VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: 'When we play, we make the rules.'
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 80%: What if We Tried Something New? Let’s call it something new. No, not because we understand it yet. Because…
What if We Tried Something New?
Let’s call it something new. No, not because we understand it yet. Because sometimes you have to play with a thing before you know what it means.
Let’s start small. Let’s put a blanket over two chairs and call it a house. Actually, no , not a house. Too ordinary. Let’s call it a kingdom. A proper one. Pegs on the roof, cushions for walls, a torch for the moon, and a handwritten sign at the front that says Knock First, because even imaginary places deserve respect.
Let’s make rules. Serious rules. Everyone gets a turn. No one gets laughed at unless they are laughing too. If someone says stop, we stop. If someone is scared, we believe them. If someone is outside the circle, we move the circle.
That one matters.
Let’s pretend the carpet is ocean. Let’s pretend the couch is a mountain. Let’s pretend the hallway is a tunnel and the dark at the end is not frightening, just waiting to be named. Let’s pack snacks for the journey , dry cereal, stolen biscuits, one bruised apple, very heroic , and let’s go.
Actually, wait.
Let’s bring our minds with us, the minds that create rules just to get an edge on our friends.
Maybe it is a door. Maybe it is a bird. Maybe it is a cracked window, a red balloon, a photograph, a chair turned backwards, a sentence someone said once and then pretended not to mean. Maybe it looks simple from the outside. Most important things do. A toy. A stage. A game. A child with chalk on their fingers drawing a world big enough to stand inside.
That’s the trick, isn’t it?
Play looks small until you enter it.
Then suddenly, the ordinary world loosens. The floor becomes lava. The stick becomes a sword. The sheet becomes a sail. The cardboard box becomes a rocket, a boat, a coffin, a castle, a time machine, a place to hide when the real house gets too loud. Doors closing. Kettles boiling. Someone saying, “I’m fine,” in that voice that means nobody is fine.
So we play louder.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: 'When we play, we make the rules.'
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 82.5%: What if We Tried Something New? Let’s call it something new. No, not because we understand it yet. Because…
What if We Tried Something New?
Let’s call it something new. No, not because we understand it yet. Because sometimes you have to play with a thing before you know what it means.
Let’s start small. Let’s put a blanket over two chairs and call it a house. Actually, no , not a house. Too ordinary. Let’s call it a kingdom. A proper one. Pegs on the roof, cushions for walls, a torch for the moon, and a handwritten sign at the front that says Knock First, because even imaginary places deserve respect.
Let’s make rules. Serious rules. Everyone gets a turn. No one gets laughed at unless they are laughing too. If someone says stop, we stop. If someone is scared, we believe them. If someone is outside the circle, we move the circle.
That one matters.
Let’s pretend the carpet is ocean. Let’s pretend the couch is a mountain. Let’s pretend the hallway is a tunnel and the dark at the end is not frightening, just waiting to be named. Let’s pack snacks for the journey , dry cereal, stolen biscuits, one bruised apple, very heroic , and let’s go.
Actually, wait.
Let’s bring our minds with us, the minds that create rules just to get an edge on our friends.
Maybe it is a door. Maybe it is a bird. Maybe it is a cracked window, a red balloon, a photograph, a chair turned backwards, a sentence someone said once and then pretended not to mean. Maybe it looks simple from the outside. Most important things do. A toy. A stage. A game. A child with chalk on their fingers drawing a world big enough to stand inside.
That’s the trick, isn’t it?
Play looks small until you enter it.
Then suddenly, the ordinary world loosens. The floor becomes lava. The stick becomes a sword. The sheet becomes a sail. The cardboard box becomes a rocket, a boat, a coffin, a castle, a time machine, a place to hide when the real house gets too loud. Doors closing. Kettles boiling. Someone saying, “I’m fine,” in that voice that means nobody is fine.
So we play louder.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Play to win
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: The clock’s ticking blares like a siren in my head. I sit hovering over the board, fingers wavering above the…
The clock’s ticking blares like a siren in my head. I sit hovering over the board, fingers wavering above the knight, my hand trembling as if one wrong move may break something far more fragile than just the game. Across from me, my opponent sits still, giving nothing away, as though the clock bends in his favour. I remind myself I’m here to win, that’s the rule, that’s the whole point. Isn’t it?
From the moment I was shown how to move a piece, from the moment my old man would hover over our game board telling me to “think ahead, Eli. Always think ahead,” everything has been about winning. Win pieces. Win the position. Win the game. Win the respect. Win. Win. Win.
Now I’m here in the final game for the title that everyone has told me will define my future. My fingers inch closer to the knight. I pull them back. I’m winning, and I know I am. I’ve played this position hundreds of times, drilled into me by my coach with a single mantra: ‘Control the centre, calculate deeper than your opponent, build pressure’. I can already see it; the knight takes the pawn, the bishop forced back, the queen slides across, check, check, then checkmate. Clean. Precise. Inevitable. So why am I freezing up now?
I glance at my opponent, his grin reminiscent of my father’s smile. I was young, sitting at the kitchen table across from Dad. The board was raggedy, a missing pawn replaced by a coin, and the rook was chipped. He smiled, glaring at me. “You’re thinking too hard”. But I want to win; I need to win. “Is that why you play? To win?” Back then, the question didn’t make sense. Of course, that’s why I played; everyone wants to win. But is that the goal?
The clock continues hammering its rhythm into my head. My opponent shifts slightly, still saying nothing. I force myself to calculate again, dive deeper, apply more pressure. The variations branch out in my mind, each one leading somewhere sharper, more decisive. Somewhere final.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: This is a section B personal journeys…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: As we stand on the very edge of everything that we have worked towards, it's rather tempting to ask ourselves…
As we stand on the very edge of everything that we have worked towards, it's rather tempting to ask ourselves the question, "From what angle do we view life, and how does it help us develop?" We've been sold a myth of a linear journey, a straightforward path from ambition to achievement; society encourages us to view obstacles as nuisances to be bypassed. However, this artificial version of progress is a stagnation in disguise. True development does not come from one comfortable stretch of life, but rather in reality, when faced with challenges, which force us to halt, pivot and view our trajectory from a radically different angle. Only then can we reach for our potential.
