Toot toot

I too frequently blog the negatives and the setbacks. And so today I tell you about something good that happened.

(Or maybe I'm a huge Pollyanna and spend my life telling you about the positives, and it's just that I feel bad any time I complain.)

For the past several weeks, part of my brain has been eaten up by this fundraiser auction we held last night. The auction's one of the big events in our department, where we raise money to help all the students from our department to attend the conference that we host every year. For weeks this auction was the big stress in my life, and we had about eighty kabillion setbacks and frustrations. Seriously, my first day working towards getting this organised culminated in me getting yelled at by a crazy chef. It felt like even when one part of the plans would get figured out, everything else would get crazy and disorganised and miscommunicated. And a lot of the complicated part was on my shoulders.

But then this weekend everything started coming together. All the parts started fitting into place: not only did the undergrads want to host a social at the beginning, but they were footing the bill for food for it. People volunteered to help with the setup. I was drafted to be Vanna. We managed to convince a whole bunch of grad students to attend this year. And, as we set up the event, it all came together as if we'd always been the height of organisation.

And today I found out that, not only was the event well-attended and well-enjoyed, but we raised a record amount of money! I'm still processing that fact. And I know that so many factors went into the event's success -- the free food that lured out more students than usual, the tremendous number of items donated to the silent auction -- but right now it just feels good to know that something that I did was successful, and that as a result of that success it will be easier for more students to attend the conference.