Salient Issue 12
Opinion
Vol. 79
STRESS FREE STUDY WEEK MONDAY 6 JUNE TO FRIDAY 10 JUNE Don’t let study week get you down, VUWSA’s here to keep you well fed and stress free
Free breakfast and lunch everyday
8am - 10am, 11:30am - 1:30pm
Kelburn, Pipitea, Te Aro
WHAT’S ON FREE BREAKFAST AND LUNCH Everyday 8am to 10am, 11:30am to 1:30pm Peoples Coffee and Hare Krishna Kelburn: VUWSA, Level 4 Student Union / Te Aro: VS1.27 / Pipitea: Law School Common Room, Old Government Building
TUESDAY 7TH WEDNESDAY 8TH
Mediation Workshop Kelburn SU218, 11am to 12pm SPCA puppies! Kelburn, The Bubble, 1pm to 2pm Lego The Hub and The Hub courtyard, from 12pm to 2pm SPCA puppies! Pipitea, RWW126, 1pm to 2pm Fruit and Vege market Wednesday 10am to 6pm Science Society’s cram sessions (ENVI/ESCI/GEO GE ESCI/ GEOG (100 and 200 level- paper (#00, 100 to 300 level for GEOG) – Memorial Theatre Foyer, 10am to 3pm Dinner – Free MTR Curry in the Hub Kelburn, 5pm to 7pm
THURSDAY 9TH
Science Society’s cram sessions (CHEM/PHYS/ENGR – 100 and 200 level) – Memorial Theatre Foyer, 10am to 3pm Dinner – Free MTR Curry in the Hub Kelburn, 5pm to 7pm
FRIDAY 10TH
EXTRAS
Kitten Inn’s Café The Bubble, Kelburn, 10am to 12pm Science Society’s cram sessions (BIO/BTEC/BMSC – 100 and 200 level) – Memorial Theatre Foyer, 10am to 3pm SPCA puppies! Te Aro, Wednesday 1 June, 1pm to 2pm Science Society’s cram sessions (MATH, STAT – 100 and 200 level) Monday 13 June, Memorial Theatre Foyer, 10am to 3pm VicCom Study Groups 2 hr sessions covering a range of courses. Follow them on Facebook for details
Contents Opinions 16
Orange is Not the New Black
24
"Pacific Studies Is A Bum Subject"
17
On Political Correctness and Madess
25
In Memoriam: The Simpsons
18
VUW is failing its queer students
28
On The Trigger
19
In Defence of Internet Feminism
29
Hall Catering: as shit as they say
20
Listen to This
30
Why is selflove demonised
21
I Am Terrified of Email
31
Going to art school was the best thing
22
My afakasi body | Life in between
I have ever done
23
Why You Should Try A New Hobby
News
7 8
VUW talk over top of students Summing up the Budget 2016
10
Metiria would be a nice landlord
11
Salient mid year news wrap up
Regular Content 14 MÄ ori Matters 14 One Ocean
36
37 "Sports"
15 Gee-mail
37 W.W.T.A.W.W.T.A.S.
15
VUWSA Exec
39
34
Single Sad Postgrad
50 Puzzles
35
50 Notices
35
Stressed, Depressed, Well-dressed Breathing Space
Queer Agenda
Arts Section
Editors: Emma Hurley Jayne Mulligan
Editors’ Letter some struggle to afford to heat their homes and need to prioritise other things like food and rent, and some people have no homes. A few nights ago the skies poured and exploded with thunder. It was novel for us, those safe and dry inside. Time will tell whether this budget will see the National government re-elected next year, and how these figures and statistics will actually impact our lives. We’re now half of the way through Salient’s production for the year, and it feels too soon to be saying this. We’ve all reached the mid-year break, which feels like an astronomical achievement. And it should. You all should feel so proud of yourselves for making it this far. Things we’ve learnt: People have reacted to the amount of ‘women’s topics’ that have been covered, we hate meetings and emails, there are so many systemic problems across the university institution, our office is a graveyard for bugs and regularly attracts bees, sitting at a desk will slowly kill you, don’t leave the windows of the office open during winter when anything can happen weather wise. Next trimester we have twelve more magazines to make, and we’d love for you to join us if you’re keen on writing news, reviews, or features. Or even if you just want to give us some feedback on how we’re doing, or what we could do better, get in touch at editor@salient.org.nz. We wish you all the best with your assignments and exams, and hope you get a chance to relax and celebrate being halfway through the academic year.
Lots happened this week: we’ve seen some mean thunder and lightening; we’ve seen Max Key get a new haircut (he looks like Malfoy and is going HAM on the Snap Story). And we’ve also seen Patrick Gower show stats that say, despite National politicians insistence that there is no housing crisis, a majority (76%) of those surveyed in a Newshub-Reid Research poll felt that the government weren’t doing enough about housing, including 61% of National voters. Salient goes to print in about an hour, it’s the last one for a while, and today, while eating marmite and cheese toasties, we watched politicians yell at each other about the budget. Money was getting moved around, figures increased and decreased, there was nothing particularly groundbreaking. It was smoke and mirrors to disguise what was largely, business as usual for the National government, a continuation of the status quo. It was archaic dinosaur Bill English’s eighth budget speech. TLDR; durries are gonna get more expensive guys ~vape 4 lyf~. There were no solutions to many of the problems we’re facing, there was so little given to students and little given to those who need it; while superannuation, war memorials, defence, and spies all got more money. What remained clear after this budget was that the possibility of owning a home, and for some just living in one (let alone a warm and dry one), continues to be slowly written out of the narrative. As we come into winter, some of us will go home to comfortable places, some go home to mould and cold,
05
Going Up
*Interview* with Max Key
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100% merino knit layers.
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John Campbell continuing to fight for the people.
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Andrew Little’s public speaking skills.
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Marmite and cheese toasties.
Going Down
What is your job? CEO fucboi at The Fulltimers Society. What’s your Dad’s favourite TV show? Mum and Dad are hard-out into The Block NZ. They actually purchased all four houses from the last season. Got anymore travel videos lined up? Totally, but this time it’s gonna be just me and the camera. I’m all I need.
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Slipping over on Cuba Street’s shitty pavers.
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Lecture attendance.
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Baby boomers getting a bigger cut of the budget than students.
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Looming deadlines and exams.
Keen to kōrero “Kei a koe te tikanga.”
Kanye West or Kendrick Lamar? Max Key. What’s your brunch order? I’m really into my chia seed vegan puddings. Chia seeds are so good for your digestion.
“it's up to you” / “it's your choice”. E.g. Where should we go to eat? Kei a koe te tikanga.
Humdingers The boot of a Mitsubishi Outlander in a Welsh town has been swarmed by more than 10,000 bees. The good samaritan who spent three hours manning the bees before they could be removed said he was stung five times. He said his stings were “a bit itchy,” but added that bees need to be looked after and not hurt.
A group of business people are petitioning to have Blenheim renamed to “Marlborough City.” Those pushing for the name change are saying it will help tie the city to the famous Marlborough wine region. Despite this, there aren’t enough people living in Blenheim to rename it a city. Lol.
06
30.05.16
News
news@salient.org.nz
VUW talk over top of students “We hear you, but we don’t care.”
Victoria University’s Senior Leadership Team are moving forward with their plan to outsource the pre-degree foundation studies programme. According to the proposal released by the Pathways Review Panel, the outsourcing will help the university achieve its strategic goal of increasing the number of international students from 12.5 to 18 per cent. The university will now enter into discussions with possible third party providers. Those with teaching roles within the Foundation Studies Programme will have their positions dissolved at the end of trimester three. VUWSA President Jonathan Gee said he was “disappointed the university has decided to pursue the option to fully outsource Foundation Studies, despite the seventeen submissions in the round of consultation, all preferring the status quo.” He added that VUWSA will make a further submission on this proposal to “ensure our international students get the best student experience will be the focus of our submission.” Academic Vice-President Jacinta Gulasekharam said many of the current international students were “disappointed” by the announcement. “The university has chosen to progress with the outsourcing of the Foundation Studies programme, despite the submissions against this proposal by VUWSA and the Victoria International Students’ Association,” she said. “International students are integral to the Victoria University community, and their best interests must be paramount in any decision made by the senior leadership team. Does the university value an excellent international student experience, or reaching its growth targets?” Tertiary Education Union organiser Nicki Wilford noted that “about 60 students will lose their place in the university when they move to a private company.” “People across the university are upset. Many are also concerned that this is just one of several programmes that the university could cut off and sell.” The Review Panel said a high standard of pastoral care will still be provided and that they will ensure students continue to receive a real VUW student experience, but it was not stated how this would be done. Victoria University is currently underperforming in regard to international students, not only on a domestic scale but also on a global one, an issue it is hoped the outsourcing will address. During the years 2011-2015 Massey University and the University of Auckland were the only New Zealand tertiary institutes to grow their equivalent full time student enrollments. The next round of written submissions on “all aspects of the proposal” are due on Monday June 13.
It will soon be safer to cycle from Lower Hutt to Wellington thanks to a new cycleway. Wellington City Council’s Transport and Urban Development Committee recently voted in support of the recommended staged approach to implementing the cycleway and other transport changes along Hutt Road. The plan was voted for unanimously by councillors and will mean an upgraded path with a two-way cycleway, as well as a dedicated pedestrian path. The Hutt Road cycleway will be the first in Wellington to benefit from the Government’s Urban Cycleways Programme, with two-thirds of the $9m cost for the Ngauranga to CBD route coming from the Urban Cycleways Fund and National Land Transport Fund. Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown said the staged approach is a sensible way forward and will ensure that the cycleway is built. “The need for a safer cycling path along Hutt Road is growing steadily and with support from our funding partner, the NZ Transport Agency, the council has been able to make this a high priority.” Hutt Road is one of the busiest cycling routes in Wellington, with cycling demand growing year on year. At peak times, there are more than 400 riders an hour which is twice as many people as ten years ago. It has a poor safety record with 26 reported crashes involving a cyclist between 2009–2013. “The upgraded path will mean safety is improved and it will be a much more pleasant ride, walk, or run for those who already use it. It will encourage more people to travel by bike and is a great start as we work towards reducing congestion along Hutt Road and creating a cycle network in the city. Fewer cars will help to make Wellington a more sustainable and attractive place to live,” said Mayor WadeBrown. However there have been concerns about the proposed plan as parking will have to be transformed into cycleway. The chair of the Council’s Transport and Urban Development Committee, Councillor Andy Foster, says the parking situation is less than ideal especially for pedestrians. “Most of the construction work can go ahead as planned, including bus priority lanes and new pedestrian and cycle crossings at the Ngauranga intersection. However we need to establish how many people park near their place of work in the immediate area and how many are commuters who park and continue on into the city on foot, by bike or public transport.” Detailed design work will get under way and construction could begin within months. 07
Kate Robertson
Charlie Prout
Cycling straight out of the Hutt
30.05.16
Summing up the Budget 2016 Lots of money for old people, not so much for us
Charlie Prout
Budget 2016: “Investing in a growing economy.” If we’re to believe Bill English, the New Zealand economy is doing well with a “healthy set of books.” The 2016 budget sees an expected surplus in 2015/2016 and 2016/2017, increasing to a forecast $6.7 billion in 2019/2020. Net debt is expected to peak at $25.6% of GDP next year, and fall to 19.3 percent of GDP in 2020/2021. The Treasury has forecast real GDP growth of around 2.9 per cent over the coming year, and 2.8 per cent average over the five years to June 2020. Despite “future” surpluses, National will not fulfil their 2014 election promise of $3 million in tax cuts. English said tax cuts are a “decision for the future” due to “growing demand for public services.” ‘Key’ parts of the budget: •
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Innovation New Zealand—“a $761 million investment over four years in science, skills, and regional development to help grow and diversify the economy.” Money will be invested in STEM subjects at the tertiary level and will go toward funding 5,500 more apprentices by 2020. Public Infrastructure—a $2.1 billion programme focused on building infrastructure such as transport, schools, as well as upgrading the Inland Revenue Department’s tax system administration. Social Investment—$652.1 million over four years to support vulnerable New Zealanders. $200 million for vulnerable children; $50 million to reduce welfare dependence. Health—$2.2 billion over four years to ensure New Zealanders continue to have access to high quality healthcare. This includes $73 million for primary health care as well as a ten per cent increase on the price of tobacco on the first of January each year from 2017-2020.
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What’s in it for students? VUWSA President Jonathan Gee said “Students won’t see any day-to-day change to their living situation... The government has tinkered around the edges in trying to slow the ballooning student debt, and no real changes have been made.” Tertiary Education Union president Sandra Grey said that the cut in tertiary funding will be borne by students and staff. “Tertiary education staff have been papering over the gaps caused by underfunding since 2009, they can’t keep making up the shortfall in funding.” The government is investing $256.5 million in Tertiary Education, Skills, and Employment as part of the $761.4 million Innovative New Zealand program. The government has proposed a two percent cap on the amount a tertiary education fee rises for domestic students, a reduction from the current four per cent cap. The majority of tertiary education spending targets STEM subjects, including $86.1 million to increase tuition subsidies in science, agriculture, veterinary science, and undergraduate medicine. $1.6 million in additional funding over four years will be directed to the Engineering to Employment program, to aid students’ transition from education to employment. VUWSA supports the increase in STEM funding but said it should “be further extended to support all academic fields”. The university sector will see $35 million worth of contingency funding for new innovation incentives. $18 million will be allocated over the next two years to extend the Warm Up New Zealand Programme, a programme expected to see an additional 20,000 houses insulated. Gee said the policy “is a start, but it remains to be seen whether cash-strapped students will see the impact of this.’ Gee said.
GERMAN LANGUAGE ON CUBA BEGINNERS INTERMEDIATE ADVANCED Next beginners: Mondays & Wednesdays 7.30pm from 8th June ENQUIRE NOW: german@wellington.goethe.org 04 385 6924 / 021 829 027
Housing—There has been $258 million allocated to housing; this includes funds for 750 additional places in social housing, and 3000 emergency housing places a year.
30.05.16
iPads aren’t better than teachers
Jennie Kendrick
Students at Otago University have expressed concern about the severe lack of flu vaccinations being offered this winter. It was reported that Otago University Students’ Association (OUSA) would only be offering 150 free flu jabs to a student body of 20,000 as per negotiations with Student Health Services. Free flu vaccinations were part of the election promise made by Laura Harris, who was successful in her campaign last year to become OUSA President. This development has caused some students to become dubious of Harris’ commitment to election promises, with a mere 0.7 percent of Otago University students being able to receive the vaccination for free. This has been rebutted by both OUSA and Otago Student Health Services, who stated that this year is just a “pilot” programme for future flu vaccination campaign, after similar schemes were unsuccessful in previous yearhs. VUWSA President Jonathan Gee said it was great OUSA had started offering flu shots, but that he hoped they would “ramp it up” in years to come. Young people are not typically at risk of contracting the flu virus, but the Government is stressing that previously healthy people have still gotten seriously ill, with some even passing away. Factors that complicate this further are diabetes, respiratory issues such as asthma, pregnancy, and any medical condition that impacts the immune system. VUW Student Health has been offering influenza shots free of charge for twelve years, with VUWSA providing more than 2700 vaccinations to students and staff in 2015. The exact numbers for this year are yet to be released, but Gee expects it to be around 3000. This figure includes drop-ins at Student Health who missed out during the main drive. The flu shots are subsidised through the Student Service Levy and in conjunction with Mauri Ora. Immunisations were also offered in halls of residence, where first-year students are particularly susceptible due to living in close quarters with a large amount of people. There is no cap on the number of flu vaccinations offered at Victoria, despite costing $24,000 last year.
