The game I got

Two days after coming home from vacation, I came home and wanted to get a video game (Not a free one). The result was a rather interesting experience that I think rather positively of. In the beginning I directly asked, that didn't work very well. After begging for a while, the next day, I convinced my dad to the point that he told me that he would buy a video game for me if I wrote a "proposal" to convince him to do it. He meant proposal in the context of a proposal for funding for research. In other words, I needed to write a letter with reasons that he should buy the game for me. It was like writing an argumentative paper (with respect) and preemptively discussing various counter arguments. After about 2 hours, I showed it to my mom, and she said that she would buy it for me. Then I showed it to my dad (who's opinion actually mattered), first, I ran away, not wanting to hear his response, when I came back, he did a little research of his own before accepting. The experience as a whole taught me of the importance of being able to write effectively and convincingly. For future issues, if I want, I can always attempt to write another proposal.

Part 9

The ninth day was the last day of vacation. After eating breakfast, we went to one museum about route 66. After a few souvenirs, many pictures, and one long video, we were ready to leave at 10. We crossed the California border around noon. I spent most of the car ride reading. We ate at a familiar place (The Panda Express at Barstow). After that, it was a quick 2 hour drive back home. With stops and all, we got home at around 4:30. It took a while to unpack, but after that, vacation was basically over. 

Part 8

The next day was our first day on the way home. We woke up from Gallup, NM at 7. When we finished breakfast, it was 9. We drove one hour to Petrified Forest National Park. Before we got there, we stopped at a store in Navajo Nation for some ice cream. We spent a long time at Petrified forest, from ten to about 5. Along the way, we did the junior ranger and one hiking trail. After that, we ate at another Mexican food restaurant in a nearby town. It again took us until 7. The day ended after we arrived at the hotel in Kingman at about 11.

The great skiing fiasco (Part 7)

After waking up, it was 7 o'clock, which was actually pretty late, because we wanted to go skiing that day. After eating breakfast, wasting time, and getting lost, we arrived at the skiing area at 10 o'clock. Renting the equipment took two hours, and we only started skiing at 12:30. Afterwards, I tried to learn how to ski by eavesdropping on the lessons (which cost money). It took about two hours before I could reliably stop myself. I still had no confidence in myself, which meant that I didn't do much for another hour. I only skied down the full bunny slope twice. After that, we took a picture of the sunset, and started heading for our hotel at around 6 o'clock. After that, was the moment of our winter vacation that I remember the most. I had muscle spasms. After losing control of my left thumb twice I asked my dad what was going on. He said it was most likely due to the fact that I had not eaten any salt the entire day. Luckily, my mom had packed some sausages, and I ate half of a sausage. At 6:45 we arrived at a Thai food diner in Albuquerque. We finished eating at 8:45. Then, it was a 3 hour drive to our hotel in Gallup, NM. We arrived at 11 and, for the second time, went to sleep after midnight (at least we booked the hotel though). 

Wasting a Day (Part 6)

After not going to sleep until 1:00 AM the last night, we still managed to wake up at 7:30. After a one hour breakfast, we decided to extend our stay at our current hotel, because we just really wanted to go skiing. At 9 we explored the city of Los Alamos which had a "national historic park." We also visited the atomic bomb museum (paraphrasing). By 11:30 we were finally heading to Santa Fe, which was what we were planning to do that day. Though we arrived at about 12:15, it took us nearly 45 minutes to find some place to park. We ended up parking at the New Mexico Department of Veterans Affairs, and my mom gave the parking meter fees for three hours of parking. We waited for 30 minutes at a random Mexican food dine-in restaurant, before going to the Georgia O'Keefe museum at 2:00. We also went to the Native American art museum, a large cathedral, and the New Mexico state capitol before arriving back at our parking spot 15 minutes early. There we contemplated going to the movie theater again. However, we eventually decided against it. My dad remarked that we had nothing planned for today - but we still wanted to stay in Santa Fe an extra day? We ate at a grocery store Deli next to our hotel. That took until 6 o'clock. When we got back to the hotel, my sisters realized that this hotel had a heated pool, and they went swimming. I just played video games (after booking the hotel of course). We slept rather early that day (before 11 at least).

Revisiting missed opportunities (Part 5)

The fifth day of my family's vacation was spent at Guadalupe Mountains National Park, which was in Texas, but only an hour drive away from the city of Carlsbad (New Mexico) where we spent the night. We stopped and got out of the heated car many times to take pictures in the sub-freezing temperatures. Once at the sign declaring "Welcome to Texas" and twice at the two signs informing us of our entry into the National Park. We immediately went into the visitor center, where my sisters and I were forced into doing Junior Ranger. This was by far the most difficult junior ranger program I had to do in the whole vacation. It took us 90 minutes to do it. Afterwards, we decided to do a very short 0.6 mile hike, because there apparently was not much to the park besides hiking (We were ill-prepared for the longer hikes).  I took many pictures of the frosty desert, making sure to capture a Prickly-Pear in the background to remind my future self that, yes, this is an actual desert. At noon, the fog finally cleared and we could see the park's namesake Guadalupe Mountains ... right as we were planning to leave. So, after a few photos we headed towards our hotel. At 2 we ate at a subway in El Paso. Then arrived back at White Sands National Monument at 4:15, because we were determined to revisit it. It was open, but would be closing at 5, and much to the relief of my sisters and I, we didn't have time for Junior Ranger, and instead headed into the monument, sleds in tow to sled in the white sand dunes. While the entrance is blocked out at 5 o'clock, once you get in, you don't have to get out until 6 o'clock (sunset). So, we enjoyed about 45 minutes of sledding down sand dunes, before leaving. We quickly ate in the nearby town of Alamogordo before speeding (metaphorically) to our hotel in Los Alamos. We arrived at 11:30, and I might've been asleep for part of the 4 hour slog. It was so late that we didn't have time to book the next day's hotel, and instead opted to procrastinate until the morning to do so (we still found time to mess around until about 1 o'clock). 

Part 4 (Points for an original title)

The next day was, in my opinion, the best day of my entire vacation. After an unfilling breakfast where I mostly ate toast w/ butter. We left to go to Carlsbad Caverns National Park. The day before, we had already visited most of the park, except for the visitor center and the actual caverns, which were located 700 feet below the surface. We went down through an elevator reading all the signs and taking plenty of pictures (the cavern was lit up by artificial light). After seeing the main attraction, we walked out through the "natural entrance", which was a sloped one mile trail out of the cave's natural entrance. By the time we were finished, it was almost 2 o'clock. We ate a very overpriced meal at the gift shop, drove a scenic route, and did the junior ranger program. We didn't leave until sunset (which was approximately 5). After that, my dad decided it was too early to go to the hotel, but too late to go to the other national park we were planning to go to. Instead, we watched a movie. The movie was from 7-9 so we ate dinner first. By 9:30 we were all at the hotel and did some research on our next destination before going to sleep for the night. 

Vacation Pt. 3

The next day, was Christmas Day, which means that next to nothing was open. After breakfast at the hotel, we left to go to White Sands National Monument. Unfortunately, the one hour drive was wasted, because it was not open on Christmas. In desperation, we parked our car and walked around the gate, but we were caught before we got very far. So, at 10 we had already left for our hotel. We also couldn't find any place to eat lunch and ended up eating lunch at 2 o'clock at a Sonic in Artesia, which was one of the few stores open on Christmas. Later on, we arrived at our hotel, but decided to visit Carlsbad Caverns National Park, which we originally planned to visit on the 26th. Unlike White Sands, the road wasn't blocked so you could still drive in and visit. However, the visitor center and their main attraction - the underground caverns were closed for Christmas. Because of this, we visited the national park again the next day. At 7 we returned to our hotel in Carlsbad, spent one hour eating dinner, then planned the next day's activities in the hotel.

My Vacation Pt.2

The next day everyone woke up at 6:30, but we watched TV until 7:30. After that, we quickly ate breakfast, before checking-out of the hotel and beginning the next day's journey. Our first destination was a place we literally just found out about yesterday, one of Arizona's three national parks - Saguaro National Park, which apparently was full of Saguaro Cacti. We arrived at 10 and basically just drove around, took photos, and occasionally stopped to read the signs. At 12 we did a short hike, and by 1 we had left. After that, it was a quick visit to the local supermarket and In-N-Out for lunch. Right after that, we refilled on gas, then left for a 5 hour drive to Las Cruces, NM. On the way, I finished up my math homework. When we got there, we ate Mexican food for dinner, which also filled me up. This is mostly because of how large the portions were and the fact that they had free chips w/ salsa sitting on the table. At the hotel, we booked the next day's hotel, and I slept a bit earlier than the day before.

