Laughter is the Best Medicine when AP English Gets Feverish

     "This is not a novel, a book, or a story. It's a PLAY" (Ms. Serensky). Well, now that I know how to properly identify my favorite work of literature we have read this year, I will reveal which play it is: The Importance of Being Earnest. The main reason this text is my favorite is because it is only 54 pages and we read it in a week. Just kidding! That is surely a plus though. Thinking back to all of the books we have read this year my mind goes to a psycho murderer, a man who watches a woman get raped, a doomed life at birth, resentment towards family, and mental patients. Basically, I liked IOBE because it is the only book that didn't have something terribly depressing occur. "Why on earth do you say that," you may ask (Wilde 3)? Ultimately, I thought this piece of literature was filled with pure humor and light-hearted topics. This is definitely the book that I wanted to end my senior year with for the aforementioned reason. Plus, the fact that we read this play out loud made me like it that much more. "It is a great truth" that smiles are contagious and I feel this play created a very joyous atmosphere in our classroom. It was very easy for me to follow the story unlike other novels where I have felt very confused after reading. The characters, especially Algernon, really drew me into the story with their dynamic personalities. I think Wilde's inclusion of "bunburrying" and placing the baby in the handbag instead of the basinette was so clever. I really like how everything in the story reaches a full circle at the end when we find out Jack's history. More so, I especially loved playing the part of Gwendolen. I looked forward to going to class that week to act her part out. By reading the play aloud, I feel I fully comprehend Wilde's mocking of the aristocratic class that I would not have grasped if I read it by myself. I can honestly say that I learned "the vital Importance of Being Earnest" (Wilde 54).


I feel like the yellow smiley when I think of IOBE.

My Top 10 Most Blogworthy Academic Achievements

     Although I have never officially won an academic award (besides the Principal's Merit Award and Power of the Pen challenge in Middle School), I have had many individual academic achievements that I am proud of. Some, although seemingly small, have made the top 10 list that I am about to share with you. Get ready to have your mind blown away my intellectual brilliance in no particular order...


1. Acceptance to my first college. Opening up that first college letter from Penn State, reading the first line that says I was accepted and nothing else. This was the pivotal moment where my hard work in high school paid off. Although I will not be attending that university in the fall, just knowing that all the late nights of countless homework and hours of test prep was worth it in the end. "The site of it printed in capital letters on the...page" was an exhillirating feeling (Lahiri 89).


2. Receiving an A on my Honors Trig Final. For those of you who don't know me, I am not a math person. Never have been and never will. Math, no matter what form of it, just doesn't click with me. I still challenge myself in AP math classes though to try and form a better relationship with the subject. Last year I took Honors Trig with Mrs. Petite. That class rattled and shook my brain more than any one I had ever taken, but I worked hard all throughout the year and...I got an A on the final! I couldn't believe it, I was absolutly astonished that I had done it. To this day, "there is something in that [moment] that seems to inspire absolute confidence" in myself (Wilde 32).


3. The first 7 I ever received in AP English will go down in history. I still have the paper in my old binder underneath my bed so I will never forget. It was the paper that we wrote after we watched the Hurricane Katrina documentary and read an article on it in AP English 11. To my first 7 paper: "I am bound to thee forever" (Shakespeare 3.3.212).


4. The day my team beat the Dream Team. I have blogged about this experience before as my favorite day in AP English 12. If you would like to know the details of this magnificent day, see that post. Jackie, Katie, Nicola, and I made a great team. I knew we could beat the Dream Team. "And have we not affections?/ Desires for [10 extra credit points]?...as the [Dream Team] have?" (Shakespeare 4.3.108-109). Of course we do!!


5. Passing both my AP tests last year. I waited for what felt like the entire summer to get those test scores in the mail. I studied so many hours for the apush exam it is unreal. "[Those tests], an entity shapeless and weightless, managed nevertheless to distress [me] physically, like the scratchy tag of a shirt [I] had been forced to wear" (Lahiri 76). All that studying means less studying in college now!


