Welcome to The Weekly Nouse edition three. This week we’ve a whole host of content for you to enjoy as all our deadlines approach.
In the latest instalment of ‘Life In Lockdown’ we’ve spoken to the amazing Nightline and in News Matthew King looks at the volunteer work being carried out at the University. In Comment Annabel Mulliner gives her take on the University's plan for the redistribution of money withheld from strikers' pay and Ellie Longman-Rood looks at the politics behind fashion.
On the MUSE side of things, our series MUSE Film Club and ‘You Are What You Read’ carry on with Sam Campbell and Kristina Wemyss giving their takes respectively. ‘Self-Expression isolation’ by Amelia Davidson makes for another great MUSE read and James Hudson gives us a very interesting feature in ‘That Science-Fiction Feeling: Culture And The 'Big C'.
This weeks ‘Flashback’ space is taken by Nouse’s most recent interview with York and Nouse alumni Anthony Horowitz. The piece was featured in the 2019 Freshers supplement and its feature in this edition of ‘The Weekly Nouse’ marks the piece's first appearance on our website.
Aside from discussing these great pieces, I was planning on using this Editor’s note, within the context of this week's ‘Life in Lockdown’ interview with Nightline, to talk about the mental health challenges we’re all currently facing. I am instead going to keep this brief. Maybe this edition brings you some sort of entertainment or distraction from your current situation. Maybe you’d benefit from me giving a personal account of how Nouse has been keeping me sane, laced with some flimsy advice on how to find your new coping mechanism. I’m not so sure though.
What I’m going to do instead is re-use a quote from one of the amazing public faces of York Nightline. When I asked about their reasons for working so hard to keep their work up in lockdown, Annie told me that “students continue to face all the challenges they would normally but on top of that it’s exasperated by the current situation of being in lockdown and not being able to access some of the coping mechanisms that people are usually able to utilise. I think people are therefore looking for new coping mechanisms and one of those could be talking and that’s why we wanted to remain open to provide an ear for people who not only use the service already but perhaps new users too”.
I repeat this quote here because it makes so much sense. I’ve been developing and evolving coping mechanisms my whole life and I don’t think I’d ever properly considered talking to someone as one. Yes I know it's very important, and as I’ve said in previous notes I have often caught myself being hypocritical when it comes to talking about mental health, yet before I’d properly looked at that quote I don’t think I’d really considered talking to someone as a coping mechanism. The phrase ‘coping mechanism’ for me has always represented distractions of different varieties, which inevitably varied hugely in healthiness. Yes carry on your 5km challenges, throw yourself into your writing, your video games or even your newly established weekly dungeons and dragons sessions, do whatever you enjoy and whatever is keeping you sane right now. But if you’re looking for a coping mechanism and you can’t find someone you feel 100% comfortable talking to right now, then please take advantage of the amazing service they offer, and email Nightline.
To repeat again from interview the email to contact is listening@york.nightline.ac.uk
Having written 0 words of my essays due imminently, over 15,000 words of YUMA nominations and over 2,500 words of a Life in Lockdown interview already this week I am therefore going to leave this note here and go and get on with some work. Please enjoy this week's edition and please use the amazing York Nightline service if you need it.
We will see you again for the next instalment in a couple of weeks time.
