Love is in the air...

   This year's Valentine's Day had been the most celebrated one that I've ever witnessed in BISM 3. Even though it might have seemed easy and fun to the younger students, only the IB students actually know how much work had gone into organizing and making this day unforgettable.
   I've started running around with errands the day before the Valentine's day had officially begun. In order to decorate the school, Polina Orlova and I stayed after school on Wednesday. We ended up staying past 18:00 and, frankly, still didn't get a chance to put up all of the decorations we've prepared. This is why the next morning I got to school at 8:00 and tried to finish everything off as quickly as possible. After that me and Karina had to start going around the registrations to collect the money for the non-school uniform day. Unfortunately, we didn't get enough time to finish it before the end of registrations, so I volunteered to stay and finish our task off myself (previously confirming it with the teacher I was supposed to have a lesson with). Then I finally got time to sit down and relax.

   However, the serenity didn't last for long. The lunch was quickly approaching and we had to set up for the bake sale. Thankfully, our French teacher Mme Merlet had allowed us to leave her lesson earlier in order to get ready before the end of the lesson. This way, at 13:20 we were ready to roll. We had all types of sweet treats ready for the costumers - sugar cookies, cheesecakes, a banana cake and cupcakes (muffins). Despite how much food we had prepared, the demand for the decorated treats was so high that everything ended up being sold out in the first 10 or 15 minutes. The only problem we had was the lack of change we had to face.
   The last two periods of the school day became the busiest time of the day - everyone from Years 12&13 were doing something, carrying chairs out of the hall, setting up the DJ equipment, putting up the decorations in the hall etc. Due to good communication (finally) and global eagerness to help, by 15:40 everything was ready and the disco had finally begun.
   During the disco, a couple of Year 12 students, including myself, were making milkshakes (strawberry, chocolate and vanilla) and selling them to students and teachers (another fundraising idea that came to our mind a couple of days before).
   In my opinion, even though there was a lot of running around, shouting, pulling all nighter and simply nerve racking last-minute problems, this Valentine's Day was a great success. Everyone, including the teachers seemed to have been enjoying themselves, thus making all of us feel that our pains were worth it. Overall, throughout the day we have collected more than 24000Rub, all of which is going to be donated to charity.
   If we were to organize an event like that again, I would make a couple of changes to the planning. For instance, I would start putting up the decorations earlier in order to finish on time. As well as doing that, I would make sure that for the next bake sale there is plenty of change available in order to make everything go quicker and smoother.

   I believe that as well as making this day unforgettable, by getting involved in organizing this event I've achieved the following:
- Increased awareness of strengths and areas of weakness
- Undertook new challenges
- Planned and initiated activities
- Worked collaboratively with others
- Considered ethical implications of my actions
- Developed new skills (making milkshakes)