my plans for winter break

I am so excited for Friday to come. By that time, I will have my math test over with and only my history and Spanish test left. The best moment will be when that bell rings at 2:55. After school, I plan to go to Michelle's place like I do every single week to hang out. I think that Ryan and Amanda will be coming also. Michelle and I were thinking about watching a movie at her place since we can't go watch the Princess and the Frog. We can't go because Michelle's mom won't let her go anywhere this week.

After I go home from Michelle's, I plan to play Rumblefighter all night. Rumblefighter is a fighting game where you have your own character and you level as you gain experience. I usually play this game with Ryan, who is a pro at level forty-four. Since it will be winter break and I do not have to worry about school, I can stay up playing every single night. When I can, I usually play til four or five in the morning and only sleep a few hours.

My other plans are volunteering for Red Cross. Yesterday, at the club meeting, I signed up for four events. I signed up for setting up for Toys For Tots, cleaning up for Toys For Tots, packing meals on wheels,and passing out cards.I am not sure what else I will do. My brother will probably be coming back from Davis for the holidays, so we might do something together. Also, I might go after Christmas shopping. My favorite time of break is counting down to the new year. I hope that during the break I will get plenty of rest. I look forward to 2010 and all that it has in store for me.

Seven Wonders of the World

Currently the Seven Wonders of the World are the Great Wall of China, the Colosseum, Petra, the Taj Mahal, Machu Picchu, statue of Christ the Redeemer, and Chichen Itza. The Giza pyramid complex in Egypt stands as the last wonder of the ancient world.

• The Great Wall of China, which can be seen from space, stretches 10,000 li. Its construction was ordered by the first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, between 220 and 206BC. Little of that wall remains; almost all of the wall today was built during the Ming Dynasty.
• The Taj Mahal, in Agra, India, was built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahn in memory of his favorite wife,Mumtaz Mahal. Its construction spanned over 21 years from 1632 to 1653. It welcomes two to four million visitors annually.
• The Colosseum is one of the greatest Roman works of art. It was built in the first century AD by Emperor Vespasian. Through the centuries it has served many purposes; it was used for gladiatorial games as well as a workshop, Christian shrine, and a fortress. In the games that took place there, over 500,000 people and a million animals died.
• Christ the Redeemer, a statue of Jesus Christ in Rio de Janeiro, is located at the top of Corcovado Mountain. It is 130ft tall 98ft wide with a 31ft pedestal.
• Petra is an archaeological site that lies on the slope of Mount Hor in Arabah, Ma'an Governorate, Jordan. It was built by the Nabataeans around 100BC.
• Machu Picchu was built by the Incas in 1462. It is located above Urubamba Valley 80 kilometers northwest of Cusco. It was abandoned when the Spanish conquistadors took over the empire.
• Chichen Itza is a archaeological site built by the Mayans. It consists of many complexes such as Great North Platform, Ossario Group, Central Group. Each of these complexes have many monuments in them.
  

MY THANKSGIVING

This past Thanksgiving break was very relaxing. I got to sleep as much as I want and go online all night without having to worry about having school the following day. I was also able to do some community service for Red Cross. On Wednesday, I slept in til twelve and then walked to Bayview nursing home. I helped pass out Thanksgiving cards to the elderly in several convalescent homes. Afterward, I went to Washington park to practice tennis against a wall. I saw Nathan, so I ended up playing with him for a couple of hours.

Thursday was THANKSGIVING. I started my day by going to the Emmanuel Church on Santa Clara Ave at 8AM. I helped pack meals on wheels for those who are unable to purchase Thanksgiving meals. I helped out by putting cranberry sauce into little containers and putting them in separate bags. Later, I went to Safeway with my sister to go grocery shopping. We bought twenty cans of vegetables, ramen, and cereal to donate to the holiday food drives. For ourselves, we bought a pumpkin pie and a roasted chicken for dinner. I took a nap for a few hours til dinner and during dinner I watched a Chinese movie about gangs.

