Other

              A few days ago I went to visit the Olympic National Park. One of the places I went during the trip was the Olympic Game Farm. I also went boating on Lake Crescent.               First of all, the Game Farm was a drive-thru zoo. We stayed in the car most of the time, keeping the windows open to feed animals. I was amazed - there were buffalo, bison, peacocks, zebras, and llamas. And the most exciting part was feeding the animals food. Most of the animals, especially the buffalo, had really long tongues. It was really exciting for them to lick our hands and then eat the food.               Also, the boating was really fun. I shared a kayak with my mom, while Chris, Brandon, Dad, and Grandma rode a canoe. Mom and I paddled all the way across the lake, to the stony cliff on the other side. After that, I went along the shore for a while. Finally, we paddled all the way back to the other side.               To sum up, Olympic National Park was a great place to visit!

今天我又读了一些成语故事。我想写“伯乐相马”的成语。这个成语讲了楚王叫伯乐去买一匹千里马。伯乐找了很长，最后终于找到了。他看上了一匹瘦马，买下来了。楚王很生气，觉得这匹马没用，太瘦了。但这匹马经过精心喂养后，变成了一匹千里宝马。我觉得伯乐很厉害，可以认识出来什么是好马，而且还能坚持的找那么长。

今天我读了一个叫“杯弓蛇影”的成语。有个人的朋友来喝酒，看到酒里有“蛇”就告辞了。他被自己的想法弄病了，但朋友一来，把事情搞明白，就不病了。我觉得这个朋友想得太快了-一看到墙上弓的影子就觉得是蛇。我觉得他应该先看一下是不是影子，是不是在动。

           I recently read a book about animal revolution. It was called Animal Farm . If I were to make this book into a movie, I would make the scene where Napoleon the pig chases away Snowball the pig longer, more dramatic and more detailed. I would also make the ending scene where the animals can't tell the difference between pig and man any longer.            First of all, in the scene where Napoleon chases away Snowball, I would make the chase more dramatic, ending finally with Snowball jumping away. I would make it so that the animals were just applauding for Snowball's speech when suddenly Napoleon whistled. Everyone would fall silent, then the nine humongous dogs would suddenly lunge at Snowball and chase him around the farm. The chase would be longer than the one in the book, with lots of close calls and comebacks. This would keep the audience on the edge of their seats.            The other scene, where the animals can't tell the difference between pig and man,

今天我又读了一个成语故事，是“半途而废”。这个成语讲了一个叫乐羊子的人去学习。他刚学完一年就回家了。他老婆说他应该在学一会儿；学完一半有什么用呢？所以他又上了7年学，这就叫“半途而废”。我觉得这个人很傻，明明知道回来就要从新开始学习，干吗还回来呢？

今天我又读了成语故事，这次我读了“百发百中”。这是讲一个叫潘党的人和一个叫养由的人。潘党说他总可以射到靶子的红心。但是养由说他可以射到杨柳的叶子。果然，他都射中了，所以这就叫百发百中。

          Today a few interesting things happened.           One of the interesting things was that I took Michael Nelson's queen in chess camp by a simple fork. The game started out as a normal game, and it was like that until I won a minor piece. After that, I just played normally, and Michael surprised me with a queen move that I thought he knew was bad. I raised my eyebrows, and Michael noticed the fork. After that, the game went downwards. I blundered a rook but checkmated after.           Another of the interesting things that happened was what I call the "bathroom incident". I wanted to wash a balloon, but then Brandon came up with the awesome idea of putting the balloon on the faucet and filling it up. So we stretched the balloon over the faucet, and turned on the tap. It went well until the balloon grew too heavy. It fell off the faucet and sprayed water all over the ground and Brandon's shirt. Brandon and I thought it was funny until Dad came over.      

