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Yesterday night we had a party with Konnor and Catherine's families. At the start, we had a laser tag and water gun fight. It was very fun, and we got very wet. They were also better at laser tag than I thought. Kyle almost always won and they were good at shooting from a long distance, just as I was. The match was a lot more even, and we ended up all having a great time. After dinner, we went upstairs to play video games. I showed them Robocraft, which they all seemed interested in, so I let them try out my robots, with premium membership that I got (which is ultra-powerful), so I didn't really experience it. I wish I had. It makes the rewards humongous and makes the robots awesome. In conclusion, I had a lot of fun with water guns and laser guns yesterday! Except I wish I could have actually played more than one round with my premium membership.

明明今天去公园玩。首先，他去荡秋千了。他找着了他的朋友亮亮，杰克，和大卫，它们都在秋千上玩。他们比谁能荡的最高，最后他们都掉下来了。他们都觉得没意思，决定去爬山。这个山可是大名鼎鼎的派派山，谁都没爬上去过。首先有个很陡的山坡，很多人都爬不上，因为常常会有小小，滑滑的石头从上面掉下来。明明他们穿这特殊的鞋子和帽子，保护你的头和防止你摔跤，苦苦的爬上去了。他们爬完这个地方就要过一个悬崖，要把一根绳子扔到另外一个边，在那特殊的机器滑过去。杰克好不辛，在悬崖中间，他的绳子断了。他后来去了医院。在往上有一片很危险的地如果你踩错地方，你会掉进悬崖里。明明不知道这些，看到平平的地就往上跳。不小心，他掉进悬崖里也去医院了。亮亮和大卫拼命地往前赶，现在只有最后一个风险就能到顶了！它们要爬上山羊峰，上面有很多不喜欢别的动物的山羊。大卫爬完一大半就被一个山羊顶下去了。他也去医院了。亮亮顺利地爬到山顶上，他赢了，他是第一个爬到派派山的顶上的人！但他下来的时候被一个山羊顶到悬崖里了。他最后也去医院了。

Today was the last day of art camp. We worked around a rotation schedule today. One of the things we did was draw bamboo 国画 again. This time, I think I did better because I figured out how to make the leaves thin-thick-thin instead of a big blob. I also learned that you shouldn't put your leaves too close together, and I also learned to make my bamboo and branches thinner. This is because the paint seeps outwards, as there is a lot of water in it. So you need to account for the seeping out by making your strokes thinner. The other thing we did was make collages. The teacher gave us each six pictures of us in art camp and we had to make a collage. I cut out some construction paper with these special scissors that cut out lines like squiggles and zigzags. Then I pasted my pictures onto those pieces and it looked really neat. I also wrote a few block letters to make it look cool. In addition, I had a lot of fun doing art - especially my collage - today!

Today was the fourth day of art camp. In the morning, we used a roller to ink our carved wooden boards from yesterday. Pieces of paper were then pressed onto the boards to create the same drawing, backwards, on the paper. I used dark red and white as my colors, and I think they looked really cool. I liked the sharp contrast between the white and the black. In the second half of class, nearing lunch, we drew Chinese 国画. These are special paintings with Chinese ink, and they look like watercolors (kind of). To make different tints and shades you add water or dry it up a bit. We drew bamboo, which is a LOT LOT                 ________               /               /                      /               / ...

子曰：“巧言令色，鲜仁矣。” 奸险：“奸诈阴险。” In this article, the emperor was basically living his life in luxury and having fun as much as he could. So when his prime minister told him to stop and do something to help the country, he declined. Meanwhile, a devious but smart man was trying to control the country. He rose up through the ranks, and bribed the wives of the emperor for information about the emperor. When he met the emperor, the emperor loved the way he talked, because he made the emperor sound awesome and super good. So the emperor asked his current prime minister if it was a good idea to replace him with the devious man. The prime minister said no, but then the devious man badmouthed him and pushed him out. He then proceeded to wipe out all of the other officials and pretty much take over the country because he was so trusted by the emperor. This relates to the sentence above because it says that people who say things to your liking usually have no good intentions, and this is obvious in ...

Today I went to art camp, and we carved wood. So in the first half of class we drew on the wood. First, we chose a drawing that we liked. Then, we drew it on our wood block. I though this part of class was kind of boring, because all you did was copy lines and other things from the book to your paper. I don’t like this because you don’t get to think or come up with your own ideas at all. In the second half of class, we carved the wood. This was fun because you actually got to design the patterns. You had to think about it and actually come up with your own designs instead of copying them off a book. I liked to come up with patterns. In conclusion, I think art camp would be better if we got to be creative more of the time.

