Woroni Edition 1 2021

Woroni VOL. 71, Issue 1, 2021

W o Ron i TRUTH M MA ATT TTERS ERS

WORONI TEAM

CONTENT

Aditi Dubey Queenie Ung-Lam Aleyn Silva Andy Yin Ashley Davies Fatema Mansuri Katie Sproule Kevin Zhu Rose Dixon-Campbell Sabrina Tse Saskia O’George Tilda Njoo

ART

Eliza Williams Maddy Brown Bonnie Burns Madelene Watson Beth O’Sullivan

NEWS

Ronan Skyring Isobel Lavers Giselle Laszok Sasha Personeni Siobhan Fahey Juliette Baxter Daniel Crane Kristine Giam Fiona Ballentine

RADIO

Elijah Lazarus Bec Donald-Wilson Fergus Sherwood Rucha Tathavadkar Davis Evans Olivia Adams Gabrielle Karov Alex An Phoebe Barnes

TV

Liam Taylor Jack Nicoll Clara Ho Gautham Venkitaramamoorthy

CONTENTS NEWS

CREATIVE

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Anew An Interview with Chistopher Sainsbury A Stupol Nightmare: Natcon 2020 Wrapped

CAMPUS

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O-Week Calendar Selling Out By Degrees

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Who Tells Our Stories?

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The Productivity Myth?

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Everyone I’ve Ever Loved

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Noah’s Phone App Poetry

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CULTURE

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Soy Originalemente de...

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Beholden And Beautiful

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The Distance Between

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My Favourite Boomer Lie

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The 3 Steps for Success 20

Dignity, Healthcare and Reform Liar Liar

The Spoon

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The Problem with Cash

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It’s Complicated

The Truth About Truth

SOCIETY

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45 46

Post Human: Survival Horror - Album Review 22

49

25

BREAKING (the) NEWS

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DISCOVERY

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Guide to: Energy: Efficient Renting

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Universal Truths and Another Way

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From Newton to Rubik’s Cubes Space For All Felin(e) Random

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58 61

The Fifty-Two Books I Didn’t Read This Year

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NOTE FROM THE EDITOR You have in your hands Woroni’s first edition of 2021. Keep reading, it only gets better from here.

We kick off this year with the theme of Truth Matters. Student media, as convoluted as it may sometime seem, is always trying to tell the student truth. This is rarely something students agree upon, especially in a cohort as opiniated as ANU’s. All we can do is fight each other on Schmidtposting and hope we’re getting across to someone, somewhere— and read/watch/listen to Woroni of course.

We’re obsessed with the student voice. We can’t get enough. We say it so often that it’s become a joke— but Woroni really does mean mouthpiece. To the student reading this, we are the mouthpiece for your film reviews, your margin sketches, your grievances with ANU, your notes app poetry and your hot political takes. The Radio team want your podcast ideas, the News team want your juiciest anonymous tip offs and the TV team want your views more than anything else. We want it all.

If this is the kind of stuff that really gets you going, you may want to consider joining one of Woroni’s portfolios. Read on to see the full list of your overworked peers in charge of creating and curating ANU’s student media experience.

G’day to all our returning team members and a warm hello to all our new Woroni editors. Lily Pang and Sian Williams worked incredibly hard on this edition. Shout them a coffee if you see them looking stressed in Kambri.

An especially enthusiastic welcome also to all incoming ANU students.

A supportive hug to all the second years who were robbed of their usual filthy first year revelries as a result of the general chaos of 2020. I wish the Moosehead bathrooms the best of luck on your return.

Rachel Chopping Editor in Chief

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WORONI EDITORS BERNIE CALLAGHAN RADIO EDITOR

CHARLOTTE WARD NEWS EDITOR MATTHEW DONLAN TV EDITOR

RACHEL CHOPPING EDITOR IN CHIEF BEN ROWLEY MANAGING EDITOR

VY TSAN DEPUTY EDITOR IN CHIEF

SIAN WILLIAMS ART EDITOR LILY PANG CONTENT EDITOR

WORONI EDITORS

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ARTWORK: Maddy Brown

NEWS

ARTWORK: Sian Williams

An Interview with Christopher Sainsbury Elena Couper

At the end of 2020, Woroni sat down with award-winning composer and musician Christopher Sainsbury to discuss his work in promoting Indigenous voices through music. Sainsbury comes from the Dharug nations, and draws upon his Australian Indigenous heritage to create change in Australia’s classical music landscape. In 2020, he was awarded the APRA Art Music Inaugural National Luminary Award that recognised his efforts in lifting the profile of Indigenous peoples through his Ngarra-burria First Peoples Composers program.

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Woroni: Does winning the National Luminary Award have any special significance to you (other than it being very prestigious)?

Christopher Sainsbury: It’s a good recognition of the success of a (to date) 5-year long program for mentoring Indigenous composers.

It’s a recognition of the hard work I’ve put into that, but also lots of other people and of course the composers in the program. But it’s also a recognition that the program is built on the back of my 35 years work as a composer and 30 years work in Indigenous music education. So it’s good that the industry gets what I’ve been doing. In Australia the National Luminary Award goes to one musician each year, and it could have been given to anyone whose been around for a long haul. For instance a great Australian conductor, or a great recording engineer, or a great cellist or a great Festival Director, but they flicked it to me, so I must be doing something right.

I thank Indigenous composer Troy Russell for the nomination.

What future developments do you hope to see in the Ngarra-Burria program, and what do you think its most important contribution will be in the Australian music landscape?

CS: Its most important contribution is that the Ngarra-burria program has now already broadened the soundscape of the classical sector, and their understanding of and responsibility towards Indigenous composers. It’s well underway, and has solid industry support. As to future developments, well in a related way I anticipate that music sections in many universities will begin to follow industry and respond with a preparedness to do things differently that may enable many Indigenous musicians (including composers) to become university students. We need to talk about education versus edu-demarcation (as I call it), and whether the latter prohibits access for Indigenous musicians who are often indeed experts in music and in cultural expression, maybe not in Beethoven or Prokofiev, but what is that anyway? And what is it to not hold an ATAR (if one doesn’t)? That’s one culture saying ‘our way is the benchmark’, but it’s no longer valid. Various benchmarks can co-exist, representing various communities that do co-exist.

There must be an acknowledgement of Indigenous cultural wealth, and Indigenous musical expressions and experience as valid benchmarks for access to our music sections in our music schools in Australia. I anticipate fine Indigenous musicians can and should access our halls, validated by their own practice and culture alone, not by an imposed one. It is 2020 isn’t it?

Furthermore, it has been raised with me at times that ‘we don’t want to set people up to fail’.

However, that is also not valid, as it is effectively saying ‘our benchmark access points and existing curriculum will remain the dominant culture’, and also ‘we’re not going to do things differently or offer support’. So such comments are really bad form. Will what I suggest cost? Yes, but not much in terms of money, just in terms of a cultural shift!

The School of Music here is well underway in these things, because of one ingredient - willingness. So that shift can be achieved within the space of a few short years, we’re showing that. That’s a very cheap ingredient I think - willingness.

To maintain a ‘business as usual’ approach in a music school in Australia today (or any school in any Uni’ for that matter) is like saying ‘we’re not really interested or willing to make the shift.’ And having no Indigenous enrolments in a School in about the recent five years is a bit of an indicator of business as usual. It can’t sustain. Peter Yu is the new Head of the National Centre for Indigenous Studies here, and he is another one who is intent on making a cultural shift. There’s nothing too demanding in it for anyone who may be concerned, just a gentle turn, a bit of local action from individuals, and then Indigenous enrolments transpire, and the culture of a School starts to change. It doesn’t take more meetings or plans really - all that stuff could repeat forever without really engaging Indigenous applicants. You just jump in locally. My long term planning is this: - what I do on the ground long term. It’s working.

W: How would you describe the ANU’s level of support or involvement in helping Indigenous musicians prosper?

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CS: This is growing, and the Vice Chancellor certainly has a vision for Indigenous advancement at the ANU, in many ways, and he has a commitment to that. This is something which each staff member and students too need to support, because our Indigenous cultures enrich all of us, and assist us to interpret who we are as Australians, and how we can thrive into the future. It’s not just about righting past injustices, it’s about acknowledging the wealth that Indigenous people, our knowledge and practices bring to all.

At the School of Music we’ve had four Indigenous musicians in programs recently, we have one professional staff member, and one Indigenous academic, me. We are in talks with more potential applicants to our programs. Some of the Schools staff are being transformed quite noticeably by the culture these students live and bring, and various staff are seeking advice on embedding Indigenous music into curriculum and are doing it, and how to foster Indigenous knowledge and approaches in a wider classroom space. It’s happening, and it’s benefitting the broader student cohort well too. So on the ground, the Music School staff and students are assisting to realise the vision of the Vice Chancellor. Once again, it’s just a local action thing.

There is some level of support for the Ngarra-burria program from CASS which is great, and I hope this recent award will firm up that support and ramp it up even more, Covid budget restraints or not.

The Covid emergency is this year, but Indigenous health and wellbeing needs have been around for some 230 years - since colonisation.

Education needs are a part of that. Imagine if emergencies had to get in line! If we’re getting it right with the Ngarra-burria program, and Indigenous composers are involved and the industry is positively responding (which they both are), then we need to support it further. And I must thank Professor Royston Gustavson for being the first one here to have the vision to support the program and me back in late 2015/early 2016 when he put me on staff. He saw that this program should have a place in the School. Now what I really need is bosses or people who know where money sits to come to us in the Program (the various partners) and say ‘what are your running requirements for 2021 and 2022?’ That would be good. I hope that can happen under the Covid budget cuts.

W: What have been the most significant changes you have seen in Australian music over the last 10 years in relation to Indigenous artists?

CS: Indigenous musicians are leading in greater numbers in the mainstream, and are not just on the peripheries of contemporary music, but are being taken seriously, and are delivering at the highest level as songwriters, composers, performers. Until recently Indigenous artists, actors, comedians, TV hosts, film-makers and authors were quite widely known and embraced, yet our composers - in the classical/jazz context - were not. Now we have a voice. That’s been the major change in the last 5 years, and the School of Music here at ANU has been a big part of that because the Ngarra-burria program which is based here has shifted the industry permanently. Funnily enough, the last major shift in classical music composition in Australia also came out of the School of Music here, that was back in the 1960s when Larry Sitsky spearheaded the move to modernism amongst Australian composers. He wasn’t alone but was the main figure according to elder Australian composer James Penberthy (now deceased) who was 20 years Larry’s senior. He frequently made a point of that. So we’re kind of book-ending the two major changes in the composing sector from right here.

Sainsbury would also like to thank several other partners (along with the School of Music ANU) including Moogahlin Performing Arts in Redfern, the Australian Music Centre, Ensemble Offspring, and the Eora Centre Redfern. Our composers regularly feature on ABC Classics, and are being commissioned by groups including the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Offspring, the Griffyn Ensemble, the Canberra International Music Festival, Sydney Living Museums, Four Winds Festival, and some 20 more major Australian music organisations. Mentors include Kevin Hunt (jazz director Sydney conservatorium, composer Jessica Wells, Head of the School of Music Kim Cunio, and myself). Composers include Nardi Simpson, Rhyan Clapham, Elizabeth Sheppard, Troy Rusell, Brenda Gifford, Tim Gray, James Henry, and more. It is their vision as much as mine that has made the program a success.

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ARTWORK: Sian Williams

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A STUPOL NIGHTMARE: NATCON 2020 WRAPPED Isobel Lavers

Once again, the National Union of Students’ (NUS) year defining event, National Conference (NatCon), has pulled us all back kicking and screaming into the world of student politics. Yet this year, NatCon received harsh backlash from both student politicians and student media alike.

What is NatCon?

NUS is the peak representative body for undergraduate students at university in Australia. Each year, NUS holds their NatCon, which provides a platform for student representatives that are affiliated to the NUS to debate on policies that will be implemented in the following year.

The Event

In a response to the radical changes COVID-19 has demanded throughout the year, NatCon 2020 was held over Zoom, a decision which plagued the conference with issues from beginning to end.

The conference’s first session on Wednesday was, at best, unhinged. After ten minutes of ineffective debate, NUS President Molly Willmott made a last-minute decision to change the Zoom format from a seminar to a traditional call. While this did, eventually, prove to be for the better, it did halt discussions for over ten minutes and left Woroni reporters at the mercy of our own ANUSA president Madhumitha Janagaraja to be let back into the meeting. Although seemingly inoffensive, this did herald what would soon become a pattern of ineffective planning and decision making for the conference.

Following this brief interlude, Wednesday’s discussion continued, featuring unchecked verbal abuse; the highly amusing claim from one delegate that “NUS has been a joke this year with the excep-

tion of myself;” and a seemingly laissez faire attitude towards democratic values.

Unsurprisingly, it was the executive’s attitude toward democracy which received the most derision. Delegates noted throughout that voting procedures and counts were being obscured; during a discussion of which Willmott noted that she would simply be ‘able to vibe how it’s voting’. However, no-one was able to ‘vibe’ alongside her, as she retained sole access to the vote count.

Furthermore, the Socialist Alternative (SAlt) appeared to be consistently forced out of discussions throughout NatCon, wherein their attempts to speak would often be outright ignored by the Chair and were limited to debating within the chat function of Zoom.

These tensions were reflected in the voting process. Faction in-fighting seemed to take centre stage over any real discussion of the motions being presented. Moreover, while roughly two thirds of motions presented were passed over the course of NatCon – a number which seems impressive until one realises most motions are administrative at best – it seemed entirely at the expense of any sort of genuine discussion over the issues students will continue to face over the next twelve months.

These issues came to a head when the third day of the conference was cancelled entirely, with little notice and seemingly little explanation.

In the past NatCon has often been defined by a surprising combination of budding alcoholism, incompetence, and boredom. This year, the conference defied expectations by avoiding any potential for fun and, while hardly boring, utterly outdid itself in incompetence.

