Staff Blog

Intercordia Campus Representatives have their own Intercordia Experience!

On the plane somewhere after midnight!

Snow in Fredericton!

This past weekend St. Thomas University in Fredericton had seminar three, the first campus to do so, the seminar was to be led by STU campus rep Lauren and King’s College campus rep Jessica.
We had heard something about an East coast storm coming in, so we closely monitored our flights throughout the day on Friday, but all seemed to be running according to schedule. Friday afternoon we both headed out to the airport, shiny-new seminar books in hand, ready and excited to engage the STU Intercordians in the new seminar format, which brings the voices and experiences of ICC Alumni to the forefront!
We made it from Toronto to Montreal without a hitch – Flight one: Check!
We boarded our plane in Montreal, eager to get to Fredericton to have a good night’s rest before the seminar. On the flight, we discussed how one of the most important things to help Intercordians get prepared for their journey is to let go of expectations, to go with an open mind, ready to embrace the unpredictable things that will inevitably come their way! After a long period of conversation, we realized that we had be flying a lot longer than the 45 minutes it was supposed to take to get to Fredericton!
And then we heard a voice on the intercom say that we were unable to land in Fredericton due to freezing rain, and that we had turned around and were heading back to Montreal. The unexpected had happened! After one failed attempt at landing in Montreal, we finally hit the runway and trudged out in the cold back into the airport.
The airline graciously put us up at the Crown Plaza (This is a first for ICC campus reps! Luxury living!). Arriving at the hotel, blurry-eyed, we pulled out our laptops to send off a flurry of emails to the STU Intercordians who were expecting us in the morning! As we thumped our tired heads onto our lavender-sprayed pillows we looked at the clock: 2:30am, and made sure the three alarms were set for 6am. Not the good night’s rest we thought we would be having!
We arrived to the airport in the morning, the sun was shining, the weather was clear and we were feeling good about the day ahead. Once again we boarded the plane: Fredericton-bound. After an hour on the tarmac, two de-icings and our disbelief at our good fortune at the opportunity to help prepare Intercordians about the unpredictability, unexpectedness and the need for openness – we couldn’t have planned this better if we tried- we were on our way!
Rolling in a half an hour late to our already re-scheduled seminar start time we were greeted warmly by our STU Intercordians. This gave us such energy, despite three hours sleep, 20 hours of travel and a diet of coffee and donuts. As we recounted our adventures, the Intercordians smiled sympathetically. On our flight home to Toronto we wondered about their own adventures on their placements this summer. How many broken down pick-up trucks, late buses, long lines and hours spent waiting would be part of their Intercordia journey?! This is the messiness and the beauty of an engaged Intercordia experience: we hope you embrace it, are open to it and take a deep breath when the bus doesn’t come around the corner!