We are, by nature, drawn to the fantasy of a comfortable life through one simple angle in which we can reach for our personal development. There is rampant demand for pathways in careers with high rewards but with low or no obstacles, highlighting the want of little effort and high returns in our current culture. We are poised by the current proliferation of social media content, where sensationalised highlights often lead individuals into an "echo chamber" of sorts, building on the desire to live out their dream of a comfortable journey. Perhaps from viewing the lives of influencers in social media's comfortable lives with little visible effort, triggers a primal instinct within human nature, to discover shortcuts with minimal effort, in which we view life through one narrow angle. With that in mind, this could be precisely the reason why J.K. Rowling's fantastical stories of Harry Potter continue to enrapture modern audiences. Within the discussion, it is crucial to note how viewing life from an uncomfortable angle is. As quoted from Marcus Aurelius, former emperor of the Roman Empire, "Comfort is the worst addiction". angles develop us as they force us to come up with solutions on the spot, challenging our intellect and thus developing our thinking, character and identity. Nonetheless, whether it be sensationalised social media highlights or wizards living in an escapist fantasy, it is clear that we live in a society obsessed with comfort by simply bypassing obstacles.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: personal journeys title: finding my place
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 100%: Kindergarten- The Sowing In the hazy nostalgia of kindergarten, I remember a time before the labels. I…
Kindergarten- The Sowing
In the hazy nostalgia of kindergarten, I remember a time before the labels. I remember the classroom as a seamless collective of sticky fingers and shared crayons; we were a group of four-year-olds who saw the world as a collaborative playground. There were no ranks and no "better thans." We were just a circle of friends, holding hands during carpet time, our identities blurred into one happy, unmeasured mass. To us, every child in that room was an equal companion. In those days, finding my place was as simple as finding a gap in the circle or a warm hand to hold.
I remember the day the stickers were introduced. My teacher smiled warmly as she moved through the room, pressing tiny, shimmering icons onto our shirts. Some were gold, some were silver, and some shirts remained bare. At the time, I didn't feel an intoxicating rush, and I didn't feel superior. We didn't understand the hierarchy yet. We were just happy little kids, still laughing at the same jokes and still sharing the same blue crayons. To us, the stickers were just pretty decorations on our shirts, not labels on our souls.
I remained oblivious to the way we were being indoctrinated. I didn't recognize it then, but my teacher was quietly initiating a social order that would eventually consume our identities. She was planting the seeds of a competition that we wouldn't learn to escape for decades. In that brightly coloured room, filled with blu-sticks and crayon drawings, we were still the same, still equal, completely unaware that the system was already beginning to mold us into deriving our value from the achievements of those around us. We didn't know that the 'Gold Star' was the first lesson in learning that our worth was no longer something we possessed within ourselves, but something we calculated by measuring the distance between our success and our peers.
Primary school- Taking Root
By primary school, the system was no longer hidden; it was deliberate, structured.
In those early years, my curiosity was an open door. I was a child who lived in the "why," seeing the world not as a set of rules, but as a vast, shimmering horizon of possibility. I loved the way a new fact felt like a secret I had just uncovered, and I would spend hours lost in the library, chasing my own wonder through the pages of books. To me, finding my place didn’t mean finding my rank; it meant standing at the edge of that horizon and realizing I was part of something infinite. I felt whole simply because I was curious. I didn't feel the need to be "better" than anyone else; I was content to stand fully in who I was, a small girl with a library card and an infinite appetite for knowledge. My roots were touching the earth, and I was growing toward my own light.
But as the years went on, that horizon began to shrink. I didn't realize it then, but I was becoming a loose thread in someone else’s design, being pulled away from my own wonder and woven into a pattern of measurement I never asked for.
I still remember the day we were sorted into our reading groups. My heart pounded as my teacher called out our names. One by one, each of us was assigned a colour that everyone understood, but no one said aloud.
“Yellow group,” she said.
At the time, I didn't fully grasp why these random colours mattered to everyone else, and yet I felt my intrinsic curiosity, the pure, innocent hunger to just know, began to wither. I felt an invisible wall grow, brick by invisible brick. I felt a subtle drop in my chest, realizing my friends were in green: the 'smart' group. Suddenly, I was no longer their equal, but someone below them, defined by a label I didn't choose that dictated the help I received and how I was seen by my teachers, my friends, and eventually, myself. For the first time, I felt that being whole was no longer enough; I had to be perfect to be seen. My joy was traded for a feverish need for validation, and I stopped learning to satisfy my mind and started learning to satisfy the scale."
That quiet jealousy wasn't just about wanting to be in another group. It was the beginning of comparison becoming something I internalised. Something I grew to obsess over.
And it wasn't just confined to school.
“You should be more like your cousin; she always listens to her mother.”
“Your friend is so much more studious than you.”
At first, these comments were confusing, but over time, the message became a permanent fixture in my mind: who I was alone wasn’t the standard. I was no longer a curious child exploring a world of wonder; I was a data point being measured against a pattern of perfection that I could never quite reach. I was always being placed somewhere on an invisible scale, and I realized that in this "design," my only way to be "enough" was to be "more" than the person next to me. I was no longer the girl standing on a hilltop; I was a shadow searching for light, not the light of discovery, but the flickering light of comparative superiority. I was no longer finding my place through discovery; I was fighting for my place on a leaderboard.
High School- The Overgrowth
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: This is a section B personal journeys…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: Every journey is fraught with challenges, yet we have the temptation to remain confined in our narrow…
Every journey is fraught with challenges, yet we have the temptation to remain confined in our narrow perspectives; when we refuse to view our experiences from different angles, we become trapped in an echo chamber of our own making, making us unable to develop. Thus, an individual's own stubbornness becomes their own barrier, preventing them from developing through exposure to different angles. As referenced earlier, with the rapid growth of social media, it is easy to trap an individual in a bubble of their own thoughts and narrow perspective, only feeding opinions and discussions that appeal to
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: personal journeys title: finding my place
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 97.5%: Kindergarten- The Sowing In the hazy nostalgia of kindergarten, I remember a time before the labels. I…
Kindergarten- The Sowing
In the hazy nostalgia of kindergarten, I remember a time before the labels. I remember the classroom as a seamless collective of sticky fingers and shared crayons; we were a group of four-year-olds who saw the world as a collaborative playground. There were no ranks and no "better thans." We were just a circle of friends, holding hands during carpet time, our identities blurred into one happy, unmeasured mass. To us, every child in that room was an equal companion. In those days, finding my place was as simple as finding a gap in the circle or a warm hand to hold.
I remember the day the stickers were introduced. My teacher smiled warmly as she moved through the room, pressing tiny, shimmering icons onto our shirts. Some were gold, some were silver, and some shirts remained bare. At the time, I didn't feel an intoxicating rush, and I didn't feel superior. We didn't understand the hierarchy yet. We were just happy little kids, still laughing at the same jokes and still sharing the same blue crayons. To us, the stickers were just pretty decorations on our shirts, not labels on our souls.
