GSM ed. 2 vol. 5 "Junk"

GSM

E. 2 V. 5

Contents Editorial GSM is proudly written, illustrated and edited by members of the ECU community. Past editions are available online at www. issuu.com/ecuguild We also appreciate your likes on Facebook.

Mad props to everyone who wrote, drew, photographed and otherwise contributed to this edition. Your efforts were sincerely appreciated.

Page 5.

Guild Events Page 6.

The Junk Journal

Warning: this edition contains articles about homosexuality, war, drug use, drug addiction, capitalism, poetry, McDonalds, and dead fish. Thanks for reading!

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Fashionable Recycling

Disclaimer

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The Epitome of Convenience

GSM is editorially independent of the ECU Student Guild. The views expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the Editor, the ECU Student Guild or the Advertisers. The Editor reserves the right to republish material in GSM and its affiliated formats, as well as to make changes to submitted material. Contributors retain all other rights of resale and republication.

Details Editor: Tom Reynolds editor.gsm@gmail.com GSM - ECU 2 Bradford Street Mount Lawley WA 6050 Design: Tom Reynolds Advertising: Tom Reynolds communications@ecuguild.org.au (08) 9370 6609

Aknowledgements Front Cover: Ali Alatas (Cheers mate!)

Spectrum Content: Claire Bushby (Thanks CB!) Events Content: Ngaire Powell (Thank you!)

Printing: Picton Press

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So, You Want To Be A Teacher?

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Junk Chapters of The Future Page 17.

My First Trip Page 19.

Seven Things I Hate About ECU Page 20.

Sea Junk Page 23.

Rubbish Boys I Have Kissed Page 25.

Junk: A Short Story 3

Events Weekly

Upcoming

Queer Space

ECU Southwest Ball

The ECU Queer Collective hosts Queer Spaces at both Mount Lawley and Joondalup weekly. Queer Space is open to all Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans, Intersex, queer and questioning students (members or not) as an opportunity to meet other members or queer students at ECU, share ideas, get some snacks and browse our resources.

Saturday, November 22

Joondalup: Wednesdays 1-5 pm Building 10.202 Mount Lawley: Fridays 1:30-5 pm Building 17.241 See our facebook page for more details: ECUniversityQC Code Jam The Robotics and Programming Society are offering coding sessions every Monday at Joondalup Campus in 23.329 from 2pm-4pm. Learn to code, develop programming skills, share ideas, and seek advice with assessments.

For more information contact: info@perthrps.com

Bunbury Entertainment Centre, 6.30pm- 11pm TICKETS ON SALE NOW from Guild offices and Bunbury Co-op café.

Single: $80, double: $150. Ticket includes a selection of canapés, three drinks, professional photography and photobooth, entertainment and prizes. Join us in Bunbury for a great night out 1920’s style. Please contact gsa.bu@ecu.edu.au for any queries. ECU students and staff and partners welcome.

Great Gatsby Ball Don’t forget to get your table together for the 2014 Great Gatsby Ball! This event is open to all students, their friends and families! Tickets below cost at just $120 per person!

Saturday November 29th | Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre | 630pm - Midnight

Mature Age Coffee Mornings

5 hour unlimited drinks package!

The MASN morning tea get togethers at Mt. Lawley. The venue will be the Central Cafe, from 1030 to 1130 on Tuesday 5th August, and weekly thereafter.

5 hours of great company and entertainment!

Award winning 3 course meal!

Great giveaways and prizes!

FREE coach for Bunbury students to Perth and back!

This event is proudly supported by ECU Student Guild and Teachers Mutual Bank!

For further information please visit the Network Teach website and click on the ‘Great Gatsby Ball Tab’ www.networkteach.com.

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THE JUNK JOURNAL If all pleasure is relief from tension, junk affords relief from the whole life process, in disconnecting the hypothalamus, which is the center of psychic energy and libido.

- William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch

People think it’s all about misery and desperation and death and all that shite, which is not to be ignored, but what they forget is the pleasure of it. Otherwise we wouldn’t do it. After all, we’re not fucking stupid. At least, we’re not that fucking stupid.

- Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting

We once knew a girl called Madness. We called her this because she was: crazy; good fun; a real nutter. She was somebody you’d call ‘kin’, because there was that instant familiarity, an ease of interaction.

Madness was a mess. Not a hot mess. Rather... a fabulous mess.

She exuded this amazing aura of otherworldliness. And she wrote poetry. Like me. Not great poetry, but amazingly honest poetry.

And she communed fluently with my lover, Rowdy. More so than most people.

That’s the ‘we’: Rowdy and me. What follows is a true story.

Madness had a mate called Satan. Satan was a heroin dealer. When Satan got kicked outta his flat, Madness let him move in. After all, it’s what you do with kin: help them out.

But he was her kin, not ours. And essentially, we didn’t approve.

But you have to let friends do what they have to do. Even if that means ending up addicted (again) to heroin. Just be thankful we aren’t living with them, Rowdy assured me.

if somebody is in danger then it’s nice to help (from because, mikayla) When Satan moved out, Madness decided to get clean. It’ll take four days, she told us. She’d done this before, knew the territory.

We had faith in her wisdom, if not at least to help herself out of her own predicament. Which rings a little noble in my mind: if you’re gonna fuck it, know your exit plans.

I love drawing maps. They always have an exit. But drawing a map wouldn’t help me through the agreement we had made: that we’d see Madness on her journey back from The Underworld.

She’d exit it’s wraith-like grip riding a cold turkey. It was the strategy she knew. The only strategy she knew. Fuck that methadone bullshit, Madness once told me. That just keeps you hanging on. Who wants to keep just hanging on.

So instead of drawing a map I wrote a poem. It was a found poem.

I picked up a used children’s activity book curb siding en route to Madness’ valiant escape riding atop freezing seven-faced bird as though it were Christmas or Thanks Giving or some other poultry themed celebration. I decided that this exercise book, which belonged to a kid called Mikayla, would be the celebration of this event: I’d write the poem using only the text in Mikayla’s book until Madness was on the other side. Or at least just that closer to being alive.

