Archive

OUSA City Gallery Crawl

Posted 3:05pm Monday 15th August 2016 by Critic

Every year OUSA hosts the City Gallery Crawl. It is a night to explore the diversity of the visual art scene in Dunedin. Galleries open late, many have free drink and food, and every one has a feast for the eyes. You can either wander round the galleries at your leisure, or meet at the Dunedin Read more...

Mistakes I made That You Can Still Avoid

Posted 11:49am Sunday 7th August 2016 by Chelle Fitzgerald

This year marks my return to uni, at 31 years of age. It’s a bit daunting to realise that now I’m going to be akin to one of those weird mature-aged students who sit up the front, infuriatingly punctuating the lectures with waffling stories of “life experience” that bear Read more...

Why Local Politics Actually Matter

Posted 11:32am Sunday 7th August 2016 by Jarred Griffiths

At the moment most students see the Dunedin City Council (DCC) as a body that does not serve their interests. And ultimately, that’s the point: it doesn’t. Only one fifth of the elected Councillors are women, none are under the age of thirty, and in photos the lack of diversity is Read more...

Sensational Seagulls

Posted 12:18pm Sunday 31st July 2016 by Mikayla Cahill

When people ask you what your favourite animal is, they definitely aren’t expecting to hear the word seagull; but that is exactly what my favourite animal is. The seagull is an ethereal being, with wonderful powers of persuasion and a cunning attitude. From their snow white and charcoal grey Read more...

Putin's Nonsense Media

Posted 12:06pm Sunday 31st July 2016 by George Elliott

George Galloway, the abrasive former British MP and leader of the leftwing Respect Party, was once a prolific moonlighter. In 2014 he made as much money working for dubious state-run news broadcasters than he did as a British Member of Parliament. Two years later, after a failed bid at becoming Read more...

Coming Up Short

Posted 11:50am Sunday 31st July 2016 by Joel MacManus

In February of 2016, a post on the reddit forum r/newzealand entitled “Are You My Future Baby Daddy?” caused something of a stir. Rather than an inelegant attempt at internet dating, it told the story of a young couple looking for someone, anyone, who was willing to meet up in Wellington Read more...

From devotion to debauchery

Posted 11:42am Sunday 24th July 2016 by James Tregonning

When you think about it, it’s a bit weird that Monkey Bar used to be a church. It seems kind of disrespectful. I sat down with Trevor Geddes, one of the leaders of Dunedin City Baptist Church – the folks that used to be in that building – and asked him what he thought about the Read more...

Drunk Me Is The Poor Man’s Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Posted 11:33am Sunday 24th July 2016 by Michelle Fitzgerald

Anyone who knows me, the eternal party girl, will be aware that this is going to be a pretty massive change of pace for me. Although I’ve tried to cut down a few times in the past, placing certain limitations on myself (never at home alone/only once a week/only classy booze that doesn’t Read more...

Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer

Posted 11:15am Sunday 24th July 2016 by Carys Goodwin

The year was 2016. The month, February. And against all rhyme or reason, a poll released by Public Policy Polling confirmed the worst: 38 percent of Floridians genuinely believed Ted Cruz could be the Zodiac Killer-a serial killer who operated in northern California in the late ’60s and early Read more...

The 2016 Darryl Kerrigan "My House My Castle" Awards

Posted 11:51am Sunday 17th July 2016 by Hugh Baird

Since Jesus wore sand shoes, students in Dunedin have been subjected to living in cold, damp and unkempt flats. As part of the OUSA flatting week festivities we decided to run a competition to find those flats and showcase some of the best, and worst of what Dunedin has to offer. Winners of the Read more...

Teaching Kids to Love Learning

Posted 11:36am Sunday 17th July 2016 by Amber Allott

If you, much to your great misfortune, happen to be born poor, there are a lot of opportunities that you are going to miss out on that your more well-off peers will receive. While the differences between the rich and the poor appear much more overt in third-world, they are still very tangible and Read more...

Help, my flat is haunted!

Posted 11:24am Sunday 17th July 2016 by Amber Allott

Dunedin is reputed to be the most haunted city in New Zealand. You could end up living in one of New Zealand’s oldest, most fascinating residential buildings, in various states of disrepair, with a unique and possibly tragic history. You may, like many before you, end up hearing footsteps Read more...

