The Pacuare, a water ride, is a ride for about 4-6 people. It takes a lot of courage to get on that ride because the ride itself is not that scary since you just spin around in a toboggan and then go around a little place peacefully. However, the challenge is o go up the place. Since the whole Middle School goes, the amusement park is usually packed so it takes a long time to get on the ride. To get to the place where they launch you off, you have to climb the metal stairs were you constantly have to stop because of the line. The scary thing is that there are at least fifty people in the metal stairs. I wouldn’t be that scared if the stairs were new. However, the stairs are rusted so you never know when the stairs will break because when I look at it, it looks pretty unstable.

Next, with the Ciclon, it has the same problem with the Pacuare. The Ciclon has been around for such a long time that the whole place is rusted. Sometimes, I feel that as we are going through the ride, I see a loose nail or think that I saw a losing nail. The ride is actually pretty cool but I would consider it too small. The ride is so cramped up that it feels that your head is going to hit the metal things.

Last, with the Bocaraca, I think that it’s the best ride in Parque de Diversiones because it only has like a few years since it has been created. The metals are not rusted and a lot of people can get on it at the same time. However with this one, the ride is only about 30 seconds which is way too short. It would be the best if it was about 3 minutes long as a normal ride in the States or in Korea with different kinds of things like tunnels and other stuff.

I think that they should completely rebuild Parque de Diversiones and make it bigger with better rides and built so that it looks safe.

-Lee

We shouldn’t have too many rehearsals. It’s not as if I wanted to become a musician, I just want to play the saxophone so that I could relax myself with some music after stressing myself out. However, with concerts in the middle of the week, there is not enough time to do our projects and our homework and in some cases, study for a big test.

At the last concert, many people had to stay very late finishing up projects, doing homework, and to some people, study for any upcoming tests. Many who are in 8th grade and in the the band had to stay late finishing everything up because the concert ended around 8:30-9:oo p.m.

Most teachers would say that it was our entire fault that we left everything for the last minute but that is obviously not true. In my case, I had to cover myself with leaves so if I did it two days before it was due, the leaves could have dried up and then they would have fallen off. That would take a lot of points off me. Also, instead of a Wednesday or a Thursday for a concert, we should have it on a Friday or Saturday so that we would still have time to do the homework during the morning instead of having to do it all night.

Another thing is that missing classes due to a rehearsal is not that ideal. Many people would be happy because they get to miss class but if you see it from another angle, that schoolwork that you missed piles up on you and you are going to have to make it up for next class which is sometimes worse because you might not get some parts of the assignments.

I think that that’s my problem this week because I was already forced to go to a concert that I did not even play and now I have to sacrifice my whole weekend again to play on some concerts and a rehearsal. Then, I have a draft due on Monday and a quiz to make up on Monday at math time so that then, I will miss another lesson.

Out of this, I I would be glad if we kept on playing concerts but not as much as five on one weekend and another one in a weekday and then sacrificing my whole entire weekend.

-Lee

As we get inside the gym, all the people are starting to sit down as the parade is about to begin. The mosques, the elephants, the mountains all parade down the gym, receiving the applauds from many people.

Watching all the floats pass through the gym, we hear Mr. G giving a brief description about it. Commenting about the quality of the floats, we would compare the best ones, the biggest ones, and the smallest floats.

As soon as the last person passes by, everybody rushes down the stairs to try out all the different types of food out there. Sometimes trying to annoy people, we would ask the 7th graders really hard questions like the 14th highest peak in Tanzania or the altitude in meters from a 9000 feet mountain.

Hanging out with friends discussing who we should bother next, we would first ask them a lot of questions, then get some foods, and then sign the guestbook.

As they ask us to sign the guestbook, we threaten them that we will put things like “No garbage can”, “Declined to give a presentation”, “Kicked us out”, “Doesn’t know her presentation, and “False information”.

If they don’t really care about the guestbook or pretend not to care about it, we would tell them that Mrs. Porter told us to ask a lot of questions to them and if they didn’t know the answers, we only had to write it in the guestbook so that she could find out about it. Their eyes would get all big and then they would start blurting out all the information they knew about their country so that they wouldn’t get a bad grade.

It was an outstanding night because even though this was the same fair as last year’s, we didn’t have to stand behind a desk but instead we could actually enjoy the food and we could relax because our turn had already passed.

-Lee

Maybe that’s what the people are. Wanting things they don’t have while not wanting what they have. Just like in that book of The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster where in the beginning Milo wants to be in school but when he gets there, he wants to be at home. His life is always like that so he thinks that even life is a waste of time until someone sends him a tollbooth that took him to a whole different world where it changes Milo’s point of view about life.

