5th Beloved

LAST KANYE BLOG POST:(      New quarter, new topic! When faced with the topic of “memory,” I am instantly flooded with ideas and possibilities to interpret this new topic. But as per tradition, I have to find some far-fetched way to tie this blog topic into my recurring theme for the first post of each quarter: Kanye.     Thankfully, I don't have to stretch too far to do this. The concept of memory is in some way the foundation of Kanye's entire discography. Most artists tend to create incohesive albums that often follow individual storylines with no connection, such as Taylor Swift (sorry please don't get mad at me Faith this isn't necessarily a bad thing). A select few artists on the other hand have some connection or path running through their albums, and this applies to Kanye with the connecting factory being his life itself. Kanye's fundamental basis for creating art is the different aspects, moments, and changes he has experienced in his life. This c...

 Language, Memory, and Mental Time Travel: An Evolutionary Perspective (article)     Like every quarter, this quarter's topic has startled me: language and memory. So I decide (like every week 1) to search up an article and write about it. Unfortunately the only one I could find was super long.     Going into the article, The structure is a lot like our POAS essays: introduction, other topics, and conclusion are labeled as headings; and  there are 5 heading in there.      Section 1: Introduction. " Memory, in all its forms, is critical to language." Very deep quote. Seems like this means that there is no language without memory. A later paragraph talks about "mental time travel." It talks about how we can create fictional events whenever we wanted to. I know for a fact that this happens a lot, and I also know many of you guys will agree with this.     Section 2: "Mental Time Travel and Universal Grammar." What could universal gramma...

Yi-Kuan Cheng Benedetti AP English P5 23 March 2022 Quarter 4, Week 13: “Memory. What is a Memory?” Memory is such a fun buzz word to throw around. While identity, America, and power all have a sort of stigma around them. However, memory is such a powerful word yet it is so open to interpretation, it feels almost as if writing about memories is a cliche in itself. And indeed I myself have utilized the cliche of memories to create a work of writing that feels pseudo-deep. Today, I would like to share my script that I used for a promotion video for Yearbook. Memory. What is a memory? A memory is a story, a legacy, the building blocks of us all. Yet with a tick tick tick... poof. It’s gone. The very nature of a memory, despite its name, is to be forgotten. any memory, no matter how memorable, constantly dangles off a cliff, fighting to avoid falling into the abyss of the buried past. a memory should be a childhood toy, re-discovered, re-lived, re-enjoyed years after. A memory should be ...

    This prompt, unlike the last, feels much easier to write for. Memories can be defined as everything we know. Everything we know we learned in the past. In the past, everything is a memory. So, I can basically use these blogs as a diary, but I won't. Instead, I'll look at this prompt as a vehicle to talk about some of my favorite memories.     If you were in my last blog group, one of the patterns you would see is that I often reference my brother. This is because, well we're siblings, and live in the same household, so I interact with him quite often. I've also been told that my brother and I have a very close relationship when compared to other siblings.     My brother also talks a lot, often giving me lectures about history, math, or any other subject whenever we eat together. He is often the reason I have so much to talk about, since I have so much information that I learned from him alone.      My favorite memories with my brother are...

   Q3 Week 4 - Metaphorically By Raymond Yu (Art displaying memory as a filing cabinet)     Memories are notoriously unreliable, but one case of forgetfulness stands out in particular: the "doorway effect." The "doorway effect" describes the phenomenon where people forget what they were going to do as soon as they walk through a doorway. It is what causes people to stand in the living room, look for a pencil to write with, and then forget what they wanted as soon as they enter the next room. The reason behind this phenomenon is an interesting quirk of the way short-term memory works. Short-term memories are memories that are only stored temporarily in the brain, and either get encoded into long-term memory or get discarded and wiped depending on the personal importance of the information contained.       Human brains, according to a 2011 article on Scientific American, are primed to wipe short-term memory as soon as the context changes. Why? It se...

Image Source The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild  is undoubtedly one of the greatest video games of all time. Blending a rich open world experience with literary storytelling and innovative game mechanics, it captivated seventh grade Krish and continues to enthrall me to this day. I have logged over 100 hours into the game, and I cherish every moment that I have spent with it over the years. The premise of the story lies in Link's two quests: the first to save the kingdom of Hyrule from evil forces and the second to recover his lost memories after awakening from a 100 year slumber. As you follow the game's storyline and explore the world of Hyrule, bit by bit, you begin to piece together Link's complex and moving history through cutscenes triggered as Link wanders into specific areas. With each new memory acquired in the game comes a greater understanding of not just Link's prior life, but the purpose behind his actions and the very quest he's on. Link's mem...

