Seconds (:

So I finally put some of my photos on MSN's Skydrive.. I tried to create a Flickr account but the internet is being an annoyance and technology is against me, as usual.

I love taking photos! I'm very picky about light and angles and photography really interests me.. These are some pictures I have taken over the past year..

http://cid-bdae6da55b0bd047.skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?page=play&resid=BDAE6DA55B0BD047!110&authkey=OEHxlWgphJg%24

Versus Cancer

This video was created by Upandha Udalagama for the concert. This is what we opened the show with so the audience had a clear idea of our cause and what we were doing at the Cancer Hospital as a group.

And the day was saved byyy…. Facebook!

Murphy’s Law - Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.

Ms. Shameela had a brilliant idea to get pictures of the kids and blow them and display them in the foyer of the auditorium on the night of the concert. Since we needed really good quality photos I contacted my friend’s sister, Natalie Soysa, who is a professional photographer. She agreed to do it for free but we had to organize transport for her. So I told Ms. Shameela to organize a school van to go pick her up on Thursday since the group was planning to go to the hospital on Thursday, our first visit to the hospital this semester.

Since during these few months of organizing I’ve learnt to double check and that things  WILL go wrong at the last minute I went and checked with Ms. Shameela during lunch…. and found that she hadn’t organized anything! We both went to see Ms. Tanuja… and found out she hadn’t booked a van for Hope for Kids to go to the hospital! Ms. Shameela quickly ran around and sorted out the transport after a lot of begging and sweet talk.

Meanwhile I had to get in touch with Natalie to inform her of the time the van would be there to pick her up… and my phone died on me! And when I put my sim in Malindie’s phone I found I hadn’t saved Natalie’s number on the sim card’s memory. So I tried Facebook for Natalie’s number and then sent her a message hoping to god she’ll be on Facebook….

Malindie was busy Googling her and going through her Flicker, Twitter and Facebook for the number. She even tried online telephone directories! And I was next to her texting people hoping they’d know some way I could get in touch with her and calling all sorts of people to ask if they knew someone who knew someone who knew someone who might know Natalie’s number….

And then she replied on Facebook!

So after a few complications we all got to the hospital… to find the playroom padlocked and no one had the key! So we got some kids to come down and we played with them in the garden. We learnt that the playroom had been shut for three months now since the teacher we employed had a baby and she hasn’t been coming. It’s really not fair to expect her to come but we have to find a new teacher soon. They playroom can’t be shut up depriving the kids of some place to play.

Natalie was taking pictures of the kids… and some attendant starts yelling and making a scene that we can’t take pictures! I tried explaining to him that we had the director Dr. Kanisha’s permission but he kept insisting for a form. So I got Ms. Shameela on the phone and he calmed down. Finally.

But we had a nice time with the kids and I’m sure we got some lovely pictures. When we went up to the ward me and Thishakya saw a child not even a year old and we both felt so sick. A child that young having cancer! I held a little girl who had leukemia and I felt so sorry for her and the mother. The girl had the most beautiful eyes.

Really, we have no right to complain about life. 

Poster Pasting

We got the posters and tickets today! Along with Ms. Tanuja, the girls in the committee and some boys from other schools who were performing we went around Colombo putting up posters. I had spoken to Ms. Shameela and organized a van for us and I also prepared a list of places grouped by the areas they were in. First, we went to Water’s Edge and gave them a few posters along with a ticket book. We then continued on to Colombo. Ms Tanuja dropped us at Odel and went to CR&FC to ask if we could sell tickets at Jazz on Sunday. Jazz is quite a popular event at the CR&FC grounds to which all the young people flock to. This would an excellent opportunity for us to spread the word. While she was doing that I split us up into 3 groups. Malindie and Stephan stayed at Odel and put up a poster and talked to them about selling tickets at Odel. Arun and Priyanka went to CoCo Verandah which was a 2 minute walk away. Amit, Kasun and I went to Budz, a nearby restaurant. We also put us posters at 2 popular salons on the way. Ms Tanuja came shortly and we headed off to the area of Colombo where the hotels were located. Tara and Priyanka were dropped off at Barefoot and me, Amit and Kasun got off at Mc Donalds. Amit and I walked all the way down Galle Road to the Cinnamon Grand putting up posters along the way! It was quite a tiring day and it was well past 1 when we got back to Pellawatte. 

