Linsanity

  With the year coming to an end, I’ve been prompted to reflect on my 11AP journey. Only when I look retrospectively on the year did I realize the amount of progress this class has instilled in me. From scoring 80s on essays to 90s, from mindlessly reading to being able to analyze text, I’ve genuinely felt so much more comfortable in my abilities as a reader and writer as a result of this class. Of course, this progress was made possible and was facilitated by some important figures in our English classroom. First, I’d like to thank all my fellow AP Lang students. To my tablemates in the second semester–David, David, Tyler, Daniel, thank you for making 11AP all the more enjoyable. In times of confusion or need of assistance, I could come to you guys for aid and encouragement. When I wasn’t sure of the meaning of a word, or the purpose of a piece, or even what the homework was, I could get answers at my table and thus save embarrassment from asking Ms. Valentino. When it came time t...

  After reading Videotape, I was struggling to find the purpose or meaning behind it. It just seemed like a pointless essay that no one could relate to. I mean, who really likes to see people die? Yet, it proves a good point: the transience of life and desensitization of death. The essay prompted a question in my mind. Should death be shown? In our society, death is something that is always censored and not shown. especially to kids. Real, human death is never shown on any main stream news or videos. As a result, to me, death is something that has always seemed cursed in a way. Imagining a moment of someone filled with life, and the next they are devoid of that vital energy is almost too much to handle. Like something you weren't meant to see. However, with this censorship of death in media and society, there is a resulting fear of death. In my opinion, people shouldn't fear death. Thinking of ways that death can be more "normalized", removing some censorship comes to...

Due to the testing this week and next week, I will come up with a verdict on its usefulness and practicality.  First, it is important to note that most tests are designed for a lot of people, thus they are supposedly standardized. Of course, the main goal of testing is to gauge students' ability/knowledge of something. There are many forms of testing, and some of them will be better in gauging ability than others by nature. For example, a driver's test result is probably pretty accurate whether someone can drive or not, while something like the SAT does not really indicate whether someone is a good reader/writer/mathematician.  Tests like the SAT do not always promote better reading/writing/math skills, but instead promote learning how to take the SAT, if that makes sense. It rewards learning the format of the test, learning the types of questions that will show up, and taking the test over and over (collegeboard is a greedy monopoly, but that is a topic for another time). Som...

 Question 4... I think our responsibility as humans on this planet is to respect other life forms and the environment to the best of our ability. It should be the number one priority that we have as a civilization, since without a healthy planet we put ourselves at risk, not to mention every other organism, who definitely did not have a say in our choices.  Let's not forget that humans are also animals. We do not live separately of other animals, and we have just as much right to use the land as they do. Since we are so powerful, it is important that we look out for other species and the environment. The planet gave us the materials and resources to thrive, so we should try to protect the very thing that keeps us alive.  Yet today, we see a large portion of harm coming from large companies fueled by corporate greed. In this way, humans are flawed since we only aim to gain power, forgetting to respect nature along the way. An example is soda companies, who create millions ...

Remember the video we watched in class of that guy talking about microaggressions. The guy stated that microaggressions are something that people of color experience constantly and throughout their entire lifetime. While I'm not denying that they exist, I feel like he is overstating their severity. And sure, they can be harmful, but he is also overstating that in my opinion. To me, if someone were to say "where are you from" or "you speak good English", I would think the problem is them and not me. I wouldn't take offense to the extent that the professor believes it to be a "major event". But I can't speak for everyone. Maybe times have changed since the video was posted, but for the most part I feel like people are generally careful not to offend others. From my own experience, it isn't like a "climate that is full of microaggressions", and as big of a deal as he makes it out to be.  Also he defines microaggressions as varying fr...

I had immense difficulty coming up with what to write, even with the blog ideas on the board. I didn't have experiences relating to a lot of the things, like an ethnic name, stereotypes. I feel like these weeks where there isn't a required prompt is a lot harder to write about. Ironically, having the freedom to choose a topic makes it more difficult.  So these few times at swim practice, things would get rough. We would have sets that would pretty much be straight aerobic swimming for an hour, with little rest in between. Each day I saw coach write something like this on the board, I would feel a little bit nervous, or get the thought that I didn't want to do it. But we kind of didn't have a choice but to swim it. And so the set starts, and I quickly die. Everything hurts, I'm getting lapped, I feel dizzy, and my goggles are full of water. But it's at these moments where I truly learned how to push through things. I put my head down and just swam. Before you kno...

Link to article This article by the Onion satirizes microplastics, including the continued production of plastics and the view surrounding this subject. Also this is a slideshow format article, where each slide is a common question about microplastics and the Onion gives a satirical response to that question. Throughout the slides, The Onion uses hyperbole, perspective, and humor to produce the sarcastic and satirical tone.  Responding to the first question of "What are microplastics?", the Onion replies with "Seventy-sixth at best at best on the list of existential threats currently facing the human race". In this slide, the Onion satirizes the view that because microplastics aren't an immediate threat, they aren't dangerous at all. Alongside, by not giving an expected answer of something like "small plastic debris" or "synthetic compounds under 5mm", they criticize the mindset of people who only base their judgement on a single metric o...