6. Maintaining a 4.5 GPA all three quarters of my Senior year. I hope to continue this trend all the way to graduation. I'm happy that I did not/tried not to let Senioritis get the best of me. Lady Bracknell says that "Ignorance is like a delicate fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone" (Wilde 13). I am proud to say that I did not let ignorance and laziness stand in my way of finishing off my last year of high school strong.


7. Finishing my college essay was an amazing feeling. I feel that that essay is the best piece of work I have ever written. I worked so hard on that paper to impress all the colleges I applied to. I read it and edited it so many times I had the entire essay memorized. I could honestly recite it back to you today if you would like. My essay basically took over my life but thankfully "it no longer looms over [my] life, darkening it without warning as it used to do" (Lahiri 78).


8. Getting over a 100% on the 10th grade research project. Jackie could agree that this was one of the most unbearable things we have ever had to do. I remember sitting in her office for hours at a time staring at the computer screen trying to type this paper. It didn't help that our topic was "does diet and exercise directly correlate with academic success?" I mean, "that [topic] is nonsense," of course there is a direct correlation (Wilde 7). But our group managed to dish out an amazing research paper that scored well above our expectations.


9. Turning in that first 18 page Data Sheet on Othello. I remember thinking to myself at 2:00 a.m. the night before it was due, "Kill me tomorrow; let me live tonight!" (Shakespeare 5.2.80). I never thought that I would get that thing done..or that I would get an A on it!


10. This blog post. "[I] realized there's no need to lie. Not technically" for I honestly didn't think that I would be able to think of 10 "blogworthy" academic achievements that I have had in my high school career (Lahiri 96). But I did and now I feel very accomplished and pleased with myself.

To Say Yes or to Say No, That is the Question

     My favorite poem this year would have to be Elisavietta Richie's "Sorting Laundry." The reason this poem is my favorite is because it is one of the few that I could completely understand. I think the message is very clear that the speaker is contemplating marriage. I liked that because it allowed me to really explore my writing in my poetry paper without worrying whether or not my interpretation of the poem was correct or not. Although this poem is very serious and genuine compared to the play, "The Importance of Being Earnest," I feel there is some connection there. I could imagine Cecily writing a poem like this in her diary, expressing the happiness and joy Ernest brings her. One of my favorite lines that Cecily says is “I like his hair so much. I must enter his proposal in my diary” (Wilde 34). This affectionate tone parallels Richie’s admiring tone toward her loved one, but in a less creepy way of course. I could also imagine Algernon belittling this poem like no other. The woman in Richie’s poem feels a life without a spouse would be entirely lonely and empty. Algernon, on the other hand, seems much more disdainful of marriage: “No married man is ever attractive except to his wife” (Wilde 26). There is a clear theme of bitterness towards marriage in the poem. Another instance of this occurs when Lane remarks, “I have only been married once. That was in consequence of a misunderstanding between myself and a young person” (Wilde 1). It is interesting to me that my favorite poem and favorite novel we read this year have such differing views on marriage. I wonder whether I will take Richie’s view on marriage or the socialites of the play in the future…

Can you redeem yourselves Dream Team?

     The Dream Team: DESTROYED. Yup, I said it. I beat the Dream Team. I'm sure it is very hard for Sam, Alex, Thomas, and John to swallow this fact but they can't deny the truth. It was a day of a terrible blizzard (one that should have definitley been a snow day, might I add). I woke up late because my alarm did not go off. I threw on sweat pants and a sweatshirt and drove five miles per hour to school Tokyo drifting the whole way there. I probably scared kids when they saw me running through the hallway with no make up on, my hair an afro mess, and my back pack half way open. I made it just in time for English class and for the day that Ms. Serensky would reveal the correct answers to the AP multiple choice test. Of course, The Dream Team was already huddled in the back corner, heads pushed together devising their plan. They were laughing and smiling, looking devilishly excited for what they thought would be yet another victory. Ms. Serensky announced the answer to number one: “B. That goes to Teams 3 and 5," she exclaimed. Of course Team 5, The Dream Team, answered correctly and it "made [them] feel, for those brief minutes, the absolute center of [the] world" (Lahiri 129). Yet, something wasn't quite right. Team 3, my team, started slowly noticing the increase in tally marks compared to the boys. They argued with one another after missing more and more questions. I bet Thomas was thinking in his head, "I had rather be a toad/And live upon the vapor of a dungeon" than to lose to them" (Shakespeare 3.3.66-67). John was screaming beating his fists on the table after yet another incorrect answer. The final scores were announced and my team ended up winning the 10 bonus points! We were so happy that our modesty and humbleness put our team at the top.. I will never forget the shocked looks on their faces. The Dream Team coming in second place for an AP multiple choice game is one of the best examples of simultaneous disappointment that I have ever seen. This day was by far my favorite day in AP English 12. “At last! At last! At last!” we put The Dream Team in their place (Wilde 54).