10. ARTWORK: ARTWORK:Maddy MaddyBrown Brown 10.

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Monday 15th

Thursday 18th

8am Welcome Breakfast & Heritage Walk

9am Botanic Gardens Walk

9:30am Commencement

HIIT

2pm Department Fete

10am How to Adult - YWC

3pm Feast of Strangers

12pm Universal Lunch Hour

Monday Queer* Coffee Non-Autonomous

1:30pm Stand Up Paddleboarding

DIY Event: Facemasks

2pm Guided Zoom Meditation

4pm Finding Your Voice at ANU (Zoom) 6pm Dinner BBQ Games Night 8pm Movie on Fellows 10pm Mooseheads Party

Tuesday 16th 9am Yoga 10am Scavenger Hunt Indigenous Autonomous Brunch How to Adult (Student Assistance) 11am Puppy Playdate 12pm Universal Lunch Hour 1pm Ice Skating

BIPOC Self Care Package Distribution 3pm DIY Event: Cold Rock 4pm Games Night Golden Hour Lake Walk 6pm COAR Launch 7pm Off-Campus Mixer & Karaoke 7:30pm Queer Night Out

Friday 19th 9am Lake Walk Shabam 10am Coffee Tour on Scooters How to Adult 12pm Universal Lunch Hour

Queer Picnic* Autonomous

12:30 EdComm Tye-Dying

Zoom Cooking Class

2pm Obstacle Course on Fellows

2pm Indigenous Weavinh Workshop

BIPOC & Indigenous Speed Friending

3pm DIY Event Bubble Tea

3pm DIY Event: Bees Wax Wraps

4pm BIPOC Chai & Chats (Zoom)

4pm Online Art Class

5pm O-Week x 99 Trivia

6pm Activation - Live Music in Kambri

6pm Games Night Environmental Panel on Corruption

Games Night 8pm First Year International Student Social

8pm Movie on Fellows First Year International Student Social

Wednesday 17th 9am Black Mountain Walk 10am Market Day How to Adult Legal 12pm Universal Lunch Hour 1:30pm Dairy Rd. Excursion 3pm DIY Event: Pot Plants 4:30pm Zoom Cooking Class - Meal 5pm Enviro Market Day Drinks - Badger & Co. 6pm Games Night Badger Clubs Night Night Markets - Clubs & Societies 7pm Womens Online Zoom Games Night 8pm Movie on Fellows

O-WEEK CALENDAR

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ARTWORK: Eliza Williams

Selling Out By Degrees Isaac Ewald

I’m trying to imagine my graduation.

I won’t be there, but I can picture the line of unfamiliar faces, a smattering of friends and casual acquaintances. Each person is carrying their own jumbled collection of experiences in identical UNSW branded baskets. Up ahead a cashier in dignified robes checks our payment has gone through and, failing to even glance in the basket, hands over the receipt. There it goes, did you catch it? The whole point.

My purpose here, with this tortured metaphor, is to make a roundabout case that university should be free. There are many better arguments for this but having finished a bachelor’s degree at the University of New South Wales (a

university which seems to be eating itself) this is the one I am well positioned to make. A degree has to be more than a product you buy. As attending university is increasingly seen through the logic of self-investment rather than education, its value is disappearing even as its price increases.

What do I mean by a ‘logic of selfinvestment’? Most of us have a sense, more or less vague, of the changes to Australia’s university system since the 1980’s. Reduced public funding, increasingly casualised staff, the introduction of fees.

More recently the reliance on ‘exporting’ education to international students who, in 2020 particularly, receive extremely poor treatment at the hands of both governments and universities.

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We might call these changes ‘neoliberalisation’ with all its concomitant disagreement. But this change is not constrained to the structural and policy level. Increasingly, corporate management and the changing position of university education in the public psyche has transformed the ‘student’ from a participant or stakeholder to a customer.

Neoliberalisation, the definition of which I was taught four separate times, is as much a grass roots, subjective change as a structural one. The idea that an education is an ‘investment in social capital’ is deeply ingrained in what it is to be a student. This has ramifications for both the education we receive and the social fabric of universities. I reflect often on these changes as experienced by myself and those around me. Trying to explain the distinct feeling that university never really lived up to its promise.

If, like me, you study a vaguely ‘arts’ subject, the incessant phrase “and what are you going to do with that?” probably makes you equal parts annoyed and panicked. At one point I simply decided I was no longer going to answer. It’s not that I don’t ever want to be employed (god do I want that). Rather, it’s the way this question poses the choice of degree as the single important act, skipping three or four years of a student’s life, to connect a means to an end. This attitude is pervasive, from the adage that “Ps get degrees” to the Morrison government’s use of misleading job figures to justify hiking up the price of studying arts and humanities.

This wasn’t always the case. Starting in the 1970’s at the peak of government support for universities, students and teachers in the University of Sydney campaigned to secure a political economy course and ultimately a separate department. Successive generations of students cared enough about the content of their studies to actively challenge the programs they had chosen.

Students and teachers understood their relationship as the collaborative production, rather than simply transferral, of knowledge. I personally have a hard time imagining something like that happening today. If all we have is the freedom of choice, we have no grounds to demand better – you should have chosen better.

We can also see in this the changed social dynamic of our Degree Mart. Despite the myriad of societies and groups, the steep campus at the University of New South Wales can be a profoundly lonely place. The social dynamic seems to have become limited to niche interest, resume building or colleges. I am sure some cohorts are closer than mine was, but equally I know many people who left university with few lasting relationships from their actual studies. I can’t help but see in this the singleminded pursuit of the end result, where classes and assessments become obstacles beyond which student’s interest rarely survives.

The other relationship stunted by this transactional mode of education is with our teachers. While lecturers speak wistfully of beers shared back in the day, the reality is that teacher - student interactions are increasingly distant and formalised. Almost every year at UNSW the procedures for attendance and special considerations become more constrained. Studying in Germany, I was shocked when lecturers asked how long we felt we needed for our essays; the one condition being that we came and talked through our ideas in person.

At the same time as teaching staff lose their discretion, marking appears to be losing almost all meaning. This may be unique to social sciences, but the essays I and my fellow students wrote came to seem totally decoupled from the marks we received.

Feedback is rare and honestly, I would not blame most of my lecturers if they actually didn’t read our submissions given how overworked they are. At the same time as we cannot be trusted to work in good faith, we don’t seem to be trusted to pass. This is a formal integrity in which learning is marginal while ‘degree progression’ is sacrosanct.

I don’t mean to say I regret my purchase. Four years of university have radically changed my world view and the fundamental way I think, as it has for so many others. But it’s worth being honest about our disappointments. There is a wide world of arguments out there about the accessibility, independence and social responsibility of these institutions but collectively we have to be able to say what the value of education is. If our answer is simply the market price and return on investment it will cost us dearly.

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The Truth About Truth

By Rose Dixon-Campbell

I was a champion high school debater.

What that really means is that I have always been annoyingly outspoken about politics, ethics and morals. In my debating days I believed anyone could be swayed by a good, logical argument delivered by a compelling and reasonable speaker. I looked at extreme conservatives and explained their bigotry and hatred as simply someone who had not yet seen the light. Sweet naivety!

And that brings me to my next point about how we alienate each other with labels like ‘bigot’ or ‘snowflake’. Don’t get me wrong, in this big wide world of ours genuine bigots and certified snowflakes do exist. However, as the left and right grow further apart and politics becomes more polarising and extreme, too often we dismiss opposing views with such arbitrary labels, and that does not make for productive debate.

Life away from orderly and polite debating competitions judged by objective adjudicators is not as I imagined. Debating, whether in competition or otherwise, exhausts me now. I loathe it and, much to the relief of my friends and family, I avoid it.

I’m not arguing for uniform centrism, nor do I believe certain groups should have to respectfuly debate with those who disagree with their existence or agency. You should hold no regard for those who do not respect you.

I have come to realise rather bitterly that for every truth I hold to be inherent and essential, there will always be someone who believes in the contrary just as stubbornly. It’s not worth trying to debate me on my ideologies. They are based on lived experience and academic theory and personal convictions and likewise every ‘opponent’ I have ever met would say the exact same thing with just as much chutzpah.

I am not throwing the baby out with the bath water either though. Debates and political discussions are useful tools. Whether or not the actors find it productive or enlightening, the contest of ideas should at the very least be rousing for the audience and that will always be what matters most. Exposure to challenging and competitive debates helps those who are still open-minded and undecided in their views, rare as they may be, to form conclusions having evaluated both sides.

Conversely, it may further confirm your original stance – and that’s productive as well.

So, what now? Do we abandon discussion and debate with those we disagree with? Should we identify ourselves with ideological camps and remain within them in every aspect of life? These seem like hyperbolic rhetoricals and yet I don’t know how you or I should answer. I don’t personally know what to do when confronted with bigotry and prejudice. My first instinct is usually to retreat and seek reinforcement from like-minded people.

I know though, that it doesn’t matter whether it’s one feminist or one hundred feminists debating a misogynist in any manner – some bigots don’t budge.

There is no one truth to life. There is no single ‘correct’ value system. The truths and morals which we come to settle on will be based on life experiences and our subjective evaluations of them.

You can’t win every debate even when you know your side is so seemingly objectively and obviously right. It’s frustrating to concede in such debates, but you must be content in the knowledge that your opponent is equally frustrated that their soapboxing could not sway you to switch to their camp.

ARTWORK: Bonnie Burns

Who Tells Our Stories?

By Kai Clark

Underground, over Parkes Way, lies one of the largest archives in Australia. Unknown to most students who walk over or drive under it, the Noel Butlin Archives houses an extensive collection of Australian archival material ranging back to the 1820s. Alongside the archive’s rich collection of Australian trade union records, Pacific Island materials, and National AIDs epidemic collection lies the official archives of the ANU. Yet, among these records of committee meetings and key ANU documents, one set of documents are missing from the ANU archives: proof of student life.

Stephen Foster and Margaret Varghese’s The Making of the Australian National University: 1946-1996, details in-depth accounts of the development of the ANU. But they only dedicate two of its chapters to students, with one relying mostly on official ANU records and statistics. While such omission has its reasons, what is a University and its heritage without its students? With its (relatively) small numbers and tradition of residential halls, ANU has a rich student life on campus. Much, however, is ephemeral and undocumented, with many memories graduating away with each new cohort of students. If we are to remember our stories and our life on campus, where better to start than the archives?

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It is 1966 and Canberra needs more roads to accommodate its growing population. One plan was to expand Parkes Way west, through ANU, so to funnel traffic to Woden. Rather than cut ANU in half, Acton Tunnel was proposed to cover Parkes Way and house 300 underground parking spaces on top of the tunnel. Following the opening of the tunnel in 1979, ANU repurposed the proposed lots to house its archival collection (then based in Coombs).

During the conversion of the new archives, known then as the ‘cataCoombs’, the ANU found that the weight of the archival materials exceeded the expected loads of parked cars, limiting the total space available. Despite the weight limit, the archives hold over twenty-two kilometres of archival material, with more held off-site.

A search of the ANU Archives for student material reveals disappointing results. While not devoid of records, the archives primarily hold documents created by the ANU, either administrative or for marketing, as well as organisations like ANUSA, the ANU Union, and the ANU Labor Club. The only consistent ‘student’ engagement, bar some minor exceptions, has been various alumni depositing their personal papers, decades after their graduation. While existing archives materials, including Woroni newspaper copies, give us a glimpse of student life back then, it does not fully capture the beating heart of what it once was.

Why does our history matter? Because it reminds us that we are not alone. Most of our university life and struggles have happened before, in one way or another. Reading Woroni articles written in the 60s, familiar dramas in student politics, student opinions about university administration, and stresses of study and life, all rhyme with our present dilemmas. Poring through documents on the establishment of various university organisations all reveal the hidden meanings and intentions behind many of the symbols and structures that surround us. Discovering stories behind decades of student activism all illuminate the progress and arena of which many of our existing fights with the university battle within. By remembering that we are not alone, we can learn from the past and situate ourselves among generations of students.

We are not the first to think about archiving student life at the ANU. Various others have tried, whether through journals, alumni groups, or by

depositing records at the archives, to honour student life. These efforts, despite their limited reach, allow us to understand a world that otherwise would be unknown to us. But for archiving to be truly effective it must be more than a one-time deposit – it should be systemic and renewing.

Systemic meaning a constant and organised effort to ensure that groups and organisations archive what they believe is important. Renewing meaning that these groups and organisations then make archives part of their operation. Whether a resource consulted or a historical memory project conducted, the aim is to foster a relationship with the archives, remember the history and structures that surround us and to reassure ourselves for the path forward.

While lofty in ambition, a student historical project is not unique. In the United States, various universities and student organisations have pushed for students to donate materials to university archives and to encourage them to use archival materials. These projects have also sought to recover lost or destroyed documents that record key moments of student life and activism. For us, it is important that such an effort centres student voices. Student organizations, whether residents’ committees, clubs, or informal groups, should all ensure someone takes on a responsibility of archiving what matters. Whether meeting minutes, flyers, photos, newsletters, Facebook group posts, or webpages, any record is worth preserving. Some organisations, like rescoms and ANUSA, even hold documents ranging back over the decades, in deep need of preservation.

By archiving our stories and retelling them, we take control of our history and place at the ANU. Already projects like the wall of student activism in Marie Reay and the history of ANUSA, available inside of its offices, allow us to truly understand our place and heritage. Even academic papers like Tim Breidis’ 2019 article in the Journal of Australian Studies provide a unique, detailed account of the 1994 Chancellery occupation and the power of student activism. But we must do more, throughout campus, outside of the strict realm of student activism, to tell our own stories.

The author thanks the Noel Butlin Archives for taking the time to give a presentation on archival work and a tour of the archives. Students and staff can arrange a lecture and tour by contacting the Noel Butlin Archives.

ARTWORK: Sian Williams

The Productivity Myth?

By Isabella Keith

2020 was a tough year in just about every respect. The difficulty of adjusting to online classes, long periods of uncertainty, time apart from loved ones, and heightened anxiety all reared their ugly heads simultaneously. After pushing through to the end of the academic year and finally submitting that last exam to Turnitin, the first thing most of us wanted was a break. No commitments, no routine, just doing whatever we felt like. A proper summer holiday to recoup and prepare for the new year.

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Unfortunately, my brain doesn’t seem to appreciate this sort of thing. Instead, after a day or two of trying to live without structure and routine, I tend to find myself itching to open up my diary and write up a to-do list. At first, I thought that this was just a neurotic gene that I unfortunately ended up with, but I’m starting to realise that it’s more likely to be a symptom of unfettered capitalism rudely weaselling its way into my holiday time and making me feel guilty for being ‘unproductive’.

And yet it doesn’t even work. Everlengthening to-do lists become another reason to feel guilty about a lack of productivity, rather than a spur to action. This sense of paralysis is often a symptom of burnout, which in turn is driven by the deep internalisation of the idea that we should be ‘productive’ all the time.

When I think about burnout, I think about Yahoo CEO Marissa Meyers’ interview with Bloomberg where she embodied the toxic ‘performative workaholic’ persona, saying, “’Could you work 130 hours in a week?’” The answer is yes, if you’re strategic about when you sleep, when you shower, and how often you go to the bathroom.”

I also think about Sheryl Sandberg’s myopic “lean in” brand of white “feminism” that tries to teach women about how to get ahead in the corporate world, and I think about Michelle Obama’s response to it – “that shit don’t work all the time.”

