CATALYST: 'FLICKER', Issue 2, Volume 77 by Catalyst Magazine

EPISODE FLICKER

ISSUE 2

‘Stop Avoiding SelfĘcare!’ś Celebrating You

Whoops First Tango With History

catalyst

Catalyst and RMIT University Student Union acknowledge the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nations on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past, present and future. Catalyst and RMIT University Student Union also acknowledge the Traditional Custodians and their ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where it conducts its business. Catalyst is the student magazine of the RMIT Student Union (RUSU). The views expressed herein are not necessarily those of the editors, the printers, or RUSU.

FLICKER

SOCIALS

Catalyst Issue 02, 2021 RMIT Student Magazine, est. 1944

Instagram: @rmitcatalyst Website: www.rmitcatalyst.com

CONTACT

EDITORS 2021

rmitcatalyst@gmail.com rmitcatalyst.com RMIT Building 12, Level 3, Room 97

Chloe (She/her), Ellie (She/her) Sayali (She/her)

CONTRIBUTORS

EDITORS

NEWS EDITORS

Chloe Karis Ellie Barclay Sayali Harde

Mackenzie Stolp

DESIG NER

NEWS REPORTERS Isabella Podwinski Molly Magennis

Sushmita Deb

FRONT COVER Sushmita Deb

CREATIVE WRITING EDITORS Charles Oliver Noa Shenker

CULTURE EDITORS Beatrice Madamba Savannah Selimi

COMMITTEE Bella Sewards Bridget Hayhoe Isabella Podwinski Jasper Riley Cohen-Hunter Jean Wenjing Zhang Jonah Epstein Lola McKimm

SOCIAL MEDIA Diane Armstrong

ENTERTAINMENT OFFICERS Mackenzie Stolp Molly Magennis

PHOTOGR APHERS Bridget Hayhoe Jasper Riley Cohen-Hunter Kelly Lim

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgement

Celebrating You

Unlearning My Love for Learning

Contributors

An Ode to the Empire Strikes Back

06 Letter From The Editors

First Tango With History

46 Whoops

54 Playlist

06 Letter From The President

10 A Fleeting Moment of Beauty, Calm Before the Storm

28 Put It On Your Story, It’ll Last Longer

30 2021 June-July Calender

32 12 Catching Up with Georgia Frances King

17 Turns Out I Was Meant To Be A Designer

A Flicker of the Past

35 To All the Art I Loved Before

38 ‘Stop Avoiding Self-care!’

55 Cataclysm

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS CHLOE KARIS, ELLIE BARCLAY, SAYALI HARDE

Welcome to the second installment of Catalyst for the year, in line with living through a rapid era of change, something many of us are experiencing for the first time, Flicker is all about the ‘flicker’ or ‘ fiery spark’ of emotions one feel’s when experiencing something for the first time. Our new edition is filled with student anecdotes from moments past. From innocent firsts, such as first time watching a movie, listening to your favorite album, first photo you took, first picture you drew to the more complex; first relationship, first step into university, first job, first heartache.... With so many ‘’firsts’’ in our lives, it’s nice to reflect and share on the

ones that made our hearts flicker. As it is June, it’s officially pride month! At Catalyst we are all supportive of the LGBTQIA+ community and we are all supportive allies. We encourage everyone of you to love who you want to love. You are all valid no matter how you identify. A reminder to reach out to the RUSU Queer Department if you ever need to. We hope you went well on your final assessments or exams for the semester. Now the first semester of the year is over, it’s time to get rugged up with a hot drink to binge watch

shows or read a book during winter. Enjoy the semester break before the second semester starts back up again. Looking over FLICKER’S colorful and abstract pages, you may notice we’ve made a bolder, braver magazine to celebrate all these important, varied student stories on an open platform, to talk about who they are and what they stand for. As always, we editors are incredibility proud of what RMIT’s students have created and curated on the pages that follow. So now it’s over to you. What do you think of FLICKER? What do you like and

what is missing? Let us know your thoughts by writing to us at catalyst@rmit.edu.au or send us a message over social media! Office: Building 12, Level 3, Room 97 Email: catalyst@rmit.edu.au Social media: @rmitcatalyst Website: www.rmitcatalyst.com

Sincerely, Your Eds Chloe, Ellie and Sayali.

LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT AKSHAY JOSE RUSU PRESIDENT

As we approach the end of our first semester, COVID has once again shown us that, it is part of the ‘new normal’, and has changed the way we now live. At the time of writing, Victoria is in the midst of a circuit breaker lockdown to help contain the virus. This latest lockdown has had a significant impact on students at our Melbourne campus, as students have been ordered into isolation and lockdown during their final week of semester. Many students have been unable to work or attend their placements, practicals and other essential activities. It has been a busy period at RUSU as well. We now know, from the experience of previous lockdowns, that students need extra support with a range of issues – including mental health, financial and social issues – that arise due to isolation and the inability to work and study as they normally would. I would like to take this opportunity

to remind you all about the support RUSU has available to students who are experiencing difficulties, including our Compass service, RUSU advocacy programs and our student rights service for academic matters. Together with my team at RUSU, I have been working hard monitoring the quality of the online learning and remote learning environments. We have been, and will continue to, advocate for the best possible student experience at RMIT. We fully understand the impact lockdowns can have on students, so please, do reach out to RUSU if you need help – we are here for you. In the meantime, we had a few wins. RMIT extended fee deadlines for offshore students in severely COVID 19 impacted countries, allowing them to complete this semester without

being suspended. In June RMIT also announced a seven-day rollover on assessment extensions for students in lockdown. Essential support for students who needed it. I along with my team are continuing to talk with RMIT about the impacts of coronavirus on the learning environment. Most importantly we want recognition of how far-removed experience is from the degree program they signed up for. These students are facing multiple challenges in relation to their ongoing learning, and they need to know that RMIT is listening to their concerns and acting on them. Challenges in the delivery of remote learning is not the sole reserve continues to work with RMIT to develop ways to improve the blended. And don’t forget, if you are an international student who has lost working hours due to the lockdown, you are now able to access the Government’s temporary Covid–19 support payment. To qualify, students must provide evidence they cannot work, as well as evidence they have less than $10000 in assets. Visit https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/ individuals/news/covid-19-disasterto find out more. I hope that life will return somewhat to normal in Melbourne during semester two. In the meantime, I wish you the very best with your assessments, and hope to see you back on campus soon.

