a glimpse of sharon world...

"the little university that finally could"

so i was doing some thinking in an attempt to figure out the 'real' reason behind why i was so into the whole vanier cup championship thing. i mean, i've never been into sports before, i've never followed sports and i've never even sat through a whole football game until this past saturday. so imagine my surprise when i flipped through the pages of the cord as i was eating my grilled cheese sandwich (with tomatoes and cucumbers) from union market, and came across an article with a headline that inspired my blog and kinda laid a lot of things out for me. (actually, i stole it word for word. bah hah.)

in a nutshell, it was basically about how laurier students (and alumni too i suppose) celebrated more than just a football victory when the golden hawks football team won the vanier cup. to many students/alumni, they also celebrated the fact that our school, wilfrid laurier university, finally got it's turn to shine after being in the shadows of other bigger schools...

being a laurier student i've heard all the jokes and all the cracks people take at my school. it's been called the "high school down the street from the university of waterloo", the "second best university in waterloo" and a lot of other things...let's face it, these jokes are old and laurier students have heard them all (in fact, sometimes laurier students are the ones that crack the jokes) and more often than not, most of them are in reference to the size of our school. we know it's small. our campus spans one block by one block, we're not stupid. haha. :P

as a result, generally the feeling i get is that many people underestimate our school and don't give it too much respect. to a lot of people laurier is a second-class university. yah, it may not be the most prestigious when put up against more established schools like the University of Toronto or Queen's, but we shouldn't forget all the good things that laurier has to offer (which is a lot and impressive considering its small size.) we have one of the best music programs in the country, we're the only school that has a full-time masters of music therapy program, we have one of the most reputable business programs in the country, we have one of the leading masters of social work programs, we have community and now we have the best university football team in the country. :)

as a result of last saturday's victory, the football team did more than just win the vanier cup. thanks to them, laurier is finally getting more recognition and respect. it's finally our turn, the small usually-forgotten-overlooked-or-completely-ignored school, to be in the spotlight.

so where exactly is all this laurier talk coming from? although i've always worn my laurier sweatshirts and t-shirts with pride i've never really been one to talk about it all that much. well, over the past week (and especially this past weekend) the fact my time here is slowly coming to an end, has really begun to hit home. when i first moved to waterloo in first year i couldn't wait to leave but now that i'm nearing the end of my undergraduate university career i'm starting to get all nostalgic. (saying goodbye was never one of my strong points. :P)

am i going to miss laurier when it's time for me to go? you bet.