Long vacation Pt. 1

Winter break has been going on for quite sometime now. Yet, it feels like it has just begun. This is mostly because I went on a week-long vacation, and presently don't really remember much of it. If I think about it, I can remember many of the details, but, when I'm not attempting to recall the details, I just am not aware of the fact that I've already used up the majority of my two weeks off. I think the reason for this is because I haven't done anything remotely similar to what I did during vacation, and thus only truly remember yesterday and today - the days I spent home from vacation. Anyways, if I think hard I can probably get about 80% of the details right.

We left for New Mexico on Saturday morning. On my family vacations, we normally end up leaving later than we originally plan to. Our plans took a second hit when we agreed to go a different route than we had originally planned. Under the new plan, we drove south to San Diego. I remember doing my math homework while occasionally asking my dad questions on problems I needed help on. Our first stop was to refill the gas tank at San Diego. It was also the first time my sisters and I washed the car (which we failed at doing). Following that, we sped along the freeway heading towards Arizona. We stopped for lunch at noon in the city of El Centro, CA. My mom and sisters went with me to eat KFC, while my dad decided to stay in the car and eat some of the food we had brought from home. After that, I was stuck doing my math homework in the car until about sunset (which because of daylight-savings time was about 5:30). I still hadn't finished though, there were some really annoying problems that I must've pondered for more than an hour. We mainly passed through desert and such, the other major stop was on the border town of Yuma, AZ, which was where my mom took over the steering wheel from my dad. At about 7 in local time, we had arrived at our destination - Tucson, AZ. While Tucson is only 8 hours away from our house, bathroom breaks and meals took up about two hours. We ate dinner in Tucson at a local Italian restaurant. It took about 90 minutes and most of my stomach (my dad had to help me finish). At about 9 we finished eating and headed to the hotel. We, being last minute planners, booked the next day's hotel at today's hotel. We decided our next destination was Las Cruces, NM and we would spend the morning at Saguaro National Park. Afterwards, I played Learn To Fly 3 until about 11 before going to sleep for the night.

Going Hiking (again)

Today I hiked with my family and my friend Kevin's family to celebrate the new year.  However, this 3 mile hike didn't feel like a hike at all for two main reasons. The first was how easy the trail was. It was flat and straightforward, with not very many extreme slopes. The second reason was the fact that I was talking while walking. Kevin was hiking with me, and we talked about school, video games, and life on the internet. Earlier in the day, I was dreading the hike, but it turns out that time really flies when you are doing something you want to do. The second part of our new year excursion was eating out at a restaurant for the new year. I mostly ate with my own family. Due to the fact that we are learning about nutrition and health in science class, I forced myself to choke down vegetables with the rest of my meal. I had already been doing that for a while, but this time, I absolutely hated the taste of the vegetables (specifically steamed lettuce). My sister later remarked that I was the only one in the family who ended up eating it (it was that bad). I finished eating early, and then I talked with Kevin for a while. After that, everyone headed up to the local bakery to eat dessert. I went home with a full belly and basically forgot the hike in the morning.

Getting Sick

Yesterday I was sick, like really sick, I had a fever, messed up lips, dried throat, and was completely out of energy. Naturally, I missed school that day, but after the school bus left, the Advil I had taken basically completely took out all the symptoms.  By 10 I was completely OK. My mom asked if I wanted to go to school or not. I felt that it would be a bit awkward, so I stayed home. By 2 the symptoms were back and I took another pill, at the end of the day I was basically rid of the illness. I wondered if I could of just went to school. Today I'm mostly okay except for a dry throat that I keep pouring water into, but is perpetually dry and constantly gives me weird mucus. Next time I will go to school.

Book Orders

My sister got her book orders today. So she gets to buy a bunch of books from scholastic. Back when I was in her grade, I didn't really buy that many books, but now I wish I had, every time I look for something to read, I can always check my sister's book hoard. She has so many books that if I tried reading them all I could probably read them again without feeling bored. Some books can be reread over and over again. 

I tried to write a book more than 4 times, every time I couldn't get the project off the ground. The closest I ever got was a 27 page wall of text, that spent 20 pages introducing concepts and then 7 pages for the plot. If it was the size of a normal paperback novel, it might have been around 50~ pages. I can't help being distracted, sometimes I really want to write something good, like when I find so many opposing complaints on goodreads. I have so much fun reading comments it wastes so much time, which makes it the most interesting thing that I do.

Speed Homework

Yesterday I did the impossible I finished my chinese homework in less than 20 minutes. I was extremely motivated, because the computer was already open, and I had to do it in order to keep it open. my dad commented on how long it normally takes me to finish one simple task and talked a lot about ways to improve my efficiency. I guess it was basically a one time thing however, because today it took about 40 minutes to do the same amount of work. The thing holding me back was a combination of my sharpener issues and frustration made my mental atmosphere less suited to doing it. Seventh Grade has been very light on homework, and I must get faster to keep up.

Middle School

So, today is the second day of middle school. I have many different conflicting feelings already. So first on the list is homework, I actually don't have much homework, but the main thing affecting me is the high* expectations of the teachers. *I mean I don't actually know that I can't handle it but I feel like I can't which is almost worse. I already have 2 things due on September 5, and the teachers advice to start early isn't very helpful. So I kind of finished my homework. Also I don't know about tests or anything else as of now. It is all very confusing, the number one feeling I've been having. I don't know if I need to change my habits to finish my homework on time. I also don't want to get to comfortable. In a few days my questions will be answered, for better or worse. For example, in history class, I have a long project due September 5th, I know from experience that I can finish on the last day, but it doesn't turn out well. I try to plan, but I know that there are always unexpected obstacles. All the teachers are currently very nice, but I have big suspicions that is only due to a kind nature and fickle first impressions. I want to make my parents proud this year, but the 8th graders always talk about how hard a particular teacher's class is. Anyways, my general feelings are positive, yet I don't want them to.

Vacation day

Today is the first day of our vacation. However, we still had to do our things today. We only will actually leave to go at dark. This is a first, as we usually like going first thing in the morning. Flying a plane is so weird. My sisters probably are having lots of fun right now, I shall join them.

I'm so weird

Yesterday was an unordinary day. I woke up at 8, and my sisters were asking my momma to open the computers. We did stuff, eventually she opened them , but only one, which we all had to share.We rotated in thirty minute intervals. I played for two hours that day. When my mom came home at 5, I played the iPad until I went to sleep, yay!

Blah Blah Blah

My sissy is such a sissy. Bye, I just wanna do stuff so I can finish blog and play a bit before I have to leave at 11. Anyways, on Thursday, I get to go on vacation. So I have three more days to do stuff. I am sort of worried about middle school. I already feel like summer is over for me. It actually went by pretty slowly, and overall I feel that I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I am glad to start school at 8:15 in middle school, and being able to take the bus. I could wake up at 7:50 and not be late, which is when my sisters have to be at school. Yay

The last week

This is the last free week at home I have for the summer. This entire week I went to zero summer camps. I've had 4 free weeks this summer, but today was like a sort of sleep in week free from obligations. My parents gave me a break after Basketball Camp which lasted a whole day five days in a row, so as a reward, my parents let me do whatever this week! Except next week we go on vacation. This week I woke up at 9:30 slept at 10:00 and stayed home the entire day. Yay!

Basketball Camp

This past week, I've been going to basketball camp. I had to wake up at my usual get up time of about around 7:20, I would play around and then start a long routine for 7 hours straight of basketball, that I don't like, and was forced to go by my parents. I guess it started to get fun at the end, I won't be coming back this year though. My sister was jealous and what not, because she actually likes basketball.


Okay, I guess I'll go through day to day of what happened.

On Monday, I woke up at 8:10, we went to a big basketball court. At about 8:30 I saw the huge wooden gym. I mostly just explored around trying to find out about this situation I have been forced into. Starting at nine, the coaches introduced themselves and we split into "leagues", I was grouped into the 11 - 14 yr old category. Then they numbered us off into teams. After a short half-court trial game, they decided to split the six teams into 7. Originally I was in team two, maybe the coach thought I was really bad at basketball, and I was the first one to join team 7. We were the smallest team in the league. Of the 11 players in team seven. 2 left for vacation, one sprained his ankle, and one disappeared by Friday. After that we got to do drills, which were hard, because I didn't understand much. Then we had lunch (provided). After that we had basketball challenges. Then some full fledged games, which was the first time that I decided "maybe I'm not completely trash.", we lost, but I played for 8 minutes out of 16, pretty good.

