It’s week two of The Weekly Nouse and I’m already struggling to keep this note as positive as I promised last week. It is, therefore, symbolic of my current mental state that this week’s note shall take the form of a sort of shit, muppetless A Christmas Carol.
“We’ll see.” This is a phrase that has become somewhat rich within our dialogue right now and is certainly apparent within some of our pieces this week. There is naturally a current fascination with prediction and speculation and this edition’s ‘Life in Lockdown’ and News piece, ‘University of York predicts £100m income losses in wake of COVID-19 crisis’, are both examples rife with it.
The financial cloud which is looming over our University and our Union is certainly one which instils a great deal of worry. In this week’s ‘Life in Lockdown’, I speak to YUSU’s activities officer Ollie Martin about the current activities going on ‘at’ York and the recent round of furloughing, set to affect these activities greatly in the coming months. The prospects of a virtual Freshers and the future of YUSU activities with a much smaller budget are also spoken about at length. Elsewhere, this week’s News piece details a leaked financial report from the Vice Chancellor, raising serious questions about how the University will adapt and how this will affect students. Both pieces represent and reinforce our own concerns about the future and, although I’d recommend reading them both and considering the consequences they present, I would recommend not lingering on them too extensively.
On a lighter and less speculative note, other articles in this week's edition focus on our present circumstances. While it is important to acknowledge the scary future we find ourselves barrelling towards, it can be very overwhelming to think about when you’re sat at this exam desk staring out the window. A lot of what is happening right now may be terrifying, but there are some interesting and exciting things to look forward to, such as awards season which is touched on in our interview with Ollie. Following York’s phenomenal achievement that was Virtual Roses this weekend, Pat Hook-Willers provides us a thorough and emotional account of the beloved tradition.
Elsewhere in this week's edition you can explore virtual safaris… What does that look like? Find out in Joseph Higgins’s travel piece, an innovative article for a section we had all but given up on in the current circumstances. Also in this edition of The Weekly Nouse, Sam Campbell tells us his views on the self-improvement culture around lock down. Spoiler-alert - he’s not a fan.
Jenna Luxon’s incredible and in depth review of the hit series Normal People is another must-read this week. Explore our latest instalments of our ‘You Are What You Read’ series with Elizabeth Walsh offering her perspective on this deeply personal challenge, while Emily Harvie takes on the mantle of the MUSE Film Club series.
Finally, we’ve reached the final third of this knock-off A Christmas Carol - the past. The archive or ‘Flashback’ spot this week is taken by the icon Andrew Young as we look back at the conversations he had with comedian James Acaster. The piece was chosen not only because we’re big James Acaster fans and even bigger Andrew Young fans, but also because it was highly commended at last year's YUMAs. Definitely worth a read.
The piece is just one part of Nouse’s huge archive of past editions, which has now been moved onto our website. If you’re an alumni wondering why, we couldn’t afford ISSUU’s price increases and we wanted our whole archive to be situated in one place (with the exception of one weird Congress letter which remains on ISSUU - if anyone knows why the hell it's there please don’t hesitate to get in touch).
At nouse.co.uk/editions/ you can bury your head in the historical sand, see how Nouse has evolved (if this is of any interest to you) and see what YUSU scandals were grabbing the front pages in the early 00s. If you’ve got this far into this note what I’d therefore encourage you to do is, in the context of everything I’ve said above:
Consider the future but not to the detriment of your headspace.
Enjoy what you can of the present, and more importantly this edition of The Weekly Nouse.
And if you can’t handle thinking so much about the future right now then enjoy our archive, it’s what I’ll be doing.