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!

Empathy Writing

This post will be on how authors try to create a feeling of empathy in their readers. Authors try to create a feeling of empathy in the readers by adding adjectives and to add lots of detail to their writing. One reason why authors put empathy writing in their books is so that readers can fell the same way as the characters in the book feel.

Empathy can be shown so many ways which includes depressed, sad, sympathy and pity parts in the book. One example of empathy that I found in The Breadwinner is when Parvana and her family had to see him being taken away by the Taliban. Another way how authors try to create empathy is when someone dies or gets taken away.

In another book that I read that has empathy in it is Bridge to Terabithia. The part that made me fell empathy in Bridge to Terabithia is when one of the main characters Leslie Burke dies. This made me feel empathy for both the readers and the characters in the book because they will never see her again. That is my blog about empathy.

Breadwinner

Imagine living in a country where women and girls were not allowed to leave the house without a man. Imagine having to wear clothes that cover every part of your body including your face with something called a burqa.

If I had to cover myself head to toe with something called a burqa, I would not be that happy because the climate in Afghanistan is always SO hot. Also you would have to wear it all the time and every where you go. I imagine it would be hard to breathe and you would have only limited space to see around you. It would be hard to walk and I think that I would have to walk everywhere. With a burqua, you can't see when people are smiling, sad and angry. I think that I would feel stiff, have difficulty moving and always worry about staying covered in public. It would be hard to tell my family and friends apart if they were all dressed the same. Overall, if I had to cover myself with a burqa, I would feel invisible.