November 11, 2011-Volunteered at Wine Tasting

4h

We helped to setup (rig) and then wrap up (derig) boats for the annual GAR Wine tasting event. This is the largest fundraiser for Gainesville Area Rowing. They usually make $8000-$10,000 at this event.

I also helped serve the wine to people by passing bottles to the servers. I was enjoying the live music and the company of my friends. The event made me feel happy because I got to hear music which makes everything better and I got to see Dr. Morris, my 8th grade history teacher. He was a very big part of my child hood and it was nice to see him. We talked about college and he wished me luck for my choices of schools. He then recited his old motto "Do your best today" and I felt absolutely wonderful to hear those words from him. I learned that it is important to continue to keep in touch with those important to you because you want their friendship to last forever.

November 27, 2011- Haven Hospice

3 hours

This day was pretty nondescript. There was nothing of note to be reported.

November 20, 2011- Haven Hospice

 2 h

I started my new position today. I now volunteer at the Front desk of the Haven care center. My job involves watching the CC televisions and allowing patients visitors in to the building. I am not supposed to let suspicious people in or those who appear to be homeless. My other responsibility is to greet visitors and help them locate their family who may be staying in the building. I am also supposed to retrieve wheelchairs for those who need them. I am quite happy with my job because it allows me a lot of free time to accomplish school work and music. There is no one there who I work with so its a very solitary job, however, I enjoy the smiles I get when I greet people entering and help them with their needs. The job is important for the safety of the Haven and it makes me feel very confident in myself for helping to safeguard such an important institution.

November 11, 2011-Debate Practice to train new debators

My partner, Akash, and I helped to train the new debators today at the practice party before their first tournament at EHS. We observed a debate between two of the novice teams and gave them critiques. We tried to teach them what learned throughout our years of debate. We attempted to give them wisdom from our mistakes and tell them what approaches have worked for us in the past. It was nice to see the novices look up to us with such respect because they knew how accomplished we were in the field of debate. We crossfired against a novice team and showed them how to approach a case in many novel ways. The kids all tried to grab our points and cross fire questions, but we refused to give them any points because we wanted them to learn for themselves. The activity meant a lot to me because I have never been in the position to teach other people about things which I know better than other people. I am happy to help my teammates but i feel resentful because we never had anyone showing us the ropes like these novices we trained.

November 1, 2011-NEHS

Today I helped a student at GHS edit his essay. He sent it to me in the late hours of the night and asked me to edit it before he sent to UF. His essay had a multitude of errors in grammar and word usage that I fixed to the best of my abilities. I did not think the essay as it was before I edited would have stood a chance against the admissions officers, after I edited it, I think he will fare better. I tried not to alter his meaning at all, but I suggested that next time he write an essay, he focus more on a specific expierience and not on a broad ranging topic like he discussed. I was glad to able to help a friend in the road towards making a good future.

October 5, 2011-NEHS

Today was our first meeting. The turnout was not very high. I suspect this is because of the fact that most college apps are due mid january and people simply have not had enough time to begin writing significant essays. Regardless, we discussed creativity when writing essays. We concluded it is important to be creative, but not so novel that it appears you are not taking college seriously. We considered the ethics of reading other peoples essays and decided that it may be on the edgy side. However, we reasoned that as long we did not keep copies of essays there was little risk of plagiarism or idea theft.

October 2, 2011-NEHS

Today we officially started planning for our NEHS group: College Essays. We read a small pamphlet on the writing of college essays and gained an understanding of what Colleges look for in the essay. We learned a lot about how they interpret a students true worth from 500 words of writing. We envisioned a direction for the club that allowed us to help other students by giving tips and possibly editing essays of willing students. I am working with Akash and Daniel to work out a schedule for our meetings.

October 16, 2011-Docent at Haile Homestead

4h

Docent at Haile Homestead

Today was the single largest amount of people who ive ever witnessed at the Homestead. There was a group of 10 people following each of the 3 volunteers here. There were also a large amount of small children. I was volunteering with Caitlyn and and older volunteer, we had to work together to make sure the kids were contained and kept entertained while we gave the adults information. Me and Caitlyn handled a large amount of people while the other volunteer kept the other segment of people occupied in a different area of the house to prevent over crowding. Throughout the time I spent there, I noticed that I was getting better at extemporaneous speaking and making my info relevant to the audience accumulated. The only thing I was not very good at was greeting the guests and being as personable as my female counterparts. I have noticed this in other volunteering positions. I have learned that being personable and friendly to strangers starts with the assumption that everyone is there to be treated nicely and that you have to approach them as guests and not strangers. It helps to pretend that you've known them for a long time so that you are more comfortable. 

October 15, 2011- Ronald McDonald House

2h
I volunteered at the Ronald McDonald House today. The Ronald McDonald House is a very unique place to volunteer. The goal of Ronald McDonald house is to provide the pediatric patients and their families a place to stay and eat while they children are being treated at the hospital. A big part of the Ronald McDonald house is the volunteers who provide support by spending their hours to cook and help the patient and their families. Today, we baked brownies at the Ronald McDonald house. This was something I have not done before. However, I found the task really easy, because I opened up 2 boxes of brownie mix, added the indicated ingredients (oil) and then baked them for 40min in the oven. The brownies were ready and they were delicious. I felt that I may have brought a small bright spot in someone's day when they eat the brownie with milk. This task was so easy that I decided to come back home and bake another 2 boxes of Brownies for my Golf buddies, whom I am going to meet tomorrow morning.

