Issue 23 - Potluck

Salient POTLUCK

Vol. 83

Issue 23

05 October 2020 1

Contents EDITORIAL.......................................................................................................................................................................................... 03 LETTERS & NOTICES

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NEWS Meet the Candidates for Te Tai Tonga Panel Held at VUW.......................................................................................................... 06 Advance Voting Opens at Kelburn Campus.................................................................................................................................. 07 VUWSA AGM 2020, Version 2, Electric Boogaloo....................................................................................................................... 08 Student Representative on VUW Council to be Elected This Week.......................................................................................... 09 Damage of Whiria Project Furthering Distrust.............................................................................................................................. 11 Opinion: Everything Grant Guildford Should Get a Refund on Before Cutting Jobs.............................................................. 12 Shit News............................................................................................................................................................................................. 13 FEATURES Incl. the Kitchen Sink.......................................................................................................................................................................... 14 Memoirs of an 'Extinct' People.......................................................................................................................................................... 18 So You're Gonna Take LSD................................................................................................................................................................. 22 CENTREFOLD COLUMNS Liquid Knowledge..............................................................................................................................................................................

Going Nowhere..................................................................................................................................................................................

To Be Frank.........................................................................................................................................................................................

Green-splaining.................................................................................................................................................................................

Politically Minded...............................................................................................................................................................................

UniQ.....................................................................................................................................................................................................

VUWSA................................................................................................................................................................................................

CULTURE Kitchen Fools........................................................................ 31 Romantic Endeavours at Kelburn Campus...................... 32 Normal People...................................................................... 34

Salient is funded by VUWSA, partly through the Student Services Levy. Salient is kinda, sorta editorially independent from VUWSA. It’s a long story.

Salient is a member of the Aotearoa Student Press Association (ASPA). The perspectives and opinions in any issue of Salient do not necessarily reflect those of the Editors.

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POETRY ENTERTAINMENT Occupation Station Horoscopes

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Complaints regarding the material published in Salient should first be brought to the Editors. If displeased with the Editors’ response, the complaint should then be brought to the Media Council. Complaints should be directed to info@ mediacouncil.org.nz.

Editorial MANAAKITANGA IS HOMEMADE If you came here for an issue dedicated to potlucks, then sorry, we’re fresh out. The theme of this issue isn’t literal. In fact, this issue isn’t themed at all.

We have, however, thought about what potlucks mean for us. If a potluck is a communal gathering and sharing of various homemade foods, then this issue is a community of stories together in a magazine. We’ve got a bit of this, a bit of that, some food stuff, some not food stuff, and plenty of tasty words.

Potlucks are a quintessential part of the transition from high school, to first year, to flatting, to ~adulting~. As we grew from kid to teenager, most of us didn’t cook daily.

When we came to Wellington, likely into halls, a lot of us were catered for. When we moved into our first flats, we learnt how to either cook communially or independently—a rocky road for sure. Now, when we’ve adjusted to flat cooking, or just cooking in general, comes an exciting new endeavour: potlucks.

The premise is simple: bring a plate of kai. The math is good because you’ll bring enough for you to eat alone, but instead you’ll only take a spoonful. The other spoonfuls are from your friend's plates of kai. Thus, you’ll end up sitting cross-legged on the floor, with a colourful platter on a ceramic dish.

Sally had just finished her creation and sat down on the floor between us. Before eating, she paused, surveyed the collection of people around her, and whispered to us, “Look what you two did.”

It’s not the food she was talking about, of course. A dozen people, strangers in February, sharing comfortable silence like they’ve shared a lifetime. We share kai and space, but not small talk. Our mouths are full or we’ve stretched out in the sun, face down. No one says much. We no longer need to.

We’ve had a disrupted potluck year, so get out there and organise one with your friends. Learn a karakia kai. Talk about the food, exchange recipes, ask each other how they are, enjoy some wine and remember to help with the dishes.

We’ll see you next week for our final issue of Salient for 2020. Arohanui x Kirsty Frame (Ngāti Kahungunu | she/her) Rachel Trow (Kāi Tahu, Ngāti Tūwharetoa | she/her)

Potlucks bring people together more than parties ever will.

Call us old but that’s just where we’re at. In the summer you’ll sit outside in your friend's backyard, or even the Botans. You’ll have fresh salads and beers in a chilly bin.

In the winter you’ll cozy inside, and if you’re lucky, your flatmate will let you put the heat pump on. You’ll have warm lasagne and maybe a red wine.

This year we peaked our potluck game, by having an entire weekend enjoying kai and company at Castlepoint.

We’d just come back from the beach. Towels were hung out over the balcony like soggy flags. If you laid out below them you could see steam rise in the heat of the sun.

We’d brought bread rolls in bulk, iceberg lettuce, meats, and seven kinds of hummus, along with leftovers from the night before. We wandered up to the table whenever there was a free spot and piled sandwiches high, returning to various patches of light on the wooden floor.

No one rushed.

(Most of) the Salient 2020 team in Castlepoint.

Photo by: Finn

Brought to you by Peoples Coffee Newtown

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What

offers:

y c a c o Adv Services Have a problem?

Our advocacy service helps students deal with university related and personal problems.

We’re 100% independent from the university, which means the advice we provide will always be in your best interest.

To learn more about this service, and how we can help you, visit: vuwsa.org.nz/advocacy

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Letters + Notices Salient Editor 2021 The editorship is a full-time, paid position beginning in late January 2021 finishing in November 2021. Two people may apply together, as co-editors, and the job will become two part-time paid positions equivalent to the hours for full-time.

Applicants should have mainstream or student journalism experience, have excellent communication, leadership, budgeting, digital content, marketing and organisational skills, and some

management experience. Interest in student issues, as well as national affairs, is vital.

Applications should include a CV, portfolio of writing, and a cover letter outlining your vision for Salient and Student Media. Applications should be received prior to 11th October at 4 pm. Applicants must apply via Seek.

Inquiries to ceo@vuwsa.org.nz.

Heya - just wanted to say that the crossword this week was particularly excellent!! I couldn't find any credits in the magazine so please pass on the message :) Did we do something right?

Something wrong? Enlighten us.

Best letter gets bean juice, thanks to our mates at Peoples Coffee Newtown Dear Salient, Love your work, big fan, keep fighting the good fight. Now that's out of the way, why are there not three sudokus? The Critic has them? Why can't you? Also, I really miss the news recap, whoever's in charge of that needs to pick up the fuckin' slack.

Where's my larger national news? I miss it. Other than that, awesome work as always. How good.

Have a great day.

Send your letters and notices to editor@salient.org.nz before 5pm Tuesday for the following week’s issue.

Lots of love, Philip Whitehill

Letters + Notices

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News

MONDAY 5TH OCTOBER 2020

Meet The Candidates for Te Tai Tonga Panel Held at VUW Te Aorewa Rolleston | Ngāi te Rangi, Ngāti Ranginui | She/Her

Candidates standing for the largest electorate in the Māori electoral roll met at Victoria University last Monday to outline their policies and discuss issues posted to them by the student community.

The Te Tai Tonga electorate covers the area from Rakiura/ Stewart Island to the bottom of the North Island, including Wellington.

Tākuta Ferris from the Māori party, Ariana ParetutanganuiTamati from the Green party, and Anituhia McDonald from the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis party all took part in the panel discussion hosted by Victoria University Lecturer and Te Kawa a Māui staff member, Maria Bargh.

The absence of tertiary student support and funding particularly during COVID-19 was posed during the discussion with the candidates.

Paretutanganui-Tamati shared the Green Party policy of introducing a $325.00 weekly universal basic income that would assist students and also their aim to push for tertiary education to be free in the future.

“We want to address those issues around equity... in terms of student loans, over-time we actually want to phase those out,” said Paretutanganui-Tamati.

The Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party was aiming to support students so they can have an accessible opportunity to pursue education.

“The Aotearoa Legalize Cannabis Party has been saying for 24 years that the money that comes from these tax revenues are going to go to the areas that need it, education, housing, jobs, healthcare systems”.

“A universal student income should be there and it will be there with the Māori party.”

Ferris made it clear that when it came to advocating for Māori issues, there needed to be an independent Māori voice.

“Despite there being clear evidence and assertion by Te Ao Māori that Māori solutions will be the solutions that build and free our people..., in 2020 we find ourselves at the bottom of almost every possible debt there is in society.”

McDonald was focused on sharing the potential benefits for Whānau and the wider country if cannabis was legalised.

"Ferris made it clear that when it came to advocating for Māori issues, there needed to be an independent Māori voice."

In particular, the party member outlined how legalization would open opportunities related to re-connection for Māori in particular to whakapapa, tikanga, and whenua.

“Is it going to cause more harm? The answer is no, it’s going to reduce harm, it’s going to create more jobs and more opportunities for our people,” said McDonald.

Representing the Green Party, Paretutanganui-Tamati acknowledged the effect policy and legislation has had upon Māori and Pasifika communities especially since the last economic reset occurred.

The Māori Party focused on an income policy where a universal student income would be promoted.

Paretutanganui-Tamati referred to the current impact of COVID-19 and how Aotearoa was at a “critical turning point” for addressing the issues that have exacerbated over-time.

Ferris explained that living costs and student debt needed to be decreased and that connecting Māori students to more scholarships especially those provided by iwi was a focus.

“...We need a universal guaranteed minimum income, raise those levels and stop forcing our whānau to choose whether they put kai on the table or they send their kids to school.”

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Advance Voting Opens at Kelburn Campus Annabel McCarthy | Te Whakatōhea | She/Her

Students and the public can cast their votes in the 2020 General Election at Kelburn campus as part of advance voting until Friday 16 October and as part of election day voting on Saturday 17 October.

Advance voting for the General Election and referendums opened on Saturday 3 October, two days earlier than usually would be the case. Advance votes can be cast at select voting places only, of which Kelburn campus is one.

Owing to COVID-19, the Electoral Commission has put in place a range of measures at voting places across the country to help ensure the safety of people wishing to cast their votes this election. These measures include contact tracing, providing hand sanitiser for those entering and exiting voting places, managing queues, and allowing more room for physical distancing.

Victoria University’s voting booth this year is located in the Student Union Building Memorial Theatre Foyer at Kelburn campus.

Despite efforts to increase the size and number of voting places across the country, allowing for added space and social distancing, students on campus will only have the one voting booth to choose from.

In the run up to the 2017 General Election, the Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association (VUWSA) set up two advance polling stations: one at Kelburn campus in the Hub and one opposite Pipitea campus in Asteron House.

