Woroni Mag Ed 4 2025 Junk Drawer

To our wonderful teams, without whom we would not exist

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Radio

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David Back

Jack Davis

2. Letter from the editor: Zoe

5. “Remarkably tolerant of poor behaviour” - Nixon Review Reveals “Toxic” Culture of Bullying and Harassment at College of Health and Medicine

7. Socially Responsible Investment: ANU responds to Enviro Collective report

9. Campus to Canberra: What Student Clubs Tell Us About Party Politics

12. Horoscopes for those not away for Euro summer History

17. Junk Drawer

18. In the absence of objects I am still here

22. Rice

23. How to Collect Coins: A Comprehensive Guide*

24. Junk Drawer Brain and a 21st Birthday Breakdown

26. Salgyn

31. Renew

32. How Male Complacency Fuels an Epidemic of Violence

36. Scientific and academic literacy stand against misinformation

42. Print is Not Dead: The Art of Junk Journaling with Martina Calvi

44. One Girl’s Trash is another Girl’s treasure

46. Baptism of the Bullshit Memory

48. The Four Shades of Blue I’ve Left Behind

49. The Room With No Corners

54. Music for which I am now out of practice

56. I tend to you like I tend to the candle on my desk

57. You clean your room for my arrival

58. A Museum of Junk

60. On the bottom shelf of my wardrobe

61. List of Things I Did Today

64. Bird in a Window

Bush Week returns and with it new and familiar faces. A warm welcome to those commencing their studies this semester; enjoy the death rattle of Canberra’s colder months. For the rest of you, welcome back to the Capital humdrum. Our thoughts go out to those finishing up their Winter courses. You are truly the bravest among us.

We here at Woroni—your ever humble savants of student media—have been working tirelessly to bring you this latest mag. You’ve read it here first: we’ve done it again! Another splendid collection of writing and art for you to pore over instead of those pesky readings.

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, as the saying goes; anything else goes in one’s junk drawer. But I ask you this: where else would used batteries, broken charging cables, out-of-date takeaway menus and dried-up pens be treasured if not for the unassuming junk drawer? Our wonderfully inane things are entombed in the kitchen drawer too far away for practical use; the once important desk drawer now relegated in the digital age; the unnecessary third drawer of a bedside table. How beautifully complicated our connection is to the useless bits and pieces (i.e. crap) we accumulate over the years!

Junk drawers are great because they keep us in check. Sure, we’ll feel good about throwing that little pin that pops open our SIM cards into the abyss now; but, soon enough we’ll be sifting through receipts, ticket stubs and instruction manuals wondering where it all went wrong. Then we find a little treasure: a sweet birthday card, an old photo of a loved one or a five dollar note. A small joy. Balance is restored. The earth continues to turn.

Someone could ponder the human condition through the junk drawer easily enough. I’ll leave all that waxing philosophy to somebody more cerebrally-inclined; instead, allow me to coo over this edition. The contributions made to this magazine are, in fact, not junk, but an ode to the beautifully messy lives we all lead.

In return, I ask you to—upon reading the entire contents of this magazine—show it off to your friends, classmates or an amenable passerby. Consider contributing in the future (interested parties, please note: write@woroni.com.au). Then, place this copy proudly upon your bookshelf. Nestle it amongst those carefully curated PenguinClassicsand not the perishing rubber bands in your junk drawer. And thank you, as always, for reading.

Stay groovy,

Zoe Vaughan Editor-in-Chief

Editors

By: Jack Davis

“Remarkably tolerant of poor behaviour” - Nixon

Review Reveals “Toxic”

Culture of Bullying and Harassment at College of Health and Medicine

Content Warning: Mentions of sexual harassment and discrimination.

Last month, the ANU outlined plans to address the findings of a review which identified systematic mistreatment and bullying of staff and students at the College of Health and Medicine (CHM).

Professor Christine Nixon AO APM was chosen to lead the review last October and has since gathered 142 accounts from CHM staff and students, and given the ANU 17 recommendations to resolve what she identifies as “significant and consistent failures” on behalf of CHM administrators.

Nixon’s report describes widespread patterns of mismanagement, discrimination, and unaccountability as “enraging”, noting that these issues have persistently targeted women, and staff and students of colour.

The report found that women, representing only 3 of the 16 continuing professors in the College, are underrepresented in leadership positions and overlooked for tenure, despite being forced to make “disproportionate contributions” in service roles to maintain gender balance quotas.

This finding spoke to what Nixon says is a “gap between institutional intent and operational reality” where performance reviews, reports of discrimination, and processes designed to create accountability (like the ANU Focus program) are seen as inconsequential and burdensome by senior staff.

“The ANU has a remarkable tolerance for poor behaviour and bullying.”

Deidentified accounts from students and staff suggested that fear of personal retribution had created a culture of silence at the CHM regarding reports of harassment, sexual abuse, and discrimination. Nixon found that the college’s current disclosure processes lack transparency and are corrupted by structural power imbalances, creating a situation where

“poor behaviour doesn’t lead to consequences”.

Note: The CHM was disestablished in 2024 as part of the Renew ANU program. Two of the three constituent schools, the John Curtin School of Medical Research (JCSMR) and the School of Medicine and Psychology (SMP), were merged into the College of Science and Medicine. The National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health (NCEPH) was transferred to the College of Law, Governance, and Policy.

ANU RESPONSE AND HOW STUDENTS CAN BE INVOLVED

In a statement from Vice Chancellor Genevieve Bell, the ANU apologised to affected students and staff, and affirmed that it will “address every recommendation and assure that [its] progress is externally monitored.” A full breakdown of the ANU’s response to each recommendation point was included within their public response.

The initial review of Professor Nixon’s 17 recommendations were released on July 1st by VC Bell, ANU Provost Professor Rebekah Brown, and Chief People Officer Kate Witenden, and other senior staff relevant to the review.

The ANU also announced that Professor Nixon would remain at the university until a more significant reflection on the report’s implementation planned for 2026.

Before those reports are released, the ANU has invited the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) and the ANU Students Association (ANUSA) to join with ANU Council members in establishing the Nixon Implementation Steering Group (NISG). The steering group, chaired by Provost Brown, will consult with affected groups within the CHM and realise the actions suggested in the report.

ANU students and staff, regardless of faculty, will have the opportunity to participate in working groups which will advise the NISG on issues relevant to one of seven themes from the Nixon review:

• Accountability and Data, which includes information to support assessment of unit-level performance

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander experience, relating to both staff and students

• Bias & Discrimination, which includes issues around temporary employment, merit, promotion and tenure

• Complaints Handling, including case management, transparency and investigations Culture, open, transparent ways of working, respectfulness, generosity

• Management Skills, including staff training, mentoring and performance management

• Wellbeing – whole-organisation approach to safety and wellbeing

• Information on how interested students and staff can express interest in joining a working group were released mid-June via OnCampus. Despite recognising that the ANU had “fallen short as an institution”, VC Bell and Provost Brown thanked members of the community for working to ensure that ANU is “inclusive and welcoming”, encouraging the community to engage with these working groups to strengthen the review process with “subject matter expertise and local perspectives.”

In a video response to the community, VC Bell acknowledged that “for some, the findings of the Nixon review would be distressing”, encouraging those impacted by the report to utilise support systems for staff, students, and former community members.

By: David Back

Socially Responsible Investment: ANU responds to Enviro Collective report

Earlier this year, the ANU Environment Collective (EC) released a report on Australian universities’ private investment standards and commitments as part of its ANU ZERO campaign, seeking to advocate for stricter standards and divestment of university endowment funds from fossil fuel and weapons companies. In a recent opinion article written for Woroni , the ANUSA environment officer, Sarah Strange, discussed this report and its implications for the ANU.

To summarise the report, the Collective argued that ANU has fallen behind many other comparable universities on its Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) strategy, which, amongst other issues, maintains a loose commitment against coal investment, but lets fossil fuel and gas corporations slip by. One notable example was Woodside Energy, which ANU has invested over $6 million, but which is a company that Strange argued has a “...history of skirting environmental laws and failing to reduce emissions…”. In contrast, one third of all Australian universities have committed to stricter screening against fossil fuel corporations, or corporations that primarily produce fossil fuels, including half of the Group of Eight.

the Long Term Investment Pool’s (LTIP) exposure to these companies is lower than the benchmark.” Additionally, Lonergan pointed out that the ANU has drastically reduced its “weighted average carbon intensity” by approximately 20% since 2023, and on its domestic investments, carbon intensity has fallen by over 65% in the past decade. For those of us not familiar with environmental science or investment strategies of an institution with a portfolio of over $1.3 billion, carbon intensity in this context refers to the amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced by a company relative to its revenue. ANU’s previously reported 2023 intensity was at 110. For comparison, an index of the top 200 ASX companies had an intensity of 216. However, it is worth noting that the 2023 report indicated that close to 10% of ANU’s investments had no reported carbon data and could possibly skew results.

Woroni contacted the ANU and received a detailed response to the report by the Chief Financial Officer, Michael Lonergan.

Speaking on the ANU’s current investment exemptions for coal, but not oil or gas, Lonergan responded, “…although there is no negative screen on oil and gas companies, the SRI Policy’s carbon intensity target means

Another feature of the EC report was a critique of ANU’s own commitment to their policy. ANU’s 2023 SRI report disclosed that 3.28% of its investment pool was in violation of its own carbon rules, despite ANU having committed to divestment. While that may seem small, in an investment portfolio of this scale, this amounts to over $43 million. When asked about its progress on the divestment, Lonergan disclosed that the percentage of the investment pool not compliant had decreased to 2.8% by the end of 2024, due to “…the wind-up of one of the legacy investments…”.

Furthermore, Lonergan indicated that the remaining noncompliant assets include “…an investment made prior to the adoption of the SRI Policy, currently in runoff”, and “…an illiquid infrastructure fund…”, with a high carbon intensity. ANU apparently “…intends to liquidate as many of its units as possible in 2025.” It did not disclose any details on specific investments.

Whilst separate from the EC’s primary purpose for climate action, its report also commented on ANU’s current weapons investment policy. Following large-scale community agitation in 2024, ANU implemented policy screens against investment in ‘controversial weapons’ and civilian small arms manufacturers, a decision based on research from Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), a private investment advisory firm. ISS defines controversial weapons and corporate involvement against criteria based on international norms such as the Mine Ban Treaty, and it also excludes companies that “…manufacture key components in controversial weapons…”. The ANU’s connections to the defence industry have drawn considerable attention in the past year with divestment from the industry being a primary campaign goal of 2024’s pro-Palestine encampment and the subject of a successful ANUSA referendum. The EC found that two Australian universities have committed against investing in any weapons companies, and strongly advocated for ANU to commit to a broader policy.

When asked about the prospects of a policy change, ANU just stated that the SRI policy will be reviewed periodically, however made no specific commitment to further change, with the University appearing committed to its current stance.

ANU and its financial team have revealed this information in advance of their 2024 Socially Responsible Investments Report, which has historically provided extensive reporting on its progress towards its sustainability targets, such as net zero. This year’s report is due to be released in June 2025 and will include more comprehensive data on ANU’s investment policies and their effectiveness.

