2021 Edition Two

FARRAGO E DITIO N T WO · 2 0 2 1

NEWS · CULTURE · OPINION · PHOTOGRAPHY · POETRY · FICTION · SATIRE · ART

Acknowledgement of Country Sincerity is everything.

Increasingly, I’ve seen more and more people perform Acknowledgements to Country, I’ve seen people acknowledge the Country they live on in their Instagram bios and other social media platforms. I see politicians referencing ideals of solidarity with First Nations people and starting to grapple with ideas of reconciliation. I’m not trying to persuade you that these acts are negligible or unimportant, they’re just not enough if their purpose isn’t to encourage active reflection.

All “Australian land” is Indigenous land first. In order for you to walk on this country, for you to live, work and study here, thousands of Bla(c)k people had to die. Children were stolen and murdered for no reason other than to uphold the imperialist values of White Supremacy. Indigenous people have long suffered under oppressive colonial regimes and continue to suffer through institutionalised racism and other systemic instances of discrimination. When you acknowledge Country, you acknowledge this pain and its ongoing effects within community—when your acknowledgment is not sincere, you make a mockery of First Nations injustices.

In reality, nothing will ever be enough to undo this pain, but I stand by the idea that real and honest reflection in your own complicity is a good place to start.

In saying this I would like to acknowledge that I am a visitor on Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung land. Through living, studying, and working on this country I continue to benefit from their ongoing personal suffering and the continual theft of their land. My own Indigenous heritage and knowledges do not exempt me from the privileges afforded to me that allow me to reside on this Country. I acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded, and will never be ceded.

I acknowledge the Elders past and present that have and continue to protect First Nations people, land, animals, beliefs, and waterways. I recognise the ongoing work in the reclamation of culture, ceremony, and language. I am indebted to the community for sharing such precious and priceless knowledges with me and my family.

This is Aboriginal land. It doesn’t matter how long it is occupied by the oppressor, its long Indigenous history can never be taken away or truly forgotten. I remember and I acknowledge because that is the least I can do to support Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung peoples.

I know every step I take on these lands of the Kulin people, I do so as a visitor. I was born on this Country and for that, I will always have a connection to this place but I will never understand what it is to be Indigenous to this Country. I will never have spiritual ties to this place and that will always make me an uninvited guest.

So I reflect on my complicity, I reflect on my privileges, I reflect on this positionality simply because it is the right thing to do.

Sincerity means everything.

Brittney Henderson, Wiradjuri

CONTENTS

REGULARS 03 04 20

Editorial Calendar Humans of UniMelb: Anne

Joanna Guelas 79 Flash Fiction: Horror

Oliver Rose Brown, Tharidi

Walimunige and Anindya Setiawan

80

For and Against: Avocado Toast

Emily French and Alex K. Charles

UMSU 06 08

OB Reports UMSU Updates Ciara O’Sullivan

NEWS 10 11

12

13

News-in-brief Vaccine Rollout to Protect UniMelb’s Most Vulnerable Alessandra Akerley

Coroner Calls on Australian Universities to Protect Mental Health Donna Burroughs

Concerns Arise as COVID-19

Supplement End-Date Looms

Georgie Atkins and Jessica Morrison

14

15

16

UniMelb Policy Reversion Another Setback for International Students Vanessa Chan and Jiyun Kim

Lack of COVID-19 Support Exposes International Students to Wage Theft Jennifer Chance

COVID-safe Activism on Campus

Micol Carmignani and Donna Burroughs

17

UniWireless COVID Data

Sharing Raises Privacy Concerns

Megan Tan 18 Long-term Effects of

Job-ready Graduates

Package Still Uncertain

Jasper MacCuspie and Izma Haider

NON-FICTION

22

musings on lesbianism &

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo

Joanna Zou 24 Athlete or “Athlete”

Emily French 25 I’ve Been Thinking About

Nothing but Supergiant’s

Hades for Weeks

Tasha Gacutan 26 Blue Hope in Blue Ray

Joe Cool 27 Why I’m Breaking Up with Goodreads

Annalyce Wiebenga 30 To Listen to the

Mockingbirds: Why

celebrating literature by PoC

authors is the key to

countering racism in the

literary canon

Grace Richardson 35 Curly Hair: An Analysis

Gemma Grant 38 Still a Love Story, Only More

Anindya Setiawan 42 on worth

Srishti Chatterjee 43 Against the #GirlBoss

Chelsea Daniel

PHOTOGRAPHY 49

Featured Photography

Abir Hiranandani Kashish Sandhu Sam Hadden Candy Chu Christian Theo Ben Levy Akash Anil Nair Chamathya Gunawardena

CREATIVE 60

61

62

66

67

Boarding Pass

70

Uncle Ditch’s Clockwork Ark

72

The Great Famine

73

74

75 76

77

Izma Haider

Taylor’s Cardigan Megan van Vegten

Satire-in-brief Procrastinating Properly Sweeney Preston

REVIEW: Lewis Capaldi’s New Album Lullabies for people of neglect

Emma-Grace Clarke 78 World Finally Realising Just

How Fucking Terrifying

Teenage Girls Are

Charlotte Armstrong

COLUMNS 28

Grandma’s Scones Recipe

32

The Little Things: a Partly Solved Mystery

34

Steph Markerink

E.S.

Art Musing: Curatorial Intentions

Lisa Jacomos 36 The Trials of Adolescence:

Ginger Snaps

Nishtha Banavalikar 40 Race Against the Odds

ilundi tinga 44 Slogans and Nonsense

Josh Abbey 48 The Pier Review

Torsten Strokirch 58 The World of Dragons

64

Zoe Keeghan

The Foggy Shores of Our Bedrooms

Charlotte Waters and Lee

Michael Josefsson

Breaking My Mask

Camilla

Gen Schiesser

FODDER

Hannah Winspear-Schillings

Milkbar

Meredith Tyler

Homemade

SATIRE

68

Poemata

clitoris I & clitoris II

Poppy Willis

Perkins

James Robertson

Helena Pantsis

Torsten Strokirch

Illustrated by Melissa Nguyen

46

OK Zoomer!

47 81

Student Musician Callout Radio Fodder Schedule

Christina Savopoulos

01

EDITORS Ailish Hallinan Lauren Berry Pavani Ambagahawattha

COVER Kitman Yeung

MANAGERS Elmira Vivian Li Anoushka Arora Shaunak Wanikar Sweeney Preston Charlotte Armstrong Samantha Thomson Pujitha Gaddam Ben Levy Carolyn West Mark Yin Janelle Del Vecchio Joanna Guelas

CONTRIBUTORS Donna Burroughs Micol Carmignani Vanessa Chan Jiyun Kim Alessandra Akerley Megan Tan Jasper MacCuspie Izma Haider Jessica Morrison Georgie Atkins Jennifer Chance Joanna Guelas Charlene Phua Vatsal Desai Aeva Milos Anindya Setiawan Gemma Grant Emily French Tasha Gacutan Grace Richardson Annalyce Wiebenga Srishti Chatterjee Joanne Zou Chelsea Daniel Alex K. Charles Sweeney Preston

02

Raina Shauki James Gordon Josh Abbey Emma-Grace Clarke Charlotte Armstrong Christina Savopoulos Torsten Strokirch Helena Pantsis Michael Josefsson Hannah Winspear-Schillings Poppy Willis James Robertson Megan van Vegten Meredith Tyler Tharidi Walimunige Oliver Rose Brown

SUBEDITORS

Ioanna Petropoulou Bridget Schwerdt Gwynneth Thomas Charlotte Waters

COLUMNISTS Zoe Keeghan Lisa Jacomos E.S. ilundi tinga Charlotte Waters Lee Perkins Josh Abbey Nishtha Banavalikar

ILLUSTRATORS

Vertigo Finley Tobin Alicia Aliandy Emma Barrett Rohith Sundaresa Prabhu Elizabeth Seychell Kitman Yeung Sarah Pemberton Zoe Lau Tun Xiang Foo Rachel Ko Frank Harvey Tyson Rai Sophie Alexandra Dungan Melana Uceda Vanshika Agarwal Mochen Tang Zoe Keeghan Georgia Huang Amber Meyer Rose Gertsakis Kate King-Smith Michelle Chang Isabelle McConaghy Joy Sha Cassie Starc Arielle Vlahotis Nishtha Banavalikar Casey Boswell Christina Savopoulos Tereza Ljubicic Mickhaella Ermita Nina Hughes Lucy Robin Torsten Strokirch Joel Keith Sam Turner Josh Abbey Melissa Nguyen Noa Abrahams Yasmin Hopkins Austin J. Ceravolo Elmira Saanjana Kapoor Maddy Cronn Melana Uceda Chelsea Rozario Chelsea Rozario Sarah Kottek Ella Crowley Sally Yuan Charlotte Armstrong Alice Tai Xiaole Zhan Anannya Musale Laura Franks Katie Zhang Joel Duggan Jasmine Pierce Helena Pantsis Micalah McCulloch Marcie Di Bartolomeo Zoe Eyles Claire Yip Nanako Patkin Sam Hadden Marco Sy Nat Hollis Cathy Chen Poppy Willis

Illustrated by Elmira

PHOTOGRAPHERS

Abir Hiranandani Finley Tobin Kashish Sandhu Sam Hadden Candy Chu Christian Theo Ben Levy Akash Anil Nair Chamathya Gunawardena

GRAPHIC COLUMNISTS Steph Markerink Gen Schiesser Torsten Strokirch

ONLINE COLUMNISTS Srishti Chatterjee James Gordon

SATIRE TEAM Charlotte Armstrong Sweeney Preston James Gordon Emma-Grace Clarke Rowan Burridge Chelsea Rozario Josh Abbey Laura Bishop Janvi Sikand Raina Shauki

SOCIAL MEDIA Anoushka Arora Shaunak Wanikar Keely Tzoukos Alain Nguyen Megan Van Vegten Isabella Ross Jenslie George Jessica Seychell Emily Gu Janelle Del Vecchio

This magazine is made from 100% recycled paper. Please recycle this magazine after use.

Farrago is the newspaper of the University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU). Farrago is published by the General Secretary. The views expressed herein are not necessarily those of UMSU.

EDITORIAL PAVANI

The Farrago Editorship, Reviewed.

My time at Farrago has been strange, to say the least. I am stuck many miles and hours from Melbourne. I’ve never seen my office in person. I spend hours planning events I cannot attend, and making magazines I cannot run my fingers over. I’ve been in relative isolation since 2020, too scared to expose my elderly, as-yet-unvaccinated family to a possibly fatal infection.

Sometimes, the awfulness of it all is too much to linger on without being overwhelmed. But it must be acknowledged.

But the bright spots should be acknowledged too, hey? The dazzling kindness and competence with which my co-editors have handled the many inconveniences of my position. The glow of this creative community around us. And of course, this job itself, which has allowed me to pay forward (though imperfectly, I’m sure) all the light and love I once received from past editors.

Final thoughts? 3/5 stars. Would recommend, especially to candidates unburdened by pandemics and time zones. Send me pictures of my office if you ever drop by. The view is to die for, or so I’ve heard.

AILISH

Yeehaw, Edition 2 is here, my children! “How can we make more work for ourselves during this incredibly chaotic year?” the three of us said. THEMED EDITIONS. Thanks to the amazing thought machine that is Pavani’s brain, we present to you our Art Deco Farrago. I must admit, I had A LOT of fun (and sleepless nights) putting this edition together. It’s full of some incredible news pieces (I love you my stunning reporting team!), thought-provoking non-fiction, stunning visuals and radical creative work that I am certain you will enjoy.

As the year goes on, I am reminded of the immense privilege I have to be in Australia right now. Not only do I get to access my office and my classrooms, I am lucky enough to leave the house without intense fear of becoming sick, or worrying when I will get my vaccine. I encourage all of you who also find yourselves in a privileged position to recognise and appreciate this, and do what you can for those who aren’t as fortunate as us.

My love always, A.

LAUREN

One sunny afternoon, I took my imaginary driver’s license and imaginary car, picked up Pavani from Sri Lanka, found Ailish at a vegan latte & jaffle party on a vegan lawn in a vegan suburb, shoved 40 subeditors in the boot, strapped the Satire Coordinators to the roof, rolled down the coast and plunged into a sexy, royal-blue Art Deco abyss, where we drank some bubbly, watched our contributors slay the dance floor, and battled the nasty demon trio known as stress, self-deprecation and Staff Cuts… Edition Two was born.

OK, OK. All jokes aside, here’s, How To Actually Make a Really Great Sequel: 1. Sanitise; 2. Incessantly Google the exact uses of Oxford commas; 3. Cry in the following places: the Creative Arts Office (they have bunnies), Zambrero (they feed you), the UH Level 3 staircase (you gave up trying to reach Level 4); 4. Do #hotgirlshit. Ahem, I mean: fill magazine with rich, romantic and racy content; 5. Get two badass co-editors and the glorious Media Collective to carry you through the flames; 6. Set Lewis Capaldi (p. 77) on all the dumb punks who threaten your child; and 7. Always, always remember—you know you’ve made it as a creative editor when you publish your first clitoris poem.

Illustrated by Elmira

03

FARRAGO

MAY WEDNESDAY 5

MONDAY 3

TUESDAY 4

1pm Queer x Southbank Collective 5.30pm Queer and Questioning Support Group

12pm Amnesty International Online Letter Writing 12pm Environment Collective 12pm Women & Enbies Collective 2pm Bla(c)k Collective 2pm Trans Collective 2pm UHT: Page to Stage– Design Realisation 3pm RRI Students Collective

MONDAY 10 5.30pm Queer and Questioning Support Group

MONDAY 17 1pm Queer x Southbank Collective 5.30pm Queer and Questioning Support Group

MONDAY 24 5.30pm Queer and Questioning Support Group

TUESDAY 11 12pm Amnesty International Online Letter Writing 12pm Environment Collective 12pm Women & Enbies Collective 2pm Bla(c)k Collective 2pm Trans Collective 3pm RRI Students Collective 4pm Queer Crafts

TUESDAY 18 12pm Amnesty International Online Letter Writing 12pm Environment Collective 12pm Women & Enbies Collective 2pm Bla(c)k Collective 2pm Trans Collective 3pm RRI Students Collective

TUESDAY 25 12pm Amnesty International Online Letter Writing 12pm Environment Collective 12pm Women & Enbies Collective 2pm Bla(c)k Collective 2pm Trans Collective 3pm RRI Students Collective

12pm Women & Enbies of Colour Collective 1pm People of Colour Collective 1pm Queer Lunch 2pm Queer Political Action Collective 4pm Queer Political Action Collective

WEDNESDAY 12 12pm Women & Enbies of Colour Collective 1pm People of Colour Collective 1pm Queer Lunch 2pm Queer Political Action Collective 4pm Queer Political Action Collective

WEDNESDAY 19 12pm Women & Enbies of Colour Collective 1pm People of Colour Collective 1pm Queer Lunch 2pm Queer Political Action Collective 4pm Queer Political Action Collective

THURSDAY 6

FRIDAY 7

12pm Climate Action Collective (Southbank) 12pm POC & Disabilities Collective 12.30pm Queer People of Colour Collective 1pm Education Action Collective 4pm Creative Arts Collective

2pm Asexual/Aromantic Collective 3pm Queer x Disabilities Collective 5pm Queer Gymn Nights

THURSDAY 13 12.30pm Queer People of Colour Collective 1pm Disabilities Collective 1pm Education Action Collective 1pm Radical Reading Group (Environment) 4pm Creative Arts Collective 5pm G&Ts with the LGBTs

THURSDAY 20 12pm Climate Action Collective (Southbank) 12.30pm Queer People of Colour Collective 1pm Education Action Collective 4pm Creative Arts Collective

FRIDAY 21 2pm Asexual/Aromantic Collective 3pm Queer x Disabilities Collective 6.30pm COSDU: Catholics of One Spirit Down Under

WEDNESDAY 26

THURSDAY 27

FRIDAY 28

12pm Women & Enbies of Colour Collective 1pm People of Colour Collective 1pm Queer Lunch 2pm Queer Political Action Collective 4pm Queer Political Action Collective 4.30pm UMAPS Hump Day Chats!

12pm People of Colour & Disabilities Collective 12.30pm Queer People of Colour Collective 1pm Disabilities Collective 1pm Education Action Collective 1pm Radical Reading Group (Environment) 4pm Creative Arts Collective 5pm G&Ts with the LGBTs

2pm Asexual/Aromantic Collective 3pm Queer x Disabilities Collective 6.30pm COSDU: Catholics of One Spirit Down Under

MONDAY 31

04

FRIDAY 14 12pm Bubble Teas With the LGBTs 1pm POC Activist Collective 2pm Asexual/Aromantic Collective 3pm Queer x Disabilities Collective 6.30pm COSDU: Catholics of One Spirit Down Under

Illustrated by Maddy Cronn

TUESDAY 1

WEDNESDAY 2 1pm People of Colour Collective 2pm Queer Political Action Collective

12pm Environment Collective

MONDAY 7

TUESDAY 8 12pm Environment Collective

MONDAY 14

TUESDAY 15 12pm Environment Collective

MONDAY 21

TUESDAY 22 12pm Environment Collective

MONDAY 28

TUESDAY 29 12pm Environment Collective

THURSDAY 3 12pm Climate Action Collective (Southbank) 12.30pm Queer People of Colour Collective 4pm Creative Arts Collective

WEDNESDAY 9

THURSDAY 10

1pm People of Colour Collective 2pm Queer Political Action Collective 4.30pm UMAPS Hump Day Chats!

12.30pm Queer People of Colour Collective 1pm Radical Reading Group (Environment) 4pm Creative Arts Collective

WEDNESDAY 16

THURSDAY 17

1pm People of Colour Collective 2pm Queer Political Action Collective

12pm Climate Action Collective (Southbank) 12.30pm Queer People of Colour Collective 4pm Creative Arts Collective

WEDNESDAY 23

THURSDAY 24

1pm People of Colour Collective 2pm Queer Political Action Collective 4.30pm UMAPS Hump Day Chats!

12.30pm Queer People of Colour Collective 1pm Radical Reading Group (Environment) 4pm Creative Arts Collective

FARRAGO

JUNE FRIDAY 4 6.30pm COSDU: Catholics of One Spirit Down Under

FRIDAY 11 6.30pm COSDU: Catholics of One Spirit Down Under

FRIDAY 18 6.30pm COSDU: Catholics of One Spirit Down Under

FRIDAY 25 6.30pm COSDU: Catholics of One Spirit Down Under

WEDNESDAY 30 1pm People of Colour Collective 2pm Queer Political Action Collective

Illustrated by Maddy Cronn

05

UMSU

President | Jack Buksh

The semester has begun and already we’ve zoomed past the mid-sem break! Hope everyone is being more organised than me and staying on top of assessment. It’s been a busy start to semester—lots happening at UMSU with array of events, services and campaigns as well as plenty of coverage of the University not doing great stuff.

We’re always fighting to make the University a better place for all students. If you’re struggling with something, wanting to find out more, or just have a question, feel free to drop me a line at president@union.unimelb.edu.au.

General Secretary | Ciara O’Sullivan

How good is being back on campus, and how good is it that UMSU is here to make it even better? Terrible Scomo-style aphorisms aside, it’s been a busy time at the Gen Sec’s office. From organising constitutional changes, developing translation and publishing policy, and having a good old fashioned yell at transphobes on campus, it has been a Time. Oh yeah, and fortnightly Students’ Council meetings on top of that! If you’re interested in how UMSU’s governance works, feel free to check out our website where I upload all the latest minutes/general goingson, or feel free to e-mail me!

Clubs and Societies | Kalyana Vania and Muskaan Hakhu

Heya there! Are you desperately wanting to go back to being a social bee? Well, the C&S Department has you covered! After a lot of hard work and love, we are bringing back Clubs Expo! YES! You heard that right! This time fiercer, though! Activities, Welfare and Clubs have come together to bring to you the ultimate Clash of Clubs!

Come and watch your favourite clubs perform and cheer them! The Expo and Clash of Clubs would happen simultaneously in week 6 and 7! Get further details regarding these on our social media or website.

