Mrs. Ho's AP Lit - 2021/2022

      Last week, I went to the Boca Raton Art Museum to see their Machu Picchu Exhibit. I learned a lot from the exhibit and enjoyed how it was set up. Even though the art didn't interest me too much, I still had fun and appreciated all the work put into it.      The first thing I did was go to the virtual reality room which looked very futuristic. It had golden egg-shaped chairs and blue cushions inside of them. After sitting myself down in the chair, I put on the VR glasses and went on a tour of Machu Picchu. I know the goal of the movie was to learn about Machu Picchu, but I was too busy looking around at the view and also being amazed at how real everything felt (I actually felt like I was flying!). After that, my eyes felt really strained but they stopped hurting after a few seconds.     After the VR movie, I went upstairs to watch a quick normal movie recapping what was said before, and after the movie was over two large doors made of stone ...

  Hi Guys! I thought I would write about shows and movies this week, specifically about some of my favorites. Quick Disclaimer: I do not watch a lot of tv or movies so some of you may disagree with my Top ten lists. To begin, my top ten television shows include: (this is in no particular order) 1. The Office 2. Scooby-doo 3. Impractical Jokers 3. The Simpsons 5. Peppa Pig 6. Charlie Brown 7. Pepe and the big wide world 8. Looney Tunes  9. Tom and Jerry 10. Garfield While the others may be debatable, it is unquestionable that The Office is the best show ever created! If any of you have not watched it I urge you to, and please watch past the first season before you make any judgments. My favorite characters are Michael, Dwight, and Jim because they each are so funny and have such unique and relatable personalities. For any of you other Office fans reading this, who do you like and why? Also, Impractical Jokers is another show I want to highlight. It is an extremely interesting...

  This week, our South African family friends, the Finestones, came to visit. They’ve had to stay in the US for a few weeks to keep their green card, so Boca was their last stop. They’ve been staying in my house for the week, and we’ve been doing lots of things to keep them entertained and convince them to finally move to the states. Last weekend we went down to Wynwood and walked around Atlantic Avenue to give them a taste of life in Florida. Tonight, they shared their recipe for homemade ricotta gnocchi, and it’s amazing! The recipe is quite simple and quick, so I thought I would share it with all of you.  I’ll send the full recipe to whoever wants it, but here are the instructions. Start by chopping up butternut into inch cubes and coat in olive oil, salt, and pepper. Pop that in the oven at 350 degrees and roast for 30-4 minutes- until soft. Next, combine the ricotta, flour, parmesan cheese, olive oil, egg, and salt together in a large bowl. Bring a pot of water to boil wh...

  Last week, Dr. Sanjay Gupta went on the Joe Rogan podcast. For those who don’t know, Dr. Sanjay Gupta is the chief medical correspondent for CNN. During the podcast, the two discussed the pandemic, vaccines and a variety of other topics. What went viral from the podcast was their discussion about how CNN treated Joe Rogan. A little over a month ago, Joe Rogan contracted the Corona virus and was prescribed by his doctor to take Ivermectin, a drug used in the past by billions of people for other diseases that is not fully proven to help with someone who has the disease. Because Joe Rogan took this drug, he got a lot of flack from many left leaning news outlets. In particular, CNN has said multiple times in the past and continues to say that the drug that Joe Rogan took (Ivermectin) was horse dewormer. This was just a straight lie as Joe Rogan took the human form of the drug that was prescribed by his doctor. There are forms of the drug that can be used as horse dewormer, but what...

  Yair Gritzman Week 5 - Review: Timeshifter, the App that Eliminates Jet Lag Imagine a world without jet lag. Traveling would be much less of a hassle, and our sleep-wake schedule would be able to stay consistent after moving across the world. We would be happier, healthier, and maybe even smarter. Well, what if I told you that there is an app that solves this problem. It's called Timeshifter. The app is meant to reduce jet lag by giving you a schedule for when to wake up, expose yourself to light or darkness, and fall asleep. You start the schedule the day before the flight and end it the day after. I downloaded the app a day before my trip to Israel this week and entered in my roundtrip ticket and flight number. It found my flight and automatically gave me a full schedule to adjust my circadian rhythm. I was told to wake up at 6am and turn on all of the lights, see the sunrise in the morning, and go to sleep on the plane from 8pm to 1am. At 1am, it told me to wake up and see the...

