Cool Cherry Cream

This place is seriously dead today, and therefore, it's a good day to catch up on the exciting goings-on.

Yesterday my alarm went off at seven. I automatically hit the off button and went back to sleep. Ten minutes later I woke up and realized I was supposed to actually get up. So, I did. Stephanie came by to see if I was still coming to Shinerama, and at about 8:45, we, along with some other kids from our house, we off to Isaac's for our free breakfast.

Breakfast was pretty standard, pancakes, sausage, bacon, orange juice. I remembered why I don't drink orange juice (it sucks). We got a Shinerama t-shirt that was actually pretty nice. Maybe I'm biased because it used Mojo. And my French book uses Arnold Boecklin — boy, they sure are fond of the sixties fonts here! It was white with orange text, and I must say, it looked rather dashing with my green sweater.

I suppose I should explain what Shinerama is. It's basically a fundraiser that happens at universities all across Canada and it started in the sixties as a shoe-shining thing, but since then has grown to include car washing and "other shining and non-shining activities". As this was mainly going to be car washing (who wants their shoes shined, really?), it's kind of expected that you're going to get wet and so you'll want to wear shorts or a bikini or whatever. Most people were wearing shorts and t-shirts, and some people had bathing suits on underneath. I, of course, didn't plan ahead and just wore my regular clothes.

Luckily, by doing a stupid thing, I was smart. It was really cold. And rainy. But, I, your daring hero, was absolutely fine.

During/after breakfast, they were showing some short films about Shinerama, which impressed me with the editing (though not with the Arial) until I realized that people were wearing UBC and University of Alberta sweaters, and that these clips were from all across Canada. Yeah, with that much footage, you can fake spirit. And you can make it look like you might actually have a chance to wash an airplane.

The second film they played appeared to be clips from "America's Funniest Home Videos" with the lame funny cut out, that showed how the money we raise will allow kids to have "tons more birthdays", "30 more talent shows", and "50 more parades". Seriously, fifty? I think that's a pretty generous estimate there. Even if I saw two parades (Christmas and Thanksgiving, we'll say) every year until I was ten (which is generous, because I doubt my parents took me when I was a baby, and I don't know if I kept going that long), and then you multiply it by two, for when you go with your kids in the future, that gives you forty. Which there is no way I have seen twenty parades in my life, and I don't think they will be as popular when I have kids as they once were.

Anyway, one thing did catch my eye, I believe it was in the first video. The fundraiser is raising money for research on cystic fibrosis, which is "the most common fatal, genetic disease affecting young Canadians". The video said that it used to be that people who had this disease would often die before they started kindergarten, but now they live into their thirties and even longer. Which is totally amazing, no?

Our group and the kids from another house (or two?) were assigned to the grocery store by Fairview Mall. We had to take the bus there ourselves yet again, so I was glad to have had the experience the night before. When the bus came to pick us up, there were a bunch of other groups waiting for it as well. I think all of our group got on, but the bus driver had to stop somewhere after us. I was just glad I wasn't all alone, though I'm sure I could've figured it out myself, seeing as I knew what other bus I had to take from the terminal, and the fact that you kind of can't miss the mall stop.

We got there are and all was well. There was a person there who told us what to do, and we had water and sponges and all that, which we kind of weren't sure if we were supposed to bring or not. There were also these boxes we were supposed to put together to take donations, so I and the other four girls from my house grabbed one each and figured it out. Two of the girls were Jacklyn and Amanda, who I had gone to the comedy show with, and the other two were Stephanie (not the don though) and Nicole. Jacklyn, Nicole, and I hung out near one of the entrance/exits to the grocery store and the other girls were at the other one, but Stephanie and Jacklyn switched places halfway through.

When I took that box, I thought, great! I won't have to wash a car and look like a dumbass who has never washed a car before. I can just stand at the end when they leave and shove the box in their face so they can pay. I didn't realize I was going to be one of those people who stands outside of grocery stores and… well, if you see someone standing outside of a grocery store, it pretty obvious what they're doing.

Jacklyn seemed to take charge. When someone walked up she would say "hi, would you like to make a donation for cystic fibrosis research?". Most people just shook their heads and walked by or ignored us or said they didn't have any change, or they'd give us some on the way out. A few people stopped and gave though. Nicole would also join in and ask people who walked by her first. I figured I should speak up as well, because I didn't want them to get money and I just be there wasting my time. A man walks in from the parking lot, right in front of me, so I go "hi, would you like to make a donation for sysiztic fibibriosiiii…?". God, what have I done? Not only do I look like a dumbass, I sound like one too! I never realized how hard those words were to say until I actually tried. The second time, I got better, and by the end of the day, I could say it perfectly.

