Category: Senior Literary

i don’t know if it’s the second semester of senior year hitting me, or if i genuinely need to go see a psychiatrist, because it’s getting rough. like, unimaginably rough. i can barely get out of bed. even after class, i sleep the entire day and then take melatonin so i can sleep more at night. i’ve been in this phase for a while now. the stress of this school is really starting to way down on me. when i get this way, i usually turn towards media. despite what you may think, i don’t reach out for happy media. rather, i consume media that is absolutely gut-wrenching. for some reason, it’s the only thing i can take when i’m like this. so, i thought i’d share some of my favorite gut-wrenchingly beautiful media. you don’t have to be in emotional distress to consume this stuff, but it helps.

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lift your skinny fists like antennas to heaven – an album by godspeed you! black emperor

as im writing this, this is the album i’m listening to (that’s how bad it is rn). this album really changed my life. the circumstances around me hearing it for the first time is sort of a sore subject now, but we’ll dance around it so i can explain the context of this album within my life. it’s a 1 hour and 27 minute album with only four songs: storm, static, sleep, and like antennas to heaven… the album is completely instrumental, with the only voices coming in the form of samples and short dialogue. no singing whatsoever. despite this, this album makes me feel more than any other out there. i could not recommend this album more. especially if you’re listening to it alone in the dark, eyes wide open and staring at the visual deformities in your eye. the vivid scenes i see in my head from this album are terrifying, and resemble the likes of the great artist Zdzislaw Beksinski. speaking of him, he’s also included in this list. 

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works by zdzislaw beksinski

the works by zdzislaw beksinski give me a feeling of absolute tragedy and dread like no other. i’m in love with them. i’ve always been a fan of surrealism, and beksinski pairs surrealism with a dystopian future and it is the perfect mix of absolute inexplicable dread. there are scenes of great walls with bodies strung from the top made out of bones thin as wire. great black birds with bellies full of blood fly above giant cathedrals made of the dead. faces are wrapped in layers of gauze and bodies crawl on all fours away from a burning fire. this is a nightmare world. beksinski creates this sense of horror and dread by making everything that is unimaginable and terrifying giant, and making us so so small. the album i previously mentioned can be best described as the soundtrack for this dystopian nightmare world. it’s a world i find myself lost in all the time. i don’t know how to describe it, but it’s everything i believe beauty and horror is. 

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the end of evangelion 

if you’ve ever watched neon genesis evangelion, then you know that is has a rather optimistic ending. if you don’t know about the ending to the show, read my blog about it here for context. basically, in the movie the end of evangelion, we see a more terrifying and unfulfilling ending. shinji rejects himself, and he succumbs to his darker parts. in turn, the world around him crumbles and falls as the third impact takes place. shinji rejects instrumentality. decomposing entities and blood oceans can be seen throughout the ending scenes. what was supposed to be a new existence of endless companionship and the end of depression and loneliness is now ultimately hollow and worthless. shinji stands on the shore and looks at the emptiness, mirroring himself. this movie practically threw out the optimistic ending of the show that brought me to tears, and took the show down a route that left me feeling as empty as the world i was watching. this movie is beautiful, but almost hard to watch. i couldn’t recommend it more. 

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six feet under

six feet under is a television show that follows the life of a family that owns a funeral home. every single episode starts with a death. the first episode, the death of the family’s father. the final episode, the death of the family. everything in-between is various deaths of unknown strangers. yet, we find ourselves getting to know those strangers through the actions of the main family. this show basically deals with death. all kinds of death. there is not a single episode of this show that doesn’t have some kind of death in it. this show left such an impact on me because of the way it ended. it is said to have one of the best endings in all of television. i think this is true. you watch these characters change and grow and in the end you watch every single one of them die. as a teenager with a suffocating fear of death, the ending broke me completely. i couldn’t take it. this show takes a very long time to finish, so i only recommend it when you truly feel like you’re at rock bottom, and you won’t be getting out anytime soon.

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bojack horseman

this is an obvious one. bojack horseman is a show that follows the life of former tv star bojack horseman as he navigates his personal grievances and mental issues. there are so many different characters in this show that i feel like represent a different part of me. the empty longing and cycle of suffering of diane. the self sabotage of bojack. the unfulfilling life of princess carolyn. there is so many things i could say about each character, but as a whole, this show is 100% life changing. not sure if it’s in a good way or not. but if you haven’t seen it, then it’s a must watch. the ending isn’t satisfying– not at all. and that’s because it’s real. this show doesn’t bullshit you. it doesn’t try to convince you that any of these characters are redeemable, or that they’ll get their final closure. because that’s not how life works. this show puts the ugly on show. it shows you the real grit of life. and that’s why it always hurts so much to watch. but i love it. 

