安妮的部落格

It really bugs me when people think that Taiwan is part of China. People ask me: “Where do you come from?” I tell them, “I come from Taiwan.” Their first reaction are ALWAYS like: “Oh! Is that part of China?” I will say no politely to the first time they ask, say no irritatly second time. Scream in their ear to make them remember if they have the guts to ask me the third time.

If they remember, great! Problem solved! The most annoying part is that some people forget it ON PURPOSE, and the teacher asks me, “Where do you come from?” Someone opened their blahbly big mouth before I could answer, and they said: “Oh! She’s from China or Thailand, something like that.” Not to be mean, but I really wanna yell out, What The Heck? You are not me. Don’t answer it for me! Big blahbly mouth!!!

I get Taiwan is a really small country, you can’t see it on the map or globe if you don’t observe closely, but who doesn’t get annoyed by saying the same thing over and over? Not you. Everybody does!

1.Having to buy books with my own money

2.When having a earthquake, I have nowhere to go

3.When my parents are forcing me to get off Facebook (It’s soooo addicting!!!)

4.When people are exclusive

5.People think Taiwan is part of China

Equality means to me that people are treated equally. No matter what skin color they have, black is still a color, why white better than black? I understand people like to be around friends who have the same religion, but even so, you can still accept people who has different religion, or skin color. African’s skin is just darker, nobody can control their own looks, I believe they don’t wanna be excluded in groups, either. I admire people who will accept anybody different with open arms, open hearts. When you are having a hot meal in your house, think of the refugees, maybe they are starving, and praying for food. When you see people like that, why not share them some food? Every single life is important, not only the Whites’, including Blacks’, just because we are all made by the same parent: God. We have the same parent, so why not just respect, and love each other like siblings?

I breathe in the fresh air as I arrived the beach. Good memories flew through my mind, with mom. When I was a child, I love the sound of the sea, it always comforts me. Since my mother died, I moved beside the beach, because it reminds me of her, the sea sound comforts me just like a mother sings a lullaby to their babies. 

When I was five, my parents divorced, leaving me and my mom behind, my dad banged the door and disappeared. Never coming back. I love my mom a lot, she went through all these tough moments with me, she reaches her hands out to me when I needed them, she listens when I am complaining about anything.

At the beach, I lean on her shoulder, sincerely said : “Mom, I love you so much.” She replies: “ Love you too, hun. Never forget to come back for me when you grow up, never forget to leave me some flowers when you grew old, I’ll still always be with you when I leave this world, so be brave, my good girl!”

Story By : Annie Hu

The ship heaved in the waves, crashing from one wall of water into the next. Crew members, frightened for their lives, had scurried below into cabins, hoping for a miracle from the dread of the storm. The captain called out for all hands to take their stations, but to no avail. The gale-force winds had the ship in its grip, and doom lurked in the spray lashing at the vessel.

The passengers swaying back and forth with the ship. The expression on their faces seem really helpless, some prayed for miracle, some holding their baby in their arms, crying for help, but they had absolutely no luck. The strong wind howled like a hungry wolf, within minutes of passengers screaming, the gigantic ship sank to the bottom of the ocean. The strong wind is cold-blooded creature, he doesn’t care about other families waiting for their members to go home. The bodies down the ocean rest forever...Never waking up again...

The sun rose high up in the sky, welcoming us to the Royal Botanical Garden(RBG), where we’d never been before. I was excited about the trip. After I finished breakfast, I hummed and hopped to my room, put my camera and sun screen in my bag, because those are what the must-haves to go to  the Royal Botanical Garden.

At about eleven o’clock we arrived in Hamilton, where the Royal Botanical Garden is located.We went straight to the RBG Centre, bought the tickets, and then went to the Centennial Rose Garden in Hendrie Park. The roses in late-July and early-August are the ugliest, so it’s not a really good time for seeing roses. We kept on walking, passed  Morrison Woodland Garden, and a really, really long trail called Grindstone Marshed Trail. I saw a little pond. A grandpa and another two grandpas were canoeing, but the first-placed grandpa reached a bridge, it seems like he wants to get through the bridge from under, the other grandpa said: “Hey man! I think you might need a haircut to get through!” Everybody sniggered,including my family and myself. I also saw a family fishing by the pond, and there’s a extraordinary big swan, it has a tag attached to its body saying A59. I thought it was kind of interesting, because it was my first time to see a swan with a tag.I ponder what the tag is for?    

In middle of the “Walking Festival” I prodded my mom and complained that I was hungry, so we had to walk back to the RBG Centre in order to get something to eat. It was a long way back, and it felt like I could never get back there.We had to walk by a huge graveyard, and I was sort of scared.What surprised me was Canada’s Funeral Homes are really solemn and gorgeous.When we are finally at the RBG centre, I was anxious about getting some food to eat, but another absurd situation happend - a fishhook was lodged in mom’s shoe, but my brother got the fishhook out at last, and mom looked extremely reliefed.

