Back in school!

My experience in this school has been so fun ever since I befriended everyone! My classmates have been so welcoming, and it feels like I've been a part of the class since day one.

Although, I am still getting used to doing my work on physical notebooks. All of my previous schools required me to do my tasks digitally (which wasn't a problem for me because of a certain pandemic that caused a certain period of isolation which led to me being glued to a certain screen). But with enough dedication (and eagerness for good grades), I'm fairly confident I'll be able to catch up with my peers.

Despite the hardache, I've thoroughly enjoyed being part of FIS's community. Thank you for including me in this small yet bighearted school, and I hope to make a myriad of memories that everyone would be able to reminisce in the future!

- Alisa Tee (or Alyza as some might call me). <333

Blog 1.1 - First ever blog !!

My first ever blog! 

Moving to this school has been such a new experience as there are lots of new platforms that I have had to learn to use, and many unfamiliar routines that I have to get to used to. In my old school, we used to only use one digital platform for everything like notebooks and meetings (even if we were already f2f) but as soon as I came to FIS, the thrill of being able to use books and blogs again just makes me even more thrilled to see what’s yet to come.

On the first day, we only had 10 minutes for each period but at first, I had gone to ESL since I wasn’t confident enough but by the next day, I decided to challenge myself and go to AEP. Then came the 3rd of August, our first lesson. We played scrabble to start us off and I think this was a great way to start of the first actual AEP lesson in grade 10 as it allowed us to interact and get to know each other more. It also helped me to relax a bit since we didn’t have to do any work. After playing a normal game of scrabble, Ms Disa told us to try ‘reverse scrabble’ which is where we couldn’t place down three-lettered words and we had to spell it backwards. This was my favourite part of the lesson because it made everyone confused and it got really funny to keep on spelling and reading the words backwards. 

The second lesson, I think, of AEP, I was introduced to a new platform called Miro. At first, I had struggled a lot to get into the app and onto the right board but eventually, we got there. On Miro, we were tasked to write down as many synonyms as we could to describe line graphs. While I was writing down the words, I felt really confident but then soon realised what the lines meant and as we went through the words with Ms Disa, nearly all of the words were sent to the ‘hospital’, with the help of Sara. 

For the next few weeks, we start of each class with two to four rounds of Wordle Cup. This game really gets your mind going but I get really nervous as it has a timer of 4 minutes and that makes me panic, thus, having a lot of words scrambled in my head. We were doing quite a few vocabulary activities and comparing essays. Ms Disa had just told us that we are going to start writing essays and I’m looking forward to learning more about the structure, language and tips on writing a good essay, as that is what I tend to struggle on.

That’s it for my first blog! Can’t wait to write the next one :DD

AEP Blog #1.1 “Bye bye, google meet?”

 Salutations dear readers, Ms Disa and the invisible internet alien that haunts the cupboard at night. 

Gosh! It has been such a long time since Ive written a blog. My fingers are rusty and my brain is flat. I suppose I dont have a good way to convey how much my life has changed these past few months. New experiences and new chapters, new plots and new challenges! 

Thats right, welcome to school year 2022-2023! With a huge twist, now face to face! 

After all the grueling 2+ years of staying inside my humid room, shuffling between dozing off or hurting my eyes, all the way to mastering the use of many websites just only when I heard that we won’t really be prioritizing them anymore. With a fully blown hybrid class environment and subtle covid precautions brings a whole new scenery for FIS veterans and FIS welcomers. 

To introduce myself again, Im Ayesha! Nice to meet you. 

When it comes to self introduction, I cant help but ponder over what I can provide as a student, as a daughter and as a friend. What are the qualities I wish to share with others? In the end I can only come up with just a few words and details that almost every student would share. Their birthday, age, nationality , hobbies or what not…

Differences are hard to notice when you’re talking about yourself, but differences in other people feel easier to spot. We would think about how the lockdowns have changed us, perhaps physically, mentally , and spiritually. If you were to ask me, then I believe that I became a weirder person. Well, thats what my sister said. Im proud of my accomplishments even if they may not seem like accomplishments to others, they do for me and I think thats what matters the most. 

