Woroni Edition One 2017

Woroni o-Week, Semester 1, 2017

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ANU t n Studeia Med Indigenous Pull Out On Pages 32-27

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Let’s Talk About Parking Nick douros

Issue 1, Vol. 67

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Page 56

The People’s Preezydent

Dress Like a Woman

Ruben Seaton

Mia Jessurun

Page 42

Page 63

All that Glitters: Versailles at the NGA

The perfect bruncH? I’ll avo go!

Daniel McKay

Ollie Brown

Contents 1

1, Vol. 672, 2016 Week Issue 10, Semester

Contents

Acknowledgement Acknowledgementofofcountry Country Editor’sLetter Letter Editor’s News 5

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Stud broad Minwei Xie

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feautures

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Dorm Room Friendly Flora Georgia Leak and ANU Vege-Table Woroni From the Past

ANU Strategic Plan Reveals New Direction for the University Alex Joske

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Union Court: The Final Stretch Lorane Gaborit

The Emerging Self Hannah Wolfhagen

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ANU Academics Speak Out Against US Visa Changes James Turner

Achieving My Independence Tatsunori Yamaguchi

Where is Home?

Nigarish Haider

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Resume Writing ANU Student Experience & Career Development A Shy Person’s Guide to University Imogen McKay 50

Summer ovin Phoebe Hamra

28 7

Chi e evel to Open Lorenzo McMiken comments 8

Backpacker and Privilege The Backpacker’s Privilege Rosie Heselev Rosie Heselev 9

Is Cory Bernardi Australia’s Trump?

Max Koslowski 10

Marching For, Not Against Codie Bell

Death Amongst the Growth Interview with Kien Shoshana Rapley Red Thread Jordan Roux

et s alk bout arkin Nick Douros 12

Enlightened Gift Giving Briony Roelandts 13

A Sewer of Political Discourse Robert Morris I Was Sexually Assaulted on Saturday Night Jayne Hoschke Inside the Mind of Frank Jackson: Part 1 Anthony Merlino 16

Get Hair ebruar Em Roberts

Slick but Sava e Lydia Kim

etter from the ec Makayla-May Brinckley

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Developing the Department Braedyn Edwards

A Field School in Kamchatka, Russia Matthew Teh

33

he olitics of ove in a Colonial Economy Kate Daglas

science Resolutions: and why they (mostly) do not work Imogen Brown

The Politics of the White Saviour Complex Tyrone Evans

business & economics

Widening the Gap Kieren Murray

56

ress ike Mia Jessurun

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The Intertwining of Archaeology and bori inal Herita e Makayla-May Brinckley ocal lack Services and Organisations

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etters ever inished Una Chen 19

Waiting for the Trump Card Scott Hamilton 20

Kicking Goals Towards Gender Equality Emma Wiggins 20

uick fire uestions with kta Nathalie Rosales-Cheng 21

Dear International Students Kathryn Lee multilingual 22

Breaking Down Walls Rosalind Moran Samsara Juntao Liu

57

Technological Improvement: Good, Bad or Terrifying?

Tatsunori Yamaguchi 58

arts sport

The Stories of One Billion Voices Nicholas Campton-Smith

59

Event Guide

Your Crash Course to Playing ANU Sport Ollie Brown Ollie Brown

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The Poetry of Protest Gabriela Falzon

ANU Women in Sport? You Go, Girls!

Mary Waters

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Go Back to Where You Came From!

Janice Peh

Diving in Head First Marc van Zeyl

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All That Glitters: Versailles at the NGA Daniel McKay

satire 63

43

ille s evine Caf Galler Diana Tung

neham

The I’llI’ll Avo Go!Go! The Perfect PerfectBrunch?

Brunch?

Avo Ollie OllieBrown Brown 64

he Secret Histor b Victoria Fay LIfe and style 44

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oman

Donald’s Distortion Dilemmas ??????

Flint O’Neil

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Dear Woroni Mary-Anne Nolan

onna artt

Contact

Phone: (02) 6125 9574 Shop 15, Lena Karmel Building 26 Barry Drive, Acton 2601 Woroni is printed by Capital Fine Print.

Board of Editors

Editor in Chief: Bronte McHenry Managing Editor: Kat Carrington Deputy EiC: Finn Pedersen Content Editor: Lauretta Flack News Editor: Alex Joske Radio Editor: Oscar Jolly TV Editor: Kanika Kirpalani Art Editor: Joanne Leong

staff and Sub-Editors

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The People’s Preezydent Ruben Seaton

‘Woroni’ translates to ‘mouthpiece’ in the Ngunnawal language.

53

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International

We would also like to acknowledge that this land – which we benefit from occupying – was stolen, and that sovereignty was never ceded. Within this ongoing echo of colonialism we commit, as writers and editors, to amplify the voices and stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people at our university.

environment

People have the Power Caitlin Hughes

indigenous department pull-out

35 15

We pay our respects to Elders past, present and future.

We will honour the diversity of their stories and stand by their right to recognition.

A Brief Introduction to a Sustainable Summer Grace Dudley

Make the Internet Great Again Martin Holmes-Preston

34 14

We acknowledge the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, who are the traditional owners of the land on which Woroni is written, edited and printed.

52 31

32 11

Acknowledgement of Country

Bar Rochford vs. Molly’s Yashi Kotnala

51 30

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Cash me Marx Cash MeOusside Ousside Marx Elizabeth Harris Elizabeth Harris Cartoon Cartoon Caitlin CaitlinSetnicar Setnicar

Admin Assistant: Arun Murali Financial Controller: Brendan Greenwood Business Development: Fred Weber Marketing: Mark Manantan Social Media: Laura Mendoza Garcia Instagram: Tony Gu Event Guide: Mehar Chawla Comment: Lewis Pope Comment: James Atkinson International: Nathalie Rosales Cheng Features: Amanda Dheerasekara Multilingual: Rosalind Moran Arts: Phoebe Hamra Reviews: Alex Green Life & Style: Georgia Leak Environment: Grace Dudley Science: Jenny Tinston Business & Economics: Victor Sukeerth Munagala Sport: Ollie Brown Creative Writing: Nadia Kim Creative Writing: Emilie Morscheck Satire & Humour: Eleanor Armstrong News: Lorenzo McMiken News: Jasper Lindell News: Lorane Gaborit News: James Turner News: Isabella Di Mattina-Beven Distributor and Radio Presenter Liason: Loretta Lackner Radio Technical Officer: Will Fletcher Music: Cosmo White Social Media: Poppy Perry-Evans Events & Sports: Stephanie David Art: Rowan Everard Art: Tom Campbell Design: Katie Ward Design: Julia Hammer Television Manager: Bremer Sharp Camera Operator: Prajdnik Awasthi Reporter: Casley Rowan Reporter: Jemimah Cooper Reporter: Linda Chen Photography: Dillon Vibes Photography: Chloe Tredea Photography: Marwan Elhassan Photography: Natasha Tioukavkin Photography: Christine Song

We acknowledge the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, who are the traditional owners of the land on which Woroni is written, edited and printed.

We pay our respects to Elders past, present and future.

We would also like to acknowledge that this land – which we benefit from occupying – was stolen, and that sovereignty was never ceded. Within this ongoing echo of colonialism we commit, as writers and editors, to amplify the voices and stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people at our university.

We will honour the diversity of their stories and stand by their right to recognition.

Issue 1, Vol. 67

Editor’s letter

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— — —

Editor’s Letter

A New News Team at Woroni

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Alex Kanika

Joanne

Kat

Finn

Lauretta

Oscar Bronte

Text: Bronte McHenry Dinner: Finn Pedersen

What is the purpose of the media?

Is it to deliver unbiased, informative and topical information to consumers? Is it to uncover conspiracies and stand tall as the ‘organ of truth’? Is it to unite a world that can often feel divided and different to the core?

Perhaps a better question – or one that is slightly easier to answer – would be whether these definitions are realistic expectations in a world where stories can be bought and profit must be made?

With this in mind I now ask, what is the purpose of student media?

Finally, a question I can answer! To deliver unbiased, informative and topical information to a university community.

To uncover on-campus conspiracies and share real stories, uniting a campus that is often so large that students can feel lost amongst the fast-turnovers and frequent events.

I now ask, are these expectations often met? Student media publications in Australia are always (with just one exception) a small part of a larger body,

often a Student Union or Association.

This means that potential editors generally run alongside student politicians, or are simply handpicked by the winning candidates. Most student media publications are entirely dependent on these organisations for funding and existence which, as you can imagine, means that some opinions just cannot be published and some stories are never shared.

Hypothetically, a student media publication that could truly deliver unbiased and truthful content would have to be independent from any student association. For this to be possible the publication would have to be its own association, thereby making the members (read: owners) the students. The publication would need multiple sources of revenue to ensure it could survive on its own, and the editors in charge would need to be directly elected by the students.

Sounds like the dream. Sounds like Woroni.

In 2011, a small group of Woroni editors decided to split from ANU Student Association (ANUSA) and establish an independent student media organisation.

Smart choice? Yes. Rocky start? Yes, very.

Fast forward to the end of 2016 and we had: increased the size of the newspaper from 12 to 64 pages; established Woroni

Radio; rebranded; received national attention for some of our content, which went on to set in motion larger social movements; seen our news articles republished by the likes of the Sydney Morning Herald; and, of course, adopted the wombat as our mascot.

This semester you can expect a paper that you cannot put down until you have devoured every page. You will have the option of a PDF or hardcopy version, a creative writing magazine at the end of semester, and a ruthless and talented news team dedicated to delivering you constant, high-quality news content.

You will see an increase in the amount of shows Woroni Radio has to offer, and be able to enjoy the quality sound being broadcasted from our recently renovated professional studio. You will be invited to join us for a ‘Lunch Break’ every fortnight in Union Court, where we will be serving up free food and answering any questions you have about Woroni, and you will have the chance to attend over 15 professional development workshops – you can hold me to that number.

You will get to witness the launch and growth of Woroni Television, our newest media platform, and will be gobsmacked by the innovative and high-functional website we will be launching on 17 April.

This is the Woroni you can expect this semester. This is the Woroni we will deliver.

Woroni’s news team reports on and investigates matters that interest ANU students. We seek to engage students with factual and balanced reporting so that they are well informed and aware of the debates, controversies and happenings surrounding them.

With a fresh news team led by Alex Joske as News Editor and staffed

by Jasper Lindell, Lorenzo McMiken, Lorane Gaborit, Bella Dimattina and James Turner as News Correspondents, we hope to exceed our past standards and serve you a heavy dose of professionalism and excitement this year.

We are always looking for new tips, ideas and opinions, so feel free to get in contact with any of our six team members.

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O-Week, Semester 1, 2017

news

ANU Strategic Plan Reveals New Direction for the University improve equity at the university. The plan points out that only four percent of ANU students are identified as coming from disadvantaged backgrounds and that the ANU aims to ‘increase opportunities for students from all walks of Australian life’.

Text: Alex Joske

ANU Vice Chancellor Professor Brian Schmidt has announced the ANU’s plans to focus on improving equity, academic excellence, engagement and other targets for the next five years in the ANU Strategic Plan 2017–2021.

The plan, which was unveiled at a speech

by Professor Schmidt on Thursday, comes in the form of a document wide in scope but short on detail.

Among the primary strategies outlined in the document are new initiatives to

Gender equity is also discussed in the plan, which states that while the majority of ANU students are female, ‘there are some notable exceptions [in the university] that are strongly gender biased’, and that progression rates of academic staff remain biased against women.

Among the initiatives announced in order to improve gender equity is the ANU Futures Scheme, a funding program that will provide grants to ‘high-potential early and mid-career researchers’, with at least 50 percent of recipients being women. The university has also announced that it aims to achieve a SAGE Athena Swan Gold award, which recognises gender equity at an institution.

The ANU plans to increase engagement with CSIRO, industry and alumni, with Professor Schmidt saying that ‘By working with business and industry, we can multiply our impact’.

‘We also need to change the culture here at ANU, and embed within us people who have successfully worked with business and industry’, Professor Schmidt added.

Other initiatives include using measures of student learning and satisfaction to ‘drive a regeneration of [the ANU’s] approaches to curriculum, teaching and digital and physical learning space design.’ Currently, ANU collects student evaluations of teachers through the Student Experience of Learning and Teaching (SELT) system.

However, student evaluations have been widely criticised after multiple studies found them to be biased against female teachers. The authors of a January 2016 London School of Economics report on student evaluations concluded that ‘The

mere fact that SET [student evaluations of teachers] are numerical gives them an un-earned air of scientific precision and reliability’.

‘SET are evidently biased against women (and likely against other underrepresented and protected groups)—and worse, do not reliably measure teaching effectiveness’, the authors added.

Professor Schmidt said that in 2018 the university will be reforming its admissions process to incorporate more than potential students’ ATAR scores. The plan also states that the university will ‘increase in the ratio of student applications to acceptances’, indicating that admission to ANU may be more competitive in future.

Union Court: The Final Stretch

Text: Lorane Gaborit

It is no secret that O-Week 2017 will be the last to be celebrated in Union Court as we know it. Instead, Reimagining Union Court, the proposed redevelopment of the Union Court and University Avenue area, has been described as ‘the largest single revitalisation the ANU has ever contemplated’ and is set to begin midyear.

With the aim of ‘putting the heart back into campus’ according to Executive Director of ANU Administration and Planning Chris Grange, the project claims to have been designed in conjunction with over 20,000 suggestions from students, staff and community members.

However, complaints have already arisen amongst community members over aspects of the project like the relocation of ANU Bar into a centralised flexible entertainment and functions complex.

Similarly, the construction of a swimming pool in the recreation building has come under fire over claims that university funds could be better directed towards understaffed services like ANU Counselling, which are known to have week-long waiting lists during peak periods of the year.

Although Union Court itself will not be closed off until midyear, semester one will see the construction of a temporary pop-up village in the green spaces between the Haydon-Allen Building and JC Crawford Building, as well as within Melville Hall. This pop-up village will be home to retail stores, student services and common spaces during construction and development of union court.

ANUSA and PARSA will be amongst the services to be based in Melville Hall, whilst food trucks and temporary housing will accommodate services ranging from chemists to cafes in the outdoor spaces. Suggestions relating to the layout and inclusions of the pop-up village can still be made online on the Reimagine Union Court website.

Funds for the project are being sourced from student accommodation investors

Infratil and Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation, who have been awarded a 30-year financial concession and lease arrangement in exchange for providing capital investment to upgrade facilities. Other investors have not yet been publicly named.

2017 Commencement Address Join us at the annual ANU Commencement Address to welcome new and returning students to the University as we start the academic year.

Speakers include: Professor Brian P. Schmidt AC, Vice-Chancellor Thérèse Rein, Australian entrepreneur, founder of Ingeus and 2014 ANU Alumni of the Year Senator the Hon. Simon Birmingham, Minister for Education and Training Jamila Rizvi, columnist, presenter, commentator, author and 2014 ANU Young Alumnus of the Year Alyssa Shaw, President, Postgraduate and Research Students’ Association (PARSA) James Connolly, President, ANU Students’ Association (ANUSA)

Hosted by Professor Marnie Hughes-Warrington, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) Free Boost juices* and the first 50 first-year students to arrive will receive an ANU t-shirt.

Wednesday 15 February 2017, 10-11am Lawns of University Avenue (across from Sullivans Creek Bridge) *Boost juices limited to 500.

CRICOS #00120C MO_SCAPA161546

> > > > > >

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O-Week, Semester 1, 2017

news

Chifley Level 3 to Open 24/7 saying that the university has worked to ensure the library is an accommodating study space, with student safety and comfort being placed at the forefront of the new design.

Text: Lorenzo McMiken

For off-campus students wanting to do late night study at the ANU, constant access to level 2 of Chifley library has been a useful service. Yet, anyone who has actually used the space late at night or in the early hours of the morning will know of the chronic issue of overcrowding, with scenes of students sitting on the floor a common sight. In an attempt to address this, Chifley level 3 is under renovation and will be open 24/7 for the 2017 academic year.

University Librarian Roxanne Missingham commented on the refurbishment,

Chifley Branch Manager Meredith Duncan indicated that when work is completed, level 3 will be able to accommodate roughly 200 students, up from around 170. Other features will include new group study tables divided by sound proofed barriers, as well as new chairs, carpet and power points.

Ms. Duncan said that level 3 of Chifley Library will be open in time for O-week, but added that aspects of the renovation will likely be incomplete. The project is due to be completed by week one.

Ms. Duncan also added that no future renovations to Chifley library are planned, but indicated level 2 might have to undergo work as part of the larger Union Court redevelopment.

ANU Academics Speak out Against US Visa Changes held in the US has gained over 6,000 signatures including a number of ANU staff. Senior Lecturer at the ANU College of Law Linda Kirk is one of the signatories of the petition who believes the executive order is ‘squarely at odds with the commitment of the international academic community to equitable access by students and staff to the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge.’

Text: James Turner Academics from across the ANU have spoken out against US President Donald Trump’s 27 January executive order barring citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the US for 90 days. The Executive Order is aimed at citizens of Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Libya and Sudan on national security grounds, including those with green cards and visas to enter the US. An online petition calling for an academic boycott of international conferences

‘The implications of this for ANU staff and students, indeed for all members of the international academic community, is that the perspectives, knowledge and contributions of nationals from these predominantly Muslim countries will be excluded from international academic gatherings in the United States.’

In an email to students on 30 January ANU Vice-Chancellor Professor Brian Schmidt advised that students should ‘contact their supervisor before confirming any travel plans and, in addition, should monitor Smart Traveller for updates.’ Any Australians who have travelled to the seven Muslim-majority

countries in the past six years are no longer able to enter the US under the Visa Waiver Program.

‘The boycott is necessary to demonstrate solidarity with the nationals from the seven countries affected by the executive order. It is tantamount to a call for organisations to relocate any proposed conferences to outside the United States so that all academics who wish to attend and participate in international conferences will be able to do so equally without threat of or actual refusal of entry at the US border,’ Kirk said.

Professor Schmidt’s email says ‘I’m sure many of you share my alarm and deep concern at the Executive Order … ANU welcomes our students, staff and visitors from these countries without prejudice and will support those affected by the restrictions.’ He has also signed a US petition of academics and Nobel Laureates opposing the executive order.

Professor Schmidt has a shared a number of quotes and articles on Twitter critical of Trump. In a response to a tweet

by the Rogue NASA account about an Australian student not being able to attend Space Camp because of his Iranian background, Professor Schmidt said ANU was offering an equivalent experience in Canberra to any Australians affected.

Comment

Issue 1, Vol. 67

8

reaching into the colonial pocket

the backpacker’s privilege Text: Rosie Heselev Illustration: Caitlin Setničar

Backpacking has become something of a rite of passage – a young person goes travelling for an extended period of time to experience the world and find themselves. Although we’ve always moved nomadically, globalisation has enabled an unprecedented rise in backpacking.

Affordable travel has rendered the exotic within reach, while the prevalence of WiFi and Starbucks means the comfort of home is never far away. For some, backpacking is hedonistic fun – staying at party hostels with beer pong Thursdays and free WiFi with passwords like ‘G-Spot’. Others backpack to leave behind formal structures of work or study for a purer learning experience or adventure. But is backpacking a purely harmless endeavour to ‘experience the world’, or are attempts to ‘find oneself’ clouded in damaging power relations?

We must first recognise that backpacking is not a right, but a great privilege.

Movement, or the ability to relocate on a whim, has been explored by sociologist Bauman as a form of social stratification.

Travellers may pick and choose destinations, and when they become bored, the backpacker can move on. Conversely, the inability to move can also be seen as a reflection of poverty or poor political circumstances. Lack of financial means or the incapacity to cease work due to subsistence means that some may never have the luxury to travel. A passport is essential and, while many impoverished people cannot access them, some may restrict movement – such as if you are born Palestinian. Backpacker’s privilege, therefore, is particularly stark when juxtaposed with the poverty of host nations.

Backpacking reflects an unequal power dynamic between the West and developing host countries. Backpackers are predominantly white, middle class, and they represent the entitlement of old colonial powers such as UK, Germany and the USA. As wealth grows in pockets of Asia and Latin America, the number of backpackers increases.

Their relative wealth against poverty enables an uneven consumption of services, forcing locals to become their servers. In its simplest, this is a form of neo-colonialism – reflecting the relationship between a master and the slave. While the backpacker maintains all their freedoms, the impoverished local is instead condemned to a life of servitude on minimal wages and limited livelihood. This dependence is entrenched further as locals capitalise on the natural and cultural landscape of their homes. Beaches in Thailand host Full Moon parties, rivers in Laos become dominated by ‘tubing’ and drunk Australians. Or, for a price, in Guatemala one can become a Mayan ‘priest’.

This dependence on Western demand renders a loss of control, or even ownership of their nation’s beauty – often at the expense of environmental erosion and cultural appropriation.

As such, while ‘formally’ free from subservience with colonial powers, tourism maintains these relationships of dependence on the will and movement of the white man.

Nothing we do is in a vacuum, not even ‘finding oneself’.

The reality of unequal power relationships, therefore, contradicts the seemingly innocent venture of ‘self-exploration’. The backpacker’s capacity to travel for self-discovery alone is, of course, a great privilege. But the creation of the ‘self’ goes hand-in-hand with creating an ‘other’ on which to compare. The ‘other’ in many cases are the locals, who live ‘simply’, are ‘happy with nothing’ and ‘oh, so lovely’. While significant in enabling a reflection on our lives in the West, it can border on glorifying poverty or oversimplifying the complex nature of people and culture. Additionally, unequal power relationships are further exposed as backpackers are able to capitalise on their experiences.

Backpacking improves one’s cultural and social capital, developing the self towards desirable characteristics such as ‘educated’, ‘adventurous’, or ‘worldly’. Poverty too is capitalised on. While volunteering is an important and good endeavour, many programs exist purely as resume fillers – exploiting the poor to increase employment outcome. As such, our privilege to move feeds on our other privileges, often through exploiting and othering those less fortunate than ourselves.

While there is no way of avoiding our privilege, we can minimise our impact.

Travelling is an important and beautiful step towards a more open-minded and connected world, and should therefore be done carefully. Be polite, and show respect to service people. Try to learn some phrases in the national language. Shop locally, and avoid chain stores or multinational hotels. Volunteer, but for the right reasons, and avoid voluntourism that makes profits from human suffering. Go to the places less travelled. Ask for consent before taking photos. Bargain, but not too hard – your one dollar saving on a handmade dress won’t impact you, but could mean the difference between poverty or starvation for another. Most importantly, however, be grateful. Be grateful for the opportunity you have to ‘explore the world’.

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O-Week, Semester 1, 2017

Comment

is cory bernadi australia’s trump?

The right in Australia remains disjointed – could Bernardi be the one to bring the movement together?

Text: Max Koslowski

Trump campaign staff. Far-right strongmen in other countries have certainly done more with less.

Cory Bernardi sounded excited when he said: ‘You’ll hear more from me in 2017.’

And this political tremor comes at a time when Australians – particularly young Australians – are quick to disengage with politics. A recent ANU survey found that 40 percent of Australians are not satisfied with our democracy: the highest recorded levels since the 1970s. For younger people, like myself, the levels of satisfaction aren’t just historically low, but they are much lower than the current satisfaction levels of our parents and grandparents.

The Liberal Party Senator for South Australia has been publicly musing about his political future since May. In his last email to supporters in 2016, Bernardi made a particularly prescient comment: ‘In my youth I was told that the definition of madness was doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.’

Well – 2017 is here, and it is definitely different.

At 12.30pm on the February 7, Bernardi put an end to the speculation: ‘For many years, I have warned of the consequences of ignoring the clear signs. I have spoken of the need to restore faith in our political system and to put principle back into politics. I regret that too often these warnings have been ignored by those who perhaps needed to hear them most… So today I begin something new, built on enduring values and principles that have served our nation so well for so long. It is a political movement of Australian Conservatives.’

In the 24-hours following, senior party figures such as Eric Abetz and Peter Dutton criticised Bernardi. It was clear he wasn’t taking any other parliamentarians with him. He previously held one of the safest seats in the Australian Senate, but now finds himself stuck between two parties with long-established support.

We shouldn’t, however, dismiss Senator Bernardi’s intentions or capacity. After all, 2016 caught us all by surprise with a shock Brexit and a surprise Trump. The right in Australia remains disjointed – could Bernardi be the one to bring the movement together?

It wouldn’t be the wildest political event of recent times. He is a charismatic and capable leader; his weekly blog posts are wildly popular with far-right sympathisers; he is a key factional powerbroker that rallies support of the likes from George Christensen and even Tony Abbott. Plus, he’s already been creating campaign infrastructure. ‘Australian Conservatives’ – with its 50,000 members– has been established for months, and boasts the financial backing of Gina Rinehart with whom Bernardi travelled to New York with recently to meet

Much of our insecurities are founded in the inaction and uncertainty that have come to represent Australian politics. I have grown up in a political landscape that has switched leaders five times in six years, and with a parliament where the two leading parties have similar policy stances on too many issues. It’s an environment where common young progressive causes – same-sex marriage, action on climate change, Closing the Gap – have seen little to no progress in recent years.

It’s no wonder that in the last election more people voted for independents and minor parties than ever before. It’s no wonder that more people voted in Triple J’s Hottest 100 than there are 18-24-year olds enrolled with the Australian Electoral Commission. If the political class aren’t willing to engage with us about the issues we care about, then we’re unlikely to engage with them.

Many of my peers don’t know whether they will be able to get a job, because youth unemployment is above 13 percent: almost double what it was in 2008. They don’t know whether they should go to university, because the revolving door of Australian politics might deliver them unaffordable degrees. And they don’t know what to study, because they aren’t sure what industries will be next in line on globalisation’s conveyor belt of economic change.

This uncertainty isn’t due to the composition of this new generation of young people, but because of the new generation of politicians. I’m excited to leave school, to participate, and to vote, but the vicissitudes of Australian politics – he ones that have buoyed Bernardi tinto such a high political position – makes this attitude less and less common amongst young Australians.

But while Hanson has used this brand

of conservatism to bark now and then, Senator Bernardi will use them to bite.

He carries with him a leader’s legitimacy that Hanson can only wish for. He articulates similar views to Hanson, but with tangible effect – whether that be more discursive, through his popular books such as The Conservative Revolution, or legislative, by forcing the LNP’s hand on the Safe Schools program and marriage equality. It’s still to be tried and tested, but Cory Bernardi has the political and economic footing necessary to run a hell of an election campaign.

Quietly, a couple of days ago, One Nation registered the highest support it has ever had in NSW, with a ReachTEL poll pinning them at 16.3 percent of total preferences. In Western Australia their poll numbers have jumped to 11 percent according to The Weekend West, which could see them hold the balance of power in the state’s parliament. A recent Galaxy poll saw Hanson’s support at 16 percent in Queensland. And this was despite the month’s bluff and blunder surrounding former Senator Rod Culleton.

One Nation’s history of ceaseless infighting has marred its own legitimacy. Senator Bernardi, however, would be a fresh

figurehead for Australia’s far-right and a rallying point for the invigorated tensions that 2016 revealed. Remember, Turnbull’s government holds a one-seat majority in the House of Representatives. It wouldn’t take much for Bernardi to hold immense political sway until the next federal election.

This new conservative movement doesn’t just represent a continuation of Hanson and One Nation, it represents a betterment of the political right. The dangerous reality is that the senator from South Australia who promised an exciting 2017 could be the newest tally mark to add to the far-right’s recent global headway.

So who else is excited for 2017?

COmment

Issue 1, Vol. 67

10

This article contains discussions of sexual assault and related trauma

Marching For, Not Against Text: Codie Bell Photography: Jessy Wu

The Women’s March on Washington was a show of love and power for women and women’s rights, uniting people from all walks of life to affirm a sentiment first echoed by then-First Lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton: women’s rights are human rights, and human rights are women’s rights. When I put my hand up to organise the Canberra Sister March, I fully trusted my capability to run a rally for the ten friends I could bully into coming along. Imagine my surprise when over a thousand people showed up – representatives from groups and factions, but also families, little girls with home-made signs and screen printed t-shirts, dogs, students, ladies who told me they hadn’t marched since the sixties, men and women. While the issues we face in Australia are not the same as in the US, the temptation for politicians to traffic in hate and division for shortterm electoral advantage is creeping, and sexism is by no means dead.

