Mixed member proportional (MMP)—a parliamentary system in which seats are allocated according to the total number of votes each political party receives—came about in New Zealand after a referendum to change the voting system in 1993. The referendum was in response to the huge dissatisfaction with the then-voting system, First Past the Post (FPP). Under FPP, governments were elected by a minority of voters and could easily pass unpopular legislation. Many votes were wasted, and elections were normally decided by a small number of “swing seats”. This was highlighted in consecutive elections throughout the ’70s, ’80s and early ’90s. The change to MMP has meant a fairer democratic political system that ensures your vote counts wherever you live in New Zealand.

Currently under MMP everybody’s party vote has equal weight in the makeup of Parliament. It means that parties that have support spread across the country rather than in one electorate can have this overall support reflected in parliament. Under the old FPP system voters only got an electorate vote—not a party vote—so if you were a Labour voter in a safe National seat or vice versa there was little chance your vote would make a difference. Under MMP, your Party vote counts no matter where you live and you still get an electorate vote to choose the local representative you believe represents your local community.

Furthermore MMP is a proportional system which means that the makeup of Parliament mirrors how the population voted in the election. This is probably the most important characteristic of the system—it means that the number of seats that parties get in Parliament reflects the share of the party vote they receive. The math is simple, if a party gets 15 per cent of the party vote they get 15 per cent of the seats in Parliament. Other systems such as First Past the Post or ‘Supplementary Member’ (SM) do not deliver a proportional outcome and tend to deliver overwhelmingly to incumbent parties rather than a Parliament that reflects the true opinions of voters.

MMP means that Parliament is more diverse and so are our Governments. Major established parties are required to work with other parties to pass legislation, a process which leads to a wider range of views being considered. It means that law making is more cooperative and more considered. Due to such changes MMP has ensured governments can no longer ram through deeply unpopular legislation at will, as was common under FPP in the 80s and 90s—they are required to discuss, cooperate and make a clear case for change.
MMP means that Parliament looks a lot more like modern New Zealand and less like olde England. This has been demonstrated by an increased diversity of ethnicity, gender and political perspectives in our Parliament. Such diversity in our Parliament better reflects New Zealand and means that more groups get a voice at the decision making table. Electoral system research tells us that a switch back to a non-proportional system such as FPP or SM would make such diversity more difficult to achieve and sustain. One clear advantage of MMP is that it allows MPs to represent constituencies other than geographical electorates. In our current Parliament we have MPs that are able to act as representatives of the GLBT community and our younger MPs often choose to advocate on youth issues. MMP allows for representation that better reflects society.

On 26 November this year you will get to vote in the referendum to decide whether or not MMP stays. Furthermore, if a majority of voters elect to keep MMP in the referrendum MMP will be independently reviewed and recommendations for any amendments will be considered. This means a vote for MMP is not only a vote to ensure we continue to have a more democratic Parliament—it will also be a vote to make MMP even better.

ADAM GOODALL

5= Submarine (Richard Ayoade); Sleeping Beauty (Julia Leigh)
4. Melancholia (Lars von Trier)
3. The Forgiveness of Blood (Joshua Marston)
2. Rango (Gore Verbinski)
1. I Saw the Devil (Kim Ji-woon)
Horrifically violent and relentlessly stylish, Kim Ji-woon’s big farewell to South Korea (for now) is a visceral journey into the darkest and stormiest night ever put to film. Powerhouse performances from Lee Byung-hun and Choi Min-sik bring an ebbing humanity to the grotesquely beautiful production design and the ruthless, ever-escalating story.

JOHNNY CRAWFORD

5. And Everything is Going Fine (Steven Soderbergh)
4. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)
3. Rubber (Quentin Dupieux)
2. Medianeras (Gustavo Taretto)
1. Mysteries of Lisbon (Raoul Ruiz)
If Kubrick had decided to use 18th Century dioramas instead of paintings as the inspiration for Barry Lyndon’s cinematography then he would have ended up with something similar to Mysteries of Lisbon. Ballsy, methodical and innovatively framed camerawork contributes to the most sumptuous, compelling and self-aware five-hour period piece ever.

JUDAH FINNIGAN

5. I Saw the Devil (Kim Ji-woon)
4. A Separation (Asghar Farhadi)
3. Melancholia (Lars von Trier)
2. Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn)
1. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)
A movie to polarise audiences—probably because it’s hard to define as a ‘movie’ in the traditional sense— The Tree of Life is more a meditation of ideas, set to gorgeous spells of sight and sound and the most deeply personal and profound experience I have had all year.

GERALD LEE

5. X-Men: First Class (Matthew Vaughn)
4. True Grit (Joel & Ethan Coen)
3. Take Shelter (Jeff Nichols)
2. Melancholia (Lars von Trier)
1. Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky)
Black Swan is quite simply a visceral tour de force, complemented by a stunning performance by Natalie Portman. Darren Aronofsky does not intend to merely please or comfort his audience; instead he astounds them with an unsettling waking nightmare that forms the most truly cinematic film of this year. 

THOMAS COUGHLAN

5. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (David Yates)
4. The Future (Miranda July)
3. Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami)
2. Love Story (Florian Habicht)
1. The Lion King 3D (Roger Allers & Rob Minkoff)
Asante Sana! Squash banana! We we nuga! Mi mi apana—It means you are a baboon and I’m not!

JANE KING

5. Rango (Gore Verbinski)
4. Melancholia (Lars von Trier)
3. Hanna (Joe Wright)
2. Gantz (Shinsuke Sato)
1. Arrietty (Hiromasa Yonebayashi)
If you appreciate earnest escapism and detailed antique animation, this is for you. Directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi and produced by Japan’s pre-eminent Studio Ghibli, the film is beautifully drawn and an easy favourite for the year. Arrietty is based on Mary Norton’s 1950s Borrowers novels and touches upon important environmental issues while depicting a true fairytale. Arrietty offers all that we’ve come to expect of a Ghibli film—magic, awe, escapism and beauty.

As we look forward to Wellington’s summer, we farewell another year of studying and, of course, Salient for a well-earned holiday.

Victoria University is a special institution. It’s more than a place where skills are learnt. It is a place where we develop how we think and how we analyse the challenges ahead; the ideas we exchange in the common rooms are just as important as in the classrooms; the friends we make can last a lifetime; and the experiences we share can change lives.
You are our Wellington ambassadors now, wherever you live.

With exams looming, perhaps there is little time to reflect­—but with many of you thinking about what courses to take next year or what careers to tackle, and how you might influence the local and global world.

In 2011, Wellington City embarked on a significant rethink of Wellington’s development toward 2040. Wellington is New Zealand’s most knowledge-intensive city—more of our jobs need a tertiary qualification than anywhere else in New Zealand, and at the heart of our strategy is a desire to make Wellington a smarter, greener Capital with a flourishing economy, especially in the digital and creative industries.

We are designing Wellington to be a connected city, a people-centred city, an eco-city and a city with a dynamic CBD. There will always be some paradoxes between short term outcomes and long term plans.

For those of you concluding your studies, congratulations, but for all of you studying in Wellington in 2011, thank you—you’re making a difference for the Capital’s future.

Celia Wade-Brown

Instead of a system based on the most votes winning individual constituency seats (first past the post—FPP) we adopted a German style mixed member proportional (MMP) system. Overnight our politics changed from parties needing to win the most individual seats to govern, to a process where party vote branding and negotiating behind closed doors was required to form governments and pass legislation.

During the next eight weeks in the lead up to the election and referendum we are going to be re-examining that decision. We will hear a lot about ‘fairness’, ‘representation’ and ‘accountability’ in our democracy. What voting system ensures that all our votes are fairly attributed? How do we ensure that minority groups in our society have a voice in our Parliament? How do we keep the bastards honest? How much influence should small parties have on a government’s mandate?

The pro-MMP groups want this to be a race between the two extremes: MMP and FPP. The reason Vote for Change are campaigning is to ensure that the three options in the middle, Supplementary Member, Single Transferrable Vote and Preferential Voting examined. How do we achieve some of the benefits MMP has brought us, while minimizing the legitimate criticisms of FPP? For example, the system I personally prefer, Supplementary Member, has the advantages of 30 list MPs, but just as importantly, electorates that matter. Under SM the party vote applies to only the proportion of list MPs. It means that you can give your party vote to one party and your electorate vote to another. The difference to MMP is that the party vote does not trump the other. SM allows for minority representation but keeps the bulk of politicians directly and individually accountable to voters.

Democracy is about accountability but MMP made it accountability to the party bosses.

We all know democracy works not because it picks the best or brightest people for the job, but because it allows us, the voters, to turf rascals out. The ‘threat of the removal van’ has always been the reason democracy ensures that the leaders of our society act responsibly with their power. But having a system where nearly half our MPs are in Parliament because of a list has weakened accountability.

Under MMP electorates are a fiction—for a major party on Election Day a lost electorate is just another list MP (as the party vote proportion applies to the whole 120 parliament). That means that instead of Members of Parliament in a marginal seats standing up for their electorates knowing that they could be booted out if they don’t, under MMP those marginal MPs won’t want to ‘rock the boat’ in caucus, and are far more likely to stick to their party line to ensure that they are protected with a high list ranking. That is not fair and makes 50 of our current MPs focused on keeping their parties rather than keeping voters happy.

Small parties hold the balance of power and can lever laws like VSM.

After every MMP election a small party or parties have held the balance of power. In both the, 1996 and the 2005 elections, the ultimate winner was chosen by one man, Winston Peters. After each election MMP leads to effectively a bidding war, a courtship, by National and Labour to whoever is the balance of power. Vote for Change says that’s not fair.
Some say that it is an acceptable compromise to have a disproportionate amount of power in whatever party(ies) hold the middle 5-10 per cemt to prevent either of the major parties governing, with say only 45 per cent of the popular vote.

But it is not just the middle parties that sometimes find themselves with huge power. Take for example the way ACT managed to get through their Voluntary Student Membership law. It’s widely known that a few weeks ago Simon Power lost the support of the Maori Party for his criminal procedure reform. Under a typical MMP-style deal, on the day it happened, it appears a deal was struck to support a procedural motion to end Labour’s delaying of the ACT bill, on the understanding that ACT would ensure the passage of his reform. So thanks to MMP, now those five ACT MPs, none of which had sat on the select committee or had even likely to have read the bill, are entirely dictating to the Minister of Justice and the Government what clauses stay in and what clauses go. The fundamental right to silence will be determined by a subset of the five people in that caucus. Vote for Change say that is not proportionate power for a small party.

Vote for Change
If you’re uncomfortable about some aspects of MMP, but don’t want to go back to the other extreme of FPP, you must vote ‘change’ on November 26. This debate is important and voting change doesn’t mean ditching MMP or preventing the politicians reviewing it—it means Kiwis get three years to think about the pros/cons of the most preferred alternative and another chance to vote in three years time

Third: Satellite
Second: Magneto
Winner: Canta

Judge Russell Brown said Canta was the clear winner. He praised the bold, simple design and use of colour and appreciated the small touches like the ‘Last 7 Days’ panel in the news section. A smart, well-kept website with a distinctive look.

Best Headline

Third: Canta
Second: Critic
Winner: Magneto—”Can you manage a trois?”

Judge Jim Curran said he’d unhesitatingly plagiarise Magneto’s headline. Extremely clever word play, guaranteed to pull the reader into the story. An instant smile of a headline.

Best Cartoonist

Third: Stephan Gillan, Critic
Second: William Sainsbury, Chaff
Winner: Sam Northcott, Salient

Judge Al Nisbet said Sam’s hand drawings were fresh and energetic. They were well layed out, with slightly manic themes – not to mention Al found himself smiling at them.

Best Original Photography

Third: Critic
Winner – first equal: InUnison and Sarah Burton, Magneto

Judge Mark Taylor said InUnison’s images were fun with clear lighting. Magneto’s entry was a great selection of studio shots.

Best Sports Writer

Third: Angela McGuigan, Magneto
Winner – first equal: Sebastian Boyle, Canta and Liam Mitchell, Craccum

Judge Steve Kilgallon says Liam’s entry demonstrated he has a good writing style and he covered an interesting range of topics. He says Sebastian made the effort to go and talk to people and find a real story on his own patch of direct relevance to readers.

Best Education Series

Third: Chaff
Second: Salient
Winner: Critic

Judge Nicola Kean said Critic was the clear winner. Critic tackled a complicated, important issue and did so with wit and style. The entry was engaging and interesting, full of dirt and scandal.

Best Humour

Second equal: The Rt Hon Winston Peters, Chaff and Spencer Dowson, Craccum
Winner: Brendan Kelly, Debate

Judge John Ong said Brendan writes punchy, clever and dark satire. It’s well paced and tightly written, which means it isn’t plagued with utter banality.

Best Reviewer

Third: Tom Ainge-Roy, Critic
Second: Adam Goodall, Salient
Winner: Richard Swainson, Nexus

Judge Margaret Agnew said Richard’s entries showed he was fantastically film literate. Although a little verbose, he has a nice overall reviewing style.

Best Columnist

Third equal: Harry Caldicott and Jim Wilson, Chaff and Saraid Cameron, InUnison
Second: Mrs John Wilmot, Critic
Winner: David Farrier, Craccum

Judge David Slack says David Farrier writes with verve, imagination and punch – like he’s thrown a party in a column.

Best Cover

Third: Nexus
Second: Critic
Winner: InUnison

Judge William Chen said of the 33 covers submitted, the the standout “What’s Your Carbon Footprint?” set the In Unison portfolio apart. This clever concept took centre stage, its handwritten masthead and cover lines mimicking the topic in slightly smudged charcoal lettering – a creative twist on a hotly debated issue to pique the interest via a fiery footprint. The strikingly topical “Sins” and “Guilty Pleasures” also impressed, with the whimsical and anecdotal humour of the latter punctuating the cover design. All three entries fulfilled the basic tenets of an effective cover.

Best Editorial Writer

Third: Art Robinson, Nexus
Second: Sebastian Boyle, Canta
Winner: William Muirhead, Chaff

Judge James Robinson said William’s editorials were a foot above the rest. They were well thought out, well researched well articulated and well organised. James felt like he was being told something concrete that even if he didn’t agree he could still appreciate the perspective.

Best News Writer (Unpaid)

Second equal: Vaughan Alderson, Debate and Stella Blake-Kelly, Salient
Winner: Teuila Fuatai, Critic

Judge Keith Ng said Teuila’s entry set the most consistent standard. She had obviously put time and effort in to her piece on a fatal assault at a McDonalds. In other entries, she showed humour and solid news judgement.

Best News Writer (Paid)

Third: Sebastian Boyle, Canta
Second: Matt Shand, Magneto
Winner: Gregor Whyte, Critic

Judge Graeme Baker said Gregor dealt with important issues in a clear and thorough manner, while allowing for humour. Gregor’s copy was tailored to its audience in both subject and tone. The entry was entertaining, educating and informative – Gregor’s writing style would easily fit into the pages of the Herald.

Best Feature Writer

Third: Sebastian Boyle, Canta
Second: Matt Shand, Magneto
Winner: Charlotte Greenfield, Critic

Judge Tim Watkin said that Charlotte’s features were above all else credible stories that offer a range of voices on a wide variety of subjects, subjects that will interest her readers. She does the basics well. The stories are local – even the one that isn’t – and tells the reader things they don’t already know. Importantly, the facts are accurate and the opinions well attributed.

Best Feature

Third equal: Jess Bignell, Chaff and Craig Robertson, Craccum
Second: Elle Hunt, Salient
Winner: Dr Z, Critic.

Judge Donna Chisholm said she didn’t want to like Critic’s entry, but it got her in the end. It’s not a new idea, but Dr Z delivered the story of his wasted weekend with real panache that lifted it from run-of-the-mill first person piece to the seriously funny. Perfectly pitched. And nutmeg – who knew?

Best Design

Third equal: Salient and Craccum
Second: Magneto
Winner: InUnison

Judge Sally Fullam says InUnison is a very professional, cohesive, well-designed magazine. There is a very high standard of photography, lovely use of illustration and beautiful, original and playful typography throughout this magazine. There is excellent attention to detail – the creative use of fonts, drop caps and pull quotes. The use of colour is nicely juxtaposed against white space. Designer, Mark Lovatt and his team of contributors should be very proud of their achievements.

Best Small Publication

Third: InUnison
Second: Magneto
Winner: Canta

Best Publication

Second equal: Critic and Magneto

The winner of the best publication award for 2011 is: Salient.

Judge Simon Wilson says Salient is witty, intensely self-involved in a rather endearingly self-deprecatory way.

Judge Jackson Wood says Salient is a humming magazine which has by far the best balance of news, features, humour, students’ association garbage and everything that makes up the quintessential student rag.

The design pops. 
On the cover every week it says “the organ of student opinion” and judging from the diverse array of content and debate on the letters pages it is fulfilling that role.

Oh, and, we had a feature that we put in the centre spread between those two issues which is pretty hard to read in those pdfs so here it is for y’all:

Pimp My Lounge!