Excerpts from this poem accompany each day, including this one.

It’s strange how you can find hope, anywhere. Even in junk.

DAY #2

Now I, personally, hate heroin. I’ve lost good friends to it. I would never suggest anybody ever take it, just in case they like it. Yes... like it. It is incredible the tastes we can acquire, just through living.

everywhere rushing scurrying hurrying nest

If you ever try heroin, though, know the following: 1.) Your first hit shouldn’t hopefully make you an addict. Especially if you keep it small. After all, this heavy terrain you’re entering: you wanna take baby steps if you’ve decided to be this foolish. 2.) A second hit? You’re tempting it. 3). A third hit will most likely make you an addict.

Today Madness hasn’t moved from the couch. Well, she’s puked, in the toilet, when we haven’t been looking, but otherwise she just lays on the couch, movies from her hard drive playing on loop on the TV. At times her voice might wail up, requesting a glass of water, or such. We oblige.

From there it’s as they all call it: junk; skag; smack; slow; horse; elephant; dragon; shit; boy; nod; mud; white dynamite; hero of the underworld. Except there’s nothing heroic about it all. Unless you kick it. Which is what Madness did.

What follows is the true story of this adventure.

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DAY #1

This is, of course, until the afternoon arrives. As soon as the sun begins its slow dive in the sky, so Madness on the couch begins to writhe. She’s pushing back in to herself, creating vaccumms and vortexes in the shapes beneath her blanket. We can see her sweat.

As the beads push out of her forehead and down her arms, she leans back and almost appears to, up the wall, climb.

It’s a chilling vision that lasts, thankfully, a few seconds. When she senses the oncoming possession of pain and torment that is about to crest down on her, she lumbers up and shuffles – in agony – to her bedroom. The door closes behind her with no instructions, just a throbbing cold.

We look at each other. We shiver.

DAY #3 humps go without water drink 100 litres of water so i know what you are talking about Madness tells us how last night, when we went home, somebody knocked on her front door. Persistently. I think it was such-andsuch, she explained, a slight tremor in her. Ya see, when they know ya sick, a heroin junkie is more likely to help another heroin junkie out.

It was what distinguished this drug fall others, she told us: an unspoken loyalty; helping a brother out; putting a dog out its misery. It was a mateship the horse forged. There was hope in the junk. Even if that hope was another heroin user ‘helping you out’... with a shot... of heroin... but only because they are the only people who know how truly fucking painful going without junk can be.

Or at least that’s how Madness kinda explained it. We nodded, checked her arms surreptiously, saw that yeah, it looked like she hadn’t opened the door. Hadn’t succumbed to temptation.

But she had succumbed to something. Her skin was a ghost train sallow. We made her drink water. And more water. And then some.

DAY #4 because bait is a different way to say attractant Today is the hardest day. We arrive to find some girl asleep in Madness’ backyard. She’s on the nod. We wonder what’s happened.

We wake Madness who then screams at the girl to leave. We can’t tell if Madness is on the nod too since she refuses to get out of bed, let alone turn and look at us. What ensues is a maelstrom of spite and hate and junkie’s slurring words, screaming at other to get the fuck out of my house, cunt.

By this point my anger has slipped its noose. I’m demanding the junkie leave, leave now. She’s screaming something about shoes, the bitch has my shoes, so I go and get shoes and throw them angrily, pair after pair, at the junkie’s feet. Rowdy tries to calm the situation all round.

When Satan arrives, it escalates further. It’s like a heroin hell screaming match. What I’m about to write next still shames me a little to admit, but I wanted to get the fuck out of there. This wasn’t what I had signed up for. But Rowdy made me stay.

The beautiful thing about a tornado is the relief its devastation brings. It can rip up a landscape so quickly, so terrifyingly, but when it passes, you know it’s passed. The destruction is almost a welcome sign, an omen that you may have just gone through hell, but that you’ve gone through hell and survived. That’s what this day was like. A tornado of lies and screaming and Satan surprisingly ripping the junkie from the house and leaving us be, Rowdy and me wondering if indeed Madness had had anything. Or was still clean.

She slept some more fitful dreams.

DAY #5 food a poem When you see a heroin addict who has gone through cold turkey suddenly start eating, with appetite, you wonder if they’ve made it through. You hope they have. Madness did. Gusto an understatement.

The horror of watching what had occurred can’t be accurately detailed I fear. There is so much anguish, so much writhing. The poem had written itself, and Rowdy kept soothing my qualms with mantras of belief. Of having faith.

In the end that’s what you need: faith. People get themselves through hell and back again, and you have to trust their decisions.

That’s why we trusted ours, and seeing Madness eat, decided that perhaps it was time to say goodbye. You can lose a friends to many things, we decided, but the worst is when you have to lose a friend who has to keep living. Some junk you unfortunately have to wash your hands off, even if you end up missing it once it’s gone from you life.

Words by Scott-Patrick Mitchell

It escalates with a rapid elegance. Madness rings Satan. Get this bitch out of my backyard!

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Artist: Gayle Chmua of Pinny & Boots Stylist: Chantelle Mesiti of She Said Fashion Photographer: Sita Carolina of PreciousS2 Photography http://blog.preciouss2photo.com.au/ Quotes from Gayle (Artist) “I have been an avid Eco crafter since the 70’s, and have tried as many crafts as possible from enamel jewellery to book binding and all things fabric. Being a natural bower bird I see something, pick it up and reuse, recycle, upcycle into something that has beauty and a new found usefulness.”

“Start where you are, use what you have, make it matter” “Tred lightly with kind footprints on this earth, always showing your brightest colours and leaving your sparkles wherever you travel...”

