Slice Of Life #236 - Wonderous Vietnam - Tuesday, October 29th, 2019

    The past 5 days have been amazing, and have also gone by in a flurry. Currently, I'm in the airport, waiting for my food to come (and it literally comes as I'm writing this sentence).

    Yesterday, I went to Halong Bay, a World Heritage site in Hanoi. At Halong Bay, I got to go climb a mountain on Titap Island and enjoy the amazing panoramic view of Halong Bay. I also got to go into Suprising Cave (yes, that's the name if the cave) and see the beautiful rock formations and countless stalagmites and stalagtites. This cave was first discovered by the French in 1901 when they were still controlling Vietnam.

    After going to the cave, I got to go kayaking along Halong Bay and see the wonders of the area. While going back, I saw some monkeys scaling multiple trees, staring down at us.

    The day before that, we went on a city tour in Hanoi. We went to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. This mausoleum is the place where Ho Chi Minh's body currently rests. This is the most heavily guarded place in all of Hanoi, with the army and police guarding this mausoleum, with special forces all around this area, ready to assemble on short notice.
    We also went to the Museum of Etymology, where we got to take a glimpse at the lives of different people from different ethnic groups in Vietnam.
    Then, we went to the Temple of Literature, which was originally build during 1070 for the king's son (to go study at). Last time, tests used to be hosted there every 3 years to see who in the country was smart (not the right way to phrase it, I think). Now, it's just a tourist attraction for us to go see and learn about it's history.
    In Ho Chi Minh city, we went to see the Gu Chi Tunnels, a wide and vast channel of tunnels used by the communists during the Vietnam War. I learned about many things, such as how the airholes were structured. These airholes were essential and crucial for the communists, and they had to make sure that they weren't discovered by the Americans because the American would be able to put in gas and kill all of them. So, they had an amazing solution. They put old jackets to block the airholes so that air would still be able to go through the airholes, but the American's dogs wouldn't be able to sense these as grounds that belonged to the communists, as they would think that the airholes belonged to the Americans.
    Also, they would also wear slippers backward (not really, but I can't really describe it) so that when they retreated, their opposition would think that they had went the other way.
    They also had 'secret shootholes' (that's what I'm going to call them) to shoot at the Americans - they fought using Guerilla tactics. After shooting a shot, they would run to another shoot hole and shoot from there, and so on so that the Americans would think that they had lots of people fighting for them, and retreat. They also had traps (terrifying ones) to scare the Americans psychologically and make them retreat.
    I'm probably going to be making a video about what we did in Vietnam sometime soon, but don't think that I will post it on this blog.
    But there's one thing I do have to say - the experience was amazing. And I hope that we can have experiences like this more often - because they really are amazing.

Slice Of Life #235 - At School - Tuesday, October 22nd, 2019

9:50am
    Currently, I am at school. It is now our 10-minute transition time, but I have arrived at Spanish class early, so I am writing this post. Some of my friends are talking about Pokemon, while another one of my friends is just laying his head on the table, procrastinating (no, not really. He's just bored). Okay... The class is starting now! I'll be back at lunch!

11:00am
    Okay. It's lunchtime now. I'm going to go eat my lunch first before I continue writing this post. BTW: My friends are still talking about Pokemon.

11:35am
    Today, for lunch, I ate some cauliflower, chickpea, and dahl curry. Tomorrow, I'm going to have a shorter lunchtime because I have signed up for composting duty (standing by the compost bin and making sure that no one throws un-compostable stuff in it). The compost gets rolled to the elementary school every day because that's where the school's composter lives. Today in Spanish, we played a number game as our warm-up. Next, we worked on writing our essay about what we like to do. We are now producing a final draft. I'm almost done with my final draft but want to check with my Spanish teacher before I print. WIN (What I Need) time is starting pretty soon, so I'm going to get my supplies. Be right back.

11:45am - WIN TIME
    Okay. It's now WIN Time. I'm going to go ask my teacher if my science work is worthy of an extends and then make any changes that she suggests.
    My teacher says that what I have right now is pretty good, but she says that I can use more words in the vocabulary/concept list to make my work better and show deeper understanding. I will do that now. I'm talking about volcanoes and how hotspots form them now - because I didn't do that yet. Now, I'm going to talk about how convection currents move tectonic plates. FYI, the question is "Explain how hotspots provide evidence for plate movement" - just so you understand what I'm talking about more.
I've just realized that I've said nothing about Spirit Week. In middle school, we have a week called Spirit Week. Each day has a theme, and these themes are suggestions on what we are supposed to wear. For example, yesterday was sports day, and we were supposed to wear our favorite sports jersey (if we had one). Today is black and white day, and tomorrow is movie & book day. We're supposed to wear a shirt with our favorite character from a movie or book. Thursday is meme/vine day - what are we supposed to wear? I'm probably going to just wear normal clothes on Thursday. Friday is house t-shirt day (we just basically wear our house t-shirt) - but we get to miss some class to play on that day!

