a waffle analysis

34 days until graduation!  From my numerous boba and waffle academic projects to my Fitbit showing "fat burn" after an in-class essay, I will not forget all of the memorable moments that characterize my high school life. Reflecting from freshman year to senior year, I love how we have begun to find our interests and what keeps us going—rather than building ourselves similar to each other due to peer pressure and competition. During my college app research, I found that many claimed college was much more collaborative, and quite simply that is probably from our grown maturity and ability to work together without underlying intentions.  As the class of 2021, we've gone through quite a lot, and this specific school year was one unlike any other. But I name this blog post "per aspera ad astra," as it translates to "through hardships to the stars".  Albeit all of these challenges that the pandemic presented, we continued to strive and do our best, fully com...

People always say weekends are for rest—but rarely have I felt a weekend for rest, as I'd always have something on my schedule/agenda to do. Last weekend, however, I set nothing. With schoolwork being an on and off switch (as in most work tends to fall on every other week, together), this weekend was an "off switch". As college applications have also come to a close, there really wasn't anything urgent that preoccupied me. The past few weeks I'd been stressed for some random reason and have had several cathartic moments of just letting my emotions and feelings spill. Having this weekend completely off was a new epiphanic moment for me, not knowing that great feelings can happen with "wellness"! I never really understood this "group mentality" high-achieving students had or this standard we unconsciously set ourselves to until some of my friends brought it to light both in the restorative circle and in FaceTimes. It was so true, though—things we...

POZZO: what have I done with my watch? ... I must have left it at the manor. As a tragicomedy, the irony and humor in  Waiting for Godot never cease to make me laugh. Watching Pozzo play with his watch so much earlier—staying on top of his game regarding time—yet end up losing it is not only humorous but also deep. Symbolic of time, the loss of the watch shows the meaningless of time. But it also goes to show how disoriented and disorganized Pozzo really is. He appears fancy (relative to Vladimir and Estragon), with his chicken wings and watch that can calculate time in real-time, but in reality, he is just another human similar to Vladimir and Estragon.  Reading the watch scene, I couldn't help but think about all the times I thought I "lost my phone". Just as Pozzo tells everyone to be silent in order to hear ticking, I get someone in the house to call my cellphone, ensuring they're quiet so I can hear the vibration (ring, if I'm lucky). However, without my phon...

 “Poetry is power. Making the choice to sit down and write or read a poem is power. It’s a choice. It’s self-care. It’s the start of a revolution. It’s change.” Poetry is power. Self-care. Change. This quote by January Gill O'Neil, my mentor poet, empowered me in this poetry unit—encouraging me to not give up on the search for deep analysis, universal extensions, and personal connections. Upon reading "In Praise of Okra," written by my mentor poet, I not only noticed the shifts in meaning and pace (which follow her growing passion) but also the cultural significance behind this poem. The nature of this narrative poem brings us along this emotional journey of how okra is perceived in the public, the history of okra, and what okra means to you. That last stanza, particularly the short sentence "Soul food.", culminates the poem with a prideful tone, one that encourages me to be proud of my culture as well. I simply admire how she was able to express such a powerful...

Jumping time, and Living organisms begin to swarm, grow, & flourish No longer do I stare out at blizzards But rather my mother's shadow. The wooden planks hold the bed stable Each plant in its position, we tuck them with water, spreading a layer across the comfy dirt and watching the plants go to sleep. We sing our lullabies that glorify & enlighten each and every plant, encouraging growth. I watch these plants grow with love, with care, with innovation. Just as each parent has their hacks, so does each gardener. Because that's what gardening is— a mother-child relationship. Each day requires a lifestyle, time with insect frenemies, food fertilizer, and water blankets. Time together is a healthy one. A happy one. Inspired by a poem behind my Chobani Oatmilk carton!

red bean filled the mochi balls culminating the two-week new year cheer. we started with a wonderful meal also named tuan yuan fan. this meal —  a reunion meal — it's the one  where family gathers together, laughing about all the times we once requested a raincheck for but round this rice-filled table  remains just me and you we fight to break the barriers between borders  only to find ourselves chasing,  chasing for a wechat connection  a facetime call  a surprise visit a something— but all that is left is you and me; the leftovers  leading the night. it's not as bad as we think though after all, leftovers equal excess  to which excess exemplifies wealth (yes, a homophoned tradition) year of the ox, you'll be the one where the round table reunites again once more -  inspired by Boland's "It's A Woman's World" and a pandemic-ridden lunar new year in an immigrant household

Adulthood is a social construct. Yet the ropes I was connected to—  for the past eighteen years—  undertake departure, with only those remaining to pull and pull,  all the way toward a world unknown. Seemingly all is lost yet all is one.  ——  🌳☀️🍃 —— Inspired by my recent eighteenth birthday (celebrated by massive amounts of cake, cookies, and boba) as well as Bishop's writing style with end-stopped lines and em dashes, this poem is a testament to becoming 18. Age roles and periods are a social construct; profound change doesn't happen over one day. Our behaviors that are trained to react toward our new age shapes the way we go about our day. Knowing that this birthday is supposedly my last birthday to be celebrated at home and that this age is attributed to newfound independence (as created by our society) scares me at times. The world of adulthood seems like a mystical portal waiting for entrance, and what settles me is the fact that challenges are inevitabl...