Although the march was organised for the day after the Inauguration, our March was not anti-Trump. In fact, we organisers were not anti-anything – we firmly took the stance that we were pro-woman, pro-rights, pro-love and pro-tolerance. We had support from Canberra politicians across party lines, with representatives from each of the major parties joining us on the day, and many more offering their enthusiasm and well-wishes along with apologies.

This is not Politics as Usual.

We heard from a broad cross-section of the Canberra community, and the words of Jessy Wu, this year’s ANUSA Education Officer, rang true for me. She talked about how we think of girls being denied access to education as something that belongs in the past, or the developing world – but these barriers to women’s education are still alive, even at the ANU. An investigation by news program Sunday Night revealed that of the 575 reported sexual misconduct cases at Australian universities, only six resulted in an expulsion. At ANU, there were 47 reported instances of sexual misconduct, but none resulted in expulsion.

College residents who took demeaning and degrading photos of their neighbours without consent may no longer live with the women they victimised, but they still roam the same campus.

To Jessy’s voice, I add my personal concern. We know that from the age of 15, one in five Australian women and 1 in 22 Australian men will likely experience sexual violence. We also know that close to 50 percent of sexual assault victims

will go on to develop PTSD-like symptoms. A campus sexual assault survivor myself, I know the soul-sucking quicksand of trauma, wrapping its tendrils around my mind. For me, it means sleeping for 18 hours a day, missing meals, appointments, and opportunities – because nothing is worth it, and I’m not worth it either. Some of my contemporaries like to make jokes about being ‘triggered’, but when I was still living on-campus with my rapist, triggers limited my physical movement – whom I could be in a room with, where I could go. Being triggered would send me running to a ladies’ bathroom or my room at college, crying uncontrollably and

inconsolably, throwing my entire day down the toilet. How many of our fellow students carry this burden around with them, while their classmates are free to pursue their dreams? We know that many sexual assault survivors take longer to finish their degrees or drop out altogether. When sexual assault affects women disproportionately, what happens to their right to an education?

Clear-eyed on these problems, at the Women’s March I was made hopeful by the faces looking back at me as we finished the march with a cheer for everyone who had come. ‘I love being a girl’, a little girl’s sign flashed out at me. Me too

little one, I thought. The most important face in the crowd for me, however, was another first-time rally-goer. My mum – who taught me how to be a feminist without ever saying the word – drove from our home in Sydney to support me at the Canberra rally. A single mum at 17, she was by every objective measure too busy to do what I do now at 23. But without her, none of this would be possible, and her pride means the world to me.

Not anti-Trump. Pro-woman, pro-love, pro-pride. We’re going to change the world.

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O-Week, Semester 1, 2017

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Let’s Talk About Parking Text: Nick Douros

I’m sure most ANU students would be able to recount a horror story or two about parking on campus, or even recall an issue with the Parking Office itself.

Time and time again, the Parking Office and its inspectors have been ruthless in their conduct. They will accept no excuse for parking in the wrong spot, or staying even a little over time. In one incident last year, I was actually fined while parking in a parking station after the Parking Office cancelled my permit by accident.

Parking at the ANU is something that, as a community, we need to talk about. It is becoming increasingly frustrating to both find and afford parking on campus.

What we have seen in the last three years are huge increases in parking costs with no actions to address increasing demand.

This year, for off-campus residents, an annual Student Surface Parking Permit is now at $411 whereas, in 2014, the same permit cost $336.60. While this is the cheapest permit available on campus you are not actually guaranteed a spot, and after 8.45am finding a park becomes a nightmare. This year, Daley Road residents will also face a $65 increase in the cost of parking permits at the Dickson Parking Station.

The ANU Administration, who set the fees through the Facilities and Services Division, have decided to raise the cost of 2017 Student Parking Station Permits to 75 percent of staff rates. This results in a $1,836.23 payment for a yearly permit at Baldessin or Kingsley Parking Stations – a $740 increase since 2014. The increase in parking permits prices with no explanation from the ANU Administration is concerning. It forces students to look for other alternatives to get to and from campus and may even restrict them from being active members of the ANU community. For some, there is the option to cycle or walk, while for others, these options are not realistic alternatives. Students who do not live in the Inner North have to rely on buses to get to and from university and the services are frequently unreliable and indirect – travelling times from outer Canberra and Regional NSW can be 40-80 minutes long.

So what are we meant to do? We are could use the ‘pay and display’ option but face paying up to $10 or four hours of parking, which would add up quickly. We could take a gamble on a parking permit and battle to find a spot each day. Or, we could refuse to do either and risk the infringement penalties of $79 to $200 per ticket.

ANUSA President James Connolly has had meetings with the ANU Executive about this issue. When contacted for comment about the increase in permit costs this year, Connolly said that it was a ‘particular concern because it was done so without explanation on the part of the University Executive, despite efforts ... to seek explanation.’ The ANU Parking and Director of Facilities and Services have made it clear that it is the University Executive that dictate the price of parking on campus each year.

Connolly made it clear that although he reached out to ANU Executive Director of Administration and Planning Chris Grange, he is still waiting for a response.

When I contacted the Director of Facilities and Services asking about the decision, they informed me that ‘parking fees pay for maintenance and upgrades of car parks, road line markings, signage and to monitor car parks.’ The Kingsley Parking Station, however, has had leaking pipes since I purchased my 90-day pass at the start of 2017. This is simply not good enough.

As it stands right now, the ANU has four multilevel parking stations, one of which is for the residents of Daley Road.

The ANU could offer greater parking availability if more multilevel parking stations were built on top of the existing parking areas already available. We should be building upwards, instead of taking up more land by expanding outwards. To me it appears that the wealth of money being collected from parking fees and fines is not being reinvested into maintaining and creating parking facilities. Considering the lack of adequate services on offer, the parking costs incurred by students are unreasonable and have not been clearly justified by the University Executive. When many students already struggle to meet the day-to-day expenses that come from living independently, and often find it difficult to balance necessary part-time work with study, the added cost of overpriced parking adds unnecessary stress to student life.

This year the NUS ACT State Branch in conjunction with ANUSA will be running a petition lobbying the ACT Government and the ANU Administrations to address parking on campus to provide more spots. It also calls for a freeze to Student Parking Fees for the next two years and a formal explanation for the decision to raise Parking Station permits to 75% of Staff Rates.

Issue 1, Vol. 67

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Things I Won’t Accept and You Shouldn’t Either

enlightened gift giving Text: Briony Roelandts Briony is one of those ‘killjoy feminists’ who attends events only to ruin them by pointing out everyday sexism. She’s a second-year studying a Bachelor of ‘just Arts’, majoring in feminism and white men’s past achievements. This column is for and about the boss bitches who were told they were being ‘hysterical’ for pointing out cultural practices that are so vehemently anti-woman.

Yeah, yeah. I know.

Women have the vote. Women have jobs.

Women have paid parental leave.

What more could we possibly want?

It’s a good thing you ask, because, here’s what I want: for Western cultural attitudes towards gender, which are so deeply engrained with sexism, to be weeded out of our society.

Let’s look, for instance, at gift-giving and the gendering of objects. The holiday season has quickly come to an end, so I ask you to reflect back on the gifts you chose for the children in your family.

Perhaps you gave your niece a princess costume or a cookbook, and your nephew a superhero costume or a toy truck.

On face-value, these gifts seem innocent, but the long-term impacts are far more detrimental.

The majority of toys, clothes and books marketed to girls are, to put it simply, sexist.

They reflect the gender roles that women have been forced to occupy historically.

Kitchen sets marketed solely to girls remind us of a not-too-distant time when women were forced to stay at home and become mothers, homemakers and wives. Dolls, celebrated for their vanity, reflect a society within which women are treated as objects.

Toys produced in 2017 echo the values of the 1950s. And we buy into it.

There’s nothing wrong with young women cooking, wearing make-up, or playing with dolls, but when girls are offered toys that offer them no alternative to these activities, children’s playtime

becomes a stark precursor for life ahead in our patriarchal society. Children need a choice, because being told that they must fit in a certain mould to qualify as a woman is disempowering.

These practices also alienate young boys from liking toys that are seen as traditionally feminine, as when they do play with ‘girls toys’ they are seen as ‘soft’ – reinforcing a subconscious belief that women are weaker than men. And who primarily propagates this idea? Materialistic, capitalist corporations run by men in the West.

Journalist Laura Bates states that ‘young children are not always equipped, as most adults are, with the critical tools to analyse and probe information.’ We live in a materialistic society where we are defined by, and identify with, our possessions. Young children have very limited agency in what they buy and are given, so they are conditioned to like things that are stereotypically feminine or masculine. If a young girl is continuously given princess and fairy paraphernalia, and nothing else, what else does she know, and what real choice is she given to express her identity and realise her own interests?

This year for Christmas, I visited the website amightygirl.com to buy gifts for my young cousins. I wanted to make sure that I was sending positive messages about womanhood to my young female cousin, so bought her the children’s edition of Little Women and a Frida Kahlo colouring book. Women like Jo March and Kahlo set a positive example for young women – they broke down gender barriers and exceeded society’s expectation of them.

And what did I get for my young male cousin? A book called Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Right to Vote, because if young women have to learn about the history of men, then young men should learn about herstory. They must be aware of the inherent privilege that men – particularly those who are white, heterosexual, cisgendered, able-bodied and middle-class – have systematically received throughout history, and continue to receive today.

It is also important to recognise that products, and the way that they are advertised, are not only sexist, but are also blatantly void of People of Colour, LGBTIQ people, and their experiences. The construction and continuation of the single point of view is constant.

The long-term effects are evident, with a continuation of these gender roles extending throughout school, university and in the workplace. And it starts early.

Look at the current lack of women in STEM. A recent study published in the journal Science found that girls begin to doubt their intelligence at six years old. From a young age, women are told that we are better at ‘caring’ roles, that we shouldn’t be too ambitious, that we are subjected to subconscious bias, and that we endure systematic sexism. And it starts at a young age: from the moment a young girl is given a baby doll for her first birthday.

I’ll give you a challenge: As you watch television advertisements this week, identify traits that are stereotypically assigned to the women and men on the screen. How are products marketed different to these groups? Educate yourself about this bias. Call it out. Start the conversation.

O-Week, Semester 1, 2017

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A SEWER OF POLITICAL DISCOURSE Text: Robert Morris Illustration: Joanne Leong

poor 12-year-old kid for the duration of the segment, whose only crime was having the type of mother that takes their kid onto Jerry Springer in the first place.

I have a confession to make: I love trashy 90s daytime TV. My favourite episode of Jerry Springer is called ‘I Married a Horse’, and it is about exactly what you think it would be about. Jerry starts by bringing Mark and his ‘partner’ on stage, where they proceed to make out for what would otherwise be an uncomfortably long time for humans. Needless to say it’s absolutely phenomenal television.

You see, people like blood sport.

It’s frightfully entertaining. In this sense, contemporary politics is essentially the same trashy TV that we’ve been watching for decades, only we’ve added the tiniest pretence of intellectualism so to convince ourselves that it’s not. It’s fun watching ‘X gets BTFO on Y’ or ‘A schools B on C’ videos, not because they make us think, but because they make us feel.

And then come the edits, the dubs and the bad lip readings. Acknowledging our desire for cheap entertainment is the first step towards being able to separate the good from the bad in our current climate of faeces-throwing political discourse.

Another one of my favourite episodes is ‘Single Mum Can’t Control Their Kid’.

First off, Jerry introduces the parent who tearfully explains that their child is ‘just out of control.’ ‘Awwwwww’, the crowd coos, as Jerry nods like the understanding therapist we are led to believe he is.

The kid comes out next, cursing profusely to a chorus of boos. The camera pans to an entire room of adults jeering at the 12-year-old. ‘You’re such a bad mother,’ the child yells, ‘*beep*, why don’t we go outside?’ The crowd revels in it. They continue to humiliate and insult the

We should not be surprised when a channel that gave us such shows as Jersey Shore, Teen Mom, and 16 and Pregnant releases garbage like NY Resolutions for White Guys, Decoded with Franchesca Ramsey and White People.

By adding the perceived respectability and nobility of politics to their shows, we are led to believe we aren’t watching pure, unadulterated trash. After all, you can polish a turd all you want but in the end it’s just a shiny turd.

Pauline Hanson, a growing force in Australian politics, made her big comeback in 2004 as a contestant and eventual runner-up in Channel 7’s Dancing with The Stars. Even James Mathison, the other host from Australian Idol, ran as an independent in the 2016 federal election. Everyone knows these shows are crap – it’s why we watch them, and it’s why we should never vote for feature in them.

The problem with the trashiness of the present political climate is the conflict it feeds off. When the conflict within a political discussion becomes more important than the discussion itself, the result is an entertaining conversation that never reaches a conclusion.

We watch Maury’s ‘Who’s the Daddy?’ segment not because we care about the child, but because we like to watch the dude dancing when Maury Povich announces ‘you are not the father’.

We are consistently making the mistake of thinking it is the conflict that’s important when observing politics, leading to a culture where political arguments are preferred over real discussions. From Andrew Bolt to Clementine Ford, political opponents aim to crush their enemy when instead, they should be engaging with them.

We, and our politicians, should strive to share our ideas and opinions, but not be fixated and unwavering when doing so. If we don’t, constructive communication isn’t possible.

It’s okay to like watching trashy TV – yes, really – whether it’s reality TV, a soap opera or Eurovision. A problem is created when we attribute higher motives and goals to what is, essentially, garbage. If there is to be any degree of useful political discussion before we finish university, then we, the observers, must learn to sift the trash from politics.

Because, if we don’t, we might end up with the guy from The Apprentice in the White House.

Issue 1, Vol. 67

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Content Warning: Sexual assault

I was Sexually Assaulted on Saturday Night Text: Jayne Hoschke

Note: This article conforms to the gender binary for the purpose of discussing gendered assault and violence. I very much recognise people of all and no genders.

It was a great night. Really.

We danced to the Grease soundtrack, scoffed a packet of salt and vinegar chips that we found on the street, met some guy from The Bachelorette and chatted to Obama’s ex-helicopter pilot. We were fun and free and happy.

I was sexually assaulted on Saturday night.

From the moment I felt the hand reach up my skirt from behind me, felt the fingers grab the skin of my butt cheeks, my body was not my own. My body was now public property.

I turn around.

‘What the hell are you doing?! Leave, or I’ll get security!’

He comes closer to my face before backing away, swaying and unable to focus his eyes on anything. I keep dancing with my friends – trying to force myself to have a good time. I can’t let this man define my night. I can’t give him that.

I turn around, and he’s standing a metre away with his two male friends, staring at me.

The part of my body that he touched didn’t feel like mine anymore. It felt like his. I felt disgusting and gross and dirty.

I was just a thing for men to touch when they felt like it. I was nothing.

listened, they didn’t try to persuade me whether to charge him or not, and they didn’t interrupt.

Then I saw him walk out of the pub, and decided that I wasn’t nothing.

I was also exhausted.

I walked over to the security guard, shaking, and told him that the man over there had sexually assaulted me. And he believed me. He grabbed the man, sat him down and came back over to me.

‘There’s a police car over there. You can charge him if you want.’

Suddenly, I was in control.

His two friends came over to talk to me while my two male friends were there as support.

I told them what their friend did, I told them that they were bystanders to an offence, and I told them that it was not okay. And they agreed with me.

I walk over.

‘That isn’t good enough. You need to leave now. You just sexually assaulted me.’

‘It’s been a long time, okay.’

And there it is. I am furious.

‘That’s not an excuse! You are a sad, lonely man.’

(Sidenote: there may have been significantly more swearing involved.)

He mumbles something, but I’ve lost any will to speak to him and I leave, pulling a friend who’s mid-conversation with Obama’s helicopter pilot with me. I get out of the place that now embodies distress and smallness.

They apologised for his behaviour, saying that he was drunk. I said that wasn’t an excuse. They pointed out he had only been in the country for a week. I said that wasn’t an excuse. And they agreed with me.

Their reaction was a strange surprise.

According to previous experience, the friends of the perpetrator often take his side, but these two didn’t. The friends try to dismiss what happened, but these two believed me. The victim gets blamed, but here, no one blamed me.

What’s even more surprising is that, within this group of men, I had the loudest voice. This was huge. They all

I was in control. I was empowered.

I decided not to charge him as I didn’t have the emotional or physical energy to be taken to the police station, write a report, then go home the next day to finish writing an essay. Instead, I kept talking to the friends. I told them that I am so sick of having to fight every day just to be me, my whole self, a woman. I told them how my ownership over my body is challenged whenever I walk out of the house. I told them to explain to their friend exactly what he did, and why that night was not okay. And, for some reason, I trusted they would.

This was the best outcome I could’ve hoped for. The security guard was amazing, his mates were incredibly understanding, and my friends were extremely supportive.

But this should not be a surprise, nor should it be out of the ordinary. The security guard was just doing his job, and the others were just being decent human beings. These things should not be uncommon. This outcome doesn’t change the feeling of being violated, used and stripped of all control and respect. It doesn’t change how small I felt and still feel. It doesn’t change how I’ve felt uncomfortable in my body since then, a body that no longer feels like my own.

But, this is part of what it is to be a woman! I should expect this kind of thing to happen at a dirty old pub. It’s just part of life. It’s normal.

I write this because it shouldn’t be normal. It should not go hand in hand with identifying as a woman that we are violated, and it should not be something we are taught to be wary of.

We must stop telling our girls to beware of men, but rather start teaching our boys that this is unacceptable

behaviour and that there are consequences.

We need to educate young people about the patriarchy, and about how it continues to be damaging to people of all genders, not just women.

So I woke up the next day, feeling disgusting and strange, and I finished that assignment. Even though all day I just wanted to lie down and hug myself, cry and try and love this body that was no longer my own, I did what I needed to do.

I don’t want sympathy and I don’t want to be defined as a victim. I want action and change.

Fight for your body. Fight for your rights as humans, not as genders. This takes time and energy and is so painful. But, as Hillary said in her concession speech, it is so worth it.

I’m not going to lie down and cry, I’m going to keep fighting, and writing and dancing.

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O-Week, Semester 1, 2017

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The Philosopher’s Stoned

inside the mind of frank jackson: part 1 Text: Anthony Merlino

Underneath the grey sky overshadowing the Coombs Building, perched in a wooden armchair sat Professor Frank Jackson. Darting across his computer screen was the word of the day: verisimilitude. In philosophy this word is taken to mean, most often, ‘closeness to the truth’. When a theory is inadequate, it is important to uncover the extent to which it is false. In many ways, this word encapsulates a central tenet of Jackson’s approach to philosophy; at every moment, he pauses to comprehend how close to the truth he actually is.

It is 1968, and Frank Jackson is zipping through traffic on a Honda 90 motorcycle, heading from his home in East Melbourne towards his first continuing position at La Trobe University. Having recently finished his one-year lectureship at Adelaide University, Jackson stepped into a thriving intellectual community.

His time at La Trobe was marked, in particular, by the tumultuous political climate of the Vietnam War. For academic staff, this meant ‘teach ins’ at lunchtime ‘where spokespeople would present arguments for and against the Vietnam War.’ Ten years later, in 1978, Jackson accepted a chair at Monash University.

Afterwards, he moved to the Australian National University, where he currently resides as Emeritus Professor.

After completing secondary studies, Jackson undertook a science degree at Melbourne University, where he primarily studied Mathematics. At home, however, his parents were philosophers. The more philosophical discussions he heard around the dinner-table – often heightened by visiting philosophers – the more he realised that philosophy tackled ‘especially important issues.’ Specifically, Jackson cites his ‘parents, and other students at university, and the lure of philosophy’ as factors that naturally pushed him towards completing his Honours in philosophy. It was from this milieu that Jackson’s career leapt.

Incidentally, Jackson also alludes to a subtler influence that sculpted his approach to philosophy. Whilst he studied at Melbourne University, the eminent philosopher David Armstrong taught in the philosophy department. He was, as Jackson retells, ‘charismatic, and a very good lecturer’ who was ‘very keen to promote the idea of physicalism, which he did very effectively.’ Physicalism, primarily, attempts to provide an account of the mind ‘with a relatively small number of ingredients’ from the physical sciences: biology, physics, neuroscience, and so on. Physicalists argue

that these ingredients, and the laws governing these ingredients, provide a complete understanding of the mind. That is, the mind is completely physical. At the time, physicalism was ‘very controversial’ in the realm of academia. As a student, Jackson found it enthralling to be caught amongst this fervent exchange of ideas. Despite Armstrong’s vigour, however, Jackson resisted this ‘austere’ view of the mind.

H.G Wells’ short story, The Country of the Blind, follows a man who has the rare gift of sight in an isolated community of people who cannot see. It was this story that inspired Jackson to write his most famous thought experiment, ‘The Knowledge Argument’. The argument, originally published in Epiphenomenal Qualia, was based on a lunchtime lecture given to the Monash Psychology Department in support of the ‘dualist’ theory of mind. The thought experiment, essentially, seeks to highlight the phenomenal nature of sensory experience that physicalism cannot account for.

Mary has learnt every fact of the physical sciences – including the causal, relational and functional roles of the physical facts. Since birth, she has worn black-and-white goggles. It seems that, although Mary knows all of the physical facts, when she removes the goggles and sees colour for the first time, she will learn something new.

When published, this thought experiment elicited a huge response, and Jackson ascended to academic superstardom. Interestingly, Jackson never expected this reception: ‘I hoped people would read it of course; but I thought the basic point was clear enough without the thought experiment.’

Reflecting on this now, Jackson acknowledges the thought experiment crystallises the big issue facing physicalism: ‘Physicalists typically think of mental states as defined by their physical roles that can be accounted for by neuroscience and evolutionary biology.’ The issue with physicalism is ‘there is some sort of first person access to one’s own mental states that has a phenomenal nature that outruns all the talk of functional roles and states of the brain.’ The thought experiment vividly illuminates the intuition that phenomenal mental states, such as seeing colour, can not be sufficiently accounted for in the physicalist picture.

Since then, Jackson has returned on his argument, and now resides in the

physicalist camp. In his original article, Jackson argued that mental states are causal by-products of physical occurrences – the epiphenomenalist view.

But, following rumination, Jackson conceded that mental states, particularly phenomenal mental states, play a causal role. Having accepted this, therefore, he had ‘to be some kind of physicalist.’ Like Armstrong, Jackson ultimately accepted that physicalism was closer to the truth than the intuition underlying dualism.

Throughout Jackson’s prolific career, his beliefs have been mercurial. Even now, Jackson admits his current convictions may not hold. Regardless, Jackson’s ultimate aim, from the beginning, was to find a theory of the mind close to the truth. It this constant reflection, and struggle with verisimilitude, that makes him a truly influential force in philosophy.

Comment

Issue 1, Vol. 67

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GET HAIRY FEBRUARY

A JOURNEY OF GROWTH

Text: Em Roberts Illustration: Katie Ward

‘Imagine you woke up in an actual vacuum. On a table in front of you is a packet of wax strips.

Aside from sheer boredom, do you think it would even occur to you to spend the next few hours painfully and painstakingly removing all the body hair below your neck? I put it to you, madam, that it would not,’ Clementine Ford, Fight Like a Girl.

My war with my body began sometime around puberty. I was the first girl in my class to have a growth spurt, start growing boobs and have hairs start emerging on my shins. Despite how tiny and light these hairs were, they felt like a flashing red sign shouting ‘look over here, something’s different!’ Not understanding that these things were perfectly natural for my body to be experiencing, I began immediately to try to ‘correct’ the ‘faults’ that were making me different. I’ve been removing my body hair since I was 11.

Now, at the age of 23, I look back at so many years of waxing, shaving, epilating and using various acid-based creams to remove my hair, and I can’t help but think: why?

Why did I put myself through so much effort and pain to conform to an unnatural expectation of hairlessness?

What’s so wrong with removing female body hair? ‘Smooth legs feel nicer’,

‘I just prefer the feeling’, ‘men won’t find me attractive’ – all things I’ve said before in defence of my choice to remove my body hair, and arguments I still hear from many female friends. But here’s the problem: it’s not a free choice. We haven’t been raised to think that we can shave or not shave and both are fine. We’ve been raised to believe that hairlessness is beautiful and normal, and that to have hair is masculine, ugly and fundamentally wrong. Therefore, each time you pick up a razor or book in to get your regular wax, you’re not exercising a free choice. Our choices don’t exist in a vacuum; they’re informed and shaped by the society we live in and by the preferences of those in positions of structural power over us. Our bodies and choices are all driven by the goal of achieving the ‘perfect female form’, but perfection is a myth. ‘Beauty’ is arbitrary and changeable, and thus we get trapped in a cycle of trying to ‘fix’ ourselves.

Trying to unlearn the revulsion I feel whenever I see hair growing where it hasn’t for over a decade is truly challenging. But this challenge is worthwhile.

Learning to reclaim my body from the world that has controlled it for far too long is a revolutionary process. Every time I glimpse my body hair and cringe, I’m forced to examine why I’m cringing, and in doing so, I’m able to consciously unpack what I’ve been trained to believe.

Every moment of discomfort is thus turned into a tiny victory. I remember when I’ve seen the rare woman brave enough to buck society’s expectations by wearing a short skirt with visible leg hair, or a singlet with unshaved armpits.

I’ve always felt jealousy and admiration

for these women enjoying their natural bodies, and seemingly giving zero fucks as to what anyone else thinks. And I now realise that I have to be the change I wish to see.

experienced by women and increased rates of violence against them. If we truly hope to achieve a gender-equal society, we have to challenge gender roles wherever we see them.

I need to be brave, and so do you. We need to lift each other up and be responsible for creating the society that we want to live in. We all need to find the courage to say ‘Fuck you world, I will do whatever I want with my body, it belongs to me, and it’s not for you’.

I’m not done growing yet. This is a journey. I encourage you to try Get Hairy February. Every time you see new hair that you’ve denied the chance to grow, step back and think about why you have the impulse to remove it. Embrace your body, and see what it feels like to actually be in your natural state, not in the state decided for you by ‘beauty’ products and companies (who are ultimately trying to make a profit). If your naturalness makes others uncomfortable, recognise that this is their hang-up, and that you don’t have to cater to what they want to see – your body is not for anyone but you! My body is spectacular in whatever way it wants to grow, and so is yours.

I’ve increasingly grown frustrated and weary with the amount of money and time I invest in adhering to – and thus promoting – a body image that I know is incredibly toxic. This has led to the decision that I’m done. I’m done trying to fit anyone else’s expectations. I’m done spending hours every week removing a natural part of my existence. I’m done pretending that removing my pubic hair is anything other than the creepy normalisation of sexualising women’s pre-pubescence. I’m done shrinking myself so as not to take up space. And I’m done feeling self-conscious in a bathing suit during summer. So I’m not going to.

I’m going to actively re-train myself to do more than accept my body; I’m going to learn to love it.

The Get Hairy February campaign aims to challenge toxic beauty standards and raise awareness of broader gender inequality issues by encouraging women to not remove their body hair during the month of February. The campaign is fundraising for the Full Stop Foundation, which supports survivors of domestic violence. There is a clear link between social gender inequality

Be free, let go and grow.

A group of women at ANU have joined together to undertake Get Hairy February. If you’re interested in participating then check out gethairyfebruary.org and join our Facebook group: ANU Gets Hairy.

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O-Week, Semester 1, 2017

the people’s preezydent

dissecting kanye’s white house, one verse at a time Text: Ruben Seaton

It’s almost a pity that Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20 went by with little controversy. There are many ways to imagine how it all could have gone horribly wrong – from a violent protest getting out of hand, to Trump changing the presidential oath in favour of a passage of Mein Kampf. Personally, however, I was looking forward a different type of fanfare: ‘Yo Donny, I’m real happy for you and I’mma let you finish,’ Kanye West would have said, bumbling his way onto the stage, ‘but my inauguration speech will be the best of all time.’

Indeed, Mr West is the only person to have officially announced his candidacy for future elections – first 2020, before rescheduling to 2024. It’s almost too easy to see West brushed aside in the early stages of voting, however, if there’s one thing the 2015-16 campaign trail taught us, it is to expect the horrendously unexpected. In light of this, it is only natural to ask: What on God’s green earth would a Kanye West presidency look like?

