The local area and a newsworthy change of heart... 

Yarra Bend Road has a long history of treating illnesses, both mental and physical. The building I am living in was once the Infectious Disease Unit of a hospital; from my window I can glimpse the grass inside the smooth metal ramparts of a secure forensic psychiatric unit. Past our neighbours is the site of the old, long-gone Yarra Bend Lunatic Asylum, Victoria's first mental health institution which ran from 1848 to 1925 and whose care was not quite up to the standards of our neighbours. This then became a women's prison before being flattened into parkland.

There are two things Yarra Bend Road does well: hospitals and parks. Surrounded on both sides by parkland, the campus on which I live shines through the dark at night, the only domestic lighting visible from the main road. By day, the park is beautiful: footpaths and creek trails wind in and out of the gum trees, and the city’s towers gleam against the sky to the south-west. By night, I walk quickly down the narrow road, phone and key at the ready. Night-time silence has always unnerved me. It’s one of my least favourite things about St Andrews, with its narrow hedgerowed streets and no midnight company but your own three streetlit shadows and echoing footsteps and fogged breath. But silence has found me in the city too.

Yvette Schneider, a prominent “ex-gay” activist who argued from personal experience that it was possible to choose heterosexuality, has renounced her anti-LGBT stance in two GLAAD articles.

Homophobe no longer a homophobe! Someone who took on a hugely damaging role against LGBT identifying people says she’s not into that anymore! Obviously this change is positive, but one is tempted to ask: so what? Schneider has done a good thing in approaching GLAAD, but we must remember that she seeks to undo phenomenal damage: retracing her steps rather than treading new ground in LGBT rights activism.

Schneider’s GLAAD testimony shies away from the effect of her anti-LGBT activism, focusing on the damage she herself suffered while suppressing, and being told to suppress, same sex attraction. Her deeply personal approach paints her experience as an individual's journey, rather than a widely publicised and cited series of testimonies across fourteen years of anti-LGBT activism. In fact, her experience is both. The oppression Schneider faced, her own and others' suppression of her sexuality, and her internalised homophobia have all caused her great suffering. However, the publicity of her past actions furthered the oppression of other LGBT identifying people in the church and beyond. Her U-turn is good news, but we must remember its context.

However, perhaps new ground will be trod in the very circle Schneider has cast off. Throughout her activism, Schneider’s role has been to provide a testimony, bearing witness to the possibility of choosing heterosexuality. Now, her testimony is dramatically altered – but her audience, built up over years of activism, to some extent remains the same. As one of the “ex-gay” school’s most prominent women, she’s familiar, and therefore wields more influence than an outsider ever could. Coming from such a community, approaching GLAAD is a brave and important move, and hopefully, possibly, an influential one. This news, though a small victory, is definitely good news.

Here is a selection of quotes from my encounters: the weird, the wonderful.

•           “Why aren’t you wearing any trousers?” “Why are all of you wearing trousers? I’m asking the real questions!”
•           “I hear there are only, like, five unicorns left in the wild these days.”
•           “Stop that now, you koala eating arsehole!!!”

I've been here almost two weeks, so it's time for another blog.

My bedroom is a crisp white Ikea showroom complete with fold-away bed. There’s a spider crouching above me, shrewdly out of reach of the hoover. According to Google, it’s one of Australia’s more benign beasts. If it came to a fight, this bad boy would leave me with a headache and nausea. Basically tame, then.

A week and a half since arriving, I have been very busy and done very little. Much of my time has been spent shopping – I’m not sure what I packed into my enormous suitcase, but there are plenty of things I didn’t.

Op shops, or second hand shops, are definitely the place to go. For the past week I’ve been trawling them with the other internationals: Germans, Americans, and me as the solitary Brit. Our local area has a few bargains, including the ever wonderful Salvo’s. Chapel Street, Windsor and Sydney Road, Brunswick have more on offer, including Savers: a massive op shop about the size of your average supermarket. Now equipped with pots, pans, purse, heels, and other (un)necessary finds, I’m set, whether my plan is to cook dinner or go on a night out – and my pact against first-hand fast fashion, and, for the most part, first hand shopping full stop, remains intact.