Some words from Sita Carolina (Photographer) What’s considered junk to one person may be gold to another. There’s absolutely no reason to conform to consumerism or to judge a particular fashion item to be ugly. Amazing people like Gayle sees the gold in these items and turns them into beautiful pieces! And hey!

Up-cycling and recycling are in fashion!

Some words from Chantelle (Stylist) “In every great collabration there is always a ying yang effect. This collabration showed just how one persons passion can be magnified into a crazy creative show pieces Its really beautiful to show the world one persons talent and be just as proud as they are.”

Words and Images by Sita Carolina

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Epitome of Convenience By the time I’ve finished my evening shift at work, I am starving.

It’s only a short 5 ‘til 8 shift, so you’d think I’d be able to hold out from snacking for a mere three hours until I got home. At any other time I probably would, but the thing about a 5 ‘til 8 shift is that while everyone else is at home around their dining room table enjoying a nice home-cooked meal while engaging in jolly family banter, I’m stuck behind a desk, and I can’t stop thinking about food.

I can have a great big meal before I start work, and have a plated dinner waiting for me at home, but between closing up at work and getting into my car, all that’s on my mind is: “I could definitely do a sneaky Macca’s run right now”.

The internal struggle that follows only lasts a split second, but feels like an age. The little voice in my head that takes kickbacks from the McDonald’s Corporation starts to schmoose with and convince me. I tell him back: (it’s a he, I’m pretty sure) “I shouldn’t get junk food this often. I should better watch what junk I eat.”

“But it’s so convenient”, he says, “and it’s ok to get takeaway every now and then!”

Before I’ve gotten the chance to reply “I literally went through drive-through this morning”, he lays a warm finger over my lips, goes up to my ear and seductively whispers: “… treat yo’self.”

And with that, I’m won over.

It’s a split-second ordeal, but I can actually feel the back-and-forth in my train of thought. It’s the critical moment that decides if I go straight home, where I know there’s a healthy and wholesome dinner plated up and waiting for me, or if I turn left and detour through Jull Street Macca’s before I hit the highway.

There’s a subconscious instinct around being hungry right now, and if I drive-through, I don’t have to wait. It is literally a 20-minute drive from work to home and I should seriously be able to wait that long for something that will be good for me. But whether it’s because of how impatient I am, or if it’s our modern generation’s conditioning to instant gratification: something about the fact that there is a person down the street that will pass whatever meal I want through my car window and into my hands is too much to give up.

As I turn into the drive-through lane, I tell myself that I should be good for my health and get something small, or at least something with salad. But Gary (the “treat yo’self” guy in my head, he’s called Gary now) points out that the fries are only a dollar, and how creamy the frappes look, and how many flashy colours the menus are using. Gary even points out the serious crisp factor in that photoshopped lettuce. So when the faceless talking box outside my window welcomes me to their establishment and asks for my order, I end up asking for a lot more than I originally intended when I left work.

I like to think of myself as a sophisticated consumer, that I don’t fall for the tricks of the stereotypical grey-suited ad guys, smoking cigars around a board table. But companies spend millions of dollars a year funding those voices in your head that tell you to spend, and getting a B- in high-school business studies isn’t going to make me immune to their magic. Gary is very well paid for his job.

I’ve never exactly been athletic or sporty, and that’s true of a lot of people. That’s perfectly fine, to not be good at football, or cross-country running. But the same time, I’ve never really been typically “fit and healthy” either, which is slightly less okay.

I’ve always been a little bit of a bigger guy, something that I’ve accepted and am reasonably comfortable with. Being secure with yourself and your body is extremely important, where do you draw the line between being comfortable with who you are, and acknowledging your choices and lifestyle is damaging your health?

If I only did the occasional Macca’s run every so often, I most likely wouldn’t have a problem. But if every time I go to have takeaway, I keep myself in denial about how much junk I really have and how often I really have it, it all adds up to have an adverse effect on my wellbeing. I hate myself for always ignoring that.

I know I have to eat less junk, exercise more, make more salad and whatever Michelle Bridges tells me to do. But the epitome of convenience is on every street corner, and we can have it passed into our hands in a matter of seconds. Deep down I find that hard to resist, in part thanks to Gary, but also because I can’t bring myself to say “No.” And that frightens me just a little bit.

Words by Jonah Highman Image by Scott-Patrick Mitchell ---

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So, You Want To Be A Teacher?

Many knowing looks were exchanged and a suppressed chuckle was shared when, during my first graduate training module with the Department of Education, the presenter declared that when she began teaching, she also began squirreling away ample quantities of precooked meals in the freezer. She did most of her cooking on the weekends and kept it frozen so that her evenings of marking or lesson prep could continue unabated by the distraction of domestic doings. It was a safe environment, and we could all admit that, yes, we too did that. Hell, I had bought a jumbo sized box freezer and a slow cooker for just that reason.

The real joke though was that after my final professional practice I swore I would never step foot inside a classroom again. The pressure to perform to high standards every day while on prac was intense. There were sleepless nights and tears. But here I am, nearly 12 months on, not just stepping inside a classroom every day, but actually mostly teaching and, I dare say, enjoying it. I’ve love conveying my dire cynicism, humour and textual interpretations to the next generation.

However, I must confess, it was my poverty and not my will that got me back into the classroom at the start of the year. Since then I’ve been struggling with the realities of teaching. Teaching is not a 9-3 job with lots of holidays. Some weeks its a choking miasma interrupted only by the whimpering of the black dog at your feet.

Other weeks it really is a dream, you truly do feel like you’re making a difference. Education students be warned: You must be this tall to ride this roller-coaster.

The reason roughly two thirds of graduate teachers quit within the first three years is because the kind of zeal required for the job rivals that of proselytising monks in remote and isolated jungles.

The lifestyles aren’t too dissimilar either: The untold late nights spent burning the midnight oil preparing sermons (or lessons), translating English into the local dialect (or scratchy student runes into English).

Moments of spousal affections feel filched rather than earned.

