Water Sports:)

Today I went down south to Bentota and did a few water sports. We jet skied, water skied and did the tubing. It was the first time I'd ever water skied so my brother and I decided to learn how to do it together. In learning how to do this I undertook a new challenge and developed new skills. It was really quite difficult and there was a lot of technique to it that I actually had no idea about before today. We were taught to bend our knees and keep our arms straight so as not to lose balance. When being pulled out of the water one has to keep the knees bent to the chin and skis straight up, which was really difficult as managing to point the skis up in the water was quite a task.

We tried holding onto the bar of the boat first, then we held onto a short rope and then a long rope, which was the hardest one, taking us both 4 times to get a proper run (without falling) on it. I had a lot of trouble with the long rope, a lot more trouble than my brother and it was really disconcerting. I truly didn't think I could do it. Our instructor gave me one last chance and I finally managed to get a proper run on it, which made me really happy.

Another activity I did this winter break was an Introduction to Diving while I was in the Maldives. This also allowed me to develop a new skill as well as undertake a new challenge. I learnt a lot from my instructor, like about all the different equipment one uses when you go diving as well as some emergency drills underwater. We had to practice taking our regulator out of our mouths and then putting it back in, filling our masks with water and getting it out and using the emergency regulator of another diver.

This was a new challenge as I've never dived before and I went for the course alone. It was a little intimidating because I went with the instructor and another man, both of whom are at least in their late 20's. I'm much smaller built than both of them so I had a little trouble balancing all the diving equipment, especially when we were meant to stay still in the water as the current was very strong. I'm glad I did it though because it counts towards certification and my goal is to get certified before I turn 18 and go to college.

OSC's Got Talent

We held OSC's Got Talent on Friday and it was a huge success. SGA held auditions a couple weeks ago during lunchtime as we wanted to get it out of the way before the week we held our lunch time games and the pep rally. Keisha and I were judges at the auditions as Sorrel, Roger and Nadeera all participated in the event. We chose the acts before I left for SAISA Basketball and as soon as I returned we had to begin really planning for this event, which was scheduled for the Friday of the week I returned. I got back Monday morning and on Monday afternoon I went to Kent's, a trophy shop my mom discovered near Slave Island. I ordered a first place trophy and told them to print OSC's Got Talent, 2011, 1st Place on it. I also got the idea to buy a shield on which we could print OSC's Got Talent and the winners' names so that we could pass this event on to the next SGA and we'd be able to create a new tradition at this school. This way the new SGA will be obligated to carry on this tradition, showing our ability to undertake a new challenge. We wanted to try something new and it worked well, just like the lunch time games, and we've now created a planned event that can recur year after year.

I also went to Arpico and bought a bunch of glasses in three different sizes for first, second and third place as well as some plastic wrapping paper. I want to fill them with the leftover candy from Halloween and we'll give them as prizes to those who place. I have some outliner that can be used to write on glass at home so we can use this to write OSC #1, #2 and #3 on them. We were going to get sashes from Theshika's family as her father works at a printing company but at that point I didn't think we were going to as we'd asked too late so I bought the glasses as a back up plan. I'm glad that we now know that her father works at a printing company because we can utilize this for OSCars so we don't have to spend as much on prizes.

The next day, Tuesday, we had rehearsals from 4-6. They went fairly well, we didn't run the acts in order as many people had to leave early. We simply asked each act to perform, we timed them and recorded the equipment they need for the night. I also went and talked to Warren about doing sound and lighting and he said that he could do one or the other so I ought to find someone to do lighting. I asked Conzi since she had done it for Fiddler on the Roof but she was unable to since it was such short notice. In the end we managed to get Rasmus to do it and he'd had experience with lighting doing Battle of the Bands. At first I was going to work offstage with Keisha to move chairs and microphones around however we decided it would be better if I worked on the balcony, helping Rasmus out with the lights and playing the soundtracks from my laptop. This was a new challenge for me and I learnt a lot about the light board, developing new skills, as I've never really worked with the technical aspects of stage as much.

For our next rehearsal, on Thursday after CAS, we had a running order and we wanted to run the whole show with lighting and sound. We did not follow our aim at all during this rehearsal. Rasmus had said he'd be able to do lights for the show but he couldn't come for this rehearsal so we only had Warren controlling sound. We managed to get clip on mics for the first act with Kalila, Nikolina, and Shenali so he had to deal with turning these off and on as well because as I discovered when doing Fiddler on the Roof, if one leaves those mics on they will pick up sound backstage. Furthermore not everyone was there and some people had to leave early so we could not follow the running order.

We were able to get in a few more practices the day of the performance however Rasmus was a little late and I was worried that I'd have to do lighting myself so I started learning about the light board. Then he showed up and he knew almost all the lighting he had to do as I'd given him a running order with the lighting each act needed the day before. I'd also given this to Crawford who helped us with spotlights. I'm not sure how many lists I made with the running order, the list of equipment they needed, the lights/sound etc. but it took a great deal of planning on both my and Keisha's parts as we both helped to create these lists. Every time the list was updated I sent it to Warren and he was excellent with printing it out and being ready for rehearsal. In working on the balcony I think that I really had to work collaboratively with those helping run the show through giving them instructions on lighting and sound and how things should be placed on stage etc.

Overall I think the performance went well. I think that if we'd had more publicity we would have had a bigger turn out so that's something the SGA can work on for next year. Also we had a few technical difficulties: one person's mic did not work as she started her song, the sound was very poor for Still Thinking however we had never rehearsed with them before as they did not show up to either of the rehearsals so we did the best we could, and the lighting for Kalila, Shenali and Nikolina's act was bad because we only had two spotlights and there was three of them. Another thing we really need to fix up for next year is the judging criteria. We really had no proper criteria and this made the judging quite difficult. Ms. Grant specifically asked me the next week to think about having some explicit criteria to which the judges could adhere to in order to fairly judge contestants. Daisy passed out right before her act which caused us to go to intermission early however she recovered in a short amount of time and was able to go on with her performance.

The surprise teacher's act was a great hit and I think it was an excellent way to end the talent show and give the judges some time to deliberate. In the end I went on stage and thanked Warren, Rasmus, Crawford, John (who jumped in last minute to help with the spotlight), and the judges. Then I handed over the mic to Mr. Snyder who announced the winners as Keisha, Sorrel and I handed out the prizes. Shenali won 3rd place, Bharat and Sky won 2nd and Cami and Bharat won 1st place. I think that OSC's Got Talent allowed me to increase my awareness of my own strengths and areas for growth. I was able to see that I am a strong coordinator and able to work collaboratively in order to bring together different elements for successful event management. As for areas for growth in my enthusiasm I sometimes attempt to take on too much which leads to stress.