Entertaining the Frosh
Written July 10, 2003

It’s a typical autumn evening at Wilfrid Laurier University, the gathering dusk slowly exploding in one last gasp of orange and red before reluctantly conceding the night and dropping out of view behind the prominent horizon of Chateau Bricker. Almost as a counter-ballast to nature’s timelessly pointed way of telling humanity to give it a fucking rest and go to sleep already, the campus once again springs to life under the power of a mosaic of homogenous residence lights and the strains of a thousand Dave Matthews Band CDs all playing in unison. It’s subtle, but if you pay attention at certain times you can almost feel the university changing gears, morphing from a nationally renowned temple of academia into a gigantic carefree playground – a huge Transformer without any of the cool guns or rocket boosters.

The collective begins to stir as the stars come out, its restlessness manifested in the scattered outbursts of pump-up tunes and the occasional bad audio quality of a movie pirated from Kazaa. Horrible renditions of Irish drinking songs begin to fill the air as groups begin the outward trek to the bars. A crescendo builds steadily, cumulating in the raucous laughter of some girl, usually a visitor from Western, as she staggers sloppily across Willison Field on a ridiculous streaking mission. One by one pens are thrown down as helpless students submit to the itch, the desire for amusement, that eventually consumes and devours us all with the rise of the moon, much like werewolves dressed in daring Abercrombie & Fitch fashion. There’s no use fighting it; the nighttime exists for gratification, pure and simple. And it’s awesome.

You see, the art of leisure has a long standing tradition with post-secondary education. University is a final transition, an experience that straddles the great divide between being a stupid little kid and the endless rat-race corridors of the Real World. Your freedoms are great and your responsibilities are relatively few. If you throw all of these factors into a pot and cook them at 450 degrees for about two to three days, you'll generally end up with a dandy little souffle that constantly screams "Sweet Jesus, I need to amuse myself as much as humanly possible!" Occasionally you can shut it up by explaining that you have necessary life responsibilities such as exams, but talking to souffles will generally get you nowhere.

The itch can be scratched in all kinds of ways, from lounging around listlessly in front of the latest reality TV craze with a Double Big Gulp to inoculating yourselves with liquor and becoming the unholy terror of the night.

The Princess Cinema, located just off King St. in the downtown area, plays all kinds of cult, underground and sleeper flicks – a perfect opportunity to expand your cinematic repertoire and possibly become the pretentious art-house critic with a beret that you’ve secretly longed to be your entire life. Just don’t take a date to the Princess without first finding out what’s playing: chances are you’ll end up watching some really awkward soft-core fetish porn or a three hour tribute to Judy Garland. No worries though, Princess Cinema listings can be found all over the place.

If wading through thick and juicy avant-garde film isn’t your thing, you might want to check out some live music. The scene hasn’t been quite the same since the closure of alterna-rock haven The Lyric, but local punk and ska shows at the Circus Room or Registry Theatre are sometimes worth checking out if you’re willing to part the Red Sea of cliché preteen punkers to get there.

Acoustic act Matt & Chad play a mean cover set once a week at Wilf’s and the Turret draws some decent talent once in a while – Sam Roberts and Swollen Members being two notables in the previous few years. Watching Swollen’s Prevail monkey-swing across the Turret ceiling supports just ahead of the outstretched arms of pursuing security while an incredibly trashed Madchild repeatedly dived Superman-style into the crowd was definitely a high-bar standard in WLU entertainment, although I have the sinking feeling that their wacky antics have probably got them banned for a few years.

If you just feel like chillaxing and tossing a Frisbee around, Waterloo Park is just on the other side of Seagram Stadium and features a waterside area with gazebos and the most demonic swans to ever curse this earth.

Assuming you aren’t murdered by the swans, the amount of time you spend amusing yourselves in the next few years will undoubtedly add up to astronomical levels. While you’ll be told that academics are why you’re at university, it’s the experience and memories that linger after you graduate – and let’s be honest, you’re more likely to remember the night you rode a shopping cart down three flights of stairs than the time you studied super-duper hard and got an A. Participate and do well in school by all means, but remember to enjoy yourself copiously as well.

Meh. My first editorial as Entertainment editor, for the Frosh issue of the Cord. All this basically came out to was a brushed-up list of various things that you can do for fun in Waterloo. It's not very hard to argue the point that you need to have fun in university but for some reason I took it upon myself to do just that. I was right about the swans though - this editorial was actually published with a picture of an 8 year old soccer kid with a Photoshopped swan sneaking up on him from behind. I laughed.