Monday 30 April 2012

Pen and Paper Preferred

I guess I’m a little old school in regards to writing. I hate to draft anything using a computer. I think a pen and paper let me keep a certain degree of personality in my writing by allowing me to structure it exactly as I please, without margins, double-spacing, and colourful lines under certain words just to prove my incompetence when it comes to spelling. I also can’t go past the satisfaction of obliterating, through paper-shredding scribble, that sentence which I decided wasn’t going to gel with the rest of my essay.



I certainly have a passion for writing, not to be confused with writing flair. I make no claims to be a brilliant writer, I’m mediocre at best, but I have found immense value in the sense of escapism that comes with constructing a piece of text on a subject I’m passionate about. I have certainly found this feeling of passion with the recent completion of my first essay in almost six years! It was on the subject of aged care for gay man and lesbians. A subject I am particularly interested in, having worked and volunteered in ageing and disability support services. I found particular satisfaction in criticising an area that I work in which is only now beginning to recognise the specific needs of a minority so often overlooked. I was so incredibly unaware that the services I may need to utilise one day are almost non-existent. Now I am not trying to illuminate this issue just because I’ve been given the platform to do so, I am simply trying to illustrate the ease with which I have been able to fully immerse myself in this particular writing assignment thanks almost solely to the assistance provided by the Pinnacle Foundation. I am not under any stresses to find funding or support for my university life. My writing process was completely absent of any distractions and I was able to put all of myself into the task at hand.

Although I have had a constant stream of assignments since beginning my studies, I am relatively relaxed in my approach to them and I have Pinnacle to thank. 

By Steven Walker

Friday 27 April 2012

Expectations can be a dangerous thing

For my first blog post, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Nathan Li. I’m 6’0” and 154 lbs. I’m a 21 years old undergraduate Arts/Law student at Sydney University. Oh and I’m gay.

But you expected that right?



Expectations. We all know what that word means. Semantically at least. At Christmas we expect presents. When our pet goldfish dies we’re expected to be sad. When a lady is pregnant, she is said to be expecting. Expectations mean that something is supposed to be.

But expectations mean something quite different in the context of a person’s identity. Expectations may start to become a form of prejudice, especially in the form of “oh but you’re supposed to…” conform to some expectation of theirs.

Luckily (perhaps), I escape with little more than accusations about a gay man’s sexual promiscuity. I now take in good humour when a straight guy assumes that I “I want a piece of [him]”. He’s not homophobic! (says he). After all, he shows his tolerance by allowing me to “look, but don’t touch”. How awfully generous. But there are those in our LGBT community who are confronted with much more offensive expectations about their sexual or gender identities.

And these expectations confront LGBT youth from a very early age. As a child we’re expected to be a good boy or a good girl. Maybe we’re expected to play sport (I was expected to learn maths and play the piano, neither of which I accomplished). Later we are told we’re expected to bring home a nice person of the opposite sex for our parents’ approval before we marry him or her so that we can bear grandchildren for our ageing mother. And we risk disappointing those expectations. Well, I’ve disappointed my mother on three accounts already. I only hope that she’ll realise I won’t necessarily disappoint her on the fourth!

So I might have been blessed with some miraculous confidence in my identity (or more likely, some extraordinary rebelliousness!) to resist being moulded into a Stepford son. The unfortunate truth is that not every young LGBT person can claim to be so lucky. I don’t pretend to have extensive knowledge in psychology but one only needs to possess common experience to know that these expectations can confine and inhibit the development of a person’s identity.

But why do I make such a big deal about expectations?

The foremost reason is because I believe the world would be a better place if we started expecting the best in everybody instead of expecting others to conform to what we think should be.

The second reason is because I reckon we’re a diverse bunch (the Pinnacle scholars and the rest of the LGBT community). So I’m looking forward to learning from my fellow scholars and finding out from them new ways of seeing the world. Expect from us the unexpected!

Anyway I’ve taken enough of your time. I’ll sign off now and leave you to have a wonderful weekend.

Wednesday 25 April 2012

How Pinnacle helped me build my library

I had to leave home for uni, because my family home was in Kalgoorlie, more than 600km from Curtin University, in Perth. Having wanted to be a librarian since a small child, where I studied was non-negotiable, so I was always expecting to need to leave home. However, as I spent my gap year using up my savings in Europe as a Rotary Exchange Student, I had nothing left when I eventually moved to the big bad city, to start my new life. My parents have always been low income earners, and could barely support me. It was because of this I started applying for every scholarship I could lay my eyes on.

