30 Days of Me: Day 18

Ohai interwebs! So nice of you to work for me today!! (The wireless connection at Mum’s is a bit shit, unfortunately)

“Plans/Dreams/Goals that you have”

There’s so many things that I want to do!
So I guess I’ll pick three. One short term, one somewhere in the middle and one long term.

Short Term

Survive the next 4 months of study, doing well enough to get offered a place in a Masters program of my choosing. Preferably an overseas one with a full scholarship but getting accepted will suffice.

30 Days of Me: Day 13 & semi-reasonable explanation for skipping yesterday

My lieblings,
I’m terribly sorry for missing yesterday’s post but, in case you hadn’t figured by my cuss laden summary of the VSM debate, I was in too mighty a rage to post anything reasonable. So I made an executive decision to leave it until tonight. Hope you cats can forgive me! Please don’t forget to go say hihi to Briony, her day eleven and day twelve are up, yay!

And, without further ado, welcome to your feature presentation.

“A letter to someone who hurt you recently”

VSM, Filibustering and broken hearts.

de·moc·ra·cy  noun \di-ˈmä-krə-sē\  

a : Government by the people; especially : rule of the majority
b : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections 

It’s a mighty nice theory, isn’t it?
A Government ruled by the very people it seeks to serve. So, surely, if some 98% of submissions towards a piece of legislation are against it, than the Government should be bound to throw said piece of legislation out. Or at least not to pursue it further, let alone force it through to the final stage despite ongoing opposition.

New Zealand. Gorgeous yes. Democratic? I'm not so sure right now.

Well this, my friends, is precisely what has happened with the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill.

Is philosophy a luxury?

Is this a philosophical question itself?

In these harsh economic climes, education is always one of the first to take a hit.
In New Zealand it came in the form of cutting funding to all night school providers, tying employment rates to funding for tertiary institutions and tightening up student loan and allowance criteria. What it has meant, however, is that Universities and Polytechnics alike are looking for ways to cut overheads in preparation for worst case scenarios.

This issue, however, is not confined to New Zealand.
You may remember marches, bordering on riots, in the UK late last year after their Government announced expansive reforms to funding for tertiary studies. This included removing all direct funding to the universities and instead the students paying the full cost of their education, representing a jump from circa £3,000 to up to £9,000! At the same time they cut student grant availability and slapped interest back on student loans.

Does this sound awfully familiar to anyone else?

Enrolling for Uni: It’s not rocket science. Or is it?

University.

Tertiary education really.

Why the hell is it so hard to get your enrollment sorted?!
Okay, maybe I’m over reacting a little bit but the fact that they’ve MISPLACED my enrollment and the enrollment period has now closed for the year does freak me out for some strange reason.

Why is it that you practically need a qualification to make heads or tails of the forms and hoops that you need to jump through?
I thought that trying to get Massey sorted was bad enough but at least the help desk was useful and I was in the same city when things did need sorting out in a hurry.
Unitec, pardon my bluntness, is as useless as tits on a damn bull. Probably not helped by the fact I’m currently in another city so can’t just march on up there BUT their helpdesk doesn’t answer emails or phone calls apparently. WTF IS UP WITH THAT?