子曰：“学而时习之，不亦悦乎？有朋自远方来，不亦乐乎？人不知而不愠，不亦君子乎？” 译文：“学习过的知识常常温习，不是很愉快吗？有志同道合的朋友从远方来，不是很快乐的吗？别人不了解我，我也不抱怨，不也是一个有的德的君子吗？” 志同道合：志向相同，意见相合 温习：复习 抱怨：a grudge At a small age, 陈正之 had very slow reflexes and was bullied by other kids a lot. They called him a dummy, and to a certain extent, that was true, because in class he couldn't learn a lot at the same time, he couldn't remember articles, and he failed at writing. Eventually, even his teachers started telling him to get out. So he started learning, writing, and doing other things. He read books so fast that it was like he was eating them. But he wasn't happy with his results, because he couldn't remember anything. So a famous scholar told him to only read one book a day and read it a few times. This way, he was a lot more successful, and eventually became a famous scholar too. This is an example of the sentence up there because he found that he liked to review things he already knew, and learn new things. Even though others d...

子曰：“巍巍乎，舜禹之有天下也，而不与焉！” 安居乐业：“安定的生活，愉快的工作。” 流离失所：“到处流浪，没有安身的地方。” 饥寒：“饥饿和寒冷。” 交迫：alternating with pressure and hardship 困苦：“艰难痛苦。” 不堪：“承受不了。” 踊跃：“跳跃，proactive” This story was about 尧 needing to select someone to rule after him. All of a sudden, a flood came through a very populated river area and he needed someone to stop it. His advisors recommended 鲧, but he failed. He became very old and needed someone to replace him. One of his advisors said his son, but he said his son was too mean and would not make a good emperor. So his advisors recommended 舜，a person who was very kind and smart. 尧put a bunch of tests in front of him, like going into the forest and then coming out in a hurricane, and other things. He succeeded in all of them. 尧 approved of him. He made a good emperor in the end.

Today was the first day of art camp at the Yong Li art studio. Today we drew the first part of our forest painting. In the first half of class, I painted the background and grass of the painting. This was relatively easy, in my opinion, because you were making big strokes and covering a large part of the painting every time. Even though there were some small things to avoid, it was still very straightforward and simple. Because of that, I spent a lot of my time on the colors. I tried to make a sunset, and I think it came out something like that, even though there were some small splotches of orange in the yellow. For the grass, I tried to make swirls like Starry Night but they didn't really work out. I still thought it was cool how there were different kinds of green all swirled around, though. In the second half of class, I painted the two small animals and the watermelon house. My first animal, the bear, got really messed up because I had covered some of it with the background, a...

June 28 Today I took a road trip to Oregon. We went with Noah's family. For lunch, we went to a great place called Highway 101 Burgers. It was a great place. They had natural beef and it was very soft. They also had diced onions and some of their special sauce, which was great for French fries and burgers. For dinner, we went to a place called Chen's Family Dishes. There, I got a pork fried rice/sweet-and-sour pork dish. It was on the children's menu, but there was so much food I couldn't eat it all. It was tasty though. In conclusion, I had two great meals during a long day of driving! Also, we saw a lot of great sights. One was the 500-year-old Sitka spruce. Another was the beach - Devil's Churn. June 29 Today the highlight was dune buggy driving. At the start I was a bit scared, but as I got more used to it, I had a lot of fun. At the start, I drove really slowly. I couldn't go up a lot of hills. I also got stuck a lot. Eventually, I started to drive a lot f...

Recently we have been playing with laser guns a lot. In the afternoon, we play laser guns with Anthony and Aryan. I almost always win, because I am very good at laser guns. I can shoot people from literally twenty yards away. Also, I have figured out a few great hiding spots that help me win. I can just stay there and shoot them and they don't know what happened. Also, yesterday I played laser tag with Kevin. His dad totally beat us up because we usually killed each other, and he just stepped in and got rid of our remaining health. It happened every time, and we always were powerless to stop him. That got kind of boring, but it was still fun!. In conclusion, we enjoyed laser tag a lot!

子日：“君子泰而不骄，校任骄而不泰。” “君子安静坦然而不傲慢无礼，小人傲慢无礼而不安静坦然。” This basically means that well educated people are calm and patient when it comes to important things, and they also don't brag about how smart they are. This also means that people who don't know much think that they are awesome and brag and say how awesome they are a lot. They are also not calm and react explosively to a lot of things. I think this is true because from my experience, a lot of people who get bad grades in my class think they are really smart and awesome, and whenever somebody contradicts them they literally blow up, acting very unreasonably. Also, a lot of the smarter people are really calm and patient when they are doing something important. They also do not brag a lot and are reasonable. I think this is also evident in the story that I read today, where this smart man is really self-confident, but falls into the blow up category. He is ridiculous, guarding the emperor with flyswatters from little flies and ...

