Ivy's Blog

As senior year starts to come to an end, I’ve found myself thinking often about the summer to come. I’ll admit that I’m a little burnt out on school, so I’m looking forward to having a chance to relax and recharge, and for the first time in years, my summer ahead is relatively free of obligations or external stresses.

For this final (I think) blog post, I wanted to write about how I hope/plan to spend my summer. I’m hoping that it’ll be one of growth for me, not necessarily on a grand scale, but in the sense of furthering personal passions.

Visiting family in China

My family is planning to travel to China this summer. It’ll be the first time in four years that I’ve seen my grandparents, so I’m really looking forward to the trip and reconnecting with family I don’t often get to see. Watching The Farewell in class near the beginning of the year, I found myself feeling nostalgic for China: the clacking of mahjong tables, the busy, crowded streets and malls, cigarette smoke and low chatter over a dining table on a warm night. My paternal grandparents live in Xi’an, so I’m looking forward to biking on the city wall and eating 羊肉泡馍; my maternal grandparents live in a more rural city in Sichuan, so I’m excited for spicy food and a warmer climate. We’re spending a few days in Japan as well, which should be a fun chance to explore a country I haven’t visited before.

 

I’m also hoping that a month of immersion might help me brush up a little on Mandarin. After what is now several years of almost never using a language I had an extremely shaky (read: terrible) grasp on to begin with, I will probably be completely lost at first. I’ve regretted how poor my Mandarin is for a while, so I might also take this summer as an opportunity to watch some Chinese movies or shows and attempt to improve my speaking and comprehension.

Exploring nearby suburbs

I’m heading out of state for college, so I’m gearing up for four years of telling people I’m “from the Chicago suburbs.” In honor of that, one thing on my bucket list for the summer is driving to nearby suburbs with friends and exploring what each one has to offer — think Batavia, Elmhurst, Wheaton, etc. I did this one time with Kathryn and Celina last summer, and we ended up spending an hour at a rock and gemstone museum in Oak Brook. Maybe not our most exciting adventure, but a good time nonetheless.

Watching movies I probably should have seen already

When it comes to classic and popular films, I’m somewhat illiterate. For one reason or another, I’ve never seen many of the movies considered part of our cultural canon, so I’m hoping to spend my summer getting a film education of sorts. My watchlist includes big franchises I’ve never seen, like The Matrix and Star Wars, more recent foreign films like The Worst Person In The World and Drive My Car, and classics like The Godfather and Fight Club. At the very least, it should hopefully save me from embarrassing mix-ups, like how I until very recently had somehow crossed Indiana Jones and Citizen Kane in my head. I think I’m also missing some crowd-favorite kids’ movies — this year was the first time I’d ever seen Zootopia — so I’m not opposed at all to adding those too.

Reading

I feel like I’ve probably said this in a previous blog post, but I’ve been trying to read more this year, and to reach for books that might make for a more meaningful reading experience in addition to the more fun ones. I’m on a little bit of a James Baldwin kick right now, but other authors I’m hoping to explore during the summer include Kazuo Ishiguro, Joan Didion, Cormac McCarthy, and Toni Morrison. I’ve got a stack of books on my desk that have been waiting to be read, including Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Batuman’s The Idiot, and Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury (I really liked As I Lay Dying, so I figured I might as well try).

Trying new restaurants and spending time with friends

I’m all too aware that time is slowly slipping away, so I want to make the most of this summer and spend a ton of time with the wonderful people in my life, whether we decide to lie in a field for hours or drive to the city to take advantage of a restaurant’s happy hour (food) deal. A lot of my best memories have come from spontaneous or simple outings, so I’m just excited to have a lot more free time in the summer to spend entertaining stupid ideas with friends.

Creative pursuits

I was really into writing for a while in my sophomore and junior year, but haven’t been able to conjure anything for a while now — my brain has been occupied with other concerns, and sleep deprivation hasn’t done great things for my creative process. I also tried out guitar around the same time and have been meaning to try and learn more. I’m hoping to spend a little more time in the summer getting back into those interests and having fun with them. I refuse to let evidence of either make it out into the world, so you’ll just have to take my word for these ones.

That’s my list of summer aspirations! Other potentially more productive uses of time include staying active post lacrosse season, preparing for college, or maybe getting a job, but we’ll just have to see what happens. Maybe I’ll end up just staring at a wall for hours on end — it would probably be good for me in terms of unwinding. Thanks for reading.

Over spring break, my family and I spent around 10 days in Greece and Turkey. For this week’s blog post, I’m briefly recapping our adventures in Athens, Santorini, and Istanbul!

We left on Wednesday the 29th, flew eleven hours to Istanbul, and had a 6-hour layover there before flying to Athens and arriving fairly late in the afternoon. Our Airbnb had a balcony with a great view — you can see the Acropolis!

That night, we walked around twenty minutes to a restaurant our host recommended called Opos Palia, passing ruins, outdoor markets, and lots of stray cats. Highlights of the dinner included grilled octopus, pork sausage, and tzatziki; the food was incredible.

We only had 2 nights in Athens, so the next day, we packed in some sightseeing. After a few wrong turns, we managed to find our way to the Acropolis with the aid of Google Maps.

One of the reasons I was excited for the trip was that I’d actually learned about the famous sites, thanks to the AP Art History class I’d taken recently. When we visited the Acropolis, I got to see the architecture I’d studied brought to life, from the optical illusion of perfection created by slight bends in the columns and stylobate to the high-relief carvings of the Ergastines.. The Parthenon is set on a hill overlooking Athens, adding to its breathtaking grandeur.

On our way home, we walked through Anafiotika, a small scenic neighborhood in a historical area of Athens. It’s really peaceful, with tons of beautiful buildings. I was especially excited to see a lemon tree (pictured below).

The next day, we flew to Santorini on a tiny plane. I watched a girl in the row in front of me watch Instagram reels during the flight and worried that her lack of airplane mode would cause the plane to crash. Luckily, we all avoided death and the plane landed safely in Oia!

