Sohil's Story

     As senior year draws to a close I don't feel the excitement that I always thought I would feel in younger grades. I thought that the end of senior year would mean that I would fall behind on work and not care a lot about school. Instead the end of senior year is pretty much like the end of any year. Most of my days feel the same; I log in to class from 7:20 to 12:25 then I study, watch some TV, sleep and repeat the next day. The days seem to blend together and it's difficult finding motivation.      I hope this will change after AP tests. After that, I won't have school and I won't have anything to study for. While this may seem like a good thing, and I hope it is, I worry that without any goal to work towards I will have nothing worthwhile to do. In the past, I would be so excited for just a little free time where I could go play basketball or go biking or something fun with friends. With the pandemic, I worry that instead of making the most of my fre...

      The play Waiting for Godot  centers around two characters, Vladimir and Estragon as they wait for a man named Godot who never shows up. The play displays the meaningless nature of their wait through a jumbled speech from Lucky and a drab setting. Through the play, I was able to see how pointless waiting for something can be.      Many people set New Year's Resolutions every year, such as budgeting better, exercising more, or reading more books, and try to stick with them for as long as they can. Sometimes people are able to succeed and build a lifelong habit. However, according to some studies, around eighty percent of New Year's Resolutions fail in February. I believe the primary reason for this is that people wait till New Year's to institute a change in their life. Even though they may want to read more in November, they say to themselves "I should leave this as a New Year's Resolution". Then when the time comes around, they aren't as pas...

    Recently I have been watching a lot of March Madness. Filling out my bracket, rooting for my favorite team, Michigan, and watching basketball make March Madness lots of fun. However, by watching the games I learned a lot outside of basketball.      One of the big upsets has been Oral Roberts University advancing to the Sweet Sixteen. To do this, they beat Ohio State and Florida. No one thought they would make it this far but they overcame the odds of playing two difficult games and proved everyone wrong. This showed me that no matter what anyone says, as long as you believe in yourself anything is possible.      The second lesson I learned came from the Illinois vs Loyola Chicago game. Illinois was coming off a great season and had the number 1 seed and many people thought they could win the championship. However, Loyola Chicago beat them to advance to the Sweet Sixteen. Even though you could see a lot of the Illinois players were hurt by this...

 You say goodbye to your parents Your belongings are packed You drive away from your house And start your new journey. While driving you look out the window And see beautiful flowers everywhere All along the sides of the road Are orchids the brightest, richest shade of purple. Orchids shoot out of other cars exhaust Orchids raining from the sky Orchids sticking to your windshield Orchids cloud your vision.  You get to your dorm And turn on the lights Your bed is covered in orchids And your orchids litter the floor.  Yet even in the midst of all the orchids You still miss back home.  This poem was my spin on Orchids Are Sprouting From the Floorboards by Kaveh Akbar. The poem is about distracting yourself from a distress in your life. 

 I sit at my desk Typing on a medium screen Feeling a little tired I have to sip some caffeine Once I finish working On my medium screen I can start to relax And change the scene I switch my attention To a smaller screen Scrolling through stories About the COVID vaccine I should get some fresh air, I think to myself I glance outside, the sunset red as a rose But Netflix calls to me on a large screen Fresh air isn't that important I suppose It's time to go to bed I finally shut of my screen Resolving to decrease my screen time But I can't escape my routine. 

You sit at a desk Tapping your feet They pass out the test And tell you not to cheat You work through the problems At blazing speed Then look back through the test Making sure to proofread You turn test in Nervous for your grade You walk back to your desk Still a little afraid Over the next couple days You still think of your test Trying to distract yourself Just makes you more distressed The teacher finally hands back your test Facing upside down You flip it over hoping for the best And you are not letdown Now you see That your hard work pays off Your worrying was foolish You look back and scoff.

 In Invisible Man , by Ralph Ellison, the narrator is sent North by Dr. Bledsoe under the guise of finding a job in New York City. After being rejected by all except one of the jobs Bledsoe supposedly lined him up for, the narrator goes to the last job opportunity. There a man who is the son of Mr. Emerson, a trustee, reveals to the narrator that the letter of recommendation that Bledsoe gave him actually portray the narrator in a negative light.  This realization leads to a feeling of anagnorisis, where the narrator realizes that just because someone is black doesn't mean that they have other black people's best interest in mind. He understands that Bledsoe doesn't care about him and the other black students, but rather Bledsoe just cares about his position in the white man's society. This means doing anything that allows him to hold his power, which predominately includes doing things that please white men.  After realizing that people's motives may not be what th...