叶公问政。子日：“近者悦，远者来。” This basically means that to rule your country well, you have to satisfy the people in areas close to you and make sure people far away don't start a rebellion. An example of this was when an emperor of the Qing dynasty, the KangXi emperor, prevented a rebellion. He satisfied most people, except for three barons who decided they wanted to start their old dynasty back up again. They rebelled against the emperor and almost own, but the emperor turned them against each other and two of the barons sided with him. The last baron was defeated, and everyone became content with the new system, as all people close by liked the emperor and everybody far away had no intent of rebellion.

Yesterday was another day of working on final projects. In the morning, we had five minutes of playing Impasse, a puzzle game. Impasse is about moving your white circle to the goal without crashing into other circles. It sounds simple, but is actually insanely hard. I got the farthest, but I still had trouble in deception, the 9th or 10th level. The game gets hard because there are other circles, like ones that move around or flash on and off. In my final project, I added a level and a tutorial for a total of three levels. I also made the graphics a lot cooler, with particle effects. I also improved the jumping to make the game fair. The music and sound was also added yesterday. In conclusion, I accomplished a lot yesterday in terms of my final project!

子日：“通《诗》三百，授之以政，不达；使于四方，不能专对，虽多，亦溪以为？” Basically a kid is really fluent with poems and other things in books, and can answer questions really we'll, but he doesn't know what to do in the real world. So when a fire burns the village he's reading a poem and eating noodles. Then people are angry at him for not helping. His dad then tells him to use his own judgement and put out all the fires he sees. So he goes out, and sees to swordsmiths. He puts out the fire, ruining the sword, and they get angry at him for ruining their work. His dad then tells him to solve problems of other people. So he sees a husband and wife arguing and slaps both of them, telling them that it is immature and they should get on with life. Of course, they pretty much hit him to death right then and there. This proves that you need your own judgement, not only books and others advice.

Yesterday and for the rest of the week we have been working on our final projects. My final project is this platformer game where you try to collect these glowing cubes and if you collect all of them you win. The game records your time too. It is a challenge to see who can win fastest. The art and graphics are mainly what I've been working on, and I think it looks pretty cool. Zachary, who sits next to me, is making an adventure game. Basically you move around and shoot and try to defeat the demons that are invading. Like my game, his is based on a framework, which means that we used other people's source code and made a spin-off with our tutorial, levels, and art. In conclusion, there are a lot of interesting projects going round, and I look forward to seeing all of them!

子日：“其身正，不令而行；其身不正，虽令不从。” The general Caocao has such well-trained and trusting soldiers that they know what he is going to say before he says it. So when he breaks his own rules, punishable by death, he almost kills himself, but his soldiers stop him. They say that he is so important to the war effort that he cannot suicide. Instead, he cuts off his hair and uses it as an example of his sacrifice for the war. So in the end, when they were outnumbered 5 to 1, they still won because their soldiers were better trained and more trusting and admiring of their general, who would sacrifice his hair to help the war.

Yesterday I learned about tower defense games at DigiPen. To get a feel of the genre, we started out playing Plants vs. Zombies. The game was very boring, starting out with just a peashooter and one row of plants. It was so boring that I just read a book instead when we were allowed to do anything we wanted. I thought that the tutorial and the 20 levels after it were pointless, like many other people. To my delight, we started working on an actual tower defense game afterwards. I made my game fair instead of making it unfair. Some people made their towers into OP machine guns and others made their towers super expensive and their enemies super fast with a lot of health. In conclusion, I thought that DigiPen camp yesterday was okay, because we didn't get that long to play and improve our own games.

孔子说：“闵子骞真是孝顺啊！人们听了他父母兄弟称赞他的话，也找不出可挑剔的地方。” Basically there's a dad and a kid whose mom died. The dad marries again, but this wife is really mean to the kid, and even made a shirt out of non-insulative material when they ran out of cotton. She didn't even buy any cotton to make a new shirt afterwards. The dad wanted a divorce, but the kid said that they should keep the family together because otherwise their lives would all fall apart. So after the wife sees that she has done wrong, she is nice to the kid and they are happy.

In DigiPen Camp, we use a game engine called Zero Engine, created by DigiPen, to create our games. The Zero engine is organized in a logical way. In the upper right hand corner there is the library. Then on the left you can see the properties of sprites that you have selected. Then you can add and edit the properties of those sprites on the left. To add a sound or something like that, you can just press space. Then a tab will pop up and you can put in pretty much any command that you want. There are commands like CreateSprite, Add, and others. The Zero Engine also can integrate with other software. You can add ZilchScript, which is a programming language very similar to JavaScript. You can insert pictures as SpriteSources. You can add sounds from .wav files and other sound files. This is really handy because otherwise you would have to create the sounds and pictures in the engine.

