Cardboard Boat Racing

Ahoy ladies. Those up in the Mobius strip knew and attended the recent event to be the latest to shake the very foundations of our fine academic establishment. To those still out to lunch for chicken sandwiches and orange-mocha-frappuccinos, I’m talking about the world famous Enginuity Cardboard Boat Race that happened on July the 7^th. Not only did 68 of your fine peers risk life and pocket change to compete in this event, over a hundred decided that their life could include a bit more of people yelling at them through megaphones, spewing lewd lines and sick-nasty beats.
People ask me often, “What is up with this?” After I good-naturedly slap them upside the head, I proceed to tell them how I came up with this whole boat racing shenanigan to looks of increasing dread. One day, my dad sat me on his lap. He said to me, “Son, you can’t race a dead cow.” Taking this as a sign, I began preparing for what one day will become a grand boat race. Seeing how people around me have long since perished from overexposure to my brilliance, I take pride in my rich upbringing and continue fantasizing about hilarious contraptions made of common household building supplies.
Considering the fact that last paragraph makes me sound like some kind of stoned vagrant with a Napoleon complex, let’s look at how this race went. Fifteen teams raced each other in three heats over three lengths of the pool. For the most part, they were allowed only duct tape and cardboard to do this. The use of said duct tape was restricted using complex volume integrals and more than one encounter with a violating team resulted in a dance-off. The details of the race are not important. What was important was how people took time out of their schedule to come do an event no one has seen in Engineering in decades. Two hundred people had the confidence in this fledgling event to come out and take a look. Now that’s heartening.
Ignoring the fact that the scoring system was flawed, the judges biased, the course dull and the trophy quaint, this event was freaking awesome. People had fun. People were smiling. The lifeguards did not look like they were about to burst a blood vessel somewhere in the temple region. The spectators were mildly amused and that’s better than not amused. What can we take from this? I’ll tell you:
Life never gives you what you want. Some people want fame, some want fortune. Some want world peace, some want world domination. I wanted a cardboard boat race. With this in mind, I squeezed a hundred bucks out of the Society and went to town with this event. I went so hard, I impregnated that town with the promise of not just boat races, but a flood of other wacky and wonderful events. Fettuccini battlebots, cardboard boat balloon battles, these are the kind of things I want out of my Engineering undergrad degree. And since I know no one else shares my specific brand of spastic behaviour, I will make it happen.
But I digress; this entire article is just me patting myself on the back. What I really want to convey is just how easy it really is to make stuff happen. I’m also calling out to all you folks who complain about how boring campus is, and then do exactly nothing to fix it. You’re boring. Not me. I run boat races.