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Survivor SFU
By David Proctor, John Morrison III
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FRASER NELSON, MARK BURNAM
What started as a drunken challenge evolved into what was simultaneously one of the best and worst weeks of our lives. The three of us — John Morrison III, David Proctor, and Graham Templeton — decided that the apartment that we all share was insufficiently challenging. The only way to determine which of us was the best survivor, the highest-skilled hobo, the manliest man, was to move up to SFU’s Burnaby campus for a week, and eke out a Spartan existence as no less than the three most privileged homeless people in all of history.
The challenge: to live at SFU for one week, and prove who among us was the best man. The three rules: you cannot bring more than *a sleeping bag, a pillow, and one bag’s worth of supplies; you cannot sleep in the same place twice; and above all, you must not leave campus.
Expert betting advice
If you’re going to try to predict a winner in any kind of contest between David, Graham, or John, you basically have to choose between Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Together, these three plugs in the bowling ball that is Suite 104 finish each other’s sentences, plot revenge pranks against their neighbours, and raise the sort of incestuous shenanigans that make you wish you didn’t spend the last two hours sitting on their plastic sheet-covered couch watching Battlestar Galactica.
David Dyck
Someone with no life isn’t giving up much by living on campus for a week; as a result, Graham Templeton is as close to a sure thing as it’s going to get. I can’t count the number of times I’ve witnessed him reject fun in favour of homework. I’m not even sure he knows that this is a contest. I think that for Graham, this will just be business as usual.
Muhammad Amir
John Morrison III is the worst Peak humour editor since January 2009. He couldn’t pick a funnyberry from a joke-patch if you put him in the football-in-the-groin forest. I can’t even look Graham Templeton square in the eye; if you’ve met his sister, there’s no way you could cheer for this guy, let alone respect him. Doctor Proctor (despite the fact that he is not a licensed doctor) becomes the natural choice. Go David!
Chris Apps Sometimes the phrase “dark horse” is thrown around too often and sometimes you have to acknowledge a sure thing. So when I heard about the competition, I had instantly chosen my winner. John is a man with a limitless ability to forge on through the toughest (and potentially filthiest) of times. Compound that with his silver tongue, intimate knowledge of SFU and the student body, and he’s a lock to win.
Monday night disaster!
Like the worst kind of sissy, Graham pussied out and went back to the apartment to sleep on the very first night, disqualifying him from the rest of the competition and proving once and for all that he is the worst roommate.
The best place I slept
By John Morrison III
For the affordable price of one Ultimate Chocolate Milk and an extra-large Pocky, the English Student Union president gave me access to the ESU common room. After making the hike to the sixth floor of the AQ, I found the perfect place to sleep at SFU. With no less than three (!) couches, a microwave, and one of the best views on campus, it was a squatter’s paradise. Though I was tempted to build a little fire with the numerous spare copies of The Grapes of Wrath and Titus Andronicus, my sleeping bag provided more than enough warmth. Besides, after enduring a few pages of Tolkien describing some meadow in a found copy The Hobbit, I fell into a deep sleep.
Eight hours and an encounter with a very confused, bespectacled English major later, I started my day well-rested and set my sights on my enemy: David Proctor.
The best place I slept
By David Proctor
SFU might have a reputation for being a left-leaning campus, but that doesn’t mean that everyone has equality of opportunity in a competition like this. Turns out I had the advantage: my Communication major meant that I was able to find out the code to the door of the Communication Student Union lounge, a wonderful, five-star accommodation that had such amenities as lights that I could turn off to make it dark, a window to the outdoors that I could open in order to manipulate the temperature, a code-lock on the door so that I could sleep soundly without being interrupted by security guards demanding to know why I was sleeping on campus, and, best of all, a futon to sleep on. That wonderful couch-turned-bed was where I spent my delightfully restful and wonderfully comfortable Monday night. If you’re a Communication student and you want somewhere to sleep on campus, I recommend that futon — it’s more comfortable than the mattresses in Residence.
The only downside: there is some sort of ventilation system in the Kinesiology building that perpetually sounds like an airplane taking off. I don’t know whether it’s a broken fan or some sort of terrible dragon-monster, but either way it didn’t keep me awake for particularly long.
The worst place I slept
By John Morrison III
A grad friend of mine once told me about how he had to sleep in his office in order to feed some salamanders he was raising for some sort of science project. I got the code to his office for my first night on campus and made my way over. After searching the vacant, fish-scented halls of the Shrum Science Centre, I found my temporary home. It turns out that it was a shared office, with two couches, lots of space, and even a fridge.