By: Jack Davis

Campus to Canberra: What Student Clubs Tell Us About Party Politics

In the lead up to the 2025 federal election, Woroni spoke with representatives from the ANU student clubs representing parliament’s two largest non-government parties: Vice President Will Garland of the ANU Liberal Club, and Malakai King, secretary of the ANU Greens. King and Garland’s responses revealed that, while both clubs focus on political engagement with like-minded students, there are significant differences in their approach to student life and political activism, suggesting that campus politics echo the dynamics of federal political competition. Nationally, the Liberal National Coalition and the Australian Greens entered the election from different positions of opposition, with the liberals asserting themselves as the traditional alternative government, and the Greens hoping a growing voter share and favourable preferences could increase their influence as a third-party force on the crossbench.

The Role of Political Clubs

Malakai King echoed the grassroots structure of the federal Greens movement and their focus on community organising to overcome funding disparities with major parties, stating that

wing to function as “very much a social club”, per Garland, who distinguishes the ANU Club from the ACT branch of the Young Liberals organisation to whom they “leave most of the ‘deep’ politics.”

Photography by Joseph Mann

the role of clubs like his is to “bridge the gap between students and parliament”, and that the ANU Greens are “not a campus politics club, [they’re] a politics club on campus.”

On a campus with a student body that tends towards progressivism, King sees the goal of the ANU Greens in formalising student engagement in political campaigns; the events and spaces provided by the ANU Greens are “designed to help people get involved with the party, policy making, and campaigning.”

The Liberal Party is the institutional opposition in Australia, with long-established local and youth divisions which allow their campus

Where the ANU Greens hope to mobilise students off-campus, Garland says his club is as a “great outlet” for similarly minded students, made more significant given the party’s positions being self-acknowledged as “outside of the mainstream” at the ANU.

Student politics and ANUSA elections

ANUSA elections have historically been a microcosm of federal political competition, and campus tickets are regularly affiliated with national parties, either formally or as ‘open secrets’ as with the Labor-backed Change ticket in 2024. The ANU Greens and Liberals differ in their approach to student Union elections; the Liberals directly run the Liberal Party affiliated ticket which typically secures at best a few nonintegral positions, while the Greens formally avoid student politics, despite the grassroot independents, or ‘Grindies’, label given to unaffiliated progressive tickets.

For Garland, the Liberal tickets like Progress for ANUSA in 2024, are “all about representation, giving people the option” even if students typically align with Labor or the Independents. He credits the “nice Stupol [student politics] environment and robust community” at the ANU with any successes of the liberal movement on campus. Beyond the ticket organisation, federal parties and their political alignment had limited effect on tickets’ policies in 2024.

Garland acknowledged that “what made Progress so successful last year” was the Liberals placing the ANU’s controversial staff and course cuts as central to their policy, sharing other ticket’s recognition of student discontent, and differentiating itself by offering “alternative solutions”, and not necessarily traditionally conservative ones. While Progress joined other tickets, they took a noted stance against the increase of parking fees as a key issue.

Malakai King was firm in that his club is “not about ANUSA politics” and “includes people who have previously run on both [Labor and ‘Grindie’] tickets.” Given the club’s focus on linking campus organisation to state and

federal politics, King argues that there is “so much more we can do” by “uniting” political clubs and being “ready to stand” against Vice Chancellor Bell’s cuts.

King emphasises that the ANU Greens “don’t ignore the issues” on campus, noting the presence of ANU PHD candidate and Greens ACT

candidate Isabel Mudford at No Cuts at ANU rallies.

representation, and King sees Canberra as one of these seats, in which winning Canberra would create “a voice in parliament that advocates for ANU students.” The party acknowledges their preference for balance-of-power over winning a parliamentary majority, and values victories in places like Canberra to create a “sign of change, a sign of a progressive Australia.”

King recognises that “[students] are directly impacted by the decisions of politicians” and avoids drawing a line between StuPol and electoral politics when discussing, for example, his view that a “lack of action” by the Government on key issues of capital gains tax and negative gearing has increased the financial burden of attending university on students. In response, he suggests the ANU Greens’ focus on rallying students off-campus will affect the political roots of the funding crisis.

The opportunities for students to get involved in political campaigns, and why it is important

The federal Greens party relies on targeted campaigns in viable seats to increase their

According to King, getting students “out on the streets” with the various activist groups with whom the Greens have strong relationships is as important as electoral campaigning. To win in Canberra, the ANU Greens echo the federal party’s strong grassroots drive and prioritise volunteers to build a campaign, particularly aware that students “don’t have the capacity to donate to political campaigns.”

“But what we do have is time, and what we do have is energy, and what we do have is passion. It is volunteers that win community campaigns, and which can fill the gap where we don’t have the money of right wing campaigns or ACT Labor.”

According to King, getting students “out on the streets” with the various activist groups with whom the Greens have strong relationships is as important as electoral campaigning. To win in Canberra, the ANU Greens echo the federal party’s strong grassroots drive and prioritise volunteers to build a campaign, particularly aware that students “don’t have the capacity to donate to political campaigns.”

“But what we do have is time, and what we do have is energy, and what we do have is passion. It is volunteers that win community campaigns, and which can fill the gap where we don’t have the money of right wing campaigns or ACT Labor.”

William Garland refuses to dismiss young people today as politically unaware, and cites his personal experience working on the 2025 campaign, and the amount of young people involved in recent election campaigns.

clubs] or the actual ‘young’ movements of any party, I think we offer a lot.”

“I think the role of young people in campaigns really speaks to our importance within the realm of politics. We’re a generation that perhaps looks a bit misguided with politics, who are not as informed. But I would say the contrary. We’re a very politically involved generation, whether it be through [university

Garland believes that clubs and students mutually benefit one another, suggesting that engagement with politics is “vitally important to developing interesting ideas”. His message to students, even those who aren’t yet committed to a political organisation, is clear: “give it a try, and if you don’t like it, that’s ok.”

In emphasising the value of politically engaged young Australians, Garland identifies part of the burden facing modern conservative organisations. The Greens can mobilise an already progressive majority of young people into politics through a Club focused on action and organisation, but the Liberals first need to encourage young conservatives to identify with their cause, and ideally become card-carrying supporters of the party. If this is the goal, it is understandable that the Liberal Club at ANU prioritises welcoming even unsure students into a social club, providing opportunities for them to build the party’s youth base, without inherent commitment to joining the Liberal rank and file.

other voting blocs, forcing parties to reflect on how they courted both voters and volunteers from an emerging demographic. Given their party’s traditionally older loyal demographic and prevalence as a major party, it follows that youth engagement might be an area of particular focus for the ANU Liberals moving forward.

The 2025 election was the first time young and millennial voters (18-44) outnumbered the

by Mir

By: Mir Niejalke

Aries:

A positive this week is that your IBS will clear up thanks to the fresh phase of the moon. Hurrah! However, you will look at the DSM-5 sometime this week. Best of luck, stay safe with the self-diagnosis.

Cancer:

We are so proud of you for coming out this month and being who you are, unashamed! Take #pride in your mediocre grades from the past semester and shout yourself a drink from the pub. You’re also due a win, and there’s a jackpot to win in the lotto. Your lucky numbers are: 5.

Libra:

Start watching a new show. If you’re going to be boring you may as well start basing your personality off of a new show.

Taurus:

Be prepared for a big promotion! The added responsibilities will look great on your resume, shame about the meager pay rise. I guess that’s why you’re not in Europe. Oh well, chin up, you’re headed into a new romantic phase. Your fears in your relationship are real and you will find yourself back on Hinge. Lucky you!

Leo:

I’ll bet you’re in Europe, aren’t you? But a fun, adventurous, lesser-travelled country, like Portugal instead of those normies in Italy and Greece. The trip may technically be two weeks, but the superiority you’ll feel will last a lifetime. Don’t lose your passport, lest you be forced to assimilate.

Scorpio :

It may seem now that everything is going wrong, but the universe has a plan. You may not understand the reasoning now, but consider the bad karma you may have earned after a semester of horsing around and dicking about.

Gemini:

You have excellent business ideas, and they’re worth investing all your savings into. Find yourself a good business partner, like me, to help you out and realise your dreams! On the downside, you will fall for a conman (or woman!) and will never see that money again. Be vigilant!

Capricorn:

Take time this week to reconsider your stance on emotional vulnerability. You may think you’re coping healthily now, but have you considered that your constant expression of moody aloofness is off-putting and restricting you socially? Something to think about, pet. We say this because we love you.

Aquarius:

Are you in Europe as well? Oh no, my bad, you’re in South

America hiking! What a delight! And definitely a different tax-bracket to those in Europe. Just be mindful of ancient curses and getting all your new trinkets through customs.

Virgo:

You have lovely hair, and that new haircut is absolutely perfect. You’ve got great taste in skincare products and that salicylic acid is doing wonders for the old epidermis. Your good looks are drawing in duds, including your ex. Don’t say yes to anything they ask you.

Sagittarius:

You should go swimming! Don’t worry about the chill, your loving and warm aura will spread into the water around you like a bright yellow glow. Trust the stars, this is a great idea. Take a relaxing dip down in Kambah Pool, you won’t regret it.

Pisces:

You may think it’s time for that new look, or a new persona, but trust the stars on this: it will look worse. It takes a special bone structure to pull that off, and most people don’t have it without surgery. Take heart in the fact that you could always look worse, and people notice and appreciate the effort you put in already.

The Last of Autumn. Taken at National Portrait Gallery, 31st May 2025.

An Autumn leaf. Taken at Research School of Biology, 27th May 2025.

The Last of Autumn. Taken at National

Gallery, 31st May 2025.

Final Day of Canberra Balloon Spectacular. Taken at Lennox Gardens, 23rd March 2025.

Junk Drawer

Everything she is is contained in the junk drawer.

When she is bored, she returns to it, wondering what relic will enchant her today.

What in the junk drawer prevents her from cleaning her dishes?

Completing her studies

Smiling at friends

Listening to music without two hours passing, in an adrenaline frenzy or with a throbbing head and chest and tear-ridden cheeks.

What morbid fascinations she keeps in this drawer! the snarky remark of a friend … the bitter words spat by a sister … the look of a random class member who appraised and discarded her …

the song she listened to so much that it played in her head, a sound that circled her room, as she tried to fall asleep …

But every day all she does is empty the drawer.

She curls her back against her bed frame, bones aching from the hard floor, as she thinks and thinks and thinks the items away.

She was never a minimalist, and ends up missing the bulging drawer that wouldn’t fit shut and would spill out to anyone who cared to listen.

By: Grace McKinnis

Her overgrown fake fingernails, claws, scrape the sides and corners itching to find something to play with.

There will always be something.

But as the drawer empties and stops filling up so quickly, she loses more of herself. More and more because she was surviving on and defined completely by the drawer. It is empty.

She is empty.

