All of us have hobbies. Be it reading, listening to music, or exercising, there’s always a safe place we dedicate our time to whenever we have leisure time on our hands, or when we’re feeling down.

Wake up, go to school, sleep, and eat,

A momentary lapse or two within a monotoned routine,

The end of another year, one more or two,

A new birthday, a new life built for you.

“I can’t deal with this anymore; I swear I’m going to drop out of school instead.”

“The AMOUNT of assessments that I’ve gotten, I’m not even going to try. Who cares if I flunk it?”

“Studying? Again? I’d much rather throw bricks at zombies in Minecraft or sit there and binge-watch the newest season of Stranger Things.”

Every night, she swims through murky waters,

A helpless, smiling, witness under the starry sky,

The monotone shades of a world long gone,

The loss of colour like the absence in her mind.

What if you aren’t the one supposed to be fighting all these zombies, soul-eating ghosts, or whatever it is with these blue lights and death?

Or, what if you’re Mikey, with OCD and anxiety, who just wants to graduate and work up the nerve to ask out his sister’s best friend, Henna, before the school explodes? Again?

Or maybe, there truly are problems bigger than your own life, and you just have to fight it out on your own.

Even if you have a couple of strange, possibly magical friends…

Worshipped by mountain lions.

• The Rest Of Us Just Live Here, by Patrick Ness

“UNO CATCH”

“NOT AGAIN”

When I hear the word “berry”, I’d probably go running to pick one, given my inherent love for everything ending with the word “berry”. And when we discovered Berrima, a small town with a rich history, skirting the outskirts of NSW, we knew we had to go, especially to show our visiting family friends the inherent beauty contained within glittering, glamorous Sydney.

Set in a dystopian world where racial roles are reversed, two star-crossed lovers, Callum and Sephy fight for a more just, non-segregated world.

Crosses, like Sephy Hadley, dark-skinned and wealthy, hold great positions of power and privilege in their society. Additionally, Sephy is the daughter of famed politician, Kamal Hadley.

Strelitzia is my name,

A distant legacy to the green banana flames,

A beautiful bird in flight I display,

In every house, I always have my own way.