Accordion to 12AP

This is really it huh. The last blog post. I am feeling a mix of sadness and happiness that is probably gonna last for a few months. Sad because it is the last time I can put my thoughts into writing freely, unless I decide to continue to blog after this week. Happy because I can finally not spend time and brain cells thinking of something interesting or meaningful that came up in the past week. As we experience this bitter sweet ending of our senior year, I hope that everyone in the class of 2021 leaves this place we called home for 4 years with some life lessons, knowledge, or improvements. I think for me, the most important thing that I have learned at Troy high is that it is OK to ask for help. I grew up in an environment where each kid's scores are revealed to the public and everyone is ranked against each other. There were class rankings, grade rankings, school rankings, etc. So because I was exposed to this at a young age, I felt the need to treat everyone else in my class a...

I want to be done with this senior so badly. I know there are only a month left of school for us seniors but unlike the other years, this one month seems so long and so boring. I don't feel the pressure of the AP exams coming in less than a month like the years before. I remember literally not being able to sleep because I was stressed over a concept that I didn't fully grasp or a certain question type showing up on the AP exam. But this year, I feel so different. I haven't even started to prep for any of my AP exams yet and I barely even listen to those review videos that I watched countless times last year. It might be from the senioritis or just from online school and it will probably become a big mistake that I will regret in the future. But this thought made me think back to my past years at Troy High and think of some regrets that I had. I realized there are way too many to count.  When I first got into Troy High as a freshman who is barely efficient at English, I had...

(accidentally read ahead a bit, kind of have spoilers) Everyday, people wake up doing the same routine things. They clean up, go to work, relax, eat, sleep, repeat. This is probably even more noticeable in the daily lives of online students like us. We wake up everyday at the same time, do the same times, go to the same class, eat, do homework, and go back to sleep. Almost everyday is like this. While I am not completely against it, I do think it gets a bit boring at times. Similarly in "Waiting for Godot" I feel like I can almost see the exact same thing I describes. The same people, Vladimir and Estragon, wait under the tree everyday for a Mr.Godot. The same people come each day, Pozzo, lucky and a boy; each time with a change in characteristics. And I felt like this situation is so similar to at least what I experience currently. I work hard every single day for a distant goal in mind. But like the 2 characters under the tree, so far they have no proof that their goal exis...

     With the 3rd quarter of our virtual senior year finally coming to an end, I assume that our huge poetry unit is also about to end. While I am glad that finally I can take a break from that confusing, strangely worded literature for a while, I still feel some sadness that this unit which has taken up so much of my time is finally over. Honestly, I started the unit as someone who disliked poems a lot. I often questioned why couldn't these stories or lessons be written in a more normal way so people can understand them better. The way some poets turn complete sentences into unreasonable fragments frustrated me as those details became more of a hassle to read than something that is admirable. The field of poetry is like a dark forest that I am too afraid to step foot in because I fear I will be lost. However, this unit really kind of forced me to take that step into the unknown. I don't think any of my previous English classes spend this much effort and details on poetry...

The suitcase collecting dust in the basement, Full of scratches from different journeys. Why does looking at it bring me enjoyment? Maybe it is the best story of the century.  As I read through the century quilt during that discussion, we talked a lot about how the century quilt represented the history of the different family heritage. The quilt is a perfect representation of how each member was sewed together with another to form a complete whole. Personally, I don't think I have travelled a lot in my life but I still think I have been to a decent amount of places. Well other than my passport what can be something that represents my journey in this world. Of course the perfect thing is that old worn-out suitcase that we should've thrown out ages ago. Thankfully though, we kept it in our basement just in case. It has so many different stickers on it from the places we have been and countless scratches on its outside that are from the poor handling of it from airport workers or ...

Humans like capsulated viruses infesting the earth, Always taking and taking, an uncontrolled feast When the children are sick and our days numbered, it's too late to change our destructive ways.      After reading that poem "plants", I took in the author's message and started to notice some things that I once deemed weak or insignificant and she was right. Plants always find a way to come back no matter how hard it is to live. Even in extreme conditions plants still find a way to survive. While they do not have a complex intelligence like humans, they can adapt and over time overcome any obstacle in their way. However, I also noticed how humans are the same as these plants or even worse.  I have always knew from media and personal experience that humans are destroying the planet but never really thought about how or why it is happening. We are the "colonizers" and "invaders" of the earth the poet talked so much about. We take all the resources bec...

The beautiful poems we read are full of wonders But the knowledge that we seek is deep under We hastily bury our hands in the muddy water Only to find nothing and ourselves no wiser. Poetry has always and still fascinates me. I just cannot believe that such intricate text can convey sometimes such powerful messages. Even though sometimes I get frustrated at the difficult language used in these poems, I still held on to my interest in poems. Throughout my lifetime, I have studies poems both in China and the US, and despite the cultural differences, the poems from different cultures remain similar. I guess great minds think alike. In both languages there are poems about love, death, life, weather, etc. There are so many categories and styles, but one thing remained the same for me. Unless the poem is really easy to understand, I just cannot fully grasp the message of the poets even after 2-3 reads. This really frustrated me because the only times I would read poems are on textbooks or du...

