Thanksgiving

On the day before Thanksgiving, my friend Amogh came to my house. We had some pizza. While we ate, we talked about school. Then I showed Amogh around my house. We played in the garage later. When he left, I watched the movie Cats and Dogs.

On Thanksgiving Day, I went to my uncle’s house. We stayed from lunch at 12:30 to after dinner at 8:00. The day after Thanksgiving, I went to the Century Theater with my family and my younger cousin. I watched the movie Madagascar 2: Escape to Africa. We really enjoyed it. It was the sequel to the original Madagascar. The animals were on their way to New York City when their crashed plane crash-landed. They met their own kind for the first time. They each proved that they were different from the others.



On Saturday, I went to my friend Deepti’s house. There was a battle of boys against girls. We left at midnight. It was a fun get-together.

Mervyns and Me

The store where I got most of my childhood clothes is closing. It is called Mervyns. Mervyns was a clothing store. When I was younger, my family and I used to go to Mervyns everyday. We knew many of the employees there.

Today, I kind of feel sad, happy, and weird.

I’m sad that Mervyns is closing, for several reasons. The first is that it had the best clothes for the lowest prices. Another is that it was the smallest clothing store in our area. It was never crowded, either. 75% of all the clothes I’ve worn have come from Mervyns.

I’m happy for one silly reason - no more cloth shopping. It was a clothing store. That was Mervyns’ fatal flaw in my view :-). I never loved it for that reason.

Today, Mervyns seemed different. New things were on sale. There was a new staff. An unnatural amount of people had come. There were too many On Sale signs. Prices were much higher than normal. It was as if it was a part of a mall. I miss the Mervyn's I knew. I feel sad for all the old and new employees at Mervyns because they lost or soon will lose their jobs. They will have to apply for jobs at larger clothing store such as Kohl’s, Sears, or J.C. Penny. Most likely, they will find work in due time.

The Monthly Music Meet

Recently, I’d been to my mother's music school's monthly music meet. This was my first time there. First I listened to some of the students sing. My mom was one of those people. Another boy sang a song I knew and I quietly sang it to myself. During the second part, there was a rhythm test. I was in Group One. I was the youngest person in my group. I knew all the answers, but at first, my group didn’t trust. After they worked it out, however, they saw I was right. As I correctly answered more and more questions, I started to gain my groups trust. We got every question right. There was a tiebreaker for groups 1, 4, and 6. I answered the first one partially, so we did another question. It was a very easy question for me because I had known the answer for a long time. The question had a very long answer, but I did it correctly. Everyone in my group was offered M and Ms, but I was the only one who took them. Then everyone had a snack of cinnamon cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, orange juice, and M and Ms. I beat my sister and both my parents. My parents had a lot of knowledge on the subject, but I still won, so my mom made a sweet at home which we all ate.

Pomeroy Newspaper

This year, I joined the Pomeroy School Newspaper. It is an after school activity which meets every Wednesday. I have many responsibilities. I like this experience because it will be very fun. It will also help me become better at writing. I have already written and word-processed my first assignment apart from giving my bio. Here is a copy of it.

*************************************************************************************

Room 15 5th Graders do Historical Skits
Byline: Abhijit Ramaprasad
10/15/08 Milpitas, CA

Recently, the 5th graders of room 15 have performed historical skits about explorers and Indians. The students were divided into two groups. Each of those groups were divided into smaller groups. Students wrote a script for each of their skits. They also made props and costumes to wear during their presentation. On 10/15/08, the students presented their plays. I think this was an exciting and exhilarating way for us students to learn about explorers and Indians.

*************************************************************************************

The teacher in charge of the newspaper says I have a writing talent, but I think I can improve. I think this experience will be good for me. I already think this is going to be a great year for the Pomeroy School Newspaper.

New School Year

I have been in school for about 3 weeks. We have been learning about Indians, exponents, and other things. I’ve just started my first project. I’m making a continent. I’m also making a codex. My new teacher is Mrs. Grist, and she teaches in room 15. I’m also having a lot of fun in school.

I’ve been doing a lot of other things as well. I’ve been keeping a daily journal, going to a buddy classroom, and studying about my tribe of Indians, the Iroqouis. I’ve made a nation profile about them and I’m going to use that information to make a codex. In my daily journal, I write about a topic I’m given. I also do a small activity called following directions. We have simple things in a complex order to see if we are good at following directions. I’ve also written an essay about my elementary school years. Everyday during the first week, I did a timed math activity called beat the clock. I’m sure I got 100 percent on multiplication, division, addition, and subtraction. Everyday, I also have done an activity called mental math. We have to do 10 math problems everyday quickly without working out the problems.

