CCA Events, Commentary

“Be Real. For Real”- Mental Health Awareness Week 2023
Reading Time: 7 minutes

By Cao Yuhan (24S03M) and Chandrasekaran Shreya (24S06A)

Have you been true to yourself recently? Have you been real?

From 27th July to 4th August, Raffles Peer Helpers (RPH) held their annual Mental Health Awareness Week (MHAW). The Peer Helpers made our weeks extremely lively with informative booths about mental health and sweet popcorn distributed to cure Monday blues. Not to mention, the catchy pop music during lunch time (featuring hits from Troye Sivan, Harry Styles and many more), soulful tunes from Raffles Jazz and energetic performances from Raffles Rock during their buskings was the cherry on top. 

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Book Reviews, Opinion, Raffles Reviews

Raffles Reads: This Place Is Still Beautiful
Reading Time: 4 minutes

By Venkatesan Ranjana (23A01D)

Raffles Reads is a collaboration between Raffles Press and Times Reads which aims to promote a reading culture among Singaporean students.

Rating: 3/5

A story about two sisters who struggle to understand each other is not  new; neither is a story about growing up in a place you love but do not belong in. The beauty of This Place Is Still Beautiful lies not in telling these age-old stories in yet another recycled form—it’s in the way XiXi Tian condenses these two archetypes, along with the central characters’ personal struggles, into a bittersweet narrative that moves the reader with its painful realism and hopeful undertones.

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Book Reviews, Opinion, Raffles Reviews

Raffles Reads: The Silence That Binds Us
Reading Time: 3 minutes

By Natalie Tan (23A01B) 

Raffles Reads is a collaboration between Raffles Press and Times Reads which aims to promote a reading culture among Singaporean students.

Rating: 3/5

Maybelline Chen, a high school student, is the resident disappointment of her Taiwanese American family. An introvert who prefers writing poetry to mathematics, she pales in comparison to her older brother Danny: well-liked, handsome, and most importantly, Princeton-bound. Yet shortly after he receives his admission offer, Danny commits suicide, leaving May and her parents reeling at the unexpected news.

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Book Reviews, Commentary, Raffles Reviews

Raffles Reads: Chronicles of a Village
Reading Time: 3 minutes

By Anamika Ragu (23A01A)


What is history to you?


To Nguyễn Thanh Hiền, it is a river of thought, ebbing and flowing through moments and deeply rooted in chronicling the world through the individual’s eyes. Chronicles of a Village opens with the charge of “sightless humans”, when our unnamed narrator’s village is ambushed and ravaged by colonisers. At first glance, then, this is a tragedy of a peaceful, faraway and tucked-away community interrupted by outward cruelty; a classic recount of injustice.

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Commentary, Opinion, Raffles Reviews, Series Reviews

The Good Place: the Wave that Became My Ocean
Reading Time: 9 minutes

By Dang Tran Minh Phuong (Annie) (24A01A)

A screenshot from Season 1 Episode 1 “Everything is Fine” of Eleanor waking up. 

I. EVERYTHING IS FINE

Or is it? When Eleanor Shellstrop sat on the couch in the afterlife, looking at the wall, everything was fine for her. She had just died and was completely oblivious to her entire situation—she didn’t have a lot to worry about. I, however, am very much alive and very (overly) aware of my situation—what do I make of my life?

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