My Nineteenth Week as a Senior

This week was so good! I have a spare period this semester, which means that every Day 2, I get to sleep in till 9 AM. I’m savouring the extra sleep and hopefully, that’ll get rid of my dark circles XD.

The first day of Semester 2 was actually Friday, January 31. I’m including it in this post because there wasn’t much to make a post about the week before this one. It was such a wonderfully boring day. I had Calculus and Vectors first period. I got the same teacher I have had for the past two semesters so I’m very comfortable with her. She gave us our course outline and we dove right into work. We have 9 units and if 1 unit takes a total of 10 days (including weekends), the course will take 90 days. So, I don’t blame her for rushing into the first chapter. We started the semester with rationalizing numerators and denominators. It’s basic Grade 10 Maths but she wanted to review it as it’s a helpful skill for this chapter. Next, I had a spare period. I went to the library with my friends and I finished my Math homework. I stayed there until halfway through lunch and then came back to school. After lunch, we had Writer’s Craft. This is the class I am most excited about. It’s the first English class I have had that is strictly no essays. I really want to improve my writing and the course seems promising. Our teacher had us start with some vocabulary questions and warm-up exercises and then gave us our first assignment: a literary autobiography. We had to write about our journey as a writer in no more than 4 pages. I, of course, had a lot to say. Lastly, we had English. It was a chill class. We took a personality test and I got the personality of a ‘protagonist’. I am not sure if I relate to the description, but I might take it again to see how that turns out.

Monday was also a Day 1, so I had Calculus and Vectors first, again. I’m not sure if I want to call it Calculus and Vectors, just Calculus, C&V or plain Math. So, if you see any of those terms, you know what I mean. In Math, we continued learning how to find the slope of a tangent and what we’re supposed to do with that information. It basically relates to finding the limits of the function near the tangent. I was pretty productive in my spare. I finished my literary autobiography, browsed for my ISU book and then finished my Math homework. In Writer’s Craft, we did timed writing, which is where our teacher gives us a prompt and then we have to write non-stop for 4 minutes. The prompt that day was yellow. Then we did a lesson on being specific. She showed us what a difference being specific makes. For example, “a cardinal flew by my window” creates more imagery than “a bird flew by my window.” Then we did a lesson on ‘show, don’t tell’. It’s the concept of describing an emotion through actions, rather than telling the reader the character is feeling that emotion. For example, saying “Her blood boiled” shows the reader the character is angry, without actually saying that the character is angry. In English, we did a diagnostic test. It was basic comprehension questions based on the attached article. I found the article quite dumb. Look up David McCullough's speech “You’re not special”.

Tuesday was a Day 2, and because I had my spare first, I got to sleep in. It was just like the old times, having a late start on a Tuesday. I came to school at 9:50. In Calculus, we took up the homework from the previous night and then did some questions about velocity. In English, we went to the library and chose our ISU books. I picked Jane Eyre and my librarian was exasperated by my choice. She complained that I only pick classics. I like to read classics, but I’ll only ever finish one if it’s absolutely necessary, like if it’s a class assignment. In Writer’s Craft, we did some timed writing with the prompt “the man had a limp”. Then we wrote about an important event in our life where we remembered the details really well. I didn’t have any homework left that day.

Wednesday was a chill day. In Math, we had a lesson on finding limits using the difference quotient method. It’s now one of my favourite methods. In my spare, I finished my math homework and, then, wrote a little. In Writer’s Craft, we did timed writing, with the prompt ‘crunchy’. Then, we did some review on the uses on ‘:’. In English, we did a review of literary elements. We played Kahoot and I did not like it very much. My server connection was so slow, my answers didn’t register until the next question was already up. I came in 11th but I know I could’ve gotten a better score. There was yet no homework.

Thursday was another late start. I got to school around 10:10. In Calculus, we did properties of limits. We used ways besides the difference of quotients method, to find limits of functions. Then we had a quiz on finding the slope of a tangent. In English, we reviewed some more literary devices with examples from popular media. In Writer’s Craft, we did a fun activity. Everyone started a story by describing the setting. The next two people introduced two characters and the next two introduced a conflict. The next person brought the story to the climax and the last person brought it to a resolution. We then read the story we started, and it was interesting to see where the story had gone. I got to read some of the other stories I contributed to and they were hilarious.

TGIF. I feel like we didn’t do much on Friday. In Calculus, we studied the continuity of functions and how to find them algebraically. In my spare, I finished some of my pending writing and my math homework. In Writer’s craft, we did some timed writing and the prompt was ‘soft’. Then, for our next assignment, we picked a postcard, with an image on the front’ to write a story about. In English, we got time to catch up on any pending work, so I took the time to read my ISU book.

It feels good to be writing for the blog again. It’s a little harder now, with lesser inspiration this semester than the last, but I’ll manage. I may be a little irregular until I’m able to write content that satisfies me, so I hope you understand. That’s all for this week. See you later. -Aarushi