Remember that you aren’t doing this alone –RUSU is here for you.

A FLEETING MOMENT OF BEAUTY, CALM BEFORE THE STORM JONAH ALEX EPSTEIN

One of the most memorable moments for me in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 opus, ÎÅ }»ïÎÔ ś7Åé, is the scene in which the boat carrying the main cast drifts into the jungle enclave - housing rogue Colonel Kurtz and his army of devotees. The jungle engulfs the main characters as they enter a strange and foreboding world, eyed up by the hundreds of inhabitants of the compound. Despite the comparatively different check-in QR codes, facemasks and icy Melbourne weather, the opening night of the RISING festival still managed to inspire in me some of that magic, the feeling of entering an unknown, magical world. The opening night of RISING festival, situated at Sidney Myer Music bowl was on the 26th of May, coinciding with the eclipse which would, supposedly, turn the moon a foreboding blood red. Despite the lackluster eclipse, the organisers of the festival managed to make the night śmysterious, exciting and memorable.

An assortment of bamboo and tropical plants littered a transformed path around the music bowl. Cathedral-like pathways dotted with fairy lights and atmospheric music added to the secret garden-esque experience. In a feat of environmental art and engineering, a fountain spraying mist with lights attached to it gave the illusion of a black hole, slowly engulfing the Yarra river in it’s mystifying aura. A massive moon sculpture was hoisted above the ice skating rink. The music bowl was almost unrecognisable, a testament to the skill of RISING’s team. The event was communal and welcoming, yet at the same time exciting and full of intrigue. In addition to the plentiful food and drink trucks, there were incredibly helpful staff members dotted around the pathway and merchandise stands. It is truly a shame that the end of the festival was cancelled due to the lockdown, however the atmosphere of the opening night was enough to leave me eager for events to come.

JONAH ALEX EPSTEIN

CATCHING UP WITH GEORGIA FRANCES KING JEAN WENJING ZHANG

Many of us feel a distinct connection with the wilderness – there’s something calming and mysterious in being out in nature that inspires and uplifts us. Australian’s own start-up Unyoked recently launched their Writer’s Residency for 2021 for new writers to submit original short pieces up to 800 words based on nature, where two dozen finalists will be published in the first Unyoked Anthology. We sat down to have a chat with Georgia Frances King, one of four judges (and aÀ RMIT alum!), to talk about her own journey as a creative in the industry. Georgia is an editor and literary agent located in New York, with vast experience working with CEOS to Nobel Peace Prize winners in simplifying complicated concepts into everyday language. Thank you for taking the time out of your schedule to chat with us. Firstly, what are you up to these days? I’ve been working from home in Australia for the last five months and right now I’m calling from Sydney, about to fly home to New York. After I graduated RMIT, I spent a decade working in journalism split across Australia, New York and Portland,

Oregon. During the pandemic I decided to switch into books – so now I’m a literary agent with an agency in New York. What’s your fondest memory of RMIT? Less of a fond memory and more of something I was told on my first day that I never really forgot – it’s actually been in my head recently! I can’t remember exactly who said it, but it was at my orientation for Professional Communication: “Look around you. These are the people who you are going to be sharing the rest of your career with. These are the people who will be hiring you or one day you might be firing. Be really nice to everyone on the way up, because you never know who you’re going to meet on the way down”. Did you find that that was true? Yeah, 100%. When I asked the person who originally put me in touch with Unyoked who the other judges [for the Writer’s Residency] were, I knew two of the other judges personally. And I was seeing the creative lead for drinks that night, a total coincidence. It’s a sign that the people you spend

university with are going to be the people you spend your career with, so think about those relationships from the very start. So, what’s it like working with your friends on the Writer’s Residency? Because I dipped out of Australia in 2013 and am only spending more and more time back here again now, it’s just really cool to see your friends do well. The people who put in effort during university and pitched articles outside of coursework are now the people who are doing well. I’ve always encouraged people to learn what you can at university, but the active work you seek yourself is also important. Unyoked’s upcoming anthology features short pieces that have been inspired by the wilderness. Where do you feel most inspired in nature and how does nature affect your work? The most inspirational landscape for me is a big, wide, open plain. I want 180°

of blue sky above me. The Australian outback really speaks to me in that way. I have such fond memories of being in the Northern Territory and the connection with the land; when you look towards the horizon, you don’t see the horizon—you see the curvature of the Earth. It’s such a beautiful reminder of land and the people who were here before us. In America, I crave the same thing. Even though I’ve lived in the Pacific Northwest, which has these beautiful huge redwood trees and mountains, I feel the most at home in Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, where it’s flat with desert and red sand. I understand that you’ve moved from Melbourne to New York. What has been your biggest challenge so far working in the creative field? The biggest challenge is definitely getting your work out there. Whether it’s journalism or artmaking or music, there is amazing work but the

UNYOKED

environment is oversaturated. That means the distribution of work is really challenging. There’s not a lack of great work, there’s just so much of it that it’s hard to break through. With that, do you have any advice do you have for our students looking to enter the creative field? I’m never going to encourage someone to start beefs on Twitter to get ahead or increase their followers! I’ve always been an ‘ideas’ person – a truly, truly unique idea will find its audience. A unique idea is better than force feeding a large readership you’ve developed through your social media following. I think to have sustainable long-term growth [as a creative] it’s definitely in having these ideas. I believe the reason I was able to achieve what I’ve achieved is because I was hustling outside of uni. I got offered the internship at frankie when I was mid-way through my second year at university. I only would have gotten it through doing the heavy work early on to set myself apart rather than waiting to start my career after I finish university. That’s something I always tell people: don’t wait until you finish university to start, because you can jumpstart yourself if you try to do that earlier. University is the best excuse you have to twiddle your thumbs a bit and work out what you’re doing. Are there any techniques you use when you feel like you’re in a bit of a creative slump? Totally. I change where I’m sitting. I think that a change of perspective really helps, and that can be simply changing

the seat that you’re on. If you’re in the dining room, move to the couch. If you’re on the couch, go to the balcony. Go to a café for a couple of hours. If you don’t need the internet, take your iPad or laptop to the park. Physically changing your location really resets yourself. Of course, this is with the privilege of being able to change your location. Even if you’re in your own house, that’s just what I do. And finally, anything else you would like to share with us? Sometimes people ask me about what degree they should do, I actually think if I could go back and change things, I would’ve studied journalism as a subject [instead of a major] and then applied journalism on top of it. I think that another way to get ahead is to really find a niche, something you can talk about with more expertise or confidence that others can’t. That could be your lived experience as an Indigenous person growing up in inner-city Melbourne, or it could be the fact that you’ve spent six years doing an engineering degree and decided to switch to journalism. I think finding a niche will really set you apart in the beginning of your career. Choose one thing and do it really well. Because that way you become known as the person people can go to for that.

