20
Switch written by young people for young people
ISSUE 9
COVER
PHOTOGRAPHER JUSTICE CAMERON
Editorial
Production Manager
Alastair McGibbon, Adrian Aloi
Photographers
Daniele Martinie, Justice Cameron
Designer
Julian Grant
Editorial Committee
Adrian Aloi, Justice Cameron, Natalie Evans, Zac Fernandez, Julian Grant, Finn Levelt, Alastair McGibbon, Amanda Sherring, Kim Sinnott and
Hannah Teesdale
Contributors
Jess Downs, Emily Devlin, Blake Fairchild, Zac Fernandez, Mikaela Gordon, Charles Johnson, Alastair McGibbon, Mackenzie Morrow, Taylah Stolk, Ian Tabor, Adam Teesdale, Kyle Morris.
Production Services
Adcell Media
Thanks
City of Greater Geelong & Adcell Media
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this magazine are those of the young people writing the articles and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of the City of Greater Geelong.
Surprise! We’re back, baby.
That’s right! We’ve worked our collective butts off, and have delivered a new issue of Switch into
your hands, and it’s right here for you to read. We teamed up with some young people from Lara
Secondary College’s journalism classes to craft our best issue of Switch yet. The razor-sharp minds
of those young journalists picked apart topics ranging from the impact of pollution on our oceans,
to the acceptance of women’s football leagues and the fight for individuality and expression in the
workplace.
There’s plenty more where that came from – we’ve gathered together some of the coolest writers
from the Geelong region to stimulate the ol’ synapses, so read on and prepare to be blown away.
Before we sign off and you dig in, some acknowledgements need to be made – while the Switch
crew are a well-oiled machine, we still need a hand here and there. Firstly, the Editorial Committee
would like to thank the amazing Anita Jaboor of Lara Secondary for hosting some of our team
for workshops and encouraging her students to pursue writing. Secondly, we’d like to thank the
wonderful team at the City of Greater Geelong for their tireless work and everlasting support – we
couldn’t do this without you (literally!).
If you’re a young writer or journalist, we’d love to hear from you! We’re always looking for fresh
faces, new ideas and awesome new content, so if you’re interested in contributing to Switch, or
joining the Editorial Committee, drop us a line at or hit us up on
Facebook (facebook.com/switchmagazinegeelong).
Until next time – keep reading, and stay sharp!
Content
Page 2 Editorial
Page 4 Unnatural Hair Colour
Page 5 AFL Women’s League
Page 6 Polluting Our Seas
Page 7 Piracy
Page 8 Justice Cameron
Page 10 Disclaimer
Page 12 Jounalism v Blogging
Page 13 First Time to Tokyo
Page 14 Death of a Journalist
Page 15 Future-Proofing Australia
Page 16 Ed Sheeran
Page 17 Ghost Recon - Wildlands
Page 18 For Honor
Page 19 Join Switch
UNNATURAL HAIRCOLOUR
IN THE WORKPLACE
WORDS MIKAELA GORDON
How is it still acceptable in some work environments to deny employees the freedom to express their individuality? Workers should have the choice to be able to dye their hair whatever colour they want, and shouldn’t be told that their look is unacceptable. Many industries argue that ‘funky’ coloured hair does not make employees approachable for customers. While that may be true in some cases, this approach can stifle a person’s freedom of expression and their individuality. I write to express my uniqueness, but for those who express their individuality in dyeing their hair, there are only a very limited number of jobs in which coloured hair is accepted. Many workplaces don’t allow coloured hair because they think it looks unprofessional and makes employee unapproachable. How does that work? How does coloured hair
make someone unapproachable? Does anyone actually wake up in the morning and decide that they won’t go through a register at a supermarket because some young girl, or boy, has bright blue hair?
I don’t see how changing the colour of your own hair can make someone even slightly uncomfortable. We live in a society that celebrates freedom and individuality. I don’t believe customers really care about their server’s hair colour; it’s the least of their worries.
Only a small number of workplaces allow workers to have a choice in their hair colour. Artists, baristas, local government (council) employees and cosmetologists are a few jobs that allow you to have freedom in your hair colour choice. Yet big supermarkets and fast food restaurants don’t allow their workers to have “unnatural” colours in their hair. People applying for a job may not get hired if they have blue, pink or purple hair, but let’s face it; hair colour doesn’t reflect an individual’s work ethic, or predict their level of performance. In my own personal experience, I feel more comfortable being in the presence with a worker who feels at ease with themselves, rather than a robot who is working to a script enforced by their boss. Their boredom is palpable, and you feel bored just being around them.
These industries need to change, and allow freedom to individuals who enjoy expressing themselves through coloured hair. Workplaces should start allowing their employees more freedom to be who they are and who they want to be. So many great young people are going to need jobs in the future. Why should the colour of their hair determine whether they’re going to be a valuable employee?
AFL WOMEN’S LEAGUE
WORDS MACKENZIE MORROW
I grew up watching the football. Every weekend during the footy season, we would either sit out in my Dads shed to watch the football or we would venture over to Kardinia park to watch the Cats play. I always remember wanting to play football, but I didn’t know that girls could actually play in a league and neither did many other people. Whenever I would go and play with the boys (not competitively) I would never get the ball passed to me, or I would be put in a position where passing the ball to me wasn’t ideal. This was simply because I was a girl and I was told that girls aren’t supposed to play football.
Fortunately, now women playing football is widely accepted. The first all women’s exhibition match was held in 2013 and these matches continued once a year until 2016. The teams playing in these games were the Melbourne Demons and the Western Bulldogs. During this time period, more people soon began to realise that girls can play football too and women’s football was beginning to gain more acceptance. Watching these games inspired me to play, but I never knew that there was a league in my area as girls playing was a real unknown.
