New Vocab Words

1. Seizure- A bad cramp, when you're muscles contract, but don't expand. Example: Heart Seizure, Stomach Seizure

2. Swarming-

• A crowd of people going in different directions at the same time
• Bees swarming outside the hive

3. Venture- Like adventure, but in the form of a verb, the beginning of something

4. Dignity- Proud, head held high

5. Knead- A massaging motion, kneading bread

6. Illuminating-

• To light up
• A good idea
• Understood (this is an illuminating sentence)

7. Virility- Extremely good look, describes only male

8. Jittering- Small inconsistent movement, like vibrations

9. Hispanic- South American, Central American, Mexican, Spanish etc. From Spanish speaking countries

10. Trepidation- Dread, bad feeling, ominous

10 Vocab Sentences

1. The skilled ventriloquist did an act for all of us.

2. The person was malicious and very sneaky.

3. There is to be no bellowing in this classroom!

4. I was in mortal danger at that moment.

5. That math problem was so overwhelming to me.

6. Oops, it was a blunder to forget my assignment notebook.

7. Stop sitting there idly and get to work!

8. Hmm... That was a perplexing sentence you read.

9. The waves were extremely rampant in the waterfall.

10. The amazing vast landscape was beautiful!

I and Me 6 sentences

1. Michelle and I went Skiing

2. The book belongs to my mom and me

3. Nadia and I had lots of fun at school

4. My dad and I went mountain climbing

5. The tree was planted by my friends and me

6. My mom and I went to Australia for Vacation

Small Steps- by Louis Sachar

Louis Sacher is one of my mom and I's favorite author, after we shared reading Holes! I got the recommendation from lots of people who read the book.

At first, the book didn't seem that appealing, but the more I read, the more I got into the book! It was really amazing, It was after I read most of the book that I understood what Small Steps really meant, and how smart Louis Sachar is! The moral is that, life is like walking upstream in a rushing river. The secret is to take small steps and just keep moving forward. If you try to take too big a step, the current would know you off your feet and carry him back downstream.

That fits with a Chinese saying, that life is like rowing a boat up river, if you don't keep moving forward, you get pushed back. So if you don't improve, you will get set back and lag behind.

I think the author does a very good job in characterization, for example , with Kaira DeLeon; At first, the author makes us think that she is cold hearted, and arrogant, and only cares about money, but later in the book, we realize she's actually really lonely, and is nicer than we think "I have no friends. But then finally, finally I find someone I can talk to, someone I like. And so of course El Genius has to fire him. I swear that's the reason he was fired. Not because we did that song. Because he was someone I could talk to"

In all, this is an amazing book and very worth reading!

The Sea of Monster - Rick Riordan

Another five star book! I really like Rick Riordan's writing style, funny, but also exciting! I wonder how many Percy Jackson books there are... I definitely recommend reading it; I just found out, that one of my other favorites, "The Shadow Thief" was also by the same author! At that time, I was also relating to "The Lightning Thief" that I heard about from friends, I never knew it was by the same author :p ! The Sea of Monsters, is the sequel to Lightning Thief, I like it even more 'cause, it doesn't take that long to build up, while as the first book, it took a long time to get to the exciting bit. This book is mostly about saving Camp Halfblood, Thalia's Tree is dying, and Percy and Annabeth have to try everything to save the camp and their friends, even if it means sailing across the Bermuda triangle to face a deadly cyclops... Along the way, Percy meets a close friend, that's closer that he would expect...

Characterization form Percy Jackson and the Olympians

Rick Riordan is one of the best authors know of, he does a great job in the characterization in the series "Percy Jackson and the Olympians", he has so much detail in his writing that the readers (me) can feel exactly how he or she feels, anger, frustration, relief, frightened, and all the other emotions that build up the character.

Percy Jackson is the main character in this series, Rick Riordan does the best job discribing him as a character, first, he has a very interesting name, Perseus Jackson, named after Perseus, to supposingly inherit his luck (if you read the book, you'll understand why that's so important); Percy is a great person, even though he gets expelled all the time, that doesn't affect his personality, he is loyal to his friends, and all the people he cares about; even in situations that might cost him death he chooses his friends over himself, quote: "Tyson was gone forever, and wishing I were able to drown" it shows that he really cares about his friends.



There are many other good qualities about him, for example, he is very curious, and catches even the tiniest detail that most of us would ignore, the author shows that here in this sentence, "I thought about the dream of the girl and the golden sarcophagus. I wasn't sure what it meant, but I got the feeling I was missing , something. Something terrible that Kronos was planning." The dream wouldn't of meant that much to normal people, but, he payed more attention to it, and that, is what might save his life.



Annabeth, is another interesting character due to the clever writing of the author, Rick Riordan. he describes her very well and makes interesting connections with her and the other characters that make the book so much more fun to read! In these parts, he shows Annabeth's fatal flaw that we can really connect to. "My fatal flaw. That's what the Sirens showed me. My fatal flaw is hubris.", "Hubris means deadly pride. Thinking you can do things better than anyone else... event the gods", "She looked down`Don't you ever feel like, what if the world really is messed up? What if we could do it all over from scratch? No more war. nobody homeless. No more summer reading homework." Some people can really connect to that!

The Lightning Thief

*****
Wow! One of the best books I've read since the Anthony Horowitz Series! It was so good that I HAD to finish it in two days, I couldn't stop reading! It even got me interested in Greek Mythology :p
The Lightning Thief is about a boy, Percy Jackson, who finds out he actually a halfblood! Not half American, half Egyption; Not half Italian, half French, or anything like that, it's Half Human, half GOD! The problem is, monsters are after him, and all the other halfbloods. On top of that the most important symbol of power is stolen, Zeus's Master Bolt! Now he has to face the sky, the sea and the underworld to prevent World War III

Earthquake in Jakarta!!!

