Happy 1st Birthday to my Blog

This past year of blogging has been fun, and exciting. I liked expressing my views on different situations and writing moral based fictional stories.

I’ve gone through many happy events this year which I would love to stay the same, and many sad events which I hope will be different in coming year. I think coming year will be much better because I am prepared for things which I have failed at and I’m sure will end in success this new year. I am  ready for times that will make me uncomfortable and times that will teach me a lesson.

I enjoy writing, and I hope I’m getting closer to one of my dreams of becoming an author! I will continue to share new experiences in my second year of blogging.

Happy Birthday to my Blog!

Writing Girl (WG)

Teamwork

Teamwork is defined as “the combined action of a group of people, especially when it's effective and efficient”. This means that when you work as a team you can deliver better and faster. Well, what if some people on your team aren't at the same level as you or are not willing to contribute? What do you do?

During the 'Bring your Daughter and Son to work' day last week at my mom’s work, I became friends with another third grader I met at the event. My mom works at Audible, which is an audio content creation team at Amazon. One of the really awesome events planned during the day was kids will author a story, and then record it in the professional recording studios at Audible. So kids are the author and the narrator for their story. We could either work solo or as a team.

I and my new friend decided to work together on writing and recording a story. I proposed a story we could write and she was good with that. I started writing the story and she did her own stuff. When I was done, we went to the recording studio. As we were waiting, I started thinking of a perfect recording. I suggested her to read the story I wrote so she can get a rehearsal. I helped her practice the names and pronunciations, and we split the sections we will each narrate.  As we started our professional narration, I had to help her through reading her section and I would whisper and prompt. Eventually it just got frustrating and I corrected her crossly. She made mistakes on how to pronounce some of the names. The recording was definitely not perfect. When we finished recording, I acted happy. But inside I felt like I could cry. For rest of the day, I stayed away from her and if I was near her, I hardly talked. At times I forgot about it and we had fun together. At the end of my day, we got a DVD with our narrated story. I didn't want my mom or anyone to hear it so I  threw it in the trash bin. My mom picked it up after me. She knew how I felt.

So how do you solve the problem of not having people as good as you on your team or if they are not motivated to contribute? You bring them up with you, let them do the same things as you, so they will get a chance to learn new skills. Don’t just throw people off the team because they aren't as good as you. If you have the problem that people don’t want to contribute, you engage with them directly and ask for their input. You can also ask them for what role they would like on the team. Make them happy. Put them in your shoes, and put yourself in their shoes. If the person just doesn’t want to do any role, than means that person is unfit for the team and it's a different situation. I realized that I had done the right thing by working with my friend on rehearsal and whispering to her when she was stuck even when it meant that my recording was less than perfect. One thing I could have done better when writing the story was ask her for input in the story and engage with her more. Engaging directly and personally can inspire team members who are quiet to contribute.

Having reflected upon the situation, I was happy that I partnered with her and made a new friend. I am proud of our narration together! Here is a link to our narrated story (coming soon).

-WG

A Trip to the Restless City

The second day of my cousins visit, the grown-ups decided to go on a trip to New York City. They said we were spending too much time inside the house.

In New York City we had planned to see the Empire State building and go to the top. When my mom said we had to have buddies, I became buddies with my younger cousin and brother. We walked for a long time and finally reached Ground Zero which is a somber memorial for the innocent people who lost their lives during the attack on Twin Towers in 2001. There was a deep water fall inside another deep water fall and on the periphery of the squared waterfall were the names of people who lost their life. There were two such  memorials to represent the two towers.

I grabbed my dad a guidebook and kept on walking with my buddies. We stopped to take a few pictures, and came by a beat up statue which I later learned from my dad was an artwork of a popular artist. I was embarrassed.

We wanted to take a trip on a ferry to see different monuments, especially the Statue Of Liberty, but alas, the last ferry for the day had left. When we came across people who would make caricatures for $5 a person, my brother, my cousins, my aunt, my uncle and me got our caricatures. Mine pictured me as the Statue Of Liberty. The paper it was made on was so thin, that it almost flew away so we got put it in a cardboard frame which was $20. I thought the frame was a rip-off.

Then we saw people taking pictures with a statue of what looked like a buffalo. My dad put me on top of the statue and I got my picture taken. I later learned that it was constructed to celebrate the spirit of America and New York where everybody could come no matter their genesis or position. Arturo Di Modica decided to make this structure and it took him more than two years! It is the statue of a Bull made of bronze and ended up weighing over three and a half tons! At 18 feet height, Arturo and a couple of friends concluded on dropping this massive figure in front of the New York Stock Exchange. When the time came, the crew saw that a big Christmas tree had been installed. They ended up putting the bull under the Christmas tree as a enormous gift to New York City and the world. In the morning the mysterious creature was famous all around the world. No one had known where it came from. It was called The Charging Bull. To learn more about the Charging Bull, go here.

This day was special because of my cousin’s company, a trip to NYC, and also it was my dad’s birthday. We ate dinner and celebrated my dad’s birthday at a Thai restaurant near Empire State building. I thought the food was delicious but my brother thought it was pretty lousy. He went to a roadside pizza shop to eat pizza instead. One of my cousins got a pack of tic-tacs and gave one to me.

We traveled to Time Square and found a screen that took pictures of the people in front of it. We then had some fun with that.

When it was time to go home, my dad promised us a movie if it was not late and if none of us slept through the drive back home. Three of the children; me, my brother and my youngest cousin worked hard to accomplish that. However, when we got home it was 3.00 AM and my brother was asleep. We went to bed hoping for a movie another day.

These are some of my pictures from NYC.

An Experience of Nature

The day after the trip to New York City, we planned to go on a hike. All the kids thought it would be plain boring. When we reached the hiking spot, we picked a map and started into the woods.

We went over mud and my brother got his feet wet. I found a hiking stick that was my size and ran on. We came to a rock and people posed for pictures. We crossed a bridge and more pictures were taken. Me, my younger cousin and brother went to the riverside and climbed the rocks. We had to go up a steep hill of mud to get back on the track. I was very dirty after.

We came across lots of mud and despite my tries to not go in it, my feet got soaked. After we sat down, my dad and older cousin had a rock throwing contest. We tried to throw rocks too. Not long after, we saw a place where a tree had been cut down. There were branches on top of each other and since that looked cool, we stopped by to enjoy.

My mom saw a string hanging from a tree and asked why it was there. I thought a bird had just tangled it into the tree but others thought it was to tie food lockers so a bear couldn't get any food. One person thought wind had blown it there.

We passed by different sights and we were above where we had been and traveled uphill. Now we had to get back on the path where we had come from. On our path, we saw some poisonous water that could kill animals if they drank it. We tried to block the flow of the water and were very close. Right after we got the water blocked, it was time to go.

We went in the car and I remembered other hikes which I thought would be boring but were actually fun. This happened to be another one just like that.