Salient and ITS have teamed up to locate the worst lounge in the student body, which we will pimp out with some of the second-hand stuff we’ve got lying around, including a Sony data projector, a DVD/CD/MP3 player, speakers, and a screen (of sorts). We’ll even throw in a multi-point power plug and an extension cord!

Just send us a picture of you holding an issue of Salient in your poor excuse for a lounge to editor@salient.org.nz with PIMP MY LOUNGE in the subject line and you’re in the competition. Entries close on 26 August.

The mankiest lounges will be featured in an upcoming issue of Salient with the worst as voted by Salient and ITS staff winning the whole package. For terms and conditions, go here.

Cold. Damp. Full of hippies. Who would have thought a house could get no sun? At all. In summer. Aro Park is a punk hang-out; the perfect place for fried food and nurturing a substance dependency.

Khandallah

Rich fuckers festering in a Tim Burton suburban hell. The trains never run on time. Once I asked out a girl at the video store and she fake-numbered me. The bitch.

Brooklyn

Full of dog-hating sweaty young families who look at you (and your dog) like you’re trying to steal their babies. Closest ‘burb to the dump shop, which, honestly, is probably where you should be, you bohemian asshole.

Newtown

Home to the refuse of society and art wankers. Slowly being gentrified, thank god. People treat this whole suburb as an extension of their living room, wearing fluffy slippers and bathrobes to get a greasy hangover feed on a Sunday morning, like the human fucking ferals they are. Has gotten safer lately with just three murders a year. Likely to encounter hipsters and human skidmarks.

Mt Vic

Up-and-coming professional wankers. This is where your landlord lives. Soon to be violated by a fucking great big flyover. At least it’s close to town; unfortunately, it’s also close to the gnat-brained boy racers on Kent Terrace.

Kilbirnie

Kind of like Hamilton. If you don’t like Wellington, you’ll probably love it. Enjoy the noise from the airport—hope it doesn’t deafen you before Pantera or whatever terrible music you like does it first.

Lyall Bay

Home to the resilient Maranui café, which has caught fire twice but totally refuses to take the hint.

Karori

Cold and far away, why are you even considering this? Local drivers refer to cyclists as human lice. Biggest suburb in the southern hemisphere, can’t see why. An emotionally desolate desert, fit only for the alone and infirm. Like you.

Kelburn

“Only two minutes from uni, bro!” Still not worth it. It’s a choice between the tasteless grey bakeries, or throwing yourself off the cable car. You should choose the third option: gargling fucking acid until the poison that is existence no longer troubles you.

Island Bay

Look forward to your neighbours complaining about any noise above a whisper. Was home to cool people, then they died. Now it’s just middle-class people and freaks who like to pretend through holey sheets that they’re middleclass.

Miramar

Does anyone live here? Rumours tell of a porn palace with plush carpet, a room full of mirrors and an indoor pool. If the entire suburb were to sink, no-one would miss it. Not even the people who drown in it.

Hataitai

Enjoy getting cancer from the tunnel, and stumbling upon 16-year-olds getting fish-fingered in the 24-hour laundromat.

Northland

Oh, really? Why not just move to the fucking moon?

CBD

Ideal for socalites, low- to mid-level drug dealers and those who can only orgasm when elderly women put cigars out on their clits or balls.

Thorndon

Home to the most expensive New World in New Zealand, Katherine Mansfield’s birthplace, and a terrible swimming pool in which I hope you drown.

You’re a student so you know how it feels to be young and hungry. How about knowing what it feels like to be in Young and Hungry though? That’s where things get interesting, friend, and allow me to explain why. Young and Hungry is an annual two-week festival in which industry professionals mentor young’uns aged 15 – 25 in staging three new New Zealand scripts at BATS Theatre. You can audition for an acting role or throw your lot in with lighting, sound, assistant directing, set, costumes or stage management. Sounds like a dream, I know, but perhaps you’re curious as to why you should get all ravenous and youthful.

Getting involved in the Wellington theatre scene is a bit like trying to land your first job in a cafe, and I’m assuming here that you’ve all considered doing time in the hospitality industry, in that if you don’t have experience then you aren’t as likely to be hired but if you don’t get the job then how are you supposed to get the experience? Working with Young and Hungry will get you onstage at BATS to flex your performance muscle as well as introduce you to industry professionals who you might end up working with in the future. Perhaps you loved being in productions back in the days of high school but are a bit mystified by, and vaguely afraid of, what awaits you in the big, bad world of (cue pretentious use of capitalisation) Theatre. Getting into a Y&H show will have you working in a professional structure but with mentors to guide you; a delectable sort of safety net to keep you secure whilst savouring the giddy heights of theatrical involvement and having an a outrageously good time doing it.

Want to try before you buy?

Then go and take a gander at what the Young and Hungry 2011 Festival has to offer. For a mere $30 you, a student, can see all three plays (that’s only $10 per play!) and have a nibble at the tasty, tasty banquet that is Young and Hungry.

First Course

For Johnny at 6.30pm
By Whiti Hereaka
Directed by Eleanor Bishop

It’s the final year of high school and Johnny is dead. His tight-knit circle of friends, rocked by the loss of him, questions the nature of their relationships now that Johnny is gone. Come along to see this intimate cast of six pick up the pieces in “a beautifully moving coming-of-age drama” at the start of the evening.

Second Course

Hearts Encoded at 8pm
By Aaron Alexander
Directed by Rachel Lenart
Can you imagine a world which would allow you to be anything you want to be? Well, it already exists and it’s called the Internet. Hearts Encoded invites us to witness just how blurred the borders between fantasy and reality can be when avatars and social networking sites let us to tailor our identities at a whim.

Third Course

Disorder at 9.30pm
By Thomas Sainsbury
Directed by Robin Kerr
Not many plays claim to hope that their audiences “make it out alive” but then not many plays are about apocalyptic zombie attacks in New Zealand. Disorder looks set to be a wild spectacle of gorey zombie adventure.

Because students can think for themselves, and they can work out whether or not they want to belong to a students’ associations. If they feel that it’s providing value for money, they’ll sign up, but it shouldn’t be compulsory… We want to make student membership voluntary; that’s the first reason. Secondly, the really big issue that faces New Zealand at the moment is the economy. We believe that we have the recipe that will actually stimulate economic growth. The thing that we need to do… is actually make everybody better off—lift everyone’s performance. … That’s what will allow us to be more generous to groups are more vulnerable. When students say they need more assistance with living allowances and the like, those are the sorts of things that we’ll be able to do when we have a strongly performing economy. And the third thing is that we have a strong focus on education—not just tertiary education, but education across the board… Our school choice policies will actually lift the level of education in this country, so that opportunity is greater for more New Zealanders as they go through the compulsory sector, and offer better opportunity at tertiary level.

Gareth Hughes, MP, Green Party:

Green’s the only party with a vision to have an economy which works for everyone. This is built on our asset, which is our people and our clean green brand. We’ve got to make that a reality; that’s the key to a prosperous economy. The Green Party loves students. We’ve stood up for students whether it’s voluntary student membership, or cutting the student fees or open access. Greens have been the champions for students in Parliament. And, lastly, I’ve got a private Member’s Bill in Parliament that would set a minimum warm healthy standard for rental properties. The state of student renting in flats is shocking, and students are getting sick from their houses. I’ve got a law which would make students’ homes warm, safe and healthy.

Grant Robertson, MP, Labour Party:

We have always stood up for student issues—we’re the people who brought in interest-free student loans, and we made more people eligible for student allowances, so we’ve got a good track record for students. That’s the first reason. The second reason is that we’re not going to allow a return to youth rates; in fact, we’re going to increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour so students will be better off. Third reason is we’re introducing a tax-free zone for the first $5,000 that you earn, and that will apply to students and other beneficiaries as well. But there are lots more than three reasons.

Paul Foster-Bell, MP, National Party:

Look, there are more than three fantastic reasons why students should party vote National, but the top reason for students is that National is going to remove their compulsory student unionism. They’re not going to have that forced upon them. They’re going to save that $130, or opt to join the union if they want to; it’s giving students the same human rights and choice as everyone else. That’s one great reason. The second reason is, when you come out of university, you’re going to want to get a job: an interesting, well-paying job. And National’s building that vibrant, dynamic, growing economy that will let people move out of university and into great jobs. And a third reason is that once you’re out of university, you’re going to be reliant on the same public services as everyone else: same transport, same health, the same public services. I think that some of those services are going to be massively improved under National. … I think those are three great reasons to party vote National.

Every year brings new challenges and many exciting events. 2010 was a hugely important year for Ngā Rangahautira as the national Te Hunga Roia Maori o Aotearoa Maori Law Society Conference was held in Wellington late last year. Being the hosting Law School, this amazing event bought students and practitioners from all over the country together to share experiences and take home words of advice and legal wisdom from many important figures from our legal profession. Held annually since 1988, the conference is the highlight of the year for Maori lawyers and students alike. The first annual Maori Law Awards were also held at Te Papa during the conference and saw many alumni from Victoria receiving praise and awards for their important work.

Two weeks ago the 2011 conference was held in Hamilton and as usual, Nga Rangahautira sent a keen contingent to join the group. As usual, amazing speakers, inspirational lawyers and extremely talented students were bought together to meet, greet and learn from each other. Nga Rangahautira look forward to this event each and every year and will continue to attend and proudly represent out university for many years to come.

This year, Phoebe Monk and Shaun Raumati are Tumuaki Wahine, and Tumuaki Tane. They head a keen and enthusiastic executive group elected at the annual Nga Rangahautira AGM which was held earlier this year. It is a pleasure to see students from all year groups come together and volunteer to be part of the executive team. This the executive are holding a sports day, Te Wiki O Te Reo Maori event, a pre-law ball social gathering, various BYO dinners and BBQ’s to promote Nga Rangahautira’s presence at our university and to encourage a continued involvement in kaupapa Maori.

The Law library now has a new room exclusively for the use of Maori and Pasifika students which will include a collection of reference materials, a projector screen and will be a space for Maori students to use for group discussion and tutorials.

Nga Rangahautira focus on enhancing the understanding of law amongst Maori students, and continue to provide social, academic, cultural and political activities. Extra tutorials and study sessions are provided for Maori students and encourage full understanding of the law whilst protecting the importance of tikanga Maori. Nga Ranghautira is a group open to students from all stages of their law degrees and helps to bridge the gap between Maori lawyers in the community, and Maori students in study.

We hope to meet many more students as the year goes on, and all students involved are committed to making law school a fun, warm and inclusive place for Maori students.

Dear Salient,

I’ve noticed that everytime that I read Salient, I’ve both found it interesting than boring later on…What I’m trying to say is that, being a PI (Pacific Islander not Private Investigator although that seems like the right word @ the moment) anyways…I just wanted to say if it is possible that on your next issue out to have artical on “Pacific Flavor” or a joke or a short story written by a PI?…I mean, I’m not saying that I don’t like reading what you guys write about but it’s nice to read something that has a lot of different flavor, ideas, sense of humour or even prespective in life…Like when you taste different kinds of KOF chips or drink different kinds of wine….Do you guys get what I’m trying to say?…Anyways I think I said too much…I talk too much too…lols..Thanks

Jetzy

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A Different View on Construction

Dearest Hot-Tottie-lient

Has anyone else noticed how sexy some of the construction workers are?? As I was drudging up to my usual study spot in the library one day, there they were, a group of them. Tight white tees, blue overalls, brown muscles glistening. So hot. It beats me why people complain about the noise all the time. As we come in to get our little degrees in hopes of getting a job that we probably will never get anyway, the reality is that they too are investing time and money into something that they probably will never see again once its finished. Yet people have the audacity to whinge and moan about the construction noise. Some people around campus laugh and talk louder than that. Quit whining. Its getting old.

Yours faithfully-til-the-day-i-die-unless-i-marry-a-construction-worker-although-i-would-rather-check-them-out-from-afar

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Someone’s been eating their crusts

Dear Salient,

To the girl with the reeeeally curly hair. Like really curly. If you have only kind of, sort of, averagely curly hair, this is not you. You were in the library on Wednesday when I was studying, around lunchtime, on the 4th floor.

You. Are. Beautiful.

Hope you read this.

C

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Pride in One’s Work

Dear Salient

Have you ever ordered a coffee that still burns your tongue after 15 minutes? Or a hot chocolate that doesn’t come with marshmallows even though you can blatantly see the marshmallows sitting in a container next to the coffee machine..

As a first year uni student, i work part time as a barista at a busy cafe(nothing fancy). I am usually reluctant to order hot drinks because i know i like them (and i actually have to pay for them). I’m not saying i’m the best barista around but I do put effort into my coffee making, it took me ages to feel confident and I still fuck up all the time, i just start over.

To the various baristas around Kelburn, is it seriously so hard to use a thermometer? (Usually there is even a little red point where it tells you to stop). Or to bang the jug to get rid of any excess air? I don’t want my latte milk to look like a cappuccino because you were to lazy to scrape off a little foam before you poured.

Sincerely

Pissed off, part time barista.

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Individualism foiled

So I could be known as Tin Foil Hat Girl (because I occasionally wear a tin foil hat), but I have never asked a question about a graph in class (but I am a third/fourth year). Please let me know that you were not talking about me? Maybe you could describe the hat?

Tin Foil Hat Girl (Number 2?)

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Everything’s easier in Hamilton

Dear Salient

Where the hell are all the musicians at? Specifically drummers. I’m from Hamilton and I had an easier time getting bands started up there than I have here.
Hamilton. I don’t think you understand how serious the situation is when Hamilton is beating somewhere else at something.

Playing in my dorm is getting lonely, sweet salient. I just want some like-minded people to play some Shoegaze with. Or Psychedelic Rock. Or Blues. Or Funk. ANYTHING.

Sincerly, that guy who would blow his money on a guitar instead of food.

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Salient: An Organ of Student Opinion

Dear Sali-lient again.
Must you publish ill-informed diatribes by undergrads re; the staff and post-grad bar/cafe?
There has been such a facility for ages, and it was out of the way so as to attract less attention and give staff a well-deserved view and ‘nice area’ which most pokey offices don’t have. Staff and post-grads actually have a heavier workload than undergrads.
Now it is a different facility, near construction works, with no view, and with bad food. And near students we need time away from as they bleat away with the same half-formed ideas all the time. The quality and location of the facility is really up to staff and post-grads to grumble about through more useful channels than Salient.
But Jackh and friends, go away. Stop being rude. Universities are founded on things other than elitism and in trying to answer points about why staff and postgrads should have a separate space on campus to relax away from undergrads, NOBODY said ‘we are better than you’. We’ve just been around longer and don’t need to be badgered about assignments and 100-level concepts when trying to relax. You are being sensationalist and jumping up and down with rants and ideas…oh yes, you are undergrad. Possibly 1st year. I doubt you are a mature student, or you’d have more sense about the real world and looking like an angry self-centered dick. We all pay taxes and fees for things that not all people use (though I don’t actually know where the funding to Milk and Honey came from). Get over it. Take a breath and grow up, and come see us in Milk and Honey, or it’s successor, when you have matured enough, worked enough, and calmed down enough to be able to reflect, look at evidence and reasonably debate a point.
John.
Postgrad/tutor

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Go ahead, Vic, make his day

Dear Clintlient,

As you are probably aware it is Clint Eastwood’s birthday on the 31st May. I want to know why this day is not a university holiday in recognition of the legend that is Clint. It would be entirely appropriate for VUW to schedule no classes for this day so that students can  celebrate the career of Clint. Mandatory atire for the 31st of May is either a poncho, paying homage to Clint’s performance as The Man with No Name in Leone’s ‘Dollars’ Trilogy, or a flared grey suit, as in Dirty Harry. Alcohol to be consumed is of course whiskey. Other people are to be referred to as punks and if offended you are obliged to shoot everyone in the room. If you are not a diehard fan and do not wish to pay full tribute to Clint by imitating one of his characters then I suppose it will be ok to spend the day watching the highlights of his filmography. But only so long as you wear a poncho and drink whiskey whilst doing so.

Yours from the West,

Blondie

PS Vuwsa should actually play a clint eastwood film for the movie club on June 1. Would be totally appropriate and if they could totally make it a dress up and play the clint eastwood drinking game. In fact, if they don’t it will be awkward..

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A mixed bag

Dear John Key I don’t like you anymore I think our relationship ended due to your body guards never letting me visit you, Your helicopters waking me up in the early morning whilst I’m trying to get some sleep and the fact that you seem to kiss ass to the royals seriously I’ve done a better cat walk than you Just ask Seamus Brady.

Anyone want to suggest who I should vote for?

P.S. Thanks to VC and D stent for an awesome Double Down feast at the local KFC tho Di chen Variety Bucket Women !!!

To my Lovely China Field Trip Buddies Best “Poon” Ever ,also No I will not have your Biracial Babies, I’m way Too “Young” ask me in 10 years

PPS: Ladies Text Johnny Crawford he needs a Winter Spoon and is also President/chairman of the Cultural Committee (He has Money to spend on you) on 0276668236

Kind regards
Alan Young
Graduate

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No possibilities discounted

Salient. I would like to pose my hypothesis regarding the hunter lounge staff being robots. They are way too nice. Like, beyond human nice. I think they may be Stepford wives or something.. Also, they are all ridiculously good looking and have epic clothes ALL THE TIME! I can’t quite decide whether they were programmed that way or if they are plotting against us.. My quest goes ever on.

