Glass 2021 Annual Edition

2021 Annual

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FRONT COVER PHOTO BY RONIA GARRETT-BENSON

THE GLASS EDITORS

EM READMAN ELLA BRUMM TOM LOUDON CHRISTINA SIMONOSKI

Why Glass?

Whether you’re a glass half-full or glass halfempty kind of person; this issue of Glass is stacked with stories for QUT Students by

Editors’ Letter

QUT Students.

Dear Glassies,

Like always, we aim to navigate you through

We can’t believe the year is already coming to an end.

all facets of life that students experience.

Glass is here to be a lens on the issues, successes and stories that matter to students, and we hope you enjoy this issue.

Publishing a magazine amid a global pandemic comes with its challenges, especially in the environment of uncertainty that has continued over from 2020.

The world gets the better of us all sometimes, and we’ve had to adapt the way we interact with the community at QUT. But through QR codes and COVIDsafe launches, you’ve stuck it out with us through thick and thin. Thank you.

In semester one, Christina, Ella, and Tom joined the team for Reset, where we began to explore university life during the pandemic. This evolved into semester two’s Complicated, in which our contributors leant into the beautiful, the profane, and the in-between.

As always, we are incredibly grateful for our online engagement, and your participation in this space has been incredibly heartwarming. With the introduction of the year-round submission window and the very first Glass Newsletter, we are excited to see how this space evolves in the future. Scan the QR codes in this issue to visit our online space and become a part of the

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broader Glass community.

Our biggest thanks goes to our 2021 contributors; from the people who submitted once, to those who were consistently involved with our magazine.

Glass is a home for all QUT students because of your tireless work and stirring contributions. Thank you.

As we approach the new year and reflect on the last 12 months, we also look

Acknowledgement of Country Glass Media and the QUT Guild acknowledge the Turrbal and Jagera peoples as the First Nations owners of the lands where QUT now stands. We pay respect to their Elders, past, present and emerging, their lores, customs, and creation spirits. We recognise that these lands have always been places of teaching, research, learning, and storytelling.

Glass Media and the QUT Guild acknowledge the important role Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples play within the Meanjin community.

Cultural Warning

Glass Media informs readers that the views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this issue of Glass belong solely to the author, and not necessarily express the views of Glass Media or the QUT Guild.

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alumni of QUT. As always, with love.

The Glass Team.

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CHRI

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Disclaimer

are excited to continue sharing this space and platform with the students and

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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are warned that the following magazine may contain references to deceased persons.

forward to the next, and to the future of Glass. With so much past us now, we

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JULIENNE PANCHO

Edited Vulnerability My time as one of the editors at Glass is coming to an end. I’ve

Magazine, in Melbourne. It was nerve wracking. But, Orenda’s

been immensely privileged and proud to have spent the past two

editor, Sophia, treated my work with care and walked me through

years in an editorial position. One of the greatest joys of this time

my first publishing process. I hope that I have been that support

has been publishing hundreds of QUT students and their work.

for many of the contributors to Glass over the past two years.

Media organisations like Glass, like Farrago, like Honi Soit, like

I feel so grateful for the people who have sent in their work, who

Vertigo, like Pelican, serve a multitude of purposes in their

have allowed me to edit their work, have taken on my feedback and

respective university ecosystems. From demanding accountability

edits and made for a great piece in our publication.

from their unions and their universities, to hosting events, to asking questions that need to be answered, student publications are essential. But, one of the greatest purposes a student media publication serves is to help the writers and artists from their university grow and develop. It’s something that university students can do like no one else – send off their work to a fellow student and make something special.

There are a small group of people who have submitted to every print round I’ve edited. I haven’t had an opportunity like this, beyond my own work, to see someone’s unedited writing grow over such a long period. Their work in particular highlights to me how special Glass is. It has transformed, both in quality and content, over the past two years. I have no doubt that I will be seeing their work in other journals long after I have left university.

Alongside the people that submit consistently, there are those that send off their work for the first time. I am so grateful that people trust myself and my fellow editors with such an important role in their writing. It takes an immense amount of strength, selfconfidence and vulnerability to send off your work to a stranger.

I know how I felt when I sent off my first submission to Orenda

These magazines and our online site have been a labour of love for publishing from many QUT students and editors over the years.

I am in awe of what has been achieved in just three years of this publication, considering some university publications have been in circulation for over 50 years.

If you’re reading this, I encourage you to continue supporting your university publication. I encourage you to seek out other community publications, made by independent editors. Our publication is a marker of a moment in time at university, it’s held in the State Library archive for decades to come. What has been made in the past three years is such a solid foundation for the future. I can only imagine what’s to come if this has been the beginning.

To everyone who has trusted me with your work, thank you.

To everyone who will carry this publication on, thank you.

To everyone who has supported, read, or engaged with Glass, thank you.

-Em Readman

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President’s Letter After three years, my time as an executive of the Guild will end on December 1st.

I am proud.

Of our team, staff, and organisation; of the difference we’ve made to the lives of QUT students; of our platform; our resilience, and of myself.

I’ve grown with the Guild. Some of the biggest challenges of my personal life have collided headfirst with my professional one. Yet throughout the turbulence of the past three years, I’ve kept one goal in mind: leave it better than you found it.

Rebuilding foundations and setting the groundwork for a brighter, more prosperous future is hard. It involves a lot of work behind the scenes, late nights, and sometimes thankless tasks. It involves hard conversations, building trust, and constantly finding yourself miles outside of your comfort zone.

This has been more than just a job for me. It’s been something I’ve been passionate about and deeply involved in. I was given an opportunity in 2018 to make a difference, and I took a risk and dove headfirst into something I knew very little about, something exciting and different. Investing so much of yourself in a role means the highs are more exhilarating, and the lows are more devastating. The last three years have changed my outlook on life, politics, and leadership.

I’ve been exposed to things at the Guild that I would never have been anywhere else this early on in my professional life.

But for every hurdle I’ve had to navigate, there has come an accompanying opportunity.

It would be impossible to include even a fraction of the achievements of the last three years in this one letter, so for brevity’s sake, here are the top five:

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1.

Negotiating with QUT to increase the Guild’s SSAF funding

5.

Running several large-scale events to enhance the student

from 3% to 20%, further increasing to 25% in the following

experience. These included a 6-week ‘Wellfest’ program

year.

which focused on financial, social, and mental wellbeing and featured dozens of expert panellists and contributors

This year the Guild secured $1.535 million in funding. This money

from around Australia.

has been invested straight back into students and paid for social sport, club funding, free sanitary items, support for students

The Student Market also gave student entrepreneurs with small

on placement, foodbank and transport support, paying student

businesses an opportunity to promote them on campus showcasing

performers, funding for autonomous collectives, and many other

the incredible talent at QUT. Our Adulting 101 sessions included

initiatives. Student money should be in students’ hands, and I’m so

various life-skills-based workshops, including how to budget, CV

proud of what we’ve achieved given the position we started from.

writing, sustainability, rental rights, career help, and academic

2.

Successfully lobbying for an overhaul to academic

integrity.

concessions and student misconduct procedures and

I feel so privileged and grateful to the student community at QUT

working with the university to develop more student-

for enabling us to achieve all that we have by placing their trust

friendly policies.

in our administration year after year. I am excited to pass on the

After years of advocacy, steering committees, focus groups, policy

reigns to a new group of enthusiastic student representatives.

re-drafts, and what felt like a never-ending mountain of red tape,

Student unionism is about ensuring that the student’s voice is

the harsh late assessment policy – which meant that any student

at the centre of university decision making. Good quality higher

who submitted a second late received a grade of 0 – was amended.

education is the cornerstone of our democratic society, and

From the end of this year, students will be able to access automatic

sadly right now, it is under threat. Universities should be places

48-hour extensions for any assignment, and the extension and

of idealism that foster curiosity and academic rigour. Funding

concessions process will be more straightforward to navigate.

for higher education should be a bipartisan priority. The shift

Additionally, student misconduct procedures will be simplified

towards a corporate governance model of higher education will

based on recommendations from the Guild to centre around an

be nothing but a detriment to the prosperity and innovation of

educative approach that prioritises student welfare in place of the

our future society.

pseudo-legal committee system and long wait times that currently exist.

3.

Strong independent student unions are best placed to fight against this shift, and I am confident that the new Guild administration will

Developing a five-year strategic plan for the organisation

continue this fight to ensure that every student at QUT receives

that looks to the future and prioritises growth, high-quality

the education they deserve

services, and financial stability.

Liv

This has included hiring nine new staff to fill the gaps in our service delivery, particularly in the student advocacy and marketing space, updating our internal policies and procedures, and cultivating a positive and rewarding workplace culture that focuses on retention.

4.

Overhauling the governance structure of the organisation to introduce a Board of Directors.

This new structure will promote good governance through oversight, accountability, and an appropriate balance between continuity and renewal. It will ensure a diversity of relevant skills and expertise and that the student representatives who lead the Guild are given the mentorship and guidance to govern well.

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Contents

Interviews

Fiction

Swallowing the Universe with

Inclement Weather............................................28

Trent Dalton............................................................14

Boys on Trains..................................................... 54

I Have OCD but My Life is a Mess............... 44

Going Back............................................................ 50

An Interview with Olympian and QUT Student Jack McLoughlin.............................. 48

Memoir The Space I Take Up...........................................18

Reviews Untold Resilience by Future Women........22 Lorde - Solar Power............................................31

A Year in Review: QUT Literary Salon - 2021 Green Jacket.........................................................36 Trolltunga...............................................................37 River Split Rock Slick .......................................42

Poetry argr.............................................................................23

Non-Fiction

Loop..........................................................................23

QUT Introduces New ‘Easier’ 48-Hour Extension Policy...................................................12

Art/Photography

An Open Letter to Men from an Exhausted Woman.............................................16

Aimee Yarrow........................................................16 In Search for Nostalgia......................................21

Has #MeToo Gone Too Far?..........................24

Sam Hope........................ 29-30/39-42/54-55

Now I’m 22, What Do I Do?............................25

Ronia Garrett-Benson...............................32-34

Meet Esther Vale: QUT Graduate and Organiser of Viral LGBTQ+ Rights Queensland Parliament Petition.................26

Julienne Pancho........................................ 3/10-11 Glass 2021 Wrapped........................................... 8 Coffee Map.............................................................62

A Better Blended Learning Approach in Universities is Sorely Needed..................52 On Community, Safe Spaces, and Art: The QUT Guild Queer Lounge......................56 Gossip Glass..........................................................58

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Glass 2021 Wrapped Glass Editors (Up until Nov 30th)

730 days

Em has served as Glass Editor for a total of 730 days

364 days

Ella has served 364 days

Glass Social Media

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85 people have shared the Glass Facebook page

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Tom & Christina have served a total of 301 days

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Glass Website 85 articles

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Glass Events 6 events

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY JULIENNE PANCHO

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QUT Introduces New ‘Easier’ 48-Hour Extension Policy WRITTEN BY CHRISTINA SIMONOSKI

So you’ve probably already heard, the University Academic Board

Seeing the University implement this alternative solution to

recently approved changes to the Student Academic Concessions

removing the 0% Policy is a sombre victory for student advocacy,

policy (see MOPP E/6.3.5(d)). QUT officials claim “the newly revised

despite the QUT Guild and other student advocacy groups’

policy is intended to positively impact student wellbeing and staff

constant efforts to remove or alter the policy.

processes.”

So what is actually changing?

Here are some of the official examples of how the new policy will work

There is one addition and one fundamental change to the existing

Example 1 - Student A’s assignment is due on 11 February at 11:59

policy, and it includes improvements that students at QUT have

pm. They are called into work on 10 February at 6 pm. They

wanted for a while.

can complete the application for an automatic extension as it

Automatic 48-hour assignment extension without documentation Upon application, students will be automatically granted a 48-hour extension from the original due date (not the date of application).

This addition is called an ‘informal extension’ in the policy. This new type of extension will be available 48 hours before the original due date. The aim is to support students who are unexpectedly interrupted when completing an assignment when the due date is imminent.

Special consideration is being replaced The special consideration form is often underused and can be hard to understand what it is exactly used for. The University has decided to replace the singular application with specifically named concessions: final grade adjustment; and reweighted, alternative or additional assessment.

The University also wants to remind everyone that the existing process for extension based upon special circumstances is unchanged. There are no changes to deferred exams, assessments for students with a disability or supplementary exams – and no removal or adjustment of the 0% late policy.

is within 48 hours of the original due date. After application, an extension to 13 February 11:59 pm is automatically granted.

Example 2 - Student B’s assignment is due on 11 February at 11:59 pm. Their internet fails at 10 pm on 11 February and is restored at 8 am on 12 February. They can complete the application for an automatic extension as it is within 48 hours of the original due date. After application, an extension to 13 February 11:59 pm is automatically granted.

So, when can I apply for a 48-hour automatic extension?

Surprisingly the automatic 48-hour assignment extension won’t commence till after 1 November 2021. The University has made it clear that it will not be available in semester 2, 2021 or in teaching periods that start before 1 November.

When asked about the University’s decision to implement the policy during the summer semester, QUT Guild President Olivia Brumm informed Glass that, “the University wants to test the efficacy and procedure of the new policy within a smaller cohort to allow for feedback and improvements.” The QUT Guild Secretary stated that “the reason behind this decision, although to most student’s frustration, is likely another case of the University letting their administrative processes burden the rights of student welfare.”

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The red tape that has delayed this decision is frustrating as the decision to do something about the 0% Policy was public on 16 November last year. Nevertheless, students will still face a 0% Policy but more time to complete the assessments during hard times, no questions asked.

What else is changing?

Other academic concession changes, including the replacement of the special consideration form, will be introduced from semester 1, 2022. The University has communicated to staff that “further information and training will be provided over the coming months.”

So, we may find some more answers about the scope and application of these new concessions once they decide how the new concessions will be applied and of use to staff and students.

It will be interesting to see how this impacts students’ and staff’s other uses for the special consideration form. For example, will final grade adjustment/reweighting the assessment be the correct form for students who may not perform to their usual standard? Hopefully, the University can provide us with examples of applications for this process.

The Glass Team will bring you the latest when we find out more.

This article was originally published online at qutglass.com on the 23rd of September 2021

NON-FICTION

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INTERVIEW

Swallowing the Universe with Trent Dalton WRITTEN BY TOM LOUDON

When Boy Swallows Universe was published in 2018, its author,

“Oh Tom! Of course,” he says like he’s known me for years. When I

Trent Dalton, was known for the flowery prose of his feature

ask him if I could get in touch with him for an interview, he loudly

articles. Well regarded in the world of journalism, his debut novel

shouts his personal email address and one of my coworkers

put him in another spotlight entirely. One year — and 140,000 sales

commits it to memory.

— later Dalton had four Australian Book Industry awards, a second novel on the way, and glowing reviews in the New York Times and Washington Post.

HarperCollins, who insists that Trent is on a deadline and not doing any media commitments. Half an hour later, Trent replies

So, it was a surprise when the QUT Literary Salon announced

to my original email with his personal phone number, and asks me

Dalton as a guest speaker last May.

to text him any questions.

