Sarah+Leong

Creative piece on Eating Disorders. She showed up out of the blue on one of the hottest days last summer. What struck us first was how physically different she was. Her arms filled up the sleeves of her school shirt and her chest protruded straining the buttons. Her crimson cheeks unlike the rest of ours were convex. And so we watched as the new girl walked down the stuffy halls, her thighs brushing against each other with every step she took. Jaws dropped to the ground and eyes scanned her once, twice, three times over before swiveling round to their neighbor who had the very same response. Everyone did. We all wondered what was wrong with her. She was the talk of the school, the fat one. There was nothing particularly bad about her appearance, just different. The rest of us were pale skinned porcelain figurines. Our school shirt crossed over the high bridge of our collar bones and skimmed the lightly across our flat fronts. Our skirts hung loosely off our prominent hipbones and our socks sagged at the ankles. Only our knees clicked together as we glided gracefully around the school grounds. Later we found out her name was Tracy. She came from three towns west. We heard of that community before but we knew little of their ways. She was to be my buddy and I had the duty of showing her around the school and helping her out during her first few weeks here. I readily admit that at first I was unwilling to be seen with her. Hanging out with a freak made you a freak right? So I complained and bitched to anyone who would listen so that they knew that I was not accompanying this strange specimen of a girl at my own will. However, I did feel sorry for her and she knew nothing about my reluctance. So this was the beginning of our friendship. She stared at me at lunchtime as I picked at my meal of celery sticks and her brows knitted when I pulled out my ECC, her eyes clouded with confusion. “What is that…thing?” came her timid question after several minutes of embarrassed side glances. “My ECC,” I answered. How could she not know? Everyone had one. She looked confused so I explained further. “It stands for electronic calorie counter. After we eat, we record our calorie intake and it tells us how much exercise we would need to do to burn it off. “Oh. I’ve never seen one before.” She said staring blankly at the screen, numbers reflected on her bright eyes. I guess we’ll have to get you one then.” Was my simple answer. What else do you say to a person like that? Then I tried not to look too interested as she downed her lunch of spaghetti and apple juice. But that was all in vain as I ended up staring like she had before. Wow, that girl was odd. Her lunch alone added up to about 300 calories. What kind of tormented mind would resort to that kind of habit? Maybe she was going to throw up after she finished like the rest of us. So I asked her. “Ready for the purge station yet?” “THE WHAT?” She asked. Her eyebrows went up by like an inch. “Follow me.” Her case was worse than I thought. As the weeks passed I learnt a bit more about her. Her actions at first seemed extreme and her habits shocking but I finally concluded it was not her fault. She had to have some kind of eating disorder. Maybe she was uncomfortable with her body. But then again, you can never be too skinny or too thin. I watched her state deteriorate. One day she even brought a cake for lunch. She struggled through our P.E lessons. She panicked at the mention of 700 crunches and she still huffed and puffed her way through 400. She didn’t even get to 200. She always ate at every meal and never once visited our purge stations where we queued up after lunch to empty our stomachs. However, I found that though odd, Tracy was a nice girl and that there was much more to her than her strange eating habits. She told me stories of her hometown, her dog named buttons and her family. After a while, I became attached to her like one would a friend. I worried for her expanding frame and finally worked up the courage to confront her about it. After all, that’s what good friends do right? “Tracy, I’ve been thinking about it for a while. You should really get help.” “Help for what?” “Your… you know, problem. With your eating,” “What’s wrong with my eating?” “You eat too much. Sometimes more than 1000 calories a day.” “Well, you eat too little. Sometimes not at all.” She says taking me back a little. “But I’m the normal one. Everyone here eats like I do. You clearly have warped ideas.” “Why don’t you guys eat anyway?” “Well…because we can’t.” “Can’t what?” “Can’t get fat of course!” “What would happen if you get fat?” “Cardio vascular disease, obesity, gout, diabetes, cancer. Plus, everybody knows that tiny is ideal.” “Do you know what happens if you get too skinny?” “You can never be too skinny or too thin.” I say. “Well, if you get too skinny, you get heart failure, liver failure, kidney failure, cancer and malnutrition.” She continues to say ignoring me. “Well…you get diseases too. Besides, we look better.” “Where I come from. You would be crazy and locked away.” “Maybe you should be locked away.” I say getting irritated. This town was all I knew. I thought that those diseases she mentioned came with old age and stuff. I bet she thought that the diseases you could get from overeating were natural in her town and stuff. What I didn’t get was which way was the right way. To me, her way of eating would be considered disordered, a disease and to her, my way of eating was disordered. So what now? They both have their benefits and down sides. “Tracy, can I have a bit of your sandwich?” I asked slowly and quietly. “Sure. I’ll come with you to the purge station after.” She replied. A smile crept across her face and I could feel my lips stretching too.

