I didn't know what to expect at WECC as, in spite of my many years here, I have never attended any engineering conferences before. In fact, I voluteered for debate primarily because I love airplane flights, and so my expectations were low.
Regina was bitterly cold. After two co-op terms in Calgary, I thought I knew the meaning of cold. I distinctly remember leaving the plane in Calgary for the first time, collecting my luggage and walking out the airport door and thinking "This isn't cold." Of course, immediately after exiting the airport, my nose felt very odd ... it took me about five minutes to realize that every single one of my nosehairs had frozen solid. So I was not worried about Regina; I figured it couldn't be much worse. I was very wrong. In Calgary, I had never seen blood flash freeze as it hits the ground ... freezing so fast and staying frozen so that upon observation during the noon-day sun several days later it remained bright red and looked like no more than frozen Hawaiian punch. But that's a story for another day.
Representatives of all of the Western universities were present, and I must admit I was very impressed with the UBC engineers. Instead of being the raucous, inane thugs I'd pictured (from rumour and story) they were downright civilized. When one of our first years got a little annoying (well, drooling) a delegation of UBC engineers app-roached me and politely asked if they could please throw him in a snow bank. Of course I said yes. The reputation of SFU engineers is no longer stiff-necked, thanks in large part to the efforts (and incredible capacities) of our noble first years.
Tours were held on the second day of the conference, Thursday. There were three tours, one in the morning and two in the afternoon. Obviously the morning was a bad plan (after the party), and the choices in the afternoon were between SaskPower and a sewage treatment plant. Thus almost everyone from SFU went with me on the tour to SaskPower (a natural gas transportation company). The presentation was somewhat interesting and the view of the control room was amusing, but tragically the bathrooms in the lobby are kept locked, and so Paul Helter, who for some strange reason had just not been feeling well all day, earned the nickname "Hall Pelter".
On Thursday and Friday were a few round table discussions, but most of the presenters were desperately working on their presentations. The most notable of these discussions centered of the difficulties that will inevitably arise
when Engineering Technologists lobby to gain the privileges of engineers with-out the corresponding legal res-ponsibilities.
It was so bitterly cold Thursday night that everyone stayed indoors; a blizzard warning was issued and the temperature was apparently below -80 C (including windchill). My face froze nearly solid just running across the street to the 7-11!
Finally Friday came, and the debates began. The eliminations were held in the Science Center of Regina, which is roughly like our Science World. For our two debates on this day, Bren-don and I wore the plaid skirts he'd purchased as we used abominable Scottish accents in order to debate. "My nem's Jim Mc-Kerry, of Clon Frazer, frum Skottish Columbia. Leydies, Gentelmen, our bonny opponents ... we plan to present ..." In spite of our much criticized accents, and the skirt that didn't quite wrap itself all the way around my hips (good thing I had jeans!), Brendon and I won the first two debates.
Whereas managers of high-tech companies are primarily engineers, BIRT the primary role of an engineer is management.For this we had the PRO position and argued against a pair from U of Calgary. We argued that engineers are trained to lead and that we learn to learn throughout our university careers. Fortunately this was enough; first debate jitters affected everyone.
For out second debate, we were up against Monika Ulagaraj, the U of Al-berta student who had won dabating at CEC last year. Fortunately for us, Mon-ika had a new, and somewhat less experienced partner ... and the topic played right into my hands.
Whereas Canadian hockey is fast-paced and exciting, and also whereas Americans are dull-witted sloths, BIRT the FOX superpuck is essential to the evolution of hockey.Brendon and I had no end of arguments against the puck, and some hockey knowledge to back us up. After all, any puck which requires the goaltender to argue for 3 hours in order to keep it after a game is not good (Corey Hirsch's first shutout, in Boston).
With our victories on this day, Brendon and I qualified for the final four, with the U of Regina team, the U of Manitoba team and Fenna and Eric from U of Alberta.
The finals for debate were held on Saturday _ early in the morning. The Chair for the debates in the finals was the infamous Puppy Dog from Calgary, who did a great job. Our semifinal debate was against the UofM team. We started late, as Blair (UofM's first speaker) arose late ... and arrived elegantly clad in the cover blanket from his bed. The pressure was on ... nearly 100 engineering students packed the conference room to see the debates.
BIRT Spiderman is more heroic than Superman.
Actually the original topic was "BIRT Bo and Luke Duke are more heroic than the A-team", but Blair called a point of order for specific information and the topic was amended to the above.
We knew this was going to be a tough debate, and it ended very close (we argued the CON). After all, Spiderman gets hurt and still continues, whereas Superman is almost invincible ... the proposition defined the topic early to mean only the Superman from before the death of Superman in comics last year. But in our favour we argued that Superman is heroic on a greater scope than Spiderman; he's always saving the world or the universe instead of catching small time crooks.
Although Blair rallied in the rebuttal, he couldn't recover (particularly after, when Blair claimed that he resented Spiderman being called an insect, Brendon heckled "Did it bug you?").
