I planned one of the coolest Resident Advisor Programs this semester. It was called the Shot Shuttle, modeled after the old reality TV show "Cash Cab," except in true RA fashion instead of random trivia, it was alcohol trivia why of course. This program did not come overnight, in fact, it has been an idea in my head since very early in August.
I remember seeing some sort of post on Pinterest, which is one of the best RA social media sites, regarding some school using their shuttle service for driving residents around. I knew that couldn't really be a reality considering the vast amount of students at San Diego State University, but a thought came to my head. (Note: it is a bit difficult to recall the exact order of my thoughts, because it is a constant creative train driving in wild directions around as I pick random thoughts to extend) Anyways, I considered how my campus has a shuttle for late night trips back to students residence halls. I then recalled how I attempted to make a "Cash Cab" like program in my Residence Hall's elevator last year and how much cooler it would be if I could do it in a real moving vehicle.
So the original plan of the Alcohol Cab came to reality, and I knew I would need to contact the University Police in order to make this a reality. Early September, I laid out a more clear and specific plan and invited some others to be a part of it. I also set up a meeting with Officer Hogan who is the University Police connection for the residence halls. When we first met, I was pleased with how impressed and excited she was for my program. I sat there internally screaming with joy that she was in support and then suddenly we were one step closer to making it a reality. Officer Hogan put me in touch with Shawn, the person who runs the Red and Black Shuttle Operation.
I then spend a deal of time communicating back and forth with Shawn explaining how the program would go. Two RA's from different residence halls will sit in the Red and Black Shuttles, six in total, and we will be asking interactive alcohol trivia. Soon the Alcohol Cab became the Shot Shuttle, as recommended by another group member, and we declared we would play the LMAFO song "Shots" as respective students enter the shuttle in replacement of the classic Cash Cab lights introduction. Soon thereafter Shawn approved of the plan. These are the other things that followed:
-We determined the date and time, based on the most popular times of the shuttle
-We got Officer Hogan to donate gift cards as prizes from the Police Station
-We communicated with Shawn to establish the pick up time and where to meet
-We prepared a list of trivia on alcohol and drugs
-We communicated amongst the six of us to determine that we were on the same page
And many other small things here in there to make this program a reality. Everything was planned, and the night of the event I was so excited. We all showed up with our sign in sheets and in costume as it was Halloween and ready to educate students. Shawn was contacted that we were all here and then all the shuttles rolled up to take us on our educational journey.
As we got in the shuttles, we wished the other individual groups good luck and prepared for our first Shot Shuttler. We drove around and at first it was rather slow, campus seemed to be fairly empty and quiet, but we had lost faith, we'd keep driving. We came up on the back streets of campus and that was when I saw a student who looked rather familiar to my resident Sam from two years ago. I mentioned it to Elena and our Driver and suddenly the window was down and we were calling "Sam's" name. He turned around and it was in fact Sam! We got him to join us in the shuttle and the fun began.
This first time was the exact experience I was hoping from the shuttle. As we played the song when they entered the residents sat wondering and confused, I then announced "you have entered the shot shuttle, we are going to ask trivia about drugs and alcohol and you have the chance to win a gift card!" and they really got into it. We hyped them up as they got correct answers and educated them in such an enjoyable way. As we got to their location, they thanked us for the fun and we thanked them for participating. I have truly never seen alcohol and drugs trivia be so successful and this my 3rd year planning programming in a residence hall.
Other rides went well, and more residents were able to be impacted by our interactive trivia, it was all going well until our last participants. They both needed to go to one of the parking lots, so our driver told them closer to the structure. We actually ended up turning in the parking structure, which soon became a problem.
When we first entered the lot I thought I heard a little noise, but I disregarded it. It turned out that the Red and Black Shuttle is too tall to actually enter the parking structure and suddenly we were stuck. As cars attempted to drive past our shuttle, we were causing traffic from both directions and didn't know how to get out. It just so happened that the rest of the officers showed up at the scene as our driver struggled to get the vehicle out of the parking structure without hitting the roof. Eventually, one of the officers took over the driving and got us out safely.
We sat and waited awkwardly as the officers conversed and we felt terrible. There was a lot of tension, but as an accommodating person in the matter of conflict, I just sat there quiet unsure of what to do. It was no one's fault in particular, after all why would they make a shuttle that is too tall for a campus parking structure? Thank goodness for my partner Elena who spoke up and apologized for what happened and defended our driver. It added a bit of a damper to the night as we were driven back to the start location for the end of our program.
I would've never expected something like this would've happen, I would've never considered it, yet The fact of the matter is you can plan every moment of the day, of the month, but you never really know what might happen. That's why we need to learn to accept the uncertainty and take challenges with a calm and flexible heart. I admit in the moment I was a little distressed when the situation occurred. I worked really hard on this program and thought maybe it would have potential of being an educational program of the year. Suddenly when difficulties arose, I became disappointed and was quick to assume that this incident made the program loose it's value. I suddenly depreciated the effort that went into this program, the time, the people it took to make it a reality, I was worried Officer Hogan would be disappointed.
But accidents happen. And we have to accept it. When I later got an email from Officer Hogan I was nervous to open it at first. Then as I finally did, to my surprise, it was all positive! She enjoyed being a part of the program and was so grateful and impressed by my creative idea to do this. She thanked me. It's easy to blind the good, when something so dramatic occurs to ruin your image of the thing. I get so invested in my work, that if it fails sometimes I feel like I do too. I am working to better understand that and accept what I cannot control. Despite what happened, there were still two other vehicles doing the program as well. Plus, even with technical difficulties, we still achieved the objective. We educated different students on alcohol and drugs in the most interactive way I've seen done and for that I am still proud.
Kommentarer