VOL. 79 / ISSUE 05 23 MARCH
THIS ONE WEIRD TRICK WILL GET YOU BETTER GRADES / 16 Be an introvert
STOP, COLLABORATE AND LISTEN / 20 The hidden talents of quiet people
LESSONS FROM THE 52-HERTZ WHALE / 26 How a cetacean became the flagbearer for introverts
ON LIVING ALONE
/ 30
Being naked all the time isn’t the only advantage
THE INTROVERTS ISSUE
Contents News
06-13
Your Flat Will Remain Shit Canta’s Golden Age of Offensiveness
Features
07 09
16-33
This One Weird Trick Will Get You Better Grades Stop, Collaborate and Listen Lessons From the 52-Hertz Whale On Living Alone
Editor Sam McChesney Designers Ella Bates-Hermans Lily Paris West Senior News Editor Sophie Boot News Editor Nicola Braid Chief Sub Editor Kimaya McIntosh Feature Writer Charlotte Doyle Distributor Beckie Wilson News Interns Emma Hurley Charlie Prout Francesca Shepard Beckie Wilson Elea Yule
Section Editors Ruth Corkill (Science) Sharon Lam (Visual Arts) Baz Macdonald (Gaming) Jayne Mulligan (Books) Alice Reid (Music) Fairooz Samy (Film) Other Contributors Te Po Hawaikirangi, Brittany Mackie, Rick Zwaan, Nathaniel Manning, Cathy Stephenson, Wilbur Townsend, Natasha Donaldson, Bridget Pyc, Harry Evans, Sarah Dillon, Tim Manktelow, Lydia and Mitch, Cameron Gray, Tom and Luke
16 20 26 30
Regular Content Editorial Letters Maori Matters The Week in Feminism VUWSA Being Well Books Games Music Film Science Food We Drank This So You Wouldn’t Have To Visual Art The Moan Zone
03 04-05 10 10 11 12 34 35 36-37 38-39 40-41 44 45 46 47
Contact Level 2, Student Union Building Victoria University P.O. Box 600, Wellington Phone: 04 463 6766
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Complaints People with a complaint against the magazine should first complain in writing to the Editor and then, if not satisfied with the response, complain to the Press Council. See presscouncil.org.nz/complain.php for more information.
Editorial
03
SAM MCCHESNEY
This editorial was going to be about Natalia Kills and Willy Moon but I’m already tired of that story, as I’m sure you are. Last week Salient covered a story about the gender and ethnic imbalances on University Council. Most of the feedback we’ve received has been very positive. A couple of the letters we received this week, though, were of the depressingly predictable “ermagherd stop picking on us white men” variety. As a white man, I feel compelled to step in. This is difficult for some to accept, but race is a different—and more significant—issue for people of colour than it is for white people in New Zealand. Gender is a different issue for women than it is for men. These differences exist because the basic fabric of our society was woven centuries ago in a way that innately favours white men. It’s easy to forget that gender and race (and to varying degrees, class and sexuality) are significant parts of your identity and your standing in society when you’re not reminded of them on a regular basis. “Microagression” may be a cringeworthy progressive buzzword, but it’s a fairly good descriptor (I imagine) of the kind of individually minor, but cumulatively exhausting experiences to which women and people of colour are constantly subjected. Forgetting (or imagining away) one’s group identity is an unmistakable sign of privilege. To all my fellow white men out there—you know that this is true; don’t pretend otherwise. White men—like some of our illustrious letter writers this week—cry foul at attempts to redress the balance. This is because these attempts are, by necessity, highly visible; whereas society’s inherent racism and sexism, because it is structural in nature, is largely invisible (to us white men at least). The effects, however, aren’t—and when challenged to explain why white men just happen to be doing so much better, their defenders immediately fudge the issue. White men often claim to be offended when their privilege is called out. Speaking on behalf of my people, I can tell you this is absolute bullshit. With the exception of straight-up White Nationalists, white men don’t perceive themselves as being part of a “white male” culture on a daily basis, because society has trained them not to. Rather, claiming to be offended—playing the “victim card”—is all about
power. I repeat: this is bullshit, and you do not have to listen to these people. Reason and emotion. Public and private. State and society. These supposed opposites exist because centuries of white male academics and statesmen assumed they could stand apart from their emotions, their personal lives and their group interests, and “do politics” in a completely objective and impartial way. It’s a myth that took centuries—until women and people of colour finally found a political voice—to break down. It’s a myth that, for instance, has long held back the development of true artificial intelligence: the notoriously white-male-dominated STEM industries simply took the prevailing theory at face value, separated reason from emotion and chased AI down a blind alley of sheer computing power. It’s only relatively recently that they’ve been encouraged to do their philosophy properly, and to recognise that true practical reasoning is fundamentally affected by emotion and feeling—most AI research now focuses on developing robots that can “learn” in an genuinely human-like way, through experience. More significantly, it’s a myth that lies at the very core of our economic system (every first-year economics student is told with absolute certainty that people are “rational utility maximisers”), our legal constitutions, and our kneejerk retreat to “my rights” and “equal treatment” when faced with the claims of various minority groups. Pointing out that society is dominated by men isn’t sexist—it’s a fact. Pointing out that society is dominated by white people isn’t racist— it’s a fact. Advocating for measures to address these issues isn’t racist or sexist—it’s called not being an arsehole. And doing so as a white man doesn’t make you a whimpering, self-flagellating hypocrite—it just means you have to listen, occasionally, and try not to be too much of a dick. But, hey ho, we need to fill up the letters page somehow.
editor@salient.org.nz
04
issue 5 | introverts
Letters
1. Page 14; 2. Pages 12, 13, 45 and 47; 3. Hey John Key, legalise reefer. (Happy now, Pip?) Readers and writers,
The pandas have learned to write. They’ll learn to screw any day now! Dear Salient, I feel personally attacked by the blatant bullying that was the hate letter directed at possibly one of the most innocent creatures on the entire planet. What sort of cold hearted creature are you to victimise a defenceless animal. I. Can’t. Even. Dignify that letter with a response, I am embarrassed to be sitting here reading this. As an arts students who respects the creative integrity and intellectual property of pandas, I am utterly disgusted. You Natalia Kills wannabe panda h8r. PandaLover_xo
Issue 1: what happened to the suduko and fill in rap chorus? The only non liberal mumbo jumbo your magazine offers. Issue 2: you need more banter in the salient. I genuinely dgaf about people’s problems and concerns. Where are the non-hipster articles similar to that of the civilian. Issue 3: get the magazine involved in the legalisation of cannabis. Three issues your pip peers feel strongly about. Gracis, Someone on the fence about picking up next weeks issue.
Bro do u read Canta? Dear Salient, I write this wearing not a white sheet fashioned into anything remotely racist, but chinos rolled up to just above my small calves. I dream of living in a world where ‘equality’ means we actually treat people equally. A place where it is okay to say someone is white or someone is black, because they are – and that is a thing to be celebrated. I have absolutely had it with this idea of ‘representation’ and how it is supposedly someone’s fault for others lack of being represented. Back in my rep hockey days, being a ‘rep’ player meant you took it upon yourself to represent your region. In response to Salient’s findings in their investigation of the cultural collaboration of various University councils and committees, I feel I must state what all of us non ‘public-servant-Kia-Ora-greeting “racists”’ are thinking. Either the various minorities at play do not care about being part of these various bodies. Or, perhaps those that do try just don’t have what it takes to be on those bodies right now. Either way, it’s not racist! Being racist is treating people differently according to their membership in a particular racial group… that kind of sounds like what you are suggesting we do… Yours faithfully, Not a racist
Everything’s a copy, of a copy, of a copy… Dear Salient, I’m against Piracy because the more we copy one another the more alike we become. I heard about the X Factor NZ (copied from X Factor USA) controversy around Natalia Kills (who copied her style from Willy Wonka) abusing a contestant for copying her husband Willy Moon (AKA first singer to wear a suit) then I looked at the swathes of people on Lambton wearing suits. Suddenly I realized: we’ve all become Willy Moon, we’re all Agent Smiths now and we’re all desperate to blend in with the masses. Dawning is the age of the Antihipster, a reactionary revolutionary who shall remind us all that it’s hip to be square. Copying contributes to this culture of conformity. To alliterate my point further the plagiarism plague is permeating plainness. We must not let this dull dystopia come to pass. Regards Anna Kist
Believe it or not, it was toned down Dear Salient,
The lack of puzzles is the puzzle Dear Salient, WHERE ARE THE PUZZLES
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That was a great write-up on Jack “The Ubermensch” in issue 3 – thoroughly entertaining. Keep the loose characters coming! Ryan
05
The foundation of all great journalism… Dear Salient, I really miss the puzzles section you’ve had in the past. The Survival Issue from the first week had a sudoku in it, but anything that may challenge my brain has been absent since then. Please include puzzles again so I and fellow students can continue bitching about how flawed they are. Thanks, Kathleen
I’m calling Poe’s law on this one Dear Salient, I was disheartened by Rick Zwaan’s bigoted comments about white men in the last issue. Honesty is always the best policy though, I suppose. If this is VUWSA’s party line then we have a cause for massive concern. I do not wish to have my interests represented by an organisation that isn’t mature enough to manage its own biases. Had Mr Zwaan’s comments been aimed at Maori or perhaps Asian men the uproar would have been earth-shattering. However, this kind of American identity politics aimed at stroking envious victim complexes appears to be en vogue across Western campuses. If Mr Zwaan was truly concerned about speaking over women as a white man, then he would put his money where his mouth is by resigning from VUWSA at once and campaigning for a replacement that doesn’t have the audacity to be white and (the horror!) male. Sincerely, A concerned student
Notices Victoria Abroad– Victoria Student Exchange Programme
Content: Why not study overseas as part of your degree?! Study in English, Earn Vic credit, Get Studylink & grants, explore the world! Weekly seminars on Wednesdays, Level 2, Easterfield Building, 12.50pm Website: victoria.ac.nz/exchange Visit us: Level 2, Easterfield Building Drop-in hours: Mon-Wed 1-3pm, Thurs & Fri 10-12pm
Why do we replace our old jeans with new jeans that look old? From the luxury Comme des Garçons concept store to Enjoy Gallery, Jade Townsend brings a selection of LED light works developed during her recent three-month residency in Beijing, China. Exploring the interplay between human values and the material world, the works focus on the construction of ‘taste’, reflecting the language of consumerist trends and the incredible vibrancy encountered in Beijing. Jade Townsend ‘Typical Relics’ March 20 – March 26, 2015 Opening: Friday March 20, 5.30pm, Sound by Adam Ladley Artist talk: Thursday March 26, 6.00pm
Salient letters policy Salient welcomes, encourages, and thrives on public debate—be it serious or otherwise— through its letters page. Letters must be received before 4pm on Thursday for publication the following week. Letters must be no longer than 250 words. Pseudonyms are fine, but all letters must include your real name, address and telephone number—these will not be printed. Letters will not be corrected for spelling or grammar. The Editor reserves the right to edit, abridge, ordecline any letters without explanation. Email: editor@salient.org.nz Post: Salient, c/- Victoria University of Wellington Hand-delivered: Salient office, Level 3, Student Union Building (behind the Hunter Lounge)
Corrections The article “Banksy: The Artistic Pirate” published in issue 4 was wrongly attributed to Sharon Lam. The piece was written by Harriet Riley.
editor@salient.org.nz
06
issue 5 | introverts
‘Victim’ of the week: Willy Moon This week, nasty and manipulative X Factor contestant Joe Irvine had the gall to steal X Factor judge Willy Moon’s presumably trademarked look: the suit and tie. The episode is only the latest in a string of incidents involving Moon’s intellectual property. Moon’s look has been stolen by such stars as Frank Sinatra, Benedict Cumberbatch, Justin Timberlake, and every single individual on Lambton Quay on a weekday morning. Moon was also the first man to rock the classic “two arms and legs” look and has apparently claimed that shoes were “his idea”.
By the Numbers 200% How much more likely someone who has just shaken hands is to sniff their hand than someone who has not, according to a study from the Weizmann Institute of Science.
7,500,500 Pints of Guinness drunk on average each St Patrick’s Day.
US $107 The cost of a dress covered in poop emojis being made by US kickstarter Betabrand
3126km The distance a Frenchman attempted to travel while carrying his wife in a suitcase to avoid EU restrictions.
58% The proportion of participants who claimed “posting the perfect photo” on social media had prevented them from enjoying experiences according to authors Joseph Grenny and David Maxfield
83% Proportion of the lights in Syria that have gone out since civil war erupted in the area four years ago
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07
NEWS. KEE N EYE FOR NEWS? S END ANY T IPS , LEADS OR GOSSIP TO NE WS @S ALIENT.ORG.NZ
Your Flat Will Remain Shit Get Over It, Stalin Nicola Braid Last Wednesday Parliament failed to pass the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill sponsored by Labour’s Phil Twyford, with the House split on the measure 60-60. The Bill was submitted with the aim of ensuring that “every rental home in New Zealand meets minimum standards of heating and insulation” according to the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority standards. Under the Bill, landlords would also have to declare or guarantee that their properties were up to minimum health and safety standards. Because bills require a majority to pass, the tie meant the bill was dismissed. National and Act voted against the Bill while Labour, the Greens, the Māori Party, NZ First and United Future voted in favour. The dismissal comes as a blow to VUWSA, which has campaigned since 2013 to introduce warrant of fitness standards to rental accommodation in Wellington and to assist students living in substandard flats. VUWSA President Rick Zwaan told Salient it was “disappointing that the Government voted down the Bill”. Students took to social media to respond, with some championing free market economics and the Bill’s dismissal, claiming students simply needed to “give up
[their] latest iphone and daily lattes in the city” and find cheaper and better homes. Others said healthy housing was a human right not a consumer product, and pointed to rheumatic illnesses they had suffered as a result of poor housing conditions. Zwaan says that VUWSA will continue to lobby the Wellington City Council to introduce a rental WoF policy “to ensure we don’t have to keep putting up with cold mouldy flats.” The Government dismissed the bill on the grounds that landlords were likely to increase rents in order to meet the costs that the new housing standards would force them to subsidise. Members also claimed the Bill would force landlords to take properties off the markets. National MP Paul Foster-Bell described the Bill as “Stalinist”, presumably because the gulags were cosy, dry and insulated places. Twyford said that the Bill provided a five-year period for houses to be brought up to liveable standards, and that the cost of upgrading a home to meet the Bill’s standards was tiny when compared to landlords’ total revenues over that five-year period. Unfortunately, we couldn’t hear the debate between Foster-Bell and Twyford, most likely due to our dampridden ears and the wind streaming through our flat’s uninsulated windows.
editor@salient.org.nz
issue 5 | introverts Dr Pala Molisa, a lecturer at Victoria and originally from Vanuatu, said the damage inflicted by Cyclone Pam is unparalleled in the country’s history, destroying 90 per cent of buildings in Port Vila alone and affecting almost the entire population.