  My all-time favorite show is Gossip Girl. This July 2021, the creators of Gossip Girl, revived the show after 9 years of being off the air since 2012. I was very much anticipating the return of Gossip Girl all summer. My favorite character is most definitely Nate Archibald and Blair Waldorf. Though, I do like the dynamics of the friendship between all the 6 main characters. While I was in camp, I, unfortunately, did not have service strong enough to download the updated version of the Gossip Girl show so there was no way for me to watch it. A few days after I got home, I was ready to watch. I have watched the original Gossip Girl about 1 and a half times which is a lot for me. Being an expert in the show, I was more than ready for the new show. Unfortunately, I turned it off after just one episode. The new show was completely awkward and made so many out-of-hand and unnecessary political comments. Unfortunately, many shows these days are too focused on keeping their viewers inter...

  Over the summer I started watching the show “Ted Lasso” with my family because my brother was very enthusiastic about it. I was still suffering from post-camp depression and wasn’t really into the first season, but after watching the 2nd season with my parents, I fell in love! I really recommend this show because it’s so funny, emotional, and deep. It has a lot of good messages, especially in the 2nd season where the talk of mental health is the main theme. The characters are so funny, my favorite being Roy Kent. My friend from dance, Rhyan, also watches the show and every Friday we talk about the most recent episode and what we think, feel, and like/dislike about it. The season finale just dropped a few weeks ago, with talks of the next season being the last, despite its wild success. I’m so excited to watch the next season since there were so many cliffhangers and possible new plot points. “Ted Lasso” is super successful with 20 Emmy nominations, breaking the record, and 7 Emmy...

     Hi everyone! I’m sure some of you can also attest to this, but I’ve found senior year to be very busy and tiring. With so many different assignments, tests, and college applications, it’s been easy for me to feel exhausted from it all. Consequently, I decided I would give coffee a try.       Now, I’ve tried coffee before a few times but never have liked the taste of it (I’ve always preferred tea or hot chocolate). When my friends were recently telling me about how good the fall coffee drinks are at Starbucks--obviously the Pumpkin Spice Latte was mentioned--I couldn’t resist. I ordered it one day after school in the smallest size, and to my surprise, I didn’t hate the taste. It was the kind of feeling where you can’t discern whether or not you like the drink but keep wanting to sip it. And the more I sipped it, the more I got used to the taste and realized I liked it.       I’m pretty excited to be a coffee drinker now. I don’t...

      I always hear people talking about how bad the internet is for people. Social media hurts people and makes them feel bad about themselves, little kids can access inappropriate things, and fake news pops up everywhere you look. While all these things are true, there are still good aspects to the world wide web. I am going to point some out, and encourage everyone to try to find more positive things that they can get out of the internet - because it is not going away any time soon.     My favorite use of the internet is learning new things. My favorite place is educational youtube videos.  For an internet skeptic, this could seem like an easy way to get sucked into misinformation. A good way to know if youtube videos are for real is to start watching lectures. You would be surprised how many universities post free lectures on youtube. One type of video I like to watch is just a teacher in front of a board, where you can also hear the students in the bac...

  According to multiple sources, and verified by Variety, Harry Styles will be joining the Marvel family! SPOILER ALERT AHEAD: The new movie, Eternals , will feature a post-credit scene, like in almost every Marvel movie, that will feature Harry as a possible new character for future films. According to the Los Angeles Times, he will play a new character, Eros, the brother of Thanos. Anyone unaware of Marvek=l characters, Thanos is the big purple villain who got all the pretty rocks and destroyed half the world. This means Harry could be playing a possible villain! Most of the time in Marvel movies, anyone introduced in a post-credit scene is brought back sometime in the future, which means we could be seeing a lot more of Harry in years to come. Personally, as you all may know, I’m a huge fan of Harry and I’m so excited to see him become a bigger and better actor. Some have expressed their concern that Harry isn’t qualified enough of an actor or good enough to join such a big cin...

 One of the best things about being in our graduating class is that we get to tour universities in person, unlike most of last year's seniors. During November - since we have so much time off due to holidays - my dad and I went to visit some universities, mostly in the northeast, and it was a great experience. In the span of three days, we toured Syracuse, Temple, and Maryland, not to mention another visit to UT Austin a week before those. The visits were everything that I wanted them to be. I was hoping that the visits could help me narrow down which universities I prefer over others because on paper most of the colleges that I'm applying to are very similar; large campus, a lot of students, good sports teams, etc. Not only did the tours give some great information on the academic side of things, but getting to see how the campus functions and being right in the middle of it, physically, is such a great way to get a feel for how you like that specific school. Seeing the studen...

