Yesterday, I got really scared because my father brought a book from the library called, "The Golden Compass". It's not the fact that it was in my summer reading list (that you don't even have to do), it was the fact this book was super old and had about almost 100 words in each page, and that's out of 400 pages. It's like half of a harry potter book. Thankfully, when he came back home my father told me that he ordered the newer version on Amazon that's a lot fewer pages and ina style of writing that I can understand. In addition, the original version (one my dad got from the library) is something I can only read for 9 days. And I doubt that I'd be able to finish it that quick. Now I have until the end of Summer Break for this book. I was going to head towards the park at 5:00 P.M but my father wouldn't let me since he had to go do "inventory" at his work and leave at 6:00 P.M. So I just went outside for 30 minutes with my sister and came back home.

For the rest of the three chapters, I want to talk about the 4th book in the series, "Fall of the Beasts: Spirit Animals" since I had just finished the previous book yesterday. Today I read 6 chapters instead of 3 but I'll skip to the important parts. So this is just going to be a bunch of information into one, not separated by paragraphs. At the start of the book, it talks about the story of Kovo and how he and the other former Great Beasts became what they are today. It seems as though long ago Erdas used to be just one giant island. There weren't any continents separating the places on the map. One day, all the animals of Erdas could see an object in the sky and they said that the "sky was falling". As the days went past the "sky" seemed to be getting closer and closer to them. One day, it was so visible that the village of apes decided to make someone of their own travel to where the "sky" would land and report back for information. Kovo was the person they picked, and he thought of it as a great honor.

As Kovo was heading towards the landing spot he realized that it was headed towards the Evertree. The tree that started all life on Erdas, all the animals cared for this tree greatly and would hate to see it get destroyed. Kovo also saw other animals from different species heading towards the tree. There were almost 100 of them, and he knew they must've been here for the same reason as him. However, as the meteor got closer and closer more and more animals started leaving, afraid that they would get hit or die from the impact. In the end, when the object crash-landed onto the tree Kovo could see that it was somehow inside of it. Also, there was a huge storm in the sky and thunder crashing down everywhere. But through all this pain and destruction, the ape felt somehow stronger and larger. And when he looked around him there were 14 other animals that seemed to grow just as big as him. Kovo just knew that his village was probably destroyed so there was no point in going back.

The crater was extremely deep and the ground separating to create the continents that Conor, Meilin, Rollan, and Abeke know today. But unlike most of the creatures who wouldn't make the drop down below Kovo decided that he had to. For his mother, and the village. He was tasked to witness what had happened and he wouldn't go back on his word. Eventually, even the swan and eagle stopped going down and traveled back up. When, Kovo finally reached the bottom he saw an object inside the roots of the tree. It looked round and bulging. He thought he saw something move inside of it but wasn't sure. That's when the ape realized what he was looking at. This wasn't a "sky" or a meteor, the object that fell from the sky was an egg! And it was huge too, it looked like it was spreading around the tree's roots and veins were visible. The outer layer of the egg was tough and Kovo couldn't break it. For once in his life, he was afriad of something.

I only read about 2 chapters today because one of the chapters took like 30 pages. While the other one was only 10 or 12. Anyway, let me do these first two paragraphs about yesterday and the other two on the chapters. So obviously you should already know about the incident on me leaving my sister in the house so let me continue off from that. My dad told me to continue finishing my homework, well he didn't really tell me. I just did it because if I didn't I'd be in even more trouble. Afterward, I read the post and apologized for the same incident. He accepted my apology and said that my sister and I could use our phones. But I didn't want to waste any battery on my phone so instead, I asked to use my Playstation Four and update my Fortnite so that after coming back from Lincoln Park I could use it for the rest of the day. At 3:45 A.M I asked my father if I could go to Lincoln Park to meet up with my friends and he replied with a yes.

You see, the day before, all of my friends scheduled to go to Lincoln Park and play Pokemon Go. I used to do it with only one friend but now everyone wanted to go just for today, so that's exactly what we did. However, it didn't turn out to be as fun as I anticipated. With everyone having their phones out catching pokemon and running around the park to battle gyms and fight in raids. Instead, we just played Soccer for a bit and then walked to the fountain. But let me give you a more detailed description. When I got there I called my friend because he said he was supposed to get a ride from Lhawrencelie's (best friend) mom in the park. However, he wasn't opening the door for him so he couldn't hitch a ride. So instead, he asked another kid who was going with us to drop him off as well. After about 30 minutes everyone got to the park and we played a bit of soccer before talking at the giant fountain in the middle of the park and leaving at 6:00 P.M.

I felt bad for Lhawrencelie because when everyone left he called me and asked whether we were still at the park. I told him that we weren't and that Vincent (the kid who was supposed to hitch a ride with him) was very mad. Lhawrencelie apologized and then got on Playstation so we could play a few games of Fortnite together before I went to sleep. Now it's time to talk about the book I read. The first chapter was about how Meilin and Conor were still in the "Meleager". The pirate ship that they found a few hours ago. The pirates were going to throw Conor overboard since he was infected with the parasite but Meilin and Tadoka were able to barricade themselves inside a room full of food with the help of their spirit animals. Every now and then one of the pirates would yell for them to come out but they never did. Eventually, they were running out of water and surrendered themselves. However, two giant eels start attacking the ship knowing that Meilin, Conor, and Tadoka are trying to reach the Evertree.

Atlanta (which is the leader of the ship) sees that her spirit animal (a bullfrog) falls off the ship because of the eels banging against the side. She refuses to just leave her animal like that knowing it's still alive and tells the three of them to have a safe journey and save the ever tree from the Wyrm. And with that, she drops down into the sea with a sword. Abeke tells the other two to get a small boat ready and they row the oars like they've never done before. All of the pirates left on the ship are most likely dead because of the eels or still fighting it so Abeke hoped that their deaths would not be in vain. She wasn't ready to ask Conor if he could use his inhanced vision to see if anyone was still living. That was the first chapter summary. Hoepfully I'll have time to finish the other one later.

Chapter 10

Conor was feeling super dizzy and tired right after waking up because the parasite was finally reaching his forehead at a much faster rate than before. He felt as though he was in the middle of a war between his friends and the power of the Wyrm. And as of right now the Wyrm was winning. The only reason he's been getting up is that of Briggan and Meilin. He asked Meilin that when the time was right to wake him up right before the parasite would get to his forehead, that way he could summon Briggan into the real world. If Conor is sleeping when the parasite reaches his forehead him and Briggan will both be infected since Briggan would be a part of his soul in the dormant state (a tattoo). However, if he was to be in the real world (physically) Briggan wouldn't be in any harm unless Conor's infected body plans on doing something to the spirit animal. I know that Meilin refuses to fight Conor if this happens but something must be done.

Chapter 11

Finally, Conor says that he can hear a group of people singing somewhere far away from them. Meilin and Tadoka are both extremely skeptical since they don't have Briggan's sense of sight and hearing abilities. Thankfully, for Conor Meilin will trust her friend, still, Tadoka isn't convinced and warns Meilin that this may be the Wyrm trying to trick Conor. That's when Conor promises that isn't the reason and Tadoka agrees on using their last torch as a beacon for the folks singing to save them. As they get much closer Conor realizes that these people seem to have blue skin, or at least they look like they do. And it turns out that after the three of them ask for some food and supplies they know by the response that these people are definitely pirates. It seems that everyone on the ship has blue tattoos and only one (the leader) has a spirit animal. Maybe she used to live aboveground (like Rollan, Abeke, Conor, and Meilin) and then came down.

THEORY!

Chapter 12

At the beginning of this chapter, Abeke is feeding Uraza some food that she stole from the kitchen yesterday. The only reason she stole it is because Kirat barely ate anything out of each one and it made her sick to waste everything, especially the sticky buns! To think of all the little kids starving outside of the city walls and him just eating a few bites like he's so loyal! He even skipped the deserts! Anyway, Abeke walked outside of the room and collected the breakfast of both Kirat and Cabaro. She knew that Kirat probably wouldn't eat that much and planned to steal some later. The two of them weren't in their bedrooms so Abeke put the food down on the table and headed towards Kirat's headquarters. Apparently, Kirat was having trouble making Cabaro go into his dormant state. Abeke remembered her mission and suggested that he join the Greencloaks but Kirat explained that his father would never let him. After a few more moments of persuading the chapter ended.