Katy Groom
A recent study has found that the use of iPads, and other technologies to accompany learning, in the classroom does little to improve education. The study, to be published in the next edition of the Australian Journal of Middle Schooling, looked at two classrooms of eight year old students, one which used digital devices such as iPads and one that was free of technology. It was found that each class’s literacy comprehension improved at a similar rate. The study did however discover that older children, those in year five to six, benefited from the use of technology, making three to four times the gains. The research comes at an important time, with more classrooms asking students to bring their own devices to school. Dr Poskitt said that while her study shows technology can benefit some students in how they learn, it does not replace the need for conscientious teachers. “It does not substitute for effective teaching… essentially it’s about teachers who understand how technology might be used, who link it into what they’re learning. The ones that were really effective were targeted in what they used and why they used it.”
One flu shot per 133.33 students
Where's our fucking fair fares?
09
Kate Robertson
The Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC) has voted down an initiative to provide a 25% subsidy for student bus fares. The amendment to the Annual Plan was proposed by Councillor Sue Kedgely after hearing submissions made by students and receiving a petition signed by several thousand people. “I’m extremely disappointed that fellow councillors did not support my amendment today,” Kedgely said. “The issue has been stalled now for a number of years and students desperately need a reprieve from extremely high fares which see students in some parts of the region paying $85 per week to get to university.” A 25% discount is already in the long-term plan, but an implementation date has not been specified. VUWSA President Jonathan Gee was also disappointed in the GRWC, saying “we have seen yet again our decision-makers stall on making fairer fares a reality. We will be mobilising students over the next few months to make fairer fares an election issue in the upcoming local body elections.” Labour-affiliated councillors voted against the amendment. This comes despite Labour-backed Mayoral candidate Justin Lester announcing a policy last week to introduce concession fares for students. The Auckland Council currently provides a 40% student concession on public transport. In Palmerston North public transport is free for students.
30.05.16
Last week Green party co-leader Metiria Turei hosted a discussion on campus about the Green Party’s views on housing and inequality, as part of the Green’s Fair Play for Students Tour. One of her main talking points centred around tenants, who make up around 40% of New Zealanders. She said current renting laws are out of touch as they were made when renters were a far smaller part of the population. Referring to the acquisition of a rental property as “a business transaction,” she said “there needs to be very clear regulation around the safety of that product.” Turei outlined the specifics of the Green Party’s housing policy which includes a plan to remove the right of landlords, property managers, or real estate agents to require a letting fee, and establishes a way to regulate rent increases. Under such a policy, landlords would not be able to increase rent more than once a year as opposed to the current six months. They would also seek to get rid of the 42 day notice period which allows landlords to take over the house for themselves or family members, and would give tenants the right of renewal for leases. The party is also hoping to introduce a capital gains tax and put restrictions on foreign buyers, while also aiming to put 200 million dollars towards Housing New Zealand to build more houses. So, that’s basically what the Green’s plan on doing when they get into government next election... check out the “Greens at Vic” Facebook page for future meetings and events, or check back here if you don’t like sitting in meetings with other well rounded, optimistic youths who look like they do a lot of a tramping in their spare time.
VUW awards esteemed criminal justice expert an honorary doctorate Kim Workman, one of New Zealand’s most esteemed criminal justice reform and corrections policy experts, has been awarded an honorary doctorate by Victoria University of Wellington. Workman was awarded the prestigious doctorate in recognition of his contributions to improving New Zealand’s criminal justice system over his 57 year career. Victoria University Chancellor Sir Neville Jordan said Workman had “made a significant contribution to the thinking and practice in relation to criminal justice and public policy.” Beginning his career as a police officer, Workman has taken on many roles including heading the Wellington Police Youth Aid section. He has also worked for the Office of the Ombudsman, the States Services Commission, the Department of Māori Affairs, the Ministry of Health, and the Department of Justice. Workman graduated from Massey University in the 1980s, and from VUW with a Graduate Diploma in Arts, majoring in Religious Studies, in 2012. He continues to contribute to the university by giving occasional lectures and is awaiting publication of his new book, The Criminal Justice System, the State and the Māori—From 1985 to the Present, which examines the criminal justice system in New Zealand over the past 30 years.
Katy Groom
Oliver Clifton
Metiria would be a nice landlord
30.05.16
SALIENT MID YEAR NEWS WRAP UP
Best Thing in the News Discovering that NZ’s tax policy is super cushy for foreign investors. Those trusts eh, gotta love a nice tax break. RNZ and TVNZ unite!
Best ‘Students R Fuk’d 4 Eva’ Story A tie between all of the stories where we talked about student debt going above $15 billion this year, and how the government is now planning on arresting us if we gap it overseas and stop paying the loans back. Best VUW News Story The bunk bed story, where it was revealed that baby students were being squished into bunk beds at late notice, with little alternative options, due to a pretty significant fuck up from the university.
Coolest ‘Small Time’ News Siobhan O’Connor’s Trend Report was a smart breakdown on the ethics of New Zealand fashion companies. Turns out all of your fave brands probably use sweatshops!
Biggest Freak Out Moment Salient’s editorial team came under the fiery wrath of Victoria University Chancellor Sir Neville Jordan literally the first week on the job. Turns out what we think is satirical is a disgusting travesty.
Best News Reporter Shout out to news writer Charlie Prout who wrote about trans health rights, the Wellington binder exchange, the Proud Hui, and for annoying the shit out of Grant Robertson every time he sees him about improving trans healthcare in New Zealand.
Best ‘Unreserved’ Apology Salient. Biggest Disappointment MASSIVE magazine for delivering their students an offensive cover, and then repeatedly denying it was offensive even when students and staff sent a letter saying they found it offensive. Editor's note: it was offensive.
Worst Thing in the News National won’t increase our refugee quota; Prince died; New Zealand continues to have horrifyingly high rates of domestic violence and child abuse; Donald Trump; the flag referendum was a waste of time; families having to move into motels due to a housing crisis; David Bowie died; there are no houses; anything about Millennials.
Coolest Lizard Person (aka politician) Who’s gonna run the world’s united (albeit dysfunctional and pretty ineffective) governing body? Queen Helen Clark. Yaass.
Best Headline Tie between: “You can’t sit with us—protesters picket the Young Nats’ ball” by Jennie Kendrick in Issue Seven and “The limit does not exist: VUWSA choose their mathletes team” by Kate Robertson in Issue Eleven, because you immediately win at life with a Mean Girls reference.
Coolest Human Beyoncé? Taiki Waititi? James Shaw? Hilary Barry? Bernie Sanders? Duncan Grieve? HELP US Undoubtedly there’s plenty of drama and secrets and scandals floating around campus that we have not yet uncovered. If you have any news tips or want to help our news section be straight fire please flick us an email at news@salient.org.nz.
Biggest Mystery What in the heck is going on with Karori Campus? We don’t know! We are trying to find out! Like every week we are trying to find out! Does the council want it? Does the government want it? Do investors want it? Is this just a get-rich quick scheme by the university? Who knows?
11
Alex Feinson and Emma Hurley
Cringiest Thing in the News Everything to do with Season Two of The Bachelor NZ. Sorry but we couldn’t resist. Also, screw you George FM for consistently being misogynistic and horrible.
CLOSED FOR UPGRADE 7 JUNE - 31 JULY The Wellington Cable Car will be closed from 7 June to 31 July 2016 inclusive for the replacement of the electric drive and control systems and for the refurbishment of the Cable Car carriages. A replacement bus service will operate during the shutdown between Lambton Quay and Kelburn via The Terrace and Victoria University's Kelburn Campus. Visit www.wellingtoncablecar.co.nz or call 04 472 2199 for more information. www.wellingtoncablecar.co.nz
SR0427-190x270
Maori Matters
One Ocean
Raimona Tapiata
Laura Toailoa One of my favourite activities is sorting through boxes of sentimental stuff and deciding what to keep, and what to reorganise into a tidier box of crap. Similar to this is the addictive Facebook-friend-deletion-spree I undergo bi-annually. But this year, I’m adding a more productive activity to this spring-clean genre of hobbies I seem to love. I’ve made a list of all the things I’ve said “yes” to, and what things I need to start saying “no” to. I think as Pacific people, we are so apt to saying yes to things, before we’ve seriously considered the effects that it’ll have on us. We are so giving of ourselves—our time, our money, our attention—that it becomes our doom. We go into debt to contribute to family matters. We volunteer our time and (at times, highly qualified) efforts when we could be earning money. We do allnighters to complete assignments because we spent all day with other people, counselling them, or helping them with an assignment, or just being there for them. But we need to draw the line somewhere. I need to draw the line somewhere. I need to decide when I can contribute to a fundraiser and when I need to raise my own funds. I need to plan how much time I’ve given to other people rather than using them for myself—for my own assignments, for my own projects, for my own well-being. If they love you, they will understand when you say no. They’d recognise that you have to prioritise your life sometimes and they’d be happy at least for your sake. And if they’re not, fuck them, and do you anyway. And if they’re your parents demanding answers as to why you’re neglecting family responsibilities, then… well… this one’s on you, pick your battles (not my fault if you get a hiding heh… ). But seriously guys, during the lead-up to exams— work hard (and be honest with yourself about this), say no to not-important-right-now stuff, and don’t work for more than two hours straight. Know yourself well enough to know which exams you can excel in and which you just need to pass. Love yourself enough to know where to push your limits and when to step back. Self-care is not being selfish; it only means that you recognise that you matter too.
Ka hoki te ia o whakaaro ki taku tau tuatahi i te whare wananga, ki te āhua o te tamaiti Māori e noho nei i ngā whare noho a te whare wānanga. Ko au, he Māori i tipu mai i te mātōtorutanga o te reo, o te tikanga ki roto i te hāpori Māori. Ka hau mai ki Te Whanganui ā Tara, ā, tata toremi ana au i ngā ngaru taiāniwhaniwha o te ao Pakeha, kiri mā nei. He rerekē te reo, he rerekē ngā tikanga, he rerekē te waiaro, ka tika he ao hou ki au. Ruarua noaiho ngā kanohi Māori ka kitea, ā, he kōhimuhimu noaiho te rongo o te reo. Ko mokemoke, ko rangirua ka tau, ā, he mea whāngai i te pouritanga. Ko te ruarua o Māori i reira i taua wā, he ringa whina, he ringa whakatau i taku wairua i te wā i reira au. Mokori anō kia mihia rātou kua whakapau werawera ki te hāpai i te hunga pihipū nei e kakari nei i te huarahi ki te tohu mātauranga. Heoi, ki au nei, me āta whakaritea e ngā whare noho tētahi rōpu motuhake ki te hāpai i ngā tauira Māori ka paripari mai ki ngā tai o te whare wānanga nei. Kia toka he rautaki, he ope rānei i ngā tau ki te mau, ki te hāpai i ngā tauira me ngā kaupapa Maori i roto i ngā whare noho. I reminsce about my first year, living in one of the hostels here at Victoria University. I was a young bright-eyed Māori kid, raised in a Māori community that instilled te reo and culture in me from birth. I arrived in Wellington and was immediately overwhelmed by this new, mainly Pākeha world. I had to adapt to a new language, cultures, and worldviews in an environment that had very few Māori faces. In my opinion, Victoria University could do a lot more to help young Māori students living in the hostels. Although some attempts are made to cater for the needs of these students, it is largely up to individuals within the hostel system to carry this role on their own backs. I believe a structure must be established at a management level to ensure that each hostel is able to provide support for Māori students, to minimize the culture shock these students inevitably go through when moving into the hostels.
14
Gee-mail
VUWSA Exec
Jonathan Gee VUWSA President
Jacinta Gulasekharam Academic Vice-President
Congratulations, you have successfully reached the last week of class. For many of you, your mind now turns towards two thoughts: 1. How to cram twelve weeks of knowledge into your brain in the space of a week. 2. Securing the best study spot in the library (white sterile-looking room on level three, hands down). We know that the exam period can be a very stressful time. Some of you will have to forfeit hours (and therefore income) at work in order to devote time to study. Many of you will be feeling the pressure as winter sets in, making your flats cold, mouldy, and not so nice to be in. Here at VUWSA we’ll be running Stress Free Study Week. We will be providing free breakfasts and lunches, puppies and kittens, and other stress-free activities across all three campuses to make your study week that little bit better. We’ve also stepped it up a notch this year and will be providing free dinners in the hub on Wednesday and Thursday, thanks to MTR curry! Stress Free Study Week is an expression of how we value your well-being, and encourage you to look after yourselves during one of the most stressful weeks of the trimester. At VUWSA it’s not just your well-being during study week that we care about, but your well-being throughout your entire university experience. From your financial well-being, in pushing for a tertiary discount on public transport; to your study well-being, in pushing for increased library hours and a more equitable approach to getting assignment extensions. Student well-being has been a key theme for us over the last few years. We’ve made some positive progress in improving your well-being over the years. Along with Stress Free Study Week, we have pushed for more funding in Student Health and Counselling, received a commitment from the Greater Wellington Regional Council for a 25% tertiary discount on public transport, worked alongside the university to build the well-being campaign and The Bubble. Student well-being will continue to be a priority for VUWSA, because we know university can be tough. Our job is to make it that little bit less tough! Good luck!! x0x0
The Bad Recently VUWSA made a submission to the university regarding the future of the Foundation Studies predegree pathway, which mostly affects international students who are coming to Victoria. On Monday morning Vic News, the university’s internal newsletter, arrived in my inbox with a section on consultation. VUWSA’s submission to the university was that the programme should be kept in house in the interest of the student experience and education quality. VUWSA stood alongside the VUWSA International Students Association, in opposing the outsourcing of the Foundation Studies program. I found out via Vic News that the university is commencing conversations with third party providers to outsource the programme by 2017. I am disappointed the university has chosen to progress with outsourcing Foundation Studies. I am disappointed the university dismissed the overwhelming submissions against this proposal. Does Victoria value its students or its bottom line? The Good My opinion is that VUWSA is great. As Academic Vice President I lead the Education Team. This is what our team is working on: • We have submitted on the first round of the Productivity Commission’s New Models of Tertiary Education. The gist of it is that the funding model needs tweaking and the sector must ensure equity in delivery (find our submission at vuwsa.org.nz). • Working on an Online Alternative Guide from student perspectives on courses in preparation for course planning next year. Watch this space. • In the second trimester we are gearing up for Distance Class Reps and online training, an exciting initiative for the student voice offline and online. • Annaliese, our Education Officer, began a yearlong tutor review project looking at tutor remuneration and support. Complete the survey or link it to those you know, after receiving your input we are going to send the university some recommendations. 15
Alexa Zelensky
There’s a thing called self love, and I advocate for it through the use of wine and hot baths. Is it an attempt to negate the unhealthiness of one by replacing it with the healthiness of another? They can achieve this through easier ways, like running a marathon or doing a juice cleanse. Is it their attempt at pretension, thinking that saying, “I just love the delicate mixture of flavours,” is going to make them feel better about themselves? Because it’s not; they just sound wanky. For some weird reason, I decided to actually do what I hate, and eat some popular chocolate brands that have dabbled in using oranges. I wanted to quantify exactly what I couldn’t stand; what I’m trying to say is that I’m suffering for science. First up: Jaffas. Let me dismantle the love for something so intrinsically Kiwi and have people across the country simultaneously regret their childhoods. This was the option that was the hardest for me to find in New World Metro; the posh options were readily displayed throughout the store. Were they trying to warn me? Because when I opened the bag, I was filled with regret. The scent wafting out smelt acidic, not anywhere near orange or chocolate, and I felt a bit sick; Cadbury took “fake citrus” a bit too far. That acidity grew stronger as I ate, with me failing to distinctly detect the two flavours advertised on the bag and fearful that I would break one of my molars. After having four, I gave up and put the Jaffas aside; the point was made. I think people idealize these for the nostalgia factor. For the second round, I thought I’d try something fancier. Whittaker’s is another truly Kiwi company, the go-to chocolate maker, and it had a classier take on the chocolate and orange combination. It recently released a new range, featuring a “Fijian ginger and Kerikeri mandarin” option. I guess this is nicer than just saying “ginger and orange” because the place names add a little excitement, but all in all, it’s your standard orange chocolate. It’s not anything special; it’s the exact disappoint you would expect but wrapped up in a classier look. I cleansed my palette with Cool Ranch Doritos before moving onto Lindt’s version. Can the Swiss persuade me to like this? Short answer: no. Long answer: god no. It has a sour after taste, and I feel like that doesn’t do the actual taste of citrus any justice. It misses the point by assuming that citrus needs to be a harsh flavour to complement the richness of the chocolate, and I just won’t stand for that kind of presumption. Frankly, there is no reason to consume orange chocolate. It’s not a unique or innovative blend of flavours; in fact, it’ll do you more harm than good (case in point: Jaffas). Orange chocolate is basically the eighth deadly sin, and is most likely the culprit behind World Wars 1 and 2 (though I’m not a history major). In conclusion, orange chocolate sucks and you can direct your hate mail to The Salient, PO Box 600, Wellington. I’ll fight each and every one of you.