Race relations is the first of three policy areas that can be examined by sifting through West’s nine-album discography. The 39-year-old has devoted much of his lyricism to documenting what he describes in Power as ‘this white man world’, and what it means to be a person of colour in it. On ‘Never Let Me Down’, he recounts how his grandmother was arrested for protesting in sit-ins when he was six years old and adds: ‘With that in my blood, I was born to be different.’

Nine years later, on ‘New Slaves’, his opening lines are chilling: ‘My momma was raised in an era when/ Clean water was only served to the fairer skin’.

It is likely West would seek to make the judiciary system less discriminatory; on his most racially aware song, 2010s ‘Gorgeous’, he juxtaposes two stereotypically black and white names, saying ‘Face it, Jerome gets more time [in jail] than Brandon’. Boosting the African-American voter turnout would be a key to his success – however, as he noted in 2004, some blacks ‘can’t make it to the ballots to choose leadership, but we can make it to Jacobs or to the dealership’. Finally,

‘Yo Donny, I’m real happy for you and I’mma let you finish,’ Kanye West would have said, bumbling his way onto the stage, ‘but my inauguration speech will be the best of all time.’

West suggests he would close the gap in financial inequality, raising more people of colour into higher income brackets.

His voice on ‘Murder to Excellence’ is almost smug when he raps ‘In the past if you picture events like a black tie/ What’s the last thing you expect to see?

Black guys?’

It’s necessary to dive deep back into West’s discography to predict the possible reforms he would make to the education sector. Indeed, in his unprecedented meeting with the then President-elect Trump in December, CNN reported that education was at the forefront of their discussion, along with ‘bullying’ and ‘violence in Chicago’. West’s first three albums – rightfully titled College Dropout, Late Registration and Graduation – were littered with grievances concerning America’s uninspired high school and college system.

An eclectic young West lamented that there was ‘no tuition for having ambition’ on ‘We Don’t Care’, before furthering these notions on ‘School Spirit’.

His priorities seem to be injecting education with more practical life skills, as explained on ‘Good Morning’ when he says ‘Some people graduate, but be still stupid’. However, the chances of West returning to university are slim: as he bragged on ‘Breathe In, Breathe Out’ he’s ‘already got a PhD – a Pretty Huge Dick!’

The hot-button issues of the early stages of Trump’s Presidency – foreign policy and immigration – remain largely untouched by West. He admits his flaws both domestically as the ‘abomination

of Obama’s nation’ (Power) and globally as the ‘international asshole’ (Diamonds from Sierra Leone). His foreign linguistic abilities supposedly range from limited: ‘How you say broke in Spanish? Me no hablo’ in ‘Dark Fantasy’, to fluent: ‘I shop so much I can speak Italian’ in ‘Champion’, to absurd: ‘I be speakin’ Swaghili!’ in ‘I’m In It’. Perhaps he should call on Secretary of State Kardashian for help.

When Barack Obama heard of West’s intentions of running for office, he chuckled and said, ‘Do you really think that this country is going to elect a black guy from the South side of Chicago with a funny name to be President?’ He soaked up the laughter, before giving that killer Obama punchline: ‘That’s cray.’

Perhaps Kanye West may not be fully cut out to shoulder the responsibilities of being POTUS; after all, we are talking about a man who once tweeted ‘I hate when I’m on a flight, and I wake up with a water bottle next to me like oh great I now I gotta be responsible for this water bottle.’ Nevertheless, it’s doubtful that will stop West and his burning ambition. ‘You see, it’s leaders, and it’s followers,’ he growled on ‘New Slaves’, ‘but I’d rather be a dick than a swallower.’

International

Issue 1, Vol. 67

International

18

Made in China

Letters I Never Finished Text: Una Chen Una is a second year law/arts student who is passionate about voicing the concerns of the Asian minority. When she is not focused on decorating her apartment, she is dedicated to uncovering the hidden faces of society and dismantling Asian stereotypes.

Dear Reader, I am not ashamed of being Chinese.

Google tells me that ‘Asian’ can be defined both as an adjective: relating to Asia or its people, customs or languages, and a noun: a native of Asia or a person of Asian descent. Often, Asians are stereotyped as high-achievers who are smart, quiet and socially awkward.

I am sure you have heard of the ‘Asian 5’ – perhaps you have ever sneered at the ‘lack of creativity’ Asians have.

Dear Mum, I rejoice in experiencing Chinese culture! Don’t apologise to me for the fact that we are Chinese and may be given fewer opportunities – it is not your fault we are marginalised.

We are part of the ‘model minority’, members of society who are perceived to achieve more socio-economic success than the population average. This success is typically measured by high income, advanced education, low criminality and high family/marital stability. Although this may appear complimentary, it has caused harm that is largely unknown to the general public.

Dear Nice, Friendly People that I Met the Other Day, I am indeed, wholeheartedly from here.

I have grown up in the Western world.

I call this country home, because it is the place that houses all my friends and memories.

Dear People Who Are Surprised When I First Open My Mouth, I will not hide behind my ‘engrish’. Hidden by the unforgiving conundrum of ‘ching chong chang’, many people are still trying to navigate your strange but

beautiful foreign language. I see your weighty judgement about their language abilities. If you have an accent – rejoice – for you know at least two languages.

Be happy you’re engulfed in the beauty of not only one culture but two.

Dear Dad, I am proud to be Chinese.

Dear People Who Hide Behind Your Racial Slang of ‘Fresh Off The Boat’ Jokes, Do you know how hard it is to move to a new country? War-torn countries see many people flee, arriving here in hopes of a fresh start. It’s already hard enough to come to a new country; it’s even more difficult to survive. We are suffocating under the pain our ancestors have faced: those who have survived revolutions, civil and foreign wars and the change of political regimes. These people have sacrificed so much so that we could have brighter lives. Too many silent cries are ignored.

Australian Diversity Council found that Asian-Australians contributed to less than 2 percent of executives in the top 200 companies. I urge you to ignore your subconscious bias and stereotypes.

We have worked hard and deserve to share the same roles as you.

Dear Classmates, Although our struggles are different, they do matter.

Dear the Model Minority Narrative, Do not assume that Asians are just a quiet, high-achieving group. Do not forget that Asian-Americans, Asian-Australians and Asian-New Zealanders are the most bullied ethnic group in classrooms. Do not stereotype us into the ‘Smart-Asian’ category; we are more than our HD’s.

Dear the Term ‘White Washed’, What does that even mean? How can I

Dear People ever be an inauthentic Asian?

Who Love ‘Asian Culture’, Dear Friends, You can acknowledge your love for fried rice, sushi and dumplings, but you sneer at those who are not your ideal. There is more to Japan than anime; more to China than Made-in-China stickers; more to Korea than North and South; more to Vietnam than the war. Please do not selectively embrace our culture: we have more to offer than it seems.

Thank you for embracing me with open arms. More, please. I urge you to defy these constricting labels when you hear them. In this world of cynicism, do not be defeated. You are strong and powerful.

Asians are 40 percent less likely to be hired than their white counterparts with the same credentials. After all, no one wants their year, school or company filled with non-Australians. This is a bias that, you know, ignores the fact that within our millennial generation are many Asian students who were born and raised in Australia. The

Why do you still make me (feel) ashamed of being Chinese?

Dear the Dear Employers, Western World,

19

O-Week, Semester 1, 2017

International

Waiting for the Trump Card Text: Scott Hamilton Donald Trump – a name everyone has already heard too many times – has signed a series of controversial executive orders in recent weeks. Amongst them, he reinstated a ‘global gag rule’ previously lifted by Obama in 2009, that bans NGOs funded by USAID from discussing abortion.

He also finished his first week by silencing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Agriculture from talking to the public and press, freezing grants and budgets, and nominating Scott Pruitt – a man responsible for fighting the EPA’s environmental regulations – as the new head of the EPA. He drastically altered the EPA website as well, threatening international commitments to combat climate change by rejecting the notion that carbon pollution is a leading cause of global warming.

It is slightly terrifying when the ‘Leader of the Free World’ denies the existence of the leading cause of climate change, isn’t it?

But all of these plays have been very local. The one move, however, that sparked a large international outcry, especially here in Australia, was his withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

Most controversially, the TPP contains the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) clause, which ‘enables foreign investors from TPP states to sue the governments … if those governments act in a way that harms their interests’, as explained by Jess Hill from ABC. While Australia already has ISDS agreements with other countries, this would have been its first with the United States.

According to Yoshiji Nagami, one of Japan’s foreign ministers, on a global scale the TPP would have yielded some benefits. He believes that the TPP would have delivered US$77 billion to America and US$105 billion to Japan by 2025. Meanwhile, the estimated loss for China from not being a member of the TPP would have been US$35 billion.

The other cause for outcry was caused by the geopolitical impact the agreement would have had. In particular, the TTP was intended to shape how the West influences the Asia-Pacific region.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) interpreted the intention of the TPP as an attempt at ‘boosting US power and excluding China’s power.’

The trade agreement would have allowed the US to ‘set the rules’ of trade in the Asia-Pacific region. The US would be able to tap into new markets in Asia to export their goods and grow their economy. Additionally, academics in political science at the University of Washington have commented that ‘enlarged economic integration [such as with Asian countries] could discourage war because it makes war so costly.’ As such, the trade deal would have been very beneficial for the West as it included Vietnam and Malaysia, enticing them to orient their international policy more towards the US. Indeed, ‘Economic diplomacy of the United States goes hand in hand with military strategies’, and would thus have provided potential for the US to establish more operational bases in the region, deterring further Chinese expansionism.

Research Centre (ARC) claimed in an interview with ABC that ’many countries in the [Asia-Pacific] region made concessions during the TPP negotiations, particularly around issues like environmental protection, labour rights, anti-corruption and transparency issues.’

So now that America is not part of the TPP, what happens next?

Instead, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), with key players China and India – but no United States – is much more likely to be signed.

Academic Jeffrey Wilson from the Asia

He believes that ‘If America isn’t in the deal, a many of those countries will see the opportunity to remove many of the elements they weren’t entirely comfortable agreeing to in the first place.’

This has already been observed, with Australian Trade Minister Steven Ciobo seeking to ‘lock in the benefits’ of the TPP with remaining signatories. Meanwhile, Shinzo Abe, Japan’s Prime Minister, believes that without the US the entire TPP is ‘meaningless’.

The RCEP can be considered of vital importance to China as it will build up regional cooperation, combat US-China strategic distrust, and provide political and defensive backing for ASEAN states, led by ‘traditional cooperation history’.

What is significant is that now the TPP is off the cards, China will set the rules in Asia, while American economic influence will dwindle. The fear is that with dwindling economic influence, defence agreements may also suffer.

Due to the United States being the only country able to provide credible protection to its allies, strong relationships with the United States are vital to the free world. Trump’s dissatisfaction with the TPP may later re-appear as dissatisfaction with current defence pacts in Europe and Oceania, endangering the current global order and balance of power.

This fear is explainable by Trump’s recent comments to The Times on NATO, claiming it is ‘obsolete’ yet also ‘very important’ to him.

The only calming moments are John Mattis’ comment that NATO is ‘the most successful military alliance ... maybe ever.’ Additionally, in Trump’s most recent call to NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg, he promised ‘strong support’ for the alliance, partially negating his earlier remarks.

So at least the NATO card still seems in play.

So what remains? The Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty (ANZUS) promises us no guarantee of the protection that NATO does, as it was designed by the US with wiggle room for itself in mind. Other defence treaties with Japan or Korea appear strong, but have ultimately failed to significantly stop Chinese expansionism.

With this in mind, we must question Trump’s next moves. How will he influence the EU and their proposed trade agreement with the US: the TTIP? What will his commitment to NATO really be?

And how will he deal with Russia and China in Ukraine and the South China Sea respectively?

And what will be his Trump Card – the one that makes the whole world shake to the core?

We all wait patiently as Donald shuffles his deck.

Issue 1, Vol. 67

International

20

kicking goals towards gender equality Text: Emma Wiggins Illustration: Catherine Nacion

They’re calling it ‘an untapped international market full of both social and economic potential.’ Internationally, women’s sport is slowly but surely kicking points towards the overall goal of gender equality. We have had small breakthroughs all over the world, and the most recent one happened right here in Australia.

The first ever AFL Women’s match was played in Victoria only a week ago. At the first game of the season – Carlton v Collingwood – the stadium was packed.

24,500 new fans of this new branch of Aussie Rules filled the large stadium to capacity. Indeed, nearly 2000 eager fans had to be turned away at the gates.

AFL CEO Gillion McLachlan was lost for words as he stood out the front of Ikon Park stadium, saying ‘I’m sorry’ to fans as he turned them away. What an overwhelming, positive response to AFLW. A win for gender equality was already on the scoreboard before the match had started, and the game itself was impressive. The women had clearly maximised their short pre-season, displaying skill, determination and potential on the field. Collingwood supporter Jaron Lamaro described the atmosphere of the match as positive and uplifting, and praised the women on the field by saying ‘their skills are great… [and] they’re hitting each other has hard as the men.’ He wasn’t the only one who found enjoyment in watching the new women’s league. Over 1.05 million people tuned in across the weekend to watch the new AFLW Round 1 matches – smashing the ratings Channel 7 had hoped to receive.

This first round of the AFLW league is merely a snapshot of an emerging international trend of positive attitudes towards women’s sport. The popular US television network NBC reported that their most watched sporting match in history was the USA Women’s Gold Medal soccer match at the 2012 London the prize money offered in the Wimbledon Grand Slam tennis match has consistently been the same for both the men’s and women’s games. This in itself is a reflection of the popularity and value society deems women’s sport in the 21st century to hold.

While we should be excited about this success and what it forecasts for the reception of women in sport for the future, it is important to recognise that

we are only part way through the race.

Sports journalists covering the Olympics are (according to a study conducted by The Rep Project) twice as likely, during interviews with athletes, to ask females about their physical appearance when compared to men competing in the same sports. In 2012, for instance, Gold Medalist Gabby Douglas was internationally criticised for the way that she had done her hair. This is disgusting behaviour, and the success of these athletes in the face of these comments is all the more admirable.

The game’s not over yet. We’re on the scoreboard with a couple of goals in our back pocket. To win, we need to learn to play as a team. If teams are to function effectively, every player needs to be treated equally and with respect.

We want to win. We need to win. Life’s a game. The prize is equality and we’re all on the same team.

quick-fire questions with ekta Interviewer: Nathalie Rosales-Cheng

In this quick-fire questions round we chatted with ANU’s South East Asian Students Society, Ekta, one of the many internationally-focused student groups on campus.

N: How would you introduce your society, in one sentence?

E: Ekta is impossible to describe in one sentence – you’ll have to come to our Rooftop Welcome Party to find out what we’re about.

N: Sell your society to us in three words E: Unity in diversity.

N: What are your favourite events of the year?

E: Holi is a vibrant start to the new year.

There is no better way to bond with people than to throw colour at them!

The Cultural Show is also a great event, as it highlights the artistic talents of all our culturally diverse peers.

Ekta Ball is probably our most popular event, however, with tickets running out in minutes. It’s an evening of elegance, class and fine dining. Ladies come adorned in beautiful sarees and the gentlemen in suave kurtas, both ready to dance the night away.

N: Who should join your society?

E: Everyone who loves good food, Bollywood tunes and dressing to the nines.

N: What is the best thing about your society?

E: We’re home away from home for some, but we’re a bundle of fun for everyone!

N: Where can we find your society on campus?

E: If we’re not selling tickets in Union

Court or being told to be quiet in the library for laughing too hard at curry memes, we’re easily contactable by our Facebook and Instagram pages: ‘Ekta – South Asian Students’ Society’ and ‘anuekta’ respectively. We can also be reached by email, at ektasociety2017@ gmail.com.

N: Tell us about your first event, what can we expect?

E: The Ekta Rooftop Welcome Party is a fantastic way to meet like-minded people, enjoy some delicious South Asian snacks and to dance! The Rooftop provides a scenic view – great for all those snapchats and Instagram pics.

21

O-Week, Semester 1, 2017

International

Dear International Students Text: Kathryn Lee

Dear new international students, I know how nerve racking it is to move to a different country, so I wanted to share my experiences of moving to and settling down in Canberra with you.

I’m a second year international student from Malaysia currently studying a straight law degree – yes you heard that right, a straight law degree! There are not many international students who study straight law, and the few of us who do come from either Singapore or Malaysia. I still remember when I got my offer from the ANU: I was ecstatic that the best university in Australia had accepted by application. I also remember frantically packing as many things as I could fit into my suitcase for fear of never being able to get it again in Australia (read: instant Milo packets and Maggi Mee).

Before I came to the ANU I had someone contact me – a girl named Cindy who would become one of my closest friends in ANU – who was in the same boat as I was. I was so relieved to find that I was not alone in my journey of travelling to and studying in Australia.

We booked the same flight and the rest, as they say, is history.

I remember feeling overwhelmed when I first checked into Burton & Garran Hall.

The people were friendly of course, but I had never seen so many caucasians!

After my lovely new SR showed me to my room I finally had the privacy to sit and take in all that had happened. I kept

thinking to myself: I’m in a new country! I’m 6698 km from home. I will not be able to taste my mother’s cooking for at least a year and I’m away from family and friends.

It was in small moments like those that I promised myself I would make the most of my experience in Australia.

There were even more culture shocks in O-week, which is an intense time for any international student. Malaysians are usually a bit more conservative when it comes to drinking and partying – at least they are where I’m from – so the parties were initially an overwhelming experience. On one of the nights Cindy and I, along with a few other international students, headed out to find some food and ended up in Dominoes munching on $5 pizza. We ended up playing cards until 3am in the morning in the lounge while sharing food – it was an excellent bonding experience that helped me forge friendships. The people you meet in O-Week play a significant role in time at university, so don’t be shy about going out and making some new friends. Work hard, but also play hard!

In the beginning, studying law proved to be a bit difficult due to the increased difficulty of the English skills required.

I had thought my English was decent, but I felt like a complete idiot when I first went to law school. Nothing in the textbook made sense! Things got rather discouraging in the first semester when I was barely able to manage a Pass while all my friends were getting High Distinctions. This was probably the biggest adjustment for me; back in Malaysia I had never received anything lower than a Distinction, so scraping by on a Pass was admittedly a huge hit to my ego.

My advice to new students, however, would be to persevere and not lose heart.

Things do get better, and in the second semester my grades started to pick up as I adjusted to life in Australia. Looking back now I realise that perhaps the fall in my grades was due to the drastic change in environment – maybe, you know, the whole moving to a new country thing. Feeling homesick is normal and everyone goes through something like it, even the domestic students! Just don’t be afraid to look for support as it will always be offered if you ask.

It was actually battling with homesickness in the first few months that was really character-building for me. I learnt how to be independent and self-reliant,

and I don’t believe you could ask for a better outcome than that.

Overall, my first year in Australia was full of memorable and fulfilling experiences, and I hope it is for you too. I’ll see you guys around in O-Week!

Best wishes, Kathryn

Issue 1, Vol. 67

Multilingual

22

Breaking Down Walls: An Introduction To Woroni Multilingual A now obsolete definition of ‘fact’ in English is ‘an action or deed’. This links to ways of saying that something has A very old word. It can be been done in e.g. French or Italian – traced back to Old Persian “c’est fait” (Fr.), or “è fatto” (Ita.) ‘dušiyaram’, which means ‘famine’ – and, literally, ‘bad year’ Back in the 1300s, this meant ‘courtesy’, or ‘noble deeds’.

‘Kyndnes’ in Old English Text: Rosalind Moran apparently meant ‘nation’. Perhaps nations were meant to be co rteo s ddenly regretting the decline of Old English. 开心, a way of saying ‘happy’ in Mandarin, literally translates to ‘open’ (开) ‘heart/mind/soul’ (心).

From Latin’s ‘publicare’, i.e. ‘to make public. In Middle English the verb also meant “to people, populate; to multiply, breed” (late 14c.). Yes, my friends – Woroni is breeding From Latin’s ‘translatus’, meaning ‘carried over’. ‘trans’ means ‘across, beyond’ (consider the words ‘transaction’, ‘transformation’, ‘transgender’), and ‘latus’ means ‘borne, carried’ This word links back to a ProtoIndo-European root, ‘*men-’, meaning ‘to think’. Visible even in Sanskrit’s ‘matih’ (‘thought, mind’), Gothic’s ‘gamunds’, and Old English’s ‘gemynd’ (‘memory, remembrance’)

2017. It has been a tough year, and tougher still for the fact that we’re only in February. Nevertheless, though the world cries melted ice caps and the milk of human kindness keeps turning out to be skim, we at Woroni are determined to create something positive in these turbulent times. It is on this note, therefore, that we happily present our new multilingual section!

Woroni Multilingual seeks to publish writing in non-English languages, both widely spoken and obscure. While we aim to translate one article into English per print issue, as well as publish translations online, we are keen to keep this a relatively English-free space. And why not? The mentality behind many of the nation’s institutions and initiatives is a monolingual one, yet Australia is rich in linguistic and cultural diversity.

Our goal is for Woroni Multilingual to enable local residents and international students who aren’t confident writing In Japanese, a term meaning ‘rich person’ is in English – or who would simply pre. One of these characters, , means fer to write in another language – to en‘money’, or ‘gold/currency’, in Japanese. It is pronounced ‘kin’. Yet it also appears in Mandarin, gage with our newspaper. That said, we encourage both native and non-native where it is rono nced as ‘ n’, meaning speakers of languages other than En‘gold’; or 金钱, which can mean ‘money’. glish to submit their writing to us. Many of you study languages at the ANU, and You know the verb for ‘write’ used to we want to give you a chance to use your be ‘scribe’? It comes from the Latin skills, whatever the level! So submit ‘scribere’, meaning ‘to write’. Many European your writing even if you aren’t yet 100% languages still hark back to this word (from French’s écrire to Swedish’s skriva).

Plus, consider English words like ‘describe’ and ‘inscribe’. ‘Write’ has Germanic origins, however, showing the history of di erent lang ages’ im acts on English.

From Old French ‘encoragier’. ‘en’ has the meaning of ‘make’, or ‘put in’, while ‘corage’ meant ‘courage’ and ‘heart’. The Modern French word for heart is cœur. In Spanish, it’s corazón. Spanish-speakers say ‘corazón de manzana’; this means ‘apple core’. It more literally translates to ‘heart of the apple’.

From ‘multi’ + ‘lingua’, which is Latin for ‘language’ and literally means ‘tongue’ – hence old fashioned Game Of Thrones-esque phrases such as “I am a speaker of many tongues” Case in point for many of us:

confident in the language –we will work with you to edit it.

You may be wondering how publishing a section which not everyone can read – or read in its entirety – could possibly contribute to breaking down walls. Yet in the same way people aren’t so different from one another, languages aren’t either, as evidenced by some of the etymological notes planted in your field of vision. Moreover, we in the Anglosphere should arguably challenge ourselves more often to meet others on their linguistic grounds, as opposed to expecting them to come to us.

Woroni Multilingual is a chance to celebrate multilingualism and multiculturalism, and to demonstrate to the ANU that the student body cares about diversity in these areas, as well as ongoing opportunities to study languages at the university. Some of us still think STEM is part of a tree, after all. So rain on our plants, but not on our parades – or our marches.

If you wish to find out more or to get involved, join the Facebook group ‘Woroni Multilingual ’. You are also welcome to contact the Multilingual sub-editor, Rosalind, through write@woroni.com.au. Your questions, suggestions, ideas, and submissions are welcome. Happy writing!

From the Latin ‘com’, meaning ‘with’, and ‘fidere’, which means ‘to tr st to ha e faith’. Think of the word ‘fidelity’. ow yo also know why so many dogs ha e been named ‘Fido’, i.e. ‘Faithf l’.

‘Newspaper’ in Swedish is ‘tidning’. ‘Tid’ means ‘time’. English’s ‘news’ can also have a temporal meaning. Perhaps this is where we got the word ‘tidings’, meaning ‘news’? (e.g. “I bring great tidings!”)

Such as Gamilaraay, incidentally – one of Australia’s hundreds of Indigenous languages.

Which literally means “Can you read Burmese?”, in Burmese. The good news is that A o ers co rses in the language! Enthusiastic students always welcome. We even have a Myanmar Research Centre here, for the record.

From the Latin ‘possibilis’, meaning ‘that can be done’.

In Italian and Portuguese, the word ‘posso’ means “I can” to this day.

Translates as ‘samme’ in both Norwegian and Danish, and ‘samma’ in Swedish. More evidence of Norse activity (yes, Vikings) in the British Isles.

This word act ally harks back to the roto Indo E ro ean root weid , which has both the meaning of ‘to know’ and ‘to see’. It’s f nny how in English, as in many lang ages, eo le say “I see” to mean “I nderstand”. Interesting how for so many eo le, e en at a ling istic le el, sight is related to nderstanding and knowledge. erio sly tho gh. Imagine if ‫یسراف‬ (Farsi) were a world lang age in the same way English is, and yo had to learn to read in the o osite direction while at school, in order to be considered a global citi en e Anglo hones are a ri ileged b nch.

This word has origins in community.

It comes from Medieval Latin’s ‘universitatem’, meaning “the whole, aggregate”, and from ‘universus’, meaning “whole, entire”.

O-Week, Semester 1, 2017

23

multilingual

轮回 (Samsara) Text: 刘珺滔 (Juntao Liu) Photograph: Marwan El Massan

The basic meaning of ‘samsara’ is that the human life is like a circle.

In the author’s opinion, the world also moves cyclically. Things vary but we can always find the similarity between the current one and previous one.

In other words, everything seems to eventually return to its original point and then start again.

This regularity has existed in human history for thousands of years. 前几日在家中读书 看到了轮回这个 词 芸芸众生 三世因果 都如车轮一般转 动不停 循环不已 知道轮回是何物 可它在何处 轮回融于生命 蕴于灵魂 感觉离自己 那么近 却无法触摸 如清晨微光映入 眼帘 但又转瞬即逝 那是梦吗 可那 种温暖却在心中久久环绕 不肯散去 如果凡物的生命太短 呈现不出你完整 的面目 那么滚滚的历史长河 会不会 成为你栖息的场所 轮回 存在于强弱逆转 昔日始皇奋六世之余烈 致使楚国亡于 秦国的虎狼之师 辗转十六载 西楚霸

王横空出世 巨鹿一战 二十万秦军献 降 百二秦关易主 强秦又为楚所灭 冒顿单于一代枭雄 统一草原 率领四 十万雄兵围困了汉高祖刘邦 七天七夜 的白登之围 是汉王朝的梦魇 大汉帝 国懂得隐忍 休养生息 文景之治 汉 武帝一声怒吼 响彻大地 漠北之战 卫青 霍去病领十万轻骑横扫大漠 匈 奴王庭北迁 胡马再不敢南度阴山 轮回 存在于盛衰无常 盛唐造就了四夷宾服 万邦来朝的开元 盛世 可随后的安史之乱却又使藩镇割 据 大一统瞬间支离破碎 五代乱世 血雨腥风 李从珂哭得帝位 却最终自焚殉国 传国玉玺亦自此失 踪 轮回 存在于谋事在人 官渡之战 四世三公出身的袁绍亲选精 兵十万 战马万匹 越过黄河 企图剿 灭兵少的曹军 曹操却看出袁绍兵多而 指挥不明 将骄而政令不一 从而孟德 凭借自己过人的谋略和出色的用人 再 加上荀彧 郭嘉等人的尽心辅佐 最终

击败袁氏 统一北方

百年的幽云十六州最终回归中原王朝

靖难之役 燕王朱棣以一藩对抗全国 姚广孝出谋划策 力挽狂澜 燕军最终 攻入南京城 建文帝流落民间

轮回 生死相续 无有止息

轮回 存在于无数次功亏一篑 得而复 失 但最终失而复得

我们欣赏轮回 欣赏 明犯强汉者 虽远 必诛 般强盛的再现 我们忧虑轮回 忧虑 卧榻之侧 岂容他人鼾睡 式残酷 的重演

汉末三国时期 刘备四处投奔 屡战屡 败 入主徐州却很快痛失徐州 得到荆 州却又难以持久 但最终 皇叔得到了 属于自己的益州 并建国称帝

自己很喜欢读刘禹锡的作品 它用如诗 如画的文笔写出了大气磅礴的心境 旧时王谢堂前燕 飞入寻常百姓家 这 句话也许就是对轮回最好的理解

河东节度使石敬瑭无耻屈身儿皇帝 勾 结契丹 割让幽云十六州 自此埋下无 穷后患 后周世宗柴荣苦心经营 隐隐 有了恢复一统的希望 可惜造化弄人 攻取幽州前出师未捷身先死 宋太宗野 心勃勃 率军北上至幽州城下 却遭高 粱河惨败 自己身中两箭 乘驴车狼狈 逃回南方 宣和年间 童贯领军再次伐 辽 郭药师使计一度攻进幽州城内 可 惜宋兵军纪紊乱又骄傲自满 再次一败 涂地 北宋依据海上之盟 用钱从金人 手中买回幽州 却不知已大难临头 最 终亡国 光年流转 明太祖朱元璋励精 图治 遣大将徐达 常遇春击溃腐朽的 北元 元顺帝逃回蒙古草原 丢失了四

轮回是沧海桑田的变迁 我们无法阻挡 沧海与桑田间的交替变换 但我们能感 知节点的临近 人们能否跳出轮回 寻求解脱 我恐怕也不能回答 一盏台灯 一杯清茶 一卷史书 在悟 出轮回 涅槃重生之前 好好珍惜当下 吧 轮回也是一种修行 一家之言 只为抛砖引玉

Multilingual

Issue 1, Vol. 67

24

留学改变了我 (Study abroad changed me)

Text: Minwei Xie Photography: Marwan El Massan An English translation of this article can be found on woroni.com.au.

