In light of my hours being cut and knowing full well that I shan't be called into work anytime soon, I need a change of pace. I need to go somewhere that wasn't the same skytrain route 5-7 stops at 6am or 7am in the morning, one block up or one block west and 3.5 blocks south. I need something that was not downtown. What better place to go for something different than to a place that I already know but is in amidst a change.
I went up to the Burnaby SFU campus, the first time in a year but truly the first time in 5+ years. I've shown SFU to my brother a while back, showing him the sights and the sounds of the place but hardly toured it for myself to absorb in the changes. The main thing that brought me back to this place of...failure is the new addition of a small market (or glorified convenience store) and other anemities that once was only availble in a pathetic in school corner market or shitty cafeteria food. The Cornerstone features some small cafe restaurants, small services something that have been popped right out of downtown Burnaby. Quaint but not as grossly overinflated as the downtown core. In all it's so called glory it disappoints me to no end how little we progressed in creating a true university (or in this case a univer-city) campus but more of a band-aid to the obvioud lack of non-school related activities and services available on campus. However the near downtown landscape of the new residences look great, almost make me do a double take in light of all this 70's/80's architecture of the rest of the campus.
So I walked through the hallowed halls of SFU. Looking at some new places, but mainly retracing my steps through the hallways just like it was yesterday. Some things were expanded, such as the SFU pub. Some things were lost such as the SFU arcade. A wise choice upon reflection considering how fucking much time I wasted there in a ever continuing pattern of sub-standard excuses for what they represent. The Ghandi bust was moved indoors into the library which is a shame. I thought one of the more appealing and in turn detrimental aspects of SFU campus life was the small little nooks and areas that were almost hidden away on campus. Spots of design who's purpose was to relax and provide a quite place of relfection for people from the huge hallways that cattle you from class to class. The bust of Ghandi imho was always a sort of beacon to invite you to discover a hidden area on campus, off the beaten path so to speak. Now it's in the library greeting many a student but sorely out of place amongst the collection of frame photographs of caucasian administrators that decroate the lobby wall.
I kept walking, looking for remnants of my past. Reliving the times when I was just a stupid young kid who probably shouldn't have gone here as soon as he did, scurrying in the hallways with no direction in any sense of the word. The stairs are familiar, the non-slip floor was familiar, even those wonderful blue paper recycling bins fill me with memory. Looking at the changes where the library walls are more colourful and thus less suicide thought inducing, makes me understand in the face of such a powerful architectual design that the best thing anyone can do is put lipstick on the so called pig. The cafeteria was dolled up to look less like an institution and more like a foodcourt and yet it still clashes with the population of the school. People stand out like sore thumbs amongst the warm reds, pasturized beiges and hospital greens. I can still see the bit of shadow that hangs over them that all this concrete and grey always does of SFU. The golem continues to victimize people.
My final stop of memory lane was into the area above the bus loop. The first place where I thought I could make friends the A.R.C. (Altered Reality Club aka an anime/geek club) seemed to have disappeared. Even the attempts of conversation amongst my potential countrymen ended up in failure and the A.R.C. is either located elsewhere on campus because only small hints of their existence in the bus loop still lingers. A poorly sketched out manga comic page, a small flyer. The rattiness of the bulletin board covered over with pastel paper. A student looks over at me, possibly catching her eye as I disturb her periphery vision and quietly goes back to looking at her laptop.
In light of the construction, the progress this "home" that called home, it just reminds me more of how much of a failed venture this place was to me. It was not UBC (which was my first choice but I never go in) and little remains to indicate that whatever past I had here still survived to this day. What gets me the most is that life continues on, the school stays the same and I don't and I feel a sense that I was never welcomed there. SFU makes sure that you don't feel welcome there by design and by it's very nature. More to the point perhaps SFU didn't welcome me because I didn't want it originally and we used each other to our own ends.
Progress of the campus development marches on but I see no progress here. Instead I see a continued emphasis on creating a sub-par society on the hill that is as natural as the molded hills of the park on top of the Academic Quadriangle. The efficiency of education continues as much as the potential to stunt the personal growth of the population.