Now for this last paragraph, I want to talk about another theory and then say sorry to my father. So let me give you some context, in the back of the book it has a sort of cliffhanger summary on the book and says that one of the four great beasts (Essix, Briggan, Uraza, and Jhi) will be lost. I think that the great beast that will be lost is Briggan because maybe the parasite reached Conor's forehead and it infected Briggan to be on the enemy's side. That would certainly count as being "lost". Let me know what you think about this theory. Now I want to say sorry to my father for leaving my sister in the house while I went outside to Lincoln Park. The reason I went outside to Lincoln Park is that I was playing this game on my phone called, "Pokemon Go". I talked about this before, it's a game that involves you catching digital creatures around the real world and you need to actually "move" or in other terms "exercise" to play. I play this game with my friend every day I go to Lincoln Park because it helps me to exercise, get fresh air, and actually enjoy my time as well. Sorry, for not recognizing the dangers of Monkyi being by herself alone. I hope you will sympathize me father, I wish to be forgiven.

I am going to continue summarizing the chapters that I read for today. Chapter 7: Madeo (mysterious boy) was able to find 3 kids who volunteered as servants for the party in Faisel's headquarters. Rollan gave each of them a shiny gold coin in exchange for them to let him, Abeke, and Tasha takes their place. After the kids switched places in line with the three "Greencloaks" they filed onto a ship that was headed to the party that Faisal set up. While all the servants were walking inside the ship one by one Abeke and Tasha were really worried because they noticed Otto on the ship. Abeke was ready to summon Uraza but for some reason, Otto walked right past Tasha. The little girl was so scared that she almost fainted when everyone was on board. Abeke explained that this was because the higher officials probably considering themselves too rich to look down upon those that were poor, it was sort of a sin for them.

Side note: to me, I think that is extremely mean and hopefully one day people won't have to deal with that. Sooner or later, all the guards and servants were inside the building and getting ready to prepare for the feast. The little kids who were hired to be servants (including Abeke, Rollan, and Tasha) walked inside the kitchen and met a man named, "Ahmar". He was apparently the "lead" servant and told all the kids what their roles were to be. Abeke was picked to serve Faisal's son (the kid that summoned the Great Beast Cabaro the Lion, Kirat) while Tasha and Rollan served the older officials. Ahmar warned all the servants to not look directly into the eyes of either Kirat or Cabaro or else there will be dire consequences. Many of the previous servants had their hands bitten off and were fired for not being able to anything useful. Abeke was probably the only one who didn't shudder when Cabaro walked into the room with Kirat. Abeke looked straight at Cabaro by mistake and the lion started coming closer to her.

All of the kids were extremely terrified for her and Abeke was ready to summon Uraza. However, Cabaro just stood still as if he didn't recognize her, but only for a short time. Because once he did Abeke could see the expression on his face. Let me just tell you something really quick, back in the previous series the Cabaro was able to talk but this is because he wasn't summoned by any humans. Meanwhile, Uraza, Briggan, Essix, and Jhi were so they couldn't speak. Now that Kirat is under control Cabaro can't say anything, I'm curious to find out exactly why this happens. Anyway, Cabaro still doesn't attack and in the end, backs off, but not before looking at Abeke's arm where Uraza's mark is at. Faisel suddenly rejoiced in seeing this because this was the first time Cabaro ever walked away from someone or something. He ordered that Abeke serve Kirat and that hopefully, she can teach him how to control his spirit animal.

Let me just tell you that Faisal has no idea that Abeke who is disguised as a poor servant, is actually a Greencloak. Now I'm going to talk about the other two chapters since they were very short. In Chapter 8: Tasha just talks to Rollan about his past, like how Tarik died and was killed by Gerathon the Serpent. And also how he likes Meilin and misses her stubbornness. Rollan looks at Tasha's spirit animal wondering whether she got this perception from the link between her partner. Or if this is all genuine. Finally, in chapter 9: Ahmar asks all the servants who were picked whether or not anyone wants to volunteer to serve Faisal's wife. No one said yes until Ahmar started bullying one of the smaller kids. Tasha felt really bad and decided to volunteer so he would stop insulting the small boy. Then, Rollan also volunteered the two the two were stuck helping what most of the kids seemed to be scared of. That's it for today's post.

Today I want to talk about both what I did yesterday and my chapters for the book I read. But don't worry, I'll still do a paragraph per chapter. So yesterday I was on my Playstation Four and asked my friend whether or not he wanted to go outside with me to Lincoln Park since it's usually boring when you have no friends. Fortunately, he agreed to do so and told me to bring my phone so we could play Pokemon Go. Now for those of you that don't know what Pokemon Go is, it's a game on the app store that has been really popular these days. I know so far you might be thinking, oh your just going to be sitting around and playing this game on my phone, well your wrong. Because Pokemon Go is a game where you travel in the real world to catch pokemon and add them to your collection. So, you need to actually run in order to find a pokemon to catch, and catching a pokemon takes about 15 seconds of your time. It's really fun and a great way to have some fun while exercising. 

In addition, yesterday there was a Filipino Festival that took place at Lincoln Park and I was with a bunch of my friends with school (who are Filipino). We just hung out together and talked about what we've done so far for summer. Today, I plan on going outside to Lincoln Park with my friend just like yesterday since he said he wanted to (just to let you know papa). Now, I'm going to be talking about the book I read. So now we are on to the 4th chapter of the book, Rollan and Abeke head out with Dante and a mysterious boy who Rollan paid to be their guide to a Silk Shop. That Silk Shop is run by the father of the boy who summoned the Great Beast: Cabaro the Lion. However, instead of meeting the father they make an encounter with his friend. And this man, whose name is Otto, refuses to take them to Faisel (name of the dad) saying that they have no business there. Then, Otto plans on taking their money by ordering the guards to steal it from them but the three make it out of the shop and run away with the boy.

Now on to the 5th chapter, Meilin, Conor, and Tadoka are getting ready to set sail with the new boat they created. Conor still had the parasite on the base of his neck and it was slowly going up to his forehead. Suddenly, he stopped talking and started to breathe very rapidly. Meilin got extremely scared and told him to not give up (yelling). Thankfully, those words were able to calm him down enough so that he could speak. He told the 2 of them that he felt the evil from the Wyrm seeping into his body through the parasite. That was the end of that chapter but I just want to say something real quick. How come when Conor has a parasite with him it takes much longer than if a regular person gets a parasite inside of them. Maybe because he's one of the people who summoned a Great Beast. I don't personally know since this parasite seems to have infected him in the first book of the series. 

Finally, now we're going to finish this post with the 6th and last paragraph. Apparently, while Meilin and Conor were in their little situation the mysterious boy had told Rollan, Dante, and Abeke where the closest doctor was. It seems as though one of the guard's spirit animals was a snake, and it bit Dante in the leg. This brought memories to Rollan of when Gerathon the Serpent (great beast) bit Tarik so deeply that the poor old man died. To Rollan, Tarik was basically his dad since he never had one to raise him up, only his mother. Anyway, the woman wouldn't help fix Dante unless she had some type of reward which in her case was gold coins. So Rollan picked up everything he had and gave it to her in exchange for helped Dante but then she said that the man needed a four days rest but of course that would cost even more money. That was the end of the chapters.

I have just started reading the 3rd book of the series "Fall of the Beasts: Spirit Animals". Yesterday's post was me summarizing the second book, so thankfully my father brought the next one. Today I read 3 chapters and in each chapter, there is a different person saying what they are doing in the book. That's the way this book is formatted. Every chapter is from another person's perspective. So you won't get the same person narrating the story again (back to back). Do you want to know the thing that I am very curious about? Why there are different authors for every book! So for this book, the author is "Varian Johnson" but for the second one it's written by "Victoria Shwab". I guess there is a group of people working on this book series, not just on the author. No wonder it doesn't say New York Times Bestselling Author! Instead, there is "New York Times Bestselling Series". Anyway, now let me summarize each chapter for the rest of the three paragraphs.

In the first one, it talks about Zerif (the evil guy), and how he was able to obtain the powers of the Wyrm. Apparently, he was running away from the Greenclaoks and Nilo warriors because they want to bring him to prison. Zerif finds a dead dog's corpse and decides to use it as a way to hide his scent from certain Greenclacks spirit animals that might have a keen sense of smell. Before that, he was in a small Nilo village where he thought no one would care that he was there. But it was little time before the authorities found out it was him. He was climbing a rocky cliff and could hear the shouts of the Greencloaks telling him to come down. After hiding his scent Zerif found a small cave and hid there for two days. Every time he was about to leave he thought he heard the sound of them trying to find him. On his third day, Zerif thought he saw a worm. For such a small creature it was very fast and was able to get inside his skin.