NEWS
08
Victoria Strives to Aid Vanuatu Elea Yule
Students and staff across Victoria University are rallying to provide support for Vanuatu, after the nation was ripped apart by Cyclone Pam last Saturday. Vanuatu President Baldwin Lonsdale called the windstorm “a monster” after it tore through the country at 270km/hr, destroying nearly all structural development, killing (at current count) 24 citizens and leaving thousands homeless. At present, 3300 people have been displaced to 37 evacuation shelters across the main island.
McProtest One Big Mac, hold the zerohour contracts please Charlie Prout Service and food workers union Unite has called for an end to zero-hour contracts with a recent series of protests in Wellington. The union, which represents fast food workers at McDonalds, Burger King and other restaurant chains, is hoping to renegotiate the use of these contracts in conjunction with discussions over workers’ pay. Zero-hour contracts give an employer full discretion over their employees’ hours, without guaranteeing workers a minimum number of hours. In practice, this means employees can be rostered anywhere from zero to 60 hours a week with little or no stability of income. Unite’s Wellington team leader Heleyni Pratley has pointed to the unfair nature of zero-hour contracts and said that the
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“It is incredibly sad to see such devastation to people’s homes, the roads and the infrastructure in Vanuatu,” Assistant ViceChancellor (Pasifika) Hon Luamanuvao Winnie Laban said. The reopening of the damaged airport in the capital, Port Vila, has facilitated the delivery of international aid to the struggling nation. Lonsdale said there was urgent need of a variety of items, chiefly tarpaulins, water containers, construction tools and medical supplies. One major point of concern is Port Vila’s hospital, the structural integrity of which has been compromised. Medical staff were forced to evacuate patients from wards. Surgeon Richard Leona said “we need to get an urgent drug supply and food and also set up a mobile hospital to deal with the influx of patients coming in.” In response, Victoria University, together with the Victoria Pasifika Students Council
contracts make life unstable for workers. “You don’t know what hours you’ll be given or what your schedule will be. This makes it difficult to meet financial commitments, studies and family obligations.” She argued that contracts affect students in particular, many of whom work in the fast food industry. “Students have rent and food commitments just like everyone else, there is no reason why we have to have these contracts—apart from the fact that it benefits the bosses of the café or McDonald’s.” Unite’s concern over zero-hour contracts is not strictly limited to Wellington, with workers at a South Dunedin Wendy’s chain protesting last week in an attempt to pressure owners to provide more financial guarantees for employees. However, Katrine Munro, a Wellington student who works at the Basin Reserve McDonald’s, does not share Unite’s sentiments. She said she has had no major issues with her zero-hour contract. “[Zero-hour contracts] can be a pain in the arse during holidays. Having said that, my work is quite consistent with the amount of hours I get during university.”
and VUWSA, has organised a number of initiatives to raise funds for the people of Vanuatu. A benefit concert featuring Young Life, one of Vanuatu’s most acclaimed reggae bands, was held in the Hunter Lounge last Friday, along with continuing bucket collections on all campuses. An “appeal day” will also be held at the University, at which students will be able to donate. VUWSA President Rick Zwaan said that “the joint initiative is a way to show support in a tangible way by raising funds and working without out local Vanuatu community to ensure that they are well used.” Laban said that the funds raised are intended to be “targeted at a medium-term initiative, such as specific education initiative in Vanuatu.”
Pledge your support by donating VUW Pasifika Supports Vanuatu ANZ: 06-0606-0272676–01
She says she can “change to get more or less hours when I need to” and said that although “there are teething problems when the semester starts, generally too many hours… they are open and do listen when I point that out. Having no shifts in any week is incredibly rare, it’s only happened once during my sixish months there.” Unite says that its protests have successfully increased awareness surrounding the needs of fast food workers who are made vulnerable under zero-hour contracts. Employees under zero-hour agreements are classed as having “insecure work”, with socioeconomic groups including young people, Māori, Pasifika, immigrants and disabled workers more frequently affected by a lack of contractual guarantees than others, according to journalist Max Rashbrooke. Rashbrooke claims that insecure work is also spreading to “areas where once it was relatively rare, including universities and Government departments”. However, a spokesperson for Victoria assured Salient that although the university pays the minimum wage to a small number of library employees, the University does not use zerohour contracts.
09
Sophie Boot TRIGGER WARNING: This article contains violent sexual language that may be triggering to some people.
CANTA/UCSA’S GREATEST HITS October 2007: Canta runs a feature outlining “The Top Five Most attractive girls worth going to prison for”, written under the auspice of being “tongue-incheek”. May 2009: “Don’t Breed, Writer urges Mental Health Victims”—a column that criticised television campaigns at reducing the stigmas surrounding mental health and claimed those with antisocial behaviours did not deserve respect. May 2014: Ensoc forced to apologise after using blackface in a promotional video. Ensoc was not sanctioned by UCSA for their racist video, as UCSA received legal advice that the video had not breached its constitution. September 2014: Sponsors and students criticise the RoUndie 500 event at which participants were encouraged to choose themes “the more inappropriate the better”, leading to cars and costumes that poked fun at women, Islam, the Malaysia Airlines crash and the Ebola crisis. UCSA promises better. October 2014: Academic Ekant Veer returns his lecturer of the year award in protest against what he called an “underbelly of hate”, racism and sexism on campus. March 2015: UCSA recalls copies of Canta after it publishes an article which tells women who play video games they deserve to be raped and threatens violence against women with opinions.
The terminally offensive shitrag Canta has struck again, with all copies of its latest misogynist trashboy rantings removed and burnt (hopefully) by the maliciously ineffectual Canterbury students’ association, UCSA. All copies of the latest issue of Canta have been removed by the UCSA after the magazine published a story about “virtual rape”. The article, written by a student using the pseudonym Queen B, criticised female gamers who complained about encountering sexual harassment online. “Queen B” (although there is no reason to think the student is a woman) made a number of suggestions to people who felt that rape had no place in online gaming: “Maybe dense bitches just shouldn’t game, huh?” “I’m going to refrain from making any let’s show her what rape really is comments because I know that’s taking it too far and what I just said doesn’t count because I prefaced it by saying I wasn’t gonna do it because it would be taking it too far. So there.” “One might liken you to the stereotypical drunk sorority girl whose whorey tendancies gets her in stupid situations— you were aware of the risks, you were asking for it.” “If there was a way to virtually backhand a bitch, this is where I’d do it.” “Get the fuck back in the kitchen, bitch, since you are obviously not mentally equipped to be allowed to go anywhere else.” The writer was paid $100 for the article. The issue was released as the University of Canterbury celebrated Diversity Week. Diversity Week came about following last year’s heavily criticised RoUndie 500, at which racist and misogynist costumes abounded. Canta “editor” Greg Stubbings said he just printed what students wrote, and it was “clearly meant to be satirical”.
“If it’s legal and not defamatory, it’s difficult to morally argue that I shouldn’t run it. It’s not my place to censor students… It was either run [the story] or a white page.” Stubbings has held the role of editor since mid-2014. It’s unclear what he has done over that period, if his editorial choices are dictated solely by whether content is defamatory or not. Student response to the “article” was immediate, with many taking to the UCSA Facebook page to criticise Stubbings and UCSA president Sarah Platt. Some students sought to defend Canta, dubbing complainants “social justice hyenas” and claiming “there is literally no pleasing these people”. Overwhelmingly, however, students were appalled at the magazine’s content and called for a more diverse editing staff and USCA executive, a withdrawal of student levies to Canta, and even Stubbings’ resignation as editor. One described the article as “disgusting and heartless” and said Canta “should be shut down”. Another took issue with Stubbings’ defence of the article, saying “there is no way in hell this piece was intended satirically, and UCSA and Canta are just scrambling for the best defence they have on hand.” Academic Ekant Veer, who last year returned his lecturer of the year award from the University of Canterbury in protest against the “underbelly of hate” on campus, also slammed the piece. “Canta, I know you’re trying to get a rise out of people—but to publish this during Diversity Week is pretty poor taste,” Veer said. A fellow lecturer at the University, Erin Harrington, also expressed her disappointment at the content. “This kind of ‘edgy’ baiting is irresponsible and poor form at any time—let alone during diversity week.” Sarah Platt, President of UCSA, sent out a press release late last Wednesday, following a story about the Canta piece that was published by Stuff. The release apologised for UCSA’s failure to ensure student wellbeing, and said there would be a public forum held on 24 March where student feedback would be used to “guide UCSA executive as we modify the editorial policy.”
editor@salient.org.nz
NEWS
Canta’s Golden Age of Offensiveness
issue 5 | introverts
The Week in Feminism
NEWS
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A U
N Women have published a simple infographic that highlights the progresses and hurdles that women have faced in the last 20 years. The infographic covers things such as women in parliament, wages, education and gender-based violence. It’s worth a look at—not just because it shows what has been achieved but because it highlights the spaces that have been neglected and overlooked such as physical and sexual violence, maternal deaths and education for women in developing and less developed countries. The infographic was published as part of the twentieth anniversary for the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. This conference is a forum for national leaders to meet, review, and plan for an equal future.
Another “Maari” sent to jail for child abuse, murder and thievery Te Po Hawaikirangi
21-year-old man has been charged with the murder of 20-year-old Massey University student Virginia Ford. The domestic assault took place last Friday after they reportedly had an argument. The two shared a flat in Palmerston North. Massey University are providing counselling and support to their Palmerston North campus as they deal with the shock. At times like these it is important to acknowledge these are not isolated events: domestic violence is one of New Zealand’s most serious social issues with police being called to around 200 domestic violence situations every day. Domestic violence is one of the most insidious forms of violence towards women and victims often face questions like “Why didn’t you just leave?”, and “You must have known he was like that when you met him”. Victim blaming is normalised when these questions are left unaddressed and even expected when women speak up about their experiences. Police estimate that only 18 per cent of domestic assaults are actually reported—a direct consequence of victim blaming and shame culture. Many intimate relationships come with complexities that we don’t often hear about—sexual pressure, manipulation and psychological abuse are often subtle and progressive forms of domestic abuse. Accepting solidarity is vital—many organisations have been founded based on the fact that this happens far too often. Women’s Refuge offers help to women in all kinds of situations through a multitude of forums. If you don’t feel comfortable enough to go to one of their centres they can be contacted by phone or email.
Tēna kōutou te iwi o Te Whare Wanaga o Wikitoria. Now that I have got your attention, let me just elaborate on what exactly the media are trying to convey here. Media are the ones who go in for the one dimensional perspective labelling te iwi Māori as all sorts: thieves, child beaters, spongers, druggies. You name it, the media have depicted this message everywhere in society. This has become a shadow on our Māori nation that not only shows one part of our culture, but now defining us as a people. This is not only an overcast but a rainfall on Māori who want to build a better and brighter future for our people. These stereotypes have now been ingrained into our identity and how people perceive us. Stereotypes are the absolute worst. Don’t you just hate it when you walk into a shop and all the staff are watching you like a hawk, all because they saw on the news how high Māori rank in thievery? Media, including newspapers, internet websites and even the news, have publicised these degrading characteristics of us as
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not being New Zealanders, but as Māori. Yet when Māori appear on national and international news for being recognised in their community, they all of a sudden become “New Zealanders”. Why are these identities separated? When they see it’s beneficial for them. Being Māori should never be something that is covered by ignorance, hurt and embarrassment. It’s our Māoritanga that keep us grounded and that will keep us striving for the future. This isn’t all we are as a people; we, the whakatipuranga o apōpō, need to show the media, Aotearoa, and most importantly ourselves, that the taonga of our tipuna who have been passed down has still been upheld to the best of our abilities. “E kore au e ngaro, he kakano I ruia mai I Rangiātea” “I will never be lost, for I am a seed sown in Rangiātea”
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NEWS
VUWSA
Nathaniel Manning Campaigns Officer
Yarn with Zwaan Rick Zwaan VUWSA President Last week as I was writing this column, the full picture of the devastating impact Cyclone Pam had on Vanuatu and surrounding Pacific Nations was still unfolding. My heart goes out to all our family and friends who have been affected. It’s times like these where it’s heartening to see the students, staff and the wider community come together to show our support and solidarity. As soon as the news of the cyclone came through over the weekend, the Assistant Vice Chancellor (Pasifika), Luamanuvao Winnie Laban, quickly pulled together a core team of people, from the Pacific Students’ Council, VUWSA and the local Vanuatu Community, to help coordinate Vic’s response. Before long, we had a bank account set up, fundraising gig and collection day organised, and our inboxes overflowing with people wanting to help out. One of the key people involved is Dr Pala Molisa, a Victoria Academic and from Vanuatu, and an active member of the Wellington Vanuatu Community. Pala is a truly amazing person who, despite the devastation at home and chaos of organising fundraising events, was able to see the big picture and highlight how these tragic events have been exacerbated by climate change. Just over five years ago I was in Copenhagen as a youth delegate at the UN climate negotiations. There, the message was clear that urgent action was needed, otherwise the frequency and severity of devastating cyclones like Cyclone Pam would continue to increase. Fellow youth delegates from low lying islands in the Pacific and Indian oceans warned that if leaders didn’t take action, they were complicit in people dying. World leaders failed to act. Our government needs to wake up and listen to what our pacific neighbours and climate scientists have been telling us for years—that we need to drastically cut our emissions to prevent the severity of such devastation. The University’s decision last year to divest from fossil fuels is a great sign of leadership and we must continue to push for world leaders to take urgent action. The effects of this cyclone will take decades to recover from and we must continue work with the local community to ensure that our support gets to the places where it’s needed. This year another round of UN climate negotiations will happen in Paris. It’s crucial that they result in binding action so our friends and family in the Pacific don’t have to go through the devastation Vanuatu is now.