And she’s right – it doesn’t work all the time. Or any of the time, for most women. But the privileged few who are able to fully ‘lean in’, unencumbered by the structural barriers that make it impossible for everyone else, are certainly still susceptible to burnout. The urge to discern oneself through ‘leaning in’ aligns with Boltanski and Chiapello’s thesis that the ‘new spirit of capitalism’ is one which is network-based, rather than hierarchical, and focuses more on individuality and autonomy in the workplace. The supposed ‘freedom’ from the stifling, grey corporate career path of the twentieth century has transformed into precarious contract work, uncertain career paths, the casualisation of the workforce, and ultimately a generation whose working lives are characterised by anxiety and insecurity. This neoliberal false narrative of worker autonomy and ‘leaning in’ therefore becomes one where the individual is fully responsible for their productivity and success in the workplace. The ‘lean

in’, #girlboss culture that Meyers and Sandberg advocate for valourises and fully embraces this ‘new spirit of capitalism’, while blatantly ignoring the consequential mass burnout and risk of worsening the mental health epidemic facing young people today.

Also, no, ‘self-care’ as we know it isn’t the answer either. This industry is born from the very same culture of individuated productivity that creates the problem, and then distracts you from the subsequent burnout by selling you bubble baths and candles. As it stands, it’s a $14 billion industry that does little more than provide another way to exploit our obsession with self-improvement and turn a neat profit. As nice as a face mask or weighted blanket is, it’s not the solution to chronic burnout or the overwhelming sense of paralysis that arises when faced with any task – it’s little more than a band-aid on a bullet hole.

Self-care can also quickly fall into being another line on the to-do list; another thing to worry about ticking off, rather than something to distract from all the other incomplete items on the list. Companies are finding new ways to commodify what we do outside of what is deemed traditionally “productive” in a market economy. Apple Watches now track mindful “breathing minutes” alongside other statistics like daily step counts, while a study done on Fitbits found that 30% of the 200 participants felt that the device was their “enemy” and made them feel guilty, and 59% felt that they were ‘controlled’ by it.

Even the suggestion of “taking some time for self-care” is starting to sound like a tacked-on, empty catchphrase. It’s been thrown in at the end of ANU student leadership training more times than I can count, but the discussions that follow never manage to move beyond face masks and tea.

This completely fails to prevent hundreds of Senior Residents and student leaders from the wave of burnout that hit sometime around the beginning of Semester 2 each year.

There is no shortcut to solving this, but certainly the first step is realising that ‘self-care’ as we know it won’t fix chronic burnout - we need to adequately fund professional support. The second, more crucial step is working out how to unravel the total identification of productivity with virtue that we have been fed for our entire lives.

ARTWORK: Maddy Brown

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PHOTOGRAPHY: Maddy Watson

The Problem with Cash Lachlan Holt

Do you ever wonder why pirates hid their booty in treasure chests, buried deep underground?

Or why people in many countries still stuff their money into their mattress at night? As a bank robber in the cult Australian classic Getting Square put it, “I don’t trust banks. People keep robbing em.”

As much as we joke about the idea now, for the majority of history, leaving your money in a bank was as risky as betting on the horses, or investing in Enron, or crossing the Clintons. Banks had a nasty tendency for going bankrupt and disappearing with your life savings. These were individual institutions that printed their own money, had no government safety net and had nothing resembling insurance to back them up. Basically, they were even worse than the big banks are now. This was a big issue. When people bury treasure or hide their cash, money isn’t being invested in the economy. With no investment, there’s very little growth. Hence, the Dark Ages.

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No one is using their life savings to invent a new form of blacksmithing or to try out that new-fangled ‘steam power’ that seems to be all the rage with the youngsters. Instead, the money is in mattresses, rotting away and giving princesses a crappy night’s sleep.

But with government backing, bank-to-bank lending and Central Banks, suddenly it became safer to stick your hard-earned coins in the vault with everyone else. Growth explodes. Hooray, the day is saved, bring on the industrial revolution and black lung! But then there comes a new problem: inflation. Look, I know I’m not the history channel, but bear with me. Inflation has been around ever since cavemen started stockpiling carvings of big boobied ladies and painting cows on the walls.

However, for the most part, inflation was only really a problem when there was war or famine. For the rest of the time, a dollar one year was a dollar the next, and the next, and so on. But with central banking and a central currency came a consistent inflation that, over the last 100 years, has averaged two percent. So now we had a safe place to store money, but that money was losing value over time.

But Lachlan, you audacious Adonis you, what about savings accounts? Don’t you get paid by the bank for that, effectively combating inflation?

I was getting to that, sudden second voice in my script. Your bank uses your money to lend out and make a profit, which is why you get paid. But when the banks can’t find anymore sheep to fleece - I mean, businesses and first-time house buyers to lend to, they lend between themselves. This is set at the Central Banks set funds rate. This all might sound confusing, but to bankers, these are the sweet, honeyed words of a poet. This system meant that everyone not only had a reason to use banks, but were now pretty much forced to. If you didn’t, you would lose money every year from inflation.

Buried treasure was no longer a valid retirement plan. Banks were.

Now, you may have noticed during the recent crisis that the Central Banks around the world have been dropping their interest rates to nearly zero percent. Okay, you probably weren’t paying attention, but you did notice that your bank has reduced the amount of money they’re paying you down to roughly the square root of a fart in the wind. Those two things are connected. I can’t go

into detail in this article but the reasoning behind this is to help stimulate the economy and save us all from the dreaded bat cough. But things still suck and Central Banks have already hit zero percent.

What can they do now? One suggestion is to introduce negative interest rates. Again, I’ll explain why in another article, but if they do this, banks would be forced to charge negative interest rates to people keeping money in banks. In other words, they’d charge you a fee for you storing money with them. Thanks to the circular genius of the financial system, we are back to buried treasure and money in mattresses. This means, if you go back and read from word 84, taking your money out of the system, while good for you personally, would stuff the economy even further.

So, most Central Banks feel they can’t lower their rates below zero percent. Physical cash money prevents most economies from lowering their rates below 0%, because otherwise, everyone will just take their money out in cash.

Side note: It’s interesting to notice that, as interest rates started nearing zero percent, Australia and a number of other countries began preventing the withdrawal of more than $10,000 in cash on any given day. Their argument was that it’s to prevent cash being used in the black market. You are going to hear that defence brought up a lot in the next few years.

Anyway, this zero percent problem is known as the Zero Lower Bound and many economists argue that we need to get past it to help the economy. One option would be to move away from physical money, perhaps by introducing some kind of Digital Money. Maybe the central banks could control it. Then it would be some kind of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). Would you look at that? Every central bank and their dog are in talks to introduce a digital currency, with some nations like China already implementing them. So, how do you charge people for keeping their money in a bank without them just withdrawing it all? Make it digital and make it impossible to get physical cash. Then you have to keep your money in a bank.

CBDC’s are the great solution, at least in the eyes of the bankers. You aren’t going to find gold buried on your local beach anytime soon, but the time of piracy is far from over.

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ARTWORK: Sian Williams

dignity, healthcare and reform

By Elliott Merchant

At first glance, it looks unlikely that the wider United States and Vermont have much to learn from one another. The United States is fuelled by division and discourse, a land of countless contradictions and winner-take-all races to the top. Vermont is one of the most homogeneous states in the nation. For the past 30 years, Vermont has embraced liberal progressivism, democratic socialism and has coveted its image as one of the most left-leaning states in the union. So, what could the United States possibly learn from a place that appears so different to the rest of the country? The answer is simple - Vermont’s past political battles both won and lost, are the future battles of the United States.

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In America today, millions are without access to quality healthcare. At this moment, in the world’s wealthiest nation, cloaked in immense power, the middle-class is required to choose between going bankrupt or getting sick. Despite the lack of a universal healthcare system, the United States spends more on healthcare than any other nation in the developed world. The only thing Washington DC appears to agree on is that the current system doesn’t work. Since 1993, countless administrations have tried and failed to fix America’s broken healthcare system. Where the United States has defeated itself time and time again, Vermont has forged a path to victory. By learning from Vermont’s battle to correct the failures of American healthcare, the United States can begin to plan for a future where universal healthcare becomes the only viable option.

Sufficient access to quality healthcare represents perhaps the most fundamental ingredient to any functioning, equitable and sustainable society. If an individual’s capacity to become unwell and their degree of suffering is dependent on their wealth or social status, such a society is politically, economically and morally bankrupt. An individual’s health and wellbeing are crucial to their capacity to exercise key socioeconomic and political liberties. This reflects their ability to function as a human being with dignity.

Without a government-led system which ensures that every citizen has the same equal expectation to quality healthcare, the capacity for a sick individual to work, to vote or to thrive will wither away.

In a society without a sufficient healthcare system, the sick are forced to gamble their income against their health as they are pushed defenceless and without leverage into a market characterised by asymmetric information, exuberant prices and unequal bargaining power. A society which allows markets to discriminate against the sick and the poor entrenches dormant inequalities. Overtime these foster resentment, anger and social violence, fracturing societies into hundreds of tiny pieces. The lack of a universal system in the United States has given birth to a society dominated by class warfare, social tension and a broken politics defined by anger, hate and envy.

In 2011, Vermont set to work creating a new healthcare system, one which sought to cover all people, regardless of their health, income or

creed. The state legislature created the framework for a single-payer healthcare system, which would see everyone in the state covered by the government and offered the same standard of care. However, this once popular proposal was stagnated by Vermont’s limited state-budget and became feared by the very people it intended to serve. The combination of a federal government hostile to single-payer healthcare and the size of Vermont’s population and finances meant that there was no way the plan could be implemented without increasing taxes. This ultimately led to the abandonment of single-payer healthcare in Vermont in 2014 and the retirement of its cheerleader, Governor Peter Shumlin, just two years later.

Ultimately, Vermont’s failure to achieve this goal reflects America’s self-defeating approach to policy and governance. Since the great inflation of the 1970s, the United States has long had an aversion to government, big or small. Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society fell prey to Nixon’s law and order, Reagan’s states’ rights and Clinton’s third way. The last 50 years have engineered a deep fear and visceral loathing of tax increases, federal government intervention and anything with traces of communitarianism. For much of the 20th century those seeking power exploited political and economic crises to convince people that the powerful had abused their position. Their goal? To create an imperial state characterised by excessive public expenditure and unrestrained government intervention.

This has created a society hostile to and fearful of its own survival and prosperity, one that shuns the very efforts of good men and women in the nation’s capital who are trying to correct the failures of the free-market excesses of the 1980s.

The elimination of Roosevelt’s New Deal consensus and the triumph of the myth of small government has created an electorate fearful of change and progress. The 2008 Global Financial Crisis, the Great Recession which followed and the comprehensive failure of the United States government to adequately respond to the COVID-19 pandemic are all symptoms of this anti-government disease.

The chaos and pain this schism has inflicted on the United States and the world has fostered a deep mistrust of politicians. This rendered reform painfully stagnant and creating a global political class characterised by indifference, frustration and populism.

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Even in Vermont, the closest thing the United States has to a socialist republic, these same concerns killed the state’s single-payer plan.

The Obama administration, concerned about the political ramifications of supporting single-payer healthcare, refused to cooperate with Vermont’s government. In addition, a coalition of ideologically and culturally similar states such as Massachusetts and New Hampshire failed to materialise due to the recent election of small-government socially liberal republicans. This meant that the only option available to finance the plan was to raise smallbusiness taxes, something that even the country’s most liberal state could not stomach. The populist backlash, where both sides of the debate united in their anger and frustration to almost defeat the incumbent governor, led to the abandonment of this noble, necessary and fundamental first step.

This dangerous anti-government ideology has cost the United States time and lives. The last 10 years have proven that only strong institutional reform can correct the unchallenged structural rot of America’s economy and society. Healthcare reform in the United States is long overdue. The COVID-19 pandemic, the failures of Obamacare and an ultraconservative Supreme Court have put healthcare front and centre in the minds of the American people. When the time does come for massive institutional reform, the United States should look to its most progressive state. Vermont’s attempt at reform was a long, painful and lonely process which was ultimately unsuccessful. However, it offers a crucial lesson about the nature and failures of the American system of governance and politics which the next generation of leaders must grasp.

The United States should learn from this failure and wage reform with an eye to heavy federal-state cooperation, working with all states and parties, regardless of ideology or power, to set up a system which will endure for the long-term.

Taxes are critically unpopular and have become as ‘unamerican’ as Michael Moore. Those in power in the coming generations must prove to the American people that programs reminiscent of Roosevelt’s New Deal or Johnson’s Great Society like singlepayer healthcare, vast infrastructure projects and investment in renewable energy are worth the taxes they pay. Democrats and Republicans must show the people they serve that the government can work for them, if they only give it a chance.

Current US President Biden was perhaps the only candidate who could have beaten President Trump. Even with 200,000 Americans dead, the worst recession since the Great Depression and the rise of racism, bigotry and white supremacy, if just 1.16% of Biden voters changed their minds nationwide, Trump would have snatched victory from the jaws of common sense and dignity. Given America’s pain and long sojourn into midnight, Biden must now prove that he is the right man to bind the wounds of division, end America’s flirtation with populism, authoritarianism and fascism, and govern in a way which puts an end to America’s darkest decade since the 1930s. Healthcare is perhaps the best and only way to begin.

The United States is in a race against the fiscal clock. Eventually, the costs of healthcare will become unsustainable and the system will collapse.

When that time comes, the United States will have a choice; either it can allow millions to go bankrupt and live without care, or it can choose to recognise that healthcare is a human right and implement a system which entrenches a basic level of socioeconomic equality and human dignity. It is only through such radical and moral institutional reform that the United States can truly promise opportunity, prosperity and justice for all.

ARTWORK: Beth O’Sullivan

Liar Liar

How Trump’s Lies Led to the Storming of the Capitol

By Coquohalla J. Connor

On January 6th 2021, the world looked at America in awe, confusion and distaste. We saw the supposed leader of freedom and democracy, promoting chaos and the world’s most powerful nation in turmoil. As angry hordes of Trump supporters scaled the Capitol walls and ran wildly through the corridors screaming, we wondered, how had it come to this?

Former President Donald Trump has always been a loud voice on Twitter, spouting false news, lies and derogatory language to his followers who willingly soak it up like sponges. Twitter attempted to counter his influence by implementing a factchecking system and later banning him altogether, but it was too late. Trump’s followers sit comfortably in their echo chambers, locked in and unwilling to believe anyone but their oracle and his followers.

Was the storming of the capitol a surprise?

