2023 Sep M 12

HH 12 m 9/3/23

I was 20 minutes late… My mom was really angry with my older sister H (a student). Because my mom woke us up at 7:45 and we were still late. (We also had a sub) but the teacher was still setting up and talking to a parent. I sat down and 10 minutes later my classmates walked in.

We started off by doing the pledges. The sub started off by asking U (a student) the first pledge. I myself was stumped. I was very embarrassed because I knew the answer was obvious because the teacher was smiling. But I just couldn’t put my finger on it. Then after like 20 seconds I realized that the4 first pledge was the pledge of allegiance. U did not know the first pledge and the sub went on to somebody else. Then A (a student) said that it was the pledge of allegiance. She said to do the pledge of allegiance you stand up. Look at the American flag. And then stand up. Put your right hand on your heart and say “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america. And to the republic for which it stands one nation under god. For liberty and justice for all.” Then he said for the second pledge you say surah al-fatihah. And I was confused because you say surah al fatihah for the 3rd pledge. As I was about to raise my hand to say it. I stopped myself. Why? That is because I wanted to see if anyone else knew that. But no one else got the chance to raise their hand because the sub called on M (a level 2 student). She said that for the second pledge you say your pledge for islam basically. You state your belief that God is one and Muhammad is God’s slave and messenger. Then the sub asked us about why we say the pledge of allegiance in this class. No one could give an answer. Then M said that it was to show that we are loyal to the United States of america. Then we talked about the 3rd pledge which was the pledge of knowledge where we recite surah al- Fatihah. “All praise belongs to the god lord of the worlds. Most gracious, most merciful master of the day of judgment. You alone we worship and you alone we turn to for help. Guide us to the straight path, the path of those whom you favored. Not the path of those who deserve her anger nor the path of those who went astray.

Then we went on to our lecture. We talked about amana. He asked us what we thought amana meant. I knew this but I forgot a lot. I said we have amana to ourselves and others. Amana is when you trust others to take care of something that values us. We trust them to deliver. We also have amana ourselves. Amana to ourselves is a promise to make yourself better, make others better and make the world better.

Then we went on to the memorization. There were not enough teachers or parents for everyone to individually test out. So we went in groups. My group was with the sub. I was reviewing the first page and I was trying to memorize the second page. I was trying to memorize surah al- Asr and surah al- Kawthar. I was having an easy time memorizing surah al- Asr because I already knew the arabic I just needed to memorize the english. It took me around 10 minutes to memorize the english. Then I went on to surah al- Kawthar. I memorized it last year so it was not hard to memorize it again. But I needed to memorize the english. It took me 15 minutes to memorize the english. I was proud of myself for memorizing the surahs in 25 minutes. So I went to test out. The sub saw that I was having trouble so he called me up to his desk and told me to take a chair. He asked me what my favorite game was. So I told him about valorant. Valorant is a team-based first person shooter. It is a 5 on 5 and the setting is in the near future.Players play as one of a set of Agents, characters based on several countries and cultures around the world. In the main game mode, players are assigned to either the attacking or defending team with each team having five players on it. Agents have unique abilities, each requiring charges, as well as a unique ultimate ability that requires charging through kills, deaths, orbs, or objectives. Every player starts each round with a “classic” pistol and one or more “signature ability” charges. Other weapons and ability charges can be purchased using an in-game economic system that awards money based on the outcome of the previous round, any kills the player is responsible for, and any objectives completed. The game has an assortment of weapons including secondary guns like sidearms and primary guns like submachine guns, shotguns, Machine guns, assault rifles and sniper rifles There are automatic and semi automatic weapons that each have a unique shooting pattern that has to be controlled by the player to be able to shoot accurately. You might think I copied and pasted that description but no I didnt I just know a lot about the game. Then he connected the game to islam and how I need to be focused to win. Because I can hit headshots and kill everyone and win the game. But it is only if I focus and put in the time and effort. Then I tested out. I got it right and I exited the classroom with 3 goals in mind. Memorize the page front and back. Backwards to forwards. Make a 15 minute presentation on valorant and connect it to Islam. Then search up 15 concepts on the board and give a short definition for each concept.