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.

Financial Aid

As you all know, college decisions will be released soon. If accepted, the envelope will likely carry a sheet of paper discussing financial aid over the next four years. This leads me to my blog topic of the week: is the current system of awarding financial aid to students flawed?

I come from a relatively well-off family. I am not spoiled and my parents are still quite miserly (except when it  comes to vacations), but I do not need to worry about paying for my college education. My parents have saved money over the years to pay for it. After reading up about how financial aid is awarded, however, I have wondered whether or not my parents did the correct thing by saving up. Currently, the system works so that students who come from families who do not have significant savings or from a family making less than 250K will get some sort of financial aid. If, however, either of these requirements are invalidated, then the college gives little to no aid. My father and I were having a discussion about this and he gave me one piece of advice: if I think that I will be worth 250K (the sum of 4 years of tuition, room, and board), then I can attend (insert name of private school) over the University of Kentucky where I will not be paying anything to attend. This was really interesting because I believe that these private universities have a lot to offer in terms of cultural enrichment, research opportunities, and connections that public universities do not.

I have wanted to attend a private university (because of the abundant opportunities) for a long time, but now I am seriously considering otherwise. I do not want my parents to bear the consequences for saving money. Does anyone else agree with me that this system is broken? My family may be able to pay, but that does not mean 60K is a negligible sum of money.

To test or not to test?

Standardized testing was the bane of my existence last year. Free time was nonexistent because I was always studying for one test or another. From SAT subject tests to AP tests to the ACT, these standardized tests play a large part in college admissions and I knew that if I did not study, then it would be very detrimental come application season this year. Studying paid off as I did decently well on my exams, but I still do not agree with this method of testing students.

The biggest problem I have with standardized testing is that not all students have the opportunity to take difficult classes (i.e. AP classes) with good teachers. These students are automatically put at a huge disadvantage coming into the test because they did not study the material in school. Another problem deals with those who do not consider English to be their first language. This can create difficulty in comprehending the exam questions and, as a result, poor scores regardless of how well the individual knows the material.

Although I understand that there is no perfect way of judging a student, I think that standardized test scores should not play as large a role in admissions. If I could have a conversation with admissions counselors, I would ask them to consider AP test scores with much more weight because they actually reveal how much a student knows because only half the test consists of multiple choice. In addition, the material on the AP test is actually material that will be used later on in our life unlike tests like the ACT science section, which only tests ones ability to analyze data. In conclusion, I think AP tests should be weighted much more than the ACT and SAT because having a strong foundation in core subjects is much more important than timed reading comprehension or the ability to analyze random data.

Confusion

I'm going to go ahead and be very honest - I hate Beloved. It is a very tedious read and it requires so much thinking. I spent three hours the other day reading pages 60 - 146 (not including reading journals). Three hours. That means my average rate was a page every two minutes. Maybe it's just me, but it's taking me ages to analyze everything I read.

Most of the confusion in the book comes from Beloved. I simply can't grasp my mind around the fact that she is a human and a ghost. For example, in the scene when Sethe is at the clearing, she thinks of Baby Suggs caressing her neck and then she suddenly starts feeling like she's being choked. Although Denver accuses Beloved of choking her mother, Beloved denies all this. In my mind, this was very odd because Beloved was able to choke Sethe even though she was sitting next to her (not behind her). It makes it seem like she is half ghost and half human. The whole scene was very supernatural.

It is possible that I misinterpreted that scene, but that was the part where I just got really annoyed with the book. Why is it so difficult to read?!? It's probably a good thing that I am reading these challenging books because I'll have to take a few English classes in college, but it makes me so much more thankful that I am going into engineering. I don't like thinking about such abstract and interpretive texts.

Water for Elephants Review

Water for Elephants was a book that really piqued my interest. The story line was simple - Jacob Jankowski, a senior at Cornell University who was studying Veterinary Science, was told that his parents died in a car wreck. This story took place during the Great Depression, though, and consequently Jacob was left with nothing. His tuition at Cornell was not completely paid off, so he was forced to drop out. With no home or any relatives to return to, he made a spontaneous decision - to jump on a train. The train turned out to be the circus. He was given an ultimatum when he asked to join: become the veterinarian and get limited pay or get red-lighted (thrown off the train in the middle of the night). He joined and from here he went on to have an amazing adventure with Marlena, the amazing horse rider, and Rosie, the elephant. 

This story really answered my research question on how humans react when they are put in life-or-death situations. Jacob responded to this situation by creating alliances with others and using his knowledge from college to help him get a job. This shows that people will dig deep into their skill set to find a way to survive.

I recommend this book to everyone. It has a lot of humor and the plot is very interesting. Some scenes, however, are very sexual and graphic, so I would not recommend it to younger audiences.

Is outlining bad?

Yes and no. You must be asking, "What kind of answer is that??" Well, to be honest, it depends on the situation. When it comes to academic writing (such as an on-demand paper or research paper), outlining can be a valuable asset. Time constraints, at least in my case, make me very tense. I go through a writers' block, conveniently enough, for the large majority of the time. After I started outlining for occasions such as this, I found a new confidence in my writing. I did not have as much trouble putting my thoughts on paper because I knew how to structure each paragraph and what to discuss. This helped me to write faster and more effectively; my words had meaning now. 

