The Voice Issue Four

issue four // august

// issue four

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ands up if you stayed home during the break and really enjoyed seeing everyone else’s overseas photos on Facebook with the #cool hashtags?

Yeah, me neither. I did feel sorry for the Bible Lands crew though—if I had paid $13,000 I would have wanted to see the pyramids too! Jokes aside, they were unlucky about the timing of Egypt’s civil unrest.

However, while we have incredible freedoms—such as the golden ticket that is an Australian passport, allowing us to flee back home to safety in times of crisis—not everyone is in the same boat.

And when it comes to a crisis, some people are literally in a different boat.

I’m referring to the startling increase of asylum seekers arriving on our shores.

Now, for many of us living on campus, it’s hard to keep up with news in general, and when it comes to Kevin vs Tony opinion polls, it just doesn’t seem relevant. It’s a shame, because when something very relevant happens, we’ve already tuned out. Like, the recent policy sending asylum seekers to PNG.

In Different Boats Josh Dye

As things stand, once their refugee status has been determined, they will never be resettled in Australia. Their best-case scenario is to be resettled in PNG, a country with its own safety and development issues. Political pawns, these people are the collateral in a pretty twisted game. Are we comfortable with that?

This column isn’t proposing a solution to what is a very complex issue, but surely as Australians we stand for something more than this. Surely we are more hospitable and humane than this.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

It’s a famous quote, it’s cliché, but it’s true. So what can we do? Some simple ideas are to email your local MP, or sign a petition: www.refugeeaction.org.au Try it. What have you got to lose?

Writers

Editor

Josh Dye

Designer

Danelle Morton

Advertising

Luke Ferry

The views and opinions expressed in The Voice are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of Avondale College of Higher Education.

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Josh Dye, Claudia Houstoun, Charlotte O’Neill, Chelsea Mitchell, Hayden Stuart, Lara Campbell Special thanks to Brenton Stacey

Editorial

Contents

Vox Pop

page four

Feature

page six

Feature

page nine

“Lay-dee, lay-dee! Special price for you!”

“Sporting Life”

Photo Album Culture Corner

page ten page thirteen

Feature

page fifteen

While You Were Sleeping...

page sixteen

“The Avondale Legend”

Feature

“Etiquette or BS?”

page nineteen

Like The Voice - Avondale on

Contents

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// issue four

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hat was the highlight/ lowlight of your break?

Highlight: placing three huge TVs in the lounge room and playing way too much Call of Duty.

Lowlight: when everyone went to Uni Games and I was left alone in the house.

Christian Brodie Highlight: a game of chess beside the Grand Canal with a local man from Venice Lowlight: not being able to go to the gym and having to do heaps of cardio for prac.

Cardio kills gains so I’m so small now!

Doug Simpson Highlight: being out of Cooranbong for over a month.

Lowlight: coming back and having to practice my violin.

Jordan Cassie Highlight: MOTO Nepal trip, specifically the experiences I had in the classroom with my students.

Lowlight: unpredictable electricity, birdsized mosquitoes, showering in view of an entire village every day, etc.

Kirsten Groves

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Vox Pop Highlight: having access to 24-hour all-you-can-eat food on a five-star Baltic cruise.

Lowlight: the realisation I would be coming back home to dine at the Caf for the next 13 weeks.

Another lowlight: not being blessed to sit next to a handsome man on a 14-hour flight that I could pretend to fall asleep on, but rather a man who slept with his feet resting on me.

Karina Parker Highlight and lowlight being the same thing: losing all 10 games of touch football at Uni Games with an amazing bunch of Avondale girls.

Brooke Tually Highlight: MOTO Nepal—what more could you want from an overseas trip than a thousand too many movie quotes, a truckload of lentils, several squat toilets and one Peter Beamish?

Damien Hedges

Vox Pop

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hat do you wish you did during your break?

I wish I climbed Mt Everest – but who doesn’t wish that?

Kirk Rampton I wish I had been in the loop about Avondale moving off campus to Venice, Italy.

Brooke Tually I wish I joined the Europe bandwagon and annoyed everyone else with my constant Facebook updates every five minutes with pictures of broken buildings and all the weird foods that were tasted.

Kenneth Lozada I wish I stayed home and didn’t go overseas.

