Hanis' AEP Diaries : ep 2

THE FIRST BLOG OF THE YEAR!

10.12.2022

Did your school just started and you're already bombarded with assignments? Yes? Me too! Don't worry, you're not alone 😌 

It's been a while ☕

Hellooo everyoneeee<3 🙌 Before this blog even gets started, I just wanted to say that it has been quite a while since I've last done a blog and I was kinda- I am crusty at writing one in the first place. Everything is all over the place but hey, the content and feelings is what's important. If you're reading this, I hope you're having a wonderful day! If you're not, I'm sending a virtual hug to you (⁠づ⁠￣⁠ ⁠³⁠￣⁠)⁠づ

So far...this is what I've been up to

This blog will not be about everything. It will be solely dedicated to talking about what happened in AEP class. Since we're grade 11 and AEP is a minor subject, Miss Disa decided that we would be focusing on improving our vocabulary so that it could be used in our future classes. We we're given a couple of topics and were asked to vote which one to do via Google forms. 

Alrighty, the very first class we did wasn't really a class. We started the year with......🥁 SCRABBLE! I'm.so.bad.at.scrabble. Ughhh it's not even a funny anymore. Thanks to AEP class, I've realised that I'm  actually bad at Scrabble. It's okay, that's just not my expertise. I don't know if I remember correctly but we spent a good 2 periods with Scrabble.

For our very first official class, majority of us voted for 'The World of Politics'. As per usual, there is always a warm-up game in AEP class. It could be wordle, quordle, word master, scrabble, and there's probably more to come. Idk at this point, Miss Disa might as well just give us the whole day to play games. Jokeee I know that will never happen. If you ask for a free period in class, boy you're gonna get more work instead. So pleaseee do not say 'free time' in AEP unless miss says so herself.

Our first activity was to make a word cloud based on vocabulary related to Politics. From all the activities and projects we did, this one was my favourite!💞 Then we did like Miro stuffs and more Scrabble. For me, vocabulary was and is still my weakness in English. I think the problem is I know words but I don't know the meaning of the words and how to use them in a sentence. Even though I've just learned the meaning of the word, it wouldn't really stick to me that much. Believe me I'm trying to find a way that would work for me in remembering the meaning of the difficult words. 

Hanis' AEP Diaries : ep 1

Retrospective Blog

Hello! Today's blog is kinda a new approach because I will be looking back about what I've learned and felt during the past AEP lessons. Honestly, I kinda thought I would forget what I've learned as time goes by but when looking back, I've realised that we actually have done a lot of things. If you've read my AEP blog entries, I have specify the topics that we have covered so far. Here, I'll be giving my honest opinions on the activities that we have done.

Speech 🎤

*Insert me crying in a corner*

Before I completely talk bad about how my speech went, it was quite an experience. I felt the anxiety and nervous feeling again as you would feel when doing a presentation infront of everyone. I've never really like presenting;nevertheless doing a speech. I hate the nervous feeling and the ecstasy in the stomach. We had to talk about issues facing the young people;we had chose our own topics. Mine was about social media. Preparing the speech was one thing but presenting and talking itself is another thing. When I feel nervous, I usually stutter and pronounce a word badly. I don't really know how to cope with that but I try each time to calm myself and to overcome the nervous feeling. I really do try. I never knew 3 minutes would be so long before. I had a script and I've practiced a lot to the point that I have remember the script, but again the nervous feeling make me forget stuff to mention during the speech. I remember we determined the order by taking a Scrabble letter and see which letter comes first and which comes last. If I remember correctly, I had the the letter S;therefore, I was the last one who presented. Well the experience was quite normal to be honest. Everyone was supportive and considerate which eased my  tension a bit. I wasn't as nervous as I thought. I still did stutter though. The speech went on smoothly. Everyone did a great job in my opinion. It wasn't the best but it was a nice change of activity. I really don't want another speech though, pleaseeeeeee. Overall, it wasn't a bad experience but I really don't want to do another speech. Mainly because of the anxiety and nervous feeling.

Blogs 💻✍️

As mentioned earlier, this is my second blog so far. I feel that blogging is actually a nice little activity to do every now and then to recap what we have learned and felt during AEP classes. I was introduced to blogging from last year and only good memories come out of it. It's a nice and chill writing activity to do with some complementary classical music in the background. It definitely helps me in creating a sentence and writing more in general. I just love music you know. I work better with it. I don't have any problems with this activity and would love to continue doing it in future lessons.

