A Strong Voice

Western has another President of the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA). On Wednesday the USC’s VP UA Alysha Li was elected to be the President of OUSA for the 2012/13 year. Alysha’s Presidency will provide OUSA with a passionate leader with a vision for stable, consistent and effective advocacy efforts. Alysha’s belief in the importance of post-secondary education and her belief in the student population of Ontario will serve her well as OUSA President. Western and the USC will also greatly benefit from Alysha’s term as President. The USC will have a strong voice at the table to discuss the priorities of Western students. Myself and the entire USC Executive are incredibly proud of Alysha for showing such a strong commitment to representing Western and Ontario students. I can’t wait for the rest of the province to see the Alysha that all of us believe in. We have every confidence in her and know that her role at OUSA will give us an even stronger presence in the post-secondary community. Congratulations Alysha, you make us proud!

A Few Thoughts on Jack

I don’t profess to be an expert on the topic of Jack Layton and would never attempt to provide definitive commentary on his passing. However, I do want to share a few things that Mr. Layton (Jack) made me think about. It strikes me that Jack Layton would have appreciated knowing that he made us all think a little bit today.

Jack’s letter to Canadians offered a number of beautifully written passages that seem to accurately portray the passion Mr. Layton had for our country and its people. However, the line that stood out to me the most was not the eloquent final paragraph that has already become a household quotation. What resonated with me was Jack’s reminder to “cherish every moment with those you love at every stage of your journey.” He wrote this in reference to the many brave individuals who continue to fight cancer, but I think the phrase has universal application.

In our lives we are constantly racing towards the next goal or the next moment.We often wish fervently for the future and miss the beautiful things that happen in the present. It sounds a whole lot like ‘stopping to smell the roses’, but I think that there is a much deeper sentiment to consider. It’s not just enough to stop and appreciate the moment. You have to find a way to become it. To feel your heartbeat, appreciate beauty and accept love for yourself and others. You can’t just smell the roses or the moments. You have to let them fit into your world and begin to open yourself enough to understand how they have changed you.

I’ll never forget an exchange I overheard on a Tuesday morning in a coffee shop earlier this year. Out of the corner of my consciousness I heard someone say “Friday couldn’t come soon enough for me.” It’s an innocent enough phrase, something that I hear everyday and something that I have been guilty of saying from time to time. I didn’t think anything of it until I heard a second voice say, “I love Tuesdays because Tuesdays mean that I still have the rest of the week to live. Life is too precious to wish it away.” Under normal circumstances I might have thought the comment to be just a little bit pretentious, but at that moment I couldn’t help but think about how right this second voice was. I haven’t stopped thinking about that moment and I realized that we should take advantage of, or as Jack reminded us today, cherish every moment with the people and things that we love. Don’t forget about the future, because the future can be great, but don’t forget to live in the ‘now’ because it can be pretty special too.

Jack’s passing also presents us with an opportunity to remember an individual who used his voice as a citizen to the best of his ability. Jack Layton did not grumble in a corner or hide his desire to make change at any point in his life. He put his thoughts, ideas and opinions into action and helped to move our society forward. He didn’t always do this from a position of significant public profile. He recognized that his voice was worth something, whether he had a title or not, and that he had a responsibility as a citizen of Canada to encourage change where he identified a need for it. Hopefully Jack’s passing will stir people to speak up about the things that bother them and help them to move towards solutions. It seems to me that we all seem to be waiting for the right time, when we have less at stake, to make our voices heard. Why wait? Stand up for something now, because you never know how many more chances you will have to do it.

In closing, I look at Jack Layton as someone that we should all respect. His courage, determination and strength should be admired. I like to think that he would not want to be deified or remembered as a man of perfection, but I think that he would want us all to believe that a world with a few more ‘Jack Layton’s’ would be a place where we’d all want to live.

