Mrs. Ho's AP Lit 2022-2023

Since Black Friday is this week and it is the last blog post of the semester, I figured why not share my cute and funny Black Friday shopping story from Freshman year. It was my first Thanksgiving and Black Friday in the United States, I had only been living here a few months. At the time, my Dad was in South Africa to visit my grandparents, so my Mom, my brother, my sister, and I stayed with our very close family friends in Aventura for the long weekend (we even brought our dog with us). They were living in a very small apartment, but although it was chaotic, we made it work.  These family friends are ex-South Africans too. They emigrated a couple years before we did. The oldest daughter, Sheina, is my age and one of my best friends in the world. We grew up together and have always been inseparable. One of the things that draws me to Sheina is her mischievousness that never fails to help us create amazing memories.  And this is when the story begins. Even though Sheina lived ...

     As many of you know, I have been out of school for a couple of days due to the passing of my grandmother, Beth Rothenberg. My grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer around ten years ago. Fortunately, she beat it and had been in remission for many years until we got the unfortunate news that her cancer had returned. It wasn’t until her newest diagnosis of radiation-induced angiosarcoma, a rare complication from the first round of radiation she received to fight off her breast cancer many years ago that things turned for the worse. Unfortunately, my grandma was put through an unimaginable amount of pain and suffering over the past few months. My grandmother was my idol, but in order to pay tribute to her, I must answer the question, who was Beth Rothenberg?      My grandmother, Beth Rothenberg, was born on June 26, 1947. She was born in Newark, New Jersey but soon moved to the neighboring town, Livingston. Growing up, she was very close with her tw...

Things I Love to Do For my last blog (potentially), I thought it would be best to discuss things that make me the happiest. I feel that I have definitely talked about these subjects in one way or another because they are so important to me, but here I want to dedicate a post just to them. During school it is very hard to keep up with your physical and mental wellbeing, and therefore, doing things that keep us grounded are beyond helpful when things can become overwhelming. I have been working to stay active my entire life. I love riding my bike, going to the gym, and taking walks on or by the beach. Staying active is staying healthy and affects my everyday performance.  I feel that every exercise I do is a way for me to release my stress. Every bike ride is a way to absorb nature. Every walk on the beach is a way to clear my mind and to take a deep breath. Doing these things after school or on the weekends has proven to help me in my academic life. I come to school feeling refreshe...

       I dislike naps. I find that most people enjoy taking naps but there are very few that don’t, and I am one of those people.  I can’t explain it, but naps just ruin my entire day and I find sleeping at night to be much more beneficial than falling asleep after school.  Let me try to explain using the most simple scenario. You just had a long day at school so you come home. Instead of doing your homework or doing whatever you usually do after school, you fall asleep. An hour to two passes and it's now 6pm. Now, this is the part that bothers me the most. Maybe it just happens to me but you wake up all confused as to what time it is and bam, the rest of your day gets messed up. Then, I don’t have the energy to do my homework but I'm not tired enough to go to sleep.  That’s it! That’s the beauty of naps that I dislike. It's not much yet it's so much. However, as much as I dislike them, I could argue for the other side. I understand th...

       As many of you know, I love the aerial arts. I haven't been able to train for a while between college applications and being away over the summer, but I have finally returned to my studios! Throughout the past five years, I have practiced aerial silks, split silks, lyra hoop, lyra sphere, static trapeze, and flying trapeze at various studios. Recently, I have worked a lot on my lyra hoop skills. If you are unfamiliar with this, it is that metal hoop that acrobats use in the circus. This has captured my attention from the convenience of the class times and my unfamiliarity with this subject. Over covid, I taught myself most of my skills on the hoop to the point that I recently realized that I don't know the proper names or forms of some of my tricks!  I love the feeling of being in the air and achieving new tricks. I have really missed it. There's a powerful and fun feeling when you get a new trick and it is so exciting! For myself, it's a way to take a br...

               A lright, so I know that I have already written at least one other blog on a tv show or movie that I wanted to review, but I watched Black Panther: Wakanda Forever this weekend and I felt it necessary for me to write about it. Don’t worry, no spoilers ahead!!                Lately I haven’t been very captivated by most of the new MCU tv shows and movies. I walked into this movie with medium expectations, not super excited, but not upset about seeing it. Anyway, I sat through the movie and fell in love. I will say I wish I didn’t see it with my little sister because she was very hyper and made me lose focus a whole bunch, but otherwise I loved it. The characters, the plot, the music, all worked perfectly together and I would absolutely call it a masterpiece of a movie. I also think a huge aspect of this movie was Chadwick Boseman AKA the Black Panther’s death.     ...

