Student Antics

Amid all the hullabaloo over the new student code of conduct, and the rioting, couch-burning, and bottle-throwing, I've been wondering what has changed. However, I had a small ephiphany on Friday morning when I saw this.



Sure, damming a flood-prone river isn't entirely unstupid, but there's a decent amount of initiative in this. And you have to admire the sheer audacity of this enterprise. I particularly like the way they've used the tarpaulin to line the dam, and I'm equally impressed at the size of the rocks they have holding the tarp down.



You get a better perspective of how much water it's holding back from the downstream angle.

And that's it in a nutshell. There's nothing audacious, novel or funny in burning a couch, or throwing bottles at people. There wasn't anything too amusing about the skip fire in Grange Street last week, so close to a house that it melted the spouting and cracked the upstairs windows. Student life in Dunedin has become a Marc Ellis cliché.

I have very fond memories of my own foolish hijinks. I haven't burnt a couch, but I did drive one up Baldwin Street in a trailer (absolutely not recommended!). It's probably not over-prudent to list more remiss things, but they weren't always legal, and they weren't always safe. But I would like to think that they were funny, or at least, had the potential to be so.



[Driving up is the easy part. If you try to back a trailer down such a steep street, it's very prone to jack-knifing. There's also not a lot of turning room, and taking the trailer off would be ill-advised.]

The great Flying Saucer Hoax springs to mind. Students going home for the holidays meticulously planned a serious of sightings to produce a trajectory across New Zealand (follow the link and scroll down for a map and planned sighting times). 'Operation Berlin', an foiled attempt to brick up the front entrance to Selwyn also deserves credit. It would have perhaps been completed, if it weren't for an RA sneaking back in.