The Custodians and the Banquet

This morning while I was taking my shower, I was remembering what it was like with the custodians in my last dorm.

My custodian there was assigned to 5th and 6th floor. She was a little older, a smoker, and she had really bad teeth. To be honest, she was a little frightening at first... But once you got to know her, she was the most humble lady of service you could ever hope to meet.

She worked hard and she did a really good job at her job. Our bathrooms were always spotless and she'd close them down twice a week to do a top-to-bottom sterilizing. Everyone on our floor loved her for that reason alone. We'd all complain like crazy when she went on vacation and her substitute just couldn't do as good a job xD That, and she was always nice to the students, saying hello and asking how their classes were going... just a generally nice person!

The second semester she came to me (the RA on fifth floor) and said that she had applied to work in the Engineering building and was wondering if I'd be willing to write her a recommendation. I told her I'd be honored - so I wrote the recommendation and delivered it personally to her boss. I said all the things I had noticed throughout the year - she was friendly, a hard worker, honest, and devoted. She even came to my floor meetings on her own free time! Even if it was just to ask when a good time to close the bathrooms for us would be - like when we were all in class or something.

Well anyways, I think she got the job lined up for the next year (no surprise there, she deserved it) and as a way of saying thanks, she nominated me for some... Outstanding Student Representative xD

Pretty much, I got a really fancy invitation to an awards banquet out of the blue one day. I was wondering "wtf I haven't done anything". But then she told me she had nominated me and I should go. I later on discovered that this was a "Dress-up" event... and it turned out to be like... all of the school big-wigs and really nice dishes and all kinds of stuff! Our custodian had nominated me... I guess for being such a friendly advocate to custodial staff - and I was up against like... 5 other students (in a campus of 12,000) for some award!! xD

Well, our custodian couldn't make it, so I sat with the rest of them at the banquet and felt like a sore thumb xD I didn't win the award, either... which was a big relief because I hadn't even really known I was up for it!

I guess it just goes to show that a little favor goes a long way! I hope our custodian is still enjoying her job too - she was the best of the best. And we all respected her for that.

I remember one of our instructors told us that they had received an email telling about a final exam in a nursing school where the last question, worth 20% of the grade was "What is the name of the woman that cleans this building?". One of the students approached the instructor afterwards and said "What is this question?? How am I supposed to know that?" and the instructor just said "Wherever you work, there will be all kinds of people working with you that are just as important. It's up to you to introduce yourself and make friends with each and every one of your co-workers if you plan on being a good nurse."

It's so interesting and it's true too... a lot of the nurses I've worked with have always said one of their best resources is their good relationship with people from other departments. I hope this is one thing I'll remember!

THE CRASH!!!

Here it is:


And here's the story :)

It was sometime in high school... probably my junior year, and we were snowboarding. They had set up some rails in the trick park and some of them were pretty shallow so I thought I'd give it a shot x) I was usually a very daring person...

Dad video taped me and I went down, really cool and collected... I hit the rail at a strange angle or something and toppled right over, landed on my face and brought my legs down on the rail... watching it now, it kind of looks like I snapped my back too xD

Anyways, Dad (as you can see at the end of the video) dropped the camera and was going "OMG are you okay????" And I sat up and said, "Did you get that!?!"

So dad burned it onto a disk for me and showed it to everyone he knows and to this day he still talks about "the crash" where he thought I was dead and all I cared about was whether or not he got it on video x)

Enjoy... it still cracks me up every time! BTW, one of my friends who saw this said I look like a Snowboarding ninja ;) Do you agree?

How I Joined the Spanish Club

When I was a Sophomore in high school, I took Spanish for the first time. My teacher was a really nice, young woman who was very enthusiastic about her subject... I was just in it to get my foreign language requirement for graduation.

My best friend and I were in Spanish together and took pretty well to it, we just seemed to "get it" where the rest of the class struggled. My teacher had made mention of the Spanish Club during our class in hopes that some of the Spanish I students might be interested, but none of us were. After all, who would want to join a failing academic club that had nothing to do with anything you were really interested? I admired her effort, but I had no interest at all.

About the second or third week of school, Brian and I got wind of an Anime club showing during lunch in the foreign language hall. We made our way down the hall and looked in each of the rooms trying to find it when our Spanish teacher saw us. "Can I help you guys find something?" she asked.

"We're looking for the Spanish Club." I said, accidentally saying Spanish when seeing her changed my train of thought. She immediately looked really excited and said, "It's just down this way! I'm so glad you two decided to come!" while I corrected her, "Oh... I mean Anime Club."

She suddenly looked really disappointed but showed us where to find the Anime Club. We joined the kids in the French room to watch whatever anime it's self-appointed president had brought with him before realizing his choice in anime sucked.

I turned to Brian and told him that I felt really bad for getting Mrs. Pope so excited and then correcting my mistake. "Maybe we could just go to one meeting..." I said, "Just to make up for it and give them members for at least one meeting?"

So we went - with no intention of ever going again. Mrs. Pope was glad to see us, and the upperclassmen (there were probably five members before we showed up) were glad to have us too. I don't even know how it happened, but we decided to keep going back.

It turned out to be a lot of fun and from then on, Brian and I went every week and really helped turn the club around. It never did much for members, but we had a LOT of fun the two years I was in it :)

I ended up lettering in Spanish Club and probably would have been in club leadership my senior year if the "Global Club" hadn't formed to zap the membership of the Spanish Club.... but that's a story for another day....