thank you :)

walking into room 214 for the first time, i remember picking the seat in the corner, right by the door. i was given a poem to read and annotate on the first day of school, and i remember going home and telling my mom that i was most definitely going to fail ap lang. looking back i probably severely overreacted, but the only way i made it through was because of the writers and people who supported me. i cannot thank you enough.

i am deeply indebted to the writers that guided me on this journey.

sarah vowell for teaching me, for the first time, that professional writing does not always have to be formal in the partly cloudy patriot.
david foster wallace for reminding me to stay optimistic in this is water and for boosting my ego over my veganism in consider the lobster.
maxine hong kingston for highlighting the use of storytelling to convey a deeper meaning in the woman warrior.
f. scott fitzgerald for introducing me to a million new perspectives on the american dream and our country's embarrassing treatment of the poor in the great gatsby.
art spiegalman for showing me that a picture truly means a thousand words in maus.
brent staples and greta ehrlich for exposing me to new perspectives and new experiences, giving me a window into a different view of the world through just walk on by and about men.
emily prager for creating the number one most awkward conversation ever had in an english class because of your usage of “phallic” in our barbies, ourselves.
judith butler for emphasizing the importance of identifying gender as a social construct.
michiko kakutani for adding nuance to a perspective i originally had in the word police.

sherman alexie. scott mccloud. deborah tannen. judy brady. judith butler. firoozeh dumas. david sedaris. steven pinker. terry tempest williams. virginia woolf. susan sontang. don delillo. robin givhan. and the countless other writers who have helped me grow in unimaginable ways. thank you.

most of all, i would to express my deepest appreciation to lynn nottage. thank you for teaching me, through sweat and clyde’s about the constant injustice persisting today. thank you for showing me the value and the power of a play - i never expected how powerful this medium could be. the letter assignment that we completed alongside this unit truly transformed the way i looked at the style of my writing. i went from utilizing a formal, but boring, tone in my essays - “this anecdote shows how indigenous people experienced effects of ptsd” (one of my very first analysis attempts) - to a more lively, stylistic technique - “those damn drugs you took broke our family” (sweat letter).

i am grateful for the in-class essays that made me want to skip school every monday. i never thought i could accomplish an entire essay in 40 minutes until i did it, countless times. i am grateful for the seminars that taught me to give room for others to speak. special shoutout to julia miller and vinaya gunasekar for your amazing contributions during these discussions. i am grateful for the mcq practice that not only helped me prepare for the sat, but also allowed me to practice my limited critical thinking skills. the utmost thank you to my blogs for helping me advance my writing skills and share my thoughts. my success would not have been possible without every opportunity this class offered me.

my peers have had a huge impact on my ap lang experience. thank you.

ivana thuruthel for trusting me to help you through stressful situations. sneha chandrasekar for letting me laugh at your insane family tree. katharina zak for being my writing partner for every partner write. for making me laugh and being an amazing friend.
thank you to all three of you for dealing with sara and me blowing up your phones every night.

vandya nedle for engaging an hour long conversation about english with me in our hotel room at states.

divya dwarakanath for your passion, dedication, and unconditional friendship. thank you for your meaningful thoughts, ideas, and philosophical teachings. i miss having you in my english class.

arya shah for your incredible blogging skills and your extreme love for english. for reminding me to find the fun in my assignments. for telling what i missed in class because i was too lazy to check the calendar. for tag-teaming against sara (although i severely failed on that one) in our blogs. for accepting me no matter what.

sara zachariah. where do i even start? thank you for making every english class fun. i swear i only woke up in the morning some days because i was excited to see you third hour. thank you for calling me randomly and lighting up my day. thank you for staying up late and texting absolute randomness. thank you for trusting me. for always, always caring. you will always be the bob to my wendy.

thank you to all those who commented on my blogs and those whose blogs i read.

thank you to my mom for sitting with me at the beginning of the year and convincing me not to drop ap lang after i was certain that i would fail the class. thank you to my dad for listening to me rave about something we talked about in english class for days on end. thank you to my brother for bouncing balls off my head while i tried to study. thank you to my dog, baylee, for interrupting my blog writing by begging for pets. i would be nowhere without you.

and most of all, thank you mrs valentino. my amazing experience in ap lang this year would not have been without you. thank you, thank you, thank you.