I am currently completely exhausted and yet completely energized by all the events that have happened over the past week. Every day seemed to be getting progressively faster and faster, so I was very glad when the Staff announced that we were going camping out to the Bruce Peninsula over the weekend. It's Sunday (as I write this), and I've come back from a full-out camping trip that included stargazing, watching sunsets, swimming, juggling, and even beach yoga.
Today was the bus ride back to campus. In the evening, there was a seminar with students who run Engineering Without Borders, and they talked about water and the overseas projects that EWB was doing. One student in particular talked about his experiences in Malawi. He explained just how complex it is to get good, clean drinking water out to the people who need it - and it again grilled into my head the lesson that making an impact in the world is a lot harder than it seems. Here, this idea is really grilled in with various sessions that aim to show the social impact of technology. This was the first session in three at Waterloo, and it was really interesting.
Then, the Program Assistants introduced community-building projects that we would be doing - a monthbook, a coffeehouse, a photo pool, and t-shirts. And afterwards ... was another haze of doing laundry, calling parents, applying afterbite to cool down the mosquito bites and finally writing this entry, right about now.
Vipasha Shaikh, Shad University of Waterloo 2011
Hometown: Toronto, ON