Congratulations, you’ve successfully made it to Week 4! No more staying up all night to get the best tutorial times. No more awkward icebreakers in every. Single. Tutorial. No more having to try and figure out where that one class is with some bizarre acronym for a location—well, for half a year at least. This year marks VUWSA’s one hundred-and-sweet-sixteenth birthday, with your favourite students’ association established in 1899, sharing its birthday with the paperclip, Al Capone, and AC Milan. In that short amount of time (116 years young baby!), VUWSA has done its fair share of campaigning on behalf of students, and partly fulfilling the role of the University as the critic and conscience of society. The Association was once arguably a lot more radical throughout the twentieth century, often reflecting the political nature of the time. The 1960s saw a lot of protest around the Vietnam War, and at one particular event, a collection was made and $2000 raised to buy a tank for the North Vietnamese*, while 1970 saw huge student protests against the All Black tour of South Africa, as well as increased campaigning around abortion and women’s rights (much to the dismay of some men—what’s changed?!). Then, of course, came the 1980s, with no better way to kick it off than the 1981 Springbok Tour; lots of protests, lots of arrests. The 1980s also saw in a change to the way tertiary education was provided in New Zealand thank to Rogernomics (more protests), and then Ruth Richardson’s Mother of all Budgets in the 90s (with more protesting). A bill in 1997 that commercialised universities saw 300 students march on (and trespassed from) Parliament. One of those arrested, Chris Hipkins, later became VUWSA President** and MP. I can’t promise anything as radically exciting to come out of VUWSA this year, but I can promise that we will continue campaigning for issues students care about: better standard of living, better transport, healthier flats, and whatever else gets thrown against students this year. Most importantly though, we’re YOUR students’ association, so if there’s anything you’d like us to campaign on, get in touch! My email’s nathaniel.manning@vuw.ac.nz, my twitter’s @nil_joel, our office is in the Student Union Building, or you can always find me every Wednesday night ruining your favourite songs at karaoke at Ivy. Until next time, VUWSA’s token introvert x0x0 *The money was later donated quietly to a charity, which was probably for the best. **There’s a precedent, Rick. We sit and wait.
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issue 5 | introverts
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Inbred English Beneficiary to Visit Wellington
Being Well “I am constantly tired and wonder if I could be lacking in iron. If I am, what can I do about it and how can I prevent it happening again?” Alana Yes, Alana—it is absolutely possible that a deficiency in iron is the cause of your tiredness, although obviously there could be lots of other causes too. Iron helps the blood cells carry oxygen to our muscles and brains. It keeps us physically and mentally fit, strong and able to fight infections. A lack of iron will cause anaemia, tiredness, lethargy, pallor, increased frequency of infections such as coughs and colds, grumpiness, and poor concentration. Iron deficiency is the most common dietary deficiency in the world for men and women. It is thought that up to 20 per cent of adult women in New Zealand, and 3 per cent of adult men, are deficient— most commonly due to one of the following:
+ Insufficient dietary intake, especially common in vegetarians. + Insufficient absorption, e.g. coeliac disease or inflammation of the bowel.
+ Excessive loss of iron, e.g. heavy periods. Average daily requirements vary widely. We know that babies, children and teenagers require much higher amounts of iron, as do women who are pregnant, breast feeding or menstruating. In terms of recommended amounts, the following is a good guide:
+ Menstruating women—18mg per day (higher needs if periods are very heavy).
+ Pregnant women—27mg per day. + Breast feeding women—10mg per day. + Other adults, male and female—8mg per day. Iron is present in foods in two forms—“haem” iron and “non-haem” iron. The body absorbs “haem” iron much more readily than “nonhaem” iron. Foods containing haem iron include red meat, fish, chicken and liver. Non-haem iron is found in wholegrain cereals, vegetables (especially leafy green ones), fruits, nuts and legumes.
Tim Grgec It’s official: our favourite royal badass, Prince Harry, is visiting New Zealand for the first time this year. The thirty-year-old ginger, and fourth in line to the British throne, is set arrive to Wellington in May following a four-week secondment with the Australian Defence Force. This marks an end to Harry’s military career, after serving for ten years in the British Army. Monarchy New Zealand is yet to release any dates or places to be visited, so Salient thought we would give our old mate Haz some reasons to visit the liberal and forward-thinking Victoria University of Wellington: 1. Kelburn Campus offers state-of-the-art learning facilities, albeit they are perpetually under construction. The campus also sits atop a really large hill that is really hard to walk up, though it provides magnificent views of the city. 2. There are plenty of eligible bachelorettes who would prefer the life of a Duchess—having kids and living off the benefit—to a life of student loan repayment. 3. The Hunter Lounge, the University’s premier café and bar/ music venue, is always hosting New Zealand’s hottest acts. VUWSA could probably (budget permitting) get the likes of Max Key, son of Prime Minister John Key and one half of the acclaimed electronic dup Troskey, to play a gig upon your arrival. Apparently he does a wicked trap remix of Lorde’s “Royals”. 4. Law School is next to the where New Zealand does lawmaking stuff, so it’s like really good for law and stuff. 5. While there are no hotel suites on campus, there are still plenty of suitable places for a game of naked billiards. (The privacy of the new Staff and Postgraduate section of the library would be ideal.) 6. The Te Aro campus on Vivian Street is opposite the Il Bordello strip club.
If you drink a lot of coke, tea, coffee or red wine with your food, this will markedly hamper your body’s ability to absorb iron. Adding something containing vitamin C will do the reverse, so either drinking real fruit juice or eating vitamin C-laden fruit is a great idea.
7. Our University is “ruled by white males”. As a member of this demographic, Harry should have no issues landing a job here if a career of taxpayer-funded trips around the world does not work out.
If you are concerned you may be deficient in iron, talk to a doctor or nurse about getting a simple blood test. Iron supplements are available on prescription if required, and can make a huge difference to how you feel.
When asked about Prince Harry’s upcoming visit, Wilson, a student at Victoria, replied, “is he that British dude?”
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NEWS
That’s a shit-ton of luck The Landgate Arch, a medieval monument in England, underwent serious excavation to extract 25 tons of pigeon poo, accumulated over decades. The acidity of the pigeon poo had the potential to weaken the stonework and cause structural damage to the arch. Mike Walker, managing director of the procedure, said he had never before seen such a “monumental mess of festering faeces” and that once inside, traversing over the excrement “was like walking on a giant chocolate cake”.
Bombing in pool not permitted Invercargill’s indoor pool complex, Splash Palace, has for the last five weeks been plagued by a “mystery pooper”. The perpetrator(s), who tends to drop their anchors after 5pm on a Friday, have reportedly cost the pool “tens of thousands of dollars”, as well as six hours’ cleaning time for every occurrence. One incident involving diarrhoea was described as “unfortunate” by an employee. It’s not an Everestroom The world’s highest peak is at risk of disease, according to a Nepal official, due to the improper disposal of human waste by climbers and guides. Since its climbing season began at the beginning of March, Mount Everest officials have been stationed to monitor garbage disposal, while new regulations demand climbers to return 18 pounds of waste to the base camp—an approximation of an individual’s “emission” during the climb.
No idea what drove him to this Police have finally flushed out the felon who has been defecating on car hoods and mirrors in Akron, Ohio. After three years and numerous reports, a resident of one of the targeted neighbourhoods took “2000 photos” over the space of a night, catching the “sick puppy” in the act. His motive is still unknown.
Sewer Snakes on a Plane British Airways made the executive decision to turn one of their flights around and return to Heathrow Airport after a “smelly poo” proved to be too overwhelming for the passengers. After returning to the ground, only 30 minutes from take-off, passengers of the Dubai-bound plane were forced to wait 15 hours before they were able to board another aircraft with sufficient plumbing capabilities.
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issue 5 | introverts
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Nat Libs Using the prompts, get a friend to provide you with words for the blank spaces. Read it back to them and reinvent a classic moment of television.
Natalia Kills: Ladies and gentlemen, I’m just gonna state the obvious: we have a ___________(noun) in our midst. I, as a ___________(vocation—noun) who respects creative integrity and ___________ (legal principle—n), I am ___________(symptom—verb) at how much you’ve copied my ___________ (relation). From the ___________(physical characteristic—n) to the ___________(item of clothing), do you not have any value or respect for ___________(quality or ability—n)? You’re a __________ (type of person). It’s ___________(taste—adjective), it’s ___________(adjective). I personally found it absolutely artistically ___________(adjective). I am ___________(emotion—adj) to be sitting here in your presence having to even ___________(verb) you with an answer of my opinion. Joe Irvine: Thank you Natalia, you’re ___________(physical description). Willy Moon: To me it seems cheap and ___________(adjective), you’re like ___________(fictional character) dressing up in ___________(person’s) clothing. It’s just a little bit ___________(adjective), and I feel like you’re going to stitch someone’s ___________(organ) to your ___________(body part) and then ___________(verb) everyone in the audience. But you do you. Kills: I’m gonna say it: it’s ___________(adjective). You make me ___________(physical reaction—v or adj). It’s absolutely ___________(adjective); you have no ___________(personal characteristic—n). I can’t stand it. I’m ___________(emotion—adj) to be here. Irvine: I think I look really ___________(adjective). Kills: I think you look ___________(adjective) because you’re dressed as ___________(famous person). www.salient.org.nz
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NEWS
M
T
W
T
F
S
S
8:00 10:00
MOIST MONDAY MORNINGS with Mitchell
RIGHT with Robbie
RESSURECT with Alexa
JIZZ-JAZZ with Josh
TBD with Ashlee
THE HANGOVER SHOW with Jazz and Ollie
TBD with Ekta
10:00 12:00
SHENAN AND SHANTER with Jake
WASNT EVEN HERE with Matt
MUMS CAR with Hailey and Michael
TBD with James
80% with Dayanthia
JUMPSTART with Hanna
WAKE AND BAKE with Pearce Duncan
12:00 2:00
MONDAY MEAL TIME with Jakie
QUEER PUNK with Kate
THE HOT MESS with Selena
GRASSLANDS with Savannah
HELP with Rob
MANDATORY with Amanda
TBD with Jess
2:00 4:00
LOAD OF TOSH with Josh
RUGRATS HIGHSCHOOLERS
TBD with Kayla
TBD with Damon
NORTHBOUND ON RAMP with Nick and Alex
TBD with Hamish
TBD with Olivia
4:00 7:00
DRAKE DRIVING with Kevin
TWIN GEEKS with Arie and Fairooz
B1 with Tim 1
B2 with Tim 2
BAD SCIENCE with Rachael and Harri
TBD with Tanaka
YOUR OTHER FRIENDS with Charlotte and Sharon
7:00 9:00
COLLEGE DROPOUTS with Jack W
DEATH BY BEATS with Jack B
TBD with Keari
SEVEN BLUNT with Jethro
420 AIR PURIFIER BOYS with Sean, Connor and Ollie
FILL THIS SPOT
THE KIMONO SESSIONS with Kayden
9:00 11:00
TBD with Kayla and Lydia
TBD with Giorgio
DURRIES FOR BREAKFAST with Emmerson
TBD with Felix, Abid and Josh
THE SESSION with Ethan and Waiata
FILL THIS SPOT
FILL THIS SPOT
11:00 1:00
LATE NIGHT
TBD with Chris Gilman
SHOW SCHEDULE 2015 SALIENT FM editor@salient.org.nz
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This One Weird Trick Will Get You Better Grades (Be An Extrovert) Wilbur Townsend According to Section 1.3 of Victoria’s Assessment Handbook, assessments should “provide an accurate and consistent measure of student performance”. Assessments should “provide every student with an equitable opportunity to demonstrate their learning”. A good assessment “measures what it purports to assess”. It’s a cute idea, that we are examined by machines focusing only on what matters. It is also, of course, a myth.
We are examined by people, people with blind spots and imperfect judgements and lazy heuristics. Crouching unseen behind the university’s rhetoric of equity and consistency is a bias: if you are extraverted and well-liked—if you seem confident and in control of your material—you will get good grades. If not—if you are an introvert—you will be punished. Markers know this. The University knows this. But despite having the machinery to fix it, this bias has been ignored. Let’s start with the psychology. The “anchoring effect” is how psychologists describe our propensity to answer questions with numbers that are already in our head. In a classic experiment, people saw a wheel of fortune being spun and were then asked to guess the percentage of UN countries that were in Africa. On average, those who saw the wheel land on the number 65 guessed 45 per cent, while those who saw the wheel land on 10 guessed 25 per cent. (For the curious: it’s actually 28 per cent.) In another experiment, participants were asked to guess the average price of a German midsize car. Some participants had been asked to write down every number between 10,150 and 10,199 beforehand,
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others had been asked to write down every number between 29,150 and 29,199. Those who’d written down the low numbers guessed on average that the cars were worth €18,459, those who had written down the high numbers guessed that the cars were worth €22,139. Anchoring tells us that irrelevant numbers can have a very relevant effect on our beliefs. We know anchoring affects grading. Last year, German researchers asked university students to mark psychology assignments. These assignments had—supposedly—been marked by someone else, and the participants were able to see these first grades. In truth, these old marks were placed by the experimenters as anchors. Even when the participants were told that the first marker was unqualified, the anchors substantially shifted the assignments’ grades. Anchoring operates by forming the presumptions against which evidence is assessed. We have a number waiting available in the unseen spaces of our minds, and when solving a problem we test that number first. If the result isn’t plausible, we adjust it until it is. In the case of grading, we anchor by forming an expectation that a student will produce work of a certain quality, and when we mark, we are testing whether that presumption is true. It is much easier to meet someone’s expectations than to exceed them—if your marker thinks
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you’re smart they will read between your lines, seeing the analysis you’re hinting at. If your marker thinks you’re dumb then they will see that too, and you’ll have to do a lot more to prove them wrong. Anchoring doesn’t care for introverts. In most courses, your opportunity to form presumptions is in labs, tutorials and lectures. If you don’t create the presumption within your tutor’s mind that your work will be high quality then they won’t necessarily see that it is. And if the idea of talking up in a tutorial terrifies you then you won’t have the opportunity to create that presumption at all. Anchoring is reinforced by the halo effect. The halo effect comes from a 1920 study by Edward Thorndike, an American psychologist. Thorndike asked army officers to rate soldiers’ physique, intelligence, leadership skills and character. He found the officers’ appraisals were unrealistically highly correlated—the soldiers described as physically fit were also those described as intelligent, good leaders and being of good character. The halo effect causes us to presume that people with one good trait will have other good traits—such people are lit from the light of their own halo. The halo effect has been supported by numerous experiments—attractive people are considered kinder and more intelligent, politicians with deep, clear voices are considered more competent.