Stolen from time that should have been spent in lesson preparation or marking or writing letters of concern or journaling, or from unburdening any one of the many crosses that teachers must bear.

Aye that’s the rub, and the reason so many teachers in my learning area are part-time. How else, aside from alcohol dependence, do you cope?

Clearly the answer is an emphatic ‘no.’ And I would further venture that it could all be alleviated if teachers were given the time to study, collaborate and assess during business hours. I would gladly surrender my holidays if my working hours were set and class time reduced so I could complete my planning, marking and other duties during a normal working week.

I miss relaxing on weekends. I miss my spouse. I miss that feeling of weightlessness that accompanies being free from toil at the end of a weeks hard graft. In this age of ‘fiscally responsible’ government, teachers are being left with increasing workloads and budget cuts in exchange for reduced support and greater responsibilities.

The increased workload lowers the quality of forward planning, lesson delivery and feedback given to students. You reap what you sow and Australia is now falling behind other developed nations in our Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) rankings. Our fall is being minimised by the small percentage of high achieving girls in private or selective government schools.

Ultimately it is the next generation who will suffer the most. The mining boom is winding down and manufacturing industries are disappearing. There are fewer jobs available for young people and the loss of the meagre unemployment benefits to the under thirties is a real possibility. The education system is heading towards a crisis. Students are not getting the education and support they need to succeed in this globalised world.

With two thirds of passionate young educators quitting teaching soon after starting and the old hands moving into part-time work to cope, alarm bells should be ringing. For social justice and equality of opportunity to have meaning we must have a high quality education system staffed by passionate professionals with better working conditions.

Until teaching stops feeling like a 100m race without a finish line and more like a profession I will continue to be envious of monks.

At least they have job security.

Words by Warren Argus, BA, Grad.Dip.Ed. Image by Scott-Patrick Mitchell

At the same graduate training module we were all given graphs.

The graph resembled a child’s impression of a simple rollercoaster. It begins up high with the anticipation plateau, but is dominated by the ‘survival mode’ decline and disillusionment trough followed by the rejuvenation rise and ends with anticipation plateau again. I laughed when I saw it, but I now know better. Is it reasonable that a job, any job, should cause such emotional strain with such reliability that it can be plotted?

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Junk Chapters of The Future: The New Iraq War & University Fee Deregulation

Hello

I always thought the future would be written as a story about robots and fabulously frightening degrees of gender equality.

Instead it seems to be a fairly mediocre tale about the slow strangulation of the welfare state at the hands of economic rationalists and the mysterious and inexplicable disappearance of several Pacific island nation states. (Inexplicable that is, if you’re a self-professed global warming “sceptic”). There are a number of unpleasant subplots unfolding at present; diverting foreign aid to pay for counter-terrorism programs, the passage of Orwellian “national security” laws, charging upfront fees for booking a doctor’s appointment, abolishing the dole for young unemployed people, pushing sales of uranium to nuclear-armed countries… It’s enough to give even the most moderate leftist a migraine.

Of course it’s not a known known that the Kurdish regional government will definitely use Australian delivered weapons to assert their independence. Politics in Iraq is complex and comments about independence might be about posturing for a stronger negotiating position during the inevitable post-war debate about how the country can be better run. But there are also no guarantees that we won’t be seeing images of Iraqi children killed with Australian assault rifles in the news of the near future.

Luckily, we’ve already been told that cause and effect doesn’t exist in Iraq, so we can probably relax from fretting about our potential culpability.

The first issue I want to tackle is the new and improved Iraq War. Except, of course, Abbott, Obama and Cameron have been at pains to assure us that technically, nobody is at war. This is just the bombing of enemy combatants in Iraq. This is very much unlike the last time Australia assisted with bombing enemy combatants in Iraq, which definitely was a war. A war, let’s remember, founded on the alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction.

Weapons that turned out to not, you know, “technically”, exist.

But surely all of that is just snide semantics, the point is, the usual suspect are bombing Iraq, again.

Luckily for us this isn’t a case of history repeating itself over, and over, and over, without an exit strategy. Events in Iraq are totally unconnected to the historical events preceding them. Phew! In this exciting new world without cause and effect we can all relax and confidently expect a very different outcome to today’s bombing of Iraq than just more regional instability, Muslim resentment, and perpetual terror alerts in the West. Currently Australia is distributing weapons to the Peshmerga, the military of the Kurdish Autonomous Region.

The Kurds are the world’s largest ethnic group without a country of their own. They have lived for decades under varying degrees of repression in regions of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. Historically things have been less than awesome for the Kurds in Iraq, where they were the target of war crimes and general dictatorial persecution in the name of Arab nationalism. Since the 2003 overthrow of moustache-wielding Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein the Kurds have enjoyed greater regional autonomy, but have still been subjected to entrenched social, political and economic discrimination.

The Kurdish regional government have begun pushing the issue of full independence from Iraq, which sounds reasonable given the discrimination they face, coupled with the ineffectiveness of the central government in Baghdad to govern the country; half of which is now under the paw of the so-called “Islamic State”. The important thing to remember here is that even though Australia is arming soldiers in the army of a government that has began talking about seceding, senior government figures in Australia have assured enquiring journalists that asking “is it possible we’re providing arms for a future civil war in Iraq” is both utterly ridiculous and frankly suspiciously un-Australian.

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On the surface of it, bombing Iraq (and Syria) seems like a prudent decision, given the current situation. Most people, with the exception of the men running the Islamic State, are horrified by the IS’s agenda and the Islamic State haven’t demonstrated an interest in negotiations. Syria and Iraq were republican states.

They emphasised secularism, nationalism and modernity. The notion of religiously sanctified beheadings is as foreign to their citizens as religiously motivated crucifixions are in Australia.

