©2012 BY Dobbie 18. ALL RIGHTS Reserved. ™ ®

We were given an assignment by Mr. Humphrey to write about a quote made by Amon Bronson:

“Good books, like good friends, are few and chosen; the more select, the more enjoyable”

I looked at this quote and thought for a while, “Good books, like good friends, are few and chosen; the more select, the more enjoyable.” Have I gotten many friends or am I very selective for my friends? I do love reading books, but I read the books that I feel like. But when I think about the good books, which I really like, I would read it over again and again; and every time you re-read your favorite book, you can find more details and lines that you like. I would never throw away the books that I like, I will keep them as long as I could. So as I speak, I do agree with the quote, because it is hard to find real friendship, once you find one you will treasure it just like a good book which can give you meaningful information, knowledge, good reflection and memories.

You can read many books but only those good ones you will remember, you will think about, and you will talk about. You can have many friends but only those good ones you will share with, you will care of, you will talk to and you will give support to. A true friend is a person who is loyal to you and truth to you; a true friend is someone who cares for you. For me, a good book has to have a good friendship in it. Every time I read a good book, I try to read it over and over again because I want to know the message the author is trying to send. When I read it over and over again, it reminds me of a friend, because every book has a personality and every person has a personality. Sometimes it’s unique, sometimes it’s cheerful and others might be sad.

Good books are like nutrition, they make your mind stronger, broadens your imagination and makes you smart by exploring new vocabulary. Good books have tense moments just like your good friends, you might have arguments or debating but normally it would calm down and everything will be sorted out. Books have perspective and so do friends. Good books can support you and it can help you to learn. Books have helped my writing, it has improved ever since I started reading advanced books. Good friends also help you with your learning, they encourage you and try their best to help you to strive to your goals. When you have many good books, you can enjoy reading way more than other people. Books can boost your creativity and influence the language you speak and how you think. Books to me are a major influence in my life and my thinking, just like my good friends.

Some people may have different opinions about the quote, but I agree with it. Good books are like good friends they give you words of wisdom and knowledge which you can nurture for eternity. Only great books can make you have a mixed feeling of emotions, joy, sadness or it might leave you in tears. When you finish a book, it feels like that all the great experiences has flushed into your body. You want to read it again and experience the whole thing again and be refreshed what you have read. When you are reading a good book it’s like you are in your own world, every page you turn is a new adventure, sometimes you even forget that you are reading a book. When you are reading a good book you are trying to simulate what the character is experiencing! Good books are just like good friends.

{ 0 comments }

It was a real legendary trip for me to take part of this school camp. My school organized this annual camp with a company called Dragonfly to bring all the Grade 6 students to Zhaoqing, in southern part of China. We spent 4 days and 3 nights there and it was my first time traveled outside of Hong Kong without my parents.

The purpose of the trip was to improve our personal development and leadership skills; to take action and participate adventure sports; to understand the local community and culture; and to strengthen our concept of environmental awareness and sustainability. From this whole idea of camping, we learn to plan, we get to experience and we then reflect.

On the day of November 27, all the Grade 6 students arrived at school ready to depart to Zhaoqing, China. Everyone had his or her suitcase and day bag ready to board the bus; obviously we were very excited for the adventure. We were separated into different color groups – Green, Blue, Orange, Yellow and Red. I was in the Green group headed by Ms. Kinsinger. I was so happy because Ms. Kinsinger is a very nice teacher and cares for her students. She is a very fun teacher and you would never feel bored with her. Anyway, we quickly got on to the bus after putting our suitcases into the luggage compartment.

So, we departed from our school at 8:30am. It was raining. We sat on the bus for about one and half hour, we then reached to the Shenzhen-Hong Kong border. It wasn’t packed as I thought it would be. We then went through the customs and let the immigration officers checked our passport documents. It took quite a while. After that, we got on to our same bus and continue our journey. It took another 4 hours before we reached to our destination – Zhaoqing. We then had to take a ferry to get to our resort called Nine Dragon Lake Resort. Talking about the ferry, it was a very old and noisy ferry but I didn’t mind. The captain was sailing the ferry like it was a drift car.

It took no time we reached to the resort, we carried our suitcases and we walked up to the lobby of the hotel. Everyone was chatting about the subjects they talked about on the bus. I felt that the bus was boring but I did talk to other people just to keep me going. We were then introduced to our Dragonfly staff, my Green Group’s instructor was Fernando who was Spanish, he was very friendly. My group mate Mackenzie and I know how to speak a bit of Spanish so we spoke some Spanish with Fernando.

When we were at the lobby we did some games, and then we went to check out our rooms. Kai and Riley shared a room with me; we had a big room on the top floor! We then left our room and  the teachers went through the schedule with us for the day. We were supposed to arrive a bit earlier but the bus was late. So our group missed out the activity for ink stone carvings. For the evening, we had dinner at a fancy restaurant – Dynasty and the food was quite good. We all enjoyed it but there could have been more food.

After the dinner, we had the DF Challenge. We had to do a bunch of tasks made by the Dragonfly instructors. We had to make a group of 6; I was in a group with Riley, Tom, Roark, Stephen and Kai. We named our group the “Wasabis”, which I thought was creative since we were in the green group. We made team chant and we completed many tasks created by Dragonfly. Overall we came 3rd in the grade that I was proud of. After we had our debriefing we went to our rooms, we did our nightly routines and went to sleep. I couldn’t go to sleep till 11 PM. Sum up for the day, it was actually quite boring for me since the bus ride was super long and we were told that it would be raining the whole time till the day we leave. I was a bit disappointed, I thought that the bus ride could have been more enjoyable and we could have arrived earlier so we could do more. But I have learnt how to be patience!

On Day 2 morning, my roommates and I were woken up by my watch alarm, which was set at 6 AM. We got ready for the day like brushing our teeth, getting ready our day bags and changing to new clothes. We were the second room group to be out of our beds; by the time we were out it was 6:30. We had to be out by 7 AM so it was a relief that we didn’t sleep in, because when you sleep in it is so embarrassing. When everyone in the Green Group was present we headed to our target – “breakfast”. I was so hungry that I could eat a horse. When we arrived at the dinning hall we sat down and looked at the food. We weren’t really amazed on how good the food looked; my table didn’t eat that much food though. I ate some food, which was filling so I had energy for the day because I knew that the day would be a lengthy day.

After breakfast, we went to a room where we learnt to make our own paper. In fact, paper was invented in China during the period of Emperor Wu between 140 BC and 86 BC, even thought the word paper is come from Egypt “Papyrus”. Anyway, the set up in the room was like that there were cut up pieces of paper, but we had to rip it up even more, I wasn’t really looking forward to that. So we were divided into groups and started ripping. After the process, we put some water into the ripped paper in a plastic bowl and we went to the local Paper factory in Zhaoqing.I had never been to a paper factory so I was looking forward to it.

When we were in the factory the smell was revolting, but everyone bared with it and we listened to the counselor. The counselor explained the process of making paper in Zhaoqing and how it was made without using chemicals which ordinary paper does use. When we got out of the paper factory we went back to the bus and had waited, we had some delicious granola bars and apples, and we devoured everything with no guilt. We went back to camp and continued making our paper. Most people’s paper were really wet (including mine) because we either put too much paper or we didn’t do a good job at oozing the water out. I enjoyed this activity because I got to get my hands wet, shred paper and make my own paper out of RECYCLED paper – “YES! environmental awareness and sustainability”. It was extravagant!

Next, we went to eat lunch. THERE WAS SO MUCH FOOD! My eye suddenly looked much bigger! We pretty much attacked the food. Being polite, I waited for everyone to be done and then I would take some food, sometimes I made the wrong decision because there was not much food left. In my opinion the food was the second worst thing about camp because I don’t enjoy chinese food that much. The worst thing in camp was the bus ride, it took forever! I said to myself that “Learn to be patience!”

Since the blue group didn’t do their cableway hike on the first day, the Green group did a hike first and let the Blue group did the cableway hike. We walked for a long time, the trails were very slippery. I slipped and fell but no damage was done. We walked up hills and hiked on rocky floors, it was a bit dangerous but quite fun. It was a real adventure! I talked to my friends Stephen and Mackenzie and sang some songs. We arrived at a cemetery and paid respect to the fallen one, there was money and Fernando said if you ever stole the money you would have bad luck forever. The feeling in the cemetery was very solem and to be honest I did not like those occasions. We went somewhere up in a hill and played some games like Splat which was so fun. I am really good at Splat. Next, we went on the Cableway hike where we walked on the wire and had to use a hook to hold on. I was very scared but boy did I enjoy it. It was fantastic!

For the evening, we had the BBQ. We cooked fish balls, meatballs, corn and basically meat. The food was pre-cooked so we didn’t need to worry too much about raw food. After my stomach was full, we headed back to the hotel for lights out. I felt that the BBQ was a highlight for the day because we got to talk about the day and to tell stories even though time did fly by. I really enjoyed it, it was time to get to know your friends better. I treasured the moment I had with my teachers and school friends. The memory would keep forever.

After the beautiful BBQ, we were back in the rooms, brushed our teeth and settled in for bed. Right before the sleep train was leaving the station, I reflected on the day we had: rain, paper, cable hike and BBQ. In my mind I felt that this day was way better than the previous one because it was move-active-packed and by a mile long way more exciting. Right around then the train had left the station and I was settling in for the long journey.

On Day 3 – the final full day at Zhaoqing, I was woke up by my watch alarm. I said in my breath “Here we go again”. We got everything ready and went out to the lobby. No rain which was a relief. As soon as everybody in the Green group was at the lobby we embarked on our trip to breakfast. There was the usual as the previous day but this day I wasn’t hungry. I felt that I had no erge to eat, I tried to forget that erge and it worked. Our first activity was Chinese Painting, just to tell you I’m no friend with Chinese Painting because I am not good in art. The master was there to teach us two paintings, she looked extremely experienced. We started off with painting a Crane we had to follow her steps which she promised us would lead to success. We followed and it looked amazing. The other painting was the lake in Zhaoqing,I followed her instructions but I made a huge mistake with painting a temple and somehow she helped me cover it up and made it look good. I thought that my painting was bad, at least I tried my best. But I do pay my respect to Chinese painting, eventhough I am not a fan, because Chinese painting is one of the oldest continuous artistic traditions in the world. It is an important part for Chinese culture.

The last activity of the trip was the best: “The Great Race”. After we boarded the bus, I had never felt so excited. When we arrived we were put into groups and given instructions, I do admit I wasn’t listening because the adrenaline was flowing in my body. We had an hour to get all the questions answered, we weren’t allowed to run so we speed walked. If we spent 5 minutes or more on one question we would skip and come back to it later. We skipped some questions but it didn’t matter since those were the ones never found by any contestant. We arrived first and I felt proud because we put lots of hard work and it paid off because later we found out that we came 2nd out of the whole grade with 95 points.

After our dinner,  we had our fun camp fire. We were singing and dancing away, then the night ended there. We went back to sleep and I reflected again: No rain, paintings, adrenaline, excitement, racing, fire and second….

…..we woke up to a knock from a teacher. It was already another brand new day. We quickly packed and got ready for breakfast, we cleared everything and left the room for the last time. Same breakfast and same feeling. We boarded the ferry and went to the departing area, we boarded the bus and sat down; and headed back to the homeland.

This was a LEGENDARY trip, I couldn’t say anything more.

I made a good friendship with my group counselor Fernando, we made a good connection because we knew Spanish and we followed sports which Spaniards love. I have no contact details with him which is sad, I really wanted to stay in touch but it doesn’t matter because I know somehow I will find him. Fernando was a guy who really cared for his students and thats why I like him. I want to meet him again someday.

During this trip I felt that I was a risk taker because I tried new things, I believed in myself that I could accomplish it. For example Chinese Painting, I am no artist but I tried my best and it worked. I had never tried Chinese Painting but I tried. Another example is trying new food from Zhaoqing, at first I was very optimistic about eating the local food but then when I tried it the flavors were amazing. I was also caring, when my friend slipped I went straight to him and asked if he was OK. A different example was when we were eating breakfast, lunch or dinner I would wait for my turn to take the food and I used good table manners.

My favorite part about camp was the Great Race, I felt that it was really competitive and we got to see Zhaoqing as a whole. We were basically like tourists walking around snapping photos, I LOVED it. My least favorite part was the bus ride, it took 7 hours to get to Zhaoqing and even longer to get back to Hong Kong. There was barely any entertainment on the bus which was quite annoying, but again – “Be patient!”

To conclude, this was a amazing trip with some setbacks like the rain but no one moaned about it, which was good because we kept a positive attitude. I thought that everything went well, but I wish we could have stayed longer. Zhaoqing is a great place to go camping and I do recommend it to people.

If you have read this whole post, I am applauding you because I think it is bit long. But I hope you have enjoyed it.

I have one last thing to say: WHAT A TRIP!

{ 1 comment }

For the past 3 days 32 people who were aged 17- 30 came to our school. They were part of an organization called the Young Americans. The Young Americans specialize in performing arts such as drama, singing, dancing and literacy. They worked with us to create a performance within 3 days. I thought that it was impossible but boy was I wrong.

On the first day we arrived at the LLAC the Young Americans were really pumped up and had great attitude. I thought that they would look jet lagged because they arrived the day before. When we sat in our seats, they introduced themselves. Me and my best friend Riley were talking to a Young American named Sam Focer, he was very kind, very open minded and very fun. As soon as everyone became quiet the Young Americans started a performance. Their first performance was the Witch Doctor, we were amazed how they could perform. I thought it was really coordinated and it took very hard work to make what it looks like. They were doing all these dance moves and it was amazing, everyone was clapping and cheering. When they finished we all stood up and were clapping, everyone loved it. Then one of the Young Americans went on the microphone and told us that we would have to learnt that within 10 minutes. He continued saying we have to go and find a Young American and learn the moves with them. Everyone thought that we wouldn’t be able to do it because the quality was so good. After, they taught the moves we went on stage and we danced with the music. The Young Americans told us that we totally nailed it. We learnt a couple of songs they were Don’t Stop Believing, Let It Be and Hey Jude. We practiced that we were separated into groups and we learnt it. When we sang I thought that we were awesome. I felt that I became more confident already and I thought that I could do it. I was really exhausted after the first day because of all the movement. But I had a energy boost after we had some snacks for recess, the food there were delicious. Everyone devoured the food like a pack of wolves.

