not quite the usual universities week people may think of: an indonesian-chinese foreign student stabs his prof, slashes his wrists and (presumably) jumps to his death… right in the block behind the only place where i used to spend my time on that campus. a scholar who lost his scholarship. somewhat surreal to walk the trail of blood and smell it as it heated off the floor in the stuffy stairwell. right before it gets slopped around with drippy mops that simply spread the blood thinly over a wider area mixed with dirty water to dry off. and fail to remove the already crusted thicker bits.
the next day there’s news of an american foreign exchange student who dies on another campus in a student hostel i know. supposedly alcohol played a part. supposedly valium was found. supposedly another bright promising scholar. prescription for a golden boy.
then there’s a chinese national who was found hanging in his hostel. he had started work in the lab of the same engineering department the indonesian-chinese student was from. more uncannily he started work on the day the student supposedly jumped,
in between there’s been big news of a local captain who went awol and found dead below a bridge in melbourne. turns out we know his mum but none of us realised till we saw the family obituary appear in the paper. she told me before years ago that he was going to study medicine. and now this is the mysterious end.
