Lot's Wife Edition 1 2016

More documents

Recommendations

Info

CREATIVE A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL A FESTIVAL MEMOIR by Sophie McNamara can’t win,” I said. “If I don’t drink today, “I I’ll feel like shit, but if I do drink today, I’ll make tomorrow’s hangover even worse”. “Of course you can’t win,” Nia lamented. “We’ve made a deal with the devil.” This small exchange between my friend and I in the 6am mosh-pit aftermath summarises the consensus amongst university students when they attend music festivals. The festival culture encourages three to five days of disregarding your body and its needs with excessive drinking, sleep deprivation and inevitable dehydration. I spent my New Years Eve at a music festival called Northern Bass. Numerous drum and bass artists and thousands of festival attendees congregated for the event in Mangawhai, a remote town in the northernmost region of New Zealand. Kiwi youth adopt a very similar attitude to drinking and partying to Australians, especially when the youth in question are university students celebrating three months of study freedom. The lineup was nothing impressive to reflect the extravagant price of tickets, but by the 31st of December all tickets had sold out and Mangawhai had doubled in population. 52 | Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong>
CREATIVE “All I ate the first day was a banana, which I threw up. We tripped on acid for five days in a row.” People dealt with their nausea and headaches by continuing to drink as soon as they crawled out of bed. They dealt with their sleep deprivation by passing out in the afternoon or by snorting various substances up their noses in the early evening. They dealt with their dehydration and lack of proper appetite by simply accepting the fact that their health would need to be overlooked till the event was over. On the morning of 1st of January it poured with rain. In fact, about two hours after the clock struck midnight, it rained for about five days straight. At some point that day, we needed to pack up our stuff and carry it up a towering hill to the car. The longer we left it, the more difficult it was going to be to get out. We’d had an amazing New Years Eve, but when I woke up and realised our dismal fate, I wished I had woken up anywhere else. “I’m lying in a pool of water!” Nia yelled from her tent as the sun rose. Tears ran down various cheeks as we hauled our wet belongings up the steep, muddy hill to the car park. Heavy breathing, painful moaning and the occasional tactical vomit ensued. The car could barely move in the swampy ruins and most people simply left their tents at the campsite amongst the various wet remnants. When we eventually arrived back home, we looked like we had been dragged through a war zone. The precarious festival culture is not limited simply to Northern Bass as it is only New Zealand’s second-most notorious music festival, while it sits in the shadow of the infamous fiveday Rhythm and Vines. Recalling her experience there, a friend of mine Shams says that she started drinking at 8am. “All I ate the first day was a banana, which I threw up. We tripped on acid for five days in a row,” she mentions. “I accidentally did two tabs on the first night because I thought I had spat one out, but later I realized it was in my mouth the whole time and I was too fucked up to realize that initially. So I ended up doing two and having an insane trip.” After destroying ourselves to such an extent, it begs the question, why do we opt for this rather than having a normal, one-night party in the safety of our hometown? Going to a music festival can be like leaving reality behind for several days. The clock stops and all responsibilities are put on hold. Most people simply let their phone die as contact with the outside world fades away rapidly. The culture that surrounds it is intriguing and captivating. Moreover, going to a New Years festival in a country like New Zealand or Australia has almost become a rite of passage for students. My festival experience taught me some important things: 1. Hangovers only hurt when you refrain from drinking the following day. 2. Attending a music festival for more than three days means you’ll inevitably destroy your body. The best thing to do is to not think about it and just embrace the experience. 3. We made it out alive, and that’s an achievement itself. Surviving Northern Bass together brought us significantly closer. Despite my sore legs, my sunburnt face, my damaged liver and my empty wallet, I’m glad I went and gave it go. I’m glad I did it because if I didn’t, I would be spending the rest of my university years living with a deep curiosity and unsatisfied intrigue into what this disturbingly appealing deal with the devil actually involves. Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> | 53
Page 1: LOT’S WIFE — EDITION ONE —
Page 4 and 5: EDITORIAL EDITORS DESIGN Timothy Ne
Page 6 and 7: Tips & tricks for first years by Br
Page 8 and 9: STUDENT TOP 8 SPACES: CLUBS & SOCIE
Page 10 and 11: STUDENT MUMS Monash University Mini
Page 12 and 13: STUDENT How to plan your exchange (
Page 14 and 15: OFFICE BEARER REPORTS MSA PRESIDENT
Page 16 and 17: Do one thing Contribute to the sust
Page 18 and 19: illustration by Julia Pillai
Page 20 and 21: SOCIETY to work for the seat they s
Page 22 and 23: ESSAY Let’s talk about education
Page 24 and 25: OPINION Flüchtlingskrise By Ben Ne
Page 26 and 27: OPINION Malcolm Turnbull: a leftie
Page 30 and 31: WEEK 1 MSA Women’s ‘Meet the De
Page 33 and 34: PROTEST AGAINST EDUCATION CUTS
Page 35 and 36: SCIENCE The big screen science of c
Page 37 and 38: SCIENCE Beyond 140 by Emma Simpkin
Page 39 and 40: SCIENCE need to follow, in order to
Page 41 and 42: The skinny on gluten-free diets SCI
Page 43 and 44: PUZZLES 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Page 45 and 46: CULTURE Nowadays, the release of a
Page 47 and 48: CULTURE but ultimately, when there
Page 49 and 50: CULTURE ALBUMS OF 2016 Drake - View
Page 51: CULTURE Undying: Parasocial relatio
Page 55 and 56: CREATIVE Lot’s Wife | 55
Page 57 and 58: CREATIVE she resurfaced s m a t t e
Page 59: CREATIVE JK Dress-up by Jemma Cakeb

Lot's Wife Edition 1 2016

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?