She paces her room

And scrutinises her mirror

And attempts to scrounge a passion for anything because she had never felt so alive as when everything was junk and hideous and scrunched away in the drawer.

She doesn’t want it back, but the junk drawer is now just a drawer and there are so many of those. Without her junk drawer she is nothing.

There is nothing to decorate her room with.

In the absence of objects I am still here

By: Elinor Wood

I don’t need to waste my time sitting in the sun. Do my assignments, go to work, pay my rent. Don’t waste time on creativity unless you can monetise it. Ask for nothing, or even better, want for nothing. Ensure every moment generates positive production. Relaxation is procrastination. Produce, produce, produce.

Every day, there is seemingly less and less tethering me to the world. When I think of my body, it is almost formulaic. Three meals a day for energy, two litres of water to keep my skin clear, eight hours of sleep for three hours of productive study.

Of course, all my experiences are connected to my body. When I play netball, I get those good endorphins. When I dance, it is because I have a physical desire to fling my body into the air and hope the ground will catch me.

It’s a bleak view to have, sure. But when I look at my 1.5 years of college, I have four physical items. One photobooth photo from Valete, one love letter from my boyfriend, and the past two Woroni publications. I have a million and one stories to tell, but little to show for it. At the same time, I have been to one play, two festivals, three concerts, and what feels like one million trips to Coles. But my receipts are in the Flybuys app. My hands are empty, there is nothing to hold, I can remember it, but my memories are so slippery when I have nothing to bring me back to the moment, I start to wonder if any of this is real.

Was I ever even here?

But it feels like a kind of achievement to become robotic. Minimise screen time, maximise productivity. Take multivitamins so

Thanks to John’s deciding to host their doof up the steepest mountain I’ve ever climbed in the dark, I have five bruises on my legs; two on the right and three on the left. In a way, they are lovely, they ache, but they’re real. If I lost my phone, they would be the only remnant of that night. They hurt, but every time I hit them and it stings, it also feels like dancing my heart out in the bush with

my friends. It makes me panic that the bruises will fade and so will my memories. How will I know that I was there? I am not a reliable narrator, especially in my own mind. If I have nothing to show for all that I have done, how will I know all that I am?

In March, I spent four very stressful days helping my dad clear out my grandmother’s house. He kept complaining about how there was so much crap, he didn’t understand why my grandmother kept so much junk. I complained too, about all the time wasted sorting through her boxes and boxes of photos and theatre programs. Her collection of newspaper cuttings and foreign coins. Instead of doing my regular Sunday grocery shop, I spent five hours removing individual photos from collages to make them easier to transport to her new home. It was slow and painful, but as the time passed, I became a dedicated detective. Placing red string between the threads of her life, following her from childhood to marriage, becoming shocked at how young she really was when the newspaper clipping declared her Mrs Wood.

I saw the moments of her life recorded before me and alongside her, my dad. I learnt things about him that I never knew. According to his yellow and tattered report cards, he was never naturally good at maths, but aced drama consistently. He took really lovely photos on disposable cameras in his twenties. He sent my grandma a photobook of my older sister when she was born, with a note telling my grandmother how ecstatic he was to become a father.

magazines dirtying my room, with the things I liked in them cut out. I want letters from my parents, not unread WhatsApp messages. I want to feel the weight of coins in my hand so I can conceptualise the gravity of spending $7 on a coffee everyday.

I want to feel real.

My children won’t have that experience. My report cards were accessed via my school’s portal, which I lost access to once I graduated. My mum saved the invitations from my bat mitzvah, but I lost all the photos I took that day when I dropped my phone in the water at the beach two years later. I wonder how my children will see me as anything but a mother when I have nothing to prove that I existed before they did. When I was young, I spent hours listening to my parents’ record collection, imagining who they were when they bought them and what they heard in the music that moved them enough to spend money. I wonder if my children will see themselves in the AI-generated label “Pink Pilates Princess” that Spotify gave me in my 2024 Wrapped.

The life I want to live is not this one. I want junk drawers filled with concert tickets; the stubs removed so I know I was there. I want stacks of

I want there to be proof that I lived, laughed, danced, loved. I don’t want to be robotic, I want to be moved.

I want the falling of the leaves to bring me to my knees because they are so beautiful, and I want to take those leaves, press them, and save them in a journal full of other leaves just like them. I want enough junk to be able to piece my life together just by the crap that I’ve saved. I know that I was not put on this earth to produce, but it is easy to forget that life is really about the moments when you have your body in the grass, sun on your back and your best friend’s hand in yours.

I want a body that feels real. I want junk that I can hold. I want to be immersed in a life that is real and tangible, sweet and sour, meaningful and stupid, difficult and beautiful. I want to reach out and touch the world and have it touch

me back. I want to feel it. I want to feel all of it.

By: Victoria Kao

The branches now stand bare, leaves fallen, offering only dust to the ground, where though it covers, no warmth departs from what’s still.

I reach into my pockets, of a jacket I have long stowed away, to find a grain of rice.

Dried and stiffened with time, but still, it sticks to my skin.

Where when I pull my hand out to greet the cold, with the skin reddening, the grain of rice remains.

The whiteness of the rice, has long been replaced by a glaze of blur.

But raising my finger to meet my eye, I peer through that screen of blur, and find a warped reflection of myself, of mama, that no longer exists, staring at me.

Our reflection on a metal bowl, with your smile glistening on the metal surface, pulling no lines to your eyes, you, basked in youth that I at the time never knew would leave.

A metal bowl filled to the brim with freshly steamed rice, seasoned with Japanese vinegar, sprinkled with the furikake you would carefully select from the expired food section of the store.

And I remember now, that you took us out for a picnic, under the shade of our favourite willow tree.

On a sweltering summer day. But because one is never warm enough, you had wrapped a jacket around my waist without a word, sparing me of your scoldings.

And we sat below the willow tree, moulding the rice into large triangles, where though our shirts were gradually stained with sweat, the sun did not suffocate, it was warm.

Your hands, never flinching under the heat of the rice, while gege and I blew to make it cooler, our hands were thin and smooth, whereas yours were thick, roughened over the years of putting hot meals before us.

I stand up, trying to see you clearly, trying to see all that was.

And while doing so, I reach up to move the branches dressed in chains of green, trying to move the shade from your face, wanting to see you in the light,

but only then did I realise, that the tree had long withered.

I am standing below what no longer shelters, the branch snaps under my touch. And it’s cold.

I’m cold.

So now,

holding the branch in one hand, with the grain of rice held firmly in another, I light up that branch.

Because perhaps if I make a wish from what used to draw warmth, and blow the glow that is now crawling down to touch my fingertips, will I then return to the willow that wrapped us in wreaths of solace, the willow that weaved us in the scent of vinegar-scented rice, and the hand that guided us without tremors of age.

And maybe then, will I find warmth again.

How to Collect Coins: A Comprehensive Guide

By: Char Symington

I have a coin collection at home. I keep it in a dark wooden box next to my bed.

I’ve got a ceremonial coin that I bought from a castle in Scotland. We visited in between sweeping rainstorms. I can’t remember the name of the castle now. My dad and I pretended we were in Braveheart, running across the lawns, between the towers, looking for troops to rally. The coin is bigger than a traditional coin, and has a little velvet case I keep it in. It is the cleanest coin I have.

I have a coin my aunt brought back from Villers-Bretonneux, a French town with an Australian war memorial. She brought it to me when she came to see us, in between flights across Europe. I used to live seven minutes from the border of France, and I dreamt in French every night.

I have a set of Summer Olympic coins from my grandfather, who passed away at the end of last year. His house is full of things no one sees any use in, except my grandmother. A few weeks ago, she bought a wombat toy from the airport gift shop on her way to see us. She said she isn’t sharing him. He is only hers.

I’ve got a full set from a decade ago in Singapore. I have a book of stamps emblazoned with the Skipping Girl, who my mum used to drive me to see every Friday night. I have a couple of vintage cars, still in their boxes. I have a Rubik’s cube printed with the Mona Lisa, which hardly turns and makes me confused when I try to solve it on muscle memory alone. I have a coin with the Big Merino on it. I’ve got one with Possum Magic. A coin for my birth year. A coin each for my siblings, too. I have a painted egg I used to tell stories to. I have a set of worry dolls and a t-shirt for the elephant toy I’ve had from the day I was born.

I have so many records of things I might forget. Moments that blend together and separate out into boxes within boxes within drawers within a room I don’t go home to much anymore. I have photos with the teacher who let me read under my desk, and a scrapbook from my first best friend. I have packed my memories into tupperware containers more times than I have gone through them. I have conversations burned into the backs of my dreams. I have stories that I tell at parties. I have time, and people that will listen to me reminisce.

I have a coin collection that I keep by my bed, and no idea on how to polish coins. I think I’ll drop them into a glass of coke next time I’m home.

1. Get a box. It can have compartments. (Mine doesn’t.)

2. Tell your friends, your grandmother, your coworker, that you are collecting coins.

3. Go out and look. Buy things from op shops and pay in cash. Peruse the pavement.

4. Collect. Keep anything that is cool. Keep stuff that isn’t.

5. Learn how to polish your coins. It’s nicer when you do.

By: Atputha Rahavan

Junk Drawer Brain and a 21st Birthday

There’s a reason your 21st is supposed to feel special.

Like, “new chapter” special. Society’s unofficial

permission slip to stop being a kid and start

spiraling like everybody else. Happy birthday!

Here’s some adulthood, therapy bills, and a quarter-life identity crisis. Mine? Came with a side of international flights, family reunions, and a casual cancer scare because life apparently thought I needed spice (I’m fine).

having a panic attack about law school getting a little too serious. For context, much of my dad’s family lives in the UK. Tamil Sri Lankans who, unlike us, migrated north of the equator after the Civil War, amongst those who moved in the late seventies and eighties. Cue decades-in-the-making reunions, emotional meltdowns, and the realisation that my usually serious dad becomes a little boy around his brothers. They hadn’t seen each other in more than 15 years. My mum, too, suddenly

was not just ‘Mum’, but a girl with friends and jokes and a life before me. Who knew? Also turns out

I look so much like my cousin we could be twins. And honestly, I wish my aunt had been around more growing up, we get along so well.

This year, I rang in my 21st mid-air, flying from the Gold Coast to Canberra with my family to drop my brother and me off at ANU.

While I was in the midst of losing my mind, my baby (17-year-old)

brother was just starting his first year. Did this also contribute to my sense of impending doom and the fact that I was starting to feel really old? Yeah, it definitely could have.

For a brief moment, I felt properly loved, like I belonged somewhere. But at the same time, I was kind of an imposter. I’d shown up to a version of my life that got left behind. It was disorienting. And, I started to feel what it actually means to grow up in the shadow of war. Not the headlines, but the leftovers. Grief in the walls, unnaturally heavy silence in the pauses. Every time we visited my aunt’s place, it just hung there. The not-so-subtle reminder that borders and bombs have real consequences.

