Last week I put in an application to be an outreach ambassador at my university, to work with high school students from low socio-economic and Indigenous backgrounds and encourage them to continue their education at uni. One of the desirable qualities in the position description was ‘has an understanding of how disadvantage affects education.’ I … More The Reality of Disadvantage
I’m hoping to be back to regular posting in a short time. Until then, here’s a speech I wrote for Bluestocking Week at the University of Queensland. Enjoy! University has been my dream ever since I decided, as a twelve year old, that there must be something more to education than year seven. Bored … More Bluestocking Week: Glass Ceilings and Gender Inequality in the University
It’s a few weeks into the new Uni semester, and I’m loving it. In particular I’ve found some very interesting issues being raised in my Roman Art and Australasian Archaeology lectures, about ideas of complex cultures and culture change. In particular, the way that these ideas are shaped by discourses of invasion and colonisation. As … More On History, Culture and Change
Before I started university, I had this idea that it was going to be this amazing, progressive place. Sadly, now that I’m getting more involved with things at uni, I’m realising just how hostile UQ’s student union can be to anyone who doesn’t fit it’s conservative ideals. Every orientation week UQ has what’s called a … More Three Steps Backwards
Warning: unashamed ranting about class privilege and selfish people. Last year the government decided that it would allow universities to charge a student services and amenities fee, which came into action at the beginning of this year. Since the invoices were sent out, I’ve seen a number of posts on university-related Facebook groups I frequent … More Check your privilege: The Student Services & Amenities Fee
Recently I’ve been getting involved in a lot of groups and communities, mainly revolving around university and feminism. I’ve started going to meetings, planning events, organising lunches, attending training sessions. All this is nothing new to me, but at the moment I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed because everything is starting to happen at once. And … More On Activism and Being Involved
Chally just today posted at her blog, Zero at the Bone (my current favourite blog) about “loving yourself, and the social value of putting yourself down.” I attempted to leave a comment to her excellent and thoughtful discussion, but ended up having to think about what she wrote more deeply, in regards to my own … More The politics of worth
A bit of a non-serious post today. I’m feeling slightly intellectually overloaded from my summer human evolution course, trying to get my head around evolutionary sequences and how ambiguous it really all is. So I thought I’d share two pictures and a recipe for nectarine cake, which I made this afternoon off the top of … More Cake and Crania
Jo H. over at her blog Notes from Underground, commented that you can always tell a North Coast Girl by the way she likes a verandah in a storm. So instead of the post on why I like Nietzsche that I had planned, here are some other things that this North Coast Girl does. This … More North Coast Girl in the City
One of my university courses this semester is called Literary Classics: Texts and Tradition. It’s really quite interesting the way that this course is structured: it begins with Beowulf, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Johnathan Swift and Jane Austen and then merges into Jean Rhys, Toni Morrison and Salman Rushdie. There’s a lackluster lecture on literary criticism and … More Why my English lecturer doesn’t get Toni Morrison
A life unexamined 