或许每个人都是这样 因为年龄增长的 关系 会变得很是不喜欢从前的那个自 己 但我很是相信 是澳洲的留学经历 让我产生了这样的变化 记得在18岁那 年准备来澳洲时 很是自信的向父母保 证过自己在出国后依旧将会爱自己的祖 国 发誓一定会向澳洲人展现中国人最 完美的一面 但现如今 当每每听到有 人做出相类似的宣言时 心中却只剩下 了苦笑 刚到澳洲并未觉得这相较国内有多发 达 反倒是很是敏感于任何澳洲人的不 文明 每一天都在充当着 祖国的卫士 抵抗反驳着任何针对中国的批评和 负面评论 我自大的以为自己来自于这 世上最幸运 最团结 最善良的国度 我自负的认为自己有着绝对正确的思 想 算个好人 我甚至于自私独裁到以 为要是所有人都能按照我的想法来生 活 那么这个世界就不会有那么多的纷 争了 自然 这一切 都因为在澳洲的生活而 被彻底的改变了 不是说 现在的我就 有多么的不自私 而是 我原先以为地 那坚固的不得了的价值观很快的就崩

塌了 身份认同开始动摇然后变得越 来越模糊 从无知自大 到有些自知之 明 到识破许多许多谎言后的愤怒与痛 恨 再到现在地相对地平静 这中间的 周折和经历 让我好好的审视了自己个 性里地所有 我曾经以为我有的那些品 质 我以为我有的那些好 原来通通都 没有 在澳洲的时间越长 才发现国内 和它的距离越大 原先所在乎的表象 高楼大厦 华丽璀璨的夜景渐渐的被 内在被细节的东西所取代 比如办公楼 是否有残疾人通道 是否洗手间内有手 纸 是否有个人 政治 思想自由 出国前的自己 是典型的愤青 政治修 养上无知保守而又专制 那时的我相信 强权 信服一切表面上的强大 沉溺于 所有空洞而又形式化的盛典 我所仅 有的就是一些对社会弱小的关怀 但 大概正因为有了这一点点正义感 也就 觉自己所坚持的政治信仰在道德上便 占有了制高点 来到了澳洲 当没有人 再向我灌输意识形态 当没有人再向我 宣传绝对性后 只有大学里朋友间的言 行身教时 形成的观念和价值反倒更 是坚固和持久 生活中那一点一滴的潜 移默化 比如对人平等的态度 独立地 生活方式 和不可怜自己的思维方式等 等 彻底的让我受到了震撼和影响 首 先 很是明显的能感觉到自己有被人重 视与尊重 他们没有因为我的成绩 因 为我的能力或者政治偏向就看轻我或 者我的观点 其次 澳洲人的幽默 乐 观和简单传染到了我 不论当时的我是 带着多大的恶意 刻意的讽刺澳洲的政 治和政要 到最后他们的真心和认真总 会让羞愧难当 然后 澳洲社会中那些 不炫耀的善良 简单粗糙的友善让许多

意识形态失去了吸引力与号召力 让我 意识到做一个能够对陌生人友善的人 要强过那些听起来高尚的不得了的信 条 最后 社会里的言论自由和对不同 意见的容忍度慢慢的也渗透到了我的 生活中 让我接触到了更多和更真实地 信息以及争锋相对的意见 让一直束缚 着自己思想的火柴盒能够得到一些小 小的扩张 记得 08年奥运火炬传递到了澳洲 许 多中国同学邀我一起带着国旗去参加 和保护火炬传递时的 顺利 当天我跟 随着大家喊着口号 很是兴奋骄傲的 挥舞着国旗 但直到我看到我们中国 学生对那些执不同意见人的粗暴和残 忍 从那天起 我心中便有了转折性的 变化 第一次 我开始有了一个留学生 不该有的想法 我曾试图说服自己的大 脑 试图解释这样的暴力是合理的 直 到后来我没有办法再去解释 我只有 根据我自己内心的好坏标准 相信了自 己 而不是别人的教导 做出了属于自 己做判断与决定 这第一块砖倒下后 自然后来便是整面高墙的崩塌 当我迫 不及待的想要将这最新的发现告诉国 内的朋友和父母时 迎面而来的便是他 们不可理喻和愤怒 认为我是受了蛊 惑和洗脑 只是我心里很是清楚和清晰 的知道 我终于找回了些做为一个人的 意义 卸掉了那沉重的意识形态的束 缚 重新拥有了独立思考的能力 从前的我从来都未曾设想过 将会有 一天 我会如此的相信民主 自由和平 等 留学之前 在我的脑子里只有阳光 海滩 慵懒而又肥胖的澳洲人 以前的 那个我 应该无论如何也无法相信 这

样一群 没有凝聚力 不努力 的澳洲人 能够教会我人生中最重要的课 胡适 先生在美留学时就说过 世界上没有 以中西或东西之分的真理 只有好坏 对错 有用无用之分 而且 这好坏 对 错 有用无用之分 是普世皆准的 在 澳洲的留学生活 让我很是坚定地相 信做一个好人比什么都重要 还有让我 相信 我们每一人都有着自己存在的价 值和与众不同的特质 所以 任何一个 人都没有资格去要求其他人要怎么样 去生活 不论长相 能力 智商 每一人 都应该值得受到社会的尊重和重视 而 目前 只有民主 法治 自由的社会才能 够基本保证每一个人的诉求

O-Week, Semester 1, 2017

25

Where is home?

Text: Nigarish Haider

I found some answers to my questions, which taught me things I would never have learnt had I stayed.

Most people I know in Canberra are transplants from somewhere else. It doesn’t matter what brought us here: whether university, a job, a dream or pure restlessness. Or simply the fact that whatever we were searching for wasn’t in the place we left. Whatever the reason, we’re not there anymore because, for the most part, we don’t want to be there.

We’re here now.

I learnt that being alone isn’t the same as being lonely. Instead, I began to love and appreciate my own company in a way that living with family didn’t allow.

I learnt how to make mistakes – until this point my parents had made all my choices for me, and I knew they meant nothing but the best, but ultimately what was best was that I learnt to fall and then stand up on my own. I established a life for myself, I enjoyed what I was studying and I liked my freedom. Rather than wallow in homesickness and nostalgia, I learnt to find joy in small things like cooking my own meals, or making spontaneous plans with friends at 12am.

But the one thing I didn’t learn right away was how to cope with the guilt.

Guilt because I didn’t always want to go home over the holidays. Guilt because, when I did eventually go, I realised my life wasn’t back there anymore. Guilt because I didn’t miss what I had left behind. My parents didn’t understand my reluctance to rush home every holiday, and our arguments over this created more guilt. Eventually this guilt began to blemish the happiness my new life had given me.

Often, we’re here alone, with only a phone number connecting us with our childhood homes. But in response, we create new homes – of housemates and friends, favourite cafés and running tracks, spots to watch sunrises and people to watch them with. It’s safe to argue that you can’t entirely replace one with the other, and both are equally valid in their own right. Although you began from somewhere else and replanted here, it doesn’t change the fact that you grew new roots and created a new home, with its own faces and places and memories. And this, essentially, summarises how the definition of home—and what we associate with the word—grows and changes throughout our lifetime.

At first, when I moved to Canberra from Perth, I was anticipating the dreaded homesickness I’d been warned about.

But it never came.

After all, where was home? Is it defined by a physical location, by our childhood or family there, or by the lessons we learn in a place?

We tend to define home as being a place of comfort and fondness, and often this comfort lies in the familiar: people, places and routines. But is ‘home’ about such familiarity, or can it be about the experiences that upset the familiar and eventually allow us to grow?

In moving cities, I also passed across the threshold of what I ‘was’ into what I ‘am’ – moving between the habitual comforts ‘home’ represents and the changes which began my growth. In the process

At the end of it all, I just wish someone had told me—and my parents – that there is nothing wrong with not wanting to come home. It didn’t mean I loved them any less, or that the changes in me made our relationship impossible. Rather, it showed me the value of parents who wanted me there with them. It didn’t make me selfish or emotionally stunted.

It didn’t mean I’d forgotten or stopped caring about where I’d come from, simply because I’d left it.

Do birds go back to the nests in which they’re born? Not after building their own nests, I imagine. It is a difficult task to move away, but eventually it becomes an equally difficult task to want to go back home. What waits for you there, an escape from the life you now live? This, here, is the present. It is the now. Who knows where the future might be? Who knows what each person’s priorities are, and who is to say whether they’re right or wrong? It is not a mark of insensitivity or ungratefulness if you don’t want to go home. After all, where is ‘home’?

Maybe you’ve built your own nest now, and you’re already home.

Features

Sonnet Lachlan Peacock

Corrugate my soul left breathless, I’ve been away too long.

Leave me dryspun among cut stems, kick my screen door in and take what you want. Dad or mum calling for dinner, echoes in the loose girdle of soft rain on shingles.

Take my measure to find that measures of loss have no chord or refrain.

The past proceeds in other ways besides.

But in grave, to blooms, the sun’s will, subdued and tossed around you like a stole.

That light hung low between your backyard and where you stand now.

Out of words and depth— repeating: to unpin softly the wind’s far reach and anticipate the distance.

Issue 1, Vol. 67

Features

26

the emerging self Text: Hannah Wolfhagen Illustration: Catherine Nacion

My girlfriend’s family invited us both to New York for six weeks, to meet me for the first time. It was over Christmas and New Year, and I found myself very much in the middle of another family’s home. I was excited to get to know them, but the visit came not too long after her father had become aware of our relationship and as such, I was anxious about his willingness to have me in such close quarters for so long. Sure enough, not long after our arrival, my girlfriend was taken aside by her stepmother and told that we needed to stop acting affectionately towards each other because we were making her father uncomfortable.

This was unexpected and upsetting, but in hindsight, it made a lot of sense. He wasn’t ready to have me in his home, and that’s okay.

But once I was there, overseas and in their space, this request highlighted an underlying power struggle inherent in the relationship between parents and their grown-up children, especially when that adult child is introducing a partner into the mix. Is it okay for parents to dictate the terms of their child’s visit or their behaviour while they are at home? Especially if the behaviour in question is not inherently disrespectful but, rather, a demonstration of the adult they have become. I think the reason I was so uncomfortable with my girlfriend’s father’s request was because it denied the autonomy and independence of the common queer post-schooling narrative. That is, ‘if my family is uncomfortable then they do not have the right to that part of my life’, when back in the family home, is replaced with ‘if you are part of our life then you have to alter or hide this part of yourself.’

From the moment we enter the world, bloody and screaming, our parents are at our beck and call. Every wail brings them running, be it one of discomfort, hunger or cold. It could be the most powerful we will ever be in our lives.

Our overworked caregivers run to our side, any time of the day or night, offering possible solutions to our wordless problems. That is, until we begin to speak and understand, and begin to throw tantrums with the knowledge that it may bring a positive outcome.

Then the glass is shattered. Our parents are still determined to provide everything we need, but they start to stand their ground and set parameters. They control much of our routine: sleeping, eating and moving from point A to point B.

merely listened to. After moving out of home, at least early on, my parents took my demonstrations of emotional independence to mean that I no longer needed them, or that I was not thankful for the support they give me. When I was back in their house my position was uncertain, as the roles of parent and child

I realised that I had neglected, on the most basic of levels, something my parents wanted from me. Simply to talk to me and for us to spend time together. This encounter helped me continue shifting the way I think about my family: I realised that parents are no more mythical beings than anybody else.

Just because they gave birth to me and raised me when I couldn’t do anything for myself, doesn’t mean they aren’t the proud owners of many insecurities and fears, just like the rest of us.

My father criticises me on the basis that we are very similar, and that he had all the same flaws as me when he was my age. Some words used are ‘selfish, into-ourselves, competitive and focused.’

I agree with him. However, even if we have shared character traits – and we do – it doesn’t mean that I express them in the same way. How many ways can one go about being proud and selfish, right? I don’t want to have my future already written, or my failures pointed out to me so clearly. Thankfully, I’ve talked to dad about this. He has been more and more willing to discuss my improvements without deferral to his already-experienced-past. I really respect that. It is not easy, having nurtured a small human being for twenty years, to separate their immediate needs that were your responsibility for so long from their subtler need for emotional guidance today, just because they’ve moved away from home. It’s also not easy to stop seeing certain tendencies within your child and just say, ‘yep, I acted that way too for this reason, and that must be the case here as well.’

Soon after, we grow up. It is not so clearcut as when a piercing wail would bring a parent to your side to help, or when food of their choice would be spooned into your open mouth. So, where do we stand with our parents when we no longer live at home? When does it become disrespectful for them to demand certain things from their newly grown-up kid?

Whether I am at the home of my girlfriend’s family in New York or my own in Tasmania, one particular conflict continues to arise. That is, the tension between the university student attempting to assert their identity, and the parent who wishes to be valued, needed or

became less clearly defined. So yeah, when I was sitting there playing DS with my little brother it looked like I hadn’t evolved one bit. I wasn’t in the kitchen cooking with my parents each night, so therefore I was not as good (read: grownup) as I could be.

I honestly think that half of the fights I had with mum and dad while I was home were not about the things they seemed to be about, like not helping out around the house enough. In one particularly emotional moment, when I caught my parents talking about how ‘impossible’ I was behind my back, my dad blurted out: ‘You just haven’t spent any time with me!’ Fuck. I was stunned.

So, I’m willing to see my parents as three-dimensional people because they’re doing me the same honour, and we’ll continue to figure out our evolving relationship together.

27

O-Week, Semester 1, 2017

Features

Achieving My Independence

Text: Tatsunori Yamaguchi Photograph: Marwan El Hassan

I am a second-year Economics and Finance student. Before you ask, no, I don’t know what stocks you should buy, so please don’t ask. Though I may not know much about economics and finance, one thing I do know is that it is possible to develop financial autonomy while undertaking your university studies.

When I first arrived in Canberra with my mum and two brothers, I had $2000 dollars in my bank account.

I remember having a fight with my mum on the evening she left because she wanted to have dinner with me for

the last time – I wanted to hang out and make new college friends. Unfortunately, I was to learn that, given the financial strain that I was under, participating in certain aspects of college life would be a challenge. The wild Thursday nights out that my college peers experienced were non-existent for me. I remember grocery shopping used to be a game of cross-checking catalogues to find the cheapest possible items available. I remember my shoes falling apart in second semester and having to fix them with duct tape. I remember using body wash to wash everything. Honestly, it sucked.

It was the need for a change to this situation that bulldozed a path through my mind and gave me the determination to better myself.

I bought a bicycle with some of the savings I had and tried to survive while I was looking for a job. I bought a few books with my remaining money. My list included: How to Win Friends and Influence People, The Great Gatsby, How to Think like a Freak, Buffetology, How to Deal with Difficult People, Grit and The Beautiful and Damned.

I know I’m starting to sound like the ‘knaawledge guy’ from YouTube but these books taught me a fresh approach to my studies and work. I learnt to judge people by what they could create in value rather than by their job title or how

much money they made. I nurtured the curiosity of a child, I steered clear of yielding to herd mentalities, remained impartial to political issues and developed a method of coherent thinking.

Most of the challenges I faced at university were solved with the aid of unconventional wisdom.

I am a firm believer in the American dream. When I came to Canberra all I had was the incorruptible aspiration of reaching new heights. I didn’t have money or contacts to fall back on, but I did not let that deter me; I work hard and believe in opportunity. I managed to secure three part-time jobs at three different restaurants. I achieved respectable grades in all of my courses and developed a strong GPA. I found supportive friends who shared my view of hard work and success. I admit that I did get help from my parents on occasion, but for the most part, I got myself through the year. When I was pressed for time, I created it; I remember studying for an econometrics exam while washing dishes as a kitchen hand. I got up early every day, I didn’t go out unnecessarily and I planned my activities days in advance.

Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying here – I am no superhero. As much as I succeeded in some areas, I failed in others; I did not get the academic team scholarship at my college that I was hoping for and my application for a Vice

Chancellor course was unsuccessful, ending my plans for setting up my own society. But ultimately, my successes and failures, the opportunities I seized and those that I let pass by, have all contributed to shaping who I am at the ANU today.

I am determined to work even harder this year to maintain my grades while excelling at my full-time job. I have become financially independent from my parents and I have everything that I currently want – great friends, a world-class education and steady employment. Reflecting on all that I managed to achieve in the space of year, after having come to Canberra with little money and no contacts, strengthens my belief that with grit, discipline and hard work comes the opportunity to better oneself.

So remember, whatever it is that you’re hoping to attain this year – whether it be achieving financial independence, improving your grades or branching out to new extra-curricular activities – the opportunities are right in front of you here at the ANU. The possibilities are truly endless – just have resolve and get ready for an unconventional year!

features

Issue 1, Vol. 67

28

The Death Amongst the Growth A tribute to the innumerable pot plants that have shrivelled up and died at our hands as we traverse that fine line between love and neglect.

In Memory of my Echeveria ‘Violet Queen’, an Unnamed but not Unloved Succulent Lauretta Flack My dad is a full-time cherry-growing dad. He has a degree in stuff that grows.

I thought it might be hereditary, but I learnt quite early on that it is not. Definitely not. Nonetheless, my precious millennial heart knows no limitations and I continued to dream luxuriant dreams of my gardening successes. I adopted a succulent from the corner of a nursery brimming with half-dead orchids. I did it because I missed home, where I knew everything was blooming; I needed something alive to love within my bare college walls.

I cared extensively for its very minimal needs. We lived a good 1.5 years together, with only one frost-related incident, and plenty of tenderly taken selfies.

When it was over, it came suddenly; a beautiful plant uprooted, flying clean out of its pot onto the concrete of my front porch. And so, with one clumsy swipe – plus months of shallow watering gradually resulting in a root system weakened to the point of disintegration – I lost my baby.

My Echeveria ‘Violet Queen’ will be remembered for its tenacity in the face of adversity, and the fact that not once in the full year and more that I had it, did it ever flower like the one in the picture.

Not even once.

This little plant is survived by one child, conceived via cuttings taken shortly before its passing.

In Loving Memory of Henry Mint Nicole Yu Henry was quiet, but there was something about him – he could transform the air in a room. I met him in Woden.

He gave me a cryptic look when I asked him where he lived, and we ended up sharing an Uber back to campus. For four months he was my first thought in the mornings, and his silhouette the last I saw at night.

I binned him in August with a heavy heart. During my six-week absence, he’d lost the incentive to perform the most basic life processes. Gone was his hunger for upward mobility, for personal growth: his joie de vivre. ‘Hardy,’ the salesgirl had said, ‘thrives on neglect.’

Bullshit.

There are platitudes we feed ourselves to alleviate the Henry Mints and Terry

Terrariums we let wither in the frivolity of our university days. The bitter truth, however, is that we committed recklessly to too much. They were entirely devoted to us, but we had Sydney, or Melbourne, or a questionably long happy hour on a Thursday night.

This is both a sombre reflection and a cautionary tale. Before dropping another heartbreak down the Davey Lodge garbage chute, consider the love you’re capable of giving; start with a cactus.

O-Week, Semester 1, 2017

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In Fond Memory of my Over-Loved Leafy Goddess Mahalia Crawshaw It may be a metaphor for how I love.

That’s how I always joked with family as I tossed another browning, crooked thing into the compost.

Over-love. Over-water. Same thing.

This is a memoir to all of the plants that I killed in 2016, in my first year of university.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry that you had to travel with me in a sweltering car, going 90 km/h, away from the coast to a place where the nearest thing to a beach is a nudist river.

I’m sorry that you had to sit on a shelf on the fourth floor of a red brick block waiting for the sun to finally set so you could breathe a little easier.

I’m sorry that I tried to make it up to you, by drowning you. Too often.

Features

A Tribute to the (Arguably Inevitable) Life Trajectory of my Little Green Friend Emily Dickey You were a present from my dad to say ‘good luck.’ You meant independence.

And while I managed to remember to do laundry, to go grocery shopping, to make pesto pasta, I didn’t quite remember that succulents really don’t need that much water.

Look, I’m crying now.

You meant so much to me and I just wanted to show you that. But I guess I did it in the wrong way. I did it too much.

This is goodbye. Goodbye, my leafy goddess that I managed to murder while trying to save.

Gravity can be hard to deal with. In some ways, I blame the old Finnish woman who adamantly told me that the little cactus she offered could not die. In other ways, I blame my friend for making me enter the Finnish fete in the first place. Regardless, my little green buddy didn’t deserve the horror that befell it.

Literally. It died nearly a week into being in my life, potentially due to my chronic inability to sustain any relationship. To be honest, I forgot about it even sooner, keeping it only as a reminder that we all die some day. But it was a fateful Monday, months later, that the poor guy fell out of my third-floor window.

How do you deal with that kind of emotional roller coaster? One day you think it’s still salvageable, maybe only halfdead, then the next week you realise the remarkably familiar purple container in the dirt below your window is your cactus – and God only knows how long it would’ve been lying there. After I retrieved it, it had the audacity to fall off

my desk again, where – courtesy of my laziness – I left it.

It was a handy conversation starter which I must admit I used whenever and wherever possible. My friends began to worry. Looking back now, it really was a rough time. I see that cactus and its tragic trajectory as a reflection of many things that went wrong in 2016. Despite this, I have high hopes for this year’s Finnish fete. New year, new me.

Issue 1, Vol. 67

Features

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Red Thread Interview with Kien Shoshana Rapley

When I first caught a frog Gelatinous and milky grey I was squatted flat feet crusted Imagining my heels melting into the clay fractures And tried to see my teeth in his eyes When I first saw the rain The air was laden with its precipice girth And the humid space was crying out Fall! Fell in saturating bliss Breaking my reflection in the pool When I first sowed the seeds We sprayed the toss in mimic rain Soft over cupped calloused fists And waited tenderly on the shoot Translucent live river jade When I first waded the field Thing high in coffee dregs rising To lap at my naval like a thick tide The rice eyes periscoping on the surface Whose shoots embower knowing eels When I first farewelled the flood The crop began to shiver Declothed of mother’s shawl waters And as it receded lay down Prostrate like a sleeping flock When I first watched the harvest Threshers swaying waltzing crafting The spoils shrink away down the river On churning gunmetal barge Celebratory tang of charcoal, the pride When I remembered

Jordan Roux

i.

Clotho You spin veins into the womb, spooling a pink bud to burrow into soft wall of membrane and flesh: wet and ready. Throbbing with new blood, outside these cushioned walls a mother is screaming. ii.

Lachesis You weave your tapestry the dye bleeding from your fingertips into patterned beauty.

This sweatshop existence, where months are counted by sanguine-soaked sunsets, marks a worldly progression and a forgotten survival.

It started with the animal blood you squeezed onto virginal sheets. You speak and feel in fragments for to be wholesome is to be penetrable – here dirt breeds dirt to become mud. You must drink something if not nothing.

The rhythmic quotidian is your pulse wherein ancient songs are sewn and knotted.

Some thousand-and-one nights, you have laboured, you have created, lacing your tapestry with ancient dust. ii.

Atropos You are left at the loom threading your own shroud, and the three fates stand by your side. At night, lying on the earthen hearth you watch their faces in the light of glowing embers.

The women coo to you, whispering their stories in your muffled ear, lulling away into dreamless sleep.

The scissors flash in the morning light.

You unravel.

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O-Week, Semester 1, 2017

Features

make the internet great again Text: Martin Holmes-Preston

Amidst a flurry of doom-portending headlines airily declaiming global headwinds, another crisp blow: ‘Estimates show that just eight men own the same wealth as the poorest half of the world.’

Last month, Oxfam released a report damning inequalities in the global economy. Yet the level of humanity’s contemporary welfare is unprecedented.

Capital growth remains unceasing; developing nations approach the economic standards of the developed world. ‘Inequity is the nemesis of progress!’ yelp the shuddering disenfranchised. ‘Envy not the wealthy! Their progress will save you,’ the prosperous’ refrain returns.

‘Take neither at their word,’ wisdom tells us, ‘and look to history,’ says the truth.

A group of malcontent workers protest against their employers. They are dissatisfied with meagre wages, fearful of machinery that is replacing them and resentful that their bargaining power has weakened. They do not seek to stall technology’s steady development. Instead, they question technology’s misuse by the propertied and they question unfairness. Welcome to Nottingham, 1811-1816, the heart of resistance against the Industrial Revolution. These people are Luddites. Their concerns: overheads, destitution, looms.

Though a colourful and popular movement, Luddism was eventually suppressed. Pondering the Luddites, we learn what drives a desire for the destruction of political and mechanical infrastructure; this system provides exorbitant surplus for some and entails degradation of others. They remind us that technological development is desirable as a means towards broader goals, but not in and of itself. You may disdain capitalistic direction, or you may admire it. Civic participation increased during the Industrial Revolution because improved conditions allowed suffrage and education. It improved general living-standards and allowed a middle-class to thrive. It signified new political machinery and a hastening of technology’s progression.

You are probably a student who uses Facebook, with student debts, borrowing against your future income. You did not read that sentence thinking: ‘I am one of the poorest people in the world!

Screw those people who live in slums, owning nothing, my net wealth is negative.

Zuckerberg is morally obliged to give me his wealth!’ If you did, go watch The Social Network. Zuckerberg was a student like you, except smarter and more of a jerk. He created Facebook and changed our way of life for payment, not to cover your university fees. If society does not reward people like Zuckerberg, who take risks to start businesses, there would be no reason to bother taking risks.

Anyone with enough resources and the right connections can ensure content fitting their agenda is more widely distributed than other types

Before you log back onto Facebook and unfollow Oxfam’s page because they use terms like ‘net wealth’ and ignore others like ‘innovative entrepreneurship’, stop. First, briefly shut your eyes. Imagine you are deciding how to distribute the world’s present wealth, but you are clueless about which person on earth you will be. Looking at Oxfam’s report, you realise that there is a 50 percent chance you are going to live below the ethical poverty line. ‘Huh,’ you think, ‘in today’s conditions if I want to secure myself basic human rights, I’m screwed.’ Worse still, you realise that large populations of people too poor to afford education create unskilled labour forces that produce goods less efficiently than their skilled counterparts. Returning to Oxfam’s report, you notice the wealthiest 10 percent worldwide saw 46 percent of total income growth over 25 years. You see economist Dr Piketty’s research showing that there was no income growth for the bottom 50 percent in the US over 30 years. ‘Maybe some redistribution to increase the productivity of the worst-off allowing them to

contribute more to society would improve everybody’s welfare,’ you think to yourself.

