My final blog - a poor student no longer!
- By David Bennett
- Published 24/07/2008
Well, I am no longer a student anymore.Now I have to pay back all my generous friends!No more scooter.No more working in the vege shop.No more weetbix without milk.No more chocolate withdrawal symptoms, but a well working set of teeth thanks to my speed bump challenge!
A big thanks to Moira and the team at the WSU.This has been a great challenge people from Wellington and other Universities around the country and Politicians in Parliament and the public in the Waikato have been encouraged and enthralled by the challenge.It's a great idea and was well managed and accepted with the sense of wanting to make it as realistic as possible.
The last 24 hours have been pretty much cost free, once I got my speed bump sorted.I managed to live off weetbix, apples and free finger food.I did get my chocolate fixation satisfied by one of my best mates MP Mark Blumsky's chocolate stash.I think he was surprised with how much I ate but it was easily explained!
Dinner last night was a freebie of finger food, courtesy of New Zealand First MP Doug Woolerton – felt so good getting something free out of him!He was introducing a Hamilton Doctor, Mark Shaw, who had travelled the Amazon River with Peter Blake in 2007 at a seminar to recognise their achievements at Parliament.
Overall, it looks like my total income for the week was $250.52 and my total expenses were $316.72.That leaves a deficit of $66.20.
That's probably about what I'd expected and shows how hard it is to live as a student with the high costs of living.I know a few years ago when I was a student we certainly didn't have so many costs and things were much cheaper to live on.So I can relate to students when they say it's tough out there!
We thank the student union for the opportunity but also want to support the students in their cause and are very mindful of all the sacrifices they are making to get the best education possible and we congratulate them on making that choice and we want to be able to see them get the benefits of that in the future.Well done and thank you!
