By: Daniel Salcedo Rubio, Features Editor
SFU’s new pre-convocation event was honestly . . . not bad. There were the usual finger food and photo booth with the typical cardboard cutouts, as well as a couple of SFU-inspired board games, including my childhood favourite, Lotería. The game, a classic in connecting Mexican communities, is super simple. Just like in bingo, someone will call a card — they aren’t allowed to repeat it though, so you have to pay attention — and if you have it on your board, you place a coin to mark it. Once your board is full, you scream “LOTERÍA!” The first person to scream “Lotería” wins. The prize? A life-sized cutout of McFogg — signed by president Joy Johnson, no less.
I collected my board and sat at a nearby empty table. The first thing I noticed was how varied my board was. I had the 145 bus and Burna . . .
“El Tutor!” the person reading the cards called out.
Damn, I wasn’t expecting Joy Johnson herself to be calling the cards. I asked the person next to me about it and they whispered, “I heard she has a vacation home in Mexico where she’s known as the Lotería maestra.” I tried to ask a follow-up question but they shushed me to focus on the maestra. It was time to lock in and place my coin because I had El Tutor! Which sits right considering I was a TA most of my time here. Honestly, teaching is a lot of fun until you have to grade the midterms for a class of 500 students. Never aga . . .
“El Madrugador (the early riser)!”
OK, you’re playing for a life-sized cutout, a signed life-sized cutout of McFogg, get your head in the game, man! I didn’t have that one, but I sure was one taking all those 8:00 a.m. classes in the middle of winter, heading straight to the libr . . .
“La Biblioteca!”
Honestly, creepy. Was Joy reading my mind? Probably. Anyway, I did have it on my board so I placed a loonie on it and waited for the next card to be called.
Several cards later
Well, it seemed Joy and I lost the connection we had. So far, 10 cards I didn’t have had been called, but El Aguacate (or is it an egg?), La Justicia, El Tesista, La Piscina, and eight more I did have had been. All great memories, like when I started swimming back in 2023, and literally a month later SFU closed the pool and hasn’t opened it nor given me any alternatives ever since. Or my first make-out session at 3:00 a.m. in the avo. . . actually, let’s skip that one. 14 out of 16, only two more calls missing. El Título and La Graduación. Interesting that the only two things pending from my board (and it seems like everyone else’s too) were the things still pending to conclude my relationship with SFU.
“El Ladrón!”
Not it. We must be close to fini. . .
“And with that, we conclude the game. Thanks for playing Lotería.”
What!? I was sure those cards hadn’t been called — no one had screamed “Lotería” yet. People all around were loudly confused.
“There must be a mistake! El Título and La Graduación haven’t appeared!”
“And they won’t for another month!” cackled Joy Johnson as she fled with the McFogg cutout.
Well, that was odd, but I should’ve expected it. Besides me not going home with my dream cutout of McFogg, the game really felt representative of my experience here, and the board’s illustrations look great! I was particularly impressed with the illustration of the Palestinian flag waving atop Convocation Mall for SFU to recog . . . wait, what’s that? There’s a small text in the corner.
Lotería board created by The Pawn, not affiliated with Simon Fraser University.
Ah, of course.
