TMG Chandrasekara, the announcer: Isuru, are you studying at Mahavilachchiya Vidyalaya? Isuru Yes, at Mahavilachchiya Vidyalaya. TMG In which More

TMG Chandrasekara, the announcer: Isuru, are you studying at Mahavilachchiya Vidyalaya? Isuru Yes, at Mahavilachchiya Vidyalaya. TMG In which year? Isuru In Year 11. I'll be sitting the O Level exam this year. TMG OK, I'll talk with you again later, Isuru. You better help Wanni to show us the webpages. Wanni Here you can see clearly how the children studied at the start -- under trees, with a few wooden benches. Many people say that you can't work without resources, but my opinion is that we have a very valuable resource, a very rich resource -- the children. With these children we started with only English lessons five years ago, and when we got the computer we could move forward. We did not get the opportunity to use the first computer that we received -- I was in a government school at that time -- and, because we wanted more freedom to do our work ... TMG So when you started, you were working under trees? Wanni, Sure, under the trees in our compound. Then we again got a computer from Mr. Donald and Mrs. Badra Gaminitilleke who were working in Japan at the time. They had come to know about us after reading a report in the Daily Mirror written by Mr. Gamini Akmeemana. They came to Sri Lanka and gave us our first computer -- a Pentium 1. Isuru When we started the English classes, we had not even seen a computer. We were very happy when we got the computer. We all were curious to learn how to operate it, and we worked hard to learn to use it. TMG OK, now what type of work can you do with the computer? Isuru Now we do web designing, ... programming. And if you take Office, we can do quite a lot of things. TMG OK, Isuru and his friends have their own web pages in the Internet. We'll have a look at them later. Yes Wanni ... Wanni We got the computer in our second year. We came to know about the Internet in 2001, and we had our first webpage that year. I'll show you our first web page. This, of course, is a very simple one. There is an interesting story behind this. This was the time when I had no knowledge about web designing and Mr. Donald Gaminitilleke taught me web designing. I had to use a computer that had Japanese language. Not even one letter was there in English. All the software-- Photoshop, Netscape and so on -- was in Japanese. By the way, I don't know even a bit of Japanese. But I had to learn from a computer having Japanese language. TMG Language does not become a big barrier today, doesn't it? Wanni Yes, with the introduction of the graphic user interface this has become quite easy. So, not knowing English should not be taken as a big problem. Here is our first website -- a really simple one. It was small, but a good start. TMG So, with this start, when you entered the Internet, what was the reaction that you had? How did you establish links to the rest of the world? Wanni At the start we did not have many visitors to the site -- just the friends and someone who came across it when accidentally. It is important to say here, with our first website, we got a chance to meet Mr. Thushara Wijeratne, a Sri Lankan working with Microsoft in the USA. He is a software engineer. He came to Sri Lanka, in 2002, and helped us with Rupees fifteen thousand. At that time it was a huge amount for us, and we were not sure how to spend fifteen thousand Rupees. We had not used such an amount at the time. So, we all got together and decided to build a computer room. It is not possible to study under the trees for ever, and the first steps for building the computer room were taken with this Rupees fifteen thousand. I am so happy to say that, today we have come to the final stages of the computer room. All that we have to do is to fix the floor tiles. This is because of the help that we received from Sri Lankans as well as other nationals. TMG Isuru, what else do you remember about this? Isuru Yes, we were able to add something new to studying under the trees: we could add a computer to our work. Also with the help of our parents, we were able build the computer room and to continue with the idea.
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Nick Stefano. The video is of me practicing. I took up drumming one year ago under the tutelage of Mr. Dick Cully, a world class drummer, whom I met More

Nick Stefano. The video is of me practicing. I took up drumming one year ago under the tutelage of Mr. Dick Cully, a world class drummer, whom I met via his web page www.worldsgreatestdrummer.com. We have become great friends. He is in fact my "Buddy". I practice everyday on a drum pad or on the drums. About 6 months ago, with guidance from Mr. Cully, I purchased my first drum set which you see in this video. It is a vintage Slingerland set. There is no better musical instrument then the drums! I also appreciate several other world class drummers who have inspired me and whom also have become friends. Randy Caputo (Gene Krupa) www.randycaputo.com, and Jimmy Ford. Not to mention countless others including Joe Morello, Joe Ascione, Louis Bellson, Sonny Payne, Jack Sperling and the greatest of them all, Buddy Rich! These video drum segments are also in memory of my uncle Vic who played the trumpet for 75 years! Wish i had a chance to play with him.
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