I say that we always have to do our best in everything because life is too short so there is no time to waste.

-Lee

Manuel Antonio was one of the best school field trips I ever had. We had AC in our rooms, we got to do a zip-line tour, we went to the beach, we rafted, and best of all, we got to go to the beach (with a lot of casualties).

Going to the beach was pretty fun because we all got to play American football where a lot of people started bleeding. I tried to tackle Lucas by kicking his shin but it wouldn’t work. He would keep on running as if nothing had happened while I was lying on the floor holding my foot tightly. It was so red that I could feel the heat coming out of it.

At the end of the game, I ended up with two scratches along my stomach and chest, a bloody toe, a bruised up foot, a pain on my back, and three interceptions. I think that it was worth it because we are not allowed to play tackle football in school because of security reasons. However, we managed to convince the teachers that we would not get hurt because we were playing on the sand and on the ocean.

One of the best things we did at Manuel Antonio was to go white water rafting at the Rio Savegre. I was with David, Diego, Elena, Paola, Isabela, Hyerin, and our guide. It was pretty fun there because I would pretend with my friend David that we were falling out of the boat when the water was calm.

We would plan out exactly how we would fall and how the other guy was going to react. Our best one was when I would fall into the water and when David got me out of the water, he would fall the other way because of all the force he used trying to get me out of the water. Another on was that when he gave me the pole, I would pull it so that he would also fall into the water. That one made everybody to jump off from their rafts and join us in the water.

However, in one place where the water currents got all mixed up, I fell into the water since our boat was tipping over. The current carried me away and when I looked up, David had jumped into the water to save me (something they told us to NEVER do). I was drinking a lot of water because first, I was panicking and second; my life jacket was well adjusted because I had gotten it loose when we went to the waterfall. The life jacket was up to my neck so it was practically strangling me.

When I finally got back into the boat (the guide threw me in), I asked David why he didn’t save me but all he said was that he saved my paddle. I got kind of angry because I was drowning and instead of saving me, he saved the paddle. He said, “The guide told us that the paddle is more important than someone’s life.”

He was right because I also heard him say that but all I told him that he was a very nice friend in a pretty sarcastic voice laughing.

I think that this was one of the best school trips I ever had and that all happened because of my experience at the white water rafting.

-Lee

After reading Robert’s blog, he gave me the idea to write about my winter vacation at Lake Tahoe.

We first arrived at Lake Tahoe in January 3 even though we didn’t really start skiing until 3 days after our arrival. It was pretty exciting for my sisters and me because it was our first time skiing since we lived our whole life in the tropical area. In our first day, we all took skiing lessons except for my sister who took snowboarding lessons. It was pretty hard to learn because there was a blizzard for 3 days straight so some places you had to make your own trail and you couldn’t really see well.

For two days, we only practiced in a green diamond course which by the third it was becoming way too easy because I had already skied down from there at least 100 times.

I tried to convince my parents that I wanted to go down the double black diamond coarse Gunbarrel. They wouldn’t let me get on it because according to them, I was still a beginner, which really frustrated me. I kept on asking them until they got tired of it so they let me. I was so happy that I was running with my skis on. I was the only one in line so I didn’t have to wait. When I got on the lift, I noticed that the lift went a lot faster than the one of the green diamond. my heart was pounding so fast that I thought that I was going to get a heart attack.

Up until then, I thought that I was going to make through the Gunbarrel only falling about 5-10 times. However, when I looked down from the lift, I changed my mind. It didn’t look so steep when you saw it from below. No wonder it was classified as a double black diamond. When I got to the top, I decided to find another way down. The other route was called the California Roundabout, which in small letters it said, “Not for beginners”. At first I was like sure no problem, I’m not a beginner anymore and anyways, it’s a roundabout route.

Also, I was amazed that there were a bunch of lifts on top. I never thought that there would be many more. As I went around looking at all the rides, I lost track of time since I had to be down by noon for lunch. I guess around 1:30 pm, I made my way down the California Roundabout. At first it was very easy because it wasn’t very steep. Soon, you had to make a lot of sharp turns in steep trails that were becoming very challenging because if you turned a little bit too late, you would be out of the Heavenly skiing boundary and I would get lost. I clenched my teeth and opened my eyes as much as I could. There was no making mistakes here. After about one and a half hour at the roundabout, I got to the last part of the trail. It’s called the World Cup, which is a trail that goes straight down but with no bumps. I never had any experience with those kinds of trails so I just tried going from side to side which then later became impossible for me because a whole bunch of maniac snowboarders came down at full speed and one almost crashed into me.

