Up Front: The Up Front Guide to Parenting
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Right.
I'll just be down in the cellar, then. Designing, building and maintaining absolutely everything that enables your feckless, carefree modern lifestyle.
No, really, it's no bother, even though it has been a bit damp down there lately and my chest is playing up something awful. You go out with your sparkling, witty friends. I'll be fine, honestly. I prefer to be alone with my robots, really I do.
I am the engineer.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--
With apologies to Langston Hughes... -
I don't usually talk about it in polite company.
As well you shouldn't. Finance, indeed.
Though apparently a third of all degrees granted these days are in commerce. I comfort myself with the knowledge that the recession means they're all out of work now anyway. And the ones who share my part-time retail hell are good for mocking.
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Ah yes but there are more choices - Carrington was the replacement name post-1974 trying to get over the stigma of "Oakley Hospital", which was the new name ditto "Avondale Asylum" from which one of my great-great grandfathers graduated, and further back before all this PC nonsense started with the 1890s Liberals they called it the Whau Lunatic Asylum.
If it wasn't for those 1890s Liberals I might never have been conceived.
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Does that make polytechnics "P-techs"?
Lots of lab equipment being nicked, apparently. You can guess what for.
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very nice Emma----out-Listenering the Listener!
or was that the hearald. or the press. nevermind.but in all seriousness (well, a small amount of seriousness, if you want to get all pendantic), the phenomenon of which you write reflects two very bloody major changes in the way newzild society is conditioned re life, the universe and everything. imho. when did these changes ferment? sometime between the mid-80s and the mid-90s, i reckon.
1. nz has gone from being primarily a place where people learn/train "on the job" to one where people are expected to front up for jobs pre-trained. really. in the "old days", only a very small number of jobs required a lot of pre-job training or university study. doctors, engineers, architects, dentists, vets, high school teachers, lawyers. most people left school at 15 or sixteen with no "formal qualifications" and the number who had university entrance was probably lower than 20% up to the mid 80s. people got jobs in the public and private sectors that trained them and quite often required apprenticeships and attendance at "tech" for one day a week for a few years and maybe night classes. most accountants didn't go to university, they worked in accounts jobs and tried to get their a.c.a. with the support of their employer. nursing, chefs, mechanics, carpenters, lab technicians, you name it. but now, it seems to be nearly all done before employment, at the individual's considerable expense, both in fees and opportunity cost of income forgone. it seems to me that the burden has shifted massively away from the employer onto the (future) employee.
2. all the tertiary education/training these days seems to automatically imply huge debts before little jonny and jane have even earned a cent. this does not seem to be a sustainable way to set up society imho. all this debt built up against future potential income seems to be (surprise, surprise) encouraging people to try and get their kids to get into courses that have a ROI. this is unlikely to end well, not least because of the fact that most teenagers don't have a clue what they want to do for decades hence. they don't even know what they want to do after tea, ffs!
so, if they have an interest or passion for some thing or other in terms of study or vocation, let them rip! only then can they find out if it will really suit them.
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Does that make polytechnics "P-techs"?
Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology will always be, to me, CPIT. Pronounced spit.
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Uni was first used, I think, in the phrase 'Sydney uni', and was first spotted on these fair shores in 1984 in Auckland.
Back in 1969, when such things were all the go, someone appeared to have been sprung during the hight while painting the words Students and Workers Unite above the entrance to one of the Victoria campus's major buildings. Salient ran a picture of their handiwork, which appeared to be missing the final two letters, with the observation that, for the moment, the slogan formed the name of an institution of higher learning.
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Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology will always be, to me, CPIT. Pronounced spit.
I was doing a bit of temp work desktop publishing at CPIT during the name change (mostly swapping new logos for old on business cards) and that is definitely the pronunciation I've always used.
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Ponsonby Intermediate School suffered from acronymphobia when I was there.
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Ponsonby Intermediate School suffered from acronymphobia when I was there.
Uh, the Tertiary Education Union has um, a Combined Unions Negotiating Team.
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In my job at Bardic Web, at one point I spent a lot of my time dealing with our Terms of Service (TOS) and our Code of Conduct (COC). I'd been referring to the TOS and the COC in online discussions for years before I ever said it out loud. Now I giggle all the damn time, because like Danielle I am twelve.
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Uh, the Tertiary Education Union has um, a Combined Unions Negotiating Team.
I'm sure that's what the opposing negotiators called them..
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I am twelve
Overcome momentarily by an inappropriate Five Go Mad flash.
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Overcome momentarily by an inappropriate Five Go Mad flash.
Gosh. You're so mature, Sacha...
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You haven't met Emma.. :)
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In the proud tradition of 'real' world stuff the University of Ottawa are using Maths and Zombies.
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Conversely, sometimes acronyms are the only things holding one's inner twelve year old in check. I, for one, snigger guiltily every time I see LHC spelled out in full.
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Gotta admit tho' - Auckland Uni's ploy of whipping up middle class hysteria via the scarcity of educational resources is a coup of marketting.
.... I love coups! and marketing coups are some of the best ...... -
Now I giggle all the damn time, because like Danielle I am twelve.
I see your acronyms and raise you having to have serious conversations about lamb and/or mutton flaps.
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