Back to School (again)

School is coming again. Unfortunately. This is the time of year that most middle school kids like me dread. In elementary school you are sort of excited to go back to school, get new supplies, see your friends. But when you are going into seventh grade like me these reasons to want to go back to school are drowned out by the fact that you remember how school was last year in sixth grade. The mile run, pre-algebra, essays, response to literature, and fitness testing that could actually affect your grade. This makes me not want to go back to school much. Last year I only had four teachers. One for band, math and science, english and history, and PE. This year I will have one for each subject. Ewwwwww. The only thing I'm excited for is Bengal Day. That is the day that I get all my text books, unimportant forms, and my schedule. Once I have my schedule I can compare it with my friends so I know who is in my class. My conclusion: School loses its excitement over the years. Das it! T-T-F-N

VBS

So last week my church had a VBS. (Vacation Bible School) I was a crew leader. This means that I have to watch over kids and make sure they have fun and pay attention. I already knew from training that I was in the Orange group. I was handed a piece of paper and I found out I had a group of all girls. There were five girls on the first day but Emily, one of the girls, was scared of me and did not come for the rest of the week.
:(    But for the rest of the week I had four happy girls, Lauren, Faith, Gabby, and Maddie. they were all well behaved and listened to the bible stories carefully.

Gabby: On Tuesday, Gabby, the youngest, listened to why we were collecting food and money. Our church was saving money for the Eskimos in Alaska. Gabby was given a packet of Top Ramen for her to eat if she got hungry. When she was told the story of the Eskimos in Alaska who had to pay about $14 for a box of cereal, she asked me for her Top Ramen. I thought she was hungry so I gave it to her. She grabbed it out of my hand and ran to the front of the sanctuary and placed the noodles in the basket where we were collecting donations. And I didn't even tell her to! I thought that was really cool.

Maddie: Maddie was probably the most talkative of all the girls, but has a very friendly personality. When I first met her, I hadn't met her before. We were complete strangers. I told her my name. She told me hers..............and talked about what she had done that morning like what cereal she ate and what time she woke up. She was so enthusiastic to talk about her family, her hobbies, and her pets. The worship team was walking onto the stage and I told her we had to start. She jumped up and when we started singing, she was sure she didn't miss one hand motion that Miss Kerry, did. (Miss Kerry made up hand motion to make the songs more fun.) I was amazed at how much she learned over the course of VBS, and she not only learned about how to tell others about Christ, but also how to trust God more.

Lauren: Lauren was the most silly but the most enthusiastic. She probably didn't sit out for anything that we did. I remember when I told my group to go play in the games rotation. In one of the games there was a collision. A girl was crying and no one really noticed except a few kids. Lauren was the one who took action. While the rest of the kids just watched the girl cry, she ran to me telling me what happened. Lauren may attack you with hugs when you don't expect her too but she is very caring and considerate to the people around her.

Faith: Probably the most timid of the group, Faith was my little helper. She held my bag, kept the girls in line when I wasn't watching, helped clean up the mess after snack, and much more. Faith kept everything organized. On the last day, the kids brought swimsuits for the slippin' slide. When they were changed all our stuff was a big pile of towels, sun block, bags, and clothing. Faith sat down next to the pile and folded the towels and clothes and made four neat piles of stuff. Wow. What kids can do without you telling them to.

So thats all folks. T-T-F-N!

The Really Big Guide to Almost Everything

So lately I've been thinking of all the thing I did't know about while I was trying to read a dictionary. There was stuff like a food made of dried coconut chunks and I reall wanted to learn about more random things like that. For a few weeks I wthought about a way to teach myself and my friends all these things without boring them to death. the result: The Really Big Guide to Almost Everything. This guide is a book that me and my friends can write. In fifth grade my teacher always said that is you write down facts you learn it quicker, so if I wrote down facts, I would learn them. When I finally think that I have learned enough I will stop and I will have a gigantic book full of random facts!
T-T-F-N

Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial

It took us a while to figure out where we were going to go on one day. We sat around doing nothing until noon. After much discussion we decided to go to the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial. I really don't know a ton of his history. We got to see a lot of his work, clothing, and even his cars!

We found out that Chiang Kai-Shek knew a lot of famous people. In this picture (from left to right) it shows Chiang Kai-Shek, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill .

After going through his exhibit we went to get some tea and walk around the garden nearby. We also got to go see a Taiwanese bookstore. Unfortunately the books were all in Mandarin . Since my brother wanted to go see the Salvador Dali exhibit in the memorial, we went back and he went in. My mom and I waited nearby inside the memorial. Suddenly me and my mom hear this noise. Tap.......tap.....tap........Boom! We go over to see what was happening and find out that it was the guards marching! We were seeing the changing of the guard! The men marched into the elevator. Everyone near us started to walk run up the stairs. Because we were bored and were very curious, we decided to go too. Even while we were running up the stairs, we could here a faint tap.......tap.......tap......tap. On the fourth floor the guards did this big thing where they change the guards from the top floor. And then they just sit there. For a loooong time. Without moving a muscle. We came back downstairs to find that my brother had been waiting for us for a long time. 

Das all!

T-T-F-N

Abraham Lincoln style Chiang Kai-Shek

Taipei Zoo

One of the other things we did at Taipei was go to the Zoo. There we saw various animals including flamingos, pandas, koalas, owls, monkeys, emus, giraffes and many others. One of the first places we went to there was  the nocturnal section. Many owls, raccoon, fish, and even monkeys.

The African animals were next and we saw these interesting birds, but I don't remember what they are called. (They were not emus) They had this blue head with a little red on it and this yellowish ting on its head.

After we saw this section we went to get some yummy iced tea from a little store in the zoo.There was a different section where they put a net below a bridge so if people fell off the bridge they would not go into the (maybe) hungry jaws of a crocodile. It was rather funny. My almost favorite part was seeing the Bengal tiger. NO tigers are not my favorite animal but it is my school's mascot so I was excited to see it.

Das all! Sorry it's so short!

T-T-F-N

Taiwan Places: Maokong Gondola

Another place we went to in Taiwan was the Maokong Gondola, which brought you above the mountains near Taipei. The view was so nice. You could see all the trees and little flowers. On the way up, you could see the mini valleys in between close hills. One had a family farm in it and on one of the roofs it said "Insect Valley" hmmmmmmmm. I wonder what they have a lot of in that valley.

Fun Fact: You could see Taipei 101 from the gondola!

 When we got to the top, we walked around. My dad had said before that there were various tea shops around, so we went looking for one. My mom entered one of the houses and met some tea people. From there I'm not really sure what happened, but my mom had fun and that's good. Then we went down the mountain again and went to a very yummy McDonalds nearby. After a good meal we took the MRT (Metro Rail Transit(Or something like that)) back.
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Taiwan Places: Taipei 101

So this last week, me and my family went to Taiwan. My dad was on a business trip so we didn't get to sight see with him a lot, so me my mom and my brother went to many places on our own. One of the first places we went was Taipei 101. In 2004 this building was the largest building in the world, but now it is only the second or third largest. I'm not sure. So that day we ate breakfast, my dad went to work, and we took a taxi there. There was a sign on there that said "101" in blue and green font.

Me in front of the strange 101 sign

When we went inside, we walked up to a person and asked him where we could get our tickets to get near the top. He said to go to the 5th floor. There we bought our tickets and waited in line to go in a really fast elevator. In the elevator, the ceiling lit up and strange music played. I bet that it's impossible to go up or down that elevator without having your ears get plugged. We were even instructed to swallow to stop the plugging. After a not so long elevator ride, we were on the 88th floor. Taipei 101 has 101 floors, but the highest we got was the 99th floor. But that's ok on the 88th floor, we saw all around Taipei. The audio tour talked about all sorts of things like the zoo, different bridges, and famous buildings. We also learned about the damper. The damper is a large ball that is suspended in the building to help it not be knocked over during an earthquake. I think it is the only damper shown to the public in a building.

The Damper

We also saw another exhibit that told us that the elevator we just took was the fastest in the world! It rushes up the building at a speed of 1010 meters per minute. Wow! No wonder our ears got plugged. After that we went up 3 flights of stairs to the 99th floor. It was really hard to breathe for me. It didn't have too great of a view, but it was cool. After all this fun we went to the basement and ate lunch. I didn't have a ton to eat, but I had tea with a type of tapioca called that our family calls boba. The first time I had boba was near my sister's school. My conclusion is that if you ever get the chance go to Taipei 101

Taipei 101

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Taiwan

Currently, me and my family are located in Taiwan. I like it. But it's really hot. Since everyone has one here, my mom bought me a sun umbrella. It actually comes in handy. Today we went to  Taipei 101. I dont know what place it takes in largest building but it was HHHHUUUUUUGE. My dad is at work right now but we're surviving without him. YYAAAAAAAAAA...................................................... T-T-F-N