Santorini is an island in the Aegean Sea, with two major towns. Our Santorini Airbnb was my favorite of the ones we stayed in, a villa by the beach in a quieter part of the island.

We drove into Oia, one of the bigger towns in Santorini, to catch the tail end of a sunset that night. Oia hosts the white-and-blue painted facades often associated with the island, as well as a variety of dogs and cats napping in the sunlight.

The next day, we explored the island, driving from the top to the bottom. One of my favorite stops was Pyrgos, a village filled with picturesque buildings along winding streets and staircases.

Other stops: this cliff (?) unsure exactly where it was, but it was surrounded by endless blue sea, Perissa Beach, an idyllic black-sand beach, and a lighthouse on the southeastern coastline with another great view.

My dad and I ended the night by watching the sunset back in Oia, from a spot so famous for its great view that people line the streets and towers in the evenings to watch the sun set. It lives up to its reputation — the sunset was stunning.

On our last morning, we drove around again and saw a few more interesting spots. We spent the night in Rafina, a port town back on the mainland of Greece, then flew to Istanbul the next day.

My parents had originally planned on also visiting another city in Turkey, but ultimately decided against it, so we were left with five days to spend in Istanbul.

I spent a lot of time reading. Favorites from the trip included Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin (unsparing, beautiful, hypnotic), Beautiful World Where Are You by Sally Rooney (cerebral, really good but not my favorite by her), and If We Were Villains by M. L. Rios (fittingly, a Shakespeare-infused mystery). I did say in my first blog post that I was reading the first two, but as the poem goes, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry — I did not actually read them until now.

I really liked Istanbul — super vibrant city, great food, tons of history and culture to explore. I think I might be running a little long on word count, so I’m recapping Istanbul montage-style:

Galata Tower, originally built as a watchtower and now a museum with a great view from the top. Unfortunately, in the lone tragic moment of the trip, I dropped my right airpod from the top, so catch me using wired headphones for a while.

Topkapi Palace, a really cool complex now serving as a museum with exhibitions of everything from Ottoman clothing to artisan-crafted clocks to Turkish coffee.

The Grand Bazaar, a buzzing market with stalls selling art, textiles, jewelry, food, and more.

A two-hour boat ride!

The Hagia Sophia, another one I learned about in art history class! Converted to a mosque in 1453, the interior is absolutely stunning. The dome was built with mosaics to reflect sunlight that flows in through windows, described as the “divine light of heaven.”

Turkish breakfast, complete with a cat that joined a girl sitting near us.

I ended the trip by pulling an all-nighter so I could sleep through the flight and attempt to beat jet lag. Overall fantastic experience.

I love Wikipedia!! Seriously. If some extremely specific catastrophe left me with the choice of only preserving one website on the Internet, I would save Wikipedia. It’s a crowd-sourced, accessible fountain of information on almost any topic you could ever be interested in, one that’s near-limitless and constantly updating. 1.8 edits are made every second; through these minuscule increments, an immense archive of human knowledge has formed — the English-language version recently passed 3.5 billion words across 6 million articles.

One of my favorite ways to waste time is scrolling through Wikipedia articles. I’m especially partial to the “Personal Life” section of pages on celebrities or authors. Anytime I watch a movie, you can find me on the Wikipedia page after finishing, checking out details about the director’s inspirations or what critics are saying. Everything from nuclear radiation incidents to bank heists to Romantic poets is fair game, and linked articles lead to new discoveries each time.

Scholastic Bowl has become one of my favorite things I’ve been involved with in my four years at North. Wikipedia has been a big part of that — my years of absorbing esoteric, seemingly useless information has lent itself to remembering random facts about Watergate or Sylvia Plath. At practice, any new topic is an opportunity for a Wikipedia deep dive: the stories behind paintings like Van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait or Wood’s American Gothic (fun fact: this painting made a kid at my elementary school burst into tears), amusing anecdotes about ancient philosophers or scientists.

It’s not perfect, of course — since Wikipedia can be edited by anyone, the site has seen its fair share of incidents and mishaps, ranging from large in scale to merely amusing. One Chinese woman created over 200 articles over a decade that contained elaborate and entirely falsified pieces of medieval Russian history (Zhemao hoaxes) before being discovered. Pete Buttigieg’s Wikipedia page has had an oddly attentive editor for years.

My interests are ever-changing; I have a short attention span. Recently, I’ve been fascinated by the wives of famous male artists: did you know F. Scott Fitzgerald took snippets from Zelda Fitzgerald’s diary for his writing and directly quoted her for Daisy’s famous line “a beautiful little fool” in The Great Gatsby? Or that Edward Hopper’s wife Josephine thought up the names for several of her husband’s paintings, including Nighthawks, and that she was his only model?

One of my favorite Instagram accounts is @depthsofwikipedia, a collection of articles that exemplify what makes Wikipedia so great: the obscure, ultra-specific information you can’t truly find anywhere else. Some recent posts from the account include: a pop group where every member was replaced as an example of the Ship of Theseus thought experiment, the IKEA effect cognitive bias, and English triple contractions.

If you’re ever bored, try playing The Wiki Game. The game takes advantage of the interlinked nature of Wikipedia articles and challenges you to move from one article to an entirely disparate one just by clicking links, like moving from the page for giraffe to the one for guitar. Here’s a screenshot of how I got from Selena Gomez to the Apollo program (surprisingly easily): Selena Gomez → Grand Prairie, Texas (her birthplace) → Texas → United States → Space Race → Apollo 11 → Apollo program.

Another one I tried: Tibet → Chinese language → China → 2008 Summer Olympics → Olympic Games → Winter Olympic Games → Ice hockey at the 1924 Winter Olympics → Ice hockey.

After I landed on Wikipedia as the topic for this blog post, I also decided to try my hand at editing an article myself. I signed up for an account, and I was off!

I looked up the best way to get started with editing, and since I was too scared to edit any actual information, one of the beginner-friendly tasks I found was “de-orphaning articles.” Orphan articles are articles that have no other outside articles linking to them, so something fairly simple to do is to find another related article and link it from there.

