The Estuary Between Light and Dark

The Winter term is over and I'm cruising into Spring Break. The days slowly elongate, as if the sky is reckoning with the fact that at some point shortly, there will be more sun than moon. Every time this year, I wake up to faint rays of sun peering in through my curtains, confusing me about what time of day it is. When I glance at my clock, I'm surprised that it's an hour earlier. I love that my mornings aren't greeted by the residue of the night, but by the glimmer of day. This inspires hope and happiness into my day; something to look forward to. The first two weeks of March is one of my favorite times of the year. It's a time to appreciate that I made it through the winter, and to celebrate all the activities that the warmer weather invites. 

When I walk outside, the air is different too. It doesn't greet the skin on my face with a cold, hard no. Instead, it's dewier, fresher, and tingles around the corners where my mask meets the skin of my face. Afternoon strolls are the best right now. When I go out from between 3-4 PM, the sun is just beginning to set. It casts golden rays through the evergreens, which seem almost to lift their slouched branches at the prospect of longer, warmer days. I glance at the grass. Even though what I see are the remains of last year's lawns, the grass looks hopeful atop the muddy earth, wet from the remaining mounds of melting, dirty snow. 

And finally, people are evidently happier. Most people have recognized that the worst of winter is (hopefully/probably) over, and for a city that's buried in snow for far too many more months than most residents would like, this period of time is almost like the estuary between light and dark. It's during these brief, precious weeks of the year, that the darkness of winter and the lightness of the upcoming warmer months blend together. In the grocery store, I see people less grouchy, less harried. In my neighborhood, people aren't drowning in thick scarves, hats, and gloves when they walk so they wave. I'll cherish these last weeks at home during this precious time of year before spring waves hello.  

100 days

Today marks the annual "100 Days Party." An Andover tradition. It's something I've been looking forward to since freshman year. The 100 Days Party takes place during the final weekend of Winter term and it's seniors only. It marks 100 remaining days until our class graduates…including weekends. I'm remote this term, so I haven't been able to see my friends for a year at this point. This also means that I won't be able to attend the 100 Days Party, which is taking place as I write. 

It's a day to celebrate the graduating class. 2021. What a ride we've been on. This party marks a quarter of our lost time together as a grade. We've missed many traditions. Besides the 100 Days Party, missing the Vista Walk on the first day of school left a dent in my spirit. I was also greatly looking forward to the boat cruise in the Boston Harbor during senior fall. We've seen the highs and lows of Andover. We've seen this institution shine and we've seen it struggle. And the students in the class have been working relentlessly to drive positive change as student leaders, prefects/proctors, and role models. I've worked with some of them, and I'm still continuously inspired by my peers. 

But we've also lost time together and I hope this class finds a way to reunite as one. We're scattered all over the world as of now. Those who decided to return to campus for the last month of Winter term are bringing parts of the puzzle together. But this class, which usually comes together every fall onto one campus from all quarters of the world, has remained scattered in these quarters. Yet what's more inspiring is the fact that we haven't lost connection with one another. We haven't forgotten each other. The 100 Days Party is a testament to this fact. Superlatives are announced during the 100 Days Party, where students nominate each other for around 30 different categories. The fact that different students were nominated for each category means that even after a year of remote learning, we still recall the memories, traits, and personalities of the individuals in our class. 

The 100 Days Party is a bittersweet moment. It's certainly a time to celebrate the graduating class. However, it's equally a time to realize that these are my last 100 days as a high schooler. I'll never return to this age or moment of life again. And when this second thought comes to mind, I can't help but think about the things I want to do before I graduate. The first thing that immediately comes to mind is attending a Brace Presentation. I need to do this in the Spring when I'm back on campus. I would also like to wake up early one day and watch the sunset on Siberia, or what we call our soccer fields. I'm usually up around this time, but in the middle of a workout. I haven't spent the time actually appreciating the peacefulness of campus early in the morning when 95% of campus is asleep. Finally, I cannot wait to serve as a residential prefect in a freshman dorm in the spring. I've always wanted to prefect/proctor a dorm and I'm really looking forward to this opportunity to work with the younger students on campus. 

Winter term comes to an end this Friday. Meanwhile, I'll be savoring my final months as a high schooler. More responsibilities surely come with going to college so perhaps this is also my last couple of months as a true kid.