Congratulations, you have just participated in a thought-experiment. Sucks to be you, you’re now a philosopher. But, before you head to social media madly tweeting that the system is broken, consider what controls the system. In a network like Facebook, or in certain Washington circles, unseen forces manage the prominence of content. Anyone with enough resources and the right connections can ensure content fitting their agenda is more widely distributed than other types, which was a tactic used in the recent US election. Voters and users rarely subscribe to publishers who produce content that does not affirm their ideology. Relatable rhetoric, engineered to be pithy – the kind seen alongside memes or in Reagan-esque catchphrases like ‘Make America Great Again’ – thrives in a political campaign, or an environment like Facebook. People feel gratified seeing their beliefs so aptly summed up by three to eight word slogans.

Competitive markets demand that businesses survive through efficiency. It is easier to transfer capital internationally than for cheap labour to migrate with strict travel regulations. So corporations build factories overseas. They employ workforces in developing countries that do not have the bargaining power to enforce regulations that would ensure the decent treatment of employees. They minimise taxation by taking ownership offshore to countries willing to lower corporate tax rates. Tax revenue with lower rates is better than no tax revenue at all, so governments trying to curb unemployment surrender to the influence of business interests and vie to offer ‘tax breaks, exemptions and lower rates,’ the Oxfam report notes. They maximise profits by reducing labour costs, ‘squeezing workers and producers,’ as Oxfam dubs it. Manipulating politics and people’s lives is unethical, yet most businesses’ goal is to optimise returns to people wealthy enough to invest in them, their ‘shareholders’.

The problem for everyone else is that marketing a product is similar to marketing an idea. The masters of convincing you to buy that AI-managed home-theatre system are also able to convince you to elect the policy equivalent of a lemon-car. After you find out that your new TV set-up only receives

one channel taxonomically and that the brakes in your new vehicle barely do anything to stop you veering off a cliff, you think: ‘Might have to go ask those nice salespeople how much they’ll charge to fix this heap of junk!’ Meanwhile, those same savvy businesspeople have taken the profits from your purchase and invested it in making the internet great again, with another social media campaign warning: Don’t trust those robots taking your wages!

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Letter from the Exec Text: Makayla-May Brinckleys Makayla is a Wiradjuri woman from the Cootamundra/Leeton areas in New South Wales.

She is in her third year of a double Science (Psychology)/ Arts degree and is the 2017 ANUSA Indigenous Officer.

ANUSA’s Indigenous Department aims to advocate for and support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students at ANU. We will advocate for issues surrounding representation, cultural inclusiveness, and respect for our land and our people.

We plan to organise group outings and cultural walks and tours in the local area led by local Ngunnawal Elders, as well as out on country further afield.

Our team this year is comprised of myself (Officer), Braedyn Edwards (Deputy), Tyrone Evans (Secretary), Hmalan Hunter-Xenie (Treasurer) and Georgia Mokak (Social Officer).

The Indigenous Department’s vision in 2017 is to build a strong base community for our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mob at ANU. We want to create a safe and inviting community so new students can reach out to us for support, assistance and friendship. It is crucial to have a sense of community at university, and we aim to provide that for all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people at ANU. Our overarching campaign theme for 2017 is ’From Little Things Big Things Grow’, and I must credit ANUSA and the ANUSA Education Officer Jessy Wu for their assistance and support in developing this. ‘From Little Things Big Things Grow’ seeks strength from movements by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the past – those who brought much needed change to their communities through small acts, which then build towards bigger movements.

This campaign takes specific inspiration from Vincent Lingiari, a Gurindji man and a stockman at Wave Hill.

Lingiari headed the Wave Hill walk off, demanding pay for Aboriginal

people’s work and better treatment of their mob. After a nine-year protest, their land was given back to traditional owners and the fight was won. The Wave Hill Walk Off shows how one act of demanding pay for labour can lead to huge social and political movements of rightful land ownership.

Drawing from this story, as well as community perseverance and resistance to racism, inequality, and disrespect for land, ‘From Little Things Big Things Grow’ hopes to create a more culturally inclusive and respectful ANU. Some simple tips on how to utilise small everyday actions to foster respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, promote engagement with Indigenous issues, and spread awareness for Indigenous causes are:

1 Educate yourself about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage and culture. Visit local galleries and museums, or take an Indigenous

studies course as an elective – INDG1001 is highly recommended.

2 Respect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in your community.

Always ensure there is an Acknowledgement of Country at events you are organising. Include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in panels, conferences and productions, and call out racism.

3 Support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander NGOs and causes – some causes to stand in solidarity with Traditional Owners include the forced closure of communities and harmful mining and fracking practices on our rural communities. You can also donate to local organisations that support local Indigenous people in Canberra. For example: Winnunga Ninmityjah Health Centre, or the Burrunju Aboriginal Health Centre.

Developing the Department Text: Braedyn Edwards Braedyn Edwards is this year’s Deputy Indigenous Officer. He has moved from Brisbane to Canberra to study Law and IR here at the ANU, and is a descendant of the Gamillarroi and Kunja peoples from northern NSW and southern QLD.

The first time I heard about the Indigenous Department was when it was mentioned to me that they needed a new Officer.

Even though I had only been at ANU for six months, it seemed as if other students who had been here longer hadn’t heard

from the Department very much in their time either. A few of my friends commented that I should put my hand up for the job, so I did.

To be honest, I had no idea what I was stepping into. There didn’t seem to be any kind of documentation on what previous Officers, or the Department as a whole, had done previously. In fact, I couldn’t find any reports submitted to ANUSA that weren’t older than a year. The Constitution was out of date, and according to our previous Secretary, the Department hadn’t received new funding for a while because of how inactive the Department had been.

Last year, for the first time in a long time, we sent students to

the NUS ATSI Conference. This not only provided a valuable opportunity to network with other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, but to also contribute to the policies which would be taken to the National Conference at the end of the year. I reached out to the academic colleges and Richard Baker, who were all extremely supportive, and helped us make steps toward ensuring Indigenous students have a voice within the university as well as among peers. With help from ANUSA and the other department heads, we put together a new administrative structure for the department.

The steps we made seem like pretty modest achievements.

But at the end of the day, when

I had feedback from older students saying that it was good to see regular contact from the Officer and that this was the most active they had seen the Department in a long time, I knew we were doing something right.

I have seen the Department go through some pretty significant changes in the past six months, and it will continue to do so as we grow and evolve. We’ll only become more confident in what we’re doing and contribute more to life at the ANU. I know that with the team we have, the students around us and the support we have from ANUSA and university staff, the Department will go from strength to strength.

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O-Week, Semester 1, 2017

The Politics of Love in a Colonial Economy Text: Kate Daglas Kate Daglas is a 19 yearold Gunditjmara woman currently pursuing a future in child psychology. She would like to acknowledge the encouragement and support of her community and mentors in developing her work.

I have an ideal of love. To me, it is both unconditional and reciprocal. Any competent adult should be capable of showing, giving and receiving unconditional love, yet this seems to not be the case.

How is it that I have come to believe such things? This question has many layers for me. The effects of abuse and betrayal have led me to believe in something, yet nothing. A non-physical construct that glues us all together, and I don’t feel it, I see it but don’t understand it. There is something about the economies and politics of love within a colony that makes it so unequal, abusive and neglectful. You are either the occupier or occupied.

The first relationship of every person within a colony is an abusive one: they’re born into this nation without the option to decide whether they are a citizen or not.

This initial relationship of victim/ abuser – or rather, colonised/ coloniser – which we’re forced into pushes us to accept a

relationship of this kind, as well as the other inequalities of a colony that are reflected in our personal relationships.

We see this in wider society through the lens of oppressed PoC (People of Colour) and the flourishing white man. Why is there such an inequality between the two? If you research the common signs of an abusive relationship – use of fear, humiliation and guilt to control another – you will find that it is reflected within the relationships between white people and PoC. It seems that the patterns for personal relationships within a colony are being dictated by the economies and politics of colonial relationships. There is an intergenerational inequality between parent and child where the parent has failed to love beyond their own self-interests: whether work, romantic relationships or drug addiction. My relationship with my mother is a victim/abuser relationship – there is no equal input. I care, she doesn’t.

True unconditional love is the opposite of selfinterest, yet the shadow cast on adulthood is self-interest.

It means that to be an adult, one must be able to show, give and receive true unconditional love.

I know I deserve that love from somebody; I know that I am denied it within my current relationships. However, I carry a guilty sense that I am also currently denying someone else this love, reproducing the same inequity that has happened to me throughout all of my relationships. I cannot love. I can really, really like, but I cannot love. I can

say ‘I love you’, but I know that I don’t mean it. For a very long time this has stunted my personal growth and ruined my connections with other people.

More recently, I believe I may have found the missing piece to the puzzle.

My grandmother, as a child, was taken from her home and placed into a white institution riddled with every kind of abuse. She was torn from her culture and the people who were supposed to provide love and care for her.

At 16, she was made to leave this institution and fend for herself.

She never got the chance to be a child and so her time to grow and foster an understanding of love was completely lost.

When I was young, I was never taught about my culture, land or people.

Even though I lived on my land for a period of time in my childhood, I wasn’t aware that I lived on it. I was frightened of the dreaming stories I was told about spirits, shapeshifters and others I don’t wish to name. Imagine being a child trying to learn about their culture and only hearing stories of fear when questions were asked. I was scared, I didn’t want to learn about my culture anymore.

I have only recently realised that my grandmother didn’t teach my mother or

myself about our culture because she didn’t even have an understanding of her own.

How can we give knowledge, or love, without receiving it from the beginning? Instead of learning about her culture, my grandmother did the complete opposite – contact with her culture is a reminder of her trauma, as the negative associations of childhood and culture have woven together. A toxic cycle emerges. The colonisation of our land and removal of our children has stunted personal growth of our people for generations to come.

I notice these patterns. The neglect and unequal politics of love in a colony have necessitated my ability to observe objectively. I have the ability to step outside of myself and look back in; I have academic distance. I adopt these Aboriginal habits of thinking. So this family who I thought gave nothing to me, actually gave me the ability to know myself. I am who I am today because of these traits, and because I have the ability to look beyond the now.

Although I have been denied reciprocal care in my own life, I know that my purpose in a colonial economy is to heal, and to love unconditionally.

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The Politics of the White Saviour Complex Text: Tyrone Evans Ty is a Wirradjuri man doing International Security Studies.

He is the 2017 Indigenous Students Department Secretary, but is also interested in all things security and IR related.

The ‘white saviour complex’ is a pretty heavy-handed issue, so I’m going to start by saying my views do not reflect those of the Indigenous Students Department, the ANU or Indigenous people as a whole. Firstly, I’m going to say that even today there are many challenges that Indigenous Australians face that are unique to us. The 2016 Closing the Gap report by the Federal Government found that in comparison with non-Indigenous Australians we have higher infant mortality rates, lower education and employment rates, and lower life expectancy rates, just to name a few. Many of these problems are

being addressed not just by our mob, but by the wider Australian community as a whole. However, the debate that arises is whether this help is genuine, or if the ‘white man’ is offering his helping hand to the ‘Indigenous natives’. It’s a pretty controversial issue that is constantly under discussion.

In today’s world I like to think all the programs and opportunities for Indigenous people are created with the Australian Indigenous community, rather than for us. These opportunities should pave the way for the future successes of Indigenous youth, especially in roles and professions that Indigenous people have historically been absent from or blatantly unwelcomed. It is, however, hard to draw the line between where the support ends and the ‘saving’ begins, and this difference of opinion is where the debate comes from.

One interesting example of this at the ANU is the Law Reform and Social Justice project, who developed

the ‘Ready 4 Recognition’ program.

Run predominantly by non-Indigenous volunteers, it intends to ‘provide clear, concise and legally accurate information on the constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.’

This program, and others similar in nature, have been interpreted in some Indigenous circles as undermining our mob’s ability to fight for constitutional recognition. I personally don’t agree with this approach to activism, and I understand that some blackfullas will criticise with me for this, however, I believe that the struggle of our mob isn’t one that we necessarily have to deal with entirely by ourselves. People like those from the College of Law are using their specialist skills and knowledge to assist in mending the relationship between our people and the non-Indigenous society.

I am fully aware that the white saviour complex is very real, and I do not doubt that it still manifests in the actions of many individuals and organisations. To think that it

doesn’t is just an unrealistic view of today’s ethno-political relationship between Indigenous Australia and the rest of society. There are people who believe that without their help, my mob would not be capable of reaching our goals. They need to be educated, and shown that blackfullas are equally capable of anything our non-Indigenous counterparts are. There are also many non-Indigenous Australians who want to help and we should welcome them, not as a societal ‘higher-power’ reaching down to us, but as brothers and sisters wanting to see each other succeed, and striving for equality in all aspects of life.

I believe that this is an opportunity to bridge the divide between our two groups, and to eliminate the ‘us vs them’ mentality that is the underlying foundation to many other issues obstructing conversation about Indigenous rights to this day.

Colourism

Conflict

Makayla-May Brinckley

Makayla-May Brinckley

And so I scratch at the skin I was given, Skin that is pale and they see as somehow purer, But it doesn’t change to the colour I desire.

A stark red instead appears – bloodborne, As if to say: Again, I will fail you.

Again, I will not fulfil you.

When I say: I am made of the red soil, pressed in with welcomed footprints of our spoken stories, I believe it.

When I say: I am filled with the sun’s rays, shining down on me as a mother’s touch, I feel it.

How can you tell me: ‘it’s what’s on the inside that counts’, when you, too, judge on our colouring?

I see my tiddas and I am in awe of their strength, their pride.

I join in their fight against colourism, and admire how they see past my shade.

When you, white man, Laugh at the spirit I know flows through my bruised fingertips and swollen toes, Can’t you see you’re tearing me apart?

Your ideas, your atheism – You clash with my motherland pulsing through my soul My spirit.

And you crush me Again and again.

I do not say this lightly.

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Widening The Gap Text: Kieren Murray Kieren is a 21 year-old 4th Year Commerce/Law student at the ANU. Originally from Cowra in Central West NSW, he is a proud Wiradjuri man.

Let’s close the gap.

Indigenous people are twice as likely to drop out of high school as every other Australian.

Indigenous people are three times as likely to contract a deadly infection.

Indigenous people make up three percent of the Australian population, but comprise 28 percent of the prison population.

It sounds pretty bleak. The oldest surviving culture in the world reduced to a few figures that define a whole group of people. A group of people who are constantly told that they are disadvantaged, less educated, less healthy and unable to make it in modern Australia. Is it any wonder these figures are still so prominent?

Upon arriving at University I started to see it pop up more.

Helping the ‘less fortunate’ is the flavour of the week on a regular basis at University, and apparently well-meaning discussions around ‘closing the gap’ have become more prominent.

But as Indigenous organisations are now also endorsing this philosophy, everyone in Australia – including Indigenous Australia – has accepted that there is a gap.

Indigenous Australians are disadvantaged. They’re less educated, less healthy and less likely to succeed in modern Australia.

Makayla-May Brinckley

Indigenous Australians are less.

That refrain never affected me, because I was taught what it meant to be Aboriginal by strong Aboriginal men and women who all succeeded in modern Australia not in spite of their Aboriginality, but because of it.

So, what would happen if we ditched the negative discourse and replaced it with positivity?

The statistics I mentioned at the start of this article are worrying.

Injustice and inequality are important to be aware of, but how about these two:

I have no doubt that the ‘close the gap’ campaign comes from a place of well-meaning and a desire to create a fairer and more just society for all Australians, but it is one that is shrouded in negative discourse.

This negative discourse is something that has come to plague Indigenous Australians in modern Australia.

Indigenous people make up three percent of the Australian population, but make up 12 percent and nine percent of the NRL and AFL respectively; and

Think about yourself for a moment. Imagine if you woke up every day and walked into school to have a teacher tell you the same thing: that you weren’t smart enough and you needed help. My bet is that eventually you would begin to believe them. If we apply this same line of thinking to Indigenous Australia we shouldn’t expect a different result.

Not enough do we hear stories of Indigenous success and advantage, very often due to the centrality of negative discourse in mainstream Australia. Aboriginal people have what it takes to be successful and it’s not up to white Australia to save Indigenous people. Everyone has a part to play when it comes to smashing inequality, but inequality isn’t the whole picture. That’s just the kind of image negative discourse portrays.

I am lucky that I grew up in a household where my mum and my step-dad taught me to be proud of my Aboriginality. They also gave me everything I needed in order to be successful.

Importantly, these things were never offered to me as mutually exclusive. It wasn’t until later in my schooling that I started to hear the phrase ‘close the gap’, but by this stage, I was already one of the top students at my school.

White sisters

There are currently three Indigenous senators in Federal Parliament, meaning Indigenous Australians make up roughly four percent of the Australian Senate.

Understand that people aren’t inherently disadvantaged because they are Indigenous. People are disadvantaged because of their circumstances.

I wish you would understand How haunted I am; How haunted we are.

I wish you would comprehend That the words passed down are tainted with blood, red Our ancestors spilled Across country taken.

I pray for the day that you will realise Your words spoken with care Are tangled within wilted lies.

How compassionate you are, White woman, When this is not you.

You do not hold this pain.

You cannot know it, And we Cannot share it with you.

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The Intertwining of Archaeology and Aboriginal Heritage Interview: Makayla-May Brinckley

Rob Williams was by no means a stranger to me; we came to know each other through the Tjabal Centre, a meeting place for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students at ANU. Rob was always working at Tjabal when I’d see him, but never failed to stop what he was doing to have a yarn about university, life, and of course, his projects in archaeology.

Makayla:

Would you like to tell us who you are, who’s your mob, and how you came to be in Canberra?

Rob:

I’m Robert Williams. I identify as a Ngambri/Ngunnawal man.

Ngambri is my family group, and Ngunnawal is my language group, as is spoken around Canberra. I also have Wiradjuri ancestry, based around Cowra, Yass, Brungle and Tumut areas.

I was born in Canberra and have always lived in Queanbeyan, where a lot of my family still is, but I’ve spent my entire primary, high school and university studies in Canberra.

Makayla:

Can you tell us what your undergraduate degree and Masters degree at ANU were like?

Rob:

I started university here in 2010, and finished with my graduation in 2016. My undergraduate degree was in a Bachelor of Archaeological Practice. From there, I went into a Grad Certificate, and then my Masters in Archaeological Science (Advanced), which is Master’s coursework, with the ’advanced’ part adding on a visitation at the end. This is kind of treated like an Honours year, where you are assigned a supervisor, but given a bigger project to complete, which seems overly ambitious.

Makayla:

Have you found differences between yourself as a local student, and other Indigenous students who have moved to Canberra for university?

Rob:

I’ve seen quite a few students that have come from further afield to study at ANU, whereas I’m lucky to be local and have my family support. Those other students who don’t have that

seem to struggle to connect to this place – it’s not their home country, it’s not where they’ve grown up, and they struggle to connect and find comfort here.

Often that leads to them giving up, or dropping out of university. And these are students who are sometimes more brilliant than me, but I guess it wasn’t the right time, or moving away was hard for them. And I think that’s one of the biggest issues for Indigenous students – it’s the travelling away and leaving their home and their community. They need to be well supported to try and overcome those obstacles.

Makayla:

What sparked your interest in archaeology?

Rob:

I had a unique experience when I was growing up – privileged really. My father worked at the Ngunnawal-Ngambri Aboriginal Land Council in Queanbeyan, as a representative of the local land council, but also as the original owners of the Canberra and Queanbeyan region. He would be asked to go out and monitor sites when they were being developed, walk through national parks if they were building fire trails, or to walk the roads and tracks and check for any Aboriginal and cultural heritage. He provided a voice for any type of cultural significance around these places. When I was younger, I’d ask my mum – who decided whether I could have the day off school or not – if I could join Dad and visit these amazing places.

So these were really my first experiences of archaeology, starting when I was probably eight or nine.

It’s interesting because one of my first memories was going out and having these experiences as a kid, and one of the archaeologists that was working on this project was Dave Johnson.

That’s when I first met Dave and started to aspire to be him. And those memories have always been there; even when I think

they haven’t been that influential, they’ve always been in the background. And in some way, even if I wasn’t quite conscious of it, they have always directed me into a degree in archaeology.

You then start to realise the responsibility we have when we get these degrees. We’re privileged to have this experience, and now I have a responsibility to community, to country, and I hope to invest and to give back to my family and my community. Hopefully I can bring about a different approach or discussion about heritage and why it’s important; more than just a protection of sites. It’s important as who we are in our identities as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. Country and culture are fundamental.

Another thing is the unfortunate circumstances of Australia’s history: what has been done to our ancestors and [our] being dispossessed of culture. I’ve grown up with part of some knowledge missing, in not being able to speak the language, and not knowing the stories that are associated with this land that I walk through, even though I still try and imagine them. So I started doing archaeology realising that it could bring back some of those stories and understandings of our history. It’s about bringing together a fractured identity; it’s part of a healing process. It’s funny that a very Western, colonial discipline is allowing that.

Makayla:

During your undergraduate and Masters work at ANU did you face any setbacks and how did you overcome these?

Rob:

Something I’m more aware of now as I’ve progressed through my university experience is the extreme absence of an Indigenous voice and culture within the university. There are pockets, but it’s something that should be throughout the university.

And it’s not just an Indigenous issue – it’s something that needs

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Local Black Services and Organisations Canberra is home for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. There are a number of support services and organisations accessible at university and throughout the broader community. to be addressed throughout the whole university to develop a more inclusive culture. When you think of how important heritage is to our story and our history, and you have non-Indigenous lecturers and consultants out in the field, there’s a huge absence and a huge problem in these academic areas.

pursue a career in and something you can see long-term benefits in. I think once you’ve found that, just go for it. I found something I was passionate about and just kept pushing. If there’s something I can tell other budding first years that don’t see themselves as academics – just wait and see.

They say that one reason there aren’t any Aboriginal lecturers in Archaeology and Anthropology is because there’s no one who’s qualified – and that’s rubbish. There are people out there.

How ANU approaches recruitment at academic levels clearly has to change. Another issue in archaeology is that there’s so many non-Indigenous students who don’t learn about Australian or Aboriginal archaeology – but they graduate, and work in jobs in Australian communities when they haven’t studied this field.

There’s a long way to go in certain areas where there needs to be more input from the community, from Elders and knowledge-holders, to ultimately produce better students.

Rob Williams will be starting his PhD at the University of Sydney this year. From all of us at Tjabal, and the other students you’ve met on this six year path: we wish you well.

ANU was lucky to have you!

Makayla:

Do you have any advice to undergraduate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students?

Rob:

Take advantage of the scholarships and the facilities that are there – for me it was really beneficial. Make friends in high places: get to know your lecturers and tutors and the people in the tops of your departments. Get to know the VC even! Squeeze out everything they have to give you – that’s what it’s there for.

Utilise the libraries for all they have. And get involved with Tjabal. It’s a great community and you can make lifelong friends there.

I was lucky that I knew what I wanted to do. Some students come to university and have no idea. It’s cool to just float around and find what you’re passionate about, something you can

ANUSA Indigenous Department

The Indigenous Department is a student led-group at ANU where students can meet other young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The Department provides access and support to other services students may need.

Email: sa.indigenous@anu.edu.au Website: anusa.com.au/advocacy/indigenous-department/ Facebook (Indigenous Students only): ‘ANUSA Indigenous Department’

The Tjabal Indigenous Higher Education Center

Tjabal provides services and support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. It is open during the semester between 9am - 5pm, and after hours for Indigenous students with card access.

Email: tjabal.centre@anu.edu.au

Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health Service

Winnunga Ninmityjah is a primary health care service controlled and operated by the ACT Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.

Website: winnunga.org.au Ph: 6284 6222

Burrunju Aboriginal Corporation

Burrunju Aboriginal Corporation was established to provide local Indigenous people an opportunity to explore self-determination through the creation of art and music. Burrunju is a meeting place for many cultural events and markets.

Email: burrunju@indigenoussupport.org.au

Aboriginal Legal Service (NSW/ACT)

The Aboriginal Legal Service aims to provide culturally appropriate justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities.

7/9 Moore St, Canberra, ACT 2601 Ph: (02) 6249 8488

ACT Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultural Centre

Venue for Conferences and Workshops for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.

245 Lady Denman Drive, Yarramundi Reach, ACT 2601.

Ph: 0434 605 600.

Email: oatsia@act.gov.au

Gugun Gulwan Youth Aboriginal Corporation

Provides a range of support services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples Grattan Court, Wanniassa, ACT 2903.

Ph: (02) 6296 8900

Issue 1, Vol. 67

Arts

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The Stories of One Billion Voices Text: Nicholas Campton-Smith

Almost two months after its release in China, prolific director Zhang Yimou’s historical fantasy epic The Great Wall is set to hit theatres in Western markets.

The Great Wall received early criticism in the US, with pundits accusing the inclusion of Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal and Willem Dafoe as further example of whitewashing in Hollywood following last year’s #OscarsSoWhite debate. Despite being a Chinese production, filmed in China with a massive Chinese cast, it’s hard not to see Damon’s character as embodying the ‘white saviour’ trope, a la Dances with Wolves and Avatar. Director Zhang Yimou has defended his casting, however, clarifying that Damon’s, Pascal’s and Dafoe’s roles are those of European mercenaries and were never intended for Chinese actors.

Despite Zhang’s rejection of whitewashing criticism, some netizens on China’s microblogging platform Weibo have

denounced the inclusion of American actors as a cheap ploy to appeal to Western markets. For them, such a move undermines the rich and profound culture in the Chinese film industry. Hero, Farwell My Concubine, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon are all prime examples of refined Chinese filmmaking, all of which drew solely on unique Chinese experiences in their storytelling.

The domestic Chinese reaction to The Great Wall is understandable. As a nation which proudly emphasises its five thousand years of culture, and which has emerged standing tall after periods of turmoil such as the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, there are innumerable stories and experiences to be told without Matt Damon to make it marketable.

Conflict as a source of good drama is a truism not lost in the Chinese experience. China is a nation rampant with contradictions - disparity between rich and poor, promotion of communist core values alongside the shameless

expansion of consumer markets – all of which are conducive to the creation of excellent cinema.

There are many examples of distinctly Chinese storytelling in China’s film history. Documentarian Fan Popo’s films Mama Rainbow and Papa Rainbow delve into the unique and at times heart-wrenching experiences of lesbian and gay Chinese youths and their relationships with their families. Albeit censored in the mainland, these documentaries take a genuine approach to the subject matter. Fan Popo isn’t preaching from a pulpit, but rather investigates the abrasive relationship between traditional values and familial importance with raw emotion and great respect for his subjects.

Watching such films, whether a brave examination of LBGT+ culture or an action-filled Canto buddy cop story, allows the viewer to delve into the exceptional circumstances of one-fifth of the global population. In recent years Chinese cinema has largely overcome restrictions

placed by the Communist Party to release films from an ever expanding range of genres. Chinese consumption of domestic streaming services such has led to more demand for quality domestic films, a trend evident to anyone who has spent any time in China.

Infiltration of Chinese film into the Australian market is to be welcomed and applauded. Chinese cinema has much to offer the ordinary Australian, opening a window through which we can look into our own backyard - an unprecedented opportunity to listen to the stories of one billion voices.

The Golden Koala Chinese Film Festival (GKCFF) will be screening eight FREE Chinese language films over four nights (Friday 24th February to Monday 27th February) at the Molonglo Theatre, Crawford Building, ANU.

Event guide National Multicultural Festival Text: Phoebe Hamra

Bald Archy What you should The 10 February – 13 March check out in Watson Arts Centre A parody of the Archibald prize filled Canberra’s arts with portraits to make you laugh and/or For the Aussie larrikin who likes scene this month. cringe. the politics in art to be obvious.

16 – 19 February ANU Llewellyn Hall and Garema Place and surrounds A staple of any ANU student’s first week back to uni. With a free concert featuring Kate Ceberano, Wiradjuri, Bollywood, Andrea Kirwin, Miriam Leiberman, The Borderers and Sol Nation and enough food to send you into a food coma so deep you’ll miss your first lecture.

Canberra Fringe Festival 18 February London Circuit A raucous line-up of diverse acts, from the Multilingual Poetry Showcase to Genderqueer Burlesque. All performances are free, and a selection of Canberra’s tastiest street eats will be on offer.

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Arts

The Poetry of Protest Text: Gabriela Falzon

Audre Lorde once stated: ‘Poetry is not a luxury’.