On Friday, I went shopping at Westfield Mall in San Francisco. Unlike many people that woke up in the middle of the night to go bargain hunting, I slept in and went during the late morning. It was so crowded at the mall; there were so many people that the lines for fitting rooms took forever. There was even a line to walk inside Old Navy which I thought was ridiculous. I was sad that I did not get that many things.

The weekend went by in a flash. On Saturday, I went to Meisze's house to sell lemonade and oatmeal cookies for the Hunger Awareness Club. Then I went to South Shore with Michelle to eat at Chipotle. The beauty store there had a sale, so Michelle had to go in there. She took forever looking at nail polish; she looked at the same section over and over again. On Sunday I stayed at home all day. I dreaded that there was going to be school the next day.

BLEACH

Bleach, an animated story written by Tite Kubo, tells the story of a sixteen year old boy named Ichigo Kurosaki. Ichigo has always been able to see ghosts, so sometimes he cannot tell the difference between ghosts and real humans. One day a mysterious girl shows up in his room; the girl turns out to be Rukia Kuchiki, a soul reaper. Soul reapers are death gods from the Soul Society that go to the world of the living in order to kill hollows, fallen souls, and to send wandering souls to the Soul Society. Rukia was there because she was notified that there was going to be a hollow there. The hollow appeared and Rukia was injured by it. In order to save their lives, Rukia transferred her soul reaper powers to Ichigo, who sucessfully killed the Hollow. Rukia, who was unable to get back her powers, stayed in the real world, in a gigai ( a human body for weaken soul reapers). She is eventually captured by her brother, a captain of the thirteen court guards to be tried for her crime of giving her powers to a human. Ichigo vowed to save her. He along with his friends, Chad, Orihime, and Uryu, intruded into the Soul Society to prevent them from executing Rukia. Later on, in the chaos of the Soul Society, everyone finds out that the mastermind of Rukia's execution of was Sousuke Aizen, another captain of the thirteen guards. He is revealed to be a traitor; he reveals of his plan of destroying the Soul Society. He was not alone though; Captains Gin Ichimaru and Kaname Tousen were his allies. When they were surrounded by all the soul reapers, the sky opened and a special light used by the Menos Grande (a group of hollows) rescued them. They ascended into the sky into the opening. This animated story is still not over; the soul reapers continue to fight to save the Soul Society and the world.

Prince Caspian

Prince Caspian is the fourth book of the series The Chronicles of Narnia, written by C.S. Lewis. Lucy, Edmund, Susan, and Peter Pevensie return to Narnia magically when they were about to enter a train to take them back to boarding school. They find themselves in a strange land, not knowing that it was Narnia at first. After scouting around, they find ruins which appear to be Cair Paravel, the castle they lived in when they ruled as kings and queens back on their first visit to Narnia. They find out that during the one year they were in their own world, after returning from Narnia, about 1300 years had passed there.

Because of their fear of the Telmarines, a group of people who lived in a land next to Narnia, the Narnian creatures went into hiding. The Pevensie children help them by teaming up with Prince Caspian, the rightful heir to the Telmarine throne; his evil Uncle Miraz usurped the throne when he killed Caspian's father. He also tried to kill Caspian on the night his wife bore him a son. Capsian was only able to escape because his teacher helped him. He was chased into the forest by his uncle's soldiers and was saved by Narnians. Caspian promised the Pevensies and the Narnians that he would restore Narnia once he was made king.

Caspian, the Pevensies, and the dwarfs, centaurs, and other creatures that joined forces with them attempted to kill Miraz by invading the castle. The plan failed and they lost many comrades. Another war broke out later because one of Miraz's subjects claimed that the enemy shot the king while the truth was that Caspian let his uncle live. With the help of Aslan who arrived in time because Lucy found him, the Telmarines were defeated. Caspian was crowned king, Narnia was restored, and the Pevensies reutrned home.