 

Where there's joy

"Find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain" - Joseph Campbell

I found this little quote on the bottom of my Google Chrome Momentum extension. As my final winter term of high school comes to a close in two weeks, I'm inadvertently, entirely counter to plan, stuck at home in the midst of a global pandemic. Whereas I'm experiencing pain from not being able to see my friends, from hearing about the dire problems happening around the world, and from watching ugliness continue to unfold with policymakers play politics with people's lives, I'm finding solace listening to new podcasts and trying to discover something new every day. There are always inklings of joy to be found. For me, I'm currently seeking them through driving, learning new things, and helping students with math through a free math help account I started on Instagram.

Reflections on Friendship

This morning, I woke up to my friend's text. She said, "OMG Ava, I just found our emails from the first few days of freshman year." This was written in all caps by the way. She forwarded me our exchange. I was emailing her, asking whether she could help me print my french homework since she was still at the library. Then our conversation took off from there. We became really close friends from that moment onwards. 

I reread our chain of emails. It's something I don't frequently do since I have a bad habit of dwelling on the past. But my friend brought it to my attention this morning and the first thing that struck me was the formality of our exchange. We began each letter with "Dear" and ended with "Thank you." We wrote in complete sentences and we evidently placed great effort into the crafting of each sentence. Discerning the stark difference between how we communicated during the first few days of high school versus how we communicate today is truly a testament to the evolution of our friendship. 

With CX, I learned abbreviations. We have our own series of styles and ways of texting. We drop articles and mess with grammar rules for simplification, allowing the rapid nature of our exchanges to flow out of our heads onto the screen at an adequate rate. Hesitancy or difficulty in describing something is depicted over text with the word like. Our favorite emoji: 😂. In fact, texting over the years with CX has quickly made the laughing crying face my most popular emoji. With CX, I use this emoji to express true laughter and happiness. Contrarily, for others with whom I'm less familiar, this emoji has taken on a different meaning, as I learned from CX. It has become my nervous/hesitant go-to. 

Our texts have evolved with our friendship. From something formal to something other people might struggle to follow, perhaps the character of our texts reveals the nature of our friendship. In fact, one of my friends in the class of 2019 told me once, "I don't understand how you and CX are friends. You're just…polar opposites." And I agree with her to a certain extent. While I'm usually early to commitments, CX is more last minute. While my room is spotless, CX lives in perpetual disorganization. While I socialize when I'm done with homework, CX is one of the most hardworking people I know and she keeps working after homework, sleeping in the early morning hours of the following day. CX and I may differ in certain regards but the way our friendship has evolved reflects the fact that fundamentally, there are values, principles, and beliefs through which we relate. Or perhaps it reflects the hardiness of friendship: it can surpass what others may deem polar opposites. 

I'm forever grateful for CX. She's the person whom I trust most in high school and she's my closest friend. She's influenced many of the values I've developed over high school and showed me what hard work actually entails. 

Driving!

This weekend, I got behind the wheel for the first time in my life. It doesn't matter that I stayed in the high school parking lot or that I inched along the road at 5 mph, I began my driving journey. I believe driving is a major milestone in a person's life. While driving transports people from A to B faster than walking in a literal sense or in high school identifies upperclassmen and lowerclassmen, at its core, driving to me equates to a form of freedom. It's the ability to get myself where I need to go at the time I need to go without hounding my parents, which I believe is a crucial measure of the independence one gains between childhood and adulthood. 

I drive very slowly right now, but this is normal. This morning, I went out to the parking lot for my second time ever and I managed to actually use the gas pedal! My turns are getting smoother and I'm starting to work with the car rather than try to force maneuvers. Oddly, when I'm driving, I find myself thinking about Henry Ford and his revolutionary idea behind the automobile. I keep thinking about the fact that I'm just a high school kid…and I'm learning how to drive by the design of Ford's vision to make driving accessible to everyone. It's for that very reason, that driving wasn't only an accessory, a luxury, or a skill requiring a high degree of intellect, that I find myself driving amongst millions of others today. 

I've got a long way to go, as I've driven a total of just over 3 hours. While this is a routine process for everyone who has learned to drive, I wanted to write about embarking on this experience today because I began another milestone of my life. It's another one of those bucket list items that "transports" one from childhood to adulthood. 

Things I love lately

February! Onto the second month of 2021. Seniors were invited back to campus for a month, but I chose to stay home until the spring term when I can squeeze in a full term with the same length quarantine. So here I am, finishing the last stretch of my last winter term of high school, living through a global pandemic and a major nor'easter that's hitting a large portion of the east coast. Yet even in these dark, bleary, snowy, and windy days, I'm still finding ways to appreciate life. I admit it's been particularly difficult to try new things during the pandemic as a consequence of being restricted to my house, so these are small trinkets that add inklings of joy to my day. 

