First of all, bear with me as I want you watch this video (it’s just over 6 minutes, but I think you’ll find it worth it).

I’ve taken an interest in keeping an eye on marketing campaigns this year — after taking an economics marketing class as part of my program. It’s an immensely amazing and expensive field that has a lot of variety. I’ve actually not seen this particular campaign when it aired starting 2000, but now having run into it as part of my YouTube browsing I find it absolutely amazing.

I think some clips work better than others, but even the weaker ones carry across the message so well. They inspire and invite and carry an ulterior moral message.

The clips in order are titled: Courage, Bronze, Giant, Silver, Rimes, Smile, Adversary.

For me, the standouts are the Silver/Bronze duo and the Smile ad, which goes so hand in hand with the spirit of the speech I did for my public speaking class. The Silver/Bronze spots do an amazing job of painting the Olympic celebration as a victory for all competitors, just watch them, you can’t fake elation like this.

Which one did you like? Why?

I was going to post a bit of an update earlier today, but I ended up sleeping since getting home. Of course, now that it’s 1am in the morning and I’ve just finished watching another episode of Iron Chef America — I decided that the best thing to do instead of just falling asleep would be to read Andrew’s blog, and specifically his post about his weekend travel’s. Needless to say, here I am writing mine.

I went home on Friday to go to a friend’s birthday party. That wasn’t really too new in itself, but the bus ride I was on was different. I ended up on the bus that doesn’t take the 401 and goes through the back roads and through the smaller towns on the way to London. As we were passing a sign that said free corn and also included a small horse buggy manned by two Mennonites that were selling syrup — the whole entire bus came to a stop just off the road, close to a ditch. The bus driver casually got out of the bus and decided to help himself to some corn and purchase some syrup!

That same bus driver was also responsible for breaking more laws in relation to stoplights then I’ve seen anyone else do in a while. We ran 3 red lights. I’m not talking about lights that turned red while we were in the intersection, no, we straight up ran 3 lights that turned red before we got to them. This guy was intense! We also stopped to let off a passenger in a spot right next to the sign that so clearly said no stopping. Possibly because it was on a sharp curve of a one lane road. How does this guy even have his license anymore?!

The bus ride back wasn’t as exciting. It was pretty standard all in all and I thought that the weird transportation sighting from the weekend were over.

As I got off the local bus on campus, I decided to go visit the plaza as I had nothing to eat or drink really and I was at least really thirsty. Now, we have a railroad track that crosses the edge of campus and I had to go across it. And there was a train on it. You’re wondering how that’s exciting. Well, it was stopped, still running right next to the crossing. And there was no one inside. That’s right, a whole train was just sitting there for anyone who sort of felt the urge to become a train engineer at that very moment. Maybe if I wasn’t so tired I would have taken this situation on as more than just an offer =P

As I was deciding where to visit and spend some money in the plaza, a man in overalls and with a bunch of pens in his chest pocket passed me. He also had a sub and a fountain drink in hand. It clicked in my head that that was probably the engineer from the train that was just casually sitting on the tracks. At this point I had to make sure, that this entire train was just left running at a crossing so this guy could get his early lunch — so I followed him back. Sure enough, he got on the train.

So there you have it, if you feel like some food, just park your train on the crossing and just sort of hop out and leave it all running and open. As long as you get tired and unenterprising students like myself passing by, it probably won’t get stolen XD

Don’t really expect anything significant here until around the 22nd, maybe not, because that will be celebration day. 23rd may be Don team go out day. 24th I hear is party in residence, while being on duty, day. 25th is something else. 26th and 27th is celebrate friends birthdays days. 28th is back home day. 29th is something else. 30th is Sanya’s last chance day.

And so with today’s game, our volleyball season comes to an end. I would like to say it was one of the most fun intramural sports experience I’ve had so far. First of all a huge thanks to Matt, Matt, Matt (see a pattern there?), David, Andrew, Vanessa and Linda for a whole lot of fun games. We had a bunch more people on our roster, but these are the ones that made it every time, and considering we won 3 of our 6 games with only 5 people playing, that counts

Our last game was close. We started off by winning the first set 25-13, and losing the second set 22-25. I think maybe we could have had the second set, we just got off to a slow start, and when we started working them again we were just a bit too far behind. We lost the tie breaker set 13-15. As you can see, it could have gone our way. But I’m not even angry, I’m being so sincere right now… (is that song ever going to get old, nah!).