No one

Martin Crabtree

Callum Maclean

Vox Pop

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// issue four

We want

YOUR photos!

Submit your best photos from 2013 for publication in the Jacaranda!

Photo collection boxes can be found at Student Services and around campus, or email photos to thejacaranda2013@gmail.com

“Lay-dee, lay-dee!

Special price for you!”

Chelsea Mitchell

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here always seems to be a sale on here. So she’s at the ATM again, thinking about what colour pants to buy, what ice-cream flavour to try next. Truth is, she could buy a shop worth of these pants, and four times four scoops for the family behind it.

But she doesn’t have time to think about these things, for the streets are as alive as an overwhelming ambulance siren-like build up of Gibbon emotion.

So she’s vomiting up a number, and waiting, for the “Money.”

To her left is a mother, clinging.

“For the baby. Please.”

SUBMISSIONS CLOSE

SEPTEMBER 13

Don’t give money to children.

“Formula. Please.”

She wants milk.

Her peripherals move across the road towards Mini Mart, the squashed Coleslike place next to Pub Street. It has

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Feature

just added products like Kickapoo Joy Juice and mint M&Ms. So it’s that place Westerners flock, to buy four American apples for $2.35, when they could buy six Cambodian apples, five rambutans, four longans, three mangosteens, two (green) oranges, one dragonfruit, a starfruit, and meet the locals for $2.30. Now that’s a special price.

You can’t. His parents.

“For the baby.”

“Where do you live?”

“I don’t speak English.”

She’s forcing herself onto the road, freeing herself. But now the mother’s attaching desperation around her wrist.

So the mother either lives to say these words far more often than the Westerner before her, or this was just the evening show.

“Please. For baby.”

Now she’s looking into her eyes. I mean she’s really looking, maybe searching for something that will put it on her heart to give. It’s there. And at that moment, everything she thought she felt about children being used, puppets for a price, she ignored it all.

His father will take it.

“I’m sorry. I can’t.”

Can’t you?

“Please.”

“I’m sorry…”

“Save me.”

But Keo is there too, scrambling along beside her.

So she’s leaving him on his hands, and the mother, still with everything in her hands.

Later, she finds herself on her knees, begging, to the one who freely gives.

“Money.”

But now she’s turning away from her eyes, leaving what she found, for now to her right is a boy, his hands standing as his legs.

“Help.”

“What is your name?”

“Keo.”

Feature

Chelsea likes feta cheese, always wears rainbow colours, and has a diverse range of different laughing styles.

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A

large team of enthusiastic and hopeful Avondale students jumps off the bus and bundles into the Wollongong SDA Church hall, setting up their beds on the bare concrete floor.

The excitement in the air is palpable as each team gets together to review strategies and talk game plans. As Up&Go’s are consumed by the boxful, the competitive drive is building in all of us.

Whilst comparisons to Storm Co and MOTO trips are made, there is a noticeably different feel to this trip: we are here to play sport. *** If you haven’t heard by now, Avondale did very well at these games, finishing third overall in the per capita standings, which is a noteworthy achievement.

Avondale teams pulled off victories over some of the biggest universities in the country, including UTS, ANU, UWS and a memorable men’s basketball victory over Sydney Uni. These results led to a number of discussions about how Avondale is able to field quality, winning teams from such a small pool of students with seemingly no reason to excel at sports.

That is, until you understand the strength of the sporting culture at Avondale.

In any given week at College there are opportunities to play basketball, netball, touch football, soccer, cricket, squash,

Feature

Sporting Life Hayden Stuart

tennis and many more. There is also an active gym community and a constant stream of students running up and down College Drive.

In conjunction with this active lifestyle, Avondale students tend to be interested in healthy eating, as evidenced by the pressure on the Caf to provide the healthiest options available.

The strong connection between Avondale and sport has been around for many years. The healthy, active lifestyle traditionally encouraged by the Church has built this culture over time, and now Avondale students are getting opportunities to showcase this relationship on a national scale.

A debt of gratitude is owed to all those who have gone before us and contributed to the sporting culture here. Their sporting legacy is still embraced at Avondale today, and we hope it continues long after we leave.

