Blog 3 Term 2 - Saad - Grade 12

 Howdies Everyone!

I'm back here after taking some time to think after my last blog post. Given that it has just been a little over a month, I anticipate that this will be my shortest blog. I've faced several difficulties during Term 2 due to the assignments, tests, and other requirements. Additionally, midterms are the following week, so I wish everyone luck. Before Miss suggested Phrazzle, Hurdle, Quordle, and other alternatives, I thought Wordle was punishing on its own. Don't get me wrong; Wordle has become quite monotonous and repetitive, so some variation is welcome. My brain needs to be rewired to handle challenging problems, so I love that it's challenging. Thank You Miss haha.

Compared to my other majors, AEP is calming and comforting, as I've mentioned numerous times. Work like blogging and writing reaction papers is entertaining and doesn't add to my workload; it doesn't bog me down. One aspect of AEP that I really enjoy is when Miss thinks back to her history, like the time she opted to wear a tutu while running just for fun. There is always that one teacher who spreads positive vibes amongst everyone in her presence and I reckon Miss Disa fits the perfect description. I've made decent progress so far with Project 2 Part 1, even though I intended to try out some creative writing at first.

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 - 2

Retrospective Blog 2: Catching up

A whole new semester is about to begin, and I’ll be talking more about what I’ve gathered so far from our previous classes from the very start and up until the end during finals week.

We’ve actually done so much for the past few months as we have started writing our response paper to any of our desired articles and then further moved along with improving from what we have learned from our chosen article. It's more of a "show and tell," but much more enhanced. From what I’ve done so far, the whole process of writing a response paper has been fun and challenging since I got to pick the article that I wanted to react on and make something with what I’ve learned. Basically, I can be very flexible with any certain topic, but I just choose to go along with articles that are psychology-related. As I wanted to explore more about those topics and observe about people's perceptions, or how we humans perceive things around us, those were things that piqued my interest.

I suppose that most of us struggled to accomplish our projects during the moment when we were writing our response papers since we had so much going on. This includes the numerous projects and assignments, school parliament, various activities, and upcoming and ongoing events. How come it always gets worse when we have a backlog of work and when we don't have anything going on? In short, we're terrible at managing our time. That being said, as things pile up, AEP would be put last on our list of priorities and pushed back. I certainly hope that this time around we’ll turn our habits upside down, but since this semester will be the most hectic as its very short compared to last time, I guess I'll try my best to submit on time or before hand, that’s the best that I could do, and also update the progress board.

Playing warm-up games such as Wordle, Quordle, Waffle, Foodle, and more, we certainly did have fun staring at the board in confusion. Hehehe, just kidding, but having warm-up games does actually help us stay alive by checking if our brain cells are still there and working, so we could say that having warm-up games went well and we could keep on playing these kinds of warm-up games but not foodle. Before ending the semester, the last day was somewhat memorable, I just liked how the lesson went on, and I think we all needed that conversation. It serves as a reminder that we’re all just humans, in the sense that sometimes we don’t get everything that we want, and in order for something to happen, we need to get up and actually devote ourselves in any possible form.

Blog 1.1 - First Four Weeks of Senior Year

     Hey, it's been a while, hasn't it? I feel like it was just last month when I submitted my last assignment for Grade 11. Now, you're telling me it's my last year in high school? That's crazy.

     It's almost been a month since school started and I still find it unbelievable that this is the last year I will see my classmates and my teachers. Some, who I've known since I transferred to FIS mid-year in Grade 7. I'm amazed at how everyone has grown and how much we've been through together. There are a lot of memories I unlocked recently. 

    When school first started on August 1, I felt like it was unreal that I was actually in school with my classmates and friends in person. It was shocking, and even more so that we don't have any more upperclassmen and all the students outside of my class are underclassmen. Most of which are new, even in the two lower grades who were present the last time we were in face-to-face. 