After writing on this blog for so many weeks, I do not see much improvement in my writing. My writing still seems boring to me; even I don't want to read it over again because I think it's so boring. Every week, I struggle to think of a topic to write about. Even though I had so many ideas in my original statement of purpose, I don't feel like writing about those topics anymore. The only good thing that I accomplish is separating my posts into three paragraphs instead of one big chunk with like fifteen to twenty sentences. However, sometimes my details in a paragraph don't exactly support the topic sentence, like in my reivew of Orphan. I didn't write anything to support why I though it was the best horror movie ever; all I did was give a summary of what happened.

I do not think that my writing goals have worked as I have planned. I'm at the same level of writing since my first blog post. I still have to think for long periods of time even for short posts of 300-400 words. Most of the time, when I have between 250 and 300 words, I stretch my sentences to meet the 300 words minimum criteria. My writing is not expressive or captivating. I still have grammar problems, but I don'tthink that they are that bad.

For the second quarter, I still have the same goals, but I am worried. If I have not improved so far, I wonder if I'll show any improvement later on in the year. Since I have no ideas to blog about I think that I should think of a new list of topics. I don't think that this post is really a new statement of purpose for me; it's more like a reflection of my writing. I really hope that I will be able to fulfill my goals by the end of the schoolyear.

Sophomore Research Paper

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During this whole month, I have been working on my sophomore research paper in my modern world history class. For this paper, I am supposed to either write about one country that is affected by three problems or one problem that affects three countries. I decided to write about overpopulation, disease, and communism in China. I chose to write about this because I thought that I would easily be able to find information on China since its a big, well-known country. While looking up information, I read a lot of things that I have never known before about China.

I never knew that China had such a bad environment. I used to think that China didn't have much pollution because I imagined it to be a place with a lot of farm land and not technologically advanced. I found some surprising statistics though. I found out that 320 million have no clean drinking water, seventy percent of lakes and rivers are polluted, and ninety percent of groundwater is polluted. The result of so much pollution is leading to a series of diseases. 400,000 people die of pollution-related diseases every year. Birth defects have been doubled in the last decade; More babies are born with excess fingers and toes.

The communist party is the most powerful party in the country. Even though the government consists of three groups, only the communist has power; the military and state council have little to no power. The communist party keeps a close watch on the public and does whatever it takes to uphold power. They forbid posters that criticized its policies, all religious activities are to be authorized by the government, and they tightly regulate the internet. This limits the freedom of the Chinese people. I have learned a lot through doing this research paper.

my dreams of the future

After I finish high school, I want to move far away from home. I want to go live in LA and go to a community college. I already planned to move in with Michelle; we've been talking about it since last year. We planned on how to be cheap and the different things that we're going to do like going shopping, going to the gym, having movie nights, etc. I decided community college would be the best for me because it is not as difficult as UC's or state universities, so I won't be as stressed. With more time in my hands, I can do more things that I want to do and enjoy my first years as an adult. I can get a job and take classes that I want to take like sports and art classes.



After two years in community, I'm going to transfer to a university. I'm not exactly sure where want to go; at the moment, I don't know what I want to study and have a career in. I used to want to be a doctor or nurse, but after thinking about it for a while, I think that it takes too much schooling. I also thought about working at like a grocery store or department store, but I might not be able to scratch a living off of such a low income and if that's the case, then I didn't need to go to college in the first place.



My career is undecided, but my other goals in life are to travel around the world. I want to go to Africa, China, Cambodia, Mexico, France, etc. to be exposed to new culture and sights. I might even move from the US and go live in Hong Kong. Hong Kong seems like an interesting place to live in; I heard that they have good food and shopping there. Also, I want to adopt kids in poor countries or support some through Compassion. I hope that my future will be a happy one and that I will live a long, fulfilling life.

