Mrs. Ho's AP Lit - 2021/2022

The poem “Girls” by Nicole Blackman is about what girls will stereotypically go through after a breakup. It also gives advice on how to get over your ex and reassures you that there are other girls going through what you’re going through too. One of my favorite lines is “When he leaves, he leaves a space, a big or little airless place that begs to be filled.” This shows how many people will feel empty after a breakup and need to keep themself busy to fill the hole. Blackman mentions this as well and says “So you work and clean and call and cook and write and drink and read and sleep and shop and say This is fine.” She also mentions how some relationships end for the better, maybe they could’ve been toxic or abusive, but you still have a connection to them. “It's kind of like losing a dog. You'll miss him but maybe it's better this way.” I think this line out of all of them is the most relatable. Even after losing someone like a friend, a lot of times it is for the better an...

     In her poem “Enlightenment,”  Natasha Trethewey recounts the time when she and her father debated Thomas Jefferson’s history, character, and relationship with slaves. She begins the poem with imagery and symbolism as Trethewey describes “the portrait of Jefferson that hangs at Monticello” as being “two-toned...as if the artist meant to contrast his bright knowledge, its dark subtext.”  I find this observation intriguing because it not only helps me visualize the referenced image of Jefferson but also uniquely sets the tone for the rest of the poem as there are generally two opinions about Jefferson: that he was heroic and honorable or hypocritical and racist. The name of the poem “Enlightenment” also seems to connect with the concept of being “two-toned” because although the Enlightenment is typically known as an era of intellect, discovery, and natural rights, these prospects were not, in reality, available to everyone.      Trethewey then c...

                                                                         The poem “I Do Not Want to Say This Country Is Not My Home", by Javier Zamora is a poem about the author, Javier, who discusses his life as a refugee from Mexico discovering his new “home”, the United States, with his family and learning about the new culture. He discusses his mother’s difficulty with learning the English language. His mother mixes up words like “cologne” and “perfume” and an arrogant white man says to her, “learn English you damn foreigner”. I have serious doubts that this particular scene actually happened and think the author was trying to make a point that the family struggled with new race relations as well when moving here to the U.S.     I thought the less...

  Amanda Gorman published a video of her reading her poem “Fury and Faith” in August of 2020 in support of the Black Lives Matter Protestors. She felt that many protestors felt discouraged and hopeless, but her message gives an uplifting and motivational message to the BLM supporters across the country. This poem was extremely timely as BLM protests were going on throughout the summer of 2020. Amanda Gorman is able to achieve a powerful and encouraging tone by using uniting, hopeful diction.  If we ever feel like we might fail, If we be fatigued and frail When our fire can no longer be fueled by fury, We will be fortified by this faith Found in the vow, the anthem: All black lives matter, no matter what! This stanza shows Amanda Gorman’s use of uniting diction. She groups herself with the audience by using the word “we” repetitively in order to relay the message of “we’re all in this together.” She uses this language to group the reader together with a larger body of peo...

          In this poem, Dimitrov describes how life could pass by where we go through all of the motions of life and have friends that we have fun with, and do important things in life, but in the end, you have to ask yourself what really matters and what is important to you.     Although this poem was very hard to understand, one line that I thought was very meaningful was when Dimitrov asked the question "why the [...] sea hold[s] what it loves most below" (Dimitrov). This basically means that the most important things in life need to be discovered after lots of looking and cannot just be found right away. You have to actually go to the bottom of the ocean to find these things and can't just be focused on what is in the shallow part.     The title of this poem relates to the poem because of the phenomenon of being with all of your friends, but nobody is actually present. This phenomenon relates because as a group of friends, no body is...

  In “The Eight-Mile Bike Ride”, by Philip Schultz, Schultz reminisces about his Sunday bike rides with a long-time friend named John Cheever, who has passed away. Schultz recalls the rides as peaceful and goes into details about some events during their rides that he remembers vividly.  He begins the poem by pointing the reader towards him and his friend, during their bike rides, as they “cranked those bikes up hills until our legs ached & our faces glowed with the burning”. He repeats the word “our” multiple times to show that these rides were quality bonding time for him and John. He then details the wind blowing in their faces, which gives their bike rides a feeling of tranquility and simplicity. These rides seem to be a break from the stresses of New York City, where Schultz is living. After explaining John’s excitement for downhill parts of their rides, he recalls the time that John fell off his bike “head over handlebars [and]...somersaulted & gashed [his] head ...