From there, Zerif squirmed as the little creature wriggled it's way up his body until it reached his forehead. That was when everything went dark and bright again. He suddenly heard a voice telling him to head North of the cave where the first Great Beast lay, Halawar the Eagle. And a bunch of little worms or "parasites" started to pop out of the ground giving Zerif a sense of power. Now it's time for the second chapter, it seems as though Meilin and Conor have reached the second obstacle that will lead them to the Wyrm. They start to build a boat and while doing so Tadoka and Kovo the ape (Great Beast) find some rockweeds that to them is considered food. Kovo wanted Tadoka to eat it but Tokada wanted everyone to have some food, not just him. So Kovo did as his partner said and handed some rockweed to everyone. Meilin was skeptical since Kovo was the reason two wars in Erdas have happened but after Todoka promised it wasn't poisonous she ate it.

Finally, the third chapter. Abeke and Rollan are on the Tellen's Pride with Tasha and setting sail for the nearest island. This is where they meet Dante, a fellow Greencloak who's job is to lead them to the next Great Beast, which is Cabaro the Lion. This beast is especially known for his loud roar and hatefulness towards humans. This is probably the only funny part in these three chapters. Dante asks what they have for food and Meilin pulls out a cabbage. Suddenly, he gets very surprised and asked if this is what they've been eating this whole time. Meilin seems to not know what's wrong with it and Rollan says he just eats it raw. So Dante asks Tasha to get him his bad and pulls out a bunch of different bottles of spices that he uses to cook the cabbage. In the end, Rollan and Meilin thank Dante for the food and they have a feast. 

Today I just finished reading this new book called, "Fall of the Beasts: Broken Ground". This is a new series of the first one which was just called, "Spirit Animals". It talks about the aftermath of what happens and how a new enemy has risen to take over the land in which the people call "Erdas". When I first saw this book I was confused because it said it was the second book and I didn't read the second book of the first series. However, after seeing "Fall of the Beasts", on top of the title I understood it was a totally different thing. Before I start to summarize the book I want to give you some background context. In the previous series, all of the Great Beasts except for the "Four Fallen" (Uraza, Essix, Jhi, and Briggan) had disappeared because they were fighting each other near the Evertree, which is where all life started on Erdas. They destroyed the Evertree and themselves as well but now the Evertree has regrown and the Great Beasts are back.

And now each Great Beast has a new human partner that has summoned them from a natural bond by the Evertree. Anyway, let's begin with the summary. As of right now in the book, there is a group of mysterious people called, "The Redcloaks" that seemed to have helped Rollan and Abeke (2 out of the 4 main protagonists in the story). Olvan, who is the leader of the Greencloaks, as said that although they helped them they should still be cautious if ever to seem them again since Abeke and Rollan don't know their motives yet. Meanwhile, Meilin and Conor are with Xanthe and Todaka (friends) to reach the wyrm and destroy it so it can't bring any more harm to the people. Let me explain to you what the Wyrm is before I keep on going. Apparently, it is some type of "living" object that is trapped underneath the Evertree and can cause parasites to enter people and have them serve the Wyrm.

However, the twist is that somehow "Zerif", (the evil person) was trusted by the Wyrm to save it and in exchange, the Wyrm will give Zerif parasites that can be turned into servants for him. Zerif must've agreed and also seems to want the Great Beasts that were spread all across the world. As of right now, he has about half of the Great Beasts under his control by inserting parasites inside of them. In this book, Rollan and Abeke are tasked to enter Setirol, a place that was once corrupted by evil and horrible rulers (previous book). Now, it is told that the people there are rebuilding the city and it is filled with kindhearted folks who just want a second chance. Rollan and Abeke both feel extremely skeptical about this considering their last visit there and also worry for Conor and Meilin since Conor has a parasite inside of him, although the small creature hasn't reached his brain yet so he is still conscious and not under Zerif's rule.

Soon enough, Abeke and Rollan do reach Setriol and are surprised by how the place has turned upside down. There isn't a new ruler in place of Shane (who was the previous evil ruler) but his family still lives there. Abeke has a feeling that none of them try to take the throne because they are waiting for their beloved son to return home with him. Anyway, the start heading towards the palace which is the real reason they went there. Apparently, there is a new person that has summoned a Great Beast. This one is a little girl named "Tasha" and she summoned "Ninana the Swan". A very graceful spirit animal, however, Tasha doesn't exactly seem to be able to harness Ninana's power yet. Suddenly the city is attacked by Zerif because he got word that a new beast has emerged in Setriol. Abeke, Tasha, and Rollan escape through a ship but are extremely sad because they left the other Greencloaks to fight of Zerif's servants, Tasha especially, since Setriol was her homeland and now in flames and chaos. That is how the book ends.

Today is my first day of Summer Break and I'm hyped! No more school for another 2 months! Just think of all the time I have to just relax, not have to worry about test grades and homework, as well as practice Soccer so I can try out next year for my school. The position I want to play is either Striker or Goalie. Everyone knows what the goalie is but let me tell you for the sake of it. The goalie is the person who decides whether the enemy team gets a goal. It is their job to block the ball from entering the goal and sometimes they can feel lots of pressure. Basically, they are the game-changers. Most people don't want to be goalie but I know that I'm definitely not bad compared to the others Soccer players in my school. If I was against 15 years old it would be too hard so thankfully I'll be at an even playing field. The other position I want to play if goalie doesn't work for me is a striker. They are the people that stay in the front lines to shoot the ball into the goal.
Kind of ironic right? You know, because a Striker is supposed to kick the ball into the goal and the goalie tries to block the ball from entering the goal. 

Anyway, let me tell you what I did yesterday. The first period was Science but since it was the last day of school the teachers didn't want us to have classes. Instead, I just watched a dumb movie with my friends and it wasn't good at all. It was about a kid and his friends who are going to college and try to enter the "College X Games", but then his father enters the college too because he lost his job. So things go super awkward for the kid, eventually, they learn to respect each other and his father graduates after his first year since the guy already did 3 years of college back when he was still young. While the movie was playing my teacher asked anyone whether they wanted to help clean up the gym with the teachers since it was a total mess. I volunteered with a couple other folks but when we got there everything was already clean.

At recess, I headed over to the field with the rest of the 7th grade and waited for my friend to bring the Soccer Ball. After a couple of minutes, my ELA teacher came and said he wanted us to shoot penalty kicks at the goal while he played goalie. I wished that he would let me try goalie so I could practice but no. So instead, I got my revenge by making a shot that he just wasn't ready for. I went about 10 feet away from the ball and then got a running start. Afterward, right before I kicked the ball I shifted my left foot in the direction of the soccer goal and moved the way I kicked the ball from the top of my shoe to the laces that way it would give a sort of spin at the ball, this is a move called the "Curve Ball" where the ball spins midair and starts to move in the opposite directions. Basically, it's used to confuse the goalie and is extremely difficult to pull off. 

Soccer takes lot's of technique and skill involved with it, so when I scored the shot everyone behind me was like "OHHHHHHH" and I felt super good. Then the rest of the kids got a chance and we did an actual game. It was pretty fun and deeply enjoyed it. Community Circle came next and the dean gave three kids an award for expressing the "core values" of Beloved. I thought this was pretty stupid since the only way you could actually get the award is if you personally know the dean yourself. Finally, the dean wanted to say goodbye to all the students and the teachers started handing people their report cards. My teacher wanted everyone to take a picture in memory of this day so we all stood under the basketball net and made some silly faces. And that was my last day of school! Hope you enjoyed.

After coming back from the school yesterday my father took my sister to the library and then the pool because my sister wanted to. However, they came back much earlier than expected because the pool was closed until 4:00 P.M. So after another 30 minutes my dad called the pool and it turns out they had just opened. Because of this, he decided to take not only my sister but me as well. Unfortunately, there was a bit of trouble finding me my swimming shorts since they suddenly disappeared a few months ago. That's when my father said he'd give me his swimming shorts since he wouldn't be going in the water anyway. I thought they'd be a bit too big on me but turns out they were a perfect fit. So I no problems with it and we headed towards "Pavonia Pool". My sister told me that when she went to the pool before it was closed but for some reason, there was a family already there. 

