I got to cut a guy’s hair on a street corner last week in exchange for a dollar!! I don’t know about you, but it’s not often that I get to say that!! It was Shinerama in Ottawa last week…when all of the University of Ottawa and Carleton frosh spend their days raising funds for Cystic Fibrosis and in some cases, selling their hair!!
As I walked to work in the mornings after contributing my money, time and scissor skills, it suddenly hit me that ten years ago, I was roaming the streets of Ottawa doing the very same thing. Did I look that young when I was a frosh?!?
While I don’t envy their grungy apartments and diets of beer and Kraft dinner, I felt excited for them…so much is about to happen in the next four years of their life, and most of it will have nothing to do with school. The University of life is about to take over and change them forever!
My first couple of months of university was one of the happiest and most exciting times of my life. I had moved from London to Ottawa, moved into my 13th floor residence room and never looked back. I was living in a new city, meeting new friends, had a new boyfriend and was starting a new life. I truly felt on top of the world and it was one of the few times in which I could see the change happening to me. Looking back, I can say that moving to Ottawa for school was, by far, one of the very best decisions that I’ve ever made.
In turn, September has become my favourite time of year. Not only due to the beautiful weather and fabulous clothing lines but, I just love the energy that come with all of the students returning to school. It reminds me of that amazing time when you’re finally old enough to experience life on your own but, at the same time, it’s still justified to stop by your parent’s place to do your “grocery shopping”.
In retrospect, they should really refer to the four years spent doing your undergrad as “the opportunity to do things that seemed like a good idea at the time”!!! Spending your entire meal plan at the bar instead of on food seemed like a good idea at the time…!!! Spray painting your bedroom in gold seemed like a good idea at the time…!! Stealing all of the street signs from the neighborhood construction sight so everyone would know where your party was really did seem like a good idea at the time…!!! Betting all of your living room furniture at a game of poker seemed like a good at the time…!!! And the list goes on…
It seems like the events of my first year stood out to me so much more than any other time (“good ideas” aside!!). As I was changing and learning, the world seemed to be going through it’s own freshman evolution as well. Our class of 2001 has so many moments in which to mark our beginning; the weekend that we moved into residence, Princess Diana died and while we were enjoying our frosh parties, the world was grieving. Ultimately though, our entire floor packed into our common room, pillows in hand, to watch her funeral live on television. A week later Mother Theresa died as well. That Christmas, we survived the Great Ice Storm and watched military helicopters circle campus while our city was declared a state of emergency. Instead of going to class, we went to community centers to help the thousands of people that would spend the next few weeks living there. On the lighter side, Oasis and Sarah McLachlan released new CDs (that we listened to relentlessly), Titanic was released in theatres and our floor stayed up every night to watch Jerry Springer (because throwing chairs was still a novelty at the time!!).
If our lives were a quilt, it’s as though all of these little things, as insignificant as they may seem, became woven into the tapestry to define the journey of becoming our own person!! I’ll forever look back on all of them with a certain fondness as the necessary building blocks that helped me become the individual that I wanted to be.
Unlike many of my peers though, I didn’t really know what I wanted to be when I was started University. Truth be told, I still don’t know half of the time but, I do know that all of these students are in for the ride of life that may or may not take them where they thought they would go!! It’s true…our city will be plagued with thousands of drunken, messy, loud frosh for awhile but slowly, as the days go by and the air begins to cool, they’ll start to realize that this is only the beginning of their much anticipated learning curve. Soon they’ll learn that they may not like sharing a room for extended periods of time. They’ll learn that IKEA furniture can make even the smallest space seem liveable. They’ll learn that you can spend a whole lot of money in very little time, and have next to nothing to show for it! They’ll learn that love and relationships are really hard during that time of life…it’s difficult to commit to others when you haven’t yet committed to yourself. They’ll learn that the possibilities are endless but their time to do them is limited. They’ll learn that no matter how late in the day their first class is…it’s still possible to sleep through it. They’ll learn that many people you meet in university are in your life for a season…that season likely lasting about the same time as your lease! They’ll learn that fair does not mean giving everyone the same thing, but instead, giving everyone what they need, even if it means being the exception to the rule. Some of them will learn that it’s a lot easier to lose your GPA then it is to get it back again. And if any of them are as fortunate as I was, they will learn, for the first time, that they really can do it…they can take what life throws at them and come out of it in one piece. They can endure independence and grow to be a better person. They can survive in this big, bad world and not lose themselves in the meantime.
