Dear Future Me

If you are reading this post, you must have remembered that we had to write a blog when I was 12 - 13. It must be kind of weird to think that you wrote this to yourself. I know that I feel weird writing to my future self. There are just two things that I wanted to remind you of.

1. Some of the big things that happened in the 2000 - 2010 decade when I was younger.

2000 - Start of a new millennium which is a new thousand years

2001 - 9/11 was when two hijacked airlines crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, it was called 9/11 because it happened september 11th.

2002- April 9th, the funeral for Queen Elizabeth's Mother took place at Westminister Abbey in London England

2003- Massive Blackout in US, Canada and Britain causing 60 fires in New York City

2004- Dozens and dozens of tornadoes whipped through Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Newbraska and Oklahoma, about 20,000 homes without power

2005- Hurricane Katrina hits Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, leaving Katrina 80% flooded and without electricity.

2006- Italy beat France in the World Cup soccer game

2007- 32 people killed in Virginia Tech Massacre

2008- Barack Obama was elected to be the first black president of the United States

2009- Micheal Jackson died

2010-Nothing Major Happened Yet, because we are still in 2010

2. School, well it is probably one of the most important things that you go to when you were this decade. I am asking you, do you still keep in any touch with some of your friends that you met when you were younger? Have you seen any?

I hope that you (the future me) have had a good life so far and that you are healthy and happy. I wonder if you will be reading this on a computer, but probably whatever you are reading this on, hasn't been invented yet!

Life Lesson: Live, Laugh and Smile. Keep yourself healthy.

I commented on Blayne's Blog on Music!

S is for Summer

Sitting at school, last class on the last day of the school year. Tick tock. tick tock, finally the clock gets to 3:15. Finally, I jump out of my seat and say " SUMMER HERE I COME!" One of the sad things about when school is done is that you don't get to see your friends for 3 months unless you plan something with them.

As you may know already my blog is going to be about summer. Summer has to be one of my favourite seasons out of winter, spring and fall. This is probably my favourite because of the warm weather, hanging out with friends all summer, going to camp, the beach and sooo much more. Best of all summer, is having three whole months without going to school every day.

Two things that I basically do every single summer is go to the camp that I talked to you about a couple of posts ago. I'll go there until I'm 16 years old. And of course I go to my friend Hayley's Cottage for a weekend. It is about a 3 hour drive from my house.

At my camp I see my friends that I have not seen since last summer. I love going to summer camp for three weeks, but one thing I don't like is going home after three weeks because mostly all my best camp friends live in Toronto, or Oakville.

At Hayley's cottage, we do things like tubing, canoeing, swimming, camp fires and a lot more. I remember one time we had this other family over to have a campfire together. We were playing this one game named "I am going on a picnic". It is a never-can-tell game. You basically play this game until everyone figures out what is the secret of the game.

How you play: Say one of the players names is Calli and she wants to bring cake. Calli is allowed to come because her first letter of her name is c and the item that she wants to bring starts with the letter c. Say another person's name is Brandon and he wants to bring pop. He is not allowed to come because his first letter of his name is b and the item letter is p. Basically, the item that you bring must start with the same letter as the first letter in your name.

We were playing that game with three families. The third family has a cottage down the road from Hayley. So Hayley's friend's dad was thinking of what he should bring on the picnic and wanted to bring a "Tent". The leader of the game (who knew the secret of the game) wouldn't allow him to come because the first letter of his name was K. So next it was my mom and she said she wanted to bring a "Tent". She was allowed to come, because the first letter in her name is T. The player "K" asked, "Why could I not bring a tent?" But we didn't tell him. Everyone in the circle got the hang of the game after a couple of turns. So after a while we stopped playing and told him why he couldn't bring a tent, but that he could bring ketchup.

After three months of summer, it is almost time to go back to school. Which, if you are a kid, you really don't want to go back to school because you are doing school work every day. Well, it is o.k. if you go back to English Class to write blogs again. Nothing is wrong with blogging, right?

One last final thing I would like to say... have fun while it lasts and use your three months well because sooner or later you will be back at school waiting for the next summer to come.

Life Lesson: Summer is only three months, so enjoy summer while it lasts.

I commmented on georgia's blog on guitars!

A is for Advertisments

Sitting on the couch, waiting and waiting until the clock ticks 9 PM because this is when GLEE is on. What is GLEE? GLEE is a TV show has a glee club at their high school. A GLEE club is an organized club that sings songs. I know people that watch GLEE so much that they tape every episode and watch it over and over. But if they love it so much they buy the show on DVD.