I would think that they went over the gates and stayed in the water but who'd be crazy enough to do that knowing the pool was going to open to the public soon? So in my theory, I think they had gotten special permission from the people working there or my sister had mistaken them for a family when they were actually lifeguards getting ready to open the gates. Once we finally got to the entrance I noticed that there were already a lot of people in the water. Everyone must've been waiting for the pool to open. And to think there was barely anyone about 10 minutes ago. My dad said he'd sign the papers to enter for me and I went with my sister inside the water. We did a challenge to see who would go inside first but I easily beat her by not remembering just how cold the water actually was. We played Tag and a bunch of other games but I didn't want to play Marco Polo because there were too many people.

Sooner or later I decided to go to the deeper side of the pool where my sister wouldn't be able to disturb me, or so I thought. She straight followed me and decided to beg until I carried her across the pool and back. Finally, she left me in peace and I decided to go to the extremely deep side, this is when the water is about 6 feet. But, the lifeguard told me to leave since I wasn't supposed to be there. But guess what happens next? A minute later he says that everyone is allowed to enter! There was basically no point in telling me to go back to the other side when most of the kids would have entered the 6ft side with me. One kid literally farted in front of me and I knew because there were bubbles behind him. I knew I wouldn't be able to smell anything but it just felt weird knowing there was toxic gas inside of the water. Eventually, my sister and I wanted to go home since there wasn't anything to do. 

My father kept on commenting that my stomach was super dirty since there were sweat stains. I was pretty annoyed because he constantly said this over again. So I told him that I knew what he was saying and asked if he could stop. Back when I was little I'd be afraid of saying things like this because he'd just yell at me. But now that I'm getting older I'm not scared anymore. It's called being a man, when you want to speak then you should. Everyone has the right to speak, it's just that they don't take the chance to do so. Anyway, I still listened and even took a shower to get the stains. Now it's all clean but feels a bit too clean. I'm just not used to being so "clean". Also, I just want to mention that today my teacher said I have to wear the uniform with the belt tomorrow because I didn't wear my belt today which is unfair since I couldn't find it. Papa, help me search for the belt please.

Now today I am going to be talking about Field Day, and let's just say it didn't turn out as amazing as I thought it would. When I got into the classroom most of the kids were wearing Field Day shirts. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring the money for the shirts so I couldn't get one. Anyway, it would have been a waste since this year's Field Day was horrible. My teacher showed the whole class what we were going to be doing for the day. Apparently, students wouldn't be able to create groups of their own to choose, instead, the whole class was your group and you needed to watch them play. The reason this year's format is entirely different is that we have new Health and Physical Education teachers. They are two entirely different people but take on the same responsibilities as the previous person to run the Field Day. His name was Dr Taylor but left to go to another school that paid him more money.

Anyway, there were a few different sections. They were Volleyball, Basketball, Tug of War, Dance Off, Over and Under, and Relay Race. My teacher assigned a spot to everyone and when there was space would give some people a second event. I got Tug of War and Over and Under. When he finished making the selections we all lined up and headed outside to the basketball court since that was the first section. The people that my teacher picked for Basketball destroyed the enemy team 5-0. It was pretty embarrassing. The class (7B) only had about 3 people that knew how to play the game, so the other two were pretty much useless. I was too sweaty to cheer since the sun was burning so I decided to just watch from afar. Once the game was over my classmates headed towards the field for the Dance Off. I thought this was going to be very interesting since my class has the best dancer and the other two students were very into K-Pop groups.

In the end, we won but it was very close. It was kind of funny at the end because the last girl was actually twerking (other class). A lot of people were laughing but in a way that gave her more support. The girl from my class was very competitive and went up to her face acting all sassy. I like the way she did it because it proved the two were very into the moves. Thankfully, my class won by a close call, we cheered a bit more than their's did. Moving right along, Volleyball was super easy. The score was 6-1 so I felt even worse than in Basketball. Our class just had more athletic students. Now it was time for me to actually play, and this was in Tug of War. This was the only game that I got to play because after this Field Day was cancelled. Apparently, the news sent a heat warning telling everyone to not go outside since it's just too hot. This led me straight to global warming and how eventually we are either going to drown or get burned.

Maybe not me, but the future generations for sure. Either global warming will cause the icebergs in Antarctica to melt and increase the water levels of the ocean 10xs or the heat from the sun will turn us humans into a crisp. Now, when I told my father this he said that he agrees and then I mentioned how his favourite president (Donald Trump) called it a Chinese Hoax. Now, he thinks that this is all fake and when I showed him the information on Youtube he claimed that the whole news organization is fake (CNN). So I tried to prove to him that it was real but in the end, the only person he'll really listen to is Donald Trump. But let me get back to the point, Field Day was horrible and I hope that next year they can add something totally new. Like, maybe a Soccer game! But no, they would probably never do that. Unless I ask... That is it for today's post! Let me know what you think in the comments down below.

!

Let me just say that today's "Field Day" was horrible. I thought that it would be much better but unfortunately, things just turned out for the worst. But before that, I want to talk about what I did yesterday outside. My father took me to Lincoln Park after we just got a new Soccer Ball because it seemed like a good way to get fresh air. When we got to the Soccer Goals at the park there were a few kids already playing. I decided that because they already had one side of the goal that I could have the other but they asked me to join. Now, of course, I wanted to play with them and had no problem, however, my father was taking videos and pictures of me playing so it was kind of embarrassing. Still, after he started sleeping and no looking my way I did much better, I even scored a goal before the game was over. Once that was over one of the kids said we should play "World Cup". It's this game where you pick a team from the "Russia World Cup 2018 Tournament".

Since there were only two Asian countries I picked Japan instead of South Korea. Whenever you were about to shoot the Soccer ball towards the goal you needed to yell the name of your country. The last person left would be disqualified and play Goalie. The last part was something we didn't do because we felt it would be fair for people to not be able to play the game while others do. Still, it was very competitive and I made some pretty hefty shots. And of course, the last person was still considered the loser. Afterwards, I started getting super dehydrated and took my Soccer Ball to go. Thankfully, the other guys still had another ball to use. When I got home my mother was ready to take me outside to get my haircut. I said that because I was sweating it wouldn't be good to go get a haircut but then she told me I could take a shower. The problem is that if I do that I would have to take another one after the cut and that would be three showers in one day (I took one a few hours ago).

So instead I just told her we could start walking to the barbershop. After about 30 minutes we reached 23rd street of New York Manhattan and the store was about to close. However, there was a man that stayed behind before it closed and said he'd do my hair for me, so after showing him a picture of what I wanted and some more specific details he did everything for me. My mom kept saying to make it super short but I wanted some more volume in the end. Eventually, we got into a "compromise" where my hair was still a bit shorter than a wanted it to be (1 inch). You see, I wanted to at least have an inch and a half since before my hair was about 2 inches in volume. But you know, you get what you get and can't get upset. I tried to see the good things about it, like the line on the left side of my head (that still looks good) but the front just bothered me. If someone saw me from the side it would be fine but directly in the front, it looked awful.

In the end, I just learned to deal with it, it's not like hair can grow back. But the barber was really nice and seemed to really get me. I liked the way he asked questions like what grade you're in to try and get to know me while cutting my hair. And at the same time, he also wasn't an old guy, probably about in his late 20s and had a very modern accent. At first, he thought my mother was just worried about how much she would have to pay but I knew that wasn't true because my mom never has a problem with how much something costs. Instead, I explained how she just didn't like me having a fancy haircut. Anyway, after the cut, we went to a Chinese restaurant and had some really good Asain food. I ordered, pork dumplings and my mom got the same thing but extra spicy. In the end, she said she didn't like it but in my opinion, it was amazing! I can't do the field day thing today but most likely this week I'll talk about it. That's it for today's post.

Today I am going to be continuing and hopefully finishing the story of Masaji and his family in North Korea. And let me just tell you, he definitely isn't doing good. Soon enough the book skips past a few years of Masaji's life in North Korea and he isn't faring much better than when he was a kid. Basically, Masaji is now having a wife and children. At the end of the book he already has 3 children and his sisters are in a very bad situation. Masaji has a problem with the North Koreans and how they are pressuring him to work too much. You see because he's Japenese he has the worst job out of all the other citizens in the country. And apparently, farming is considered the lowest paying work you could find. Kim II Sung has created a farming method called, "Juche" where you plant the plants right next to each so they can create more harvest.

