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CCA Events, Clubs, School Life

More Fire in Chemistry Week!
Reading Time: 8 minutes

By Gregory Ng (27S05A), Harish Arun Prasad (27S05B) and Ong Tsz Xiang (27S06M)

All photographs provided by Clara Grace Lim Zhi Yun (26S03A), Lin Sihan (26A01B), and Poh Le Yang (26S03F) from Raffles Art and Photographic Society unless otherwise specified.

Despite copious provocations in the form of being called a “vile chemist”, I (Tsz Xiang) have never ceased my niche fascination with learning about the countless facets of Chemistry. 

Many others, though, do not share this passion. Gregory, for one, takes the hybrid stream partially to avoid the subject. Granted, the learning curve of Chemistry can be quite steep, given the transition from drawing displayed formulae in secondary school to trudging through high-cortisol 15-mark organic structural elucidation questions in JC. 

Yet, the passion of Chemistry does not have to be exclusive to this small group of geeks! The Alchemy Club returns with its second Chemistry Week, featuring more energetic and colourful demonstrations to invite both STEM and Arts students to embrace the appeal of Chemistry. 

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CCA Events, Clubs, Features, Humans of RI, School Life, Student Features

Chemistry Week ‘25: From Textbook to Test Tube
Reading Time: 7 minutes

By Irene Eva Thomas (26A01B) and Tok Kai Xue (26A01B)

Tucked in the corners of the RI campus lies a small yet fervent group of students, who actively and willfully pursue the delights of chemistry. Raffles’ Alchemy Club spends hours each week during CCA sessions experimenting with kitchen chemistry – such as boba pearls and chocolate spaghetti, or attempting to synthesise pharmaceutical compounds. 

Yet chemistry’s beauty and wonder may be far from apparent to those who do not seek it out in their own time. Slogging through hours upon hours of chemistry lectures and reading a bazillion pages of notes might not be the most appealing venture for many students. Achiral molecules, bond polarities, enthalpy changes – all an avalanche of information that seems to wrangle the throats of A-Level chemistry takers!  (At least, that’s what we think – both the writers of this article, unfortunately, do not take chemistry. We can only imagine.) 

However, taking a step away from the rigour of academic learning reveals a beauty in Chemistry that might not be apparent to most. Alchemy Club’s Chemistry Week offered a rare pause, inviting students of all backgrounds to reconnect with the subject in its most simple form, as well as forms a bit more advanced than the H2 curriculum. 

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CCA Events, Clubs, School Life

Astronite ‘25: Starstruck 
Reading Time: 7 minutes

By Lerraine Neo (26A01A)

There are millions of stars in the sky, yet we rarely ever see even a hundred of them. Few of us dream of strapping down into a spacecraft and exploring the galaxy, and even fewer actually make it there. For the rest, trapped here—on earth, in the city, under the clouds—the most we will ever see of the endless cosmos are fading stars, waning moons, and the dying sun. 

Perhaps that is why we are obsessed with stars. The shiny gold sticker we get for a well-written essay, the lights we string up during festivals, the actors and singers and performers of Hollywood and beyond. We turn to them and we see hope, guidance, the future. 

Obsession cannot power a spaceship. There are some dreams we will never achieve: to run our hands along the night sky, to let the stars singe our fingertips. But at Astronite 2025, you could almost imagine yourself coming close. 

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Arts, CCA Events, Clubs, Commentary, Compilations, School Life, Special Editions

Meeting Up With the Merged CCAs (School Matters Special Edition 2025)
Reading Time: 10 minutes

By Betty Ding (25A01B) and Meryl Lim (25S05A)

In 2024, RI underwent a significant reshaping of its CCA landscape, with several CCAs merged and a few others discontinued. For the merged CCAs, you can say it was like a surprise arranged marriage of sorts—arranged, officiated, and enforced by the school with no clear path to a divorce or annulment. 

And like any couple, each pair of merged CCAs will have to find their own way to resolve their differences and get used to their new normal. We sat down with members from Chamber Ensemble, Raffles Image Art Collective (RIAC) and Raffles Crew to find out more about what this looks like, and the stories that unfolded behind the scenes.

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CCA Events, Clubs, Commentary, Features, Movie Reviews, School Life

Firsts and Lasts: Raffles Crew Film Showcase 2025
Reading Time: 8 minutes

By Betty Ding (25A01B)

All photographs courtesy of RIAC and Mr Tay Li Cheng, screenshots courtesy of Raffles Crew.

This is the first — and quite possibly the last — Raffles Crew Film Showcase.

To clarify: this is the first-ever showcase by Raffles Crew, one of the newly merged CCAs formed in 2025 from the union of Audio Visual Unit and Raffles Film Society. Titled “Facets”, this year’s film showcase proudly presents six original films from filmmakers past and present – including two thesis films by the final batch of Raffles Film Society.

There was a palpable buzz in the PAC on the 30th of May: friends and family have come together in anticipation to watch what has been in the works for many months. As the lights dimmed and a pre-show montage of the graduating batch of Film Soc played, a hush fell over the audience, all eyes fixed on the screen as they awaited the first thesis film.

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