The second day, we practiced all of the ones we learnt the previous day. Then we learnt the Happiness song, it was very enjoyable. Next, the boys were split into two groups. One group was called the Ghostbuster and the other one was the Disco Boys. I was in the Disco Boys group, I thought they were way better then the Ghostbusters. The Disco Boys learnt John Travolta’s disco dance in Saturday Night Fever, I loved it. We were dancing so good the Young Americans said we had no mistakes. The only thing the Young Americans told us to do better was to enter the stage more out-going, more cool way. We practiced and practiced everyone loved it. We started to practice dancing to this Rock song one of the Young Americans were singing. I felt that it was my favorite part. We had to shake a lot but we didn’t do a lot  of moving around type. We later watched 12 students sing solos of Disney Songs. They were quite good.

Later we came back from Lunch, we sat down in our chairs and the Young Americans performed the Circle Of Life from the Lion King. They said we would have to learn that, we did and we really good. It was actually very complicated to learn but we were really good and had no problems at all. That was our finale for our big performance. We practiced everything from the top and had no problems at all, I really was amazed we made a clean run through.

The third day, we just ran through it all over again. But we had some  activities we did in between like writing poems when listening to music and drawing pictures when listening to a certain song. We shared the art and described it.

When performance night fell, everyone was there. Parents, teachers etc. We did everything perfectly, no mistakes. But when I was doing the Disco dance I was elbowed in the face by accident and my mouth started to bleed a bit. It wasn’t nice. I just lived with it and went through the whole thing. When we finished we said our Thank You, good -bye to the Young Americans. We all missed them, some students even cried because the Young Americans had been so good friends.

I built a very strong friendship with Sam, he was extremely nice to me. Another person I grew a strong friendship with was Yuta, he was always encouraging me to sing and dance more and more. He was my favorite Young American out of all. I’m trying to find his contact details so I can keep in touch with him! The skills I developed from the Young Americans were being more confident, dancing, choral singing, doing solos. I really learnt a lot from the Young Americans  for example being enthusiastic about performing and not being scared to make a mistake on the stage. The most important thing I learnt was being confident and saying that I can do it.

To conclude, I felt that these Young Americans are a good organization to make kids more confident and enthusiastic about performing. I now feel confident and I now want to go on the stage more! I made good friendships and I learnt a bunch of skills that I never knew I could do before.

I wish that it was longer!

{ 0 comments }

It has been one month into Grade 6 and I can already feel how great this school year will be! I am in 6D, the name of our class is the 6D Dobbies. My homeroom teacher is Mr Humphrey, he is a great teacher. Mr Humphrey is a New Zealander so I am sure he will be very kind through out the school year. Speaking about Dobbies, Dobbies represent braveness and loyalty so I think that really represents my class.

I’ve made many new friends in my class, this school year we have 2 new students : Alician and Mackenzie. They are both really nice and caring. I am very excited for this year because it will be a very challenging year with the PYP exhibition in April, the ISA test in October and so on. But this will also mean more work and working harder which I am fine with. The more older you get the tougher it becomes! It will also be fun because we have Grade 6 camp in Zhaoqing which will be on November 27th to November 30th. I am very excited.

I will try my best to get a very successful year this year. What ever Grade 6 throws at me I will be ready.

{ 1 comment }

Four weeks ago my class started a math project. We started drawing a floor plan which was a scale of 40 by 30 meters. We could build anything we wanted e.g House, park, hotel or a race track. When we drew the floor plan we had to label the area and color the areas. Ms. Cahusac wanted us to fill the whole paper. Everyone finished very fast so we could get to the main part of building the model. To build the model we used a software called Minecraft, many students in my class already were playing this software already. But some students didn’t know how to play so we had a whole period to help them learn. After everyone learnt how to use Minecraft we started building. I built a racing track with the spectator seats, VIP box, shops, car parks etc. It took me a long time to finish the building. When I was building I was really behind but then I focused and got the job done. I used different types of materials like diamond, ores, wood etc.

The reason that we chose to use Minecraft because it’s a educational software which could be used for different purposes like math, problem solving. You could build anything of your imagination and be very creative with it. It provides you with different materials like iron, gold, diamond, lapis lazuli, wood, bricks etc. It makes you think logically and teaches you to use basic computer skills. You can work with other people if you have a real account, on multiplayer servers. When you work with other to achieve a objective that is called team work.

Here is my floor plan and my tour! Hope you enjoy!

{ 0 comments }

The present Unit of Inquiry I am learning at school is about “The Human Body” which is one of the transdisciplinary themes for “Who We Are”. We’re learning how the body goes through different changes through our lives such as when you are born, making your first step, coming to puberty, becoming an adult, getting old, etc. The lines of inquiry are “The changes that occur in the human body”; “Factors that cause our bodies to change” and “Actions that affect personal well being”. We have been learning the terminology of the different parts of the body like body systems, organs, bones, muscles etc. We must understand the structures of a human body and also be able to identify the major organs before we can look further through the changes of a human body.

During class time, we are watching a documentary on how our body changes through life, the video lasts for 2 hours. It’s starting to become very interesting. We have been investigating for some parts of the body on a website called Anatomy Arcade. We learnt about the muscles and bones by playing the games Poke-A-Muscle and Whack-A-Bone. They’re really fun games and I made it to level 2 on both of them. By playing, we learn it’s a super fun game. We also learnt some information from a booklet my teacher gave us. It contained worksheets on the body systems such as your eye, your bones, your body muscles, your endocrine…etc., which we have to work on them. I have done about half of the booklet and I am now on the reproductive system. There are some interesting facts that I would like to share with you about human body, which I never knew before:

-Boys have lesser taste buds than girls

-Your brain cannot feel any pain

- Your ears produce more earwax when you are afraid

-The moment you die, some cells are still alive. These cells can stay alive for some time; and these live cells can keep your hair and nails growing until the cells die.

- Eating too much food will make your hearing worse

I will very soon start doing independent studies about the human body that I am most interested about. I’m going to pick the topic on body hair for my independent inquiry. The growth of our body hair changes our different parts of body throughout our life and because that happens to everyone and I want to learn more about it. It interests me a lot because I want to find out:

1.Why does the body hair change?

2. When your body hair changes, is it a benefit or a disadvantage to your body?

3. How do these changes affect you on your daily life?

4.Which change is the most significant out of all?

At the end of my independent studies, I will use the programme “Keynote” to make a presentation on how the body hair changes throughout our life for my class, so that I can share the outcome of my investigation and study with my classmates.

In summary, I’ve been learning lots of new facts and general knowledge about the human body; and especially how it functions. In class we have been doing many things to help us to learn about the changes of human body. We’ve also drawn a human body in groups and labelled all the bones, muscles and body parts that we knew. It was a pre-assessment to see how much we understood the human body from our teacher. I’ve learnt about bones, muscles, nerves, etc. The most interesting part of this Unit of Inquiry that I’m looking forward to is the independent studies about the change of the human body hair. On May 21, all the Grade 5 students will go for a 3 days camp organized by the school. We will do a lot of physical activities. During the camp, we will continue to learn about human body, especially the topic of puberty. What I still want to learn in this unit are the nervous system and skeletal system.

I think this will be a very challenging unit to everyone as it is the last unit of inquiry for the school year. So, I will try to do my best!

{ 0 comments }

The Unit Of Inquiry (UOI) I am currently learning at school is about sharing the planet, and the central idea of this unit is to look at the social issue – “Actions can support or deny access to children’s right and opportunities”. I am pushing through the limit to look into some circumstances. Some children in this world are under-privileged; some are mistreated; some are forced to do child labour, child prostitution or fight in war; some are abused and living in fear, and their childhood are being taken away. I realize that we have the responsibility to help. The world should come together to show their care and to take possible actions to protect these children. This is their basic human right. We should try to help and to bring back their rights. We should all be treated equally. But my mind always have these questions, “Are we all equal?” “Will everyone have an equal opportunity or will it always be different?” It’s a matter of facts that we are not equal. But we can do something to narrow the gap. We should let the world aware of these abused children. To show my care, I have produced an iMovie to promote my Public Service Announcement (PSA) to encourage the world come together to help and to protect the children’s rights.

Through this inquiry into the children’s rights, I am slowly coming to understand that, but sadly to say, we will never be equal. Equal opportunities is about people who should be treated similarly no matter what their religion, race, gender …are or how rich or poor they are. But in this world raw materials and natural resources are distributed unevenly, which give some countries advantages, but some not. We have different religious; we have different cultures, we have different governments and policies, we have different climates, we have different populations, we have different living standards, we have different beliefs and we have different point of views. We are different in race, gender, religion, power and so on. Some countries are richer than others. Some people are poorer than others.

We often learn from news that there is some poor people in some under-developed or developing countries that they have no choice but would sell their children for money just to make a living. These children may end up becoming child labour, child prostitution or slave. Joseph KONY is another example of children exploitation. KONY 2012, which was a project created by a charity organization – Invisible Children to catch Joseph KONY who kidnapped children in Uganda for multiple purposes such as fighting in war and child slavery. These children are being badly abused and exploited by this evilly war crime leader. I embedded the video – KONY 2012 to my blog to make awareness to the world about this war crime leader. The ultimate aim is to catch him. I watched this video with my mother. My mother was shocked and could not stop crying because she could not bear that there is such a crime that could happen to these poor children. Where is the justice?

We are all different and we are not equal. “Will we ever change or will we be the same for generations to come?” or “Will we be equal or will we be different forever?” I am glad to learn that there are many non-profit organizations and projects around the world such as Free The Children, CNN Freedom Project, UNICEF, Invisible Children who are taking actions to help these children. There are people who have principle, justice, care, respect to human rights. They are against child slavery and against exploitation of children; and they support the children’s rights and encourage the world to help, to free and to educate these children.

But I strongly believe that we can change the world if we work together. We can make our world more equal and a better place for everyone, especially for these children. We need to protect the children’s rights. But if no one will support and fight for the children’s rights then I guess it will just be the same for generations to come. I know that if everyone just does a bit of his or her share we CAN change the world.

I have learnt in this UOI that awareness is the first step that we can do to help to protect the children’s right. Let the world know about the facts of these abused children. To show my respect and care of these children, I have produced an iMovie to promote my Public Service Announcement (PSA) to protect the children’s rights. PSA is a message in the public interest disseminated by media without charge, with the objective of raising awareness, changing public attitudes and behavior towards a social issue such as children’s rights.

The reasons of producing this iMovie for my PSA not only to show my respect and care, but I believe that this is everyone’s responsibility to take actions against crimes and wrongdoing. PSA can be a persuasive tool to bring awareness of the children’s rights to the public. We are not equal but we can level it out, if we all do a little bit of our share. For instance, donating to an organization already can help these underprivileged children.

I have chosen Article #31 from UNICEF’s United Convention On The Rights Of The Child paper for my PSA, which is about “Children Having The Right To Play And Sleep”. The reason I chose Article #31 is that I am a child and I would not like to lose my childhood. Imagine that if I only studied for my academic results for day and night, no play and no rest. I would like to end my life, because there is no meaning of life. I want to play, socialize and enjoy time with my friends and family; and I need to rest and sleep properly so that I can grow healthy and happy. So, you can think of these abused children who work as child labour working day and night, no play and little rest. How harsh it is for them. I am so against and angry with children whose rights to play and rest have been taken away and their opportunities have been lost. I feel this right is very important because children need time to play, through play they learn better, and when children study better, they can grow better. They need to be balanced; when children are balanced they will be happier. I believe that children are our future, and let to make this world a better place.

Today I have completed my PSA and I am very proud to present it to you because I put my heart and effort making it and I wish the world would come together to help and to protect the children’s rights. Because every child in the world has one thing in common, their rights! No one should take away a child’s childhood! What is your decision? Support it with actions or deny it?!

Please watch my PSA and TAKE ACTION!

{ 11 comments }

It is a long post over 2000 words, “Read It At Your Own Patience!”

On March 30th 2012, my parents and I left home to the airport after a light meal. We were dropped off  at Terminal 1 where the check-in counter of Malaysian Airlines was. The check-in was fast as no one was in the line. But it was packed with people who were leaving Hong Kong for Easter break at the Custom/ passport control, it took ages but it was O.K for me. After passing through the Custom, my dad wanted to look at some shoes in the shops so we went, then my mum wanted to look at some handbags. It was pretty boring…

Next, we went to the Traveller’s Lounge, it was again full of people but we found some seats so we were lucky. Later, our flight was boarding so we left the lounge in a hurry for no reason or perhaps my parents could not stand the crowd. We went there and we boarded the plane. The plane was a 777-200 bound for Kuala Lumpur, the plane was nice and big. I started surfing the in-flight entertainment but then it was cut by the safety video, I thought to myself it was so annoying. I had a power nap and woke up just after it took off…

I went on the in-flight entertainment and continued watching movies. Since it was about 2:30 PM I didn’t try to sleep. I watched a few movies – Aliens In The Attic, The Simpsons and Top Gear. The landing was very smooth except the brakes were hard when it touched the ground; and everyone went forward in their seat but the seat belts kept us from not falling. After we left the plane and went to the Malaysian Airlines’ lounge because we had to wait for our transiting flight to Maldives. In the lounge I had two small packs of peanuts and a Coca Cola, there was a TV and the replay of the Formula 1 Grand Prix in Malaysia was on so I was in luck. About 20 minutes later, we boarded the plane it was a 737-800 bound for Male International Airport. The plane had a touch screen in-flight entertainment system, so I was impressed and the safety video wasn’t on the in-flight entertainment system, the flight attendant did a demonstration of it. I was again surfing the in-flight entertainment, I watched some documentaries on sports such as Formula One and Tennis it was interesting. Before landing I started drifting to sleep again and when the plane just skimmed the tarmac on the runway I woke up. About 5 minutes later my family was out of the plane, going as fast as we could to beat everyone else through the immigration. We were the first ones to pick up our luggage and we left the terminal remember I was in Maldives and we were going to take a speedboat to this resort called Four Seasons at Kudda Hurra. The speedboat took 30 minutes and it was about 10 PM at night. The ride was super bumpy, we were sitting down on a seat there was a handle and I had an iron grip on it. We were the only ones on the boat so it was private (excluding the Captain and crew).

We arrived and the hotel staff greeted us, they were very nice. One of the staff went to get a buggy so he could bring my family to our villa, they took care of our luggage. We were only staying at Kuda Huraa for one night as the next morning, we needed to take a seaplane to another Four Seasons Hotel at Landaa Giraavaru. When we arrived at the villa I charged to the bed and jumped on it, I took off my shoes and relaxed. A whole day of traveling I was relived that I could sleep in a real bed. I took a shower, brushed my teeth and went to bed. I woke up next morning and my parents were already awake, we did what we would always do in the morning and went for breakfast. I ate a lot, so I was very full. I walked around and played around with my mum’s new camera. I took a lot of nice pictures, I might put some photos on this blog and show you how beautiful the scene was. A couple of hours later we boarded a speedboat to go to this floating jetty on the middle of the water. A seaplane was waiting there for my family and other passengers who were going to the same hotel – Four Seasons at Landaa Giravaruu at the Baa Atoll. It was a very small plane called Twin Ottor airplane, the seats were small but I didn’t really care because the flight was only 30 minutes and we would arrive at paradise soon. They provided earplugs, I already knew this because I had been to Landaa Giravaruu before. The seaplane was very noisy and my earplugs couldn’t block the noise completely, it was stuffy inside the plane and I was irritated. When we landed I was delighted because I knew we were in paradise. We boarded a speedboat and went to the main jetty at the resort and the hotel staff greeted us all. My Uncle Armando is the Regional Vice President for the Four Season Hotels. We were invited to stay at his home – the yellow house.

