Archive

Indoctrinating Myself With Life FM

Posted 9:57pm Saturday 6th March 2021 by Sean Gourley

FM Radio is like your mate’s parents who you didn’t realise are quite Christian until you started talking about strip clubs in front of them: easy to get along with until Jesus enters the picture. For a bit of a project in O Week, I forced myself to listen to our country’s most Read more...

Spitballing With Scientists: Identifying The Eating Disorder Genes

Posted 9:23pm Saturday 6th March 2021 by Asia Martusia King

Trigger warning: Disordered eating. Maybe you’re born with it. Maybe it’s anorexia nervosa, and you were also born with it. Did you know that alongside environmental influences, eating disorders are significantly predisposed by your genetics? I didn’t, but it sure would have Read more...

The Great Annual Flo and O Week Party Review

Posted 8:35pm Saturday 6th March 2021 by Elliot Weir

  Flo Week and O Week felt more like Slo Week this year. But that’s okay, because people change, and so do annually held fortnight-long parties.  The idea of Flo and O Week is that second and third years can revel in nightly parties free of freshers. However, this year's Read more...

Strength in Numbers: Looking After Your Mental Health as a Pasifika Student

Posted 3:58pm Tuesday 2nd March 2021 by Susana Jones

I remember walking in to Student Health as a fresher many moons ago, feeling crook as fuck in all ways possible, just needing some help. I looked around for a brown face or name. There were none in sight. My name, pronounced incorrectly, was called out by the Caucasian doctor, summoning me to their Read more...

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dorm: Investigating Campus Superstitions

Posted 2:21pm Tuesday 2nd March 2021 by Asia Martusia King

Otago University is the mysterious old crone of tertiary education. Many spooky stories lie within her walls. She squats in her rocking chair and cackles ominously, regaling dementia-ridden urban legends and superstitions to gossipy students who love a bit of tea. Superstitions are beliefs that Read more...

Fruits Of Our Labour: Is Seasonal Orchard Work All It’s Cracked Up To Be?

Posted 2:08pm Tuesday 2nd March 2021 by Annabelle Vaughan

With the borders at a close thanks to the ripper of a year that was 2020, orchards across New Zealand cried out for help. Many Otago students answered the call to be a “Harvest Hero” and embarked on their agricultural adventure. For some, it didn’t turn out to be the experience Read more...

Exclusive Interviews with the Cats of North Dunedin

Posted 4:35pm Sunday 4th October 2020 by Elliot Weir

Cats. The muse of many art forms, from 2011 internet memes to 2019 musicals that you really shouldn’t watch high. Unfortunately, most students have neither the time nor the home to house any pets so when we see one of the many cats wandering the streets of North Dunedin we take all the Read more...

The Ultimate Guide to Pulling an All Nighter

Posted 4:30pm Sunday 4th October 2020 by Annabelle Vaughan

With exams and end of year assignments rapidly approaching, it’s highly likely you are going to have to pull an all nighter or 12. Maybe you’ve had to pull one due to your terrible time management, or your ability to procrastinate literally any university related task, or maybe you have Read more...

Working in the Sun: Top Jobs to Get Cause Rent’s Still Due in January.

Posted 4:18pm Sunday 4th October 2020 by Jack Gilmore

Well guys, the time has come. University is drawing to a close, the weather’s getting warmer, Bunnings have put up the inflatable Santa. Summer is upon us. Everyone loves summer. You can go swimming in a lake, listen to Bat Fangs single “Boy of Summer”, have a long walk through the Read more...

Studying Yourself

Posted 9:50pm Thursday 24th September 2020 by Kaiya Cherrington

Content warning: mentions eating disorders, self-image, and body dysmorphia Sitting in a lecture hall, Alex* goes about their day like usual, with the expectation to learn about their body and how food can affect them. What Alex didn’t expect, is the unintentional resurgence of negative Read more...

#De-Gender Fashion

Posted 9:30pm Thursday 24th September 2020 by Naomii Seah

From women wearing men’s tailored suits in the 1920s, to the sequins and disco-glamour of the 70s, to the new forms of androgynous fashion in the noughties and beyond, queerness and fashion have a long and complex history. In 2020, that relationship is even more evident, with the influence of Read more...

Why is Town So Shit? An Investigation

Posted 4:56pm Sunday 20th September 2020 by Elliot Weir

It's no secret that Dunedin has flat parties good enough to make boomers get mad on the news. But when it comes to going into town, we’re a bit shit compared to anywhere else. With only a couple of clubs, long lines, minimal food options, and a student body that can't actually afford Read more...

The Mothras: a Review of OUSA’s Long Lost Film Festival

Posted 4:47pm Sunday 20th September 2020 by Annabelle Vaughan

Back in the good old days, OUSA held an annual student film festival called the Mothras. It was created by student Stephen Hall-Jones in ‘91 and lasted a whole two decades before being ruthlessly taken from us for being too expensive and timely to produce. R.I.P.  Originally sponsored by Read more...

How to Pretend you know E-Sports

Posted 9:42pm Thursday 17th September 2020 by Anon

As American Baseball All-Star Sean Doolittle said, “sports are like the reward of a functioning society”. We recognise the trials of athletes as an achievement for life being normal. Unfortunately, life is not normal right now. Now that traditional sports are no longer as massive as they Read more...

Learning Te Reo Māori as a Māori Student

Posted 10:48pm Thursday 10th September 2020 by Kaiya Cherrington

Te reo Māori is an official language of Aotearoa, but has only been recognised as such since 1987. For Māori, their language has always been the ‘official’ one. For Māori in the early 1900s, most notably before the World Wars, te reo was their first language. However Read more...

Post-Colonial Faith

Posted 10:36pm Thursday 10th September 2020 by Naomii Seah

“Māori theology is spiritual, but it’s also political.” Māori religion and theology has a long and complex history in Aotearoa New Zealand. Importantly, conversion of Māori to Christianity during the 1830s benefitted increasing Crown interest in land speculation: Read more...

Minorities in Medicine: Why Otago University’s proposed cap on medicine will break, not make, the future of our health workforce

Posted 10:34pm Thursday 10th September 2020 by Annabelle Vaughan

About two months ago, Critic published a story titled ‘A Seat at Our Table’ which shared the experiences of Māori students here at Otago University and the stigma surrounding alternative entry pathways. While the article and interviewees were met with plenty of support, there was no Read more...

The Faces Behind the Feed: The Stories Behind Dunedin’s Most Iconic Cafes

Posted 10:13pm Thursday 3rd September 2020 by Annabelle Vaughan

Dunedin loves its legendary cafes. They are meeting places, study spaces, a place for a catch up with friends, a gig, or a date. Our social lives, as well as our energy meters, revolve around these spaces. But there’s a high chance that we don’t know the stories behind these places, or Read more...

The Politics of Shared Flat Cooking

Posted 10:12pm Thursday 3rd September 2020 by Caroline Moratti

Shared flat cooking can sound like the best idea in the world. You get to save time, money and kitchen space, all whilst bonding with your flatties over a kitchen table and a square meal. What could be more charming? The reality though, can be far from the Brady Bunch lovefest you might be Read more...

What’s for Dinner?

Posted 9:57pm Thursday 3rd September 2020 by Fox Meyer

“Cooking is about controlling fire and water.” With two elements safely under his belt, our professional chef-for-a-day is halfway to becoming the Avatar. Critic extorted him for a free meal. I asked Tony Heptinstall (Senior Lecturer at the Polytech’s Food Design Institute) to Read more...