Among them was the Pinnacle Foundation. I applied for enough funds for a new computer, textbooks, and software. I cannot say how relieved I was. I knew this scholarship was going to help me get through uni, I didn’t realise it was going to change my life.

The first thing that happened was my new laptop. The computer I had purchased back in high school was on its last legs, and was only just chugging along. So when Pinnacle helped replace it, I was able to give my old one to my younger sister, who was a Year 12 TEE student, and still sharing a PC with two other students. It wasn’t a great machine, but it was still a computer she could call her own. Also, I could now run library-specific software on my new laptop that I couldn’t before.

My mentor is an amazing woman called Robyn. Unlike most Pinnacle Mentors, Robyn is not from the same profession as me (I suppose they didn’t have any librarians listed as Pinnacle Mentors back then…), but despite that, she has been an amazing life coach, mentor, sounding board, and friend. I really cherish everything she has done from me. Around once a month, she picks me up, and we go for a coffee or a meal somewhere, and just talk. Everything from queer politics, to my uni course, to my love life. I also have learnt a lot about queer history from her. This year, she took me to the International Women’s Day Breakfast. Also, when I thought I had to move house, she offered to help me look. When I bought a new bookcase, she drove out with me to pick it up, so I could save money on delivery. And anyway she can see an opportunity to help me, she does. It has been amazing, and I hope to continue our friendship long after our formal Pinnacle Mentorship relationship has ended,

Pinnacle are also helping me attend a number of conferences, relevant to my profession and interest. Last year, they paid for my rego for the 5th New Librarians Symposium, held in Perth. Next month, I am going to Adelaide for the Children’s Book Council Biannual. And, should my paper get accepted, The Pinnacle Foundation have agreed to help me partially fund a trip to Amsterdam in August, for the International Conference on the Future of LGBTI Histories, in Archives, Libraries, Museums and Special Collections!

We are expected to be pro-active in supporting the Foundation though. Last year, I attended the annual Queer Collaborations conference for Australian students, which Curtin hosted. There, another Pinnacle scholar, Veronica, did a presentation on the Foundation, and handed out info of applying for scholarships, with myself and Iz supporting her. We were actively advertising Pinnacle throughout the conference. More than one person at that workshop is now a Pinnacle Scholar.

Above all, it has changed my life. I can never thank enough the donors, and the volunteers, for everything they have done for me, and for making the Pinnacle Foundation what it is. 

By Suzie Day - you can follow Suzie's own blog at www.cataloguethis.com/

 

Monday 23 April 2012

Photos in My Window

My name is Ashleigh and this is a photo of my bedroom window.

One day I will become a radiographer, and then maybe another day I will become qualified in MRI or CT imaging. My partner is not the biggest fan of using the windows to display pictures of bones of people she doesn’t know, but for the most part she puts up with them because they remind me that the light at the end of the tunnel is a degree, a job and being able to do something I love every day. 

I took these radiographs during my very first clinical placement in 2010.  My favourite is the smaller one on the left window, an AP PEG open-mouth image. At the time, these images were a source of pride, a reminder that I could do just as well as anyone else who was doing the same course as me. A reminder that I had achieved just as much, if not more then those students who had a comfy bed to sleep in, financial and emotional support and enough food during these five weeks of unpaid placement. I slept on the floor of a friends place for the 5 weeks and ate rice for every meal, but I did well enough in my placement for me to feel proud of myself.

At the end of 2011, Pinnacle came into my life when I was working 6 days a week, although often for 14 days or more in a row. It took me a year to recover financially from the placement, and Pinnacle entered my life at a time when I was about to give up on my education, and focus on just being able to afford the rent and food in the same week.

I was teetering on the edge of living my greatest fear -  that I will just ‘get by’ in life. That I will end up ‘just’ waitressing everyday for the rest of my life, ‘just’ making rent, ‘just’ making it. That I will plod through life, doing something that disintegrates my enthusiasm, kills my brain cells, and refuses to allow me the opportunity to hope and dream of bigger and better things.

Pinnacle has seemingly scooped me up from the floor, dusted me off, handed me some hope and given me a gentle shove back in the right direction. They have patched up some holes where my self-esteem obviously fell out, and are doing their damnedest to make sure that my potential stays firmly in my pocket, and doesn’t self-destruct in a moment of panic. Pinnacle has given me gifts that most students take for granted; encouragement, support, confidence, hope, financial stability and the ability to believe in myself.

By Ashleigh Scriven