The Eucalyptus and I

The eucalyptus tree is a non-native member of the ecology, but so is everything else if you go back far enough.

 It was brought to California to be used and exploited as a resource. The idea was to use it for lumber, for the thousands of railroad ties that were needed to build a railroad across this wide continent. But the eucalyptus refused to be used and exploited in this way, so in California it decided to grow with a twisted grain instead of the straight grain they expected it to have.

This meant the railroad ties would bend and warp after just a few years, making it impossible for trains to pass. So they had to give up on trying to force the eucalyptus to be something it wasn't- a railroad tie, and leave it as a tree. So the eucalyptus (using Sir Bacon as its steward) tricked them. And now it is a huge part of the CA landscape... you can't look in anyone direction with out seeing a eucalyptus.  

There is a parallel between this story and the story of student occupations. We are brought to the university to be shaped into resources, to be processed and milled, and shipped out to be railroad ties for companies and corporations all over the world. But some of us discover that, like the Eucalyptus, we have a twisted grain inside of us, and no matter how hard they try to keep us straight, we just can't lie flat like the other railroad ties. So we bend and warp, pulling the railroad apart as we do, stopping business as usual. Declaring,

I will not be made into a resource. I will not be exploited, used or employed in anyway I don’t see fit.

I couldn't even if tried.

Like the eucalyptus, I am of a twisted grain. 

by charlie dubbe