This month was a good month for action and creativity as me, my father and two friends of ours organised a mountain biking trip in Nuwara eliya. The trip involved a lot of preparation including servicing the bikes, finding a suitable method to transport them, planning route and packing suitable gear and tools in case of emergencies and preparing snacks. My goal was to learn from this trip so that one day I myself could organise an activity like this on my own. The trip itself was exhilerating, fun and tiring. It started with a 6km uphill stretch which turned into a steep downhill, rocky dirt track. I learned a lot in terms of technical skills when ridng over jagged rocks, muddy areas and jumps which I had trouble with. Some areas were so dense with vegetation that we had to carry our bikes through. We also developed in terms of practical skills in situations when parts of the bikes failed or broke and we had to fix them together using the set of tools we had. In the end we cycled a distance of 25km. It was a great adventure and in the end I achieved my goal in learning how to organinse a proper mountain biking trip.

April

In the aftermath of the busy month of March, April was a relatively relaxed month, CAS wise. However it was an important month for the cancer hospital as we had decided to clean, reorganise and repaint the children's ward. The selling of calendars would help fund this operation. On the 2nd we visitied the children's ward. All of their toys were packed into bags to be sent to the cleaners, their books were packed into boxes to be reorganised, and their chairs, tables and shelves were cleaned. The cleaning of the furniture (which was cobweb infested) was a both humbling and fulfilling task as it reminded us of the hardship that many have to go through to make a living. It was amazing how satisfying the job was especially since the cancer hospital would not have been able to afford the operation themselves and thus it was a very worthy cause. The painting of the ward would be left to people hired with the money raised from the calendars.

Umeshan and I were asked to be 'Master of Ceremonies' for the school fare on the day of the event. This was a particularly challenging task as I only had to hours to prepare as I had drama rehearsals that day so I had to improvise. I think this practice for improvisation helped me on the day of the actual drama performance.

Shanti's Wedding was finally performed on the 23rd and the 24th of March. The turnout was a success with multiple sell outs and compliments. I was very pleased because we had only really finalized the script of the play on the 21st and thus I was very nervous on the night of performance. However we all managed to perform optimally especially during the points in which people forgot their lines or cues and had to improvise and so it was a good example of synergy. I personally developed as a person in that I was able to overcome a certain amount of stage fright and in that I discovered that I was able to play a major role in a performance while managing considerable academic demands.

Sports wise, for the cricket elective the team was improving. Ruwinda and I decided to work on fielding which was our weakness. I continued to organise tennis matches during week days with friends or 'ball boys' in the hope of improving my match mentality.

March

The date for the performance of Shanti's Wedding was rapidly approaching and the length of our practices had increased greatly to the point where we were having three hour sessions. I had to be extra organised to balance between school work and three hour rehearsals.

Febuary Ctd...
The cricket elective has been progressing well. As elective leaders me and Ruwinda devised drills to develop cricketing skills such as catching, proper bowling technique, and defensive batting. It was a good opportunity to develop my own skills as well. We are hoping to organise a few mathces as well.

Me and and some of my ex class mates from the British School in Colombo have created a rugby club outside school. We have been playing every week at Victoria Park and once in a way have been challenging locals to games. It has been a good experience to interact with local underpriviledged people of my age and I was surprised by how good many of them were. On many occasions we had been soundly defeated by certain groups. It was a good example of how much raw talent is available in Sri Lanka.

Febuary

Febuary was a busy month in terms of Creativity as the annual school drama production auditions began. I being a senior was automatically drafted into the Acting ensemble. I had taken part in many productions in my previous school so it was good to apply some experience and leadership to this play.