Physics Project Reflection 1-Afifah

Hello, I'm Afifah Ali and I'm here to tell you about a physics project me and my team mates, Deborah and Suhanee are doing. From what I know, we are doing a roller coaster and rube goldberg machine. Telling from the title we can tell what a roller coaster ride and if you don't, ill put it in easier words and just say it's mini roller coaster that needs to have 7 twists and turns in order to get a good grade. A rube goldberg machine is an original machine you thought about making and letting it come alive with a few materials.
our project has to made to made up completely with energy because if there was no energy our project wouldn't work.
Currently, we have an idea of how our project will look like but we need to if it will be accurate and i hope we have good accuracy to get the energy we need to make our project a success. I'm hopeful that our project will work and that it will stick together and not fall apart.
We already have a draft on how our projects look but we don't have the material we have just yet. We have started the starting point of our project, where the marbles will go through a tube and we have tested out to see if it will give enough energy we need for the marble to slide down to our next step. Other than that, we are trying to workout the obstacles for our rube goldberg.
So far, I haven't found anything difficult other than the accuracy energy we need for our project to be a success. We also have a problem with our objects sticking together because when we taped two objects to our wall, it had fallen down and we had to start all over again, not only that but we had wasted so much of our tape for something that didn't work.
Next class, I'm hoping to get an idea for what our group is going to do for our rube goldberg because we have a whole draft on what to put do for our roller coaster but I am hopeful that while doing our roller coaster, an idea will pop into our heads. after all, we do have a pretty creative team.

Dance Away

Hey, it’s your Afifah with another blog post. Lately, me and my friend, Katy have realized that time has been going by really fast and we won’t be able to teach each other dances moves that we planned to teach when we first started our project. It’s almost the end of our school and so me and Katy just decided to start a dance that we may or may not present to our fellow classmates and move on from what we were going to do before. It’s good that we moved on because we would’ve been able to practice our dance that we were going to present and I realized that it was a part of life to let some things go in able to get what you want, that’s just life. I mean we already came so far and I’m pretty sure we are going to end this project strong, even if we have to let some things go in order to succeed. plus, someone once did say, “What doesn’t kill us, makes is stronger” and would we look at that, I’m alive and as long as I’m alive, I’ll try to do my best and I’ll try to do better than I did the day before.

(Photo credit: pixabay)

Growing up, I never really tried to do the things I thought I couldn’t do, did you catch that, I said thought. I understand that you might be confused on what I’m saying so let me explain. When I first started dancing Katy had shown me a bunch of dance moves that seemed really confusing and when she told me to do it, I would laugh at her face because it seemed so difficult. When I did learn the dance moves, it seemed like the easiest thing in the world, time was all it took and maybe that was one of the reasons it took so much our time to learn new dance moves because I didn’t believe I could do something like that and if I could go back to the past and tell myself to suck it up and try something new, believe me, I would. We’ve already come so far with our YouTube channel and everything but we could’ve gone farther if I tried to learn more.

(Photo credit: MEME TN)

Me and Katy have come so far and we’re pretty sure by the end of the time we will be done with everything. We have improved so much in our dances that honestly makes me so proud of us. In our youtube videos, you can see how much we have improved, from beginning to the end and you can clearly tell that we have thought each other dances we have never before done. We have thought each other hip hop, contemporary, ballet, and my personal favorite, bollywood. We even went as far and emailed a teacher that has taught dance to come and teach us some moves and I’m so excited.

            (Photo credit: MEME TN)

Hey, it’s your girl Afifah, back with another post. Lately, I had ditched my idea of starting a blog about gender equality because I realized that I wasn’t a very serious person. Doing a serious project puts me under a lot of stress and makes me want to do the topic less, it makes me feel like I’m forced to do something I don’t want and that clearly tells me I’m not passionate about that topic, especially if I give up on it. First I was a little hard on myself for quitting so soon but soon I realized that quitting is a part of life and we can learn from our mistakes, like the way I learned that I’m not a serious person. I might have quit one project but fortunately, a fellow classmate and good friend of mine, Katy, had an idea of doing a project with me that I would love to explore.

(Picture Credit:MEME TN)

Katy had introduced the topic of dancing to me. I know that Katy is pretty passionate about dancing, she had started dancing at the age of 4 and grow to love it and in the age of 9 she grow to love dancing so much it became a part of her, it became her passion. Because of her expertise in dancing she agreed to teach me how to dance and make me feel confident in dancing and once I do feel confident, I will teach her how to dance bollywood, which I think is really cool, teaching the teacher. Since Katy is kind of an expert dancer, I’m confident in her teaching me how to dance. We also discussed about how we would share our dancing improvements in a YouTube channel called Dance Exchange.

