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.

A Summary of my 3 day weekend (9/6/18 - 9/8/18)

On Saturday I woke up to the sound of my sister playing with her toys. It was a toy bird that can record what you say and say it in a more high pitched way. So I woke up, and I just read my kindle for around an hour. Then at 10:00 I had to leave for Chinese school. My Chinese class ended at 12:30, so I waited for my sister's class to end which started at 1:30 and ended at 3:30. During those two hours I waited for my sister, I read my kindle and also had a burger from the Habit Burger. After I finished eating because I hadn't had lunch I read my kindle again and waited for her. Then my sister's class ended. We went home and that was about all that happened that day. Then on Sunday, I literally read my kindle book for around 2 or 3 hours, I mean for me, weekends are usually boring. At  1:00, I went to my friend's house for her birthday party. But it only started there, we went on a bike trail to a community park and ended up doing activities there. We drew marbles of a certain color, red or blue and I pulled a red marble. The first activity was water balloon toss, which our team lost even though we had 1 extra person. We were supposed to toss the water balloon at a person from our team and the person had to catch the ball, and we gradually backed up. The next game was football, a lot of us weren't really paying attention so we didn't win either. The blue team had 2 points and my team, the red team, had 0. The next game was rock stacking. Each team was split up into two teams. The two blue teams versus the two red teams. My team was the first to stack, we had to put a rock in our own little area, and after we placed down one rock we had a choice to either place down a rock on one of the two opposing teams or just do nothing. We sabotaged a certain team a lot, so they did the same to us. In the end, the team we sabotaged was eliminated, and the other blue team knocked down their tower. The two red teams both still stood! That was 1 point for us. It was 2 - 1. The last game was capture the flag (the flag was a single soccer ball). Whichever team won capture the flag would get 1.5 points. The field we used was huge, and we were allowed to hide our flag anywhere in the boundaries that the referees agreed to. We hid ours in a bush, and it was approved. The game had started. One of my teammates spotted their flag which was very obvious because it was a white, yellow, and blue ball in a green bush (they also hid their flag in a bush). We all tried to get their flag, but we ended up in "jail". I saved a few people from jail, and some people saved me from jail. We captured a lot of people that went on our side. In the end we got their flag, but it was a pretty long process. So first, a person from my team got the ball out of the bush and went a few feet before getting tagged. Then another person from my team picked it up and ran pretty far and handed it off to someone. They were both tagged. Then the flag was left at a point very close to the line diving the two sides. Someone from our team got the flag over and we won. We won capture the flag and also the entire event 2.5 - 2. After that we had cake and pizza. On Sunday morning I wake up to my sister singing and screaming, and I read my kindle for majority of the day. Then at 1:15 I had piano class, after piano class ended we went shopping. Then after shopping I read my kindle for a long time, but I am writing blog now.

Lily and the States Test

She woke up to the sound of breakfast and other things cooking. 

"Wake up!" she said to her younger sister.

"But I don't want to!!" Amber replied.

"But you have to! We have school today," Lily exclaimed.

"Fine, first you get out of the room because your face is too ugly," Amber said smugly.

"Don't talk to me like that! You're three years younger than me, I'm beautiful!" Lily replied

After a weird chaotic morning they rushed downstairs and ate for 20 minutes. Since their school started at 8:05 A.M., they had to get to school quickly. At 7:50, they were on the car and going to school. "Can you help me study for my test?" Lily asked politely. "Since I'm so nice I will!" Amber replied. "Lily, you should have studied earlier," their dad said. "I did study, I just need to get this into my brain because I studied yesterday and I don't remember!" Lily said. So on the 15 minute drive to school Lily studied, and her second grade sister could recite almost all the states like Lily had to for her test. In fifth grade, Lily had to do a states test and her younger sister was already prepared! Then they ran quickly and got to school right before the bell rang. The bell rang and everyone was supposed to be in class. "Okay class! We're going to be taking our final states test, get your offices up!" Mrs. Morris said. The class replied with a series of murmurs and said "awws..." 30 minutes later Lily had finished her test, and double checked it, she had answered all the questions except for some of the extra credit. She quietly took down her office, put it back and started to read. Then it was recess. She just talked with her friends for 15 minutes and they went back to class for math. After a long boring session of easy math, it was lunch time. Lily ate with her friends for 20 minutes and then after lunch they had lunch recess for 20 minutes. Lily and her best friend Hailey played basketball with some other people. Then it was time to go back to class. They learned some science, and then they left school. That was the day of the final states test for Lily. Turns out she got everything right expect for making a silly mistake and spelling Connecticut wrong. With some extra credit points she scored a 107 percent.

My Weekend of Nothing

Yesterday was a Saturday, I went to Chinese school at 10:30 A.M. and my Chinese school ended at 12:30, my brother's Chinese school was at 8:30 A.M. and ended at 10:30. My sister's Chinese school was at 1:30 P.M. so we had time to eat lunch. We ate at a place called H-Mart, it is a market with groceries but there was a restaurant and a bakery inside of it. It was a really good restaurant, we had yummy beef with rice and some spicy tofu soup. It was super good in my opinion. Then, we dropped my sister off at Chinese school, and we went to the library. After we left the library my mom sent me home and I didn't do much for the rest of the day. At night after I showered my dad asked me if I had played piano, and guess what I hadn't. So I played piano and I had a huge headache. I went to sleep at around 9:10 P.M., and my brother's math class ended at 9:00 P.M., and he got home later so I actually fell asleep before he got home. I slept horribly, I have a cold right now. I remember waking up because it felt too warm and going downstairs. Well, I woke up and I played piano and now I'm here writing my blog. Well, my weekends are always boring!