That the life we could’ve had in Sri Lanka got rewritten, redacted and re-routed without any of our consent. I never felt so loved, but also never felt so deeply how isolated my family and I are here. Being in England, with its vast Tamil population, with its abundance of friends and family, I started wondering what life would’ve been like if I’d grown up there, all green country, shaded lanes and ordered woods, instead of this sunburnt island-continent. Maybe I’d be more secure, more culturally grounded. Possibly happier as a person. But everything’s a trade-off, right? So you shove that thought in the junk drawer of your mind right next to “Would I be a more stable human being if I had a better childhood?” and carry on.

But that was just the end of my summer. Most of it was spent drifting through grey-blue England (a very costly but necessary trip for my parents),

meeting relatives I hadn’t seen since I was in diapers and pretending I wasn’t

Meanwhile, fourth-year law was looming. I had followed the rule book my whole life, good grades, good university, part-time job, extracurriculars, and suddenly the thought of continuing to be as I was made me physically ill. My parents didn’t grow up here or go to university here, so they did their best to help me through whatever the hell it was that I was going through last summer. But when it came to reassuring me through a months-long anxiety spiral, their efforts, though well-intentioned, fell painfully short.

Thus, for the most part, I walked around England like this:

“Oh look, the Tower Bridge!” (What the hell am I going to do when I graduate?)

“Wow, here’s your war-displaced uncle you haven’t seen in 20 years!” (I have failed at life and will probably amount to nothing.)

So, the moral of the story?

The internal dialogue went crazy. Then we got back to the Gold Coast and I had brought back a swollen

lymph node as a souvenir that hung around a little too long for comfort. Naturally, people started to worry. Cue the existential dread that comes with confronting a potentially terminal illness. At that point, however, I was so burnt out I couldn’t even take it seriously. After too many blood tests, a Haemotologist consultation and a visit to the Oncology ward, it was deemed that I’d probably be fine. I’ve got a follow-up when I go home for winter break but basically, that was that. And no, I don’t have the time (or the word count) to unpack “death” as a concept in this article. Momento Mori, or whatever. Besides, all the while my brother was settling into B&G and I was coaching him on all the things I wish someone had told me in my first year: “Look kid, first year’s a mess. No one knows what they’re doing, everyone’s pretending, and at some point you have to start making your own choices.

Your parents aren’t always right, you’ll realise rest isn’t something you earn, identity crises are just part of the curriculum, and no, moving cities doesn’t magically fix all your childhood trauma.” He should be grateful honestly; everyday, I wish I had an older sister.

After all that, your girl obviously had to start therapy (probably should’ve done it earlier). An excellent birthday gift for turning 21. You know that scene in Fleabag where her dad gives her a counselling voucher at a dinner party? I strongly believe that should be more normal — and not offensive. We’re slowly but surely working through the whole first-gen, eldest daughter, POC sampler pack: deepseated perfectionism, high functioning anxiety, avoidant attachment issues, essentially the works.

Speaking of avoidant attachment, there was also a boy thrown into this whole mess (ew, I know). Does anything good ever come out of being at Fun Time Pony (of all places) on a Saturday night and a couple tequila shots? Probably not. Did I potentially ruin whatever it was by being emotionally unavailable and then spend weeks intellectualising it? You won’t get me to admit anything. But my point is, that corresponding to my 21st year around the Sun, the Universe unscrupulously started slamming everything at me like I was God’s strongest soldier. I am decidedly not.

At some point, you’ve got to clean out your emotional junk drawer. All the stuff you suppress? Yeah, it

doesn’t just disappear unfortunately. I told my therapist I was hoping I’d magically hit 25, my frontal cortex would finish baking, and I’d just outgrow all my unhealthy patterns. Apparently, that’s not how it works.

Turns out, like everything, you only get better with practice. Moving out, going on exchange, or romanticising your breakdown in London doesn’t erase the mess in your head. You still have to do

the work.

One step. One breath. One existential crisis at a time.

Welcome to 21.

By: Aliya Yang

Salgyn

Diana knew three words for the matter around her: vozdukh, salgyn, air. It, whichever word you chose to use for it, grew colder as the hours passed, the sky darkening. Colder still, with the passing of the weeks, the months, as August bled into November. Slaughter season came and went as the horses were brought in from the countryside. She had gone to the market with Keskil, clad in his red sweater and a new down jacket (the old one he had already outgrown) and the fur boots he had just begun to walk in. Blanketed with white snow in early November, rows of carcasses, of red meat frozen solid, pierced the white expanse. The market, the bazar, the bahaar, was always busiest that time of year, as dozens of women, wrapped in woollen headscarves and fur coats, passed through.

Diana had weaved her way through them, Keskil in her arms, trying to find a good cut, one that would last the two of them — just the two of them now — until the next year. She had stopped in front of a stand, the vendor — a woman — turning to face her. You had to ask them in Sakha — well, she had to — “Bu eting khastyynyy?” Money was tighter now.

her Erkhaan’s sacrifice. She remained in her apartment with Keskil as the air grew colder still, sunset beginning at three in the afternoon. The days of the year dwindled, the remaining hours burning, melting, leaving singed remnants behind.

She survived, for the most part, reflecting on the halflife she had lived since August. The calendar was about

to turn its final page.

The vendor had given a number (“alta suus”) and she had walked away with a frozen block of horse flank.

November faded, too. Diana spent the month waiting for the five million rubles promised by the President in honour of Erkhaan,

She knew she wanted her life back, but how?

Diana had written for North-Eastern Federal University’s student newspaper; she’d been an intern at Kyym.ru, the online version of the paper, during its infancy in 2017. She wrote for pleasure, too — at university, mostly. And, mostly poetry. Little vignettes of love, written in black ink, in Russian, full of references and “inspiration” from the music of Alla Pugacheva. Ne otrekayutcya, lyubya.

She’d shared them only once, when she’d professed her love to Erkhaan. He had laughed at her then, particularly at the inclusion of the Pugacheva lyric. Erkhaan was from the countryside, from the Tattinsky District (Taatta, he would correct her). He did not grow up listening to Pugacheva — well, he had, everyone had — but he never liked her much. He had told her tales from the Olonkho. Stories she knew (she was not a Muscovite, for God’s sake!), but he’d told them in a manner so familiar yet foreign, unlike the black words, excerpts, printed in school books, the Russian and the Sakha side by side. They were meant to be told orally, he would say, though he’d generously spared her of the traditional nine-hour renditions. There had been no singing in his renditions either; they were, as they perhaps ought to be, poetry in its most genuine form, epic and fantastical, told gently, intimately, to a willing audience.

In her head, she could still hear him.

Little things threw her, like a satellite tapped gently out of orbit, spiralling aimlessly into the cold.

Each disappointment left its indelible mark, its weight heavy and helpless in the frigid air. Broken things remained broken. Things did not get better with each day that passed.

They would quarrel — or rather, she with him, tearful rows about how unfair he was to have left her behind. She’d hug Keskil tightly because he was not just her son, but their son, a symbol of everything they’d built and everything they were building. He, Keskil, wouldn’t understand any of this, of course. Diana tried to write all of this down.

Her words, dark and square, typed on a digital keyboard — in Russian — did not help her explain any of this.

“Look, Iye, a butterfly,” Keskil said in Sakha.

Love, she concluded, was the one thing that you could not write about even if it was what you wanted to write about the most. How could anyone, using any words available in Russian, in English, the language of Shakespeare, ever encapsulate something as limitless as love? Erkhaan was, simply put, the greatest person she had ever known. She could never quantify how great because she had never thought that he might not exist.

She continued writing the next day, as Keskil played with knock-off Lego bricks on the living room floor. She typed, hesitatingly, fervently and all the manners in between, the dark words building letter by letter on her computer screen. To love, lyubit’. Friend, drug. Heart, serdtse. Gun, pistolet. Husband, muzh. Air, vozdukh. To breathe, dyshat’. She knew the Sakha words too: taptaa, atas, sürekh, saa, er, salgyn. Tyyn. But she could not write in them, she was never able to.

She had never possessed his talent with words, his ability to tell stories, to recite the Olonkho, in his language, his yazyk, his tyl. Their language, she supposed.

The world seemed to be on fire, constantly alight, constantly in flame. When she received the phone call from his Division, nothing in her could make sense of it. Every part of her body rebelled, was still rebelling against what she heard at that moment.

Diana stopped, looked up from her computer, at the white moth outside the apartment window, almost translucent in the glow of the outside lamp. She turned toward him, smiling slightly, about to tell him there were no butterflies in Yakutia.

“How do butterflies fly, Iye? How do they… go in the air?”

Air. Salgyn, the word formed by his lips. Vozdukh, the dark word on her computer screen.

Keskil didn’t intentionally make a point, but he was right, in a way. Perhaps the butterfly, the moth even, encapsulated the only way she could see herself going forward. The small, insignificant thoughts, the childlike curiosity of wondering what keeps it airborne, its wings beating aimlessly, relentlessly in the winter air.

So maybe she could write about the moth then, for she just couldn’t write about Erkhaan and do him justice, just like how she couldn’t write about the air she was still able to breathe.

Renew

How many ballpoint pens must burst in palm

Before the polymer grave comes, we may not know.

How tight the chord wraps under bowline must pull

Ere the prose’s powering line rise,

Can none say, but all the temporal is sure!

Who dreams of written revolution but has to endure Idle and willing suffocation

He may not say how many papers must fall

How many professors’ shoulders be struck,

How many cuts be fell on their back,

How many of us stiffen ‘neath tactic.

But certain is the harvest time for efficient administration!

And when poor groan ‘neath crisis, Re-echoed, the polymer grave sings backward hurled to operating deficit,

Who listens hears the tolling by Bell

By: bnji

By: Akshit Tyagi

How Male Complacency Fuels an Epidemic of Violence

There is a silence that hangs heavy in the rooms where men gather, be it the pub, a group chat, or a sports club. It’s the silence that follows a sexist joke. The shrug when someone brags about getting “handsy” on a night out. The indifference when another headline reports yet another woman assaulted, raped, or murdered. That silence is complicity. And it’s time we shattered it. Sexual violence in Australia is not a series of isolated incidents; it is a structural, cultural, and deeply gendered crisis.

According to the Australian government’s official definition, sexual violence includes a range of behaviours such as sexual assault and non-physical unwanted sexual behaviours like sexual harassment, threats, or coercion. These acts are non-consensual and can occur in any setting, between strangers, acquaintances, or even intimate partners. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare further clarifies that “sexual violence refers to behaviours of a sexual nature carried

out against a person’s will.”

This includes rape, unwanted touching, and pressure or manipulation into sex. It is not always violent in the way the media portrays it — sometimes, it is subtle, persistent, and normalised. That is what makes it so dangerous.

in alleyways. These are men in our lives — co-workers, friends, boyfriends, classmates — whose actions are often hidden by a culture of denial and silence.

