Trip to Watermania

Watermania was pretty fun. I only stayed in the playing area( the place where they have waves every fifteen minutes), because it was the only pool that has a quite warm temperature. I liked riding on the waves on a board in the deep area( and on a board only, because I would choke on water everytime a new wave comes if I am not buoyant), and how I go up and down and up and down... I kept on falling off my board though, and get a taste of the salty water every few minutes( the water is salty for some reason).

I also went on to the slides. Well, I only went on to the red one because that's the only one my friend wants to go on. I went on both many times before, so it doesn't really matter to me. The red one was more twistier. I remember when I was in grade five, I went here with my other friend just for fun. I slid down before her, and after I fell into the warm pool at the bottom, I heard some sort of squeal. I looked back and saw this shadow within the slide moving downwards, the scream getting louder and louder. Then my friend burst through the mouth of the slide. I was laughing so hard!

Tomorrow is our field trip to Watermania! I hope my cold isn't going to get worse. The only way my mom let me go was after I told her that if I got cold, I'll just wash up and change and watch the other people for the rest of the time (or I can warm up in the hot tubs). I do think that my cold got a little better today.

I didn't go to the Halloween Dance today. I don't know why, but I just didn't feel like dressing up. Lots of people went, so my friend didn't get guilty of not going. Tomorrow is the day we dress up in school I think. We're not here, hooray!

This has got to be my shortest post ever, but I need to sleep earlier in order to not be late for school tomorrow!

Still not used to this "train"

This week just HAS to be named "Test week". We finished our fifth test of the week today, and I just remembered that we have ANOTHER science test tomorrow! It's on the parts of cells. Sigh. This is never going to end.

I'm planning to start on my science fair this weekend. Hopefully we have time to go and buy some bean plants at Superstore or somewhere. I'm probably going to use motor oil to represent the oil from oil spills, so I'll have to ask my dad for that. I'm scared to do anything on it though. I'm afraid that I might forget to record some valuable observation details, forget to water the plants, or mess up on some measurements. If I do mess up or end up missing a piece of information, maybe I can just make it up? :)

We presented our French dialogue today, and my friend and I both got 14/15 which was, okay. We were supposed to be introducing ourselves to each other at a party. We had to make some last minute changes because everybody else's dialogue was way shorter than ours. We crosses two parts out.

H1N1

Well it was a huge relief to finish all the tests today. We only had three. In English, we had to write another draft of an essay, which took up all the class except for the last ten minutes, when we had a fire drill.

My cold got worse today. I was glad to here on the announcement the difference between symptoms of a cold, and symptoms of swine flu, since it confirmed that I wasn't infected. For example, my enemy, the stuffy nose, was only found in colds. That was also sort of a bad news too. According to this, it won't be likely I'd get a cold without having this awful plug in my nose. I really hope my cold doesn't get worse after I go to watermania on Friday! I also read on the CBC website that a thirteen year old boy with no health problems, died of H1N1 within 48 hours. It first started out as minor cold symtoms, and even the doctor told his parents it was okay. That was lightning fast! From a cold to death in just two days. That is really scary.

So tired...

I spent all this time studying for all the tests tomorrow. And as predicted, we have another test: French. I'm starting to get really tired of this. I guess I'm not into the rhythm yet. I think I am losing a lot of sleep. I always feel very sleepy during math, and right now, my eyes could close any second. I can't sleep well these days anyways. I'm sick and I have a stuffy nose. What I hate most about getting sick is a stuffy nose. I get so annoyed, and I can't relax. I'm always trying to unplug it. If it weren't for nose problems, I'd be perfectly okay with getting a cold.

In P.E, we did different versions of dodge ball with a substitude. One version was, not really dodge ball, but we half to get our whole team on to the bench on the other team's side. In order to do that, we had to throw the ball to the person that is already on the bench, and if that person catches it, the person who threw the ball gets to go on the bench. If one person on the bench falls off, then everybody on the bench has to get off except the first person. I really liked this one. The other version is the old docter dodge ball.

Birthday Party

I went to Jennifer's birthday party! I almost wasn't allowed to go because I had a minor cold.

