Thanksgiving Day - 2018

I forgot to write a blog on Thanksgiving, so I'm going to write about it... 6 days late! So, I woke up realizing that it was Thanksgiving, so I wrote a quick happy Thanksgiving in fancy writing and gave it to my parents. I used to computer for a while, and then I went downstairs to help my mom with the turkey. The night before, we had gotten all the seasoning made and other stuff. So, I cut vegetables for the stuffing, and then we got mixed them in with the stuffing. Then, we put all the stuff on the turkey and stuffed it with the stuffing and put vegetables around it. We baked it for 3 hours, and it smelt good, and it tasted good too! The turkey was ready at around 12:00, and one of my mom's friends came over. We ate together starting with some soup. Then we ate the turkey and other things. It was pretty good. It was my first time helping make the turkey so I was pretty surprised at how decent it was. For dessert we ate macarons and pudding. Then, we ate pumpkin pie. My mom and her friend chatted, and I used the computer. There wasn't really much to it after lunch. We ate the feast at lunch only because my mom's friend had to leave before. We also had mashed potatoes. That was pretty much what I did for Thanksgiving day, 2018.

Claire's Birthday Party + Sleepover

On Friday, I left for my friend Claire's house. I brought my stuff, for a one night sleepover. So when I first got to her house, I waited for some of the other guests to arrive. Then at 3:00 P.M., we went to watch a movie, it was called Wreck it Ralph: Ralph Breaks the Internet. It was pretty good. I loved the Disney princesses, especially Ariel. Then we went to Souplantation to eat. It was really good, the pizza and soup was amazing. We also got warm cookies. While we were eating whenever someone left the table, other people would put either salt or pepper in the food. It was really funny. Then we got on the car and went back to Claire's house. Someone left because she wasn't staying for the sleepover. Claire opened her presents. Then, we did some crafts. After that, we played games and talked about stuff until 12:00. Someone went to sleep early at around 11:30, and the other two people with me waited for 12:00 to actually sleep. The next morning, I woke up first at 7:20, and I waited for everyone else to wake up. Then, we ate a very yummy ice cream cake for breakfast. After that, we went upstairs to watch some YouTube. Then, someone left, and then I left. It was really fun.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

Today, my class had a movie night outing. At least 20 people from my class came, even the teacher plus his son, and some parents. Most people bought their tickets online and they could reserve seating, but while my dad was about to submit the order he said there was a $1.50 transaction fee which made the price of the kids ticket go up to the same price of the adult ticket. What's the use of paying that when you can just buy it there? So, I carpooled with my friend and we went to the movie theater. I got in line with my other friend's dad and I paid for the ticket. We were in a V.I.P. room with reclining chairs, less people, and cup holders that could swing around to make a table. At around 5:55 P.M. most people had gotten there and we went inside and got our tickets checked. Then most of us went to buy snacks. I got popcorn, water, and sour starbursts. Then we went into the movie theater. No one really followed the actual ticket reservation things and just sat with their friends, to be honest no one really cared though (but we only traded with people within our class). We were testing out the chairs and putting our stuff down, and it just so happened that when I reclined my chair or brought it back up, it made like a squeaky farting noise. That was weird, and my friend kept on pushing the buttons of my reclining chair, and we heard those lovely squeaking noises. After a few very interesting advertisements the movie started. It was 2 hours and 14 minutes long, I'm not gonna spoil it for... for... who? I don't know. I'm still not going to spoil it. So in the end, it kind of ended in a cliffhanger and my friend decided to push the buttons of my chair as the movie was ending so it sounded like someone farted on cue, just for the movie to end. During the movie, some people were talking and some people not in our class yelled "shut up" at them (twice possibly). Then we went outside of the theater and talked in the lobby for a while. Then the same friend that I carpooled with earlier left with me and we went home. It was really fun!

