Archive

21st Century Fertility

Posted 1:24pm Sunday 19th May 2013 by Fertile Myrtle

One in six New Zealand couples has fertility problems, and many have turned to egg or sperm donation in the quest to have children. For these couples, the procedure is undoubtedly life-changing. But what about the donors? Fertile Myrtle (no, that’s not her real name) is a student who donated eggs to Read more...

May the sports be with you

Posted 1:24pm Sunday 19th May 2013 by Gus Gawn

On 25 May (6:45am 26 May NZ time), Europe’s top two sides will battle for the most prestigious prize in club football: the Champions League title. Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich are both in the final at Wembley after pulling off semi-final upsets – Dortmund saw off nine-time winners Real Madrid Read more...

Fairtrade Fortnight: Food for Thought

Posted 1:24pm Sunday 19th May 2013 by Baz Macdonald

It seems clichéd, but university is a good place to question things. I’m sure that for most of you, this very notion has conjured the image of wankers in berets writing in coffee shops, but this isn’t necessarily so. Many of the people we see trashed on Thursday and Saturday nights (this may be you) Read more...

Balls Deep in the Arab Spring

Posted 1:24pm Sunday 19th May 2013 by Matty Stroller

For as long as I can remember, I have had a weird infatuation with all things Middle Eastern. In late 2011/early 2012 – after a year and a half of soul-crushing wage-slavery – I excitedly embarked on a three-month tour of the “Arab Spring.” It is one thing to read about a situation on your laptop Read more...

Get Out of the Ghetto: Queenstown Edition

Posted 2:26pm Sunday 12th May 2013 by Brittany Mann

When Phoebe Harrop of “Get Out of the Ghetto” fame found herself unable to “research” this feature, she selflessly passed the torch on to me. Go to Queenstown for the weekend, I was instructed, and try out some of the fun stuff on offer. I was forcefully reminded of how awesome this job is. Read more...

Getting Around the Orthodoxy

Posted 2:26pm Sunday 12th May 2013 by Loulou Callister-Baker

There is a possibility that I wrote this entire feature in order to begin with the fact that I was in New York over the summer break. With that in mind, I was in New York over the summer break. One night, I found myself in a SoHo loft, deep in conversation with an architect. In an alignment of Read more...

Mann vs. Wild

Posted 2:26pm Sunday 12th May 2013 by Brittany Mann

Although the prospect of doing so was all that got me through the experience, it has taken me months to work up the nerve to write about what I now refer to, usually in a sepulchral whisper, as “the worst eight days of my entire life.” The following is an account of my experience climbing Mount Read more...

The Boston Marathon

Posted 4:00pm Sunday 5th May 2013 by Carys Goodwin

University of Otago student Carys Goodwin is on exchange at Boston College. In true Otago style, she was engaging in some mid-afternoon drinking when she heard about the bombings just five miles away. She gives a first-hand account of the aftermath. It was my mum who first informed me about Read more...

A Game of Faculties

Posted 4:00pm Sunday 5th May 2013 by Anonymous

The Seven Kingdoms of Dunderos and the Free Cities of Taerios are lands of sadistic mediocrity. When you play the Game of Faculties, you neither win nor die: in the end, there is only the swift abandonment of convenient tutorial-based friendships and dismal remuneration. School of Business Read more...

The Great Annual Critic Pub Crawl 2013

Posted 4:00pm Sunday 5th May 2013 by 2013 Interns

At last! It is time – the Great Annual Critic Pub Crawl has arrived. Last weekend, the Critic staff set off on a magical journey to ruthlessly assess the bars and watering holes of Dunedin, while welcoming Critic’s four news interns of 2013 – Josie Cochrane, Jamie Breen, Jack Montgomerie, and Thomas Read more...

My Summer in Corporate Purgatory

Posted 4:00pm Sunday 5th May 2013 by Callum Fredric

On Thursday, the big law firms will make offers of summer internships to students across the country. Callum Fredric gives the young clerks-to-be an unglamourised account of what a summer in a top-four law firm is actually like. Congratulations, aspiring summer clerks. On Thursday, you’ll Read more...

Baby Boom and Bust

Posted 3:14pm Sunday 28th April 2013 by Anonymous

With a readership of 269,000, the Listener is New Zealand’s most widely-read current affairs magazine – but it’s also the home of three tragically in-decline columnists. Callum Fredric and Maddy Phillipps document the writers’ undignified transformation into commentators both one-note and off-key. Read more...

Among Criminals

Posted 3:14pm Sunday 28th April 2013 by Loulou Callister-Baker

The criminal justice system has a complex set of rules and procedures, which many students experience first-hand every year. Loulou Callister-Baker interviewed several students who have come into contact with Dunedin law enforcement. Nothing in this feature (or Critic generally) should be treated as Read more...

Brittany Mann and the Abortion Protestors

Posted 3:14pm Sunday 28th April 2013 by Brittany Mann

In my other life, I moonlight as a receptionist at a medical centre. Arriving at work one afternoon, I found the building surrounded by men holding enormous signs emblazoned with disingenuous slogans and graphic photos of aborted foetuses, not dissimilar to the subject of Maddy Phillipps’ Read more...

Maslow's Hierarchy of Facebook Needs

Posted 5:13pm Sunday 21st April 2013 by Anonymous

Maslow’s pyramid illustrates the stages that human motivations move through as we satisfy increasingly sophisticated psychological needs. The most basic needs are at the bottom. The less urgent but still important needs are at the top. Previously, a couple of 100-level PSYC papers would have been Read more...

Lonesome World - Dunedin

Posted 5:13pm Sunday 21st April 2013 by Anonymous

Why Go?Most guides to New Zealand will tell you that Wellington has the culture, Auckland has the luxury, and Queenstown has the beauty. But savvy travellers have long since known that dynamic Dunedin does all three far better than the big, scene-stealing tourist traps. Home to the University of Read more...

The Little Foetus in the Pink Cap

Posted 5:49pm Sunday 14th April 2013 by Anonymous

Earlier this year, a series of photos were posted on Reddit showing a woman holding a stillborn male foetus in her arms. The foetus was dressed in a pink knitted cap. This is his story. (See the foetus at critic.co.nz/NSFWfoetus – if you dare.) Once upon a time in the small hamlet of Gore Read more...

Three fables of Dunedin's forgotten flatters

Posted 5:49pm Sunday 14th April 2013 by Callum Fredric

Over the years, Dunedin has been home to hundreds of thousands of students from across the globe. Earlier this year, a friend discovered a basement full of historic letters and books that, taken together, paint a picture of the lives of some of Dunedin’s previous inhabitants. Armed with some Read more...

Evidence of a Mid-life Crisis

Posted 5:49pm Sunday 14th April 2013 by Loulou Callister-Baker

Loulou Callister-Baker’s flatmate discovered some mysterious boxes in the attic, full of the possessions of a man who clearly experienced a textbook midlife crisis. Impressed by his adherence to Mills & Boon-level stereotypes, she tells the story of the man’s life. Sometime last month, I walked Read more...

Mapping Out the Friend Zone

Posted 4:40pm Sunday 7th April 2013 by Sam McChesney

“You waited too long to make your move and now you’re in the friend zone ... if you don’t ask her out soon you’re going to end up stuck in the zone forever.” – Joey Tribbiani, Friends “The great irony is that the friend zone really doesn’t exist. The notion that once people make friends, they Read more...