Creative Arts | Merryn Hughes and Vaishnavi Ravikrishna

Creative Arts is Really Excited About supporting Tertiary students here at UniMelb make and share their Innovative artworks, particularly ones that align with our Values: diversity, sustainability, accessibility and Experimentation so come on and Apply for up to $500 as part of our grant program to help kick-start your creative projects! Relax and make art with us at our weekly collective on Zoom every Thursday 4-5PM AEST and Submit your art to our weekly Student Artist Spotlight for your chance to win a $50 gift-card! Very Artistic Individual So Hard-working Nice And Very Incredible

Education Academic | Jennisha Arnanta and Planning Saw

Hey! Jennisha and Planning here! A summary of what EdAc has been doing over the last two months! Since having Summerfest, we’ve been sharing students’ concerns and pushing the University for more equitable outcomes. We fought for international students to have the option of reduced study load, and that was a huge win, one that could not have been achieved without UMSU International! We shared students’ concerns regarding inadequate library hours, and lack of study spaces, and the University has extended their library hours and provided a list of spaces available for students to do their Zoom classes! Lastly, we had our “Defend Our Education” rally together with Ed Pub where we protested job cuts and reduced quality of education! Please feel free to reach out to us and we’ll keep working for students to ensure that education is equitable, accessible and transparent!

Education Public | Hannah Krasovec and Tejas Gandhi

EdPub team is back at it and ready to keep fighting for students’ and workers’ rights, free education, and an end to corporate universities. We’ve been organising for our No Cuts campaign for this semester. We are back on the ground, with our UMSU activists. We also did the Defend our Education rally in March, and will continue to fight against the subject and staff cuts. Come along to our campaign planning and organising events, collectives, and rallies when they happen! With a changing world full of urgent challenges, it is sure to be eventful. See you all around!

Burnley | Kaitlyn Hammond

Happy Semester one from everyone at Burnley! We are excited to see more faces around campus as restrictions begin to ease. We have a fun semester ahead of us, so keep an eye out for activities on our socials!

Instagram: @umsuburnley Facebook: /burnleystudentassociation

Disabilities | Brigit Doyle and Lindsay Tupper-Creed

UMSU Disabilities is a safe and inclusive community which provides a space for students living with or experiencing a disability (including mental health). We help students empower themselves through education via our disabilities space, collectives, workshops, community events and more! This semester we’re really excited to do something for everyone, including welcoming back more experienced students to our mentorship program.

Drop into one of our online or in-person events, or reach out for help from the OBs (Brigit & Lindsay).

06

Indigenous | Shanysa McConville

UMSU

How amazing has it been to actually be on campus in 2021! We’ve had a fantastic welcome back bar night at The Clyde Hotel, an Under Bunjil launch and pottery class so far this semester. All three of our collectives—Blak, Queer, and Weaving—are also up and running. It has been fantastic to see mob get involved with these new initiatives!

Recently, we were able to distribute our very own merchandise to Indigenous students: a glass water bottle, notepad and portable charger. We are also working to produce Under Bunjil Volume 9 which will be released early in Semester 2.

People of Colour | Emily AlRamadhan and Mohamed Omer

Hey everyone, we hope you’ve been enjoying the first half of our Semester 1 events! We’ve brought back most of our collectives and started this semester’s anti-racism workshop series. Can’t wait to see you virtually and in-person at our events after the mid-sem break. We have exciting campaigns planned out for the rest of the semester so come to our Activist Collective to see how you can get involved! Ramadan is also approaching so to our friends from the Muslim community, stay tuned for some exciting celebrations.

Activities | Christos Preovolos and Phoebe Chen

How good are Bands (Bands and Bands)! The Activities team are proud to announce the official release of our BBB series for the semester. On the 23rd of March we had Cable Ties come in to wow the crowds, and we’ll be following that up with plenty more. We are also hard at work planning Clash of Clubs, a multi-club talent competition that will find the One Club to Rule Them All. Don’t miss a single thing, make sure to follow our Facebook and Instagram for the latest updates.

Queer | Amelia Bright and Laura Ehrensperger

So far, this semester has been packed. We have been running a mix of online and in-person events. COVID-safe snacks are provided at collectives, and catering for Queer Lunch will happen soon! Online events includes the collectives in the early weeks, speedfriending and Pride Crafts! In-person events are now most of the collectives, G&Ts with the LGBTs, Queer Lunch, and many events related to the No Transphobia In Our Tutes campaign. Support for this campaign so far has been massive. There was a successful Trans Rally event, followed by a campus march and ending with speeches outside of a locked Old Arts building. More events occurred for Trans Day of Visibility, including a Working Bee and events at Southbank and Parkville. Initiatives for this campaign have also fallen outside of University jurisdiction, such as the advocation for the Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Bill 2020.

Southbank | Will Hall

UMSU Southbank has been busy helping students return to semester. We have been pushing forward with our campaign for fee relief, pushing back against austerity measures imposed by the University, and pushing through with some great student-led initiatives on campus. We will be working closely with the POC Department and students to form an effective collective for diverse communities on our campus. Our campaigns sub-committee is commencing April 5 to provide a space for collective student action. We are also proud to report our open letter to demand more than one printer for our entire campus has received over 80 signatures.

Welfare | Allen Xiao and Hue Man Dang

“Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.”- The Great Gatsby.

We’re definitely living the life at the Welfare Department! Now fully stocked with food and supplies for the Welfare Breakfast, anyone who’s in a pinch can come by and grab what they need (while we transition to a more extensive space). We also have a collection of household goods to warm you up during winter, and scientific calculators in case you’re in a pinch before mid-sem season. Visit our office—right side, first floor of Union House— to see for yourself!

Women | Srishti Chatterjee and Mickhaella Ermita

It’s been a whirlwind of activity at the UMSU Women’s Department! We held a picnic on International Women’s Day, kickstarted our campaign for Safety on Campus with a snap rally and petition and collaborated with UMSU Queer for Trans Day of Visibility. We’ve also brought back our weekly collectives for Women and Non-Binary People, and Women and Non-Binary People of Colour on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at noon respectively, with our Feminist Action Collective beginning after the mid-semester break. Finally, you can apply to join the editorial team for our magazine Judy’s Punch very soon! Follow our socials to keep updated.

Environment | Anh Nguyen and James Park

HEYO! Enviro just launched our #ActNowUnimelb Campaign (bit.ly/ActNowUnimelb)! The University has consistently responded to past grassroots climate movements with vague sustainability commitments that pale next to their deep ties with the fossil fuel industry. There’s no time for another year of inaction. The University must listen to us NOW. With the help of many wonderful departments, we’ll be hosting regular workshops up until May 6th, our day of action, where we will rally outside the administration building and spam Unimelb’s social media. We need you—come along to our collectives and workshops and get involved! Love, Enviro

07

UMSU

content warning: transphobia, sexual assault and harrassment

UMSU UPDATES Welcome to Edition 2 of UMSU Updates! In case you missed it:The University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU) is your student union, run for students, by students. It’s been an action-packed return to campus—from protests to parties, speak-outs to seshs, we’re doing our best to make your experience at uni as awesome as it should be.

When We Say Student, You Say Power!

There’s been a lot happening in the world of UMSU activism. The Queer Department held two rallies demanding an end to transphobia on campus, including the removal of transphobic subject content, and for the University to take a stance against transphobic academics and hate speech on campus. So far, the University has committed to regular meetings with UMSU on this issue, and the introduction of a gender affirmation policy for staff and students.

Make sure to keep up to date with UMSU Queer to learn more about the campaign!

The Environment Department launched its flagship campaign ‘Act Now Unimelb’, which calls on the University to cut all ties to ecologically destructive companies like Lockheed Martin and ExxonMobil, as well as to introduce a more direct focus on environmental research and education at the university. Check out the petition here: bit.ly/ ActNowUnimelb After the reveal of ongoing, unpunished incidents of sexual harassment at the highest levels of the University of Melbourne, the Women’s Department has launched a petition demanding the University act upon its “zero tolerance” stance on sexual assault and harassment. You can find the petition here: https://www.megaphone.org.au/ petitions/action-on-zero-tolerance. If you or a friend need additional support, check out https://umsu.unimelb.edu. au/support/survivors/ .

Hate being unable to study late at the library? Been unable to reduce your study load? Can’t find a place on campus to attend your zoom tute? Not any more thanks to your Education (Academic) Officers who have successfully lobbied the University to extend library hours, open up more study spaces for students, and to allow international students to use a statutory declaration to underload. If you have any problems with your classes or subjects at all, be sure to email EdAc at EducationAcademic@union.unimelb.edu.au Friends, Food and Fun Having a yell and fighting for students rights isn’t all we do at UMSU—we’re also here to help you find friends, develop a community, and maybe even learn something along the way.

The People of Colour Department is running regular anti-racism workshops. With diverse topics from medical racism to racism in the sex industry, there’s something for everyone to learn. These workshops are non-autonomous, so white allies are welcome! The Disabilities Department has also been running mental health workshops, so get in touch if you’re looking for new strategies to manage your mental health.

UMSU Activities is slowly getting back to normal, with the return of Bands, Bands and uh… Bands. No BBQ and Bevs just yet, but throughout this semester check out the UMSU Activities socials for the newest gig streamed in HD. Struggling for food and supplies? The Welfare Department is here to help! Drop into the Welfare Office on level 1 of Union House for all your household needs. From ramen to laundry powder, they’ve got you covered.

Finally, preparations are well underway for Mudfest 2021, the largest student-run festival in the entire southern hemisphere. If you’re an aspiring artist, make sure to submit an EOI to the Creative Arts Officers!

Students Council so far…

Since last edition Students’ Council has: • Endorsed recommendations to change the constitution to allow online voting • Passed a number of Student Initiative Grants (got a cool idea, and need money? Submit a grant application to secretary@union.unimelb.edu.au and Council will consider it!)

• Started happening in person again, with a mixed mode setup!

• Check out the minutes on the UMSU website for more info!

Ciara O’Sullivan UMSU General Secretary secretary@union.unimelb.edu.au

08

Illustrated by Melissa Nguyen

NEWS Illustrated by Nina Hughes

NEWS

content warning: violence, death, racism, transphobia, sexual assault

NEWS-IN-BRIEF NEWS-IN-BRIEF Written by Joanna Guelas, Charlene Phua, Vatsal Desai and Aeva Milos

Student Experience Survey (SES) 2020: The Higher Education Student Experience SES results published in March 2021 highlight COVID19’s impact on the education sector. Overall, the ‘Quality of Entire Educational Experience’ for undergraduates plummeted from 78 per cent in 2019 to 69 per cent in 2020. The University of Melbourne experienced the biggest drop in this category (25 per cent) compared to other Australian institutions. Other categories in which the University witnessed substantial decline include ‘Learner Engagement’ and ‘Learning Resources’, having lost 24 per cent in each category compared to 2019.

University of Melbourne Academic Launches Transphobic Website University of Melbourne Associate Professor Holly LawfordSmith launched a website on February 23 in response to legislation in Australia that she claims “replaces sex with gender identity”. The website invites cisgender women to share their encounters with transgender women. Almost 100 academics have demanded that the University take “swift and decisive action” against this website for its transphobic agenda and potential breach of the University’s own guidelines on research and integrity.

The University has only detached itself from the website, stating that “the views they express are personal, not those of the University”.

Sexual Assault Allegations in Parliament A wave of sexual assault allegations have grappled Parliament House follow former political adviser Brittanny Higgins publicly revealing she was raped by a government official in Linda Reynolds’ office in 2019. The accusation prompted more women to come forward with their own allegations of sexual assault, instigating parliament’s own #MeToo movement. In light of these claims, Attorney-General of Australia Christian Porter denied involvement in a sexual assault case in 1991. Protests occurred nationwide during International Women’s Day to campaign against sexual assault and government misconduct.

Meghan and Harry Interview Oprah with Meghan and Harry was released and broadcasted globally on March 7. The American television interview saw Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, critique the British monarchy for its failure to emotionally and financially support her and her husband. The interview also discussed Meghan’s mental health struggles, Harry’s estrangement from his family, and racially insensitive comments made about their then unborn son, Archie Mountbatten-Windsor. The interview reached 17.1 million viewers on CBS and received mostly sympathetic understandings of both Meghan and Harry from watchers.

Anti-Asian Hate Crimes

Myanmar protests

There has been a recent increase in hate crimes directed towards the Asian-American Community in the US. The increase is strongly associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw many labelling the virus as the “China virus” or “Kung flu”.

On March 16, eight people were killed following a series of mass shootings which occurred at three spas and massage parlors in Atlanta, George. Six of the casualties were Asian women, with the perpetrator citing sexual addiction as his motivation. The perpetrator was not charged with a hate crime. Mass protests against anti-Asian violence have taken place across the world as a result of this shooting.

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SES results published in March 2021 highlight COVID19’s impact on the education sector. Overall, the ‘Quality of Entire Educational Experience’ for undergraduates plummeted from 78 per cent in 2019 to 69 per cent in 2020. The University of Melbourne experienced the biggest drop in this category (25 per cent) compared to other Australian institutions. Other categories in which the University witnessed substantial decline include ‘Learner Engagement’ and ‘Learning Resources’, having lost 24 per cent in each category compared to 2019.

NSW Floods

International Student Arrivals to Australia

New South Wales received persistent rainfall across four days in late summer, leading to the region’s worst flooding in six decades. According to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, parts of Sydney, Hunter, and Mid North Coast were inundated with 400 to 600 millimetres (16 to 24 inches) of rain, with the most extreme levels approaching one meter. Many of these areas were impacted by wildfire in the summer of 2020, indicating critical fluctuation in climate patterns—a cause of global concern.

The latest data from Australian Bureau of Statistics reveals that international student arrivals in January 2021 dipped to a record low compared to the same time last year. A striking drop of 99.6 per cent was nothing but expected owing to the travel restrictions upheld by the Australian Government.

State-wise comparison suggests Victoria had only 70 arrivals, a difference of 29,380 students compared to this time last year.

Illustration by Nina Hughes

NEWS

Vaccine Rollout to Protect UniMelb’s Most Vulnerable Written by Alessandra Akerley The ongoing rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine in Victoria is expected to provide great relief to University of Melbourne students as they make a return to on-campus learning, especially those who have had to restrict their movement due to their status as a ‘high-risk’ individual.

University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU) Disabilities Officer Lindsay Tupper-Creed said, “The introduction of the vaccine is an unparalleled victory for students with disabilities.”

“For many, it is not an anxiety but a genuine health risk to return to campus at present.”

Ultimately, the more people that are vaccinated, the safer it will be for all students to return to campus.

At this stage of the rollout, it is unclear exactly what role the University will play in ensuring students are vaccinated.

A University spokesperson told Farrago, “The University will continue to provide updates on any developments, including on the vaccine rollout, to our community through our regular channels, as well as specific, targeted advice as it applies to different student cohorts and staff groups.”

The two-dose Pfizer vaccine received provisional approval from the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) in January, provided that its recipients are aged 16 and over.

The vaccine has undergone a rigorous approval process and has been deemed safe for widespread use by the public. It will be distributed in five phases throughout the coming months.

Priority for the vaccine will be given to those in ‘high-risk’ categories, including frontline health workers, aged and disability care workers and residents, and those working in hotel quarantine. Priority will also be given to people with chronic medical conditions, adults aged over 70, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults aged over 55.

It is possible that those who refuse to take the vaccine will

be prevented from travelling, working, or retaining certain tax benefits.

As the vaccine becomes more readily accessible, the state government recommends that as many people as possible should aim to be immunised against COVID-19.

The five stages of the vaccine rollout Phase 1a: The first stage will be distributed to the highest risk members of society: quarantine and border workers, frontline health care workers, and aged and disability care workers. The government predicts that 678,000 people will fall into this category.

Phase 1b: The vaccine will be distributed to adults over the age of 70, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults over the age of 55, and adults with medical conditions or disabilities. This is potentially when the first round of students attending the University of Melbourne will receive the vaccine.

Additionally, general healthcare workers, as well as essential workers in the meatpacking, postal, police and emergency service industries will also be receiving the jab.

Phase 2a: This is scheduled to be a few months after the first round and will include around 6.5 million people. This includes adults aged 50–69, Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander people aged 18–54 and more high-risk workers (unspecified at the time of writing).

Phase 2b: The largest stage of the rollout will cover people aged 16 and over, including a catch up for anyone who missed the vaccine in the first several rounds.

Phase 3: In this final stage the vaccine will be distributed to children under the age of 16.

Image Credit: Daniel Schludi

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NEWS

content warning: suicide, mental health

Coroner Calls on Australian Universities to Protect Mental Health Written by Donna Burroughs Victorian Coroner Audrey Jamieson has called on Australian universities to do more to support the mental health of international students.

Her plea followed the release of her report on the suicide of Nguyen Le on 14 January this year.

Le, a University of Melbourne international student, was 21 years old when he died on 12 December 2018.

Coroner Jamieson has subsequently ordered the Coroners Prevention Unit to review an investigation that took place in 2019, which looked into 27 suicides of international students occurring between 2009 and 2015.

The investigation found that international students had lower levels of engagement with mental health services compared to domestic students, which was suggested to be due to cultural, linguistic and financial hurdles. It also identified failing grades as a contributing factor.

Such stressors have only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic resulted in international students being financially impacted by prolonged closures of the hospitality and retail sectors in 2020. They also could not access government support as temporary visa holders.

MindSpace Consulting, a counselling centre specialising in providing services to Chinese migrants and international students, reported an increased demand for mental health support from Asian immigrants during the pandemic.

In congruence with Coroner Jamieson’s report, MindSpace Consulting observed that mental health problems amongst Asian international students can be difficult to treat due to cultural norms.

“In some Asian cultures… psychological… distress [is] viewed as the ‘price’ one must pay to live overseas, and migrants are culturally primed to endure the suffering and push through,” a pamphlet supplied by MindSpace Consulting stated.

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Even when international students overcome such barriers, they are not always able to access the help they need.

A third year Bachelor of Arts student from China, who wanted to be known only as Bacchus, felt that the counselling services offered by the University were “inadequate”. This followed the difficulties she faced trying to book an appointment in Semester 2 2019. The process, which she described as “lengthy”, gave her the impression that the service was “underfunded”.

Additionally, lack of awareness is a persistent problem for both international and domestic students. Jenny*, a thirdyear domestic student said that whilst it was “good” that the University offers after-hours support and workshops, she only knew about them from a friend, rather than via University communication .

When contacted for comment, a University spokesperson raised attention to the University’s existing mental health support services including the newly-implemented AfterHours Mental Health Crisis Support Service.

“We’ve been very pleased to see the level of international student engagement with CAPS, and in accessing mental health treatment in the Health Service, move to a level that is proportionally higher when considered against the full student cohort.”

They also spoke of the upcoming Student Wellbeing and Mental Health Framework “which will utilise evidence, research and recommendations from a range of recent reports.”

“To inform [sic] the Framework, we are consulting and working with students with a diverse range of lived experiences to develop approaches and opportunities to further improve student mental health and wellbeing.”

This story is ongoing. *name has been changed

Photograph by Abir Hiranandani

NEWS

Concerns Arise as COVID-19 Supplement End-Date Looms Written by Georgie Atkins and Jessica Morrison As financial supplements introduced by the government during COVID-19 are set to end on 28 March, there is rising discussion over the potentially adverse impacts that this may have on tertiary students across Australia.

Whilst some students have been able to access such financial support, others have been excluded from receiving government welfare payments throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

University of Melbourne Professor of Economics Jan Kabatek has said that there is a “polarising impact between Australian students and international students,” in regards to receiving financial support from the government.

International students have been ineligible to receive JobKeeper or JobSeeker payments during COVID-19.

Instead, the University of Melbourne offered an Emergency Support Fund to students, for which applications closed in November 2020.

“It’s heart-breaking [for international students] to see friends around you receive generous support, whilst you receive nothing,” says Kabatek.

University of Melbourne Economics Professor Jeff Borland, however, is optimistic about employment within the industries which students are highly concentrated in.

“In industries such as hospitality and retail, employers actually can’t get enough workers. There’s less competition for jobs currently,” says Borland.

He projects that “JobKeeper ending will result in a small rise in unemployment as employers have less incentive to keep workers, but it won’t be too significant and won’t bring us back to the unemployment levels of May 2020.”

However, a University of Melbourne student currently receiving JobSeeker payments has expressed concern

over the reduction of support from 28 March onwards.

“The idea of the future is a little turbulent, not knowing whether I’ll have financial security or not,” says the student.

“With the reduced payments, JobSeeker only just covers my rent.”

Although they have been able to find work, they are also concerned that the job is ‘too casual’ in regards to hours and sustainable employment.

Although the government has held the position that the JobKeeper and JobSeeker supplements were always a temporary program, the cost of the scheme has been forecasted to come in at $10 billion less than what was expected to be spent.

“I think it’s important for the government to have a sizeable increase in JobSeeker, but it seems unlikely that will happen,” argues Borland.

