The Highlight Reel

In order to make up for the last few months of silence, I decided to make a highlight recap, but then I realised that finding the best moments of the last few months would be like eating the tasty part of the turd. I guess that's never stopped me before. So read on with a grain of salt, or a few lumps of sugar, or anything else to help you get it down (perhaps a stiff drink).


The Pasty Chef lives!
Yes, I realise I posted this photoshop earlier this year when I was trying out my comedy in Wellington, but that led onto bigger and greater things. Well, it led onto other things, and that's something, I think.

The University of Canterbury Bandsoc (Band Society/club) had their first annual Battle of the Bands Competition, a knockout competition featuring 22 local bands. Well, they featured 21 local bands and me wearing a hat. See, I have never had a performing name, but the entry form had a space for one. So, since I had already made this photoshop, I just used that. Lazyness pays.

So, I was a solo act in a serious music competition, singing disgusting songs. I tried to get my hands on a video of my performance, but either the person who made it ripped their eyes out afterwards and is now in a mental hospital, or he is saving the video until the Pasty Chef goes global.

Afterwards, I wrote a review in the canta magazine, in which I roasted all the 12 bands who made it to the semi finals, (including myself). Have a read, here.

The highlight for me, however, was afterwards when I got hold of my actual scoring sheet from the three serious judges. (One was a producer who has worked with Stevie Wonder.) One judge, under the category of "Technical Skills" gave me a 5... out of 20. Then he added the comment "Fairly average". That's amazing, because that's exactly what I was aiming for.

Role Modelling
I'm not sure how this even happened, or if it even was legal, but I somehow ended up visiting a high school and telling the students to enrol at the University of Canterbury. As you can see in the photo, I am a huge chin and a headset-microphone away from doing a spot-on Tony Robins impersonation. Creepy eyes, and strong body language... nailed it!

Exhibition
As part of my education, we set up an on-campus exhibition. it has it's own webpage so you know it's legit. Here you can see me hard at work "supervising". Yes, this is the kind of job I want in the future.

Voting
As part of my civil duty I went to the voting booths and voted the hell out of our democratic ways despite not knowing about the parties as we don't have a TV. There wasn't much point though, since you never change leaders during a crisis (the earthquake), and apparently you don't change leaders after winning the rugy world cup either. The rugby world what? Hmm. I need to start watching more TV.

The only reason I knew that I needed to vote was because of this guy.

So this is a photo of me sporting my election ink. The odd thing is, New Zealand doesn't do election ink. I just used the felt pen to draw on my thumb. You might think I must be a hipster and I voted ironically, but that only shows that you just don't get it. Leave me alone already. Gosh!

Final Project
My final project of my university career was handed in on Monday, and I really did my best to focus on style over substance. Hence, over half the project was printed in full colour, anbd included several to scale photoshops like this one. Again, there's no real reason to show these except to get more mileage out of them. I mean, it took hours to get them just right, and then I had to do them all over again when I changed a few minor details. Photoshop is fantastic when you want to procrastinate doing your assignment, but also want to feel like you're doing something towards your assignment.

Moving
So, ever since July, our flat (The Russian House) has been on the open market. I was living in an open home. Every week, a greasy salesman (who we lovingly nicknamed "douchebag") came to our house and showed around strange people. It was so annoying, having to clean the house for him, and never would he leave behind a fruit bowl or anything more valuable than his business card. Sometimes he would come more often with only a day's notice, sometimes he would ask us odd questions in front of the potential clients like "It's really warm here in winter right?" (while winking at me). What a sack of shit. He also apparently isn't a very good salesman because the house is still unsold.

That's partly why I'm leaving Christchurch. I have finished school, and although I have nowhere to go next, that's better than staying for no reason in a house which isn't even my own. So with this, the Christchurch era has petered out early, but that's what I do best.


Lastly, with this photo of my Christmas tree contructed from a pot, a pillow, a green jacket and some fairy lights, I wish you a merry x-mas, no matter how crappy it is. I've made some crappy xmas trees in the past, but this one is possibly the worst, which somehow is promising.

