Finals

Next week is Finals and this week is "dead week." To me this week is not really dead, i have so much going on i feel. I have a basketball tournament, the Pinewood tournament, math tests, and history tests, and a lot of homework. I feel so stressed out. Some of my grades are on the borderline, so i have to do well on the tests this week. I do not have a lot of time these past couple of weeks because i have basketball games and a lot of homework. Because i have no time, i stay up really late doing my homework and i dont have time to study, which is really bad. I can not wait till this week and next week is over because WINTER BREAK is coming up. im so excited because i can finally relax. Oh and here is the mole song.

basketball tournament

Today the Mills Girls Basketball team hosted the anual Kelly Shea Gallo Tournament. Since we were hosting the tournament my teamates and i had to set up the whole gym, pass out T-shirts to the opposing teams and their coaches, and we had to work the score board. I had to do all three jobs. But the most nerve recking job was the scoreboard one. I have worked the scoreboard before, but i totally forgot all the buttons on it. At first me and my friend were messing up doing the score. but after awhile we got the hang of it. We won our game by like thirty and now we have a game tomorrow. Hopefully we do good. Wish us luck. :)

Thanskgiving

Thanksgiving was really awsome. I helped cook all day with my cousin. Me and her were supposed to make the cornbread and the biscuts. I was supposed to put sugar in the cornbread mixture, but i did not so the cornbread did not taste so good. Im not the greatest cook in the family. As you can imagine no one ate the cornbread in my family. :( To redeem ourselves, me and my cousin, we decided to make deviled eggs. The eggs turned out really well. Everyone ate it and me and my cousin got complaments on them. Thanksgiving was really fun because i spent it with my family and i got to eat tasty food.

busy weekend

On Saturday, the 28th i had a really busy day. First i had to wake up at six in the morning and be at school at 6:45 to meet my basketball team. we were going to Medesto to play four scrimmages. Our transporation to Medesto was to big white vans. My coach was driving one of them and my asssistant coach was driving the other one. We played for scrimmages throughout th evening and we got back to Millbrae around five. Right when i got home i received a call from my friends to come over their house and do a project. I took a shower and left the house at five. Me and my friends finished most of our English project and i came home at about nine at night. All together i had a really busy day and going home and relaxing felt really good.

Tumbling

In P.E we do different units and for the past two weeks we have been doing tumbling. In tumbling we learn how to do different things such as a forward roll, a tripod, cartwheels, and round offs. Tumbling is really fun to do because everyone looks hilarious doing forward rolls and backward rolls. I try not to laugh at people when they perform their moves, but it is really hard not to. I might sound mean, but i know everyone laughs at me too when i do my tumbling moves. Today i had to perform a routine with my group. There was four people in my group and they were me, Katherine, Stephanie, and Cara. We were all nervous to perform are routine in front of the class because we did not want to mess up in front of everyone. When we did the routine we did pretty well and i think no one laughed at us, hopefully. Anyways tumbling is done now and we are moving onto badminton.

Basketball Practice

My first basketball practice was on Monday, but i could not go because i was really sick. I even missed school. I also had another practice on Tuesday, but i was sick still and could not attend. Finally i got better enough to go to school on Wednesday and to attend basketball practice. Being out for the first two practices really sucked. When i started to practice again i felt rusty. I also did not get to learn the basketball plays because they were taught when i was absent. Hmph. All together i just had an off day in practice. :( Hopefully today, i have practice again after school, i will do better. Wish me luck...

chem lab: you light up my life

Yesterday, we did a lab called You Light Up My Life. In this lab we first had to make predictions in a table. These predictions were if the substance (that was listed on the paper) would conduct electricity, if the substance would dissolve in water, or if the substance would conduct electricity while it was dissolved in water.After making these predictions we had to actaully test if the substances, water, foil, sugar, salt, sand, wax, isoprpyl alcohol, copper, calcium chloride, and sodium sulfate conduct electricity, dissolve in water, and conduct electricity while they were dissolved in water. My predictions were not that off compared to the real results. I learned that the metals, copper and foil did not dissolve in water but they conducted electricity. Also i learned that the ionic compounds that were all solids conduct electricity while dissolved in water.

Flame Test Lab

On block day, Wednesday, we did a lab with our groups. The lab was a flame lab. We had to light up a Bunsen burner. Then we were given a container with the a specific label and in the container there was liquid such as Potassium. We had to take a metal loop and dip it in the liquid and put the loop in the flame. When putting the liquid in the flame the flame turned a different color such as hot pink (my favorite), bright orange, green, and yellow. After recording the colors of the flame of each substance we were given cotainers without labels on them. And in the container there were liquids we did not know. We had to take the loop again and dip into the unknown liquid and put the loop into the flame. We had to then guess what liquid belonged to what flame. Some of the liquids were easy to identify, but some werent so i put two guesses on my paper.

basketball :)

Basketball is my all time favorite sport and last week we started conditioning. When we start conditioning it gets me excited because i know that the season is going to start soon. Conditioning is pretty hard because i am out of shape. Most of the time we run. We run liners and we sprint. We aslo do footwork drills and defensive slides. Yesterday we played four on four and i worked on my three pointers. I can not will till season starts because i want to see how it is playing with a different team.

