Hi, my name is Sumaira Zahoor, I was born August 17^th, 1979 and I am currently 32 years of age. I represent Pakistan in the woman’s track and field events. My top best running time for the 1500m dash is 4:31 in 2004. In 2005 my best was 4:43 for the 1500m individual. Also in 2003 I ran the 50,000m race in my record time of 19:18 hours. On august 23 2008 I was banned for 2 years from competing because I failed to pass a dope test, along with 6 other teammates. I have truly learned my lesson and have not done any since then. When I am not busy competing or training I like to spend most of my time with my 2 children Sara and Andy, and with my sweet loving dog named Zoee. I started when I was in 5th grade going to the school of Merton. My uncle was a top track and field runner and was once the top male runner in all of Pakistan. He was the one who inspired me to take on the sport. When I was younger I would watch him practice on the track and would sometimes run with him. Ever since then I have been a die- hard track and field runner. My uncle dies when I was 11 so I only had those couple years to run and train with him. I have looked back many times thinking were I would be now if I didn’t have that experience and had fallen in love with the sport. My main goal in life before I die is to win the top ranking in track and field in the Olympics some day!

Why I Like The Academy!

When I first came into the Academy I new exactly what I was getting my self into. I new it was going to be difficult and way different learning style then I have ever done before. My first full semester of high school went by pretty smoothly. I would say that the biggest part was from Academy. The way that our teachers are teaching us, I think is very neat. I love how much space and freedom each and everyone of us have. I didn’t exactly expect it to be this laid back, were we can chose how we want to put together and complete our projects. So I’d have to say that, that little surprise was nice. There are also other parts of the teaching style of the teachers that i like, such as, every one of them explains each one of our projects so clearly. There is absolutely no confusion after they have showed u the criteria we have to meet when completing a project. Also i think its a great method, how in every project they accommodate lots of different project learning styles. Such as some would be like, if your a creative person the teachers would have a project were there is drawing, painting or constructing involved. Lots of our projects have to do with putting together a project with writing which if you were a person who liked to look up info and enjoyed writing, they were trying to accommodate your learning style. I think its so neat how they do this, iv never seen this done before.

A part of why I like the academy has to do with the teachers and the students. First of the teachers are just all great people and have such different unique personalities. I've never been in a learning environment before, with more then two teachers.I really like how we get so much one on one time with each of our teachers. I feel that they are so much more laid back with other teachers in the room because then they don’t always have to be helping people or making sure that everyone is doing what they are supposed to be doing. I think that every classroom should have at least two teachers in it. It seems to me that the teachers stress greatly decrease. I think then, they can really spend more time with one student explaining something; making sure that the student really understands it. The students in the Academy are all really great people. I would have to say compared to the ones in my other classes my classmates in hear are much more laid back and more well behaved. I think that one concept of that would have to be because of the amount of teachers we have in the classroom at once. Some students need a lot of attention and with the amount of teachers they can get it without distracting or causing a disturbance to the rest of the class. Also the students in this Academy class all have the urge to learn and most of them don’t screw of and disrupt the whole class. To me that really makes a difference when I’m trying to learn; and the fact that I can only learn when there is absolutely no distracts around me really helps.

Really the biggest reason why i like the Academy is really how much of a new experience it is. With a small class size then regular classes of 24 or 25 to only 16 students. The fact that the Academy is structured around the concept of learning threw project is really the way i learn best. I cant sit in a room and just listen to the teacher and take notes all day and expect to remember and really interpret everything. Another big reason is how creative we get to be with our projects. With how much freedom we get with our projects you could really go anywhere with them, with what criteria info they give you. I think that this experience of being in the Academy was so great I would absolutely do it next year. When I found out that the weren’t having it next year I was really confused and disappointed. Its hands down the best class that I've taken at Arrowhead and i really have learned so much and in such a new creative way. I now so many people who once I told them how it was they wanted to join. Lots of my friends learn like me; threw making projects and they all said that they aren't doing so well in there other classes taking notes and tests. I think that if we opened it up for next year sophomores, we would have so many students wanting to join!

Pearsonal Blog Jan.9- Jan.13

This week in academy we were very busy in every subject. With finals coming up we were reviewing in all of the subjects, going over the topics that the finals test is going to be on for each subject. Also we got lots of work time for our final projects. This week I would say we accomplished a lot in everything.

