So we lived to tell the tale of the last night so far. It was cold, but not as windy as before so not too bad. It was colder in the morning, so hanging out outside really wasn’t pleasant.

I am so tired right now that I am having troubles making a real sentence. We woke up and haven’t stopped moving since. We cleaned up our “beds” and started loading up the food and clothign donations we have collected. Now Kayla (the VP finance) and I are going to get our deposit ready. Somehow I have to make it through to the wrap-up event tonight.

I woudl never wish this upon anyone. I hope all of our supporters will continue to be aware of and continue to confront the problem of homelessness in our community. Since you took the time to support me I hope you can also buy someone else a coffee at some point.

Once again, thank you so much to everyone who has supported our cause. Thank you to all our organizational committee. See you tonight at the wrap-up event. After my shower of course.

peace.

The last day is finally here. We are having our wrap up beer night tonight, but I’m so tired I’m pretty sure I’ll be falling asleep after one beer. I still am in awe of what this event has taught me:·      Other colleges still have that stereotype that business students don’t care about their community. I hope this event, and our continuous involvement with local charities proves them wrong·      It’s easy to become invisible. I’m normally a pretty loud and outgoing person. However, take out a few elements like sleep, showers and a change of clothes and it’s surprising how many people, even friends, will walk just past you.·      The support of others: To the ESB faculty for being behind us 100% since day one, to the community for all your monetary, food and clothing donations, to my mom (who worried too much) and my dad who have spread the word of 5 Days, to those who have given kind words of encouragement and lastly, to my fellow participates, you guys are amazing, strong and passionate people, never lose those characteristics.·      Homelessness is a cycle. You don’t worry about the afternoon, the next hour, the next day, month or year. All you care about is making it through that hour. EGADZ has the infrastructure in place to help break this cycle, please continue to support them. THANKS TO EVERYONE who has allowed us to succeed our goal. I am excited to see what our final numbers are going to come to! I will try to post again this weekend on more of my thought but I’m falling asleep at my laptop right now. Much love,Carlene  

The 5th night is over.

So last night was our last night, and it was fairly warm. When we woke up it was pretty chilling. We had 4 celebrity sleep overs last night, Roxanne, Sienna, Lori from Star Phoenix, and James Pepler, president of the USSU. It was a good night, James stopped by and sang to us again, it was beautiful. My brother also dropped by with my cousin and some friends, they hassled me for a while before going to sleep.

I wrote my last exam for the week this morning, and I’m really excited this week is over. I’m looking forward to my own bed! Yes! Well I want to just say thank you thank you thank you to EVERYONE who has donated money, clothing, and food for the particiants. To all the people who brought us hot chocolate to drink when we were cold. Shout out to Bob Deutscher and his friend Carter for bringing us cheeseburgers last night.

One thing I hope happens from all of this is that people continue to think of homelessness, and to continue to give. Next time you see someone who is in need, lend them a helping hand.  You never know how far your simple, kind gestures can go.

So, here are my last riddles:

1) I’m as light as a feather, but even the strongest man can’t hold me for much longer than a minute. What am I?

2) At the beginning of every end, and the end of time and space. To the beginning of eternity, and the end of every place.

I hope to see everyone come out to our wrap-up beer night at the Double Deuce, it starts at 7pm and it’s $10, all the money will go to EGADZ. Well folks, this is my last blog.

Over and out,

Reem Matlak

P.S. I’m going to miss spending all day and night with my fellow participants. Good job Shannon, Marc, Carlene, and Marc, we’ve gone far beyond our goal!

I have one night remaining and I am so looking forward to ending this madness. My body is like shutting down and I really need to give my body a chance to recover. Blah. I honestly had all of these great points to write down but I cant remember most of them because my brain is mush. AHHHHH, I WILL CONCENTRATE REALLY HARD TO REMEMBER THEM. HHHHHMMMMMMMMM.

I thought I would get lots of work done and accomplish lots of stuff this week. But all my energy is spent eating and being tired. I honestly have enough energy every hour to apply hand lotion. If I had to sleep outside for another night, or spend the energy finding a place to sleep like the 6400 people in Saskatoon who do so on a regular basis, I would cry. Nobody has any idea what these people go through. We have no clue. Let me reiterate my last point. We have no clue.

The support that we have received from the faculty, students and random people this week is totally crazy. I do care about the cause we are raising money for, especially moreso now, but the attention and gratitude we get from everybody is almost uncomfortable for myself. I dont feel as if I deserve the appreciation, which means what Im doing hits home alot more with other people. I didn’t expect that. Its certainly a very novel understanding.

Last night, I woke uo at 4:30 am coughing again. I tried really hard to fall back asleep but when im awake and I havent had like 300 litres of water, my throat kills every time I swallow. So I coughed as quietly as I could for a while and decided that it was useless. So I grabbed my stuff and headed inside out of the cold air that seemed to bother my lungs so much. I was up till 6am coughing and feeling miserable, when I finally feel back asleep until 7am. Its kinda embarassing almost not being able to fulfill the one requirement. I understand that if my well-being is at risk than going inside isnt a big deal, especially if I were to wake everyone up, but if I were actually homeless I would not have that option! I would just not sleep and be cold outside while my health take the hit. I really hope that I can tough it out tonight, so I am gonna bring some extra water and kleenex.