Now for some of the projects I mentioned earlier. My first project is to make a booklet of definitions for 50 geographic terms. We also had to draw pictures of the geographic terms, which also had to be colored. The second part of that project was to make a new continent and use at least 35 geographic terms and color the whole thing. We are also doing a smaller project. We first studied about our Indian nations. We used the information we learnt to make nation profiles. Using the nation profiles, we have to make a codex and draw pictures for it.

I’m sure I’ll have a fun time this year.

Summer Activities

This summer, I’ve done a lot of things. Most of them, I have wrote about in my blogs. However, there are some things I haven’t written about. This blog is a collection of all these things.

Tennis

This summer, I went to tennis classes. Our coaches, Coach Barry, Coach Warren, and Coach Lucy, taught us how to play tennis. I went in to match play at every class. I got better after every class. We normally started with something called running doubles to begin the class. Then we were divided for match play. At the end of each class, we normally played a game called around the world. On the last day, we did exactly that. The last shot of the season was a good one this year because we were trained by such good coaches. We had a potluck on the last day.

Swimming

Another thing I did this summer was swimming on a swim team. Every week Monday-Thursday, I had to go to a Mission San Jose High for swim team practice. We normally did what we had already learnt, but sometimes we did new things like Egyptian Freestyle and the Corkscrew. Near the end, we were faster than any other team of our age. During the last week, we had to do 20 laps of freestyle non-stop. One day, we swam 50 laps. On our last day, there was a swim team meet. I had to do everything, even though everyone else only did 2 short events and one long event. For the short events, we had to do 25 yards of freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, or butterfly. For the long event, we had to do 50 yards of freestyle. During the half time between the two events, we had a belly flop contest. In 25yard freestyle, I was second, and for everything else, I was in the middle. Being in a swim team was a really fun experience.

Eragon
This summer, I also read a book called Eragon. It was written by Christopher Paolini. It is about a poor farm boy named Eragon. Eragon raises a dragon so he can stop an invasion of evil creatures. It’s a good book. It was more than 400 pages long.

Erec Rex And The Monsters Of Otherness

Erec Rex is an adopted boy. A few weeks ago, he had saved a magical world with a new friend named Bethany. He is given a dragon Eye from a dragon for his last challenge. The only problem is he was tricked. Still, he saved the world from an evil person bent on stealing his dragon eye. In The Monsters Of Otherness, He is hated, even though he does the right thing. In the end, he learns that everything he learnt about monsters were lies. He must save them from a terrible fate. He could only save them by using a special scroll that could only be used once. He also gets a second dragons eye and saves some of the all but 2 dragon hatchlings. He still has to do 12 quests to stop the evil person. He also learns that a secret the evil person was trying to solve was in the mind of his friend Bethany, even though she doesn’t know the secret.


Sly 2:Band Of Thieves

A few years ago, I got a game for my play station 2 called Sly 2:Band Of Thieves. It was a difficult game. In the game, a master thief named Sly Cooper and his friends, Bentley and Murray, sneak into a Museum in Cairo. They were trying to steal the parts of Sly’s worst enemy, the giant ancient metal owl, Clockwerk. They find out that they were stolen the night before. They get caught my Inspector Carmelita Fox and her assistant, Constable Neyla. Carmelita believes Sly stole the, but Neyla said it might have been a Klaaw gang job. They had to pull a hasty escape. They discovered the first member of the Klaaw gang, Dimitri, had the Clockwerk tail feathers. Neyla helped them with there operation. Sly ran into a few difficulties, but he was able to get the tail feathers. They found that the second member of the Klaaw Gang was named Rajan. He was in possession of the Clockwerk wings. Once again, Neyla helped them. However, during the operation, Sly was dancing with Carmelita in disguise. Neyla secretly took a picture. Sly then found out that Rajan was plotting his revenge in an ancient temple in India. He was also in possession of the Clockwerk heart. Neyla helped them again, but just Rajan was defeated, Neyla double crossed them and gave them to the prison warden, the Contessa. She also showed the Contessa the picture she took of Carmelita and Sly. Carmelita was also taken into prison. However, luckily, \Bentley had not been captured. He had to save his friends. He learnt that the Contessa was also a member of the Klaaw Gang. When he rescued Sly and Murray, however, she escaped in her blimp. The Contessa’s secret alliance with the Klaaw Gang was revealed, however. Neyla was given money to hire tank and bomber mercenaries. The Contessa and Neyla were beginning a full-scale war. The Contessa also had the Clockwerk Eyes. She was trying to brainwash Carmelita with them. The Cooer gang still foiled he plans, but Neyla tried to take one of the eyes. Sly was able to get it though. The Contessa was taken to jail. The next member of the Klaaw Gang was Jean Bison. In the 1800s, he was frozen during a Canadian gold rush. He was thawed thanks to global warming. He did everything he could after that to destroy nature. He had the Clockwerk lungs and stomach. The operation wouldn’t have had any bumps in it if Neyla didn’t come in the middle with her mini-bomber to steal the pieces. Bentley was able to use his dangerous RC Chopper to destroy the mini-bomber. Jean Bison went to his secret logging camp to send something called the Northern Lights Battery to his partner Arpeggio. Jean Bison also had the Clockwerk talons, and Arpeggio had the Clockwerk brain. They joined Jean Bison’s woodcutter contest to win the talons. Just before they won, Jean Bison found them cheating and trapped them. Jean Bison then told them that he sold the Clockwerk parts he found in their hideout to Arpeggio. When Jean Bison was neutralized, they pulled of the old Trojan Battery trick to get into Arpeggio’s blimp. When they got there, they learnt Arpeggio was working with Neyla to achieve immortality. However, Neyla double-crossed Arpeggio and killed him. She joined herself with the Clockwerk parts and became Clock-La. They had to stop her before she became immortal. Carmelita and Sly had to work together to stop Clock-La. After they beat her, she destroyed Arpeggio’s blimp and kidnapped Bentley and Murray. They were able to beat her, but Bentley’s legs were crushed in the process. Carmelita then caught Sly, but he escaped. It was a great game.