My problems began when I was forced to push the two-cushion couches together in an L-shaped fashion. Luckily, the buzzing of the fridge was drowned out by the noisy air vents, which also provided a draft, and the occasional creak that resembled either the spirit of Simon Fraser or the ghosts of countless salamanders that perished in the name of science. Four hours and one surreal, middle-of-the-night wander around the Shrum later, I was ready to write my first midterm of the semester.
The worst place I slept
By David Proctor
Buoyed by Monday’s success, I went in search of another, similar student lounge for Tuesday night. It turns out that such lounges are difficult to find, however. Most departments only have a couple of uncomfortable loveseats in the corner of a hallway as their “lounge.” I went to the Geography and Mathematics desks in the hopes that they would give me the codes to their lounges without asking if I was a Geography or Math student, but it turns out that such privileged information is guarded jealously.
I ultimately turned to the Computer Science lounge, and shortly came to regret the decision. The couches were crusty, dirty, and gross. Turning the lights off did very little to dim the actual room. The whole room was loud. The biggest problem, however, was the Comp Sci Student Union’s love affair with communism.
These people are apparently insistent upon providing as many services to their constituents as possible for free. As a result, I was subjected to a half-hour conversation on a free telephone in the wee hours of the morning (these are Computer Science students! Don’t they have cell phones?), and was woken up roughly once every 20 minutes by someone walking in to buy a soft drink from the subsidized Coke vending machine.
I was woken up early in the morning by a young man who was apparently dissatisfied that his fellow Comp Sci students had only managed to strike “unclean” and “nocturnal” off the list of stereotypical traits shown to me that night. This fine fellow walked into my lounge at 7:00 a.m., turned on the light, sat down across from me, pulled out his computer, and began setting up shop. It was an hour and a half before classes started, and he chose the place with the sleeping guy. As I got up to leave, I caught a glance at his computer, and I swear that he was starting up World of Warcraft.
Best Tweets of the competition
We live in the information age. If we’re not going to keep everyone constantly updated about what’s going on in our stupid little competition in 140 characters or less, how can we call ourselves part of Western civilization?
@DocProctopus: Told parents about #SurvivorSFU. Dad was unimpressed, mom suggested strategies.
@GrahamTempleton: I submit that #SurvivorSFU is more difficult for me, because I started out more civilized than those other two animals.
@JohnMorrisonIII: Not surprised that @GrahamTempleton’s last tweet started with “I submit” #SurvivorSFU
@BrynHewko: @GrahamTempleton More civilized? I seem to remember you enjoying “bread sandwiches” before this? #SurvivorSFU
@StoicRomance: The next challenge should include nudity. Prolonged nudity. Nudities. Plural. Prizes include clothing. #SurvivorSFU
@davedyck: Betting on #SurvivorSFU has commenced. Keep it quiet, guys!
*What we learned
Survivor SFU was not a difficult experience so much as it was extremely uncomfortable and unpleasant. Adversity builds character, however, and as this is a university, we like to think that we learned a thing or two during our experience:
The Cornerstone fountain is every degree as cold as you might imagine.
SFU security should probably step up their game.
Free food is extremely easy to come by, provided you are willing to beg or steal.
SFU students react to anything out of the ordinary by avoiding eye contact. This is universal and without exception.
You should never think up half-baked competitions after more than six beers.
Finally, and most importantly, we learned that Graham Templeton is a big pussy.
Why I won
By John Morrison III
I think it’s pretty clear that I emerged the victor in this competition. Not only did I not have to rely on my girlfriend for sustenance like my opponent, I won the vast majority of the challenges: I won the scavenger hunt, I drank the most beer, and I was the only participant in the dance competition (see photo).
Why I won
By David Proctor
It is not possible to look at the score tallies and conclude that I did not win this competition. John claiming that he did is like claiming that the sky is green or that the upcoming Chronicles of Riddick sequel will be good: it’s just empirically untrue.
John only beat me in two challenges: the “who can drink the most beer” competition, and the scavenger hunt, in which his ability to locate a stranger who could draw Simon Fraser gave him the two points he needed to beat me. My victories in the “who can spend the least money” and “who can stay in the Cornerstone pond the longest” competitions cancel these victories out.
John would claim that he beat me because he won the dance-off at the Wednesday pub night, but he is spinning a web of lies. What actually happened is that I approached him and challenged him to the pre-planned dance-off around 11:00 p.m. Before an audience of a dozen witnesses, he refused, thereby effectively forfeiting the challenge.
He then appealed to noted campus villain Sam Reynolds, a judge who was not agreed upon beforehand and who had money riding on the competition, and waited until after I left the pub to claim that since I was not there, it was me that had forfeited. This is clearly complete bunk.
Armed with the facts, anyone with any amount of decency or respect for the democratic rules that govern our society could not fail to agree that I won the dance-off, and therefore the entire competition.