Miro Board💻

Gosh this is my favourite part of the class. Ms Disa would be mad if I say so because it is a game but it's not any game, it is a WORD game. Mhm you read it right. It's a word game. What makes it special? Well just the game is really fun because there is just so much kinds of wordle today;however, the real reason I like wordle is because it's an activity where all of us work together. It's different than Miro because we are working together but we're doing it online and not talking as much as we would during the very first part of our AEP class. Sometimes there are struggles and sometimes there are giggles. Every lesson comes a new word game. It never bores me. Different types of wordle has different types of challenges, but if we're working together, nothing is impossible. As the saying goes, two heads are better than one. Moreover, six heads are better than one. Make it seven heads including ms Disa. In summary, I like this starter activity. It never fails to start my brain and get it going for the next two hours.

AEP 11- retrospective blogggg

Looking Back… 

  Usually looking back is when you turn your head back and you’ll see what’s going on behind you bahdbahahahah, but that’s not the case here I guess… since Ms.Disa said we have to ‘look back’ in a different way. In a ‘reminiscing’ kind of way. Looking back to Term 1, relating to what we’ve done in our classes and everything that we’ve experienced. It’s Term 2 now, and in a blink of an eye, it’ll be Term 3 and then the school year will end. It's merely fascinating how fast time can just past by. 

Advanced English Program

   Advanced English Program or in short term, AEP, something that was really new to me. Considering that I've never heard of such subject or anything that's similar to this kind of learning. I took this class because my bestfriend, Izzah asked me to ahjhajfahaah, because according to her, ESL is for people that speak English as a second language. As bad as it sounds, I assure you that it was the start of something good even though I had no idea what to expect or what I just put myself into. To be honest, I'm not even that good in English so ESL was considered as a good choice. First class of AEP, it was nice and breezy, we did activities and played Scrabbles together, had a few talks about the politics. I was more of a listener though. Because.... as much as I want to share something I always feel like what I'm about to say is gonna sound stupid basjdjhadha. 

   But anyways, that's how it always be in AEP classes, there's always some kind of really open and serene discussions right then and there. In other words, what I've been observing the whole term was that, AEP is all about bringing people together and being present. Something that I struggled to adapt to in the beginning. For instance, during this time, Ms.Disa established this rule that earphones or headphones are NOT allowed in class. So, this one time I was trying to not lose my mind over the fact that I couldn't listen to Spotify during class bsjdhajahhahahahaha, we were given like a free time to do whatever we wanted to and everyone was completing some work while I decided to complete my Business notes, so I was basically in my own world and nOT LISTENING TO MUSIC WAS KIND OF ANNOYINGGGG AND INCOMPLETE!!!! It was a whole struggle I'm telling you!!! But I promise it was just that one 'emotional' day, after that I was okay at adjusting and be more present with everybody as time goes on. 

    I participated more and more in games and activities like Quandle Dingle or whatever it was. Just kidding, I knew what it was, it was Wordle, Quordle and many others that end with '-dle'. These type of games were my worst enemy and still are. As I said, I'm not that bright in English so my range of vocabulary is literally the size of a rat. So most of the times I just be shouting stupid words in order to help and some would just stare at me like I just committed a crime of stupidity. Other than that, we also did mind maps based on the topics that we all voted for. The first mind map that we did was about politics, I admit this topic was overused but hey, you know what, I learned quite a LOT of things. I was excited to know more about the 'big' words used in this topic specifically because now I feel like I can understand more about the politics of the world. And the next topic was the issues facing young people. Again, quite a common and overused topic but in a way, this topic helped me grow as a person and realize what I needed to focus on as a student. 

  We proceed to do speeches and everyone in my class did a speech on subtopics about the issues facing young people. I guess my speech was lacking a lot of things bsjhahahajadajdajhd. I didn't prepare that much but I still pulled through with a 'half-decent' speech about 'Well-being'. After that I realize I shouldn't be talking in front of people at all because of how dull I was at public speaking. But, I shouldn't worry because I know I can grow and be more confident and make a bunch of progress ;).

That's all from meeee, signing off....

Nurin <333

  

Anis' AEP Diaries - Retrospective Blog - 2.0

Wednesday, 9th October 2022// Retrospective Blog 

✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚*ੈ✩‧₊

5 main activities remains significant in the 3 months of term 1. It’s quite funny how after all, it’s these little things that has the power to alter my teenage life - of course in a good way. Many of the times, teenagers would spend half of their teenage life being absent in the present. There is so much power that we as humans hold but never recognize and one of it is being present. Ever since we were little, the conventional way to approach life is always to keep looking forward - what we want to be, what we should do - but rarely ever that we nurtured the skill of looking back. If we think about it, all of the things that happened in the past like memories, experiences, failures, successes are the ones that manage to push us to become who we are today. But, we all love shortcut that we end up concluding that there is just so much to think about. so, we end up digging this hole, make it comfy and stay there for quite some time. I think I just outed myself…but let it be known that it’s normal! 

