A plethora of wordy enjoyments
The word game we’ve played the most frequently within the 5 weeks would have to be Diffle. Personally, I find this game somewhat confusing since it doesn’t tell you how many letters are in the targeted word and figuring out the order can be a little tricky sometimes. Regardless, it still makes it to the fun list :>. Here’s a record of the words we’ve successfully found: tendency, discharge, and nought.
Coming in second place on “the most played” would be Hurdle! It’s basically a five- letter word puzzle using colors green for the letters in the correct spot, yellow for those not correctly placed, and gray for letters that aren’t present in the word at all. In the two respective days we’ve played this game, the words were “scowl” and “batch”.
I believe our most notable one would be Contexto in which we solved on September 18, guessing the word “village” in only 159 tries! Impressive, right? I can’t grasp how we managed to go that far and keep the game going for the entirety of the period! A few other word puzzles we’ve done are Phrazle, Waffle, and Squardle.
The wizardry vocabulary run- through
On August 22, we had our only vocab test within this time frame, with the exception of the midterms. I recall the words I got were “perpetuate” and “urbane”. That marked the end of three units of vocabulary tests; thus, Miss Disa announced we’d have a midterm covering these units.
Although it was postponed a few times, on September 19, we finally took the test and all did remarkably well. Even though I didn’t study the sentence examples provided in the website, and revised it several times on its meaning alone, I managed to score full marks using context clues! I was a little hesitant upon learning that we had to place the words in the sentences on the second part of the exam, but was able to work my way through it.
Unleash the letter battle!
The same day following the midterms, we played two rounds of Scrabble going against the boys. While the boys played Griddle as an online form of Scrabble, we worked together with the physical scrabble board. The second round we reversed games to make it fair and square. Overall, it was quite competitive but the girls won once again! Hopefully, we keep this streak of victories going for the future battles to come.
Essay Escapades: Navigating the Write Way
In retrospect, I believe we’ve finished a good amount of essays and definitely learned a ton of new techniques and whatnot in writing. On August 22, we worked on a group essay, wherein everyone was paired and assigned to write on a specific paragraph. Julia and I did the paraphrasing of the prompt and once everyone had completed their designated parts, we took turns reciting the combined essay. As expected, it didn’t flow perfectly and it might’ve been somewhat incoherent, but I’d say we did fairly well for the time we were given.
On August 29, Miss Disa discussed the essay regarding the population in England and Wales between 1700 and 2000. Because I was absent the Saturday prior, I didn’t have my own essay to make comparisons and improvements with, but I still took down notes on the writing samples from IELTS Liz and Miss Disa’s essays. I believe it was one of the, if not the most, informative review on answering the W and H questions when facing such charts in attempt to correctly and concisely interpret them.
On September 05, we were challenged with yet another writing task! This time around the topic revolved around the distributions of GDP in India with three sectors provided. Unfortunately, I feel like I didn’t perform as well as I anticipated going into this, most probably because I spent too much time rewriting the paragraphs to avoid making it look too messy. HAHAH! My takeaway from this would be to plan better at the beginning and perhaps not to forget to bring my erasable pen.
Moving on! Our very last essay was about the demographic change of seals, whales, and dolphins in Gomez Straits between 2006 to 2018. Personally, this was a very fun one to write since we had sufficient time to do so on September 25 and September 26. By the end, we typed out our own individual essays onto the collaborative google document.
Embarking on the Path to Becoming a Master at Breathing!
On September 18, Miss Disa discussed the 10-day challenge that would serve as our project wherein we were tasked to complete the foundation level 1 found in an app called “Balance”. The purpose of the project is to enhance both the physical and mental well- being by taking a few minutes out of your day to give simple meditation a try.
The first five days focused on breath focus while the next five days were more on body scanning. I started off Day 1 by waking up slightly earlier than usual to allot five minutes from the morning, without feeling rushed, and thus beginning my day on a steady note. Without a doubt, it wasn’t the most effective as I had only just begun this exercise.
Following the days after, I decided to complete the meditation sessions after school, leaning more towards the evening hours. I feel I work better during night time so this definitely helped me get better results in general! By Day 2, I was experiencing feelings of relaxation and was a little more concentrated than previously.
To add on, this was the day before my last midterm exams, and taking just as short as five minutes felt like a comforting sunset before the big thunderstorm. Even though it was a struggle getting through all the pointers for three exams the following day, I felt a lot happier than I would have expected. Perhaps it was because I was interested in the topics, but maybe the breathing might have played a role too!
By Day 3, I was empty of any distractions mainly because exams were finally over. I recall being very tired before that day’s exercise but right after, I organized my room before finally falling asleep. Thinking back, it was kind of funny how my mood took a turn and although it might’ve been the rejuvenating reward of a clean room I was after, I’m sure the exercise was somehow impactful.
Day 4 was by far the most evident in making me feel peaceful and relaxed. The counting of each inhale and exhale worked well with me and time rocketed way quicker than the rest of the days! Overall, my head felt lighter and I wasn’t experiencing my usual headaches. Day 5 had a similar effect and enabled me to feel laid-back and continue my Sunday on the right foot.
As for Day 6, it wasn’t as successful mainly due to me getting distracted from the sleepiness I was experiencing at the time. Day 7 was the introduction of body scanning. Honestly, a lot of times I was confused whether I was doing the “right” thing. Although I did feel some sensations and tingles in my body some days from Day 7 to Day 10, it was more vague on how impactful it was to me. Day 9 and 10 revolved around both breathing and body scanning and I found that as a great wrap up of the 10-day challenge.
Overall, I feel the project went by quite successfully! Naturally, some days weren’t as effective as I had anticipated, but on a broader scale, I believe it helped me relax and concentrate on the day/ night ahead! In fact, I tried out a few of the other ones, and the “midday reset” was another of the ones I found quite effective.
All in all, this month was extra productive for AEP classes! Thank you for reading this and I’m hoping to see you in the next one!
Signing off,
Meral
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