The next 3 days were the same, except there was an additional morning game, oh and on Wednesday we went to the pool, and we had pizza on Thursday.

Friday was the "Playoffs". We played, and lost by 2 points on the first round. Not much else happened. I remember getting a certificate telling me how I did. You either did "Average", "Above Average" "Good", "Excellent", or "Outstanding". Then I went to Barnes and Nobles, Yay!

This week in boring...

This week was quite a boring one, I went to no camps or any place fun. I stayed home and my joy for the week rested on my ability to use electronics for just long enough to survive, and otherwise spend time doing other things I didn't want, I went to Barnes and Noble three times this week, and I don't plan on coming back until the staff forget me. I uh kind of made them not mad, but I was noticed. Now that I think about it, it doesn't seem right being in a bookstore without buying anything, it really wasn't that much my choice to go there, but a necessity to stop that urge to do something, as long as I'm away from the computer, my mom doesn't care if we don't do anything, so the bookstore is like a small step down. My sisters didn't come with me this week, I wonder what they did.

Besides the book store, I also read my kindle, and I got caught reading it at night twice, and I always get busted by my sister for

1.  Reading after I go to bed (she always comes into my room, and actually has pretty convincing excuses, but I feel like she just wants to tell on me.)
2. Reading in an awkward position. (Yes I get it, but I need to move around while reading its helpful)
3. Eating while reading (One of my favorite multitasking things, but I'm not allowed to.)

And that's it, I spent my time reading my kindle, playing on the iPad, or reading at the bookstore. Yay! I guess when I went to chess class yesterday that was moderately fun.

Carl's Junior

Today I went to Carl's Junior, I go to a chess club from 6 to 9 and decided to go eat out today. Instead of going to subway today, my mom and I decided that fast food would do the trick as we were late anyways, before I had time to change my mind we were already speeding through the drive through. I discovered Carl's Junior's $3 dollar burger, and we ordered it, in less than the time it took us to drive from the order window towards the pickup window, my burger was done.

In my personal opinion, there is no burger store in all of the US that matches In-N-Out, and this is reinforced by the fact that I nor anyone else in my city frankly, gives the other stores even a small chance, so with its popularity an In-N-Out Burger takes 20 minutes of waiting. Now, maybe I was just hungry, but the burger I got was pretty good, it was also far more expensive than the most expensive In-N-Out burger.


So I guess I just wanted to say how great In-N-Out is.

Swimming

Every, other day, our family goes swimming for the summer. We go after the sun has set, because I hate putting on sunscreen, and thus swim in slightly colder water, I never like swimming in the afternoon anyway. This summer I also have big dreams of learning to swim, I kind of can and kind of can't, so I want to learn, but I have to teach myself on my own, which is quite a challenge actually. The cold water wasn't actually much of a big deal, at first I thought swimming after dinner was crazy, but I would always adjust, and it wasn't that cold. The only time it was cold was when we left the pool at around 8:30. just before any serious wrinkling beyond my fingers.

At this point, I'm beginning to lose my fear of water again, I went to a water park, and swallowed a few cupfuls in the wave pool (much more dangerous than the water-slides), I then decided to stick to the lazy river instead. This however, caused me to fail my swimming test, and my parents told me they were going to get my sister and I a teacher, and then forgot about it, I think I've gotten slightly better though, at least as well as I could do last year. 

Croissants

A couple days ago, I ate a croissant, I never used to like them, they tasted like regular plain old bread, but worse, because they looked unnaturally weird, but my sisters liked them, so the Costco twelve packs were purchased for them. When I get bread I only use them for Sandwiches and French Toast, I do not like plain bread. Then I made a grilled cheese sandwich, I started to like the bread part more than the cheese, because of added butter. Then I realized that the Costco Croissants also have butter on them, and if I microwave it, it tastes really good.

I guess I hadn't realized I had to microwave it when I first tried them, and now once I realized it suddenly tastes like the only bread I can bear to taste without making it into a sandwich first. So now my family is the one convincing me to stop eating it rather than make me try it.


Anyways, I get bored, and that makes me hungry...

Yay

Hello, I found a new hobby on the iPad, I am listening to the podcast "Hello Internet", on the iPad I can even listen without the iPad being actually turned on. It really annoys my parents. I have a habit of playing arcade games while listening. I first discovered it when I looked up Hello on iTunes, trying to find the song by Adele, I accidentally clicked on Hello Internet, I've been listening to it since. I have problems playing it, my dad doesn't approve, I think it is very interesting, but he doesn't think so, I always try to get him to listen to a whole episode, but whatever. For now, I can only enjoy it in my room.

More Fooling around in the bookstore

This week, without a Camp to go to I will simply fold around at the local bookstore. I've always read the same small variety of books. It's a very strange experience but I manage to somehow get through the day, It passes pretty easily. Often we buy snacks at the stores nearby, the movie theater sells $1 hot dogs. I spent yesterday doing it, and four weeks earlier, I was basically at the bookstore the whole time. Next week I'll be going to camp again though. For now, the bookstore is the single most comforting place in eventless weeks in my summer.

Movie

Yesterday I went to the movie theater with my friends. It was the most interesting thing that had happened this boring midsummer week. It started it when I woke up at around 9 to do things, then I went to the library, I then fooled around until 3 when I met up with my friends we played this game called Fort Destroyers, after a while, at around 4:30 we left for the theater, and watched a 3 hr movie. The most exciting part for me was making comments on lines, I really had to go to the bathroom though, it was weird holding it for so long. Afterwards, we ate and I went home at 10.

Repeat what I say

I used to do a sort of repeating thing for my blogs. I would go into a very lively place and record whatever people say around me. It gets really exciting when the people who I am writing about notice what I am doing. Then I make them really angry or speechless. It is sort of like reading TV or something like that. It is a clear example of my laziness however. I do it especially when I just want to take up more and more space. Eventually it can get to many pages long. It doesn't even require thinking! I generally am reminded about this style through the following chain reaction:

1."ugh, so bored"

2."My sister is so distracting"

3. "Wouldn't she be so embarrassed if everyone could hear her stupidness"

4. "Hey, that reminds me, I can do a repeat what I say blog. "

Chess Club

Tonight, at about 6 o'clock I will get to play chess for 3 whole hours! That is very exciting, I have been preparing for a long time for this opportunity. I wanted to go somewhere to play chess last week, but because of various reasons I couldn't, today I can go, and it is for a pretty long time. My mom explained how it is a chess club with no instructors, that makes it very interesting to me, I always went to classes, but I mainly want to play, my mom also told me that when summer school finishes I can go where to a camp for the entire week!

Public Speaking Class

I have to classes at summer school for this week and the next one. First, I have art, and then I have public speaking, which I by far enjoy more. I came into summer school, after an outdoorsy boy scout experience. I also took public speaking, it consisted mainly of impromptu speeches, which were hard, but not very punishing. I came to summer school, doing planned speeches, which seemed so much harder, coming from an experience of mostly impromptu speeches. We are currently on the advertisement speech, and it was a nightmare making the power point. Even though I had done it before, it seemed odd after my plain speeches. I decided to make a cereal advertisement, I was inspired by the fact that 33% of Breakfast Cereal profits are reinvested in advertising. Though it is kind of painful, this part is the important, but hard part for me. I actually want to learn it for the future.

However, I am yet anticipating for the Debate Class part of it. I love debating, I love arguing so I can't wait to go into it. I tend to argue a lot, and I haven't been in a debate class before. So now, I can finally unload all that pressure. I am thinking of what the topics are, hopefully it won't be too off from my expectations, however, I know I will have to wait a bit, so I am just trying to relax in the meanwhile.

In conclusion, this week's spice in my life has been the public speaking/debate class, which I hope will stick with me until at least next week.

My Summer Camp Day 1

Last week, I went to a Boy Scout summer camp for the majority of the week. It was cool. The morning of Sunday, 5 am, I was yelled awake by my dad, after a quick breakfast, by 5:20 we were off. Finally at 6 the bus, along with our gear started heading towards camp Chawanakee in Central California, near Shaever Lake. We headed north, and headed towards Los Angeles without traffic - because it was seven in the morning. By the time we ate lunch (At the superior burger store, In-N-Out) we were in Fresno, just a mile from the destination. After a bumpy ride, and 5000 ft. of slopes, we arrived into a forested area in the valley of Shaever Lake. From Early afternoon until bedtime, I enjoyed a few hours of hanging out after we finished setting up camp at 4. While my friends went fishing, I enjoyed the sunset. We had a welcome campfire and by ten, I was dozing off in the warm summer weather.

