Lot's Wife Edition 1 2016
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
LOT’S WIFE<br />
— EDITION ONE —
CONTENTS<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> is entirely written,<br />
illustrated, edited and<br />
distributed by students, just<br />
like yourself.<br />
If you would like to be<br />
involved, we are always<br />
always always looking for<br />
contributors and volunteers!<br />
STUDENT<br />
7<br />
8<br />
12<br />
13<br />
14<br />
Tips & Tricks for First Years<br />
Top 8 Spaces: Clubs & Societies<br />
How to plan your exchange<br />
(Don’t)<br />
MSA Restructure threatens life of<br />
student union<br />
Office Bearer Reports<br />
SOCIETY<br />
19 What the Flux?<br />
21 Wot’s Life with Donald Trump<br />
22 Let’s talk about education<br />
24 Flüchtlingskrise<br />
26 Malcolm Turnbull:<br />
a leftie love affair<br />
Say hi! Email us at<br />
msa-lotswife@monash.edu,<br />
or come and hang out in<br />
our office:<br />
1st Floor, Campus Centre,<br />
turn right at the MSA desk.<br />
About the cover artist<br />
Ruby Kammoorra<br />
Ruby is an emerging artist<br />
based in the glamorous<br />
slums of Collingwood.<br />
Finally entering the final<br />
year of her BA/BVA double<br />
degree, Ruby has learnt to<br />
apply successful methods of<br />
procrastination to major life<br />
decisions.<br />
For more of Ruby’s work go<br />
to www.rubyjkamm.wix.<br />
com/rubykammoora<br />
SCIENCE<br />
CREATIVE<br />
CULTURE<br />
35 The big screen science of clones 45 The ‘Star Wars’ effect:<br />
and dinosaurs<br />
internet hype culture and<br />
The Force Awakens<br />
37 Beyond 140<br />
38<br />
40<br />
41<br />
43<br />
52<br />
54<br />
56<br />
58<br />
58<br />
How fucking cool is chemistry?<br />
Up all night: the science of<br />
sleep deprivation<br />
The skinny on gluten-free diets<br />
Puzzles: Science Crossword<br />
A deal with the devil:<br />
a festival memoir<br />
Photo Essay: Suburban Dreams<br />
Old Bones<br />
Amidst Apples & Thyme<br />
JK Dress up<br />
46<br />
48<br />
50<br />
51<br />
Race to the end of the world:<br />
Averting anti-Asian stereotypes<br />
through Armageddon<br />
Most anticipated albums<br />
of <strong>2016</strong><br />
Blackstar: David Bowie’s<br />
last album<br />
BONUS<br />
29<br />
Undying: Parasocial<br />
relationships and the nature<br />
of celebrity<br />
Pull-out Calendar/Poster<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> | 3
EDITORIAL<br />
EDITORS<br />
DESIGN<br />
Timothy Newport<br />
Carina Florea<br />
Lisa Healy<br />
Natalie Ng<br />
SUB EDITORS<br />
STUDENT<br />
SOCIETY<br />
Tricia Ong<br />
Jermaine Doh<br />
Rajat Lal<br />
Matthew Edwards<br />
Ishana Srivastava-Khan<br />
Maddy Luke<br />
SCIENCE<br />
CULTURE<br />
CREATIVE<br />
Kinto Behr<br />
Kathy Zhang<br />
Mevani Amarasinghe<br />
Lachlan Liesfield<br />
Layla Homewood<br />
Melissa Ferndando<br />
Amber Davis<br />
Audrey El-Osta<br />
Sarah Kay<br />
© Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> <strong>2016</strong>, Monash University Clayton, Victoria<br />
As you read this paper you are on Aboriginal land. We at<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> recognise the Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung<br />
peoples of the Kulin Nations as the historical and rightful<br />
owners and custodians of the lands and waters on which<br />
this newspaper is produced. The land was stolen and<br />
sovereignty was never ceded.<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> condemns and will not publish any material<br />
that is racist, sexist, queerphobic, ableist or discriminatory<br />
in any nature. The views expressed herein are those of<br />
the attributed writers and do not necessarily reflect the<br />
views of the editors or the MSA. All writing and artwork<br />
remains the property of the producers and must not be<br />
reproduced without their written consent.<br />
4 | Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong><br />
TIMOTHY NEWPORT<br />
If you’re reading this, congratulations! You made it<br />
past all the construction, renovation and “renewal”<br />
Monash is undertaking to a Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> stand! You<br />
now hold in your hands your very own student magazine:<br />
full of fun, facts, and frankly a fuckton of words,<br />
all written by students just like yourself.<br />
Over 50 talented and attractive people have<br />
been hard at work over their summer break, mashing<br />
words together, putting brush to canvas, and staying<br />
up late staring at screens, all in the service of bringing<br />
you some amazing content to read on the toilet.<br />
Or the bus. Or in that lecture (yes I mean you).<br />
I really hope you’re having an awesome time<br />
at Monash, whether you’re a first, second or sixth<br />
year. The first month back is always a shitshow, but<br />
it’ll pick up. The university isn’t all bad, except for<br />
that one lecturer (not you, don’t worry), and even<br />
if they are, Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> is here for you in your time of<br />
need.<br />
Like right now. You really needed something to read,<br />
right? Right?<br />
Of course I’m right, I’m always right.<br />
Except right now, because I’m on the left.<br />
Whoops.
CARINA FLOREA<br />
It’s not everyday that someone gives you the chance<br />
to make a magazine, yet for some odd reason it<br />
landed in our not so trusty hands. And with great<br />
power, comes great responsibility, which is why we<br />
felt it in our best interest to create a pretty magazine<br />
that can keep you company on those long bus rides<br />
home or when there’s lousy smarch weather outside.<br />
Be sure to check out the tear-out poster/calendar<br />
and hang it above your bed or colour it in as you<br />
wish.<br />
But I’ve got to admit, making a magazine<br />
is hard work and we couldn’t of done it without<br />
the help of our newly made team of beautiful and<br />
amazing writers, illustrators and designers. Specifically,<br />
Natalie, our designer who had to put up with<br />
our terrible singing in the office for days on end, our<br />
sub-editors and illustrators who have worked so hard<br />
to help put this thing together, and just everyone<br />
who came in during the holidays to make this thing<br />
happen!<br />
LISA HEALY<br />
Hey sxc chicas and papas. I promise you, I initially<br />
had something real good written up. I swear. Alas,<br />
like everything else that manages to exist in my<br />
world, I have left this to the night before the final<br />
copy is due and am struggling to fill the void that is<br />
currently my empty editorial space.<br />
So here I am. Look, I’m not going to sugar<br />
coat it: making a magazine is really fucking hard. It’s<br />
almost as hard as boiling an egg properly (all those<br />
‘perfect egg in 2 minute’ recipes are kidding themselves)<br />
or sitting through an episode of Making a<br />
Murderer without wanting to scream at the TV every<br />
time an Avery says ‘yeah’.<br />
In reality, thanks to a whole lot of uber-brilliant<br />
people who chose to come to Clayton on their<br />
holidays – you know who you are - this pillar of salt<br />
(aka Edith) was able to remain upright and extra<br />
salty. Right now, I feel like I’m delivering an Oscar<br />
speech and the orchestra is ready to drown me out<br />
but before I go, please read Lot’s lots. I’m about 81%<br />
sure Sanders would approve and 19% sure Clinton<br />
would hate it.<br />
xo<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> | 5
Tips &<br />
tricks for<br />
first years<br />
by Brian Shih &<br />
George Kopelis<br />
illustration by Angus Marion
STUDENT<br />
Picture this: you are about to stride into a new<br />
stage of life, a stage in which you have to<br />
learn new things, study independently, and write<br />
essays or reports that require perfect citing and<br />
referencing. This transition may be overwhelming,<br />
however, we’ve complied a list of the best tips and<br />
tricks that you can follow to bolster your confidence<br />
and performance so you can make the most of your<br />
first year at university!<br />
Get A Map<br />
Turning up late to your first tutorial because you<br />
couldn’t find the room is embarrassing – take it from<br />
us – so plan ahead and figure out where on campus<br />
your classes are. Download the Lost on Campus app<br />
or the Monash app to make sense of all the building<br />
numbers and addresses. If you’re still lost in the<br />
middle of endless corridors, ask someone who looks<br />
like they are walking purposefully for directions.<br />
Study On Campus<br />
Classes don’t take up a whole lot of time at<br />
university, so make good use of your spare time<br />
and do some work on campus. The Louis Matheson<br />
Library is the go-to study space at Clayton, but with<br />
the refurbishment works all year, some sections may<br />
be closed.<br />
If you want to do some serious study, check out the<br />
quiet upper floors of the Law Library. More interested<br />
in chatting with friends and not getting work done?<br />
The Hargrave- Andrew Library is perfect for that.<br />
Brian says: There are plenty of alternative<br />
study areas, like the informal open space lounges in<br />
the Menzies building or the secluded John Medley<br />
library in the Campus Centre.<br />
to a whole range of discounted food and other<br />
goodies on and off campus. (20% off everything at<br />
Sir John’s Bar adds up after a semester).<br />
George says: Before buying your textbooks,<br />
have a look online on Monash Marketplace to see<br />
if anyone is selling your book second hand and at a<br />
much more affordable price. Make sure it’s the right<br />
edition though.<br />
Practice Your Signature<br />
You’ll be signing up to plenty of clubs during O Week,<br />
which is a great time to find groups that match your<br />
interests. MSA cards give you free membership to<br />
most clubs on campus. Don’t feel obligated to go to<br />
every event if you sign up and feel free to drop out of<br />
any group if you find them too boring/too rowdy/too<br />
time consuming.<br />
Brian says: I started uni in the middle of 2015,<br />
and with no major exhibitions for clubs and societies<br />
in July, I missed out on being properly introduced to a<br />
handful of clubs and societies. Take the time during<br />
O Week to find like-minded people outside of lectures<br />
and tutorials because it’s a great chance to do so.<br />
University is a place where you learn and<br />
create memories. Do not be afraid of making<br />
mistakes and always remember that you are not<br />
alone. There are plenty of resources at Monash to<br />
reach out to. Now, embrace all challenges and start<br />
exploring!<br />
Actually Go To Lectures<br />
You’ll struggle to get a seat in week one. However,<br />
by the mid semester break, half the lecture theatre<br />
will be empty. Keep up your routine and attend your<br />
lectures. Turn them into a social occasion – get your<br />
friends and hang out on the campus lawns or grab<br />
lunch as a group and suddenly you’ll have a reason<br />
to show up every week.<br />
Extreme Couponing<br />
Make your dollar go as far as possible - take<br />
advantage of weekly free/dirt cheap breakfasts and<br />
barbecues organised by the MSA or other clubs and<br />
societies. Carpooling costs $75 per person for a year<br />
and is way cheaper than forking out $400 for a blue<br />
permit. Pick up an MSA Card for $20 and get access<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> | 7
STUDENT<br />
TOP 8 SPACES:<br />
CLUBS & SOCIETIES<br />
MUSLCC<br />
Throughout the years, the Monash University<br />
Sri Lankan Cultural Club (MUSLCC) has played<br />
an intrinsic role in ensuring that a strong social<br />
culture is present throughout university life. As<br />
one of the largest clubs at Monash University<br />
and the largest sub-continental student<br />
organisation in Victoria, MUSLCC will no<br />
doubt exceed the standards and expectations<br />
in <strong>2016</strong>! Events to look forward to in the<br />
coming year include a themed clubbing event,<br />
Amnesia, a brand new Monash Comedy Night,<br />
the traditional Hoppers & Kothu Night, the<br />
classic Rehab and Relapse After Exam Parties<br />
and many more!<br />
PLN<br />
The Progressive Law Network (PLN) is<br />
dedicated to encouraging law students,<br />
and other students passionate about social<br />
justice, and to utilise their degrees to effect<br />
positive social change. So come along and get<br />
involved in our events, which provide a forum<br />
for an exchange of views and opinions about<br />
new developments in alternative careers,<br />
environmental law, human rights law and other<br />
social justice-related issues, including guest<br />
speakers who are experts in their field! Focus<br />
areas for this year's presentations include<br />
prison abolition and radicalised policing, drug<br />
law reform, and the law around the world, with<br />
a focus on Australia including a discussion of<br />
First Nation people's status and rights.<br />
8 | Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong>
STUDENT<br />
LingSoc<br />
The Linguistics Society (affectionately known as<br />
LingSoc) is for anyone interested in the whos, whats,<br />
whys and what-the-hells of language. LingSoc runs<br />
regular meetings and trivia nights where you can<br />
get to know others who do give a damn about the<br />
Oxford comma, have a place to ask those difficult<br />
grammar questions, practice IPA or simply fan-girl<br />
over Kate Burridge. Find out more about LingSoc @<br />
MonashLingSoc or on our Facebook page.<br />
VGen<br />
VGen (Vision Generation) is World Vision's<br />
Australia's youth movement, a community of<br />
young people aiming to influence government,<br />
business and society to do their fair share to<br />
end extreme poverty and social injustice. We<br />
are planning to run events such as movie nights<br />
to promote Fairtrade and ethical consumerism,<br />
events focused on Campaign for Australian Aid,<br />
and an event for the 40-Hour Famine.<br />
ESA<br />
The Education Students' Association (ESA) promotes<br />
social interaction for the hundreds of education<br />
students at Monash University. The club also has<br />
a strong focus on building students' confidence to<br />
teach or go into the education workforce. We are<br />
hoping to boost our social sector of the club much<br />
more in <strong>2016</strong> and encourage people to get to know<br />
each other between the different year levels of<br />
education degrees.<br />
Continued...<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> | 9
STUDENT<br />
MUMS<br />
Monash University Mining Society (MUMS) is<br />
a group with the aim to promote and gather<br />
interest around mining and its affiliated<br />
industries. Our main goal is to connect<br />
students with industry professionals and each<br />
other. The biggest event planned for <strong>2016</strong> is<br />
the inaugural mining camp.<br />
MUIS<br />
Monash University Islamic Society (MUIS)<br />
represents and supports the needs of Muslim<br />
students on campus. We organise a variety<br />
of social and spiritual events throughout the<br />
year to create an environment where we can<br />
foster new relations and assist each other. This<br />
year we will be running BBQs, iftars (meal for<br />
breaking the fast in the month of Ramadan),<br />
lectures by renowned speakers, sports events,<br />
halaqas (study circles) and much more!<br />
MONASH MUGGLES<br />
If you’re still waiting for your Hogwarts letter to<br />
arrive, wishing that Hagrid will bust down your<br />
door to tell you “YER A WIZARD”, and craving that<br />
little bit of magic on campus, then the Monash<br />
Muggles is the club for you! From events like<br />
our annual Triwizard Yule Ball (co-hosted with<br />
Melbourne and La Trobe Universities) and Harry<br />
Potter trivia, to movie nights, game nights, and<br />
Quidditch, the Monash Muggles is the perfect<br />
club for anyone, regardless whether they’ve<br />
only seen the films, to the most dedicated (and<br />
tattooed) Harry Potter fan. For any inquiries, send<br />
us an owl at monashmuggles@monashclubs.org<br />
or visit us in our O-Week stall.<br />
10 | Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong>
ADVERTORIAL<br />
SummerFest<br />
SUMMERFEST<br />
March 15 -23<br />
MARCH 15 - 23<br />
AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX STIMULATOR<br />
TUESDAY 15th of March<br />
10-3 pm at Northern Plaza<br />
Do you have inspirations to become the next Mark Webber?<br />
Come down to the Northern Plaza between 10 and 3 on<br />
Tuesday to try your hand at the popular F1 simulator! It will sure<br />
get to your heart racing!<br />
BEACH PARTY<br />
Tuesday 15th March<br />
9pm- late at Menzies Lawn<br />
It’s back! Monash presents the hottest event ever that<br />
reaches the sand dunes of Clayton campus: Beach Party!<br />
With glow sticks, beach inflatables and DJs, the hottest<br />
party of the year kicks off at 9pm, and entry is strictly<br />
before 10pm! Grab yours at the MSA office today!<br />
COLLEGE CLASH<br />
Wednesday 16th March, 5pm-late at<br />
Monash Sport<br />
Monash Sport is back again to host the<br />
highly successful College Clash! Cheer<br />
on your favourite as, On Campus Halls of<br />
Residence battle it out against students from<br />
the 6 Non Residential Colleges in a range of<br />
events and activities!<br />
SUMMER FIESTA<br />
Thursday 17th March, 4pm-8pm at Northern Plaza<br />
Fun is to be had for all ages when Monash University is transformed<br />
into a summer themed carnival featuring a range of<br />
games and activities!<br />
What’s on?<br />
•Rock climbing wall<br />
•Jumping castles<br />