Given the organisation’s genocidal policies towards “infidels” (especially Muslims who practice Islam the “wrong way”) there’s a humanitarian incentive to intervene. Not to mention the fact that, you know, we contributed to this problem occurring and bear some moral responsibility to do our best to prevent potential genocide and ongoing war crimes in Syria and northern Iraq. Of course nobody really knows where things are headed, or how we will recognise victory. You know that old saying: those who don’t learn from their mistakes are destined to bomb the Middle East ad infinitum.

The second issue I want to bat at, like a spring-time bear with a fat salmon, is the issue of fee deregulation in Australia’s ostensibly public universities. To put it mildly, you, your friends and everyone whose higher education you will ever care about (say, your children), are fucked. It’s that simple, and don’t look to the Higher Ups at ECU to save your wallets from extinction. They’ve made their preferences pretty clear by persistently lowering entry standards. An act that is less about expanding the benefits of a tertiary education to people who struggled with formal education, as it has been about the obvious: getting sick wads of fresh cash money!

Universities have transmorphed into slick research-funding cash machines with educational fringe benefits. Research is very important by the way because it opens the path towards future profits through patents and commercialisation agreements that allow international corporations to sell you back the innovations your tax money / student debt paid for. The universities in this country are fundamental greedy, morally bankrupt corporations masquerading as high-minded public institutions. They should be snuffed out in their sleep as humanely as possible. Don’t be duped by the slick propaganda about teaching quality and the hollow jargon around “graduate satisfaction” espoused by the Higher ups.

You are a contemptuous and ignorant peasant in their eyes.

Hello

Hello

Observe any campus in Australia and you will immediately notice how many international students there are. I want to make something really clear on this issue: if you just read that sentence and nodded your head thinking “yeah, why are we letting all these foreigners take seats from hard studying Aussies?!” I want you to go home, sit in your room and think very, very hard about why you are such a terrible person. The issue isn’t about whether or not we have “too many” foreign students studying in Australia. It’s the fact that it’s become such a major industry in itself that it has warped the perspective and priorities of governments and universities alike.

However, let’s remember, these assurances about the retention of equity and fairness are being uttered by Tony Abbott, the man who also promised us many things before the election. One example was no cuts in funding for the ABC… Whoops! At least we won’t have to worry about Lateline ever reminding us how we have all been screwed over. (Note to future readers, Lateline was a news program on air when the ABC was a publicly funded broadcaster.

I assume in the future the digitised spectre of Rupert Murdoch directly defecates into our minds via mandatory ASIO-approved thought nodes.)

Consider this: selling university placements to full-fee paying international students is a 15 billion dollar industry. In 2013 it was Australia’s third largest export industry. We actually made less money exporting gold than we did degrees. The only larger export industries were iron ore and coal. And look at what benign and publicly interested influences the mining and the coal industries exert on this country; you know, Australia, the only country in the world to have revoked a carbon price scheme. Now consider what kind of influence all that money being hoarded by our universities might be having on the people who are thinking about how to “restructure” [AKA reduce costs and increase returns] the tertiary education sector.

Perhaps it seems clearer now why domestic students are going to be forced to pay more for their degrees or GTFO. The precedent has been established using international students, and the government knows it is onto a real winner. Ordinarily we think of supply and demand as a fairly logical. If something is in high demand, price goes up, encouraging increased production until levelling off as demand is satisfied. If the price from one provider goes too high in an open market, consumers will buy cheaper versions from competitors, or substitute the product with something similar.

The thing that I personally find most galling about this situation is that we are being abrasively shaken down for every penny our education cost by the very same generation that largely got theirs for free. If universities have become greedy, morally bankrupt cash machines, then the blame squarely lies on the fact they reflect the cold and vainglorious generation that continues to keep its hands on the administrative machinery. Ultimately I expect ECU will raise their fees with some tepid rationalisation provided. They could just send out a picture of rats desperately scratching their way through floorboards for more cheese. It would mean the same thing.

Standards will likely continue to drop until they reach a point where anyone who can blow bubbles with their spit will be streamed into the university. Meanwhile the overall narrative arc of global warming will conclude with the endless desert smothering our burnt-out coastal fringe. Life will continue though. Unless you fail to pay your student debts, in which case Gina Rinehart will have you frozen in carbonate for failing to pay up. Until then, the story of the future is still being written.

Words by Grumpy Bear

So in theory universities like ECU will be able to charge what they want because if they charge too much we will apply to other universities (or go to an actual TAFE) until prices go down. Except that’s not how university economics works, at all. A university degree is extrmeely valued and demand remains consistent. People are willing to pay far more than they can reasonably afford just because of the perceived value a degree provides. This is how you end up with students in America with $250,000 student debts, despite the fact their degree only got them a $35,000 p.a. job.

There will be very little GTFO-ing by students wanting degrees, and the Higher Ups know it.

And talking of America, can we just accept the notion that what the government is doing right now is essentially the political equivalent of unscrewing the lid on the Vaseline and bending us over a barrel stuffed with student debt before showing us what the “Uncle Sam” position is. The government has previously flagged its interest in not only increasing how much debt students have to acquire to attain a degree, but then selling the collection of these debts to private companies. But don’t worry, because you will still only have to start paying that debt when you earn over a certain threshold - for now.

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My First Trip (Not Heroin) My stomach is on edge. Nausea sits uncomfortably in anticipation for worse to come. Annoyingly the sickening hardline never does arrive with its promise of bile and relief... as frustrating as that is, I am glad. The thought of vomit makes me feel sicker.

Whinging, whining and causing a nuisance, I am magnetised to the floor. The pit of dread that is my stomach doesn’t seem to affect my ability to talk. At this point I’m annoying myself.

I had some bad seeds. Bitter and hazelnut, “reminiscent of peanut shells” my fellow stargazer observes.

The seeds are not working the way I was expecting. An hour ago I was grinding them between my teeth, forming a hallucinogenic paste. A doe-eyed virgin to the world of hallucinogens. Now this.