Thanks again to Georgia for sharing her tips and advice with us. Keep up with Georgia and her projects on her website, https://georgiafrancesking. com. Check out Unyoked on their website, https://www.unyoked.co/.

SUSHMITA DEB @PANTHTVA

TURNS OUT I WAS MEANT TO BE A DESIGNER SUSHMITA DEB

After having a huge argument with my Indian parents who couldn’t fathom why I would choose an ARTS career (even though I constantly tell them that design isn’t arts) over a career in engineering, I think I now know how they felt. They wanted me to go into engineering just as I had when I was a kid. But inside I was thinking, I don’t want to do this. It’s not about the money. It’s not about the prestige. It’s not even about the thought of sitting in a cubicle for 12 hours a day. It’s just not something I can imagine myself doing for the rest of my life. For me coming from an engineering background, design was always an afterthought. From landing in Melbourne’s cold winters while trying to make sense of my career choices and having a full-blown panic attack before my first 3D modelling class, here I am, almost a design graduate, talking about the first time I attended a design class away from my home country, away from my four years of engineering. Like any typical Indian student, I too entered the field of computer science and engineering with a sense of curiosity and innovation. I wasn’t even forced into it, it was a personal choice. Everyone already knew that computer science was the future and everyone was pitching their personal project or startup as the next big thing. It was almost like a decentralized version of the Silicon Valley startup culture. My first semester into it, I felt like what am I even doing? Not knowing what other career choices I had since I had always been a ‘science’ kid, I struggled through

four years of engineering just thinking about how amazing it would be at the end when I switch careers. I took up acting, became a part of the dramatics club of the college, just to escape from engineering. Four years! That is a long time to be thinking about a career change to something that you’d actually enjoy doing! But, I underestimated how difficult it would be changing careers and taking on responsibility, not knowing how the energy changes inside of people when they jump from profession to profession, not being able to predict my future career path because it all depends on how much effort and energy you put into it at that moment. Don’t get me wrong, I have never regretted setting foot into that puzzle box called engineering. And I never will. It was a dream that was born out of passion and enthusiasm for something I love, something that gave me self satisfaction and a sense of purpose – the three things that really matter in life that probably faded away in the cut-throat competitive world that Indian engineering had created for me. Going into an engineering degree program allowed me to do other things that helped me give meaning and direction to my life, something which gave me clarity about where I wanted my career to go. I took a year off after engineering to realize what I wanted to do, and stumbled upon design. After a few short courses, I realised that, Design is what I wanted to do and applied at RMIT. And to my shock, they accepted me. The next thing I know, I was sitting in the

class after the worst panic attack I have ever had and questioning my life choices. I had no idea what I was getting myself into as far as design was concerened. But I knew I had to get into it. When I look back now, it was an exhilarating and overwhelming time. From there on, it was a steep learning curve. From using CAD software and Illustrator to interacting with clients and figuring how to make things work and also look cool. Coping with my imposter syndrome to getting my first piece to the end-of-semester exhibition, this degree was an eyeopener that pushed me to question what I was looking for in life and what sort of impact I could have on it. The truth is, you’re going to be pushed out of your comfort zone, you’re going to meet people who will become amazing friends for life, and you will learn so much more than what’s shown on your subjects. It’s always going to be hard, the question is are you ready to take that first step?

JONAH ALEX EPSTEIN

CELEBRATING YOU

KATIE ZHOU

“Who are you going with?” It’s a Thursday afternoon and I’m scrolling through Facebook, which has admittedly recently been solely posts from RMIT Love Letters. However, in between posts declaring love for someone drinking bubble tea in the architecture building, I see an event I’m interested in, and excitedly I immediately message a friend to see if they’re keen to go. It’s strange that when interested in an event or activity, the next thing I, and many others, immediately think about is which friend to go with. Would you go to a cinema, a restaurant, or a concert by yourself? The thought of doing such social activities alone used to terrify me and didn’t seem fun at all. That feeling of self-consciousness by yourself in public is something we’re all familiar with, also known as the ‘spotlight effect’. It’s like when you think a delivery man is staring at you with judgement and you’re convinced you have food on your face. But that discomfort can be overcome, I promise.

Recently, I’ve learnt to really embrace spending time in public with only myself as my company. While I felt a little vulnerable and nervous doing this at first, it has become something so incredibly liberating. Because really, why are we so afraid of being alone in a public setting? It feels a bit silly to be setting these self-inflicted boundaries. I grew to really love this alone time when I revisited the NGV Triennial exhibition earlier this year. The day was all to myself; I could set my own itinerary. On the train ride into the city, I listened to the La La Land soundtrack with my last remaining 9% of battery (worth it for Emma Stone), dramatically looking out the window with the sun streaming through, acting like I was in a music video. Once I was at the exhibition it was hard to move past the first room. I’m the kind of person that stares entranced by a painting while everyone else moves past around me. Usually, I would feel an inadvertent nagging at the back of my mind telling me that my friend wants to move on and that I should hurry up. But on that

day I moved through each room at my own pace, painstakingly slow. I left the exhibition three hours later. Being by myself made me notice the little things so much more without the distraction of obligatory human interaction. The young hipster couple who had matching Doc Martens, tote bags and choppy haircuts. The mother gently explaining the meaning of an artwork to her two little kids who were more interested in staring at the backs of people around them. The NGV worker, whose stationary stature transformed into pure passion and excitement when I asked him for directions, going on an animated spiel about the different artwork collections and giving a mini tour, saying, and I quote, “[he] should host a TV show”. At that point I couldn’t even remember what question I had asked. The realisation that I don’t always have to do things with others has been so incredibly enriching. Through these solitary pursuits, I’ve learnt so much about myself. Don’t get me wrong, I love and cherish spending time with friends, but understanding that I don’t necessarily have to base my plans

around other’s availability has taught me so much. Whether you’re a social butterfly or an introvert, I challenge you to do something alone that’s out of your comfort zone. Treat yourself, dress up, own it. Because hey, you’re a pretty cool person to hang out with.