Well let me start again, 

Nice to meet you, Im Ayesha! I wear the hijab with pride and share my world through art. The world I see not so clearly, but full of colour and people that share different experiences that you can always learn from. Im a person who finds joy in many forms of art. Topics like writing, music, maths, painting or even just the art of speaking is something I wish to master as well as the previously said topics. Im not the best in practical academics. I procrastinate and laze around, forgetting my to-do list left in my bulky pen case. 

One day, I was sitting in my couch waiting for sanity to come save my day. I was nervous, sweating and shaking unlike my sibling who’s sitting in the other side of the sofa, her face was gleaming with “IM EXCITED!” . A paradoxical dynamic if you’d as me. I was excited per say because I was finally able to not rely on my sluggish wifi in hopes to make me actually understand what my teacher is talking about. My sister on the other hand was super hyper because she would finally be able to meet her friend’s she has been waiting to meet for so long! In my case I was only excited to see a few which Im very thankful to have the privilege to meet them a lot more than usual. (Props to you Dilara!) Its just, the assessments might be able to take over me just like they did in online classes, although right now its not as bad as I expected! I just hope I can keep it up.

My debate friend told me months before the orientation that some of hew classmates will come to FIS. I got to see them in the first day and they were very nice! I felt glad that I knew everyone within the first week of school. Thankful that I didn’t have to go through an awkward phase of not being able to approach someone just because I didn’t know their name. 

Here we are now, in the 3rd week of school still getting used to the whole “face to face-hyrbrid” classes. I feel like the same new me. A different yet similar person, a changed one but still the Ayesha that everyone knows. 

Now for AEP! 

Allowing myself to suffice for a class that I wasn’t able to bring my entire focus on during the online classes because of countless difficulties was frankly not an easy job. 

Except thats what I thought. 

When I entered the classroom in the 4th floor, reminiscing the times I used to walk in those same hallways with my classmates and go down the stairs to fill our stomachs and chat around. I took a few steps until I saw the rose door. A door that I haven’t seen for so long, the art and AEP room that I remember going to each week is finally right in front of me. Greeted by the same teacher who makes you tensed up but relaxed at the same time, engages you with her fun aura and overall allows you to feel safe in her classroom. Thats right, Ms Disa! 

During our first week we did some brain work. Which is what we call, “Remembering what we learnt”

We did this in miro which we were already well versed in. The new students, Huda and Alisa got the hang of it really quickly! Which was great. We didn’t use the smartboard that much that day, relying on our devices to help us make comments and posts about what we did before. Being able to recall is a very vital element in making your brain work! So it acted as our fuel to start the school year. 

The week after that we started to use miro for simple vocab. This type of vocab is used in describing graphs. Words like decreasing, increasing, staying the same. We gave all the synonyms we could and slashed the ones out which cannot be feasible to describe changes in a bar graph. Then we did what I like to call a “Diagnostic test”. We had to write an essay in the span of 15 mins with the topic of describing the bar graph that was given to us. I think in that moment, I wrote the worst essay Ive ever seen in my entire life.Not to mention the chicken scratch handwriting I haven’t dared to improve during the 3 month break. 

Currently, I am spending this AEP lesson for writing a blog. Once again, with my rusty fingers and flat brain. Surely, I wish for a better output next time, but for now this is what I have. 

Thats all for this blog. See you! 

AEP Blog 1.1 “Back to school”

 Welcome to my first blog of the school year, for the first classes we had in AEP, we just played scrabble for the whole period as a way of enjoying being in each others company and schools finally being face to face after two years. I am very happy that we are finally in a classroom environment and that I can finally see my classmates again. I definitely feel like face to face is more productive as there are less distractions that can make it harder to learn. 

This year, we will be doing more of essays rather than vocabulary, which I am happy about as I like to write. During online classes we would just type all our answers on a google docs and submit it through google classroom. But now, we are using notebooks after a long time, it takes longer to write in notebooks than just typing in google docs, however, writing on a piece of paper feels more natural.

For the second week in AEP, we went to miro and wrote down on sticky notes our positive and negative experiences during the lockdown and our thoughts and expectations for the new school year. 

The next meeting, we did two exercises in miro. For the first exercise, we had to list down synonyms of lines indicating a straight, upwards and down line. This exercise definitely helped my vocabulary and I learned new words that I can use to describe lines! 

For exercise 2, Miss Disa posted a graph on miro which we had to analyze and summarize the information given in the graph in an essay. I really enjoyed writing the essay and I even used some of the words we found in exercise 1 for this essay.