Since going straight down for a skier is nearly impossible, I just tried to make short turns from side to side like the pros do. I soon lost control, which was scary, and I fell into one side. I had a “yard sale” where all my skis and poles fell off and I had to go look for them.

It was snowing so I had a really hard time putting was skis back on since the snow kept on getting underneath my shoes so I started considering in walking all the way down since there wasn’t a lot left to the bottom.

Just then, a couple stopped next to me noticing that I was having a hard time putting my skis back on. The guy took his skis off and helped me put mine back on. After around five minutes, I finally had it back on and headed for the bottom of the mountain.

When I got down to the bottom, I started looking for my family. I found them outside of the restaurant/lodge and they all looked worried. When I got to them, I asked for the time. They told me that it was 3:30 and I was also surprised. I never thought that I took that long coming down. I had gone up at 11:30 so I had been gone for about four hours.

It was a really good experience going through the roundabout but I would enjoy it better if I went with another person.

-Lee

The Korean school may help me improve my Korean but still, who would actually want to go to school on a Saturday when you could be hanging out with your friends? Less than 25% of the people would.

I have to spend my time in a room studying vocabulary, grammar, and literature for 3 and a half hours. That may seem short, but you know, in a class of 5, you’re get a lot of attention from the teacher so you have to be constantly paying attention or else your teacher can call your parents or something similar to it.

At 12:30, when school’s over, I have to stay there because after eating lunch, I have a youth meeting where we have activities there every week from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. The activities there are pretty fun but they are also pretty boring once in a while.

Even though some activities that I do on Saturdays may be fun, most are actually pretty boring to me because instead of all this, I could be doing better things like hanging out with my friends, but the thing is, everything has consequences. Maybe the Korean school may be more benificial. Who knows? I’ll know when the time comes.

-Lee

As soon as we got to our hotels, we unloaded our luggage and headed for the lobby where they handed us the room key. I was sharing rooms with 3 other people. We just went out to dinner and then when back to our room because we were all tired and it was becoming very late.

On Saturday, we went to the rehearsal with the band from Perez Zeledon. I really liked their way of of playing and they were really good. Our rehearsal was supposed to end around noon but it ended close to 2 o’clock. I didn’t really mind because it was fun reheasing with them.

At 6 o’clock we had to get on the bus again because we had to go to our first concert. Our concert was very good because we improvised on one of the songs to make it sound better.

On Sunday, we had a big cookout in Rancho Don Beto with all the people in Perez Zeledon so that we could get to know them better. We first played american football as soon as we got there but soon, we had to go inside the pool because it was very hot. We also started playing american foot in the pool with no downs or anything except that you scored if you reached the touchdown area.

We had lunch there with a buffete and granizados and we had a soccer game against the people from Perez Zeledon and lost with the score soewhere around 5-3.

At night, we had another concert but this time at the hotel we were staying at. We enjoyed the concert and then on Monday we went back to San Jose after eating lunch.

I think that our band trip was very good because we got to enjoy most of the time we were there.

-Lee

I think that watching the highlights of the pre game ceremony was very exciting because the Red Sox held a lot of events. Some of the events at Fenway Park that day was showing the highlights of 2007 and how they won the World Series, the Parade of Nations that featured 62 countries, the banners of all the World Series Championship banners being raised at the green monster, and then, The ‘Champions of Boston” came out of the clubhouse with the World Championship rings so that they could be handed out to the World Series Champions.

Some of the Champions of Boston included the Boston Celtics, The Boston Bruins and the New England Patriots.

It was one of the best celebrations because during the middle of the celebration, F F-16 jets flew over Fenway Park.

Also, the Red Sox game started at with the Former Boston Red Sox First Baseman Bill Buckner pitching the ceremonial first pitch of the game.

And finally, to close everything off, Johnny Pesky started out the game by calling “Play Ball” to begin the game.

-Lee

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of  religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the  press; or the right of the  people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a  redress of grievances” (US Bill of Rights).

Above is the American Bill of Rights the First Amendment. In this amendment, I think that they mean that we all have the freedom of speech. Here, we all are saying that we all have the same amounts of freedom of speech. However, minors do not have the same amount of freedom of speech. In the cases of New Jersey vs. TLO, Tinker vs. Des Moines, and In Re Gault (we studied them in our US History class), the minors all have different rights to than the ones that adults have.

Especially in the court case of Tinker vs. De Moines, which actually deals with the Amendment 1, I think that this is a perfect example of your freedom of speech being violated because the armbands were only helping them express their feelings and they were not distracting them from school because it’s an ordinary armband.

On Internet, I think that you also have the freedom of speech. Even so, I think that you should never give bad comments and you should never use foul language.

-Lee