Bad news!I didn't make the team for track (as I suspected).Good news!I get to practice with the official team even though I didn't make it. We are more divided into which events the official team is supposed to be doing. Most of the times I get to practice along with the team, but the coaches don't want the people who didn't make the team to be practicing in the official team's events all the time because it may get in the way of their training. So when that happens, the people who didn't make the team get to practice their own skills. So far, when I couldn't practice with the official team, me and two other girls practiced handing the baton to each other. I can't go to track this week as I am currently busy with a play, but I may continue next week.

Last week in Prison Babies, we visited the prison. It was interesting as the prison didn't look like a stereotypical prison. It generally looked like a normal area with houses. When we arrived at the women's ward we were warned about a couple of things such as discomforting smells and the sights of women sometimes bathing. I was a bit scared of what I was about to see after that. There was only a small section of the women's ward that looked like a prison, which was the entrance. But the rest of the place looked like a small normal section of Colombo. And to add to more confusion, the prisoners looked like completley normal Sri Lankan women as they didn't even have prison uniforms. Some of them even smiled at us. The children's area had their own little playground and even their own school. We mostly spent time with them in the playground and we got to see more babies that didn't come to our school. I helped them play on the see-saws but I couldn't really communicate with them as none of them knew english. However, at the end of our session I did get to carry this 1-year-old baby girl back to the nursery. Normally it's no big deal, but for me that was the first time ever holding a baby!

I have finally achieved a new skill in track, which is high jump. On Saturday, the 15 and overs were shown a slow motion video of a proffesional jumping over the bar at the highest point. We were to notice his skills and the way he threw himself over the bar. Then we were shown the proper technique and we had to demonstrate it. I was able to observe the technique pretty successfully. But once it actually came to jumping, I didn't really jump that successfully. I think the fact that I was afraid of injuring myself affected the way I jumped. But then, in the end, after a few more tries I actually started managing successfully. Even if I didn't fully jump over the bar. Yesterday I managed to fully jump over the bar once, but still I need to practice a bit more. But even so, I still was glad I was able to achieve high jump at my own pace and I think that it's my favourite track event. I'm still not the best at running. I don't exactly know why this is but I suspect that it could be due to quite a number of factors.

I have done a lot in track recently. We have recently completed the time trials on Saturday and have now begun phase 2, which is event training. I have learned some new sport activities, such as shot put, discuss throwing, and high jump as well as did one that I was already familiar with, which is long jump. Most of them were pretty hard to do, and for many of them, it seemed to me like I had a harder time doing it than everybody else. Unfourtunatley, I am right in some sense. When I saw the list of people who came in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place when it came to the 400m/800m run I was at the bottom of the list in the lowest score possible (about 42 something). I also noticed that 99% of the time I was always running slower than anyone else. I guess this is due to a number of reasons. I think it was most probably because I am completley out of shape and have a certain routine at home. The high jump was also hard for me as I was afraid of injuring myself over the line. But there were some events in which I was able to perform averagely like everyone else. I got a pretty normal score in shot put ,discuss throwing, and long jump. But, like I said, I don't plan on making the team, I just hope to get more into shape. But even so, it's not that great being the weakest runner in the whole group!

For fashion design, I was able to help one person a bit. But I notice that no one asks me for help, they always turn to Ms Barnett. This then leads to a risk that I may develop a mind set in which I don't mind doing anything. It's going to be hard, but I have to try to improve things.

I had Prison Babies again this Thursday. First, we took them to the playground, and then we took them to Ms Skelly's room to watch a Tom and Jerry DVD. I have started becoming slightly more involved with the kids. I have started to help some of them on getting up on the slide and I played with two of them a bit on the sandbox. Although I didn't exactly know what I was doing at times, and I was a bit scared, especially after one little girl didn't want me to hold her hand. But I realize now that it wasn't because of me.

Track is getting slightly easier to adjust. We had to do a bit of skipping exercieses and a lot of running. The skipping exercise involved us skipping over about 10 domes using just one foot. It was confusing for me at first, but later I realized that basically that exercise was like running over the domes, so I got better at it fast. The running exercises involved us jogging around the track 3 times with a partner,a baton race and a running exercise up the drive through hill. Whilst I was doing the baton race and the partner run I realized that I was only capable of running around the track most successfully only once. The hill exercise wasn't as tiring as I though in the begining. Although I had to jog up the hill it was hard to not put so much effort into running when you know there are a bunch of other people running ahead of you. So I couldn't help but put some effort into my running.

CAS- Semester 2

This semester I have chosen to do mostly different activities, and have already started with them.

Creativity
I still continue to be a leader at the fashion design elective. Now I am the only leader, as the other grade 12's have exams to worry about. I have begun to start helping kids a bit more. I have recently been helping a girl in grade 6 in giving her suggestions about what she could add to her designs and a bit on how to develop some of them. I have never really been confident in helping and guiding other people before, and infact I don't remember ever having really done that. It has been a nice start, although I could start helping more than one person. I guess my goal for this is to start to feel more comfortable when it comes to helping and guiding other people. It won't be that fast, but hopefully by the end of the year, or earlier, I should get more used to it.