As shown through my blog posts, I'm pretty crazy about psychology, often using the psychological lens in tandem with the formalist lens to analyze literature. With this being said, the discussion on Maslow piqued my interest: how can we reach self-actualization? What is that moment of anagnorisis in which we reach the peak of Maslow's hierarchy? The feeling of self-actualization won't be reached unless the tiers below it are met. I'll often look at the food on my plate, the muffins and waffles I ate today, or the family around me, and feel tremendously grateful for the privileges I have. But as much gratitude as I hold for these people and items around me, I don't find it easy to experience self-actualization. To be frank, the feeling doesn't even have a concrete definition. Nevertheless, the reason I can't have full gratitude is the inhibitory feelings that still exist within me. I'll be anxious about something or planning an event ahead of time in my m...

My favorite word of last week was  ✨  anti-senioritis  ✨ .  For the next few months, my new goal is to reach anti-senioritis . But thinking about it, senioritis itself is open to interpretation. To what point of laziness does senioritis entail? Every year, I'll claim that I'm under [insert grade]-itis, but is it just me covering for my perceived faults and failures? Reading Their Eyes Were Watching God  has allowed me to broaden my perspective on the line between unproductivity and productivity. A motif in the novel is the horizon, as compared to land. Our often-materialistic selves cause us to count quantity, such as the number of fields in TEWWG , rather than quality. As Janie listened to Jody, she felt that he "spoke for far horizon; for change and chance". The vast possibilities of exploration instead of confinement with Logan appealed to Janie, to which she decided to run off with Jody. One could say Janie was more of an idealist than a realist—the neverend...

March 2020 was the most influential change in our lives. It wasn’t easy to hear about a pandemic, better yet an indefinite amount of time in quarantine. But to put it quite frankly, I learned the most about myself then. Hours on end, stuck alone, engrossed in emotions; the lack of change fences me within the confines of my home, pondering over who I really am. It makes me neurotic at times, but perhaps that’s simply part of my personality invoking such a coping mechanism toward the pandemic. What intrigues me is this confluence of physical and psychological, given the social contexts. In the play Fences , both the physical and psychological limitations presented after climactic action exemplify how solitude evokes suppressed feelings against societal norms—often leading to epiphanies in identity. The way in which characters in Fences experience catharsis is similar to Greek tragedy. As defined by Aristotle, tragedy is “in the form of action, not of narrative,” and the “incidents arou...

Can you believe it's already December—the end of 2020? This end of the year holds or leads to a culmination in January of so many things: our last first semester, the finale of college apps, the end of the very odd yet iconic 2020... All the times typing 21 at the end of our usernames, seeing it as an abnormally large number; it's crazy that 2021 is in less than a month! I'm sure most of you have experienced a long moment of reflection upon writing college essays—who are you? What does your identity consist of? Reading "Three Girls," I was super inspired by the main character's courage at the end to come out, finding her identity amidst the societal stereotypes back in that time. But for me, thinking about each year and how I've grown really makes me nostalgic, excited to see what awaits me in college, a new environment. Perhaps putting up the Christmas tree and realizing this year is my last year of fully being at home (maybe) caused this nostalgia. I gue...

I sit at the countertop, watching the humans move around the kitchen floors yet never stopping for more than five minutes. Awakening earliest is a teenage girl half-awake, always filling up my companion with water who boils. The girl drops a frozen waffle into me or microwaves a piece of bread from the bag. A new one appears almost every week— wow, this family eats fast . As I pop the waffle out of my electric confines, the girl retrieves the waffle and her water bottle, scurrying up the stairs. If it's a weekday morning, she's always in a rush, constantly glancing at the oven clock ( I need an upgrade! ). I wait around an hour to see two older adults appear; the mother cooks eggs daily but changing the vegetables within. It's a surprise to see what's set on the table each day, but I know this mother is caring and loving, waking up every day to cook under an empty stomach. Mothers truly deserve more respect . It's 9am soon; I'm not used much except for the teen ...

Everyone was waving and exchanging greetings and talking, as if they were in a club where people are glad to find themselves among others from the same world. That is how I explained to myself the strange impression I had of being odd man out, a kind of intruder.   Ever played Among Us? This addicting game is a fun game my friends and I play as a break between the work we have to do. What's funny though is that when I was reading The Stranger , specifically the quote above, I made the connection of Mersault feeling like an "intruder" to this new, popular concept of impostor in Among Us. Mersault comes to this realization when he notices everyone conversing, happy to see each other. It's funny as he just explains to himself that he's the odd one out, as we all know that he's clearly the odd one out since the beginning with his passivity toward life (oddily enough, this is a significant factor toward his trial decision).  As I read Mersault's story, especial...

