“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,And then is heard no more. It is a taleTold by an idiot, full of sound and fury,Signifying nothing.” ― William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5 It is the illusion of engagement that plagues the vessel of activism. This…
“What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again.” — Suzanne Collins How does one feel the change in the seasons? Or in the days, months, and…
Step 1: Add the detergent It’s strange: how something that I was once pedantic about—pouring just the right volume of detergent into the machine—has become nothing but an unremarkable part of my day. I crouch on the floor, the lone figure in the room, because who else would wake up at the crack of dawn…
dust, sunlight, and stillness. 4pm on a Sunday. The worst time of the week. Too late in the week to really start anything, but too early from Monday to properly begin. A universal phenomenon, I think: the boredom. Lazing in front of the television and wishing you had something to do. But what makes this…
I. How It Started In the beginning, we learned the traditional heterosexual concept where a boy has to be with a girl and a man has to be with a woman. It was this concept that took root in me from when I was just a little kid. In kindergarten, I once “liked” a girl…
Imagine this: an uneventful day, just like any other. You’re minding your own business when suddenly, your little sister looks up from her newest romance novel and declares excitedly that there’s a character in it with your name! Alarm bells go off in your head. The first “flags,” as they’re called, have just been planted…
Saying that high school was a traumatic experience is an understatement. The natural consequence of putting in hormonal children, new to the world, eager to impress, and anxious to fit in within a confined space is a disaster. The fact that I went to a boarding school did not help. I had to face these…
Note: This article contains descriptions of unhealthy thoughts and behaviors in relation to body image. When I was a child I liked to make a wish before I fell asleep. Most nights I wished for the same thing. I wished that I was prettier. I find myself at odds with beauty. Beauty is supposed to…
2012 was a game-changing year for me. As a soon-to-be 12-year-old, every day was as stressful as it could get as my secondary school choice depended on how well I did for the exams. On top of that, I also felt the constant stress of peer pressure and family expectations weighing down on me. I…
Paste with formatting. Same person, different font. We’re all constantly CTRL-SHIFT-V-ing ourselves; changing ourselves, growing into a new personality, almost like a snake shedding its skin. Our essence will always be the same; a snake that has shed its skin will still be the same snake underneath its new coat. An orange spot that wasn’t…
Written on: 15th February (forty-six days past 2022) I open my eyes and find myself sitting in a coastal restaurant, its wooden façade bleached white from years of sea breeze and sun. Mist-like rays had glazed me, softening the mud under me and decorating the stones that lined our way with a delicate sheen. I…
In the course of a couple of months, volatility over the lethality of the COVID-19 pandemic has led national governments to impose lockdown and curtail economic activity, stripping billions of people of financial security. One key measure to limit the risk of contagion was school and university closures. Unfortunately, many of the attempted solutions for…