Every TV show that is playing on TV has to have some breaks during the show this is called advertisements or more commonly today we hear commercials. Most commercials are just persuading people that the product is good, like Sham Wow, Slap Chop etc. Some advertisements can be very annoying or they can even be funny.

I think the best advertisements/commercials are the ones that are on during the Super Bowl. Super Bowl advertisements are probably the best because the companies know that there a millions of people watching the Super Bowl, so they spend a lot of money to make good advertisements. But, just recently they blocked out all of the US advertisements in Canada because the people in Canada that have the rights to broadcast eh Super Bowl are not paid by the American companies to play the American ads. So all that the Canadians get to see are the Canadian advertisements. If you wanted to see the American ads you would have to go to youtube to watch them.

My family owns a Home Hardware in Canada. My Dad and I went to this market thing where all the Home Hardware owners go and meet all the other Home Hardware owners and also the companies that sell their stuff to Home Hardware. Well, during the market time my Dad had to do a commercial for Home Hardware. To make this advertisement my Dad had to stand in front of a green screen saying what he was going to say in the commercial. Later, they put the background picture in where the green screen was. I remember sitting down and listening to what he was saying and what the directors were saying. It took awhile because the directors were saying do it again. When I finally saw the commercial on TV (during the Super Bowl!) my Dad was magically standing in front of a pile of lumber! There is a commercial on CTV right now where you can see my Dad. You have to be paying attention though because he is not on there long and he is the first guy that talks in the commercial.

To conclude my advertisement post, I just wanted to say that it is important to advertise your products well because if you don’t advertise them you don’t have a business. Also people won’t know what your product is, so they won’t buy it if you don’t advertise.

Life Lesson: “The business that considers itself immune to the necessity for advertising sooner or later finds itself immune to business.” Derby Brown

I commented on Emma S’s Blog on Parents.

S is for Songs

Imagine listening to this song:

Hey, hey, hey

Your lipstick stains on the front lobe of my left side brain

I knew I wouldn't forget ya, and so I went and let you blow my mind

And we do

Well by now I've showed you how much I believe in the here and now I wish

That you knew

lyrics from: www.lyrics.com

If you would like to hear the whole song of Hey Soul Sister by Train click here

You just saw the first verse of one of my favourite songs. Some of my other favourite songs are Vanilla Twilight by Owl City, Break Your Heart by Taio Cruz, Wavin' Flag by Young Artist for Haiti, Celebrity Status by Marianas Trench, Never Too Late by Hedley and so many more.

Every year at my camp (talked about camp in earlier post) the counsellors do a circle song for each circle. This year, the song that the counsellors taught us was to the tune of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" but the words were changed to be in a Harry Potter themd. Here are the words to this Harry Potter version:

Is this the real life?

Is this just fantasy?

Here at Tawingo, Escape from reality

Open your eyes

Look out to the camp and see,

I’, just a Seneca

Learning my wizardry

Because we’re Gryffindor, Ravenclaw,

Huffelepuff, Slytherin,

Put me where the hat sorts

Doesn’t really matter to me, to me.

Dobby, just marked me glum

Gotta try harder today

Mop the floors and sweep away

Dobby, we had just begun

And now we’ve gone and thrown it all away

Dobby, ooh

Didn’t mean to make you cry

If we’re not clean by 9:15 tomorrow,

Carry on, carry on , it really does matter

Today, our time had come

We’re leaving on our trip

Pretty please don’t lilly dip

Goodbye, everybody

We’ve got to go

Gotta leave you all behind and trip it through

Island of Rock

I don’t want to leave

Sometimes wish trip never did end at all

I see Voldomort coming through the door

Run away run away, Harry’s just a baby

Thunderbolts and lightning, very, very, frightening me

All girls (all girls), native day, (native day), skit night and musical

Ohh Musicalllll

Harry’s just a wizard from a muggle family

So as I showed you above that song was the song that we sang mostly everyday until we knew it off by heart. We would sing this song 4 times a day or more, it got so annoying after a really long time.

Back to the regular songs that you hear today. Somedays when I am in the car with my mom and my sister. A song comes on the radio and my mom starts singing along with the song. I said "Mom how do you know that song?" and she will say " Well, this used to be a old song, someone just wrote it again!" I am like "Ok?!?!" Usually she can name the year and things that she was doing back then. I wonder if the same will happen with me or you?