Fairies are scaries

Posted 11:09am Sunday 10th July 2016 by Anonymous Bird

Fairies (or Faeries) are a massive part of our popular culture. The first image that comes to the minds of most people is of Tinkerbelle, or perhaps the fairy godmother in Cinderella. Fairies are seen as cute, pink, little people who exist to help and serve humans. They’re magical Read more...

Why won’t aliens visit us?

Posted 11:03am Sunday 10th July 2016 by Connor Fry

“So I’m certainly not a reptile. I’ve never been in a spaceship, never been in outer space, and my tongue’s not overly long either.” In 2014 a fellow human-being submitted an Official Information Act request for proof John Key wasn’t a reptilian enslaving us, Read more...

Abominable Stories

Posted 10:53am Sunday 10th July 2016 by Anthony Marris

Cryptozology is the study of hidden and mainly mythical animals that mainstream science pays little attention to. Mention cryptozoology in a conversation and people automatically deride you, if they know what the word means. When you can be bothered explaining that it is so much more than the Read more...

An actual real legal high

Posted 11:45am Sunday 29th May 2016 by Sam Fraser-Baxter

I thought I would smell J-Day before I would be able to see it. Like the police burning off a colossal stash of confiscated plants, I imagined Dunedin’s J-Day creating a haze of smoke so large that it would hot box the wider Octagon, a blaze so impressive that it would send a great political Read more...

Personal Statement

Posted 11:35am Sunday 29th May 2016 by Carys Goodwin

When I picture graduate school selection panels, I picture the iconic scene in every genre of movie from Billy Elliot to The Shawshank Redemption – a large, old hall or room; a long desk, with a row of glasses-wearing middle aged examiners sitting behind it; and a single chair, placed Read more...

Breaks & Skates - the revolution of Roller Derby

Posted 11:28am Sunday 29th May 2016 by Jean Balchin

There I stood, gingerly extending my right foot as the wheels rolled across the ground. Clad head to toe in battered protective gear, I resembled a second-rate Stormtrooper, and like the infamous head-bumping guy from Episode IV, I was just as clumsy. I had always envisaged Roller Derby as a sexy, Read more...

Old-Timey Food Tips - From a 1920's health book

Posted 11:34am Sunday 22nd May 2016 by Lucy Hunter

In the age of the internet, food can be scary. On one side, we have the cheeseburger lasagnes and all-bacon burgers of Epic Meal Time, on the other side we have the macrobiotic diet of Gwyneth Paltrow and the “chemical” fearmongering of the Food Babe. Don’t you yearn for a simpler Read more...

Starving For Good

Posted 11:25am Sunday 22nd May 2016 by Sam Fraser-Baxter

Last week I didn’t eat for 48 hours. It was my first fast.For those two days I didn’t consume a single calorie. They were two of the most peculiar days of my life. By the end of my fast I wasn’t quite the empty skulled, staggering zombie I dreaded becoming when I began, but Read more...

Shout It From the Rooftops: I Am A Vegan

Posted 11:12am Sunday 22nd May 2016 by Joe Higham

In February this year, I was sat at a restaurant on the banks of the Chao Phraya River, which winds itself through the sprawling metropolis of Bangkok. It was a typically hot and humid day, and the sun was just setting behind and between the concrete skyline. The menu before me was filled with Read more...

Consent On Campus

Posted 11:41am Sunday 15th May 2016 by Amber Allott

Rape and sexual assault on campus is not a nice topic, but one that everybody at the university needs to think about. Amber Allott discusses consent, the myth of the “grey area”, and resources available for sexual assault survivors.  A little over a fortnight ago, I was scrolling Read more...

I Never Remember A Face

Posted 11:34am Sunday 15th May 2016 by Lucy Hunter

Human beings rely on being able to recognise other people by their faces for normal social interaction. Lucy Hunter talked to three prosopagnosics, people who have difficulty recognising faces, about some of the problems their condition causes in their Read more...

Re-capping The Capping Show

Posted 11:24am Sunday 15th May 2016 by Mikayla Cahill

This week you’ll have the chance to see the 122nd annual Capping Show. “Making Grad” is the latest installment in a long tradition of irreverence and hilarity where nothing and nobody is immune to ridicule. Is it all just good fun? Mikayla Cahill investigates the history of the Read more...

Volunteer’s Experience

Posted 12:06pm Sunday 8th May 2016 by Natasha Cox

What made you volunteer in the first place? Growing up I was privileged to have the opportunity to travel with my parents, and various other school groups. This taste of the world, and all of the amazing cultures, peoples, and natural beauties it holds, instilled in me a passion for travelling Read more...

