When Canterbury goes to Auckland..

Well, it is now the first day of the second semester and well and truly time to get cracking on this blog.

I trust everybody made good use of their holidays.. I personally had a nice little getaway in Wanaka before heading up to Auckland for five days, to represent the UCSA at the NZUSA July conference.

This was an interesting trip. Over the course of the conference, we attended a number of workshops on issues relating to students and tertiary education. However, the highlight for me (aside from the BYO Thai restaurant :p) was a mini-debate I guess you could call it, with a speaker from each of the major political parties in the upcoming election. This was a real eye-opener for me. I'm quite politically minded but even I find myself tuning out when the news begins to broadcast what appears to be the same old arguments day in and day out. Having the opportunity to listen to these guys speak firsthand and ask them questions gave me a much better indication of how politicians and political parties are thinking, particularly about the kinds of issues that are affecting me personally - student loans, student allowances, course fees etc. I think we are all pretty unhappy with the current state of things - but its one thing to talk about it, quite another to actually do something. I know we all think that we are powerless to change anything, but when you have 16,000 students at Canterbury alone (I could google the nationwide figures but I'm running late for KO), there is certainly some strength in numbers!

I guess what I'm saying is - its election year. If there was ever a time to stop talking and start doing, this would be it. So pick up a paper, turn on the news from time to time and make the effort so you can make an educated choice on election day. Which leads me to another point, make sure you are enrolled to vote. If you're flatting, make sure you have changed your address. In saying that.. I haven't.. I'll do it tomorrow :D

Peace out

Hayley