Vampire vs. Zombies

The FORT HOPE Video

These are the links to the videos we made in Fort Hope with the kids!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9InpbMz05A&feature=fvsr

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEMsJ7EYGCs&feature=related

The Residence Life Begins

Despite only being back in London for a grand total of 6.5 days, I am now officially back at Huron University College. This week I am being trained to be a member of the 2009/2010 residence life staff. The next seven days will take me through the finer points of what it takes to be a Huron ‘don’ and will hopefully prepare me for the year I have ahead of me. It was kind of strange to once again be packing my bags and heading out the door once again. I hadn’t really had a chance to get used to being back home after my summer abroad so it was a bit of a shock to be moving again. I’m not going to say that I would prefer to still be at home, but I would be lying if I said that I didn’t wish I had a couple extra days to restart the ‘London Life’ that I suspended for the last two months!

Anyway, for those of you that followed my adventures in Fort Hope this summer, I would like to sincerely thank you. It was amazing to have a constant link to home and in all honesty; it was nice to know that people cared enough to read! I will not bombard you with a daily entry for the remainder of my life, but I am going to do my best to stop by every once and a while.

Last Day in Thunder Bay & Back to London…

Day #62

Well, I shouldn’t be awake right now. I should be sleeping because I fly out of Thunder Bay at 8:50am. I have to be coherent enough to negotiate my way to Wasaya baggage claim to get my guitar and then on to Air Canada baggage check-in. My flight from Toronto to London is scheduled to land at approximately 12:10pm, so hopefully all goes according to plan. It’s a little weird thinking that all that has happened this summer will be in my past as of tomorrow. I think that it will only be in the past in a ‘time’ specific sense however. I know that I will carry this experience with me for the rest of my life. I said goodbye to Jenette, Courtney, Nanajean and Esther this evening. It was a little sad for all of us, because we really did come together as a team and ended up having a great time together in Fort Hope. Perhaps we will all meet again someday. But if not, we will always have the memories of a great summer of 2009 in Fort Hope.

See you in London!

Back to Reality…

Day #61

I’m back to reality. I’m sitting in my Lakehead University dorm room awaiting the start of my final day away from home. I won’t even begin to describe the feelings I had today, because at this moment I cannot put them into words. I am happy as anything to be only one day away from returning to London, but I have never felt closer to Fort Hope than I do right now. So many conflicting emotions are running through me right now. The end result is a warm feeling, one that is slowly helping me to realize the truly important things in life. As we flew from Fort Hope today, in perfect sunny weather, I allowed myself to feel the weight of this summer sink in for a moment. The immensity of what has happened, and is still happening to me as a result of my experiences is still revealing itself. I don’t really know what else to say right now.

Lastly, as our plane traveled high above the Canadian wilderness, I found myself feeling closer to my country, and despite its flaws, more proud of it than ever.

The Last Day

Day #60

Well, there you have it folks. Camp is officially over here in Fort Hope. I’m exhausted, but pleased. The day was crazy. Some things went according to plan, and some didn’t. People came to our party. People enjoyed our party. The Chief and I had another amazing talk. Have I mentioned that I’m tired? I fly out of Fort Hope at 6:30pm tomorrow night. I still haven’t started to pack. I must pack when I awake. I must sleep now.

Blueberry Hunting…

Day #59

In the words of 5 year old Aaron, today we went ‘blueberry hunting.’ Today was our final day of camp, so we took a large group of kids out to pick blueberries. Aaron decided that this excursion amounted to a serious blueberry hunting trip. We piled into the school bus and a couple of pick up trucks and went out for a great morning of fun. We also had a wiener roast with the kids for their lunch. It was a really great way to end camp, and we had a marvelous time. Unfortunately, as soon as we got back we had to get right down to work. We still have incredible amounts of stuff to do before tomorrow night’s final party. We’re slowly getting closer to the end of the work though. Part of my job today was to go and interview Harry Papah and Chief, Louis Nate about their impressions of the literacy camp. Both of my conversations were fantastic, but the talk I had with the chief was nothing short of incredible. I ended up spending about 45 minutes in his office, conducting what was supposed to be a 5 minute interview. We got talking to each other and ended up having a great chat. I learned more about Fort Hope and the challenges facing aboriginal peoples in Canada within these 45 minutes than I have all summer. I feel extremely privileged to have had the opportunity to speak with him. If all goes well I am going to have another talk with him on Saturday before I leave. He offered to spend some time with me and to give me some, as he put it, ‘straight’ answers about Fort Hope. I spoke to him about my potential future aspiration to be involved in politics. He was extremely supportive, and has promised to answer my questions via email if I want to send them his way.