Take care one and all.

International Suit-up Day

It's tough being a university student at this age. All my friends are having babies and jobs where they wear suits. Some of my friends' babies are already wearing suits, while I'm still writing essays.

Every day that I go out do do my university-student-type things wearing sneans, it's a reminder of my failings. So it's nice when there is an opportunity to wear a suit. There generally are only 2 1/2 situations where I can wear suits:

1. Weddings
   
2. Formal dances

These are obviously quite rare occurrences. The other is for job interviews, but it only counts for half since all my interviews are done by skype and I only have to wear a suit from the waist up. Yes, down below, I'm freeballing - it helps me relax.

As it turns out, there is one extra reason to wear a suit, and that is International Suit Up Day, which is an ancient annual tradition held on October13 every year since 2009. Yes, this is a real thing - it has its own website: http://internationalsuitupday.com/
Because if it has a website it must be true.

Suit Up Day was a great day. In fact, it was far too hot to be wearing a suit - let alone for biking to uni in a suit. I'm always under the impression that if you see a cyclist in a suit, he's probably had his licence revoked for drink driving. Still, I had a great time. Giving a presentation is somehow a lot more forceful with a suit. Also, since for me it was the last day of class for the 2nd semester, it gave off a sort of graduation-feeling. That's the power of the suit.

Remember this day for next year. Or you have a job where you have to wear a suit anyway. What I'm trying to say is, hopefully this was my last International Suit Up Day.

Orange Man Conspiracy

A few years back, I was in Holland, minding my own business, like I often do, when all of a sudden, I saw an orange man caught my attention. I don't actually remember the moment I am recounting wistfully, but basically, I felt like I had seen him before.
(By the way, the Dutch text says: "I sit in your bumper". Yeah.)

So I immediately went to the google-machine and dug up the following picture.
(Note the Douchebag "this guy!" pose.)

The first guy is the Dutch recycling mascot, and the second one is the New Zealand electoral office mascot. This was all getting too real for me. I had to expose this information to the rest of the world, but how? So, I bided my time, that is if "biding" means something similar to "minding your own business" , because as I've stated, I tend to do that a lot.

It took nearly two years, but with the power of the Canta Magazine franchise behind me, and in the election season in New Zealand, the time was ripe.

http://canta.co.nz/columns/advice-from-a-naked-orange-man/
(Note that in the print edition, both images were published.)

Anyway, because I take my journalistic ethics very seriously, I did not want to speculate further about how much deeper this conspiracy could go. That's what the internet is for. How about:

Oompa Lumpa. Yeah, it's a little obvious. But you can't expect to have a serious conversation about orange people without mentioning them.



Okay, this one is pretty obvious too. I watch my fair share of late night television, so a "Snooki is Orange" joke shouldn't come as much of a surprise to anyone.


Likewise, I watch The Daily Show, so a "John Boehner is Orange" joke is practically a given.

This is Roark Junior, also known as the Yellow Bastard from Sin City, who is famous for having Bruce Willis shoot him in his penis, and later having his face punched repeatedly until "After a while all I'm doing is punching wet chips of bone into the floorboards." Sure, he's not quite orange, but I think we'd all like to see the orange people featured have the same fate.

What a Load (of work)


Every year of University life, the workload increases. Now I'm at postgraduate level, I don't know how I cope, you know, with all four hours of class per week. For one recent project, I had to fold around 400 pieces of origami and make it into what I called an 'origami tapestry'.

Okay, well, I didn't "have" to do specifically that. The postgraduate assignment included making a section of a group 'art making exercise' that represents myslef and my identity. Yes, it sounds like something you would do at primary school, and when my flatmate saw me busy at work with my coloured paper and safety scissors and sello-tape while listening to cheesy music, she thought it was very cute. And it was.

The point it, well, I forget the point, but I do want to show off what I made. As I say, get the mileage out of it.

