1978 School Magazine

Since it is so much easier to be fashionable, and so much more acceptable to others, why on earth would anyone be so annoying and difficult as to want to be - different? Or even outstandingly different? lt is Iitile wonder that at times (24 hours a day?)life seems rather strange. For as much as we need recognition as 'one of the bunch', each of us also needs to be recognized separately, to attain something in our own right, to do something off our own bat - our own idea, initiative, and achievement. Very often it's painful to be plucked from the bunch by others; to remove oneself f rom the bunch is not only painful, but difficult. lt seems too incredible that, amongst the millions of people who hgve lived, and are living, in this world, each one with his own particular talents and personality, there would be any possibility of being someone new. Maybe this is why so many younger brothers and sisters feel it is futile to do anything but drift along in the shadow of an earlier sibling. Yet we know that each of us is unique. You must decide how you develop the once-only combination of genes and en- vironment that is you! Janet Jeays

General Editor Lir Ed. Art Ed. Graphics etc. Ed. Asst. Ed. Lit. Asst. Ed. Art School Photographer Staff members:

Janet Jeays Peta Walters Leonie Barton Catriona McLeod Anna Joughin Lindsey Jobbins Cathy Fielding Mrs" O'Donnell

Mrs. Cooke Mr. Thomas

"You cannot be both fashionable and first-rate." As adolescents in a large school community, we havrj all experienced the difficulties of achieving a balance bet- ween BELONGING in that community, yet at the same time, somehow establishing our own identities as in- dividuals. The pressures to conform to the standards acceptable to our fellow-students, and teachers, are enormous; almost irresistible. From the surface at least, the discipline and organization of a school may seem no more than a mould, into which tumbles the shapeless, senri-liquid goo, still warm f rom the furnace of Primary School, and after a prolonged process of shaping, cooling and set- ting, the hardened, gleaming, refined 'products'emerge to take their places in the world. No-one 'breaks the mould' (as the fruitcake commercial puts it) without becorning a reject. The factory must protect its good name as a supplier of quality articles. Perhaps a school is a little like this factory. lf any one of us seeks to relate her unique and original view of the world by partaking in some mildly eccentric pasttime . . . laughing hysterically in an inverted arabesque at the top of a Jacaranda tree; practising kamikaze dive-bombs from the top floor of the science-block; meditating, fully- clothed, on the bottom of the deep-end . . . she is far more likely to be temporarily, (or permanently, if she has the fortitude to perservere with non-conformity), exclud- ed f rom her peer group than accepted as the individual she is, and wants to be. Nevertheless, we all need peo- ple around us who DO accept us as individuals, people who understand us (or convincingly pretend to), and most importantly, people who regard us as members of their circle; 'just one of the girls.' lt is far, far easier to fall into the mould than to fight it. lt takes so much less energy, less strain and tension and less disruption to wear the uniform correctly, behave as other girls do, answer the teacher politely, willingly accept whatever the other girls offer you, (a glossy magazine, a packet of Fonzies, or a glass of wine), and wash your hair every three days. There is safety in numbers;few of us,to.stand alone. As amusingly phrased in last year's Magazine - 'With the slogan CONFORM OR YOU'RE CACTUS firmty imprinted in our minds we venture out to conquer all.'