(and attendance also) into consideration when grading essays, primarily when an essay was proving difficult to mark. Course coordinators would say something like ‘oh well, how often does she participate in tutorials? If they’re quite good, you may as well give them a higher mark,’ or, ‘if they don’t really talk or seem to know what’s going on I’d be inclined to just go lower’. ” He also told me that tutorial participation was taken into account when determining final grades. “If a student is on the cusp of two grades, how a tutor feels about their participation levels, or sometimes even just whether or not they are liked in general by a course coordinator, will usually decide whether they go up or down a grade in the final result.” His experiences are not unique. A tutor of a 100-level commerce paper said she’d been told that if a student is “on the cusp of two grades and they’ve been at tutorials and you know they’re trying hard you can bump them up”. A third tutor told me he “tried to grade blindly in the hopes that it would be fairer”, though this wasn’t required. Despite this, he admitted one lapse. He was undecided about whether to award a student an A or an A+ for an inclass test. He showed the test to the course lecturer, who confirmed it was either an A or an A+. As he was doing so, he saw the student’s name. In his words, “one of the things that made me decide it was A+ was that I knew the student, and could tell he understood the material and was bright from tutorial participation.”
“If a student is on the cusp of two grades, how a tutor feels about their participation levels, or sometimes even just whether or not they are liked in general by a course coordinator, will usually decide whether they go up or down a grade in the final result.”
Again, we know that the halo effect has a real impact on student assessment. A 2007 paper examined the grading of final-year research projects. Each project was assessed on nine criteria by two academics. By comparing the assessments of the two academics, the researchers were able to deduce whether academics who rated a project more highly in one criterion tended to rate it well in other criteria. As it happens, they did. The halo effect is real, and it has a real impact on your grades.
Tutors like students they can bounce off, students who sound interested and engaged. The halo effect tells us that markers will extrapolate from strength in the tutorial room—extraversion, eloquence—to the strength of essays and reports. Some students will entertain their tutorials with clever quips and debating technique, but will lack the discipline or research skills to produce good assignments. The halo effect tells us that markers will give these students better grades than they deserve. Other students will produce exceptional assignments, but tutors will punish them for their poor performance in a sport they aren’t told they are playing. Introverts may produce insightful work, but it won’t glow if not lit from the light of a halo. Introverts shouldn’t just be afraid of the implicit, subconscious biases. Marking is difficult—there’s no fundamental law of reality that dictates whether your POLS206 essay deserved that B+. The rough expectations of markers will hopefully be able to distinguish between Ds and As, but when dithering between adjacent grades, tutorial engagement provides a crutch—one that lecturers encourage tutors to rely on. A friend who tutored a 300-level arts paper told me about his experiences. “I’ve definitely been asked to take tutorial participation
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Given the subjectiveness of marking, it might seem fair to give bright, engaged students the benefit of the doubt. But to reward the extroverts is to punish the introverts, who will find themselves slipping to the back of the bellcurve. When tutors are encouraged to take classroom participation into account when marking, they are encouraged to punish those students who don’t have the classroom confidence to make themselves stand out. The University’s policies are explicit—using class participation as an aid to marking is not permitted. Subsection 2.2.6 of the Assessment Handbook tells us that class participation can only be assessed “on clearly defined tasks and not on vague impressions of the quantity or quality of a student’s contribution to class discussion”. If this is the case, “criteria for assessing the in-class performance of students are clearly specified in a form that students can translate into action or behaviour”. Unless the University’s Academic Committee approves an exception, such assessment cannot account for more than 10 per cent of the assessment of a course. Using class participation as a crutch may be widespread, but it is supposed to be against University rules. Given the widespread rule breaking—and the likelihood that, subconsciously, tutorial participation matters more than we admit— it seems odd that the University hasn’t done anything about it. It’s especially odd given that an easy solution exists. Blind marking—not allowing markers to know the identity of assignments’ authors until after the assignments have been marked—would prevent both explicit and implicit biases. Markers could have access to students’ names
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after marking to allow individual feedback. Some courses already require this, including all of the courses run by the Law School, so presumably the practical issues aren’t insurmountable. I thought it was a bit odd that the University didn’t require all courses to blind mark, so I approached Allison Kirkman, the University’s Vice-Provost for Academic and Equity. We met in a small meeting room with stained glass windows on the second floor of the Hunter building. Allison told me that the room had previously been a storage cupboard. I remarked that there couldn’t be many storage cupboards left in the world with stained glass windows. She didn’t seem to find this interesting. Instead of talking further about storage cupboards, we talked about blind marking. The first thing she told me was that using “blind marking” as a term “tends to minimise what it means to be blind”, and that she preferred the term “non-identifying marking”. I thought this reasonable, if a little pedantic, and that it at least showed that the issue was getting some official attention. Unfortunately, terminology seemed to be the limit of this attention. Allison wasn’t aware of the University completing any research into the impact of subconscious biases or into the impact of nonidentifying marking. “Before I thought about research in an area, I would want to know that there was a reason why we were doing the research, so I would want some evidence to support undertaking research on that particular topic,” she told me. I wasn’t quite sure how one would collate such evidence without undertaking research, but I guess that’s the function of student magazines. We talked for quite a while—about half an hour—primarily because I wanted to tease from her some substantive reason why a lecturer wouldn’t blind mark. She didn’t provide one. She told me that blind marking wasn’t perfect—she told me that some tutors may be “able to recognise somebody’s handwriting”. This was, I guess, a fair point, but it also seemed fairly unlikely. She told me that if the University were to consider tighter regulations of assessment, she would “want to look at the whole spectrum rather than just focusing on one aspect”. She told me that there were bureaucratic hurdles, that if someone were to propose mandatory blind marking “there is a process through which that would go and that process would involve talking about within in the whole University community and coming to a decision after we’ve been through that process”. These points would have been more plausible had the University not already published the aforementioned Assessment Handbook, 54 pages long. Allison used the word “trust” a lot. (I was going to go through my recording and count the number of times but I realised doing so would make me sound like a bit of a dick.) She believed academics
could be trusted to mark fairly. I told her that academics had told tutors to take tutorial engagement into account when marking. “I have no evidence to believe this—it could be an urban myth,” she insisted. Tutors should have read the Assessment Handbook during training, and tutors had an “individual responsibility” to approach superiors if they believed the handbook was being contravened. She had never been approached by a protesting tutor. She assumed this meant there wasn’t any problem to protest. (One tutor I talked to had approached his superiors about the course breaching the Assessment Handbook. In his words, their response had been “oh, that’s something the University wrote, we don’t have to follow that.”) We can’t expect the University to be omniscient—they have limited resources, and it’s understandable that they hadn’t produced specific research on how assessment policy can treat introverts fairly. But to hide behind a rhetoric of trust and responsibility is to fall back on laziness. Academics cannot be trusted to grade fairly—we know that subconscious biases are much too powerful and we know that academics are currently contravening assessment policy. Until evidence is pushed into their hands, the University will continue to ignore the discrimination against introverts. To expect more isn’t to expect omniscience, it’s to expect a very minimal standard of fairness. When I mentioned to friends that I was writing a Salient article on assessment regulations, they laughed. Assessment regulations don’t make for easy clickbait. This is a pity. As much as we pretend otherwise, our grades matter. For many of us, a random quirk of our personality is causing us to receive worse grades than we deserve. We should be offended when course outlines don’t assure us that the course will be blind marked. We should be offended when lecturers require us to write our name on our essay’s cover page. When that happens, we should know that academics are either too lazy or too arrogant to avoid the traps of subconscious biases—or they’re relying on those biases explicitly. When that happens we should protest—we should tell the academics that we’re offended, and that we deserve fairer treatment. Except, of course, if you think that could leave a bad impression. Until the University changes its policy, we will be victim to our impressions. That means forced confidence in our tutorials and offering our opinions whenever they’re asked. For the introverts among us, that means sitting quiet, suffering for our failures in a game we shouldn’t be made to play.
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issue 5 | introverts
Stop, Collaborate and Listen CHARLOTTE DOYLE
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Initially the atmosphere in the jury room was chaotic. After spending four days hearing
different sides of a story with no clear answer, we couldn’t leave until we’d made a decision. The people with dominant personalities were stifling any opportunity for the more softly spoken to talk. One told us all that we couldn’t possibly let someone’s life be ruined by going to jail. Another said he deserved it because he lived in Kingsland (a suburb in central Auckland) so must be guilty. After nearly an hour of going nowhere I tentatively suggested that perhaps we go around in a circle and let each member of the jury express their thoughts on whether the legal test—beyond all reasonable doubt that someone was guilty—had been met. Walking out of the District Court, our service no longer needed, someone said “you made us all feel like a stronger team, thank you.” I was the youngest by at least ten years and not the foreman. But the simple suggestion that we listen to each other had me somehow leading the conversation. As someone who could be considered to lie on the more introverted end of the personality scale (I like books and going to the movies by myself), this came as a surprise. My concept of leadership was someone whose heart didn’t race when asked a question in lectures. Who talked the most in tutorials. Who won all the debating competitions in school. Yet in this instance all the group needed was calm guidance on how to listen to each other. We then reached a balanced and fairly reasoned decision as the collaborative body a jury is intended to be. I didn’t really say much more than anyone else. But I learnt a valuable lesson about the importance of quiet collaboration. Our society has become obsessed with not being one of the pack. Learn how to develop the character traits of a leader! For only a couple of thousand dollars per training session, you can learn how to be more confident and outgoing. Transform yourself; be able to engage with others and inspire with your unrivaled enthusiasm. Unleash your potential. Enjoy success. Make your voice heard. If you find yourself deliberately walking solitary routes home (which I might be guilty of), shifting to a spot in the library where no one can find you (also guilty) or have a notorious reputation for being an unreliable replier to texts (guilty again), the pressures associated with leadership courses such as these go against your instincts. Most of the time an innate desire to be alone or aversion to constant conversation feels antisocial and boring in a world that demands a never-ending state of being literally switched-on. Unless you buy a Nokia. One introvert test (found on nerdtests.com) asks “Do your peers (not friends) see you as…(a) cold and calculating (b) warm and caring (c) the hottest action in town”. For some reason being more reserved seems to be generally thought of as a bad thing. In 2012 the book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking became a New York Times Bestseller. Author Susan Cain gave a TED talk the same year explaining how her research demonstrates a societal bias towards being extroverted. An introvert herself, Cain argued that from working environments to classrooms, quieter tendencies are systemically seen as inhibiting personal growth. But this, she says, “is the world’s loss, because when it comes to creativity and leadership we need introverts doing what they do best”. The talk has since been viewed by more than five million people on YouTube and unleashed a wave of people confessing to their introversion after years of trying to be something different. One of these confessors is the flawless role model for all, Emma Watson (she may be a living and breathing Hermione even more than we knew). In an interview with Tavi Gevinson for Rookie magazine last year, the bewitching star praised Quiet for making introverts feel valued. “It discusses how extroverts in our society are bigged up so much,” she said, “and if you’re anything other than an extrovert you’re made to think there’s something wrong with you.” Even Emma Watson, who is currently captivating the world as a Global Goodwill Ambassador to the United Nations and the highest grossing actress in the past decade, felt there was something wrong with her because she didn’t want to get drunk every weekend. Quiet made her see otherwise. Psychologist Carl Jung popularised introversion and extroversion in the 1920s. Introversion describes a person who is reserved, solitary and quiet. An extrovert by contrast is talkative, outwardly confident and energetic. The terms have since become extremely popular in defining personalities. Universities and companies widely use the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which
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issue 5 | introverts evaluates what end of the spectrum you are on, in testing whether you are the right fit for a job—even though Jung himself said “there is no such thing as a pure extrovert or a pure introvert. Such a man would be in the lunatic asylum.” Tests are likely to place you on the introverted end of the scale if you: prefer one on one conversations to group interactions; like deep and meaningfuls on a topic that interests you over small talk; find it easier to express your thoughts and feelings in writing; avoid answering phone calls; enjoy solitude; are told you are a good listener; dislike conflict. However, the main difference between introversion and extroversion relates to contrasting reactions to stimulation. People process social stimuli in different ways: “extroverts” need interaction and attention, and “introverts” need solitude and peace to survive the attention-seeking of the extroverts. Shyness, which is typically associated with heightened consciousness and anxiety in the face of social demands, is not the same thing as introversion. When you’re an introvert the opportunity to be alone is relished as an opportunity to recharge, not avoid a social life entirely. Your extroverted counterpart is the opposite, and is energised by social interactions with a tendency to get bored or anxious when left to themselves. Last year Cain launched her “Quiet Revolution”. Its manifesto is to empower introverts to assert their softer personalities in the face of a society that values extroverted behaviour. She aims to do this by creating environments that foster the productivity of introverts on their own terms in circumstances of leadership and creativity. The end goal isn’t a triumphant reign of introverts with extroverts scorned for their dominance. Instead Cain calls for establishing a balance between the two personality types and combining their skills to create a more effective world. -
On 12 March 1930 an intensely spiritual man scooped up a handful of salt on a beach on the southern
coast of India. This small act would trigger a massive movement of civil disobedience for the cause of Indian independence. Mahatma Gandhi explained his decision to target salt as recognition of the importance salt had for even the lowliest Indian, saying “next to air and water, salt is perhaps the greatest necessity of life”. It would directly challenge the British government’s monopoly on salt production at the time. The act reflected his unwavering belief in the subtle weaponry of peaceful protest. It has defined him as one of the most influential political figures in history. Contemporary society seems to have forgotten leaders such as Gandhi, with multiple studies in recent decades supposedly identifying a correlation between extroversion and leadership. A gregarious nature makes you more approachable and engaging. Enhanced levels of enthusiasm are an advantage in compelling others to pursue goals and make things happen. Self-confidence attracts respect and thus makes you an inspiration for all. These qualities apparently indicate competence in fields such as politics and business. This idea that extroverts are more successful leaders has infiltrated the popular consciousness. Over 65 per cent of businesses in the US in the past decade saw introversion as a hindering quality for leadership. Politicians who are more reserved, such as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, tend to attract heavy criticism. In 2008 there was heavy debate about whether Hillary was “likeable”. A theory currently swirls that Obama doesn’t like people at all (although both are working in the wake of Bill’s gregarious and tantalisingly intimate legacy). A demonstration of a careful and considered nature tends to be interpreted as awkward and aloof. In 2008, then-leader of the opposition John Key completed a personality test at the request of the Sunday Star Times. The results demonstrated that he is an “extrovert” rather than an “introvert” with a “go-getter” personality, and follows his head rather than his heart. Key’s personality has proven to be one of the most successful electoral ploys in New Zealand’s political history. David Cunliffe, former leader of the Labour Party, took the same test (again for the Sunday Star Times) in 2013. He had an even higher level of extroversion than Key. The article commented it would be an “asset to both on the election trail, making it easier to keep smiling all day when meeting many people.” But this is all a historically constructed perception. In Quiet Susan Cain explains how extroversion has a historically short lifespan as the ideal leadership style. The ideal of a “talkative” and dominant leader emerged in the twentieth century in response to a power vacuum after the World Wars and the rise of the middle class in modern capitalist societies. A culture that previously valued “character”—integrity and good deeds performed without attracting attention to oneself—lost value in the face of the efficient
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23 individual. Cain describes the result as a systemic bias in favour of extroverted personality traits. Self-help books such as How to Win Friends and Influence People have become bestsellers. Everyone somehow needs to “improve” themselves by taking leadership courses that will unleash the inner social butterfly within their prohibitive shy cocoons. Commanding attention does not mean there is any substance. You don’t have to be the most dominant person in the room to inspire others around you. -
Time to discuss the mythical nerdy introvert. Not infrequently used as an insult, nerd is defined
as “a foolish or contemptible person who lacks social skills or is boringly studious”. Preferably with glasses. I thought it just meant someone who was intimidatingly smart, like Lisa Simpson. Yet ironically, the word “nerd” itself was invented by the one of the world’s most acclaimed introverts, Dr Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel).
