December 1958 School Magazine

Dec:ember, 195g

Brisbane Girls' Grammar School Magazine

:Brisbane Girls' Grammar School Magazine

December, 1958

FROM A SENIOR STUDENT STUDYING LATE

OCCUPATIONAL HAZARDS Have you ever considered, quite seriously, what a danger- o us life you lead? Maybe you are not surrounded by gunmen as are characters from a Hollywood thriller, but I think being a school girl is one of the most dangerous occupations in the -community. Take just one week, one ordinary week in the life of one -ordinary school girl, and you will see it is fraught with danger. It all begins, as do most things, on Monday mornings! 'The strain of rushing frantically from room to room searching for lost books, stray shoes, ties, safety-pins and other essential requisites of a school uniform, while all the time endeavouring to digest your breakfast. is enough to bring any normal person to the verge of a nervous breakdown. Then, you finally arrive in town and, if you can escape being trampled underfoot on a trolley bus, run over when crossing a road (through being too immersed in some forgotten homework to observe the usual precautions) you may reach school. However, do not draw a sigh of relief, this is where the real danger starts . It is very likely (especially if a member of VB) you will be asphyxiated in the changing room through lack of air, or (again especially if a member of VB) slaughtered by a gaze directed at you from some irate, persevering sixth- former on assembly duty. Your chances of survival are somewhat smaller if you belong to a science form, but never mind, it's a very worthy cause. In Chemistry, the chances are you will be overpowered by chlorine, burnt up by sulphuric acid, or blown sky-high by ammonium nitrite, while in Physics you could be electrocuted, deafened or scalded. Another lesson to be dreaded by any sane lover of safety is Gym. There you are expected to perform strange contor- tions balancing on the bars, take flying leaps over almost insurmountable objects or suspend yourself at dizzy heights from a pair of rings . Other lessons are not so dangerous, though the possi- bilities of choking while try ing to produce the correct French "r" or of going mad over the obscurities of Ovid are not very remote. So when you consider that this process is repeated 195 times (approximately) a year, it is a constant source of wonder to me that school girls, as a race, have not become extinct years ago. -Margaret Lowe, VB. 31

The clock chimes late, the brain reels dim, The heavy head oft nodding; the brow Deep furrowed, fraught with care, the eyes Two life less orbs. Oh why, so oft, So oft are we deprived of sleep, The balm and peace, oblivion sublime, A luxury remote . For men

Must work and ever strive to gain A far off goal, and so we wake Far through the night, our thirst for knowledge quenching

The books pile high And deep we sigh,

And two times two seem seven; Solid problems seem so strange And calculus so baffling; Latin verbs race round and round, Pursued by French subjunctives. Oh, how can one head hold all this Until the struggle ceases? I dream at night of bonfires bright, Of text books cheerfully blazing, And wake to find them at my head The new day's work supplying. But soon, ah soon, no more of this, The strife at last has ended; And here we are, so gay and free, A whole new life before us. And then may be

Perhaps we'll say- "Now looking back, 'Twas worth it."

-Unfortunate Victim (H. Ling). VIA.

-Wendy Osborne, IVE.

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