While the government recently introduced a $50 increase to the base fortnightly JobSeeker, Austudy, ABSTUDY and Youth Allowance rates, the payments will still fall below the poverty line despite being the first significant increase in welfare rates since 1994.

The stagnation of welfare support coincides with the upward trend of tertiary students engaging in part-time work while completing their studies, which a past study suggests may impact quality of education.

After 28 March, the retraction of COVID-19 supplements could potentially widen the socioeconomic gap between students who have financial support and those who may have to work to continue their studies.

Illustrated by Nanako Patkin

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NEWS

UniMelb Policy Reversion Another Setback for International Students Written by Vanessa Chan and Jiyun Kim Unable to return to campus this semester, international students stuck overseas are now facing changes to Reduced Study Load (RSL) and Leave of Absence (LoA) eligibility.

With the University resisting to list COVID-19 as a compassionate reason for the RSL and LoA in 2021, many international students have been left unsupported.

In 2020, the RSL and the LoA offered respite to international students, allowing them to reduce or halt their studies during the pandemic.

This year however, the University requires international students to enrol in 50 points of subjects per semester to fulfil the requirements of their student visa, despite the ongoing challenges of COVID-19.

If an international student fails or withdraws from their course without the University’s approval, their visa may not be extended.

RSL and LoA applicants are required to provide convincing evidence in order to receive approval. The University’s spokesperson insisted that the impacts of COVID-19 on international students have been considered in the policy change.

“Students applying for a variation to their enrolment of this kind, where COVID-19 continues to impact on their studies, are encouraged to apply and outline the nature of the impact with supporting documentation.”

“Where students are not able to obtain independent supporting documentation, a personal statement can be accepted and will be considered on a case-by-case basis,” they said.

Many international students consider these standards set by the University to be vague, and feel discouraged by the lack of certainty that their application will be successful.

For students outside of Australia, online classes come with the potential drawbacks of time differences and unstable internet connections.

Noting that some students have returned to campus in March, Kitty, a Malaysian student, is concerned about the disadvantages of Zoom tutorials compared to on-campus classes.

“You can easily mute or turn off your video ... especially in

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breakout rooms when everyone has their microphones and videos turned off and no one is participating.”

“Whereas on campus, that’s not really an option so you have to participate in a sense,” she said.

Many international students like Kitty believe that online classes are not a substitute for an on-campus experience.

However, due to difficulties in retaining an Australian visa, some international students feel they have no choice but to continue their studies in the face of social isolation.

In fact, according to research by Chen and colleagues at the University of Macau, China, the pandemic has resulted in mental health concerns for isolated international students.

Blatant discrimination, alongside monetary, language and cultural barriers, have further exacerbated the challenges for international students during the pandemic.

Despite drawing upon academic support provided by the University, a Singaporean student (who would like to remain anonymous) revealed his struggle in studying and socialising from overseas.

“It is sad to experience freshman life like that, it’s supposed to be a good opportunity to meet a lot of friends, and I really couldn’t find study groups to help me out,” he said.

Whilst the return to campus for domestic students has marked Australia’s move towards normality, many extracurricular opportunities remain unavailable to international students.

A Chinese commerce student, Wendy, pointed out that not being allowed to enter Australia means she will lose valuable industry experience.

“I don’t have the same access to activities compared to [students] at the campus and it has a great impact on losing so many opportunities, mainly as making friends, connections, internships.”

“If I cannot attend the activities of clubs and societies, I cannot look for an internship in Australia anyway. [Studying online] will be simply a waste of time,” she said.

The consequences of the limited RSL and LoA eligibility for international students have proven to be extensive. Despite the University’s efforts to provide security for those students unable to enter Australia, many feel pressured into continuing their studies without adequate support.

Illustrated by Joy Sha

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Lack of COVID-19 Support Exposes International Students to Wage Theft Written by Jennifer Chance Lack of government support and reduced finances during COVID-19 has rendered international students more vulnerable to wage theft.

A national survey conducted in July 2020 among 6,000 international students highlighted the level of financial turmoil that students faced during the pandemic shutdowns.

One in seven international students who were surveyed underwent effective homelessness between March and July 2020. 57 per cent lost their jobs, a number that is much higher than any temporary migrant demographic. 14 per cent of them also had to work and were only compensated with food or housing.

Following these findings, Professor Bassina Farbenblum, one of the academics conducting the study, says, “The COVID-19 shutdown has created a humanitarian crisis among international students and other migrant workers in Australia.”

The increased financial vulnerability has led to increased desperation. Pre-COVID, three in four international students earned below the casual minimum wage ($22 per hour). That number is projected to have increased.

Part of the reason is that international students do not have access to welfare support such as Jobkeeper payments. State governments and universities have provided pandemic relief systems for international students, but it is not enough.

This lack of support has soured the perception of Australia for international students. Numerous students mentioned that they were perceived as “just money, otherwise we are not worth anything”.

Belle Lim, President of the Council of International Students Australia (CISA) says, “For a few months, we have heard a lot of issues from students who come to us who are in really desperate positions. Students are skipping meals, they are unable to pay rent, and some students are facing homelessness. Because students don’t have access to Jobkeeper funds, [they] are very desperate to take any jobs they can get.”

Karan Mehta, an international student undertaking a Masters in Analytics, was laid off in June 2020 as a result of the pandemic lockdown.

In November, when restrictions were eased, he applied for work at a yoghurt store in the Melbourne CBD and

received a cash-in-hand position to clean the yoghurt machines, with a promise of biweekly payments.

After the first two weeks of working, he asked for new shifts and his wages, but received nothing.

The employer neither replied nor processed the payments, and Karan ended up working for free.

“I just felt cheated at that time and I couldn’t even file a complaint or go to someone because, at the end [sic], I had no written paper. It was a verbal agreement… I had to work for him for free. It was really annoying and [I was] angry,” Karan comments.

He mentions that because his employer came from the same country as him and would speak nicely to him, he did not assume anything would go wrong. The National Union of Students (NUS) has, however, noted that this is one of the most common methods of wage exploitation. Employers believe that students from the same country will be “easy to manipulate”.

Students face the highest level of exploitation in the hospitality and retail industry. Lately, CISA has also received reports that some farming work (which are being advertised to international students) involved employees being paid per picked fruit instead of minimum wage requirements.

Delivery driving and the gig economy are also rife with underpayment issues. Some of the drivers have to rent a bike to work and if they don’t make enough to pay off the rental cost, they would be losing money.

A lack of awareness and the fear of reporting these circumstances further hinder international students from receiving help.

The NUS urges that the University should be actively informing all students of their working rights alongside student unions and that the government should do better in monitoring instances of wage theft.

A Melbourne University spokesperson says, “The University acknowledges that many students continue to experience financial hardship during this time and aims to assist as many students in urgent financial need as possible through our Financial Aid service.”

A Fair Work Ombudsman spokesperson also states that they are committed to enforcing “workplace laws in a proportionate manner during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Illustrated by Torsten Strokirch

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NEWS

COVID-Safe Activism on Campus Written by Micol Carmignani and Donna Burroughs Due to COVID restrictions, students and organisations at the University of Melbourne will have to rethink the way they protest this year.

The University has a rich history of student protest, from Invasion Day marches to the die-in staged in the Arts West foyer on Open Day to protest the University’s participation in the 2019 International Mining and Resources Conference.

Such actions have stalled due to concerns over the safety of in-person protests, which Victoria’s former Minister for Health, Jenny Mikakos, previously denounced as “incredibly irresponsible” given the public health risk they pose.

In response, students have gathered online, embracing digital platforms to continue their work remotely. University of Melbourne Student Union Women’s Office Bearer Srishti Chatterjee said that students were already aware of how to “do things online and over Zoom” and could continue campaigning in lieu of in-person rallies.

Chatterjee told Farrago about the importance of this for inclusivity. “[Students] with disabilities are usually largely excluded [from in-person protests] due to lack of introspection regarding accessibility.”

The shift to online activism has so far resolved this issue (and raised others such as internet access) and sparked much-needed conversations around exclusionary protest practices of the past as well as inclusive ways forward for those with accessibility needs.

The University’s National Tertiary Education Union branch president Steve Adams said an added bonus of digital protesting is that it allows students from different campuses to be involved.

Digital protests counteract this, allowing people from different geographic locations to convene online.

However, in terms of raising awareness, Adams said that on-campus campaigns have the advantage.

Posters and physical rallies increase visibility for the group’s campaigns from students from a range of different backgrounds. In contrast, digital protests often only reach those already engaged with the issue.

Both Adams and Chatterjee are confident about a safe return to on-campus protesting, citing the use of COVID marshals to ensure social distancing and mask-wearing.

Students share in their conviction. Already this month, over 100 University students and staff convened on-campus for a snap rally to protest against the transphobic views of a University staff member.

Off-campus, students also participated in-person protests against refugee detention and the national March 4 Justice in opposition to sexual assault and gendered violence in the workplace.

Farrago reached out to the University for comment on the issue, but did not receive a response.

In light of current restrictions, it appears that students will have to continue to make their voices heard online until a revision of safety guidelines allows for the return to on-campus protesting. The question remains as to how students and organisations will make better use of digital platforms to achieve the impact of in-person protesting.

For more information on upcoming rallies and how to get involved visit https://umsu.unimelb.edu.au.

“One of the problems with protests on campus is that it’s largely ... people from Parkville,” he said.

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Photograph by Finley Tobin

NEWS

UniWireless COVID Data Sharing Raises Privacy Concerns Written by Megan Tan

This year, when students at the University of Melbourne attempt to log into the University’s Wi-Fi, many may need to repeatedly reconnect to the network. This is because several changes have been made to the terms of use for UniWireless in light of COVID-19.

they will reduce “the risk to UniWireless user’s health, the health of their family and the health of the university community in relation to COVID-19,” the spokesperson said.

These changes will also enable the University to meet public health obligations.

According to the University’s website, “provisions” will be made for the Victorian Government’s contact tracing programme, meaning that information collected from the use of UniWireless (such as account usernames, IP addresses, MAC addresses from devices, details of network activity and connection to UniWireless access points) will be shared with “relevant Government Departments or agencies to meet mandatory reporting obligations relating to public health”.

The terms of use for UniWireless were updated in December 2020, said a spokesperson for the University. Following this update, students will be informed of the changes when they log into the network.

Many students, however, were unaware of these changes in the first place.

Professor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Ampalavanapillai Nirmalathas, said that data collected as students log into UniWireless is normally used to determine how to best provide services for students, and to detect whether anyone is violating the terms of use while using UniWireless. In accordance with the privacy law of Victoria, this data should not be shared outside of the University.

However, due to COVID-19, exceptions were made to allow the University to share student data in certain circumstances.

For example, if a case of COVID-19 occurred on campus, the University is required to provide other universities with relevant student data.

“The University may be asked to share the specific amount of people in the vicinity of that particular place, or the faculty someone might have been to, and they may be forced to share that information by the state government,” said Professor Nirmalathas.

The same University spokesperson also commented on the use of the data saying, “UniWireless information may be used to supplement primary campus attendance records such as the timetable and QR check-in records to aid in the assessment of potential contacts of a COVID-19 case on campus.”

The University has deemed these changes necessary, stating

When asked about them, students displayed distinctly mixed results. Christina Yuan, a Psychology student at the University, said that reconnecting to the Wi-Fi might bring a little hassle, but that it is “normal procedure” and “sounds reasonable”.

Other students, however, found these changes concerning.

Emily Gu, a Media and Communications major, said, “It feels like the University is breaching the privacy of students and staff by collecting this personal data. Although we could technically opt out, most of us have no choice but to use the University’s wi-fi and therefore have our data mined.”

Noting the possibility of data breaches, Emily also stated that “the Australian government has an extensive history of data breaches and marginalised students have a much larger risk of being surveyed anyway. I don’t think it is necessary for the University to share personal data with the government because it will put these students at further risk.”

She added: “I think I might change how I engage with [the wifi], maybe only connecting with University wi-fi when I really need to like in class or when studying, but then otherwise turning it off.”

Unlike Emily, Christina said that she would continue using UniWireless when she returned to campus. “My experience with campus wi-fi has been pretty good so far.”

Professor Nirmalathas said that the data collected would make a “big difference” in managing the COVID-19 pandemic.

As such, he has made the decision to continue using the campus wi-fi. “I am making the decision with the knowledge that yes, there is some data about me being collected, but I believe that [the University] will carefully use the information.

I am confident that it will not be misused.”

Illustrated by Torsten Strokirch

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NEWS

Long-term Effects of Job-ready Graduates Package Still Uncertain Written by Jasper MacCuspie and Izma Haider

Background The Job-ready Graduate Package is expected to significantly reshape higher education pathways and impact many students across the country. However, it is anticipated that the impacts of the legislation, which passed in October 2020, will not be fully known for several years.

The package is set to see certain courses, primarily in the fields of Science, Teaching, and Nursing, have their costs cut. In contrast, other courses, primarily in the Arts, Commerce, and Law faculties, will see the cost of their degrees increase.

When the legislation was originally announced, Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan claimed that the changes in funding would see more students with “jobready skills”. The veracity of this statement has been extensively challenged.

A University spokesperson confirmed that some of these trends have continued.

“The Bachelor of Agriculture continues to be a strong choice and has seen a 13 per cent increase in applications.”

Enrolment Impacts As of right now, there have been negligible impacts on enrolments for 2021.

Statistics

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2018, total enrolments at the University increased 20 per cent. However, the increases were not consistent between faculties. The Bachelor of Arts saw a modest 13 per cent increase over the period, while the Bachelor of Science increased exponentially, until falling greatly in 2018. The most significant increases were a 60 per cent jump for Engineering students, and a 50 per cent increase in the Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences faculty. Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences increased 350 per cent over the same period.

While the extent of these effects on student course enrolments are not fully understood, some possible inferences may be drawn from the trends present over the past few years. The University is yet to release its enrolment numbers for 2020 as of the time of publication, and adopted a different methodology for counting student numbers in 2019. This change in methodology means that comparisons with previous years are not as statistically significant. However, there are still some patterns that may be observed from previous annual reports.

“The Bachelor of Arts remains the most popular course for high school leavers in 2021. The overall total is lower than in previous years due to a decrease in interstate applications,” a university spokesperson told Farrago.

The period of five years leading up to 2018 already saw shifts in course enrolment numbers. Between 2014 and

“...the Bachelor of Arts remains very popular and at this point there is no obvious impact from the Job-ready

The Faculty of Arts Deputy Dean, Professor Sarah Maddison, confirmed this.

“Commencing domestic student load in the Bachelor of Arts appears to be almost on par with figures from this time last year,” Maddison said.

Illustrated by Casey Boswell

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Graduates legislation on domestic applicants.”

Professor Maddison does not anticipate any impacts will be felt immediately.

“It’s possible we’ll start seeing the real impact in two to three years and when the current grandfathering arrangements end,” Maddison said. “...this may very well be because Year 12 students had already selected a particular path of study and did not have time to make other choices.”

The Director of the Bachelor of Science, Associate Professor Deborah King, agreed that any changes may take a while to be distinguishable.

“From our UoM perspective I can’t discern any real change to our domestic numbers. This is similar to other Go8’s [Group of 8 Universities] as far as I understand.”

“Looking forward though, an indicator that Job Ready is impacted on [sic] enrolment patterns would manifest in Year 11 and 12 subject choices before we saw the flow on effects. So I think it will take at least two years to be able to say for sure if there has been a change,” King said.

socially elitist, this will be incredibly detrimental for our society.”

This belief is shared by Dr Wendy Haslem, a Senior Lecturer in Cultural Management.

“HASS subjects attract a significantly higher student contribution and correspondingly lower government contribution. We feel that this will disproportionately impact women students and our lower SES students.

That concerns us deeply.”

Conclusion Various departments at the University have been considering mechanisms to mitigate the impacts on students over the next series of years. A number of academics have also publicly criticised the government’s policy.

It will likely be many years before the full impact of the new legislation is felt. However, the possibility that certain degrees will become less accessible to marginalised groups is itself concerning, and cause for attention.

Other Impacts Some academics are particularly concerned that the impacts on enrolment will be felt more in relation to the demography of student cohorts, rather than the numbers thereof.

Professor Maddison identified this as a key concern.

“In narrowing the pool of Humanities and Social Sciences students to those who are able to cope with the futuredebt, important and marginalised voices will be missing in classrooms.”

“If this is the case, and the study of HASS becomes

Illustrated by Casey Boswell

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FARRAGO

Humans of UniMelb: Anne This series zooms in on the lovely humans that make up our university community. In this edition, reporter and photographer Joanna Guelas chats to Anne, a Bachelor of Music student, about her love of music composition.

* Q: What made you want to study composition?

Anne (A): The funny thing is I actually never properly composed much before coming to Melbourne. So I came in as a first-year guitar performance major, knowing I wanted to do composition but never having done it before. I took a subject in composition studies which got me in. It gave me a better awareness of what composition was and how to go about it. I watch a lot of anime and movies and dramas and stuff like that, and I really felt like ‘whoa, the music plays such a big role in the atmosphere and telling the story’. It’s in games, or even if you sit at a restaurant, the music is there. It’s such a big thing in our lives, and half the time we don’t even notice it. I really want to touch people’s lives as well in that way. That’s why I want to do composition. And when I came in, my guitar teacher was really supportive and so I spoke with the head of composition and they also gave me a lot of support in starting out.

Q: What’s one thing that bothers you about new music composition?

A: There’s a lot of experimentation. The music we write is not understandable, that’s what I hate sometimes.

As a new music composer, contemporary student, we’re encouraged to experiment and try different things, to make music that isn’t the typical “oh, that sounds nice”. So a lot of the music I’ve heard at uni, amongst my fellow friends and lecturers, challenges me in a way that’s not just “feel good’” music. It’s not just music you listen and you go “oh yeah, I understand that”. A lot of it is really challenging to me, especially when I first started out. And I feel like, to a lot of other people, it might give off that kind of impression as well, that new music composition is just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. It’s not. Everyone has a different style, everyone has a different voice and sound. Everyone has a different purpose for writing music. Some people write it to create an atmosphere, some people write it as a study in something—like, y’know trying new techniques and stuff like that. And it might not immediately come across that way to the listener.

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Illustrated by Nina Hughes

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content warning: internalised homophobia, d slur mention

musings on lesbianism & Last Night at the Telegraph Club Club by Malinda Lo Telegraph Written by Joanne Zou “Perhaps one day she’d get used to the way it made her feel: dislocated and dazed, never quite certain if the other half of her would stay offstage as directed. But tonight she felt as if she were constantly on the edge of saying or doing something wrong, and the effort of keeping that unwelcome half silent was making her sick.”

This passage describes a feeling I’ve been living with my whole life, but always struggled to acknowledge or articulate. It comes from Malinda Lo’s Last Night at the Telegraph Club, a historical young adult novel about seventeen-year-old protagonist Lily Hu coming out and coming of age in early 1950s San Francisco’s Chinatown. This may be a hyper-specific context, but Telegraph Club overflows with familiar, relatable emotions and compelling experiences throughout Lily’s personal journey. This book is clearly a labour of love, a product of tenderness, thought, and research that resonated with me and made me feel less alone in the midst of the ongoing pandemic.

Perhaps any child raised in a Confucian culture can relate to the struggle between filial piety and autonomy, between the person you’re expected to be and the person you really are. These feelings are only amplified for migrant children, who are marginalised within society and raised with the hopes and demands that led their parents to seek life in a new country. Lo deftly navigates these concepts, depicting the nuances of filial piety as a subtle but persistent burden, one that has shaped Lily’s life and actions until this point. Lily is a compelling and sympathetic protagonist, the daughter of a nurse and a doctor who dreams about space exploration. She has certain expectations placed upon her by her family, friends, and the Chinatown community, and she has conformed without resistance until this point in her life. To befriend a white girl from outside Chinatown is unexpected, and it is this friendship that emboldens Lily enough to sneak out and visit the Telegraph Club—a venue frequented by lesbians and tourists, where a handsome butch sings as entertainment. It is a delight to follow her throughout Telegraph Club as she starts to acknowledge her own desires. Rather than outright resentment or rebellion, for much of the book Lily simply delights in taking courage and therefore control of her life.

Despite the brilliance of Telegraph Club as a coming-of-age story, it is not a perfect book. The writing is often stilted, especially near the beginning, and this leads to some plot elements feeling contrived. In one scene, Lily hides in the bathroom after a boy asks her to the dance, where she encounters her classmate Kath, who sees her carefully torn ad for the Telegraph Club and tells her that she has seen male impersonator Tommy Andrews perform there. It’s a moment that would play out well in cinema, but the coincidence does require a certain suspension of disbelief, as does Lily’s ability to repeatedly sneak out. Even so, other elements seem lovely and natural, as Lily interacts with older lesbians and confronts her own feelings.