Doubtful. A line can be drawn from Trump’s win

of the 2016 election right up to the storming of the capitol and the deceit behind Trump himself is to blame. Throughout his 2016 campaign, Trump undermined traditional news media. Trump claimed he was being treated ‘unfairly’ for not being a career politician. By presenting himself as a powerful businessman instead of a politician, he distanced himself from the distrust Americans direct at politicians. Through this, Trump was able to use the fact that only 10 percent of Republicans trusted traditional media to convince them that he knew all . Once the campaigning began, he called climate change a hoax, claimed Hillary Clinton was an unsuitable candidate due to illness and stated that the traditional media was ‘corrupt’. By the time Trump had won, he’d already consolidated a scepticism of the media among his followers. In 2016, as Trump was sworn in, his followers’ belief was reinforced, because if Trump had lied, how was he then President?

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A 2017 journal article by Hunt Allcott and Mathew Gentzkow found that social media’s capability to spread unreliable news fuelled a rumour mill crucial to Trump’s win. Twitter and Facebook gave Trump a platform to preach to his adoring fans every day, hour and minute. Both platforms also provided an audience prepared for information isolation. Allcott and Gentzkow determined that only 20 percent of our Facebook friends have alternate political beliefs to us. This is natural human behaviour, we surround ourselves with like-minded people. By eliminating opposing views, we start to believe that everyone has the same opinion, which makes perfect sense. If you don’t see any contradictory opinions, you’ll assume that yours is the only one.

So what caused the storming of the Capitol? It was the change of tact in Trump’s tweets. Previously his tweets would claim the Democrats threaten the economy or fuel violence.

But then Trump stated that the Democrats were destroying something far worse to white middleclass Americans. Their freedom. Months before the election in August 2020, Trump would tout that mailin ballots could and would be easily rigged. In April, he tweeted that mail-in ballots had “Tremendous potential for voter fraud, and for whatever reason, doesn’t work out well for Republicans…”. Trump had begun to sow the seed of conspiracy among his supporters. He stated this in August, “Make sure because the only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged”.

Trump continued to cast doubt into the population but upped the ante following Election Day while votes were still being counted. Before taking the stage to claim that “frankly we did win this election”, Trump tweeted that “WE are up big, but THEY are trying to STEAL the election…

Votes cannot be cast after the Polls are closed”.

Trump insinuated that ballot counting was taking longer because ballots were being falsely counted.

Following this, Trump began to threaten court cases against states, all of which were thrown out.

Trump predicted his loss, at no fault of his own, and that he was the victim of a rigged election that undercut the two key pillars of American society, Democracy and Freedom. On January 6th, Trump spoke at the Capitol protests; “We fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to

have a country anymore...So we’re going to, we’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue… and we’re going to the Capitol”.

Their fates were sealed.

Whilst there can be no justification or excuse for the events of January 6 2021, true Trump supporters believed that their democracy was under threat because that’s what they were fed. We need only look at the right-wing media’s response to see this. Tucker Carlson of FoxNews brought into the narrative that the election had been undemocratic, stating that “as long as people sincerely believe they can change things by voting they stay calm, they don’t storm the bastille…”. The truth is the 2020 election was, statistically, the most democratic American election ever, with 66% voter turnout (the largest since 1900) and greater minority representation. Regardless of who they voted for, the US citizens took part in their democracy to the fullest extent possible. The right’s attempt to blow off the election as fraudulent only served to show us how little of the truth they can see.

In the end, the Capitol storming was a long time coming. The combination of Trump and social media created a form of poison that we’re lucky to have a cure for - his banishment from these sites. This doesn’t mean that the danger is all gone though. While Trump no longer lingers on social media, we’re not immune to his sickness. It is not just the far-right that can find itself in echo chambers. It can happen to anyone. We should all strive to question more, research more, learn more.

This article is not an attempt to ban all social media, but to serve as a warning for what happens when we fail to see the truth. When someone yells from their soapbox, should you always listen?

ARTWORK: Sian Williams

BREAKING (the) NEWS Angus Padley

There is a new drug out on the market which is causing ‘a misperception of risk, anxiety, lower mood levels, learned helplessness, contempt and hostility towards others, and desensitisation’ — Jodie Jackson, 2016. This drug is consumed on average by 80% of adults in Western countries each day and is more popular than alcohol or even caffeine. This drug is subsidised and legally protected by many governments, and can be tailormade and delivered on a mass scale to anyone with a social media account. This drug is the news.

Although many of us may be aware of the dangers of fake news, new research suggests that even true news can be dangerous, especially for our mental health. The vast majority of news seen online or on TV focuses on negative, sensational, and attentiongrabbing stories. This focus distorts our view of humanity and causes us to believe that the world is a far worse place than what most statistics would suggest. Mainstream news is suffering from a deficit of perspective. The truth matters, but the truth can be harmful if we are not given the full picture.

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There is growing literature which suggests that the news is a mental health hazard. In a study

by Johnson and Davey in 1997, people who were shown negative news stories displayed increases in anxiety, a lower overall general mood, and were more likely to catastrophise a personal worry. Some would say that this is, of course, a natural reaction when one escapes their own bubble and faces the facts. The news is simply revealing the truth: that the world is a terrible place, and society is on the brink of collapse.

To measure people’s overall sentiment with this gloomy view of the world, one survey of individuals in 28 different countries asked ‘Overall, do you think the world is getting better, staying the same, or getting worse?’ The survey found that the vast majority answered with ‘things are getting worse’. Amongst Australians, only three percent reported that things were getting better. Those living in developed countries also appeared to have a far more negative view of the world than those in developing countries. In the same survey, when asked about indicators of quality of life such as child mortality and absolute poverty, the vast majority of people around the globe believed these variables to be increasing or staying the same.

Astonishingly, this could not be further from the truth. Globally, over the past few decades, absolute poverty, child mortality, hunger, deaths from disease, and deaths from conflict have all decreased. Meanwhile, education, hours of leisure, income, life expectancy, and security have all increased. The average middle-class person in a developing country today enjoys a quality of life that would put the luxurious lifestyle enjoyed by John D. Rockefeller (the richest man in the U.S.A as of 100 years ago) to shame, mostly thanks to advances in technology. We are living in the healthiest, wealthiest, and safest time in human history and the majority of people do not realise it. As Max Rosser from Our World in Data says “we think more poorly than we should about the world we live in, and we think more poorly than we should about what people around the world are achieving right now.”

Evidence suggests that the media has a large role to play in building this pessimistic view that humanity has of itself. In 2018, a team of Dutch sociologists analysed how aeroplane crashes are reported in the media. Between 1991 and 2005,

when the number of crashes steadily decreased, they found that the media attention for such accidents steadily increased. In another study from 2018, a team of media researchers similarly found that in times when immigration or violence declines, newspapers give them more coverage. This leaves us with the conclusion that there seems to be no relationship, or in fact a negative relationship, between news and reality. Although these events did happen and can be considered the truth, the way they lack perspective distorts reality for the average viewer.

The reason we are so susceptible to these doom and gloom stories is due to two psychological biases: the negativity and availability bias. The negativity bias describes how negative experiences of equal intensity to positive ones leave a far greater psychological impact on how we think and behave.

For example, studies find that the negative traits of an individual impact our impression of them more than the positive traits of that individual. Availability bias describes how we believe that events that can be easily recalled occur more frequently.

By exploiting these biases, the news becomes about what is exceptional. You are far more likely to read a headline reporting on a recent homicide in a town which has not had a murder in the past five years than to hear the same report in a city with the highest murder rate per capita. As Charles Bukowski once said in Ham on Rye in; 1982, “News travels fastest in places where nothing much ever happens.”

Social media may be exacerbating the mental health issues related to news consumption.

In an increasingly competitive, attention-based economy, more and more news outlets turn to sensational ‘breaking’ and ‘urgent’ headlines.

Headlines which are distracting, agitating, and more accessible than ever. Of course, much of the news today is still highly informative and useful.

We live in an age when accurate information on any topic can be acquired in a matter of seconds.

This can be and has been a great force for good.

However, we should be more mindful of our news consumption and realise that the reality of the world lies beyond a few exceptional breaking news events.

The truth matters, but the truth is nothing without perspective.

ARTWORK: Maddy Brown

creative

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ARTWORK: Bonnie Burns

Anew

By Sisana Lazarus

Youth is the most beautiful storm You will love people who don’t love you Hold friends close and then greet like strangers Have chatter and laughter and nights all alone Capricious tuition and shiny ball pens This chapter begins where your old news ends Leaving home is for big kids So take your time Listen to the lightning and the chaos Every wonderful sound There is choice and there is reason Purpose in all change Now is the moment Where the world is more open To nurse you and to hurt you To teach you and propel you Out toward the lights you cannot see Into the life that has not yet formed

ARTWORK: Eliza Williams

The Spoon Eli Narev This afternoon at half-past three I saw myself as I made tea Through the bright, distinctive bend Of a coffee spoon’s back end.

The word I use is not ‘reflection’ Rather some kind of projection Of a person yet to blossom Like a cracking boll of cotton.

Grinning, silver-gilded through The cutlery— as spectres do— Appeared myself at fifty-five Devoid of life but quite alive.

My contemporary body (The corporeal and un-contorted) Shuddered at the impure image Of this frightful, fated visage.

Why should I start, if such a face Would— in two scores— be commonplace?

Has he not lived my lives foreseen?

Do I not yearn for where he’s been?

Through the flatware, our fates merging All his history’s roads diverging Avenues of self-expression, Glamour; lust— tasteful obsession.

I marvelled at his paths’ pearlescence All potential gains and lessons Before me, slews of selves refracting To prismatic smithereens.

Perhaps I would be better suited To a life seated and suited.

Thoughts on tap but thinking muted— Madcap dreams left spayed and neutered.

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ARTWORK: Bonnie Burns

Everyone I’ve Ever Loved Author: Tilda Njoo

Noah shook her head and sparks leapt off the ends of her hair. I could see them falling from across the room. They fell like fireworks and the cold in the air snuffed them out before they reached her shoes.

The girl speaking with Noah couldn’t see them. She was distracted by something, her mind eating up everything else in the room but Noah.

The girl’s friends were gathered around the kitchen, talking to a boy. Her boy. The room held little bundles of people, all of them wishing to be in the next bundle over. But Noah didn’t seem to notice.

She was never a good conversationalist. I could recite just about every conversation we’d ever had, they felt so nice, but that doesn’t mean she was good at conversation. She hid this fact by sipping her drink mid-sentence, relishing in the pauses this created. Anything to prolong her train of thought, anything to keep the other person mesmerised by her words. From across the room I could almost see the perspiration on her upper lip as she tried to make her language something magical. She was always too forced; too obvious; too far away from the person opposite. Someone should tell her that.

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Still, the room orbited around her nucleus.

Still, it seemed like the party was pulsing for her.

Sitting by myself, on a fraying couch at the frayed edges, it seemed as if each post-teen, pre-adult, Converse-clad person in the room was a prop to Noah’s play. They greyed in comparison.

Now, the girl was training her eyes towards the boy, purposefully turning ignorant to Noah.

She’d catch on soon; when she reached the end of her sentence. She’d catch on. It’s not like she couldn’t read people. I watched as, on cue, she let her last phrase fall out of her mouth. It lay squirming between them on the floor; a gap in the conversation.

The girl looked down, realising what Noah had done. She smiled gratefully at her before running over to her boy. He grinned smugly as she approached, knowing he could pull the girl across the room just by standing in it. And then Noah just stood there next to the fireplace, not even bothering to pretend that she hadn’t been left alone. I watched as her head circled the room, lazily. The sparks lit up slower this time, fizzing out as they fell past her shoulders. Her nonchalance was suffocating. She would only ever notice other people retrospectively, when she was finished with her own thoughts.

The first time we met it had been hot; the sky was the kind of heavy that smothered any suggestion of romance or affection and still I had stared at her. Her hair was longer then, down to her waist, and it lit up as she circled through the school yard. She was placed next to me in class. When she looked at me, I felt myself being swallowed up by the wall behind me. The first time she spoke to me, it was to ask how to spell the word ‘disintegrate.’

D-i-s-i-n-t-e-g-r-a-t-e, I had replied. Di-sin-te-grate, she had said back, placing emphasis on sin. And then she laughed her strange, hollow laugh and our descent into romance began.

By the time that her love for me had started filtering through the layers of her mind, my love for her had already begun pooling at my feet. It leaked through the doors of her dad’s car as we drove over the speed limit down the highway, and my parents

could smell it on me as I sat down to dinner each night. Walking through the city to go to the movies, or to the shops, she would hide our clasped hands behind her back. My heart swelled at our secret.

When my desire to share us with the world got too much to bear I would draw the outline of her mother’s dress, of her makeup brushes, of her bed frame. One time, my art teacher stood behind me as I drew.

“Oh Abigail! How wonderfully violent,” she exclaimed, rolling her eyes at another tortured teenager in love. Three months into knowing Noah, I had memorised her moods, the times of day she liked to be alone, the moments before she retreated. I loathed those stretches of retreat, where her eyes glazed over and her mind shut itself off to the world. But I would persist; I stayed watching her and talking to her and touching her until she closed off completely and I could taste my aloneness.

That’s what defeated us in the end; what di-sin-tegrated us. My aloneness. Her aloofness.

Eight months later and Noah was standing by the fireplace, her phone open to the notes app.

I could tell by the way that she was typing and then pausing, typing and then pausing. She was writing a poem. It would go like My parents died today Or so my empty house said.

Mother hanging in the laundry And Father facedown on the bed.

Or perhaps The Wind howled and roared at the sea and the Sea roared back.

Later that night, she would sit at the edge of her bed, her hair glowing. She would have her phone on one knee and her notebook on the other, and she would copy the poem down under today’s date. Or maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe she didn’t do that anymore. I suppose it didn’t matter where she kept her poems. They weren’t any good now that they weren’t about me.

ARTWORK: Beth O’Sullivan

By Tilda Njoo

Noah’s Phone App Poetry

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Noah and the tattooist we hold an indifference to each other’s lives, the tattooist and i. he held my arm and he held my gaze and still, he remained indifferent.

Noah in love We drove over the speed limit and I thought of religion.

We skipped a song (twice) and I thought of you (twice).

Noah by the sea moses and i have heard of seas splitting like an arrow down the middle of a party at the end is at the end is a pair of dead rabbits, two drowned elephants and brown eyes. glazed, like a ham.

Noah in love, part 2 bad poetry is made worse with the overuse of lowercase / denial of uppercase.

Noah in shower Tonight in the shower I could breathe my own name.

I breathed out first. n - o.

I held my breath; there, at the pit of my stomach, and I waited for my brain to play your name So many times over that it lost all meaning.