      The poem entitled " The Power of Firsts" written by Amanda Gorman is an inspirational piece describing the power of female firsts regarding education and empowerment. Throughout the stanzas, there are different examples of uplifting firsts having to do with young women and their achievements. The purpose of this poem is to showcase these examples that revolve around not only women overcoming obstacles to get an education, but their outstanding achievements as well. When Gorman writes " The miracle isn’t just in a girl being the first; It is in her seeing that which is nonexistent; It is her seeing the blank space of an untouched sky and sculpting her own dreams into the emptiness" she really states that women can accomplish anything they set their minds to. This stanza really stood out to me, as a woman, because of how moving it is to see young women around the world making strides. From medical, political, and everyday advancements women truly are taking the...

    Does every art piece have one specific meaning? I always thought the answer to that was yes. An artist makes a piece with a specific goal and message to the viewer, and that is the meaning of the work. Ever since I started my A.P. 3D art portfolio, I have started to shift my views on the meaning of art.     I have an agenda while making my pieces. I make shapes organic and put them next to sharp geometric shapes to create contrast and invoke slight feelings of unease. I try to make an abstract shape suggest a certain thing in the world. I try to control where the eye moves through the way I shape the clay and use the glaze colors. What I have realized is that no matter how hard I try to force a person to see my art a certain way, someone will always have a different idea about it - and that doesn't make them wrong.      I am in the ceramics room a lot, and sometimes the lower school has classes during my free periods, and they will come in and walk...

Yair Gritzman Week 9 - Web Design and Development   Over the past year, I have become increasingly interested in programming websites from scratch. I have one website on the Internet currently, but I would like to develop a few more. I find the development process exciting because I can think of an idea, develop it on my computer, and share it with the rest of the world through the web. Having a website used by people around the world is fascinating because it shows how interconnected society is today. About two weeks ago, I was connected to a non-profit organization that was looking for help developing a website. Since I find it difficult to think of website ideas on my own, I accepted the offer. While I haven’t started developing the website yet, I hope to spend some time working on it during the beginning of second semester (after college applications!). Another aspect of web development that I love is the creativity involved with the design. Finding the perfect color scheme...

     This upcoming Friday will be day 1 of the Magnus Carlsen vs. Ian Nepomniatchi (Nepo) world championship match in chess. This match comes highly anticipated as Magnus has been world champion since 2013 and people have been waiting more than a year to watch this match due to postponements from the COVID.       The way that the world championship in chess works is that a group of the top players in chess qualified for a tournament called the candidates tournament. There are many ways to qualify for this tournament, but if you don't qualify, you won't be the person vying for the world championship title. After qualifying for this tournament, you must win the tournament in order to face the world champion (Magnus Carlsen) in the title match. Even winning this tournament is very hard to do because it consists of only the best players in chess. This past year, Nepomniatchi won the Candidates tournament, which is why he will face Magnus in the World Champ...

  Hi guys! I hope everyone is excited for the upcoming Thanksgiving break! I am very much anticipating this break and can’t wait to spend a lot of quality time with my family. Both of my brothers, Joshua who is a Senior in college and Sammy who is a Freshman in college, will be coming home for a little over a week. They both go to University of Florida in Gainesville so it makes coming home much easier because they are in the same location. I am so excited to cook with my mom for the holiday. In addition, I am excited for my whole family to be together for 2 Shabbats and we have so much to cook for that as well. For Thanksgiving, we will go to my Nana and Poppy’s house with my Mom’s side of the family Wednesday night and my Grandpa and Grandma’s house on my Dad’s side of the family Thursday night. Most of the food is pretty simple for thanksgiving as we make a turkey, veggies, sweet potatoes, a pomegranate salad, and pumpkin muffins. I really enjoy the holiday of Thanksgiving and r...

How’s it going, everybody! I figured that it would be appropriate to write about Thanksgiving considering it is coming up very soon. I am very excited about Thanksgiving and it is one of my favorite holidays. I am especially excited for my neighborhood’s Turkey Trot 5k race. I win the race every year because I usually run against a lot of old people and some pretty good runners, but there have been a lot of new people moving into my neighborhood this year so I need to make sure I am ready. If you read my blog from last week you already know that I have been doing a lot of yoga recently, which will help with my preparation for this race. I also need to get a good night’s sleep before the race and not stay up until 1 AM like I usually do. Wish me luck! Next, I feel that I should acknowledge all the things I am thankful for. I am very thankful for my family, friends, and current life situation. I am very thankful for having food and water, helpful technology, a comfy house, good education...