However, the farmers that work to make the harvest know that isn't the correct way. Unfortunately, if they defy his rule they will be severely punished, possibly executed in front of everyone. And obviously, the crops all failed and North Korea had fewer food rations to give to their citizens. The ironic thing is that "Juche" means "Freedom" and Masaji recognized how that was the exact opposite of what they were given in this devastating country. Now, let's go back to a few years ago when Masaji was about to finish school. He suffered through the loss of food, his hungry family, and unfair treatment from the officials. But he thought that one way to support his family would be to earn a reputation in the high ranking party and have a decent paying job. So he did what most kids would do, he studied and devoted all his time to Physics.

But of course, his dream was suddenly shut down. The teachers gave all their students a paper to write what job they wanted to have after graduating. There were three choices, the top one was to go to a university and if you graduated from that join the high party. This is the one that Masaji had his hopes set out for. Then, there was the second choice, you would be somewhat important towards the North Korean government and get a job as a factory worker. Finally, the last choice was to become a person who works on a farm and gets a very loose amount of change every day. I bet you can guess which one Masaji got (he got the third choice in case your dumb and haven't read the last paragraph). Masaji was devastated and very sad when he got the letter stating he got the lowest paying job. After that, he never had any other hopes except to continue living on until the very end.

Later on, he was promoted to the second choice and worked in a coal mine with a bunch of other kind folks. Sure, it wasn't healthy at all because of the poisonous gases and whatnot but he made some great companions that seemed to understand what he was going through, especially since they weren't much better off themselves. Let me just skip to the very end, Masaji's mom and dad both died and they both wanted him to somehow reach Japan. His father's last words were, "Make it to Japan and talk to some of my old friends, they'll help you out". He buried his mom and dad on the same mountain, his mom's grave facing Japan and his dad's facing South Korea (his father's native country). Masaji now understood the graveness of his situation and told what was left of his family (sisters, wife, children, sister's husband) that he was going to escape to Japan.

They understood Masaji and knew he was doing this in hopes of making more money and sending it back to them. Then, one day he will try to bring them to Japan as well and they could get out of that hell of a country. Masaji was able to sneak past the guards while they were switching posts and even crossed the river, that was when he hopped onto a train and arrived in China unconscious. A Chinese man saw him but didn't return him to the police, instead he brought Masaji to his house and fed him until he was ready to head towards Japan. He called the Japanese Red Cross in hopes that they would save him and fortunately they did. Masaji thanked the man and his two brothers for giving him money to live on before leaving. That's how the story ends, I have not read the epilogue yet but when I do I'll be sure to tell you what happened. 

For today's story, I am going to be talking about this new book that I just finished called, "A River of Darkness". I think that this an amazing memoir of someone's life, and it's in the first person too. Although the author isn't someone particularly known throughout most people the reason he's special is that he's one of the few people that have ever escaped North Korea. Before, the security of people trying to escape the wretched country wasn't top notch, now Kim Jong Un is trying his best to prevent anyone from leaving the place. In addition, folks that try to head towards China will be immediately sent back because North Korea and China had a treaty ever since the 1900s. Before South Korea was in the same place as their Northern version but after a while, their economy has massively grown and is an amazing tourist attraction for folks from other countries.

Anyway, I just wanted to give you some background information about the history before summarizing, "Masaji Ishikawa's" life. So Masaji is actually a native to the Japenese with his mother and 3 sisters. However, his father is from South Korea and was said to be one of the most terrifying people in the neighborhood (remember, back then fists and muscle were the definition of "strong"). Anyway, one day the North Korean leader "Kim II Sung" invited all Koreans back to North Korea, promising them countless amounts of paradise and good food. Masaji was very skeptical and so was his mother. The father wanted to go to North Korea because it was his native country and since some of his pals were going too. Unfortunately, once they boarded the ship and caught sight of the place everyone already knew the mistake they had made. It looked so desolate with barren land and nothing "good".

Masaji and his family were given dog meat as a token for deciding to come to North Korea and he hated it. His father didn't seem to care and wolfed down everything like a pig. Later on, the neighbors in the village they lived in were jealous because of all the Japenese products that they had. To Masaji and his family they were barely called, "expensive", but to the natives, they were "luxuries" that could be sold for food. Since most children need to go to school Masaji was a bit nervous since he was the only Japenese student in this academy. When he got there all the kids started calling him, "Japenese Bastard" because they were jealous of him or thought he didn't belong to them. When Masaji came home he saw that his father was becoming a lot nicer towards his mother and sisters ever since they returned to North Korea. He is happy for the both of them.

Unfortunately, after 2 months his father realizes how he was deceived by Kim II Sung and should have listened to Masaji and his wife. The man should have never tried to go ahead and come to North Korea knowing that the leader was always untrustworthy towards the beginning. And for once in his life, he actually started crying. Masaji never saw his father crying since he was always called, "The Tiger" back in Japan for being tough, ferocious, and violent. So Masaji was actually thinking that his father was learning his ways and starting to become more sensible. At school, the teachers were trying to brainwash the students into believing that Kim II Sung knew what he was doing and that he was the best leader. They also talking about the U.S imperialists and how they were the reason North Korea was disbanded with South Korea in the first place. Masaji wouldn't let himself fall for lies and couldn't to pretend he believed the teachers. But what would his life be like in North Korea from now on?

During Homeroom I told my friend who didn't go to the field trip yesterday about everything that happened. Then, I also said that he didn't miss anything good because it was horrible. Afterward, I had Technology and walked to the lab. My teacher knew that this was probably our last class so he let us all play Kahoot one more time. I didn't participate because I was too busy doing Mathwhizz.com. That's right! I was practically the only person who was actually doing the work! Everyone else was either playing Kahoot with my teacher or talking to their friends about the school drama (who someone likes, the lastest fights, trends, etc). Soon enough, Technology was over and I wasn't that sad about it at all. As you already knew I didn't play the games that the other kids did since it didn't seem to be able to fill my enjoyment. The next class was Dance and I walked straight to the cafeteria.

My Dance teacher seemed sad that this was going to be our last Dance class since next week we won't be at school on Friday. So she tried to make us have a little fun. As a demonstration she wanted us to create a variation of whatever move she does. Unfortunately, I was the second person in line so I barely had time to create a well thought out move without embarrassing myself in front of the class. Thankfully, I was able to pull it off in the end, especially since she picked a high five. Because she did her high five sideways I did it front and back and a lot of students thought it was funny. Once the demonstration was over my teacher decided to let us pick a partner and create our own move and variations. One group did something really weird but extremely funny at the same time. It was about 6 people and they huddled together, then they stomped once and said, "Tentacle Spank". 

In my opinion, this was hilarious because of the way they said it. I also loved the reaction on my teacher's face when she heard them say it. Apparently, this is what they did. You were supposed to have at least 6 people in your group and form a circle. Then, you would stomp once and say "Tentacle Spank". Each time you finished saying that phrase you would add an additional stomp and repeat the catchphrase. So it went like this, "1 (stomp), Tentacle Spank, 1,2, Tentacle Spank, 1,2,3, Tentacle Spank". And all the way until you reached 9 stomps. My teacher asked them what they said to just make sure she heard them correctly and the whole group just yelled "Tentacle Spank". They seemed to have no shame in saying this in front of the whole class, and to be honest as long as it's funny who cares? Finally, my Dance teacher slowly said 'Tentacle Spank" so they could understand what they said (she is still in her 20s so she wasn't fazed by this at all).

In all, let me just say this was a hilarious class. Now I want to talk about what I did during Science and Math Class. Because we had nothing to do during these two classes my Science teacher put on the FIFA World Cup for us to watch. It had the two top 5 best teams in the tournament. Portugal vs Spain. And the thing was that this was live so everything we were seeing was also the same as everyone else watching. I was rooting for Spain because most kids in my class wanted Portugal to win since Ronaldo is on the team from Portugal. Anyway, in the end, the teams were in a draw, 3-3. I really wanted Spain to win but for some reason, Portugal was able to get the ball in time and let Ronald score a penalty kick tieing the game. Let me know what you think about this world in the comments.

