Although I, like most other engineering humans, love being on co-op for the independence and freedom from school it gives me, there is one major thing that I love about school that seems to be lacking in the “Real World”. The great thing about actually being on-term is the plethora of extra activities that are offered, in many cases for free, when you need a break from school.
One such event that I got to go to lately was Karate and Self-Defense De-Stress. As a huge fan of trying new things and also someone who has been interested in karate ever since I didn’t do it as a child, I was super psyched about the chance to hit some things and relax in the middle of a personal Hell Week. The event was organized by the Mental Health Awareness directors, who organize all your exciting de-stress events throughout the term and also compile a blog of posts from Waterloo Eng students dealing with MH issues.
The class was only about an hour on a rainy Tuesday night, but boy was it satisfying to hit the bags and move around trying to punch things. We even got to do this leaping elbow punch thing that was immensely rewarding and that really took the edge off. As one person said, “It felt really good”. I think the general feeling as we all left the room was that we all felt lighter, de-stressed, and more energized to take on the rest of our evenings’ work.
If you’re interested in checking out the UW Karate & Jujitsu Club, they offer a few classes for free for first-timers and they meet Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Check them out at www.hogosha.com if you want to see what they’re all about.
The next event that I attended (but also organized) was a bowling night! On March 3rd, at the end of what was for me a very long week, myself and some other fun-loving engineers headed to Victoria Bowling Lanes in Kitchener. I was given to understand before going that at Victoria Bowling you get what you pay for, which is a very reasonable amount in my opinion. I thought that the venue was very nice, they had glow-in-the dark bowling and it was only 5-pin, which made my life much less embarrassing!
Everyone involved had a great time and Theresa even showed off her mad juggling skills. No bowling balls were dropped in the taking of these photos. At the end of an evening of stiff competition, one lucky person even went home with the ultimate bowling prize: a shiny new EngSoc mug!
So this next one I also organized, but I definitely would have gone to it no matter what because not only was it a super fun event, it was also for two great causes: celebrating engineering and raising awareness for the Waterloo Food Bank! Canstruction is an event organized every year at Conestoga Mall. Companies, and really anyone who wants to, can come compete to build the best structure made entirely out of non-perishable food items!
The Engineering Society has been participating in Canstruction for a few years now and this year our theme was “Sinking Hunger”. To symbolize this, we built a canoe hitting rocks with an engineer inside it (see pics). And surprisingly it turned out pretty great.
We started building at 1 pm with a general idea of what we wanted and after 6 hours, several trips to Zehrs for more food and a celebration at Cinnabon we were ready to call it a day on our fabulous canoe & Horatio. Yes, we named the engineer Horatio. If you’re in the area, come check out our structure before March 19!! And don’t forget to vote for ours because clearly, it’s the best. Kindly ignore the one with the functioning drawbridge and moving dragon.
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