Hayden wants to visit all seven continents (including Antarctica), is terrible at drawing, and claims his hidden talent is the ability to do a back flip.

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// issue four

Photo Album

Mitch Gates

Kirsten Groves

Joel Ferry

Caitlin Leach Colin Chuang

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Photo Album

Mark Singh

Jess Laws

Colin Chuang

Colin Chuang

Photo Album

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Culture Corner Josh Dye

The Australian

Policy vs Personality Unfortunately, you missed nothing if you didn’t watch the recent and uninteresting election debate between Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott.

Fun fact of the night: Abbott spoke approximately three times slower than Rudd, whose trademark hair-flick was on show again. As well as generally talking about not much, both candidates showcased the remarkable ability to avoid actually answering questions. And there you have the summary of what could have been an insightful and enlightening discussion. Come September 7, you must decide which you would rather less: Rudd the redeemer or Abbott the repeater.

Culture Corner

Wikimedia

Price Beat Guarantee Onesies If you like flying and love Wikipedia defines them as bargains, you won’t ever foran “adult jumpsuit styled like get reading this paragraph. an infant bodysuit.” Which Jetstar has a ripper of a is correct. Except the word system where they beat an‘infant’ should be bold, italiother airline’s price (usually cised and underlined. Urban Tiger) by 10% if their flight is Dictionary adds, “generally within an hour. Case study: worn over a diaper.” Mmmm.

Josh is booking a flight from So you can imagine my deep Sydney to Melbourne for distress when in one fateful Friday afternoon, a notoriday during the holidays my ously expensive time to fly. mum, sister and girlfriend Jetstar would like to charge all purchased these infant him $349. Tiger is offering apparel items. And I’m still $84.95. He weighs up both mystified about the whole options briefly before declingoing-to-the-toilet thing… ing both. Kind of. One phone call later and he pays a mere $76.46, thus Josh likes orange, owns a green suit and drives a yellow car. His bedroom saving $272.54. is painted all three of these colours, Thanks Jetstar. and at last check he didn’t suffer from epilepsy.

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S

o, you’ve arrived. Does it feel the way you thought it would?

Perhaps you reluctantly enrolled, pressured by nagging parents, and have so far been pleasantly surprised.

Possibly, though, you’ve had a rather different experience. Propelled by stories of ‘College life’, you couldn’t wait to arrive and have brought a swag of expectations bigger than Kevin 07’s ego.

Legendary chaffs, a constant spiritual high, consistently good food, and, not least, the special person you’re supposed to meet. These expectations are all elements of others’ stories, hyperbolised by time.

Dad’s friends inhabit his College memories like demigods, and each time he recounts his favourite story, it glosses over slightly more. Indeed, the whole thing can become so “when I was there…” that the very names of the buildings are sacred to some. That’s alright for them, but it can create the expectation that you’ll experience a kind of euphoria merely by being present on campus.

Well, if it’s your first semester, you may have realised this isn’t the reality; coming here doesn’t solve all your problems.

You can bury it in all the Pretty Little Liars sessions and undie runs you like,

Feature

The Avondale Legend Claudia Houstoun

but your parents at home are still at one another’s throats, you still battle anxiety and struggle financially since leaving your job to come here.

And here are some dirty secrets: you do actually have to study a fair bit, it can be a social minefield, chaffs put you on the terrifying ‘radar’, and God-time slips away faster than you can say “Maccas run.”

But don’t despair. There’s oodles to look forward to: actually enjoying a class, mischief with friends (there are ways around the radar), and discovering basketball. The delights – both expected and unexpected – are everywhere.

The muddy lens of expectation is painful to remove, but once those burdening should-be’s are gone it’s much easier to relax, enjoy, and create your own Avondale legend. Just don’t burden your kids with it someday.

Claudia enjoys bad English comedies, Eurovision, Nikki Webster’s ‘Strawberry Kisses’ album and other high culture. Her secret ambition is to run away and start a punk band.

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// issue four

78,000 The number of applicants signed up for a one-way ticket to Mars

While You Were Sleeping...

Lara Campbell and Josh Dye

to establish a colony by 2023.

The seven-month journey to the desert-like planet will cost $6.7 billion; each ‘passenger’ pays $30 and faces eight years of intense astronaut training.

