My brown identity is either on exhibit, a tool to exoticize my conceptual framework, or something pushed to the back of storage for when it isn’t required to be gazed upon.
Browsing: Perspective
Being a JD student can be a particularly sobering experience — being in a tight-knit cohort again feels eerily reminiscent of high school. The other day, a friend of mine mouthed to himself at a quiet moment in the Law Annex corridor “I had a job… Why am I back here?”
There is a complete lack of focus on fundamental necessities for the students living at Regiment.
Often the statement, “no, my parents didn’t go to uni” is met with an uncomfortable glance, as if one has just bared their soul, or at the very least, their income bracket. Aside from social stigma, structural prejudice means that adjusting to university administration and bureaucracy proves an additional challenge.
An active participation from domestic students is also needed, for the notion of choosing familiarity does not apply to international students only.
I recognise that being so far detached from the threat of real violence and cultural erasure, I have the privilege to pick up and leave off my national pride whenever I choose. At the same time, I recognise that so many others in our current world cannot.
The logic follows that at a certain age one is old enough to support themselves and should be left to their own devices – both financially and in terms of employment/academic decisions.
While I sympathise with SST’s anti-development line, I cannot believe that the solution to conserving Sydney’s trees can be achieved by a simple change of government. What is required is a celebration of trees for their intrinsic value, their character, their sense of place. It is in these famous trees that we find places. There is nothing delicate in a belief like that.
“Now I would describe it as a state of regression, back into the child self. That same inner child we all are so desperate to get back once we reach adulthood.”
The post generated a flurry of responses. While specific experiences varied, the overall picture was of poor or no reception across mobile networks in the surrounding area, whether living on the Petersham-Stanmore border, or travelling between Petersham and Newtown, or some other variation – the most extreme was travelling all the way from Strathfield to Redfern.