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Instructional Method is exactly
University of Melbourne
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2020-08-18
Image of a pigeon in store
HIST30060 Despite quarantine restrictions, I was still able to work at my fast food job in the CBD. Pictured here is a pigeon who would come into our store looking for food in the quietest parts of the day, which were almost always due to the lack of people in the city. Whilst working in the city, I realised that most urban birds, including pigeons and seagulls, became very confident during the stricter quarantine periods. The lack of activity in the city meant they were not receiving the usual scraps they would receive from those travelling to and from their desk jobs. The birds became bold with their interactions with those who were coming to the city in order to gain the small amount of food they needed to survive. This small pigeon in our store is a good example of this. He would waltz in and munch on the oats that would land on our floor before we had time to clean them. Despite repeated attempts to shoo him outside, he would often walk around our floor before meandering outside again. -
2020-10-14
Reflections on Exchange and the Pandemic
I wrote this article in October 2020, 7 months after I was forced to return home early from my university exchange semester in Edinburgh. Shared with my friends on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, the article put it into words thoughts and feelings that had been on my mind for the previous 7 months. In it, I tried to capture how my last few days in Edinburgh felt: the rapid pace of COVID closures, the sudden goodbyes, the panic about travel plans and illness. Writing the article was an enormously cathartic process, and helped me process the confusing mix of emotions that I'd felt since returning to Melbourne. It is, far and away, the most complete summary of my experience of the pandemic that I can offer. -
2020-03-05
Event commemorating Cuba-Venezuela Relations and the passing of Hugo Chavez, Havana, Cuba
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2020-07-26
Presenting a speech for the Australia-Cuba Friendship Society (social activist group), via Zoom - commemoration of 26th of July Revolutionary movement
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2020-10-26
Celebrating my 21st, Covid-style
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2020-06-05
Black/Indigenous Lives Matter Protest, Melbourne, Australia
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2020-07-07
Learning Auslan during Covid-19, via Zoom
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2020-10-28
‘I’m here for you’
2020 is a difficult year, especially for someone like me staying alone in foreign lands. What frustrated me was not only the difficulties in life, but also loneliness and lost. I have no roommate in Melbourne. Therefore, after the 5km travel ban was issued, I rarely contact with the outside world. Not only that, many of my friends choose to defer their studies and stayed in their mother country due to the plague so I gradually lost contact with them. In this case, speak to my classmates on the tutorial became almost the only way for me to communicate with the outside world. I am not ready to face this situation, and these sudden changes made me so depressed. Social distancing between men made me feel ignored and isolated, and I even considered about postponing my studies. Until a few days ago, I found some cards (as in the photo) from my apartment’s common zone. On the front page of the card there is ‘I’m here for you’, and residents could leave their contact information on the card to people who want to make new friends. I take one of the cards and left my message. Although I have not contacted that person so far, I can feel the kindness from strangers, and the support there makes me believe that everything will be fine. #HIST30060 -
2020-10-28
Spoons send hope
HIST30060 The pandemic has brought together communities in a way that little else has. It is often during the worst times in history that people seek comfort and solidarity in each other, secure in the knowledge that every person is in the same boat as them. We have seen similar Spoonville’s pop up in different suburbs around Melbourne. I believe that their purpose is something for children to enjoy when going out on walks during the many months in lockdown. When I first saw the Spoonville’s being posted on social media, I thought that it was a cute and fun idea. It wasn’t until I saw them myself that I realised the impact of what those spoons represent. People took the time to make them, create the desire for more to be made and I am sure inspired joy in the young children of my community. In times when so much is uncertain, it is nice to walk by the spoons and see them still there, a representation of the heart of Laverton. -
2020-03-13
Plans Drastically Changed