Art should never be a luxury enjoyed by the elite or a separate domain enjoyed by the few. It is, and always has been, a weapon for social change: a means through which we can reshape our entire understanding of life itself.

For this reason, art is deeply political.

It can be the voice, and the image, of stories and lives that are silenced. Art is present everywhere and it should be used to embody alternative voices and different perspectives.

The idea of art as something apolitical, separate from grassroots existence and unnecessary to life and culture, is a conception used by Neoliberal thinking to formulate everything in relation to its ability to produce profit. Capitalism leads us to view worth as correlative to function and profit – as such, we are often taught to see art as a cultural luxury rather than an essential weapon in the armament of revolution.

Earlier last year when I was working as the co-director of literary organisation Scissors Paper Pen, we organised a spoken word event with the ANU Women’s Department. At the event – ‘Spoken: Women Armed with Words’ – an autonomous group of women-identifying people came together to claim a space and share experience with their words and

stories. Public space is often dominated by men, and so we utilised this gathering to combat the unequal representation of women in art and politics. We used poetry to battle ongoing barriers to liberation. This night evoked a combination of anger, sadness and hope as we shared personal experiences of oppression and expressed our sense of community. We were able to protest inequality through the act of art.

During last month’s Canberra Slamboree, I read a poem called ‘Womanly Touch’ that was fuelled by a patriarchal encounter I’d had. I wrote about the way women are viewed by men as an object owned by other men rather than as human beings with individual opinions and aspirations. I had been congratulated by a man on my ‘womanly touch’ and needed to protest this assumption against my autonomy. So I threatened to cover the patriarchy in period blood – let the misogynists clean it up with their disgusting mouths. Reading this poem was liberating for me and the other women in the room. We felt a sense of solidarity and pride in being women and we re-created our identities in a way that refused to comply with the rigid structures of the patriarchy.

In the band Late Night Cooking my bandmates and I use music to dissent and rethink the status quo. Through

songs such as ‘I am a Feminist’ and ‘Unsolicited Advice’, we protest ideas of sexism, elitism and homophobia. Much like poetry, music cannot be separated from the social realities it is created in. For example, the seemingly uncontroversial act of women participating in music became a political protest in Iran, when societal regulations forbid them from doing so.

In the Union movement we get creative in order to mobilise groups of people who are de-politicised by a neoliberal culture. As part of our campaign against corporate tax evasion, we ran a covert protest during the launch of Canberra IKEA. This is a company that doesn’t pay its fair share of tax – money that should go towards things like giving safe asylum to refugees, funding public education and making university free. So we created fake IKEA brochures containing information on ‘tax deductible items in store’, then we dressed up as ‘Fakea’ workers and handed out these materials to customers. This form of protest was creative and used art to raise awareness about inequality. Collective action such as this has taught me to see the connection between protest and art, not only due to the theatre and materials involved but also because it showed me the way in which anything can be art, especially when we are fighting for a better world.

The truth is that art comes from human reality. It emerges from the barriers, divisions and oppressions that exist and reconfigures them; it creates the possibility of a different way of living. The act of art itself is radical protest.

Issue 1, Vol. 67

Arts

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Art for Thought

go back to where you came from Text: Janice Peh In ‘Art For Thought’, Janice Peh encourages readers to discuss what is happening in the world today by meditating on a different artwork every fortnight.

In a utopian world, we would all be living in perfect peace and harmony. Reality, however, suggests that our world is one replete with conflicts and prejudice.

Every day, we are bombarded with news of people griping about globalisation, immigrants and refugees. It seems like we are living in an increasingly divisive world, where multiculturalism and globalisation are met with contempt, as they have become the scapegoats for social problems such as unemployment and economic collapse. Cultural signifiers have become a determining factor when our society decides whether a person should be welcomed or shunned.

and to begin inscribing the words found in the copybook.

The English-language instructions in the books introduce learners to an original writing system invented by the artist, named ‘New English Calligraphy’.

This writing system is a hybridisation of the English alphabet and Chinese char-

What does the ANU community think??

‘It is extremely important to gain further understanding of other cultures. Without understanding, we cannot progress together to create an open, undivided world.

Globalisation is only productive if companies ensure that the proper treatment of each worker is made a priority.’ – George Dover, Bachelor of Visual Arts

Sometimes it can feel like the media is throwing us into an abyss of hopelessness, as it paints us this picture of a dystopian world, saturated in gloom and despair.

Yet, there is an artist who shows us a hopeful, alternative reality.

Chinese artist Xu Bing has been awarded numerous awards by multiple institution – including Columbia University and the US State Department – for promoting cultural understanding between the East and West. This week, we look at one of his fascinating work: ‘Square Calligraphy Classroom’.

‘I think it is absolutely necessary to gain a deeper understanding of other cultures. In a global community that has become more interconnected than ever, a broader and deeper understanding of cultures definitely imbues a person with a practical perspective on life. This understanding builds firm foundations for relationships, something that is invaluable.’ – Daniel Kang, Bachelor of Law and International Relations

Breaking barriers, building bridges

‘I don’t think it is very important to find similarities between different cultures. What is truly important is understanding and appreciating each culture as it is, despite the differences. By understanding each culture’s unique attributes, we will learn to appreciate diversity and enjoy discovering the uniqueness of the many diverse cultures in our world.’ – Ong Hong Sheng, PhD in Immunology

‘Square Calligraphy Classroom’ is an installation artwork that simulates a typical classroom environment. Neatly laid out in the museum’s exhibition space are tables and chairs that look like the something you might find in a classroom. A large chalkboard is displayed at the front of the room, near a video encouraging museum visitors to sit at any of the desks and become students in this class.

A set of learning materials are displayed on every table: a Chinese calligraphy brush, a small container of ink and a copybook with instructions.

When you open the copybook, you find instructions written in English and models of handwriting for learners to imitate and inscribe. Museum visitors are encouraged to pick up the calligraphy brush that is provided, dip it in ink,

writing are challenged. Through this process of unlearning and relearning a written language that one is deeply familiar with, visitors learn that the apparent gulf between various cultures is mostly an illusion. Rather than emphasising the many differences between the East and West, the artist found his own way to harmoniously integrate these two seemingly disparate worlds.

acters. Each English letter is modified and rearranged into a square-word format, so that the alphabet somewhat resembles a Chinese character but remains discernible to the English reader.

As museum visitors identify and inscribe each word in the copybook, their preconceptions about reading and

What do you think? Is intercultural understanding an idealised, impossible concept? Is multicultural harmony a romantic, impracticable notion?

Vice-Chancellor’s Courses For students who want to change the world

The Vice-Chancellor’s (VC’s) Courses are for students from all disciplines at ANU. You can add a VC’s Course at any stage of your degree. Take a single course as an elective, or combine them to form a minor, major or Vertical Master of Innovation & Professional Practice.

Elective

Minor

Major

Masters

Take any VC’s Course as a university elective as an undergraduate or postgraduate student.

Take VC’s Courses in a minor of ANU Leadership & Research, or Innovation & Professional Practice.

Take VC’s Courses in a major of Innovation & Professional Practice, in any undergraduate degree.

Add a Vertical Master of Innovation & Professional Practice to any degree, or as a stand-alone Masters.

VC’s Courses open for enrolment in Semester 1, 2017:

Unravelling Complexity

Find out more at an Information Session during O-Week:

Be bold in unravelling complex problems through argument supported by evidence. Learn from leading academics, professionals, and from each other about multiple perspectives in approaching complex problems.

Monday 13 February 1–2pm, Manning Clark Centre Theatre 6

Leadership and Influence

Tuesday 14 February 1–2pm, Manning Clark Centre Theatre 6

Develop a cross-disciplinary understanding of leadership, and learn what is important to you. You will have the opportunity to hear and discuss ideas with prominent leaders, and pitch to the VC on how to enhance the ANU student experience.

Creating Impact Learn how to work in multi-disciplinary teams with business and government to create real-world impact.

Thursday 16 February 3–4pm, Manning Clark Centre Theatre 6 Friday 17 February 12–1pm, Manning Clark Centre Theatre 6

Enrol now for Semester 1 vc-courses.anu.edu.au

Reviews

Issue 1, Vol. 67

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Bonus Feature! Doggos of Versailles.

All That Glitters: Versailles at the NGA

Text: Daniel McKay Doggos: Joanne Leong

The Chateau de Versailles was built by the ‘Sun King’ Louis XIV of France with one thing in mind: power. Beginning as his father’s hunting lodge on the outskirts of Paris, with the aid of a legion of architects, designers, craftsmen, artists and gardeners, Louis transformed the building into a gilded cage. It was in the palace he could hold captive all the aristocrats and power brokers of his kingdom.

Every sculpture, painting, carpet, piece of furniture, dress and garden feature of Versailles was created with a single purpose in mind: to enthral and bewitch those who might question the magnificence of the monarchy and the rightness of its divine claim to power. Even several centuries later, the scale of beauty and ambition summoned by just one man remains visually intoxicating.

The National Gallery of Australia’s summer blockbuster exhibition Versailles: Treasures from the Palace is, like the palace itself, a gilded spectacle. In miniature, the legendary opulence and extravagance of the Sun King shines brightly. So too does the lustrous arrogance which weaponised marble, wood, bronze, paint and canvas into extraordinary tools of French statecraft and power.

It appears the cultural power of Versailles remains at the disposal of the French State, albeit appropriated from the legacy of past Kings. Even when transported to the other side of the world, these objects continue to evoke the lingering global dominance and pervasive influence of France. It is hard not to notice that the deal made by the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) and French Minister of Culture was very well timed to coincide with the massive diplomatic effort coordinated by the French Government to help secure the $50 billion submarine contract with Australia.

The intriguing path of the exhibit, through a series of different thematic rooms, is a satisfying taste of the magnificence prized in the world of Versailles. Ignore pretentious friends who squawk like galahs that the exhibit is a poor substitute for visiting the original site. Think of this as a privileged glimpse through the keyholes of the 700 rooms which make up the actual palace, or at least a taste of a select few. Less likely to be overwhelmed in the rarefied salons of the NGA, you have the chance to more closely inspect the delicate details of objects on display, and appreciate the craft and care with which they were made.

Regardless of whether you have braved the touristic-hordes at the real palace or not, I would recommend taking a moment to view the enchanting orientation video at the entrance to the gallery to get your bearings. Meandering through

the exhibit, you can encounter the different aspects of life at the palace which has made its name synonymous with a whole cast of historical people, royal and otherwise. Yes, never fear, Marie Antoinette makes an appearance – her head still attached. Clever and theatrical curatorial choices, wafts of orange-blossom perfume and snatches of court music throughout the galleries – make it a feast for all the senses, and help conjure in your imagination the glorious whole of an authentic experience. Fortunately, unlike at Versailles in its day, this perfume is not intended to mask the fact that people have pissed behind the curtains.

The only discordant note struck was the overtly gendered nature of the exhibition accoutrements: unlike in many of the NGA’s previous exhibitions, the giftshop and marketing were excessively focused on ‘women’s products’. This might seem like a small point, but having to exit the exhibition through the shop made it a jarring end to an otherwise well-rounded presentation.

The peasant-like state of the average student’s finances might lead to some outrage at the aristocratic admission price, even with the (somewhat paltry) student concession. But compared with the price of a plane ticket to France, and mindful of the cost to the gallery of putting on the show: the entrance fair is downright democratic. In any case, you can take your parents on their visit to Canberra and – while impressing them with your

newfound cultured tastes – impose on their royal largesse for a free ticket.

Sensuously carved sculptures, sneaky Instagram opportunities, exquisite paintings, elaborate furniture and other objects of high craft are all on display in this exhibition, along with snippets of their history and the stories of those who made and owned them. While you have the chance, living it large in Australia’s own seat of power, get a taste of these luxurious lifestyles – and be glad that our Prime Ministers aren’t able to build and decorate palaces in scale to their egos.

Versailles: Treasures from the Palace is on at the National Gallery of Australia until the 17th of April. Student tickets are $25. If you want to avoid the flocks of pensioners, there will be late-night viewings during the Enlighten Festival 3-12 March.

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Reviews

Tilley’s Devine Café Gallery, Lyneham

Text: Diana Tung

Whatever their opinion, everyone in Canberra seems to know Tilley’s Devine Café Gallery. On the leafy corner of Brigalow and Wattle Street in Lyneham, Tilley’s is a Canberra institution. The first thing you’ll notice, once your eyes re-adjust to the low lighting and dark decor, is the old school charm and smartly dressed waitresses skillfully dodging and weaving between tables. The soft jazz that plays over the speakers adds to the lively atmosphere. For a newcomer, it’s a little confusing that there’s no sign telling you to seat yourself and order at the bar, but you’ll feel right at home every time after that.

I visited Tilley’s twice over the course of a couple of weeks, trying out both the breakfast and lunch menus. I went for a classic each time – the English Breakfast and then the Organic Beef Burger.

The English Breakfast came as a generous and beautifully stacked tower. The toast was topped with two poached eggs, smothered in tarragon hollandaise next to chipolata sausages and baked beans.

Beside that lay hash browns and bacon placed on a bed of sliced field mushrooms and a small garnish of greens to complete the visual feast. The hearty

meal was delicious, and the variety of tastes and textures made the dining process fresh and interesting throughout.

My only relates to the strips of thick cut bacon, of which, parts were overcooked and dry. Everything else was perfect.

The burger, however, was less impressive. I’m always on the lookout for a good burger and was really hoping for Tilley’s to be The One. The Organic Beef Burger had an excellent but perhaps overblown description of its ingredients: ‘250g ground beef patty, swiss cheese, fried onion rings, Tilley’s tomato pickle, American mustard & rustic salad, with New York Fries’. Albeit very fresh, the ‘rustic’ salad was nothing more than the typical onions, tomato and lettuce you’d expect on any burger. Having lived in New York for three years without ever hearing the term ‘New York Fries’ before, I wasn’t sure what to expect from that addition. Turns out they were pretty much the same as you’d get at your local fish and chip joint. The texture of the beef patty wasn’t great either – the beef was nearly minced to the point of it being blended, making the patty mealy and dry. The 250g might be a selling point for some consumers, but I would

have rathered a smaller patty that was juicier and well-seasoned. The best part of the meal? The two onion rings that were crisp, tasty and cooked just right.

There are a few other small gripes. In the corner booth where I was seated quite a few flies got trapped by the lack of airflow. On another occasion, the fixed table was too far from the booth seating to make for comfortable eating. I’m also not too keen on the 50 cent card surcharge, though the 10 percent surcharge on public holidays is pretty standard.

What I do love and appreciate about Tilley’s, however, is that there is something for everyone. It’s a great place to catch up with friends or sit with a newspaper by yourself. For students and those who care about value for money, I’m not sure if I would recommend the overly ambitious lunch menu. It tries to cover too much ground – there are plates ranging from Thai curry, to Schezuan Salt and Pepper Squid, to pasta. However, brunch at Tilley’s is a great way to treat yourself once in awhile, and a great place to take your parents when they’re visiting and kindly covering the bill.

The Secret History

by Donna Tartt ‘I suppose there is a certain crucial interval in everyone’s life when character is fixed forever … for me, it was that first fall term I spent at Hampden.’

Text: Victoria Fay

With a fresh academic year stretching out before us, the formative weight that Donna Tartt places on our university years may seem daunting. Rest assured that Tartt’s fictive Hampden College is worlds away from the ANU. Unless you somehow become embroiled in a murder with a group of overinvolved Classics students, you should manage to avoid the same darkness that permeates Richard Papen’s recollection of his time as a student at Hampden.

Tartt’s 1992 novel opens by recounting the demise of Bunny Corcoran with a scarcity of detail that disappears later in the lengthy book. Time then shifts backwards, with the first half of The Secret History reading as a suspenseful murder mystery, populated by the eccentric students of Hampden’s elite Classics department. Beyond the small class’s interest in Ancient Greek, they are united by their extraordinary wealth, dandyish sensibilities, and a misplaced sense of superiority over the greater student body. Richard, a middle-class Californian, is somehow seamlessly integrated into their Dionysian crew. His quick acceptance into their circle is not the only

point where The Secret History diverges from a sense of reality.

The students of Hampden embody the most well-worn clichés of the university Arts student. Throughout the novel, a bevvy of under-performing creative types seem to appear in a plume of cigarette smoke, ready to offer Richard mysterious pills from their limitless dorm room supplies. The Greek class, with whom Richard spends most of his time, are bizarrely self-absorbed. Henry, a linguistic wunderkind who is said to speak eight languages, is shocked upon learning from a classmate that man has, in fact, walked on the moon. The group seems to survive on a diet of expensive liquor, pricey French cuisine and elaborate home-cooked meals, nary a bowl of mi goreng in sight. The almost implausible pretentiousness of the blazer-wearing, Greek-aphorism-quoting main cast is one of the novel’s most frustrating elements.

Despite this, I found it hard not to become enwrapped in the insular world of Hampden. The suspense introduced with Bunny’s murder carries through the book, and Tartt’s prose does an incredible job of sustaining the gloomy opulence of her characters. The eccentricities of the central characters, whilst

at times grating, are part of a surreal world that diverges just slightly from our own. Considering the story is told retrospectively as Richard recollects of his university heydays, it is perhaps apt that certain elements are embellished.

It’s easy to see how a character, with a taste for the dramatic, would romanticise a time of life that brought both newfound freedom, and a huge amount of emotional turbulence.

I can’t imagine that The Secret History provides a realistic insight into many people’s academic careers. Tartt’s novel nevertheless succeeds as a gripping, borderline fantastical murder mystery.

With my copy weighing in at 629 pages, its ability to keep the pages turning must partially account for its continued popularity over the 25 years it has been in print. The Secret History succeeds as a work of escapism, and a particularly beautifully written one at that. If, however, you’re looking for an insightful portrait of everyday life at a university you will not find it in this dark tale. I’m choosing to remain grateful for that.

Life & Style

Issue 1, Vol. 67

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Regular Column

Dear Woroni Text: Mary-Anne Nolan

Dear Woroni: How do I get back into the groove of uni after two months off?

At the beginning of every year, aspiring students hoping for a fresh start flood into the gates of ANU. Many of us have expectations for budding academic success or otherwise. For most of us, however, these expectations are never met.

But that’s why I’m here to help. Here is your guide to achieving everything you could possibly want at uni this year, and stepping out of your lazy holiday groove into a mindset built for success!

1. Go to Officeworks and splurge on stationery There is nothing better than dropping half your paycheck on unnecessary highlighters, notepads and coloured tabs to build your already stocked pile of unused highlighters, notepads and tabs from last year. Being well-equipped with stationery is your first step to getting in the right mind space to tackle your first week back. This will probably do nothing to improve your marks, but will definitely improve the aesthetics of your study notes! The prettier your notes are, the more likely you are to reread them – or at least, that’s what I tell myself.

2. Download your ‘Lost on Campus’ app again For those of you who aren’t fresh students at ANU, it’s probably time to re-download your ‘Lost on Campus’ app so that you can re-teach yourself the entire campus layout. In order to attend your lectures, knowing where they are is most definitely a prerequisite. Although you have probably been to the Manning Clark building at least 40 times, two months of drinking booze and sleeping can make your memory hazy.

3. Attend all of your lectures for at least your first week of uni.

In order to play the part you actually need to be a part of uni for at least a week. Go to all your lectures and tutorials for seven days and you will know

everything about the introduction to, and guidelines for, all of your courses.

This will prepare you for knowing what you probably won’t know by the time your end of semester exams roll around.

Getting back into the groove of uni after two months off is hard, but if you carefully follow these three steps, you will be on the right track to achieving all your goals this year!

Dear Woroni: Should I talk about politics on social media?

We all have that friend who unapologetically shoves 1,000 words of their opinion about politics down your throat via Facebook. Please, spare us.

Talking about politics on social media can do wonders, but we need to be careful about what we are saying and how we are saying it.

In light of the recent election and inauguration of Donald Trump, our Facebook news feeds have been bombarded with rants about anything Trump-related. For many of us, social media is our primary news-forum in one way or another. Each one of us is a member and contributor to a digital-news cyberspace. Often, Facebook memes or political rants can inform us of a globally defining moment that we knew nothing about.

However, at what point do our social media rants turn from informative and reflective to pretentious and obnoxious?

How do we avoid sounding like a know it all? And how do we avoid misinforming people and shoving our opinions down their throats?

The key is to be succinct in what you say.

As well as that, make sure you fact check.

Just recently, Trump shared an article on his Facebook page which read, ‘Kuwait issues its own Trump-esque visa ban for five Muslim-majority countries.’ Sounds legit right?

Nope. Completely untrue. And what’s worse is that this didn’t come from some shady Wordpress site, it came from ‘Trump’ himself.

Within 24 hours, this article had over 100k shares on Facebook. No doubt, many of us would have seen it too and probably believed it. Fake news stories cast doubt on the truth and allow us to believe what we want to believe.

In this generation, we are so lucky to have such accessible platforms to receive and disseminate political information.

However, it is both a blessing and a curse. We have become so conditioned to trust what we see on social media, that we no longer actively seek out information on our own terms.

After first fact checking, you also need to stop and think about what you are about to write. Broadly consider if it is the right platform to share your thoughts?

Will your audience be receptive? Is what you are writing respectful?

More specifically, you need to consider if your contribution is a: Relevant, b: Thoughtful, and c: Interesting.

If not, what you are about to share is probably a d: None of the above.

If, after considering these factors, you believe what you have to say satisfies the first three criteria, then go ahead – your opinion is most likely going to be received well. If not, then there really isn’t a place for you to be talking about politics on social media.

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dorm room friendly fauna Have you recently found yourself longing for something to care for after having to leave your childhood pet back home? Do you want to spruce up your dorm room with some décor that will prove to be a self-funding investment? Well, have we got the article for you.

Text: Georgia Leak with the ANU Vege-Table

Parsley and Rosemary

The Money Tree

Parsley and Rosemary are two of the easiest herbs to grow – all you need is a bit of sunlight and water – making them low maintenance and simple to look after. I recommend growing these near a windowsill as they do require a fair bit of sunlight. Now, on to the recipe:

Although it may be ridiculously hot right now, it won’t take long for Canberra to do what it does best — get unbelievably cold! It can be difficult to find indoor plants that are suitable for (occasional) sub-zero temperatures. However, the Jade plant (more commonly referred to as The Money Tree) is perfect for these kinds of conditions. Getting its nickname from its coin-shaped leaves, the Money Tree is said to activate exactly what we all need this semester — good financial energies! Similarly, ancient feng shui principles say that placing Money Trees in East locations of any room will encourage positive vibes to flow upon your scholarly pursuits.

Garlic & Herb Potatoes You can never go wrong with crunchy, warm roast potatoes. What makes them even better though, is the coating – which is made out of herbs that you can easily grow in your own dorm room.

You will need: Baby potatoes 1 ½ tablespoon olive oil 1 tablespoon minced parsley 1 tablespoon rosemary 1 teaspoon minced garlic 1 teaspoon maple syrup Pinch of salt Instructions: 1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Line a baking tray with non-stick baking paper. Set aside.

2. Make fine slits in each baby potato, but do not cut all the way through.

3. In a large bowl, combine prepared potatoes with olive oil, parsley, rosemary, garlic, maple syrup, salt and pepper. Coat well.

4. Place potatoes on baking tray, put in oven and roast for 20 - 25 minutes.

5. After 25 minutes of roasting, cover potatoes again in a mixture of olive oil and crushed garlic and place back in the oven. Cook for an additional 25 minutes or so.

6. Once cooked, sprinkle potatoes with remaining herbs and serve immediately.

Sprinkle with more sea salt if necessary!

According to getbusygardening.com, you’ll have to be more mindful of over-caring for your Money Tree than neglecting it. It’s important to note that you should only water it when the soil is absolutely dry as too much moisture can lead to rotting of the roots. Just place it in front of a window, err on the side of under-watering it and you may just find yourself running into a lot more money and HDs this semester!

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woroni from the past

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Life & Style

Resume Writing Text: ANU Student Experience & Career Development

It’s a new year and you need a new job, right? Chances are you’ve just moved to Canberra, started university for the first time, or maybe those three cultured months flitting away euros in Berlin has left you in need of some serious monetary replenishment. Whatever the circumstances, it’s time to think about getting that first casual job, that new job, or stepping up to a better one altogether.

Before you do anything, however, let’s check that resume. You see, there are a couple of issues here: swap the order around, drop the photo. Remember, the document summarising your professional and educational achievements shouldn’t include that best-and-fairest award from early high school or your uncle as a referee.

A resume is your self-marketing tool – it needs to convince the employer that you can do the job, want the job, and will fit into the organisation’s culture. Remember to stick to the common elements of a resume. For a casual job resume, ensure that you include: t Your name and contact details t Qualifications t Skill summary t Work experience t Extracurricular activities t Relevant interests t Referees Use professional or academic referees, the latter may be from high school if it’s early in the year, but you can always speak with a lecturer or tutor once they get to know you. Want to learn more about resumes? Come check out some of our examples in the Careers Centre, through our resources on CareerHub, or attend our Finding Part-Time & Casual

Jobs workshop on Friday 17, 11.30am at Copland G30.

Even for casual work you should always try to align the contents of the resume with what you think an employer will be looking for. Think about the order of your resume, is your previous experience more relevant than your academic qualifications, or have you done something in an extracurricular capacity that could draw the eye of a future employer?

Chances are you won’t be the only individual applying for this position so you want your resume to stand out – the easiest route is research. Go online, pop in, or ask questions about the organisation before you apply. Tailor your resume such that you align ‘what you bring’ with ‘what an employer is looking for’.

That means that each application you send to an employer should look at least slightly different. You can start with a stock resume, then tailor it through

your research. Of course, then, you have to find that job you want to apply for anyway!

Wait. What are you applying for? While your resume comes first, it doesn’t go without the job search. Traditionally, you could pick up a newspaper – The Canberra Times Saturday edition is still packed with jobs – but more likely you’ll jump onto Seek or MyCareer. Better yet jump onto ANU’s very own CareerHub website – the jobs on our portal are specifically targeted at ANU students.

Don’t, however, underestimate the depth of the hidden jobs market: identify likely employers, network with employers and peers, and politely submit speculative job applications to opportunities most appealing to you.

Next step: rinse and repeat!

A Shy Person’s Guide to University Text: Imogen McKay

Starting university is hard, particularly if you are a shy, introverted, or socially anxious person – someone whose voice jumps five octaves higher when conversing with someone new. While it’s a tough place to be, you can find comfort in the fact that you are by no means alone in your feelings of trepidation. You can also find comfort in the fact that, from my experience, there are numerous ways to counter the debilitation of shyness to enjoy and thrive in your first year at university.

Starting university can feel a lot like your first day of high school all over again. However, I quickly learnt that university is not at all like high school and it is likely that, over a short period of time, you will find yourself very different from your high-school-self. The cliché that university allows you to reinvent yourself actually holds a lot of truth, as you are provided with so many opportunities to try new things. You can

find places where you are comfortable and meet like-minded people who will enable you to build your confidence in ways that you didn’t know you were capable of.

Having moved from Sydney and knowing no-one, making friends was an unnerving prospect for my shy first-year self. Know that a lot of people are in the same boat, and a lot of people are probably feeling just as anxious as you are. See this as an opportunity. In Sydney, most of my friends started off their studies with pre-established, high school cliques and were far less willing to branch out.

The first and most opportune time to meet people is during O-Week. Though it is unlikely to be the case, you do not want to have to deal with the anxiety of believing that everyone else has already formed impenetrable friendship groups.

If you are living on campus, turn up to your college’s O-Week events. Even if you do not immediately find people you click with, making even one friend in O-Week can provide you with a familiar face on campus, and you will lessen

the anxiety of finding somewhere to sit in the dining hall or a lecture theatre.

A way of achieving this is to set small goals for yourself: attend an event and then reward yourself with alone time afterwards. If you do not feel comfortable enough to go up and introduce yourself or make conversation with someone, a smile always goes a long way and avoids anyone misapprehending your silence or lack of involvement for rudeness or disinterest.