Orange is Not the New Black
I will eat anything. I am the absolute opposite of a picky eater; put whatever you want on my plate and I’ll chow down, leaving the plate spotless in the end. I don’t understand people who turn down food, I don’t understand people who aren’t actively looking forward to the next meal, and I don’t understand people who “forget to eat lunch.” And while it may seem like I was just raised with good manners (they’re alright, I guess) and a timely schedule (it doesn’t always feel like that), the desire to clean my plate and try everything new stems from a freaky passion for food. That passion extends to food experiences that include: eating fried herring while I was an exchange student in Finland, scraping limpets off rocks for dinner during a school camping trip, and snacking on raw onions from the age of 1. I know, it’s a painful list to read. I’ve been told time and time again that my food experiences are weird, and I don’t blame anyone for holding that opinion. A snack like raw onions is certainly not for everyone, and frankly, sometimes I’m surprised I eat it. With all that being said, you’d think that I’d be extra keen on normal foods right? I definitely do love the standard plate of pasta or some eggs on toast. But there’s one thing, a very popular candy flavour combination, that drives me mad. I hate it. I hate it to the point of frothing at the mouth and getting into fights with people I normally love and respect. I hate every part of the orange and chocolate flavour mixture. I tolerate oranges, and I love chocolate, but I cannot support their combination. I take issue with its mere premise; this flavour combination is the mixture of oranges, the soccer mom’s knee-jerk reaction to lollies, with chocolate, something widely known as a “sinful, guilty pleasure.” They are a prime example of two opposites that should not meet. When I’m indulging in chocolate it’s usually because I need something unhealthy and excessively decadent. I’m not trying to fool myself into believing that this candy spree stemmed from any other urge, and that’s okay. But that’s what gets me- who looks at chocolate, one of the few things in this world that is inherently good without any effort, and thinks to themselves, “This would be even better with the addition of a second-rate citrus fruit.” I have a problem with the people who eat this combination. I don’t understand why they do it. Is it a subconscious form of self hatred, a strong inner belief that they don’t deserve to truly enjoy something so pure? 16
Finnius Teppett
On Political Correctness and Madness to say—I have family who are blind, and they don’t care what you call it, their national advocacy group is called the Blind Foundation for god’s sake—but worse than bad judgement, it was also supremely condescending. The writer David Foster Wallace put words to my groan in his essay “Authority and American Usage.” Far from sticking up for put-upon minorities, he says, this politically correct English “functions primarily to signal and congratulate certain virtues in the speaker—scrupulous egalitarianism, concern for the dignity of all people, sophistication about the political implications of language—and so serves the selfish interests of the PC far more than it serves any of the persons or groups renamed.” I agree with Wallace re. “visually challenged,” but I don’t want to write off all politically correct language (I don’t think he does either). It’s good, I think, that we remove words like “retard” from our vocabulary once they make the jump into full-blown insult. We also carefully police usage of the pejorative “gay” and the thoughtless use of “rape,” and these are good, protective measures. The comedian Stewart Lee defines PC as “an often clumsy negotiation towards a kind of formally inclusive language,” and we largely do a good job of it in this way. Examples like “visually challenged” though chip away at all the work we’ve done to make English an inclusive language, by basically (unintentionally, I can only hope) parodying the very idea of it. This new wave PC has started to eat itself. It’s no longer taking on the powerful, marginalising forces of exclusive language, but has taken its own side into its sights. It no longer cares about looking after people, it’s only worried about itself. Maybe the problem is the line. Every PC flare-up like “visually challenged” pushes more people onto the other side of the line, where they find themselves in the company of actual racists and dicks. What would be better is a nice, thick, grey area. A kind of gently sloping grey area that we can use to help all those old racists make it up into modern times, slowly but surely.
This is a hard piece to write. Partly because it’s about a scarily volatile subject that is unrivalled in its power to destroy careers via internet lynch mobs, but also because my own opinion of the subject is something I’m still working on. The subject is political correctness. Even the name gives me the creeps. I don’t really like using it but there’s no real way around it. I don’t like using it because 90% of the time that it’s used it’s as part of the phrase “PC gone mad,” and 100% of the time that someone invokes that phrase, or a variant thereof (viz. “now this might not be the ‘politically correct’ thing to say…” or “don’t tell the PC brigade…”), it is because they have just said something, or are about to say something, that is racist / sexist / homophobic / etc. Most of the time I’m on the right, modern side of the PC line, but lately I’ve been questioning some of the things me and my people have found ourselves defending. And it’s not because I’m slowly becoming bigoted with age and wanting to be more openly offensive. It’s because, I think, under our watch the line has been creeping further and further out, to strange, faraway places. In some cases it’s crept so far out, so far beyond the actual pressing issues of daily reality, that it’s at risk of being lost completely. (Quick interpolation: I’ve realised another fear I have in writing this. I’d really hate for someone like that guy from Massive to read it and go “too bloody right, it’s about bloody time” or something. It’s really a precarious line to walk though, the slightest misstep is enough to bait either side into excited argument. That’s part of the problem. The PC debate has got so outrageous, as in literally outrageinducing, that it prevents any old-fashioned civilised, intellectual debate about our values and the ways we use our language.). Last year, at this very university, I heard someone refer to a person who couldn’t see as “blind.” Mortified at their horrible faux pas, the describer covered their mouth and retracted the offending adjective. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I mean visually challenged.” I groaned so hard I nearly passed out. It was clearly a stupid thing
17
Alex Mark
Victoria University is failing its queer students by AUSA’s Queer Rights Officer. They also offer a huge amount of queer resources and information on their website, including rainbow groups within each faculty. Otago University provides a queer permanent space within their student support house, has a Queer Friendly Staff Network, runs Queer Awareness Workshops for staff, students, and non-university groups, and has a full time Queer Support Coordinator, who provides pastoral care and support for queer students, supervises the queer mentors, and maintains their queer library (!!!) in their— you guessed it—permanent space. Victoria University has… nothing. There is no structural queer support provided by the university at all. No network of queer staff and students exists. No mechanism for listing preferred names and pronouns is available. There are no rainbow groups in each faculty. We have no permanent space. UniQ contact information is available on the Victoria website—as of only 2016. Doing the research for this piece was intensely depressing. While I had an idea of what other universities were providing for their queer students, I had absolutely no idea how in depth it was. The structural support and encouragement from other NZ universities makes Victoria’s silence deafening. Victoria has fallen desperately behind its counterparts. Especially in Wellington—the “coolest little capital” and self-proclaimed hub of acceptance—shouldn’t we have the best and most comprehensive queer support of any university in New Zealand? Queer students deserve a space on campus, and they deserve full and inclusive structural support from the university itself. On other campuses UniQ is free to be simply a social club, organising parties and quiz nights. At Victoria, UniQ picks up the support slack that the university has let fall by the wayside. This is a ludicrously huge ask of a group made up entirely of volunteering students—the majority of whom are already juggling full time study, work, and other extracurricular commitments. It’s time that queer students at Victoria have a safe space on campus. A space without fear of slurs, harassment, or attacks. A space of healing, acceptance, and encouragement. A space to call our own.
You want my opinion? Victoria University is failing its queer students. There is currently no tangible queer support provided by the university, nor is there a permanent space for queer students on (any) campus. The need for safe spaces is so often dismissed, almost always by those with the privilege to not require them. It’s easy to not understand the need for something if a lack of it doesn’t affect you personally. To a white person, Māori or Pasifika-specific support structures may seem unimportant. To an able-bodied person, an access ramp is an option (not a necessity). To a man, female/non-binary person support spaces can seem exclusionary. To a cis person, trans inclusiveness could seem redundant. To a straight person, queer support or safe spaces may seem like excessive pandering. There are many reasons why having a safe space is important to any minority. When you form a part of a marginalised group, most spaces are unsafe by default. UniQ has dedicated several columns so far this year to exploring (in very brief detail) some of the ways in which the queer community is ostracised, othered, and made to feel outside of ‘normal’ society. Sometimes we want to feel like our freedom of expression is not suppressed—like we won’t suffer verbal abuse for the way we are dressed, how we identify, or whose hand we are holding. Sometimes we want to just exist in a space without being asked to justify our presence, or to represent our whole group in a debate or a discussion. Sometimes we don’t want to debate. Sometimes we want to shout about our frustrations without being dismissed or minimised. Sometimes we don’t want to speak. Safe spaces provide a place where those within a marginalised community can escape that background noise of demarcation and limitation. Other prominent New Zealand universities have shown their recognition of the importance of their queer students by setting aside a part of their campuses to provide this space, as well as providing structural support from within the university itself. Auckland University recognises LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and/or intersex) as an equity group, has an LGBTI staff and students network, provides resources and mechanisms for the use of preferred names and pronouns, and has Queerspace—a permanent queer space managed 18
Lily McIlhone
In Defence of Internet Feminism Late last year, I ditched Tumblr. For the three or four years previous to this, I had used my blog as an outlet for all my frustrations and musings, particularly to do with my interest and involvement in feminism. But soon after I became incredibly hostile towards “internet feminism”—the feminism that involves posting feminist opinions on social media rather than being active outside the internet and making real change. I started to believe that feminist cyber communities were an obsolete platform for this kind of discussion because no one needed convincing, they were all just getting frustrated over bigotry and oppression without actually doing anything about it. I got really, unnecessarily bitter. Lately however, I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of the “keyboard warrior” and the way it is used to silence the voices of marginalised demographics that use social media as a safer platform to discuss the various oppressions they face. It also totally invalidates the possibility that the internet isn’t the only place someone is engaging with feminism. It reduces them to a Facebook status machine, and dismisses the self-education and thought process behind whatever they’re posting. And I’ve begun to realise that discussing these issues in self-selected groups maybe isn’t quite as futile as I had previously thought. Social media gives feminists, particularly young feminists, the platform to be able to refine their stances and gain feedback from other feminists on their opinions. This kind of solidarity is pretty powerful when you think about the millions of young people around the world contributing their own experiences and thoughts to the discussion, strengthening each other’s arguments. This means that when they go out into the IRL world, their arguments are better developed and can make some real change to the people who aren’t already in agreement. These platforms also give us a strong sense of agency, we feel like our opinions are valid and worthy of being listened to. In a world where women have been historically silenced and taught that they are to be seen, not heard, this is a powerful idea. Internet feminism is also really damn good for giving women the resources to educate themselves and become feminists. Without Tumblr I would have no fucking clue what intersectionality was, and I would be totally unaware of the more insidious manifestations of patriarchy. My feminism would be centred around equal pay and basic rights, with no understanding of how poor women, transwomen, and women of colour have a harder time getting these than me. Even if Tumblr didn’t give me all the information I needed, it gave me the motivation to go and research some more reputable sources, and listen to music by women and read their literature and study their art and truly understand how misogyny works. Even without Tumblr, I am still very, very guilty of internet feminism. Most of my Facebook posts are related to feminism, and on Twitter I engage with a lot of other feminists around Wellington / NZ. However I’m also co-president of the VUWSA Women’s Group, I’m involved with the coordination of the Thursdays In Black campaign, I do a bit of work creating safer and more inclusive spaces for women in music, and I’m intending to spend the next few years writing an encyclopaedia of women in art history. The internet is only one facet of my feminism, but it’s probably one of my favourites, because I can sit in bed (as I am now) and engage in important discussions and support other feminists in their endeavours, then shut my laptop and sleep. As much as it’s important that feminists are out rallying and being politically active and truly making waves in society, it’s also important that we look after our own mental health, and sometimes an evening of feminist shitposting our opinions on Twitter and drinking a bottle of cheap wine is exactly what we need. And sometimes it’s just nice to have a friend comment “yass” on your latest Facebook yarn. 19
Rob Barratt
Listen to This
You know what, 2016 has been a bumper crop. We’ve had Kanye, Kendrick, Radiohead, James Blake, Chance, Rihanna, Drake, BADBADNOTGOOD, Bowie—like holy crap that’s bonkers. 2016 has probably been the best year for the sheer quantity of good music released in a long time. But this isn’t about those huge names. This is going to be a quick little list of things that you should probably listen to from people you might not know exist. I’ll try put something in for everyone, and if you think I missed something leave some angry comments on the Salient facebook page ;).
anything else, this is an album that makes you feel uneasy. But it is so definably London; it’s a record that in any other time or place simply couldn’t have come about. But it’s here, so for a look at the darker deeper underbelly of London, the London where you’ll get knifed over a fiver, this is where to go. Andy Stott—Too Many Voices: If you’re a fan of techno, but feel it sounds too 90s, then this is what you need to listen to. An electronic album that doesn’t rely on bass drops or strange quirky sounds; this is a clean electronic record that still manages to sound modern. Interesting production techniques help add to the allure, and before long puts you in quite the trance.
Good Willsmith—Things Our Bodies Used to Have: A modern take on impromptu free jazz. Good Willsmith has been making absolutely radical tapes for the better part of a decade, and this is by far their best release. If you’re into some seriously experimental music, then this is the place to start: it’s not too far gone that you’ll find yourself questioning if it can even be considered music, but I can still pretty safely guarantee that you will never have heard anything like this before.
Anohni—HOPELESSNESS: Now, fair warning, I am a MASSIVE Oneohtrix Point Never fan. So when I heard he’d helped out on the production, I was interested. But more than just the production, I was impressed by how much finesse this album showed. Political without being cheesy, and with some of the most interesting vocal tones I’ve heard in a long time, Anohni has made some incredibly moving music.
dvsn—Sept. 5TH: There’s music designed for almost every activity. You’ve got your workout tunes, your study tunes, yada yada. This is far and away, music to fuck to. Everything about this album just oozes sex. The vocalist Daniel Daley breathily urges you along, while the heavy RnB bass lines and keys keep you in time. Enjoy, the music and the sex.
18+—Fore: Vaporwave was something I was initially super interested in, especially after the release of Macintosh Plus. After the genre seemed to peter out I lost interest, but this came back and hit me in the gut like a jilted ex lover. Echoing Arca and FKA Twigs, this electronic inspired trap-esque RnB is a lot of fun.
Kaytranada—99.9%: Sampling has always held something of a soft spot in my heart. From hearing Dre rip soul samples and chop them into aggressive, pounding drums, to The Avalanches taking everything they can and turning it into a mind bendingly good dance album. But this is a drummer’s dream. Taking these samples and building some incredibly varied and interesting drum lines to fill the pieces out makes this album an incredible listen.