Whenever a member of the extended family graduates, my aunt gifts them a copy of Oh, the Places You’ll Go!, a book intended to encourage you to explore and reach your full potential. It’s brimming with quotes such as “Oh the places you’ll go! There is fun to be done! There are points to be scored. There are games to be won. And the magical things you can do with that ball will make you the winning-est winner of all.” It seems like a strange fit with the personality of its writer. Dr Seuss would create the Cat in the Hat, the Lorax and Green Eggs and Ham sitting in an old observation tower at the back of his garden eight hours each day and would avoid meeting the children who read his books for fear he wouldn’t meet their expectations. If I had a similar preference for concentrated distance from other people maybe my imagination would run wild more often too. In her book Susan Cain argues that everyone needs some form of solitude to give our brains creative space. Psychologists have demonstrated that humans naturally pick up on the thoughts and behaviours of the people around us but the most creative minds depend on solitude. Time out fosters individual contemplation and epiphanies. It worked for countless prophets, musicians, artists, mathematicians, scientists—all “thinkers”. But today Cain observes that “the most important institutions in our society including workplaces are designed for extroverts and for extroverts need for extra stimulation.” There is a growing notion that constant interaction with other people fosters the best creativity and productivity. Facebook’s new offices includes a room that can house 10,000 employees. All open plan. Offices such as these are anathema to any movement that promotes peaceful contemplation. Cain is currently collaborating with a design company to create room designs called “Quiet Spaces”, which focus on creating secluded spaces in workplaces. Maybe she has a way of getting people to shut up in the blue zones of the library and stop whispering about their love lives. Cain points out that the more introverts are given a chance to work according to their preferences the stronger the collaboration between different people with different skills in different circumstances. Without Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs joining together there may never have been Apple. Steve Wozniak could be considered the ultimate manifestation of the typical “nerd”, glasses not included. In his autobiography he said of his creative process that “I’m going to give you some advice that might be hard to take. That advice is: work alone. Not on a committee. Not on a team.” When it comes to the development of ideas, which you then bring back to a team, riding solo is more likely to endow you with epiphanies of all varieties. One final example: Harry Potter was famously conceived on a train by an introvert. J.K. Rowling directly credits the genesis of boy who didn’t know he was a wizard to her introversion. All of her pens failing on her and too shy to ask anyone else for a working one, Rowling sat on the train for hours just thinking about the boy who would change the lives of every child born in the 1990s. Without her I wouldn’t have been waiting for a letter from Hogwarts until about fifteen. Sometimes the thought of attending a networking event, like a BYO, requires mustering up a lot of inner strength. I always enjoy the banter at the time, yet also always relish the opportunity to walk home alone with the virtual company of James Blake, thinking about the event I just attended. After reading Quiet the realisation that it’s not antisocial, but simply a preference for solitude, was empowering. There is a power in being quiet. Follow Gandhi’s advice and remember that “In a gentle way you can shake the world.”
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Lessons From the 52-Hertz Whale Gus Mitchell
In 1989, an oceanographic institute working for the US Navy detected a whale call that was unlike any other recorded in history. The call resonated at 52 hertz, far above the range of any other whale in that area, believed to be emanating from one whale in the Pacific. A blue whale’s call resonates at 10-39 Hz, and the fin whale’s at 20 Hz. Neither species can interact with the “52-hertz whale” because its call is too high for them to hear. It swims alone, singing to no one but itself.
W
hen its discovery was made public, the creature was dubbed “the loneliest whale in the world”, and it became a spirit animal for the despondent, the heartbroken, and the just-plain different folk all over the world. Is it a danger to idolise and anthropomorphise this creature for the sake of our own selfsatisfaction? Or can the feelings stirred by this creature’s plight teach us something about introverts, those for whom solitude comes as naturally as it does to this poor whale? The ability to give care, attention and “a shit” in social interaction is a limited resource, like a battery. This is true for everyone, but the difference between extroverts and introverts is how that energy is expended and rejuvenated. Extroverts gain their energy through company and expend it alone on personal tasks, while introverts gain energy through solitude and expend it in social interaction. Introverts get a bad rap because their need to deliberately forgo company is mistaken for selfishness or anti-social tendencies. But introverts are just more careful about how and when they expend their limited energy store. They’re also more inwardly focused on their own thoughts and feelings, preferring to cultivate a complex inner world, rather than be in tune to the social current. However, we live in a society that favours the extroverted, those who can make friends and influence people with limitless energy. The corporate and social realms march (or swim, to continue the metaphor) to the beat of this drum out of a belief that overt friendliness fosters creativity, synergy and other buzzwords. It should be said that no one is a complete introvert or extrovert. One is simply introverted and extroverted. Modern psychoanalysis
is consistently aiming to reflect this as it moves towards a “spectrum” approach of assigning individual personalities and identities, rather than a binary “if not this, then that” label. The extrovert/introvert spectrum (or E/I spectrum) assigns individuals based on a preference for stimulating environments. Introverted quiet-cafe people sit at one end and extroverted party people dwell at the other. “Ambiverts” sit in the middle, being comfortable in either pool. For those who require the science, you’re not the only one. Psychology has a tendency to be seen as a bit ethereal, even by those within the field, so most psychologists and neurologists aim to find a “wetware” explanation for behavioural tendencies. The research of Hans Eysenck, author of The Biological Basis of Personality, states that an introvert’s desire for quiet low-stimulation environments is tied to cortical arousal—the rate at which your brain takes in information. Introverts have naturally high cortical arousal, which means they are constantly evaluating their surroundings, for example, looking for a less stimulating environment in which to think or to add new information to their inner world. Put an introvert in a crowded, noisy restaurant or a party where everyone talks over each other and the music, and they’ll be overwhelmed by the influx of information. Suddenly you have to process talking, and listening to people over music, and social cues, and navigate a sea of people, and you just want to find a place to sit down and OMIGOD WHY IS THIS SO DIFFICULT!?! So an introvert will mentally shut down or “chug” like a computer with too many programs running, and this kicks off a retreat to solace. This is just how the introverted mind is wired, and that’s okay.
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I’d be remiss if I didn’t address the other end of the spectrum as well. As introverts are wired to seek solace to recharge, extroverts are wired to seek company to do the same. A cognitive neuroscience study from 2011 has shown that this “wiring” pertains to how stimuli is received and processed by the brain. For example, in response to social stimuli such as looking at people’s faces, extroverts respond more strongly and feel more rewarded, while introverts have a response on par with how they would respond to an image of flowers. This explains why an extrovert feels replenished in more stimulating environments, while introverts can stand to shirk them. As social animals we’re driven by a need for connection, regardless of where we fall on the E/I spectrum. Thanks to smartphones and the internet, introverts have both a convenient escape from social pressures and a means to interact with others without fear of public embarrassment. Some even take this to the point of completely replacing face-to-face interaction, with communities on Tumblr and Reddit becoming a haven for the introverted and socially awkward to share their thoughts and feelings. Like the 52-hertz whale, the introvert’s voice is being heard. The 52-hertz whale has always been heard but never seen. While its migration patterns can be traced from its call, finding the whale itself is like searching for a needle in a haystack that covers 70 per cent of Earth’s surface. Many theories have been made to explain the high tenor of its call, trying to put the whale on the couch, so to speak. Its discoverers believe it could be a blue whale/fin whale hybrid or one of the last members of an older species that hasn’t become extinct yet. Worse still, it could simply an accident of nature, its defective call dooming it to be eliminated from the gene pool by the cold hand of natural selection.
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Perhaps it is the realisation of this fact, that the whale may never find love, that gives introverts who relate to its tale a capacity for great introspection and a desire for personal improvement. If you’re going to be apart from others, you may as well distinguish yourself, right? But at the same time, you want to put your voice out there and be accepted by your peers. The danger with this, and I speak from personal experience, is that after the necessary retreats to that online well of objectivity and opinion, you return to the outside world too esoteric for anyone to relate to or understand. Like the 52-hertz whale, you are never on anyone else’s wavelength. Any attempt to be social, to put your own unique call out there, just demonstrates how different you are to what society expects of you. And so you retreat back to solitude, and the cycle continues. You put out a call, and get no response. And thus the introvert sphere has made the whale one of its totems. But does introversion necessarily always lead to isolation? Is it healthy to either accept or deny this tendency? Online, self-identified introverts fall into two categories: those who take pride in their selfisolating status (“I’m not a loner, I just don’t care for other people”) and those who try to be more like an extrovert out of a desire for social acceptance. The former group interests me because, to the outside, they seem to possess a sort of superiority complex. Such a thing is only really possible on the internet, where one can narcissistically lord over others one’s solitude and inability to be “understood”, yet ironically require validation for doing so. Sites like Reddit and Tumblr have a tendency to become echo chambers of these sorts, due in part to rampant categorisation (INTJ for life!) and the tribalism that goes with it (INTJs rule!). Everyone kind of becomes their own whale, echolocating and having their own words or words like them being
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“A higher hertz call may simply be the whale equivalent of a speech impediment—potentially debilitating, but something that can be managed with time and patience.” echoed back at them. Their isolation is self-validating because everyone on their forum or feed is like them and will repeat their sentiments back at them. Anyone who doesn’t fit in with their esoteric worldview and match their wavelength is ignored, to the detriment of making any actual connection. What I describe here is merely the introvert in extremis—the worst case scenario. Withdrawal from social situations and the comfort it creates can slowly become a feeling of not needing other people to live a fulfilling life. Introverts become perfectly happy alone, and they believe that creating distance is not only good for themselves, but for others, should their frustrations bubble to the surface. Personally, I think the ability to be comfortable alone is a good character trait to have. But we should aim to be the kind of person we ourselves would want to spend time with. And to that end, if you don’t like the person you’re with, you should find better company. The introverted-and-not-proud, on the other hand, have accepted who they are but desperately want to fit in; that is, be more like an extrovert. It exacerbates how much we expect people to be extroverts right off the bat. Learning how to hold a conversation, to pay attention to people, the very idea that a relationship of any sort takes maintenance, can be an alien frame of thought for someone used to solitude. They treat actual interaction and conversation like a science to be learnt, rather than an art to be experienced and muddled through in all its awkwardness. Post-interaction becomes a play-by-play recount of all the things they did wrong or right: “Did I listen enough? Did I come off desperate?” You’re essentially asking “Did I perform well?” But extroverts are not out to perform—they’re trying to have a good time with good people, as anyone would. To build on one of the central tenets of introversion, you decide who you expend your energy towards, and we should all aim to find people who replace our solace with genuine company.
potentially debilitating, but something that can be managed with time and patience. More importantly, I think we need to remember that extroversion is not the default mode of human behaviour, just the one we’ve been taught to accept is the default. And being an introvert makes you neither big and important nor small and insignificant. You’re never one thing or the other, and the E/I “war” should not be an us-versusthem conflict. Being introverted or extroverted can be a badge of honour or a label, but it should not be a mask that your face grows to fit. The 52-hertz whale has been checked up on every year since its discovery—the only change about it being that its call has become lower over time. Its Wikipedia page states “the fact that the whale has survived and apparently matured indicates it is probably healthy.” I think that’s something we should all take solace in.
To that end, one thing that is common to both pools is the portrayal of extroverts, who are seen as irritating vampires out to leech introverts’ energies or encroach on their personal space for their own amusement in attempt to “fix” their introverted companions. This makes out that extroverts are blind to the feelings of their introverted friends, but aside from a senseless few, extroverts wouldn’t be who they were if they didn’t understand people. In any case, the 52-hertz whale has become a great 180-ton exemplar for introverts to point to and say, “this is me!”. I understand the desire to anthropomorphise and impose our feelings on this animal, but whales are not people and vice versa. In fact, most animals are solitary by nature, and only meet to feed or mate. We don’t know if 52-Hertz is actually happy being alone, or can even experience loneliness as a human does (a documentary on the whale, 52, is due for release later this year, which could shed further light on this). A higher hertz call may simply be the whale equivalent of a speech impediment—
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“Once alone, it is impossible to believe that one could ever have been otherwise. Loneliness is an absolute discovery.� - Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping
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On Living Alone For some, the idea of living alone may be incredibly unappealing— lonely, boring, isolated. For others, the idea of living alone may be a heavily romanticised thing—forever blasting terrible songs and singing along, never having to wear pants, not having to feel guilty or be hassled to clean the dishes and generally having complete control over your entire living space. I fall into the latter group, and this year I optimistically ventured into the world of living alone. My first three weeks of this new lifestyle in what I dub my “Bachelor Sanitary Pad”, has been a rich and sometimes unexpected learning experience: On Adjustment My only reservation about living alone was the prospect of ghosts, a worry that had afflicted me many times before when getting up to pee in the middle of the night. I feared that being completely alone would be conducive to psyching myself out constantly. I had been told by friends who had lived alone that this sort of paranoia, whether of ghosts or burglars, lasts only a few nights at most, and then is quickly forgotten. I consider myself easily scared, so I expected this period to last a bit longer. However, on my first night sleeping alone, I went about my pre-bed routine completely paranoia-free, and quickly passed out in bed. Perhaps it was the excitement of this new mode of life or perhaps it was because I was really tired from an early morning flight, but I felt completely at ease on my way to slumber. Whatever the reason, this nighttime ease continues to last, and I seem to have avoided the “getting-used-to” period of living alone completely. (If any ghosts are reading this, please don’t come here, this is not an invitation.)