Action
I have recently signed up for SAISA track and team and have already begun two practices. They have been very rigorous in terms of exercise and time. Yesterday we had to do about thriteen different stations and run one lap around the track each time we finished. I was definetley out of shape and I seemed to tire more easily than the other kids. Today I had to get up at 5 AM because practice started at 6- 7 am. The exercises seemed a lot easier compared to yesterday. Certain age groups each got together and did different exercies. My group 15 and over, did pylo. It was mostly jumping over bars. I generally seemed to do well, although I had difficulty with juming over the bar with one foot and jumping over the bar side ways toucing my feet, as I was worried about being injured. But all in all, as I am thinking about this now, it actually seemed kind of fun and interesitng to do this kind of thing in the morning before school starts. My goal for this is mainly to get into shape. I don't expect to make this team, but hopefully I will be able to get some healthy benefits from it.

Service
For Service I have joined Prison Babies, an activity which involves spending time with small children from ages 3-5 who have to spend most of their time in prison conditions because their parents have been guilty of crimes and sentenced. We give them some open, bright atmosphere to play in and we try to interact with them. I have started this last Thursday. Playing with the kids definetley wasn't easy. First of all, most of them started crying and many people didn't know what to do with them. I also didn't know what to say to them or what to do. I definetley didn't seem to be playful no matter how hard I tried. I realise that it was my first time with them and so I wasn't really used to it, and they weren't really used to us. I also don't really spend time with little kids in general so that also may have contributed to why I didn't know what to do. My goal for this project is to develop skills on how to interact with little kids.

Week Without Walls

Last week through February 8-12 our whole grade went on a trip to Hambantota, down in the south. During our trip we went to Udawalawe National Park and took a look at the new harbour being built with the help of the Chinese government. But 80-90% of our time was dedicated to painting one of the pre-schools nearby that was affected by the tsunami. Each of us was split into two groups, the Shaas (my group) and the hunas. And each different group went to a different school.

DAY 1-Tuesday, February 16,2010

We took off at 7:30 am and headed straight to the school, which took about 40 minutes to get to. Once we arrived we were greeted by each of the children who each gave us a bunch of different flowers. We then had time to interact with them for half an hour. They were all about 4 years old. Unfourtunatley, none of them spoke english, which made communication difficult, and they all seemed uncomfortable around us. I went with a certain group of people and we tried to teach some of the kids how to play "duck, duck, goose". To make it easier for them to understand we renamed it "eluwa, eluwa, kotiya" which means "goat, goat, tiger" in Sinhala. Unfourtunatley, they didn't really understand the entire concept of the game. As I took more time to observe the environment I realized how their conditions were not the best quality. Parts of the equipment was made with simple materials, such as bicycle wheels and broken coconut shells. Many swing seats were missing. Then once they had left we started to work and I helped work on the outdoor swing sets. We first sandpapered most of the material, to make it more smooth, and then we began painting. In terms of my progress, I painted most of the slide ladder and helped make some parts of the other equipment look brighter.

DAY 2-Wednsday, February 10, 2010

We had a similar routine today as to yesterday. Although we didn't really play any games with the kids, we just played with them by using the normal swing sets. I am happy to say that my interaction with the kids has certainly improved a lot compared to the day before. I helped push some of them on the spinning swing set and se-saw. I still worked on the outdoor equipment but this time I also helped work on some of the tables from the classroom and part of the front fence. Although as helpful as it was to be doing this, I couldn't escape getting covered in the paint, which was generally extremely hard to get off!

DAY 3- Thursday, February 11, 2010

This day was our last day of work. We didn't interact with the kids this time, due to the fact that we went to see the new harbour being built. Once we got to the school we went straight to work. We had a limited amount of time since everyone was going to be arriving at 2pm. I worked on the fence and put an extra coating to some of the swing sets and tables. The mural that some people painted on the front walls had been completley finished and we had to remove all t

he furniture from the inside of the building since the whole floor was going to be painted. Then later at 2 all the kids, their parents, and the head teacher had showed up. Our group was to perform a few things for them, a skit and two songs, and they had performed a few dances and sang two songs. First, we sang Old McDonald. Whilst we were singing someone was holding pictures that we had drawn of three different animals with their Sinhala name at the top. Then we performed a skit which was based on a local children's story called "Cotton Baby" which

was about a little girl who wouldn't eat and only learns her lesson after being carried into the clouds and being sent back to the ground by the rain. I played the role of her Grandmother. Then we sang a very well-known traditional song called "Sarangani", which is about a fisherman's encounter with a beautiful, young girl. Then after all the performances we each gave out a single packet of gifts for them. We were able to set out these packets seperatley based on gender. I was only able to give one gift as everyone took most of the gifts before me. Then we were all invited to the head master's house next door and we had some traditional Sri Lankan food along with tea. The Headmaster didn't live in such good conditions, but despite that she was still able to be kind, warm-hearted, and full of integrity.

Generally, I feel satisfied by what we had done and we had learned a lot of things environmentally, culturally, and socially along our journey. We hope that we have now created more of a brighter-looking environment for children who do not live in the best conditions.