Yours truly,

Ash :D

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Getting slushy over Ally

Dear Anti-Ally Sillyent Readers,

Ally Garrett is and has always been awesome!
I was in a play with her in primary school, (well, ‘in’ is a stretch, I was 7 & had no role other than to sing & look pretty in the background) when drama was compulsory. Mrs Spiers being the posh, anorexic drama-nazi that she was I wasn’t going to even cough in her presence, let alone try for a main role. Ally, on the other hand, year 8 I think, braved the dangers & pursued her young acting career (which continues today: I saw her on a poster in the city recently). I admired Miss Garrett for having such a natural bent for acting but not being a stuck up bitch at the same time – she even talked to us once, the dorky nobodies/extras that we were, during a rehearsal; turning around to sneakily eat her slushy, (hell yeah popsicle slushies! Sigh, I miss the nineties) & I forever envied her ability to not be utterly despised by the bone-dragon.

I just realized that memory in no way defends Ally’s writing… I’m not going to say everyone should agree with her every word, but if you don’t like her article, don’t read it! I don’t like beer, but I don’t bitch about the beer column existing because it’s only my opinion that beer is pure dirt and tonic water..

Peace out wastoids.

P.S. Sorry to Ally if she finds it weird that I remember her eating a slushy once.

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Like living above a brothel

‘A Poem Regarding Library Construction Noise’

Writing writing
BANGING BANGING
I’ll focus harder
I’LL HAMMER HARDER
It’s not distracting
I LOVE CONTRACTING
Soon it has to stop
POWER TOOLS ARE HOT
I’m leaving this place, my ears are pounding
I’M WAVING THIS MACE I BREAK THE BUILDING

***

You forgot ‘penis’

Dear J. Joyce,
Your personals ad spurred a plethora of wondrous sensations deep, deep inside of me. Perhaps you would be so kind as to prod me with your pork sword in order to discover the root of this terrible affliction?
I get so damn horny when I have a massive assignment due. Hitherto, my ginormous vibrator has been able to relieve the sexual tensions that public policy and inflation analysis have built up inside of me. Do you think you’d match up to my seven-speed rabbit? For the love of hey-zeus, I hope so.
Two things to consider before you reply:
1: When I’m licking and sucking and stroking your delicious you know whatist can you moan and sigh lots? It turns me on.
2: Do you have a love swing? They look like fun.
I can’t wait to meet your John Thomas, chopper, wang, joystick, wiener, winkle, prick, dong, cock, schlong, knob, pecker, todger.
Yours Sincerely,
E. Clery

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Super-eared postgrad returns

Dear John Key Shonky Donky person
There is a sign and it has been up since March. I know because I made it. Alternatively, if you are celebrating near the hand in boxes, there are large signs at the kitchenette one wall across which ask you nicely to be quiet. Good luck with library noise and thanks for your concern
Yours sincerely

Postgrad who can hear every word said in the Cotton level 2 office corridor

Dear Jackh

If your balls are so big why not just walk into Milk and Honey?
However, good point about student fees. I hope the fact that my student loan is almost at $50,000 will help you realise that my many years of study have meant my fees are in there too. Just as they are in a whole bunch of shit I will never use, such as the new development. As you can read from my pseudonym, I can hear everything through the door even when locked and when signs such as the one previously discussed are in place. Also, the workload is normal, it is just different to those who only attend one or two classes a day. Obviously I whine less than you too, as my letter didn’t need to be abridged.
Best of luck with your political studies/law/economics/humanities degree

Postgrad who can hear every word said in the Cotton level 2 office corridor

PS Yes salient, we do read you. Nice work this year BTW

***

Late-night incident

To whom it may concern

On Friday night, I, like many others living in Wellington went out to socialise and catch up with friends. The Southern Cross was the venue. Arriving a little after ten and to a relatively empty bar I was in the outside area taking a phone call when a foriegn object was thrown at me from a large table of Victoria University students. I was able to identify them as students of Victoria University as a person with my group recognised them from various courses.

I finished my phone call and approached the lad who threw the object at me. I would like to state that I have never seen nor had anything to do with anyone in this group prior to this incident. The lad who threw the object denied throwing anything (despite me clearly seeing him throw it) and rather quickly encouraged his mates to surround myself and the friends I was with. They  used stand over tactics in an attempt to dissolve the matter by verbal abuse and power by numbers. As you can imagine I was less than impressed and more so when invited to sort the matter out on our own, which, of course, was not an option for the mouthy student.

Now, I can understand that some students think they’re bullet proof when out in public and especially in large groups and I can understand the machismo involved when showing off to the people in their environment but not being able to back up their abusive and aggressive approach when confronted with the issue is cowardly.

And this guy was a coward if ever I came across one.

I own a small business and I give Victoria University students generous discounts on goods, I allow them to publicise and advertise coming events and promote their work and whatever else on the walls of my business and I allow for a weekly drop of Salient. However I am considering cutting all ties.

I know that only a small percentage on students at Victoria University are losers when in public and clearly do not know how to behave but it is this portrayal that sticks and gives them and Victoria University a bad reputation.

Nik O’Connell

***

Spicy/saucy

Hey bebe

I love giving taco flavored kesses to my baby!!!!!!!!!!!

Brent

***

He is offended because…

Dear salient,

Well actually dear Ally smelly writes shitty articles for Salient Garrett! I am offended because… because I hate reading your column about how you are so offended. For the last few weeks I have grabbed my issue of Salient and been shocked to see that your articles are being printed! Sorry actually I haven’t been shocked, I have been disgusted. One week it’s about girls who catch the number 9 bus, another it’s about how you hate everything in life it seems. Well Ally smelly, I HATE YOU! You and your constant moaning. I’m actually disappointed in myself that I have let your pathetic writing skills, get to me so badly.
Your humour is the worst part. Your humour and your attitude. Whenever you aren’t sounding like an attention seeking emo (Eww so 2007) you are sounding like a total moo cow on heat. It’s alright to be offended about things but at least try to make them good! Like here are a couple things I’m offended at:
a) You
b) Uni-stop staff that hold onto your card
and c) Student Union Building male toilets have crap mirrors.
Maybe try writing about something that truly, madly, deeply from the bottom of your soul offends you.
Sorry for the personal attack but until you pick your game up or stop writing for Salient I will hate you forever.
From: Rueben Radford
P.s I know I used the word hate, but I actually mean dislike (used it for dramatic effect).

What are you looking forward to? Let us know, and find out about what Wellington Central Candidate James Shaw and Greens@Vic Candidate Zachary Dorner are up to for election year. Drink with koha entry for the first to arrive! And live music! 7pm, Thursday 26 May in Hunter Lounge.

Authorised by Jon Field, L2/17 Garrett St, Wgtn

Careers and Jobs

2011/12 Internships and 2012 Graduate Jobs:

Applications Closing Soon (details on CareerHub http://careerhub.victoria.ac.nz):
25/5 – Contact Energy
26/5 – ANZ
27/5 – Tonkin Taylor
31/5 – PKF Martin Jarvie; Halliburton – Australasia; NZ Institute of Economic Research (NZIER); Shell; Wynn Williams & Co; Atlas Iron Ltd
1/6 – Transpower
2/6 – Motu Economic and Public Policy Research Trust
7/6 – IBM
10/6 – Fisher & Paykel
12/6 – Walt Disney World
13/6 – Frucor; Prudential
15/6 – Contact Energy (IT)
17/6 – Intergen
20/6 – PKF Ross Melville

Careers Expos – check details CareerHub:
11/8 – Science Careers Expo, 11am – 12pm
Vic Careers: 463-5393, careers-service@vuw.ac.nz, 14 Kelburn Parade

Wednesday Communion at Anglican Chaplaincy

Centre your busy week with prayer and a mid-week communion. A quiet service based on the Anglican Prayer Book is held every Wednesday, in the Chapel at 8 Kelburn Pde  12:10 to 12:45. All are welcome.

UniQ Meeting

UniQ is an all-inclusive social and support group, based at Victoria University, for Queer students and their friends. We are meeting at 6pm in the Memorial Theatre Foyer in the Student Union Building this Thursday the 26th of May. Everyone is welcome so don’t hesitate to come along!

Bushball 2011: A Right Royal Affair

Join the VUW Tramping Club on 28th May for a ball with a difference: yes its Bush Ball time again, your typical ball with fancy suits and dresses, lights, music, drinks (BYO) and dancing – but in the bush. And this time with a royal wedding twist! Come dressed as a prince or princess, wear a silly hat or be creative.

Location: Smith’s Creek ‘Abbey’, Tararua Forest Park
Time: meet 12 noon, 28th May, Hunter Carpark (return following day)
Cost: $10, get your ticket early!
For more info: Tuesday night meetings, 7.30pm in Student Union Building or see www.vuwtc.org.nz”

Found Flash Drive

Found: Red and Black “Imation” brand 2GB flash drive/memory stick on the corner of the Terrace and Salamanca 12:40 Tuesday. Email editor@salient.org.nz if you think it might be yours.

Students for Palestine present Miral, a film by Julian Schnabel

‘Based on Rula Jebreal‘s first–hand account of growing up in East Jerusalem, Miral is the richly textured and deeply moving account of an intelligent young woman whose personal story is inextricably linked with the political history and social consequences of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.’
Monday 23rd May
12pm
SU217, Student Union Building

Week 11 Sci-Fi Club Quiz Night

Thursday May 26th we will be having ONE of TWO biannual Sci Fi Club Quiz nights!
Bring your friends, make a team of four and enjoy the geekery!
We will start the festivities at 4pm with a screening of Doctor Who and the quiz will start at 6pm.
Be here (SU217) and be square.

Political leadership and Local Politics

AIESEC is holding an evening on Monday 23 May from 6.45pm to 8.30pm in the Memorial Theatre for all undergraduate students. Get to meet Wellington City Councilors and members of parliament. Hear them talk about what their jobs involve and get advice first hand.
The meeting is open to all, not just those studying law and international relations. So come along and enjoy this fantastic night.
RSVP is required. Just look us up on Facebook for more info and register there.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

We have an A.G.M Meeting for LDS Students, Staff and Friends at Victoria University of Wellington
On: Tuesday 24th May 2011
Time: 5.00-7.00P.M
Where: Memorial Theater Foyer Room 2

For more information please feel free to e-mail the president for more details at lds_students_and_staff@hotmail.co.nz

Vic OE – Vic Student Exchange Programme

Why not study overseas as part of your degree?!
Earn Vic credit, get Studylink & grants, explore the world!
Weekly seminars on Wednesdays during term time, Level 2, Easterfield Building, 12.55pm – 1.05pm
Upcoming Deadlines: For Tri 1, 2012 exchange – July 16th, (UC June 30th)
Email: exchangestudents@vuw.ac.nz
Website: http://victoria.ac.nz/exchange
Visit us: Level 2, Easterfield Building
Drop-in hours: Mon & Tues 9-12, Wed-Fri 10-12

Go whitewater rafting with your bestie?

Climb the Eiffel tower?

Or simply get your finances sorted?

Turning 21 is a big deal, and getting there is half the fun. To celebrate, why not check out ’21 things to do before you’re 21’ online at 21things.co.nz – there’s some great ideas and some great prizes up for grabs.

All you have to do is come up with your own list of 21 things you’d like to do before you turn 21, and share the top ones with your Facebook friends. The winner will be announced on 30 June 2011.

First prize is $500 for the winner to spend on the 21 things on her list, plus there are some great spot prizes from online fashion boutique The Thread Loop (http://www.thethreadloop.com). As well, everyone who enters will score a discount voucher for The Thread Loop – a perfect opportunity to pick up some great Kiwi fashion.

All the competition details are on http://www.21things.co.nz.

So come and visit the site, and tell us what you’d like to do before you turn 21!

To enter the competition you must be a female born between 1 January 1990 and 31 December 1996. Here are the nation’s current top ’21 things’, after about 500 people had voted:

Stay up all night and watch the sun rise…
Fall asleep under the stars…
Take a summer roadtrip with my besties…
Win something amazing…
Take amazing photos…
Go on an overseas holiday without your parents (and paid for by you)
Bungy jump…
Dance til dawn…
A ‘spa’ day with friends…
Swim with dolphins…
Have the date that I’ll remember forever…
Go camping with friends…
Get your driver’s licence….
Have a makeover (or help a friend with one)…
Be photographed with someone famous…
Change my hair colour…
Go to a music festival…
Get into that pair of jeans I never thought I’d fit…
Front row seats at the concert of my dreams…
Visit another continent…
Get my first car…

We’ll look forward to seeing what you have got planned between now and your 21st birthday!

http://www.21things.co.nz

Tell me about the beginnings of the society. I understand it started out as a normal club last year?

Felix: It started way smaller, it was just a club.
Tess: Now it’s a beautiful baby!
Jessica: Right, I don’t think any of us saw the rep group thing coming. I think mostly we just wanted to get money for events.
William: We were kinda talking about how it would be cool to have a club for science students and how we could like have cool events and stuff and then we talked to Michelle and she was all like “Yeah yeah yeah,” like “I agree.”
Tess: “Affirmative.”
William: Yes. She affirmated the club.
Jessica: Everyone we talked to said it was a good idea once we mentioned it to people. They’d take notice, and we didn’t get any bad feedback at all about it.
Tess: Basically it grew by word of mouth.
Felix: On the first day William created Nerds. And It was Good.

What has been your favourite part of the VUWSS so far? Your personal best thing?

Tess: Quiz night?
William: It’s just the support that’s been there. It’s been really fantastic. People come and they want to help out. Like at the quiz night there were tons of people there, and the atmosphere was amazing.
Tess: Everyone’s been giving us really great feedback. Quiz night was great because it showed it was working. We had so many people come we had to start turning people away. It was a real turning point for us because then we’d proved that we could do it, and that there were a ton of people who were really keen on having Science Society events.
William: The team around me has been such a good team. Y’know everyone’s brought something different. It definitely wouldn’t be what it is today without every person. It gives Science Society its flavour.

What are your personal goals for the VUWSS this year?

Tess: Run some really fun events that get people interested and active!
Amy [who was sitting next to us in the bar]: And also those like cram sessions before the exams!
Felix: Increasing awareness. Not for anything in specific.
William: [laughs.] I agree with Felix, we need to raise the profile of the society, get some sponsors on board, start to get that community feel, and that is achieved by having really good events, really high quality. We wanna have fewer events but like I said, of really high quality, get people excited about it. To be sustainable we just have to get outside support.

You wanna leave them hungry for more!

William: Yeah! And get places like IRL, Malaghan and GNS, get them to notice us to put the links in place.
Felix: Companies like that really want people, new interns, so having contact with a student-led society could be a really attractive option for them.
William: Right and they not only want people, they want people who are social and can make good contributions. Hopefully through science society we can encourage that to happen for students.
I mean a good example of that is Watson and Crick. They discovered the double-helix structure of DNA. But they didn’t spend all their time doing quantitative research, instead they kind of found the contacts and the other literature and doing that helped them to get the info needed to find the structure. Using that social aspect to solve the problem! It’s a powerful tool.

Tell us about your upcoming event.

Tess: Cool! It’ll be in the Hunter lounge. We’re combining our AGM with an after-party. It’ll be a dress up, science-themed party. We’re calling it the Start of Year Shindig.
Jessica: So you can dress up as anything science-y themed. So biology right, like an animal… like a cougar!
William: I hope no actual cougars do show up though
It’d be real awkward.
Tess: Right so what were the other ideas? Like a space construction astronaut? Anyway, it’ll be on Friday the 1st of April
William: No, no, no. We definitely have to invent teleporting so I’m never late for a biochemistry lecture again. So I can cure cancer. All right—quote: I’m gonna fuck up cancer. But seriously, we are going to have awesome events, like a zoo sleepover, a semi-ball/cocktail night, creative cram sessions, a quiz night plus a whole lot more. People should be excited.

Last year, Radio New Zealand offered students a golden start to their design career. This year, it’s happening again, with the Sounds Like Us Design Contest.

Students are now invited to submit designs for a radio that captures any aspect of New Zealand culture from the last 100 years. Designs can be hand drawn sketches, technical drawings, mac visuals or any other medium of the designer’s choice.

The best design will be brought to life by a top New Zealand model maker and feature this July in the Auckland Art Gallery exhibition: ‘Sounds Like Us. 100 Years of Radio in New Zealand’.

The winner will be invited to see their design being crafted as a model radio, and travel to Auckland for the exhibition.

The design brief and full details of how to enter will be available online at soundslikeus.co.nz from 27 March. The site also includes the existing radios of New Zealand and last year’s winning designs.

The 2010 contest saw entries from design colleges across New Zealand. The range of ideas was incredibly broad and the standard was very high. The judges, including Richard Taylor from Weta Workshop, finally narrowed down the shortlist, from which new radios were made.