I was really excited to brainstorm some more positive aspects of being homeless, but there arent any. Unless you enjoy being cold and begging for money and not knowing when your next meal is gonna be and not having the energy to do anything during the day and being infinently sick and being smelly all day and not having a support network to fall back on. I can honestly say that I have yet to meet this person.

All I want is to fall asleep on a mattress. But cardboard will have to do for one more evening

 Marc D’Eon

In words of Monica, “Holy Lanta, was it ever cold out last night!!”So we survived our coldest night yet. It dropped down to close to -14. Thank goodness for two sleeping bags. The wind sucked and hopefully it won’t be bad tonight because it’s expected to be -10. Our night was filled with a bit of warm from Travis and James with their excellent songs (stay tuned for the official 5 Days theme song). As well, we had another Celebrity Sleepover and a ESB prof, Niranjan Harrison. His blog should be up shortly. Thanks for our breakfast food as well, from my “other mom”, Cindy Jelinski for making some delicious cinnamon buns and Mon for the coffee. Thanks to my cousin, Mary for the ’special’ treat. Tonight is requiring us to put expansions onto our house, we’ve got Lori Coolican (from the Star Phoenix), James Pepler (USSU Prez), Sienna Mosewich (5 Days: PRO) and Roxanne Archer (Project Manager). So it might be warm with all the body heat but we’ll see. We’re also waking up in front of Place Reil. Since tomorrow is OUR LAST DAY –> Don’t forget to all your clothing, food and monetary donations in before we go to give them to EGADZ.I’m am so looking forward to 5:00 tomorrow when I can go home and shower. I haven’t been in my bed since Wednesday and I miss it tons! The lack of sleep from Round Table (the conference) and 5 Days has left me with little energy and a bit of a grumpy attitude. I’m also not looking forward to this weekend, because I haven’t been able to focus on school work so that’s all this weekend is going to include. Although, we don’t have any classes tomorrow, so maybe we can sleep in and get some more homework done.I’ve also noticed a trend in passer-by’s who we ask for money from when we’re busking:THE SYMPATHIC POCKET GRAB: Those who go and place there hand over their pocket to show that the attempted to find money, but actually aren’t going to give any.THE NON-COMITIAL GRUNT: This was the most common during the busking outside of engineering. When you ask for spare change, the put their chin into their shoulder and say something around the lines of, “igijsosmnishg’” which translates into “I don’t have any spare change.”THE AWKWARD LOOK-AWAY: This is for the students who look away because their not sure if we’re actually homeless people or those involved in the 5 days campaign.So with our last day approaching, let’s see what other kind of behaviors we find. I hope everyone else across Canada is enjoying their campaign! To those in Saskatoon, come out to the Double Deuce at 6:30 p.m. to have supper with us, or 7:00 to come to our $10 beer night that lasts for THREE hours! There is also a free pubcrawl that everyone can go on if they want.Much love,CarleneP.S. Who would win in a fight between a cougar and a pack of rats?P.P.S. I LOVE Candace!!! She just brought us deodorant and shampoo…yeeeeesP.P.P.S. Hi Grandma & Grandpa! I heard your reading this. Love you guys ton and thanks for supporting me during this week.

Night 4 has come and gone.

Last night was COLD. The coldest we’ve had by far. The wind was harsh and the ground was hard. CBC radio called in the morning and I chatted with them for a bit, and 650 NEWS called Carlene. Niran Harrison (a professor) stayed with us last night, a huge thank you to him for raising over $700 for our campaign. We enjoyed sharing our jokes with him. Carlene tried to tell some jokes, but they weren’t too funny, sorry Carlene haha.

I’m so tired, and I’ve had a big head ache all day. I have another exam tomorrow (oh so excited), and again I don’t think I will do very well which sucks. All I keep thinking about is how hard it is for homeless people to get out of their rut. I remember from my Law 30 class (Mr. Soldo was the greatest teacher ever!) and we talked about this mediocrity theory where people say “Oh go get a job you bum” but then no one wants to hire a bum, so really it’s just a vicious cycle. How are they supposed to help themselves if no one gives them a chance?

And ofcourse, here are my riddles!

1) You use a knife to cut my head and then you weep when I am dead. What am I?

2) I am a part of the bird, but not in the sky, I swim in the ocean and yet remain dry. What am I?

3) I am mother and father, but not birth or nurse. I’m rarely still but I never wander. What am I?

Tonight is the last night, and I’m looking forward to my own bed. Thanks to everyone whos donated so far and has given their time for this worthy cause. Big thanks to Cassandra Phillips who brough us chinese food for supper last night and for the Aboriginal Business Students’ Society for their donations and the bannock and soup, it was delicious. Stay tuned for my last blog tomorrow!

