New from Mac Welcome Week
Well, I'm in the middle of one of the biggest weeks of my life. A week of events that I had spent all summer coordinating and planning -- finally all coming together. Never have I felt so drained and so tired, but it's also incredibly rewarding to see all that work paying off.
The first couple days I was on my feet the entire time... distributing our frosh kits, and troubleshooting with worried parents and lost students. Being the coordinator, I had golf cart privileges, and you really feel like the man on campus when you're motoring around on one of those in the middle of welcome week. MacPac Distribution is one of the biggest tasks that our office manages, but it went off mostly without a hitch and we eventually sold out.... Meaning we turned a huige profit. My boss loves me for that, but i had to turn away several disappointed students... shoulda ordered in the summer!
Monday night was the first big social of the week. Over the summer when we were planning this event, we were totally afraid of a flop. It would've been the first residence social run totally dry, and without alcohol.... meanwhile we had almost 5000 people to entertain! We had to work within certain guidelines, and eventually we booked out the entire athletic centre and put up a huge tent in the back. There would be three main areas of entertainment... in the tent there would be a top-40 band and DJ, with some carnival games and food.... in the main gym there was salsa dance lessons, and in the smaller gym, we put.... SPEED DATING! Well, we didn't actually call it that (to be inclusive), but we had sent up a huge circle of tables with two chairs at each table and the theory was that people would spend two mintues talking to one person, then a bell would ring, and they would switch to a next person... In an hour, they would theoretically meet like thirty people. We even put questions on the desk to break the ice. Still, I thought this event had the makings of a total flop.
Well, it turned out quite well in fact. The tent area was totally rocking out... the top 40 band we got was nervous... they had never played in front of so many people before! But they did the job. In the main gym... there were almost 1000 people salsa'ing at the same time... I couldn't believe it! And in speed dating people were really into it.... that was the main attraction... everyone wanted a part of speed dating (or the mac mixer, as we called it)! It kind of died down around midnight when it started to rain, but it ran better than we were fearing.
One interesting observation I had was that we had never seen so many girls altering their res T-shirts. Some of the designs were actually quite creative, but by the end, the innocent T-shirt had been totally HOOCHED up into a bar top! Everyone was doing it!
Last night we had an outdoor concert featuring Theory of a Deadman. I think that's one of my favorite names for a band, but I had never heard their music... well, one song maybe. But they put on a really good show and afterwards there was an outdoor movie... I finally saw the Matrix Reloaded!
Now I'm getting ready to host one of my main events... The Karaoke contest in the campus bar. I'm really looking forward to it. But a whole week of non-stop events really drains you out. Not only am i running all these things, but there's a ton of behind-the-scenes work i have to look after... data entry, emails, phones, etc. 12 hour days this past week! On top of this i have to think about school. But on the whole, it's been a great experience... But event planning is definitely not for everybody, and i likely won't touch it again.
In other news, I got my dream job of TA'ing one of the second-year artsci classes, West Thought. It's an intellectual history course, spanning philosophical, political, economic, literary and sociological thought from the 17th century to the present day. Nice and general... that's an artsci class for you! The professor is brilliant, but he's one of those classic old, absent minded professors who shows up to class with his sweater inside out. He's an artsci legend, but apparently he's going to give me a lot of work... Leading tutorial discussions, marking essays, even marking the exams! It's pretty hardcore, and a big commitment, but I couldn't turn it down. Plus, at $15/ hour, it's the best paying job I've ever gotten. Time to brush up on my Marx, Nietzsche and Kafka! The weird part will be evaluating so many students that I already know... some of them well. That's all for me. Good luck on the year, everyone!
Well, I'm in the middle of one of the biggest weeks of my life. A week of events that I had spent all summer coordinating and planning -- finally all coming together. Never have I felt so drained and so tired, but it's also incredibly rewarding to see all that work paying off.
The first couple days I was on my feet the entire time... distributing our frosh kits, and troubleshooting with worried parents and lost students. Being the coordinator, I had golf cart privileges, and you really feel like the man on campus when you're motoring around on one of those in the middle of welcome week. MacPac Distribution is one of the biggest tasks that our office manages, but it went off mostly without a hitch and we eventually sold out.... Meaning we turned a huige profit. My boss loves me for that, but i had to turn away several disappointed students... shoulda ordered in the summer!
Monday night was the first big social of the week. Over the summer when we were planning this event, we were totally afraid of a flop. It would've been the first residence social run totally dry, and without alcohol.... meanwhile we had almost 5000 people to entertain! We had to work within certain guidelines, and eventually we booked out the entire athletic centre and put up a huge tent in the back. There would be three main areas of entertainment... in the tent there would be a top-40 band and DJ, with some carnival games and food.... in the main gym there was salsa dance lessons, and in the smaller gym, we put.... SPEED DATING! Well, we didn't actually call it that (to be inclusive), but we had sent up a huge circle of tables with two chairs at each table and the theory was that people would spend two mintues talking to one person, then a bell would ring, and they would switch to a next person... In an hour, they would theoretically meet like thirty people. We even put questions on the desk to break the ice. Still, I thought this event had the makings of a total flop.
Well, it turned out quite well in fact. The tent area was totally rocking out... the top 40 band we got was nervous... they had never played in front of so many people before! But they did the job. In the main gym... there were almost 1000 people salsa'ing at the same time... I couldn't believe it! And in speed dating people were really into it.... that was the main attraction... everyone wanted a part of speed dating (or the mac mixer, as we called it)! It kind of died down around midnight when it started to rain, but it ran better than we were fearing.
One interesting observation I had was that we had never seen so many girls altering their res T-shirts. Some of the designs were actually quite creative, but by the end, the innocent T-shirt had been totally HOOCHED up into a bar top! Everyone was doing it!
Last night we had an outdoor concert featuring Theory of a Deadman. I think that's one of my favorite names for a band, but I had never heard their music... well, one song maybe. But they put on a really good show and afterwards there was an outdoor movie... I finally saw the Matrix Reloaded!
Now I'm getting ready to host one of my main events... The Karaoke contest in the campus bar. I'm really looking forward to it. But a whole week of non-stop events really drains you out. Not only am i running all these things, but there's a ton of behind-the-scenes work i have to look after... data entry, emails, phones, etc. 12 hour days this past week! On top of this i have to think about school. But on the whole, it's been a great experience... But event planning is definitely not for everybody, and i likely won't touch it again.
In other news, I got my dream job of TA'ing one of the second-year artsci classes, West Thought. It's an intellectual history course, spanning philosophical, political, economic, literary and sociological thought from the 17th century to the present day. Nice and general... that's an artsci class for you! The professor is brilliant, but he's one of those classic old, absent minded professors who shows up to class with his sweater inside out. He's an artsci legend, but apparently he's going to give me a lot of work... Leading tutorial discussions, marking essays, even marking the exams! It's pretty hardcore, and a big commitment, but I couldn't turn it down. Plus, at $15/ hour, it's the best paying job I've ever gotten. Time to brush up on my Marx, Nietzsche and Kafka! The weird part will be evaluating so many students that I already know... some of them well. That's all for me. Good luck on the year, everyone!
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