AustLit

'In the politics of the playground, children have the capacity to reject their peers based on the most ridiculous factors. Clothing, music taste, the contents of their lunchbox. This is often tolerated to an extent because we assumed that they would grow out of it. However, even now as a university student, I am unfortunately acutely aware that there are still plenty of judgmental people in the world. Because of this, I cringe every time a classmate gets up at the beginning of a lecture to plug whichever organisation they volunteer for. They always pass around a sign-up sheet. I can't help but feel slightly embarrassed as they retrieve it at the end, only to find that not a single student has written down their contact details. You've got to have serious balls to go back and do another presentation after something like that. Once, I saw the same girl give the same spiel three times in three different lectures. This was in a single week. She was engaging enough, and from memory it was a good cause that she was spruiking. Three lectures. Not a single sign-up.' (Publication abstract)