College, Life, English

You know, I really hated English at the start of this year. How could I appreciate a class that was so abstract? I'm a math and science guy (if you didn't already know that). I like equations and consistency. English defied every rule I had learned and it put me outside of my comfort zone. I was only taking AP English classes so that I could place out of them in college and never have to worry about writing essays again.

Fast forward to the present. I've committed to Harvey Mudd College, a STEM school in Claremont, California. Now you must be thinking.. STEM... that must mean that they have no humanities requirements, right? Wrong. Mudd requires students to take a minimum of 11 Humanities classes. In addition, Mudd doesn't accept ANY AP credit. Zero. Zip. Nada. All that time spent studying for that golden number "5" in order to fulfill those college English requirements fell through. Was I disappointed? Surprisingly, no. I can't believe it myself, but I have grown to enjoy some topics in English. I like being creative and writing down my dreams and thoughts on paper. It helps me describe a different side of myself and challenge me in a new way. For some peculiar reason, these timed essays and formal essays have grown writing. Don't get me wrong - I hate writing at the moment a prompt is thrust at me, but, looking back, it feels good to see what I accomplished.

I'm excited for college and, believe it or not, I'm excited for college English. It's not just a requirement I have to fulfill, but a class that will help me express myself in a way that I never thought I could. Thanks to everyone in my AP English class for making it a great year!

In other news, I would like to share just how amazing my school is -- enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KEBJmZL8G1E

Choices

Sometimes I wonder... is it bad to have choices? Take this blog for example. The hardest part about writing it is coming up with a topic to write about. If there are no suggested topics on the website, then I'm usually stuck. Why? Well, because there is so much to write about. It's actually somewhat paradoxical. I have so much that I can write about, but I can't pick which one so I decide. Another example that is quite relevant in most of our lives right now - college. I had so many choices and eliminating a school from the list is the most stressful process ever. I am now stuck and I have decided that if I cannot decide by Sunday night, then I will flip a coin. Yes, the choice is that hard.

If I had fewer choices, I think I would be a happier person. Although I may not be able to consider other great options, I would be left with an easier decision to make. It would make my life a lot less stressful and therefore I would be at much more ease. Although choices are good, I think too many choices can be bad.

Life of Pi

Growing up, I had a very deep interest in geography, travel, and nature. This interest has remained and is only expanded upon every summer when my family takes trips across the globe and explores different landforms, cultures, and climates. My current independent reading book is Life of Pi by Yann Martel. Life of Pi discusses how the lone human survivor of a shipwreck, Pi, lives with animals in order to survive. Many of the animals are even killed, which highlights the violence that comes with extreme conditions – That’s basically as deep as I can go without giving any spoilers. This book has helped me understand more about my inquiry project question, which stated, “How does extreme adversity bring about the best in humans to survive?” In this book, Pi uses friendships among other methods in order to avoid being eaten by the tiger.

Out of my three independent reading books, I enjoyed this one the most. It was very exciting and kept me hooked. I liked Yan Martell’s writing style more than the other two authors because the pace of the book was much faster. In addition, I liked the styles of the characters more. I felt the personality of Pi was similar to mine in some senses. I enjoyed this book a lot and I think you should read it too!

Poetry

Poetry has actually been a quite enjoyable unit. I have never really enjoyed poetry. I never saw the beauty in the juxtaposition of the words or the images created in short lines. However, these poetry responses and the poems that we have had to read nightly have changed my opinion. For example, last night I wrote my response to “You Are There” by Nikki Giovanni. This poem seemed to have no meaning at first, but after rereading it several times, I noticed small oddities: the letter “i” wasn’t capitalized, there were some lines that were only one word long, the first letter in every line was not capitalized. These small oddities gave way to a greater meaning. I realized that the lowercase “i”s were probably meant to deemphasize solitude and instead emphasize togetherness and unity. I had never looked at poems so closely before. I read the words and did not think as to why the author made these small changes in the structure of the poem. Now, I realize that there is a purpose behind everything the poet writes.

Another such example is the poem “Wheelbarrow”.

In that poem, each stanza is shaped

like a wheelbarrow.

Cool, right? Poetry is challenging because the poets try to communicate a very deep theme in few words. They use word play and other tactics in order to get this theme across. Poetry is beautiful and I am glad that I can finally appreciate this fact. 

COLLEGE!!

I got into college!!! This past week was probably the most exciting week of my life. I received a total of 9 acceptance letters from some of my favorite schools around the nation. But what made this week special is that I was not the only one who got into college - all of my close friends received acceptance letters from some of the top universities in the nation (huge shoutout to Hayato for being so clutch getting into Berkeley)!! The events of this past week made me want to blog about a top that is really important to me - camararderie.

The best aspect of MSTC is the close friendships that are made through the program. I don't know how I would've survived high school without these people in my life. The first thing I did after I got accepted to colleges is call all of the magnets. These friends were really supportive (especially through rejections and waitlists) and it made me appreciate them so much. I don't think that any other group of friends would've encouraged me so much. I'll miss them next year when I won't be with them for the first time in three years, but I think meeting new people will be a good thing; it will be a new chapter in my life. I will still try to coordinate reunions with my best friends though (once again, I'm going to call out Hayato - reunion in California!).

March Madness

It's the most wonderful time of the year. Oh, and the craziest. March Madness is here.

I don't think I analyze anything as much as I analyze the NCAA brackets. Mostly it's for pride, but sometimes it for an actual reward (i.e. a sandwich bought by the loser of the bracket). I have spent too much time reading expert predictions and doing research on every team. 

Now, how does this relate to English? Well, what if I was able to analyze texts and poems as much as I do brackets (granted that this may not be accurate analysis -- similar to how my basketball predictions are usually incorrect)? I think it would improve my writing simply because I would have more details to write about. In addition, I’ll be able to “dig deeper.” This phrase finally made sense after I got my Beloved essay back. I think I didn’t get a higher grade because all of my examples were very obvious. If I had found something that was implicitly stated in the text, then my essay would have stood out and would have been considered “intelligent and creative.”

I hope that the analysis skills that I have gained from March Madness will translate to my performance on our in-class essays. I hope that I can dig deeper and write an amazing essay. 

Poetry

There are several different perspectives people have when they think of poetry.

Poetry can connect many emotions together. Poetry can just be a bunch of rhyming words left for individual interpretation. Poetry can bring together many thoughts and ideas and convey them in a very concise method.

When I think of poetry, I think of it the way Sir Isaac Newton does - "a kind of ingenious nonsense." The combination of literary devices and sound devices in such a short writing piece is amazing. The rhythm, the extended metaphors, and the themes (to name a few examples) are impressive and appear to take much thought and deliberation to come up with. However, I do agree that it is nonsense. The brevity of poems is what makes them amazing, but I do not think they can properly convey a theme. There are so many ways that poems can be interpreted that it makes the ingenuity behind them seem unimpressive (at least to me). I think the audience just over thinks many of the poems and that is what makes them ingenious. Sometimes, I feel like the poet is just writing about nature or a bird or a car. But no. Someone has to come along and interpret that bird as something abstract like selfishness and then this results in a open discussion on the possible interpretations of the poem. This just makes the writer seem like a genius for coming up with such a topic.

I hope my opinion about poetry can be changed this year. My experiences thus far (in middle school and ninth grade) were really bad and this is a major reason why I don't enjoy poetry as much as others do.