Dynamite (Win the Fight)

We came to learn, learn, learn, learn

But we fell hard and we got burned, burned, burned, burned

We’re tryin’ to finish all this excess work, work, work, work

Now give us some space for all these nerds, nerds, nerds, nerds

And the stress goes on and on and on

And it goes on and on and on

Yeah!

I slam my head down on my desk sometimes

Saying oh, no, this is stressful

I want to celebrate and live my life

But I can’t, no, not with SOAPSTones

‘Cause we gon’ rock this class

We gon’ work all night

We gon’ ace that essay

We gon’ win this fight

‘Cause she told us once

Now she’s told us twice

We can write the essays

Like they’re dynamite

We have learned it all like

We can be the last ones standing

We’re not alone at all like

We’re gonna be the last ones standing

‘Cause I, I, I believe it

And I, I, I

I just want some stickers, I just want some stickers

I’m gonna put my pen to my page

Put my pen to my page

Put your pens in the air

I slam my head down on me desk sometimes

Saying oh, no, this is stressful

I want to celebrate and live my life

But I can’t, no, not with SOAPSTones

‘Cause we gon’ rock this class

We gon’ work all night

We gon’ ace that essay

We gon’ win this fight

‘Cause she told us once

Now she’s told us twice

We can write the essays

Like they’re dynamite

Dear Journal...

Dear Journal,

                As you have been hearing about continuously for the past few months, the school year is almost over. In the waning hours that remain of my high school education, I would like to take a moment to write a farewell entry to my fellow AP English classmates.

Looking back over the years, I am all too aware of the various trials and tribulations of AP English. These trials were demanding feats requiring an insurmountable amount of hard work and dedication. I remember staying up until 5:30 am the night that the first data sheet was due. Crying. And ultimately regretting my decision to continue with AP English. Other moments of such despair were caused by memorizing quotes, writing the Amsterdam essay, having the killers and Truman Capote from In Cold Blood get into my head, and having to face my ever daunting fear of public speaking.

However, the bad parts of AP English only made the good parts even better.  After all the hard work that we put into the class, the humorous moments woven into our every day banter makes the class much more worthwhile. Proposing that we huddle under our desks for seven years like Harriet Jacobs, playing the human knot game, winning multiple choice games, winning CANDY, going on field trips, reading about plums, hearing about Ms. Serensky’s life, winning CANDY, laughing at the hilarity of people’s incompetence, Ms. Serensky’s jokes, and winning CANDY, made all the trials of AP English worthwhile.

Ultimately, I would not like to dwell on this high school experience, but rather use it order to embrace and conquer the future with more intelligence, poise, and ferocity. Thank you AP English for making me a much more intelligent, well-rounded person. It’s been real.

Until next time trusty journal,

                                 Nicola Zollinger

Top Ten Reasons to Take AP English

1. You have the opportunity to collect really cool stickers. It may not sound cool now, but trust me, nothing could be cooler.

2. You get to read exciting books like Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Such engaging novels will help you appreciate all different styles of literature.

3. You will have the opportunity to beat the next Dream Team in multiple choice. Nothing is more satisfying than getting a perfect group score while the Dream Team falters behind.

4. You get to play the human know game more than once in class. Holding hands with Ms. Serensky and the Dream Team will be an experience I will never forget.

5. You will go on field trips to see Shakespearean plays. Being exposed to new environments outside of school will definitely give you some new perspectives.

6. You get to compose twenty page data sheets. Nothing is more exciting than pulling an all-nighter in order to climb this mountain! Just appreciate SOAPSTones when you have the chance.

7. You can win candy! The day our team won huge bags of candy was my favorite day in AP English!

8. You may have the opportunity to faceoff the National Merit Scholarship Finalist in a one minute debate. Now I know this may sound fun, but it was no fun-and-games.

9. You may get points off for spelling your name wrong. Yes, I know my name is “Nicola Zollinger,” not “Nicola Zolling.”

10. You will learn so much and become an incredible writer! The progress you make in these two years will be truly incredible! It may seem daunting, but it is doable!

