By December 10th of this year, Australia will become the first in the world to enforce a ban from social media for all users under 16. The government claims this is about protecting young people from harmful content, cyberbullying, and the pressures of online scrutiny. Platforms like TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat will now be required to prevent under‑16s from creating accounts, or risk facing fines up to $49.5 million, while gaming platforms and certain messaging apps remain accessible, while gaming platforms and certain messaging apps remain accessible.  On paper, it sounds sensible. Social media can be a minefield....

Stranger Things has returned for its final season, releasing four new episodes after disappearing for nearly three and a half years. It’s a bittersweet reunion for us loyal fans as we soak in these last moments with the characters. Personally, Stranger Things has grown up with me over the past decade. I still remember crowning Dustin as my favourite back in Season 1 and playing “Running Up That Hill” by Kate Bush on repeat after Season 4. It’s safe to say Stranger Things raised many of us, and now that we’re reaching the end of this journey, we’re hit with the realisation that we’ll never again get the surprise of watching a...

There is nothing wrong with rules. In fact, I quite like them. They keep us safe from criminals, potential sickness, and maintain order within society. But some rules are ridiculous. For example, it is illegal to harm or kill pigeons in Australia. Yes, that is a legitimate law in Australia, or the jewelry rule at William Clarke College, or the hair rule. Can you believe that you cannot express yourself beyond the standard copy and paste uniform that everyone else wears? What happened to originality and showing one’s true individuality against the masses of society? Why are we subjugated to this pointless rule? The rules at WCC are...

Everyone has that point in their life, when they’re moving towards adulthood and suddenly they realise, they are completely unprepared. I’ve had it, and to be honest, its terrifying. The realisation that nothing you could of ever learnt in school would prepare you for life afterwards. So why is this? Is it because we were never taught the skills we need to manage money, pay taxes or face the everyday challenged of life? Once you step out of the classroom and into the real world, the gap between what school teaches and life demands becomes painfully obvious. One of the biggest areas where this gap shows is in financial skills. Most people...

As you all know, December marks the most wonderful time of the year. It’s not Easter, Thanksgiving or Halloween, it’s Christmas. It’s the time for giving out presents, having delicious feasts and somehow being forced to listen to loud Christmas songs that play on full blast in every shopping centre.  But no Christmas is ever Christmas without the most important thing of all: Christmas trees.  I don’t know about you, but I’ve never really been a fan of the fake Christmas trees, because you’re throwing money down a hole to receive a box of cheap plastic. The real Christmas trees are what appeal to me, because I know...

Wednesday the 19th of November brought a beautiful day for cricket. The bell rung for lunch and the skippers met in the middle of the field for the coin toss. Mr Blinman tossed the coin in the air, and the students got their one and only win for the day, calling heads and choosing to bowl.    Both teams walked out to the middle, with Seth N still trying to figure out where the umpire stands, and Noah H getting right in the batter’s face with the helmet and Oakley’s    Mr Bellam and Mr Gupta strode out to the middle as the opening pair for the staff team. Mr Bellam looked awfully shaky, swinging and missing multiple...

I had a dream that all my teeth fell out.   I hadn’t just awoken from it, being that I could never sleep on trains, nor did I dream it last night. It’s some odd thing that made its way to the forefront of my mind as I sat with my best friend, on the railroad home, a seat occupied by our bags making space between us. Her head lulled back and tapped softly against the window, a suggestion of an Adam’s apple bobbing in her exposed neck. She could always sleep anywhere.   It was times like these that made me wonder why we were still here. The morning after the dream, I hardly remembered a thing. There were only blurry frames of...

William Clarke College is a school to over 1900 students and 260 staff and with the campus being approximately 23.6 acres in size the area per person sits at a comfortable 44.6m2 per person. But what happens if all of these 2160 people want to move from one place to another, say, to get to assembly? This here is the cause for all this congestion within campus. The struggle to move to your next class after recess or lunch at the same time as everyone else in the college is bound to cause disruption.  Over the course of 2 weeks, I documented my passage through the college in hopes to collect data on the traffic. However, due to my poor timing...

If you know me at all, you probably know I’m a massive Disney person, and The Lion King is easily one of my favourites. I’ve seen it more times than I’ll admit, and yet I still cry when Mufasa dies. That moment when Simba nudges his father’s body, calls his name, and waits for an answer that never comes ; that scene grips us because it shows something we all quietly fear: finality. The stillness that whispers, It’s over. Nothing more can be done. You feel it in your chest: the helplessness, the disbelief, the desperate wish that somehow this isn’t the end. Most of us, at some point, live our own version of that moment. Standing...

Have you ever had someone you can’t beat?  It may have been a fellow student in the classroom, a friend on the sports field, a sibling, or even someone you’ve never actually personally interacted with; just a stranger who you watch from afar, tracking their results as if they were their own.   For me, this constant creation of competition is a daily occurrence. No matter who it is, where we are, or what we're doing, I obviously have to win, right? What’s the good in being second best, touching the wall in second place, getting the third-best high score. Well, what if rivalry actually pushed you to be better, improved your performance?  For...