Doodlers!

We did learning profiles in Humanities, again... I thought mine might change like my friend's has but it didn't, it still is J! I'm so happy because I love being J. I'm a HUGE doodler, all over my planner, my binder, some of my assignments. Sometimes when I have been doing something for a long time, I just start doodling and that calms me down and helps me concentrate more. Everyone thinks I'm a logic, but that is because they don't really pay attention to me! Just because I'm in advanced math does not mean I'm a logic person! I have always drawn things, random things. Things from school, like what we talked about in math, or what happened in humanities. When I found out I'm a kinesthetic learner all my friends didn't believe me. But what they don't know is I always tap my toes in my shoes, move my feet around, shake my leg or doodle.

There are some specific ways my profile types learn best. So, I learn best through movement and by focusing on the whole picture, context and emotional relevance to self. If I'm stressed out then I shut down. I would stare that the thing that stresses me out, stop communicating and get pretty clumsy. My biggest challenge as a learner may be to access information and put them into a logical manner, that I can communicate through. I know that is true because I have always focused on the big picture and not the details, that is why I'm not good at debating, they always use the small details I have over-looked against me!

I need to move around. If I stay still for too long then my mind just slows down and I get this weird feeling as if my mind was in slow motion and everything is super slow and weird. Then I get up and suddenly my head clears up and I don't feel like my mind is in slow motion anymore.

I would like my teachers to know that if I'm doodling when they are talking, I'm still listening to them! They always make me put my doodle sheet away and it always annoys me. When they have a visual presentation on then, yes they can get angry at me for doodling but when they are talking then if I doodle its like I'm taking notes, if they were talking about ex. Daedalus and Icarus. Then I would doodle some wings, the sun, the ocean, a hand trying to grab hold of the other. Just parts of the instructions, story etc... That I think are important or that intrigue me. That will be all over my planner so when I look at my planner to see what I have to do then I will see all my doodle about Icarus and Daedalus and when I doodle I get a deeper meaning of what we are talking about.

So there it is, more about me and my learning styles. I did this last year for the first time and now I know even more about about my learning styles. This just keeps gettin gmore and more interesting!

I Remember......

We had the honor of meeting the famous poet, Taylor Mali, in our Humanities class. He talked about his work. But then he talked about his memories. He talked about his early mother's memories, his brother's early memories and he made us all laugh with his funny faces. That inspired us to think about our early memories.

I remember making a makeshift hut with my bed, blanket and books, but it didn't work because the books fell on my head, when I was 5.

I remember helping my mom and my brother make red Thai curry except we had a little malfunction and it turned green

I remember on my 8th birthday a parrot asked for my rainbow ice-cream.

I remember waking up in the middle of the night and hearing my brother talk, I was still afraid of the dark then and I asked him if he could go and turn on the light so I could go to the bathroom. But I didn't realize he was sleep talking.

I remember my cousin picking me up from art class, when a pack of stray dogs started chasing us. They chased us all the way to my front door.

I remember playing on a make shift swing my father made for me. When I was high up, one of the ropes broke and I fell I had enough sense to duck before the swing came back and hit me.

I remember stealing mangoes from the kitchen, until my mother caught me and for my punishment I had to watch everyone eat mangoes while I had nothing.

I remember when I first came to KL, I had never worn short socks so I thought my parents had bought me baby socks.

I remember fighting with my cousin over a pink color pencil (our favorite color was pink!)

I remember crying when my mom told me we were going to move to Malaysia.

My Name

My name says a lot of things about me. My name is a mixture of the lightest of blues, purples and pinks, a very feminine name. My name is one of a kind. Some people say it is weird; some say it is beautiful. But I say it is me; everything about me is my name. In India my name was a beautiful name with the right pronunciation! But here it is a different thing altogether. It is distinguished into three different parts. In India or inside of my family it is one word, three syllables that come together as one to make my name. My name reminds me of silk. It slips out of my mouth. I’m almost used to correcting people with the pronunciation of my name. Very few people have got it right. Some of my friends just call me Nanda, my last name. But that is not me, I share it with my family; it is us, not me. My name is Pratiti.