Not So Critical Criticism

Algernon: “Dear me, you are smart!” (Wilde 8)

Rodney: “I don’t know what that means” (Currie 131)

Algernon: “Well, one must be serious about something, if one wants to have any amusement in life” (Wilde 40)

Desdemona: “If you say so” (Shakespeare 5.2. 35)

Rodney: “Please stop trying to confuse me” (Currie 131)

Algernon: “Literary criticism is not your forte” (Wilde 6)

Desdemona: “Alas, she has no speech” (Shakespeare 2.1. 103)

Algernon: “Oh! It is absurd…more than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn’t read” (Wilde 4)

Rodney: “Listen I don’t want to be rude. I know you’re doing your job and you’re very good at it…But still I want you to be careful what you say” (Currie 131)

Algernon: “Oh! There is no use speculating on that subject” (Wilde 3)

Desdemona: “Oh heavy ignorance” (Shakespeare 2.1. 141)

Algernon: “Girls don’t think it right” (Wilde 3)

Rodney: “Maybe you wouldn’t say it that way, but that’s what you would think” (136)

Desdemona: “Be as your fancies teach you” (Shakespeare 3.3. 88)

Algernon: “Well, that is exactly what dentists always do” (Wilde 5)

What Matters

Science-fiction. Romance. Action. Heartbreak. Suspense. All subjects that make a great fiction book, and all subjects that Everything Matters! by Ron Currie Jr. encapsulates. For me, reading provides an idyllic escape from reality. Whether cheerful or depressing, reading forces us to feel a different emotion, and sometimes helps to pinpoint the emotion we were trying to avoid in the first place. Such subjects and genres as science-fiction, romance, action, heartbreak, and suspense can be warped in a myriad of ways to create magic on a page, but what makes Everything Matters! my favorite English book this year, is how exquisitely Currie manipulates these themes. Currie sends the reader on a whirlwind journey of emotions and suspenseful surprises. What made this book so good for me was how Currie could stir up such strong emotions from the reader. As Junior begins to lose touch with reality the Voice states, “you are undergoing dramatic changes in brain chemistry brought on by heavy, prolonged alcohol and drug consumption” (104). At this moment in the book, I felt so annoyed with Junior. In school, the Voice described him as incredibly intelligent, and here he is completely throwing his life away. This complete foil provoked a great sense of anger from me to the point that I wanted to step inside the book and try to shake Junior from the insanity. And after a stint of being thoroughly angered, Currie turns around and provokes another strong emotion. After Junior pulls his life back together in an attempt to save his father, the Voice instructs, “He wouldn’t want you to die to save his life” (190). At this point, I felt a sense of fondness towards Junior for trying to save his father, but I was also annoyed at the desperate and self-destructive manner at which he was doing it with. Once again, Currie completely changed the feelings that I had towards the main character and the story. Near the end of the book, when Amy gets killed, she thinks, “I wish I could tell you there’s nothing sad at all in death, but I can’t” (258). Upon reading these last few sentences in the section, I was so upset. How could Currie do this to Junior? Hasn’t he been through enough? I was so upset that I ran to my mom and told her the whole story because I wanted her to understand how completely devastating and disheartening the story was. An author that can send me on such an emotional rollercoaster and make me feel deep sympathy for the characters is definitely doing something right. Not only was the manipulation of emotions superb in the novel, but the plot itself was incredibly engaging and imaginative. More than once in the text I was even reminded of Ms. Serensky’s stories about her family vacations, when her nieces and nephews would undergo “simultaneous disappointment.” So many times in the text could I image everyone who read this book undergoing a terrible plague of simultaneous disappointment.  However, no matter how disappointing the text was at times, it reflects reality because nothing turns out the way we want it to or as expected. Overall, this book was my favorite because of its raw, valid plot, and its ability to evoke strong, powerful emotions.

"Top Ten Most Thrilling Academic Moments of My High School Career"

My "Top Ten Most Thrilling Academic Moments of My High School Career" list is a compilation of moments that I am most proud of, or the moments that surprised me the most in High School.

1. Our English group beating the Dream Team and getting a perfect score for multiple choice first quarter this year. At this point, our group followed the advice that “most every choice will have consequences,” which was very applicable because our choices helped us to prevail (Currie, 4).

2. Getting the same critical reading score as Lizzy Burl on the SAT. Lizzy Burl is really smart, so once I heard this news I could only think to be at “Peace and be still,” for I knew I had succeeded in some way (Shakespeare, 5.2. 47).

3. Being inducted into the Cum Laude Society made me realize that every bit of homework and studying that I do and have done, no matter how painful, “does matter. All of it” (Currie 268).

4. Playing catch-phrase in creative writing. Since “The truth is rarely pure and never simple,” it was a challenge to come up with the correct answers (Wilde, 6).

5. Being on the Chagrin Valley Conference All Academic Team for 4 years of varsity gymnastics. My relationship with gymnastics can be summed up in the simple phrase of “I will kill thee,/ And love thee after,” for when I was partaking in all the hard work and pain, I wanted nothing more than to destroy gymnastics, but after it was done I was grateful for the strength and opportunities that it gave me (Shakespeare, 5.2. 18).