Anderson .Paak—Malibu: I’ll admit, I didn’t know about Anderson .Paak until I heard his absolutely phenomenal features on Dre’s Compton. So with this being his third album, I was behind the ball. This is a soulful album, an album driven by community, both in production and in spirit. A celebration of a culture scorned, and an excellent achievement in songwriting. While this isn’t the most lyrically impressive album of the year, it certainly comes close.
Gaika—Security: There should be a clear distinction between grime, and records that sound like they’ve been unearthed from the filthiest back alley in existence. Closer to drill than
So there you go—eight albums that are, in my opinion, worth being listened to.
20
Sharon Lam
New Message To: Salient Subject: I Am Terrified of Email Email used to be fun. My early Hotmail days were full of pointless emails to friends I saw at school everyday, departed exchange students who I naively believed I would stay in touch with forever, and e-penpal messages to friends I’d made through Neopets. I even had dreams of one day falling in love over email, à la You’ve Got Mail, a super good 90s romcom where Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks fall for each other over dial-up soliloquies. These days however, email has grown from cute messaging medium to a daily source of abject terror. I am absolutely terrified of my inbox. Every time I get a new email I scream. It takes me five nervous breakdowns over nine months before I can actually reply to an email. Everything about email is horrible and I hate it. These are not exaggerations. The first of my e-terrors is receiving an email. Usually this happens through my phone, with the ding-noise now a Pavlovian trigger to send a wave of nausea coursing through my poor little body. “Urgent: Your Apartment Is On Fire,” “Guess What You Actually Failed All Your Papers Ever Give Back Your Degree,” and “Your Friends Just Pretend To Like You” all seem like plausible subject headings. Nothing is too terrible to be emailed. The other horrible thing about receiving an email is that there is a high chance that you then have to do something. And if there’s one thing I hate doing, it’s something. No thank you! Please leave me to peacefully do absolutely nothing at all! But a new email beckons all sorts of somethings you need to do. Fill in a form. Go to this thing. Write a convincing excuse as to why you cannot go to the thing. Answer some question that you do not know how to answer. Have this thing ready by this time. Noooo! Stop it! I don’t want to do any of these things! Why can’t my inbox be filled with flash-animated e-cards and fuschia pink Comic Sans messages from friends talking about Fall Out Boy anymore? I miss emails that are nice to read, emails that don’t expect anything of me, emails that don’t make me feel worse after reading them. If there’s anything even worse than receiving an email, it’s having to send one. How do you write an email? I have no idea. I always feel needy and annoying when I send an email, and can never tell if an email actually warrants a response. I usually assume no and don’t reply to a lot of emails that probably do need a reply. There have been far too many emails that I will begin, usually just a “Cool, thanks” but the “Cool, thanks” looks so cold on the screen that I choose to never reply at all (which is why I frequently ghost my thesis supervisor). Sometimes exclamation marks help to lessen the coldness, but the thing is that if you use one, then all the other plain full-stopped sentences sound cold. But if you use exclamation marks at the end of every single sentence! Then you might sound way too enthused! Or just manic! You’re either yelling or an ice cold witch! There’s absolutely no winning! And then there’s the email signoff, which is also horrible. Following example, my go-to is now “Cheers,” a term that I would never ever utter in real life, yet in emails I am cheersing everyone all the time. I am a total phony and everyone can tell. The bleakest thing about my email phobia is that it seems that email is here to stay. The closest alternative, ringing people on the phone, is even more terrifying. I can think of only two solutions. The first is that society reverts back to telegrams and letters delivered on silver platters by manservants. I even recently bought a brass letter opener in the extravagant hope that this will happen. Yes—give me my bad news, my bills, and nagging reminders via a quaint typewritten note or cursive letter, and not a horrible inbox (1). Let the quaintness of receiving news distract from whatever the news actually is. The second solution is that we all start using email for fun again. Bring back e-greetings, long messages about not a lot at all, and fluorescent fonts. Let the norm of email be someone genuinely wanting to talk to you, and not what the norm of email is now—something being asked of you, a gloomy reminder of responsibility. Cheers.
Send
21
Eve Kennedy
Why You Should Try A New Hobby Thus began the six-month period were I would try a new hobby every weekend. For a month or two I was intensely keen on DIY: I built raised garden beds out of wood scraps; I built a (very wobbly) foot stool and upholstered it. I tried gardening. I still have the plans of my cottage style garden that I’d love to create, if only someone would bankroll it. I turned my cobblestone backyard into a lawn and vege patch, although now I’m no longer single it’s more of a dingy forest. I tried candle making, cheese making, sourdough bread-making; I even had a brief foray with dress-making. Despite there being some hobbies I was clearly better at than others, I found the pleasure I got from making something from scratch was immense, even if fleeting. I ate tomatoes and zucchinis from my garden and posted smug photos of them on instagram. The hobby that stuck with me was knitting. I knit daily now. I’ve made hats and socks and jumpers. I like it because I can do it anywhere—on the bus, in front of the TV, at work, in between classes at uni. The rhythm of knitting is relaxing and it’s literally impossible to run out of new things to try, which suits me perfectly. Knitting means that time that I would have otherwise felt guilty about “wasting,” such as Gilmore Girls or a bus trip, becomes productive and cathartic. Even when I’m feeling most shit about myself, law school, my hairstyle, or that Rory ever thought Dean was good enough for her—I find solace in knitting. Knitting didn’t cure my anxiety or my depression, but it provided a comforting activity for me to do when I was feeling bad, and a way that I could feel good about myself.
In 2014, I had a breakdown. I nearly quit law school. I did catastrophically in all my papers. I either slept non-stop or not at all. I was deeply unhappy and at my worst, suicidal. I had a terrible haircut and I was desperately single. Somehow, I survived. I had good friends and an okay job that paid the bills, and I stopped bleaching my hair blond. I was still desperately single but I wasn’t holding out hope for a miracle. In 2015, I made it my resolution to stop worrying about shit that was out of my control so much. Part of this came down to managing my anxiety and depression better, but outside of the ~mental health~ realm I realised that four years of getting average grades at law school didn’t mean I was a failure, or stupid, or not worthy of happiness. My lovely therapist Lyn (why are all counsellors called Lyn/Lynn? Someone should do a study on that) recommended I improve my work / life / downtime balance. The phrase “self-care” has been thrown around a lot in the last couple of years and I had been in the habit of doing stupid shit using it as a broad excuse: staying up all night watching Gilmore Girls, spending all my food money on cheese, devoting hours to curating the perfect study playlists. Although the last one has proved rather helpful in the long term, the others made me feel lazy and inept. I slowly realised that the things that were supposed to be relaxing me were making me more stressed. I have always known that cooking is a relaxing habit for me. I love nothing more than daydreaming about wanky food matches and spending afternoons with my pasta machine, but there’s only so long one can spend making variations of ravioli. I decided it was time to try a different hobby.
22
Faith Wilson
My afakasi body | Life in between
I started not going into the sun at Summer. I wore hoodies and long black jeans. I would examine my skin everyday and mistook my pallor and lack of vitamin D for being white. At some point the disgust I felt for my skin colour manifested as disgust for my entire body. I would look at my mother’s big brown body, at all the Samoan women I knew with big bodies, and thought bigness was synonymous with brownness—my fear of having to face up to my body was too real. So I began trying to lose weight. For over a decade, some points worse than others, I internalised a fight against my corporeal existence. But who could I talk to about it? Because brown girls don’t get eating disorders. It’s a white girl thing, right? I imagined talking to Mum or Nana or anyone and I knew they simply wouldn’t get it. I was always getting called skinny, a waif even, by my cousins with naturally bigger bodies. And I’m not a waif. I’m a pretty average sized woman. But to them, my afakasi body was thin and desirable. To my white counterparts though, I was not skinny enough. I could always be skinnier. The ideal white body, floating gracefully like a ghost. That is what I wanted. But I am both white and brown. My genetics say you’re fully both and fully neither. This conflation of identity discomfort with my body’s existence I now see as a part of my afakasi identity. It’s the 21st century though yeah? I am not strictly bound to biology. I could change my appearance if I wanted to. And this is the daily negotiation. This negotiation determines the way I position myself politically. I would love to say that everyday I was born with radicalism in my bones, that defiance is easy once you make the choice. It’s not. It’s always a conscious decision. Some days I wake up and wanna slay, other days the lure of complacency is waiting on my bedside table with a baited hook. It’s hard to negotiate when you’ve got haters from every side. You’re not brown enough, or white enough, or radical enough, or too radical. They’re all right. I’m a walking contradiction. And I’ll sustain it. I exist in the gap. In the morning I wake up and choose the narrative I want to live and represent. Mostly I’ll avoid the hook. But I’m human. I am strong and I am weak. Somedays, I’ll bite.
Everyday is a negotiation for me. I have to consciously decide the way I will feel about my body, in fact this happens multiple times a day. You could say it’s one of the few constants in my life: my undying obsession with my body. This might be surprising to people that know me. I can give off a very good ‘careless’ attitude, a body positive love thyself type vibe. I’ll dress like I dgaf, act like I dgaf, and to varying degrees this is 100% true. But we occupy various versions of ourselves, don’t we? So while I am absolutely a femme fighter fucking up the patriarchy and all that, I’m also a female with body issues that I have tried so hard for many years to hide. Out of shame, embarrassment, and drawing attention to the body that for me is the cause of so many problems. Having issues about my appearance would undo the carefree, blase, fun-loving persona I had cultivated purely to mask those insecurities. I’ve spent a long time analysing the relationship I have with my body. Who am I to have issues? I have working limbs, eyes that see, ears that hear, I’m slightly gumby, okay fully gumby, but I can still complete physical tasks to a good degree. Functionality wise, I tick all the boxes. But this isn’t about functionality. It’s about surface. In a deep way. The discomfort I have with my body began real early, I’m talking six or seven years old, when we moved from Tokoroa to Hamilton. We were enrolled in a big Catholic school, predominantly white middle class. Way different to my school in Tok where brown kids were the majority. At my new school, I became acutely aware of my brownness and made the connection that it was my brownness that prevented me from being like all the cool and beautiful girls. I became ashamed of my own brown body. At some point the shame became unconscious. The shame had settled as I tried as hard as I could to escape the brown. At high school, Mum wondered why I didn’t join Pasifika. I said the girls didn’t like me cos I was fia palagi (white-seeming) and afakasi (half-caste). It was true. But the relief that they didn’t want me was great. It validated that I was different from them. I had an excuse to not be your Samoan girl.
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Laura Toailoa
“Pacific Studies Is A Bum Subject” to have any substantial and sustainable relevance to the “real world.” To find a university paper that valued my subjectivity as a real and valid perspective was a massive seal of approval that I shouldn’t have been waiting around for, but did. Following this twelve week long epiphanous course, I decided to enrol into some Samoan Studies papers. I was suddenly eager to learn more about my cultural heritage and the space it occupies in this tertiary institution. These papers presented very uncomfortable but crucial concepts to critically analyse. What was comforting was that as Samoan students, we would probably feel the same kinds of discomfort that we wouldn’t share with our non-Samoan peers. I’ve been so used to thinking about Samoan-ness in a black and white manner: right and wrong; authentic and plastic; Samoan-born and New Zealand-born; true Samoan and fia palagi. These papers equipped me with historical and contemporary ideas that can speak to the massive (and badly framed) question of “what does it mean to be Samoan?” Studying this at university showed me that it’s okay (and sometimes better) to have more questions than answers, and that these questions ought to be addressed urgently. Now I’m taking my first ever Pacific Studies paper and it is blowing my mind. There are so many curious and diligent Pacific Islanders who have started and continued important conversations about our place in the world. I am given tools and ideas to wrestle with in which I never solely agree or disagree. I see the utterly complicated and multifaceted nature of Pacific identity (both individually and collectively) and that the ways we think and talk about this has an effect on how you navigate the real world. I look back at first-year-me and no longer feel guilt and shame for who I was. Having gone through the experiences that I have, I am more empathetic to those who share the prejudiced and racist attitudes I once did. Although people who have these ideas irritate me now, I can see where they are coming from. I can see where a lot of people are coming from—not all, but I’m still on my way.
I laugh (but mostly cringe) at first-year-me’s opinions: namely, that Pacific Studies was an unnecessary subject field and that it’s only there for people who needed easy points for their degree. I firmly believed that people who took Pacific Studies were the Islanders that didn’t want to take a real subject, who didn’t want to do long complicated readings with big smart words. People who took Pacific Studies relied on the empathy and sympathy of brown lecturers to carry them through their degree. Andrew Judd identified himself as a “recovering racist” and that welled up tears in my eyes because it made me happy-sad to realise that I, a Samoan-born New Zealand citizen, too, am a recovering racist. Back in 2011 I wrote a blog (as any young person with a sense of entitlement and internet would) in which I said: “Generally, Samoans are associated with domestic violence, fresh-ness, unintelligence, poverty, and a whole lot of negative stuff. Esp. the Samoans living in South Auckland. The thing is (and I’m ashamed to say), that’s what I associate Samoans with too. I know, I know. But it’s true.” That was my truth that I carried from South Auckland to Victoria University of Wellington. So when people told me they were doing Pacific and Samoan Studies, I thought to myself, “of course you would, any excuse to slack off to get a degree.” I’d meet or just observe from afar students who fulfilled exactly what my prejudices predicted. In my first year (2013) I was looking for elective papers to take since I’d already fulfilled my major requirements. Tapu Vea recommended I take an education paper titled “KURA 101: Cultural Politics of Education in New Zealand and the Pan-Pacific.” This paper was the first time ever that I genuinely felt that my knowledge and Pacific perspectives actually mattered to my learning journey. Like many Islanders I know, school life and home life were two very distinct and very divergent worlds—the thought that they could run parallel to each other and even intertwine blew my ignorant mind. I was in awe that there were other Pacific Islanders who also struggled with finding validation and credibility in systems that saw their views and knowledge as too different, too primitive,
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Katie Meadows of but has since warmed to after I got a tattoo of young Marge alongside my mother’s initials. As an only child the Simpson children represented different facets of my personality—I was Bart’s unapologetic cheek, I was Lisa’s passion for academia, and I was Maggie’s wonder as I learnt about the world around me through a four-fingered yellow family. What some saw as just a cartoon I saw as a guide to life, that taught me how to support those I love and how to laugh at ourselves and our lives, at times, to keep from crying. The 1999 premiere and success of Family Guy heralded a sharp decline in the quality of The Simpsons. The latter was previously unchallenged as the prime time adult-oriented animated series; Family Guy’s arrival was like a car dealership opening right across the road and offering “better deals” but secretly filling up the tanks with sawdust like Danny Devito in Matilda. Family Guy was devoid of depth—the animation was poor and the characters horrible, with humour frequently of a sexist, racist, and homophobic nature. In its tenth season The Simpsons had a chance to up its game, but instead quickly sank to its competitor’s levels. Homer and Bart became loud, selfish, and insufferable idiots, while Marge and Lisa became nags and punching bags. Episodes were consumed with celebrity cameos and cheap gags for cheap laughs. It became unwatchable. Any time I’ve caught an episode I’ve had to turn it off, like running into your childhood best friend who became a total bitch. Conan O’Brien served as a writer on the show for two seasons, writing some of my favourite episodes including “Marge vs. the Monorail.” In 2013 his website hosted a Simpsons’ writers reunion with Al Jean, Mike Reiss, Jay Kogen, and Jeff Martin. They reflect back on their time together in a cramped writers’ room where they were given limits on the amount of donuts eaten, despite writing for a show that was earning over $2 billion in merchandising alone in a fourteen month period. They touch on a scene in “Bart the Daredevil” where Homer attempts to jump the Springfield Gorge on a skateboard only to plummet to the bottom, repeatedly hitting the jagged rocks and injuring himself. Groening was originally hesitant to include Homer falling and hurting himself so severely, as he wanted the show to remain within the realms of human possibility as any sitcom would. Groening has gone on to view that scene as one of the funniest of the series, maybe a foreshadowing of what was to come—as the show lost touch with reality, it fell out of touch with its fans. Of course when I say I hate The Simpsons I love it, but I can’t support or endorse it as it is now. I will forever love the golden age of its programming, up until season nine with a sprinkling of episodes through to season twelve. Those episodes are so brilliant that perhaps it was always going to be impossible for the show to adapt, but in that case the plug could have been pulled before the shark was jumped. The Simpsons will keep going until Matt Groening dies and I still won’t watch the very last episode, but the show will always be incredibly special to me.