One of my takeaways from this week's Socratic Seminar is our tendency to make excuses toward external factors rather than the actual internal factors. We are avoiding the real issue at hand: ourselves. Any outcome that didn't go Oedipus's way was attributed to fate. Although there was a prophecy tied to his name, hubris was the main cause of his problems. This made me wonder, how often do I attribute my shortcomings to factors I can't control? And vise versa, how often do I attribute my shortcomings to myself when they're actually uncontrollable? I'm indecisive and pretty sensitive (it sucks), so I normally think unfavorable solutions are my fault, or at least partially. Throughout high school, this college app season, and quarter 1's complex identity unit, I've begun to explore who I am and what makes me happy. In the summer, I had a severe identity crisis—feeling like a jack of all trades, master of none. Everything I did seemed to have no substance, j...

 “It is wrong to have an ideal view of the world. That’s where the mischief starts. That’s where everything starts unravelling.” —V. S. Naipaul, Magic Seeds  Going into high school, I held an idealistic view of the high school world, setting a roadmap for my courses and extracurriculars. Cleaning my room today, I found that paper with all my plans. Needless to say - they didn't happen. For each February when we picked our courses, I had a major dilemma between what I wanted to pick versus what I had planned, and also what my peers. Upon seeing this quote last week, I felt that it accurately represented my annual February class selection stress - the ideal view of what I had to be and what I had to select unraveled all of my fears.  Potentially this stems from my indecisiveness: confusion over what I want to do in the future and hope to appease others like my parents, counselors, and peers. Looking back at these last few Februarys that I don't have to go through this year...

What I love about "The Story of an Hour" is how succinct it is but also how vivid it is. In this short story, Chopin covers a snapshot of Louise's life — one hour that changed her life both literally and emotionally. As a connection to the epiphanic approach in writing, this story's plot rises with the husband's death, reaches the epiphany when Louise realizes she's now free, and falls when she sees her husband in person and dies. Considering the reader-response perspective, Louise's death has many subsequent interpretations. Some may feel sympathetic for Louise, but others may feel sympathetic for Louise's husband, thinking that he did nothing wrong all this time yet comes home to witness his wife dead.  Interpretations are heavily dependent on our mindset, values, and experiences. What we are skilled in, from philosophy to science, also impacts our views. Coming back to the concise yet vivid scenes in "The Story of an Hour," I think this me...

Choices. We make them every day, but too often are they heart over head and centered around our own wishes. Each choice has its own implications, but those made with blind optimism against reality can yield grave consequences like Oedipus’ self-harm and saddening truths like Nea’s realization of Sourdi’s decision. As stated in Poetics , tragic figures are kings whose fate elicits “ feelings of pity and fear in the audience. ” Exploring the rationale behind the suffering, Aristotle wonders if we sympathize because we “ suffer a similar hamartia, ” fearing for our own lives. In a sense, that makes us tragic figures. Though we are not kings, Greek tragedies expose the potentialities of our blind self . Reading Oedipus not only provokes pity—as Oedipus realizes his life had been a lie—but it also compels the audience to question their own life. While we might not have a prophecy behind us, there are most certainly things we don’t know about ourselves, things hidden and varying in severi...

 "'I was trying to protect you,' I said through my tears. ''I was trying to save you!'" Nea's actions are often characterized as impulsive and immature. However, digging deep, the main source of her actions come from love. As she was an immigrant of a single-parent household with five children in a restaurant, her life wasn't easy. It certainly does not improve when her sister leaves her, "settling down" for security rather than love and shattering the dreams the sisters always discussed.  Nea's protective instincts that cause her to exaggerate the circumstances highlight her "immaturity". Maybe it's the hardship of dealing with change that causes this, but there seems to be a point where Nea "crosses the line" in which she thinks the worst of Sourdi's circumstances. This overprotective nature compels me to ponder upon my grandparents, specifically when they came to the US and lived with me for an extended ...

Ever hear the phrase "scratch beneath the surface"? As we discuss complex characters, that is what comes up in my mind. Often I find myself in the pitfall of surface reading, but learning to analyze complex characters is one step out of the pitfall. Humanity is so complex; we have our conscious, subconscious, but also our unconscious. With college essays, we've had to delve deep, introspecting, trying to dive deep underneath the iceberg to reach our unconscious thoughts that represent our growth, epiphany, piths.  Through our building community initiative, we expose parts of ourselves that may not be obvious on the surface level. As I wrote my statements, I started to recall a memorable sermon I attended about the Johari window. Although the focus then was for religious purposes, it is also extremely applicable to analyzing a character/person and receiving feedback. The window is a matrix of four selves: open, blind, hidden, and unknown. Currently, we are exploring the o...