6. My toothpick bridge withstanding and surpassing 5 lbs in physics. Even as I watched and knew that “Everything ends,” it was still sad to see all my hard work crumble to the ground (Currie, 292).

7. Passing the AP U.S. History AP test. When I finished the test I thought to myself “Well, this is the last time I shall ever do” that (Wilde, 29).

8.  Earning all A’s second semester junior year. Sometimes I find that “It’s perfectly easy to be cynical,” when it comes to feelings about grades, but this feat made me feel very accomplished (Wilde, 7).

9. Being the top scorer in our English 11 class for multiple choice third quarter junior year.

If someone had asked me that day “Do you triumph?,” I would have certainly responded

with a satisfied “Yes” (Shakespeare, 4.1. 120).

10. Passing the AP English Language/Composition test. It was certainly a relief after many

months of stressing and psyching myself out, which made me “realize that strange as it

sounds, this [AP English] is an essential part of who I am” (Currie, 86).

What is Love?

My favorite poem from this year is “All Love Letters Are,” by Fernando Pessoa. Throughout the poem, the speaker makes assertions about the ridiculousness of love letters. He/she reflects on how they too wrote equally ridiculous love letters in their past, and continuously assert that because they are love letters, they have to be ridiculous. This poem is my favorite because it’s a very relatable poem. Everyone can relate to eccentric and ridiculous feelings attached to love.  The speaker humorously and ironically strikes back in the poem saying that those who don’t right love letters at all are actually the ridiculous ones. This opinion wittingly uncovers a bit of truth, for those who do act on passion and love most definitely end up looking ridiculous, but, paradoxically, those who do not act are just as ridiculous for letting life and love pass by. This poem swimmingly correlates with my favorite book this year; Everything Matters!, by Ron Currie Jr. In this novel, Currie elegantly and grimly paints a picture of the ridiculous habit of love.  Junior, who constantly sees the pitfalls of love, often thinks, “life has…always seemed a messy and heartbreaking and overall pointless affair” (143). His attempt to reveal his ridiculous knowledge of the end of the world with his love all goes wrong. In this moment, Junior feels the heartbreak and overall ridiculousness of love, feeling that nothing good can ever come of it. The narrator at the story even mocks Junior’s situation and states, “even your best, most loving and generous and bighearted choices had been wrong, wrong, wrong” (266). The voice’s repetition of “wrong” emphasizes how disappointing love can be, especially in Junior’s life. This parallels Pessoa’s poem’s message that love can be a ridiculous, messy thing. However, towards the end of the novel, the voice asserts, “Everything matters not in spite of the end of you and all that you love, but because of it” (292). Here the voice illustrates that even through all of the messy consequences in life, love should be sought out in spite of it all. The terrible circumstances, the inopportune moments that turn out badly, are the reasons why love is ridiculous, and ridiculous enough to make all the hard troubles better. Personally, I enjoy Pessoa’s message that both sides of love are ridiculous, which more people should accept and embrace.

A Conflict of Interests

As we all know, the group poetry presentations this semester offered a very diverse range of humor and humiliation to all involved.  Although playing the game “human knot” is always fun in AP English (I can’t believe that I’ve played that twice in my AP English career), my favorite day in AP English 12 occurred on one of the poetry days, when it was the Dream Team’s turn to present their powerfully patriotic poem. On this day, the Dream Team pitted each poetry group, and Ms. Serensky, against each other, in a style similar to Othello’s rant, “I will kill thee,/ And love thee after” (5.2. 18-19). They gave each group the opportunity to properly analyze a part of the poem, and then had all the groups vote another group off. While each group answered, the Dream team filled a container with candy they believed properly represented the depth to which the answer was analyzed. As conflicts began to arise and teams began to slowly be voted off, all that remained was the clunking of the candy in the Dream Team’s jar, our group, and Ms. Serensky. With the communal feeling that “There’s never been anything but the sorrow of loss,” we sent up our history buff/team delegate Kyle to battle with Ms. Serensky in a sudden death round (Currie 121). I, personally, “dislike arguments of any kind,” so I was glad that I was not the person who had to argue over the outcome of our team (Wilde 52). However, with the ring of the bell and a successful answer by Kyle, our team won the bucket load of candy that the Dream Team had so carefully gathered. As we left the classroom, each group member with a large bag of candy in tow and a smile on their face, I could not help but think that this was my favorite day in AP English 12.  

An Old Friend

Chasuble: Why, what a lovely day it is.

Bianca: Pray I have seen better days. The sun is unbearably hot and the sky is dotted with clouds.

