I experienced my first music festival at the age of eighteen in a certain Kinross field. It was a weekend lived through beer goggles, and one I look back on through rose-tinted ones. The ticket was the first ‘real’ thing I’d paid for with my own money; my mum had loaned me the initial cost, and I paid her back on a monthly basis out of my meagre part-time wages. I had never held any interest in going on a post-high school beach holiday, but a festival? Count me in.
Call me a cynic, but the rise in catwalk feminism is leaving a sour taste in my mouth. Two years ago, at Paris Fashion Week, some of the world’s biggest supermodels marched down Chanel’s catwalk with megaphones and placards demanding equality. The same Paris Fashion Week which is home to haute couture: an industry that has solidified the idea of thinness being intrinsic to beauty. Placards held by the models included phrases such as ‘boys should get pregnant too’ (in brief: they can), and ‘be different’.
It’s that time of the month again – another election. They are becoming as frequent as a rainy Glasgow day, yet each time it’s important you are able to make an informed choice. Each party – from those already in Westminster to the Monster Raving Loony Party – releases a manifesto detailing what they’ll do should your precious vote spur that party to power. Many Glasgow University students live within the Glasgow North constituency and, here, qmunicate has summed up the five contesting parties’ manifestos, on the issues we think matter the most to students and young people.
Although all issues a government makes effect us in some way, we’ve chosen to narrow this down to the four Es: Europe, Education, Employment, Equality. Oh, and healthcare, too.
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Macaroni cheese is food of the gods: trust me on this one. Its warm gooeyness can cure all ills: again, trust me. Your date bailed; you didn’t get the grade you wanted in an essay; you’ve realised that life is temporary and nothing is real – warm macaroni in an oozing cheese sauce will sort you right out. I promise.
If I remember rightly, it was around this time last year that I received confirmation that I had been accepted to be a language assistant. Admittedly, one of the biggest pulls of the programme is the pay: 800€ a month for twelve or so hours a week. If you want to be a teacher in future, it’s invaluable experience, but you don’t even need any teaching qualifications or experience: you’re an English language assistant, so your fluency will suffice. Personally, I had worked before in a school – but not in a teaching role – and others have volunteered with youth groups or tutored. The experience is helpful, but not required. Yet even after six months I don’t claim to be a teacher, or anywhere near one, in fact. Regardless, here are some tips from Yours Truly about doing a half-decent job of it.
No two experiences of a year abroad can ever be the same: whether that’s due to the location, or the placement, or the weather on a particular day in the middle of November. So far, I’ve told you – quite bluntly – what my experience has been like. In the name of fairness, I spoke to five other assistants across France about their experiences: what they knew before leaving, if their expectations were met, what they would change, and what advice they would give someone heading abroad this September.
