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.
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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.