Carina Alessandro, Period 1, 12/1/21

Modern Mythology 2022 12/1/21

Currently, my goal is to become more self-understanding and more positive in that pursuit. I have this goal because much of my identity feels up in the air to me, including my career interest, and I wish to have a better understanding in how I thrive so I can make the best of the next stage of my life in college. To do this, I try to treat myself with the same optimism, open-mindedness, and compassion that I would as if I were a friend. I think my environment is supporting this goal because, especially after the last couple years, I feel extremely lucky to be living in a world where its easier to be surrounded by the inspiration and humanness of people and reflective, stimulating situations which allow me to simulate what gives me resilience and strength. I have been trying to use my opportunities to explore different professions, like in my Work Based Learning class, for example, to see what genuinely might make me happy or at least secure— which to applies all self exploration, so these aspects are connected for me. For this reason especially I am very grateful for the adult advisors in my life who have quelled my fears related to my unsure academic future, putting this one foggy facet of myself into a more whole perspective. I know to polish some sides of me before others before I can see my reflection.

Rafi Arnob, Period 8, 12/02/21

 Rafi Arnob, Period 8, 12/02/21

Write about your thoughts regarding any of the fiction or nonfiction covered in class.

Reflect on any new information you have learned in English class by considering how that learning influences your critical perception.

How is what you’re learning applied to any other classes/the world around you?

When we first started reading Oedipus Rex, we discussed the role of plays in Greek life during Sophocles’ time. Even though the tragedy was filled with dramatic irony, rich characters, and enjoyable declarations, I was a bit puzzled when I learned that the Greek people who attended these plays often knew the plot. In contemporary times, we tend to avoid spoilers in order to experience a story in its rawest form, so attending a play that you already know the plot to  seemed like a foreign concept. Like us, the Greeks also watched plays for entertainment purposes but unlike us, they thought of plays as a way to rid themselves of negative thoughts and energies (which was also a foreign concept to me). However, as we kept reading, I started to experience these feelings myself. Knowing that Oedipus murdered Laius made his declarations of vengeance against the killer that much funnier. On the flip side, knowing the relationship between Jocasta and Oedipus made it so much more infuriating when clues surrounding their situation seemingly flew over their heads (especially regarding the prophecy). Experiencing the peaks and valleys of the play put me in the shoes of the people of ancient Greece and  I finally started to understand why someone would go to a play knowing the plot. There’s a certain satisfaction in piecing together and focusing on more abstract elements (such as prose and irony) of the story when you don’t have to worry about what’s going on in it as much. The dramatic irony served as both the humor and the horror in the play and if I didn’t know the plot, there’d be no way I could experience it the way I did. 

Earlier, I said that the ancient Greeks differed from us because they thought of plays as an outlet for their emotions. I now realize that we are the same as the Greeks in this manner. When characters we like die, we’re relatively upset, when they succeed, we’re relatively happy. Although we may not realize it, we’re attached to characters and vicariously live through them just like the Greeks. Moreover, we use sources of entertainment as forms of coping, this way we’re refreshed for whatever task needs our undivided focus. This is a modern reflection of the way Sophocles designed his plays as he thought of plays as a vice away from the harsh reality of life.

Veronica Royzen, Period 7, 11/08/2021

 

Veronica Royzen

Period 7

11/08/2021

Modern Mythology 2022

Socio-political Consciousness

What are your thoughts and feelings about issues of inequity, oppression, and/or power? How do you reflect critically on your own beliefs, assumptions, values, and experiences, and how these can influence your perception of self and others?

I never knew how truly cruel the world was until the beginning of my teenage years. Growing up in a strict Russian-Jewish household, I thought I knew everything about the world. Going to a private school for most of my childhood that was pretty secluded from the rest of the world didn’t help me much either.. We did learn about oppression, racism, sexism, etc., but as a whole we never knew what it really meant. Starting high school was a completely brand new world for me and I seemed to have adjusted to it quicker than most people thought. The very first days of high school completely changed my thinking. I was in shock and confused. I would always ask myself “why did they keep this from me” or “how did i not know about this.” Jump to 4 years later and here I am a nonbinary lesbian with a new mindset and way of thinking.

