6. Pretzels 2025

When you fall sick, any worries and problems that may have initially seemed overwhelming disappear. All that matters is your health. My parents have always told me that despite the numerous issues life may throw at you, nothing else matters as soon as you get sick. At that point, the only thing that truly matters is getting better. This lesson truly hit this past week. After stressing about the 3 tests this week and the 5 next week, I suddenly got a terrible fever and all those tests meant nothing (for the time being). I like to think about this moment like a magician snapping his fingers and everything other than staying hydrated and sleeping vanishing into thin air. It was a sudden shift in priorities I had barely any control over. It is also for this reason that my parents have always pushed me to exercise and maintain healthy habits. It is easy to overlook their advice when you are feeling fine. I also make excuses to myself when I am healthy. "I'll sleep earlier tomorrow....

  I didn’t eat the leftovers.  I didn’t eat the leftovers.  I didn’t eat the leftovers.  I didn’t eat the leftovers . Four different meanings. One sentence. Not the same sentence.  Right? In one word, it’s all about emphasis . In more words (anything to hit the minimum word count), the art of communication relies heavily on emphasis, which is composed of inflection, speed, volume, and pauses. But, emphasis does not have to be verbal—in fact (see what I just did here with the em dash?), it can be used in written rhetoric through the modification of syntax, diction, and style. We, the proud AP English students, should know. We’ve been analyzing rhetoric since—dare I say—we’ve been in diapers (see what I just did there with the hyperbole?). But, in all honesty, emphasis is—to put it frankly—pretty darn important. I mean, can you imagine if we didn’t have varying degrees of inflection and volume in speech? Or if I wrote my blog in a long, boring, mundane, tedious...

A few days ago, I received a text from my sophomore friend Cassidy, asking for advice on her junior year course registration: “Eunchan, would I survive if I took AP Lang along with four other APs next year? Would I die or is this doable??” This reminded me of my sophomore self begging other juniors (now seniors) to check if my selected courses seemed manageable around this time last year. I was scared that I would regret my selections and suffer for the next school year, but what seemed even scarier was colleges thinking my courses were not rigorous enough and giving me 94948 rejection letters. According to a survey done by the City University of New York, it is reported that most students in AP classes undergo “high levels of stress and burnout ” and “lose confidence in their ability to competently complete college courses."  As the college admissions process becomes more and more competitive with acceptance rates decreasing every year, it seems like many students(including mysel...

  “Motivation makes you wanna do work. Finishing some work makes you feel good, and that gives you motivation to then finish more work.”   Credit: easy, actually on YouTube Working toward the early POAS deadline this Thursday was a literal struggle. I would take the productivity tips I learned before, blocking out time on my schedule and following the Pomodoro technique to maximize the amount of work I could complete. I finally sat down, and an hour later, I turned up with an entire page of my critique finished. Actually, I lied—I had done absolutely nothing. I sat there thinking about what I would write and dreading the action of making my fingers type up the letters. I attributed this state of mine to writer’s block. Now, I realize that something else was missing. Motivation. Motivation is what fuels my every move. Hungry? Get a snack. Fear getting a B in AP Lang? Get to work. Motivation has the power to get me to do anything in life, even the things I hate (such as POAS)...

     I remember writing my first haiku in third grade, sitting outside on the blacktop looking for some particular part of scenery to admire in my poem. The cliche words I used to describe the frosty wind blowing on my nose and the trees swaying in the background did not paint a beautiful image at all. In hopes of creating a vivid image of a flower patch, something that I felt actually represented the beauty of nature, I used illustrative–or at least what third grade me thought was illustrative–words that captured the image in my mind.       My shallow words could never beat the masters of the haiku. Simple everyday words that seemed abnormal to use in the circumstance evoked the exact feelings that the author intended. The simplicity and complexity in a successful haiku never failed to amaze me. From the accurately descriptive words to a dramatically simple concept, the poems I read online were filled with life.      The power of having...