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DIANE ARMSTRONG

FIRST TANGO WITH HISTORY YUSHA AZIZ

During my sister’s last birthday dinner, the topic of ovid came up. “When was the last time a single event affected everyone at once?” We thought of the usual answers like the Trump election, 9/11, the Global Financial Crisis. Yet we all agreed none of these recent historic events had shaken up everyone’s lives like ovid. I thought to myself, “It’s finally happened. This is the first historic event I’m witnessing up close.”

fortunate enough to live in the relative luxury and safety of a developed country (Australia). This historic event,

ovid, is the first major global disaster I’ve experienced. I can’t help but think of the issue of privilege; most of the human population must deal with disasters and the horrors of ‘historic’ events on a regular basis. Think the War on Terror or the ongoing refugee crisis.

I’ve always wanted to witness a historic event first-hand. Being right there when the Berlin Wall fell or being in New York during the time of the Global Financial Crisis – weird dream, I know. Most people I tell this to respond with a polite smile and change the topic. History is a personal passion of mine, so it’s only natural to want to witness a historic event, right?

This is a reminder of the nature of historic events. They aren’t usually mind-blowing, romantic, and exotic moments in human affairs. They are sudden, and often catastrophic and violent. Call me a cynical scrooge (you won’t be the first), but my first experience with history tells me that it’s been this way for most humans since the start. I’ve been lucky, though through no effort on my part. And I know I’m not the only who feels that the ovid pandemic has upended our collective assumptions of safety and order in the world.

But this romanticised notion was misplaced – because ovid hit and we were all thrust into the spectacle of not just witnessing history, but experiencing it. None of us had a choice. Those romanticised feelings stem from a sense of feeling disconnected to history. For most of my life, I had been

Travel back to 2015, tell a group of mates at a party about a ‘global pandemic’ in the future, and they will laugh at you and drown you out with

their seventh playthrough of ‘King Kunta.’ “That will never happen. We’re protected. We’re safe over here.” The ovid pandemic, political bungling, and shakeup of our daily lives are a presage of events to come. It took the ovid pandemic to remind me that we still exist in history. It took

ovid to wake me up to the fact that we aren’t in our little disconnected bubbles anymore. My first ‘brush’ with history has reminded me that all of us are connected to animals, nature, foreign communities, and political systems more than we care to realise.

KELLY LIM

PUT IT ON YOUR STORY, IT’LL LAST LONGER SAVANNAH SELIMI

I can think of a magnitude of moments when photos were the love language of our generation.

post the film to our feeds; we buy 70s Polaroids and decorate our wall with them, à la 2013 Tumblr.

When I graduated high school, and every student had their iPhonewhatever in their hands, waving them around and capturing smiles as big as the sun.

I don’t think that it’s a bad thing that we indulge in the staples of our Time.

At a concert, with the crowd waving their phone torches, lighting up the arena and admiring the sounds of our time. Eating at a restaurant with friends, making our stomachs grumble in exchange for an aesthetic pic of masterfully arranged plates and drinks. I could go on and on. Whenever something wondrous occurs, as casual as a lilac sunset or as grand as a wedding or an airport goodbye, our phones are glued to our hands. It’s almost on instinct. We want a digital replica of every smile, every sound, every dance; every hello, every goodbye and the every day. Our Stories replace postcards; YouTube vlogs replace camcorder videos; we buy disposable cameras from the 90s and

Let me explain. We’re constantly told to get off our phones and live in the moment -though, isn’t this the moment? Our generation is on the exact same timeline as the Digital Age. We are the Digital Age. I don’t think we realise how casually magical this all is. I’m bewildered that we’ve been in a world before the iPhone,śsocial media, Netflix, Spotify; things we take for granted that weren’t omni presently alive before we were born. I predict that an influencer will have the same aesthetic phenomena as a 60s hippie. I think that’s so damn cool. Yet, we feel guilty when we post to our Stories or spend hours editing and crafting a caption for an Insta post. We blush and cringe taking selfies in public, yet we do it anyway. We obsess if whether our Instagram feed presents us well. We check our

screen time hoping it’s gone down even just a little. We criticise the things that make our generation special. One of my favourite Instagram accounts is @sighswoon. Gabi Abrão’s content is wacky, spiritual, blissful, honest. I love it. She posted a sequence of stories that criticised the notion of social media addiction. Essentially, she noted that we chose how much content we digested, get involved with and become invested in on social media. It’s a complete exercise of choice. She also noticed that if you do spend too much time on your phone, you’re a personified and incredible sign of the times. It’s rare to see takes like this, that actually appreciate social media and technology as innate to our era. Of course, living in a social -mediacentric society brings it’s own destructions, such as comparisonculture and the idea of everyone living in a Highlight Reel. There’s an overabundance of self-obsession, deprecation, comparison and a bunch of other complicated things. I’m not

saying that social media and our phones are harmless - that’s simply not true. What I’m iterating is that we shouldn’t neglect the uniqueness of the Now for what it is. Make TikToks with your friends at the State Library. Take obnoxious selfies during Golden Hour of wherever you find yourself. Huddle over a phone to laugh at a nonsensical Twitter meme. Have conversations with strangers on the internet then return to your lives never knowing each other again. Become inspired by Pinterest girls and YouTube vloggers and the plethora of niche-named Spotify playlists that you blast in the car. Trust me. The Now’s gonna be a lot more interesting in fifty years. And you’re seeing it all in real time, onscreen and off-screen.