Hi everyone! Similar to many of you, I am so excited about our mini Thanksgiving break. I look forward to this holiday every year because it is a great opportunity to spend time with family and friends, cook/eat delicious foods, and actually reflect on what we’re grateful for when we might otherwise forget to.  This year, I am not entirely certain what all of my plans are yet. I am definitely going to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade, as I do every year, cause it always gets my family and me in the Thanksgiving/holiday spirit. I am also going to have Thanksgiving dinner with my family and grandparents on my mom’s side, and I plan on baking desserts for it! I’m not sure which desserts I’ll be baking, but chocolate chip cookies or apple pie are safe predictions for now. Then, there’s a chance that I’ll be doing one or two “Friendsgivings” for the first time, but that still has to be planned. I am very excited about potentially getting to see some of my friends who are in college ...

Today, I naturally woke up at 7am, which is way too early for an F-day. I decided I would take the morning slow and treat myself to Dunkin. I realized that it would be packed, and I didn’t feel like waiting in line, so I placed a mobile order through the Dunkin app. I placed the order before I left my house, and by the time I got there, around 7 minutes later, my coffee was ready to get picked up. I parked my car, walked inside, and my drink was on the counter waiting for me to grab. As I walked back to my car with my drink, I wondered how nobody ever takes my drink or someone else’s. When you do a mobile order, the orders are just sitting on the counter without anyone checking to confirm the right person is taking the right stuff. It’s honestly so easy to just walk in and grab someone else’s order, but this has never happened to me or anyone I know. I’ve placed plenty of mobile orders for Dunkin and Starbucks, and my drinks/food are always there waiting for me.  This gives me so...

  This past weekend I tried out this coffee shop, Carmela Coffee. This place was absolutely adorable, the food was great, and the vibes were amazing. I had a lot of work to do and both my mom and I were hungry for lunch, and I’d heard a lot about this place so we decided to go. We went an hour-ish before it closed on Sunday, but it was still pretty crowded. There are cute couches, a bar, and tables outside, but it’s still a small building and definitely felt a bit squished. They have a lot of cute coffee-shop-type foods and we chose their feta and walnut avocado toast and the parmesan arugula avocado toast. They also have yummy-looking pastries, salads, and other sandwiches which I’ll have to try next time. They also have different types of coffee and tea. I got an iced vanilla latte and my mom got this lavender peach tea with lemonade that was SUPER sweet, but still really good. They also played really chill music that consisted of a lot of songs I actually knew which was nice. We...

 One of my greatest pet peeves is when people ask me if I have ever done "real" rock climbing. This annoys me because it is always after I say that I have only climbed in gyms and not outdoors (which I actually got the opportunity to do this past summer). I understand that people seem to think that indoor climbing is easier than outdoor, but in reality, it is just different. Routsetters (people who make the climbing walls) can set routes that imitate outdoor rock styles, or they can set routes that specifically train different skills and muscles. Recently, especially in competition climbs, setters will make routes that would never appear in nature. Although it can't replace the feeling of climbing in nature, indoor climbing can be super fun.     The newest advancement in the indoor rock climbing world is electronic training walls. These walls have holds that light up using LEDs to show a certain route. To change the route, just connect the wall to your phone via Bluetooth...

  Among our senior class, there are a bit of differing opinions in the split between AP kids taking the end-of-year exams and the 12th graders who have decided to opt-out and not take AP exams. While I have decided to take all my exams, I completely understand the viewpoint of not taking them. After all of us get back from Passover Break and the March of the Living trip, having spent 2 weeks on an emotional trip to Poland and Israel, it will be hard to be able to shift gears and focus on major tests. Additionally, many people have opted out of taking the tests simply because of the fact that we are seniors and all of us just want a break! Personally, the lure of getting lots of college credit ultimately made me stick by my decision. But for many, their dream college does not even accept most AP classes so it makes more sense not to put yourself through the grueling process of the studying, lead-up, and 3 or 4 hour exam. My rationale is that after sitting through the class all year ...