But after a little while, I decided this wasn't going to work. I couldn't spit it all out in the short time that they approached and walked into the store, so I decided to display my box prominently, smiley cheerfully, and said "good morning!" to everyone who came by.

And you know? I was expecting people to just ignore me, but nearly everyone said good morning back. We ended up staying until 12, which was good, because after that I would've had to switch to "good day", and I really didn't want to sound like Fez.

People were much more friendly than I figured they would be, and much more giving as well! We got a couple of bills from people, and at the end we counted up nearly a hundred dollars just in bills! One person gave me a five, and at the very end of the day, a woman came up to me and asked "what is this for?" and I said "cystic fibrosis research" (perfectly) and she said "ohh, my grandson has that!". She also remarked that she usually collects for it at a different time of year and I explained that this was something that universities all across Canada have been doing. She seemed happy about that, and I guess I sounded very knowledgeable about the whole thing, and she ended up giving me a ten. At the end when I counted up my loonies and toonies, I had at least twenty dollars, probably more like thirty or forty. And then there were the quarters, which was at least another ten, fifteen, and the small change, which might've amounted to five or so. And that was just in my box, the other girls all had rather full boxes as well.

We also had stickers to give out, which I usually only remembered to ask if the person had a child with them. There was one mother with two small girls, one she was holding and one who was maybe six or seven. The older girl declared happily "I'm going to put this in my sticker collection!". Now, I was once myself a young girl with a sticker collection, and bringing stickers home to put in that collection is not an easy task. It was the last sticker on the roll, so I offered to give it to her to keep the sticker on "so it doesn't lose its sticky". She took it, I'm not sure if it would make any difference to her, but I know I myself would have liked if someone had been so considerate to me. :)

Over on the car wash side, things didn't go as well. I don't know how much they made, but they couldn't have washed more than five cars. Not an easy task, considering the weather. There was an attempt made at shoe shining inside the store, but there were no takers. I hope we find out somewhere how much we made in total, at all the different places around the city. I really hope that the other groups did as we did and begged people going into stores for donations, rather than everyone trying to wash non-existent customers' cars.

We took the bus back to the terminal and then ended up having to wait awhile for the next bus to bring us back to the university. There was quite a big group of us again, and a "not in service" bus drove by, opened the door and asked "where are you all headed?". We all yelled out "Brock!" and he said "well, come on in!". I've noticed the bus drivers in this city seem really nice. This guy even took us on the highway so we would get there quicker. Another bus driver we'd had reminded me of a family studies teacher at my high school, who I wasn't all that fond of as a teacher (nor as a person knowledgeable about music) but who was still a fun and entertaining guy. Back in my hometown, the bus drivers were kind of just there. They functioned properly, but you didn't take much notice of them.

For most of the rest of the day, I found myself wanting to say "good morning" to everyone I saw and to continue to be all smiley. "Why isn't everyone just like this all the time?" I wondered.

You know, when I got up that morning, I thought "why am I doing this? I could be home right now. Why did I volunteer to get up so early?". And when I realized we weren't going to be there for "just like an hour" like my don had said, I thought "please let the day go by fast!". But you know, I am really really glad I went.

The rest of the day was rather boring. I went and bought my textbooks, since I found out that the bookstore wasn't open on Sundays, and I kinda needed to read the first chapter of the French book before my eight o'clock class the next day. I somehow managed to accidentally pick up a used copy of my Linguistics book, which made it quite a bit cheaper than a new one. All in all, it was just under $400 for three texts and a workbook. Of course, I still do need to buy one for Computer Science, and I didn't get any texts that were "recommended" but not "required". I also managed to mess up paying for it with my bank card (which I've never used before), but was able to set it straight again after talking to my mom.

Like I said, today has been pretty boring. There was supposed to be a competition between all the residences, but it was raining really hard earlier, so it was canceled. I figured out how to work my voice mail after I noticed the red light flashing on my phone (which was only a message from the don of activities, informing me of the cancellation), which I was rather proud of. I also learned that the cafeteria doesn't open until 11:30 (!!!) on weekends, which is kind of crazy.

And there you have it, my first (and hopefully only?) weekend at university. Going home next week would be fun, except I'll be busy all Saturday, donating my time to another charity. Tuesdays then, will be a good time to relax.