ARTWORK: Eliza Williams

It’s complicated.

Anonymous If I had a dime for every time you’ve called me stupid, I’d be a millionaire by now.

If I had a dime for every time I’ve believed you since, I’d be a billionaire by now.

But I know you never meant it, that it was all just pent up frustration: you’ve got so much shit going on in your own life, your love was just lost in translation.

Vivid memories of me sitting in your lap by the bookshelf in the corridor upstairs: you read me all my favourite childhood stories.

I felt so secure, so protected, always without a care.

But you changed all of a sudden…

Mummy… what did I do wrong?

Since when did everything I do make it so difficult for us to get along?

You’ve never had the intention to hurt me, or so I think… because that’s not what parents do, right?

Parents are supposed to love, supposed to nurture, supposed to show their children that they can conquer all, supposed to help them dream up a wild future – or, at least, that’s what I’ve been told.

But if that’s the case…

Why did you make me feel so unlovable, so burdensome, so powerless,

so futureless?

You pushed me to be the best out in the world, but made me feel so insignificant at home.

Home: where I should have felt safest, but I found myself no longer wanting to go back, trying to find any excuse to stay out, in fear of your unpredictable wrath.

I know you didn’t mean it, and you probably don’t know to this day, that the bumpy marks on my wrist, were my attempts at feeling okay.

When you saw the fresh cuts, you shrieked at me, “YOU DAMNED UNGRATEFUL FOOL!” But all I wanted you to see was past my skin, the lashes on my heart made by you.

Again, I understand, you tried the best you ever could, that the version of love you now show me, is the only love you ever understood.

Mother, now I ask only one thing: please, reconsider your hurtful behaviour.

Maybe then you’ll finally understand why I ran away from you as a teenager.

All that seems left of my crippled soul is a lifeless, hard, thick callus.

But I’m sure that under it all there’s still my childish, undying love for you. *N.B. this piece from the Woroni archives

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ARTWORK: Maddy Brown

CU

LT U RE

ARTWORK: Beth O’Sullivan

Soy Originalemente de…

Nayantara Ranganatha

One of the first phrases I learnt to say in Spanish after moving to Chile was “soy originalmente de la India.” Every time I met anyone, however proud I was of my Spanish pronunciation, I’d immediately get asked where I was really from.

My friends and I began joking about my trademark response, and the way my voice changed into a high-pitched, child-like tone when I tried to express myself in a language so foreign to me. Every time I said this phrase, I would be reminded that however confident I felt using this language in my head, I’d feel like a stranger in this country as soon as the words left my mouth.

Recently I’ve been thinking of this idea – the idea of being a stranger in some places. I think to most people, it’s implied that you feel like a stranger in one place, because you belong to another. The idea of belonging is necessary in order to notbelong. Yet I have also increasingly found others like me – other kids who don’t belong in the traditional way.

The truth is that I’m not even originally from India. I have never lived there. I was born in Singapore, but Singaporean laws led me to inherit my parent’s citizenship, and my physical appearance makes it easy for me to introduce myself as Indian.

Though I speak Kannada and frequently travel to Bangalore to visit family members, I can’t forget the time a street vendor mistook me for a tourist in front

of Mysore palace and addressed me in English. Or the fact that I haven’t attended school in India and don’t share the same knowledge of Indian history as my cousins. When classmates ask me about Hindu practices or popular tourist destinations that they’ve visited, I often don’t know how to answer.

Some have tried to convince me that I’m actually Singaporean – I was born in Singapore, so I am Singaporean. It’s that simple, and the same rules must apply everywhere in this world. But my ties to Singapore are limited to the vague, washed-out memories I have of my first three years of life. I don’t speak Singlish, I don’t remember eating at any of their famous food courts -- Singapore isn’t home.

No, if I could truly call one place home, it would be Tübingen. The small town in the south of Germany where I spent eight years of my childhood.

It was here that I graduated from Kindergarten and Elementary School. I learned to read and write, went through a horse phase, played in the snow in the winter and polished off daily ice creams during the summer. It is the place where I feel most safe, accepted, and calm. I yearn to see the graffiti on the walls of the train station and visit the same crepe stand that has been standing for more than a decade. But I don’t “look German”, have not kept in touch with most of my childhood friends, and my German fluency is declining.

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I have to apply for a tourist visa every time I want to visit what I would call my home and introducing myself to someone as German would require a lot of explaining. Plus, it would be false.

Because while I think it’s logical to open Christmas presents on the evening of the 24th of December, my family does not celebrate Christmas. While we love Spätzle, Maultaschen, and Brezel, our daily meals consist of lentils, chapatis and basmati rice.

Moving to the US aged 11 was like entering an intermission. Nobody asked where I was from.

Tolerance and value for diversity is definitely not guaranteed in the US, but it’s far more normalized and intrinsic to the national identity than in Germany. I didn’t speak great English at the start, but neither did many other kids at my public school.

Part of me was itching to show every new friend pictures of my home town in Germany and the river that flowed through it. I wanted to criticize the fact that we received a soggy microwaved pizza as part of our daily school lunches, but I knew this only seemed wrong to me because of the free, healthy, home cooked meals my German public school served. My background defined me, but it seemed like it was just one of many other diverse backgrounds. I wanted to hear about all these different experiences, but everyone else appeared to prefer glossing over them.

In 2015, just towards the end of eight grade, we moved to Chile. I didn’t speak any Spanish. Yet, every day from 8:30am in the morning to 4:30pm in the afternoon I would sit in front of my Spanishspeaking teachers attempting to explain mitosis, Chilean history, and Spanish poetry, with words that entered one ear and got stuck before they could even exit out of the other. I couldn’t understand anything.

I attended local protests and co-directed a short documentary but always felt, in the back of my mind, that I wasn’t Chilean enough to declare my passion for some issues. There was a wall, and I couldn’t take ownership for my feelings beyond that wall, no matter how at home I felt. I didn’t sound Chilean, or look Chilean, have the years of memories or the documentation to prove it.

Where am I really from?

I don’t feel Indian enough, nor Singaporean enough. I can’t call myself a German, don’t feel at

home in the US, and haven’t been here long enough to be Chilean. I’ve been thinking about this more recently because my family will have moved to Memphis by the time you’re reading these words.

As I continue moving, I find my heart and my identity more and more occupied by the past– less likely to fit and adapt, and less malleable.

I started off as a “clean slate”, but as I keep on moving, I will never be able to return to that clean slate. I’ll never be able to experience a new culture with the fresh eyes that I started my journey with.

It’s sad that I will never feel as home in Memphis or Chile as I made myself feel in Germany when I was younger. And truthfully, I doubt that I will find any place in the future that truly becomes my own.

I doubt that I’m the only one who feels like there is no opening for a puzzle piece like mine. It has been stretched to the extent that it no longer fits into the bigger picture.

It is an absolute privilege to have these experiences. I really don’t want to sound like I’m complaining. I’m so grateful for moving, leaving a piece of me in different corners of the world and having so many different parts, often contradictory, within me. I’m grateful for all the things I’ve learned in the process of reconciling my competing identities. Yet, in times like these, when the whole world stands still and I’m forced to reflect, I notice that all of our identities are so different. Or, at times when I try to place my piece in a new puzzle, I realize how hard it is for others to recognize mine as compatible. There are so many international students at ANU and so many more all over the world. As our world expands, what most of us end up having in common is that we are all so different from one another.

In my sociology class last semester, we learned about Durkheim’s Mechanic and Organic Solidarity. Durkheim tried to understand the social consequences of urbanisation, industrialisation and the increasing diversity of background and occupation in French cities. He came to the conclusion that differences would complement one another, and we would find cohesion in those cleavages. A decade later, this process is as relevant as ever, on so many levels. For one, children of globalisation like myself attempt to “fit.”. And as a consequence of people like me, the landscapes we try to “fit” in will change as well.

ARTWORK: Sian Williams

Beholden and Beautiful

By Queenie Ung- Lam

I have wondered if I am beautiful since childhood, while watching white Disney princesses with thick blonde hair being rescued by handsome princes. With my tan skin, slanted brown eyes and black hair – would Prince Charming stay to rescue me, or would he not bother – my non-whiteness marking me as not pretty enough to save? I become acutely aware that I am other to whiteness and that the male gaze skids over my body differently compared to my white friends. I learn words like orientalism and concepts such as yellow fever. I do not really understand what they mean until an old white man compliments me on my ‘exotic beauty’ as I serve him at work.

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There I am: thirteen years old, earning minimum wage at the Manuka McDonalds, a strong Aussie accent, and yet somehow, apparently, exotic. The concepts familiarise them to me as I am told that I am pretty for an Asian. I quickly learn to associate my beauty with my race - beauty & race - race & beauty. Even so, without completely understanding why still, I am grateful in a twisted way that I am seen as beautiful. Colonialism, the patriarchy – the dominance of the white male as the arbiter of all that is beautiful and ugly – I have yet to escape their clutches. In the end, I am grateful to be recognised in a sea of whiteness, blissfully, naively, ignoring the undertones of othering and stereotyping that accompanies this mark of recognition.

But things become complicated after my lupus diagnosis. You see, it all starts with alopecia – severe hair loss where strand by black strand, my hair fell out in clumps, leaving the milky white (the only whiteness I possess) of my scalp exposed.

This was the first step followed by a gauntness left behind by feverish nights and loss of appetite.

Peeled lips and cracked skin. I am too tired to reach for my glass of water, let alone apply some Lip Smackers to my lips. Beauty has fled the scene. I feel like a caricature of illness, all balding head, aching joints and shadowed eyes.

A month after my hospitalisation, I’m browsing in a bookstore. An old high school teacher that I admire stops and asks me how I am. It is a complete coincidence, one that pleases me. I cannot help but spill it all out – the lupus, the fevers, the hospitalisation. I paint a pretty picture of the last few months, mostly spent lying horizontally, illness my perpetual bed partner. She is reassuring, sympathetic – all that one could have hoped for as the audience of my pitiful act. She tells me that while I may not be well, at least I look well, and that in itself is something to be grateful for. She reminds me in that gentle, wise tone, that beauty is ever so fleeting, especially for those who are chronically ill. She looks over me and praises, ‘at least you still have your beauty’. I am soothed from the compliment, like warm milk it nurtures a battered sense of self.

Beauty and race now become entangled with health and illness. The truth of the question – am I beautiful? – becomes even more difficult to

answer. Perhaps this is because I always thought beauty to be a signal of health, vitality and youth.

With my aching joints, arthritis and rheumatism, I am not healthy. The truth of the matter is, with my health gone, I no longer feel beautiful.

I remember loosely Anne Boyer – an American writer who wrote about her cancer journey in her book The Undying that one of the things women grapple with is the loss of their beauty after illness. I read those words in my hospital bed, cementing to me how fleeting my grasp, however warped and uneducated – on beauty was. I wish to look at beauty now as a sign of strength, beauty as survivorship, of fledgling good health. Then I look at my hands in the shower, holding another clump of black hair. It is difficult to reconcile the strands with beauty. Difficult to hyphenate beauty and illness. I think to myself, you cannot be young, pretty and ill.

Such a defeatist attitude my brain tells me!

My brain, alongside my body, are tired from navigating the politics of prettiness. There is no end to this Venn diagram – no truth to answer the question of who is beautiful and who is not. Does race and illness make you less beautiful - I do not know – a truth that remains unanswered within the confines of this white, ableist and patriarchal society.

But perhaps a greater truth of beauty is revealing itself. One that matters more than the one that is unanswerable. That beauty - my own beauty - was indeed always in the eye of the beholder.

That power, to be seen as beautiful or not, always belonged to someone or something else; the male gaze, an inhibited society, other women and now, illness.

I think back to my old high school teacher.

You still have your beauty. If I remove the pronoun, it just becomes beauty. Abstract. Not my truth. Not my anything.

I relinquish any hold I used to have over it.

The Venn diagram is no more.

PHOTOGRAPHY: Maddy Watson 41.

The Distance Between Jessica Liao It had been one of the words I had studied in my Chinese script lessons, with red brush strokes gently carving the translucent parchment paper.

‘Jiā’ Home.

As my fingers traced and drew the word, I noticed the small horizontal stroke at the top enveloping each edge of the bottom section.

A little top hat, I thought to myself, a tiny roof for a home.

Inside and underneath it, the family unit stood protected and embraced. I imagined each of the delicate brush strokes stemming from the vertical stroke to be like the venetian pattern engraved on a fallen leaf.

Each connected and protected; they gracefully stood together.

I held tightly onto the word in my heart when the real estate agent first showed us into our two-storey house in the south of suburban Sydney, complete with four bedrooms and three bathrooms. It even had a backyard with neatly trimmed hedges and a front yard lined with magenta geraniums. The yellow sunlight shone through, radiating a warm lustre and reflecting the beams on my Ma’s face.

The house echoed the clamour of our clumsy footsteps.

After having lived in a tiny government owned apartment for the first ten years of my life, this would be the place where we would build our own first home. Together.

As the days swung merrily by, the unfamiliar spaces grew to become more normal, more ordinary. We grew into the new space quickly, like an old musky couch furrowing deeper back into the walls. My parents were too focused on working, finding a way to make ends meet and keep the family alive. This in combination with the lack of garden space they had known growing up in a run-down apartment in crowded Shanghai, meant that the flowers were never tended to, nor were the bushes trimmed.

Often, I’d cry out in frustration to my Ma Ma, and demand to know why we never took better care of them or gave them the attention I thought they deserved.

“Why can’t we keep the flowers alive?”

“Can you even keep yourself alive?” my Ma would snap back in response.

I think now that they simply never had the time to worry about frivolous things, like adorning their life with beautiful geraniums. They had, after all, grown up in Mao’s Communist China.

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And so the magenta geraniums that once sat boldly in our front yard, soon crawled quietly into the space they occupied. *** At school, I found myself often wincing submissively in shame when the other kids at school asked what my dad did for work.

Some proudly boasted, “My dad works as a lawyer.”

Others beamed, “My daddy is a teacher.”

I quickly brushed aside the questions when they arose. I wanted a ‘white’ dad, who wouldn’t make me solve maths problems during my school holidays and spend my weekends jumping from a whole day of English tutoring on Saturday to Chinese school on Sundays.

At home, I quietly listened to my Ba Ba’s coughing and wheezing as he suffered alone in the gloomy corners of the house. His lungs had given way because of all the smoking, and soon enough, he was diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. With the smoking also came the dental care. One bad tooth infection would spread quickly through his entire mouth, until it ravaged through and left nothing but empty black holes.

Each night, my Ba would brush his teeth hunched over the steel sink, pull out his porcelain set of teeth and plonk them into the jar of salt-water. He would smile at me with his lumpy gums, when he caught me watching curiously from afar, and I would hesitantly offer a toothy grin back.

