By Lin ZhenYi (21S06C), Chairperson

How dare you!

People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!

Hold on, don’t click away just yet—this isn’t a tirade against you. In fact, didn’t that sound a little familiar? That’s because it was a part of Greta Thunberg’s iconic speech at the UN Climate Change Conference of 2019. 

By Dawn Toh (21S03L), Girls’ Captain,  Clarissa Toh (21S03H), Girls’ Vice-Captain, Bryan Yeo (21S05A), Boys’ Captain, and Pan Yifan (21S06C), Boys’ Vice-Captain

Don’t blink. The distance from the pitcher plate to the home plate is 45 feet. Considering the leap the pitcher takes, an average pitch of speed 90km/h will reach the batter in 0.512 seconds. The human brain takes 0.125s to process an image and tell your body to swing the bat. An average 0.200s swing leaves only 0.187s to gauge whether to hit. 

When you think of a softball player, what comes to mind? Most think of the flock trudging across school to the Y1-4 field with humongous duffel bags, the terribly awkward tan lines, or even the blisters that litter their hands that make you think: “Now that’s a hand I don’t want to hold.” Yes, softball is an unglamorous sport, but we wear our battle scars with pride. They are a testament to all the hard work we have put in behind the scenes. All this because hearing the crack of the bat and watching the ball fly far really hits the spot.

By Min Sitt Hman (21A01A), Chairperson

Your opponent’s time is up. Cue applause. You take brisk steps to the centre of the room, recalling every nook and cranny in your mental arsenal. You are ready.

Your first word slips through the mouth, casting a brilliant gossamer unto the undecided masses; before you know it, you have become the Crusader of Truth, the one valiant defender of Reason standing ardently between Virtue and Ignorance.

With surgical precision, you puncture your opponents’ morale, dexterously deconstructing their case. With every victorious stroke, you demonstrate the sheer magnificence of human rationality, resurrecting the spirit of Socrates—and as you ascend to the climax of your speech you transfigure into the custodian of Kant’s kingdom on Earth, proclaiming with ease one moral axiom after another, each one most coherently aligning with the noblest aspirations of man.

Haha. Just kidding.

By: Eugene Chua (21S06N), Captain, Vishal Vijay (21S03L), Vice-Captain, and Cheryl Ang (21S06F), Secretary 

With 49 students in the Year 5 batch alone, Recreational Badminton is easily one of the largest sports CCAs in Raffles Institution. With the high popularity of badminton as a sport within the school, Recreational Badminton is one of the best avenues for playing the sport with others leisurely without the pressure of trying to train hard and win competitions. Within the CCA, our focus isn’t on doing well all the time, but rather on enjoying ourselves and meeting new people during CCA sessions!