Yes, as I said that I heard a song on the radio. Songs can be played almost anywhere like radio, TV, iPod, Concerts and more. Songs can have different genres like Childrens, Pop, Country, Rock, Blues, Jazz, Musicals, R&B, Rap, Hip-Hop, Classical and more. My personal favourite genres of music are Pop and a little bit of Country.

Overall, songs can be very different from others and they can be made up by anyone. You can even write your own song if you wanted to! There are tons of songs to listen to and surely you can find something that you like to listen to. Everyday there are new songs coming out. Maybe one day you can make a song and become an artist.

Life Lesson: Don't be afraid to put your songs out in to the world, maybe you could be famous one day.

I commented on Pooja's blog on Pizza!!

H is for Holidays

A holiday is day where you have a special day off or it is an official holiday. Some official holidays are Thanksgiving, Christmas, and many more.

One holiday that I recently took was a holiday to go to London, England and Paris, France. We went with a tour company (forgot the name) with the touring company we got to see all the main attractions in both cities. Below I am listing what I saw in the cities.

In London, my family and I saw Big Ben, the London Eye (the world's tallest observation wheel), Tower of London, Tower Bridge, St Paul's Cathedral, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, Kensington Gardens, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey and more.

A cool part of London is going into the London Eye and seeing all of London just with a 30 minute ride on the world's tallest observation wheel. Oxford Street is a busy shopping area. Just walking down the street took a long time because there is probably 300 or more stores on just one single street. There are stores like Selfridges (a department store), bookstores, music stores, restaurants, Primark which is like the American Walmart, and so many other stores.

In Paris, my family and I saw the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre Museum, Arc de Triomphe, Cathedral de Notre Dame, the Palace of Versailles, Grand Palais, Petit Palais, the Champs-Elysées, the Opéra de Paris and more. Did you know that the lights on Eiffel Tower sparkle every hour, on the hour? But only for five minutes, so you have to be there just at the right time.

I liked going to the Louvre Museum because I got to see the Mona Lisa in real life, not just in pictures. One of the things was that it was hard to get right in front her portrait to get a picture because there was so many people wanting to get pictures of her.

Life Lesson: There is a lot of the world to see, so get out there and see it!

I commented on Rowena's Blog this week!

B is for Boots

Boots (not Boots from Dora the Explorer) Boots are a pieces of footwear that cover your foot and ankle. Your boots can be as short as your ankle or can come up to the top of your knee and even higher (like waist).

Most boots have a heel which makes the boot not flat so you don't slip (but maybe you will if the ground is wet).

What are boots made of? Boots are either made with leather or rubber, but today's boots are made of a lot more things that leather and rubber.

When do we wear boots? Boots are worn during the winter and the spring to protect your feet from mud, rain, snow and much more. Boots can also be worn for style and fashion. UGGs are one of the most popular choice of winter boots for teens. One thing that UGGs aren't very good in is salty snow, because that can damage the boot.

One day I was in my cabin at Tawingo (talked about Tawingo in last post) because it was raining and I had nothing else to do. So, my counsellor asked my friend and I if we wanted to go puddle jumping. We both said "Sure!" When we first went outside there was not many puddles even though it has been raining for a while, but after splashing around in them we found more. One time I went in this huge puddle and I got so wet that my boots got full of water. After splashing around in the rain for awhile the three of us decided to go back to our cabin because we were cold and wet. Overall, my boots kept my feet dry for a bit and then they got soaking wet.

Life Lesson: Wear boots to keep your feet dry and comfortable.

I commented on Hayley's post on snowboarding!

T is for Tawingo

One of my favorite times of year, is the summer because I get to go to Camp Tawingo for three whole weeks! Why do I love it? Because I get to have fun, I don't have to go to school, and I get to see my friends that I haven't seen since last summer.

Tawingo is a co-ed camp from the ages 7 to 16. Tawingo has campers who come from all around the world including China and other countries. I will tell you about the waterfront, the camp craft program, nature program, sports program, special programs, and the cabins.

The Waterfront:

Tawingo has a great waterfront that shares the same lake as another camp. If you want to canoe they have 75 canoes if you want to canoe during free time. You can also kayak, sail or row. Tawingo has five in-lake swimming pools that you can swim in and one of the swimming pools has two diving boards and a slide.

The Camp Craft Program:

Crestwood is a place where you can learn about different types of knots, fire building, map and compass work, and outdoor cooking. There are opportunities where you and your cabin can go on a trip away from camp for a couple of days but you stay on the lake.