In Memoriam: The Simpsons In 1987 The Simpsons premiered as a short on The Tracey Ullman Show and in 1989 it moved to Fox as the halfhour series that we know, from there becoming a global cultural phenomenon. I have three Simpsons tattoos, an extensive toy collection that I’ve spent years collecting, socks, t-shirts, sweaters, hats, sneakers, I even have a Krusty bong. My poor priorities aside, it is a show that has been a constant in my life, that I grew with as it shaped my childhood, adolescence, and most of all my sense of humour. But I haven’t watched an episode that came out after 2001 and I hate showrunner Matt Groening—The Simpsons is dead to me and has been for a long time. I can’t remember a time before The Simpsons were in my life. My mom hated it but I still snuck in the nightly 6.00pm viewings that were part of growing up in the 90s. I loved it and I learnt from it and even if I didn’t understand the references, I grew to get them and the show proved endlessly rich and satisfying. One of the strongest parts of The Simpsons was that it was human, that it had all the warmth and love and frustration of real life even at its most ridiculous. Homer wasn’t smart but he loved his family, and it was believable that despite all the problems he caused that his family stood by him. Episodes about Homer and Lisa’s relationship were particularly important to me because my father was fairly absent throughout my life, and I found catharsis when they found solutions to their issues. I found countless similarities between my mother and Marge, something she was originally skeptical
“Don’t cry for me, I’m already dead.” - Barney Gumble The Simpsons 1989 25
Lucy Stannard-Ryan @ l_e_ryan
Sarah Batkin
On The Trigger: My Complex Relationship with Trigger Warnings knowledge that not everyone is neurotypical, with the knowledge of my own experiences with anxiety and panic attacks, and with the knowledge that getting professional help for mental health issues is a privilege that is made inaccessible to many. I respect the choice made by certain online forums and media outlets to use TWs—especially when they include graphic depictions of rape, child sexual abuse, or self-harm. But the use of trigger or content warnings is as much a political statement and personal choice as it is anything else, which is why they should never be expected, especially within the context of a tertiary institution. University has never been and shouldn’t be an intellectual ‘safe space’. We go to University to learn and to challenge and to be challenged. I also have a sneaking suspicion that the email was sent out by that particular lecturer because they knew that if they didn’t, people would complain. Resulting in either a slap on the wrist or having that unit being replaced with something else less ‘problematic’. But the reason why this attitude and expectation of a prior warning is so insidious is because it teaches people they don’t have to address certain issues that make them uncomfortable or that trigger them. I’ve watched porn before, I know how absolutely vile and degrading some porn can be—especially heterosexual porn. But that just indicates to me that there’s even more of a reason for us to talk about it; to talk about its implications for young men, young women, for rape culture, and even the niche for feminist porn. It seems, therefore, counterintuitive to warn students against these kinds of uncomfortable and often violent topics and to tell them they don’t need to come to classes for fear of being triggered or offended. Because at the end of the day, the kind of behaviour and acts that cause people to then be triggered by the word ‘rape’ or the word ‘violate’, is exactly the kind of behaviour that demands to be talked about and challenged in every possible arena in order for it to go away. To quote someone far more eloquent than me, Roxane Gay puts it perfectly in her essay “The Illusion of Safety/ The Safety of Illusion” when she says, “there will always be a finger on the trigger. No matter how hard we try, there’s no way to step out of the line of fire.”
I’ve woken up, had a cup of tea, and am making my way through this morning’s slew of emails. There’s one from a sociology lecturer at Auckland University and it reads like this: “Yes, there is a lecture tomorrow, with the topic being contemporary pornography. There's a ‘trigger warning’ for this in that we will be discussing adult content, potentially including mention (but not images) of acts that some might consider problematic.” The lecturer then goes on to say that even though there will be a question about pornography in the exam there will be more questions to choose from, so if we don’t want to come to the class we don’t have to. Which, to be quite frank leaves me feeling disappointed and a little annoyed—since when is a world ranking university letting students not come to class because of problematic or adult content? It’s a dangerous precedent to set. Most of the arguments I see about trigger warnings (TWs) are not, in my mind, nuanced enough. One side ridicules those who don’t use TWs as thoughtless, wanton assholes; the other as overly sensitive Social Justice Warriors. In the largely un-censored and chaotic realm of the internet, I can understand the desire to create safespaces, places where we can attempt to ease the brutality of the world—a world which can be violent, sexist, racist, homophobic, the list goes on… I say this without flippancy. There is a difference between being triggered and being offended, it is important not to conflate the two. However, there comes a point where an attempt to create a safe space for some becomes an expectation that is placed on others and crosses over into the realm of censorship. It also sometimes turns into a toxic game of what seems to be, less about courtesy to others, and more about the ‘Awareness Olympics’. If anyone reading this is or has been a member of the insufferable Facebook group Cool Freaks Wikipedia Club, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Can others really be expected to know what kind of brutalities a person has gone through without meeting them? And can they be expected to identify anything and everything that may cause someone to be triggered? Should Facebook user guidelines be changed so that everyone has to use a stipulated set of warnings? The answer is a resounding no. I say this with the 28
McKenzie Collins
Hall Catering: as shit as they say The life of a first year is full of unprecedented stresses, and most are induced by the dining experience at halls of residence. Indeed, us students were warned: catering in halls is code for carbs, and fresher five is but a way to make ourselves feel better about weight gain (if everyone’s packing on the pounds, are we really getting fatter at all?). Even though a conversation regarding hall food never occurred without the word shit in it, there were many things which remained unsaid. These we would come to learn in the first few weeks of living in a hall. Of course, such lessons took first losing our swipe card, then, missing the meal time, and finally, daring to serve ourselves the bourguignon of the day. There’s two sides to the conversation of hall food. That of the menu, and that of the plate. A mediterranean baked chicken on the menu is somehow always translated as a lumpy white casserole on our plates. I’m about 98% certain that even the staff think “the fuck” as they pile it on our plate. The vegetarian option recently became available to all, after being a hot topic in the kitchen for a while. I often wonder how the discussion went down. Did the catering staff team up with the one guilt-tripping vegan in the hall? Or, did some brave soul rise from beneath a tray and actually point out the meat’s indistinguishability? Let’s move along, I want to say, to something less bleak, but honestly the service of hall catering doesn’t call for such a transition. If you thought Rihanna was sassy, you haven’t met Beyoncé at the kitchen counter. I’ll tell you one thing, she hates serving you your shit two minutes before closing. And she’s not about to hit you with a fake smile. I remember one morning, I was packed with lectures and it was nearing 2.00pm. Certain I was owning this whole student lifestyle thing (I’d stopped buying avocado sushi from Maki Mono everyday), I headed down to the dining room with a cinnamon and raisin bagel. I was mid-thought—about how awesome this idea was—when I felt the eyes of the kitchen lady cleaning the coffee machine behind me. She looked at me, and looked at my bagel in the toaster. I looked back at her. It was not subtle, it was not sweet. She asked if I was aware that I couldn’t use the toaster after hours. I wasn’t about to stick my hand in there to pick out my bagel. She seemed frustrated that the logistics of the toaster didn’t allow for this. Even my bagel looked as if it wanted to shrivel up and disappear, anticipating how heated and tense the final minute of the cycle would be. “Also, you’re not allowed to put bagels in the toaster. They get stuck.” I narrowed my eyes; not only did they serve bagels at breakfast that same morning, but the toaster has a setting labelled “BAGELS.” When it came out the other side just fine I hummed a humdrum tune and walked out. It was as effective as telling someone to calm down when they’re angry. We find ourselves having these same arguments every day. I haven’t taken a survey, but I’d say roughly seven out of eight staff members think it’s okay to begin pack-up at 9.30am when breakfast closes at 9.40am. There is one staff member who will feel sorry for you and poor some cornflakes into a bowl. The rest will point to your room when you ask for milk. So is the overall vibe a ten? Of course it is. Sure, I felt personally victimised when I lost my swipe and they refused to serve me (even after said kerfuffles made us acquainted). Yes, I felt vulnerable when they questioned if I’d ceased the vegetarian lifestyle since lunch (the meatlovers pizza actually looked good). But you know what, as much as I complain—and together, I’m sure we will keep complaining—I wouldn’t change this lifestyle. The catering system at halls brings me about as much amusement as it does stress. To the staff who are just doing their jobs, stopping people in hallways with loaves of bread in their hands, and dealing with people who line up at 5.20pm for dinner, well, I take my hat off to you. I’d probably be sassy too. 29
Jess Scott
Why is self love demonised? Why is acceptance of one’s own lump of cellular matter—the flesh prison we inhabit, the meat ship we commandeer—considered to be so radical? Why is the act of liking oneself, either being content with one’s appearance or accepting our own discontent, so deeply controversial? Our generation is frequently blasted by those preceding us for being a pack of self-obsessed, overindulgent narcissists: oversharing every mediocre aspect of our existences, documenting every #rawvegan salad we consume, snapchatting every tequila shot, updating our profile pictures every time we buy a new lipstick, thriving off of Instagram likes, and adapting iPhoneshaped indents in our palms. But is this really so unthinkably terrible? Is it worse than irreversibly polluting the earth, destroying the economy (fuck you baby boomers), and bringing your spawn up on the false notion that we could be successful in any field if we were passionate enough about it? (Us and every other arts graduate). The act of selfie-taking is inherently political, as we are simultaneously the subject and object of the image. We are enabled total creative freedom and autonomy over our own representation, yet this is considered to be the lowest form of culture. It is written off as an act of flagrant narcissism, almost as the social media equivalent of publicly jerking off to one’s own reflection. But I feel like the act of choosing the way your body is seen, the way in which you exist within the worlds of others, is actually quite powerful. As a female representations of our bodies are almost always outside of the realm of our control, primarily through media representations that prioritise the male gaze over our own. We are positioned as the passive viewer object, never the active subject. The female perspective is rarely the assumed audience. The selfie is a reclamation of this agency; a way of both controlling and celebrating our own bodies. It is saying that at x time I was feeling cute and confident enough to share what I look like with my social circle, with the wider internet. That this is what I look like, on my terms. This is the way that I want you to see me, the way I want to be interpreted. I accept that this is what I look like, and I am content with this. Vanity is positioned as a deeply negative trait, something to be trained out of and to be avoided. We aren’t supposed to glimpse our reflections and simply like what we see. We aren’t supposed to stand naked in front of a mirror and proclaim that we look good naked, regardless as to the proximity with which our body aligns with normative beauty standards. Self deprecation is seen as the norm; it is literally more socially acceptable to openly hate your body, than it is
to like it. Think back to that scene in Mean Girls where Cady is first invited to hang out with “the plastics” at Regina’s house, and the girls go about in turns reciting what they dislike about their bodies, from wide hips to “man shoulders,” to a weird hairline and sucky nail beds. It is positioned almost as social expectation to berate and critique your appearance, even if you are considered to be exceedingly normatively attractive as these characters are; they are all still able to easily pinpoint several anatomical aspects they are discontent with. Rather than poking fun at ‘petty’ teenage girls’ bodily insecurities, writing them off as shallow and trivial, this scene sheds light upon the cultural phenomenon that results in these sorts of bodily attitudes. Contrasting these brutal self-dissections is clueless Cady, who has no idea how to respond to this social rite having been socialised outside of Western culture, and is only just discovering that “apparently there can be a lot of things wrong with your body.” These feelings of bodily discontent and insecurity are not inherent to the human species, they are socialised traits. We don’t exit the womb vying for an 18-inch waist, razor-sharp cheekbones, and a thigh gap. I am fairly certain cave women never avoided seeing their reflections in puddles because they were self-conscious about their tiger skin pelt making their butt look big. In a social environment where for women the idea of our own inadequacy is ingrained from an alarmingly young age; we could always be prettier, thinner, smarter, fitter, healthier, more eloquent, a better friend, better partner, better employee. We are not simply “good enough.” This is perpetrated by multi-billion dollar industries, enforced by every advertising campaign we interact with: that we can, and should, always be improving ourselves; that we should never be content with the way that we are because we could always be better. In this hostile environment being content with your body—acceptant of its flaws, of every last mouche, scar, freckle, stretch mark, of your weirdly-long second toes, the width of your thighs, your ski-slope nose, the length of your legs—is an extremely radical act. Even scraping together some semblance of self acceptance, let alone the ability to openly admit to loving your body, is both incredibly difficult and incredibly powerful, in a world where your insecurities are capitalised off and sold back to you. If every woman in the world woke up tomorrow liking the way she looked, how many global-scale industries would collapse? So keep taking your selfies, telling yourself that you’re super fucking cute, take your vitamins, wear red lipstick, and don’t let boys be mean to you. 30
Lucy Wardle
Going to art school was the best thing I have ever done
This is it. It was the night of Exposure, Massey University’s graduate exhibition. I was about to do a speech on behalf of fine arts in front of so many people’s parents—but I couldn’t stop thinking about what all this really meant. I was relieved that the stress was finally over and I was happy with what I had accomplished and what my friends and peers had accomplished—but the realisation suddenly hit me and reality broke my heart. It was over. I recently read over my speech I presented almost two years ago. It brought me back to that moment, to those feelings and all those memories. I never expected art school to have this effect on me—it was the best four years I’ve ever spent.
This is it, 2014 Louise Rutledge Vinyl text/block 2/ Massey University
So here are a few little insights into why: The Studio I made a lot of bad art, I made a lot of good art. I cried, I got drunk, I fell asleep on the pink velvet couch in the studio. I had no ideas, I had too many ideas. I was stressed, I was productive. I covered my body in paint. My friend Ruby and I once life drew each other, where at any moment anyone could have walked in. The studio was a second home and those within it became a family.
courtyard also served as a place to sit, chat, and smoke durries. The conversations about what we were working on, stresses, and insecurities—we never faced them alone. Everyone listened, everyone contributed their opinion, and everyone gained insight. The courtyard was a refreshing space from being trapped in the studio / computer lab for hours on end.
Crit Week This was serious business. You could see the fear in people’s eyes. Crit week involved all fine art students, tutors, and invited guests (usually artists, curators, and lecturers) participating in a critique of students’ work. The studios were cleared out, all the T-walls repainted white, and if there was anything left in your space that wasn’t supposed to be there (e.g. nails on the floor or a piece of tape on the wall), it would be critiqued. Using blue tack was also a big no no. Honest opinion was vital and there was no holding back. You had to be strong and confident about your reasonings, letting all given feedback be constructive. Crit week was a positive and helpful process giving new perspectives, thoughts, and references—it was also great practice in talking about art. There was always a post-crit week party.
New York We arrived in New York City in the springtime. I, and 20 other fine art students plus three tutors, spent two weeks visiting numerous contemporary art galleries, museums, and artist studios. A few highlights from the trip were: Hearing Judy Chicago speak at the Jewish Museum and getting a book signed by her while she discussed her love of cats. Dia:Beacon, which is an hour journey outside of NYC, has a collection of conceptual art from the 1960s to present. Here I experienced the works of Louise Bourgeois, Bruce Nauman, Richard Serra, and Robert Morris. The building itself was incredible, rooms filled natural light and wide open spaces. Seeing Lilith by Kiki Smith at MOMA was unexpected and I almost cried, as well as an abundance of paintings by Georgia O’Keefe at the Met. We spent a lot of our time exploring different areas of the city, getting lost, visiting psychics, navigating the subway, talking to strangers, and spending a lot of time in bars. A friend of mine even fell in love and we didn’t see him for four days.