Free rides to nearby voting booths were also provided by VUWSA to students studying at Te Aro campus on certain days. This was part of the Students’ Association’s efforts to get 100% of students voting. Such a service is not being provided in the run up to this year’s election.

This year, VUWSA’s election campaign ‘Ask Me Why I’m Angry’ consisted of multiple panel discussions on the topics of welfare, the environment, and the End of Life Choice referendum. Panellists included Disability Human Rights Commissioner Paula Tesoriero, Labour MP Ruth Dyson, Wellington City Councillor Tamatha Paul, and several Victoria University lecturers. The panel discussions are currently available online to view.

VUWSA also hosted a debate between the Wellington Central electorate candidates in September.

hosted online on Thursday 8 October at 6pm. Labour MP Chris Hipkins, Green Party Co-leader James Shaw, National MP Simeon Brown, Māori Party Co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and The Opportunities Party Leader Geoff Simmons will all speak at this panel.

"The Electoral Commission has put in place a range of measures at voting places across the country to help ensure the safety of people wishing to cast their votes" In terms of the impact of COVID-19 on election day proceedings, Chief Electoral Officer Alicia Wright has indicated measures are in place to ensure people will be able to vote in person if the country moves to Alert Level 2.

Protective gear will also be made available for voting staff if necessary.

Furthermore, the Electoral Commission is working with the Ministry of Health on how to adapt these measures if areas of the country are placed at higher Alert Levels. The Commission has also increased capacity for takeaway and postal voting if needed.

The Electoral Commission is asking people to bring their own pens to polling booths, although there will be pens available for those who forget.

Those wishing to vote can do so any time from 3 October to election day, 17 October. People can also enrol to vote any time, including on election day. Once voting starts on 3 October, people can enrol and vote at the same time at any voting place.

To find your closest advance or election day voting booth, head to the Electoral Commission’s website at vote.nz.

The voting booth at Victoria University is located in Memorial Theatre Foyer in the Student Union Building, 1 Kelburn Parade.

Advance votes can be made anytime between Monday 5 October to Friday 9 October from 10am to 4pm and Monday 12 October to Friday 16 October from 9am to 5pm.

Election day voting on Saturday 17 October will be available from 9am to 7pm.

Additionally, as part of the ‘Ask Me Why I’m Angry’ campaign, a National Tertiary Students’ Forum will be

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VUWSA AGM 2020,

Version 2, Electric Boogaloo Rachel Trow | Kāi Tahu, Ngāti Tūwharetoa | She/Her

The VUWSA Annual General Meeting was held last week and was actually able to meet the quorum before midday.

Here’s the rundown.

Kicking things off Acting President Taylah Shuker started the meeting by totally denouncing the “harmful” behaviour at the cancelled VUWSA AGM. Shuker was referring to the “Zoom-bombing” of the online meeting, earlier in September. The minutes of the 2019 IGM and AGM were passed unanimously, duh.

2020 Highlights Shuker said COVID had put “an extra spin on things” but VUWSA had some great events throughout the year regardless. The exec had run several campaigns and made submissions on a bunch of issues that matter to students. Shuker encouraged everyone to enrol and vote in the General Election, telling the audience that “politicians are only going to make policies for young people if they get out there and vote”.

Independent Arbitrator Shuker moved to elect the Independent Arbitrator, Fleur Fitzsimons (Wellington City Councillor and former VUWSA President). Returning Officer, Millie Osborne asked, “what does that mean?” CEO Matt Tucker answered that the arbitrator was an independent oversight on VUWSA business but added that the person needed to be someone who understood how VUWSA worked and joked, “how independent can they be?”

Former Salient News Editor, Johnny O’Hagan Brebner asked who’d been doing it since the IGM seeing as the IGM didn’t happen. Tucker replied that it had been Fitzsimons all along, un-officially elected. Yikes. Motion passed.

Cash Dollars The 2020 Half Year Statement was carried with a unanimous yes. Shuker stated that they were “in line or slightly ahead” of 2019 financials. VUWSA is (almost) Living Wage Accredited. The budget has increased from $1,272,956 to $1,309,897.50.

The 2021 Budget was passed despite Treasurer Secretary Ralph Zambrano being unable to explain why there was a $25,000 increase for clubs and rep group support.

Zambrano explained $5000 of the increased spending as being funded by “moving a few budget lines.”

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VUWSA CEO Matt Tucker considers quitting his job as Johnny O’Hagan Brebner poses a question at the AGM.

Salient clarified after the AGM that “the representative group funding was allocated $7000 in 2019, and this amount was split in the 2020 budget between 2 lines but was still essentially $7000. There is no new spending in the 2021 budget—just a readjustment of the allocation between these two lines again.”

Constitutional Amendments Current Welfare Vice President, Michael Turnbull runs through the constitutional amendment which moves to change the Equity and Wellbeing Officer title to simply Equity Officer. One nay from the crowd on this one, with Millie Osborne stating “Equity and Wellbeing sounds better.”

General Business Life Memberships were given out: one each to Associate Director of Mauri Ora, Kevin Rowlatt, Taylah Shuker, and Engagement Vice President Joanna Li. Johnny O’Hagan Brebner asked why constitutional breaches hadn’t been tabled at the AGM, referring to the fact that there was no IGM in trimester one. He asked how students could be confident in constitutional oversight in light of this.

VUWSA CEO Matt Tucker gave answers as to why the IGM hadn’t happened but not why the breaches weren’t recorded at the AGM. Salient sought further comment to which VUWSA replied, “VUWSA will be seeking to address any breaches and have them validated in due course— Most likely at the 2021 IGM.” Tucker stated that students could still be confident in the association despite these breaches, and student media had played a role in holding the Association to account.

Naw. Thanks, koro.

Student Representative on VUW Council to be Elected this Week Te Aorewa Rolleston | Ngāi te Rangi, Ngāti Ranginui | She/Her

Several University Council Student Representative Candidates' flags hung in the Hub.

Voting for the new student representative on the University Council opens Monday the 5th of October and closes on Friday the 9th. All active students can vote and will receive an email to vote electronically. The successful candidate will sit for a two year term, January 2021 to December 2022.

The candidate will sit on the governance board alongside current University representative Rhianna Morar (Ngāti Porou, Te Arawa) who has one more year in her term.

Why is it important for students to vote?

Salient spoke to Morar about the importance of the upcoming election. Morar told Salient that the value of being a student representative was instilled in the ability to have a voice and that “your vote matters”.

For Morar, it was also important to consider how the culture and support encompassed by University Council members was central to uplifting and acknowledging

student representatives. This is so that their voices were heard and their contribution was equally considered amongst those of the other council members.

“In terms of the formalities in voting, students and staff tend to awhi each other, Hugo and I have been a really strong team this year”.

“We actually experience the decisions that are made at council and the flow on effects of that in our day to day lives. I think in terms of a cultural perspective, the solidarity between the student and staff representatives has been really important and really influential in terms of when we have a strong collective front”.

The current Chancellor of Victoria University, Neil PaviourSmith responded on behalf of the University to Salient’s request for comment saying, “Student members on Council are equal peers on Council and their voice is the same as any other Council member”

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“At Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, students elect the student Council members... Our students serve for a two-year term (compared to one-year in many other cases) meaning they have an opportunity to deepen their contribution as they spend more time as a Council member”.

The University Council has four members who are elected by the Minister for Tertiary Education and an additional eight are appointed by the Council itself.

Decision making surrounding funding, the University’s strategic plan and the actioning of governance and policies related to the Education Act established in 1989 are matters covered by the University Council.

Honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi The University Council currently has one elected representative out of twelve, separate to the Deputy Vice Chancellor Māori, who identifies as Māori sitting within the governing body. There is one ministerial appointed member, Cath Nesus who has whakapapa Māori.

NZUSA President and previous University Council student representative, Isabella Lenihan-Ikin said, “Te Tiriti is about Mana motuhake, about sovereignty, about representation, we dramatically need to shift the way that we have representation of Māori and non-Māori on the university council”.

Within the current ‘Council Membership Statute’ adhered to by the Council there is no established acknowledgement of Te Tiriti o Waitangi principles which would ensure representative voices of Māori as a partnering body would be elected.

There was a separate adjoining Te Tiriti o Waitangi Statute implicated into the governance of the Council in 2019 but this document would still not allow an equal appointment of Indigenous members both within a student and staff capacity.

Paviour stated that,“Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington is the only Aotearoa New Zealand university to have a specific Treaty of Waitangi statute, which was comprehensively updated recently after wide consultation with the University community”.

“Our marae is central to life at the University and its name, Te Herenga Waka, is also now the Māori name of the University”.

“Te Aka Matua—Māori Advisory Committee is a permanent committee of Council and exists to consider Treaty of Waitangi issues among other things and to advise Council on the University’s relations with Māori communities”.

Lenihan-Ikin expressed that, “At the moment there are very limited Māori seats on the council, we’re not going to be able to ensure that there is constantly a Māori student

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voice at the table if we don’t have that”.

“For a university that calls itself Te Herenga Waka and for a University that has a Marae and talks about the iho and the essence of the University being located within Te Herenga Waka. There is so much more that we can do to ensure that and it begins with those structural changes like who sits at the table, who brings the conversation, who recognizes the importance of Te Tiriti”.

“The law for representation on the university council currently mandates that there is one student and one staff member, I don’t believe that that’s sufficient, as much as i believe that one student and one staff member is not sufficient, I don’t believe that we are actually going to allow for all communities to be at the table unless we have Māori seats on council. So I really believe that there should be a tauira Māori as a student elected equally with staff”.

Morar also stated that “The job of the council is to assess the strategic plan, in the strategic plan it says that the marae is at the heart of this institution and all of our values include things like kaitiakitanga and rangatiratanga”.

“Theoretically I think that every single council member knows that there is a duty for them to integrate whether or not those values are being given effect to by management”.

With a new student representative being elected there is an opportunity to elevate the experiences and perspectives of students while also nominating those individuals that will further contribute to the embodiment of Te Tiriti o Waitangi as a founding document.

Lenihan-Ikin emphasized that, “The importance of Māori voices comes back to Te Tiriti in the sense that… as much as we need equal representation of course, we need to have systems and structures that allow for the operationalization of Te Tiriti, beyond it just being a Māori issue”.

“Where we have both Māori and Pākeha coming to the table and talking about how we can advance the partnership that this country was founded on”.

Electronic voting will commence on Monday 5 October 2020 and close on Friday 9 October 2020 at 5.00 pm.

