It is glad to Meet all of your guys :)

This will be my final blog to summary this semester. This semester is not easy and it should never been easy. I would rather be busy than nothing to do all day. However, this semester is not just being busy; it is also about been different. I tried lots of different things. And the simple reason is: how hard it could be, if I want to see what I got, I really need to go ahead and do it; if there is a problem, solve it; if there is something you have never done, try it. And taking this course is probably part of that reason. There are so many reasons you can find to not to do a thing like it is hard; I am busy and so on. But I only need a reason for anybody to do a thing: if you don’t do it, you never know what you got.

I tried a lot of different things this semester and to be honest, it did change my life a lot. I didn’t know life could be so different not matter in good way or bad way. I might have stress that I have never had before. I might worry about thing that I should not be worried about. But that is life. And we need to learn to deal with it. If you have a good team member all the time, you will never know how to solve the free rider problem and so on. I am glad I am doing different things this semester. And I appreciate the ENGL 108 is part of it.

Volunteer Party of International Center

Last Friday was the thank you party for the volunteers at International Center. This party was organized by the board of International center and ISS. So basically it is a free buffet for volunteers and it is a platform for them to socialize and make friends. I got there about 5:45 right after it is started. I didn’t expect so many people there. But a not so small house was packed with plenty of people from everywhere. There are many people I knew before and many of them I have never seen before. It seems like make all the volunteers meet together is pretty necessary idea.

During the party, we introduced some very outstanding volunteers and staff who made huge contribution to the food bazaar and daily organizing. It is important to recognize the volunteers. And it seems like the food bazaar is also a competition for those different countries. There are several rankings, like the country raises the most money, the country with the biggest consumption of the food and so on. This event really makes the volunteers connecting. And one more thing is the food is also amazing. I didn’t get chance to taste the food during the food bazaar since I was preoccupied. But this time, I got to taste some very same food just like them presented during the food bazaar. It was a wonderful party.

Little Thoughts

It is about the end of the semester and my service is official done. But that is not the end of my relationship with the International center. After one semester service, I kind like what I did and I would like to be part of the big events. I would like to be a coordinator and do some planning and organizing. So I am going to find a position there so that it will keep me busy and give me some experience as a leader. The big event we have annually is the international food bazaar. And apparently it has a profound influence in the community. And we have over 9000 dollar profits. It is a successful event. The major reason is probably the well-organized team and hardworking volunteers. The new location is really helpful definitely. But it is not cheap to rent the place but definitely worthwhile. On Friday night, there will be a recognition party hold by the International Center and ISS to recognize those hard working volunteers and staff. And I wish we will have a wonderful time.

How did this service change me?

To be honest, I was not very comfortable when Cody said that service is part of the grade and if people don’t do that, it is impossible to pass this course. The reason I am uncomfortable is not because that I don’t think service is good. It is because I have never dealt with this kind of grading method before. And I don’t even know how service is going to help me improve my English writing skills and so on. However, when I almost finished my hours of service, I quiet like what I was doing and doing service is not scary or uncomfortable at all. Those 30 hours really gave me an experience that I could never learn during the class. I met nice people use their time to help the betterment of the community. Those people are open and kind to all different kinds of culture and did their best to help those feel isolated culturally. And I made so many friends there which kept thinking, I should keep doing this service just because I am happy to be around those people, and what I am doing matters to the community.

How is this going to help me learn English? Well I don’t know for those native speakers. For me, all the learning is around a topic-Service. I write about it; I shared this with my co-workers; I write a report about it; and I communicate with other people during the services. It is a wonderful experience to improve writing and communication skills.

International Food Bazaar rocks

After several weeks’ preparation, the day finally came: the Annual international food bazaar. The weather is not helping. It started raining right after we started around 11:00 am. And it kept raining after the event ended. Apparently it was not a good weather for the spring festival. However, we were very happy that people flooded into the church where we are having the event. Around 11:30pm, we got information from the volunteers working outside the church offering direction assistance that the parking garage behind the church is totally full.

This year which is the first year that we hold our event in this church. Since the church is redecorated, it is brighter and there is more space for people. However, after 40 minuses after we open, people actually have hard time to find a place to seat. And about this situation, we have no alternative solutions. Since it is raining outside, it is impossible for us to use the space outside the church. And for the same reason, people are reluctant to leave when they finished the food. There were some turnover problems when it comes to the peak around 12:30pm. This time like the 36 times in the past, we only open for 3 hours because of the shortage of the food supply.

My volunteer position is at the information table of international center. My job is to promote the international center and help the fund raising by selling the shirts and cooking and recipe books. It is not busy for those three hours. And I sold plenty stuff and raised about 120 dollars. It is not a lot but I am glad I could help. But I am just one of the volunteers. For this event, we do have enough volunteers and without them, our events couldn’t be that successful.  We considered all the possible things such as how to deal with disable guests, how to show the way for them to get in the building, the control ventilation and heat inside the building, direction assistance from outside building to inside and then outside again.

We have very good feedback from the visitors about the food. They are very happy that we have this event so that they can enjoy lots of different foods at same time with very reasonable price. There are lots of royal guests come back every year with their family. Most of them are from Lafayette and West Lafayette. And I am surprised that students of Purdue University were a little portion of all the visitors. 

