February was a tough month. I had many school activities and events, and meetings that I participated in, but I gained great experiences through them.
February 3 marked the first day of the second semester in Strathmore High School. I started with Social 10-2, Science 10, Management and Marketing, and French as my classes. In Social 10-2, we learned about globalization, cultures, and how they impact our identities. Our teacher is a very kind, easy going, and generous one. She tells us about her stories and life before becoming a teacher, giving us treats and candies. We have assignments and unit exams in this course to assess our knowledge as we proceed in the course. So far, we have had a geography test where I got 100%, and other assignments where we watched documentaries, read articles, and created PowerPoint presentations. I like social, as it is a rather calm core class compared to the other classes I have. I have friends and made new ones there, and I like learning about the world. During this class for the next semester, I hope to obtain high scores on my assignments, tests, and my final exam. This is because starting next year, I hope to move on into social 20-1, and then 30-1 the following year, as it is a requirement and a benefit to have and graduate with social 30-1 when applying for universities. However, for me to get into social 20-1, I would need to have an exceptional grade in my current social 10-2. However, at the same time, it is not an impossible thing to achieve, so I hope to make my dream come true. In my science 10 class, we learn about physics, chemistry, and biology, one unit at a time. My teacher is one of those very hype, cool, confident, and one that every student loves and enjoys being in his class type of teacher. He is very funny, enthusiastic, and just so happens to be the volleyball coach of the school volleyball team. He does interesting and out of the blue experiments, walks on tables to demonstrate a scientific measurement, interacts with students, and teaches in a way that we don’t get tired and bored of his classes. I am currently starting with physics, and am calculating using all sorts of formulas. It is rather easy at this point. However, as I move into Science classes in the 20 levels, it becomes way more difficult. Also, it just so happens to be that Physics 30 is the hardest class in high school, and is very tough for students to even pass the class. Even with all of the anxiety and pressure, I am enjoying the class and hope to pass with excellent grades. In my French class, we do many things so that we learn more of the language and be able to read, write, and speak the language. We talk with other classmates in French, do Kahoots, fill out worksheets, and practice and speak out words that are often used. I had a French vocabulary test, and I was surprised how easy it was, as I was expecting that many people could speak French and were fluent. I plan on taking French 20 and 30 in the future too. My final class that I was taking was Management and Marketing, where I learned about ways to market products and services, and lots more. However, I changed this class to food studies, as it seemed more interesting and I had more friends there. Now, in Food studies, I am learning about the kitchen, equipment, ways to cut, and of course cooking. So far, I have cooked pancakes and vegetable soup. It is a fun class.
On the 16th of February, the dorm students went to a lacrosse game in Calgary. Lacrosse is the national sport of Canada and is an indigenous Canadian game. It is a sport similar to hockey but instead of skating on the ice, the players run on the ground and pass around a ball with a stick to score a goal. It is a very fun and hype sport to watch. The game was against the Calgary Roughnecks and the Las Vegas Desert Dogs. Both teams were great to watch, but Calgary was better and won against them with 21-8. The stadium was full of people, there were lots of food and beverages sold, and it was an awesome experience. I hope to go to even more sports events and arenas and enjoy watching the great athletes do their best. Sport events such as volleyball, basketball, badminton, hockey and soccer would be fun, especially here in Canada.
Our Strathmore dorm students had a volleyball and basketball match against Drummheller dorm students; the other high school in Alberta that has dorms for international students. As a chance to interact and get to know one another, the dorm organized this event on the 19th. We first played volleyball against their team. In Drumheller’s team, one of the students happened to be in a junior high school national champion team. We were all shocked and were kinda worried about it. The game itself was very fun, but the player from the nationals was exceptional. His spikes, receivers, and sets are very clean and neat, making him look like a professional. However, our Strathmore team played well against them, and we won a few games against them. During the basketball game, both teams played well, and it was such an exciting game. There is a planned next revenge game in the upcoming month, and I am excited to participate.
I had a math contest on the 26th with 2 other friends. It was a test created by Waterloo University in Canada, and is an exam that is held once a year. My friends and I took the grade 10 level test, and the result will come in 2 weeks. It consisted of a Part A with 12 multiple choice questions, a Part B with more difficult multiple choice questions, and a Part C with very difficult numeric response questions. Part a and b were not that difficult, however part c was on a different level. I hope to get a good score, and I plan on taking the contest again next year.
It is currently the badminton season in Canada, and the high school has organized 3 days for the badminton tryouts. The tryouts are sport skill tests. All grades and genders play in different singles games to compete who is in the top 8 in each category. So far, I have won 7 matches and lost two on the first two days; 25th and 28th. The next tryout is on the 4th of March and I have 6 games left. I hope to be able to make the team, and move onto zones and regional competitions.
We had a meeting on the 25th to gather and organize the students who want to join the preparation for the international school festival that would be held on the 30th of April. The international school festival that is held every year is an event in Strathmore high school where students from different cultures show and express their traditionals. Kids from the elementary schools and junior high schools would come on the day to buy the food and enjoy doing the activities. There are many culture groups this year; Hong Kong, South Korea, China, Thailand, Japan, India, and Mexico. I joined the group for Japan to prepare to organize activities and cook food for the day. Some activities that we thought of include けん玉、金魚掬いand so on, and the food we thought of to cook include たこ焼き、かき氷、チョコバナナ、たい焼きand so on. I am really excited to prepare for this awesome event.
The weather in Strathmore has recently been extremely warm. For the last 3 weeks, the temperature has not gone below -5 degrees and the day time temperature hovers between 5-10 degrees. The snow is slowly melting, students stopped wearing thick jackets, and I go out more often now. I hope that it stays like this all the way till spring actually starts in April.
In the student council this month, we had 4 major events; dress your best day, a crush for a crush, pink shirt day, and flash a message. Dress your best day was a day to wear a suit or a dress for valentines day. A crush for a crush was an event where a person can buy a crush (the name of a soda here in Canada), for their crush. Pink shirt day was a day that we wore pink shirts to promote anti-bullying all around Canada. Flash a message was a little poster that we made and wrote a kind message in it. We put the posters all around the school so that students in the school can look at them.
