Archive

A History of the Decline of the Maori Language (He Hatori o te Heke Haere o te Reo Maori)

Posted 11:03pm Sunday 25th July 2010 by Jared Mathieson

Once upon a time te reo Maori (the Maori language) was the only spoken language in New Zealand. However, these days only four percent of our entire population is able to hold a general conversation in te reo. Sadly, only 24 percent of all Maori are fluent speakers. It was once thought that the Read more...

Critic’s Easy Guide to the Essentials of Te Reo Maori

Posted 11:02pm Sunday 25th July 2010 by Hauauru Rae

Meet and Greet/ Wa Tutaki   Hello (informal) Kia ora  key-ah order    Hello (formal, to one person) Tena koe ten-are kweh Hello (formal, to two) Tena korua ten-are call-roo-ah Hello (formal, to three or more) Tena koutou ten-are co-toe   Read more...

BODY COUNT: What happens to the bodies donated to the Otago medical school?

Posted 10:35pm Sunday 18th July 2010 by Susan Smirk

There is a certain room in the medical school – a large and featureless room, lit with a fluorescent glow. In this room, there are corpses laid out on trolleys, in grey body bags. They are there right now. And if you are lucky enough the get into Medicine, you will spend two years cutting, probing, Read more...

Home is where the heart is.

Posted 10:28pm Sunday 18th July 2010 by Caitlyn O’Fallon

If we ever stop to think about it, most of us know little to nothing about homelessness. We’ve probably walked past unfortunates huddled down for the night in an alley or turned away from the guy at the bus stop asking for change. Caitlyn O’Fallon set out to find out who the homeless in Dunedin Read more...

3 minutes* (*More or less.)

Posted 10:24pm Sunday 18th July 2010 by Henry Feltham

People used to have attention spans – it’s the only possible explanation for opera, Charles Dickens, and cricket. Nowdays, I can’t imagine sitting through five hours of Wagner, even with chemical aid. Most of my friends watch a movie in two or three sittings, or can’t be bothered at all – they Read more...

SKEGG

Posted 10:52pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Susan Smirk

Sir Professor David Skegg OBE BMedSc MBChB (Otago) DPhil (Oxon) MFPHM FAFPHM FRSNZ University of Otago Vice Chancellor Sir Professor David Skegg announced last month that he was standing down. Goneskies. Kaput. Done. So ovah it. Well, sort of – he is going to stick around for the next year. Read more...

R.I.P. SCARFIE - Who is killing the dream?

Posted 10:48pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Thomas redford

“Half the reason people come down here is for the whole student lifestyle. I’m worried the University doesn’t quite understand that; that they’re keen to push down that whole side of University life. Everything that they do … the Code of Conduct, Gardies, every other thing the Uni does is putting Read more...

Brand Scarfie.

Posted 10:45pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Critic

How ‘Scarfie’ Became a Dirty Word.     The Beginning The term ‘Scarfie’ originated with the practice of students wearing blue and gold (the Otago colours, duh) scarves during the cooler months of the year.    The Middle Over the years, Otago Read more...

City Lights.

Posted 9:50pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Susan Smirk

New Zealand, a land of jagged snow-capped mountains, deep blue lakes, wild wind-swept coastlines, and lush sheep-speckled pastures. New Zealand is known for its natural wonders – but is there any wonder to be found in our urban wildernesses? Our official tourism website insists that “Today, Kiwis Read more...

The Far East

Posted 9:49pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Susan Smirk

These are the places your mother doesn't want you to go. Half the people you know won't expect you to come back. Most of the friendly farewell advice you receive will be along the lines of “Don't die.” There will be frustrating border crossings, people with guns, and a lot of desert. Tempted Read more...

Central America.

Posted 9:46pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Jennifer Turek

Picture yourself wandering along a trail through the dense rainforest. You’ve never seen plant life like this before. Water drips down from the trees towering above you and lands on the top of your head. The bushes ahead of you move – is it an anteater or a coati? Neither. It’s an agouti, a relative Read more...

Internet Addic-tron-net.

Posted 7:57pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Caitlyn O’Fallon

The latest thing in protesting seems to be trying to sell something on TradeMe. OUSA tried to sell themselves to make a point about VSM. Design Studies made a brief appearance on the site in April. A school principal in Invercargill even tried to sell the New Zealand curriculum on TradeMe to protest Read more...

Football World Cup

Posted 7:55pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Critic

Country profiles. Group A   South Africa: Despite their measly FIFA ranking (90 at time of print), smart money is on South Africa to progress past the group. They will get the majority of the referee’s decisions, and will always have home crowd advantage, plus conditions Read more...

The Clientele

Posted 7:51pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Critic

Gardies: Touchy subject. Over the years, Gardies has proven a haven for both first- and second-years, especially those on ‘the Castle Street buzz’. Come the end of every exam period, Gardies finds itself packed to the rafters with all sorts of sop, eager to get loose, and erm Read more...

Rising from the ashes of the global financial crisis...

Posted 3:54pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Critic

..over the backdrop of the green revolution, investing with the well-being of the world in mind is an idea whose time seems to have come. If you have some spare cash around at the moment, or are interested in the prospect of investing once you have said cash, then ‘socially responsible investing’ is Read more...

Balancing the Scarfie Budget.

Posted 3:52pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Critic

We lucky Scarfies (OTP) are privy to the most unique form of currency around. It’s more unique than the rand, the clam, or even the button. We Scarfies have So-Go’s (Southern Gold). At $6 a pack, they provide the perfect way of assessing purchases and writing weekly budgets. Critic has taken the Read more...

PLAGIARISE THIS ARTICLE

Posted 3:01pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Critic

“Using one person's ideas is plagiarism. Using lots of people's ideas is research.”   I like this quote, but I'm not sure who to attribute it to; I heard it from a friend, who heard it from a friend, and who knows where they got it. (Actually ,the original quote is “Copy from one, Read more...

Celebrity Financial Failures

Posted 2:59pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Critic

    Donald Trump: It wasn’t all plain sailing for the rich cat with the killer do. Trumpykins (as he likes to be called) suffered heavily in the recession of the late ‘80s, amassing serious amounts of debt and even going into business bankruptcy (not to be Read more...

61 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About The Human Body

Posted 2:57pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Critic

1. There are about ten times as many bacterial cells in the human body as human cells.   2. Newborn babies often lactate (produce breast milk), because they’re born with their mum’s hormones in their blood.   3. The muscle that makes men, um … retract Read more...

The Perpetual Student: the life of the student who never graduates is under threat

Posted 2:04pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Thomas redford

What do you picture when imagining the ‘perpetual student?’ A hunched and green-blazered old joker, whose sleeping head isn’t visible within the fortress of library reference books that he constructs around himself every day? Or a strutting, regularly-wassuping party animal with worried eyes that Read more...