Goodbye GMS

It was only three years ago that I came to golf as a sixth grader and now three years have past and I’m graduating eighth grade. I’m sure we can all say that our time here at Golf went by pretty quickly but along the way we made many memories that we will cherish forever.

I came into Golf with the most optimistic mindset… I won’t make any friends, I will fail all my classes, all my teacher will hate me and I won’t be able to open a locker. That last one was true for a while but thankfully the rest were not. I made a lot of great friends, I surprisingly didn’t fail any of my classes and lastly, I had the most amazing teachers a student could ever ask for.

I think something that separates Golf from all other schools are the teachers. To tell you the truth whenever my friends talked about their teachers I always brag about mine because they are the best of the best. At the end of our conversations about school my friends never leave without saying, “ Aneena, I wish I went to your school.” They wish they could come to Golf mainly because of the teachers here.

I can’t leave here without saying how greatly you teachers impacted my life. I’d first like to thank Ms. Steadman, Ms. Grossman and Ms. Nelson for a great year in 6th grade. You all made my first year here a great year with memories like reading Counting The Stars, dissecting owl pellets, learning that fuzzy wuzzy was a bear and that area equaled pie-r-squared, and going to Medieval Times. Then comes 7th grade where I met many more amazing teachers. I’d like to thank Mr. Gilman for introducing to me the show, “Twilight Zone”, Mr. Carris for being the coolest teacher ever, Mr. Carro for still making Math my favorite subject, Ms. Maldonado for answering all my emails that I would send you almost every single day and lastly Ms. Conejo. Thank you just for being yourself because you are the most optimistic person I have ever met in my life and you never failed to make me smile. After 7th grade came 8th.

My new english teacher would be Ms. Joyner. In 7th grade the only reason I wanted to be in her class was because I saw that she had a couch in her room but I soon found out that there was much more about her class than the couch. Thank you Ms. Joyner for being the funniest teacher out there and putting up with my amazing procrastination skills. Lastly I’d like to thank all my teachers that taught special classes. Ms. Bowering, Ms. Boyle, Ms. Goulde, Ms. Vojack, Ms. Brown and Ms. Fain. I may not have been the most athletic or artistic person but you all taught me skills that I will use in life. To all of my teachers I say thank for everything you have done for me.

As I mentioned I made a lot of great friends here and I could probably write an essay or two telling my friends how amazing they are. I learned to love others as I love myself and that was definitely not hard at this school because everyone was kind to me. Thank you class of 2016 for making these past few years very special.

All of you are great people and you will do great things in the future. If you have hopes for the future don’t let them go until you achieve it. In the future something that I want to do was become an oncologist and find a cure for cancer. Someone may or may not find one before me, but either way that’s what I hope to do and if I have to say a speech after finding a cure I won’t forget to mention Golf Middle School and how this school helped me to become who I was. I’d like to conclude with a quote from the one and only... Winnie the Pooh. “How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” I will miss GMS very much and it is very hard to say goodbye, but the reason is because this was such an amazing school with amazing people. I congratulate all the  Golf graduates of the class of 2016 and thank you all for giving me the best three years of my life.

How To Prepare For Tests

     Yeah, I know the worst word ever is... test. It is one of my least favorite words because I personally hate taking tests no matter what test it is. If you go to school I'm pretty sure you have taken some sort of test. There tests we take in school like science and math tests but there are also standardized tests such as PARCC, SAT, ACT and ASPIRE. Even though you might hate taking tests like I do it's still good to prepare and not completely fail it, so here are some tips to help you do the best you can on an test.

• Get a good amount of sleep
• Eat a healthy and filling breakfast
• Have your pencils sharpened (if taking a test on paper)
• Have a book ready to read if you finish early
• Study and make sure you know your stuff
• Wear comfortable clothes
• DO NOT be late for taking a test
• DO NOT cheat (duh)

** DO NOT have your mindset on failing the test


What should you do if you fail a test? Well, hopefully you don't if you followed these tips but if you didn't here's what you should do...

• Follow all the steps listed above for the next test
• DO NOT be worried and think you life is ruined 
• Tell yourself that you will do better next time!

Endings And Beginnings

    Wow, my class is about to graduate eight grade! Only thirty five more days left not including weekends. Time flies doesn't it? I've been to two other schools before this one and each school  go to I imagine graduating there. I remember back in third grade I would tell my friends, "Guys, we are gonna graduate some day. You guys better not leave me!"  I left that school later on and went to a school which literally had like twenty kids in the whole entire grade. Once again I would think of the day I would graduate that school but it never happened. Anyway what I'm trying to say is that graduation is something that I have always thought about but I never thought that that day would be coming so soon.
     I'm proud to be graduating here at GMS and I would like to be remembered as... I guess the girl who helps people because that's what I do. If anyone texts me about homework or anything school related I try to respond right away. For example, recently there was this time where maybe 5-10 people texted me asking questions about an assignment and I spent maybe an hour explaining to everyone before I started my homework but I felt really good after helping those people. I've learned to think of others before myself. I would also probably be remembered as the number one procrastinator in our grade but I'm really trying to change that before high school. :)
     Speaking of high school...I'd like to be remembered there too. There are like thousands people in high school but who knows someone might remember me. I'd like to be remembered as the best badminton player on the high school badminton team, the best dancer on Indo-Pak and maybe the best violin player in orchestra. Yes, I have high hopes. Jk, it's not all about being the best it's about trying to do your best. I think what everyone wants to be remembered as is a kind person who did their best in everything they did.

