International Food Festival

Year 2000

Year 2001

Year 2014

 

One of the best Boy Scout events of this past month was the 35th Annual International Food Festival on April 12th at the Claremont Colleges. This was my first time attending this event, and I was very curious about the different types of international foods. Our job during this service project was to change the trash bags and man the First Aid Booth. When I was taking a short break with my food tickets from the troop, I found out that there were more than 23 booths representing different countries, selling exotic foods. There were also many professional performances by different clubs and organizations, such as Africa Soul Dance, 5C Korean Pop Dance, Mariachi Serrano, and Psycho Taiko, which is Japanese Drumming.

Everyone in our patrol, The Eagles, was present. I went to this event because my mom told me that it was worth the time and that both she and my grandma had participated in it. I was already interested in the international food, so it didn’t take too much persuasion from my mom. When we drove to the Colleges at around 11 o’clock with Darren and Wesley, I was eager to start working, although the others didn’t seem so enthusiastic.
    Throughout the whole three hours of service, I kept pretty busy, apart from a couple minutes of eating. I changed more than 30 trash bags, although I did not participate in any First Aid acts apart from treating a weird looking cut on a college student working at the French booth. With twenty tickets from Mr. Raus, our Scoutmaster, I bought lots of diverse food. My favorite was the sausages and boba milk tea from the Taiwanese booth, which was doing a roaring trade with the Claremont community (Go Taiwan!!!). I also visited the Italians for some rich and creamy tiramisu. Another of my favorites was the Vietnamese egg roll with some savory fish sauce. I considered getting another, but after a quick debate with myself, I decided that I would use the last five tickets I had to get some bulgogi (BBQ pork) from the Korean booth. My mom was stuffing her face even more than me!

This experience gave me many things. This service obligation was only three hours long and after that I was already bone tired. I could only imagine how tiring doing physical labor for a living would be. That has motivated me to work even harder to stay away from these types of jobs. Another thing I found out was that I had just participated in a tradition in our family. For three generation, our family has attended this International Food Festival. My mom first took part in this festival in the Chinese Booth when she studied at Claremont Graduate University. Then, the next year, my grandma helped my mom in the booth because my mom was pregnant with me. I felt very honored to have participated in something that has become a tradition to this family. That was why I felt that this event was delicious and traditional.

This was probably one of best the service projects in my time as a Boy Scout. If this service opportunity comes up next year, I will totally go, not only for the service hours, but to keep up the family tradition. Well, I had blast there even when I was changing the trash bags, and I recommend it to anyone who is interested in international food!

Success, Big and Small

 

    There are so many different ways of describing someone’s success. Most people, including me, think of success as achieving a goal. The way my definition of success differs from others’ is the size of the achievement I want to reach. For different people, the expectations are varied.

    At my young age of twelve, my expectations for success aren’t very high. For now, success to me is to turn in all my homework on time, and to pass my classes with at least a B. Another part of success in my childhood life is to achieve good times in swimming, and to give it my best effort. To reach beyond my level of success is to squeeze into the lower levels of the Junior Olympic swim division. One of the best parts of my success is actually a pretty small thing. It’s basically to become better at the addictive iPad game Clash of Clans. A more specific and short term goal is to max out all my defences and upgrade the Town Hall to Level 8. For now, all the goals of my personal success are minor, but still important to me.

    One of the places where I feel particularly successful is at school. All six of my classes have some challenges, but I am still able to cope with them pretty well. My average grades right now are around an A, which is well above my success bottom line. The elective I am taking, Web Design, poses few challenges. The codes needed for passing the class are pretty simple and I always find a bit of time to play some games after the assignment is finished.

    Another place where I feel successful is in afterschool activities. My main afterschool events are swimming, piano, and writing. Swimming has turned out to be better than I thought. When I do my best, and put everything I have into the race, I can make it into the Blue Division (the second highest division), which I think is pretty good for someone who only joined the team half a year ago. I started piano a pretty long time ago, but it was only recently that I improved. Over the past three years, I have won almost a dozen trophies from various festivals. Some credit should go to my excellent piano teacher, who lives right up the street. For your writing lessons, I won’t say I am an expert at writing yet, but I still feel successful because I have learned to not hate writing from studying with you. Now I approach each essay with care and determination, not hatred.

    Qualities that I think are markers of success would be determination and not giving up until the goal is reached. Another great quality for success is consistency. It is better to have a steady pace at reaching my goal than to have a fast pace toward the goal for a short time, then end up not going anywhere at all. Another is to have a positive attitude toward any goals that I have. Being annoyed at not reaching my target is not going to help me get anywhere.

    For some people, having lots of riches is being successful. Although having money is part of success, it is not a major part. With too much money, I might not be very lighthearted and carefree. That grumpy personality might not allow me to make a real family and have close loved ones. I think of a successful adult as my dad, who owns a stable corporation with not an astronomical, but still good, income. Being the boss of the company is not very taxing, which allows him to spend quality family time with my mom and me. Apart from us he also has many close relatives and family in mainland China and Taiwan. Someone with a stable and manageable job, good amounts of vacation time, and relationships with loved ones is the kind of person I think of as a successful person. Things that lead to this kind of major success are the smaller things that I am doing now, like learning at school and playing sports.  

    No matter if the successes I have achieved are small, like getting an A at school, or big, like starting my own company, they are all equally important. Keep in mind that only you can define success for yourself and to always set a goal of success to reach!