Macbeth The Speech I chose to do was from Act1 Scene7 lines 35-44, 48-59.

Was the hope drunk Wherein you dressed yourself? Hath it slept since? And wakes it now to look so green and pale At what it did so freely? From this time, Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard To be the same in thine own act and valour, As though art in desire? Wouldst thou have that Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life And live a coward in thine own esteem, Letting I dare not wait upon I would, Like the poor cat I'th'adage? What beast was't then That made yu break this enterprise to me? When you durst do it, then you were a man And to be more than what you were, you would Be so much more the man. Nor time, nor place Did then adhere, and yet you would make both. They have made themselves and that their fitness now Does unmake you. I have given suck and know How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me: I would, while it was smiling in my face, Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn As you have done to this.

I chose this speech as I see it as the scene/ conversation that seals Macbeth and his household's fate.This speech from Lady Macbeth is what convinces her husband to commit his first murder which then led to many other murders. Lady Macbeth's intentions in this scene is to manipulate and taunt her husband into doing what she says as she believes that it will benefit them both. Her character at this point of the play is very evil, selfish and ruthless. The scenes that have lead to this moment are Macbeth hearing of the prophecies, Macbeth becoming thane of Cawdor, them conspiring, Duncan arriving and Macbeth changing his mind about carrying forth their plan. The consequences of this scene are Macbeth killing Duncan and lying about it, killing the guards to cover up his murder and him killing to satisfy his ambitons which leads to the death of Lady Macbeth, Macbeth himself and the fall of Dunsinane.

Creative writing

If everyone has skeletons in their closet, my walk in is a mass grave dating back to the holocaust 1. Ms. Angela Grace Jeremiah-Gardner I know that she knows. I know she’s coming back. She’s still trying to get me. But I’ve changed now, and everything’s different. But she wants to ruin everything I’ve worked for, this life. God knows what would happen if //they// knew. She could come in any form, an email, letter, a ‘friend’. Even a simple phone call scares the living daylights out of me nowadays. The old me is my nemesis. It’s funny how the one person who can bring me down is my past. She’s like an angry spirit coming back to avenge her death. She can’t. I’ll smother her under the sheets, grind her like a burnt out fag under the heel my 6 inch louboutins, have her locked in my basement, paint her into the scenery of my beautiful and perfect life. Unfortunately, she’s got the upper hand. She holds the broken whisky bottle at my neck. One slip and I’m dead meat. Dead fucking meat. 2. NYC: The rotting apple with a million hell holes Turning the street corner with a cappuccino in one hand and a pile of magazines in the other, balanced precariously on stilt like footwear, is part of my morning routine. And treading these damned cobbled streets is what I consider physical exercise. It’s pretty friggin hot today and there’s no way I’m going to make it to Montague St. So I hail a cab, the subway would smell shit anyway. My eyes immediately dart to the name card sitting on the dashboard then to the reflection in the rear view mirror. Nothing familiar, coast clear. I flick through this weeks ‘current affairs’ which include, trends in fashion, beauty, hottest places to wine and dine, travel destinations, sales, horoscopes and the majority of pages which disclosed the scandals and fiascos of our society’s elite (and fallen.) God bless the names and faces printed on this glossy paper. How can one picture, one quote, one rumor change life as you know it? This society is brutal as. It judges you, wears you down, drives you to do whatever it takes to stay on top, stay alive. To those who are lucky, you’re born into it and your whole life is a god fucking damn movie. For people like me, we come from another world but we choose to assimilate into this messed up culture. Why? Because it’s so fucking beautiful, and so beautifully perfect. It’s seductive and tempting. But us immigrants need to hide all the crazy shit we left behind. Without faking perfect, how can we keep up with those who //are// perfect? At least by monitoring what goes in and out of the public’s eye I can keep myself from falling prey, so I guess my job does have more meaning than fancy parties, clothes, friends and pay checks. I stuff the glossy trash into my fashionably oversized tote bag and take a big gulp out of my Styrofoam mug. If we ran out of coffee, the whole of Manhattan would crash and burn. It might even be an apocalypse. I jot this idea down as an option for next month’s lifestyle article. The cab speeds across the bridge and into the heart of this melee.

