Avatar

The phone rang. I asked to myself, 'Who called in this early morning?' Although I was sleeping, I listened to what my mom was talking about out of curiosity. Then I heard the word that excited me: Avatar. I knew that I should wake up now to finish my homework before going to watch the movie.
The last hope for humans to discover alternative energy: Planet Pandora!!!
Humans had used almost all energy on earth so they had to find an alternative energy. The only place they could rely on was a planet called Pandora. But of course, Na'vi (Creatures living in Pandora) didn't want them to destroy their planet and guarded Pandora. So humans couldn't find where they could get an alternative energy. Therefore, the humans made a link machine called Avatar.
A lame person called Jake Sully who lived a normal life suddenly became all the humans' fortune!!!
While the humans were creating Avatar, there was a lame person called Jake Sully. His brother was working in 'Avatar Program' but he died because of fighting so he was asked to participate 'Avatar Program' and went to Pandora. Jake, who now could walk freely through his own Avatar, started his mission: Finding a place where the humans could get an alternative energy.
While he was doing his mission, he was chased by a huge monster and a woman warrior of Na'vi called Neytiri saved him. Neytiri took Jake to her tribe. Jake learned how to speak Na'vi's language and how to act. As the time passed by, Jake loved Neytiri and had various adventures together. However, Jake didn't forget what he was supposed to do and finally he found where the humans could get an alternative energy because Neytiri loved Jake and trusted him (But still not noticing he was a human). Immediately, he reported to his boss the place where they could get an alternative energy. But soon, there was a war between humans and Pandora.
There was a huge war between Humans and Pandora that is unstoppable and Jake felt guilty what he had done... Which team he is going to help? Humans or Pandora???
Jake felt very guilty for Na'vi and Neytiri. So Jake told Na'vi the truth. Everyone was surprised and tried to kill him. Jake warned people not to fight with humans because they were too strong for Na'vi. But they didn't listen to him and fought. Of course with no plans, Na'vi lost badly and the whole forest was burnt. Then, Jake felt much more guilty and decided he would going to help Pandora.
Soon again, there was a second war. But this time, Jake made plans and they won. They won completely.

This was a great movie and it was much better than I thought. I liked the backgrounds especially because they were vast and attractive. I read in newpapers that this movie is going to make more than 200million dollars and at first I wondered 'How can the movie so good that it will going to make 200million dollars??' And now I understand it. I think this is the best movie I had ever seen. Not one of the best.

Read, Read and Read!!

From Christmas break until now, I read lots of books such as 'Talmud', 'Oprah Winfrey', 'The Scarlet Letter', 'The Great Gilly Hopkins' and 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'. So I read 5 books in total. This might sound not a lot but one of them is thick and I also bet you don't like reading books in vacation. I am not a great reader but I don't have special events to do even in Christmas so I just read books.

Actually, I didn't finish one book which is the thick one I told. The title of the book is 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'. There are 450 pages and I read up to 76 pages. I read this book before that had short descriptions. But this one is so great!!! In this thick book, there are lots of minute details and I enjoyed reading this book much better than the last time I read it. I think I can finish this book in three days. After I finish this book, I will definitely going to write about it. I will not talk about it now because I didn't finish the book yet and I know it would be very long like a summary for 'Bill Gates' or even longer. : ) But I will tell you the preview.

It's about a boy called Huckleberry Finn and who is naughty and doesn't listen to his widow. His mom died when Huck was young and he was very afraid of his dad because he always whipped him with a cow leather whenever he wanted to. Even though he had his dad, he didn't know where he was. One day, Huck met his father and the father took him to a small island. The father locked him in a cottage (He lived with Huck though) leaving nothing so that Huck couldn't escape and he had the key. Huck didn't have any hope to escape. But he was wrong. One day he found a saw. And then he started to plan something to escape...

My Christmas present!!!

Yahooooooooo!!! I thought to myself. Oh really, I was very excited about my Christmas present. I got the present I wanted for Christmas and I want no more. I never thought I would get it but I actually did. But you might wonder, 'Why did your parents buy the Christmas present today, not on December 25th?'. The reason is because my parents will be too busy visiting their neighbors and preparing food so they decided to buy me a Christmas present today. You also might wonder, 'What did you get?'. And the answer is... LEGO CAR!!!

Well, for some of you, it might be boring and childish. But for me, it's very special and actually, Lego is not childish. When I was third grader, I had to construct a big Lego ship and the size of it was humongous and it took me 3 months to finish it. However, this time, it's much easier to construct it but a thing that made me interest and like it was that I can control the Lego car with a controller. I also like the design of my Lego car. (Don't you?) I never bought Lego car with a controller and I bet it would be very interesting. I really thank my parents. I got this special present at night so I will start constructing my Lego car tomorrow. I can't wait!!!

Diet

Today, my mom and I decided to do diet. Actually, I didn't consider doing diet until my sister's friend called my sister. My sister's friend suggested her to jog together. My sister agreed and my mom said to me, "Well, I think I should diet as well. If you also want to, you can." I didn't want to but I agreed because it would be good for me and it would be fun to exercise with my mom. What we decided to do was jump rope. I thought to myself 'Oh man, it's too easy for me.' which was correct. I found a jump rope in my junk box which is a green jump rope.(Can you see the green jump rope at up picture?) It is a little bit expensive but I think it's worth it because it's much, much more comfortable than other jump ropes. I bought this when I was in Korea. It is because I did jump rope every day 200 times a day. I can do 6 tricks and one of them is fascinating. It is one of my prides and my best record is 25 times. You might wonder what fascinating skill I am talking about. Now, I will explain it.

You have to swing the jump rope two times and you have to make in one jump. To do this, you should swing your hand very fast and jump as high as you can. This sounds easy but it's really hard. If you have a jump rope, try it! Then you would think I am 100% right.

But I wondered if my great pride would work here as well because I didn't do jump rope for 1 year. I had no problem with the normal skill but as I expected, my great pride didn't work very well at first. However, when I tried it many times, I could do 20 times.