     Hi everyone! As you all can relate to some extent, the process of writing and drafting a bunch of different college applications can be daunting and tiring. One of the ways I’ve been taking a break and “destressing” is watching The Voice . For those of you who are unfamiliar with the show, The Voice is a televised singing competition--similar to American Idol and X Factor--where singers “blind audition” (sing with the coaches’ backs turned) and try to impress at least one of the celebrity judges enough to turn their chair around (which means that they want to coach them). Then, singers battle against each other in the competition and have various live performances until there is one winner. There are usually four celebrity judges, and this season, they are Kelly Clarkson, Blake Shelton, John Legend, and Ariana Grande. I have watched clips of The Voice on YouTube before when they popped up in my recommendations, but this is my first time actually watching the season...

  Hey guys for today’s blog I will be talking about one of my favorite things: coffee. While coffee is very versatile, as I have recently learned, I am basic and my allegiance will always be to a good iced coffee. There are many integral steps to making a nice glass of iced coffee. First, you need a good quality cold brew that is a medium roast. Next, you add in some sort of milk, I use non-dairy. Usually, coconut milk is my go-to but sometimes I use almond milk just depending on what I prefer that day. Though I have heard that oat milk is becoming extremely popular so maybe I will get around to trying that eventually. But the main point of this blog is to tell you that it is pumpkin spice season! Though we do not live up north, I love every aspect of this season. The imagery of leaves changing and the weather cooling down definitely goes hand in hand with the pumpkin spices. Well, my favorite coffee creamer also becomes available again during this season. Only available from Augus...

  Week 4 - Why does school start at 7:45? I think that Donna Klein should start school later in the morning, around at 8:30, to allow for us to get more sleep and function better during the day. According to sleep experts, teenagers are recommended to get between 8 to 10 hours of sleep each night. However, it is difficult for us to achieve since teenagers naturally fall asleep later due to temporary changes in circadian rhythm. Therefore, when adults or teachers feel tired at night, students are likely wide awake. While it is possible for students to adjust their biological clocks back by falling asleep and waking up at the same time, it is better for the school to just start later in the morning because it allows students to function according to their natural rhythms. After all, why does Donna Klein start at 7:45am? Do we start at 7:45am because that is what we have always done? I believe that there are a few reasons for school starting so early in the morning. First of all...

  There is no doubt that the future of technology rests in AI. AI, or Artificial Intelligence, is when a computer learns from past behavior in order to make future decisions. So, when you get recommendations of what to watch on YouTube, or are shown videos on your For You page on TikTok, that is all AI showing you stuff that it thinks you would like based on learning about you from past experience. This is just one way that AI could be used, but AI could also be used for automation. Like I said earlier, AI learns from past experience and makes decisions that it thinks are best.AI is also being used for things like autonomous driving. But AI could be used for automating other things like the workforce. This is where the ethical implications take place. AI will undoubtedly work as a better workforce than humans could ever have as long as the technology becomes smart enough, so this means that we will replace the workforce with computers when the AI becomes smart enough. The problem...

On Monday, October 4th, my parents surprised me with the best birthday present ever: tickets to the Harry Styles concert with my sister. Ellie and I have been planning to go to the concert for almost 2 years now, but things just didn’t work out for us to go together. I had accepted the fact that I wasn’t going to be able to go, so the surprise was that much better. I was in complete shock. We started planning our outfits and listened to all of his songs during every car ride in preparation. My sister lives in Miami, so she drove up on Thursday, slept over, and worked from my house so we could drive together on Friday night. We decided to go an hour early to get merch, so we got dressed and ready quickly to arrive just before 7.  We stood in line for around 15 minutes, bought a t-shirt and poster(which I hung up in my room), and ate pizza before the opening act. Jenny Lewis opened for Harry, but she was pretty bad in my opinion...and irrelevant. Harry came out just after 9pm and...

