How Summer 2015 Went for Me Part 1

Summer has flown by so quickly. It felt like that yesterday had been the first day of summer. I've done all sorts of things this summer.

On the first evening of summer break, my mom, brother, and I went to a farewell party of one of my brother's friends in his preschool. Some of his other friends went there too.
During the day after the farewell party, my mom, dad, brother, grandma, and I went to Los Angeles by car. When we got to Los Angeles, the traffic was pretty bad. We stayed there for an evening. During this time, we went to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. On the next day, we went to Universal Studios. After that, we went to San Diego. San Diego's traffic was way better than Los Angeles'. We stayed there for three nights. In San Diego, we went to Legoland and SeaWorld. Everything in Legoland is made out of lego, even the hotel there. Also, Legoland has more rides than shows. SeaWorld is the opposite. On the day after we visited SeaWorld, we drove back home. It was a long trip, and we got back to Palo Alto at around 8:40 P.M.

Two days after I got home, I went to one of my friend's house. The friend whose house I went to also has a twin sister, and her babysitter was there too. The babysitter drove my friend, her twin, and I to Town and Country. She got a sandwich, while my friend, her twin, and I got smoothies from Jamba Juice. When we got back to my friend's house, we played a game called Forbidden Island, which is a teamwork game. I've never played it before coming to her house, and I felt like it was a good game. After that, my friend, her twin, and I fed vanilla to my friend and her twin's pet parakeet. We also did art on a machine that spins.
For three weeks, I attended three different Ymca summer camps in Palo Alto. On the June 15-19 week, I did mini golf. On the June 22-26 week, I did Leaders in Training One (LIT I). On the June 29-July 3 week, I did Leaders in Training Two (LIT II).
In the mini golf camp, there were five people in total, however, we were combined with two other Ymca mini golf camps (El Camino (in Mountain View) and Sequoia (in Redwood City)). We went to each mini golf place by bus. On Monday, we went to Golfland in Sunnyvale. On Tuesday, we went to Neptune's Kingdom in Santa Cruz. On Wednesday, we went to Golfland in Milpitas. On Thursday, we went to Subpar Miniature Golf in Alameda. On Friday, however, for some reason we did not go mini golfing. Instead, we went to Levi's Stadium. (It was only the Palo Alto and Sequoia Ymcas that went there. El Camino went to a swimming place.) It was okay, and I learned more about football. I also got a learning playbook.
The LIT I camp only had four people. Again, we were combined with two other Ymca LIT I camps, but it was El Camino and Northwest (in Cupertino). Every day, we met in an elementary school part of a Cupertino School District. We got folders, but each Ymca LIT I camp got a different color (mine's orange for Palo Alto).

The Levi's Stadium football learning playbook

One of the stars I saw in the Hollywood Walk of Fame

Legoland entry sign

SeaWorld logo

Logo of Universal Studios

My Experience of the Year 2014

From the start, 2014 did not go the way I expected. A lot of big things that happened to me made me very happy or very sad. For example, I became friends with people I never expected to be friends with. I also didn't expect that someone would be really mean to me. Of course, more things happened as well.

In the second semester of sixth grade, a boy in my sixth grade homeroom class became really mean with me. Whenever he sat next to me in classes, he would refuse to give me personal space. But to my surprise, he voted me for seventh grade student council president. The good thing is that we don't have any classes together for seventh grade.

I never expected to make friends with people I didn't have a lot of relationship with. Towards the last week of sixth grade, I received some yearbook notes that were about me as a good friend. At around the first few weeks of seventh grade, a new girl (who wasn't here for sixth grade) often said "hi" to me. We used to have P.E. together, but she switched one of her electives. That didn't stop our relationship though. I invited her to lunch with my friends a few times. On one of the lunches, one of her friends came as well. Later on, two of her friends say "hi" to me as well. About a month ago, I invited her and my best friend to come to my house.

Ever since the middle of April, I started to bike to school. It would usually take me about twelve minutes to get to school. It depends when I leave home when biking to school. I could leave early at 7:30, or later at 7:45.

In school, my grades have been better than when they were last school year. My grades are in the A range. Some are A+, some are A, and some are A-. Also, I'm one of the WIP reps in student council. We had a few meetings for the first semester already, and they've been pretty good. I liked my electives; they're band and art. In art, I learned more about some of the arts units: shape, line, value, and color. In band, I learned about special repeats like coda. Currently, I'm on the seventh grade B team for basketball, and we played 6 games, but only won 2.

My dad made an app called Shared Buy List - a novel visual grocery shopping list. The app was free at first, but he later on we price it at $4.99. The app is making profits, and my dad will use it to be my money for my college tuition since I contributed to its making and testing.

My cousin Marc visited me this year. He was nice to me in the beginning, but in a few weeks, he became mean to me. He must've heard about the idiom familiarity breeds contempt. For more information about him, see a blog I wrote earlier called My Cousin Marc.

Even though there were some good things that happened, this year could've been better. I'm hope that I enjoy the year 2015.

Bye bye 2014

Shared Buy List

Before making HomeOjO, my dad made this app called Shared Buy List. Family members can even share this app on smart phones, tablets, and PCs. It's even in the App Store. At first, my dad made the app free, but because he felt that a lot of people bought the app, he increased the price to $4.99. For people who pay it for the app, he told me that the money was for my college tuition.

The reason why he made it was because he wanted a visual shopping list because it's possible to forget a handwritten shopping list when going out to buy food. Some people don't even know or are unable to read or write English. For example, people from a country who can't speak English can still know what the picture is. Also, there are people in physical therapy, so they are unable to read or write. You don't need to write or type words, you just swipe the item you want to buy on the digital shopping list. If an item you want to buy is not there, you can just take a picture of it.

