Accents of Approval
Two weeks ago, I left my Kindle on a train, and it ended up in the Lost & Found section of Newcastle train station. I had to go and retrieve it, because I couldn’t understand the Geordies on the phone well enough to organize a shipment. Two things stood out to me about Newcastle. Firstly, [...]
Why on earth are we still writing essays?
Is it social reality? Once we graduate, will we ever find ourselves in the situation where our supervisor/manager/mom asks us a difficult question and gives us 3 months to prepare an answer, write it down, with a word limit, 1inch margins and font size 12? I don’t think so. And once the paper is written, [...]
Career Fair?
In first year if someone talked to me about careers, I would brush it off. Two more years of university seemed to stretch way into the future; why would I want to mess with the student bubble by thinking about the prospect that it would end? Fast forward to third year and I’m feeling the [...]
Degree Write-off?
What can you do with a BA in English? According to the similarly-worded Avenue Q song, and my piss-taking friend who jokingly brands my subject as ‘lightweight’, not a lot. But is it really a valid claim that undertaking a degree might not actually lead to getting a well-paid job? Now I don’t know about [...]
Beta Observation
There are several spots around Uni where people just can’t help but observe each other. Take, for example, the two streams of passing traffic down the strip between the park and the union. Another classic is that main room of the Brotherton. Or how about the unnervingly long corridor connecting Roger Steve to the EC [...]
Race to the Top?
I’m sure you’re all aware of YouTube’s buzzing ‘Sh*t Girls Say’, and the parodies of stereotypes of different social groups in these videos. Of course they are made for a laugh, and some of them do have a thread of truth. But watching closer, these videos make you realise how you might unintentionally come off [...]
Jekyll & Hyde Park
Hyde Park is a mess. The houses are falling apart, always cold and sweating mould; the bins litter the paths like disaffected youths; every front yard has a broken sofa, and the roads are pitted with break-your-neck potholes. So my question is: why do we put up with this? It seems like everyone, residents, local [...]
Meta: When your heart’s not cyn-ic
Last week’s Observations considered our annual smooch-fest from differing perspectives: the romantic, the survivor and the optimist. And yet no-one spoke for the cynic. Whilst it’s clichéd to be cynical at Christmas, people rarely berate February 14th. So here goes: Valentine’s offers little more than an excuse for unloving couples to make up 364 days [...]
Mortarboarding
Huzzzar! We are again allowed to throw stiff cardboard squares into the air upon graduation and those injured be damned (although it is something of a rough deal to complete three years of education to be taken out by a hat on the last day). I am of course referring to the tradition of throwing [...]