I was quite nervous when I started to do jump rope again. When I did jump rope in Korea, I felt very bored because I had to do this every day in my school. But now, I feel it's very good to do jump rope again. When you are extremely bored, you also must do jump rope because it's both fun and make you healthy.

Bill Gates

I recently read a book called Bill Gates which is a biography. I am not interested in reading biography books but my goal is to read biography and non fiction books so I decided to read this book to start achieve my goal.

This book is about the richest person on earth called Bill Gates. There is a great story about him. Now let's see what is so great about him and how he became the richest person on earth.
William(Bill) Henry Gates III was born on October 28, 1955, in Seattle, Washington. His family was affluent and he learned in an exclusive prep school called Lakeside. He was talented in learning but most of all, he was interested in early computers and as well as his friend called Paul Allen. As they grew older, they became very good at using computers and even once, Computer Center Corporation company asked them to help find and fix their software problems. They began earning money for fixing problems. As Bill worked there, he improved his skills and there were things that made him good at using computers. That were: He was unafraid of failure, worked hard, shared his information with Paul, perfected his skills and devoted his time to succeed.
One day, Altair 8800 was invented by one company. Bill and Paul became very interested in that company and lied to the company that they developed Altair 8800 even though they didn't because they wanted to work there. But in 8 weeks, they actually succeeded. Immediately, the company employed Paul and Gates. They worked there for a while and offered a contracted deal with MITS to buy their software.Then, they formed a new company called Microsoft. That is how Microsoft begin.
While Bill and Paul just formed Microsoft, International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) was ready to enter the personal computer market but IBM needed a company to work with. IBM chose Microsoft and they worked together. Gates and Paul wanted to get the contract to deliver BASIC for the new IBM PC like they had for Altair and they got it.
One day, a person called Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products wrote Quick and Dirty Operating System (QDOS) and Paul tried hard to obtain it. Finally, he got it and within months, Microsofy provided IBM with its operationg system renamed PC-DOS. DOS was a great success and so was IBM PC, supported by a massive marketing campaign.
At first, Microsoft followed the right path by focusing on writing operating systems and applications. But gradually, Microsoft focused more on offering new products than on making sure each product worked perfectly and securing systems. Because of this, Microsofy software crashed too often. Later, Apple invented user-friendly graphical user surface-GUI, which is a mouse to click on icons and help complex computing instrucions with a single touch. From then on, it was much easier to use computers and Microsoft copyed the idea of GUI and also created a mouse.
In the late 1990s, Microsoft invented Microsoft 95 software which was a huge success. By selling millions of copies of Microsoft 95, Bill Gates became a millionaire. However, the workers in Microsoft were conceited and became very lazy. As a result, Microsoft was failing but fortunately, Bill Gates had an idea what to do. Microsoft entered the multibillion-dollar computer gaming industry with its personal a success and also entered other game companies such as Sony.
Bill Gates realised that his programs were insecure so he slowly improved Microsoft's products and rewrote the operationg system called Windows XP. It was also a huge success. After he sold millions of copies of Windows XP, Bill Gates became a billionaire.
In 2005, Queen Elizabeth II of England knighted him and he was used to identify as 'Eristalis gatesi'.

In 2006, Bill Gates announced that the would be leaving Microsofy in 2008. Everyone was shocked by Gate's announcement but some helped him. Warren Buffett donated $50 billion of his own money to Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and a few of his friends helped him as well.

After I read this book, I was pretty surprised by the ending that he would leave Microsoft and help poor children. I should be more patient and more creative like Bill Gates and get a great innovation.

10 vocabularies

1. traumatic

2. malevolent

3. pleadingly

4. revelation

5. embezzlement

6. lagging

7. embankment

8. eclectic

9. dejection

10. adhesive

5 pictures definition

1. jubilation

2.seminary

3.fixated

4.pensive

5.lucrative

2012

On last Sunday, my dad and I watched a movie called 2012 in PIM 1. It was very long movie but it was not boring. This movie is showing the end of the world. It was scary because the ground cracked like tsunami and the volcano erupted. There was one man named Jackson and he tried really hard to rescue his last family which means he divorced with his last wife. They rode a limo and Jackson drove a car as fast as he could. He found a plane and he made his last family to ride and Gordon, a new husband, drove the airplane. Then they headed right to a person called Charlie because he got a map which told them where to go to be safe. In a nick of time, he found a map and it told them to go to China. Eventually, they reached China and rode a huge ship that protected them and only about 1000 people were alive with male and female of each animal.
After I watched this movie, I was pretty scared because there was an article in a newspaper that 2012 is the end of the world and there were some theories which I didn't understand. If that is true, I think it's unfair because I had worked hard to improve my skills and I want to enjoy my life more than 3 years from now on. I just hope 2012 is not the end of the world.
The movie was quite good but I think there is no point about this movie and it's hard to tell the story unless you watch it and I think director copied some ideas from a movie called 'Tomorrow'. So I would like to give 7 stars out of 10 stars. Next time, I would like to watch a movie I read in a book like Christmas Carol.

Mile run

Yesterday, I did a mile run and it was crazy.
I was pretty scared before I ran because I had to beat my score to get A and I thought my last score, 8:24, was high for me to beat. But there was a good news. Mr.Macmullen, my PE teacher, was running with us and he said that he would run a mile in exactly 8 minutes. So I decided to just follow Mr.Macmullen and get 8 minutes. I made the first lap and the second lap with Mr.Macmullen but I was too tired when I was half way of my third lap. So I walked for a few seconds and ran again. But I got tired again and walked again. When I repeated this 5 times, I decided to give up to get higher score than 8:24 because I didn't rest when I ran last time. By the time Mr.Macmullen finished, I needed to go halfway more. This was my last chance and I sprinted as fast as I could until I thought I was really going to die. I had to go 100m more and I sprinted and I thought I would collapse but I wasn't. After I crossed the finish line, I collapsed and lied down on the field. Another PE teacher read my time. I didn't expect to get higher than 8:24 and I was wrong. My score was 8:23. I improved by just one second. I was very delighted and I was less tired than before.