I picked one at random, an article about a social drama film called Broken Bridges from 2004. I linked to the article from the screenwriter’s page: seen below!

Strangely fun. I rely on Wikipedia whenever I need quick information about a topic or person, so I guess I might try and edit when I have free time — maybe I’ll even advance to adding new information, like to a band’s page from an interview.

Thanks for reading me rambling about Wikipedia for 750 words. If you’re ever bored, go down a rabbit hole and learn something new!

On first read, Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming” is almost overwhelming: filled with apocalyptic imagery and foreboding language, it’s unclear what is metaphor and what is meant to be reality. Although certain lines seemed to explicitly allude to the end of the world, I wasn’t sure what the poem hoped to convey about it, or what the image of the beast that dominates the second stanza represented. 

The first difficulty I encountered was the question of the speaker. The speaker is never explicitly identified, and seems to hold an almost omniscient perspective. I wondered if the speaker was meant to be a singular person, or perhaps instead some collective consciousness of humanity. Near the end of the second stanza, first-person is used for the first time, where the speaker states that an image “troubles my sight.” I thought this might suggest that the speaker is some human either watching the events unfold or perhaps even experiencing a prophetic vision or dream. I also thought that Yeats may have purposefully laced the narration with ambiguity: the namelessness of the speaker lends the warnings a universal feeling, and the line between reality and imagination is clouded, as the imagery feels almost nightmarish — perhaps to convey that this doomsday is closer to our present moment than we may believe. 

After considering the speaker, I decided to approach the poem a stanza at a time. In the first stanza, the speaker describes a series of images, from an ocean dyed with blood to a falcon.

Examining the rhyme scheme and the sound patterns, I started to understand the message more clearly. The first two lines rhyme, as do the next set of two: “widening gyre” and “the falconer,” “cannot hold” and “upon the world.” Proceeding to the next couplet and the rest of the stanza, though, the rhyme scheme stops. I realized that this mirrors what the first stanza describes: while the speaker remarks that “things fall apart; the centre cannot hold,” the idea of dissolution of order into chaos is expressed sonically, as the rhyme scheme that had initially provided a semblance of structure breaks down.

Reading the poem out loud, I also noticed that repetition of sounds in the first stanza carries meaning. In the first line, the speaker repeats “Turning and turning,” and in the second, “falcon” and “falconer,” in the fifth and sixth, the word “loosed” appears twice. I didn’t know what a “gyre” was (the first image of the poem), and when I looked it up, I found out that it was a swirl or vortex in the ocean. The repetition seemed to evoke this: as if rotating, the words come back around. And yet, this once again seems to break down as the speaker tries to convey that order is dissolving and anarchy is breaking loose: repetition occurs less frequently, and is split between different lines. The idea of this “gyre” and the cyclical feeling of the sonic pattern also seems like it might speak to some idea of history or nature repeating itself. 

I found an answer to one of my questions about the message of the first stanza at its end. I hadn’t picked up on it during my first read-through, but I realized upon rereading that the final two lines stick out as different from the rest, not quite belonging. Where everything preceding is grounded in nature imagery or more general statements about the state of the world, the final two lines shift suddenly to an assertion about humanity: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity,” a damning indictment. Looking back, I thought that Yeats might have intentionally tried to mislead with the beginning, painting a picture of a natural apocalypse, only to suggest with this couplet that the cause of the end of the world might instead be the evils of human nature or the selfish “worst” of people.

The second stanza held more confusion for me. The speaker begins by proclaiming repeatedly that the “Second Coming” must be “at hand,” then declares that an image out of “Spiritus Mundi” appears in their view. The Latin phrase felt out of place, and I had no clue what it meant. Looking it up, I learned that Spiritus Mundi means “world spirit” or “world soul” in Latin, a sort of collective unconscious or human memory. The use of Latin, coupled with the meaning, seemed to me to have been deliberately used by Yeats, to yank the reader out of the present moment and call back to a more ancient time.

The most difficult part of the poem for me was the image the speaker describes “[troubling their] sight”: in a desert, a “shape with lion body and the head of a man, a gaze blank and pitiless as the sun.” I looked at the syntax: the speaker unfurls the image slowly, connecting with commas that wind over the course of five lines, in a way that builds a sense of dread in the reader. The diction and figurative language contributes to the impression of this beast as something powerful and primordial: “pitiless as the sun,” “slow thighs,” seemingly to make the audience fear what approaches. 

To fully understand the implications of this image, I had to revisit the poem’s title: The Second Coming. Another difficulty I ran into is that I’m not too familiar with Biblical ideas, so I had to look up the phrase. I learned that the Second Coming is the Christian belief that Jesus will return from heaven; beyond just that, it’s an affirmation of belief that God is in control and will bring about peace and righteousness. 

Understanding this, I suddenly saw new meaning in the rest of the poem. All of the catastrophic events and imagery of the first stanza are meant to herald this Second Coming. The image of the beast suddenly becomes especially striking: Yeats implies that, instead of Jesus returning to Earth, some terrible monster will arrive in his stead. I’d initially been unsure what the beast was meant to represent. Now, I can say that I think it seems to function as a symbol of the idea that the belief in some eventual justice and peace will never truly come. The implication might be that human nature has thrown off the balance of the world and corrupted it to an extent where the Second Coming becomes a perversion of the Christian idea. It’s also interesting that the image of the beast, “lion body and the head of a man,” calls to mind the Egyptian Sphinx, a different belief system, another way in which the Christian idea of the Second Coming is undermined. 

The poem’s ending helped me further the interpretation I’d landed on. The speaker remarks that “darkness drops again; but now I know / That twenty centuries of stony sleep / Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle.” This seems to suggest that the monster settles back down, but the speaker now understands that it will soon awake; I thought that the “rocking cradle” might also imply that the “beast” or evil is something stirred up by the state of the world at the time. It ends on a question, and the uncertainty adds to the piece’s overall precarious feeling that something is about to break.