I arrived there late because of drawing class, and I got there just in time to eat. I had three pieces of cheese pizza, and some cheese bread( I love cheese!). Then we had a scavenger hunt. I got chosen as one of the team leaders, and Janet and Sharon were on my team. We had to find different things that Jennifer and Moon Young hid. My team was second place for the first round, and then Sharon had to leave for drawing class before the second round. Moon Young helped us by giving hints since my team was down by one person, and we won. I got a white out! Now I can stop borrowing from my friends.

The other people played truth-or-dare, while I sat out along with another friend. I do not like this game. We watched them play it, and one person got dared to wear a mickey mouse hat while running down the block waving a handkerchief, and someone else was dared to wear a princess crown and run down the block singing "I'm a little princess". The others were videotaping it on their cell phones.

After that, we mostly talked and played Wii. We were playing Super-Smash Brawl or something, and I am really bad at these games. I'm usually the second last person or the one who loses.

Today was fun. At least I got to go!
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Lesson 2 Family Reflections

What are your family goals? Is there anything you would like to accomplish together?

One goal is to keep the space where we live clean and tidy, and to be healthy. We can accomplish being healthy together, by reminding each other to exercise everyday.

Unlucky day...

I arrived early at the skating competition to watch other people from my club skate. I was pretty confident because of how I skated yesterday, but still very nervous. When it was my group's turn, I stepped on to the ice with everybody else, and did warm-up. Things actually went pretty well. I landed all of my jumps excepted double lutz, and did good spins. I was fourth to skate in the group so after warm-up, my coach and I waited .

Then it was my turn to perform. I started, did a good spin at the beginning, but that was all. I fell on every single jump except an axle and a double toe at the end (I know I probably sound like I'm talking jibber-jabber, but these are all jump names). I just couldn't stay standing! Of all the times I could of messed up, I did it at competition. My coach told me that it looked like I skated with someone else's legs. I've never skated like this for a long time. My mom told me it was the first time she's seen me smile, and even though I fell so many times. I didn't even notice. My coach told me that she didn't see anything wrong, but my muscles just didn't do what I told them to do.

I felt really bad afterwards. We had to wait until the results came out. When they did, I checked the list from bottom up. I actually didn't come last. I came fifth out of nine people. Exactly in the middle. Oh wow. That was WAY better than I expected.

Confusions...sigh

I've got another mix-up today. I think that I already said somewhere in here that this always happens to me.

I thought we had a skating simulation today. Simulations are almost competition like except there's no competition (it's like a dress rehearsal for a real competition). I left extra early, and when I got there, no one else is there except for the people who were supposed to be skating at that time. My coach wondered why I was here so early, and I found out that the simulation was supposed to be NEXT week. I ended up having to wait for an hour and a half, which was a waste of time, but I got to watch the seniors skate (the seniors are higher leveled skaters, and it doesn't necessarily mean older).

I do have a skating competition tomorrow though. I did the best solo I have ever done for a long time today at practice, up until the last fifteen seconds of music. I completely collapsed and kind of flopped like jelly on my last jump and spin because I was so exhausted. I hope I'll be okay tomorrow!

Tests, tests, tests...

Next week on Tuesday, there will be four tests in total for Synergy! For Social Studies, we have to memorize where each country is in Europe, and for science, the parts of a microscope. We may have a vocabulary quiz for English, and I'll have to live through the drawing test for Applied Skills (though I'm not that concerned for that). How can this be even possible?

I'm glad that tomorrow is a Pro-D day, because I get more time to study. My guess is that we will have a French test next week as well though. What luck. There really is no break to highschool is there? You get homework every single day that is impossible to finish, and tests to study for every other week. Or maybe it's just because we're in Synergy.
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Lesson 2 extensions:

Smart is an acronym for specific, measurable, action oriented, reasonable, timely.

My Goals:

Ace science and socials,
Don't have any late assignments,
Don't fail science fair,
Make new friends at school.

My Smart goal:

Be chosen to take part in the next level of science fair after the science fair in Feburary.

Handball is fun

Today was the last day we play handball for P.E, which is sad because handball is just starting to get fun. I actually scored a goal today. The bad part is, I had to be goalie. I don't mind if I'm good or okay at it, but I really suck at defending the goal (I like being defence though). I've known that since I started playing sports, and tried to avoid it as much as possible. Today, I got taken down with one shot. There were only four people on our team, and I got passed to quite a lot. I liked catching the ball. It makes me feel useful on the team, and not just dead weight.

