Category: Taft Summer School 2018

Today was the last day of Taft Summer School. I would like to tell you what I felt during the summer school. When I first got on the plane and said goodbye to my family, I was worried and scared. As the plane left off my heart started thumping. I was going to stay at a place alone for 5 weeks. As I went through the customs I thought to myself “There is nothing I can do about it, don’t think back”. After I went through everything, I found my chaperone. I went with him and drove to school. I was very tired from the jet lag. We reached school and checked in. I went up to my room and tried to unpack. Instead of unpacking I went to sleep. I repeated the same process. We went on a orientation around campus. After that we went back to our dorms and slept. I couldn’t sleep very much. I missed my family a lot and wanted to go back. I had no one to depend on. When summer school started, I wanted it to be over as soon as possible. But as it progressed, and made new friends and got to know everything, I didn’t want it to end. All the classes were very fun. I went on many trips. On the last day everyone was crying. I went to bed thinking about all the things I did with my friends. I woke up the next morning and went to class. I woke up at 6 in the morning to say goodbye to a friend. After I said goodbye, I went up and ate breakfast. I went to my first class. After first period most people got on the bus. One of my close friends left on the bus. It was really hard to see them go. After the bus left, people started to get picked up. Three things that I learned during Taft is independence, academics and cultural difference. I had to manage my time, do my laundry, etc all by myself. There was nobody there to tell me what to do. I also learned academics in general. I took Algebra I, Literature and Composition I, Digital Video Production and SSAT Prep Verbal. In Algebra I learned about quadratic equations. In Lit and Comp we read many short stories at the end we read the outsiders. In Digital Video Production, I learned the basics of writing a script, video shooting and editing.In SSAT Prep I learned the strategies to synonyms, analogies and reading comprehensions. Even though that I am usually in a multi-cultural environment, after living together for 5 weeks with people. I saw the difference more. Taft was really fun, and now I know what it’s like to live in a boarding school. I really enjoyed living by myself. It was a good experience.

Me and my three good friends

Students from my dormitory floor

Today I went to Six Flags Amusement Park. I was looking forward to this trip the most. First we went to the main Attraction “Superman- The Ride”. It was a 2 HOURS queue. Without any words we exited the building. So we went to “Riddler Revenge”. It had a lot on vertical and horizontal spins so I didn’t like it as much. Then we went to “Batman-The Dark Knight” It was only 15 mins and it was really fun. Batman was one of my favourite rides at Six Flags. After Lunch we went to Superman. It was an hour queue so we waited for it. We slowly rose upwards. The view from there was amazing. When we reached the top I had a feeling of regret. I saw the almost-vertical drop and freaked out. I couldn’t do anything. We went straight down. That was one of the scariest moments in my life. My stomach felt weird. then we went up and down several times. We spun several times as well.  We finally stopped to an end. We all concurred that it was worth the wait.

Today I woke up at 7:30 and didn’t have time to eat breakfast. I was really tired. I didn’t do any tiring work yesterday but I overslept. I woke up brushed my teeth, washed my face and went straight to class. In Algebra we learned more stuff about Quadratic Equations. We learned that “a” has to be a square. If it is by itself or cubed, it is not a quadratic equation. We also practiced how to solve them. In Lit and Comp we did a mini project on “The Outsiders”. We filmed in Digital Video Production. In SSAT Prep, we did a quiz and did a game of vocabularies and analogies. We became 2nd out of 4 groups. We did sports as usual.

Today I learned about Quadratic Formula and Parabolas. It was something very new and I had no clue how to do it. It is tough and challenging but it’s easy once you understand. In Lit and Comp we are reading a book called the outsiders. The story is based during the 1967. There are gangs, murder, guns, drugs and bad things. Today there were no afternoon lessons. Instead we had off campus activities. People who had science classes went to the science centre, people went to the mall, people went to Yale. I didn’t go to Yale because I have already been there. Instead I stayed at school and played sports.