The Nature Program:

SWAMP Lodge is the name of Tawingo's nature program. At SWAMP the campers learn about nature through hikes, games and observations. The letters of SWAMP represent different nature themes, Stars, Weather, Animals, Minerals, and Plants. SWAMP also has a nature museum where campers can bring animals they find to be taken care of.

Sports Program:

If you like playing sports at camp well the sports field is right for you. The sports you can play are mini - putt, archery, badminton, ball hockey, baseball, basketball, football, frisbee, tennis, volleyball and much more. You can also join tournaments during the time you are at camp.

Special Programs:

There is always some sort of special program going on. Tawingo has programs planned just for the boy’s camp, and programs just for the girl’s camp! There are three sessions and each of those sessions has one fun-filled day for all of camp.

At the beginning of each session at camp you have the chance to sign up for a musical that is presented in front of all of camp. One of the musicals in the past was The Lion King.

During each session there is a native council. This is where you get to see a native dance by someone who works at the camp and some stuff by the campers.

Each session ends with a banquet, sing song, a slideshow highlighting all the camp memories of the session. Some people cry during this time because it is the last night together with your cabin.

Cabins:

The first day you come to camp you will be sent to your cabin to meet your 6 0r 7 cabin mates that are your age. The same counselor stays with you the whole time you are at camp.

In each cabin there is a bathroom with a toilet and a shower with cold and hot running water. The cabins are bright and beautiful.

That was a run through of what my camp is like, I hope you are interested in coming.

If you would like to find out more information click here

Life Lesson: Try new stuff, you might like it!

C is for Cooking

Did you know that fortune cookies were invented in 1916 by George Jung, a Los Angeles noodle maker??

Over the summer, I did a cooking camp at a local restaurant. I went to 2 cooking classes over the summer. One class was to learn basic cooking and the other cooking class was to learn how to make desserts. I am now going to list the items that I learned in basic cooking and desserts below:

Basic = Rice

Fresh Pasta (Scratch)

Tomato Sauce

Béchamel Sauce

Tart Tatin

Fresh Cheese (made from milk)

Homemade Chips and Dip

Spicy Potato Wedges

Mayonnaise (homemade)

Coleslaw

BBQ Sauce

Herb Aioli

Sandwiches

Waldorf Salad

Vichyssoise ( a creamy potato soup flavoured with leeks and onions)

Desserts = Coconut Cake

Lemon Tartlets (pastry & lemon stuff)

Meringue

Giant Toblerone Cookies a la Mode

Brandy Caramel

Chocolate Soufflé

Strawberry Flambé with Whipped Cream

Chocolate with Cream Semifreddo

Muffins that taste like doughnuts

White or Milk Chocolate Mousse

Apple Streudel

Pie Pastry

Apple Pie Filling

Butter Tarts

Over the course of my cooking classes I have learned how to make stuff I have never know how to make before. Some of the thing I made I enjoyed so much that I would make them again.

I was making a couple types of food every day over the course of the week. We would make the food and then eat what we had made to see if was any good. Well, of course it was! Sometimes if we didn't finish eating our food, we could bring it home for our family to try. They sure liked when it was the dessert cooking week. I was bringing home three kinds of dessert every day!!

On the Friday, My whole class would invite their friends and family to come have a dinner that we would prepare for them. We ran the evening like a restaurant. Our family would make a reservation, we would seat them at the table that we had set. We would serve our family and then clear the table afterwards. Like all serving staff we would give them their bill because dinner was not included in the camp fee!

After the dinner the main chefs presented us with a binder and a wooden spoon with our name engraved. The binder had all the recipes that we made during that week.

It was a fun camp, and I am looking forward to taking another camp this summer and so is my family ( for the food!!).

Life Lesson: Cooking is an important life skill that everyone should learn.

D is for Dance

Ever since I was a 3 year old little girl I have been dancing. That is a long time, right? I have always been meeting new friends over the course of the time i have been dancing.

Once a week I go to my dance studio where I learn new dance moves. Some of the dance moves are reviewed from pervious years. Around Christmastime we do a small performance in front of the parents and students. This performance has a Christmas theme and it is held at the dance studio.

One of the big things that we work on during the dance year is getting ready for the end of year performance. This takes place at a Theatre on the university campus. Family has to buy tickets to see the show. If you want to get good seats you have to be in line early. There are four performances over three days. We have to practice at the stage where we dance to make sure that we are comfortable on the stage and know where we are supposed to be, and when.

