Thornton Academy – AP Language 2018-2019

Ratatouille is one of the finest films of our generation, inducting lessons of love, food, and passion to come together and form the perfect recipe for high art.

It’s a simple enough story, one of Remy the rat, who feels like an outsider in his colony due to his passion for fine cuisine and exquisite sense of smell. Like any ardent chef, Remy’s quest for saffron leads him to be separated from his family, an event that is just the beginning of his journey. He finds himself in Paris, a food capital of the world and home of his idol Guesteau’s restaurant. He makes his way to the restaurant’s kitchen, and after witnessing the devastation caused to an unattended soup by garbage boy, Linguini, he sets out to make a delightful soup that soon becomes a patron favorite. Unfortunately, Remy’s soup canoodlings get him into a bit of a pickle when he is discovered by the kitchen staff.  However, the incident puts him into the hands of Linguini, and Remy is able to pursue his passion for cooking as the two become friends.

The film tells an incredible story of following your dreams and being able to achieve them no matter who you are. It also explores beautiful friendships, all of the ups and downs included. The effect food has on our lives is also a prevalent theme in the film. Brooding and harsh food critic Anton Ego is even swayed by a meal, being sent back to tender moments in his childhood in the French countryside when he is served ratatouille by the master of cuisine, Remy. It opens the stoic Ego’s eyes, allowing him to reexamine his disposition and become a bit more jovial.

Even with the eventual shutdown of Gusteau’s due to the discovery of rats in the kitchen, Remy, his family, and his friends, open up their own successful restaurant, an inspiring conclusion to a tale that tells us we can do anything, even if we may be a rat.

If Americans have turkey and stuffing in Thanksgiving meal, Vietnamese people have bánh chưng and bánh dầy during Tết – the Lunar New Year.

Bánh chưng is made of glutinous rice filled with mung beans and pork and wrapped inside a phrynium leaf. Bánh chưng also has the shape of a rectangular prism with a square base. This dish is also optionally accompanied by fish sauce, pickled welsh onion, and pickled carrot and unripe papaya if the bánh chưng is fried. A variation of bánh chưng is bánh tét, which contains similar ingredients yet takes on the shape of a log.

Meanwhile, bánh dầy is shaped similar to a mini-pancake, only to be composed of glutinous rice; bánh dầy is also wrapped with a small leaf. It is usually eaten with a circular piece of Vietnamese pork sausage called giò.

The origin of bánh chưng and bánh dầy has been dearly shared among generations through a legendary tale. Once upon a time, the sixth king of the Hùng dynasty created a food contest to find a successor. The king’s eighteenth son, Lang Liêu, was particular anxious due to the absence of a guide. One night, Lang Liêu dreamt of a fairy who instructed him to gather glutinous rice, the most valuable kind of food, and big, green leaves in order to make these dishes. When Lang Liêu woke up, he followed the instruction, cooked these two dishes and presented them to his father. Bánh chưng and bánh dầy clearly stood out among all of the dishes, and thus, won Lang Liêu the throne.

Bánh chưng and bánh dày hold significant secular and cultural values. Bánh chưng is a highlight of Tết. Cooking bánh chưng is a seasonal bonding activity, as Tết is the season of family reunions. Many families also put bánh chưng up the altar to pay respect to ancestors; bánh chưng represents family protection from parents and past generations, as shown through the wrapping of the leaves and the embrace of the fillings. In addition, these dishes emphasize the long-lasting significance of rice in Vietnamese culture. Furthermore, bánh chưng’s square appearance embodies the Earth and bánh dầy’s circlular appearance embodies the sky. These representations specify the Vietnamese ancestors’ concepts of the universe. Lastly, as folks usually make bánh chưng in great quantities as they subconsciously hope for a new year full of prosperity, they tend to end up with many bánh chưng as leftovers for weeks after Tết.

If you are ever invited to celebrate Tết with a Vietnamese family, are you going to be there or be square?

This past Sunday I had a choir concert with Voices In Harmony. This was my 12th year singing with this group as I have been singing since I was 5. This year was kind of bittersweet, as many of the children that are normally a part of it were not there, but the all women jazz group I was in sounded amazing and worked harder then ever to prepare for this concert.

The owner of the musical groups, Voices in Harmony, Camille Saucier, basically raised me in the music world through her singing group. Some of my absolute happiest memories are the funny moments that happened at our night rehearsals in the various places they have been in over the years on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s. The concerts with her over the years have shaped the musician I am today and changed the way I look at music now.