  Language is like a superpower—one minute, you’re using Dear Sir to sound more professional, and the next, you’re texting “ayo u wht u tryna eat” to your friend. The difference between using formal and informal language is more than just word choice. It can signify power, perception, and also knowing to respond with “I am truly astounded” vs. “ bruh .” Formal language creates authority. An example of this is legal documents. Half the time they sound like they were written by someone trying to confuse you on purpose, using superior language than your everyday Joe. That’s why customer complaints get taken a lot more seriously when they start with “I am deeply dissatisfied” instead of “bro what is this.” This is also another reason why students can have a totally different personality when writing an essay by adding words that they would never say out loud to sound more sophisticated. An example of this is how you would never randomly drop a “juxtaposition” into a conversation, but s...

(Source: YourDictionary) Interestingly, before the POAS project in this class, I never really thought much of biographies. I thought they were boring, stagnant, and didn’t have much value because it was so easy to get information about someone. Literally, a simple Google search could answer any question I wanted about anybody, rendering a biography a relic of the past in my eyes . The requirement to read a biography for POAS was one that I dreaded, and I was just reading it to get it over with. In fact, I was planning on using evidence from my POAS book to the smallest extent possible while still maintaining the requirement. Even while reading the book, I really did not enjoy it even though I had appreciation and respect toward my POAS. However, after reading the book and composing an outline for the paper, I realized just how useful the biography was. When I was writing the outline in class, the evidence and ideas just flowed through my head through the immense amount of information I...

One of the key factors responsible for what differentiates great tennis players from good tennis players is the ability to control power on the court. The ideal tennis shot is actually not whacking the ball as fast as you can and praying it will land inside the court. Instead, it is hitting the ball at just the right power while maintaining a high level of accuracy. The same thing applies to real life as well. Power is born with every human being as every thing has some influence in our world whether it be from that one corner where you stub your toe to the government agencies that make laws for the world. Each person has the ability to make a change in the world; however, people need to realize that at some point they could overstep their boundaries and land themselves in some trouble. An example is convicted felons. They had the natural ability to commit crimes; however, they took advantage of it and ended up in prison. The same thing applies to tennis as in the case of the felons, t...

One of humanity’s most profound purposes in life is the millenia-long pursuit of knowledge –of truth. Throughout the rise and fall of entire empires and civilization, with countless religions and philosophies, from the first inkling of human cognition to the moral debates of today, we have tried to gain an understanding of universal truth.   In a world where information is becoming increasingly accessible to the public through the growth of the Internet and a spreading notion of free speech for all, it seems safe to assume that, with enough time searching, we could know the truth about everything. But is this really true? Knowledge has a history of being used as leverage. There are countless instances of censorship and blackmail–information is as good as any sum of money. Even without the controlled media that still rules over many people with an iron fist, any information that does exist still can be manipulated. Information holds influence over people, and influence is power...

Commas are beautiful. I know that. You know that. All APEng students know that. Unfortunately, little—perhaps even naive —9th-grade me did not realize that. In fact, I was almost notorious for having run-on sentences and comma splices in my English 9 Honors writing assignments. Now, I’m not really one to shift blame (that’s a blatant lie), but I—you guessed it—shifted blame to the number of sentences we had to write. Or how I was unaware of certain comma rules. The list just goes on and on. Rhinoceri, presidents, and Oxford Commas - courtesy of WordPress.com But then, amidst all the grammatical chaos and comma errors, I saw the divine, holy, sublime —even—Oxford Comma. I don’t know why—in fact, I don’t know to this very day—but something inside me just clicked . It was almost as if I found solace in the very thing that used to decrease my English 9H writing grade (quite the anti-reliever).  And that’s when I started suffering from this thing that can be best described as “Chronic ...

(Source: PALNI Pressbooks) Rhetoric is often defined as the ability or art of persuasive speaking and writing. However, this simple and barebones definition does not go to show the true power of it. Before I discuss the power of rhetoric itself, a quick history lesson is needed. The origins of rhetoric can be traced to the Classical period of ancient Greece, in which key philosophers like Plato and Aristotle played a fundamental role in defining various forms of rhetoric, and when/where to employ them. As we have spent a lot of time learning this in our AP English class this year, I won’t go into the details of the forms of rhetoric defined by these Greek philosophers (ethos, pathos, logos). Instead, I’d like to focus on the power and influence that rhetoric has had throughout history. Even before the ancient Greeks defined rhetoric, people have made strong and evocative speeches toward their audience that are heavily persuasive. Some notable examples of the power of rhetoric in both ...

