2023 S Week 6 F 17
2023, September 24 ( week 6), AL-Female 16
Considering that today was our sixth week, the last week of the Gisla program. My family and I were super stressed about today for the particular reason that it was to be testing day with teacher I, who hadn’t been with us since the second week. Today was supposed to be an exited day but ended up being an awful one in which we first started with the first part of our weekly routine but a little different and the presentation. Second, we will talk about what we did during teacher I’s absence, we will also talk about H and his experience with and after Gisla and talk about testing . And third, we will go on to what happened after the testing.
The most important week of the Gisla program is the last week when we all have to test out. The week before that we were told to do as homework to learn our salat sheep that was given to us 5 weeks ago. As everybody in the program knows, we always start our class with meditation, today we did it in the classroom with the song that says “La Ilaha Illa Allah Muhammadu Rasulullah”. The reason why we do meditation is something we do to clear our mind, put a side all of our thoughts to only think and connect with God. During our meditation, after 20 minutes I think, teacher I told us to move our shoulders with the song which was so relaxing because I felt like I was into my own world going with the flow. After several minutes, teacher I told us to say without looking at him or moving “ Thank you God, God forgive me , God bless me “. He told us that the most important thing of doing that is to be sincere, to mean it because "Actions are judged according to their intentions” After we finished our meditation, we were told to turn around in the same position, he told us to stay in that same position for 30 minutes, I was about to cry when he said that because my legs were already making me uncomfortable; we ended up doing it for far more than two hours as he kept adding more because some of us were continuously changing position which was not allowed. The first things the class started with were scolding about our essays because we are supposed to put everything that has being said in the class that day , which we didn’t do. He asked us why there wasn’t all of the metaphors we did in our essay like how we always write about the pledges, and we had nothing to answer to him. He asked us to define metaphor but didn’t have clear definition to give him, so he asked a student from level 2 to define it, she explained to us that a metaphor is a figure of speech that describes an object or action in a way that is not true. That how we got to the metaphor “The Grass Is Greener on the Other Side” which means from what I retain that things we don't have seem better than the things we have. He also asked us about Oil jug, a metaphor studied in class during the first weeks, but nobody had a correct answer. The oil jug concept is about how we were all born with a jug full of combustible oil on the side of our hips. Whenever you do a good deed a drop of oil diminish from the jug, when you do a bad deed, a drop adds up to it. Our goals are to empty our oil jug before we die by doing more good deeds than bad ones. Our next topic was about our presentation, he asked us all what were our presentation topics and half of our presentation was about Islam, especially what we already talked about in class, he said that we were supposed to talked about anything else but what we talked about in class. Fortunately, we had in student that had a presentation about soccer. After his presentation teacher I asked use about how he did with his presentation. The next presentation was about the Prophet Muhamed ( S.W.T)’s life.
Teacher I mention how since we didn’t write down what we did since we started or is it that we just remembered everything which is not the case. As he wanted to test our retentive skills, he asked H to talked to us about anything he wants, and we have to tell him about it when he comes back. H told us about how important H told us that he was thirteen years old when he came to the program and now he is eighteen, but he still benefits from this program , he said that teacher I would pick him up every Sunday ( they live not far from each other) to come to the class for 5 years and now he is banned from the class on Sundays. H explained how important it was to take note. Taking notes will helps us with our writing . We need to have skill of note taking, verbal note. Taking notes is not certainly to write every and each word that has been said but to summarize sentences quickly. He explained how important for him to take notes as a college student. He scores the highest in his college. He also explained to us the concept of 9 to 5 and 5 to 9. 9 to 5 means the time we spend at school/ work, 5 to 9 is the time we spend at home. He explained how Muslims teenagers in a non-Muslims society struggle to find a balance between life at school and home. He told us about how teenagers act different depending on where they are. H came into the program when he was 13 years old, now he is in his first year of university , he is in a neuroscience major, but he still uses the skills he developed when he was in the Gisla program. One of the students talked about slang which means when a person talks with a friendly tone and words. The Gisla program never stops emphasizing our goal in life which is to make the world a better place. We also talked about the way to balance universal values, which requires to be respectful, proper.. all the time. The tree trunk is related to universal values and CCA ( common sense/ context / accountability). Teacher I taught us about Sunni and Shia as an example for tree trunk because they all believe in one God but there are many sects in Islam. He told us about the fact that we are all accountable for what we do in this life. Accountability has two parts to: pencil, and ink. He says that if we commit a bad deed, but we sincerely repent from it he will erase it because it was written with a pencil but whenever a person does a good deed it is written with ink. If you did something to somebody without apologizing sincerely , that sin can prevent go from going to heaven. But if somehow that person dies; as long as you did try to apologize to that person, but he didn’t, God may forgive you if he worships him as much as he is supposed to. Remember our purpose in life is to make the world a better place.
With everything that has been said today, we finally started testing out. The testing didn’t go as planned because nobody in the level one group passed which made teacher I very disappointed. He asked us who do we think he is mad with, we answered us. Teacher I told us to go outside and learn our salat sheet, so we went outside to learn it for like more than 1 and a half hour. When we came back into the class we studied for more than 20 minutes. As usual, every and each of us had to give out news of what happened in the world this week and explained it. My news was about : Poland who decided that they will no longer arm Ukraine because they need to arm themselves in case a war happens, The US investigating the fire that happened in Maui because people discovered that before the fire the roads were blocked, and the water was cut off. After that teacher I asked one of the level 2 students to gives us each gums he brought from his travel, he said it was souvenirs. The things that brought joy to him was first the gum and second the facts that were on the paper gum. He told us to read the facts of our choice and I choose the one that said, “ the Pacific Ocean is the deepest ocean in the world”, and the others student read theirs too. He told us that from now on we were supposed to come with facts that we think he doesn’t know about. We had R’s mom coming in the class so teacher I asked her to introduce herself to us and tell us about a life lesson She introduced herself and told us that she was a doctor and professor too, she has 4 masters. The life lessons she learned were : “ work smart but also work harder to get what you want and focus on what you need to do “. Teacher I also had J come and do the same thing as R’s mom did. J is a division chief who works in the government, the life lesson she taught us was “ challenge yourself, give it your best and live your life preciously” she also said that we have to use the opportunities we have to go through life. After that teacher I asked us to tell him about the fourth pledge which is, and I quote “ I understand that this is a voluntary program; a failure to comply to a request is a result to expulsion” which is a result of us not passing the test; we got expulsed for 2 weeks. We also learned our new ritual that says” Ya Allah, I know that I am in a state of lost, if I believe, do good deeds , seek the truth, and practice patience, please help me do this. “
Today’s class has been very instructive even though we didn’t pass the test on our salat sheet. We got to meet people that are outside of the program, and they told us about their experience and their life lessons.