Ok, so I spent the last 2+ months helping to organize Canada Day. My primary job was to organize a basketball tournament, which meant developing a game format, recruiting teams, hiring refs, overseeing the logistics of site set up, etc, etc, etc. It was a pretty big deal as the entire Canada Day event was supposed to attract over 1,000 people. I spent the week leading up to it nervously checking the weather forecast, as we are in the midst of “Plum Rain Season.” It kept bouncing back and forth, one day July 1st had an 80% chance of showers, the next day only 20%. So on the day of, I was happy to see blue sky with few clouds. It was a real scorcher too, which is saying something since we have had about two weeks of mid-30s heat. Anyhow, it was a hectic day with a 7AM start, bringing stuff to the site. At 2pm the event got underway and basketball was set to begin at 3pm. The sun and heat were getting to people, but everything with tournament was coming together nicely. A couple minutes before play was scheduled to begin, I pulled all the players to centre court and gave everyone a quick run down of the rules. And from there, it was time to play some basketball. But then this happened….
waterfall - canada day
Date: 07/01/2006Views: 647
As the players were heading over to their courts, the sky went from clear to dark in 2-3 seconds. Out of nowhere a huge burst of wind knocked over all the metal fences sectioning off the area. After a couple more seconds the deulge began. This was the most rain I had ever seen. I am talking about a downpour of cataclysmic proportions. Some of the guys tried to play despite the rain, but soon the water on the ground was so deep they couldn’t even dribble the ball. The photo above shows the stairs leading up to the stadium, after about 20 minutes of rain, they became a full fledged waterfall. Needless to say, the tournament was cancelled. Given how much time and work had gone into preparing for it, one would think I would have been pretty upset. But the whole thing was so surreal, it was kind of exciting. The timing was so (un)perfect and the whole storm so dramatic, it felt like a movie. As I later told Damien and Mason, if the tournament was going to get rained out, I was glad that it got RAINED out. It was a very climactic anti-climax, that’s for sure.
In another turn of events that should suck, but I don’t actually care, Damien and I’s summer camp job evaporated the day before it was supposed to start. We called to get details for the orientation meeting to find that the person who hired us no longer works for the company. He is now in Thailand after his partner suffered some terrible accident (?!?) ok…. And his replacement has only been on the job for two days and has no idea what’s going on. To tell the truth, I wasn’t really to surprised by all this after having been here a year. As Mason always says, TIC: This Is China. And that’s all there is to it.
So that’s about it, at this point I am just going to turn my attention to finding an internship for next summer. Canada is coming up fast, my Toronto ETA is just over six weeks. That’s going to be pretty wacky too. With that, I am going to leave you with a picture of the crazy seafood on sale at a restaurant up the street. Walking by, there is always is a surprise in (front of the) store.
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Date: 06/26/2006Views: 638