•Market stalls<br />
•Food trucks<br />
•Face painting<br />
•Summer Classic movies<br />
DIVE IN CINEMA<br />
Friday 18th March, 9pm-12am at Monash Sport<br />
For the first time at Monash there will be a “Dive In” movie<br />
at the Doug Ellis swimming pool. Bring your bathers and<br />
friends, and enjoy a summer classic, as you float around.<br />
This event has limited numbers so check out Monash<br />
Sport’s website and register!<br />
SUNSETS<br />
Tuesday 23 March, 4pm-1pm, Northern Plaza<br />
and Soundshell<br />
Wind up the end of Summerfest, with Sunsets as<br />
Monash University will be announcing a headliner<br />
and artists, very shortly! With a night filled with<br />
tunes, Melbourne’s finest food trucks and bars, this<br />
isn’t a night to be missed! Watch the SummerFest<br />
event page, for more information!<br />
DINER EN COULEUR<br />
Monday 22 March, 5pm to 9pm, Campus<br />
Green, Caulfield Campus<br />
As SummerFest travels to Caulfield, dress up in<br />
your most “tres chic” colour block outfit, grab your<br />
friends and a picnic basket and come on down as we<br />
celebrate Diner En Couleur for Harmony Day! Keep<br />
your eyes peeled on the SummerFest event page, as<br />
reveal a headliner very shortly!<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> | 11
STUDENT<br />
How to plan<br />
your exchange<br />
( Don’t )<br />
by Layla Homewood<br />
After spending a full year precisely planning a<br />
six-month trip abroad through Europe before<br />
settling down in England for a semester of study,<br />
I can tell you one thing: it turns out that I planned<br />
absolutely nothing.<br />
It was all going to be perfect; I was going to be<br />
the fi rst student in the history of students to have a<br />
hitch-free study abroad. I was going to sail through<br />
with sparse calls to my parents updating them on<br />
my perfect adventure. I was going to be laying stress<br />
free on the beach in Barcelona with no worries<br />
about my upcoming semester because it had all<br />
been expertly coordinated. But when it was the night<br />
before my fl ight and I realised I still had more things<br />
to do than I could count on all my fi ngers and toes, I<br />
started to think, "Maybe there are some things that<br />
just can't be planned".<br />
And you know what? After two months and<br />
several upset calls to my family who recited, "Don't<br />
worry about that, you'll be fi ne,” I realised that it's<br />
okay to not plan some things. In fact, it's more<br />
than okay. It's the fl aws, and mistakes, and tiny<br />
details that you could never prepare for that makes<br />
everything worth the worry.<br />
I know now that my time abroad cannot<br />
be summed up in one grand sweep of fl awless<br />
memories. I don't want to remember my six months<br />
as a long string of activities and attractions. I don't<br />
want to remember doing, I want to remember being.<br />
All those faults and mistakes and things that made<br />
me want to pull my hair out are what make every<br />
memory of being abroad special to me.<br />
So when I take a moment to think about my<br />
whole time away and remember all of the things<br />
that I have achieved, I don't care about having<br />
perfectly coordinated my bus schedule, or fi nding the<br />
highest rated gelato restaurant in Rome. Instead, I<br />
remember what the sky looked like as it cried thick<br />
sheets of snow, and I remember the cobbled streets<br />
lined with massive trees, shedding their fl aming<br />
leaves.<br />
Instead of worrying about how to get from A<br />
to B, I want to remember the rush of running late<br />
to an amazing gig and the sheer thrill that pulsed<br />
through me when I realised I would make it. The<br />
things that aren't planned, that aren't accounted<br />
for, can stimulate the rawest feelings from places<br />
deep inside. I could never have expected that, on<br />
the fi rst day it snowed in my town, I would neglect<br />
my upcoming exams and spend the evening utterly<br />
elated as I built snowmen with my fl atmates. I never<br />
could have planned to skip my lectures on the<br />
rarely sunny days, and fi nd my way over to nearby<br />
towns where I ended up reading books and drinking<br />
creamy hot chocolates.<br />
As it turns out, after all the planning and<br />
booking and organisation that went in to my sixmonth<br />
adventure, the things that I remember<br />
the most are the ones that I never planned on<br />
remembering. So, for anyone out there who's<br />
planning their own study abroad trip, here's my one<br />
word of advice: Don't.<br />
(For more information on studying abroad, visit the Monash<br />
Travel Abroad Office, or check out http://www.monash.edu/<br />
study-abroad)<br />
12 | Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong>
OPINION<br />
by Stephen Encisco<br />
Over the summer break - traditionally the<br />
time when universities do things that they<br />
don’t want you to notice - the Monash Student<br />
Association started making one of the most dramatic<br />
restructures it has ever seen.<br />
This restructure is expected to make<br />
redundant the most important staffing role within<br />
the organisation: the Finance Manager. This position<br />
provides expert analysis and advice in all financial<br />
matters. They ensure the financial accountability<br />
of elected representatives of the union. They try<br />
to prevent financial mismanagement. They sign all<br />
cheques. This role was always intended to be a thorn<br />
in the side of student politicians who have little<br />
financial literacy, but are in charge of multi-million<br />
dollar budgets. It is the only position expected to be<br />
made redundant.<br />
It is worth considering an unlikely, but not<br />
inconceivable scenario (it happened at Melbourne<br />
Uni in 2004): a right wing faction gets elected to a<br />
union and they decide to invest in property in order<br />
that the union may cash in on international students.<br />
But remember these are financially illiterate<br />
students, and the deal is a terrible one which would<br />
bankrupt the union. Everyone seems to know this,<br />
except the executive who thinks it’s a grand idea.<br />
This is what happens: all hell breaks loose,<br />
and the union gets liquidated.<br />
The MSA has attempted to circumvent<br />
corruption by having a highly competent Finance<br />
Manager, who is a member of CPA Australia, and<br />
is able to provide highly technical and professional<br />
financial advice. Remember as well, the position<br />
countersigns all cheques.<br />
There is no other staff member - whether that<br />
is Finance office staff, the Executive Officer, or the<br />
proposed General Services Manager role - who has<br />
the financial knowledge or analytical skills to replace<br />
the current Finance Manager.<br />
Why would the current administration want<br />
to knife someone who has dedicated over twenty<br />
years to ensuring the MSA can be the best it can be?<br />
At best, it is a very strange situation, and it is little<br />
wonder that union membership among MSA staff<br />
has spiked in recent months.<br />
This has brought up bad memories for<br />
Wholefoods, who still remember the effects<br />
of imposed restructuring. By 2012, the GO!<br />
administration of the MSA had spent a number of<br />
years aggressively attacking Wholefoods - the home<br />
of their political rivals - to the point of near collapse.<br />
They hired incompetent managers who banned<br />
volunteers, banned the Wholefoods Collective that<br />
had managed the restaurant since 1977, and ran<br />
the restaurant to losses of nearly $100,000. Under<br />
these restructures, this could be happening again.<br />
Since the Finance Manager – with a long-term<br />
institutional memory, and respect for the Collective<br />
- began providing accurate analysis of Wholefoods’<br />
finances, Wholefoods has been rebuilt into a<br />
financially and culturally strong community. Though<br />
rocky at times, the relationship with the MSA was<br />
rebuilding.<br />
This restructure is the kind of thing that<br />
students can quickly lose faith in student unions<br />
for. It is also the kind of thing that gives rightwing<br />
governments, with petty grudges against<br />
student unions, the excuse to bring in anti-student<br />
organisation legislation.<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> | 13
OFFICE BEARER REPORTS<br />
MSA PRESIDENT ABBY STAPLETON<br />
Hello and welcome back to Monash! The Monash Student Association is here for you, and is made<br />
up of a bunch of passionate activists who campaign and fight for the welfare of students. We run<br />
heaps of events throughout semester, as well as advocate for students on a national level. There<br />
are a ton of different departments to get involved in, and we are always out and about talking to<br />
students about issues facing young people in today’s society, so please don’t be shy! Let us know<br />
what you’re interested in! I hope you are all enjoying O-week and are keen to settle in, and I think<br />
you’ll soon find that attending university is much more than going to a lecture or a lab – there is a<br />
vibrant and diverse campus culture to get involved in! abigail.stapleton@monash.edu<br />
TREASURER MATILDA GREY<br />
Ahoy, Monash friends! Hope you’re all bubbly and excited to be here in <strong>2016</strong>! As treasurer, it is<br />
my job to keep track of the MSA financials, to ensure money is being spent effectively, and to<br />
assist Office Bearers launch their campaigns and projects. I’m extremely excited to be involved<br />
in the running of new events and campaigns this year, talking to and engaging students in the<br />
MSA. Orientation Week is just around the corner, quickly followed by MSA Members Week,<br />
and we’re working hard to ensure they’ll be great, so y’all have plenty to look forward to from<br />
us! Please come to us if you’re having any issues whatsoever, make sure you join some clubs<br />
and societies during O-Week, and purchase an MSA card so that you can reap the benefits of<br />
supporting your student union. matilda.grey@monash.edu<br />
SECRETARY GLENN DONAHOO<br />
Hello everyone and welcome to Monash in <strong>2016</strong>! I’m Glenn, and I’m your secretary for this<br />
year. So far this year I’ve been busy helping our many and varied departments organise their<br />
plans for the year, so they get to run successful campaigns and enjoyable events. Along with<br />
this, I’ve been helping to organise orientation week to ensure everyone’s year starts off the<br />
best possible way! Make sure you come by, pick up a MSA Card for $20, join some clubs,<br />
pick up some free food, grab tickets to some of our events and find out what’s going on in<br />
the MSA this year. I’ve also been helping organise MSA Members Week in week 2, so look<br />
out for all of the great stuff we have planned that week for our members. If you want to find<br />
out anything more, just shoot me an email at glenn.donahoo@monash.edu<br />
EDUCATION (ACADEMIC AFFAIRS)<br />
Over the the summer break, we have been organising student representatives to sit on panels<br />
in the Academic Progress Committee (APC) hearings for each faculty. These students provide<br />
a student perspective and assist in making recommendations for learning and support<br />
services. This year, we are continuing to campaign for a university-wide opt-out policy for<br />
lecture recordings, which will coincide with the Equal Access campaign in conjunction with<br />
the Disabilities and Carers Department. If you are keen to become involved with Academic<br />
Affairs Department, applications for our Academic Affairs Committee (AAC) will be open until<br />
18 March <strong>2016</strong>. The AAC assists our department by developing and organising projects or<br />
campaigns around academic issues. If you have any issues with your course, teaching staff or<br />
assessment policies, feel free to contact either of us, or come by the Academic Affairs Office in<br />
the MSA for a chat. Jessica Stone: jessica.stone@monash.edu, Daniel Ffrench-Mullen: daniel.<br />
ffrench-mullen@monash.edu<br />
DISABILITIES & CARERS<br />
EDUCATION (PUBLIC AFFAIRS)<br />
Hola monash peeps! This year Education Public Affairs will be run by us, the lovely Sumudu<br />
and Sulaiman. We are a department that is centred on fighting for issues and campaigns<br />
concerning current Monash students, and enacting a change via the force of student’s voices.<br />
So far we’ve been working hard on our Counter-Faculty Handbook, which is a rundown of units<br />
based by student reviews and their ratings. It’s an honest look into units from a student’s<br />
perspective, so look out for it in O-week. This year we’re excited to be starting a major campaign<br />
for a People of Colour Collective and a department within the MSA encouraging students<br />
of ethnic backgrounds to get involved, and to have a welcoming space to discuss their own<br />
experiences and issues. You can become a part of the team advocating for students issues<br />
by either coming into our office located in the MSA, or our stall at O-week, as well as by joining<br />
the Monash Education Action Group on Facebook and coming along to our meetings. We look<br />
forward to seeing you around campus. msa-education@monash.edu<br />
The beginning of this year has been both busy and uneventful – which, given there aren’t<br />
many students around, isn’t that much of a surprise. As the Disabilities and Carers department<br />
is so new, most of our energy has actually been towards getting the office sorted and as<br />
best as equipped as possible, and trying to come up with ideas and plans for the next year.<br />
Our main focus here in D&C will be building a collective and getting people to know that we<br />
actually exist – as chances are, this may even be the first time you’re reading anything about<br />
MSA’s Disability and Carer’s department. If it is, please do stay on the lookout for the events<br />
and campaigns we have planned for next year, as we’re hoping to build a solid foundation for<br />
our department, and start a culture that supports carers and people with disabilities as best<br />
we can! viv.stewart@monash.edu<br />
14 | Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong>
OFFICE BEARER REPORTS<br />
WELFARE<br />
QUEER<br />
So far the Monash Queer department have been running around getting everything organized<br />
for the start of semester. We have been starting to organize events while stocking up on (safe<br />
sex) supplies and provisions to get us through the year. To start the year off, we organized an<br />
MQD contingent to participate in the Pride March with, followed by a picnic in the park to hang<br />
out with some other university contingents. Currently we’re preparing for the start of semester<br />
one, kicking off the year with our regular events such as Queer Morning Tea (11am-1pm Tuesday)<br />
and Queer Beers (4pm-6pm Wednesday), as well as a very special Queer Trivia Night, that<br />
will be thrown at Wholefoods with the aim to start getting people involved in the department.<br />
O-week is a great time for us to meet all the new students who might for the first time be free<br />
to be involved in a queer community, so we’re very excited about the weeks to come. Any<br />
queer or questioning students can join our secret facebook page or receive our newsletter by<br />
emailing msa-queer@monash.edu, or messaging either the public facebook page: MSA Queer,<br />
or one of your two fabulous queer officers Amy Grimmer or Martinus Kraan.<br />
Hey yo wazzup? We, Brendan and Tim, have been working terribly hard to organise events and<br />
resources for the exciting year to come. So far Brendan has been devising and setting up a<br />
new system for resourcing pre-loved textbooks for our Book Fair that will be held during Week<br />
2 of the Semester - all very tech friendly for the modern age in which we live. Tim has been<br />
trying to bring preparations for Free Food Mondays together so we can all enjoy a lovely meal<br />
from Week 1. Furthermore, we have almost finished updating the Survival Guide for <strong>2016</strong><br />
- a few new tips n trick thrown in there. Lastly we’re hoping to release a new and improved<br />
Student Cookery Bookery, filled with cheap and filling meals to tantalise your taste buds.<br />
We’re pumped up like a new basketball for the year ahead, hoping we can help make Monash<br />
memorable for the right reasons. msa-welfare@monash.edu<br />
ACTIVITIES<br />
Monash University is known for its social calendar and we want to continue that reputation.<br />
This year the MSA Activities department is run by Katie and Ben, and we run the majority of<br />
your campus events and parties! In semester one alone, we are running a trivia night AND<br />
a Luna Park event during O-Week which an all ages event that allows you to go on unlimited<br />
rides! During semester, we are also running a boat cruise, an exciting new event and<br />
of course, After Exams Party (AXP). AXP is the biggest university event, with 2000 students<br />
having a massive party to celebrate no more exams! Jump on Facebook and join the MSA Activities<br />
page to receive updates and come by the office to say hi! msa-activities@monash.edu<br />
ENVIRONMENT AND SOCIAL JUSTICE<br />
The Environment and Social Justice department (run by Tess and Kim) is your hub for activism<br />
and left-wing politics at Monash. We have spent the summer protesting the Liberal governments<br />
deportation of 267 refugees to the Nauru detention centre, supporting the firefighters<br />
protest for better safety conditions and wages, and rallying for action on climate change. Now<br />
that semester has started we hope to involve many more students in progressive activism!<br />