I’m not the “black sheep” of my family, but I feel like an outcast. It definitely stems from every aspect of my identity. There is so much stigma surrounding gender identity and seeing the way my parents talk about it makes my blood boil. They are tolerant to a degree, but there are so many nuances that they don’t seem to believe is real. To them, nonbinary people don’t exist and their belief lights a dangerous fire in me. Despite being angry at people who think similarly to my parents, I can’t just go around waving a wand and making people change their minds. I get frustrated because there are so many nonbinary folk who have it bad. Some people get disowned from families, while others get kicked out to live on the street. These people are still people, no matter if they identify as based on the binary system. They still deserve a good and happy life.

Muhammad Chaudhry, Period 7, 12/2/21

Muhammad Chaudhry

Period 7

12/2/21

Modern Mythology 2022  

 

Literacy & Learning

• Write about your thoughts regarding any of the fiction or non-fiction covered in class.

In class, we have been learning about the Egyptian Book of The Dead and why death is such an important aspect of ancient Egyptian culture. After watching the documentary on Ahni’s Book of the Dead, I have a better grasp of what the Egyptians valued both in this world and the next. The documentary explained that the Book of The Dead was something Egyptians use to guide them in the afterlife, it contained spells and magic to help defeat monsters of the afterlife. When I was watching the documentary, I wondered whether if any of the spells and magic were of any use in the afterlife or if they were just a scam by the priests to extract money from the rich and ruling class. People would really have no choice after the seller makes the sales pitch of them helping them defeat a certain monster or that you can’t go to the afterlife without this certain amulet. The people of Egypt didn’t know what happened after death so even if they weren’t fully convinced they would probably still buy it due to the possibility of them struggling after death.

• Reflect on any new information you have learned in English class by considering how that learning influences your critical perception.

I find Egyptian Mythology very interesting because of the influence it could have had on later religions. The Ten Commandments are all mentioned in Ahni’s Book of The Dead, so it’s very possible to have been derived from there as Moses was from Egypt too. I also learned that you don’t get judged first but you have to make a journey through the afterlife to actually make it to the Hall of Osiris. I find it very interesting that there is a possibility that you die before you even get judged if you don’t buy the amulets in the real world before you die. It just seems very unjust to the poorer people in Egypt who lived a good, honest life but couldn’t afford to pay for the Book of The Dead or the amulets and spells that come with it. Would they just get eaten by the monsters? There are still quite a few questions that I have after watching the documentary.

• How is what you’re learning applied to any other classes/the world around you?

The Egyptian afterlife is very similar to the afterlife of many other religions. A connection I personally made is the weighing of the heart being similar to the weighing of our book of deeds in Islam. In Islam, each person receives a book with all of their good and bad deeds listed inside on the Day of Judgement where every human being will be resurrected. They will then be brought to a scale where their book will judge whether or not they enter paradise or get banished to hell. This lesson has made me realize that you can make a connection to so many things that you hadn’t considered before and it is an eye-opening experience. 

Nicole Samoylovich, Period 7, 11/9/21

 

• Goal Setting & Growth

• At this current point in time, what specific goal(s) do you have for yourself? Why?

First off, my most important long-term goal is to finish my college applications and get a job after college application season ends, probably sometime in February or March. I’m working a paid internship but it’s only 10 hours a week and I’m saving up for a lot of different things in my personal life, including college, so I want a part-time job to start saving. Right now, I’m trying my best to manage all the stress in my life. I suppose my goal at present is to manage this stress better. The reason I’m stressed right now because there’s a lot on my plate: in addition to all my work for classes, I have that internship, volunteering, cheer, clubs, and as I’ve mentioned, college applications to juggle, and it’s definitely taken a toll on both my sleep schedule and mental health. I would never get a job while worrying about all those things, so I suppose my goal would also include dropping a number of those commitments to make things easier for me once I start searching for a job. I’m okay with that, though, because I know what my priorities are. Plus, by the time March rolls around, my internship and volunteering opportunities will have ended, ideally SING will have ended (that’s another important factor, because I’m a director this year), cheer will have ended, and college applications will have ended. I honestly cannot wait for that point in the year because it will definitely feel like a large weight off my shoulders. In a way, my goal is basically to just survive up until that point and manage my current stress a lot better. Since quarantine ended, it’s been difficult and unsettling trying to get back into the usual routine considering the fact that I got to sleep in and stay home all year last year, and solely focus on my homework because there were no extracurriculars.

• How do you demonstrate resilience towards achieving this goal? (or these goals?)