Growing up, I have been taught through personal experiences and lectures that it is best to keep my talents or special characteristics hidden. I have lost competitions against others because I showed them all of my skills before the match so they knew what to expect. I have embarrassed myself showing how good I am at something and then proceed to fail miserably. So seeing that showing my abilities does not help me reach the desirable results I began to conceal them. As I read through that passage about Hide and Seek, I felt connected to that kid how hid too well for others to find. During my development as a person, I learned what characteristics are undesirable and some talents are better off hidden. I began to conceal more and more of myself by using tricks to direct conversations in a different direction or circling around a direct question with an indirect answer. I hid myself too well. By my junior year in High school, I finally realized that even though I have so many characteris...

  During my 17 (almost 18) years living on earth, I would say I have had over 500 mentors. That might seem like an exaggeration, but I basically treated everyone that allowed me to learn or experience something new as a mentor. They could be an actual teacher in school, my peers that helps me with homework, athletic teammates that gave me words of encouragement so I could experience being a winner, or my parents who has taught me so much. Everyone who I treated as a mentor did what they were supposed to do: educate and open up new possibilities for me. However, in last class book discussion, we talked about whether mentorship in our book, Middlesex, held the characters like Desdemona back or gave them new opportunities and a better future. Honestly, I felt like that option of mentorship holding the characters back shouldn't even be an option. Only from my experience, every mentor has taught me something. Now sometimes what they teach is wrong or useless, but I still get a lesson fr...

 I cannot believe that June 2021 is only like 4-5 months away. So far, this senior year is going by so quickly and I have mixed feelings about it. I want to just get high school over with, but at the same time, I feel like I am missing out on what previous seniors have experienced during their last year in high school. So, one goal that I have for the next 4-5 months is to make them as memorable as possible. I still don't know how I can do it, but it is definitely very important. Hopefully as vaccination numbers go up, we can gather at Troy High one last time to say farewell to the classmates and staff we spend 4 years with. This way we can have a memorable end to our high school life. Personally, this year had some toll on my mental as a few of my interests/hobbies were effected like Tennis, maybe Track, and volunteering. Thankfully though, I have expanded on hobbies that I can keep doing in a quarantine like music, cooking, gaming. I even picked up reading as a new hobby thanks t...

"Art is not what you see, but what you make others see”- Edgar Degas. When you ask “What is art?”, there could be several answers. It could be a magnificent painting that conveys a strong feeling to the viewers through the use of different colors together with a breath-taking scenery; it could be a famous book that shows the readers some new insights into the meaning or meaningless of life; or it could be a play or a movie that uses some insane acting skills to explore the power of fate vs free will. These would all be correct answers as art has evolved throughout history from those simple cave drawings to now digital content. There have even been some calls to start considering games as a new form of art. As someone who spends a bunch of my time around games and studying in AP English class, I cannot stop myself from deeply analyzing the games I play. After watching countless game reviews and also playing a dozen of recently made games myself, I am starting to see the similarity ...

On a Friday night, I slowly but exciting crawl onto my cozy bed thinking I can finally take a break from virtual learning and college apps. I stare at the dark ceiling hoping for that comfortable tiredness to come, but it never came. I pulled out my phone and started scrolling through Reddit and YouTube in an attempt to find something boring so I can fall asleep. After about half an hour of searching, I settled on some good old "oddly satisfying" videos. Surprisingly, sleep came quickly. I allowed this tiredness to take me away hopefully to a refreshing, dreamless sleep.  I opened my eyes; it is the next morning. I sit up in my bed feeling like a new person. No body aches, no one vacuuming the house, no one mowing their grass outside, and most important no annoying alarm. I probably forgot the turn it on last night, but it's just one day right? I walked into the kitchen and smell some delicious eggs and sausage frying in the pan. I ask my mom what is the special deal toda...

I didn't ask to be sitting here alone and useless. I remember the day I was torn out of my warm and cozy home to battle against some unknown enemy. My blood, sweat, and tears are the exact weapons I used to achieve victory. In the end, I won, an easy victory. I expected to return to where I lived; that dark, humid, but clean place. Instead, I was just abandoned here. No one and nothing came to pick me up. I'm just sitting in the same spot slowly drying into a corpse. I cannot find a way to end my misery. I can only wonder when I will be relieved of this nightmare.  Everyday, I see a human moving in and out of this place. I do not know if he sees me or just chooses to ignore me every single time. I try to let him know of my misery, but he does not ever respond. He lives in a different world. He sits at this place everyday to learn about the world, its disorder, and how to find ways to organize them. From simplifying messy math problems to deep philosophies looking for an answer ...