Perhaps the weakest element is a series of interludes about Lily’s relatives—her mother, father, and aunt—where fairly heavyhanded flashbacks provide historical and personal context for each character. As such, the book covers events before and during World War II including Madame Chiang’s visit to America, before detailing the Communist Revolution in China and the Red Scare in the U.S. These sections reveal nuances of different attitudes and policies towards migration during the early 20th century that are certainly interesting but add little to the story on their own. Telegraph Club is about navigating identity within a specific context, and in many ways, it makes a study of that context. This is foregrounded by Lily’s journey, making the interluding sections seem like afterthoughts.

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Through brief glimpses into these different perspectives it seems that Lo is trying to portray Lily’s relatives as fully fleshed people and characters in a way that Lily herself can’t really perceive them (her role is to have a good life as a good daughter, and not to be burdened with such things as family history). If anything, Lily’s parents and aunt could have acknowledged Lily’s increasing maturity by having conversations with her about their own journeys. Altogether, the side characters here are interesting but clearly secondary, though two do stand out. Kath is sweet as Lily’s warm and engaging love interest, hailing from an Italian-American background and grappling with her sexuality alongside Lily. Lily’s best friend Shirley has always made her feel needed, but at the same time she is selfish and ambitious, constrained by the demands of a merchant class background.

The need for diversity in media is a constant conversation, and a crucial one. Author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has a well known talk entitled “The Danger of a Single Story”, recounting the dominance of white, British media while she was growing up as well as the dangers of cultural stereotypes in literature.

Telegraph Club is the first book I have read about a Chinese lesbian, and this fact alone was a marvel. To feel represented in terms of both race and sexuality was wild and extraordinary, and would have made this book remarkable to me even if I hadn’t enjoyed it. Lily’s story feels entirely authentic, enriched by Lo’s experiences and detailed research into the time period. In her afterword, the author notes the double erasure of lesbians and East Asian women from history, and writes: “Lily’s story is entirely fiction […] but I imagine she and these real women all had to deal with similar challenges: learning how to live as both Chinese American and lesbian, in spaces that often did not allow both to coexist.” At the very least, it is a loving sentiment.

Poet and activist Kitty Tsui once wrote, “I was born thirty-eight years ago and raised to be a nice Chinese girl. But nice Chinese girls don’t grow up to be dykes or rebels. And I turned out to be both.” In fact, Lo spoke to Kitty Tsui when writing Telegraph Club, who confirmed that she was often the only Asian person in lesbian spaces during the mid to late 20th century. I still struggle with my own sexuality frequently, and probably always will. It is difficult to un-internalise lesbophobia, and white voices seem to dominate lesbian communities. Yet here were words for so many things I have experienced and continue to experience, the shame and wonder of being attracted to women expressed by someone like me: “Something went still inside Lily, as if her heart had taken a breath before it continued beating.” A peculiar feeling. Maybe these are inconsequential worries. I worry at times that I will spend my whole life reading about things like love and community without experiencing them, but at the same time media depictions give me reassurance (that this is okay) and hope (that it could happen). Baby Lily realising that she is gay and what it means to be gay and falling in love with baby butch Kath felt good and right and real. Just four days into the Year of the Ox, I was wholly unprepared to read, “We were very worried, Lily. It’s the New Year. Your mother has been working all day to prepare the dinner for everyone. Come home. Please.”

It made me weep, and wonder, and it made my heart ache.

Media—books, music, film, television, poetry—has an extraordinary ability to move people. It comforts us and often brings us together (Ishiguro: Does it feel this way to you too?). Last Night at the Telegraph Club is a fantastic book in its own right, one that struck a very personal chord with me. It is a book full of hope and love and community and gay people, some of my favourite elements in storytelling.

I am glad this book exists and it made me glad that I exist.

Illustrated by Chelsea Rozario

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Athlete or “Athlete” Written by Emily French

“An athlete! So, are you going to Tokyo?” “...No.” “Well, not with that attitude you won’t!”

A well-intended response, but from someone who just doesn’t understand the elitism that the Olympic level demands. My attitude is not going to add an odd meter-and-a-half to my jump, and to say I have a shot at Tokyo would just be an outright lie. “No”, however, is almost always met with an awkward change of subject, a measly word of encouragement, or a weak excuse as to why I’m not there yet. It’s frustrating that this major part of my life, my identity, is so often evaluated by a measure of success that sits at the absolute extreme.

I am currently in my second season as a pole vaulter after moving across from middle-long distance running.

The begrudged “Olympic question” comes up outside the track and has become increasingly frequent.

There are a few theories I have for this: It’s Olympic year! (again) Everyone loves an athlete, or to be more accurate, everyone loves a winner. This year, COVID-19 is overshadowing the usual build-up of Olympic fever.

However, Olympic years can usually gain the brief attention of those who don’t distinguish between football and footy. There is a surge in interest, and athletics might just make the news, even if the segment only runs for a minute before the lengthy AFL highlights. People like to point to the TV and say “I know them” as everyone cheers, even if “them” is actually their second cousin’s niece that they’ve never met. It’s exciting, inspiring and patriotic.

Pole what?

Not to be confused with pole dancing or the high jump.

I’ve had a few people tell me they won pole vault at their school carnival “back in the day”—they definitely mean high jump. The obscurity of pole vaulting contributes to the idea that all vaulters must be professionals. Average Joe can’t decide on a whim to go for a casual vault with mates on a Sunday afternoon. As a highly technical event

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that engages all major muscle groups, a “successful” vault does require a decent level of athleticism or experience. Other vaulters have told me that if you’re vaulting above the men’s high jump world record (2.45m), you’re a certified vaulter (because to vault at all is hard!).

A twenty-something woman Even though it’s the 2020s, competitive sport is still more readily associated with children (more commonly, boys) and adult men. This is only enforced by the lack of media coverage of female teams and athletes, dismissive comparisons to male performances and misogynistic attitudes that frame sport to be more of a “hobby” for female athletes. As I’ve gotten older, the demand to rationalise my sporting commitment is increasingly pressed. “How old are you now? Oh, I guess you have a bit of time!” A bit of time for what?

Sometimes I do feel ridiculous. Who am I to take up pole vaulting in my twenties? But then I think, how ridiculous and sad to think that being an adult woman determines me as physically limited. I am far stronger than my prepubescent self. The female body, which is built to withstand the trauma of childbirth, is not given nearly enough credit for its resilience and longevity. I am in awe of athletes at the top of my event, but am also inspired by athletes who are typically “unconventional”, like the mother who tends to her pram-bound child between jumps. Age, gender, ability or childbirth shouldn’t make you unworthy of investing yourself in sport.

So, if I’m not an Olympian, can I still identify as an athlete?

Yes, in the same way a painter who doesn’t hang in any prestigious gallery should still be able to call themselves an artist. Measured success too often defines us over passion and dedication. We are multifaceted beings too often constrained by the evaluation of others. Competitive sport has always been a part of my life, routine and identity. I’ve always been drawn to pushing my body to become the strongest, fastest and most skilled version possible. Fight-or-flight adrenaline, failing lactic limbs and burning lungs. There is an addictive attraction to the grit, devastation and euphoria. This is what makes an athlete.

Illustrated by Sarah Kottek

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I’ve Been Thinking About Nothing but Supergiant’s Hades for Weeks Written by Tasha Gacutan

The world is garbage. Let’s talk about video games.

Specifically, one video game that has invaded my life and my brain, consuming every waking moment of conscious thought since it was released on Nintendo Switch in September 2020. I’m talking about Hades, Supergiant Games’ latest release and the new love of my life (until the next Supergiant game comes along).

Hades is a roguelike hack-and-slash RPG where you play as Zagreus, the incredibly hot and inexplicably British son of Hades. As you fight your way through randomised rooms, climbing out of Tartarus and ascending ever further towards the surface, you are guided by Olympian gods and Stygian citizens in your bid towards freedom.

The game spits you into a series of dungeons that you must clear before moving onto the final bosses and—fingers crossed— escape. Helping you along the way are the Gods of Olympus, stupidly attractive and dangerously powerful. They grant Zagreus certain temporary abilities called “boons”, which range from zapping, to pushing, to charming, to making everyone around you hungover.

If you want a dramatised example, I’d highly suggest checking out the official animated trailer for Hades on IGN’s YouTube channel, published in August 2020. I currently have it saved under a YouTube playlist entitled, “gimme that serotonin babey”.

Every creative choice in Hades is made with the singular goal of making the player feel as badass as possible. The intense rock soundtrack drives home your martial prowess as you cut down legions of the undead in your fight to escape.

The tight, responsive gameplay allows for bold plays, dashing away from lumbering Wretched Louts or collapsing pillars onto Inferno Bombers.

Like any good game, Hades does a wonderful job of making the player feel both challenged and capable, rewarding a successful run with snippets of lore, resources for permanent upgrades, and triumphant power chords that make you punch the air and nearly break something.

And the art—oh, gods above and below, the art! Many

minutes have I lost, dawdling around, gawking at the lush greenery and ghostly weapons of Tartarus, or flinching from the bubbling lava pits and grasping skeletons of Asphodel.

Every time you accept a boon from a god, set aside thirty seconds to bask in the luxurious voice acting, then take another thirty to admire the boldness of making Aphrodite entirely nude. Have you noticed Achilles’ one lock of cut hair? If you have, hit me up so we can scream about it.

Beyond Hades’ stellar combat system is a disarmingly sensitive web of interpersonal relationships. As you play through the story, if you so choose, you can start to untangle that web. Does Eurydice really need to reconcile with Orpheus? Will Achilles and Patroclus ever be on speaking terms again? What is the truth behind Nyx and the Olympians’ involvement in your quest?

There are even romantic options for the dating-sim-oriented player, between the murderous Megaera, the enigmatic Thanatos and the love of my life, the wind in my sails: Dusa, the bodiless gorgon-head housemaid.

What ended up charming me most about Hades, however, was Zagreus himself. He’s buff as hell, comes equipped with all the deadly weapons of Ancient Greek mythology, was trained by one of the legendary heroes of old, and leaves fire in his tracks wherever he goes.

And he’s always so wonderfully polite about it all!

His quiet, fierce dedication to his own liberation never comes at the expense of his morals or basic human (well, godly) decency. There’s something surprisingly inspiring about that.

You can’t help but root for the guy and every other person you encounter on your journey.

(Except for Theseus—God, I hate that guy. No, I will not elaborate.)

Hades is available on Mac, Windows and the Nintendo Switch. If you like gorgeous art, compelling characters, excellent gameplay, and a story that will keep you coming and dying and coming and dying for more, consider picking it up. If its many awards and accolades won’t tempt you, maybe the fact that you can pet Cerberus will.

Illustrated by Sally Yuan

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Blue Hope in Blue Ray Written by Joe Cool*

Transitional and temporary context of the art world Neoliberal capitalistic institutions of contemporary art and higher education express conflict between the “national” and “transnational” as well as what is “temporary” and “permanent”. From special exhibitions to performances, any form of ephemeral art makes its “temporary” nature more precious and distinguished. Along with globalisation, an artwork validates its value and travels around the transnational art world via international exhibitions. However, considering the current condition of international students, it often seems like there is no such thing as a transnational place in the real world and becoming temporary means being vulnerable. Foreign students in Australia were told to “return to their home” yet are now not allowed to enter Australia.

Ultimate stranger belonging nowhere For most international students floundering between two time zones, the discordant geography, policies, and social systems make us the ultimate foreigners who do not belong anywhere. I must sync my clock to Australian time, and most of my belongings are still stuck in storage in a Victorian suburb, while my body is in Korea. It feels like I am constantly floating in a boundless ocean.

Worse, this comes at a stupendous cost. Because I am not an official taxpayer, I have to pay enormous tuition fees in Australia.

However, I still pay Australian taxes whenever I have earned a certain amount of money through my part time job or buy products like books and food in Melbourne.

On the other hand, for a “prodigal daughter” (the homecoming), the situation is not all too far from it. Because I am not affiliated with any university in my home country, I have to pay to use their facilities, such as the library. In Korea, students can only work if they take cyber or night courses. However, I am not eligible to work as a student doing an online course (which I am literally doing now) because my university is not a university in Korea. Student loans in Korea are also only available for students who chose to study at domestic institutions. I paid for student health insurance in Australia, but now have other bills from Korea because I am there.

I chose to leave the home country to study. However, I suddenly lost my right to Australian residency despite living in the country for almost two and a half years. On top of this, I could not be a Korean resident for a while, because a certain period of time spent in Korea is required to be considered a “resident”, even for a Korean.

Last year, during lockdown, the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) live-streamed Ryoji Ikeda’s intense light and sound installation Spectra. The stream took place every Saturday from sunset to sunrise. I felt a strong bond with one or two people on the live chat during the stream. It felt like a new community to me. I liked the sound in between silence (reminiscent of the lockdown) and loudness (representative of turmoil). It was like a rope from the sky I could grasp to escape. I was relying on that monument as a beacon from the river to the sky. After I rushed back to Korea, only bringing my clothes and a few books, I watched this stream for quite a long time.

A lack of lucidity The lives of international students are very precarious from the start. Student numbers seem to represent bank account numbers that send enormous tuition fees to the institution, which really requires the “going for broke” mindset. To be able to study “temporarily” with Australian students for a single semester, I pay the equivlent of two years of tuition fees in Korea. Of course, this is not new information. However, should it be the “new normal” to pay $17,888 per semester without the opportunity to wander around in a library?

The detrimental policies of universities and governments make this journey more uncertain. I have to prove the impact of COVID-19 to reduce my study load. However, the University never shares any details on when they are planning to allow international students to safely return. Universities require students to be very clear, but the information they give us is always so ambiguous… or they remain silent. Meanwhile, the Australian Open is, surprisingly, held this year. As the Australian education and training industry is a huge part of the Australian economy, why are international students considered “a serious risk” to the country? What makes international students too “dangerous?” Is it due to power relations between different sectors (i.e., the Australian education and training industry having less power than sports and entertainment)? Or does this decision align with the government’s attitude towards immigrants and refugees? Or are these just delusions from ambiguity?

Was it really a fever dream to become broke studying abroad? One fact that many people do not want to accept is that not everyone can make their own world. Everyone’s career story cannot end up like La La Land. Even before entering the art world, all I have now is debt and uncertainty. I might have made a “terrible life choice” like that well-known meme in The Simpsons.

Nevertheless, I still believe. In Eric Rohmer’s 1986 film Green Ray, Delphine looks for a green ray, in search of love, hope or a miracle. Like Delphine, I believed that Ikeda’s blue lights could be my Green Ray. I still believe in Blue Hope. *An international graduate student pursuing a career in the contemporary art world.

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Illustrated by Zoe Lau

Written by Annalyce Wiebenga In April 2010, I opened a Goodreads account. On January 24 2021, I deleted it.

Like many readers, I used Goodreads to track the past, present, and future of my reading. I also created custom shelves to ensure books written by authors from diverse backgrounds did not disappear into the abyss that was my “to read” shelf.

Goodreads was my frenemy for many years, and I dithered for months until I finally downloaded my library file and closed the account for good.

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Why I’m Breaking Up with Goodreads

I had that account for nearly eleven years. When you hold something for that long, no matter what it is, it can be hard to let go.

However, Amazon is the freaking devil.

Amazon purchased Goodreads in 2013. The sale brought greater convenience in getting your hands on books you shelved, but at the cost of giving money to the walking human rights violation that is Jeff Bezos.

Pre-pandemic, American Amazon warehouse workers would be on their feet for twelve-hour shifts, surviving on pain medication. Bathroom breaks were strictly monitored and workers would urinate into bottles to avoid a reprimand. Workers were meticulously tracked for maximum productivity, because the actual dystopia is the reality we found along the way.

Australian warehouse workers also experience strict monitoring, informing the ABC that their performance was timed to the second. They were pressured to skip bathroom breaks and cut corners on safety.

Bezos has become richer during the pandemic, without passing wealth onto his employees. Trickle-down economics was a lie this whole time! Surprise, surprise. The United Food and Commercial Workers Union alleges that Amazon is exploiting the pandemic to “increase its market dominance as well as its power over employees”. Pre-pandemic, a quarter of American warehouse workers were direct Amazon employees. As of September 2020, that figure has increased to one third.

Workers told Al Jazeera in October 2020 that Amazon reinstated draconian productivity quotas leading up to Prime Day, despite telling a judge they had been suspended during the pandemic. What happens next will not shock you. At the beginning of October, Amazon admitted that approximately 20,000 of its employees had tested positive for COVID-19. For reference, Australia’s total cases as of October 8 2020 stood at just over 27,000. Amazon has over 1 million employees in the US; Australia has over 25 million people. Amazon absolutely should have known this would happen. They just don’t care because they are actual demons.

Not only is Amazon cartoonishly evil, but Goodreads is simply not a good website.

The search function is ugly, clunky and borderline useless. Searching for a specific book can result in either failure or its burial beneath a pile of irrelevant titles. The thing is also dreadfully unforgiving of typos. This hits self-published and small press authors the hardest, especially when other book titles or author names are similar.

Their review guidelines are also a nightmare. Say, for example, an author says something extremely bigoted, and you would like to warn other readers in your review. If you’re even the slightest bit unlucky, that author, their partner, or some random racist/ homophobe/transphobe/ableist/etc. will report you to Goodreads and get your review taken down. According to the guidelines, they’re in the right. You are not permitted to make comments about the author, even if your criticism is valid. Goodreads literally threatened to ban me for doing this. Because apparently keeping marginalised readers safe is not high on their priority list.

Finally, the gamification of reading encouraged by Goodreads has damaged my capacity to enjoy reading. At first, it was satisfying to check off books as I finished them, but I quickly avoided engaging with material that was not catalogued on the site. Very late capitalist of me. Their reading challenge made this worse, as only items found on their database could count towards the total number of books read. I crave attention and praise, making me extremely susceptible to this feature. I felt I wasn’t “allowed” to read something that was not screened by the Amazon overlords.

Many services we use are varying kinds of evil, but we often don’t have reasonable alternatives. Fortunately, there is an alternative to Goodreads: The StoryGraph, founded by Nadia Odunayo in 2012. Not only does it have most of Goodreads’ shelving features, but it learns your reading habits to give decent recommendations. This goes beyond genre, and includes the pacing and mood of the story.

Better yet, you can import your Goodreads library onto it so you don’t lose any books.

StoryGraph uses tags instead of custom shelves. I have therefore lost my “nope” shelf for books I want to ensure I never read. You could instead use the StoryGraph’s “Did Not Finish” shelf and attach a “DO NOT” tag of your choice. This is a minor inconvenience.

You can more easily include content warnings in your reviews and set up a reading challenge if you choose. It’s not in-yourface, which makes a nice change. The overall intent of StoryGraph is discovery, which feels much nicer than the clunky capitalist nightmare that is Goodreads.

Breaking up with Goodreads is but a small rebellion in a society where everything we do is surveilled and categorised by billionaire corporations… but we have a rare choice here. A choice to cut just one of the many marionette strings controlled by Amazon.

Chop chop, kids.

Illustrated by Arielle Vhaliotis

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Illustrated by Steph Markerink

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Illustrated by Steph Markerink

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content warning: discussions of racism and colonialism, mentions of police violence

To Listen to the Mockingbirds: Why celebrating literature by PoC authors is the key to countering racism in the literary canon Written by Grace Richardson

Halfway through my final year of high school, I made an executive decision: from then on, I would exclusively read books written by people of colour. I also announced this decision to anybody who would listen. Many implied that I was being “extreme”. In response, I explained myself as follows: it was far more extreme that as a Year 12 student, who had studied literature at school and as part of the Unimelb Extension program, only five of the 25 texts assigned to me throughout the year had been written by PoC. This proportion still appals me—as a woman of mixed Korean, African-American, white-Australian and pied-noir heritage, I was confused and frustrated by the lack of representation of PoC creatives in my education. I decided accordingly that if all my assigned texts were so blatantly exclusive, I needed to make up for lost time. I was not disappointed.

Every text I read by a writer of colour was (unsurprisingly) as beautiful, nuanced and emotive as any other text I had read by white authors. And while I don’t expect everyone to exclusively read books by PoC, in my endeavours to do so, I have found a wealth of texts which deserve literary status comparable to some of the English canon’s most celebrated works. Here, I offer works and educational alternatives written by PoC, about PoC, and an explanation as to why such works far outperform their more canonical counterparts by white authors. A quick disclaimer: as my background is Asian and African-diasporic Black, my recommendations are primarily texts which represent those experiences. Nonetheless, I encourage you to read books by authors of all backgrounds, particularly First Nations writers if you live on stolen land. Doing your own research and finding books that align with your interests is the first step diversifying your reading.