Recent statistics reveal the urgency of this issue. As of data released in 2024 for the year 2023, there were 36,318 recorded sexual assault victims in Australia, marking an 11 percent increase from the previous year. This is the highest number in 31 years. More than 90 percent of these victims were female, and most knew the perpetrator. According to the National Association of Services Against Sexual Violence, one in five women — 22 percent — have experienced sexual violence since the age of 15. Among men, that number is 6.1 percent. What is even more disturbing is that a 2024 national survey found that 22.1 percent of Australians admitted to perpetrating some form of sexual violence since they turned 18. These are not strangers lurking

These are not just numbers. These are lived realities. Behind each statistic is a woman who carries trauma, shame, or disbelief that she wasn’t believed or, worse, wasn’t even heard. In the last year alone, two horrifying cases have made headlines, not just for the violence they reveal but the scale and frequency. Trevor James Scroop, a former ABC cameraman, was charged with over 40 counts of child sexual abuse involving more than 30 Indigenous children in the Northern Territory, with some allegations dating back to 1989. Then there’s Jonathon Paul Voll, a hospitality entrepreneur in New South Wales, facing 25 charges, including sexual intercourse without consent and aggravated sexual assault. These are not one-off predators.

These are men who operated in plain sight for years, even decades. Their existence is not shocking — it is systemic. And that system is built, maintained, and excused by other men.

Let’s be clear: not all men commit sexual violence. But far too many of us ignore it, minimise it, or stay silent. We excuse our friends, laugh at the jokes, and let microaggressions pass unchallenged. We tell ourselves we’re the “good guys” because we’ve never assaulted anyone. But being a good man isn’t a passive identity; it’s an active commitment. It means intervening when someone crosses a line. It means unlearning the entitlement and power that patriarchy handed us without

It means listening to survivors, believing them, and advocating for justice even when it’s uncomfortable.

consent looks like, learn it. Consent is not silence. It’s not a maybe. It’s not drunken compliance. It is enthusiastic, informed, and ongoing. Anything short of that is assault. If someone you know is a survivor, don’t ask them for details. Ask them how you can support them. Respect their boundaries. If you know someone accused of abuse, don’t immediately defend them.

Listen. Understand that false reports are statistically rare, only 2 to 10%, and that most sexual assaults are never even reported, let alone prosecuted. Speaking of reporting, survivors have options. In emergencies, they can contact police through Triple Zero (000). For support, 1800RESPECT is a 24/7 national service that offers counselling and advice.

Many men are unsure what to do when it comes to sexual violence. But ignorance is no longer an excuse in the age of Google and public reckonings. If you’ve never read a survivor’s story, start there. If you’re unsure what affirmative

In New South Wales, the Sexual Assault Reporting Option (SARO) provides a way to report sexual assault without initiating a police investigation, allowing victims to be heard and data to be collected on offenders. These systems, while imperfect, exist because, for too long, women had nowhere to go. They still don’t always get justice, but the least we can do is make sure they are not navigating trauma alone. To the men reading this: ask yourself when was the last time you held another man accountable. When was the last time you examined your own past, your language? The change we need won’t come from politicians or police; it will come from us. From the classrooms, kitchens, and cricket fields where young boys learn what it means to be a man. It will come from fathers who teach their sons that respect is not conditional. From friends who stop friends. From bystanders who become interveners. This is not about guilt. It’s about responsibility. If you feel defensive reading this, ask yourself why. If you feel uncomfortable, sit with that discomfort. Use it. Channel it into change. Because the burden of ending sexual violence should not rest on the shoulders of survivors. It should rest squarely on the shoulders of those of us who have benefited from a world that looks away.

By: Miranda Niejalke

Scientific and academic literacy stand against misinformation

We have seen in recent elections across the world that misinformation has played a crucial part in shaping the political and social norms that affect us daily. People continue to express political opinions that border on delusions. These opinions often withstand any evidence to disprove them or reject any argument that may offer different opinions. Many of us will see these arguments in our classes, homes and broader communities, and it does not only affect the politics of this country; it affects the way we all relate to others with differing opinions, and may widen the intolerant political divide as people become increasingly intolerant to other beliefs. Instead, we should aim to progress into a tolerant, open-minded and humble community that forms opinions based on the best evidence available from academics and scientists. Political opinions as delusion

Delusions are often understood by their association with psychosis, a serious mental health and neurological symptom. They are identified by an unshaken belief in something that may appear bizarre or non-bizarre despite evidence to the contrary. There are many places delusions can stem from, including mental health disorders such as schizophrenia spectrum disorders and bipolar 1 disorder. Still, we can examine other sources of delusion. Conspiracy theories are often associated with rigid political thought and identity, on either side of the political spectrum. A strong identification with a particular political party, leader or advocate will often influence the strength of your belief in their

messaging or the messages associated with them. At a fanatical or highly involved level, you are more likely to experience delusion-like beliefs in those messages and opinions.

Social influence, and parasocial influence through internet influences, are some of the strongest determinants of political opinion and the strength of these opinions. An article I recommend on this is “Social Influence and the Collective Dynamics of Opinion Formation” by Mehdi Moussaïd and colleagues, published in 2013.

A relevant example may be certain conspiracies, such as those about the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. You may be aware of right-wing theories that the riots were instigated and demonstrated by government officials, despite these claims lacking reliable evidence. It shows an interesting contrast between the conservative ability to acknowledge the government, police and military instigating riots, though not when those riots occur in protests against conservative actions. In polarised political landscapes such as the USA, and still relevant in Australia, these double standards and misrepresentations of information are common. Thomas B. Edsall writes for the New York Times, “...misperceptions and delusions interact dangerously with core political and moral disagreements.” His essay, The Politics of Delusion Have Taken Hold, discusses how delusional political opinion is shared and spread; a huge part of this is identification with a particular party and thus an us-versus-them mentality in twoparty democracies, the root of polarisation. These behaviours increase the polarisation of major parties and the people who identify with them. We can see this even in Australia, where politics tends to oscillate between conservative and centrist policies without the same level of polarisation as in the USA, but where many people strongly identify with one of the three major parties and will disagree with policies and beliefs based on which party it is coming from. The identification of a speaker with a party or group, the acceptance of that speaker within the group and the perceived closeness with that speaker all determine the extent to which someone will be inclined to believe what the speaker is saying if they do not have the energy or motivation to think critically about their argument. It is this motivation that is targeted by increasing education into critical thought and academic and scientific literacy.

Ways that literacy protects against tough political alignment and misinformation

Enabling analytical thought to become a habitual instinct for wider society can increase the motivation to digest information intentionally rather than passively. The Elaboration Likelihood Model is a highly influential model of how persuasion of an argument occurs and details the two pathways to persuasion. There is the central pathway, which relies on the strength of an argument with data and evidence, and the peripheral pathway, which relies on cues external to the argument, such as the tone of voice, setting or appearance of the speaker. When we interact with an argument or presentation of information, we will be convinced or not convinced of its truth and validity based on the energy, motivation and attention we put towards the argument, determinants of the use of the central or peripheral pathway. The goal of literacy should be to increase the likelihood of the average person engaging with an argument using the central pathway because they are motivated to do so for several reasons: an argument may be personally important, there may be enjoyment in analysis, or are educated on the subject of the argument.

The latter two points can be strengthened through education and experience with scientific and academic literature. An excellent point from M. C. Nussbaum’s 2019 piece The struggle within: How to educate for democracy: “… democracy needs citizens who can think for themselves, rather than deferring to authority, who can reason together about their choices rather than simply trading claims and counter-claims.” She goes on to explain the other essential skills learned through critical thinking, including compassion and empathy for a person or group that has a differing opinion from you; to think of them as having reasons for their opinions and to understand their perspective, as well as being able to understand your own. This is a skill we see infrequently in political and social discourse; more often we see an attitude of opposition and polarisation. An argument should be viewed as something to be understood,

not to be fought. By understanding the merits of a different argument through the use of the central pathway we can reduce the polarisation of politics and social discourse. While it is clear that the peripheral pathway can be easily manipulated, the central pathway is also at risk without understanding the value of the argument. Even if we have an increased motive to use the central route, we need to be able to discern the credible from the incredible. Literacy not only affects our political and social stances but also the choices we make about our health and well-being. While watching a recent series about harmful natural medicine with friends studying health science and genetics, their informed perspectives showed precisely how delusional, manipulative and persuasive natural medicine can be. The show certainly portrayed an extreme perspective but the message behind it and the true stories that inspired it are becoming more pervasive. While there is evidence that this is due to a failing public health system or a rise in distrust in government, what concerns me and this piece is the persuasion that occurs on an individual level for someone to choose to engage in dangerous “medical” treatments. Having scientific literacy does not necessarily mean having a similar understanding of the biology that health professionals and researchers do, but being able to understand why medical advice should come from medical professionals and not Facebook groups. It comes from understanding the difference between scientific, peer-reviewed research and “research” into singular stories. Both have a level of value and the greater population needs to be aware of where and when to be critical of each. Influences in these spaces, both online and in professional environments, prey on the fear, uncertainty and vulnerability of people with limited medical literacy and encourage them to use methods that may be easier to understand, or seemingly so, but are not always as effective, if effective at all.

Acknowledging the privilege of having this literacy

There is a huge privilege associated with access to education in this country. There are many reasons why people may not be able to attend any level of schooling through to university, and the ANU educates many of this country’s most privileged and best-educated students from across the world. Many students will understand the immense privilege it is to study here, and the fact that it sets us apart from our home communities. There is a privilege in being financially able to move here, drive to campus, purchase a bike to ride to campus, own or access technology to complete research, have a healthy body and mind that is capable of study, have a safe and accepting social atmosphere, have unions and student groups to support students in times of hardship and have access to food and supplies in a liveable city. The list goes on. There is certainly much to be desired from many of these, but that does not negate the fact that each is a challenge for many and a privilege for all of us.

Because we exist in this environment of privilege, we may take the benefits we reap from it, like our literacy skills, for granted. There is an inherent privilege in having those skills as they make us more aware and more intentional in the choices we make in everyday life. The health choices an ANU student will make could look vastly different from the choices a high-school graduate of a similar background may make because of differing abilities to understand complex information. As a Go8 university, we experience a greater focus on conceptual and theoretical understanding (which are closely linked with complex thought, analysis and research) than universities that focus on practical skills and employability. Both theoretical and practical degrees are necessary for a functioning society, so scientific and academic literacy should be taught before university age before adolescents graduate high school. This idea is limited in the fact that even access to high school is a challenge for many. This is not a perfect solution.

Challenges in enhancing national scientific and academic literacy

We will have seen or felt the struggle of pre-university schooling, wherever we are from. Anecdotally, there were cases in the school I graduated from where students were encouraged to drop out of school in grade twelve if they were performing badly. Many others would drop out due to bullying, financial struggles, family responsibilities, health issues, the death of loved ones and more. These are inherent challenges in schooling everywhere. As someone who was primarily schooled in a major city, geographical access to an educational institution was never an issue, but it is for a huge number of regional, rural and remote students. Keeping students in an environment to learn has always been the toughest challenge and a predictor of lifelong success in the Western world.