Water Purification Movie

Geoactive Questions and Answers

Activities:
1. List the main reasons for water scarcity.
A: The main reasons for water scarcity is that many places such as deserts, have low rainfall, variations in climate, land degradation, population growth and water pollution.
2. What is a drought? What type of hardships do you think that a drought could cause if you were living in a village in a poor country such as Ethiopia?
A: A drought is a period of below average precipitation. Dehydration, illnesses such as Cholera and death could be the hardships I would face when living in a village in a poor country such as Ethiopia.
3. How does land degradation affect the supply of fresh water?
A: When land has being used excessively for overgrazing and farming, the soil is not able to store water. When there are heavy rains, the water is lost into rivers and the sea.
4.(a) What is El Nino?
A: El Nino is a warming that happens every three to five years in the Pacific ocean off the coast of Peru. So this causes the air pressure to reverse and go over most of Australia. These prevent moist tropical air masses reaching Australia for a long periods and causes serious drought.
(b) Why does El Nino often cause drought in Australia?
A: Because of the warming the air pressure reverses and stops moist tropical air masses reaching Australia.
5. Observe the map showing the global effects of El Nino in 1982-83
(a) What effects does El Nino have on the availability of fresh water?
A: Due to El Nino, there can be period of heavy rain along the west coast of South America and this causes severe flooding. Water becomes heavily polluted and little clean water is available.
(b) Name the countries and describe the problems that arose from decreased rainfall caused by El Nino.
A: - Dry - Too much rainfall
Australia- Wheat exports threatened by drought conditions.
Philippines- Lower rice harvest due to drought.
China- Agricultural land under threat from drought in northern regions and flooding in southern regions.
Papua New Guinea- Due to drought, they are not able to grow crops. This causes famine conditions.
Indonesia- Dryness causes forest fires making air very polluted.
Africa- Less corn crops due to dryness.
United States- Too much rainfall.
Colombia- Fishing is affected.
Peru- Flooding and fishing is affected.

The Falcon's Malteser

I finished reading a book called 'The Falcon's Malteser' by Anthony Horowitz. I decided to read this book because lots of people enjoy reading his books. And indeed, it was a really good mystery story.

This book is about two detectives, Tim Diamond and Nick Diamond. They are not actually detectives but they preferred to be called that way.
One day, a dwarf came into their office and asked them to keep his package and said that he would give 500 dollars for keeping them for a week and he would take it back. He emphasized that they are not to open the package. Tim thought the dwarf was crazy but Nick knew there was something mystery and dangerous about keeping the package. And he was exactly right.
One morning, Nick got a letter from the Fat Man, the biggest crime in England and told them to give the package. They didn't gave it to him and later, they found out that the package contained only a box of Malteser which was just a plain chocolate. But after a few weeks, they also found out that this Malteser box meant 5 million dollars from Falcon, who was the biggest crime on earth, and he wanted to keep his 5 million dollars safely after he was dead and he made a riddle to get 5 million dollars and this Malteser box was a clue. Many great crimes try to get this Malteser box but Nick's witness was good enough to protect the Malteser. After chasing each other for a long time, Nick figured out the answer of the riddle. It was a bar code on the Malteser's box. Nick reflected a sunlight on the bar code to the eagle's eye and there was a beep sound. The eagle monument should be cracked and open but it didn't work. Later, Nick found out that his friend, Lauren, had stole the Malteser box's barcode and replaced the false bar code. But still Lauren gave some money to Nick with a letter and he spent the summer holiday with his money.
My best part of this book is the time when Nick had injured two famous crimes, Hommel and William. Lauren and Nick were both captured by them and they tied their (Lauren and Nick) bodies with some ropes. Hommel and William had gone to the bank where Nick mentioned where he kept the Malteser box which actually was a lie. Lauren had learned how to escape from tying by ropes and escaped. She also helped Nick and Nick planned something brilliant. Even though they escaped from tying by rope, the door was locked. Nick was very sure that the crimes would kill him by telling them a lie. He was locked at the 5th floor of a strange building and there was a big piano at the centre of a room. When Nick watched they parked at a parking lot, he pushed the piano and it crashed on their car. Everyone was astounded and one man had found out Nick and called the key fixer. The key fixer came and unlocked the door. And then Nick and Lauren escaped. Fortunately to Hommel and William, they were not killed and just injured a bit.

I was in this book and didn't know that the time had passed. I would really like to try one of his books maybe the continue book after this book. I would seriously like to recommend this book to everyone.

Bintaro Kampung Field Trip

On the 12th November, I visited the kampung for the field trip. We went to this field trip so that we could learn about the different ways to purify the water. There are 6 stations in total to purify water but we didn't have enough time to watch all of them so our group saw stations 1,3 and 5.
In station 1, we saw the water was purified in a big blue drum which worked as a sand filter. It contains rough rocks 10cm high, fine rocks 5cm high and fine sand 45cm high. The fine sand helps trapping the microorganisms and dirt. But still, it's not suitable for drinking and is used for showering.
In station 3, we saw that this method depends on the sun to purify the water. What we have to do is, finding any bottle and wash it properly. After that, we fill the bottle with water and left it out in the sun. It takes 6 to 7 hours to make it drinkable on sunny days but on cloudy days, it takes about 2 days to make it drinkable. The bottles we can use has to have smooth, thin and the labels should be removed.
In station 5, we saw how to check if the water is safe or not. There are two ways to check it. First, we used ph meter. If the number in the ph meter shows between 6 to 8, it means the water is safe (But not for drinking). The other way to check it is to use a turbidity meter. It has a number from 5 to 500 and at the bottom of it, it has a cross sign and if we can see it at the higher place, it means the water is more clearer. To see if there is a microorganisms or dirt, they use a machine called equalizer. It shows the microorganisms level so we can know how much dirt are there in the water.
It was pretty more specific than the water treatment because the guides in Kampung explained longer and clearer than the water treatment guides so I could learn lots of things I didn't know before.