I remained oblivious to the way we were being indoctrinated. I didn't recognize it then, but my teacher was quietly initiating a social order that would eventually consume our identities. She was planting the seeds of a competition that we wouldn't learn to escape for decades. In that brightly coloured room, filled with blu-sticks and crayon drawings, we were still the same, still equal, completely unaware that the system was already beginning to mold us into deriving our value from the achievements of those around us. We didn't know that the 'Gold Star' was the first lesson in learning that our worth was no longer something we possessed within ourselves, but something we calculated by measuring the distance between our success and our peers.
Primary school- Taking Root
By primary school, the system was no longer hidden; it was deliberate, structured.
In those early years, my curiosity was an open door. I was a child who lived in the "why," seeing the world not as a set of rules, but as a vast, shimmering horizon of possibility. I loved the way a new fact felt like a secret I had just uncovered, and I would spend hours lost in the library, chasing my own wonder through the pages of books. To me, finding my place didn’t mean finding my rank; it meant standing at the edge of that horizon and realizing I was part of something infinite. I felt whole simply because I was curious. I didn't feel the need to be "better" than anyone else; I was content to stand fully in who I was, a small girl with a library card and an infinite appetite for knowledge. My roots were touching the earth, and I was growing toward my own light.
But as the years went on, that horizon began to shrink. I didn't realize it then, but I was becoming a loose thread in someone else’s design, being pulled away from my own wonder and woven into a pattern of measurement I never asked for.
I still remember the day we were sorted into our reading groups. My heart pounded as my teacher called out our names. One by one, each of us was assigned a colour that everyone understood, but no one said aloud.
“Yellow group” she said.
At the time, I didn't fully grasp why these random colours mattered to everyone else, and yet I felt my intrinsic curiosity, the pure, innocent hunger to just know, began to wither. I felt an invisible wall grow, brick by invisible brick. I felt a subtle drop in my chest, realizing my friends were in green: the 'smart' group. Suddenly, I was no longer their equal, but someone below them, defined by a label I didn't choose that dictated the help I received and how I was seen by my teachers, my friends, and eventually, myself. For the first time, I felt that being whole was no longer enough; I had to be perfect to be seen. My joy was traded for a feverish need for validation, and I stopped learning to satisfy my mind and started learning to satisfy the scale."
That quiet jealousy wasn't just about wanting to be in another group. It was the beginning of comparison becoming something I internalised. Something that as I grew up began to obsess over.
And it wasn't just confined to school.
“You should be more like your cousin; she always listens to her mother.”
“Your friend is so much more studious than you.”
At first, these comments were confusing, but over time, the message became a permanent fixture in my mind: who I was alone wasn’t the standard. I was no longer a curious child exploring a world of wonder; I was a data point being measured against a pattern of perfection that I could never quite reach. I was always being placed somewhere on an invisible scale, and I realized that in this "design," my only way to be "enough" was to be "more" than the person next to me. I was no longer the girl standing on a hilltop; I was a shadow searching for light, not the light of discovery, but the flickering light of comparative superiority. I was no longer finding my place through discovery; I was fighting for my place on a leaderboard.
High School- The Overgrowth
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: personal journeys title: finding my place
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 95%: Kindergarten- The sowing In the hazy nostalgia of kindergarten, I remember a time before the labels. I remember…
Kindergarten- The sowing
In the hazy nostalgia of kindergarten, I remember a time before the labels. I remember the classroom as a seamless collective of sticky fingers and shared crayons; we were a group of four-year-olds who saw the world as a collaborative playground. There were no ranks and no "better thans." We were just a circle of friends, holding hands during carpet time, our identities blurred into one happy, unmeasured mass. To us, every child in that room was an equal companion. In those days, finding my place was as simple as finding a gap in the circle or a warm hand to hold.
I remember the day the stickers were introduced. My teacher smiled warmly as she moved through the room, pressing tiny, shimmering icons onto our shirts. Some were gold, some were silver, and some shirts remained bare. At the time, I didn't feel an intoxicating rush, and I didn't feel superior. We didn't understand the hierarchy yet. We were just happy little kids, still laughing at the same jokes and still sharing the same blue crayons. To us, the stickers were just pretty decorations on our shirts, not labels on our souls.
I remained oblivious to the way we were being indoctrinated. I didn't recognize it then, but my teacher was quietly initiating a social order that would eventually consume our identities. She was planting the seeds of a competition that we wouldn't learn to escape for decades. In that brightly coloured room, filled with blu-sticks and crayon drawings, we were still the same, still equal, completely unaware that the system was already beginning to mold us into deriving our value from the achievements of those around us. We didn't know that the 'Gold Star' was the first lesson in learning that our worth was no longer something we possessed within ourselves, but something we calculated by measuring the distance between our success and our peers.
Primary school- taking root
By primary school, the system was no longer hidden; it was deliberate, structured.
In those early years, my curiosity was an open door. I was a child who lived in the "why," seeing the world not as a set of rules, but as a vast, shimmering horizon of possibility. I loved the way a new fact felt like a secret I had just uncovered, and I would spend hours lost in the library, chasing my own wonder through the pages of books. To me, finding my place didn’t mean finding my rank; it meant standing at the edge of that horizon and realizing I was part of something infinite. I felt whole simply because I was curious. I didn't feel the need to be "better" than anyone else; I was content to stand fully in who I was, a small girl with a library card and an infinite appetite for knowledge. My roots were touching the earth, and I was growing toward my own light.
But as the years went on, that horizon began to shrink. I didn't realize it then, but I was becoming a loose thread in someone else’s design, being pulled away from my own wonder and woven into a pattern of measurement I never asked for.
I still remember the day we were sorted into our reading groups. My heart pounded as my teacher called out our names. One by one, each of us assigned a colour that everyone understood, but no one said aloud.
“Yellow group” she said.
At the time, I didn't fully grasp why these random colours mattered to everyone else, and yet I felt my intrinsic curiosity, the pure, innocent hunger to just know, began to wither. I felt an invisible wall grow, brick by invisible brick. I felt a subtle drop in my chest, realizing my friends were in green: the 'smart' group. Suddenly, I was no longer their equal, but someone below them, defined by a label I didn't choose that dictated the help I received and how I was seen by my teachers, my friends, and eventually, myself. For the first time, I felt that being whole was no longer enough; I had to be perfect to be seen. My joy was traded for a feverish need for validation, and I stopped learning to satisfy my mind and started learning to satisfy the scale."
That quiet jealousy wasn't just about wanting to be in another group. It was the beginning of comparison becoming something I internalised. Something that as I grew up began to obsess over.
And it wasn't just confined to school.
“You should be more like your cousin; she always listens to her mother.”
“Your friend is so much more studious than you.”