Come rally with us on the 27th February in Bendigo against the launch of a racist anti-Muslim<br />
political party called 'Fortitude'. We need to show these bigots and the rest of the world that<br />
there are more anti-racists than there are racists, and not let their attacks on refugees and<br />
Muslims go unchallenged. You can find us at our information stall in the orientation week<br />
festival, or Like "MSA Environment and Social Justice Collective" on Facebook. msa-enviro@<br />
monash.edu<br />
WOMEN’S<br />
Well hello! I’m Mel! I have been shuffling about getting things ready for the new year, ensuring we have<br />
everything for the Women’s Room including sanitary products, safer-sex supplies and up-to-date resources.<br />
With semester 1 soon underway, the Women’s Department will be running events in the Women’s<br />
Room, including a “Meet the Department” event on Tuesday of Week 1 to welcome students, new<br />
and returning and morning teas on Tuesdays. Our Weekly Discussion groups will be continuing, every<br />
Wednesday 1-3pm, and plans are also being put in place to get to the Network of Women Students<br />
Australia (NOWSA) Conference in Sydney. O-week is a great time for women-identifying students to get<br />
involved in the department and meet a bunch of new people! If you wish to hear more from us, attend<br />
NOWSA, or get involved. You can email msa-womens@monash.edu or contact the Facebook page: MSA<br />
Women’s Department. As always, come on in to the Women’s Room on level 1 of the campus centre<br />
and say hi!<br />
INDIGENOUS<br />
The MSA Indigenous department exists to support Indigenous students on campus by providing<br />
support for and raising awareness about Indigenous issues. We maintain open and continuous<br />
communication with students who are interested in being involved with MSA activities<br />
and events, as well as encouraging positive engagement in the Indigenous student<br />
lounge. This year’s office bearers - Samantha Hyde and Jayden Crozier - are committed to the<br />
enhancement of university life for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students through the<br />
creation and promotion of support networks. It is the intention of this year’s OBs to work closely<br />
with other departments so as to achieve common goals, to reach out to community leaders<br />
to collaborate and discuss the importance of Indigenous identity within Australia and to run<br />
some amazing social events – bringing together the student community.<br />
msa-indigenous@monash.edu<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> | 15
Do one thing<br />
Contribute to the sustainability of your campus.<br />
• Ride your bike, take the bus, or walk to campus<br />
• Use a reusable coffee cup or water bottle<br />
• Recycle your waste<br />
• Eat vegetarian<br />
• Switch off and save enegery<br />
It’s up to you. What one thing will you do?<br />
facebook.com/monashgreen
MOBILE<br />
Limited Time Offer<br />
$<br />
550<br />
TALK & TEXT<br />
$<br />
10<br />
/mth for the 1st 6 months<br />
/mth for the 1st 6 months<br />
MIN CHARGE $20<br />
$19.99 monthly fee applies after 6 months<br />
INTERNATIONAL CALLS INCLUDED<br />
1300 242 011<br />
Min charge includes $10 SIM. New mobile registrations only. Offer ends 31 Mar <strong>2016</strong>. Included Value is for use within AU only and includes Call, SMS & MMS to Standard Australian Numbers<br />
(includes 13/1300) and International numbers, Video Calls to Standard Australian Mobiles, Diversion within Australia only. Standard rates apply for usage outside of the Included Value such<br />
as Excess Data, Video Calls to International Numbers, International Roaming and other Enhanced Services. Calls and SMS to 19 Numbers and Premium SMS/MMS are not supported. Calls<br />
charged in per minute billing increment. Data usage is charged per KB or part thereof. Excess data 10¢ per MB. Unused Included Value and Included Data are forfeited at the end of each billing<br />
cycle. Excluded or excess usage is only possible with sufficient Prepaid Balance. No auto trigger top-ups apply. Plan is for personal use only and may not be used for commercial purposes or in<br />
a manner that may adversely affect the mobile network. Plan fees payable monthly in advance. This offer may be withdrawn at any time. For full terms, conditions & exclusions visit tpg.com.au.<br />
Monash Bikeshare<br />
fun - healthy - convenient - sustainable - affordable - flexible<br />
A new fleet of share bikes on the Clayton<br />
campus. Three membership options.<br />
Get around campus. Ride to the local shops.<br />
Meet up with friends. Or just ride for fun!<br />
monashbikeshare.com
illustration by Julia Pillai
SOCIETY<br />
What<br />
the<br />
Flux?<br />
by Julia Pillai<br />
Lots of weird ads come up on my news feed.<br />
Sometimes, there are advertisements telling<br />
me that if I arrive without a visa I’ll never be able to<br />
settle in Australia, which is a shame. Other times,<br />
it’s sneaky ‘work for ASIO’ advertisements, which<br />
make me contemplate giving everything up to pursue<br />
my childhood dream of becoming a spy. Until, that<br />
is, I came to the shattering realisation that working<br />
for ASIO would probably lead me to stopping pesky<br />
people like me from settling in Australia.<br />
One time, an advertisement with a logo of<br />
little colourful triangles, with an ‘f’ in the middle<br />
popped up on my newsfeed. Another one, with the<br />
same logo, had a graphic of a hipster-y guy looking<br />
enlightened, and another one of a bunch of young<br />
people sitting down and looking at a sunset. From<br />
these visuals, these ads screamed tech start-up,<br />
or perhaps a travel organisation. However, the ‘f’ in<br />
the logo stands for Flux; a new Australian political<br />
party founded by Max Kaye and Nathan Spataro.<br />
The tech start-up feel doesn’t go away. Maybe I’m<br />
swayed slightly by Kaye’s background in IT, his<br />
citation of Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto as an<br />
influence for Flux, and his very particular analogies<br />
that he uses to answer my questions: describing<br />
Flux working “…like an app that runs in parliament.<br />
Normal apps let you do something with your phone<br />
you couldn’t do before; Flux lets us do things in<br />
parliament we couldn’t do before.”<br />
What makes this party interesting is that<br />
after contacting Kaye, asking many questions, and<br />
receiving very thorough responses, I cannot answer<br />
the standard questions that people usually ask<br />
about political parties. Questions like what their<br />
platform and ideology is, what are they aiming<br />
to specifically achieve, and what communities in<br />
particular are they appealing to, are irrelevant in the<br />
context of Flux. Some microparties that fit a niche<br />
audience, such as the Motoring Enthusiast Party,<br />
or a party with a specific platform, such as the Sex<br />
Party which have a platform based on libertarianism,<br />
sex worker rights and secularism. Flux, in the crudest<br />
of terms, has a populist platform. But compared to<br />
the Palmer United Party, a microparty that in 2013<br />
many people were asking the same “what do they<br />
want to do?” questions, Flux has a distinctly usergenerated<br />
feel, rather than the charisma bolstered<br />
campaigning of PUP.<br />
While they are, in some senses, a populist<br />
microparty, Flux is a conventional entity in Australian<br />
politics, even if its methods are unorthodox.<br />
Flux’s platform relies on getting candidates<br />
elected into parliament, like any other party.<br />
However, when elected, members of parliament or<br />
senators do not act in an autonomous manner; every<br />
vote that they make would be decided by a vote of<br />
Flux members. With every bill brought to parliament<br />
there is a voting system within Flux including an<br />
initial vote, then an opportunity to swap votes and<br />
confer with other Flux members, then a final vote on<br />
how the senator or Member of Parliament should<br />
vote. This, in theory, flattens hierarchy within the<br />
party. However, there could be pitfalls. Members of<br />
Parliament and senators are, in theory, supposed<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> | 19
SOCIETY<br />
to work for the seat they serve; what would happen<br />
if people in the electorate overwhelmingly disagree<br />
with the view that the Flux member must vote<br />
for? Where does the loyalty lie: to Flux or to the<br />
electorate? What if a Flux member in Parliament or<br />
in the Senate goes rogue?<br />
Can we really rely on members of parliament<br />
to be bridled in this way?<br />
Other surprising aspects of Flux include<br />
their allowance of its members being a member of<br />
another political party simultaneously. “We haven’t<br />
talked to any other parties about our multi-party<br />
policy,” Kaye explains, “it comes down to the AEC<br />
rules for registration. As long as someone hasn’t<br />
helped another party register recently, we’re happy<br />
to have their support I don’t really see it as anything<br />
different to, say, dual citizenship.” Flux is also<br />
incredibility ambitious, or at least speaks in an<br />
ambitious way about their aims. Terms like ‘upgrade<br />
democracy’ and ‘democracy reimagined’ have<br />
featured in their advertisements and their website.<br />
Kaye tells me that he and Spataro “...believe Flux<br />
has an incredible potential to help humanity. Not<br />
only is good democracy hard to implement, even<br />
the highly regarded democracies suffer from low<br />
approval ratings and constant dissatisfaction. We<br />
want to create a democracy that doesn’t suffer from<br />
the same diseases. Because of the potential for<br />
good Flux presents, it is a challenge we are unwilling<br />
to postpone.”<br />
So who exactly is joining Flux, and what issues<br />
are these early members beginning to bring up?<br />
“Most of our members are Gen X or older,<br />
so if anything this slightly confirms the myth that<br />
millennials and students are largely apathetic and<br />
disenfranchised,” Kaye explains. “This also lines<br />
up with my personal experience. We hope that Flux<br />
can offer them an outlet to help reinvigorate real<br />
political interaction instead of sideline activism. That<br />
said, there’s also a lot of emotion in student political<br />
groups, as if political motivations are really unevenly<br />
distributed. This leads to a dichotomy, which either<br />
promotes apathy, or almost extremism to the point of<br />
violence, neither of which are healthy in the long run.<br />
I really hope that means both groups are just looking<br />
for a way to express themselves, and so far haven’t<br />
found it.”<br />
The issues that are being brought up: “Some<br />
are disenfranchised Liberal National Party voters<br />
[that have expressed interest] in a National Disability<br />
Insurance Scheme, some are far left and express<br />
concerns about human rights and refugees, some<br />
are IT specialists and are dismayed at the quality of<br />
legislation around the internet and cryptography.”<br />
Kaye reiterates: “We really have had an incredibly<br />
diverse set of people respond. There is one thing<br />
they all have in common though: the current system<br />
isn’t good enough.”<br />
If there is anything that particularly surprises<br />
me about Flux, what really makes it interesting,<br />
is that it’s experimenting with new ideas, and it’s<br />
hopeful. Yes, it may not happen this election year,<br />
there’s no guarantee that these ideas will work in<br />
action. But it feels like a reaction to the last 6-7<br />
years of turbulent Australian politics, where voters do<br />
not feel like they have power over who is running the<br />
country. Max Kaye says this volatility is a symptom of<br />
a larger problem.<br />
“Volatility in itself isn’t a problem in the<br />
same way as, say, CFCs and the ozone layer were<br />
a problem. Rather it is a problem in the same way<br />
that UV rays are: it’s harmful but simply making it<br />
go away isn’t how we can solve the problem. The<br />
problem of bad governance has never been solved<br />
before, and thus we need a solution that hasn’t been<br />
tried before: Flux is that solution.”<br />
20 | Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong>
Q & A<br />
WOT’S LIFE?<br />
with Donald Trump<br />
Got a burning question that only random celebrities<br />
can provide an answer to? Wot’s Life has you<br />
covered. This month’s Agony Aunt took time out of<br />
his noble presidential campaign to help readers fi nd<br />
their inner winner.<br />
“Yo Trumpinator, shit’s rough these days and you<br />
seem like a successful guy. What’s the best way to<br />
earn money?” - Looking for a Buck<br />
Oh, it’s so simple. You know, my dad, he used to<br />
tell me “no”. You know, “you can’t do this, you can’t<br />
do that”... My whole life really has been a no. It<br />
hasn’t been easy for me. It has NOT been easy for<br />
me. Okay? People told me my career wouldn’t work<br />
out. They told me a campaign wouldn’t work out.<br />
But look at me now. And all it took was a small loan<br />
of a million dollars from my father. Now, a million<br />
dollars isn’t much compared to what I’ve built. But,<br />
you know, ask your dad for a million dollars and see<br />
where it gets you. Because I guarantee you it is the<br />
key to success.<br />
“Mr. Trump, your wig-I mean hair always looks so<br />
unbelievably fabulous. How should I style my hair?”<br />
--I Too Am Not Balding<br />
Well, you know, as everybody knows, I do not wear<br />
a wig. Okay? I do not wear a wig. These people out<br />
there, you know, a tremendous amount of people,<br />
they can’t accept the truth. They just can’t believe it.<br />
Look at my hair. My hair may not be perfect but it’s<br />
mine… You know, I’ve had some people, they call me<br />
and they say, “Donald, your hair is ridiculous.” I’m<br />
too busy making America great again, okay? I don’t<br />
have time for a good hairstyle. Next question.<br />
“Hey, I have been having some troubles with my<br />
boyfriend and I hope you could give me some advice.<br />
So we’ve been a sexually adventurous couple for a<br />
long time, we’ve used all the toys, we once had sex<br />
in my parents bed narrowly escaping them walking<br />
in on us, we’ve done it in a waterfall, we’ve tried all<br />
the kinky things, literally all of them. But the problem<br />
is it’s just been so dull recently, I mean I haven’t<br />
been able to really get there, if you know what I’m<br />
saying. I asked him if he’d be cool if we did some<br />
more extreme stuff, more fi vesomes. He was a tad<br />
apprehensive, he thought my sexual ambitions were<br />
a bit too extreme, and he thought that my views of<br />
not inviting Mexicans and Muslims to our orgies was<br />
a bit insensitive, racist. He hasn’t been too pleased<br />
by my suggestions, I just want to make sex great<br />
again. I don’t know what to do with my boyfriend.<br />
Please help me out. “ -- Carl<br />
...You’re both fi red.<br />
Tweet your questions<br />
for our celebrity guests:<br />
@Lots<strong>Wife</strong>Mag<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> | 21
ESSAY<br />
Let’s talk<br />
about education<br />
By Anna Zhang<br />
In the realm of<br />
education, January<br />
means different<br />
things for different<br />
people.<br />
22 | Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong>
SOCIETY<br />
According to the Independent Schools<br />
Council of Australia (ISCA), January is that<br />
time of year when financial institutions begin<br />
bombarding parents with calls to save for their<br />
children’s future education costs. These estimated<br />
fees are often thousands of dollars more than<br />
what parents are reasonably expected to pay, often<br />
representing the “upper ranges” of independent<br />
schooling. Some education providers suggest<br />
that it can cost up to one million dollars to put an<br />
individual child through non-government schooling.<br />
However, the ISCA feel that these estimates are<br />
misleading, arguing that their “data shows that<br />
in 2014 the median Australian metropolitan<br />
Independent school fee was $5,887 per annum”,<br />
a more ‘reasonable’ estimate as to what parents<br />
should expect to pay per year for their children’s<br />
education.<br />
Regardless of whether you’re willing to pay<br />
the $5,887 or the million dollars, and regardless of<br />
your perspectives on public or private education,<br />
there is surely one thing that we can all agree on:<br />
education is important. Why? Because it is a proven<br />
vehicle to combating poverty and inequality. In fact,<br />
it is often argued that education is one of the most<br />
important investments that a country can make for<br />
its children and for its future. In relation to the 17<br />
Global Goals, education is crucial to the success<br />
of each and every one of them. The Global Goals,<br />
otherwise known as the Sustainable Development<br />
Goals (SDGs), came into being in 2015 by the UN.<br />
Together, the goals make a “17-point plan to end<br />
poverty, halt climate change and fight injustice and<br />
inequality”. Signed by 193 governments, including<br />
our own, the Global Goals are part of the 15-year<br />
‘2030 Agenda’ that succeeded the Millennium<br />
Development Goals.<br />
Although non-binding, there has been<br />
encouraging enthusiasm by different sectors in<br />
society – enthusiasm that has been described as<br />
‘unprecedented’ in some regards. This enthusiasm<br />
is welcomed as the Global Goals are only words<br />
in a document at the end of the day, and cannot<br />
achieve themselves. Global Goal 4 (Quality<br />