Chasuble: Perhaps we could go under the shade of a tree?

Bianca: Well, perhaps that would be nice.

Chasuble: Oh, dear! I have just forgotten! I was supposed to visit my ill friend, Ditherly, this afternoon. He has come down with a case of terrible chills, and it would be too unkind of me not to visit him.

Bianca: Why is it that I’ve never heard of this friend? He sounds perfectly tragic.

Chasuble: Well, if you must know, he likes to be alone. Unnoticed. Preferably living the life of a hermit.

Bianca: A hermit? What kind of life is that? Meeting new people is the greatest joy in life!

Chasuble: My dear, dear Bianca, some people just don’t have the mental grasp on reality that we do.

Bianca: “I pray you bring me on the way,” I would love to go into town (3.4. 196).

Chasuble: Oh, but my dear, my poor friend does not live in town. He takes his pleasure traveling around the shore.

Bianca: The shore? What a delightful pastime! Pray you let me join you!

Chasuble: I’m sorry I must disappoint you. The story is “very sad, indeed” (26).

Bianca: And why is that?

Chasuble: See, my poor friend, he’s not quite right at the moment. The chills, it has affected his head. It would not be wise to bring new faces for him.

Bianca: “Let the devil and his dam haunt you” (4.1. 148)? Oh, you mustn’t go! He sounds rather unsafe.

Chasuble: Safety has nothing to do with it. I am simply acting on the requests of a poor friend. I would not have it any other way.

Bianca: What a sweet, noble action dear Chasuble.

Chasuble: You are all too kind, love.

Bianca: So we must part now?

Chasuble: I’m afraid so, but “you were always the most generous and forgiving,” so I believe all will be forgotten soon (26).

Bianca: But please, will you tell me more about your friend first?

Chasuble: That would be unwise, dear.

Bianca: Aw, but why?

Chasuble: Well…

Bianca: Please?

Chasuble: I’m gonna get real weird with it right now.

Bianca: Chasuble, what ever do you mean?

Chasuble: Well…my friend Ditherly, that I told you about…

Bianca: Yes, go on.

Chasuble: Well, he’s not actually ill.

Bianca: And what do you mean by that?

Chasuble: I mean…he’s really an earth crashed alien that’s trying to make contact with his home planet who asked me to protect him from the ever present eyes of those who would most certainly expose him.

Bianca: Oh…well, in that case…Please enjoy your stay with your friend…and I’ll stay here… and enjoy this wonderful shade.

The Wretchedness of Desdemona

I sit staring at the blank, lined paper that mockingly stares back at me. Today, Ms. Serensky assigned us the task of writing creatively about the meaning of our name in our journals. Desdemona. What a terribly boring name. A name that means “wretchedness.”  How much worse could this be? And with my controlling father constantly forcing my submissive nature, and my loving Othello gone, I can hardly focus on such a dismal topic. How ever shall I think of what to write about? Well…Oh, goodness! There are only seven minutes left! Well, I must come up with something…

“Desdemona”

Like the seas, winds, waves that defeat ships and lives,

So does the wretchedness of Desdemona.

A light, shining vigilantly in the distance,

Does no good when faced with the wretchedness of Desdemona.

And still, when “unkindness may defeat my love” (4.2 . 159)

Thou shalt feel the stinging wrath of the wretchedness of Desdemona.

Without time, without tears, without toil “I cannot tell” (4.2. 108),

But do not dismiss the wretchedness of Desdemona.

Though time may play the unkindly role,

Please forgive the unfortunate wretchedness of Desdemona.

And when my time has come, when death’s raw hands “kills for loving” (5.2. 42)

Do remember the wretchedness of Desdemona.

Well that was perfectly dreadful! And oh, dear! Now we must read them to the class? What poor, unfortunate souls. Well, here goes nothing….

                As I read my poetry, I can here snickering rising in volume as the class becomes frayed about the peculiar meaning of my name. Or is it because they, too, believe I am truly wretched? Oh, how I wish I could be with my Othello now, away from all these indolent people with their haughty attitudes and constant need for attention and approval.  As the snickering rises to a chorus of laughter, Hannah retorts, “Thank you for not laughing at my blog.” I burying my face in my hands as the tears begin to race down my flushed, hot cheeks. Worst. English. Class. Ever.

The First Day

Dear Junior,

                I realize that your life is not ideal right now. What with your dad just dying and the constant, impending doom of the end of the world hanging over your head, I cannot even imagine how you deal with it. However, I come offering consolation for your current predicament by saying: be thankful you never had to experience the first day of AP English 11. Now, I know you do not know me very well, or at all for that matter, but trust me when I say you should be thankful.