 

I just came back from an extremely boring field trip and today's post is going to be all about it. Before heading towards the bus to drive to the "JA Finance Park" I was worried because my friend still wasn't here. I was very surprised because he told me that he was going to come, however by the time the bus driver closed the doors he hadn't come. So for the whole morning bus ride, I was sitting by myself just staring out the window. I remember hearing my teacher talking to a bunch of other students near the middle of the bus about what they would be as animals. Some kids got really funny animals like Hippopotamuses and Skunk but I wanted to be a Panda since that's the most Asian "living" animal out there. I couldn't be a dragon because that is technically only on the mythological side of things, or so people think. Once we (class) got to the building my teacher put us in a single file line before entering inside.

There was a room that we spent about the whole time in because they intended to keep us there. As all the 7th graders were filing into the room the people working they've split us into different groups. I and my group of kids sat at a table with another adult and we got to know her a little bit before the man in the front of the room started speaking into his microphone. I could tell that all the folks that we were here hadn't prepared that well because the speaker had a lot of problems with his voice being too low since the microphone wasn't working. In addition, our volunteer wanted us to finish faster than the rest of the kids so that we would be ahead and get a good grade. That's right, apparently, we were going to be getting a grade for this and the people working there would send that grade to our teachers. At this point, we started learning what we would be doing for the rest of our time there. 

Each student got a tablet and we were supposed to press the app that was made by the "JA Financial Park Organization". Each person was supposed to answer a set of questions that would determine which person they got. You see, after the survey they would give you the life of another person (fake), I got a man who was 27 and had 1 child but single. My yearly gross income was $39,000 and my net monthly income was $2,250. I think that that was much higher than a few other kids that I was near but one girl in my class got $89,000 of her yearly gross income! Though she did have a crazy large number of taxes. Finally, we got to the really complicated part, the volunteers or workers in each group would give us codes to put for each tax that we needed to pay. One of them was Child Care which I thought was pretty stupid because some people didn't have "children" (for their person) so it seemed pointless. Anyway, it's not like I could do anything about it.

Now it's time for me to skip to the ending of the field trip. We had to use the money that we got monthly and fill it in for all of the taxes. It was at this point that I understood just how much people have to go through and I feel bad for parents. Once you finished filling in all the taxes you got a fake debit card and were supposed to go to every section (actual stands) and swipe your card. I got really mad because the lady or person who was in charge of my group told me to only do 4 of them, however in reality you were supposed to do all of them. So when she said I wasn't paying attention I got pretty mad. I felt like just yelling at her but knew that hse'd probably tell my teacher I was being "rude" and then I'd get a detention for no reason. So instead, I ignored her for the rest of the day, that was my field trip! Hopefully you enjoyed what I wrote!

8 paragraph essay on "The Three Musketeers" (Rinchen Sangpo 7A)

Today I am going to be talking about the "Three Musketeers", this is the same book that I did on the Classic Book Club presentation. In this 8 paragraph essay, I am going to be including the theme of the book. And how exactly it is being portrayed throughout the beginning middle and end. In addition, I will also be showing how the theme of this book is related to that of another novel, which I will tell you about later. And finally, I will do a counterargument to "counter" everything that a reader who disagrees with me would say. The Three Musketeers is a great book that I think should be known to most folks that have a fondness for reading, so keep track of what I say for the rest of this essay.

In my opinion, I think that the theme of the Three Musketeers is that you should always have friends by your side because one day you're going to need them. Let be start off with how this is demonstrated at the beginning of the text. When D'Artagnan (the protagonist) gets into a fight with a bunch of the Cardinal's guardsmen he remembers that he had made friends with the "Three Musketeers" by the name of Athos, Aramis, and Porthos. These guys help D'Artagnan fight Jussac and his group of guardsmen, they were able to get 4 of the men before the rest ran away. From this fight was where D'Artagnan's reputation started getting known throughout the other Musketeers and the Cardinal himself. And you know who he can thank for that? His friends.

Now onto the middle of the text, Milady (nemesis to D'Artagnan) is brought to a trial for all her crimes. The protagonist and his friends decide that she needs to be punished and the court executes her so she can cause no more harm to those innocent. Afterward, the Cardinal (most powerful man) calls upon D'Artagnan to have a meeting with him. D'Artagnan is sure that he will get executed and says goodbye to his friends (The Three Musketeers). However, when the two of them meet the Cardinal said he planned on killing him because Milady asked him to (Milady was his friend) but because she is dead and he does so. So instead he lets the man off from death, now this is not only because Milady was dead. But also because the two of them have a long history in which they have respect towards each other.

It's time to head towards the end of the book when there is a happy ending. After the meeting with the Cardinal, he offers D'Artagnan permission to become a lieutenant of the Musketeers. Now let me just explain to you that this doesn't just mean only the group of friends his made, but also every other musketeer that will be at a lower rank than him. D'Artagnan understands that this is a huge opportunity but feels as though it shouldn't belong to him. So instead he asks all three of his companions whether or not they want the chance to become lieutenants. Athos says that he doesn't want it, Porthos is going to marry a new woman so he can't have that busy of a life, and Aramis is trying to become a priest. So D'Artagnan feels better for obtaining this rank. This shows the deep friendship he has towards Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. 

Finally, I have finished showing how the theme is demonstrated throughout the book. Now I'm going to talk about the similarities and differences between the theme of this book and a book series called, "Wings of Fire". Let me start off with what's the same between the two themes. In Wings of Fire, the theme is that you should never leave your friends. This is because whenever one member of the group gets separated a fight with a ruler from another tribe gets mad and attacks them (it's part of the book so its okay if you get confused). Basically, trouble always follows when they leave each other for a few days and even minutes. That is similar to the theme in the Three Musketeers because it has to do companions and how you need your friends to support you from time to time.

It is also similar because the two themes basically mean the same thing, you should always have your friends at your side (The Three Musketeers), and never leave your friends (Wings of Fire). However, for The Three Musketeers theme, it also says that you're going to need your friends one day. You see, in Wings of Fire the friends need each other every day. Every character or member of that group has another companion that suits them and helps them feel more welcome. In addition, the Wings of Fire is all about dragons and tribes that each have truces and wars with each other. Meanwhile, in the Three Musketeers, the characters are all human beings and aren't spread into huge groups of "factions". Just a bad guy and a small group of folks that stops that person.

Now it's time to counterargue anything you may think you have something else to disagree about. There is one part I want to talk about when I mentioned the part about how the Cardinal said he wouldn't decide to kill D'Artagnan. Someone may say that the Cardinal showing him mercy isn't "Always have friends by your side because one day you might need them" but I completely disagree. You see, before this meeting, the Cardinal had met D'Artagnan before and said that he was a respectful musketeer and had shown lots of bravery. In fact, the Cardinal even offered D'Artagnan a chance to join his army of France fighters. Although, the protagonist said no he refused in a manner that made the Cardinal seem to like and think of him as a friend even more.

In conclusion, this is what I have to say about the "Three Musketeers". Today we learned what I think is the theme of the book. I also showed how the theme is portrayed throughout three stages of the book. And contrasted this novel to another book series that has a similar theme (in my opinion). The Three Musketeers is an amazing book that I highly recommend you should totally read in your own time. This is book that I have done my 8 paragraph essay for and hoped you enjoyed!

Four Questions about COCO, Homework

1) I think that the movie's theme of "family duty vs personal ambition and following your dreams" is completely unfair. Children and others should have control of their own life and be the person they want to be. They should be able to have personal ambitions or goals for them to achieve and become the person they want to be. Also, they should be able to follow their dreams because some folks have talents that should be shared throughout the entire world, the family shouldn't be the only thing that's holding that back, think for yourself, don't let others think for you. In my opinion, I think that none of the characters are role models because everyone has a flaw in them. Miguel can't really be a role model since he's still a kid, Imelda doesn't forgive Hector (holding a grudge), the family who are already dead following the person who seems the scariest (be your own leader), and the family who isn't dead for not letting Miguel do what he wants to do (following his dreams they are holding him back).

2) In my opinion, what it means to be a part of a family is when you have the same DNA as that person. So that already proves that you and that person with the same DNA or Blood are relatives or "family". Now some people may try to think of this from another point of view where people care about you. However, I don't think this is true because the people who care for you the most aren't necessarily your family. Although you can call them that, to be a part of a family is to be a member of a group of people with the same DNA or blood. I think that being "In" a family is the same thing because you are still technically "part" of that family so there is no point in going more in depth with that. But to end it all off, DNA or "Genes" is what groups you with certain people.