Sayonara, Dignity!

Posted 11:59am Sunday 8th May 2016 by Critic

A rash in Australia I was in Sydney with my new boyfriend and we ended up having sex in a park and falling asleep because it was so warm. I was itchy all over all night and I thought it was because I was hot and sweaty under my clothes. We woke up and there were a pack of Ibis looking at us Read more...

Dating a Backpacker

Posted 11:53am Sunday 8th May 2016 by Vicky Ransom

"Hi mum and dad, meet my boyfriend. He lives in hostels and there's a chance he may have to leave the country one day, but I love him so let's try look past that." No, this isn't the tagline to a cheesy rom-com, this is my reality. I'm dating a backpacker, and let me tell Read more...

Voluntouring the World

Posted 11:45am Sunday 8th May 2016 by Amber Allott

In a recent article, UK newspaper 'The Daily Express,' claimed that the most common regret of people over sixty was not travelling and seeing more of the world.  As such, it is really no wonder that travel has become an essential life experience for those in their twenties, especially Read more...

Exchanging Yarns

Posted 11:33am Sunday 8th May 2016 by Lana Young

In my second and third year I took the opportunity to study at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Think of it as a balmy version of Dunedin but on the beach with your own campus surf-break and the occasional pug riding a skate-board.  Every other weekend was a camping trip to Read more...

Sir Ray Avery

Posted 11:38am Sunday 1st May 2016 by Hugh Baird

Sir Ray Avery is a scientist, inventor and a social entrepreneur of the highest order. He developed affordable intraocular lenses that by the year 2020 will have brought sight to 30 million people. He also revolutionised baby incubators to save countless lives in third world countries . He was Read more...

Interview With A Ghost

Posted 11:34am Sunday 1st May 2016 by Lucy Hunter

In the office, Ceri, Laura, Tash, Joe, Jean, Bij and I sat around waiting. Red light from the candles flickered on our faces and over the board. My workmates and I had had a couple of wines each and were trying to get scared. We held hands, breathed deeply and closed our eyes. “We are here in Read more...

Escaping the Cult of Accelerated Christian Education

Posted 11:22am Sunday 1st May 2016 by Jean Balchin

Picture this: gray walls rising up on three sides of you as you sit, hunched over your schoolwork - a science worksheet repudiating the theory of evolution, using the Loch Ness Monster as an example for why Darwin was horrifically, inexcusably wrong.  As you fill in the blanks, copying Read more...

The Big Banana Blow Out

Posted 11:11am Sunday 1st May 2016 by Mikayla Cahill

You may want to sit down for what I’m about to smack you in the face with: bananas are dying, and it isn’t the most a-peel-ing situation. Bananas all around the world are starting to die from a deadly and uncontrollable new strain of Fusarium Oxysporum f.sp. Cubense (Panama Disease) Read more...

In Defence of Self-Defence

Posted 11:33am Sunday 24th April 2016 by Lucy Hunter

A piece of advice for all you female-identified people – get good at yelling. You don’t have to be ‘ladylike’ if someone is disrespecting your boundaries. You have a right to get mad! Unleash the beast and yell from your belly like a frickin’ dragon. In the debate Read more...

What Becomes of the Unwanted

Posted 11:23am Sunday 24th April 2016 by Louise Lin

Louise Lin went to the Green Island Landfill to talk to the people who deal with the waste products most people prefer to ignore If you want to be attacked by irate pukeko, the Green Island landfill is the place to go. Jennie Upton, Education and promotion officer at the DCC, is showing me Read more...

Nudity & Rudity

Posted 11:15am Sunday 24th April 2016 by Kirsty Gordge

After spending some time in a nude sauna in Finland, Kirsty Gordge explores public nudity in New Zealand, asking the big question: Why don’t Kiwis get naked more often?  Boobs: perky, droopy, and wrinkled. Nipples: dark, pink and small. Bums: tight, big, and saggy. Hair: thick, black Read more...

Guidance for Jobseekers

Posted 11:34am Sunday 17th April 2016 by Anonymous Bird

It's getting to the time when, while students are stressing about assignments and exams, they have run out of course related costs and are frantically applying for part time work and graduate employment. Job hunting can be a dreary and disheartening process, but you’ve got to stick at it Read more...

Pride in Prison?