When this Four Seasons Hotel at Landaa Giraavaru was almost completed in 2004, it was destroyed by the tsunami. Luckily, Uncle Armando was safe from the disaster. So, the owner of this resort hotel had to spend more money to rebuild the island resort. Part of this island was actually man-made land. It has only 100 villas, almost all of the villas are built on the water.

When we arrived, it was about 3 PM in the afternoon so I was filled with energy. My parents took a shower and I watched some TV. After a hour my parents asked each other if we should eat late lunch. I said O.K and my parents thought the same thing too. We went to Cafe Landaa, I ordered a coke and a burger with french fries, my parents ordered something Indian that I had no idea what it was called. After we finished the food,we went back to the house and watched some T.V before uncle Armando insisted that we should go to the Sea Bar with him, he said it was very new. We went there and we learnt that it was built on the water, and it was made out of wooden planks and they put everything what would be in a bar right on top of it. There were tables, nice designed chairs and lying down cushioned seats or you would call it bed, where you could just enjoy the calm breeze and the colorful sunset . We sat on one of those lying down seats set on the edge of the planks, there was no fence or whatsoever if you could fell down or roll over and drop into the water. You had to take off your shoes before you step in to the Bar restaurant so it felt very homely and casual.

After my parents had a good long catch-up with Uncle Armando at this beautiful bar, he brought us to the Arabic restaurant for a late dinner. I was very tired since there was a 3 hours time difference between Hong Kong and the resort. I was starting to get drowsy. My parents and Uncle Armando went crazy and ordered a lot of food that we knew we couldn’t finish. I wasn’t that hungry but it looked like my parents were starving so they ate a lot of Arabic food and I ate not that much. I had no idea what the foods were called so I couldn’t list them out. For dessert I had a babyccinno, honestly it was not bad. After Uncle Armando took me and my family back to his house, we watched some TV. While I was playing my itouch, I was eating an ice cream; then we went to bed. On that day I found out this really cool game called Dream League Soccer. Since then, I was addicted to it.

The next day we were invited to a cocktail at a beach. It was during the sunset time, the cocktail’s set up was fantastic with good food and good drinks and also had some local dancers doing the Maldivians traditional dance.  The sunset scenery was unspeakable beautiful. This kind of memory would keep you alive for long time. It made even special for this occasion that I met my good school mate -  Alpha Adventurer 15 there in the cocktail. He and his family were there for the Easter break too. What’s a small world! They were very nice and we greeted each other. The two families were chit chatting and sharing their experiences. I was playing with Alpha Adventurer 15 at the beach, then we saw a dead cat-fish lying on the beach, all the little crabs started eating it.  But I guess that’s the way of life.

The following morning at Landaa Giraavaru, we woke up very late. We did everything that we needed to do in the morning and then went for breakfast at Cafe Landaa. I ate a lot of food, I thought it was the most I could ever have eaten in my whole life. After that, we went to play some tennis for 2 hours. After lunch we went back to the house, my dad and I swam in the ocean and it was really fun. Then, we thought it was not enough, I told my dad that we should do some snorkeling, so we went. We got the gears on and off to the water.  We saw many different kind of coral fishes. They were just beautiful. I saw this multi color fish which was huge and I really meant it.

After spending some time in the water, my dad had a rest and  watched a movie called “Snakes On A Plane”, it’s not for children I assured you. I kept bugging my dad to play some frisbee with me and I finally cracked him. We played for an hour. I was good at that. My dad made me run a lot, and we were playing in sand so it was hard to move, sometimes it went in to the water, it was hard to get the frisbee out because the strong currents. My mum wanted to take some photos of me at the beach, I was o.k with it. Afterward we had a drink at the Sea Bar again, the Sea Bar was very cool because it was built right on top of the water. I really enjoyed the moment with my parents, sitting down with my favorite drink on my hand, making jokes with my parents, watching the sunset, feeling the sea breeze, listening the sound of seawater and smelling the freshness of sea wind. I really thank to my parents. They really love me. I hope this memory would stay with me for long long time.

We later went to Fuego’s a fish restaurant, personally I didn’t like fish that much, so I was not that excited to eat at the place. Well! Every meal had some fish in it except dessert, I had a chocolate sundae it was legendary I swear! After we finished dinner we went back and my parents forced me to go to sleep because it was late while they watched some TV with Uncle Armando and ate some fruits. I secretly played my iTouch. Until I could hear foot steps. For some reason I fell asleep so fast.

After few days with full of activities, I wasn’t that pumped with energy but I tried not to show it. My family had breakfast and we saw Alpha Adventurer 15 with his family. After we finished breakfast, we went for snorkeling again. Snorkeling is one of my most favorite things, but sometimes I had problem breathing. When my dad and I went into the water I didn’t put the breathing tube properly into my mouth, the whole time I had the same problem. But eventually I had no more problem. It was very enjoyable, I saw over 100 different types of fish. In the distance I even saw a eel, but the staff there said they are vegetarian. In that late afternoon, my parents and I  went for a sunset fishing trip. We were full of excitement as we had no memory of doing it before. We boarded to a local made boat and set off to the middle of the sea to fish until around 8pm! What was the score??? My dad caught a little coral, I caught a small coral fish and my mum caught a bigger fish. It was a fun day and this was my first fishing experience.

The next day, Alpha Adventurer 15 asked if I and my family could go to the beach with them and do some water sports with his family. So we did and I had one of the most memorable time of my life. We did a water sport that was using a speedboat pulling a raft. We sat down on the raft which looked like a giant sofa while the speed boat pulled the raft along and we bounced on the waves at sea. It was so fun! I wanted to do it again and again. The waves were really bouncy because it was generated by the speed boat. Afterward, I and Alpha Adventurer 15 did some swimming and talked about soccer and then we went back to our villas. The next day I and Alpha Adventurer 15 did some snorkeling together and he had the problems with the tube for breathing. But, again we got to see some very cool fishes. The same day he and his family took the seaplane and left Landaa Giraavaru island and moved to the other Four Season resort at Kuda Huraa for few more days.

Before we left the resort, my parents sponsored a coral frame dedicated to me to help the Maldivians reef. This project is called “Reefscapers” which runs programmes at the two Four Seasons islands of Kuda Huraa and Landaa Giraavaru in the Maldives. What I had to do is to attach coral fragments onto the coral frame before the marine biologists put it into the sea. Then the coral fragments would grow bigger and bigger over time, eventually it would create more coral reef and new habitats for the sea life. I was very happy about it. The marine Biologists told me that I could view my coral frame through their website as they would take photos very six months. There was a tag with my name and a code attached to my coral frame. My Uncle Armando told me that I have to come back and visit it every year, I was OK with that. Then before we left my dad and Uncle Armando said that if he came back to the Maldives, he will come to Hong Kong. They made a deal and I was happy with that.

After we did the same travel experience again…

I really had a great time with my parents. My mum always says to me that togetherness is very important to our family. But building some unforgettable memories are equally important for our mind. Do you agree with that?

{ 1 comment }

Todays Picture Of The Day is very interesting. This man is making a art piece made out of rubix cubes. I interpret that there there will be 2 people in this art piece, you already see one person (which is Martin Luther King Jr.) and I think the other person is John Fitzgerald Kennedy. The person who made this art piece must be rich because he had to order over one thousand rubix cubes. I’m sure that it took him months to finish this art piece! What do you think of this art piece, comment?

{ 1 comment }

Today, there was no school because we had the annual Student Led Learning Review. My mum came with me to school, my dad couldn’t come because he was on a business trip. First, I set up my table ready for the review, then I explained to my mum the SLLR schedule which included 10 subjects from school – UOI, Math,Literacy, Technology, Art, Chinese, Music, P.E, French and Social and personal skills. I did a lot of preparation before presenting this to my parent.

I sat my mum down and she snatched the brochure from me which I made for her. I told her that we are first going to do UOI, I walked her through with it and she was impressed. Next was math, I had some problems but my mum didn’t even notice them. After, was literacy which was one of my strengths but I think my mum thought that I could have done better. Technology was next and it was one of weaknesses, though it looked like it was one of my strengths I showed her Minecraft which I love but my mum didn’t like  it because she said the graphics made her dizzy. In Chinese I showed my mum my summative assessment and the video of it and my mum was very proud of me. Next was Music and my mum was amazed of  the technology which could make music, she also complimented all my music pieces. P.E was later and I am very good at sports so I actually made it up the whole time when I was talking about it. 6 minutes later, I talked to my mum about French and I made a conversation with Dynamo 19 in French for an example. Last but no least was personal and social skills. I showed my mum how organized I was in my computer. My mum just told me that she really like the brochure.

Today, I am finally relieved that it’s finally over!

{ 1 comment }

One day when I was in Maldives, I went on a fishing trip with my family. We boarded a local made boat and went to the middle of the ocean and started fishing. The bate was fish and red meat. The first catch of the day was my dad he caught a small coral, it looked very cool. We all laughed at him because we weren’t looking for coral we were looking for fish. After a while this Korean family caught a huge fish but it wasn’t eatable so the crew threw it away back in the sea. After a long time I felt a little tug and I pulled up the rod and I had a fish! It was a small coral fish it was struggling, my mum took a photo of me so I could have it as a memory. The crew took the fish of the hook and threw back into the sea. No one caught a fish after until my mum said “I can’t pull it up!”. The 2 crew tried to pull but then they said that it was a manta ray and they couldn’t pull it up. After a while the hook came off and my mum could pull the rod up and look at what the manta ray did. 20 minutes later my mum got a pull at she tugged it and she got a medium sized fish, it was eatable but my mum didn’t want it. Half an hour later the boat went back to the hotel. And that was the end of the fishing trip.

{ 1 comment }

This Unit of Inquiry is about children’s rights; how and why some of the children in the world aren’t getting their rights properly in their living situation, and instead put in child labor, fighting in war, slaves etc. For this unit our key concepts are responsibility and causation. So far I have learned many facts and information such as children around the world are being treated unfairly, mostly in the underdeveloped countries like Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Libya etc.

We are recently reading a book called Iqbal. I don’t know the end story of this book yet, but Iqbal is a child slave working at a carpet factory in Lahore. He helps children escape from child labor. The conditions there is very harsh, so it’s really tough to live. I have learned and seen the conditions in other countries from my previous experience. Unlike Hong Kong where I live, children here are treated properly, there are laws and regulations to protect the children’s rights. Children recieve proper education, medical care, welfare, government subsidies..etc. We are protected from mistreated and abused.

However, there are many countries in the world such as Iraq, Africa, Syria, North Korea etc.  their children are not that fortunate and they are suffering from war, starvation, child labor, child prostitution, child crime, drug abuse etc. I have learned many organizations like UNICEF, Free The Children, ChilOut, Defense for Children International and much more that  are helping and providing necessary needs and aids to these unfortunate children as much as they can.

I think the most important thing I’ve discovered in this unit is that there are  child heroes who try to help others, like Ryan Hrejiac  who helped to build a well to provide clean and fresh water by getting the money from donation of other people. Ryan was just an ordinary kid he started to raise money for the well and he had to raise 2000 Canadian Dollars. He did chores, he got help from his neighbors and he then reached the target of 2000 dollars. They made a well in Uganda which has helped many people. The most surprising thing I’ve learned in this unit is how many child heroes can take their initiative to help. It is astonishing because they took action, not many children or even adults would do it. I admire these child heroes, they set a good example for us to learn and follow. They give us courage to help others.

I think the most important thing that I’ve learned so far is that children’s rights should be protected and cared. I have learned from my previous grade that children are the future. If they are grown up properly and educated properly, they will make a big difference, they will bring the world to a better place. Unfortunately, there are many children suffering from abused and mistreated, and they need help from others. For example Craig Kielburger, he saw on a news article about a boy who was murdered because he started a fight against child labor. Craig was mad about it and since then he founded the charitable organization, Free The Children, which are fighting against child labor.

If I could join an organization to help and to make a difference in the lives of children, I would join The CNN Freedom Project, because they push beyond borders and try to help people all around the world from Morocco to Pakistan, one of their main focuses is child slavery. The reason they picked that subject because many children are suffering from child slavery. The project is to free the abused children around the world, they are giving the children their own rights. They already have made a big difference. It might not be widely known but it soon will be, because it has already helped many children. They also focus on other subjects like drugs abuse etc. They show a TV series on CNN about it where a journalist goes to a country and look into the growing problems like children rights – they then “Go Beyond Borders” and investigate and challenge the people denying them. they sometimes win and sometime lose. In one incident they successfully freed the children from child labor, so it was pretty much a win and in another case they tried to find more about young drugs addicts, but they got threatened and they had to leave, so it was a loss.

Most charity projects or organizations take it very seriously to help the children. In some ways that they support the children’s rights by spreading the words, making protests, advertising, taking actions to help…. However, some selfish people, greedy businessmen and bad leaders would deny the children rights by making them work nonstop, leaving them starve, hitting them, forcing them to work no matter how young they are, making them go to war… and these children are being abused.

I am thinking of doing article 7 in the convention of the rights of the child for PSA which is a public service announcement. In article 7 it states that “Children and young people have the right to a name and a nationality.” “Children and young people have the right to be cared for by both parents.” This unit makes me feels curious and sad because I am learning about children rights. Sometimes I feel sorry for the children if they are being abused. I also feel sorry for unprivileged children too because they don’t have what most of us have.  This is a very interesting unit. It makes me think sometimes that equality is not easy to get. How we can find the balance. Some parties must do more for others to fill in the gap.

{ 0 comments }

This would be the perfect life for me.

How about you?

{ 0 comments }

Me & Dynamo 5 made a formula 1 race car out of cans! It’s a pretty cool contraption. Mr. Hughes allowed us to put it on display in the 9th floor foyer. I would like to thank all the people who helped me and Dynamo 5 like Dynamo 4, Dynamo 13 and Dynamo 20! This is awesome! What do you think? Please comment!