On the Lack of Flatmates While my previous flatting experiences are by no means the worst, they are definitely not the best. Like Abbi of Broad City, I had to deal with my own Bevers (i.e. my flatmate’s rude, messy, freeloading boyfriend); then there was the heated Dining Table Placement War of the winter of 2014, and the Cold War-like period in 2013 when the kitchen rug would mysteriously appear and disappear several times over the course of a day. No longer having to deal with flat politics is perhaps one of the greatest reliefs of living alone. No more awkward confrontations, no more slow, bubbling, ever-increasing tensions over seemingly trivial things—the freedom is a surely beautiful feeling. On the pragmatic side, one must quickly become versed in a variety of household skills upon the absence of flatmates. While in a flat there may be someone else who is especially good at dealing with spiders, another who is the broken appliance specialist, and the one who always chases you up to pay the power bill, with an apartment of
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“There was the heated Dining Table Placement War of the winter of 2014, and the Cold War-like period in 2013 when the kitchen rug would mysteriously appear and disappear several times over the course of a day.”
one’s own you have to fulfill all these roles yourself. This need not be daunting, but rather a chance to grow. I like to think that I am doing quite well in this regard, especially in the role of DIY expert. As I was assembling my first piece of furniture on my own, I likened myself to Tim Allen on Home Improvement as I masterfully used a screwdriver to screwdrive in a screw, magically joining two planks of wood together. “I am truly a natural carpenter,” I thought, with grand visions already appearing of all the other furniture I would not just assemble, but design and create myself. Everyone at Bunnings will know my name! When I finished my bookshelf and stood back and admired it, I even had three screws left over and I felt proud to have made it with even less material than provided. So resourceful, so efficient. Saving the world’s resources. I am a home eco-warrier. However, some things do remain unresolvable on your own—there is no one to help you open stubborn jars, or to wake you up if you sleep through your alarm, or to let you in if you lock yourself out. These are all scenarios that I do admittedly worry about. But perhaps the greatest critique on having no flatmates brings us to the next point: loneliness.
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On Loneliness The threat of loneliness is perhaps the biggest deterrent to living alone. But I have always enjoyed being home alone. From parents and siblings to flatmates, whenever they left me as the only one in the house, a calm would settle over me, the feeling of a kind of secret treat that I had all to myself. So the idea of living alone has always appealed to me as the idea of being home alone, forever, me-time, all the time. I guess I describe myself as an introvert, and find solitude peaceful more than isolating. Truth is, you probably already know where you stand, and if you think that you’d be lonely living alone, then you probably will be. And of course, one can always go out and see people, or invite them over. However, a difference does arise from the lack of a constant presence of people—socialising has already become a less passive process, and more active and conscious. While this requires more work and advance planning, I believe it will ultimately be a good thing since I feel more appreciative of and dedicated to whomever I’m spending time with. Even when living with friends, it is still refreshing to get out of your house to go visit others. Now, every meeting holds that quality.
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On Money
On Nudity
Along with the freedom of being your own interior designer comes the temptation of a hundred different shops offering a thousand different items. You could stroll along Cuba Street and buy a flamingo statue for $239 and stand it in your living room with no opposition whatsoever. As I called in my course related costs for the year, I could already see the email—“Hi there, I am applying to the hardship fund for the amount of $3 for a gluestick so that I can finish my assignment. While I qualify for course related costs, the entirety was understandably spent on a genuine Persian rug.”
I truly and thoroughly enjoy domestic nudity. Whether this stems from the forbidden nature of such an act in the family home, a taboo perpetuated by prudish flatmates, or some other reason entirely, I cherish each and every moment of undress around the house. Cooking, cleaning, reading, eating, singing, dancing, looking for the keys—every activity no matter how mundane is suddenly elevated once clothes are shed. There is a freedom, a likely self-imposed sense of rebellion, but a sense of rebellion nonetheless, that elevates each action. In nudist daydreams I convince myself that I am a free and individual spirit in a sea of conforming, protestant prudes. Clothes are for the bourgeois. I am a political hero. Viva la revolution, until the Wellington winter demands otherwise.
Worryingly, this is not as fantastical as it may seem. Last weekend I found myself gratuitously dipping into my savings in a suburban gardening center, forking out close to a hundred on houseplants. I fear that this is just the beginning. Curating and collecting a respectable home library, re-upholstering shabby Salvation Army furniture, spending triple digits on the perfect floor lamp, hiring a sculptor to carve a decorative marble bust of myself—these things have all suddenly become very desirable. This is definitely more reflective of myself than of living alone, but it’s living alone that has led to my self-discovery of wanting to become some sort of secretive debonair bachelor (or at least to own the associated material goods).
On Food Even when flatting I have always cooked individually, so there hasn’t been too much of a change. What living alone has brought to my attention is my reliance on others to know when to eat. When flatting, it was the smell of my flatmates’ meals that would bring my attention to the hunger I was harvesting and I would quickly toddle off to the kitchen myself to cook something too. Now, my meals are incredibly irregular: sometimes I snack constantly instead of eating any real meals, other times I binge on a meal for a family of four at noon and render myself immobile for the rest of the day. Furthermore, without visual or olfactory cues, there is also a lack of meal precedent. Before if I was hungry, and then smelt my flatmate cooking stroganoff, I’d likely crave and make a similar meal. Now, whatever is easiest and quickest is usually eaten. If you would like to eat like a responsible adult too, the diet consists mainly of cereal (I highly recommend Pam’s Honey Snaps), ice-cream (try adding sweetened condensed coconut milk) and toast (also have this with sweetened condensed coconut milk—sweetened condensed coconut milk is great because it tastes even better than condensed milk but sounds healthy because it has the word “coconut” in it). To further understand this diet, it is highly useful to investigate the fridge. In fact, the state of the fridge perhaps best exemplifies the quintessential bachelor(ette) lifestyle. Stray cans of beer and ham says “typical dudebro bachelor”, whereas marmalade and cottage cheese says “I’m eighty years old”. The current contents of my fridge consist of half a bottle of sparkling water, half a tray of tofu, half a grapefruit and half a chocolate bar. What this says about me is that I am very healthy and responsible. This is because leaving all your food halfeaten means that not only have you had a nutritious meal, but you are also being proactive by preparing something to eat later.
On Cleanliness During my flatting years I had observed in myself what I call the messy bedroom/clean lounge phenomenon. My own bedroom would often fall into a state of complete squalor and clutter, while at the same time I could not even bear to leave a mug out in the lounge. It seemed to me that self-imposed guilt prevented my communal laziness, but in my private domain I need not feel bad for messing up anyone’s space, since it was mine and mine alone. Prior to moving in I had wondered if this tendency would spread across the whole flat now that I lived alone and, unsurprisingly, it has. This complex has stayed with me. The times when my apartment is the cleanest are the times right before I know someone is coming over, after I find myself quickly attempting to put on the disguise that I am a tidy, hygienic individual and you are visiting a tidy, hygienic apartment. Why I can only clean for others and not for myself makes me wonder what this says about me, and I wonder if this will change as I become further accustomed to living alone.
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On the whole, my first few weeks of living alone have been a positive experience. I am happy that my preconceived belief that I would enjoy domestic solitude is proving to be true, even exceeding my expectations. While I do wonder if the novelties will wear off, if I’ll be able to continue actively seeking social interaction, and if I’ll become more responsible towards myself rather than others, my outlook for the rest of the year remains positive. Montaigne wrote that “the aim of solitude is to live more at leisure and at one’s ease”, and as long as I keep my bonsai collection under control, keep seeing friends and do the dishes every now and then, I do think that this ideal of solitude can be achieved by living alone.
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BOOKS
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issue 5 | introverts
Women’s Literature, Brought to You by Baileys Jayne Mulligan In the world of books, awards and the nominees carry as much weight as those in the entertainment industry. Entertainment has the Oscars, Golden Globes, and either the BAFTAs or MTV Movie Awards, depending on your level of seriousness, as signs of quality. The book world has The Man Booker, the Costa Awards, and the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction. Like most awards, they are flawed and carry Eurocentric agendas. The first of the holy trinity, the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, released its longlist of nominees recently, and boasts a stronghold of significant authors. Amid the current climate of heightened feminist consciousness, the announcement was an opportunity to re-establish the importance of the award, admitting that across the board “we are nowhere we should be” when considering the literary recognition of female authors. The Baileys Women’s Award for Fiction is an act to remedy that. The chair of the judges, Shami Chakrabarti, emphasizes the need for this award, proclaiming “we need to celebrate stories by women, for women, as just one more way to redress gender injustice”. The prize, more commonly known as the Orange Prize, was established in 1996 with ambitions to improve the literary recognition of female authors. Prompted after the 1991 Man Booker shortlist failed to include a single female author, several authors including Kate Mosse established the prize in search of greater female literary recognition. The award was originally going to be sponsored by Mitsubishi in 1994, but their support was withdrawn when the award incited controversy due to its sexist ambitions (duh). So Orange emerged, and over the last 20 years it has been rebranded according to changes in sponsorship. Baileys is the current sponsor, its support for the prize the latest in a line of gendered marketing strategies. In its twenty-year run the award has provided incredible authors with the success and acclaim they deserve. The list of previous winners includes the likes of Ali Smith, A. M. Homes, Ann Patchett, Lionel Shriver, Zadie Smith, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, everyone’s favourite Beyoncé loop (but seriously she’s also a great novelist). Despite the very impressive list of contemporary authors this prize has recognised, none of these authors has won a Man Booker, which creates a slightly difficult dialogue between the two prizes. The lineup of books for the 2015 longlist includes several popular novels. Elizabeth Healey’s Costa award winning debut novel Elizabeth is Missing is a hybrid of genre: a bit of crime, and not quite literary fictions, and the central character is an Alzheimer sufferer. Sarah Waters’ historical novel The Paying Guests is set in the 1920s and explores the changes to the social structure in the postWorld War One era. Emily St John Mandel’s Station Eleven is an apocalyptic novel that imagines the aftermath of a crippling new strand of flu. Anne Tyler’s Spool of Thread is her twentieth novel, and takes on the minutiae of a family in a subtle and deceptive way. Ali Smith’s How to Be Both is a book of two parts, one set in the 1960s and the other in the renaissance period. The shortlist is released in April, and the winner is announced in June. The succinct and tidy name of the Orange Prize was recognisable and garnered respect. Becoming the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction feels like an unfortunate shift, and in the wrong direction. By adding “women’s” to the title, the political agenda comes to the fore, rather than the literary merits of the work selected. The usage of “women’s” also carries implications of its other-ness. It feels pejorative. But perhaps we’re moving to a place where the inherent negativity and subjugation of women is losing its force. I hope so. Do we also need to talk about how the most important literary award has the word “Man” in it? Sure it’s from the investment company that sponsors it, but come on. Meanwhile, the sponsor for the Women’s award has moved from being a gender-neutral mobile network, to a creamy alcoholic beverage that is predominantly consumed by females, ushering the same gender specific consumption to befall the literature.
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GAMES
Old School Gems: Crash Bandicoot Developer: Naughty Dog Cameron Gray Crash Bash, a somewhat-decent Mario Party clone, was my gentle introduction to the crazy world that is the Naughty Dog-created Crash Bandicoot series, an icon of the fifth generation of consoles and one that helped make the PlayStation the biggest name in the video game world. The little marsupial’s platforming adventures were a great leap forward, especially in terms of graphics: while certainly not the first game to use polygonal 3D, it established the form as the way of the future by way of just looking amazing. Crash’s romps through time, space and everywhere in between were certainly a lot of fun when they were first released, but the question remains: can the franchise’s early efforts still hold up even today? The original Crash game, released in 1996, has not aged very well. It was released before the DualShock’s analog controls were even available, so you have to make do with using the D-pad, making movement through the levels feel stiff and unsatisfactory as you fight against the controller to get Crash to move. In an era in which analog sticks are necessary parts of any controller, having stiff controls is unforgivable; you would NOT want to have to use the Xbox 360 controller’s
infamous D-pad, and while the PS1’s D-pad is otherwise okay, it’s still a hassle. The graphics, however, look incredible for the era and even today are quite pretty to look at, if you can look past some noticeably polygonal boss characters. If you want to pick up the original Crash, be aware that it can be brutally difficult at times and you cannot save except after completing the bonus levels, but completionists will still love the challenge of collecting every crystal and gem. A good game for its time, but doesn’t really hold up. Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back is a massive improvement on the first game. Considering it was released only a year after the first, this was an incredible achievement; turns out all Naughty Dog needed to do is make a slight upgrade to the engine to make the game look and feel amazing. Not only does the game have full DualShock support, making movement feel more fluid and satisfying, it also introduces the Warp Room to the series, allowing you to save at any time. This makes it a decent introduction to the series for younger and/or less experienced gamers, although trial-and-error is still prevalent in the game’s platforming, so be wary. The levels largely stick to the formula established in the first game, consisting of either jungle, snow or water elements, and don’t vary much from this, but there’s enough challenge to keep the player interested.
not hard to see why, taking everything good about the first two games and cranking it up to 11. The graphics are the best you’ll ever see in a PS1 game, the level design allowing you to take in the visuals while still giving you a challenge. There are very few elements of the trial-and-error gameplay that plagued the first two games so you’ll never feel cheated when you make a mistake; moving feels great as a result. Even the music is fantastic, perfectly capturing the essence of each level and immersing you totally in the madcap world. Warped is, no bullshit, possibly one of the greatest platformers ever made, placing Crash in the top echelon of video game franchises and competing admirably with the likes of Mario and Sonic. If you can’t tell, I absolutely love Crash Bandicoot games and I’m very glad I made the choices I did when I encountered that massive shelf of games. Crash Bash introduced me to a vibrant and colourful world that was equal parts joyful and brutal, one which could only have come about in the PlayStation era. While I’m disappointed very little worthwhile has been done with the franchise since Naughty Dog moved on from it, gamers will always have the original games that helped put the PlayStation on the map and made 3D gaming the way of the future. OOGA BOOGA.
However, just a year after Cortex Strikes Back, a miracle happened: a third Crash game in as many years was unveiled! Crash Bandicoot: Warped is the franchise’s pinnacle and it’s
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issue 5 | introverts
toward people of South Asian origin. Heems, backed into a corner and rapping over a minimal beat and ominous piano riff, uses hip-hop as medium to speak from the margins: “they’re staring at our turbans/ they’re calling them rags/ they’re calling them towels/ they’re calling them diapers/ they’re more like crowns/ let’s strike them like vipers”.