After we had lunch at the nearest Macdonalds(which is in Burlington), we drove back to the garden, and went to the Medical Herb Garden. Now I learned about a lot of  herbs. I saw a diminutive bee hive in a show box, it’s really fascinating, because I’d never seen a bee hive in my life!!I wonder if the bees have honey in there?

I found most flowers quite pulchritudinous, I took more than two hundred photos, and I wish I have a better camera, so the photos could become more realistic. The garden made me want to stay forever and never want to go home! We bought annual pass, so we can go there as many times as we want for one year, it is a really good place to go. I learned a lot of things.

之前一直說想去皇家植物園（Royal Botanical Garden）今天終於滿足我想去玩的願望了，現在就來向各位介紹一下。夏天去植物園賞花，很多東西是必備的，像：球鞋，水，防曬乳，還有最好可以自己帶三明治，累了可以坐下來與家人野餐，省錢又美味的中餐，實在是太讚啦！！

早上10點多，我們一家人從Waterloo出發，植物園在Hamilton和Burlington的邊界上，在植物園停完車已經11點了，媽媽和哥哥去買票，爸爸在外面負責照相，我們買了年票，就是一年可以無限次數出入植物園，兩個大人可以帶兩個未成年的小孩，買完票本來售票員已經在我們手上蓋好章，準備讓我們進去的，可是哥哥比較誠實，說他過了十八歲，要買一張學生票。買完票以後，我們開始健行賞花。這邊的花實在是太美啦！可惜我們來晚了一點兒，玫瑰的季節已經過了，花都已經有點謝了。

Guess what?!Vinillafier really broke in last night, our watch tower said it really is him!Our sensor worked!So our computer files are saved! Whoohooo!! Today we are going on a hunt for Vinillafier. Will said he came in today morning and saw someone left a thing behind that he was looking for the whole week: The vinilla syrup, we are going to use that to attract Vinillafier, our watch tower gave us a clue, it’s that we have to find out what Vinillafier’s cell phone number is, so we can track him down. So we tried to find out what the cell phone number is, the question was like: How many kinds of payment does the Chem Store take? So we have to go down to the Chemistry building, and ask how many payments does the store take and then write the number down, it’s really fun but tiring.

When we finally found out the ten numbers, we gave the numbers to our watch tower, the watch tower came up with a set of cell phone number, so we used the GPS in iPad to track Vinillafier, this is how we used: Ryan said we have to enter 10 digit number in GPS in order to get the directions, so we did, and found out Vinillafier is somewhere near Mac Lab, Oh My God!That’s where ExXtreme 1 is!!!The fact really shocked us, so we wore our costumes and went to Mac Lab, Will held on the Vinilla Syrup ready to attract Vinillafier anytime, the room was dark, nobody was in the room,Ryan went in first, just in case something jumps out, when he made sure nothing will jump out he told everyone to go in and start to find Vinillafier. 

We found Vinillafier in a small hidden room, Will told us not to get any closer and he used the shakes the Vinilla Syrup to attract him, Vinillafier put his hand out and then his head, and then his whole body, he took the Vinilla Syrup, at the same time, Ryan asked him if he wants to work with us, he didn’t bother to answer, so he went in the hidden room again, and we can hear him say: “VINILLA!!!!!!!MMMM!!!!!” It was really funny, everyone laughed!! After he “enjoyed” his vinilla, he came out and said “You’ve brought me Vinilla, Thank you, I will work with you guys” We all cheered, and Ryan shook hands with him. After that, it was lunch time, Ryan said we will have pizza to celebrate, and we all high fived Vinillafier.

After lunch, we made slimes, which we will make every year in every camp, this year I chose purple, last year I chose blue, they are all very good colors, and I love to play with it a lot it feels cool when you poke it.

We pretty much had free time in the afternoon, and we had Freezes also, but I threw it away because I didn’t like Freezes that much.

Today we are making alarm systems, like sensors, in case Vinillafier breaks in, and hack in our computers, uh-oh, that won’t be good.

So...our leaders said we can either work with a partner or by ourselves, I chose to work with Kristy and Joyce chose to work with a girl named Emily, in our camp there are only four girls:Me,Emily,Kristy, and Joyce, and I think Joyce and Emily became really good friends, they always work together when we need partners, and I think that’s really good, because she have successfully made a friend in Canada which is a friend she never had before.

We are making the alarm systems with a set of Legos, so one pair of partners have a set, and we start making what we want our alarm systems to look like, but we sat there for 15 min, we have no idea what we want to make, we asked Ryan for ideas, Ryan said there is an instruction sheet in our computer portfolio, so we opened it up and tried to make it. We got stuck on a lot of things, because the instruction was kind of blurry, but the good thing is Ryan helped us, he said he have been playing Lego for 14 years or probably more.

When we are done, we connect our sensors to the robot, and there’s a program in our computer which can control the sensor, so when we finish programming what we need, we store everything we need into the sensor.

We’ve got a watch tower for us, so when somebody breaks in, we’ll immediately know who it is. Ryan said he is going to put everybody’s sensor by the door, so when somebody breaks in, our robots will fire at that person, it sounds really cool!!

