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It is becoming increasingly difficult to stay hopeful when every morning begins with a flood of despair. Before we even leave bed, the world has unravelled again on our screens. War, politics, climate collapse, scandal. The more connected we become, the more fractured we feel. The instinct is to search for calm, but the world…
20
Yes! No! That can’t be true! Wait, is it? Surely not?
I find myself twisted and crumpled like an expansive stained napkin when it comes to understanding the world we live in.
I see black clouds stampeding their way through the vain and artificial sky. Was it the Dalai Lama who said, ‘The beginning of…
11
When Meleane (Mel) Taufa first joined St Andrew’s College in late 2020, she never imagined just how transformative her journey would be for herself, her family, and the students she came to support. In a short time, her impact became significant. Mel became Housekeeping Manager, Indigenous Support Officer, a mentor, and a trusted confidante to…
22
Foreword: This fictional piece was inspired by my interest in the psychological and neurodevelopmental effects of childhood trauma, which began after reading The Boy Was Raised as a Dog by Bruce D. Perry and Maia Szalavitz. Throughout this story, I have attempted to touch on the powerlessness felt by victims of child abuse and the…
07
Marta: Truth and illusion, George; you don’t know the difference. George: No, but we must carry on as though we did. Edawed Albee, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf
Edward Albee’s 1962 play, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, rips down a compulsive response in the human psyche: hysteria. What is worth believing? So too did Arthur…
29
There all the barrel-hoops are knit, There all the serpent-tails are bit, There all the gyres converge in one, There all the planets drop in the Sun. – W. B. Yeats, Supernatural Songs, IV 'There'
The Brown Betty teapot’s older than the Hills Hoist and twice as stubborn. Five generations of paddy women, and decades of…
22
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Where’s Currumbin? What does it have to do with brightly coloured beer? Angus Taylor’s economic beer theory? A ‘Kerrupt-flip’?
Be patient ’til the last.
In 2022, on a surf trip to the Pacific, I first came across Bede Durbidge. Bede – a former WSL veteran of a decade and decorated Pipeline Master – told…
08
Is this still what we fought for?
That’s the question that seems to hang quietly behind so much of the cultural discourse right now. From album covers to courtrooms, from social media trends to political movements, feminism feels at once everywhere and somehow nowhere at all. Its language has been adopted, repackaged, and monetised to…