The Courtyard The courtyard was situated between blocks one and two. These blocks were very important as they shared the computer lab, the workshop, and studio spaces. Often travelling back and forth multiple times each day, the 31
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Be inspired TAKE A CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOP AS PART OF YOUR DEGREE OR TO DEVELOP YOUR WRITING. CREW 253 POETRY WORKSHOP
CREW 352 CREATIVE SCIENCE WRITING
CREW 353 WRITING FOR THEATRE
Leading poet James Brown will guide you through the art of writing poetry.
Whether you’re a Science student or creative writer, work with talented writers Ashleigh Young and Rebecca Priestley to develop your nonfiction writing with a science angle.
Learn the craft of writing for the stage with celebrated playwright Gary Henderson.
James is a poet, freelance writer and editor at Te Papa and has published a number of volumes of poetry.
CREW 255 CHILDREN’S WRITING Renowned children’s author Eirlys Hunter will allow you to explore different forms of writing for the pre-adolescent child and begin to develop your own clear voice.
Gary is a leading New Zealand playwright, director and teacher of playwriting whose work is produced locally and internationally. The IIML is very fortunate to have been able to lure Gary from Auckland to teach CREW 353 this year. This is the first (and might be the only) opportunity for up and coming Wellington area playwrights to benefit from the insights and experience of New Zealand’s best teacher of writing for theatre.
APPLY NOW FOR TRIMESTER TWO Applications close 21 June 2016 To find out more about the creative writing courses offered by the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University, go to victoria.ac.nz/modernletters Capital thinking. Globally minded.
Single Sad Postgrad Sharon Lam
I Found Myself, You Can Ask Me Out Again Now in hand, I would like to extend my sincere thanks for giving me this time to be by myself. Through this seemingly endless period of unrequited love, self-indulgence, and fruitless pining, I really have come to grow as a person. My ex was right, I did need this time alone. How else would I have learnt that I am a huge delusional creep, that I am really bad at casual sex, and that I will probably never get over anyone ever? What a journey! What self-discoveries! Now you may also be thinking—wait, maybe I’m in the midst of the same thing! To know for sure, take this simple test:
In my last breakup, my ex mentioned that we both needed to “learn to be ourselves alone,” that an extended time spent being single and focusing on me and only me would be a good thing. He even went so far as to make sure of this by making absolutely everyone promise to fake disinterest, and to straight up reject me if I seemed to be even slightly into you. Under no circumstances could I have requited love until I discovered who I was. “Don’t date Sharon, she needs time to grow,” he told everyone. So thoughtful of him! And you guys all did so well! Really stuck to your promise—not texting me back, pretending to not know who I was, even saying things like “eww” while I stared at you across the room! Solid effort guys. Really convincing stuff. You never slipped once! You really went all out to make sure that I stayed deadly single. Well, I’m now writing to say that after a year and four months of solid me-time, I have totally found myself, I know exactly who I am, and you can all start asking me out again. I can hear the sighs of relief across town already! It must have been super hard for you all to have suppressed those feelings for me for so long, just eagerly waiting for the day that I would come out of my singleton cocoon a wiser, more self-assured person. Well that day is here, so hooray for the both of us! Your time of emotional censorship has come to an end, as has my time of lonely bedridden carb loading. Before you all come running to my door with bouquets
1. 2. 3.
Are you super intelligent, witty, and cute enough on a good day? Has no one asked you out for months and months? Is there not a single speck of hope in your nonexistent love life?
If you answered yes to all these questions, then congratulations! Someone who cares about you has obviously also made everyone promise to stay away from you romantically until you find yourself. Stick it out, because soon you’ll be just like me, and wake up with the sudden knowledge of who you are, and the suitors will instantly come flooding back.
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Stressed, Depressed, Well-dressed
Breathing Space
Jess Scott
Tawhai Moss (Bubble Leader)
Last week I chose to survive off $5.72 (post supermarket—do not panic, I am alive) for five days so as to purchase a pair of pink, glittery Miu Miu* sunglasses. After a recent five day Bloody Mary bender / alcoholiday with the main squeeze, my savings account (read: all nine accounts) were looking absolutely dismal. But I NEEDED them. I had been eyeing them up (read: high key stalking and checking on them at least once a week) in Recycle Boutique from the day they went out on the floor, until they dropped half price to a cool $115 and I didn’t have to feel guilty for spending more than my rent on glittery shit. But these weren’t just any sparkly pink thing to add to my menagerie of sparkly pink things. It wasn’t just that they perfectly matched my pink rabbit fur stole and pink wool coat, completing my “Barbie after a weeklong coke bender” aesthetic. Or that in them, I looked like your slightly batty spinster aunt with six cats, who drinks gin straight from the bottle and ruins Christmas, but compensates with lavish presents. Or even that they are literally pink tinted, so in them I am somewhat forced to adopt a rosier outlook. These sunglasses I had seen in countless editorials, had popped up on my tumblr dashboard maybe half a million times, I literally had a picture of them stuck to my wall. I had accepted (and promptly quit) a job at Sunglass Hut in the hopes of acquiring them at an employee-discounted rate (still $400+ lol.) These glasses represented my inner aspiring Carrie Bradshaw, the manolo poster girl x successful journalist with a wardrobe bigger than the average studio apartment. The self that the years of hope labour and unpaid internships I have to look forward to, will eventually equate to. They were the exemplification of my Gossip Girl lifestyle on a Broad City budget. So maybe it isn’t about the glasses, maybe it is about becoming the kind of person (maniac?) who would wear $400 pink fucking glittery sunglasses. Note to future Jess: lay-by the next dumb extravagant thing you “need”—you are such a colossal bitch when you’re hangry.
In previous articles we have discussed ways to improve our own well-being, in this article I want to do something slightly different. I am going to talk about the effect that our opinions can have on other people’s well-being. This morning before leaving for university I heard a sound coming from the street below my house. A car horn, blaring long and loud. My initial thought was “what a horrible person.” My follow up thought was “what good will blasting your horn do anyway?” Well it turns out I have no idea what good it will do. Of course I don’t, from my point of view I can only observe one person’s behaviour. I can’t observe the context of the situation that behaviour was performed in, and more importantly, I cannot see into the mind of the person performing that behaviour. And yet I instantly and instinctively formed an opinion, not only of the situation, but of one of the people in it. Had I been there and had an opportunity to interact with them, what would have happened? In social and cognitive psychology we often speak of biases. A cognitive bias describes an error in thinking that humans are prone to making. Sometimes these biases can be adaptive, and that is part of the reason we have them. If you hear a rustling sound in the bush in Australia, a cognitive shortcut may lead you to assume it is a snake. This biased decision will then activate your fight or flight mode (let’s be honest, your flight mode— how do you even fight a snake?) leading you to run away. Unfortunately these biases can sometimes lead you to the wrong decision or, in the case of my experience this morning, the wrong opinion. The bias I fell prey to is called the actor-observer bias. This bias is that we judge our own actions and behaviours based on our intentions, but we judge others based solely on their actions and behaviours as we cannot always know their intentions. This can lead us to form the wrong opinion of them. This morning no harm came of this bias for me, but at other times it can. Our opinions of others shape our interactions with them, they shape how we speak to others, they shape what we do for others. If we hold a negative opinion of someone we may do something that negatively affects their well-being, either consciously or unconsciously. This is an important bias to be aware of, because in being aware of it we can take a step back when we need to and think—is my opinion of this person appropriate? It is not only our own well-being we should be aware of, but also the well-being of others because we all need each other and we are all in this together aren’t we? Well almost all of us… maybe not the snakes….
* For the uninitiated: Miu Miu [noun; pronounced “mew-mew”] is Prada’s little sister label.
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Queer Agenda Inappropriate Questions Strangers Have Asked Me And My Girlfriend or How I Learned To Sigh And Walk Away. One of the best (read: worst) things about being visibly queer is the tirade of boring and generic street harrasment that must be endured. Yes, I know that this is not specific to queer people, and yes, I know that—as gender normative cis folk—my partner and I (sadly) get off pretty lightly. However presented here for your entertainment today are a couple of the Pulitzer-nominated offerings that regularly crop up among the dross we stomach while making the audacious and inflammatory move of stepping outside our front door: 1.
“Which one of you is the man?” What you mean is: how do we have sex. Which
2. 3.
4.
one of us wears the strap on. Which one of us gets fucked. I can (sadly) understand the confusion— if your only conceptualisation of sex is a penis insterted monotonously and repeatedly into a vagina, contemplating how one might achieve sexual congress without one of those vital elements must be a real head-scratcher. Seriously, whenever someone expresses concern over how my girlfriend and I get each other off, all I feel is sadness for anyone that person has ever slept with. If you actually do nothing other than insert tab A into slot B, you are not good at sex. “Can I watch (or join) you having sex?” No. “Lesbians!” Yes, I know this one isn’t a question, but it’s the most common thing that gets yelled at us as we casually walk around town. I honestly don’t understand what the point of this is. The yellers are always men, in groups of three or more, and never respond well to being told where to shove their inane observations. Like, really—do they think we don’t know? *leers* or *grabs/rubs crotch in our general direction* You are the reason women know how to walk puposefully, staying in well-lit areas, with their keys inbetween their fingers.
The moral of the story: you’re not original, you’re not funny, you’re not cool. Don’t be that asshole who spews crap at strangers. And learn some new moves—your partner will thank you for it.
What We Talk About When We Talk About Science
"Sports" Joe Morris
James Churchill
Saturday night saw the much anticipated bout between the Joseph “wears a suit to Burger King” Parker, and Carlos “I’ve never been to a pre-fight conference at Burger King, until now” Takam. The fight took place at the Vodafone Events Centre in South Auckland, surrounded by what the New Zealand Herald labelled “an odour of Hype and Heineken.” Burger King, Heineken, and Vodafone; three of many companies gaining financially from the broadcast and promotion of the fight. Joseph Parker won the fight by unanimous decision after “going the distance” with Takam to the 12th round. An entirely pleasing result, no doubt, to the promoters and sponsors alike. A marketing major might later tell me the term “maximum brand exposure,” or something like it. On top of the $50 pay-per-view sky charged, all’s well so far in the professional sports industry of late capitalism. The fight was promoted by DUCO events, headed by two ex-Warriors front rowers (think a successful Stepbrothers’ Prestige Worldwide). Less pleasing to the fights promoters, the event was streamed on Facebook and viewed freely by over 100,000 people. One Porirua man who streamed the fight is (self-proclaimedly) “a modern day robin hood” (via his personal Facebook page, “A Day in the Life of #BeastMoze”). One of DUCO’s founders, Sean Lonergan, is claimed to be filing legal action against those who uploaded the fight as copyright infringement. Lonergan has stated, while standing in front of TAB and KFC advertising hoarding: “the person they are ultimately stealing from is Joseph Parker, a guy who is literally sweating blood?” Lonergan is of course forgetting most of those people who streamed the fight would not have paid the expensive pay-per-view either way. This is the crucial point the courts will have to consider in any copyright case surrounding the fight, which Lonergan seems hell bent on pressing. For good measure, Lonergan also called those who uploaded and streamed the fight “complete lowlife shitheads.” It seems Lonegan is less concerned about those stealing from Parker, than those “stealing”—not a term legally applied to copyright infringement—from his own pay-packet. Glad to note the corporations still win in advertising, so at least there is that.
Vaccination has a long and pretty successful history. The Chinese were doing a form of it in the 10th century. In the late 1800s it had become common practice in England. Vaccines led to massive drops in mortality from diphtheria, influenza, hepatitis A and B, measles, mumps, rubella, polio, tetanus, smallpox and more. The general idea of how they work is quite simple. A vaccine contains a very small amount of the germs that cause a disease. When you receive the vaccine your body reacts by making special proteins called antigens that work to destroy the disease germs. These antigens linger in your immune system so if you are exposed to the disease in the future your body is prepared to fight it away. However a very strange movement has been gaining traction recently: the anti-vaccination movement. Antivaxers spout pseudo-scientific evidence to justify not vaccinating their children. The most common claim is that vaccines lead to autism. Autism is a range of developmental disorders that affect people’s ability to communicate and socialise. The cause is unknown and autism diagnoses have increased markedly in the last decade. Some have attributed this increase to vaccinations despite over a dozen scientific papers stating that there is no connection. It is easy to be sympathetic with parents who are confused about why their child is having a hard time and who want something to blame. But vaccines are really important. Not just to prevent disease in the vaccinated, but to protect others through “herd immunity.” The idea that when the vast majority of a community are immune to a disease then that disease is less likely to get a grip in the community. Babies don’t get their first measles, mumps, and rubella immunisations until they are 12–15 months. Before that herd immunity is relied upon; vaccination is integral to public health. Recently there has been a measles outbreak in the Waikato. Schools were closed. At the same time No Forced Vaccines spokesperson Katherine Smith was given time on Radio New Zealand, and she quoted purely anecdotal evidence linking the measles vaccine to autism. Fair and balanced reporting is important, but not when it gives credence totally unscientific rumours for which the victims are young children.
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Enrol now in Art History Trimester 2 courses at Victoria ARTH 114 Art and Encounter ARTH 212 History of Photography ARTH 217 The Renaissance ARTH 222 Neoclassicism to Impressionism ARTH 315 Topics in 18th-Century Art ARTH 317 Topics in 20th-Century Art For more information go to victoria.ac.nz/sacr/study/courses/art-history
Tupaia, An English Naval Officer Bartering with a Maori, c.1769, watercolour (The British Library Board, 065691 Add. 15508 f.11.)
The Arts Section 40 Food 41
Visual Arts
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Music
43 Music 44 Film 45 Film 46
Games
47 TV 48
Books
49 Theatre
The Arts Section is sponsored by:
Thanks to Vic Books for providing copies to review.
Thanks to Reading Cinemas Courtenay for providing two complimentary tickets this week.
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Thanks to Gordon Harris for providing a $100 gift voucher for the centrefold submission.
Apple & berry crumble
Food
Kate Morten
As your enviably lengthy summer finally starts to fade (and our London summer “begins”) you’re going to start to want things that warm you from the inside. Crumble is a bloody classic winter warmer dessert. Everyone’s got a family recipe (Edmonds Cookery Book, anyone?) that gets popped in the oven to round off the night in style. This recipe is a little less Edmonds and a little more whole-foodsy, if you’re into that, or have friends who require that. Despite being eat-for-breakfast-or-dessert good for you, this crumble still tastes dope as shit. Sub out the apples and berries for any other fruit you’re vibing, whether it be the last of the summer stone fruit, or a giant bag of discount frozen berries. The crumble topping is one size fits all.
4 large cooking apples 1 cup raspberries (or any berries, really) 3 cups rolled oats 150g ground almonds 1/2 cup coconut sugar (or brown sugar if you aren’t about that wholefoods life) 1 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp ginger 1/2 tsp nutmeg 3/4 cup melted extra virgin coconut oil
Preheat the oven to 190 degrees. Chop up the apples (skin on, skin off, whatever your vibe is) and bung them in a pot with cold water (not quite enough to cover them though). Stew over a medium heat, giving them a stir every now and then so they don’t catch on the bottom. They're done when they look like vaguely lumpy mashed potatoes (if you got legit cooking apples). Mix the stewed apple in with the berries in whatever dish you’re making your crumble in (please actually use a dish that is oven-all-good). In a bowl, mix all your dry ingredients together; then pour in your coconut oil and mix up your crumble topping with your hands. Go on. Sprinkle over the top of the dish of stewed fruit, then put in the oven. Cook until the fruit is bubbling up at the corners of the dish, and the crumble topping is starting to go golden brown.