At first, these comments were confusing, but over time, the message became a permanent fixture in my mind: who I was alone wasn’t the standard. I was no longer a curious child exploring a world of wonder; I was a data point being measured against a pattern of perfection that I could never quite reach. I was always being placed somewhere on an invisible scale, and I realized that in this "design," my only way to be "enough" was to be "more" than the person next to me. I was no longer the girl standing on a hilltop; I was a shadow searching for light, not the light of discovery, but the flickering light of comparative superiority. I was always being placed somewhere on an invisible scale, and I was no longer finding my place through discovery; I was fighting for my place on a leaderboard.
High School- the overgrowth
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Boundaries
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 97.5%: BOUNDARIES I sit on a shelf for years on end, contributing the paper in my pages to the dusty, learned scent…
BOUNDARIES I sit on a shelf for years on end, contributing the paper in my pages to the dusty, learned scent of the Wren Library. I have not seen the light of day for decades, resting on my marble tomb and encased in my papery box where I will forever reside, and I hold vigil over the memory of my author who penned me, the father of Linear Algebra, Augustin-Loius Cauchy.
Tens of thousands of kilometers away, students slave away at their curricular mathematics. Their thoughts are limited to the box of finite width and length demanded of them by their exam boards, and they are warned that journeying outside these confines to the irrelevant, dangerous, and non-examinable unknown would relegate them to the feared midfields of the ranking ladder.
“Shut up and memorise”, they hear, as they bite into the back of their pencils just to feel something.
They would have been taught that when writing mathematical proofs, the convention is to put a little box at the end of them . [box]. The box is supposed to mean completion. No more mess, nothing beyond those four lines. The thought has behaved itself. Yet, the box is empty. Do these poor students truly understand what they have just inscribed, if they are asked to simply repeat, repeat, repeat?
I look within my own pages. At the theorems, remarks, corollaries and proofs found within. Towards the Theorem names for my late author, which many students are forced to memorise for the sake of examination, without examining their own logic or the hidden geometric beauty of the result. I am but a book. A collection of paper, and a mindless thing, yet the children forced to learn by rote are becoming more like me than my dear author.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: personal journeys title: finding my place
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 92.5%: Kindergarten- The sowing In the hazy nostalgia of kindergarten, I remember a time before the labels. I…
Kindergarten- The sowing
In the hazy nostalgia of kindergarten, I remember a time before the labels. I remember the classroom as a seamless collective of sticky fingers and shared crayons; we were a group of four-year-olds who saw the world as a collaborative playground. There were no ranks and no "better thans." We were just a circle of friends, holding hands during carpet time, our identities blurred into one happy, unmeasured mass. To us, every child in that room was an equal companion. In those days, finding my place was as simple as finding a gap in the circle or a warm hand to hold.
I remember the day the stickers were introduced. My teacher smiled warmly as she moved through the room, pressing tiny, shimmering icons onto our shirts. Some were gold, some were silver, and some shirts remained bare. At the time, I didn't feel an intoxicating rush, and I didn't feel superior. We didn't understand the hierarchy yet. We were just happy little kids, still laughing at the same jokes and still sharing the same blue crayons. To us, the stickers were just pretty decorations on our shirts, not labels on our souls.
I remained oblivious to the way we were being indoctrinated. I didn't recognize it then, but my teacher was quietly initiating a social order that would eventually consume our identities. She was planting the seeds of a competition that we wouldn't learn to escape for decades. In that brightly coloured room, filled with blu-sticks and crayon drawings, we were still the same, still equal, completely unaware that the system was already beginning to mold us into deriving our value from the achievements of those around us. We didn't know that the 'Gold Star' was the first lesson in learning that our worth was no longer something we possessed within ourselves, but something we calculated by measuring the distance between our success and our peers.
Primary school- taking root
By primary school, the system was no longer hidden; it was deliberate, structured.
In those early years, my curiosity was an open door. I was a child who lived in the "why," seeing the world not as a set of rules, but as a vast, shimmering horizon of possibility. I loved the way a new fact felt like a secret I had just uncovered, and I would spend hours lost in the library, chasing my own wonder through the pages of books. To me, finding my place didn’t mean finding my rank; it meant standing at the edge of that horizon and realizing I was part of something infinite. I felt whole simply because I was curious. I didn't feel the need to be "better" than anyone else; I was content to stand fully in who I was, a small girl with a library card and an infinite appetite for knowledge. My roots were touching the earth, and I was growing toward my own light.
But as the years went on, that horizon began to shrink. I didn't realize it then, but I was becoming a loose thread in someone else’s design, being pulled away from my own wonder and woven into a pattern of measurement I never asked for.
I still remember the day we were sorted into our reading groups. My heart pounded as my teacher called out our names. One by one. Each of us assigned a colour that everyone understood, but no one said aloud.
“Yellow group” she said.
At the time, I didn't fully grasp why these random colours mattered to everyone else, and yet I felt my intrinsic curiosity, the pure, innocent hunger to just know, began to wither. I felt an invisible wall grow, brick by invisible brick. I felt a subtle drop in my chest, realizing my friends were in green: the 'smart' group. Suddenly, I was no longer their equal, but someone below them, defined by a label I didn't choose that dictated the help I received and how I was seen by my teachers, my friends, and eventually, myself. For the first time, I felt that being whole was no longer enough; I had to be perfect to be seen. My joy was traded for a feverish need for validation, and I stopped learning to satisfy my mind and started learning to satisfy the scale."
That quiet jealousy wasn't just about wanting to be in another group. It was the beginning of comparison becoming something I internalised. Something that as I grew up began to obsess over.
And it wasn't just confined to school.
“You should be more like your cousin; she always listens to her mother.”
“Your friend is so much more studious than you.”
At first, these comments were confusing, but over time, the message became a permanent fixture in my mind: who I was alone wasn’t the standard. I was no longer a curious child exploring a world of wonder; I was a data point being measured against a pattern of perfection that I could never quite reach. I was always being placed somewhere on an invisible scale, and I realized that in this "design," my only way to be "enough" was to be "more" than the person next to me. I was no longer the girl standing on a hilltop; I was a shadow searching for light, not the light of discovery, but the flickering light of comparative superiority. I was always being placed somewhere on an invisible scale, and I was no longer finding my place through discovery; I was fighting for my place on a leaderboard.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: personal journeys title: finding my place
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: Kindergarten- The sowing In the hazy nostalgia of kindergarten, I remember a time before the labels. I…
Kindergarten- The sowing
In the hazy nostalgia of kindergarten, I remember a time before the labels. I remember the classroom as a seamless collective of sticky fingers and shared crayons; we were a group of four-year-olds who saw the world as a collaborative playground. There were no ranks and no "better thans." We were just a circle of friends, holding hands during carpet time, our identities blurred into one happy, unmeasured mass. To us, every child in that room was an equal companion. In those days, finding my place was as simple as finding a gap in the circle or a warm hand to hold.