First of all, I am possibly the most timid and shy person you will ever meet, with a heart similar to Rodney’s in my desire to treat people kindly. So I’m sure you can imagine timid, little old me entering AP English 11 on that first day of school after hearing all of the rumors. Oh, those rumors! Rumors spread by older classmates, siblings, and even teachers. All concluding that AP English was ultimately impossible. The work load. The discussions. The teacher. Each aspect of the class was twisted and mutilated into a fiery culmination of devastating fear and crippling apprehension. Or at least that’s how it seemed to me. So as I entered that first day, my knees shook miserably. My heart raced feverishly inside my chest that felt like an impossibly heavy weight was resting uncomfortably on it. As I entered the class it was dead silent. No one wanted to mess with this teacher. Not with all those rumors swirling around out there.

But what I have to tell you, Junior, is that I survived. It seemed overwhelming and miserable at the time, but I survived. And it was worth it. So worth it. So when you say things like “My whole life there never was a point to anything,” don’t hold yourself back to the joys in life (163). As difficult as situations may appear at first glance, there is always something good you can get out of it. And I understand when you say, “life has…always seemed a messy and heartbreaking and overall pointless affair,” because your life really has not been fair (143). Like the first day of AP English 11, we can all get caught up in the lies and fear that encompass our lives, but we need to learn how to deal with it in a positive way that will eventually help us. And when you say, “What difference does it make?...Die today, die a year from now,”  I once again understand where you’re coming from, but don’t hold yourself back from greatness due to your own indifference (244). So when the Voice says, “It does matter. All of it,” believe him/her (268). Please don’t go through life fixating on the times that you feel have destroyed you or the times where you felt hopeless and scared because that is no way to live a life. Be thankful that you didn’t have to undergo the first day of AP English 11, but be thankful for your own challenges in life. We may not see it at the time, but everything matters, and no matter how bad a situation may seem, if you try to seek the good in it, you will find something worthwhile. Please keep this in mind when you feel defeated and alone because everything really does matter.

Best Wishes,

                Nicola Zollinger

Blogging About Burls

            This weekend, I partook in the popular American past time of road-tripping. Lizzy Burl, the prodigy child of equally intelligent parents with juxtaposing accents of English and French, and I packed up the Burl family Odyssey and travelled down to Columbus. In Columbus, our plans were to visit her brother, David, at OSU, then travel to Hilliard-Bradley High School to watch our gymnastics teammate in the state tournament. As our journey began, so did the heavy droplets of water falling from the sky, haphazardly striking the windshield with an insurmountable force. Lizzy pointed out how mesmerizing these droplets were, as they defied gravity to sweep up the windshield, creating droplets that fussed around like constellations in the night time sky. This mesmerizing display enraptured us for the majority of the ride until we arrived at Goasis, or in Lizzy’s terms “A super gas station…with fudge.” After the luxurious pit stop, Lizzy broke out the biscotti, the Burl’s choice of car ride snack. After consuming the tantalizingly tasty biscotti, we arrived at OSU, where Lizzy and I played the roles of art critics as we wondered the student union. To get to the point, let’s just say that art isn’t the same as I thought it was.

 Next it was lunch time. After the whole gang was seated and picked out their various entrees, the waiter came to take our orders. Mrs. Burl, who ordered first, fell into a trap that many food connoisseurs fall into: memory loss. In her attempt to order a garden salad, she inadvertently ordered a Caesar salad…with Italian dressing on the side. The patient waiter paused for a moment, possibly attempting to rephrase the incorrect sounding words in his brain, and then cautiously questioned, “So you want a Caeser salad…do you want Caeser on the side?” To which Mrs. Burl responded, “No, I want a Caeser salad with Italian on the side.” She eventually got her desired salad and dressing, and for desert ordered a “banana slit.” The tolerant waiter inquired, “You mean a banana split.” Mrs. Burl flushed with embarrassment and concluded that, yes, it was the banana split that she in fact wanted.

