We were on the bus ride to school, and my friend, John, asked me to do the Invention Convention with him. For a minute, I thought about the pros and cons of it and what if we failed to come up with an idea, but even with that thought in mind, I said yes.
We were in sixth grade at the time which meant lots of homework. So, every day, we used to text each other saying, “Come over to my house, we’ll think of something,” or, “What should we make? Cool glasses? Meh... we’ll think of something when we meet.” This sentence, “we’ll think of something,” became an excuse for never finding the time to THINK. Then, it was January 15th -- one week before our event in our school -- and we were still thinking. We had lost entirely hope by then that we would be able to present, but then, something weird happened. So weird that it changed our lives.
By the way, before I mention the exciting part, this period of “thinking” actually taught me something. Don’t delay what you have determined you are going to do. Just get it over with. Deep line, huh? Anyway, my dad told us that he was going to help us fully in preparing ourselves in this one-week-end-of-story time. So, the next day, my dad got me and John on Zoom and suggested an idea, and we thought it was pretty cool, so, he ordered the materials right away, and it arrived in 2 days, while, in the meantime, John’s mom got the supplies we needed to present our project. All of this in TWO DAYS… told you it was WEIRD.
The next day, we wrote our speeches and practiced them over and over again - on the bus, on FaceTime, everywhere. Meanwhile, my mom explained our project in detail using the art supplies to be easy for us to present. The evening of Sunday, January 21, we were all set and ready to present.
The morning of the big day, we were so nervous, that neither could focus on any of our classes. So much so, that we were the last ones to get assessed that day. And, to make things worse, Principal Fenchel herself was coming to test us. Our hearts skipped a beat as we got ready for the big moment. Then, it was like, the words got out of our mouth till no more were left. Then, the questions they asked were pretty simple so we got through that. Then, the even more stressful part came the results. They quickly got done with the “fifies” (that’s what we sixth graders used to call our juniors) and then in the sixth-grade results, they were announcing the names, and then they were nearing the end when the last name they spoke out was, “Srijan Agarwal and John Williams”
This was like… what the heck just happened. We were amazed and excited at the same time.
After that day, we knew to start preparing immediately for the regionals after our anxiety lesson of leaving things for the last minute. We used to practice for 2 hours every day before regionals and we were thorough with our speeches more than ever. And, as we expected and hoped, we won the regionals.
In this experience, we learned to not leave things for the last second, so that way we know even more about what we are going to do.
Very thoughtful and well compiled writing.
ReplyDeleteThank you:)
DeleteNicely explained.
ReplyDeleteThank you
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