  Week 13 (Why do we remember?) - 3/23 [5:59] I started reading chapter 7 of Beloved after the exhausting CAASPP test on Tuesday, and this one paragraph really stuck out to me. I’ll just insert a few sentences: “She shook her head from side to side, resigned to her rebellious brain. Why was there nothing it refused? No misery, not regret, no hateful picture too rotten to accept? Like a greedy child it snatched up everything. Just once, could it say, No thank you? I just ate and can’t hold another bite?” (83). What causes our minds to remember the most painful moments in our lives, but not the names of our first grade teachers, what we had for breakfast that morning, or any information we need for an upcoming test? What decides which information is important and what isn’t? I would like to believe that we tend to hold onto information that will come to be helpful in the future, but I definitely don’t need the phone number for the old landline at my childhood home, but I still hav...

I, like the rest of you reading this, have been in high school for almost three years. Three years doesn’t seem like a lot when you look at it from a perspective of your lifespan, but the change that has occurred in these three years of our lives has been one of the most important transitions and moments of our life. During this time, I have made many memories, both enjoyable and not-so enjoyable ones. As a whole, memories are an important part of who we are and hold important information about our personal attributes and traits.  One specific memory that stood out to me from my first year of high school was American's girls soccer team’s first team bonding, which took place in the first few weeks of the season. As a freshman on varsity, I did not know many others on the team, and I often found myself struggling to find a partner to pass with or to just have fun conversations with. All the other girls intimidated me, until I met my (soon to be) best friend. During the team bonding...

Week 13 - shrug it off The following is an excerpt adapted from a conversation between Sean and an anonymous party. Sean: Want an Almond Joy? Anonymous: No thanks, I’m allergic to nuts. Sean: Since when are you allergic to nuts? Anonymous: I actually developed a nut allergy over quarantine— Sean: —because you have a slight immunodeficiency, I almost forgot. Anonymous: How do you— Sean: Remember when you told me about your wisdom teeth extraction about a year ago and you mentioned that you couldn’t use the general anaesthetic due to it triggering your immune response? And then you started complaining about how it hurt to the point where it ruined your yearbook photo because of how swollen your cheek was— Anonymous: Sean… Sean: What? Anonymous: HOW THE HELL DO YOU REMEMBER THAT? Sean: shrugs . . . All right, I’ll admit it. I’m not the greatest when it comes to remembering things I should be. My atrocious calculus grade is more than proof of that. But say the name of any one of my friends...

Faith Qiao  Benedetti English 11AP 23 March 2022 Rememory I’m writing this blog after seeing the topic with Toni Morison’s Beloved still ringing in my ear. If I were to generalize my feelings after reading the book, it would be that Morrison has a skill for making people feel extraordinarily uncomfortable. Other than Sethe, there is no character that is likable to me. Yet the more I read, the more unsettling it feels—the more I want to set it down, but the more I want to keep learning more. I’m not excited to learn about the next feature of the plot, but instead I’m captured by the peculiarity of the events—how every detail makes sense but doesn’t at the same time. I would say Morrison blends poetry and prose—the obscurity tied to the versus in free-written form as well as the intensity communicated through continuity. The exercise we did in class today was long and stressful. And though I’d imagine that most of us in this group would like to forget about that experience, I wish to...

  Q3 Week 4 - Metaphorically By Raymond Yu (Metaphors describing a common subject, love)     Metaphors are one of the most basic tools in a writer's toolkit, one that is taught to all children starting in elementary school. It is widely analyzed by people of all age groups and when used properly, creates fantastic results. The sheer amount of different ways to describe common subjects is astounding, each one reveals a different perspective to the audience.      One of the most beneficial ways of using a metaphor is to describe an intangible concept so that the audience can more readily understand it. For instance, as shown in the image above, love can be described in a variety of ways through comparisons with tangible objects that the audience can draw from their own experience. Other examples include the use of money to describe time, heat to describe anger, and bitter tastes to describe failure. Metaphors are used to make the intangible tangible, the invi...

 The Power of the Gambling with my Grade blog series Source:  https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/15929     I know the Gambling with my Grade series went on for three blog posts, and I think it has ended this week (maybe it hasn't, I didn't check). Thus, I would like to complete this blog topic with a full on blog about why we are allowed to do this (and why we should get credit for it).     As we can tell, power is has a very vague definition. According to the dictionary, "the ability to do something or act in a particular way, especially as a faculty or quality" (macOS's Dictionary App). In this definition, something is vague as well. According to the dictionary, "a thing that is unspecified or unknown" (macOS's Dictionary App). Unspecified. That's the key word. So power means we can do what we want, and in the series of Gambling with my Grade  we did what we want: not write about power (and turn in a blog late) . So in this context...