The final part of my reading process was to look up the context. Yeats wrote the poem in 1919, in the aftermath of World War I. It seems that he might have wanted to communicate with the poem that, with the violence and anarchy of the war, humanity has reached a point from which it cannot return, one that has erased the possibility of eventual peace and righteousness and replaced it with a darker new age. Although the poem is intricate enough that I can’t say that I have a perfect grasp on it, I understand better now what he might have hoped to say with it. 

Here’s a recap of how I spent my time over winter break, and some recent interests and undertakings: 

• Religiously completing the New York Times mini crossword

A newfound passion. Since November, I’ve been diligently doing the daily NYT mini (including in slightly inopportune settings, pictured left). It’s pure, bite-sized fun: the clues are simple and few enough to either know off the top of your head or puzzle out on the spot. My friends and I have each other added on the app, so a little leaderboard shows up with everyone’s times; as someone who enjoys a little friendly competition, I’ve been having a great time. My personal record is 13 seconds. 

 

• So many games of cards

When my parents were in college, they spent hours and hours playing cards in a cramped dorm room shared between half a dozen students, often staying up through the night. My dad claims he was the reigning champion. Decades later, I’ve become hooked on a card game Kathryn introduced me to: Sheng ji, tractor, eighty points, whatever you want to call it. It’s entertaining, strategic without being mind-numbing, and a good time all around. 

• Copious amounts of art history

I took an art history course online, but a busy first semester meant I pushed it off until December. Consequently, I spent a good chunk of my winter break watching art history videos, and although I cut it a little closer than I would have liked, everything got done and I had a pretty good time! I’m not usually a huge history fan, but I found that I really enjoyed learning about how art movements interacted with history and delving into significant works and interesting styles. Here are a few I especially liked:

The Stone Breakers, Gustave Courbet. I’m not sure why I like this piece — I think it’s something about the thoughtful composition, how the two subjects are placed in the foreground with little open sky shown, so they feel almost trapped. 

 

The Saint-Lazare Station, Claude Monet. I’m fascinated by the ideas behind Monet’s Impressionist works: that a scene might transform as time passes and the seasons change, and his goal to capture a single, fleeting, transient instant. 

 

The Scream, Edvard Munch. Iconic for a reason. The dreamlike intensity of the work, from the discordant color to the abstract, screaming figure, lends itself to a visceral, evocative piece, one whose overwhelming sense of dread feels both grounded in a certain time and universal. 

 

 

The Kiss, Constantin Brancusi: I just think this one is cute. 

 

 

 

 

• Went to the art institute!

Grace has long been my art, music, culture etc. buddy, and we finally made time to go to the Art Institute together! Highlights include: 

 

 

 

 

 

This cutie I think was part of a sketch collection from the Bridget Riley exhibition,

 

 

 

 

 

 

pure joy at finding a bust of Marcus Aurelius,

 

 

 

 

 

my longtime favorite painting,

 

 

 

 

and actually recognizing works for once, thanks to the art history class — like this Kandinsky.

• Started a lot of books, didn’t finish a ton of them — something to work on

I’m a serial book-starter who isn’t the best at immediately following through, sue me. So many interesting titles, so little time, a slightly fried brain, what’s a girl to do? Here are a few recent undertakings, with varying levels of progress. I will finish these sometime in the next month, I swear. 

• Stoner by John Williams, the existential, quietly moving account of the life of a 20th-century literature professor in Missouri hailed as an underappreciated masterpiece
• Intimacies by Katie Kitamura, a book centered on an interpreter for the International Court in the Hague, featuring one of my favorite types of characters: an unnamed, ennui-afflicted female narrator
• Stay True by Hua Hsu, an immersive and cerebral memoir that delves into how music, culture, friendship, and grief interact with the self through the lens of a Berkeley student in the 90s. Might become my new favorite nonfiction. 
• Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky: “started” in the barest sense of the word. I’m maybe three pages in. 

 

• Watched a lot of movies? Maybe too many movies?

I’m an indecisive person. So are most of my friends. So, when we’re hanging out and have exhausted what little capacity for studying we have left, the question becomes: what should we do now? The easiest answer tends to be a movie, so I made a good amount of trips to Regal. Here’s my lightning-round recap of the movies I watched over break (I’m also including the week after). 

• Zootopia: Watched at Grace’s house. Some of my friends were horrified to find out I’d never seen Zootopia before, and I have to admit this was a great time — fun characters, all-around good story. 
• Puss in Boots: The Last Wish: Did not expect this one to be as good as it was, a great animated film with a lot of heart. 
• The Breakfast Club: Mixed feelings on this, weirdly, but I get why it’s a classic. Killer soundtrack.
• M3GAN: I hate horror movies and dolls, but M3GAN was weirdly funny at times. 
• 3 Idiots: No movie has ever felt longer, but it’s because so much is crammed in to every moment; huge in scope and a really great story.
• 10 Things I Hate About You: New favorite rom-com!! I love Kat Stratford.
• The Nice Guys: Despite getting the two lead characters confused for half of the movie, I thought this was pretty good.
• The Half Of It: Poignant and moving, with a really magical Pacific Northwest setting. 

 

• Rang in the new year

Happy 2023!

For blog post #7, thoughts about the end of semester #7!

The passage of time has long plagued me. I often feel like it’s slipping through my fingers — taking everything day by day has meant that I don’t often have the chance to look up and see how much has already gone by. Senior year has meant that endings suddenly feel more real than ever. 

I think frequently about lasts: the last first week, the last Halloween, the last year I’m younger than the protagonists of my childhood favorite books. When I’m in the car with Louisa, we joke about how quickly everything is approaching a close, about seeing friends we’ve known for a decade in a cap and gown in a few months. 

First semester has passed in a blur of math homework, extracurricular competitions, nights spent doing 100 pages of reading (oops), writing and rewriting college essays. Somehow, though, despite this being the busiest semester of high school by far (whoever said junior year was the worst was a liar), I’ve managed, for the first time in a while, to carve out more time for myself, for friendships, for exploration and growth. 