All 13 radios were then exhibited at Te Papa, which became a very popular exhibit. For the winning students, it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to craft their designs with Weta Workshop and gain such exposure for their ideas.

This year, the Auckland Art Gallery is keen to bring new dimensions to the exhibition with a historical journey through the 100 year history of radio in New Zealand, featuring rare content exclusive to Radio New Zealand’s Archives.

Students can submit designs between 1 April and 13 May. Entries will be shortlisted and the final winner chosen by a panel of judges including Richard Taylor and Chris Saines, Director of the Auckland Art Gallery, at the end of May. The radio will then be constructed, with input from the winning student, to be displayed at The Auckland Art Gallery from 8th July.

The competition is open to all New Zealanders, so start thinking about what the Radio of the Century could be and seize this incredible opportunity now.

Food outlets on Kelburn campus seem to be coming and going like taxis, so let’s assess our options. What’s the deal with The Hunter Lounge? And those kiosk things in the Old Kirk courtyard that seemed to surface overnight? Where’s the best coffee on campus? And what’s next in store?

vicbooks, Level 4, Student Union Building

What Victoria University says: vicbooks serves fair-trade organic People’s Coffee and selected cold drinks. Also available are hearty sandwiches, home-style baking, and a sophisticated take on the humble sausage roll.
What Salient says: There are a wide range of coffee and tea options available, ranging between $3.20 and $4.40 in price. There are also organic Phoenix juices for sale at $3.50. Food’s mostly cold snack/lunch food, such as biscuits, scones, croissants, rolls, bagels and chocolate cake—but it depends on the time of day you go, because they add new options during the day. There are vegetarian sandwiches on offer, as well as gluten-free cakes and slices. Prices range from $1.70 for a small biscuit to $7.50 for a sandwich, neither of which offer great value for money. The croissants, however, are full to the brim, and the chocolate cake is worth $6, even for a small slice, because it’s freshly-made and tastes great. Hot drinks are well-priced, as cups are filled to the brim, and well-made—points awarded for the delicious People’s Coffee, as well as a customer card that rewards their regulars. EFTPOS and service is fast—the whole transaction takes less than 30 seconds, though the coffee can take a while when there are a lot of customers. There’s a constant stream of people coming in and out, but the place gets crowded fast: there’s not a great deal of space, and limited seating, but the helpful and friendly staff deal with queues quickly.
The highs: The best coffee on campus
The lows: Counter food lacks variety and can be over-priced
Good for: Students who value their coffee and fair trade

The Hunter Lounge, Level 3, Student Union Building

What Victoria University says: The Hunter Lounge is the new café/bar and gig space in the revamped Union Hall and has counter food and a short-order menu with strong vegetarian and vegan offering. The café seats 350. A mezzanine floor has cosy couches and tables ideal for studying or cloud-gazing.
What Salient says: No-one was screwing around when they put the Hunter Lounge together: why so serious? Utility’s the theme, and with its formidable stage area, floor space and a décor that would suit anyone’s bar mitzvah, they hit a high note. The lunch menu screams one things to me: serious, serious, serious. Balinese chicken wings? Lebanese cauliflower? Octopus dumplings? You get the impression that the Lounge is trying to be a tad too mature, and with the steep prices (the Hunter’s ‘sausage in a bun’ is $7, the same price as a Subway foot long), it’s just a straight-up hard sell. Ranging between $3 and $6.50, the snacks on display on the bar are better value, though some have been known to be left uncovered, perhaps enabling patrons to share their summer colds with the rest of the student body. The Hunter Lounge seems to have multiple personality disorder. During the day, the atmosphere’s rather saccharine, with easy-listening music playing to encourage relaxation, and this works out quite well. At nighttime, however—when the place runs out of Prozac—it’s much busier, giving the place more of a Hotel Bristol vibe. So, when timing your visit, just remember to choose between study-by-day or whoosh-crikey! fun by night. As for service, the staff are friendly and chatty, but the wait for your order can be lengthy, especially during the lunchtime rush. The final impression you get is that the Hunter Lounge is trying to find a niche as a serious establishment, and is willing to die trying. Yes, the cuisine sticks out like a folk singer at a Dragonforce gig, and the service and atmosphere need fine-tuning, but it’s busting ass to please anybody that walks in the door.
The highs: Swiss Gold coffee in cute takeaway cups (kittens! bunnies!), flash new surrounds
The lows: Long wait for food and coffee at peak times, incongruous menu options
Good for: A social snack when you’ve got time to kill

UniStop, Easterfield Building

What Victoria University says: On the press release Salient received… nothing.
What Salient says: UniStop is the famed one-stop shop on Kelburn Parade that’s just about legendary to Vic students looking for a decent, fast food supply. It’s packed between noon and 2pm, with queues often extending out the door as students wait to buy a quick snack in between lectures—and that lunchtime rush is just what this place is stocked up for. They have a huge variety of packaged junk food (noodles, chips, biscuits, pies, and a remarkable selection of vege crisps) for pretty decent prices. The hot food, which includes wedges and curries, looks nauseating but tastes surprisingly satisfying, and it’s cheap. For what you get, UniStop prices appear to be respectable—especially for someone who’s craving fatty foods. Healthy and vegetarian options (sushi, salads, sandwiches, pasta) are considerably more expensive, but they are on offer, which is terrific. Drinks are on the pricier side, but there’s a sweet selection of sports waters, juices and milk-y Primo stuff. There’s a good range of cheap, hot drinks—the taste of the coffee is a different story, but it’s cheap and the service is fast, so it’s tolerable. Be warned, though: paying by EFTPOS is a time-consuming encounter, and the staff have a habit of holding onto your card for too long; it’s easy to forget to get it back off them.
The highs: The range, the cheap-ish prices
The lows: The queues at peak times, paying more for healthy options
Good for: Students for whom convenience comes first

The Illot café, Kirk

What Victoria University says: The Illot café is tucked into a corner with views down onto Kelburn Parade. Go there for hot food including fried rice, noodles and hot chips; self-service lunch options; milkshakes and fair-trade organic coffee.
What Salient says: The Illot café specialises in self-service hot and cold meals, as well as takeaway options. On offer are stir-fried noodles, rice and vegetables, deep-fried fish, wedges, hot chips, chicken, baked pies and sausage rolls. It’s mostly deep- or stir-fried fast food, which is popular for students in a rush between classes. Employer Gino says all the food’s cooked in soy and canola oil for the healthy option, and that the food is freshly prepared everyday, as turnover is high. The menu is also seasonal, and changes on a regular basis. Gluten- or lactose-free students might want to be aware that their choice is limited, but Gino says that there always at least four vegetarian options on offer. The café is buzzing with students coming from lectures nearby; not many sit in the café itself, but take their food to go. The takeaway meals are all under $10, while cold food such as tuna sandwiches, filled rolls, breads, cakes and slices range from $1 to $5. Coffee and cold drinks range from $3 to $5. The service is good; the queue seems to go down moderately after five to ten minutes. Most people use EFTPOS which is one reason for the queue.
The highs: Cheap, filling meals
The lows: The atmosphere doesn’t invite one to linger
Good for: Students whose hunger exceeds their means

Wishbone, Alan McDiarmid Building

What Victoria University says: Wishbone offers fresh self-service food for busy people who want to eat well. The broad menu samples from many cultures and includes something for every time of day. Gluten-free, dairy-free and meat-free options are available.
What Salient says: Wishbone, which is right smack-bang in the middle of the Science and Engineering sector of Kelburn, is the closest thing you’ll get to a professional café on campus. There are tables in abundance, so there’s always a place to sit, and the atmosphere is the same as if you entered a Wishbone on Lambton Quay. A large fridge that dominates one wall is exploding with enough healthy options to make the Cookie Monster weep into his dough. Nothing is excluded—this is the place to be if you’re a vegetarian, vegan, lactose intolerant, gluten intolerant, or just a healthy eater. Healthy hot food is also on offer, with the options changing regularly. Unfortunately, the prices are staggering, ranging from $5 for a basic hot meal to a whopping $15 for a takeaway heat-and-eat. Coke and the like are also stocked, but can be bought elsewhere at a minimum cost. In short, Wishbone won’t be your cup of soy milk if keeping to a budget is your goal. Interestingly, its location works against it: most students will have to go out of their way to venture to Wishbone, and so, only serious students with work to do ‘relax’ there, which makes it feel a little less accessible than the other cafés on campus. With its wide range of healthy options and takeaway meals, this is a culinary hotspot, but be prepared to dig deep into your pocket; it’s the richer, post-grad connoisseur that frequents this hard-line café.
The highs: A wide range of options that meet all dietary requirements
The lows: The price. $15 for a heat-and-eat?
Good for: Students with sensitive stomachs

I know a woman and her name is Margaret. She is Margaret, a woman and desirable. My blood is red. I am not the pallid scholar I so proudly deemed myself to be. I am a man, and a lover, despite the books. As for De Casseres—if ever I get back to New York, equipped as I now am, I shall confute him with the same ease that he has confuted all the schools. Love is the final word. To the rational man it alone gives the super-rational sanction for living. Like Bergson in his overhanging heaven of intuition, or like one who has bathed in Pentecostal fire and seen the New Jerusalem, so I have trod the materialistic dictums of science underfoot, scaled the last peak of philosophy, and leaped into my heaven, which, after all, is within myself. The stuff that composes me, that is I, is so made that it finds its supreme realization in the love of woman. It is the vindication of being. Yes, and it is the wages of being, the payment in full for all the brittleness and frailty of flesh and breath.

And she is only a woman, like any woman, and the Lord knows I know what women are. And I know Margaret for what she is—mere woman; and yet I know, in the lover’s soul of me, that she is somehow different. Her ways are not as the ways of other women, and all her ways are delightful to me. In the end, I suppose, I shall become a nest-builder, for of a surety nest-building is one of her pretty ways. And who shall say which is the worthier—the writing of a whole library or the building of a nest?

- The Mutiny of the Elsinore by Jack London (Mills & Boon, 1915)

Caspar David Friedrich: Landscape with the Rosenberg in the Bohemian Mountains, 1835

This small, unfinished painting was on display in Te Papa’s European Masters exhibition, but most people probably walked straight past it. Really, though, this bleak, empty landscape is fantastically grim and perfectly embodies the Romantic artist’s melancholic outlook on life. Friedrich was all about God being in nature, and if you want to have a god anywhere, that’s probably the best place for him. If this painting had a soundtrack it would probably be Sunn O))). Crushing mountainous doom. Nobody got Friedrich when he was alive—being grim and nihilistic wasn’t really the 19th century vibe—but he was definitely well ahead of his time.

Zoe Platt-Young

Seraphine Pick – Love School

I first saw this work on a fifth form school trip. We’d been traipsing around Te Papa, I happened to stray from the herd and the glimpse of richly textured indigo hues and shadowy nude figures intrigued me instantly. Pick has a unique mastery of light that infuses her pieces with an effortless mystery. One can read any number of themes in her work but it’s the way she seems to delve into our own subconscious that is particularly enrapturing. I found myself staring beyond the canvas—the depth of field is such that you feel you’re entering another plane of existence and not merely a painting. A truly ethereal work by a very talented Wellingtonian.

Jenny Ombler

Stephen Willats – The West London Social Resource Project

There are no pictures of my favourite artwork to show you. In 1977 Stephen Willats basically gave the art world the big finger by staging an art piece that didn’t invite regular gallery goers or critics. Instead, residents of housing blocks in West London were invited to take part in The West London Social Resource Project. Photographs of their private living spaces were distributed in a ‘manual’ for other residents to comment on. Willats wanted to create artistic engagement between subjects in the subject’s own context. That meant that critics and curators didn’t even get a foot in the door. You can read more about it in Willat’s magazine Control,

“If you’re not enjoying what you’re studying, or if you’re finding it really hard to get Ds, let alone anything higher, it’s OK (and much better for your mental health) to switch to something you find more interesting or easier. It took me two-and-a-half years of studying BioMed before I accepted that the world would not end if I changed to a BA. Seriously—try a mix of papers in your first year, try something random. Take a maths paper, a German paper, art history, ancient Greek. It doesn’t matter what it is, but it means you aren’t closing doors that, three years down the track, you might wish you’d left open.”

Geraint Scott

“Get involved with politics! This is the capital city: it’s teeming with political buzz. You don’t have to be a political science student to get involved (sometimes it helps not to be!)—look up the various parties and see which one matches your views and ethos. Chances are you’re either Labour, Green or National. They all have youth factions and reps at Vic uni, and they all distribute emails and newsletters about their policies, political news that doesn’t make the papers and various events that sometimes even have free food! WIN!”

William David Guzzo

“Don’t skip lectures. Seriously. In first year, you can get away with it. But in third-year organic chemistry… Maybe not. Set yourself high standards. Even if it’s first-year management, old habits die hard! So start off university by attending lectures and studying consistently.”

Selina Powell

“Learn how to remember names. At the beginning of first year, there are a lot of names to remember—people you meet in lectures, tutorials, random encounters, part-time jobs… These people will probably appreciate it if you call them by the name their parents gave them, not a different one beginning with the same letter. There are many techniques for learning names, like repeating the name when it’s said to you (“Nice to meet you, Simon”), or associating the name with something else in your mind. It doesn’t really matter how you do it, so long as it works for you. Remembering someone’s name is one of the simplest forms of showing respect to a person—a fundamental of low-tech social networking, and an important skill that will aid you professionally later on.

“Eat breakfast. Break the roughly eight-hour fast with something other than an energy drink. Even though it may seem like a good idea to save time in the morning by skipping breakfast, the time you spend eating in the morning will reward you later with enhanced concentration and a general non-zombified demeanor. It is also a pleasant meditative time before your day gains momentum.

“Call, Skype, email or text your parents/extended whanau. You could even send them an old-fashioned letter or postcard. They gave you shelter, nourishment and education—possibly funded by donating 40 hours of each week to a job they don’t particularly enjoy. They would like to know how you are.”

Claire O’Loughlin

“If you’re flatting in your first year and you’ve managed to find a place, you can move out if you are unhappy there. Look on TradeMe, find a new room somewhere else, talk to the Tenancy Tribunal or the Vic Accommodation Service, find someone to fill your room, tell your flatmates ‘It’s not me, it’s you,’ and move out. You don’t need to keep on living in a cold dark damp hole with slugs in the bath, demon cats scratching at the door, mice in the cupboards, maggots under the sofa, burglars that steal the hot water cylinder, and flatmates that don’t pay rent for a whole year. Even if it’s two minutes from uni you can do better. Probably.”

Lisa Taylor

“Don’t come to class if you’re just gonna sit there and gossip loudly about last night’s ‘bed-fun’ that you totally didn’t have. Same goes for doing all the Salient puzzles. We’ve all been there, but when you get past the first few courses, you soon realise just how annoying it is to hear people talking—and the frustrated grunts when they can’t finish the ‘easy’ sudoku.

“Go exploring—you’re in a new place with new friends (and old ones), so make the most of it. The Botanicical Gardens and free concerts in town are so worth it when you realise someone famous has a secret gig on. Better to be in on the action than to always be missing out on it.”

Tom Lister

“That last half of the bottle of wine you downed back at your hall of residence because it was five minutes until kick out? That will end up in the toilet at The Big K, along with your dignity. And innocence. That sweaty guy grinding on your friend at The Big K? He isn’t a first year. He probably doesn’t go to university. And the free drinks there don’t come free, if you know what I mean.”

Sebastian Boyle

“Tons of people get degrees, but far fewer serve on a club committee, or play sport, or get involved with the performing arts, or write for a student publication. Do something different. It’ll give you something to write on your CV, distinguish you from all the other job seekers, and, most importantly of all, it’ll give you something worthwhile and fun to do.”

Peter McCaffrey

“Don’t bother hunting for the silly automatic door opening button thingies—just push all doors a bit harder for a while and you’ll learn which ones are which soon enough. Seriously, it’s much easier than using the buttons.”

Hannah Warren

“Go on exchange! I guarantee it will be the best year or semester of your university career. You will make friends, study new things, explore the world and learn so much about yourself. It’s not scary and it’s not hard; go talk to Vic OE and go study abroad!”

Josh McDonald

“Learn your way around. There are maps for a reason. It would have been nice to know where the actual entrance to 77 Fairlie Terrace was, to avoid the embarrassment of being the 33rd little dweeb to disrupt the super cool class of older kids. Sigh.”

Mava Moayyed

“In your first year you may find yourself up very late trying to finish assignments. I cannot stress the importance of giving yourself ample time to edit and proofread your work before handing it in. I learnt this the hard way when my English essay was given back with a note outlining concern over my possible dyslexia.
What had actually happened was a 2am attempt at writing an essay which resulted in the most shocking typos ever committed by man; the kind that only happen when you’re writing frantically on a Red Bull-induced high. Basically it wasn’t a good experience, so learn to be the master of the ‘last minute’ and manage your time well.

“Talking loudly in the library or the Cyber Commons is not kosher. Especially when it’s 1am and I am trying to finish an essay on South Sudanese conflict and all I can hear is your discussion about StarCraft II. Similarly, using the university computers during peak hours to check Facebook and watch Jersey Shore will get you stares of death from students waiting to actually do some work. Don’t do it. Don’t justify our dislike.”

