It only takes one

Last week, I watched a YouTube video from Australian filmmaker, educator and outdoorsman Beau Miles in which he kayaked across Cooks River in Sydney, dubbed “the sickest urban river in Australia”. He highlighted the river’s poor condition throughout the nearly 24-minute documentary and at some points even got out of his kayak, took out a few rubbish bags and started a long process of collecting a plethora of waste that surrounded him as he stood waist deep in filth. By the end, he had

December 12, 2022 | BY Rui Pastorin

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Make a Difference

“Put your make-up onGet your nails doneCurl your hairRun the extra mileKeep it slimSo they like you. Do they like you?”Do the lyrics ring a bell to you? If not, go and turn the song on before you continuing reading this passage! Here you go, the song “Try”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXoZLPSw8U8.According to Wikipedia, “Try” was released by Colbie Caillat in 2014, which charted moderately on the US Billboard Hot 100, while becoming Caillat’s highest-charting single in five

December 12, 2022 | BY Yuki Lei

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Maintaining healthy habits is important – but life can get in the way

We all know that we should live a healthy lifestyle and the things we should do to maintain it, but nowadays work and school commitments make it difficult to do. It didn’t used to be like that did it?In the fast-paced life that most of us live today we all know that we should take care of our health to counteract the effects of pollution, the plastics that can be ingested the food we eat, the long working hours and many hours that school homework and studying take up, but sticking to the

December 5, 2022 | BY Lesley Wells

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Why walking daily is a great healthy habit

On Saturday, I logged a total of 23,882 steps on the step counter app on my phone. Though some may not deem it impressive, beating my daily average of 16,000 steps was my goal and to conquer that, I walked everywhere I went throughout the day, regardless of the distance or the time it took to get to a destination.To say that I was exhausted by the end is an understatement, but I enjoyed every step, just as I had since I made it a daily habit to walk at least 30 minutes a day since 2014. From my

December 5, 2022 | BY Rui Pastorin

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Staying motivated through difficulties

With tired eyes and being just about ready to close shop, my barber picked up his clippers in preparation to give me a haircut, the buzzing sound breaking the silence of the empty barbershop.We then got into talking about men’s hair care as he carried on with his usual skill and precision, but I began to notice from a reflection in the mirror just how tired he was. He had once told me that he estimated that he cuts the hair of 60 or more clients a day, and the usually jovial barber was

November 28, 2022 | BY Rui Pastorin

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Friendship’s value & meaning: a collection of perspectives

When I was in high school, I was always following behind my friends. This was mostly because I was never really interested in the things that they were, which, among others, were endless basketball games, the newest anime and breakdancing. In short, despite being friends with everyone in my group, I never felt like I fit in. However, there was one person among them who always went out of their way to come back to where I was.Although we were worlds apart in interests and upbringing, we built

August 29, 2022 | BY Rui Pastorin

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Definition of ‘time’

What is the time? Time is intangible, though it is important to all of us. Time can be counted but it cannot be turned back. Time can be fast but also slow depending on how you spend it.  A secondary school teacher once told our class: “You should cherish the time spent with your classmates next to you in the class, otherwise you will feel regret one day for not treasuring the time you are in school”, which I previously strongly disagreed with, especially when I wanted to escape as

August 15, 2022 | BY Yuki Lei

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The grasp of procrastination

Have you ever delayed something that you really needed to finish? Perhaps you’ve even said something along the lines of “It’s fine, I’ll just do it later” or “I still have enough time anyway”. That is, until you realise that you almost have absolutely no time left for what needed to be finished. This constant delaying is known as procrastination, something that could have a very firm grasp on people to the point of affecting productivity.  Kendra Cherry in her ‘verywell

August 15, 2022 | BY Rui Pastorin

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Can money buy happiness?

In college, I was once told a story of a man who had everything he could possibly ever ask for as he was immensely wealthy. People assumed that he lived a happy life with all the money he had, but by the end of the story, the man is revealed to be quite unhappy.  A friend of mine jokingly questioned how a character with all that money can still feel that way, implying that happiness can somehow be bought and sustained with cash. To this, the common and familiar question of whether or not

August 8, 2022 | BY Rui Pastorin

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Struggle to find happiness

We move to a more abundant world every year with newer technologies and products, more entertainment and leisure activities. It is as if we are never satisfied with what we have at the moment and are always craving for more. We struggle to have happiness.Happiness is central to philosophy. Hedonism argues that happiness is the experience of pleasure and human beings should do whatever it takes to maximise it. Meanwhile, Buddhism says that the endless craving for anything, including happiness,

August 8, 2022 | BY William Chan

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Fear and life

My friend working as a content reviewer of YouTube used to tell me how upsetting it was sometimes to review videos, because she has to watch countless violent and sensitive content every day and filter them out. I could imagine how it might be frustrating, but I have never experienced it directly.Nonetheless, I think recently I have grasped the feeling after writing several news articles about suicide in Macau. In a way, writing stories about depressing news can affect the author more, because

August 1, 2022 | BY William Chan

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Fearing a different kind of monster

When I was a child, I used to fear many things. I feared the monsters and bogeymen that were said to hide under my bed or inside every cupboard or wardrobe, as well as the dark as it is the favourite hiding place of the unknown. However, as I grew older, the monsters and bogeymen I had once feared took on a much more real and tangible form. They sit and watch in anticipation as I sweat and stumble over my words, feeling like every set of eyes are hyper focused on me while each passing second

August 1, 2022 | BY Rui Pastorin

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Siblings

Siblings are peculiar, each bringing out a different side of you. You could get along perfectly well with one of them and somehow feel nothing but bitterness towards the other. The state of sibling relationships somehow never stays the same for long either. One moment, you’re at each other’s throats and the next you’re comforting them, causing internal emotional conflict. These make sibling relationships seem more complex than they really are.Someone who is an only child may seem to want

July 25, 2022 | BY Mikaela Robino Aquino, local university student

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My sister, my friend

People always say that an elder sibling should look after the younger ones, however, is it true? My answer is – maybe, but for me, it is totally wrong. There is a person always taking care of me, cooking for me, chatting with me, shopping with me, doing activities with me……and solving my problems when I encounter difficulties, so up to here, can you guess what our relationship is – a friend or an elder sibling? Actually, this person is my younger sister, who is also an “elder

July 25, 2022 | BY Yuki Lei

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