The teenage protagonist of Boy Swallows Universe, Eli Bell, lives a

Dalton doesn’t feel like he needs to be managed.

remarkable life - one soon to be immortalised in a sold-out stage adaptation by Queensland Theatre, and a small-screen adaptation headed by Joel Edgerton. In about 450-pages Eli navigates domestic violence, an international drug syndicate, and an infatuation with an older woman. But perhaps the most remarkable part of his life is the fact that it is based on Dalton’s.

“It’s from my twenty years as a journo. It’s that idea that if you can’t sit down at the desk and write for eight hours as a journalist you lose your job. And then the mortgage doesn’t get paid and your kids don’t go to school. These are very powerful motivations and I try to look at any fiction writing I do in exactly the same way. So, I usually start at about eight o’clock and I’ll go right to twelve. Eight

“When I was in grade six my teacher told my dad at a parent teacher

to twelve are my best writing hours — I love those writing hours. I

night that she was convinced I was going to become the leader of

don’t really need any convincing or any external encouragement

an outlaw motorcycle gang,” Dalton later tells me, when after I ask

to do it because I feel like I’m the luckiest bastard on earth and I

how his life has deviated from his expectations.

try to recognise that every day.”

“It’s certainly turned out a lot different.”

Dalton had come to the Lit Salon as a QUT alum and a Brisbane

I’d been to a Lit Salon before and was familiar with the format; six readers, six pieces, a small crowd. On this particular night it was

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When I do email him, his auto-reply defers me to his publicist at

native. When I ask him about Brisbane writing specifically, the event is still firmly in his mind.

seven readers, seven pieces, and a healthier audience. Among

“I just had the pleasure recently of going ... to see the incredible

the art students and introverts, Dalton’s straightforward style

creative writing students at QUT do an open mic storytelling

and labrador energy stood out. As his desire to personally meet

night where they read stories about Brisbane from their own lives,

everyone in attendance became more obvious, this energy became

and it was the most inspiring thing I think I’ve seen in a year and

infectious. When I finally caught him, he was on his way out. But

some of the most incredible stuff I’ve heard come out the mouth

there was plenty more of Dalton to go around.

of young writers.”

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“I can’t wait to see what’s ahead for those young writers I saw.

“David Malouf, massive inspiration. Matt Condon, who’s a dear friend of mine, his work, particularly on Brisbane crime has been hugely influential. Kris Olsson — who was actually my QUT creative writing tutor — she was deeply influential in the fact that she got me my first writing job and that I wouldn’t be possibly alive without her.”

He talks about writing from his life, and I glean a little more of the real-life story of Eli Bell. Half of Boy Swallows was “too close to home”, and Dalton came close to losing control. But he stresses that our role as writers is to speak with our own voices.

But particularly the way you approach your writing. Because what comes from enthusiasm is curiosity, and what comes from curiosity are answers. All the answers come when you’re enthusiastic. “[I think that’s been] the thing that’s gotten me where I am today.”

But where he is today is not Dalton’s final destination, as he continues to grow up every day.

“Be careful not to lose yourself in your own fricken head. When you meet the love of your life and you’re in the kitchen cooking dinner and they’re talking to you about the important things that are in their head, don’t be in your head thinking about your fricken

“Whether we let people know that we’re writing close to home or

story! Make sure you listen to them and you open up to them and

not is a different story.

you remember that there’s a whole wide world out there that exists

“And for me doing that was extremely, deeply cathartic, and it was that or drinking straight burbon every Wednesday night. For me

beyond your brain and your own little story bubble.”

“I’m actively learning those things as we speak.”

writing a 100,000-word novel is much healthier than that. I think it’s important for us to mine the things that are troubling us. And I think I’ll be digging down into that quarry of emotion for the rest of my life, because just because I wrote some of that stuff in Boy Swallows Universe doesn’t mean I’ve sorted it all out and I look forward to processing that in the future.

“Not to sound like a Bruce Springsteen song or anything but when I was growing up ... you don’t think of anything like what has happened to me as possible or for you, because there’s this invisible wall keeping you away from that and that’s called the outer suburbs of Brisbane. If you don’t know what’s beyond that invisible wall you don’t know that certain things exist.

“That’s not just me being writerly or anything that’s just a fact.

I thought for all money I was headed for the G James Glass and Aluminium factory on Kingsford Smith Drive because that’s where a lot of my mates went to work and that’s a good life and it pays well and you can buy a nice house in Bracken Ridge with a job like that and I was ready to go down that road. And I reckon I would have been happy enough. But I’m just so glad I saw some other things and I got to exactly where I think I belong.”

Underneath Dalton’s approachable, energetic exterior is a complicated person, characterised only in part by past trauma.

Dalton has never stopped learning and has never lost his enthusiasm for life, which is — if anything — his biggest secret.

“In life and in writing – be enthusiastic. Enthusiasm is the most underrated human emotion,” Dalton implores.

“I’m talking about the fricken way you get out of the bed ... I’m talking about the way you treat your friends and your relationships and the way you listen to music and the way you look at birds flying in the sky and the way you talk to your mum on the phone.

This article was originally published online at qutglass.com on the 29th of July 2021 and in Issue #12, Complicated. Read the full transcript online here.

INTERVIEW

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WRITTEN BY ELLA BRUMM

An Open Letter to Men from an Exhausted Woman Trigger warning: Sexual assault and violence against women

Dear Men (yes, all Men), Over the previous weekend – which you may have spent drinking with mates, having a laugh and going out to the valley – four of my closest girlfriends and I spent our Saturday night crying in a room together.

You see, we are all fucking exhausted.

The news coming out of the UK of Sarah Everard’s tragic murder, allegedly at the hands of a London police officer, has spurred an outcry of anger and frustration from women around the world. It has prompted us all to relive our own experiences with violence, sexual assault and harassment.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY AIMEE YARROW

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While our male friends left to go out

my own trauma along with every other

they are perpetuating it. Not every rape

last Saturday night, my girlfriends and I

woman, while combating inflammatory

joke leads to rape, but every rape starts

discussed our own traumatic experiences.

statements from men. You aren’t asking

with a problematic comment that none of

We became enraged and disheartened as

‘what about International Men’s Day?’

you pulled them up on.

we soon realised, we have all faced similar

because you truly care – if you did you

incidents.

would already know this day is recognised

At the start of the night, we angrily voiced our frustration at the patriarchy. By the end of the night, we were unpacking years of suppressed feelings that had been eroding our self-confidence, leaving

on November 19th. You aren’t exclaiming at every chance you get ‘not all men’ because you want to soften the blow for women.

You make these remarks because you feel uncomfortable and you feel threatened.

The perfect man does not exist. You can say that’s inflammatory and generalising but I say you’re wrong. Sweeping statements about men are not hurting you but providing you with nuance is hurting us. I don’t care if all of you are not bad because I don’t have the luxury to decipher between

behind a fractured shell of armour tasked

I know this because this is not a women’s

the two. If you were in a pit of snakes where

with the impossible job of protecting us

issue. It’s a men’s issue. And it’s yours to

some were venomous, would you take the

against future attacks.

solve. I know you feel attacked because you

time to think ‘well, I can’t be rash because

are not perfect – no one is. But you have

not all these snakes will hurt me and it’s not

made misogynistic jokes, and in turn you

right to hurt the feelings of the ‘good ones’?

have laughed at them. You have called us

No! You would find the quickest way out

a slut and believed we deserve that label.

of the pit because they’re fucking snakes!

Ever y woman knows the feeling of walking alone at night, heart racing and blood rushing to our head as we enter a heightened state of adrenaline, ready to protect ourselves if needed. If you don’t know already, there are some very simple tasks you may take for granted.

It is habitual for women to walk with keys between our fingers at night, mute our music on public transport, wear comfortable shoes that we can run in when going out, share our location with trusted friends and family before we leave for a date, resist the urge to retaliate when being catcalled or yelled at from a car, prepare ourselves for flight when a group

You have pushed the boundaries when we have said we feel uncomfortable, and consequently blamed us for leading you on. You have bought us drinks at the bar, thinking we are suddenly in debt to you and must owe you our bodies. You have moved your hand back down our pants

comforting your egos anymore. I will not

a woman you are still benefiting from the

sugar coat my words to make this issue

system that is oppressing us.

more comfortable for you. You need to

answer this question with 100% certainty:

and comments from random men.

where were you when it was happening?

us’. We take on these precautions and the burden that comes with constant threat because it’s our issue, right? We can’t pull you guys up on your behaviour because that will make you feel uncomfortable and, God forbid, we make you uneasy about your

Why didn’t you call your friend out when they made a rape joke? Why weren’t you

pick up your act and tell the other men around you to do the same.

Sincerely with much frustration, An ally and survivor

bitch in any meaning of the word? Why didn’t you educate them that no means no and can’t be manipulated into a yes?

Why didn’t you burst their entitlement when they exacerbated frustration that a drink didn’t get them laid? Why didn’t you report, stop, and call out rape culture as it was happening?

For every woman who has had these

reminded when the endemic issue of

experiences there is a man who could have

violence against women is mentioned that

prevented it from happening in the first

it’s ‘not all men!’

place. The onus should not be on us to not

the past week, I have been reeling from

understand that the burden is on you. So,

there to tell them to stop saying slut and

problematic actions. We are continually

Well, I have simply had enough of this. In

praised with a ‘good’ man award.

have caused. I am exhausted. I will not be

want to wear will attract unsolicited leers

that was just his way of showing ‘he liked

it means to be a decent person and yet be

that even if you have not actively assaulted

never done these acts, well, can you

primary school – which was okay because

satisfy the minimum requirements of what

It is not our job to repair the damage you

feel discouraged knowing the outfit we

a boy pushes us down and teases us in

benefits from the current system. You can

gone about your life misunderstanding

If you can say for certain that you have

raped are drilled into us from the moment

privilege are still receiving unearned

after we already pushed it away. You have

of men walk towards us on the street, and

These measures that protect us from being

Even those of you who understand your

This article was originally published online at qutglass.com on the 18th of March 2021

get raped; it should be on you to not rape and to hold other men accountable when NON -FICTION

17

The Space I Take Up WRITTEN BY EMMA NAYFIE

I’m 11 years old when I realise that I

photos that day I make sure my mouth

take up too much space. Mum takes me

twists in a sad scowl so that everyone

straight from school to buy an outfit for

knows it. Mum tells me not to worry - the

my impending Confirmation at St Mary’s

outfit makes me look slimmer. That’s what

Catholic Church. One of eight girls in the

matters. It’s unspoken, but it sits heavily in

church group, I’m the only one that hasn’t

the air between us.

been able to find a pretty dress to fit my large frame. For me, a young girl with heavy

*

When I’m 16, I realise I’m ugly. I’m washing

time and hips that demanded sizes from

my hands in the bathroom of my friend

the women’s section in department stores,

Carly’s house. She’s throwing a party;

I have slim chances of finding anything

there are boys from school here, Nirvana

that didn’t resemble either a grown

songs on repeat, and warm bodies that

woman’s bridal gown or a large, sequined

stop just short of touching. It’s 1997

garbage bag.

and I’ve perfected the art of deflecting

item choices in my size outside of the bridal boutique are limited to the polyester-filled racks at Millers Fashion. I flatly refuse to try anything from these ‘old people shops’,

attention from my bulky frame by wearing an oversized Smashing Pumpkins t-shirt, baggy jeans, silver Doc Martens, black nail polish and box-dyed black hair. A strong I totally don’t care what you think vibe.

so I watch my mother dive into the back of

I hear Carly’s voice through the wall

clothing racks at Target, trying to reach

between us – she’s in her room doing her

an elusive size 16 dress. We don’t find one.

makeup with our friend Taylor, who’s got a

I leave that day with a dark grey, floor length polyester skirt and a modest, longsleeved black top. I hate it, and in all the

QUTGLASS.COM

*

breasts that developed far ahead of their

In mid-1990s Bundaberg, formal fashion

18

*

similarly large body to my own. You might be fat Tay, but you can change that, she says matter-of-factly. At least you’re not ugly like Emma. You can’t change ugly.

I see myself reflected in the mirror above

I start by throwing away the magazines I’ve

that it is in some way faulty or unworthy

the sink, but there’s something new there

collected over the years; hundreds of pages

of respect. He shrugs, not wanting to

now, a crookedness in my nose, one eye

of diets that promise to help me burn belly

get into a confrontation. Perhaps some

slightly bigger than the other, blotchy

fat, products to help transform my skin,

exercise then?

freckles in a sunburst across my forehead.

burst my capillaries into smoothness, laser

I poke at the new geometry of my face, and

away soft edges and suck flesh from the

it fills me with shame. Not only do I take

stubborn pockets of my thighs; so many

more than my fair share of space in this

ways to erase all the colours of ourselves

world, I’ve tarnished that space with this

that have bled outside the lines of a bland,

asymmetry, with these blemishes. It takes

uniform ideal of a woman.

me another 16 years before I question my place in this world. *

*

*

At 32, I have a seven-year-old daughter who slips into the bathroom while I’m drying myself from the shower. She examines herself in the mirror, frowning.

What are you so grumpy about? I ask. I’m not very pretty, she tells me, and it feels like a slap across my face.

Later, a friend suggests my size could be put to good use in the gym, so I begin training for powerlifting and strongwoman and they’re right. My physical strength surprises me at first, and people around me begin to admire the weights I can move not

I find an online community of women who

just in spite of my size, but because of it. My

are rejecting this pressure to conform.

depression and anxiety scores improved

They call themselves “fat acceptance

steadily, and I find myself discovering

activists” and their bible is a book called

reserves of self-esteem within myself that

Health at Every Size by Lindo Bacon, PhD.

I had never experienced before. There’s

“Once you consider the extent of the

a saying in the gym that “weight moves

magical thinking that tends to be tied in

weight”, so as my proficiency in weight

to the fantasy of thinness,” he says, “you

lifting increased, so do the numbers on

can understand how threatening it is to

the scale.

consider the idea that you may never get the thin body you crave. It means that

*

*

*

When I ask why she thinks she’s not pretty,

you never get to become the person you

In four years, I add 30 kilograms to

she tells me that she’s fat, her arms are too

want to be.” His words stick to the walls of

my frame and I do it unapologetically.

big, her stomach too soft. I could summon

my heart.

Convinced that the fantasy of thinness is

a multitude of platitudes in response, but all I can manage is to pull her close and hug her tightly.

I read Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth.

She tells me that “a cultural fixation on female thinness is not an obsession about

So many of us spend our lives feeling not

female beauty but an obsession about

beautiful, just shy of pretty. There are

female obedience” and once I’ve read that

unwritten rules on the space we hold

I can’t unread it. Each bite I take is an act

in this world, and our culture demands

of protest.

payment from anyone that fails to conform to the elusive optimum standards of size

*

*

designed to oppress those that believe it, and buoyed by the community of strong women I train alongside, I grow in ways not always visible on the bathroom scales.

