Moment of Truth

The following list consists of the things I hope to read in the next ten years or so. Keep in mind that these books are in no particular order and I just listed them as they came to me. Without further ado, here we go. 1. Dune , by Frank Herbert Ever since the movie came out, this book has been on my to-read list for mainly one reason: I didn't think it was that great of a film. I've also read in a lot of places that the book   has amazing world-building, an immersing story, and is pretty much a sci-fi classic. I'm looking forward to diving into the world of Arrakis and seeing how good Dune really is.  2. Don Quixote , by Miguel de Cervantes I don't even think I need an explanation for why I picked this novel. This is probably the novel that pops into someone's mind when I say "greatest Spanish novel ever written." We talked about this book a little in my Spanish class, and honestly, the premise seems really intriguing and comical. Plus, there's no wa...

The biggest thing I learned during my senior year: I have absolutely no idea what I want to do with my life. Sure I'm going into computer science and I'm pretty decent at it, but am I actually passionate about it? Not particularly, if I'm being honest.  Senior year was the first time I started looking ahead in my life and as college applications came about, I found out how behind I was compared to some people. Some people had been doing the things they loved throughout high school and were confident with what they wanted to pursue. Others grew to love the things they were doing. And the remaining seniors were like me, completely clueless about the direction they wanted to take with their life. After a couple of conversations with my brother and my family, I came to the realization that throughout high school, everything I had done academically had been for the sole reason of college. Either that or because my friends did it. An example of this is taking AP World -- not my s...

The heavens beckon, Inviting you with open arms. Lavender fading into blue. The rich velvety air, Only interrupted by a wistful draft. You attempt to stop time, Hoping to seize the moment, Frame it for eternity. But we all know, that with every peak, follows its undoing. the heavens turn to hell, mutating to a murky black, the air deathly still, suffocating, fracturing your dreams, snapping you out of your daze

Abstract concepts are incredibly weird to me. To us, they seem pretty obvious and self-explanatory. We all know what the soul, the mind, love, and time are because we've grown up with those terms thrown around, and over time, we vaguely understand what they are and how to use them in a sentence. But how would you go about explaining those topics to someone who has no clue what they mean? I feel like poetry is great at explaining those kinds of topics by teasing out their definition without ever explicitly saying what it means. Like poetry, art can also be great at uncovering these meanings. Chiaroscuro art is an art form that focuses on the contrast between light and dark in paintings. By contrasting the lighter subject with the darker background, the artist ensures that the subject comes off as important to the viewer. Not only this, but the viewer's eyes naturally drift toward the focus of the piece. Similarly, in poetry, to convey the true depth and meaning of a subject, the...

She sat down at the little electric piano but played nothing. There was an old musician’s cliché, about how there were no wrong notes on a piano. But her life was a cacophony of nonsense. A piece that could have gone in wonderful directions, but now went nowhere at all. This quote is taken from The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, when Nora Seed begins to wonder if her life is even worth living. When she was younger, she had a really bright future ahead of her. She was a promising swimmer, a good musician, and interested in philosophy. She had many opportunities to truly turn her life around for the better, but failed at every one of those, causing her to feel regretful and disappointed with herself.  Nora seems to have an identity crisis, if I were to use a term from psych. She doesn't know what she wants to do and is afraid to follow her dreams and commit herself to a singular occupation for life. So, she backs out of swimming because of the pressure there, she backs out of her ban...

In English, we have done a wide variety of things, from analyzing plays to novels to writing essays on those plays and novels. When we first started them, I did not like Harkness circles very much. But I'll admit it, they are beginning to grow on me. Harkness discussions actually help me understand and analyze a piece much better. Usually, when I first read a piece, I have little to no idea what's going on. And then after the discussion ensues, I slowly start building on my basic observations to get to a deep level of analysis. As for the writing aspect, I really struggle with in-class essays because I usually take twenty out of the forty minutes just brainstorming. But for the out-of-class essays like the lyric essay or the midterm, I find that I have had a lot more success because I have as much time as I need to organize my thoughts and get it all out neatly on paper. Hopefully, my brain can speed up in time for the AP test.  First half of senior year was very hectic. Over t...