I'm starting to get worried about the science fair. I'm going back to China during winer vacation, and I'm doing an experiment with plants. Who will take care of the plants and observe them while I'm gone? Maybe I'll do the experiment before or after that time, because I'm using bean plants, and according to my dad, they grow really fast.

Writer's Festival

We went to the Writer's Festival today, and it was really fun! We went with some other classes too, and so some of our friends came along as well.

I really liked listening to the two writers talk. I only remember one author's name (Matthew Skelton), because the other woman writer had a really complicated Japanese sounding name. This event got me interested in these two books:
Endymion Spring, and Cirrus Flux.

I liked how Matthew Skelton described his "evil" big sister. He told us about a time when he was five and his sister was eight. In the middle of the night, his sister woke him up and told him that burglers were in the house. She made him hide downstairs while she was going to "check" on their mom and dad. He hid there all night before he realized in the morning that his sister had gone to bed.

I also liked the part when someone asked the writers what their least favourite books were, and they both said Twilight! Everybody was laughing. I personally don't mind Twilight that much, but I just read the first and fourth book, and didn't bother reading the rest.
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Lesson 1 Family reflections:
If someone would describe our family character they would probably say hardworking, and maybe stubborn. The character qualities high on our family list is honesty.

Newspapers

Today was pretty good. I finished all my homework for French, and that was pretty much all I had. One homework I didn't get was science. Somehow, one of the graphs just didn't make any sense. Apparently, the more the object weighed, the less it was in litres. Oh well.

Since the skytrain opened, my mom has been taking it to work. Everyday, some people would give out The Province and The Vancouver Sun newspapers to her. Right now, we've got a ton. Every night she would tell me of an interesting topic, and make me read it. I've realized that there were a lot of news on assaults on women and young girls. The news pretty much goes the same way: a guy beats someone up, and then they give a description of the person. It's kind of freaky, especially when most of the incidents are so close by. Don't those people have better things to do with their lives?

Go-Extensions

Extensions lesson 1:

1) Be proactive----D, c
2) Begin with end in mind----G, b
3) Put first things first----C, g
4) Think win-win----B, e
5) Seek first to understand, then to be understood----F, f
6) Synergize----A, d
7) Sharpen the saw----E, a
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Finally, I know how to do the extensions for the Go Program.

For some reason, my mom decided to make dinner real early today, and we ate at around 6:30. We usually eat at 8:45.

I stayed home for the whole day except to go to drawing class, and wished that today would be more exciting. I wish we could of went out to eat, or stayed at friends' houses to play. The good thing is that my dad bought chips at Costco, which we rarely ever do. The bad thing is, my parents already finished up a good chunk of it.

A Street View

My mom just showed me something on the web. It was a street view from Google. It takes pictures of houses and the neighbourhood from the street. Apparently there was a Google vehicle that comes around once in awhile and takes pictures. It's really cool. When you find the place you want, you drag this tiny human icon to the exact place you want to see (but you have to drag the icon on to a street). You can see people that were around when they took the pictures, but their eyes were covered with black. I could see everything almost like I was there. You can zoom in and see in almost perfect detail (if you zoom in too close, things become blurry).

My mom showed me the area that we're going to move to, but since Langara Gardens is a huge place, we can't go inside and see the middle of the block since there is no street in there. My mom can't wait to move, and I really want to live closer to the school and get there faster so I can do my homework sooner. I tried to convince my friend to live there too. She thought it would be a good idea because she won't have to pick up her sister from school anymore. It's so close she can just walk home by herself. I hope someone would go there with me.

Blogging in late night/ early morning

I'm writing so late these days, because I had a skating class, and my mom used the computer right afterwards. I have no homework due on Monday since it's a day two, so it is quite relaxing.

I don't have violin class this week, because my teacher is on some kind of vacation. Thankfully, because I didn't really have time to practice. My only class tomorrow... or should I say today, is ballet, which is at 5:00 pm. I get to sleep in!

My mom is busy reading a terms-of-agreement sheet for the place we are going to move to close to my birthday. It's right beside our school. It is still an apartment though, but way bigger than the one we have now. I'm really excited to move, but I can't walk home with my friends anymore.

I really want to go to sleep now...

Homework Finito!

Finally! I finished my science fair proposal and my English good copy. We didn't have any homework today.