Over those years I come to believe that the space we take up isn’t really a physical ideal, rather it’s the promise of power, for which we relinquish what power we

*

already hold within ourselves.

and beauty, regardless of how fickle and

I am 33 when I find myself sitting in my

I gain weight in rebellion against the

shifting these standards are.

doctor’s office, sobbing into a tissue as he

beauty fantasies that hurt women around

records my responses to the K10 Anxiety

the world, from women in India who scar

and Depression Checklist. My blood

their faces with bleaching creams in the

pressure was through the roof, and the

quest for lighter skin, to Asian women who

depression so severe I spent several days

have surgery to re-configure their eyelids

at home in a near-catatonic state before

in order to make their eyes appear rounder.

my husband insisted on taking me to

I gain weight to show my daughter that it

the doctor.

does not define my worth as a woman, as

I am angry; at the world, for starting to shape my daughter in its image, at myself for all those times I’d criticised my own body with my daughter in earshot. For criticising myself at all. I know this has to be the moment things change. *

*

*

I need you to think about losing some

a human being.

weight. He says it gently, but I immediately

My stomach grows, along with my breasts,

bristle at my GP’s suggestion that my

my hips, my thighs. After years of trying

mental health issues can be solved by

to whittle myself down to a smaller

weighing any less than I do. I am protective

space, how strange and wonderful it feels

of my body and will not stand for being told

to see my flesh stretch not in shame, but possibility. *

*

* MEMOIR

19

I am 37 years old, my eyes squinting at

I’ve lost a few friends since the surgery, but

the stark brightness cast by the hospitals

not in any explosive argument or war of

florescent lighting. The nurse tells me

words. They’ve simply stepped back from

the sleeve gastrectomy surgery has

our friendship, or faded away completely.

been successful, and I’m being moved

I am seen as a traitor to the fat acceptance

to my private suite. The pain is intense,

cause; someone who succumbed to the

so the nurse refills my intravenous pain

fantasy of thinness, a perpetuator of the

medication and soon after the cool sting

unrealistic beauty standards. That I’ve

begins to travel through my veins, I drift

sacrificed the space I should take up in the

off to sleep wondering if I’ve made the

world in order to fit into that elusive ideal.

right choice. *

*

*

Twelve months before the surgery, I had walked out of my office and fallen into bed at home, utterly burnt out. Strength training had been the prescription for my mental health issues and I filled it three times a week for the last two years. It was an incredibly effective medicine, supported by anti-depressant medication and regular psychotherapy. But as I grew in size, my endurance levels in the gym suffered. My knees ached from the

My daughter, now 15, bursts into the bathroom. She wipes the steam off the mirror with the sleeve of her hoodie and moves her face closer to the mirror.

What’cha doing? I ask from the tub. She pokes at a red lump on her chin, a blind pimple that’s threatening to erupt. Urgh, period pimples. She sighs, and I grimace in sympathy. Lucky I’m freaking amazing though, right? She throws me this weird hand sign I’ve seen the kids do on TikTok, smiles and bounces out of the bathroom, forgetting to shut the door.

extra weight, and as I struggled with high

Over the last six years I’ve learned that I

repetitions of particular exercises, my

won’t be able to shield my daughter from

technique failed and I spent an increasing

the forces in our society that conspire

amount of time on the bench with injury.

to turn her against herself, but I have

The medication didn’t help either, stirring

taught her to understand that the space

an insatiable craving for food to fill an

we take up doesn’t have anything to do

emptiness in my soul that the medication

with something physical. The choices I

created. Training became sporadic, then

have made to show love to my body and

non-existent.

mind may not appear on the surface to

Without this element of self-care, my mental health issues returned with a vengeance. My doctor gave me a referral to a surgeon to discuss options around

be acts of body acceptance, but I am absolutely certain that they have helped me to understand who I am on a level that surpasses the physical.

weight loss surgery. If you love your mind

The bath might seem deeper now, but I feel

as much as you love your body, you might

like I take up much more space within it.

want to think about this he said. I called the surgery the next day. *

*

*

I am 38 when I lower my body into the porcelain-white bathtub, the steam rising in soft curls off the milky flesh of my thighs. I sink deeper, marvelling at the way my stomach disappears under the surface of the water. I am 40 kilograms lighter than I was a year ago, and the bath seems a lot deeper now.

20

QUTGLASS.COM

This article was originally published online at qutglass.com on the 4th of August 2021 and in Issue 12, Complicated

ARTWORK BY PIPIER WELLER

In Search for Nostalgia: In Search for Nostalgia (2020) is a six-part series that features archival family photos that have been digitally overlaid with nostalgic objects and environments from my childhood home.

The process of digital manipulation, layering, exploration, and collecting were used. This series was my response to the robbed memories COVID-19 stole during lockdown in 2020. As the title suggests, these works were a therapeutic process that allowed me to search for happier and nostalgic times during a year of isolation and uncertainty. @pipierweller

This work was originally published in Issue 12, Complicated

ART/PHOTOGRAPHY

21

BOOK REVIEW

through devastating losses of the people

While many of these essays detail women

closest to them, but their stories have been

going through terrible, terrible hardship,

told through the lens of the isolation they

the highlight of this book is in the name.

experienced as they wrote their stories,

The resilience of these women is nothing

compiled remotely during the lockdown

short of breathtaking. From heartfelt fights

in Australia. Each woman is over the age

for equality to gentle yet fierce acts of

of sixty, and their writings reflect their

survival, the women featured in this book

breadth of experience. The Future Women

are extraordinary. They write their stories

editorial team of journalists worked with

with an unimaginable humility, with grace

the writers of these essays to uncover their

and a tenacity that can only be achieved

stories, bringing the curation to print at

after going through the unimaginable.

the end of October 2020.

The 19 women have become installed

The essay that struck me most was written by Faye Snaith. Faye was 92 at the time of writing. Her writing is filled

Untold Resilience

By Future Women WRITTEN BY EM READMAN

It seems almost surreal to be reading a book that heavily features COVID-19. It feels so recent and raw and – as recent lockdowns show – we’re not out of the woods yet. But, here I am, having read Untold Resilience.

which impressed me far beyond what I had

her, it felt so vibrant through the way

expected. With most essay collections, it

she described everyday aspects of her

is easy to read in spare moments, an essay

past and present. She writes about the

at a time – however, this was one of those

pandemics she has lived through before

books that I started and didn’t stop until

COVID-19, such as polio outbreaks, and

I was done. The editorial team at Future

how her sense of resilience helped her

Women has curated a stirring collection

weather the Melbourne lockdowns. As a

that unearths how these featured women

high-risk person for COVID-19, she spent

survive, grow and exude resilience.

a significant amount of time in the strictest of isolation periods.

featured in this review was provided to Glass and Em Readman free of charge by

and now, the final years of her life were

Penguin Random House as a press copy.

being taken from her too, I thought

However, the opinions of the reviewer are

of my grandmother and my sister. My

their own.

and couldn’t see her for a long time. My

are written by women across Australia,

sister, because she has lost so many

ref lecting on the theme of resilience.

formative moments to COVID-19 that

What makes women resilient? What makes

she couldn’t spend with family and close

women pillars of their communities?

friends, such as her final year of school,

How do we take the trauma and hardship

receiving her driver’s licence, and her 18th

that we have been through and turn it

birthday. Of course, while I feel sad that I

into something we can celebrate and be

couldn’t share these moments with her,

proud of?

I recognise that they pale in significance

Pandemic, discrimination. These women have lived in disaster zones, they have lived

QUTGLASS.COM

Random House Australia. Note: The book

youth was stolen from her in isolation

a vulnerable person during the pandemic

are varied. War, exile and migration, the

Untold Resilience is out now from Penguin

When she wrote about how she felt her

Future Women. The 19 essays in the book

through. The hardships they have faced

22

Untold Resilience is a remarkable book,

collection, curated by the organisation

the ability to overcome what they have been

our everyday lives.

for life. As domestic as it seemed for

grandmother, because I worried for her as

who have one thing in common; they have

is a hallmark of how tenacity manifests in

with sharp humour and evident love

Untold Resilience is a non-fiction essay

This book is filled with stories of women

inspirations in my life and this collection

when looking at the global tragedy this pandemic has been. However, Faye’s philosophy that life is simply a collection of moments helped me to feel validated in mourning those lost moments because the moments we share with our families, friends, and communities is what makes for a whole and complete life.

This article was originally published online at qutglass.com on the 15th of February 2021

POETRY

Content warning: this work deals with topics of suicide, grief,

argr Someone else stands in the mirror Reflective chrome coating applied to fragile laughter Gaze travels down to her chest

Loop

self-harm, gender dysphoria, transphobia and includes profanity.

picked apart on a spinning wheel we can’t keep doing this — rolling around in an unmade bed pulling pieces from the fray and wearing them like honours so debauched, so futureless

Hey asshole, my eyes are up here

so lonely in each other

I stare into them, my pupils contract

we love one another more tenderly

She is all I can see

in dreams, we reach absolution in the same old tears and warm

She will be present until the day I die Play her up with winged eyeliner and red lipstick Streaks in my foundation, smudged mascara Don’t worry It’s a stylistic choice

breath whispers of repentance. we’re so manipulated, so maligned, so malicious to each other we say we can do better and yet

Goth god

here we are at another inroads —

Trickster Aesir

the end of history, emergency transmission, the play-by-play

Janus, tranny, shemale, argr

of our self-destruction, lashing out and lashing in, a stab in the

Someone else stands in the mirror Dysphoria painted over shapeshifters and decomposition Gaze travels up to her eyes Windows to the soul splitting like frozen plastic

back and the front and wherever it counts and I wear a piece that cripples my conscience and

She whispers, you are oracle and king

you boycott the game and go

And I am the unwelcome outcome.

to sleep in our unmade bed.

WRITTEN BY ALEX RICH

WRITTEN BY JAK KIRWIN

POETRY

23

SATIRE

Has #MeToo gone too far?

We assembled a diverse panel of men to discuss FROM THE GLASS GAZETTE

Heavily discussed in recent weeks has

“I just want to say that I really do believe in

“It was a different time and a different

been the topic of women’s safety – at home,

equality between the two genders,” Jorgen

culture, or are you saying that people like

on campus, and in public spaces.

emphasised between sips of tea from his

me are in the wrong now?

After the National Summit on Women’s Safety ended without much resolution

“But if you are looking at equal – where are

the Glass editorial board decided to think

the male writers and researchers on the

about what we could do to shed some light

topic of women’s safety?”

on the important issue.

The #MeToo movement has been an important precursor to women coming forward to talk about assault and trauma publicly.

But recent incidents involving our friends from private school really had us wondering if the movement has gone too far.

Richard Tate, a 24-year-old mechanical engineering student, was quick to remind us that not all men should be targeted by threats of accountability.

“I think we are getting better in terms of women’s rights and that stuff,” he said.

“Like, take me – I’m a good guy, right? I don’t make comments about women and

“In fact, I would like to see a little more research into men’s safety.”

The panellists all left their individual marks on the issue, and collectively raised the question, what are women going to do about women’s safety?

In an effort to achieve gender equity on the Glass team, and donations from their

from the panellists, before Patrick Riarchy,

respective fathers, we have offered Mr

an 18-year-old store assistant interjected.

Tate, Mr Jorgen, and Mr Riarchy, full time

“I get that we’re kind of playing the devil’s

roles writing opinion columns.

advocate a little bit here, but I do think we

Glass does not stand for misandry or

can find a middle ground.”

straightphobia.

“My dad told me that there are always two

In loving memory of Guy Faux, who

sides to every story and that you should

contracted COVID-19 at a protest in

walk in someone else’s shoes before you

Melbourne. His spirit will live on in our

judge them.

sons and spouses.

“Is it possible that some women just haven’t walked a mile in a man’s shoes?”

Guy Faux, a 68-year-old retired mechanic agrees.

“It’s so different nowadays,” he said.

“But asking me to police the behaviour of

“You know sometimes people really cross

my male friends is really a lot of unpaid

the line, but how can we not cross now that

labour that I didn’t sign up for.”

they’ve moved it.

The idea of men being forced to pick up

“You know, when I was a lad, if they’d have

the slack of a few bad apples was echoed

had all this nonsense they have now, they’d

by Hugh Jorgen, a 39-year-old lecturer of

have called me a creep and come after me.

QUTGLASS.COM

“I find that difficult to believe.”

There were general nods in agreement

that kind of stuff.

Legal Research.

24

‘Bazinga’ mug.

This article was originally published online at qutglass.com on the 28th of September 2021

Now I’m 22, What Do I Do? WRITTEN BY CHRISTINA SIMONOSKI

So, by the time you’re reading this, I’ve finally graduated.

Do I save up for a car or spend money on driving lessons

I keep finding myself wondering what exactly other people were

because I am STILL on my learners?

doing in their 20s and curious about what I should have already achieved by the time I turn 22.

I’ve definitely made a good start with my first significant milestone of completing my bachelor’s degree. Looking

Do I move out of home or wait till I have a car first?

Do I look for work a reasonable distance from my parents or move closer to where I find work?

for ward, I have two more impor tant life events that

Do I live at home and save before moving out with my partner

almost feel like they’re approaching me at a high-speed

or just try to start living independently?

rate. One being my Master’s in Digital Communications that I am actually really excited about and the other... turning 22.

I’ve always felt a sense of pressure to set myself up to be someone my siblings can go to for help, support or advice. A Macedonian upbringing kind of does that to you as the oldest sibling (especially when they’re seven and fifteen years younger than you). I know it’s probably an unhealthy amount of co-dependence, but it’s still something I want to be able to do for my sister and brother as they grow up. So, I can’t help but place these ridiculous expectations of achieving some tangible milestones in my 20s more than any other point in my life.

And look, it’s not the number I have a problem with, really, but

Do I save up for travel or save up for a car???

Will I ever get a car???

Maybe someone wiser than me is reading this chuckling, knowing exactly which decisions to make first, but for now, I’m still stuck in a comparison loop. Social media is probably the culprit for making it all look so easy. I know I can’t study forever, and apart from finding work, I never really know which milestone to reach for next. Everyone my age and everyone I look up to seems to just know what steps to take next, and I can’t help but feel like a baby animal learning how to walk.

Will 22 be the age where I find my footing and finally grow up?

more so the recent realisation that everything after 21 feels like important groundwork. Whether it be building a career, making general life plans, improving my skills, travelling or moving out

This article was originally published in Issue 11, Reset

of my parents’ place.

I don’t know what steps to take first. I know all of them need to happen at some point, but... what do I even start with?

Some people say to work with lists, I like lists too, but I get extremely overwhelmed when it comes to life goals. The tasks I want to work on start to go round in circles like “what comes first, the chicken or the egg?”

NON-FICTION

25

Meet Esther Vale: QUT Graduate and Organiser of Viral LGBTQ+ Rights Queensland Parliament Petition WRITTEN BY EM READMAN

Esther Vale just graduated from a Bachelor of Fine Arts, majoring

The cost of making a change to one’s birth certificate is also an issue

in Film and Television. She’s also behind a Queensland Parliament

and functions as a prohibitive ‘trans tax’. The limit of one name

petition that has garnered almost 10,000 signatures in just over

change per year can also be a roadblock for trans people, and should

a week.

be increased or given exceptions for name changes with reason of

The Petition, Recognise LGBT+ people within the Births, Deaths and

gender affirmation.

Marriages Registration Act, launched on the 15th of Feburary 2021

For recognition of same-sex and non-binary parents, the BDMR

and is sponsored by Maiwar MP, Michael Berkman.