I was on exchange in Edinburgh in the first half of 2020, and due to return to Melbourne at the end of June. As borders began to close and Australian government travel advice changed, it became apparent that I'd have to return home some months early. This text exchange with my mother is the first time I flagged my intention to leave early, and captures the rapid pace at which events and plans were changing. HIST30060 -
2020-03-13
The First Bomb Dropped
I was on exchange in Edinburgh in the first half of 2020, and was forced to return home early because of COVID-19. These messages show 3 of my friends announcing in a Facebook group chat that they were heading home to Austria, which came as a huge surprise to the rest of us in the group. This was a sad, confusing, disorienting moment, which these messages demonstrate. HIST30060 -
2020-10-16
Table showing media bias
Experiencing coronavirus in the age of 24/7 news coverage, I imagine most people have become far more conscious of where they choose to get their news. I've been brought up an ABC @ 7 operator, and I count myself lucky. Throughout the storm of rating battles, exclusive reports and breaking news I have been confident that I could trust the ABC and my paper choice The Age. Trust might be naive but it seems like the only option. Every now and again I'll flick onto a commercial channel and find myself wondering, is this news? My mates have also become more conscious of their sources too, one of them got me onto 'Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty' on iView, making me even more skeptical about anything I read. I feel like the media almost have an almost more important responsibility to people than politicians. I wonder a lot, at the moment especially, whether news outlets are fulfilling their responsibility or is shock and clickbait bringing in the money that really talks. -
2020-10-18
Care after 5km
A friend of mine had a rough week. She lives down the coast, well out of my 5km play pen (the distance we Melbournians can travel from home). The phone calls are fine, but can be draining and don't replace a supportive hug. Feeling a bit helpless as a friend, I put together an hour of music I thought she'd find comforting. Diversifying the kinds of connections we keep up has been relieving in that way. Low pressure interaction, much like spending time in person when it is relaxed, calm, and conversation will bounce off stimuli in the world, is hard to replicate digitally. I've really stepped up my playlist game these days. She loved it. HIST30060 -
2020-06-06
Stop Black Deaths in Custody, BLM Protest - Melbourne
An image from the BLM protest in Melbourne. A protest sparked by George Floyd's murder but rooted in issues in so-called Australia. Always was, always will be. The protest was a vindication for abolitionists. Several thousands of people congregating without a single case of transmission between protestors and all community-led, in spite of heavy police presence. Highly communicative organisers, quick-thinking marshals, and responsible demonstrators made it a powerful and safe day. It was deeply affirming to be surrounded by so many who see and are concerned about white supremacy in comparable ways to me, and also a time to listen to voices of the strong activists who ought to be centred in discussions around Aboriginal deaths in custody, decolonisation, and police/prison abolition. HIST30060 -
2020-04-08
At-Home Union Action
Text reads: WAGE SUBSIDY FOR ALL #NoWorkerLeftBehind #PutYourApronOut Trade unions were strong advocates for a more robust safety net for workers who had lost their jobs owing to the pandemic. The JobKeeper package left behind casual workers (like me) and workers on temporary visas who were already had the most insecure labour conditions. My union shifted online. We ran social media campaigns, online pickets, and a whole range of other digital actions. Unfortunately, this one didn't get up. LNP stuck to their guns of looking after wealthy, white folk. Typical... HIST30060 -
2020-07-09
Covid-19, Education and Making Choices
The Covid-19 pandemic has forced almost everyone to make decisions, some small and some drastic. The following is a reflection of how my studies as an international student at the University of Melbourne, Australia were affected by the pandemic. The date is 9 July 2020. Covid-19 cases have been on the rise in Melbourne in the past two weeks. This trend seems specific to Melbourne as the rest of Australia seems to have the situation under control. I receive an email from the University. The email announces that the studies for the second semester (July to November 2020) will take place entirely online. The majority of semester 1 (March to June) had also taken place online. But students were hopeful that a return to face-to-face teaching would be possible given the relatively low number of cases of Australia up to late June 2020 (when the second wave started). As an international student, I must make a choice. To stay in Melbourne or to fly home. I need to do so quickly, since incoming flights to Melbourne had already been suspended, and there is no guarantee that the same might not happen to outgoing flight. In my case, returning home seemed the obvious choice. I would rather have stayed in Melbourne (a city I love!), but alas at least to return means to be closer to friends and family during these times. I write this in October 2020, the semester is almost over, and the number of daily cases in Melbourne has now dropped significantly (to single digits), after months of strict measures. For much of the rest of the world however, there does not seem to be an end in sight. Submitted as part of the HIST30060 Making History subject at the University of Melbourne. -
