DON'T JUST HOPE
FOR CHANGE—ENGINEER

ENGINEERING AT BCIT

BCIT Engineering

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By Nicole Harder

hree million people! These faces blend like
a chalk drawing winding down the sidewalk,
slipping beneath treads of running shoes
and dress shoes before fading, unnoticed, into the
gutter. Do you see these faces? Normally I wouldn’t
pay attention either. It’s exhausting isn’t it?

It’s like being thrown into a rage of white
water. You cling to a branch for a while; try to take
in the loud chaos of it all, the beauty, the power and
the dynamic of so much volume. But eventually,
you tire of trying to keep your head above it. Tire
of trying to stand out or catch something special
that you can grab on to. So, you let go. You get
sucked into the blinding white rush and become
like the rest of the rolling waves. Each face starts to

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look exactly like the next one. You’re so distracted
by the noise, the motion sickness from the speed
and your attempts to achieve your own piece of
sanity, that you don’t really notice you’ ve become
just another face too.

So today, on the bus, I looked at someone. Not
just a passing glance either. I guess I pulled myself
out of the water and sat on the edge. Maybe it was
the bus driver that gave me a hand. He said “Hello”
to every single person that came on at every single
stop. And when they left he said, “Thank you for
visiting!”

So, there was this woman sitting in one of the
seats. She was bright, literally. Her hair was black,
her lips were pink, her cheeks were magenta and
her eyes were strikingly blue. She had a teal scarf
on and dazzling rings and she held a snake skin

purple purse on her lap. She was about 60. She
caught me staring at her and she winked. I smiled
and made my way over to the seat next to her. It
felt nice on the edge, breathing, watching. I looked
at her and smiled. “You know,” I finally said,
“You’re beautiful. Stunning! And you look just like
Elizabeth Taylor.” She threw her head back and
laughed. Then, with a smooth Russian accent, she
said, “Thank you! I have heard that once before.”
That was all. But, that was all I needed. I had to
jump back in eventually.

Crashing waves took me back under and
I hadn’t even noticed. Granville street traffic
and bank line ups, blank faces on sky trains and
escalator mannequins; but I took my first moment
and said something to one of them. And she
happened to be a movie star!