Act should also remove the requirement for parents to be listed as

The petition description is as follows: TO: The Honourable Speaker and Members of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland, Queensland residents draws to the attention of the House that the current legislation is the weakest in the country for recognition of trans and gender diverse people, and should be updated. There are several relatively simple changes that will make a vast increase in inclusivity and acceptance of LGBT+ people.

People should have the right to legally register as they self-identify.

This means removing the requirement for a person to undergo sex reassignment surgery to change the sex listed on their birth

one mother and one father. A gender-neutral approach here will be more inclusive and accurate.

Your petitioners, therefore, request the House to call upon the Attorney General to action reform of the Act, remove the ‘trans tax’, and fix the Registry’s processes.

I met with Esther over Zoom to speak about the phenomenal response to her petition, and what it’s like to have a petition garner the success it has so far.

“When I did the research that showed every other state is behind Queensland, I realised we’ve got to catch up.” Esther started with.

“I wouldn’t have thought we were last but we are.”

certificate. The sex marker should also be changed without

She went on to speak about the petition, stating that she has

‘annotation’, as there is no reason for these documents to out people.

been completely blown away, and says that this huge response

To include people of a third or non-binary gender, birth certificates should at least have an additional ‘X’ option. Queensland should also provide ‘recognised details certificates’ as other States and Territories do.

really shows how much solidarity is in the community, in regards to rights for trans and gender diverse people. She was also quick to mention a petition from another Queensland trans activist, Lorelei Tuxworth, whose Change.org petition to Annastacia Palaszczuk MP, arguing that sex reassignment surgery shouldn’t be necessary to change gender on a birth certificate, ammassed 23,000 signatures last year.

26

QUTGLASS.COM

This article was originally published online at qutglass.com on the 25th of February 2021

Michael Berkman MP and Esther Vale with their Courier Mail Article

Esther says that, “it’s bigger than any one person,” and that it

Despite the petition having almost a month left open, it has already

is, “so much better to have so many people on the campaign.”

caught the attention of the Attorney General, confirming that they

Her humility is a testament to her dedication to the cause she

will definitely introduce updated legislation to the Deaths, Births

is fighting for and her commitment to this change in legislation.

and Marriages Registry Act, but did not specify which pieces of

While this petition is sponsored by Greens MP, Michael Berkman, Esther stresses that this issue is bigger than any political party.

legislation, as Esther highlighted many aspects of the Act that were defunct in her petition description.

“This issue shouldn’t be partisan – I hope wholeheartedly the

This petition has the support of the QUT Guild Queer Collective.

AG introduces the legislation outside of party politics,” she says.

Their statement is plain and simple; “Queensland is the

Esther also said that she was grateful to have Berkman be fully

lowest-ranking state in Australia for recognition of trans and

supportive of her petition.

gender-diverse people. Let’s change that in 2021.”

Michael Berkman MP has been vocal across his social media pages in promotion of the petition. On a Facebook post, he says, “I’m so proud to be sponsoring Esther’s petition and grateful for all the support we’ve had so far. Parliament returns next week, so keep it up and let’s bring Qld LGBT+ recognition into the 21st century!”

Update: On April 27th, the Queensland Attorney General responded to Esther’s petition, reiterating that the Government will introduce legislation to parliament sometime this year.

NON-FICTION

27

Inclement Weather WRITTEN BY CIARAN GREIG

The raindrop landed with a soft thud on

Craig, usually quiet and unimpressed,

Cleo scrunched up her nose. “We could

Mara’s shoulder. For a moment she stared

flashed Mara a quick smile. Cleo pointed

look into it for you.” she said, drawing out

at it, transfixed, as the water absorbed

out a eucalypt nearby, where a sleeping

the last syllable. “I wouldn’t recommend it,

itself into the fabric of her jacket and bled

koala rested while hugging a branch. Mara

though. Who wants rain ruining their hair

across its fibres.

felt a laugh bubble up inside her. There

on their big day?” Cleo smiled, then tilted

was something about the delight of it all.

her head.

“Of course, most couples organise a back-up venue in case of inclement weather.”

Cleo, the venue manager, peeked down at the suede-detailed wedges on her feet.

Mara had noticed Cleo’s wedges when they first arrived at The Elderflower Estate moments ago. The shoes were impeccably, impossibly clean – especially for a woman who supposedly spent her days traipsing

When had she ever seen anything so simple before? So pure?

Mara closed her eyes for a second. Was it

They booked the venue, eventually. Mara

When she opened them, the venue manager

paid the deposit herself, watching the

was zipping open the entrance to the

funds disappear from her bank balance in

marquee and Craig was helping her part

an instant. None of it felt completely real. As

the clear plastic sheets that held the front

spring slid into summer, she found herself

piece together.

spending more and more time talking

Mara squinted at the marquee, her eyes

imagined that Cleo had a supply of baby

struggling to adjust. It was as if her brain

wipes stashed somewhere on her person,

didn’t know how to focus on the mass of

ready to smudge away any hint of mud.

thick plastic in the midst of the trees and

felt another raindrop sink itself into the hair on her crown. The sky above them was aflame with leaden clouds. Craig, her fiancé, squeezed her hand.

Cleo led them up a leafy, winding path.

The marquee appeared suddenly, standing alone in a wide clearing. A mass of gumtrees

she explained to Craig one night, through a mouth full of Pad Thai. The useless

its transparency, absurd in its clean lines

standing fan they had propped up in their

and pointed corners.

living room squeaked urgently and the air

In her peripheral vision, Craig waved his arms, mouthing something to her. Come on. Mara hurried in to join them.

out the space between the valley and the

clean. The plastic filtered the light

clouds. Mara could hear birds nearby,

flawlessly. Quiet and temperate.

always made her feel like she was playing

wiped a layer of sweat off her forehead. “It’s just all this wedding crap. I’m over it.”

The summer before the wedding brought fire: hot and wild, spreading across the country like a rash. They watched the f laming maps on TV, noticed how the fire skirted around the hinterland near their wedding venue. Mara found herself

seating layout you’d like,” Cleo said. “Bridal

waking up frequently in the small hours

table at the top, through the middle,

of the morning, so sure that their whole

circular tables – ”

world had collapsed into grimy ash. It

witness to a whole, beautiful eco-system

Mara looked beyond the confines of the

at work.

marquee. She could see a large clearing in

“Could we sit outside?”

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in the room was thick with warmth. She

“We can accommodate just about any

the distance, slightly overgrown. Scraggly.

28

stop talking about the wedding.

then back to the marquee. It was ghostly in

perfect. It was exceptionally, profoundly

of the creek she grew up by. The smell of it

talking about the wedding. She wanted to

“It’s not that I don’t want to get married,”

trees, a line of ragged mountains carved

dust-like from the rain. It reminded Mara

colleagues. She felt like she was always

about it felt off. She looked at the trees and

Inside the marquee, ever ything was

scent of the earth floated thick in the air:

about the wedding with friends, family,

the mountains and the wildlife. Something

and pine guarded it overhead. Behind the

squawking and singing in the trees. The

*

just a second? A milli-second? A minute?

around an outdoor wedding venue. Mara

Inclement weather, Mara thought. She

Mara paused, then smiled back, “right.”

was strangely comforting: those first few, transient minutes when she could believe that nothing else existed in the world but herself and Craig. *

PHOTOGRAPHY BY SAM HOPE

The flames never reached the boundary

“Yes, of course,” Mara said. With her

She was a moment away from sleep when

of the Elderflower Estate, after all. But the

phone wedged between her ear and her

she heard the rain. It was soft at first, then

world soon shifted again. The wedding,

shoulder, she let Cleo’s voice fade into the

stronger. It asserted itself on their roof,

scheduled for early April, was cancelled

background as she examined the weeds

insisting on being heard, sounding like

anyway. The whole globe seemed to be

in her hands, ripped from their roots. She

huge sheets of water crashing down on

cleaving itself apart, limb by limb.

hated the sound they made as she tore

their rickety little house. Mara shuffled

them from the earth. It was a scream, low

out of bed and watched from the back deck

and short, like tearing tendon from bone.

as the rain battered down on the garden.

Just Mara, just Craig. She thought of the

That night, Mara and Craig lay still in their

She ambled into the yard and laid herself

trees in The Elderflower Estate, imagined

bed. Craig sighed about the work ahead of

down on the grass, feeling the blades tickle

them exhaling slowly. All alone. At last.

them: rescheduling the date, reorganising

the inside of her ears. She closed her eyes.

time off from work, the cost of it all. Mara

She let the rain trickle down the side of her

thought again of the greenery of The

neck, let it fall in between her fingers.

But, despite all of it, Mara couldn’t help but feel light. Everything gone. Nothing left.

Mara was on her knees, ripping out weeds in the garden, when Cleo called in a huff.

Elderflower Estate, the bowing branches,

“You must be so disappointed,” Cleo said,

the perfect leaves. She remembered

sighing. “I can’t imagine what you must be

the marquee, immense and plastic. She

This article was originally published in

going through.”

imagined a huge gust of wind sweeping

Issue 12, Complicated

down the valley and blowing the marquee away. Whoosh.

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY SAM HOPE

PHOTOGRAPHY BY SAM HOPE

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30

Album Review

LordeSolar Power

This article was originally published online at qutglass.com on the 1st of September 2021

WRITTEN BY CHRISTINA SIMONOSKI

Kiwi indie-princess Lorde has finally

You might remember, way back in 2019

of heartache, grief, deep love, or confusion,

dropped her third album, Solar Power,

Lorde went to Antarctica as an Ambassador

I look to the natural world for answers. I’ve

and I have to admit her new positive vibes

to better experience and understand the

learned to breathe out, and tune in. This is

are growing on me. Once again Lorde has

impacts of climate change. After returning

what came through.”

teamed up with producer Jack Antonoff

we heard that this album would have a

with whom she collaborated on her last

strong environmentalist theme but there

album, Melodrama.

is also another story weaved through the

The album opens dreamily with a humble track titled The Path. Apparently, it was one of the first tracks to be written for the album when Lorde was home in New Zealand, and it features a strong 70s theme like many people expected from this album. I’d argue it’s a bit deeper than that though. Sonically, it invokes the

experience of the album. Particularly found in tracks like Stoned at the Nail Salon is a tale about musicians growing in fame, popularity, and even the experience of moving to LA. This secondary story is told gently and instrumentally with eerie vocals reminiscent of another indie star Lana Del Rey.

Old-school fans and people who still use CDs for some reason might be surprised to find out that in regards to the physical release, Lorde said, “I decided early on in the process of making this album that I also wanted to create an environmentally kind, forward-thinking alternative to the CD. I wanted this Music Box product to be similar in size, shape and price to a CD, to live alongside it in a retail environment, but be something which stands apart and

imagination: what if the 90s kid met the 70s

Fallen Fruit is by far my favourite track

that’s committed to the evolving nature of

Woodstock hippy? If they met now, they’d

on the album and describes the feelings

a modern album.” To be fair, you’re getting

probably both love this track and album.

Millennials and Gen Z get when it comes

a lot more merch/posters than you would

to living in the midst of a climate crisis.

normally get with a CD or Vinyl, for a pretty

Lorde describes the track as a message

good price if you can spare it. I know as

to past generations, saying it asks “do you

a fan I’ll be grabbing a copy, so definitely

know what you’ve done? How could you

check it out.

You probably don’t need a reminder of the debut single Solar Power, but this track gives you your first taste of some of the best features and musical influences of the album. Lorde was especially excited to have Matt Chamberlain feature on this record as he drummed on many of her favourite songs from the 90s. His experienced percussion brings not only this track but the entire album to life. Both in this track and hidden in other little spots across the album, we hear stunning backup

have left us with this?” Something that sets this track leagues above the others is the hauntingly beautiful guitar riff, likely played by Jack Antonoff, which could easily be mistaken for the work of Carlos Santana. A testament to the incredible amount of care and high-level production

Tickets are still available (so far) for her only show in Brisbane, March 2022. If you’re already a fan or looking forward to seeing her perform live I wouldn’t hesitate because tickets in the US and NZ have already sold out!

this album went through.

vocals and influence from both Clairo and

When exploring the albums environmental

Phoebe Bridgers, who Lorde has described

perspective Lorde says, “the album is a

not only as her industry peers but close

celebration of the natural world, an attempt

friends – honestly, I can’t think of a more

at immortalising the deep, transcendent

iconic trio since Haim.

feelings I have when I’m outdoors. In times REVIEW

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ARTWORK BY RONIA GARRETT-BENSON

ART/PHOTOGRAPHY

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ARTWORK BY RONIA GARRETT-BENSON

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QUTGLASS.COM QUTGLASS.COM

A Year in Review

Visit the Lit Salon website qutliterarysalon.wordpress.com

The QUT Literary Salon - 2021 The QUT Literary Salon have a confession

that we’ve gotten from all of our guests

for us, as it was the Literary Salon’s first

to make. Perhaps, some sins – or star-

and readers about being able to foster

book launch. We soft-launched QUT-Alum

studded surprises – about what really goes

an increasingly inclusive atmosphere for

and guest reader Sara El Sayed’s debut

on behind closed doors. The exclusive truth

writers of all levels and forms! We couldn’t

memoir: Muddy People. This brings us to

only for our loyal readers, speakers and

have done it without all of our fantastic

our most recent salon: Pride. Guest reader

supporters. Is it true that we’re forever-

submitters, whether you were chosen to

Cale Dietrich read an excerpt from young-

besties with a certain bestselling author

read or not – thank you all so much for

adult novel If This Gets Out, scheduled for

and may or may not have his email? Why

letting us read your work.

release in December this year. We cannot

did we not make an appearance at the Met Gala? One thing that’s not a secret is that we’ve absolutely loved supporting

We had the honour of having Rohan Wilson (truly our biggest supporter!) as our guest

wait to finish the year off with a bang at our final salon at Avid Reader.

reader for the first salon of the year –

A huge thank you to all our guest readers,

Heirlooms, which included some of the

submitters, guests, followers, QUT Glass,

salon’s most prolific student readers: Jak

and team-members from past years for all

Our biggest mission this year for the Lit

Kirwin and Kate MacDonald. We had Vogel

the work you did before us – especially the

Salon was to expand our scope, and get

winner and all-round icon Emily O’Grady

2020 co-presidents Anahita Ebrahimi and

as many people involved as possible –

for our Assumptions salon, and perhaps the

Hannah Patten-Kuik. We are so grateful for

especially in the younger years and newer

Literary Salon’s most high-profile reader

all your support.

students. No one in our team knew about

yet – award-winning author Trent Dalton

the Literary Salon until late in our degree,

for Brisbania. Brisbania was our biggest

and we wanted to change that for QUT.

turnout yet, and a hugely positive moment

We started the year in February with

for our team, as well as a big teaching

Co-presidents: Jackson Machado-Nunes

our Poetry with Miffy workshop at the

moment. As curators of writing that

and Jakeb Smith

Gardens Point Art Museum. We had a great

represents the students of QUT, it’s integral

time writing ekphrasis poetry with Sarah

that we respect Indigenous language

Barron, around 30 students from various

terms and place names with their correct

Social Media Team: Ciaran Grieg and

disciplines, future student-readers like

pronunciation, and we’ve made a point of

Rebekah Roma

Alisha Davenport (Heirlooms) and Konstanz

staying on the ball ever since. We held the

Muller Hering (Assumptions), and fantastic

Lit Salon’s first Winter Writing Competition

guests that we’ve seen as recent as our

this year during the mid-year break, the

Pride salon! We also held a Q&A session in

winner of which – Shelby Lee – became a

March to help spread the word and break

guest reader for our August Salon: Pink.

the ice. We’re so proud of the feedback

It was another hugely important salon

Brisbane’s emerging writers on their publication journey.

