Op-Eds

Commentary, Op-Eds, Opinion

Sins of the Father: Exploring Film Culture’s “Literally Me” Phenomenon
Reading Time: 7 minutes

By Jaden Lum Zi Jun (26S05A)

How far would you go to impress someone?  

Because in 1981, outside the Washington Hilton Hotel, a man stood amongst the bustling crowd, intent on answering that very question. As officials streamed from the doorway, cheers roared, and cameras flashed. He reached into his coat. It was time.  

Six shots rang out, and the world watched in horror as US President Ronald Reagan narrowly dodged death at the hands of this would-be assassin.  

His motive? After watching the 1976 film Taxi Driver, he became fanatically obsessed—not just with its lonely, violent and insomniac protagonist Travis Bickle, but even more so with the film’s young star, Jodie Foster. And in a valiant attempt to win her love, he would allow fiction to bleed into reality by mirroring the movie’s plot with an attempt on the President’s life. Romantic.

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Op-Eds, Opinion, School Life

What’s Up With Raja Block?: Life at the borders of RI
Reading Time: 7 minutes

By Nicole Lee (26S05A)

Every year, close to a hundred more RI students are exiled to the borders—a dreaded building tucked away from the Y5-6 campus, right smack in the middle of RI JC and Y1-4. You’ve probably heard of it from a senior, or from their senior’s senior’s senior way before you even entered RI.

The Raja block.

To the rest of the school, it’s an urban legend. To the incoming Y5s, it sounds like a bad omen, and as for the banished one hundred, it’s a life sentence to 6 or 7 levels of daily cardio (bear in mind that’s at least 5 levels to climb, which amounts to 5 x 2 = 10 flights of stairs, and so 10 x 14 = 140 steps a day), and a 10-minute walk to and from the canteen. 

No one on the outside knows exactly what goes on in there, or how life is living in the Raja Block. Still, though, they tend to cross their fingers and pray to never be sorted to a class there. 

So how exactly is life like living in the borders of RI? Is it really as bad as everyone makes it out to be? Let’s dig into it. 

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Commentary, Op-Eds, Opinion

The Art of Matching 
Reading Time: 5 minutes

By Georgia Ong (26S03O)

Maybe you’ve noticed the same bracelet on two people’s wrists. Or perhaps you’ve scrolled through your Instagram stories to find a mutual friend’s friend group all decked out in identical Hello Kitty pants. Even more so, you’ve been told to wear a particular house shirt to match with your friends in school. 

Matching HH shirts for Basketball  

Matching. When the term first comes to mind, anything and everything related to lovey-dovey couples who want anything and everything they have to be the same may pop into your head — but truly, matching is much more than that. It is an art, a craft honed over years of socialisation that reflects the beauty of friendship and community. 

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Book Reviews, Commentary, Op-Eds, Opinion

Geronimo Stilton: The Fabumouse Tales of Our Childhoods
Reading Time: 4 minutes

By Tok Kai Xue (26A01B)

Before TikTok and doom scrolling became a thing, one of my staple pastimes was flipping through the neon-coloured pages of Geronimo Stilton. I would pluck a book from the endless rows of Popular bookshelves, quietly tuck myself away into a corner, and dive headfirst into another of Geronimo’s spellbinding adventures.  

This fascination (and maybe borderline addiction) towards Geronimo Stilton shaped most of our childhoods – for every morning reading session in school, almost half the student population would pull out a Geronimo Stilton book to read, whether it be tales from the Kingdom of Fantasy or The Journey Through Time. The craze was essentially unstoppable – we all succumbed to it one way or another. 

Perhaps what made the “Geronimo Stilton phase” such a canon event in many of our childhoods would be its ingenious formatting and design. You had the wacky fonts and coloured text, the (highly misleading) mouse puns with words such as “Marvemouse” and “Famouse”, and – most importantly – the diversity of stories the series could tell. 

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Commentary, Op-Eds, Videos

Smiskis, Sonnys and The Art of Overconsumption
Reading Time: < 1 minute

By Aniqa Norhazry (25S03D)

The joy and exuberance we get from unboxing blind boxes is truly unmatched. That, coupled with the irresistibly cute designs available, have fueled the blind box industry for decades. Yet, blind boxes are popular now more than ever and while it all seems like harmless fun, it often leads to a bigger problem—overconsumption. Amongst other issues, this could lead to a hole in your pocket, and even in the environment. But how harsh are these negative impacts? And despite knowing them, why can’t we stop ourselves from buying blind boxes?

Find out in our video, where we discuss blind boxes, overconsumption and the repercussions of our endless buying. 

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