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cry of fear

cry of fear is a video game that i hold very close to my heart. i’ve played it over 5 times now, and it’s a game i turn to often. it’s older and flawed, but is universally an agreed masterpiece. the game follows 19 year old simon after he gets into an accident. when he wakes up after the accident, he is alone in a world full of terrifying entities. as he navigates this world, all other signs of life get slim and slimmer. the girl he loves dies in front of him. he chases after a crazy doctor only to fall behind over and over again. he goes through these nightmare episode worlds that are surreal and terrifying. and he all wants to do is go home. when he finally reaches home, he realizes no one is home. and as he turns around, he is met with himself. there are many different endings to this game, and each reveals a new secret about the story. the real underlying truth about the storyline is that simon is immediately paralyzed from the waist down after the accident. he is brought to the hospital and told by his doctor to write a book to help him deal with the depression and depressing thoughts made prevalent by the accident. when simon wakes up alone in the game, that is where the book starts. the book ends when simon decides the fate of his own life. there are no happy endings to this game. in each one, death lingers and takes the lives of someone close to simon. in most, simon is that person. the game itself is terrifying and one of the most life-changing video games you can play for free.

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so yeah, that’s all i have for today. i have plenty of life-changing media that i could share, but these are the things i reach for when life gets pretty hard, as it is. if you decide to look into any of them, i hope they comfort you like me. that’s all from me. peace out.

So, for those who may not remember, I posted a blog consisting of some Egyptian gods and goddesses that I really like and find intriguing. I really enjoy Egyptian mythology and love learning more about it. This post is a continuation of the list from last time. Hope you enjoy:)

Again, these are in no particular order.

1. Ammit

If you’ve ever watched Moonknight(great series, btw) then you may already know of Ammit. Does the series accurately depict Ammit, though? Not entirely. First off, she’s not technically a goddess. She’s more often referred to as a demoness or some greatly feared creature. She’s physically depicted as having the head of a crocodile, the front legs of a lion, and the hind legs of a hippo. Her name means “devourer” or “soul-eater”. So… yeah, not entirely friendly. She’s associated with the idea of punishment for the soul. Her image served as a warning to the living to live a good life and avoid wrongdoing. The first thing I noticed after watching Moonknight and looking up the depiction of Ammit was obviously the physical difference.

Instead of looking like this…

She would look like this…

I know it’s just a show, but I just find it a little humorous.

2. Anubis

Despite what you may see in movies, Anubis is a pretty cool guy. It’s not really his fault he’s the god of the dead. Movies may often refer to him as something bad(because Hollywood), but he’s not. He’s depicted as having the head of a jackal and the body of a man. Worshipped throughout Egypt, he’s said to be a protector of the dead as he guides them in their journey through the underworld. He’s also the god of mummification and the afterlife(much like Osiris). He’s said to be a gentle and caring god, ensuring the dead are treated with respect. It’s really neat viewing him in this light.

3.  Ma’at

As the goddess of truth, justice, and balance, Ma’at is associated with order and harmony.  She is often shown as a woman wearing an ostrich feather on her headdress and having wings she holds out with her hands. She’s believed to represent the force that keeps the universe in balance and is called upon events such as crowning a pharaoh, or the signing of a peace treaty.  When people would die and make their way through the underworld to be judged, their deceased hearts would be weighed against Ma’at or her feather. I feel like she’d be like one of those moms where nothing gets past her.

4. Sekhmet

This is the goddess of war, destruction, power, and strength. Her image is used as a symbol of courage and resilience. She is also the goddess of pestilence and plague, and because of this, she was thought to have the power to protect against disease and evil. She’s depicted as having the head of a lioness and the body of a woman and wears a headdress of a sun disc. If you remember me talking about Bastet and Hathor in my last post, I talked about how both of them have the power to protect against disease just like Sekhmet. This is because Sekhmet is the goddess that they turn into when angered. Once calm, she turns back into either Bastet or Hathor. Sekhmet is also considered a warrior of the sun god Ra and would fight against enemies of the sun.