An angel cares for me and distracts me from nausea; at this point she doesn’t realise that I’m in love with her. To be fair I was just as unaware as she was. I’m greatful that someone has taken pity on my indulgence. For a while I feel safe. She shows compassion and proves a great relief to the strange things that are happening to my body while all the time making fun of my useless limbs. I’m losing control of my body but my mind is unaffected. I feel like glue. I feel like Velcro meshed with the floor. I feel like shit but my beautiful angel is with me so I feel great. No. My stomach churns.

It’s time for bed.

I drag my sorry body up those fucking stairs. That takes a while, or I’m being dramatic. The bed is a sweet relief. It is soft and warm and comforting in that womb sort of way. A gentle man lies next to me in this huge bed, concerned for my health. A wonderful scientist is curled up in a sleeping bag next to the bed. I am touched by their concern. These are good people, my friends. They drift to sleep while I stare at the ceiling.

I fight the urge to vomit. I refuse to submit to my body’s demands, mostly because vomiting is embarrassing but also out of stubbornness. I’m not letting these hippy seeds win. The fucking seeds. Why didn’t we buy normal drugs like normal fucking people? Under the counter hallucinogenic seeds that promise fun I guess? I mean, at least they’re natural, right?

Zap! It hits me again. It’s exhilarating and slightly terrifying.

Electricity spreads through me and branches out of my metallic body into the roots of a metropolis. Shiny and robotic. “Fritz!”

You could set a windows Xp screen saver with what I am seeing.

I have to open my eyes periodically to stave against vomiting.

When my eyes are open, light pulses behind them like a malfunctioning tele.

I settle into the wonders of my trip but that sad cynic that undermines my everyday pipes up. “You know, as amazing as this is.... all you’re doing is lying in a bed. These experiences aren’t really meaningful. Just chemical trickery.” Sigh... fuck my brain...

It’s a dick.

As cliche as it is, the experience urges me to write. The Beat Generation was a drug generation and now I can see why.

Eventually exhaustion wins out. My lids seal for last time until the morning.

When I get up early in the morning my body is disconcertedly numb. It feels disassociated from my mind, which is worrying.

For some reason I decide to cook breakfast for everyone. Luckily feeling returns but I’m not quite back at status quo. As we ride to the airport I hastily record my night’s experience. I find myself disappointed in my words, they miss the mark, but at least I’m doing something, being creative(ish). I get on the plane and I’m seated next to a pilot. At this point I’m pretty sure I’m still a bit high. Also I’m seated on an emergency exit. Yes, irresponsible. I stare at the clouds and almost lose my mind at how beautiful they are. I wish life were always this beautiful.

Words by Anonymous Image by Scott-Patrick Mitchell

...I feel... better.... what is happening to me? “Shit...” Waves of euphoria rush through me like static. Each bolt of electricity zaps my ears. “ZZZBRMMMZZSSHHS!”. It’s like a burst of microphone feedback, but gentle and fuzzy. My lids are heavy.

Closing my eyes doesn’t help with the nausea but man; things get cool when I do. A multitude of patterns and images present themselves manically. It’s a bit much. It’s awesome. I’m impressed by the intricate weaves my poor abused mind is throwing at me. I narrate the experience silently, trying my best to emulate Ginsberg.

In my high state it feels right. Truth is it’s most likely mostly like awful poetry. A sort of cringe-worthy thing that feels oh so important in the moment.

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Seven Things I Hate About ECU First of all I’d just like to say that overall ECU is a wonderful university and that I am thoroughly enjoying my time as a student here. That being said there are still many things which I don’t like about ECU so without further introduction here is my list of the top seven things I hate about ECU. One- the ludicrous prices charged by campus cafes for food and coffee. I personally gave up regularly drinking coffee last year as I felt like such an idiot for being ripped off every single day. Just recently I walked into one of the campus cafes with exact change to buy my favourite Maxibon ice-cream sandwich only to find that they upped the price another 20 cents. Rather than pull out another 20 cent coin from my wallet I just left the café empty handed and angry.

Two- people who blatantly ignore ECU’s no smoking policy, I’m particularly annoyed by the fact that ECU seems perfectly capable of enforcing its parking rules but doesn’t seem to care about cracking down on the people who smoke right next to the bus stop and behind the Student Guild. Nothing disgusts me more than having to inhale someone’s second hand smoke and I’m sick of having to hold my breath every time I walk past a group of smokers standing in the middle of a walkway. The shopping centre got the policy right by setting up designated smoking zones that are isolated from other people and I regularly see mall security enforce the rules so why can’t the academic minds running ECU do the same?

Three- Bad lecturers/tutors. The type of lecturer and tutor you get at this university is very much luck of the draw. Generally speaking the quality of teachers at ECU is quite good but occasionally you get that one that makes you question why/how they became a teacher.

Six- Group assignments. Need I say more? I’m pretty sure everyone enrolled at ECU has had to endure at least one bad experience with a group assignment. In my first semester at ECU I got paired with someone who took absolutely no initiative in the task and only did the bare minimum of what I told him to do. It ended up with me doing about 70% of the assignment. Even if you do get decent team mates who all contribute it’s still a real pain trying to organise everyone and make sure everyone’s on the same track.

Seven- And the thing which I absolutely hate the most about ECU is the serious lack of student involvement in events, activities and campus life. At the time of writing this I’m not even sure if it will be published due to the fact so few students are bothering to contribute to this edition of the GSM. A lot of students are quick to point the finger at our Student Guild and University for the lack of campus life but I’ve witnessed firsthand the enormous effort both organisations make to try put on events for students and the truth is these events don’t happen because there is such a small student interest in them.

I’m left wondering how someone like myself, an Accounting and Finance student with so little experience in writing, is able to have an article published in the GSM when there should be fierce competition amongst journalism and media students to get articles published and have another item added to their resume. If you really think you can rely solely on your degree to get you a job when you graduate you’re delusional and getting involved in clubs, events, student journalism, volunteering, seminars and any other form of extra-curricular activity that interests you will go a long way towards achieving your goals in life.

