Monday, May 26, 2014

Semester end reflection

This semester has gone by pretty quickly and so the end of CAS approaches.

I would call this one of my most productive semester in terms of the activities I have performed in within CAS compared to my prior activities in previous semesters. 
In the beginning of the semester, I undertook a new challenge by trying out for SAISA Badminton. SAISA Badminton was pretty different than what I had previously done while in Fun Badminton last semester. I was attending 3 sessions throughout the week and even though I was not able to make it to the team of 4, I believe that my skill greatly improved over this course allowing my interest in this sport to further increase. Playing this sport also allowed me to increase my awareness and areas for growth because by planning with members in a team or by playing a single game, I got an idea of certain things that I could work on which could improve my playing skill and just in case you miss out on discovering an area you could grow in, there are always the other people you are playing with who would be glad to help you out and point you towards the right direction. 

This was my second semester in Recycling and the time spent during this Service was time well spent. I worked collaboratively with the other members in the Service allowing me to get to know them and also know people who are outside of my grade. In the beginning of every session, we planned and initiated activities in terms of who would go to which rooms to collect what, who would go to the recycling center, etc. This further built our overall organization strength since we were able to get things done more efficiently while working collaboratively with each other. 
Taking part in Recycling also got me engaged with issues of global importance since although we are not taking part in Recycling in a macro level, what we do every Thursday still makes a significant amount of change within the school and also in turn helps benefit the environment, even though in a micro scale, in Sri Lanka. 

Taking part in the Sign Language after school activity allowed me to develop new skills since I learnt the basics of Sign Language which turned out to be very interesting. We were able to work collaboratively in terms that the main teacher of the Sign Language activity was able to work with us directly and point us in the right direction when learning this new language. 

And I undertook a new challenge by creating the Photo Essay for Recycling. This was the first time I was using Lightroom and so I was able to develop new skills in terms of my ability to use this program. And so by taking this task, I was able to know more about creating Photo Essays and also how to operate a new program, which in this case was Lightroom. 

In terms of achieving the goals I set for this semester, I believe I was able to achieve all the goals I set since I took part in Badminton, continued attending Recycling for Service, and for Creativity, I was able to complete my Photo Essay, go for the drawing trip and additionally I was also able to attend Sign Language. 

This turned out to be a rather productive semester.  

Friday, May 9, 2014

Gecko Inc. Pictures



To download, click on the gear icon when moving your mouse on the picture and 'Download full resolution'.

I took this picture for the service group, Gecko Inc. where they were playing with the children from other schools. 

Creativity: Photo Essay

The Photo Essay which I was creating has been completed. It can be viewed by clicking on the link on the right side of the blog saying 'Photo Essay'.

As planned, I had used Adobe Lightroom to edit the photos which I had taken since I found it easier to produce effects on that than on Photoshop.


Above is a screenshot I had taken while editing the Photoshops in Lightroom.

Through this project I was able to undertake a new challenge since this was the first time that I was creating a Photo Essay and although I previously had Adobe Lightroom, this was also the first time that I had used this program in a context of editing photos. This allowed me to develop new skills in terms of my ability to edit photographs in Lightroom.

Overall I found this to be a good learning experience for me since it allowed me to experiment with programs which I was previously unfamiliar with. I will also be updating the Photo Essay with different editing styles of the photographs. After talking with Mr. Lockwood about my Photo Essay he advised me to try out different and more consistent styles. With that in mind, with the same photographs used, I'll be using a particular style for each of them such as all of the pictures being in black and white.
Doing this will further allowed me to build my knowledge in terms of the best or most appealing ways of designing Photo Essays. 

Creativity: Sign Language

Another aspect of Creativity which I will be taking part is Sign Language. I was able to sign up for it last week and i'm able to learn Sign Language there. The main 'teacher' of sign language who is present is a deaf individual who helps us out when we don't know a word, along with Miss Fert, who is the other supervisor.

The first thing I got to learn when I went to this activity was the alphabets and then learning to say certain sentences.
So far, through sign language i'm able to convey the following sentences;
My name is Nishant. I am 16 years old. I am Indian. I study in the Overseas School. I have 1 brother and no sisters. I live in Colombo.

Although it took a while to get a hang of it, learning to say them was a great experience allowing me to develop new skills. 

I'm hoping to learn more phrases in Sign Language and also to master the alphabets.