MUSIC
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Eat Pray Thug Heems Tim Manktelow
I
ndian-American rapper Heems (Himanshu Suri) has just released his first solo album. Prior to Eat Pray Thug, the former third of New York rap trio Das Racist (RIP) had only released two mixtapes: Nehru Jackets in early 2012, and Wild Water Kingdom in November of the same year. Since then Heems has been travelling and touring. He spent a large amount of time in India attempting to reconnect with his heritage, and it was over three days in Mumbai that he wrote and recorded most of the album. The influence of the time spent in India is clear; by removing himself from New York Heems allowed himself to reflect on the duality of his existence, having “lived two lives, an Indian one and an American one”. This becomes a preoccupation in the opening track, “Sometimes”, which is boisterous, shifting between lyrical ups and downs to a quivering, intense beat. On it he raps: “how to live life when my life all duality/ this is how I live it man, this is my reality”. Reality for Heems is dual, Indian and American. It is his attempts to reconcile with this identity that makes Eat Pray Thug so interesting. This is partly because growing up Indian is not so simple in post-9/11 America. In the second track “So NY”, a shout out to his hip-hop roots, he is in conflict about being “so New York he doesn’t bump Tupac”, but having been also caught in the “white drama” of having to move home because “they kept calling me Osama”. On “So NY” we are witness to Heems’s confusion about his identity. His stance shifts a couple songs later on “Flag Shopping”, where he clearly aligns himself against the white American xenophobia
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The aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks are inseparable from life as Indian-American, which Heems explores on this album in a depth not seen on his earlier mixtapes. The satirical “Al Q8a”, and the NYPD-condemning “Suicide by Cop” challenge racial discrimination and policing. The closing track of the album, “Patriot Act”, takes Heems further, exploring the real heartbreak of 9/11. With his voice quavering slightly, he dedicates the closing verse of both the song and the album to the isolation of being seen as another “Osama”; to the anxiety of being branded a “trouble-maker” by “blue uniformed” authorities; and to the fear of losing friends of family through deportation and hate crimes. Throughout the album he uses his voice to convey the devastation that befell communities of nonwhite US citizens, creating what he describes as “post-9/11 dystopian brown man rap”. Yet Eat Pray Thug is not all racial politics. In a recent tweet Heems suggested that the album is concerned with “heartbreak, of the romantic type and the sociopolitical type”. There is a prominent romantic narrative to the album, one that explores the final stages of a flailing relationship. In “Damn, Girl”, an RnB influenced track, Heems sings about a relationship he wants no part of but cannot end, stating, “me, I’m weak you know that” while also trying to tell the (presumably) ex-lover to leave him “the fuck alone”. A soft voiced Heems touches on the euphoria of a reunion on the aptly named “Pop Song (Games)”, with the earlier conflicts being simply “games that all young lovers do”. However it all deflates on the next track “Home” where a miserable Heems raps two short verses over the beautiful production of Blood Orange (Dev Hynes). It is perhaps the standout track of the album. Heems is at his most melancholy, his most reflective and his most insightful. The track is a soliloquy on a love now doomed that lingers and haunts him: “I regret you/ you can say our love was regretful/ you got me, I get you/ if I could I’d forget you/ but I can’t since I left you”. During an interview with the New York Times Heems described this album as “the most personal work I’ve ever done”. There is no doubt that it is. His life is the material, with no area untapped. Romance vies with identity for space on the album, while the politics of race and 9/11 loom large. Overall it is well paced with upbeat tracks like “Jawn Cage” and “Hubba Hubba” offering relief from the omnipresent heartbreak. The production is tight with producers ranging from Harry Fraud to Boody B, and lyrically Heems is at his best. Eat Pray Thug is a fantastic album, profoundly moving and full of resilience— definitely worth a listen.
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Sat 4
Thurs 2
Wed 1
Sun 29
Sat 28
Fri 27
Thurs 26
Wed 25
Tues 24
MUSIC
Open Mic Night The Welsh Dragon
Goatwhore Valhalla
Voodoo Circus Valhalla Richter City The Ocean Rebels Valhalla Havana Bar
Kyle Taylor Meow
Andrew Keoghan Moon
DJ Tweak THIEF
DJ Don Luchito Havana Bar
Heterodox Valhalla
Michael Franti Shed 6
Towers, Shrines, Little Sister and Lukas Jury MOON Cookie Brooklyn & The Crumbs MOON
CUBA DUPA DJ ThaRobSta Zombie Birthday Cuba Street THIEF Valhalla and Surrounding Areas
Mikkee Dee Havana Bar
Death and the Maiden MOON
CUBA DUPA Tutakitaki Cuba Street Meow and Surrounding Areas
Monty Bevins Bicycle Junction
Pokey LaFarge Bodega
Gary Clark Jr Shed 6
The Heavy Crooners Newlands Arms
Billy Idol, Cheap Trick TSB Arena
The Gipsy Kings Michael Fowler Center Kvmejb Thunderbird Cafe
Dave and Phil Alvin Bodega
Earl Jefferson Lido Cafe
Brenda Earl Stokes Hashisgo Zake
Shane P Carter San Fran
Duo Incognito The Doublenecks Lido Cafe
Hashigo Zake
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issue 5 | introverts surprisingly un-soppy film about illness, family, and (of course) love. Moore plays Alice Howland, a linguistics professor diagnosed with early onset familial Alzheimer’s disease. It’s a spoiler the film wants you to know about, encouraging viewers to play MD and pick up the faintest traces of Howland’s memory lapses.
FILM
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Still Alice Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmoreland Sarah Dillon It’s easy to see why Sony Pictures scooped up Still Alice from the Toronto Film Festival. There are two key reasons: their names are Julianne Moore and Alec Baldwin, and they propel along a simple, snappy, and
Foxcatcher Directed By Bennett Miller
Harry Evans Foxcatcher is a really interesting movie about the interplay of class, family and friendship within the context of professional wrestling (the rolling on the ground Olympic type, not the cabaret type). It is centred by three fantastic performances from Channing Tatum as Olympic gold medallist Mark Schultz, Mark Ruffalo as his brother “the great” Dave Schultz, also an Olympic gold medallist, and Steve Carell as John E Du Pont, heir of one of America’s richest families. It is based on a true story. Du Pont offers to fund Mark’s training at his Foxcatcher farms but Dave is unwilling
It’s partly due to the intensity of the subject matter that Still Alice feels a little claustrophobic, but the atmosphere also comes from consistently close camera work. Sometimes this is really effective but sometimes all the feels mean we need a bit of breathing space. This isn’t to say the film is overly confronting, rather that it’s often more stylised than it needs to be, especially in the half-hearted flashback scenes. In making a film to capture the reality of degenerative disease, there’s potential for playing with style if you’re one of those postclassical creatives. Dialogue aside, it’s quite hard to signal an illness with any specificity. Still Alice shows some of Howland’s early episodes of confusion with shallow focus, close ups, and amplified sound: it tells us something is happening for her, but this
to uproot his family to join them. Du Pont’s relationship with Mark moves between a friend, a patron and a father. Neither the brooding, anti-social Mark or the selfcentred, delusional Du Pont know how to have friends and whenever Du Pont is uncomfortable he lashes out verbally or physically to remind Mark that they are not equals. Both Carell and Tatum hide the charisma that usually makes them such engaging actors, while Ruffalo lets his own shine through. Dave is a friendly and well adjusted family man. He’s passionate about wrestling as a sport and his job without being obsessed. Du Pont is jealous of Dave’s natural leadership qualities and his closeness with Mark and so uses Mark’s feelings of inferiority to set them apart. There is an excellent scene early on in the film where Mark and Dave are wrestling and their bodies communicate everything about their relationship. Foxcatcher’s problem lies in its narrative construction. It is paced
could be anything from a panic attack to a psychotic episode. The film works best when it keeps it simple: when Howland is verbally expressing what she’s feeling, and when her daughter Lydia (Kristen Stewart) gives her space to do so. It really hits all the discussion points on Alzheimer’s that you want it to, without being the streetside guy rattling the collection bucket in your face. I got a sense from this film that the directors knew what they were about when it came to the subject matter, and Google has since informed me that Richard Glatzer passed away just five days ago after fighting ALS. The other director was his husband, Wash Westmoreland, and this adds a really nice dimension to Still Alice, shifting the film’s focus from the perspective of an individual dealing with illness to a family dealing with illness—in the film’s case, one that’s genetically inherited. It avoids angelic victim syndrome and allows for really nice character arcs as they grow and develop together. Of the eclectic bunch of films in their oeuvre, I’m sure both directors are glad that the reflective, understated Still Alice was Glatzer’s final offering.
so oddly that although it is interesting it is not often gripping. Du Pont has grown up to view himself as something that he is not: a leader, a talented sportsman, a pillar of the community. He is not any of these things, he is just a very rich man who still has the mindset of a child; he has a tantrum when the tank he orders doesn’t come with a machine gun. The spectre of his mother (Vanessa Redgrave) looms over him. He wants her approval but she considers wrestling a “low” sport, unlike her award-winning equestrian horses. Like Sunset Boulevard’s Norma Desmond, John Du Pont pays people for their company and affection and has people around him to create a fictional life in which he is capable of thinking he is special. Both films end in tragedy.
205 OHIRO RD, BROOKLYN, WELLINGTON
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FILM
Chappie Directed by Neill Blomkamp Baz Macdonald
Chappie is the story of the first ever sentient robot created in a weapons factory in South Africa. It follows engineer Dion (Dev Patel) as he creates Chappie, the Artificial Intelligence (AI), and then attempts to raise the robot. However, his progress is impeded by his envious colleague Vincent (Hugh Jackman) and Johannesburg gangsters Ninja and Yolandi (the real-life members of rap group Die Antwoord). Chappie is overall a great and thoughtful experience, but the problems it does have come from its struggle to create two distinctly opposite experiences within one cohesive package. The film attempts to balance the thought provoking science fiction that Neill Blomkamp has been lauded for, with the overly blockbuster action that he has been criticized for in the past. Blomkamp has had success and failures within these two areas. His first film, District 9, is perhaps one of the best science fiction films of all time, establishing him as a master of poignant and provocative cultural introspect. His follow up, Elysium, presented
somewhat shallow sci-fi, but offered action that was not only superbly executed but also thought provoking. Chappie lives in the middle ground of these two experiences. It is possible to recognise the potential the film had to present powerful examples of both action and science fiction, but these two approaches got in each other’s way, preventing either of them to live up to that potential. That potential could have led to a masterpiece, and though Chappie certainly is not that, it is still a truly respectable science fiction experience. The film deals with high science concepts of AI, consciousness and human development in interesting and accessible ways. The trade-off to this accessibility is that the science itself is often bafflingly absurd, but this is forgivable given that the film is more interested in communicating concepts and consequences than hard science. The development of Chappie offers the most in terms of thought provocation. We see Chappie from his first moment of existence quickly begin to learn and, more importantly, be influenced by his experiences and surroundings. The dichotomy between Dion’s emphasis on ethics and progress and Die Antwoord’s focus on survival in their criminal underworld creates a fascinating environment for Chappie’s character development. In Chappie, the experience of watching an entire childhood happen with the space of days highlights not only how impressionable developing minds are, but also that the human capacity for evil is fostered only by exposure to evil itself.
More interestingly, and perhaps more concerning, was the film’s depiction of AI. AI is widely considered by many in the scientific world to be the most likely cause of the end of the human race. As such, within entertainment it is typically treated with justified fear and horror. Chappie flies in this face of this perception, instead portraying AI as the next step in the development of the human race. Chappie himself as the first ever AI is in no way a malevolent or evil character, but rather an overwhelmingly lovable and sympathetic one. One of the film’s biggest problems, aside from the jumbled approach, was the inconsistency of its performances. In particular Dev Patel and Hugh Jackman gave perhaps the most ineffectual performances of their careers. The saving graces were the performances from Sharlto Copley as Chappie and Yolandi and Ninja as themselves. Copley has played three distinctive characters in each of Blomkamp’s films, proving himself as a superb actor; Chappie may well be his best performance yet. The inclusion of Die Antwoord was a stroke of genius. They brought their unique and well developed characters, aesthetic and audio style to their scenes, creating a more diverse overall experience. Though Chappie isn’t the masterpiece it could have been, it is still a very respectable science fiction film with all the juicy thought fodder you could possibly desire.
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issue 5 | introverts
The Truth About Measles Natasha Donaldson
Measles is an extremely infectious, airborne disease caused by the measles virus. The first signs often include a high grade fever, running nose, and sore throat—symptoms which are generally indistinguishable from those of the common cold. However, the diagnostic symptom of measles are the raised, itchy red bumps which litter the body from tip to toe. Although 90 per cent of healthy individuals make a full recovery after contracting measles, approximately one in 10 requires further medical attention. Complications from measles include severe ear infections, leading to hearing impairment if left untreated; as well as diarrhoea and, in rare cases, pneumonia or encephalitis (swelling of the brain), which may lead to seizures and/or death in extreme cases. Severe complications of measles and many other contagious diseases most often affect those with ill-developed immune systems. This includes children, especially infants under the age of one, as well as pregnant women, the elderly and immunocompromised individuals. The key thing to remember about measles is that it is a preventable disease, as it is able to be vaccinated against. The MMR or measles, mumps and rubella vaccine has been shown to be 99 per cent effective in preventing the contraction and, more importantly, the transmission of measles.