After reading the article about portion distortion making American people fat, I decided to google the french diet because I was bored and had nothing to do. I found a lot of interesting facts. I found out that even though the French people smoke, drink alcohol and eat fattening foods, they are still able to stay slim. The reason for this is that the French eat way smaller portions than the ones served in America. They also take their time eating; dinner can take up to three hours. By eating at a much slower pace, they realize that they are full without consuming massive amounts of food. When they eat, they don't multitask, like watching TV or reading, allowing them to savor every bite. The foods they eat are fresh,wholesome, and have high quality. They usually do not eat processed foods.
Besides eating less, daily exercise contributes to their success of staying slim. In America, you see people exercising vigorously, desperately trying to burn calories, but in France people don't need to go to the gym because they get enough exercise from daily activities. It's easy to be active daily because they walk as a way of transportation instead of relying on cars and people usually don't stay at home to watch TV because French TV is not a very good source of entertainment. People walk to a number of stores to purchase goods; a pastry shop for dessert, a bakery for baguettes, a butcher shop for meat, etc. They are not lazy to take the stairs in the place of elevators and escalators. This French way of life is slowly declining due to the appearance of many more fast food places in France. They are receiving more exposure to the American culture. It is possible that France will soon have higher statistics of obesity.

(4.) Though this group of children, almost all of whom were White, did not live near a large Native American population and probably had had little if any personal interaction with American Indians, they all had internalized an image of what Indians were like. How did they know? Cartoon images, in particular the Disney movie Peter Pan, were cited by the children as their number-one source of information. At the age of three, these children already had a set of stereotypes in place. Though I would not describe three-year-olds as prejudiced, the stereotypes to which they have been exposed become the foundation for the adult prejudices so many of us have.

I annotated this paragraph by underlining things like "had little if no personal interaction with American Indians" and "Disney movie Peter Pan". I asked where to kids got the misconception of what they looked like from since they have never seen one before and it is not a common topic that is talked about. I noted that I thought Disney movies were good for kids to watch. I think that these two pieces of the paragraph are significant because it it explains kids as little as three years have stereotypes andwhat is responsible for it. From reading this paragraph I asked myself whether I got my conceptions of Indians from watching that movie also and I think I did or at least through some type of movie.



(13.) To say that it is not our fault does not relieve us of responsibility, however. We may not have polluted the air, but we need to take responsibility […] for cleaning it up. Each of us needs to look at our own behavior. Am I perpetuating the negative messages in our culture, or am I seeking to challenge them? If I have not been exposed to positive images of oppressed groups, am I seeking them out, expanding my own knowledge base? Am I acknowledging my own prejudices, thereby minimizing the impact they might have on my interactions with others? Unless we engage in these and other acts of reflection and reeducation, we easily repeat the process with our children. We teach what we were taught. The unexamined prejudices of the parents are passed on to the children. It is not our fault, but it is our responsibility to interrupt this cycle.

I circled all the ways in the paragraph to deal with prejudice like being exposed to positive images or engaging in reflection and reeducation. I linked them all to "we are not at fault" in the previous paragraph. I noted that even though we are not at fault we should not just leave our prejudices as it is. I also underlined the last line because I agree with it. If we don't disrupt this cycle, the next generation will continue to follow in our steps of prejudging other. People should get to know people first before coming to conclusions about them. This makes it more fair and people will less likely get offended.

