Chapter 49

I think at this point, I’ve already mentioned all the major things that went on in the second year of my undergrad. I had gotten music back into my life after a desperate attempt to escape the stress of science courses by applying to UW Pharmacy. That’s plain and simple. However, there is actually one more event to talk about in my second year of undergrad.

This event, as it would later turn out, is one of the most important events I would ever experience. 

Not just in university. 

But in my entire life. 

It started with a simple rumor. In the Pre-optometry club, which I very rarely attended, there was a rumor going around that the interviewers for the optometry program were fans of frosh week leaders. I wasn’t sure how true this was but at the very least this seemed like a fun activity. If you’ll recall, I did mention that frosh week for me felt kind of special. It was a false sense of universal belonging and while it was quick and pretty much all surface level, it was still an enjoyable experience while it lasted. I figured, if it may help with my application and seems to be relatively fun, why not give it a go? 

When I first heard about this rumor, it was already in the middle of the fall term (first term of the year). By this time, I was too late to apply for the upcoming year. What confused me when applying also was that there seemed to be 3 “frosh” weeks in the applications webpage. They were described as 

1. Frosh Week
2. Orientation Week
3. Welcome Week 

While this was initially confusing, a quick google cleared things up. “Frosh Week” is what most students experience. This was also what I went through in my first week of university with all the events and  ice breakers. “Orientation Week” was referring to the same thing. It was called something different because someone on the university marketing team had decided that “frosh week” had an association with American universities’ incredibly bad image of partying and underage drinking. So those were the same thing. 

The last thing on the list was “Welcome Week”. This was actually an entirely different event. Unlike Frosh Week, which occurred only in the Fall term and was exclusively for first year students, Welcome Week was for the entire campus and for all semesters. This meant that instead of waiting an entire year to apply for the following years’ Frosh Week, I could apply for a volunteering position for the Welcome Week of the next term.

Welcome Week was planned by “The Federation Of Students’, our University of Waterloo’s student council. The application process goes through an online registry called LEAD, which was a University of Waterloo web domain that showed jobs and volunteering opportunities on campus. When I applied through LEAD this way, I quickly came to realize that there was almost no filtering of any kind. This means that very likely, there was a shortage of volunteers. 

Sure enough, when the winter term came and it was time to volunteer, I found that we really didn’t have that many volunteers. Luckily, there also weren’t that many responsibilities for the volunteer roles either. Most of the roles were simply to put on a “Welcome Week” T shirt and make sure nothing gets stolen. Some other more interesting roles involved making sure the crowds don’t get too crazy during some of the big events, which to be honest, was pretty easy to do since even the biggest event in Welcome Week was nowhere near as hype as even the chillest part of Frosh Week. I think it was just that the events we had weren’t particularly interesting. 

We had a free breakfast day, where we would give out snacks sponsored by Sobeys to students on campus. We also had some skating events in our newest gym facilities with kind of a low turnout since the new gym facilities were rather far away from campus. Then finally, we had a bar event that really didn’t need much volunteers since it was for a bar that was on campus and equipped with their own security. For that last one, most volunteers just gave out free admissions tickets then stood around doing line control. 

Was this as sad as it sounds? Not really. The events, while they had little turn out, were adjusted accordingly. We never had too much free food left over nor too much of a mess that the volunteers, however little numbers we had, could handle. The turn outs were always expected to be low and therefore, coordination of volunteers were also low in requirement. It wasn’t hard to see why either. Welcome week, though it encompassed the entire campus, was held during the first week of classes. 

Most students were focused on their classes and trying to organize their weeks as the school started. No one really wanted to stay for large and long events. Most events were really short or, like the breakfast, kind of a grab and go kind of deal. You show up, show us your student card, you get some food or play some simple games then 15-20 minutes later, you’re done. I consider Welcome Week to be like wine and cheese to Frosh Week’s buffet. We were first and foremost, meant to be something you can participate in on your break between lectures. 

The only event that always broke this rule was the one that was held at the bar on campus. The event was known as sex toy bingo. It was an event where you’d play bingo to win sex toys. Pretty self-explanatory right? I think it had initially started at some point in the past as a means to raise awareness for sexually transmitted disease and then just stayed. It was a fun time and for some, it was a highlight of Welcome Week. In terms of funding, this event was also definitely one of the more well endowed as well. There were sponsors from the feminist clubs on campus as well as the health care centers. This allowed the coordinators to purchase all sorts of NSFW prizes from the sex shops nearby. 

Now, if you’re wondering if in all my years of being a student at the school if I ever participated in this event then I’m sorry to disappoint you. I never did. I only ever volunteered to help with the set up and logistics. I wasn’t a very wild person as you can clearly tell. It doesn’t mean I didn’t have fun at the events though. It was kind of entertaining to see how many jokes you can really come up when the event is so centered around sex. Also, in the winter time of my second year, I especially enjoyed Sex Toy Bingo not because of the event itself but becaues I connected with someone. 

As volunteers for Welcome Week, we booked our shifts online through one of the LEADs portals. The portal usually showed the event, a number next to it indicating how many volunteers were needed for the event and then a list next to it that showed which volunteers had already signed up for shifts for that event. This meant that before you signed up for an event, you can see who was already signed up for the event. With this tool, I quickly found out that there was a girl that was registering for every event that I was registering. 

I would love to tell you how we have a fairytale story of getting to know each other and sharing a Hallmark movie of romance with a funny story on how hilarious the event we met was but unfortunately, that’s not at all how it played out.