Gecko Factor

Gecko factor this year was a lot of fun and i ended coming away with second place :)

I decided to write myself a mashup of two of my favourite songs, Valerie by Amy Whinehouse and Black and Gold by Sam Sparrow. Combining the two meant having to writing new guitar chords that could suit both songs, and adjusting the pace and tone of them accordingly. I really enjoyed doing this and felt that i really challenged myself creatively and more specifically musically. It is something i really enjoyed doing and when given future opportunities to perform again i will certainly take them up. Here is a video of my final performance:

SAISA basketball rap up

well i guess this post has been a little delayed.... amidst the hype i wasn't really thinking about my cas blog but anyway... WE TOTALLY WON THE GRANDFINAAALLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

we came in as undefeated champions defeating the American school in Dhaka in the grandfinal. It was such a great experience, one of my favourite tournaments to have ever played in.

Our games on the first day went by easily, we had great energy out on the court which i thin resulted from some solid team bonding in the week leading up to the tournament. Everyone was excited to go out and play, and boy did we.

Second day games were slightly more challenging but nothing that had us worried. We finished the day top of our pool and begun preparing for the final day of games which of course were most important. To do this we had lots of team meetings, reflecting on our games thus far and on games we had watched. We worked together to develop strategies to take on the tougher teams in the games leading up to the final.

On the final day of the tournament, spirits were still flying high but there was definitely a nervous vibe amongst the team. As captain i knew this was something i would have to monitor and make sure no one panicked or let their nerves get the best of them.

Our first game was a semi final against the Bombay team which we were worried for. But we went out hard and stole the game within the first few minutes and came away with an easy win.

The build up for the grand final game on the evening of day three was big. Masses of people came in to watch the game and all other participants joined them. We had the home court and the home crowd, all we had to do was go out and get the win as well. And that is exactly what we did.

We started the game slow, with Dhaka leading the game 6-0 until the last second of the first quarter when Carla score us a buzzer beater to take the score to 6-2 at the break. From there on we got our "mojo" back and absolutely destroyed the game. We came away with a close to a 30 point win... not even close.

I had an absolute ball this season and coaching this particular team was just the biggest privilege. We handled ourselves in such a respectful manner and played with heart and spirit. At no stage did i ever doubt a single one of our players, everyone wanted it and everyone fought for it.

Gecko Factor!

This term to challenge my self creatively in a different way than i have before, i decided to audition for 'gecko factor' which is my schools talent show. I plan to write two of my own pieces for the night which will consist of mashups of some of my favourite songs which i will both play on guitar and sing. This is something i have never ever done before so i'm nervous but at the same time i feel like it will be a lot of fun. Here is a clip form my audition. Hopefully on the night of the show i will be less tense than i was in my audition....

SAISA BASKETBALL!!!!

ONLY ONE DAY LEFT UNTIL TOURNAMENT TIME!!!!!

Spirit is flying high among the girls today with everyone getting ready for the big tournament to kick off tomorrow morning. We have been training everyday for the past week in preparation and as Captain i honestly feel really proud of how far we have come and where we are at coming into the championship. It has been really tough preparing for these games with the skill set varying so vastly from player to player and girls of all different ages in the team. There have been times where it has gotten quite heated between girls and the easier option seemed to several players, to just drop out.

However we stuck together and worked even harder and have come together really well. I had the whole team over a few nights ago after training for a "bonding" night were we came together to make posters, playlists and even more importantly to just gel as a team. It was really fun chatting and getting to know players who are outside my normal group of friends. I feel really positive going into the championship now, the team actually feels like a team.

Here is the photo of us (minus one player) getting ready for a practice match last weekend against some of the boys.

 

 

 

My goals as team captain for this weekend are the following:

1. Keep the girls together no matter what the circumstances are through positive feedback and encouragement

2. Maintain good sportsmanship and uphold an ethical conduct that reflects both who we are as a team and the school we come from

3. Give our very best each and every second of all games

4. Reflect on each game; what worked and what didn't and plan strategies for the following game

 

At this point, i feel that if we can achieve these goals, we can achieve anything; hopefully even a championship win!!



 

New semester, new ideas

Coming in to my final semester this year, and my final semester of high school one would think I’d be buzzing about the future ahead of me. But more often than not, I find myself reflecting on the past behind me and considering my present self. What have I achieved throughout all of my primary, high school and college years, and who the hell am I??

My school years have pretty much dominated my entire memory of my life so far, which makes me nervous. It scares me really. I’ve been thinking lately about what my life has been and who I am as a person. Once I strip back my school days and take away my ‘student’ title, what’s left of me?

To be quite frank, there’s not a whooole lot.

There are little scraps here and there of events I’ve participated in and things I have done. But they aren’t sustained. I have played a lot of basketball and because of it gained a lot of leadership and collaboration skills and I regularly exert my creative self in my photography… but what is there I terms of community service?

This semester I have decided to really step up and do something do benefit the community. I was talking to my younger sister about this- about the duty I feel as a young person to use the enthusiasm and energy I have to help out people and places in need. I really want to throw myself into a specific cause of some sort, and I believe having this narrow focus is also a smart strategy coming into the more stressful and chaotic part of the IB diploma program.

SO here is my big solution//idea….

It turns out, the younger sister I was chatting to is really passionate about breast cancer. One of her good friend’s mothers has just been diagnosed and she is so passionate about taking action, she actually wants to shave her hair off!

Back home in Australia we have an annual event each March called “The World’s Greatest Shave”. Essentially people offer to shave their hair off on the condition they can get people to sponsor them and donate money to their campaign. After the deed has been done, all funds raised get donated to the Australian Cancer Foundation.

Jazlin (my sister) has asked me to help her plan out her campaign at school which is exactly what I have been searching for.

I’m going to sort of be her “project manager”, doing research into how she should raise funds and where/now the money raised will be donated. Ill also do a heap of research into cancer and take charge of organising ‘publicity’ I guess for Jazlin around school to try and gather sponsors.

What makes this even more perfectly fit, is that this semester in the ‘pursuit of happiness project group’, I will be taking out trips to photograph the ‘hope for kids’ service group at our local cancer hospital. I’m really looking forward to learning more about the cause and then having the opportunity to really take charge and make a difference.

I’m really really looking forward to this opportunity.

Service Update

We've started to get posts flowing on our Facebook page and it has been great. Things were looking a bit shaky for our service group but I feel like now we have all the foundations in place, the future of this group is promising.

We have all of our photographs, interviews and articles prepared and have been cueing them on Facebook so that a post gets published every second day. One of the great things about our page is that as admins of the page we can actually see how many people our posts and page are meeting. Here is a screen shot of it:

 

 

 

 

See the side bar on the right, this shows our statistics for this week- how many page likes we have received and how many people have looked at this weeks posts. I find this really encouraging and it just goes to prove how we are raising awareness on the global issues of importance

UNICEF Photography competition: Awards Ceremony

The award ceremony for the UNICEF photo competition was a really touching event. Unknown to me, the competition was all about celebrating the 25^th anniversary of the convention of children’s rights in Sri Lanka. The ceremony stretched over 4 hours and was filled with wonderful photographs and speeches from different people. I got to meet some incredible photographers from around Sri Lanka and was awarded two appreciation certificates which was also a highlight