One particularly egregious aspect of the absence of texts

by BIPOC in my schooling was that most texts studied as a mechanism to learn about race relations were not by BIPOC, but rather by white people about BIPOC. In such texts, white saviours were glorified while BIPOC voices were consistently secondary. One of the most common (and harmful) texts used to teach upper-secondary students about race and colonialism is Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Its representation of

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African people is appalling—its Black characters are perpetually pitied, but never humanised. The rhetoric used to describe them is offensive at best and traumatic at worst. High school is a space where students often lack the maturity or life experience to understand that anti-colonialism does not equate to anti-racism. This can lead them to engage with the text in highly insensitive ways that can reinforce the notion that deeply offensive representations of BIPOC by white writers are acceptable, so long as the overall message is that “colonialism is bad”.

Fortunately, there are numerous alternatives by Bla(c)k authors which are equally effective in their condemnation of colonialism, but also authentically represent oppressed groups as real people with nuanced thoughts, feelings and experiences equivalent to their white counterparts. A stellar example is the work of Aboriginal-Australian poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal, which handles many complex themes, notably both the destructive nature of colonial powers and racism. Similarly, Chinua Achebe’s famous critique of Heart of Darkness, A Vision of Africa, beautifully summarises why Conrad’s novella is so deeply flawed and harmful, while also expressing the real thoughts and experiences of actual BIPOC whose lands were colonised.

His acclaimed historical fiction novel Things Fall Apart also offers an exploration of anti-colonialism in a similar era as Conrad’s work. Alternatively, if you desire a comprehensive non-fiction account of Black people overcoming oppressive colonial rule, try Trinidadian historian C.L.R. James’ 1938 The Black Jacobins.

It recounts the Haitian Revolution—the world’s first (and only) successful slave revolution in a manner that is both highly informative and engaging. Most importantly, however, each of these works prioritise the voices of BIPOC while simultaneously being actively anti-colonial and anti-racist.

Even books by white authors which purport to be anti-racist are usually inadequate as an education in racial literacy. I must give credit where credit is due: Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (a near-universal favourite for teaching anti-racism) is an ideal text to study in mid-secondary school. It is an accessible, well-written bildungsroman (coming-of-age story). It should not, however, be the sole authority for educating

Illustrated by Georgia Huang

Like Heart of Darkness, TKAM has many more racially educational counterparts. Emancipated slave Frederick Douglass’ autobiographical The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave is a comprehensive, enthralling account of enslaved life in the pre-Civil War period that explores the origins of anti-blackness. Another autobiographical narrative which explores growing into Black manhood during the same era as TKAM is James Balwin’s celebrated essay The Fire Next Time, which inspired Ta-Nehisi Coates’ recent Between the World and Me. These two works articulate what it means to be a Black man in the USA, collecting real-life experiences of the criminal justice system, disparities in education, African-American culture and formative life moments. In fact, Coates’ essay is probably my all-time favourite written work.

not from discussing these themes. It is instead powerful to read because it is gloriously written and emotionally evocative.

Even Ghanaian-American writer Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenya’s short story collection Friday Black, which develops dystopian worlds based on racism, capitalism and militarism gone wrong, is nonetheless engaging for reasons beyond its focus on race.

I suggest all these texts to express that you can diversify your reading in many ways and for many reasons. Every recommendation made here can act as an insight into BIPOC experiences, but can also be read, enjoyed and celebrated on its own merits. Make sure that when you’re reading, you recognise that these books are valuable in and of themselves, not just “good for a book by a PoC”, or a tool which’s sole purpose is to educate you. Every time someone actively listens to and prioritises BIPOC voices, they are rejecting antiblackness and practicing anti-racism. Choosing Baldwin over Conrad is an excellent place to start.

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children on race relations. TKAM celebrates white people as the saviours of Black Americans, while the latter function as a backdrop for the development of the novel’s white protagonists. While its overarching message of “racism is bad” renders the text more innocuous than Conrad’s, it still perpetuates the idea that racism is inexplicable, rather than acknowledging the many complex systemic factors which contribute to anti-blackness—an “I don’t see colour” narrative, if you will.

Perhaps the most fitting counterpart to TKAM is Angie Thomas’ smash-hit 2017 young adult novel The Hate U Give. The story, which follows a code-switching high schooler who witnesses the murder of her childhood best friend at the hands of police, is complex and relatable. It is written simultaneously beautifully and accessibly for younger readers while authentically representing the gross inequalities of the American criminal justice system. Most importantly, its heroes and protagonists are Black teens with complex interior lives. Growing up as a PoC and experiencing racism are not distinct from one another, but rather inextricably linked, and exploring them through the lens of BIPOC writers and characters offers a more accurate, nuanced and effective racial education.

Even so, I want to note that while it is important to learn about race relations through texts by PoC, such texts are valuable beyond their racial messaging. Works like Japanese author Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore and Korean-American author Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko are already considered modern classics. Despite Asian culture being integral to each novel, the merit of each extends far beyond its absence of whiteness.

Similarly, in Edwidge Danticat’s stunning autobiographical work Brother, I’m Dying, race, immigration and xenophobia are all vital to the narrative, but the work’s inherent value springs

Illustrated by Georgia Huang

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Written by E.S. When I was younger, the saying, “it’s the little things in life,” used to both annoy and confuse me. As adults would patiently explain, the smallest moments—another leaf sprouting from a houseplant, slipping into crisp, clean bed sheets—were the stuffing of life. The sustenance, the good stuff—the point, really. These wise explanations fell on deaf ears. With a flash of a ponytail I was off, scaling the tree I had declared as my castle.

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The Little Things: a Partly Solved Mystery

My mind was racing in a thousand directions, hurtling up for the stars and ricocheting outwards. I lay in the bathtub, planning every detail of my elaborate wedding-to-be. I could almost taste the texture of my sevenlayered mud cake and feel the weight of my tulle train. On Christmas Eve, it was the impending arrival of Santa Claus through my chimney that constituted the joys of life. How could life be about a nice sunset when a large old man was about to pull up on a reindeer sleigh and bestow gifts at the end of my bed?

In Year 12, I was having more trouble explaining what the little things were than at age 12. On a constant treadmill of study, I was aiming for one thing only: a good ATAR. Every day that I walked to school, my mind spun through the revolving checklist of assignments, revision and reading for the day. My diary entries from that year were militant notes-to-self: Tomorrow: Econ assignment—MUST BE DONE or 15 DAYS UNTIL EXAMS… KEEP ON TRACK. PUSH TO THE FINISH LINE. Small moments of distractions from study brought me momentary relief. Kicking the soccer ball with my brother and weekly dinners with my best friend allowed me to hold onto a thread of sanity. But only so I could again plunge into differential equations or the characterisation of Austen’s Elizabeth Bennet.

Then, three years later, 2020 came and upended everything.

Long months of lockdown stretched out indefinitely in a haze of anxiety and uncertainty. We woke up to blue light and climbing cases globally, each news article delivering another jab of despair. As all routines and rhythm slipped away, I oscillated—like so many others—between a dull heaviness and a heightened, lucid panic. In this blur, I saw the little things. I saw them, and I held onto them for dear life.

Every day, peace came to me in the form of my parents’ Bialetti coffee percolator. I would sift the coffee grounds into the pot, heat the full cream milk on the stove, and watch the ingredients blend into liquid gold.

Outside on the sunny deck, I closed my eyes and tasted each sip. Before sleep, I’d lie in bed looking forward to the morning purely so I could drink my coffee in the sun. My brother calls this a serious and excessive dependency.

I call it bliss. The simple act of drinking a coffee in the sun formed a stitch in each day which helped hold me together.

As time stretched and restrictions began to lift, the little things accumulated. There were weekly bike rides around the lake with my Dad, when we would shriek as we tried to dodge the swooping magpies. The rosy glow on my friends’ faces as we sat huddled around a dinner table, throwing stories over our drinks, catching them and spinning them like yarn.

I found a handful of other little things through my job in after-school care. For four months, I was paid to kick around a soccer ball, make paper lanterns and bake strawberry cakes with a hundred primary schoolers. The little things could be the lopsided grin of a kid who just built a seven-storied Lego fortress. It could be a no-rules game of chess played against an eight-year-old, where each piece could fly, jump and flick their opponents off the board. The attention that little kids pay to the present moment is both calming and infectious.

Even now, I don’t fully believe the adage. I’d sooner stop drinking coffee than brandish a “little things” mug. I still can’t shake the glory of the big things; the one-time, glittery, explosive moments. The freefall your stomach does when you’re falling in love. Throwing a graduation cap into the sky, which your principal just told you is the limit.

Seeing your favourite band in concert, confetti raining down on the sweat-matted heads of a crowd bursting with unfettered glee. In some ways, COVID-19 has made me long for these headline moments more. I want the movie reel, the stories-to-write-home-about.

But I get it now. I see the quiet peacefulness of the little things. And I finally realise that if one’s life is a thread of simple but precious moments, the thread will be exquisite. Prettier and loftier than the tulle train on my wedding-dress-to-be.

Illustrated by Mochen Tang

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Art Musing: Curatorial Intentions Written by Lisa Jacomos

Sophie Gerhard always thought that she would be an artist. But six months into a Fine Arts degree, she realised that it wasn’t for her. “I didn’t like the criticism,” she told me. “I probably just wasn’t very good.”

So, she left her degree to study Art History at the University of Leeds. Here, she became aware that her dream was to curate. After her BA, she enrolled at the University of Melbourne and graduated with a Master of Art Curatorship in December 2018. In April the following year, she took the position of Assistant Curator of Australian Art to 1980 at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). I took the time to meet with Sophie and ask her about her job.

Lisa Jacomos: For people who don’t know, what is a curator?

Sophie Gerhard: For me, my role is divided into working on the permanent collection and on temporary exhibitions. We change the permanent collection every three months for light sensitivity and conservation purposes. That’s hanging, writing labels, and maintaining what the gallery looks like. The temporary exhibitions are the fun part.

LJ: How much do you do for a temporary exhibition?

SG: Choosing the artworks is the starting point. We get huge boards, stick pictures on them and look at what we like, but we don’t design the show. We’ve got a huge exhibition design department that does that. The curator’s responsible for the researching and the choosing of the artworks, the didactics, the labels, and the catalogue.

LJ: Do you ever have to write about an artwork that you really don’t like?

SG: There’s probably over a thousand works in the Australian Art Collection, I’m not going to like every single one. But you get put into that position where you have to quickly become an expert. The opportunity to learn and find things in artworks that you previously didn’t know much about. That’s exciting. It’s a good perk of the job.

LJ: When your writing is published, how do you feel?

SG: It’s really nice because you get the freedom to adapt it into what you want to write about. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to contributing. Having my name in a book is definitely exciting.

LJ: How do you feel representing the NGV? SG: When I first started, I was a little bit starstruck. It took me a while to come to terms with it. It does have a sort of sense of importance. But, in a city like Melbourne, every facet of the art world is important, whether it’s the tiny ARIs (artist run initiatives) or the bigger institutions—whatever sort of art facet you’re representing, there is a responsibility there. But we show the taxpayer collection and with that does come a lot of responsibility.

LJ: What is your favourite part of your job?

SG: I love to research and write; that is where my heart lies. It’s amazing to be paid to do something that you love. I love how my job has so many different aspects. How did I get so lucky to look at, and be able to research and write about, art for my full-time job?

LJ: Do you have any advice that you would give to someone if they were aiming to get to where you are?

SG: Look, I feel like my advice comes from an incredibly privileged position. It’s very easy for me to say: “You should do this,” but let’s face it—I am a white, hetero, young woman. I’m the first person to hold my hand up and acknowledge my privilege.

That aside, the art world is pretty brutal. I volunteered for a really long time, which is another privileged thing for me to do. If I ever did a good job on something in particular, I would literally ask my boss to write that down. I think that perseverance is probably something that you have to have. I worked at a call centre, full-time, for a whole year to fund my master’s. I wanted it really badly and I didn’t really ever go off that course. I went to openings and I spoke to people and I worked hard.

This transcript has been condensed for clarity.

Illustrated by Melana Uceda

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Written by Gemma Grant

“Your hair is so cool! Can I feel it?”

These are words I have grown accustomed to hearing throughout my entire life. Growing up in a predominantly white community, my mixed-race curly hair was seen as somewhat of a novelty. Friends, teachers at school, other adults and passersby all seemed to be drawn towards it. Eyes would constantly wander, and hands would constantly reach, everyone so fascinated by the texture. You would think it was as if my hair was dyed bright pink, or grew so long it touched the floor.

“I can always spot you from miles away, Gemma,” people would tell me, “because I always recognise your beautiful big curls!” The attention had never bothered me—I liked that I was memorable. But something about the way in which this tended to be posited always felt off-putting. Was it only this feature which prompted such recognition?

Did my hair define me more than my actual characteristics did?

had: sleek, shiny hair that was easy to brush and easy to braid.

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Curly Hair: An Analysis

What an odd reality we live in, where the desire to assimilate is so commonplace. At breakfast, Mum would tell me that eating the crusts of my toast would make my hair straight, just so I would finish my meal. And of course, it worked. Primary-school-aged Gemma had already flagged herself as “other”, and had begun to look for ways to become immersed in the mainstream.

However, I think it’s safe to say that applying excessive heat to my very curly hair did not, at all, result in the effect my thirteen-year-old self desired. The dry, boofy clumps were still so different, and even worse than before. And after a few days, I would shower and it would return to its regular ringlets— this impermanence reminding me of my individuality. No matter how much I tried to change it, my hair would never be straight.

“Your curly hair is beautiful!”

I guess I have never really considered the novelty of what I have. Most of the time, I just worry about whether it looks nice, or whether I should brush it.

To be frank, I’ve never seen my hair as being all that special. Combining my dad’s super-tight curls with my mum’s blonde wavy locks created my hair, with its innate ability to spring back when you tug on it. At home it was never a big deal either; my sisters both have the same. I sometimes wonder, if I lived somewhere else, with different people, would my hair still be considered this unfamiliar? Or would I just be another curly haired girl, one among thousands?

“Is it too frizzy? Should I wear it in a ponytail?”

My hair is just my hair. Tufts of it grow out of my scalp, and sometimes, I tie it back from my face so it doesn’t get in the way. It is me, and I am it.

Really, it’s all about perspective.

Viewing yourself as an outlier, as a point of difference, does no good for anyone. Rather, if I have learnt anything, it is that embracing your own individuality is paramount. I have accepted my hair, not as a major distinguishing factor that makes me dissimilar, but instead as just another aspect of who I am.

“Have you ever straightened it before?”

This is another common one.

“Yes,” I tell them, “ a couple of times.” Which is true. When I was younger, I would plead with my mum to straighten my hair for me. There was something so attractive about what everyone else

At the end of the day, you can try and straighten the curl, but you can never truly take the curl out of the girl.

Illustrated by Rai

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content warning: mentions of suicide, gore and body horror.

Spoilers for Ginger Snaps (2000).

The Trials of Adolescence: Ginger Snaps Written by Nishtha Banavalikar

“Out by 16 or dead in this scene, but together forever.”

This is how we’re introduced to Ginger and Brigitte Fitzgerald in the film Ginger Snaps (2000). They’re on the precipice of adolescence, reminiscing on their childhood suicide pact. Both are outcasts fascinated with death as an artistic endeavour, with the opening credits showcasing photographs of gruesome “suicide attempts” that they submitted for a high-school “death project”.

But above all, they’re sisters whose teenage idiocy and co-dependence is endearing rather than off-putting in the face of their overbearing mother and shared apathy towards social conceptions of sex, gender and performance.

A terror has taken over the sleepy Canadian suburb of Bailey Downs: dead pets, mangled and torn, have been scattered across backyards. The girls don’t investigate the source—this isn’t a mystery, after all. Instead, they stumble across a fresh canine corpse in the middle of the night by accident. Brigitte comments that there’s something dripping on Ginger, who looks down between her legs to find fresh, oozing blood. She’s begun menstruating—“the curse,” as they call it. There’s a powerful juxtaposition between the horrifying carcass and the wound-like gore on Ginger. They’re about to go home when Ginger’s attacked by a werewolf—her blood having alerted the monster. She’s mauled in the woods until Brigitte stuns the monster with a camera flash. They escape, hugging and crying, in a rare display of vulnerability that foreshadows the loss of something precious that night. As Ginger enters womanhood, everything changes.

The next few days showcase disturbingly familiar trials of adolescence. Ginger goes through physical changes: body hair, claws, mood swings, and extreme stomach pain. In one intimate, all-too-familiar scene, Ginger hides in a bathroom stall and freaks out about her “curse”. She shaves her legs in the bathroom and it’s a gruesome, bloody experience.

These symptoms of menstruation deliberately parallel lycanthropy, making these supposedly “normal” symptoms suddenly abnormal, horrifying and dramatic.

cognisance the female lycanthropy genre, treating it with sincerity. It’s actually kind of funny how Brigitte, suspecting Ginger of something more insidious than puberty, studies werewolf lore from old films and literature. However, the media hardly helps her.

Lycanthropes in mythos are historically masculine; from their savage, brutal statures to their sharp teeth and beastly hair, they’ve always symbolised male puberty.

Ginger’s infection spins the lycanthropy genre on its head, making the experience suddenly alienating to male viewers. We almost never see women coded this way— the “she-wolf” is few and far between, and if a woman is tied to canine imagery, it’s usually when she’s being called a “bitch”.

In contrast to the catwoman, the sexy monster, Ginger Snap’s choice likens the ascendency to womanhood with something less alluring and instead more brutal and violent. Brigitte uses the menstrual cycle to track her sister’s transformation, irrevocably tying girlhood to monstrosity. The women here aren’t purely sexual, nor are they separated into “virgins”, “sluts” and “hags”, as is common in the horror genre. Instead, the film tells an uncomfortable, brutal and savage werewolf tale that sees women in all their complex, terrifying glory.

The two sisters eventually start to drift apart. Ginger, overtaken by both puberty and infection, chases boys and lusts after them. She becomes more confident in her sexuality, indulging in her monsterhood, while Brigitte watches in horror. This culminates in a scene where Ginger, excited at the prospect of sex, begins to dominate her boyfriend. He tells her to relax because, “c’mon, who’s the guy here?” She then flips him over, furiously replying: “Who’s the guy here? Who’s the FUCKING guy here? You’re fucking hilarious.” Afterwards, Ginger goes home, covered in blood. The audience begins to doubt her—did something happen to Ginger or did she do something to someone else? Even Brigitte fears her in a way she’d never done before until it’s revealed that the blood is actually from a neighbour’s dog.

“I get this ache and I thought it was for sex,” says Ginger, “but it’s to tear everything to fucking pieces.”

Ginger Snaps is a film that revitalised and brought to

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Illustrated by Tereza Ljubicic

On the final day of the month, Brigitte locks Ginger away to create an

“You’re fucked.”

This representation of female autonomy as something unbridled, uncontainable and monstrous is another core narrative of the film. Ginger’s transformation into a werewolf here occurs when she’s in full control, a far cry from when was first bitten and still in fear of puberty.

Brigitte, desperate, eventually begs Ginger to “stop hurting everyone else and take me!” But Ginger replies, “want you? I don’t even know you!”

The line stings, the cinematography and acting superbly showing the malice and regret in each of their words.

Girlhood is truly destructive, not only to the victim but to everyone around them. Brigitte, unable to convince Ginger with just her words, instead cuts herself, mixing their blood. “Now I am you.” Infected together—together forever. She brings Ginger back to the house with her.

Shaky camera movements mirror Brigitte’s wariness; her fear for her sister slowly morphing into fear of her.

Despite tying their fates together, despite knowing this is Ginger of all people, Brigitte is horrified by the thing this “curse” has made Ginger become.

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“Out by 16 or dead in this scene, but together forever.”

antidote. But Ginger escapes and, fuelled by (blood)lust, runs to their highschool where she murders the guidance counsellor and janitor.

Puberty, lycanthropy and murder are all treated as merely more adolescent trials for Brigette to overcome. Brigitte stares, horrified, as Ginger licks the blood off her fingers and says: “It feels so good Brigitte.

It’s like touching yourself—you know every move, right on the fucking dot. And after, you see fucking fireworks. Supernovas.

I’m a goddamn force of nature. I feel like I could do just about anything.”