Sly 3:Honor Among All Thieves

Sly and Bentley were reunited after sly escaped. A guy named Mac Sweeney told Sly that he worked in his father’s gang back when he was alive. He told him about the Cooper Vault. All of Sly’s ancestors put their wealth in the Cooper Vault. It could only be opened by a Cooper. When he got their, he learnt that a “Doctor. M” had built a fort. He secretly was part of the last generation Cooper Gang. He needed a gang of new, world-class team. He recovered his old friend Murray, his old enemies Dimitri and Panda King, and two new members named Penelope and The Guru. However, once in the Cooper Vault, Sly and Doctor. M got in a fight. Then the Interpol officer Inspector Carmelita fox came in. Sly, in a desperate attempt to save her lost his memory. It is unknown if he really lost his memory. Inspector Fox him he was Constable Cooper. They both escaped while the Cooper Vault caved in. Doctor. M died in the cave in. Sly left his cane, the key to the Vault on the island. It was worth millions. Murray became a racer, Dimitri became a celebrity diver, Panda King was in charge of screening all of his daughter’s would be husbands, The Guru started having to teach a famous rock group in central park. Penelope and Bentley performed world class jobs around the world. Bentley wrote in Sly’s book, the Thievius Racoonus, that he was building a time machine to find out if Sly, Murray, Bentley, and the rest of the gang will ever meet up again. It was super cool.

Badminton

This summer, I also played Badminton. I play against my sister. I’m really good at Badminton. Yesterday, I played one game against my mom. I lost 5-15. Badminton is really fun.

Politics

This year, I’ve been following the election. I followed the campaigns of Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain. Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama are both in the Democratic Party, while John McCain is a Republican. John McCain was the Republican nominee, and Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee. So far Obama is winning the election. In November, the next president will be elected.

The 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics

This year, the Summer Olympics are taking place in Beijing, China. The United States has 12/13 gold medals. 8 of them are Michael Phelps’. He got the most gold medals in a single Olympics in history. He won a swimming race by 0.01 of a second. At the beginning, he was in 7th place, but he still won. I think the Olympics are an important event.

The GATE Program

Yesterday, I got a letter from the school district saying I was in the GATE Program. GATE means Gifted And Talented Education. I passed the Stanford Achievement Test. I’m really happy about it.

These are some of the other things I have done this summer. It was a great summer.Next Monday, August 25th, 2008, school starts. My uncle is also moving in to his new house on that day. My grandmother is also leaving on the 28th. I guess I'll be bored from that day on, but right now, I'm happy.

Canada Trip -July 2008

In July 2008, I went on a huge trip through America and Canada. I had been waiting for this trip for months. It was a 8 day trip.

On 7/22/08, I went to Dallas, Texas. I took a plane at 6:00 clock Pacific Time. I also ate a chocolate chip cookie. While I was on the plane, I read a book called Eragon and took a nap. I was a 2 hour-long flight. It was 12:00 Mountain Time, which is 2 hours faster than Pacific Time when we got there. I ate my dinner when I got to my grandmother’s sister’s house. I felt exhausted, but when I tried to sleep, I couldn’t. I just stayed up until 2:A.M. Mountain Time.

