Monday, March 1st, 2004
So last friday was DDR-A-Thon. It's basically a fundraiser where we get people to dance for seven hours, non-stop (except for the 10 minute breaks after every hour), and they would collect pledges, which would go towards V-Day, a global movement to stop violence against women. I was heading the event, which leads one to question my integrity. As well you should; DDR-A-Thon was a mess. It wasn’t anything extreme, but I was very dissatisfied. We had sign ups a few weeks back and that went fairly well. There was quite a response, as 24 people signed up, but we’d have to cut half of them due to the lack of pads. When we had a meeting for everyone who signed up, only members of our committee bothered to come. I guess it was good as we didn’t have to cut anyone and make them feel bad, but apparently a few people came later, didn’t get a pledge form and were going to participate anyway. It was my fault for not staying longer. The thing about fundraisers is that you want to get as many people as you can, and get them to help you raise money for whichever charity. Obviously, a DDR-A-Thon requires dance mats, and those are in high demand and in low supply. As such, we had a shortage and not everyone got their own mat. It was fine, I guess, since people often tag-teamed and got some ample time to rest and regain their breath, but it was just a shame our event just lacked that “umph” of a challenge that made it a real fundraiser. Speaking of fundraiser, many just saw DDR-A-Thon as a mere event aimed to get people involved and have a good time (probably because of a combination of the name and the lack of emphasis, again, my fault). Although this is true, I was hoping that would be second on the priority list. Shifting to priorities, boy was my calculations wrong. It was obvious people would be dehydrated because of all the dancing, yet I didn’t purchase enough drinks to last through the event. We quickly ran out before 2/3rds of the way through, and we actually had to use some pop a friend offered when we picked up the pizza. Pizzas were good and we didn’t fall short, although, I did get a bargain. For a large, it’d come to about $12, but I got it for $10. Since we bought 8, we saved $16. However, my friend informed me that he’ll be making large into extra large with no added cost, so I kinda felt bad about jipping them. Speaking of jipping, a few young-uns dropped by to play DDR, even though they didn’t sign up, and failed to come to the meeting. They drank much of our pop. Damn thirsty kids. I guess I kindly told them to scram, but maybe they just left because it was getting late. I guess I should have talked to the custodians and asked them to lock the doors. As for backbone, I think my rapidly aging Webster’s dictionary-thesaurus, complete with missing chunks of pages, has a firmer spine than me. On the plus side though, we got Mrs. Ho and Mr. Choinski, our only teacher sponsors, to delve into the unfamiliar realm of DDR. They found it quite intriguing. I’m quite grateful we were able to get two teachers. At first, our DDR-A-Thon was supposed to be an all-nighter, and people would start at 10pm and it’d run until 5am. However, whomever was interested refrained because sleep is apparently important to them, so we ended up having to change the time and make it more sleep-friendly. We managed to raise $240.37, and I sstill didn't get all the pledge forms, so hopefully we can exceed $300. Coninuing on the line of joy, my friend Alman got married shortly after the DDR-A-Thon. He proposed with an onion ring from Burger King. They make quite the couple.
Ta ta for now. |