tennis

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This past summer I started to play tennis and even tried out for the team at school. I wanted to try out because it looked like a fun pasttime. When I was at the practices, I was really worried that I was going to get cut from the team because I played really bad; I always hit the ball to the net or out of the court. Also, I felt inferior to everyone else in my tennis skills. A little before school started a list was posted at the athletic director's office with nine numbers belonging to those being cut from the team. As I was walking to see the list the day it was posted, I was so scared that the number five would be on there, but luckily it wasn't. After the first cut, I was even more nervous because Coach Wong said that there would be a second cut.
In the end, I made it into the JV team because the coach along with Mrs. Courtland and Mrs. Loo, the captains' moms, decided to keep everyone even though there were twenty-four people. Tennis practice is from 3:30 PM to 5:45 PM on weekdays and 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM on Saturdays. During tennis practice, our daily routines are to warm up, play some sets, and then do drills with Coach Ivy. Coach Ivy recently came to coach us because Coach Wong is usually busy and cannot come to our practices. He is a professional tennis player and I'm amazed that he would come coach us when he is capable of making more money elsewhere. He works us really hard by making us run whenever we do something wrong. I don't like the running, but I think its a good way to build character and to try harder to be more consistent in keeping the ball in the court.
So far the JV team has played three schools, Encinal, American High School, and this school in Lafayette. We won against Encinal and the one in Lafayette, but lost to American High . In all the matches I played in, I played doubles with Kimberly Pham. We won all our doubles games and are hopeful that we will win against San Leandro High this coming Friday.

disneyworld

This past summer I went to Walt Disneyworld with my brother and my sister. I estimate the plane ride to Orlando, Florida to be about 6 hours long, so I was constantly moving around in my seat. The plane stopped at Las Vegas and New Orleans before stopping in Orlando. While I was on the plane, I was kind of scared because the plane wasn't going smoothly due to the bad weather. I had a window seat and I saw a flash of lightning in the distance. I was so scared; I thought that I might die.

Thankfully, I arrived safely to the airport. I took the Walt Disney Express to the Disney's Pop Century Resort. The resort was decorated with huge figures like a music list, bowling pins, etc. Beyond the check-in counter there was the food court which sold a variety of food like pasta, ice cream, salad, desserts, and more. During my six day stay there, I went to four parks; I went to Epcot, MGM studios, Animal Kingdom, and Magic Kingdom. I spent about 10 hours a day at each park. In the beginning, I was tired while in the parks due to the time difference. The week I was there, the weather was unusual and it was raining on and off in the afternoons.

I loved to go on all the big rides like Aerosmith's Rock'n'Rollercoaster, Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, Soarin', Mission: Space, etc. Twilight Zone was the scariest because you are in an elevator and get dropped a few times. Soarin' was educational because you got to "soar" over various landscapes across California like Napa Valley and the Golden Gate Bridge with the last destination as Disneyland. My favorite attraction in all the parks was the American Idol Experience where you get to listen to people sing and vote on who you thought was the best. There were many shows during the day and the final one was at 7PM with all the winniers from the previous shows. Sadly, the person I voted for didn't win. The winner was a girl named Holly, who won a ticket to get in the front of any line for an American Idol audition in the US. She was from Britain, so I don't know why she would need that ticket. My trip was really memorable and I hope to go back there one day.

ORPHAN

Orphan is the best horror movie ever! Kate loses her child while she is pregnant and she continues to have nightmares about it. She and her husband, John, take a visit to the orphanage and are drawn to a appearingly bright nine year old girl named Esther, who supposedly came from an orphanage in Russia. The couple adopts her into the family and make her well at home. Esther gets along with John and Kate's daughter, Max but is disliked by their son, Daniel, who thinks that Esther is odd and denies her as a sister.


News arrives from the nun, Sister Abigail who works at the orphanage John and Kate visited, that the orphanage in Russia has never heard of Esther before. There were also many accidents that happened before in which Esther was always in the scene. One of the incidents was when a boy killed himself while falling with a pair of scrissors in his mouth. He and Esther coincidentally had an argument before his death. John and Kate do not believe that Esther would do such a thing and reassure the nun that all those things were just coincidences. The nun leaves and she brakes her car because she sees Max appear out of nowhere in the middle of the road (Max was pushed out to the road by Esther). She gets out of the car, but is hit in the back of the head with a hammer by Esther. She rolls down the hill and tries to run but couldn't escape with her injury. Esther then jams the hammer at her head until she dies. Another nun from the orphanage calls and reports that Sister Abigail did not return.

