Summary of the Week before Winter Break

On Monday, I went to school and we practiced for caroling. We were going to go to a retirement home and sing Christmas carols for them. The rest of the day was pretty normal. On Tuesday, we did a small practice and we walked to the retirement home. We got to skip school yay! We were there for about 50 minutes in the beginning doing practically nothing, and then we went in for about 30 minutes to sing for the elderlies and to interact. Then we had juice and walked back. We got to this huge park and ate cookies and candy canes, then we walked back to school and the rest of school was pretty normal. Today was a Wednesday, and we did the normal things. Then before lunch we got to set up our tables and change into elegant clothing. We were preparing for our elegant luncheon where people bring in food, drinks, decorations, and other stuff. There were 4 teams and each team had a different table. My team’s theme was Japanese. We brought Japanese food and decorations, we also tried to wear clothes close enough to Japanese clothing. There were judges looking to see which tables were most elegant. The winning team gets prizes. Hopefully we can win. Tomorrow, we will be taking our math test, and everything else will be close to normal. On Friday we will be doing a white elephant, and watch a movie with snacks. Then it’s finally winter break, I really feel like time is passing by so fast. Oh well, merry Christmas!

My New Schedule

For Christmas, I want to get a MacBook. To do this, I have to prove myself as "responsible". So I wake up in the morning everyday to play 20 minutes of piano, and then I do what in have to do and go to school. When I come back, I do my homework and then play another 20 minutes of piano. Then I do some studying, or extra curricular homework. I forgot to put it in my schedule, but I have to write blog every single day. I also have to do 40 minutes of math everyday. There isn’t much else to say. Oh! Every day I can designate 30 minutes or less for games or YouTube. Then I have to go back to doing normal things. I obviously can’t follow my schedule with exact times, but I will be close enough.

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.