Weddings, Singers

Ten years ago, some key words were added to the Marriage Act. Marriage was formally and legally defined as a `voluntarily entered-into union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others'.

This weekend I attended a rally organised by Equal Love to commemorate this law and call for change. Standing in the crowd on the steps of the State Library, I listened to several speakers, including Tony Briffa, the world’s first openly intersex mayor. Briffa made sure to point out an often-forgotten yet hugely limiting aspect of marriage inequality: as an intersex person who identifies as both male and female, they cannot legally marry without defining themselves as either a woman or a man – they cannot marry without lying. The term ‘same-sex marriage’ does not cover the problems faced by intersex people, nor trans people, who, when marriage is not equal, must annul their marriage for their gender identity (NOT necessarily sex) to be fully recognised in law. Equal marriage is not as simple as 'same-sex marriage'. And while we’re at it, the idea of sex as a simple binary doesn't take into account all the variables: sex can be defined through chromosomes, hormones, and both external and internal genitals.

After a performance by Monique Brumby (video below), we marched to Parliament, signs aloft: the serious (‘Marriage Equality is a Priority’) and the scandalous (‘I love vagina, but Tony’s too much of a c*nt even for me.’) When we reached Parliament, a collective illegal marriage ceremony was conducted on the grass, each set of vows the couple’s own. “Say what you want,” the conductor said ruefully. “It’s not legal anyway.”

Despite the absurdity of having to protest this injustice, the rally had a sense of optimism, I felt. With 72% of Australians in favour of equal marriage, and plans for two bills on their way, Australia seems to be reaching a turning point. I can only hope change happens swiftly. Equal marriage is just one rung on the ladder to dismantling our societies’ shared homophobia and heteronormativity. Both Australia and Scotland are climbing – slowly.

Disclaimer: word count approximate.

Ever since deciding to study at St Andrews, home of The Other Guys, I’ve wanted to do a capella – but, for some reason, it’s never made it to my weekly schedule. Until now. I can now call myself a member of Ring of Choir.

Ring of Choir were going to be called Student Union Voices, but it sounded too much like the socialist political campaigners who stand outside the library. The campaigners are just as loud as us, but have a slightly different focus.

Sunday was the University of Melbourne Open Day, and we spent our morning flashmobbing campus, lining the echoing stone pillars of the Old Quad and greeting prospective students with Vance Joy’s Riptide. If you don’t know it, here it is. Obviously our version is far superior, but it’s the kind of spiritual experience a video wouldn’t do justice to, even if I had a recording.

Here, neds are called bogans.

Barbecues are shockingly common. To the point where it’s not a special enough occasion to buy hot dog or burger rolls. A burger, two slices of white bread, and Bob’s your uncle.

Tim Tams are Australia’s answer to Penguins. I’m not being snooty, they actually are.

CBD, MCG, ETC.

I worked far too hard this week. Tutorials freak me out: eighty pages of reading, eighteen classmates, and the presence of an eminent professor combine into enough pressure to make me miss high school. Fortunately, I completely overestimated the intensity of these classes, and next week will be a much more relaxed affair. But, by Thursday, I was extremely ready for the weekend.

Thursday took me to two Central Business District clubs: Utopia and New Guernica, resulting in some mostly flattering photos. Thursday was also the day of a major tagging-and-bagging purge in which I gained six points and lost them all in the space of two hours.

Saturday took seven of us to St Kilda for a picnic of Mexican soup and flatbread and a walk down a teetering driftwood pier. Next was Aussie Rules Hawthorn vs Melbourne, a game Harry described fairly accurately as “rugby crossed with football crossed with quiddich”. We newbies picked our team on the day, but our #alwayshawthorn Instagram looked genuine enough to feature us on the big screen at quarter time.

That night was another CBD night out: Wah Wah’s is small, sweaty, and smoky, serves vodka slushies, and is my favourite place so far. The night ended with sushi in China Town and singing Wonderwall with four drunk Uni Lads from the colleges, who topped up our water with goon from their goon sack* and pretended to be Irish, fooling nobody.

Sunday was spent at Melbourne Museum, taking in the Aboriginal exhibition, dinosaur skeletons, and some cool rocks. We then went to Lentils for dinner, a restaurant deserving of its own blog post. Lentils is a thirty minute full moon walk away through the park along the Yarra. I can now attest that werewolves are not native to Australia.

*Disclaimer: No Mum, no Dad, I did not drink this strange drink from these strange men.

*Disclaimer #2: footnotes not included in word count.

“I really like that white thing you have on your front…” “Thanks! You mean my dress?”

“Wait, I thought Schlampe was the German for ‘see you later’…”

“Plagiarism? I go by traditional Spartan laws. Sure, you can do it. But if you’re caught you suffer the consequences.”

My scrapbooking ventures include a spot of Ovid's Actaeon, some of this week's events, and a very relatable poem about university.

There we go. That's a wrap.

Hitman, Batman, Upperclassman 

It’s the beginning of Week Two and I’m still getting lost on campus. The University of Melbourne’s base in Parkville is an urban mixture of old and new: tall buildings with glittering windows climb towards the sky, and the older buildings sit comfortably off paved paths lined with silver-barked trees. As I walk from class to class, I lift my head to the sky and feel at home in the long shadows. St Andrews is beautiful, but it is so wonderful to be somewhere tall.

Classes here are different: a combination of reaching Honours level and being somewhere new. Lectures are fast-paced and busy. My Latin class is around ten people, taught by a kind, soft-spoken man who, in addition to Horace, is guiding me through the Georgics. I had forgotten how much I love Latin, and along with this lapse, I have forgotten much Latin. In both cases, my memory is returning.

Between classes, I head to the library and do my reading to the soundtrack of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Lunchtime is often spent with my friends from res, whom I now know sufficiently well for small talk and pleasantries to be replaced by sarcasm, gossip, puns, and other low forms of conversation. Today, however, I discovered the joy of a capella, rediscovered the joy of Imagine Dragons, and took part in a flashmob in the Union dining area.

I watched Wolf Creek.

Don’t watch Wolf Creek.

Definitely don't watch Wolf Creek if you're going hiking two days later.

Around forty residents, myself included, are currently living out our own personal horror stories: the brutal, Hunger Games-esque Tag ‘Em and Bag ‘Em which has swept like a disease through the hallways, sentencing the fearful to their rooms and the foolish to their demise. Each person is assigned someone to track and tag; once tagged, you are out, and the tagger goes after whomever you were tracking. The game lasts two weeks. There is only one survivor. The centre of the mayhem, Suzanne Collins’ cornucopia, is the Games Room, where the most residents can usually be found. I can neither confirm nor deny my own plans to venture into that cannibal’s den. 

 Fact: Melbourne was nearly called Batmania. In 1835, John Batman bought 500,000 acres from Wurundjeri elders – the only time on record, alleges Wikipedia, that European colonisers actually bothered to negotiate land occupation with locals first. However, due to language barriers and Batman’s concept of land ownership being entirely European, the treaty was far from cross-cultural, or, one might say, actually a major scam. The official British objection to the treaty, from Governor Bourke, was that the Treaty had 'no effect against the rights of the Crown': rather than criticising the treaty's glaring flaws, Bourke placed the rights of the empire above the rights of the indigenous population, but is anyone really surprised? Anyway, I digress. Batman called Melbourne Batmania. But not many other people did. Sadly.

That's it for now. Back to the books - tutorials start tomorrow...