{ 0 comments }

Business Stripped Bare is a business book written by global entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson. This is a great book for people studying business or economics. He is the founder and CEO of the Virgin Brand, which is a very successful brand. Virgin has more than 400 companies worldwide. In Business Stripped,  Sir Richard Branson shares the inside of his life in business and reveals the incredible truth about his most risky, amazing and brilliant deals. In this book you discover why the Virgin Brand is one of the world’s biggest and best superbrands. Sir Richard Branson talks about the business going on in the people and how to make a multi-million dollar company. He explains how he made his brand a faster generating revenue company then others like Google, Microsoft etc. He also states how he is the only person in the world to have built  eight billion-dollar companies from scratch in eight different sectors. He has a major business empire.

In the book he talks about an example of a person who meets his standard for his company and he adds on explaining what standards he has. And what bad workers are and how he treats his company (I have to say he treats his staff very well). He talks about a really good brand and what is a bad brand. He also says that learning from mistakes and setbacks to think what you can do the next is a gain for you, instead of getting upset and let yourself down. He has a slogan saying “Screw it, lets do it”. I think that it is a good slogan. He also states that inovation, leadership and social responsibility is very vital.

I think that this is a great book. I would only recommend this book to adults or university students studying business. Even though I really like this book and I am only 10- years old, I think it would be really boring for people 18 and under.

{ 1 comment }

In this post, I am writing about the darkest and brightest moments during my time in Grade 5 so far. I will start off with the darkest moments:

1. Fracturing my left wrist at school when the school year just start – I went through a lot of pain and I had to wear a cast. I wasn’t able to do any sport or anything which involved my left hand. I couldn’t practice for my piano exam, and I couldn’t play for my tennis matches. This was a disaster for me and it was one of the most disappointing things which happened to me in my whole life. I had to wear the cast for 2 weeks, but luckily the 2 weeks went fast and it was off. My wrist was weak for quite a long time, but now it’s strong as my right hand. This is the darkest moment of my time in Grade 5.

2. Getting a sinusitis infection – I had to be in the hospital for 5 days and was away from school for 2 weeks. I had to have an operation on my nose, a X-Ray and a C.T Scan, it was painful and very scary. But the worst of all was how much antibiotics and pain killer I had been taking for 2 weeks, it was weakening my body a lot. It started off with these really painful headaches (about 10 out of 10 in scale), it went on for about 4 days until I started taking medications. The pain went away but then it came back because the medications were wearing off. I then started having fevers which went up and down, my mum was really scared she quickly called the doctor. He agreed with my mum to send me to the hospital. The headaches went away but then it moved to my right eye, it was more painful then my headaches. When I was in the hospital my mum contacted a Ear Nose Throat Doctor ( E.N.T Doctor), he said I should have a X-Ray, to see what has happened, they suspected sinusitis. We didn’t know what was the cause, someone thought it was meningitis which affects the brain and eye; and it can have a possibility of killing you. My doctors said they wanted to see if I had anything in my brain or eye, so they suggested a C.T scan. I was still taking medications and my fever was still going up and down. When I went for the CT scan in the hospital, the machine made my head feeling very hot. The reason they suggested a CT scan because it was 3 dimensional, it can show more accurately. After, they finished looking at the C.T results they confirmed that my brain is ok, but I had sinusitis infection and full of pus inside. They said medications would work but it didn’t, so I had to have a major emergency operation on my nose to drain out the pus, and to stop the bacteria invading my eye and brain. Any longer may be dangerous. When I was waiting for the operation outside the O.T (Operation Theater) in a bed, I felt really nervous because any mistake could hurt my eye or my brain. Finally they brought me into the O.T, they gave me these drugs and put me to sleep. When I woke up, I was outside the OT. My mum was talking to the doctor and I couldn’t breathe with my nose so I had to use my mouth. Next, the doctor said I had to breathe with my mouth. I vomited later it was really painful. 2 days later I was home and I vomited again. I had to wait for 4 days to be able to go to school. I really do miss my teachers and my school friends. I have a project waiting for me to work on for my UOI subject.

3. There has been no major set backs in Grade 5 other then the these two. Grade 5 has been happy all the way so far.

The Positive:

1. Getting this blog, it has been the greatest adventure in my writing life, I really love writing since I have this blog. Blogging is my most favorite thing, it has made me more interested in writing. I would like to acknowledge Ms.Cahusac (my teacher) for encouraging me to do more writing and making this blog come alive. She is very good to us and we like her very much too. Thank you, Ms. Cahusac. You have changed my life!!!

2. Getting my own MacBook Pro in Grade 5 is another exciting thing. I was very happy on August 30th because I got my computer that night. I also was happy because when I was in Grade 4, we had to share the computer with other students in other classes but now I have my own!

3. It was an exciting moment when I received the most recent report card for Grade 5. I got a really good report card and my parents were really pleased with me about it. I was proud of what I did. This was the best report card I ever got in my whole life. I can’t tell you my results because it’s private. But my happiness was short lived because I had that sinusitis infection and admitted to the hospital the next early morning after receiving my report card. In Grade 5, I become more serious toward my study because I want to do well, but I am also having fun in learning especially Ms. Cahusac is our teacher. My hard work had paid off with a good report card. I want to keep it up and aim higher! This is what life is about. Challenge is good, but I also want to be balance. Time for hard working, time for fun.

4. This one is not school related but is one of the greatest things which ever happened to me during this year. One evening, my family was having a dinner with my godfather and we were talking about Formula 1 but then my godfather said that Formula 1 is boring and then he mentioned that NASCAR is better. He introduced NASCAR to me and made me really into it, he said one day he will bring me to a major NASCAR race in the States. I researched it on the computer and I watched some videos of the races. But one driver I thought was a star his name is Denny Hamlin, who is a great driver and I like him very much. Now I love watching NASCAR and I even play NASCAR Wii games. My father bought me that. I would like to thank my godfather for introducing me this and sharing his interests of NASCAR. I hope my godfather brings me to that big NASCAR race one day, I can’t wait!

So, you know now what my brightest and darkest moments in Grade 5 so far.

{ 1 comment }

Today’s photo of the is from the Daytona 500. Matts Kenseth celebrates in victory lane at Daytona Beach. He held off Dale Earnhardt Jr., Greg Biffle and Denny Hamlin. These are all good drivers. This is the second time Kenseth has won the Daytona 500. This is the first time for ages the Daytona 500 has been postponed because of rain.

{ 1 comment }

Recently in class, we have been doing a literature unit on spelling. These are my spelling words for this week:

1. Societal

2. Marvelous

3. Vernacular

4. Scrutinize

5. Contemplate

6. Deliberate

7. Excogitate

8. Percolate

9. Ruminate

10. Elixir

{ 1 comment }

We Made It Happen!

Let’s Make It Happen is a performance the Grade 5s did recently. They planned out the performance, wrote scripts, made their own ideas and put music to their performance. Then, they all combined the performances and made it their own show! Everyone in the grade had a group of 3, 4, 5 or 6 people. The group had to pick an event from the past such as SARS, 911 or the Civil War. They had to act it out at the LLAC (Leo Lee Arts Center). The performance was related you our unit of inquiry “Where We Are In Place And Time”. It is also related to our unit of inquiry’s summative assessment. Preparation for the show started at the end of November 2011 and finished on January 5th 2012. The average time for one group’s performance was about 2 minutes. All the performances had some perspective in their play because that shows our understanding of our unit of inquiry.

My group’s subject was United Airlines 93. I was in a group of 5 students. The people in my group were Vance, Kevin, Nicky and Gabriel T. We had to do a lot of group planning because we argued to see what was best. Our group did some research (quite little) to better understand the events of United Airlines 93. I already knew some info so, I told my group all of it. I think that my group knew the major events. After we understood what were the events we went on to planning our actual performance. It wasn’t easy to think of scripts, music and an iMovie, which could fit in a 2-minute play. This was a challenge to my group and me. We had plenty of time but my group was consistently fooling around. Ms. Cahusac gave us the most time available. One person was always fooling around, but the others always worked hard. Our cooperation was O.K, for me it was because I have been in a lot of arguments but this time. It was easy to find the solution. We first wanted to record a short interview, and do a short drama on stage with some music in the background. However I said we have to do something, because we only have 2 minutes and if our parents just watch a short drama and a recorded interview, they would be not impressed. So, we then started arguing over it. I came up with a solution, I said “ Why don’t we do an on stage interview?” and my group thought it was great! We had to show perspective and the recorded interview had zero perspective but the on-stage interview had perspective in it. We still included a short drama it was quite good. We had a lot of practicing to do for the show, we were always on perfect timing and my teacher liked my group’s performance. I was actually really satisfied with my group’s work. On the performance day, we started off with a whole grade on-stage rehearsal, which kicked off at 8AM sharp. I was very nervous about acting in front of the students in my grade. Many students had to change their costumes back and forth because at the end of show we had to sing a song. Every class had their own dress code. Luckily I didn’t have to change. We had a dress rehearsal in the afternoon, which the Grade 4’s watched. I did super, I had no hiccups and everything went smoothly. We then came back to the LLAC at 6:30 to do the actual performance. I think my group did AWESOME! My group and me had no mistakes but one microphone didn’t work, we worked through it though. The audience loved us! My favorite performance of the show was The Fall Of The Berlin Wall. That group showed perspective and their acting was great. I really admired their work. Later, the performance was over and I was super happy, because I did not have to do anymore acting.

There were a lot of positive points leading up to the performance I think. I thought that my group’s iMovie was the best in the grade because it had great clips and photos and a lot of people told me that the iMovie was awesome. So, there is proof that people liked it. Even though my group argued a lot, we still managed to find a solution. My group’s performances really stood out I believe, because we got a lot of claps and cheers from the audience. Our research was fun but we could have done better. I think it was a spectacular experience!

There was a lot of negative stuff going on in my group. Here is what we argued about: iMovie, music for the iMovie, what we were going to do on the day of the performance and getting tasks done. We would always shout at each other, and it got pretty aggressive. Luckily for me I did not get caught in the crossfire. We still managed to get through it all at least!

Now the performance is over. We actually made it happen! I am really relived that it is over. We put so much effort in and it paid off. I wish I could do another performance, but directed by me! I would have a different subject too. I learned a lot of things in this unit of inquiry, for example what perspective, interpretation (and other words I never knew) meant. I also learned many historical events from the day of the performance like The Fall Of The Berlin Wall (I thought that it was the best performance) and other major events in history. I learned what happened to United Airlines 93, which is the drama behind the scenes leading up to the major performance.

Every single Unit Of Inquiry my grade does, students should understand the central idea. We have to prove to the teachers that we understand it by doing summative tasks. The summative tasks are handed it in to the teachers and graded by the teachers. My understanding on this unit of inquiry is that educational guesses of the past can be discovered by looking into events from history.

Overall, I think that it was an amazing experience. I want to do it again!

{ 9 comments }

It is February 20th 2015, you are racing at the NASCAR Daytona 500. You are driving for FedEx Racing team and your car number is 11. You are qualifying for the race. You have some practice laps around the track which is a bit wet. You go into the pits and you are really nervous. The tensed pressure is reaching into you. You feel the whole world is on your shoulders, you are sweating in the boiling heat in your car.

You start qualifying, your car goes around the track at around 168 mph, you are pretty happy with it. You finish your first lap with a 53 second lap. You are 5th. The next lap you drive super fast you are driving at a top speed of  172 mph. You finish super fast but you only get 2nd place. You finish and just finish a millisecond behind, you are really confident that you can win the next day. The driver right in front of you is David Ragen. He is on the UPS team, he has been your rival since 2014.

The night before qualifying, you are really tensed and can’t sleep, you only get to sleep at 1:oo am in the morning. At 8am you wake up as your alarm bell rings. You keep thinking you can win, you can win. Your brother calls you and says don’t be nervous, he says, “I know that you are nervous because this is the first time you ever have got into the top 3 in Daytona.” Your reply saying, “I know, I know I will be fine. I am very confident that I can win.”

You then board your private limo with your crew and they talk to you about your opponents weaknesses and their strengths. They also tell you about where you should move when your opponents block you. They also say, “If you didn’t get a thing I just said then I will guide you when you are on the track racing.” You are quite nervous you get into your car, you get everything ready.  You then go on the track and do some pace laps, you are doing the pace laps really well. All of a sudden, your car’s front right wheel bursts and you lose control, other cars behind you crash right into you. Next, a huge flame erupts from the number 24′s car. The driver who is stuck in the flaming car is Jeff Gordon, the multi championship winner. Tony Stewart’s car is right next to you also, he is not injured nor his car is burning down in flames or destroyed. He quickly comes to your rescue and saves you, he quickly waves for rescue personal people to come and help you. You are streaming with blood everywhere, but you are still ok which is what you care about. You later see your team crew running to you and seeing if you are still ok. You then look at Jeff Gordon’s car and see that his car is practically destroyed but he is still alright, he came out of the wreckage just in time before his entire car went down in flames. Dale Earnhardt Jr. ( one of the drivers who was in the crash) signals to one of the officials to red flag the race. He agrees and red flags the race.

You sit down on the race track being safe from the horrid site of the wreckage. You think to yourself, this is all my fault I should not have put so much pressure on the acceleration! I hope no one is really badly hurt in the wreckage, I am such a bad driver. I should have never raced in my life you scream out loud with tears scrolling down your face. Your pit crew comes to you and sits next to you and say it was just an accident and no one was badly injured in the 20 car wreck. Just some 2 or 3 cars are destroyed but they are postponing the race till tomorrow so their team can fix it. You are relieved but then your manager says, “The reason they are postponing the race is because they have to investigate your car and see what went wrong.” Later you see news choppers flying above the race track. Now you know the world is seeing this wreck, later all drivers except Jeff Gordon who was injured but coming back to the race the next day, go to the press room. Everyone is staring at you, even though your manager tells you that everything is fine but you are really nervous. All the racers are also staring at you, from the long press table. A reporter says to you, “Do you know that you will be starting last, tomorrow at the race.” Your yelling out loud with a reply, “What! I thought I was starting at the 2nd place. Just because I crashed, it doesn’t mean I have to start last.” The reporter replies, “The NASCAR officials agreed with each other that they should put you last because you started the crash!”

You are gobsmacked, you don’t answer any of the other reporters questions. Some drivers say that it was just an accident but some drivers say that it was all your fault and they could have won the race. Your manager talks to you and he mentions that you should ignore what people say to you when it comes to negative stuff. You then get news that the car crash that you crashed in was caused by a mysterious tire failure in your front right wheel. You were shocked that a mysterious tire accident can cause you to start last. The NASCAR officials think that one of your pit crew might have tried to sabotage your race. You are determined to find who did this horrible thing.