Chemistry Lab: Radioactive Half-life Simulation

On Thursday we did a lab called Radioactive half-life simulation. In this lab we were given a hundred pennies and we had to put them into a cup and pour them out. the ones that flipped to the head side are decayed and the ones that are flipped to the tail side are still radioactive. We put all the head pennies, the decayed ones, to the side and took the tail pennies and put them into the cup again. We shook the cup and poured all the pennies out. We did this six times for three trials and while we were doing this we recorded the data on our paper. Today, Friday, we enetered the data in our google doc acount and we printed the table out. We also watched a video E=mc^2. And i learned that this equation means energy equals mass times the speed of light squared.

Life on the Edge

On Monday we did a worksheet called Life on the Edge. Before actually completeing the worksheet we had to do a handout called Life on the Edge. This handout was supposed to lead us through the worksheet. On the handout we had to draw atoms of certain elements such as Beryllium, Carbon, Aluminum, Chlorine, Calcium, and Arsenic. On the handout there was a periodic table, with periods and groups, which had other atoms of elements on it. The other atoms helped us draw the certain elements missing. The handout and worksheet pointed two things out to me, that in periods, horizontal rows in the Periodic Table, the number of electron shells are the same and that in groups, elements have similar chemical properties, for example the number of valence electrons in each group are the same.

element webpage

This week i have been working on a project, called the element webpage, that is due friday. In this project we had to pick an element and make a webpage about it. The webpage has to be inforamtive and interesting. Some of the questions i had to answer on the webpage was how many protons and neutrons does your nucleus have, what are the properties of my element, and who discovered your element. I chose the element francium, Fr, because F is for my first name, Fathima and R is for my last name, Rashid. In this project it was hard to find all the information needed about your element. I used the website Mr.Olson gave us, webelements.com, and i also used other websites, to find information about my element.

how i convert song and lab

on black day, wednesday, in class we had to do a lab about the periodic table. we had to pair up families. My lab table grouped families by color and how many spokes each element had. every element fit into a family except helium and hydrogen, both of them didnt either match the color or amount of spokes. we then decided that helium and hydrogen would have their own families. Also during block day we had to sing the "how i convert" song and record it. It was the nonmetals against the metals. we had three people in our nonmetal group sing the part " Got to write the units 'cause the units are so key" and we also had three people sing the entire song. then we had a group of people, including me, sing the part "yes i write the units". This video was pretty fun to make.

chemisrty lab: elements and compounds

yesterday we did a lab in class and during this lab we had to fill up half a small plastic dish with water. We then had to put two alligator clips with two pieces of led on the ends of it, into the water. after a couple seconds the water turned purple on one side of the alligator clip, the oxygen side, and the on the other side the water turned a vanilla color, the hydrogen side. Both sides were bubbling, but the hydrogen side was bubbling more. Also during this lab we had to light a candle and put steel wool in the flame. When we did this sparks flew into the air and metallic little balls formed at the ends of the steel wool.

mass/volume

I learned that matter has a mass, volume, and takes up space. Also i did a chemisrty lab: Measurement in Chemistry where i had to predict the mass of certian items such as, a penny, a nickel, a marble, a black rubber stopper, a green rubber stopper, a container of water, and a fishing weight. After predicting the mass my group actually measured the item on a pan balance. My predictions were pretty off compared to the actual mass of the object. i guess i need to work on making good predictions. Also in the same lab i had to guess the volume of certain containers such as a small test tube, a small glass bottle, a paper Dixie cup, and a plastic cup. after making my predictions my group had to fill the container with water and pour it into a 100mL graduated cylinder. My predictions were also off again, according to my calculations. I never predicted the right amount of mass or volume for any of the objects. :(

penny lab

During the experiment i observed that when we put the penny into zinc it turned completely silver after 10 minutes. And when we took the silvered penny out of the zinc and put it into the flame the penny turned gold in about 30 seconds. i think when we put the penny into the zinc, the zinc coated the penny with a layer of silver. i also think when we put the penny into the flame the zinc reacted to the flame by changing colors, it turned gold. i dont think i made real gold. and to test if the penny is real gold we could have bended it when it was still hot.

my goals/ passions

I have many goals in my life and some of them are to try and ahcieve a 4.0 grade point average my sophmore and junior year. After i graduate High School i want to get into a good college like UCLA . After completing a four year college i want to get into a good Medical School and get my P.H.D. I want to become a doctor for elderly people, i think their very interesting because they have so many stories to tell my generation. I also want to live in New York when i am older.