Giancarlo Riccardo Alessandro Salizzo

“If you live in a hall, eat there. You’ll save so much money on food—you’ve paid for it already.”

Amanda Plum

“The legendary ‘Fresher Five’ actually does exist, and will soon coexist with you unless prevented in a timely fashion, i.e. consuming all of your stodgy Hall dinner, following up with several pieces of toast, then rounding off with a late-night pizza snack seems like a good idea at the time, but won’t at the end of the year. Key word = REFRAIN.

“It is also handy to keep in mind that while enjoying yourself and establishing your reputation, the ultimate goal is to finish the year with enough people willing to tolerate you for several more years to organise a motley flatting crew. Oh, and passing your courses is generally a good idea, if only to keep up morale.

“Do not attempt to create a new persona (or worse still, a range of new personas) for yourself by getting creative with your wardrobe.”

We have represented students from Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Cook Islands, Niue, Tahiti, PNG, Tokelau, Tuvalu and the Solomons. Pasifika NZ’s from Aotearoa—Porirua, the Hutt and town. We’re all here! Many are a part of other students’ associations (Samoan, Tongan, Melanesian, Fijian), and many are keen to form their own, but we all get together every week to discuss, advocate, share issues on anything concerning the Pacific/Oceania and its diverse peoples.

Events for cultural arts and wider social gatherings have been prepared beforehand. We are going to discover the different talents of the Pacific Islanders at every event. PSC will also represent Victoria University at National Student Association gatherings for Pasifika students.

These events are going to be displayed throughout O Week as we welcome Pacific students to sign up to clubs. PSC will be present at Clubs Week as we get Pasifika students in touch with other Pasifika students on campus. As usual, we serve kai and Pacific food! Our Meet and Greets then happen at the weekend as we explore the culture and arts of Fiji, Samoa, the Cook Islands, Tonga, etc. at Mixjah.

Every Wednesday in Te Taratara a Kae (the Maori and Pacific space in the Library, Level 2) we hold Loto Aho study sessions from 4pm-6pm. We cluster into smaller groups based on interest/paper/programme of study. The success of Loto Aho last year has motivated the team to focus more on the study leaders’ commitment for a well-organised group. 75 per cent of students who attended Loto Aho passed their courses. This motivated PSC to increase its support for students and committed leaders to work even harder.

Truly, this year is the year to make a great history for the Pacific Islanders as we raise everything to the next level! We can bring a change to students’ lives, starting from an individual to a larger scale.

These are the following events we’ve scheduled for 2011:
PSC will be at Clubs’ Week during O Week
Meet and Greet Orientation Welcome, 7-11pm on Saturday 5 March at MIXJAH Loto Aha Study and Pizza
Whanau/Aiga Clusters, 4-6pm on Wednesday, 9 March at Te Taratara a Kae, Level 2 of the Victoria University Library

We are also planning a study Wanaga, ten pin bowling, political gatherings and an end-of-year event. Special thanks to those who supported these events and those who have contributed to make these events possible.

PSC is committed to success, committed to equity/equality, committed to serving you and communities at large in Aotearoa and nation states. We look forward to being a part of your malaga here at Victoria University!

Your Pasifika Students’ Council

VUWSA’s goals are: quality, student-focused education; an outstanding student experience; adequate student support; accountable use of student money; and fair decision-making.

It achieves these goals by advocating across the university, training student reps, running campaigns and providing services directly to you. There’s heavy emphasis on ensuring you get maximum value for your money, and they operate on the underlying philosophy of students serving students.

Making sure you get the best possible education is one of VUWSA’s core goals. VUWSA has over 800 student representatives across all levels and bodies of the University. From class reps for individual courses, delegates on Faculties to the University Council, you have someone ensuring our voice is heard.

Along with this they publish the Student Charter and the Alternative Student Guide annually, which are all aimed at making sure Victoria provides you with an exceptional learning and teaching environment. Students can also use VUWSA’s free and professional Student Advocate if things go wrong during their study.

You can also access number of services that support you while you study. This includes a daily food bank, free bread, free flu shots, Student Job Search, free bus tickets, and other assistance you may need.

VUWSA also promotes opportunities to expand ourselves socially and culturally. From the 80 affiliated clubs on campus, the 13 representative organisations, Salient, the student radio VBC 88.3FM, annual Orientation Festivals, the University Games and other activities throughout the year, you’ll find something to get involved with. VUWSA is here for you, so make use of it. You can find more information at www.vuwsa.org.nz.

Name: Seamus Brady

Position: President

Responsibilities: I’m responsible for the overall effectiveness of VUWSA and that it’s achieving its goals and advocating on behalf of students for quality education, adequate student support, an outstanding student experience and fair decision-making across the University.
Professional goal: My main goal is to build on the considerable changes VUWSA has undergone in recent years to ensure that it remains true to its core purpose of serving students at Victoria. This will see a the growth of stronger, more responsive, and visible organisation at all campuses that helps students have the best possible education and student experience at Victoria.
Personal goal: Use my gym membership more than once a week and complete the takeover of my flat’s deck with my expanding vege gardens.
Words to live by: Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.

Name: Bridie Hood
Position: Vice President (Education)

Responsibilities: There are several key roles that I have within VUWSA. Firstly, I oversee the Student Representative system and help coordinate class reps, faculty delegates and other student representatives. I also help out education-based rep groups such as Studio and VicCom. Secondly, I oversee education issues at the University, helping to ensure a high level of teaching and learning at Vic. Thirdly, as the Joe Biden of the association, I have a governance role, making sure VUWSA is a transparent and accountable organisation.
Professional goal: To have 80% of class reps trained! (It’’s harder than you may think.) And to work with Student Reps at the Karori campus to set up an Education Rep Group.
Personal goal: Finally learn those Spanish verb tense irregularities!
Words to live by: “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds”

Name: Asher Emanuel
Position: Vice President (Welfare)

Responsibilities: In my role as head of the welfare team, I work with the Welfare Officer, Student Advocate, and Welfare Organiser to provide welfare services and representation for students. This includes the food bank, flu shots, stress-free study-week, rep groups, welfare-related publications, tax and student loan advice, representing students on a number of University committees, and lobbying the university and government for better living conditions for students, among other things.
Professional goal: My focus for the year is to ensure that the organisation is providing value for money, and services that a wide range of students can benefit from. VUWSA needs to be an organisation of which students can be proud.
Personal goal: Found a church in my name.
Words to live by: Make sure your reach always exceeds
your grasp.

Name: Daniel Wilson
Position: Vice President (Administration)

Responsibilities: Managing the finances of the association to ensure we have the capacity to help student with all their needs.
Professional goal: Help with the development of VUWSA so that it can survive [Voluntary Student Membership], when students will have to choose to join the association.
Personal goal: To not gain the requisite 10kg exec members are meant to gain.
Words to live by: “Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision.”

Name: Josh Van Veen
Position: Campaigns Officer

Responsibilities: Promoting discussion and action around public issues and issues affecting students as citizens.
Professional goal: To make politics interesting.
Personal goal: To get a degree!
Words to live by: “Only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.” (Richard M. Nixon)

Name: Necia Johnston
Position: Women’s Officer

Responsibilities: Woman-y things
Professional goal: Finish the Campus Safety Audit
Personal goal: Make Women’s Fest the best thing ever, and sort through the voluminous box of “cool shit” that Caitlin [Dunham, 2010’s Women’s Office, who is now NZUSA’s National Women’s Rights Officer] left behind.
Words to live by: “I like it like I like a shot of whiskey first thing in the morning: it’s good for about 10 minutes, and then I want my coffee.” Moral: caffeine, not alcohol.

Name: Andy Gao
Position: International Students’ Officer

Responsibilities: I am concerned with the rights of international students at Victoria University of Wellington, and deal with the relevant issues.
Professional goal: Promote communication with international students and the university. Fighting for international students’ benefits and rights at Vic, and connecting with and supporting the international students’ council.
Personal goal: Read more books. Keep happy everyday.
Words to live by: Nothing is impossible.

Name: Haley Mortimer
Position: Environmental Officer

Responsibilities: To recognise and promote the requirements of our current generation and to ensure a sustainable future for coming generations, within the scope of VUWSA and the University.
Professional goal: I plan to further enhance the ongoing campaign of ‘Warm my Flat’ with aspirations to work towards a Star Rating system for student flatting in Wellington. An underlying goal is the plan to bridge a significant gap that is the lack of student recognition and communication with the Wellington Regional Council.
Personal goal: I aspire to embrace all the challenges the role of Environmental Officer gives me. Through these challenges I hope to achieve personal growth and extend my interpersonal skills by meeting with new people and interacting with different groups.
Words to live by: “Carpe Diem—seize the day”.

Name: Campbell Herbert
Position: Activities Officer

Responsibilities: Activities and events throughout the year, organising things surrounding Re-O Week and O Week. I also sit on the Publications Committee [which oversees Salient].
Professional goal: I want to see a more diverse range of activities and events on campus, both at Kelburn and the satellite campuses.
Personal goal: Actually use my gym membership.
Words to live by: “The only purpose of education is to teach a student how to live his life—by developing his mind and equipping him to deal with reality… he has to be taught the essentials of the knowledge discovered in the past, and he has to be equipped to acquire further knowledge by his own effort.” (Ayn Rand)

Name: Jeremy ‘Jezza’ Peters
Position: Clubs Officer

Responsibilities: Clubs.
Professional goal: Winning the Uni Games shield.
Personal goal: To survive.
Words to live by: “How many people here have telekinetic powers? Raise my hand.” (Emo Philips)

Name: Ta’ase Vaoga
Position: Welfare Officer

Responsibilities: Generally anything that falls under welfare: for instance the food bank, general student wellbeing—i.e. employment, health.
Professional goal: To advocate issues related to Student Welfare to the University and to local, regional, and central government; also, to ensure that welfare services provided through VUWSA will continue beyond 2011 by strengthening current services and implementing new initiatives to support them.
Personal goal: To have more of a work/life/study balance (in other words: more of a LIFE!)
Words to live by: “Your greatest failure will be your biggest success—learn from it and move on!”

Name: Jennifer Fellows
Position: Education Officer

Responsibilities: Helping Bridie and the education team with representation-type things, like class rep training, sitting in on faculty board meetings, talking to students about areas they’re having issues with, and also working to find solutions to issues that students are facing.
Professional goal: To get as many students as possible to vote in the General Election in November—students should exercise their right to have a say in who runs our country! And maintaining and strengthening relationships with the key people at the University; having strong student representation such as class reps and faculty delegates; and making sure students at all campuses know of the great services that VUWSA provides.
Personal goal: Actually do my readings (say it every year!) and improve my grades so I can get into honours.
Words to live by: “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” (Dr Seuss)

Name: Tom Reed
Position: Queer Officer

Responsibilities: It is my job to advocate on behalf of all queer students at Victoria Univeristy. I will be fighting against homophobia, transphobia, heterosexism, and all other forms of oppression, so that queer students are in a safe environment on campus.
Professional goal: To get the Safe Zone programme up and running. The programme will educate staff and students on the effects of homophobia, transphobia
and heterosexism.
Personal goal: To maybe—just maybe—do all my readings
Words to live by: “You will never find time for anything. If you want the time, you must make it.” (Charles Buxton)

There’s still two and a half months to go in 2010, but one thing’s clear—this year has produced a bumper crop for film fans. The Hollywood studio system has pumped out some of the most interesting and astounding cinema it has in years with the likes of Inception, Toy Story 3, Scott Pilgrim vs the World, The Road and Shutter Island. Brilliant films have arrived from foreign shores with the regularity of a ticking clock—South Korea’s Poetry, France’s Micmacs, Britain’s Four Lions and Argentina’s Oscar-winning The Secret In Their Eyes are but a few of those represented here. It’s also been an excellent year for New Zealand cinema thus far, with quality documentaries (Land of the Long White Cloud, This Way of Life), entertaining genre pics (Predicament) and box-office record-breakers (the indomitable Boy) all part of a wider, glorious cinematic picture. There’s still more to come—The Town, Let Me In, True Grit, The Social Network, Buried, The King’s Speech, 127 Hours, Blue Valentine and Black Swan are but a few of the many impressive-looking films lined up for the rest of the year. But for now, here’s the best films of the year, as selected by Salient reviewers.

Johnny Crawford

5.Micmacs (Jean-Pierre Jeunet)
4. Scott Pilgrim vs the World (Edgar Wright)
3. The Secret in Their Eyes (Juan Jose Campanella)
2. Poetry (Lee Chang-dong)
1. Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich)

There was no contest for me this year. My number one pick managed to be the best animated film (better than Despicable Me) the best nostalgia film (not Scott Pilgrim) and the best prison film (sorry, A Prophet). I was profoundly moved (to tears, I admit) by what was a deeply personal experience for me. Toy Story 3 was a simply sublime experience. Combining the genuinely scary with the genuinely funny and the genuinely poignant, it served as the perfect conclusion to a trilogy that deserves a lofty position amongst the other great trilogies of cinematic history.

Adam Goodall

5.A Serious Man (Joel Coen and Ethan Coen)
4.Four Lions (Chris Morris)
3. Poetry (Lee Chang-dong)
2. Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich)
1. A Town Called Panic (Stephane Aubier and Vincent Patar)

It’s appropriate that my top two films of the year thus far are Toy Story 3 and A Town Called Panic, as Panic is essentially the opening sequence in TS3 extended across 90 minutes and made a million times more madcap. The intrepid adventures of stop-motion heroes Horse, Cowboy and Indian are deliriously entertaining and raucously funny, and the film itself has an irrepressible sense of whimsy and joy the weird characters, the stream-of-consciousness narrative, the action beats that get more and more ludicrous with every passing second. Panic is a brilliant film, the funniest and most purely enjoyable piece of cinema this year.

Nic Sando

5. Ponyo (Hayao Miyazaki)
4. Four Lions (Chris Morris)
3. Gainsbourg (Joann Sfar)
2. Scott Pilgrim vs the World (Edgar Wright)
1. Boy (Taika Waititi)

It’s telling that I already look back on Boy with the same nostalgia as I do for Footrot Flats and Utu; it’s a Kiwi film that’s caught an unpleasant aspect of ourselves and shown it to us perfectly, and it helps a little that it was beautiful and funny too. Boy is the first bona fide ‘Kiwi’ blockbuster film that I have encountered. People enjoyed Second Hand Wedding and Sione’s Wedding, but the nation was the audience of Boy; you can tell because it broke all kinds of local box office records. Our generation was far too young for Once Were Warriors and just too young for Whale Rider, but we have Boy. It’s ours.

Jessie Davis

5. Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work (Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg)
4. Inception (Christopher Nolan)
3. This Way of Life (Thomas Burstyn)
2. The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow)
1. A Single Man (Tom Ford)

With A Single Man, fashion designer Tom Ford makes his directorial debut, producing a film that manifests Ford’s distinctive style in its capture of a day in the life of George, a homosexual man in the 1960s, as he contemplates suicide. Superb performances by Julianne Moore, Nicholas Hoult, and a multitude of outrageously attractive actors give this story its richness, but it is Colin Firth’s embodiment of the mourning George, and his illustration of anguish and 1960s restraint that elevates this story of grief, to one of melancholy, discovery, and humanity. Subtle, devastating, and effortlessly beautiful, A Single Man is a film that captures love and loss with heartbreaking style, confirming its place as an Oscar favourite, and my choice as Best Film in 2010.

Judah Finnigan

5. A Prophet (Jacques Audiard)
4. Exit Through the Gift Shop (Banksy)
3. Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich)
2. Inception (Christopher Nolan)
1. A Single Man (Tom Ford)

While Tom Ford’s exceptional debut might be guilty of some unsubtle expository visual flourishes and bearing a cast that is almost too good-looking, A Single Man takes my top spot for its rich characterisation and the heart-wrenchingly effective simplicity of its central concern. Colin Firth inhabits Falconer with such vulnerability and tenderness (totally deserved that Oscar), and Ford entrusts the entire film to his affecting performance. Add stunning period detail, gorgeous cinematography, excellent supporting performances and Abel Korzeniowski’s sweeping score, and you have the most quietly moving film of recent memory. Beautiful.

It’s our end of year issue—which means one thing—wanks. Lots and lots of wanks. Plus, it’s boring if we just filled our last issue for the year with some more CD reviews—who wants to read that when we could opine, and have you all tell us how much we suck?!

So, without further ado, here is my summarising piece for how NZ music fared in 2010—‘Where We At?!’

Cities Category:

Winner: Auckland: A-
The chronic insularity of its scenes aside, Auckland has consistently been the source of some incredible albums this year—see Street Chant, Golden Axe, Surf City. It really is just a size thing, but they’ve also fostered great bands across all genres: Homebrew look set to take on the world, Golden Axe took on italo (and won), all the while labels like MUZAI and Mole kept the garden plentiful with ferocious releases from Fatangryman, Sharpie Crows and others. There are still albums from Nevernudes, Sidewalk Meese and to come too. Yikes. Beef and bitching may run rampant around many Auckland bands, but they also provide
the goods on a higher level, more consistently than anywhere else.