From the 2021 team xx

Editor: Madison Blissett de Weger

ART/PHOTOGRAPHY

35

Green Jacket WRITTEN BY SAMUEL MAGUIRE (HEIRLOOMS - LIT SALON)

My ex-stepdad was in the army, or at least spent a lot of time in

This time had ended badly. My stepdad threatened to kill my

jail in the army. He was either a demolitions expert in the Special

brother as he stormed back to his car. My brother called him a cunt

Forces, or head chef for a high-ranking officer, depending on what

as he drove off, not giving him the last word and driving my stepdad

area of expertise he wanted to impress you with. He knew ninjitsu.

crazy. My mum called us and told us to be careful. My stepdad was

He killed a swathe of men with an M60. Served in East Timor. He

going to get his bikey friends to pay us a visit.

used to be a bikey. Was called Rattlesnake by his friends. Killed a man there as well. Buried a pistol in the backyard somewhere. As with all things about him, the fog of his distorted reality cleared with distance.

When the marriage finally broke down, after long years of domestic abuse, World of Warcraft addiction and an everincreasing collection of novelty cheap store dancing santas, the ugly intensified.

homebrew beers and started to plan. Our housemate was almost never there, though he owned the place. There were just two of us, and we couldn’t call the cops because of our pretty tame weed stash.

All we had was our swords and a workers cottage on the roughest street in the roughest suburb of Ipswich. Two exits, one for each of us. The walls were pretty solid, so we weren’t too worried about

I was living rent-free with my brother and his friend. I’d just been

getting shot up if we stayed in the middle of the house, and if we

through a bad breakup, though all of my breakups hit me like a

got the drop on them we were sure we’d at least take out several

B-Double tearing through a flock of galahs. I was permanently high,

bikeys with our swords.

fighting and losing against a scabies infection, and spent most of my days smoking, listening to a rotating roster of breakup albums and training alongside my brother with our swords.

We’d bought the swords for each other as birthday gifts. I have no idea where we found the money for them, both of us being terminally unemployed. His was a longsword, fashioned as a replica

We’d practiced the strikes every day for months. Shoulder to hip, side to side at the neck, block up and then stab the face.

The night grew darker and colder. We sat outside, me in olive drab and my brother in high vis. Sword belts on, scabbards sticking out between the arm rest of the green plastic Bunnings chairs.

of the Black Prince’s own. Mine was a heavy and brutal two-hander,

We smoked and turned our heads at every set of headlights that

based off the crusades era. Hand-forged in Canada by Canadians,

came down the darkened backstreet.

battle ready and designed for steel-on-steel contact. I’m not sure if they were actually legal.

We trained daily. Wake up at 6:30. Fifty push-ups, sit-ups and squats, then 200 strikes with the sword, ten slow, ten fast. After that we hit the dumbbells and started chain smoking. My brother fed me as much as he could. After my breakup I’d dropped below 60 kilos, and was pretty close to carking it. Putting on muscle was an ample substitute for a relationship.

It was just getting dark when my brother got back from my mum’s, about an hour drive out West from Ipswich. It was late August, and still fairly chill outside under the carport where I was smoking. I wore my stepdad’s old army jacket, olive drab and bulky to hide my

At 3am, after four joints and twice as many beers, we turned in.

Our stepdad, as ever, remained all talk.

The marriage dissolved rapidly after that. Drama after drama preceded complete excommunication. Then the slow process of unlearning. Shining light on what I’d experienced, what had grabbed my heels and dragged itself around with me as I matured.

Reforging myself into a new shape, devoid of toxic and fragile masculinity.

I still have the jacket. It was the only thing I kept from him. I’ve worn it to parties and events, all around Japan on holidays with my wife. If anyone asks where I got it, I say I racked it from a veteran.

coat hanger frame. He didn’t know I had it, I sneaked it from a pile

If my stepdad saw me in it he’d probably kill me, and I would let him.

of old things sitting in the shed.

Let that wave break against my stone, and fall away, unchanging

My brother returned shaking and swearing and flooding with rage.

He’d gotten into an argument with my stepdad again. They fought constantly, even when my brother was a scrawny twelve-year old, I remember my stepdad holding him against the roof by his throat.

36

We smoked a joint together to calm him down, cracked open

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and impotent. The cliffs don’t hit back against the water, they let the waves destroy themselves.

Besides, I look better in green.

Trolltunga WRITTEN BY GRACE HAMMOND (ASSUMPTIONS - LIT SALON)

On the last night, Ewan undercooks the pasta. We sit at the table,

We laugh. Darren pretends to punch her shoulder. “Alright, you can

ladling stiff spaghetti onto our plates and folding the strands into

stop bringing it up, now.”

our mouths. They break like eggshells between our teeth.

I catch Eloise’s eye. She takes a sip of her wine, smiling into the

“Sorry,” Ewan says. “I can cook another batch.”

glass.

“Oh, no.” Eloise waves her hand. “Don’t be silly. It’s delicious.”

We all help clear the table, and Eloise scoops the leftover spaghetti

Ewan smiles.

We all go for seconds.

Our coats – five trenches, burgundy and black and grey – hang from

into a container. Ewan smiles. We move to the couch.

Darren rubs his hands together. “Who’s brought the game?”

I reveal Monopoly.

the hooks in the hallway. One hook is still free, looped with a tiny

“Good one. We haven’t played since.” He says it just like that, as

wreath of plastic lilies. Outside the window, snow flutters down

though it were a complete sentence. No one looks at Eloise.

like pinpricks against the black.

“So this new shrink,” Darren says. “What’s his name?”

Eloise swallows, lowering her fork. “Smith.”

“Who Smith?”

“Peter.”

“Peter Smith. And he’s good?”

She nods twice. Then she asks, “Have the two of you finished packing?”

Darren rolls his eyes. “Not yet. You know how this one is.”

Claire rolls her eyes and asks, “What’s he got you on?”

“Claire,” I warn.

We play for a while, Claire and Darren hiding their cash from each other. Ewan goes bankrupt first. I take fifties directly from the bank so only Eloise can see. She covers her lips with the back of her hand.

“So, Ewan,” Darren says after he’s slammed down his properties and handed Claire his last twenty. “Tell us about the new car.”

“Oh. I’m getting a new car.”

I smile. Darren rolls his head back.

“I know, but we’re not gonna get to see it before we leave for Paris.

You have to tell us about it.”

“I’ll just get something standard. Probably a Swift.”

We all nod.

Ewan wipes his thumb over a red stain on the side of his glass. “It

She shrugs. “What?”

was dumb, not getting another one.”

Eloise laughs. Her fingers touch the edge of her placemat. “It’s ok,

No one says anything for a moment.

guys. You don’t have to worry anymore.”

We glance at each other, the four of us, and I know we’re thinking the same thing.

Eloise picks up her fork again. We keep eating, our knives chinking against china plates. My pasta crunches through my eardrums.

Claire reaches for Darren’s hand and says, “You should see this place we’ve bought. It’s downright gorgeous.”

“You’re very lucky.” Eloise nods. “It’s expensive just to get to

“No,” Claire says eventually. “Of course it wasn’t.”

“It broke down right before it happened. And then afterwards, I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“We get it,” I tell him.

Ewan shrugs. He says, “I can’t believe it’s been a year.”

I stare at him. When he doesn’t meet my eye, I look at Eloise. She’s rearranging her skirt in her lap.

Europe.”

“Yeah,” Darren says, slowly.

“You’re telling me,” Darren replies.

Ewan knocks his knuckles against the arm of the couch.

“My pay rise will make us up,” Claire says, flicking her hair.

“The Swift will be good for you,” Eloise says.

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Ewan looks at her and smiles.

I laugh. “Yeah.”

Eloise turns to me. “How’s your uncle?”

“Does he remember me?” Her shoes crunch in the snow. “Does he

“Uncle?”

“The one in Norway.”

I frown. “He’s fine. He sent a post card the other week, actually.”

Darren points at me. “I remember him.”

“I’d hope so,” said Claire. “He visited, what, two years ago?”

Eloise wets her lips. “Does he still go up to the tongue?”

“The troll tongue?” I ask. “There are lots of tourists. But he knows

I stop and look at her.

She exhales a forest of mist. “It was nice with us all together.”

I stare at the sidewalk.

“One last time.”

“I know it’s not the same,” I start, “with only five of us.”

Snow patters down like ashes around us.

the good times to go.”

“It won’t be the last time. Darren and Claire will visit.”

Claire nods. “The tongue. That’s the rock thing.”

She looks down the street, where yellow spotlights illuminate the

“It’s like a diving board over a mountain range,” I tell her. “It’s supposed to be very beautiful.”

“I’d be too scared.”

“Maybe not.” Eloise is looking out the window, watching the silent sprinkling of snow. “Once you get there, you know. I think

snowfall. I slide my bracelet into her pocket. She turns to me, and I shrug. “You didn’t get to keep one. Have mine.” I’d thought she might protest, but she only smiles.

We reach the traffic. I still have Monopoly tucked under my arm.

Eloise says, “Someday, we’ll meet in Norway.”

instinct would take over.” She clears her throat. “So, anyway. I have

I blink. Her voice was pleasant, rehearsed. I wait for the right words

something for you all.”

to come.

She hands the first one to Darren, then Claire and Ewan. Then me.

She hugs me to her chest, and I put my arms around her. “That’s

“El,” Ewan says. “We can’t…”

“I want you to have them.” She takes Ewan’s bracelet and helps

the dream,” I whisper into her hair.

She holds me tighter.

him put it on.

When she turns to leave, I take her arm. I stare hard into her eyes.

“They’re stunning,” Claire says, already wearing hers. “Thank you.”

“Eloise,” I say.

I look at my bracelet. There’s green in it, and gold and brown. I

“Hm?” She’s looking down the street.

remember the colours. I saw them years ago, in a jewellery box tucked in an attic. A box with Eloise’s initials on the lid.

Later, Eloise is the first to say, “I think I’ll be heading off.”

I say I’ll walk her to a cab, and we put on our coats. Down on the street, the lights hang like broken limbs over the road. White freckles appear in Eloise’s hair, and we look up.

The sidewalk glints ahead of us as snowflakes melt on its surface.

We can hear traffic through the muted frost.

“So, Dr Smith?”

Eloise doesn’t look at me. “They want that for me. What would you have done?”

I shrug. “Not lied.”

“You don’t know,” Eloise says, and I glance away.

“I guess not.”

“Did your uncle really send you a postcard?”

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really know the best time to go to the tongue?”

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“Eloise.”

She takes in a breath, and shifts her gaze to me.

I stare for a long moment. Then I let go of her arm. “Get home safe, yeah?”

She smiles again, then I watch her drift down the street. She raises an arm over the road and a cab pulls up beside her. The tyres squelch through the slush and she disappears around the corner.

I turn and start walking home.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY SAM HOPE

FICTION

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MET AT GOMA 21’ PHOTOGRAPHY BY SAM HOPE

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY SAM HOPE

I crossed Coro Drive barefoot and dizzy, clutching at the traffic lights until the signal blinked green. My lips were hot despite the bite of the evening air. I couldn’t stop touching them. I wanted to rip them from my face.

The river was a blur of indigo and brown. I stumbled along the bikeway until I got to the section of bank where the fence ended and I could crawl down to the waterline. I stared at the water, waiting for the tearing pain in my chest to lessen. I’d fucked up a lifetime of secrets and silence in the space of thirty seconds, and I wanted to take the whole night and eat it, swallow it all at once and let it congeal in the black of my guts and never touch it again.

The rocks beneath me bled warmth into my palms the same way Rosie’s hands had. Maybe she wouldn’t even remember in the

River Split Rock Slick WRITTEN BY ELLIE K ADDATZ (BRISBANIA - LIT SALON)

morning. Hope flashed through me keenly, but I could already feel the alcohol finishing its pilgrimage through my bloodstream.

I wouldn’t get the luxury of forgetting.

A CityCat split open the river in front of me. I thought back to Tynealle turning up the music as our guests grew rowdier and Brisbane slipped into its evening wear. If I’d paid attention, I would have been able to hear the city hunkering down, the grumble of Milton Road traffic, the clink of my neighbours’ cutlery on their dinner plates. The fairy lights Rosie had hung up became strings of floating stars, and the yeasty smell of the XXXX Brewery made the air thick and warm and mellow.

42

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Our house parties were all the same. Alcohol in our bellies, our

It — the fish, the thing — was slippery, uneven, difficult to

blood warm and loose. We talked a big talk, but put us together

comprehend. Water slapped at the rocks, percussive. The rhythmic

in someone’s yard and ply us with beer and Chicken Twisties

slap of the runners on the bikeway laid out a steady beat behind

and suddenly we’d be content with our broad, nasal accents

me. The world was tilted.

and inability to make a difference. The only person who would transcend that was Rosie.

It could have been her birthday instead of mine. It could have been her wedding, the way she sparkled. She stood a head taller than everyone at the party, so it made sense that my eyes always found her, and somehow her laugh always snaked its way through the ever-drunker crowd into any conversation I had.

The alcohol had gotten to me. I dropped a wine glass and stood laughing among the shards. Rosie and I laid down on the verandah and leeched warmth from the sun-soaked boards beneath

The figure groaned. My shorts ripped as I scrambled backwards along the rocks.

I would look anywhere but at that thing. Look, look down at the shit-brown water. Look at the Grammar students viciously dragging their kayaks through the river. Look at the ripples stretching further and further behind that CityCat. Look anywhere but beside you.

It was no use. My neck creaked as I turned to look at the pulsating pile of flesh.

our backs. Dusk slipped away until we sat in a shallow dark

Never mind fight or flight — I was always all freeze, and I was

that reminded me of biking desperately down dirt roads to my

already aching from holding myself still. The air around the

childhood house to get there before night-time, of opening my

creature throbbed, as if the space it took up was pulsing and

eyes underwater in murky freshwater creeks, of curlews wailing

churning. It was unbearable. I couldn’t tell if I was just drunk, or

just out of sight.

genuinely seeing something that shouldn’t, couldn’t, didn’t exist.

Unthinking, I grabbed Rosie’s hand and raised it to my beer-sticky

It — the fish, the thing, the monster — stretched a mottled limb

lips. We giggled about Tynealle’s music and gossiped about guests.

out across the rocks towards me. Its skin glinted dully in the

“I just miss the stars from up home,” she sighed.

redblueorange lights of the city. The creature curled its — fingers?

I nodded. “We could go camping?”

“Imagine sharing a tent with Tynealle,” she laughed.

I said I couldn’t.

— up at me in a gesture I had seen whenever Tynealle got too pissed to stand. That universal gesture for ‘grab, hold, help’. The thing was half-in, half-out of an abandoned net, the nylon twisted under rocks and held down by something unseen, below the surface. I watched the rocks scrape scales from flesh and claws scrabble at

“What about us?” she said. “We could share.”

air. My blood was molten.

