If you haven’t heard about Air New Zealand’s new baggage charges you can read about them here:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10502213

The words money making rip off come to mind when reading about it. I am currently traveling on around 20 - 30 flights per year and I am never over my baggage weight allowance, in fact 90% of the time I am more then 50% under it. Although I do occasionally travel with two bags - always underweight.

I think Air New Zealand have figured out that not many people traveling domestically actually go over the baggage weight limit and have found another way to squeeze them for money. Only a few days ago it was announced that fairs would also increase.

To put it bluntly Air New Zealand want you to pay more for you ticket. Pay more for your bags. Provide less people behind the desk and expect more from you (ie you have to put your own bags on the baggage trolley).

What is next? A $1000 per ticket cost to fly to Wellington where you create your own ticket, act as your own security screener, fly the plane yourself, be baggage handler, air traffic controller, and ground crew. Customer Service yeah right!

I was asked by a fellow student President today about what defines me.

Well my immediate response was:

• Computers/Programming
• Tramping
• Church

I was then asked how much of that I was doing this year given how busy I was.

My response was very muted because all three have been essentially zero. I have started on a computer science project but haven’t touched it in about two months. I have been tramping twice but that is it all my outdoors exercise this year. And church, well I have been twice, I have been to youth group three times as well but given that a quarter of the year has gone by I have not done much of the things that define me.

I was just reading something someone else I know had written, it was a list of goals. The only problem I noticed with this list of goals was that the majority of them actually had nothing to do with the definition of this person and instead were most of the things that this person’s friends define themselves through. So that made me think. Should we be defining ourselves in who we are or who we could pretend to be by copying the acts of others?

I don’t think we would achieve much more then heartache by trying to take the defining aspects of others and stuff them into our lives. Because at the end of the day we are all unique and all different. If we were all the same we would be boring!

Now I am not saying that we should not have goals and not have role models. However, what I am saying is our goals should be what we can achieve and our role models should be people that we want to be like; not clone.

Life. It is a celebration of diversity not of similarity.

The state of having little or no money and few or no material possessions

With this in mind I have to ask is the following quote poverty?

From now on, I am deemed poor… coz I have money I can’t touch…

Is having you can’t touch poor? I don’t think so. If you put up a barrier to money that you have that is your that is your problem. You are not poor. You are simply acting.

Say I was to have $10,000 and I decided to lock $9,900 away into a six month term deposit. I only have $100 left. Can I honestly claim that I am poor. NO. I am not poor I have simply decided to be stubborn with my money to try and claim some sympathy. It is Disgusting Behavior. NOT because you have money. But because that you have money and at the same time you are trying to claim that you don’t. It is deceitful and lying to say that you are poor.

Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Proverbs 30:8 NIV

A man charged over the theft of items from a Canadian family staying at an Auckland hotel has been granted bail.Peter Malcolm Black, 42, who has the same surname as the Canadian family, was bailed to a South Auckland address when he appeared in the Auckland District Court yesterday.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10487658

This move seriously weakens my trust in the New Zealand justice system. Earlier in the week we have 6 Police Officers turn up to stop a parent from flicking his son on the ear once. But, on the other hand, we have a serious fraudster who brought disgrace to this country being bailed.

This isn’t the only serious criminal granted bail yesterday.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10487665

The 16-year-old appeared in the Youth Court and was granted bail.

A 16 year old who was a part of a gang of four who violently beat 4 adults is also granted bail. What is this country coming to? Do you have to be a violent offender in order to be free? Are the police to afraid to deal with serious crime? Something needs to be done here.