Ever since I was a little child, I talk too much. even my mom has made the hypothesis that the mole on top of my lip exists clearly as a result of talking too much which is supported strongly by my ancestors. It’s a superstition. There are these periods of time when I ate candy which in return rewards these sugar rush. What it only does is have my mom's ears become the victim to my garrulous childish self. She’s smart because she’d always look me in the eyes and say "Anis, can you give me five minutes?", paired with that smile that you do when you are doing everything you can to hold yourself back from releasing the inner dragon. Almost many of the times I would say yes…but it never really stopped me at all from coming back and continuing annoying her with my trivial thoughts. 

Since then, I didn't really stop being me. When given a project that requires talking, it’s almost like I'm back to being the child version of myself. That’s one of the main reasons why our speech project was the opportunity for me to project her. Speech was out last project for term one and to say the least, it was really pleasant. All of us had chosen a specific word or phrase related to our main topic of "issues facing young people" and arguably, all of my classmates made good points that are relatable and at the same time factual. Something that is truly outstanding about speech is that, it acts as a vessel for a certain message to be carried out from an input. Through that point of view, what flows out simultaneously are charisma, passion and dedication. Seeing my classmates interpret a turbulent matter whilst utilizing a platform inspired me and assure me that the next generation are already two steps ahead. 

Again, I think I talk too much of scrabble. The reasoning is that throughout my high school life, I paid attention to defending myself and scrabble from my friends all the time. I am VERY protective over it. Here are some beautiful and memorable opinions over the years that stuck to me like a rat on a glue trap. 

1. "It’s an old people game"
2. "You’re a nerd"
3. "Ew."
4. "Do you not have anything else to do in your life?"
5. "Why?"

But thankfully, Ms. Disa brought back this game where everyone in the class has to sit and suffer whether they like it or not (revenge through Ms. Disa…? yes, please hahaha). When I think about it, it's so special that I get to just to sit in silence with my friends who I consider family at this point, being in the same space, doing the same thing, experiencing the same brain hurt. 

It’s not AEP if we don’t have new word games weekly. I didn’t know what I was expecting - but the game just kept on getting tougher and tougher. Sometimes when it has already been 20 minutes and the word game is still unfinished, the class would fall into a complete silence and that’s when I knew we had hit rock bottom. So many characters in one confined space. We have one that is staring blank at the board, one that is just rambling words and possibilities out loud but you genuinely don’t know english anymore after 20 minutes, one that wishes everything to be over and Ms. Disa that sits back and relax. My favorite part is when everyone is mad over the real word because that’s what quordle, specifically, does to people. Truthfully, it’s tough to be happy at 8:30 in the morning because all I can think about is my bed. So, I try to be present most of the times because i’m always thinking about "what if this is my last class doing this?". Many students look at classes as a habitual thing - something that we have to do just because it’s in our schedule. But there is so much more to it when you start thinking that you won’t have this anymore. We will all eventually grow up, mark a point on the map for the next adventure and become a whole different person. While we are still protected from the adult life, it’s comforting to know that I am just living life, not worrying about bills. Just being stressed over a word game. 

AEP acknowledges the concept of bonding with each other. At times, it isn’t all about academics. Being a STEM student that is constantly living within anxiety and pressure, two hours a week of none of those is just heavenly. Term 1 was intense and it's an achievement to persevere through it which makes me realize how AEP played a major role in that. 

Shooting back to present, I am currently blogging as you read this. For me, it’s a new experience to sit down with myself and reflect in a detailed manner on my history being in school. Without realizing, three months passed by and I’m out of breath running to have the clock to stop ticking! Journaling has been a part of my routine when it comes to reflecting my personal life. Therefore, in some ways it feels fresh that I’m applying almost the same skills in AEP. Most of the times, there are a lot of constriction when it comes  to the style you write but I personally think that AEP has freed me up from that cage. I finally feel as if there is actually someone out there in the AEP community who wishes to immerse themselves in my little world and spend time interpreting life through my lens. 

These are the core memories locked in a part of my mind. Therefore, I humbly present my efforts of recalling the suppressed memories in AEP from term one through words :) 

Until next time! 

✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚

Anis' AEP Diaries - Introduction - 1.0

Wednesday, 12th October 2022 

thoughts! 

✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚

Exactly 72 days ago, we started off face-to-face school after being in the lockdown that forever altered almost everything we all once had. From cheering outside of the school as the news of 2 weeks break are announced, to having a permanent 3 years break of the outside world, we were too naive. 