The next day, you are on the racing circuit doing pace laps. You try to put the accident from yesterday behind you. Injured Jeff Gordon is starting right in front of you. He looks not pleased that you gave him a broken nose. You just try to look away, you walk to your car and get ready for the 200 lap race. You do your final pace lap with all the cars and drive steadily, after you past that starting line you go, go go! You pass Jeff Gordon easily, it is not easy to pass the next car he consistently blocks you. But then your pit crew manager says stay on the outside, it works now you are 41st. You continue to climb up the positions, until you reach 19th , a car in the back has spun out and there is a big crash. The race is yellow flagged, you have to slow down. After, they clear the crash you restart. You are on the 79th lap of the race. You then go to the pits, they quickly try to change your tires and out more fuel. You are now 23rd. You once again climb up the positions until….

Your pit crew manager, says to you that someone is right behind you and he is putting you under a lot of pressure. After, you feel something is pushing you right, then you realize that Jimmie Johnson is on your left tail you try to shake him off. But it doesn’t work you are coming onto turn 4, he is pushing you to the limits. You then try to turn left but then he put acceleration and your car gets stuck and looses control. Your car goes airborne you are just covering your face when your car comes back to the ground and all the other car don’t see you. When there is a big BAM! Your car has been hit by Kyle Busch’s car, there is a big pile up. Every single car is crashing into each other, your pit crew are horrified to see your car crash. Tony Stewart’s car is practically destroyed , you erupt in tears in your car. Commentators shout there has just been a wreck. As they witness even more cars charge right into the curfew. Everyone is amazed that no one died in the curfew.

You are now badly injured, the race has been red flagged once again, you and multiple drivers have sustained minor injuries. But you will be back in a couple of hours. You then get news that Jimmie Johnson has been disqualified from the race. You are starting 11th place on the restart with 25 laps to go. Most of the cars are pretty much destroyed but somehow most of the teams have been able to fix that.

You do some pace laps once again and get ready your car. When you continue the race you start to lose positions you are now 25th. You say what should I do, I have so little time to get at least into the top 5. You say to yourself no matter what I will push this car to the limit, I want to win that first title. Come on you repeat to yourself! All of a sudden your car picks up speed it passes 8 cars, the momentum now shifts your way. You have 17 more cars in front of you with momentum on your side you know you can pass them. You pass 10 cars but Greg Biffle is not letting you pass him. You see an opening and pass him. He is really mad, he pushes his throttle to the full, but it is no use you are to ahead of him…

You continue to push your car, you are now 6th you say to yourself now my new goal is to win! There is 5 laps now you have a lot of pressure. Your pit crew manager says very encouraging words to you, he is very proud of you what you have done. You are 3rd place it is just you, David Ragen and Clint Bowyer. You pass both of them, you speed away from them, they are shocked on how fast you could do. You are half the track away from glory, but then your tire bursts. You say to yourself how can this happen? Word spreads out to the other drivers and they speed to the finish line. You are almost there, you can see Clint Bowyer and David Ragen pushing their NASCARs to the limit! You 3 get to the line, it looks like it is a tie but the NASCAR officials are examining it. They find out that you have won the race, it was a centimeter between you and David Ragen.

You drive your car to victory lane, your crew charge to your car. They celebrate with you, after this whole entire commotion and problems, you made it through! You do donuts with your car and you celebrate with a bottle of champagne. Your father runs to you saying, “I knew you could do it! Boy you make me proud!”

All the reporters run to you and ask you questions and most drivers come and congratulate you. You say to yourself there is always a place for determination!

So, you should always believe in yourself because you can do something!

{ 0 comments }

It is June 25th 2014, you are a commercial pilot flying the new state of art aircraft A350-500 on a full and long flight from Doha to Rio de Janeiro. The reason your aircraft is so full because everyone wants to see the Brazil World Cup. After taking off from Doha, your plane is at a cruising speed and is 35,000 feet high… You are relaxing with your co-pilot. You are going to have a little stop over at Zurich Kloten Airport for a refuel and then continue on the journey to Rio de Janeiro.

All of a sudden you see 20 birds fly into your left engine and there is a huge BOOM. Your co-pilot is scrambling in his procedure manuel seeing what he can do, then he says off the left engine. The aircraft has to be diverted to Bahrain. You say to the air traffic control “Mayday Mayday QR 11, we have a bird strike on the left engine. We are shutting down the engine.” Your aircraft’s flight attendants storm into the cockpit and ask what happened. You reply a bird strike! Get everyone ready for an emergency landing at Bahrain International Airport. The flight attendants quickly rush to the cabin and instruct the passengers what to do. You go on the P.A and announce ” We have a problem on the flight, please remain calm, we are heading to Bahrain for an emergency landing”. Now you are really worried of having an engine fire, so you are not going to switch on the engine, because it might spread to the cabin. Almost every alarm is going off in your controls.

Everyone is panicking, the passengers and the cabin crew. You know you are flying the president of FIFA. You say to your self that you have nothing to lose. So, you push the throttle of the left engine. And the left engine does not go to full power but it generates some power. To your surprise the engine fire warning does not go off. The aircraft is getting equal but then there goes another BOOM. The aircraft shakes violently left to right again, it is banking toward the right side. You again say to air traffic control, “Mayday Mayday QR 11, we have a bird strike, we are banking right”.

Suddenly, the air pressure in the aircraft is getting really low. Now you have to dump fuel so you can make that emergency landing. It is so quiet in the plane that you could hear a pin drop on the floor. Since the plane is losing air pressure. everyone is scared of dying. Even everyone is thinking really for the worst, but you are positive that you can save the situation. The passengers are really quiet they are saying the last words to their loved one and praying for miracle.

You are feeling dizzy, but trying the last breath to save the plane, you then see the airport. You are so exciting to set everything ready for landing. You see hope, you can feel hope. You are pumped with confidence. You are not giving up. Hope is right below you. It is 500 feet, 400 feet, 250 feet, 100, 50 feet, 20 feet, 10 feet, 5 feet. You are so tensed and you are feeling no power. Your plane then has landed. You and your co-pilot are so happy that you give each other a big hug. Everyone is clapping their hands and hugging each other in the plane to cheer for the safety landing.

You have landed in Bahrain without any fatalities, the passengers and air crew live on to tell the story.

Hope can set freedom, hope has power, hope is a living thing, hope will never die, hope has its own mind, hope has power to land an aircraft, hope can do anything…

You and your crew are now famous. You get the medal of honor from the Prime Minister of Qatar. You are in the headline news everywhere. You are also the first pilot to ever fly the 787.

You now have your own airline. It is super successful. Now you have the happiest life ever.

Then you hear your mum calling, ” Wake up! It’s time for breakfast!”.  Your cat is also meowing you to wake up.

There is always a place for imagination!

{ 6 comments }

Here is the thing, I found that I love writing since my class teacher created the blog for us. If you read some of my posts, some of them are over 1000 words easily. I don’t think anyone in my class has written that much. The reason I do so many blog posts is because my hand writing is really messy and I don’t like using my wrist so much to write because after a super long time it starts to hurt. When you are typing on the computer, you have a keyboard to relax on. Another good advantage using computer to write is that you can find information quick and fast at the same time through the internet. Thanks to my class teacher that I love writing so much nowadays.

The downpour about learning in the new era is that people will become lazy with hand to do writing and just use computer instead. I am actually starting to notice people are having a lot of grammar and spelling mistakes, and also lack of details. Many people also don’t do paragraphs and capitals. Many of my classmates are messy in their hand writing just like me. I found that it is easier to use computer to write, because we are alert of the spelling and grammer mistakes by the computer, and also we can correct the mistakes by cut and paste easily; no need to use eraser. It  is cleaner and tidier.

I can actually type fast, so I prefer typing in writing. Because of that, I will never be the last one to finish, even I take my time to think and organize my thoughts. I can actually type quite fast, I can probably type about 80 words per minute. If you are really good in computers, then you can type super fast. One of my friends is super fast in typing, he can type 90 words per minute. Some people are really slow in typing, I just think they need more practice.

I am really lucky to have a school which allows students to have your own laptop when you reach to grade 5. Other schools only have limited access to computers, they might only have a computer lab. Everyone in my grade has a blog. We use blog to express ourselves through the internet and to the world. It is super fun, I think they set up blogs for us so we could enjoy writing. I enjoy it now but maybe other people not. I like writing long detailed posts because the reader can understand what I am talking about, they would get attracted and be excited on my posts and continue to read my posts. I think I am one of the entire grade 5 to have written the longest posts.

Technology in this era is growing fast and everyone in this world will soon know how to use it. I think that the MacBook Pros are a great learning device, a great communication tool and I think it can help children and guide them to becoming a good person. I think that growing technology is the future of the world. Maybe in 30 years we won’t need to go to college and everything could be on the computer.

If you are not good with computers and tablets, then you better start learning it now! You better trust this post.

{ 3 comments }

I wish you luck on the year to come! Have a Happy Happy New Year!

{ 0 comments }

Well, many people who just spend their life not loving them self and just commit suicide because they have dedicated their life to just working or they are just hanging around and they are playing with their life, and they are not caring for themselves. Some people just don’t care for their life they would either fail in life, become a beggar, hang around in streets or become a bad guy. The reason is they are not  being”True To Themselves”.

To be true to yourself means to act in accordance with who you are and what you believe.

If you know and love yourself you will find it effortless to be true to yourself.

Just as you cannot love anyone else until you love yourself, you cannot be true to anyone else until you are true to yourself.

Be who you are. Have the courage to accept yourself as you really are, not as as someone else thinks you should be. Do not take action or pretend to be someone else for the sake of gaining acceptance.

Many young people believe that when they do things to please their peers, such as drink when they shouldn’t, or behave and party in inappropriate ways, they will be popular and liked. They go against the advice of their parents or their own common sense only to find themselves in trouble and not accomplishing what they set out to do.

When you do things that are not genuine or a reflection of the real you, you will not be happy with yourself and will end up confused. You’ll be confused because you won’t know whom to please, or how.

Self-respect comes from being true to who you really are and from acting in accordance with your fundamental nature.

When you respect yourself, others will respect you. They will sense that you are strong and capable of standing up for yourself and your beliefs.

When you are true to yourself, you allow your individuality and uniqueness  to shine through. You respect the opinions of others but do not conform to stereotypes or their expectations of you.

To be true to yourself takes courage. It requires you to be introspective, sincere, open-minded and fair. It does not mean that you are inconsiderate or disrespectful of others. It means that you will not let others define you or make decisions for you that you should make for yourself.

Be true to the very best that is in you and live your life consistent with your highest values and aspirations. Those who are most successful in life have dared to creatively express themselves and in turn, broaden the experiences and perspectives of everyone else.

Here are some quotes.

This above all; to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.  William Shakespeare

It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is. Desiderius Erasmus

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are. e.e. cummings

Be yourself. Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe, shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish. John Jakes

He who travels in search of something which he has not got, travels away from himself and grows old even in youth among old things. Ralph Waldo Emerson

A wise man never loses anything if he has himself. Michel de Montaigne

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation. Oscar Wilde

Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another. Homer

Learn to… be what you are, and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not.Henri Frederic Amiel

Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble. Samuel Johnson

If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise.
Johann von Goethe

The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere. Anne Morrow Lindbergh

And remember, no matter where you go, there you are. Confucius

At bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a second time.
Friedrich Nietzsche

No creature is fully itself till it is, like the dandelion, opened in the bloom of pure
relationship to the sun, the entire living cosmos. D.H. Lawrence

You were born an original. Don’t die a copy. John Mason

The hardest battle you’re ever going to fight is the battle to be just you.
Leo Buscaglia

How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone.Coco Chanel

Once conform, once do what others do because they do it, and a kind of lethargy steals over all the finer senses of the soul. Michel de Montaigne

There is just one life for each of us: our own. Euripides

{ 0 comments }

My father bought me a Wii game yesterday for my Christmas present. It is called Nascar The Game 2011! It is a really fun game. When you play the game, you feel like a real NASCAR* driver driving around the racing track; you can bump and crash to other cars. Cool! I feel so real in the game. It has pretty much all the controls in a NADCAR, from Turbo Boosts to Motor Brakes. The truck is really detailed, and it has 5 views! Including Cockpit view, Outside View, Top View, Roof View, Front view! Even though the game costs a lot, I think that the game is worth it’s price.

There are all forty drivers including Jeff Gordon, Jimme Johnson, Jeff Burton ( they are really good drivers). You can choose different paint schemes, for example, my favorite driver is Denny Hamlin, his car has a lot of paint schemes from FedEx, like FedEx Ground, FedEx Express, FedEx Air etc. His car might not be that fast but you can adjust that. Because you are allowed to go in the pits when you tell your pit crew you want to go by pressing C on your wii remote. Then you can change your tires, put more gas and  make your car tighter or looser. If you make your car looser then it will be faster but hard to control and if you make your car tighter it will be slower but more control. I would recommend to put it in the middle of both.

There are many choices for different race tracks. I think that the game has all the tracks from the Las Vegas Motor Speedway to Daytona Beach. Personally, I think that Daytona Beach is the best race track. When you play NASCAR The Game 2011 there are about 4 different games you can play. You could play single player, career, multiplayer and Invitational ( part of career mode).

Career mode is the best for me because you get to pick the car you want to drive with. I picked the FedEx car, the driver is quite good. I already won two races out of four, so that it’s a really good start from a beginner like me. I think the best driver in career mode is Jeff Gordon. The race courses are in order, so you can’t skip the course. When you picked your course, you have to choose how many laps you want to drive. You also have a choice if you want to do qualifying! I always do qualifying, so I have a chance of being pole position because if you choose only race then you will start last place. Which is very hard because you have to pass 39 other cars. The first time I tried to play this game, it was quite confusing. I crashed about 11 times with other cars, I got  a yellow flag* 10 times. When you play career mode you play in the Sprint Cup.

Overall I think this game is super fun, but in the beginning it is quite hard but when you get the hang of it, you will win and have so much fun! I rate it a 9 out of 10. I also think that any age over 6 would like this game. In other words you should try it!

There is another game related to this game which is called NASCAR Unleashed which is a bumping each other game.

* Yellow flag in NASCAR means that all cars have to restart

* Red Flag means the race has stopped

* Green Flag means the race is continued after a halt

* NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) is a racing event

Here is the trailer for the game.

{ 0 comments }

I really like the Virgin group because it is a great company and it delivers great service. So, I will give you a quiz on how much you know about the Virgin Group.

Q1:Which are the 3 largest leading airlines in the Virgin Group?

Q2: Does Virgin Have A Island In The Caribbean?

Q3: Does Virgin Not Have A Megastore In Barcelona?

Q4: When Did The Virgin Group Business Start?