Words by Brandon Carey Image by Scott-Patrick Mitchell

Four- the cost of text books. Almost every unit will make you buy a $100-$200 text book or even multiple texts books. The fact that these books cost this much is self-evident of the fact that publishers love extorting money from students but what really bothers me is that most of the time you never end up reading most of it since all of the information you need for the unit is available online or in these “study guides” the lectures compile which will also set you back another $30.

Five- Staff layoffs. Most of you probably aren’t even aware of this but last year ECU made huge numbers of its academic staff redundant in a restructuring of the university. I know the business faculty where I study was hit hard with the economics major no longer on offer and many of the finance staff that taught me last year are no longer working here. What’s worse is that many of these classes that the academic staff used to teach are now being taught by young inexperienced honours students who have very little ability to teach. This really is disappointing considering ECU prides itself on having a “five star teacher quality”.

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It’s Their Ocean Not Ours!

A bit of back story behind these photos – for my final creativity project last semester I created a seahorse out of found natural objects on Malimup Beach using things such as shells, seaweed and sea sponges. To my horror and discontent alongside these beautiful gems were human waste and careless leftovers. I found thongs, plastic bottles, heaps of cigarette butts, EB Cans, rope and much more. I almost cried!

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All that junk and complete lack of disregard for the ecosystem and purity of the surroundings made me sad and evoked a sense of commitment and power to communicate on behalf of the ocean and the extraordinary creatures that call it home. Thus the eco-warrior in me decided to create several pollution scenes using the rubbish, each displaying the destruction that some humans choose to do, and to what extreme they chose to do it with (some were more abstract than then others).

Furthermore, with some research after the actual making of the seahorse/ pollution scenes I came to find out that Western Australian beaches are the most polluted in Australia and the most common objects that are found are: cigarette butts, glass pieces, alcoholic beverage cans, bottles and bottle caps.

This list coincides with the rubbish I found at Malimup Beach.

Which lead me to think that we all might need to be a little more aware leading up to summer about our actions and more importantly the rubbish we leave behind when visiting our favourite chill out spots, appearances might be deceiving and the mystical creatures in the deep blue might actually be struggling and they might need us to take a little more care when in and around there home.

I mean how would anyone like it if they were forced to open up their home and backyard to complete strangers with minimal control over what they do and have them leave it trashed and sometimes unusable. I empathise greatly with the fish and dolphins as they don’t want to wake up to millions of tiny pieces of plastic or swim in a rubbish bin. And yet certain individuals or parties chose to make these defenceless creatures endure such destruction to their homes.

That’s where also I think a mindset change might be helpful, if we start thinking of it as their ocean and not ours, as their beach not ours, we might feel a little bit more responsible for our actions and more importantly put our junk in our trunks and take it with us.

Words and image by Olivia Colja

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Rubbish Boys I Have Kissed In my final year of high school I’d begun exploring my sexuality through the un-moderated forums of MSN’s chat rooms.

In between reporting requests for kiddie porn I realised that if I was going to live a gay life in ‘The City’, with its allegedly raging gay clubs and it’s weekly orgies, I needed to get some real life gay experiences, and quick. Like a benign and romantically conscious pimp a sympathetic friend put me in touch with a local boy who seemed desperate potentially amenable to making out with me.

I don’t remember what Luke and I talked about online, but I do remember being shocked when he told me he’d given an older man a gobby at the Kalgoorlie racetrack. I was privately convinced that this meant the poor sweet boy had been sexually assaulted because who would willingly suck a dick? (How the sticky tables have turned). I invited Luke to my NYE party, along with a small group of people I actually knew. Upon his arrival I was immediately struck by the fact that not only did I find him very unattractive, but he was virtually a composite of everything I found a turn off (think Philip Seymour Hoffman in Boogie Nights).

The night awkwardly pushed on as my friends gradually cottoned on to why this tall, quiet, baby-faced homo was there. Midnight came and went without any make outs. Damn! As my friends started settling to sleep I announced that Luke and I were “going to go for a walk”. Immediately my friend Cam insisted on third-wheeling with us, despite the hissed insistences from everyone else that he should stay home with them. The three of us awkwardly circumnavigated my hometown as I chugged the remaining Lemon Russki’s, trying to build up enough Dutch courage to remind Luke we’d had an agreement over MSN to make out that night.

I realised after my third and final drink there would be no Dutch courage for me that and I’d just have to go it on my own, in other words I had to pretend to be much drunker than I was. I felt so disappointed with how the evening had gone so far that I couldn’t finish the sausage I’d been walking around and eating. Instead I disgustedly threw it away, hitting a horse in the face with my stray projection. (The horse seemed to accept my contempt with the nonchalance of an animal that deeply understood life’s most adolescent disappointments).

We made out a couple of more times (each time he insisted that this is what kissing was normally like, despite my scepticism) before going home. Smug with the self satisfaction of my achievement I composed a gushing and descriptive email to my friend in the family computer room, letting her know about my milestone moment (this being the early two-thousands). Both to document the obviously life-changing occasion, and also so I could discreetly avoid Luke’s attempts to lure me into the spooning position amongst my friends in the spare-room adjacent to my parent’s bedroom. Ugh, Luke, no thanks!

As a postscript I would like to confirm things remained super-dooper awkward afterwards. Vacuum-sealing my face behind a half-hearted Eucalyptus seemed to trigger something that turned him into a (literally) overbearing snuggle-fiend. I didn’t realise at the time that it was okay to just say “I’m not interested” and leave it at that so I felt obliged to invent increasingly contrived explanations as to why I was going to sleep in my bed alone, despite his increasingly pathetic mewing on the issue.

To be honest, considering his youth and my mixed messages, it seems fair to say he was a sweet guy, but kissing him only confirmed my profound lack of attraction to him. The next morning my now sober friends clustered together, quietly ostracising this stranger in our midst who followed me around the house as I cleaned up. Inevitably I had my first “It’s not you, it’s my impending move several hours away from you” conversation over MSN Messenger (of course), and with a single mouse click he was subsequently blocked from my life forever. It seemed the more humane option.

