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.