Though often flippantly labelled as ‘easy marks’, for me, the most anxiety-inducing aspect of my first year was tutorial participation. Although I love learning, the prospect of speaking in front of a group of new people was incredibly daunting. A year on, my advice is to just have a go. Though you may feel more comfortable expressing yourself in writing than by speaking, the reality is that tutorial participation is usually overwhelmingly marked based on oral participation. Unfair as it may seem, to fulfil this requirement students must be vocal, ask questions and express their opinions enthusiastically. Your attempts to

participate in less obvious or performative ways through active listening, eye contact and taking notes will probably go unnoticed. Find comfort in knowing that the virtues of your reservedness are suited to many other values of university. However, if you want that 10 percent, you can still get it. My advice would be to plan prior to the tutorial so that you can deliver a prepared line of opinion and avoid your tutor prompting you to participate through an unforeseen question. If your course has an online element to participation, capitalise on that.

Although your first steps into the world of tertiary education may seem daunting, you can always find comfort in the fact that so many people harbouring the same feelings and anxieties surround you.

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Doing You

Summer Lovin’ Text: Phoebe Hamra

Even if Christmas wasn’t your season to be joyous or jolly, rest assured that for the rest of us, sex over summer wasn’t all paradigmshifting orgasms on Egyptian cotton bed sheets either. Get your bells jingling for the best and worst of summer lovin’.

There was sex outside. As summer and stuffy, un-air-conditioned share houses and apartments on res lend themselves to outdoor activity, sex outside is as inevitable as the season itself. Sex at the beach or pool is a particular favourite – there’s just something about slimy suncreamed skin underwater and the fact you’re almost naked already. Then there’s the equally inevitable, although less hot, sex at a festival. Sun, sweat and

tunes make the perfect environment for romps back at the campsite or, you know, behind the toilet blocks. But hey, you’ve already pissed through your shorts on some guy’s shoulders and no one’s calling you classy.

There was bored sex. So your mates ditched you for some exotic overseas adventure and you’re stuck in Canberra for work or a summer course, or perhaps you’re back home with your parents remembering why you moved to Canberra in the first place. Whichever it is, the lethargic heat is limiting your motivation for much else than lying spread-eagled in front of Netflix and an air con, so there’s definitely time for an afternoon booty call between cold showers. Being stuck living back at home over break brings a certain nostalgia for sneaking old flames in and out the window; déjà vu all over again.

Speaking of déjà vu, there was sex with an ex. Perhaps it’s the lack of distraction that uni provides or post-exam stress-freedom, but December seems to be the season for revisiting exes. Being on the receiving end of messages from three previous flings and, unfortunately, messaging one such fling myself – all within a two-week period – was an unexpected end to the year. Although I opted not to revisit such previously disappointing escapades – they ended for a reason after all – the message I sent was a little more fruitful. Although, like every New Year’s resolution that causes me swear off chocolate for two weeks, I’m not sure whether it was worth it.

This isn’t even getting into a whole other category of exes who travels overseas or make some other grand gesture to surprise you which leads to the whole Ross and Rachel/Rory and Logan ‘we were on a break’ fight. Messy.

In your travels, you may just have discovered sex with a foreigner. It could be with a sexy French guy in the bathrooms of a swanky karaoke joint, or the Dutch tourist heading through Canberra in a campervan, or the British lads making their Falls debut, or perhaps you’re making your way through Europe using Tinder. Whichever which way you do it, having someone with an accent other than Dave Hughes’ whispering dirty things in your ear keeps things spicy. Speaking of spicy, sneaking someone into your hotel room when on holiday with your parents was probably the most nerve-wracking and, therefore, stimulating experience of your trip. Being shouted free drinks, quality food and a swanky hotel is a nice change from roughing it backpacker style, so you have to take advantage of an air-conditioned room with turndown service.

And then, there was sex to make you fall in love. Maybe its pseudo-love, induced by champagne and fireworks and the depression caused by countless relatives telling you that a nice young person like you shouldn’t be single, and then asking if you would like to visit Great Aunt Petunia at the nursing home because there’s a nice young girl/boy that volunteers there on Sundays who would be perfect for you? Or it’s a whirlwind romance, intensified by your looming departure – yet another one that got away. Maybe you genuinely fell in love or stayed in love over summer: props to you. Just keep that coupliness to yourself now that uni’s back, ok?

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Life & Style

Yashi Compares

Bar Rochford vs. Molly’s Text: Yashi Kotnala

Bar Rochford

Molly’s

The only indication that you’ve reached your destination lies in a small, illuminated sign that reads ‘WINE BAR’. The ‘N’ is backwards. Your friend nods in approval. He carries his keys on a caribena hooked to the belt loop of his distressed black jeans. He doesn’t even climb. It makes no sense. Neither does the sign. You figure this bar must be pretty meta. As you climb a set of dimly lit stairs, you’re greeted by the sounds of a scratchy Third Wave Jazz record. A quick Google search informs you that Third Wave Jazz isn’t a thing. It should be.

Google tells me Molly’s is located on London Circuit, so I assume it should be easy to find, but thankfully I do my research before I leave. Tripadvisor member since 2015 and Level 5 contributor, ‘Swirls underscore and underscore Curls’ (formally stylised as Swirls_and_Curls), clarifies that it’s actually off Hobart Place. I breathe a sigh of relief before realising that that means nothing to me. I wasn’t even aware a Hobart Place existed in Canberra. I message my more cultured friend and beg her to take me to the bar.

I venture into this bar on a Friday evening. It’s full of young, well-dressed public servants and bearded men with their pant legs rolled up to the heavens. I file into one of their four leather booths feeling inadequate about my lowly hospitality job and regular length pants; a candle stuffed inside an empty wine bottle is my only source of light. I tell myself that this is clearly a sign that I should down a bottle of wine and wait for some kind of revelation. I choose instead to let the bartender make me something ‘special’. He makes me a Negroni – one part gin, one part vermouth Rosso and one part Campari, garnished with an orange wedge. A friend describes it as being as bitter as her attitude towards men. That’s not completely true. The Negroni, at least, has a hint of sweetness. It’s strong, though. It needs to be sipped, and the flavours savoured. I do neither of these things. I hold my nose, tilt my head back, and gulp down all $18 worth. The bartender must not have heard me over the Third Wave Jazz tunes playing behind him but I definitely said I like my cocktails to be light, refreshing and preferably sipped through a straw.

I’m led into a dark and empty courtyard. A small yellow light bulb hangs down in front of an ordinary doorframe. My friend informs me that we’ve arrived. I say my last goodbyes to the people I love and taking my cues from The Script, pray to a God that I don’t believe in. I have no rational side, so the entirety of me concludes that I must be about to die on London Circuit, off Hobart Place. To my surprise, I’m instead taken down a set of bunker-like stairs to a small speakeasy whisky bar.

Pro (debateable) Tip: Choose a drink from their seasonal cocktail menu. Rumour has it they include a description of what’s in each one, so you won’t get blindsided.

Don’t ask for a surprise.

4/10 for the drink, 8/10 for the bar’s ambience.

Having learnt from the error of my ways, I order straight off the signature cocktail list. While it makes sense to order a whisky based cocktail on account of me being in a whisky bar, I opt for a glass of ‘Thanks Grandma’. The description reads, ‘a twist on a Tom Collins, we’ve infused Hendricks gin with dill, and added cucumber juice. Fresh and refreshing’. If Chris Traeger had a favourite alcoholic beverage, it would be this. It’s literally the healthiest thing in the entire world (false). With each sip, I become more determined to go for a walk up Mount Ainslie in newly purchased Lorna Jane active wear. It gives me hope that one day I’ll be able to tag my pictures with #fitfam without pretending it’s ironic.

I give this drink a 10/10 for all the hope it gives me about my future. The bar itself isn’t too bad either, if a bit cramped – 9/10.

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A Brief Introduction to a Sustainable ANU Summer Text: Grace Dudley

Some facts to consider: Your new (or old) home, Canberra, has been named Australia’s greenest city, and spending time outdoors is said to improve your mood. Join the dots and get amongst the sustainable side of Canberra before winter hits.

For the Urban Adventurers Keep your greenhouse emissions low and take your bike, bought cheaply from the Recyclery shop on campus, for a spin around Lake Burley Griffin. There are plenty of trails to take you on a spiralling journey around the Walter Burley Griffin’s artificial genesis. Swimming not recommended. For a much less health hazardous aquatic experience, head to the closest thing to a beach in Canberra: Casuarina Sands. It is a mere 25-minute drive from the city and promises relief from the summer heat.

The two pinnacles of Canberra may not remind you of the Swiss Alps but offer manageable hikes for both the enthusiastic or the less-outdoors-inclined.

Black Mountain, on the back step of the residential colleges, is an easy trip. You can pay money to go to the top of our greatest icon, the Telstra Tower, or you can subsist on a view of Canberra from the lookout. At the other end of the socalled urban hub called ‘Civic’, take the short-but-steep route up Mt. Ainslie and gaze down Anzac Parade at our various democratic institutions. What a time to be alive. Head to the Botanic Gardens and be transported from the Tasmanian Rainforest to the environs of the Kakadu National Park in a convenient and efficient 5-minute walk. Lizards and kangaroos are abundant.

you cannot wait until the weekend for deliciousness, head to the Food Co-op on weekdays for cheap lunches and sublime vegan cupcakes.

For the Foodies

Keeping Track of Campus Life

Farmers markets at EPIC and in Kingston give you the chance to buy your food locally every weekend. Reduce those food miles and make your carbon footprint enviable. Fruit and vegetables in season during summer include eggplant, tomatoes, watermelon, raspberries and strawberries. Local sourdough bread, cheeses, dips and olives await. If

For the Festival Goers Purchase a ticket to The Earth Festival from 25 - 26 March at EPIC. Eco-friendly businesses will be there, a food court dedicated to vegan food will tempt you, and guest speakers and workshops will have insights into the benefits sustainable living. The Canberra Environment Centre has workshops on baking sourdough bread on March 4 , composting on 28 February and are hosting a celebration of locally produced food at the Canberra Harvest Festival on 25 March.

events. They will continue to hold environment-focused events throughout the year that you can get involved in and help organise. If you’re feeling enthusiastic about taking action on climate change, Australian Youth Climate Coalition Canberra and Fossil Free ANU run successful student-led campaigns to lobby for conscientious environmental policy.

Ever wanted to grow your own herbs, tend to a plot of carrots? ANU has a campus Organic Community Garden tended to by volunteers. It’s located near the National Museum, and working bees happen every Wednesday and Saturday.

Join ANU Vege-table to share the joy of plant-based living. If you’re concerned about the decline of bee populations, the ANU Apiculture Society could be the group for you. Look out for speaker events organised by the Sustainability Learning Community throughout the year.

For all of the budding environmentalists out there, the green thumbs, or the closeted sustainable and ethically minded folk, 2017 has much on offer at ANU. On 16 February the ANU Environment Collective are making a collaborative recycled artwork from cups used at ANU

People have the Power Text: Caitlin Hughes

‘Maintain your rage and enthusiasm.’

As we enter into unprecedented times of uncertainty and fear, confusion and chaos, these are the words of Gough Whitlam that we need to keep in mind.

With a loss of biodiversity that is increasing rapidly, global temperatures that are rising significantly, and air pollution levels that are continuing to grow, the transient and dynamic state of world politics make it challenging to achieve the outcomes on climate issues we so desperately need. Through these unstable political times, it’s time to think about the role that we – as citizens, and activists – can play in helping to steer our future in a safer and more sustainable direction.

For me, the last few months since the US Election have been a time of soul-searching and of reflection. Trump’s long election campaign and subsequent win has set important environment and human rights issues aside and emboldened farright political groups across the globe, seen in our very own backyard through

the return of One Nation. The question is, in a world where conservative forces are armed and ready to backtrack on hard-fought-for areas of progression (should they get into power), how can we best respond to these new political and social challenges that lay ahead?

Since taking office, there has been widespread criticism of the new Trump administration for a string of attacks made on climate science: from the decision to have Environmental Protection Agency studies reviewed by a political appointee before release to the public, to the Twitter ban placed on the Badlands National Park when they defied Trump’s order and spoke out on climate change. Let’s also not forget about the appointment of people with a history of climate scepticism and strong connections to the fossil fuel industry into senior positions in Trump’s administration.

The climate change denialism Trump advocates will have significant and devastating implications across the globe.

The United States, one of the most powerful countries in the world, now has a leader who has expressed his intentions to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, and has previously espoused statements

on global warming that are unequivocally false.

It seems likely that, over the next four years, the United States will spiral even further backward on the issue as inaction continues. If the world’s biggest superpower is unable to show the leadership required for one of the most pressing issues of our time, how is the rest of the world expected to take necessary action to combat it?

We can be outraged at the drastic events unfolding nearly 15,950 kilometres away, but we must remember that the threat of human-induced climate change is a global one. And in understanding this, we need also to recognise that in Australia we have own fair share of tinfoil hat-wearers in high office on Capital Hill. Senators from minor parties and ministers alike are there to remind us that we can never take progress for granted, and that we must fight tooth to ensure we get the policies we need to minimise the effects of climate change.

Perhaps we could learn something from the scientists who have called for a rebellion (of sorts) against Trump’s attack

on environmental science – one made through both academia and activism – with the ‘March For Science’ planned for over 30 cities in the United States in April. Australians have their own reasons to protest the lack of political leadership on the issue. People power is needed to block the Adani coalmine from becoming a reality, to make it heard that we, the constituents, demand better climate action from our representatives. Lobbying is needed to secure more funding for research in related scientific fields, to take the necessary action to save the Great Barrier Reef, and to develop the energy and technology solutions essential to ensuring our future is more sustainable.

We need to maintain our rage at the inaction on global warming, and our enthusiasm for stronger, more effective policies on climate issues. Patti Smith said that ‘people have the power to redeem the work of fools’, and, given the current political context, it’s high time we took this power back into our own hands.

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Environment

A Greener Economy

Slick but Savage Text: Lydia Kim Lydia is just a city gal hoping to make the world a greener and fairer place! Her column ‘Greener Economy’ will talk about some of the economic and political solutions that will help create a more equitable society as well as more livable conditions for current and future generations. Stay tuned!

Our modern lives have been structured around an overdependence on crude oil. Quite literally, most objects that we use on a daily basis contain at least one ingredient derived from it. Paint, fertilisers, clothing, petroleum – you name it. What many forget is the myriad of ways in which the commodity harms our environment and people, especially the factory workers who provide these goods for us. Crude oil may have once been the driving force behind global development, but our world can no longer sustain the methods by which and the quantities in which we consume this limited resource.

A central impact arising from society’s addiction to crude oil is chemical intoxication from exposure to benzene. The blood-and-immune-system-related carcinogenic released during oil processing has been deemed ‘a major public health concern’ by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Acute side-effects from inhalation include narcosis, while chronic exposure is a well-established cause of respiratory conditions and leukaemia.

Benzene is the most common cause of industrial poisoning in China, inducing 60 percent of all occupational cancer.

Amongst victims are pregnant women, their unborn and the elderly. In 2002, 31 workers aged 17 on average, were diagnosed with benzene poisoning in a Hebei factory.

Human activities involving direct contact – oil extraction, petroleum processing, coal coking and manufacturing of industrial and consumer goods – lead to the most detrimental harm. Alongside carbon monoxide and methanol, benzene is also an air pollutant released during engine combustion of vehicles such as cars, trains and airplanes.

Though conservation organisations make many efforts to reduce impacts, the unfortunate reality is that most of our population is more focused on ways to make instant money rather than ‘greener’, more equitable money.

In reality, despite crude oil being the most volatile commodity on the market, our most powerful economies rely on it in measures beyond comprehension. Algeria and Iraq rely on fuel for 90 percent of total exports. Russia, regardless of its 27 percent currency plunge in 1998 caused by a dip in oil prices down to US$18 per barrel, remains the second largest exporter. The US consumes about 25 percent of the world’s crude oil for their gasoline, diesel fuel and heating.

Actual progress can only come through changing the belief that crude oil is a necessity in fuelling our economy. Some governments and corporations have recently taken action in their jurisdictions. Legislation in the UK controls the extent of atmospheric benzene pollution through a National Air Quality Strategy, Pollution of Surface Waters and Pollution, Prevention and Control regulations. The US has banned benzene from consumer goods since 1978. However due to our heavy reliance on crude oil, millions still suffer avoidable deaths every year globally with extensive exposure estimated to cause five deaths per 1000 employees.

The Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the NorthEast Atlantic, and the UN Economic Commission for Europe’s ‘Water Convention’, aim to control pollution internationally. Unfortunately, there remains a deficit in overall global participation, with only 38 countries having ratified the International Labour Organisation’s 1971 Benzene Convention.

Consequently, exploitation within big industries continues. Bribery of factory inspectors by businesses is an issue whereby ill workers and civilians remain unaware of their condition until terminally ill. Additionally, there lacks a mention of benzene in products we consume across all industries. Though certain clothing brands (mostly footwear) have strictly banned benzene from their products, proving benzene exposure is avoidable, larger brands such as Apple, HP and Samsung fail to make mention of the petrochemical in manufacturing guidelines.

While safer alternatives to benzene can often be found (e.g. cyclohexane and heptane), the most effective way to ensure benzene exposure decreases lies in a large step back from our reliance on oil and a prioritisation of renewable energy in our

economies. Oil may be cheaper, but it certainly has no regard for our people and planet. Pressured by new-found social attitudes towards fossil fuels, most big oil companies have begun publishing plans detailing their shift from oil to solar, wind and hydropower. The company Total S.A. has already consecrated 20 percent of earnings over the next two decades to low carbon business.

On a personal level, much can be done by those in highly consumer-based societies. Favouring bikes or hydrogen cars over gas-emitting vehicles and installing solar panels at home are only two examples. Increasing awareness and creating anti-benzene consumer demands that target relevant corporations are key to creating change.

Our attitude towards the issue is what’s most important. An economy more conscious of environmental and socioeconomic equality is the solution. Deaths caused by petrochemical intoxication are a result of our own insatiable demand for crude oil. Though direct consequences may be somewhat invisible in our busy lives, we must take a moment to realise what we are really doing every time we buy a new pair of shoes or start our cars. to avoid the unpleasant sensation of going to school. Positive methods are by far the most effective form of reinforcement though, so start looking for a way to reward yourself when you do well!

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The Rocky Road to World Peace: A Field School in Kamchatka, Russia Text and Photography: Matthew Teh

Globalisation at its best: seven Russians, two Australians (both from ANU) one German, six Americans and two Canadians, picking blueberries and wild mushrooms, and sharing a passion for geology. We’ve all congregated around an outcrop to see fiamme (welded lapilli) in the welded ignimbrites of a caldera forming event from the nearby Gorely volcano, in the volcanic wilds of the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s far East.

In the evenings, amidst recovery (and perhaps delusion) from a day of breathing in eye-watering fumarolic gases, discussion of the astounding geology of Kamchatka ensues. A definitely not politically correct game of charades depicting Kim Jong-un and Putin is followed by an avid debate surrounding the rationale of Russian homophobia. The night ends with an identification guide to the Bloods and the Crips of LA. Tempered with hearty carbs, plenty of chocolate and a universal sense of humour, friendships were forged amidst a mutual sharing of culture and curiosity of geological mysteries of the Pacific Northwest.

This far-off place – the fiery arm of Russia – extends down and dissipates into the Kurils. Shaped like the Leviathan’s

pectoral fin, Kamchatka lies to the west of Alaska and is isolated from the rest of the world, with no roads leading in or out. The administrative centre is Petropavlovsk Kamchatsky which has a surprisingly-unsurprising Asian influence melded with the requisite mass of Soviet communal apartment blocks. A further affront to an Australian’s capitalist heritage is an FSB permit for foreigners to stay at a Russian Academy of Sciences (Far East Branch) building opposite a military base, along with the ongoing regimen of visa registration.

were undertaken sans crampons, sans ropes; a team of eighteen led by nothing more than the unbreakable will of a Russian volcanologist determined to gather gypsum crystals from the lip of an active caldera.

This was the setting for 2016 International Volcanology Field School at the Mutnovsky Volcano, a collaboration between the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. A two-week excuse to ignore the political echoes of the Cold War and celebrate the inner workings of the earth.

Our academic pursuit, geology, is often tied closely to a malicious exploitation of the earth, indiscriminately destroying the nourishing womb from which humanity feeds. From an environmentalist’s point of view, the geologists’ professional existence is justified and limited only in meeting the resource demands of human society. By latching onto human curiosity and detaching ourselves from the capitalist machine, the study of rocks study had no link to commercial exploitation. It was replaced with the fulfilment of a childlike sense of wonder akin to that which inspires environmental preservation.

We embarked on a study of the Mutnovsky Volcano, a composite volcano in Southern Kamchatka in tandem with the neighbouring Gorely Volcano. Both were abstract, nascent landscapes: backdrops to the verdure of the Kamchatkan summer. Daily lectures were held in a volcanologist’s hut (repairs ongoing) on the base of the Mutnovsky volcano, interrupted by the occasional yell and sighting of ‘mishka.’ These Kamchatkan bears were a threat more immediate and infinitely more dangerous than the neighbouring volcano. Glacier hikes

The aim: to learn about volcanic processes using some of the best examples in the world – volcanism, tectonics, and North Pacific subduction phenomena.

Underlying all this, however, was the newfound appreciation of the universality of nature.

What compels people to preserve the environment and why are we interested in things like sustainability and environmentalism? One can quickly run a list of reasons why it is economically, socially and scientifically beneficial to do preserve the environment. But experiences in the wilderness affords the intimacy to

turn an interest into a passion. It is experiences like this Field School that inspires a fervour to protect the places that both strike and bewilder us.

An understanding of the explosive drama unfolding in these volcanoes and rocks over thousands of years had the effect of momentarily transcending cultural and politically prejudicial rifts.

Perhaps the Iron Curtain could have been opened not through violent political agenda, but through the unification of persons enthused by collecting ultramafic olivine samples from outcrops in the Kamchatkan wilderness. Understanding and experiencing a fragile and untouched wilderness, marred only by the decaying remains of an old Soviet geothermal power plant, reminds us of why it is important to protect the environment for present and future generations. Indeed, this nexus between scientific and humanitarian preservation saw the 1996 inscription of the Volcanoes of Kamchatka on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

In these most rocky and often explosive geopolitical times, perhaps the solution to world unification itself lies in what can be discerned as universal. That is, a renewed appreciation and understanding for the world around whether it be through sciences, people, or mere rocks.

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O-Week, Semester 1, 2017

Science

Regular Column

Resolutions: and why they (mostly) do not work Text: Imogen Brown

It happens like with reassuring regularity: a new year rolls in and we make a New Year’s resolution. That resolution is kept for perhaps a week or two until it gets dropped and we go back to our regular routine, albeit with some regret.

It’s easy to see why some people become jaded with the whole experience. Why bother repeating a ritual that rarely works?

To some extent, they are right. The goals that are made during New Year’s tend to be the sort that are hard to translate into consistent actions. The statement: ‘I want to get better marks this year’ may sound simple enough. But after you resolve, you have to undergo behaviour changes that go against regular habits, in an environment which you associate with scraping by, whilst also balancing other commitments like work and friends. This is not easy, no matter what the self-help books say. It takes time - around two months depending on the habit you’re trying to break or form.

Nonetheless, my dear New Year sceptics, all is not lost.

Psychologists have been studying behaviour change for decades and have uncovered a few techniques to help you translate intentions into habitual actions.

Have Specific Goals

Be Kind to Yourself

It’s all very well saying you want to lose weight this year, but you could lose any amount and it would still count. If you want make a change that is going have a lasting impact, you’re better off having a goal with a specific definition and fewer loopholes which allow you game the system. Instead, ‘I want to lose five kilograms by the end of this year’ is a better alternative.

If you’re anything like me you’ll feel lousy when you slip up and will start to question how worthwhile pursuing your resolution really is. Try not to beat yourself up too much - everybody messes up from time to time. If you focus the energy you would have spent on self-loathing on identifying what went wrong and how you can do better, then your failure will merely be a part of your progress.

Know your Environmental Cues

I have proof that these techniques work, besides the scientific evidence.

Personally, I am still working on persevering with my own goals.

At the time of writing this article I have managed to uphold my resolution to floss once every two days. It’s all about the small victories!

We are creatures of habit, and our habits are usually prompted by our environment. For example, our bedroom is a place we habitually use for rest and relaxation. So when you’re in your room trying to get actual course work done, your brain is going to think ‘Wait, what?

This is wrong!’ and try to get you back on track. The definition of ‘on track’ here being browsing your social media accounts. By identifying environments that trigger the habits you’re trying to break, you can start looking for alternative destinations.

Reinforce your Behaviour (Positively): Psychologists classify reinforcement into the positive and the negative. Positive reinforcement simply means you are rewarded for a behaviour, while negative reinforcement is when something unpleasant goes away. A kid who is suspended from class is more likely to repeat the disruptive behaviour, because the suspension allows them to avoid the unpleasant sensation of going to school.

Positive methods are by far the most effective form of reinforcement though, so start looking for a way to reward yourself when you do well!

Business & economics

Issue 1, Vol. 67

56

Dress Like A Woman Text: Mia Jessurun Illustration: Joanne Leong

Amidst a seemingly endless array of hard-to-swallow American political news this week, a Trump staffer came forward detailing his employee dress code and most notably, revealing that he expected female staff to ‘Dress like a woman’. This frustrating revelation was met with significant outcry culminating in the creation of #DressLikeAWoman, a campaign that has encouraged the sharing of images of powerful women dressed in powerful ways. Women featured included US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in her robes, and Anousheh Ansari, the world’s first Muslim woman in space, in her spacesuit.

Now, given the current news climate, it would be very easy to write off this incident as another destructive, discriminatory throwback on the part of Trump to times and attitudes long gone.

However, the reality is that this is in no way a standalone incident; harmful, gender-specific corporate dress codes continue to be pervasive in workplaces worldwide. These standards reinforce a rigid binary of gender in a way that has very real negative effects on women and is disproportionately more harmful to gender-queer people, women with disabilities, older women and socioeconomically disadvantaged women, thus reinforcing existing structures of societal privilege. In fact, only in the past couple of weeks the UK House of Commons have released a report entitled ‘High Heels and Workplace Dress Codes’, which highlights the widespread problems inherent to the implementation of gender-specific dress codes.

One finding suggests there is a significant opportunity cost associated with being a professional woman and adhering to workplace standards, both written and assumed, in terms of both time and money. This has been quantified in numerous ways; one such analysis

by Elon University found that women who worked full-time spent an extra 15 minutes per day on grooming compared to their male counterparts. To put this into perspective, that is the equivalent of more than 90 hours per year of additional time. Similarly, the financial cost is strikingly large – one Californian analysis suggests that an average of three percent of a woman’s income is spent on grooming costs – not to mention the additional cost of ‘professional’ workwear’.

In addition to placing women at a disadvantage, these effects are notably significant for socioeconomically disadvantaged women, whose time and money resources are already more limited, and hence can act as a means of suppressing these peoples’ workplace participation and success.

These costs are accompanied by a demonstrated negative impact imposed by gendered dress codes on women’s physical and mental health. In the case of the report on high heels, the wearing of heels for extended periods on a regular basis, especially when performing active work, for women with disabilities and older women, was linked to shortterm chronic pain and health issues.

Such ongoing problems were also linked to reduced job performance due to reduced concentration and reduced mobility, amongst other factors.

Furthermore, the reinforcement of stereotyped images of women’s appearances and sexualisation of female bodies often reinforced by such codes, such as in requirements to wear skirts or cover the upper arms. This was linked to reduced psychological wellbeing, decreased comfort in the workplace and the promotion of a culture in which sexual harassment by both colleagues and customers was deemed acceptable. Moreover, the solidification of such a rigid gender binary could have particularly destructive ramifications for LGBTQI+ individuals, in exacerbating mental ill-health, particularly in relation to feelings of gender dysmorphia, and contributing a culture requiring them to constantly self-edit their identity and its manifestations to gain acceptance. The psychological burden this represents contributes to a range of structures that already limit the ability of LGBTQI+ people to contribute and participate fully and comfortably in the workplace.