Posted 11:06am Sunday 17th April 2016 by Nath B

Content warning – accounts of rape and physical violence The acronym LGBT is used through-out the article in an all-encompassing manner to refer to the queer community.  LGBT is used in lieu of writing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, pansexual, genderqueer, asexual, Read more...

Spilled Soup, Secrets & Schadenfreude

Posted 11:18am Sunday 10th April 2016 by Jean Balchin

Jean Balchin on that gleeful feeling of happiness when something horrible happens to someone else. Imagine, if you will, a cold, blustery day in the city. With the wind howling and the rain coming down in horizontal sheets, the interior of the bus seems positively luxurious. From your Read more...

A Special Pass For God

Posted 11:13am Sunday 10th April 2016 by Joe Higham

Joe Higham discusses the exceptional treatment religion gets in the media, and how it turns us into hypocrites. It was 1988 and Salman Rushdie, a British-Indian author, was sat in a secure, undisclosed safe house somewhere in the British Isles, under overwhelming police protection. He was only Read more...

Harm Reduction

Posted 11:00am Sunday 10th April 2016 by Lucy Hunter

Lucy Hunter looks behind the doors of the Dunedin needle exchange Needle exchange programmes were created to reduce harm and to educate people on taking drugs in the safest way possible. I spoke to Manager Barbara Smith and one of her colleagues Dene Barnes from the Dunedin Intravenous Read more...

Cos It's All About The Play

Posted 12:07pm Sunday 3rd April 2016 by Victoria Ransom

The smell of makeup, face paint and coloured hairspray fills the air. Masses of people are all flocking to one place for a day of excitement, laughter and all out craziness.  For those of you thinking these are the sights and smells of the annual Hyde Street party, you are sadly mistaken. We Read more...

Intercontinental Drift

Posted 11:55am Sunday 3rd April 2016 by Norman H. Maclean

“They change their sky but not their soul who cross the ocean.” When Roman poet, Horace penned these words over two millennia ago, he could scarcely have envisaged the chaos unfolding in our time as hundreds of thousands clamour for salvation in the West, carrying with them both faith Read more...

A Week In The Life Of A Sex Store Employee

Posted 11:41am Sunday 3rd April 2016 by Chelle Fitzgerald

“Wow, that is so cool! What’s it like? Are all the customers hella kinky?” This is the most common response I hear when people find out what I do for a living. To be fair, it’s a natural reaction, as so many people have never set foot inside an adult store. Many people Read more...

Breaking News: The News Is Broken

Posted 12:43pm Sunday 20th March 2016 by Amber Allott

Admit it. You know you regularly choose to read entertaining trash over reminders of how the world is turning to shit. Amber Allott investigates if we are entirely in control of our ignorant habits, or if they are the result of capitalism and political manipulation within the media. ‘How Read more...

Reiki’n It In

Posted 12:22pm Sunday 20th March 2016 by Lucy Hunter

Reiki is a Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation that adherents believe also promotes healing. Reiki (rhymes with nakey) was developed in 1922 by Japanese Buddhist Mikao Usui. It uses a technique often called “palm healing” or “hands-on-healing”. Read more...

The Human Garbage Receptacle

Posted 12:05pm Sunday 20th March 2016 by Anthony Gordon

You haven’t seen the nasty side of human nature until you’ve worked a job dealing with hungry people who do not give a fuck about who you are. The little social niceties that stop people from succumbing to their momentary anger and verbally abusing their mate’s girlfriend Read more...

No Pain, No Gain

Posted 1:36pm Sunday 13th March 2016 by Jean Balchin

It wasn’t until I felt the sharp sting of lemon juice trickling down into my eye made me realise I had made a terrible mistake. Inelegantly slumped over the bathroom sink, I squinted through my tears at the woebegone girl in the mirror and vowed never to bleach my freckles again. Although only Read more...

The Secret Life Of Bees

Posted 1:26pm Sunday 13th March 2016 by Amber Allott

The leader of the group got to her position of power by violently murdering her sisters. She was born in a cell and fed nothing but jelly by thousands of identical nurses. The bodies of her dead children are picked up and tossed outside the institution they were born in. When she is too old to work Read more...

The Path To Fashion Week: OP to iD

Posted 12:45pm Sunday 13th March 2016 by Brittany Pooley

iD Fashion Week is Dunedin’s own annual celebration of New Zealand fashion. It presents two major Fashion shows; the iD International Emerging Designer Awards and the iD Dunedin Fashion Show otherwise known as Railway Each year designers from all over the world are invited to put forward their Read more...