Into the Wild (2007). spoiler alert **So this movie came out when I was just 4 so I'd like to believe that's the reason I missed this hit. I watched Into the Wild over the weekend, as per the recommendation of my dad, and days later, I find myself still reflecting upon the life of Christopher McCandless. McCandless was born to a wealthy family, but after graduating a top student from college, all he sought to do was "go North" to Alaska. McCandless burned the remainders of his trust fund, burned his SSN, and left his family without a trace, ultimately dying in Alaska due to starvation. After watching the movie, I read a couple of articles about McCandless in the New Yorker, learning to my surprise that he only survived for 113 days in Alaska. I was particularly drawn to the movie because McCandless's life really touched upon the fundamental fact that there exist many types of people in this world who have diverse aspirations in life. Moreso, there's a really interesting moral dispute behind this movie, which was adapted from the book by Jon Krakauer, questioning whether it glorifies McCandless's somewhat self-destructive, whimsical mentality or whether it celebrates the wilderness and freedom from the ills of civilization. 

White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo. This book has been on my to-read list for years. In fact, since it was first published in 2018. I first encountered this book in my school's library, and no one seemed to check it out. But I finally found the opportunity to read it and it has transformed the way I see race in America. While I've always been aware of racism and white supremacy, I didn't understand how it could seep into societal institutions, residential neighborhoods, and word choice. It's an insightful book, one that's uncomfortable to read at times, but I would totally recommend it. 

Effie's Biscuits. These are a delightful treat that my family constantly stocks in our pantry these days. We've gone through four flavors already, Oatcake (the OG), Cocoa, Pecan, and Corn. I'm not even kidding, I love all of them. I also find the history of the family business quite intriguing. Effie MacLellan, who moved from Nova Scotia to Dorchester, MA, invented this delicious treat decades ago. Yet, it was her daughter's generation that knew they had to share this delicious treat with the rest of the world. Hence, they launched Effie's Homemade! I love ending a meal with these little squares of joy. They're just the right amount of sweetness, crunchiness, and crispness. 

Baking banana bread. I used to be an avid baker back in middle school, but after I started going to boarding school, I lost my touch with the oven. My mom phrases it in Chinese as "I seem to have reversed course and become more of a child." Being in the middle of a global pandemic has changed this and over the past couple of months, I've reconnected with baking. In particular, I've grown skilled at making banana bread. I don't like sour cream, so nailing the moistness has been a challenge, but I've discovered that adding a ton of bananas does the trick.

The stretch between now and the spring term feels longer this year than in the past. Perhaps this is due to the fact that I haven't been on campus for almost a year! Whereas we used to have periodical breaks, such as winter break, this year has slurred together into one train. It's been tedious at times, but I'm pushing through. There is light at the end of the tunnel. And the things I love lately will, as always, help me get there. 

A Reflection on Andover Business Club

This past week, I organized board turnovers for Andover Business Club, the club I founded in ninth grade. What struck me most was how much this club has grown and evolved during the last four years since its founding, and it's hard to believe the ABC's evolution wasn't something I'd noticed quite as saliently before. Perhaps this speaks to the nature of being so stuck in the moment that I hadn't really taken a step back, taken a bird's-eye view of the club, and seen the sweat and effort of the current board. 

When I reflected on this club, everything felt as it should be. Everything we possessed–a club blog, a prolific Instagram, an established email list of 300 people, and our Abbot Grant–felt "normal." It felt inherent in being a member of ABC, knowing that these tools existed, and I think I began to take these things for granted. That is, until board turnovers lead me to pass everything ABC owned to the Class of 2022. It suddenly reminded me of how this club began. 

It began four years ago in my second term of high school, standing alone with a poster board at the quietest Club Rally of the year. As a freshman, I had little idea how Club Rally worked. But I noticed how most club stands had at least two people manning them. It was predominantly upperclassmen at the stands, trying to sell their club to younger members. Freshman-me had little idea of this. I felt out of place as the youngest member of the school trying to sell their club idea to older students. Yet that's how ABC began. It began with an email list of 0 and a poster board in the corner of the Commons during winter Club Rally. 

During our first year, there were just 10 consistent members, all of whom I later nominated to the board. I was the only girl and the youngest member. It was during our first year that I began establishing the club blog to track our discussions each week. Year 2 was perhaps the most tumultuous. ABC grew from a discussion-based club to one that launched real ventures. We began with BluBoxes, an on-campus delivery service for toiletries, school supplies, and snacks (it was primarily snacks lol). We wanted to be the Amazon of Andover and sell these goods at cheaper prices than CVS. But ABC had $0 in startup funds. In fact, the BluBoxes funding came from one of our board member's personal pocket. 

