The Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen.
G.I.S.H.W.H.E.S.
Last year my good friend Mel approached me to do this thing called GISHWHES, and I thought she was crazy. It is a week of find just how silly, spontaneous and creative you can get with a list of 100+ items. Set the stage, take a picture or a video of your creation and move on to the next item. Did I mention you are on a team of 15? You could know all those people or they could be from all over the world.
Last year was fantastic! I adorned a fabulous dress made of things only found in your bathroom. I built a gingerbread scene depicting a seedy neighborhood with a heavy police presence. I even managed to build a giant birds nest in the Olympic Village, completely made of straw.
This year however, was like night and day. I found it to be completely different from last year for me. Why? Well, I’ll be honest with you, I hated it.
It’s not that I hated my team or the offical GISHWHES Item list, both of which where wonderful and awesome. The problem had to do with me and not being able to unlock that creative person I know I can be. Give me crayons, a hairdryer, some tape and sparkles and I can build you a grand rainbow. Last week also happened to be a very stressful week at work, which in turn, make it very difficult to pull at that creative person.
I tried to create a sculpture of a few different landmarks out of sugar cubes, roughly 2 ft high. Every time I got it to around a foot and a half, it got knocked over by the wind, I accidentally knocked it over, a bee landed on it. Each time I fell over, I tried my best to keep a good attitude in putting it back together, but after a few attempts and a couple of days putting it back together, I gave up. Giving up is not an easy thing for me to do once I find something I want to do, but sometimes its best to go back to the drawing board.
I ended up building the stupid thing in the bathtub, not as elegant or awesome as I wanted, but I did it. I built the tower, in the tub and looking back, its how it suppose to be.
I also found that being presented with a list of random and awesome things to do, I work best when I have someone to bounce ideas with. All of my team members lived hours and miles away from me, so I had to pull at people I knew. A big shout out to Geoff, Richard and Anthony for your help during last week.
A special shout out to Anthony. I needed someone I loved to hug for 20 mins, in a public space, and then time-laps it into 10 seconds. So naturally, I choose my boyfriend. During a bad week at work, me doing random and strange things with food all week, Anthony was there.
This year I managed to make a few random things out of leftover foods in my fridge, yell “This is how you get ants!”. Learn that sugar cubes are only good after 3 drops on the floor before they become round and you can’t use them to stack. But most importantly I learned that even if I’m having a bad week, I will always have someone, near or far, to help me be silly, spontaneous and creative.
All the best,
Bailey B.
1 Comment
Mel
August 12, 2015 at 11:22 amWish work had gone smoother, but I’m so glad you joined in anyway <3 I hope that one year we can have a team of crazy friends do this in one city 😀