    Speaking of new students, we have some new faces in our class, and no I am not one of them. I still remember Ms. Disa thinking I was a new student during our first AEP class of the year. It was funny, but no I am still the same girl from Canada you met when I was almost 13 haha. Anyways, it was our first time seeing the new students face-to-face since they transferred to FIS last year when everything was still online. I hope we, the class of 2023, have welcomed them well and I hope they feel welcomed. I also look forward to getting to know them better and to have a good year with them and the rest of the class.

    Now moving on to my (long-awaited) experience in AEP 12, we started of course with Ms. Disa trying to remember who's who, though I'm the only one who she didn't recognize and I felt slightly offended (joking). It's okay though, I found that quite a few people could not recognize me either, especially Kuya Tony who kept asking "Who is this?" while pointing at me, haha. After Miss took attendance, she informed us about what we'll be doing this year, and I found it pretty refreshing and somewhat like Rapunzel leaving her tower to explore the world. So I was pretty excited about it. Then, Ms. Disa tricked us into communicating with one another by making us play Scrabble together. I can't say I'm proud of the words we put down, but I can say that we did our best at the time. the first day was a pretty relaxing class.

    The next week, on the day of our second class, I had to take online because I was going to the hospital for a doctor's appointment that day. I really appreciate how Miss was really trying to include me in the class with her little speaker and her gadget showing my classmates making it seem like I'm there too. I was able to participate in listening to Ms. Disa explain what we were in class that day and for the wordle tournament thing. Unfortunately, I couldn't participate in the miro board because I had to leave.

    The third class, I was in face-to-face again and the first things I noticed were the room change and the teddy bear Miss used to hold Elle in when she was taking online. That day we started doing our essays. I found it interesting to learn about the topics my classmates were doing for the project. Some were doing topics that had to do with technology and others had topics surrounding psychology. Meanwhile, the topic I chose is the importance of dance. Dance is something I love and I'm really talented in. I hope to study it in college too, but of course there are people who don't think dance is an important thing like other practices in the arts. So, I want to understand what the importance of dance really is so I don't feel insecure for not having a more respected interest in career like science and business. Ms. Disa also sent me a video of someone asking a diverse amount of people what their "best dance move" is. I thought it was very wholesome and Miss and I had a long conversation about dance. I learned a lot about her especially that she's the coolest teacher I've ever talked to.

    Lastly, the fourth class, I was absent because I got sick over the weekend and stayed home from school most of the week to heal. Even though I did go to school on Friday for a certain quiz I had to take, I'm still recovering. On Friday I actually felt a bit uncomfortable because I was not ready to be normal yet. Even so, my sickness didn't get rid of my worry about the long-overdue assignments I still have yet to submit, especially in this class because I literally have not turned anything in except the learning contract quiz. Even this blog is late. So I apologize for the delay. I have a lot to do, but I'm trying my best to get back into the same pace as my classmates. 

    I am excited for this year in AEP and discovering who I am and what I can offer to the world. I hope by the end of this year, I will be sure of myself and can go into university with confidence, wherever I may go. I will do my very best this year. Let's go!!!!!!!!!

Your favourite Canadian girly,

Lucille

AEP Blog 1.1

We are finally in Grade 12, and after spending over two school years of online classes, we are finally back in real classrooms. We were Grade 9 the last time we had face-to-face classes, and now we're already in our final year. Next year, most of us are going to college. It's sad that next year our happy, young years are going to be over as we'll start having to be more responsible in college, but it's interesting thinking about what's ahead. Either way, it's nice finally being able to have an actual class of AEP. Being in an actual classroom makes it much easier to focus on the lessons as I'm no longer logging onto the Google Meet after just waking up - it's also a impossible to have other applications opened during class.