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Bleak
Louise Rutledge
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Visual Arts
how cutting the arts off at its knees is anything other than an incredibly dark and damaging decision. These organisations are the roots of the industry, an industry that creates a dynamic cultural landscape and is worth an estimated $50 billion a year to Australia’s economy. It leaves the future of the Australian arts in a terrifyingly uncertain position. In New Zealand funding to the arts is taking a similar, though hopefully not as devastating turn. Creative New Zealand (CNZ), our arts council, is reviewing its budgets for 2016/17 and beyond as they stand to receive $11 million less this financial year. Why? Because lotto ticket sales are down and CNZ receives approximately two-thirds of its revenue from the Lottery Grants Board. In a press release detailing the losses, CNZ Chief Executive Stephen Wainwright said the “three ways New Zealanders can help mitigate the negative effect of the decline in revenue is by going to the arts, giving to the arts, or buying a Lotto ticket.” It’s an uncomfortable reality that the arts in New Zealand are funded by gambling profits. The arts are better than this relationship. While some may argue the upcoming funding cuts should encourage CNZ to be more selective with who they fund, Australia’s recent news shows how vital smaller organisations, as well as emerging and individual projects are to the sector as a whole. And while the argument of “the arts are luxury for the rich, we should spend the money on something important” will always be raised, the organisations and individuals that are most affected by these changes most often sit outside of this stereotype, working with their communities in a sector that is already notoriously underfunded, overworked, and undervalued. The cuts not only raise arguments for how valuable the arts are, but of what governments value within the arts. Case in point: in 2014 the Australian Opera received $25 million in government funding, $3 million more than 175 smaller organisations put together. At their best, the arts offer an experience that educates, entertains, and challenges. The arts shape our culture and give voice to the things that need to be said, offering alternative perspectives and create spaces of critical inquiry. The arts need diversity, investment, and support—from the roots up.
On Friday the 13th (an ominous start) the Australia Council announced the recipients of its four-year funding program for small-to-medium sized arts organisations. For 128 applicants it was good news, but for 62 previously funded organisations they got nothing. Not a reduction, not a significant loss, but nothing. And these weren’t insignificant institutions. While encouragingly 43 new and 17 indigenous organisations did receive funding, those that missed out were a number of long-standing, significant institutions across the visual arts, theatre, dance, and literary communities. The Australian Experimental Art Foundation, which has received funding since 1974? Nothing. The National Association for the Visual Arts, which offers support and advocacy? Nothing. And while the Wheeler Centre, which houses a number of literary organisations, actually received funding; the organisations it houses? Ironically, and again, nothing. For some organisations these cuts mean a stark reassessment of budgets, reductions to programming and increased reliance other funding sources. For others, they will simply have to close their doors. The announcement followed the controversial redistribution of $105 million from the Australia Council to a new fund, the National Program for Excellence in the Arts, by the former Arts Minister in 2015. While this restructure was mollified by their successor, who renamed the fund Catalyst and returned $32 million to the Australia Council, these changes still left a $73 million shortfall. Across all of the budget cuts, newly structured funding programs, re-written policies and political decisions, it is said $300 million has been lost to the arts sector since Tony Abbott was elected in 2013, including a 70% decrease in the number of grants the Australia Council has given to individual artists and projects. In a statement regarding the decision Tony Grybowski, the chief executive officer of the Australia Council, said: “we acknowledge that the change will be challenging. I agree it is a time of change, but it’s not a dark time… I’d actually like to shift the conversation to the art, not just the funding.” Unfortunately Mr. Grybowski, art cannot happen without funding, and like many I struggle to see
Chance The Rapper Coloring Book 4/5 Music
Review by Dion Rogers once), and Kanye avoids this hallmark “big head mode,” keeping his feature small but tasteful. Even Young Thug has a feature; this can generally make or break a track, but his verse on Coloring Book not only makes sense but is really fantastic. 2 Chainz brings his usual swagger and even T-Pain has been recruited for a chorus feature with his trademark auto tuned vocals. However the best feature has to go to the Chicago Children’s Choir. Chance and Kanye struck gold; they sound just beautiful. Chance also has his own flesh-and-blood cousin Nicole feature, who I presume is behind the amazing gospel choir vocals on “How Great”. The effect is immense; it makes me feel like I’m in a massive congregation, and I honestly didn’t want it to end. Coloring Book feels like a celebration. It’s Chance’s audio party. Like a party, we have the elated moments on “All We Got” and “Finish Line/Drown”. We also have the comedown and the more somber moments on tracks like “Same Drugs” and “Juke Jam”. There are a few interesting lyrics that one could call “struggle bars,” but in the scheme of things, it’s a minor downside. While no one is going to compare this record’s lyrical complexity to the Kendrick Lamar’s of the world, I don’t feel like that was the point—this mixtape is a just one big celebration. Chance’s joy at being able to do what he does is so infectious you can’t help but groove along with him; you don’t need a history lesson on all his drama to understand it like you do with Kanye, or a dose of misogyny and a Toronto Raptors jersey like you do with Drake. My only hope is that people see this mixtape and start to replicate it; hip hop needs more positive, uplifting mixtapes.
Third time’s the charm! Chance has always been a background character for me; Acid Rap was okay but it didn’t grab me like his new mixtape did. In fact he was actually off my radar until his fantastic feature on Kanye’s “Ultralight Beam” (the best feature on The Life of Pablo). Before that he was just that guy on Action Bronson’s “Baby Blue”. I realise now, however, that the hype he’s achieved is more than warranted, with the release of what is sure to be one of the best mixtapes this year. Remember everyone’s complaints about Kanye never reverting back to his College Dropout era sound? Well, Chance did it for him. All the hallmarks are here: clean instrumentation, fantastic choral arrangements and best of all—this mixtape is fun. When compared to Drake’s newest release Views, which is packed full of pretentiousness and posturing and leaves no room for honest fun, the contrast is outstanding. Every major hip hop release this year has followed Drake’s pattern of a few trap ‘bangers’, followed by whining about cash, women, and not getting enough ‘respect’. It’s so monotonous to listen to day in, day out. So imagine how surprised I was to see that Chance’s mixtape, lo and behold, is lyrically positive! He actually sounds like he wants to be rapping and making music, like an overzealous younger sibling that’s just happy to be hanging out with you and your older friends. Even when this mixtape lowers the mood, it comes across as genuine instead of a pity party. Heck even Justin “Bugatti” Biebs has a feature that doesn’t offend. While I’m definitely not a Belieber myself, as a featured voice he is impressive. Lil Wayne’s verse is actually intelligible (for
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99.9% 4.5/5 Review by Jazz Kane Kaytranada’s 99.9% is a spellbinding work, one which reflects a culmination of the vibrant jazz, disco, electronic, and hip-hop scene which is so sought after as of late. Boasting incredible features, including the mighty Craig David, Kaytranada brings out the best in all of them. His debut record illustrates his immense talent as a producer and beat maker, but more so as an artist who works alongside the grain whilst simultaneously challenging its constituent elements. Kaytranada delivers a stunning opening track aptly titled “Track Uno.” It relies heavily on his ability to create slick, danceable songs with interesting synths, that together compound to a full, hearty sound. The few songs on this album that are without a feature prove the capability of his work without accompaniment. The album as a whole is constructed in a way that allows each track to flow into the next. “Bus Ride” has strong features from River Tiber and Karriem Riggins. The interplay between Karriem’s polyrhythmic askew drumming and Kaytranda’s tempered steady rhythm really sold this track for me. It reminds me of such albums as Dilla Joints (Dilla Joints / The Roots) where the timing is played around with, to great success and confusion. Arguably one of the strongest tracks from this album would be “Got it Good” featuring Craig David. The strong but soothing vocals from David shows he has not lost his touch despite a decade of inactivity. Kaytranada works to David’s strengths, with strong synths and a, for lack of a better term, PHAT backbeat. 43
Music
“Together” (featuring AlunaGeorge and Goldlink) and “Drive Me Crazy” (featuring Vic Mensa) are the two tracks that have the strongest connection between them, and it’s almost easy to forget they are two different songs until you hear Vic Mensa’s voice above the instrumental foliage stating “yeah, see the street lights? I ain’t slept in like 48. Let’s start!” Kaytranada’s work with Vic Mensa is phenomenal, bringing distorted synths and a heavy synth bass in after Vic yells, “Watch yo mouth!” into the void. “Weight Off” (featuring BadBadNotGood) is the only purely instrumental feature track, but the cutting and cropping of Sowinski’s drums is some of the best production work I’ve heard. Cuts that are succinct but fall off make the beat bang like nothing else, and this is as close as you’ll get to an instrumental jazzy club banger. The feature with Phonte, “One Too Many” is in my opinion possibly the weakest song on the album. My measure being that it lacks the ability to be listened to repeatedly, but is by no means a bad song in its own right. “Glowed Up” (featuring Anderson .Paak) is one of my personal favourites on the record, with unexplainable alien-esque synths and yet more PHAT beats. Kaytranada is clearly a purveyor of this elusive combination of sounds, as the outro to this track has beautiful lulling tones, and Anderson .Paak croons lines like, “not just another name, not just some wannabe, in the hands of love, just like I wanna be.” My final favourite was “Lite Spots” which has the cutest video that shows off Kaytranada’s dancing skills alongside a dancing robot. For me, “Lite Spot” encapsulates all that is great about this album. Blistering disco highs, light jazzy undertones, well used samples, phenomenal drums, and an iconic sound that sticks in your head that for once, you don’t think is shit. I urge you to listen to the rest of the album, particularly with the talented features in the second half of the record including Shay Lia, Syd tha Kyd, and Little Dragon. Though there have been a lot of releases recently, this is definitely not one to skim over.
Kaytranada
Talking tickling with David Farrier Tickled is a documentary on the surreal practice of professional tickling uncovered by David Farrier and Dylan Reeve. Imagine receiving an unsolicited email inviting you to participate in competitive, endurance tickling with the promise of free flights, five-star accommodation, and thousands of dollars. In that same email, this disclosure appears: “Presently, I’ve been shooting all-male casts. It is important for you to understand from the get-go that this is not a fetish, or adult oriented content endeavor. Also, no nudity or implied nudity work is a part of anything that I ever shoot. This is a completely athletic activity with major competitive and endurance elements involved, including strategy and teamwork. Participants will always be clothed in a provided ADIDAS t-shirt and a pair of gym shorts that we provide.” Film reviewer Hamish Popplestone had a chat with David Farrier about the strange phenomenon of tickling, and the creation of Tickled.
Film
Hamish: You’re known for your pop-culture journalism over the last decade: can you tell me how an investigation into a Youtube video of young men, tickling each other in active-wear, turned into a large, publicly fundraised documentary?
David: That was crazy. It was as simple as him being a Kickstarter backer. We had these different Kickstarter rewards, and one of them was: if you give us a certain amount of money, you will be an associate producer; you’ll get to see some cuts of the film; you can give input; and he was the one that grabbed that reward. I remember being in Auckland and our funds suddenly skyrocketed. I saw whose name it was and it took me a while to realise it was actually him.
David: It was super organic. It started when I was in the newsroom browsing the internet and my friend, who is always trying to out-do me finding weird things, sent me a link for competitive, endurance tickling. Like any story that I would cover, I reached out to the organizers and, when they reacted in such a negative way, I started blogging about it on 3News in a series of three blogs. It was one of the most popular blogs I had done with people commenting and sharing like crazy. It was nice, because then I knew it wasn’t just something interesting in my own head. And then my friend, Dylan, started blogging about it as well, so I said we should start a Kickstarter and see if we could raise some money to go to America and do some filming. We raised the money and then, off the back of that, the Film Commission became interested and it blew up from there.
Hamish: What sort of feedback did he give? David: He was great! I assumed he responded because of the bullying and sexuality aspects of the story, and that he’d move on with a million other things to do. But we’d send him cuts, and he’d watch them and give us pages of feedback. That happened over the course of a year as we put the whole thing together. Hamish: Somewhere out there, there is a community of normal people who happen to enjoy the sexual side of tickling. Do you think Tickled will cause viewers to be less open minded about the fetish?
Hamish: It manifested into one of the most bizarre stories to surface, probably ever—did you imagine your investigation eventuating the way it did?
David: Already I’ve had a couple of people come up to me after a screening, saying they didn’t know this before, but they actually found the tickling stuff really sexy, and didn’t know this about themselves until then. Which is amazing because most people, I think, watch the tickling and feel uncomfortable. We have a gentleman in the film, Richard Ivey, who tickles for a full-time job, and people have been super into it. That was our intent: not to demonize this fetish, because the fetish is fine and people have responded really well to that.
David: No. I knew it was something special that I had found and Dylan felt the same way. When we started the Kickstarter, we thought it would be a 20 or 30 minute Vimeo sort of documentary, but when the Film Commission gave us more money, we could start thinking about how to make it for the big screen, which is a different way of thinking about cinematography and sound. We never imagined it would get to this point.
Hamish: All through filming you were bombarded with legal threats and even found out that a personal investigator was following you in your home city. How seriously are you taking the threats and the prospect of facing court action?
Hamish: The production value was great and had a largely talented NZ based crew, however one name stands out. Stephen Fry is an associate producer. How did an English national treasure get on board? 44
Hamish Popplestone
David: Yeah, totally. We specially put a button on our website (tickledmovie.com) titled “Your Story,” because we’ve had a lot of people contacting us on my personal Facebook, or the “Tickled” page. That’s the great thing about people standing up and speaking out; it encourages other people to get the courage to do it themselves. We hear from people pretty much on a daily basis with different stories, because this is a story that stretches back around 20 years now.
Hamish: Did you have to edit much out for that purpose?
Hamish: You’re now independent after you left Mediaworks. Are you ready to pioneer more documentaries?
David: We were pretty careful when we were doing everything. We knew we were up against a company that would jump on anything we did. When it came to the edit, we were pretty good; we made the cuts for the purpose of story and getting to the point. Although, we are living in the age of the internet, and we’ll probably release a few bits and pieces online and on Blu-ray—we’ll see how we go.
David: Yeah we’ll see what happens. I’ve got other ideas about documentaries I’d like to get on the road, but it took two years to make Tickled and it was pretty stressful. It takes a lot of time and it’s not guaranteed that you’re going to find an audience. In short, I’ve got some other ideas. As to how that stuff goes, we’ll just have to see.
Hamish: Do you think Tickled’s popularity will encourage more victims, who were previously unwilling to share their story, to come forward to help build the case?
We’re looking for fit, healthy males to particpate in clinical trials that involve new treatments.
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Film
David: We are taking the legal fallout very seriously. We had a lawyer look at the film incredibly closely before we had it submitted to Sundance. We have to take these things very seriously. The company has a lot of money—I was served, on the streets in Missouri, a couple of lawsuits, so you don’t want to joke it off. At the same time, we’re confident in what we have in the film and we’re just going through all the legal hoops and we’ll keep doing everything correctly. We’re all feeling pretty good about it.