So, I used what is called "modular origami', which I learnt about afterwards. Basically, it is used to create complex geometric shapes, as seen here. (Warning, if you are a nerd, make sure you have your pocket protector on - this is pretty amazing stuff.)

However, I treated my more as a flat surface, in which I created some patterns and shapes which all have some meaning to it.

On the left side we have the river Schie, which gives name to the city I was born in, Schiedam, which is represented by the orange-red dam. On either side of the river are black and white spots of the Frisian cow, from the north of Holland.

Then, on the right is a map of Nelson, with the boulder bank, Haulashore Island and Fifeshire rock. Just to give you an idea, Fifeshire Rock - the small grey box, contains five pieces of origami. So yeah, this was defintely a long-term project.


Anyway, that is the update of my life as a postgraduate student. Tune in next time when I trace my hand and draw a chicken, and learn to write my name.

Validation through Insultation

I finally made it. See, when I started out this year to write for our student magazine, I had to try have an edge. Blandness and politeness just gets lost in a free student magazine. So, in every column I've written I try to insert a couple of lines that could be taken the wrong way. Of course this is done in satire, but you always hope that someone will actually get angry about it. Well, mission accomplished. This is an actual letter to the editor about a recent column I wrote:

Dear Ed

I had the misfortune of having a spare hour this dreary Wednesday morning and made a poor choice in filling it in by picking up a copy of Canta. I see nothing has changed since I last performed this pantomime of enjoying a little intelligent "literature". I am so glad that Ruben VM sees his writing for what it it really is- uninformative. I find it ironic that his "column" (I use this term loosely) attempts to take the mickey out of the less well endowed (brain wise, I mean) when he clearly cannot understand the concept of wit. I would only like to advise him that intelligence and getting a degree are two very different things. Being intelligent enough to understand a joke is clearly something he is incapable of. "Self-service with a smile" for a do-it-yourself carwash is a witty and inspired tagline. Witty and inspiring are two words I would not use to describe his writing, which smacks of the same pompous, holier-than-thou attitude of a law student.

Fuck you Ruben VM, the only stupid one is you.

Wow, I really struck a nerve there. I decided not to reply, because there is no way I could convince someone this angry that the column was actually a commentary on the apparent pride many have in the deintellectualification of society, and the permissive attitude others have towards it.
But the comment was too good not to share. I'll let you guys be the judge. This is the article that elicited the response.
http://canta.co.nz/columns/on-stupidity/

Either way, I feel I have somehow been validated as a student columnist. There are only a few more issues left this school year, so let's see if I can't do some more damage.

It's all about Presentation

A few weeks back I had a 1-hour presentation. The topic I chose was to compare Mt Fuji and Mt Taranaki in art. Now, I can crap on about Japanese art for as long as I want, but the New Zealand side is sorely lacking. That's why I needed another approach. Even if the content isn't great, I can still make it look good. In this way I'm like the popstar who spends more time doing yoga and dieting than practicing singing, or the salesman who spends all of his money on teethwhitening products instead of being a greasy piece of shit. And that's the valuable lesson I have learnt at University this year.

In my slideshow, I used hundreds of images of artworks that show the two mountains, but I also made some up myself using my rudimentary photoshop skills. I spent literally hours on these, so that's why I want to get the full mileage out of them. These images are ones I used to explain the many similarities between the two mountains.



The complete nerds out there will get the reference to Street Fighter VS. It has nothing to do with the presentation, but I figure if there's an opportunity to reference an arcade game that I never actually played, you do it.

This is where I be all scientific and explain the geological formations of the two mountains. Note the explosion at the back, which was actually a nuclear bomb. I guess I was being a little overdramatic.

A simple photoshop, I know. I just love the satelite photo of the nreal perfect circle of Taranaki national park, because it's like New Zealand's Great Wall of China - except you can actually see it from space.

Clouds are great for photoshopping. That is all.