Today I went to Boston. We went to the U.S.S. Constitution museum, Quincy Market and the Duck Tour. This is my second time coming to Boston. We didn’t have much time to look around the U.S.S constitution museum. We only stayed for 15 mins. We ate lunch at Quincy Market. I ate Clam Chowder in bread bowl. I loved it. My friends and I went to a spicy sauce store. One of my friend tried one and he kept on drinking water out of a 1L bottle until it ran out. We went on a duck tour. We saw a part of a Berlin wall. We also saw the statue of George Washington. For dinner we went to shake shack. I slept for the whole 2 hour bus ride. I was really tired.

Sorry I didn’t write for the past 4 days. I was tired and had to get used to the schedule at Taft. On Independence Day we didn’t have any afternoon classes. Instead we went outside and did bouncy castle, meltdown machine. We also bought ice cream at an ice cream truck. On Saturday, we went to the mall. I wanted to buy pants and shirts but I didn’t have enough money to buy it. On Sunday I went to the mall again. This time to have fun. Today we went outside campus for dinner. We went to a restaurant where our friend suggested but it was closed. Sadly we ate at Domino’s. We went back to our dorms. At 7:30 we started Study Hall. Study Hall is where you stay in your dorm and do any work that you have.  Since I have finished all my work I am writing this. I have to do my Studyworks homework. GN!

It was raining heavily when I woke up. The night was cool and I slept well. I ate breakfast and went to class. In maths, I moved up a class. The teacher said that I did well on the test. Now I am in Algebra I. We did some problem solving and learned new words. In literature and composition, we learned new vocabularies such as protagonist, antagonist. We read a story about two people and hunting. We only got through the first page. In digital video production, we discussed which genres we wanted to do. We will get to know on Thursday. In SSAT prep, we got our books. We learned how to find the relationship between a word and a word. We looked at common analogy relationships. In Ultimate Frisbee, I scored 1 goal. Tomorrow is July 4th. We won’t have afternoon classes.

😅🍽🥅🍽🎳⛳🚌🍽🏓💤

Today was the first day of Taft. When I woke up I was sweating a lot. The room had no AirCon. It was boiling in the room. I woke up at 6:00 and took a shower and went to breakfast at 8:00 am. We had Field Day at 9:30. We played lots of different games. We had lots of fun and got to know each other more. Our team won 5 out of 7 games. We did pretty well. Then we ate lunch and went to the bowling stadium. My final score was 159. I got 4 strikes in a row!! We also did mini golf. I did okay. The bus driver who drove us back to Taft was scary. He was shouting at us for putting our legs in the aisle. Then we ate dinner. After dinner, I played several games of Table Tennis. I won 2 games out of 8. The person I played against was very good. We had a meeting in the common room about tomorrow. Starting from tomorrow, we have lessons. I am very tired. Good Night.

The first thing I did when I woke up was to take a shower. The night was boiling hot. It was way hotter than the night before. Today we had a proper schedule with actual classes. My first period was Pre-Algebra. We had an algebra test. Most of the questions were easy. Our teacher taught us a tradition. You throw a marker from the back of the class. If you make it in the marker holder, you get half of the homework for the day. Our whole class got 2 tries, but no one made it. Then I had Literature and Comprehension 1 for the second period. We learned about the danger of a single story. When you only have one angle to a topic, you miss information, which could lead to being rude to someone. For example, a girl from Africa was disappointed because her roommate thought she couldn’t speak English because of her skin tone. Her roommate thought that she was poor and didn’t know how to use a stove. After lunch, I had Digital Video Production. We watched 2 short videos and answered 3 questions. The questions were about experience with cameras and editing, what I want to learn and what I am looking forward to. Then I had SSAT Prep Verbal. The teacher gave us tips about the reading comprehension. He told us to read actively, annotate facts, main idea, author’s purpose, etc. All of my teachers were really fun and kind. The SSAT teacher is my favourite. He makes learning fun. Then we had sports. Instead of volleyball, I did ultimate frisbee. Volleyball was outdoors and the ground was not flat. You could get injured if you play on an unstable ground. Ultimate Frisbee was really fun. I will play Volleyball at some point. Good Night.