First MathCounts Training

Today was my first MathCounts training. We met at a room on UCI's campus. I got there, and I was one of the last few. There were 16 people, and we waited for a while for everyone to come. At around 3:00 P.M., we started. So we got our try-out tests back and we did some target round questions. There were 4 groups of 2 questions with 6 minutes for each question. We did an extra 2 from a different one too. After we finished the target round we did other things. The instructor (well the person who was running the MathCounts for our school) explained some questions too. Then we did countdown round questions, but instead of 2 people going against each other, it was everyone against each other. So we would read the question of the big screen in front, and if you think you knew the answer you would put you name on a folded piece of paper with your answer. You only got one try. So we did around 3 or 4 and I got maybe 1 (yay!). Turns out I'm a really good guesser. For one of the target round questions I guessed the question right, but I did use some reasoning. I guessed another question right too, and it turns out, I'm pretty good at guessing! Even the geometry ones. After that, we got our papers handed back and then we went home. It was pretty fun though.

2018 AMC 8

Yesterday, which was Tuesday 11/13/18, I went to do a test called AMC 8. It's a math competition. I did many many practices, but they get harder and harder each year because you can look back and practice on old AMC 8s meaning that they have to be harder. I don't think I did really well, and it was my first time doing it, some of my friends did it in 4th or 5th grade which is pretty early. So, when I arrived my dad brought my brother and I to check in, we both got different room numbers, I got room 202. So I went to room 202 and I filled out the information and then I waited for the test to start. We were around 15 minutes in when the lights turned off on us. For 7 minutes we just waited ther, and it turned out that the lights were motion sensors. So we got 7 minutes back in our time. I answered all 25 questions in the 40 minutes. I probably didn't do so good. So, we turned in the answer sheet, then we turned in the scratch paper and we could all leave. I went down the stairs and waited for my brother with my dad. Then we drove him.

Going Ice Skating

On Monday, it was Veterans Day, and there was no school, so for Girl Scouts we decided to go ice skating. It was really fun. Girls from my troop and my sister, and also me, went. We carpooled and we arrived at the skating rink, we quickly found the right ice skates and put them on. Then, I got my helmet on and started around the outside holding on, because I hadn't gotten the hang of it. I've been ice skating before, I did it last year and last last year actually, they were all really fun. After one circle, I realized my hands were going to be cold, so I told my sister to wait for me while I got my gloves, and then I put them one and did maybe one or two more circles around the rink and then I mustered up the courage to go into the middle with some friends. I skated quite nicely, and then I went to get food with my sister and my friends. All I got was an ICEE, and my sister got that too. It's funny how we got cold stuff in an already cold place. So I spent about thirty minutes sitting around talking and eating, and then I got a gum ball and went to go skating again, we tried to do a train but we fell. My sister had some other friends that helped her go to the middle, and all in all it was really fun. After it was over, I got on the car and went back. It was super fun, I love ice skating!

Math, Math, Math, and Math...

So, there's a math competition this Tuesday (11/13/18), the day after Veteran's Day called AMC 8. I haven't really gotten much preparation, and I promised to get at least top 5% which is around 19/25 or above. They get harder and harder each year. because you can practice with the past tests, so they have to get harder and harder. I did 3 AMC 8 practices yesterday, and so far I have done 3 today, and I'm supposed to do 6 tomorrow. I've been getting decent scores, but I did the earliest one (1985) and I got like a 23/25, which is pretty good but it's much easier. Since I've done 2017, 2016, 2015, and 2014 before, the latest I can do is 2013, which I just did and got an 18 out of 25. It's not very good, but it's okay. I can hopefully get top 5 percent, because I promised that for me to go to Florida. They're 40 minute tests, so it's pretty time consuming. I really am hoping to get a good score. This is a very short blog, and I'm basically just talking about my boring day. I'm gonna talk about what I did yesterday. So, I woke up and I realized I hadn't finished my Chinese homework, I worked on it, and I thought 3 hours would be enough, but it wasn't. So my Chinese class started at 10:30 A.M., and I didn't finish it until 10:32 A.M. So, then I went there and finished class at 12:30, and then I went home to eat. Then I did a bunch of AMC 8s, and waited for my dad to come home. The next day I woke up, and did a bunch of AMC 8s, then I went to Piano class and came home and did even more math. Too much math! I spent 4 hours doing math, which is 1/6 of a full day. Now, it's Monday, and I actually ended up doing 6 AMC 8s yesterday, and I probably will not be able to do 6 today because I'm going ice skating.

