thoughts

As you may or may not know (though probably don't know because I kept it relatively to myself), I got COVID during March. I am (mostly) recovered after testing positive just over 2 weeks ago, and let me tell you, it was not an enjoyable experience. I want to talk today about COVID in our lives, getting COVID, and its impacts on New Zealand right now. Let's go back to the beginning of the pandemic, COVID was pretty scary as a concept, and especially last year I struggled a lot with the fear of what COVID would do to me. Especially as for the majority of 2020-2021 in New Zealand, COVID was a foreign concept that we did not have to deal with in our lives. We had no cases in the community, no fear of transmission, it was this big scary virus that existed in other countries where it maimed and murdered almost what seemed indiscriminately. There was a lot of caution on the part of our government to ensure that we could keep this COVID free life, which was, looking back on, something ...

Every so often, I stumble across ads on social media by the Health Promotion Agency targeting young women warning them not to drink if they think they might be pregnant. You may have seen them - the account is called 'Don't know? Don't Drink' and have appeared to me on Facebook and Instagram as sponsored content. For some reason, these ads make me feel uncomfortable; I can't quite seem to put my finger on it, but every time they come up I feel uneasy and a little bit frustrated at their continued existence. Essentially, the whole campaign is really hinged on the idea of not drinking if you don't know if you're pregnant. Being a cis-woman, honestly I can tell you that until that period arrives, I don't know 100% for certain if I am pregnant. Heck, I don't even 100% know WHEN I get my period. We're all aware of that one friend of a friend who continued getting periods and never showed the whole of her pregnancy until one day SURPRISE she have a b...

Recently I’ve been intermittently annoyed at the government. I mean what left-leaning young social sciences student isn’t these days, but recently it’s been this deep passionate annoyance at the inability of the government to say or do anything meaningful about child poverty in New Zealand . Any of you who know me will know right now I’m doing a masters degree in Anthropology on child dental health in Northland and wider New Zealand. ‘What does this have to do with your intro of child poverty?’ you may ask. Well, everything. And that’s why I’m so goddamn annoyed. Poverty makes everything suck. I mean, it is poverty right? But the thing is, poverty isn’t just the terrible experience of food insecurity, poor housing (or worse, no housing) and being unable to upkeep the daily necessities of modern life such as heating and shoes in winter or a functioning car. It also severely impacts dental health outcomes for children. It severely impacts so many places that seem, arguably, remo...