Definition of Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanzaa(etc. etc.)

What is the definition of Christmas (or Hanukah and Kwanzaa, etc. etc)? I want to say presents, but it makes me seem selfish, right? Should I say family time, or love? No, that seems too mushy. I guess your perspective depends on your age. Here is my formula:

Toddlers=presents 

Adults=family time and love

Teens=? (I haven't figured this one out yet.)

So my theory is that your perspective on this topic depends on your age. I think I'm right. Am I?

Every Friday, I go to this club after school. It's called Full Circle. It's for young teens or preteens. The club is very fun and I love it! 

This Friday, when I went to Full Circle, one of the arts and crafts that we did was making snowflakes. Here are the directions:  

Materials needed:

• Small pipe cleaners
• different types of beads (Get a variation)
• glue

Procedure:

1. Take three pipe cleaners and twist them together to form the skeleton of the snowflake.
2. String a pattern of beads on each side of the snowflake (or just do it randomly. It will still look awesome!)
3. String a big bead at the end of each side and bend the end of the pipe cleaner so the beads don't fall out.
4. Apply some glue in center of the snowflake on both sides.
5. Put a bead of your choice in the center and press on it. 
6. If you want you could make a loop with some ribbon and glue it on the end of one side. Then you can have a Christmas decoration! Or you can get keep it as a holiday decoration. It doesn't matter really.

This is a very fun arts & crafts activity and I hope whoever reads this will enjoy it! 

My "Dream" Poem

A few weeks ago, my English teacher told our class to write a poem about our dream for our future. After telling us the main topic of the project, she told us all the yucky rules of grammar and voice and etc. etc.

Since English isn't my strongest subject (even though I LOVE to read) I had a lot of trouble trying to write this poem. The first problem was what I should write about. The second problem was if there should be rhyme. The third problem was how to start the poem. I ended up procrastinating the poem till the last couple days (again!) but I managed to finish it on time. Even though I struggled with the assignment, I got 18/20 points, or an "A" on the poem. I would probably give myself an average grade, but I will post it on my blog and you can give me some feed back! I'd really appreciate it! :)




WARNING!


The following poem was written by Dee.
If copied and sent around the world, the consequences include the FBI!
Thank you.



just kidding!
Please enjoy the poem and if you want, send it around the world.
I really don't care! :)
oh, and please give me some feedback!
It would really help!

Dream Poem

New York is the place I want to be.
With its Broadway, Central Park, and energy.
The bustle of the crowds, so like an anthill.
People on the move, as if on an energy pill.

New York, the place of opportunities,
So many doors opening towards me
Maybe I'll sing on Broadway, or play the violin
Either way, I know I will be as happy as a nightingale, singing
Because I will be in New York, the city that never sleeps
The city that keeps my dreams alive

~ Dee

Our Thailand Trip

During the summer holidays, My family went to Hong Kong to visit my cousins, my uncle and aunt. For one week, we went to the pool, a museum, and we just hung out with each other. 

After one week in hong Kong, all of us went to Thailand together. In Thailand, we went to Bangkok, Phuket, and Phi Phi Island (which is pronounced Pee Pee Island. My sister, the joker, kept making juvenile jokes about it the whole time! She kept cracking up whenever we mentioned it! She is really young.) In Bangkok, we first went to see the Grand Palace. In Thailand, they have clothing requirements for temples and palaces. You must wear pants below the knee and you cannot wear tank tops. We all wore the correct clothing and went. But some of our capris were too short. So my mother, my cousin, and I had to wear these wraps that covered our legs completely. After five minutes, I was dying of heat and I couldn't wait to get the wraps off. When we finished looking at the palace and got the wraps off, it was such a relief. It was so hot in Thailand. The next day, we went on a tour to see three amazing temples. Each temple was beautiful. You could see the effort put in to make each structure. We got to see a huge, solid gold statue of Buddha in one of the temples. It had to be at least nine feet tall! Then, we saw the reclining Buddha. This was ENORMOUS!!!!!! The gold statue was miniscule compared to this. It was made with gold leaf and was forty-six meters long and fifteen meters high!!! It was so big, it was scary! 

The next day, we went to Phi Phi Island. We first went to Phuket by plane and then we were driven to a dock. When we got to the dock, there was a speedboat waiting for us. We all climbed in and headed for the island. In the beginning of the ride, the water looked really gross because there was a lot of trash. But as we got farther from the mainland, the water started to get darker until it was a deep, turquoise blue, with barely any trash. The speedboat ride was so much fun! We were going so fast and the boat practically skimmed the water. We kept bouncing up and and down and we had a blast! When we got to the island, I was shocked! It looked like paradise! The beach was so clean, and the staff were so nice. For the next three days, we snorkeled, saw different fish. and we just relaxed! Overall, Phi Phi Island is a wonderful place to go for holiday!

After our stay in Phi Phi Island, we went back to Phuket by ferry, which took three times the time it took on the speedboat! We stayed in Phuket for two days and while we were there, we went to see a tourist attraction called FantaSea. It was very interesting. They had live animals like tigers and elephants and they had lots of games and shops. At the end, there was a show. It was very cool but the story was hard to follow.

We went back to Hong Kong and my family and I left my cousins two days after the Thailand trip. I had so much fun and I recommend going to Thailand and seeing everything yourself!