2021 JUNE

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A FLICKER OF THE PAST BEATRICE MADAMBA

I’ve been visiting a plethora of antique stores over the course of the three months for a project. All across Victoria, enigmatic shopkeepers have discovered a way to immortalise history. I think there is something so magical about them. Maybe it’s the fact that these antique gems have lived unknown lives. And although their owners have passed, they still remain, patiently waiting for a pair of curious hands to disrupt the stagnancy of undiscovered history. One of the stores I visited was The Old Post Office Antiques in Fitzroy North. Upon arrival, we were met with the jovial face of a Staffy cross Jack Russell, trotting towards us for a wholesome pat to which I happily obliged (the dog’s name is Billy, but more about him later.) The store’s exterior had already caught my eye: the 19th century architecture painted a tasteful shade of charcoal; a shabby awning that perhaps was once a crisp white but has now become fatigued with age; a faded typeface reading: ‘Antiques Bought & Sold’. It was an antique store lover’s dream. Add in the dog to that tableau - and it was my idea of a dream come true.

Q¬ ś<» śEÅÔÚś< ® ś¬}Ôś Àś nicknamed, ‘the squeezy antique shop’. Upon a first glance it’s easy to see why. The shop is an amalgamation of antique furniture - bookshelves, armoires, dining sets and more - all tightly compacted into a small space. Some may find it indeed, too ‘squeezy’, but I am drawn to this cluttered, inorganic arrangement of ornate pieces from different eras. It is almost like a form of time travel with each step that takes you deeper into this marvellous maze of a store. Frank and Catia are co-owners of the store and have worked at The Old Post Office for 35 years. Like with many antiquarians, their business had developed from a mere interest and blossomed into a full-time career. There is a genuine fervour that they have for antiques. Anyone could see it, the passion so potent in the way that they speak. To them, these pieces are true works of art. We conducted the interview seated on a three-piece Victorian salon suite from the 1860s, made out of the most beautiful hand carved rosewood. I feel that we don’t get that kind of artistry in modern furniture now. Almost everything now is massproduced and cheap - cheap for a reason. As Frank pointed out to us, by the time you replace an Ikea wardrobe five times over the course

It’s just different,” Catia adds. “Things are always different. And you get such a thrill out of finding something really special.” ś

À śÅ ś ÅÝÐÔ İś$ś }ÀĦÚś ÅÐ§ Úś} ÅÝÚś ®»»ïİś Ú¬ ś<» śEÅÔÚś< ® ĦÔśÝÀÅ ® ®}»ś¿}Ô ÅÚś }À ś¿ÅÔÚś»Åï}»ś Å¿Î}À®ÅÀıś$ śthe rumours are true, this dog is a bit of a legend in Fitzroy North. The couple rescued him about 14 years ago and is now a full-time employee at the store, greeting customers as they enter. According to Frank, they have a lot of customers who come in just to see Billy.

Frank and his wife Catia are not just coowners of The Old Post Office. They are also husband and wife, married to each other for just over 50 years. They not only work together but they live together - and they love what they do.

When you have been in the business for the greater part of your life, let alone live in the residence above the store itself, perhaps it is easy to forget the rarity in the antiquities that have been collected over the course of their lives.

śÅ śČĊśï }ÐÔİś®Úśé®»»ś¬}è ś ÅÔÚś¿ÅÐ śÚ¬}Àś }ś§ ÀÝ®À ś}ÀÚ®ÏÝ śÎ® śÎÝÐ ¬}Ô ś}Úś the same time. If you consider the time, effort and hard work that goes into these artefacts, they are truly worth every cent.

“We fight everyday...But I let her win,” Frank says, to which Catia replies, “That’s a lie!” Catia spoke more about the job: “You miss it when you’re not doing it. We found that out during last year with the lockdown. We miss the people; we miss the whole business. We thought we were ready to retire until we had that lockdown and then we thought, nah, we’re not really ready to retire yet.” It’s inspiring, talking to two people who clearly love what they do. I suppose it’s impossible to grow tired of it, not when there is always something new that comes in, to research, to admire.

Our visit reminded me of what we can gain from just a single interaction. These shop owners, just like their tangible antique commodities, hold un-official histories that have yet to be discovered. And I’m glad that we enabled that to happen, if only for a day. Frank and Catia are the owners of The Old Post Office Antiques located at 85 St Georges Rd, Fitzroy North Victoria.

KELLY LIM

TO ALL THE ART I LOVED BEFORE VIVIAN DOBBIE-GLAZIER

To my Dearest I often think back to when we first met. We crossed paths at such a strange point in life. In fact, it was almost by pure chance we would even meet at all. The way we had managed to avoid each other for so long without even realising, was a feat unto itself. You could call it the great cosmic dance of destiny. You could say we were bound on a molecular level to converge like the stars that make up the blackest of night skies. One thing I do know for sure is that from the moment we connected, you were perfect. The way your shot composition was crafted was something of pure beauty that only Michelangelo himself could sculpt. I could get lost in you and your world for two hours and twenty-seven minutes forgetting all the outside troubles of the world around me. It was an allure that only made me want to understand you more. The way you chose each word to fill a sentence with precision and care

made it impossible to put you down. I would promise myself only five more pages, but you always knew a way to keep me turning to the next chapter. All your metaphors and allegories drove me wild at just the thought. The way you sounded as the sun went down on that bike ride in late August. Each note caused my heart to sing in unison and my body with the tempo. Your chorus helped me make sense of the life I was living when no one else could. A fire was lit, but I needed to be stoked. I wanted to know everything about you because everything paled in comparison to what you were. What was the significance of choosing to film in that location? Who was the inspiration behind your words on the page? Why was that sample chosen out of everything to end the final track on the album? A re-watch, a re-read and a re-listen over and over again just to recapture that magic. But that’s when the trouble began,

didn’t it? The magic wasn’t the same.

I burnt you out.

Sure, there were new moments where you opened things up in different ways. But it just wasn’t the same. Doubt had sprouted and plunged its roots deep.

It was time apart that was needed in the end.

Everything about you had become derivative, repetitive, and problematic. I wondered what made our connection so special in the first place. Was it something wrong with me? I started to become embarrassed to even bring you up around other people. That scene was just a copy from the forebearers that came before you. Where’s your originality? That ending was just a cop out to avoid dealing with your protagonists’ consequences. Why can’t you be more daring? That lyric has just aged horribly. How could you not be more forward thinking?