I remember the day the stickers were introduced. My teacher smiled warmly as she moved through the room, pressing tiny, shimmering icons onto our shirts. Some were gold, some were silver, and some shirts remained bare. At the time, I didn't feel an intoxicating rush, and I didn't feel superior. We didn't understand the hierarchy yet. We were just happy little kids, still laughing at the same jokes and still sharing the same blue crayons. To us, the stickers were just pretty decorations on our shirts, not labels on our souls.
I remained oblivious to the way we were being indoctrinated. I didn't recognize it then, but my teacher was quietly initiating a social order that would eventually consume our identities. She was planting the seeds of a competition that we wouldn't learn to escape for decades. In that brightly coloured room, filled with blu-sticks and crayon drawings, we were still the same, still equal, completely unaware that the system was already beginning to mold us into deriving our value from the achievements of those around us. We didn't know that the 'Gold Star' was the first lesson in learning that our worth was no longer something we possessed within ourselves, but something we calculated by measuring the distance between our success and our peers.
Primary school- taking root
By primary school, the system was no longer hidden; it was deliberate, structured.
In those early years, my curiosity was an open door. I was a child who lived in the "why," seeing the world not as a set of rules, but as a vast, shimmering horizon of possibility. I loved the way a new fact felt like a secret I had just uncovered, and I would spend hours lost in the library, chasing my own wonder through the pages of books. To me, finding my place didn’t mean finding my rank; it meant standing at the edge of that horizon and realizing I was part of something infinite. I felt whole simply because I was curious. I didn't feel the need to be "better" than anyone else; I was content to stand fully in who I was, a small girl with a library card and an infinite appetite for knowledge. My roots were touching the earth, and I was growing toward my own light.
But as the years went on, that horizon began to shrink. I didn't realize it then, but I was becoming a loose thread in someone else’s design, being pulled away from my own wonder and woven into a pattern of measurement I never asked for.
I still remember the day we were sorted into our reading groups. My heart pounded as my teacher called out our names. One by one. Each of us assigned a colour that everyone understood, but no one said aloud.
“Yellow group” she said.
At the time, I didn't fully grasp why these random colours mattered to everyone else, and yet I felt my intrinsic curiosity, the pure, innocent hunger to just know, began to wither. I felt an invisible wall grow, brick by invisible brick. I felt a subtle drop in my chest, realizing my friends were in green: the 'smart' group. Suddenly, I was no longer their equal, but someone below them, defined by a label I didn't choose that dictated the help I received and how I was seen by my teachers, my friends, and eventually, myself. For the first time, I felt that being whole was no longer enough; I had to be perfect to be seen. My joy was traded for a feverish need for validation, and I stopped learning to satisfy my mind and started learning to satisfy the scale."
That quiet jealousy wasn't just about wanting to be in another group. It was the beginning of comparison becoming something I internalised. Something that as I grew up began to obsess over.
And it wasn't just confined to school.
“You should be more like your cousin; she always listens to her mother.”
“Your friend is so much more studious than you.”
At first, these comments were confusing, but over time, the message became a permanent fixture in my mind: who I was alone wasn’t the standard. I was no longer a curious child exploring a world of wonder; I was a data point being measured against a pattern of perfection that I could never quite reach. I was always being placed somewhere on an invisible scale, and I realized that in this "design," my only way to be "enough" was to be "more" than the person next to me. I was no longer the girl standing on a hilltop; I was a shadow searching for light, not the light of discovery, but the flickering light of comparative superiority. I was always being placed somewhere on an invisible scale, and I was no longer finding my place through discovery; I was fighting for my place on a leaderboard.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Boundaries
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 92.5%: BOUNDARIES I sit on a shelf for years on end, contributing the paper in my pages to the dusty, learned scent…
BOUNDARIES I sit on a shelf for years on end, contributing the paper in my pages to the dusty, learned scent of the Wren Library. I have not seen the light of day for decades, resting on my marble tomb and encased in my papery box where I will forever reside, and I hold vigil over the memory of my author who penned me, the father of Linear Algebra, Augustin-Loius Cauchy.
Tens of thousands of kilometers away, students slave away at their curricular mathematics. Their thoughts are limited to the box of finite width and length demanded of them by their exam boards, and they are warned that journeying outside these confines to the irrelevant, dangerous, and non-examinable unknown would relegate them to the feared midfields of the ranking ladder.
“Shut up and memorise”, they hear, as they bite into the back of their pencils just to feel something.
They would have been taught that when writing mathematical proofs, the convention is to put a little box at the end of them . [box]. The box is supposed to mean completion. No more mess, nothing beyond those four lines. The thought has behaved itself. Yet, the box is empty. Do these poor students truly understand what they have just inscribed, if they are asked to simply repeat, repeat, repeat?
I look within my own pages. At the theorems, remarks, corollaries and proofs found within. Towards the Theorem names for my late author, which many students are forced to memorise for the sake of examination, without examining their own logic or the hidden geometric beauty of the result. I am but a book. A collection of paper, and a mindless thing, yet the children forced to learn by rote are becoming more like me than my dear author.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: personal journeys title: finding my place
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: Kindergarten- The sowing In the hazy nostalgia of kindergarten, I remember a time before the labels. I remember…
Kindergarten- The sowing
In the hazy nostalgia of kindergarten, I remember a time before the labels. I remember the classroom as a seamless collective of sticky fingers and shared crayons; we were a group of four-year-olds who saw the world as a collaborative playground. There were no ranks and no "better thans." We were just a circle of friends, holding hands during carpet time, our identities blurred into one happy, unmeasured mass. To us, every child in that room was an equal companion. In those days, finding my place was as simple as finding a gap in the circle or a warm hand to hold.
I remember the day the stickers were introduced. My teacher smiled warmly as she moved through the room, pressing tiny, shimmering icons onto our shirts. Some were gold, some were silver, and some shirts remained bare. At the time, I didn't feel an intoxicating rush, and I didn't feel superior. We didn't understand the hierarchy yet. We were just happy little kids, still laughing at the same jokes and still sharing the same blue crayons. To us, the stickers were just pretty decorations on our shirts, not labels on our souls.
I remained oblivious to the way we were being indoctrinated. I didn't recognize it then, but my teacher was quietly initiating a social order that would eventually consume our identities. She was planting the seeds of a competition that we wouldn't learn to escape for decades. In that brightly coloured room, filled with blu-sticks and crayon drawings, we were still the same, still equal, completely unaware that the system was already beginning to mold us into deriving our value from the achievements of those around us. We didn't know that the 'Gold Star' was the first lesson in learning that our worth was no longer something we possessed within ourselves, but something we calculated by measuring the distance between our success and our peers.
