Leader Conference

Jason should’ve stretched.

Yesterday was the day of the cross campus leader conference. All of FOC was required to be there. This conference was for frosh leaders from all the committees off campus. I will say that Engineering had good representation there this year. In past years, leader attendance from our committee was a bit low. This year we must’ve had about 30+ people attend. In fact, this year attendance was good all across the board. We estimated about 350 (I think) attendees. FOC ran workshops and organized all the behind the scenes stuff. It awesome.

FOC was required to meet at 8 in Waterloo, meaning that I had to wake up really early. I set my alarm for the unholy time of 4:30. I set it that early because I knew it would take me an hour before getting out of bed. Go figure, I was right. I left at 6:30 and still had enough time to drop by Tim Hortons to get a coffee (I prefer one cream, two sugars) and a few cookies. I found myself running at uncharacteristic high and horribly low energy levels all day. There was no in-between. By the time the end of the event rolled around, I was…strangely at ease. Things were hurting a little bit, but it was only when I got home that things really started feeling shitty. Today, the day after, I feel worn out. The visual that comes to mind is me being beaten with a meat tenderizer…or something.

I was really expending more energy than I put into my body. I can cite many examples. First, there was this table that had to be brought from one building to another located midway across campus. Three of us ended up carrying this table in the sun. I was sweating buckets. As soon as we got to our destination, we saw a minivan pull up to the building carrying the rest of the tables that needed to be carried (d’oh!).

Second example was during the lunch hour. FOC was handing out subs to all the leaders. I ended up with a few boxes of cold cut trios on brown. For whatever reason, I started yelling out “COLD CUT TRIO ON BROWN!!!” trying to get people over to my sandwiches. Soon everyone was yelling. Determined not to be outdone, I went all out and started yelling like a madman. I remember trying to change things up by yelling “COLD CUT TRIO! THREE KINDS OF MEATY DELICIOUSNESS!!!” and “THIS SANDWICH IS CALLING OUT YOUR NAME!” Eventually, one of the leaders said, “Oh man, I would’ve had a cold cut trio if I had known at the beginning of the line”. At that point, I took my box, and ran up and down the line. I even went out into the crowd and started yelling. Apparently it worked. Hahah. Yo man, I was able to get rid of all the sandwiches in my box. I’m proud of that. People thought my yelling was great. It was worth a good laugh. What made it all worthwhile was what one leader told me: “I didn’t even want a cold cut trio, but your selling convinced me.”

On a side note, after all that yelling, my voice was still intact. I got reminders from some of my Eng. leaders to yell from the diaphragm so that I wouldn’t lose my voice like last time I did a lot of yelling. I listened. I did a lot better. I still strained and cracked now and then, but overall I felt like I could handle it all.

The third example is the workshop/session that I was a part of. The leaders were instructed to build a city using the materials we provided them. On occasion “natural disasters” would come around and test the cities. The role of natural disaster was given to Amie, but I helped her out by providing “gusts of wind”. I took a bin cover and used it to fan their buildings like crazy. If leaders didn’t protect their stuff, it got blown away. I remember fanning like crazy in some cases–even jumping up and down like mad in the process of fanning. Another natural disaster was Godzilla. Amie and I just started stomping and jumping all over the place. That was immensely fun. Before the attacks I just yelled “GOOOOOO-JIIIIIIIIII-RAAAAAA!!!!!!” Brilliant.

Fourth example–indoors with a microphone. The emcee for the event asked if committees had messages for their groups if they wanted to meet with their leaders after the conference. I lined up. Other groups had serious messages. When I got to the mike, I grabbed it and said “Hello Engineering”. Engineering leaders went, “whoooooo!” So I go, “I just wanted to say…ENGINEERING ROCKS!!!!!” I yelled that last bit into the mike as loud as I could. I had the rockstar stance too. I guess I must’ve shocked everyone into silence because no one applauded afterwards. Boo.

That was my day. It was a blast…and quite worth the time invested into it. It fed the side of Jason that is an attention-whore. I have to train that side because September is quickly approaching.

Holy shit.

Possibly related posts:

1. Newly minted pace leader
2. Yelling into my ear