Being up on that stage has always been where I love to be surrounded by the singers I have been with since I was a little girl. That group grew up together at all different ages and I think it’s absolutely amazing that one person made that happen for all of us. That stage and being up there with them has been my happiness for 12 years and I’m very sad that next year will be my last year with this group before going off to college.

Im extremely grateful for all of the memories and love I have received from the Voices In Harmony family and I hope next year it ends on a very good and happy note.

The innovations and improvements of technology over the past decade have been mind blowing, propelling many countries forward to a better life for its citizens. However, despite these achievements technology can handicap a person’s life and their relationships with others.

Many people know the phrase, take everything in consideration and technology is no exception to this. The neverending presence of technology including phones is crippling the lives of many people including the youth of America. It is becoming more and more incorporated into daily life, and people are becoming attached to their phone. Five years ago a person would walk into a restaurant and you would see people reading the newspaper to each other or chatting. Today you can walk in that same restaurant and will see people no longer making as much conversation, instead they are on their phones. Another example is texting and driving. The amount of lives that have been taken because someone glanced at their phone and wasn’t focused on the road is shocking. Many people can be in the company of others and feel completely alone, because their friends aren’t taking any notice of what they might need.

The attraction for online attention is due to science. Endorphins released in your brain when you receive positive feedback online. These “feel good” endorphins make you crave more of the feelings that are derived from them. This need for more, can cause you to become addicted to your phone.

Technology has major advantages. It connects us with those that we love who are far away from home. It also is reliable and can bring us closer to emergency aid or answers that we may need. We must remember to not only reconnect with friends online, but surround and connect ourselves with friends close by. It’s these people that will bring you through tough times and praise you in your successes, so make sure to unplug from technology and plug in to your friends.

Written by Magdalene Meek

Happiness has been a perennial puzzle that everyone wants to solve for centuries. Most philosophers think happiness is to live a good quality of life that one does not need to worry about it, and happiness is to achieve all that satisfy oneself. Sometimes, people just cannot stop desiring what they don’t have and spoiling what they have. However, they never realize that what they have now was once among the things they only hoped for, and there are other definitions and principles for happiness, rather than owning the world.

True, meaningful friendships are fundamental to people’s happiness. Instead of searching tirelessly for meaningless materials in life, cultivating positive friendships and soulmates and spending time understanding them and letting them know about oneself are the key to happy and peaceful life. Friendships do not just reflect a person’s interests, but also a person’s value to someone else, to the world. True friends provide guidelines and advices of the complicated life, and inspire people to improve themselves and become happier.

Another key to satisfaction in people’s lives is to produce meaningful work, not just to earn a lot of money. People’s obsession with earning money will them to work as hard as possible, driving themselves to exhaustion and causing them tremendous amounts of stress and unhappiness. Instead of slaving in the every day working routine from day to midnight, it’s important to seek to discover how a person can provide meaningful work and support others. No one is useless in this world if they lightens the burdens of others. Even though helping and supporting others may end up gaining nothing in terms of wealth, endlessly following and pursuing these desires only delays the arrival of happiness, and serving to make the world a better place brings meanings and happiness to one’s life.

People should reflect on the moments that bring them true happiness and they should pay close attention to small, wonderful things that populate our daily lives, cultivate gratitude for all that we have, surrendering desires for more, and spending time with true friends, looking for joy and meanings of life. These are the principles of happiness.

On November 4th, 2018, citizens all over the United States voted at their local polls in order to elect a new wave of political candidates. Although the voting is long over, in Maine, the election has not fully come to a close. Bruce Poliquin, the 2nd Congressional District’s republican candidate for the House of Representatives, requested a recount after a narrow loss to his Democratic opponent, Jared Golden. In addition to a recount of the votes that began on Thursday, December 6, judge Lance Walker will determine within the next week whether or not the current results will stand.

Poliquin’s issues with the final outcome arose due to the ranked-choice ballot style of the Maine election. Although Golden secured the official victory with a 2,905 vote margin, Poliquin disagreed, claiming that he was the rightful victor. In any other case, Poliquin’s first round lead over Golden would have earned him the job. However, because neither candidate had over 50% of the total votes after round one, Maine’s ranked-choice voting system tallied the second choice votes of the eliminated independent candidates. Despite Poliquin’s original lead, with the help of the second choice votes, Golden prevailed. As a result of the loss, Poliquin filed a lawsuit against the state of Maine, claiming that ranked-choice voting was unconstitutional, and demanded a recount.

On Wednesday, December 5, federal judge Lance Walker listened to both Poliquin and the state in court. Walker will determine within the next week whether or not Maine’s use of ranked-choice voting goes against the state constitution. This ruling, along with the results of the recount, will determine the representative of Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, and finally end the month-old election.