Student News
Word from the Editors
Welcome Back, this is our edition of NHS Student News!
With a uniquely varied student body involved in everything from leadership to the many clubs and societies that add to Nossal's trademark adherence to a love of learning in any field, we felt that for the average student frantically checking emails, scrolling through NEO and reading the newsletter, it can be a bit of a pain to stay on top of the unpredictable Nossal lifestyle.
The student newsletter aims to change that for the better. Keep an eye on this page for all the information on big student events, news from clubs, reminders about important student matters and much more. We sincerely hope that it aids you in not only surviving your busy student life, but thriving in it too.
There's a lot to see and do here at Nossal. With all of the tests, assignments and homework tasks, it can sometimes be incredibly difficult for the average student to truly be aware of all the opportunities at their fingertips. This newsletter aims to help you cut through to the information that YOU need.
So stay awhile, have a browse for a few minutes and come again soon!
Indira Unnava
Head Editor
Writer of the Week
Hey! I’m Jordan van Rhyn, a Year 11 student and one of the new Student News editors for 2018. I’ve been working a lot with Indira over the past year and with Student News. I’m excited to see student participation in this area of Nossal life and can’t wait to see how it transforms in the future! It’s a great privilege to be able to help out with the Student News, and I’m sure it’ll be a great experience. Please be sure to give feedback by contacting me! I’m always open to suggestions.
Quote of the Week
NSU News
As we near the end of Term 3 and we begin to wind down the school year, the NSU is wrapping up its operations for the most part, but there are still exciting events and opportunities for students!
Firstly, the South East Feast, a multicultural food, wine, and activities festival was to be held on Saturday 16 September. The event was to be conducted with a lot of student helpers assisting on the day. The A/V Club had also planned to run a photobooth – so be sure to check that out when the Feast takes place in 2018!
Also, we’re working on running the NSU Executive elections for 2018. We welcome all applicants. Please apply – it’s a rewarding experience and you’ll get to work really closely with the SRC and with all the clubs and societies of Nossal. Applicants will be invited to give a short speech in early Term 4 at an NSU meeting. You can apply at https://goo.gl/forms/PnIyRQWUe7fscoi62 – please see Reuben Thomas, Jordan van Rhyn, or Malhar Palkar for details or questions.
One more thing we’re working on is the NSU Fundraiser for early Term 4 – stay tuned for more details soon. Details and logistics are being wrapped up and we can’t wait!
Indira Unnava
NSU Secretary
The Stork has visited Nossal in August/September
Congratulations Mr Alley and Welcome Bruce!!
Congratulation to you and your family on the safe arrival of your new bundle of joy. May this time be one that you always cherish and can look back on with fond memories. As new parents may you be filled with much joy and happiness with your babies.This is such a wonderful time for your families and we hope that parenthood is filled with lots of fun, love and cuddles. All the very best!
House Performing Arts Festival
Pegasus
Pegasus did an amazing job at the house performing arts festival! Everyone worked hard during the rehearsals, dedicating their lunches and personal time before and after school trying to perfect their part. Although Pegasus had many setbacks due to scheduling errors and room swaps, our leaders we're able to put this past them and overcome these issues. We felt like everything was organised and coherent, giving the story a good flow and allowing it to really come to life on the night.
A big shoutout to our leaders, Sarmitha, Maria, Olivia and Chany, who should be praised for their organisation and planning. Simone and Abel, our two spectacular actors with great on-stage chemistry that worked amazingly for our story, choreographing a dance by themselves to fit the Latin dance style. Shishir, the year 9 wonder who embraced the challenge of being the stage manager in his very first year of choral, communicating the cues with the leaders and with our lighting and sound managers, Brian and Harrison. Last but not least, Ceenin and Indira for overseeing drama and making sure everyone perfected their roles and did what was needed to bring the story together.
Listening to everyone sing, seeing the dance and drama performances, we house captains can say for sure that despite the difficulty of the song, the house performed with much more enthusiasm than the previous years and were incredible. We managed to find ourselves losing by just a point to Griffin who put on another incredible show lead by their passionate leaders, Christine and Fiona but nonetheless, Pegasus should be very proud of what they have achieved as all the leaders are proud of their efforts! We are very excited to see what the next leaders have planned and the Pegasus family has in store!