I wanted our time spent together to be like the first time, all the time. However, that’s not how these things work. Everything about you was so unique and yet I only appreciated you in the form of what you were when we first met. It was a genie that could never be bottled but by God I tried to force it. This is something I will always regret. You never know though; it could all happen again one day. A 30th anniversary screening. On shuffle by accident. A passage here and there. I look forward to when that day comes.

Yours sincerely Maybe this just happens sometimes. We could fix this by just getting back to the core of what made our connection special in the first place. Create a flicker that could re-ignite that flame. Maybe if I watched you in October. Maybe if I read you in the twilight. Maybe if I listened to you in the winter. It didn’t work. It couldn’t be forced.

JASPER COHEN-HUNTER @.ASPERILEY

‘STOP AVOIDING SELF-CARE!’ CATALYST X COMPASS

‘Stop avoiding self-care!’

So, we know self-care is important, these days we hear about it a lot, but we don’t always practice it. Why is that and what stops us from doing it? We know that change is hard, implementing new habits is hard. So, we can often avoid doing things that helps us look after ourselves. Sometimes when we do things to support our mental health, they aren’t tangible, we can’t see or measure the results as easily if we were implementing a physical health goal. Then this can impact our levels of motivation and commitment to taking care of ourselves. At the Compass Drop-In Center, our aim is to provide a safe space for students to receive information, advice and support. While we support students with a range of psychosocial stressors, including financial, housing, studying issuesİśée also want to encourage the students we support to practice self-care and implement a strategy that works for them. At Compass, we are always promoting self-care, whether this is trying something you know works for you or trying something new. Self-care strategies can also be known as coping strategies or wellbeing tools, and they are individual to each of us. They also change for us depending on the situation we are in, and the emotions are we experiencing. It is really about trialing different ones to find the right one for you by learning more about yourself.

So, let’s talk about trying new selfcare for the first time. We asked our Compass student volunteers to discuss trying a new self-care strategy. Hey everyone, Aaron from Compass here. Recently, when trying out new activities for self-care, something I’ve noticed that is helpful and important is the self-reflection of your experiences about the activity itself. In health and psychology, self-reflection is about examining your thoughts, feelings, and actions about something. That is, what you think about that thing or experience, how you feel about it, and your actions towards it. This is beneficial as it gives you more awareness and understanding of yourself. Self-reflection can be a helpful self-care tactic, as well as a tool to evaluate when you’re trying new or different activities. This is especially useful for activities that you intend to find for enjoyment and taking care of yourself, to help you figure out what does and doesn’t work for you, especially if you have a packed

schedule and need to find ways to wind down. This could be helpful if you find you tend not to think much about your experiences after having them, however taking some time to reflect on them can be constructive to sort through whether they’re worthwhile. Due to COVID, myself, like many of you this year, may be on the hunt to find something new to enjoy in your downtime, however sometimes it can be tricky knowing what that is, and you might be unsure what to try. Using myself as an example to explain self-reflection, I’ve been looking at different physical activities and sports that I can play and explore recently. But where do you start? You could check out a range of local social sports and clubs, like casual futsal, maybe martial arts, or throw some yoga in there too. You can simply start by attending a casual sporting event and, for now, hold minimal expectations on whether you’ll keep that activity up. Afterwards, sit down and spend a few minutes to reflect on your experiences of it and ask yourself

some questions. What did I honestly think about that activity? How did it make me feel? What was cool about it? What did I like or not like about it? Did I enjoy myself or not, and why? It might take a few attempts at that activity, and you may not necessarily find the most fantastic sport the first one you try, but the consideration you give through reflecting can be valuable in finding whether it works for you and gives you what you need. If it doesn’t, then you can try out the next sport on your list and see how that goes. That gives you the opportunity to try out other things to care for yourself mentally, physically, and emotionally, from figuring it out through self-reflection. Broadly speaking, you could build a collection of activities or self-care strategies that are helpful to you that you can switch between, so if you grow indifferent with one, you know you have another strategy that could fulfill your needs.

to me, and I remember thinking it wouldn’t be something I would enjoy. How could a video game be an act of self-care? I didn’t play much video games at the time and upon reflection I realised I’d never really tried it. A couple of months later I bought a copy of the game and I ended up loving it! I found it a great way to take my mind off a busy day and it enhanced my overall wellbeing. What I learnt from this experience is that having an open mind allowed me to discover new things I wouldn’t have otherwise tried. It helped me realise that self-care can be so many things, but ultimately it is how you define itıś

Britnie Johnstonś- Compass Volunteer

In sum, that awareness and understanding of yourself you gain when you reflect can be quite beneficial for you, so you can find what you need to take care of yourself. Lastly, selfreflection can also be useful in other aspects of life, such as your work, education, social life, or matters that you need help with – which you can also contact Compass about, where we can help work with you to resolve them. I hope that has been useful to you – take care of yourself!

Aaron Aitken- Compass Volunteer I used to struggle with relaxation and found it difficult to wind down. A friend once suggested a cool video game

What self- care tool are you going to try?

UNYOKED

UNLEARNING MY LOVE FOR LEARNING NOA SHENKER

The first time I walked through the city campus at RMIT one question nagged at me a little more irritably than the others – what the fuck is that green thing on the side of that building? That notorious green blob identifiable on the corner of Swanston and La Trobe Street. It piqued such an interest within me. It was weird, wacky, and outrageous. It seemed so out of place; a splash of colour against the grey hues of the CBD, curved lines bisecting the rigid edges of the rest of the buildings. A piece of art hanging between the shadows of a KFC and a mini mart? It was strange, but it signified so much at the same time – this was something I’d never seen before, something entirely new. Ah, little old me was so excited! He loved to study. He was genuinely eager to venture into a new institution. He read for fun. He did all his work. He quivered at the thought of his classmates’ attention and thrilled at the validation of his tutors. He was really excited to learn. Just like that ugly green blob, he was excited for something new. That was over four years ago, and now I’m just over four months away from graduating, and what I presume to be