What I also want to talk about is teamwork and fun. And the reason it comes up is simple. Today, we had fun. Which I feel is a lot more important than the experience that 4 people got on the opposing team. Yep, that’s right, after the first set, they literally almost sat 4 people on the sides and definitely didn’t play them in the tie-breaker set. I mean, yes, I would have liked them to play their weaker players as it means we probably would have definitely won. But that’s not it. Who makes a team with friends and tells their own friends to not play just for the win. That mentality never made sense to me. Ever. We lost, and I’m sure every person can say it was close and they personally had fun. Sure those 4 may have won, but were they even part of the team in the first place?

Hopefully we can get most of this team together for maybe next fall. It would be pretty awesome, we were all kinds of sweet sauce by the end of the season, and half of us can’t even jump to reach the top of the net! XD

I went to Mongolian Grill today, which is delicious, with Greg, Joe, Mike and Adam (sorry to anyone that didn’t go). The food was good as almost always. We even had a spicy round which technically we all lost, because none of us managed to finish our dishes. My strategy of dulling the burning with sweet pineapples hugely backfired because the wet pineapples soaked in all of the Cajun spice XD Greg was making the ‘oh’ face ventilating his mouth, and even Mike, loving hot food, admitted that what we made definitely had some kick.

Earlier, we’d noticed a magician making those blow up balloon toys for a table close to us. I explicitly stated that if we don’t get a show, that I’m not going to enjoy this experience! So, right as we were paying our bills, the magician showed up at our table.

He had a rabbit in a hat. No, seriously, he had a real rabbit in a real hat. The rabbit was hella creepy, it sat and didn’t move and just stared at Mike the entire time. We petted it, to appease it and not eat us.

The magician was pretty sweet, he did some card tricks, and despite being a card shark himself, Mike couldn’t quite spoil them in the face of the magician. I guess that’s why he’s the professional, his name was Barry and we got his business card.

…you don’t have to.

So, I’m taking this marketing class right now. There was a huge project due in it today. It’s worth 50% of our mark with the presentation component. We got an early start on it of course, but somehow when it came time to hand it in, it wasn’t finished.

This led to the staple of an experience for a university student: the all nighter.

I personally don’t like to do these events, because I really like sleep. I mean, I love sleep. And when I’m tired and bored, the first thing I do is take a nap. Seriously, I like naps. But, with so many marks and the fate of 5 of my group members lying in my hands, I began shortly after my house team volleyball game on redoing our references. And redoing them. And more. More. Still. 4 hours later and approaching 2am, there was an end in sight: to references, all 5 pages of them, seriously, size 8 font, 5 pages o__O;;

By this moment, when you’ve already missed on a lot of sleep the night before, things start to get funny. At least they do for me. I mean, I start to find the most stupid thing hilarious. It’s kind of bad.

After finishing, I took a trip to meet with Sahir, who’s in my group and I’ve known since 1st year. He was also working on his 220 project, which is worth like 60% of the course mark. Good times. We sat in DC with another one of his friends, and I swear to god the most inane things got funnier and funnier by the moment. We discussed group members, typos, chocolate bars, snickers vs mars, projects, formatting; all while “killing shit” as the formatting or something would go horribly wrong while fixing stuff in Word.

Oh yeah, at this point I’ve also felt like I achieved some effing zen moment with Microsoft Word. I was on a roll. I figured out how to do proper references, auto-generate a table of contents (I mean, this was like epic), and ok, get this: 3 years into my university career I’ve figured out how to start the page numbers not on page 1. I kid you not. For 3 years I wrote my title pages and table of contents and executive summaries separate just to avoid this problem. I think Word and me are kinda tight now, werd!

Tim Horton’s hot chocolate at 4am is shitty. I don’t know why, but it is. Would not buy again

By 7am, I finally got to printing the work. It was beautiful. I think I shed a tear. I just shed a tear again as my browser reminded me that I was about to misspell beautiful, that’s just not acceptable.

So there you go. It was a long night. It was a hard night. But the project got done. I believe my group owes me food or sleep. Since I don’t want any of them sleeping with me or using chloroform in any way, I will take food. Mmmmm….