Since I sat my first NAPLAN tests people have expressed concern over a decline in literacy and numeracy performance in these tests. These claims do not appear to be founded as trends have been stable since its conception in 2008. However, the data from these tests also show that performance depending on Indigeneity and remoteness predicts poorer performance. There is still a significant portion of students who are not meeting the minimum requirements of their education, with the ABC reporting one in three students are not meeting baseline performance. Greater priority should perhaps be given to raising the abilities of the lowest performers before we attempt a greater challenge. There is also an inherent political aspect to changing the curriculum, something that is closely tied into bureaucratic knots and political agendas. There are challenges in assessing which journals are appropriate for students to read, religious objections to some scientific topics, assessing the intellectual abilities of the school-aged population and more. Importantly, there is a political incentive to keep Australians from being able to think critically.

The media plays a huge part in this, and their influence is not restricted to politics, either. A lot of media influence relies on the general public’s inability to recognise the emotional manipulation of true events to support or weaken an agenda.

Because of that, there is a strong reason for some powerful influences in this country not to highly educate people more than they already are. The most obvious challenge to any idea is the money it would take to implement. This issue is exacerbated by the already-low funding of public schools, potential lack of political interest and lower priority of raising literacy requirements.

Methods that may strengthen literacy

As a typical ANU student, my advice is theoretical, but I will attempt to make practical recommendations for how scientific and academic literacy can be strengthened in school. Naturally, much of this hinges on changes to the curriculum to explicitly require the use and analysis of academic journal articles and other academic resources. Grade eleven and twelve history and English courses already involve source and literature analyses, however, these requirements were, from my experience, lacking depth.

Much of my research was restricted by the lack of access I had to academic articles, and most of my research was done with free-access article abstracts and semi-pirated articles. There was also limited teaching on analytical methods and ways to understand information. Pieces of literature were not understood as a whole but as snippets to support an argument that may get you a good grade but did not reflect the whole text. We can see how nit-picking quotes and results can lead to a poorer understanding of information and the spread of misinformation. Instead of this, both English and history classes (and other electives) should have introductory units on research utilising a wide range of academic resources like online journals and should teach students the fundamentals of understanding research and academic communication. TED talks are not cutting it.

Similarly, statistical analysis should be a mandatory topic in any mathematics class to reflect the importance of statistics in our increasingly data-driven world. Currently, the concept of statistical analysis is only introduced in mathematical methods (equivalent to extension mathematics) classes in grades eleven and twelve. To the best of my knowledge, this largely revolves around graphing trends and predicting future results, but not necessarily including important constructs such as significance, strength of relationships or research methods that may influence the validity and reliability of results. It is the last two of this list that

concern me most, as many media sources will publish anecdotal evidence for something and label it a phenomenon, rather than publishing a story as a single point of highly subjective data. Being able to discern the difference between the reliability and validity of an unscientific, single source versus multiple sources versus multiple scientific sources should be viewed as an essential skill.

If you enjoyed this piece or want to know more about this topic, I encourage you to read the texts cited, all of which we have access to as ANU students.

Opinion strength influences the spatial dynamics of opinion formation.

Written by Bert O. Baumgaertner, Rebecca C. Tyson and Stephen M. Krone for The Journal of Mathematical Sociology, published in 2016.

• Ray Epps: Target of Capitol riot conspiracy theories charged over January 6.

Written by Mike Wendling for BBC News, posted in 2023.

• The politics of delusion have taken hold. Written by Thomas B. Edsall for the New York Times, posted in 2023.

The struggle within: How to educate for democracy. Written by Martha C. Nussbaum for the ABC, posted in 2019.

Elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. Written by Charlotte Nickerson for Simply Psychology, posted in 2023.

STU DENT JO URNALISM CON FERENCE

15 – 18 August | University of Sydney

Free admission

TICKETS

Kate McClymont Antony Loewenstein

Sophie McNeill Benjamin Law Shankari Chandran

Melina Marchetta Cathy Wilcox Alana Valentine

By: Brooke Corkhill

Print is Not Dead: The Art of Junk Journaling with Martina Calvi

The crafty renaissance appears to have taken the internet by storm, with the major rise of junk journaling — a form of scrapbooking and physical memory collecting that encourages you to create with ‘trash’ and mementos you already have. For many, this looks like using materials like travel tickets, movie stubs, receipts, napkins, packaging or business cards to create one-of-a-kind journal spreads.

I had the opportunity to ask the internet’s resident queen of craft and expert on all things junk journaling, Martina Calvi (@martinamartian), about her experience as a creative, both off and online. Much of her inspiration stems from her childhood, 2000s rom coms, Tumblr, Sofia Coppola, art and craft books, and “objects of the past” found in flea markets and vintage stores. I discovered her profile through photos of her zine, “The Other Italy,” and her flow of sentimental and whimsical creations and kind personality have kept me following along. She has inspired me to get back in touch with my hobby of scrapbooking, and pouring into my creativity has been incredibly fulfilling.

Martina is excited by the rise of offline creative hobbies and notes how junk journaling encourages everyone to “[embrace] imperfection, spontaneity, and memory collecting in a way that resonates with people right now. We’re all craving something a little messier, slower, and more human.” The act of slowing down and creating something physical has been calming for me, and many of my friends, who I’ve roped into junk journaling.

Martina has always been passionate about print, as her father worked in newspapers for four decades. “I’ve always grown up hearing about the rise and fall of the print industry. I grew up collecting Frankie Magazine and picking up free copies of Vice, making zines and keeping stacks of books by my bed,” she says.

Martina is a staunch believer that print will never die. “If anything, it’s becoming more of a nostalgic novelty to us, a place for slow and considered storytelling to live,” she argues. “Print media asks us to pause and get offline, which is something we’re all craving more and more.”

Last year, Martina also published her first book, The Art of Memory Collecting. This was her “childhood dream come true” as a girl who always maxed out the library loan limit and wrote novels on her family’s computer. Her book is dedicated to “all the crafty, creative and sentimental people” and stands as a love letter to handmade projects and preserving memories. Sharing her junk journaling spreads on an Instagram reel led to her first international book deal, and she was soon offered another after The Art of Memory Collecting sold out almost immediately after her launch. Her next book, A Year of Junk Journaling, will dive into a year’s worth of pages from her personal journal. The success of her first book allowed Martina to approach this book with far more confidence; “I was much firmer on some design choices and including more tiny details for my readers to discover, that I didn’t feel brave enough to push for last time,” she notes.

Her success is also a testament to the rising popularity of this genre and how alive-and-well physical media is.

Earlier this year, Martina launched her own print magazine, Tiny Zine. She wanted the magazine to feel like it was made by your crafty best friends: “Playful, 100 percent human made, and authentic.”

It champions analogue creativity, spotlights artists and writers from their community, and is “like Rookie Mag meets your pen pal’s collage meets Interview Magazine.”

Their first edition was carefully hand-designed, and stars Lola Young. It stands as a reminder of the cultural relevance that can be found in independent publishing, and the fun, collectible nature of print.

Balancing an online presence with offline creation is not always easy for anyone, even Martina. But this has just pushed her to protect some of her creative moments even more, keeping some of her journal private. “My internet presence has definitely amplified my work, which I’m so grateful for, but it’s also made me more intentional about carving out time to make things just for me.”

Moving forward, Martina hopes for more in-real-life crafty community events. “Craft clubs, junk journaling meetups, crafternoons with your friends. I want the crafty community to keep growing into something joyful and real, where people feel connected through creating and playing with paper together.” She has even been sponsoring craft clubs with her small business, Martina’s Tiny Store, to support the ‘crafty renaissance’. I have found it particularly fun to junk journal alongside friends, as a sort of creative parallel play. There is so much delight to be found in creating with people who are just as passionate about a hobby you adore. It really is “a kind of gentle rebellion against the digital noise.”

In a world moving online at a dizzying speed, with AI becoming more prevalent in everyday life, carving out the time to create something with your hands has never been more satisfying and important. As a Martina-converted-crafter, I can testify to the level of gratification creativity can bring to your everyday life. I guarantee you would be surprised by how much you’d like whatever you dream up.

For anyone looking to start junk journaling, Martina recommends you “start with what you already have. A receipt, a bus ticket, a piece of packaging you like. Creativity doesn’t have to be loud or perfect — just create for you.” She insists that “junk journaling is not something to be ‘good’ at. Just start collecting little souvenirs of your life. That’s where the magic is.”

By: Brooke Corkhill

By: Dara Kaldor

Baptism of the Bullshit

The moment is happening — can we rejoice in that alone?

The world’s going to shit, they say, and I’m lucky not to even be in the splash zone.

The feces is in foreign lands, but the stench is familiar — like it’s already entered my nasal cavities, and I just need to bear it. Like, just fucking bear it. Or maybe, I dare to even embrace it. Because, they tell me, no one is immune to the runs, and — ready or not — the formidable splash zone awaits.

So I might as well revel in the thought of the stench, its absurdly foul odour, the elephant in my gloom amidst the serious, sterile scent of normality:

Disease, divorce, menopause, motherhood, bankruptcy, bad breath, back pain, doomsday, deadbeats, drunken debates, sober small talk, tits that sag to my knees, brats that don’t appreciate me, disaster, dysfunction, dullness, then death.

It’s not all guaranteed, they tell me, “but you’ve got to tick some off the list.” I sigh, they hand me the form — these bureaucratic ServiceNSW wannabe adminfucks! But I remain compliant, mindlessly scribbling away and reclining in the comfort of youth — endless time to bludge, things to ruminate on, places to see, a brain that yearns to be rotted, people you yearn to be, or be with —

The bathroom swings open.

The fucker before me didn’t flush.

Now your world’s gone to shit, they say.

And I let that shit marinate.

And then you blink, they tell me, and before I can challenge them to a staring contest

Time is a splash.

And then a shit.

The smell is overwhelming. I am almost overcome by the grotesque banality of it all — so short, so sickening, so silly.

And you remember this feeling. Even from the serenity beyond the splash zone, you have been anticipating it.

I open my eyes.

Unclench my hands.

And lean headfirst into the shit.

You resurface — newly cleansed and forever revived from… all… that… bullshit.

By: Nick Gardner-Trott

The four shades of blue I’ve left behind

1.

A boy walked past me today with a bright blue button-up jumper

He didn’t notice but

The butterflies’ wings teemed as they watched him from their hiding spots

Like little fairies enchanted by the presence of this gentle giant

And the trees bent as he ran through their branches

Whispering to each other that he was one of the good ones and they would bend out of his way as he discovered the world around him

I walked away smiling and lamenting I hadn’t said something

Because his jacket looked like something Paddington would wear

And it reminded me of the plate I ate dinner on

When my mum put me in front of the dinosaurs on the telly

While she went off to solve the problems in my world

And I was allowed to make a mess of myself 2.

My thumb is leaking something blue

I don’t seem to be running out of it

I keep sucking on it

And picking at it

I seem to be very good at making more

It only stops dripping when I’m sleeping

Every night I dream I’m sharing a platform with a man praying in a religion I don’t believe in

We are both looking at the hooligans across the tracks

They are learning how to construct a guillotine

Figuring it out as they go, I watch with the man muttering next to me

Until I wake up

With a refined gentleman standing at the end of my bed

Offering a grin and a cure for my thumb 3.

