By Steven Cayer
Nov 2009
When I rolled into the Terry Fox Canadian Youth Centre, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. There were about 100 name tags on a table, for the people who hadn’t gotten there yet. I finally found mine and the greeter told me where my bed was. Here’s the thing, there was only one huge dormitory for every single guy there! That was so not cool. When I came back down from putting my suitcase on my bed, the greeter was there, telling me I was just in time for dinner. I was pretty hungry because I barely ate anything on the plane from Vancouver. We had spaghetti and meat sauce, which wasn’t bad. As soon as I started to eat, the people started coming. It looked like a stampede! I guess there was a reason for so many name tags. I also noticed that the ratio between girls and boys was about 5:1, no joke. It was pretty sweet, at least for the guys.
When everyone sat down, one of the teachers talked to everyone about the rules and of course, regulations that were at this program. When that was done two hours later, we all went to our dorms. The girls had three dorms. I just don’t see how that’s fair. I was happy there were only about twenty guys talking and getting to know each other. I couldn’t imagine trying to sleep in one of the girls dorms. I didn’t get that much sleep anyway because the beds weren’t the comfiest.
The next morning was rough because breakfast started at 7:30am! Well, that was fun. Today we went to the Crown Plaza Hotel for a panel discussion involving media awareness networks, like GoogleTM and YouTubeTM. On the panel there was Andrew Cohen, president of Historica-Dominion, Scott Rubin from YouTubeTM, Roger Dubois, video journalist for CBC.ca, and Althia Raj, national bureau reporter for Sun Media. There were so many points they wanted to make that they ran out of time. We also spent time in the classroom for a couple hours (each day), working in assigned groups on a writing project for the week. Other groups worked in video and in photography.
On this day, we had a bus tour of Ottawa. It was actually pretty interesting seeing the historical landmarks. For example, we saw a tomb that contained the remains of one of the last Canadian soldiers that died in the Second World War. It’s marked as “Unknown Soldier”. When we got back, we had a guest speaker, Robert Forest – no, not Robert Frost – and he was very funny. His speech was all about not giving up on your dreams. He talked about his entire life! It was hilarious.
This day was definitely not a funny one. Major Wayne Mac Culloch took us to the Canadian War cemetery only a few minutes drive from the Terry Fox Centre. There were hundreds of graves of soldiers who died in battle. It was unbelievably sad. After Major Culloch said a few words, we stood in silence for two minutes remembering battles like Dieppe and Vimy Ridge. Each of us chose a grave and put a lit candle on the top. Needless to say, some people cried, but not me, of course. Overall, I got way more understanding of the battles that Canadians fought in.
Finally we actually got to see the inside of Parliament! Even though we were waiting outside longer than actually being inside, it was pretty sweet. I kid you not, it reminded me a lot of Hogwarts, and the library was almost exactly like Gringotts. I was happy the whole thing was wheelchair accessible. Even the famous Parliament stairs had a ramp beside it. Why isn’t it called ‘the famous ramp’?
Then it started to snow, and I didn’t even bring my gloves! My right hand almost snapped off from being so cold! Memories don’t need to be that forever! That night, we actually went to the Ottawa Senators vs. Tampa Bay Lightning hockey game. Ottawa won 3-2 with 42 seconds left in overtime!
And so it’s come down to this, the final day. Today would be the day I would remember most. First, we didn’t go to sleep that night. Needless to say, I’m still tired from that night. The dance started at midnight, and stopped at 3:30am! Of course I was partying the entire time. Then the morning came. I could tell everyone was realizing that these were the final moments that they will probably ever see each other. They started hugging and signing cards and hugging and crying and…bottom line, emotions were flying every which way in the cafeteria. I even somewhat cried. The coolest part is that almost everyone there is on FacebookTM, so we could keep in touch.
This week in Ottawa was the best week of my entire life (so far). I made so many new friends I can’t even count them all. This week has also given me a whole pile of confidence, and was also a lot of fun, which is pretty cool.