Of course, if anything is important, it will be replicated on currency.

Lastly, here's a fancy graph. Because no sleazy presentation is complete withou a fancy graph. I could have given you all the one-hour presentation, but I think the lessons learnt through these photoshops were by far the most valuable.

More Snow

Sorry for the bit of an extended absence. I guess there was another write-worthy event a few weeks back, when it snowed again - even heavier this time, but I didn't want to write about it here because otherwise it will sound like I'm only ever talking about the weather. I don't do small talk. It's too depressing.

After the first bout of snow, and before the 2nd one, I wrote a Canta piece about the overreaction of NZers. Obviously my column fell on blind eyes.

Seriously, when the forecasters were talking about the oncoming snowstorm, they were sounding like doomsday conservative Christian preachers. I just wanted to tell that it's snow - not gay marriage. News reports were telling people to "prepare for the worst". I mean, "the worst" is having to stay in your own house for a couple of days. You must really hate your life if staying home is such a terrifying prospect.

I happened to go to the supermarket a few days before the 2nd snowstorm, and I had never seen so much chaos. There was a giant clog of shopping trolleys all through the shop, and the shelves were nearly empty.

I just stayed home for a few days missing out on some more classes (including a 1-hour presentation). It was fine, but nothing to write home about. But I wanted to share this at least:

http://canta.co.nz/columns/emergency-procedures/

By now though, the Winter seems to have pas... Oh shit, I'm talking about the weather again. it won't happen again.

Snow Balls
Due to snowfall, Christchurch basically closed for a day and a half last week. This included 80% of my weekly classes, which I wasn't too happy about. But at least there was a snowman to be made. My flatmates woke me up with their excitement, and we went outside and got to work.




I wasn't aware, however, that my (female) flatmates had slightly different ideas. We were still making a snowman, but only a small part of him.



Unwittingly, I had made a giant snowman's left testicle. I took the obligatory photo, which now that I look at it, reminds me of the "Big Ball Dance"

However, all good things must come to an end, and luckily all bad things too. An epic amount of shrinkage on our front lawn signified the return of a normal routine.


Bonus:

Another Canta Piece. Very short. Very silly. I blame the cold.
http://canta.co.nz/columns/keeping-warm-a-students-guide/

An Idle Mind is a Dangerous Mind

I could keep telling you how lame and domesticated I am, but you'd probably think I'm exaggerating for poetic effect. However, I have proof - documented , verifiable proof of how incredibly lame I am at this point in time.

See, since getting back to Christchurch, I decided to seriously study Japanese again. I had missed the 400-level course last semester due to the earthquake-induced move to Wellington, but I tought if I studied hard enough, I would be able to rejoin the class in the new semester.

My self-study programme included three parts:

Traditional Study - Reading, translating and making flashcards.

Japanese Television - Because only studying boring things isn't sustainable, I started watching a lot of movies and dramas in Japanese. Probably an average of 3 hours per day - which isn't so bad considering I haven't touched the regular TV in nearly two months.

The Nintendo DS - This is the new-ish version of the Gameboy, and there are a lot of brain-type games. I have many different games, including an electronic dictionary and games that test you on Japanese characters. According to the DS, have the Japanese ability of an 11-year old. So, it is quite appropriate that I also play some children's games. However, this is also extremely sad.


One game I have been playing is called Chibi Maruko (pictured above), and is about an eight-year old girl who has small adventures with her school friends. It's so inappropriate for a 26-year old guy, and it kind of makes me feel like a kiddy fiddler. In fact, parent have been warned that the D.S. may be used by sexual predators, as some games use a built-in wifi to connect with other players.

Yet, starved for Japanese entertainment, I keep playing it. Below is the opening screen where your teacher takes a roll-call. Below, each circle means that I played this game on that day.


Eek. yes, that is over 5 weeks without missing a day. What have I become?

However, it seems to be working, as I have started dreaming in Japanese. Luckily they aren't about Chibi Maruko, so maybe there is nothing to worry about.



