Archives for February 2024

Launceston students have recorded some of the top TES results in the state. After a nervous wait for many, the state’s 11,000-plus cohort of year 11 and 12 students received their end-of-year results on Wednesday morning. Twenty Launceston-based students made the list of top 101 TES (Tertiary Entrance Score) results, which combine students’ best scores across year 11 and 12 courses. Three Northern students – Oscar Tiernan, Shannon Kelly and Samuel Rein – made the state’s top 12. Launceston College’s Oscar Tiernan was greeted with a TES score of 99.8 on Wednesday morning – but it came with a shock. “I’d been a bit worried last night so I stayed up a little bit,” he said. “I woke up and my parents had already seen my score. My Mum likes to tease me so she said ‘oh I’m so sorry, Oscar, you didn’t do as well as you thought’. “Turns out she was just playing a prank on me.” Oscar is planning to study medicine at Monash University in Melbourne, but is looking at other universities too. The 18-year-old said he had enjoyed all his subjects this year. “Consistent gradual improvement over time helped me to reach my goals,” he said. “It was that diligence and study consistently over time that helped me reach where I never thought I could get to.” Shannon Kelly’s TES score of 99.9 didn’t happen overnight. The St Patrick’s College graduate said her performance had been the result of consistent effort since grade 7. “I’ve always tried very hard at school, I really enjoy learning and finding solutions to things,” she said. “Maths seems to come quite easy for me because I’m looking for the solutions and how to get to them. “Because I’ve been putting the work in consistently for the past six years, I didn’t find my subjects this year too hard, I felt like a lot of it flowed on from my work from previous years.” Shannon will take a gap year to travel in 2024, after which she plans to get into engineering. The Pertrarch’s employee said she was glad her results had arrived before her shift started. “I’d been checking my phone every five minutes or so to see if the email had come in,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting it until lunch time so it was quite nice to see it there while I was still with my family at home so we could celebrate before I went to work. “It was a big relief, a big weight off my shoulders.” There was no drawn-out morning of waiting for Samuel Rein. The Scotch Oakburn year 12 awoke to an email advising him of a 99.95 TES score – one of the top results achieved across the state. “I was very surprised about the results I got – I was very happy about it,” he said. “I always like a good challenge.” Samuel, who plans to study electrical engineering at UTAS next year, thanked his parents for setting him on the path to success. “I used to hate maths and frankly was extremely bad at it, but my parents got me into tutoring,” he said. “Although I resented the day I had to go there … all of a sudden, I began to enjoy it more and over time I got better at it.” The following students received one of the top 101 TEC scores in the state. Sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date. We care about the protection of your data. Read our Privacy Policy.

Fiji kicking coach Seremaia Bai has allowed himself to imagine what the reaction would be back in the Pacific Islands if they beat England next Sunday in Marseille and progress to the Rugby World Cup semi-finals for the first time ever.

The Fijians have qualified for the quarter-finals for the first time in 16 years, pipping Australia to the runners-up spot in Pool C, and they now face an English team they defeated just seven weeks ago at Twickenham in the Summer Nations Series.

“I think it will be a one-week holiday in Fiji, it will be crazy,” reckoned Bai when asked to describe what winning the quarter-final would do.

Watch rugby on demand, from exclusive shows and documentaries to extended highlights from RWC 2023. Anywhere. Anytime. All for free!

Watch rugby on demand, from exclusive shows and documentaries to extended highlights from RWC 2023. Anywhere. Anytime. All for free!

“Rugby means a lot for us in Fiji, it just gives us life, it keeps everybody happy and (everybody) comes alive, comes together. It keeps the country in unity. Through rugby, whatever the result, hopefully we will make the country proud.”

That is the drive for the upcoming quarter-final, making people proud. “I don’t call it excitement – I think ‘crazy’. Just like in England, passionate about rugby, same as a little island in Fiji, everyone gets up at three or five o’clock in the morning.

“People who are sick come alive when we win games. We have just got to make sure that we not only play for a certain quarter-final, we just play for our own people – young kids, people in the village – it means a lot to them.

“Everybody’s excited. I know that comes with disappointment along the way, but 16 years ago we made the quarter-final and now we are here where no one even gave us the possibility to make it. We’re going to make the most of it.

“As a tier-two nation, we don’t get the opportunity quite often to play against tier-one nations like England. This is probably the only opportunity you can make in three or four years.

“Here we are, the only tier-two nation that made these quarter-finals and it’s something we should be proud of. It’s not going to be easy, but hey, what a great opportunity for us to come against England in this quarter-final.

“It took us 16 years to get where we are, and it takes us 15 weeks only – instead of four years – to build this team up, and that’s something that we are very grateful for, players who play around the country come together in 15 weeks. Beyond that, it’s a dream and a goal that we aspire to and something that can motivate us to reach beyond.”

Fiji will garner the support of the neutrals in Marseille. “France is Fiji, Fiji is France. We love France, it’s become our home. We’re grateful for the support and overwhelmed with all the support we have away from home,” said Bai.

The concern over Fiji is that they have arrived in the quarter-finals on the back of a shock pool defeat to Portugal last Sunday in Toulouse. How have they washed that loss from the system?

“We were pretty disappointed but we got into the quarter-final, which is not an easy task, but we are excited at the same time. We just re-grouped and talked about the positives and we are looking forward to playing this weekend against England.”

Kanye West sat down for an interview on Bill Maher’s Club Random podcast, and the Real Time host has now revealed why the two-hour conversation never saw the light of day. Speaking on an episode of focused on how Ye has managed to maintain pop culture relevance despite his embrace of anti-Semitism, Maher opened up about the lost TMZ Investigates Club Random episode. “The problem I think is that he appeals mostly—of course, he’s a rock star—to young people,” the 68-year-old explained. “They don’t know much, and they surely don’t know much about the Middle East or Jews. So the combination of, you know, Kanye out there…I feel like he was sort of helpful for spreading the fertilizer. And I do mean fertilizer, for this idea that Israel and the Jews are like the worst people in the world.” Maher, who has also courted controversy in the past for racism and homophobia , confirmed that he and West recorded a chat he doesn’t feel comfortable releasing. “I had Kanye right here at Club Random . We did an episode with him,” he continued. “I thought it was gonna be a learning moment. I mean, we were here for two hours. By the way, we had an amazing, fun time. He’s a very charming anti-Semite.” “And by the way, he’s not the only one in America who feels that way,” said Maher. “It’s not like the Jews are universally loved except for Kanye West.” When it was highlighted to Maher that someone could, perhaps, label Adolf Hitler as a “charming anti-Semite,” it prompted the Real Time host to suggest that’s exactly why he doesn’t want to release the Club Random episode. “Yes, exactly,” he said. “That’s why I wouldn’t air that episode. Because I’m not going to contribute to this.” In December, Ye issued a public apology to the Jewish community, which may or may not have been AI-generated . In 2022, Ye made a series of anti-Semitic comments on social media and praised Hitler in an interview with far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.  Despite the controversy, he has continued to maintain a rabid fanbase awaiting the release date of his long-gestating Ty Dolla Sign collaborative album . He’s also since gotten back on good terms with Vultures Kid Cudi , met with underground hip-hop icon JPEGMAFIA , and received support from Lil Dicky , who is Jewish. “I was, like, surprised,” Dicky recently said on the Flagrant podcast. “I don’t think in his heart Kanye dislikes Jewish people. I know he knows I’m Jewish. I know he likes me. You know what I mean? In my heart, I feel like he probably said something and it was the wrong thing.”