How to beat the student poorness....

By Arnia Kiara Oosthuizen

Everyone has been there... that time when you count the cents in your pocket. Or when you binge on Two Minute noodles or tuna. When you measure everything you buy and how much drinks you could have bought with it. When you are nice to people in clubs, so they would buy you drinks, because entrance just made you poor. Have you ever experienced this?

Yes, we have all had the student poorness syndrome.

I am a student, who is always keen for jobs or holiday jobs. I have worked at shoe shops, at lawyers, at daycare centers, you name it! I also work at university at the Reading Labs, where we help first year students to better their reading skills, so they can do better in their academics. But then, we came across the idea to buy t-shirt strips and make headbands, armbands and necklaces from it.

A braided headband

A double finger weave armband

A sailor's knot headband

We had a market day at the residence, where I did pretty well. But then I decided to go bigger. I am going to sell my things at Life Market. "The LIFE Market is a local market where fresh, interesting and out of the ordinary food can be found. In addition to the really good food, you can also find decor and clothing goods".

I decided to take a chance and try to get into the Life Market. They are a very prestige market with beautiful things every time. It is a bad place to go if you have money, because you want to buy every single thing. The e-mail came through that I am approved for the market. I am looking forward to sell it!

I hope this will help to cure the student poorness, which I am suffering from! But I also enjoy making these things, it is therapeutic and relaxing.

The things a student will do for money is amazing! You just have to get something that is worthwhile to do!

What have you done for student jobs, just to survive?

Last day at shoe shop

By Arnia Kiara Oosthuizen

Like I have mentioned before I was working in a shoe shop. But all good and bad stuff must come to an end.

I have learned to work with customers nice or rude. Some come in already, ready for a fight and others will be so friendly that you are almost stunned... I have also lost a bit of faith in humanity because most customers don't even acknowledge you, after you have greeted them heartily and they can really be unreasonable for no reason at all.

I have made new friends with my colleagues, they welcomed me with open arms and we really had good times in the store. We had a good laugh at customers, who went crazy or started shouting at us for a pair of shoes... If shoes ever become so important to me that I start shouting at the shop assistants, then I must know that I have totally lost it... It was fun knowing them and I'm going to try to make regular visits there.

We have also established that i can't dance, especially not to house music... But i have known it for a long time now!

Also one of the perks of working in a shoe shop is that we have first pick at what shoes we want. If we get more stock from the suppliers and open the boxes and there is shoes in them which we like, we get to buy them first, before they are even on the selves!

Today was my last day in the shoe shop.

All in all, it was yet another great year and now I have money to show for my slavery in the shop. But that money is going straight to my study fund for 2014!