The Terry Fox Experience

The time is 1:45am EST and I obviously cannot sleep because I am writing this blog post from Alma Quebec in our totally crazy computer room, which is painted pink (Carmine Pink if we want to be specific) and grey. So much stuff has happened over the past few days in my life from an extremely scary interview at The Four Seasons hotel in downtown Toronto, to being mocked at an airport for having a purple dinosaur in my bag, to arriving in the town I reside in now.

This little adventure of mine began on the 14th of April 2010 when I bid my group farewell for a mini break from the program. I got the leave due to an interview I had in Toronto for a scholarship opportunity. The Terry Fox Humanitartian Award is an award given to approximately 20 applicants per year. I was given the opportunity to have an interview with some of the members from the selection committee and basically advocate why I would be a good choice for this award. I felt the interview went pretty well. There were three interviewees there. The one lady was a past Katimavik Project Leader so it was great to have someone know about the program I am in. The gentleman to her right actually lives five minutes from my soon to be apartment on Coombs street in London and the fine lady to her left was an avid runner who just competed in the marathon I hope to compete in next year (which is the Around the Bay race in Hamilton). I was as charming and genuine as can be so the rest of my fate is now in their hands. If I win the award or not it does not matter to me. This was a great experience and made me realize that all the things that I've done in the past few years have really made a difference.

This interview experience has also opened my eyes to what an icon Terry Fox is in Canadian society. Sure we all know his story because it is told to us by our parents and we read about it in our history books, but when I stop to think about it Terry Fox was an adult hardly older than me. His life obstacles were horrendous and living with cancer at that age would be demoralizing. Nevertheless Terry Fox did not fail to run a complete marathon every single day for months on end. That perseverance and determination is hard to find in this day and age. It is fact that Terry never made it across Canada, having to stop in Thunder Bay and then succumbing to Cancer later that year, but to me and other Canadians reaching his physical goal wasn't important. The legacy he left and the hope he gave to others meant so much more. His attitude and ideals were extremely contagious and effected every aspect of life.

Well, it is well past 2:00am now and I did have aspirations to talk about my travel day to Alma so I will have to fill everyone in tomorrow with a special blog post. All I have to say is that I am glad I got the chance to interview for this award. I need to thank Marion and Donna (my incredible aunts) for taking me in for a few days along with Eric and Jackie who helped me after my interview and made sure I got to the airport on time.