Faith Qiao  Ms. Benedetti English 11AP 2 March 2022 Apologies I think it’s already more than apparent the amount of power that language holds over all of us—in fact, there’s really no nuance to elaborating on this topic too much. But I promised a special someone that I wouldn’t gamble on my disappearing English grade, so I’ve chosen to discuss the magic of apologies. I had a dark period in my life spanning the tender ages of 10-12. I was strangely sexist and couldn’t stand it when any boy would touch me, and I was so disgusted that I went around demanding apologies because I couldn’t shake the feeling that the touches were still on me. The primary victim of this phase in my life was my younger brother who was 8 when this all started. If he, so much as, touched me, I’d snarl and make him stand there and apologize until I was satisfied. It started with the simple phrase of “I’m sorry.” But the repeated offenses against elementary school Faith escalated the apology to “I’m sorry and I...

ur mom is pretty cool Some said it couldn't be done. The non believers called me a madman, a lunatic, and an absolute poseur of an APENG student. Well, look at me now. Without further ado, I present to you all a blog post on the hottest topic of the 21st century: your mom. And your dad too, I guess. This week, I want to talk about the power of our parents, and the things they do to make us who we are. Since the moment I entered this world, my parents have either been my most loved or most hated people. As paradoxical as it may seem, I found that to be true for a lot of people. I’m glad that they’re there when I need them the most, but gosh — can’t they understand that I can’t pause an online video game? Apparently, it takes on average around 200 to 300 thousand dollars to raise a single child. That’s a lot. You may have complained about your POAS taking the majority of your time; I’d wager that your parents feel the same after spending a quarter of their lives raising a rebellious,...

image/video linked below To be honest, I was originally going to write this post about onomatopoeias, but halfway into the draft, I decided to scrap it because it was boring. I have decided to keep my original blog title because I feel like it could match with about anything I write about (more or less). So, as I listen to my “ Cozy Fall Coffee Shop Ambience: Relaxing Jazz Music & Rain Sounds for Studying, Relaxation, & Sleep ” in my attempts to focus on schoolwork, I find myself at a loss as to what to write about this final blog for our extremely vague topic. This topic has led us to somewhat of a revolution in the blogging cohort that has been interesting to watch for these past few weeks. When I was writing my POAS, I was listening to the same background music, since it is more like white noise than anything else. So, I have decided that I am going to write about the power of POAS. While reading each of the last blogs written by this cohort, there was a common theme: people...

  Week 12 (The Power of this Cohort in All Our Insanity) - 3/2 [6:13] We did it. It’s the final “language and power” blog post, so hopefully we can all chill regarding what to write (unlike these past few blogs, I have a plethora of ideas for “language and memory”), and we can all breathe knowing that POAS is done with (for now at least). It shocks me that it has only been three blogs, but I feel like I’ve gotten to know the people in this cohort better than I did in last semester’s. I’m not exactly sure why that is, but I think it has something to do with the fact that we were all going through the stresses of the biggest project of the year together, and we most likely didn’t have anyone else to vent to. Although Ms. Benedetti might be a bit concerned when she reads our blogs and comments for this topic, I feel like we’ve sent a pretty good message about the emotional and mental side effects of taking this class, especially considering there are three blogs with “gambling with ...

Yi-Kuan Cheng Benedetti AP English P5 2 March 2022 Quarter 3, Week 12: The Beloved Beloved It doesn’t take a detective to see how far we as a blog cohort have stretched the precedent of blog posts. However, the weekly survey this Monday helped me realize exactly how surreal this quarter’s posts have been. So, I will be discussing the power all of your language has had on me. I think all of us were all equally initially stumped by the behemoth topic of power. In each of our own ways, we expressed this confusion resulting in the incredible diversity of all our first posts. From video-game toxicity to writing about literally nothing, we could all see each other’s struggle to come to terms with the quarterly umbrella. However, it was this same diversity that brought us together. We came together to explore broader and broader topics without the fear of being ostracized. Never in my life would I have thought I could write a semi-formal piece in my English class about Among Us . With thi...

Image Source Over the last week, I've been watching the new Netflix original documentary Downfall: The Case Against Boeing . The film centers around the devastating Boeing 737 Max crashes within five months of each other in 2018 and 2019—something unheard of in modern aviation for a new plane like the 737 Max, and it seeks to answer the question of what truly caused these deaths to happen. I just finished the documentary with my little brother yesterday night, and it left a lasting impression on me—inspiring this blog post on the power of documentaries on me personally and society at large. To be completely honest, my favorite genre of television and films isn't action, comedy, adventure, or anime; it's documentary. If you were to log into my Netflix profile and browse to the "Recently Watched" section, you'd find a slew of documentaries that I've consumed over the years: The Great Hack , The Movies that Made Us , Challenger , Explained , We Steal Secrets...

There are many different forms of meditation. A simple one is closing your eyes as you breathe in and out, with the intention of tuning everything out and relaxing solely on your breath. Some other forms of meditation include guided meditation and non-concentrative meditation, when you focus on a particular physical object. There are many other forms, but in each type, there is a common result. One that meditates regularly is able to focus their attention more clearly and eliminate the stream of thoughts that overtake their minds, as well as enhance physical and emotional well-being. Even meditating occasionally can lead to an observed state of relaxation. Since I was a child, my parents have always encouraged meditation. When I was a child, we would gather once a week as a family to meditate for ten minutes. When those five minutes began, it felt like an eternity had gone by and a flurry of random thoughts flooded my mind, ultimately disrupting me from actually meditating, before it e...