Balance is everything, I think. I’ve learned to slow down a little this year, to find meaning and joy in the little, mundane things: cold brew while spending hours working at a Starbucks, ignoring an impending test to play Kathryn’s elaborate card game during homeroom, the quiet walk I take down that one random hallway to go outside between second and third period. Even if I won’t miss dodging getting body-slammed in the hallways (have had far too many close calls with the trophy case in the science hallway, Grace can confirm), I’m trying to appreciate this time because I know I’ll never have it again. 

I’ve also found myself more at peace than ever with the past: a couple months ago, a friend asked: if you could go back in time and redo high school, would you? Then, I said I wouldn’t, and I stand by that. Even if I could’ve made smarter decisions, maximized my time, remembered how to solve X problem on Y test, whatever else, I don’t regret anything that has happened. I don’t think anything is wasted; I also don’t think everything you do has to have some greater purpose or productive value. I’ve spent hours the day before a big test walking aimlessly around a grocery store with friends or scrolling through Wikipedia articles about the romantic endeavors of 20th-century English satirists, and even if it probably wasn’t the best for my math grade, I derived a lot of enjoyment from it. I joined a variety of clubs freshman year because I had a lot of interests and very little idea of what I wanted to do in life. I’m not planning on majoring in chemistry, biology, or (god forbid) physics; however, my years in Science Olympiad have still been valuable! I’ve gotten to spend time with fun people, and the assortment of events I’ve tried have let me explore sustainability, the history of time, and even cryptography and linguistics.

Another takeaway: the value of trying new things and being spontaneous! As cliche as it might sound, some of my favorite memories this year have come from spur-of-the-moment decisions or random endeavors. Case in point: the oft-discussed newbie fantasy football league with a group of friends. Even if my league record is an unimpressive 7-7-0, fantasy has gifted me several really fun memories, from watch parties to arguments about scam-adjacent trades. I’m becoming a disciple of the art of failure, reaching for activities I know I probably won’t be good at but might enjoy. 

One other random thought. As a junior, I dreaded what was to come senior year because I hated writing about myself — not just the mountains of supplementals I knew were impending, but also these blog posts. I still don’t like writing about myself, and I can’t say I’ve loved the process of writing college essays in any way, but I did find myself reflecting more on my passions and interests, the meaningful experiences I’ve been fortunate to have over the past few years, and my dreams and the future, and I ended up happy with the essays I wrote, because they felt genuine and complex. Writing blog posts still stresses me out — I obsess over expressing exactly what I want to convey — but I’ve really enjoyed getting to read everyone else’s blogs. 

Anyway, to wrap things up: surrounding myself with good people has been the best thing I’ve done this year. All of my favorite memories have been spent with friends: venturing to Westmont on Halloween for Korean barbecue, watching movies of questionable quality, friendsgiving festivities, buying cakes for various occasions. I’m excited to have more free time next semester. 

I have hit the word count (above & beyond!!). Thanks for reading, happy end of first semester!

Confession: My movie knowledge is embarrassingly limited. Growing up, my parents never had a Netflix subscription, so aside from the occasional trip to Regal with friends, I rarely watched movies. A few weeks ago, inspired in part by my more film-savvy friends and in part by my affection for entertaining Letterboxd reviews, I took the plunge and shelled out $6.99 for a basic Netflix plan (with ads — I’ve become very familiar with the perfume ad that plays each time). 

I’ve found that I have a hard time getting into TV shows, but have really enjoyed watching movies recently — I think the medium’s immersive nature and ability to tell a complete story within the span of an hour or two particularly appeal to me. 

A favorite YouTube channel of mine is Karsten Runquist’s, a film school guy that makes short, clever video essays on various films that are receiving a lot of buzz, from the year’s critically-acclaimed Oscar darlings to the new Minions movie. In an ongoing series on his channel, he recaps the movies he’s watched each month and his thoughts on them. 

I’m copying him for this week’s blog post, though my list is a pale imitation in terms of both volume and discerning taste. Here are the movies I watched in October and November, in chronological order:

Oct 7 2022: Don’t Worry Darling (2022)

If my Twitter feed in October was any indication, Olivia Wilde’s most recent directorial endeavor might be most famous for the alleged drama behind its filming. I’m always down for a psychological thriller, though (see blog post #2), so I went to SMG in Wheaton to visit Meg at work and watch Don’t Worry Darling. It was pretty good — my Letterboxd rating was a solid 3.5 / 5 stars. Definitely not the first to do the “something sinister lurks beneath the surface of idyllic small town” concept, but entertaining to watch; I especially liked the hallucination sequences.

Oct 11 2022: Amsterdam (2022)

Possibly my least favorite movie on this list. One has to wonder how an all-star cast like this one manages to fall flat; I blame the script, which managed to simultaneously be wildly confusing and extremely boring. Since we had the next day of school off, a few friends and I impulsively decided to watch a movie, and picked a 9:30 showing of Amsterdam. Approximately thirty minutes in, I was the only one left awake, which didn’t help the matter — nor did the fact that I quickly lost track of the plot. My sleepy companions and I agreed: not good.

Oct 30 2022: Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016)

Here’s the thing: I did not actively watch this movie so much as I was in the room while it was being played, desperately trying to tune out the screams. I’ll be the first to admit that I am not a horror movie person: easily startled, frequently paranoid, and generally not someone who enjoys creepy dolls or possessed children, I tend to avoid the genre. The little of this movie that I watched was with my eyes half shut and hands over my ears, so I really don’t have much to say about it. One idea I had for a blog post was actually to force myself to watch horror movies, but I decided against it after this. 

Oct 31 2022: Scary Movie 5 (2013)

Cannot believe there were four of these previously and they made another one. I watched this one on Halloween with friends. It’s a spoof of the typical horror movie, but not really to my taste (no more toilet humor. Please), and halfway through, I was waiting for it to be over. 

