It has been a while since I had to head up to SFU during the morning rush (ie. the need to get up to Burnaby Campus by 8:30 for that insanely early morning Calculus class or various other departments that think you should get classes at such absurb hours in the morning, or in my case, work). Just thought I would share some ways to beat the rush and get up there on time.

Start your trip early!

This is really one of those things that is easier said than done. Yes, you can wake up and leave the house earlier to catch some of the earlier buses, but that means leaving the cozy comforts of your nice warm bed, which constantly proves to be difficult time after time again. So what can you do to still make it on time?

Know the bus routes and catch the right bus.

There are four buses that go up to SFU Burnaby. Know their routes and note that with enough planning, you can find alternative routes on the not-so-well-used buses!

Since my route involves hopping onto the Millennium Line, there are two transfer points that I can make use of to get to SFU: Production Way (via the 145) and Sperling/Burnaby Lake (via the 144). Since you don’t get the ridiculous issues that appear with the 145 (see next point), I tend to catch the 144 these days, with nearly guaranteed seats.

Just know the schedules and you’ll be safe and on-time!

Line up properly.

This one really applies to those at Production Way waiting to catch the 145 up to SFU. The 145 employs a multi-door loading policy (unless the driver who pulls up is a door Nazi and refuses to open the other doors despite the fact there are transit employees checking fares right outside).

So you see that huge long lineup that extends to the staircase to the Skytrain station? Well, there’s one easy way that you can get onto the very next bus AND get a seat! (double bonus!) Just walk up to the bus shelter and line up for the other doors! It’s a perfectly legal move that no one during that morning rush makes use of (mainly because the huge line mostly consists of clueless first years..).

So I hope these tips will help various people beat the morning rush by transit up to SFU. Alternatively, you can just get a B-Lot pass and drive up, but that kinda gets expensive, don’t you think?

What can I say really? It indeed was a journey of happiness, being able to see old friends and make new friends during the four-day, three-night camp while getting away from the stresses of daily life and work.

This was my second time at WCCCLC and the happiness and peace that filled my soul during my first camp came back once again, except in a greater capacity. I guess part of it was me wanting to make myself a more outgoing person, so I ended up meeting and talking to a lot more people. Also, helping out with the camp helped quite a bit too. Being part of this year’s Promotion team let me meet various new faces and get to know them better as well. As well, assisting with the bus on the Hospitality team over at my home parish, SFX, which was used as a bus stop, got me to meet people and talk to them out of necessity.

Being a normally shy and quiet person, I never thought that I would have been able to be so outgoing. It really is nice to be able to meet new people and all that fun stuff and I found myself smiling and laughing all weekend. I guess I was just really really happy.

One of the quirks I had was the fact that the Taizé prayer was in the morning as opposed to evening. For those not familiar with Taizé, it is a form of prayer that focuses on reflection and reconciliation with God through music that highlights certain verses in scripture. I guess you can say that the atmosphere just was not there. But oh well, it’s something for the Core team to note for next year.

The theme this year was “Journey of Happiness: Attitude or Gratitude?” with Father Lucas Chan, a newly ordained Jesuit priest with interests in moral theology and scripture. Through the talks, he led us to discover happiness all around us. The first talk focused on finding happiness in suffering, or simply, finding happiness in anything, and slightly touched on what Christian happiness is. The second talk was focused on giving thanks and praising God in happy times and sad times. The final talk touched on the virtue of happiness, which basically has us being happy and sharing that with those around us.

It is interesting to have a second take on finding happiness in God. There are some overlapping things, such as the fruits of the Holy Spirit, but most of it is quite new in these respects. However, Fr. Chan’s talks were more scripture-based, given his interest in scripture, so we found ourselves flipping through our Bibles often.

For those who hear about camp from the promotion team: did you guys have fun? Would you come again next year? (if so, we in promotion have done our job well \o/ )

For those there at SFU, come join the SFU Chinese Catso group! (you know, the one Joseph Kwok talked about)

Back to work tomorrow, both at SFU for co-op and part-time contracting. Hopefully these experiences can help me develop myself so I would not be so afraid of speaking to groups of people, since I’ll be visiting high schools quite a bit for work to recruit for the SFU Computing Science program starting mid-September.