Education) will most certainly need support, as<br />
education will play an important role in achieving<br />
the 17 goals. Global Goal 4 is all about ‘ensur[ing]<br />
inclusive and equitable quality education and<br />
promot[ing] lifelong learning opportunities for<br />
all’. Its importance to other the Global Goals can<br />
be highlighted through the following example.<br />
In relation to Global Goal 3 (Good Health &<br />
Wellbeing), effective education will mean that more<br />
people are aware of preventable health risks, as<br />
well as ways to improve their health and wellbeing.<br />
In other words, better-educated people will be less<br />
vulnerable to health risks. Therefore education can<br />
help achieve good health and wellbeing.<br />
Aside from the importance of education in<br />
achieving the 17 Global Goals, we cannot argue<br />
that everyone should have access to quality<br />
education and the freedom to be able to pursue<br />
lifelong learning opportunities if they so choose.<br />
However, not everyone in the world enjoys this<br />
fundamental right of education, often because<br />
they are born into situations beyond their control.<br />
Situations such as being born into fragile and<br />
conflict-affected areas, or in families or countries<br />
that do not have the capacity to support a young<br />
person through schooling, impede that person’s<br />
right to an education.<br />
If you are able to read this, then you are<br />
fortunate to not be one of the 774 million adults<br />
in the world who are illiterate. This fact may mean<br />
that you won’t find yourself living in poverty, or if<br />
you do, you may have the ability to lift yourself out<br />
of poverty. With each year of schooling, you may<br />
find that your income increases. Your children may<br />
not experience malnutrition or be at risk to adverse<br />
health effects. You may have the capacity to adapt<br />
to new technologies and contribute to local or<br />
global innovation and infrastructure. In fact, your<br />
education may allow you to help create sustainable<br />
cities and communities, and be an advocate for not<br />
only the human species, but also for other fragile<br />
ecosystems. You may find yourself being a promoter<br />
of peace and justice, or simply participating in the<br />
democratic process by exercising your civil rights.<br />
Whilst enjoying some or all of these possibilities,<br />
you could also work in creating partnerships to<br />
achieve our Global Goals.<br />
Truly, let’s talk about education, because<br />
everyone deserves the possibility of living a life of<br />
empowerment. After all, universal education won’t<br />
achieve itself. And neither will the Global Goals.<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> | 23
OPINION<br />
Flüchtlingskrise<br />
By Ben Neve<br />
Illustration by Ruby Kammoora<br />
In Germany the so called ‘Flüchtlingskrise’<br />
(refugee crisis) is well and truly still in full swing.<br />
For a while in Australia, our screens were filled<br />
every night with images of refugees on their way<br />
to Germany, walking the majority of the marathon<br />
journey from Lesbos, Greece to Munich. These kinds<br />
of pictures appear far less frequently nowadays,<br />
which might lead one to believe that things have<br />
calmed down; but they most certainly have not.<br />
Apart from the continuing mass influx of people,<br />
there came on New Year’s Eve the shocking news<br />
that 1016 women had allegedly been subjected to<br />
sexual advances or even sexual assault in Cologne<br />
at the hands of – by accounts – a large group of<br />
Arab/North African migrants. Many politicians latch<br />
on to such stories to demonstrate the danger of such<br />
a large intake of refugees and the strain it places on<br />
screening and application processes. Such events,<br />
as portrayed in the media do not bode well for the<br />
reputation of incoming refugees. To complicate<br />
matters even further the governing party in the<br />
German state of Bavaria, where most of the refugees<br />
arrive, is the Christian Social Union (CSU), a relatively<br />
conservative political group whose opinions on the<br />
issue fly right in the face of Angela Merkel’s hitherto<br />
‘open door’ policy.<br />
For the past five weeks I have been staying<br />
in the German village of Kaufugen, which is close<br />
to a medium sized city called Kassel in the centre<br />
of Germany. I’ve seen what most definitely were<br />
recently arrived refugees, I’ve seen economic<br />
migrants, and I’ve had the chance to talk to many<br />
24 | Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong>
SOCIETY<br />
Germans about the issue. The opinions are as<br />
varied as they are numerous, but one aspect which<br />
did strike me was that most of the voices seem to<br />
become gradually more negative as time goes on.<br />
Every day in the local newspaper or in the Spiegel-<br />
Online news app, the coverage is relentless; a day<br />
hasn’t gone by yet where a report on refugees, their<br />
integration into German society, or the problems<br />
arising from their arrival wasn’t front page or<br />
inside cover. For the first time in a long time, many<br />
Germans are beginning to question their leader<br />
Angela Merkel, who until the refugee issue turned<br />
sour had seemed to be as strong as ever. Thus, as<br />
an Aussie who will live abroad for the next twelve<br />
months on exchange I thought it would be fitting<br />
to present an outsider’s perspective on a deeply<br />
German issue.<br />
The first important step in breaking down<br />
this complex topic into understandable chunks is to<br />
breakdown some of the stereotypes we might have<br />
of the Germans. There is no doubt that Germany,<br />
like so many other liberal western democracies,<br />
has developed a reputation as a welcoming<br />
nation for refugees. But aspects such as religion<br />
and population distribution don’t always occur to<br />
foreigners straight away, yet they are perhaps the<br />
most important. The majority of Germans still live<br />
in village communities, where religion plays a much<br />
more significant role in day to day life. Every 15<br />
minutes the church bells ring to remind you of the<br />
time, an old but important tradition which becomes<br />
even more important on Sunday when almost all<br />
shops are closed. Moreover, the governing party<br />
of which Angela Merkel is the leader is called<br />
the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), and many<br />
members of the centre-left Social Democratic Party<br />
(SPD) retain Judeo-Christian values like their centreright<br />
counterparts in the CDU. For the most part this<br />
has actually worked to the benefit of the refugees,<br />
as values such as tolerance and generosity have<br />
prevailed, but where it becomes less beneficial when<br />
some refugees don’t integrate into society as much<br />
as they could, or retain values incompatible with<br />
modern day Germans.<br />
Most Melbournians studying at Monash<br />
would generally have two stereotypes of the German<br />
people: either a Bavarian in Lederhosen drinking<br />
beer with Aussies at the Oktoberfest, or hipster in<br />
Doc Martens and leather jacket dancing to techno<br />
in a Berlin nightclub. The image of a church-going<br />
villager is not always in the forefront of our minds,<br />
but it is crucial to consider this given that these<br />
refugees hail from equally as strong religious<br />
backgrounds, except that they are Muslim and not<br />
Christian. Over the past few weeks these stereotypes<br />
have dissolved before my own eyes to reveal a much<br />
more complicated religious and cultural landscape.<br />
It’s not as if Germany hasn’t experienced migration<br />
from Muslim countries before. Many Turkish people<br />
arrived here in the 50s and 60s as ‘guest workers’,<br />
but never left and now form the base of what is<br />
Germany’s Muslim community. But the wave of<br />
migrants seen last year and which continues to<br />
come is on a completely different scale. Moreover,<br />
as the Germans have never considered themselves<br />
as a country of immigrants like Australia, America or<br />
Canada, it is harder for many of them to grasp such<br />
a drastic demographic change in terms of people<br />
and religion. In Melbourne one is just as likely to<br />
hear Mandarin on the tram as English, but if you<br />
heard a woman in traditional Muslim hijab and dress<br />
talking to child in Arabic while walking in front of a<br />
1000-year-old German church, it would be hard to<br />
ignore the vast cultural difference.<br />
And if there is one sentiment which all<br />
Germans echo, it’s that Angela Merkel reacted<br />
much too late to the crisis. For a while she was<br />
portrayed as the heroine for refugees coming to<br />
Europe, but once any country accepts 1.2 million<br />
asylum seekers in a calendar year, it becomes<br />
hard to keep up with the sheer scale of processing<br />
every application. While this occurs, most of the<br />
refugees are stuck waiting in limbo, and perhaps this<br />
is maybe why some turn to illegal and despicable<br />
activities as sexual assault. Xenophobia might be on<br />
the rise here, but I think that’s a result of Germans’<br />
frustration with policy makers rather than an innate<br />
form of racism. In the end, I think Germany will catch<br />
up with processing the backlog of applications,<br />
toughen some rules to counter purely economic<br />
migration, and will slowly learn how to integrate such<br />
a vast number of refugees, but perhaps Merkel was<br />
naïve in maintaining an open door policy for so long.<br />
The consequences are felt above all by the German<br />
people, and the refugees trying to escape war and<br />
persecution, because both groups can’t get on with<br />
their lives while so many barriers to integration<br />
remain.<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> | 25
OPINION<br />
Malcolm<br />
Turnbull:<br />
a leftie<br />
love affair<br />
By Ovindu Rajasinghe<br />
Art by Sian Mann<br />
September 14, 2015: Malcolm Turnbull<br />
challenges Tony Abbott for the leadership<br />
of the Liberal Party, and in winning, finally fulfils<br />
his lifelong ambition of becoming Prime Minister.<br />
When the Whips read out the results of the ballot,<br />
a collective sigh of relief could be heard across<br />
the country as ‘Lord Tone’ was consigned to the<br />
ignominy of the backbenches.<br />
The leadership spill was no surprise. It had<br />
been a horror year for the government, up to its<br />
ears in scandal and incompetence, all following the<br />
disastrous 2014 budget. It was also no surprise<br />
that the Liberal Party’s stocks rose astronomically<br />
after Turnbull’s ascension. Two potatoes tied<br />
together loosely by a piece of string could have<br />
been sworn in as Prime Minister, and the Libs<br />
would have received a bounce in the polls.<br />
What was a surprise, was that a man<br />
presiding over an only slightly-less conservative<br />
government has remained so popular into <strong>2016</strong>.<br />
I have spoken to committed Labor voters who are<br />
seriously considering voting for Turnbull’s Liberals;<br />
I know intense Greenies who have told me they<br />
might well preference the Libs above Labor this<br />
year. Whilst it is understandable that many in the<br />
moderate right love him, this is unclear: why are<br />
so many progressive voters so enamoured?<br />
Obviously, Malc’s popularity has at least a<br />
small part to do with the stark contrast with the<br />
previous occupant of The Lodge. On a superficial<br />
26 | Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong>
SOCIETY<br />
“Two potatoes tied<br />
together loosely<br />
by a piece of string<br />
could have been<br />
sworn in as Prime<br />
Minister”<br />
level, Turnbull is an infinitely more polished operator.<br />
The glamorous former journalist, lawyer, and<br />
businessman speaks with a supremely confident and<br />
measured tone, oozing intelligence and charisma.<br />
He doesn’t make stupid PR mistakes like winking<br />
after hearing about the plight of a grandmother<br />
forced to work for a phone sex hotline. He is able<br />
to articulate policy positions without the use of<br />
three word slogans, respecting the intelligence of<br />
the electorate. His public front is the antithesis of<br />
Abbott’s bumbling, awkward presentation.<br />
More importantly, he is a more consultative,<br />
less divisive leader. From the night of the spill, when<br />
the Prime Minister-designate fronted the media, his<br />
focus was markedly different. Rather than stirring up<br />
fear with divisive rhetoric about Australia’s perceived<br />
enemies, we heard that “...there has never been<br />
a more exciting time to be Australian.” Beyond his<br />
rhetoric, Turnbull has also proven to be a much more<br />
adept negotiator, open to compromise. This was<br />
demonstrated in the deal that Turnbull struck with<br />
the Greens to pass tax transparency legislation that<br />
had been bogged down by the Senate crossbench.<br />
But maybe it’s not just Turnbull’s charismatic<br />
and consultative front. Perhaps Turnbull has<br />
been able to steer his party towards more centrist<br />
positions. Perhaps the electorate is looking past<br />
personality politics and like what they see in<br />
Turnbull’s substantive policy views, which are clearly<br />
more progressive than Abbott’s. There are two<br />
factors to consider here.<br />
Firstly, Turnbull is the leader of a party with<br />
powerful conservative factions. Turnbull might hold<br />
progressive views on issues such as climate change,<br />
marriage equality, and the republic, but many of<br />
his party room and cabinet colleagues certainly do<br />
not. Since becoming Prime Minister, the dud Direct<br />
Action policy on climate change has been retained,<br />
the time-wasting plebiscite on marriage equality<br />
is scheduled to go ahead, and the stalled cuts to<br />
education and health in the Senate have not been<br />
dropped. Perhaps Turnbull’s moderate allies will<br />
be able to purge the radical right from his party,<br />
or maybe he will continue to be beholden to the<br />
conservatives. Liberal factional intrigue is murky and<br />
difficult to understand, and there is no guarantee<br />
that Turnbull will come out on top. It is important to<br />
note that, when you vote for the Liberals, you are not<br />
just electing Turnbull, but also a party that has been<br />
hijacked by the likes of Cory Bernardi and Eric Abetz.<br />
Secondly, Turnbull is still a committed believer<br />
in free market libertarianism and his economic views<br />
might not sit well with many progressive voters.<br />
When Turnbull announced his first Cabinet, Small<br />
Business Minister Bruce Bilson was sacked. Bilson<br />
was a strong advocate of an ‘effects test’ which<br />
would strengthen competition law so as to prevent<br />
anti-competitive behaviour from big business, a<br />
reform which has been lauded by the Council of<br />
Small Business Australia. The new Minister, Kelly<br />
O’Dwyer, and Turnbull himself, are reportedly<br />
opposed to the effects test, and it has been put on<br />
the backburner. Turnbull is still very much beholden<br />
to the big end of town.<br />
Turnbull reportedly once stated that he<br />
wanted to be Prime Minister before the age of forty.<br />
When asked which party he wanted to represent,<br />
he famously replied that it didn’t matter. Turnbull is<br />
a man who has worked tirelessly over his incredible<br />
career, making valuable contributions to the law,<br />
media, business, and public life. He has come from<br />
a broken family to amass a fortune that has made<br />
him one of the richest men in Australia. I admire<br />
him, and I can see why so many Australians feel the<br />
same way. But the electorate must ask themselves<br />
whether a man so driven by ambition and hubris<br />
can be trusted to deliver on what he has stood for,<br />
or whether he will be held hostage by the rest of his<br />
party so he can cling to his job.<br />
Malcolm Turnbull is a welcome change from<br />
Tony Abbott. His appointment ended the lunacy of<br />
the previous administration, and might challenge<br />
the parties of the left to a genuine contest of<br />
ideas rather than a ‘Shorten vs Abbott’ slogan<br />
writing competition. If Turnbull’s Liberals genuinely<br />
represent your beliefs and values, then by all<br />
means vote for them. But don’t let the Tories sneak<br />
in the back door because you like the look of the<br />
salesman. The party is bigger than the leader, and<br />
the leader is not all that he seems.<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> | 27
WEEK 1<br />
MSA Women’s ‘Meet<br />
the Department’<br />
Queer Morning Tea<br />
Quee<br />
SAS/ME<br />
p<br />
WEEK 2<br />
Free Food Monday<br />
International<br />
Women’s Day<br />
MSA W<br />
Weekly<br />
Que<br />
WEEK 3<br />
Free Food Monday<br />
“Snags against<br />
University Cuts”<br />
BBQ<br />
Quee<br />
WEEK 4<br />
Summerfest<br />
March for Refugees<br />
Mexican Monday<br />
Summerfest<br />
Free Food Monday<br />
SummerFest<br />
Biomed industry<br />
night<br />
Summ<br />
Easter Monday<br />
Easter Tuesday
Beers<br />
SS beach<br />
arty<br />
The rise of racism<br />
forum<br />
First year camps<br />
(SAS,MSS,BIO)<br />
omen’s<br />
Discussion<br />
Foam party<br />
er Beers<br />
Summerfest<br />
Summerfest<br />
Summerfest<br />
r Beers<br />
erFest<br />
Protest for the rights<br />
of Timor Leste<br />
MID SEMESTER<br />
BREAK<br />
Good Friday<br />
MID SEMESTER<br />
BREAK ENDS<br />
TEAR ME<br />
OUT!<br />
April already? Turn over<br />
for a beautiful poster by<br />
Monica Hunt!