Speaking of going crazy, Uni is back in, and so in the Uninformant.
http://canta.co.nz/columns/reasoning-with-disaster/

Not that I think anybody was ever going to hold me to it, but I did promise to post a photo of my origami kiwis. While on my internship, I decided to turn my daily to-do lists into kiwis, as a visual representation of how much work I did. Okay, it's not really that impressive. I don't blame you for not holding me to that promise.


However, there is this photo I took from my final flat in Wellington. It shows me looking down on the city below, watching the silly fools, small as ants, unaware of their meaningless existence.



In other non news, there is no news. I've basically been a monk since leaving Wellington. So here's two awesome pictures slightly relevant to that statement.
More updates when things happen, but no promises. It's likely, however, that the most exciting months of 2011 have already passed. I sure hope so.

Snapper
I wanted to write about this for a while, but couldn't find the audio link that was needed. Until now...

See, when I went to Wellington, I was told I would need to get a snapper. After giggling for a while, I learnt that this is a serious thing. It's a card you can recharge and use as small change at convenience stores and on public transportation. Now, the reason it is funny, well, listen to this short clip by George Carlin. I don't even have to take it out of context.

http://www.themadmusicarchive.com/song_details.aspx?songid=21926

Now, hopefully you can appreciate why I giggled every single time that I got on the bus and there are signs that say

"Use your snapper!"

"Did you recharge your snapper?"

or even, "Snap on, snap off"

Snapper is also referenced in this song, which is as inappropriate as it is hilarious. You've been warned.

It just amazed me how marketing people can be so lame and out of touch. It's like when a car company tried to name a model: "the wank". Mostly I found it hilarious. Especially when I logged on to their website.
Wow.

Not just the "MySnapper", but the whole text is just comedy gold. I even love the part in blue that says: "register your snapper", "using your snapper", "Snapper FAQs", "Buy a snapper", "Where to Snapper", and "Snapper newsroom". The hilarity never stops.

I just had to write this and put it out in the open so that people understand when I laugh. Also, I am a huge fan of George Carlin and innuendo and never miss an opportunity to educate on them.

Anyway, now that I am no longer in Wellington, I have an unsused snapper lying around. If anyone is interested, let me know.

Those who speak to me will know that something I have been quietly working on over the last many years, is musical comedy. However, I think the only time I mentioned this on the site was way back when it all began in 2007 (link here). Since then, I had been looking to diversify a little bit, and see if what I do can work outside of an english-speaking-audience-in-Japan.

In Holland I did several singer-songwriter open-mic nights with English songs that were really quite inappropriate, and although it seemed to go well, I really longed for a comedy audience instead of anrgy/depressed/pretending-to-be-artsy musician crowds. I had been ignored by the Tokyo Comedy Club as well as the Gong Show at the Chicago Comedy Club in Amsterdam. In Christchurch there were no real comedy clubs, and if there were, they sure as hell don't exist anymore. So coming up to Wellington was a great opportunity.

There is one true comedy club here (although most of the time it is a Karaoke bar), however the open mic night was postponed the last month due to, ironically, the Wellington Comedy Festival. Luckily, I got my chance to shine last night. I was so excited about it that I set about photoshopping together some posters to advertise the event. The were on facebook, but not everyone can be lucky enough to be my facebook friend. So, here they are below.

Yes, I am parodying comedy advertisements. The formula is basically to take an embarrassing photo and add a lame or inappropriate pun.

Anyway, although my posters failed to bring in any of my facebook friends, it seeemed to go very well. It's a beautiful thing when you hear laughter at exactly the right moments. I can perform there again next week, and hopefully after then I can finally start to make things happen. It might sound like it's a sudden thing, but it has been a long-time coming, and I'm not finished yet.

The Uninformant, May 25th

Here is an extremely silly piece (no pun intended) I wrote about the Earthquake Refugee experience from the perspective of my pubes.

Enjoy!

