Issue Four: Class
https://issuu.com/orbital-royalholloway/docs/job804349
12May 
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31Mar No Comments
No Comments No Longer Standing: The Monumental Message in What Remains
In the early hours of the 23rd of December 2021, Hong Kong University’s Pillar of Shame statue was removed from the centre of campus. It has stood there at the University of Hong Kong since 1997 and represented the numerous lives lost in the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, one of the most delicate topics in Chinese politics. Recently replaced with a new seating area, no remnants of the statue remain onsite. The image of the orange twisted bodies imprinted only in memory.
The Tiananmen Square Massacre has largely been erased from history in Mainland China and Hong Kong is now following suit. The Pillar of Shame stood as a symbol of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, highlighting the difference of freedoms between Hong Kong and the Mainland, a gap that is being gradually clos...
29Mar 
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No Comments Student Union Elections: Communication, Collaboration, and Joyful Surprise!
On Wednesday the Sixteenth of March, Orbital Magazine attended the SU Election results night to interview some of the lucky elected officers, including NUS Delegates, School Reps, and the 2022/23 Sabbatical Officer team.
NUS Delegates – Maia Jarvis, Ananya Krishna
Madelaine: Well, congrats to both of you! First off, I’d like to ask what your main priority is going into the NUS conference?
Maia: So, I actually submitted a proposal to the NUS National Conference, which is about making education more accessible. So, making sure there’s flexible online learning. I’ll be pushing that agenda and making sure that’s on the national stage for education, because I want to make sure Holloway student concerns are on the national stage.
Madelaine: What about you, Ananya?
Ananya: I t...
21Mar No Comments
No Comments One More UCU Strike…
How effective is the Strike action in creating the change it seeks? An Interview with James Smith
The end of March will see the disappearance of professors from classrooms once again. Not because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but because of industrial strike action from the UCU (University and College Union). As a third-year student my university experience has been impacted by both the strikes and COVID resulting in an unexpected minimal amount of time spent on campus. In my first year there were extensive strikes which some students joined in on. Then COVID struck in March, disrupting the entirety of that year. Now, we are partly back to campus with both covid and strikes interrupting simultaneously. Professor James Smith, the UCU representative within the English department here at...
28Feb 
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No Comments The Rise in Spiking (and Not Just as We Know it)
What is Spiking?
Drinks being spiked on nights out has been an issue for years. According to Better Health, drink spiking is putting alcohol or drugs into somebody’s drink without their knowledge or consent. It is illegal and is often related to other crimes like robbery and sexual assault. As women, we instinctively cover our drinks, never leave them out of our sight, don’t take drinks from strangers, and take every other precaution possible to keep ourselves and our friends safe.
In late 2021, there was a frightening development in spiking. People are now being spiked not through drinks, but through injections. Incidents have mainly been reported in Nottingham, Leeds, Liverpool and Edinburgh. This type of spiking carries additional risks because dirty needles can carry infections ...
6Feb No Comments
No Comments A Future Nearby
We met in a riot.
We stood at the centre of the universe bathed in colours that sang as we sang and fought as we fought.
We were proud and wild and angry, at such a young age
We had so much to feel
And we felt so much.
I noticed your fierceness.
How your pink hair was held up by the honey sun
Your green eyes glared at a world which closed its eyes when we got hurt for
Being.
We marched for the boy in hospital and for the boy who sat beside him.
You brandished your sign to the sky and to God and it asked
‘how can you hate love?’
It was a carnival of pain and beauty.
We held hands in the crowd like children
Because we were children really.
At twenty we had just introduced ourselves...
6Feb No Comments
No Comments Touch and go
A sunset is ever-changing,
Every minute of it revealing a new face, a new colour, a new sight.
Oranges, pinks, and reds colour the sky,
Merging to create a new painting every evening.
Similarly, how sunsets are constantly altering,
So are the people in our life.
Every stage of our life contains different people compared with the last,
It’s hard to understand that everyone isn’t going to stay.
People are always passing by.
But that’s okay,
Because often through these short encounters with people we learn more about ourselves and we learn new lessons.
And perhaps that is their only purpose in our life,
The sun sets.
And when the sun sets,
The stars appear.
They are now the light, the colours, and the new sight,
But the thing is with stars is t...
6Feb No Comments
No Comments Isolation
We watch our friends find love.
In a field or classroom,
Whilst we sit in our chairs
And watch the happiness of others.
We watch our parents laugh.
At the dinner table,
Whilst we stare at our plate
Wanting the affection of another.
We watch strangers embrace.
In the dim lit street,
Whilst we hide in our rooms
Isolating from the danger of others.
We watch our siblings happy.
With their normality,
Whilst we stare in the mirror
Wondering what is wrong with us.
Photo by Sasha Freemind on Unsplash
6Feb No Comments
No Comments A New Heart Moved In
What happened to my well-trodden pathway
Of certainty and the pungent cologne
Do I not take part, or possess a say?
Masculinity is my comfort zone
Femininity is cryptic, who knows
And, mum, I'm scared shitless at this newness,
Because my best friend gives me tornadoes
In place of butterflies and I'm clueless.
Dad, I thought I knew what was going on
Walk me down the aisle to the unknown
Won't know who I love 'till I'm too far gone
I'm an atheist praying; I'll atone
Now I find myself fumbling at the edge
of an oblivion only I know.
Photo by Marc A. Sporys on Unsplash
31Jan No Comments
No Comments Queer at Royal Holloway: Interviewing our LGBT+ Community
University is often considered a place to ‘find yourself’. Most students have come straight from A-Levels, from the cliquey savagery that defines one as ‘popular’, ‘unpopular’, ‘weird’, ‘edgy’. In my experience of a small-town, back-arse-of-nowhere all-girls’ school, these categories trumped any personal identity. University, on the other hand, is all about individuality. Sometimes it’s almost like a game of ‘who can be the MOST unique, quirky, fucked-up of them all?’ Those kids who ran the social hierarchy in school (you can detect them because they adamantly claim that ‘popularity wasn’t a thing in their school’) have to re-adjust to this new ecosystem, leaving many 18-year-olds to essentially start again. Of course, many have been grappling with their identity long before university, m...