That spring, I decided that personal funds weren't sustainable so I applied for an Abbot Grant. I remember writing the 5 page long application, filled head-to-toe with words. Then, one night, I dressed up in my best dress with a white cardigan to present Andover Business Club's idea–and why we needed funding–to the Abbot Grant committee. Merely in my second year at Andover, I had no idea that Abbot Grants were usually given to teachers to fund certain projects or for clubs to bring in speaker, but never for business ventures. I was also first on the list, being "Andover Business Club." I was surprised a few weeks later to receive news that I'd successfully harnessed $2000 for the club.

With ample funding for our ventures, an established email list, and growing membership to the club, Year 3 was about making Andover Business Club more inclusive and accessible. In fact, this goal is so imperative that it's something I told the new board to continue pursuing. ABC had already existed for 2 years, yet at the start of Year 3, I was still the only girl in the club. We heavily recruited underclassmen and girls that year. And by the start of Year 4, we had three girls readily involved. 

This year, ABC meet over Zoom meetings, so I was surprised when I saw many girls in the class of 2024 join the club. Now, having lead my last ABC meeting, I'm proud to say that almost 40% of the club consists of girls. 

ABC has evolved tremendously over the years. In fact, during Year 2, I thought the club wouldn't make it after the logistics of running ventures and doing discussions threatened to tear apart the club. But with the guidance of our club advisor, we managed to make it through. I'm tremendously proud of all this club has accomplished, and it was hard to see while I was leading ABC. I got so hung up on the logistics, finding new ways to grow the club, and retaining membership over Zoom that I couldn't see the big picture. I couldn't see how this club stood legitimately at square 0 four years ago. However, there's still room to grow. And this idea of inclusivity and accessibility remains important, as I've told the next board. It's not just gender and racial diversity that matters, but ABC also must be socioeconomically inclusive. Making the club low barrier to entry, picking accessible topics, and reaching out to students is so critical. But I have tremendous faith in the new board. They've inherited many great tools, such as our instagram, blog, email list, and Abbot Grant and they've worked together for at least two years already.

I'm grateful for Andover Business Club. It's a place where students have been encouraged to forge their leadership, organization, and communication skills, but more importantly, for me personally, ABC was a place where I made the most friends in high school. And for this I'm forever grateful. 

When I started paying attention to the world

Advising this week was quiet. I love advising because I'm close with the students in the group and with our advisor, but we're usually a lot more talkative. This past week, it was clear that everyone was still reconciling with what happened at the US Capitol just over a week ago. It's something that we couldn't, as a group, just put behind us at our first advising meeting of the year; it was an elephant in the room, something that we all felt needed to be addressed. Obviously, this event should never just be tossed under the bridge but it's something that, at least for me personally, began to take even greater significance the more time passed. Truly, the afternoon the riots began to take place, I wasn't even thinking clearly. The weight and implications of the event didn't register to me until at least the next day after some thoughtful processing. 

In advising, we began our discussion by talking about how the riots have become normalized in a way. This precisely explains why the news keeps repeating the line "this riot was not surprising." Considering how the president has rallied his supporters in the past, I agree with this statement. In fact, I keep coming back to the feeling of how blank my mind felt the night of the riots.  

Yet there's one thing that our advisor said that really stuck with me after the meeting. That we've probably only been paying attention to the world for just the last four to five years. And that struck me. I'm 18. Before I was 13, I agree that I wasn't very aware of the world. It strikes me that I only started paying attention to the news in seventh or eighth grade, a time when I hadn't yet started developing critical thinking skills. It strikes me that when I was just beginning to pay attention to world news, several crises culminated simultaneously. It's weird to think that this is the only America that I've known, whereas older generations have had a point of reference to compare today to. That older generations have witnessed better, and through critical thinking, can realize more easily that this is not normal. I suppose this makes it even more important for our generation to study history, social studies, and philosophy so that even if we didn't experience better, we can at least also feel the implications of what's happened. 

It's been a draining couple of months. The movement for racial justice, the election, the global pandemic, applying to college, and now an insurrection that threatens the freedom and democracy of our country, all within a year. But I'm still listening, learning, and trying to formulate my own opinions. Today, I believe the ability to evaluate what we're seeing, hearing, and being told, rather than just accepting everything as truth, is more important than ever. 

What happened at the US Capitol

What happened this past week at the United States Capitol has shaken the world. In classes, I was grateful that teachers began by opening up the floor to a discussion about the riot. In Leadership Training, we spent the day talking about the importance of creating spaces to support each other and have discussions about what we felt. 