On 7/23/08, I woke up late. I brushed my teeth, took a bath, and ate my breakfast before lunch. I played with my second cousin, Pranav, who is 1 and a half. In the evening, I went to Detroit, Michigan. I did the same things I did on the way to Dallas. It was late after I went to my third cousins, Vignesh’s and Anagha’s house. I just slept after getting there.

On 7/24/08, I played with Vignesh. We played in his backyard and on the computer. I had lots of fun with him, but at 12:00, we had to leave. We drove for 4 hours to Niagara Falls, Ontario. We went through the border between America and Canada. It was something I’ll never forget. It took us almost half an hour to pass. When we got to Niagara Falls, we went to the falls. We went behind the falls in Journey Behind The Falls. It was so rough I got blown back every time I went to the right side as well as getting soaked. After that, we went and saw Niagara’s Fury. First we saw a mini-movie about Niagara Falls’ history. Then we went on a 4-D simulated boat and helicopter ride around a simulated early Niagara Falls. At 10:00, we went to our hotel and slept.

7/25/08 was my dad’s birthday. We couldn’t buy him a cake, so we made him one and had a small celebration at the hotel. I made a card for him. At 9:00, we caught the second Maid Of The Mist VII boat. It was just like Journey Behind The Falls except it was even cooler. When it was over, we went on the White Water Walk, took pictures, and ate ice cream. We left for Toronto, the capital of Ontario, immediately after the White Water Walk. We took a bus tour of the city. We didn’t get down at a castle called Casa Loma because we couldn’t go inside. Casa Loma was built in the early 1900s by a rich man named Sir Henry Pallat. It cost over 3 million dollars to build. Right after he built it, he went bankrupt. To add to his troubles, his wife died as well. We got of at a building called the CN Tower. Until 2007, it was the tallest freestanding structure in the world. The view from up there was magnificent. When we left the tower. We went on a boat tour of the islands around Toronto. When we got of the boat, we found a place to eat pizza. The slices were a third the size of a normal pizza slice, but they were twice as tasty. After eating pizza, we went to a hotel on the outskirts of Montreal, Quebec. The trip took many hours & we reached there at the wee hours of morning (2.30am).

On 7/26/08, we took a tour of Montreal. One of our first stops was the church NotreDame Basquille. In front of it were some horse-drawn carriages. There was about 20 or more stained glass paintings. It was a very spacious church. It had many rooms. There were also a few statues. Some people have their weddings at the church. The waiting list for a wedding is two years. It seemed weird that such a big city like Montreal was so quiet. That was because most activities in Montreal take place underground. Our next stop was a short picture and rest stop near the Olympic Stadium. I took a few pictures of it. None of us went there, though. Our next stop was a huge church for all religions. I took a picture of it, the garden, a large building close to it, and a statue. We passed by one of the biggest graveyards in the world. It had over 1 million graves. Our final stop was on top of a huge hill called Mount Royale. I took pictures of my family with a view of the city in between them. I also took a picture of the whole city. We were on the opposite side of where the Olympic Stadium was. It was miles away.

We went to Quebec City, Quebec. Quebec city was the first French settlement in North America. All the street signs and names were in French. It really was like a European city. We saw a park that went on for acres and acres. There was also a beautiful fountain built by a clothing store in Quebec. We also saw a statue commemorating a French woman by name Joan of Ark. After the tour, my sister and I got soft ice cream. At night, we went to the outskirts of Ottawa, the capital of Canada.

The scenery and landscapes in Canada were beautiful. California was a desert compared to Canada. It gave a whole new meaning to the term greenery. The flowers were all sorts of colors. The roads there were thinner than the ones in the U.S. The flowerbeds on the side of the highway were extravagant, exotic, and colorful.

On 7/27/08, we went to the Museum Of Natural History. We started with pre-history. We saw the bones of ancient mammals, reptiles, and dinosaurs. We saw a mini-movie about how the dinosaurs went extinct. In room 2,we learnt about modern mammals. In room 3, we learnt about the ice age. In room 4, we learnt about birds in the bird gallery. We went to the gift shop afterwards and bought some books. We went to the Capital Building soon after. The Capital Building is where the Canadian parliament has meetings. We took a few pictures of it and left. We were headed for Detroit. At lunchtime, we bought pizza from Hot Fresh Pizza Pizza. It was the most delicious pizza we ever ate. It took us 9 hours to get to Detroit. We left Ottawa at 1:00 and got to Detroit at 10:00. When we got there, I played with my cousin for hours.

