My Return?

I tried starting this post a few times, but they were no good. There is a possibility I'm just going to delete this and start over, and for some reason I decided to share that with you.

I really do not know what to say. Should I apologize for leaving this blog with no notice? Should I just ignore that and continue like it never happened? Should I...? That's not the point. The point is that I truly don't know where to begin. Maybe talking about how I don't know where  to start is a pretty good starting point. 

Okay, past that. I am not very sure of where I left of a few years ago. I'm just going to do a quick little recap on my life from 3 years ago. 

So 2011, I moved to Dubai and I went to school there for two years. Last summer, I injured my knee and I had to go to India to get an ACL reconstruction. I then moved to Qatar in September and I had to go to my new school wearing a knee brace. I continued to wear this through December, when I was allowed to take it off. I couldn't really do sports, so for an entire term, I just sat on the benches during PE, and I didn't even go in Sports Day. I went to Steel Pans as ECA and I'm finding really fun. Now, I'm almost done with my first school year in Qatar, and it really has been a wonderful year. I have made a lot of great friends who welcomed me to the school with open arms. Also, as of yesterday, I am now 14. 

So there you have it. A basic summary of the last 3 (?) years of my life.  Along with it, an apology. An apology for leaving the blog I put so much effort and brainpower into. 

I guess this is it then. How do I end these? I should've probably looked back at old posts, but whatever. I'm all up for trying new things. 

Goodbye. For now. 

Apologies...

I know I haven't written in a while - no excuses are good enough. However, I do owe an explanation -
so here goes.

Since my last post:

• School is giving us loads of homework. 
• My swimming is important to me and my coaches are tough.
• My music exams keep me glued to the guitar.
• Since I have managed to make some friends in the neighbourhood, I enjoy my time playing. cycling and generally goofing around with them.
• Lately, the weather has changed - and we have had family picnics and BBQ's.
• My baby brother has started making 3 word sentences, so I love to spend a lot of time with him and hear the funny pronunciation.
• Weekend mornings are on the beach.
• We have had friends and family visiting us.
• Sleepovers with friends take up one day of the weekend.
• Had a busy time during Halloween, Diwali.

The list could go on and on. However, I have made a conscious decision to write at least once a week.

Thank you for being there and reading and coming back often.

Learning Arabic

Being in an Arab country, I have to learn Arabic. Even though I have been trying to learn Arabic for 6 years, it's still extremely difficult for me to understand.

I'm guessing this happens to everyone who's trying to learning a language. The feeling of complete confusion and baffleism.

Well, today I did something I thought I would never be able to do. There was an Arabic Reading Test for the beginner students. I was one of them, even though people from my class can understand the language with only 2 years of learning. Honestly, I wasn't very confident on acing the test. But the next thing that happened was a stroke of Bad Luck.

"Would you like to b first, Sheneni? He was calling me. You see, Mr Ahmed (Arabic Teacher) has the habit of calling me Sheneni instead of Roshni.

I was a NERVOUS WRECK! But, as I was standing there, I got it. I knew which letter was which and how to say what! I felt as if the 4 years of arabic finally came to my senses. I passed the test with flying colors, but unfortunately, I need to complete 2 more levels until I can finally read Arabic.

So everyone out there learning a new language...I know how it feels!

Teachers without Google: Impossible

No doctor qualifies without owning a stethoscope. Similarly I don't think a teacher can survive without their laptop.

I can't imagine any of my teachers manually writing down their lesson plan. Come to think about it, I haven't seen any of my teachers without their lappy in a while. Seems to have become an extended part of their body. There are so many times when a question is asked you get the response "Have you googled it?' There was a time when my form teacher asked if we knew what loco parenthesis was . breaking down the word she asked if we knew what "loco" was.. I said Crazy.. she wasn't sure if I was right, so she had to google out the word and I was right .. Yay for google !

In L.O the teacher uses google to make the questions and check the answers.

In music , the teacher makes us watch you.tube and plays the song we need to learn.

In Math, the Internet is used to pull out old test papers and mark them. We are even give homework on a math based site! Last year during Math week (when all we have to do is Math online) we had to carry our laptops everyday to school. The best part was when during the week the school server was under maintenance, the class was taken to a nearby coffee shop (obviously with access to wireless facility) to do Math . It was sad 'coz we got no treats !!! booooo

Not only that we get to follow the lessons we miss and we get home assignments on wikispaces...so much for my mom screaming at me for spending so much time on the net !!!

I just hope none of my teachers stalk me on Fb ...now that would be a disaster.

Arguably, teachers are having the best times of their lives with the aid of computers and Internet.