Runner-up: Wellington: B-
By comparison, Wellington’s 2010 output has been pretty bleak. Of course, it’d be criminal to ignore the success of acts such as Glass Vaults, Tommy Ill, Seth Frightening and So So Modern—these acts all managed to put out well-crafted pieces of work and, in the case of Seth Frightening/So So Modern, albums that really should go down as some of the best this city has produced in the last ten years. I wasn’t as full of praise for Crude Futures earlier in the year, but it’s ended up being a clear head and shoulders above so much of the work from anyone else in New Zealand.

Obviously, with a smaller population than our northern neighbours, it’s always going to be hard to keep up in
terms of creative output. It really doesn’t help that week after week, bands have to deal with punters who value the meat over the music—2010 has seen Mighty Mighty turn from hipster grind bar into full-blown meat market, reneging on their status as a premier music venue in Wellington. As a rule, people don’t seem to go to shows unless blindingly drunk, so it’s hard to get anyone there until after 11pm. It’s all pretty epressing—you’d think inundation with cheap shows (often free) would be an inviting prospect, but apparently not.

Despite there being very few exciting things to come out of Wellington this year, and despite the fact that gig-goers have upheld their status as apathetic drunks, there are three things that maintain Wellington as a paragon of excellent music.

1. The Golden Awesome. Ho-ly shit.
2. Sonorous Circle (see last week’s issue).
3. O-Week—This year was amazing, and if rumours are to be believed, next year will be even better.

Loser: Christchurch: D
Lost two of their most popular bands to Wellington and Auckland, got hit by an earthquake, Tally Ho magazine lasted about four issues, and they now have to contend with Jason Kerrison’s relief
efforts. The poor dudes just can’t cut a break. It’s now up to T54 and Secrets to lead the charge. Hopefully their new ‘Gold Soundz’ label kickstarts something good too.

‘Money, etc’ Category

Winner: Arch Hill: A
Arch Hill released records by Surf Cityand Street Chant to rapturous applause, the latter breaking the Top 30 in New Zealand without a shred of funding from the powers that be. (For a frame of reference, Autozamm have been granted over $100,000, and are yet to have anything chart. Ever.) Arch Hill are also
releasing one free album a month, and no small fare either—this month’s is the new release from the excellent Pine.

Runner Up: the Naked and Famous: B
The Naked and Famous, a bad band with a worse rep for their direct entry into ‘the industry’/serious funding thanks perhaps to a saucy relationship with CRS management, and general tendency to ‘go bananas’ at other musicians, managed to turn their obvious influences into the first New Zealand number one debut single in forever. Yip, it’s a shameless Skins-baiting pastiche of M83/Passion Pit, but really, better this
at number one than a copy-paste of US/Modular success three years too late (see: Sugarpills).

Loser: Pretty much every remotely heavy band in the country
It’s pretty much always going to be the way, but punk/hardcore/metal bands in NZ have it way harder than
anyone else—the nature of their music precludes them from almost completely from the same funding and furthering opportunities afforded to more radio-friendly types of music. That being said, Antagonist AD managed to squeeze some blood out of the stone. That also being said, they kinda suck balls.

Lessons from the year:

• If ‘I’m not drunk enough’ is your excuse for not getting to a show on time, fuck you.
• If you can’t get on TV, band beef is your best bet for maximum exposure.
• 2010’s release schedule for NZ albums is unfuckwithable. Even The Coolies got in on the action. Go forth and buy!
• (Danger—bias ahead) VBC is the best, they’ve managed to find enough bands to put on a free show nearly every Wednesday of the year. Give them your love.

Kim Wheatley

Full disclosure: Jon Lemmon was my flatmate last year. But fuck your allegations of nepotism, Imma give credit where credit’s due! Dude, you made some of 2010’s most remarkable music. As for live shows, well, it’s pretty much impossible to top Dan ‘The Dean’ Deacon playing at a freakin’ 21st in Mt Cook. This was one for the ages. His set in a drained swimming pool at Campus wasn’t bad either.

top 5 albums (NZ):

1. Jon Lemmon—Kindling
2. The Ruby Suns—Fight Softly
3. Glass Vaults—Glass Vaults
4. Tommy Ill—Tommy Ill
5. Surf City—Kudos

top 5 songs (NZ):

1. Jon Lemmon—Steppenwolf, pg. 247
2. Mount Pleasant—Dancing in the Dark (Bruce Springsteen Cover)
3. Home Brew—Benefit
4. So So Modern—Berlin
5. Wet Wings—Running Like a Man

top 5 shows:

1. Dan Deacon (with Bandicoot, Tommy Ill, Diana Rozz & The Crackhouse 5)—Mt Cook House Party
2. Dan Deacon—The Swimming Pool @ Campus a Low Hum
3. The Crackhouse 5, 47 Diamantes, Tommy Ill & Bang Bang Eche—The Renegade Room @ Campus a Low Hum
4. TV DiSKO—Mighty Mighty
5. Yo La Tengo—San Francisco Bathhouse

Seb Recordon

Whittling down a year’s worth of music to top fives is both a music geek’s love and nightmare (as the film High Fidelity will attest). Anyhow, here’s my snapshot of the year 2010 in music. Note that Bandicoot are on average 15 years younger than the others on the lists.

top 5 songs:

1. Teengirl Fantasy—Cheaters
2. The Knife [ft. Mt Sims and Planningtorock]—Colouring of Pigeons
3. Gold Panda—You
4. Marnie Stern—For Ash
5. How to Dress Well [ft. Yüksel Arslan]—Decisions

top 5 albums:

1. Joanna Newsom—Have One On Me
2. Flying Lotus—Cosmogramma
3. Deerhunter—Halcyon Digest
4. Four Tet—There Is Love In You
5. Owen Pallett—Heartland

top 5 shows:

1. The Books—Monte Cristo Room, Auckland
2. Health—Transmission Room, Auckland
3. Bandicoot—Playing in a packed cave with Mint Chicks, then opening Big Day Out the following day
4. Pixies—CBS Arena, Christchurch
5. St Vincent—Shed 6, Wellington

James Beavis

top 5 songs

1. Liars—Scarecrows On A Killer Slant / Proud Evolution
2. Twin Shadow—Slow
3. Teengirl Fantasy—Floor To Floor
4. Big Boi ft. Andre 3000—Lookin For Ya
5. Women—Eyesore

Ariel Pink’s entire album is probably the 12 best songs of the year, so for the sake of diversity, I avoided them in the songs list—Round and Round, Butt-House Blondies and Fright Night are probably three of the best songs ever though.

top 5 albums

1. Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti—Before Today
2. Street Chant—Means
3. Women—Public Vein
4. Emeralds—Does It Look Like I’m Here?
5. Teengirl Fantasy—7AM

Honorable mention goes to Male Bonding, Nude Beach, and Disasteradio (pre-emptive).

top 5 shows

1. Health, SFBH
2. Ponytail, SFBH
3. Teen Hygiene/Sets/Alphabethead, 13 Garrett St
4. DHDFDs, CALH
5. Grouper, Happy

Health/Ponytail: AMAZING.

Teen Hygiene show simply for the madness that was hardcore kids vs 2nd Generation Neon Sleepers. DHDFD’s = Big Black cover + head smashing and trashing with a 40 gallon drum. Grouper: Happy was sold out on a Tuesday. ‘Nuff said. Also, I think that we can all agree that the best video of the year was Disasteradio’s “Visions”.

Jess Thompson

The animal theme in my top fives was accidental—deer, wolves, mice, horses and birds—a bit of every species in there. I’d like to think my picks have the same sort of variety. Well, apart from my top five shows, but if you were there then you’ll understand! And if you werent: shame.

top 5 albums:

1. Halcyon Digest—Deerhunter
2. Expo 86—Wolf Parade
3. BARB—BARB
4. Lonely Avenue—Ben Folds and Nick Hornby
5. Dark Night of the Soul—Dangermouse and Sparklehorse

top 5 songs:
1. Earthquake—Deerhunter
2. Boyfriend—Best Coast
3. Breaker—Craig Elliott
4. Not a Bird—BARB
5. The Space in Between—
How to Destroy Angels

top 5 shows:

1. Pixies @ Vector
2. Pixies @ Vector
3. Pixies @ Vector
4. Pixies @ Vector
5. Pixies @ Vector

SALIENT’S TOP 5 OFFICE SONGS OF 2010!

1. Eve—Got What Ya Need
2. City High—What Would You Do?
3. Cher—Shoop Shoop Song
4. 5ive—When the Lights Go Out
5. B*witched—Cest La Vie

Francesca
Age: 19
Studying: BA in Architecture History majoring in Bullshit

1. Can we go with John?
2. First Wellington underground.
3. Yeah, I’m totally pro that.
4. IVYSAUR.
5. Milli Vanilli.

Tegan
Age: 20
Studying: Psychology

1. Paul Smith (in Ben’s band!)
2. More ashtrays for smokers. So we don’t have to butt all around the place. We get enough dirty looks as it is.
3. Compulsory.
4. Chansey—she’s pink and loving.
5. 5ive—BADASS.

Oli
Age: 20
Studying: Anthropology, Development Studies and Spanish

1. Seamus Brady (dope name).
2. Make public fruit and vegetable gardens.
3. Student membership should be compulsory (otherwise no free Salient?!)
4. Alakazam (he’s psychic—Jedi mind tricks!
5. De La Soul—funkalicious!

Emma
Age: 20

1. Studying: Interior Architecture majoring in Deep Sea Diving and Seal Wrestling
2. Paul.
3. Make uni free.
4. It’s good.
5. Jigglypuff—it can jump high and has a bow!
6. Spice Girls. VIVA: story of my life.

Taka
Age: 21
Studying: English

1. Paul (With that guitar… Could write a beautiful love song).
2. Get very highly influential (Gaga influential) people to speak at schools.
3. I don’t mind paying. But everyone should be given the option.
4. Maybe Pikachu as he was Ash’s best friend through it all. But for raw power—CHARIZARD!
5. 5ive were always cool. Especially the guy with really spiky hair.

The pub 2/10
Somewhere like Hotel Bristol is pretty dead during the day. There’s plenty of space for you to spread your shit out and you can have a casual beer. Or seven. This is the danger of studying at a bar: It’s never just one drink, and soon enough you’ll be thinking about McDonalds and bed. And you’ll have done no study.

In front of the boatsheds on the waterfront 8/10
Sure, this only works when it’s sunny and there’s not a gale blowing, but take your course notes, highlighters and maybe a cushion for added comfort (remember, you’re going to be sitting your butt on concrete). You have the added bonus of being able to work on your tan and you’ll be looking way more sun-kissed that those kids stuck inside in no time.

City Library 6/10
There are big windows from which you can overlook Civic Square and spy on the people outside having fun. There are also lots of interesting books that have nothing to do with what you’re meant to be studying. A major dilemma for the conscientious studier is the fact you’re not allowed to eat in the library (or drink coffee, for crying out loud), and security guards come round and tell you off. We’re not children, you realise?

The Salient office 3/10
The office feels like home to those of us who spend most of our waking hours within its confines. With its fun, family atmosphere, the office is not the most constructive place to study, most of the time. However, if everyone is tapping away on their keyboards (oh, lol), the rhythm can almost compel one to do work, to study, to make progress in life—for five minutes anyway. Then someone will spew water out of their mouth and all productivity will be killed. But at least you’re having fun, right?

Mount Victoria 0/10
While exercise is good for the mind, hiking up Mt Vic for the purpose of studying is not exactly the most appealing prospect. You will be hot and sweaty by the time you reach your study perch, and the weather is likely to have changed and the wind will be blowing and your study notes will be rained on. Boo!

At home, in bed 5/10
I like my bed. I like my bed a lot. I’m not in bed enough. While studying in bed may be warm and comfortable, it’s apparently bad to associate study with somewhere you rest and relax. And you can’t get to sleep properly either. Furthermore, the urge to clean my room always gets me. Love procrastination.

Uther Dean’s alternate reality is defined by his love of John Hughes’ film, Sixteen Candles. No one at United Video Kilbirnie is allowed to hire it out as he holds it so close to his heart. Often literally. During his long, surprisingly fruitful days at this establishment, Uther watches old reruns of Baywatch, wiping away his tears, and deals with customers who he perceives as being so far beneath him as to be unworthy of his time. Sometimes he sleeps under the desk. Sometimes he doesn’t sleep at all, haunted by the ghostly image of so many disappointed teachers, shaking their spectral heads at his “wasted promise”. “Uther,” they warble, “you could have done so much with your life. Now look at you, dribbling your life down a storm drain made of dry saliva and regret.”

He likes to think of himself, somewhat ironically, as an outstanding potential spy, waiting to be discovered. Allied to this belief, he owns a backpack—not just some dime-a-dozen MacPac, but one which would fit an army of portly dwarves inside. Uther did not have an army of portly dwarves, but not for lack of trying. The contents of the backpack never change, but are perpetually refreshed, as Uther needs his continual supply of assorted chocolate encrusted fruit; his Dick Smith branded portable DVD player; and his beloved pet ferret named Professor MacSly. No one but Uther is allowed to talk to, or even acknowledge the existence of, Professor MacSly.

An important detail of Uther’s psyche is his intense hatred for the incessant clacking of knitting needles. For a pseudo-decadent video store clerk, this does not affect the majority of Uther’s life—until one fateful summer’s day, in an incident involving a half-finished patterned scarf, a cricket bat, rat poison, a peanut butter milkshake, and a vivacious old woman named Mabel Caine.

His crime would have passed unnoticed, had it not been observed by the adorably bovine-eyed Billiam Kransky, a student at the local kindergarten. Thus, after a series of convoluted events, Uther found himself in the government’s hospitality. Such was his longing for MacSly that he cried himself to sleep, night after night—that is, until he met his roommate Boris Science, who endearingly pronounced his name ‘Utter’, to rhyme with ‘Gutter’ or ‘Flutter’. This new friendship began to cure Uther of his survivor guilt. The most frequent and effective sessions of therapy came about through repeat viewings and subsequent verbatim re-enactments of scenes from Sixteen Candles. Boris’ favourite line was “I can’t believe my grandmother actually felt me up!” Uther couldn’t choose just one line as he loves every frame of the film equally.

Eventually, Uther was let out on parole. It was heartwrenching to part with Boris, but Uther had learnt that change was part of life. Like sand in the hourglass, he was gone with the wind. He knew that he must get busy living, or get busy dying. Anyway, they’d promised to text everyday.

Uther was a reformed man—not only on the inside. There were physical changes too. The chocolate-coated fruit was gone, and the backpack was cast from his weary, bear-like shoulders. Prison had given him humility, and he was ready to do the penance for the violent crimes of his youth. So humble was he, in fact, that he found his tired feet tracing the path to Caine’s family home. The family accepted his honest apology and, his redemption complete, Uther set out to leave. Then, he caught a glimpse of something furry and curiously inactive, perched on the Caine’s mantlepiece.

It was unmistakeably MacSly. Eye met eye: one glistening with tears, and the other glazed but emotive. Between them passed something magical. Uther cradled his beloved MacSly in his arms, and like the glorious final scene in Sixteen Candles where they pash over the cake, all was at peace in the wanderer’s heart.

The ASPA Awards are, without doubt, the biggest event on the student media calendar.

This year the awards were held at Romfords in Auckland, requiring Salient to embark on pretty much the longest road trip ever in the VUWSA van. All our pre-planned, pre-booked accommodation fell through. Hamilton gave everyone (ok, maybs just Sarah) the creeps. We raged with van fever. We bought a lot of Red Bull and blue Powerade. Auckland was sunny.

There were highs, there were lows; there were winners, there were losers; there was pashing, there was vom. And then there was Salient.

Most babein’ girl: Julia Hollingsworth, 2011 Critic Editor. So babein’. Please let Salient and Critic be friends again next year.

Most babein’ boy: Seb Boyle, Canta. A real gentleman, and he looked sharp. Sorry Ben, we do not care for your Hugo Boss suit.

Holy shit, I can’t believe you scrub up that well: Valentine Watkins and Matthew Harnett. Babes.

David Farrier: Best ASPA host ever. Even though the murder/suicide story was slightly misjudged.

Drinks: Wine. Lots of wine. People hoarding wine. People stealing wine from other tables. God! We love wine.

Food: Apparently the calamari was amazing. People may have been too drunk to realise there were vegetarian options and starved.

Fairfax: Wasn’t there. Lol.

Pashing: Occurred.

Daylight savings: The worst thing ever. Unless you’re Molly.

Uther Dean: Best award of the night.

Lauren’s mum: Coming to pick her up early.

The floor: Was where a third of Team Salient spent a vast proportion of their night.

Sarah Robinson: A creepy marriage of 2006 and 2010 Salient or something more sinister? Also, love the YHA.

On Babelient: “Look at us, we’re so babein’… and Uther.”

Elle Hunt on fake cigarettes: “I don’t care if you die of lung cancer as long as you stop smoking those.” (they smell like… chemical death in a burnt hair factory).

