Asalaam-o-Alaikum, it’s Phulan and welcome back to my advice blog where I teach you things that are helpful in everyday life! Today I will teach you how to deal with annoying younger siblings . First of all, I have a little sister named Shabanu who is not betrothed to anyone and she gets to just roam around like a boy would. Shabanu gets to help Dadi with the camels and everything that he does while I must sit in our sweaty hut with Auntie and her sons who do nothing entertaining. My advice for you is to just act interested in whatever thing they’re telling you even if it’s not interesting at all and then they will leave you alone faster than if you told them it wasn’t interesting! Sometimes Shabanu sometimes tells me that I am self-centered and she is wrong! I am not self-centered I am just pretty and I think everyone should know that! You can also tell them that Mama or Dadi needs them even if they don’t and they-being gullible- will go and find them and that will get them away from you for a little while. Also, you can just make up excuses of things that you need to do so that they can’t follow you. Those are just a few ways you can make your annoying younger siblings stop annoying you and I hope these tips help you!

Asalaam-o-Alaikum, it’s Phulan and welcome back to my advice blog where I teach you things that are helpful for everyday life! Today I will teach you how to make Chapatis. My family makes chapatis all the time because we have access to the ingredients here in the desert. They are super easy to make and also will make an annoying little sister quiet. Especially if you have a sister like Shabanu who is always trying to help but just makes things worse! Anyway, the ingredients you will need are flour, hot water, salt and oil. Mix the flour and salt together and then add the water and oil into the bowl and mix it with a wooden spoon so that it becomes dough. Then you are going to want to put flour over the dough so that it is not so sticky and separate in into 10 parts, or how ever many you want. Let it rest for a little while so don’t make this too close to dinner time, or else people will get impatient. I never get impatient but other people do. Then heat up your pan over the fire and pour just a little more oil into it. Roll out your balls of dough flat and put them into the pan and cook them on each side until there are little brown spots on each side. And there you go, a really easy recipe to make something that’s super delicious. This is my mother’s recipe and she is teaching me all kinds of things like this because I am now betrothed to my cousin Hamir and I am to be a good housewife and know what to do. I am to know how to cook and sew and care for children so that I am the perfect wife. I hope that this recipe helps you make delicious chapatis!

Over Spring Break I learned that I have a really hard time with transitions. I have always known that transitions are hard for me but it came up with this break especially because we had so many. There are big transitions which are usually very hard for me and small transitions. Small transitions like going from one place to another used to be hard for me, but it has gotten easier as I have done it more and more. But this year was especially hard, because even though most of the transitions were just short transitions, I was leaving behind people and places I love. I knew that I needed to change something about my mindset during transitions when I started to have a very minor panic attack in the back of the car while driving away from one of my favorite places in the world. I started to hyperventilate and become lightheaded and it felt like my stomach was tying itself into a knot and then untying it and tying it again. Right then was when I chose to  change what it did and thought during transitions like those. Now, during each transition instead of thinking negative things that will just make me stress more, I am going to think positive things or things that might help me when I am feeling sad or stressed about leaving somewhere or doing some thing new. I hope this will make me less nervous before a transition and more able to focus on more important things.

In French this year we have been learning a lot about adjectives and verbs. I like writing in French and have been getting better at it as the year progresses. I am also getting better at spelling in French because I know more about the rules in the French language. I am having some challenges in side conversations and calling out, but I am working on getting better at those. Some goals I would like to set for myself are being more prepared for class and participating more. Sharyn can help me participate more by calling on me when I have my hand raised. My favorite project that we’ve done so far was my Sacre Coeur model because I really like independent work. I would like to do more projects especially making a video or animation of some kind.   

This year in Art class we have been doing something called a weekly drawing. Every week we have to pick an idea off of a list that we were given and then draw it. An example might be: What does the world look like from a frog’s perspective? Find a picture on the internet, print it out, cut it in half, paste half to your notebook and then draw the other half. Things like that. We got sketchbooks in our first or second class of the year and we have been doing one each week ever since.

Here is one that I am proud of:

I chose this one because I spent a lot of time observing the patterns on the wings and trying to replicate them on the other side.