More broadly, these limitations on the comfort and performance of women-identifying individuals in the workplace are built into a far more complex patriarchal structure that limits women’s workforce participation and impedes success. The valuing of a woman’s appearance beyond her capabilities and expectation that maintaining an impeccable standard of grooming is a prerequisite for women’s career success (but not necessarily for the success of men) prevents women from attaining the levels of workforce fulfilment they deserve. All of this robs society of the valuable contribution these very women could make, had these structural issues not existed. It is this connection to the overarching societal phenomena that makes the continued struggle against such discriminatory dress codes, on the level of the individual, organisation and the government, crucial.

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O-Week, Semester 1, 2017

Business & economics

Technological Improvement: Good, Bad or Terrifying?

Text: Tatsunori Yamaguchi

Have you ever been to McDonalds and noticed that the staff at the counter don’t take your order, but rather, you are served by the automated machines in the front of the shop? This is a form of technological unemployment in the economy.

Technology replacing workers is a phenomenon that has been growing exponentially since the 2000s. The benefits of technological unemployment have been significant price cuts for consumers, higher standards of living and the development of comparative advantage in trade. Technological unemployment, however, is a double-edged sword, and some negative sides to technology replacing human jobs are increased unemployment, greater income disparity and, as a result, weaker spending on goods.

Most would agree that technological improvement is good for the economy because of the benefits it tailors, however, we must also be wary of the disadvantages that may jeopardise possible future benefits. Technology must replace traditionally-human jobs at a rate that doesn’t risk causing mass unemployment.

The financial crises of 2008, when analysed, reveals why too little and too much technological improvement is undesirable. Developed economies such as the US, Japan and Australia have high levels of technological growth accumulated through capital: machinery and high tech gear are two examples. In contrast, developing countries such as China, Indonesia and Kenya have low levels of technological growth.

In 2008 the different standards of technological improvement in each economy triggered entirely different responses.

The role of the government in a recession is to increase expenditure to make up for weak corporate growth and consumer expenditure (as both parts of the economy will halt on any spending until the situation stabilises a bit more). In developed and developing economies the direction of their respective responses were the same, but were executed in vastly different ways. In the US, the level of government infrastructure projects has been decreasing since 2005 when compared to China, which has been increasing since 1990. This is indicative of a difference in policy execution due to the distinctly different types of economies

in question – both these countries handled the crisis very differently.

The US economy has enjoyed a high level of technological improvement because of a continual emphasis on the automation of industrial and even corporate tasks – this is somewhat important when dissecting the pros and cons of both rescue measures. Governments, however, cannot just increase the level of infrastructure projects during a financial crises to shield the economy from the shocks to private investment by firms and expenditure by households.

To bolster the economy, the US took part in quantitative easing which, in the simplest of terms, is the practice of injecting cash into the financial sector. Although the policy was controversial, most mainstream economists agree that the plan worked. The downsides of the policy, however, did lead to increased income disparity. Since the cash was injected into the financial sector, the majority of the public did not enjoy a direct benefit and unemployment rose to eight percent. The inconvenient truth, however, was that it was a necessary evil.

If the US were not as developed, it could have engaged in infrastructure projects to keep employment and investment levels stable. This approach worked in China because China’s economy is labour intensive and more dependent on people when compared to the US, which is capital intensive. Since this time, however, Chinese debt has been increasing exponentially, and the rising trend is problematic. I argue that if the Chinese economy was more capital intensive – more dependent on machines – there perhaps would be not as much debt.

In my view, it is the level of technology a country has that defines its macroeconomics. A country with too much invested in technology risks massive unemployment, but too little technological replacement of typically-human jobs might also be costly and result in national debt. The exact ‘sensible amount’ of technological improvement would be near impossible to define – finding this point, however, is more crucial than ever before. Why? A continued focus on automation might cause increased unemployment and general unhappiness, often leading to growth in more authoritarian/totalitarian ideologies. This might even result in the collapse of entire democracies. I exaggerated to make my point, but the future of automation is indeed not without terrifying risks.

Business & economics

Issue 1, Vol. 67

58

Donald’s Distortion Dilemmas Text: Flint O’Neil

On the campaign trail and now in the Oval Office, Trump continues to talk about trade. One of his most effective strategies for getting the US rust belt to ‘vote red’ was by threatening China with tariffs and Mexico with an increased tax on imports. More recently, one of his first executive orders saw a withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Rather ironically, what has been missing in this post-election landscape has been a nuanced discussion on trade policy.

Instead of exploring the complexities of trade correctly, policy wonks and establishment politicians blindly jump on the free trade bandwagon, while populists shout (just as loudly) that ‘trade deficits are bad’.

Where is the middle ground between these two echo chambers, and were there moments where Trump was right instead of wrong?

In general, arguments for free trade are supported by the principle of comparative advantage – the idea that some individuals or nations are relatively better at producing certain goods than others.

Crucially though, one cannot have free trade in goods without free trade in capital. Put simply, basic arithmetic requires trade in goods to be matched by trade in capital – if $10 worth of goods is shipped from Europe to the US, then the US must ‘ship’ $10 (which is capital, or just financial wealth) to pay for those goods to Europe.

But in the last few decades, international trade has witnessed huge volumes of capital shift between countries in a way that is fundamentally not free. Superficially, goods have been traded in a free market, but capital flows have been distorted massively by China and northern Europe – mainly due to China and Germany’s manipulation of their currencies to be ‘cheaper’ than ought to be. This distortion has created several economic problems, specifically in the South of Europe and in the USA, as they have had to absorb a surge of capital from the rest of the world.

The impact of a capital export surge can manifest itself in many different ways, and is dependant on the dynamics of the country importing. One particular manifestation, that is especially worrisome, however, is when an economy lacks the willingness to boost investment, but also has households that are paying down debt rather than able to accumulate it.

Generally, such economies would not import capital – for instance, take a loan – but particular international policies can force capital imports into these economies. An example of one such policy is the Chinese devaluation of the renminbi (RMB). Since the late 80s, the People’s Bank of China has managed to accumulate trillions of dollars in US reserves by printing and selling RMB and then buying dollars. By then using these dollars to buy Treasury securities – essentially a long-term loan to the US government – it can force the Chinese economy to lend to the US economy.

In a context where US domestic consumption and investment doesn’t rise, but imports do, there is only one way to weather this trade distortion: decreased consumption of US goods and decreased investment, which creates unfortunate unemployment and slower growth.

The current global trading arrangement has been detrimental to southern Europe and the US, and hugely profitable to northern Europe and China. With

this in mind, it is easy to see how Trump could solve the situation and how protectionism could be the key to rebalancing the world economy. But Trump’s proposals seem to miss the mark fundamentally.

Take his suggested tariffs on China, for example. Not only does this reduce the importing of goods as opposed to capital, but it is also coming too late in the game. Since the end of 2014, China’s purchasing of US dollar reserves has gone into reverse, with the head of the central bank expressing interest in avoiding another devaluation of the Chinese RMB. China is still manipulating trade to its advantage, however, but the moment to directly oppose them was back in 2008.

Trump’s tariffs will have the same effect as reprimanding a child just as it started to behave well.

Another flaw in Trump’s trade talk is his obsession with country-to-country trade dynamics, as opposed to global ones – a key case being the trade deficit against Mexico. Mexico runs a surplus with the US alone, and funs a trade deficit with the rest of the globe. If one were to take Mexico out of the global trade environment, the effect would likely increase the US trade deficit, as goods that were previously exported to Mexico began to be purchased in the US. This would exacerbate the very problem Trump is trying to solve.

Trump simply came too late to the party. There is a chance his policies could have worked in 2008. If implemented back then his policies may have controlled the unemployment or slower growth that occurred as a result of the previously

mentioned trade distortions, but if implemented now they are likely to just cause global confusion.

Hillary Clinton and the establishment are equally as responsible for not addressing the many capital market distortions that have devastated swathes of the US economy.

Trade distortions must be held responsible for the increased discontentment within certain spheres of the Western world. If this is done, much of the struggle that people are facing there today would be alleviated.

O-Week, Semester 1, 2017

59

Sport

Your Crash Course to Playing ANU Sport Text: Ollie Brown

Have you resolved this year to get more involved in sport on campus? Do you feel a bit overwhelmed by the number of options available? Have you been wondering what sport you can find that might be a bit more unorthodox and more substantial than social lunchtime competitions? Well, this list is for you.

ANU Sport has a myriad of associated clubs and societies that cater for all sporting interests. Below are short features on a number of mainstream and also some not-so-common clubs. In addition to those listed, look out for badminton, caving, futsal, hockey, judo, jujitsu, kung fu, rugby union, sailing, scuba, snowsports, women’s soccer, swimming, touch football and volleyball!

Aikido Aiki Kai Website: aikidocanberra.org Season: Year-round Training times: See website.

Our mixed-ability classes focus on beginners. Join the club in O-Week and start training. Be part of the national and international world of Aikido.

ANU Aikido Club (John Turnbull Sensei) Website: aikido.net.au Season: Year-round Training times: See website.

The club, established by John Turnbull Sensei, is the oldest Aikido centre in the Southern Hemisphere and one of the few teaching the original holistic art including meditation, weapons defence, and defence against multiple attackers.

Australian Rules Football Website: anuafc.com.au Season: April-September (pre-season has started) Training times: Tuesdays and Thursdays 6pm The ANUAFC has been providing a safe, friendly and fun environment for male and female players to learn and enjoy Australian Rules Football since 1961.

Basketball

Kendo

Table Tennis

Website: facebook.com/ anubasketball/ Season: Year-round Training times: Tuesdays 3 - 5pm The ANU Owls Basketball Club is very excited to bring basketball back to the ANU campus. The club is focusing on internal competitions and trainings for 2017.

Website: anukendo.org/ Season: Year-round Training times: Four times weekly. See website.

‘Kendo’ literally translates as ‘The Way of the Sword.’ Kendo is one of Japan’s oldest martial arts, and the one most closely associated with the Samurai. The concept of kendo is to discipline the human spirit through the principles of the katana (Japanese sword).

Website: facebook.com/ ANUTableTennis Season: Year-round Training times: Tuesdays 4 - 6pm, Saturdays 1 - 4pm, at the Old Sports Hall All things table tennis at the ANU! Players of all skill levels welcome. $30 for one semester or $50 for the year. First two sessions are free!

Boats (rowing) Website: anuboatclub.org/ Season: Year-round Training times: See website.

The Boat Club caters to rowers of all levels and aspirations, from beginner to high performance, social and competing. Squads train from the ANU Boat House most mornings on beautiful Lake Burley Griffin. The next Introduction to Rowing program commences Thursday 23 February.

Cricket Website: anucc.act.cricket.com.au Season: September-March Training times: See website.

The ANU Cricket Club fields teams in district and grade competitions in the ACT region. The club plays on turf wickets at South and North ovals. Both men’s and women’s teams are popular.

Cycling Website: anucycling.club Season: Year-round Training times: Sundays 7am, otherwise see website/Facebook The ANU Cycling Club welcomes members of all abilities to join us on rides, whether they be commuters, road, mountain or track cyclists. Events for all styles of riders are available!

Fencing Website: anufencing.club Season: Year-round Training times: Tuesday 7–10PM, Sunday 11AM–2PM, at ANU Sport The Fencing Club caters to many experience levels, and our active members include both beginner and intermediate fencers, as well as national and international-level athletes.

Mountaineering Website: anumc.org.au Season: Year-long Training times: See website.

The ANU Mountaineering Club is Canberra’s largest and most active outdoor activities club. We run over 100 trips a year in a myriad of different activities at all levels.

Netball

Taekwon-Do Website: precisiontkd.com.au Season: Year-round Training times: Tuesdays and Thursdays. See website.

Taekwon-Do is the world’s most popular martial art! It includes self-defence, sparring, board breaking and patterns.

At the ANU Taekwon-Do Club, you will benefit from dynamic and personalised training, learning from some of the best instructors in Australia.

Tennis

Website: anunetball.com Season: Year-round options available Training times: Varies between teams. See website.

The ANU Netball Club offers you the opportunity to get fit and make friends at the same time. The club provides competitions with varying levels of difficulty and holds a number of social events throughout the year including an annual pub crawl and end-of-year ball.

Website: anutennis.org/ Season: Year-round Training times: Fridays and Sundays 4 - 6pm (social), Sundays 2 - 4pm (advanced).

ANU Tennis plays at the South Oval tennis courts. In Term 1, look out for the First Hit, Intervarsity Trials, ANU Tennis Open, ANU Tennis Ball and the Refugee Tennis Outreach!

Quidditch

Ultimate Frisbee

Website: facebook. com/ANUOwls/ Season: Year-long Training times: Wednesdays 5 - 7pm, Saturday 10.30am 12.30pm at Fellows Oval.

Quidditch is a fast-growing sport which combines elements of handball, dodgeball and rugby. You can try four training sessions before signing up!

Website: anuultimateclub.com/ Season: Year-long Training times: Wednesdays 6 - 8.30pm Check out ANU Ultimate to learn a uniquely challenging sport, train for the Interhall Disc season, and join us at Eastern and Australian

Soccer (mens) Website: anufc.org.au/ Season: February- September Training times: Mondays and Wednesdays, 6 - 9pm One of Canberra’s biggest and most successful football clubs. ANUFC welcome players of all levels wanting to play football in a friendly environment.

For more information on any club or society go to the ANU Sport website: anu-sport.com.au

Issue 1, Vol. 67

Sport

60

ANU Women in Sport?

You Go, Girls!

Text: Mary Waters

In mid-2015 the Excellence in Sport program was established by ANU Sport to increase the involvement of students in the promotion of sport on campus. The program aims to increase the quality of athletic programs offered at ANU, as well as to shape and foster a culture of excellence for students engaged in sport on campus. The Women in Sport role was created to work directly with chosen sports as part of the program, and also to attract more women to participate in and enjoy the benefits of sport at ANU. Last year was a great year for women in sport. At a professional level the

burgeoning AFL Women’s competition, the success of the Australian women’s cricket team the Southern Stars, the Women’s Big Bash League and the W-League in top-division soccer were all stand-out moments. And the list goes on – the Aussie rugby 7’s team at the Olympic Games, Canberra product Kim Brennan’s rowing gold medal, and more – all showing that women’s sport is on the rise.

And this year will be no different.

The Excellence in Sport program and ANU Sport are excited to continue to foster and promote women in sport, health and fitness in 2017.

There are several exciting initiatives on offer this year. Coming up soon is our International Women’s Day event

– similar to the one run in 2016 – which will showcase the opportunities for students on campus to experience what ANU Sport offers for women’s health and fitness.

Amid the opening round of the AFL Women’s league and the excitement surrounding the competition, the ANU Australian Football Club (ANUAFC) announced an Australian first – a Women’s Leadership Scholarship. In the inaugural year of the AFL Women’s league, the ANUAFC has decided to ‘share in the celebration’ of the competition by offering a women’s AFL scholarship.

The scholarship will provide leadership and career development opportunities for women who are studying at ANU and wish to train and play football with the ANUAFC. This is an incredibly exciting opportunity for women in sport

on campus – if you wish to apply or for more information, head to anuafc.com. au and follow the prompts.

The ANU Cricket Club has also been given encouragement after a call for new members resulted in a legion of new female cricketers from India and Singapore. The club has been overwhelmed by new players from the international student community and hopes to run a social competition at the beginning of 2017 with the aim of increasing involvement in women’s cricket. Stay tuned for more details on this competition!

An intervarsity match against the University of Canberra is also planned for 9 March – if you would like to be involved, please contact Mary Waters via mary.waters@anu-sport.com.au.

Content Warning: Eating Disorders (Bulimia)

Platform 9 ¾: Balancing Health and University Text: Anna Mitchell

Balancing health and fitness with study has been like trying to find a Platform 9 ¾ between exercising too much and not enough, monitoring my diet but not too much, and pushing myself towards improvement and having fun. Everyone’s preferences and tendencies will be a bit different, so I can only describe what I’ve learnt works for me.

Becoming more self-aware has helped me to set realistic goals and plan sustainable routines. Surviving on a diet of plants and soy products for days, then bingeing on and purging the more enticing food groups was, frankly, destructive. It damaged my body, made me miserable and jeopardised my study. Lying in bed all day eating junk and skipping lectures was not much different. Reminding myself to eat more plants by having a five-day ‘healthy’, two-day ‘eat anything’ rule works better.

Establishing a habit is hardest in the first few days or weeks, but it does become easier, especially when the pattern you’re setting is suited to your daily routine.

When I over-exercise, I’m left too tired to study effectively, and when I stop entirely, my serotonin levels plummet.

I’ve focused on building up from a daily walk for coffee, to a jog-walk, and then a run. Also taking dance classes and playing social sport has helped me to balance university with downtime, and stress with fun. Matching my type of exercise to my mood has also improved my attitude towards exercising in general. Running and fast-paced sport can be a stimulant if you’re feeling tired and depressed, while slower dance styles, swimming and yoga can calm you down. Every genre of movement offers an antidote to our spectrum of mental states.

The volume of unrealistic and vaguely accusatory messages spewed by contemporary advertising corporations and social media is unprecedented. Really thinking about how we want to live before we die is harder than listening to those messages, or flexing in a mirror for hours, or obsessing over that eighth

almond, but it is incalculably more worthwhile.

Exercising and feeding my body good things has stopped being about perfection, success and performative self-hatred. Fitness and a balanced diet give me what I need to get through work and study, and spend time with my favourite people. These choices are all about learning to live well.

O-Week, Semester 1, 2017

61

Sport

DIVIng in head first

lessons learned from the 2016 advanced team physician course Text: Marc van Zeyl

In early December last year, I was fortunate enough to attend the 2016 Advanced Team Physician Course in San Diego, USA. A collaboration of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), American Medical Society for Sports Medicine (AMSSM) and American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM), this course was targeted at those involved in the management of athletes, primarily in athletic team settings.

While being a relatively inexperienced medical student meant that many surgical intricacies were lost, I still garnered a greater understanding of important considerations for athletes of all performance levels. Here’s a small snapshot of what I learnt:

The Kissing Disease Infectious Mononucleosis (IM), also known as mono or glandular fever, is the result of an infection with the EpsteinBarr virus. While complications are rare, the infection can result in prolonged or chronic fatigue and an enlarged spleen.

The 2008 AMSSM position statement states that a premature return to heavy exercise may prolong fatigue, however, it is unclear how light exercise impacts the natural course of the disease. The risk decreases over time, although it is suggested that those involved in contact sport may need greater consideration before a resumption of normal activity.

Interestingly, only a small proportion of splenic ruptures are in fact a result of sporting trauma. Currently the data around spleen size and rupture risk is minimal; it is ultimately the role of a medical professional, guided by ultrasound imaging, to determine an appropriate timeframe for a return to physical activity. The final position of the AMSSM is if a patient does not have a fever, has good energy, and shows no complications at three weeks from onset, they can return to light activity.

Undoubtedly, there remains a great deal of ambiguity in this area and any concerns should be discussed with your doctor.

Cupping Those Mysterious Bruises Explained Cupping is a traditional Chinese medicine conducted in hospitals in China and beyond. It involves creating a vacuum in a glass cup that draws the skin up into the cup. Recently, its usage has grown as a rehabilitative modality in the sporting world, most notably during the Rio Olympics with widely publicised circular bruises being sported by Michael Phelps.

While showing potential benefits in the treatment of a number of disease conditions, the medical evidence is of questionable quality and requires more rigorous testing. Research into cupping as a rehabilitation and recovery treatment in athletes is even less documented. One may argue that where an individual perceives a benefit in treatment, with few documented deleterious consequences aside from bruising, the harm is minimal and so treatment is a matter of personal prerogative. But before you go out and sign yourself up, be aware of a couple of potential complications! First and foremost, wet cupping involves making a small incision so blood is drawn out.

Traditionally, this acts to remove toxins from the body, but in practice can present a risk of infection. Traditional cupping can also involve heating the air inside the cup to create the vacuum.

Where this method is used, the risk of hot cups causing burns is worth considering. However, modern cupping devices – where mechanical suction draws the skin up – have gone towards reducing these risks in the practice.

The Female Athlete Triad A Concern for Women and Now Men The Female Athlete Triad is a disease state that has been well documented for some time now. We recognise it by symptoms of low energy availability (with or without disordered eating), menstrual dysfunction and low bone mineral density. Early recognition

and intervention of any one of these three conditions is essential to avoid progression to health issues including eating disorders and osteoporosis. In the past, such conditions were often accepted as part of an elite athlete’s sacrifice. However, recent research has shown the long-term health effects of the Triad to be preceded by decreased sporting performance. This shift in perspective on female training has also raised questions about the presence of this phenomenon in males. Increasingly rigorous research into the consequences of low energy availability in male athletes suggests this medical issue may stretch across genders.

The Intrigueof Irony The Female Athlete Triad is a disease state that has been well documented for some time now. We recognise it by symptoms of low energy availability (with or without disordered eating), menstrual dysfunction and low bone mineral density. Early recognition and intervention of any one of these three conditions is essential to avoid progression to health issues including eating disorders and osteoporosis. In the past, such conditions were often accepted as part of an elite athlete’s sacrifice. However, recent research has shown the long-term health effects of the Triad to be preceded by decreased sporting performance. This shift in perspective on female training has also raised questions about the presence of this phenomenon in males. Increasingly rigorous research into the consequences of low energy availability in male athletes suggests this medical issue may stretch across genders.

Issue 1, Vol. 67

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ANU SHOP Official ANU merchandise from your national university.

From ties and hoodies to compendiums and hats, we stock unique products that can take you from the boardroom to the beach.

Drop in to grab your free limited edition 2017 ANU Wall Planner. Be quick – they’ll go fast!

The ANU Shop is located on the corner of Kingsley and Hutton Streets (opposite the Drill Hall Gallery).

Visit us in store or shop online at shop.anu.edu.au

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O-Week, Semester 1, 2017

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Satire

The Perfect Brunch?

I’ll Avo Go! Text: Ollie Brown Illustration: Katie Ward

Over the summer break, I discovered a path well-trodden by ANU students. It was that of holiday aimlessness - of the boredom that comes from not having 300 fellow residents around who I could force to spend time with me. I had been very busy, without actually achieving anything. So I resolved to do something productive with my life and gave myself a project. I’d stumbled across a topic that is, in my humble opinion, exceptionally under-represented in contemporary media. A burning issue: Why on earth has there been no formal investigations into the optimal toast-to-avo ratio to be achieved in a delectable plate of this brunch classic?

I was embarking upon a journey of self-discovery, personal enlightenment and holistic education. I was going to find smashed avo perfection. This was not simply an exercise in gastronomy or recipe preparation, but a mission of seismic proportions. Who knew what could happen if I was not successful? Uni students around the nation could incorrectly spend their precious home loan funds on sub-par bread combinations or, even worse, they could waste a perfectly good avocado.

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I first planned my method of experimentation – it went without saying that if I was going to do this then I was going to investigate with the thoroughness of an entire FBI squad. I initially began with what I’d always known: one avo, two slices of sourdough. I assumed this tried-and-tested approach would work best, right? Why mess with something proven so successful?

As a good researcher, however, I figured it would be only fair to scope out the options available. I therefore proceeded the next morning to hit up some local establishments and see what made their particular avocado creations a staple menu item. I ventured out to my local hipster café, a hallmark of any self-respecting Melbourne community.

Like the most basic of bitches, making her foray into the indie brunch scene, I stunned the waitress by barely perusing the menu before selecting my cherished smashed avo. What? No superfoods?

No dietary requirements? I hadn’t even checked if the avocados were organic and grown by spiritually balanced Himalayan monks!

This café had made a controversial choice of rye bread over the classic sourdough offerings but, as it happened, I was happily surprised by the congruity of rye with my morning avo. While still not a patch on a traditional slice of perfectly-toasted sourdough, the nutty rye presents a viable option for all you wannabe squirrels out in the ANU community. But the bread used is a trivial detail. The real issue at play here was of course the avo-to-toast ratio.

I needed to get my head back in the game, and a quick appraisal of the presliced avo seemed promising. Here, the classic one-avo-to-two-slices proportions had been preserved, but the addition of feta into the mix was a welcome surprise.

Around the time when these nebulous ideals of a larger, more generous avoto-toast ratio were developing, I stumbled across an enormous spanner in the works of my investigation. This came in the form of something small, insidious, highly suspicious: chilli flakes. My mouth was on fire! The waitstaff and my fellow patrons were now watching me with a sceptical eye, having first skolled an entire jug of water and then ordered a glass of plain milk in rapid succession.

By the third morning my research funds were running grievously low (they charged me coffee prices for my humble glass of milk, the bastards). I decided that I would instead draw upon my newfound expertise and attempt to construct my Very Own Smashed Avo. This was a dangerous move – one false step, one bad avo, and the whole project risked being sidetracked. The automatic choice was to spread one avo over two

slices of toast, so that there was no avo left spare and therefore none wasted.

But then I paused. In our contemporary world of advanced storage solutions, the Tupperware effect definitely comes into play. With the ability to store half an avo until the next morning, one could experiment with, say, one and a half avos spread over two pieces of sourdough.

I was not disappointed. Luscious amounts of avo abounded, without being so thickly spread as to not be supported by my toast. It was filling without being overly rich, satisfying but not too indulgent. I felt enlightened, virtuous and on top of the world. I had indeed just cracked the code. To what, you ask? Well, to culinary glory I suppose, but suddenly I felt that the entire world was my own personal oyster. Surviving college food, obtaining an HD average, maybe initiating political conversation with a PPE/Laws student. All were within my grasp!

Maybe I should write it up as a research paper. Maybe I’d get published. Maybe this was Nobel Peace Prize-worthy; I mean I had after all assuaged the stressful deliberations of smashed avo lovers worldwide. A worthy cause, to be sure.

My results could even extend into the realm of smashed avo mix-ins. Love your feta? Or maybe some pinenuts? No problem! Just drop the avo quantity to one per two slices and substitute with your favourite brunch add-on. Except chilli flakes, of course - those are the work of the devil.

Comic: Caitlin Setnicar

Dank Memes for Chifley Screens

Cash Me Ousside Marx humans by non-genetic means. Every time you tag someone, you teach them to ‘cash you ousside’, pull the lever or, more practically, to communicate their ideas to you with images and nihilistic captions.

Text: Elizabeth Harris Danielle Ann is an icon, nay a stalwart proponent, of democratisation. We all know her, she of ‘cash me ousside howbow dah’ fame. Those enrolled in the intellectual breeding grounds which are the other G8 universities may well think that memes simply provide opportunities to tag friends. As thought leaders, we know better; it is clear to us that memes are supported by a complex art-historical scaffold. Furthermore, they are tools of our political and social machinations.

The advent of memes has shown us that this quality can be recreated, through the convergence of recognisability and original thought. The 17th century book Iconologia explained prominent symbols of its time, and was consulted by artists as they created their works.

Knowyourmeme.com is our Iconologia.

As anyone who took ANTH1002 will know, the original definition of a meme is a cultural trait passed between

So, Danielle’s command to ‘cash her ousside’, combined with her rhetorical ‘howbow dah’ is loaded with meaning.

Her appearance on Dr Phil at her mother’s request, so that she can be ‘dealt with’, when coupled with her challenge to ‘cash her ousside’, may in fact be a comment on pseudo-science. The solutions provided by Dr Phil are mere entertainment for the masses. Danielle points to real world solutions - her bizarrely appropriated language underlining the absurdity of the situation they are in. How did we get here? Marx might have suggested that the production of too many useful things results in too many useless people. While Dr Phil has his place (mostly as filler on Oprah), the day-time TV drug is all too tempting to the proles.

Speaking of the masses, the subsequent combination of Danielle’s statement with an elocution lesson from Hermione Granger in this particular iteration of the meme brings yet more meaning to this study in classism. Danielle’s

rebellion against her mother, and even her appearance on Dr Phil, may be indicative of a certain class upbringing setting her at odds with wider society.

Here, Danielle addresses Hermione’s correction directly: challenging us to question whether it is the pronunciation and background, or the message communicated, that really matters.

Another possible interpretation is that this meme could represent a Pygmalion-esque transformation of Danielle.

But is this glorification of the petit bourgeoisie and its affectations really desirable? We should ask whether these memes - an opiate of the people - are perhaps working only to lull us into a sense of peace when faced with the degradation of the proletariat. Alternatively, is this an attempt to elevate her to the intelligentsia, to lead a new generation of revolutionaries?

Howbow dah?