Seeing everyone evolved into a whole new person has been scary, but meaningful. We come out of our houses looking so different than ever, to the point where there was this time I couldn’t even recognize my neighbor, whom I have been friends with since I was 6. No hate to him but he started growing beards and moustache and has long hair. How could I know? Regardless, the journey we all have are something that we should celebrate. We have managed to tell ourselves to hold on and persevere, and that’s what we did. 

Fast forwarding to the year of 2022, I made a decision to enroll myself in a school known as Fountain International School. I was elected as a Parliament member acting as the Minister of Finance. Joined a scrabble competition. Not talking about grades. 

To be honest, I have never 'blog' even though my mom is actually good and active at it. I have always been more of a physical-book-journaling girl rather than using online platforms to do so. I find it much more relaxing, freeing and makes me be present without any technologies. So, today marks as a new beginning for my blogging era and I’m excited!

aep! 

✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚*ੈ✩

Stepping into the school year, we were introduced the different strands we have to pick as we level up to the senior year batches. Out of all the classes we have, AEP stands out to me. What hooked me was the learning environment and Ms. Disa's passion. It was something different, something refreshing. It almost feels like Ms. Disa will always have our back, especially when she communicates with us her principles and perspectives that allowed us to understand what entails. 

In AEP, we have had multiple brain challenging activities which all comes down to the outcome of us having fun and adding more vocabularies. More or less, the G11s favorite thing to do is apparently to just stare! Some of the activities we played are: 

1. Word Games 

Oh my god! Ms. Disa never fails to find us new word games. But here’s the twist. We never get easier ones because the level of difficulty keeps on increasing! Catch me on a good day and I would be half of the Thesaurus Dictionary, just throwing out words like punches, but catch me on a bad day and watch me literally struggle for the life of me. But it’s just so fun collaborating with my classmates. We were so advanced that we have our own dictionary filled with new words now… 

2. Scrabble

See, my class has an evil side of them. Our AEP class has a total of 7 people and how it usually works is that we work in pairs. As you can expect, everyone else would RUSH to get with their partners and they’d leave me alone...

3. The World of Politics 

"Gerrymandering". My favorite word I discovered in our learning. We managed to do a long word map on miroboard and expose ourselves to vocabularies used in the politics arena. 

4. Issues Facing Young People

This topic is rather a pleasant and impactful one which I can personally say affected me in a way. It's such a good experience that these types of topics are being included in our education system as it helps to spark more conversations to bring awareness. Being around classmates who were able to share their perspectives on the topic truly opens a window for me to look into the way they view and cope with certain matters in life. 

5. Appreciation Cards 

Being detached from the outside world was tough. A barrier that has been separated ourselves from people and places just added on to the loneliness that we adopted. Those type of connections that we long are so tough to rebuild again and therefore, this activity pushes us to immerse into our own emotions and produce a heartful appreciation messages to the people we matter. 

last message! 

✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚*ੈ✩

It goes without saying that everyone is fighting a silent battle - regardless of any timeline we put ourselves on. Therefore, be kind! Look out for each other, cherish the moments. This school year will definitely be a meaningful one for everyone and I'm looking forward to share those beautiful snippets of moments here in this blog! 

AEP Blog 1.2

AEP Blog

The first term just came to an end and the time has come to write another blog. The first term is already over and it’s a little odd knowing that we only have two terms left of school. Throughout the first term there have been a few things to comment on, overall it has been mostly positive. Firstly, the positive things of the first term. The thing I enjoyed the most was having a wordle game at the start of every lesson. In most classes, it’s annoying having to immediately get into a lesson. In contrast, this is not a problem in AEP because of wordle. I also enjoy trying out different versions of wordle like waffle wordle, quordle, etc. Because of these, the pre-lesson game we do before starting never gets boring. I also like the leniency Miss gives us in class. I think she is one of the only, or is the only teacher that lets us write about whatever we want to write about. Getting to pick our topics for our projects also alleviates a lot of the pressure around projects. I also appreciate the tolerance when it comes to deadlines. Sometimes there is just a bit too much to do in one night, especially now since we are in Grade 12 dealing with college applications. Being able to just push some of the tension back helps with dealing with our work. During class, we sometimes just start talking, like the time we talked about turning a negative experience into a positive one. Times like this make the class feel a lot more pleasant. They make the class feel a lot more friendly and since AEP is at the end of the day, it feels like a nice way to end our Mondays. There is one negative thing that I think I need to work on when it comes to anything I dislike. I need to stop cramming. Although this isn’t directly related to AEP, it still applies here. I have always left doing my assignments to the very last minute. Now that I think about it, I don’t think I have even done one thing a few days early this year. Everything is crammed. I guess I just need to start trying to be a little bit more urgent. All in all, AEP is probably one of the most pleasurable subjects I have. Being able to relax during class and just write or talk about whatever comes to mind, in my opinion, is a really nice way to end the day. Looking forward to another term of AEP.

