Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Wendy Au's Senior Get-Together Reflection

A few months ago, before winter break, Wendy Au organized a Senior Get-Together Christmas Party and I was able to help her plan it. What I did to help was to help her think of the outline; theme, date, setting etc.  One of the things I did was to look up potential places that would allow high school students to hangout. I contact the Hard-Rock Cafe and spoke with one of the events coordinator to get an ideal price because even though the place looked really spacious and sophistcated, the cost would be a different story...and it was.  We did run into a situation of not knowing what other places would be convenient for everyone but also cheap, but finally, Wendy Au found a nice restaurant in Burien, The Mark. It turned out very successful because just as we planned, people did bring a present for White Elephant, the restaurant was nice enough to lend us a private room with a nice Christmas tree, many seniors dressed up in Christmas attire, the food was delicious and cheap, and most importantly, we all had fun. Little was spent and lots of memories were made.

Talent Show Reflection

Wow. To be honest, this was one of the most challenging projects I've dealt with for school. At first, I thought it would be easy to orgzanize a talent show but I was wrong. I was fortunate to have Ms. Wombold to help me out because she had experienced this before, therefore she made sure I wouldn't make any mistakes. The hardest part for me was to publicized this event. I thought posters and a few intercom announcements would be enough, however, students still did not know about it. Also, reminding and making sure those who signed up for auditions, come to rehearsals was pretty difficult and frustrating.

Some issues I've came across was keeping up with the workload in order to not fall behind schedule. I had approximately two and a half months of preparation, which now, I think is still not enough. It was stressful at times; where I was worried that I wouldn't have enough performers. However, I found out that if I were to actually go around and ask people to sign up, it was more effective rather than waiting for the list to expand. When auditions came around, I was relieved to have about 20 performers but then when it was a week before the show, some people bailed out. This added more stress and I thought I was literally going to lose my head because 4 people backed out on the same day. Not to mention, some didn't even tell me in person a few days before the show, which was very disappointing. Luckily, thanks to a few help from my friends, they recruited 3 performers on the day of the show, which was absolutely awesome.

Overall, I'm glad that I successfully directed a talent show. I knew what I wanted from the beginning and aimed for it. I couldn't have done it without the help of Emily Chhun, Arun Somasundaram, Drew Hidalgo, Wendy Au, AJ Sullivan, Jenny Gao, and Karan Grewal. They all helped me with making signs, selling tickets, setting up stage decorations and being backstage crew. As well as the MCs; Miranda Sita and Jose Aguilar. And last but not least, Ms. Wombold as the advisor of this project. I can't thank them enough. I'm glad that lots of people showed up for the talent show because I was worried that we wouldn't have enough due to the number of tickets sold during lunch but as always, people buy it the last minute. I really didn't plan to buy anything for the talent show, other than hiring the Au Lac Lion Dance team and a few labels for the awards. Plus, when the tickets are set at a low price, many people bought them where we made $474 dollars!

After all of the hardwork that everyone contributed, I was glad that people enjoyed the show. The performers were awesome and I'm grateful that they were willing to participate in the show. What I've learned from this experience that I would probably take with me in the future is to always plan ahead. I almost ran into situations where everything was conflicting or was winged. Planning every single step is crucial; from figuring out the dates of rehearsals, auditions and show to the themes/decorations etc. Also, making sure the word gets out as soon as possible. Performers actually need more time to practice before rehearsals and the actual show because they do have other stuff to do besides talent show. Because the performers had approximately a month to perfect their act, I figured that was probably one of the main reasons why some backed out. If I were to do this again, I would definitely work twice as fast, then I wouldn't be stressing out as much. Although there were times where I really wanted to just not try anymore or give up, I'm glad that I made it through and turned it really fun.