She turned to me. I was drunk — we both were — and trying to focus

I grabbed the hand and pulled.

on her face was dizzying. Still talking, she climbed on top of me.

There was nothing human in that cold grasp. In that moment, I

“I would really want to share,” she whispered, her mouth just below

could have killed someone and been impassive to their gurgles

my ear. I was shivering, and her legs were draping and slipping

and moans. This was the same feeling that dragged me relentlessly

between mine and she was breathy and laughing in my ear and

through dating men; the same feeling I’d gotten when my aunt

my beer bottle was on the floor and my hand was on her back and

declared, “I don’t care if they date, but they don’t get the same

her mouth was on mine and she was arching into me, Rosie was

rights as me and my husband.” It was the same feeling I cradled

arching into me, and a kiss had never been like this — A click in my

every single day leading up to the same-sex marriage survey. My

head. A lock in my chest. I pushed Rosie off me and bolted. And now

eyelids were squeezing against my skull. The joints in my hands

I was here, freezing and alone, watching ferries and ripples and —

were popping.

a figure on the rocks?

Shit.

I moved closer to the dark form, beer-clumsy, breathing hard. Was that a person? Oh God, had someone jumped off the Go-Between?

Slick body tore from net, up and out and over, and I was covered in moisture and moss and slime. I fell to the rocks, hard, feeling the skin on my wrists and knees bloom open. Blood mixed with river.

I could feel the whole city in my veins.

It wasn’t until I was almost next to it that I saw it wasn’t a person.

We were both heaving. Someone slap-slap-slapped down the

Relief flushed sweetly through me, followed by a vicious drop in my

bikeway. Didn’t they see? Didn’t they see this mass of skin and

stomach. It wasn’t a person, but it was moving. It wasn’t a person,

spikes and scales that had dredged itself up and out of somewhere

but it had — an arm? fingers? scales? There was river muck in

that didn’t even exist?

my gut.

Maybe, I thought, I didn’t exist at all.

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INTERVIEW

I Have OCD but My Life is a Mess WRITTEN BY ELLA BRUMM, AN INTERVIEW WITH MARTIN INGLE

One of my earliest memories as a child is shrouded in fear and shame. I would stare up at my ceiling fan as I tried to sleep, figuring out the best way to contort my body so I wouldn’t be injured or die in the rare event that the fan would suddenly fall. A loud voice inside my mind would scream at me to move my bed or turn my fan off. So, I listened and turned it off even though it was the middle of summer in Queensland. However, the voice persisted. It shrieked again, telling me to move my bed because even if the fan wasn’t on, the weight would still crush my weak body. So, I complied and moved my bed. The voice was still not satisfied. I eventually became so exhausted from the constant yelling that I will die no matter what I did that I passed out.

In the years following this, I began to wonder if my mind was a little bit different to other people. Intrusive thoughts plagued my everyday life and manifested into irrational rituals. Mundane tasks such as hanging the washing out, showering, washing my hands, and leaving the house would be excruciatingly difficult for me to complete. I would frequently rub my skin raw from frequent washing and would be crippled by the thought of my imminent death if I couldn’t find a peg that matched the colour of my clothes.

In school I was constantly late to class because I would spend 20 minutes performing rituals before I ate and the break only lasted for 10.

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At 16, I was diagnosed with OCD, and a wave of relief wash over

For those people who are unaware of the complexity of OCD, how

me. While I was worried about what my future would look like,

would you describe it?

I felt assured, knowing it was a disorder that was hijacking my brain and not who I truly am. My OCD takes the stereotypical form that many people associate with the disorder, including contamination, ordering and checking. However, I also experience intrusive thoughts that I have never felt comfortable sharing because of their shame and guilt. Pop culture and the media tend to trivialise OCD despite affecting 2% of the Australian population.

We see this in the character of Monica Geller in Friends, Sheldon Cooper in The Big Bang Theory, and celebrities like Khloe Kardashian using the pun KhlO-C-D to refer to her YouTube channel where she shows people how to be more organised. The reality of OCD is not a cute and quirky way of saying you like things to be clean and organised. It’s a debilitating illness that haunts the people who suffer from it.

A show that has acted as a beacon of hope for me is You Can’t Ask That. They recently produced an episode on OCD that delves deeper into the true lived experience of everyday Australians who have the disorder. One participant stood out for me in particular.

I had never heard a more raw and honest depiction of the illness,

I almost don’t like to start by even saying “OCD” because people think they already know what it is, and they switch off. In reality it’s about distressing, unwanted intrusive thoughts. Everyone has these thoughts - maybe I could steer into oncoming traffic, what if I don’t really love my partner, why did I just have a sex dream about a family member -- but someone with OCD gives these unwanted thoughts more meaning and want to do anything they can to make them go away.

These intrusive thoughts can focus on any topic at all. One of those topics can be germs or cleanliness, absolutely - that’s the picture of OCD we know of. But the truth is you can get obsessed with anything. If it upsets you, OCD can latch on to it. It’s often horrible things like harming people or sex or violence. The more you try to make the thoughts go away, the more they come. It’s a vicious cycle.

Some people describe depression as a dark cloud being held over their head, or not being able to climb out of a deep pit. How would you describe OCD in this way?

let alone on national TV. Martin Ingle answered each probing

Oh, I’d describe OCD as feeling sort of drunk on your thoughts,

question thrown his way with a sense of candour and willingness.

but not in a nice way. It’s very overwhelming and traps everything

I got in contact with him after I finished watching to express how

in its grip. Like quicksand for your thoughts. You can’t escape,

meaningful it was to hear someone talk about their experience

particularly the harder you struggle.

with intrusive thoughts. I sat down with Martin to ask him about his relationship with OCD and how the true lived experience differs from colloquial perception.

What were you like as a child? In later years did you notice any warning signs that you may have OCD?

Many people assume OCD means frequent hand washing and turning light switches on and off. While these are rituals that fall under types of OCD, they’re not the only forms. How does your OCD manifest?

Totally! Some people with OCD obsess over germs or sickness,

I was definitely a quiet, shy, and deep-thinking child. Looking

so they wash to try to make the thoughts go away. My intrusive

back, you can always find evidence whether it’s there or not, but

thoughts are mainly about sexual topics. I’m afraid I could secretly

I definitely didn’t have OCD back then - I was just lost in my own

be dangerous or sexually perverted - so secretly that I don’t even

world. Perhaps that just set a good foundation for OCD to flourish

know it myself. I’m constantly on the lookout for internal evidence

later!

that this might be true so that I can protect the world from myself.

When did you realise there was something different about your mind?

My OCD started out of nowhere when I was 23. This might be confusing to hear - how can I know when it began so specifically?

Honestly, I can break my life into before OCD and after OCD. The difference was huge and obvious. It was like suddenly I had my

This is fucking torture to experience, and even more difficult to talk about it publicly - like here!

They call this sort of OCD “Pure O”. It’s exactly the same as a person with OCD who obsesses over germs, but the compulsion isn’t visible like washing is. It all happens in my head. From the outside you wouldn’t know anything was wrong at all.

thoughts, memories, and personality transplanted into a different

It’s really important to make clear that whatever your intrusive

brain. I was experiencing the same world but using a completely

thoughts are, they are 100% unwanted. People who have unwanted

different machine. Some people with OCD can even nail it down to

thoughts about sex or violence don’t get pleasure from them any

one specific thought that started it! Mine kicked in over a period

more than someone afraid of germs gets pleasure from theirs. It’s

of a few weeks.

actually the opposite: people with OCD who obsess about a topic want to do anything they can to get away from it. They are the least likely people to get sick and the least likely to be dangerous; because they worry about it so damn much.

INTERVIEW

45

For myself, I felt a sense of relief when I was diagnosed with OCD

Trying to date with this kind of OCD is next to impossible, too. You

as it helped me recognise that my thoughts and behaviours weren’t

obviously can’t tell your partner about it because it’s too shocking

my own, they were a disorder. How did you feel when you were

- and that’s even if you’re lucky enough to know you have OCD in

diagnosed?

the first place.

There’s a great scene in a 2019 UK show called Pure (it’s on Stan)

Rose Cartwright talks about the darkness of living undiagnosed

where the main character finally discovers she has OCD and

with this kind of OCD as feeling like you have a body buried in your

realises that she isn’t actually dangerous and breaks down crying

backyard and nobody knows except you. You are expected to go on

in a library. To learn your intrusive thoughts are uncontrollable

living life normally—reading the daily paper, going to work, taking

and not your fault is such a gift, and I reckon most people with

a lunch break, calling your mother—you are doing all these really

‘Pure O’ remember this moment. The problem is many people still

mundane or perhaps even enjoyable things, all while this body is

don’t know that this type of OCD exists, which means there are so

buried in your backyard.

many people silently suffering. There are people all around us with OCD who have no idea they have OCD. They think they are secretly dangerous, and so they’re too terrified to tell anyone about their thoughts. I know these people exist because I was one of them.

In the You Can’t Ask That episode on OCD, you said, “if someone could guarantee me that if I chopped off my own arm, I would never experience OCD again, I would go into the kitchen right now and

a small town, and everybody thinks it is really nice until they discover he was a serial killer on the run and skinned cats in his bathtub while singing Wagner or something. You fear that is you.

And you despise it. But you can’t stop thinking it.

How does it affect your study and work?

do it”. Do you think the general public is aware of how damaging

When I was at my worst, I hardly worked at all. I chewed through

OCD is for the people suffering with it?

all my savings, going to extra psychologist appointments and

I actually heard a guy with OCD in a doco say that a few years ago; I instantly knew I would do the same thing. Another cliche is to say, “I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy”, but I truly wouldn’t. I

buying food out because I couldn’t prepare anything in my own kitchen. I know I lost loads of work because I missed deadlines or meetings, sometimes with no explanation at all.

think people are vaguely aware that OCD can affect your life; they

Once, I turned up to a meeting two hours late because I was at

just don’t know the full extent of the damage. They don’t know the

home, over the sink, gouging under my fingernails with a butter

true face of OCD. At my worst, it grew and infected every part of

knife because I thought there could be some remnants of my

my life: I couldn’t work, I could hardly sleep, I couldn’t even go to

semen or “dick germs” under there, and I didn’t want to spread that

the toilet. It’s there at every moment of every day.

out in the world because to me that would essentially be immoral.

How would you describe the difference between anxiety and OCD? I had general anxiety before OCD - anxiety attacks, nausea and stuff - so, in the beginning, I assumed the OCD was just an extreme version of that. The difference between my anxiety and my obsessive intrusive thoughts was so extreme you almost can’t compare, though. There’s really nothing I could have told my past self that would have prepared me for what I was about to experience after OCD hit. For me, it is anxiety but 1000x worse.

How does your OCD affect your social and romantic life?

OCD grew to affect every single part of my life, but the worst impacted was my romantic and sex life, without a doubt. I was so terrified of getting a disgusting, intrusive thought that I went about six years without masturbating - and a couple of those without any sexual release at all. I was basically celibate by choice, not because I didn’t want to but because I couldn’t stand to be alone with my own brain. I was too terrified of what thoughts it might throw me next.

46

You feel like an imposter. Maybe you are that guy who moves to

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Like I was sexually assaulting people, or worse - that I might be getting secret pleasure out of it. And that’s just one example!

The fear is the most haunting thing to you, and you’d do anything to make it go away. So, of course, you sacrifice your health, your looks, your job, everything. I washed my penis so much my foreskin started to peel back and bleed. I chose to do this to myself rather than have my fears come true. So yeah, everything in your life takes a back seat to OCD. Do you try to conceal your OCD from people around you? If so, why? Alternatively, do you feel like you have to pre-emptively warn people of your OCD so you can explain your behaviours/thoughts?

I don’t conceal OCD anymore. OCD is hard enough to deal with on its own. To add the pressure of having to hide it from people is too much of a burden for me. Being honest about it is a weight off my shoulders and means I can focus on the actual illness, not trying to hide the illness.

It’s like a mushroom or a fungus that grows more in the dark.

For me keeping it secret kept feeding it. So, what if I did the

Of course, mostly, it’s about managing the OCD every day rather

opposite? What if I made my greatest weakness, the thing I am

than curing it. I’ve accepted that I’ll probably live with it forever,

most ashamed of, my greatest strength? When I did that, I learned

and that’s most people’s journey too. It’s a chronic condition, and

there was really nothing to fear. Your OCD wants you to stay silent

recovery looks like figuring out how to live in spite of it, not without

because it knows that makes it stronger.

it.

How do you feel when people say they’re ‘a little OCD’ because they

If you could leave the readers with one thing, what would you want

like to be organised and clean?

them to know?

I know a lot of OCD folk who hate it when people say they’re a little

To say OCD is about a compulsion like washing your hands is like

OCD. I definitely think you should never say that to someone with

saying the flu is about blowing your nose.

OCD - it’s very hurtful. I feel when people say things like that, it’s mostly out of ignorance, so I don’t hold it against people. I probably said things like that before I got OCD. It’s not their fault; they just don’t know what OCD really is.

We all have a brain, and we all have thoughts. People with OCD are like the canary in the coalmine of thoughts. Our brains force us to go to extreme places that are actually relevant to everyone, but most people have the luxury of not worrying about. Everyone

Of course, if you read this and know better and still choose to say

has intrusive thoughts, so I strongly believe this stuff is relevant

shit like that, then you’re a fuckwit, for sure, so pull your head in.

to everyone with a brain.

What is your relationship with recovery? Have you found anything

I really like talking to people about their thoughts because most

that has helped you to manage your symptoms?

people believe whatever their brain throws at them. We’re taught

There are many things I’ve tried, but nothing worked as well as therapy (and medication). Meds can take the stickiness out of thoughts a little bit and give you the confidence to tackle therapy.

The main therapy for OCD is called Exposure with Response

to believe our thoughts. OCD teaches me that thoughts are actually pretty meaningless, life is chaotic, and there is no control. Someone with OCD accepts this every day, but we actually all have to, to live a life worth living at all.

Prevention (ERP), and it more or less involves exposing yourself to your fears without doing the compulsion to make them go away.

You keep doing this until you aren’t afraid anymore. This therapy is torturous and easy to get wrong if you don’t work with a therapist who knows what they’re doing, but it’s amazing when you feel your brain start to change.

This article was originally published online at qutglass.com on the 28th of May 2021

47

An Interview with Olympian and QUT Student Jack McLouhglin WRITTEN BY CHRISTINA SIMONOSKI

After watching the (belated) 2020 Olympic & Paralympic Summer

I relate to this a lot but in a more academic than competitive sense.

Games in Tokyo earlier this year, it was hard to miss the sheer

I'm one of those people who often doesn't know when to say no to

number of Australian (and QUT) Athletes making an impression

projects and tries to put 100% into every assessment. If I picked

on the world's greatest stage.

my battles better, I'd be a lot prouder of my results in the future.

One such swimmer and Olympian is Jack McLoughlin, who won a Silver Medal in the Men’s 400 Metre Freestyle in Tokyo. He is one of the many QUT elite athletes who not only highlighted our uni's elite athlete program, but the outstanding achievements young Aussie athletes are making while also managing to study!