  With this possibly being our last blog, I wanted to focus on what I think is the significance of the blog. For those of us who were in Ms Ho’s AP Lang class, this semester’s blog assignment was not our first rodeo. I remember how excited I was by the prospect of writing about whatever came to mind. I had free creative reign over my own words, something that we as students have so seldom been granted. At this point though, we’ve all faced that hurdle- the notorious writer’s block. We’ve been writing for so long that it has become hard to think of fresh material. In this spirit, I’ve decided to write about the blogs themselves, a sort of blogception.  We belong to such a small school, that everyone knows everyone. We’ve all learned and worked together for years now, and we like to think we’re all connected to one another. I think that the purpose of the blogs, however, has been to connect us not by our shared ideas, but by our disparate ones. Having a carte blanche to write ab...

  The end of the first semester of senior year is quickly approaching. This semester has been the root cause of my stress for the past few months, and I am glad it is nearly over. I tell myself that next semester will be less stressful because college applications are complete and schoolwork will be more relaxed, and I hope I am buying into it. But in reality, I know that I have told myself the future won’t be strenuous multiple times, and I end up regretting my past reassurances.  Throughout my life, I have strived for perfection. I could never start an assignment without a clear plan of what the finished product will look like, I had to rehearse anything spoken, and I never settled for less than 100% effort. But as I am approaching my final semester of school, I am starting to recognize that this is abnormal behavior.  I unfortunately believe that I have developed some form of the Imposter Syndrome. The Imposter Syndrome, which is also known as perceived fraudulen...

We finally made it! Last blog post ever! It is pretty crazy, to be honest. When brainstorming ideas for what I should write about, I really felt that it needed to be special. Something I hold closely to my heart. I kept thinking that I needed to go out with a bang, and what better way to do that is there to write about something important to you? This got me thinking, "what is one of the most important or valued things that are a part of my everyday life?" A broad question, I know. I could not say the cliche answers like family or friends. It needed to be something unique. Then it finally dawned on me, the sky.  Now, I know what you're thinking, "the sky? Avital, what could possibly be so special about the sky?" Well, honestly, I thought the same thing last spring. It was not until the beginning of last summer that I really started admiring and paying more attention to the sky. So, what is so special about the sky? Immediately my mind goes to its beauty. Whether...

      All throughout 11th and 12th grade, I have had the pleasure of writing blog posts for Mrs. Ho’s class. I have really enjoyed writing blogs, as I am able to come back to them and remember different times of my life. For my last ever blog post for this class (probably), I thought it would be an interesting idea to write a letter to myself a year from now. Here it is: Dear Future Michael,      Wow. You are currently 19 years old and in college, which is really hard to fathom. I hope you are doing well. I am currently writing this in AP Stats after just finishing all of my work and being given time. Right now I am just trying to get through the end of my senior year. There are so many uncertainties right now and my head is always spinning with thoughts about the future. I really hope that you’ve got it all figured out right now. I also hope that you are happy in college. These days it feels like all I can do is worry about college and the future.   ...

Ariella Green Week 10: Thanksgiving I don’t know about all of you, but I happen to love Thanksgiving, mainly for the food. Thanksgiving food is my comfort food that I only eat once a year. Also, come on, you can’t argue that Thanksgiving leftovers are not outrageously delicious. I love to make a panini sandwich with my leftovers. Since it seems to be a theme of mine to write about the impending holidays for my blog posts, I figured I’d rank for you my favorite Thanksgiving foods.  7. Pumpkin Pie I apologize in advance, but I can’t stand pumpkin pie. The texture of it throws me off because it is too pureed. The color is kinda questionable, and it’s just too overwhelming of a pie.  6. Apple Pie Even though Thanksgiving is known for its dessert, my goal of the evening is not to save room for dessert. As a more savory food kind of person, I much p refer the meal over the dessert. Apple pie is listed as number 6 because it just makes more sense than pumpkin.  image 5. Green be...