今天我读了一个成语叫按图索骥，讲一个人找千里马。那个人的爸爸给她了一个述说千里马是什么样的，所以他去找了。但是他带回来了一个蛤蟆。他只看说明，不用脑子想，根本就没成功。

          Recently I have been playing a lot of a game called BTD Battles. I like this game for two reasons.           First of all, this new game combines battling against new people and also BTD5. It's always interesting to play BTD5, with its multitude of interesting towers and challenging tracks. It also combines the experience of meeting new people and seeing new people's strategies. For example, one person might try to storm you with rainbow bloons, while another might think to storm you with lead bloons. This provides a lot of variety, and so the games are always fresh and interesting.           The other reason BTD Battles is awesome is that you can send bloons toward your opponent. In the normal co-op games, it just depends on who lasts out on the default waves of enemies longer. But now, there is a new addition. Players can send bloons! The game no longer depends on who lasts longer. It depends on who uses a better strategy, combining both offensive and defensive st

              Yesterday I finished the 6th book in the Artemis Fowl series, and I believe that the most interesting character was Mulch Diggums. Mulch is a tunnel dwarf, a fairy species which tunnels underground.               One of the events that made him the most interesting character was when he did the "Tuba" on Artemis. The "Tuba" is the most insulting insult in dwarf culture, and the second was showing someone's bottom at the victim. "Tubas" involve the dwarf popping open his bum flap and then cleaning out all the dirt and grit in his system at the desired victim. I think it's very funny to imagine someone's ugly butt sticking at you, with all its hair. An addition to the effect is when you think of yourself covered in dirt and really smelly gas. When Mulch did the Tuba on Artemis, the author used a lot of funny details to describe what state Artemis was in. For example, he described how a clean blue suit suddenly turned brown and smel

           Today was the second day of art camp. The topic was scenery.            We created a scene with the sky and mountains in the background, and with flowers in the foreground. Then we added a tree and a few bushes. The bushes, flowers, and tree leaves were multicolored.            I created a few soft hills, instead of tall, harsh mountains, and a blue sky without any clouds. The tree's leaves were white, green, and purple, while the bushes varied even more. From blue, green and red, to purple, orange, and yellow, I had most of the colors in the spectrum. My flowers were red, orange and yellow.            Today's painting was pretty, but when I look at it, I think it is a bit to bright, with all the colors the spectrum has to boast.

           Yesterday was the first day of art camp. We carved wood into shapes and patterns, and then rolled ink onto it with a roller. After that we printed it onto paper by pressing the wood onto the paper.            I created a bridge with a few houses next to it. The bridge was tall and long, while the houses were tall and old-styled. I patterned the sky with many stripes, and I also drew the bricks and stones of the bridge. The final thing I did was to add a lantern to the largest house. I thought it would look good there.            Brandon created a fish. The fish looked normal, with scales on it, and stripes on its tail, and he decorated the water with stripes. But Brandon made a dumb mistake. He forgot to add water above the fish, so it looked like the fish was dead and floating. The teacher made a joke about it. And then Brandon said "Ohhhhh!"            Even though it took a long time, our wooden prints turned out very well, and they were very cool.

           我读了三国演义的第28-31长。第二十八章讲了诸葛亮把魏兵弄退了。诸葛亮命令他的兵装成老百姓，把城门给魏兵开了。司马懿以为有埋伏，撤了兵。但是他在山里被埋伏了。第二十九章讲了诸葛亮把司马懿弄到山上，然后把山烧了。司马懿在山上的时候，他在山下战司营。司马懿下来了，看到营被袭击了，就逃掉了。第三十章讲了诸葛亮死。死后，司马懿来战了，然后诸军用了一个木头的诸葛亮把他吓跑了。在最后一章，魏军打败了蜀国，三国时期完了，晋国统一了中国。

           Recently I read a book by Edward Eager called Magic By The Lake . There were two main reasons I liked this book.            First of all, I liked this book because it used scenes and summaries. Scenes are when you go into something in detail, while summaries are when you just provide a brief explanation of what happened. The author used these well, skipping over boring places in the story, like a long car drive, and going into detail in interesting parts of the story. For example, while the author used only half a page to describe the car drive, he used almost three full pages to describe them getting lost in the forest. Getting lost in the forest is obviously more interesting than a car drive, and so the author used more details to describe getting lost than the car drive. The details were rich and vivid, and they helped me to create a picture. For example, he described them going around and around in circles. He also describes how desperate they feel when they find that t

