The Genius of Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Why it is Groundbreaking Literature by Samhita adapa

The Genius of Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Why it is Groundbreaking Literature by Samhita adapa

All kids know Diary of a Wimpy Kid. It’s one of those series that remain relevant for almost 20 years now. Every scholastic book fair in school was a chance to go buy the new DOAWK book. A new book release would be something everyone looked forward to. Every scholastic book catalog has at least one person buying the huge box set in each class. Even last year, my 9 year old sister took money to the book fair to buy No Brainer and this year she was extremely excited to buy Hot Mess. When I was younger, my cousins and I would always get dropped off by the book section in Costco and we would spend the entire time reading Wimpy Kid and always try to finish one book before we had to leave. Since the first book came out in 2007, there have been a multitude of books and movies, and it’s no stretch to say that the franchise has been extremely successful since then. What I am going to say, what a few people might think is a slight exaggeration, is that Diary of the Wimpy Kid is groundbreaking and probably one of the best works to come out of 21st century literature. ​

​ Let’s start off with our protagonist, Greg Heffley. This dude is quite literally a modern-day Kafka. He is an anti-hero, an unreliable narrator, and a complete jerk . Greg Heffley is not a good person and that is AMAZING. How many books, especially kids books, have you read where the main character is clearly a bad person? In fact, when I think of an anti-hero, an image of Greg Heffley blares in my head like a siren, screaming ME! He is, at his very core, a narcissist, in a way I think that all middle schoolers were at the age. That is, until you grow up, mature, and realize that people were too busy caring about themselves to care about you anyway. 

Onto the Kafka aspect of him, Greg Heffley often writes his diary, or journal as he likes to call it, about things like being isolated and being alienated from his peers, sometimes even his family. Not only this, he embodies Kafka’s characters. One great example of this is when he is isolated from Rowley and then later becomes so alone, he is willing to mold Fregly, who everyone thought to be a lost cause by now, to become his new Rowley(Kinney). Again it takes a real selfish, narcissistic person, to take another person and mold them into someone completely different to benefit only you. Greg, in fact, self-alienates himself from his peers due to his constant efforts to climb up the popularity scale, his own selfishness causing his multiple downfalls throughout the books. He feels alienated from everyone because he thinks that no one understands him and his goals and then in turn misunderstands everyone else. 

Now compare this to Gregor Samsa, who is struggling under the pressure of a boring bureaucratic job and familial pressures and then turns into a bug. They are the same…if you squint a little. They both struggle under heavy social and familial expectations. Fun fact, Greg’s science fair project was called Metamorphosis, which unsurprisingly is a failure. It takes masterful writing to take a character who is so selfish, rude, and narcissistic and then turn them into someone kids actually root for, like Greg. It’s beautiful. 

Now you may say, sure but why is this groundbreaking? But then I’ll ask you in return, what defines groundbreaking? Let’s take the literal definition, digging or breaking into the ground. And who breaks the ground? Greg Heffley. In the book The Last Straw, Greg and Rowley break the ground to bury a time capsule that contains a plethora of things, including money. Greg then breaks the ground a couple weeks later to dig up the capsule and steal the money to buy more online currency for a game. It's Groundbreaking!

MH, 370 disappearance, an article by Umar Malek

 MH, 370 disappearance by Umar Malek

On March 8, 2014, six hours after leaving Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 went missing, creating one of the most enduring mysteries in the history of aviation. The aircraft departed from Kuala Lumpur at 12:41 a.m., traveling to Beijing with a total of 239 people on board. About twenty minutes into the flight, at the time it was going to reach the cruising altitude, its telecommunications turned off. At 1:21 a.m., in Vietnamese airspace, the plane's transponder went offline.

After the plane's sudden change of direction to the west, a military radar had followed the aircraft for a distance. Over the Malay Peninsula, it flew westward towards the Strait of Malacca after making the sharp turn as it was heading northwest.

At 2:22 a.m., the radar lost the aircraft's trail in the Andaman Sea. A satellite positioned over the Indian Ocean, however, kept receiving the signal from the plane until 8:11 a.m.

As a result of the disappearance, a gigantic global search was initiated. At the beginning, the South China Sea was the focus of the investigators. They changed their focus to the remote Indian Ocean after the data indicated that the plane had deviated from its route; this place was about 1550 miles southwest of Australia.