Andrew Meares

Many of us are already bored of the election—and we’re not the only ones. Meet Joseph Kim, the extraverted five-year-old and accomplished photobomber, spicing things up in the background of Rudd’s campaigning at Ryde Uniting Church.

“I don’t think Mr Snowden was a patriot.”

Barack Obama takes a thinly veiled swipe at whistleblower, fugitive and Wikileaks favourite Edward Snowden after announcing the first public review of America’s controversial surveillance programs. Finally, someone to take the heat off Julian Assange.

“She’s really getting on my nerves and I don’t want her.”

A New York man, Paul Marquez, who allegedly put his baby for sale on Craigslist for $US100. Apparently unhappy with the lack of attention from the baby’s mother, who he’d dated a few times, Marquez faces up to a year in prison if convicted.

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While You Were Sleeping...

“We’re not going to be able to have long hair anymore.”

Venezuelan woman Egmari Villarreal fears for her locks after increasing attacks on long-haired women in the coastal town of Maracaibo. With natural extensions costing hundreds of dollars, the scissor-wielding thieves, known as ‘piranhas’, sell their spoils to local hair and beauty salons for a tidy profit.

Just trickling down his leg side…

It’s not all good news for the English cricket team, with eccentric spinner Monty Panesar fined £90 for urinating on nightclub bouncers after taking exception to being thrown out of a Brighton club. More adept at evading a different kind of bouncers, Panesar was eventually Getty Images

chased down and brought to justice.

“She cooks, cleans and comes with a dog.”

Western Sydney man Daniel Bush takes the classic mother-in-law joke to the next level by listing his on eBay. But the story has a twist: it was her suggestion to help Daniel raise money after breaking both ankles in a rock-climbing accident.

While You Were Sleeping...

$149,000,000 Estimated value of the diamonds belonging to an Israeli billionaire stolen at gunpoint from a jewel show in Cannes. The reward?

Almost $1.5 million.

Lara is known as the brains behind ‘The Kilometrico Theory’, which states that if you find a Kilometrico pen without its lid, it is obviously unwanted and is yours for the taking.

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Student Leadership Positions Available for 2014 • ASA President • ASA Secretary • ASA Student Councillors (x5 indoor and outdoor) • The Voice Editor • The Voice Assistant Editor • Contemporary Choir Leader • ACTS II Drama Leader • ONE MISSION Leader • SAM Leader • SAC Leader • Residential Assistants

Applications close 30 August Check student emails from 19 August or visit Student Services.

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ave you ever read those ‘101 Things To Do In An Elevator’ lists? Here are some examples: • Stand silent and motionless in the corner, facing the wall, without getting off.

• When there is only one other person in the elevator, tap them on the shoulder and then pretend it wasn’t you.

• Tell one of the other passengers that you’re sorry, but you’re going to have to let him go.

These crack me up. They’re all a little unrealistic of course, but social etiquette can sometimes baffle us.

I in particular am baffled by social etiquette, as I’ll be happy to allow you to experience if you have a conversation with me.

Elevator etiquette, as I call the unnecessary social nuances we carry out subconsciously, makes me laugh… and also wonder. Is there such a thing as Christian etiquette? I think so.

If we all took ourselves a little less seriously and laughed and shared when we needed to, barriers would be broken down and feelings would remain intact.

Ecclesiastes 3:1 says something like “For everything there is a season, and a time for every activity under the heavens.”

Wait, every activity? Hilarity in church even?

Feature

Etiquette or BS? Charlotte O’Neill

This appeared in a church bulletin, and should make you laugh: “Ladies’ Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10. All ladies are invited to lunch in the hall after the BS is done.”

Often we can become a little overwhelmed by the intentionality of practicing our religion.

What shouldn’t surprise us to remember is that the foundation of our faith is filled with irony and every type of raw human feeling.

Jesus doesn’t call perfect people; he calls us to be open, willing, and experiential.

Devotion to our beliefs doesn’t equate to the inability to have a great time.

A relationship with another person isn’t really great until we can talk for hours, laugh till we’re sore and get past feeling the need to be always socially acceptable.

Let’s skip the BS, and focus on being real.

Charlotte is terrible at filming, would like to get better at filming, and has a quirky and chronic like for cutting her own hair.

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