a quarter-life crisis (but that’s not what this is about). I’m a romantic at heart, and whether it was naïve of me or not, I romanticised the infinite possibilities uni life might entail as I departed my teen years and began intrepidly navigating my twenties. I loved learning, and I held within me a flame of desire for more of that. Four years on and I’m not quite as excited to be here. Don’t get me wrong – I still really love uni, it’s just not what I expected it to be. And, unfortunately, I think that love for learning within me has slowly burnt out, a flame smothered into occasional sparks. I just don’t really go to class to learn anymore; I go to make sure I can get good marks on my assignments, and that’s about it. It’s sad how my affection for learning has devolved. I don’t feel full of growing knowledge, but deadlines and due dates. The flicker of excitement I’d had to learn new things has slowly but surely died out. I think a lot of people my age can probably relate to this taut relationship they maintain with their degrees. Coupled with classes you’re

required to pay for that you have no interest in, oftentimes university feels like a chore and not a privilege. The lens through which we view our learning must be altered, even just a little, so we don’t lose touch with the feelings we once harboured for education. Regrettably, I have fallen out of love with learning, but I’m trying my best to reorient myself with that love. My parents and grandparents were not offered the same opportunities as me, and they constantly lament their wishes for an extended education at my age. I can’t throw away the chance to learn a little more. Maybe a postgraduate degree is on the horizon for me. Maybe a diploma or a masters. Maybe I’ll think about the growing HECS debt later on. I might have unlearned my love of learning, but relearning iÔ staring me in the eyes, begging me to give it a go, pleading with me to not give up on knowing more – and being more.

My heart might have emptied itself of this love, but it’s willing to be full again.

KELLY LIM

WHOOPS

ZAK WHEELER

It was all so slow; it’d been seven years since N/A’s plagued my report card and five years since I’d graduated with a B average. Highschool was a rollercoaster for me and I ended up enjoying it. I attended one in five days of high school in year 10, in year 12 I wagged three in five. I liked the place and had a vested interest in pursuing higher education, but friends were a distracting factor in my ability to form long-term goals. These friends lasted years after high school. We ruminated, time was paralysed and yet the world didn’t quit spinning. Living in rural South Australia allowed youth to seem infinite until it was lost in the blink of an eye, gone before you’d even thought about wasting it.

wasn’t in the public vernacular yet and the position was beginning to age all of us. After years of watching peers and former classmates begin their adult lives to varying levels of success, my friends decided to take their own leaps of faith. One moved with his parents to Adelaide while the other took the interstate journey to Brisbane to do something I didn’t quite understand. Now was my moment of truth; after years of saving nothing and enjoying the happiness a couple of bucks could buy you, I was left with the choice… Make new friends or plan a move of my own.

Our lives were mirrors of one another in the begging as we were filed into parallel positions at competing supermarkets.

I decided on the latter and dedicated 2019 to saving every cent of every paycheck for all 55 weeks of the year. Adding it all up, $20,000 seemed like a good enough safety net to ensure I didn’t bite off more than I could chew.

Years as a shelf-stacker doesn’t do much unless you’re interested in a steady wage and a nice car down the road. The term ‘essential worker’

After all, my biggest fear was announcing my departure only to either cancel it or move back to the family house after times got hard.

Maybe it was my narcissism, but I couldn’t stand to let my peers witness me fail. I’d seen it happen to too many people, even my brother, but it wasn’t happening to me. After months of living as a frugal country mouse, I reached out to my former teachers to discuss a path forward with my education. My favourite ex-teacher had always believed in my ability to follow through on my years-old commitment to continue studying, even after I disclosed that my own mother had lost faith. I was determined to become the first person in my side of the family to attend university. My cousins had enrolled years prior, but I would carry the Wheeler name into the coveted halls of some institution or another. The school didn’t matter, it just had to be Melbourne. Adelaide was too small and everywhere else was too far away, I had to be within driving distance of my favourite cats who weren’t making the move with me. ATAR scores were a thing of the past, mine had expired years ago and I assumed they weren’t the only way into university. Luckily, I was right and along came STAT, a compounded test examining the breadth of knowledge you possessed. I put aside the money and booked myself in for Septembers’ session. When I was seven, I wanted to be a journalist. The image of rushing to the scene of an incident and jotting notes in my pad or standing in front

of a camera, beaming out to every television in the region was thrilling. After watching all eight seasons of SCRUBS though, I wanted to become a doctor. Towards the end of my teenage years my mind began drifting to visons of something bigger, something entrepreneurial. I could name what I thought that was but I knew a business class would get me there and so it was settled, I would study business in Melbourne and the rest would fall into place. By October I had everything I needed. My savings were looking like I hoped they would, my STAT test had come back with an 86 score, meaning I could apply to any course I wanted, and I’d finally done it… I’d set it in stone and announced to friends and family that the big move was happening next year, February 2020. Applying for my courses was the easy part. My list of seven preferences had five different business courses lacing the top spots, as medicine came in sixth and journalism barely scraped in at seven. But hey I thought, why not pay some respect to my childhood dreams, everyone needs a wild card in their deck.

The confirmation email later informed me that that wild card would be the direction of my life for the foreseeable future. RMIT wanted me for my journalistic passion, and I concluded worse things could’ve happened. This

JASPER COHEN-HUNTER @. KE RILEY

hiccup would not cause delays. I would find a way to succeed in business later. There were no nerves in the weeks before my move, I was sure it wouldn’t be hard, and I’d already requested a transfer with my job to begin work in their central store in the heart of Melbourne. My transition to city cat would be swift with no hitches. Well since I was into journalism now, I decided I’d get into consuming news more often than I had been and what I time to do it. Reporters from around the world were clamouring to understand the severity of a novel coronavirus causing China to lockdown 11 million citizens across the country. America had shut its borders to China along with Europe and Australia, so at least we were safe. This virus will at least be handy for a couple of assignments, I was sure I’d write at least one article about it in my freshman year. A couple of cases trickled into countries around the world as citizens returned to their homeland, determined not to end up stranded in China with no way home. My main concern was for the protestors of Hong Kong, whose struggle for democracy was already suffering severe setbacks. This lockdown was surely the end of their fight and the beginning of their suffrage. There was no time to pay too much attention to all of it though. Governments had the situation

under control and populations were confident that with borders shut there would be no infringement on their safety from the virus with a million names. I arrived in Melbourne at 2am after a belated leaving in which I realised that I might actually miss my family and remaining few friends back home. If I was only going to leave once, it was going to be in my own time and with no rush. My apartment wasn’t great… Two roommates I didn’t know, and several dozen cockroaches I didn’t trust were my only company in this cold new home. I always wanted to live in a Highrise, but apparently not all apartments in the sky are equal. I grew to love the place over the course of a short few days. It didn’t take long with a sweeping view over Carlton and a fun ride in the elevator every day after a walk or a draining shift at a busy supermarket. University began and I loved it. Just across the street from my workplace and with more people than I had ever seen crammed into one room, orientation day was magical, and I had never felt more confident that I was doing the right thing. As I worked, I’d began listening to podcasts since workers are apparently allowed to wear wireless headphones in the city, things were surprisingly stricter in the country, but I was happy to let my mind float away as I filled these new shelves.

