Five Objects

If you could only have five items for the rest of your life, what would they be? A book? A stuffed animal, an iPod, or perhaps even candy? These objects can be almost anything but they will show who you are and what you value. For me, the five items that I would choose are a bracelet, my bookshelf, a metal box with my stationary inside, my sticker-covered bible, and my clarinet.

When I was around nine years old, my cousin, Jasmine, gave me the rose bracelet. This bracelet reminds me of my extended family because all my female cousins and my sisters have one. It shows that we are all connected somehow as there are exactly six flowers on the bracelet, each one representing a family. The rose bracelet also symbolizes my great-grandmother, who is 98 and still alive, because she loves plants and has them in pots outside her front door. Whenever I go visit my great-grandmother, I would see flowers blooming despite the weather and the season and it will cheer me up, because it looks like a rainbow exploded on her porch.

My bookshelf is also another significant object to me. The bookshelf at the corner of my room is filled with books which I used to read when I was a little girl. Some of them were given to me as a present and some I bought. When you look at it, you can see how I started to read, mostly about fairies and princesses, and how the books start to become thicker and less childish. The shelf holds many memories of my past and my journey through life. Sometimes when I am bored, I would just select a random book from the shelf and start reading it. Each book has a special meaning and story behind it and they are all very precious to me.

A metal box painted to look a little rusty is another object which is important to me. I keep all my stationery supplies in it and for those of you who don't know this, I have a weird hobby of collecting unusual pens, pencils, highlighters etc. I keep all of my unused stationery in the box and sometimes give it to people as presents.  The box itself is also important as my mom gave it to me for Christmas and it was painted by one of her friends. My sisters also have similar boxes with different designs.

When I was eight, my parents bought me a bible which I still have today. I like this particular bible because it is dark blue, my favorite color, and slender instead of wide. My bible is also covered in stickers which I pasted on when I first got it. It is important to me because it teaches me valuable lessons that reminds me of my experiences, actions, and attitudes and how they should be.

The last object that I would chose is my new clarinet. The clarinet is really important to me because I spent years trying to find the right instrument for me. When I was seven, I learnt the guitar for a year before moving on to two years of piano, later playing the violin. When I started middle school, I chose to learn the clarinet. Like every instrument before, I hated it and regretted picking it up. However, I quickly learnt that the practicing was worth it and found that I was starting to enjoy it. I hope that playing the clarinet will stay with throughout my life, and that I will just keep getting better.  

A bracelet, a bookshelf, a metal box, bible, and clarinet might not seem like special objects when alone, but together, they clearly represent something... ME!

My Name, Josephine

Josephine. An ordinary name for an ordinary girl like me. As like many others in the world, I was named after my parents' friend in hopes that I would grow to become similar to her.

When I was younger, I absolutely hated my name because I thought it was too long to write and wasn't feminine enough. I often used to wish that my parents had named me something more "princessy and girly" like Rose or Crystal. Though I disliked being called Josephine, I hated it even more when my friends called me Jo-Jo or Josie when they got to lazy to say my whole name, as if I wasn’t important enough for others to take a few moments to acknowledge me properly. But as I grew older, I became very glad and thankful that my parents had decided to call me Josephine, a name that sounds mature and responsible, like I can be trusted to do important tasks.

My name, Josephine, is an artist’s paint pallet; full of different colors and mixes, hard to describe using only one word. If you look closely at it, you can see my personality written all over the name. Sometimes, if I am familiar with the person, I’m relaxed and friendly like the letter ‘J’, written with a casual flick of the wrist. ‘O’, a letter that is completely closed up represents me when I meet someone for the first time, reserved and distant.

Josephine also means “God will increase his blessings,” although, my parents didn't name me Josephine because of what it meant. This was an unexpected coincidence because my family and I are Christians and we believe in God. I think it is special how my name shows not only what I believe in but also my personality and what I want to be like, mature and responsible, as if it were created especially for me. Josephine. An ordinary name which represents an ordinary girl like me.

Like an artist’s paint pallet; full of different colors and mixes, hard to describe using only one word

Reference:
http://mobile-phones.com.pk/wallpapers/Artistic/Paint-Splatter-w4689

Failure is Success

Once when I was surfing the internet, I stumbled across the quote "Failure is success if we learn from it" by Malcolm Forbes. This quote stood out to me at that time because I was always afraid of making mistakes, therefor I was shy and very silent in class. I never raised my hand to answer any question even if I certain I knew the right solution. When I read what Malcolm Forbes said, I realized that  it was okay to make a few mistakes now and again, that nobody's perfect. From then on, I made an effort to participate and speak up more during school and if I made a mistake, I would figure out what I did wrong and never do it again. I learned to trust my instincts and take risks when I wasn't sure. I can really connect with this quote and I think that it has impacted my life a lot.