Excercise and Quality Time (=

During the summer I have been taking daily walks in the morning often with my mother. As well as good exercise for both of us, it has become a mother-daughter bonding time away from the cares of the housework and my four year old brother. My grandmother is diabetic and overweight and she came for a week to my house and somehow never left. Her health problems have scared me and my mum into eating healthy and getting some sort of regular exercise. I have also been doing Pilates for 45 minutes twice or thrice a week. It is difficult but I’ve noticed I’ve become more flexible. 

Versus Cancer

It’s the end of the summer and now I fully realize the gravity of Ms. William’s words as she gave me approval for the charity concert and told me “You getting yourself into a lot of work.” Getting permission and drafting the proposal to be put forward to Mr. Coles and Ms. Williams was itself quite a task. Next I had to draft invitation letters to be sent to the local schools requesting their participation, get them approved by Mr. Coles and mailing them. It didn’t end there as I had to chase after certain people from the schools principals, friends, interact presidents and so on.

Organizing auditions was a real learning process as I didn’t realize how many people are involved and how many peoples’ co-operation is required to make something work. In this case I had to get Mr. Coles and Ms. Williams approval and then notify Mr. Chithra (head of security) and work out a convenient time with Mr. Kolitha (head of maintenance) and Mr. Rana (auditorium manager). There was a lot of emailing and I learnt that the proper procedure has to be followed and you can get peoples’ cooperation by being open, flexible and just being nice. We had auditions in the OSC auditorium on the 10^th of June and the 24^th of July. The second audition started off with a lesson that everything that can go wrong will go wrong. I had a presentiment that day and unfortunately I couldn’t get to school early like I planned. When I got to school I found that Mr. Rana had completely forgotten about the auditions, the security didn’t know what was going on and they had started maintenance work in the auditorium so the place was a mess! But the guards were cooperative and I managed to scare the workers into finding me at least 2 mics and 2 industrial fans (:

Getting sponsorships was a relatively easy task as Ms. Dilhara from the administrative office handled sending the letters. But at the moment we have Mobitel as our premium sponsor and The Sunday Times as our print media sponsor and I am a bit worried as we need more money. The sound equipment will cost around Rs. 60,000 and the printing cost will be around Rs. 20,000. That’s a total cost of around Rs. 80,000 and we only have Rs. 30,000. 

We are human beings not savages.

After the Colombo Model United Nations conference ended I suggested starting a debating activity to Ms. Wolfe with Mr. O’Kane as the teacher sponsor. I became the student leader of the activity. Unfortunately I couldn’t do much since activities were disrupted by changes in the time table, exams and holidays. However we did debate a local issue which turned out to be quite a heated debate.

In May the local media was in an uproar over the case of a mother throwing her baby in the Kelaniya river. The mother was convicted of murder and sentenced to prison. The mother’s action does sound horrendous until you look into the details of the hardships they had to endure. This 3 year old boy was the youngest of 5 siblings. The father, a heavily indebted alcoholic, had left the family and only returned infrequently to steal the little money the mother managed to scrape by selling lottery tickets. While he was with her he was in the habit of drinking heavily and coming home to beat her up brutally. The mother is also a tsunami victim. Unable to feed the children, she had repeatedly tried to hand over the child to the government probation office, the police, and orphanages and even tried leaving him at the Kelaniya temple in the hope that someone would care for him. This incident happened one day after a failed attempt at leaving him at the temple. When crossing the bridge she threw him into the river on impulse. He was rescued by a trishaw driver and was in the ICU for a few days before he passed away.

The local media was very biased towards the child and hardly anyone empathized with the mother. I supported her because I have a little brother of 4 and I know how the child crying can get on your nerves at time and I amplified this and was able to imagine what it would be like for a clinically depressed woman in an abusive relationship living in bad living conditions with 5 children solely dependant on her.

There was a clear divide among the group. I was really annoyed with the opposition members who actually believed she should be tried for murder! My point was that she should be put through a rehabilitation process and given back the other 4 children. And what enraged me even more was the hypocrisy of the Sri Lankan government. After this incident the probation office, which had refused the child, took custody of the other FOUR children. In Sri Lanka an average of 2 children are killed per week simply because their parents cannot provide them with food for survival. With such a glaring problem the government should be addressing the wider issue of poverty rather than trying to throw an already clinically depressed woman into jail!