On the other hand, I think outlining is an awful idea when you are writing a creative piece. Creative writing is supposed to be very free. If an author tries to plan it out, then he/she is losing many opportunities to make something crazy happen. It’s almost as if our brains are wired to follow an outline if it is written. As a result, many authors follow the outline even if the story could flow better with another plot twist. I agree with the author of the article (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/21/outlining-in-reverse/?ref=opinion) when she says that it is better to outline after the writing is done. That will help consolidate the writing, yet allow the creativity and whim to affect the plot. 

The Next Chapter

Although I found the end of the book to be very deep and satisfying, I would have enjoyed an epilogue. Here's one of the many possible endings I thought of -

The boy goes back to the veteran's hideout and learns many trades and skills. He grows up to become a jack of all trades, which is perfect for the conditions. He must make use of everything he gets his hands on and must not let anything go to waste. As he grows older and more independent, he leaves the family that helped nurture his growth and heads south towards the location where his father had originally wanted to go. There, he finds the rise of a new civilization. It is almost as if everyone is rewriting history. There is order and peace in this civilization and the boy learns the ways of this new society. From here, the boy helps rebuild the human race and lives happily ever after. This ending was like a  fairy tale.

My other alternative endings dealt with death and despair. One of my ideas was similar to Mrs. Wells' idea about farming the boy, except I thought the boy would be shot immediately, not farmed. Another idea was that some of the blood cults would arrive at the hideout and kill the entire family. These possible endings were so depressing because it played along with the tone of the rest of the book. A happy-go-lucky ending would seem out of the blue and very contrived.

In summation, I think Cormac McCarthy left the book at a very good point. A lot of speculation can be made about what happens to the boy, which is what I love about the text. My endings were on opposite sides of the spectrum - either really happy or really sad. If only McCarthy wrote an epilogue ...

Best of 2012 (because I don't know what else to write about)

10. NCAA Men's Basketball Championship - I don't think I can even elaborate on this one. Go Cats!

9. Snowboarding - It is a family tradition to visit Snowshoe every winter. Although I had hoped to hit the slopes in Colorado or Utah this winter, my procrastination of completing college applications kept me from doing so.

8. Youtube videos - Something new came out every day. From "Gangnam Style" to "A Dramatic Surprise on a Quiet Square", Youtube provided me with hours of entertainment. Call me cheesy, but I can't stop laughing after watching this one.

7. Movies - Django Unchained, Ted, The Avengers, Skyfall, The Dark Night Rises, and The Hunger Games. There are so many more great movies, but these were just a few of my favorites. 2012 was a good year for movies and 2013 is supposed to be even better. I can't wait.

6. FCPS Facebook Page - The trolls are funny, but the moderator beats them all. Nothing like a little sass.


5. Summer at Vanderbilt - I met amazing people from all over the world. I learned something new every day and I had fun too! This camp made me realize how much I can't wait to go to college. There is so much freedom and I won't be locked down and be forced to follow a strict schedule.

4. Completing my 360 hour research project - It's very nerdy, but this was basically the culmination of my MSTC career. After countless hours of frustration and hard work, I finally made a breakthrough that helped me solve my project's question. Phew, I am so relieved.

3. The Olympics - Very few sporting events capture my attention like the Olympics. I think I might have accidentally glued my eyes to the TV. Perhaps the most exciting events were Track and Field (I swear Usain Bolt is superhuman) and Fencing (Yes, I woke up at 5 in the morning to watch Lee Kiefer). Oh, and I also learned that Ryan Lochte is the WORST interviewer on the planet.


2. SEEING GREEN TRIANGLES. I felt like having a party after seeing each one (for a grand total of 15). College is the beginning of life on my own and I can't help but to feel excited to start the adventure.

1. Writing essays for college!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just kidding, that was possibly the worst part of the year.

The (real) best part of 2012 was *drumroll*...........

1. English class *wink wink* (Do I get bonus points?)

The Road Reflection

Like I said in class, I both dislike and like The Road. The book is possibly one of the slowest I have read. Although it may be the author's intent to make the book slow-moving, I do not have that long of an attention span. The only reasons this book is worthwhile to read (in my opinion) are the imagery and the touching relationship between the father and son. Cormac McCarthy is able to convey all of this in brief sentences. These short sentences are atypical, but McCarthy is able to utilize it in a way that even demonstrates his prose. 

Although I do not like the pace of the book, I do think that the story line raises good questions. Fore example, is suicide always a bad thing? After having read this book, I would answer with no. The boy's mother committed suicide so that she could survive in a world with no hope. Honestly, I don't understand why the father doesn't do the same to himself and his son. It would put them both out of their misery. 

The unique writing style makes up for the one negative aspect of this book. I think that The Road is one of the better books I have recently, though, because it has raised thought-provoking questions that are making me experience many revelations. I just hope more exciting events take place in the plot soon.