Assessment Three: Factual Story-Telling

Imogen Myatt

Imogen Myatt was a twin; she was beautiful, talented, hilarious and kind - glowing with youth. Her twin sister, she and I had worked together for some 3 or 4 years, previous to that, we had been a primary school trio, the three musketeers. Everyone who knew Imogen loved her; she just had that raw and honest personality that you couldn’t resist, bubbly, sarcastic and full of life. My heart lifted every time I saw our names together on the roster and too many times to remember we would just sit in the backroom at work with chocolate milk “borrowed” from the store room and talk and laugh. It was here that we decided to live together with another friend in Brisbane this year.

We were both going to UQ, I was to study Journalism and she was to study sports psychology, resonant of her pure sporting talent – I swear she had a toe in nearly every sport there was. We all went house shopping and fell in love with a house situated within the bowels of St Lucia. The rent was $190 a week, rather high, and Imogen’s family, having to put three girls through university, was on a tight budget. But she shrugged it off and said it would be fine. So instead of placing any more stress on her family’s tight financial girth, Imogen worked full days every day, burdening every shift she physically could. We secured the house, signing form upon form - laughing and joking about inviting our real estate agent to our house warming party, the smiles on our faces huge and disbelieving. We were finally going to escape Toowoomba, it would be a fresh start, a new life, independent big city girls. The moving date was set, the 21^st of January, and though the date crept ever closer, it still felt surreal. We ceremoniously quit our jobs, 4 years of making sandwiches finally coming to a close, and we began to pack. We discussed ridiculous contributions we could make to the house, which room we wanted, food budgets, how incredibly poor and happy we were going to be. Imogen had a week long science camp at Bribey Island just before we moved in and would be driving back early on the 21^st, a Saturday.

Our friend and I arrived at the house around lunch time on the Saturday. There was no power in the house as all three of us, being quite ignorant of the moving process, had not realized you had to sort the power out yourself. We found this quite funny and thought it would be fine living in darkness for a few days, a sort of induction into Brisbane life. Imogen had said she would be a little late as she still had a few things to pack and I texted her about the power situation, jokingly saying that it was a great start to the year. However she didn’t text back and we began to get a little concerned as it started to approach mid afternoon. We found her dad’s number and called, it rang out, her home phone also rang out, even her twin sister didn’t reply. We suggested possibilities, half joking, half serious – I mean, nothing bad could happen to us, this was the beginning of our lives, we were young, invincible. If dark thoughts tried to creep in we would brush them off with a laugh, bad things only happened to other people.

Evening dawned and Imogen didn’t arrive, we reassured each other that she’s probably just tired from her camp and would be here bright and early tomorrow morning. We ate cereal for dinner as it was the only thing in our cupboard that didn’t require power and laughed at how funny Imogen would find this.  At ten that night, a friend called me and between thick sobs I was told that Imogen had been in a car accident on the way back to Toowoomba that morning, that she had died on the scene and her father was on life support, that he wasn’t going to wake up. It wasn’t real, how could it be. It was merely a very bad dream. She was so young, so excited, so much to offer the world. And so we sat surrounded by darkness in the house we had all chosen together and we cried, eventually crying ourselves into silence.

Days strung together without break, we relied on routine to get us through; get up, try not to think too much, go to bed, embrace sleep. We closed the door to the room that was supposed to be hers and cringed at the thought of looking for another house mate, but we had to, we couldn't afford not to. There was no one to comfort us and Brisbane now seemed so alien, so big and cold. I was never one to cry easily but for a while even a rude customer at a supermarket could bring me to tears. We visited Imogen’s twin at the Royal Brisbane Hospital, where her father was still on life support. Upon seeing her we ran and collapsed into one another, not letting go. Sitting on the hospital floor, we talked for hours about Imogen and were finally able to laugh again as we remembered all the great times we’d had with her. I still think about Imogen everyday and I miss her terribly, she has helped me realise my own mortality and I have her to thank as I now try and live everyday too its full potential, as it could so easily be my last.

     

      

Voting With no Confidence in Egypt

http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/voting-with-no-confidence-in-egypt/201/
An interesting article from the Global Mail on the political uproar currently taking place in Egypt and the much anticipated presidential election.

1/2 : TANTAWI/MUBARAK — SAME STORY?

Graffiti in Cairo’s Tahrir Square joins the face of deposed president Hosni Mubarak with that of Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, the head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which is currently leading Egypt.

Photo by Jess Hill




“We are the minority,” muttered one activist, shaking her head.

Lecture Seven

This lecture was on Public Media or 'media whose mission is to serve or engage a public'. Coming from a family whom watched little but public media, I certainly recognise its value and purpose. Such as it's need for geographical universality, universality of appeal, special provision for minorities ect ect. I personally feel that the quality of television produced by the likes of ABC and SBS, is highly superior to that of commercial television and a whole lot more... intellectually stimulating and thought provoking. Whilst commercial media seems rather shallow and superficial in comparison.

‘The difference between 
commercial broadcasting and 
public broadcasting is the 
difference between consumers
and citizens’ 
– Nigel Milan (former Managing Director of SBS)


I like this quote as it epitomises the embedded ethics of public media, that it is made for and owned by us, the citizens, and that television is not just the space between adverts but a powerful medium able to influence, inform and entertain. I very much hope that the challenges faced by public media, such as funding and independence, don't hinder this moral.

Lecture Six

This weeks lecture surrounded the topic of Commercial Media, why it exists, what is its role in democratic society, whom are the commercial media giants and what do they produce. I personally don't really watch/read/listen to a lot of commercial media as I find it quite sensationalised and, frankly, a little bit desperate. Flicking through the channels yesterday Current Affair flashed up, warning me about the danger of false expiry dates on food. The preview was equipped with dark threatening music more suited to a JAWS film and I admired the hosts for being able to hold such a solemn, concerned demeanour despite the utter ridiculousness of their report content. This is more a comment on News Values, however this seems to be an ever present issue within Commercial Media. And what's worse, as elaborated on in the reading this week, people are more likely to engage in tabloid type reports - for example the recent Shock and Awe news spectacle: "My Son was Stuck in a Vending Machine" as opposed to important news of the world, news that actually may affect them. After checking out The Global Mail though, I do still hold a small remnant of hope for commercial media, as it seems quite legitimate, with respectable journos and relevant content.