One life lesson has been taught to me by my parents, teachers and past experiences, and that is to also put yourself in the other person's shoes. As I read through Roselily in class today, I started wondering what was the husband thinking at the time. Did he actually love Roselily? What does he feel about this marriage? Does it bring him more burden or more freedom? How does he feel about his future wife having a different religion than him? At the end of the story, he "does not look back" when Roselily decided to end her conflicting thoughts and settle with her new life. That is because he also has to think about all of those questions and more. The women he is about to marry are doing it not for love, but because her children and herself are running out of money. He cannot ensure that this marriage is long-lasting or filled with love like an actual marriage, especially when during the marriage the couple is not even staring at each other.  This two-sided view can really...

Growing up in two completely different cultures have exposed to many different ideals that people have in both cultures. The Chinese culture emphasize qualities like honor and loyalty, while the American culture emphasize the importance of change and equality. However, one quality is emphasized both here and back in China: the importance of being early. Both cultures have a saying that basically translates to "the early bird catches the worm". After 17 years of experience, I have came to the conclusion that most of the time that saying holds true, but during some instances, I have wondered, was I too early? In the past, both cultures have pounded the importance of being early into my mind, from examples in TV shows, speeches, daily lives, etc. I developed a habit of doing everything as early as I can (mostly influenced by my parents). My parents signed me up for Kumon Math at a really young age (around 1st grade) so I can have a head start on the rigorous math curriculum in C...

Throughout history, many historical figures have pursued ideals that are almost unrealistic. People, like Stalin or Lenin, had an extremely perfect vision of a world, but when they tried to implement it, the results were violence and dictatorship. In George Orwell's Animal Farm, idealism also fails in the end when the pigs basically became humans and broke all the promises that were once promised by Old Major. Obviously, idealism is bad for these leaders who tried to use it in their own "world", but after reading these stories, I realize that I use idealism on a day to day basis and it also causes me a lot of trouble.  Every week, I make a full schedule for what I will do this week. I have been doing this for a long time and I now have a habit of tightly following every schedule I make. Now this might sound like a good trait to have and I agree. But the thing is the schedules I have made are usually pretty unrealistic. My schedules are based on an ideal world where distra...

 As I was scrolling through some TV channels on a boring evening, I saw the name America's got Talent. I stopped mindlessly trying to find something interesting to watch and hoped that America's got Talent is actually a good show now. However, despite all of my hope, I was first presented with some weird comedian guy, then some kids doing normal talent show stuff, and then the classic: that one person that's going through a tough time and a judge hits the golden buzzer. Wow, totally did not see that coming. I was just about to click off this channel but finally a person holding an actual musical instrument walked in. As a mostly classical musician, I was so relieved to see that maybe finally I can cleanse my eyes and ears of those cringe "performances". The musician starts playing and I realize that he is actually pretty good. He played everything in tune and on time. He has a lot of dynamics and looks pretty professional. But as the camera switched to the judges ...

 In 11 AP, we learned a bit about the different lenses that readers can analyze the characters and/or themes that are in literature. Here is the link: https://chineseaccordionboi.blogspot.com/2019/11/after-learning-about-different-lenses.html. It honestly feels great to learn more about things that I have interacted with in the past like the different literary theories. I think a lot of these different literary theories can be used in almost every book to explore new ideas or themes that may or may not have been intended by the author. Oedipus Rex is a great example of a story that can be viewed under many lenses. The most prominent and famous one is through the psychoanalytic lens. The term "Oedipus Complex" refers to the " unconscious sexual desire for the opposite-sex parent and hatred for the same-sex parent." This is a theory by Sigmund Freud that allows readers to understand the story of Oedipus through a new lens. The readers can directly relate the prophecy ...

                    Everyone is afraid of something. It might be a fear of spiders, heights, water, social interaction, or even failure, but one common reaction that results from the fear of something is to stay as far away as possible from that horrifying “thing”. This ensures that we cannot be harmed by that “thing” we deemed dangerous. However, in the case of Oedipus Rex and The Trial by Franz Kafka, that natural response to fear led the protagonists to the thing that they are most afraid of: Guilt. As we debate the influence of fate on Oedipus’s tragic end, one question was always bugging me. Why did Oedipus choose to keep looking for the truth despite all the warnings and confirmations that people he used to trust gave him? Was it because he is arrogant and considers himself better than others? Maybe. But I think the better answer here is that his fear of being guilty caused him to go on this endless hunt for the truth. Si...

Reading Saving Sourdi was really an emotional ride; the plot was full of twists and encourages the readers to think deeply about the characters' actions and thoughts.  While the story focuses on the complex characteristics of the main characters, another major theme is the treatment of women in some Asian communities. Sourdi's poor treatments by men from the same culture as her throughout the story were accepted by herself and others. For example, at the beginning of the story, Sourdi was sexually harassed by men at the restaurant, instead of having a reaction herself, she just allowed it to happen. Similarly, when Sourdi was engaged to an older and wealthier man, even though she was still (maybe) dating Duke, her mother tried to force Duke out of Sourdi's life and force Mr. Chhay into Sourdi's life. This type of marriage is definitely rare in modern communities, but in communities that are more rural and traditional, this type of marriage is rather common. As a person ...