 Now, our goal was to arrive at the gymnastics meet at 1:30, so as not to miss our teammate compete. However, in a typical late lunch haze, Mrs. Burl forgot where she and her husband had parked the car in the car garage. This resulted in a scavenger hunt for the minivan, which involved a frantic Lizzy thundering around from floor to floor in a desperate search. After fifteen minutes of intense searching, we identified the car and sped off with the hope of still making the meet on time. After communicating our teammates estimated time of vault, the GPS calculated an estimated time of arrival. The same time. Mrs. Burl anxiously hurried through the streets of a rural Columbus town while Lizzy and I hyperventilated in the backseat. When we arrived at the school, Lizzy and I sprinted faster than imaginable into the school, making complete fools of ourselves, and squealing to a halt at the front table to buy our tickets. In the process of obtaining tickets, our teammate’s boyfriend along with a group of his friends walked by and sincerely remarked, “You guys just missed her!” With a simultaneous jaw dropping mixed with disappointment, Lizzy and I turned back towards the door, only to hear, “Just kidding!” In the end, Lizzy and I had to wait another hour and a half to see our teammate compete, and it was definitely worth it. So is road tripping with the Burls.  

Searching Struggles

Every week I find myself pathetically staring at a blank Microsoft word document that in turn mockingly glares back at me. As I stare, I rack my brain for this week’s blog idea. Of course I need to try to be witty or funny or sincerely intelligent to honor the “AP English 12” part of my blog title. However, every week I struggle to come up with appropriate, engaging blog topics. Yes, my life is that boring. This week, however, I decided I would try to Google words in order to come up with a blog topic. Instead, I found a slew of humorous phrases that come up when googling certain words. Here are a few of the humorous ones topics that came up:

If you google :                     You might get: 

How Come                           My dog don’t bark

                                             My feet are always cold

                                             My turtle won’t eat

How to hop                           A train

                                             A fence

Why is                                  The ocean salty

                                             Kelly Ripa on crutches

Why is it that                       A cat accidently falls from the top

                                             The general public considers bribery to be immoral

                                             Men are responsible for the gender of their children

Why do                                Dogs eat poop

I’m scared of                       Driving

When do                              Babies roll over

My dog is                             Always licking me

My cat is                              Sneezing

My hamster                         Is fat

One time I                           Nibbled on a piece of cheese

                                            Saw Cady Heron

If my mom                           Were a platypus

White people                       Rapping poorly

What would happen if         A lake froze from the bottom to the top

When I smile                       My eyes squint

When I sing                         I sound like a kid

Certainly all of these questions are constantly on the mind of the American public, however, they did not provide me with a witty, funny, or intelligent blog. Better luck next week I suppose.

Teen Talk

Last week I was watching Teen Jeopardy, a much more entertaining rendition of the original Jeopardy game. This is because the questions are more applicable to the teenage brain, plus it is fun to see the teens embarrassed when Alex talks about their lives. One of the categories for that day was entitled “That’s An Understatement,” where the quotes or descriptions in the questions were exaggerated from reality. One of the questions in this category was, “Which character from Othello says, ‘My Lord, you know I love you’?” I immediately jumped off the couch and screamed “Iago!” I find it quite fun and even exciting when, through my daily travels, I encounter an AP English moment. In other words, a moment in the real world in which I have the ability to use my AP English knowledge in order to understand something, or when I understand something because of AP English. As our time in AP English begins to come to an end, I find it easier to look back on the experience with a more developed perspective. At the beginning of AP English 11, it is easy to get caught up in the whirl of rumors and expectations. And as the months progress into AP English 12, it is easy to forget what we are working towards. But now that the year is almost over, I can truly appreciate everything I have learned in AP English, and can see how the experience can apply to every aspect of my life, including Teen Jeopardy.

              

Essays vs. Data Sheets

Essays require more focused, intelligent thought.

Ugh!

The other day in English, I noticed that eleven out of the thirteen girls in our class were wearing boots, specifically ugg boots. I looked down at my own scruffily smudged converses, and wondered to myself were I had lost the memo about wearing boots. In High School, stereotypes always assert the idea of conformity, and the need for acceptance that one must have in their own society of peers. So much so is this acceptance amongst peers, that our class has 84.6% of the girls wearing the same style of footwear.   Similar statistics have appeared in the books we have read this year. For example, Gogol spends the majority of his life trying to fit in with society, and ends up losing much more than he anticipated from his self-centered conformity. Personally, I am not a big fan of boots, especially uggs. Some can definitely be cute, but it’s primarily the word that bothers me: “ugg.” It sounds like you have something caught in your throat; “uggggg.” Or it sounds like someone clearing their throat; “ugg..g..ggg..gg.” It is also the universal string of letters for deep disappointment; “uggghhhh.” These peculiar sounds that surround the name of the boot give off a negative connotation for the word, so I looked up the definition of “ugg” in order to clear some assumptions up. What I found for the definition was “a sheepskin boot or ugly.” Why would you choose to name your product after a word whose other meaning is ugly? Modern society is just so baffling…

Shhh...