Recently I have been playing a game called Plundernauts more and more. The game is about conquering planets with your spaceship, which you can upgrade and add different equipment to. There are four types of equipment - turrets, fighter/bombers, techmods, and crew. First of all, there are the turrets. These include missile launchers, lasers, cannons, blasters, beam guns, and torpedoes. Each of these types has different pros and cons, which makes the game really fun to play. For example, missile launchers fire a bunch of missiles that sizzle out very quickly but lock on target and move very quickly. Their range is moderate, making them OK for close-in combat but better for firing at the enemy where they can't get to you. Lasers are great for medium-ranged attack, doing around 300 damage every time. They aren't powerful, but their range, speed, and definite accuracy is their main benefit. Cannons are kind of inaccurate and the bullets only hit if the enemy has not really moved fr...

Yesterday in DigiPen summer camp, I learned all about aesthics in a game and the difference between unfair games and difficult games. First, the game that we tested was Solace. This game had great artwork and music. It was about the five stages of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. There was a level for each stage, and the artwork, music, and your player represented the stage too. For example, in Anger, there was electric rock music, and it was really loud and fast. The artwork was red and the enemies were also red. You were superpowered because of the anger. In Depression, the background was black, and the music was slow, sad, and mourning. Meanwhile, your bullets flew off mark and dissolved. The other game we tested was cat Mario, an example of an unfair game. It went against all the principles of Mario, making the user die time and time again. It also punishes the player by making him or her wait around 10 seconds for a revive. Also, there was no instru...

Yesterday was the third day of DigiPen Camp. In the morning, we played Sennet, an ancient Egyptian game that is basically the predecessor of Sorry. You throw four sticks, each with a dark or light side. Then you count the number of dark sticks you got,and that is how many squares you move. Four light sides is six squares. If you get a 1, 4, or 6, you roll again. There are 24 squares in a board, and each player starts with 4 pieces, alternating, like this: white black white black white  black white black. You can take th opponents piece, and they just go back to where you were. You cannot take a piece that is touching another piece of the same color. At the end of the board there are four special squares, three of them are safe squares, while the second one puts you back to square fifteen. You have to throw the right number to get off the board - plus one to how long it will actually take you to go to the end of the board. I liked this game because it was simple but hard at the sam...

Today I read about the Quadrants of effective living. There are four quadrants, and effective people focus on the first two quadrants. The first two quadrants are the important and urgent things and the second is for important but not urgent things. The book said that the first quadrant included things like personal crisis. The second included things like improving yourself mentally and stabilizing yourself. But the book also said to not let these things overwhelm you. Because if you do, you will be too focused on Quadrant 1 and will not have time for other things. You will be stressed out. Many people say to focus on Quadrant two, which is a great choice. You are still being effective, but you will have to reduce the size of Quadrant 1. That way you will not get too stressed out. I think sometimes I focus on then first quadrant and push the rest out of my mind. This makes me very inefficient. The next two quadrants are for things like phone calls and social networking. These aren...

Yesterday I went to DigiPen's Projectfun Summer Camp. I had a lot of fun there. The first thing we did was use PAINT.NET to create art. The instructors told us we would be using the art for a Pong game later. So I just had fun with the interface. There were many features you could use to make the art look cooler. You could add Mandelbrot or Julia fractals, and you could also make them look interesting with things like frosted glass and 'dents'. The second thing we did was use the Zero Engine to create Pong. It was very easy, in fact, once you got the hang of it. There was no actual coding involved, and the GUI for the Engine was simple to understand. The only part of the project that I didn't do myself was the ZilchScript that they added in to make it work. My favorite part was making the paddles bounce and spin when the ball hit them. It made the game more interesting. In conclusion, I enjoyed the DigiPen camp!

Today I learned about mission statements. Mission statements are basically where you write about what kind of person you want to be. You explain what you want to be like, how you will do it, and other things. You also explain how this will be fulfilled in the various roles of your life. For example, if you were money-centered, your mission statement would be something like:"I will put work above everything else and do as well as I can to earn more money." You will explain it something like this: "Husband: let spouse run off and do whatever so I can focus on work. Father: Put children in daycare or afterschool events or events before school. Send to various classes on weekends. That way I can earn more money. Job: Please boss in any way possible, work overtime, do whatever your boss tells you to, work extra..." You get the idea. Mission statements help you remain on track with whatever it is that you want to be or do.