Written by Miriam Samuel. Edited by Shreya Saha and Lasya Ramakrishnan.

Artwork by Lily Lee.

One day, I woke up. 

I stared at the ceiling and listened to the noise from the streets below– the rush of cars, the occasional honk, the slight pitter-patter of rain on my window. It was time to get out of bed, get clean, and start the day. 

It was time to go to work. I didn’t bother to look outside the window; I knew exactly what it looked like. Drab and grey. Slow and dark. Monotonous and heavy. 

Written by Maha Ashraf. Edited by Ehsas Kakkar and Nicole Guan.

Artwork by Blossom Neo.

It was a school night on an insignificant March day when we received the email: ‘Due to the new coronavirus pandemic, your child will have two weeks off of school to quarantine.’ Instantaneously, my heart soared. The final year of school is never easy: each day brought more due dates, stress, and the relentless anxiety of performance. I was ecstatic, to say the least, to be at home and to finally, finally, have the time to recharge and lift the weight of expectation off my shoulders. I was adamant that I’d have a fresh start when I came back. But more importantly, I was excited to be able to relax and temporarily remove myself from an environment that I had believed was toxic. 

Needless to say, that’s not how it went. 

Written by Aniket Duggal. Edited by Eden Gringart and Rachelle Kasilag.

Artwork by Thanh Le.

Crowds of people came together, protesting the government mandates. Thousands of signs demanded immediate reform and challenged authority, almost deafening in its intensity. The air was thick with spit, sweat and tears. I was helplessly dragged by the crowd and could only pathetically stare down at the sign my parents had shoved into my hand before joining the protest—NO MASK MANDATES!

Written by Amy Kim. Edited by Lasya Ramakrishnan and Ehsas Kakkar.

Artwork by Thanh Le.

Trigger Warning: Eating Disorders

As Chloe Ting workouts were sweeping the nation in March, I was sweeping out my refrigerator instead. In the first few weeks of quarantine, even Google Classroom notifications couldn’t persuade me to abdicate my throne in front of the fridge. After all, my finger-licking subjects were patiently awaiting my arrival into their fluorescent light-washed kingdom. 

Written by Sindhuja Darisipudi. Edited by Tanae Rao and Shreya Saha.

Artwork by Aerielle Ong.

October 10th, 2019, 1:40 PM: I shuffled my way into my school’s Theory of Knowledge (TOK) classroom, where my classmates and I were met with that day’s activity: working our way through variations of “The Trolley Problem”. The Trolley Problem, developed by Philippa Foot, highlights one of the most pressing ethical conflicts: utilitarianism versus deontological ethics. In its simplest and most popular form, The Trolley Problem can be summarised as follows:

Written by Lindsay Moffatt. Edited by William Arent and Amelia Zawadzka.

Artwork by Coleen Nunag.

As a society, we often assume that pollution only became an issue post-industrial revolution which was in the late 18th century, but that is not the case. An example of even earlier anti-pollution regulations is King Edward I of England’s attempt to ban the burning of sea-coal in the 13th century (History.com, 2020). In today’s climate, both literal and political, the most relevant forms of pollution are carbon emissions and ocean plastic, since they have the most devastating effects on the environment and are generally the most obvious. However, the world is not equally contributing to these issues, some countries are polluting much more than others.  This is a call-out post.