In the beginning, darkness and space stretched across all the land. Oversized animals with undersized brains ruled the world and anarchy reigned supreme. Chaos and fear gripped the hearts of man as they cowered in their damp, bleak caves.

Then one day, an engineer invented the car, designed the computer, built a bridge, and shot a rocket off into space. Ever since, things have been alright.

A few years passed and people started really liking those engineers. All the women (and men for the female engineers out there) swooned over their amazingly high intelligence and predisposition for pocket protectors and calculators. As a result, non-engineers hoping to attract beautiful (inside and out) partners swarmed into the engineering profession. It wasn't long before the number of engineers was too large to control as just one entity, so they started to split off into specialties.

At this point, engineers were still engineers to get women (and men) but there were so many engineers around that it was starting to become difficult for women and men to choose which engineer would be the most suitable mate (mainly based on earning potential, I'm sure). Fear not, however, for the UBC Engineering Undergraduate Society stepped in at this point to offer a solution: a competition to see which engineers would reign supreme! They would stack these engineering disciplines up against each other and test them on all the various abilities that make engineers great. You know, drinking, calculating, building things, walking funny, telling nerdy jokes, pointing out flaws and plot holes in movies, dancing, making awesome films, calculating more stuff, cooking things, and wearing red.

Thus, E-Week was born.

Although aspects of E-Week, such as E-Ball, have existed for as long as the Engineering Undergraduate Society has been around (1919), no one really knows for sure when E-Week the way we know it began. E-Week is formalized by a decree signed decades ago, by the Premier at the time which states, amongst other things, "Hereafter, let it be known that the first week of the second month of all years of our Lord shall be deemed the Week of Engineering."

It has always been very obvious when E-Week rolls around, to those who roam the campus during the day and those who roam the city during the night. Vancouver VPD and Campus RCMP have always had an inexplicable tendency to be more sensitive to the colour red during this week every year and, while it does not occur now, it was not uncommon (as recently as 2003) for one to commute to work Monday morning after the evening of the first Sunday of the month of February and notice that dozens of 'E's missing from buildings along Broadway. VW Beetle hangings, VW Beetle floating, banners flying, giant red engineering jackets stuffed with clothing donations dressed on Olympic icons, tiny white and red cairns placed in interestingly difficult-to-reach places, an increased amount of red clothing being worn by Vancouver's homeless, and convenience stores totally out of very unusual combinations of items were typical indications of the start of E-Week.

From then on, most activities would be restricted to campus. Throughout the week, students would hear the occasional badly-tuned marching choir and brass-based marching band; see the occasional 6-foot diameter rubber ball bounding down the street towards a baby stroller followed by leagues of red-clothed students; witness dozens of four-legged, 6-armed, 3-headed monsters stumbling along in the dark; and generally sense that the air is thick with competition that goes beyond just having the Olympics in town. Oh no. This is bigger than the Olympics.

This is E-Week.