Let me tell you something about the past week of my life. As I have previously mentioned, I have been helping out Enactus Bedfordshire with writing the script and preparing for the presentation for the Regionals. Well, that is over and I have a few days off, so let me further explain how these days were.
Everything was absolutely chaotic. When I first started, we had a very simple plan in which every member of the team had a task (a part of a task sometimes) and we were all uncoordinated at all times. Writing the script took so long and it was such an extenuating process that it drained all of us of energy. The first draft worked out alright, but the script itself was far from being complete. There were so many things that needed to be changed, so many things we still needed to think through...
We ended up creating a new draft, it was mostly the same things as we had in the original draft. We changed the order to make it more fluid and then we had to change it completely. I have no clue who's idea it was but it was terrible. We ended up losing so many important things we had written before and the original content was simply lost in translation. The so called clarifications became our worst nightmare and when we were done with the draft, we realised that it was worse than when we began it.
After panicking for a few hours, we decided to start over. This time we would do it right. We would do it from scratch. And so we did. We brainstormed our way through the beginning of the script. After so many late nights in the library a few more meant nothing for all of us. We were all tired and ready to fall asleep any second but we still stayed everyday. We gave our best to pull out a new script on a few days before the Regionals. We wrote and rewrote. We kept on changing what wasn't feeling right and so we never gave it up. By the end of this third script, I was honestly proud of what we ended up with. We were all so proud of our baby Marcus that we couldn't wait to see (in this case it was mostly me who wanted to see it) being performed.
Seeing the presentation team present it to our Business Advisor was one of the best feelings I have ever had in my life. I felt so proud to be able to experience such a thing. All those little jokes and moments our team shared during the making of the script were in the back of my mind during the whole presentation. All those small moments we all shared as a group were present. The moment someone said a word correctly or delivered a statement powerfully made me so incredibly proud and thrilled that I was able to have the possibility to be part of such a project. I have never felt this before. I almost felt like crying. I could only imagine that the day I write a book (or a screenplay) and I finally see it being adapted/played would feel similar. That sense of I made this happen was so present that I couldn't shake it off. I was so incredibly proud of our team that I didn't know how to behave. I kept staring at all of them. Most of them I had almost no contact with before I joined the scriptwriting team. I could barely believe that I didn't know these absolutely incredible human beings. I could hardly comprehend that I was too afraid to speak to them just a week and a half before.
The time we spent together made us get closer and closer. Even if I don't know every single thing about them -even if I heard a little bit too much about them- I am now able to interact with any one of them with no problem. I feel so confident next to these people. I feel so proud to say we are all now friends.
To see the team deliver the actual presentation at the Regionals was also very important for me. I understood a few aspects of the presentation and I felt for them. I saw how nervous they were and I felt bad that I could do absolutely nothing but watch them. I am incredibly proud of how they made the presentation. It doesn't matter if it was not perfect. This is only an early stage, we can definitely get much better if we keep up with our work. We now understand what we did wrong and we know how to avoid that. There is no way we will make the same mistakes and even if we do, at least we know we will still enjoy the ride and do all we can to make this an amazing experience for all those involved in the project.
Enactus changed me. It has only been a few weeks since I started being so involved but I can already tell the difference. I am more concerned with others around me. I am more concerned with my work patterns. I have never been this active in a project before. Not even in projects in which it was just me working in it. I can't wait to know the results of the Regionals. I really hope we go to Nationals. This has been such an incredible journey and I have learnt so much that I can only hope I can keep this going.
But not everything is about the Competition. Today (alright, yesterday) I had one of the best well spent times of my life. The Competition team (and supporters, such as me) stayed together and decided to blow some steam after worrying so much during the course of the previous two weeks. We took a walk through St. James Park. We sat down on the grass and enjoyed the sunlight (we were all surprised) we worried about nothing really, we bonded a bit with each other, getting to know the other a bit better. It didn't end there. Some of us ended up staying in London longer than the rest. We were going to the London Dungeons but due to the obnoxiously expensive price, aborted the mission. Instead we walked through London for a bit and went to Ripley's Believe It or Not. I must say that I wanted to go there for quite some time and I am really happy that I finally got the opportunity to go there. We had such a great time looking through the Museum and later on with the interactive part of it. We got lost in the Mirror Maze. We experienced the optical illusions of the spinning thing that we had to walk through. We simply decided it was enough stress for all of us and that the best option was to just have some fun.