These podcasts were a ploy to gain ground in my classes. As I listened to report after report, trying to stay on top of the geyser of a 24-hour news cycle, this coronavirus became, well… like a virus! Spreading to every report I listened to, infecting it several times a show; it was the hottest thing since Donald Trump to entrap the zeitgeist.

at work, as shoppers started donning surgical masks in an attempt to stay ahead of the curve. People were getting scared and ‘panic buying’ had begun. Toilet paper and pasta were immediate victims of this new craze as supermarkets were forced to instate quantity limits of certain items per transaction.

I went into university for classes and the lecturers were enamoured with this phenomenon of SARS-2.0, an old coronavirus also originating in China which caused a scare which no student could remember because we were all too young or not born at the time.

I had a conversation with my manager about the likelihood of Victoria itself locking down. He barely stopped moving as laughter howled and insults were thrown. What an idiot I was for even considering that.

Italy had become a case study for the world on how to not handle the virus, which now had the umbrella name of COVID-19. But watching Italy crumble beneath the plague was bizarre, for before falling victim, Italy had a worldclass healthcare system. It seemed that suddenly nobody was safe. ‘Epicentre of the world’ became a popular phrase and that term of ‘essential worker’ began gaining traction as nations across the world began experiencing their own lockdowns. The world sat and watched the destruction brought about by the first global pandemic in over 100 years. More cases had been discovered within Australia, with cruise ships stranded at sea in New South Whales and international borders being slammed shut. We’d all became a little bit more isolated, but the world kept spinning and work continued. I noticed the changes creeping in most

We weren’t some “third-world country, incapable of containing a little virus,” according to the guy supplying my pay checks. “When we get hundreds of cases- IF we even get any cases, then talk to me about a lockdown.” That was that. Work continued, masks were only a suggestion, and life went on. “Did you hear?” a friend of mine from RMIT whispered to me mid-class, “the email is coming out by Thursday. Courses are going online.” It’s exactly what I didn’t want to happen but had witnessed across Melbourne in the preceding days. Countless schools were closing their doors for fear of being the latest superspreader venue. COVID-19 cases had been ticking up at an alarming rate over the second half of March. First the numbers were

small enough to ignore, then daily cases hit the double digits, then doubled again after that to hit 20 cases a day. My friend was correct, RMIT closed its doors that week and my study went virtual. The exact scenario I had avoided for years in my hometown was now a reality. Choosing an online course would have saved me thousands, but the experience it would have deprived me of was not worth the saved bucks at the end of the day. Now that the experience was no longer on offer to me, my thoughts drifted to a question I never conceived myself asking… Should I go home? I sat through my online classes in the next couple of days and relaunched the discussion with my manager who seemed more abrupt than last time we spoke. “This isn’t happening, get it straight”, he told me, “They’d never shut down the city. Think about the money they’d lose.”

last to the decision I’d made. My roommates were understanding and even offered to store my belongings in case I decided to return within a month or two. I arrived back in South Australia March 19th, days before Daniel Andrews announced a statewide lockdown across Victoria. I experienced my first COVID test upon my return. Melbourne was about to become the new epicentre of the world. As the swab went up my nostril and took a hook-turn at my eyeball, my utter disappointment was palpable as the realisation sunk in that I hadn’t made it a month out of home. I took solace in the fact that the closest thing to an act of God had forced me into this decision, but that was only sort of reassuring. More reassuring was the fact that at least I wasn’t locked in a room with cockroaches and bad WIFI, and the minor detail that I had been reunited with my favourite cat.

“Do what you feel is safest, I don’t care” was all he said before rushing off to replenish empty shelves.

The rest of 2020 dragged on as online classes persevered and my classmates began to loathe me and my constant mentions of freedom and fresh air. The lockdown ended after 111 days, leaving Melbournians with a couple weeks of serenity before the second lockdown.

Within days I started re-packing my room. I’d made it a whole 23 days before giving up and moving home. I alerted my family first and my boss

I’d replanned and recouped my losses, 2021 would be a reboot of 2020- only with in-person classes to

“Well I’ve been thinking about moving back to South Australia to wait it out, how much warning would you need for that?” I asked.

stay this time. Being superstitious I had organised to move back to Melbourne exactly one year to the day of my original move. This plan did not work out as Melbourne entered its third lockdown, momentarily inconveniencing me but I figured that I’d gotten off lightly as opposed to the locals who were experiencing severe whiplash by this point in time. I’m back in Melbourne now, with a new flat and different roommates, with a confidence that I’ll actually make it this time. Unless the world ends this year, I will remain in Melbourne and fight through future lockdowns like the rest of you… Like the rest of us. With a fourth lockdown over and done with, I feel I’ve even earned my spot amongst locals. I didn’t run away from this one, I’ve paid my dues and now there’s no leaving.

JASPER COHEN-HUNTER @. KE RILEY

PLAYLIST SHELDON GAIT VE OFFICER

From little things big things growś E}Ý»ś0 »»ïśś

Float Away K Ú¬śK ÀÚÐï

Perth Traumatic Stress Disorderś » îś2}¬ ï

1955 #®»»ÚÅÎś#ÅÅ Ô

I’m Still Standing »ÚÅÀś.Å¬Àśś

Holdin on »Ý¿

CATACLYSM PODCAST LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD Email Catalyst at: catalyst@rmit.edu.au

10 A Fleeting Moment of Beauty, Calm Before the Storm

12 Catching Up with Georgia Frances King

17 Turns Out I Was Meant To Be A Designer

26 Put It On Your Story, It’ll Last Longer

30 A Flicker of the Past

33 To All the Art I Loved Before

40 Unlearning My Love for Learning

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