WHAT'S IN THE JAR? - Helping a charity

WARNING: I am aware that this text may be a little too long, but for Christ’s sake we’ve done so many things and I could not forget to mention any of them. So, if you feel strong enough, sit, relax and read.



Last week we celebrated what we called the 'What’s in the jar?' game, an activity that concluded the charity project we've been working on in the past English lessons. You're about to discover how it all came to life.

A couple of months ago, during a rainy morning I assume (we had terrible weather those weeks), our beloved English teacher came in saying nonsense: we had to do research on British charities. She split the whole class into different groups based on who we wanted to help: animals, environment, people in need, people with diseases, etc.

The next day she went a step further, we had to choose a charity from each group to compete with the other ones to become the amazing charity that 4º BD would support, all as one, as a family. And so we did. My group, which was supporting people with diseases, was composed by Carmen González, Lucia Martínez and me. We chose Clowns without borders. We had to prepare an activity to raise money and expose it to our class mates in order to choose the best one, the one the whole class would have to organise. We thought of organising a costume party (because of the clown related charity) and a costume competition, and we would raise money asking people to pay for the party and, if they wanted, to enter the competition. We had the idea, it was time now for the fighting.

The battle had started. We all supported and defended our charity as the best one like a brave warrior would do with its kingdom. Someone once told me that when enemies attack your kingdom you don’t flea, you show them why it is your kingdom. And, oh boy, we took that as a motto. But, in the end, there can only be a winner. Those bastards I call friends decided to vote for Cáritas. The battle was over, and we had been defeated. I don’t want to be taken for an arrogant person, but I still think everything would have been better if my group had voted for my proposal: Alzheimer Society. But, in any case, Miss Celis archived her purpose: we had an activity to organise and a perfect opportunity to learn how to do everything in English. She was actually the true winner.

The next hideous step came later, after Alessandra’s marvellous lessons about money. Different tasks were assigned to everyone. I believe I had to wash dishes, but I don’t really remember. We were all told to spread the news about the activity in the social nets… I didn’t, I’m a bad boy. The winning group had to write tons of letters to contact with a hundred people in order to arrange the activity on a certain day at a certain hour in a certain place with certain materials that certain people had to provide to us. And god, it was horrible. At the end, the whole class had to take part in the contact thing so we wouldn’t take the risk of sending something that could get a 'No' as an answer, but we finally archived. Everything was ready, it was time to raise some money.

Before going on with the story, you might be thinking: Iván, what does this activity even consists on? Well, I’ve been trying to create mystery by not telling you which activity stood as the winner, the one the bastards voted for, but I am about to do. The winning group proposed to organise a game in which people would have to guess the exact number of candies a jar contained, paying €1 to take part. The winner would be the one that approached more and would take the candies home. That was the activity the bastards I already mentioned considered the best idea, so it was chosen.

The day finally arrived. 11 May 2013. 10:15 AM. I was in charge of preparing all the materials that were necessary for the activity, so I made a great effort not attending my technical drawing exam to cut papers and move tables. I’m still very emotional, don’t want to talk (write) about it. And the best thing was that, after all the preparations, I couldn’t be there because I had to do the freaking technical exam at 11:15, during the break time. To release all my anger, I did a 9.75 points exam in 35 minutes :D we actually repeated the activity again the next week to raise more money, so I was able to be there and can honestly say it was a great experience. The event finished. The Cáritas representative thanked us for all the work we had made, took the money and ran away.

The project concluded with the winner announcement: Paula Ruiz from 4º A got the right number, but I am proud to say I got the 2nd place in the podium saying there were 876 candies, when the actual number was 877. She was kind enough to share the prize with our class, without the needing of threatening her.

I hope you enjoyed reading about our experience. This whole charity-supporting project has been a great experience and I think all the students from 4º BD can be proud and take something positive from it. Event with that, I would politely ask for the possibility of not doing more projects like this one until next year, this has been stressful enough.

My special ability

I was told to find my special ability, something I'm good at and proud of. I am creative. I can think of great ideas easily and I think it is something really special and useful.

It's really easy for me to create things when I have to, but at the same time you cannot force me to do it, because I won't. It’s not that I have something against you, it’s just… I can’t. I kind of have to be in a creative mood and sometimes, many times, I’m not in that mood. It’s easier for me to plan any school project or to create drafts about my special ability, for example, but being focused and in that creative mood is the key to get my ability to another level. The process of creative is really different every time, but I always find it interesting, due to my ability and my gift to do it.

There’s no such practice or anything to start being creative. There are some people who are more creative than other and that’s fine, but there’s something you can do to improve on it or to try to be creative. Get inspiration. Find it in movies, music, books… whatever. There must be something or someone who inspires you in some way to do normal things in life so there must also be something or someone that makes your creativity get out. It’s basically the most important part of the whole process and what makes you improve or train, to inspire yourself. Apart from that, nothing can really get you to let your ideas grow more than the action of getting inspired.

It’s obviously really helpful and useful to be creative. Nowadays, it seems like everything has been discovered and done but you have to be original and creative, or as some people say: re-invent yourself, to success in any projects you have in life. You see, I’m being creative now, it’s useful.

This is all about being creative. My ability is not one of those hobbies you get interested in and you can go practice it during the summer, but it’s still something really nice and special, and I’m really proud of it.