PROTEST AGAINST<br />
EDUCATION CUTS
Illustration by Sigrid Lange
SCIENCE<br />
The big screen<br />
science of clones<br />
and dinosaurs<br />
by Chris Allen<br />
In 2015, the film and television industry<br />
renewed its love for cloning and genetic<br />
modification. This was best shown in<br />
the success of the dinosaur adventure,<br />
Jurassic World. But just how accurate are<br />
these blockbuster portrayals of science?<br />
Jurassic World<br />
How were the dinosaurs in the Jurassic film universe<br />
rescued from extinction? All the answers, it seems,<br />
are to be found in the first instalment of the<br />
franchise, Jurassic Park. A short welcome video on<br />
Jurassic Park informs the film’s protagonists that<br />
the genetic information required for cloning was<br />
discovered in prehistoric mosquitoes that had been<br />
preserved in tree sap. It just so happens that the<br />
mozzies fed upon sweet dinosaur blood, millions and<br />
millions of years ago. That sounds pretty exciting and<br />
plausible, but, unfortunately, it’s unlikely to happen<br />
in the real world.<br />
Attempts to find preserved, ancient DNA in<br />
insects has not been successful. First of all, the<br />
Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event, which took<br />
away our dinosaurs, occurred sixty-six million years<br />
before present day. Good luck finding any bugs that<br />
old, still floating around in tree sap.<br />
Second, in studies of much more modern<br />
insects, the DNA fragments to be found are short in<br />
length. This was shown in 2013, when a preserved<br />
bee that could not have been older than sixty<br />
was sequenced. This study used next-generation<br />
genetic methods, such as the quick and accurate<br />
sequencing technique, Roche 454. Researchers<br />
could only express low confidence in their DNA<br />
matches with microfloral DNA and bee mitochondria<br />
DNA. The Jurassic insect method is highly unlikely.<br />
Why dream of a Jurassic World dinosaur,<br />
when scientists haven’t even resurrected a Woolly<br />
Mammoth yet? The Mammoth only became extinct<br />
in the relatively recent Pleistocene epoch. An<br />
indirect cloning breakthrough occurred last year,<br />
when Current Biology published a conservation<br />
research study sequencing the Mammoth’s whole<br />
genome. While an explicable concern for the safety<br />
of elephant surrogate mothers will probably prevent<br />
further developments, cloning a Mammoth is far<br />
more achievable than a Tyrannosaurus rex.<br />
If you disregard everything I’ve just said about<br />
dinosaurs being an unrealistic goal, and pretend<br />
a plethora of dinosaur genomes are in human<br />
possession, would it be possible for scientists to<br />
engineer a genetic hybrid as whacked up as the<br />
film’s villainous Indominus rex?<br />
For the uninitiated, the Indominus is a<br />
smooshing together of the Tyrannosaurus rex<br />
genome with a few, choice species that include a<br />
Velociraptor species, a Tree frog, a cuttlefish and<br />
a pit viper. The film’s scientists mention ‘advances<br />
in gene splicing’ as the key to breeding hybrids.<br />
However, cutting up genes is not really a barrier to<br />
creating monster hybrids, thanks to all the natural<br />
cut sites in a genome. An expected barrier would be<br />
manipulating these distantly-related genomes into<br />
a transgenic organism that will survive development<br />
- this seems particularly challenging while there are<br />
no extant dinosaurs to guide experimentation.<br />
There is some good news on the hybrid<br />
modification front. Many experiments have been<br />
successful in taking a single or a few known genes<br />
interest from one species to another. Researchers<br />
have created transgenic organisms as strange as<br />
glowing, fluro-green kittens, and as ground-breaking<br />
as pigs with organs to be used in human organ<br />
transplants. Perhaps an Indominus rex isn’t that<br />
radical after all.<br />
Rating:<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> | 35
SCIENCE<br />
Orphan Black<br />
Human reproductive cloning has never been publicly<br />
completed. Yet in the world of Orphan Black, Sarah<br />
Manning (Tatiana Maslany) learns that she is one<br />
of many clones created in 1984. That’s right, forget<br />
Dolly the sheep of 1993, and forget Idaho Gem, the<br />
famed racing mule of 2003; Orphan Black creators<br />
Graeme Manson and John Fawcett suggest that the<br />
80s was where the race to human cloning began<br />
and ended.<br />
Over the course of last year’s third season<br />
(massive spoiler alert), Sarah Manning discovers<br />
that along with the female clones she’s met, her<br />
family extends to a heap of brother clones (Ari<br />
Millen). Things get even more extreme when the<br />
show reveals that these male and female clones<br />
aren’t just siblings, their DNA is derived from the<br />
exact same person!<br />
According to the explanation offered in the<br />
show, an individual may absorb their twin in the<br />
womb, and thereby carry two independent cell lines.<br />
This individual would have cell nuclei that could<br />
bring forth both male and female clones.<br />
As it happens, Orphan Black’s logic is more than just<br />
possible: it’s proven science.<br />
Vanishing twin syndrome (VTS) is a<br />
scientifically documented phenomenon, whereby a<br />
twin appears to disappear from the uterus. This is<br />
often due to one twin being absorbed into the other.<br />
If the two merging cell lines were from identical<br />
twins, there would be no noticeable difference<br />
between the DNA in cells. But when non-identical<br />
twins are merged, the individual would carry two<br />
distinct cell lines. They would become what is termed<br />
a tetragametic chimera. If non-identical twins of<br />
different sexes were merged, the resulting individual<br />
could indeed produce male and female clones,<br />
exactly as it is suggested in Orphan Black’s third<br />
season. ‘<br />
Rating:<br />
It’s All About Love<br />
The most annoying depictions of cloning and genetic<br />
modification in film occur as what some might call<br />
‘genetics lite’. This is when science is used merely<br />
as an aesthetic trick to distract the audience. In my<br />
mind, one of the worst offenders in this category is<br />
the 2003 romance drama, It’s All About Love.<br />
The film follows a champion ice skater (Claire<br />
Danes) as she slips into a long-winded conspiracy.<br />
Her family plans to murder her, and install an ice<br />
skating clone replica.<br />
Unlike in Orphan Black¸ the science of the<br />
cloning in It’s All About Love is incredibly thin. The<br />
audience is told that human clones can be created<br />
by playing around with the chemicals inside the<br />
human brain. This isn’t even close to being accurate.<br />
The reproductive cloning process involves<br />
Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT), where a<br />
somatic cell (body cell) nucleus from a donor<br />
specimen is fused into a host egg cell (oocyte). The<br />
oocyte will reprogram the donated nucleus into a<br />
primitive, undifferentiated form, and henceforth the<br />
clone begins prenatal development like a regular<br />
embryo. There is no cheap shortcut for cloning.<br />
It’s All About Love gets even more silly. In an<br />
absurd scene, a television reporter announces that<br />
alongside human heart issues and inversed weather<br />
patterns around the globe, the laws of gravity have<br />
been messing up above Eastern Africa, causing<br />
hundreds of people to fly off into space. I don’t need<br />
to go into why all that makes no sense.<br />
To sit through all of It’s All About Love is<br />
not something I would recommend. The scientific<br />
references in the film were all tokenistic – perhaps<br />
they were thrown in last. If you think that your soft<br />
spot for Claire Danes or Joaquin Phoenix will improve<br />
the film, let me tell you, it sadly does not. I only wish<br />
that I could go back to spend that hour and a half of<br />
my life differently, perhaps by reading ‘Theoretical<br />
Astrophysics for Dummies’ or watching Jurassic Park.<br />
Rating:<br />
36 | Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong>
SCIENCE<br />
Beyond 140<br />
by Emma Simpkin<br />
If intelligence is, as Stephen Hawking suggests,<br />
the ability to adapt to change, there appears<br />
little evidence for it on Twitter. The social networking<br />
service was subject to severe criticism after<br />
rumours it may introduce 10, 000 character tweets<br />
by the end of this financial quarter.<br />
While computer scientists, social media<br />
consultants and economists curiously pondered the<br />
consequences of 10K tweets (internally referred<br />
to as the ‘Beyond 140’ project) a global majority of<br />
‘Twitterati’ clung to their 140 character cages and<br />
howled.<br />
Hot debate over lengthening the character<br />
limit of a tweet might seem trivial, but illustrates<br />
a highly pervasive attitude surrounding language.<br />
Anti-10K sentiment highlights a belief in an inverse<br />
relationship between lengthiness of writing or<br />
speech and its overall substance.<br />
Simply put, the shorter our words are, and<br />
the fewer we use, the more effective and indefinably<br />
better our writing will be.<br />
When Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey announced<br />
the Beyond 140 project, he praised the limit for<br />
inspiring ‘creativity and brevity’. Dorsey declared<br />
Twitter wouldn’t lose its ultimate beauty: the ability<br />
to convey information in short bursts.<br />
Brevity may be attractive in today’s time-poor<br />
society, but belief restriction breeds skill was a<br />
mantra for writers long before Twitter. Style books,<br />
grammars, and financial constraints on space in<br />
journalism and publishing cemented the idea that<br />
succinctness was the ultimate expression of good<br />
writing. Literary icons such as Twain, Hemmingway<br />
and Orwell were known for views on downsizing<br />
language, and Greek philosopher Callimachus is<br />
attributed with saying ‘Big Book, Big Evil’ as early as<br />
300BC.<br />
Yet does an increase in length really correlate<br />
with a decrease in value?<br />
Cognitively speaking, this thinking has an<br />
understandable basis. Linguistic and psychological<br />
research repeatedly finds longer sentences more<br />
difficult to parse. These lengthier sentences<br />
are more likely to involve complex grammatical<br />
structures because, generally, they possess more<br />
clauses. Layers of clauses in complex sentences<br />
build a higher density of information that is harder<br />
for the human mind to process.<br />
Likewise, being overly talkative is pinpointed<br />
in psychological studies as potentially damaging<br />
to making positive first impressions. Through the<br />
lens of linguistics. many words for ‘wordiness’ have<br />
fallen from use. Verbosity, loquacity, effusiveness,<br />
garrulousness and prolixity may sound passingly<br />
familiar but are unlikely to appear in everyday<br />
conversation. Interestingly, these words are<br />
more likely to appear near negative adjectives<br />
than others describing concise language, when<br />
databases compiled from real-world usage are<br />
examined.<br />
Yet we regularly hear and read abstract and<br />
complicated sentences. Grammatical complexity<br />
exists outside of Proust and Austen, in everything<br />
from terms and conditions to parking signage.<br />
While some complex sentences are lengthy, many<br />
easily scoot under the 140-character count. Railing<br />
against removing character limits isn’t purely an<br />
issue of intelligibility, nor even a matter of stylistic<br />
choice.<br />
Effects of commercialization and<br />
globalization can’t be downplayed when we insist<br />
on turning up our noses at lengthiness. Our<br />
century’s demands are blamed for pushing timestarved<br />
individuals towards short snappy prose, in<br />
easy-to-digest formats. Shorter writing is viewed<br />
as economical, efficient and clearer: highly prized<br />
qualities in the modern age.<br />
While linguists, psychologists and<br />
Twitter ‘royalty’ have yet to conclude if there is<br />
a relationship between language length and<br />
substance, valid arguments exist in each camp of<br />
the 10K tweet debate. The character increase may<br />
make the microblogging platform more cohesive. It<br />
will certainly keep traffic on Twitter by erasing the<br />
need to link elsewhere. But it may ignore demands<br />
of Twitter’s user base, and risk angering those who<br />
equate brevity with creativity.<br />
(3365 characters.)<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> | 37
INTERVIEW<br />
“How fucking cool<br />
is chemistry?”<br />
by Grace Wang and Anagi<br />
Wickremasinghe<br />
Photography by<br />
Grace Wang<br />
Working in chemistry isn’t just for squares.<br />
We spoke with musician and Magic: The<br />
Gathering player RICKI WILCOX about<br />
fashion, chemistry, and identifying with<br />
Hans Moleman.<br />
So Ricki, what’s your job at Monash?<br />
I’m working with the 1 st , 2 nd and 3 rd year<br />
Chemistry crew. At the moment I’m just doing some<br />
casual work, but over the last few months I’ve<br />
demonstrated first year classes (I actually started a<br />
band with a few of my students!), I’ve designed and<br />
presented some chemical experiments with my best<br />
friend for some John Monash Science students that<br />
had come from all around the world, and have just<br />
been doing odd jobs that needed to be done around<br />
the chemistry department.<br />
What inspired you to pursue chemistry?<br />
It actually wasn’t until very late into high<br />
school that I realized I wanted to do chemistry, in<br />
fact in Year 10, when I was filling in my VCE forms, I<br />
didn’t even list chemistry!<br />
It wasn’t until Year 11 when I actually delved<br />
into chemistry in more depth that I fell in love with it.<br />
I play a card game called Magic: The Gathering, and<br />
I love this game because it’s a system. The game<br />
has rules and restrictions that each player has to<br />
follow in order to come out victorious, and chemistry<br />
is a lot like that. There are the physical laws that you<br />
38 | Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong>
SCIENCE<br />
need to follow, in order to transform your starting<br />
materials into your products. I really enjoy the idea<br />
of taking something and manipulating or changing<br />
it into something else (and hopefully something of<br />
use!). If I wasn’t doing chemistry right now, I really<br />
have no idea what else I would be doing!<br />
So what areas of chemistry are you especially<br />
interested in?<br />
I have always liked organic chemistry the<br />
most, because it just seems so magical. The idea<br />
of changing matter feels to me like something that<br />
shouldn’t be able to be done, and our ability to not<br />
only do this, but also understand it, fascinates me! I<br />
was actually at work today and saw my boss reading<br />
over what I think was some different ways you could<br />
use nucleophilic organolithium reagents. I had a<br />
quick look over the reaction schemes, and I just said<br />
to her: “How fucking cool is chemistry?”<br />
My Honours project is focusing on making<br />
small molecule mimics of peptides and proteins,<br />
which we’ve isolated from the venom of a particular<br />
marine cone snake. The reason we’re looking at this<br />
specific type of molecule is because it can bind to<br />
certain calcium channels and aid in the treatment of<br />
neuropathic pain.<br />
My job will be to design and refine the<br />
synthesis of molecules that we think are of particular<br />
importance and test their overall effectiveness as a<br />
drug. If all goes well and we make a molecule with<br />
a good IC 50<br />
value (basically, how effective the drug<br />
is), we are able to do a few more tests and have it<br />
enter the clinical testing phase, which hopefully ends<br />
up with our group getting some results published in<br />
scientific journals!<br />
We’ve noticed that you have a lovely head of hair.<br />
How did your hair get like that?<br />
[Laughs] When people ask me how I get my<br />
hair like I do, I tell them I just go “like this” and<br />
shake my head a little bit. Truth be told, there is a<br />
step that I fail to mention. It has to be teased first<br />
with a brush. I personally use the fabulous tangle<br />
teaser, if you don’t own one, I recommend picking<br />
one up. Once teased, it can be shaken around a little<br />
to make it as big as possible. But this is just our little<br />
secret, right?<br />
We’re loving your outfit today! Could you tell us more<br />
about your style?<br />
Thank you! Honestly, what I’m wearing today<br />
was literally just what I picked up off my floor... I love<br />
patterns and colours, so I try to incorporate that into<br />
what I wear. I guess it’s hard for me to say I have a<br />
particular “style”, if I like something I’ll wear it. I like<br />
the idea of being comfortable in your own skin, so if<br />
an outfit makes me feel good, then I’ll wear it without<br />
caring what anyone’s going to say about it.<br />
What’s your favourite TV show?<br />
I have to say my all-time favourite TV show is<br />
The Simpsons. The show is ridiculous, and the fact<br />
that the story can fail to progress for 10-15 minutes,<br />
but every piece of dialogue is gold, shows that the<br />