A few weeks ago, I read a newspaper article entitled “The secret of life? Students have it.” The article describes a teacher who in 1999 shared her secrets of life with her business careers technology class at Stow-Munroe Falls High School. Every year since, she has asked her students to share their opinions about the secret of life. So, what do some students think is the secret of life?

- “Inside jokes. Late-night phone calls with best friends. Sleeping in. Waking up to a text message. Bonfires. Quoting movies. Drives to random places. Midnight trips to Walmart. Scary movies. Making a wish at 11:11 on the first star. Following your heart. Dedicating a song.”

- “Complimenting your enemy. Waterproof mascara. Best-friend days. Hearing that song that matches you situations. Never forgetting what someone said once their gone”

After reading these, I decided to think up my own list regarding the secret of life. Here it goes:

- Argyle socks. Dresses that twirl. Eating lettuce with chopsticks. Watching snow fall. Taking a nap with your dog. Reading by a fire. Melted chocolate chips at the bottom of a mug of hot chocolate. Seeing old friends. Making new friends. Dancing in your room when no one’s home. Getting a hand-written letter. Making someone’s day. Eating cookie dough. Eating cookie dough while your mom yells at you about raw eggs. Wearing pajamas all day. Puppies. Getting a sticker on an AP English paper. Running without getting out of breath. Road trips. Having no worries. Being in the hallway when no one else is. Sweatpants. Not having to put your contacts in for a whole day. Eating chocolate frosting out of the container. Eating ice cream out of the container. Making a snowman. Making gingerbread every time there is a snow day. Looking at old pictures. Looking at old pictures of your parents. Laughing. Listening to CDs in the car. Picking flowers. Growing your own vegetables. Singing when you are alone in the car. Rainy days when you are inside. Looking forward to the future. Priceless facial expressions.

Persecution

My mother always tells me don’t bring up religion. If you go to a dinner party, don’t bring up politics or religion. So for my first blog of the semester, I’m going to bring up religion. My sister is currently a junior in college, and recently completed an internship in Raleigh, North Carolina helping Bhutanese refugees new to the United States. Currently in Bhutan, the Buddhist majority government is forcing out the Hindu/Nepal citizens of the country. I will give a brief description of the Buddhist religion:
Buddhist’s believe in karma:
-Karma in Buddhism is the force that drives samsara—the cycle of suffering and rebirth for each being. Good, skillful deeds and bad, unskillful actions produce "seeds" in the mind which come to fruition either in this life or in a subsequent rebirth. The avoidance of unwholesome actions and the cultivation of positive actions is called sila(ethical conduct). In Buddhism, karma specifically refers to those actions (of body, speech, and mind) that spring from mental intent and which bring about a consequence or result.
- Sila is the ethics or morality, or abstention from unwholesome deeds. It includes:

- vāc: speaking in a truthful and non-hurtful way

- karman: acting in a non-harmful way

- ājīvana: a non-harmful livelihood

The description of Buddhism seems to describe those who practice the religion as peaceful pacifists, yet they are currently expelling innocent citizens out of their country due to the citizen’s different religion. This got me thinking; there is such irony in religious persecution. The majority of religions seek equality, and the belief that we should treat people in a fair and kind way, and yet wars are fought, countries our split, and people are killed for practicing different religions. Although I cannot not make a definitive assertion on how religions should be practiced, I believe that religious persecution is an oxymoron that needs to be addressed and changed. Ultimately, I believe that the irony of religious persecution is a terrible occurrence that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later all around the world.

Blog Talk

Looking back on the blog project, I can see both positive and negatives to the whole experience. When the blogging began, I wrote long, analytical posts because I was rather self-conscious about sharing my life and thoughts with the world (aka AP English 12), which basically defeats the point of the whole project. However, as the weeks progressed, I felt more comfortable about writing freely, and about rather obscure topics. Although I believe that blogs were a good way to discuss topics not discussed in class, and relate English to our lives, I found it hard to come up with topics at times. If I could not think of a good topic to write about, I would write about the most random ideas, concepts, and experiences that were not interesting or intelligent, but just because I had to get the blog done. I think that if we continue to do the blogs next semester, we should only write one blog a week.  Due to the fact that we currently write twice a week, I feel like my first blog of the week is always better because I have run out of ideas by the time I get to the second blog. However, as a whole, I believe that the blog project was a good way to get our unheard ideas out.