I'm starting to really like handball. People are actually passing to me, and our team is always the strongest! Now I like day 2's way better, because the only class that gives homework is French. For applied skills, I can't find the extensions button on the CD for Go, so I don't know what the questions were. I saw the button on the teacher's version, but it isn't on mine. It only has Learning Outcome, Video, Family Reflections, and Main Menu.

I didn't go to the Mixer and Dance because most of my friends aren't going. In the middle of walking home, my friend said she felt guilty for not going because probably not many grade 8s are going to show up (at least when we left, all the people in the cafeteria were grade 12s). We decided to go home in the end. We flipped a coin and it told us to go, but we were too lazy to walk back.

Homework

I've got a list of science fair project topics that I can choose from. It doesn't matter to me which one I do, but the problem is that our science teacher doesn't want us to do projects that she has seen a million times before, and I don't know which ones she is talking about! I currently have one that I think might be okay.

For the English essay, I finished the draft today so I can start on the good copy tomorrow. No worries (I hope)!

I'm starting to get used to highschool. I can remember where all my classes are, and can pretty much keep up with the homework and the schedules. I'm quite happy! At the beginning of the year, I thought I would take the whole year just to not get lost trying to find my classrooms. I guess highschool is actually okay!

Singing in the Rain

My mom is taking a bath right now, but since I finished most of my homework, I can watch the movie "Singing in the Rain" with her today! It is such a good movie. Every year in elementary at the end of the year, our music teacher would watch it with us. I remember laughing so hard each time because it's so funny. I don't know why, but I want to watch it again this year, so I made my dad download it. I got my mom excited for watching it too, and I can't wait to show it to her.

Unfortunately, my dad can't make it for the movie, because he is working overtime today. Their company always do that for some reason now.

I still can't come up with a science fair project. This is so frustrating.

Books books books...

Today is Thanksgiving, but we didn't do anything special, like eating turkey or even invite any friends over. The only times we had turkey dinner on Thanksgiving, is when someone invites us to their house. The only thing I did today however, was homework.

I'm starting to read books for the Independent Reading Program, and almost finished a book today. It was called the Pretties. I didn't read the first book in the series, Uglies, because I couldn't find it in the library the other day. It was a pretty good book. I haven't read books that interested me for a long time, and it felt good to be in to a book again. In summer vacation, my parents never took me to the library, and I was stuck with reading a bunch of Chinese books and old English books such as "David Copperfield". Since "David Copperfield" was a classic, it should be very good, but I can just fall asleep reading it.

I'm starting to love books all over again!

So much homework

I forgot to watch the We Day show! I had to go to ballet lesson at that time.

My cousin came over today, and they're still here, watching a Transformers movie. Well I have to admit, I am kind of interested in it as well. I still have so much homework, including my science fair proposal. I still have no idea what I'm going to do! Our teacher said to do something that interests us. I am interested in animals, but I don't have any animals to experiment with. Maybe something on plants, but that doesn't interest me that much. Well, I've got until friday to think about it.

For once, we have no homework for English. I'll work on the map tomorrow for socials, and as for the Spongebob drawing, I blame Spongebob for this homework!

Yay long weekend!

I didn't have time yesterday to write, since I came home so late from skating and had to get ready for the violin lesson next day.

I just came home from the Langara Gardens. My mom and dad were taking a look at the rooms they had to rent. They've pretty much given up trying to look for a decent and low priced house around these places. They kept on telling me that if it weren't for me wanting to go to this school, they would have gone to Whiterock.

I thought the rooms that Langara provides was pretty good. They have four swimming pools (one indoor and three outdoor), and a small library. Well you couldn't exactly call that a library, because you don't sign out the books. You just take whatever you want to read and return it as soon as possible. You can also donate books of your own to that library. They also have a fitness room.

My parents thought it was pretty decent too, so we might move there during the next few months. We're going back to China this Christmas, so if we want to move, we have to do so before then.

The long run

We ran the Langara Golf Course today, and it was actually okay (towards the end anyway). I was so tired my legs worked machanically. I didn't need to tell them anything and they just put one foot in front of the other all by themselves. I couldn't feel anything anymore. My time was 15:37, which was okay. I ran all the way and was the first girl. Well I sort of ran all the way. Since no body was in sight towards the end, I stoped occationally to look at the "You are here" signs to make sure I didn't go on the wrong path. Someone told me that a grade eight guy from another class got around 11-12 minutes! What did they eat?