4) I just want to point out that this question makes absolutely no sense because technically Miguel did take Imelda's blessing. It's just that he broke the promise and tried to play in the middle of the Plaza concert. Anyway, it may have been bad if Miguel "followed up" (not "received") on Imelda's blessing earlier in the story because then he would have never seen who his actual father is. Also, he wouldn't become the great musician that he became at the end of the story. Finally, he wouldn't have been able to bring Imelda and Hector together again (Hector is his real father). Sorry, but there is still one more thing that wouldn't have happened if he "followed up" on Imelda's blessing. He wouldn't have been able to expose "Hernando De La Cruz" for killing his father and taking the music.

6) I think that a lot of things would have been different for Miguel's family if Imelda had hoped the best for her husband (Hector). One of these things is that his portrait or picture would have been in the "Ofrenda" for the family to see and remember him as one of the best Spanish musicians in the world. I also want to say that if Imelda considered Hector of coming back but something happened to him she'd be really sad when he left, especially when she went to the land of the living and found out that he had died long before. Also, their daughter would have been devastated to find out her father left the family and grew up to hate him. However, everything happened in the exact opposite ways and that was how COCO played out. One time I thought the worst of someone was a friend because he stole some food from me. Then, the kid said sorry and apologized saying he was hungry so I didn't have a problem with it.

Google News

I am going to be talking about an anime that I like to watch so-called, "My Hero Academia" because it is super cool. Apparently, there is this monster called, "Nomu" and they are super dangerous. They care called, "Nomu" and will murder you in seconds". Well, according to someone who watches the anime and even reads the manga the flying nomu who attacks "Deku" (protaginist) is actually a little kid that was turned into a monster when eh grew up. In this anime everyone has powers or at least 80% do. So this one kid (who isn't that important but it's still sad) had dragon or bat wings as his power and he seemed to have been captured by the Supervillian organization and killed. From there, they took his power and created super strong monsters from it, it's really sad and I hope there is more to it.

The first period was Science and I just had to complete a worksheet. There wasn't anything hard to do and soon enough I was able to hand in the worksheet. Afterwards, it was Lunch and I walked to the field with my classmates. I and my group for the presentation today were supposed to be practicing at the field but instead, we all went our separate ways and started talking to our friends (I was playing Soccer). Thankfully, during Lunch, we spent a good 15 minutes getting all our notes ready. Unfortunately, I didn't have all my notes ready so it wasn't going to go well at all. And that was exactly what happened, my group was actually the second one to go because I went to the bathroom, let me explain. Before Technology finished I asked to use the bathroom and after coming back the presentation already started.

So instead the group that was supposed to go second went first. I know for a fact my voice was low even though I thought it wasn't. I know for a fact that my teacher will probably take points off for that but it can't be enough. One of the kids in the other group for a 100, 100, and 85 so his grade must be around a 93 or something. I was a bit surprised because his part was about Conflict and Resolution but he talked for barely a minute while I read from my paper for more than 360 seconds (6 minutes)! Anyway, the rest of my groupmates did fine, one of the girls said she did horrible but I'm fairly sure she did the best because she actually looked at the "audience" and mentioned my part for helping her on one of the characters (my part was "Characters" while hers was "Symbolism". 

Let me start mentioning the two big "tests" that stressed me out today besides this presentation. The Spanish EOY was the first one and I am pretty sure I got at least an 85%. There is absolutely no way I failed because of my teacher's help. There were about 45 questions on the test and for about 95% of them, she did expressions so my class got hints as to which one was right. I think that out that 95% I got 3 wrong but my Spanish teacher said that even if you get 5 wrong you'll still get a high grade so I can except it. Besides, it's Spanish, right now my Spanish grade is a 73. So if because of this test I am seriously hoping this test will bump it to at least an 80%. If that's the case I have a much higher chance of getting Honor Roll since you need at least all 80s in every class to get Honor Roll. Of course, you can't only have an 80 in every class since then your average would be an 80 (you need an 85% average).

Now for my Grammer test, it wasn't difficult but I know I got at least one or two questions wrongs, at the most, I got 4 wrong but out of a 25 question test that's not bad. My Grammer teacher is also the Dance teacher that was supposedly dating Mr. Correa and she said that she had been getting Instagram requests lately. I find this pretty obvious considering how most kids have been spreading rumors about her and my ELA teacher dating. Then, I think Ms. Marti (teacher) was embarrassed because she said that it wasn't true but I know she's lying because on Mr. Correa's (ELA teacher) Instagram it shows him saying this was one of the best day's of his life, according to him (I don't have Instagram) so I wouldn't know. Anyway, I'm curious to see how this rumor plays out but until then P.E tomorrow is what's getting me excited.

Google News

APPARENTLY AS OF RIGHT NOW KIM JONG UN IS AT SINGAPORE AND MEETING WITH DONALD TRUMP! THIS IS SO EPIC! I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS, ONE OF THE STORIES SAID THAT DONALD TRUMP WILL BRING UP HUMAN RIGHTS AND ANOTHER MENTIONED THAT KIM JONG UN THINKS THAT SINGAPORE IS BEAUTIFUL AS HE HAD HEARD OF IN THE PAST. I WOULD LOVE TO GO TO SINGAPORE BUT OBVIOUS DON'T HAVE THE MONEY NORE PERMISSION AND AGE TO DO SO. ANYWAY, ENOUGHT TALK ABOUT ME! SOON ENOUGH THE TWO OF THEM WILL MEET FACE TO FACE AND TALK ABOUT THE REPUTATION THE TWO COUNTRIES HAVE MADE TOGETHER. NO BLUFFINGOR STOPPING AT ALL, THEY ARE TAKING THIS VERY SERIOUSLY! I WONDER WHAT THEY'LL TALK ABOUT BESIDES HUMAN RIGHTS AND MAYBE THEY'LL FIGHT! JUST KIDDING, LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!

Today is Sunday. Sun shined in the morning but the afternoon was pretty cloudy and sprinkled little rain too.My dad made Pizza for lunch after he returned from his work. It was pretty good Pizza.

For my writing homework, I'm only going to talk a little about this new book I've started reading called, "The Superlife of Ben Braver". At first, I thought this book was for my sister only because she said it was. But I really wanted to read it, thankfully my father said that I had permission to read it so that's exactly what I did after finishing, "Spirit Animals: The Evertree". The author is "Marcus Emerson" and for some reason, the author doesn't seem to be a New York Times Bestseller. I'm surprised that it isn't a Bestseller too because the books that I see with the title "New York Times Bestseller" are boring ones that have no pictures like "Harry Potter". So to find out that a kids book with an epic cover and genre isn't popular is pretty unfortunate. Anyway, the story is about this kid who wants to become a superhero and runs into someone who has ice powers (didn't believe that powers were a thing in the first place).

Afterward, he realizes the kid with the ice powers is actually a bully and treats other kids like garbage. So the protagonist or Ben tries to save the kid who's getting picked on by "Dexter" (the guy with ice powers). Eventually, Ben is able to help the victim get away but is cornered by Dexter and get's half of his body turned into ice. Ben is then carried into a coma and finds himself back in his bedroom. His parents are in the living room sitting next to a very old looking man named, " Donald Kepler". Apparently, this man runs a very secret school only for kids with powers. And he decided that he wanted to enroll Ben into the school because of his bravery while trying to protect that kid. However, Ben knows he doesn't have a power or at least doesn't know it yet. Donald Kepler reassures him that he'll find it soon, hopefully. Then, Ben's parents agree to send him and Ben is on his way to the school.

Now I want to talk about my experience at the part yesterday because it was very fun. My friend told me the day before that we were going to do our Dance EOY at Lincoln Park and we agreed to head there at 10:00 A.M. However, when I got there he told me he'd been waiting since 8:55 A.M. Another catch: he decided to invite Vincent and De'Juan who are two of our other classmates doing the same Dance EOY, the two of them are also partners together. But first of all, we played some Basketball because it seemed fun. I like the sport a lot and thought that my skills weren't bad, I just need to work on defending and shooting. My passing and dodging or good enough in my opinion. Afterward, we decided to start playing actual 2v2s together until starting our "homework".