writers are no doubt at the top of their class.<br />
Who’s your favourite character on the show?<br />
Hands-down Hans (Ralph Melish) Moleman.<br />
The show wouldn’t be the same without him. He is<br />
a character that I identify strongly with, and every<br />
scene he’s in is perfect.<br />
Would you like to describe the character of Hans?<br />
I’d probably describe Hans as a very<br />
unlucky elderly man, whose problems with alcohol<br />
have caused him to be confused about his age.<br />
Although the majority of the time, as viewers, we<br />
see Moleman’s many misfortunes, he still seems<br />
to power through and be able to look at life on the<br />
bright side, and that’s a lesson that I think is of great<br />
importance.<br />
Finally, could you give us your best chemistry joke?<br />
I don’t really have any jokes or puns, but<br />
rather an anecdote. I was hanging out with my mate<br />
Argon a few weeks ago and I heard this really funny<br />
chemistry joke earlier in the day. I told him, but he<br />
didn’t react...<br />
Check our full interview with Ricki<br />
on lotswife.com.au<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> | 39
SCIENCE<br />
Up all night:<br />
The science<br />
of sleep<br />
deprivation<br />
by Tracy Chen<br />
New year, new you. This year is still full of<br />
opportunity. Your hopes and dreams are yet<br />
to be dashed by cruel reality. Sleep deprivation will<br />
be a thing of the past. You’ll get your full eight hours<br />
a day, and you definitely won’t pull an all-nighter to<br />
finish that one assignment (and presentation, and<br />
written test, and don’t forget the lab in 12 hours).<br />
But let’s be nostalgic for a moment. Let’s reminisce<br />
about all those days, buried in the history of the<br />
person you are no longer, spent trying to function<br />
with little to no sleep.<br />
After the first night, there’s the hyperactivity;<br />
it’s the only thing keeping you upright other than<br />
caffeine. Maybe you’ve finished with a minute to<br />
spare and you’re high on life, or you’ve missed<br />
the deadline and you just don’t give a fuck. Either<br />
way, the world is your very funny oyster – you’re<br />
unstoppable. Armed with poor impulse control and<br />
less than stellar decision making skills, you’re all set<br />
to start the day. Who needs drugs when you have<br />
sleep deprivation? They say that you’re pretty much<br />
drunk when you’re sleep deprived anyway.<br />
Your short and long term memory are<br />
shot. The part of your brain that’s meant to think<br />
and make good decisions, the prefrontal cortex,<br />
isn’t exactly working. So you’re free of those<br />
restrictive inhibitions and your idea of how to react<br />
appropriately is becoming increasingly skewed. You<br />
laugh in the face of danger, you laugh at everything.<br />
There’s still a part of your brain telling you that you’re<br />
probably making a bad decision, but you’re too drunk<br />
off sleep deprivation to care.<br />
That is, until the artificial energy runs dry.<br />
You’re crashing.<br />
You’re tired, you’re hungry, you’re cold. The<br />
sleep deprivation is slowly turning you into a corpse<br />
(and maybe that’s preferable to this cursed, sleep<br />
deprived life). The thing is, your body temperature<br />
isn’t any lower than usual. It’s more like you’re less<br />
able to tolerate the cold. You lose heat more rapidly<br />
and your body just doesn’t know how to warm itself<br />
back up. You’re pretty sure you’re slowly dying;<br />
scientists are pretty sure it’s just because there’s<br />
less blood flow to the skin.<br />
But do you know what will probably help?<br />
Food. Because food always helps, right? If you eat<br />
enough carbs and fats, you’ll trick your body into<br />
thinking that it has enough sustenance to function<br />
without sleeping again. You eat until you’re bloated<br />
and still keep going after that. At this point, the<br />
repetitive action of bringing food to your mouth and<br />
chewing is comforting and you’re too tired to do<br />
anything else anyway. The hormones that control<br />
appetite and indicate fullness, ghrelin and leptin,<br />
keep telling you to eat while failing to give the<br />
signal to stop. Your brain and your stomach aren’t<br />
communicating. Your haywire sleeping patterns are<br />
having a bit of a domino effect. It’s an endless cycle.<br />
So maybe sleep deprivation is a bit addictive<br />
and your sleeps are more like naps these days.<br />
The hyperactive energy is wearing off, and the<br />
hyperactive energy is wearing off and the hyp—<br />
The days are long and it’s hard to focus. Time<br />
stretches out in front of you like an endless expanse<br />
and you’re pretty sure you’re never going to feel well<br />
rested again.<br />
Twelve torturous weeks, multiple breakdowns<br />
and countless tears later, it’s over. You can sleep.<br />
Your body can shut down - but it won’t. It’s like<br />
some sort of twisted withdrawal symptom where<br />
your circadian rhythm is so fucked that you can only<br />
sleep 2 hours at a time. It’s horrible. But it’s okay, It<br />
definitely won’t happen this year.<br />
40 | Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong>
The skinny on<br />
gluten-free diets<br />
SCIENCE<br />
By Anastasia Goutzoulas<br />
Where cutting out fat was once considered<br />
the silver bullet for perfect health, a<br />
gluten-free diet is now seen as a cure-all.<br />
But what is gluten, really? And is it all<br />
that bad for you?<br />
WHAT IS GLUTEN?<br />
Chemically speaking, gluten is a network of<br />
two protein types, glutenin and gliadin. In dry fl ours,<br />
these exist separately. Adding water makes these<br />
proteins form chemical links (disulphide bonds) with<br />
one another, and kneading or mixing forms even<br />
more bonds. These bonds make the resulting gluten<br />
network strong and elastic.<br />
Gluten can be found in foods containing wheat,<br />
barley and rye. This is a really broad category, and<br />
includes pasta, noodles, condiments, many prepackaged<br />
snacks, and beer.<br />
TO EAT OR NOT TO EAT?<br />
Coeliac disease?<br />
Coeliac disease is an autoimmune disease<br />
that presents as a response to the gliadin protein in<br />
gluten in the small intestine of a sensitive person.<br />
That is, the body of a coeliac sufferer mounts an<br />
immune response to the presence of gliadin in<br />
the small intestine, in the same way that it would<br />
initiate an immune response to fi ght off an infection.<br />
It produces antibodies that attack the gliadin<br />
molecule, an otherwise harmless protein.<br />
As a result, coeliacs suffer infl ammation<br />
and damage to the lining of the small intestine.<br />
Coeliac disease can be diagnosed by a doctor after<br />
a blood test to check for antibodies known as tissue<br />
transglutaminase antibodies (tTG-IgA), as well as a<br />
series of other tests for patients who may be at risk<br />
of returning a false positive on the tTG-IgA test (such<br />
as Type 1 diabetics and people with rheumatoid<br />
arthritis, both also autoimmune diseases). This is<br />
followed up by a biopsy to see if the lining of your<br />
small intestine is damaged.<br />
For coeliacs, gluten really is that bad, at any<br />
level. No cheat meals allowed here – even trace<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> | 41
SCIENCE<br />
amounts can be enough to bring on symptoms like<br />
nausea, vomiting, skin rashes, and mouth ulcers.<br />
Continuing to eat gluten-containing products can<br />
further inflame the small intestine, stopping it from<br />
absorbing nutrients from anything else you eat,<br />
which can lead to nutrient deficiencies like anaemia.<br />
Not a coeliac?<br />
If you don’t have coeliac disease, but bread<br />
makes you bloat, it may not be gluten at all.<br />
According to a study published in Gastroenterology<br />
in 2013, the true culprit may be FODMAPs<br />
(Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides,<br />
Monosaccharides and Polyols). These little guys are<br />
a group of simple carbs found in a number of foods,<br />
like wheat, milk, onions and garlic. FODMAPs can<br />
either ferment in your large intestine, making you<br />
bloat, or pull water into your bowels, which can make<br />
things move a little faster than you’d probably like.<br />
The researchers behind the paper studied 37<br />
participants who displayed irritable bowel syndrome<br />
symptoms (constipation, gas and diarrhoea,)<br />
and believed gluten to be the cause of them. The<br />
subjects were placed on a low-FODMAP diet for 2<br />
weeks, then placed on either a high-gluten, lowgluten<br />
or placebo (no gluten) diet for one week to<br />
give any possible symptoms a chance to develop.<br />
After the first two weeks, symptoms decreased<br />
for everyone involved. They then got worse for all<br />
participants in that final week, regardless of what<br />
diet they were on.<br />
While this study shows great results for a<br />
low-FODMAP diet, and takes the blame off gluten,<br />
it should be treated as nutrition ‘breakthroughs’ in<br />
general should - with a healthy dose of scepticism.<br />
Due to the small sample size and the fact that it<br />
can be difficult to control for every possible variable<br />
(like participants’ stress levels, or how much they<br />
exercise) it can be hard to establish any sort of<br />
causal relationship.<br />
So, gluten’s not all bad. But is it actually any<br />
good? Gluten in itself is almost pure protein, hence<br />
its occasional use as an imitation meat. However, it<br />
lacks the vitamins and minerals that meat, fish and<br />
legumes can provide. So, it’s pretty good if all you’re<br />
interested in is adding to your gains, but if you’re<br />
looking for meat substitutes for every day, it won’t<br />
give your body what it needs.<br />
GLUTEN-FREE FOODS<br />
Foods that are naturally gluten-free include<br />
potatoes, rice, corn, fresh meats, fruits and<br />
vegetables. These may or may not be labelled glutenfree<br />
on the supermarket shelf, but they naturally<br />
contain no gluten and are safe for a coeliac to eat.<br />
Supermarkets are now full of gluten-free<br />
versions of packaged foods, like instant noodles,<br />
pizzas and biscuits. It’s easy enough to believe that<br />
these are better for you than their gluten-containing<br />
alternatives, since they can be found in the health<br />
foods aisle of your supermarket, and their packaging<br />
is littered with tick motifs (so officially healthy!),<br />
pictures of leaves (so close to nature!) and phrases<br />
like ‘naturally good’ or ‘superfood’ (so utterly<br />
meaningless!).<br />
These health claims don’t amount to much,<br />
and unless you’re a coeliac or allergic to wheat,<br />
a product’s gluten-free labelling is no indication<br />
that it’s any good for you. A chocolate muffin is a<br />
chocolate muffin, whether it contains gluten or not.<br />
All in all, whether it’s being demonised or<br />
fiercely defended, gluten is even more overrated<br />
than The Great Gatsby. So, if you aren’t a coeliac<br />
sufferer, and you heed your grandmother’s advice<br />
about eating well (Eat more vegetables. Don’t put<br />
something in your mouth if you can’t pronounce it.<br />
Drink plenty of water. Sriracha can make anything<br />
taste good), then neither the presence nor absence<br />
of gluten in your diet will do you any real nutritional<br />
harm. By the time biology and chemistry have<br />
caught up with researching the food crazes we’re all<br />
about now, the foodie universe will have moved on<br />
from gluten anyway. We’ll probably all be losing our<br />
minds over the weight-loss benefits of a completely<br />
chemical-free diet by then.<br />
42 | Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong>
PUZZLES<br />
1 2 3 4 5 6 7<br />
8 9<br />
10 11 12 13<br />
14<br />
15 16<br />
17<br />
19 20<br />
18<br />
21<br />
22 23 24 25<br />
26<br />
27 28<br />
29 30<br />
31 32<br />
33<br />
34<br />
35<br />
ACROSS<br />
ACROSS<br />
1. Organelle responsible for energy production<br />
1. Organelle 8. Cells enabling responsible vision for energy in the production dark/low light<br />
8. Cells 10.German enabling Physicist vision in the famous dark/low for light his Theory of Relativity (Last<br />
10.German Physicist famous for his Theory of Relativity (Last Name)<br />
Name)<br />
13. Most abundant element in the universe<br />
14. 13. Swedish Most Inventor abundant (Last element Name) in the universe<br />
15. 14. Marie Swedish Currie coined Inventor this (Last term Name)<br />
17. 15. A type Marie of scan Currie commonly coined employed this termin hospitals<br />
18 Unit 17. A to type measure of scan temperature commonly employed in hospitals<br />
19.<br />
18<br />
End<br />
Unit<br />
product<br />
to measure<br />
of iron oxidation<br />
temperature<br />
22. Class of organic compounds<br />
24. 19. Short End newly product synthesised of iron fragments oxidationof DNA<br />
26. 22. Piece Class of pure of organic metal – usually compounds oblong shaped<br />
27. 24. 6 th planet Short of newly our solar synthesised system fragments of DNA<br />
31 American 26. Piece Chemist of pure and metal dual – Nobel usually Prize oblong winner shaped (Last Name)<br />
30. 27. Chemical 6th planet symbol of for our Gold solar system<br />
33. Constellation in the shape of a hunter<br />
34.<br />
31<br />
The<br />
American<br />
largest object<br />
Chemist<br />
in our<br />
and<br />
solar<br />
dual<br />
system<br />
Nobel Prize winner (Last<br />
35. Name) The muscle that assists in respiration<br />
30. Chemical symbol for Gold<br />
33. Constellation in the shape of a hunter<br />
34. The largest object in our solar system<br />
35. The muscle that assists in respiration<br />
By Rajat Lal<br />
ANSWERS AT LOTSWIFE.COM.AU<br />
DOWN<br />
DOWN<br />
1. 6 x 10 23 atoms is equivalent to this unit of chemistry<br />
2. 1. Chemical 6 x 10 23 symbol atoms is for equivalent Titaniumto this unit of chemistry<br />
3. 2. Chemical symbol for Helium Titanium<br />
4.<br />
3.<br />
Our<br />
Chemical<br />
genetic<br />
symbol<br />
material<br />
for<br />
is<br />
Helium<br />
known as<br />
4. Our genetic material is known as<br />
5. 5. The The closest closest star star to to our our solar solar system system _____ _____ Centauri Centauri<br />
6. 6. A substance A with a pH lower than 77<br />
7. 7. Organelle responsible for extracellular protein secretion<br />
9. 9. Junction of of 22 neurons<br />
11. 11. Final Final phase of cell division<br />
12. Most abundant gas in our atmosphere<br />
12.<br />
13.<br />
Most<br />
Light<br />
abundant<br />
Emitting _____<br />
gas in our atmosphere<br />
13. 16. Light A poorly Emitting understood _____ sub-atomic particle with no net charge and very<br />
16. A small poorly mass understood sub-atomic particle with no net<br />
charge 20. Theory and describing very small movement mass of the Earth’s lithosphere<br />
20. 21. Theory Basic energy describing unit of movement the cell of the Earth’s lithosphere<br />
23. British chemist and X-ray crystallographer whose work contributed to<br />
21. Basic energy unit of the cell<br />
the understanding structure of DNA (First Name)<br />
23. 25. British Chemical chemist symbol and for Potassium X-ray crystallographer iodide whose work<br />
contributed 28. British computer to the understanding scientist whose structure work contributed of DNA (First to cracking the<br />
Name) ENIGMA code machine<br />
25. 29. Chemical Fourth planet symbol of our for solar Potassium system iodide<br />
32. Danish physicist renowned for contribution to atomic structure<br />
28. British computer scientist whose work contributed to<br />
cracking the ENIGMA code machine<br />
29. Fourth planet of our solar system<br />
32. Danish physicist renowned for contribution to atomic<br />
structure<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> | 43
CULTURE<br />
The ‘Star Wars’<br />
Effect: Internet<br />
Hype Culture and<br />
The Force Awakens<br />
by Matthew Edwards<br />
Illustration by Angus Marion
CULTURE<br />
Nowadays, the release of a trailer is an online<br />
event. Studios under pressure to post big<br />
opening weekend sales flood social media sites<br />
with trailers, teasers, and TV spots. It’s not enough<br />
to advertise: for modern franchises, such as the<br />
Marvel Cinematic Universe, trailers have to link<br />
films together, hint at possible story elements, and<br />
provide material for speculation and debate for the<br />
hardcore fans. Trailers cause so much excitement<br />
that they actually end up being better than the<br />
movie they advertise. These trailers are not bad. It’s<br />
important to advertise a movie to get people excited<br />
and get them talking about it so that they’ll come<br />
see it. But this ‘hype culture’ that exists online can<br />
seriously harm movies: as hype builds, expectations<br />
rise to almost impossible levels.<br />
The Force Awakens was probably the most<br />
anticipated movie of the last 10 years. Fans had<br />
grown up on or with the trilogies, and many were<br />
left anxious after the poorly received prequel trilogy,<br />
which threatened to tear apart the fanbase that<br />
director George Lucas had created back in 1977 with<br />
the original Star Wars. The hype for Episode I upon<br />
its announcement was massive, and the film was<br />
praised for its use of CGI. But as the years went by,<br />
and people began to look at the films critically (Star<br />
Wars fans who haven’t seen Red Letter Media’s “Mr.<br />
Plinkett” reviews of the prequels should definitely do<br />