Damage of Whiria Project Furthering Distrust Finn Blackwell | He/Him

While the highly controversial Whiria project did not progress further into stage 2, many restructural plans are continuing with similar essence. The impending financial issues VUW face are further building tension between University staff and University senior leadership.

A university staff member spoke to Salient about their concerns shared with many colleagues, saying they “actually expect nothing good anymore [from the University]” “Trust is non-existent. We used to call it a low trust environment, but I would now call it an active distrust environment.”

This comes as the University is anticipating a forecasted $19 million deficit for this year and a further $33 million loss for 2021.

“There are still many concerns staff have over their faculties and budgets. It looks like there will be attempts to restructure faculties [...] the budgets are now held at or even above the faculty level, which means schools don’t have a budget anymore, which means we can’t decide to hire tutors, to give marking relief, which means we cannot decide to give work to students.”

Students have previously reported feeling nervous and left out from discussions, both before and after the Whiria Project came to light.

As VUWSA stated in their submission on the Whiria Project, they were disappointed that “this so-called ‘discussion document’ was produced with no student consultation.”

Since the Whiria Project has been prevented from furthering to stage 2, key restructure plans with similar essences are being discussed at the upper level. The fears of job losses for these restructures are a concern for some staff and students of VUW. The University previously stated that cost-reduction measures unrelated to job cuts “can be progressed immediately” however, the timeline for these immediate measures and consultation with staff and students is unclear.

When asked whether they thought this restructure was a result of the poor planning over lockdown, or whether it was simply an inevitability, a staff member explained that “it’s a byproduct and, as I view it, a growing complete detachment from how a university works and what we need.”

The staff member remarked that “it’s also a lack of respect.

For me, it was a very clear lack of respect for students, to VUWSA, but also to us, the staff.” “[I] see that as a breakdown of good faith, of respect, and of a university management that isn’t interested anymore in communicating with the most important people in this University and that’s the people.”

The staff member’s message to University senior leadership was a plea for trust.

“Trust us to do our job. Trust us, listen to us, go to the faculties, to the deans and associate deans and say ‘what are you doing’, ‘what are the best examples of coping in your faculty’, let’s exchange ideas, let’s roll that out across the University, listen to staff and students and implement it University-wide.”

“The leadership thinks they know what’s best, when in fact they haven’t taught for years and years and years, and they don’t know how it functions and they’re not interested in best practice.”

When asked how students can contribute to discussions surrounding these “immediate” measures, the University previously stated stakeholders “will be engaged in developing the solutions and advising on the consequences of the options.”

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Opinion Everything Grant Guilford Should Cut Before Cutting Jobs Salient Staff

PLEASE GRANT WE JUST WANT HOUSING LOL So, you’re a University in need of some good old fashioned restructuring. Time for a fresh coat of paint, some grease on the wheels, and you’re good to go. There’s just one problem, what to ditch and what to keep?

A restructure is the perfect opportunity to cull some expensive jobs. But is it the best thing for staff and students? Fuck. Naw. So, for those adventurous enough to undergo such an arduous task as fixing a university, here is the definitive list of things that Grant Guildford should get a refund on before he cuts any jobs.

1.

Failed Re-O Week Events Ah yes, ‘hello’, ‘kia ora’, ‘ni hao’, ‘tālofa lava’, cuz who doesn’t want to feel like they’re in an airport as they walk to class? While a nice idea to reflect the different backgrounds of VUW students, there must have been a less expensive way of going about it.

2. That Wall of Hellos in the Hub Uni events are expenny. The Uni blew $30,000 on that cancelled re-O week event, which could have kept a couple of tutors in a job for another year. If the University decided not to drop that much cash on an event, do nothing to promote it, and cancel it two days beforehand, ruling out any refunds, they’d save themselves a lot of money and dignity.

3. Buying the Gordon Wilson flats Sure, buy them to build high-density, sustainable housing, but not a glorified front door. VUW bought the abandoned flats at the bottom of the terrace (you

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know, the super haunted-looking ones) in 2014 for $6 million. The site is heritage listed for some absurd reason, but the uni is trying to change this. They want to knock it down and build a multi-million dollar entranceway to the uni because fuck jobs amirite?

4.

Rebrands or Restructures by Stealth VUW decided it would be a good idea to drop nearly half a million dollars on the infamous brand refresh.

HALF A MILLION. We’re trying to save the university money here, so for them to go out and drop HALF A MILLION DOLLARS on something like this is definitely something that could have been avoided, and in turn, saved the uni a lot of cash. Same goes for a multimillion dollar restructure. Someone please explain to me how spending millions on restructure consultancy saves them millions. Make it make sense.

5. The Hunter Building? Cancelled.

Not entirely sure what they’re doing over there with all the construction, but heritage buildings can get fucked. Let the gothic architecture crumble, and with it, the colonial foundations of this institution.

With all eyes once again turning to senior leadership for any inclination of what’s going on, I hope this list gives them at least some idea of the possible alternatives they could look at (but who are we kidding, Grant Guilford isn’t reading this). However, if you are Grant, reflect on your shitty spending habits, and consider some of these options before you bring the axe down on anyone.

Shit News THIS WEEK HAS BEEN AN ABSOLUTE ROLLER COASTER AND THROWING IN POLITICAL DEBATES HAS MADE IT EVEN WILDER. WHETHER LISTENING TO JAWSH 685, GOING FOR A WALK, OR MAKING A CALL HOME. MAKE SURE YOU’RE DOING SOMETHING FOR YOURSELF THIS WEEK <3

MONDAY 28TH SEPTEMBER

WEDNESDAY 30TH SEPTEMBER

The Celtics lost to the Heat. This means that the Heat are going up against the Lakers for the NBA championship.

Trump and Biden had their first debate for the 2020 US election. It sucked. It’s terrifying. We’re exhausted.

A new poll came out which showed that Labour could govern alone. Same shit, different week.

Moreover, we had a double whammy with our own leaders' debate. Paddy Gower hosted really well. Ardern was dodging every question, JUST TELL US IF YOU’RE VOTING YES FOR CANNABIS!!!!

Greens and ACT are polling at about the same number.

People think ACT is looking very promising and for some reason everyone thinks The Greens are struggling.

The first good debate we’ve seen this election cycle was only online thanks to the folks at TVNZ. Jack Tame ran a good youth voters debate. The New Zealand First bloke spoke quite well but he’s also a part of NZF so hopefully he has aspirations outside of the political world for at least the next 3 years. Chlöe was great as usual, Simeon Brown was Simeon Brown.

In concerning news, the latest cannabis referendum poll is well under 50%. Talk to your families, your instagram friends are likely on the same page as you.

TUESDAY 29

TH

SEPTEMBER

It is snowing in Dunedin. This was almost as annoying as Auckland's problems last week.

While sitting at the TAB, breaking news came through that some folk connected to NZ First got in trouble with the Serious Fraud Office. Winston has come through on the attack and is trying to take the SFO to court. The man never stops. If NZF don't get in, Winston won't disappear.

We look forward to watching Trackside and hearing Peters commentate the Boxing Day races at Awapuni.

Collins was comparing meat-free-mondays communism. Shout out to our vego comrades.

to

Both sides talked shit about The Warehouse and our televisions shortly after cut to Warehouse ads... talk about a misspending of money.

Actually speaking of bad spending, Ardern said she supported the 12 million given to that Green School.

Big yikes.

Collins endorsed Trump...read the room.

THURSDAY 1ST OCTOBER After a big rest from yesterday's exhausting politics, our minds are a lot better.

It is now the first day of the election month.

LADI6 GOT ADDED TO THE 2021 HOMEGROWN LINEUP, MEAN First game of the NBA finals is happening at 2pm. We’re sending this off for proof reading before the match. Trying to be Nostrodamus… Lakers winning by 11+ points.

The ‘unstoppable’ mentality from yesterday was far too optimistic. Due to the good weather a lot of people have been posting their Mt Vic walks and it’s made us stare longingly from our office across to the lookout. Let's hope the rest of the week gets better.

News: Issue 23

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Incl. the Kitchen Sink A History of Kitchens Words by Sally Ward | She/Her

The kitchen is made of stainless steel and oiled wood.

The stove runs on gas next to an inbuilt oven, the perfect height for peering into. Pots hang above overgrown herbs and ceramics filled with wooden spoons, soup ladles and a whisk sit on the bench. The pantry is stocked with jars of preserved lemons, jams and buckets of flour. There are serving platters for every kind of meal. The kitchen island is a workbench, smooth from kneading dough, with stools to sit at for drinking coffee and writing recipes. Piles of cookbooks lay splattered with creativity.

The toaster, kettle and cake mixer are used too often to be put away. In the morning it sounds and smells like sugar syrup crackling over freshly baked cinnamon buns. At night it sounds and smells like onions and garlic sauteing.

The tap doesn’t drip and the dishes are done, unless it’s a roasting tray soaking from the night before. The rubbish bin is outside and the fridge is clean.

I think about this with my eyes closed.

The kitchen I learnt to cook in was at our house in Waiwhare—a small space, with a respectable oven, overlooking a paddock. The chipped grey paint on the cabinets revealed a shocking 1970s lime green underneath.

I have worked in commercial kitchens, most recently in Wadestown with a baker’s oven so big I could stand in it.

I have lived in numerous flats with kitchens ranging from outright shit to functional. On Cuba Street the tap knob fell off and the cabinets were bubbled because the MDF had expanded after being exposed to moisture. My current place houses 7 of us with two fridges and a modest,

reliable oven. Our kitchen has a little island, which is how I know we’ve made it, although we can’t keep the floor clean.

There’s the kitchen at your school hall with brown glass mugs and the water boiler attached to the wall above the sink. It smells like must, milo and community. There’s the cosy apartment kitchen with baby blue tones in Julie and Julia. There’s Kim K’s monolithic, minimalist marble monster which looks too big and clean to be used.

These places have stories.

Kitchens are the centre of any house, where the snacks are. In tracking their evolution across the last 100 years, I learnt a lot about who we are. The development of the kitchen could be boiled down to technological advances (honourable mentions to ovens and fridges), gender roles, unit standardisation, mass production, and capitalism.

The Katherine Mansfield House on Tinakori Road was established in 1877. The kitchen comprises two rooms at the back of the house, where guests are not supposed to go. The finishes are much less ornate and grand than in the rest of the house. Being well-to-do, the Mansfield kitchen was run by a housekeeper. There’s a room displaying preserves and a separate space for the coal range. This place is pre war and pre electric oven, frozen like it’s the turn of the 20th C. Aotearoa’s first oven is the umu, for cooking a hāngi.

