The Beginning of the End

Last week, I executed the last two major programs for my time as a Graduate Assistant.

On Tuesday was Park(ing) Day. We worked with our parking services office to allow us to have several parking spaces in the visitor parking lot. The idea was to turn them into a park a la the original Park(ing) Day. Over the period of planning the event it became a lot of different things. Actually having something that was settled on, a week and a half or so before, was really awesome.

With the help of our student workers and one of my coworkers, I turned some giant 8 foot by 4 foot plywood boards into a giant Scrabble board, using 4 inch by 4 inch tiles as the letters.

We pulled some chairs out and had some tables set up for board games. We offered students free peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, or ham/turkey and cheese. I was really anxious about it being in an area we do not usually program in – the idea of having it in the parking lot was to demonstrate that space can be used in a number of different ways, not just what it has been purposed for – and having it out of our normal area led to me being concerned about traffic. But my concerns were for naught, because we had over 100 people stop by, play a scrabble word or grab a sandwich, and move on. I wish people would have hung out, but the weather was pretty dark and overcast.

Wednesday was the Earth Day Festival. I have been on a committee planning the Earth Day Fair since mid-February – one of the major components of my position is connecting students with the committee and making sure we provide fun crafts and activities that will engage students. Last year the weather was nice and warm and sunny, but this year we had to move the Fair inside due to rain. It was a ton of fun and happened all in a blur. One of the things we do for Earth Day is dirt cups -they are plastic cups filled with oreos, pudding and gummy worms. In two and a half hours we went through12 #10 cans, 15 pounds of gummy worms and a lot of oreos.

That night, I drove up to Stillwater for my Wednesday-night class. The weather was decent, but some heavy winter/severe weather storms were coming in. I am already not a fan of driving my car in the rain to Stillwater, but with those threats, I was particularly scared. I got into Stillwater moments before class was supposed to start. Some of my cohort were waiting outside the classroom, and we chatted for awhile. The professor came down from his office and said that he decided to cancel class.

So after chatting with my cohort for another moment or two, I saw that rain had started to come in, and I began one of my scariest drives back. At one point, I swear I could see the wind. I made it back safely and around the time I did, the storm passed. Exhausted from a long few days, I fell asleep.