There’s something oddly comforting about the aesthetic choices of this film. I can’t help but imagine men in theatres in the 2000s being absolutely horrified, watching Ginger grow fur and menstruate in bright red pools. It is horrifying—to men. Female puberty and menstruation are such taboo subjects, treated with the same regard as ghost tales and horror stories. We see this in the way the girls’ father refuses to talk about their experiences, the way men in general refuse to engage in what is such a huge part of these girls’ lives. It’s a damaging dismissal the film explores: this all-consuming and terrifying aspect of adolescence that girls are left to overcome on their own.

It’s meta-commentary, a horror movie to horrify male viewers.

For others familiar with the body horror and hormonal punches of adolescence, the movie unravels perfectly.

The simultaneous love and hate between family members is expertly drawn out and each character, even those reduced to archetypes, feel real. I really like Ginger Snaps for its elegant commentary. There’s no impending apocalypse, no world to be saved or a mystery to be solved; it’s simply two sisters overcome and destroyed by an adolescence they neither wanted, nor were prepared for. It’s a cautionary tale about ignorance which, when left to fester, spreads, infects and snaps.

Ginger, now fully transformed, attacks her. Brigitte falters with the antidote, the infection having weakened her. After an intense chase, Ginger jumps on Brigitte, landing directly on the knife in her hands. There’s a moment where she’s breathing, slowly passing away. But whatever the sisters shared is long destroyed. Brigitte can’t cure her now—won’t. Instead, she crawls closer and lays her head on her chest, mourning. The film ends here, the girls united in their curse at unfathomable cost.

Illustrated by Tereza Ljubicic

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Still a Love Story, Only More Written by Anindya Setiawan

In the backseat of my family’s old sedan, the air was warm in spite of the blasting air conditioning. I leaned against the window, scanning the houses we passed by. The weekend was so close that I could’ve grasped it between my fingers. At eight years old, a lot of things looked brand new. At eight years old, anything seemed possible. I sank back into my seat. The heat stayed strong and the radio vibrated against the dashboard. Everything was amplified.

A voice, soft and light, sang: “We were both young when I first saw you.”

A few chord changes, words exchanged, a banjo echoed and the single beat of a drum built up into something more. I slipped into the rhythm and there was no going back. I felt myself sinking deeper into my seat and suddenly, I couldn’t care less about the heat. I was fully submerged in the sound.

“Romeo take me somewhere we can be alone.”

We all know how this story goes. We’ve all heard it at least once, somehow, somewhere. We know who they are, these star-crossed lovers. And the tragic ending? Taylor Swift reimagined it in a whole different light, a second chance.

“You’ll be the prince and I’ll be the princess. It’s a love story. Baby, just say yes.”

Through Swift’s voice, I found myself in the midst of a ball, looking for a familiar face in the crowd. I admired the lights, the crowd, the details.

I walked through the garden that the second verse painted, holding onto a secret. I saw a princess waiting for her prince. One scene after another, I was moving through time. At an age where Disney movies were everything to me, this song was magical.

I raced my brother to the front door when we got home. On the bookshelf, I picked up a dictionary. This became a routine of mine every time Swift released a song, a scavenger hunt guided by her lyrics.

Almost 13 years later, I sit cross-legged on my bed in a different city, with my fingers wrapped around my phone the way the car’s speakers wrapped around me as a kid. Love Story (Taylor’s Version) has just been released that afternoon. I can still feel the heat of my family car. I can still remember everything. I put my earphones on and listen.

“We were both young when I first saw you.”

And there it is, that warmth and comfort from so long ago. Swift is right. We were both young when we first saw each other. It had been years and years of growing together and separately all at once, but our intimacy has remained throughout. I suppose that’s what matters most to her fans, or to anyone who’s stuck with her work since Love Story’s initial release back in 2008. The re-recorded version hits close to home.

Maybe the re-recorded one is home, for some.

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Illustrated by Melana Uceda & Alice Tai

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Swift kept the majority of the song exactly the same, though the production has shifted ever so slightly. The iconic violin strings still reach a climax right before the bridge (you know, those famous few seconds that make you want to run through a field in a ballgown) and not a single lyric has been changed, but somehow, the melody feels more intimate. The atmosphere is more defined—where the original was more like a sunny day at the park, the re-recording is a dimly lit cafe tucked into the corner of a bustling city. And while I’ve always thought the initial Love Story felt personal, this re-recorded version reaches a new level. It could easily blend in with folklore or evermore, Swift’s latest releases that still have me keeping a dictionary on my nightstand.

“My faith in you was fading when I met you on the outskirts of town.”

Billboard’s Richard S. remarks that the 2021 version of Love Story feels “…relaxed, at peace…”. This is present in Swift’s voice throughout. A more mature, calm tone portrays the story of two people meeting at (perhaps) the wrong time, yet still getting their happy ending. An alternate conclusion to Shakespeare’s tale that we’ve all gotten to know so well. It caught me the first time I heard it on the radio, and it still catches me now.

Swift embodies every single line and fits her experiences of the last 13 years in between the lyrics. She shares the raw truth of growing up and all its complexities, along with having “…learned how the love stories in your head can differ from the ones you really go through,” as Simon Vozick-Levinson writes for Rolling Stone. She now understands what it’s like to have faith in someone, and for that faith to slowly fade.

The garden feels more sacred; everything feels just that much closer.

I can still see that balcony when I close my eyes, almost the same way I did thirteen years ago. Almost. Like Swift, I know myself a bit better now. I hold onto things differently. I’m older, and hopefully, wiser too.

I’ve sat on different balconies in different cities watching different sunsets, and so when Swift sings about the summer air, I can actually feel it lingering a little longer on my skin. Waiting for something to unfold—I now have experiences of my own and I’ve slipped them between these lyrics.

“This love is difficult, but it’s real.”

Like Romeo and Juliet, we’re pulled by fate. And fate takes us deep into the twists and turns of growing up, whether we ask it to or not.

Perhaps that’s why she included them in the first place. Even the slightest change still counts as a change—that’s what separates Swift’s 2021 version from the original. That’s why it matters even more. It isn’t a reinvention, rather the act of stopping by to chat with an old friend after a long time has passed.

Illustrated by Melana Uceda & Alice Tai

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content warning: mentions of death of BIPOC & death of Indigenous Australians in custody, police brutality, racial slurs, racism

Race Against the Odds Written by ilundi tinga

Trending: #BlackLivesMatter Do you ever feel like your very existence makes other people uncomfortable?

In 2020, the Black Lives Matter movement began to trend after a video of an African American man named George Floyd being killed by police was posted online. The video of Floyd’s death appeared on my social media countless times. I couldn’t help but picture Floyd as my Black father. My heart felt heavy. I was reminded of what the world is usually like, where being a Black person makes people uncomfortable.

The explicitness of the video forced people to open their eyes to racism not only in America but the world. It was disheartening that it took a video of a Black person dying. There have been several other videos of police brutality against Black people that have gone viral. The virality of Black suffering online desensitises and normalises the consumption of it. There were several weeks where I couldn’t go on social media without seeing Black suffering. It was all I could think about. Yet, when I would enter my Zoom classes, the white people were oblivious to what was going on, and the ones who did know would focus on the riots that they believed Black people had caused.

In Australia, Aboriginal deaths in custody continue to go unnoticed. Tanya Day, an Indigenous woman, died in police custody after being racially profiled and arrested for ‘public drunkenness’. Day’s family has not gotten justice for what happened. Indigenous Australians continue to be targeted by police and comprise a disproportionately large percentage of the prison population, yet many Australians don’t know or talk about this issue. Indigenous Lives Matter.

All lives can’t matter until Black Lives Matter.

Why is it that people’s automatic response is the defence of All Lives Matter? When did Black Lives Matter signify that ONLY Black Lives Matter? Why is it that even though the issues of racism and police brutality significantly and disproportionately affect Black people, the conversation cannot be focused on Black people? How can All Lives truly Matter when society has shown that Black Lives don’t?

In my residential college, racism became an interesting and trendy conversation topic.

During one of my first meals at college, a white girl asked me in front of the table of eight people, “why can’t we say the n-word if there’s a country in Africa called Niger?”

I sat there stunned. I told her, “it’s a French-speaking country, so it’s actually pronounced

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Illustrated by Kitman Yeung

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nee-zher, but also it’s spelt differently to the n-word.”

She replied, “oh, well I’m going to call it nigger anyway.”

The rest of that meal was a blur as I felt so uncomfortable due to her comments and have never forgotten them. Nobody seemed to see anything wrong with what she said and the way she said it. They all silently agreed.

Those who do not speak or think about racism are those who have the choice to do so. In choosing to stay silent, they are choosing the side of the oppressor as their silence helps maintain the racist status quo. This choice is usually a symptom of white privilege which, when addressed, often triggers white people to fall back into their victim complex. A white man messaged my Black friend about the ‘lack’ of privilege in his life due to his depression, because my friend had spoken about white privilege making him feel ‘attacked’. My friend had to explain to him that white privilege doesn’t mean his life hasn’t been hard. It means that his race doesn’t make it harder. There are many privileges a person can have, from heterosexual to socio-economic to male privilege. White privilege is being more likely to get hired, it’s being represented in the media more, it’s not being afraid of the police and so much more. It is not Black people’s responsibility to educate white people on racism. White people need to be held more accountable and take action for the problems they have caused. Being a light-skinned Black woman who has white family members, I am very aware of the privilege I have that comes from whiteness.

Often, white people successfully play the role of the villain but are painted as the victim in society. This is evident when white terrorists are seen as suffering from mental illness whilst innocent Black people are immediately criminalised. White people are victims that society should feel sympathy for while Black victims are annoying and unable to ‘move on from the past’. By mentioning the systemic racism prevalent in society, Black people ruin the joyous façade that society paints. If your immediate reaction is “not all white people” or you feel attacked by my words, then you need to reflect on why that is. It seems that when it comes to being a good person, all it requires is not being bad. So, people supposedly aren’t racist unless they’ve explicitly done racist things, even though we are all taught to adhere to some level of racism—whether it be through family, media or institutions like education and the government. Racism is deeply entrenched within society. The police supposedly aren’t bad until we see videos like George Floyd’s. It’s no longer good enough to simply not do or say racist things, we must be actively anti-racist because to be a good person is not to simply do no bad but to actually do good. It’s not easy to win this Race Against the Odds. But for real change to happen, we must keep doing better.

Illustrated by Kitman Yeung

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on worth

Written by Srishti Chatterjee

I measure my worth in the number of meetings I attend, in the number of responses I get in my 9am sociology class, and in how many people have liked my latest Instagram poem.

When I feel my back start to crack, I tell myself —“one more reading and you can rest”, and then one more, and another, like an unending pile of work, across which lies the concept of “rest”, tantalisingly dangling; so close, yet so far.

I diligently do my readings, and buy myself the chocolate I really like, but only when I finish.

Happiness is a reward I deserve for being an arbitrarily defined “best,” at everything.

I see the white kids in my class, always asking questions in the first tutorial of the semester, before the tutor realises that the one brown kid does all the readings. Then, I measure my worth in how many times I am told “you seem really smart”, and I smile. I quietly affirm to myself that, yes, I am smart.

“Your grades don’t define you,” I tell my friends, while I stay up nights worrying about how my father would remind me that “you’re going nowhere”, that “you’re nothing”, when my grades started slipping, about how he told me I had gotten “somewhere” only after I moved miles away.

He measures my worth in how far away I am from him, how lonely I feel, and how often I collapse against the wall, desperately wanting to be held by something, or someone. strong.

My mother tells me that I was a friendly baby. I’d jump to people’s arms and play with everyone. Since then, I believe, I began a journey of flailing to other people for a sense of validation, screaming to be picked up in an unending loop of outsourcing the love I am incapable of giving to myself.

I measure the love I deserve in an often ugly rodomontade, of how much I have stuck to the people who have picked me up, only to throw me away, like I must knit myself a sweater of remembrance of the handful of good memories, to hold me through the bad ones.

“He took care of me when I was sick,” I tell myself as he kisses another woman, and lies about it.

Pain is currency, and love makes for good shopping.

I pull three consecutive all-nighters writing a paper for my sociology class, titled “Hustle Culture as a Capitalist Myth”. The cramps on my furiously typing fingers smile at the irony.

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Illustrated by Anannya Musale

NON-FICTION

Against the #Girlboss Written by Chelsea Daniel

The productive “girlboss” narrative is destructive to all those affected by the patriarchy.

During the pandemic, I tried to be as productive as possible. I redownloaded Duolingo, read both fiction and nonfiction books, volunteered, and attempted to be good at drawing. But I struggled to do the bare minimum. And cried. A lot. Whilst listening to Taylor Swift.

Whenever I consume any form of media nowadays, I get swamped by strong “girl bosses” both real and fictional. As a child, I felt so inspired when there were strong women in the media. Whether it was cartoons like Rugrats, Hermione Granger, or any protagonists in YA fiction, I was so excited to see characters I could actually relate to. Since they were so hard to find, any woman leading in a male dominated area was enough. Now, with more female characters like Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel, I should feel as though I finally have the strong representation I need. But instead, I feel isolated by the one figure that was designed to inspire me.

These characters are what I, and most people, would call “girl bosses”. They are all “feminine” and fit conventional beauty standards. They defeat conflict in their narratives, if they’re lucky enough to be given such complexity. They probably have one breakdown, but don’t worry, they’ll get over it in time to defeat the “big bad”. They will be completely perfect and have their happy ending, all while making quick one-liners at the boys if necessary. #Girlboss.

But what does “girlboss” actually mean? To feminism and to me? I would define a #girlboss as a woman who, despite all odds, beats obstacles the patriarchy throws at her and emerges triumphant. There is just one catch—she never actually defeats the patriarchy. The world she thrives in is one rooted in other injustices, such as colonialism and white supremacy. She is a boss within the strict parameters of what our society allows girls to be. She doesn’t break the glass ceiling for all those who identify as women or nonbinary people, she breaks it for herself.

And I know that deep down, what I’m describing is a strict vision of womanhood decided in a capitalist patriarchy. It rejects stereotypically feminine personality traits and forces

women to conform to “masculine” values, while still maintaining an ideal feminine appearance. It is a vision where one must be productive in the most difficult scenarios, and without any allies. The #girlboss trope is a woman on her own.

Capitalism relies on women to be #girlbosses because it doesn’t actually allow us to question the world we live in.

It doesn’t allow us to unite. We should be questioning this structure that forces us to live inside such rigid gender roles. But instead, we internalise and incorporate these values into our daily lives. We end up questioning ourselves and our worth if we crumble under the pressure of being a #girlboss.

The #girlboss is a dumb, one-dimensional trope that doesn’t apply to anyone because it’s not real. People in general aren’t just strong. We’re real. Complex. Layered.

Strength is just one of our traits and strength can be defined in myriad ways. I know what we need to do to be the perfect version of ourselves. We must exist. We must find strength in our emotions, in us as a collective, and in our limitations. We mustn’t let the capitalist patriarchy isolate us in an attempt to commodify us. We need to find comfort in our complexity.

Yet, despite knowing all of this, a little voice in my head tells me that the #girlboss is the type of woman I want and need to be.

It is difficult when you’re told to change yourself by everyone around you and you inevitably fail to live up to these unrealistic expectations. The #girlboss narrative is damaging, not just because of how it shapes other people’s expectations of you, but also because of what you internalise and thus expect of yourself. And I expect a lot.

But I am surviving each day and finding ways to smile and do what I love. This trope is difficult to unlearn, but I am glad a bunch of us are unlearning it together.

So, I will listen to folklore and evermore back-to-back as I cry over friendships and relationships past. I will take that extra ten minutes to sleep in and allow myself to rest on top of being productive, whatever that means. I will find comfort in my existence.

Illustrated by Tereza Ljubicic

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COLUMN

: Written by Josh Abbey

Juliet: What’s in a name?

Romeo: Everything’s in a name Juliet; that’s how we got into this mess.

Juliet: That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet

Romeo: Yeah, good point well made.

Names have a use. It is easier to call a spade a spade than to call a spade a tool for digging, paring, or cutting ground etc. Around 1900, some philosophers made the startling discovery that not all words denote an object. Words, like Santa Claus, God, fairies, love, Malcolm Turnbull’s spine, might not refer to any real thing. In his later punk phase, Wittgenstein (the only philosopher worth the ignominy of namedropping) argued that words are like tools they are “characterised by their use”; “naming something is like attaching a label to a thing.”

Names, however, are quite overrated. John Ruskin cracked onto this about 160 years ago, and because he says it so well, I’m going to quote him:

Words, if they are not watched, will do deadly work sometimes … there are masked words abroad … which nobody understands, but which everybody uses, and most people will also fight for, live for, or even die for, fancying they mean this or that …

If one swaps names for words in the above passage, we see how names can be a crutch; the equivalent of buying someone a gift card instead of an actual present. Of course, ”gift card” is doublespeak; despite its surface civility, “gift card” signifies the opposite: “I don’t know enough about you to buy you something you would actually want.” A name tells you nothing about a person. Like buying gift cards, knowing someone’s name doesn’t mean you know anything about the person. Personally, I think it’s better to know something about someone than their known name, just as it is better to get someone a proper present, not a gift card.

Knowing something about someone, a description, is the denoting equivalent of buying them a present they really want—The Collected Speeches of Kevin Rudd instead of a gift card for the ALP merchandise shop. There must be one, right? How else do you signal to people, “Don’t ask me anything about immigration policy?”

Politicians have as great a fancy for names as bad friends for gift cards. But the problem with a name is that it doesn’t tell you anything about the thing it denotes. I don’t really know what a “jeté” is or what movement “jeté” denotes, so conversations about ballet sort of go over my head. Names also have connotations. A

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Illustrated by Arielle Vhaliotis

COLUMN

racist slur, for example, denotes a particular group of people, but it also connotes some negative feeling of the speaker, even hatred, towards that group.

In politics, the connotation of a name is often more significant than the denotation. “Liberals” got themselves in a lather over whether Trump was a fascist or not because fascism has such a powerfully negative connotation. Yet, scholars of fascism are incredibly divided over what exactly constitutes fascism. Mastheads like The New York Times could have saved themselves serious bother by describing Trump’s actions instead of labelling them; anyone who finds fascism abhorrent will be revolted by a mere description of Trump’s conduct, and anyone who isn’t disgusted by a description of Trump’s conduct probably won’t change their mind if the NYT calls Trump a fascist.

The overuse of names also occurs when politicians talk about themselves. Some “socialist” politicians have a similar fixation with names, bewildering when no one, especially critics of socialism, seems to know what socialism actually is. Suppose that the general conception of socialism is vague at best, and that the term “socialism” has negative connotations among significant sections of the electorate. In this case, it seems better to describe your policies than name them.

Socialists should consider dropping the name, however much that might hurt. And liberals might consider dropping the namedropping. Names aren’t the be-all and end-all. For socialists, achieving a fair and equitable society is surely more important than calling it a socialist society. It’s better to describe than to name; better to buy actual presents than gift cards.

Illustrated by Arielle Vhaliotis

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FODDER

O OK K ZOOMER! ZOOMER! Written by Christina Savopoulos

Among Radio Fodder’s incredible 2021 line-up is the Gen Z-focused, Fitzpatrick award-nominated show OK Zoomer!. Created by long-time friends Joanna (Jo) Guelas and Jordan Bassilious, the vision for the show arose from their realisation that Gen Z lacked representation in the media. “Gen Z have a completely different way of navigating the world,” said Jo. Jordan agreed, hoping that OK Zoomer! will serve to “plug that gap in a place where people sometimes do not realise there actually is a gap”. They describe their dynamic as that of an “older brother, rowdy younger sister” duo.

“When you’re doing a radio show with your best friend, it makes things easier.”

—Jordan Bassilious OK Zoomer! was first launched in Semester 2 of last year, during lockdown. I sat down with Jo and Jordan to get an idea of where their show will head this year. Jo and Jordan don’t pre-plan their episodes, preferring to draw on current affairs and what is relevant to Gen Z at that given moment. Jordan shared that “rather than trying to confect kind of a narrative about something that people might not care about,” they want to speak about “things that are pressing and important”. You can be sure that if there’s an issue that affects Gen Z, it will most definitely be covered in that week’s episode of OK Zoomer!.

“Think of it like therapy but make it radio. That’s us.” —Jordan Bassilious “Therapy, but not like endorsed.” —Jo Guelas Jo is also a reporter and video team manager for Farrago. She repeatedly stated that she wants people to know that there’s someone else out there having “the same experience as them... and that it’s okay to not know what we’re doing”. In an age where things can seem rushed and pressured, it’s a well-deserved relief to tune in to hear two lovable souls discuss their place in the world.

