For All the Dogs

 The OGs:

To Jess, thank you for making me laugh at the most random things. I swear, your humor and joy were only too easy to fall into, even on days when I wasn’t feeling my best. And, thank you for allowing yourself to be subjected to countless jokes made by Aly and me about your childhood photos, as we got to poke fun at you. Your ability to change things from serious to comical always made me cheer up, and from you, I’ve learned that I don’t need to always take myself seriously, as being lighthearted once in a while never hurts.

To Aly, thank you for telling me the craziest stories about your life. They were always so entertaining and helped distract me from the boring lessons about allusions and motifs. I of course cannot forget to mention your numerous sessions of retelling your dreams to me. The randomness, craziness, and tone you used to narrate your nighttime slumber never failed to amuse me. Also, shoutout to your chaotic and out-of-pocket (yet equally hilarious) sentences, because you showed me that I didn’t need to fear being honest and speaking my mind.

The Complete Set:

To Zahra, thank you for never hiding your facial expressions from me, because your side-eyes, open-mouthed expressions, and subtle confusion always made our table laugh and eventually expand on our ideas. Your ability to see through bullshit (mine specifically) and prove me wrong always made me admire you. Without you, I probably wouldn’t have learned that it’s okay to express my opinions and ideas — even if they aren’t always the right one — because I can always grow and learn more from them.

To Vandya, thank you for putting up with our table’s sometimes questionable humor. Your patience has no end, and I always wonder how you were able to put up with us for so long. You are like our rock, always there to help us learn more and keep us on task when we are straying away from our work to talk about topics that were never important. You taught me that as long as I am able to finish what’s at hand, it's okay to find humor in the small things.

And finally, to Sukruta, the one who’s been there since the beginning — and I’m not just talking about the ninth grade. Although elementary school was most definitely a bumpy road when it came to navigating our friendship, I’m glad that we were able to work things out. If we hadn’t, I wouldn’t have had the privilege of hearing the worst comebacks known to man, the weirdest phrases, and the lapses in judgment that caused you to make the funniest mistakes. Thank you for all of our conversations that never made any sense because we always interrupted them with our laughter, your unwavering support for my (sometimes incorrect) ideas on how to answer a partner prompt, and for always matching my energy in class. You’ve shown me that disagreements don’t define friendship, and how to yap like a pro when I don’t know what’s going on.

The Unwanted Pieces:

To Sarah Vowell, author of the essay containing the most debatable opinions, The Partly Cloudy Patriot: I am deeply indebted to you, for you have shown me that it's okay to have confidence in yourself, even when you’re wrong. I’m assuming that was the goal of your essay, because there is no way there were any real feelings behind the piece. Your talent of writing so much yet saying so little really shined through in your words, and although I wanted to jump off of a cliff multiple times throughout your unnecessarily long piece that had no true content, my anger allowed me to answer the required questions given to me extensively. So, thank you, and I’m hoping for both of our sakes, we don’t cross paths again.

Now this next author needs no introduction, but because of his huge impact on me, I’ll give one anyway. Ladies and gents, the man, the myth, and the legend himself, author of the worst piece of classic American Literature, F. Scott Fitzgerald! The hate rants/blogs that were probably my best are all dedicated to you, and I give my sincerest thanks for giving me content to work off of, otherwise I probably would still be stuck trying to figure out what to write about. Now, I understand your goal when you wrote The Great Gatsby, but it’s with a deep sadness I have to admit, you most definitely missed the mark. The rhetorical devices that had no purpose in the book, the overly annoying characters that, may I quote my past self, made me “want to gauge my eyes out”, and the bland and hypocritical narrator. I’ll stop here for now, otherwise I’ll just end up writing another hate essay, but overall, you undoubtedly taught me how to improve my writing, even if it is sometimes quite harsh (definitely deserved though).

The Questionable Writing Skills:

To me, thank you for taking Mrs. Valentino’s various critiques seriously, because girl, what in the world were you thinking when you wrote those first few essays? Honestly, I probably wasn’t thinking, period, but that’s besides the point. I’m happy that I was able to especially work on my transitions, as I’m pretty sure I just threw words on the page and hoped all was well. It in fact was not, especially because when I wrote about museums in an essay in October last year, I stated “Furthermore, it is indeed…”. I have no idea how I thought that worked, because I totally sound crazy. I may just be overanalyzing my past work since it’s mine, but whatever. My lack of properly connecting ideas and keeping my tone throughout the piece is certainly apparent reading on, and I’m glad I was able to fix it over the duration of this year. For example, instead of that horrendous line, I leaned for a simpler yet smoother transition, writing “She also contrasts the setting of where flamingos are placed with…” in a more recent essay, around mid-February of this year. Although the change was small, my essay scores have thankfully jumped a lot from what they were before, no doubt from content changes but also from these minute details.. Other than learning how to write, I’ve learned from myself that it’s necessary to accept criticism, as that’s all part of the process of learning and growing. Oh, and I’ve learned how to absolutely obliterate authors in roasts, politely of course, and with the help of rhetorical devices. 

The Real Ones:

To my sister Eman, I genuinely appreciate you for forcing me to suck up all my fears and insecurities about my AP classes. You are always supporting me from the sidelines, regardless of if you are annoyed with me or not. I really cannot think of a better role model, comedian, and therapist than you. Thank you for always shouldering my problems, cheering and hyping me up, defending me, believing in my capabilities when I don’t, calling me out for my stupidity, coming up with quick-witted retorts, and letting me nag you into staying the night at your apartment, even when you were busy with moving and finals. I’ve learned from you that I don’t need to be someone I’m not, and I should never, ever be scared of failure. I’m glad to call you my older sister, and I’ll be happily watching when you succeed in the (very near) future. 

To Eliya, thank you for convincing me not to drop AP Language and Composition (sorry Mrs. Valentino). I was without a doubt intimidated from the very first day, and from hearing seniors tell juniors their experiences, I was ready to book it to my counselor and ask to switch out. Thankfully, Eman told me to talk to you about your experiences, and I’m glad she did, because hearing you talk about the positive experiences from this class made me way less scared for what was to come. From you, I discovered that I need to be more open to experiences, and that I’ll never know what’s to come if I never try to find out.

The “Literature is Life” Fanatic:

To the one who always defended English against us students, Mrs. Valentino. Your endless excitement about the smallest things like irony, humor, tone, and getting us sandwiches for Clyde’s all made this class so much better. I’m honestly so glad you’re my English teacher, because when I hear complaints from students who have other teachers, I remind myself to be thankful for the predictable Monday morning essays – even if they were annoying. Your ability to make the class understandable really helped open my love for the English language, and you allowing us to openly express our opinions while you were in the middle of the lesson made classes all the more engaging. I obviously have to mention your jokes and wit, because they were key highlights of my day. And of course, the debates that took place during the times we should’ve been working, because those never failed to make us laugh and allowed us to draw many comparisons (including your uncanny resemblance to Moira). Clearly, you’ve taught me things since you’re my teacher (duh), but one thing that I know will stick with me (and it’s not the “excellence” of The Great Gatsby) is how you made learning truly fun. I never imagined I’d actually enjoy walking into any English class, but alas, here we are. And, as much as I hate to admit it, you’ve (partially proved) literature can be life.