Thank goodness I don't have any skating classes today, or my legs would be like jelly right now!

So much to do

Finally! My friend showed me how to put the grid on here. It deals with the html stuff on gadgets.

I'm getting worried. Tomorrow, I have to run the Langara Golf Course. Apparently, it is around seven and a half laps around the track (one round is 400 metres). What if i do really bad? My friends all say it is better than running the six laps because it is not so repetitive. I'm getting ready for a really painful day.

Why does the Synergy class give so much homework? I know it's supposed to be harder than regular classes, but I barely have any time for doing things that I want to do. I don't even have time to take breaks or relax. It's always homework after homework, I finished this, now I have to start that. It is starting to get really tiresome. The only subject I like, which is fun and gives no homework, is fine arts. We're learning guitar!

Losing is the Key to Winning!

Hooray! Tomorrow, I can wake up at 8:30 am because it is collaborative planning for the teachers, so school starts at 10:00 am.

I finished my homework quickly today, so I could play Stratego with my dad (of course I knew I would never win). There were two teams, and I would always pick the ice one (the other one is fire). I was so scared to move my pieces, as I know he always had a strategy up his sleeves since he's played similar games many times before. I did have some tricks too, but he outsmarted all of them. He kept on getting me cornered, and by the time I knew it was hopeless, I just gave up my pieces to him. I know I will be losing for a long time, but I am going to learned a lot of new strategies each time I play. By the time I challenge my mom or my cousin, they won't stand a chance!

The Walk Home

Today was a normal day, except my friends sister apparently isn't normal. According to her, she is normal when she wants to walk home, but not normal when she doesn't.

I was waiting for my friend to get her sister, and I stayed there for about five minutes. I ran inside to see what was taking her so long. Well, her sister wouldn't go home unless we trade her something. We dragged her by the arms, telling her that if she walk home, she will get extra T.V time and other things to convince her, but it just didn't work.

Somehow, we started talking about imaginary friends. She wanted us to guess the name of her imaginary friend. My fried told her that if we guess it right, she will go home and she agreed. We took about half the way home trying to guess it, and in the end we did (it was Lizzy). Because of that, I was home ten minutes later than usual. What ever I said about her sister being better, I take it back!

This always happens...

What a confusing day! At least at the start it was. We had a ballet rehearsal this morning, preparing for the performance tonignt. Our teacher told us to meet at Micheal J. Fox Theatre at 4:00 pm to rehearse on the stage.

I went straight to drawing class afterwards, and left kind of late to go and get ready for the performance, so we rushed so much, and I thought I would completely miss the rehearsal and the teacher would be so mad at me. It was almost five when we got there and I ran inside, but neither the teacher or the other students were to be seen. It turned out our teacher told us the wrong time, and the ones who arrived early, were inside the theatre watching others perform! So I rushed for nothing! I was also kind of relieved. All went well afterwards.

Moon Festival

Well I forgot to write yesterday. I still have got no idea how to do the chart!

I ran six laps yesterday around the track for P.E and got so tired! Well my time was okay. I got around 12:40 minutes without stopping. I forgot the exact time because by brain couldn't work properly afterwards.

My uncle came over today along with my cousins. One cousin was a nine-year-old boy, and the other is a two-year-old little girl. They came hear to celebrate Moon Festival. My cousin brought the Stratego game, and we played. First, I set up the game on my side, and as soon as we started playing, I noticed something wrong; I trapped my second best piece by surrounding it with traps! I demanded to start over. The second time I trapped another of my piece again, but that piece wasn't worth that much, so it was okay. I managed to win this round.

I have a ballet performance tomorrow, and my parents told me we might buy the game too!

So stressed...

Mr.Olson told us to do a Go Program workbook. It was about how to set goals, describe character, etc. He also told us to add a checklist to our blog. I have got no idea how to do that. My mom and dad both tried dealing with this HTML thing (they're both computer engineers), but nothing really worked out. I only did the two online quizzes, since I don’t really get the workbook. I have so much homework today! I even have a French test tomorrow! I can’t even spell all of the numbers!

I am in fact, actually looking forward to a ballet performance on Sunday, I don’t know why. I usually hate ballet.