Items

• 
  2021-04-25

  HIST30060 Anzac Day

  This is an image from the Anzac Day match at the MCG on the 25th of April 2021. Returning to the MCG for AFL matches was one the more ‘normal’ things we could do at the start of the year. When this game was held, it was the largest crowd recorded at a sporting event in the world. The Anzac round is my favourite round of the year and it felt amazing that footy was back and Melbourne was covid free. A couple weeks later the AFL team I support - the Collingwood Magpies - saw its lowest ever recorded attendance at the MCG since 1940, as AFL returned, many of their supporters chose not to attend games, this may be due to how our team was performing or the capacity limits. Just looking back at this photo in lockdown makes me question how we thought we were ‘back to normal’ at the start of the year, when we were so far from it.
• 
  2021-09-09

  HIST30060 Father's Day

  This is a card my siblings and I wrote for our dad. In September my father was sent into emergency as he had to have a quadruple bypass. It was rather scary as no one could visit him whilst he was recovering. We are extremely lucky that his surgery got pushed forward by his cardiologist as now our public healthcare system is now struggling and surgeries like what my dad had are being postponed. His surgery was even postponed as another cardiology ward in a nearby hospital had a covid outbreak so the nurses and doctors at his hospital had to work over there. My dad came home a couple days after Father’s Day (it was the first Father’s Day we didn’t spend with him in our lives) and is now feeling so much better. The first thing he told me when he came home was that he “never wants to get covid” because he was on a ventilator, and it was “the worst part” of the whole experience. I genuinely thought he was on the ventilator for a day or multiple days as he didn’t stop complaining about how bad it was - turns out he was only conscious with the ventilator in him for just under an hour.
• 
  2021-09-19

  HIST30060 Misinformation

  This image I took down the St. Kilda pier. Someone had left various stickers that spread misinformation about covid, lockdowns and the vaccine. My friends and I decided it was best to remove these stickers as they are quite harmful. Living in Melbourne it has been so tiring watching ‘freedom protestors’ and people from far-right groups constantly spread misinformation and attend protests during stage 4 lockdowns (where we can only leave the house for the essentials). The fear-mongering these groups do its quite upsetting as I’ve seen my friends and some distant family members share their information on social media. The ‘anti-vaxxers’ and covid deniers even compare wearing a mask, getting vaccinated and being in lockdown to the Holocaust, which is so harmful and upsetting
• 
  2021-10-21

  HIST30060 Back to School

  This is an image of my younger siblings on their first day back at school! My sister started her first year of school last year, so her entire schooling experience has been broken up into periods of online learning. Everyone in her grade 1 class is struggling a bit as they haven’t had a proper experience of going to school. It is not mandatory for grades prep to 2 to be wearing face masks in class; however, my brother has been admitted to the hospital a couple of times when he has a bad asthma attack so we’re trying to be as careful as we can. As you can see there are mixed feelings attached to going back to class, both were excited to see their friends and teachers, but will miss spending the whole day at home with dad and me.
• 
  2021-10-22

  HIST30060 The First Night Out!

  This is an image I took on the first night out of the last Melbourne lockdown! I went to my favourite pasta place in Melbourne for dinner and this was their way of making sure everyone they served was fully vaccinated and checked in. Once checking in the server gave us this little laminated slip we gave to the waiter in return for the menu, this ensured no one had sat down without checking in. In Melbourne, it is mandatory for all hospitality venues to have their staff and customers fully vaccinated.