Recently, I read an ODT article claiming that this July was the warmest July since records began.
I am here to confirm that the ODT has, as you suspected, got it wrong.
Trusted journalism my ass, this winter has been bloody cold, especially when you find yourself encased in a shell of mould with nothing to warm you but 5 blokes just as skinny and tired as you are.
I’ve always prided myself on being a winter person, a Dunedinite ready to face wintery waters and blustery pitches all in the name of sport, yet this winter has made me strongly reassess this foolish assumption.
But then I thought again . . . I’ve only ever thought about the weather (or God forbid talked about it) when there is literally nothing else to occupy my mind with.
Surfing, football, and hockey have been my salvation in the past, yet this year I have been mentally fraught.
Thus the solution to me, and you I bet, is simple . . . the only way to survive Dunedin in a bedroom with two enormous uninsulated windows right next to the Leith is to distract yourself with a thought that inspires hope.
After all, is this not the exact role that sport fills in our lives?
So, without further or do, here are the top three things to hope for aside from a heater in studentville.
First and most depressing of all is hoping for the clock to turn 9pm.
At 9pm most students find their salvation as they enter the 3 hours of free power that Contact energy provides between 9pm and 12am.
Some flats aren’t bothered by these seemingly unsubstantial savings, others will set alarms on their phones so they can turn on the washing machine, the drier, the dishwasher, the vacuum cleaner, the fridge, and the chargers; we are the latter.
Yet momentary respite, however blissful, doesn’t provide the long-term sustenance which your failing heart so desperately needs.
Secondly, you dream your new flat next year, one away from the dramas of Leith and Castle St.
It’s currently flat hunting season in the dirty catacombs of North Dunedin and I’m thankful enough to have locked a quaint Howe St locale down.
Sadly, this utopian vision which myself and many others hold dear makes the present seem utterly dreary.
Suddenly I find myself bothered by mundane absurdities such as our bathroom smelling like deep fried food, or our curtains being constantly closed.
My last hope leads into possibly the moral of the story if there ever was one.
A few Saturday nights ago, my flat, in conjunction with a few friends wrangled from off the street, hosted a talent show.
Sure, the poetry was mediocre, the singing was probably only worth its dramatic effect, and the magic tricks were probably the best thing that happened but not large scale enough to win.
Yet at the end of it all, we came together in ecstasy in a gigantic mosh, buoyed on by the love we all felt for one another in that moment.
Even today I’m still left thinking about that talent show.
Anyway, the moral is, when winter is really shi**y and you’re on the verge of despair, create something to hope for.
The talent show was that symbol of hope for me, and now that’s over I will have no choice but to create a similar series of events which I will force my friends to complete all in the name of hope.
Through hope you find a way through winter in studentville.
- Hugh Askerud is a politics and religious studies student at the University of Otago
