Te ora ki rāhui
Life in Lockdown
It was the year we all played a nationwide game of ‘go home, stay home’. So what exactly were we getting up to over those long weeks at home?
French Club: Fostering community through lockdown
With a little kiwi ingenuity, took the research paper into a hot steaming tub in the middle of the day during a cold rainy lockdown. Got around the water shortage issue by not having showered for a week!
Quarantine Artwork
Everything comes with some positives, right?… So the positive part of Covid is no one can disturb you. You gotta sit there in front of the screen and learn. 100 percent focus time…
Ranisha Sharma
Young Nats
Despite this global pandemic, 2020 has been the best year of my life because of one major reason, my exchange in the first semester. I was lucky enough to be able to study abroad in Singapore and meet some of the coolest people from all over the world. I studied at The National University of Singapore and I got to experience living in a completely different environment, from the culture to the weather to the laws!”
Bubbles
by Loredana P. Kint
Drifting in these bubbles through our mundane tasks,
Quivering beneath our iridescent masks
That long to enfold more than the air we breathe,
Or, like geothermal bubbles, calmly seethe
Beneath the mud that cracks a little bit each day,
Like watched pots, never boiling till you look away,
Our secrets and our fears in vain are simmering,
But our pretty bubbles keep on shimmering.
We fizz toward the surface, desperate for change,
Our bubbles become an aluminium cage,
Reality goes flat and tastes sickly sweet
When, from two metres, a companion we meet;
Hardly a greeting, our bubbles barely brush,
How much longer to feel a human touch
Without the need to wash our hands yet again?
However long I rinse, some bubbles remain.
Some speak of the bubbles like pets, and say
“I hope your bubble is doing well today,”
But someday soon we’ll take our bubbles for a walk,
And let them all run free while their owners talk,
Cut loose the leash, and let all roam
Among the world that was our own
Before the bubbles were our home,
Before the bubbles were our home.
This Year
by Loredana P. Kint
Can we speak about the year when it isn’t over yet?
Can we dwell on memory before the risk we might forget?
Whatever might have been, there is much left to appear
To be seen, and be remembered, from the rest of this year.
Is a season really over till the next is in its prime?
Is it futile for our high-tech clocks to try ensnaring time?
Each moment written in an ink that clumsy minds may smear,
Our glossy calendars that toll the passing of this year.
Should we fear boredom’s grasp, when nothing ever stays the same?
Should we fret with every blow, or laugh it off as though a game?
If we can tiptoe on the see-saw built of smiles and tears,
Our paths cannot be swayed as we navigate this year.
If our families were different, would it change what we call home?
If we had another choice, would we choose to stay or roam?
Should we refrain from judging harshly that which is too near,
In person, and in time, until much further in this year?
How soon will we forget all we have learned within these weeks?
How soon, instead of smiles, will we replace our tongue-in-cheek?
And of the people we encounter, who might care to hear
And learn from all the memories we’ve made within this year?
Would you tell yourself of yesteryear to get your life arranged?
Would you let tomorrow’s you go on as if nothing had changed?
For all we have withstood within these months, it is quite clear
We can only become better in the rest of this year.
Students of Urban Planning and Architecture
We hosted a ‘best tower’ competition, in which students had to construct a tower and send a photo to us or tag us in it on Instagram. Here are a few entries!
Homemade or store-bought, masks helped keep us safe in 2020
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