Q5:  Did Virgin Money Purchase A Company in 2011 Called Northern Rock Bank?

Q6:  Does The Virgin Group Have 45%  Holding of Air Asia X?

Q7: What was the first business started by The Virgin Group?

Please answer in the comment. I’ll be happy to see who will get all the answers correct. I’ll be posting the answers soon.

{ 0 comments }

For Grade 5′s Let Make It Happen Celebration we have to do a scene of a historical event. The event that my group chose is the life of a person named United Airlines 93. In our scene we should include a few elements such as dance, technology, drama, music, etc. My group is doing a drama and a interview. We also habe an imovie playing the whole time with some music. I think that my group is the best group in the whole grade. My whole group always works hard and rarely fools around. Our performance is really hard because we are performing on January 5th and currently the school is on christmas break. We only come back on the 2nd of January, so we will be spending a lot of time practicing. On the stage my group only has 2 minutes to perform so, we have to squeeze everything in. My group is done everything but we are not perfect we still have to practice more. Most of the other groups are quite behind.

{ 0 comments }

Today’s picture of the day is:

This 30-second exposure revealed a moonbow hidden in the mist at the foot of the falls. The full moon and clear sky made for a perfect photo op from the Yosemite Valley floor. This picture was taken in Upper Yosemite Falls, California. I like this picture because when you look at the bottom of the falls it is a moonbow hidden in the mist.

{ 0 comments }

On Thursday, we made an e-card using Jib Jab, it was very fun For some reason, this year Jib Jab only has one e-card that you can use for free. It’s called “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree”. Jib Jab is extremely cool. You can make non-free e-cards and not send it to anybody and not have to pay. You can just create one and then look at the preview. After that you can’t save it.

{ 0 comments }

Today’s picture of the day:

A 23-second exposure in a camera mounted in the tail of a Lockheed TriStar jet captures the lights of the airport runway and the city beyond. I chose this photo because when you see the city in the background it looks super colorful.

{ 0 comments }

Todayʻs picture of the day is:

Overlooking Bourtzi Castle, Nafplion, Greece. The reason I chose this picture is that I have never been to Greece and I always wanted to go to Greece. I think that Greece is a great place, but they have some financial problems.

{ 0 comments }

Today, it has been a very momentum changing day for me. Well it all started when I learned that Ms. Cahusac was sick this morning and there was no Class Community Circle ( CCC) which was really bad.

Then Mr.Steiner told me that my class had the beep test ( endurance test) and the standing long jump. I was really nervous when we arrived at the gym. I really wanted to get a good score in both of the tests. I did the beep test first, it started of pretty good. I got tired more and more when I had to move faster. But at 7.1 I was about to run, but all of a sudden I slipped and I pulled my muscle. Mr. Steiner told me to sprint as fast as I could to catch up with the others. But it was too late at 7.3. I got 2 warnings because  couldn’t catch up with the other people. My highest was 9.8, so, I was really disappointed when I got only 7.3. That was my score the first time I ever did my beep test. My best friend Dynamo 22 he got 9.10 which is really good. Next, it was the standing long jump, I am not really good in that. My first jump was 145cm the next jump was 148cm and the last one 147. I was really angry at myself because I could have done way better then 148cm. My highest was 154cm, I wanted to get about 165cm which I have done but never got recorded. Another friend of mine got 208 cm which is really good.

After P.E., I had chinese class. Today, I had to finish my chinese summative assessment. I finished my summative with no time to spare. I then needed to present it. My teacher said it was ” Really Really Good!”. I was thrilled with my teacher’s comment.

After the school day, I got on to the school bus. The bus ride was quite normal. I got off the bus and my mum told me that she had a surprise for me that I got an “distinction” for my piano exam. I was really happy about it and I forgot about the fitness tests.

Today has been up and down but that’s what life about!

{ 1 comment }

{ 0 comments }

Today’s picture of the day is:

The beautiful lake of Geneva is quiet, many ducks and swans swim in this lake. There are the alps in the background. I chose this photo because it is an eye-catcher, I have also seen the view for real life.

{ 0 comments }

This was written by Extreme 24. He is a very good writer so, I want to show his great writing with you!

6174, or Kaprekar’s Constant, is a very special number. Let’s see why.

D.R. Kaprekar, an Indian mathematician, named a routine called “Kaprekar’s Routine”. Basically, you can name any 4 digit number (except 4 repeated digits such as 1111 or 2222), and follow the routine. The result always turns out to be the number 6174.

Here are the steps for “Kapreakar’s Routine”.
1. Choose any 4 digit number that is not 4 repeated digits. (In other words, there must be at least 2 different digits)
2. Arrange the digits of the number so that the highest digit is in the thousands column, and the lowest in the units (ones) column.
3. Arrange the digits of the number so that the lowest digit is in the thousands column, and the highest in the units (ones) column. You should now have 2 different numbers.
4. Subtract the smaller number from the larger number.
5. If the difference is not 6174, repeat step 2 and onwards with the current 4 digit number. It may take several rounds.
6. At one point, you will get the number 6174. If you try the process again, 6174 will keep on appearing on and on… it is stuck in a chain when you reach it.

Let’s take the number 2189.
After steps 2 and 3…
9821-1289=7632.
Repeating steps 2 and 3…
7632-2367=5265
Repeating steps 2 and 3…
6552-2556=3996
Repeating steps 2 and 3…
9963-3699-6264
Repeating steps 2 and 3…
6642-2466=4176
Repeating steps 2 and 3…
7641-1467=6174!!!

As you can see, I have completed Kaprekar’s routine and was very unlucky, as the number 2189 took a very long time to transform into 6174.

Try it yourself! The number 6174 always will appear and will keep on appearing.

{ 0 comments }

Today, grade 5 went to Elements Ice Rink, we went there to celebrate the Christmas break. I was very excited before I went because it will be the 2nd time I would be skating. I am really bad at skating so, I was really scared I would do bad but I knew it would be an experience. The ice felt really good to skate on. When we finished skating I was very happy. They played music when we were skating, I did not really like the music. We got to wear causal clothes and we even missed Chinese class. Yippee! Today was a great day. I want to go back!

{ 0 comments }

The picture of the day is:

The breathtaking Chicago skyline at dusk . I chose this photo because the view is spectacular and it lights up the skyline, this shows what Chicago is made of. I got this photo from National Geographic.

{ 0 comments }

You should learn more languages because it will be a big advantage for your future. If you could speak English, Chinese, French, German, Spanish and Japanese, it will be a major advantage for your career because you can choose to work in different countries that you like.  Your company can move you to work in different countries and you will have no problem to communicate with other people.

I have done a little research that the most spoken language in the world is Mandarin ( Chinese), English is only the second most spoken language which I did not know as I thought English is a international language, and it should be the most spoken language. But I was wrong, because one third of the population in world is Chinese.

I am learning to speak Mandarin as I know that how important it is if you can speak the major languages. In my school, there are many students speak fluent Chinese because some of them are from China or their parents are Chinese. I am studying very hard for my Chinese; I am also learning Spanish and French as well. I want to be international. Speaking different languages, it is definitely an advantage for me in my future, because I  can communicate with more people.

In last summer, I went to Barcelona, Spain to attend a four week tennis camp training. This tennis academy is very popular and many players from around the world would come for the training. Some of these foreign players can only speak of their own country’s language. But the coaches in this academy can speak a few languages. So, they can communicate with the tennis players. But, if the coach can speak only Spanish, then their students will find difficult  to follow his instructions.

I really want to learn more and more languages because it will help me with my future. I want to work in different places in the world; and experience the world.

For me you should trust this post and learn from it. I hope it can help you!

{ 0 comments }

Today was DiG Day – it was archaeologist day for Grade 5. Our school had organized a field trip to South Bay Beach in South Bay. The purpose of this field trip was to let the students to understand more about the topic for the Unit of Inquiry about “Where We Are In Place and Time”. Our teachers set up an archeological dig site at South Bay Beach. We, the students, acted as archeologists and dig up the ‘artifacts’ and to observe their features. We need to apply our interpretation skills to investigate them. It was really fun!

How our teachers set up this archeological dig site was: about two weeks ago, our class was requested to make an artifacts individually, using clay. Then, our teacher then put all the artifacts in a huge garbage bag; she lift it up and put it behind her shoulder. BAM! she smashed the garbage bag filled with all our artifacts on to the floor. Needless to mention, all the artifacts broke into pieces.

This morning, two of our teachers went to Sandy Bay Beach secretly without mentioned anything to anyone, just before we left for our field trip. They buried the broken artifacts into the sand on different locations at the beach. After our Chinese class, we went to the beach to find the artifacts! We were not allowed to look for our own artifacts. Guess what! I found some artifact pieces belonged to the 5th Graders a year ago! Awesome, eh? I found 3 pieces of a artifact at the end, but I was not sure if that’s all of it. It looked like a boomerang, i was not too sure about it. It was a really fun day at the beach today.

I love my school, I just enjoy it every day! Today, I was an archeologist!

{ 0 comments }

We have finished another unit of inquiry and one of our summative assessments was to make a poster about our material we were studying about. My group studied about metal and here is our poster:

{ 0 comments }

Today’s picture of the day is:

Radiant at sunrise, the Matterhorn towers over Riffel Lake near Zermatt, Switzerland. I chose this photo because the view is to DIE for, the other thing is that it is in my native country Switzerland. I got this photo from National Geographic.

{ 0 comments }

Cars and buses are crazily beeping’ along the streets, as the electric cars zoom by the Island Eastern Corridor. People are entering and exiting the IFC, as businessmen are waiting for taxis to go to the ICC. Lots of teens are holding iPhones, listening to music. Rich people are living at the peak, where there is a sea view. Oldies are roaming around markets, trying to find what they’re gonna’ eat for lunch. People drive here, there and everywhere to work. People are relaxing, working on their iPads and computers,  school children are having a lot of fun playing at school.

{ 0 comments }

My dream cooperation “TropicA Group” will be like the ones listed below. I would diversify the businesses in different industries, in different continents with developed or underdeveloped countries.

Ideal subsidiary companies for my cooperation will be:

• TropicA Airlines ( Global Airline) with small Subsidiaries
• TropicA Cruise
• TropicA Energy ( Fitness)
• TropicA Hotels
• TropicA Mobile ( TropicA made phones)
• TropicA Technology ( TropicA made computers, tablets, TVs, Headphones etc.
• TropicA Software ( TropicA made software in TropicA technology gadgets)
• TropicA Beverage
• TropicA Beer
• TropicA Health ( Medical Centers)
• TropicA Space ( Tourist Space ship which will go into space and come back)
• TropicA Talk
• TropicA Official Stores
• TropicA Cars
• TropicA Holidays ( Charters)
• TropicA Skys ( Ballon Transport)
• TropicA World Radio ( Radio)
• TropicA ONE ( Charity Foundation)
• TropicA Music
• TropicA Game
• TropicA Toys
• TropicA Paradise ( Spa, cosmetics etc.)
• TropicA Reading (Book Publisher)
• TropicA Fashion
• TropicA Watches( watch)
• TropicA Media ( home telephone, cable television, broadband and mobile services)
• TropicA Explore ( Oceanic diving tours)
• TropicA Wines ( Wine seller)
• TropicA Lodge ( Skiing Holidays)
• TropicA Limos ( Limos)
• TropicA Trains
• TropicA Fuels ( Green Gasoline)
• TropicA Banks
• TropicA Insurance
• TropicA Flowers ( Flower seller)
• TropicA Money ( providers of financial services)
• TropicA Pets ( Rescued domestic pets for adoption)
• TropicA Delivery( delivers newspapers, magazine)
• TropicA WOW ( amusement park)

If you have any other ideas, please comment!

In the next post of the TropicA Group, I will explain where and what I will be focusing on.

{ 1 comment }

Today’s picture of the day is:

Alexander Frei of FC Basel celebrates after a shocking 2-1 win over Manchester United. I chose this photo because this is my 2nd favorite soccer team and I really like watching soccer. I like this photo because it is exciting that FC Basel gets to go to the UEFA Champions League knockout stage.

{ 0 comments }

Here is a video of Hong Kong in the late 1930′s. This was truly videoed in 1938.

{ 0 comments }

A lot of people in grade 5 have been getting a lot of flags. For example me, I have like 60 flags on my flag counter which is pretty awesome but Extreme 24 has 143 flags I think.  Sometimes you can get really rare flags from all over the world, like Gabon, Georgia and Barbados and other rare flags. If you take a look at my blog, Dynamo 4′s blog and Extreme 24′s blog look at the flag counter they have!

{ 0 comments }

This was 1 month ago, but last month, Jack Gantos, an author, came to our school and gave us a funny little lecture about how he loved books and how he got inspiration for his books. He told us tons of wonderful and funny stories, and we enjoyed him a lot. The lecture ended with a huge round of applause. Click here to visit his website! I think he is a great reader and is passionate about his job, I hope he can come back to our school again!

{ 0 comments }

It’s late for remembrance day,but I want to share a really famous poem written by John McCrae.

In Flanders Fields

by John McCrae, May 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

{ 0 comments }

(Recounted by Dynamo 5)

Yesterday, from 7:00-7:30, choir members in our school from Grade 5-6 had a performance in the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in the Chancellor Room, Level 4. We were singing 4 songs. The first song was “I Believe/J’Imagine”. There were paragraphs of English and French. The second song was “Still A Bach Lullaby”. It was a slow song. The next song was a festive and catchy tune called “I Can’t Believe It’s Christmas”. The last song was “In My Dreams”. This song was chosen just for this performance for the Canadian Universities Association Function.

{ 0 comments }

Faust is presenting “The Wind in the Willows” this year.

Two of the Dynamos are in it! Dynamo 1 and Dynamo 11 both have exciting roles and will be practicing, practicing, practicing as the show dates draw near.

Will you be going to see the show?

There are still tickets available for the performances – in particular the Friday and Saturday 7.30pm show and the Sunday 11am show. Tickets are available by phone 3128 8288 or online at www.hkticketing.com

{ 4 comments }

Spain celebrates after winning the Davis Cup at the Seville Tennis Stadium. Rafel Nadal, David Ferrer, Fernando Verdasco and Felianco Lopez won it for Spain. Argentina the runners up are a bit disappointed because Argentina lost 4-1 in matches. Maybe Argentina will win next year, I hope. I chose this photo because it is a celebration and it is related to tennis.

{ 0 comments }

My next two holidays are going to be in Asia, which is a bit disappointing I would like to have went to Europe. On the Christmas holiday I will be going to Malaysia for about 5 days. On the Chinese New Year break I will be going to the United Arab Emirates for about 10 days ( It will be really Unique). In this post I am going to tell you about what I am going to do on the holidays.