I have been teased about my name. When I first came to Malaysia there was a big girl on my bus. I was in first grade and she was in fifth grade. She was a Korean and she made fun of my name, I could hear them laughing at the back of the bus, whispering and pointing at me. I still remember her long dark hair, pale skin and her tall frame. The funny thing was, I thought her name was weird! I had never been exposed to international schools so I thought her name was odd. But I had some manners and didn’t think it would be funny to make fun of her name. Other times when the teacher mispronounces my name, some people laugh at it. I laugh along with them, because I don’t take it as an insult, I find it funny.

My name means ‘belief’ -- it is a Sanskrit word. I think I’m very privileged to be named after such an important word. Isn’t it ‘believe’ that always comes before hope in inspirational speeches? “We have to believe there is hope!” Don’t people always say, “you have to believe in yourself” or “I believe in you!” My parents named me Pratiti for two reasons. My brother’s name is Pratik and they wanted my name to be something similar. The second is they believed I could do wonders. I’m going to prove them right! I will make them proud of me. I will make sure that I do wonders. My father wanted to name me Sabrina from a female protagonist in a book he was reading during the time I was born. He doesn’t remember what the book was called anymore since he read it about thirteen years ago! I have a nickname that only my family calls me: Munlee. My brother’s nickname is Leemun, so my nickname is his nickname backwards. But the ‘m’ and the ‘n’ change places and the ‘l’ goes before the two ‘e’s.

I love my name; I believe that it is unique. I mean how many people have you met whose name is Pratiti? I’m not saying that I’m the only one with the name but it stands out. I have always wanted to stand out and I think I do. My entire family is organized with everything. They have all graduated with good grades and they all love to do math, they are consistent in their grades! But me, my grades change from time to time, my room is always a mess and I enjoy reading about myths and history, I love setting my imagination wild and put what I’m thinking into words! It all adds up to humanities! It is true: My father is a marine engineer; it involves high level math! My brother is studying accounting and finance which also involves math. My mother is a housewife ,but cooking also involves math! But I want to study literature, I find it interesting, something that I can study without getting bored!

This is Me in 3!

Guess what I am doing right now? I am staring blankly at my computer screen trying to figure out the third thing that describes me! The first two came to me very easily -- all my books and my tennis racket. But I just can’t figure out what the third thing should be. A million things are going through my head right now but I have to find the perfect one, the one that will be the final piece for me that I will be sharing with you. Something that I love dearly and gives me love, joy, can bring back beautiful memories from the past and maybe even from the present! I know it, my big stuffed pink toy dog. I know it sounds silly but I love that dog and I have had him since I moved to Malaysia.

I love reading; everyone who knows me knows I love reading. When I really like a book I can feel everything in it. I feel as if I am in a new world, a new person! Sometimes I get so lost in a book that when my mom calls me, I can’t hear her (I get in trouble for that all the time!). I have only been in three countries: India, Malaysia and Singapore. However, in books I have been to England, Hogwarts, Elantya, Medieval times, Forks, dancing with the 12 dancing princesses, in the labyrinth with Annabeth and many more! As you can see I only like to read fantasy, fiction , romantic fiction (e.g., Twilight) and adventures. But all the non-fiction and biographies bore me. My parents try to make me read them but I don’t. I feel sleepy when I try to read non-fiction or biographies. When I walk into Kinokuniya, MPH or Times I feel like I am a five year old again and I get to pick out a new Barbie doll! Any place that is filled with books is like my own wonderland, a portal to many different worlds, like the library where they have plenty of books, it’s my favorite place in the school. I sometimes spend hours on the library catalog trying to find a good book to read!

My tennis racket is important to me because my brother is really good at tennis and I am taking lessons with his old coach. I hope to be as good as he is someday. I do lessons every Sunday. Sometimes when my brother coaches me I feel like he really cares about what I am doing and how good I am. He spends the whole hour we booked the tennis court for coaching me when he could be doing wall practice! I feel like he really cares about me. It’s like our special bonding time. I really suck at serving so my brother spent a half an hour trying to teach me how to do it properly! Thanks to him I am much better at service now. When I pick up my tennis racket, I tie up my shoe laces and make sure my water bottle is full then I turn myself onto alert mode. When I am running around hitting the ball on the court I feel alive, sporty and healthy. I feel strong when I really am not! The ball comes towards me and everything is slowing down: my pony tail bounces on my back, sweat trickles down my spine and head, my hands move in a circular motion and hit the ball with all the strength they can muster. That's what it feels like to play tennis, for me. I love it, it is a part of me and always will be!