Primary school- taking root
By primary school, the system was no longer hidden; it was deliberate, structured.
In those early years, my curiosity was an open door. I was a child who lived in the "why," seeing the world not as a set of rules, but as a vast, shimmering horizon of possibility. I loved the way a new fact felt like a secret I had just uncovered, and I would spend hours lost in the library, chasing my own wonder through the pages of books. To me, finding my place didn’t mean finding my rank; it meant standing at the edge of that horizon and realizing I was part of something infinite. I felt whole simply because I was curious. I didn't feel the need to be "better" than anyone else; I was content to stand fully in who I was, a small girl with a library card and an infinite appetite for knowledge. My roots were touching the earth, and I was growing toward my own light.
But as the years went on, that horizon began to shrink. I didn't realize it then, but I was becoming a loose thread in someone else’s design, being pulled away from my own wonder and woven into a pattern of measurement I never asked for.
I still remember the day we were sorted into our reading groups. My heart pounded as my teacher called out our names. One by one. Each of us assigned a colour that everyone understood, but no one said aloud.
“Yellow group” she said.
At the time, I didn't fully grasp why these random colours mattered to everyone else, and yet I felt my intrinsic curiosity; the pure, innocent hunger to just know, began to wither. I felt an invisible wall grow, brick by invisible brick. I felt a subtle drop in my chest, realizing my friends were in green: the 'smart' group. Suddenly, I was no longer their equal, but someone below them, defined by a label I didn't choose that dictated the help I received and how I was seen by my teachers, my friends, and eventually, myself. For the first time, I felt that being whole was no longer enough; I had to be perfect to be seen. My joy was traded for a feverish need for validation, and I stopped learning to satisfy my mind and started learning to satisfy the scale."
That quiet jealousy wasn't just about wanting to be in another group. It was the beginning of comparison becoming something I internalised. Something that as I grew up began to obsess over.
And it wasn't just confined to school.
“You should be more like your cousin; she always listens to her mother.”
“Your friend is so much more studious than you.”
At first, these comments were confusing, but over time, the message became a permanent fixture in my mind: who I was alone wasn’t the standard. I was no longer a curious child exploring a world of wonder; I was a data point being measured against a pattern of perfection that I could never quite reach. I was always being placed somewhere on an invisible scale, and I realized that in this "design," my only way to be "enough" was to be "more" than the person next to me. I was no longer the girl standing on a hilltop; I was a shadow searching for light, not the light of discovery, but the flickering light of comparative superiority. I was always being placed somewhere on an invisible scale, and I was no longer finding my place through discovery; I was fighting for my place on a leaderboard.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: life is a game Stimulus: we are…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 97.5%: Life is a Game Press play to start [play] The vivid pixels on the screen illuminate as I press play on my…
Life is a Game
Press play to start
[play]
The vivid pixels on the screen illuminate as I press play on my gaming console. I am entering my safe zone, the world of Minecraft, where I am truly free, and truly myself. No stress here. No due dates, and no Truman Burbank smiling on cue for a director he never knew existed. In this game I submerse myself; there is no façade. There is no audience mocking my every action, just the NPC (Non-Playable Character) villagers who wander this blocky world. My actions are free and my cortisol levels at an all-time low. I build kingdoms unconstrained by regulation. I sail seas and battle monsters unthreatened by consequences. I am not performing life, but rather living it. To press play on the game is to press pause on everything else.
[pause game]
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: life is a game Stimulus: we are…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 95%: Life is a Game Press play to start [play] The vivid pixels on the screen illuminate as I press play on my…
Life is a Game
Press play to start
[play]
The vivid pixels on the screen illuminate as I press play on my gaming console. I am entering my safe zone, the world of Minecraft, where I am truly free, and truly myself. No stress here. No due dates, and no Truman Burbank smiling on cue for a director he never knew existed. In this game I submerse myself; there is no façade. There is no audience mocking my every action, just the NPC (Non-Playable Character) villagers who wander this blocky world. My actions are free and my cortisol levels at an all-time low. I build kingdoms unconstrained by regulation. I sail seas and battle monsters unthreatened by consequences. I am not performing life, but rather living it. To press play on the game is to press pause on everything else.
[pause game]
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: personal journeys
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 67.5%: The bell doesn’t ring the same. [personal reflective essay published in The Age Weekend Magazine by a recent…
The bell doesn’t ring the same.
[personal reflective essay published in The Age Weekend Magazine by a recent Year 12 graduate transitioning into university life]
The bell doesn’t ring the same. It still echoes through the corridors, sharp and familiar, yet something about it feels misaligned – like it has lost its sense of purpose now that there’s nothing left to count down to.
The classroom feels louder than usual. Chairs scraping, pens tapping, someone laughing too hard at something that isn’t even funny. I try to take it all in - the sharp scent of whiteboard markers, sunlight stretching lazily across the desks, and the rough edges pressing beneath my hands.
I ask myself to remember it, because this is it.
It all feels clearer now. Like I’m seeing everything from a higher place than before. It should feel like I’ve made it. Like I’ve climbed something and finally reached the top…
Yet it only feels like the first peak I’ve actually noticed. There’s more ahead, higher ones, lingering quietly in the distance. Peaks I haven’t seen yet, but already feel expected to reach.
Someone says, "Last class ever", and it lands heavier than I expected. I thought I’d feel relieved.
Free.
But no one really talks about how freedom can feel like being unheld, as if there’s nothing left to push against - nothing shaping me anymore. Instead it feels like standing at the highest point… and realising I don’t know how to come down from it.
The final bell rings, no one moves straight away.
S i l e n c e.
I linger at the doorway, looking back at empty chairs, the half-clean whiteboard, the life I got used to. As I step out, the lights switch off all at once.
Not like an ending. More like something being put away gently, like a book at the end of a chapter.
Somewhere between then and next
No one talks about this part, the in-between.
The days blur together. Late mornings, quiet afternoons, the light sitting too still against the walls. No voices, no movement, just time passing. I keep waiting for something to begin, but it doesn’t.
It isn't peaceful. It’s the absence of movement, like coming down from something
No clear direction…
No clear next step to hold onto…
Just movement.
Like running downhill too fast, your body leaning forward before you decide it. At first it feels freeing, until you realise you’re out of control, and stopping isn’t as easy as it sounds.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Are the pieces supposed to be about…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: For me K-Pop music has been a source of healing and strength. I know that this would be true for many fans…
For me K-Pop music has been a source of healing and strength. I know that this would be true for many fans who feel the same. Unlike other genres of music, the world of K-Pop has driven itself on this idea of connection and how it can foster into a global community that transcends borders, languages and cultures.