After conducting these two interviews I got back down to the serious business of portfolio designing, movie editing and slideshow making. It’s been a hectic few days, but the end is near. I am nowhere close to being done everything, but I have faith that I will be able to get it done. I’m going to avoid pushing my brain into overdrive tonight, so it is time for me to go to bed. If everything goes according to plan, I will be ‘up and at ‘em’ early tomorrow!

This Morning I Burnt the Bannock

Day #58

I woke up this morning and attempted to boil water…I have boiled water successfully every morning since arriving in Fort Hope. Well, I failed this morning. Instead of boiling the water, I accidentally burned the bannock. I turned on the wrong heat element on the stove. Our house is currently de-smoking.

I am tired…I have so much work left to do and not enough hours to do it. Someone please make the days longer! Alright, I did not want to break the streak of posting something for everyday, so this post is merely for show. We have to head out right now to go berry pick with the kids. Then I am going to come back and work straight through for the next 36 hours! I will be alright, we just have lots left to do before we leave…Oh yeah, and I have to pack…

The Fast, Slow Day

Day #57

Before I really launch into this I should say that it rained again in Fort Hope…Nothing new, just something that I thought I should update you on…Okay, and also, one more thing…Why is it that the number of people visiting my blog randomly spiked today? I feel very flattered by this, but I also know that there is a possibility it was just my dad checking it from 6 or 7 different computers…Still though, I am sufficiently intrigued…

Alright, well here goes…I should first apologize for my absence from the blogosphere yesterday. I was unavoidably disconnected from the internet due to our move. We are now once again connected and I’ll do my best to make up for lost time.

It is hard for me to complain about the amount of work we currently have to do, because most of it is fun and worthwhile stuff, it’s just a lot! For starters, we have a large number of Frontier College reports, interviews and forms to fill out. We’ve been conducting interviews with community members, campers and parents for the last couple of days so that we can collect data about the effectiveness of this year’s camp. We are also trolling for constructive criticisms that will potentially help the next group of Fort Hope counselors. In addition, we are responsible for creating a portfolio of our experiences in Fort Hope. Frontier College then uses this portfolio as a promotional tool for recruiting new donors. Now, the intelligent thing to do would have been to compile this portfolio page by page throughout the summer, but we basically have left the entire thing until the end. We’ve got a significant amount of work left to do…48 pages of summer documentation is a lot of work to do in the next few days, but I have faith, we will get it done!

On top of the Frontier College work, we have a tonne of work to do before Friday’s camp wrap up party. We created invitations today, but still need to work on distributing them…I personally have to prepare another video (the boys finally finished their second video today), create a slideshow with video clips for the end of camp party and create 10 portfolio pages. I’m not complaining, I just have a lot to do!

Now, for the rundown on today…

We were expecting to have very low numbers this morning, on account of camp being canceled yesterday and the rain pouring from the sky. However, to our surprise, our 4-6 year old class hit 9 children at its peak. We ended up having a great morning of picture taking and community walking. We had each of the kids walk us to their house, where we took a picture of them and their friends. I took the boys, and Nanajean took the girls. It was fun, except for when the dogs started to chase us, but don’t worry, I scared them off!

In the afternoon, I finally got the boys to finish off their second movie. It was a rather painful experience to actually get the last few scenes shot, and I have no idea how I am going to make it all fit together…I’m sure that I’ll figure it out though…In addition to the movie shoot, we managed to get the boys to do another lyric fill-in-the-blank activity. I gave them the Cofield original ‘Wasted’ as the activity. They didn’t really like the song I don’t think, but they did think it was at least semi-cool that it was me singing!

After camp, Nanajean and I got a running start on our 4-6 year old portfolio pages. Neither one of us was particularly looking forward to drawing little pictures or scrapbooking, but we managed to get a decent start. It was a rather comical process of miss-spellings, and at least on my part, terrible art skills! Oh well, eventually it will all get done!

Anyway, I’ve got to stop writing and get working on the camp slideshow. I’m going out to do sprints on the airfield with my NAPS friend and Leo tonight, so I want to get some work done before that! How many opportunities do you get to do sprints on an airfield?