Commentary

Bazaars: Are They Worth the Buzz?

By Chloe Wong (19S07C), Isabelle Tan (19S03S) and Vanessa Lur (19S06Q)

Photograph courtesy of Eatbook.sg

It is a regular hot afternoon in Singapore and I find myself doing something not-so-regular—visiting the bazaar. The crowd is overwhelming and I find myself being shoved around by people all around me. As I wipe away the sweat trickling down my neck, I can’t help but wonder how bizarre it is that more and more teenagers are willing to endure a good few hours pushing through crowds just for a bazaar. This brings me to the question at hand – what exactly is so enticing about these bazaars?

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Commentary, Events

Lit Week ’19: Cross-Eyed Over Crossover

By Kuang Shane Qi (19A13A)
Photographs courtesy of Alyssa Marie Loo (19A13A)

Students of Literature in English Paper 2 (The English Renaissance) might be familiar with this quote by John Donne:

“Twice or thrice had I lov’d thee,
Before I knew thy face or name;
So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame
Angels affect us oft…”

(In this case, “twice or thrice” refers to the number of morning announcements the Lit Week Team made to sleepy students… )

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Commentary, Op-Ed

Let’s Talk (About Depression)

By Wong Zi Yang (19A01D)

Cover illustration by Alvin Lim Jun Han (19S06B)

I don’t think it comes as a surprise to anyone that we have quite a few students suffering from depression in Singapore. In fact, it’s one of the more common mental illnesses seen in Singaporean youth. What comes as a bit of a surprise to me is how little people actually care about the situation; and by “‘care” I mean take tangible action against it. We may hear the odd rumour here and there: “he’s been missing school a lot lately”, or “someone has been hospitalised”. If an incident does happen, people keep quiet out of confidentiality and respect for those involved. But at the same time, doing so means that there is little to no impetus for uninvolved students, already busy enough as is with the academic rigour of school, to care much about it. The problem is not addressed at its root, and we just don’t talk about it – and so I set out to look deeper into students’ responses to depression in Raffles: Do people care enough about it? What then can we do about it?

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Commentary

Capriccio 2019: Orientation Part 2

By Alyssa Marie Loo (19A13A), Ina Song (19S07C), Rachel Lee (19A01D), Shervon Lee (19S06A) and Mabel Yet (19S03Q) 

Photos courtesy of Raffles Photographic Society and Alyssa Marie Loo (19A13A)

This is Part 2 of our Y5 Orientation 2019 coverage, covering Narrative, Team Raffles Hour, House Hour, Highlights, PLogs and Intra OG time!

Check out Part 1 here!

These segments of Orientation may not seem as significant as activities like Batch Dance and War Games, but they shape the Orientation experience nonetheless, arguably more so than the more prominent, more hyped events. While Orientation was packed with many activities, the lunch breaks left much free time for OGs to play intra-OG games to get to know each other better (and let’s be honest – burning bridges never fails to take friendships to another level). Let’s also not forget those who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to make orientation a smooth ride for us all!

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Commentary

Capriccio 2019: Orientation Part 1

By Benjamin Lim (19S03I), Mabel Yet (19S03Q), Shervon Lee (19S06A), Rachel Lee (19A01D), Caryn Chiah (19A01A)

Photos courtesy of Raffles Photographic Society

This is Part 1 of our Y5 Orientation 2019 coverage, covering Batch Dance, Station Games, War Games and O’Nite!

6:55am: From our view inside the MPH, we could already see groups of Y5s milling outside the hall, buzzing with excited chatter that stood in contrast to the “it’s too early” lethargy of their OGLs. But hyped these OGLs must be! And so a few moments before the doors opened, pop music filled the hall and the OGLs scrambled to their feet, all ready to welcome the new batch of OGlings with warmth.

Continue reading “Capriccio 2019: Orientation Part 1” →