Yesterday, we said a final good-bye to the SRC.
It was kind of ridiculously sad. I’m gonna seriously miss that room.
You may be wondering why we’re leaving…well, there’s a story behind that. Let me start from the beginning:
I first came to CNA-Q (as a full-time student) in August 2007. I pretty much met the people I know from the first day, and in the first couple of weeks alone, the Student Representative Council lounge (usually known solely as the SRC) became our hangout spot. We were a good-sized group of people, and only one of us (Jayson) was an actual Student Council member at that time.
To make a long story short, from the first brief couple of weeks in college, the core of the Army (which was a maybe 10 or so members less than we are now) had taken over the room. It was only used as the SRC office for one hour a week on Tuesdays, which was when their meetings were held. I learned those meetings were usually spent with the council picking on Jayson for letting us hang out there so much. (Plus we weren’t the cleanest group of people—-we were excellent at trashing the place with food, game pieces, playing cards, books and papers). But it was our place, and as the weeks, months (and eventually years) went by, it became our home and Army headquarters.
Not only that, but because we were in that office so much, we were very close to what the SRC was doing, and often volunteered in the activities they set up. More often than not, we as Army members did more for the SRC than actual SRC members—-many of which were even lucky to show up to meetings. This was often the excuse Jay used for us being the office so much, even when the VP at the time went through some lengths to put limits on how much time we could spend there.
Let me clarify something though: If we had anywhere else to go…we would have taken it. There was literally nowhere else for a group like ours to hang out. We grabbed the SRC and we hung on tight.
During the elections in Fall 2008, many Army friends applied for SRC positions, and a whole lot of us (including me) were accepted. This made the room ours for more “legal” reasons, for lack of a better word. We also decided to prohibit eating in the office, which decreased the trash factor by about 90%. People still indulged in candy bars and there were always bottles of water laying around—-but no forks, no aluminium plates, no piles of dirty napkins. It was vastly improved, even as our group of friends got bigger and bigger.
The SRC was our home and we took it for granted that it always would be. It was the first room I went to when I got to college, to put my bag down and greet my friends before class, and the last room I’d exit before making my way home. I never thought it’d be any different.