Turtles

GeoActive Questions and Answers

Activities:
1. What percentage of the world's supply of water is fresh water?
A: Water covers 71 percent of the earth and 2.5 percent of all the water is fresh water which means there are only 1.775 percent of fresh water on earth.
2. Where is the world's supply of fresh water found?
A: Above 1.775 percent of fresh water, 1.42 percent is found in the form of ice on land, 0.3479 percent is found in groundwater and the soil and 0.0071 percent is found in the rivers and lakes.
3. Even though the supply of fresh water is abundant it is still a problem. Why?
A: Because the fresh water and people are not evenly given. What happens is that for example, in country 1, there are more fresh water than in country 2. But the problem is, country 2 demands more fresh water because of greater population. So this shows the fresh were unevenly distributed.
4. Observe the map of world average annual precipitation (opposite).
(a) Describe the changes in rainfall that occur as you move from the southern to the northern tip of Africa.
A: As we move from the southern of Africa to the northern tip of Africa, we can find out that the rainfall is getting higher until the place between the equator and the Tropic of Cancer. From then on, the average annual rainfall goes under 250mm which is extremely low.
(b) Describe the changes in rainfall that occur as you move from the western to the eastern tip of Australia along the Topic of Capricorn.
A: As we move from the western to the eastern tip of Australia along the Tropic of Capricorn, we can find out that the rainfall is slightly getting higher and finally reaches over 2000mm, starting from under 250mm.
5. Observe the map above of water availability per person.
(a) Which parts of the world appear to have a large amount of water available per person?
A: South America seems to have a large amount of water available per person.
(b) Which parts of the world appear to have a small amount of water per person?
A: Europe seems to have a small amount of water per person.
6. Observe the diagram of water use.
(a) What are the main uses of water?
A: The main uses of water is agriculturing.
(b) Which uses have increased the most over the last century?
A: Reservoir losses from evaporation and seepage has increased the most over the last century.

Water Treatment Plant Field Trip

Last Thursday, I went to the Water Treatment Plant Field Trip to see how dirty water is purified. There are 6 stages in total to purify water.
Firstly, there is a big iron window bar to percolate a big pieces of garbage and they (The water treatment guiders) clean it every hour to make the water cleaner.
Then, the second stage is, "Adding mineral and oxygenate" to get water aeration.
In the next stage, a chemical called 'Alum' is added in the water and surprisingly because of it, the dirt gathers and make a big dirt floc and we call this step coagulation.
But then in a stage 4, big flocs change into small flocs and the flocs will sediment to the bottom of the water which is a step called, sedimentation.
Then finally, there is a step called filtration which is a very important stage. In filtration, the clorn is added and it is used as a disinfection and it makes water really clear.
For the last stage, they check the purified water if it's safe or not.
I was pretty surprised that it was this complicated to purify water and I got a better knowledge about water.

Clara Cleech

This is a movie about a poem called, 'Clara Cleech'. It is quite funny at the last part and I'm sure you would like it. HOPE YOU ENJOY!!!

Water Cycle

1.Evaporation- As you can see in this picture, the water is heated by the sun and becomes water vapour and flys into the sky. We call this process, 'Evaporation'. If there is higher temperature, less humid and stronger wind, then the evaporation occurs actively. This is the first step of the water cycle.

2.Condensation- If we look at this picture, we can find out that water droplets are formed outside the glass when water vapour in the air condenses on the cold glass. When the air cools down, the water vapours that are floating in the air becomes water droplets. We call this process, 'Condensation'. This is the second step of water cycle.

3.Precipitation- When we look at this picture, we can figure out that precipitation occurs when the heavy water droplets then fall back to the ground as rain, snow, hail or freezing rain. This is the third step of water cycle.

4. Infiltration- By looking at this picture, we can find out that water soaks into the soil from the ground level. We call this process, 'Infiltration'. However some water remains on the ground because there is not enough space to soak into the ground. When the sun shines, the evaporation begins with a new water cycle and ends again with infiltration.

Arm Bleeding

“Ouchhhhhhhhhh!” I yelped. There was too much blood at my arm. My skin was torn off and I was bleeding a lot. A pain spread all through my arm and I almost yelled. It was such a torment. I knew something was going wrong. My friend and I immediately went to a nurse and she gave me a medicine and said not to wet my arm.
It all happened like this: “Tack, Tack, whiz, goal!” I was playing basketball in a bad mood. It rained all day and it was still raining. The soccer field was drenched. Everyone was playing basketball so the court was very crowded I couldn’t even breathe.
When the other team scored a goal, I turned away to go near the basketball hoop and score a goal. As soon as I turned, I felt something trip me. There was no time to do anything. I just fell down, not noticing what happened to me.
When I stood up, I realized Estefano, one of my friends, tripped me accidently. I felt angry. The thing made me angrier was that he didn’t apologize properly.
At home, my parents were quite surprised by this but I still had to go to academy. I said to myself, “NO~~!! I can’t even bend my arm and I’m seriously injured and how can my mom say that?” Reluctantly, I went to the academy.
After academy, I thanked my mom that she made me go there. My teacher said the medicine I got from nurse was too weak. She added, “If you keep that medicine, the pain will stay longer.” She gave another medicine and told me to keep it. I thanked her very much. My arm was healed quickly and I decided to give her a present.

Interviewing Eragon (Movie)

This movie is about interviewing the main character named 'Eragon' from the book "Eragon" by Christopher Paolini. If you read this book before, it might be more interesting. Hope you enjoy!!!

Tobak

I went to Tobak for dinner today. Tobak is a traditional Korean restaurant and I would like to introduce about it.
Tobak is famous for its neatness, and there are various kinds of korean food. For example, there are korean foods like bulgogi, kimchi soup, bibimbab and jun gol. Above all these and other korean foods, the most popular food is bulgogi.

Today, my family had jun gol and dol-shub-bibimbab so I want to tell how to make two of them.