In the past, for my May performance, I have been a bunny, sparrow, chocolate fountain, yellow brick road, a cornstalk, Straus Waltz, and Aque. The year that our class were cornstalks, one of the girls in my class didn't put her hairpiece all the way into her bun. Halfway through the dance her cornstalk hairpiece fell on the ground! When something falls or we drop something by accident, we are not allowed to pick it up until we are done our dance.

One time, there was a class dressed as squirrels, who had acorns the size of footballs. Two little 5 year old squirrels were picking up their acorns and they both wanted the same one and they started to fight over it. The whole audience was laughing! Finally the teacher brought out another acorn, so they were able to finish their dance.

This year the theme for our show is Dr. Suess. Our class might be "The Foot Book" or some other Dr. Suess-related thing. Around March Break we'll start learning our dance for the show.

Life Lesson: "Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like you've never been hurt and live like it's heaven on Earth."

— Mark Twain

Y is for Youtube

Did you know that YouTube became one of the fastest growing sites on the web?

Who founded YouTube? Three guys with the names Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, Jawed Karim, who were former employees of PayPal.

Many of you know that Youtube has become popular over the course of the years that it has been running. I know lots of people that use YouTube to look at music videos, movie trailers, TV shows and many more. Probably the wierdest and funniest videos that you can think of can be found on YouTube.

I think everyone knows now that a singer with the name of Justin Bieber became popular by YouTube. One day he entered a singing contest in his hometown of Stratford, Ontario. Some of his friends and family could not make it to the singing contest, so they asked him to put a video of his performance at the singing contest on YouTube. After Justin Beiber put the video on YouTube he realized that he was getting many more hits than he had family and friends. One day, Usher was looking on YouTube, and he came across Justin's Video. After he saw the video, Usher wanted to get in touch with Justin so he could sign him to a music contract.

Even my parents use YouTube. Sometimes they tell us about old TV shows or funny commercials and they can usually find them so that they can show us what they are talking about. Like Lucille Ball wrapping chocolates.... or Abott and Costello's "Who's on First" . But then sometimes we want to show our parents things, like General Larry Platt's "Pants on the Ground".

Thanks to Chad, Steve and Jawed, the creators of YouTube, you can spend too much time on YouTube, when you should be writing your blog.

Life Lesson: Be careful what you post on YouTube, because the whole world can see it.

S is for School

Have you ever been to a new school? Have you ever been scared the first day?

One day in Grade 2, I was visiting a school that I did not know very well. As I walked into the classroom with people staring at me that I had no clue who they were at all. Later, once my mom left, the teacher introduced me to the class. After he introduced me to the students, two students named Ashton and Hayley, took me on a tour of the school. Hayley stayed with me all day and even had lunch with me. I was feeling better about this new school and I wasn't scared any more.

This school that I was visiting was different for me because there were many more kids and everybody in the class was in the same grade. At MY school, there were kids from grades 1-3, all in the same class! I had friends that were my age, but also older and younger than me.

Even though I changed schools for Grade 3, I still talked with and visited my friends from my old school. Even now, when I run into one of them, we share a great big hug! One of my friends moved to British Columbia. Her family was here a few summers ago to visit some people, but I couldn't see her that time because I was at summer camp.

I'm glad now that I changed schools because I have even more friends than I did before.

Doesn't mean that if you leave them behind that you can't still be friends.

F is for Friends

Have you ever been to a place where you don't know anybody? Well if you have, then all you have to do is say something to get their attention. For example, you could say "Hi", smile, and ask them their name. They might even ask for your name.

I was at my ski club the other day and I didn't know anybody in my ski group. So what I did was say "Hi" to this complete stranger that I didn't even know. So then the complete stranger and I went up on the chair lift together to start our lesson. We started talking and I asked her where she lived. It turned, out when we were talking, both her and I live in the same city!" Not many chances that would happen like one in a billion. Once I found out that she lives in the same city as I do. "I asked her where in the city she lives?" She said by Westmount Rd. which is like 2 minutes from my house. Turns out we live like 5-10 minutes away from each other.

After that ski lesson I told my Mom about this girl. Well she knows her Mom and Dad and I found out that my old babysitter is the cousin of this girls' Mom. Well! Did we have a lot to talk about at our next ski lesson!!

Life Lesson: The next person you meet could be your next best friend, so don't be afraid to meet new people!