3:00pm
Okay, school is over. I'm currently going to my Chinese class. Now, I'm going to read some books. See you next week!

Slice Of Life #234 - Currently... - Tuesday, October 15th, 2019

Currently...

• I know it is late, but I am still writing this post because I forgot to write last week's post.
• I have finished all my homework (except for some humanities homework - preparation for an upcoming socrative seminar (basically a conversation about something), which I need to finish at school because we need to watch the movie Wonder and I don't have it at home). But other than that, I'm done with my homework, so hip hip hurray! Plus, this is due on Friday, so I have plenty of time - not that I'm gonna' postpone doing it (due dates are closer than they appear).
• The fan above me is going swoosh, swoosh, swoosh!
• I am opening up PowerSchool, the website/app to check my grades.
• I will not elaborate more, but I am pretty satisfied.
• Wait! I forgot to press the mark as done button on Google Classroom for science class! I'll do that now.
• Click! It's so satisfying to press that button.
• I have a summative assessment due tomorrow (a summative assessment is really important), so I am going to make a few minor edits to make sure there aren't any errors - or at least I can reduce the number of errors in it.
• The summative assessment is all about civic virtues and the importance of civic virtues. It also asks us to try and make a difference to the community. After carrying out our plan (what we wanted to do to make a difference), we needed to write a summary of what we did and what we learned from the project (this is what is due tomorrow - but I'm already done with it).
• I am done with my editing, so I am going to go to sleep now.

Slice Of Life #233 - I Forgot To Slice - Wednesday, October 9th, 2019

    Rain plummeted down from the sky. I watched as countless rain droplets hit my parents' car.
    Suddenly, I realized something. I had forgotten to slice. Yesterday, I was going to slice before I did my humanities homework, but instead forgot about slicing and did my humanities homework.
    Now, I am going to school for a music informance - where the parents take a glimpse at a normal band lesson.
    Tomorrow, I don't have school because there are parent-teacher conferences. But, I still have to go to school because students have to be there for their conference and my conference is tomorrow.
    I really don't have anything to write about right now, so I guess I'll just wrap this post up for now. Bye!

Slice Of Life #232 - Home, at Last - Tuesday, October 1st, 2019

    I held my book, water bottle, and soap tightly in my hands. I closed the door and locked it. I then walked to the table in the middle to drop my stuff.

    This is what happens almost every time I go home. I drop my books in the table in the living room, drop my other stuff on the dining table, and go wash my hands and legs.

    This is what happened today when I got home. Today, I got home at about 8:15pm because I had Chinese and Malay classes until 8:00pm. Fortunately, this only happens on Tuesday. Unfortunately, I get home at about 9:15pm on Thursday because I have Jazz Band as an after school activity and Chinese as an after after school activity. After that, I have to go to my Malay class for two hours. Tuesdays and Thursdays are the days I hope for no or less homework. 

    I don't mind having lots of homework on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays because I have enough time to complete them on time. I may not have a lot of time to complete my homework on Friday, but at least the homework given on Friday is almost always due Tuesday or later.

    Today was the type of day when the world did me a favor - giving me almost no homework. There was some math homework today, but I have already finished it during WIN (What I Need) time at school - thanks so much for WIN Time; it's so useful.

    Now, I don't have any homework that is due this week (so far, at least), so I'm going to start working on my band homework after this. I'm almost done with my humanities homework, where I have to finish Wonder and write 6 sentences to summarize the section (I'm reading Wonder for the 2nd time and the book just gets better). All my homework is due on Monday next week, so I have a lot of time to do it, but I won't postpone doing it (welcome to my world!). I am hoping to finish all my homework today.

    I am expecting some more homework tomorrow, but only from humanities class. I don't think there will be any homework for science. There may be some homework for Spanish class, but usually Spanish homework is pretty easy and doesn't take a lot of time, so it shouldn't be a problem. I am not expecting any homework from band because we already have some homework that is due on Monday.

    Now, my mom needs to use the computer (my school computer has been "locked" because the school set parental controls - which is so annoying!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - and it "locks" everyday at 8:30pm (except for the weekends), so I have to go now!