3. The job

“And so I told her that there were more zeros in my bank account than Mike Derino will ever have. And besides, that guys too smooth. Way too smooth if you know what I mean.” Jason Williams the forty something going on twenty George Clooney look alike from accounting amused us as we waited for the elevator. “Well, what would you know. Maybe when you’re dying in bed with heart palpitations with a catheter strapped on he will match your elaborate fortune and macho ego AND he would not have grey hair or need a bed pan,” Scoffs my boss Carter Delangey. “Oh Mr. Delangey, ever the cynic. You would give Simon Cowell a run for his money,” I chime in. I couldn’t help notice the adorable twitch of his lip as he sneered and the warmth of his crude laugh. His charisma was rare for a guy in his position. Nearly as rare as how he was the only non-homosexual, non-pedophiliac males in the fashion industry. And he was well off and good looking and single. “Don’t you compare me to that jackass Ms. Jeremiah. After all, he is from the //orange county//. And we all know the ‘orange’ relates more to the fake tan on their skin than anything else.” He rebutted playfully. Besides the fact that we flirt too much and he’s sometimes a little too friendly to be my boss, we’re strictly professional. I laugh at his quip. Everyone knows that Simon Cowell is English, dumbass. “Anyways Angie, where are you headed this fine afternoon. A lunch break is long enough time to have some fun, and besides if we run overtime, just say you were with the boss.” Carter suggests. Oh great, he’s asking me to lunch. Anyways, I don’t date. The closer you get to someone, the more you draw them into your life, the closer they are to finding out about you…and your past. “Sorry Carter darling, I’ve got an engagement. Lunch with the girls. It’s a priority.” There. Quick, flirty and spot on. Doesn’t lead him on longer but doesn’t break it off completely. God I wish I was lying though. Pity I wasn’t. Them bitchy socialites are so tiring. 4. When death came a-knocking She came on a Friday night. I had just got back from the launch of the Magazine’s new segment on surviving the economic downturn. It was about 15 to 2 and I was just about to go over some of the intern’s submissions. The doorbell rang and I threw on some appealing sleepwear thinking it was a certain attractive colleague of mine returning a file I dropped or something. Peering through the eyehole I had a full blown panic attack. She was there, first came her platinum blonde sex-hair, then the messily applied makeup along with the piercings. Skimpily clad, she was my worst nightmare. I could tell that she had been crying, maybe harassed in the streets. Either way she needed help. But why me? How the hell //did// she find me? Someone must have told her. Someone knew. I stood there for about an hour and a half ‘til she finally departed. But I know she heard my heavy breathing on the other side of the door. You might ask, how could I turn away an old friend? Because she is an //old// friend. She could put me and my reputation at risk. I guess I’ll just have a massive guilt trip in about 10 years. 5. Panic So there have been a few modifications to my daily routine. Ever since I realized that someone had me all figured out nothing has been the same. 4am, I get out of bed. I wouldn’t say I that I ‘wake up’ as that would be implying that I got to sleep anyway. I’ve bought a nespresso machine the one that’s endorsed by George Clooney. I swear the guy in Starbucks suspects something. At 5am I walk to the station, the streets are as empty as they get then. It takes longer now though, I take the alleys and avoid the main streets. The fruit grocer on Clark St gives me the creeps. I stumble over a bit of broken pavement and spill my Macchiato all down the front of my dress. Fucking hell. I look like a mess nowadays anyway. Haven’t slept a wink in three days and gained about 2 1/1 pounds due to insomnia induced midnight fridge raids. I could probably be diagnosed with binge eating disorder for all I knew. I stopped at the end of the block and waited as an old lady watered her plants. I couldn’t be seen by anyone here. I checked the time on my phone (I threw my blackberry out the window. Those things can be tracked.), 50 new messages and 22 missed calls. I’ve been socially M.I.A for about a week. I go to work and come straight home. The state of paranoia is when you stop living and just start existing. Everything around you is a threat. So you’re afraid that some randoms going to jump out at you and kill you, or in my case blow my cover and ruin my life. Fact remains; I’m ruining my own life. Paranoia, it’s like a brain parasite. It’s killing me. 6. The fall of Ms. Jeremiah “Angie? Angie!” A loud voice projects from my office door as I sit in front of my desktop stoning. The curtains are drawn and the room is dark. “Uh huh, sure. I mean what?” I say. Shit. I must look freaking insane right now. Though I must confess, I am currently rather disoriented and shaken. “It’s me, Carl. Remember? Your boss?” The voice carries on. “Oh yes, hi Carl. Haven’t seen you in a while.” I’m jolted back to reality. God, I’m so awkward. “Turn on the lights Angela; it looks really goddamn cryptic in there.” He reaches for the light switch and I panic. “Wait! Sorry, I’m leaving now. Got to go, dinner with the….parents. Yea, they’re in town. See you later darling Carl. I like your shirt.” I stammer through my words quickly. Grab my coat and exit.