That is it for the list. I really enjoyed writing this, and I hope you enjoyed reading it. See you next month. Much love<3

Inside my brain holds vast amounts of knowledge that is absolutely useless to me in reality. This is where I share my information since people don’t like when you yap for hours about overwatch 2. So, let me get my yapping out of my system with this post. Basicalllyyyyy, I made a tier list of all the overwatch heroes from S (best) to D (worst). This is my list and a synopsis of my thoughts. 

I guess this is where I break it down….so

S Tier

In S tier I have Dva, Lucio, Ball, Ramatra, Zenyatta, Sombra, Kiriko, Junker Queen, Sojourn, Baptiste, and Zarya (in order on the tier). D.va is kind of hit or miss depending on skill. If you have a very skilled tank player on your team then yeah she is S, but if your Dva is terrible she’s going to drop to a C or D. This is because she has a kit thats very useful for the team if you know how to time it all. Lucio is a very good support pick right now. He is in the meta at the moment. He takes a decent amount of skill though making it hard for lower ranks to have a meta team composition. His speed boost is just very useful, his ability to hold overtime, and his heals. Ball is a very hard character to play. If your tank is just playing ball to play him your team is going to get rolled. When you play ball, you have to know map layouts, good aim, good use of your abilities, timing, and any other tank skill. He just requires a lot of skill, but if your tank is a skilled ball, you 100% will win. Ramatra is another tank I’d class similarly to ball. He doesn’t require as much skill mostly knowing how to utilize your kit, but I love having a good Ram because he is harder to play against. Next is a support hero, Zenyatta. Zenyatta is also a part of the meta right now in lower lobbies and higher ones. I wouldn’t say you need crazy skill, but you need some. Mostly game sense and aim. His discord ability is so useful in winning fights and his heals are decent. I wouldn’t usually class sombra so high, but she is in the meta right now as well since she got ANOTHER rework on her hero. She is in absolutely every single game I que into and she absolutely destroys the teams back line. Kiriko, also meta right now, is a support who has one of the best kits for survivability. She has immortality, teleportation, and fast healing. 10/10. Junker queen is just unkillable. If you know how to play her kit she is very hard to kill. Sojourn is also meta right now for damage players. She just has good utility and shes a value to have on your team. Baptiste is another support in meta due to his high damage output and great healing. Zarya is a good tank to play but she is not meta at all and I would only suggest playing her if your are a skilled Zarya player. 

A Tier

I’m going to talk about A tier more as a whole because most of what I have to say can be said about all of these heroes. First, let me tell you their names in order of the photo. Bastion, Genji, Winston, Reaper, Symmetra, Reinhardt, Tracer, Widowmaker, Moira, Mauga, Sigma, and Orisa. Almost everyone in A tier provides so much value to your team if played right. Almost all of them are heroes that require a lot of skill to provide any value. Some definitely aren’t like Mauga, Orisa, and Moira. The rest of these heroes you have to have game sense, know flanking strategies, know your kit, have good aim, etc etc. BUT if you are good on them they are very very valuable to your team. 

B Tier

B Tier are the heroes who just aren’t very in meta, kits aren’t that great right now, and I’m just losing matches with these people on my team. We have Junkrat, Mei, Pharah, Soldier 76, Roadhog, Torbjorn, Lifeweaver, Ashe, Brigetta, Doomfist, and Ana. I don’t mind having these heroes on my team but they typically don’t provide a lot unless played well, and they typically just get counter picked. There is one hero in here i would put higher in the tiers though. Ana. Her kit is amazing and so useful, but unfortunately we are only human and everybody’s aim sucks. Ana is a support sniper. You can play her close or long range but your aim has to be good or you might loose the whole game for everyone. A skilled Ana player I would throw to S. 

C Tier

I only have 5 people down here because there aren’t really any characters who are truly terrible. You can win with any comp if you have any skill. In C I have Cassidy, Hanzo, Mercy, Illari, and Echo. Cassidy belongs in D tier honestly. He has no value to the team, his kit is bad, and you have to have good aim to play him. Hanzo is in C due to his recent nerf. He used to could 1 shot people if it was a headshot, but he can no longer do that, so he just isn’t too great anymore. Mercy is a good support she just is not in the meta at all right now. Her healing is way to slow to the point of when you play her you have to ONLY heal. No damage. No damage boosting. Only healing. The meta right now is fast, hit scan, etc. so mercy doesn’t quite do the job. Illari is another support who doesn’t have great healing or dps and isn’t meta so no one is playing her right now. 

After making the tier list and typing this out I want to move Echo to A. She is very good at getting important picks if you know her kit well and have decent timing and aim. I think she is good to have if the person playing her is a good Echo. 