Esther hides her and Max's bloodstained clothes in their treehouse. Daniel knows that Esther killed Sister Abigail, because one time she put a knife in front of his throat when he was in bed, asks Max where Esther hid the evidence. He finds out that they are hidden in the treehouse. Daniel goes to the treehouse and is caught in a fire and locked in by Esther. He climbs out the window and clings on to a branch. He falls and hits his head on a rock. Kate and John arrive and take Daniel to the hospital. No one knows if he'll live or die......

InoShikaCho

My favorite character in Naruto and the Shippuuden version is Ino Yamanaka. She is the prettiest girl in the Hidden Leaf Village. She has long blond hair and is an excellent kunoichi (female ninja). She specializes in medical ninjitsu, genjustsu (illusion techniques), and kekkai ghenkai (bloodline limits). With her mystical palm technique, she can heal her comrades using her chakra. Her most powerful justsu is the ability to do mind body switch. She can enter the body of humans and animals and take control over them. However, there is a downfall to this technique. When she is in another's body, her own body is left vulnerable and she is unable to return to her body until a few minutes have passed by.


In her village all the ninjas are grouped into squads based on their abilities. Ino is part of Team Ten with Shikamaru Nara and Choji Akimichi. Their master is Asuma Sarutobi. Shikamaru uses shadows to paralyze his enemies. He is lazy and thinks everything is a drag. The ironic thing is that he has an IQ of over two hundred. Choji is chubby and can never be seen not eating. He can supersize his body for strong taijusu techniques. The ninjas in the village are separated into four different ranks which are genin, chuunin, jounin, and the hokage who is the village leader. Ino, Shikamaru, and Choji all took part in the chuunin exams to try to promote themselves. Ino and Choji lost in their battles in the preliminaries. Shikamaru made it to the finals and gave up, but was promoted for using his brains in battle.



InoShikaCho took action again in Naruto Shippuuden. They fought against Akatsuki, an organization of missing ninja even more powerful than even jounins. They, along with Kakashi, the jounin leader of Team Seven, sought out Hidan and Kakazu in order to seek revenge for their late master who was killed by them. The two Akatsuki members were too powerful for them; Hidan cannot be killed by physical techniques and Kakazu had five hearts and could use all the chakra types ( water, fire, wind, earth, and thunder). When they were about to die, a backup squad came and rescued them. Shikamaru, with his over 200 IQ was able to trap Hidan in a forest and Naruto, from the backup squad, defeated Kakazu with his new technique, the Rasengan.

Statement of Purpose

There are many topics that Iplan to write about. The ideas that I was able to brainstorm were music, anime, food, clothes, books, Rumblefighter, Chinese dramas, tennis, swimming, family, and my trip to Disneyworld over the summer. There are many topics that I did not list because I feel that these are the only ones in which I will not get stuck coming up with ideas. I would like to write about these topics because they are things I like and are aspects of my life. Through writing about them, I can think back to the past, enjoy my memories, and reflect on how different things have played certain roles in my life.
For anime, I can write endlessly about the summary of certain stories. I can express my opinions of different characters and my predictions of how the stories will end. Comparisons between Japanese dubbed versions, English subbed versions, and books can be made. For movies I can pretend to be like a critic and give my own ratings and criticism. I have watched so many movies throughout my life time, I shouldn't run out of ideas. For music, I can talk about different artists and types of music. The media is an endless topic.
The thing that I love the most in life is food. I can talk about nutrition facts of all kinds of foods and the health benefits or problems relating to diet. Food is a good topic to write about because it is expandable to to other subjects such as heart disease and cancer. I can list foods that are suppose to help aid against diseases.
I really hope that my blog and this English class will help me improve my writing because I am a terrible writer. Everytime I have to write, especially for essays, I sigh and get nervous. I think to myself: "OMG! What am I going to write? I won't be able to write enough !" I usually end up thinking most of the time and my paper stays blank. I want my writing to be more natural, expressive, and captivating to readers. There are also grammar problems that I want to improve.