Pathogens such as viruses and bacteria elicit an immune response. In order to avoid serious harm our bodies act in a multitude of ways to boost our intrinsic defences and remove the invading guest. Vaccination acts to forewarn our immune system of a pathogen, enabling memory and therefore an increased efficiency and heightened response when the real pathogen is encountered. It is important to note that most vaccines do not contain “active” organisms, merely characteristic but relatively innate pieces of the pathogen being vaccinated against. Statistically, adverse reactions to vaccines are insignificant with respect to their efficacy. When a pharmaceutical drug is released to the public, what most of us do not see is the years of evidence-based research, undertaken by thousands of individuals, concluding that the therapeutic benefit of the drug in question does indeed outweigh any associated risks or side effects. This is a fundamental aspect of healthcare and medical research, and is aptly named the “Risk-to-Benefit Ratio”. Vaccination works in exactly the same way. Although you may hear horror stories of children or even adults dying from an unpredicted allergic reaction to a seemingly safe vaccine, these are the anomalies. An extreme allergic reaction or anaphylaxis in response to a vaccination is comparable to
such a reaction from a bee sting or a spider bite. The biological response is the same, the mechanisms are the same. It is not some intrinsic property of the vaccine nor are “ALL vaccines loaded with chemicals and other poisons” as suggested by The Healthy Home Economist and other natural health websites that incorrectly denounce vaccinations. There is also no reliable evidence to correlate complex conditions such as Autism or Irritable Bowel Syndrome to the use of vaccines; to publicise such information is completely irresponsible. Take a look at both sides of the argument for yourself, examine the internet, and note the number of lives that have been saved as a result of global vaccination schemes. Polio, tetanus and measles vaccines are success stories— nothing less. The recent measles outbreak in Disneyland, California highlights the importance of vaccination. From 1 January to 27 February 2015, 170 new cases of measles across 17 states were reported to the CDC. Given that measles was successfully eliminated from the United States in 2000, this was a terrible but very preventable tragedy.
That Time We Defeated Smallpox Bridget Pyć
Woo-hoo! None of us have had smallpox, and likely never will thanks to vaccines! Smallpox is an extremely infectious viral disease which has a characteristic rash, causes high fever, and kills approximately one-third of all those infected. It is a devastating biological weapon, which had a significant effect on depleting the Native American population when it was introduced purposefully by British explorers who distributed infected blankets in the hope of weakening the native people’s resistance to colonisation. Both the USA and Russia hold secure stocks of the virus in case it ever comes in handy. In 1770 an English doctor, Edward Jenner, learnt that a milkmaid believed herself to
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be protected from smallpox since she had previously been infected by cowpox. 26 years later Jenner tested the milkmaid’s theory by inoculating an 8-year-old boy with matter from a cowpox sore and, the following week, attempting to infect the boy with a human strain of fresh smallpox. The young boy remained healthy. The term vaccination stems from the Latin word “vacca”, meaning cow. Following Jenner’s success vaccinations against smallpox became mandatory in a number of countries, and in 1980 the World Health Assembly declared the world free from smallpox.
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It’s Everyone’s Fault If I Get Sick Ruth Corkill
There is no scientific controversy surrounding the effectiveness of vaccination programs. Whenever a vaccine has been successfully introduced and been widely used a sharp decline in the incidence of diseases it protects against is observed, meaning fewer hospitalisations and fewer deaths. That is because vaccines not only protect vaccinated individuals from a disease, they also boost a community’s “herd immunity”. Herd immunity occurs when a high enough proportion of a community are immune to a particular disease to disrupt the chains of infection, stopping or slowing the spread of disease. This prevents epidemics and protects individuals who are particularly vulnerable. Because this generation hasn’t lived with widespread whooping cough, deaf blind and intellectually disabled rubella babies, or paralytic polio, we no longer fear these horrendous diseases. As a result, immunisation starts to seem like an unnecessarily unpleasant precaution. I imagine that it is particularly horrible allowing a stranger to inject your infant with a mysterious fluid, but all credible medical research points to vaccination as a necessary health measure, especially for children.
Unfortunately, the anti-vaccination lobby repeatedly refers to pseudo-science and falsified research to fan the flames of people’s concerns. One of the most persistent myths about vaccines, specifically the MMR or Measles Mumps and Rubella combined vaccine (yay! Three birds with one needle!) is that immunisations have been linked to autism spectrum disorders. The MMR vaccine controversy began in 1998 with the publication of a fraudulent research paper in the medical journal The Lancet which was fully retracted in 2010 after it was revealed that the evidence presented in the paper had been falsified. The author of the paper, Andrew Wakefield, was found guilty of serious professional misconduct by the General Medical Council. He had broken ethical codes and had multiple undeclared conflicts of interest. He is no longer permitted to practice medicine as a result. Richard Horton, The Lancet’s editor-in-chief, described the research as “utterly false” and said that the journal had been “deceived”. In the wake of the scandal multiple large epidemiological studies were undertaken. Reviews of the evidence by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the
Institute of Medicine of the US National Academy of Sciences, the UK National Health Service, and the Cochrane Library all found no link between the MMR vaccine and autism. They concluded unanimously that the benefits of the vaccine far outweighed any risks. Sadly the damage had already been done. Enough people chose not to vaccinate that herd immunity has begun to break down in communities across the western world. In recent years there has been a resurgence of diseases virtually unseen for a generation, including whooping cough and measles. We have a responsibility to immunise against dangerous diseases. Encephalitic measles is deadly. If a pregnant woman contracts rubella during the first trimester she will most likely either have a miscarriage or a stillborn baby. If the baby survives the infection it can be born with severe heart disorders, blindness, deafness, or other life-threatening organ disorders. Mumps can cause deafness. Even the flu can be deadly, especially to the elderly or immunosuppressed. Spend a few minutes doing a Google image search on each of these diseases and you will start to realise how absurd it is that we are allowing them to re-emerge.
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26 MARCH WELLINGTON
VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF WELLINGTON REC CENTRE, KELBURN CAMPUS 12-2:30PM
issue 5 | introverts
FOOD
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Recipe – Overnight Oats Hannah Douglass I’m writing this at 7:10am; I’ve already been at work for over an hour, out of bed since 4:30am. I work at a gym and have to open it at 6 for all those people who are far too keen to be doing exercise at the most ungodly time of the morning. This means I leave the house at about 5am, which is no time to be having breakfast, because I’ll just be hungry again by the time I normally have breakfast and that’s just a waste of time, effort and calories. The solution, I have discovered, is overnight oats. I can make them the night before and take it with me to work to eat later in the morning, and I can still just roll out of bed and get out the door by 5am with as little trauma as possible. It does all the work for you while you’re asleep. It doesn’t get better than that, right? The recipe itself is pretty flexible—you can add whatever toppings and flavours you like. I’ve seen other recipes for apple pie overnight oats, chocolate brownie overnight oats—they’re all on the list of ways to make my Tuesday mornings a little more interesting. Ingredients: ½ cup rolled oats ½ cup liquid (I use water, but you can use milk of any description, even yoghurt) 1 tsp chia seeds 1 tbl LSA ½ cup frozen berries 1 scoop protein powder (optional – if you’re leaving it out, you probably want to go with milk or yoghurt for your liquid) 1 tsp honey or maple syrup How to: 1. Put the oats, chia seeds and LSA into a glass jar or whatever random vessel you choose to use. 2. Add liquid, it should be just enough to cover the oats. 3. Put the lid on and put it in the fridge. Let it do its thing for at least three hours, ideally closer to seven or eight (your brain would appreciate that much sleep too, but let’s face it—it doesn’t always happen, especially during hand-in week). 4. If you’re taking it with you somewhere, don’t do what I did and forget to take a spoon. It’s really upsetting, trust me. 5. Depending on how mad you are (and probably how far into winter we are), you can eat this cold or heated up. I’m not crazy, so I stick it in the microwave for about a minute. 6. Add your toppings! 7. Yum.
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Ormond Rich Cream Lydia and Mitch Cost: $16 (1.5L) Alcohol Volume: 14% Pairing: Disappointing quiche and sexist wine (Pete’s Shed, read the label) Verdict:
“Makes you want to take your dentures out.”
Given that a large proportion of this review was completed while sitting on the floor of a friend’s toilet, we can’t guarantee the accuracy of our conclusions. However, we can guarantee that the strength of our friendship was, much like the wine, fortified when this eternal line was uttered: “Do you wanna swap places? I’m near the toilet, are you gonna vom?” What we were drinking was Ormond Rich Cream Fortified Wine and what were were feeling was regret. “Fortified wine” is a byword for “almost sherry” and “rich cream” means “you can get 1.5 litres for $16”. Most of the time, sherry is the exclusive domain of lonely old people who live in damp houses in Thorndon. Ever the innovators, we took it to a surprisingly dry house in Newtown and forced many, many young people to try it. Only one guest expressed a positive experience with Ormond Rich Cream by mixing it with soda water. It should be noted that her penchant for Mylanta mixed with vodka makes us question this guest’s judgement. We had difficulty finding anything else positive to say about this fortified wine apart from “alcoholic raro”, which sounds like a really great idea and you can expect to hear more about it later in the year. Spoiler: alcoholic raro probably tastes like Cindy’s. Spoiler 2: Ormond Rich Cream does not taste like Cindy’s, this person was wrong and we do not respect their opinion. Really getting into the elderly theme, we talked a lot about which veteran politicians we thought would enjoy a sly drop of Ormond Rich Cream. Annette King was brought up but quickly dismissed because she’s too fucking classy for that. Another option was Trevor Mallard, but it was quickly pointed out that he rides his bike literally everywhere and probably leads a disappointingly healthy lifestyle. The obvious, and super relevant (#forceforthenorth) answer is clearly the Rt Hon Winston Raymond Peters, who probably has a really great liquor cupboard in his office which is decked out with doilies made by his admirers.
2 for 1 Margherita
pizzas every friday from 3pm
The Hunter Lounge
The Hunter Lounge
Ormond Rich Cream: it is very cheap and readily available, but people still do not buy it. This is because it’s shit. Drink Fat Bird instead.
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issue 5 | introverts Everyone gets tired, rest is important, and when we’re sleepy we’re often not at home. For these reasons, I was extremely excited to see what seemed like a weekday mirage—a welcoming bed in a parking space along Cuba Street.
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This installation of a white bed attended by three white-clothed figures was the effort of the Emotion Time Collective who, after exhibiting together previously, came together again to contribute to this year’s Parking Day. Parking Day took place on 11 March, as part of an annual event that sees parking spaces in cities across the world replacing parked cars with experimental and often interactive creative spaces. This year in Wellington there were 17 different installations across the CBD, including a space completely filled with 80 road cones, a giant pillow and people eating cookies and milk in old-timey clothes. I, like many others, was drawn to Emotion Time’s parking spot in particular at first purely by visuals. A monochromatic bright white bed in the middle of Cuba Street is not particularly inconspicuous and as I neared the parking space, I was bemused to see a person sleeping in the bed. My first thought was “aw, lucky them”, and when I learnt that anyone could have a snooze, I was immediately interested. I was given a pre-nap form to fill out, which included questions on how tired I was (I’m always tired), how long I wanted to nap for (20 minutes max), and what I wanted to listen to as I dozed (I picked “rain on a tent”).
I Had a Really Nice Nap in a Cuba St Parking Space Sharon Lam
Whenever something that is taboo becomes temporarily untabooed, there is a special sort of gratification that comes from it. Staying up late as a child on New Year’s Eve, accidental shoplifting (maybe), or—as seen last week in Wellington—napping in public. If, like me, you have napped in public—whether it be in a library, hotel lobby, park bench, a display bed in Farmer’s—you’ll understand the unavoidable feeling that you shouldn’t be sleeping. The public dozer always sneakily tries to be discreet. But why?
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As I waited for the current napper to finish napping, I chatted (quietly) with the artists. The premise of the project was simple— the play on replacing parked cars with parked people, the guise of therapeutic pseudo-science, a general awareness for rest in the city. As they described these ideas, they noted the discrepancy between the public’s requests for verbal explanations and the redundancy of the requests, since those who chose to nap would instantly understand the project. Soon it was my turn for a nap and I eagerly took my shoes and glasses off and climbed into the freshly made bed, which was even comfier than it looked (it looked really really comfy). I was given earphones, and as I put them on the sounds of Cuba Street were nicely replaced with Rain On Tent-like sounds. Next to go was my sight, with the help of a soft white eyemask. I buried myself under the soft sheets and relaxed, which—given the foot-traffic heavy location—was surprisingly easy. With a warm sheets and a light breeze, I felt more like I was on a cloud than lower Cuba, and I quickly settled into a doze. When my allocated nap was over I reluctantly left the bed, in a refreshed state. I was the fourteenth napper of the day, and the next napper was already waiting to rest. I thanked the artists and as I left the parking space I remained in a bit of a daze, still smiling from my public nap, a pleasure that felt almost post-coital. As I walked further away with a perhaps slightly creepy facial expression, I couldn’t help but think that each and every person I passed could really do with a public nap as well.
like everything else we’re pretty much experts in this department. Your room is a lot like your first email account name: it reflects who you are and who you wish you were (like Luke’s first email: me_da_skux@hotmail.com). Unlike university drinking culture, you don’t adapt to it, it adapts to you. What was once a commercially cleaned, prime piece of student real estate is now your bedroom, office, rave pit, bathroom (if the window is open) and shag-pad/play-room #50shadesOfWhat?
He vs. She We thought we’d give gender stereotyping a whirl this week due to the absence of generalisation in our previous issues. So pull up an office chair or bed as we discuss the only thing that belongs to you in Wellington—your room. When you moved in, you were given a key to a blank room identical to the other 300 in your hostel (except Vic house; they have like 13 rooms), but by now your room should reflect your ever-developing personality. Lucky for you guys we’ve both visited a fair amount of different rooms in our time, so
Lad Pads: These are either “who needs shelves when you have a floor” or “don’t sit there, I just made it”. Both require consistent maintenance, whether it’s sorting, polishing and admiring, or hosting “drinks” all weekend, every weekend. This all changes come assignment due dates and exam periods, where there ain’t a messy room in sight, because a well-known remedy for endless procrastination is cleaning every inch of your room. After all, who needs a clear mind when you have a clean room? You will soon realise it’s alright to crack open that diffuser your mum bought you that you thought was effeminate because, surprisingly, girls prefer the smell of Ecoya over your sweaty ball sack.
whichever it is, your room is going to somehow maintain your feminine charm without any effort. If your room contains a waffle duvet set, Karen Walker jewellery, a vat of pretentious smelling Ecoya perfume with a candle that you just want to eat, boyfriend jeans and white Windsor Smiths, then congratulations, you are a basic bitch. On the other hand, if you are a dungarees-wearing, incense-burning, exotic tea-drinking, shishasmoking moisty, then your party vote goes to Green and you’re a hipster. Whichever you are, hide your condoms because your parents and that guy trying to get out of the friend zone don’t want to think about you using them. Tip of the week: Even if your room is clean, no one wants to see it on Instagram. However, love your room. Next year you’ll be paying through the nose for a damp, windowless piece of hell (unless you’re at Vic house— you’re already there). Happy camping, Tom and Luke P.S. Vic house—we’re sorry and we do love you, like a sponsored child.
Muff Mansions: You are either a newly converted Hipster, or a Basic Bitch—
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