The rare moments I did see of him were slipping past in the afternoon as he packed his fraying backpack and left for a night shift at the paper printing factory. The muscles of his face were still heavy with drowsiness from the evening before. There were barely more than a few meagre words exchanged - the uncomfortable silence was an unexpected guest that had somehow wedged itself in the empty distance between.

His face had quickly grown sunken in, and half his eyebrows were missing. He, an already tall lanky man, had lost more than fifteen kilograms in the space of a few months because of the combination of the endless health issues and working tirelessly. His head hung low and his shoulders heavy; it would be a long night of labour at the factory.

One day, I had carved a smiley face in the flaky red bean pastry that my Ma had made. She neatly packed three of the pastries in my Ba’s backpack.

“I was so tired from working and it was so dark outside,” he said to me the next day, “and then, I see the smiley lian. When I eat it, it also make me smile too.” He held my gaze steady through thick lensed glasses.

It was such a meagre act, but it reminded him he was not so alone in this world.

Whilst other dads played soccer on the weekends and their kids sat firmly on their shoulders, my Ba Ba’s shoulders carried the burdens of working multiple labour jobs to mend the tears of a struggling family. *** It was many years later when my parents finally saved enough money to be able to take us on a month-long holiday during the summer break of 2010. We didn’t do any of the regular things the other tourists did in the bustling city of Shanghai.

My sister and I incessantly complained to our Ma.

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“Why can’t we be like normal families? Why can’t we take a holiday to Europe, where we can stay in nice hotels?”

“Yeah, I wish we could go to Europe,” pouted my sister, “even the Gold Coast would be so much better cos there are theme parks there.”

“Ah, staying here is much cheaper, we don’t need to pay for hotels here.” she replied. “Going on holidays will be so hard.” A few moments passed, and she exhaled a long breath and added: “We have not seen your Na in such long time. She hobbles around this lonely apartment all by herself.”

As I lay staring at the concrete ceiling that was splattered with specks of mould, my eyes began to wander around the dimly lit room. The room smelt strongly of a burning incense that my Na said would heal anything, even the distance between a family.

The streetlights outside flickered in a constant motion, with the pale light casting shadows on my mother’s still face beside me.

Here we are, I thought as I pulled the red woollen blankets closer to my face, the home-town of my parents.

To fill our empty time, my sister and I found ourselves sitting on the olive-coloured couch with our wrinkled Na, watching Chinese television together that I could only partially understand. From cartoons about courageous monkey kings, to poorly made crime shows, to Han Dynasty romance dramas; these were the stories that continued to captivate me.

Over the dinner table, the stories continued to drift through. My Ba Ba chattered with liveliness to his friends and his sisters in smooth Shanghainese. His eyes creased with delight and his shoulders sighed in response as he relished on the foods he had grown up eating. An assortment of green leafy vegetables smothered in oyster sauce and meat encased in thin rice flour pastry. He gleefully slurped up the bone-broth noodle soup.

This time, when he offered a smiled at me from across the room, the smile reached his eyes and creased the corners of his thin lips.

All the while, my sister and I found ourselves bragging to our cousins about how wonderful Australia was.

We reminisced about the balmy evening sunlight on the golden shores that we basked in, as opposed to the thick grey smog and pollution here. We boasted of coming home from Sunday Chinese school with a delicious pizza waiting for us every week for lunch.

“Pi-zza is for rich people here!” my cousin cried out in between mouthfuls of rice, “It’s like a high-class restaurant because you sit down and they serve you. Do you know how many hours we’d have to work to be able to eat at Pizza Hut?” I caught my sister’s eye from across the table.

They didn’t need to know that pizzas in Australia cost five dollars and was, in fact, fast food for those with little money.

Perhaps, we were rich after all. *** Like the food, the world around me felt familiar but also foreign. People didn’t speak English, which meant that the words I wanted to speak only tumbled out clumsily.

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I clung tightly on to my Ma Ma’s hand on the Metro Station, gazing at the characters that flashed up on each stop. She was agile and swift here, knowing all the right words to navigate us to this part of town and how to order all the foods from the street markets vendors. I, on the other hand, felt as though I was swamped in water and treading just enough to keep my head afloat. I didn’t know how to ask for directions or even how to figure out how to catch the bus to the shops. I gulped and managed to fumble a few words that would immediately be drowned out by the engulf of the busy cityscape.

“Korean or Japanese?” asked the old man sitting beside my sister and I on the bus, overhearing the muffled English phrases we snuck to one another.

“From Australia,” I replied, as I reached up to touch the end strands of my black hair.

His moon-shaped eyes stared curiously back at me. *** When we had returned to the familiar pockets of suburban Sydney, the geraniums greeted us with a solemn sadness, and diligently retreated into their unobtrusive position.

After all the five of us had lived in the cramped one-bedroom space in Shanghai, I vividly remember the feeling after setting foot back into my house. My house seemed to have physically expanded, as though it was much larger than when I had left it in my memories. The walls had grown, and the spaces fell quieter without the animated chatter of the rest of my family.

My parents softly unpacked the assortment of Chinese ornaments they brought back and had haggled the sellers from the market with. A humble cabbage made out of jade, a bottle of Moutai and a new set of decorative chopsticks. The eclectic ornaments sat neatly in our red rosewood cupboard for display and would rest alongside our swimming trophies and the seashells we had picked up from the Sunshine Coast.

The red shelves were soon filled with a multitude of things that spoke of dreams of a previous life, or perhaps it was the life they never had the chance to continue living. This was a corner of our home in Sydney that had created only but a mere semblance of the home they had packed up and left behind in Shanghai.

As the evening gave way, the four of us gathered around the round table. We sat huddled over bowls of plain rice congee with chopsticks in one hand and clutching a steamed meat bun in the other.

“I dreamed that we were all back there. Back home,” my Ma Ma faintly whispered, her face pale like thin pieces of billowing parchment paper.

No one could muster a reply. I felt my lips tremble with unspoken words. I continued to concentrate carefully on each grain of rice in my bowl as I dug through the slush with my chopsticks, waiting for the silence to linger and fill the vast space around us.

When the gathering dark fell like a curtain, I crept up the stairs to follow the dim yellow light that illuminated my parents’ room. From the smallest corner of the room, I could faintly hear weeping.

I caught a glimpse of my mother - she was hunched over, her head bowed and her figure prostrated. A faded picture of my Na hung on the left-hand side of her dresser. On the right, the magenta geraniums hung limply in a blue and white porcelain vase.

She had missed

‘Jiā’ Home.

ARTWORK: Beth O’Sullivan

My Favourite Boomer Lie

By Rose Dixon-Campbell

There was a period of about three months in between my finishing Year 12 and moving away from home for university in which I worked at a little café nearly every day. The patrons were mostly baby boomers who, by the end of my term there, came to know me quite well and were very interested in my future plans.

I was fortunate to receive three months of unsolicited advice and anecdotes about university from these regulars. My young age and university plans made them incredibly nostalgic for the glamour, romance, and unadulterated, chaotic fun of studying in the 70s and 80s. I kept hearing one statement again and again, and it really set my hopes high.

“Your years at university will be the best of your life.”

As I write this I am staring down the barrel of third year. I have ‘done uni’ seemingly every way one can. I have lived on campus and off. Done in person learning and zoom university. I have catastrophically failed and relished in my HDs. I have been stressed, distraught, overwhelmed, inspired, jubilant, content, and everything in between, and I feel qualified to say that the statement above is absolutely untrue.

Or at least I hope it’s not. Desperately.

If the anxiety, angst, and nihilism which seem to define my early 20s, coupled with the stress of being perpetually strapped for cash, working part-time, and studying full-time is the peak of

my life’s enjoyment, then that is a bleak prognosis indeed.

This statement carries an inherent glamorisation of youth of course, however the truth is that not everyone enjoys being young and not everyone enjoys university. Your years at uni will not be a waste just because you failed to have a crazy good time every day. And it certainly does not have to be the case that the rest of your life will only be more boring just because you have left your uni days behind.

Truthfully, I hated my first year of university.

I had no friends, I didn’t know where I was going or what I was doing ever, I was overwhelmed and unimpressed by my degree and I was very, very far from home. Granted, my second year was markedly better. I was older, wiser, and perhaps most importantly, I had far lower expectations. That glamorous lie parroted to me by boomers had well and truly proved itself a myth by that point.

I do enjoy a lot of things about university. I also dislike a lot of things about university, and you probably do too. There is no reason why the things we enjoy about uni should end when we leave it. I am certainly not going to stop going to the pub with mates just because I graduated, and neither should you.

However, I will stop begging professors for extensions and stressing over essays and lectures and readings when I graduate. I am really, really looking forward to that day.

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ARTWORK: Sian Williams

The 3 Steps for Success

By Anonymous

I get everything I want.

I understand how that might sound, but it’s true.

If I want that scholarship, I’ll get it. If I want that internship, I’ll get it. I’m not a straight HD student, or a straight Distinction student for that matter — I simply write well. I can talk my way through any selection criteria, any interview panel, any phone call. This seems great, and I bet you want to know my secret, but if I’m being honest, there isn’t one.

Though I have gathered a few tips and tricks along the way which I would like to share with you.

1.

Find a new best friend.

Who should this best friend be you may ask? ANU CareerHub, obviously. I check this godsend of a website every week, without fail. Next, research the employment avenues your academic college offers.

For example, the CBE Global Talent Portal and the COL Legal Vitae are incredible avenues to explore current job opportunities. Create a LinkedIn profile, trawl through Seek and Indeed — do it all. You’ll be surprised what you can find when you’re actually looking.

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2.

I was suddenly questioning everything.

Document your life story and lock it away for safekeeping.

Should I quit my internship?

Should I defer uni?

Jot down every opportunity, experience, or job— however minuscule— that you’ve ever had and attach them to the classic selection criteria.

The compulsory ‘youth leadership’ program you attended in Year 10? That was extremely challenging and required a high-level of independence and maturity. The 10-day school trip you took to New Caledonia for French class? That explored your comfort zone and taught you how to adapt to new and unfamiliar environments.

Your life experiences don’t need to be special, they just need to sound special.

3.

Think outside the box.

As soon as I was accepted into the ANU in 2019 I began job hunting. I knew Kambri was about to open and I was determined to work somewhere in this ‘bold new campus experience’. I found one relatively ambiguous and uninformed news article highlighting the first few vendors to open up in Kambri and within days I had found a Kambri vendor’s Facebook page, set up an interview and soon after the job was mine. This all happened in January of 2019, so it’s a little too late for you now.

That’s okay, think further outside the box. Handing in your resume to the cafes on Lonsdale Street isn’t going to get you to where you want to be. Before you say it, no, Kambri was not my forever-plan, but I was able to draw upon my ‘unique understanding of the ANU student experience’ to receive another job offer for a marketing role on campus, which was exactly what I wanted.

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Forget everything I just said.

All of the above is genuinely helpful and it has made all the difference in my career, but it hasn’t actually helped me. After a confusing and wholeheartedly what-the-hell 2020, to put the cherry on top of the cake little old me decided that she had no idea what she wanted to do in life.

Should I spend all my savings?

I spent my summer days crying down at the Cotter (very coming-of-age film of me) and feverishly writing in my journal, but nothing seemed to help me find an answer. I guess questioning your future is a rite of passage for all 20-somethings, but this was never where I was meant to be. It’s taken me a long time to accept that I need to make a change in my world, but I think I’m at a point now where I’m excited to leave everything behind.

So here are my steps for success. These may not (should almost certainly not) apply to you, but this is what I hope will work for me.

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Quit all jobs* Defer my university program Travel Australia

I guess the most important take away from this is that you can beef up your CV as much as humanly possible, you can receive every accolade and opportunity under the sun, but you can’t satisfy the suffocated feeling inside you that wants to truly live.

I was the girl who knew exactly where she was going, exactly where she wanted to be. Right now, this girl has no idea about anything, but she’s pretty excited by that. *A note to any of my current employers: this will be occurring in Semester 2, 2021. I promise to give you ample warning and I hope that I can work with you again in the future.

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PHOTOGRAPHY: Maddy Watson

ARTWORK: Bonnie Burns

Post Human: Survival Horror — Album Review

By Sabrina Tse

My ‘rock’ roots were reignited after stumbling across Bring Me the Horizon’s (BMTH) newest album release Post Human: Survival Horror.

Written during the isolating months between March and late October, their deathcore aggression and cyberpunk synth beats perfectly radiated pandemic paranoia.

The album kicks off with high energy and fast drums. BMTH’s introductory song, Dear Diary, encapsulates the initial uncertainty and panic of COVID. Effortlessly, Oli Skye documents the worldwide hysteria and incidence of panic-travelling and panic-buying; the speed-metal underscore and aggressive screamo draws on the anger and confusion of moving off campus and working from home without the comfort and proximity of friends.

Whilst the rhythmic drum beats and strong bass riff confers universal angst, they also inflate the dystopian concept of the band’s ‘post human’ series. Distinctively, the speed-metal tones echo a fictional post-apocalyptic fantasy: (Dear Diary) ‘I keep fading in and out I don’t know where I’ve been I feel so hungry What the hell is happening?

The sky is falling It’s fucking boring I’m going braindead, isolated’

But most importantly, the first introduction track to the album voices not only a sense of teenage boredom, but a sense of discomfort.

Specifically, dissatisfaction with authorial leadership.

This sentiment is relayed throughout the album’s revived nu-metal style and frequent battlecry-like lyrics.

Another highlight of the album is Parasite Eve which differs from the deathcore style of the

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introduction song. In fact, the use of a choir vocal sample from the Bulgarian folk song, Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, perfectly distils a sense of end-of-theworld imminency.

(Parasite Eve) ‘When we forget the infection Will we remember the lesson?

If the suspense doesn’t kill you Something else will’

BMTH is notorious for their reckless and bold approach to their discography. But what elevates their newest album isn’t merely their angsty relatability. In fact, their album has racked in ‘universal acclaim’, scoring an average of 82/100 on Metacritic. BMTH exhibits raw honesty in their lyrics whilst maintaining an integrity to their ‘melodic auteurism’, reminiscent of their iconic 2006 metalcore sound.

Indeed, their ‘high octane ferocity’ was welcomed by an audience who are likewise exasperated by the emotional and political instability of 2020. Skye’s juxtaposition of his forefront screamo, against a backdrop of personal and vulnerable lyrics, reveal the album’s heartto-heart with all survivors of the lockdown and isolation.

