How to work under stress

It started off as another day of group works. But, it wasn’t one of those crazy dragging brainstorming of how we’re going to approach the community anymore. After having few words with Sarah last night, our group now really knew what we had to do. Things were finally cleared off and everyone started to figure out what their roles were. Two main things that needed to be done today for our group: the song and few games for kids in the community to build their idea of ownership and working together as a community when facing any problems.

That was the point where we were told that our group had to present our finalized ideas to Rashimi, the head manager of MagicBus within few hours. Everyone who were in our group began to feel the pressure and started panicking a little bit. But who said that the best results were always made under a bit of pressure; our group managed to create a full 15 slides presentation within the short given time. We were all very proud. To be honest, i was mostly super relieved that we were able to click the send button ten minutes before the promised time. The amount of adrenaline that got released at the moment we sent out the file must have been terribly massive.

Everyone in our group all felt completely knocked down after pulling full brainpower for five hours straight. We needed some fresh breeze in our brain. I thought I was going to pass out if I didn’t do anything about it. Few girls and I have agreed that we needed mental refreshing moment and decided to go out to the beach. The salty taste of the breeze of the ocean was enough to bring back the smiles to our faces. Our empty stomach was soon fulfilled with deliciously cooked vegetarian Indian style Chinese food as soon as we got back to our guesthouse. The taste of famous deep fried cauliflower dish was the only escape for me from never ending vegetarian dhal. It gave me an amazing illusion of eating sweet and sour pork from Canada.

Nothing could have been more perfect than ending our long day with a nice henna time. After waiting on a long line up, I finally got a chance to get my henna done from Raksha at around 11pm. The noise of a quiet night with looking at Raksha putting henna on my left hand brought me a huge sensation of relaxation and happiness.

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One long day in India

My day started off with a sticky face, just like yesterday. Fanning myself did nothing — neither did changing my position or sticking a pillow in between my legs. My body refused to cool down. It was hot, gross and sweaty, like my socks after a workout. A quick shower with a bucket of cool water from last night always helps to wake me up.

At this point in the program, both groups got a chance to interview the organizations that have the ability to help us interact with the community throughout our projects. The one that our group is collaborating with is Magic Bus, the organization that uses sports to reach their goal with Community Youth Leaders. We called them mentors. Coming up with the equitable questions for the mentors were very difficult. We had to think very thoroughly in order to make the most out of the given period of interviewing time.

By the end of our group meeting, the white board was full of curiosity. Four of the chosen members including myself got driven to the Magic Bus office and slowly but surely our questions were insightfully answered. The language was a barrier throughout the whole interview, but the conversation flew naturally with my tint of silly questions.

Tomorrow in the morning, we have a presentation based on how our interview went today. The program started to become much more intense at this point, and my brain is about to explode right now. All I want right now is a juicy hamburger patty.

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