Blog.

I have been taking exams for almost 3 weeks now. Those weeks have been a roller coaster of emotions. A roller coaster of fear, stress, trust, faith, and love. Having to prepare for final exams has been a bizarre journey. In those days, I  learned to trust myself when adapting to changes. I have learned to be ready for everything. One day, I woke up thinking I could tackle two subjects on the same day. Contradicting my plans, I couldn't finish that biology unit till evening. At first, I was a bit disappointed in myself, but I found my brain was already used to this situation, so I changed my plans and decided to finish that unit and move the other tasks to do later. Even though I was scared of what might happen in the future of my revision, I reminded myself of my past experiences with focusing too much on the tomorrow and forgetting all the work and effort I had made today. It might seem like a natural and normal process. However, all the things that happened during preparation weeks keep me grateful and proud of myself and all the work I have done to reach my dream.

I just finished 1st term finals! It has been a very long journey full of long nights, caffeine, papers, flashcards, and hard work. All I could think about after I finished the chemistry exam was for all that repeated routine to end. I am proud of all the efforts I have made to grasp all eight subjects that I take. The last month was a challenging month on its own. I successfully learned more about myself and how effective my methods were. I realized that I was overly dependent on the school teachers, which made me stressed out whenever I was behind. All I was thinking about was how dumb I felt in class. I was falling behind, and while crumbling, I kept associating learning with surface-level productivity. I realized I was burnt out and didn't know where and who to reach for help. And I was scared to admit that I was falling behind my teachers. I was afraid of judgment, and I preferred silence over trying to understand my situation. Even though I managed to try my best during finals prep and the actual finals. Moving on, I will pay extra attention to my actual learning, and I will ask for help whenever I feel lost or confused.

When revising for my social studies final, I couldn't create flashcards for the second unit due to time constraints. This caused a mixture of emotions. On one side, I was not worried since many fellow students have encouraged me to experiment a bit more with my study techniques since flashcards take a lot of time to create and are not a very effective way to understand while memorizing. On the other hand, studying without the help of flashcards was out of my comfort zone since I have been using flashcards since the 9th grade. I decided to combine  active and passive learning by using a method called blurting. I wrote the main points and questions about the topics in a notebook and trained myself to memorize that information only to revise it by writing it again on paper without any help. This method forces the brain to think and can be a good way of identifying any information gaps. 

I have never loved physics. Even though my official days of academic achievements began in the 9th grade, I have never loved physics as much as I enjoyed biology. Even though I initially got good grades in physics, the topics were getting complicated level by level, and as a result, my overall grades in physics dropped too. In the 11th grade, my relationship with this subject and the enormous and wonderful field of science studies got worse.  I had a teacher who went by higher standards for physics. She was interested in physics to the level that we were always super cautious and afraid of the hard exams we had to take. Every physics lesson was horrible and I did not understand many of the concepts, and as they got more in-depth, I was drowning even more in my thoughts. By the end of 11th grade, I finally understood her. I got to understand why she was strict about this subject. I understood her passion and care and the tough love she had imposed on us. For once, I understood that for a subject like physics, you have to go in-depth. I realized that you will not be satisfied with your work unless you go all the way through, in care of the concepts the many practice questions held. I went into 12th grade accepting that a 7 out of 10 rarely means a loss of hope and failur

"Under the surface, I think about my purpose, can I somehow preserve this?" I cannot fathom the idea that songs and storylines from a Disney movie can be relatable to me. Luisa's song "Surface Pressure" beautifully explores the mental health struggles associated with pressure, expectations, fear of failure, and burnout. When I listened to it for the first time, I understood Luisa. I felt her pain as the eldest daughter, a student, and a teenager. Today, I unconsciously shut down any voices saying what felt like screaming: "Who am I if I don't have what it takes? No cracks, no breaks, no mistakes, no pressure." I finished the draft of my research paper yesterday, feeling like there is no time to complain, rest, or even think. I have to start revising for finals, and the pressure is building up. I have strong faith in myself and my abilities to handle upcoming pressure; I have strong trust in Allah and His guidance. Lastly, even though the pressure is real, all the Luisas around everywhere won't be that pressure if they can't handle that pressure.

I have always considered myself inexperienced with giving gifts. I always resort to writing letters, drawing cards, or preparing a gift if I have a good idea. And with the 1st term coming to an end. I suddenly thought of creating something to thank my English teacher, Ms.Fatima Alzahra. When thinking of ways to achieve that, I decided to create a thank you video with my classmates. At first, my idea was fairly simple. Film us thanking her, editing the video, and showing her the video. However, I'm forever proud of the idea that I have developed. I managed to create an 8-minute video of pure creativeness. I linked our amazing teacher to one of the most famous examples of " good teachers " in Holywood, Mr.Keating from " The Dead Poets Society" .This film will forever be one of my favorite films for the incredible -everything -basically. I linked this character's dedication and passion to the amazing effort that my teacher has made to teach us. As for the editing process, I enjoyed choosing the many songs I added to the video and loved how everything came together at the end. The creation of this video had memories that will stick forever in my heart. I loved working on it while my best friend worked on a painting assignment that she had. And will always laugh when I remember our shock and disbelief when we realized that school was canceled for the next day :)

Tajin, a sombrero, and Selena are on blast! Yes, you might have guessed right. On Wednesday, we prepared our Mexico table for a class exhibition of Mexico, Sudan, the Ottoman Empire, Italy, and Oman of course. This experience was enjoyable, and the preparation was worth it. We prepared a Mexican snack, a banner, and helpful visuals. We dressed in the national football team jersey and outfits inspired by Mexican fashion. On the actual guests' part, we talked about geography, Mexican cities, food, culture, music, and language. I was proud of our efforts when I saw the interest in the guest's eyes and was super happy when we tried not to collectively laugh after we asked the guests to guess the pronunciation of Mexican cities. Let's just say that Helen was confident of her language skills after the exhibition!

I really did not want to try again for ISEF for a second time. With all the pressures that this term had, my friend signed us up again leaving me unmotivated, scared, and frustrated. Even with the initial disregard, I decided that there was nothing to lose and we worked to develop our idea for a second time. Again, we went for a first assessment and got accepted for a second. To work on our project, we needed all the help that we could get from assistance to labs and equipment. With an official document from the Ministry of Education, we contacted a professor for help and got to pitch our idea for a second time. Unfortunately, we could not get further assistance even though we reached out to multiple colleges in Muscat. I don't really know what and where is the problem but it does really hurt when you can't get access to help for educational and innovative projects like ours. With the frustration, we discussed it all and decided to look ahead into our future. Acknowledging this experience as very educational, motivational, and helpful. This journey was filled with amazing discussions, meetings, and interesting discoveries. As of now, we are very optimistic about any future opportunities that we might come across.

Is it unexpected to discover my inability to look naturally at a camera this late? When filming the first VLOG of the ILP, I kept retaking videos of me talking to the camera. My movements were different, and I kept moving my head in a way that was a bit weird to me. After successfully uploading the video, I kept thinking about this difficulty and decided to find a way where I could look and act natural when filming. After a few retakes, I realized that simply not thinking too much about the camera is the key. Familiarising myself with the presence of a camera was not that hard after all! Just take a few breaths and imagine talking to a human being of some sort :)