Iago Finds a New Love Interest

     Today was an absolutely wretched day. The annoyingsome Moor suggested that I attend a class on William Shakespeare to help with my speech. Like it needs any assistance. Thou art perfectly perfect the way I am. I yearned to sit in the corner to doth demonstrate my uninterest in this Shakespeare fellow. Yet, right as I walked into the door some woman, whom looked quite much like Desdemona, shoved a scroll in my face. She called it a journal and said I had fifteen minutes past the hour to write an "analytical paragraph." "By heaven I rather would have been [a] hangman" (4). I kept looking at the fine woman and decided that thou art spark a master plan to have her marry thee. She clearly was not wed for no ring covered her finger. "I [wore] my heart upon my sleeve" hoping that she would notice my unconditional love for her. Hark how this woman loved me. She detailed every word I said. I watched her delicate hands furiously scribble my every word. The young wretch next to thee said she 'twas only marking participation points, but what does she know? Ignorant child. A loud dinging noise concluded the class and I marched up to thine lady's throne. I took her hand gracefully and demanded she dine with thee at Othello's home in Venice. "Avaunt! Be gone," said my lady. She concluded to belittle me with the name "creep." I have not no knowlege tis what this means but I do not care. There is no use "to have a foolish wife" (68). Desdemona, my precious rose, I will come back to you once again and never return to the land of Chagrin Falls!

My Newest Pen Pal

Dear Ashima, 
     
     Greetings from the U.S.! I am pleased to be your newest pen pal! I hope you are enjoying your stay in Calcutta. Not much has changed in America since you left for India. I wanted to write you today about your move to America shortly after your marriage to Ashoke. I realize my country was not what you had expected in the least upon arrival. Although I have lived in the United States all my life, I have had an experience similar to yours: It was called AP English 11. My world was turned upside down when Ms. Bobbie Jo Serensky entered my life. The narrator of your story details your first impressions of the American citizens you encountered when you first arrived: "Americans, in spite of...their miniskirts and bikinis in spite of...lying on top of each other on the Cambridge Common, prefer their privacy" (3). Honestly Ashima, I would have been way more comfortable with these half-naked civilians than with Ms. Serensky on the first day of 11th grade English. I head heard the rumors all throughout ninth and tenth grade: "You have to write a 20 page paper in less than a week!" "If you don't get above a 5 on your first in-class essay, you my as well drop." And my personal favorite, "She takes off 10 points if you make a flower out of the hole punches on the side of your paper!" 
     I feel for you completely with your transition from India to America. My transition from Honors English 10 to AP almost put me through cardiac arrest. I really like the analogy you used post move: "For being a foreigner is a sort of life long pregnancy" (49). I can totally relate to this. AP English was a constant burden for me as well. I endured sleepless nights, belittling of my papers by the seniors, and immense anxiety. It took time to get used to this new routine. Yet now, I feel completely comfortable in AP English 12. What was once such a strange and foreign classroom to me has become a haven for learning and success. I really feel as if my AP English class is my family. We started off as foreigners in the classrooms, speaking a completely different language than Ms. Serensky. This barrier was broken down over time and now I am at home in her room. Likewise, you learned to accept America as your home regardless of the inferiority you felt upon arrival: "Pemberton Road, [I] know is home nevertheless" (280). I hope all is well! Please write back! 


Sincerely, 
Carley Mader

Mom to baby Carley: "You are going to be in AP English when you grow up! Aren't you excited?"