Shadow of the Beast Developer: Heavy Spectrum Entertainment Labs Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment Platform: PS4
2/5
Games
Review by Cameron Gray there is a new emphasis on combat, taking inspiration from the likes of Bayonetta and other spectacle brawlers. The brawling encounters have a surprising amount of depth to them, with building up combos and executing special moves quickly becoming necessary. At the harder difficulties, button mashing will get you killed, so learning to block, dodge, and parry is a must. It can feel satisfying at times, but if you’re not an idiot button masher like me the visuals can somewhat overcompensate your input if you judge carefully. I play platformers for, well, the platforming, so being stuck in a brawling section just made me want to move on quickly. Sadly, the few platforming sections I did get to play are even less satisfying. The controls are clunky and unresponsive (an absolute killer for platformers) and you will face unfair death drops on more than one occasion. It doesn’t really help that the original game was also fairly sub-par in this regard, but blind nostalgia can only get you so far—even if this wasn’t deliberate. The original game was legendary for its graphics; it was a game that was perhaps more fun to look at than it was to play. The reimagining does have a pretty veneer with a definite sense of scale giving way to dark gothic tones, but as alien as the world is it’s nothing particularly unique or mind-blowing, even taking the low budget into consideration. Shadow of the Beast sadly has little to offer anyone who has never heard of the originals on the Amiga, and even those who adore them may leave a little disappointed. Even if this was a labour of love, you can’t help but feel that they should have left this series in the vault.
If anybody reading this is over the age of 30, you may well recognise the name of this game. Long before the dawn of modern PC gaming, Shadow of the Beast—released in 1989, was one of the Commodore Amiga’s most iconic games; a side-scrolling fantasy action-platformer for the 16-bit multimedia powerhouse boasting revolutionary graphics, a dark atmospheric soundtrack, and brutal difficulty. Spawning two sequels, the series has been dormant since Sony’s acquisition of original publishers Psygnosis. Since nostalgia is an easy way to get people to part with their cash these days, someone obviously thought it was time to bring it back. I, however, have no nostalgia for the original game; the Amiga was practically dead when I was born, with all attention squarely focused on the consoles and IBMcompatible PCs. Thankfully, my adoration for platformers knows no bounds, so I was willing to give it a shot. Playing as Aarbron, the titular beast seeking revenge on his former master, this reimagining takes a modern cinematic approach to its gameplay and narrative, with plenty of cutscenes spinning together a tale once relegated to the manual and a couple of intro screens. It gets off to an interesting start, with Aarbron having a particularly tragic meeting with what turns out to be his father, but much like the original it is not the focus. The world is very alien and has the potential for deep exploration; and while there is a fair amount of lore, here it feels rather shallow and isn’t worth diving into unless you’re dedicated to the series. With just seven levels, you can complete the game in about five hours, even if you decide to take the time to explore. Fitting for a re-imagining, the game contains some of the puzzles and platforming elements of the original, but
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Family Therapy with Dr Jenn 3.5/5 Review by Katie Meadows
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TV
I find it hard to believe any real progress can truly be made between Michael and Dina Lohan, parents of Lindsay, while they are within the same facility and made to undergo group therapy. They both remain in huge denial about their individual responsibility in ruining their children’s lives and I also question the ethics of forcing a woman to undergo joint therapy with a man who has a history of abuse towards her. Michael and Dina spend the show constantly undermining and antagonizing each other, usually for no other reason than the room has gone quiet. They both have so many issues that is clear they need extensive separate therapy, perhaps motivated by a desire to better theirs and their children’s lives instead of a paycheck based on their last name. Family Therapy is completely worth it for the journey of former Jackass cast member Bam Margera. After the death of his best friend Ryan Dunn in 2011, Bam’s already chaotic lifestyle bloomed into full blown alcohol and drug addiction coupled with severe depression. He enters the show day one highly intoxicated, slurring his thoughts of suicide while his mother April laments how commonplace this behavior is. His pain is earth-shatteringly heartbreaking and real and you will cry. With the help of Dr Jenn, Bam not only sobers up completely from alcohol and drugs but pinpoints the exact moment that set up his future downward spiral—his father used to take him for drives as a child down a dilapidated and spooky place called “Incinerator Road” and bang on the roof and say it was the sound of dead bodies hitting the car. Yeah. Not a huge stretch to see how that trauma settled in. Since filming ended in early 2016 Bam has remained sober.
Celebrities, they’re just like us! Completely fucked up and in need of a lot of therapy! But they get paid to do it and we get to watch it, because they’re celebrities and we are totally entitled to every dirty personal part of their lives, and “patient-doctor confidentiality” is a super outdated concept. VH1 knows this and that’s why they keep giving us these kinds of shows. Family Therapy follows a similar format to previous shows Couples Therapy and Celebrity Rehab—the latter notable for having several of its cast members die from drug related issues after filming, including Grease’s Jeff Conaway and WWE’s Chyna, who passed away in only April this year. These shows center on the warped idea of celebrity that we celebrate in our culture. They idolize people who at the end of the day are no different to us in their ups and downs, and explore how placing them on these pedestals often contributes to their downfall when we bore of holding them aloft. Because of the nature of the show its sincerity can be hard to judge, especially with Tiffany “New York” Pollard and her mother Sister Patterson in the house. Sister Patterson’s demeanour throughout the show is truly terrifying and she goes from a complete lack of empathy to hysterical and aggressive denial of anything wrong with her behavior. Midway through the season Tiffany finds out she is pregnant to which Sister Patterson flatly disagrees, insisting “there is no child in [Tiffany’s] womb” and that she “would know” if there was. She meets with doctors and gets shown ultrasounds and still remains adamant there is no baby, confident in her self-professed lifelong psychic ability. It literally chilled me to the bone to find out Tiffany had a miscarriage after the show after hearing what her mother said—I am so, so scared.
The Woman Next Door Author: Yewande Omotoso Publisher: Chatto & Windus
3/5
Books
Review by Kimberley McIvor
Grief Is the Thing with Feathers
There is something precious, but disconcerting, about being placed in the head of an eighty-year-old woman as she goes about her life. There are two elderly women facing off in this restrained South African story: Hortensia, a black designer, recently widowed, versus Marion, a white architect, with awful adult children. Both have a lot of unresolved issues, just like celebrity child actors. While the issues seem hot-button at face value—white guilt, an illegitimate lovechild, a stolen painting, an accidentally demolished house forcing two individuals who hate each other under the same roof—it is all written gently, slowly, poetically, so as to heighten the realism but undercut the potential thrills. I spent some time imagining the brilliant film that could come out of a story like this. It would be beautifully lit, with a charming orchestral soundtrack and artsy camera angles. You’ll would cry at the end when everyone learns to love each other, but you would also smile because they’re both still so curmudgeonly, and that’s totally what your family is like too. Someone would win a BAFTA—probably the greying yet handsome Dr Mama (the strong, comforting doctor that cares for Hortensia when she is injured halfway through the narrative), played by a well-dressed Denzel Washington with a British accent instead of a South African one, because those are really hard. I think the point of Omotoso’s work is to capture the pathos of looking back over your own life and wondering, what does it all add up to in the end? Hortensia relives her barely-breathing marriage and is furious when she discovers her husband had a daughter with another woman; that daughter comes to embody Hortensia’s own regret. Marion refuses to look back, afraid and ashamed of her racist past, until she is forced by circumstance. Yet, together, these women begin to find peace. Read this novel if you’re nearing the southerly end of life and will relate to the accompanying frustrations and joys, or if you want a more fully realised understanding of the small, dangerous effects of a nation still wriggling in the shadow of apartheid, or if wacky domestic dramas are your jam.
Author: Max Porter Publisher: Faber & Faber
5/5 Review by Cassie Richards “Moving on, as a concept, is for stupid people, because any sensible person knows grief is a long-term project.” Grief is the Thing with Feathers is the story of a father and his two young sons, who are adrift in loss after the death of their wife and mother. Inspired by a meeting with a friend of his own long-dead father, Max Porter’s novella is a meditation on grief—at turns poignant, powerful, and whimsical. Here grief is in the form of a crow who takes up residence in the flat with dad and the boys; a feathery pseudo-mother and sharp beaked truth teller. Why a crow? Dad is a Ted Hughes scholar, and Crow: From the Life and Songs of the Crow is a collection of poems by Hughes written in the wake of the death of his wife, Sylvia Plath. Porter’s crow is both a relative of Hughes’ and an entirely different beast. Although small in size, this is not a story contained by the number of its pages. It could easily be read over a generous hour, but my reading of it spanned several days, consuming snatches on lunch breaks and bus rides. Although it sounds like an excuse for my slow pace, I think that reading it like this enhanced the experience—there is a wide breadth of feeling in the verse-like passages, and absorbing it slowly and carefully felt appropriate. Anyone who has ever experienced grief will be able to identify with the faltering way that dad and the boys attempt to carry on, watched over by a wise and often mischievous crow. The boys grow older, dad starts to date, but cow stays on—will he ever really leave? Porter has written a stunning and affecting story that lingers long after reading.
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Do you forgive Claudio? Review by Adeline Shaddick and Ruby Hansen
King Lear Review by Bianca Marie-Twort
Taking on the challenge of staging one of Shakespeare’s most notorious pieces, Circa Theatre bring a rendition of King Lear by acclaimed director Michael Hurst to the stage this month. King Lear follows the story of Lear (Ray Henwood), the King of Britain who decides in his old age to divide his kingdom evenly among his three daughters. When his youngest daughter Cordelia (Neenah Dekkers-Reihana) is asked to prove her love to him, a rift is created and the kingdom is plunged into chaos. As Hurst himself puts it: “you know, lots of sex, lots of violence, and a big fight scene at the end.” I was instantly enamoured by Ray Henwood as King Lear. He presented himself with conviction, and commanded the audience’s attention. Henwood’s versatility as an actor was reflected in his ability to show a full spectrum of emotion; from love to insanity to loyalty— he projected them all. The entire cast had a visceral synergy, reflecting Hurst’s desire for interesting stage dynamics and patterns. With no alterations to the Shakespearian prose, Hurst chose to use costume and design to bring this story into a post WWII setting, with lavish fur and silk costumes for the sisters and militant uniforms for Cordelia and the officials. The use of lighting was compelling. Often carrying torches on stage, the actors were able to use shadow play to create huge monstrous figures of themselves on the walls intimidating the audience or even more so, their fellow actors. The set transformed the small space of Circa One into a deceivingly large and empty space. A painting of a faux wooden floor with two high walls intersecting at an angle, and a huge window facing an equally sizeable and menacing portrait of King Lear himself gave depth to the stage. I attended the show on opening night and was greeted with a friendly and warm atmosphere (and free wine!). Those attending the show were largely of the older generation, but that is to be expected for a show of this density and price range. I could not speak more highly of this skilful and enthralling staging of King Lear, but if you are to catch it, make sure you bring snacks and potentially a blanket—three hours of Shakespeare is quite a commitment.
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Theatre
While Much Ado About Nothing is celebrated as an ageless romantic comedy, THEA302 and THEA308 left us surprisingly overwhelmed with their inquisitive, eclectic shake-up of this Shakespeare classic. Directed by talented practitioner Stella Reid, this unique metatheatrical production is told through the eyes of students. During the show, the ensemble would shift into a “student narrative.” The house-lights flickered on and actors would return to their student selves, commenting and navigating their way through the complexities of Shakespeare’s multidimensional characters and intersecting storylines. The set captured this through converging lines on the floor, and clusters of chairs that were hung mid-air and thrust onstage, emphasising the classroom environment. Perhaps the most heightened of tragedies arose during the wedding ceremony scene where Claudio (played by Simon Davis) shames bride-to-be Hero (Ailise Beales), by throwing water in her face and tearing a bouquet at her feet, having heard of her (false) infidelity. Hero falls to the ground and weeps, her mother Leonata (Tiana Offner) cradling her offstage while the ensemble tenderly sing “Heartbeats” by José Gonzalez. Beatrice (Ophelia Wass) laments her cousin Hero’s suffering, “oh that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the marketplace!” A stand-out moment of meta-theatre was demonstrated in the pressing dialogue that arose out of this tragical scene—as to whether Claudio deserved forgiveness. Facilitated by meta-Director Nino Raphael, the audience were invited to join the discussion. Claudio’s childish, impulsive character is explored through conversation, along with the feelings of hurt and rejection that manifest in his angry, slanderous retaliation towards Hero. We found immense value in this open, fruitful conversation around Shakespeare’s inherent double standards. The ensemble were a composite of talents: Rory Hammond as Benedick had charismatic engagement with audience members; Wass’s rendition of Giacomo Puccini’s “O mio babbino caro” induced tears and goosebumps. Katie Alexander’s delightful mimed character Cupid drew attention to the poignant moments between lovers, and kept us smiling and involved. Stella reflected that their process-focussed production resisted traditional interpretations of Much Ado About Nothing, that tend to “treat shakespeare as a cage.” In two hours THEA302 truly captivated us, and allowed the audience to understand and critique Shakespeare’s distancing, grandiose depiction of character relationships, and language.
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On Thursday I graduated from Victoria University, it was a proud moment and a fantastic day. The parade and ceremony were great (as boring as expected) but I couldn't help but be a little disappointed. Disappointed by the bold and repeated mispronunciation of simple te reo Māori greetings by the esteemed academics and executives during the ceremony. The contrast in pronunciation between guest speaker John Russell (Principal, Naenae College) and our own Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor was striking, if not embarrassing. We are no longer in the days where an 'attempt' by these well paid professionals is enough and we should all expect more. After all, our own institution offers te reo Māori and free courses are widely available from Te Wānanga o Aotearoa and elsewhere.
Get your CV or applications checked with a Careers Consultant during our daily drop-in sessions! http://bit. ly/1A1ORgv Check for Job Vacancies: victoria.ac.nz/careerhub Application Closing Dates: http://bit.ly/1zGNacY Connect with employers at events: http://bit.ly/1OYBLil
Victoria Abroad – Attend an Exchange Information Session! Why not study overseas as part of your degree?! Study in English, Earn Vic credit, Get Studylink & grants, explore the world! Weekly Information Sessions: Every Wednesday at 12:50pm, Level 2, Easterfield Building. Drop-in hours: Mon-Wed 1-3pm, Thurs & Fri 10:30-12pm Website: http://victoria.ac.nz/exchange
Ko tā te rangatira kai he kōrero; ko tā te ware he muhukai. Ngā mihi maioha, Koro McLellan 50
Contributors
About Us Salient is published by, but remains editorially independent from, the Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association (VUWSA). Salient is a member of the Aotearoa Student Press Association (ASPA). Salient is funded in part by Victoria University of Wellington students through the Student Services Levy. The views expressed in Salient do not necessarily reflect those of the Editor, VUWSA, or the University. Salient is printed on environmentally sustainable paper, and with vegetable ink, and is completely FSC approved. Complaints People with a complaint against the magazine should complain in writing to the Editor at editor@salient.org.nz and then, if not satisfied with the response, to VUWSA.
Editors Emma Hurley and Jayne Mulligan editor@salient.org.nz Design and Illustration Ella Bates-Hermans designer@salient.org.nz News Editor Kate Robertson Alexa Zelensky news@salient.org.nz Chief Sub Editor Tim Manktelow Sub Editors Ali Kaye Bronwyn Curtis Distributor Ella and Jayne
Section Editors Cassie Richards (Books) Dana Williams and Isaac Brodie (Film) Harri Robinson (Music) Ophelia Wass (Theatre) Ruby Joy Eade, Lucy Wardle, Louise Rutledge, Robbie Whyte (Visual Arts) Cameron Gray (Games) Katie Meadows (TV) Other contributors Laura Toailoa, Raimona Tapiata, Jonathan Gee, Jacinta Gulasekharam, Sharon Lam, Joe Morris, Jess Scott, Alex Mark, Kate Morten, Tawhai Moss, James Churchill, Kimberley McIvor, Hamish Popplestone, Jazz Kane, Dion Rogers, Alexa Zelensky, Eve Kennedy, Faith Wilson, Finnius Teppett, Lily McIlhone, Katie Meadows, Jess Scott, Rob Barratt, Lily McIlhone, Lucy Wardle, McKenzie Collins, Sarah Batkin, Puck.
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