To make jun gol, you have to prepare any kinds of vegetable, thick slices of raddish, thin slices of meat, baby octopuses and kimchi. Then you put kimchi in a bowl of water and boil in water until the water becomes red and tastes spicy. Cool it a little bit and then put the vegetable you've prepared, thick slices of raddish, thin slices of meat and baby octopuses and boil it altogether again. When it becomes hot, you've made jun gol by yourself!

Next, I'll show you how to make dol-shub-bibimbab. If I transulate this meaining into English, it means, 'Mixed rice in the rock pot'. To make dol-shub-bibimbab, you have to prepare a rock pot, bracken, balloonflower, carrot, spinach, meat, mushroom, hot pepper paste, a bowl of rice and an egg. Then, you put a bowl of rice at the very bottom of inside the rock pot. On top of it, you put all kinds of vegetables I mentioned before. After that, you put an egg and top of it. Finally, you fry it and you are ready to eat! A good thing about the rock pot is that bibimbab doesn't cool down easily.

It's little bit tricky to make korean foods and takes a lot of times so you better not try to make it unless you are very curious.

The Cat Ate My Gymsuit

By Paula Danziger
★★★★★

Now, it's a break time but I didn't have any special events to do so I read a lot of books. I read 2 Korean books and 2 English books and right now, I am reading my fifth book called "The invention of the Hugo Cabret". Above all these five books, I would like to write about a book called "My Cat Ate My Gymsuit" by Paula Danziger.

This story is about the main character named Marcy Lewis who was a high schooler. She was fat and thought she was a blimp. She was shy, didn't speak very much, and wasn't brave enough. She hated her father because he always opposed with her ideas. She also hated a school because her teacher was stupid. Marcy always thought that everything was boring and she was a blimp. But then a new English teacher called Ms. Finney came soon and changed Marcy's whole life. Ms. Finney was willing to try anything in the classroom and she treated the kids like human beings unlike most other teachers. Marcy was very liked her but one day, Ms. Finney got suspended because she didn't say the Pledge of Allegiance, dressed strangely, and her teaching was not traditional. While Marcy was trying to help her, she got courage, made lots of friends, speaked her opinions clearly even to the principal and because of that, she got suspended.

My best part of this book was: After Marcy and her boyfriend called Joel went to one of her friends party called Nancy, they walked together to Marcy's house. While they were walking, she asked Joel if he liked to drink beer and he said yes. Then he asked her if she liked beer. She said no so he asked why she drank beer at the party. She replied it was because everyone was drinking it so she didn't want to be different. Then Joel said that Ms. Finney was different and she was very special. So Marcy realized that she was wrong.
From what Joel had said, I got an important lesson. It was that people can be different and still be happy and special. Some day, if I became different, I won't try to do the same things like other people do because it can be right what I'm doing.

I enjoyed reading this book because this book encouraged me.

Orangutans to be endangered

I was reading a newspaper and I found an interesting article. It was about an endangered animal, 'Orangutans'. This article made me interesting because I heard the population of orangutans are decreasing fast and I wanted to know if it is true.

According to this newspaper, the number of orangutans have sharply decreased. Researchers at the Great Ape Trust in Iowa said unless immediate action is taken, they could become the great ape species to extinct.

In Indonesia and Malaysia, where orangutans still live in the wild, their population has declined significantly since 2004 because of illegal logging and the expansion of palm oil plantations.

In Sumatra Island, the number of orangutans decreased almost 14% since 2004. And it is also found that the population of orangutans in Borneo decreased about 10% since 2004.

The Center for Orangutan Protection said there were 31,300 of them in 2004 while nowaday, we have only 20,000 of them remain in the tropical jungle of Central Kalimantan on Borneo Island. Based on this estimate, there will be no orangutans left by 2011.

I was surprised and sad by this news because if the population of orangutans keep decrease so fast like this, the estimate will be correct and that means I can only see them for only 2 years!!! If I can do something to help them, I am willing to do it because it's for them, me and environment.

Sick mom

Yesterday, my family went to PIM and had dinner at Jin Tie Fung. It was really great and nothing happened that day. But the problem occured the next day.
Today, my mother had a bad diarrhoea and a high temperature. She went to a bathroom more than 15 times and told me that she feels very sick. I realized this problem is related to the food she ate yesterday. The first place I thought was Jin Tie Fung so I asked her if she could think of any food she didn't enjoy in Jin Tie Fung. She replied that one of dumplings made her feel sick because there was too much oil in it.
I felt sorry for her because I chose the dumpling that made her sick. I decided to work harder because this happened because of my wrong choice.
But her sickness became worse. At lunch, my mom, sister and I went to Ranch market to eat some food. She wanted to eat cream spaghetti but I definitely said no because I knew for sure that this will made her feel worse. But she ate it by the way. After a few hours, she threw up what she ate and couldn't eat anything for dinner.
Today, I worked hard to make her happy. I finished all of my homework and read a book for 1 and half an hour.
My mother said that she would go to a hospital next day and I was relieved by this because the medicine will make her feel better and get well quickly. I wish that she is all fine.
I think this weekend was really going mad because of her sickness, an earthquake and a madness day.

Earthquake

Yesterday, there was an earthquake!!! I was in Biduery apartment 16th floor at that time. I was there for academy. My teacher went somewhere and she hadn't arrived yet so I had to wait on the sofa. Suddenly, I felt that the sofa jittered a bit but a few seconds later, it became fine again. After this, I thought of two things. One was "Maybe, maybe if I am unlucky, it's an earthquake." The second thing was "Never mind. I bet this sofa just jittered a bit because this sofa is old and quite unbalance." And I glanced at the clock if it also jitters. It was OK. But soon, the sofa jittered again. This time, it jittered longer and stronger. I became worried. By then, the teacher's maid screamed, "Earthquake!!!!" I was terrified because this was my first time I felt the earthquake. When the first earthquake occured, I was at the school so I didn't feel it and I thought to myself that it's no big deal because the buildings didn't damage.
But, I realized that I was totally wrong. First, the maid and I went out the house and we found my teacher right in front of the door. She didn't know the earthquake occured. We pressed the button to catch an elevator. I knew it was wrong to ride an elevator when there's an earthquake but I froze and couldn't tell that it's dangerous. While we were waiting for the elevator to arrive, I felt the floor was moving back and forth. It felt like I was on a carpet and someone was moving the carpet back and forth. I couldn't stand straight.
When we were going down by the elevator, something really afraid and dangerous thing happened. One little kid also rode an elevator and his arm stuck by the door of elevator. Extremely fortunately, someone pulled out his arm quickly and he was safe. To my surprise, the little boy didn't cry.
Everything became fine after a few minutes. Even though the Richter Scale was weak, I felt like I was going to throw up. But still, I thanked my god that the earthquake was not very strong.

