"Think, Then Think Again…"

What Is A Dad?

A dad is someone who
wants to catch you before you fall
but instead picks you up,
brushes you off,
and lets you try again.

A dad is someone who
wants to keep you from making mistakes
but instead lets you find your own way,
even though his heart breaks in silence
when you get hurt.

A dad is someone who
holds you when you cry,
scolds you when you break the rules,
shines with pride when you succeed,
and has faith in you even when you fail…

Happy Father’s Day to all the daddies in the world!  You’ve donea great job!!!

-Written by: Mina Mendiola

Mighty Muggs are a vinyl/plastic collectible toy series.

It was last November when my dad saw them at Toys R’ Us and he bought some.  On that day the collection was born.  Currently, at home we have 47 of them.   I’ve recently been going on flickr, google, youtube and more to search for other Mighty Mugg collectors, but so far no one has a bigger collection one than ours.   Here’s a picture of our collection.  Enjoy and please comment!!!

This weekend my dad and my brother (I helped a little too) decided to make a movie. Please watch it and comment. Although I think it’s silly I also think it’s really funny! It was really hard to make, you had to take a picture of the characters, move the characters, take a picture, move it and so on. If there is one thing I learned in making a movie it’s that it is HARD (and takes a lot of PATIENCE)!!!

If the video on my blog doesn’t work click here instead.

Well, literally, we froze.  Our whole family took a trip up north of China to… Harbin!  The temperature there?  A freezing minus 26 when we arrived but still we all had a great time.  The best of all? Skiing!!!  Never knew it would be this fun!  Harder than roller blades or ice skating but still fun!  Would recommend to all who haven’t tried skiing to check it out in Harbin.

Below is a picture of me after we went skiing.  Covered with snow all around.  Cool!

This is a picture of my brother, Carlos, attempting to make “snow angels”.  If you’ve been watching Sponge Bob, you’ve probably seen this silly move.  He’s been watching too much Sponge Bob cartoons… better tell mommy about it.

Guess what! I have a new cousin from my Uncle Gerry and Aunt Aki who both live in Arizona USA. His name is Vincent Amadeo Mallari Lao, born on February 3, 2009 weighing 6 lbs and 15 oz. He’s the second kid in their family following Zoe. Now I have four cousins from my Dad’s side: Ali, Zoe, Mia and the new guy in town… Vince!

Here’s a picture of my new cousin Vince. Welcome to our wonderful world little Vince!

Yesterday, all 18 students (except for the new student) in Mr. Howitt’s class wrote a post on tips about Shanghai for the new student. 

 I read a couple of them and I found them all very amusing and overall helpful.  I suggest that if you are new here (China) you read these posts because you will learn a lot of “survival tips” about China that you probably didn’t know before.  To see some of them click here, here or here… or here.

Hope you new people find this useful/ helpful.

In my school, Shanghai American School, we have something called the SAS EAGLES.  My definition of the EAGLES is that these are our school guidelines.  Meaning that every SAS student, teacher, administrator, worker and everyone who is a part of our school community has to try their best to follow the guidelines.  Let me tell you what each guideline means to me.

Empowered- means that you are given the authority and you have to use it properly.  Like in art when my teacher gives me all the materials and information I need I could choose to just waste my time and do nothing or do the right thing and get the project done because my teacher is empowering me to do this task.

Adaptable- means that you are flexible to different situations.  For example if  you had a pop quiz in math and you think you’re not ready for it you could either whine or adapt to the situation and just live with it.

Global Minded- I would describe global minded as the easiest guideline to explain and is one of the most important.  As most people know we have lots of  environmental issues that affects people’s lives namely landslides, floods, pollution, food shortage and a lot more.  Global minded means that we should care more about the environment and reuse, reduce and recycle.

Literate- is basically being good at math, reading, writing, science, social studies and all subject areas.  Being equipped with knowledge will help in our future lives.     

Ethical- is doing things the honorable way, being honest and doing the right thing even when no one is watching.  For example, when you like someone’s work and want to copy it you have to give them credit otherwise it’s plagiarism.  

Skilled Inquirers- is being curious about the world around you and asking appropriate and and  meaningful questions.  Its about being interested to ask and know more about different things, other countries, other religions, different kinds of food, etc.  

