children presided over by a mother figure assigned to their group. The Home cators for a large population of differently abled people, many of whom, we found out, were not children but adults with severe
developmental disabilities. While the conditions for some in the Home were confronting to begin with, after talking to the volunteers who run the Home, they seemed inevitable. Many of the residents did not have mattresses in their cots as they had limited bladder control, and washing mattresses every day added extra work for women who already have too much on their plate. Many of the residents' stories were horific, and some had an extremely limited capabilities. On the other hand, all of the children who came to do activities with the OSC students were high functioning, capable, bright and charming kids. We painted with them, having brought along art books, paints, crayons and pencils, which we left behind us when we went. While language was a restricting factor for me - having only recently arrived in Sri Lanka I speak no Singhalese whatsoever - I still found the experience very rewarding. I communicated with hand gestures and smiles, and one of the girls even spoke excellent English. The second part of our visit was a friendly match of cricket and some skipping games with some of the children of the local school, who were also orphans but living in another part of the Mama Papa Home complex. I spoke to some of the older girls - who spoke very good English. Despite being my age they were about half my height, which made them laugh alot, and they tried to teach me some basic Singhalese, which made them laugh even more. While I think that our visit was only a tiny scrape on the surface, it was a really positive experience for me, and I hope that as an OSC group we brightened these childrens' day.

AIMS

First of all, what is CAS? CAS is a program in the IB diploma, which I am currently studying at the Overseas School of Colombo. CAS stands for Creativity, Action and Service, and is a program whereby the IB diploma student must undertake extra-curricular activities in these categories. This blog will track my involvment in the CAS program - my thoughts, aims, photos, and reflections. At the moment my aims for the CAS program for this school year (09-10) are:

• training with OSC's Gecko Swim Squad and attending the SAISA Swim meet. This is already happening - the SAISA meet is on the 25th of September in Dubai, India! See the Swim Training post (coming soon) for photos and more details.
  
• participation in the RCCI (Rehabilitation for the Communication Impaired) program at OSC on Thursday afternoons.
  
• Piano lessons: I have been learning piano for nearly eight years, and am looking to find a teacher here in Sri Lanka to continue.
  

These are three activities that I am definitly planning on putting into action, or are already in action, however, I am also interested in some other activities. I would really love to participate in some of the other SAISA exchanges. SAISA stands for South Asian International Schools Association and they organise sports exchanges between international schools in the area. Throughout the year there are also an exchanges for basketball, soccer and athletics. I am also interested in continuing rowing, which I will look into after the Swimming season has finished. Finally, given that I am living in Sri Lanka, I would love to take some Singhalese lessons, because cultural barriers are crossed so much more easily if you speak the language. However, these are more long-term aims, and some may have to be sacrificed due to time constraints or transport logisitics. On the whole, I am looking forward to taking an active part in the CAS program, and hope to get as much out of it as I can.