By: Nathan T, Peak Associate
As midterm week rolls around, so too do the trials and tribulations of SFU students. None more so than the poor engineering computer science and business students in the SFU Surrey campus. Uninformed Burnaby Mountain-only individuals will marvel at the fact that the SFU Surrey Campus sits on one of the busiest shopping malls in Surrey. Some might expect it to be a blessing but for many a keener student, this prime location serves only as a wellspring of torment and anguish.
There have been many unconfirmed reports (confirming would involve too much work) of screaming children and babies echoing from the mall. Babies of the phantom persuasion, that is. Student Quit Crying Wah was found in the campus library with his head buried in his hands. “I’ve got a midterm in, like, a month and I haven’t even done my optional pre-reading for next week’s guest lecture yet. Why is SFU built on top of a mall? I can’t afford to buy anything anyway.”
Wah tried to go home to study but found that he was distracted by the lack of noise in his home. “It’s like the babies conditioned me to need noise when I’m studying,” he said mournfully. “But then if I hear crying, I can’t study because I wanna cry as well.” Wherever Wah would turn, he could almost hear the faint wah-ing of the toddlers scampering about campus.
Worse, Wah told stories of how the babies would cry during the most interesting part of his discrete mathematics lecture and ruin the magical world of set theory. “You can’t hear the prof,” Wah said. His set theory had been ruined by babies set on haunting his final exams. “And then as you’re trying to figure out all the math on the screen, you feel like crying too.”
Why do the children cry? Some say it is because they don’t get their way in the toy shops of the Central City mall, others suggest that the close proximity to SFU Surrey emits an aura of malevolent, yet, melancholy miasma which puts the tears to the eyes of those who might enter its gates as students one day. We strongly believe in this theory. The campus is certified spooky, like all of SFU’s esteemed campuses. Admirably, Wah sees this, too, as an obstacle to his grander ascent.
“I’m just gonna keep on trucking.” Wah says. “Every tear I cry brings me one step closer to graduation and when I will receive that piece of paper from the Supreme Chancellor of the SFU Senate or whatever the job title of that person is.”