Bonus:

Below is a photo of my computer. I decided, instead of throwing away all the pieces of paper where I write my day's to-do list, to fold them into origami Kiwis. It serves as a daily reminder that I have been achieving a lot during my time here, and is a nice form of procrastination. It would make the people over at M-thru-F very proud. I think I am already quite suited to corporate life.

Note, this photo was taken more than a week ago, so already they seem to have multiplied. On completion of the internship, I will show the final result.

The Home Stretch

I woke up this morning, opened the curtains and the sunlight poured into the living room. This was the view that greeted me.
It was a reminder of how great a city Wellington is, and also how lucky I was to get this flat. Until now I had been staying with the kindness of strangers, but now I have a little 2-room flat. It's sweet - it's a perfect bachelorette-pad. See, I'm house-sitting for a colleague who is overseas, and so after 6 weeks of couch-surfing/refugeeing, after 7 different houses and 11 different beds, I have my own space and can finally relax.

Unfortunately, my immune system also decided to relax. It's like how so many students get sick after exams, meaning you can't enjoy the holidays. However, I think I could use a quiet weekend, even if it is filled with phlegm. So, for example, today I have taken a walk to the waterfront to a free-wifi area to catch up on the internet.

Behind is Te Papa, where I'm interning, and you can see that it is a great day to be doing nothing. It's odd though how "nothing" has taken on a new meaning, now that I'm not living in a city that is destroyed. Because, ever single week, it's a whole new nothing. Just walking to work is exciting. One week I'm walking along the waterfront, the next week I'm walking through Central park, and then another week I'm commuting directly through The Basin Reserve, the cricket grounds.

Below is a small 'shop of the above photo with the locations I have surfed.

I do think in the last month-and-a-half I have made up for the extreme-boredom post-earthquake. I am going back home to Christchurch in a few weeks, but until then, I'm staying home in Wellington.

Small Update: Interning

While the living situation is going well (i.e. I'm still alive), I have gone down a notch from being at a place with dial-up internet to a place without any internet at all.

So, there isn't much time for a thorough update, however, luckily the media has done that for me. Check out this video from the news last week. That's my boss speaking, and I was the Personal Assistant for the guy in charge of the entire ceremony. I make an appearance in the video at about the 55-second mark. So yeah, it hasn't just been a regular internship where you're basically a glorified coffee-machine who has to wear a tie and kiss ass. No, I have actually proved to be slightly useful, which is a phrase I never imagined myself writing.

Happy watching!

The Uninformant Term II

Sorry the last few weeks have been quiet from my end. It turns out the place I'm staying in at the moment has a dail-up connection. Although, it is quite appropriate as the house was also built in 1890 when nobody knew about broadband.

Also, exciting news, the Uninformant has gone live on the new Canta site. This means that not only do you get to read it, but so do I as Canta does not deliver to Wellington. I'll keep linking my pieces on here though.

This about my move up to Wellington after the first week.

Also, an unusually serious bit from the last week of term 1.

The Uninformant: The Cost of Allowance

There is no more simple pleasure in life than free money. That’s what makes life so great as a student eligible for a living allowance – especially when, due to the earthquake you have yet to take a single class. It’s like being on the benefit without the social shame. For those who aren’t lucky enough to be old or have really poor parents, I sincerely say to you: “Haha”. You have to pay all that money back.

I felt vindicated after finally being eligible for a student allowance. Several years ago I finished my undergraduate degree. My parents were – according to the government – rich, just like all other part-time teachers, so I had a considerable loan to pay back. I went off into the real world (i.e. overseas) with the loan growing fat, and managed to pay it all off. But now that I’m old and the money is free, I came back to study.

However, it hasn’t been all I expected it to be. Who would have thought that they would make it so difficult to claim your free money? It’s hard work, and hard work isn’t why I came back to University. I guess if they made claiming free money a pleasurable experience everyone would be doing it, and where’s the money in that?