Oct 31 2022: In The Tall Grass (2019)

I was roped into watching another horror movie by my braver friends, and, unsurprisingly, watched this one through my hands. I think this one was actually scarier because of the quietly sinister atmosphere — a field of tall grass should not incite as much terror as it does here. Once again, not a super clear idea of what happened here, but I’m sure it was very exciting. The road on the way home afterwards was foggy and dark and I was scared for my life. 

 

Nov 1 2022: Black Adam (2022)

Bears all the recognizable elements of a 2020s superhero movie: mid-action sequence “witty” dialogue, slightly trite messages about “being a hero,” and… an unexpected appearance from Noah Centineo? Sort of fun, but not particularly moving or memorable. 

Nov 5 2022: Shiva Baby (2020)

Easily my favorite of this list. With a runtime barely over an hour, landing at 78 minutes, Shiva Baby is a sharp and well-executed comedy/drama that at times feels like more of a thriller. Adapted from director Emma Seligman’s NYU senior thesis, the movie feels fresh and smart, and features a fantastic central performance from Rachel Sennott. 

The concept: directionless college senior Danielle and her parents attend a shiva mourning the death of some distant family friend, where Danielle finds herself bombarded with uncomfortable and overwhelming questions about her future. The situation is made worse when Danielle encounters not only her ex-girlfriend Maya but also her sugar daddy Max, who she is horrified to discover is married and has a baby. 

The claustrophobic cinematography and horror-like score build tension masterfully as the plot unfolds. Within the single setting of the house, the film is able to accomplish so much — simultaneously anxiety-inducing, hilarious, and legitimately moving, it manages to feel universal. Definitely a new favorite. 

Nov 18 2022: Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between (2022)

A coming-of-age type rom-com that was cute enough at first but ultimately fell flat for me. The central conflict is a “breakup pact” between the two love interests, and though I love Talia Ryder, by the end, I struggled to find a reason to support them staying together — it wasn’t particularly compelling, and the movie is fairly predictable and doesn’t do much new. 

Nov 22 2022: Do Revenge (2022)

Actually so fun. I’m not usually a huge fan of twenty-something actors playing high school students, but I’ll overlook it this time because Do Revenge is such a legitimately entertaining movie. Snappy and self-aware, it shouldn’t be as good as it is. With an Internet-era-take on Agatha Christie’s Strangers on a Train, the plot’s revenge-driven twists never fail to amuse.

Nov 24 2022: Molly’s Game (2017)

The premise of the movie is immediately intriguing: it follows the true story of Molly Bloom, a former competitive skier who begins hosting an underground, high-stakes poker game with players that range from famous actors to the Russian mob, and the later consequences she faces. I always find stories where the protagonist makes increasingly risky decisions compelling, and this was no exception. The storytelling is fast-paced and riveting. 

Nov 24 2022: Ocean’s Eleven (2001)

A pretty classic movie I figured I should finally watch. I love a good heist. 

Thanks for reading, sorry if this was all over the place — my brain is fried. Drop me movie recommendations in the comments. 

My dad’s least favorite of my hobbies is taking photos on film. He laughs at the idea of regressing from a powerful smartphone camera to the type of single-use Fujifilm plastic camera or cheap film camera (a short-lived phase, brought to an untimely end when mine broke) he remembers using decades earlier. I’ll admit that the money spent processing the rolls at a lab in California (thanks, https://thedarkroom.com/) could definitely be better spent elsewhere, but I have a job now, so I’m letting it slide as a personal indulgence. 

I just got photos back from the disposable camera I used this fall. Beyond just richer depth of color or an interestingly grainy texture, I think the reason I keep returning to film is the joy of that feeling of delayed gratification – forgetting what memories were captured and returning to them months later, collected together in a condensed album. 27 exposures per camera forces me to be deliberate in what I want to remember, a very different experience than my typical approach of pointing my phone camera at whatever subject and clicking away. I’ve been enjoying the process of taking a few photos of my friends at various senior-year occasions and getting to revisit those days later on. 

This week, a pretty self-indulgent post: a trip down memory lane with a collection of disposable camera / film photos I’ve taken, stretching from the summer before freshman year to two weeks ago (purely for fun, I have no photography knowledge). 

September 2022: Friends at the homecoming football game. Taken shortly before a 5’2 freshman boy started harassing us, an experience that I could have done without. I love this picture, though. It feels very classically high school (notice how zeroed in on the game the boys are behind Meg and Grace). 

July 2019: Marquette, Michigan, a family trip during the summer. None of these pictures are edited, so I don’t know how the colors turned out so vivid. Marquette is in the upper peninsula, so the water was gorgeous — near where this picture was taken, people were cliff-jumping. I’m an especially big fan of the little red house peeking out from the trees in this picture, though I’m not sure where the little girl in the black dress appeared from. 

July 2021: Munising, Michigan, in the upper peninsula once again. Munising has a population of around 2,000, so spending a week there was really peaceful. This fish and chips food truck came up with glowing reviews when we were searching for where to eat nearby. Some of the best fries I’ve ever had. My dad and I also met the eponymous Ron sitting outside next to the water (he was very nice). 

February 2022: Friends surprised me for my 17th birthday. I found out later that they took careful measures to keep me in the dark, which must have worked because I had absolutely no clue (could also be attributed to me being gullible). On a more sentimental note, I was really moved and am so grateful for my friends and the effort they put in for me — including figuring out the physics of hanging up this balloon backdrop.

October 2022: At school on a weekend, having inexplicably decided to take the “fantasy” out of our fantasy football league. Learned that football is perhaps not the career for me.

Winter 2021: Taken on Lomo Lady Gray film, during my black-and-white film phase. This picture definitely evokes memories of sophomore year spent at home, which looking back on was not a fun time at all, but I remember sitting on my driveway with Meg and Ria for some much-needed conversational interaction.  

July 2021: Nothing much to be said about this, I just thought the way the light filtered through the trees was pretty. 

February 2022: At Celina’s house, when Meher came back from Texas to visit. I’m pretty sure this was the day Kathryn spent 45 minutes attempting to teach us how to play an extremely elaborate Chinese card game, the rules of which I’m still fuzzy on, but this has reminded me that I want to learn the game. 

