Sabina Ajjan
March 12 Thursday
Everywhere is closing, and it kind of feels like the world is ending. I can’t go to Johns Hopkins over the spring break anymore because it closed. My sister is doing online classes because GA tech closed. The NBA is postponing its season. The president is banning travel to the US. There are so many measures to stop coronavirus from spreading, and I feel like it is all a bit extreme. My dad says all the nurses volunteered to see the coronavirus patient because they know it is not a big deal, and they get paid extra to see the patient. I think it would be fun to close the school for a couple days, but it would just be bad for any longer.
Jan 21 Tuesday
Today I found out that the College Board is not efficient, and most of the workers are clueless. I spelled my name wrong on my PSAT form, and I called for the first time a month ago to fix it, but every person I call seems to have no idea what to do. They told me to send I.D., and I did that, but I still have not received my scores. When I recall them, they keep telling me to wait a couple of days, but that gets me nowhere. Today, Ms. Eubanks called them for me and started laughing and making fun of them as she talked to them. She asked to speak to the supervisor and was put on hold for 20 minutes. I don’t know if she ever got off hold because I left. It is taking way too long to get my scores.
November 11
MaPP is probably is a math tournament that requires running, problem solving, and group collaboration. It is one of my favorite math tournaments of the year because it is low pressure and feels like a game. Instead of taking a test, we are given a packet full of puzzles.
At the beginning of the tournament, we downloaded an app that gave us clues on how to solve each puzzle. We submitted our answers with the app as well. Oftentimes, we had to be in a special location on the Middle Georgia University campus to submit our answer though. That made it fun. The team was allowed to work together the whole time, and we were given a classroom all to ourselves. My team consisted of Mimi Rader, Jocelyn Tang, Olivia Santoyo, Shaw London, Sophia Tang, Sean Malhotra, and me. We worked on different puzzles in groups of two.
Each group was able to solve at least one by the end of the tournament, but we were still unable to get to all of the puzzles. Sadly, we lost because of this. We scored around 7000 points while the winning team had around 9,972 points. Nevertheless, I am proud of our team.