Journal 9.8 : Something cool!

Today, I learned a new asana called the sarvangasana which is performed by lying on your back, placing your elbows on the floor and raising your legs to hold the entire bottom region of the body on top. I needed my instructor to help me take my legs up. But I could stay still for a few minutes thereafter. I did the regular asanas that i've learned so far, and ended with deep relaxation.

Duration : 1 hour

Journal 5.8 : New ideas!

Apart from watering the plants and bringing them out of the cabins for some direct sunlight, we had a meeting with the all the members of the Eco club. We discussed how we could take this activity further. Our ideas included terrace gardening, growing creepers, recycling waste paper instead of burning them, reducing wastage at our school and also buying new plants for the Eco club. We split into groups to execute these small ideas that struck us. I joined the team which took charge of looking into to why they are burning paper near our school. A few of my friends and I went to security officer and inquired him. We then came to know that recycling of paper didn't take place because the school is too far from the main city. Then, we thought of using waste paper for other purposes instead of burning or recycling them. We came up with ideas of making paper bags and other similar things.

Reflection

      This CAS activity is undoubtedly one of the best of this year. I experienced the very essence of team work this entire week. Working together with almost my entire batch was a little challenging, yet amazing! We did have tiny misunderstandings in this short journey when it came to assigning roles for each of us. However, we did overcome them in no time and held hands together till the end.

      Estimating the number of items of each material we required for the decoration, and fitting them into our budget inculcated some really good skills of dealing with money. It was the first time I was involved in such an activity and I found it very interesting. Most importantly, we discovered our horizons of creativity as we came up with new ideas for the decoration, like making lanterns out of thread with the help of balloons.

      One of my favourite segments of this journey was when we were trying so hard to convince our coordinators to get us yellow lights for the hall. They refused to buy them for us since those lights are very expensive and hence won't suit our budget. Immediately, we thought of just sticking yellow wrappers over the white lights that are already there in the ceiling! We were quite proud of ourselves at that moment for coming up with such spontaneous ideas.

      All of us tried our best to stick to our plan each day and managed to finish the tasks allotted. In my opinion, this regular routine for this week, made us more principled and responsible. We made sure not to waste any of the materials we bought and we also returned the extras back to the store at school.

     The night before the day of the farewell was when we very productive. We started and finished the frame for the photo booth and the arch for the entrance in groups! A few teachers and our coordinator helped us a lot that night and also gave us a few ideas here and there. Beyond all the work we did, there was also at least a tinge of fun at every moment!

     The second I saw those surprised and amazed expression on the faces of my seniors, I felt all the hard work we put in was definitely worth it!

Journal 9.7 : Regular lesson...

I didn't learn anything new today. We just tried bringing each posture to a better form. I also took it a little light today because my head started aching after doing dhanurasana twice yesterday. We did pranayama at the end today in a different method to regulate the respiratory system.

Duration : 1 hour  

Journal 14.6: The grand evening!

                      We all dressed up as quickly as possible after wrapping up all the work and then went to the entrance to welcome all our seniors. Only a few of them were on time. We gave them corsages and walked them through the red carpet. On the way to the photo booth, we conducted a small fun interview and also pulled of a prank by throwing slime at them suddenly. Most of them freaked out! We then headed them to the seminar hall...and they were just speechless! Their expression spoke more than they actually did that second! Thats what we were waiting for all these days!

                      Most of them had their own time clicking pictures next to all the decorations we made. Then, we called up the teachers to hand over a momento for each student. That took around half an hour to finish. Also, one student's momento went missing. My friend and I ran upstairs to check the cabins, but it wasn't there either. So we just gave that student a rose and promised to give his momento by the end of the week. Two of my friends then conducted the mafia game for all of them. Few of them got bored towards the end, but most of them liked the game. Later, we asked all of them to write notes for the confession envelopes. Then, we conducted a nerf war in the auditorium, where the nerf team made obstacles through which they can play the game using their nerf guns. Even the girls dressed up in sarees didn't mind playing! It seemed like they enjoyed that part of the evening a lot!

                     Though they were tired, we made them play the treasure hunt after a small break. Another team made the clues for this game. The clues were actually interesting! Most of them were running all around the field searching for the treasure. The treasure was just a box of these chocolate treats. So the winning team was so pissed! Well, their faces were full of smiles as soon as we took them to dinner. We'd ordered Chinese food, including schezwan fried rice, veg fried rice, manchurians, soup and also brownies and ice cream for dessert. Some of us served them food! While they were finishing dinner, we did a flash mob! They all loved our performance and even took videos of all of us dancing!

                     A few minutes later, all the seniors called the teachers and surprised them with momentos. Then we had a small DJ night! Finally, we lit lanterns together and let them raise into the sky...

Journal 14.5: The last minute work..

              Today is the farewell! Those of us who stayed back were a little tired. But we still managed to finish all the work left out. We blew balloons to fill the corners, stuck yellow gift wrapping paper over all the ceiling lights and hung up pictures of the seniors too. I drew a word cloud on the white board in the center of the wall. We took back all the materials left over, back to the cabins upstairs. We also arranged all the chairs neatly and wiped them. After hanging the streamers on the doors, we put up a small banner inside the seminar hall that said happy farewell. Since it was too plain, we climbed on a chair and sprinkled some red paint all over it using a tooth brush. We arranged the dice next to the main banner in the entrance and placed the photo booth a few meters away from it. We also placed all the props that we bought outside next to the photo booth. Finally we made this amazing thing! We gift wrapped the clock and wrote down the numbers from 1 to 12 just like an actual clock. We then wrote the word 'procrastination' all around the clock from 1 to 11 and then wrote 'teacher does the work at the end' below 12. We also hung up the lanterns around the seminar hall and outside too underneath the trees along with the lights.

Journal 14.4: Farewell eve!

              We had the entire day for the farewell decoration today. We made more lanterns and streamers. We also made envelopes for the confessions and decorated the windows with red and black curtains. Few of us stayed back at school overnight to finish all the work. We made more lanterns, finished decorating the boards and sticking the envelopes. We made the photo booth and the arch for the entrance in front of where the red carpet begins. It was a lot of fun working together till 10.30 p.m. However, all of us were really tired and exhausted.

Journal 14.3: Few days away from 'the' day

               We began making the decoration for the entrance today. We painted huge pieces of chart for the card soldiers, and also cut red and black paper into clovers, spades, hearts and dice for the streamers. We made 4 big dice using cardboard and black and white chart paper. While some of us continued doing these things, two of my friends and I went to discuss the material requirement list with the the quality management officer, the coordinator and one of our teachers. They helped us trim down the list according to the budget set. 75,000 rs was our budget. So we had to fit in the cost of all the materials like yellow gift wrappers, many packets of yarn, a lot of boxes of glue, masking tape, red, black and white balloons, double sticking tape, different types of decorating paper and also the gifts for students along with all the food for around 100 people within this limit. So we reduced the number of some of the items required for the decoration. We then made one lantern to check if the method works or not.  We blew up a balloon, applied glue around it and wrapped it with thread (instead of yarn). When we popped the balloon after a few hours, it shrunk. So we tried again and this time put more glue and wrapped the thread really tight. It worked! So we showed the coordinator, and she loved it!