Vincent said that he was going to "set up his camera" and my friends and I thought he was just grabbing his phone. But then he straight up pulled out a giant tripod! We all started laughing, I thought it was pretty hysterical. The first people that were shooting their dance was Vincent and De'Juan since it was Vincent's camera. I thought that their dance was pretty fun since most of the time they were hugging each other (not in a weird way). Like doing Ring Around the Rosy, if you can even get that reference. Once they were done it was me and my partner's turn. I decided that we should do it in front of the flap poles because it looked a lot cooler and De'Juan was complaining about how we get a much better setting. But I knew he wasn't gonna ask to do the video again since it took them 5 tries to get 1 minute. After that, we played some more basketball and said bye to each other.

Dance EOY Homework,

1) I feel like this dance took a lot of effort to make since we just did it from the starting point to the end, basically, we thought of the moves as we kept on doing it. I think that it shouldn't be that bad and we got a perfect setting to do it on. I know that this may hopefully guarantee us an A because of the video quality and hard work put into it.

2) The elements used were all of them, Body because we used our arms and legs, energy because we emphasized some parts of the dance, action because we moved a lot (back and forth), space because we took up most of the area we had, and time because it lasted 1 minute.

3) (previous question), what grabbed my attention was the part where we fist bumped and then went back because I thought that was cool, we worked particularly hard on the ending part since we didn't know what to do and the beginning to get it perfectly right. 

4) I think that our dance expressed a story of a man who becomes friends with a random person and then kills him or betrays, afterward he feels bad and suicides himself. The theme is to never kill your friends. My opinion is that we did fairly well on it overall since it took a couple of days, we created this work because it looked like a good idea. 

5) Previous question (answer is in the previous question.

Spirit Animals

I just finished reading "Spirit Animals: The Evertree" and it took me about 3 days. I'm fairly sure that this is the last book in the series and that "Marie Lu" (bestselling author) will probably make another one based on this. Anyway, I really like this book because of the way it ends. Instead of just saving the world it also lets the characters reunite with their loved ones and they don't have to make any sacrifices. Let me tell you what I mean by "sacrifice". You know how usually whenever the protagonist defeats the final boss in a video game or just kills the bad guy? Usually, in those stories, the hero has to make a sacrifice or lose something in return. For instance, maybe a group of people try to find a treasure in a maze but while they are escaping someone gets trapped and dies. So in order to get something they have to "sacrifice" something else in return. In this book, the four heroes didn't have to lose their spirit animals in order to save the day because they're spirit animals already sacrificed themselves in the previous era.

Let me summarize this book right now. 

So as of now Rollan, Conor, Abeke only have two out of the 11 talismans needed to save the world from complete destruction. Gerathon and Shane have the other 9 ever since Shane betrayed Abeke and stole the talismans. The three of them have been having weird visions about the end of the world, especially Conor. Rollan is just worried for Meilin since she was captured by Shane and taken hostage. Then, Gerathon (who is one of the Great Beasts) made Meilin drink the "Bile" which is a type of liquid that makes you under his control. Rollo, Abeke, and Conor have started their journey with other green cloaks to save Meilin and not let Gerathon and Shane release Kovo the Ape. Kovo the Ape is a great beast that plans on gathering all of the talismans and destroying the Evertree. This is a special tree where all life began on Earth, Kovo plans on destroying this tree so that he can have all the animals bow under his rule.

Gerathon and Shane are both on his side, Gerathon is on his side because they are both "Great Beasts" and both plan on using this world for evil. However, Shane just wants to rule as the "Devourer" over the earth. Later does he realize that Kovo the Ape does not plan on letting him have that power. Soon enough, Abeke, Rollan, and Conor have reached the "Conquerers" base where they plan on freeing Kovo from his prison. That was what they were planning on doing this whole time, and the Green Cloaks just want to keep Kovo inside of his cell. Otherwise, it will be very hard to stop him from getting all the talismans and bringing chaos and ruin to the world of Earth. Thankfully, they retrieve Meilin and are able to rid her free from "Gerathon's Bile". However, while they were doing that Kovo's chains were broken by the Conquerers and he is now free.

Now that all four of them are together Conor feels like they could take on Kovo by himself, however Gerathon and another former great beast, "Halawar" are also there to defend him. That's when Tellun (strongest great beast), and the other eight creatures team up with the four (Abeke, Rollan, Conor, and Meilin) to defeat them. At the end of the day, the talismans are rescued and Kovo, Gerathon, and Halawor have disappeared into a flash of light. The other beasts that helped the four kids left themselves the fate of the world was back in balance. It has returned to the state in which it used to look like, unfortunately, the Evertree is gone but a new seed has taken it's place and will one day grow back healthy and fresh so that other humans can link up with spirit animals themselves.

Google News,

So apparently, there is this woman in Florida that was LITERALLY eaten by an Alligator. I'm honestly curious as to how this happened, was she dragged into the ocean and then killed or did just get her leg ripped off? This is because reports show that her body had bite marks on it. The woman was reported dead and many people are sad and astonished by it, especially the woman's family. I can understand how she died because she was around 47 years old but a bit disappointed that she was an Asian person. Although, I don't know how she looks like just judging from this name, "Shizuka Matsuki". And to think that her husband was on a trip far away from home too, man this is really sad. Apparently, Shizuka was just walking her two dogs when an alligator sneaked behind her. Eyewitness reports say that one of her dogs had a big scar on it that looked fresh. Let me know what you think.

For today's post, I am going to be putting a lot of feelings into every class that I take. Let me begin with Homeroom (technically before the first period). I thought that Homeroom was pretty normal overall, and when I say "normal" I mean whenever my teacher isn't here. You see, whenever he is here the kids are usually pretty scared of him and try to be on their best behavior. But because there was substitute the class just decided not to listen. I felt bad for the substitute because she tried her best to keep the class to as low of a volume as possible. In fact, she seemed pretty terrifying herself since she runs the worst class in 7th grade (as a real teacher). However, any teacher besides Mr. Correa just won't get the job done. Unless you're talking about the dean of students principal or principals. That's right, I said "principals" with an s at the end. That's because the highest authority members of the school are Ms. Convery and Ms. Link. They each run 50% of the school.

Ms. Link is the one that everyone is so scared of because she has a reputation for giving out the worst punishments. You talk back to her and get an email sent to your parents. Today I ran into her but fortunately got to her bright side. Let me explain, in Spanish, there was a new teacher or candidate teacher for next year in the Spanish category. I've seen about 5 new teachers this year and one of them is even a substitute. I figured he won't be a substitute next year. Anyway, I was going to my locker when Ms. Link walked up to me and asked why I didn't have my shirt tucked in. I said that since it was perfect attendance we shouldn't have to tuck in our shirts, also because it was gym class and the clothes look really weird when tucked in. Thankfully, she thought I was playing with her and started laughing. I decided to just do what she said and we said bye to each other. 

Afterwards, my class headed towards the Technology room for the first period. My teacher knew that the school year was ending soon so he decided to let us play some kahoot on the projector. I was super happy about this since I don't know how to use the photoshop that well. We were only able to play 3 games it sure was fun for me and my buddies to play. The three topics were, "Cultural Foods, Memes, and Fortnite". I wanted to do Fortnite skins but instead, it was just "Fortnite". I got in 3rd place for the last one and my name was on the leaderboard but because the class was over I couldn't enjoy my victory. My feelings for this class were happy, fun, and creative. I thought my teacher made us kids happy and have fun at the same time. Also, we were actually able to play a game since most of the websites on the computers are banned so that counts are creative.

Soon enough Dance class came and my classmates weren't sure whether or not our dance teacher was going to be here since she left early the day before. And sure enough, when we looked I saw that she wasn't here. So instead we had another substitute and this was let us go outside to play in the courtyard since we didn't have to do anything. Most of the boys and I played dodgeball because it was pretty fun. I enjoyed it a lot because dodgeball is a competitive sport that I haven't been playing a lot. The best sport I'm in is Soccer and that's for being a goalie. I find this really surprising since most of the goalies at my school are garbage. I hope that one day my parents can actually fill the form for me to play Soccer next year. I really want to be a goalie and prove that I'm better than most of the players.

Google News

So there is this challenge going on around youtube about how you are supposed to protect the president. And what this means is that you group up with a squad of friends and pick whoever you want your president to be. Then you are supposed to protect this guy the whole match while also killing other players. I think this a really fun way to play the game and hope that you try it out too. I certainly will when I get on my Playstation Four right after finishing this post. Unfortunately, this mode isn't official yet so the Epic Game Developers haven't actually implemented this into the game. Instead, it's a made up challenge that I think should have a whole new mode to itself. Anyway, let me know what you think in the comments below.