It was late at night

The night sky was laughing and showing me that her dress is not a black but blue

And that Van Gogh was right all along

With a cough and an apology

I sat on a rock and saw everything that she had designed

Amazed at the busyness of her dancefloor made of blue 4.

(Later is now)

I was wading out into the lake with the sunken town at the bottom

And she followed me out there

She was the stronger swimmer in the dark

And she bobbed above and below the surface

Whistling the same tune as the moon’s blue

Hoping I’d know she was there for me like a lighthouse

And I kind of knew she would do that

And she kind of knew we would remember this

And not the way our bodies drifted apart into different shades of blue

By: Alexis Jean

The Room With No Corners

The ceiling flickers, its dying light buzzing loud enough to drown the silence. My fingers graze the edge of a coffee mug, cracked but still holding on. Outside, laughter rises from the street and floats up like smoke, curling around the window that never quite shuts. I sit at the kitchen table with four legs but no real sense of balance.

There are letters in the drawer I never sent. Some addressed. Some not. Some in lettering that seems foreign to me now. Some with no words at all, just folded lines like a map to somewhere I used to know. I used to write about stars, names, patterns, and purposes. I knew where everything belonged in the sky. Down here, things are harder to place.

***

When I was young, people said my hands moved like answers. I learnt the rules faster than they could finish explaining them. Teachers praised the way I saw things “differently”, but never thought to question why. The other girls had a language I couldn’t quite decode; I brought ideas to a game they’d already played without me. My voice often landed at the wrong time, sharp in places it should’ve softened. Faces shifted. Conversations wilted. They stopped looking back when they passed me in the halls. They’d thought I wouldn’t notice. I always did.

After class, I’d linger at the edge of their plans, caught in a pause too long to be casual, before walking away like I had somewhere to be. And I did. Always. There were no detours in my world, no slow walks or afternoons that bled into evenings.

Home required precision. Doors closed behind me with intention.

***

He believed in the straight line. The kind of man who corrected posture at the dinner table without looking up from his plate. The house was clean and quiet — until it wasn’t. He spoke in structure, believed in the shape of things, discipline

before expression, obedience before understanding. When I drifted, the room would fill with a stillness so dense it felt like weather.

Sometimes, it passed quickly. Sometimes it didn’t.

On good days, the kind like rare sun through frosted glass, he’d crack jokes at dinnertime. Brief, golden pockets of warmth when the world seemed to fit him better, and we all breathed easier. He could be kind, tender even. But kindness was delicate, easily disrupted. As years passed, the world seemed to jostle him more

and more, like a room too loud, too fast, too bright. When the edges frayed, we learnt to step lightly, speak softly, shrink our presences so it wouldn’t clash with his.

We never had a word for it; we just adapted. We adjusted the volume of our lives.

Folded our joy smaller, tucked it into corners, learnt to press pause on ourselves.

The walls absorbed what we couldn’t say. And I, too loud, too questioning, too much in all the wrong ways, was always a bit off-beat in the rhythm he needed.

She once said I was born in the wrong room. That if I had come out somewhere warmer, I would have bloomed better. The same hands that wrapped me in blankets now folded in her lap when I spoke. She meant well, I think. Her words were stitched in another tongue, mine fraying when I tried to answer. I grew up learning not to correct her; she learnt to stop asking why I looked tired all the time.

She was softer, once. Maybe I imagined that. There were days she’d sneak fruit into my hands when no one was watching, humming old songs while cleaning as if the music might lift the day’s edges. But softness bruises easily. Her voice sharpened. Her hands became cold and calloused. The fruit stopped coming.

She was blamed for what leaked through the seams of his design, the wrongness in us he couldn’t name. In return, she measured her silence, rationing it between complicity and exhaustion. She stopped standing beside me and began standing behind him. Few questions asked. Fewer answers that mattered.

There was a time she would speak for me when I couldn’t find words. Now, she only nodded beside him, the calm before his storm. I stopped looking at her when things went quiet.

She wanted peace more than she wanted understanding, quiet more than closeness. Happiness and contentment were fragile, flickering things, too expensive to waste on children who never quite fit the shape she was given. She made do with survival. I learnt to stop asking for more.

He lives in the pauses between thoughts, the quiet kind of love never asking to be seen, only trusted. We shared a wall growing up, a silence we never had to explain. Walks to school filled with sharp laughter and low blows, mockery traded like currency, our own language built in the absence of any other in a house that never quite taught us how to say we cared.

I still picture him as he was, sitting beside the heater, tapping quiet rhythms on the floor only we seemed to recognise. There was relief in leaving, in loosening the grip of that place. But freedom has a cost.

I wonder if the silence I left blended into the quiet he already knew.

We rarely named the heaviness, moving around it carefully. I’d nudge his plate closer when he hadn’t touched it, pretending not to notice; he’d leave the last piece on my side of the plate like it had landed there by accident. Little offerings passed between us like folded notes nobody else was meant to read, unwritten but understood.

She lingers in strange places. In the low hum of songs, in the quiet after a question nobody answers. She still lives in the corners of my memory, laughing at something only she found funny, pulling me into her orbit without even trying.

She laughed like she didn’t know the rules yet. Maybe she didn’t.

Sometimes, I turn to tell her something before I remember she isn’t there. An old instinct, muscle memory shaped by years of fastening buttons she couldn’t reach, of answering questions nobody else had time for. The kind of closeness built in hushed bedtime stories and the way she’d lean against me when the world felt too loud. I wonder if she noticed how heavy the house had grown, and simply learnt to walk lighter across its floors. She never made her pain loud, wearing it like jewellery, visible only if you knew where to look. I think I missed it. I think we all did.

Now she arrives in the shape of a shadow, the smell of dust in the old curtains, the way light bends through water. I don’t say her name aloud often. It feels like waking a sleeping thing. Sometimes I think she’s still here, waiting at the edge of the room, in a corner that no longer exists.

He said I was intriguing. Like a riddle or a street sign in another language. He seemed drawn to the way I spoke — animated, unfiltered, curious. He laughed when I spoke my mind. But slowly, that same voice began to wear on him. The spark he’d once admired became something he blinked against as if it hurt to look too long. One night, I asked him what he liked about me. He paused for so long I had to turn away before he answered. He never did. ***

The promises came early, soft, certain, made under the kind of light that flatters everything. But they wilted slowly, somewhere between his restlessness and the quiet realisation that I would never make things easy. My laughter was electric, until it startled him. My questions were charming, until they required more than simple answers. I watched him begin to flinch at the very things he’d once claimed to respect.

Somewhere along the line, I became something to endure. Something he could set aside while he searched for lighter things, simpler things. Things that didn’t press so closely against the rawer parts of him. And maybe he never meant to leave in the way he did. Maybe he looked too closely and realised the quiet parts of me didn’t echo the way he’d hoped.

There’s a photo frame on the shelf, face-down since last spring. I haven’t picked it up. I think I’m afraid the girl in it will look at me and ask what happened. That

she’ll see the stacks of unopened mail and the plants trying to die quietly. That she’ll notice the silence and not know what it means. But the lights still buzz and the coffee’s still bitter, and I’m still here. In a room with no corners. Nowhere to curl into. Nowhere to hide the edges.

Outside, the laughter fades like music through walls. I hold my breath until it passes. The room settles. The light shifts. The world carries on around me, as if nothing ever paused. I stand up slowly, as if that might change something. And I follow the sound of footsteps until mine disappear into them.

Music for which I am now out of practice

Thirteen years of old sheet music have conglomerated into a scene of chaos in my junk drawer.

Crumpled scale sheets are a terrible introduction to the scene, a viscous mass of frightful intonation and general unwillingness. Just when you think you’ve waded through, the high notes of the arpeggios scratch at your ears, tinny and painful. You make it through this scene, fingers aching from pressing through sharps and flats to make it through the horrible mass that, by some cruel trick of fate or music acquisition theory, is essential to accessing the rest of this world.

Just as you make it out into a better patch of forest and catch your breath, you are almost flattened by the stomp of a dinosaur as the resonant Theme from Jurassic Park takes over. This is the next section of the world, where the rich tones of cellos and bases rumble through the air before a pterodactyl sweeps up the notes and carries them high into the sky as you gaze after it in wonder as it carries them further and further over this landscape that transcends anything you could ever conceive as within the realm of possibility. Another dinosaur roars in the background and

By: Chiara Hackney-Britt

you realise you should escape while you can before you are eaten.

You hurry under the cover of a rock to hide, but find yourself suddenly in a baroque church, dripping with gold and with colourful paintings covering every inch of the walls. A choir is singing the beginning of Vivaldi’s Gloria, faces and frilled clothing lit only by candles. They are

tuned to a different frequency to that which we use today. You walk slowly down the aisle of the church, blinking to adjust to the dim room.

As you blink, the setting gradually shifts to a small, charming church in Canberra, where a youth orchestra is bowing out the triumphant finale of the Gloria with a local choir.

The frequency has changed, a semitone sharper, they are in concert blacks, and electric lighting takes over. Fingers move over strings, eyes flicking between the sheet music and the conductor, trying to lose neither the rhythm nor any one of the multitude of notes that is typical of baroque music. They take a bow, the audience applauds, and their work of so many months comes to fruitful realisation.

Just as you start applauding, this world suddenly flips on its side, and you find yourself once again outdoors, in a quiet meadow, the sun just rising, its rays teasing the dewy strands of grass all around you.

The scene sparkles. In the distance, a group of people dance around a green apple tree, a stark contrast to the scene of calm around you. These, then, are the scenes from the traditional Russian folk songs that Tchaikovsky wove into the finale of his Serenade for Strings — the hardest, but most wonderful, piece I have ever played. The people dance faster and faster to the beat of rapid pizzicato, spinning with the soaring cello and violin melodies, stomping with the impossibly fast quavers that took hours upon hours to play correctly. They draw nearer and nearer, grasping your hands to bring you into their circle, and you struggle to keep up, trembling with adrenaline. Finally, the rapid music gives way to something grandiose, and you are able to breathe for one second before once again the rhythm picks up, even faster than before, accelerating, and you collapse, exhausted.

This sends you tumbling into a void, rushing past some scribbled notes on Erlkӧnig from high school music class, past some messy four-part harmony worksheets, past a Mozart sonata with some faint fingerings written in that you never really bothered learning properly, until you land with a thump in an orchestra rehearsal. They are playing Mozart’s Divertimento in F Major, light, airy, and somewhat summery, fitting for early December. It sounds effortless, until it falls apart, and then the orchestra stops, the concertmaster declaring that they need to put more effort into making it sound effortless. Each voice must be clean and pure and flow like a current in the air. They go from the top, and this time, it comes together — they are all in sync, the quavers are crisp, and it is impossible not to smile. This, then, is the genius of a child prodigy with no worry in the world.

The rehearsal ends, and you shuffle out the door with them all, pleasantly surprised at how lovely this world can be.