Rocks are heated up by fire in a dug out pit. Once the embers have been removed, food is layered on top. It’s covered with damp cloths or leaves before sealing it over with earth.

Feature: Incl. the Kitchen Sink

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The ovens I am most familiar with are colonial. When British colonists and immigrants arrived, they used cooking methods from 17th C Europe because cast iron ranges were not available. They cooked on open fires, it was sooty, grubby and probably carcinogenic. By the 1850s, British and American ranges were appearing in wealthy homes.

They were powered by bituminous coal or lignite coal, releasing smoke and drop soot.

In 1873 Henry Shadlock designed the Orion Coal Range, manufacturing on Princess St in Dunedin until the 1940s— you can see an Orion at the Mansfield house. Electricity and gas began replacing coal in the 1920s and we got temperature gauges. They were a game changer, cooking was no longer about how close your pot was to the flame.

These flasher, more convenient amenities were not widely available until the 1960s.

The next big thing was the fridge. Fridges were added to the New Zealand Consumer Price Index (CPI) in 1955. A fridge cost £98 ($4,770 NZD today) and about half of the country had access to one. Others had a food safe—a glorified metal box with vents on the side to let air circulate.

(Note: dishwashers were added to the CPI basket in 1980).

The relationship between gender and kitchens is unseverable. It’s no coincidence that traditional domestic aprons are pink and frilly while chefs' aprons are utilitarian.

Home cooking was women’s work. In 1848, a dude named Edward from the New Zealand Company advised men to learn how to make bread and slaughter animals. This was not to share domestic tasks, but to ensure men could feed themselves while setting up farms without a wife or hired cook. This explains a lot about BBQs. Cooking eventually came to be known as ‘home science.’

It was formally taught at Otago University in 1911, and was compulsory for girls at school by 1917, a programme which mirrored global trends. Catherine Beecher’s A Treatise on Domestic Economy (1843) argued that women’s work in the domestic sphere influenced the world at large, and advocated for the “education of women in earnest.” She promoted modesty and virtue, but wanted the women’s role to be recognised as powerful and taught as a skill.

"The relationship between gender and kitchens is unseverable. It’s no coincidence that traditional domestic aprons are pink and frilly while chefs' aprons are utilitarian."

Christine Friedrick took these ideas a little further by applying ‘Tayorlism’ in the domestic sphere. Taylorism is a theory that “analyses and synthesises workflows” in the interest of improving economic efficiency. This was primarily used in the context of factory work, until Friedrick started conducting experiments in her New York kitchen,

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Words by Sally Ward

later publishing Household Engineering in 1919. She is credited for standardising the height of kitchen work surfaces.

There’s that strange feeling of being in someone else’s kitchen and knowing you’ll be able to find things in the same place as at home. This could be to do with the Frankfurt Kitchen, an architectural wonder. It was designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky in Germany as part of a social housing project in 1926. It was the first time kitchens were built using standardised, low-cost units for efficient work-flow. Schütt-Lihotzky was heavily influenced

by Taylorism.

Mass production techniques developed during WW2 have set the current standard. Everything from kitset imports to matching coloured drawers. By the 1980s, microwaves were everywhere as well as other robots like food processors. These products became cheaper and more accessible. I wondered if this is a good thing.

I call my aunty when I need answers to big questions. I asked her if I owe my ability to access a fridge to capitalism.

Could capitalism be beneficial in this sense? Her answer was no. She thinks we need to separate ‘human progress’ from capitalism. Capitalism has conflated needs with wants.

The fridge can be seen as a natural technological development in food preservation. However, we might desire a bigger shinier fridge than we need to store our food. My aunty went on to say that previously, you would have been able to repair your fridge. Today, companies count on you getting a new one. I thought this was a fair assessment of fridges under capitalism.

Comparing the Mansfield House kitchen to what we have today, there has been a shift from separated rooms to open plan situations. Frank Lloyd Wright advocated open plan living, taking down the walls of the kitchen so that the ‘housewife’ could act as a hostess. The introduction of the extractor fan was integral to contain cooking smells.

"I call my aunty when I need answers to big questions. I asked her if I owe my ability to access a fridge to capitalism."

Contemporary kitchens also represent changes in food preparation. We no longer rely on sculleries full of preserved lemons, because we have ‘convenience foods’ which can be kept in the freezer. Before fridges we relied on jams, pickles and the local canning factory. Alcohol was a significant ingredient for meat preservation alongside curing, smoking and drying things like fish and bacon.

I am perplexed as to what Kim K does in her kitchen, besides show off her wealth. Kitchens are about status, especially since they became integrated into the living area. People love to show off their soda water tap and cabinets that close gently no matter how hard you slam them. The quality and size of a kitchen, like most things under capitalism, has a lot to do with money. The venn diagram of owning a ‘flash kitchen’ and ‘money’ is basically a circle. An NZ Kitchen Cost Calculator estimates a mid range set up, with an engineered stone benchtop, MDF cabinets and mid range fittings to be $17,640. At the lower end, Mitre 10 sells kitchenettes for $2k, boasting locally made cabinetry. I couldn’t find a price listed for

independent bespoke kitchens because, as the maxim goes, if you have to ask you probably can’t afford it.

Everyone deserves a decent place to cook. Cheap, obsolete kitchens are not practical or sustainable. These are work spaces exposed to steam and grease. My Cuba St flat was built in 2012, and by 2019 most of the knobs had fallen off—on the stove, on the tap and the cupboards.

There are lower cost alternatives that rely on sturdiness and intelligent design, like the Frankfurt Kitchen.

Landlords and government housing initiatives should not be permitted to build things that rely on the cheapest fittings available.

I love cooking and I love being in the kitchen. I fought against it because I didn’t want to adhere to stereotypical gender roles. Home cooking is less gendered, it was my Dad who taught me to cook and turn on the BBQ. Kitchens are a place of creativity and nourishment. I am annoyed that we have to put up with something that is badly designed and barely fit for purpose to eat. I hate cheap ovens, because no matter how much you ‘get to know it’ you can’t make do with a broken heat seal.

Sometimes I make brioche dough, letting it stick to my fingers before it comes together and gets blessed in the fridge overnight. I get the rolling pin out in the morning, slather the dough in butter and sprinkle over cinnamon sugar. Coffee brews on the stove while the bread bakes.

I eat in the sun with my friends and think about the possibilities contained in the kitchen.

Feature: Incl. the Kitchen Sink

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Memoirs of an ‘Extinct’ People Words by Rāhiri Mākuini Edwards-Hammond Ngāti Kahungunu, Taranaki, Moriori | She/Her

It's O-week. A first-year guy and I are kicking it, chatting about our studies, interests, and family backgrounds over a box of room temperature raspberry Cruisers. We learnt that he was a Pākehā raised between Aotearoa and the US, and I am Māori, raised between the East Coast and our whānau papakāinga in Taranaki. While this conversation started off well enough, a slow and painful descent into the topic of Māori and education resulted in this banger: "I only learnt three things about Māori in school—That you killed the moa; that you were cannibals; and that you killed those other people" - see: eco fascism and dehumanisation x Confused by my life decisions at that point but more pressingly by his last statement, I asked, "Those other people ...?"

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"You know, it sounds like Māori... The Maorriaori?..." he replied, stumbling in a way his three Cruisers couldn’t excuse.

"Moriori?" I finally asked to which he agreed. "Well Moriori can’t be dead,” I replied, “I'm Moriori too.”

I knew these ideas existed in New Zealand. But one week into Uni, and for the first time in my life, I was confronted with the reality that the mere existence of my hūnau (family) and imi (iwi) was a trivial anomaly for some.

So, after that all too familiar experience as an Indigenous person being expected to educate those around me, I figured, why not relive that O-week experience one more time, for the Pākehā/lecturers in the back.

800 kilometres to the east of Aotearoa, Rēkohu, commonly known as the Chatham Islands, has been the

home of Moriori for over 1000 years. They arrived directly from the south-eastern islands of the Pacific. For many years, Moriori lived and maintained a peaceful existence under the covenant of Nunuku’s Law. This law was put in place by Nunuku Whenua, a prominent 16th-century tohuk’ (tohunga) in which warfare and cannibalism were outlawed.

A 500-year old cultural law that remains to this day.

Over this period, Moriori developed their own distinctive culture, identity, and language, completely distinct from other Pacific cultures such as Māori. However, in 1791, first interactions between Moriori and Pākehā occurred when the British ship, Chatham, coincidently came across the islands after blowing off its initial course.

On arrival, the land was promptly ‘claimed’ in the name of the British Empire and dubbed the Chatham Islands.

During the crew’s time in Rēkohu, a misunderstanding occurred between the sailors and a Moriori man, Tamakaroro. Whilst protecting his fishing nets, he was shot and killed, resulting in the first Moriori life lost at the hands of these outsiders. Despite this, peace was maintained and a resolution was made to ensure that future visitors would be welcome and respected.

As noted by the crew of the Chatham, Rēkohu promised abundance. The early 1800s soon saw the arrival of whalers and sealers in swarms, devastating seal populations—an essential clothing source for Moriori.

Turning the gaze to Aotearoa, the 1820’s saw Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama of Taranaki join Te Rauparaha in their descent to Te Whanganui-a-Tara. Here, they took possession of the land from Ngāti Ira and Ngāi Tara tribes.

In 1834, a member of these tribes visited Rēkohu on a sailing ship. He returned to his people at Waiwhetu Marae with stories of Rēkohu (mistakenly dubbed ‘Wharekauri’) and the plentiful supply of seafood and peaceful inhabitants.

Alongside a falling out with Ngāti Toa, this provided Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama incentive to invade Rēkohu.

Thus in 1835, aboard the English ship, ‘Lord Rodney’, Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama sailed to Rēkohu.

On landing, the newcomers stumbled ashore, plagued with seasickness and were nursed back to health by the t'chakat henu (people of the land). After a few weeks and upon their return to health, Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama turned on the Moriori people and began their first wave of pillaging, killing, and enslavement.

Those who know me know I am staunchly Taranaki. It is where I was born, raised, and is a core part of my identity.

While my connections to Ngāti Mutunga or Ngāti Tama aren’t strong, the reality is they were also my ancestors.

It is here that I find myself at a crossroads. Descended from those who maintained peace and those who destroyed a people. All while my Pākehā whakapapa watches, remembering a Crown who was complicit to the

destruction despite desperate pleas for help.

This period of brutality was described by the Waitangi Tribunal in its Wai 64 ’Rekohu’ Report as the worst case of enslavement in New Zealand recorded history. Moriori numbers plummeted and by 1863 the population of Moriori on Rēkohu was 101, a mere 4% of the Moriori population at the turn of the century.