“We want younger people to know that we are going through the same things.”

—Jo Guelas Above all, Jo and Jordan hope to connect with their audience—that’d be you guys reading this! They’re especially asking for feedback. They want to improve their format and discuss topics that are of interest to their listeners. If there’s a guest speaker you want to hear, they will do their best to bring them on the show.

You can find Jo and Jordan at their Instagram @okzoomer.radio. They want you to tell them what you care about!

“This is your show, not ours. We want this to be something everyone can experience and enjoy.” —Jordan Bassilious You can catch Jo and Jordan each Thursday at 3pm on Radio Fodder.

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Illustrated by Jasmine Pierce

Illustrated by Marco Sy

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COLUMN 48

‘The Pier Review’ by Torsten Strokirch

Photograph by Abir Hiranandani

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Photograph by Kashish Sandhu

Photograph by Sam Hadden

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Photograph by Candy Chu

Photograph by Christian Theo

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Photograph by Ben Levy

Photograph by Akash Anil Nair

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Photograph by Chamathya Gunawardena

CREATIVE Illustrated by Melana Uceda

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COLUMN

The Gnawing Tree Dragon Written by Zoe Keeghan

“Níðhöggr lived beneath the great tree Yggdrasil. He gnawed on its roots, growing bigger each day. The roots were so tangled that they twisted around his body; the more he ate, the bigger he became; the bigger he became, the more the roots curled around him, trapping him where he lay. And from where he lay, he felt the coming of Ragnarök. So he gnawed, and he gnawed, until finally, he cut clean through the roots. Free at last, he burst out of the ground and into the sky, warning of Ragnarök to all who would listen.”

—A History of Dragons: The Truth in Mythology by Ailuv Drah Gonz Scientific name: Draco radices.

Origin: Scandinavia and Iceland.

Diet: Herbivorous. Primarily tree roots.

Life span: 200 years.

Size: Up to 50 centimetres wide and five metres long.

Colour: Varies. Usually earthy or rocky tones.

Notable features: Winged. Spiked ridges along spine.

The gnawing tree dragon is one of the few herbivorous dragon species, surviving on a diet of roots and tubers. As such, they live almost entirely below ground, where their food source is abundant. Moving from tree to tree, they leave enough of the root system intact to allow it to thrive.

The gnawing tree dragon has a rough hide, similar in appearance to tree bark or cracked stone. This acts as camouflage, concealing them from potential predators and often making them difficult for humans to identify. Sharp spines protrude from their backs, helping them slice through packed earth and stone to travel underground. Their wings tuck neatly beside their bodies, small enough to allow them to tunnel unhindered. However, despite their small wings, they are more than capable of soaring far from peril when the need arises.

Able to sense danger, these dragons only emerge from the ground when they detect a threat, often a natural disaster. Tearing themselves from the earth and shooting up into the sky, they make a trumpeting call, which can be heard for many kilometres. This is described in a diary fragment found in the mid-13th century:

“I wast walking to milke the cows, when alle of a sudden the dirt ‘rupt’d ‘round me, and a mightie dragonne rear’d it’s headd from the earth. It did turn its headd towards me, regarding me f’r but a moment. Then it did shoot up into the sky with a shrieking call. I ranneth to town, shouting of what i hadst seen. F’r what couldst it be but an omen?

We look’d to the sky to track its path. And there we saw a plume of smoke on the h’rizon, a blacke cloud above the mountains. Gath’ring what we couldst, we did flee to greenton, high on the hill. Yond evening, flame burst from the mountain and cover’d our village. Hadst yond dragonne not warn’d us, not one of us would be alive.”

This is not the only account of a warning given by a gnawing tree dragon. Ailuv Drah Gonz suggests that Níðhöggr, one of these dragons, heralded Ragnarök, an unconfirmed but seemingly catastrophic event. In recent years, reports from 2010 indicate the presence of at least one gnawing tree dragon before the eruption of Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull. Several people reported hearing strange sounds in the night before its eruption, including local farmer Elín Magnúsbur, who mentioned it in a tweet the next morning:

“Anyone else wake up to a weird sound late last night? Sounded like a siren or maybe some sort of animal call.

Never heard anything like it before.”

Their tweet quickly gained traction as several others shared their own stories of the call. Days later, after locals had been evacuated to avoid flooding caused by the eruption, reports of the sound spread as far as Iceland’s capital city, Reykjavík. Dragonologists in Iceland and worldwide realised that only one sound fit the descriptions and could be heard from so far away: the call of a gnawing tree dragon.

Thankfully, there were no fatalities, but the question remains: next time a gnawing tree dragon issues a warning, will we listen? Or by the time we recognise it as the warning it is, will it be too late?

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Illustrated by Alicia Aliandy

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59 01

CREATIVE

Boarding Pass Written by James Robertson moving out I’m moving in one place to another tear my bond stepping in line tear my pass boarding in ten nine eight seven six months away the seed was sown the roots planted ripping them out into the sky these roots tugged at the heart strings strands trailing in exhaust fumes atmosphere

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Illustrated by Alicia Aliandy & Katie Zhang

Written by Michael Josefsson

CREATIVE

Poemata Lingua labitur poema—nescio id quod facio, sed ssst.

A poem glides off my tongue—I don’t know what I am doing, but shhh.

Meaning butterflies, iridesces, then drains out.

Ink runs in the rain.

Mahler wafts behind me in lilting, soaring chords.

Golden domelets pass.

Goddess Europa, Asia, Africa, and then the Americas.

Each evening I fall asleep and write a lovesong.

Dear Scheherazade, Satis! Tardum est.

Nunc dormiendum mihi, somnienda ea.

Enough! It’s late.

I need to sleep and dream of her.

Alcibiades stands on the Piraeus, and looks out and wonders.

Red deerskinned vellum filled with cream and soft grey eyes— Minerva and her owl.

Sweet and gentle moon, turn your face to me, and gift me shining silver.

Turret-crowned Cybele, we who eat the surplus of the Earth salute you.

Plato’s Republic.

Arizona iced tea. Dead hall of long-dead popes.

Illustrated by Zoe Lau & Michelle Chang

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CREATIVE

content warning: ableism, references to suicide

Breaking My Mask Written by Hannah Winspear-Schillings Until recently, my wardrobe was filled with dozens of different faces. Every single day, I would choose one carefully; some were so ostentatious that nobody dared draw near me, others so dull I slipped through crowds unnoticed.

Everybody wears masks. Perhaps others see theirs as a form of self-expression, but for me, they were a way to protect myself—my armour against the world.

Now, I look at where these rows of faces used to hang, and I remember. i. blue is for diagnosis I press the blue mask to my face and tie the strings securely behind my head. It is a half-mask the colour of the sky, part of my uniform; my high school’s crest is stamped in gold over the right cheekbone. Looking in the mirror, I steel myself.

I arrive at the school counsellor’s office, and my skin crawls as the pads of her bony fingers press into my skull, digging for truths within. I watch, frozen, as she sinks into a trance. Her mask is the deep purple of days ending, the eyeholes outlined in white. The eyes beneath narrow at the end of our session, and she pronounces me autistic.

When I break the news to my mother over dinner, her heavy iron mask muffles all sound. Still, I can tell she’s sobbing by the way her shoulders quiver. ii. purple is for shame After my diagnosis, my parents buy me a new mask and do not speak of my autism again. My new mask is the mottled purple of old bruises. The cheekbones and

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chin glisten with hair-thin silver threads, and the lips are shining blue velvet. I slip it on and it presses against my skin, uncomfortably hot and slippery.

On the street that day, I see the maskless ones; they stumble along, grimacing and flailing their arms. On paper I am the same as them—I am autistic too—and the thought makes me nauseous. Everyone else crosses the street to avoid them, and I follow.

As I walk, I reach behind my head and check my purple mask is still tied tight. The idea of removing it only makes my nausea worse.

I wear it for five more years. iii. gold is for revelation The crackling of the pub’s stereo system mingles with the flurries and eddies of conversation around me. I concentrate on gripping my glass through the noise.

The girl I’ve been speaking to leans forward, dark eyes shining with amusement from behind her golden mask, and I realise I’ve missed her last words.

“How do you get your masks?” she repeats.

“People give them to me,” I answer. “Or I find them.”

“I make mine myself.” She gestures. Her mask is made of gold-painted porcelain, accented by white and cream, with dustings of pink contouring the cheekbones and temples. It’s a full-face mask—pretty but cold, distant, intimidating. “You should think about making your own.

It’s quicker and easier than waiting for life to give them to you.”

I laugh politely, and eventually the girl drifts off. Her

Illustrated by Micalah McCulloch

iv. white is for depression I buy my death mask online and keep it hidden under my bed like a secret. The mask is pure white and unadorned, with a downturned mouth and black smudged under the eyes. I think about nooses as I criss-cross the dark velvet ribbons around my neck.

Fourteen times in one year, I don the death mask and visit the bridge near my dorm. Standing on the cold precipice between concrete and air, I feel poised between one life and the next. I could end everything here, or make myself anew. Every time, I remove the mask and let the cold air against my bare face sting me awake instead. Eventually, I stop going to the bridge. v. green is for survival My survival mask is green and made out of reflective jade. I buy it as a birthday present for myself. The greenness reminds me of new life, of springtime. Maybe that’s why I picked it: as a tangible reminder of life to carry with me.

“You know something?” The man leans in and lowers his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I was the girl at the pub.”

CREATIVE

revelation stays with me for the rest of the night, though.

She corners me as I leave and gives me some strips of fabric, enough to make a small mask. I thank her, but anxiety grips me. She’s right. I have grown comfortable with stagnancy. Perhaps too much.

His words leave me speechless. People change masks all the time, but I thought there was always a main mask, a through line, a current of similarity. Seeing evidence of a complete metamorphosis—the lack of a true self— terrifies me. I would rather be real than lose myself.

When my paralysis ends, I bolt for the nearest exit and erupt into daylight. I inhale lungfuls of cold air and the tears building in me finally erupt. vi.

I return to my room and open the wardrobe where my masks are stored—rows of them suspended on hooks like severed heads.

One after another, I break them. I rip off the survival mask and throw it to the floor. I grind the green fragments between my shoes and the floorboards. I shatter the shame mask with my fists. I tear up the blue school mask, set the tatters on fire with a lighter. I smash the white mask into the brick wall beside my bed.

I stand in the debris.

This green mask is oval-shaped and featureless, with only the slightest indentation where the mouth should be. I rarely speak. People seem to prefer it that way.

One day, I make my way to my next class. My classmate keeps step—he has been babbling about psychology for the last 15 minutes. He pauses, and the sudden quiet makes me look up at him. He’s wearing a deep blue mask adorned with tiny seashells arranged into white waves.

Illustrated by Micalah McCulloch

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COLUMN

The Foggy Shores Written by Charlotte Waters & Lee Perkins

L Peat leaves and creme water Tuesday’s delight.

Tea-time warmth through spoutway After-sip of midday’s saunter.

Tannination; great sky face sips up, warm air of Afterscone down.

It almost scolded us, this blow.

Unusual—neighbour’s handle drawn overtop.

THWACK. Not tannin storm nor racing, Something a-scraping and fumble, Fumble soaring as shell floor thunders up— Tidal built tidal froth Ringing silence of the coarse scratching, Split leaf, mirror surface.

A figure stands at the backspout.

I try to sign, wave, wait in fear.

Conscious of pride, straight tea-spooned back, Hand grips the strainer Five fingers for five openings.

Eventide-scratched t-shirt steps forward.

“Get back! I do not know you!”

Lid off the boiled dew, Face all round, pimpled, scared.

“Supper naught with your sort!”

Pieces and blocked shards a-glint, Hand here and ear there.

My eyes still see it, nervous shivers.

“I am neither spoon nor grater, but Cottaric!

Move your hand, step back.”

Blow froth to close cracks, Pleasant, watchful steam to thrift behind them, the girl.

“Sweet wanderings, careful treads ‘afore Stool.

Welcome to the Cottaric.”

She looks so calm to be half naked and half welcome.

She could clay cracks, serve drinks off-handle.

This one might last.

“Tea?” The scalded, steaming tides, destroying lives?

“Yea, may our spouts stay empty!”

A quake too familiar.

Rushed clotted cream suit to the basement.

I must not cry over spilt milk.

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Illustrated by Rohith Sundaresa Prabhu

“How the f*ck did I end up in tiny mug-village?”

C

COLUMN

of Our Bedrooms left-behind leaves stick between my teeth. tannins cling to my tongue like shame, like old tea hardened in contour lines around my writing desk. vanilla softens my lips. muscles curl around the handle, resist the weight, heat, then roll into a touchdown, tea drops spattering the wall of mugs. the surface breaks upon impact. lamplight splits into tiny stars, rapid and seasick, stringing together the taut smile of a ghost-face. in the falling tide its features sharpen, enfold me in accusation. i draw myself tall as my periphery darkens and porcelain scrapes underfoot. air thickens, ground sways, i stumble against something metal. between its bars, streets unroll— rows of half-dissolved sugar cubes, windows of polished faces, and the stranger, smaller than before, all wispy hair and trembling knees. “i’m sorry—wait. i thought you brought me here.” his face is smeared with vanilla clouds, and in the foreground, my own crumpled brow— “a spoon?” i stand pantless, penniless, perturbed. “i’ve nothing to give. it’s clear i’m not welcome, so—” i turn to watch the backspout, the opening, dissolve inside a dome sky walled by mountains. quivering, i curtsy, he nods his head. a jagged ray of gold skims the six-o-clock ceiling, as steel people re-emerge to gossip and water their kelp. the people of the Cottaric trade in goods and joy, shake and hold hands over the fence. “i have little to offer, but i do make a mean cup of tea.” the wash of a tide rattles over the southern hills. the floor tilts. a heaviness settles on my wrist. a drop of cold tea meets my tongue. sediment leaks into lines of ink.

Illustrated by Rohith Sundaresa Prabhu

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CREATIVE

milkbar Written by Helena Pantsis

it starts in the middle of the milkbar with me staring at the lolly wall, the colourful sweets locked inside their plastic compartments, allowed freedom only by their little scoopers and the hands of sweet-toothed teens—the freckles, the gummy babies, the milk bottles, the snakes—and i’m thinking of palming a handful of sour worms to my mouth when michael storms in, pissed—he says he left his car in the middle of princes freeway, which he pronounces princess freeway, because he crashed it into a guy with a bumper sticker which said something about loving jesus, or about jesus loving you—and now he’s throwing punches and gripping my shirt collar, holding me up to the sky and telling me about how far he had to walk which, considering he doesn’t do any physical exercise full stop, wouldn’t normally mean much, but i know for a fact that the freeway’s a ten minute drive from the milkbar, so i can’t imagine how he made it all the way here by foot, or rather why he didn’t just call me when he pulls my phone out of my pocket and i notice the seventeen missed calls i’ve got from him, which is a fatal mistake because michael’s angry and i remember he kicked the shit out of billie mosner for cutting him in line once at the tuck shop, and i saw him punch a wall once after his mum asked him to mow the lawn, with his fist calloused and grazed he said he couldn’t see the point in mowing the lawn seeing as the grass would just grow back, and even though i’ve seen a hundred action movies, i’ve never actually been punched, so when his knuckles come up out of nowhere and brush my face it’s less of a brush and not even the THWACK i imagined it would be but is more of a dull pfff followed closely by a click, and i feel my jaw knocked aside before i hear the clerk’s scream of horror—it makes me think michael’s not as good a friend as i try to convince myself he is, but we’ve known each other so long, and even though i’m the butt of every joke, when the two of us are alone he says i’m the best friend he’s got, but i realise now that what he means is that he knows he can punch me without getting punched back, and when the police sirens get closer michael’s walked out already, his steps heavy and his arms swinging coldly, but i don’t see him in the traditional sense, seeing as i’m gangly and weak and thin and his punch—one hell of a punch considering he’s well-practised on kids like billie and plaster walls which his parents can’t fix—has sent me to the floor, but i can feel him leave by the thud of his footsteps getting lighter, and i come to realise there’s blood dripping from me where i hadn’t even realised i’d been cut, so when a cop, who i can’t see because my eyes are blurred, pushes through the jingling swinging doors and says “we received a report of an assault” and the clerk stretches her arm out to point at me, bloodied and pale on the goddamn floor thanks to michael and my thick jean pockets, all i can think about is palming a handful of sour worms to my mouth.

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Illustrated by Casey Boswell & Tereza Ljubicic

CREATIVE

clitoris I

clitoris II

Written by Meredith Tyler

Written by Meredith Tyler

curious fingers cleave downy flesh in two. juice leaks down arms as sore fingers scrape out insides, searching for the stone-hard-like wishbone. they break it for luck & devour what remains.

my under-belly orchid grows in greenhouse warmth— dirt-grubbing fingers explore soil’s dampness coax out white bulbs, glooming in hidden hollows—my war flags

slow unfurling

Illustrated by Rachel Ko

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COLUMN

CONTENT WARNING: VIOLENCE AND BLOOD.

And Diana says, “Whoever defiles her sacred body with a wound… make him pay me an equal price in blood!

Then I will fold her in a cloud… and lay her to rest in her native land. “ …Watch, exulting here in the thick of the carnage… Camilla… she swerves her bow and showers arrows, wheeling in full flight.

(Virgil Aeneid, 11.699-703, 11.766-770)

THE DAY HAS COME WHEN A WOMAN’S WEAPONS PROVE YOUR DAYDREAMS WRONG!

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Illustrated by Gen Schiesser

…AND WHAT ARE DREAMS BUT CLOUDS? SOFT AND FADING.

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WHEN YOU DIE YOU WILL ALWAYS LOOK UP – AT THE CLOUDS…

THIS IS MY HOME!

…WHERE ONLY YOUR DAYDREAMS REACH, BUT WHERE I AM FOLDED THROUGH THE RIPPLES OF THE SKY.

Illustrated by Gen Schiesser

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CREATIVE

content warning: animal cruelty and death

Uncle Ditch’s Clockwork Ark Written by Torsten Strokirch Uncle Ditch’s whole mad enterprise started with one dead cockatoo which he found out on the nature strip one bin night. The thing was snowy and perfect. Not a single feather out of place, wrinkly lids half-closed over beady eyes, beak ajar. Like it was stuck in the moment of going to sleep, Ditch said.

We all heard the story a hundred million times. Ditch brings in the bird, cradling it like a baby, and with an actual friggin’ tear on his cheek.

He walks past Aunty Anne who says, what the hell are you doing, bringing a filthy thing like that in the house?

Bringing it back to life, Annie, bringing it back to life.

Then she does her eyebrow-raise-inhalation-through-the-teeth combo, which means something like, oh here we go...

But Ditch had already had his epiphany out there under the streetlight, with one elbow on the handle of the general waste bin. There would be no telling him.

Uncle Ditch was a clockmaker. He repaired antiques: grandfathers, cuckoos, and the occasional pocket watch. But there were only so many clocks to repair in a town as small as ours. Ditch relied on Anne’s income from her real estate job, and busied himself with building windup toys for us kids and birdwatching in the hinterland. He loved his birds and he loved his clocks, so it was hardly surprising when he announced his new scheme to bring the two together.

Mum said, it’s like that Bates guy in the Hitchcock film, all this dead bird stuff. You’re not turning psycho on us, are ya Ditchy?

Ditch just shook his head and smiled, as if Mum was still the little sister whose hair you mussed up when she asked silly questions.

We didn’t visit the house up on Gardiner Avenue much. There had always been a sense that Ditch wasn’t just a black sheep but something else entirely. Something more odd. A newt, Dad would say to Mum, he’s the black newt of your family, love.

This new venture seemed the last straw for them and dropping by ceased altogether.

Ten-year-olds can be curious creatures though. Despite the family distancing, I would often go round after school to sit in the back room and suck on homemade grapefruit icy poles as my uncle worked. All afternoon, Ditch would squint through his buggy-looking eyepiece and deliver long, improvised lectures on ornithology and climate change.

You know kiddo, Ditch said with his scalpel inside a defrosted wattlebird, we’re undergoing the sixth mass extinction event. One day, this’ll be gone. He gestured out the window toward what I thought to be the back garden. The apricot trees, the bird bath, the compost, the slanted pickets of the back fence.

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Illustrated by Rose Gertsakis

CREATIVE

But now I understand the sweep of his hand was moving in a greater arc. The stand of lemon-scented gums beyond the fence, the glades of southern beech and lilly pilly, the slopes of ragged sword grasses that slit your fingers worse than paper cuts, then the twisting gullies of fern trees that went down the coastline where lemonade bushes grew thick on the headlands, and screw pines stood like punkish soldiers on the beach. Uncle Ditch’s bloody fingers passed over all of it while his voice matter-of-factly proclaimed its doom.

