By Rachel Tan (13S06D)

Facebook birthdays: A social experiment

Remembering birthdays has never been easier, very much thanks to Facebook’s zealous reminders in the top right hand corner of our news feed. Whether to catch up with old friends or to interact with somebody with minimal social awkwardness, chances are that we would not have the opportunity to connect with some people if not for these opportune Facebook reminders.

On the other hand, Facebook greetings do make birthdays a little more bearable. We’ve all relished that thrilling acknowledgement of our pathetic existence on this earth: after all, we are the “attention-seeking lot”, aren’t we? The inner egoist cheers us on to claim our rightful share of popularity, epitomised by the massive blizzard of wall posts. Not that it matters if half the posts originate from “friends” whom we haven’t met in our lives nor if most of these “well-wishers” can barely be bothered to sacrifice a fraction of their thousand gigabyte brain to remember our special day.

Yet, against all ego-coddling temptations, I decided to spend a birthday without—gasp—proclaiming it on Facebook.

Continue reading “Is it really your birthday if it isn’t on Facebook?” →

By Claire Yip (13A01A)

Here is a brief history of the school song. Firstly, remember this: it is not any school song. It is an institution anthem. Prior to his tenure as RI Headmaster, Edward Wilson Jesudason decided to share his talents in song-writing and archaic apostrophising by bestowing a majestic institution anthem on the school. (We cannot feel smug about this. Jesudason did the same for Bartley Secondary School a few years later.) A Jesudason descendant is quoted as saying, rather incredulously: ‘RI went for more than a century without having a song to call its own…until Papa came along!’ Indeed, for nearly fifty years now, Rafflesians have been singing the selfsame melody and evading the vacant ‘v’ in ‘what’er’. The antiquated language is charmingly old-fashioned, and our athletes and schoolmates who have been for match support would attest to how heartwarming it is to sing the song, acapella, after a gruelling sports event, but arguably this is not to any melodic or lyrical credit of its own, and simply its status as the official institution anthem. A sizeable portion of the school population, however, does not care much for the song, perhaps due to its musical flaws and lyrical missteps. Nevertheless, it continues to be sung at the first assembly of every week—that is, Monday at the Year 1–4 side, and Tuesday for the Year 5s and 6s.

Continue reading “Our Hearts Be Not Stirring” →