  Reflecting on the novels we read throughout high school— Of Mice and Men in the 9th grade, Maus in the 10th, and We Too Sing for America in the 11th—it is clear that one of the elements FUSD highly values and promotes is the creation of an inclusive society.  By exploring these topics, we have dived deeply into the diverse ways in which ethnic, gender, and religious minorities have been discriminated against in the past. However, despite the growing power of these minorities, there is still a significant lack of education given to students about people with disabilities, which I think is kind of funny considering that people with disabilities make up 13% of the U.S. population, an equal percentage to the African Americans that reside in the U.S. This lack of awareness is especially visible at school, where I feel it has become abnormally common to see people casually using slurs and derogatory terms subjected toward people with limited abilities.  The good news is tha...

Art has long been perceived as a means of expressing one’s identity and emotions. From photographs that expertly capture the joy of life to songs that portray the heartache of a breakup, art and creativity are our most ingrained methods of human connection. Yet history has also seen the oppression of art by authority in order to limit expression. After all, if art is what unites us, taking that bond away is a sure-fire way to isolate people and maintain control. Dmitri Shostakovich, a Soviet-era Russian composer who debuted with his first symphony at the age of nineteen , seemed to be destined for world-wide success. But his life, like those of so many other composers and artists, would soon be overturned by the reign of Joseph Stalin. Artists during this period in the country's history were ordered by the government to propagate the idea of Soviet glory through their work, lest they be persecuted. But Shostakovich persevered even as he bent to Stalin’s will, obscuring his true fe...

I remember watching a clip of Gloria in Modern Family , where her husband Jay had taken Manny, her child, out of Spanish class in school and enrolled him in French. Her frustration shined through her shaking, accent-heavy voice as she stormed into the room. She angrily tells him that she wished he would care more about what she thinks, instead of always having her translate what she wants to say in her head before actually saying it. As a grown adult, she feels embarrassed when she has to ask her child for the words that she wants to use. She highlights the struggles and embarrassment immigrants often feel in a foreign country, not being able to speak their own language at home. Language differences in a family often make invisible walls, especially for an immigrant like Gloria who still struggles to learn English, living in an English-speaking family. Jay finds Gloria a few days later to tell her that he loves her, but with a twist: it’s in Spanish. Her eyes sparkle in joy after find...

The Present. With the world filled with constant distractions—the test I bombed earlier today or the essay I really should have put more time into—it is easy to lose sight of what truly matters: now. We do not live in our pasts or have a chance to change decisions already made. What matters and is in our control is the present moment where life takes place.  I am guilty of dwelling upon the past, trapping myself in what feels like an endless cycle of regret and anxiety. It ruins my mood, making me irritated, and pulling me away from the opportunities the present can provide.  Living in the present involves taking an optimistic approach to life. It is about recognizing that while we can't magically fix that bombed test score or make more time to work on that essay, we can focus on what can be done right now.  This mindset creates a sense of calmness and clarity because it removes distractions and worries about what has already happened, which are entirely out of our contro...

  Language is a strong tool, however, not many phrases hold as much authority as “Because I said so.” This short phrase has been said throughout many generations, and is a statement that adults can hold power over children. Although it sounds pretty dismissive, I could argue that that phrase is one of the most powerful sentences ever.  It’s kind of funny how “Because I said so” is like the verbal way of a mic drop . It ends arguments, skips explanations, and makes the conversation over with. There isn’t any reasoning in it either—it’s just authority in four words. I never found a comeback for it as a kid. It’s the go-to answer for everything and everything that adults might not feel like explaining, like “Why can’t I skip school?” “Because I said so.” Even if the situation is totally random, it still ends up working.  I think this phrase shows its power by reminding kids that adults make the rules. It’s just a phrase of authority. It takes away negotiation and shows who’s...