Blog 1.1 || Exposition || Shasmeen M.

    It seems we're back to business! Welcome back, readers, to another grade full of grammar, writing, games, quizzes, blogs, news reading, and an array of other adventures. (Phew, this year feels like it's going to be an eventful one.) We've got a few new faces here in AEP, along with the addition of essay writing skills and increased focus on the IELTS part of our curriculum to keep us occupied.

     I’m not much for the theatrics and rehashed formalities of a new school year. For a while now, the rapid increase of heart rate and exhilarated thoughts have been growing stale in my stomach— only to be replaced by a refreshing kind of detachment. The wild nature of freshman year and it’s tumultuous firsts, have left your girl quite tired, and I expect my tendency to obsess just to distress is going to quiet down, even for a while.     Saying this, I can't help but look at how far I've managed to persist through a whole four years of high-school and feel bewildered sentiment. After this, I’ll only have two years of every, “How many new classmates?”, “Have you met the teachers yet?”, “Oh my God, don’t tell me this is our new classroom…” left. Maybe I should start cherishing these moments more but... well. Hm.     We started tenth grade off with the announcement of some of the new stuff I've mentioned prior and a lot more. For the first "official" class, our assessment comprised of a simple bar graph and the task to summarize the information we could observe. We've all had our share of experience with this kind of essay question in almost every subject, but when not needing to focus on the scientific and mathematical technicalities of the data, our attention shifted to other things. Organization, planning, picking relevant trends and details, among a lot more. After using up the twenty minutes given, we jotted down these small matters to be answered by Miss. It was pretty fruitful class, and I feel like we benefitted a lot in a shorter amount of time than usual.

    Now, as I'm writing this blog, I'd also like to take the chance to mention a personal weakness I have while writing that I hope to improve in the coming months: time management. And it's a huge focal point in the type of writing we're going to be practicing this year, so yup! Time limits always seem to subconsciously irk my motivation to compose, which at it's worst can feel like a noose around the words I need to write.     I want to, in essence, utilize the rope of this noose to lasso (oh, wow, metaphors) the opportunity of having to write essays every week to challenge myself to maneuver around this issue until it's resolved and I can write with lightning spontaneity while keeping my message ringing loud and clear.     With this self-set expectation and goal, my year in AEP 10 should probably be en route to a practical, productive experience already! Now let's just wait and see.