My big pink stuffed dog’s name is Purple because she has a big purple nose . To me Purple is not a stuffed dog; to me she is a protector, a guardian or my very own archangel. Whenever I have a nightmare she is always lying there on my bed and I grab hold of her pull her close and fall asleep feeling safe! Do you ever get the feeling when you look at someone or something that you think will protect you for the rest of your life and always will be there for you? Well Purple is the dog who I wiped my tears on when I was upset about something. She was the dog I held onto when I woke up in the middle of the night with a terrible nightmare still playing in my head! She is very battered right now but she has all these good memories! Like the first time I ever scared my brother, he was about to turn the corner and I threw Purple at him: he was so surprised that he jumped back and almost toppled over! That was one of the funniest memories ever! Purple is a big part of my life I will never throw her away or do anything to her that will take her away from me!

My Awesome Bio-Poem

Pratiti

Who is surprisingly nice, devastatingly disorganized, consistently loyal and sometimes unpredictable

Who admires her brother Pratik, Loves her mom and dad and values all her best friends

Who reads only fiction books, spends hours on the Internet and stares at landscapes

Who feels dead tired after swimming, goofy after drama and hyper after a boring day of sitting around

Who is scared of all kinds of slithery snakes, pitch black darkness closing around her and saying good bye to people she loves

Who is very proud of winning her first bronze medal ever in breaststroke

Wants to see Paris, feel the cool snow falling around her and hear a mockingbird sing in it’s beautiful voice

Lives in KL, Malaysia, Asia, Earth, Solar System, Milky Way Galaxy

Nanda

The last project in Hum. with mr. Thomas is a trailer

This is my Greek mythology trailer! I can't really give you an outline cause thats the trailer's job. But I will tell you the names of the characters that will be in this trailer and the characters that didn't make it into my trailer. First of all there is the first Greek goddesses Nyx. She gives birth to Eros the god of love. Since Eros was born frim an egg the top part of the egg went adn formed the sky and Eros name the sky Uranus. The bottom part went and formed the Earth and Eros named Earth Gaia. He made Uranus and Gaia fall in love. They had many children (Titans), Kronos one of the Titans was afraid of his children's power and ate them while they were still babies. But his wife Rhea betrays him and saves one kid (Zeus). Then there is a huge battle between them you will have to see the movie (which is never coming out) to find out who wins the battle. Hint: read the Percy Jackson series and you will find out for sure! Enjoy my trailer!

Its gone by so FAST!

I have done a lot of work this year! But there is one thing that I'm really proud of and that is our second Tic-Tac-Toe! It was a collaborative project and my group members were Sheta, P.J and Ted. Our ancient civilization was ancient China. We did the geographical location powerpoint, the mobile and the diary. Our mobile had to be about the 12 contributions or achievments and we chose the Shang dynasty in ancient China. Our two diary entries were also based on a slave girl in the Shang dynsty. And our geographical powerpoint was on all of China! I'm really proud of my work on this project is my groups teamwork! We worked well together, we spilt our work equally, we all did our work properly and if we had disagreements we worked them out in class. We got all our work done before the deadline and for sometime we barely had any humanities homework! Then it is the quality of our work. We edited all our work like I wrote the diary entries and Sheta edited them. On the mobile we went through all the paragraphs before we printed them out. Ted and P.J edited all the slides before presenting it. I learned so much about writing while we were the diaries. I'm especailly happy with my improved writing ability! Before all my sentences were tiny and I didn't pay attention to my vocab, but now most of my sentences are compound and I write much better! Both my diaries the ancient Egyptian and ancient China diary entries have helped me alot with my writing!

