By Camila De La Cruz
(photo credit: The Simpson (Fox Network), photo edited by yours truly (me))
I’ve been part of the Mary Word team for 5 years now, and as my time comes to a close, I’m coming to the scary realization that I won’t be able to spew out my random ideas or interest in an article anymore. I’ve also realized that over the years I’ve had ideas that just never made it out of the drafts and are left to rot in my OneDrive for years.
It's time for them to be resurrected and heard.
Banksy and Social Justice
I went to the Banksy Exhibition in 2024, just hoping that my $40+ ticket was worth it since I didn’t know much about him. I enjoyed it more than I originally thought I would. His approach towards social justice was really interesting to me, and I thought it was a great way to tackle the Loreto Day/Social Justice issue, an issue that I’m honestly not a fan of. I also love talking about art, whether it be music or art, so I thought I was going to love this article. Unfortunately, it turned out I wasn’t as interested as I thought, so I left it.
Green Day ‘American Idiot’ Review
This concept album raised some interesting ideas about American politics in 2004, so I thought it was the perfect candidate for the Loreto Day/Social Justice issue. In the end, I thought Paramore’s album This is Why talked about more modern issues, so I went with that instead.
Viral Moments From the 2024 Olympics
The 2024 Olympics were crazy for a multitude of reasons. The Mongolian uniforms, Mondo Duplantis breaking the world record in pole-jumping and then making every single person on TikTok jealous. Raygun shocked the world with her - rather interesting dance moves. There’s so much I could’ve talked about. After my trial exams, I took some time off to recover, before realising that I had less than two months to prepare for the HSC. I also kind of lost the motivation to write that article as well, so I decided to drop it. RIP Olympic articles you would’ve been great.
Fun Fact: my first article for 2020 was originally going to be about the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, but we all know how that ended.
The Importance of the Fangirl
This was a passion project during the summer holidays of 2023/24. I’m so mad that I didn’t write about it, so I will now. Being a fangirl to a multitude of things during my high school life (BTS, Stray Kids, K-pop, My Chemical Romance, and Pierce the Veil, just to name a few), I was like an expert in fangirling. I just needed to write about it.
A topic I wrote about a lot was the double standards between female and male fans. Whilst men supporting a sports team is considered manly - it's “part of the game”, a young girl crying at a Taylor Swift concert is considered hysterical, crazy, etc. I’ve seen this being played out in person as well as online.
Another thing I mentioned that I don’t see many people talk about was that being a fangirl is honestly a privileged place to be. Many fangirls are from the middle class, and can dedicate a lot of time and money to their idol, and not everyone has this same privilege. The idea is that fans who have more merch, attend more concerts, and tweet more about their idols are considered “bigger fans” than those who can’t. It creates a toxic community within a fandom.
But I also talked about the positives of being a fangirl. Fangirling is an escape. Like how people escape through books, TV or other sources of media, fangirling is a way to escape. There is just so much to consume in the fan world, from fan fiction to interviews or YouTube videos. For a brief second, you can imagine you are in a perfect world where you are flying on a broomstick playing quidditch or dating your favourite band member. It’s like being a little kid again and being able to imagine anything.
Ultimately, I just had too many things to say about this topic, that this article would reach around 4000 words. I mean, the document where I just planned the article was almost 2000 words.
What Makes a Good Leader
I wrote the full article in 2020, but I had issues uploading it to that issue’s Google Drive (that’s where our articles go before they are uploaded here), even though I emailed the editors-in-chief, it never got published. I only realised this leadership article existed on my laptop a few days ago. It's weird to see my Year 8 voice here. Surprisingly, I don’t hate it. It’s not a topic I would talk about now, but for such a dry topic I think I did well.
I’m still mad that it didn’t get published to this day, so why don’t I publish it here:
(The Theoretical Cover image to the articles that never was. Image from https://www.skipprichard.com/5-ways-to-manifest-your-inner-leader/)
Being a good leader can be difficult and keeping a good reputation as a leader can be as hard. Learning leadership skills is an important life skill, whether you are a major world leader or just a small community leader, the same traits are still there. Here are a few traits a good leader has.
Firstly, a leader should be empathetic. They should understand how people around them feel and use that to make important decisions. Decision-making is a very important part of being a leader, because the decisions you make as a leader don’t only affect you, but the people around you as well.
In today’s world, leadership is usually not a one-man job, but it is a job that leaders usually do with multiple people by their sides. Therefore, collaboration skills and the ability to work well in a group are extremely important to a leader. Not only that but showing the ability to effectively communicate with others can make you more approachable.
Leaders should be grateful and polite to others. Being a leader does not give you the right to be rude to others. Simple gestures like saying please and showing gratitude can get you very far as a leader as they can help your collaboration skills and your reputation. Plus, showing you are thankful for others and being polite can also improve your self-esteem and mental health, so what’s not to lose?
There are so many traits that leaders show daily, so much more than I could include. Think about the amazing leaders in our world, in both the past and the present. What positive traits have they shown?
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