Russell Peters Entertains The Grads

Here’s a portrait of your standard graduation ceremony:

Pomp and Circumstance.
Boring introductions.
Boring academic charging of the graduates.
Bad public address by the honourary graduate.
Awards that I never win.
The granting of the degrees/diplomas/certificate.
Joyous relief that you can leave the room.

Simply put 2-3 hours of torture so you can spend two seconds walking across the stage and take a million photographs of yourself in an unflattering cap in gown.

A few months ago I received an email with a date of the ceremony and one other small minor detail.

Lots of very talented performers come from the Greater Toronto Area so it should not have been a surprise that one of them was chosen to receive an honourary degree at my graduation from Humber College.

Russell Peters would be there.

At first I thought he wouldn’t come. I was sure that my professional fandom luck wasn’t that good.

But there he was on the stage providing the comic relief as only he could.

Being from Brampton and getting kicked out of college after a month, I guess it was quiet a special thing for him to receive a degree for doing absolutely no academic work.

His message to us was stereotypical yet inspiring in its unique delivery.

“Never do anything only to make money, do it because you love it.”

And as the graduates of the Comedic Performance Program received there diplomas Russell stood and shook the hand of every one of them.

Some random other graduates stopped to greet him as they walked across the stage and I had planned to do the same.

I do describe myself as a professional crazed fan. How could I pass up this golden opportunity to be meet a celebrity without being a total creeper?

Well, the truth of the matter is I chickened out. As the girl before me walked across the stage a voice from the audience yelled “THAT’S MY SISTER” and under his breath Russell said “why don’t you get your sisters name then” in a annoyed tone.

My nerve was gone. He was probably itching to get off that stage, and we were only half way through the graduates.

I settled for some solid eye contact and a smile from Russell. I made my way across the stage and back to my seat just thankful that the comic didn’t find something to make fun of me about.

I regretted my decision as soon as every one of the PR grads got a hug from him. A HUG. Suddenly, a handshake didn’t seem like such an inconvenience.

I made the right decision. He was on stage with 20 other people who I felt no need to interact with. Russell Peters may be a world famous comedian, but for those few hours he was just another Humber graduate. I’m glad that I treated him as such.

Welcome To Graduation

I'm not so good at this blogging thing.

Alright Blog, I admit it, I suck.

I've outright failed at my attempt to blog on a consistent basis.

but when one fails you must pick yourself up, dust yourself off and try again.

So here I ago. with an attempt to blog more often.

In September I nabbed a six month internship funded by the CCCO (otherwise known as Work in Culture).

Little did I know that another Intern at Canada's National Ballet School would have the bright idea to host a little conference to get all us interns and mentors together.

Yesterday we all gathered at the beautiful NBS on Jarvis and I was fortunate to meet some pretty cool people.

One being Karen Whaley, who inspired me to start blogging again by talking about her own blogs http://www.sayitwithpie.com/ and http://www.bemoreblog.com/ the latter which is about her personal training journey. I will be reading it with interest since I've also recently started on that journey. I'm sure we'll share some laughs.

To networking and forming meaningful connections (Margaret would be proud).

It's been a while.

Hey Blog.

I've missed you. But I've been incredibly busy.

I had billed July to be the best month ever. Well it didn't go exactly as I had envisioned but it was still pretty awesome.  Here's a brief recap.

Concerts

• bad news first:  I was supposed to go to 8 concerts this month but only went to three: all 3 u2 concerts were rescheduled for next summer, Simon and Garfunkel was cancelled and I sold my black eye peas tickets.
• Good news: I got to go to three concerts! 
• Deadmau5 at the koolhau5 on Canada Day eve! PS: Joel Zimmerman is my future husband!
• Lady Gaga 
• Bon Jovi

Career

• I'm enjoying my internship and have a few solid job prospects for September. Can't ask for more then that.
• I got an article published as well! goo me. Read it Here

Personal

• Moving to Chinatown in September!
• Was on two radio talk shows and in the newspaper. Why you ask? Click here

So blog. I'm sorry I've neglected you. I'll try to write more frequently in the future. I'll make it up to with sharing a video from Lady Gaga!

Learn Fundraising with 30 Rock.

Fundraising lessons can be seen everywhere... apparently, and slightly to my dismay.

Anyways, I stupidly set myself a goal to read Keep Your Donors, which is a 400 page text book on good donor relationship building, before Tuesday. This is definitely an unreasonable goal.

Realizing that it's impossible I decided to slack off and watch 30 rock with my room mate. WELL, this particular episode of 30 rock featured a charity golf tournament and a great example of how not to ask a group of people for money followed by a good example of how to ask a group of people for money.

If only my actual classes were as entertaining as this. Maybe I would have paid more attention.

The scene of reference starts at the 14:30 mark, but you should really just watch the whole episode because it's awesome.

Dream Out Loud: Setting Goals

Today as I made my morning commute to class I picked up a copy of the Toronto Metro. Sitting at the back the bus I browsed my way through the paper. I glanced at my horoscope and couldn’t help but smile.

Under Sagittarius it read:

By all means set yourself new goals. By all means aim high. But don’t aim for perfection. For that can never be reached.

 

As I previously mentioned I am an extremely goal oriented person and I’ve always met my goals. 

For example: When I was 12 years old I decided I wanted to go to Queen’s University in Kingston, ON. I graduated from Queen’s in 2009 with a BA in Global Development Studies. During my second year of university I decided I wanted to be a Fundraiser.  Now I am just a few weeks away from completing my Post Graduate Certificate in Fundraising and Volunteer Management.

For the first time in my life I lack clear goals. That is aside from the obvious vague goals that most of society has: find a job, keep a job and maybe find a significant other. And my goal block couldn’t come at a worst time.

I’ve been reading many books about networking. Currently I’m reading Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi. In chapter three of his book Ferrazzi describes the importance of having clear goals and understanding how to meet them by using a three-year matrix in which you outline your goals and sub goals and the people you will network with to help you accomplish all these goals.

He states the importance of sharing your goals with others. Apparently this will help you stay more focused on the task at hand. I can’t help but believe this to be true. I was very vocal with my friends and family about my earlier mentioned goals and accomplished them with little difficulty.

So blog readers (if you are out there) here are 4 personal goals I have to share with you.

 

  1: To gain at least 5 followers of this blog by the end of June.

  2: To find a house to live in that I love for reasonable rent by August.

  3: Find away to attend Toronto Raptors games for free or pay by October.

  4: To dance on stage with Bono in the summer of 2011.

Notice how all my goals have dates attached to them. Ferrazzi argues without a deadline a goal is only a dream. Dreams are often expendable, while my last two goals may seem like I’m living on dream land, they are very important to me and by giving them deadlines I am more likely to stay focused on meeting my goal.