1. Elephants 2024

  I vividly remember when Star Wars: The Force Awakens (which is episode 7, the first of the sequel trilogy) came out in 2015. I was only 8 at the time, but I recall it being such a special and incredible moment in my life. I had been indoctrinated with Star Wars since I was six years old by my dad, with whom I watched all 6 of the movies that were out at that point. I was obsessed with Star Wars growing up as a result, so when I was told we were going to see the first new Star Wars movie in 10 years in theaters, I was beyond ecstatic.  Whether you think it was a good movie or not, it was a special experience regardless. I got to watch it with all of my cousins, who are also huge Star Wars fans. Seeing the opening crawl run across the screen in an actual movie theater was magical. After the movie, we all went back home—still jumping with excitement—and opened up this new version of Monopoly we had just bought that used credit cards instead of cash. It was a pretty cool day th...

  Week 16 Sans Soleil ("Sunless") – 5/14 [9:55 PM]    [IMGSRC] On my off days where I don’t worry so much about the upcoming AP tests that wrack my mind and  soul, I find myself wandering into the dreamscape of human thought in art films. Just last week, I  finished Stalker (1979) by Andrei Tarkovsky , and I thought it was a really interesting piece on desire  and the human psyche. At the time, it was revolutionary in its usage of perspective and light, making  it feel that the narrative was being told in a series of paintings. I had a lot of fun with the narrative,  and I had developed a mild interest in 70s and 80s art films. That was when I discovered “Sans Soleil”  earlier this week. It was something of a documentary, a series of footage from quaint settings of rural Europe and Japan  during the 70s. There was a narrator with a nice voice. There was footage overlaid of contemporary  documentary clips, home videos, newsreel foota...

 According to medieval legend, a German knight who was walking with his lover bent down to pick a little blue flower near a river, and the weight of his armor caused him to fall into the river, and his last words were “forget me not.” (Honestly not the weirdest legend I’ve heard).                                                                              image While the legend was created as a simple way to remind children to be careful, the story is why the forget-me-not flower is named what it is today.  Forget-me-nots have many different names in different cultures. In Greece, they were called “Myositis,” which means mouse ear since the furry texture of the flower’s petals reminded people of mouse ears.  The flower w...

Before I write anything, I must first emphasize that I dearly love Collegeboard, my beloved. My ever so dearest. My silken sweetheart, my boonful babygirl, my moondrop princess. (collegeboard.org) Quick! Now their watchful eyes have been thrown off, I must rant. Their gaze alone is strong enough to drive one into insanity. If you embrace the boons they proffer, you may just go insane. Knowledge is power, and knowledge is free. But nothing is free, and power corrupts absolutely! Do not gaze into the abyss, do not listen to the raving rants. Do not dance to the cheat, and when you venture into the fourth plane of knowledge, do not see those who crushes and stresses, squeezes and beats.  I fear that if I take one more “AP test” I may just lose me mind immediately! I shall sprout a third, no, a fourth arm, and wander outside the windows of The Fabric as an incomprehensible mess of flesh and bone, twisted into a shape unbelonging to this land.  To know, or not to know? Is the pursu...

Starting in the mid-1300s, the black plague spread through Europe, and by the end of the plague years, this epidemic had   killed 30-50% of Europe’s entire population—between 75 and 200 million people . Eyam was a small town during this era, and its population has grown little since 1665, when it had around 800 inhabitants, most of which were farmers. In August of 1665, the plague arrived in Eyam in a flea infested parcel of cloth sent to the village tailor, Alexander Hadfield. His assistant, George Vicars, became the first plague victim of Eyam on September 7th, 1665. During this era, the Church reigned supreme, and for small villages such as Eyam, local reverends were the pillars of the community. Thomas Stanley and William Mompesson were the two local reverends of Eyam, and it was their plan that contained the plague outbreak to Eyam. Eyam was quarantined—for over a year, nobody went in or out. Signs were erected around the village warning travelers not to enter and money was le...

My collage :P      I am tired and out of ideas for my blogs so I will just finish ranting about my collage since I think it holds a lot of memory in it so it’s on theme. The things I carry are purely based on their sentimental value to me. I just need a notebook and stationery to fuel me for the school day, however, I always find my bag and heart full of unnecessary things. The most important and expensive are my cameras. I find pride in documenting my experiences with my friends so I always have one of my two digital cameras on me, ready for action. What is equally as valuable is The Perks of a Wallflower, although I do not carry the physical book with me, I always have the lessons I have learned from reading the novel in the back of my head. The book was there for me at my lowest and helped me realize to live in the moment and to cherish my life. My friends have also always been there for me, I love them deeply and they are my stars so I asked each of them to cut a sta...

Recently, I had been pondering: "what truly makes up my identity?" After much thought, I came to the following conclusion: my identity is made up of characteristics of the people around me. It is weird, is it not? When we usually talk about identity we refer to the traits, beliefs, likes and dislikes that are within us, however in reality we actually adopt most of those things from the people we spend the most time with. Our brain automatically starts copying minor behaviors that we observe in others. It is a vicious cycle, meaning that the people we adopt those certain traits from got them from someone else, and that person got them from someone else, if that makes sense. The reason why I am basically equating identity to memories is because I firmly believe that the experiences we have and remember, along with the people we meet in different phases of our lives and what they directly or indirectly teach us, greatly affect our personality in the long-run. For example, when I...

"Baby you light up my world like nobody else"       Without revealing the name of this song, most people, of all ages, can recognize the instantaneous guitar beat that starts playing in their head, leading to the revival of the catchy lyrics, along with the faces of the five pop icons of the 2000s known as Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson, Harry Styles, Niall Horan, and Liam Payne, or in other words, One Direction. "What Makes you Beautiful," the band's debut song was not only a Billboard hit, but also the tune that ingrained itself into the minds of the 2010s. Leading with this phenomenal debut, One Direction proceeded to become a cultural icon, embedded in the hearts of millions of childhoods worldwide.      One Direction united people from a multitude of countries, promoting the power of unity and friendship. The key component of the dynamic between the band members was that they did not take themselves seriously, and focused purely on enjoying the music...

             Time, some might s ay, is the most crucial aspect of human life. Being the backbone of the past, present, and future, it shapes the memories we cherish, the events we remember, and the stories we tell. Its capability of providing a pathway for healing, learning, creating new relationships, and enabling the pursuit of goals and aspirations proves its well-deserved spot at #1 on people’s list of values. Their perception of time not only has an effect on their daily activities but also plays a significant role in making and recalling memories. By exploring this role, the complex relationship between memory and time perception becomes clear.  Have you ever felt, while doing an undesired task, that time was moving slower than when you were doing something you actually enjoyed? Well, research has illustrated that this phenomenon, called “time dilation,” is common and not abnormal. This is because moments of heightened or intense emotion are...