On 7/28/08, my grandmother, sister, and mom went back to California. Vignesh and me played with aircrafts in the morning. It was funny. We each had two planes. Vignesh launched 100s of heat-seeking missiles. The first time, I shut down all my power and they went to the sun. Luckily, my base was in Asia, where it was nighttime. At Vignesh’s base, it was daytime. His base got incinerated. The second time, I did the same thing and the missiles hit Destiny, a spaceship that was going to colonize Mars. Then I launched a space ship. It colonized Mars first, so I won the game. We also played Wii sports and built our own army camp.

On 7/29/08, I left for California at 4:00 am. When I got home, I did some math and found out we drove and flew for 36 hours during our trip. That’s 1 and half days. My trip was exciting and fun, but in the end, I was happy to get home.

Another Interesting Week: Week of July 12th, 2008

I’d been waiting for July 11th for a long time because I was going to my friend’s house. I got up early to go to my mom’s company’s cafeteria because she is allowed to bring a visitor once a month. I had heard stories about it from my mom. I expected it to have lots of tasty things inside. We ate chocolate muffins, bagels, Fanta, and a croissant. I also expected it to look like a normal building, but it looked more like a tropical hotel. Later that day, I went to my good friend's house in Cupertino. There, I swam and played with my friends for an hour and had a water battle. I had never done those things before. Then we played on her Thrillville off the Rails on her WII, played Apples to Apples Junior, and played Super Spy. That evening she came for a sleepover at my house. We built warships and battle robots out of legos. I have a lot of spare parts and I made stuff out of them just for entertainment. After we had dinner with my friends’ parents we watched the movie Alvin and the Chipmunks. I fell asleep a little after it started.

After mridanga class today (July 12th), I went hiking at the Rancho San Antonio Reserve with my friends and family. We walked for 1 mile and took a break. When we sat down for a break, we ate fruit-rollups, grapes, and muffins. We spotted some deer just before our break. We walked for 1.7 miles and then started on our way back. We saw some geese on the way back. My friend and I also pretended to be the Mystery Hunters from TV. We went down a trail that was not part of the hiking trail. We found a very clear river and a tortoise and it’s lair. On the way back home, we ate Kit-Kat bars, pizza, Pepsi, and to cap it up, ice cream @ Baskin Robbins.

Tuesday was my grandmother’s birthday. We were going to a really good restraunt we sometimes eat at called Saravana Bhavan. It is a terrific restaurant. We went there with my aunt, uncle, and cousins. Just before we left, we ate a small slice of chocolate cake. First, I had 15 mini idlis. I was starving, though. I wanted to eat a chana bathura. It was as wide as my stomach, but not as thick. I quickly finished it, and it was delicious. All in all, it was a great day.

On Wednesday, I saw a terrific movie called Journey To The Center Of The Earth, which is based on the Jules Verne novel. My grandmother, mother, sister and I went to a picnic in a park. We went to a picnic since my mom had taken the day off. We were going to watch Journey To The Center Of The Earth after our picnic. First, We ate some madurvade and chapatti. We played for a little while. My mom got me some ice cream after I ate my chapatti. It was delectable.

In Journey To The Center Of The Earth, a geologist named Trevor is losing his laboratory, and he is surprised to see his nephew Shawn when he visits from Canada. Shawn finds the fourth blip on Trevor’s world map because of a secret code found in his missing fathers copy of the Jules Verne novel, Journey To The Center Of The Earth. They go to a laboratory of a geologist whose name was in the secret code in Reykjavik, Iceland. The find out the geologist had died. They go with his daughter Hannah, a mountain guide. Just when Trevor finds what he was looking for, a lightning storm rolls in and lightning is attracted to the thing Trevor is holding. The lightning caused a cave in in the cave they were taking shelter in. They get to the center of the earth, and find an exit. On the way to the exit, they face giant, man-eating anglerfish, huge plesiosaurs, and finally, a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Shawn had gathered some diamonds while they were underground. They were blown out of Mount Vesuvius in Italy. They crash into a strawberry farm, but repay the owner with a diamond. Using the rest of the diamonds, Trevor buys a new laboratory.

