Money

Hello all!

Not blogged in a few days, so I thought I'd do one now! I went out on Friday night with some people from our Tourism class, and we had a really good night! It was a big outdoor studenty event, and it involved drinking beer mixed with white sangría (don't ask me how that works!) eating random food, dancing to music in a Bruce Forsyth style, then two stints on the bumper cars! Well good!

Felt ropey the next day though, so I didn't go on Saturday night. Ajay had come down from O Porto, but apparently something crazy happened where Mike and one of Ajay's mates ended up in hospital. I've asked round at uni, and the story seems hazy. To be honest I'm not getting involved.

I got an e-newsletter from NUS about the AUT's action across the country with their refusal to set/mark exam papers. Where this is not such a problem for the people in the 1st/2nd years, the final year students will be moumentously fooked around. Is moumentously a word? Who knows, but what I do know is that the AUT and the Universities need to sort it all out, or else there's going to be some mad crisis, lots of unhappy and depressed students and friction between lecturers and students. to be honest it's a good thing I'm not at home at the moment, or else I'd probably be leading the language department on some sort of crazy crusade!

It's not that I don't agree with the AUT's stance: lectutures should be adequately paid. However, 90% of the money coming from the new top-up fees will be used to pay for the staff's pay increase. Does this mean that the money coming in from top-up fees will no longer solve all of the universities' woes, as the idea was sold to parliament? I think that there will be an increase in top-up fees. And when that happens, the AUT will be hypocritical if they support us in any action to stop top-up fees, as they have been the main beneficiaries.

If all this is still going on when I get back, and the mentalism is not being fixed, I may refuse to pay my tuition fees, and try and organise some sort of protest against the University. I believe that we could rightly argue that the universities are not keeping up their side of the bargain. We pay tuition fees to be tutored and we expect this to include exams, as well as final graduation. Should the university not provide this, though the fault of either the AUT strike or the Universities' lack of an adequate pay structure, I think we could rightly withold our fees.

That's my thoughts on the matter. Feel free to comment.

Apart from all this, I'm now learning how to use Dreamweaver, so I can re-do the LGBT's website. It's now on www.salfordlgbt.co.uk. Click on it if you want, it's got a random message on it!

Well, I'm off, lots of love and hugs!

Ben xxx