Madness Day

Today was a Madness Day! There are 6 teams and I was in a team called 'Rinjani'.
At first, I envyed one of the teams called 'Krakatau' and wanted to be in that team because there are so many good players and I was quite sure that they will going to win which was totally wrong.

In total, I played three matches. For the first match, we played a game with a basketball. I don't know the name of this game but I played this game a lot of times before so I didn't enjoy it very much.
The rule is very simple. First, we have to stand in a straight line. Then the first person has to pass the ball up to his/her head and the next person should get it and pass the ball between his/her leg. We have to repeat these two steps every time. When the last person gets the ball, he or she has to run to the front of the line and pass it to the first person and is out of the line. When there is nobody left in one team for the first time, they won.
I was happy that our team was in the third place for this game. Amazingly, Krakatau was in the last place which was totally out of my expectation!
For the next match, we played a tug of war. We got even better score in this game. We were in the second place! Again, Krakatau was almost in the last place even though there are many strong people! I couldn't believe my eyes.
For the last match, we played a game called 'Water Relay'. I think almost nobody played this game before because we were in the second last place but I enjoyed this game the best.

Agung got 140 points, Bromo got 120 points, Merapi got 110 points, Krakatau got 40 points, Salak got 120 points and Rinjani got 70 points.

From this match, I learned a very important lesson. It was that cooperating with our team was the most important thing because that's the reason why Krakatau lost even though they got lots of good and strong people. From now on, I will never envy any other teams that they got good people because it's no use at all if 'COOPERATION' is out.

I really enjoyed Madness Day today and I can't wait to play again in Christmas!!!

Spelling words

1.seizure: Uncontrollable, squeezing of a muscle.
2.swarming: A large number of beings moving around, not in pattern.
3.venture: Beginning of a new thing; a journey
4.dignity: Fair, respectful and not wild and wacky.
5.knead: Squeezing or rolling something with your hand and massage it.
6.illuminating: 1.To light up 2.Very clear explanation; to get ideas.
7.virility: Very sexy male man.
8.jittering: Vibrating back and forth.
9.Hispanic: People who come from Spain&South America who speak Spanish fluently.
10.trepidation: Feeling that something bad might happen; dread or kind of threatened.

10 vocab sentences

1.The young ventriloquist performed a very nice show in front of lots of people.
2.A malicious robber murdered a man after he stole some precious jewels from a man's house.
3.A rich woman bellowed at her servant because he didn't give water to her most beautiful flower and it wilted.
4.All humans are mortal while all gods are immortal.
5.There was such an overwhelming homework so I couldn't finish it and got a bad score.
6.I made a silly blunder on my test so I regretted that I didn't check my work.
7.I watched TV idly as soon as I woke up because it was Saturday.
8.A dectective said to himself, "Perplexing. Before the victim was murdered, he was in his room with a door locked and how did the murderer killed him?".
9.There was rampant typhoon in Taiwan so there was nothing left after the typhoon went away.
10.A track was so vast that I couldn't even see the end of it.

6 Sentences using 'I' and 'Me'

1. My mother and I played tennis on Sunday night.
2. My mother cooked dinner very deliciously for my sister and me.
3. Playing games made my friend and me feel happy.
4. "You and I are going to play tennis on Sunday morning", I said to my sister.
5. When my family and I found out that a restaurant is too expensive, we went to another place.
6. After my mother bought some bread, she made a delicious sandwich for my dad, my sister and me.

Olive's Ocean

I read a book called "Olive's Ocean" by Kevin Henkes. I read this book because the author won the Newbery Honor. The books which got Newbery Honor, are very meaningful so I enjoy reading them.

The main character Martha, got a letter from Olive's mother. It made her very surprised because Olive was dead. She had been hit by a car on Monroe Street while she was riding a bicycle. The letter made her feel eerie because the letter was written that Martha was the best student in Olive's class. Martha didn't do something special thing for her nor did she spoke something nice to her.

At a summer vacation, she went to her grandmother's house. Near her (grandmother's) house, there were Manning boys. Martha liked one of the Manning boys called Jimmy. Martha and Jimmy went together and traveled together. But one day, Jimmy ruined her life. He kissed her and he was recording it with his video camera. This didn't made her feel very angry but when Jimmy said he did it for a bet, she became very angry. From then on, Martha became miserable and seldomly went outside.

One day, when she was strolling around with her little sister, she filled a bottle with Pacific ocean for Olive. At the letter, it said her best place was Pacific ocean. She decided to give it to Olive's mother. What she found out next was that there was Jimmy at the opposite side with another girl. To aviod his vision, she went near the sea but unfortunately, she was sweeped by a sudden, strong wave. She almost drowned but fortunately she could live by swimming for her life. From this disaster, she learned that she was worrying too much about video that she acted as if this was a big problem like this big disaster. So, she started not to worry it. Amazingly, before she went back to her house again, one of Manning boys called Tate, stole the video record from Jimmy and gave it to her.

At her home, she decided that she had to do something with the video record and went to Olive's mother's house. But unluckily, a person said that she moved to another city. So, she wrote Olive's name on the top of the step where Olive usually sat, with a brush. She kept on writing it until there was no water left.

I think this is a very meaningful book. I wish I can write a story very well like him. To achieve my goal, I should read a lot and practice to write very descriptive like him.

