I have come to fear Thursdays. It is the final deadline for magazine content and usually I’ve spent most of the week faffing, so I always wake up in the morning with that slightly sick feeling of having an assignment due.
What makes it worse is that numerous distractions present themselves during the day. It begins when I pick up a free copy (bless) of the Dom on my way to work and spend a while reading it and bitching about its content, a la Wednesday’s editorial.
Aside from the obvious objection to the playing of the homophobia card, I find the leader-writer’s claims that the Labour Party doesn’t represent the “wider interests” of New Zealanders grating. Not because I’m a closeted Labour supporter, but because you could easily apply the same argument to any party in Parliament. Isn’t diversity of representation what MMP’s supposed to be all about? If you were really bitter and cynical, you could say that politicians are rarely truly representative of their constituents. Most, if not all, current MPs have some form of higher education, something that can not be said of the wider population. Jim Bolger was most likely the last New Zealand Prime Minister to not have a degree. And casting an eye over a list of MP’s assets, it easy to say that most New Zealanders don’t share the same level of prosperity.
Further distractions came from the guy from Studentville, who turned up at about three in the afternoon to gather material for a story about the student media. It’s hard suddenly having the interview tables turned on you. Especially when you’re prone to frequent bouts of foot-in-mouth. Like shouting about urination without realising you’re being filmed.
What I found weird was that he seemed to think the student media was all about the drinking and the drama. Aside from a wee incident during Orientation, the only liquid I’ve drunk to excess in this office is coffee. Which is frustrating, because we’ve run out of milk and nobody can ever be bothered going to get some more. And you know what else? There aren’t any clean cups either.