My greatest challenge this year is making my writing my own. I know that sounds crazy but my teacher made me realize this. I still have trouble with making my writing my own! This means making my writing sound like I wrote it! Not a different person. Some people can write really formally and make it sound like their own work. But I don't really talk very formally! I seriously think formal is boring (no offense to people who write formally!) I always wondered why I kept getting only A's instead of A+'s. I always thought it was my writing but then in the student led conferences mr. Thomas told me that it wasn't my writing but it was the way I wrote. So I'm still trying to fix that!

I learned many things about myself as a learner. Best of all when we were doing our learning profiles. You can findour more about that if you read my learning profile post! But most of all I learned that I can do anythign I want as long as I concentrate and want to do my best. I always turn in my best work if I work hard and concentrate. I know that's what everyone says that if you focus and try hard you can do anything, and that is true. But sometimes if I don't focus and not try hard I can get a pretty good grade. But that is an A- or lower. I always want to go for A's and A+'s! That is my goal! So I learned that if I'm listening to a little bit of music and not multi-taking I can so awesome work!

For my behavior in class I would say satisfactory. Because I'm not perfect or a model student. I don't always do my homework or turn my work in before teh deadline. There have been a few times when I would completely forget about the deadline and I would finish my project last minute. Like our imaginative narrative. I completely forgot it was due on wednesday so I had to finish it in class cause mr. Thomas was angry with abunch of other kids cause they didn't do their work either!

I think I actively participate in class. I always listen when mr. Thomas is talking so I won't have to ask him to repeat the directions. I ask questions when I need to, and even if I can't participate in a certain conversation, because I have nothing to say I just listen quitely and if they say something funny I laugh along with everyone else.

I think I'm super organized because I never forget any of my supplies. I always bring my humanities binder (even if we never use it), I never forget my SSR book and if I do forget something then it is because I didn't know we were meant to bring it. But obviously I forget things sometimes but other than that I'm good. My locker is also neat. I can get all my stuff when I need them so I consider that neat!

I think my effort is satisfactory. I don't go above and beyond expectations all the time. I do that sometimes but not always. I know that I should but I don't. I do everything that is neccesary and that is the end. If I feel like it then I go abouve and beyond expectations. There are some people who go above and beyond expectations all the time and then there are people who don't even do satisfactory. But that just depends on how we want our work to turn out!

Now I'm going to tell you about two goals I want to set for 7th grade! My first goal is to go above and beyond expectations all the time. Now that I understand how it works in ampang better I can really work hard on that. My second goal is to participate in everything that I can. This year I just sat back and watched everything but now I'm going to participate in things like that middle school play. I didn't even audition but next year in 7th grade I 'll audition and try to get into it!

I would like the teachers know that I can do my work but if I seem really confused about something then that means that I don't get what to do or I don't get what I did wrong! Then there is my revising problems. I never really revise my work. I don't read over my essays to fix the vocab and grammatical errors or in math to fix the silly mistakes that I would make.

I don't remember what it was called but it was a challenge in which we had to make the ancient Egyptian social pyramid in 30 minutes using three paper plates, a few straws, paper clips, string, one strip of tape, note cards. ruler and anything else we had. I really liked it because it forced us to work fast and think creatively. We worked in groups I was with Ashka and Sheta. So it also depended on teamwork. We had to reason critically because we had to use ALL the supplies that mr. Thomas provided us! And it was a lot of fun, we also go to review our social pyramid because we had to explain what each social level was.


I think that we could have had more chances to be free with our writing. The only piece of free writing we did was the imaginative narrative and we rushed through that. I really think that we had a little bit more chance to be imaginative it woulf have been easier to write the diary entries because we would be able to imagine the life style and the setting better. It is also more fun to let your imagination run free so we would want to do the work. We would think of it as fun not as home work or a project we had to do to get a good grade!

I love it when teachers ask us to give advice. Okay make sure you listen to the teachers when they are giving you instructions! Trust me you don't want to have to do a project and you don't know what to do! That is the worst position to be in (I talk from experience)! Make sure you so your home work because it will be useful when you have to do quizzes or tests. Because most probably they are similar to the questions in your homework. And the teachers won't be happy if you never do your home work. You don't want to get on the bad side of teachers! If you do these then you shouldn't have any trouble when you are in 6th grade!