 

Thank you. 

Hello guys,

I am back again and tears are flooding my keyboard. Sooo, college season is coming to a detrimental end. I will be receiving my last few decisions this week. I have been accepted to 15 schools, but we always talk about the acceptances and the rejections get no attention. I understand the need of staying positive during this horrid time, but I want to talk about my rejections, how I reacted to them, and how they made me feel later on.

All the colleges I got accepted to had decent acceptance rates (30% and up), but my top schools are 15% and under and they have truly humbled me. Of course I didn’t expect to be accepted to all of them, but I definitely didn’t think there would be so many back to back rejections. The first one was the University of Florida followed by Tulane, Notre Dame, Baylor, Johns Hopkins, University of Southern California, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Swarthmore, and Northeastern. After applying, thinking about the possibility of rejection initially struck me hard, and I thought I would be devastated, crying, and sad. Fortunately, that was not the case and I took the rejections pretty well. When I first open them I’m a little bummed like any normal person would be and I think about them often, not separately but as a whole and it still hasn’t struck me very hard. I only think it will hit me excruciatingly hard if I don’t get into ANY of my top schools. I’m not necessarily worried about that, because I am still awaiting 14 schools to release decisions and I think I have good odds to get at least 2 out of 23 top schools in all. 

Even if I don’t get into them that just means that it’s not meant for me to be there and I have 15 other schools to pick from and am grateful for all my acceptances. I’m just ready to know all my decisions so I can start narrowing down my options, because people keep asking me where I’m going and I am so tired of saying idk. Yet, I’m also not trying to rush the process, because I don’t want to make the wrong decision and I will never have the opportunity to do this again, to be at this exact moment in life again, or to be this same person.

Now to go more in depth on my feelings about the rejections. I am happy that I can honestly say that I have not shed a single tear over a college rejection. Sometimes I don’t know how to feel about that, because it could mean that I am secure in myself, happy with my acceptances, and proud of myself for even having the courage to submit applications to these places. On the other hand it could mean that I didn’t put enough effort into my application, I don’t care enough about the colleges, or that I am very nonchalant. Either way it’s over and I cannot redo it so I’ll just stick with the first option to keep a positive mind, because there’s no point in overthinking about things that are already done. 

The only thing that makes me kind of sad is the thought that if I were at my old school I would have been valedictorian, class president, and probably would have gotten into some of these schools. I think the MSA classes on my transcript probably aren’t taken serious, because they aren’t academic classes. I could have been taking so many more AP and DC classes, but here I am. Colleges say they like creatives and standouts, but that is only true for art, design, music, and dance colleges. College is like monopoly or spades; it’s a gamble and only a very few win. Even those that win get screwed over sometimes, but college admissions is all a game and whoever plays it the best will get the outcome they want. 

It’s been a long wait, but it’s almost over and I am truly excited for the college experience and the ability to explore the world. Thank you for listening to my sob story. The tears flooding my keyboard have now dried!

Hiiii, it is blog time!! We are going to be talking about my dream career today, and it is not an average career so it may be a little unconventional. However, I’m really excited to talk about it, because it’s really all I’ve been thinking about lately, so I need to get it off my mind. Okay so first off, I will be going into some form of engineering. I was tuned into computer science for a while, and I have been teaching myself how to code and it is going really good. I have been learning python and swift but those are really easy in the coding world, however JavaScript, C, C++, HTML, and SQL are where it gets tricky and it is so specific that if you are missing a comma or parentheses your entire code will not work whether it is a game, website, or whatever. It is fun to learn at my own pace and a good skill to have but it is not the major for me I do not think. So, my next choice is engineering, specifically mechanical or electrical. I have a huge interest in cars so if I want that I will do mechanical but if not electrical. Mechanical is broader so it is the basis of all its other engineering counterparts. It focuses on things that move and do not move. Some type of engineer has designed or manufactured essentially everything around you. It is based on physics, mathematics, and material science. I can go into so many fields such as automotive, aerospace, biomedical, construction manufacturing and so much more, but I would choose the automotive industry with a focus on visual and functional design, which determines how the car looks and making it easy to repair, or internal and external testing to ensure maximum performance and safety of the vehicles being produced.

