Dear Fitz, 

    Thank you so much for the work that you have done this year. The help you have given, the work you have demanded, even the witty and annoyingly correct sayings that never seem to run dry. You did what no one else could, cultivating a crop of writers from regular students, and while we have all improved since the first time we sat at the cherry table, none of it be possible without you.

The cleansing power of nature. 

The earth has music for those who listen.

~William Shakespeare

    If looking down on earth you would see chaos; people frantically searching for masks, families calling each other to make sure that they're safe and sheltering in place, parents watching the news and awaiting the inevitable bad news... It's all quite a lot right now, stretching our optimism and our sanity. It is times like these when the outdoors seem the most appealing to me, offering an alcove of serenity and an escape from the chaos we now live in. The outside is magical; in our world of office jobs, perpetual online content consumption and constant need for a climate controlled, air conditioned and evenly lit environment has left us missing out on the things that we evolved to have as a necessity. And, unfortunately, this habit is only being reinforced by the ever-present Covid-19 virus, beaconing us to close our doors and shut the windows. Nothing is a replacement for the outdoors, and if we could only open our minds to the experience, we could all improve our lives to an extent we could have never imagined.

    I don't despise online school. I think that, to be honest, there are plenty of things that it does better than the classic method. However, as I explore my thoughts on the topic it becomes apparent that some of the things that we may not consider on paper, the things we take for granted, create the largest disruptions.

The underlying purpose of an inane task. 

Do or do not. There is no try. 

~Yoda

    Almost everyone has found themselves doing chores at least once in their life. I began with these seemingly time-sucking and brain-numbing activities as soon as I was able bodied enough, essentially just once the times of being a little kid had passed. However, like most things in life, chores as a practice are very different from how they might seem. This was proven to me through a typical conversation with my dad while I was doing one of his assigned activities, and it made me rethink everything I thought I had known about something seemingly so simple.

A review of a children's classic

If you've ever wondered where your dreams come from when you go to sleep at night, just look around. This is where they are made. 

~Brian Selznick

    The Invention of Hugo Cabret, written by Brian Selznick and first published in 1991, is a fun and invigorating tale of adventure and discovery. You will be taken along with orphaned Hugo on a quest to rebuild and repair an automaton (a complex mechanical man) left by his father to receive a long awaited message, and eventually to find his place as a gear in the machine we call life. The Invention of Hugo Cabret is a tale of chasing dreams, struggle and discovery, and these themes continue to develop as the reader turns the pages, never letting you guess what is coming next.

    Commenting. It is mostly seen as annoying, mundane, to some even repulsive, but even through all this commenting persists as a necessary and vital part of everyday interactions, we might just not have realized it. Sharing opinions is one of the things that moves society forward; if we all blindly listened and followed the wishes of one person and only one person we all know the horrible state of ruin that would soon follow for our democracy, and if we didn't listen to anyone we would become self-absorbed and never change, thinking we are just right in our current state as your brain would have led you to believe. And so, commenting is essential, and while it is true that a "nice job!" and a "I liked how you stated the theme throughout!" aren't really going to make a great difference, this essential core principle still applies.

A reading log.

    Having just finished The Innvention of Hugo Cabret, I found myself once again searching for a new book to read. Fortunately, it seems that my mom always has an endless supply of “good books” that she would like me to read, so with my confidence and optimism boosted by her appraisal of each and every one of them, I began the first page of All the Light We Cannot See.

How only a few paragraphs can change one's outlook.

A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.

~Friedrich Nietzsche

    It was the middle of Spring Break, the middle of a lack-luster, lethargic, labor-free time, the middle of what was meant to be an exciting trip to Austria and Germany. I was hunched over the checkered sheets wrapped around my bed, my neck curled down towards my phone watching a video that could only be described as "putrid," but I continued nevertheless.With the world falling apart around us, no one knew what was coming next, where we would be in a few weeks, and if this cyclone of darkness would ever leave us be.

    For every second of every day our brain is making quick, decisive actions. It might instruct its loyal army of muscles to go turn your head at a noise it just picked up on, say something that should have high chance of adding to the conversation, or maybe just merely pressing the keys in front of you to crank out a third and final public journal entry. But, as we all know, these half developed thoughts can sometimes be approved for action too soon, and before we know it we have said, done, or judged something in a way that is certainly less than optimal. Now, granted, you can't really blame your brain for this, because considering all the decisions it made for you just in the span of this morning its record should be in the millions to one, and I'm pretty sure anyone would accept odds like that.