Today we meet here, in this classroom to appreciate, take in and be moved by the speeches of our peers.
I find myself in the envious, captivating, terrifying and moving position of convincing you to take action on a goal.

As I sat and thought about what great ideal I would like to impart upon you in my speech I considered those of you who went before me. The vibrant assortment of tasks you’ve all presented to the class.

I thought about our world. I thought about the achievements we’ve created and the atrocities we’ve committed. The actions that we took, the opportunities that we passed on.

I imagined, dreamed and pictured a world where each and one of us is empowered to take action and make change. Where the smallest of initiatives grows and grows to become something so much bigger.

This world of action is a beautiful place.

And so I come to you today, to impart on you the call to act. The heroic and sometimes difficult step that simply asks of you to do something, instead of sitting back and taking no step forward. I want to talk to you about the actions that change our lives, daily. The actions that we can take to make a better world. And above all, I want to show you, that the only way we can impart change, is by starting at an individual, by starting at you.

Very recently I’ve had the privilege of listening to a distinguished speaker. I bring this up because she gave us a simple list. A mere 5 things to do that she believed were the keys to success. There was just one that I would like to relay to you today. The action, so simple, yet I can almost certainly say all of us here are guilty of it all the time. When we pass that friend, that accomplice anyone we know, why do we not always say the simplest of hello’s? That action alone would surely brighten anyone’s day. But, do you think you can make an even bigger difference? You know when we say “how are” and keep walking and the person does their best to say “oh good” and squeeze in their own obligatory “how are you”.

Stop – and have this conversation.

This action is the most basic act of care that you can show towards another person in a day. And think of all the times when you weren’t just “good”, wouldn’t it have been so nice to say “well, no, I’m not good” and have the other person listen?!

That is surely a step to a much better world. But, let me break this euphoria of happiness. Let me extend the simple hello and how are you. Suicide, a very sobering topic. According to World Health Organization it is a cause of death that leads murders and wars combined and is on a rise. From a recent seminar that I’ve attended as part of my Don training, the number one prevention method was so simple. It was to take notice of the person, to do something instead of nothing, to approach them and ask. That’s it, just do something. Anything. And that simple “hello, how are you” may very well suddenly save a life.

A great US president and a great man, John F. Kennedy once uttered the now infamous words “We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard”. The ultimate call for action. And yes, the call for challenging actions will have to be met too. But you’re just one person, you’re yourself – and doesn’t that make these epic efforts hard? Doesn’t it feel difficult to take action on even the speeches you’ve found your peers presenting in here? I’d like to show you that that difficulty is not an excuse to do nothing. That challenge, you, don’t have to take on all by yourself. But you can do something, and taken as a whole, that something becomes so much more.

Do you think you can help to prevent global warming, to significantly reduce energy cost and to maybe even save our planet, one day. Seems like a daunting task, but I’m here to remind you that all you have to do is just the minute something. Change a light bulb. That’s it. From a study, if just every household in the US did just that. The emissions of 800,000 cars could be offset, and 3 million more homes could have light for a year. Just one simple action, imagine.

Edward Everett Hale, a man who helped with the dissolution of slavery and the implementation of popular education said: “I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something I can do.”

This simple quote epitomizes my message to you. I want you to know, that you’re never too small to do something. And that doing something is always better than doing nothing. No action is too little to not spark a following, a movement and an ideal.

I want you to think back in our history, think of all the prominent events and figures. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Albert Einstein, John F. Kennedy, Rosa Parks, Winston Churchill and Oscar Schindler. They were all just individuals who did something and something else and then something else again, and as an entire world we know their actions and feel their effects today.

Martin Luther King once had a dream. Today, I have a dream too.

A dream of a world where we as individuals empower ourselves to take action. Where we consider no individual interaction too petty, too little, to not dive into it fully and with the utmost of attention and intent.

Where no one backs down from a challenge, that we all face together, and does nothing, when they could bite off an easy chunk and do something. Set an example that others will follow and together, the challenge will be solved.

I dream of a world where these little movements lead to a better place. And I’m telling you that for all the beautiful words and examples that we have in our history so many of them say we can. The individuals, turned leaders before us, all universally say one thing. Take action, take interest, do what you can, and out of that will come the best of things.

Thank you