I'm glad we did it. It was absolutely amazing. I will always remember hitting the mirror with my forehead, or the way I just kept getting confused if the people were actually there or were simply reflections.
Advice Time:
> As I have said before, get involved. You don't need to join a society, but simply be a more active member of society.
> Go out with your friends to blow off steam, you will feel so refreshed after.
> If you can avoid not sleeping do it. Sleeping is important and it will definitely help you stay on top of your game. If we had slept more, we would have probably had less trouble rewriting the script.
Anyway, I am going to use these next few days to recover my sleep. I know I need it.
Everything was absolutely chaotic. When I first started, we had a very simple plan in which every member of the team had a task (a part of a task sometimes) and we were all uncoordinated at all times. Writing the script took so long and it was such an extenuating process that it drained all of us of energy. The first draft worked out alright, but the script itself was far from being complete. There were so many things that needed to be changed, so many things we still needed to think through...
We ended up creating a new draft, it was mostly the same things as we had in the original draft. We changed the order to make it more fluid and then we had to change it completely. I have no clue who's idea it was but it was terrible. We ended up losing so many important things we had written before and the original content was simply lost in translation. The so called clarifications became our worst nightmare and when we were done with the draft, we realised that it was worse than when we began it.
After panicking for a few hours, we decided to start over. This time we would do it right. We would do it from scratch. And so we did. We brainstormed our way through the beginning of the script. After so many late nights in the library a few more meant nothing for all of us. We were all tired and ready to fall asleep any second but we still stayed everyday. We gave our best to pull out a new script on a few days before the Regionals. We wrote and rewrote. We kept on changing what wasn't feeling right and so we never gave it up. By the end of this third script, I was honestly proud of what we ended up with. We were all so proud of our baby Marcus that we couldn't wait to see (in this case it was mostly me who wanted to see it) being performed.
Seeing the presentation team present it to our Business Advisor was one of the best feelings I have ever had in my life. I felt so proud to be able to experience such a thing. All those little jokes and moments our team shared during the making of the script were in the back of my mind during the whole presentation. All those small moments we all shared as a group were present. The moment someone said a word correctly or delivered a statement powerfully made me so incredibly proud and thrilled that I was able to have the possibility to be part of such a project. I have never felt this before. I almost felt like crying. I could only imagine that the day I write a book (or a screenplay) and I finally see it being adapted/played would feel similar. That sense of I made this happen was so present that I couldn't shake it off. I was so incredibly proud of our team that I didn't know how to behave. I kept staring at all of them. Most of them I had almost no contact with before I joined the scriptwriting team. I could barely believe that I didn't know these absolutely incredible human beings. I could hardly comprehend that I was too afraid to speak to them just a week and a half before.
The time we spent together made us get closer and closer. Even if I don't know every single thing about them -even if I heard a little bit too much about them- I am now able to interact with any one of them with no problem. I feel so confident next to these people. I feel so proud to say we are all now friends.
To see the team deliver the actual presentation at the Regionals was also very important for me. I understood a few aspects of the presentation and I felt for them. I saw how nervous they were and I felt bad that I could do absolutely nothing but watch them. I am incredibly proud of how they made the presentation. It doesn't matter if it was not perfect. This is only an early stage, we can definitely get much better if we keep up with our work. We now understand what we did wrong and we know how to avoid that. There is no way we will make the same mistakes and even if we do, at least we know we will still enjoy the ride and do all we can to make this an amazing experience for all those involved in the project.
Enactus changed me. It has only been a few weeks since I started being so involved but I can already tell the difference. I am more concerned with others around me. I am more concerned with my work patterns. I have never been this active in a project before. Not even in projects in which it was just me working in it. I can't wait to know the results of the Regionals. I really hope we go to Nationals. This has been such an incredible journey and I have learnt so much that I can only hope I can keep this going.
---------
I'm glad we did it. It was absolutely amazing. I will always remember hitting the mirror with my forehead, or the way I just kept getting confused if the people were actually there or were simply reflections.
Advice Time:
> As I have said before, get involved. You don't need to join a society, but simply be a more active member of society.
> Go out with your friends to blow off steam, you will feel so refreshed after.
> If you can avoid not sleeping do it. Sleeping is important and it will definitely help you stay on top of your game. If we had slept more, we would have probably had less trouble rewriting the script.
Anyway, I am going to use these next few days to recover my sleep. I know I need it.
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