So, lets start with the Christmas break. I am going to Singapore for 5 days which I already said, I am staying at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. The Mandarin Oriental Hotel has 2 tennis courts, I and my mum will have a tennis lesson everyday on our holiday. I think it will be very fun! We are also going to do a lot of shopping, two days are going to be for my shopping and two days for my mum’s shopping. I
might also do some swimming but I am sure that my mum will visit all her friends. We are just going to take it easy and relax.

Next, lets talk about the Chinese New Year break. I am going to Dubai and Abu Dhabi. I think it will be very interesting and unique. For about 2 days my family are staying in the desert, for about another 4 days my family are staying at Abu Dhabi and for about 4 days my family are staying in Dubai at the Atlantis Hotel, which is on the Palm Tree Island it is going to be very cool. I really want to get some souvenirs from some shops! I family says that we are going to relax and take everything easy, maybe we will do some shopping or do some swimming. We haven’t really planned what we are going to do.

I hope it will be fun!

What are you doing for your holiday?

{ 0 comments }

The picture of the day is:

A cute cat trots to a corner on a pedestrian walkway. I chose this photo because the cat looks very cute and I like the view of the photo the cat was taken. The perspective looks like a tight angle to catch. 

{ 0 comments }

These steps can really help you with not worrying about homework. Me to, I had a lot of stress with homework but now I don’t because I follow these steps always.

Tip 1: When coming back from school, find a quiet spot. Quieter spots tend to let you think more, relax and concentrate.

Tip 2: Make yourself a cold drink. DO NOT have a fizzy drink or a soft drink it will make you really hyper, also you could eat some fruits, you should not have sour fruits.

Tip 3: Make a checklist of assignments that you need to do and their due date(s). After you finish an assignment, check off the correct box. This will relieve stress by making you feel that you have less homework to do.

Tip 4: Take a break between assignments. If you feel tired, just take a nap and refresh your mind.

Tip 5: Feel good about it. If you like homework, than the “stress” would be decreased.

Tip:6  Follow all the tips! Homework assignments would literally “do it by itself” if you do so.

If I were you I would follow these steps!

{ 0 comments }

Here are 5 different ways to get more visitors on your blog.

I hope this can give you more visitors!

{ 1 comment }

Finale NotePad 2008 is a great application that you can download. You can click on different notes and then but them on the bar lines, erase notes if you make a mistake, print your piece, listen to your piece to know whether your piece sounds okay, etc. Finale NotePad 2008 is great for me because for our Lets Make It Happen Celebration I have to compose a piece and I can use it. Finale NotePad 2008 or newer is very convenient for people who love music and is not a professional. Why don’t you try it!

{ 0 comments }

I totally agree what Dynamo 5 wrote. So, I am going to show you what he wrote.

iMovie, an Apple Application Software, is an amazing invention to make movies and even trailers for them. You can also use iMovie to make presentations. Plus, you can do lots of different things with iMovie. You can add music and even put sound effects, just drag what you need in and it will be there. Many sounds have been already downloaded into iMovie for you, so you don’t necessarily have to get different sounds and record them. When you buy an Apple product, like an iMac or iPad, you can check out iMovie too! If you are a beginner, just fiddle around w ith it and you should get the hang of it.

If you have an Apple product, you can also check out iTunes. It is as equal quality to iMovie. You can search on iTunes and make a folder and then add it in to your favourites. You can also download music onto it too. The good thing about iTunes is that it can run music while you are doing a presentation so there can be music in the background and it will seem really neat. As I typed in the previous paragraph, you can drag music into iMovie so you can s tart and stop music whenever you like. iTunes is a great opportunity to listen to music, especially if you are a musician or a music teacher.

iPhoto, which is another amazing app that can save pictures that you import into it.

You can write i n a small text box they give to you where the image came from, what’s the name, and other things you might need to remember about it. You can also put images on your iPhoto and then go to System Preferences (only for Apple Products) and it will show up in the desktop section. Then you can set it up as your background. iPhoto can keep lots of images in folders. Make sure to organize them or there will be hard times finding pictures. Pictures are sometimes automatically organized in order you put them in, so your latest import would be at the top of the page and you have to scroll down to see your earliest import.

{ 1 comment }

The picture of the day is!

A young boy when he had his arm chopped off by a rebel during the brutal civil war in Sierra Leone. He is now goalkeeper for the national amputee soccer team in Freetown, Sierra Leone. This photo was taken while working on the documentary Leone Stars. I choose this photo because this inspires people to believe in anything to matter what. I hope you like it! I got this photo from National Geographic.

{ 0 comments }

On this post I will be talking about my dream life.

My dream life is to be a founder of a great company which does many things, just like Sir Richard Branson’s one. He is the founder and CEO of Virgin which has many subsidiary companies – Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Books, Virgin Media etc. My point is that if I could be like Sir Richard Branson, one – I would make the world better, two – I would make a lot of  money, and three I would be famous.

My company would be called “TropicA”, which will have a hub of businesses at numerous famous places. It’s subsidiary companies will include TropicA Ocean (Cruise business), TropicA Airlines, TropicA Technology, TropicA Software, TropicA Books, TropicA Cars, TropicA Drinks etc.

I have so many ideas but it will be too long for this post. If you have some ideas for me, please comment it on this post. It basically would be called the TropicA Group. When I reflect on this, if my dream comes true, then many people will have new jobs. My company won’t collapse in one big financial crisis, because I diversify my investment to different businesses, i.e. I spread my risks instead of investing in one core business. If this really happens, then I would give most of the credit to Sir Richard Branson because he was the one who thought of having one big brand like Virgin. I hope my parents would be very proud of me if my dream comes true. If I can create “TropicA” as a world recognized brand, my many little small companies in the group will be very successful.

I would live on a private island like Sir Richard Branson and have an enormous mansion just like Sir Richard Branson’s one, but his mansion accidentally cached on fire lately from a lightning bolt, which is sad. From my perspective, if my dream really comes true, I believe I will also bring many people great fortune.

I will continue to write about my dream in next post. I will talk about more of my business goals, business plan, my life goals and other important things. I hope you can stick around and visit my blog! Please comment on which logo looks best. Thank You!

Here is my “TropicA” logo.

Here is another logo.

{ 2 comments }

A month ago, we watched a extremely touching and sad movie called “Nicky’s Family”.

This movie was talking about a man named Nicholas (Nicky) Winton who saved more than 2000 children including the famous Vera Gissing. These children were about to be killed by the Nazis or Adolf Hitler. Nicholas has sent children to Britain because it was the only country that was willing to help. He sent many children by train over there and they were adopted and taken care of. Now Mr. Winton is still alive celebrating his 100th birthday and even his grandchildren are proud of this caring man who added 5700 into his family by saving them.

I forgot to write about this post a long time ago!

{ 0 comments }

{ 0 comments }

The picture of the day is!

An air bubble ascending from the ocean floor contorts and twists into a semicircle as a wave breaks in the background. Captured as part of the Underwater Project. This photo is from National Geographic.  I choose this photo because I like swimming and I think that this is photo looks super unique. I probably would guess that this photo was taken in the Pacific Ocean.

{ 0 comments }

Operation Golden Rules is a cool movie about the life about Grade 5 thatDynamo 4, Dynamo 5, Dynamo 13, Dynamo 18( ME) and Dynamo 20 made. The first episode has been shown to the class. This is also about ourBuilding Walls Of Wisdom project. This message is based for Grade 4s, 5s, and 6s. The Operation Golden Rules movie is out, we want to raise money for charity so we invite students to come intoMs. Cahusac’s Room (806) and watch the ten minute movie. Students, the fees for entering is $3 to stand and watch, $4 to sit in a chair and watch, $6 to sit on the sofa. There will be snacks served during the period. Snacks include Gummy Bears ( $4) , Chocolate Mousse ($15) , Chocolate Chip Cookies ($10) and Brownies ($8). There might be Soya milk and milk served also. Please come to Operation Golden Rules Staff before the 8th or the 15th (showing dates) to pay and collect ticket. If you pay when you enter you Will Be Accepted.

Skeleton Crew

{ 0 comments }

Here is a funny parodies about Hockey. I hope you enjoy.

Another Video

{ 0 comments }

This post was written by Extreme 24, he is a great writer and I acknowledge him, I want to share with you one post he wrote. I am sure you will admire this post a lot.

Here is what he wrote:

“Everyone reading this post must have experienced failure. Either you lost your job or failed on an important test, failure always strolls around you, no matter where you hide. Success, in the other hand, strolls around you but if you don’t fail, it’ll never come to help you.

Never give up after you fail. Failure is the first step of success, as they say. If you don’t fail, then you wouldn’t succeed. Learn from your failures. After you learn from your failures, you have a better chance to change failure into success. Never look down to it. No matter how many times you fail, if you never give up, you’ll get that succeeding feeling.

Some quotes that you’ll learn from. Keep in mind that these successful people also failed before.

“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”- Winston Churchill

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”- Steve Jobs

“I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.”- Michael Jordan

All these quotes tell us that failure is acceptable (as in Michael Jordan’s quote) but you have to try to succeed. Days before he (Jobs) passed away, he reflected on succeeding and the exact opposite. He knew he would pass away, so he just wanted to get all the failures he experienced out of his mind.

Failure is not a bad thing, it leads to success.”

If I were you I would trust this post and be confident what you do in life, you will be already one step ahead if you fail. Sometimes you just have to be patient.

{ 0 comments }

Here is the picture of the day!

Residential homes are covered in fresh snow in Calgary, Alberta. I like this photo because the shape of all the houses on the view you can see looks awesome! I got this photo from the Globe and Mail.

{ 0 comments }

National Treasure

Information

Directed By:Jon Turteltaub

National Treasure, made by Disney in 2004, is an adventure movie. Written by Jim Kouf, Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Cormac Wibberley, and Marianne Wibberley and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, It is the first movie in the National Treasure series ( There are National Treasure 2 and National Treasure 3), starring by Nicolas Cage, Diane Kruger, Justin Bartha, Sean Bean, Jon Voight, Harvey Keitel, and Christopher Plummer.

Duration Time: 2 Hours 11 minutes

Released: 2004

Rated: 6.8 Stars

MPAA: PG

Genre: Adventure Movie/ Science Fiction

Review:

Last week my class watched a movie called “National Treasure”, now I would like to give an review about the movie.

The movie was started when Young Benjamin Gates ( Nicholas Cage) was not around until his grandfather found him hiding in the attic of his grandfatherʻs house. His grandfathers asked him why he was in the attic and Benjamin said that he was just poking around, then he discovered something which was to do with the past and the American Revolution. His grandfather all of a sudden started to explain to him a hidden treasure the Americans hid when the British tried to invade the America. His grandfather had one clue to look for the treasure -”The secret lies with Charlotte”. But then his dad butted in and said “thats fools gold” as his father never believed in it. His grandfather then continued to tell Benjamin about the treasure eventually telling him that it was the Free Masons treasure

Later, when Benjamin grew up, he dedicated his life to find the treasure. He went on an expedition to the Arctic and looked for Charlotte, the abundant ship being buried and frozen in the Arctic. He was accompanied by few others. One of them was Riley Poole and another was Ian Howle. When they found the Charlotte, it was filled with skeletons inside the ship. Riley was a bit scared. After they found Charlotte which led them to another clue. They found a old small pipe. Ian thought that they could make money out of it and he wanted it all for himself. He then dumps gun powder on the floor. He and his team draw their guns right at Benjamin and Riley, but thank to Benjaminʻs quick thinking he got out a match and threatened that if Ian shoots Benjamin he would drop it and they all would blow up. Next, Benjamin dropped it and the fuse started and then both Ianʻs team, Benjamin with Riley started to run different directions, Riley and Benjamin hid underground and Ianʻs team got away. The old ship then went KAA-BOOM, Ianʻs team believed that Benjamin was dead but actually Benjamin was alive.

The purpose of watching the movie and making an review is for the study of our Unit of Inquiry topic on “Where we are in place and time” – we can study about the past, about the history of the America, the American Revolution. The movie shows different perspectives from different characters ( also related to the UOI). I like this movie because it has a lot of tempting, creative and real life scenes. It is extremely interesting to watch. I like it because you learn something from the movie and it is an adventure movie and I like that type of genre. My favorite character is Riley Poole he is the technology geek and he can be very klutz, he is the most sarcastic person on the movie I think. The movie is one of my favorites, if you want to watch it then I recommend you to watch the whole movie! You should watch this movie because it is factual and you learn something from it and you also will be laughing and being obsessed with history after you watch it. If I would have rated it I would choose a seven out of ten. One of my favorite parts in the movie is when Benjamin discovers the treasure. Overall it is a movie to watch over and over again! I think that people aged 9 to 55 should watch this movie.

If you watch it I hope you enjoy it.

{ 0 comments }

Recently, my friends have been geting a lot of spams. They are mostly people who they donʻt know and they are just trying to advertise their products. So far I have zero spams which is good. But I am not tolerating any spams on this blog. The “LTT” said to trash the comment.

Sorry for the inconvenience!

{ 2 comments }

Everyday I will be putting a post of  photo of the day.

The photo of the day is:

The Amsterdam Schipol Airport, is working hard in the early morning. You can see mostly KLM airplanes. I choose this photo because it looks nice especially the lights. I hope you enjoy it!

I got this photo from Airplane Pictures.net.

{ 0 comments }

Todayʻs picture of the day is:

A Emirates A380 flight taking off with a nice livery saying “Spirit Of The Union”. I choose this picture because I love the airline and I like the special livery. I am also taking this airline on the Chinese New Year Break!

{ 0 comments }

In this post I am going to tell you why Grade 5 is so awesome to me. In Grade 5 so far we have done some amazing stuff. One thing is that I got into Ms. Cahusacʻs class which is the best class EVER! Then we have awesome field trips like Costal Defense Museum Of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Cemetery, Art Jam ( all written in other blog posts). We get our own MacBook Proʻs , we have our own blogs ( my favorite). We have lockers which is way better then having cubbies. We now are more independent and we are now in charge of a lot more things. And the last thing is that my class has the biggest room in the whole lower school.

Ms. Cahusac is the best teacher ever she is so nice to us and she gives us free time to finish our work, play on our laptops and do blogging. She lets us download games from the internet which some teachers donʻt let you. And the best thing of all is that she hates homework, that means she gives us really little homework. My teacher is really awesome.

The MacBook Proʻs are really awesome, we can use it as a research tool, a free time tool, a typing tool etc. The best thing about the MacBooks is that they are going home with us on the Christmas break, I am going to use for a lot of work and blogging. Taking the computer home on the Christmas break has never happened in Grade 5 history. So, that means the teachers think that we are very responsible and  the teachers must have been convinced that we are the best grade 5ʻs ever. Normally the computers go home in the Chinese New Year Break in February, but we are very special and we are bringing them home this break – before the Christmas .

