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Alex Francavilla - Week 16 - Evermore

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And as he sits here on this fateful evening as the most observed spot on his computer monitor—the bottom right hand corner—silently displays a 9, as he procrastinates on writing my blog for the 16th time this school year, he sees his regrets. Regrets for not talking to that person a little longer on the first day of school. Regrets for not cleaning my room before my parents saw the mess. Regrets for not submitting that assignment 20 seconds earlier. Regrets for talking for 10 minutes and 20 seconds during my POAS presentation because I had prepared a presentation that required me to ramble about too many topics to get my points across. Regrets for intentionally distancing myself from my drawing hobby for no apparent reason. Regrets for making my several hours long afterschool naps a regular habit because I didn’t care enough to put the phone down at 2 am. Regrets for making people angry by sleeping through obligations. Regrets for not pursuing personal projects that would have brought ...
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Emily Nguyen, Week #16: 8 days

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Hopping onto BART with my brother, who still hasn’t left for university Deafening music and a sea of flashlights all around The second day of school in 7 hours, yet I’m still out here early morning What’s to say about this year’s work ethic? Club handling, hours on a hot field, a new instrument—sign me up! Studying habits nowhere to be found; I was just born for this! Though, Bonding through the most intense classes, we made many new friends Unfamiliar faces span the fondest memories.    and I’d get by it just fine.    unlocking rusted gates won’t hurt me now. Suddenly we’ve (I’ve) become much friendlier. Now, I can pick apart my food without concern. I laugh in all my classes. I didn’t know I missed this years past.  I’d only shut my eyes (for some shuteye). Now I’ll surely miss all these people   Classmates, acquaintances, or friends?—   Strings attached themselves from me to you.  Whether I wanted it or not, I picked up a co...
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Lara Reyes-Terry | Week 16 | Needing Storage

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The word you’re looking for is pathetic.  It’s pathetic to be up at god knows what hour, slid halfway down your pillow, frustration stuffing your mouth with silence because walking into darkness for food isn’t a possibility anymore. You’re not frustrated about being hungry—your face is an ugly mess, the result of pulling that loose thread on your pants too tightly. The light of your phone is so bright it makes everything within a five inch radius all the darker. You can’t stop thinking about the clothes you set out for the next morning because if you don’t, you’ll start to convince yourself that the guy standing in the corner of your room is real. You’re just trying to doomscroll is all.  Between the vigorous workout of your thumbs swiping up up up up a hundred miles to nowhere and the thirty-eight course meal of color your eyes gorge one, you’re still tired and still hungry. For taking so much space on your phone, it takes too little in your mind.  (11:11 They’re going...
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Shriram | Week 16 | In Just Five Pages

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My writing isn’t good enough for me to not have a purpose. And I want to write. I want something original to say. A way of describing the world around me without calling my eyes “pupils,” our planet a “spinning rock,” our phones “glass boxes,” or my window a “glass pane.” Innovation isn’t always about creating extraordinary, new ideas; sometimes it’s about putting the ordinary under new light. But if your genius only exists in trite, minimalist, absurdist classifications, it’s time to hit the books. It’s time to hit the books. I haven’t read enough writing in Indian English, I’m discovering. Recently, I started reading R. K. Narayan’s Malgudi Days, a collection of short stories that take place in the fictional town of Malgudi. We read a terrible article on our AP test about science fiction. However, in its premise there is truth. Not all writing is the same, and science fiction typically employs a style that is much more intentional and concrete. While it may not always conform to perf...
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Harshi Pannala Q4 #4 - The Stars of the Show

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“Hey God, it’s Harshi again. I know you’re probably sick of me. Truly, I apologize for wasting your time but please just tell me this: Did I make the most of this year? … No response. But it’s ok because I haven’t yet reached that level of transcendence yet.  BOOM! The insight reached me. All school year I had been saying that God was testing me. But I wasn’t being tested—ok maybe I was being tested because frankly this has been an insanely difficult year—rather I have been blessed.  I have to talk about the friendships I’ve been lucky enough to have to get me through the long study sessions and the scary Aeries notifications. Before junior year I had this false notion that good friends are evident only through grand gestures. They have to buy the biggest balloon for your birthday or spend hours making me a personalized scrapbook. While these are awesome and very much valid they are not the sole indicators of friendship. To me friendship is most clear in how Vachi calls me eve...
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Tanisha Madhukar - Blog 16 - Swiss Miss

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I hate that this is ending. I’m going to miss the weekly paragraphs that I write for everyone. I’m going to miss reflecting on different aspects of my teenage life. I’m going to miss the community that we’ve spent months building and nourishing.  I often miss things in my daily life. I attribute it to the constant flow of thoughts throughout my brain combined with the constant pressure to perform both academically and socially. To counteract this forgetful feeling I’ll often miss things on purpose, that way I have an excuse for when I fail.  Very recently, I was having a conversation with a fellow classmate about Beloved . I mentioned how I barely put any effort into reading and understanding the book, whereas they read the book not once, but twice, and watched videos to supplement the gaps in their understanding. I wonder if I had put as much care into understanding this book, maybe I wouldn’t have missed the magic the book had to offer. For every test this year I found mysel...
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Romir Swar Week 16: Love Letter to Lang

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  Dear AP Lang, I love you.  You’ve walked into my life, grasping me by the neck, and asked me to dance. At first, I did not understand you. I could not cadence myself to your flirtatious pulse. It was too fast. You were too fast. The song struck its final beat before I even realized we were dancing.  The music stopped.  But you remained.  You were patient with me. From the pitch black mornings to the pitch black nights, you were with me, waiting by my side while I sat in disbelief, or rather, in admiration of your beautiful complexion.  Like a thought on the finger tips of one’s cognition—ready to be processed, but ahh nevermind—you’ve pulled me in. Here—somewhere between the lines of confusion and clarity—I am a blank page, unsure where to begin. But struggle with you is not truly struggle; it’s tension, the kind of tension that trembles yet does not snap, the kind that cultivates deeply rooted growth. I began to sense the layers of your love, comprehendi...
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