July 2021: Munising once again, on this stunning beach. Featuring a sandy hill we walked down, dotted with faraway people if you look closely. This is one of my favorites from the trip because I think the grainy texture feels a little melancholy, and the colors manage to capture how gorgeous the water was. 

February 2022: Grace and Izzy on my birthday! Look how adorable they are. This picture reminded me that I told Izzy my dad would make her guacamole again and never followed through. Izzy, if you’re reading this, I promise I’ll make it happen. 

December 2021: Louisa and Celina, at dinner after we spent an afternoon volunteering downtown in the freezing cold. Santa was actually so mean, but I look back on this day fondly because we watched the cinematic tour de force that is Sing 2 afterwards. 

March 2020: Another quarantine relic. The lighting in this picture is awful and it’s strangely somber, but I just wanted to take the opportunity to defend Cheerios. Not the most exciting of cereals, but I promise that a simple bowl with blueberries is life-changing. 

August 2019: Summer before freshman year, seems so long ago now. My dad, brother, and I spent an afternoon in the city. It wasn’t actually dark in the room I took this picture, but I really like how extreme the contrast turned out (a hint of tenebrism, to steal an art history term?). 

As much as I’ve enjoyed my disposable cameras, I think my new goal is to invest in a real film camera (or try and dig up one of my parents’ old ones?) sometime this year, as a more sustainable long-term option. Hope you enjoyed my little nostalgic excursion, thanks for reading!

In honor of her new album being released last week, eleven of my favorite Taylor Swift songs — not in order — and occasions for listening to each. 

My favorites change often, so consider this a tentative, pre-Midnights list (though Mastermind and Midnight Rain have been looping as I edit supplementals, possible album review coming your way at some point?). 

• All Too Well

It wouldn’t be a Taylor Swift list without this fan favorite. It truly is some of the best of her songwriting, not just in the specificity of certain details — the iconic red scarf, the hazy glow of a refrigerator light — but also in how carefully it freezes and examines a memory. “So casually cruel in the name of being honest” and “’Cause there we are again on that little town street / You almost ran the red ’cause you were lookin’ over at me” are some of my favorite lyrics of hers. 

Listen while: looking through old photo albums, passing through a small town in the fall, saying goodbye to someone or something. 

• State of Grace

A deep cut! Red was one of the albums that soundtracked my elementary school years, but I rediscovered this track more recently. It has such an expansive, rich sound, and the driving drums and guitar add to the immediacy of the emotion it manages to capture. It’s ultimately a love song, one filled with possibility and the feeling of a perfect moment in time. I love the phrasing of a “state of grace.”

Listen while: exploring a new city, watching the leaves transform. 

• Style

Pop perfection. 1989 reigns supreme in my personal ranking of Taylor’s albums, and Style is just such a great song. It’s so atmospheric and lush, and this is THE song to scream in the car, especially when the chorus hits. The build up to the bridge is exultant, and the “James Dean daydream” part is so fun. 

Listen while: driving late at night with friends, daydreaming. 

• Cardigan

A gorgeous, immersive track, Cardigan weaves a bittersweet narrative with dreamy production. Honestly, I don’t love the chorus, but the verses are fantastic, filled with enough metaphor and vivid imagery to convey a movie’s worth of emotion. 

Listen while: reading a heartbreaker of a book, going on a walk alone. 

• Fearless

It’s just so good! An unapologetic tribute to being young. You can’t help but get caught up in the giddy joy and vivid imagery of falling in love for the first time, and the playful, heartfelt turns of phrase she slips in, from “head first fearless” to the detail of a “glow off the pavement” after it rains. I love the line “I don’t know how it gets better than this,” and how genuinely exultant it feels. 

Listen while: coming home from a football game, going outside during a summer rain. 

• Tis the Damn Season

Such an underappreciated track, and perfect as the holiday season approaches. It’s sweet and quietly heartbreaking, with a twinge of bittersweetness as she promises her lover they can “call it even.”  I really enjoy the rhythm of the lyrics, how they almost fall into one another: “Sleep in half the day just for old times’ sake / I won’t ask you to wait if you don’t ask me to stay” is a personal favorite. Also: Robert Frost reference. 

Listen while: feeling nostalgic during the holidays, contemplating what a hometown means when you leave. 

• Cruel Summer

A dreamy, catchy track that conveys perfectly an intense, head-over-heels balance of ecstasy and heartbreak. There’s a gorgeous build up to a bridge that is pure catharsis, with Taylor’s isolated voice screaming, “I love you, ain’t that the worst thing you ever heard?” There’s a warmth and an intimacy to the details, from angels and devils to a garden-gate rendezvous, that mark this as a fantastic summer anthem. 

Listen while: Pulling an all-nighter to watch the sunrise, drinking ice water on a hot summer day. 

• Mine

A classic Taylor track, and for good reason. The lines “You made a rebel of a careless man’s careful daughter / You are the best thing that’s ever been mine” are a triumph, and speak to her ability to inhabit a character. The song is a swirl of bubbly energy, with a compelling simple honesty to the lyrics as she tells a love story. 

Listen while: people-watching while sitting at a café, writing someone a snail-mail letter. 

• New Romantics

A bonus song from 1989 that exudes carefree, big-city euphoria, New Romantics is anthemic. Taylor starts off the song with a detached, almost mocking reflection on young adult ennui, but by the time she declares that “we’re the new romantics” and calls heartbreak the “national anthem,” her voice soars, calling for a surrender to the freedom of feeling. 

Listen while: gossiping with friends, looking down at the streets of a city from a high-up window. 

• Cornelia Street

An almost reverent track dedicated to the painful nostalgia of associating a physical location with a person or memory. The vulnerable exploration of uncertainty against delicate piano and synth coupled with intricate details form a compelling narrative. 

Listen while: picking up painting for the first time in a long time, going outside for fresh air in the winter. 