I chatted with Jack about his training, post-Olympics reflections, and how he manages a healthy work, life and study balance in one of the most competitive sports in Australia - let alone the world.

Here are some of the key lessons I learned from talking to Jack about living a competitive lifestyle while juggling university and career aspirations.

Find Your Balance After talking to Jack, the first thing I thought was, "damn, this is

Plan Your Rest Something that stood out a lot to me was how Jack talked about rest being an integral part of his training as an athlete and a factor when coming back from the Olympics. It was just jumping straight back into study or training again.

We probably can't expect the uni to start granting us extensions for rest days, but we can schedule time for it ourselves. I know, easier said than done.

I don't know about you, but I think it's safe to assume the average, non-Olympic, student probably spends a lot of sleepless nights studying, working, and crashing after exams or assessments. For Jack, this just isn't the case; he has a regimen for every facet of his life and planning essential rest is a big part of that routine.

a person who has truly mastered the art of time management."

Chatting to Jack was a fantastic experience; these are just a few of

He refers to this skill as a triangle, balancing training, study and

the anecdotes that stood out to me. Jack is not only an outstanding

social life equally.

athlete but also a humble and inspiring person when it comes to

It's not something I personally considered when it came to time

life and study.

management and performing at my best academically; picturing

The Glass team and I extend a massive congratulations to Jack

it as learning the art of balance has been quite eye-opening and

and all our QUT Athletes, who we were lucky enough to have

a fresh new perspective on approaching my study, career goals,

represented Australia and our University on a global stage.

and social life.

Pick Your Battles

If you’d like to find out more specific reflections and insights from Jack, check out the full interview transcript at qutglass.com.

Another lesson I learned from Jack was that even elite athletes pick their battles. In Jack's case, it more specifically referred to prioritising medalling in the 400m free rather than putting all his eggs in one basket with 1500m freestyle races.

It's not a matter of whether or not he could do well in 1500m – he knows he probably could, but was selective and strategic about balancing and putting the right amount of time, effort, and training into a race where he knew for sure he could get a medal.

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This article was originally published online at qutglass.com on the 18th of October 2021

INTERVIEW

49

Going Back WRITTEN BY GRACE HAMMOND

The first time, it happened like this: “I think I’m taking the offer.”

I looked at you. “That’s your decision?”

“I guess it is.”

The cars whispered past us on the light-streaked street. Rain pattered into our hair.

the offer.”

“Are you sure?”

“I am, actually.”

“You know I can’t leave.”

I said, “You know what will happen, then.”

“I know that.”

You replied, “I know.”

“And you know I want you.”

I went home alone.

You put your hands in your pockets. “Yes.”

Two days later, it was the third of June. I woke up by myself and made toast. I took the tram to work. I laid on my couch until I couldn’t stand it. The closet drawer was empty when I changed for bed and your book was gone from the night stand when I laid down.

The next day, I did it all again. And the next. Days seeped quietly into months. Time was supposed to be the cure, but the longer I went without you the more my organs dislodged; my heart and lungs and eyes drifting into vacancy. It wasn’t getting better. So I went back.

The second time, it was this: “I think I’m going to take the offer.”

I didn’t pause. “I’ll go with you.”

Both of us were gone, together, by the third of June. We packed our lives into suitcases and flew across the country. We slept in the same bed and made pancakes on Saturdays. We watched movies and filled your bookshelves. But mostly, more than anything, you worshipped your nine to five while I haunted our apartment. There were no jobs for me in this city. I lived inside four walls, surrounded by your scent, your clothes, your financial support. I stared at

“Stay. Please.”

“You want me to?”

“Yes.” “You want me to give this up?”

“I want to be with you.”

“You said you wanted whatever I wanted.”

“That was before you chose this over me.”

You looked at me then. I still remember your expression. “Is that what you think I’m doing?”

“When you strip it down.”

“Please don’t be selfish now.”

“You are being selfish.”

You were still for a moment. The traffic lights played ping pong while the rain fell like frost.

television screens and hated myself. I told you I couldn’t stay.

You walked away from me.

The third time, we tried to stay together. Days were crowded

I went home alone.

trams, empty bedsheets, buttered halves of toast. Nights were video calls and sitcom laughing tracks. It was wrong. The closet drawer was still bare, your books still missing. Your voice wasn’t enough. I spent months, years stretching it into something I could live with. But I couldn’t, and I couldn’t leave. So I went back.

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The next time was different. You said, “I think I’m going to take

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So I went back. Again. And again.

You said, “I think I’m going to take the offer.”

I replied, “I don’t want you to.”

I replied, “Please don’t go.”

I replied, “That ridiculous job?”

I replied, “You are the one who’s tearing us apart.”

Then you would leave. With or without me. There was no combination of words that could make you stay. So I went back.

The last time, it happened like this: “I think I’m taking the offer.”

I looked at you. “That’s your decision?”

“I guess it is.”

The cars whispered past us on the light-streaked street. Rain pattered into our hair.

I said, “You know what will happen, then.”

You replied, “I know.”

I went home alone.

This story was originally published online at qutglass.com on the 28th of May 2021

Grace is a Brisbane-based writer studying Creative Writing. She is part of the ScratchThat team, where some of her own work has appeared. She was included in last year’s Literary Salon Collection, and is currently working on a young adult novel set in the Gold Coast hinterlands. While her writing tends to skip haphazardly across genres, it’s unlikely she’ll ever write something that isn’t a little bit creepy.

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51

A Better Blended Learning Approach in Universities is Sorely Needed WRITTEN BY OLIVIA BRUMM

The hasty transition to online learning

the initial enthusiasm by the university

chosen had less than half of the regular

last year utterly destabilised university

administration, the move to transition

contact hours until after they’d already

life. For many sandstone institutions, it

more and more content online has shown

enrolled. Units that previously had a

was largely uncharted territory. However,

no sign of slowing down.

two-hour weekly lecture followed by an

the Queensland University of Technology seemed better positioned than most for a smooth transfer to online delivery; after all, it was quite literally in the name.

Despite this, the lack of sophistication of QUT’s digital learning platforms caused significant roadblocks. By the end of the year, it was abundantly clear that many students were fatigued with distanced education. They wanted to return to their

change in direction was the traditional face-to-face lecture, quickly replaced by pre-recorded podcasts. The increasing use of podcasts as a primary form of content delivery was flagged as an issue by students last year. Often shorter than a traditional lecture, podcasts provide no opportunity for interactive learning and are often

hour and a half tutorial class suddenly only had one opportunity each week for students to engage with their tutors on course content. It’s even more difficult if that one opportunity is online through a zoom class with 30-35 other students.

Sitting in front of a screen can be a lonely and isolating way to learn, particularly if it’s your first year at university.

recycled from semester to semester

T he response f rom t he universit y

leading to complaints that the content is

administration has been to argue that most

In a conversation with an ABC radio

outdated or irrelevant. In a few instances,

students want to learn online, and in any

presenter late last year, the Vice-

podcast recordings made mention of

case, physical classes aren’t well attended

Chancellor of my university QUT spoke

current news events from years ago. In

after the beginning of the semester

of her wish to return to face to face

others, a date stamp of the wrong year on

anyway. This argument sidesteps the

learning, full lecture halls and a bustling

the first slide was a blatant sign that the

central point entirely. What the majority

and vibrant campus. Then earlier this year,

content was recycled. Although podcasts

of students want is a flexible approach

QLD Health announced that on-campus

can be valuable in reinforcing important

to learning that provides sufficient

activities could return at full capacity with

information from interactive lectures, they

on-campus and online classes. In other

appropriate tracing precautions, finally

are not designed to be the primary source

words, what students want are options.

allowing students to come back to campus

of information delivery for a university unit.

Options that reflect the depths and breadth

pre-covid university life as soon as possible.

for O-week.

52

One of the first major casualties of this

Slightly more overt than the move toward

Unfortunately, that dream was short-

podcasts is the rise of the ‘lectorial’. A

lived. In week one, many students once

combination of a traditional lecture and

again had their first introduction to the

tutorial rolled into one neat cost-efficient

teaching semester from behind a computer

bundle. The rationale for this move from

screen, unable to secure an on-campus

QUT’s perspective was to allow flexibility

tutorial or lecture spot amidst the chaos

to continue to offer courses with smaller

of the class registration process. Despite

uptakes. The reality was that many

the green light from QLD health and

students wouldn’t know if the unit they’d

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of diversity within our student body. Not sacrificing the learning opportunities of one student for that of another. We all learn differently, and including options for online delivery is undoubtedly essential for increasing the accessibility of education.

But replacing traditional learning methods with a predominately online model jeopardises the most important aspects

This article was originally published online at qutglass.com on the 3rd of June 2021

of our education: synchronous learning

in motivation. All of these issues were and expand its online offering. However,

and social engagement. By simply moving

mirrored in the responses provided by QUT the disruption caused by the pandemic

existing content online, universities

students.

risk retaining the worst parts of passive learning by transposing them into an even more detached and less interactive virtual environment. How many students will be left behind in this transition? What about mature aged students with less technological literacy? Or those with disabilities? How about visual learners and students who struggle to form connections without the opportunity to be immersed on campus with their peers?

The reality is that for many students, online-only learning is not innovative; it’s regressive. This issue was brought to the forefront during the COVID lockdowns last year when campuses were shut, and the hasty transition to online learning left many students in the dust. At the end of last year, the industry standards and quality assurance regulator TEQSA released a report based on feedback surveys from 118 universities. The report found that between 33%-50% of students were unhappy with online learning in semester one. A significant proportion of those surveyed stated that they ‘did not wish to ever experience remote learning again’. Particular issues cited included a lack of engagement, isolation from their peers, less interaction and consultations with teachers, as well as an overall decrease

However, a lot has changed in the space of a year. Australia has settled into a cautious new normal with case numbers consistently low. So why are our

increased the demand for services resulting in more content being pushed online, stripping academics of their autonomy and turning them into glorified podcasters in the process.

universities digging their heels in? Well, my The trickle-down effect on the quality guess is money. Or more precisely, lack of it. of learning and teaching students are But it appears some universities are being experiencing is devastating. When our more transparent about their motives for universities see themselves as businesses a permanent push towards online delivery first and education institutions second, than others.

Over the past few months, universities in other parts of the country have announced their plans to continue with the transition towards online-only learning. Victoria University has confirmed that the majority of its courses will continue to be delivered digitally. Curtin has unveiled a proposal which plans to move all lectures online by the end of the year while Murdoch’s COO

students and academics suffer. Podcasts, lectorials, ballooning class sizes and reduced consultation hours are not hallmarks of a world-class education.

Relying on casualisation and outsourcing as a way of coping with financial stress and funding cuts jeopardises the quality of students’ educations, the career opportunities of our graduates and the livelihoods of academics.

has publicly said that he believes that ‘the For online content delivery to even come face-to-face mass lecture’ is all but dead. close to rivalling the traditional university Meanwhile, QUT’s administration has learning experience, universities must attempted to quell the growing unrest adopt a blended and flexible approach amongst the student body by promising and utilise appropriate and sophisticated that face to face content delivery is still technology in furtherance of this aim. a priority, all while outsourcing more Something that the Queensland University and more of our education to private of Technology is ironically lacking. corporations specialising in online delivery like OES. QUT initially partnered with OES in 2018 to increase flexibility for students

Olivia Brumm is the 2021 QUT Guild President.

NON-FICTION

53

Boys on Trains ‘Have you got gonorrhoea?’ Is one of the many questions he could have asked you today. Instead, he opts for learning absolutely nothing about you before leading you into his bedroom.

The sun is up when you both lay down on his bed to watch TV. By the time the sun sets, nothing has changed. You barely talk through two episodes of House Hunters International. By the time regular House Hunters starts, speaking feels so far removed from possibility that you can’t think of a single thing to say to him. The four episode Friends marathon sucks the life from every periodic “yes I’m still here” giggle you can muster, to the point where the succeeding four episode Seinfeld marathon (a show you know and love) makes genuine laughter seem out of place.

He gets to lean against some pillows while you sit uncomfortably on the bed corner. Your bones are fucked. Hours and hours and hours of this. You stifle delirious laughs at Elaine’s expense, becoming trapped in roiling waves of silent laughter. Tears

But there’s hope now.

The fire within you that desired so badly to fold perfectly into his arms when this date started is back.

Over the next episode of Barnwood Builders, you slowly inch your hand toward his. With one finger, you push against his nail (quite pathetically), begging him to meet you halfway and save you from the blisteringly boring night it’s been. The TV announces that a show called Best Of Postcards is about to begin and something snaps within you. You resort to lightly brushing his fingers with your fingertips like an annoying, lonely child. He moves, and you catch his eyes. He tries to cover a large smile with his pillow.

He’s nervous. Omg. I thought he was just made of fucking STONE. He slides his hand into yours.

The sun had set, but it begins to rise again.

stream from your eyes. Because this is so funny isn’t it? Absolutely

Hours on this bed. But only now - straddling his hips, underwear

HILARIOUS. Episodes of old comedy shows and breaking news

against underwear – do you feel truly together.

alerts pass-by like sands through the hour glass – the days of our lives – painful and tedious. Until finally – something! He gets up and adjusts the blanket. However it happens, you’re laying side by side now, still watching the TV. You’re beginning to feel the life drain out of you and into the floor in search for hell below.

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WRITTEN BY JACKSON MACHADO

QUTGLASS.COM

His hands move from your waist, to your hips, to your thighs.

You kiss his forehead, his cheeks, his nose.

You kiss his lips for the first time. Kissing is always so fantastic

that you have no access to without him. Him. It may be the only

in your head. Movies don’t prepare you for the feeling of a human

thing about him that you’ll ever come to truly value.

skull against your own. A human jaw against yours. He kisses you back, but out of nowhere there’s too much passion. Lust, and far

If there’s a word for it, you don’t know it.

too sudden.

It’s just that boy thing.

You spend a while gliding your fingertips over his arms, his

That magnetism. That thing beneath their warm skin that makes

shoulders, his neck, his chest.

you want to press yourself against them for the rest of your life.

Once you feel you’ve memorised his frame - you rest your head on his shoulder. You close your eyes.

Your eyes are still closed as you slip into wakeness. You feel his shoulder beneath your neck, and it’s wet.

Ew, I was drooling.

You quickly but softly wipe your saliva from his shoulder. He doesn’t stir, thankfully.

How odd you feel.

A boy you don’t know (because let’s face it, you don’t know him).

A boy that’s hardly even been nice to you. He hasn’t been horrible,

That thing that courses through the veins in their arms when they flex, and their lips and their cheeks when they blush.

You want to find it - spot it crawling up his arm (like a scarab from those Mummy movies), and cut it out of him. Just to ask it some questions, like Why were you given to all the boys but me?

He doesn’t walk you out.

You leave his house.

You walk straight to the 7-11 down the road and buy the biggest Kit-Kat you can find.

or even mean. But he’s really made no effort to try and learn anything about you, or to understand you. Yet, it’s like with him you get to feel something you never get to feel. He has something

This article was originally published in Issue 11, Reset

PHOTOGRAPHY BY SAM HOPE

FICTION

55

On Community, Safe Spaces, and Art: The QUT Guild Queer Lounge WRITTEN BY EMILY READMAN

The QUT Guild Queer Lounge was refurbished in 2020, and is now becoming a safe space for more students as COVID-19 restrictions ease. Glass sat down with three of the people involved in this upgrade of the space and the community that has formed around it.

