Volunteer Work

I did the Volunteer Work for Ms.Bartell

the Log

I did 15 hours and 45 minutes volunteer work this term in total. Most of them were for Ms.Bartell. I did 12 hours and 45 minutes for her. I usually did my volunteer work in the staffroom which gave me a felling that I was a teacher.
I did many different things for Ms.Bartell. At the beginning of my volunteer work, I helped her check some Quiz marks. When I sat on a teacher’s desk, check the Quiz again with a red pen in hand. I really felt that I was a teacher, it was my responsibility to give my students correct marks. When I first did this work, I went through each paper very slowly, but the more paper I checked, the faster I did. I did my job more and more effectively and safely. It told me that everything whatever it was easy or hard, the more you practise the better you could do. I also helped Ms.Bartell to finish the PowerPoint for the exam. It was a hard work because we had hundreds of PowerPoint to finish. I put a new page of PowerPoint between each question and type correct answers on it. It sounded easy but actually hard. It was very easy to make mistakes when you were working. So I did it very carefully and also very slowly. I got a splitting headache when I did it all the morning, I suddenly found that teacher was not a easy job at all. They had to use their own time to finish all the work only for their students. If none of us was volunteer for Ms.Bartell, she would do these by herself, but she always told us she felt really happy when she did them. I was touched by her love to her students and her job. Teachers are always one of the greatest jobs in the world all the time.
On January 13, 2009, I did translation work for Ms.Bartell. I love translation. She gave us some very easy Chinese fairy tales to some American children, that would be a kind of culture communication. I did the work carefully though I know Ms. Bartell would check it again. It was my first time to do translation work, I hope I can do some more. It improved my English level a lot as well.
Mr.Harris also gave us a chance to do volunteer work for the badminton match. I did this volunteer work with Peter together. We were asked to collect all the ticket money for Mr.Harris. Each player needed to pay 20 RMB, our job was to collect these 20 RMB per person. However, most of them did not have the change, they gave us 50 RMB or 100 RMB. The problem came. Most of them did not have change so that we did not have change at all. So we needed to ask the other watchers if they had any change to swap with us. At last, we collect the correct money to Mr.Harris. During this work I understood that accounting was not a easy job, we needed to be very carefully with money.
To do volunteer work can teach us a lot of skills outside the classroom. No job could only sit there and get money. Every occupation is hard. We need to use our heart to work so that we can finish all the work perfectly.

Swimming Club

the log

I joined our GCA Swimming Club this year. My good friend Cindy is our club leader. We usually had our club activities on every Saturday afternoon at one o’clock at Nanjing Olympic Sports Centre. We met at underground station and walked to the swimming pool together.
In the club, we shared our swimming skills and taught the other members who did not know how to swim at all. We also had some matches and games between our club members. We practised swimming together and played with each other in small groups.
Usually, we practised swimming first. Members who could swim swimmed together for about 200 to 300 meters, members who could not swim warmed themselves up by jumping or turning somersault in water.
Then, we taught those members who could not swim how to swim. Cindy and I taught Mike Wu in class 10 B most. As a new learner, Mike Wu was so scared to water. We played the water a lot and fought in the water to let Mike like water. We taught him how to float and how to deal with the breath in the air and in water then. It was not a easy job to teach a new learner learn swimming in such a short time, but Mike Wu learned swimming very fast. We became good friends in our Swimming Club.
We also had some matches and games between our club members. We always wanted to choose the fastest swimmer by matching. However, there were too many people in the swimming pool every time, so that we had different results when we had different matches every time. Sometimes we played water ball, that was really great though there were too many people as well. All of us wished that if we could have our own swimming pool one day.
Our club leader Cindy was sick in hospital on 15th. Oct. 2008, she could not swim in 3 mouths. We had most of our club activities before we knew the portfolio, so we did not take any photo yet. We will have club activities soon, I will put our photos on my blog the next time before May 4.
Club is a good place to share your happiness and job with your friends who have the same hobbies with you. Swimming club is a part of my life in GCA. Also, to be a club leader is hard. As a club leader, as know as Cindy, she needed to organize everything well. I learned a lot from the swimming club.
I like all of our members in the club, they are all my good friends. I like Swimming Club, it helps me make more friends, and teaches me a lot. We all really had great time when we were together. I will be in the club during the next 3 years in GCA. I will also help Cindy to make our swimming club stronger and stronger.
Best wishes to everybody.

Physical Activities

the Log

the playground

me with my cousin

with the ball

in the match

another log

I did twelve hours physical activities with my cousin together during the Spring Festival Holiday. My cousin is six years older than me and he is a junior in the university. He joined his school basketball team as soon as he went to the university. He is very good at basketball which I was really weak in, so he taught me how to play basketball during this holiday.
We met at my home first and went to the Southeast University playground together. It’s only five minutes walk from my home to the playground. My cousin became very serious when he taught me, he was like a real coach to me. He told me that played basketball not only needed good skills, but also needed strong bodies. He always asked me to run before we practised. I ran a lot during the Spring Festival Holiday which made me really tired. My cousin told me that when they had a basketball match, how much time you could joined the match was very important, and the time you joined the match depended on how much physical power you had completely. So when he was as my age, he ran around the 400-meter playground for five times every weekend.
My cousin, actually I should call him my coach, he also asked me to hold on the horizontal bar and parallel bars every time which Mr.Harris also told us to do. He said that the power of arms was very important when you got the ball as well. It was really hard for me to hold on the horizontal bar for over forty seconds and it was also impossible for me to play the parallel bars like my cousin. I knew I should practise more to improve the power of my arms, so that I could play basketball better.
High jumping was also essential for basketball players. How high you could jump depended how much points you could got during the basketball match. My cousin jumped much higher than I though he was much heavier than I. He told me that there were some skills when you were jumping. For example, you should get a feeling of you were flying when you were jumping, so that you could jump higher.
There were also some other important skills when players played basketball. Basketball was another kind of group work. As a group, players should work together, when one of them got the ball, they should think could they pass the ball to other team players first. If a player wanted to play the ball by himself, his team won’t got the good results.
Physical activities are very important and necessary for us teenagers. I enjoyed the time when I played the basketball with my cousin, he was very patient to me though he was serious. I need to do some other kinds of physical activities next term to make my body stronger. The stronger you are, the more efforts you could put to the social.