Not before too long, Ditch started accepting donations for his work, with the caveat that the birds had to have died of natural causes. He rejected most roadkill, on account of the visible damage. It was the smaller ones that proved the most challenging; the fairy wrens and thornbills requiring minute parts, cogs and springs so tiny you could lose them to a slight draft.

One time a trucker brought an emu. Ditch sidelined all other projects because the massive thing wouldn’t fit in the freezer. When it was done, he set it to strutting a course up and down the hallway.

Four years of it and Aunty Anne’s patience gave out. The kookaburras in the living room went off at unexpected hours of the night, and the thump of the emu’s feet on the floorboards began to sound like insanity itself creeping up the corridor. She found fantails floating in the sink when she went to do the dishes. And if she listened hard enough, she could hear the faint ticking that went on inside every one of their unnatural little chests.

So when her eyebrows could be raised no higher and her teeth could be gritted no harder, she left.

Ditch somehow won half of Aunty Anne’s money in the divorce settlement, which he spent on purchasing carbon fibre; light enough to make his birds take flight. The windows of every room had to be boarded over from the inside after that so that the birds would stop smashing through them.

Throughout my teenage years, the house on Gardiner Avenue became louder and louder while the forests around town became quieter. Summers brought bushfires ever closer, and each spring another colour was missing from the wildflower tapestry of the heathland. The incoming tide of bird corpses slowed and ground to a halt. The last to arrive was a magpie-lark found caught in the grille of a Subaru Forester. The 386th bird.

Ditch hand-painted a sign which read The Clockwork Ark, hung it above his door, and started charging people a few bucks to look at all his creations. Neighbours brought their children, who had never seen or heard of half the birds. They oohed and aahed and said things like, goodness me so lifelike! or, oh look, isn’t that one beautiful!

And in a way, they were. Ditch’s wrens hopped daintily along the mantelpiece. Currawongs stared daggers at you through yellow glass eyes. The old white cocky tilted his head this way, then that, regarding visitors with an inquisitive side-eye.

But at night, with the darkness fluttering and ticking all around him, Uncle Ditch wept because he knew that even with a whole lifetime of tinkering, he would never get them quite right.

Illustrated by Rose Gertsakis

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CREATIVE

content warning: blood, death

The Great Famine Written by Poppy Willis

Crags of rock crumble like cracked toffee under the sun.

Crops fester under peat and withered soil until there’s nothing left but dried clumps of dirt.

Digging for potatoes until sundown, a primordial affair now pestilent.

Upturning decay in the puddled fields of blackened leaves and rot.

The diggers are like pilgrims in a land they no longer recognise.

Punished by a belated recital of promises for food stocks that prematurely ran dry.

Though the rich still feasted upon tariffed maize.

Digging ditches for ten pence a day that will not fill bodies puffed with air, not gruel.

Dead not by violence, but a cruel death still.

The last nail in the coffin nicks the knuckles of the burier.

Blood seeps into the body sheathed in a dull brown shroud.

And so, those who stockpiled their pence are laid to rest in a sepulchre.

Bones hidden in the dark.

Not sun-bleached like the bones found in fields of ancestors gone by.

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Illustrated by Ailish Hallinan

CREATIVE

Homemade Written by Izma Haider

The summer was hot You stewed strawberries I grew small wild mountaineers carefully skimmed scum from the top mixed with good cream, sugar and salt and left to freeze overnight The kitchen door yawns I pitch towards the stove from the bad side of the sofa trying to feel you there like a canyon in the dark There are many ways to vanish a rabbit Would you go easy into the woods? The desert?

Did they eat you?

In the morning, I stepped into an infantry of ants Following that formic line, stepping on them carefully all the way one thousand casualties to the pantry where midsummer night curdled sugar cream in the bowl and a hundred ants lay sticky-footed, drowned sugarplum soldiers Forgetting yourself, forgetting fridges, forgetting your name pulse for pulse limb for limb you padded behind me.

Silvery under the fingertip veil, you looked good enough to bury

Illustrated by Sam Turner

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CREATIVE

Taylor’s Cardigan Written by Megan van Vegten On a dreary December day Rain glistened on cobblestone lanes The wind performed a ballet As I daydreamed through window frames In a big city of unmatched rivalry I was picked from a sea of threads My intricate weaves were pure ivory I fitted perfectly to her frayed Keds When spring welcomed flourishing leaves She came home with a brand-new friend His touch was softer than my sleeves So I hid my buttons trying to blend As my stitches came undone As my colour faded away I knew the hoodie had won She’d be happier with him anyway I wish I could go back to December Just so I could remember The thrill before it expired The days before Cupid misfired For I was just an old white cardigan Left under someone’s bed and forgotten Inspired by Taylor Swift’s ‘Cardigan’

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Illustrated by Elmira

content warning: violence, death

Written by Sweeney Preston, Raina Shauki and James Gordon

US diplomats send in Sea Shanty TikTokers to ease tensions in Myanmar “What do we do with a drunken sailor?

What do we do if there’s a coup in Myanmar?

Why don’t we stand and sing in a choir?

Ear-ly in the morning!”

They were immediately shot by the military.

Albanese requests ‘Boss Bitch’(Doja Cat) Boss Bitch as parliamentary entrance theme after Morrison enters Air Force base to Top TopGun Gun soundtrack “I’m a bitch, I’m a boss, I’m a bitch, I’m a boss, I’ma shine like gloss,” the Federal Opposition Leader was overheard humming last Sunday.

—SP

—SP

Young people will watch anything set in 1800’s England, Netflix series confirms

Loser with positive COVID test mortified to have lifestyle habits publicly disclosed

Netflix’s latest and most indecent production yet follows a racist duchess learning to twerk.

DHHS Victoria has released a list of exposure sites across Melbourne after a 20-year-old University of Melbourne student tested positive to COVID-19.

Using the tried and tested combination of a period setting, suspiciously attractive cast, and a just steamy enough love story, the streaming giant has charmed the hearts of lonely and horny millennials worldwide.

When asked about his inspiration, the Bridgerton showrunner responded: “Oh, I just threw darts at a board filled with all the most annoying character traits imaginable.”

Netflix has seen positive ratings thus far.

—RS

Self-proclaimed “anti-PC” advocate horrified to discover “PC” does not refer to “personal computers” After a summer of advocating against using certain laptops, desktops, and tablet devices, 56-yearold Collin Wright was recently made aware of his accidental involvement in the anti-political correctness movement.

Mr Wright has expressed disappointment in finding out his anti-PC peers have, in fact, been heavily involved with the use of personal computers and never shared his interest of investing in the “far superior” Mac system.

Exposure sites include Officeworks CBD at 9:49pm on a bloody Saturday, inexplicably followed by a one-star rated escape room the following morning and, finally, not one, but three different North Face stores across the metropolitan area.

The DHHS is encouraging all who visited these locations to get tested, stay home, and most importantly, grow up.

—RS

Woman divorces husband at the orders of tyrannical taglist meme Julie Cousineau is divorcing her husband of twelve days, as commanded by a despotic internet meme.

The callous Facebook dictator, known as “taglist meme” (TM), decreed Cousineau is to immediately marry another man—the third person down her taglist. It happens to be her brother.

The tagging cruelty doesn’t stop there. TM’s newest demand? Cousineau must buy her best friend Hungry Jacks, as her given name starts with ‘J’.

TM declined Farrago’s request to comment.

—RS

—JG

Monolinguist using Duolingo to learn second language genuinely kidding themselves

Aspiring student comedian waits for “humorous” love letter to be posted to Facebook page

“Una cerveza, por favor. Haha, fuck yeah, this is easy!” said Erik (29), blissfully unaware of the other 2,500 words and grammar functions required for basic communicative fluency in his target language.

University student comedian Daryl Shields excitedly waits in vain for his “joke submission” to be posted to popular Facebook page, UniMelb Love Letters.

Farrago understands Erik is early enough into his delusional usage of the app that he still believes the Duolingo Owl to be a useful reminder tool, and not the irritating, nocturnal feathery fuck it truly is.

SATIRE

SATIRE-IN-BRIEF

Three days after submission, Shields is starting to wonder if UniMelb Love Letters rejected his post or if he must wait a bit longer to receive validation from total strangers.

—SP

Illustrated by Nina Hughes

—JG

7501

SATIRE

Procrastinating Properly Written by Sweeney Preston

Ring your grandma.

She sent you a card for your birthday.

Ask how she’s ‘a’ goin’.

Talk to her about rose bushes and sponge cakes.

Tell her you’re doing great at uni, And you’re getting all ya work done.

That’ll put a smile on her dial.

Put the phone down after an hour or so.

Cry. Walk ta’ the shops.

Say hey to ol’ Nicky the baker.

He’s always a friendly chap.

Likes to talk at any hour of the day.

Good on ‘im.

Ahh the smell of fresh bread.

You buy some.

Reminds you of a simpler time.

Cry. Continue to the gift shop. You know, the one near Antony’s Pizza?

Have a chat with the lady behind the counter.

Mrs Lindsay, she’s Stacey’s mum. You know, Stacey from school.

What’s Stacey up to these days?

She’s learnt to code and is now a successful online entrepreneur.

She asks whatcha up to.

You’ve spent the last two hours citing your essay.

You buy a bar of lavender-scented soap.

Cry. You walk home.

You spy your friendly neighbour Abdul.

How’s Abdul? He’s great.

He asks what you’re doing holding a bar of lavender soap, a loaf of bread, And a birthday card from your grandmama.

You tell ‘im you’re writing an essay.

He looks at you, standing in the middle of the footpath, obviously NOT writing an essay.

He laughs and quite rightly exclaims “that’s not what it looks like!”.

You cry, but now you smell like lavender.

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Illustrated by Jasmine Pierce

Written by Emma-Grace Clarke Capaldi is known for using vague, at times confusing metaphors to describe the human experience in his music. Now, in 2021, the 24-year-old is back with more melodrama than your nana’s Mills & Boon novels. To talk about this fresh and unique take on lullabies, we sat down with Capaldi in his parents’ plush studio apartment, floating down the River Clyde in Glasgow.

Upon entering, Capaldi revealed that the apartment produces zero carbon emissions, instead powered by cyclists, all living in the lower quarters where their waste is converted into compost thanks to the work of thousands of “yummy worms”.

When I inquired about why he’d chosen to describe the worms as “yummy”, Capaldi pretended not to hear me.

SATIRE

REVIEW: Lewis Capaldi’s New Album Lullabies for for people people of of neglect” neglect “Lullabies postulated that “sometimes we have to admit that an outsider’s perspective gives us clarity… like Robin DiAngelo’s seminal work White Fragility or when Stephen King writes anything. Damn that guy is good, have you read his stuff? Yeah, people go wild for that queer subtext in his novels—have you seen the forums? But whenever anyone asks him about it, Stevie King’s like ‘Naw! Ain’t no queers here!’ and I respect that...”. I must admit I was charmed, if not bemused, by his childlike glee for shallow textual analysis.

But I had the urge to move onto safer topics, since his lawyer was now holding a knife to my throat. My larynx closing at the pressure of their gloved hand, I gasped out a question about how his music connects people intergenerationally.

“Oh yes! Nan especially loves my rendition of ‘Rock-a-bye Baby’—a classic. I changed the lyrics so now they’re like ‘Rock-a-bye baby in my wee cot / wait—get out o’ mah bed yah overcooked tater tot’.

You know, it’s like subverting the narrative around motherhood…”.

Clearly, love doesn’t know the bounds of time, and neither does emotional neglect.

Changing the subject back to the circuitry of the floating apartment, Capaldi spoke of his new release.

“Most of these lullabies are, thankfully, public domain.” He glanced, as if for confirmation, at his lawyer. The lawyer, who had been floating in the corner the entire time, wore a dark cloak over their shoulders and a scowl upon their face.

They nodded slowly. Capaldi continued. “S-so these songs are very cheap to cover, and I just emulate the sound of your parents… I’m like a mockingbird in some ways, but not actually!

Ha ha—that would be weird.”

Capaldi paused to squawk and pull a fleshy pink worm from his pocket.

“But it’s really all about the way you perceive my voice with your desperate attempts at forming human connection.”

A soft growl emanated from the lawyer and Capaldi shrunk back, “B-but yeah, Nana loved it, I think—I mean she was crying so I assume it really moved her. I haven’t seen her since that day.”

When asked about what happened to his nana, Capaldi grew quiet, face pale as milk. His lip shuddered visibly and his eyes filled with tears.

As he gobbled up the worm with gusto, Capaldi described the album to me as “twelve beautifully rendered lullabies”. For example, a new version of ‘Hush Little Baby’ saw the traditional lyrics replaced to suit more contemporary tastes: “Mamma’s gonna buy you an ethically sourced acoustic guitar / And if that ethically sourced acoustic guitar don’t sing / Mamma’s gonna bribe the music producer with a sweet £10,000 tip…”.

Aware of the love and support for Capaldi’s career throughout his life, I queried on his experiences with childhood neglect. In response, Capaldi claimed that his parents’ ongoing love and support gives him “a unique and powerful perspective on neglectful parents”. He

Abruptly, the lawyer howled, and the room went black. When the lights flicked back on, Capaldi was nowhere in sight, and I had to wonder if this was the apotheosis of the interview. But before I could learn any more information, I was locked up in the cell that I now write to you in.

I haven’t seen the light of day in weeks.

Send hel—

Rating: 8/10. Available on all good streaming services.

Illustrated by Vertigo

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SATIRE

content warning: sexism, both historical and modern, sexual assault, graphic imagery

World Finally Realising Just How Fucking Terrifying Teenage Girls Are Written by Charlotte Armstrong Following yet another example of entrenched sexism, teenage girls are discovering their rage has the power to move mountains. This time it was out of Cheltenham Girls’ High, where adults were blaming minors for being sexually assaulted.

After one too many derisive cracks over any and every facet of their beings, it appears teenage girls the world over are finally allowing themselves to be consumed by the righteous fury of old.

Young women everywhere are giving in to the Dionysian madness shown in Euripides’ The Bacchae, where every woman in Thebes unleashes their full feral potential, culminating in ripping an adult man limb from limb.

What led us to this? Much of modern popular culture has been shaped by the perception of things teen girls like: romantic movies, boy bands, cute aesthetics, even the infamous “Pumpkin Spice Latte”. It is a strange paradox where the cultural landscape needs their tastemaking powers but treats them as a mockery.

In effect, people need teen girls to tell them which trends to hate.

Moreover, there is a bizarre dismissal of teen girls in their role shaping zeitgeists of an era—the Beatles, for example, were important on a cultural level because of their popularity with teen girls. Without their teen fans, they would have faded into the obscurity of music trivia questions—Gerry and the Pacemakers, anyone?

And yet, many of those relying on this power come to believe themselves better than their fanbase and begin actively dismissing them as “hysterical” (you know that word for when a uterus—a fucking organ—supposedly moves around the body, because god forbid a man fucking feel anything). In essence, they need these girls

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to survive but would rather let their fame die in the public sphere than acknowledge them as a legitimate force.

This dismissiveness of things girls like extends beyond music. If you were someone who enjoyed cartoons between roughly 1980 and the present day, you may have noticed that any cartoon that portrayed teen girls or women in complex ways was usually cancelled or revamped to be overly “girly” (thereby removing a lot of the complexity that people tended to enjoy about their characters in the first place). Examples include Young Justice, Teen Titans, and live-action shows such as Tower Prep.

Yes. That’s a real thing. They started cancelling stuff girls liked because they liked it.

What makes teenage girls so frightening, in my opinion, is their ability to love unashamedly. They have no reservations about their passion—if they love a show, book or boyband, you will know about it. If the rest of the world shared even a tenth of that true devotion, we could accomplish incredible things.

And so, that brings us to now, where—having been the butt of every middle-aged, pathetic man’s joke—teen girls have embraced the power of their rage. And, not for the first time, it is actively changing the world.

If we are lucky, the next lion they will shred with their bare hands will be the status quo.

As someone who was once (and in some ways still is) a teenage girl herself, I proudly declare that if you need me, you’ll find me ripping out the still-beating heart of the next person to insult teenage girls.

Viva La Revolución.

Illustrated by Zoe Eyles

Kissing Thanatos

Written by Oliver Rose Brown content warning: death, suicide

FARRAGO

FLASH FICTION: HORROR You whisper, “I don’t have to do anything? Or be anyone?”

She nods.

The usual melt into relief.

“Exactly,” she croons, tipping the cup to your lips. “There’s nothing to be said or done there.”

A hungry languor in you gives way. A swallowing of a proffered mouthful. There are none of the soap opera histrionics of cyanide, just a slackening.

You’ve gone to the blank and the numb before you’re placed in your casket. In your hand, a beachside postcard with her number on it: “To Paradise for the Idle, to Home for the Too Too Tired.”

He knows when you’re awake!

Written by Tharidi Walimunige content warning: blood, death, violence

Sniffling muffled by a moist palm. An intruder skulks around the living room.

BANG! Two whimpers drowned by the boom. One young observer, one pained victim. Black boots march on spilt milk and carrot pulp.

“Who’s there?” Billy blubbers, missing the mangled body and rivers of blood slithering into the carpet. The bearded man turns to him. The carols never sang of his pupil-less eyes.

“You should be asleep. Good boys don’t wait up for me.”

Billy snatched, thrown, cooked in the fireplace.

Billy charred, crumbed, stuffed in a stocking.

“Coal for bad boys, Billy.”

Panic: A Definition

Written by Anindya Setiawan It’s gone.

The shade of crimson you’ve grown so attached to. The diagonal line—always so perfectly angled.

Clean. Crisp. Comforting. It’s vanished.

You feel your breath quicken and the fear leave your body as your skin tingles. There’s nowhere to go now, no words coming out of your mouth. The heat spreads over your chest like a sweltering rash. The clicking of a keyboard, the ticking of a clock in another room. You’ve done it now. The flushed cheeks. The silence.

Another quick glimpse at the screen.

It’s gone.

Unmuted. This whole damn time.

Illustrated by Maddy Cronn

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FARRAGO

For and Against: Avocado Toast For

Against

by Emily French

by Alex K. Charles

Avo toast is the ultimate all-rounder. The perfect marriage between fibre and fat, the bold and the beautiful, Keith and Nicole. Like a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, he has made his mark on any good brunch menu and is adored by a large fan base.

Ever rolled out of bed and thought, “I could really do with a hot slice of carb block and some squished fatty fruit?” If so, you’re with about…every other millennial who has an avo toast addiction. Don’t get me wrong, the appeal is there (sometimes), but is it really worth $21.50? Imma go out on a limb and say HECK NO.

He can be suave at a Fitzroy café—arriving on artisan sourdough and dressed in Meredith’s Goats Cheese. This same toast can haphazardly slap himself together the next day for a morning lecture, and like a befuddled Hugh Grant, be just as charming. Though he is a young celebrity, he remains grounded with his indulgent-yet-healthy attitude and humble toast origins.

Like any high achiever, he has his moments; these being the attimes-ludicrous price of four dollars per avo. But this crowd favourite knows the avo is what elevates him from the average toa(st). So have your avo and eat it too, fre-sha-vaca-do.

Confident and cool, he can’t hear the boomers hating. His effortless success puts their garish, jellified, moulded mains to shame. We will smash our avo like they smashed our free degrees and affordable housing—our time is now!

First up, it lacks taste—and I mean that literally, too. The very premise of both toast and avocado is that they’re bland foods to be used as a BASE. So having them together is kind of like trying to add 1 and 1 to get 3, and then looking hopefully at the cutie next to you in Calc 2 for approval. Nuh-uh.

Secondly, not a safe price point! The fact that your avo toast price changes depending on which suburb you’re in is a clear indicator you’re being ripped off. A study reported by the inimitable pinnacle of scientific knowledge, the Sydney Morning Herald, ranked avo toast price averages by suburb. Believe it or not, you can ACTUALLY FIND a correlation between this and the suburb’s income and average house price!

Given that you can buy some starch and an avocado for about $3 (less for foragers), it’s pretty hard to pretend the markup doesn’t exist. I rest my case.

He is the plate of our generation and our culinary mark on pop culture. Bread bins, fruit bowls and hom eownership are out—avo toast is in.

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Illustrated by Mochen Tang

Art by Sam Turner

UMSU and the Media Office are located in the city of Melbourne, on the land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. We pay our respects to their elders­—past, present and emerging­—and acknowledge that the land we are on was stolen and sovereignty was never ceded.