Blog 2 Term 2 - Saad - Grade 12

 Greetings Everyone!

Here is me doing my second blog. The previous term presented numerous challenges, but I persevered and somehow made it to term 2. I am glad that the physical classes are working in favour of me. Comparing the last term to last year of online classes. My mood and social circle have improved significantly. I'm going to ask you a question to which you will undoubtedly know the answer. What is Ms Disa's method of getting our classes warmed up? WORDLE. It manages to elicit an emotional response in you that you are so unsure of. That feeling of almost getting the answer but running out of attempts at the end. Competing with my class fellows has allowed me to be more responsive in other classes, not just AEP. I dislike the feeling of taking a long time to respond and finishing last. Luckily, I improved over time and now I am not as miserable as I used to be. 

I will give you an insight of my reaction paper which took longer than it should've been. The freedom to write about whatever I wanted gave me an infinite number of options. I had no idea the article I wanted to react to would be so lengthy. It sort of linked to what I want to pursue in the near future, thought I am not sure if it's going to 100% Artificial Intelligence. I had Ms check my reaction paper after I finally finished it after such a long time. Because this was my first time writing a reaction paper, I expected detailed feedback, which I received. It was like a wake-up call. Anyway, after receiving feedback, I began working on my draft reaction paper and improved it. Thank God, Miss's response was far superior. To be honest, I felt relieved.

 I love it when Ms comes up with alternatives to Wordle, even if they are difficult to use. The one that struck me as odd was anti-wordle, in which you must avoid guessing the hidden word. HMMM WEIRD, ISN'T IT? These kinds of games aren't afraid to blow your mind up. Ms did, however, consider taking a break from working on our Project 2 Part 1. It focused more on philosophy and taught us important lessons about life and how it can throw you down like hell. Ms. taught me the importance of having the courage to get back up and face life's challenges. Never, ever give up, even if it appears impossible. Also, if you want to see how far my second reaction paper has progressed. I finished the introduction successfully. There's still a lot to do, but hopefully I'll be able to finish it as soon as possible.

To summarize, I am still enjoying every moment of AEP. To be honest, this is the only class in which I feel relaxed because we aren't rushed to finish the work, and I enjoy it. Before I sign off, I'd like to offer some advice: "Enjoy every moment of your life because you will never get it back."

See you in the next blog,

Saad Imran

Retrospective blog

AEP - Advance English Program. When I transferred to Fountain International School, I was given two options to choose from, either AEP or ESL (English Second Language). I was told by the teacher who was responsible for my subject applications, if I wanted to be in an intermediate English class, just join AEP. That was the very first time, I was exposed to AEP class. I was baffled and kept asking this one question all over my mind "why the school provides a subject called Advance English Program? when they already provide English AS & A level". Of course, I need to give it a try to know and understand what exactly the purpose of AEP is.

 

I was very nervous when I joined the class because my English is not as good. I was talking in my own native language the whole time when I was in my own country. Even my textbook or other educational references is in my native language and at that time I thought English was just not important to me before, I was very arrogant and full of ego thinking that I can do anything or learn anything without English knowledge. But entering an International School really changed me, now I can talk and have a conversation with other people from other countries in full English. English to me is like a huge wall that prevents me from approaching other people, I can't even greet people by saying "good morning", "Hi, how are you?", "What's your name?". It's not that I can't ask or talk to people, I am insecure with society and really scared of my bad English. Imagine being judged or laughed at because I just said the wrong grammar, that is very embarrassing for me. But actually, I realized one important thing in life, people actually don't care about your mistakes, they are willing to help you if you ask them politely. I also believe that mistake and failure is not the end of the world for someone, it is a process for every one human being to take as a lesson and take a step forward for improvements.

 

After a year, I can say that my English improved drastically. As the environment forced and guided me slowly, at the same time I also pushed myself to talk with my classmates. I was so different from my old school. Maybe I was so loud before because I can joke around because I was very comfortable and confident with it. When it comes to English, all the confidence melts right away. But now, if I was appointed to do a class presentation, I can do it confidently now even though I stutter a lot. I am proud of myself because people can actually understand my pronunciation, what message I wanted to deliver and most important thing is everything that I said can make sense. Other than that, In AEP, I also learned about every type of wordle. It's really boring and takes a long time to solve the puzzle. It takes less time and effort if you do it together with your classmates because you can discuss it with each other face-to-face. Moreover, I also enhanced my scrabble skills by 0.0002 percent. I really dislike board games because it only requires mental. like real sports that involve physical contact, getting adrenaline rushing up your body by running, and being active.

AEP T2 ~ Retrospective Blog

Welcome dear reader!