Have you ever thought of where the weird word dozen came from?  Well, honestly I’ve never really thought about it a lot until today at math when one of my classmates asked that question.  In this post, I have decided to answer that question and tell some information about the word dozen.

Dozen is another word for the number twelve. The dozen may be one of the earliest primitive groupings, perhaps because there are approximately a dozen cycles of the moon or months in a cycle of the sun or year. The dozen is convenient because its multiples and divisors are convenient: 12 = 2 × 2 × 3, 3 × 4 = 2 × 6, 60 = 12 × 5, 360 = 12 × 30. The use of twelve as a base number, known as the duodecimal system (also as dozenal), probably originated in Mesopotamia (see also sexagesimal). Twelve dozen (12² = 144, the duodecimal 100) are known as a gross; and twelve gross (12³ = 1,728, the duodecimal 1,000) are called a great gross, a term most often used when shipping or buying items in bulk. A great hundred, also known as a small gross, is 120 or ten dozen (a dozen for each finger on both hands). A baker’s dozen, also known as a long dozen, is thirteen.

The English word dozen [1] [2] [3] comes from the old form of the French word douzaine, meaning “a group of twelve” (“Assemblage de choses de même nature au nombre de douze” as defined in the eighth edition of the Dictionnaire de l’Académie française). This French word [4] is a derivation from the cardinal number douze (”twelve”, from Latin duodĕcim) and the collective suffix -aine (from Latin -ēna), a suffix also used to form other words with similar meanings such as quinzaine (a group of fifteen), vingtaine (a group of twenty), centaine (a group of one hundred), etc. These French words have synonymous cognates in Spanish: docena [5][6][7], quincena, veintena, centena, etc. English dozen, French douzaine, German Duzend and Spanish docena, are also used as indefinite quantifiers to mean “about twelve” or “many” (as in “a dozen times”, “dozens of people”).  

Thank you for reading, I hope you learned a little something about the word “dozen”.  (My source is Wikipedia.)

For our homework tonight, we had to write a post on this question.  If you could invite five people living or dead to a dinner party, who would you invite and why would you invite them?  What would you talk with them about?  Here goes my answer:

Who I would invite:

 My Grandfather on my Dad’s side:  I’ve never met him before.  I would ask him how my Dad was as a kid and how his childhood was.  Most importantly I would ask him what his name is and what I would call him(I still don’t know his name).  I would ask him about some fun moments they had together and just talk.

 Jerry Spinelli:  I would invite Mr. Spinelli because he is a very famous author that I idolize a lot.  I would ask him if he was a genius at school, if he had a tough chilhood and ask him more about his childhood.  I would also ask him who was his best author friend and how many hours he had to work for that shiny medal to be on the book he wrote.  

 Bill Gates:  I would invite Bill Gates because he’s the richest person on earth.  I would definitely ask him how he got in control of Microsoft and what he has to do everyday (his daily routine) and how big his house is and how much money he has.  I might also ask him how much of everything he has (cars, house, maids, etc.) 

 Detroit Pistons basketball team with Flip Saunders:  I would invite this wonderful basketball team because basketball is my favorite sport and this is my favorite team.  They changed coach this season but I like the old coach better, Flip Saunders.  I would ask them about their training schedule and how much of their time they have to commit to basketball.  I would have to ask them if they could give me a couple of pointers.

 My Whole Immediate Family:  I would invite my family so that they could also experience this wonderful event with me because meeting these kind of people doesn’t happen everday.  And I would want them to be there just in case I’m shy or nervous.

I realize that some people who go on my blog don’t comment.  I’m not sure if it’s because they really just don’t want to comment or if they don’t know how to.  If you’re wondering how to post a comment I’ll tell you in this short post:

1. Go to a post you want to comment on and click on the very bottom where it says no comments, 1 comment, 2 comments and so on.

2. At the bottom of all the comments and the post itself it says leave a comment.  Information needed in order to comment are your names and e-mail adresses, urls are optional.  Then write the comment.  Please make the comment a good one.  A good comment has proper punctuation, tells me what I did good on, tells me what I need to work on and point out details in the post that they really liked.  You still have to write the spam word at the very bottom to post it.  That’s just to make sure my blog doesn’t carry a virus or something.

3. Last step is to post it.  You may have to wait a couple days or so but soon enough your comment will be on my blog.

THANKS FOR YOUR COMMENT!!!