This week on Monday, we started the period with four rounds of worlde, we played worldecup which allows you to play and compete with other people at the same time. After that, Miss Disa posted a link on google classroom with a link to a line graph sample task which included the graph and an essay that analyzed it. There were also tips on how to analyze a line graph which was helpful. We had to read the sample answer and compare our answer with it and make notes on how to improve our essay.

For today, we started off with four rounds of wordle cup and then proceeded to write our blogs for the rest of the period and when we are done with our blogs we will play scrabble. 

I am delighted that we are back in class! It feels great being around my teachers and classmates and being in a classroom environment. AEP classes have been very productive, fun and relaxing. We also have our online classmates join through google meet and although we had problems with including everyone in the class to the discussion, Miss Disa solved it by making most of our exercises through miro, which is online so that both the online and face to face students can communicate with each other easily.

Thank you for reading my blog, stay safe and healthy and see you in my next one!

Fahad aep blog

In the first week we introduced ourselves,we played scrabble,I failed horribly  but then I learned how to play it,the next week,we did world cup every class,we got paired into groups,it didn't matter really because its not like we could help each,we did miro too,I don't really remember much but once miss told us go write words,for example synonyms for giving upwards,downwards etc,and then we used the words to see if they make sense,like "the price of fuel is fluctuating,sara and maryam were the organisers,we had a trash bin In miro for the words that didn't make sense,miss gave us an graph and we had to write a summary about it,like for example,we described if the number of inquires through letter,in person,were going up and down,this week on Monday,we reviewed it,we readed other people answering it,and then took down notes,today we did world cup,my group mates were adi,huddah,alisa,signing up for blogger was a headache,it kept going crazy and it made me go crazy too,finally at the end it worked and now I'm currently writing this blog you are reading 

Blog 1.1 Finally a 10th grader :D

A new academic year and I'm 15 now. How time flies. It seems like it was only yesterday that I was 11 back in Indonesia fighting with my year 8-9 male upperclassmen. It seems like some things never change!

Anyways, how has these first few weeks been? What did we do? How does it feel to be learning in school for the first time? 

On Monday 1st August, we only had 10 minutes of class due to it still just being orientation day. Miss briefly summarized our activities for this year like writing essays and whatnot. Wednesday 3rd August, we played Scrabble for two whole periods. I wasn't looking forward to it due to my lack of skills when it comes to Scrabble but I actually enjoyed it quite a bit.

Monday 8th August, we made a Miro about reviewing and recalling our feelings regarding online schooling. We also made comments on different people's stickies and I managed to have a good laugh. (My phone wasn't working for Miro so my posts and stickies were really just "comments". It only works on Iphone if you have the app.) 

Wednesday 10th August, we wrote our first essay! But first, we went to Miro and practiced our vocab for when we describe line graphs as that's what our essays will be about. Miss then showed us a line graph and using the words we picked out in Miro to describe what happens in the graph. Sadly enough she told us to handwrite it on paper and I hated every second of it. But luckily enough she told us to keep the essay simple.

This Monday, 15th August, we warmed up with Wordle Cup (which is basically competitive Wordle) and we reviewed on Miro what we did last week Wednesday. After that, Miss showed us another essay about line graphs and we used it as a reference and note what we can add to our previous attempt at an essay.

And today, Wednesday 17th August (It's Indonesia's Independence day!), we warmed up with Wordle Cup again (in which I'm still the reigning champion of) and we're now working on this blog. Pretty fun way to deal with it because I was NOT looking to write another handwritten text. Typing is fine. Typing is good. But hand cramps from writing on paper is a whole nother thing.

Anyways, I do enjoy writing down all my experiences from the past week again. I'd rather not talk all that much about my summer vacation since most of it was just me staying home and being an unpaid babysitter to 2 demons and 12 cats.

I think that'll be all for this blog.

Thank you for reading! 

Blog 1 : A new start - Iara Coqueiro

In the past few weeks, we've been playing on wordlecup and have been doing vocab exercises, plus the first day where in we played scrabble just for the fun of being in class physically (which i was there in online by the time). 

It was fun overall and i enjoyed the time i had in AEP class and am looking forward for more fun experiences like this hahahah.

Well that's for today's short blog, thanks for reading! Bye byeeee