(Photo Credit:CC0 Public Domain)

Starting a YouTube channel is kind of a tough job because we have to keep our audience entertained, which kind of relates to one of the ISTE Standards, Creative Communicator. We have to express ourselves through the videos and how our day is going but also keep it interesting and fun, which can be a very hard process because people are different and they might have absolute different thoughts on the way we should present our “vlogs.” Also, in starting a YouTube video, we have to edit our vlogs a lot, which take up most of our time but in the end we do have fun dancing.

(Photo Credit: nikon ninja)

Dancing wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be, I thought it be effortlessly and gracefully, like I saw in a dance video, but instead it was the exact opposite. While learning ballet from Katy, I learned that it wasn’t as simple as I thought it would be. I was confused on how to do most of the dance moves that Katy had taught me about and when I did know the steps, I would keep messing up. I looked more like a zombie swoon while I was dancing, not a graceful ballerina like my friend Katy. Katy only started with teaching me the easy basic dancing, like Ballet and soon she will teach me Contemporary, and Hip Hop. I haven’t dance for that long but I can say one thing, “simple dancing” isn’t really easy.  

(Picture Credit:MEME TN)

The Benefits Of Gratitude

Gratitude can help us improve both our emotional and physical health. Gratitude can include writing little notes to friends or writing what one is grateful for in a journal, they're endless ways to practice gratitude and no matter the way one practices it, you will wake up 10% happier. Gratitude makes people feel more thankful for the things around them and have a more positive vibe to them, gratitude makes one come alive and really pay attention to the little things around them. Weather you know it or not, we express gratitude everyday. We express gratitude when we get an A in class or get a promotion at work and the feeling that we get because of that is what we call gratitude.

Gratitude doesn't just make you feel better about yourself, it also helps you become a better person. Research has shown that gratitude makes a person less selfish and makes them happier about ones success. For example, someone gets a promotion at work and you didn't, instead of feeling envious, you feel happy about their success and celebrate with them. Sometimes when someone does feel envious, they take a look back at their happy memories and feel grateful for what they have, we become optimistic. Gratitude changes little bits of our life but it makes an big impact to our everyday lives.

One of the little things that Gratitude changes in our life is our health. We become a healthier person by practicing gratitude. Physical symptoms, like anxiety, depression, etc. are decreased by 16% by gratitude. We spend 19% more time exercising, which lower risk of getting diseases like type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure. Gratitude even effects our sleep because of gratitude we get better sleeping quality and spend more time sleeping, which I personally struggle in. All of these can help extend our lifespan by a few months, maybe even years!

Gratitude also helps people socially. Gratitude increases self-esteem, which leads to easily trying to meet new people and talking to them with kindness, which helps keep a longer relationship and because of that there is a less feeling of isolation and loneliness. Gratitude also helps us keep more open-mind towards others and lets us be more forgiving.

Gratitude can effect our lives if we choose to do it. We can become better emotionally, physically, and socially, maybe even more. Who knew something so little could change peoples everyday lives? I didn't until now. Even practicing a little bit of gratitude can effect us so much. Start by small steps and write about 10 things you're grateful for and see how it effects your life.

Research sources 

"The 31 Benefits of Gratitude You Didn’t Know About: How Gratitude Can Change Your Life." HappierHuman. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2017.

"7 Scientifically Proven Benefits of Gratitude." Psychology Today. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2017.

Equality? Heck Yes!

It’s your girl Afifah, back with another post! Lately, we have been watching TED talk videos and those videos introduce people that are passionate about a certain topic that has made them come alive. Some of the people reading this blog might be thinking about why I said “alive”, I don’t actually mean bring you to life. I used alive as a metaphor and in simple terms it means that you’re so passionate about a certain topic that it becomes part of you, at least, that's what it means for me. So as I was saying before, we were watching TED talk videos of peopling telling us about what makes them alive and out of all the ones I watched, one of them stood out to me, the video I watched really made me start thinking.

                                                  Photo by: MEME TN  

A TED talk video that stuck to me was introduced by Caroline Paul and she talked about females being just as equal as men. While she was talking, I could see the passion in her eyes and I could see how it reallyIdDMBWb2Z_s affected her. Caroline started by talking about how she first time she joined the firefighting squad, People would always question why a women would join something “manly” but she proved them wrong by showing she was just as great as the men in the department and if not, better. During the the talk, Caroline was encouraging parents with daughters to let them be adventurous in order to gain bravery, in order to be just as “brave as boys.” Every single word Caroline said made me feel strongly about equality and I thought, why not do a project on gender equality?

Photo By: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I never really put my mind to equality when I was younger, I always thought that everyone was treated the same, until now. Now I always pay attention to the little things men do for women because they think they can’t handle the pressure. Some of the little things that annoy me is men carrying “heavy” bags for women because they think women wouldn’t be able to handle the weight and to paying for the foods in restaurants because it isn’t manly for a man to let a women pay. I know these reasons are stupid but they always seem to make me mad. As nice as everything is, I’m pretty sure us females are strong enough to handle ourselves.