In English this week to review for the final is we practiced: commas, colons, semicolons, underlining, and quotes. Also we retook the test that we did in the beginning of the year for English to see what we knew, but this time it was to see what we remembered, and if we improved in what we were struggling at before. Retaking the same test over again made it seem so easy. From the begging of this year to now I think I really learned a lot. On Monday we have our final exam for English, I think I’m pretty well prepared.

In science this week we have been working a lot with the periodic table and chemical equations. We did the chemical equations all the time last year but I totally forgot how to do them. We also did a burning chemicals lab. I found it pretty fascinating how every chemical had a little different color when it started on fire. Some were neon green all the way up to dark almost black red. We used the Bunsen burners to set the chemicals on fire and turned off the lights so it looked pretty cool in the room once people started lighting chemicals up.

Social studies was really the only subject that we didn’t do that much with this week. All we did was in the beginning of the week we got to look at like 40 national geographic magazines. It was a pretty fun activity. We had to write down what we saw in the magazines that we looked at; to tell us what geography is.

In art this week we were finishing up our water color nature paintings that we have been working on for about 2 weeks. I had a really complicated picture and I wasn’t going to be able to finish it in time so I got to split my painting in half and only have to paint one of the halves. I’m not that great at painting and have never really enjoyed doing it but I think I’m starting to like it more with doing this project.

Pearsonal Blog Jan. 3- Jan. 6

This week in ILA, we work a lot with grammar in all of the subjects. Such as commas, semicolons, and plain colons. We worked with geography in social studies, in science, the periodic table and in art we worked on water coloring. Also during this week we had some time to work on our final project. I feel so stressed with all this work that were getting since it’s almost the end of the semester. My final project isn’t exactly getting off to a good start. I’m a little behind; I really haven’t even found what I really wanted to do yet.

In English, we had some quizzes on commas, semicolons, colons, underlining and more. I liked how we got a couple minutes to look over our study guide right before we took the test. I think by doing that I really knew the info when it came time to take the test. We practiced most of the rules by writing paragraphs for all of the subjects. These rules I learned last year so they weren’t that hard to take tests about. The only thing was that, I had a hard time remembering what I was supposed to underline, to what I was supposed to put in quotations.

In Social Studies our topic for the week was really working on knowing what demography was and the different parts of it. We had some practice, by applying the 5 terms to our own lives. Also we have to write a paragraph and apply our English rules that we just learned, for practice, about Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.  

Lastly, in science this week, we have been practicing with the periodic table. We have been for the past few weeks, really trying to get us to now our way around the big table. We have been reviewing a lot of the info that we have already learned about it. I found it a little easier to understand and remember after he reviewed it all again.      

Pearsonal Blog Dec.19- Dec.22

This week was a very short week because of winter break. On Monday we had a tone of time to finish up our outlines for our water presentations. After then we went down to the art room and got to work on our scratch of drawings. I think mine turned out pretty good. I’ve done them before but they always had the picture already traced out on the black- top of the paper. This one was a little more difficult but I love a challenge, especially in art. Tuesday we received about 15 to 20 minutes of work time to go over and change anything in our presentations before we presented them that day. We had some difficulty posting it to the PowerPoint slide on Google docs. Ours wouldn’t open, from clicking on the link. When it came time to present it all worked out because we just logged into our own account that it was saved on and opened it up from there. I think we did a pretty good job too. I thought we really showed and explained the point we were trying to get across to everyone. Also on Tuesday Mr. R came back, I think it was a bit of a shock to everyone, but we all just welcomed him back and went on like nothing had happened. I’m pretty glad he’s back, before when he was gone the social studies part of the academy was going downhill, I think. On Wednesday Mr. R explained to us what we were going to be doing for our final project for Academy. I thought it was pretty cool and also very creative. I like how we get to create whatever project we want all by ourselves. I think this is going to be very fun to construct. On Thursday we went into Mr. M’s room to finish up our crystal lab that we started about a month ago and also write a reflection relating to ours. Then we went back to the Academy room and this guy that I’ve never seen before or herd of, that was Mrs. Millers sub, gave us a lesson on commas. He was absolutely hilarious. I wish he was one of our academy teachers for good. He just made learning about commas so fun and I really thought that even though I was having fun and laughing, that I really learned about commas. Before I really didn’t understand them and never realized why we really needed them when writing. After the half hour of him teaching us about commas, I really understood. He’s awesome and I hope he comes and subs more for our Academy class!

