5. Fettuccine 2025

I started watching Young Sheldon when I saw all those clips of it on Instagram and noticed it didn't have any of those annoying laugh tracks that made me loathe traditional sitcoms. I was instantly hooked by how real all of the characters felt and never felt. They all had Sheldon as a focus in the beginning seasons where their goals and mindsets were still developing but after Sheldon had lost its appeal and the i was fully invested into all of the characters the story became about the entire community which i really enjoyed. This culminated into the funeral scene at the penultimate episode in the series. I had already been spoiled by this scene countless times but it was still gut wrenching when I was watching it. I truly sympathized with all the characters I knew so well, especially since their grief felt so real. I’m talking about this because it intrigued me that this is the moment that they decided to end the show, depicting the different ways that people dealt with grief. ...

     One feeling that I'm sure most of us have shared is sentiment. Recently I have been thinking more and more about leaving for college. Being junior’s, we only have approximately fourteen months of school left before we finish high school. Time flew by so fast that it feels like I was a freshman just yesterday. What is even weirder for me is that we already finished one third of the current year 2025. With time seemingly moving so fast, small things are starting to catch my attention. Yesterday, I saw a father teaching his son how to ride a bike. Remembering small glimpses of when my dad taught me how to ride a bike made me realize how much I’ve grown. In a few months I probably won’t be seeing either of my parents very often so I have become much more prone to feeling sentimental value towards small objects like presents from my parents or childhood toys. I’m extremely curious to hear how you all, my classmates, are feeling about high school ending not too far from no...

American history is a course that is required in almost every school in America, with the story usually beginning with the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus and colonization. Following that, is usually the tale of the American Revolution and the Founding Fathers , George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, John Jay, and James Madison, figures in history who have become immoralized, held in high regard by most Americans as they fought for and established America, a nation whose values were rooted in peace, freedom, and democracy. M any American history curricula then transition into how America grew, expanding into and beyond the Western Frontier. America slowly made a place for herself in the world as she grew in influence, and a new, definingly American culture and society emerged. America soon saw herself as the “Chosen Nation,” blessed by the Christian God, and semblances of the idea of the “American Dream,” long before the te...

Some of my favorite memories are family weddings. I recently went to a family wedding in Michigan, which was definitely one of the highlights of my year. The excitement of hopping on a plane to a place I've never visited and the anticipation of seeing my family after years are both equally heartwarming feelings.  I love everything about weddings. Getting ready with my cousins is definitely my favorite part. My cousin Zoeya and I are always the assigned makeup artists, so I look forward to exploring that passion through every single look I create. The music is another one of my favorite parts. Blasting Hindi songs like  Sheila Ki Jawani while my cousins and I do our mom's makeup is a memory that will be engraved in my brain forever.  I am a firm believer that getting ready for an event is the best part, which is another reason why I love weddings. Arriving at the wedding venue in an SUV that's way too small to fit my entire family always stirs memorable laughter as well, b...

Why does classical music help you focus better? Or how come a song on the radio can instantly trigger a super specific memory from years ago? Well, music plays a special role in your brain. Whether it be boosting concentration or acting as a time machine, a melody can play a much bigger role in your life than you realize. Let’s start with the aspect of concentration. Ever try studying with music playing in the background? Turns out, certain genres of music can help you finish that assignment you’ve been procrastinating on much faster AND help you retain that information for your test the next day! This is because in genres such as classical music, there is a correlation between listening to the melody and reduced stress. Classical music can cause the heart rate and breathing to slow, while also lowering cortisol levels in the brain which helps lessen anxiety and lower blood pressure. Essentially, due to the slow tempo often found in classical music as well as the reaction of the paras...

I remember patiently waiting behind the yellow line at Patterson Elementary School before the bell rang, my muscles twitching in preparation to sprint fast enough to be the first person at the ball bin and grab the smoothest and bounciest basketball. I remember climbing up the ladder in the freezing wind to get down the slide, covered in ice from the frozen dew, getting my clothes wet in the process, but it was definitely worth the few seconds of enjoyment. I remember hustling down the field, bell in front of my feet, one defender to beat, but forgetting to kick the ball into the goal and allowing the goalie to simply grab the ball from the tip of my toes.  As we progress through life, only certain events that have personal connections or some other type of identifier are encoded into our long-term memory compared to the simple, everyday events that are in our short term memory and are forgotten twenty seconds later.  The three events from my childhood that I mentioned all ha...

Junior year has caused me to underestimate the power of sleep. Next year I won’t take as many hard classes but right now I have to find a solution. For the past couple of months I have gone to bed so late finishing my work and crawling out of bed the next morning to school where I perform marginally worse due to my lack of sleep. This keeps repeating until rock-bottom, where you're so tired you ignore everything just to take a nap or do something relaxing only for the cycle to repeat itself. I know it's cliché and even annoying to recommend 8-10 hours of sleep every night because I don’t know what kind of work you have and it's rude to automatically assume you are mismanaging your time, but that's not what I’m talking about here. Lately, instead of staying up late to finish work, I just go to sleep and finish it in the morning. Obviously, it is annoying to wake up early in the morning but I find myself more refreshed throughout the day and feel more academically compete...