                                           Photo By: MEME TN

Now, I know I sound biased because I’m a women but I feel strongly about all gender stereotypes. I just can’t seem to get them, it’s 2017 and yet, we still have to follow all these rules about how a person should be. These stereotypes are inaccurate about an individual person and sometimes it can be offending. If we are not what society wants us to be than we are looked down upon, which is extremely saddening because it basically says that a person can not be who they truly are. Maybe doing a project about gender stereotypes won’t change some of the people’s views or thoughts about a person should be but at least I’ll know that I tried my very best and that’s enough to make me happy.

Photo By: MEME TN

#1 Media Lit Blog Post

My name is Afifah Ali and I’m a 14 year old girl from TAISM. Lately, in Media Lit class we have started a project. For this project we can wish to do whatever we want as long as it is appropriate, of course, and helps other people. For the project we have be be passionate about what we do, not interested and I know what the people that are reading this blog post are thinking, What’s the difference between Passion and Interest? Well there’s a big difference and maybe doing this project will help me learn the difference.

Currently, I have no clue what to do with my project but I like the freedom to do as we like as long as we help people. Having your own freedom to do something makes it more fun because you get to explore more about certain topics about and it affects people in a good way, well hopefully it does. For this project we need to be passionate about the topic, I may have an interest in many things but not a passion and hopefully while doing this project I might learn something about myself and maybe keep doing it in the future. There might be challenges about discovering what my passion is and that makes me excited and nervous about this project.

I’m excited about this project because I get to learn so much about myself and maybe I will overcome challenges and be comfortable with things I wasn’t comfortable with before. Along the way I will also learn about other fascinating new topics that may spark my interest. But as much as I am excited, I am also a little nervous because I have no clue what to do. I’m not really a creative person and I don’t come up with original ideas but that’s a challenge I am willing to face. As long as I’m doing what I love, I’m positive all do good because as Steve Job once said, “The only way to do a great work, is to do what you love.”

                                          Photo by: CC0 Public Domain

Child Soldiers Letter

Dear UNICEF,

My name is Afifah and I'm a student in 'The American International School Of Muscat.'  Lately we have been learning about child soldiers and from the beginning I knew that I was against it. The first time I heard the world solider in class all I could think about was war and blood and imagining a child, about my age or younger going through all of that doesn't sound right. it all seems wrong because here i am living a good life with a family and waking up, having everything there for me and these children have no choice but to fight for their family or fight because they need to be taken care of, they're fighting for another day. I can't imagines living in their shoes but if i do i would want it all to stop and i would live with the guilt of the people that i had hurt. And so here I am, a regular girl, writing a letter on my thoughts of child soldiers. I hope whomever reads this letter would try their best to help these kids.

Child soldiers are soldiers under the age of 18. Thousands of children are recruited into an army, most of them don't have a choice but to join. Kids forced to join the army either by abduction or beaten until they agree to join, children are recruited for people's selfish needs of winning, they're a pawn in their little game. Some choose to join in order to escape poverty, to help their society, or they want revenge for something that had happened in their past. Both girls and boys are recruited in the army and are assigned to play different roles in the army.

Children usually fight in the war but sometimes they have different roles to play. Some kids act as lookouts, spies, messengers, cooks, etc. Most girls, who are vulnerable at such a young age, unfortunately,  play the role of sex slaves, which is disgusting and horrible. It’s disgusting that the right of being a child is taken away from them. They’re a victim of abuse and most these kids witness death, and face sexual violence because they’re too young to protect themselves. Yet all little kids are handed AK-47’s with no experience and one word in their mind, survival, but most of them end up die in the war just because they couldn’t leave.

The kids serving the army are mostly forced into joining and can’t leave, they have no say in it. If one were to try to escape, he better of hoped he doesn’t get caught. I have read many stories about child soldiers  trying to escape but the one that stuck to me to was about a boy. This young boy had tried to escape but, sadly, he was caught. The rebels had tied his hands and they made the new recruits kill him with a stick. If no one tried to kill him then they would die along aside the boy. After the boy had died they had smeared his bloods on every hand of the new recruits. It’s sad that this boy did not get to die happily, he didn’t get to die being a child but instead he was tortured.

There is no childhood for child soldiers, there’s only endless chaos. But going through your website has given me hope that these kids can have a normal life. These kids don’t need to go to the army for food if the UNICEF organization keeps funding them. The UNICEF organization has given these kids education, which can teach kids the actual right way of living their life. I know you’re passionate about kids living a normal life, so I send this letter to you, hoping you can try your best into saving these young kids lives. Your organization can save the future of most kids around the world.

Sincerely,

Afifah Ali