. 

Teachers..............

There are good teachers and there are bad teachers.

Some teachers are ones that students enjoy, while others are just plain mean.
In my school, most of the teachers are awesome. But every good person has a bad side. And some teachers just have a bad side and no good side. One thing that I don't like about some teachers is that they get overstressed. It is really weird how one very small thing that goes wrong in class can tick them off big time! It's like a time bomb just waiting for the right moment and then... BOOM! For example, when one person in the class starts talking and the rest of the student add on to it, it can get pretty loud. Most teachers can quiet down this volume because they just have a knack for doing this (most teachers do) but some teachers just blow up and start screaming. (I haven't actually seen this happen but many of my friends have told me some interesting stories so it just might be true). One teacher just gets on everyone's nerves, including mine. She yells at everyone for no reason (though sometimes it is necessary) and she forgets things so quickly that it's like she has short-term memory loss. None of the students like her. NONE OF THEM!


On a happier note, there actually are teachers that kids like. Once I had a teacher who was a hipper, active, fun teacher that made everything exciting. Some people said she was weird but I didn't think so. She was like a really big kid, but then she got married. After that she became Miss. Proper... I mean Mrs. Proper. She was still the nice teacher that everyone knew but she was far more strict. Does marriage change the personalities of people? Anyways, most teachers can be nice but they can also be strict. That's probably why most students don't like their teachers as they do friends.

This could be more elaborated on but I don't think I'll do it now. Maybe later. This is what most teachers and parents would call procrastination. I can't tell you how many times I have heard this word in my life. It can get very annoying after a while. Parents and teachers never seem to get that. Oh well.

Crazy Day

Today was very chaotic.

I woke up in the morning, thinking that today was going to be very boring. But I was wrong. A couple of minutes after I woke up, my mom told me that my sister now had a fever. She had thrown up last night when I was sleeping. ( I am so glad that I missed that. I would of had nightmares about throw up for weeks. GROSS!) When I went downstairs, my grandma asked me if I had heard that my sister had a fever. It seemed that I was the only person that didn't know about the BIG news that happened last night. ( This usually happens. I end up being that last person to know about any news. For example, when my family and friends were going to throw a big birthday party for a friend, I was the final person in the house to know about it. My own sister, who is three years old, knew about it before I did. She kept singing the "Happy Birthday" song even after the party! It was pretty funny.) After this, I went to school, went through all my classes, found out that I didn't make the auditions for the play,( I ended up being one of the "technical" people. My friend actually made it. I was really surprised! Of course I was happy for her, but I was a little disappointed with myself. Oh well.) and I came back home, fully loaded with homework. When it was time to check my sister's temperature, the thermometer said that my sister was a whopping 104.7 degrees! So from 5:30 to 6:00, my grandparents and I were putting ice packs and cold towels on my sister. My mom came home soon after and called the doctor. When the doctor called, my mom was upstairs. Just as I was about to run up the stairs, my mother's cell phone started to ring. So I grabbed that and headed upstairs. Have you ever had to talk to two people  on two different phones at the same time? Well, that is exactly what I did. It was so confusing! My sister had just finished a bath and my mom was trying and succeeding on putting clothes on her and talking to her doctor. Now that this confusing day is almost over, I just have to finish my English homework. Oh goody! I can't wait. (NOT)

Beginning of Blogging

Today, (January 20, 2008, which happens to be my friend's B-day) is the day that I start writing, for FUN! (Is that even possible?!) It just so happens that my father was finishing one of his blogs and I happened to look at everything he had written. There was one where my mother had broken the "weight barrier"(Apparently, that is the limit for the weight of my mom, which usually increases but rarely decreases. Sorry Mom) I remember laughing about it for a really long time and for good reason. It was HILARIOUS!

Anyways, this day is supposed to be torture because I usually don't like to write but I have actually written a lot. (For me, this is a lot.) And, I seem to enjoy writing this. In school, there are rules about writing that I rarely break but always end up getting a B or an A-, but never an A+. Here are the rules.

• Always use proper grammar and spelling
  
• Use AMAZING word choice so the readers DON'T fall asleep (that ends up happening to me sometimes)
  
• Keep your piece organized so your beginning paragraph isn't at the end and your reasons for comparing something isn't in the wrong paragraph and you get the main idea.

I am going to stop describing the topic of English because your might fall asleep. I definitely will soon!

When I was getting my URL and my title for my blog, I seemed to be doing everything wrong. When my mom and I thought of something which wasn't THAT bad, it would be brought down by the ultimate ruler, the computer. Everything I put in and crossed my fingers for, the computer ends up telling me that someone else has that already! (Tip: in the future, never cross your fingers for good luck. Before I thought crossing one finger was good luck, but then it was two fingers, and then three fingers, and finally it was to cross everything that you can, including your toes, hands, arms, and legs. I tried that and I just fell over. After that, I just gave up on it.) It was so frustrating! Then we typed in something and we finally made it. Sometimes I wish that humans never knew about technology, but then I would think about life without T.V.s and I pods. and cars and even toilets. (GROSS! is the word that describes life without toilets. Just imagine. On the other hand, don't imagine!) Us humans would probably not be able to survive without technology. I know I couldn't and I wouldn't!

This is the beginning of blogging for me and I think I did pretty well, but I wonder what my English teacher would say. . .