Now moving on to some more AEP focused matters. So far, AEP-12 as a whole has been great. During the first week, Miss gave us a rundown of what we'll be doing this year. We've got to write reaction essays to articles of our choice and then do something creative afterwards. I really like the freedom that we have of reacting to anything of our choice as it's a lot easier to write about something you're interested/passionate about rather than something that has just been given to you as an assignment. I share the same feelings for the create part, being able to have many possibilities of what you want to do makes it a lot less stressful and a lot more entertaining. The scrabble game was a lot of fun too, despite the fact that all of us did really bad, it was nice playing in person for once.

We also did a Miro board activity of putting all the key-points on writing a reactive essay into a box. It was pretty eye-opening seeing all of us working together in person, and creating the board also helped get a grasp on how we should write our reaction papers. Doing things like this in class makes it feel much more interactive and helps me focus better. The transition to a different Wordle website has also been good so far. The current website makes it feel a lot more competitive and makes you much more active while trying to find the word. In my opinion, if Miss wants it to be more competitive she could award the winner merits or some sort of points, although I don't think I'll be winning anytime soon.

I think this ties in with what Miss said, something along the lines of "merging online and offline together" I can't remember exactly what she said, but it was something about using the best of both worlds (the best tools/aspects from online and offline) and mixing them into one. Again, another positive change for AEP. Using things like Wordle and Miro from last year was productive, and continuing to use them in the real classroom should be even more productive. Another online-related topic is the active Google Meet session during class. There was one day where I had to stay home and I'm surprised with how fluid the Google Meet went. I was able to hear Miss and understand the important parts of the lesson just fine.

Even though AEP-12 has been great, I haven't. I am extremely terrible and unbelievably bad at writing. To make things worse, most things that I'm interested in, the things I should react to and base my projects on, aren't really that appropriate for the subject in my opinion. Most people are writing about nice topics like: transitioning to electric cars, the future of AI, etc. But I don't think writing about the next game I'm looking forward to or writing about the new Challenger 3 tank really hits the spot with our AEP class. I'm pretty sure that all of the things I'm into are in the same boat, nothing I'm into is really that educational or school related. All of the things I enjoy are just unrelated and useless rubbish, not interesting or life-related in any way.

There's also other subjects in the way, for the past few days I have had to have been studying for four quizzes. Although on Friday, two of those quizzes got out of the way. Along with this, there's also a load of homework I have to finish - I guess this is just what it's like in your final year. Because of this, I've barely been able to make good progress on AEP and have been submitting most things late since I've really got to focus on the major subjects (A thankyou to Miss for being lenient with the deadlines). Hopefully over the course of next week I can pull things together since these AEP projects seem like they could be pretty fun if I can find things I'm interested in, although I doubt I will.

Despite being bad at writing, I'm looking forward to seeing an improvement in myself over the year. I'm hoping that all of these projects we'll be doing will help us get better at writing as we'll be doing quite a few of them. Although, I've been looking forward to getting better for the past 5 years... (my fault, not AEP) Anyway, I think in my career, being able to write long essays isn't really one of the main points. I think most of the writing I'll be doing is just report writing which is pretty straightforward, just write down what happened. However, I may be wrong.

Overall, AEP-12 is looking bright. Being able to write about whatever you want makes things a lot easier, and I'm glad we're still using some of the virtual sides from learning in class as they were pretty useful. However my side of AEP has been pretty sluggish so far, which is completely my fault. Nevertheless, I'm still motivated for AEP-12 and hope we have a good year.

That's all for now, have a nice day/night and see you next blog.

school finally opened | seeing people?? - AEP 12 - BLOG#1

 After a year of online classes, schools finally decided to reopen. Nevertheless, here we are!! Face to face. It's truly wonderful to interact with my friends, have a set routine instead of waking up half an hour before class contemplating whether my internet or google meet is going to work or not. Personally, I prefer physical classes because not only it forces you to make a daily routine but teaches you to be disciplined in other areas of life outside of school. Besides all of that, I'll be sharing my insight from the first week till present time. 

