You and Uffindell ( well, Unfindell a lot, but that's because he bravely puts himself out there knowing he will have to take some hits ) get thumped quite a bit, but at the end of the day, you have been the one constant in a year of total inconsistency. I describe 2011 as 'the year we all went mad and the year we all survived' and through it all you have been something of a life preserver for me, well, you and booze, as I tried, sometimes spectacularly badly, to sew my uni life together again. your sometimes not so subtle, but always right on target 'fuck this shit' point of view kept me going when sometimes 'going' wasn't my deal. how you dudes managed to pump out a magazine in those crazy post quake days and up until now I can only wonder at, but pump it out you did and you rock. I'll be back in 2012, demoting myself from post grad to undergrad, there is still to much to do. Lets hope the new Canta posse can smash it out as well as you did.
Please never publish anything like that LSD article ever again. It was the most horrible thing I have ever had the misfortune to read. People do the most awful things on it, such as suffocating their friends to death by stuffing a bed sheet down their throat, thinking they are fighting snakes at the centre of the earth (R v Lipman [1969] 3 All ER 410). I am sincerely hoping that I missed the point and the article was actually a joke. I would expect such an article from a 15-year-old trying to prove they're cool. It was so incredibly awful and sad.
The UCSA’s decision to get rid of the food carts is shit for a number of reasons.
1 It means that we’re stuck with the UCSA’s overpriced crap; 2 It’s the kind of unethical, monopolistic behaviour that gives student unions a bad name.
Given it’s almost midday on Friday, I’m currently more concerned with point one. After lunch – off campus – I’ll be concerned with point two. If you want to have any kind of moral legitimacy, shouldn’t you be looking out for the best interests of students, rather than slavishly protecting your own financial interests? Believe it or not, the UCSA, once upon a time, did things like advocate for students and organize student activism, rather than behave like a corporate whose sole interest is in extracting as much money as possible out of their constituency.
If you were really concerned that the food carts were reducing your profit, you could have considered the reasons the carts were popular, such as providing quality, tasty food at a reasonable rate. Replicating or even bettering that would have eliminated the competition pretty quickly.
And while I’m at it, why is it that the TEU are the only ones making any noise about the CoA Change Proposal? Shouldn’t you be organising student protests, rather than removing food carts? Shouldn’t you be opposing the elimination of fields of knowledge and the dismantling of academic freedom? Your silence is deafening. Shame on you. If this is what unions are like I’d rather join a cricket club.
Harry Winslaw
A Response From The UCSA President:
Dear Harry,
The University of Canterbury is adamant that the UCSA is not to have a monopoly on food and beverage provision on campus. This determines how we operate. The UCSA is committed to providing students with a range of food and beverage options, which we believe is delivered in providing four food outlets and two bars. Across the board prices are designed to suit every budget from $2 rice to a $17 dinner option at The Shilling Club. Moreover, the food stalls will still be making appearances on campus once a term as part of the Winterland Market.
In regards to the Arts Change Proposals, the UCSA has undergone the following initiatives: representation at all of the student forums; talking to students individually; discussions with the PVC; online attention; an issue of Canta; independent legal advice for students who have expressed a desire to receive it; support for the YouareUC campaign in their petition and advocacy efforts; continued calls out to each and every student through means such as the Red Phone for students who need more assistance to come forward; and facilitated a student to present at the Academic Board on May 2 to express her concerns to the UCSA staff.
The UCSA takes its Advocacy and Welfare role very seriously, and has made certain it has delivered on this throughout the Arts Change Proposal process. If you have any further concerns regarding how the UCSA has handled this, please write the president in regards to further courses of action prior to May 18.
Greeting to all those Oriental folk who flock to the Crypt at around 7 PM every night to play your little Dungeons and Dragons game (or whatever it is you play)... and squawk loudly all night....
Stop it. It may be the norm to scream at the person next to you in Asia due to overcrowding, but this is New Zealand, and we don’t have that problem here.
Learn to whisper, and take your LAN parties to Starbux or something.
If skateboarding is skating then doesn't that make longboarding longing?
I do not know exactly what you are longing for longboarders, maybe you are longing for class, maybe you are longing for home, maybe you are just longing to lift your longing spirits. Long on longboarders.
I’m sitting here in shorts, T-shirt and jandals, looking out at swaying palm trees, pondering an always-important student decision: Should I have lunch now, or go swimming in the outdoor pool? Hmm it’s a hard one, at a guess I’d say it’s 30 degrees outside, nice and balmy. The pool is thirty meters and a nice option if the day is getting to you. Or you’ve just gotten hot and sweaty trotting from the dorms to classes. It’s a hard life.
For the three of us who are here on the HOPE scholarship program, the first days of arriving in Fiji and basically melting, are now a long way off. Although we arrived in shorts, the heat was fierce, the roads were badly potholed from the recent floods and the four-hour drive from Nadi to Suva seemed to take an eternity. Still tropical paradise it is. Suva is a working port and a busy hub, so it’s always frenetic. The bus system is mad and the open buses play the latest Hindi and Fijian dance music at full blast. There’s nothing like hopping onto a bus and getting ‘Rum and Red Bull’ drummed into you for ten minutes! It’s actually pretty catchy… Look up ‘Rosalina’ for another annoyingly catchy and painful tune that stays with you long after you’ve paid your seventy cents. Yes, seventy cents per trip. That’s the normal rate and does show the general rate for many things here. Examples are, pineapples are three for two dollars, a longneck beer is barely four dollars, a taxi ride into town will set you back five dollars.
Some things are cheap, however imports are a bit pricey. Chocolate is twelve dollars per King-size block, imported dips are ten to twelve dollars – so dips and chips are out the window. Still there are other options, so I’m not complaining. The fresh fruit and veges at the Suva market are amazing: stall after stall of bananas, pineapples, papaya, passionfruit and every sort of tropical fruit and vege you can imagine. It’s awesome.
Once out of the hustle and bustle of Suva you have the choice of pristine coast, beautiful reefs and a lush tropical interior with waterfalls and hidden villages. All this is on Viti Levu, but Fiji is made up of hundreds of separate islands. Check out the Blue Lagoon movie from the 80s, that’ll give you a good idea of what you’ll be in for.
While my friends in Christchurch are enduring a slowly cooling sea temperature every time they go surfing, it is at times unbearably hot in the sea here. The average temp is 26 degrees, a far cry from the seven or eight degrees of a South Island winter! I love it. I’m looking at going to a far-off island soon, there are five or six surf breaks ten minutes from shore and probably at most half a dozen surfers there… It will be hot and relaxing, I will be eating fresh fish and tropical fruits and surfing my brains out. After studies though… I don’t want to make everyone too jealous.
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