I also saw another great movie called Kung Fu Panda a little while ago with my mom, grandmother & sister. In Kung Fu Panda, a panda who dreams of being a kung fu master named Po works in his father’s noodle shop. One day, his idols, the Furious Five, are finding who the legendary dragon warrior his. No one except Master Ugwe, the one who chose Po to be the dragon warrior, believes him to have what it takes to be a Kung Fu master. One day, however, the Furious Five disappear. They were secretly going to battle Tai Lung, an evil snow leopard. While they did that, Po learnt many skills. Finally, Po was able to defeat Tai Lung.

July 19th was my cousin Avinash’s second birthday. He had vanilla milk cake with Kung Fu Panda theme, strawberry and vanilla ice cream, and juice and soda. We stayed there 6 hours.

Tomorrow, might go hiking at Lake Elizabeth Park.

This week was a spectacular one. I’ve never experienced something like this and I hope that I will experience it again in the future.

My ‘Fourth of July’ Weekend Activities

These three days, I’ve done many things. On the first day, I went to the Pichetti Ranch. I had a great time watching the scenery. On the second day, I went to Brentwood’s Smith Family Farm. I picked a whole bunch of tomatoes and 2 boysenberries. On the third day, I went to see a movie called WALL-E with my dad and sister. It was the best movie ever. I will now explain in extreme detail what I did at Brentwood and Pichetti Ranch, and WALL-E.

Pichetti Ranch:
On the first day, 7/4/ 08, I went to the Pichetti Ranch. We were going hiking there. We left at 9:00. it was a foggy time of day. When we got there, we saw a dancing peacock. A peacock dances during foggy weather. We took a picture of it. After seeing the peacock, we started hiking down the Zinfandel Trail. We hiked for about 0.5 mile when we saw a non-existent lake. It looked more like a very green field to me. Then we hiked for another 0.5 mile. We stopped and took pictures. I took 2 pictures and my sister took 2 pictures. We hiked for 1.5 miles after that. We were almost to the other side of the trail when my sister got hungry. We went back to the last trail intersection we saw. There we sat down and ate our brunch. We had idli and sambar for our brunch. It was the best brunch I ever had. Then we took the Bear Meadow Trail until the next intersection. On the way there, we saw a huge pile of horse dung. We took the Orchard Loop trail from the intersection. It had a huge, steep ascent. When we finally got back on flat ground, we were relieved. Then we had to go down a bunch of steep descents. When the ranch was in sight, we took the long way around it. We saw the peacock one last time and left.

Brentwood:

On the second day, I went to the Smith Family Farm in Brentwood. It was a huge place. It even had a fruit stand. The first things we picked were tomatoes. They were ripe, but really dirty. We still picked 12 pounds of yellow tomatoes. We felt like we walked for 2 miles before we got to the boysenberry field. There were barely any boysenberries there. Somehow, we still found 1 and half dollars worth of boysenberries. After picking fruits, we went to the fruit stand and got strawberries and a watermelon. I carried a huge watermelon all by myself. After getting fruits, we went to the P.W. Market and got the most delectable chocolate donuts we ever tasted. Then me, my sister, my parents and grandmother went to the Livermore Temple for prayer and lunch. After having lunch at the Livermore temple, we went home.

WALL-E:
On the last day of my weekend, I went to a movie called WALL-E, which was made by PIXAR animation. It’s about a robot named WALL-E. He is the very last WALL-E robot on earth. He was there for 700 years compacting garbage while the human race was living on a luxury space cruiser. WALL-E meets a robot named EVE who was sent by the humans to find life samples on earth. The only thing she thought of was finding life. When EVE goes into lockdown because she found a plant, a spaceship came down to Earth and takes EVE. WALL-E, however, hangs on to the ship. When EVE gets to the humans, a sinister robot programmed to make sure the humans never get back to Earth named AUTO steals the plant. WALL-E is sent to the repair ward with EVE when the plant is stolen. There, WALL-E frees a bunch of rouge robots that aren’t programming slaves. With the help of WALL-E, MO, EVE, and the rest of the rouge robots, the humans are able return to Earth. However, AUTO destroyed 99 percent of WALL-E. EVE rushes WALL-E to his room where he kept his spare parts and trinkets when they got to Earth after shutting down AUTO. She quickly rebuilds him. However, WALLE becomes a programming slave. Somehow, however, EVE is able to remind WALLE about his past. The human race was saved.

Fourth Grade In A Snapshot

This was an awesome year. I've got a lot of experience that I will keep for life this year. Now I know school is fun. I've had to be very responsible ever since I became an intermediate.