Everything was mediocre and not too hectic during the first week especially in AEP. I was finally able to see Ms. Disa since she taught us in Grade 11. Now, she was finally able to monitor us face to face instead of rethinking life during our online classes. Usually, Ms. Disa kicks off class with either Scrabble or Wordle, both of them takes a toll on me. We were assigned in pairs to play Scrabble. Let's just say, the words we formed were similar to Grade 7's vocabulary. Our brains were fried after AEP. Board games aren't something I am entirely comfortable with since they require you to make certain moves and make use of critical thinking but I guess it's crucial to implement it because how else am I going to make serious decisions in my life or how am I going approach problems. In spite of that, I still enjoyed every bit of it and hopefully in the near future too. 

Following week, Miss told us about the projects we were going to work on. I gasped when Miss mentioned that the ideas of our projects will be upon our decision. The plan was to write a response paper based on the article we would read. My peers reflecting upon their passions, picked ideas of what they wanted to write about. Electric cars, dance, manifestation are just some examples. It really forced me to think of something I was passionate about. Technology, productivity, sports are just a few obsessions of mine. I went along with Artificial Intelligence considering what I want to do with my career. Almost forgot to mention, before starting our project, our class and I designed a step-by-step guide on Miro Board on how to write a response paper based on the sources provided by Miss, it was supposed to be simple yet informative. The article had to be professional and not written for an audience of ten year olds.

To conclude now, I am enjoying every moment of AEP as I get to work with my own ideas thoroughly. I am also excited for our upcoming projects that will hopefully help me find myself as Ms Disa tries to prepare us for the real world. I hope to spend my last year in high school learning tons from my teachers and friends plus putting together beautiful memories as I venture onto my next stage of life.

Signing off,

Saad

Term 1: Blog #1

The beginning of the end.

What I meant by that is that this is the start of my last year in high school. Currently, I feel very bittersweet about it all. I just know that I should try to enjoy every last moment in real time - the happy, the sad, and the everything-else-in-between moments - because I will come to regret it if I don't. That may sound very dramatic, but I've come to realize that I tend to over-exaggerate things sometimes.

To segue into more relevant matters, we started off the first week of AEP class with a brief discussion on what to expect for this year, and unlike any other, our course load is bound to be loaded (for this subject, and everything else). So far, I think I'm doing an okay job with keeping up. I'm trying, and what truly matters is that I know that. 

Something I realized - the first ever scrabble game we did as a class was difficult. I, as well as the others, got so used to the online layout with error-checkers and online dictionaries near our reach. To transition back into the classrooms, and being present in-the-flesh, was a culture shock to say the least. Students weren't alone in this though, I walk past the hallways and could see the teachers and staff having struggles too. 

As well as scrabble games, we dipped our toes into the waters of this Wordle-like competition game website. I have not won first place so far, but I think am getting the hang of it. I really like the concept of trying to figure out what the word is, but I'm a very slow person in that context.

Furthermore, Ms. Disa aims to prepare us for the outside world by giving us projects in relation to our own virtual identity. This is where we answer the questions "who are you? And what do you have to offer?" I've always had those thoughts, but having to hear it from another physical person threw me off - I don't know how to answer that question, for now; though I've never encountered anything like this,  I find it exciting as it acts like a project not only for school, but for myself too.

More about the project, we were tasked with researching and reacting to a professionally written scholar article about a chosen topic. Some topics I considered were in relation to gaming, music, food, or peace/soul. Inevitably, I chose a topic about the powers of manifestation. The article expands on the idea of perspective, and how each positive or negative choice you make affects how your day goes. As well as all the fancy psychology behind it, it discusses how and why one person could willfully bring their life to a better place through the use of energy. 

"We all have our own reality bubbles, but how would you know yours is the right one?"

To conclude, this was a recap of everything that has happened in AEP class so far - from my perspective, at least. We will be doing our reaction to the articles we picked out next week. With more to come, I just hope that time doesn't fly by too quickly. 

AEP BLOG 1.1

Hello again!