Today was the day I visited Juneau. Juneau is the capital of Alaska, and it’s also one of the biggest cities in Alaska. Before we visited Juneau, I played a few games of giant chess. It was very interesting, since I had never tried it before. I got to lug humongous pieces around, and it was great fun. Also, the pieces offered a rest. I could just sit on the pieces instead of finding a bench. During the trip, I also had played a game called shuffleboard. In this game players use poles with arcs on the end and push pucks around. The arcs have small plastic balls on them. The point is to slide the puck into a certain spot and score points. You can also lose points by sliding the puck into the wrong part of the lane. The best part of the game is bumping enemy pieces into bad spots and bumping your own pucks into good spots. Finally, when I got to Juneau, I took a tour to the Mendenhall Glacier. The Mendenhall glacier is huge, and I was really sad that I couldn’t take a walk on it. I

Today morning our cruise ship, the “Golden Princess”, docked at Ketchikan, AK. The first thing we did was enjoy a 3-hour tour. We learned about a few totems and the stories they represented. We explored a beach or two, and I climbed a lot of rocks. It was very fun, and I liked climbing the rocks a lot. We also had a lot of fun lifting rocks and catching the small crabs under them. The tour guide was funny, and apparently she had seen a 39-inch dandelion before. The next thing we did was enjoy the city of Ketchikan. Everybody’s favorite part was the salmon hopping around in the river. It was very funny. The fish hopped up a few times, and then they hit something and were swept downstream. It was beautiful, though with bunches of fish everywhere. I wish dad could have got a picture, but the jumps were too fast. It was also very interesting watching Grandma get really excited. She loved watching fish slip up and down the stream, and got very excited each time she saw fish. I thought

           我读了三国演义里的第23-27章。第二十三章讲了张飞被杀。张飞一听说关羽死了就很伤心。部将给了他酒劝解，但是张飞一醉了脾气就更大。他用鞭子狠狠地打人，搞得有两个将军暗杀了他。他们后来逃到了曹操那儿，投降了。第二十四章讲了刘备和陆逊大战，陆逊烧了刘备的营，然后刘备逃掉了。但是他逃到山上又被烧了，所以拼命的逃到了白帝城。他冲了出陆逊的兵马，和他的一些大将跑到了白帝城。第二十五章讲了刘备知道要死了，叫诸葛亮帮他的儿子当一个好皇帝。他让诸葛亮辅佐刘禅，因为刘禅只会喝酒享受，不会处理国家大事。孙权和曹操领着五路大军冲向成都，诸葛亮把他们都打退了。第二十六章讲了南蛮王起义了。他叫蛮或。他被诸葛亮埋伏了，直接打败了，还被骗了。他被诸葛亮生擒了好多好多次，最后就说自己以后不会再起义了。第二十七章讲了马谡失街亭。诸葛亮派了马谡去守街亭，但是马谡被司马懿打败了。诸葛亮很不高兴，因为失去了街亭就不能再往前进了。

          Yesterday night I enjoyed the city of Victoria B.C. The main part of the tour I took was the Butchart gardens.          In the Butchart gardens, I saw lots and lots of flowers. It turns out that the garden was originally a limestone mine, and when all the limestone was gone, the owner's wife decided to plant flowers. When she died, her nephews took up the job, and made her vision come true. The tour guide said they went a bit crazy with the flowers and plants. The gardens were created in 1902 and so there has been a lot of time for it to develop. My favorite part by far was the Sunken Garden, where you can actually see the hole where the mine was. A lot of other people say it's the best part, too.           Yesterday night was also one of the nights with fireworks. The fireworks in the garden were amazing. It lasted thirty minutes, and had lots of bright lights and creative pyrotechnical displays, like spinning disks that shot fireworks off the sides. I liked the wa

          I went to Skagway a few days ago. There, I took a tour called the Klondike Gold Rush Tour. I enjoyed the stories abou "Soapy" Smith, who was famous for tricking people.           He once sold soap for $1 a bar, and normal soap was only 1c a bar. So he said that his soap would wash everything off, and that it could also wash off your bad deeds. Still nobody would buy the soap. So then he said that there were $20, $50, or even $100 bills in some of the soap containers. One person came up and got a $20 in his soap. And then somebody got a $50, and the next person got a $100. THis was enough for everyone to start rushing forward for the money-making soap. After the soap all sold out, Soapy left through a back door with the three people who first bought his soap. They were his henchmen!           Another time, he offered a telegram service to anywhere in the world for $5, and promised a reply in an hour. A lot of people sent telegrams, but they all ended up in the ocea