 

On the other hand, if I did electrical, I would be more focused on electricity and electronics from microscopic computer components to large power networks. With this degree I can go into automation and robotics, advanced driver assistance systems, aerospace and defense systems, or computer engineering. With this degree I would prefer to still work with cars, but infotainment systems, controls, and circuitry. Either way I prefer to work with cars, but I have a wide variety of opportunities with either one of these. Also, electrical engineering is based on mathematics, physics, and telecommunications. Now let’s get into credit hours, classes, base salaries, and how my life would be set up with each. I applied to multiple tech schools like Washington State, MIT, Stanford, Michigan, all the Ivies except Dartmouth, Duke, etc. The range is 120-130 credit hours for a degree, but the classes differ immensely. Mechanical has classes such as Engineering Graphics, Calculus 1, 2, &3, Thermodynamics, Fluid Mechanics, Heat Transfer, University Physics, and so on so on. Then electrical has Modern Convex Optimization, CAD Design of Digital VLSI, Speech Technology, Advanced Optical and Optoelectronic Instruments and Devices.

By just the titles of the classes I am sure you can see the difference, but they are both heavily influenced by math and physics and they both use CAD, which is Computer Aided Design. Now the salaries because I know this is what we’ve been waiting for. The average salary for a mechanical engineer in the auto industry is 100k give or take about 5k or so. Starting salaries are more around 75 to 80k right out of college but still great, nonetheless. Meanwhile electrical engineers in the auto industry make 80k starting salary but around 93k in other industries starting salary, but the average is about 120k. Most employers also give health insurance, a good amount of PTO, options to work remote, in office, or hybrid, and they also have travel contracts where you can work within the company at different offices around the us and maybe the world depending on how big the company is. The money is definitely an incentive, but I love understanding how things work and why, especially cars, and if I can fiddle around with them fixing problems all day big or small, I would definitely love it. I know most people dread college but I am actually really excited to go. Thanks for reading my blog and basically helping me decide my career.  

Happy 2024! It almost doesn’t feel real that time has passed that quickly. When the school year started, of course, I knew then that I would soon be graduating. But now that it’s officially our graduation year, the reality of it all is beginning to set in more and more. It feels like time flew away before I had a chance to grab it and enjoy it. That’s partially my fault, which is why I wanna talk about a resolution I have for myself: savoring every waking moment. With it being our first post of 2024, I thought it might be an appropriate(and perhaps predictable) way to start. Now, I’ll be honest, I was not planning on making any resolution for this year because I didn’t think it mattered since I’d break it after a week. This one, however, is something I’m confident I’ll keep because it’s been on my mind for a while.

I suppose, in a roundabout way, it relates to the theme word I chose for this year, which is patience. What patience means for me, in this context, is to not rush life and not try to force things to happen too soon. Just sit back, take a deep breath, and allow things to fall into place as they are meant to. Let go of the steering wheel and enjoy the ride. I have to remind myself that if I worry too much about everything in front of me far beyond what I can see, I fail to enjoy life as it is right now. It is difficult to not worry about what’s about to happen; I’m almost an adult about to graduate high school and go into college(possibly). That impending reality almost naturally comes with a heavy worry hanging over my head; it’s kind of a package deal. Okay so, the whole idea is to not worry, be patient, and enjoy the present time. How on earth will I go about that, knowing how pessimistic I can be?

Well, I guess a good start would be to look on the bright side of literally everything. Yes, even the storm and flood warnings. There is a silver lining to everything and when I don’t immediately see it, I search for it. Okay, what could possibly be a bright side to this thunderstorm? Well, obviously not having to walk back and forth on campus in the cold rain, but maybe it provides an opportunity to enjoy the company of friends inside, read a book, watch a movie, start a new painting, apply for scholarships, etc. Hell, maybe even take a nap and let my brain refresh. I’m not gonna lie, I’ve always loved the sound of rain and thunder and always found it calming. Of course, this is simply an example of how my attitude is going to be when it comes to this new year. And, if all else fails and you literally cannot see a bright side to the darkness, light a match. Make a bright side. Yes, I am very aware of how corny that sounded. Moving on.

The point I wanted to emphasize in this blog is that I don’t feel like this is going to be my year, so I’m going to make it so. Does that sound at least slightly depressing? Maybe, but that’s okay. So, yeah, that’s my resolution for the year. I know I’m not normally this chatty in a blog post(or maybe I am), but I just wanted to have that out in the open. I hope y’all enjoyed this or got something out of this. I don’t suppose this was an expected New Year’s resolution and that wasn’t the intention because I know myself too well; if I had said something more major or dramatic, I would not follow through with it. But I hope you guys had a good New Year so far, and I will see y’all next month. Much love<3