so), the hype faded away, and we were left with the<br />
consensus that the prequels are terrible. So when<br />
The Force Awakens was revealed, and J.J. Abrams<br />
was brought in to direct, people got excited once<br />
again.<br />
And now that it’s in theatres, reactions have<br />
been mixed. The common complaint has been that<br />
Episode VII feels too similar to Episode IV in regards<br />
to the concept, setting, and plot. This is true to an<br />
extent: some plot elements were unnecessary and<br />
brought the film down (Starkiller Base – did we really<br />
need a THIRD Death Star?). But these complaints<br />
are only minor. In spite of its flaws, The Force<br />
Awakens does so much right.<br />
Nearly every franchise in existence has a<br />
formula; Indiana Jones, James Bond, and many<br />
others. Every sequel within that franchise has a<br />
similar formula, with slight changes made to some<br />
elements to make it different from the movie that<br />
preceded it. The keyword is ‘similar’: all of these<br />
movies are pretty much the same thing. The original<br />
trilogy established a formula and it worked. When<br />
George Lucas attempted to deviate from this formula<br />
too much, we got the prequels. J.J. Abrams made the<br />
smart choice when making The Force Awakens to<br />
stick to this formula while changing certain aspects<br />
to keep it fresh and exciting.<br />
There are inversions within The Force<br />
Awakens that make it new, without departing from<br />
the formula. One of the things that makes Star<br />
Wars great is its characters. The space battles are<br />
cool, sure, but Star Wars has always been about<br />
characters and the way they interact with each<br />
other. In Episode IV, you could see the friendship<br />
between Luke Skywalker and Han Solo grow; from<br />
their first encounter in the Mos Eisley cantina,<br />
right until the very end. Each movie built on the<br />
relationships between not just the protagonists, but<br />
with the villains as well. The Force Awakens gets this<br />
right, but does so in an interesting way: the main<br />
characters are essentially inverse versions of the<br />
characters from the original trilogy. Luke dreamed of<br />
leaving his home planet to go on grand adventures;<br />
Rey only wants to return home and has adventure<br />
thrust upon her. Darth Vader was a powerful,<br />
menacing tyrant who mastered the Force; Kylo Ren is<br />
an apprentice who has no control over his emotions.<br />
These familiar but altered elements make the film<br />
interesting while following the Star Wars formula.<br />
Saying the hype surrounding The Force<br />
Awakens was massive would be an understatement.<br />
This movie was being hailed as ‘the second coming’<br />
by various sites. Fans went crazy with theories and<br />
arguments all across the Internet. With Abrams<br />
directing, people believed that Star Wars would<br />
be returned to its former glory. It’s not a perfect<br />
movie, but then again no movie is perfect. It was<br />
my favourite movie of 2015, and it was one of the<br />
first movies in recent years that I actually had fun<br />
watching. The Force Awakens had to live up to<br />
astronomical expectations, when all it had to do was<br />
be a good Star Wars movie. And it was a great Star<br />
Wars movie.<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> | 45
ESSAY<br />
Race to the end of the world:<br />
Averting anti-Asian stereotypes through Armageddon<br />
by Clarissa Kwee<br />
Illustration by Emily Dang<br />
In praise of Netflix’s dramedy Master of None,<br />
Angry Asian Man blogrunner, Phil Yu emailed<br />
VICE, commenting,<br />
“It seems weird to praise a show for just<br />
showing contemporary Asian-American men as<br />
regular guys, but that’s what Aziz Ansari and Alan<br />
Yang have created, and it’s downright revolutionary.”<br />
By implication, no show before has pioneered<br />
the representation of Asians on TV like this one<br />
– portraying them as orthodox, cynical thirtysomethings<br />
meandering through upper middleclass<br />
life in the Big Apple. But Yu speaks the truth:<br />
the ethnic adjustment to a pedestrian formula has<br />
turned the ordinary into the extraordinary. There’s<br />
something wrong with that equation.<br />
Mainstream TV can be ground zero for<br />
stereotyping, especially when it comes to its<br />
Asian constituents. They can be reductionist, onedimensional,<br />
and naturalise a power imbalance<br />
based on race: patronising actual Asians who are<br />
nothing like their televised representatives. There<br />
are definite exceptions, but more often than not,<br />
realistic programs perpetuate stereotypes; it seems<br />
that shows about a world other than our own are<br />
doing it better.<br />
Historically, television has depended on<br />
having a chiefly white, Anglo-Saxon cast as a<br />
prerequisite for mainstream resonance and success.<br />
Usually, ethnic minorities settle for a single, ‘token’<br />
character who bear the burden of representing their<br />
entire race. But universal catastrophe seems to<br />
act as the perfect locale to spotlight the growth of<br />
Asian characters beyond stereotyping. Apocalyptic<br />
television is not the panacea to all Asian stereotypes,<br />
46 | Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong>
CULTURE<br />
but ultimately, when there’s earth-shaking and hellraising<br />
to deal with, there isn’t enough time to focus<br />
on the colour of somebody’s skin.<br />
Take Kevin Tran from Supernatural. Initially,<br />
Kevin is a diminutive fusion of Asian stereotypes; an<br />
obedient, neurotic cellist consumed with achieving<br />
a perfect SAT score and enrolling in Princeton<br />
University. Yet come season 8, ‘Advanced Placement’<br />
has metamorphosed<br />
They don’t<br />
succumb to the<br />
prejudices of<br />
society, because<br />
there is no society.<br />
into a prophet of God,<br />
who becomes essential<br />
to saving the universe.<br />
Similarly, Monty Green<br />
from The 100 is the only<br />
main character who has<br />
never had a romantic<br />
interest, reinforcing the<br />
idea that leading Asians<br />
don’t get the girl or guy.<br />
Nevertheless, Green<br />
is a diplomatic, sarcastic and exceptionally clever<br />
character, traits that are eons more memorable than<br />
his love life.<br />
The best example of a character obliterating<br />
anti-Asian stereotyping is Glenn Rhee. Before The<br />
Walking Dead, no Asian-American would be identified<br />
as “the beating heart of a show” (Gina McIntyre,<br />
Hero Times) like Steven Yeun is, in his portrayal of<br />
the unassuming, pizza-delivering Michiganite. But six<br />
seasons into the apocalypse, Glenn is lauded as the<br />
“most beloved Asian American male in the U.S” (Ken<br />
Fong, Angry Asian Man), which is no small feat. In a<br />
perverse wasteland where a stolid drumbeat of gory<br />
deaths acts as its hallmark, Yeun’s character serves<br />
as an indispensable warrior on AMC’s juggernaut.<br />
What a polarising conundrum. The people<br />
who believe that Glenn’s life should be spared by the<br />
unsympathetic AMC argue that killing off such a wellrounded,<br />
integral part of the show also means losing<br />
a hero for underrepresented Asians everywhere.<br />
At the same time, Glenn’s treatment on the show<br />
occurs indiscriminately of his race, because Korean<br />
heritage is not significant to the urgency of survival.<br />
So by the same token, nobody on The Walking Dead<br />
is safe, and Asian or not, Glenn is no exception. If<br />
Glenn is truly dead, it would be a testament to the<br />
show’s habitual nihilism, and the loss one of the<br />
strongest ethnic-minority presences on mainstream<br />
TV. But in the event that AMC spares Glenn from an<br />
undead fate, this act could be misread as preserving<br />
diversity only for diversity’s sake.<br />
Regardless of Glenn’s elliptical future, it<br />
seems it takes Armageddon itself to transcend<br />
racial politics. As borderline histrionic as it sounds,<br />
disasters strip humanity of their narrow-mindedness.<br />
Materialistic trifles are diminished in the face of<br />
death. When the earth is in ruins, the ‘stratification’<br />
of ethnic hierarchies disintegrates, and stereotypes<br />
are forced to collapse on themselves. They don’t<br />
succumb to the prejudices of society, because there<br />
is no society. Of course, apocalyptic television is<br />
still privy to accusations<br />
of tokenism, where a<br />
colourful cast is warranted<br />
only to compel diversity.<br />
But we don’t celebrate<br />
these characters because<br />
they’re there, much like<br />
we shouldn’t celebrate<br />
diverse media just<br />
because it exists. What<br />
does warrant celebration<br />
is how the number of<br />
non-stereotypical, holistic and incidentally Asian<br />
characters is proliferating.<br />
So, let’s focus on the not-yet-apocalyptic<br />
<strong>2016</strong>. Master of None has made a universally<br />
acclaimed breakthrough in the representation<br />
of Asian-Americans on TV. On the show, Ansari’s<br />
character Dev fails to book a role for a sitcom<br />
starring three protagonists because though having<br />
one Indian is ideal, “there can’t be more than one”.<br />
But intentionally, the show flips that tokenistic<br />
mentality on its head to demonstrate that modern TV<br />
can—and will—move past such out-dated paradigms.<br />
Dev and company, modern people of colour,<br />
talk marriage, parents, sex and many topics inbetween.<br />
A Netflix show about Asian men just being<br />
themselves is being hailed as ground-breaking; that<br />
should raise some eyebrows, but perhaps in esteem,<br />
not in discontent.<br />
Master of None is as cognisant about its<br />
role as a pioneer, as it is witty, fresh, and brutally<br />
honest. We’re entering an age where diverse media<br />
is becoming less of an obligation unto political<br />
correctness, and more a sign of genuine racial<br />
equilibrium and representation. Maybe we won’t<br />
need to wait until the end of the world to appreciate<br />
that television is finally catching up to reality.<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> | 47
CULTURE<br />
MOST ANTICIPATED<br />
by Melissa Fernando<br />
<strong>2016</strong> is already shaping up to be an eventful year in music. With<br />
Bowie’s departure to the stars, the music world has been left<br />
with shoes that can never be filled. But perhaps what was most<br />
telling was the immense sense of loss and heartache towards the<br />
news of Bowie’s death, demonstrating that music lovers still value<br />
experimentation, self-reinvention and originality. Several artists<br />
are still honouring these musical values, and here’s my list of top<br />
10 most anticipated albums of the year.<br />
MIA - Mahtahdatah<br />
M.I.A’s album Matahdatah was due last year however the anticipation has<br />
crept into <strong>2016</strong>, as fans eagerly await her fi fth instalment. With no set<br />
release date, M.I.A has not divulged much information, but thankfully has<br />
released one single, ‘Borders’. M.I.A spent her formative years in 1970’s<br />
Sri Lanka when a bloody civil war between the country’s ethnic divisions<br />
was tearing apart the nation. It’s no surprise then that MIA’s songs have<br />
always been politically charged, and this album seems to be no different.<br />
‘Borders’ speaks about the barriers between cultures and social groups,<br />
which can often lead to injustice and suffering.<br />
Radiohead - TBA<br />
It’s always hard to know what to expect from a Radiohead album. It was<br />
reported that the band began work on their 9th studio album in late 2014.<br />
Now more than a year later, we speculate an album coming out early <strong>2016</strong>.<br />
The British rockers released a single ‘Spectre’, which was originally created<br />
for the latest James Bond movie but later went unused. The music has a<br />
dramatic orchestral fl ow, and the brooding overlay of instruments coupled<br />
with Thom Yorke’s tortured falsetto provides fans with a glimpse into the sort<br />
of music the new album would contain.<br />
SIA - This is Acting<br />
Australian singer-songwriter Sia is set to release her 7th studio album on<br />
the 29th of January. This is Acting has an interesting premise as it contains<br />
several songs that Sia wrote for other artists, such as Adele, but were<br />
subsequently rejected. This is Acting could perhaps allude to the fact she<br />
had written these songs from the point of view of the person for which she<br />
was writing, in other words, she was putting on an act. Perhaps this album<br />
is an attempt to take a stab at those who rejected her musicality and to<br />
make these songs her own.<br />
48 | Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong><br />
Illustrations by Angus Marion
CULTURE<br />
ALBUMS OF <strong>2016</strong><br />
Drake - Views from the 6<br />
As a rapper who sings, Drake has always had a different sound, constantly<br />
readapting his style to redefi ne hip-hop. It was hinted to be released on<br />
the 6th of January, but he has kept his fans holding their breath, with no<br />
sign of the album as of late January. Drake said he wanted this album to<br />
be important, a statement. Judging from the reception of ‘Hotline Bling’,<br />
the single released from this upcoming album, and the barrage of Internet<br />
memes that followed, fans will be looking forward to other tracks of similar<br />
calibre. We can only hope a February release will be announced soon.<br />
Frank Ocean - Boys Don’t Cry<br />
It’s safe to say Frank Ocean fans have been freaking out for a while. Could<br />
<strong>2016</strong> be the year this mysterious enigma comes out of hiding and graces our<br />
presence with a new album? The follow up to Grammy award winning album<br />
Channel Orange has been a long time coming. With little to no media presence,<br />
Ocean fans can only speculate. If Boys Don’t Cry comprises of even half the<br />
magic of Channel Orange, the wait will be well worth it. The timeline of events<br />
concerning BDC is frustrating to say the least. In 2013, Ocean confi rmed he<br />
was working on this album. Then in April 2014, he stated it was nearly fi nished.<br />
He concluded that the album would be released in July 2015, nearly a year<br />
later. July 2015 came and went and now here we are in <strong>2016</strong>, with no album,<br />
and no explanation either. Where that album at Frank? Does it even exist? Are<br />
you even still alive?<br />
Matt Corby - Telluric<br />
Gorillaz - TBA<br />
The Gorillaz haven’t released anything since 2010’s Plastic Beach,<br />
so a new album is a long time coming for Gorillaz fans. The prolonged<br />
hiatus which included a falling out between Damon Albarn and Jamie<br />
Hewlett meant a new album looked unlikely. However much to the<br />
public’s surprise, the two have rekindled their relationship and started<br />
working on a new album in September last year. The Gorillaz sound has<br />
evolved since the bright optimistic tunes of Demon Days (2005), opting<br />
for a more cynical, dark sound in Plastic Beach (2010). 6 years on, the<br />
mind boggles over what this album will sound like and the prospective<br />
collaborations that could be involved.<br />
Over the years, Matt Corby has managed to break away from the shackles of<br />
being an ex-idol contestant and after signifi cant hype, Corby’s fi rst studio album<br />
is due to be released on the 11th of March. Telluric means ‘of the Earth,’ and<br />
Corby has said that the natural world, human impact, and interaction would be<br />
the theme of the whole album. This album will feature his two singles ‘Sooth<br />
Lady Wine’ and ‘Monday’, that have already been released and were highly<br />
received by fans.<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> | 49
REVIEW<br />
Blackstar<br />
David Bowie’s last album<br />
by Lachlan Liesfield<br />
Blackstar is an elegy, Bowie’s self-made<br />
epitaph to his own life that spends little<br />
time languishing in reflection, and instead creates<br />
a distinct and indeed exciting sound for this final<br />
album.<br />
It’s fitting that for Blackstar, Bowie, a man<br />
whose sound has continually evolved over the<br />
course of his career, continues his run all the way to<br />
here, providing a jazz inspired and occult infused set<br />
of tracks. While these influences are obvious, they’re<br />
subdued in the mix, as if we’re hearing much of the<br />
instrumentation through a fog.<br />
His aging voice holds a rasp and harshness,<br />
the instrumentation here reflecting this new gravel<br />
to his voice. Rather than trying to recapture those<br />
smooth tones of his younger albums, here tracks<br />
like ‘Tis a Pity She Was a Whore’ and ‘Sue (Or In a<br />
Season of Crime)’ fully embrace these new tones,<br />
providing the most ‘rock’ tracks of Blackstar. Filled<br />
with violent hisses and discordant guitar and sax,<br />
they’re malevolent, heated pieces that capture some<br />
of that anger that Bowie has with his fate.<br />
But the influence of free jazz comes most<br />
clearly on Blackstar’s most well known tracks,<br />
‘Lazarus’ and the titular ‘Blackstar’. ‘Blackstar’, the<br />
albums opening track, is a ten minute occult laden<br />
mixture of sounds with such a diversity of distinct<br />
aspects that each could be treated as its own song.<br />
In the tracks opening minutes, strings provide a<br />
canvas where Bowie’s effect leaden vocal work can<br />
create the imagery of death that permeates the<br />