Hats: The policeman’s falling off.

On being valued by your boss: “Sarah doesn’t value us!” “My knee’s bleeding! AAAAAH!”

Joe McCrory: Tripped over nothing while Farrier was announcing an award. He fell into the wall. It was awesome.

Val’s waistcoast: Was pretty much the coolest item of clothing out.

Sirens: Haunted Elle all day on Sunday.

Elle’s reaction to the siren: Classic.

Crushes: Juliette has one. And she has a plan.

Golf: Molly’s new hobby. Probably.

If you were going to commit a crime, which one would it be and how would you justify it to the public? (if you get caught)

Bonus question: Capybaras—yay or nay?

The final two. Crunch time. It’s Marc versus Dean. Dean versus Marc. Will the psychological defeat the legal? Or will it be the other way around? It’s in your hands. You know what to do. 027 CUSTARD or editor@salient.org.nz by 5pm Thursday. Can we get more votes than the VUWSA general election? Only time will tell.

Who will it be, Victoria University?

Dean Knight, Law
C’mon! You can’t ask a legal academic that question. We believe in the Rule of Law! Well, perhaps. Maybe. Or maybe only one or two of the different conceptions of the Rule of Law… Anyways, the whole point about being a smarty-pants lawyer is we know what’s illegal and what’s not. And we know how to argue about the grey areas in order to avoid being convicted. No need to justify anything if you don’t commit the crime.

• Parking in a loading zone (Land Transport (Road User) Rule 2004, r 6.4)—not a crime after 6pm, unless the sign says “At All Times”.
• Urinating in a public place (Summary Offences Act 1981, s 32)—not a crime if you reasonably believe no-one can see you.
• Drinking booze in a liquor ban zone (Local Government Act 2002, s 147)—the Police first have to analyse and prove the liquor is more than 1.15% strong.
• Stealing a baby’s identity to get a false passport (Tough on Crime Act 2010, s23)—you’re immune if you’re a member of the Sensible Sentencing Trust.
• Breaching any law of the land in the name of the earthquake recovery effort (Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Act 2010, s 6)—not if you have a note excusing you written by Lord Gerry VIII…

And Capybaras? Meh. I have no opinion. I have no beef with big rodents that swim in water. But, really, is that the last word from the Island of Academic Idol? Capybaras? Sigh.

Marc Wilson, Psychology
I will… “Dun dun dun” (as Salient Sarah is fond of saying)… STEAL ACADEMIC IDOL, muahahaha! Why? Because life is too short, and I’ve always fancied heist movies.

Everyone wants it, so this will need to be the perfect crime. First I shall need to get myself an alibi, and that means crafting a lifesize statue of myself out of old Salients. After cunningly seating this in Galleria (bye Perry, sniff!) with a manly hazelnut latte bowl at hand to throw the authorities off my scent, I shall pull together my ‘crew’. David O’Donnell will be Gleen, um, I mean keen, and Trundle will do anything as long as I promise a quick mention of The Iliad. We’ll hide out in the tuatara enclosure til lights out, and sneak into the Salient offices, past the briefcase-wielding Dark/Dean Knight (Pondy will be tucked away in the computer labs trying to hack into the Salient cellphone). It’ll be no trouble at all to grab the Idol, and then off to the staff club for a quick one. But what’s that? The lights come on and Grant Morris steps out of the shadows, guitar in hand. “That should have been mine in 2006,” he giggles hysterically. Close-up on twitching left eye, and fade to black. A cliff hanger ending for Academic Idol series two. Tune in next time to have your questions answered, and by that I mean even more slightly-too-try-hard answers to inane questions. What happens next? Will Bruce Campbell save the day? Do we even care, and what do we actually get for this anyway? Do you know how many journal articles we could have written instead of these answers…

Capybaras—we breed them on the 7th floor of Easterfield dontchaknow. Need bigger mazes than for the rats though. Them’s mighty good eating too.

AUT University 5/10
Wait, let me get this straight—Auckland University of Technology University? I don’t get it. What are you trying to prove, that you’re a real university? Stop being insecure, AUT and just own it.

Waikato University 1/10
It’s in Hamilton. Enough said.

Massey University 4/10
A very well educated relative of mine, who now lives overseas, was always awfully pleased I never decided to go to Massey. I, too, am glad I never went to Massey. I never wanted to be a vet, or an agricultural scientist, or a horticultural scientist. I’m sure it’s perfectly acceptable for that.

Unitech 1/10
Uni what/where/how/why? Is it even a university?

University of Otago 0/10
I immensely dislike the new Otago advertising campaign. “Take your place in the world” is even worse than “get amongst the best”. I much preferred the whole “get over it” thing. With the university killing basically all that was awesome about Otago (Gardies, for example), you may as well save yourself a few years of freezing your butt off in a dingy flat and study somewhere else.

Lincoln University 2/10
If you like soil, cows and wearing gumboots, sure.

University of Auckland 6/10
The only people I know who go to Auckland Uni are Aucklanders. I’m not entirely sure why this is. Why don’t non-Aucklanders go to Auckland Uni? It’s the best university in the country, so they say. Oh, I get it—it’s because it’s in Auckland, right? Gotcha. But seriously, Auckland ain’t that bad.

University of Canterbury 7/10
Pity rating of 7 because they got mean fucked up in the earthquake. Did you see the pictures of the library and all the books and computers and stuff everywhere? Now imagine an earthquake in Wellington. And what Vic would look like. Hmmmm. It makes you think.

Victoria University of Wellington 8/10
Well, we’re all paying to study here. There must be some reason why. Right?

Sun is free warmth, and the more the better. Look for north-facing windows that are clear from trees and hills. I know you’re looking for a flat in the summer, but remember the sun is lower in the sky in winter.

Insulation cannot be over rated, it will keep you warmer and require less energy to heat your new flat. Ask the landlord about ceiling insulation especially—heat rises, and if the flat isn’t insulated a third of the heat will escape through the roof. You’re paying for that heat.

Curtains are cool, even cooler if they’re fluoro orange or floral. But what makes curtains really cool is when they’re of the thick thermal variety, and fit the windows/doors properly. Having a window without curtains is like having a hole in the wall. Like that time you had that party and that guy threw that bottle through that window. Sure lets the breeze in, huh?

Draughts are not cool though, so check that doors and windows close properly.

Heat pumps and wood burners are super good for keeping you warm—much better than un-flued gas heaters and open fireplaces. And much, much better than not having a heater at all (unless you’ve transferred from Otago, you can’t handle that).

Ventilation fans for the bathroom and kitchen are important for keeping down dampness, which then makes the place easier to heat.

Washing lines outside are the best way to dry your clothes, especially when they are in well ventilated (shouldn’t be too hard) and sunny areas. If there’s a dryer, look for an external vent.

Shower—ask if it’s a low-flow one. If it’s a good one, it will feel like a normal shower but save you lots of money in water heating bills.

Hot water cylinders are best when they’re insulated, and even better when they’re heated by the sun.

This is by no means a definitive guide to looking for a warm, healthy flat. Have a look online for some more help, ask the Accommodation Service at uni for some advice, and hit up the cool kids running the Warm My Flat campaign (they have a Facebook page, of course). And by all means when you’re looking at a flat, ask the current tenants and the landlord questions.

Woah. This shit just got real. We were inundated with votes on Thursday and all bets were off—we didn’t know who was going to be voted off until the 5pm cut off. We were all squealing. There were jumps of joy, and screams of sorrow. To everyone’s shock and horror, David O’Donnell, the father of the theatre department, ended up at the bottom of the heap. Who will the theatre kids back now? Will they join forces with Team Pondy to defeat Dean Knight? Only time will tell. But seriously guys, you should know what to do by now. Text 027 CUSTARD or email editor@salient.org.nz by 5pm Thursday with your votes. Who will it be, Victoria University?

Peter Andreae aka Pondy, Computer Science
The only kind of crime that I might be any good at fighting is cybercrime, using computers and the internet (even if only based on my long service—I’ve been programming since 1969 and using the internet since 1977). But in this realm, your super powers have already been superseded: I can get to the other side of the world via the internet in a blink of an eye; even superman would take several hours. It’s trivial to be invisible on the internet (the tricky bit is making computers see physical things!). And telepathy would be so limited—trying to zoom in on the mind of one person somethere in India or China from New Zealand would be beyond the best telepaths; but using the internet, I can pick out just one computer anywhere in the world, and I already know how to read the insides of a computer’s brain. So thank you, but I guess I’ll pass on all the super powers; Computer Science has made them superfluous.

Marc Wilson, Psychology
In the 1970s, Louis Leland (at Otago) asked first-year students what super powers they possessed, and found that while saying you had a superpower or not was unrelated to academic performance, the MORE superpowers someone had the BETTER your grades. As it happens I have actually researched this myself—last year, flight was overwhelmingly the most popular chosen by 35 per cent of first years (cheap travel, but no in-flight movies), 6 per cent chose invisibility (and I quote: “Invisibility (ladies changing rooms, here I come!)”, and 10 per cent said telepathy (helpful in exams). Teleportation was also very popular, along with being able to travel through time. Less, um, common, responses included the somewhat ambiguous “Meat Vision”, “amazing sense of smell”, “to stop loving someone when I choose to”, and “the power to inflict severe gastro-intestinal distress upon the injust”. Soooo… I’m going to ignore you Salient, and go with the 7 per cent who said time travel. That way, I could prevent the fashion crimes of the ‘80s (MC Hammer pants!) I could tell people what a stuff-up George W Bush was going to be, and make sure everyone buys an earthquake kit. Of course, I’d do okay at the TAB as well. Come on—you were all thinking it!

Dean Knight, Law
Pfft. Such silly super-powers when it comes to solving the real crimes in our world today. Constitutional crimes. Assaults on democracy. Political felonies. One needs special legal, forensic and constitutional super-powers to solve these crimes—not smarty-pants, cartoon-like powers. The power to sniff out a violation of the Rule of Law at 100 yards. The power to quickly parse a long, multi-judgment decision of the Supreme Court for a breach of the separation of powers. The power to bang one’s fist firmly and loudly, with Sir Geoffrey Palmer-style, hyperbolic constitutional outrage. Actually, telepathy might be helpful—if not just to work out what “Gerry order” is being dreamt up in the mind of our now omnipotent Earthquake minister!

Flourishing for everyBODY is the theme of this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week, which is being held 4-10 October.

Over the last century or more, society’s focus on mental health has been on mental disorders, and either treating or preventing them—so much so that most people think about mental health only as a problem or something negative.

There are also many more stressors on mental health today, relating to increased pace and complexity of life.

Flourishing is a measure of mental health that has been developed within the last decade and can be used to determine the level of positive mental health in populations. When someone is flourishing they experience, most of the time, positive emotions, positive interest and engagement with world around them, and meaning and purpose in their lives. Evidence suggests that people who are flourishing are less at risk of physical and mental health problems and have better social relationships.

Flourishing is about focusing on the good things in life. It’s about the things we aspire to, both as individuals and as members of a wider community.

In Aotearoa/New Zealand we believe that—

• EveryBODY has the right to participate and flourish in their community.
• EveryBODY can contribute towards creating a flourishing community.
• EveryBODY has the potential to feelgood and function well.

How can we flourish?

Think about how you, your family, friends and community might flourish. Key areas to focus on are positive emotions, engagement and interest, and meaning and purpose.
This year, join us to celebrate an extended Mental Health Awareness Week from 27 September with a VUWSA-organised Healthy Lifestyles Week which will include a range of activities to encourage a more healthy, positive and fun lifestyle.

Oh, Max.

Stop pretending to be gluten free and write your fucking column.

xoxo

Any hospo job that involves you getting up at the crack of dawn 2/10
It is likely that a significant number of you will end up working in hospo. Been there, done that. For four years. Some hospo jobs will involve you getting up really early. Like, you need to be at work by 7am kind of early. It is difficult to get to work at 7am, especially if you have been out the night before. On the bright side, maybe you get a staff discount and you get to finish at 2pm, allowing you to enjoy the rest of the sunny afternoon.

Cookie Time cookie seller 8/10
The best part of this job is the super hot shirts you get to wear. They are covered in cookies. Everyone likes Cookie Time Christmas cookies, therefore, everyone buys them. They come in nifty looking buckets. And they taste delicious. The one drawback to this job is that you need access to a fax machine. Who even sends faxes these days anyway?!

Wrapping Christmas presents in shopping malls 4/10
Some people really enjoy wrapping presents. I am not one of those people. If you’re into wrapping gifts, I guess this really is the perfect summer job for you. However, imagine someone presents you with a really awkwardly shaped gift. You have to work out how to wrap it so professionally that it looks really good and worthy of placing under a Christmas tree. The pressure! And how jealous would you be seeing what everyone else is getting?

Life guard 7/10
This would be an awesome job, as long as you’re a competent swimmer and you get to life guard at the beach or at an outdoor pool. Not so fun if you’re stuck at an indoor pool breathing in chlorine all day. Being outside means you can work on your sweet tan. Just remember you are responsible for people’s lives. Keep a good count of all the people in the water.

Unpaid internship 3/10
Unpaid? Really? Whaaaaaat? You better be getting some good free stuff. Or at least valuable life experience. Or something.

Summer School 8/10
No job prospects? Why not enrol in summer school and claim course related costs or student allowance? Take a random paper, something you never thought you’d ever have time to study. Latin perhaps? Pick a paper based on the likelihood of scoring a hot babe. Ohhhh yeah.

Random promo shit 6/10
I once saw an ad on Student Job Search that was looking for people to dress up in animal outfits for a few days. This is not the most comfortable prospect in the middle of summer, but how awesome would it be to tell your friends that you got to dress up as a pig and collect money for charity? That’s one sweet summer work story right there. Admittedly, this is a best-case scenario promo job. There are a lot of bad ones out there. Like walking around with a sign on your back. Too hard.

The rules outlined in the Disney animated classic Aladdin apply:

1. You can’t wish for more wishes.
2. You can’t wish to bring someone back from the dead.
3. You can’t make anyone fall in love with you.

Candy Badger ain’t as popular as (s)he thought (s)he was. Because Candy failed to launch a viral marketing campaign via multiple social networking websites, (s)he’s at the bottom of the heap this week. We gave her/him a chance, and (s)he didn’t grasp it with both hands and make it her/his own. So (s)he’s out. That’s right, we’re not even rigging it so (s)he stays in. How diplomatic of us. The best part about our reluctance to adopt Zimbabwe-esque voting tactics is that THE TOP FOUR LECTURERS REMAIN. But seriously guys, this competition is tight. There’s only a few votes in it. If you want your favourite lecturer to stay, you’re going to have to do something big. Or at least convince your lecturer to promise to do something big if they win. Like run around the quad naked. Or something. Come to think of it, please don’t get them to do that…

How to vote: text 027 CUSTARD or email editor@salient.org.nz by 5pm Thursday.

Dean Knight, Law
One wish only please.

A wish that we didn’t just wish for things, but we made things happen ourselves.

Not just wishing that the government didn’t pass Muldoon-like powers in the name of the earthquake. People actually speaking out against it. Not just wishing our local democracy was better. People actually voting to make it better. Not just wishing MMP wins the upcoming referendum. People educating friends and family about why it’s better than FPP. Not just wishing the student associations were more representative and robust. People participating to make it so.

I know. An earnest response. No jokes about the Iliad, Marc’s telly show or Pondy’s bare feet. I wish I was more funny… sigh.

Peter Andreae aka Pondy, Computer Science
The world is is much too much of a mess for three wishes to do much good, so I focused first on our little bit of the world. I wish we could get rid of the PBRF, which is causing competition instead of cooperation and is forcing staff to think less about their teaching responsibilities. I wish I knew how to teach programming so that the other 40 per cent of my class would ‘get it’ also. But these are such paltry concerns compared to the big problems, I couldn’t waste real wishes on them. Like Bill Gates’ foundation, I would wish to eliminate the scourges of malaria, dengue fever, tuberculosis, and HIV. I would wish to remove from humans the genetic drive that leads to religious, racial, and ethnic extremism, and fuels so many of the violent conflicts in the world. I would wish to modify the human brain so that it no longer responds to drugs such as alcohol, P, and cocaine in order to reduce domestic violence, property crime, and gang violence (whether in the back streets of LA or the open warfare of the cartels in central America). But Salient’s wishes are as futile as the rest; we can but take little steps (unless you are Bill Gates, who is taking bigger steps on the first one!).

David O’Donnell, Theatre
First wish: No more earthquakes. Second wish: The government decides not to bail out any more big finance companies and instead brings back free tertiary education. I know it’s character-building working a 35-hour week on top of your supposedly full-time studies, but there’s also something to be said for having some time to think and dream while you’re doing your degree. Third wish: That big blue Disney genie re-directs some of the vast profits of Disneyland to BATS Theatre, so that the performers making some of NZ’s most cutting-edge theatre there can actually get paid for it.