Andy and Vihn
2017 Pegasus House Captains
Griffin
House Choral this year was absolutely insane! There was so much at stake being our last year and each house having individual whole house songs and dance genres.
In the past years, Griffin has struggled with the Whole House category however, there was a huge push for the house to lift this year and lift they did. The Whole House sang 'Part of Your World' from The Little Mermaid and 'Price Tag' by Jessie J. They sang loud and proud and we couldn't be any happier with the performance on display.
Instrumental, led by Nathan Iuoras, killed it with all the nostalgia in the world through various childhood TV show theme songs. Small group, arranged beautifully by Christine Minda, was angelic, blending all the harmonies and creating a performance that was breathtaking. Griffin received the dance genre of 'Jazz' and embraced the challenge dancing to 'That's What I Like' by Bruno Mars. They were fun and energetic and Neel's worm proved to hype the audience up.
Our actors this year really pulled through sending the audience on a journey of 'awww' and plenty of laughter. Even with the many costume changes and mic difficulties, they all played their part and truly lifted the performance.
To our Props crew, led by Lasith, thank you for bringing the setting to life. Your countless days spent painting and cutting and glittering certainly paid off and we really cannot thank or praise you enough for your artistic skills.
A special mention to Ms Cilia for sparing her time in making the Elmo badges for Whole House (we hope your fingers are okay!) and always willing to help whether it be by giving us artistic advice through props or supervising us during the tiring rehearsals. We owe you! Thank you to Mr Allen for always being an amazing House Leader and for supporting us in everything along the way. Huge thank you to all the teachers in Griffin, giving us feedback and helping us through Nossal Time rehearsals. Thank you to Mr Woon for being an incredible Choral leader and working tirelessly for all the houses in order to put on a night that will certainly be unforgettable.
To backstage, led by Abdul, you guys really pulled through helping to set and clear the stage. With all the props and little decorative items, you guys didn't forget a thing which was awesome.
Finally to the people who made the show possible. Christon who adapted to all the lighting changes and lit the stage up, Sera who worked the sound booth and intensified the atmosphere of the performance and last but not least, Anirudhh, a year 9 stepping up to fulfil the AV role in which he made the powerpoint show seamless and 100000 times better.
We can't express how proud we of Griffin this year. The never ending rehearsals morning, lunch and after school and the amount of effort and work everybody put in for a phenomenal 25 minutes on stage just goes to show how much spirit everybody in the house has, emphasising that when we work together as a team, we are unstoppable.
We love you Griffin!
Christine Minda and Fiona Ku
2017 Griffin House Captains
Phoenix
The House Performing Arts Festival is the highlight of every year’s house performances and it was an unforgettable night. As with all the other three houses, Phoenix students put a lot of hard work and dedication into their production and was placed third. Though Phoenix did not get the prestigious first place, I am sure every Phoenix student will be proud of the work they put together to give the audience a memorable experience.
This year, by allocating the different components to various members of the House, we were able to share the workload. It is always hard to train Whole House Choral but the leaders, Jenny Chen, Broaden Krause and Dilushi Premathilaka did an awesome job training them in batches. The back-stage crew led by Jordan Van Rhyn and Hayden Radford along with Kayla Ly as our stage manager did an amazing job in ensuring that everything ran smoothly up to and on the night. Kyla Fareeha and Shravya Srikanth arranged a terrific small group medley along with some wonderful choreography to accompany their arrangement. Irisa Vuong, Manisha Venkat and Shea McNaughton choreographed a beautiful contemporary dance to fit our dance component this year and did a great job in training the girls involved in dance. Charlotte Luong, Ryan Chen, Areeba Bashar, Kanishka Nirmalan and Dhruti Parikh created a interesting drama piece incorporating all the components required and making our whole performance cohesive. A big thanks to Yuli Leong who did a wonderful job in creating all our props for our drama. And, of course, the House couldn’t have done it without our music captains Chris Gu and Jared Loh who looked out for everyone and ensured that we put a spectacular performance and also led the instrumental aspect.
