Royal College Colombo - 100th Anniversary Magazine - A journey to my school days as a Royalist through memorabilia

 I was a proud royalist and it gave me great opportunities to build myself as a social citizen during my school years (1997 - 2010)

There were certain conflicts with my value systems and school's culture but they were inherent limitations of mine end of the day. (Elitist attitudes of the school)

From a mundane and a calm childhood my adulthood was a bit confusing and harsh dystopian like [Brave New World (1932) and 1984 (1949)]

My professional life since 2015 was filled with failure. I was shifting jobs and parallely lived a life of a blogger which was not lucrative at all.

My current job at Sampath Bank PLC is one of the most minor functions but with hard work of the bank and is actually life cycle management of documents stored at the bank of a certain category.

This job function and my love of book buying since 2017 has a link somehow and it lead me to go to my school days through this shared memorabilia.

Many of my batch mates and friends I did higher studies are migrated or gone abroad due to the current circumstances.

I avoided the biggest events of my school since a child.

The last time I went to a big match was 2015.

My Facebook page D Box contains my blogposts. It was a creative act of mine to show that mind and body is two things.

D box contains blog posts both from sinhalese and english language. There is a significant impact to this from my school life as well as my personal value systems.

Being a past royalist and if you study and follow the school's past you'll learn histories and cultural aspects related to colonial, post colonial and post modern aspects of the country as well.

After leaving the school in 2010 I was an underachiever and I was depressed most of the time.

Many of the value systems I respect have come from my school and mainly my love of the school's main building architecture. It's like in the film, Inception (2010).

I don't have the bragging rights of being a royalist since I'm not a colors man or a prize winner ever in my life. I was able to have minor extra curricular activity achievements which are shared in the below photographs.

But since present is a product of the past and future is a product of the present I must atleast pay my gratitude to the School this way.

Hence I purchased the 100th Anniversary Special Edition Coffee table book of the Royal College Magazine.

The social reality I'm living in today is part of my school days.

I was a very low profile past student but is a very active in 'Facebook' and other social media platforms.

If someone read my mind since my schooling my navigation of academics was based on 'idealism' not money minded. It lead to my downfall. And now I have learned my lesson.

I wanted to write a blog post about my school time in sinhala but it ended up as a note.

(51) මාගේ රාජකීය ගමන (පාසැල් සමය)

https://pwarrsl.blogspot.com/2023/01/paperwork.html

My idealism can be seen in the following blog post that reflects my stupidity.

https://usaphase.blogspot.com/

When I look at myself now I've never seen any idiotic book loving guys (Other than literature students and booktubers) who try to reflect it into the society like me. And specially among past royalist students.

I purchased the cult followed 'Forget Me Not', Sri Lankan book and read it in a day. Here's the link for that post.

https://bookerreadsdaily.blogspot.com/2024/04/forget-me-not-charitha-prawardhi.html

I think this will be my last book purchase since the economy is very hurtful.

100th Anniversary Coffee table book

2010 Batch Year Book

Poster 1

Poster 2

Bradby Ticket

Twenty Twenty 2010

Mustangs 2010

131st 2010

125th 2004

124th 2003

Big match Merchandise

First Day Cover 175th (2010)

Kirula

Sportsmeet Magazines

Art Circle

Blood Donation (Red Cross)

Vibhushana

Report of the Principle

Royal College Magazine

Millenium Directory

Malli's Work

The Royalist Magazine

Minikata

Bradby

BOTB

SAGA

Spark Notes / Rama Brothers / Coles Notes - Going beyond reading

 Book haul is the act of showing off books one just bought on the internet. This can be a video.

The science or an anatomy of a book haul is having old books with a specific crowd or an audience and sharing your ideas. This will even lead to paid sponsorships.

I as a lover of books follow 'Book leo', 'Emmie reads', 'Carolyn Marrie reads', 'Benjamin Macovoy' and other Sri Lankan booktubers as entertainment. 

There is a certain following to this dying hobby.

I am trying to control my book buying and my last book haul was from Sarasavi Bookshops - Online store. They were English literature study guides.

They were printed by 'Spark Notes', 'Rama brothers' and 'Coles Notes'.

I was exposed to Rama Brothers books through a 'Bargain Books Sale' in Gampaha Sarasavi Bookshop. 

After that I ordered all the Rama Brothers study guides from the Sarasavi online bookstore. 

Rama brothers are the publishers of the 'Coles Notes' as well.

I got hold of Spark Notes when I searched for 'Brave New World' book duology in Sarasavi online bookstore.

https://www.sarasavi.lk/

I was addicted to book buying since 2017 and this is how it ended with me a large pile of books and nothing to do.

I purchased a lot of Penguin classics as physical copies due to love of book collecting and unawareness caused by knowing that there are now free pdf's available in the internet.

Spark notes web is an interactive web site that contains most of the study guide materials online in the web for free which reflects my incapabilities in investment and my tendency to waste money, because the physical copies I purchased have the same content as the web for free. Though that's the case it supports literature and I'm okay with it.

https://www.sparknotes.com/

To be honest when I read the 1984 Spark Notes web and compare it with the book web provides additional information about movie adaptations etc.

Spark Notes was founded by a set of students at Harvard (1999). They earned an income through the number of visits to the site. From literature study guides to later expanded to other subjects as well.

I also read the 'Brave New World' and '1984' spark notes book which was a good addition to my collection.

The chapter "How to write literary analysis" is repeated in every book which is a bad sign for spark notes since it degrades the value.

And also one of the other aspects I found as misleading is the books having same number of pages despite there actual size in 'Spark Notes'. (Old man and the sea and Les Miserables)

Unlike spark notes Rama brothers is not available in the internet for free. We have to purchase them for money as physical copies. They are the ones who are publishing 'Coles Notes' as well.

https://ramabrothers.in/

They are written by Indian authors and are analysed well. These are tailor made for south asian region.

Rama brothers books, does not contain Russian literature like 'Spark Notes' but the books have more content and cheaper in value. Coles notes like Spark Notes are smaller in size and was founded in 1948. They are currently printed by Rama brothers. But on the negative side Rama brothers have a very bad cover design strategy.

When I searched for other websites related to Internet literature study guides following was able to be found.

https://www.cliffsnotes.com/

Only exposure I have of English literature as a student is doing English Literature for my G.C.E. O/L in 2007 and getting an 'A' for it. 

One of the main things I like about literature is there updated nature in providing religious and philosophical concepts to the contemporary readers.

When I asked 'Chat GPT' about these literature study guides following was the advantages and disadvantages it provided.

Advantages

(01) Accessibility

(02) Study aid

(03) Time-saving

Disadvantages

(01) Oversimplification

(02) Over-reliance

(03) Academic dishonesty

As a final note using English literature study guides expands your horizons in reading experience.