They found it very hard to execute the search due to the remoteness of that area. As a result, the findings of the airplane have been very sparse despite all the efforts that were made.

Only the right flaperon of the wing, which had been washed on Réunion Island, was found from the wreckage until July 2015. In the subsequent years, the parts have been found in spots such as Tanzania, South Africa, Madagascar, and Mauritius.

There have been three pieces identified, which are parts of the MH370, and the other fragments are likely from the same plane.

In 2018, the Malaysian government inferred from the evidence onboard the aircraft that someone inside the plane had intentionally done the act of redirecting the plane.

However, it is still a mystery as to why the plane disappeared even after making that discovery. Theorizing about things like pilot suicide, hijacking, and mechanical failure, but these are not established facts.

The questions about what happened to MH370 are the same today as they were over ten years ago, and it remains the biggest mystery in modern aviation history.

Gregersen, Erik. “Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Disappearance.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 1 Mar. 2019, www.britannica.com/event/Malaysia-Airlines-flight-370-disappearance.

Presentations & Public Speaking by Kaveeshan Gnanarajah

 Presentations & Public Speaking by Kaveeshan Gnanarajah

In the fall of my 10th grade, I stood up in front of my class to deliver my most “professional” speech ever. Although it was a simple presentation, my teacher was known to be a strict grader and also strongly recommended we wear suits, as it was a business class. This environment and the fact that it was the very first presentation of the year made me extremely nervous. I was literally dreading those 5-10 minutes throughout my whole day at school. 

Surprisingly, even though I did not think my presentation was as good as it could have been, I got a very high grade. This absolutely skyrocketed my confidence throughout the rest of my school year. If I ever had a presentation that I was nervous about, I would always say, “Well, if I could do that good on one of my hardest presentations ever, I should easily be able to do well on this one”. After a couple of months of using this, I realized that confidence is the biggest thing when you are up on that stage. Even if I didn’t practice my lines as well as I might have wanted, I was so confident that everything would work out fine, and most of the time it did. Confidence has helped me, and I am sure so many of you get out of situations that you might not like. But if you are struggling with confidence while presenting, here are a few other things you could do! 

If you are actually practicing for a presentation, simply record yourself. Once you have your recording, you MUST watch it. Yes, I know, it will likely be so awkward to watch yourself talk to a wall for however long. But with that being said,  it's important to understand where you mess up so your brain doesn’t make the same mistake next time you rehearse it. This part has helped me so much as it allowed me actually to see what the audience sees when I present. When you watch these recordings, make sure you watch not only the way you’re pronouncing words, but also your body language and the way you move your hands to allow the viewers to follow what you’re saying.

The last, but my favorite, way to practice your skills, even if you do not have a presentation coming up, is through AI. This process will take under 3 minutes, maybe even shorter once you get the hang of it after a couple of times. All you have to do is ask whatever AI you like to provide a prompt, and then all you have to do is simply record yourself answering the prompt, giving yourself no time to prepare a script.

Reaching Goals by Muhammad Raza

 Reaching Goals by Muhammad Raza

Goals are amazing things: they serve as a means of improving ourselves, achieving stature from a material or societal point of view, and for some, they even give meaning to life. Achieving individual goals, depending on the context, is at the very least extremely fulfilling and at the very best a peak moment in someone’s life. Whether it be getting a promotion at work, earning an A in Calculus, or being accepted into your dream college, goals give us something to work for and give us motivation and pleasure as we get closer and closer to them. 

And while goals are undeniably great in many regards, one aspect that many people do not bring up when discussing goals is the possibility of not achieving them. Popular media, whether it be movies, anime, or video games, often portray protagonists eventually achieving what they want through hard work or discipline. Reality, unfortunately, is messier, and sometimes, no matter what you do, it seems as if life itself is working against you every possible moment to ensure that you do not get what you work for. And the sad truth is that some people just don’t achieve their goals. 

Something similar has happened to me very recently. I have failed to fulfill a goal that I have dedicated almost every day for the past 8 months, and I’m currently at a loss for what to do. It seems like every inconvenience, late night, and body ache I put forth to achieve this dream was all for nothing, and it’s hard to see yourself work so much harder than others to no benefit. It’s been a harsh reminder for me that nothing in life is guaranteed, no matter how much you want it or how much you work for it, and that complaining will not get you any closer either. 