I joined the Student Council for the first time this year. The Student Council is a group of students that makes decisions for the students of our school. I wanted to run for the treasurer. The treasurer keeps records about how much money the school has. I wrote a 3 minute speech with the help of my parents. I was going against a lot of people. Although, I lost for the treasurer's post, I became my classroom representative. We chose the winners of the Pomeroy T-Shirt Contest, the spirit days we would have this year, and we ran the Student Store.On 6/6/08, we had our last meeting. We had a pizza party at our last meeting. It was six days before the last day of school. I also had my Student Store shift on that day. My partner, Anthony, and I made a ton of money for the store.

I joined chorus for the first time this year. Chorus is a group activity for students who are willing to sing. 12 people participated in chorus. It was managed by Mrs.Stalder and Mrs.Woo. We sung 12 songs from around the world, and three from America. The foreign songs were from Ireland, Germany, Italy, Israel, Russia, Japan, New Zealand, Kenya, South Africa, Argentina, Mexico, and Cannada. All the girls except two quit chorus, but all the boys stayed to the very end. We also had to draw posters representing each country. I, with the help of my dad, drew the Red Square of Russia and the Leaning Tower Of Pisa of Italy. We also had several lines each. We had to memorize them. Thanks to the lines I had, chorus enhanced not only my cooperative singing skills, but my public speaking skills as well. We had three performances. each time we showed the same thing. First we performed for the 4th-6th graders, then to the kindergarten-3rd graders, and finally, to the parents of the chorus members. On the day after our last performance, we had a pizza party.

We had kinder buddies in our class year round. We helped our kinder buddies with art projects. My buddie's name was Vernon. We also did special things with our buddies. In November, we watched a movie about Thanksgiving. In March, we had an Easter egg hunt with our buddies. In May, we went with our buddies to the Oakland Zoo. On the day before the last day of school, we saw our buddies' graduations. They sung a lot of songs. After recess on that day, we saw our buddies for the last time. Everyone ate popsicles and played tag.

This year, we learnt about Missions. When we were done with the Mission unit, we went to Mission San Juan Bautista. My mom was a chaperone for that fieldtrip. We explored the mission. We had questions given to us and we tried to get the answer. We went to buy ice-cream after lunch. We also went to gift shop and bought some amethyst stones. My favorite place was the church. The church had a black cat in it. I also discovered a secret passageway outside the mission, but it led nowhere. We also saw many stage coaches in the mission.

I went to the District Science Fair for my second year running this year. My science project determined which over-the-counter antacid neutralizes stomach acidity most efficiently. I tested 4 antacids. I also took pictures and wrote a log about my project. It was also my sister's first time in the District Science fair. I did many experiments for three months. First I found some very acidic foods. Then we found 4 bases, or antacids. Then we measured how much the pH was. pH is how much hydrogen ion concentration is in a solution. Anything under 7.0 is an acid. Anything over 7.0 is a base. 7.0 is neutral. Water has a neutral pH of 7.0. I also learnt many formulas. My mom helped me do my experiments.

One of my greatest achievements this year is being the top reader in the school (1-6th grade). At the end of the year, I had more than 678 Reading Counts points. The people who got closest to my amount of points had 600 points. Last year, I wanted to get 500 points. I had the most points in all the primaries. I stopped at 510 points. I could have made 600. This year, I wanted to get 600. When I got to 600 points, unlike last year, I still had a lot of time until the end of the school year. So I decided to get 700 points. I was almost there on the day of the last Reading Counts assembly, but after that assembly, there was no more Reading Counts for the rest of the year.

I got many academic awards in fourth grade. I had to work hard to get them. I got academic awards for science, the Science Fair, Social Studies, Math, and reading, but I didn't get the fine arts award & the physical education award. The reading award also had a key chain and Borders (book store) gift card with it. The rest of the awards came with coupons for restaurants. At the end of the year, I got 11 academics awards. I even got a special gift from my teacher for being top reader. And finally, I got my report card. I got a O (Outstanding) in everything except art. I still got an S in art, which is good. And my most important award is my ticket award. I got the most tickets in the class. My teacher gave me 2 free AMC tickets for any movie more than 2 weeks old. It doesn't even have a money boundary.I also got responsibility, caring, and sharing awards. In fact, I got 2 responsibility awards. I also got the O.D.S award (Order of Distiguished Service award).

I worked with Mrs Downey, Mrs.Stalder, Mrs.Woo, Mrs.Patner, Mrs.Anand, Mrs. Rasmussen, Mrs. Melinda Manalo, and Mrs.Brown this year. I did chorus with Mrs.Stalder and Mrs. Woo. I did O.D.S. for Mrs.Patner and also did Student Council with her. Mrs. Anand was my science teacher. Mrs. Melinda Manalo was my physical education coach. Mrs. Rasmussen was my buddie's teacher. I did O.D.S. for Mrs. Brown. Ms.Downey was my class teacher and I also did some O.D.S. for her. Mrs.downey taught me a lot of things. She is also my favorite teacher. She was also our temporary physical education coach. She also helped me make new friends. My good friends this year were Stephen, Tiffany, Rachel, Nicola, Vishal, Andre, Aniruth, Anthony, Christopher, Hannah, Miguel & many others too.