7. Emancipation It’s getting dark outside. I speed walk, arms folded, head down. Dressed head to toe in black, a full on ninja ensemble. The something’s different today. I feel sort of light headed. Then suddenly I realize that I’m sitting on the ground in an alleyway clawing at my legs. The seams of my trousers were ripped apart (I assume by my teeth as my jaw kind of throbbed) exposing my naked skin with crimson scratches like trenches in the snow. There were bits of my chipped off manicure lodged in the wounds and I could feel the bits of flesh under my nails. Then I saw them. There were colonies of parasites crawling up my legs. No wonder they were so freaking itchy. They were white and translucent and grew larger and larger as they gorged on the blood that I drew from myself. Then she appeared. Dressed in all white, hair still tousled, makeup still smudged. But there was some sort of translucency to her too. She’s dead. She died because I didn’t let her in. Now she’s back to kill me. I get up and run, I’m barefoot and I can’t find my purse. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. I run across the road, dodging traffic as car brake screeched and motorists yelled profanities at my back. I took the stairs down to the subway. Jumped over the barrier and headed straight for the platform. Runrunrun. I fall hard on my palms and knees. No use, she’s waiting there. Waiting for me, waiting to punish me. The ground trembles, and lights flash. There’s only one way out of this situation. I just need to beat her to it. Gathering my last bit of energy, I throw myself into the dark. Into the dark forever.

Migrant Australia-The White Australia Policy, Racism and the difficultites migrants faced while trying to be accepted.

Poems


 * A White Australia by David Keig
 * __Australia by Ania Walwicz 1981__

The Poem ‘Australia’ by Ania Walwicz is a prose poem written about the Author’s feelings towards Australia shortly after migrating there from Poland. Written in 1981, it shows Australian society and Australia as a country from a migrant’s point of view. The purpose of the poem is to show an alternative perspective on Australia that it really is not the dream country that people usually see it as. Instead, the poet sheds a negative light on the wider Australian community, their lifestyle, values and the environment. The text is aimed at local Australians making them aware of their faults, people planning to migrate to Australia warning them, or fellow migrants who already live in Australia who might be able to relate to and share the same experiences as her. The main point in this poem is that Australia is not a good place to live because of the narrow minded people and barren land. This relates to the migrant aspect of Australian culture as people migrating to Australia are usually those who are looking for a better life overseas. They have been told by others about how great Australia is and all the opportunities there. The Author after migrating to Australia and experiencing the horrors first hand could have written this text as a warning to tell people considering the plight, what they are getting themselves into. However, if a local Australian read this poem, they would most likely resist this dominant reading and feel that they are being pigeonholed as a group of people and not judged as individuals and therefore refuse to see Walwicz’s point of view. This poem might even cause them to retaliate and have a stronger sense of patriotism as they may feel inclined to stand up for their country and its image. In this text, many generalizations and stereotypes are made of Australians and their lifestyle. Examples of such include, lazy people, going to bed really early or drinking all night, beach bums with freckles, racists, two faced individuals and land that is either roads, desert or beach. Though many people young and old have been criticized in this poem, minorities such as Aborigines have been silenced. This may be because in the migrant communities of Australia, Indigenous Australians are rarely seen and the two groups of people do not usually mix. A lot of the meaning in the text is given by the literary techniques used by the Author. Though the language is seemingly simple, small devices such as Alliteration and Repetition are used to enhance the point of view. Alliteration is used to draw attention to the descriptions and more subtle details that Walwicz gives regarding Australian culture: ‘You scorched suntanned.’ This technique helps the Author express her feelings and gives us an idea of the amount of passion she has regarding the topic. Repetition gives us a similar effect but also gives us an insight to the writer’s character and background: ‘You desert with your nothing nothing nothing.’ The repetition used in this sentence highlights her point but also gives an impression of broken English and tells us that she is foreign and English isn’t her first language. Both Alliteration and Repetition have the power to evoke a bias in the reader and make them agree with the Author’s ideas of Australian Culture. Stronger literary techniques like Juxtaposition and personification are used in this poem to add depth and make it more imaginative. Juxtaposition in this piece of writing is used by putting two contrasting ideas together: ‘Poor with all your money.’ This tells us that even though Australia is rich as it has a lot of money, it is lacking in other things such as life and culture that makes it poor. This makes the poem interesting and makes the reader think more about what the text is really saying. Personification is used as the author addresses Australia as a person giving it human qualities: ‘You dumb dirty city with bar stools.’ By addressing Australia as a human, Ania Walwicz has opened up more possibilities and ways to describe it. This also makes the text more controversial as now she is able to criticize Australia as a country the way you would an individual. These two literary tools make the piece more intense and enable the author to express the content in a more creative way. Because of this, we are more inclined to take the authors side. The poem Australia by Ania Walwicz is not only about a migrant coming to Australia and what she experiences but it is the picking apart of Australian society, the lifestyle, social boundaries of race and gender, classic Australian stereotypes and an outsider’s view of what is wrong in our country. This text contributes negatively towards one’s view of Australian identity but this could really depend on the reader himself as their view is subjective depending on their background, values and experiences. //Image from// []