I hope you enjoy yourself reading my bitter-sweet blog haha. I'm writing my intro

after finishing my blog and it is kind of like an update about my life aside from being a

retrospective blog for AEP. A reflection went like this..  I hope everyone has rested well

and is ready to start the second term! 

My writer brain is not functioning today ( credits goes to Ayesha for this

perfectly-describing sentence) Whereabout of my brain you ask? Beats me, I don't know

either. Let's move on though.

Let me explain: “It will take a concerted effort from many to lay off sneering and try

understanding”, this was not a problem for me, trying to understand what people are

feeling.. But understanding myself, absolutely not. I’m such a complex issue for myself.

I feel uneasy with myself sometimes, mostly because of my perfectionism, mostly.

I always try to be my ideal self, inadvertently pressing my emotions in a box and I did

not have a single clue that would lead to a burn-out.  I was like this my whole life and I

was doing fine, what can happen now? Nothing. But I was wrong..

All or nothing syndrome you guess it right. 

You can catch me working all day with little to no rest or in my bed doing nothing with a

jungle of homework. They go big or go home, right? yeah no practice balance. It is the

way to go in this life, doing work all day is not sustainable nor doing nothing for

weeks.

Ah, a balanced life sounds like cheating but it is the secret for a consistent routine.

You have to stop confining yourself!

I know Miss Disa gets how I feel, reading my blog. Thank you miss, I’m always so

grateful..Strict sense of discipline did not work for me this time. I figured out it

was a call for me to back off and listen to my mom's ted-talk speeches about balance

haha. But god I learned in a hard way. I was unsatisfied with my horrendous

performance this year, I felt out of character but maybe, maybe this is the actual me.

Jokes aside, this routine caused a predicament. Speaking of scores, I was in despair

but there as a discrepancy in what I expected to get and what I got. Thank god

numerically speaking the damage wasn’t that destructive. I learnt so much this year.

You don’t realize how big of a damage you caused until.. until something like this happens.

You can't foresee. Such a vexing blunder.

Surprisingly I feel motivated, energized and it feels like I recharged. Looking back

I was profoundly happy and energetic. I was a bit off for my mom though, I guess so

because she is used to see me studying. Stop willy-dallying for a while and rest/back off

for the sake of god.

Going back to the actually topic HAHA

The spotlight has to go to

Writing IELTS graph essays! 

I'm not really home with English. But the feeling after writing an essay or a form of

writing and feeling proud of it makes me love English classes more. The type of

essay we learnt in AEP had to be descriptive and they had to have a specific

structure and vocabulary to end with. Which I'm not used to, but thanks to AEP now

I'm aware of this genre and way of writing. It really does expand your

English and you become more flexible. I find myself a little more confident with my

recent essay structure than the ones I started with. I have improved in many

aspects of writing that essay of that sort. 

Padlet/ exit ticket

I always feel the need to say I love doing padlets in AEP classes. It is my favoritepart of our creative AEP classes. Being an artist and hearing this probably makesMiss Disa happy. It has to be said it is one of a kind. Even if exit tickets are short, it allows a room for reflection. Also who said it needs to be short?If you have more to say, go for it! The Padlet allows me to remember what I laughed atin the class, what challenged me or what I have done, in other words my progress.I love the variety of AEP classes!

Word games! 

I Love the simplicity of them. It is a way to check if your brain cells are still there.

It is challenging to shift and make your brain go from biology to English.

It has something to do with the education system. But I appreciate the clever idea

of starting with a 2 minute or 5 haha word game, not any other game but a word game

( it is like an irony that it is somehow about English, but it works) it helps brushing off!

I would like to take this golden opportunity and recommend to you I'll be there-

Detective Conan and Tobitatsu Hato. It is such a masterpiece and I still cannot believe

that it is made for an anime. It sounds like a prestigious music composer made it.

I'm 100% confident that you'll love it miss haha

All detective Conan ost, music, AND SOUNDTRACKS are going to get you out of your

wits, absolutely recommend checking their jazz. Goosebumps, just think about it.

It is your cup of tea miss Disa! Count on me.

Retrospective Blog - T2, Blog 1

Looking back at semester 1 of my first year in this school, I think that it was pretty eventful. There were many things that I’ve come to realisation of when I think back to last term.

Refreshing my memory, I believe that I improved in my writing and vocabulary compared to what I knew when I first stepped into class. The specific details and techniques that I was taught we what really helped me in writing essays. Using the miro board other platforms, we worked on many different tasks like analysing essays that have already been written and pin-pointed on the pointers that would help us in writing. Doing these tasks enhanced my skills to cooperate with others by listening to different ideas and perspectives. 

