TAKE ME BACK HOME

Well, it’s now been roughly 3 months since i embarked on my “Quest To Win A Cube”… and let me tell you… it’s been quite the ride. The voting portion of this adventure ended last friday. It’s now been 2 days of waiting and not panicing over what to do to my canvas! lol

I wanted to recap what my life has been like over the last 3 months for everyone. Mostly because i think it would be fun, but also because i want to document it. I still have moments where i think to myself “did all this just really happen??”

About 3 months ago, i saw a ReTweet from Michael Banovsky stating that Nissan was giving away 50 Cubes. The first thing i did was click on it, think it was too good to be true… then registered on hypercube.ca. It was all very surreal because this whole campaign was mostly on Twitter and i think that that’s what made it all too good to be true.

** note: i had been off of twitter for a few months, went dark after my wedding and my new position at work. i got back on twitter literally weeks before i say the above mentioned tweet. Lucky for me huh? **

This was all very interesting to me because it was the first time i saw a contest/promo being done this way. I was now communicating with this person called TheHyperCube on twitter and had no idea what i was doing or what i was supposed to be doing. It didnt take long for me to realize that “spreading the word” about the contest was the first goal. Now, this is a tricky thing because the more people you tell, the less your chances of winning are! BUT everyone who was then (about 100 or so of us) went to town… we all ReTweeted, Facebooked, made posters, flyers… you name it, we did it.

I started this blog so that i could document everything i was doing… i also started a youtube channel so i could post little videos to. When i started this blog, i had NO idea that i would end up doing what i did, or that my life would shortly change.

Leading up to when the top 500 were to be chosen, TheHypercube’s followers went from 100 – well over 1500. It almost seemed like it all happened really fast! I’ll never forget seeing Andre’s blog… i think we were some of the first to start blogs… i remember sitting there thinking “Oh man, this is all about to get very very interesting!!” When he posted his animation of the Cube driving along a cityscape, i pretty well had a panic attack thinking “this is it, i’m a goner… now what am i going to do?!” The same is to be said for when i saw Will’s blog. To this day, i still dont know what wordpress theme he’s using but what i DO know is that when i did see his blog, i almost gave up. In my mind there was no way i could compete!!! (luckily Will and Andre are 2 of the radest dude’s i’ve ever met!!!)

Before the top 500 were officially announced.. (well i think it was before, it’s all a blur!) I organized the first of 4 tweetups. This was the first tweetup i had every organized and been to! i had NO idea what i was doing… BUT none the less… it went off without a hitch. The first cubies i met were, Will, Chris, Julie and Daniela. We all imediately were knee deep in conversations about what we should be doing, what we thought Nissan was looking for and we even got into singing a bit of Eddie Murphy!

Shortly there after the top 500 were announced. I still remember getting the email and feeling like i had consumed about 10 pounds of sugar. It was at that moment that i completely went into overdrive and officially started my campaign.

I made buttons, little flyers to attach the buttons to, i handed those out, i made a purse, i made a necklace, i facebooked, i tweeted, i told just about anyone who would listen about what i was doing. I woke in the morning thinking “what am i going to do now” i went to bed thinking, “what should i do tomorrow?” My life had become consumed by the Cube.

Every night i would sit with my laptop on the couch. Lucky for me my husband is very understanding and put up with all this! I had tweetdeck at home and at work set up like it was no one’s business so i could keep track of what was going on. There were moments where i would hit creative block with my canvas. Many a nights i would get really bummed out because i felt i wasnt doing enough. There were day’s where i felt like i was on cloud 9 because of all the kind words from everyone…. it was the biggest emotional rollercoaster i had ever been on. Thanks so people like Anne and Will, i came out of it alive….

Fast forward to last thursday and friday… last thursday was the “final” tweetup before voting ended. Everyone had the same sorta look on their faces… we were all exhausted and in disbelief that in a few short hours, all of this would end… we threw done like it was no one’s business. It was the best tweetup yet. When it was that time where everyone starts to part ways to head home, there were many hugs, but not he usual hugs… hugs like we had all just gone to war and now it was over. Everyone kept wishing everyone luck, we all kept telling each other how much the other person should win. I heard some of the nicest things ever that night… it was unreal.

Friday at noon hit. that’s when the voting ended. For me, it was like a wierd eerie silence had hit… twitter got really quiet… we all proceeded to thank everyone, to wish everyone luck… i know this sounds really dumb, but at one moment, i was so overwhelmed with joy that i made it out alive… at the same tile i had just finished looking at Sean’s photos from the tweetup and then proceeded to read Will’s Thank You to me on his blog. No joke, i shed a few tears. it was the wierdest feeling ever.

I’ve entered a lot of “fill out this ballot” “sign up here for a chance” contests… i’ve NEVER been part of a contest like this. I’ve made so many friends. Met so many cool people. I feel like win or no win, i was a part of something big. To some people, that is the most ludacris thing to say. But unless you were in it, and i mean really in it… you won’t understand. This was very much a life changing thing.

Now, i’m sitting here at 1 am on a sunday night, recapping my story, (well, the coles notes version of it cause really, i could keep going on forever!) because i feel that i can’t stop. We’re all now waiting for “the” email which will tell us whether we made it or not. I’m still obsesively hiting refresh on my email… But to me now, it’s almost like… I’ve done all that i could with the time that i had. I tried. Now, it’s up to the judges to determine everyone’s fate. I dunno… i just cant shake the feeling that i should be doing something… it’s very strange.

So, on that note… i say goodnight. It’s now time for me to hit the sack and wait some more…

hopefully, my next post will be “OMFG I WON!!!” … can you imagine… i still can’t.

xo. T

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 17th, 2009 at 9:23 pm and is filed under Random, Stuff I've Done. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.