I have worked out consenciously over the last four months to loose weight and I am happy to say, it is working. My commitment and willingness to challenge my weight problem boost my enthusiasm and I continue to strive to get closer to my ideal BMI. However, it is far from done. I do plan to get to my ideal weight before the end of this academic year.

This is me, after three months of training

This is me, two weeks before I started my training at the gym

Habitat for Humanity

The primary movie night organized by us last week was a successful event. We planned the event and worked collaboratively to make the night a success. We raised LKR 26,870 and a total of 90 children attended the event.

My personal contribution for the event was to set up the Primary Multi Purpose Room and prepare the popcorn for the event but I was not present at the actual event. This was our major event for this semester and its success was satisfying, indeed.

However, we are planning to have another movie night for the seniors only, as a Valentine's day celebration but the entrance charge will be two pieces of old clothing such as a shirt and a pair of shorts or likewise. We do plan to sell drinks and snacks at a price to add to the funds.

I am satisfied with my contribution for the service as I was there during every stage of planning the event in order to raise the funds. I feel that my overall effort towards the community service, Habitat for Humanity was consistently good during this semester but I may be leaving Habitat for Humanity at the end of this semister as I am initiating a service project for children born with cleft lip and palate.

Goals in CAS

Hello,

I am Rihtvik Kasireddy studying my first year of IB diploma program at the Overseas School of Colombo. I have not been very prompt at posting my reflections on my CAS activities until now, as I wanted to accomplish something before posting my thoughts. I started by creating a new e-mail account, which will be my active account henceforth. I have been researching extensively to start my CAS this year and I have almost finalized the activity which I feel will make a real difference to so many distressed children. I will keep you posted on this in the upcoming weeks.

Now, I would like to update some of my activities over the last month in terms of Creativity, Action and Service. I will also post the pictures I have taken over the last two months.

Creativity

What is creativity?

Creativity to me ranges from playing a guitar or any musical instrument to entertain ourselves or others to coming up with ideas or alternatives for what ever the problem may be to even recognizing the ideas put forth by others as the possible solutions for the existing problems or future problems.

MUN and Guitar

Playing the guitar at home while taking a break from studies is definitely creative, even if I am no Santana.

However, I have taken up Model United Nations (MUN) as the creative part of my CAS this year. It is something that I have enjoyed doing over the last two years and feel strongly about my Commitment to this activity as it is an activity that encourages us to work collaboratively with a large group of local and international students. One of my aims for this year was to be the chair person for any given community in MUN. So I applied for the post and the interviews were held in September. I felt that my communication,organizational and leadership skills would be put to good use. However, I did not get the post and I was told that the chair posts were given to grade 12 students for the most part and I stand a better chance next year. This reassurance however, did not really help me feel better but I will go on as the delegate this year because MUN allows me to interact and communicate with a wide range of people from different schools in Colombo, as we do not normally get a chance to mingle with students from other schools much. While interaction with other students is definitely a huge motivator, my main goal in taking up MUN this year is to develop new skills like debating my debating. I am particularly excited about social awareness that COMUN develops within us as we debated topics range from poverty, illiteracy, landmines, human trafficking etc.

COMUN critically analyses the issues of the world today and tries to come up with effective solutions for the problems which are analyzed. The problems analyzed each year are varied and the central topic this year for Co MUN is Human Trafficking. Thus Coming up with plausible solutions for problems such as human trafficking is definitely creative and I am glad to be a part of this program.

Action

If creative part of CAS focuses on the mental abilities, the action part of CAS is focussed on the physical fitness which to me is about being energy and enthusiasm brought out by a fresh dose of oxygen in the body. While I definitely consider group sport a fantastic way of being a part of action as one can interact with peers while exercising the body, working out in the gym on a regular basis and playing golf which enhances body and mind co-ordination, are fantastic too.

Gym, Golf and Basketball

Since the beginning of summer 2009 (July '09), I have been training regularly (5-6 days) at the gym under the supervision of my trainer to reduce my weight. Together, we have come up with a series of work outs which have worked very well for me. I will be putting up my exercise routine soon but my trainer tends to vary my exercise routine quite often. Since July my weight has gone down by an impressive 9kg. Perseverance and commitment are the keys. and I will continue to work till I reach my ideal weight. After that however, I plan to focus on strength training. I am proud of the fact that I used my summer holidays to make life style changes. Gym was only one part of it along with food habits and this I believe is personal development.

I am also engaged in SAISA basket ball this year. Although this was my first time with basket ball, I decided to challenge myself by giving my best at each practice session and each practice session lasted two hours. I was able to attend 5 practice sessions and missed one before the team was selected. For an amateur like me the minimal practice sessions were not enough to make the team. Clearly, this is not my area of strength and I need to work deligently over the coming year to tryout next year.

I have undertaken a new task over summer. I have started playing golf and I have also made good progress since July. Over summer, I was doing 3-4 classes of one hour each with my coach and practiced for half an hour in the driving range 3 days. However, once the school re-opened I have been able to practice for an hour once a week and twice a week I get lessons from my coach for one hour at each session. I have learnt to swing, chip, putt and soon I will be going on the greens. I am quite happy with the progress I have made so far.

My goal with my weight is to reduce it by a further 10kg by February. I will continue to practice my Basketball skills through the year in order to make the team next year. I have realized that physical fitness helps not only the body but mind as well.

Service

Service to me is meaningful community service which goes beyond just donations or volunteering a few hours at a local event. Our community service should benefit the people who need it directly and I feel that it should make a difference to the people involved. This is one of the reasons why I really enjoyed my time with prison babies last year as I could see those children enjoying themselves with the various activities we conducted and the food we served them.

At the beginning of this year on our IB orientation trip, we visited the "Mamma Pappa Children's home" near Kalutara and it was a very painful experience emotionally but strengthened my resolve to do meaningful community service.

When the services started, I joined the "Habitat for Humanity" service and our aim is to raise enough money to get chartered in order to go on building trips. So far there has been one building trip but I was not able to attend the build as we had basket ball practice session.

CAS goals:

To plan and initiate a Community service program where people with problems are identified and the benefit is passed on directly to them in order to make a difference which will benefit their life.

To organize an event that can raise funds on a large scale

(The above two goals are inter linked and I have been researching extensively for the same and talking to related people)

To restart my guitar lessons

To restart my tennis lessons

Until next time!

Photos and work out schedules will be up loaded soon.