You Orientation Leaders will remember the impending sense of “O-week,” the knowledge that your life is about to get out of control… I’m kind of getting the same feeling with the beginning of “E-week” tomorrow, though in reality, trying to convince people to vote will be slightly less stressful than the craziness of orientation. No less challenging, however. It’s exciting, though. I’m not feeling too worried at this point–what will happen, will happen, and there are pros and cons to winning and losing. I hope I do well in the polls, obviously, but my last year at SFU is going to be a busy one whether I’m on the board or not. When a door closes another opens, and right now there’s plenty of doors all over the place–I don’t know where to look! Mostly, I’m looking forward to knowing one way or another by the end of the week.

I’ve been on Facebook for much of the evening, setting up a voting event and seeing voting reminders coming in from all directions–and occasionally spotting someone’s status screaming, “STOP SENDING ME VOTING REMINDERS! ARGH!”–a feeling I wholeheartedly remember. But we’ve got to send out these reminders, again and again, because voting turnout at SFU tends to be so dismal that the extra handful of votes we get by reminding people on Facebook is worth it. So, my apologies for the virtual spamming that’s going on right now, but at least it’ll all be over in a couple of days!

It’s also been interesting seeing who’s been posting their endorsements for whom. Heartening and disheartening, in some cases. I’m looking forward to setting some of these issues to rest–like the CFS, for one. It’s such a complicated issue that so many people are over-simplifying with just a YES or NO, and there’s definitely a lot of bad feelings being created on both sides. And, if you don’t have a stance, you’re “too scared” to take one (which I’ve heard from a few sources, not trying to single anyone out here!). Or, if you’re like me and are trying to separate your personal vote from your campaign platform, that simply isn’t an option. It should be! Voters are going to decide for us, and if you care one way or another, then VOTE. The NO side seems petrified that if they elect any YES candidates that we won’t actually separate from the CFS; which puzzles me. What’s happened at SFU to make people this distrustful of their student representatives? (A lot, unfortunately.) And if it weren’t the CFS, there’d be some other hot topic for everyone to get polarized over. I wonder what next year’s will be…

Anyway, don’t forget to vote! The couple minutes will be well-worth it!

Lastly, I’d like to bring to attention a recent serious issue dealt with by the IEC, and covered in the Peak.

• read the Peak article
• read the IEC ruling