I sit here today, still processing what happened. A precedent. Chaos. An insurrection. Something our Founding Fathers would find unthinkable. Something that threatened democracy throughout the entire world. I echo what the news, my peers, and my teachers have all said. This was a failed attack on American democracy. In fact, in October, I wrote a post about how the heart of the 2020 election was really democracy, one that put this very founding principle of this country on the line. 

I suppose it was innocent of me to assume that the current president would back down after losing the election, that he would peacefully cede power. I suppose it was innocent of me to assume that there would be a peaceful transition of power, because the truth is that nothing that happened on Wednesday was surprising. And the possibility of having a "peaceful transition of power," as the president finally said later this week, is impossible. That possibility flew out the window as soon as the rioters broke into the US Capitol. Perhaps the scariest part of it all is that Donald Trump has set a precedent for future violent transitions of power, blackening the prospects for democracy. 

All I remember is receiving a notification on Wednesday afternoon, January 6th, at around 2:15 PM. My parents had left the house, so I was alone. I clicked onto the WSJ to find an all-caps a massive headline about the riots at the US Capitol. When I clicked into the article, I found a huge page of live updates and news. Then I checked the NYTimes, in disbelief, and found the same situation. Then I turned on the TV to find that the entire world was already watching what was happening at the US Capitol. I find myself repeatedly writing US Capitol, not just Capitol, because this is something unthinkable in the United States of America, the founder of democracy. In fact, one of my friends from Brazil said that seeing this riot in the US terrified her because it solidified the rule of authoritarian leadership in other countries. 

However, the aspect of this riot that stood out to me immediately was the conspicuous, irrefutable display of white privilege at the US Capitol. I think Dr. Ibram Kendi, a professor at Boston University, summed it up perfectly.

I'm currently reading "White Fragility" by Robin DiAngelo outside of school. So many aspects of racism that I hadn't observed before became clear after reading DiAngelo. But nothing compares to seeing white supremacy written about in a book versus manifest in real life. This riot was about protecting white solidarity and supremacy. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said:

"It has been an epiphany for the world to see that there are people in our country led by this president – for the moment – who have chosen their whiteness over democracy…That's what this is about."

It's scary to think about how Donald Trump has normalized racism. His platform has reignited the roots of racism that generations have worked to dismantle. On the flip side, this also speaks to the fact that the United States was never as anti-racist and progressive as we thought it to be, and that we have so much more work to do. 

Many thoughts are running through my head right now. Should we move remove Donald Trump? Yes because we need to show the world that no one is above the law. But would it simultaneously divide the country even further? I'm unsure. I'm horrified by what's played out in our country this past week. I'm utterly disgusted. But I'm not surprised. This isn't "un-American" as many people have said because masked behind America's claims to democracy are strong roots in racism.   

The Kite Runner

My winter break is coming to a close. While "break" hasn't felt normal, I was fortunate to be able to squeeze in some time to read in between crunching out my final college apps. 

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini was published in 2003 but I frankly had never heard of it until now. Hosseini crafts a haunting story, one about a friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father's servant. The plot kept twisting throughout this book and there were often scenes that took me completely by surprise. Others I will never forget. Hosseini's employment of symbolism is particularly potent, everything from the kites to lies to the slingshots. The Kite Runner read quickly and I highly recommend it.

Whether I read nonfiction or fiction, I like to underline lines that stick out to me. I think of these underlined sentences as key ideas that I associate with the book, important themes, or simply well-written sentences that harness the beauty of language. When I revisit books I read a while back, this is also how I remember some of the key scenes that rest at the heart of the story. 

I want to share my favorite section from The Kite Runner. I underlined it at the beginning of the book, but as I quickly discovered, its meaning and significance seep through the entirety of the story. 

"There is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft…When you kill a man, you steal a life…you steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness" (Hosseini, 17-18).

While I do agree with the narrator that perhaps this viewpoint of the world is a little bit black and white, this line nonetheless stuck with me. I've been thinking about it in a variety of contexts and depending on how I look at the situation, it could apply. This certainly does deviate from traditional examples of sin, like pride, greed, or envy but I think the narrator's father has quite an interesting way of looking at the world, shaped by his experiences and his sense of wrongdoings. 

The writing in The Kite Runner made me feel differently than other fictional books because it's based on historical events and because the emotions Hosseini describes are so human. Simultaneously, it's both a story and a novel that touches the roots of philosophy, begging questions like how to live or forgive. I loved this book so much and the story is definitely one I won't forget.