In 1933, the last “full-blooded” Moriori, Tame Horomona Rehe, passed away. A moment in which many declared the long-awaited extinction of the Moriori people. This is no different to your grandfather who insists, “there’s no full-blooded maaris left anyway!” Or mine, who proudly identified as “1/8th Samoan,” the notion of blood quantum as the highest determinant of ‘ethnic credibility’ still thrives in Aotearoa and around the world.

In the words of Robyn Kahukiwa, our people do not come in parts.

Blood quantum is an ideology fueled by racism and white supremacy. Blood quantum as a measure of Indigeneity stems from the intent to alienate Indigenous peoples from their people and land. It seeks to fractionalise until the person is reduced down to meaningless numbers that in no way represent one's beliefs, values, experiences, or cultural identity.

If you were unaware of this history like my friend from earlier, that is what effective colonial discourse looks like.

It tells you that Moriori were a victim of evolution. It tells you that the oppression of Māori is okay because “they did the same to those other people.” It tells you that blood quantum is more powerful than Indigenous beliefs and understandings of self-identity.

It is up to us whether we continue to be complicit to these colonial discourses which seek to “other”. It is up to us to use our resources and voices to hold ourselves and what we consider to be ‘truth’ accountable.

In rediscovering my Moriori identity and acknowledging my whakapapa within Rēkohu and Taranaki among others, I have learnt that reconnection isn’t about blood quantum, nor is it about how much I do or don’t know. It is about respect, reciprocity, and intent.

Regardless of the actions of my tīpuna, I am here to continue the legacy of my karapuna. In renegotiating what being Moriori looks like for me, I seek to ensure that their history and legacy of peace continues through me and to my future descendants.

Me Rongo (In peace) For more information: Hokotehi Moriori Trust - https://www.moriori.co.nz/

Feature: Memoirs of an 'Extinct' People

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Matt Kendrew

So You’re Gonna Take LSD...

Words by Grace Clarke | She/Her

Disclaimer for immigration: haha jk tho, please don’t deport me xxx When I’m not busy pretending to write an essay, I enjoy exploring the world(s) of LSD. Hi, it’s me, another BA student wanting to talk about drugs.

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I’m pretty sure most of us know what acid is. But, just so we’re all on the same page, LSD stands for lysergic acid diethylamide (hence the nickname “acid”), and is an illegal psychedelic drug. It was created in 1938 by Swiss scientist Albert Hofmann, while working with a chemical found in a fungus that commonly grows on grains (no, this does not mean you should eat your mouldy bread in

an attempt to get high—the only experience you will get is the shits). Hofmann described the first ever acid trip as an experience of “extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors”—I can vouch for this.

We live in an online world, and with that we can tap into many realms of information on how to partake in psychedelics. But these don’t come easy—you’ll mostly have to sift through the “drugs are bad, you need help” infosites. This is with the credible exception of the NZ Drug Foundation, I have to note. But for the most part, we have boomer discourse gatekeeping us from learning how to trip in a fun and safe way. This, among plenty of other things, has resulted in many myths being able to fester.

Let’s dispel some, and explore how we can use acid to have fun and escape from reality every once and awhile.

Before I do, this piece comes with a necessary disclaimer: bad trips are still possible to experience and there are reasons that this drug needs to be handled with caution.

You could have your personal checklist all ticked off, and have a bad time still. We don’t know the contents of our brains, and we all react differently depending on this. The most important takeaway is: have your bases covered, have the right people and environment around you, and know your possible (good and bad) outcomes.

"We have boomer discourse gatekeeping us from learning how to trip in a fun and safe way."

As with any drug, understanding purity and dosage is very important. It’s best to use a test kit to make sure what you’re taking isn’t the much more dangerous (yet very similar in effect) drug NBOMe—you can buy test kits for just 10 bucks at Cosmic. Always check with your dealer about how strong your LSD is—a typical tab (usually between 100 and 150 micrograms) will provide you with more than enough visuals and giggles for around eight hours. There’s evidence to suggest that an excessively massive dose of LSD can cause some physical side effects, like seizures, but this is extremely rare. Unless you were drugged as part of the CIA’s Cold War shenanigans, you should be more than safe.

As a kid, I was told if you took LSD you’d have a terrifying hallucinogenic experience that keeps going forever. We can blame wonderful initiatives like, oh, the war on drugs, for stirring up such claims. Like any hallucinogenic drug, LSD wears off over time—a typical trip lasts between 8-12 hours, depending on the dosage. The idea that you’re completely out of control of what you experience is pretty misleading too. As long as you’ve taken the drug intentionally (*cough* CIA *cough*), you’ll be aware that you’re high. The most important thing to keep in mind is that LSD can often provide an extension of emotions you’re already feeling. So, if you’re excited for acid before

you take it, then you’ll most likely have a good time. If you’re feeling apprehensive, anxious, or aren’t comfortable with those around you—it’s best to sit this one out. Trip sitters are a great idea too, so you’ve got someone sober keeping an eye on everyone—they’ll have a great time roasting your trip antics afterwards.

People high on LSD are easily distractible and influenceable. Sometimes, you can find yourself grasping for lost ideas, as you realise you accidentally started staring at your wardrobe instead of finishing a thought.

This does mean, however, that if you’re having a bad time, it’s relatively easy to overcome. For example, if you get weird vibes staring at yourself in the mirror, you can just turn around and look at something else. Your environment matters too. Do: daylight walks in the garden, don’t: go to the beach and try to swim.

There is certainly more to be said about tripping on acid than just seeing shit. LSD doesn't just alter the way we see things, it also alters how we think. Without meaning to sound like a massive prick who went on a ~spiritual journey~ while high as shit, LSD has helped me come to terms with some of my deepest rooted anxieties.

The medicinal properties of acid have not been widely studied, again we can attribute this to boomer discourse.

As Tahu-Potiki Te Maro-Doran points out in this year’s Te Ao Mārama, Western research has only recently been discovering what Indegenous people have known for centuries about the beneficial properties of psychedelic drugs. For example, acid and other psychedelics have been observed in various studies over the past couple of decades to help some terminally ill patients to come to terms with their diagnosis.

Just like any drug, LSD is not a magic pill (or more aptly, tab). Rather, it can sometimes provide you with a new perspective on your life, and the good and the bad things within it, while simultaneously giving you the experience of laughing at the carpet for an hour.

Unsurprisingly, I’m not the first student to write about LSD in Salient. In fact, there is an excellent advice article in a 1969 issue titled “So You’re Going to Take—LSD.” I personally disagree with some of the claims made in the piece, such as that you shouldn’t trip with your partner unless you’re married, or that you cannot “have a super sex experience on it” (to be fair, results may vary). However, there’s certainly a lot of great advice that has stood the test of time, like making sure you’re in a safe, private space, and to not take it alone when it’s your first time.

Our culture and understanding about drugs has certainly evolved in the past fifty years. However, this cultural artifact highlights that students have always been curious about psychedelics, and want those around them to have safe, enjoyable experiences. So if you do choose to take LSD, whether you end up just staring at your carpet, or somehow manage to create a beautiful piece of art, I hope you have as much fun as I do.

Feature: So You're Gonna Take LSD...

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Liquid Knowledge Caitlin Hicks | Ngāti Ranginui | She/Her

PsiloVIBIN’ This week I thought I’d return to the inspiration for Liquid Knowledge—bits and bobs of Pub Chat for you to sneak into conversations while you make the most of Alert Level One on Courtenay Place. In the spirit of our recent return to the clubs, let’s talk psychedelics, and how your plug might actually be providing you with a healthcare service.

Basically, drug categorisations in New Zealand have almost nothing to do with science and everything to do with political agendas. Medical research into the therapeutic uses of psychedelics (think psilocybin from shrooms, LSD, DMT, Ketamine, MDMA, etc etc) was well-supported in the 20-or-so years prior to the United States’ ‘War on Drugs’.

After the US Federal Government declared most of the above substances Schedule 1 drugs, and a moral panic ensued, funding dried up.

Recently, psychedelic research has experienced something of a renaissance, with many studies eager to establish how these drugs can help to treat particularly intractable health issues—anxiety, depression, and addiction being primary candidates.

Because these drugs diminish activity in the “selfreflection” area of the brain, users are likely to experience “ego dissolution”, a greater sense of connectedness with the world, and a break in harmful and repetitive patterns of thinking. Many users of psychedelics report spiritual experiences, feeling “humbled”, “grateful”, and “connected”. These powerful mystical experiences facilitate the psychological context for positive behavioural changes.

Researchers at the University of Auckland, spearheaded by “neuro-psycho-pharmacologist” Suresh Muthukumaraswamy have made headway with psychedelic research. Between 2016 and 2018, they had volunteers take ketamine and hop in an MRI machine, to investigate the effect of the drug on their brain. Most of the volunteers experienced at least a 50% reduction in

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Columns

their symptoms of depression within a day. Worldwide, researchers are beginning to explore in more depth ketamine’s rapid antidepressant properties. Talk about making that K-hole an OK-hole (lol I’m so sorry).

Their next endeavour is to have volunteers microdose LSD and then go about their daily routines for three whole months to see how the drug affects them. They could expedite the process quite significantly if they visit 121 on literally any weekend night, but, alas, medical research is supposed to be, like, robust or something.

More optimistically too, promising results could (eventually, maybe, hopefully) lead to reforms in the drug classification system in New Zealand. Though, lets see how this Cannabis referendum goes first.

This research is only in its infancy, and volunteers are taking hallucinogens in supervised clinical settings, not Aro Valley living rooms. I would not encourage you to selftreat any of your ailments with drugs, as promising as the results might seem. The risk remains that certain people, particularly those predisposed to psychotic conditions, will have extremely traumatic experiences on these substances, leading to permanent psychological damage.

There is hope that research could pave the way for more openness towards alternative treatments—replacing existing addiction treatments like methadone and Naltrexone, and SSRIs. Eventually, these drugs might become treatments for a much wider variety of illness. In what might be the dopest (no pun intended) quote of all time, NYU drug policy expert Mark Kleinman reckons "The obvious application [of psychedelics] is people who are currently dying with a terminal diagnosis. But being born is a terminal diagnosis. And people’s lives might be better if they live out of the valley of the shadow of death.”

Going Nowhere Vic Bell | Kāi Tahu | She/Her

When I think Potluck I only think of one thing: Lesbians.