__Visual__ Might versus Right – S.T. Gill c.1862-1863

Might versus Right by S.T. Gill is a visual text representing the Lambing flat riots.The lambing flat riots took place during the time of the gold rush, where people from all over the world migrated to Australia in hope of striking gold and making a fortune. Tension started building between the white and chinese communities for the white people were afraid of being over run by the chinese. This is because the Chinese came in masses and were able to keep hold of more indigienous slaves because the treated them better. The depiction of chinese in this painting is somewhat derogatory as it represents the fact that they all look the same and are not individuals unlike the white people. We chose this piece to open our wikis as it basically sums up the process of migration to Australia-Overcoming obstacles such as racism and being looked down upon and having to team up with other people of the same race to stand up for your rights. This picture also shows the start of the white Australian movement when racial tensions reached boiling point.

__Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta__ The novel 'Looking for Alibrandi' by Melina Marchetta is a coming of age story following a young 3rd generation migrant Italian girl growing up in Sydney, Australia. This novel addresses many issues such as Illegitimacy, single parents, adultery, Celibacy, death and the contrast of how migrants of older generations, younger generations and local Australians all deal them differently. The view on the Migrant aspect of Australian cultural identity in this text is that though local Australians and Migrant Australians have different views and values, migrants and can still sucessfully integrate into society and that racism should not be the thing that holds back migrants from finding better opportunities and a better life in a new country. I think that this text is aimed at 2nd or 3rd generation immigrants who can relate to the opinions and experiences of the protagonist in this novel and to tell them that though they have to accpet their new country, they cannot abandon values and culture that belong to their parents, grandparents e.t.c. It is also targeting older generation migrants and local Australians telling them to be more tolerant of other peoples values and traditions and to tell them that they need to break down their social barriers so that Australia can be united.

The dominant reading of this text is that it is possible for Migrants to find a better life in Australia but first migrants as well as local Australians need to overcome their ignorance and be accepting of other cultures. I do not think that this text could be read resistantly as this text covers a lot of opinions and perspectives from both the migrant and local point of views. This text also does not use a lot of stereotypes as the point of the text is to break down the stereotypes and show that in the end, everybody is just a human being with the same emotions, flaws, rights and obligations.

In this text, the author uses a few literary techniques to convey her message. One of the literary techniques being repetition. Repetition in this novel is used to emphasize the way somebody feels about something : " 'Your nonno went to a pub, Jozzie, and there was a woman working in there. A woman, Jozzie.' " Repetition in that excerpt is used to show that Josie's grandmother was recounting how surprised she was to see a woman having a 'men's occupation' in Australia. This helps to show that Migrants and Australians have very different culture views and it expresses the disbelief the migrant feels when seeing how the local people live.

Another literary device used in this text is characterization. Characterization is used to convey traits, values, history, culture and personality of a character : " 'They took every Italian man. Even the boys. It was because of that bastardo Mussulini.' ' Aliens, they called us, ' Nonna Kaitia said. 'They caught Francesco in the first truckload, but it took them days to find Zio Ricardo.' 'Ah, Madonna mia,' Zia Patrizia said, waving the knife in her had around," Characterization is shown in that dialogue by the way the people speak. For example, inserting Italian phrases in to their speech shows their culture and their background and by using taglines to describe the way the person says it and their actions gives the audience and insight into their personality and traits. By using this technique, the Author convinces us to take her perspective because we are more inclined to relate to a character when we understand more about them and therefore feel a personal connection with them.

I think that this text has contributed to our understanding of the migrant aspect of Australian culture in a positive way because at the end of the novel, the protagonist conclueds: "If someone comes up and askes me what nationality I am, I'll look at them and say that I'm an Australian with Italian blood flowing rapidly through my veins. I'll say that with pride, because it's pride that I feel." In this passage the author reinforces her point that it is possible for two cultures to merge and it is possible for a person to merge into a new culture while keeping their own if they are accepting of the people around them and the people around them accept them too. This text is effective in its purpose as in the end, all the characters resolve the conflicts they face and come to a conclusion that they are better off when they tolerate one another.