So I'm sure it came as a shock to everyone when HYBE released the statement on March 10th. The former K-Pop idol and member of Enhypen, Heeseung, would be departing the group to pursue solo activities, while still being under the label.
In the statement HYBE expressed that Heeseung’s departure was made due to his future aspirations not aligning with the group’s and that he had his own distinct musical vision.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: life is a game Stimulus: we are…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: Life is a Game Press play to start [play] The vivid pixels on the screen illuminate as I press play on my…
Life is a Game
Press play to start
[play]
The vivid pixels on the screen illuminate as I press play on my gaming console. I am entering my safe zone, the world of Minecraft, where I am truly free, and truly myself. No stress here. No due dates, and no Truman Burbank smiling on cue for a director he never knew existed. In this game I submerse myself; there is no façade. There is no audience mocking my every action, just the NPC (Non-Playable Character) villagers who wander this blocky world. My actions are free and my cortisol levels at an all-time low. I build kingdoms unconstrained by regulation. I sail seas and battle monsters unthreatened by consequences. I am not performing life, but rather living it. To press play on the game is to press pause on everything else.
[pause game]
The screen goes dark as my game pauses. Reality resumes its uninvited broadcast. My English essay is tomorrow. I must discuss Truman Burbank: his manufactured existence, his gradual awakening, and his desperate bid for something real. The irony is not lost on me. Truman lived thirty years inside a performance he never auditioned for, his every move choreographed for an audience he didn’t know existed, his entire identity constructed by Christof before he could construct one himself. And yet, the education system I play along with has done precisely the same thing to me. A 90 ATAR. The right prerequisites. Four years of lectures I will endure rather than enjoy, feeding into a career chosen not by passion but by the quiet terror of choosing wrong. My dreams, ones that felt real when I was young enough to play without apology, have been slowly, administratively, edited out. In their place lie a junior partnership at a prestigious law firm, a résumé dressed in accolades, and a mental framework built entirely for an audience I never auditioned for. Truman performed for Christof. I perform for a rubric. The difference, I am beginning to suspect, is mostly cosmetic. Life is not a game; it is a bittersweet asylum and a perpetual cycle of self-doubt, introspection and regret. When play is taken from us, we grow away from ourselves. One compromise at a time, until the person staring back in the mirror is a stranger wearing our face.
[resume game]
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Escape- theme country
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 67.5%: Amelie-B Framework 1: Writing about country - Write a text that explores ideas about country - You must use…
Amelie-B
Framework 1: Writing about country
- Write a text that explores ideas about country
- You must use the title provided
- You must use at least one of the stimuli
Title: 'Escape'
Stimulus 1
'Not all those who wander are lost.'
- JRR Tolkien
Stimulus 2
women are in the box
Stimulus 3
'I am sitting in my dingy little office where a stingy
Ray of sunlight struggled feebly down between the houses tall;
And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty dirty city
Through the open window falling spread its foulness over all.'
- Banjo Patterson
Amelie-B
Framework 1: Writing about country
* Write a text that explores ideas about country
* You must use the title provided
* You must use at least one of the stimuli
Title: 'Escape'
Stimulus 1
'Not all those who wander are lost.'
- JRR Tolkien
Stimulus 2
women are in the box
Stimulus 3
'I am sitting in my dingy little office where a stingy
Ray of sunlight struggled feebly down between the houses tall;
And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty dirty city
Through the open window falling spread its foulness over all.'
- Banjo Patterson
Escape
Dear young women and men of society who is struggling to find an equal place in society. My name is Janet Carter and I am a women. Today, I would like to address something I belive can be regonised and adressed across society, the experience of young women, at the hands of some of you. Women quite frankly do not have a place, whether intentionally or not. Sacrilege, suffering, sacrifice. Is that the reality of womens lives - or are you refuse to confront? for women in 2026 country cannot be considered a landscape, it is a permission. It is a territory of the mind that is being colonized by a global, creeping regression. So join me in advocating for the rights of women, to create a society where equality is no longer a lie. Where is the light of girls who haven't yet learned to be small?
I have been told "you play like a girl". It was a jagged sentence, designed as a malevolent muzzle, a verbal line I was never meant to cross. They wanted my strength to be a costume and my speed to be an accident. But I felt the global echo of that restriction, the same systematic shushing that dictates the lives of women oversea, However I chose to burn that man made script. I chose the iron taste of breath in my throat, and the rythmic heavy thud of a heart that refuses to be quiet. If playing like a girl is a transgression, then let me be the riot. This is why it is important that we act now! The new generation will not be subjected to this retoric.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: Finding The Way Stimulus: An…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 72.5%: Finding the way North The little girl stumbled over her own feet, dragging her father along as butter and…
Finding the way
North
The little girl stumbled over her own feet, dragging her father along as butter and sugar filled her senses. Her legs still shaking in anticipation as she sunk into the red cushioned seats of the theatre. The silence was deafening as the movie flashed across the screen.
Frozen 2
The little girl nearly squelled out in excitement as though she’s been waiting for this her whole life. eyes wide, ears perked, eagerly absorbing every score.
‘Some things never change’, ‘into the unknown’.
The vibrant colours of Elsa and her kingdom stained on the little girl’s eyes. She never wanted it to end.
The car ride home was filled with the little girl’s dreams and plans. to be a princess, to speak to nature, to wear pretty dresses all the time.
Her father, following the directions on the map, nodded slightly, not wanting to interrupt what was brewing in the mind of his imaginative daughter.
South
The young woman grabbed tightly onto the shirt of her father, black cap slipping off. The contrast of her gown and his tropical shirt tugged at the heart of the woman, hinting towards the decision she had been putting off.
The ceremony was like every other. graduates shifting in their seats, parents weeping for their children, and a teacher who never stops talking.
Courage. Bravery. Taking the next step in the journey. The speech resurfaced any anxiety about which path to choose.
The young woman’s mind scrambled to find the way in which she was meant to go.
University?
Travel?
Full-time work?
There was no printed blueprint she could follow, she had to make her own.
West.
blankly staring at her computer, the young woman was frozen in fear. the biggest decision of her life, all up to her.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Tittle: 'moving forward' Prompt: I…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 75%: I thought this moment would feel different. Instead, it felt ordinary. I felt ordinary. The scoreboard…
I thought this moment would feel different.
Instead, it felt ordinary.
I felt ordinary.
