I am not going to you class this week. I feel that I did not learn much about speech and debate, but felt like it was more like practice and something that we do at school. I am also very busy in the upcoming 2 weeks. I have to go to China soon had make preparations for the trip. I also have to make preparations to take the SATs and PSATs.

6/17/2010

Today was just like yesterday, and the day before. I woke up the day with a jump as the alarm clocked blared out. I yelled out, "Who turned that thing on?"

But, no one else was awake or at home except for me, and I realized that it was not a prank, just a forgotten alarm clock. "

Strange," I though, "why didn't it go off yesterday?"; I don't remember anyone setting it. Oh well, I though, going along through my carefree day. I wonder why they always have a set time for everything on TV, I wonder why can't they let us choose what we want to watch on TV the same way they do on the internet, except with a remote. It's also strange that time flies sometimes and at others, it crawls like a snail inching to its destination, one second at a time.

And, as usual in the class, we had practiced everything from the day before, like reading stories from the book, but today, we did something different. We had an impromptu speech where we had to make up a speech on the spot. It was an interesting way of speech, and I found it not as hard as it sounded.

6/16/2010

Today I wasted my morning sleeping and playing games the whole time until about 12:00. I noticed something strange about my video games. I noticed that while most new games have excellent graphics along with the game-play, but while the games I play still have the same quality of game-play, they all have bad graphics. I think this is mainly because either my computer is not good enough to handle the high quality games, or I can only play games with bad graphics. It also seems that sleeping in and not going to school allows me to eat a LOT less. In fact, the only thing I ate until 8:00 was a zhong zi.

At class today, we met 2 new students and I learned another life lesson from the book Chicken Soup for the Soul. Today we learned that every little thing makes a difference, and we also learned to interpret a poem. I feel that it is harder to present in front of people that you don't know, but also has a side that makes it easier and lets you feel more free. The topic of the homework is also very interesting. There are many sides to it, for example what exactly is the truth, if you are not asked something but you are hiding it, are you lying by not saying anything?

Watching soccer is also beginning to get boring with all the new channel editions. I feel like the score will always be 0-0 whenever I am watching and end up doing something else, for example typing on this blog. It seems like there is nothing to do for the whole summer.

Suggestions

Reading Comprehension: have different levels of excerpts for different age groups

Speeches: have a list of topics to talk about and let use choose what we want to say. Then let us either make one there or make one for HW for the next day

6/15/2010

Today after lunch I went to a speech and debate club. This was the 1st class I had been to and I learned and reviewed many things about proper speech and debating. I found out many ways to help my enunciation, such as saying the word "watermelon" between every word in a sentence to help exercise your mouth. Another thing that helped was learning about how to present your topic to others. And, although I feel a little out of place with most people much younger than me, I feel that I will have a good time throughout this week.

Afterwards, on the FIFA world cup today afternoon, I watched Portugal and the Ivory Coast battled fiercely to advance and face Brazil who beat North Korea 2-1. Both sides try to get an advantage, but the teams are in a deadlock 0-0. It seems that there is no key forward players that can make a goal. From up above, it looks like just another on of those soccer video games. Soccer seems like it is much easier to defend than to score on both TV and in real life. Its strange that we recently got cable rather than our old satellite TV. Compared to before, we have over 800 more channels! I wonder if it's possible for anyone to watch all the shows.