P.S I will give 10 stars out of 10 stars. I really like to recommend everyone to read it.

The Call of the Wild

This is a book called "The Call of the Wild" by Jack London. I chose this book because I heard this book is a famous story. I enjoy reading high level books such as the books that won Newbery Medals and famous stories.

This is a story about a dog called "Buck". The news of a gold rush in Alaska in the 1890s changed his life.

In 1890s, the new of a gold rush in Alaska caused a sensation. People from all over the world set forth for Alaska with a burning desire to find gold and become rich. They needed strong dogs to pull sleds over the snow and ice. So, the sudden demand for strong and large dogs with long fur changed the fate of many dogs. And Buck was one of the dogs.

He lived with Judge Miller and his family in the Southland. They treated him like a king but his happiness didn't last though. One of the judge's servant stole Buck and sold him to a stranger. Buck was again sold to new owners, Perrault and Francois. Buck had been taken suddenly from the heart of cilvilization and thrown into a wild palce in the far north.. He had to learn many new things quickly to survive. As the day passed, he became stronger and larger. In his mind, a jealous and envy about a leader dog called "Spitz" grow stronger and stronger. Finally, Buck killed Spitz and became the leader dog by himself. About few months later, Buck was sold to a new owner. The owner didn't know how to work with dogs but they knew how to beat them. When Buck was absolutely exhausted, the owner decided to kill him but a man called "John Thornton" saved his life. Buck was faithful to John and eventually, they reached the place and John collected all golds. Every night, Buck heard a call from the wild and he found his brothers were calling him. He wanted to follow them but he couldn't betray his owner so he didn't know what to do. But when John was killed by the Indians, Buck was ready to leave the world of mankind and return to his brothers.

I really enjoyed The Call of the Wild and I even think this book is one of my best books. There are some difficult words and sometimes I found the words I didn't know in a dictionary or I just skipped them because I could understand the words meaning by looking at sentences.

P.S I will give 10 stars out of 10 stars and I truly recommend everyone to read this book.

Diary of A Wimpy Kid

I read a book called "Diary of A Wimpy Kid". This book is on the list of 'Books which every student must read". This is a small reason why I chose this book. Another reason, which is a big reason, is that this book is really funny (which I heard this from my friends).

The main character, Greg Heffley, wrote special events that happened in one year. So this book has many short stories. My best story in this book occured at the last day of summer. Greg's brother, Rodrick, woke him up in the middle of the night. Rodrick told him that Greg was late. Greg worried that he might sleep too much and late for the first day at school. Greg didn't notice it was the middle of the night because Rodrick drew a curtain and set off the alarm at that time. Plus, he was dressed up in his school clothes. Greg hurridly went downstairs and made a breakfast and was eating. By then, the father came and shouted at him what the heck he is doing. A few seconds later, Greg understood what was going on and he told that Rodrick tricked him. So, father went upstairs to scold Rodrick but he covered up his tracks pretty good. He pretended he was sleeping. Anyway, because of Rodrick, he wasn't late for school and Greg thanked him.

As you can see, Rodrick played lots of tricks to Greg so Greg didn't like him very much. But Greg learned one thing from Rodrick, it's to set people's expectations real low so you end up surprising them by practically doing nothing at all.

I think Jeff Kinney is a good writer. I want to read his 3 series books. The book was funny but not as good as 'Just' series. 'Just' series are kind of wacky so I prefer them better. Maybe after I finish 3 books, I can try 'Just' series.

P.S. I will give 9 stars out of 10 stars.

The Indian in the Cupboard

This is a book called, "The Indian in the Cupboard" by Lynne Reid Banks. The genre of this book is fantasy. It is on the list of 'A book which every student must read' so that's a reason why I read it.

The main character Omri, got a plastic Indian toy from his best friend Patrick for a birthday present. From his brother, he got a cupboard. There wasn't a key eventhough there was a lockerhole. Omri wanted a key and eventually, he found one from his mother's key collection. He put the plastic Indian toy in the cupboard and locked it. To his surprise, the Indian became alive!
The next day, he figured out that if he puts plastic objects in the cupboard and locks it, they will become alive. But if he does that one more time, they will become plastic again.
At first, Indian thought Omri would kill him so he stabbed him with his small knife. It made Omri bleeding a little bit. As I read this part, I thought Indian must had been very brave.
As the day passed by, they became more friendly and had lots of adventures. One day, Patrick came to Omri's house and made a real cowboy by also putting him in the cupboard. The Indian tried to kill him but Omri didn't allow him to do that. Like Omri, they became friends as the day passed by but the only difference was that it took longer time to be friends each other.
In the end, the Indian got a bride and they wanted to have marriage at their real home so they decided to go back to their home. The story ends little bit sad.

When I finished this book, I was surprised that it only took 3 days to finish this book! I was in this book when I was reading so I didn't know that the time was passing. There are 3 series and I think they are going to be fun like this book. So I will read them if I find them.

P.S. I will give 5 stars out of 5 stars and I recommend anyone to read this book.

Characterization on The Call of the Wild

The Call of the Wild is written by Jack London. He described very detailed and nicely on backgrounds and what was happening at that time. Also, he used some difficult vocabularies which helps to describe more specifically. So I could understand very clearly on what he wants to tell to the readers.

The main character in this book is a dog called Buck.
On page 17 to 23, I could find that Buck was protagnoist. It was because his owner very loved and cared about him. But the gold made him antagnoist. When somebody found gold in Northland, everyone rushed to Northland with strong dogs who could load heavy things. Buck was a strong dog and on page 24, his owner's gardener betrayed the owner and sold Buck to a man. From then on, he slowly became an antagnoist and eventually, on page 105, he fought with a leader dog and became the leader dog by himself.

In Southland, as I described, he was protagnoist. But in Northland, the dog who is protagnoist was dumb and stupid. On page 50, Buck learned a main problem by looking what happened to his friend. Shortly, his friend was killed by a leader dog and from that, he learned the main problem. What he found out was that his life was to eat or be eaten, or to beat or be beaten. So he became cruel and followed how the most dogs act. Because that was the only way he could survive from Northland.