2020-09-28
Carrot in a box
During Lockdown in the search for routine and some sort of normality, usually my weekdays finish with ABC News at 7pm followed by 8 out of 10 Cats does Countdown at 7:30. Being a news snob I have always watched ABC, but recently 8 out of 10 Cats has become a new daily routine that provides regular humour relief from a bleak day inside. Hosted by Jimmy Carr and filled with stupidity as well as 'play-at-home' Countdown gameshow rounds, I have really fallen in love with it. The show is reliable, positive and immature, three things that are hard to come by at the moment. Further to that a pipe dream of mine is to one day live in the UK, and with borders closing until the end of 2021 that feels like a very long pipe, but getting to watch it even now makes me feel like maybe I'll watch it with a cup of tea in London somewhere. This particular clip was one of the funnier things I've ever seen on TV, let alone on this show, and made a mediocre night watching TV a conversational piece about a carrot in a box. -
2020-09-10
Retirement in the Rumour File
My Dad used to listen to the rumour file every morning for work, I remember one time he had to work all day on something that broke on the rumour file that morning. As I've tried to be setting a new routine and waking up early, I've been listening a lot to Ross and (recently) Russell in the morning. It's nice to use live radio to feel connected during this lockdown, particularly when AW is so Melbourne based. I'm nowt alone either I think their ratings have gone up something like 30%. This guy rang up with a rumour about a former number one draft pick retiring this week. As a Carlton Fan and a receiver of many a failed number one draft picks, I thought it had to be one of ours. Sure enough, a few hours later news broke that Matthew Kreuzer was retiring. Another draft pick hampered by injury that never hit his prime into the Carlton graveyard. I still even now think of Kreuz as a pimply eighteen year old. At least I got to break the news to my mates and feel ahead of the curve, and the rumour file is really helping me get through. -
2020-09-12
Schofferhofer
These two photos are of a glass beer bottle from a Belgian Beer Cafe. One of my Dad's mates knows the guy who owns it and although the cafe is in Malvern and the CBD, my Dad's mate has been helping him deliver them around Carlton/Fitzroy. Dad was getting them every week and he bought me one the other week so I could see what it tasted like. It was beautiful, rich and hoppy. We changed to Peronis after and it just wasn't the same. Dad kept bugging me about how much it cost and I told him I'd send him money but he didn't want a bar of me. When I spoke to Mum she said she told him that he wasn't buying me any food any more since I moved out, we aren't catching up for meals or coffee or anything, the least he can do is buy me beer. Dad likes to have everyone in the same place and I think he was flat I eventually moved out, especially when it's so hard to catch up at the moment, but being able to to share this together, even if we are apart, was comforting. -
2020-09-03T12:24+10:00
Billie's House
Over the past few weeks, my girlfriend and I have been watching the Australian TV Drama 'Offspring.' When I say watching, I probably mean obsessing. With nothing to do we would watch a few episodes a day and finished all seven seasons in around a month. We like the show particularly because it is shot in and around Fitzroy, a place where we would often catch up with out mates over a beer or in the park at Edinburgh Gardens, I think seeing the characters in Offspring be able to go for a pint at the Union Club Hotel gave us some sort of comfort, and the pub is top of our first visit list when they open again. As we tried to create entertaining walks we would look for some of the houses they shoot in and this photo shows one I stumbled upon on a run, Billie's house in later seasons. Like any show you like to be where they were, becoming part of the story yourself, and particularly when there was not really much of a story in our lives in lockdown, it was good to be part of theirs. Now that we've finished all seasons and are adrift in endless Netflix menus, seeing the houses returns me to that place of belonging I had.