Potlucks. Astrology. Tracy Chapman. Reading poetry from your notes app to each other at parties. Many things bond women loving women together. But perhaps a hallmark of lesbianism as old as time is cats. What better first date than a cat safari? Let’s go find some pussy.

SPCA - Newtown I’ve always thought of the SPCA as a prime date spot.

It’s free, easily accessible, and you get to hang out with bunnies and kittens and puppies without pressure to purchase. Wellingtons’ SPCA is located among the scraggly pines in the town belt between Newtown and Kilbirnie. You can catch a bus or walk up from Constable street.

It’s housed in what used to be the New Fever Hospital— an isolation hospital built in 1920 to house folks with infectious diseases such as Scarlet Fever and Measles.

Before vaccinations and antibiotics were readily available, the only option was to lock your child away from everyone with no carpets or fabric furnishings, give them the occasional spoonful of rum, and cross your fingers. The Wellington City Heritage site describes the building like a 19th century author describing his ideal woman; “simple, attractive, well-proportioned”.

Cat Protection League - Kingston The CPL is a charity that focuses on rehoming and desexing cats, and educating the public. They do not have kittens and seem to take visits more seriously as you do need to ring ahead. So less of a date spot and more for those of you that cannot leave a cat behind once you’ve made eye contact.

Wellington Zoo - Newtown Caracals, Lions, Servals, Tigers, and Cheetahs, oh my! It wouldn’t be a real cat safari without big cats. I love how regal and unbothered the lionesses are. Homosexuality is noted as common behaviour in wild lions, especially between males.

The zoo’s tigers are almost impossible to see, which is good because it means they are being given adequate space and foliage, even at the expense of patrons’ enjoyment.

Servals are probably the lesser-known big cat at the zoo, but they are definitely my favourite. Similar in appearance to a cheetah, they are smaller and what they lack in land speed they make up for vertically. A healthy serval can jump over 1.5 metres high. They are also very cute, and I suggest you drop everything and google “serval kitten”.

Karori Karori was initially known as “kaha-rohe”, or the rope of bird snares. And where there are birds there are cats. As the largest suburb in the Southern hemisphere, there are many streets for domestic cats to roam around.

Let’s address the cat in the room: Gareth Morgan. After Don Brash, he is possibly no.2 in the list of “NZ politicians no one wants at the family BBQ” (and yes, Bill English is no.3). There is a serious problem of feral cats preying on our native and endangered bird populations. Although I do not side with Mr Morgan on euthanising every house cat, it is very important to de-sex your cats. If you can’t afford it, look to the CPL or SPCA to find out about your options.

Te Aro I only acknowledge two monarchs. The first is Tūheitia Pōtatau Te Wherowhero VII. The second is Mittens.

If a self-guided cat safari is the chocolate factory, then Mittens is the golden ticket. He is a Turkish Angora that roams the streets of Wellington Central. I have been lucky enough to meet him twice: once when he was crossing a very busy street in front of my house and I was shocked he made it, and the second time he was lounging on the astroturf up at Kelburn campus. There are other inner city cats to note. A raggedy tabby that lies so still people often mistake it for dead, a black and white chonky boy, and my old flatmate Tamagotchi.

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To Be Frank Frankie Dale | She/Her

PLEASE STOP TREATING MY VAG LIKE A CORN ON THE COB Why do guys act like giving head is the equivalent of giving me a ride home, picking up the bill, or giving me a foot massage? It’s like they almost expect me to say ‘thank you’ after. Like… ok? Thanks heaps for whatever that was, mate.

Recently, I was talking to a guy who made a real scene about how much he loved ~PuSssyyY~. As I stood there disturbed, he kept looking at me for a reaction, as if I was going to have an orgasm on the spot. Eventually, the lure of his sweet pheromones and outlandish beliefs became too much and I couldn’t resist. What do they say again?

Curiosity killed the pussy?

Shockingly, it was awful. As I rolled over, mortified of who I'd become, I couldn’t help but think… is this the reality of the straight girl or is this a universal problem?

Apparently giving head can be ‘sooo gross’. An exboyfriend of mine once went down on me, went up to kiss me and vomited directly into my mouth. No fucking word of a lie. After, we were both huddled over the toilet naked together simultaneously vomiting. To be fair, he was drunk.

I was chatting with a couple friends shortly after when someone dropped a bombshell: “Yeah my boyfriend refuses to go down on me. He says he hates the taste.” As we all looked to the floor embarrassed for our dear friend I reluctantly asked “well, do you go down on him?” I think we know where this story ended up.

On the few occasions he did go down, she felt it was only out of obligation. She tried everything to make it more alluring, flavoured lubes and a shit ton of pineapple.

Obviously ol’ mate thought his dick tasted like a lollipop.

Because I’m effectively a masochist, I decided to take a trip down memory lane on my worst oral experiences.

On one occasion, an ex was going down on me when he abruptly stopped and informed me that “things didn’t feel right with you anymore”. Well yeah, that makes two of us, babe. He then shrugged his shoulders and made

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a sort of 'you should probably go now' gesture. I’m sorry, what happened to for better or for worse? Was it because he was distracted over how much he wanted to fuck my friends? This experience left me feeling like I was the problem, as if there was something I had done to ruin the moment.

Look, I’m not saying that I’m the master of giving head—a couple people reading this can probably vouch for that.

What I’m really saying is that there is a major double standard at play. Heterosexual sex is often centred solely around male pleasure—often considered “unsucessful” when a man doesn’t cum while there’s no expectation for women to orgasm. This is fundamentally fucked up—sex shouldn’t be oriented around climaxing, but pleasure and fun. Only 25% of women can orgasm from penetrative sex alone. This is a global emergency.

Maybe if our sex ed system taught us more than how to put a condom on a rigid wooden stick, we wouldn’t be here. Most of our children are learning about sex from porn which isn’t the greatest reflection of reciprocal sex.

Stop pushing my head down to your crotch 2 milliseconds into our netflix and chill sesh. Not cool.

Giving head isn’t easy and we are all extremely vulnerable when we are naked. But, giving head isn't gross. If I hear another fuckwit talk about how a girl's pubes are too long and he doesnt wanna give her head, I will explode. Can we all please get along? 2020 is coming to an end and everyone deserves some good head.

Green-splaining Celina Monkhouse | She/Her

(NOT) THIS WOMAN'S WORK The days of the plastic supermarket bags are long gone, against my grandma’s best wishes. From period underwear and menstrual cups, to reusable cutlery, to zero-waste shampoo and conditioner—there are an abundance of ‘eco-friendly’ alternatives for the eco-conscious to pick from, should we so choose. Selecting a reusable coffee cup has never been easier (my personal fave is my original Frank Green, which happily houses weekly hot chocolates).

Despite this, one thing remains clear: women continue to be the environment’s ultimate simps. A broad range of research shows that men are less likely to choose eco-friendly or eco-conscious choices, whereas women display a greater willingness to take action to help the environment. There is a strong association between being ‘green’ and being ‘feminine’, one that has been scientifically proven over and over again. Just earlier this year, the Guardian referenced a study that had found that men could be dissuaded to carry a reusable shopping bag out of fear of being labelled as effeminate or, God forbid, gay.

Arguments have been made that women are inherently more empathetic, altruistic and socially minded—and therefore more likely to buy into actions and behaviours that allow them to display those values. While this is probably true, women are also taught that these values are integral to our character. We are taught that to be successful and “good”, we must be friendly, kind, passive, and quiet. We must be complicit and respectful to those around us. It has also been shown that women still assume most of the responsibility in the domestic sphere, including doing the shopping. With the ethical-choice burden on our shoulders, eco-friendly campaigns and products are largely aimed at women audiences, who remain the biggest consumers of household products.

Companies who market “green” products capitalise on this idea to a whole new level (and sometimes, without follow through—green practices in businesses sometimes only extend to marketing, and go no further).

Such eco-friendly marketing thus takes advantage of the strong role that women, regretfully, continue to hold in the domestic sphere and our internalised need to please others. Eco-consciousness is therefore deeply tied to archaic gender norms. Women buy ‘green’ because it proves to us and the world around us that we’re ‘good’ people. That we are socially conscious, care about the environment, and fit into a model of perfection. We need to be cute, quirky, mysterious, fashionable, smart, random—but not TOO random—and oh, we also need to be environmentally conscious. Men aren’t subject to these same constraints, even though they are the ones who have historically held more power, and thus have probably caused more of the climate crisis (really, not a bold thing to say, just the truth).

Maybe you’re thinking: surely any buy-in to environmental incentives is good, no matter who is doing it? And yes, that’s a valid point to make—but these behavioural differences actually have insidious flow on effects.

Protecting the environment and preventing climate change is not women’s work. Sustainability is not women’s work. Women already assume a (highly misguided) caregiver position in society, and that cannot be the case for meaningful environmental progress either. Most of the figures at the forefront of climate action are female: think Greta Thunberg and AOC, further embedding the idea that climate justice is women’s work.

Call me crazy, call me wild, but I don’t think it’s a case of, “well somebody has to be the steward of environmental responsibility”. That kind of thinking is deeply rooted in colonial, patriarchal ideas of individual responsibility. That’s the opposite of what we need right now. Individualisation of responsibility is problematic and can only go so far.

Collective, societal action is needed and that cannot be divided along gender lines.

Columns

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Politically Minded Niva Chittock | She/Her

THE EUTHANASIA ACT As already stated: 2020 is a pearler for Kiwi democracy.

The big three are nearly upon us: the general election and referendums on weed and assisted dying. Whether it’s because it’s a sensitive topic or because minds are already made up, euthanasia has paled in public attention when compared to the others. Three weeks out, it’s time to thrust it into the spotlight.

life within 6 months; •

have a significant and ongoing decline in physical capability;

•

experience unbearable suffering that cannot be eased;

The referendum is a yes or no question: Do you support the End of Life Choice Act 2019 coming into force?

•

be able to make an informed decision about euthanasia independently (mentally sound).

The End of Life Choice debate began to play out publicly in Aotearoa back in 2011 when Lecretia Seales was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumour. During her illness, Seales (a prominent lawyer) brought her case to the High Court. It asked if her GP could prescribe assisted dying to her case without being jailed as well as a declaration from the court stating the current NZ Crimes Act is inconsistent with her fundamental rights and freedoms.

The person would need to be signed off by two independent medical practitioners and a psychiatrist who can confirm there is no influence from any external factors. If at ANY point in the process, the person decides they no longer want to proceed, the process is immediately stopped. For the full text of the act, head to referendums.govt.nz.

