Editor’s Note

As I come towards the end of my time at University, I reflect on how disengaged we were as a year group having started in the midst of a global pandemic, and how different my current experiences are. I am extremely lucky to have such wonderful friends around me who’ve stood by my side through my best and my worst, and I can’t believe that despite how difficult it was to remain engaged in University life during our first year, how united we all are in our last term. Who’d have thought?

Student media is a really great way of uniting students with similar interests. This year I wanted to really bring my team together to do more than just discuss student media, and now we’re many pitch meetings, and several pub trips down and I am so thankful for just how fantastic they all are. I remember being so nervous to meet everybody for the first time in our office at the SU, and how warm the welcome was. I’ve actively participated in Student Media since my first weeks at Cardiff University, and I didn’t want to waste this first post-pandemic academic year with a completely disjointed team. Here we are. I couldn’t have gotten luckier - I have a functioning team and 40 new friends.

I can’t believe that spring is coming around so quickly! For those of you who are still in your first year, I hope you all love Cardiff in the sun. Now’s the time for daffodils and tulips, my all-time favourite flowers! - get walking around those parks or they’ll be gone before you know it! I remember being in total awe the first time I got to experience spring in the city, and it feels like such a long time ago now. While the spring of course is the perfect time for new beginnings and sunnier days, back in my own first year it literally was a brand new start for us all. The shops were just beginning to reopen, we could venture to the pubs once more, and drink in the parks under the sun. How things have changed since then. Don’t take these days for granted, and don’t spend them alone. Go to that café in Pontcanna that you saw on TikTok, cycle over the barrage as the sun goes down - get out there and take your friends!

As usual I hope you all love reading this issue of Quench. A whole lot of love and hardwork has gone into this. We’re in that final stretch of the year, the end is coming! Cheers to the penultimate edition of the academic year, I hope this last stretch of second term is kind and isn’t too much stress. As usual, you’ve got this.

Cwtshes mawr,Alexa Editor-in-Chief

Hello and welcome back to another issue of Quench Magazine! As I’m writing this, we are five weeks into spring term, which means – for final year students like myself – the end is close in sight. Although I will be progressing onto an MA course next year, I still find myself feeling emotional at the thought of my time as an undergraduate coming to an end. Soon, many of my friends will be preparing to leave Cardiff to enter graduate jobs, go travelling, or just to have a well-deserved rest! At the thought of this, I have found myself holding my friends a little closer recently and cherishing the memories I make with them a little bit more.

I share these reflections because they are particularly fitting with our chosen theme for Issue 192: Union. University has allowed me to unite with so many people from different walks of life because we share common interests. Whether it’s the friends I’ve held close since first year, the bonds I’ve made through my course, or the friendships that have blossomed because of Quench, the strong sense of unity that life at university encourages is a special thing to me.

As always, our editorial team have done an amazing job at interpreting this theme and exploring the many different avenues that come with it, and our contributing writers and design team have brought these ideas to life brilliantly. Whether it’s reading about the University and College Union’s strike action, or reflecting on the future of marriage, there is something for everyone in this issue! A big shout out as well to our amazing Editor in Chief, Alexa, and my wonderful co-Deputy Editor, Molly. I’m so grateful to Quench for bringing us closer together.

I hope you enjoy this issue, see you in the next one!

Welcome back readers, and thank you again for picking up this edition of Quench, it’s a good one!

I hope you are doing well and looking after yourselves. We are now about halfway through the spring term, and this year is already going very very quickly! Since the last edition, the weather has started to get a little bit brighter, a tad warmer and a lot more promising! As we start to approach Spring, it is so wonderful to see the light start to seep back into Cardiff, especially the gloomier areas of Cathays…

This edition of Quench is all about Union, whether that’s looking at friendship, diversity or reunion. If you take a trip down to the literature section, I contributed to a piece all about the power of friendship in novels. I really loved writing this piece because it allowed me to reminisce on one of my favourite books I’ve read this year and what the relationships there meant for me.

The theme Union has allowed us to produce some really thoughtful, reflective and positive pieces about some of the most powerful things about being human, and most likely topics that we fail to discuss a lot of the time. As we enter sunnier months and brighter times, maybe discussing the importance of friendship and togetherness is the thing to do.

Once again, our writers, editors and designers have been working very hard to deliver this beautiful magazine so I hope you enjoy reading it! I hope this edition is a nice reminder of the beautiful things that bring us all together despite adversity and difficulties. A big thank you as always to our fabulous team, especially Alexa and Maddie, who all work incredibly hard and I am very grateful for!

Thank you again,

Maddie Molly

Deputy Editor Deputy Editor