In Just a Flash

Wow. I must say. Wow. So, I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I went to volunteer at Gonsalves's cultural fair, "A Taste of Gonsalves", for Octagon and I must say, I had so much fun. I'm in such a good mood. Wow. I can't believe I was in such a rotten mood before! So I had to run to get a tennis ball and we may or may not run on Monday as a punishment, big "boo hoo". I forgot to do some of my homework, wah, the world's going to end. Oh, I might have done bad on my Spanish written, oh no, whatever will I do? Isn't it funny that depending on your mood, you just feel so stupid for feeling or acting the way you did? Well, allow me to rant on some more happier (optimistic) things to make up for my negative (pessimistic) rambling I did earlier.
So after scarfing down some food for dinner and rushing to get to Gonsalves I felt kind of lost. I didn't go to Gonsalves for elementary school, nor have I been there before. There a ticket stand and at first I thought, "Shoot, was I supposed to bring money?" I told the people at the table that I was there to volunteer and they slid a paper towards me and asked if my name was on there. I was all panicking that it wasn't, but the kind ladies pointed me to someone else who just sent me off to work at the craft's center. Once again, I was feeling lost and insecure. I mean, I had no idea where the craft's center was supposed to be. Then I saw a fellow Octagoner, Brian, and he pointed me in the right direction. However, after going into the room, for the third time, I was at lost what in the world I should be doing. They asked me to help them with the children and their crafts, but it didn't seem like they needed much help. I managed to find the women who was in charge of the chaotic scene and placed me at an empty table.
It was kind of slow because all the kids that ran by just looked at me and kept going. Others were like, this seems boring and walked off to amuse themselves. I was just doodling on the table, since it was covered in paper, then a friend of mine, Pooja, popped up. She was nice enough to stick around and keep me company. She even took one of the color pages. Each cultural group gets to chose what they wanted to do (I overheard this information for a teacher named Mrs. Anderson). The table I was at, it seemed that the Hindi group wanted to have a coloring page of their flag and give children and example of how to write and pronounce, "Hello", "Welcome", and "Goodbye". Pooja was prideful of being Indian and wrote many other words I didn't understand. We sat around talking for a bit. This one man walked past and said, "Hey, they tell you how to say 'Hi' in Chinese." Pooja and I just laughed. At least he was able to tell I was Chinese. Pooja later had to leave to watch her brother perform and I was alone once again. Then a little girl came and actually colored. She was sociable little girl, thankfully for me, since I'm not really one to start a conversation myself. Her name was Sydney. She talked about how she loved crayons (which were used to color) and wanted to be an artist.
When she was done with the sheet she left and soon after that, we had to clean up. I was thankful that I had something I could actually help out with. However, when I was cleaning, the teacher in charge of Octagon, Ms. K, saw me wearing my shirt and came over to talk to me. She was asking me about things about signing in and getting free tickets for food, but since I told her I wasn't too sure where to go--Ms.K said lots of people didn't--she lead me to the Italian stand where one of the Octagoner's mom was helping out at. I got five free tickets and signed in, but I figured that I should continue help cleaning the crafts center and decided to head back there. But first, one of the student helpers intercepted me and asked if I wanted a necklace. It had white, green, and red beads (the colors of the Italian flag). I gave him a ticket for it.
When I got into the crafts center they were still cleaning so I just helped pick up trash and such. Sydney was there and she helped out with me. She seems like such a nice little girl. We talked while cleaning. Somehow we got onto talking about the food being served out in stands and Sydney was saying how she couldn't even get tickets to buy food, but the teacher looked her suspiously, as if it was her that brought food into the crafts center, which isn't allowed. So I decided to give her one of mine, since I didn't know what I'd use them for. Later, when we were done cleaning, she asked if I could be her friend. That was so cute! I was like, "Aww, sure. But we're probably not going to see each other very much, though." Then Sydney, being the cute girl she is, says, "It's okay, we can still be friends even though we can't see each other." That was so, so, so, so cute! I could have hugged her, but it seemed kind of awkward for me, since I'm not the hugging-type.
Well, Sydney's mother was beckoning her to go and that was my goodbye to my new little friend. Since my business was done in the room, I went outside to go look around. I felt kind of weird by myself so I went back to the Italian booth to get Napoleons (a pastry) that even had a little Italian flag on top of it. It was good. The people at the stand got me another one for free! That was nice of them. Except I was still full from dinner, so I just carried it around with me everywhere.
So basically everything was slowly closing down, so I decided to help out. I went to the booth that Brian and another Octagoner, Cherise, were at and helped them. Apparently Brian love Napoleons so I gave him mine, so that got rid of it. I just ran around offering my help and such, taking down banners, decorations, and other things. Before I knew it, it was already dark. I met other Octagoners, Theodore and Marrisa (it was her mother that was helping out). I got to talk to both of them a bit, so that was nice. Last minute bonding with my fellow members, well, they're actually officers. It was fun talking and working with them. Theodore, the new president of Octagon since yesterday, I believe (since at the banquet, they were telling who was chosen to be the new Octagon officers for the next year. I forgot to mention that in my other post), if not, I know he was and is an Octagon officer. Well, anyhow, he was talking to me about being paired up with an officer next year to organize an event and I could get experience, maybe running for a position next year, too. I was touched really. I was kind of ashamed, too, since I didn't participate that much. It was just yesterday (I was helping him clean yesterday, too, now that I think about it) and today that I was everywhere trying to help. But still, I was really glad he gave me that consideration.
And so, I came home with delicious Philipino rice cakes that I got with the rest of my tickets, I even got two free ones! The people there are sure generous.
I wish my elementary school had a huge cultural fair like Gonsalves's. Pooja claimed that she thought of having a cultural fair when she was class president and that the school stole her idea and didn't give her credit. When I told her I wished my school had a fun event like their's, Pooja said, "That's because they didn't have me!" Well, I was glad to have a good time and helping out. It felt good when people thanked me for helping them clean up. I hope I'll be able to do it again next year!