It was the end of the second year of a three year fine art degree at The University of Newcastle’s Ourimbah Campus.
He was tired and ill. His battered and crippled body had carried him through graphic design, visual arts, earth sciences, communications and management over almost a decade of academic study.
He was aiming himself at a niche in the art market he might take advantage of despite his handicaps and failing health. He had been spending his pension on supplies for the course and been living on tomato sandwiches and cups of tea or coffee.
He knew he was malnourished. He wanted to sleep all day and eat steak, chips and eggs when he awoke. At night the aromas of cooking would spread through the neighborhood and float in his windows making him painfully hungry
His hair started to come out in clumps and his teeth were loose. The dentist plucked four of his teeth with little more than his fingers during an emergency. He was suffering septicemia.
He went to the lecturers and explained he was seeking a year off.
He treasured the experience of being in the presence of motivated seekers amidst the halls of education but had been having problems with one of the lecturers and a female student. He asked if he could transfer to the visual arts degree at Calahan Campus in the same university. It had been suggested as an option during the pre-course lectures.
He didn’t know what problem this lecturer had with him but every time they were in the same room that person went into a kind of stressed, eye-rolling routine you would expect from a goat locked in a shed with a land mine. Something was terribly wrong and nobody would tell him what it was.
It was suggested the extremely short and aggressive lecturer had never had a job outside of the system or been far outside of Newcastle except on holidays. Our student had spent years in business and on building sites. He had worked in many situations of professional art and the music industry. Our student didn’t know and never found out what the problem was.
He didn’t judge people in the way the lecturer was said to be judging himself so couldn’t comprehend it.
The female student hated him and constantly jockeyed to get him some place where she could harass him. Several women in the student body made it a sport to ensure she didn’t get him alone. She had offered him large sums of money to marry her sister so she could come into the country and he had refused without a thought.
She would not let it drop. He believed she had to make him seem flawed in case he tried to tell anyone and she was prepared to ruin him.
Transferring to another course seemed wiser than attempting to navigate through the folly of these two. It was also possible the campus here at Ourimbah was unable to supply any disability support because it was just opening up for the first time and Callahan may been better able to assist him
The lecturers made it clear he could not leave the course. They informed him the course would have to close if the numbers dropped.
He explained his health was precarious and rest was urgent. He could not cope with more public transport and the pain it caused him without risking his life.
They offered adjusted plans to assist him to remain in the course and these included disability support options from the university including several days a week where he worked on projects at home.
It wasn’t an especially good choice but if he left he would ensure the other students lost the time and money they had invested up till now. There might be no way to get back into a course and he would lose the massive commitment of pain and money he had made to then.
The Chittaway Affair, page 1. It begins
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