On page 58, I could find that Buck was a fast learner. He figured out how to sleep cozily. The only thing he had to do was digging the ground. When he finished digging, he could go inside and sleep cozily. He figured out this faster than the most other dogs because he followed other dogs.

I really enjoyed reading this book and I think the best reason I enjoyed reading this book is because the author described very clearly.

P.S I will give 5 stars out of 5 stars on this book.

Because of Winn Dixie

I am currently reading a book called 'Because of Winn Dixie'. I chose this book because the author won the Newbery Honor Book. It wasn't that good as I expected but I learned some lessons I should know.
The main character, Opal, accidently met a wandering dog in a supermarket. The dog was running all around the supermarket and messed up everything. The owner and sellers tried to catch him but they couldn't. Opal lied to the owner that the dog belonged to her. To her surprise, the dog followed her very well. And that was the first time they met each other and I think the author showed the main characters in a really fun way unlike the most authors.
Opal named her new dog 'Winn Dixie'. After they met each other, they had lots of fun at that summer. Almost everything in that summer happened because of Winn Dixie. And I think that is the reason why a title of this book is 'Because of Winn Dixie'.

I quite enjoyed this book even though this wasn't that good as my expectation. But I learned some important lessons such as 'Don't give up', 'Be brave' and else.


P.S I will give 3 stars out of 5 stars and the author of this book is Kate DiCamillo

Earthquake in Indonesia

On September 2nd, there was an earthquake. When the earthquake occured, I was at the school so I didn't feel the earthquake. Before the earthquake occured, my friend told me that there was a snake on a table which should stay underground as usual. I wondered why it happened and I just thought it was no big deal. A few hours later, there was an earthquake. I didn't feel it but I heard some students yelling that an earthquake occured. So I thought there was a connection between snake and earthquake.

Indonesia gets lots of earthquake since Indonesia is located in the Ring of Fire. A Richter Scale on September 2nd was 7.4 which was strong enough to damage a big place in such a short time which makes the fact that this earthquake was 40km of the coast of Jasikmalaya, reasonable. There was also a tsunami warning for Indonesia is surrounded by sea and the earthquake occured from the sea.

After the earthquake, me and my friend realized that animals are much more sensible than humans so they react quicker than humans when earthquake occurs. And we thought that was a reason why the snake appeared.

From this disaster, about 40 people died. But a reporter said that they could find more victims which means there are more than 40 victims. Eventhough buildings weren't damaged, there were some cracks inside the building and on the wall.

My favorite author, Louis Sachar

Louis Sachar was born in New York on March 20, 1954. He wasn't interested in reading books until high school. When he was in a high school, he became an addicted reader. The authors who inspired him were J.D. Salinger and Kurt Vonnegut.

During his last year at his college, he helped out at an elementary school called Hillside School and this gave him an idea to make his first book, Sideways Stories from Wayside School. But he generally gets ideas from his brain not surroundings or from his life.

When he writes a book, he has three rules which he always does.

First, he works in his office everyday. He never allows anyone to come into his office even his family because it makes him hard to think of good ideas and breaks the spell. But he only allows his dog and cat to come in and stay.

Second, he writes about 2 hours a day. If he works more than 2 hours, he can't think of any good ideas so it makes him waste time. Sometimes, when he read agian what he wrote, he was surprised that he thought of such a brilliant idea.

Last, he never tells anybody what he is writing about until he finishes his book.

I was little bit surprised that he has rules something like these. And what I think a reason why he is such a good writer is that because he always thinks a lot and then starts to write.

Small Steps

This is a book called 'Small Steps' by Louis Sachar. This book is a succesion story of 'Holes'. The main character, Armpit, was at the Camp Green Lake, the place to which the people who did something wrong such as stealing and fighting were sent. After he was released from the Camp Green Lake, he dug a hole for Raincreek Irrigation and Landscaping and got paid every month. With that money, he went to a school. He missed two grades because he had been at the Camp Green Lake for two years. He decided to take small steps with his neibour called 'Ginny' to achieve plans such as graduating from high school and attending college. Ginny, who could not speak properly, was the only person who believed Armpit. His plan seemed to work well, but one day, his friend X-Ray thought of the other plan to get rich quickly. Armpit decided to give up his own plan and accepted X-Ray's plan. However, it did not work well because they tried to take big steps, different from those small steps that Armpit once tried. And through this failiure, Armpit realized the importance of small steps.

After you read this book, I'm sure you'll learn lots of lessons. And that's the reason why I recommend this book.

Typhoon Morokat

In Southern Taiwan, many roads and bridges were damaged by the torrential rain. We call this torrential rain 'Typhoon Morokat'. Warm air had collided with cold air then they spun clockwise counter and when the wind got very strong, Typhoon Morokat occured. Typhoon Morokat first occurred at the Pacific Ocean and then it came straight forward to Taiwan.

Mountains are made of rocks and if it rains too much, the water soaks through the mud which causes the separation between the rocks and the muds of the mountain. Then, the mountain slides down and we call this diaster mudslide. When mudslide occurs, it's means like tons of rocks are falling down. This terrible mudslide damaged lots of buildings and killed many people as well like Typhoon Morokat did.
Mostly, typhoon occurs at north and south of equator. Every country near the equator had seldomly damaged by typhoon. For an instance, Indonesia, Malaysia, Ecuador and Kenya had rarely destroyed by typhoons.

About Middle School

Hi, my name is Young Woo. I'm from South Korea and I'm 6th grader in Ms marrello's class. This is my half a year in JIS. I like playing the violin so I play violin for the musical instrument. And I like to play sports such as soccer, basketball, baseballl etc. Middle School has more various activities than Elementary School. Middle School is awsome! Also, we can choose any food whatever we want like, pizza, hamburger, kebab and others. Above all, the most interesting thing in Middle School is that there are electives. In case of mine, I selected techonology and strings. If you don't understand, you just come and you will understand what I mean. Thanks!!!