Today we headed to the Finders Keepers Market in Carlton Gardens, a massive independent designer market where Etsy store owners leave the virtual world and get behind tills. I stocked up on tea (I’ve decided to accept that tea is pretty expensive here) and, though I didn’t buy, was sorely tempted by Able and Game's card selection. I think I’ll have to buy a couple online – their metro puns are right up my street. That train of thought is definitely something I can get on board with:

Buy here!

I’ve been watching a fair few movies over the past few days. Now that uni has started for most of the people in my res, nights in are beginning to be favoured over nights out, and my education in the art of cinema has so far comprised of Blackfish, The Descendants, Geordie Shore, Embarrassing Bodies, the first episode of Game of Thrones and, finally, an incredibly messed up Australian horror: The Loved Ones.

I’ll leave you with the trailer, which shows approximately 5% of the horror of the entire movie. After two hours, my disgusted expression was beginning to stick. Kidnap, murder, torture, self-harm, lobotomy, cannibalism, sexual perversion, incest – this movie’s got it all. Australian horror, much like Australian humour, takes no prisoners.

The scrapbooking has begun. This blog is now officially illustrated.

I’m in Melbourne. It’s the end of Day 4 of approximately 150. Things are pretty darn groovy.

There’s a possum called Randall in the tree outside my new home. It stared us in the face for three seconds, then scurried away out of sight. Floor 3, where I live, is silent during the day: doors closed and kitchens empty, it’s a little like The Shining but with better décor. If that’s unfair, I hasten to add that I really like this hall and have never actually seen The Shining. (I have, however, seen 30 Seconds to Mars’ video for their song The Kill, which, though debatably not quite as classic, runs along the same vein.) I have yet to discover who lives in room 237 of these cold and silent corridors.

The action begins in the evening. Most native Australian animals are nocturnal, and the same can be said for the students, much like at home. It’s Orientation Week. The first night was Christmas dinner - I’m not sure why, but the Australians of my hall have now experienced, as I do each year, Christmas in winter. Throughout the week are a variety of parties, including tonight's Mystery Bus which careered towards Richmond while we danced precariously within. After each event, people flood to the Games Room for truth or dare Jenga, 90s movies, and goon: a very good word for very bad wine, housed inside a pillow-sized metallic bag which ripples invitingly like a waterbed. I earned cool points on my first night for downing a jar of pasta sauce, and lost absolutely none, unlike sometimes in the UK, for not getting drunk.

There is a sign in the corridor warning us to watch our feet in case of snakes. It’s late at night and the frogs (I think) are croaking. Jetlag has not struck. It seems to have passed me by.

Because the news has a horrible habit of being awful,  particularly recently, I've decided this blog needs to post some good news. No news is good news, but news can be good news too – just call me Russell Howard. So, if anyone else read the papers on the 15^th, you’ll have read that they’ve made new waves towards establishing just what is the new black. And the answer: black is the new black. Vantablack nanofabric is the blackest material yet. It lets in only 0.035% of light – a 0.005% improvement on previous records. If you wore clothes made of this material, you would look like a floating 3D head and limbs with a two-dimensional body. Who wants one? I want one. Sadly, only astronauts and soldiers will get some, but maybe one day I can buy an invisibility cloak?

• Aussies joke about things Brits gasp at. I'm too British to give examples, I'm afraid. The humour's dark here.
• There are these sweets called Red Frogs which get handed out at all on-campus parties. They’re my new favourite thing. The UK should have Red Frogs.
• You don't chug or down your drink here. You skull it. Allegedly the word "grog" is also actually used here, though I haven't heard anyone say it. I live in hope. I approve wholeheartedly of all these piratical undertones.

It's late. Fare thee well, chumsters.