Boy, I am a boy.

Today I am a boy. I am being such a boy, whatever, I guess, time to go. I need to play a bit more piano. For now, I was fighting over the computer. There is a time to be cool. I guess, now I have to do things, I am torn between finishing piano and playing more games. I have decided to do piano so that's cool. I am writing blog, when I finish I will tell myself and reflect on this.

My Piano Test

Soon I will have my piano test, which is coming up very quickly, so today I had to play piano for two hours, in addition I did a lot of unlikely stuff for me, such as doing homework in a rather focused fashion, but I have a few more things on my head before I can finally do what I want, writing blog is one of them, I plan to take a shower right after this. I have lots to think about over the course of the day for everything I did. The rest of my time is leisure. I actually have a lot to think about, so for now I guess, I will tell myself that a few minutes doesn't matter.

Writing

I am writing things in my sister's dance class again. Yay! So now I have to continue eating pie. Just kidding, I am wondering about how much longer my batter might last, so yeah, now I have to contiune writing my blog, then I can finally play things yay! So I guess I will stop here. My dad went to china. I have his computer for a full two weeks, and the school year draws to a close.

Lol

Things are interesting at first until they aren't I actually had quite a nice day today, now I can have fun. I like playing games , and now I am. Hooray

Three hour vacation

Today I had three hours with my friends to do a big group project. We had been doing this for about the past three months, but today, we finally finished it, and it felt good, now all I have to do is wait, my problems are over, the year's hard things are all done. My friends are the one editing for a change, and I just have to watch the finished project. I still have a few worries about this school year, but the hard stuff is slowly sliding out. This is one of my most relaxed weekends.

Kindle

My sister went off to go buy herself a Kindle, with my dad. We had been arguing over it too much and instead my dad bought by sister a second one. We only just got our first one on Monday. I told everyone the she was hogging it too much. That didn't go well. I complained, but I felt that I got in bigger trouble somehow. Anyways, that day was not a good one, luckily I finally got it back, my dad and my sister came back. So, in the end I guess I was kind of happy.

Hi

Water is kind of important, I drink a lot of it, some would argue too much. But it feels so refreshing after running around and stuff. Other times, when I drink it after having ice cream or soda, it feels like trash. Anyways, I drink to much of it. I remind all who complained that you're supposed to drink 8 cups a day, even I can't do that. So now, I guess I'm kind of stuck. But I still always get my water, or my juice, or my soda, or my milk.

The Teen Era

Its been a long time since I started blogging, back then I barely knew what blogging is. I had to write every day, I don't do that anymore, even though I probably should to practice typing and writing. My sister says that I am a teenager now. I'm twelve. In my school district, 6th grade is still in Elementary, but elsewhere not so much. I think I act very much like one as well, though I'm not sure what that means. I haven't shown myself that I'm responsible or what not, so yeah. I thought it would be different.

Computer

My dad has 3 computers at home right now, my mom has 3, and we have a bunch of unused desktops lying around and gathering dust, not to mention the amount of mobile devices. In light of this, when we were assigned a math project to interview, I decided to survey my classmates on how many computers they had at home, I expected at most 10, but some people had as many as 27, and when I further probed, I found that only a small fraction of them were actually used on a day to day basis. In the future, I have to take this info and do boring stuff, such as find the average, the range, and "analyze" it to make a poster, but enough of that, I was legitimately interested in this sort of stuff (my dad, on the other hand, compared this topic's usefulness to eating food).

Does this prove that we use computers too much? kind of, at school we had this other survey question "How long do you spend on the computer each week on non-school related things?" Answered varied from 0 (probably a lie) to 40. 

Okay, finally, I would like to share a bit more about the results. In class, lots of people asked me questions on what counted as a computer "Like my computer, or all the computers in the house?" and "Does it have to belong to me?" This inflated the results a bit, but it gave me more info.

Thank you, that was a summary of my survey's summary. I don't know why I did this.

Laze and Craze

The past spring break was very interesting. I was out a total of 5 out 9 days for vacation. On this topic I have extremely mixed feelings. I really wanted to do my projects, but my dad pointed out that a few days wouldn't affect much anyway. Now coming back, the turtle rock academic challenge is an extremely pressing issue. Its technically an optional project, but I have to do it anyways. It includes 3 school run events, writing 5 book reviews according to a template, and doing 8 hours of math, and 5 hours of typing not including things done at school. I am just starting to pick up steam. While it has been hard, right now it seems like just another nail in a complicated school year.

Weekend again

Yesterday I lost a lot of my time. I had to go to another camp out. They bother me, because so much of my time is wasted. I wish I could have spent more time on more pressing matters. Now I am home, and am wondering what this week will mean for me. On Friday, I will have to turn in a month long project.  It has been using up all of my effort. I hope to finish soon.

Monday

Today is Monday, the least epic day of them all. It is boring and is the longest day. I think on Monday of weekends left behind. I look both at an uneventful day ahead, and a tedious string of activities on the evening. It is boring, but on future days I wish that I had a better one. It always anchors the rest of my week. That is Monday for me.

Weekend

This weekend has been a camp out. I feel I basically wasted two days of time. It doesn't really have a value to me, and is awfully boring and useless. I wish that I could use this time some other way, yet I have to do it all over again in two weeks. It was terrible, I don't want to go again. Its too difficult. Instead, I'll talk about the 8 hours I've spent at home. I did do some things, but it is so bad. I really expected something different. Both for today and yesterday. 

The Wave

Recently, my dad's to do list had started to become more and more meaningless. He doesn't enforce it as hard as he said that he would the first day. On the first week he let me have the iPad when I forgot to do 11 out of the 91 things on my to do list the first week. The second week, I didn't do 15 out of the 76 things on my to do list. Then on the third week, I didn't fill it out at all - and every single week he let my sisters and I play on the iPad. I partly feel like the to-do-lists burden is far too large, but whatever. Today, I have finished everything on it, but I starting to doubt how long this will hold together. Thankfully, I know my dad pays attention.

Weekend Hill

Finally I will have my chance to do some math. Over the last few months, I have been practicing and practicing for a chance to get in the first math competition I have ever been in. It has been a very bumpy road, at many points I wanted to quit and just do my own things, but I have kept going, because it might be one of my only chances. I also have the science fair next week. I didn't expect to get very far, so it will be interesting. I also come close to the due date of some major projects.

Memories of the Darker Times

Today I am reflecting on the past weekend. It was sure an interesting one. The long four day weekend had a variety of effects. First, I noticed that my dad did not keep his promise from two weeks ago not to give the iPad unless we did all of our things. On Friday, my sisters had somehow downloaded Roblox. They were playing for a long time. I, on the other hand, was watching you tube videos. That was basically Friday, such a relaxing day. I slept until about 9 in the morning. I only got up, because I had Chinese School. After Chinese School, I sat around, because I didn't want to do anything. I took my first nap that day! Sunday morning was where I mostly watched Youtube, and otherwise sat around occasionally doing Dad-Approved things like math and homework. On Monday, I basically did math in the morning, and watched videos in the afternoon. Then, Tuesday Night, my dad set up this new organizational tool, I hope it goes a lot better this time.

The long campout

This week, I went to the mountains, from Tuesday to Friday. It was a school field trip, which set it apart from other camp outs I have been in. It was entirely run by the school. On Tuesday, they rented a luxurious bus. I remembered the bus for its reclining seats and its TV's inside the bus. When we came the movie Inside Out was played for most of the trip. After the movie finished, we waited around for 20 or so more minutes, when the bus reached our campsite. It was on the plateau between the mountains of Sugar Loaf and San G, nearly 6000 ft. above sea level. Right after getting off, they would separate all the 6th grade kids into Field Groups. I was in group I. We hung out for a bit before eating lunch. We had to wash our hands with vinegar (because it is organic). At lunch, we were squished between the two tables. For that while, we had chicken nuggets and bean soup.  In addition, we were served lots and lots of water to combat altitude sickness. Finally, in an attempt to be frugal, no food waste (Uneaten food) would be allowed, otherwise dessert would not be served.