I think I’m resilient because I’ve somehow managed to maintain all of those commitments for the past several months and maintain my grades. I never really take a day off - even on days when I’m absent from school, I’m working on my Common App for eight hours straight, or I’m doing work for my internship. I think the concept of “resilience”, though, kind of contradicts my goal in a way because staying resilient through all these commitments is not the goal, managing my stress better is. I need to stop trying to be so resilient and just make things easier for myself. That’s why I’m planning on dropping my volunteering after winter break, and my internship sometime in mid-January, soon after. I’ve had a good amount of time with both those opportunities, and I think those would be good times to drop them. They also take up the majority of my time, more than cheer or anything else, so that’s the current plan. 

Otherwise, I think I’ve shown resilience in terms of managing my stress by the simple fact that I haven’t had any kind of breakdown or let my stress affect my friendships or the people around me. I try to stay positive and make time for my friends and family, which I think shows resilience, in a way. I haven’t let it get to me, somehow, and I haven’t let it make me sacrifice time with my loved ones or my social life in general. I think it’s important to emphasize that when I made all these commitments, they were and still are possible to do at the same time - they rarely ever overlap and have strictly set schedules during the week. It’s just that there is always something to do, and to be very honest, no one wants the type of week where they come home from school every day, immediately start working, and don’t do anything else before they go to sleep. I show resilience in trying to manage my stress by practicing various forms of self-care: I try to make as much time as I can for hobbies and activities I enjoy, like baking, reading, dancing, journaling, working out, or gaming; I’ll often also unplug from social media by turning my phone off, go on a walk, or skate around my neighborhood in the evening, because I find it calms me down. I think without those things this year probably would have driven me crazy,

• How does the world around you affect your perception of this goal? (or these goals?)

I believe that with the culture at Tech, stress is not only inherent but in a way it is also encouraged. Almost every kid I know seems to have a million commitments, some of which are super impressive. Part of the reason I got myself involved in so many things this year was because I was comparing myself to my peers too much; I saw that they were starting their own non-profits and winning competitions and doing internships, and I felt like I wasn’t doing enough. Also, it made me feel bad about being stressed, because in my head, I asked myself why I was so stressed when other kids seem to be managing all their commitments just fine. Even though intellectually I knew that many of the other kids were just as stressed as me, emotionally I feared that I was just uniquely bad at managing a large workload. The idea of “managing stress” or “self-care” or “getting more sleep” kind of feel like jokes in Tech when everyone’s just working hard all the time, and I just feel like it’s not a conversation that’s often had. Additionally, not only colleges and universities, but the world at large, seem to like and reward hard work, so I felt like I was doing the right thing by taking on so much. My perception of this goal has been strange, because it changes - it wasn’t even a goal until recently. I didn’t think that it was possible to manage my stress better a few weeks ago, because I still felt like I was just normal and I was doing a good thing by making myself so stressed because I was helping my future, so that’s how all those influences around me influenced my perception. However, more recently and right now, it’s my friends and family who altered this perception and made me realize that I need to start changing how I do things. My best friend told me I needed to decide what my priorities were and put those first, and that my first priority should be my health. Realizing that someone around me saw how stressed and overworked I was was bittersweet, because on one hand, it validated my feelings, but on the other, it alerted me to the extent of the harm I was inflicting on myself. I decided then that I have to change, and I have to take whatever action it takes to lower my stress.

Nicole Cavalieri, Period 7, 12/1/21

 Modern Mythology, Period 7

Nicole Cavalieri

12/1/21

 

 

In the past few lessons, we have been discussing the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and the ways people think about death. In keeping with that, I have written a poem that deals with some of my feelings regarding death. It does touch on my own experiences with death (although vaguely) so I also want to provide a content warning for grief, loss of loved ones, and funerals. 

 

 

Dynamics

 

I have often heard it said

That life is set to ticking beats

An ever counting metronome

In time with triumphs and defeats 

 

If one strains to hear their rhythm

The blaring drums can hurt one’s ears

Become the dreaded Funeral March

Invoking the oldest of human fears 

 

But I am not a dancer

I cannot move my limbs in time to my internal beat

I am a singer, I harmonize 

With life’s orchestral melody

 

The first time a singer left my choir

I couldn’t hear a frantic percussion

In her absence the song fell flat

And the silence

That was deafening 

 

The next time that I saw her face

Her voice box forever cold and stilled

I was in a hollow cathedral lined 

With tiles built to amplify a chorus

Sung for the ears of God

 

In that acoustically hallowed ground my lonely voice echoed back to me

Composing a cacophonous parody 

Of the arrangement I had always sung

 