For those who don't know what is going on in the YouTube world, YouTube has announced last week that they are removing the dislike button from their platform. They said that they are doing this because they don't want people to dislike a video out of hatred for the content creator rather than out of hatred for the video.     Just after this announcement, some of the biggest YouTubers and many small YouTubers who this update is supposed to benefit have come out against this move by YouTube. People like Marques Brownlee, a famous tech reviewer on YouTube, have said that doing this will take away the component of a video that lets viewers know if the video is worth their time or not, and a lot of people will waste even more time watching terrible videos because of this.      I agree with this because when I click on a video on YouTube I could look at the ratio of likes to dislikes to let me know if the video was liked by the audience, but taking...

I think taking a gap year is an amazing opportunity that everyone should take advantage of if possible. I know that there are many cons to taking a gap year such as financial reasons, plans to go into careers that require multiple years of schooling after college, and many more. For some reason, taking a gap year is not as common as I think it should be, so I will explain some pros of taking a gap year.  A gap year provides an extra year to develop as a young adult, discover what you wish to pursue at the collegiate level, travel, and become more independent. If you think about it, choosing what you want to study at 18 is crazy because it can ultimately determine what job you will get and affect your whole life. Having a year to explore different career options and subjects before going straight to college helps you figure out what you want to do. A gap year is a time where you can explore different subjects without the stress of grades and school in general. My gap year progra...

  Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. My siblings are a lot older than me and left for college when I was still moderately young, so it was always fun when they came home. I love waking up and watching the parade and the dog show and I always love a good feast at 2 pm. Last year, our Thanksgiving was a bit different due to Covid, so I wanted to share my plans for this year! First, my dance friends and I are having a Friendsgiving this weekend and are going to do a potluck will all sorts of fun snacks. My level hasn’t been able to hang out outside of dance yet this year so that is going to be a lot of fun. Then, while it still sucks that we have school Monday and Tuesday, my sister’s coming home! She was just home for fall break a month-ish ago, but I’m sooooo excited to see her. My brother isn’t coming home this year, unfortunately, but he’s spending Thanksgiving with his girlfriend in New Mexico, and we’ll see him when we go visit over winter break. Finally, we were never...

     Hi everyone! So, today in my AP Spanish class, we were talking about the number 13, and its superstition in Spanish culture and here in the United States. As per usual, I’ve also been listening to Taylor Swift’s music recently (stream Red (Taylor’s Version) ), and what’s her lucky number? 13. My grandma’s lucky number was 13--or 31--as well, and overall, 13 seems to be a fortunate number in Judaism since that’s when boys are bar mitzvahed and many girls are bat mitzvahed. I was wondering then, why is 13 such a complex number? Why is it unlucky for so many people? Where did Friday the 13th even come from? Well, you’re about to find out!      Many believe that the bad luck of the number 13 originates from the Bible, as Judas, who is known to have betrayed Jesus, was apparently the 13th guest to be seated at the Last Supper. This superstition carries over to today as some people refuse to have 13 people be seated for a meal, even if it means putting a stu...

  Yair Gritzman Week 9 - My College Interview Experience I just concluded one of the most nerve racking 30 minutes of my life: my first college interview. When the interviewer asked his first question: “Tell me about yourself”, I think my heart stopped beating for a second. I responded with what felt like me repeating the same sentence 5 times over. Looking back, it would have made much more sense for me to say “I’m Jewish, I play tennis, I quit piano, and now I code instead.” At least that would have given my interviewer some sort of understanding about me. The next question was even harder: “What attracts you to our school?”. The interview “experts” say not to talk about factors such as reputation, location, and weather, but in reality that is all that matters to me. I followed the advice, and shared my rehearsed response about how I want to study computer science and some random and specific program in applied mathematics, and I can only get those offerings at this specific scho...

     Hi my fellow AP Lit classmates! Today I want to discuss the importance of stretching and how Yoga has helped me so much. Recently, I began stretching much more than I usually do, trying to do at least fifteen to twenty minutes every single night. This all started after I watched one of Joe Rogan’s podcasts with famous inspirational speaker David Goggins. They both discussed how Yoga helped them gain a better range of motion in their athletics as well as made each of them feel better physically and emotionally. I feel that Yoga has had the same impact on me. I feel that after taking up Yoga I have been able to perform much better in soccer matches. I feel that I can run with a longer stride and have much more flexibility to do creative skills or shoot more effectively. Additionally, I only do Yoga by myself in my room and I usually try to watch some youtube videos of good poses to try. Overall, stretching is incredibly important for everyone, especially for athletes t...