September 24, 2011-Haile Homestead Docent

4h

I was a docent today at Haile Homestead. It was a beautiful day in general, however in the morning there were not many people who came out to the Haile Homestead. Although, it was a bit warm outside the Haile Homestead is always cooler by 10 degrees. I learnt that the way the home is designed, if you open the doors on the front and back of the house, cross-ventilation really cools the home down. In spite of the slow start to the day, as the day progressed some families came to visit the Homestead. I gave them tours and talked about the history of the Homestead.

I am always amazed by how different people ask completely different questions about this Historic home. Most people are very intrigued by the talking walls. The Haile family had a habit of writing on their walls. I think that is an excellent way of leaving your mark and thoughts for your next generations. Most people ask about the date of the oldest writing on the wall. The oldest dated writing is from 1859.

Overall, it was fun volunteering today. Every time I am a docent at the Homestead, I realize the value and importance of history. When you study history from a text book, the feeling is very different than actually being a part of that history.

August 27, 2011- Lake Newnan Cleanup

8am-11pm

Today, we cleaned up the boathouse and the shoreline at Lake Newnan to get ready for the crew season 2011-2012. The boathouse is the enclosure where the boats are kept, the ERG machines are stored and the weight machines are stored. Twice each year, we clean up the boathouse so that it is functional for the rest of the year. As the year progresses, day to day activity in the boat house takes its toll on the boathouse. Things start getting cluttered and since we do not replace everything to its spot after using it, the clutter keeps increasing. The first thing that comes to mind is it would be so easy to replace the equipment and weights after use, but somehow it is overlooked every single time. I am going to be more mindful and try to keep things organized everyday rather than doing a lot of work on one single day.

Lesson learned: 1. Keeping organized is important to becoming clutter free. 2. Putting things back in place can make you more efficient. 3. It is fun to hangout with the crew buddies and work as a team on something other than rowing.

After we were done with the cleanup, this is what the boathouse looked like. I wish I had taken a  picture before the cleanup,  it would have clearly illustrated how much clutter we had on the floor.

July 15, 2011- Haven Hospice

4 hours

I was a volunteer at the Hospice again today. As I am a teen volunteer, I can only work in the Hospice Attic. My main job today was to accept donated items and then process them by sorting them out into similar categories. I was very surprised at the number of people who bring in things everyday. There were at least 20 bags of clothes and things to sort through. I thought this would be a slow paced Job, but I was busy almost all the time and it was pretty hard work to sort and continuously process items and clothing.

It feels rewarding when you place the sorted items out into the sales area after the staff decides what items are suitable for resale. It is very interesting to see how the staff prices the items for resale. Sometimes, I did not see the value in some of the clothes, but the staff said that these were very hot items and have very good resale price. I also learned that people in general are very generous and like donating to the Hospice because it is for a good cause. I will ask my parents to donate items to the Hospice for resale. I will myself donate some of my old clothes and toys, which I don't use anymore. Volunteering at the Haven Hospice has further instilled in me a feeling of helping those who are not so fortunate.

July 6, 2011- Haven Hospice

4h

Today was the first day I volunteered at the Hospice Attic. The Haven Hospice provides support for patients with a life-limiting or terminal illness. This support improves the quality of their lives and relationships during there final days. The hospice requires the help of volunteers in various areas. You can volunteer pretty much at any position, like patient volunteers: provide companionship, support and assistance to patients, administrative volunteers: office and clerical support, alliance volunteers: organize fund raising activities. I personally wanted to volunteer as a patient volunteer, but I am not 18 yet, and therefore considered to be a teen volunteer and I can only offer my services at the Haven Hospice Attic store.

The Attic is important because it provides revenue to support the Hospice. The attic voluneers are involved in day to day operations of the stores. I arrived at the Attic bright and early at 8am. I started accepting donated items. I also realized that there were 3 days worth of stuff that people had brought in for charity. So I started to organize the received items. There was a milieu of whatever you can think of: old cassette players, chairs, clothes, furniture, canned food etc. I also realized that this was a surprisingly dirty job because people's old junk was very dusty and smelly. It was also more physically demanding that I had expected which was pleasant because I got to work my forearms a bit. I had to lift heavy bags of clothes and toss them into a bin. It was nice to know that I was helping the hospice resell items and create revenue to support the patients.

Lesson learned: 1. Somebody's junk can be someone else's gold. 2. Being organized can help in all walks of life, right from school work to processing large number of items.

June 11, 2011- Sunshine Games at Lake Wauberg

6 hours

http://www.gainesville.com/article/20110609/ARTICLES/110609409

I volunteered at the Florida’s Sunshine State Games, 2011. The Sunshine State Games held competitions in a total of 26 sports over a period of 3 months. I volunteered at the rowing regatta for over 6 hours. I directed boats to the docks, helped people with handing them oars for the boats, and then helped to unload them from the dock. Later on, I helped with the ice cone maker. It was fun to just watch other people participating in a sport that I am so passionate about. Also, it was an experience to sit watch the sport from the perspective of an observer, rather than a participant.

Lesson Learned: The sport of rowing can be run efficiently only with the help of volunteers. The sport involves a lot of help from the volunteers in directing boat traffic, loading, unloading and serving food.

June 20, 2011- Haven Hospice orientation

3 hours

June 19, 2011, Haile Homestead

4 hours




It was Father's day today. I almost completely forgot that I had a docent duty at Haile Homestead. Needless to say, nobody came today because after all why would they. I basically spent 4 hours talking to a college girl and an old woman which wasn't a bad thing. We had a very interesting discussion about culture and the state of schooling in America and things like chemtrails and GMO foods. I learned that people may have more to say than meets they eye.