And now I hold my choir close

We sing again, though incomplete 

I strain to hear each harmonic line

Because the thing I fear the most is losing that perfect memory

Of the divine sound

Of my completed symphony

Alyssa Abed, Period 8, 12/1/21

 Alyssa Abed, Period 8, 12/1/21 Modern Mythology 2022

Goal Setting & Growth

At this current point in time, what specific goal(s) do you have for yourself? Why

I have so many goals for myself that, at times, it can be a little overwhelming. First and foremost, as generic as it sounds, my main goals are college related. I admit, I’ve put off a lot of the college work I have to do, and with only about a month remaining to get it all done, I’ve begun to stress out. I wish I could go back in time and tell myself to stop putting it off because applications aren’t going anywhere. I think a part of it has to do with my reluctance to move on to that next stage of my life. Regardless, the pressure is on and, as of now, I’m going to have to go into work mode for this next month. I started over this thanksgiving break actually, locked myself in my room and worked all day, for 3 straight days. It’s been draining. It’s especially hard trying to balance finishing my college work and all of the schoolwork that keeps piling up on top of that. While this all sounds pretty bleak, honestly, I’m pushing through, because I know that this is only temporary. As my dad says, hard work and dedication. Changing the narrative a bit, I do have other goals that are important to me: my book list, participating more in class, and prioritizing my mental health. One of my goals is to participate more in class. Sophomore year was my best year in terms of participation, as I had fully adjusted to being in highschool and enjoyed most of my classes (without russian class, maybe it would have been all). But then, covid hit. I don’t know what happened or why, but this year I find it really hard to participate. English has always always been my favorite class and in every English class I’ve been a very frequent participant. So much so that I would get the “anybody else besides Alyssa want to answer?” from my English teachers. But now, ironically, I find English the hardest class to participate in. I don’t know why. It’s weird, because by no means am I a shy person. I have things to say, and yet, I can’t seem to get myself to raise my hand. The days that I do try to push myself, I’m filled with dread and anxiety. But, I’m working on it and I’ve made progress, so I’m not worried about it. Another one of my goals is to just prioritize my mental health when I need to and let myself take breaks. My last goal, and my favorite one, is to finish my reading list. Last

 New Years I made a single resolution: read 24 books throughout the year. A couple of days ago I finished the Handmaid’s Tale, my 23rd book. One more to go. I’m thinking for 2022 I’ll double that number. Ambitious, I know.

How do you demonstrate resilience towards achieving this goal? (or these goals?)

Like I said before about my college goals, they’re overwhelming. It’s a lot of work to do in a short amount of time, but, like I said, I’m not letting it get to me. I know that this stress is only temporary. I’m a big advocate of the saying “time flies”, because it sure as hell does. I know that before I know it, I’ll be looking back on December and wondering how I’m already in January, or February for that matter. Just how I know I’m going to be looking back at this blog while I’m writing my third one and thinking “wow, it feels like it was just the other day that I was writing this”. So yeah, this month is going to suck, but it’s only a month of my life and I know I can get through it. I would say that my resilience comes from my optimism. For my other goal, participating more, I’m feeling quite optimistic, because I know that I’m going to get there eventually, I’m just taking it at my own pace. I’m not going to give up, especially because I know I’m capable of it. I’ve done it before. When I feel like I’m getting overwhelmed, I just tell myself to take things one step at a time. And that’s exactly what I’m doing to achieve these goals. As for prioritizing my mental health, I’d say it’s less of a goal--as I’ve achieved it--and more of a reminder. I want to continue to prioritize it and take a step back when I need to.

How does the world around you affect your perception of this goal? (or these goals?)

Most obviously, my peers around me have impacted my perception of my goals as they’ve shown me that it is possible to achieve them. Sure, we’re all different--we may come from different backgrounds, have different capabilities, and, of course, have different goals--but still, we all share in the goal to do our best. Seeing everyone around me driven to do their best, motivates me to do mine. Yes, at times, these same peers disencourage me, because how can I compete? But, overall, they help drive me to do my best because I know that if they can do it, so can I. My friends, especially, help me recognize my potential and push me to achieve my goals as we work alongside each other. As I mentioned earlier, one of my dad's favorite sayings is:

 hard work and dedication. With no other context. Oftentimes, as I’m doing homework he’ll just come up to me and say “hard work, dedication” followed by approving nods and nothing more. I’m not sure if he’s acknowledging my hard work and dedication or simply offering advice, either way, I’ve taken those words to heart. That’s why I know that with hard work and dedication I can push past any challenge and get through any rough patch before I know it.