Print Edition: November 5, 2014
Pumpkin-carving fun at U-House
By Alex Rake (The Cascade/Images)
Students showed off their pumpkin-carving skills at U-House on October 28 as part of “Halloweek,” a week of Halloween fun at UFV organized by SUS.
Fierce competitors — as well as many just looking for some fun on campus — lined the tables set up for the event. Tools were provided, as were copies of The Cascade for placemat material. SUS also provided candy to all participants of the carving contest.
There were some particularly creative carvings in the mix; some carvers showed excellent shaving techniques and others even used their carved-out pieces to build onto their creations. There were also some “multimedia” pumpkins, including one that used ink to depict Majora’s Mask from the Legend of Zelda series.
On the following Monday, SUS announced that Daniel Holmberg won the contest with his sharp-tusked jack-o’-lantern, beating out about 25 other students and receiving the grand prize of a $30 gift certificate toward AfterMath.
Other events of “Halloweek” included a haunted house at U-House on Wednesday and a pumpkin-smashing on the Monday following Halloween.
More photos of the events can be found on the SUS Facebook page.
Annual Pumpkin Chuck a smashing success
By Daniel Holmberg (Contributor/Images)
Some say you can relieve stress by taking out your anger on inanimate objects. We firmly tested that theory at this year’s annual Pumpkin Chuck. The implements of destruction were varied and simple: a baseball bat, a croquet mallet, a putting club, a rake, a strange metal stand, and our bare hands spelled out the ultimate end for the jack-o’-lanterns carved for the pumpkin carving competition. One by one, all took turns destroying pumpkins through whatever means they found to be the most stress-relieving. Many favoured having a pumpkin pitched to them so they could obliterate it with a well-timed swing of the baseball bat. Others preferred the brutal intimacy of smashing their pumpkins to the ground with their bare hands. It was well-organized at the start, with each person taking their turn to free the beast inside, but as time went on it devolved into a free-for-all pumpkin bash. The Green in front of U-House was covered in the hollow shells and splattered remains of the guts of dozens of pumpkins. No gourd was left undefeated.
In the end, all had fun. It is not often that you get to crush, beat, smash, throw, and otherwise destroy a common vegetable that has done you no harm. It came at an opportune time as well; for most of us, midterms have just passed, and an opportunity to take out all that stress and anxiety in a socially acceptable way was well-received. A UFV tradition lives on.