This quotes says, "Every story has an end, but in life every end is a new beginning." This may be the end of eighth grade for us, but we have a new beginning in high school and let's make the best of it!

Trip To The Holocaust Museum

     On Thursday my class took a field trip to the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center. Since we were learning about the Holocaust in school some facts my class and I were oblivious of but others we already knew. I learned a lot from going to the museum. Something that I found interesting was that there were opera singers singing in some ghettos. There were many virtuosos who performed in the ghettos.
     People who worked as part of the Resistance had to be very diligent otherwise they could get caught. Some workers in ghettos and concentration camps showed big acts of Resistance by taking apart gas chambers. This was not extemporaneous. They planned it all out. Others showed small acts of Resistance too. For example, at the museum there was a picture of a menorah in front of a window and there was a Nazi flag right outside. That isn't very prudent because the people living in that house could have been apprehended by the Nazis because the Nazis were not altruistic people who cared for others.
     The museum was layed out in a way that it started out dark and towards the end it became lighter. We had a tour guide who explained the rooms of the museum and we asked questions. Overall I think we had a good morale. Towards the end of the tour, we went inside a train car that the Jews were put int to travel to places. It was big but not big enough for about a hundred people to fit in there. People would sometimes die inside those cars. It would smell really bad and people would be so uncomfortable. After we went inside the car I had a greater contempt towards the Nazis.

July 20, 2011

Dear Diary,
     I'm so tired and my feet hurt. Today I probably walked like twenty miles. This morning my family and I drove from Angamaly, Kerala to Velankanni, Tamil Nadu. It was a 10 hour drive. I checked on google and it said that we basically crossed the whole country of India! We went on a big bus with my cousins, aunts, uncles an grandparents.
     As I said, we got to Velankanni which is a city in South India. Not many tourists come to places in South India but this place was packed with people. This city was named after Our Lady of Good Health. People usually visit this city as part of a church pilgrimage because there were so many miracles that occurred here with Mother Mary.
     I was really surprised when I got here because this place wasn't like anything I expected. Since so many people come to visit, I thought that the city would be more cleanlier than other cities in India, but that wasn't the case. Our hotel was... let's just say it didn't look like hotels that we have in the U.S. There were poor people out in the streets begging for money. It was really sad to see so many poor people in such a holy place. There were stay dogs out in the streets which was normal but here there were so many. Also, the beach was like gray. I was disgusted. My grandma said that it was the natural color of the sand but I was still kind of scared to sit down.
     The only place that was actually pretty clean was the church. I mean the basilica. A basilica is way bigger than a church or cathedral. It was so big and white. My family and I attended mass there. It was too crowded, so we couldn't get inside. I bet there were more than a thousand people. I was holding onto my grandma's hand the whole day because there were probably kidnappers and I could easily get lost. Overall, this trip was very tiring but it was really worth it.

~Aneena

My Loving Grandmother

"We must live, and when this is all over, we must work to make the world a better place. And if we die, we will die knowing that it was not our fault, that we did our best, and we can go to our deaths in dignity...I want you to both live...And to remember...You must choose love. Always choose love." 

     This is a quote that Erika said to her brother, Daniel and her friend, Rosa. When I read this quote, I thought of my grandmother. I called her Ammama, which means older mother in our Malayalam. She may not be with me me now but she was the most loving person I have ever known. Till this day my whole family talks about how amazing, kind and spiritual she was. I may not have known her for long but when I look back at pictures of me and her, both of us would always be laughing or smiling. My parents would tell me that if I cried she would be the only one to console me.
     She was loving to me just as Erika was loving for her brother and friend. Erika told her brother and Rosa, "...You must choose love. Always choose love." My grandmother was the kind of person would would say something like that because she cares for me and she wants me to have a good life. Erika looked at both sides of the situation and made it positive. She said, "We must live, and when this is all over we must work to make the world a better place. And if we die, we will die knowing that it was not our fault, that we did our best, and we can go to our deaths in dignity..." By all this she meant that whatever happens to them, everything will be okay. Daniel and Erika were very lucky to have a person like Erika in their lives just as I was so lucky to have my loving grandmother.

It's Leap Day!

     Wow, four years went by pretty quickly. Four years ago I went to a different school and lived in a different house than I do now. I've come a long way in these past couple of years. There are times I'd like to remember and times that I'd like to forget. When I started fourth grade in a new school I didn't really do so well in school but now I'm happy to say that I don't completely fail classes anymore :) I used to live in a tiny house where I shared a room with my brother. Our room also the computer room. I'm happy that I have a new house and my own room now. Also, four years ago two of my siblings were born. I guess I'm happy about that even though they drive me crazy.

     Back then I was the most introverted person ever. I wasn't in church choir and I never knew how to play the violin. I have played keyboard in choir for the past three years and that really boosted my confidence. I go to a pretty big church, so there are hundreds of people attending and that kind of scared me a little knowing that every mistake I made would be heard by everyone but now I'm over that. I also joined orchestra which also boosted my confidence. I honestly don't know what I would do without my violin. #orchdork Overall, in the past few years my life has changed for the better and I'm grateful for that.

     Now that I looked at the past let's head to the future. The next Leap Year will be 2020. Let's hope that the Olympics are in Chicago and that I can go and watch it. In four years I'll be a senior in high school and I'll be in Symphonic Orchestra which is the highest orchestra that we have. I'm also hoping to crush other high schools in badminton. #badmintonislife All in all I'm just hoping that every years just keeps getting better and better. Happy Leap Day!