    After our numerous virtual meetings, we are now finally in the same room with each other. Can't believe it only took two whole years...(sarcasm)

    I actually thought I'd never see the day but yet here we are, writing our blogs in silent in front of each other on our tiny little laptops. I've only been here for three weeks but I can say that it for sure feels less draining. The amount of workload might be the same, however seeing my peers on the daily actually helps a lot. I feel as if I have my own little support system to keep me going. This is because I can physically see and feel their emotions as well as they can see mine. Hence, it lets me know that I am not alone.

    One thing I still can't seem to wrap my head around is how we're all seniors now. We literally went into lockdown when we were fourteen and now we're mostly seventeen year olds. Even though we were always so silent during our virtual meetings we finally managed to speak to each other face to face. So I guess thats one very important advantage we got from having offline school.

    During our first week of AEP, Miss Disa was kind enough to let us adjust to the schedule. Miss did say that she was also the one adjusting but I still appreciate the relaxing time we had because of it. We calmly played scrabble against each other and made great use of our vocabulary. Though, we did end up a mess because of the amount of letters we ended up lacking.

    Though for this week, I was kind of nervous about walking into AEP class. I acknowledge how late I was in submitting our project one part one. I only finished at twelve in the morning and I don’t really have an excuse for that except that I simply wasn’t expecting my mental block to last that long. I decided to write about the fast fashion industry and the overconsumption that comes with it. 

    In that class Miss Disa started off by checking my project and I ended up finding out about just how much of an interest she had in sustainable clothing. It made me really happy when Miss Disa was barely able to contain herself when she read my response. I found that we shared an interest and I ended up learning much more about my essay topic from her. Not to forget the amount of feedback I’ve gotten with it. I like how I was able to get Miss Disa to talk about her contribution to sustainable consumption. It made me feel like my hours of writing wasn't for nothing.

    We had a really nice and meaningful talk in this weeks AEP lesson and I can even say that it ended up being the highlight of my day. With Medo's project on manifestation, we discussed a lot about having a positive mindset and how it'd impact our life. I talked about the class afterwards and we ended up agreeing that the AEP class seemed like an extension of Elle's psychology class. I really enjoyed this week's class and I can't wait to see what we'll come up with next.

    I do prefer grade twelve's project compared to what we had before lockdown. The reason being how I'd always cram the vocabulary memorization in the morning of. I just find it nice that we now have the freedom to write about anything we want. I guess the hardest challenge now is seeing how my creativity decides to run during certain times. My first project ended up being late because of a mental block I had. I guess with this in mind, I'd need to start researching on ways to get out of a mental block.

See you guys next time!

Signing off,

Ratih.

Blog 1.1

  

Hello there, It's been a while since I've written anything here, and hopefully I'll write something decent enough for anyone to read.

 

It's the third week of school, and it's still odd for me to go to class face-to-face, actually seeing people physically and having contact with people. I'm not very used to this, but I'm trying to manage myself bit by bit. But anywho, I've been quite enjoying my AEP class. I just remembered that this would be my last class with Ms. Disa I still miss art class, but hey, at least I still have AEP.  

In the first week of class, if I recall correctly, we did scrabble after having a short introduction regarding what we were going to expect. I admire the goal of how we, the grade 12 students, should have built a comprehensive showcase of who we are and how we will express ourselves. and the overall presentation of our best selves, while also exploring who we are and preparing for the future that awaits us. Because I know that we're all still figuring ourselves out, hopefully by the time we graduate, we'll know something.

I'd describe the AEP class as calm yet a wee bit jolly. Before last week, I actually spent time at home and attended class online instead. And just seeing that stuffed toy looking like I was also in class made my day better, hands down. Oh, and while that was happening, I finally started researching the topic that I wanted to talk about, probably because it is so directly connected to psychology or it is just one of those topics that I am drawn to, like do you ever have those random midnight thoughts? It was one of those moments where I found that certain topic.

After writing part 1, I'm not so sure what I'll prepare next for the second part. I just so hope that I'll finish my work on time