(Teardrops) ‘We hurt ourselves for fun Force-feed our fear until our hearts go numb Addicted to a lonely kind of love What I wanna know Is how we got this stressed out, paranoid’

Themes of tech addiction, media anxiety, moral responsibility, political disillusionment and mental health are all addressed by Skye throughout the track. The brilliance of Post Human: Survival Horror is how Skye was able to create a postapocalyptic rock tune that was eerily recognisable given our global experiences of COVID. He avidly criticises the inadequacy of global leadership , expressing his own emotional disconnect and suicidal, violent, tragic state of mind (Teardrops).

Post Human: Survival Horror remains brutal yet undeniably authentic. It relays a storyline of discomfort and unease by documenting an anecdotal truth of personal struggle and resilience.

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ARTWORK: Maddy Brown

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Guide to: Energy Efficient Renting Rowan Hearne

Are you looking to rent? Then it may be worth your while finding a rental that’s cheap and easy to heat in winter and cool in summer. Sounds simple right? However, the cost of heating and cooling is often not foremost in renters’ minds, and it is often difficult to get useful information about the cost of heating and cooling from the agent. Fear not, this guide will clearly explain what to look out for in a rental so that makes it easy to heat and cool so you’re comfortable all year-round.

How to find the cost of heating and cooling your rental Before you look for your rental, know that the cost of energy to heat and cool depends on: · Energy Efficiency Rating (EER) of the property; · The floor area of the living space; · Cost of energy; · The energy efficiency of appliances used for heating/ cooling.

Here’s an explanation of each of these terms and what to consider when you choose your rental.

Energy Efficiency Rating (EER) The Energy Efficiency Rating (EER) reflects the energy efficiency of the property. It indicates the energy performance of the property on a scale between zero and 10. Zero represents poor performance and 10 represents excellent performance. A rating of zero indicates a property that is very inefficient and requires a lot of extra heating/cooling to maintain a comfortable temperature, so energy costs will be higher. To minimise energy costs, find a property with an EER of at least 6.

Not all rentals will have an advertised EER. Better Renting (2018) analysed the energy performance of rentals in Canberra, they found that only a quarter (26%) of rentals had an advertised EER, and of those that did have an EER, two in five (43%) had the lowest EER of zero.

Figure 1- A large proportion of rental properties in Canberra has a very low EER. (Better Renting, 2018)

A couple of tips to find a good EER when rental hunting. A rental with a low EER may have gaps around the doors and windows which cause draughts, and the windows might only be single glazed, or there might be large windows facing south and west. By contrast, a property with a high EER may have tight-fitting doors and windows with no gaps, double glazed windows, and large windows facing north and east. The direction of windows is important because westerly windows will gain heat in the summer, southerly windows will lose heat in the winter, while north and east-facing windows will gain heat in winter, and lose heat in summer. As a rule of thumb, older houses will have a lower EER, while newer houses tend to have a higher EER.

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Floor Area This is the living area that will be heated or cooled in the rental. As you can guess, a larger rental will cost more to heat and cool than a smaller property. If possible for your current situation, you can minimise the energy cost by choosing a rental with a small living area.

heating system with a star rating of 4. Attempting to keep this home at a comfortable temperature could cost up to $6,500 per year! If the rent was $400 a week, energy cost would represent 23.8% of the cost of living in the rental property. If you lived in this house, it’s likely the cost of energy would be a huge drain on your student budget.

Energy Cost This is the cost of electricity or gas. It is worthwhile finding the best available plan for your needs by going to energymadeeasy.com and following the prompts. After you provide information on how you use energy, it will give you a list of quotes for energy plans. You can either switch to the cheapest energy plan or call your current energy provider and negotiate a cheaper plan using the cheaper quotes listed as a bargaining chip.

2. Low-Cost Case By contrast, consider a small (100 m2) apartment, with a high EER (7), with an electricity price of 20.78 c/kWh, and an efficient air conditioning system with a energy rating [QU4] of 4.2. The cost of heating and cooling could be up to $165 per year (figure 3). If rent were $400 a week, energy cost would represent 0.8% of the cost of living in the rental property. You could cover the cost of energy with your weekly loose change.

Energy Efficiency This is a measure of how effectively the property’s heater or air conditioner uses energy to heat and cool the rental property. Different appliances have varying degrees of cost-effectiveness. For heating, the most cost-effective appliance is the reverse cycle air conditioner, followed by the gas heater.

The electric column heater is the most expensive heating method. The most cost-effective cooling method is the evaporative cooler/fan, and the air conditioner is the most expensive. Try to choose a rental with a new and efficient air conditioner for heating, with an evaporative cooler for cooling.

Why is there such a difference?!

You’d be right to think that paying six thousand dollars for energy is exorbitant. However, this indicates the maximum cost to keep this type of property at a comfortable temperature. Realistically, many people in large thermally inefficient properties would minimise their energy cost by reducing their living space or coping with uncomfortable temperatures. The important point is that you can potentially save thousands and be more comfortable by choosing a small, energy-efficient rental with air conditioning and evaporative cooling.

Also, white goods like fridges, washing machines, gas heaters and air conditioners have star ratings between one and six to indicate its energy efficiency. You can check the star rating of an existing system by searching on the energy rating calculator online. As a rule, older systems tend to be less energy efficient compared to newer systems.

Try to choose a rental with a new and efficient air conditioning system.

How much can you save Your household can potentially save thousands of dollars simply by choosing a rental that is cheap and easy to heat and cool. Take two examples:

1. High-Cost Case Consider the annual heating and cooling cost of a large (200 m2) house, with a low EER (1) with a gas price of 3.31 c/MJ, and a moderately efficient gas

At your next rental inspection…

Rental properties have vastly different costs required to keep the living space at a comfortable temperature. When faced with the option, selecting a rental with a high EER, a small living area with air conditioning and evaporative cooling allows you to vastly reduce the cost of energy compared to a large rental with a low EER with gas heating. Until new tenancy laws arrive in the ACT to mandate a minimum standard of energy efficiency for rental properties, knowing these tips and tricks will help you select a comfortable and affordable place to rent.

References Better Renting (2018) The energy efficiency of rental properties in the ACT. Available at: https://www. betterrenting.org.au/energy_efficiency_report.

ARTWORK: Eliza Williams

Universal Truths and Another Way Dr Elizabeth Boulton

When I reflect on truth, I think of the Netflix sensation Resurrection: Ertugrul. It has had seismic influence in Muslim countries, Pakistan, India and parts of Africa. I found out about it when a local Grandmother, from a small Australian country town, told me of her and her husband’s despair that the almost 500 episode series was coming to an end.

more voices contributing to the shaping of their worlds and new institutional design. Of course, this reinvention process needs to include universities, or rather, the entire system of knowledge management and what we think of as ‘knowledge.’ The current model of statehood must change for two main reasons.

In it, you see three civilisations on the verge of war: the Mongols, the Turks and the Byzantine Empire. A proxy for China, the East and the West.

It’s the story of how people, sickened by the deceit and corruption of their world, dreamed of creating a Just State, leading to the Ottoman Empire’s establishment.

1. Hyperthreat The biggest reason is to do with what I call the ‘hyperthreat of climate and environmental change’.

The hyperthreat notion spotlights the violence, destruction, killing, harm, and loss of freedoms that are imposed by unravelling ecological and climate systems. It draws from eco-philosopher Timothy Morton’s concept of global warming as a hyperobject – something beyond human’s capacity to perceive or understand, which utterly defies our current ‘systems.’ Morton argues that, in the face of the hyperobject, humanity’s new existential truth is that we are now “weak, lame and vulnerable.”

It’s Islamic, associated with Turkish nationalism and soft-power and provides a chance to see how The Rest view The West – which can be uncomfortable! However, its themes are universal: justice, truth, resisting tyranny and stopping ‘the cruel.’ Its vision has appealed to global citizens the world over, and that, I believe may be something of great significance.

Concern about ‘truth and justice’ issues infused my PhD research, leading to a concept called the Creative State. This is the idea of reimagining governance and society – what the State could be like – in the era of climate, ecological and other security crises. The Creative State sees

In contrast, the hyperthreat notion, views that humans have still got a chance. It applies military strategy, re-imagined for the Anthropocene, to the problem and devises a hyper-response, (PLAN E). To contain the worst of the hyperthreat’s destructive power, (or avoid dangerous climate change), this diagram shows the path that we must be on:

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Yet while global citizens may be aligning in their aspirations for a fairer world, in other ways, we are being pitched against each other. In real terms, over the 2009 to 2018 decade, global military spending grew 5.4 per cent; the 2018 annual spend was $1.822 trillion. This spending reflects expectations of greater conflict over the next decade; the exact period in which the war against the hyperthreat must be waged. It’s lose-lose. What if the people of the world said:

“We’ve got a better idea… Let’s redirect our efforts to containing the hyperthreat – our mutual foe. We’ll also rescue our major important and beloved ally – nature.”

Pathway to limit global warming to 1.5°C, IPCC 2018 Fig SPM.3a

To support such a trajectory, research, learning and knowledge sharing must be in fasttrack mode, as occurred during COVID19. Yet there is no such system for the #ClimateEmergency.

Truth and the hyperthreat Here is a vision of a different future: The time of fake news, spin and deceit is rejected. The capacity to confront the truth is now understood as critical to human survival.

2. Truth and universities The second reason relates to whether universities are serving the public well or not. When you talk to so-called ‘working people’ – those without a university degree, some say universities are a waste of taxpayers’ money. “What are they doing over there?” they say, “I have no idea what they do.”

As the 21st Century progresses, the hyperthreat will increasingly speak in a form which transcends all languages and is heard loudly, across the globe. Climate and ecological issues emerge as a unifying and irrefutable truth that resets dialogue and sense-making through the sheer force of its physical presence. In this world of harsh realities, there is no tolerance for ineffective institutions.

Increasingly, to find information and make sense of a world in crisis, people are turning to social media. Disillusionment with official ‘experts’ is an issue of great significance to universities. What’s gone wrong? How could universities better meet their citizens’ knowledge and sense-making needs?

It’s time for some blue-sky thinking.

As the Turks overcame widespread corruption to open the door to a magnificent chapter in human history, perhaps the current generation of global citizens can do the same.

A global ‘army’ could be raised against the hyperthreat. Alliances between East, West, North and South could be made.

How things could change To return to the Ertugrul series, the reason its popularity matters is that it points to larger socialcultural forces and ‘universal truths’ that are sweeping the world. Widespread mass protests, from #ArabSpring, #YellowVests, #MeToo, #BLM, #ExtinctionRebellion, #StopTheSteal to the recent Russian protests, tell a similar story. Many crave new, ethics-based, leadership. The larger truth may be that large population groups are tiring of a leadership body that is perceived as having failed the majority.

Woke up this morning From the strangest dream I was in the biggest army The world has ever seen We were marching as one On the road to the holy grail…

There’s nowhere else to go…”

Lyrics, Hunters and Collectors, “Holy Grail”

Humans. Earth. We’ve got nowhere else to go. For my part, I hope to progress a concept called #Research2Public. In general, we must find a new way.

ARTWORK: Sian Williams

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ARTWORK: Sian Williams

From Newton to Rubik’s Cubes Ella Brock-Fabel and Kevin Zhu

On my bag, I have a keychain attached to a Meffert’s ultimate skewb - a Rubik’s-esque puzzle constructed solely by pentagonal faces. So here’s a question: Can you determine a pattern for the number of faces on 3D shapes? A tetrahedron has four, a cube six, and a dodecahedron twelve. But what about a 3D-shape made of hexagons? A friend and I set about to determine this relationship. We failed, of course, and upon our inevitable defeat, we began to suspect that no such pattern existed, and relegated to Googling the answer.

It turns out, a dodecahedron is indeed the limit in terms of 3D objects composable entirely from a single ‘equilateral’ shape (the pentagon).

Try to do the same with a hexagon - you can’t!

The closest object is a football - consisting of both pentagons and hexagons.

What would have happened without Google or the internet? Would we remain blissfully unaware of the limit? Currently, we scarcely acknowledge our reliance on the internet, or the ease with which we can access an array of readily available knowledge.

I only gathered from Google that pentagons were the limit, yet at night, I laid awake, troubled by why it was the peculiar pentagon!

The reasoning is rather trivial. Eventually, I concluded that an increase in the number of sides of the shape gradually likens the shape to a circle - and circles can’t be tessellated! Indeed, to me, this was a philosophical triumph.

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Yet several centuries ago, when concepts of an ‘internet’ would be ridiculed, philosophical ideas grounded in observation were inseparable from depictions of science and the natural world.

Newton’s book, containing much of the physical foundation scientists use today, was aptly titled Philosophy of the Natural World - highlighting the connection between the fundamental patterns of our world and rigorous scientific theory.

A lack of preconceived ‘objective’ knowledge and no globalisation meant that philosophers had to develop their own ideas and rationale on the basis of their own thought and observation - somewhat similar to my pursuit of the 3D shape relationship. If we were in 350 BCE, would I have ever found closure to the shape conundrum?

Even today, the evolution of our scientific understanding is built on the foundation of thought pioneered by great philosophers thousands of years ago. Their days were spent thinking and seeking out the mysteries of the universe, while their education system emphasised reasoning, logic, and encouraged the development of dispositions that shaped ethical character.

Secondary education today is drastically different. The compulsory education children receive in schooling instils virtues of rote memorisation rather than understanding. Education of the sciences in particular has drastically changed.

Intention is irrelevant - we are implicitly encouraged by schools to strive for excellence in exams rather than question the reasoning of what we are taught.

Algebra is a great example. Students often assert that they see no point in being forced to study algebra. They believe that the skill is somewhat pointless in their everyday lives. This viewpoint highlights some fundamental systemic issues within the schooling sector that should be addressed. In the case of algebra, emphasis on the ability to determine the slope of a line seems to have overshadowed the underlying goal for students to analyse, question and develop methods to describe patterns they see around them.

This isn’t to say that assessments and exams are obsolete. My point is that we need to rethink the purpose of schooling and for whom it is intended.

Over half of all high schoolers in Australia undertake

two or more Year 12 STEM subjects, while less than a third of these students pursue further tertiary STEM studies. Indeed, the scientific basics taught are essential for students pursuing further study, yet may seem rather pointless for the remaining 80 percent.

To combat the issue, Australia should consider incorporating philosophy as a core secondary subject. We should encourage students to discuss and challenge existing ideals of our world, as well emphasise the metaphysical, holistic origins of the sciences and humanities instead of encouraging them to memorise and regurgitate facts. This could help instil a culture of thought and curiosity among students.

It’s commonly believed the apple falling on Newton’s head led to the ‘discovery’ of gravity.