In 2016, I started playing in the youth girls division (13-18 years olds) for my local footy club. I loved it. I was so excited to be doing something I had always wanted to do. Later that year it was announced that there was going to be an AFL women’s league and the teams playing in the league would be the Melbourne Demons, Collingwood Magpies, Adelaide Crows, GWS Giants, Western Bulldogs, Carlton Blues, Fremantle Dockers and Brisbane Lions.
I was excited to hear this.
On the 3rd of February, the first NAB AFL Women’s game was played. This was a match between Collingwood and Carlton. I attended this game and it was a lockout. So many people had come to watch the historic first match of the women’s football competition. A few minutes after the first bounce, Ikon park had reached its full capacity and many people were turned away. Seeing women out there on the field playing for an AFL team and playing in front of a deafening crowd was an incredible sight to behold.
The atmosphere at the game was electric.
It’s good to see women that dreamed of playing football, now playing professionally. These women playing professional football are not only inspiring to me but are inspiring to many other girls who share the same passion as I do. It is also great to see a much larger number of girls wanting to play and actually getting the chance to play footy. In my family, my sister and I play and 3 of my cousins are also starting this year. The number of teams in the Barwon area has increased since last year. The divisions in the female league this year are now under 12’s, under 15’s, under 19’s and open women’s. It is really amazing how much women’s football has grown over the years. I can’t wait to see what the future holds for the AFL Women’s.
POLLUTING OUR SEAS
WORDS EMILY DEVLIN
If you go to have a tanning/swimming day at the beach you see rubbish, sometimes even oil on the edge of the water and floating on top. With all of the oil and plastics floating above and in the water, poor helpless sea creatures stumble across them. They don’t know what rubbish or oil is, so they swim through it and get really sick which can lead to death! The animals even sometimes eat the plastic waste, which kills them or they get tangled in the mess of garbage. The population of sea creatures has been declining, 100,000 marine creatures die every year from plastic entanglement, and these are only the ones we find.
On top of that, there have been serval major oil spills occurring between 2009-2010.Most oil causing harm within the ocean is a result of poor drainage from land. Oil spills suffocate marine life - too many sea birds and sea animals have been stuck in oil and rubbish which has been pumped into the ocean.
One MAJOR oil spill happened on March 24th, 1989. The ship (the Exxon) struck a reef, tearing open the hull and releasing 11 million gallons of oil into the environment. This incident was a catastrophe - so say the least. Ocean pollution is caused by numerous industrial and domestic activities, that include oil spills, garbage dumping, sewage and factory waste disposal and the use of toxic pesticides.
These activities pollute the oceans through drains, rivers and even - sadly – direct dumping.
There are 7 well-known pollutions:
Water Pollution
Air Pollution
Soil Pollution
Thermal Pollution
Radioactive Pollution
Noise Pollution
Light Pollution
For the sake of our future, we must stop polluting the world and save the animals that can’t save themselves!
PIRACY
WORDS JESS DOWNS
I’m a pirate. Although, that may not be a good thing. I have an addiction to finding out what happens in my favourite TV series before the actual release date. Who doesn’t want to know whether Carl from Shameless is getting released from jail or not? I always tell myself to wait until my favourite series is on TV, or at least until its out in Australia. But no. I never can. My eagerness and desire to know what happens to Stiles in the latest season of Teen Wolf drives me to piracy. I feel guilty participating in this piracy, but it’s also a great relief. I don’t have to wait as long as everybody else who isn’t a pirate.
Another thing I struggle with is downloading music illegally. I know I should do the right thing and pay for my music, because just imagine how the artists will feel? Spending all this time creating an album when people don’t even show appreciation by buying their music! If I was an artist, I would feel cheated. Robbed. You’re probably thinking, if you feel so bad about it why don’t you just stop? It’s not that easy when you are somebody like me, and you sit at home every weekend doing nothing, but trying to fill in the spare time by watching movies, or finding new music.
Why is it that young people need to be the first to know what happens next in the TV show they are watching seriously why on earth can’t we wait? Why can’t they just be like everyone else and be patient until it shows on TV?! Maybe it’s just pour generation. We love to ‘know’. We love to ‘know’ now!
JUSTICE CAMERON
WORDS ALASTAIR MCGIBBON
Justice Cameron has been taking photos for as long as she can remember. She received her first camera from her mum about 10 years ago, and has been snapping shots of just about anything and everything since then. Starting off with flowers and pets, Justice quickly moved on to portraits, where she has been happily snapping off photos ever since. Justice runs her own photography business – capturing weddings, portraits and animals – and works freelance for news organisations.
Her real passion, though, is photographing children and animals. Not put off by the infamous photographer’s rule regarding both types of subjects, Justice relishes the challenge. “My favourite things to photograph are by far children and animals. I love how rewarding it is when I come out with great shots, and the challenge of how unpredictable children and animals can be.”
Contact Justice at www.justicecameronphotography.com
DISCLAIMER
WORDS ZAC FERNANDEZ
DISCLAIMER – The opinions and subject material displayed throughout this article are purely subjective and are simply the author’s educated perspective. Not to say that the author himself is educated or intellectually superior to you, the audience, but … after all, we are talking about pop music and the devoted fans of Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus and One Direction. This must indicate something, I mean, you can’t honestly expect someone of such supposed brain power to succumb to this mindless nonsense that passes for music nowadays …
There is no denying of the domination that pop culture has on modern society. Today, there is no escaping from the creative and biased outlets of entertainment such as the news, film, television and music. Despite this wave of revitalized technology and “trends” that peak like a boy during puberty, I find it insulting that I am amongst the minority who have come to take a step back from this disillusion and begin to realise the bigger picture …