track.<br />
Blackstar’s second half, while equally<br />
macabre, is lighter musically. A self-referential set<br />
of rhymes with a softer baseline and drums create<br />
a mystic feel, with Bowie moving to the light after<br />
Blackstar’s ‘black magic’ opening. The two halves<br />
complement each other; leaving a track that doesn’t<br />
overstay itself despite is runtime.<br />
‘Lazarus’ is where Bowie gives us his final<br />
persona, and one that could prove to be his most<br />
enduring. It’s a gorgeous track, and the highlight<br />
of the album. It’s the quietest track on Blackstar,<br />
and the most affecting, with a sombre leading<br />
guitar that carries us through the song along with<br />
its straining, muted saxophone. ‘Lazarus’ is where<br />
Bowie most openly talks about his life and its end,<br />
and is the thematic heart of the album. Its lyrics are<br />
simple, but honest, and the instrumentation here is<br />
gorgeously layered in, creating the most coherent<br />
and concentrated atmosphere on the album.<br />
But in its finale (‘I Can’t Give Everything<br />
Away’), with its sweeping strings and wistful<br />
harmonica, we’re given Bowie’s last word. As much<br />
as Blackstar is about Bowie facing his death, ‘I Can’t<br />
Give Everything Away’ is Bowie looking at his life,<br />
holding a reflective feeling that is matched only by its<br />
unexpected cheer, and changes the tone of the final<br />
minutes of the album with a song that’s upbeat and<br />
enjoyable.<br />
Blackstar is a fitting finale for an artist who<br />
has re-imagined and re-defined himself throughout<br />
his career. By continuing to do so even here, Bowie<br />
creates an album that is only better for it.<br />
Illustration by Ceitidh Hopper<br />
50 | Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong>
CULTURE<br />
Undying:<br />
Parasocial relationships and the<br />
nature of celebrity<br />
by Tracy Chen<br />
Alan Rickman. David Bowie. Maybe you’ve<br />
heard of them? René Angélil, Natalie Cole,<br />
Glenn Frey are a few more, though perhaps they’re<br />
less familiar to you. They are individuals who have<br />
been elevated to household name status for their<br />
achievements, successes or sheer shock value;<br />
they’re revered for their talents but nonetheless<br />
they’re virtual strangers to us. So why do we care<br />
when they die?<br />
The number of us who have had personal<br />
contact with celebrities are small, but many of us<br />
feel saddened by their deaths, even years after. We<br />
have developed a sort of intimacy without really<br />
knowing them, watching them in our living rooms<br />
and bedrooms, making us laugh and cry. You’ve<br />
undoubtedly felt that connection, that feeling of ‘I<br />
really like this person’.<br />
It’s a mimicry of a relationship, a parasocial<br />
relationship that’s totally one-sided, developed<br />
from repeated exposure to their celebrity persona.<br />
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, these media<br />
personalities have no idea of who you are. But you<br />
feel like you know and understand them. Through<br />
countless hours of watching interviews and trawling<br />
through social media, they become important to you.<br />
You become a fanatic, or less severely, a fan.<br />
These relationships can be used as support<br />
structures when none are available in real life.<br />
Celebrities are undoubtedly inspirational. They<br />
are living proof that the ordinary can become<br />
extraordinary, and that by overcoming struggles and<br />
hardships, perhaps we too can achieve fame and<br />
fortune. They embody a certain idea of greatness<br />
and they are immortalised. Yet even the illusion of<br />
the celebrity becomes mortal when faced with death.<br />
We never thought that celebrities like Alan<br />
Rickman and David Bowie would die, so rare in their<br />
skills and accomplishments. We feel a profound<br />
loss, for despite their cultural legacy, they will never<br />
again be able to create something to inspire and<br />
impact our lives so viscerally. In an era where the<br />
sheer quantity and impermanence of the famous<br />
devalues them, and the title of celebrity is more like<br />
a revolving door, celebrities from days of old seem<br />
few and far between.<br />
Nonetheless, the past is often romanticised<br />
and seen through rose tinted lenses, especially<br />
posthumously. It is of course unkind to speak ill of<br />
the dead, but death has a tendency to wipe clean<br />
the slate and cleanse one of their wrongdoings.<br />
We want to remember those who have passed for<br />
their good qualities. With celebrity figures, whose<br />
achievements are so public and so widespread, it is<br />
unsurprising that despite scandals or indiscretions,<br />
people who we may have subjected to many caveats<br />
and criticisms are now once again at their greatest.<br />
They are only remembered at the pinnacle of their<br />
success.<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> | 51
CREATIVE<br />
A DEAL WITH<br />
THE DEVIL<br />
A FESTIVAL<br />
MEMOIR<br />
by Sophie McNamara<br />
can’t win,” I said. “If I don’t drink today,<br />
“I I’ll feel like shit, but if I do drink today, I’ll<br />
make tomorrow’s hangover even worse”.<br />
“Of course you can’t win,” Nia lamented.<br />
“We’ve made a deal with the devil.”<br />
This small exchange between my friend and<br />
I in the 6am mosh-pit aftermath summarises the<br />
consensus amongst university students when<br />
they attend music festivals. The festival culture<br />
encourages three to five days of disregarding<br />
your body and its needs with excessive drinking,<br />
sleep deprivation and inevitable dehydration. I<br />
spent my New Years Eve at a music festival called<br />
Northern Bass. Numerous drum and bass artists<br />
and thousands of festival attendees congregated<br />
for the event in Mangawhai, a remote town in the<br />
northernmost region of New Zealand.<br />
Kiwi youth adopt a very similar attitude to<br />
drinking and partying to Australians, especially<br />
when the youth in question are university<br />
students celebrating three months of study<br />
freedom. The lineup was nothing impressive to<br />
reflect the extravagant price of tickets, but by the<br />
31st of December all tickets had sold out and<br />
Mangawhai had doubled in population.<br />
52 | Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong>
CREATIVE<br />
“All I ate the<br />
first day was a<br />
banana, which<br />
I threw up. We<br />
tripped on acid<br />
for five days<br />
in a row.”<br />
People dealt with their nausea and<br />
headaches by continuing to drink as soon as they<br />
crawled out of bed. They dealt with their sleep<br />
deprivation by passing out in the afternoon or by<br />
snorting various substances up their noses in the<br />
early evening. They dealt with their dehydration<br />
and lack of proper appetite by simply accepting<br />
the fact that their health would need to be<br />
overlooked till the event was over.<br />
On the morning of 1st of January it poured<br />
with rain. In fact, about two hours after the<br />
clock struck midnight, it rained for about five<br />
days straight. At some point that day, we needed<br />
to pack up our stuff and carry it up a towering<br />
hill to the car. The longer we left it, the more<br />
difficult it was going to be to get out. We’d had an<br />
amazing New Years Eve, but when I woke up and<br />
realised our dismal fate, I wished I had woken up<br />
anywhere else.<br />
“I’m lying in a pool of water!” Nia yelled<br />
from her tent as the sun rose. Tears ran down<br />
various cheeks as we hauled our wet belongings<br />
up the steep, muddy hill to the car park. Heavy<br />
breathing, painful moaning and the occasional<br />
tactical vomit ensued. The car could barely move<br />
in the swampy ruins and most people simply left<br />
their tents at the campsite amongst the various<br />
wet remnants.<br />
When we eventually arrived back home,<br />
we looked like we had been dragged through a<br />
war zone. The precarious festival culture is not<br />
limited simply to Northern Bass as it is only New<br />
Zealand’s second-most notorious music festival,<br />
while it sits in the shadow of the infamous fiveday<br />
Rhythm and Vines. Recalling her experience<br />
there, a friend of mine Shams says that she<br />
started drinking at 8am. “All I ate the first day<br />
was a banana, which I threw up. We tripped<br />
on acid for five days in a row,” she mentions.<br />
“I accidentally did two tabs on the first night<br />
because I thought I had spat one out, but later I<br />
realized it was in my mouth the whole time and<br />
I was too fucked up to realize that initially. So I<br />
ended up doing two and having an insane trip.”<br />
After destroying ourselves to such an<br />
extent, it begs the question, why do we opt for<br />
this rather than having a normal, one-night<br />
party in the safety of our hometown? Going<br />
to a music festival can be like leaving reality<br />
behind for several days. The clock stops and all<br />
responsibilities are put on hold. Most people<br />
simply let their phone die as contact with the<br />
outside world fades away rapidly. The culture<br />
that surrounds it is intriguing and captivating.<br />
Moreover, going to a New Years festival in a<br />
country like New Zealand or Australia has almost<br />
become a rite of passage for students.<br />
My festival experience taught me some<br />
important things:<br />
1. Hangovers only hurt when you refrain<br />
from drinking the following day.<br />
2. Attending a music festival for more<br />
than three days means you’ll inevitably<br />
destroy your body. The best thing to do is<br />
to not think about it and just embrace the<br />
experience.<br />
3. We made it out alive, and that’s an<br />
achievement itself.<br />
Surviving Northern Bass together brought<br />
us significantly closer. Despite my sore legs, my<br />
sunburnt face, my damaged liver and my empty<br />
wallet, I’m glad I went and gave it go. I’m glad<br />
I did it because if I didn’t, I would be spending<br />
the rest of my university years living with a deep<br />
curiosity and unsatisfied intrigue into what<br />
this disturbingly appealing deal with the devil<br />
actually involves.<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> | 53
PHOTO ESSAY<br />
Suburban Dreams<br />
by Shannon Ly<br />
54 | Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong>
CREATIVE<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> | 55
POETRY<br />
Old Bones<br />
by Ed Jessop<br />
She was his Delilah:<br />
his blue-eyed<br />
blonde haired<br />
beauty.<br />
She’d only recently moved in with him,<br />
and while she had taken to waking Him up with kisses,<br />
He was busy making a habit of softly singing Queen’s Delilah to her as she fell asleep.<br />
Often, He would cup her head in both hands and pour Himself into the pools of her eyes.<br />
He would whisper – seemingly to Himself – how He loved her.<br />
He went to work each weekday and would often be<br />
reminded of her by the golden hairs which managed to<br />
cling to the folds of His shirt.<br />
He thought of her:<br />
His archaeologist<br />
beauty,<br />
and what findings she would surprise Him with when he came home.<br />
Perhaps it would be another old Pokémon card,<br />
a chipped red monopoly hotel,<br />
or a stuffed toy He’d loved as a kid but had long since forgotten.<br />
She would listen quietly as usual,<br />
wonder bright within her eyes.<br />
She loved that each new item she brought Him would illicit a different response:<br />
a smile, a story.<br />
She eagerly dug deeper.<br />
Mid-August,<br />
her latest discovery had been a luminescent rib – too thick to be avian,<br />
yet too fragile for anything of agriculture.<br />
This time<br />
she watched as the landscape of His face grew cloudy<br />
shaded by shadows of concealed storms.<br />
this time<br />
there was no smile<br />
no story<br />
and He didn’t even let her keep it<br />
for fear of her pearly white teeth.<br />
curious and slightly irritated she scoured the garden more often<br />
56 | Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong>
CREATIVE<br />
she resurfaced s m a t t e r i n g s of fallen freckles<br />
and other such whispers of old .<br />
by september<br />
her collection had doubled<br />
steadily increasing with every bristled toothbrush<br />
discarded jewellery box<br />
and a new pair of tiny socks so small that baby<br />
birds could have nested in each one<br />
thefirstfriday of that same month<br />
he arrived home early from work :<br />
walking up the garden path he st umbled<br />
on the bro ken earth<br />
confused He looked around Him<br />
noticing for the first time how the yard had been transformed<br />
the once trimmed carpet of lawn was now<br />
a pockmarked planet<br />
streaked red and sore by the emptying sun<br />
when He finally opened the front door<br />
He was greeted<br />
as always<br />
by delilah<br />
she stood in front of Him<br />
peering at Him with proud eyes<br />
He could barely see her behind the walled<br />
plethora of<br />
antiquities<br />
she had p<br />
iled at His feet<br />
That night<br />
there were no headheldIloveyous<br />
Instead the golf-torn turf was filled in :<br />
crevices were covered with golden hair, a broken houseshaped kennel,<br />
and the dirt was watered flat with pools of deep blue .<br />
That night<br />
he fell asleep singing the lyrics of Queen – seemingly to himself.<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> | 57
FICTION<br />
Amidst Apples<br />
and Thyme<br />
by Katherine Mitula<br />
Amidst apples and thyme, I look into the past<br />
and I remember.<br />
I remember happier times, times that made<br />
me laugh and dance and smile with joy. I remember<br />
the times of grief, of fear, of pain, which fill my<br />
heart with darkness. Times that truly made me<br />
understand what it is to feel alive. I kneel at the foot<br />
of the grave, and let my mind be consumed.<br />
There was once a boy. A man, he must be, now.<br />
A man with his life ahead of him and a future of all<br />
he could dream of. He was sickly, weak. His father<br />
came to me for help, for I was the foremost healer<br />
in the big city. I could have refused, for even then, I<br />
was not as young as I once was, and my back ached<br />
fiercely, as if it was reminding me of my old age. I<br />
had retired from practicing three years before; I had<br />
no obligation to respond to any pleas for medical<br />
assistance anymore. But the desperation in the<br />
man’s eyes convinced me, and I agreed to help<br />
him. Now the boy is a renowned architect with a<br />
sweetheart he loves more than life itself.<br />
How strange it is that our actions and choice<br />
can have such an impact on the world. If not for<br />
my healing of him, he would never have survived<br />
to adulthood to realise his calling and follow his<br />
dreams. The world would be lacking half the<br />
memorable buildings which now litter the earth,<br />
proud and unyielding, a symbol of international<br />
unity.<br />
I sit on the ground and dream of flying. I have<br />
never flown before, and I don’t think I ever will.<br />
Flight is for those of the future; I belong with the<br />
past, and the horse-carriages and steam-boats<br />
which carried us from one destination to the next. It<br />
was by boat that I was brought to the land in which<br />
I dwell now, the land which I choose to call home.<br />
If I had been carried by the air it would have taken<br />
mere hours; as it was, it took months. Months of<br />
tedium and endless ocean, my mind enduring only<br />
with the knowledge of the end of the journey, the<br />
bright land to which I sailed with its promise of<br />
safety and a new beginning. Beside me stood my<br />
husband, my dear husband who endured so much<br />
in the motherland and chose to be by my side as<br />
I undertook this final, life-altering journey into the<br />
unknown.<br />
I left my homeland behind me knowing that I<br />
would never see my parents or sisters or brothers<br />
again in this lifetime. I have no regrets, for there I<br />
have lived peacefully and happily with my husband<br />
and my children, who I value with my life. From<br />
the occasional letter, I knew that my parents and<br />
siblings yet lived, and that was enough for me. I had<br />
my own life to lead, and though they would always<br />
be in my heart I could not let myself crumble with<br />
fear or worry for them, not when I must be strong for<br />
my children.<br />
Now, my husband is dead, taken from me by<br />
the ravages of consumption. I sit by his grave, and<br />
ponder. Was it his fate, to end this way? Was it what<br />
God meant for him? I do not think I’ll ever know. All I<br />
know is that there is a hole in my heart that was not<br />
there before, and if it weren’t for my children I would<br />
feel well and truly alone.<br />
I sit by my husband’s grave, and dream that<br />
he is there beside me, smiling at me and holding<br />
out his hand. I reach out and take it, and feel the<br />
life-giving warmth of it. Together we stand, and<br />
walk, away from the apples and the scent of thyme<br />
which still lingers in my nostrils, and away from the<br />
tombstone of death. I close my eyes as the brilliant<br />
light tenderly envelops me, and smile.<br />
58 | Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong>
CREATIVE<br />
JK Dress-up<br />
by Jemma Cakebread<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> | 59