Cadette-O-Rama - 11/2/2018 - 114/2018

Last week on Thursday night, I finished packing for Cadette-O-Rama. It's basically this camping thingy for cadettes, which is a level for girl scouts. The theme this year was mythical, magical creatures. This year was my first time doing Cadette-O-Rama and everyone in my troop was excited including me. So after school ended, I went to the back gate and gave my sister my backpack to bring home. I went to our troop leader's home, which was a short walk because she lives near our school. Then we drove to the place, and got set up. We put up all the tents, the ez-ups, the washing station, the eating tables, and the decorations. For dinner on Friday night, we just ate pizza. We went to sleep at around 11 P.M. because of other girls from other troops talking. I didn't get much sleep, I woke up at 5 in the morning and didn't go back to sleep. The next day (Saturday) was the real competitions and other things. For breakfast, we ate oatmeal or cereal. We also got unicorn headbands to match the mythical, magical creatures theme. So in the morning we did the skills competition, I did the map reading with another girl from my troop who was feeling sick that day so we had a little bit of a disadvantage. The person who was supposed to do rope-toss left the troop, so the troop leaders said I should do it, and I practiced, and I needed to know how to tie a bowline. I learned how to on a shorter and slimmer rope, and it was much easier, and then when I tried on the super long and super thick black rope, I couldn't do it. The time limit was 3 minutes, and I just stood there for 3 minutes trying to figure out how to tie a bowline with a string that I wasn't used to using. Then the entire troop (all the girls at least) did the knot tying thing, and I only got 1/9 which was the bowline (Yay!). Then, we went and ate lunch, which was ramen, it was pretty good. After that, we had fun competitions. The first competition I did was disk throwing, which my partner and I got 0 points, even though together we had 4 tries. After that, I went with another one of the girls in my troop to play red light, green light, and I've never played with yellow light and when they said it I thought it was a trick so I didn't move, we lost. Then I went and did "pin the eye on the cyclops" I only got 5 points for getting it on its face. Then, two other girls in my troop and I did a game called "Hera's Hunt", where you put on a costume, which was a wreath, a toga, a belt, and you would hold a sword, and then the first person completes and obstacle and goes back and the next person does the same thing. My teammates and I got first place, but we tied, and the other team that tied with us actually cheated, so we re-did it and got first place which earned us 10 points! Then we went back and did some swaps. Then at night time, for dinner, we at pasta. I managed to fall asleep at around 9 P.M., and I woke up at 2:50 A.M. to use the restroom, but then I went back to sleep and was woken up by another person at 5:00 A.M., and then I woke up at 6:00 A.M. again and didn't go back to sleep. It was actually daylight savings, so when I thought it was 7, it was only 6. For breakfast we ate pastries, like croissants or muffins, also scrambled eggs. Then, we went to the award ceremony, and our troop won 6th place out of 12 places (there were way more than 12 troops) in the fun competition. We didn't even place in the skills competition though. Then we went back to our site and took everything down and headed home. It was a fun experience. Next year, we hope to get even better at the skills, and do better at the fun events!

First Time Going to Florida!

The title is quite misleading, I haven't been to Florida, and I'm not going until June. I wrote a persuasive essay talking about letting me go to Florida. It's run by the company WorldStrides®. It's a five day trip, where we get to swim with dolphins and learn and other things. It's supposed to be educational, but I think it's mainly fun. My friend is going too, and I can't wait. I've never been to Florida before, and I'm really excited to go. I have to wait all the way until June though, basically 7 months. That's half a year! I feel so impatient. A few of my classmates are going too. I promised to get at least top 5% in AMC8 and this is my first year doing it, so I'm not sure I can, but let's hope for the best. I also promised to get at least into the MathCounts individuals, which is the top 10. They chose 16 people in our grade that tried out, and I got in, but they have to eliminate 6 people. We have to take tests and then they take our averages, and take the 10 best, and the top 4 get into team and all of the top 10 get to do the individual round. I hopefully can beat 6 people that got into the 16 people. I didn't promise that much, but it's still gonna be hard to get to. As I've probably said about a billion times, I'M SUPER EXCITED TO GO TO FLORIDA!!! I've never been there in my life and I'm super duper excited. My friend promised to just do what her parents asked her to go, and she got to go! My other friend is going to Europe at the same time of the Florida trip so sadly she cannot go. Another one of my friends is going to Florida too! It's going to be really fun.