Hello there,
Welcome to Victoria University of Wellington. We are Elle and Uther, editors of Salient for 2011. Uther does theatre. Elle grew up on a boat. But this isn’t about us. It’s about you.
Salient is your magazine. As a member of the Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association (VUWSA), you’re paying for it—which is why you can pick it up for free every Monday during term time. It is also yours to contribute to. Since Salient was founded in 1938, its motto has been “an organ of student opinion”, and, when all the in-jokes and crosswords and questionable mascots are said and done, that’s our job: to inform and represent your views. We’re not here to talk at you; we are here to speak for you (and to make dumb puns). If working on this fine rag sounds at all appealing, consult the handy-dandy flowchart on pg 38.
Having said that, though, this week’s issue is an Orientation special, in which we’ve sacrificed all that highfalutin’ content for the big bucks of advertising and interviews with O Week’s biggest acts (except for MGMT. But we’re working on it). We’ve also included good advice for life at uni and in this sweet-as city, which many of you will be new to. And returning students, don’t worry. The letters and crossword are back.
Next week, we begin our real 24-issue deconstruction of the human experience, as seen by Victoria University students. By the end of the year, the precarious, slowly yellowing totem of 2011 Salients stacked high in your bathroom will signify your first-year experience—which, in all likelihood, you will start willing yourself to forget as soon as your last exam is over. (Or was that just us?)
Now, go. Have fun. Get orientated—to your new room, your new friends, your new ‘school’, your new city, your new life. Go to the gigs. See the hypnotist. Maybe get hypnotised. Get wasted, so wasted that you don’t remember all these people that you’re tagged in photos on Facebook with. Go bonkers, as one Mister Rascal might suggest. Seriously.
Because, soon, the hard work starts. Deadlines will loom on the horizon, like a million-fold flock of time-hungry demon elephants. And you must feed them. With learning. Or blood.
Until next week,
Uther and Elle
“You know when grown-ups tell you everything is going to be fine and you think they’re probably lying to make you feel better?”
“Yes.”
“Everything is going to be fine.”