The scoreboard flickered in the background, as the sun set slowly across the horizon. The pitch was dusty and cracked like the depths of the Sahara Desert. This was the same ground we had played consistently throughout the season. It was our home ground. We hadn’t lost a game here all season. Nothing had changed... Yet everything was different. This time we were on the brink of defeat. In these last moments the crowd had hushed, and a hint of adrenaline rushed through my body.
And then...
The world Halted to silence and a depth of emptiness spread across the ground. For a few seconds... Nobody moved... Nobody talked... But then it all came crashing down.
The opposition gathered in celebration, their voices full of joy, laughter and excitement, whilst we stood in silence staring at the cracks that enveloped the pitch. ‘Thud’... ‘Thud’... My heart was falling out of my chest, my breath hitched and a cold rush of wind felt like ice across my skin. I couldn’t keep up. My breath heavy, my feet grounded. That ordinary feeling Shattered. In the bottom of my heart, I couldn’t get over this. I couldn’t help but think, what have we done? Was this all worth it? The season had just come to an end, and we didn’t win.
Who are we if not winners?
And what is living if not winning?
Can we smile in the face of loss?
It wasn’t just another loss. It was the end. How could I move forward?
This feeling; I couldn’t grasp it.
This wasn’t the first time; we had competed against the opposition once before but at their home ground. That previous game, we walked in with our heads up, full of confidence from our unbroken win streak.
So, we couldn’t possibly lose (I had thought)
Yet before we could think, it had begun collapsing; the confidence, the hope, the vision. Our captain had been caught early to an unlucky dismissal, but we still had the rest of the team (I hoped)
but no...
The wickets fell in a sudden chain reaction. We couldn’t do anything. In the end we were all out for 115 runs. It wasn’t bad, we still had a chance. Our confidence had dropped but the idea of victory was still in our minds.
And then... Came all the mistakes.
A dropped catch.
A misfield.
An overthrow.
A boundary we should have not conceded.
Slowly, the game slipped from our hands.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: 1. Michael beats George even though he…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 72.5%: Prompt #1 The delicious aroma of Mum’s meatballs wafted across the kitchen into my room. I stood up from my…
Prompt #1
The delicious aroma of Mum’s meatballs wafted across the kitchen into my room. I stood up from my bed, blood rushing to my ears.
Tonight is the night, I reinforced in me.
Tonight’s the night I talk to Dad openly.
As I timidly walked into the dining room, my family was already seated, waiting for me. Dad sat on one side of the rectangular mahogany dining table, still in his suit. Seated next to him was Mum, tired but mellow. On the opposite side sat my little brother, engaged unusually in a book - one of those stunts to avoid his least favourite food.
My designated seat for tonight was directly opposite to Dad.
Great. I had to do this face to face with him.
“Ah, Luca, take a seat son”, said my dad, peering at me through his thick rimmed glasses. It was strange how the most gorgeous looking hazel eyes could be so terrifying.
I attempted to get my thoughts in order as Mum served a generous amount of dinner on my plate. As each minute passed by excruciatingly, my every movement felt robotic, every breath got heavier by the second.
I finally broke the eerie silence.
“Dad, I got accepted into an arts degree at the uni”, I managed.
For the next minute, my parents squirmed as if they were suspended in some sort of dense fluid. Mum’s eyes bulged out of her sockets, her jaw hanging in disbelief. Dad abandoned the fork with the bite of food he was about to take. He lifted his face, his deliberate gaze boring through me. Heat rose in my face and neck, making me look flustered.
“What did you say?”, Dad asked, in the most gravely voice.
“I, uh… Yeah Dad. I want to pursue painting. After graduation. So I applied for the arts degree. And I got their reply today.”, I replied.
What Mum said next shocked me. I thought she’d warm up to the idea.
“But Luca, are you really sure? I mean, your application for Commerce was solid, I have no doubt you’ll get accepted”, Mum said, and in the corner of my eye, I saw Dad nodding curtly, his eyes still on me.
“Yes. I know Mum. But that’s not what I want. That is not going to give me peace and happiness”, I retorted, finally sharing a piece of truth with my parents in an eternity.
Dad put his fork down, straightening in his seat a little and clearing his throat. A typical sign of an incoming philosophical speech.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: people holding hands
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: Dear mama and baba I am okay I didn’t run away from home, They took me mama, they are making me sew clothes,…
Dear mama and baba
I am okay
I didn’t run away from home,
They took me mama, they are making me sew clothes, they hit me when I make mistakes.
I made a friend, an uncle who said he will take this letter to you.
Please know that I will be home soon. The man’s friend is helping me escape while the bad people are asleep.
Everything will be okay, I have hope.
I love you mama, baba.
“This was the note which my 7 year old daughter sent me!” I cry out hesitantly in pain, waving a stack of brochures I made with my sweet girl’s last note. “This was the last I heard from her.” I stepped forward, my presence feeling almost insufficient amongst the bustling city of Islamabad. The tuktuk drivers drove past me, snarling to their side. The working men who had bigger priorities than my daughter. But my priority was my daughter.
“My little girl’s name is Jafna Yassim and she is dead! And it is your fault! My Jafna, had hope…my innocent girl, had hope…that amongst her torture there was still good in her. They abused that, and killed my baby! They killed her and sold her for money and it's your fault!” My heart beat became louder than my words and I almost felt at the edge of insanity, swaying from side to side unable to maintain my balance. The people on the street slowed down. “My baby is dead and it's your fault!” I yell, hand on my chest. “Oi woman, what do you think you are doing, where is your husband?” a young man in the crowd said, he looked clean, he was wearing a dress shirt and was holding his phone away from his face with a look of disgust as it was my fault for inconveniencing him. I felt scared, I could get in trouble, my husband doesn't know I am here. My hands shake and I notice myself backing away one step, then two. Stutters of apology leave my shaking lips.
But then I remember the beautiful golden face of my daughter, my daughter who always flashed her right dimple as she smiled. She is brave. I also must be brave.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: no prompt, but we are doing the…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 77.5%: To the country I now call home, I once believed that belonging was something that could be earned — that if I…
To the country I now call home,
I once believed that belonging was something that could be earned — that if I adapted enough, spoke clearly enough, and worked hard enough, I would eventually find my place within you. However, I have come to understand that country is not simply a place one inhabits, but a space where acceptance is unevenly granted, shaped by forces far beyond individual effort.
When my family first arrived, we carried with us the hope that this new country would offer opportunity and stability. Yet, despite their qualifications and experience, my parents found themselves struggling to secure work, often overlooked and underestimated. This revealed that access to opportunity within a country is not determined solely by ability, but by how individuals are perceived and valued within society. In this way, belonging is not freely given, but mediated by systems of power that determine who is recognised and who remains invisible.