I vividly remember choosing ESL as my first choice but as I had former students of FIS and older students explain to me what AEP was, I convinced myself to take that more challenging course instead. Taking a look at my grades, I’m extremely happy with my AEP final grade but I believe that this term, I can do better and maybe score a 99%, or even a 100%.

Ms Disa had told us that we’ll be starting on analysing maps so it’s finally time to completely move on from line graphs and start learning new vocabulary to mark out features of the map that had been replaced or  repurposed.

I think that I could improve more in my time management and finishing assignments in the day it was given as I was lacking a bit in Term 1. Genuinely looking forward to this semester and I’m really aiming to get more than 92% for most of my subjects.

term 2 review of term 1

Term 1 was my first term in Fountain and my first time in AEP. I didn't know what we would do other than something English-related, but how hard could that be? My confidence, however, was unfounded as I quickly found out I had never actually written essays on graphs; therefore, my vocabulary was poor to non. Not to mention the time limit often placed on us during these assignments.

In AEP we would also play word games, and really it is a lot of learning. For one I learnt that I am terrible at them and I know only a handful of words that have letter after "v". To this day I still do not have a clue as to what AEP is but with perseverance I may, one day, finally find out. That day is not today 

AEP Blog #2.1 “A retrospective blog”

 Salutations dear reader! Welcome back to your daily dose of Ayesha’s AEP blog. 

Okay, just a heads up; My writer brain is not functioning, unfortunately it never does after a long break. I think I need some spicy tofu, or some strawberry shakes( yes, its plural) or maybe a good ol’ slap on the back to wake me up internally. 

DO I NEED SOME BOLD LETTERS? Italics? underlined?

Definitely not a crossed out one. Maybe I can put it for my definitely right comments…hehe

Now with all that aside, I have to give myself a pat on the back. 

I did well, I did the best I could do within that time. Perhaps I can do better, perhaps I could’ve just worked harder, perhaps I could’ve done better if I had more time…et cetera

My reasons could go on and on, but what I know for sure is that I did the most I could’ve done with all my circumstances. I may not be proud, satisfied and full of glee but I think I’ve accepted what I have done because it wont change. 

Now! Lets take a look back in term 1.

Although I cannot just bullet point each and every activity we did throughout these 3 months, allow me to tell you a general idea of what I personally learned — whether literally AEP-related or not. 

This blog will be structured a little differently, lets have it numbered and all organized! 

1. Writing IELTS graph essays ( or descriptive essays…or any essay…) 

Frankly I always thought, “Gee! Im good at writing essays,  I love words! I love English!” (I seem to be manipulating myself, attempting to change reality and abusing my phycological health ) This colloquial term is otherwise referred to as “Gaslighting”. I never enjoyed English class, no matter who the teacher was. I just can’t seem to find myself enjoying words in general. Playing around with words and learning how to write such fantastic stories with perfect punctuation, grammar and structure. It sounds like a dream to me, and although the dream is possible for many, I find it hard to make myself so passionate about a skill that I’ve had so much trouble with. 

All these years I havent been so constricted in my writing unlike right now.  I’ve been used to following my own flow in writing an essay. The only difference is perhaps the word count, the topic or just adding a few subheadings here and there. I have always written the way I have done for the past 10 years of my school life, with only additional spelling, writing and constructing techniques that almost everybody learns once they enter middle school. Once I started year 10 AEP, I learnt how we will be doing essays. These essays however, are much more different than what I imagined them to be. They were factual, they had to be descriptive and they had to have a specific structure that was one I was not used to at all. Especially the vocabulary. This type of essay writing changed the way I view my essay tasks, and after doing a few in AEP classes, I find myself a little more confident with my essay structure but of course I know I have a lot to improve on in every aspect of writing that essay. 

Looking back, I think I should’ve tried focusing more on the structure of the graphs. I would always write about the graph in little mini parts, disregarding the hierarchy of importance and explaining it in a way where someone would fall asleep because I would never get straight to the point. (Im now contemplating about my blog, but this is a blog— not a graph essay). I am looking forward to see my progress, hopefully my flexibility with essays will be much better. Not to mention how I analyze graphs in general! 

2. Emphasizing the importance of learning 

This is the first time I’ve ever felt this. 

You know, I’ve always just studied again and again, following my normal schedule and getting marks that I like to see. I work and I relax, its a give and get mechanism and although it does fail sometimes, it is the way I function as a student. For the first time, I have felt intimidated to push forward. I can’t really go into detail but I really felt scared to ask, scared to learn and the learning environment for me was a place I wanted to leave in immediately. I have always been taught to never feel shame in asking for help, “Its the teacher’s job to teach you, so don’t feel scared.” was what my mum would tell me. So I had the chance to not feel intimidated to ask questions for many years now, but knowing my O-levels are coming and all. I feel scared in asking for help just because Im afraid the teacher will get angry at me. 