After kind of adapting to this new lifestyle, we went over a rules briefing regarding the snow, the classes, and just basically how to live in the camp. With that, the first class, or the "Team Discovery" hike to root. We walked up many switchbacks to climb the snowy hill to the south of the camp. After sinking into knee-deep snow, our group found a dry spot in the area and began talking about the week ahead. It was where we set our goals, and got to know our instructor. We then got to know our cabin for the week, mine was the Lizard Cabin. So, at 4:30 pm we would switch to our cabin groups. In our cabin groups, we brought down all our luggage into our cabins. Soon, we decided where to sleep, and I took a top bunk bed. Soon, it was time for dinner. My dinner experience was very different than my lunch experience. First, when I came in I randomly drew a poker chip from a bowl. It would have a number from 1-14. That would be the table I would get to sit at. I drew an 11. Sitting down, the first thing I saw was a bowl of salad and a plate of bread. I didn't realize that I wasn't supposed to be eating yet. Apparently the camp had a rule not to eat anything before everyone else got food. It was to ensure no one would be bored watching others eat. After eating, we met again with our cabin. We had a class about snakes and their properties. I got a really cool photo of a snake slithering up onto my classmates hand. Then we learned about astronomy. On a night hike, we had a 30 minute session on astronomy, then the day time activities were over and it was sleep time.
at
Using the bathroom at night was a complicated procession, we should've only needed to use the bathroom in the case of an emergency, but I had drunk to much water. To go pee, I have to wake up my buddy, wake up my instructor, and make them approve of my visit. Then, I need to put on a whistle just in case. Finally, I can use the restroom. I woke up at about 2 o'clock and really needed to go. So I walked around in the cabin, because I didn't really know how to wake anybody up without being too rude. So I waited until I eventually woke them up at 3. I went back to sleep and got a grand total of 7 hours of sleep on the first day.

The next day was adventure day, where the camp seemed more like a summer camp, than a science camp. At 9 it was time for morning switch over, where we would go from cabin groups to field groups. We brought along our lunch, as we would be eating outside for the second day. We climbed up a long towering hill of snow. Later, we adventured into knee deep snow, looking for a good place for the next class. Over there, we would learn about survival in the wild. At first I decided that I learned much of the stuff from Boy Scouts, but I came up with some interesting things. I learned about the importance of extra clothing. Finally, we also learned about building a stick shelter, we split up into two groups of 6 and had 20 minutes to build the best shelter possible. It was recommended to lean it onto a log, and insulate the shelter with snow. After 20 minutes, our crude shelter was built. In comparing them, he noted the southward facing and lack of snow of our shelter, both were mainly done by accident. there was much that I had learned from that class. Next was rock climbing, with a weakened arm I barely got to the second rock. Then, what everyone was looking forward to, came archery. I did pretty well in my own opinion. And just like that the first full day was over. It was time for afternoon switch over. We then went over to dinner.  The next time I drew a 7. I enjoyed the meal. The evening activities were line dancing and learning about nocturnal animals.

The next day was environmental day, we learned about rocks, mammals, and conservation. The evening was marked by the campfire, where each group did their own skit. It was a great day. Finally, on Friday, we left camp (at 9) forever.

The end of the week

At the end of the week, my dad is supposed to judge whether the work we did during the weekdays was sufficient, determining whether I would get the iPad or not. It really helped, because I started to write blog better! and I paid attention to other important things in life, it was not just a cycle of homework to video games to homework. I still feel that in the end, this will not last, and that the motivation is not enough, but as of now its going well. The last year, I thought of a different idea, which was to form more goals. I think I'm already starting to slip. Hopefully I can get it this time. 

Fortune this week

Today I have come towards the end of the week, and I did a lot better than the previous weeks. This week their was very little daily homework, and I did a lot of research for future projects. I was glad to not have to worry about something huge eventually, and right now am pretty optimistic about the coming weeks. My dad has told me about getting the iPad on the weekends by doing everything earlier in the week. Right now it has me motivated, but I wonder what it'll do in the future. So I am eager for the days to advance.

Hello again, blog

Today, I have discovered something, I had not written blog in a million days. My arm was broken and I had a cast on for the past few weeks, I still have my cast on, but recently I my fingers had healed enough so that I could type as fast as I normally can with the cast on. My parents have not forced me to write blog recently, but now that its healing, I'n back to many of my normal responsibilities, such as, playing the piano, doing math homework, playing my flute, and writing blog.

To this news, I have mixed reactions, they take time, and without doing them I could focus more on regular homework, but when I think about it, I didn't really focus a lot more than normal. The extra time was used on video games and such. On the other hand, I'm interested to test out how I can do better on piano, math, and blog after this break. I want to see how much better I can do with it.

Finally, this year, I want to start writing about better topics.

A day completely at home

Today I stayed home for the entire day, it was an entire day with only video games. Over the entire course of winter break, my mom has brought my sisters and I to Barnes & Noble, and on this weekend my sisters went skiing on Xmas Eve and we played board games on Sunday. So today, I spent the first half of the day doing my school projects and the second half staying put and wasting time. That is, on my computer. At 5:30 we ate dinner, and my dad told me to write blog.  So I wrote this, looking back on this day, I felt it went successfully because I finished a lot of school stuff, and I managed not to procrastinate further. In the future, my family will be going on vacation this break, with a broken arm I spent a lot of time at home, but I'm proud of completing my tasks.

The Dinner

Today was both my mom's and my dad's birthdays, so to celebrate, we went to a restaurant. Which is nothing new, except that the restaurant was empty, I was really surprised, but there was no line and the food didn't take so long, which was probably was what made me feel so good about it. It was a Chinese restaurant, AKA where my parents complain that I don't eat anything but fried rice & dumplings, so I decided to challenge myself and try at least one piece of every dish ordered, and I succeeded except for one dish, and then I was full. The food was mostly meat. Interestingly, my sisters and I didn't beg for desserts after the dinner. Once done, we went to buy a strawberry mousse cake, which my sisters were horrified to discover that it was actually vanilla cake covered in strawberry filling. My mom was saying that she loved the cake and would buy it again.

The Gifts

Today my family went Christmas Shopping, but there are so many restrictions. When my mom us that the price did not matter, us kids still felt a need to minimize the price, and we weren't allowed to ask for video games, I managed to negotiate for one though. Mostly I wasn't that interested, reading some books at the store. I just felt that nothing was appealing, the board games I would get bored of and lose most of the parts, the toys I would lose and get bored of, and I was afraid if I bought a card game my little brother might rip them apart, so nothing I really wanted. 

7 hours of stuff

Today was the first day of my school's winter break. I thought that I would be able to just play on the computer all day, that's what I really wanted to do, but I had to go somewhere, because my mom didn't want us inside all of the time. So I went out to Barnes & Nobles for the day. We were there for seven hours, but the new book that I had wanted to read wasn't released yet, so I basically just read old books that I've already read and guides that always call themselves "The Official Guide to..." or "The Essential Guide to ...", but they're kind of interesting, because they have illustrations. When I got home, it was almost 6,  we had dinner and I now am writing a blog on those 7 hours. So I'll just go back to the fun stuff now.

Journalism Club

At School, I have go to this after school club called journalism club. This year, the first year of the club, I decided to become an editor. Historically, the school magazine was written by the school PTA, but this year they let students have a shot at writing articles, taking pictures, and even add comic strips. It was really fun to be able to do try out this, because I feel about what I could do would be so much better than past editions, it always is fun to do that.

Hello, I don't sleep

Today, I wanted to sleep until about 9 o'clock, because I was sleepy and there was no school today. I, however and limited by the fact that the washing of my clothes happens at about 8, meaning I have to get up, or sleep in my day clothes, which sucks! I do get kind of sleepy all throughout the day. Recently, I've been losing on sleep, mainly, because I have to sleep in a sleeping bag in the night and I wake up so much. I can sleep in the day, but I just want to play video games. So I don't catch up on sleep on no-school days either.

Writing is boring

There are many reasons why I can't write good pieces. In my opinion, it is hard to make me right well for a couple reasons: 

a) First of all, typing is hard, because there are many things I'd rather do, because when I get the computer, I just want to use it in a fun way

b) If I do have to write, then I don't take much time, because I technically still "did" it.

c) When my parents tell me I have to write a good post, I ask what to write about, and I generally want to avoid my topic getting picked for me.

d) In my head, I do want to write about picking a topic and how to write good posts with structure and all that, but it is hard to do that over and over again

e) Then I think about some topic other than a journal, but it takes a lot of work, and my poems always seem the same each time.

All this means, that when I have to write it well, I recycle my old topics, and make it a little more "interesting". Basically next time I have to write something good, maybe I'll just change the letters into numbers and add a little humor.