You would think I would be at least a little wary about kissing strange boys called Luke, but no. However, that’s for another time.

Words by Nathan Voysey Image by Scott-Patrick Mitchell

There three of us ended up on the swings in my town’s tiny threetree park. Feeling desperate and out of options I blurted out that I really, really needed to talk to Luke about something behind one of the trees. (You know, as you do at 2AM when you have important issues to discuss). We discreetly stumbled away from the swings.

The high-pitched sound of metal chaffing from Cam’s swinging paced a steady beat to the rising thump-thump in my ears as I nervously babbled upwards at tall and baby-faced Luke.

“Ugh, shut up” he said as he leaned downwards and started kissing me. I can only describe the sounds his vacuum-suction kissing created as being analogous to a pod of enraged dolphins performing ritual seppuku.

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Junk There’s an old junk pile in an abandoned house. The lights have been cut and shadows rise. I’ve crept my way in and relatched the door, blocking anyone else’s intrusion.

I have my flashlight handy, but all I can see are mounds of junk. If I look closer then I can see all of the dust that has made its home perched on the discarded items, covering everything the way thin snow does. There are old spiderwebs, but they too are discarded due to age. I doubt there are even any mice about.

The living room is a room for the unliving; inanimate objects mound high towards the ceiling. I’d hate to have lived here. How can someone own this weight crushing amount of stuff but not reclaim it?

Junk is unneeded. It’s left behind because it’s not valuable. Yet I always make it my mission to take one thing for every trip. One old trinket as a prize for my entry. Sometimes it’s an pressed flower, a record or a book. Other times it’s a few golf clubs or baseball bats. After all, junk is unneeded to the person that discarded it.

I shove today’s prize in my backpack and stride out with a smile on my face, as if I am fondly attached to the house. I live with the motto that it’s harder to be done in if you’re a “friend of the owner”.

No one seems to care. It seems to fill time anyhow.

Gracie skips over to me as she sees me walking. Not right now, Gracie, I want to be alone. But she never seems to hear my telepathic message. Conversation sucks. She tells me about her day as if I am fascinated about whatever the hell she does with her life. I nod and yeah until she waves goodbye. Skipping off again, it’s as if her mood is fixed on a positive high. Good thing she didn’t get the “lowdown” on the goss.

Hastily, I sprint to the billboard and climb stealthily to the ad placement. I have a message I’d like them to view: “here lies the discarded”. Pretty soon the message has been sprayed on in an act of “vandalism”, but I’d call it overriding the original intention.

I wonder if my life will stack up like the pile of junk in that house.

I’ve got use in life, but the wrong sort, the sort that no one wants. I wonder what it would be like, sifting through my actions. I’ll probably be burned like garbage in Hell. Here goes it all; my burden shall be released.

Oh shit, shit, shit. Someone’s called the cops. No, I don’t want to be contained. I don’t want to be talked down. No matter what you say, I know you’re only saying that out of “duty”. I’m a piece of junk just like most people and there’s no believing otherwise.

They can’t stop me. Only gravity can stop me, and it will. It’ll stop my body, heart and mind in one. But it’s okay because I’m worthless.

“Not a bad kid,” I hear from some person, “just a messed up approach”.

That person is hushed. In fact, I make everyone hush in this moment.

Messed up? Gravity intervenes.

Words by Veronica Lowe Image by Scott-Patrick Mitchell

I’ve been kicked out of work. There’s nothing for me to do except to live up to be the burden everyone expected. People discarded me like I’m worthless. I’m junk to them: unwanted and useless.

Now, if anyone had known where I was heading they would pretend to stop me. But, oh no, they wouldn’t really care. Time for me to go through with it.

Well, I’ve arrived now to pull it off. Swiftly, I clamber over the fence with the green large bin outside my ex’s house. It’s a skilful job but I could do it. Now, I pull out my prize from that old house - matches and candles - and strike the candles alight. Scrambling for a rock, I smash the bedroom window open and discard the bin’s contents on the backyard floor. Dropping the candles, the garbage alights with triumphant ferocity, spreading its orange and grey colour. It’s my time to exit before the smoke pinpoints me to the future commotion. Ah, it’d be relishing to view the outcome.

But there’s one last thing I have to do. One more point I have to make.

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Spectrum Spectrum Project Space Building 3.191 Edith Cowan University 2 Bradford Street, Mt Lawley, WA, 6050, Australia Phone: 086304 6906 email: spectrum@ecu.edu.au URL: www.sca.ecu.edu.au/projects/ spectrum Facebook: www.facebook.com/spectrum. ecu Opening hours: 10am to 5pm Tuesday – Friday 12pm to 5pm Saturdays

inConversation Curated by Lyndall Adams, Christopher Kueh and Renée Newman-Storen 9 October - 24 October

This exhibition looks at the processes of collaboration among researchers from different art forms and discipline backgrounds. Its aim was to foster conversations between researcher collaborators to produce a broad range of creative works. These dialogues inform the wider discussion of the challenges of cross-disciplinary collaboration and ways to engage researchers and artists to explore their discipline boundaries and connectivity.

This exhibition intends to nurture healthy intellectual rigor and invites conversations across disciplines sympathetic and empathic to creative directions that might speak to innovation and new knowledge within the academy, to industry and to the general public.

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forget me not

Sue Girak 31 October – 14 November

Using materials sourced through REmida, an international network of creative reuse centres with an arts and education led focus, extending and transforming the life of these discarded materials Girak explores the subjects of climate change, consumption and untapped or lost potential.

Photomedia Graduate Show 2014 28 November – 5 December

Contemporary Fashion Graduates 2014 12 December – 19 December

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Cartoon by Costa A. Check out www.facebook.com/costaacomics for more.