In reality, Newton had constantly been pondering this phenomenon. The iconic apple was merely the ‘Eureka’ moment for Newton to realise that the orbit of the moon and the falling of the apple were due to the same force. The philosophical concept of ‘gravity’ - the tendency of all bodies to fall towards the Earth had been observed and discussed by philosophers such as Aristotle nearly 2000 years ago before Newton’s time! Newton simply started the effort to rigorously quantify an observation grounded in philosophical origins - the same endeavour continues today with theories of quantum gravity!

Scientific discovery does not have to be complex, nor difficult for the public to grasp. It does, however, take time. Rigorous theory may take a century to develop into practical applications. Yet, regardless of field, the work researchers do today is simply a continuation of what was pioneered hundreds of years ago. Inspiration - perhaps like our skewb or the apple - is not enough to instantly formulate new theories. Science is instead like sourdough - effort, dedication, and constant thought are required to transform an initial idea into a beautiful discovery. Most importantly, all scientific discovery is underpinned by an observation grounded in philosophical nature. Not everyone becomes an academic, but we may all benefit from a culture of curiosity, reasoning and questioning minds.

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ARTWORK: Eliza Williams

Space For All Alexander An

“I’m in space!” - Space Core

Humans have been grounded on the planet Earth for the past 200,000 years. Are we destined to be stuck on this lovely planet that we continue to destroy year on year? Fortunately, with the advent of the Cold War, we made escaping our grounded confines possible. Indeed, space exploration became a popular way for the major powers to assert scientific and technological progress.

Having destroyed the Berlin Wall in 1989, space exploration became a globalised pursuit. It was only four years later that the United States and Russia agreed to cooperate on space matters and construct a space hub that we now know as the International Space Station.

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Yet it was only globalised for some, China’s notable exclusion from the International Space Station would be driven by America’s foreign and defence policy. China would go on to exchange research agreements with some of America’s allies to further their space ambitions, more recently with Germany and the European Space Agency.

the hindrance of country borders. Besides, space exploration and the scientific method are independent of political posturing and nationalities.

Space exploration only demands that we humans use our available technology and scientific developments to better understand space and the phenomena that surrounds the unknown.

With the turn of the millennium, tensions between Russia and the United States dramatically collapsed. Angela Stent of the Foreign Policy Center on the United States and Europe observed that the Syrian civil war, the 2016 US Election, the annexation of Crimea and the granting of Edward Snowden’s asylum have polarised the two nations relationship.

Cooperation between the two became impossible despite Obama’s efforts for a diplomatic ‘reset’.

Whilst the reasons to go into space seem quite abstract and detached from ordinary life, there is a valid rationale for it. As Stephen Hawking explained in his ‘Why Should We Go Into Space’ lecture, there are many unknowns in space that science has hypothesised. His argument is that going out into space to look outwards will help us better reflect at home. The experience of space as normalised by the Outer Space Treaty means a complete absence of sovereign borders determined by lines on a map. This is the mantra that should guide space exploration, not policies of gatekeeping by major powers seeking to one up each other.

The Trump Administration’s ‘Space Policy Directive 1’ was a bold step on putting the space agenda back onto the policy palette of all. The NASA media release for the policy would boldly claim ‘President Donald Trump is sending astronauts back to the Moon.’

Former Vice President Pence would then emphasise the ambitions of the policy for the United States to ‘settle the frontier with American leadership, courage and values’. Pence, as chair of the National Space Council, would then go on to say, at the 2019 International Astronautical Conference, that the United States should be the leader of ‘freedom-loving nations’ in the adventure of the final frontier of space.

But do we need the United States to be the ‘freedom-loving’ leader in the last unknown?

And why is it ironic yet not surprising that the United States established a military force just for the interstellar heavens? Almost the entire world agrees that space is to be used for scientific and exploratory purposes, as well as ensuring peaceful use of any celestial body and the Moon. Do we need one country’s forces to protect the others?

Surely not.

The principal document on space matters, the Outer Space Treaty sought to ensure space would not be subjected to the historical errors by states. Whilst not explicitly promoting freedom, it did have an implicit policy goal of enabling exploration and study of space without

International collaboration in space already has the frameworks in place to facilitate further cooperation. The existence of the Outer Space Treaty and the International Space Station are testaments to what countries can achieve in space policy. Humanity does not need one country’s ‘Space Force’ to complicate matters. The deeply sensitive geopolitical situation on Earth would only become more complicated with more flashpoints and triggers if space became a militarised playground for countries.

But with a transfer of power finally complete in the United States, the Biden Administration has pledged to restore its standing in the community as a cooperative and willing participant in international affairs. The act of rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement in conjunction with Biden’s foreign policy commitments may provide a greater appetite for space cooperation. And perhaps, space policy will finally get the deserved respect and collaboration from a major power that has been missing for perhaps the past twenty years.

Space is our way out, to continue and improve society. We do not need to ground it in the past

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PHOTOGRAPHY: Maddy Watson

ARTWORK: Bonnie Burns

Felin(e) Random Kevin Zhu

It would be rather useful to know in advance whether I end up blissfully soaked on my daily bike ride home. The weather forecast provides me with some insight, though more often than not, I still get drenched anyways. So why can’t we predict the weather reliably days, weeks or even months in advance?

The answer ties into a fundamental question of our surroundings - what is deterministic, and what is truly random?

A good start would be an underlying definition of randomness - an occurrence is ‘random’ if individual outcomes are entirely unpredictable, yet multiple occurrences may be ‘governed’ by a probability distribution.

Coin flipping (assuming the coin lands flat) is a great example of deterministic behaviour. In principle, if all the initial conditions of the coin are precisely known - i.e. starting position, mass, the force exerted by the thumb, then the outcome can be determined with certainty. Yet, in practice, the aspect of ‘chance’ is merely due to a lack of measurement of the coin - an imprecise model.

Similar reasoning applies to card games like poker - gambling relies entirely on the fact that players are ignorant of precisely how the cards have

been shuffled. Awareness would enable players to consistently correctly predict the hands of other players.

Systems like these are all deterministic meaning the future behaviour of the system with respect to time evolution is unique, and completely pre-determined by the previous behaviour of the system - and by proxy, the initial conditions of the system.

Yet, deterministic systems are not all completely predictable. The double pendulum is arguably the best example of this phenomenon*, though weather forecasts may be more relatable.

Multiple simulations of the Earth’s weather yield dramatically different results if initial conditions are varied ever so slightly - a difference of 0.001 in an initial condition such as temperature may result in completely different weather scenarios months in the future. An extreme interpretation is that a single flap of a butterfly’s wings may be enough to permanently alter the weather forever!

Our solar system is another example. If we wish to predict the locations of the planets hundreds of thousands of years in the future, different predictions based on the current location of the Earth and the location a minute from now could produce results that are millions of kilometres apart!

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Systems that are extremely sensitive to initial conditions are called chaotic. They are completely deterministic, yet if we wish to obtain a specific outcome, the accuracy of the initial conditions are irrelevant - close approximations to an initial condition produce drastically different outcomes, and only an ‘exact’ initial condition produces the desired outcome. Compare this to a coin, where varying the initial heights by a tiny amount is unlikely to cause any difference in the final side up.

If slight deviations produce dramatically different outcomes, then there is no way to predict the behaviour of chaotic systems over long time periods! As in practice, no initial condition measurements, timing etc, can be perfectly accurate. In other words, the unpredictable nature of chaotic systems is grounded in the inherent uncertainty of the initial conditions.

So, coin flips are both deterministic and predictable. Chaotic systems are deterministic yet unpredictable. Are there truly any inherently ‘random’ occurrences in nature? Perhaps, but we must first turn to the world of quantum mechanics.

At the heart of quantum mechanics is a fundamental principle of superposition - the idea that a physical system can exist in multiple ‘quantum states’ simultaneously, and be ‘superposed’ (added together) to form another quantum state. An excellent example is the analogy of waves. Visualise two stones dropped in a puddle. The two water waves formed will interfere and ‘superpose’ at some point!

A quantum state is a probability distribution for all the possible measurements of a system position, velocity, momentum etc. in each state. For example, the different energy levels of the electron within a hydrogen atom correspond to different quantum states. Superposition implies that the hydrogen atom can exist in all these different states at the same time!

Schrödinger’s cat is infamously known in popular culture as the cat that could be both dead and alive. The hypothesis goes like this - a cat is sealed within a box containing a small radioactive source, a Geiger counter (radiation detector), and a flask of poison. If the radioactive source decays, the flask is destroyed, and the cat is dead.

Radioactive decay is a truly ‘random’ occurrence - or at least, there are no reliable predictive models for the decay of a single nucleus.

Science doesn’t tell us why things happen - we must first accept observational reality before attempting to explain phenomena.

If we treat being ‘alive’ and ‘dead’ as two separate quantum states, then these states may superpose, and the cat may be regarded as being both alive and dead. We can describe this behaviour with a fictional ‘cat-function’: Ψ=1/√2 |Cat_Alive > + 1/√2 |Cat_Dead >

Without opening the box, there is no way of knowing whether the cat is dead or alive. This is essentially the ‘Copenhagen interpretation’ of Schrödinger’s cat. Yet ironically, it is also the interpretation that Schrödinger intended to criticise with his cat!**

If we open the box and make an ‘observation’ or a ‘measurement’ of the cat, we ‘collapse’ the cat-function into one of the two states.

The randomness in this observation stems from the intrinsic, random nature of the cat-function collapse - it is not possible to predict which state (dead or alive) the cat is in – the collapse is representative of quantum randomness.*** Compare this with the coin, where though probability is 50/50, we can predict every single coin toss.

The coefficients represent the respective probabilities of cat-function collapse into each state.

Note that they are normalised - the sum of their square’s totals to one.

Schrödinger’s cat is the start of an endless rabbit hole into the many interpretations of quantum mechanics. The cat illustrates obscure boundaries of superposition - at what point does the cat stop existing in both dead and alive states?**

Deterministic, predictable, or quantum randomness? Uncertainty and randomness exist everywhere! So next time you take a risk or make a decision, take a second to consider how random your actions truly are! And next time you see a cat, why not take a moment to ponder if it was ever dead? After all, cats do have nine lives!

ARTWORK: Sian Williams

The Fifty-Two Books I Didn’t Read This Year

By Anonymous

There is a ubiquitous saying amongst writers: show don’t tell. Instead of telling you that Tony Abbott is a little bit odd, I should instead show you his lips, palpating and quivering over the skin of a fresh raw onion; I should describe the sound, as his teeth crack through the layers of nested cellulose, and I should describe the smell, warm and pungent, of his halitosis-encrusted breath drifting through the air.

When it comes to mental health, things are a bit different. I can tell you about depression, but I don’t know if I can show you depression. I can’t put you inside my head and give you the tour. I can’t transmit my feelings to you via radio waves. I can’t take your hand and make you pat the twelve-legged Lovecraftian insect that has hatched somewhere in the back of my skull, feeding me feelings of hopelessness instead of a stream of consciousness.

My best hope lies in trying to describe my experience, and in hoping, somewhat morbidly, that I’m talking to someone who has been in the trenches before too.

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But perhaps there is one way of showingnot-telling depression. Before I graduated, I used to make a point of reading fifty-two books a year. I didn’t always read that many, but I’d start the year with a list in mind. That way, even if I got distracted by, say, cat videos, I might get through twenty or thirty of them by the time Christmas came around.

I could choose the books I was most excited about reading and finish them first. I could change the list or I could throw it away completely and just improvise. I could read miniscule books or I could read mammoth books. I could read textbooks and comic books and everything between.

The thing is, I don’t read much anymore.

Imagine the things you love most in life, and then imagine that you suddenly didn’t love them anymore. That is one small part of what it was like for me to develop depression. For a lot of people you don’t need to imagine this at all – you’ve gone through this exact thing before. Maybe in your case it wasn’t reading but something else altogether, like underwater basket weaving or extreme whack-amole.

Perhaps it’s futile to try and pinpoint a cause, but I’d still like to try. For me, the trigger was graduation. Afters months of anticipation and grades and fancy robes, I suddenly found myself feeling more empty than I ever had in my entire life.

It wasn’t just feeling down. It was waking up in the middle of the night, covered in a blistering sheet of existential dread. It was listening to the same deformed internal monologue five-hundred times a day, thirty days a month. It was seeing all my friends succeed, and feeling like meanwhile I wasn’t worth two cents.

I didn’t realise until months later that I’d been slowly developing depression. Looking back, it’s easy to make sense of what was going on. But at the time it was hard to step out of my own head. It was hard to defuse my thoughts and to say that just because I’m thinking this awful thing, doesn’t make it true.

I know a large handful of people who’ve gone through the same thing after graduation. It’s more common than you might think. I’m starting to think we should have a name for it – maybe gradupression, or depraduation. If leaving university was the best thing that ever happened to you, then

I’m glad, and I hope the upwards spiral continues.

But for a lot of people, leaving university just isn’t like this. For a lot of people, graduating means finding yourself stuck at the start of a long hard road, and needing a helping hand.

I’m a lot better than I was, now. A big first step was naming the Lovecraftian insect for what it was. Another step was reaching out, and another step was medication. But then again, I’m still unwell.

I still don’t read much. Not every problem gets fixed, and if it does get fixed, it certainly doesn’t get fixed overnight. Sometimes it gets fixed a lot, and sometimes it gets fixed only a little.

I don’t mean to say that all this has been a waste of time. I’ve learned things about myself that I could never have learned while still at uni.

I’ve learned to grow new interests, even if my old ones die out. I’ve learned how to ask for help. I’ve learned to stop believing, at least in my case, in the myth of the depressed creative – that depression is somehow a source of great inspiration and motivation, and that it should be relied upon in order to achieve great things. In my case, the exact opposite was true. I used to be productive, and then I became depressed, and I was no longer productive. The arrow did not go the other way around.

Perhaps, in the end, I am just stating the obvious. That the experience of graduating is not too dissimilar from finishing a book. Perhaps, for you, it has been a wonderful book, a terrifying book, or the most boring book you ever read. Perhaps the book often made you cry. Perhaps the book was a waste of money, and didn’t teach you anything.

Perhaps you finished it quickly, or perhaps you finished it after resting it on the shelf for many years.

Now you face, inevitably, the feelings that come afterwards. For some it will be relief, knowing that you have permission to move on. For some it will be melancholy, knowing that you’ll never be a part of a story that good again. For some it will be devastation, knowing that you step now into a deep dark forest, of which you can only tell, but never show. Whichever it is, you should be proud that you read a book.

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We would like to acknowledge the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, who are the traditional custodians of the land on which Woroni is created. We pay respects to Elders past, present and emerging. We acknowledge that the name Woroni was taken from the Wadi Wadi Nation without permission, and we are striving to do better for future reconciliation.