Sleeping Bagt

The last few days, I had to sleep in a sleeping bag, because my grandpa is visiting. I kind of enjoy the sleeping bag, because it keeps me warmer than the blanket. However my bed is cozier, and the sleeping mat is easy to roll off of. Yesterday, I slept on my bed for a day, and I kind of miss it. On the other hand, when I end up going back to my bed anyway, I'll get more used to the bag. I talked about this , because sleep is very important to me.

What today

Today is Veterans day, we didn't do anything special today, other than stay home and do stuff. At 4:30 today, I have a First Lego League practice session. It is the last one before the competition. I have to miss my Chinese school to do it though. I don't like missing Chinese School,  especially since tomorrow is the test, and every time I have Boy Scout camp out, I have to miss Chinese School for it.

No Way

I was about to ask my dad what I should write my blog about, but after what happened last time, I think it would just be better to keep silent. Though, some of the advice is important. It really doesn't matter what I write about, but how I write it. I just don't want him picking my topic for me. After writing that, my idea came to a halt, and I again can't think of much to write about. If I finish, I technically did do it, that is the main reason I write blog. 

Fireland

There was a place called Fireland, it was next to another area called Ireland. Fireland was a beautiful place inhabited mainly by birds and sharks. Visitors who went never returned, although no one knew why. One day, a group of kids found their way onto this strange land. When they came back, their clothes were burning and charred to pieces. Due to that incident, it started to be called Fireland.  Then another day, the Ireland was also covered in fire, and then they were both called Fireland. For many years, the existence of these lands were mostly unknown, until a small fishing boat got caught in a storm and got stuck on the island. The crew stayed marooned on the island, and got lost, but a boat holding a record floated back to other places. Many more people finally learned of this place‘s existence.

Then shortly after, the entire world itself was shook by a giant volcanic eruption, and thus everywhere was now a land filled of fire.

Rah Rah Rah # 2

Hello this is the Rah#2 where we will talk about Synonyms for Rah Rah Rah. I looked it up on the dictionary, and it is short for Hoorah/Hooray. It is used in cheer. I wrote it randomly in my first one, now I guess I just was a little lazy and continued, so Rah for me.

Video Project

On Tuesday, I got my latest Video Project, or project that is done as a recorded video. This is the first year that I've had a video project, and I learned to use iMovie. It started near the beginning of the school year. When I was working with a group, one of them decided to do a movie as a presentation, it worked out, and I decided to try it and I made a couple of low quality videos myself. Then we had an Oral Tape, but I didn't get to edit. Now I want to make my own school project.

Oral Book Report

This year in school, we have a thing called an Oral Tape. It is interesting, because it is a reading of a passage in a book with others. It is recorded, and edited to be a "movie". I like it, because, watching others' movies is a lot of fun, especially when you compare it to yours, and with movies, the final result can turn out very differently than the expectations. Our first one was on the novelization of Star Wars. So it was a movie of a book of a movie. I thought it was really funny, so I watched it a couple times, since I didn't make it, I was also thinking about what I would've done differently. Today I am going to find a book for our next one, and I hope it will be good. 

Fireball Launcher

I had to type the words fire ball launcher because I just had a habit of doing it ever since my friend tried to design one that works like a regular cannon, now and then, when I have nothing else to write I find my hands simply just typing those words on the screen. I decided to write something about it.

Boy scouting

Boy Scouts are a fun part of my life, but sometimes I feel it takes up way too much time. Even though some events are optional, there are like 3 events every week, and this hogs up A LOT of time. I have to go troop meetings every Monday, so I am definitely looking forward to Halloween, where the meeting is canceled that day. Also, in order to make things more interesting, the last Monday of the month, instead of a conventional troop meeting, we split up into smaller groups, and have a little more fun and socialize more than getting requirements done. Today we have a troop meeting, because this is the last meeting of the month of October. I hope it will be fun!

The war of videos and video games

Whether I currently like videos or video games, I like using computers. Without them, I can do neither.

 I mostly watch videos of other people playing video games, especially when I can't get the game or I'm not really good at it. I sometimes surf the web for a good video game, and sometimes I stick with it and forget Youtube for a long time. I spend about a month on a particular series before I get bored and quit watching someone playing, or playing that particular game. 

These two activities cover what I do inn my "free" time whenI can use the computer. Both waste time, and my parents aren't a fan of either. But I like them, and enjoy doing those things.

A real poem

How long have I tried?
How many times have I cried?
I wrote it start to finish
My skill has truly diminished
I think about what I wrote
There is nothing to bloat

I did it all wrong...

This is what I have not done
Though I do not need to in order to have fun

I want to write a poem
So I will do it right.

Another time limit

Again, I have only thirty minutes to finish writing my blog. I guess that is necessary to prevent me from getting distracted while writing blog, but I can't always write something interesting. I will not delete this, even though this topic isn't very interesting, because I already have written so much. I don't really know if the time limit helps me or doesn't, because I rush a little bit more.

This year, I decided to improve on my writing by practicing writing more, and right now I think I have a lot so, yeah.

I published this already, but since I had more time I wanted to make it a little better. I really am just throwing out whatever is in my head. I think I am simply just telling people about my goals, and not actually doing them. I could make it better but I am too lazy, I just made this post slightly longer...

Topic Loss

I, once again, have no topic to write about. Therefore, I continue the pattern of a million other blogs, and creatively talk about the lack of a topic. This normally happens when I just have to write a well thought out, well-worded, in general good piece of writing. I tell my parents I can't think of a topic, and they provide a topic that I would never want to write about. So I was stuck having to think about my own topic.

In free writing, it doesn't matter what you write about, but how you put it down. So I guess the point of this post, would be to make a post on this topic the best one I ever did on it. I think why I never can write a good post on not having a topic is, because this topic bails me out. If I were to write a good one, then I not be allowed to do it again. Another reason, is simply that writing is hard, and I don't want anyone saying "But you did so well that other day...". So, I basically want to keep the standard low. Not that this strategy works to well anyway. So, in conclusion I wrote something about how to write a good something, when I have nothing to write about that something. I hope that makes sense.

Columbus day

Today is Columbus day, the third day of my really long weekend. To me, stay home days (that are not holidays) are always boring, because, without my dad, nothing special happens, and I don't get to play on the iPad unless it is a Sunday. On the other hand, not having school is helpful, because I can do my long term projects and read. I love reading. I spent a lot of the weekend reading. I am now addicted to Cookie Clicker.

What I did today

Today was a fun day, but I did not feel I accomplished much. At 10 in the morning I went to someone's birthday party. It was at a place where they had Lego Mindstorm robots. I liked it, because I love creating something, and getting to see it in action. I liked the fact that in the end, we got to control it with a remote, and all of it was built from scratch. It was sort of like a video game, and we got to see a live soccer game between robots, it was very interesting. The party was done at around 2 pm, then, after that I went to the library to get ready for a book report, and finally I had a meeting with my friends to work on a school project. After we did that, I played cookie clicker with them, and we had a contest to see who could reach a certain point first. At 6 my eventful day was finished and I had to continue with my normal responsibilities.

How many days without blog?

I have gone many more days without writing in my blog than when we went on vacation. It is just so boring to do it, because writing a good piece of writing is actually pretty hard. I think I talked about my structure the last time I wrote in it.  Supposedly a piece of writing has to has a topic sentence and all that, but what's the point, when I only spend like ten minutes on a blog post that uses no high level vocabulary, and rarely decide to edit it or sometimes even fix my grammar, what is the point in writing it? All I do is practice typing, and I my writing isn't even very good. I will do it next time I do blog, which will be in ten days maybe.

Video Book Report

Today, I am going to go film my video book report at 4, I am so excited, because, I get to edit the movie, this is the first school project I get to edit, so I am very happy to be able to do this. Right now, I mainly need to do my other homework assignments, and practice piano, before I go.

I realize my blogs never really have a structure I tend to simply dump sentences, and keeping them there, unless I misspelled something. I will try to get using a structure next time. I was about to say "maybe", but that is basically my excuse not to, therefore on my next post I will write a "complete essay".

For Blog at 5

Yay, it is a Wednesday, I wasted a lot of time today, I can't believe I had time to write blog today, I haven't done it for like 4 days, I just can't do it consistently, at least I finished homework, oh well, I will just write this little paragraph, bye.

Blog Again

This is my first time doing my blog in about 4 days. I now have a bedtime of 9 sharp, so I can't spend much time. I am mainly happy about getting to have my first FLL meeting of the year today, I am so excited to do things this year. I love having to finally finish Chinese homework and touching the iPad again after about 4 days. Bye!