That is something that all the lectures and reading in the world could never teach you…but losing your hair for a good cause just might!
As I walked to work in the mornings after contributing my money, time and scissor skills, it suddenly hit me that ten years ago, I was roaming the streets of Ottawa doing the very same thing. Did I look that young when I was a frosh?!?
While I don’t envy their grungy apartments and diets of beer and Kraft dinner, I felt excited for them…so much is about to happen in the next four years of their life, and most of it will have nothing to do with school. The University of life is about to take over and change them forever!
My first couple of months of university was one of the happiest and most exciting times of my life. I had moved from London to Ottawa, moved into my 13th floor residence room and never looked back. I was living in a new city, meeting new friends, had a new boyfriend and was starting a new life. I truly felt on top of the world and it was one of the few times in which I could see the change happening to me. Looking back, I can say that moving to Ottawa for school was, by far, one of the very best decisions that I’ve ever made.
In turn, September has become my favourite time of year. Not only due to the beautiful weather and fabulous clothing lines but, I just love the energy that come with all of the students returning to school. It reminds me of that amazing time when you’re finally old enough to experience life on your own but, at the same time, it’s still justified to stop by your parent’s place to do your “grocery shopping”.
In retrospect, they should really refer to the four years spent doing your undergrad as “the opportunity to do things that seemed like a good idea at the time”!!! Spending your entire meal plan at the bar instead of on food seemed like a good idea at the time…!!! Spray painting your bedroom in gold seemed like a good idea at the time…!! Stealing all of the street signs from the neighborhood construction sight so everyone would know where your party was really did seem like a good idea at the time…!!! Betting all of your living room furniture at a game of poker seemed like a good at the time…!!! And the list goes on…
It seems like the events of my first year stood out to me so much more than any other time (“good ideas” aside!!). As I was changing and learning, the world seemed to be going through it’s own freshman evolution as well. Our class of 2001 has so many moments in which to mark our beginning; the weekend that we moved into residence, Princess Diana died and while we were enjoying our frosh parties, the world was grieving. Ultimately though, our entire floor packed into our common room, pillows in hand, to watch her funeral live on television. A week later Mother Theresa died as well. That Christmas, we survived the Great Ice Storm and watched military helicopters circle campus while our city was declared a state of emergency. Instead of going to class, we went to community centers to help the thousands of people that would spend the next few weeks living there. On the lighter side, Oasis and Sarah McLachlan released new CDs (that we listened to relentlessly), Titanic was released in theatres and our floor stayed up every night to watch Jerry Springer (because throwing chairs was still a novelty at the time!!).
If our lives were a quilt, it’s as though all of these little things, as insignificant as they may seem, became woven into the tapestry to define the journey of becoming our own person!! I’ll forever look back on all of them with a certain fondness as the necessary building blocks that helped me become the individual that I wanted to be.
Unlike many of my peers though, I didn’t really know what I wanted to be when I was started University. Truth be told, I still don’t know half of the time but, I do know that all of these students are in for the ride of life that may or may not take them where they thought they would go!! It’s true…our city will be plagued with thousands of drunken, messy, loud frosh for awhile but slowly, as the days go by and the air begins to cool, they’ll start to realize that this is only the beginning of their much anticipated learning curve. Soon they’ll learn that they may not like sharing a room for extended periods of time. They’ll learn that IKEA furniture can make even the smallest space seem liveable. They’ll learn that you can spend a whole lot of money in very little time, and have next to nothing to show for it! They’ll learn that love and relationships are really hard during that time of life…it’s difficult to commit to others when you haven’t yet committed to yourself. They’ll learn that the possibilities are endless but their time to do them is limited. They’ll learn that no matter how late in the day their first class is…it’s still possible to sleep through it. They’ll learn that many people you meet in university are in your life for a season…that season likely lasting about the same time as your lease! They’ll learn that fair does not mean giving everyone the same thing, but instead, giving everyone what they need, even if it means being the exception to the rule. Some of them will learn that it’s a lot easier to lose your GPA then it is to get it back again. And if any of them are as fortunate as I was, they will learn, for the first time, that they really can do it…they can take what life throws at them and come out of it in one piece. They can endure independence and grow to be a better person. They can survive in this big, bad world and not lose themselves in the meantime.
That is something that all the lectures and reading in the world could never teach you…but losing your hair for a good cause just might!
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