Comment on "The Burden Of Thirst"

I feel so great full that I have to accessibility to clean fresh water whenever I want it in my own home. I can use the water whenever I please but usually I use it or leave it running when it’s not necessary. Reading this article really made me think about my water consumption and how I don’t really take it for granted and just think that everyone has it and it’s really nothing big. They said in the article that we averagely use about 100 gallons of water every day. That got me thinking, if we cut that down even by 30% we could be saving so many people’s lives in other countries. People in Africa, they only use about 2 ½ gallons per day. I couldn’t believe how they survive on that little. I drink about that much in 4 hours on a hot day.  I think that we Americans really have to be more conservative with the water we consume. Imagine if we did we could be saving so many innocent lives out there especially in Africa. The children in these places such as African do not have it as easy as we do and sometimes I think that people don’t really think about that. Women in African, they have to walk miles and miles just to get a gallon or two of water from a not so clean river and then tiringly, hall it back to their homes. I feel so bad that these women when there so young they have to drop out of school just to take care of their family and get them water. I think it’s so sad that hundreds of African children and adults dye from diseases in these unclean rivers that they are drinking from every day. I really don’t think that we should be debating over whether we should be drinking out of tap or filtered water and how witch one would be healthier. They are both so much healthier and safer than the disgusting, unclean; unhealthy and unsafe water that people from other countries drink from every day. I very glad that there are some organizations out there that are making a statement about this problem and are actually doing something about it. Instead of just staying home and running water for 5 minutes strait just to brush their teeth and just feeling sad for these people. Instead they are going out and helping there country and trying to make things better for those people. I think we should stop fussing about these water conflicts and which would be healthier or not I think we should go out there and try to help the people who don’t even have a glass of water when they really need one. Imagine how many American lives we could save!

Personal Blog Dec.12- Dec. 16

In academy this week we were mostly finishing up the projects for all of the subjects. On Monday we all got to work on the periodic table activity that’s on Google docs. I learned about half of this periodic table stuff last year so I found it really easy. Though some of the info, I have never learned, or heard about before. Then the last half of the day in Academy we got to work on our speech Outlines for English. We just had to fix a few things in it; otherwise it was pretty much finished. On Tuesday in art we were finishing up our final touches on our posters for our water presentations. My group didn’t have that much to do because the first day that we had to work on it we got it completely finished. We just had to fix a few things on the poster like the words and the translucent 3D water bottle that we put on the poster. Truthfully I thought that ours was the best because of the variation of color and shapes on it. After then we got to pic a black and white picture off of the internet. We are starting to do these scratch off drawings and I picked to do a baby snow leopard. I’ve done them before but have never done them the way we are. It should be lots of fun once we get started and moving. After art that day we received more work time for our water presentations. Wednesday we had to complete parts 3, 4, and 5 for our periodic table activity. I only had time to finish 3 and 4 so had to do 5 and home for homework. After just like the other days this week we got work time for our water presentations. Except for Wednesday we didn’t have as long of a period of time to work on our water presentations because at 1:30 the president of Hartland Water Works came to present us with some info that would help us with our water projects. I found what he said pretty interesting some of the stuff I never knew about water. At the end he answered some of our questions that we had for him. It was pretty interesting were Hartland gets its water from, what they do if the water all of a sudden becomes contaminated and also how the hole water thing works around Arrowhead. On Thursday we all split into 3 groups, one went to the Delhart water and Sewer Center, one got to meet Mr.Libscomb and have him answer questions and the last group went and stayed in the art room and worked on their water posters. Mr. Libscomb was very informative, I lost my groups questions just minutes before he came so we made up new ones and he answered them very well and thought out. On Friday we got to finish up our periodic table activity on Google docs. Then we had to take the test for the parts that we had finished. I didn’t finish the Google doc periodic table activity in the time he gave us so I have to take it online. This week I would have to say was a pretty fun week, lots of new things we’ve never done before, and lots of progress made in our projects in all the subjects!