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QUTGLASS.COM

Julian Trueman: QUT Guild Queer Collective Convener What is the Queer Collective and what does it stand for?

The Queer Collective is a group on campus that brings together LGBT+ students from QUT, giving us a place to spend time with others just like us. It can be hard knowing what to do with yourself when you come to university, particularly for people who’ve moved from a place where they were the only queer person they knew. The Collective provides a place where we can really find our roots in our community and connect with others around us.

How has the reception been for the refurbished Queer Room so far, and what are your hopes for the space in 2021?

The new Queer Lounge has gone down a treat! It’s such a welcoming space, and it’s already proven to be a brilliant atmosphere whether having a study day or hanging out and having fun with other queer people. I’d love to see more people finding a home in the Queer Lounge in 2021, and hopefully as the handling of COVID-19 improves we’ll see the Queer Lounge become a comfortable hub for our community.

Amy Sargeant: QUT Guild Queer Officer What does the existence of dedicated queer safe-spaces on campus represent for LGBTQIA+ students?

Yeah, good question. The common (and worn out) joke is “Well where’s the straight room?”. The reality is that as queer people, we don’t feel safe in all spaces at all times - because of our choice to live as our authentic selves. The reality too is that our openness as a minority means communal safe spaces are necessary, important resources to foster relationships, hold events and embrace our queer identities. Our queer rooms are spaces where students can be unapologetically queer without fear of retribution or judgement.

Samuel Leighton-Dore: Queer Room Muralist What does it mean to you to have your art on the walls of a safe space for QUT students?

Beyond the Guild queer spaces, what other avenues are available to LGBTQIA+ QUT students to help them find community at university?

Our QUT Guild Queer Collective is thriving right now - as far as I’m concerned, any queer student who hasn’t gotten involved yet is missing out! We’ve got so much planned for all facets of our

I didn’t have a lot of queer specific safe spaces growing up, so

community in 2021. You can find us on Facebook at QUT Guild

the fact that they exist represents how far we’ve come in such

Queer Collective.

a short period of time. To be able to lend my work to making the QUT space feel warm and welcoming for all members of the LGBTIQ+ community is a particularly special thing for me.

What considerations went through your mind when making the mural?

Since these interviews took place, the QUT Guild has officially opened a dedicated Queer space at the Garden’s Point campus, with a Women’s soon to follow. The Garden’s Point Queer Space can be

I had to be mindful of making a work that people could see

found at X-204, and the new Women’s Space will be coming soon

themselves in, which meant not being too specific with my

right next door.

characterisations and leaving room for the imagination. That’s part of the reason behind choosing to do line work, rather than full colour, and creating a bit of a fantastical, nonsensical

This article was originally published in Issue 11, Reset

landscape that (hopefully) everyone feels welcome to inhabit.

NON-FICTION

57

Gossip Glass is your one-stop-shop for all campus confessions, gossip, and advice.

Subscribe to the Glass newsletter today, and keep up with Gossip Glass.

Here are our favourites from 2021.

Rants So, one of my friends at uni is going through a hard time. And because of the intense nature of my course, we have to be aware of everyone’s feelings all the time so we don’t trigger anything.

So, we check in every day. Lately he’s been checking in with really

Gossip

low numbers out of 10, like 3s and 4s. This is all fine and we all are here to support him. But after he checks in, he says “so if I’m more short than usual, that’s why”. This is 100% not the point of the check ins. They’re not a vehicle for excusing poor behaviour, which is what he’s engaging in. The other day he and one of the other guys had a small disagreement and he came back at him like “Oh yeah? Well, you often say shit that doesn’t land and then we all go away and laugh at you behind your back”. SUCH a low blow. Anyway, he’s basically making his bad mood everyone’s bad mood which is so not it. What the heck do we do?

–H Gossip Glass: 1:30pm – Life is too short to put up with whiny soft bois who think showing emotion means they get a free pass to treat others like shit. Cut em lose. Snip Snip Snip.

7:30pm (after a glass of red and a bubble bath) – *glug* *glug* *glug* This friend clearly has a lot

An ode to my roommate You are so frustrating You never clean the apartment You always micromanage And you always leave your greasy frypan on the stove You are so overbearing You don’t know how to share I think you’d probably vote for Trump And you need 24 hours’ notice on literally everything You are an only child Which I use to explain everything But that isn’t really an excuse For your ever-present nagging in my life I promise I do love you But I can really use some space But I see you every day At the University degree that we study –P

going on and doesn’t know how to properly deal with it. It’s understandably hard to remain empathetic

Gossip Glass: Yikes, you better play your cards right

towards someone who is taking out their frustrations

otherwise some fresh 18-year-old army boy will snap

on you. Some ideas that could help when interacting

your roommate right up.

with this friend: Talk openly to him about the issues you have with how he interacts with you and your friends Approach the issue in a balanced way that isn’t emotive so he doesn’t feel attacked Let him know that you’re there for support but you need to look after yourself first

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QUTGLASS.COM

Let them know that you’re there for support but you need to look after yourself first

I genuinely cannot even believe I am writing this but something has gotten so under my skin and I would honestly take validation from anywhere.

So my boyfriend and I had a bit of a tiff. We went to see the new

Glass

Black Widow movie (I didn’t mind it but I don’t really watch those movies as much as him) and when we got out it was dark. He doesn’t live far from the theatre so we were just going to walk to his place.

On the way there’s this little public bathroom across the road from the main shopping complex, and I had to pee pretty bad. He decided to go as well, but for some reason was taking a while and I was a little uncomfortable standing out in the dark by myself.

Basically, a big guy in a hoodie was walking towards me (I know, probably to use the bathroom, but still ugh). I was a bit creeped out

Are you the asshole?

I (22NB) opened up to a close friend (22M) about a dark habit of mine. For context, we’ve been friends for a long time and we’ve both been there for each other through serious situations: i.e., health crises, final exams and family drama. I trust and love him unconditionally –– and, to be honest, I expected the same in return.

So, you can imagine my genuine heart break, when after I revealed my secret shame, he’s stopped replying to my Facebook (and Instagram!) tags and, in reply, told me “you’re a sick fuck”.

Truthfully, I did not expect this from him.

and alone so I crossed the road and waited for my boyfriend on the other side (where the shopping centre is).

On the walk home he asked me why I’d been waiting over there and I told him. But here’s where it gets stupid. Instead of agreeing with me, he got mad at me!? And he said it was so sexist to avoid men just because their vibe was off.

Anyway, we’ve been arguing all day and most of our friends agree with him. Am I going crazy?

–M Gossip Glass: WOW. You! Are! Not! Crazy! First of all,

I told him that once I decided to shit in the Gardens Point Library

sexism towards men does not exist. I’m sure many MRA

and not flush, just to trap the next person in the stall with my

will be gouging their eyes out at that but sue me, it’s

shit. It’s not like I got sexual gratification out of it, I’m just a proud

fact. The oppressor I.e., m*n can’t be oppressed by

pooper and wanted to share that with someone else. It was funny,

the oppressed I.e., women. Makes no sense. So, no what

and I guess it was gross. But it was ONE TIME! It’s not like I posted

you did is not ‘sexist’ to men. That big dude probably

a picture of it with a caption “this is my shit, it is large and stinky,

didn’t even notice tbh. As women I reserve the right

and I’m not getting enough fibre!” Anyway, I think my friend is the

to walk away from men or do anything that makes me

asshole for not talking to me anymore over this. Like, it’s not that

feel safer from them if I feel uncomfortable even if

big a deal. It’s been two years :(

they don’t have bad intentions because there’s no way

Am I the asshole here?

–J Gossip Glass: Everyone sucks here. Yes, pooping and not flushing is quite icky and I feel sorry for that poor innocent person who was trapped in there after you but your friend should definitely be more forgiving. Can

of us knowing that until it’s too late. Furthermore, just from my own experience, if it’s late at night and I’m out with my boyfriend, if I need to go to the toilet, he’ll wait outside for me until I come out and he’ll just hold it if he needs to go. I mean that’s just basic courtesy considering men can pee in any vacant bush too.

he honestly say that that thought has never crossed his mind?

NEWSLETTER CONTENT

59

TRIGGER WARNING, lost/dead animal Over the winter break, I (20M) was asked to house sit for about two weeks for some friends of my parents. This involved standard housework; feeding their pets (two cats), some basic gardening, taking out their rubbish and generally just keeping an eye on the place (they are very security-conscious despite owning a pretty rundown-looking house). For context, they have two young children (boy and girl) whom I babysit every now and then, so I am quite well-acquainted with the family, their pets and the layout of the house.

Anyway, despite keeping their cats indoors for the first year of their life, they had recently started letting them go outside to explore during the day. So as part of my housework I was to feed the cats first thing in the morning, open a side-door just enough to let them get in and out, and then feed them again in the evening, where I was told they would return by themselves and then lock them inside for the night.

For the first week everything was dandy, I’d feed them, let them out and they would be waiting inside when I returned to feed them at night. However, on Friday (the family was due back the following Thursday), one of the cats had not returned. I waited until 11pm and it still had not come in, so, thinking it would return in the morning or when it got hungry, I closed up the house.

The cat did not return for the following few nights either. Getting worried I texted the family explaining the situation, but they didn’t seem too upset and said it wasn’t unusual for that particular cat to be gone a couple of days at a time (someone else must have been feeding it). Anyway, the following night, same deal.

Then a few days later I got in my car and just as I was driving home I hit a small bump; I knew almost immediately what it was. Jumping out of my car I looked under my front tyre and sure enough, there was the other cat, essentially laid out and mangled; but still breathing. Naturally I was upset, but I could also see the cat was in a lot of pain. I didn’t know what to do and didn’t want to know feeling of putting an animal out of its misery with my bare hands, so I got back in the car and reversed over it.

At this point I was distraught, but also didn’t know what to tell the family (bear in mind it was about 11:30pm at this point) so I wouldn’t be able to call them until the morning and I would also be required to store the cat’s body somewhere. The logistics of this weren’t something I was prepared to deal with at that moment so I threw the cat into the bin. When I returned the next day, the rubbish bin had been emptied and I had more or less gotten away with it. However, over the last week, my guilt has started to mount, and the family texted me today to ask if the cat had come home since I had last messaged them, I didn’t have the heart to tell them I killed their cat and denied it a proper burial so I just apologised and said I hadn’t seen it.

What a bitch gotta do?

This isn’t really a lockdown story, but it was a time I had to put my bitch pants on.

CONTEXT: I study music and an important part of my work is rehearsing and recording. Luckily, at QUT we have some of the best facilities available for recording.

When I was in first year (now fourth) I booked a space in Z9 to do my work. It was a two hour booking from 7 PM, and I was a little bit stressed because I was already running late. It takes a long time to make the magic happen and I didn’t want to waste any. But to my surprise, when I got to the room it was already occupied.

We’ve all been there before - you book a room and someone else takes it. Ugh. So annoying. I don’t know if it was the stress, the fact I hadn’t eaten all day, or the knowledge of my impending deadlines, but I was at the end of wits with this idiot. So I knocked on the door.

A big guy with curly hair opened the door and told me to please not disturb them. Like, SERIOUSLY? Dude, I’ve booked the room! I told him I had a booking and he just looked at me confused. I showed him the booking on my phone and he just stared at it, then looked up and told me to give him a second. He then closed the door and disappeared. When the door opened again he apologised and walked out sheepishly, followed by at least three or four other guys.

At this point I was wondering what on earth was going on. Who could have the AUDACITY to fuck over a first year? Who would be that ENTITLED? Then she walked out: tall, blonde - as seen on The Voice, Neighbours, Australian Idol, etc. Her jaw was practically on the floor with disbelief that she had been kicked out by a fucking kid.

And that’s the story of the time I kicked Delta Goodrem out of a recording studio. Apparently it was a So Good milk ad that never got made. QUT staff apologised and thanked me because they’d been trying to get her to leave for nearly an hour, but she just kept throwing wine down.

Anyway, I got a 7. Bitch gotta do what a bitch gotta do.

AITA? –G Gossip Glass: You’re the asshole.

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QUTGLASS.COM

Subscribe to the Glass Newsletter

HOROSCOPE 21 MAR - 19 APR

20 APR - 20 MAY

21 MAY - 20 JUNE

21 JUNE - 22 JULY

There is a cute little Sagittarius for you just around the corner.

Stop overworking yourself and then blaming everyone else for your burn out.

You have a trip in your future.

Overseas or down some steps – who’s to say?

Everything’s in retrograde babe, just stay inside

23 JULY - 22 AUG

23 AUG - 22 SEP

23 SEP - 22 OCT

23 OCT - 21 NOV

Be kind to the people causing you stress, but don’t forget to take care of yourself.

You might be physically under the weather, but mentally you’re flying high

That high horse you’re on: get off it and put it in the stable.

Yee-haw.

Never stop expanding your knowledge, even in the face of pressure.

22 NOV - 21 DEC

21 DEC - 20 JAN

21 JAN - 18 FEB

19 FEB - 20 MAR

Stay away from Aries at all cost.

An old friend seems suddenly different to you.

A new romance, or is this relationship too much?

Stop exerting yourself so much. No wonder you barely have time to think.

Nothing is forever, and feelings change. Take as much time as you need to be your best self.

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Coffee Maps

Gardens Point

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1.

Gerbino’s

6.

Lady Harriet’s Bar and Kitchen

2.

The Pantry

7.

Cafe on the Goodwill Bridge

3.

Merlo

8.

The Gardens Club

4.

Raw Press

9.

QUT Depot Cafe (Bookshop Cafe)

5.

Zeus Cafe

QUTGLASS.COM

Kelvin Grove 1.

Brewed Awakening

6.

Cafe Artease

2.

Beadle’s On The Quad

7.

Mean Beanz Espresso

3.

The Menagerie

8.

Earth & Steam

4.

CoCozy Cafe

5.

The Boys House of Coffee

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Editors Em Readman Ella Brumm Tom Loudon Christina Simonoski

Graphic Designer May Lyn Chew

Contributors Aimee Yarrow Alex Rich

Non Fiction

Christina Simonoski

Stories

Ciaran Greig Ella Brumm

Interviews

Ellie Kaddatz Em Readman

Reviews

Emma Nayfie

Poetry

Grace Hammond Jackson Machado

Art

Jak Kirwin

Photography

Julienne Pancho May Lyn Chew Olivia Brumm Pipier Weller Ronia Garrett-Benson Sam Hope Samuel Maguire Tom Loudon

Your work could be in the pages of Glass Magazine!

We love celebrating and publishing the work of QUT Students and Alumni. Our online submissions are always open and our print edition submissions open as advertised. You can find information about the submission themes and how to submit to Glass on our website, qutglass.com/submit, or our Facebook page @qutguildnewspaper.

We accept writing of all genres. We take poetry, opinion pieces, essays, satire, fiction, recipes, reviews and more. We also take illustrations, collages and photography. If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch with the editorial team to discuss.

Glass QUT GUILD

For more info on how to submit your work, visit qutglass.com/submit