The verdict from Justice Collins was that the law was inconsistent with Seales’ right to dignity and personal autonomy but the GP could not offer assisted dying without legal repercussions. The case caught the attention of ACT Leader and Epsom MP David Seymour. He submitted a members bill about euthanasia to Parliament, which was the End of Life Choice Bill. This bill successfully made it through the House in November 2019 but due to its high sensitivity a public referendum is where we find ourselves now.

Our End of Life Choice referendum is legally binding.

Translation: if it passes, it will become law. So there’s a bit at stake. Crucially, to be eligible for euthanasia, one must meet ALL of these criteria: •

be aged 18 years or over;

•

a citizen or permanent resident of New Zealand;

•

suffer from a terminal illness that is likely to end one’s

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Columns

Advocates for End of Life Choice believe that the decision to end your life during a time of terminal suffering is a human right. Everyone should have autonomy over their own life and there shouldn’t be any law dictating this. For some on this side of the fence, they think you should be able to have a dignified death at a time of your choosing.

Opponents for End of Life Choice believe that you should pass naturally. For some this belief stems from a religious background. For Māori, the concept of assisted dying is complicated as the body is tapu. Many do not believe that it should be interfered with medically, hence why euthanasia does not sit well with tikanga Māori.

If you’d like to see a good range of different perspectives on the issue, Alice Snedden’s Bad News S2 E6 is an awesome resource. It can be found on YouTube, The Spinoff or RNZ and is only 15 minutes long.

Remember: referendums are not to be taken too lightly.

Have a good think about your vote and get educated if you’re unsure. It’s your decision at the end of the day, and ideally, you want one that you’re comfortable with.

UniQ

VUWSA

Brock Stobbs | He/Him

Joanna Li | She/Her

THE QUEER AGENDA: AS TOLD BY A CIS-WHITE GAY

VOTE PLEASE (I’M BEGGING YOU)

Here is a non-exhaustive list of what queer students want and need at Victoria University of Wellington (pay attention, Grant!).

Demand 1: Rainbow Room I beg we get a rainbow space somewhere on campus (done with ACTUAL consultation with queer students!).

The value of having a safe and secure space on campus is invaluable to one’s academic success and mental health and well being. Places like the Bubble, while nice and quaint, simply don’t meet the mark. And come on, if AUT can have one, why can’t we? It’s Auckland for fuck’s sake!

Demand 2: Gender-Diverse Bathrooms Come on y’all, it's a no brainer. Like the ones in the Hub under the stairs, but just everywhere. Gender-diverse bathrooms should be the standard in every new building and we should be moving towards making them available everywhere.

Safety and accessibility are just some of the core benefits you will get from having them. They also happen to be cleaner.

Demand 3: Lecturers and Course Content Train your god damn academic staff so that they can discuss even the most basic queer identities and concepts with confidence and respect. Content concerning queer people, in an academic setting no less, should be ACCURATE. It also shouldn’t be harmful. The way some lecturers present queer content consistently makes it difficult for queer students to engage in the courses they pay thousands of dollar to take.

If you have any sway within this hell hole of an institution and want to see queer students have even a moderately good time while they are here, these three things might be a good place to start. But don’t get it twisted, there’s a lot more where that came from.

Sometimes, I really wish that my role didn’t exist.

I’m serious! I wish there wasn’t a need to have an Engagement Vice-President at VUWSA—or if there was, that it was focused on doing things like bringing puppies onto campus, or cool music gigs.

Why? Because if this role didn’t exist, it would mean that everything would be fixed. I wouldn’t have to make videos about the shitty shape of housing and the renting market, because it wouldn’t be shitty. I wouldn’t have to talk again and again and again about the rising cost of living, because student allowance would actually be enough to cover weekly expenses and we’d already have fees free.

VUWSA wouldn’t have to run a campaign for the 2020 General Elections, because we’d be confident that student and youth issues would already be properly addressed.

Unfortunately, we don’t live in that world. Sucks. So instead you get to deal with my niche sense of humour (thank you to all my white male friends who agreed to play the role of “mediocre white man” in my elections videos) and the shitty audio during our livestreams (seriously guys, we’re a team of like 5 people, cut us some slack).

There was a tweet back in June which essentially said “VUWSA should stop with this election bullshit and get back to holding the university to account”.

I disagree (also we’re already doing both lol). Housing is a student issue. Mental health is a student issue. Climate change is a student issue. You can’t look at problems at the University in a vacuum, because they exist in the context of everything else around it.

Voting for the General Election opens on October 3rd, and there’ll be voting booths on or near each campus. You can enrol at the same time as you vote. Look out for the huge fuck off signs as to where. Feel free to slide into our DMs (@vuwsa, or @vuwsagram, probably) for any questions xo

Columns

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We Were There

From The Beginning

We were there when Ganesha's head was lopped off/ Shiva's swagger for His soldiers to pray to/theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d bow their heads to the ground for Him/not for their wives/ we fucking cackled on the sidelines/what a dumbass/ Devi Parvati came outside/tension rolling right back onto her skin/identical to the way Her Son's head rolled off His shoulders/agony on Her face as She wailed at/Her Shiva/only confusion on His face/so typical of a Man/we brought out the popcorn/reclined back on the celestial equivalent of a futon/Shiva scrambles for a solution/ Parvati cries/it makes Him uncomfortable in that/I never bothered learning how to take care of othersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; emotions and now I wish my snake necklace could just strangle me/type of way we didn't even know that Deities could cry/no tears/just weird pained sounds/They must've learnt it from the humans/Shiva's men watch on in shrugging shoulders/ obviously/no solutions/bet at least a few of them had found a way to fault Parvati for it/especially when grief turns into anger and Her power makes the men cower on the inside/Shiva at least understands not wanting to cause too much of a scene/enough to order His men to find another head/should have been a divorce somewhere there/killing Your Son kinda feels like a red flag/but we're not Deities/anger management issues must be more excusable for those types/brings back an elephant's head/you'd think if you'd already beheaded a Boy/beheading a boy wouldn't be that hard anyways/Ganesha came out all the better for it/no trauma to be seen/maybe shoved in another dimension/stashed in His pockets/next to His laddoos/kept a dazzling smile for all/an aching kindness that probably weighed heavy on his bones/tusk in one Hand/ridges inscribed with Parents' Wrath/who does that to a Kid/never forgets His Beginning/fitting for the Deity of Beginnings/fitting that He watches yours

Atlas

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Poem

My Kitchen Fools Lachlan Ewing | He/Him

In the modern neoliberal world, it is easy to miss out on that sense of community so integral to humanity. Two years ago my six flatmates and I endeavoured in the experiment to cook dinners communally. Each flatmate would have one night a week to shop, cook, and clean, and six to kick back. The system would be maintained by the mutual respect we had for each other, which ensured we strove to provide the homies a five star meal on our night.

Here is a week in the culinary life of our Kelburn Parade flat to inform your decision on whether to flat cook.

Monday—Saskia The one girl in the flat is the only one that can always be trusted to warm hearts and bellies with her cooking. The rest of us have other skills, like pissing on the floor; or the shower, when it’s running. Also the shower, when it’s not running. This week was no different, and she got us off to a flying start with her trademark mega bean deluxe™ nachos.

Thursday—Felix Felix is a creature of habit, usually alternating between red curry and cheesy peas. This week, however, something possessed him to spice it up a little. It was the first time anyone has seen him open a recipe book. Unfortunately, he was not aware that recipe book serving sizes are very misleading, and quantities need to be nearly doubled for us strapping young lads. The resulting broccoli chilli pasta was tasty enough, but left me requiring an even larger bowl of weetbix than the night before.

Quality: 5/10 | Quantity: 3/10 Friday—Lachlan My Grandmother taught me to back myself even when no one else will.

Quality: 10/10 | Quantity: 10/10

Quality: 7/10 | Quantity: 10/10

Saturday—Rudy…?

Tuesday—Alfie Alfie is the least predictable flat chef, with his meals ranging from delicious curries to shit curries. Fortunately, this week he hit the mark with a Japanese curry accompanied by crispy fried tofu. There is nothing better than coming home late for dinner to open the fridge and find a generous portion of that sticky yellow goodness set aside.

During our time at KP, we’ve had late dinners, shit dinners, and shit late dinners. But every night, dinner has been served. On Saturday the 19th of September, the unthinkable happened: dinner did not arrive. Our wouldbe chef was tied up drinking from early afternoon—such things happen, and are understandable, so long as a pizza order saves the day. On this night, the pizza order was inexplicably never made. For his dinner next week, I will be serving him utu—cold.

Quality: 8/10 | Quantity: 10/10

Quality: 0/10 | Quantity: 0/10

Wednesday—Michael

Sunday—Ben

As future VUWSA President, Michael Turnbull has an awful lot on his plate. However, he has chronic difficulty putting much on anyone's dinner plate. There was a long wait while he meticulously chopped every ingredient before beginning the cooking process. The dumpling noodle soup wasn’t his worst effort. However, it urgently needed some MSG. Also, the dumplings were store bought and I had to have a bowl of weetbix to fill up later. Uncle Roger would not approve.

After four sub-par dinners and four nights of drinking in a row, morale was low. Ben’s birthday could not have come at a better time. He shouted us all out to dinner and drinks at Wellington’s slice of New Orleans, Sweet Mothers Kitchen.

Great service and atmosphere, I cannot recommend Ben enough.

Quality: 4/10 | Quantity: 5/10

Quality: 10/10 | Quantity: 10/10 Overall Quality: 6.3/10 Quantity: 6.8/10 Sense of community: 10/10

Culture: My Kitchen Fools

31

Romantic Endeavours at Kelburn Campus Kirsty Frame | NgÄ ti Kahungunu | She/Her Matthew Casey | He/Him

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Culture: Romantic Endeavours at Kelburn Campus

As the end of the trimester approaches, we’re gonna be spending more time at uni, or avoiding it altogether. If you’re not the latter, you might find yourself in such a predicament: wanting to engage in romantic endeavors all while staying on top of your books.

Whether it’s budding love, or your long-time partner, we’ve conducted extensive field research into the best places at Kelb to foster such romances (Te Aro & Pip, we love you still, promise).

If the weather's good

LOOKING AT YOUR HORIZONS Link up with your boo at the corner of Wishbone and the Alan MacDiarmid (AM) corridor, head east through the carpark. From there, you’ll see a small patch of grass against the final parks. There is a cute little dug out seat which perches you infront of one of the most beautiful views in Wellington. If you want to make your date swoon, this is the spot.

The ideal situation here would be 2pm in between both of your classes, it's one of those rare events colloquially known as a ‘good day’. You’ve got kai and a view. Due to its location it is reasonably quiet and secluded from the hustle and bustle of Uni life. If you guys have a chance of a future, it's being secured here.