The lockers are quite nice even though they are a bit small, itʻs fine with me. You can put somethings in there like your bag or clothes there is even a hanger in there. But in Grade 5 there is a big rule that if your locker is not closed properly then your lock gets confiscated. Then your friends might tease you, another way to get your lock confiscated is if you talk in the hallway before 7:45 AM because all the other teachers are working.

In Grade 5 we have more responsibilities, we have to take care of our lockers, computer and do our homework on time otherwise you approach your teachers expectations (I always want to be exceeding the expectations). In summative assessments we have to hand in your work on time, if it is group work you need to hand it  on time also, the teacher cannot help you. I am doing a summative assessment with a group and the teacher is not allowed to help us on most things.

Blogging is the best thing ever in Grade 5 for me, I love blogging because I really dont like writing and my hand writing is not that neat. Thats why I do blogging so much, my perspective on typing is so fun but some other people donʻt think that way. Please comment on this blog to tell me if my writing is okay.

My classroom is the biggest in the lower school thatʻs why I am so lucky to be in the 5D – “Dynamos”. Even though my class is a bit messy, I still like it. My class even has a couch which is so awesome! My class even has their own cubbies which no other class in the grade has!

So far this school year has been AWESOME! I really enjoy my school day!

I have a good feeling that this year is going to be a great year!

{ 0 comments }

Here is the picture of the day:

Todayʻs picture of the day is super cool. In Barcelona, Spain vehicles drive under christmas lights. The reason I choose this photo is because it looks super nice and I have been to the city. I got this photo from Globe and Mail.

{ 0 comments }

This is what really happened to me when I broke my wrist.

When I Broke My Wrist

{ 0 comments }

Patience is the key to success in tennis “ALWAYS”. For example, the 5 set of the US open finals you are serving 5-5 you have to hold your serve otherwise you have a big chance of losing. You know that you and your opponent are tired, but you have to hang in. Once you get your serve in and your opponent receives it you hit the ball in the net, you lose concentration you miss the next two points.

Now you are really under the gun, so you just hit the ball back and be patient, you continue to be consistent, your opponent gets frustrated and hits the ball into the net three times in a row. You are now confident and your opponent is now frustrated and is not showing a confident face, you know you got him. You walk to the baseline and now the momentum has changed in your direction, you take your time and your opponent is steaming “how” with fury. You serve, he smashes the ball out of the tennis court, he is very mad. Even if he is mad thatʻs a very good thing because he just wants to smash the ball at you. Now you have won the game, he is furious and smashes his racket and says bad words, he gets a warning for verbal abuse and racket abuse.

You just walk to your seat slowly, it is now 6-5 for you. He has a lot of pressure because if he losses his serve, then he has lost the whole championship.  He rushes to his side, he gets the ball and you are ready with a lot of confidence in your head.He smashes the ball and it is in, you return the ball and it is a accidental drop shot he quickly gets to the ball and smashes the ball right passes you, you make mistakes and it is now a tie brake at 6-6.

Your opponent is pumped up with confidence and you too, you know that all you need to do is be patient and get the ball over the net strongly. You just need to get the ball in and make your opponent to play the extra ball. You are serving you make a straight ace right past him. Now he really wants to win he smashes the ball but you receive it and have a long rally he is now fed up and does a power ball out he is now mad. Soon you and your opponent are playing long rallies a lot, some points go to your opponent some points go to you it is now 6-4 you are serving for the match in the tie brake, you take your time and your opponent is very frustrated and tired, you serve the ball and the linesmen calls “Out!” you challenge the ball and it reviews the ball is in and it was an ace because your opponent had no chance of getting the ball. You have won the US Open! You accept the prize and you are now a super star. The key is to be patient and be consistent.

This applies to almost everything, you have to have patience it will lead you to success.

I recommend you to trust me!

{ 2 comments }

The picture of the day is:

Soldiers from the US Army Drill Team perform during a preview at Earl’s Court ahead of the British Military Tournament. This picture was taken in Great Britain. It really looks cool because their weapons are like lined up in a perfect shape. I got this photo from theguardian.

{ 0 comments }

MacOSaix is a computer software, it makes mosaics for you but you need a photo to start off with. Then you can do custom searches on it and it will get any photo related to your custom search. It is very creative and unique, I tried it before and I recommend you try it. My teacher calls it digital mosaics but I call it MacOsaix. Why donʻt you try it? Brag to your friends about it and they will get JEALOUS! Here is the link! Oh and another thing is that it is EASY to do. If your print it out it will look Ahh- May -Zing!

Here is a profesional made one.

Here is one I made.

{ 1 comment }

Here is the picture of the day.

Thousands of offroaders light up the night at Oldsmobile Hill at the Imperial Sand Dunes recreation area. This is a beautiful picture taken in Glamis, California. I got this photo from theguardian. I hope you like this photo!

{ 0 comments }

{ 0 comments }

Here is a Czech Airlines flight taking off. I like this photo because the livery looks very nice and the background is a airport with airplanes in it. I got this photo from airplane pictures.net.

{ 0 comments }

Splat! Splat is basically a dramatic act of performing a piece of poetry it can be very interesting. The act is organized and performed by Faust, there were three actors on the stage! They were all very funny, but they all put a lot of effort and hard work into the performance! They had to pick only 30 poems from hundreds of other very good poems and they had to memorize all the poems and act it out! Their hard work really paid off because everyone was entertained by the acting and poems. Today, the my whole grade got to watch it, we were so lucky to watch it!

After, my class got back to the classroom, we talked about it for a while. I got inspired by the Performance I made a poem about school today.

This is a made up poem! School is not boring! School is AWESOME!

Today At School

{ 0 comments }

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

{ 0 comments }

Here is a picture of a Lufthansa 747-400 landing on a runway of a airport. This picture is from Lufthansa, I really like this photo because I enjoy traveling and love collecting airplanes.

{ 0 comments }

What is a Word Cloud? Well, Wikipedia says,

“A tag cloud (or word cloud) is a visual representation for text data, typically used to depict keyword metadata (tags) on websites, or to visualize free form text. ‘Tags’ are usually single words, and the importance of each tag is shown with font size or color. This format is useful for quickly perceiving the most prominent terms and for locating a term alphabetically to determine its relative prominence. When used as website navigation aids, the terms are hyperlinked to items associated with the tag.”

In other words, a tag cloud or word cloud is a picture that shows words of different sizes, layouts, fonts and colours to see which words are the most significant within a body of text (i.e key words). You can do this with an essay or a website or a school assignment or even a blog!

Take some time to look back on the posts you have made this year. What are they mostly about? Has your writing changed over time? Do you see improvements and differences as you progressed over the year? For this week’s challenge, you need to create a word/tag cloud of your blog, showing the key words and common topics of your blog. You can use Wordle if you’d like, but you can also find out about some other word cloud creators, such asTagCrowd or Tagxedo. Play around a little bit with more than one get a final image that you really like. Post your new word/tag cloud to your own blog and write a short post explaining why you’ve created this. You should state which online tool you used to create your image.  You can also tell you readers if you feel that the image describes your blog accurately. Why or why not? Were you surprised with the words most represented in the cloud?

Here is a word cloud that I made by inserting the BBB Blog as the URL using the tool Tagxedo. I really think this is the tool that allows you to be the most creative, but you’ll need to play around for a looooong time 

Good Luck!

{ 0 comments }

I know that Halloween has past, but this video is funny!

{ 0 comments }

Here a Qantas flight lands right in front of a rainbow. This photo is AWESOME! I did not get this photo from Globe and Mail, I got this photo from Airplane – pictures net.

{ 0 comments }

For all you parents who want to watch the upcoming winter concert, the details are underneath here.

{ 0 comments }

On November 14, all the grade 5 students went on a field trip to the Hong Kong Cemetery in Happy Valley. We visited there for the purpose of the unit of inquiry study on “How do we know about history?”. (Same as the previous field trip). This garden cemetery has a history of its own and is one of the few remaining sites. So, we visited this place and tried to look back at the long history that Hong Kong people had accomplished, fatally passed away and how did they die.

I walked around the cemetery looking at the grave yards, seeing what they accomplished and how they passed away. There were full of grave stones, we even saw a grave which read “passed away peacefully on 1393.”( I forgot the month and day), I was working with a group and they were also astonished that someone passed away on that year. My group saw many soliders who were killed in action when defending Hong Kong in World War 2 against Japan, most soliders who died were British. It was pretty sad looking at all the soldiers grave stones but still they defended for Hong Kong and were honored. This garden cemetery was closed ten years ago by the Hong Kong government.

My class teacher, Ms. Cahusac, had taken many beautiful photos during our visit to the cemetery. I picked one of her pictures as post below, I felt very lonely when I looked at it, maybe a haunting feeling!

{ 1 comment }

On November 21, all the grade 5 students went for a field trip to the Hong Kong Museum of Costal Defence in Shau Kei Wan. We went there for the purpose of  our Unit of Inquiry study on “How do we know about history?”. So, we visited the museum and to look for the traces about what had happened to Hong Kong during the World War 1,2, the Opium war and other important historical events.

We went around the museum; and we saw the exhibits, the landmarks and the displays placed outside. I really enjoyed it because we were running around and looking at the landmarks and the cool exhibits. One of the best moments there for me was that when I went into the battery ( where you shoot and hide, normally built for two people), you could see almost the whole view of outside.

I remembered that before my class went to the museum, our teacher assigned us into groups and we had to pick an exhibit and later on to do a play according to that exhibit. Our group chose the exhibit for the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong. And we also had to pick a time and a setting for our play too. Our group included Dynamo 17, Dynamo 7, Dynamo 13, Dynamo 20 and me.  Our exhibit was the “Escape From Aberdeen”, when the Japanese invaded Hong Kong.  It was a very dramatic scene. Our group had not done the play yet, we might have to do it tomorrow.

When we left, I then realized that the museum was where people fought to defend Hong Kong many years ago. I really want to come back and see everything again. And check out these awesome photos my class took during the trip!

{ 0 comments }

The artifact game is a game of interpretation of a picture which normally shows an object(s). Our class – 5D has been playing this game for the past week, indeed, other classes in Grade 5 are also playing this game. It’s a very interesting game, but puzzling. The reasons that we play this artifact game is for us to learn how to interpret the past or sources that people used to find out the past by investigating the historical event.

So, when we play the game in the class, my teacher, Ms. Cahusac, will project a picture from her computer onto the white board; and she will then give a sticky note to each of us to write down the interpretation we have for the picture. But, it is a rule that we cannot talk or share the ideas with others. We have to know the difference between interpretation and guessing for this game. Below is a recap of the steps on how we play the game:

{ 0 comments }

Recently people  have been copying numerous posts of mine and that makes me very very angry. So, no post can be copied onto anyones blog. Otherwise I will tell the teacher. I am not going to mention the names! You have to ask me if you want to copy any of my posts. I will appreciate it if you not copy and use your own ideas. Any content is also not allowed from being copied after this post. Thank You!

{ 4 comments }

Here is the picture of the day, I got this picture from Globe and Mail. I choose this picture because I like watching basketball and I want to let the world know what is happening to NBA. If the NBA players don’t approve their money, the league is offering them, NBA might disappear. I really hope that the NBA players could accept their money and continue what they do best (basketball).

{ 0 comments }

It’s always nice to know when a new challenge comes out (every second Monday) and there’s a cool way to get an email notification telling you about the newest challenge. We’re going to use a very sophisticated RSS feed called Feed Burner. This tool will send you an email every time the BBB site is updated. Cool!

Part A: Sign up for BBB notifications via email.

By signing up forthe email notification, you will be listed on Ms. Cahusac’s FeedBurner. As the owner of the BBB, Ms. Cahusac will be able to see who has and who has not successfully signed up for the news feed using FeedBurner. Therefore I will know exactly who has done this second challenge. M ake sure you follow all the steps carefully! Begin by putting your email in the space provided by FeedBurner box on the right –> just under the revolver map. Next you will get an email and you must click on the link to ‘activate’ your subscription. That’s it!

Part B: Optional and only for High-Flyers – Create your own FeedBurner for your own blog!

For this step you will need to create a FeedBurner account. For this, you will need a google account. There are a lot of steps! Can you figure it all out? Try your very best and come to see Ms. Cahusac if you get really stuck.

A special note about the BBB - Not everyone has successfully completed Challenge # 1. If you are registered and you believe that you are participating in this competition, you better make sure you are signed up properly and that you’re doing the challenges properly. Otherwise you will not be considered for the final prize packages. It’s not too late to sign up for the BBB and you can catch up by doing the challenges whenever you can. Registration will remain open until Winter Break. So if you’re still just thinking about doing the BBB, you can start whenever you’re ready!

{ 0 comments }

Here is a remembrance day video. This is very serious. This video is about the people who fought in the war and gave us a better life.

{ 0 comments }

Here is a movie I am currently doing. I am giving you a sneak peak to this video. I hope you enjoy it. And it is coming out in the beginning of 2012.

Great Job To: Dynamo 18, Dynamo 20, Dynamo 5, Dynamo 4 and Dynamo 13!

">/0.jpg" alt="YouTube Preview Image" />

{ 0 comments }

WOW, Halloween is here again, time goes so fast! If you ask me why does CDNIS love Halloween? I will answer the question like that, well, I think because we have our Halloween Dress Down Day Party. Like the one we just had on Friday, 28 October. Everybody took great efforts to prepare for their costume for the Halloween party, and our teachers in Grade 5 this year suggested us to do a theme of Star Wars. We could wear any of the Star Wars characters costume. My parents spent a weekend to shop around in Central with me, and at last I found what I liked, it was “Anakin Skywalker”.

When I got off from my car and walked to the school on the Halloween Dress Down Day, I could feel the excitement from the students, of course, including our principals, teachers and other school staff. They were all dressed up with different scary, funny, cute, handsome, beautiful and original costume. I could tell that they did spend a great deal of time to prepare it. In the morning before the school start, all the students and teachers were laughing, joking around and having fun. It was great to see.

We had an assembly for Grade 5 and 6 in the morning. The teachers had given some awards for the most original costume, the most scariest costume, the most funniest costume and the best costume from a book/story; and the teachers and the students did some performance. We had a great time. In our class, we had organized a class party in that afternoon. Everyone brought in some food and drinks. The day went very fast, especially we had so much to do. Almost forget to mention about our Star Wars group photos, they came out perfect. I reckoned that our Class Teacher, Ms. Cahusac looked much better than Princess Leia in the Star Wars Movie. This was what my mother said.

Everyone in CDNIS loves Halloween!

{ 1 comment }