  John Gruden, an NFL coach who served for 15 seasons, has been canceled. In an investigation of which Gruden was not a part of, his private emails were viewed from 2011 (10 years ago) and were found to have racist, sexist, and homophobic remarks. First, it is obvious that his words were NOT acceptable and completely inexcusable. That being said, what precedent does this set to hold someone accountable for politically incorrect emails they sent over 10 years ago in private that were not meant for the public to see? Even worse, the NFL still employs serious convicted criminals. For example, Tyreek Hill choked and punched his pregnant wife and was charged with felony domestic assault and battery by strangulation. Why was he not fired? What about Antonio Brown; He was charged with burglary with battery, burglary of an unoccupied conveyance, and criminal mischief. Josh Jacobs of the Las Vegas Raiders, the SAME team Jon Gruden coached, was charged with reckless driving after crashing hi...

      The poem "Your God" by Rudy Francisco expresses Francisco's anger at the types of people who use God as a defense for being homophobic. Also annoyed at people who hide behind God and are racist or antisemitic.      He starts off the poem by saying that the poem is meant for the type of person described above. He says "I've never seen, exactly who it is that you paperclip your knees, meld your hands together and pray to, but I think I know what he looks like. Francisco then goes on to describe a stereotypical racist hillbilly from the south. He describes this type of God because this is what homophobic people usually look like and act. "I bet your god has a mullet I bet he wears flannel shirts with no sleeves, a fanny pack, and says words like geturdun" He talks about what this person's god's school must have been like, his temper, his alcoholism , his sexism. The end of the poem says "sooner or later you will realize you are worshippi...

  The poem “It Is in the Leaving” by Nicole Blackman talks about how painful it is when someone, presumably a lover, leaves. I love this poem because it goes in-depth about what seems like a long-distance relationship or any kind of relationship where time spent together is few and far between. The quo te “ airports train stations bus stops take us apart but we keep knitting together strangely inevitably even we don't question it anymore” describes the different modes of transportation possibly taken to reunite with this person and how they also separate them from each other. Not only that, but this means that these transportations can’t separate their feelings for each other, and they’ve gotten so used to it, but they don’t let it affect their relationship. Another quote I love is “each meeting is new is full of searching of notsureifitwillbethesame.” This expresses her concern that after so much time spent apart that it won’t feel the same and this person may be different or thei...

      I n 2007, Natasha Trethewey wrote “Providence,” a poem revealing the impacts of the 1969 Hurricane Camille on her. To enable the reader to visualize her unsettling circumstances, Trethewey uses imagery by describing what she saw when sheltered. She describes the “hurricane parties, palm trees leaning in the wind, fronds blown back, a woman’s hair” to illustrate how strong and intimidating the winds were. Moreover, Trethewey writes about how she “huddled all night [with her family] in [their] small house, moving between rooms, emptying pots filled with rain,” showing the discomfort through being cramped in smaller spaces and having to hide from the unpredictable force outdoors. Trethewey’s imagery allowed me to place myself in her shoes and empathize by being able to envision the situation: she does not directly explain the fear or apprehension she felt, rather she depicts it through figurative language. Also, through the structure of the poem, Trethewey uniquely sym...

     As of right now there’s very little going for the gaming community. CDPR’s Cyberpunk 2077 fell through like a sack of bricks. The whole scandal devouring Activision has ruined the Call of Duty franchise for many. And many people are still hesitant to trust EA over the pay to win aspects of already expensive games and the lackluster advent of Battlefield V. But this is where I get excited. EA has debuted a new Battlefield game that leaves expectations high. This new game incorporates so many new elements including but not limited to: being able to change attachments on the fly, massive weather encounters, and a fully destructible environment. And right now things are not looking good. The alpha for the game was plagued with glitches and all around felt terrible. Now the beta is out, and it feels a lot better, but there is still a lot of work to be done.      Personally I want to stay hopeful for this game to pull through. It’s been too long since I’ve s...

       Amanda Gorman's brilliant poem "Fury and Faith" is centered around the fight for racial justice and the anger and faithful emotions that come along with this horror. The purpose of this poem is to express the various emotions that inevitably come along after tragedies such as racially-based brutality. As a young African American, Gorman knows firsthand just how difficult it is to grapple with situations such as the ones detailed in her poem. A stanza that spoke to me, in particular, was as follows  Our goal has never been revenge, just restoration; not dominance, just dignity; not fear, just freedom; just justice. These lines perfectly display the emotions that protesters are feeling. Instead of looking at it from a negative lens such as revenge, dominance, and fear Gorman puts the positive spin of restoration, dignity, freedom, and justice on the situation. This battle between being able to fight for what you believe in and being called violent is a very...