There are other parts of this world to explore, an uncountable amount, almost, and every year, more sections are added. We haven’t yet followed the hunters galloping through the forest, or waltzed around with the flowers and bees, or stepped into the realm of reimagined English folk tunes. Reading a book takes you into a new world, but so does playing a piece of music, and each time a piece of music is played, it finds a new home in a practice room, then perhaps on stage, and thereafter on dusty shelves, abandoned music stands, or in a random drawer full of piles of paper. One day, perhaps, these stories contained in ink and soundwaves will be pulled out and played again unto the world. One day. But for now I am rather out of practice.

By: Elizabeth Barnes

I tend to you like I tend to the candle on

I tend to you like I tend to the candle on my desk.

Can’t, don’t look away for too long. Is it burning right?

Why doesn’t it smell like I’d imagined? What did I do to deserve this flame?

wind pushes inside my room and I slam it closed; You are safe.

I let my fear of flame preclude you from ever burning bright at all.

What if I lit another? A guilt too sickly sweet to breathe in.

I blow from a distance, and it flickers; Teasing, taunting.

I set myself to work: James Joyce. Sisters and Chapelizod. Still the orange blink in my periphery draws my attention back.

I busy myself with the flowers on my shelf, tying them with yarn to suspend them from my ceiling to dry. As I open the door to shuck leaves off my balcony, biting

Your fragility is constructed by me; Fire has burnt since this morning, since the long weekend in June, Since the first fish was fried, since the first night was illuminated,

Since the hot, painful expansion of one point into every point.

It is me who is fragile, who is afraid,

Who is ruinous, dangerous, who is brittle.

You are combustible; ready, hungry to be alight;

Keening towards the fuel;

You, who burns unashamedly as I try to keep you contained in the name of safety.

I tend to you anxiously, watchfully. Consumingly afraid

Of what will happen if I, too, find myself alight.

I tend to you as if you are inexpensive and inconsequential —

An object of amusement kept in glass.

There when I need it, cold and quiet when I don’t.

I forget your magnificence.

I’m scared to use you up.

I’m scared one day I will need you and you will be gone. Then, my desk will be dark and my bedroom will smell stale.

…

You are not a candle on my desk.

You dance when I am not watching.

You are wondrously, unpredictably, painfully, thankfully out of my control.

You are explosive and unstable —

I will get burnt.

So will you.

You are much brighter than one room could contain, Much warmer than I could bear to sit beside and try to read by,

Much more brilliant than an orange blink that I can ignore, forget, fear.

I snuff the candle (Outside, on my balcony, so as not to set off the smoke alarms).

You knock and I greet you with a hug.

Your smell, your smile, your warmth and secret softness; I remember your magnificence.

I clean mine for yours.

(I’m looking at it through your eyes)

I’m around if you are. I’m here if you’re wanting.

I had cycled in the rain.

How raw? The lining of my womb imprinted on your bedsheets.

Legs quivering in pain.

I’m being careless at the moment.

Very little regard to manners of the heart,

I let myself imagine you long into my future

Let myself into your room as my insides compress, making room for an expansion, for an ache.

Making space for a loss.

You sleep on your side, and that’s ok with me.

I sync to your breathing;

Breathing out air to sink into you before I leave;

Leave bile in your sink;

Sink myself again;

Again you drive me home.

I clean mine for yours.

By: Elizabeth Barnes

You clean your room for my arrival

You drive me home from your house.

You pull away in your sleep.

You clean your room for my arrival.

Train Ticket, Zone A

Valencia, Spain May 2025

A Museum of Junk

Clothes discarded on the bedroom floor; a backpack unpacked on the bed; photos piled in a heap on the desk; and, inside a wooden drawer, remnants of adventures long past. Take a moment and imagine that instead of the broken bottom drawer filled with six months’ worth of travel memorabilia, these discarded remnants lined the walls of a small yet fascinating museum. Each item sits in a golden frame, protected by glass, pinned at the edges, and preserved for all to see.

Now, picture yourself wandering the aisles of mismatched belongings, observing the accompanying written descriptions; each one a testament to travels long gone, moments of romance, stress, and achievement.

This train ticket, purchased by a traveler en route from the airport at 12:30 a.m., marks a moment of frugality and unforeseen adventure. Faced with two options, Zone A or Zone B, the traveller chose, in a moment of weakness, the less expensive one, saving €1.40. However, moments later, as they attempted to exit, the ticket failed to open the metro gates, leaving them alone in a foreign city where they spoke none of the local language. Trapped inside the station, the traveller repeated the words “exit” and “cannot” with mounting anxiety into the helpline, but the response was unintelligible. Nearing desperation and considering climbing the metro doors, they were rescued by an observant construction worker who bridged the language barrier. With help, the gate finally opened.

This ticket, while a reminder of a minor miscalculation, also stands as a testament to the kindness of strangers, as what could have ended in frustration and perhaps a full-blown meltdown turned into laughter shared over the phone with a best friend, a moment that lasted all the way to the hostel.

This brown paper bag, emblazoned with the logo of “North Pie Co.”, marks a discovery in the quest for the best pie in England. Found in a small market in Manchester, the brown paper bag once held a pie filled with 40-hour slow-cooked brisket beef, wrapped in a perfectly crispy yet sturdy pastry.

A far cry from the comforting, simpler Australian service station pies, this pie embodied the rich, diverse culinary culture of England, a true prize in the traveller’s hunt for authentic local flavours. The bag signifies not just a meal, but a connection to England’s evolving food scene, where each regional specialty offers a taste of time, care, and tradition.

By: your fellow traveller

Grocery Receipt, €2.40 Lisbon, Portugal May 2025

This €2.40 receipt from a Lisbon greengrocer documents the purchase of chickpeas, vegetables, and bananas — humble staples that reflect the quiet resilience of a young budget traveller. With curry paste and rice packed from home, these ingredients came together for a makeshift meal: nourishing, familiar, and affordable.

Far from Portuguese culinary tradition, the dish served a different purpose. The chickpeas fueled over 30,000 steps that day, while the vegetables and bananas provided the vitamins necessary to fend off a looming sore throat. In the communal kitchen of a foreign hostel, cooking became an anchor, a small act of control, comfort, and care amidst the uncertainties of travel.

To others, this receipt may seem like a mundane purchase, perhaps lost in translation. But for the traveller, it marked a quiet victory over financial stress, a taste of home, and the sustenance needed to keep going.

As you come to the end of this makeshift museum, I implore you to take the time to consider each of these items, though seemingly ordinary, which once resided in a junk drawer, hidden, discarded, or forgotten. If we pause and allow ourselves to see beyond their initial purpose, we find stories embedded in them. Like a 16th-century painting, these pieces carry tales of connection, emotions, and experiences that might otherwise be lost.

English Man’s Wristband

London, United Kingdom 21st century

This wristband, imprinted with the title of an English Guard, was given to a female traveller by a man she met on a night out in London. Their encounter began in a bar, where they danced and chatted before being joined by the traveller’s friend, who pestered her with a desire to explore more of the city’s nightlife.

The night took an unexpected turn when they were chauffeured across London to the Englishman’s home, located near the official stables where he served as a guard.

In a quiet moment, sitting beside an official English guard horse, the man removed his wristband and handed it to her, a token of the fleeting connection they shared. After a brief kiss, the pair spent the remainder of the night wandering the city, eventually watching the sunrise from a nearby rooftop. This wristband represents a night of serendipity, spontaneity, and a connection forged in the heart of London.

On the bottom shelf of wardrobemy

By: Gordon Yuan

A crocheted sheep that I bought in August as a Christmas present for a boy who was a boyfriend but not really at the time. We stopped talking in September.

Men’s multivitamins I bought at a Woolworths supplement sale, with no particular need for them. I just remember seeing the neon yellow ‘special’ stickers and piling all the bottles into a basket. I didn’t read the ‘Men over 40’ label, so after, I told you to take them but you were too stubborn. You said you’d already gone through life without them anyways.

Creamy yellow wool. I thought after my second eldest sister took up what my eldest sister started, I’d complete the yarn circle. Just like every other unfinished hobby that I began. Practically new name-brand coloured pencils. Collins’ Easy Learning Spanish Dictionary. A book about people skills that the critics at the time said was ‘era-defining’ and ‘one of a generation’. I got home and realised I could read an entire chapter and know nothing of what I had just read. A scrapbook, because I thought that maybe if I began journaling about my life, I’d finally start living it.

A museum of almosts? A graveyard of the half-finished? It’s the delightful weight of trying, even if nothing stayed.

By: E.J. Murry

List Of Things I Did Today

Woke up having dreamt of the moment before the kiss, which is almost better. Took the bus to the court to skate and travelled flat green hours. Laid down beneath a tree and made up things that I could say to you. Felt warm at a memory which used to make me cry. Thought of you differently despite not really knowing why, which happens to me often nowadays.

By: Christian Panetta

Bird in a Window

O, miner, what has happened to you?

You have been enticed by the glass,

Drawn into the tunnel that Is made by the church’s coloured light.

You have lost your freedom.

You stand there, facing away from it.

Why is it

That you hated the outside? It seemed so joyous for you

To look elsewhere for freedom.

In the church’s foyer, there is a passage made by glass

And the sun’s gift of light.

How could a daring creature say no to that?

But you jumped the gun; you were the bird that Was tempted by

The siren quality of the light.

You didn’t think this through, did you?

Both sides are adorned by glass.

The side you were headed held no freedom.

Touched by that light, bathed by that light.

You cry out to God to grant you your freedom.

You are in a church, aren’t you?

There’s an irony in that.

You peck, buzz and flap in your attempt to find

The beauty that lies beyond the glass.

The only freedom

Available to you was outside, and you sacrificed that.

Now you perch on the windowsill, pecking the glass

Rather desperately, trying to find it.

I feel sorry for you.

You are too high, and only reachable by that light,

Yet there is beauty made by the glass.

It is stained, casting you in a stunning, shimmering light,

But does it compare to what lies beyond?

The freedom, the freedom, the freedom.

You are so trapped here. I guess I can relate to that.

I see so much of myself in you,

The bird that wants it,

The world awash in natural, uncoloured light.

My dear, freedom is right behind you.

We would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which Woroni operates, the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples. We pay our respects to Elders past and present. Their land was forcibly stolen, and sovereignty was never ceded.

The name Woroni, which means “mouth”, was taken from the Wadi Wadi Nation without permission. Consultation with First Nations people recommended that Woroni continue to use the word, provided we acknowledge the theft, and continue to strive for better reconciliation in future. Woroni aims to provide a platform for First Nations students to hold the University, its community, and ourselves accountable.

It might sometimes feel as if the worst horrors of colonisation are past, as if they happened in a different, more brutal world than this one. But the same

Australian government that took Indigenous children from their families in the 1900s incarcerates children as young as ten years old today, the majority of whom are Indigenous. If we separate ourselves and our times from colonisation, we cannot properly acknowledge and work to amend its long-lasting impact.

This land always was, and always will be, Aboriginal land.