We’re meant to go to print tomorrow we are I mean going together in the fun near-future tense it’s a week later today. Esther’s slowly fucking a hole in the wall with a pencil while the third-floor printer jams. The plaster’s coming loose and flaking off in her fingers so she coats her fingernails with it like mothy chunky come. Ash got plants for her birthday (the edition two launch) and the one on the desk is slowly spreading tiny mites around the room.

The wall is made out of asbestos so it won’t burn, like a ‘70s kitchen or Caroline Voelker’s lush and dreamy greens (page 36). In the short-term it keeps us safe: when we got into office there were three evacuations a week and the fire trucks were covered in limp tinsel. Dead squids underfoot. Jesse sips iced coffees under a perennial in the cold. A pube catches between your bum cheeks and stings.

Unlike Justin ‘The Human Ken Doll’ Jedlica, we got locked out of the federal budget media lock-up so Lauren Sandeman asked the shadow government and other journos why. Back on campus, there’s been a wave of expulsions because of fake doctors’ certificates so Stephanie Zhang and Jasper MacCuspie looked into exposing what’s going on.

Everyone takes their part of the whole and polishes: we down seven litres of Pepsi Max in one proofreading. On the Instagram explore page Moni plays a video of a guy scraping off a popcorn ceiling. Our own dusty stucco looks like David Zeleznikow-Johnston’s curdling cheese: if you look up with your mouth open it’ll sting your tongue. Alaina Dean’s characters bite into bananas and get dry mouths.

Martin was editor three years ago and brings us chocolate in brown paper bags. Alex was editor last year and has lost her new retainer in the media space: all her teeth will move back to where they used to be if we can’t find it. Esther scans a card she bought her sister at Big W that says: “He took the road less travelled. But he brought a helmet and a tiny shopping cart. And that made all the difference.”

Everything you face this year is all the ways you’re not grown up yet so get on it lickety fucking split. All the OBs come up one by one and hug our chairs while we’re not in them. Babies crawl past like ants and the dead mites under our fingernails itch. We stare at Tzeyi Koay’s art until our eyes dry out (page 56).

“It’s been a cracker of a week,” the email from someone who has lawyers starts. “We accept Walkens,” our legal department’s sign says when they’re open. Luke Macaronas swings by because he’s had brunch with Benjamin Law, while Kaavya Jha analyses her love of Age of Empires II.

Someone in our building has scabies and a guava cruiser, while Tian Du transcends time in the Rowdy. Adriana brings her puppy in and resigns from students’ council. The queer magazine CAMP launches in a week and is beautiful. The women’s mag Judy’s Punch is looking for editors and will change your life.

We ran out of bluetack so you put contact lenses in and tape your eyelids shut. Fuck the free press in a hole through the wall through me. Slide us open like a door meant to go to print tomorrow we are I mean we are going together on the NTEU strike day today. Hi. Send us an email. We love you.

Ashleigh, Esther, Jesse and Monique