• Tim McGraw

I’ll be honest: this is the only song on her debut album I have more than a passing familiarity with, but I’ve come to love this one. Would 110% recommend checking out Maggie Rogers’ cover. Listening, one can suddenly picture how she rose so quickly to Nashville fame: at 15, Taylor seems to have already proved herself able to conjure clever verses — “He said the way my blue eyes shined / Put those Georgia stars to shame that night / I said, ‘That’s a lie’” — and heartfelt choruses, praying that an ex remembers her when she sings “But when you think Tim McGraw / I hope you think my favorite song.”

Listen while: stargazing, spending time with an old friend, replaying old conversations. 

That’s the 11! Let me know your favorite Taylor songs, or thoughts on Midnights if you’ve listened. 

Already starting to run a little dry on blog ideas, will brainstorm more creative ones for next time! This week: an all-over-the-place list of things I’ll briefly defend, from black coffee to Riverdale. 

1. My fantasy football team

I have to start with a disclaimer that I know next to nothing about football (I’m in a league with several friends who are also new to fantasy, and have been slowly figuring out how it works), so apologies for any glaring inaccuracies. 

While the situation does look a little dire here, I really think Team Cuatro can bounce back for week 6. Yes, my flex, defense team, kicker, and one of my RBs together averaged -1.2 points, but this can be attributed largely to personal error: I thought Dalvin Cook was injured and brought Chase Edmonds up from my bench to replace him (I also thought Rashod Bateman was injured and replaced him with Dalton Schultz, who turned out to actually also be injured, hence the 0 points). Big mistake. Cook dropped 26.1 points and Edmonds scored 0.1. Don’t worry, several of my more football-savvy friends have already berated me. 

After that embarrassing performance, I’m determined to make a comeback in week 6. I’ve brought Cook and Bateman back up and have picked up a couple of players from the waiver wire, including a defense team playing a weaker offense (at least according to the little ESPN blurb). Watch out, Team Carsello (jk, Grace, if you’re reading this, it would be an honor to lose to you). 

Anyway, I’ve been enjoying my fantasy football-filled fall (2-3-0 right now). It’s been fun to try something completely new to me in a low-stakes, friendly environment, and I’ve had an especially good time watching my friends become increasingly invested in their teams. 

2. Boy’s Life

Hot take, I know. Robert McCammon’s 1991 novel Boy’s Life is somewhat infamous at North — resenting it is almost a universal experience for freshmen in HE1. I remember going in to the lit center my freshman year, and having the senior editing my essay tell me that she hated the book. It’s an understandable opinion: my copy is 608 pages, a daunting undertaking for any 14-year-old, and you really feel how long it is while reading. I remember feverishly trying to finish the book a few days before school started; to be completely honest, I think that annotating this book put me off annotations forever. 

However, looking back, I actually enjoyed the story. I’m a big fan of books that have a strong sense of setting, where the cultural or physical background feels almost like a character of its own and plays an important role in the story, so the small, Southern town of Zephyr was an intriguing world to explore, from its fear of the devil to the insularity of the families living within it. There’s so many elements at play, from the murder mystery to the more mundane coming-of-age storyline to the interjections of magical realism, creating an immersive reading experience. I remember one interesting chapter about some hallucination-esque midnight train ride Cory goes on where he travels into the city and sees some traumatizing scenes, which McCammon proceeds to never mention again. As a whole, far from my favorite book ever, but I think it gets too much hate. 

3. Black Coffee

Recently, I’ve become a fan of black coffee. A couple of my friends have told me it tastes like dirt, which is fair, but I really think there’s something to be said for plain cold brew or iced coffee (I can’t drink it hot). I’ve sort of come to like bitter drinks; they feel more rewarding, more energizing, and I’m better able to appreciate the fruity or chocolate-y notes in the coffee. I also find it easier to finish black coffee; sweeter drinks sometimes leave me with a stomachache (small chance I’m lactose intolerant, 99% sure I’m not, though). My personal ranking of places nearby: Starbucks (solid), Dunkin (cheap), Peet’s (best place to study), Sparrow (tasted like tomato?). 

4. Driven to…

Although initially horrified by the orange decals plastered over the school, I’ve found that the slogan has really grown on me. There’s something to be said for how versatile it is: you can attach it to any verb, though some sound better than others (driven to fish was a personal favorite last year). I’ve found it slipping into my own vernacular as well as my friends’ vocabularies. Maybe it’s senior year making me more sentimental, but my school spirit has increased exponentially. 

5. My lack of a license

The flip side of #4: I might be driven, but I can’t drive. I really have no defense for this, I just felt like I had to acknowledge it. I promise I’ll work on it second semester. Hold me to it, guys. 

6. Apple music

I’ll admit off the bat that Spotify reigns supreme in terms of recommendations and frankly a lot of other areas; I make most of my playlists and find new music on there. I largely use Apple Music for the sake of convenience, since we have a family plan. However, they do pay their artists more! It’s unfairly hated; the lyrics feature is really nice and more user-friendly, and the Dolby Atmos sound quality is fantastic. Have recently been listening to a lot of Frank Ocean, Jeff Buckley, Lana del Rey, Joji, and Bon Iver. 

7. Riverdale (or at least the Twitter plot summary thread I read)

I think I’ve watched maybe five episodes total of Riverdale, but I recently stumbled upon a thread on Twitter summarizing all 116 episodes (linked here) that I’d highly recommend if you have ten minutes. For context, Riverdale started off as a sort of murder mystery with characters from the Archie comics navigating the trials and tribulations (epic highs and lows) of high school (football). Since then, the show has gone fairly off the rails: various musical episodes, ghosts appear, the characters gain supernatural powers, Archie goes to war (?), Cheryl leads a cult, an alternate universe called Rivervale is introduced.

It’s sort of a so-bad-it’s-good situation. I watched a couple of episodes a few weeks ago with friends, and was alternately horrified and confused watching Archie get ritualistically sacrificed at some sort of town festival. However, I was never for a moment bored. In short: far from a triumph of cinema, but extremely entertaining. 

Then again, we did watch it immediately after Morbius, and anything would likely have been a welcome respite from the adventures of Dr. Michael, so take this with a grain of salt.