No End in Sight

Normally, I actually enjoy doing the AP multiple choice questions in English. Even though during the test I do not feel particularly confident, I always end up doing better than I thought I would. However, this past one was rough. Thursday was the dreaded “Eve of the Data sheet,” a stressful time for procrastinators. Except that night, I had a gymnastics meet…and an AP Biology test the next day! This combination catalyzed an enormous amount of stress. After getting home at ten o’clock, I went straight to work on the data sheet, working into the late hours of the night. And when I was done, I could barely keep my eyes open enough to study for biology. Bad decision. The next morning, the weight of having failed to study for a test that would make or break my grade dawned on me. The whole day I frantically tried to study, but did not accomplish much. To make matters worse, my last two periods of the day were AP Biology and AP English. And the biology test was like running a marathon. It was definitely a test of endurance. Then on to English. By then, my head had succeeded in expending all of the possible knowledge it had in it, and defiantly shut down with a quite whir. With that said, the practice multiple choice was rough. Ultimately, I am mad at myself for not getting my work down earlier. I am such a big procrastinator, and I definitely do want to experience that kind of stress again. And I never want my brain to shut down with a whir again.

A Thrilling Twist

I remember the first time I saw a commercial for Shutter Island. I wanted to cry. Now, there’s a general stereotype surrounding girls which implies that we have certain squeamish and cowardly reactions when it comes to scary movies. And although I am one who has an aversion towards female stereotypes, I must admit that I am one of those girls. Scary movies are exactly that—scary! Unfortunately, my older persuaded my parents and me to watch Shutter Island last year. At first I was resentful of my sister, and I spent half the movie on the edge of my seat with a blanket perched close to my eyes, prepared to duck under it at the first sign of frightening danger. However, no such danger presented itself. By the middle of the movie, I was completely enthralled in the drama and psychological insanity of the movie. And because I had never heard much about the movie, the ending truly surprised me, making Shutter Island one of the best movies I had seen in awhile. I believe that watching it again in class makes it even better. After reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, learning about mental disorders in psychology, and knowing the twist at the end, the movie seems even more interesting and exciting. While watching it, I have picked up so many small details that only someone who had seen the movie before could pick up, making the movie so much more psychologically thrilling. Ultimately, I am very happy to be watching Shutter Island again, which is an ironic twist from my initial reaction to the movie.

Winter

As we have discussed in class and seen in many books, winter acts as a symbol for death, loneliness, and dreariness. In Jhumpa Lahiri’s 2003 novel The Namesake, Gogol finds himself alone in his and Moushumi’s freezing apartment during winter time while Moushumi parades off to Florida. In this instance, Gogol begins to see the pitfalls of their relationship. We discussed in class how this brief chapter symbolized his segregation from Moushumi, and foreshadowed their eventual demise. This theme of winter symbolizing despair can be seen in other novels such as Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, where the entire book is set during a dreary winter season with sledding being the eventual cause of death.  However, I find it odd how much negative symbolism we put into winter. I mean, in winter we have cheerful and uplifting holidays such as Christmas, New Years, and Valentine’s Day. Personally, winter is one of my favorite seasons. Although the icy, snow covered roads and lack of sunlight may not always be fun, I believe there is nothing better than watching snow fall while drinking hot chocolate. Watching the swirling flakes twist and twirl and chase each other through the frosty air does not symbolize death to me! Of course, in the natural world, winter is the in-between stage, the time for old things to die in order for new things to grow and flourish. However, I do not think that we should put so much negative pressure on winter. If we only focus on the negatives and do not try to look at the positives in life, a beautiful season may just turn into another dark, dreary symbol for death.

"The Fog"

Last week at gymnastics practice I sprained my ankle. As I sat on the uncomfortably glossed wood floor with an awkwardly large bag of frigid ice strapped too tightly to my swelling ankle I began to see “the fog.” Now, keep in mind, this supposed “fog” could very well have been the excess amount of bar chalk floating through the air, but stick with me people. Later that week, on Christmas day in fact, I noticed “the fog” once more. In this instance, however, “the fog” could have been confused with smoke billowing out of the oven as the food burned, but that’s alright. How odd, it seemed, that I had seen the fog twice within a three day interval. Now, I know I’m not crazy, or at least I hope I’m not, but “the fog” for me illustrated a need to step back and appreciate what I had in my life. Although I was annoyed to be sitting on an uncomfortable gym floor with an ankle sprain, I had to be thankful that at least it was not broken, and that I was not seriously injured. And as I saw the gush of smoke float out of the open door on Christmas, I had to be thankful that I even had food to eat on Christmas. Sometimes, I even feel thankful for being in AP English because it has opened my eyes to so many ideas and thoughts that I would have missed, like trying to analyze opaque substances as they drift through the air. Ultimately, “the fog” helped me appreciate everything that I have this holiday season, and helped to remind me that sometimes we’re all a little crazy.