Its a childish reason, but now I realise how others feel. This feeling is still common and I frown upon those teachers who want and do make their students feel scared to ask questions or just learn in general. In AEP, as I mentioned previously, we were doing essays about graphs. I know how I am horrible in writing them but I realised how comfortable I feel with not doing well at the start. All the more, I feel at ease when I ask for help, and the feeling of not doing well was not a slap on the face to me but rather a call to do better. The call is a way to tell me that I still have so much room for improvement, which makes me feel at ease. Of course, I do not feel confident with my abilities, but in AEP, I never feel scared to learn. 

3. Word games, word games and more word games! 

We’ve all done word games before. Whether it was a short game of scrabble, a gruelling score in hangman or the wordle craze many have been into these past few months. In AEP, we did many versions of wordle. Ranging from 4x wordle in one, or a wordle that pushes your brain to think of the most incorrect answer possible and even one which resembles a waffle. The amount of wordgames are unlimited, and doing them at the start of every class always pushes my brain to work, even if its just a little push. To add, doing it with my classmates makes everything so much funnier. We get a few laughs and a lot of smiles, perhaps a few screams here and there if we have a new record. Or maybe loud silence because we dont know what the answer is. 

4. Padlet

I always include this segment in any of my retrospective blogs. I enjoy doing padlet and even if my exit tickets are short, doing a bit of reflection at the end of every class session does not allow me to leave with a bad heart. Sometimes uploading in padlet allows me to remember what I enjoyed doing in class, or maybe what I found tough. Or in most days, its just what I did on that day. 

In conclusion, its a 5 minute safe-space for me and my classmates. 

Oh! Seems like Ms Disa is calling us to post on padlet, how perfectly well timed. 

With that being said, I’ll see you all in the next one! 

blog 8 november

In aep class we always started out with a word game such as worldle,hurdle and etc,each day a different person got assigned the role of writing the words on the board,it was and is still hard for my other classmates to reach the board as they have to stretch ,but for me it's usually easier since I'm talller,we usually play 1 or 2 games depending upon  how much time we take,most of the time we finish the first game rather quickly.

After we finish playing wordle,miss usually explained our task for the day,we usually weny on miro,write an essay,I don't really like to write essays but I don't have a choice,last term we usually were given a graph with a lot of details and we had to make an summary out of it,they were fairly easy but in some,you got confused on what to write and your just staring at your notebook regretting living,we were usually given about 20 minutes and I usually finished right on time

If we weren't giving essays,we went on miro and did a whole lot of different activities,sometimes we had to make words and see if it made sense into a category or topic

If everyone or some of the people were done,miss told us to play scrabble for the rest of the class,I usually find scrabble sometimes fun and sometimes difficult or frustrating when you don't have the right letters or your brain simply refuses to work,overall,I usually enjoyed playing scrabble since I had a lot of fun conversations and tips from my other classmates

AEP Blog #2.1 “Retrospective blog” - Dilara

 Welcome to my first blog of the second term. After a one week break, we are finally back in school. I hope everyone has rested well and is ready to start the second term!

The first term in AEP was very fun and interesting. We started writing essays, which was a new thing as we were just focusing on vocabulary last year. For the essays we do in AEP, we summarize a graph, so we have to be able to analyze the graph we are presented with. Honestly, I love writing essays as it allows me to be expressive. Although it may sometimes be challenging, it is a fun challenge to take on. 

We also learned vocabulary words that you can use in your essays to describe the three main points in the graphs. Something I really enjoy in AEP is the warm up games that we play at the start of each class. This is something very unique about AEP that differentiates it from other classes. It allows me to exercise my brain and help me get a boost of energy before starting the class.

The warm ups we usually do are wordle, hurdle, waffle worlde, quordle and codewords. I have learned all of these games during my AEP classes and they have all opened doors  to new words for me. I believe that short yet interesting games like these allow you keep your energy levels high and really get your mind thinking. Which means they are perfect to play right before class. 

We used miro for majority of the activities we had in AEP. It allows us to connect to our online classes and work collaboratively with them. Miss Disa always makes classes very fun, special and interesting. Like the padlet exit tickets for example, it is such a nice way to just relax and talk about what we had done for the class. 

Another thing that I really enjoy is the classical music Miss Disa opens when we do such activities as writing essays, writing blogs and playing scrabble. Classical music is definitely a signature mark of AEP. I always look forward to AEP classes as it is a place where we can learn, express ourselves and relax at the same time. 

For our upcoming AEP classes, we will start writing essays on maps and describe what has changed over time. We also have to know all the terms to describe what was occurred. I find it really interesting and I am looking forward to starting this new topic.