Something unexpected happe

学考乐

2020-04-03 22:21:04

Something unexpected happened at Wider Learning Day!

Every year, my school hosts a wider learning day. On this special day, we don’t have any lessons, instead we get to do different activities. I wasn’t usually really looking forward to those days, because from my past experience, those days were usually a bit boring and tedious. However, this year, we have a really exhilarating project: Design, manufacture, advertise and sell face cream and bath salts to revolutionise the beauty market. It sounded very daunting to me at the start: “ I mean, how are we going to make these products at school, how is that something that we are capable of doing? The school is not a factory and I am not a saleswoman. Besides, how is it possible to finish all these procedures that seemed really flummoxing and complicated to me during one day, especially when we absolutely have no clues of how to do any of them?”

After a brief introduction by our teachers, we were put into groups of 4. There were no other explanations but a pile of worksheets waiting for us to be done after that: an electronic booking form ( that was allotted to let us book space for manufacturing and designing), a business plan, an equipment list, bank account details ? I gagged when I saw that: “Bank account details? For what? Are we actually going to do all these realistically?” I couldn’t help but to start complaining about how vague the instructions given to us were. But there wasn’t time for me to think over that, the only thing I had in mind was to get a move on: gather my teammates. I know that sounds really straightforward, but under that situation, it was a surprisingly difficult task: Don’t forget I was only looking for that 3 specific people among this huge 100 people crowd and I even got a bit impatient. But eventually, I found them and was so excited when I realized that they are my good friends!

When my friends asked me whether I want to be the director of this group, I accepted this request without any hesitation. Because I love these kinds of opportunities to develop my leadership skills, but at the same time I understood how big this burden would be for me to take. If we don’t win, I am the person who is to blame and take all the responsibility. As soon as I became a director, I started to allocate each of them some work to do in a really bossy way. We then started creating a business plan, and all of us were literally stunned by the huge workload: We need to decide what kind of package design we are going to use, what advertisements we are going to create to persuade the audience, and loads more I can’t even be bothered to name… Everything sounded so exhilarating to me

The products we were making were bath salt with hand cream.

A funny thought came into my mind: “Can we actually use these products after we finish making them? That way I would feel so accomplished I am sure!” There were different stations around the school, and we first stopped at several different stations, to ask for a loan in order to pay for our ingredients which we got from the chemical station, and then we scurried to the business advisory centre to register for our own company. Then we just hurried off into stations and started making our own face cream and bath salt. I was stunned to realise that to make these products, you have to pay for the instruction sheets! However, the following processes went really smoothly and being half a scientist and half a manufacturer was a great satisfaction. What surprised me the most was that our face cream was totally made out of chemicals: “Would it be toxic or unsafe?” I wondered as we gently poured the still warm and moisturising face cream into a purple glitter container. Subsequently, we made several other face cream and a rainbow bath salts in an exquisite container.

After the manufacturing, a series of accidents then followed by, which kind of infuriated me. My group members started selling our products to other people, they said that that way we could get money to pay back our loan as soon as possible. And therefore I was really badly disorientated. Because what I thought at the start was that we were supposed to sell them at the trade warehouses at the end of the day! Nevertheless, I immediately dismissed that idea, since I doubted that I probably got the whole thing wrong as every other person in our group agreed with the idea of selling them straight away. Very unfortunately, it ended up with a tragic result! We then realized that there was actually a presentation at the end of the day, and all the products we made were expected to be judged by the teachers! The stunning horrible news came, and literally everyone’s faces suddenly turned into a pale and bleak white as if we all just had a panic attack, “So what do we do now?” We dashed towards our previous “customers” at full pelt because at that time the presentation had already begun, and if we didn’t get any products back, we were bound to be in last place. We luckily got one of our face cream, but there was no single sign of the iridescent bath salts. So I randomly grabbed a new glass container on the way and poured some of the face cream into it, so at least we had two products to present. Everyone was wearing out of energy after the exhausting treasure hunt looking for our customers.

As we have expected, we didn’t win. I was so jealous, disappointed and regretful when I found out that the other groups invested in the stock market and earned another 2000$! “How could I have forgotten that?” I started blaming myself but soon got rid of that idea: “The whole point of this event is to have fun and learn something at the same time right? So why don’t we just enjoy those times and only remember our unforgettable memories? Besides, we had one extra entertaining experience than others, we didn’t even realize that we weren’t supposed to sell them!