Almost done the service-Some Thoughts

The service is getting better and better. Since we are planning the annual food bazaar, there is more and more planning need to be done. And so is my involvement. We are expecting 2000 or more people visiting. The location is new to us. I am informed to take care of the information center located in front of the building and offer guidance service.
But that is not what I am excited about really. When there is an event you are going to get involved in, you have no idea what you will be doing and what else talent you will discover. I was doing the reception at beginning. Later since we have new event coming out, I was doing the design of the signs. We have about 20 countries going to present their culture and cuisines. And there are other direction sign such as "Tickets" or "Information center". I was asked to do the design. They offer the paint and brush as well as other equipment. So basically I was seating in the room and painting the signs. That was wonderful experience. I was so glad that I could have this opportunity. Because there is so many stuff going on outside of the services such as homework, it is nice to have a quiet time and focus on one thing with disturbing. And to be honest, I am pretty good at it. I was learning painting for several years and Chinese calligraphy for quiet long time. But I have never done design before. But I quiet like it. I finally understand that there is something you are good at, but you wouldn’t know until you try to do it.

My service hour will be done before the annual food bazaar. But I think I will keep doing the service. However I will try to involved in more deep level of the service. It is a right choice to do the service and choose this ENGLISH108 service class.

The New Chapter of the Volunteer work-The International Food Bazaar

Have I been talking about how boring my position was and how hard I was trying to make the job more interesting. I was talking about the job enlargement, job rotation and job enhancement to make the job more desirable. Well since last week, I dont have to do that anymore. The reason is we are busier than ever before. This semester is going to be busier than we expected. Dont know the reason why, but each event we hold attracted more than double the number we used to. And that is very encouraging.
What is more, there are only several weeks away from the huge event we are going to hold called the International Food Bazzar. It is a fund raising events and we are going to have about 20 representitives of different countries and their food as well. This year, we are expeceting more than 2000 people and expecting a shortage of the food supply. That is beyond our expectation.
All above is going to make our preparation more demending which is very exciting. In the past when I was working in the reception, I do have time to do my own homework and so on. But right now, I am busy all afternoon. We are preparing the utensils, food, shirts, waters and other equipments. Promotion is also a huge part of the preparation. And we are facing not only the purdue university community, but also the lafayette and West lafayette community.
More exciting thing is I met the nicest couple working for the International Center. We had an amazing conversation not only trying to know each other, but also trying to solve some problems such as how to deal with the lack of representation from China. Since I am Chinese, and I know almost all the time why the problem exist. However, since there is culture boundery, for American, try to understand the core of the problem might be difficult. I am glad I contribute something for the events and the betterments of the International Center. I will update more information about the events.

Service is a business

The spring break is an awesome time for me to run away from the school and do something that I have been meaning to do for a long time. But I do need to drag myself back to reality and get the work done. While since it is spring break, there is nothing really going on recently and everything was pretty slow. And it gets me thinking. The non-profit organization and it is service are highly depend on the season. Like hospitality and tourism, it is a seasonal business. Work in hotel during Christmas and New Years’ eve is totally different from work during the middle of September. Well it doesn’t have to be September because you never know if there is a festival or event happening. Anyways it is an unstable business. And our service is also like the hospitality business. You get high season and low season. You need more help when people are coming back from vacations. You need to cut your invest when there are so many events happening such as finals and mid-terms exams. Besides that location is always vital. I believe the Red Cross in Chicago should be much busier than the one located in Lafayette during the spring break.

Our team is going to write a paper about the business management aspect of the non-profit organization and we will focus on human resources management and organizational behavior. And understand it is just one of many businesses really help us to see through what we could discuss and analyses in the paper.   

What else we can do during the service?

An idea of mine in my mind which has settled for long time was am I going to make a difference to the place I am working at. For me I need a motivation to push me doing that, and for the most of the times, the push always base on my self-interest. I was working for Disney about 7 months in Orlando. And I was thinking a lot about how to make a difference during the work. The reason was it is good for me. If I work hard, I got recognized. If I go above beyond, I got nice tips. If I do something other people wouldn’t do, I got more training and more responsibility. If I achieve something other people are not able to think of, I got promotion. That is life and that is how to deal with work in a company. Reality is brutal. But the rules of game can’t not be more crystal. And a lot of time you need to be able to defend your interest in order to grow.

However, non-profit organization is a totally different place. During the service, I was provided a lot of information and enormous opportunities. I could choose what I want to do and what I like to do. This is totally different compared with some corporations. We do have a big platform to perform. But I need motivations. Where are my motivations? I do have lots of good ideas about the work place, and I could provide some extra service to make the organization better. Furthermore, I do have lots of opportunities. But I am reluctant to implement those ideas. There is no good reason for me to do that, or is it?

I was telling myself is there no reason for me to do better and extra service here really. The non-profit organizations have some similar problems like low retentions and hard to motivate staff. If there motivation system of the organization is not sophisticated, probably this is the place we can star working on to make a difference.

What is more, people always reject to do something is based on the consideration instead of the difficulties. Lots of thing we could improve are not hard at all. Bring some batteries to recharge the clock on the wall which says the time is 11/12/2011 is a difficult thing. The difficult part is how to change the way we are thinking.

After several services done, I realize it is time to summarize this special experience involved with the communities. I started contacting the different organizations right after the class and few of them actually responded right away. And one of them was the International Center located on campus to serve the international community including residences, students, workers and other people as well as assist those groups to get involved in the West Lafayette.
Like any other non-profit organizations, International Center (IC) displayed enough courtesy and friendless. Volunteers are from all parts of the world which shows diversity of cultures, and so are the activities and events. But like other non-profit organizations, the weakness of IC is compelling and reluctant to remove. During the first several services, as a new volunteer, I don’t have enough clues to understand the goal of the organization, the agenda, and the process of the operations. And it is confusing and difficult to figure all those out by myself. Since it is a non-profit organization, HR and its functions are being underestimated which is not supposed to happen.
Proper training for new service workers is essential. There will always be a problem to keep retention in high rate in non-profit organizations.  People need to have clear goals and direction to start the work instead of wasting organizations’ resource with low productivity.