Eric and Fenna from UofA de-feated Kira and her partner from UofR in a close match that Brendon and I watched very intently. The funny thing was that the topic was "BIRT Saskatchewan in better than Alberta." with the Albertans defending Saskat-chewan and vice versa. We noticed that Eric had a talent for turning his questions (one of which his opponents were required to answer) into impromptu conversations which ate up all of UofR's debating time.
The finals were in the afternoon, with the conference room completely packed. Brendon and I had worried that our Scottish routine was wearing thin, so we spent the last hour brainstorming ideas to throw off our opponents, particularly the dangerous Eric (his partner Fenna played the professional while Eric went out to distract his opponents ... at one point he even played a song on his HP!).
Five minutes before the debate was to begin, Brendon came up with a brilliant idea: we would be Bob and Doug MacKenzie, from SCTV's Great White North! In a frenzy of activity, Brendon collected toques and coats from our delegation and drew a map on a hand piece of paper while I hauled over an empty beer keg from the previous night's party to place in front of our table. Our opponents just looked confused as we darted back and forth across the room in preparation.
Finally we heard the topic for the finals.
BIRT it is better to be a hammer than a nail.
We were again CON, but afterwards it was generally agreed that had Brendon and I selected PRO for this topic and acted as Bob and Doug MacKenzie we would have won out of hand (Like, we're always hammered, right Bob?) but the debate turned out very intense and very challenging.
Our opponents argued that most of the people in the room had been hammered last night and that so few had gotten nailed. (We countered that the ones that had gotten nailed had more fun.) Fenna pointed out that we had a keg in the room in front of us so that we obviously were hammered; we respon-ded with a metaphor that a hammer is like upper management, whereas a nail is like an engineer, and so the nail was obviously better.
Fenna opened her arguments by saying that a nail was useless without a hammer (to which I immediately heckled "Nailgun!"). Fortunately, we were able to keep Eric busy enough to avoid him distracting us.
But Brendon came up with an utter coup which turned the tide for us. In his opening arguments, Brendon said "So like, nails are sharp, like us, right?" (glancing at me) "...whereas hammers are dull..." With a brief look at our opponents, Brendon caused the whole room to erupt.
We won the debate by a very nar-row margin, and we later bought Fenna and Eric drinks. The judge bought us all tequila shooters that night as we sat down to listen to his advice on strategy for CEC.
On the plane on the way out of Regina, I thought back to my original reason for coming to WECC ... the plane ride paled in comparison to all the fun and parties, to all the people I met, and to the intensity of the debates. But if I were asked which two memories of WECC that will stay with me longest, I think I'd have to tell the following stories.
Not only did Ted have the misfortune to tweak the broken nose of a complete stranger, and subsequently pummel said stranger's fists with his head at least twice, but he also had to wear that huge shiner, almost like a vast growth on his face for the rest of the conference. Angela, a debater from U of Calgary, counted 26 stitches in various parts of Ted's skull.
But Theodore rallied from such adversity, and in the final party he wore an SFU 'E' sticker over his left eye so that he looked almost like some warped pirate, or Kano from Mortal Kombat. I was stunned Ted could still pick up women with an SFU Engineering sticker covering half of his face ... or should I be?
But I think my favourite memory is of Mark. I found Mark the last night face down in the hotel elevator, after I had escorted a first year from UofA to his room (poor frosh kept saying "I'm blind!" so I figured he'd better retire). Anyways, Mark was lying in this elevator, face down, with a security guard peering down at him. The guard grinned at me, saying "This is just not a happy man." So I took pity on Mark and carried (dead-lifted) him to my room, laying him on my bed. After all of three seconds thought, I moved him to Brendon's bed.
I realized I probably had about half an hour before relations between Brendon and I disintegrated, so I hurried back down to the party to find Mark's roommate, "Hall"_er... Paul. The only SFU engineer I found was Chad Kendall, whose head moved in a slow circle. Chad inhabited the room adjoining to Mark's, so I asked him to help me transfer Mark. Chad agreed, and followed me to my room.
With Chad's help, I carried Mark to Chad's room, and laid him down at the adjoining door. I had taken two steps away from the pair, when tragedy struck. When I turned back, I realized that Mark had cemented poor Chad to the floor. Chad kept saying "My feet!" as he pounded on Paul's door. "Let me in!!"
Suddenly, Mark felt better. But Chad said "I don't feel so well." Mark then tried to convince Chad to follow his example...even interspersing demon-strations with encouragement... "Come on Chad...like this!" I alternated between nausea and howling laughter.
So Chad turned to me and said "You did this to me!" I replied, "He's not coming back into my room." So we compromised ... and Mark awoke the next morning in the fros _ head dele-gate's bath-room. When the rest of the delegation ex-amined this bathroom the next morning, Ted wondered admiringly, "I never thought so much puke could come out of one person."
Above and beyond the humourous stories and the prizes and the competitions, I think the chance to meet other engineers, to bond with fellow delegates, and to actually have some fun together had shed a completely new light on engineering. The debates, the presen-tations, and the discussions graphically demonstrated to me that Canadian universities are producing many intelligent and well-spoken engineers, who have something to say and the abilities to say it. In the end, I truly enjoyed my trip to WECC, and I sincerely hope that more students take such opportunities. I'm sure that much of value can be gained from their participation.
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