Another customer is that a teacher in an African village teaching students who can't read or write English, but they still can swipe items on to Shared Buy List.

I even made a video about it on Youtube:

The video is what Shared Buy List is about and how to use it.

Also, the Shared Buy List website is http://sharedbuylist.com/

Enjoy!

Anthony's New Passion

Guess what? My baby brother Anthony's got a new passion, and he got too addicted to it. It's called Pocoyo, and it's worse than Teletubbies.  Literally, the only reason why he watches it is because there is a boy wearing blue clothes called Pocoyo, and like Anthony, he causes lots of trouble every day. He watches it every day, mostly on iPad, but sometimes watches it on TV too. He watches it for over an hour each day. This makes my mom mad; she tells him not to watch any more junk videos, or he will become blind. Anthony then cries.

Anthony usually stops watching Pocoyo when he thinks he has enough. He even says, "No more junk videos." I always know he will watch some more soon, hence explaining the reason why he is a hypocrite. Even my dad thinks that Pocoyo is a bad influence on Anthony. He wants Anthony to play outside more.

Well, we all hope that Anthony watches some of his old passion TV shows soon!

What Anthony now likes

My Cousin Marc

Marc is my cousin who lives in China. He is smart, but he is very mean to others, especially me. Even though he is mean, he still has friends and is pretty popular. I think it's kind of ironic. This year, he and his mom came to visit me, and the visit was not what I expected.

Marc arrived at my house earlier than his mom, who arrived almost 3 weeks later. At first, Marc was okay with me, but he did catch me chew with my mouth open. He made me a deal: if he catches me chew with my mouth open 10 times or "strikes", he won't give me an angry bird toy. If he doesn't, then he will give me an angry bird toy my choice. Later on, a few days after his mom arrived, he said that attitude, shouting, and making faces were counted in the strikes. Unfortunately, I did not get the angry bird toy. Even his mom was being mean too, such as saying "Anthony (my brother) will be better than you some day." She even said that I had limited talents. She told me that she has a hidden security camera that can see me in school, and said that she and Marc watch what the security camera records.

Marc and his mother were being nice to Anthony, even though he is a destroyer. Marc even let Anthony high five and fist bump him, but won't let me! What is the problem with Marc? He almost let Anthony play on his iPhone on Anthony's birthday, but of course, won't let me because he thinks I suck, which I know is not true at all. He even thinks I'm horrible at foosball, but I am just new to foosball.

Marc is a person who needs to care more for others, and needs to show a sense of mercy. He even needs to be more health concerned (he drank an unhealthy drink after when he recovered from his sickness). However, we cannot change people, but we can change ourselves, and think what a person is good at, instead of saying that he or she is bad.

HomeOjO

A few months ago, my dad was creating this home-monitoring website called HomeOjO. The "OjO" means eyes in Spanish. The two Os represent the eyes, while the j represents the nose. Above "home," there is a roof on top of it. On the middle of the "H" in HomeOjO, there is a door.

HomeOjO is a website about protecting your house. It is free for everyone to use. There is zero installation, no equipments, and you just need a browser. You can use it on any electronic device. It detects sounds and takes snapshots when intruders come in to the house. Even if the computer or any other electronic device is taken by the intruder, an alarm will be sent to the user, trusted neighbors, close friends, and even the police. This means that the robber has literally no way to escape.

It is highly encouraged that you use HomeOjO for these following reasons. It is very beneficial and it is worth using it. It will protect your house.

For more information, visit the website http://homeojo.com/

My Trip to Taiwan and China

In the beginning of summer, I went to two places: Taiwan and China. (Well, technically Taiwan is meant to be part of China.) I traveled with my family. In my opinion, China was more fun than Taiwan.

The trip to Taiwan was 12 hours and 44 minutes. It was really boring sitting on a plane for nearly thirteen hours. That's over half a day! This is why I don't like to travel to faraway places.

In Taiwan, one of my dad's friends drove my family to this hotel close to the airport. The next day,  we went to another hotel that was close to my grandmother's nursing home on my dad's side. Two days later, we went to another hotel that was close to one of my grandma's cousin's house. Oh, so much hotel switching!  Two days later, guess what? We went to ANOTHER hotel that was close to the airport. The next day, we did not go to any more boring hotel. We went to the airport because there will be a plane taking us to China. However, my dad did not go to China because he did not have enough work days to take off.

Well, at least there was some fun stuff to do in Taiwan, but just a few. There was this amazing building called Taipei 101. It was so cool because it is one of the tallest buildings in Asia. Also, those Taipei 101 mascots were very cute. The two "ones" represents the eyes, and the "0" represents the mouth. Also, in the last hotel, there was this amazing place that you can soak your body into; the water's pretty warm there. My family even wore Japanese (because this was a Japanese hotel) clothing, and we took a picture.

The flight from Taiwan to China lasted only about 3 hours. Like normal plane flights, it was boring. However, since the plane flight was shorter than the previous flight, it was not as boring. In China, we got to stay in my uncle and aunt's apartment. Sadly, it is very messed up because there are so many stamps on the walls, and they even had numbers!

In China, I got to see the Great Wall, the Summer Palace, an Animal Zoo, one of the floors of a building called EE City, and a few others. On the second to last day, my family (excluding my dad) went to this restaurant called Dazhaimen, where you see these different Chinese people do some stuff such as singing and magic tricks. My favorite one was when there was a magician doing many magic tricks. He even did a magic trick on me!

On the flight back home, the trip was 11 hours and 40 mins. This time, my grandma did not come with me and the rest of my family (mom and my brother). I'm glad that trip was less than half a day long. However, I sat separate from them. I watched Frozen, read and 2 books, and threw up (see, I don't like sitting separate from my family). Anyways, I was glad to come back home. I missed home so much.