Farewell 2k-16

Day 1-05/10/16

We, DP-1, were going to host a farewell party for the seniors who would be leaving in less than a month. We only had 2-3 days left for the farewell and the preparations for the party were fully rushing up.  I was part of the team which would organize the treasure hunt in the farewell for the seniors. Even, I was also part of the flash mob, which is basically a dance where a set of students are going to perform the dance to our seniors. We had only 1 day for the dance practice but still we could mange it to perform for 3 songs. For the treasure hunt, we decided to split the players into 3 teams and we would create 3 sets of the same clues. The first team to find all the clues would receive the prize. Then we drew a mind map of the field so we could be able to decide where we could place the clues. After coming up with 12 places to put the clues, we went down to the field to see if these places were suitable.

Soon, we went to practice for the flash mob. I already danced in one of the fest that happened before so, I was pretty confident to perform this time as well and I somehow managed to do the steps the sir had taught us. It was quite difficult at the beginning but as time went because we most of our friends didn't do dance for long time so, but somewhat we were able to perform. However, I kept on forgetting the moves after we did it each time. After 1 hour of practice, we had completed the steps to one Tamil song and one Hindi song. But in last minute we friends asked to sir for one more Tamil song which was one of the favorite song in Tamil industry : Aaluma doluma.

 After our dance practice, we had moved back to our treasure hunt. Now, we had to make the clues, which was the most difficult part. According to each place, we had to come up with an idea. Even though we had a lot of people helping us, it took us 3-4 hours to come up with difficult clues. We kept some difficult clues because our seniors was very intelligent so, it would be a tough time for the seniors to figure these out.

Day 2-06/10/16

 The farewell was today but we still had a lot of incomplete work to finish. In the morning, we had gone to the store to collect poster paper of different colors and markers. We spent most of the time in the morning by writing down the clues which was a very hard task.  We went onto the field to place the clues but it was actually quite harder because we had to arrange the clues according to each place it has to be and also there five different teams so, we for one place we should keep 5 clues but with different color paper which is been allotted to each team.

After lunch, we went to practice for the flash mob.  We repeated what we had done yesterday. After dance practice, it was around 2 pm and I was shocked because we still had to place half the clues but we had lot of members in our group so, we could easily manged it to place it at the right place. After that we went to hostel to change into my clothes for the farewell party (the dress code for boys was a black shirt and blue jeans). The seniors arrived and I was receiving and welcoming them.

 They had gone to the seminar hall and the party had officially started. The program consisted of a movie, awarding of mementos, and a game of “Mafia” which did not go very well and somewhat bored the seniors. Then, the seniors had gone out to the auditorium to play the Nerf War game, we thought this would have been the best thing in farewell but this led us to confusion as it was not properly conducted. Then, at last, came the treasure hunt, which was the most amusing game of the night as the seniors enjoyed this the most and they were eagerly searching for the clues moreover our seniors asked us where the clues been kept but we did not say. The treasure hunt was a success. Afterwards, we had dinner, which consisted of Chinese food which was good enough for its price. When the seniors were about to finish eating, we suddenly  jumped right in front of them and started dancing to the three songs and after our last song Aaluma doluma we went to pull our seniors to join with us to dance. The seniors joined with us and we danced for about an hour. We ended the night peacefully by letting our seniors float lanterns into the sky. It was absolutely beautiful to watch these lanterns float into the sky, however, some people had set the lanterns on fire. I believed the seniors had enjoyed this party as they were filled with the warmth of laughter by the end of the day.

 Reflection

Our seniors, DP-2, are leaving this school within a month or two right after their IB examinations. They truly will be missed by their teachers and their fellow juniors. They are taking the next step of their life and moving on to college and to make them remember the memories which they relished with each other, we hoped to end their school year, by giving them a fantastic farewell. It was actually my first time hosting a party for my seniors. To be honest, it was rather a wonderful experience. Not only did I help host it, but I have learned many new skills. The last time  I had organized something was the soccer challenge.

But this party was much harder to organize since we had very limited time and slow decision making would be an obstacle to our result.

Through this experience, I learned how to make decisions quickly. Moreover, another thing that I learned was that we need team work in order to accomplish this. Without the confidence level our team had, we could not have made the treasure hunt a success. With the help of each other we knew how to keep the 50 students engaged and made this farewell the best one.