Eyewitness: Sydney students are sinking in lockdown
NewsFrom an essay by Goetz Richter, Associate Professor for violin performance at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music:
… Recent pandemic fears Down Under have seen the imposition of restricted movement and gathering. While the government has not mandated closure of educational institutions and allows people to travel to their work places when work cannot be accomplished at home, the Sydney Conservatorium of Music closed its doors categorically, ostensibly for the safety and protection of “our community”- a suitably vague reason to justify doing nothing for a while.
… What are the results of the rigid closure of the Conservatorium in Sydney? Well, I do need to qualify. The building is somewhat accessible for staff to collect stuff or conduct work which cannot be done otherwise. In that, the Conservatorium is in agreement with its University where the main library can be accessed and work that cannot be done otherwise at home can be done with swipe card access to relevant spaces by students and academics. However, let’s spare a thought for the students at the Conservatorium. Many of them genuinely cannot practice at home either because their four flatmates, five brothers or six sisters are having simultaneous zoom meetings trading in bitcoin, watching soccer or talking to their PhD supervisor. In such closed environments, hospitality noise for four or five hours a day is just not tolerable. Students, particularly international or interstate students, also may not have a relevant instrument at their disposal. Whatever the issue- they remain locked out!…
Read on here.
“five brothers or six sisters”
They have such large families in your country?
They’re called ‘muslims’.
Right. Because Christians never reproduce like rabbits.
Err…religious fundamentalists have more children, many of them Christian (certainly the “devout Christians” are the fastest growing demographic from native born citizens in the US).
I think you’ll find it as a turn of Brotish and Australian humour that has more than a grain of truth for all music students, ad particularly in London woth four music colleges with not enough practising facilities, and students unable to practise in a bedsit or a fkat or at home at the best of times and strapped for cash to hire a studio at £18 per hour. The pandemic has made it worse.
Yes. All heterosexual Australians are required by law to have at least five children. Exceptions can be made with proof of infertility from a doctor.
Oh for heavens sake. The whole state is in lockdown, only essential workers are allowed out, shopping can only be done by one person per household, all educational institutions need to work via online, and you think the Con should be open!!! Im sorry – music students, like everyone else, need to stay home and deal with it as best they can.
[Im sorry – music students, like everyone else, need to stay home and deal with it as best they can.]
Yes, it’s shitty for everyone, and this is a picture of the particular way in which it’s shitty for music students. The pictures add up to one big picture of general shittiness, which it is as important now as ever to keep in view.