FOR THE VEGANS You already know what it is. Our finest VUW delicacy, Krishna, provides you with affordable and downright yum kai for a lunch date. But there isn’t a lot of space in the cafe, and to avoid your Krish going cold or blowing away— take a short walk to the Hunter Courtyard. We recommend saving this spot for especially calm and sunny days, and to be prepared for lecturers to walk past. On an average day the courtyard is dull and pigeon-filled.

IF YOU WANT PEOPLE TO SEE… Hypothetically, you want to be seen with your date. Maybe, just maybe, you’re petty enough that you’re trying to flex. There’s no better spot for this than outside the Hub Courtyard—hear us out. Sitting out here gives you visibility from all angles: the various levels of the library, punters in the Hub, heck, even from the inside of The Lab. Look, it’s a bit petty, and perhaps a sign that you’re not over your ex, but you do you.

If the weather's not good

HUNTER LOUNGE MEZZANINE You’ve finally plucked up the courage to ask that person out you met at that house party last weekend. You’re both free on Friday afternoon, have finished uni for the week— let's get it. A $10 jug of castlepoint and 2-for-1 margarita pizza for $8 goes a treat. It’s lowkey, a good vibe, and Jack at the bar is a nice bloke. Park up on the sofas upstairs, don’t forget to sit across from another—because sitting next to each other is just fuckin weird.

NBA is likely to be on the big screen, so you can flex your shitty opinions about Lebron James. Make sure you don't flex too hard because your date will then find out your opinion about Lebron is pure trash and they don't care about it either.

TE PĀTAKA TOI / ADAM ART GALLERY It’s a crime many of us commit: spending 3 years at this institution without endeavouring into the wonders of Te Pātaka Toi. There’s great benefits to stepping into this space. It’s free, you gain some ~culture~, and if the convo is shit, at least you can focus on the artwork. Extra points if you have great convo about the artwork.

TUATARA SPOTTING Like the Art Gallery, there’s nothing better than an activity to ease conversation nerves. If you’re wanting to get some green space inside, take your boo to find the tuataras.

Those poor dinos have been relocated too many times to count thanks to Vic’s stitch up, but right now you’ll find ‘em near the overbridge.

DON’T YOU FUCKING DARE Ok everyone, we need to have a chat about decency. In a world of young love and hormones, we can somewhat understand the sheer strength it takes to resist expressing affection to another on campus. Well, keep resisting, because PDA is fucking gross. A kiss and a cuddle goodbye, allgood, but stop making out with hands in each other's back pockets.

And if you’re opting for somewhere private to release those desires, do not, DO NOT, choose a booth. The illusion of privacy that these provide is embarrassing, there’s nothing grosser than walking past and seeing two sets of entangled legs.

THE MOUNT STREET CEMETERY This ain’t it. Please, for your ancestors, stop.

Culture: Romantic Endeavours at Kelburn Campus

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Normal People: The Only Good Thing To Come Out Of 2020 Laurelei Bautista | She/Her

This review was written in the hopes that I would finally shut up about this show. I first watched it in June, proceeded to read the book, rewatched in July, and then, for the purposes of ~refreshing my memory~, I rewatched Normal People instead of doing any of my assignments.

the show. Bits of dialogue are spoken straight out of the book as if it were a screenplay. Quiet shots of Connell can be matched with a coinciding paragraph of internal monologue that actually fits whatever expression Paul Mescal is wearing on screen.

The story is about Marianne and Connell, two seemingly polar opposites. They live in the same small town in Ireland, and eventually go on to study at the same big University (also in Ireland). In high school, though, a discrete relationship forms between them and the show takes us throughout years of them being apart, and coming back together. That was probably the only way I could make an on-and-off relationship sound even slightly poetic. And yet, the show seemed to create the most articulate and romantic depiction.

What was so striking about this depiction was the honesty portrayed throughout the episodes. They painted a nobullshit, non-sugar coated picture of what love is like.

When neither can find the right words, they end up making tea or coffee for the other. They let things go unsaid and say things they don’t fully mean.

If I could sum up the real beauty of Normal People in one sentence: this is probably the only slow-paced show I’ve ever watched that didn’t make me want to pick up my phone and listen absent-mindedly. For someone with the attention span of a goldfish, this was a big deal.

Each episode is half an hour and pushes you onto the next. There’s an immense amount of effort that you can tell goes into each episode. The soundtrack, the lighting, the muted saturation, the amplified breathing—everything just, fits.

This isn’t like every other adaptation where you have to read the book first and watch the show after. Sally Rooney, the author, co-wrote the script and the collaboration clearly paid off. It’s actually one of the rare instances where the show complements the book and the book complements

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Culture: Normal People

Debatably-avoidable misunderstandings become a running theme; an element often glossed over in the romance genre. Often, the media paints mostly smoothsailing relationships with one (1) blip for the plot. Normal People takes that blip and makes it routine, which is a lot more accurate and relatable. It’s actually quite reassuring to see characters fumble and make mistakes. But for all of the awkward times and frustrating hesitation, Marianne and Connell find just as many moments of comfort and affection. It’s such a familiar juxtaposition, that it almost reminds the audience of what it’s really like to be in love.

Normal People was a blessing in the midst of quarantine. It’s the perfect kickstart for your summer towatch list, and you’ll find yourself finishing the season in just a day or two. Be ready to cry and do some heavy reflection on your past relationships. And when you're tempted to hop onto the fringe/bangs/whatever-they’recalled bandwagon, you’ll have Daisy Edgar-Jones to blame for it.

LEIL ANI BAKER B A C HE L OR OF C OMMUNIC AT ION

UNITING WORLDS THROUGH WORDS BEGINS W I T H M ASSE Y

Leilani Baker is an avid storyteller. For her, it’s all about connecting with people and transforming their experiences through the power of words. A Bachelor of Communication from Massey helped hone her craft and expand her versatility, leading to a role as a sports journalist and, more recently, a content creator for a higher learning institute. She says her degree really broadened her perspective, “It helped me develop a world view and just made me hungry to learn.”

Fuse creativity and business, then join over 85% of our students who launch from graduation to employment within only 6 months.

Begin your journey at New Zealand’s No.1 ranked* communication programme.

T E K UNE NG A K I P UR E HUR OA

FIND OUT MORE AT MASSE Y.AC.NZ / STUDY-COMMUNICATION *2019 Shanghai Ranking

Students enjoy

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10/9/20 2:48 pm

Puck sends his apologies for the lack of crossword this week. You puzzle guzzling cucks are probably still working on last week’s anyways. Double crossword next week for the last issue—we’re going out with a bang.

Crypto-List In a crypto-list, a list of ten connected entries are encoded using a simple substitution cipher.

Use unusual letter patterns, such as the last item on this list, to figure out what letters represent what in the list.

Theme: At the Ice Cream Shop Example: SUNDAE

HSOOPX ELAX

EZLELPSRX UCY

DCPBJZSBX

JELLY

JYICABPXJ

YPSJRCE JYLLAJ

JZXIVXR

VSASAS JYPCR

OILWL

Theme: Seminal Graphic Novels

Example: SAFE AREA GORAZDE GMONMGBAQN

WATSH YBAM

WATCHMEN

EYM JQTOP BX T EMMCTRM RQOA

RYBNE LBOAJ

YQSHNKQAAM

XZC YBFM

K XBO KMCJMEET

FTZN

T SBCEOTSE LQEY RBJ

36

Occupation Station

Word of the Week: ‘share’

Te Reo Māori

Sudoku

NZSL

noho tahi

Store brought dip + crackers

She'll Be Right's Solution

Homemade Foccacia + Baba ganoush

TAKE THE MOST DELICIOUS STUDY BREAK WITH

WELLY ON A PLATE 1 - 31OCTOBER OPEN 7 DAYS LUNCH & DINNER 11.30AM - LATE

CH O W . CO . N Z F R E S H , FAS T, F R E E - R A N G E

37

Horoscopes Maddi Rowe | She/Her

I lost sleep over writing horoscopes this year. I couldn’t name a worse use of my time. I loved every second of it. I present: the signs as shit in the Salient office.

ARIES Brad Pitt’s half-eaten garlic naan, framed and mounted on the wall.

GEMINI

That note on the editors’ wall that says ‘MEN AIN’T SHIT’.

The pot plant that befalls a horrible fate every two weeks because of the Wellington wind.

CANCER

LEO

The black, pleather nap couch.

A 500ml can of Red Bull.

LIBRA Many copies of Nexus, just sitting on the floor.

CAPRICORN Remains of a cake.

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TAURUS

Horoscopes

SCORPIO The single, unseasonably yellow wall.

VIRGO Our office quote wall, containing enough material to defame any one of us.

SAGITTARIUS The fucking bizarre green chair that’s engineered to give people massages. Why is she here?

AQUARIUS That one stain on the table that even Rachel can’t get off. It haunts her dreams.

PISCES The giant cache of staff vapes.

The air constantly smells like Raro. Help.

The Team EDITORS Kirsty Frame & Rachel Trow DESIGN & ILLUSTRATION Rowena Chow SUB EDITOR Alfred Dennis NEWS EDITORS Te Aorewa Rolleston & Finn Blackwell

CHIEF REPORTER Annabel McCarthy

SOCIAL MEDIA & WEB MANAGER Kane Bassett PODCAST MANAGER Matthew Casey

PODCAST PRODUCER Francesca Georgia Pietkiewicz Nutsford

STAFF WRITERS Lofa Totua Sally Ward Shanti Mathias

CONTRIBUTORS Caitlin Hicks Maddi Rowe Puck Taylah Shuker Vic Bell Frankie Dale Celina Monkhouse Lachlan Ewing Niva Chittock Brock Stobbs Laurelei Bautista Joanna Li

FEATURE WRITERS Sally Ward Rāhiri Mākuini Edwards-Hammond Grace Clarke FEATURE EDITOR Shanti Mathias CENTREFOLD Matt Kendrew @stuffandthings.studio POETRY EDITOR Janhavi Gosavi poetry@salient.org.nz

POETRY Atlas

CONTACT US editor@salient.org.nz designer@salient.org.nz (centrefold artwork) news@salient.org.nz socialmedia@salient.org.nz

FIND US fb.com/salientmagazine instagram.com/salientgram twitter.com/salientmagazine salient.org.nz

39

THE 2020 GENERAL ELECTION AND REFERENDUMS

Vote now in the General Election and referendums.

Find your nearest voting place at vote.nz or call 0800 36 76 56

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