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.

Rockets and Krakatoa

I picked this picture for two reasons. First of all it shows me and Anthony eating the delicious little candies known as rockets and yes we had a competition to see who could eat 100 rockets the fastest. I also chose it because you can see the commencement of Krakatoa. Krakatoa was the pimple on my forehead which inspired a fine piece of artwork by Shoshana. It still hangs above my bed in the Newmarket Katimavik house. I am very disappointed for forgetting it, so if in anyway possible if could find its way to Alma, I might just cry tears of joy.

Video Blog Literally about Nothing

....so here is my first real attempt at a video blog but I don't really talk about anything significant for a whole 1 minute and 54 seconds so I wont be offended if you don't watch it. Katimavik is about developing new skills so hey why not try to make an epic blog, instead of the one I try to update every few weeks. You never know, I might become incredible at blogging and rival some of the greats such as Perez Hilton and Shoshana Okano. No I can never be Asian or nearly as flaming as Perez but I pledge to make my gosh darn-it blog as interesting as heavenly possible!



Maybe someone could give me some tips on how to ameliorate my video blogs in the future....

Second Trimester is a Wrap

So once again I fell off the band wagon when if came to updating my blog. What is different about this time is that I have come up with a new system to keep me motivated as I move to Quebec. I pledge to:

1. Write one blog in English (Mondays)
2. Write one small blog in French (Wednesday)
3. One Video Blog in either language (Friday)
4. Upload a Picture of the week (Sunday)

Jeez this is a ton of stuff to do but hey I have less than 11 weeks in the program so why not give it a try. Katimavik is a great program and I want to make sure I don't let it fly by without accomplishing what I want to do :)

....I guess I will be back later today with a video blog! So in the mean time here is a music video three girls in our group spearheaded, for our final presentation, which I think is fantastic!

Firecrotch, Sugarbush and Maple Fudge

Lately our group has felt like we don’t do too much here in Newmarket. So one day at work when I was compiling a spreadsheet of all the maple sugar festivals in Ontario, I came up with the idea that I should go to Wendy’s for lunch. I decided that making the nine minute walk for a Home-style Chicken strip combo was worth it so I left the office and walked through the forest which led to the fast food place known to me as heaven. While I was sitting there eating my upgraded combo sized fries, I came up with the idea that I should go to the convenience store for a pack of gum. Once I got to the store, I picked up my pack of Stride Gum and began to wait in line. It was there that I saw a bunch of cute beaver and moose key chains and then I had my epiphany. Why buy one pack of Stride gum for 1.19 when I could get five packs of excel gum for 4.49. I now have a lot of gum at my office along with Doritos, Mimi-eggs and Betty Crocker cupcake mix. Anyways upon returning to the office I got right back to work, which was to finish the list of maple syrup festivals in southern Ontario. Even though I was at work I couldn’t help but thinking about our groups’ dilemma of having nothing to do this, weekend. Near the end of the day my boss called me down to her office and we talked about my maple syrup festival spread sheet. We discussed how fun it would be to go and how it is the perfect way to spend a Saturday Afternoon. I think my boss is great. She always has so many great ideas and is someone who is super active and in tune with events happening in our community. I bid everyone at the office farewell and returned to the Katimavik house for a quiet evening of Loup-Garou and relaxing. Oh someone came up with a great idea to go to a Maple Sugar festival that weekend. It was really random. We went to the sugarbush, made a fire with this wilderness lady, Shoshana stood over the fire giving her the name firecrotch, and I bought some maple fudge which was way better anything Wendy’s could make…other than their baconator.

Katimavik and their Regional Offices

I really wanted to write a blog post about how the Regional Office of Ontario works within Katimavik, but since childhood I was raised with the rule "if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all...” so this blog post will be quite short. In Ontario we have 10 people working at regional trying to make my Katimavik experience a success. This does not include our PC, PSL or PL. Out of those ten people, never have I come in contact with any of them except for one lady who called me a girl through an email just because I like theatre. Katimavik needs to focus more on the quality of service to which they are trying to provide and less on quantity. Quantity usually outlasts quality because in the business world the bigger numbers or return in the quarterly report usually means that the funders are happy. But what is the point of this if a good chunk of your participants drop out of the program before third trimester starts. Katimavik is at a crossroads. Their funding has been severely cut by Heritage Canada and now they must decide where to make cuts. This is the perfect time for them to restructure. Downsize; get back to their grass roots--to help the participants grow through challenging youth service programs and helping Canadian youth "GET A LIFE".

A Nice YRT Bus Driver?

The York Region Transit system (and VIVA) is an organization which needs a lot of help. Not only are their buses inconsistent and almost always late but their drivers are more often than not just as sour. I have multiple stories where a driver has left me with a strong feeling in my stomach, a feeling that usually includes rage and disgust. My all time “favourite” bus story was the ride back from an evening Leigh-Amber, Jessica and I decided to spend in Toronto. It had been a fantastic night. The three of us had decided to go into Toronto after work to see Jersey Boys. It was an incredible show if anyone was interested and I would recommend it in a heartbeat. It was approximately 11:15 pm and we realize that our bus was supposed to leave in one minute. We quickly validated our tickets and entered the bus which was in the loading zone, open, with its sign lit up and the inside lights on. We were the only ones on the bus but about 20 seconds later the driver runs on cursing and screaming saying that we are not allowed getting on the bus while she was on break! She kicks us off, turns off her lights; drives to the other side of the parking lot, waits for a good five minutes and then returns to let us back on and start her route five minutes late (go figures). She was at fault because she failed to lock her bus and put up the “Not in Service” sign in the window, which all the other drivers had done. After all the three are not from Toronto and know very little about the whole system. If she had just stated that facts instead of being a wretched lady, I would not have had the slightest problem with her.

Anyways the roles were reversed the other day on my way to work. I was late getting to the bus and the bus was on time. I had to watch in agony as it passed me from across the street. I was fully expecting to be late for work and I began to wait for the next bus which came in 35 minutes. Miraculously the 54 Bayview returned two minutes later and I was able to get on. Supposedly the driver remembered me and saw me from across the street so she went around the block to pick me up. Her nice gesture seemed somewhat odd to me because I was on a York Region Transit bus, but nevertheless I was grateful for her good deed. It was unfortunately short lived. The transfer I half to take with six other people also was on time that day, and because the driver returned for me we missed our transfer. The world is a cruel, cruel place where the nicest intentions can turn out to be futile. When you try to be nice to one person, you might get another six people who become furious with your actions.