First of all, something I am sure every student has had to deal with by now: the Studylink hotline. If you manage to even get through, you will be put on hold for at least 15 minutes. In those 15 minutes, you are pummelled with patronising recorded messages telling you to go online. This is what I call “FAQ service” (pronounced: “Fuck-you service”).

Then you are bombarded by the songs are done justice by being played on a tiny telephone receiver. Forget students, I think the Finn Brothers, Bic Runga and Dave “Kiddyfiddler” Dobbyn are probably the biggest beneficiaries from Studylink, with the royalties they must surely get from the thousands of people being put on hold every day. It took all my willpower to abstain from booing Dave Dobbyn at the Christchurch Earthquake memorial. I never liked these songs much anyway, but now every time I hear them, I just hope that there isn’t a kitten nearby, because if there is, I will strangle it. I predict that Kiwi Music Week this year will be a dark time for kittens all over the country.

Lastly, the most infuriating thing is when you finally get through to the call-centrist, they are polite and helpful, when what you really want to do is defecate into the receiver.

However, maybe there is method to Studylink’s induced madness. First of all, for the time you spend on the phone, or on their website, or posting away signed forms in duplicate, or – god forbid – standing in line, you are paid well. You end up getting stressed for no reason, and you start despising your boss. It is actually great preparation for a university student about to enter the corporate world. You will get your 200 dollars, but before you pass Go, they will make you come to a full halt.

The Uninformant: Week IIII

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The Student Economy

Many students want a part-time job, but between the state of the economy and the fact that the CBD is now little more than a crater, the job market is especially tight right now. Browsing through trademe jobs, Student Job Search and the Saturday edition of The Press Classifieds is always entertaining – particularly where almost every listing invariably says: “Good communication skills essential” and “experience required.”

First of all, why are good communication skills so essential for menial jobs such as cleaning houses? All the home-owner has to do is give you a mop and point to the wet patch. Furthermore, how do you measure communication skills? It doesn’t even say which language. I suspect that “good communication skills” is simply code for “retards need not apply.”

However, even if you have an IQ of more than 70, first of all congratulations, but you still need experience if you want to earn that sweet minimum wage. Basically, this is where you have two equally valid options: tell the truth, or lie.

If you are going to tell the truth, be aware that whatever you say will have the air of desperation. It will sound something like this: “This will be my first time, and I am quite nervous about it, but I think I am ready and I will be very grateful. If given the opportunity, I will do my very best and I won’t stop or rest until you are satisfied with the job I have done.”

Telling a lie about your past experiences, on the other hand, will do you no good either. They’ll somehow know, and then halfway through the job they’ll ask you “this is your first time, isn’t it?”, and you’ll blush profusely and say something like, “No, but it was a long time ago”, and everything will just be awkward until you leave. Then she’ll never call you again.

However, there are some ways to earn money that don’t require experience. I am talking about being a human guinea pig. These have a bad reputation since the film Firestarter, which starred a 9-year old Drew Barrymore who could control fire with her mind. However, there might also be some negative effects from such clinical trials, though it’s best not to ask.

You may have been aware of the kerfuffle surrounding SJS recently for taking down an advertisement for a nude handyman. Then they were also getting criticisms for leaving up an ad for a product test to “test a brand of cigarettes and provide feedback.” Ah, SJS is always looking out for the wellbeing of students, since nudity is obviously more harmful than smoking.

There was an advertisement on campus for a psychological trial. The next line said it was for homosexual men only. I can’t say that I wasn’t a little curious, but it wasn’t enough to make me want to switch teams.

The orientation pack also contained a voucher for getting a Brazilian wax for $38. I went to bargain with them and told them I would let them wax me for $50, but they quite rudely told me to go away.

However, if you are lucky enough to own your own set of boobs, there are always ads for escorts and strippers - no experience necessary! Presumably, communication skills aren’t important either (i.e. retards are free to apply). That’s when I realised how appropriately named Trademe really is. Because to get a student job in this economy, you will on some level have to whore yourself out.

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