Today we still get to edit our flying films, but it’s also our last day for editing films. Vinillafier talked to us on Ning today, I tried to private chat him,but he said he’d only chat to groups of people,that made me really frustrated.

Guess what? Today’s my birthday?So...?We are eating ice cream this afternoon,well...not exactly because of my birthday, they planned before they know.Anyways, after we edited our films, a boy ran all the way back and said to the whole class: “Hey people!!!I saw Vinillafier running in the hallway when I come out of the washroom.”Now, we are all scared, because we know Vinillafier is somewhere near us.

When we are editing our films, Ryan shout out “Vinillafier!” And we all looked out.We saw Vinillafier walking or running outside our building, it’s really scary for girls.

This afternoon we are making comic strips in the Mac Lab (where ExXtreme 1 is) we switched labs, we get to use iMac, it’s really good, I wish we had that lab.There is a software in iMac, actually in every Apple products called PhotoBooth, which you can take pictures through Webcam, and you can make a lot of effects, like Dent, or Squeeze, it’s very funny when you try it, but my brother and my parents told me it’s not good to Squeeze or Dent people like that;all right then, no Denting, no Squeezing, there’s some more effects:You can take pictures on the roller coaster, on the clouds, in the fish tank, or beside the Eiffel Tower, it’s really cool.After we took the pictures we wanted for our comics, we opened up a software called Comic Life, we all said it’s so hard, we can’t even think of a theme, we asked if we can just take pictures and paste it on Comic Life without any words, Ryan said no, and he said he will pick out the best three comics and he’ll give out big prizes, so now we have the power to start working, after an hour we are all done.Time to eat ice cream!

We get to eat ice cream outside with the Newton groups, and our leaders made the ice creams for us, we get to choose if we want chocolate flavor or strawberry flavor, Kristy and Joyce chose chocolate, I chose strawberry, they gave you like one-mouth of ice cream, i wish we had more, it’s good.I told Ryan it was my birthday at the end of the day, Ryan was like WHAT?WHY DID YOU TELL ME NOW? I CAN’T DO ANYTHING NOW!! I said if I told u earlier, what can you do? He said nothing, he told everybody to sing happy birthday song to me, I was happy at that moment.

Yay!!Finally, I couldn’t wait for today, because today we get to edit our films to look super-powered.We used a software called Adobe Premiere, Ryan said it’s more friendly, easier to use, for children.

Editing our films is actually fun!! Although I havn’t use Adobe Premiere before, I asked for help alot, because for me it’s kind of complicated,who never edit films before.

We have our own team blog at Ning.com, where we can chat about strategies to catch Vinillafier, but the thing is, Vinillafier have an account too!!He can spy on us, and when we try to talk to him, he never respond us, that really frustrated us.We have to think of a way to catch him, we know he have super power but the good thing is he can’t fly.

It’s lunch time!!!After we ate the delicious lunch that my mom prepared for us, we start playing cards, there was a boy named Grant who really loved playing cards, as I can see, he came over and say to us: “This class became a crazy card class, just the way I wanted!” we said “okay...?” but when we look around there’s only us whose playing cards.

After lunch, we went to the Chemistry Room, we made this thing called super strong wrists, so we need to build a circuit and connect three LED bulbs on it, and there is a switch, when we flick the switch on, the bulbs will light up, and we put three wrist strips on, so we can put on our wrists,and we can bend our wrist like a lucky fortune cat, but mine stopped working when I got home, that is part of my costumes, now that made me kind of sad for losing one part of my costumes.

Today is my first day at Engineering Science Quest camp. Actually, I’ve been there last year, the most different thing is this year I’m with my cousins, Kristy and Joyce. It is better with them, because when I need a partner I know I will always have one.

Our theme is Super Heros, we have to pretend we are super heros. We made our own capes, eye masks, and we get to use our super hero’s name too!! Our leaders said we can’t use our real name because then that won’t be fun, anybody will figure out who you are.

Our leader’s names are: Ryan, Will, and Katy, Ryan has the kind of super power which he can run in super speed.Will has the kind of super power which he can fly. Katy has the kind of super power which she can move things with her mind.It’s really cool, but it’s still fake.They were going to have ice cream with this guy named Mitch and Ben,Mitch really likes vinilla, but there were no vinilla-flavored ice cream, so Mitch said if he didn’t get the vinilla ice cream, he would destroy the world until he gets one.He said he’s Mitch no longer, he’s now the Vinillafier, and he ran away.Our mission was to catch him, but we have no super power yet...we are still the little super heros who are in training...so we really need to have super powers in order to find the Vinillafier.

Today we basically filmed a video with a partner that we electric shock each other, don’t worry, we didn’t actually “Electric” shock, we used our hands to pretend we are shocking each other and then we are going to use a software to add the electric in the video. And the next thing we filmed is flying;so we put our capes on, and there is a fan beside the cape, and we stand in front of the green filming screen for ten seconds, and we use the software to pretend we are flying in the sky, the other one is that we run in a place in front of the green curtain and use the software to pretend we are super speeding.

I’m excited for tomorrow, which we will edit these video clips on a software to become a super hero, I’m sure we’ll have a lot of fun this week.