Marc Wilson, Psychology
I would wish that Alice in Chains and Bush would bring out new CDs (they have? They are? AWESOME! Thanks Salient), that Bruce Campbell really was going to play me in the movie of my life (short and uninteresting as it would be, I’d still insist on zombies), and I would wish for Dean Knight to find me a legal loophole to allow me more wishes. Seriously though, tolerance, a safe future for my family, and an iPad. I reeeealllllly want an iPad. I don’t know what they do, but they look so shiny. Come to me, my preciousss…

“To be the prime minister of Australia is undoubtedly the greatest privilege that can come the way of any person.” John Howard, 2004 3/10
Is it really a privilege to be the Prime Minister of a former British penal colony?

“Yes we can” Barack Obama, 2008 5/10
Quite clearly stolen from Bob the Builder, these three words came to be the signature phrase of Barack’s entire campaign. He probably still says it now. Actually, does he? It’s a versatile phrase, and it can be applied to almost every situation. For example, can we solve world poverty? Yes we can. Can we fix the damage from the oil spill? Yes we can. Whether he actually can or not is a separate question entirely, but why wouldn’t you trust the man?

“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat” Winston Churchill, 1940 8/10
Winston came to power in the most trying of circumstances—during World War Two. Why you’d ever want to lead a country that was—at that point in time—basically losing the war, I really don’t know. But good on him. He made a sterling effort and in the end, the Allies won the war and it was all well and good. It was probably down to Winston’s blood, sweat and tears.

“Our military has brought justice to the enemy and honor to America” George W Bush, 2004 1/10
Er, okay George. If that’s what you want to call it…

“So let’s draw back the curtains and let the sun shine in” Julia Gillard, 2010 10/10
I really, really like this quote. All hail Julia’s speechwriter. This is gold. This is genius. This is political mastermind/cheese at its best. More sunshine please, Julia. You’re the best. You’re an independent red headed woman making it in a man’s world. Woo!

“But I’ve got a bit of bad news, guys. There is no puppy coming. Sorry.” John Key, 2008 0/10
John, I hate that I have to break this to you, but you’re no Barack Obama. And it was admittedly a pretty lame joke. I bet your kids didn’t even want a puppy anyway. Try harder next time.

F2M: The Boy Within
Ryan Kennedy and Hazel Edwards

F2M, co-written by Ryan Kennedy and Hazel Edwards, is the first novel for young adults about a female to male transition to be written by a transgender author. While it is Hazel’s 200th book, it is Ryan’s very first, and is loosely based on his own knowledge and experience of punk music and transitioning from female to male.

The co-authors have known each other as family friends since Ryan was an eleven-year-old, and when they met again in Melbourne in 2008, they decided to write the book together. Because Hazel Edwards is based in Melbourne and Ryan in Wellington, they worked via email and Skype, passing over 60 drafts across the ditch. They shaped a story about the fictional character Skye who, to begin with, is referred to as ‘she’ and female. Skye feels that inside her head she is really male, and decides to transition to become a boy, Finn. The book is engaging and very informative, and while it focuses on Finn’s transition, it is fundamentally a story of a young person’s discovery of who they are, which a broad audience will identify with.

As well as being the first of its kind, the book is an important addition to the small amount of information available for and about trans people, particularly because it is a story about a realistic character that is easy to relate to. While both Ryan and the character Finn found that the internet was a good source of information, there are few resources like this in print that are easy to access around bookshops and libraries. The book was recently launched at Unity Books on Willis St, and was launched in Melbourne earlier this year.

Bye Matthew Trundle! It’s sad to see you go, but someone had to. If you were wondering, Matthew would have kicked our dear Vice Chancellor Pat Walsh out onto the street, so he, his favourite student and Russell Crowe could enjoy a delicious meal. You’re a brave man.

So we’ve got four left… Or do we? This week we’re going to throw a spanner in the works. Don’t want to vote for any of these lecturers? Vote Candy Badger instead! She’s been trying to launch her own campaign, so now we’ll give her an excuse to do it properly. But does she have a fan base big enough to topple any of the lecturers? Tune in next week to see—get voting, people!

Vote by texting 027 CUSTARD or email editor@salient.org.nz before 5pm Thursday.

Marc Wilson, Psychology

Hmm, to suck up to the VC or to not suck up? Does his PA even read Salient? Who will Trundle eject from his dinner line-up, and how will he manage to insert a reference to the Iliad? And seriously, which of the Idols actually even HAS a chef! Unfortunately, it’ll have to be Movie Star Bruce (see Round 1) who gets the chop—I’m risking the wrath of his Boomstick for coming all the way to Karori and not getting dindins, but it’ll be a public service to save him from all the shop talk that will happen even if I kick one of the other two out! I mean, he’s not going to agree to play me in the movie of my life if he has to sit through me talking about my research with Top Student OR discussing how to make psychology a compulsory subject for all students with the VC. Come to think of it I’m pretty sure my family aren’t going to want to be there either, and they’re used to me…

David O’Donnell, Theatre

Let’s get real—without the grace and favour of the VC and my top student, I’d be busking in Cuba Mall for a living. The most expendable guest would be my favourite movie star, and luckily I’ve invited Buzz Lightyear rather than Juliette Binoche or Kristin Scott Thomas. Like the VC, Buzz is a great leader, familiar with rule-books; and like my students, he is brave and courageous in achieving his goals. Food rations wouldn’t be a problem—as a computer animation Buzz feeds not on bite-sized haute cuisine, but on megabytes.

Dean Knight, Law

Beware—it’s a trap! Students would rejoice if I showed Uncle Pat the door. The establishment turning on itself. Our VC being forced to eat bread and water, like the impecunious students burdened by his escalating fees and levies. But, no. I’ve engaged in such career-limiting behaviour before. And have learnt my lesson. Oust my top student(s)? Unfair. And Idol suicide. They deserve praise. And lattes.  Not loneliness. And spurn Colin Farrell? Never…!

Finally, I could never deny my Samoan husband a delicious home-cooked meal. We have a pact. I cook. He plays piano. Perfect harmony. No. It’s me who must be sacrificed… Hungry, for the greater good!

Peter Andreae, Computer Science

This is exactly the kind of tricky decision problem that Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are excellent for. I would use a Machine Learning classification algorithm to build the optimal decision tree to tell me who should be sent home. All it needs is a big computer and data to learn from. So I would run the same dinner party many times, sending home one of the guests at random, and measure the fall out each time. After about 100 cases, I would feed the data (along with a measure of the consequences) to my Machine Learning system, and from then on, it would be able to give me the optimal advice. (Of course, by then, the student will have graduated, the VC will have fired me, and the movie star won’t return my calls…)

You may remember that before the break we said we were going to eliminate two people over the holidays. Well, because we’re bitches, we’ve kept our promise and two of your favourite lecturers are goneskies. Chris Eichbaum and Hilary Pearse, you’re outta here. Are all you Eichbaum and Pearse fans upset? Maybe you should have tried harder. Now there are only five left to battle it out over the coming weeks. Expect a twist. Maybe.

You know what to do. Vote either by texting 027 CUSTARD, or emailing editor@salient.org.nz. If you’re going to cheat, be smart about it. If you text us heaps, we become quite familiar with your phone number. We know you’re the same person. We’re not as stupid as we look.

We want to see more t-shirts, posters, badges and viral marketing campaigns. Call the mainstream media. Get on talkback radio. Email Kathryn Ryan while Dean is on Nine to Noon and say how awesome Salient is. We’ll love you forever. Promise.

Oh and don’t vote for Candy Badger. Or maybe, do.

Marc Wilson, Psychology
My favourite—in fact, defining—TV show is not the TV series I’ve presented (they’re a bit naff and none of you are old enough to watch TVOne anyway); it is The X-Files. If you’ve really never seen it think of Fringe but with subtlety, Gillian Anderson as the hot redhead sceptic and David Duchovny as the porn-watching crusader for the Truth. Together they investigate head transplants, alien babies, psychic killers, government cover-ups and other stuff that makes our world such an awesome place. In a time when chain-smoking was still marginally acceptable, the series’ Darth Vader was the Cigarette Smoking Man. Who killed JFK? Covered up the Roswell aliens? Rigged the 1980 Olympic US/USSR ice hockey game? Ol’smokey, that’s who. For me this isn’t just entertainment but the inspiration for my research and my teaching—join me in PSYC429 ‘Psychology of Superstition’ or PHIL215 ‘Conspiracy Theories’ anyone?

David O’Donnell, Theatre
Book: Nola Millar: A Theatrical Life by Sarah Gaitanos. Nola was a pioneer New Zealand theatre director and this book is endlessly inspiring creatively, as well as celebrating Wellington’s rich theatrical history.

Musician: Gareth Farr creates works of electrifying beauty reflecting our Pacific cultures and landscapes.

Film: Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire has angels in long black coats invisibly cruising the streets of Berlin, circus acts and Nick Cave—the perfect movie.

TV: The Office is the kind of drama I’d like to make, extracting uneasy existential laughter from foibles of real people and situations.

Peter Andreae aka Pondy, Computer Science
The Hogfather by Terry Pratchett. All of Pratchett’s discworld books are wonderful; I love his insight into the way our real world works (and doesn’t). Why The Hogfather? First, the wonderful parody of a computer with an artificial intelligence, replete with obscure references to early research in AI, including some from the lab where I did my PhD. Second, it has Susan in it—seeing through the perspective of someone who is genuinely rational is always mind bending. Third, the combination of his deep skepticism combined with his warm sense of what is central to being human. Go read what Death says to Susan after she has saved the Hogfather.

Dean Knight, Law
Favourite book: Uncle’s Story by Witi Ihimaera. In the summer of 2000/01 it had me and all of my friends blubbing. A moving story blending Maoriness, gayness, sign language, masculinity—all told through a search for an uncle’s long-lost, war-time lover. Superb!

Favourite musician: Does Kathryn Ryan count? I confess my radio is usually glued to National Radio… But otherwise, Everything But the Girl. Or, for something upbeat, anything playing on GeorgeFM.

Favourite TV show: No question. West Wing. All 7 series. End of story. [FN: For the long list of favourite quotations and scenes from West Wing, see facebook status thread.]

Favourite film: I know as the law guy I should mention A Few Good Men.  A 1992 classic law movie. Stunning cross examination of Jack Nicolson by Tom Cruise:
Col Jessep: You want answers?
Kaffee: I think I’m entitled to them.
Col Jessep: You want answers?
Kaffee: I want the truth!
Col Jessep: You can’t handle the truth!
But, being truthful myself: J’ai tué ma mère / I Killed My Mother from Toronto and New Zealand film fests. Stylish, quirky film about a young gay boy’s love-hate relationship with his mother—written, directed and starred in by a really talented Quebec kid.

Matthew Trundle, Classics
A Classicist to the end…

Book: The Iliad of Homer: the finest epic poem vividly portrays the struggle for life over inevitable death, the glory of eternal fame, and the horror of war sung in the finest poetry. The Iliad remains the foundation stone of western literary tradition.

Musician: In the absence of ancient music then classical must do. Dmitri Shostakovich produced the most sublime and romantic symphonies for orchestra, notably cello and violin sonatas, and especially famous is his Opus 97a. The Gadfly Suite.

Film: Gladiator, naturally, for persuading Hollywood of the value of productions about the ancient world; no corrupt sword and sandal homage this, but a genuine effort to reproduce the ancient Roman Empire. It may not be perfect, but it is wonderful!

TV Show: I Claudius. By far the finest adaptation of antiquity for the small screen, sans unnecessary blood and sand, sans CGI, just fine dialogue brilliantly acted. The Sopranos comes to the classical world, as indeed the classical world was there long before The Sopranos.

Snap pants 8/10

They make you look like Sporty Spice (win) and you don’t need to take off your shoes to get them off (convenient—if you’re playing sport). They’re versatile: wear them down, roll them up, half unbutton them, leave them done up. I used to cringe when I saw girls walking around with them undone, like, right to the top, so the pants flapped around in the breeze. Wear them like this and you lose cool points.

Spice Girl shoes 5/10

I imagine countless numbers of girls rolled their ankles while wearing their sweet, sweet Spice Girls-esque platform sneakers. It was for this very reason that I was never allowed platform sneakers of my own, and resorted to borrowing my friend’s spare pair. Though the shoes increased your cool points at school, their wearing has probably led to ongoing foot problems for a generation of Spice Girls fans.

Flares 2/10

So annoying to bike in, they drag along the ground, they’re really heavy (due to excess fabric), they get wet… Can skinny jeans, like, never go out of fashion?

Patterned bike shorts 0/10

Apparently bike shorts are back in fashion. Ew. Seriously? If you look good in bike shorts, you must be a stick. They expose your wobbly bits for all the world to see. They’re not particularly flattering. If you’re going to wear them, please make sure you wear something that covers your bum. I don’t want to see that.

Turtleneck skivvies 7/10

They keep your neck warm and they come in every colour imaginable. The perfect accessory to any outfit. And one Salient arts editor really likes how Ryan Phillippe wears them in Cruel Intentions.

Polar fleeces 10/10

They’re so warm. They’re so snug. They come in all shapes and sizes. I want one with dinosaurs on it. And a pocket on the front. Please?

“Slut wings” 0/10

I’d never heard the term “slut wings” until just the other day. Apparently it’s a South Island thing. “Slut wings” refer to the two skinny dangly bits of hair that used to frame girls’ faces while their hair was either tied up in a ponytail or in a messy bun. They look even worse when they are slathered with too much gel. Rats’ tails were the male equivalent.

Cargos 9/10

Back when cargos were cool, you didn’t need to take a bag anywhere—you could put everything in your pockets. So convenient. Your lunch, a CD, your Pokemon cards, your Hubba Bubba, you name it, you could fit it in the pockets of your cargo pants. So. Awesome.

Salient fashion tip!
Don’t throw anything out of your wardrobe… ever. It might come back in fashion again.

Her

It was a last minute rush to get ready for my blind date, so I went for the casual wear-what-you-did-to-uni and heels look. My sister gave me a ride to the bar and I had a bit of a freak out on the way there thinking: ‘Oh shit, this could potentially be the most awkward night of my life! What if he’s really weird…?!’ We figured there was about a one per cent chance of finding the next love of my life, a 15 per cent chance of him being a total creep, which left an 84 per cent chance of having a good time with a really massive bar tab. Not bad odds really.

He was dead on time. I appeared about two minutes later, and in this time he had already deterred a potential man friend by explaining he was on a date, and made friends with the bartender instead. I decided he was in the 84 per cent bracket and we introduced ourselves and made slightly awkward ice-breaking conversation while downing cocktails.
It turned out he had been called upon for the blind date as he was the only male in the building—bribed with the prospect of free food and drinks. Not gonna deny it, I was blatantly there on the off-chance of finding a guy who had the potential to really rock my socks…But he was a really nice guy and we got on smashingly.

It gets a bit blurry after the cocktails, but we shared tales of life, love and the zoo. It would seem I narrowly avoided assault after I spilt my drink on a woman (the bottom of the glass was wet and it may have dribbled on her a tiny bit). I apologised really nicely and she flirted with me, before becoming enraged at the bar girl for serving her $3 bubbles “in a warm glass!?”

High fives were exchanged when we discovered we had finished the tab, and we bought celebratory tequila shots before affably making our way to another bar to meet my friends. We discovered we were both from the same town, and he heroically stepped in to save me as I was being whooped at pool by a friendly bogan. He got my number as he left, and I guiltily stayed out for a bit longer. I had a blast and hopefully he did too—and I just got my essay in on time. Success! Cheers Salient and the Garden Club!

Him

8pm: I walk into the Terrace Bar and a old man hits on me and asks if I want a drink. I tell him I’m waiting for my date and he walks away—awkward!

8.01pm: The bartender informs me that she just walked in.

8.02pm: We introduce ourselves and order some drinks.

8.05pm: Our bartender disappeared, and we got a new bartender and re-ordered.

8.10pm: Oh god I’ve forgotten her name (what a dick) and politely ask her; she remembers my name because it rhymes with hers.
 
At some point we ordered pizza—I remember this part but the bartender sure didn’t—he  made awesome drinks though, so I forgave him .

She talked about her jobs and the boys that hit on her. She told me her hang outs (Library, Boogie, Big Kumara—I pulled her up on this one), but she was sweet and funny so I let it go. We had more drinks and then she spilt drinks on the lady next to her. The lady was an interesting character, and complained  that her $3 dollar bubbles came in a warm glass and she wanted another, but she left after an argument with a bartender.
 
She talked about her childhood and apparently we come from the same town—her mum may have been my teacher. She said she was awesome at pool and even beat the boys (cute and skillful?). She talked about uni and her smarts, her riches and her travels (yes, I will be your toy boy). At one point she asks me to stand guard outside her toilet door. I obliged.
 
At one point she noted she had a essay due tomorrow—obviously my charm swayed her to stay. We continued talking and drinking, and next thing you know, she pointed out the beetles moving on the bar table (they were disco lights)—I was buzzing out!  The pizza came (finally) and we finished the bar tab! We both agreed one more for the road and hit the tequila! She invited me to  Bristol with her friends where we duly drank more (gin, lol) and played pool…The lies come out—she epic failed at pool.
 
Never a dull moment, amazing chick. Thanks Salient!