Ideas Lost

I thought about so many things yesterday, and I forgot a lot of them, I remember I had something about a blog topic, so that was kind of sad, now my readers have to deal with my boring posts. As I was saying, I had so many ideas that I forget, I can only really hold on to them, by thinking about remembering to think about it in the future. (That "mind-twister" was intentional) Now that I brought it up, I wonder how I came up with the phrase "mind-twister". I believe that I was thinking about tongue-twisters, but it wasn't actually a tongue twister. Yesterday, I played tennis with my mom, and my sisters we will be doing it again, yay.

Regular Journal

Today, I went to school after the three day weekend, I did somethings different. During Recess, I finally stopped with the tag game ( I hate that game), and started doing some video game talk, beyond that, I think this day is the start of some routines for sixth grade, and some class policies, as well as finally starting a math unit. When I went home, I did my stuff, and I do not know what happens next.

Finally on a computer

Today I am finally writing my blog on a computer. If I was writing on my tablet, writing these two sentences would take about 2 minutes. I love finally getting to type faster, and hopefully write longer blogs, that tend to ramble more, and that I get distracted on more, and yeah. I don't know if this is actually a good thing though ... For me to actually write some posts of quality, then I'll write some poems or a story, but when I do that I may not finish, and the ending will sound really, really rushed compared to the beginning, to the point where the last 2/3 is as short as the first 1/12, so as I go on I write quicker sentences, and more simple summarizing, no more than one sentence for every single event. As for poems, when I try to write them, it just doesn't work out, for b,etter quality I need to think for pretty long, and constantly check Rhyme.com

So what happened today? I started the day sleeping in till about 8, when I got up, I started reading, and I played Minecraft with my sister for about thirty minutes, when I started playing computer games until 2:00 pm where my dad, my sisters and I went to Barnes + Nobles, after which, we went to a restaurant for dinner. It was a soup restaurant, and I didn't really like it because I just don't like soup meals, I normally think of soup as more of an appetizer, and compared to the pizza I had for lunch, I didn't really like it, finally I went home, after a short trip to the park.

Labor Day Weekend

This weekend is Labor Day Weekend, I am at home, enjoying a week without Chinese School, and the ability to play video games, once I finish writing blog. I can't believe I'm saying this, but Ihave nothing else to write. I was bored today, and I didn't do much else than play on the computer, and then, I did my piano. Now I'm writing blog, while walking, I can actually type surprisingly fast, maybe I'll work on my minecraft project for the afternoon.

Textese/Emote

I don't know what this "language" was actually called, but it relates to the style of writing, that uses short cut Ltrs and Emotes to write. My sister, Jialian, writes a lot, but ends with a string of 30 emotes to finish. 😄😳🙃🙄🙂😕😁😬😇😠😙😒😊🙄, is what she does. I hate reading the short posts, but mine are quite short anyway, my other sister, Lilian, is better, and doesn't use them often.

One last thing is that I think it is that the smiley thingies are actually called emoctions.

Yes, no true ideas.

I have no ideas, I have done nothing today, and I want to do other things, I will be going to piano class today. maybe I should go back to a full on normal Journal. I didn't do much today. I had a substitute today, but that is basically the only thing interesting. I just can't write a quality post, I don't want to write a poem, because I just decided to stick to journals, so bye.

Vacation Pt. OVER

Yay, I finally finished all the things with my vacation. Now I can go back to the voices series after a 3-week break. I forgot what I was writing, I think I will end the voices series forever, because, by now, I am just trying to delay the ending as long as possible, because I never have anything to write, therefore, I never want to end it and return to the boring days of "I have no topic."My mom said she wanted me to write this, so that she knows what destinations to visit when she goes where we went. Now that I've finished, and I feel continuing "Voices" will be bad, I know I need something else to write about. Write now, I think I am writing a diary, because in my head it just sounds like a diary entry. I wanted to write a novel during vacation, maybe I could start something. That, by the way is a completely unnecessary comment. Now, however I am just proud I can still keep writing, but I will always feel like I am skating on thin ice when it comes to ideas. So... in conclusion: Delay, delay, delay. Bye!

Vacation Part Something: 8/18 and 8/19 The real part 8

On this day, my family went to Colorado National Monument, a place that is all about its rock formations. The place is East of Grand Junction, CO and South of Fruita, CO. We drove, and took a stop at almost every overlook. We did very few trails, because our grandpa can't hike far. After two hours, we finally got to the visitor center, which I did my Junior Ranger Badge. After that, we visited just two more stops, and then left the Monument and Colorado for the rest of vacation. We still had one more stop, Capitol Reef National Park, the second least visited park in Utah, which we had not yet visited in our last trip to Utah.

Capitol Reef National Park is one of Five of Utah's National Parks, every single one relates to rock formations. Capitol Reef was named for two natural features, one is a dome, which looks like the capitol building, and the other is a reef, or another name for an "impassable" cliff. We visited the visitor center, and saw some scenic rock formations, we spent the night at Torrey, UT, which is close to the park. I had instant noodles for dinner. It was fun. For the next day, we visited the five stops we hadn't yet looked at, claimed our junior ranger badges, then finally, our vacation was over, and we started driving home at 10:00 A.M. After twelve more hours of driving, we finally got home.

Vacation pt. 8

On this day, we visited Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. On the way towards the park, my sister reminded my dad about the junior ranger program, I'm lazy, so I didn't want to do it. When we got there we did a ranger history of the canyon program. I'm glad it was different than the Grand Canyon. After the one hour tour, I spent a boring thirty minutes finishing the junior ranger book. After which, we visited every overlook on the south rim, and left black canyon at around 2o'clock. We then ate lunch at about 2:30. Finally, we went to Curecanti National Recreation Area. Which we spent 15 minutes at, because the area was closed, except for one location. Afterwards, we arrived at Grand Junction, and ate dinner there. Finally, the last thing I did was help plan tomorrow's trip.

What part

I believe I am on part 6/ day 7, but I'm not sure. Anyway, on this day, I went to Canyons of the Ancients National Monument and Hovenweep National Monument. It was another place about ruins. We went to the visitor center of Canyons of the Ancients in the morning, and took a quick hike to the reservoir created for the people of the area. I saw the first old village of the day, and it was supposed to have 30 rooms. It didn't look that big, which is my personal comment that I say after seeing every single village ruin for the last two days. We didn't spend much time, and took a roundabout tour of most of the easy access ruins. I noticed that we did a lot more hiking than the last day at Mesa Verde, but there were a lot more sites.  At Hovenweep National Monument, which was actually in Utah (Both monuments are close to the Colorado Utah Border), you could visit 8 or 9 in a two hour hiking trip. They didn't have very many roads, apparently, Hovenweep is really small. So, at about 3, we were leaving, to go north, and into the Grand Junction area. We visited Telluride, CO on the way.  The town is a ski resort. The main attraction would be the gondola ride up the mountain, and to a different city, and the "fun facts" say that this is the only form of free transportation of the many gondola lines in the world.  So, of course, when we came here we rode it. After our adventure, we took photos of the sunset. When we came back down, we ate dinner at a local Thai restaurant. Later, we headed towards Montrose, CO where we would spend the night.

The main thing I remember about this day was the Gondola Ride, and the amount of pictures we took on this day rivaled how many we took on day 3. In other words, we took a lot of photos!

Vacation part. 5

A couple of things before I start: tomorrow is my first day of school. I want to finish my vacation summary, so that I don't forget to do it later. I won't take any breaks, I will write my normal "diary" part at the top. After finishing everything I'll go back to the voices series.

On this day, we went to Mesa Verde National Park. Which is famous for its ruins. I think this was a national park that was never a national monument before it became a park. It was created to protect the ruins, and ancient artifacts from being stolen, or damaged.  The ruins were mostly adobe bricks, cemented together through a muddy yellow mixture. The old ruins were made about 600 to 1250 years ago from the natives of the time. Over this day and the next, we went to parks and monuments dedicated to protecting the ruins, and because they were in the same area, on day two of the ruins area, when I learned the history of the area, I thought that the history sounded almost exactly the same.

Overall, it wasn't my favorite park in Colorado, but it sure was the one where I didn't complain that the park looked like every other national park in the world.

