Power Shift stickers

If you walk around my school right now, you will see a lot of little square-shaped purple stickers. You will be able to find several staircases with a sticker on each step. You will be able to see these stickers plastered on a brick wall – in the dozens – to form a smiley. These stickers are everywhere.

I love what Power Shift stands for – the environment, youths taking action, and change for the better. Power Shift is a national climate change conference, but for young people. It is to be held at the Parramatta campus of the University of Western Australia on July 11-13 this year. There will be various discussions, workshops, and (I’m told) even concerts and ‘eco-fashion’ shows. The whole point of the exercise is to pressure the government into making environmentally-friendly decisions, particularly regarding ‘renewable energy, green jobs, and a safe climate future’.

But isn’t it just a little bit ironic that this ‘green’ event is being popularised by spamming the ecosphere with stickers that contain plastics which will take many decades to biodegrade, and paper that came from trees which, once upon a time, were collecting atmospheric carbon dioxide?

No more UAIs

A lot of studious teenagers in New South Wales just got their goal of “get 100UAI” crushed – well, depending on how you look at it.

The Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) replaces the Universities Admissions Index (UAI) this year. It’s essentially the same thing but you can no longer get 100/100. Instead, the top mark is 99.95/99.95, which doesn’t look as good as 100. Last year, when we were studying Strictly Ballroom, our English teacher made quite a point of explaining the significance of the protagonist being “number 100″ instead of “number 69″. 100 represents perfection, and if get the top mark in the HSC, I reckon you deserve anything that associates you with perfection.

Apparently the ATAR will become a national standard next year, which means that if you live in a smarter state, you face more competition for the same reward. Needless to say, there have been various jokes flying around about moving interstate to get 99.95 ATAR. Anyone feel like moving to sunny Queensland?