My desk is half-cluttered - several papers are scattered about and paraphernalia crowd the furthermost corners of my workspace. For the first time in what feels like forever, though, the center of my desk carries my fingers breezing through a pastel pink keyboard to write my very first AEP blog of the year.
As Grade 8-ers, we have always heard myths and warnings about advancing to Grade 9 - and, well, they were not wrong. Through the infant-ish brain filling my rigid skull, I instantly knew that AEP this year was going to be a lot more difficult, a lot more challenging.
Was I ready?
November 6 - Satan's Scrabble
Oh please - Scrabble is usually a delight (perhaps), trust me. Though today, we played a game. And The Devil joined us.
Excitedly, we hurried to our seats and assigned our teams. And so, with a timer in my hands, the game begun. Mysha, as always, faced whatever odd letters we obtained with such grace it could make me cry (of sheer admiration). Though it was supposed to be just a simple word game, chaos found its way in and voices of my peers grew with anger.
Fights flooded throughout the game, words of some sort of alien language were invented, bloodshot eyes yearned for revenge. Over a word game. It was not pleasant to witness - but hey - we won. (Or mysha did, of course.) It's as though Satan decided to shuffle the decks of peace and join us - As he does whenever teenagers are pitted against each other in any competitive situation.
November 13 - Wonderful, Wistful Worksheets
Poor Mika - A day into AEP and she has already dealt with the horrors what lie within the minds of AEP students. Hurriedly, she inputted letters during our warmup as we yelled broken vocabulary.
Proceeding with worksheets, pages of words stared at me as I stared at them (how romantic). Willfully, I tried my best to complete it as gears turned in my head. I grew more used to it as time went on, and found the questions quite fascinating. Through my unrelenting focus on the matter, though, I did not notice the time passing and everyone else answering questions two steps ahead of me. At that moment, I found comfort turning my head to see Aleena staring wistfully at the same questions I was on.
November 20 - Essay. That's Literally It. I don't know what other title to put.
Squaredle is an odd game - usually one filled with us torturing one person as they try to put in every word they make out of incoherent screeching. It's fun, but today's letters were odd and far beyond my vocabulary.
We started reviewing the steps of writing essays - Paraphrase. Overview. Details.
And for some reason, my brain couldn't conjure what we have learned in previous lessons. The reason may be that I have sprinted out all my energy during PE, which didn't take much at all. Word by word, I tried my best (and that's all that matters, right?) But more than halfway through, we all realized we understood the graph wrong. Whoops. It was an odd graph, though, and at that moment I found it quite intriguing to observe. Essay writing can be a delight if my mind is set up for it (which a 5-minute nap during the break may have accomplished).
So - was I ready? Ready for the drastic switch from being a humble Grade 8 kid to a Grade 9 Essay-Writer?
The answer still stands unclear to me. But I do know that I am still standing. Standing and oddly excited for the future.
My peers (and Miss!), let us hold our heads high as we tackle what is to come. An essay? Worksheets? A game of Scrabble that will be the end of us all?
Who knows - it's Schrodinger's AEP.
And this is why I love this class.
Comments
Post a Comment