Wednesday, 2nd of September, 2009; An Earthquake struck Indonesia, Jakarta in particular; More than 1,300 homes were damaged, according to government agencies, claiming 32 lives; why are we not surprised? That's because it's normal, because we're in the Ring of Fire, Earthquakes happen almost everyday, it's just that this one was more close to us, a 7.5 on the Richter scale.

There were actually signs, signs that we didn't notice at that time, for example, that morning, a snake appeared in our school yard, now why would a snake come out in front of 650 kids? This was a warning. The snake had felt the earthquake, or got some kind of signal!

Fortunately, in where we are, the flat lands, we don't have landslides, so that's one less threat to worry about. But, we have one other threat, tsunamis, now, there wouldn't be a tsunami, in the middle of Africa, but because of where we are, that's what we get! So how did the earthquake kill so many people? The main reason was, because of houses collapsing, etc. It's because of what we do, we build things and hang things on top of us, that could collapse and kill us!

Anthony Horowitz- The Switch

The Switch is a very interesting book, it was only after I did research for Anthony Horowitz that I realized how similar his life was to the book! The Switch is about a boy, who's father is rich, Rich and RICH! So rich that the boy, Tad Spencer, basically has everything! From Books, to Jacuzzis, to Private jets! But the only thing he lacked, was freedom. One day, Tad finds himself in the body of the son of a man that's poor, Poor and more POOR! He finds out that he has to adapt to the changes and slowly he turns into someone else, although he was not rich, he was happy, he was enjoying himself! but with his new identity, he had new problem, doing what he was supposed to do was not easy, especially when you're going against... your own dad! And for that, he discovers some things that he doesn't want to know...

Anthony Horowitz- South by South East

South by South East is another one of the "Diamond Brothers" mysteries;

One day, a mysterious person, as secret agent, enters the "office" of the bankrupt Diamond brothers, then mysteriously leaving after simply asking to exchange coats for a small amount of money. Nothing so inordinate, but things start getting weird, when they find the agent murdered in a telephone booth, his last words, "South by South East"; when the brothers contact the police, with this unbelievable story, the police follow them to the appointed destination; but, the body, gone, along with the telephone booth! They soon find out that the person they met, was actually sent by a secret agency to protect a millionaire, from a dangerous assassin. they were actually used as "bait" to lure the murderer to the police, when the murderer finds out about them, working with the secret agent. No matter what, they were now involved with a serious case, with almost the certainty of death. Tim and Nick are just about to be hurled into another thrilling, dangerous adventure, where anything can happen...

My Fav Author- Anthony Horowitz

Anthony Horowitz is a very successful author, with a very interesting life, as people would describe, "Anthony Horowitz's life might have been copied from the pages of Charles Dickens or the Brothers Grimm!"

he was born in 1956 in Stanmore to a very rich family, Anthony was raised by nannies, surrounded by servants and chauffeurs, like the boy in his story, The Switch. Despite that Anthony Horowitz was a miserably unhappy and overweight child, he had nowhere to turn for comfort."Family meals," as he remembers, "had calories running into the thousands…. I was an astoundingly large, round child…."

As a young child he was sent to boarding school, but that was not any better, with a mean and uncaring headmaster· Anthony recalls, "Once the headmaster told me to stand up in assembly and in front of the whole school said, 'This boy is so stupid he will not be coming to Christmas games tomorrow.' I have never totally recovered." Although his childhood damaged him permanently, it also gave him a gift — it provided him with rich source material for his writing career.

Anthony Horowitz is maybe one of the busiest writer in England. He has been writing since the age of eight, and professionally since the age of twenty. He writes in a comfortable shed in his garden for up to ten hours every day!

Anthonny Horowitz has written a ton of books including the very successful Alex Rider Series, The Diamond Brothers Series, The Power of Five Series, and many other fun and interesting books! He's definately one of my favorite authors!

Anthony Horowitz- Public Enemy Number 2

Anthony Horowitz is one of my favorite authors, I've enjoyed reading pretty much every book I've read! Public Enemy Number 2 is one of the books from the Diamond brothers series, it's about Tim Diamond and his Brother Nick Diamond; Nick is asked by the Chief Inspector Snape to assist him in catching a criminal- Fence, to do so he has to go to jail and try to be friends with one of the most dangerous criminals in England known as Public Enemy Number 1, you could imagine being trapped in the same cell with a murderer. But, it wasn't his choice, when he refused framed him and sent to jail unwillingly. Nick and the criminal actually became "friends", what will the mad killer do when he finds out Nick was working with the police all along?

TYPHOON MOROKAT- worst disaster in 50 years!

This is the well known photo of the red hotel building, one of the unfortunate victims of Typhoon Morokat in Taiwan :( What actually happened?

What happened was, the raging waters from the flood caused by the typhoon kept smashing against the shore, making the soil soft, soggy, and unstable; all in very bad conditions for the hotel's foundations. Every wave crashing on the foundation weakened it, and eventually... that's what Morakat did to Taiwan's enviroment.

And you can guess that surely effected with the poor people trapped inside, but luckily, most people escaped, phew! The enviroment can really intefere with people, for example, if you lived right on the equater, you wouldn't have to worry about typhoons, that's why it's ok in Indonesia to have lots of sheds, and houses with foundations that might not be so strong, but if you lived north or south of the equater, those houses would be torn up, or swept away by those dreadful typhoons!