Over and out,

Reem

The end is in sight and it is amazing how much energy it is now taking me just to make it through the day. Last night, I went to my floor hockey game and felt like I got run over by a train. We still won (go Golden Girls!) but I was pretty wiped by the end. You would think that I would have been able to sleep well after that, but no. Sleeping on the ground in the wind is awful. I just think about my bed all night. I have added some bubble wrap we found to be a mattress. This really didn’t help. Even me with my energy of 10 people cannot keep this up much longer.

This experience has really made me realize that we should not be so quick to judge people on the street. It is easy to say that the job market is good, there is no reason to be homeless blah blah. But the cycle is hard to break. When you are cold, tired, and hungry, that is all you can think about. You are certainly not thinking about trying to get out, you are just trying to get warm. I was half-asleep in my classes today and am quite sure I failed my audit quiz (I don’t fail things normally), so how can we expect people to think and learn when they have not eaten or slept? I really hope that people are getting the message about the issue of youth homelessness.

Thank you 100 times to Kelly for helping me wash my hair in the sink last night. I could have cried it was so glorious. Thank you to everyone who has brought donations of food and clothing (and money). Let’s see a strong finish.

Please join us tomorrow night for the first supper and wrap-up event at the Double Deuce. We are going to eat supper at 6:30 and the beer night starts at 7. $10 gets you the beer night and a free pass on the MSS 3-legged pubcrawl. See you there. 

Today I am not feeling very well. I know we have been blessed with decent weather but last night took its toll on me. It is amazing how hard your body has to work to stay warm, sleep and all its other functions when sleeping in these conditions. I have a lot of experience camping but for some reason this is a whole lot different. Last night the wind got up to about 35km/h and it felt like at least -10. Lethbridge, I know that we should not be complaining. I hope that it has died down out there.

We had another faculty member sleep with us last night. Niranjan Harrison, thank you for coming out and raising all that money. It was fun sharing jokes and talking about strategy before bed.

I think today I will be pretty slow. My body and mind is telling me to find a couch, a blanket, a remote and a tv. I can somewhat understand how hard it must be to be motivated for homeless people to go and be productive. Telling them to go and get a job is a lot easier said then done.

A big shout out to all the other 5 Days homeless participants. I wish you all the strength and courage to finish strong. A great job thus far and all the best out East.

One more thing….

My family absolutely rocks! My dad, Paul has now raised over $1,700. Dad you are amazing, you totally rock! And thanks to all our family and friends.

Love you all…

Marc Lepage

3rd Night Down! So close to being over.

Well last night was different, we switched spots so that we could be sheltered from the rain. We also had 4 new people sharing in our experience. Our celebrity sleepovers were Scott Walsworth, Keith Kuspira, T-Bone and his friend Heidi. James stopped by again to sing us a beautiful lullaby, keep em coming James!

So today I wrote my Managerial Accounting midterm, that didn’t go so well. After last nights sleep on the hard concrete, I woke up grumpy and out of it. That midterm had the best of me.

A big big thank you to everyone who has supported us this week, it is very appreciated. It makes everything a lot easier when you know that people actually care about you.  Tyler visited me today, and I was happy!

Shannon mentioned in her blog some very important things. To all those people who may have criticized us: we do realize that what we are doing is not exactly 100% homeless, and that we aren’t even close to experiencing homelessness. But you have to realize that what we’re trying to do is raise awareness of homelessness in Saskatoon, and to raise monetary, food, and clothing donations for EGADZ. And if we can do that, then we have reached our goal. Please don’t devalue what we are doing, because we are putting a lot of our effort and energy into this. So quit hating all you haters!

Now for all those anticipating the riddles:

1) Give me food and I will live, but give me water and I will die. What am I?

2) What runs but never walks, has a mouth but never talks, has a head but never speaks, and has a bed but never sleeps?

3) The man who built it doesn’t want it, the man who bought it doesn’t need it, and the man who needs it doesn’t know it. What is it?

Keep your spirits high homeless participants and organizing committees,  only two more sleeps!

Over and Out,

Reem the Riddler

First of all I would like to thank my father and his freinds for donating $1,200. What a guy! Thanks Dad I really appreciate your efforts. Mom and Chantal thank you for your continued support. Love you guys lots.

Big shout out the T-Bone, Heidi, Keith and Scott for staying with us through the wind and rain.

Well I had to take a sink shower today. My girlfreind said that I was not smelling very fresh and that maybe it would be a good idea for me to brush my teeth a couple of times. Hahahahahaa. Thanks Nicole for coming to visit me eventhough I stink. I really appreciate your support and love.

I am feeling pretty good today. I probably slept for 5 or 5 1/2 hours last night. That was the best sleep thus far. I seriously can’t imagine doing this year round. And I know that I have said that before but it is just incredible how draining it is to stay and sleep outside. Last night we used a new place to sleep because of the rain. The difference was a roof over our head and concrete. Roof was nice but the concrete sucked. My body aches!

I would like to acknowledge my friend Marc D’Eon (also a participant) who although very ill continues to stick it out. He coughs all night and all day. He continues to go to class and do homework and somehow seems to have the energy during the day to blog and sell 5 days. Great job Marc!

I would also I like to note that I have two blogs missing and have no idea where they are. Then again I am known to not be very computer savvy and might have erased them.

Marc Lepage

ESB