However, if I’ve learned anything from those aforementioned movies, anime, and video games, it is that the most stubborn, hard-headed guy always seems to get what he wants in the end. The way I’m looking at it right now is that moping around won’t solve anything, and that if I still continue to strive for this goal, I will either achieve it or fail, but in any case, the journey has been (and will definitely continue to be) fun and fulfilling in and of itself. I guess it shows that maybe there is some truth in the cliche “it’s about the journey, not the destination” because the destination is not guaranteed, but you can control the journey and make yourself better through it. 

A World Without Exams by Parnika Thakare

 🌍 A World Without Exams by Parnika Thakare 

Imagine waking up without having to spend the entire week worrying about an exam. No

worrying about every little detail, no last-minute cramming, and no fear that one poor

grade will destroy your average. We might even enjoy learning instead of merely

memorizing facts to pass, and school would feel much more relaxed.

However, not all tests are negative. In fact, they help us discover our strengths and

areas for improvement. Also, receiving a good grade is very satisfying; it's like a little

victory that motivates you on to keep going. Exams also force us to learn material that

we might not have otherwise, which can be useful in the future.

Learning would not feel like a stressful marathon if schools could have a balance

between tests, projects, discussions, and enjoyable ways that show our knowledge.

School might become less about panic and memorization and more about

understanding things if there were fewer crazy tests.

Road Trip to Thekaddy, Kerala by Hanaa Haleem

Road Trip to Thekaddy, Kerala by Hanaa Haleem

This year, I finally got to travel outside of Tamil Nadu during my three week stay in India. With my younger cousins, parents, and grandmother (mother’s side), we drove 8 hours to Kerala from our hometown in Tamil Nadu. We first began with a boat ride with nothing special but a view of buffalos and a sunny lake similar to the one near my house. 

The food was way different than I expected as I am used to high spice content, meaning that biryani tasted really plain to me during this trip as I am used to it being cooked very spicy. 

Day 2 was the big highlight. My parents and I went hiking up stairs that led us to a big statue which represented ancient tribes in India. I also exchanged a small conversation with a street food vendor selling mango, who shared about her hometown. Later, my dad and I rode an elephant that I struggled to climb onto as I was scared of falling, but the ride turned out to be fun after all. 

What stood out to me the most was the cleanliness of public places and English fluency within many people in Kerala. I felt like for once, I can survive in India without fluency in my native language despite finally learning it better within the many places I went to this year. I am definitely homesick for the street kuttu porottas (chopped spicy flatbread) and endless greenery within every spot I travel to. 

Annotating was NOT what I thought it was by Hanaa Haleem

  Annotating was NOT what I thought it was by Hanaa Haleem

8th grade me in social studies about to take my annotation quiz: Excited knowing that I finally get to use my aesthetic highlighters and romanticize schoolwork. Same thing in writing class where we were required to annotate the story we wrote an essay about. Flash forward to a year later — JANE EYRE by Charlotte Bronte makes its first appearance in my hands after purchasing it from my Honors English class. 

Knowing that I thrived doing annotations in writing and social studies last year, I had high hopes for how to annotate it over fall break. “Tis is so easy, it's just playing around with cute highlighters while reading arnold story from the 1600s”----WRONG! Honors English annotations? Yup, that's a whole other thing. It is not aesthetic at all. It takes a large time commitment and thought as you annotate each line of text and interpret it.

I remember how I thought I would be able to get ahead in my annotations since we were given about 10 days to annotate 5 chapters, but annotating 10 pages itself felt too long already since I had to really think and understand the text instead of just highlighting it. This continued to feel more dreading like a chore as we got farther into the book, and I remember my only goal being to finish annotating the required pages than to actually sit and understand it as it was hard to make time for it already. 

A month later, I was finally relieved once we were done with the book. From then on, annotating any other book felt like light work as I reminded myself of how I was able to annotate that difficult of a book (500+ pages btw). 

For any freshmen in honors english reading this, here are some tips I have:

• Just annotate with one pen instead of using multiple. 

• Do not write big paragraphs in the margin. Instead, write small phrases summarizing the section you just annotated

• Bookmark the pages you believe are VALUABLE for discussion and writing about in your LAPs

• When in class discussion, use a separate pen (preferably red or blue ink) to write down new ideas you came across in, which you can also use to expand your LAP analysis too