Relay for Life and Convocation

My weekend started on Friday with the Canadian Cancer Society's Relay for Life - an event that occurs each year in an attempt to raise money for the Canadian Cancer Society. I created a team and I was driven to make it as enjoyable an experience as possible - I'm hoping people had a good time despite the drizzle and the cooler temperatures. Most of us stayed up all night, we had live entertainment on the guitars, we had Carcassonne to pass time (each game is about 45-60 min!!), we had lots of snacks and we had lots of batteries for reading when the night came around. Thanks guys for coming out and making it an enjoyable experience! :)

After having gotten no sleep, I got home at 7am on Saturday morning, took a nap for about an hour or so and then got ready for my convocation! The ceremony was so incredibly boring. It was such an unorganized event - I couldn't believe the chaos of the whole thing! I confess that being a girl sometimes makes things so much easier - especially in engineering. I got to the small gym where I was supposed to get my gown rental and found that it was completely packed with people. I had a difficult time getting oriented but I finally found a UW personnel and asked him where I was supposed to get my gown rental. He told me that I was standing at the front of the line and would have to fill out an order form and then get at the back of the line (which was OUTSIDE the gym) in order to pay for the rental. Now, at the front of the line, was a kind gentleman who heard my conversation and said to me, if you would like you can go ahead of me. AWWWW! How nice! Honestly, I shouldn't be so surprised with this sort of behaviour since 5 years of engineering has shown me that guys in the class are more than happy to be of assistance to any of the girls in the class. That's engineering at Waterloo for you ;)

Besides the whole chaos of the event, it was actually a good feeling to walk up on stage, hear Kalam in the distance yelling "WOOOOO!! GO AMY!!!" - or something like that - and to shake some stranger's hand and get hooded - "congratulations on graduating! What an acheivement!". The diploma now sits in a shiny frame, the pictures of me in a gown have been taken and I've left Waterloo behind. What a crazy day. Thanks to the threesome who came out and endured the boring ceremony - having you guys there was great :).