Nothing can be achieved without team work and commitment. As Captains, we are really proud of our Phoenix students who put hours of hard work to create a very interesting story, choreograph the dance, practise instrumental pieces and train the Whole House. It would have been the first performance for some of the students who would have pushed themselves out of their comfort zone to have this experience. We appreciate the team effort of all the students in our House and are grateful to our teachers and mentors for guiding us. Thank you so much everyone!
Nithiya & Mina
2017 Phoenix House Captains
Garuda
Creative Writing Column
There was darkness, a piercing silence, eerily calm. It was disturbed only by the pain. Pain that appeared in sharp stabs, sending waves of searing agony through my body, only to disappear as quickly as it had surfaced. I couldn’t tell where the pain was or where it was coming from. All I knew was that something hurt. A lot. It felt as if I had been stabbed, then shot then had acid poured on the wounds.
It was excruciating. So excruciating, that I couldn’t feel anything else. I didn’t know my name, I didn’t know where I was, I didn’t know who I was. All I knew was that it was dark and I had been shot/stabbed and had acid poured on my wounds.
I wondered if I was dreaming. Was this some strange nightmare in which I was a blind person with ambiguous chronic pain? But why would I be able to feel pain in a dream? If I was asleep, then I must have been sleeping for, like, more than 12 hours. That was how long it felt like. Didn’t I have things to do? Didn’t I have a life? Was I a boring person who did nothing but sleep all day?
All of a sudden, the pain disappeared. Completely. It felt as if there had never been any pain at all. I couldn’t breathe, but I didn’t feel suffocated. For just a second, I felt as if I had died or something.
Then there was light. Light to so pure and bright that I couldn’t see. My eyes burned, I felt like I was staring at the sun without proper protection. But I didn’t blink; in fact, I couldn’t blink. My eyes felt glued open.
My lungs contracted. It felt like there was a rope around them, squeezing them together and trying to hold them there. I was breathing, gasping, but I couldn’t take in any air. Black spots appeared in my eyes, spreading out and swallowing the blinding light.
Suddenly, I could breathe again. My lungs expanded and contracted in a constant rhythm. It was almost as if oxygen was being forced in and out of my lungs. The darkness that had taken over the light faded away into a… room? It looked like one. But it was weird, it was completely white, and empty. There was a machine next to me that was beeping and displaying this pattern of lines. The lines were moving up and down in a constant rhythm. Just like my lungs.
I had been in one of these rooms before, I knew I had. I had been in this room before. I remembered. I had been here, but I didn’t know what here was. I didn’t even know who I was.
Pranathi Katneni
Creative Columnist
Call for Writers!
Students are welcome and encouraged to email any pieces they would like published on the Student News page to Abhishek and Indira.
In saying that, we aim to publish some regular columns in the paper, and we need some regular writers for columns like:
· Hot Topic – a feature article on a current issue
· A "How To" Column
· Recipe Column
· Events Column
· Sports Column
· Person of the week (like an inspiring person)/ Guest Interviews
· Rundown of important student dates
· Human interest articles
· General interest Articles.
So if you want to run a Fashion or games column, please let us know.
Those who are interested in being part of the Editorial Team for the regular sections, please write an expression of interest (no more than 200 words) and also a sample article for your preferred column.
Please email studentnews@nossalhs.vic.edu.au with any questions and your expressions of interest.
Meditation Club
10 simple quick ways to relax and unwind, when you are really stressed:
Take deep breaths
Stand up and do stretching
Close your eyes
Drink a glass of cold water
Run in place
Listen to your favourite song
Watch a cute cat video
Laugh
Take a tiny nap
Write down your worries in a notebook, then set it aside for tomorrow
Indira Unnava
Meditation Club Leader
Wishing everyone peace and light
Good luck to everyone for your upcoming tests and SACs. Don’t stress and stay smiling! And everyone, please try to remember:
School is not your life, you are your life, so treat yourself well, because you deserve it. :)