Vacation Pt. 4

On this day, we went to Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. This, in my opinion was my favorite national park in Colorado. This area has very few paved roads inside the park. The only things within the paved area of the parks were the visitor center, campground, and a single picnic area. Besides that, there was a wilderness areas where you could see the actual sand dunes, the highest one rose 700 ft. higher than the desert floor. We were playing on the small about 20 foot high sand dune, when we saw another family with a sled, we thought they had a lot of fun, and my sisters and I begged our dad to rent a sled for us, and after two long hours of waiting, our dad came back with the sand sled. We all tried to master the sled, and headed for a bigger dune. By noon, we left to go west to southwest Colorado, near Mesa Verde National Park. That was our plan for the next day.

Vacation Pt. 3

I usually do not split my blog posts into different parts. I know my sister does, she tells me that she has 5 parts to her stories and ends up finishing/ concluding the story, because eventually you get board, but this is a journal so it is a little different.

Day 4:
On this day, we were driving from Denver to south Colorado, the Great sand dunes area. In the morning, we left at about 8 after doing some planning, and we went to Chautauqua Park in Bolder. Us kids didn't really understand it, so we just played in its playground. We left and took a few pictures of the University of Colorado Boulder. At about noon, we drove south, and visited the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. We watched a video about the life of students in the academy. On that day, I decided that I would not like to work in the military when I grew up. Later we visited Garden of the Gods park nearby. My dad told me that their website said that some review said that this park is "the most beautiful park in the world." When I saw it, I didn't think it was all that great, there were some rock formations, but I think they look similar to other places' rocks. During the second half of the day, my sister mentioned that she was building a PvP world in Minecraft. I was interested so I started building my own world on Minecraft, we were planning to play against each other when we could play multiplayer with wireless. I worked on it for the entire rest of the 3 hour trip to our hotel.

Vacation Summary Pt.2 8/12

After the main driving part was complete, we spent a quiet day at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, during this time, we looked at nice overlooks, and drove up and down mountains at elevations of 8500 to 12000. My sister, my grandpa, and I suffered from headaches that occurred, because of elevation sickness. 

In the morning, we went to the Bear Lake, and took the short half-mile hike around it, that was all we did in the morning, it took really long because we stopped every twenty steps to take a picture. After that, we drove up a dirt road to the Alpine visitor center, which was built almost 12,000 feet above sea level. We took many pictures of the view from the high point of the park. Later, we went back down to the other side of the park, went back up the mountain and down the other way stopping every overlook, and take every possible picture from every single angle. It was annoying, and my head was starting to hurt a lot. When we went down, we ate dinner at a Thai food place, where my head hurt so much I couldn't even eat much. At the hotel, I slept a long sleep and my headache was gone in the morning. 

Four Days No Blog

The past four days I have not been writing my blog. I will make up Wednesday's post today. At 6:30 AM, I woke up and rolled around in bed for 15 minutes. Throughout this week I had been planning the vacation to Colorado. When morning came, my dad said that he wanted to go to Boulder on the weekend (because his friend would be working if we went any later). Though we were planning to leave by eight, after all the packing, it was nine by the time we left. My dad, my grandpa, my two sisters, and I comfortly got into the eight-seater car. Despite the extra cargo from snacks, and all the suitcases for the ten day trip, we all wheedled into locations, sitting in awkward poses.

At lunch we went to a Chipotle. By 1 we were out, and we went into Utah by three o'clock. I got to go to the visitor center and look at some maps of the state. It was another four hours until my dad stopped driving at Richfield, UT  and we went to a Subway for dinner.

Playing at the hotel, and sleeping until the next day marked the end of the first day of the long road trip.
I
On the second day, we awoke at 7 for breakfast. At 8, we packed and left the city to go to Denver, CO.  After 3 hours, we were excited by the feeling of coming into a new state. The sign said, "Welcome to Colorful Colorado." We had lunch in one of the first cities we saw in Colorado, Fruita.
The next few hours were boring, covering miles in wild, forest territory. After getting to Denver, we drove North to Boulder County. My dad came to visit his college friend and I remember having to constantly change clothes to something more formal, or not as messy.  We ate at some Chinese restaurant. After eating, my father talked with his friend for a while. Meanwhile, us kids were watching the 2016 Olympic Games on the TV. At 7, we went back to the hotel, that night I slept really well.

The second day marked the end of the heavy traveling, and it was my introduction to Colorado.

No break

I want to have a break, but I guess I will just extend it, I have no ideas, well to be honest, I have some about clearing things up with the four voices, I like writing about a world, I read a lot about a worlds which is nothing like our world. I will continue my break, I am too lazy to extend the post unless I take a repeat of yesterday's ending.

A long day

We'll take another break to the voices series. I had a long day today. I wonder if yesterday's post was interesting or not. Every time I write something, I feel I am wasting my time, and that it will not matter in the end, which means my parents think I'm just trying to fill up the space. Like I just did, the first sentence doesn't tie in to my topic, yet it takes up almost 1/10 of how much I have currently written. Since I will do the an argument tomorrow, I would like to say that on Wednesday I will go on vacation.  I want to end it here, but I am afraid it will be too short, and if I end it after saying that I didn't want to end it but I was too short to end now, then I would feel my last sentence was wasted, and I also can't end it now, or after any other sentences that say I can't end it because, it would still be too short, and there would not be enough things about my topic. I still do want to end it. I just wasted that sentence write there. I will end it, so that undermines 3 sentences I just said a while ago. Bye 

Me First

I've written blog so much on my iPad, that now it has a shortcut on the browser.
Hey! Stop giving away our personal life to the readers.
What's wrong with that?
People might make fun of us.
They won't,  no one ever says anything in the comments.
Well, if you haven't checked the blog stats, we have a lot of readers from other countries too.
Well anyways, it doesn't matter, before I was born, this blog's writer already said things about his life.
So, that doesn't mean we have to.
Well I want to.
Suit yourself.
One of my friends said they once realized their was another voice that guided the writer.
But, we realized that much earlier.
<Lazy Voice and Mean voice arrive.>
Hi old friend!
I'm voice 2, and that's -
He's really lazy<Voice 1 interrupts >
(1) so that is your friend?
(2) Looks like he has a partner too.
(1) If you think we're partners, then your wrong!
<2 whispers to the other voices > this is why I call him the mean voice.
(2) wait a second, how did I get here? Isn't it impossible to visit another brain besides the one you guide?
(2's friend) Back when I graduated from voice school, I heard that there was a mistake, but I did not believe it.
(2's friend's partner) We're all in one head!?

Writing to Impress

My parents don't like my blogs recently, they say that they're not interesting enough. I'll write a sort of diary entry of how I started the voices series. This started around the point I started frequently saying, that I write on the iPad. On that day, I typed two lines of words about what I wanted to write, I wasn't thinking about my writing, and just typed something random. After that I noticed how the statements contradicted each other, and I continued the story of two voices, one lazy, and one not. I also was planning to write a story, but I was too lazy; however I did decide to turn it into a story somehow, which lead to the events of the first story.

The next day, I was stuck, and had no idea what to write so, I did a sequel. Then, I started including my thoughts and feeling. The most recent one had a topic, about me having no topics.

My parents still say I still can continue it, but it should be more interesting. The series started as a lazy way to make a longer blogpost, looks like I'll have to start putting thought into it.

NO time

Today I will not risk writing something short.

I will continue the "voices" series.

Ugh, no topics.

Don't be like that, we always have topics.

Today I am voice one

How about we call you the lazy voice.

We'll call you the mean voice.

Let's debate

(M.V)Sure

(L.V)Whatever

(M.V) I am bored.

(L.V) Can we not argue today?

(M.V) Lazy guy.

(L.V) I'm still leaving.

Quick

I like playing video games, and I don't want to write anything. Luckily, I have the computer. So, I am quick. I won't write anymore... Well, my mom came, and it looks like I'll have to make it better.

I won't write another argument.

Oh wait, no I will.

<1 and 2 notice each other but ignore each other.>

As I was saying, arguments take a lot of effort to write.

But I still wanted to because I know how to do it.

<1 and 2 think about how well they work together>

How about we don't argue today, we just work together.

Sure.

But it looks like we don't get labeled until we say the magic words.

Let's debate.

(1) Once upon a time there was a dog.

(2) That dog- wait a second, I don't want to do a story, how about a poem

(1) No way, I wanted to do a story since episode 1

(2) Well it still happened.

(1) Looks like it turned into a debate anyway.

(2) Why does it always happen!?

(1) Oh well, I'll start my own story.

<2 goes away and thinks up of a plan for a poem>

Time passes slwowly

Time can still pass slowly when you are having fun. I recently experienced that. I will finish without writing a long argument today, I had a long day at camp and the end of summer is drawing near. We will go on vacation next week, and I hope I can have one more week of Chess Camp. Summer has passed so slowly.