Greek Myth Trailer

For humanities, we had to create a trailer for either a greek, chinese, australian aboriginal, or an egyptian myth. I chose to do it about a greek myth. Here is where I got my pictures and music.

Reflections and Comments on Sixth Grade

This year in sixth grade has gone by so fast and I feel I have accomplished and learned so much. It has been a year of changes, freedom, and responsibility. I have made many new friends and been though lots of exiting adventures like Malaysia Week. For our final blog post, we were asked to answer some questions in well-structured paragraphs. 


What piece of work and learning are you most proud of? Explain.
The work that I am most proud of this year would be the Egyptian Diaries which was part of the Ancient Egypt unit. For this project, we had to write three diary entries about the daily life of a ancient egyptian. Each of us got specific jobs to write about and I got a peasant/farmer. I am proud of my final work because it was really hard for me to think in the same point of view as a peasant. Also, I didn't know anything about farmers, what tools they used, or what they were like. To create a successful diary entry, I had to think like a farmer and how happy I would be if my crops this year were good and abundant. I am proud of what I have managed to accomplish though I do think that I could have improved my work by adding more voice to it.


What was your greatest challenge? Explain.
My greatest challenge would be the Ancient Civilization Tic-Tac-Toe which I work with Abhi and Tiffany on. We decided to each do one project so I did the Travel Webpage. At first, I thought that it would be really easy to to create a fifteen-day educational tour to China but it wasn't. I found it really difficult to find tourist attractions that were a reasonable distance from one another. Also, I had to research to find out what the opening and closing time was for each of the places we were going to and make sure that the tour was also fun and interesting.


Reflecting on your growth this year, what did you learn about yourself as a learner?
Something I learnt about myself this year as I learner would be that I work better in a quiet environment where I can concentrate without distraction. I say this because I noticed that my work, especially my writing, have less mistakes and get a better grade when I'm not distracted and can focus just on what I am doing. Another thing I learnt about myself would be that if I approach an assignment or a new idea in a positive attitude (although I may not like it), I would enjoy what I am doing more and at the same time learn better and end out liking what I did not before. As a learner, I think that I can improve by using my time more efficiantly. I think this because many of the work and assignments we do, like literature circles, requires me to think and explain my ideas and that is sometimes time consuming.


Behavior: 
Could be improved
Satisfactory
Perfect- the model student


I think that my behavior is perfect because I behave well when the teachers are around and when they are not.


Participation:
None
Satisfactory
Actively participate in class


I feel that my participation in class is satisfactory, not the best but not the worst either. I think this because I do participate in class discussions but only when I know what I am saying is correct and I don't  participate when I do not know the answer.


Organization:
Needs serious help
Satisfactory
I'm super organized


I evaluated myself as super organized because I always keep my locker and binder clean. I also organize my time so that I can do all my homework before it is due.


Effort:
Needs serous help
Satisfactory
I always go above and beyond what is required


I think that I am in between satisfactory and always going above and beyond what is required because I only sometimes go above and beyond what is required.


Based upon your reflections, write two personal learning goals for seventh grade.


1. My first goal is to participate more in class. This goal is important and will help me improve because by participating in class discussions will mean that I will always be paying attention when the teacher or my peers are talking.


2. My second goal for seventh grade is to always go above and beyond what is required. I want to be above satisfactory for my effort because it will help me to get better grades.


Is there more information about yourself that you would like the teachers to know?
There isn't actually anything that I would like the teachers to know except that I really, really don't like it when teachers tell me to write a story without giving me a topic to write about. I don't like it because first of all, I am not creative so I find it difficult to find a topic to write about, and secondly, I don't like writing stories (I prefer essays).


What was your favorite activity lesson in Humanities this year? What did you enjoy about it?
My favorite lesson this year would be the Tic-Tac-Toe because we got to choose our and what assignments we wanted to do. In my opinion, it is much better to let us decide who what we want to do for our assignments because then we can choose what we want to do based on our talents, for example if you are good at drawing, then you can make a comic strip.


What activity do you wish we could have spent more time on?
I think that we should spend more time on the narrative and less time on the ancient egyptian diaries. We should spend more time on the imaginative narrative because it would have helped us a lot with our ancient egyptian diaries. I still remember that when you (Mr. Thomas) read our imaginative narratives, you said that most of them were just sequences of events and not a story. If we had worked more on the narratives and gotten it right the first time, then we wouldn't take such a long time to finish our ancient egyptian diaries.


Finally, cast your minds back to the first few months of middle school. What advice would you give the class of 2018?
An advice that I would tell the cast of 2018 is to always do your work ahead of time, never leave it to the last minute. I have never experienced this but your grade will go down if you don't hand in an assignment on time. Also, I would advice the class of 2018 to use their planners because not many teachers update moodle.