I started to play the mridanga, which is an Indian musical instrument, this year. I started learning in October. I'm getting better now. I'm learning from the famous mridanga player Sriram Bramhanandam. I'm now learning things to play for a rythym called Adi Tala. On the last day of school, I played in front of my class. I've been learning how to play the mridanga for almost a year.

I also started to play soccer this year. I'm not the best player on my team. My teams name was the Demons. We were all under 10. We lost lots of games, but we won a few. We still won our last game. But since we didn't beat the lions, the opposing team in our most important game, we didn't go to the finals. I got the most improved offensive player title.

I passed the gold level at Happy Fish Swim School and I'm going to be on a swim team through the summer.

I also learnt how to play tennis this year. I'm slightly better at tennis than soccer. I can keep balls in play and I'm pretty good at Running Doubles. My favorite things are Getto Tennis, Around The World, King Of The Court, and Running Doubles. I really like doing drills as well.

On the whole, this was a very eventful year & I miss school. I hope fifth grade will be as good. I'm looking forward for a terrific summer.

Reading Counts

A while ago, I got 600 Reading Counts points. Reading Counts is a program for everyone at our school. For every 25 points, we get an award. My previous record was 510 points. 600 points was my goal. I read all the Harry Potter books, all the A Series Of Unfortunate Events, Leon And The Spitting Image, Henry And Fudge, Island Of The Blue Dolphins, Indian And The Cupboard, Return Of The Indian, Mystery Of The Indian, Zia, all the Guardians Of Ga’Hoole books, and The Misadventures Of Maude March. Now I am reading By The Great Horned Spoon, Charlottes Web, Sea Of Trolls, and Mystery Of The Cupboard.

Now I have 664 Reading Counts points. My new goal is 700 points. I learnt a lot from these books.

To My Mom On Mother's Day

My Hand

My hand can
Hold so many things,
Like a pencil, book,
Or toy...
But holding
Your hand any day
Brings me the greatest joy!
I get joy from books and toys,
Sure I do,

But I get the most joy from you!

Happy Mother's Day!

Finishing the STAR test

In early May, I finished my Star Testing. I had tested for four days. I was really happy because I would have to do no more practice tests. I did Language Arts and Math testing. It was really easy. Incidentally, I have to do the SAT test on the day after school ends. The upside: the district has identified me to be a fourth grader with better academic skills. Hope I can do well in that.

As soon as the SAT test is over, I can relax.

My Gold Ribbon

A week ago, I passed the gold level in Happy Fish Swim School. I finished Happy Fish Swim School completely. I was surprised because I finished in the first session of gold I was in. I thought there was only a 40-60 percent chance of me passing. We stayed for almost half an hour longer so I could get a picture of myself with the gold ribbon. I felt really happy. I knew some of the people on the gold wall of fame, and finally my picture was going to be on the gold wall of fame. I was also happy because my picture was going to be the first one on the fourth gold ribbon wall of fame.

I am going to practice competitive swimming during summer break.

A Visit to the Planetarium

"Hey, did you hear about the De Anza Planetarium, Bobby?"

"Sure I did, Joe. I heard they have an Infinium Star projector"

"Really, Bobby?"

"Yup, Joe"

"Wow, Bobby"

"They even have light shows, a domed IMAX theater, and a 50 foot tall observatory, Joe"

"David told me ge saw an IMAX movie there!"

"Hey, did someone call my name?"

"Hi Dave, Joe and I were just talking about the Planetarium. Can you tell us about it?"

"Okay guys. We had to wait half an hour to get in. It was an interactive movie. Some kid yelled out all the right answers for the questions. We learnt there was a series of catastrophic events before there was life on Earth. I learnt Mercury was bombarded with comets; Venus is the hottest planet; Earth might turn into a lifeless planet; Mars once had water; Jupiter has a one-hundred year old hurricane; Saturn is made out of gas; Uranus has a diamond core; Neptune had a short hurricanes and Pluto might be a large asteroid or a moon from another solar system. Finally, we had a tour of the stars. It was stupendous"

"We'll sure be going there sometime. Right Bobby?"

"sure. We will, Joe!"

-**-**--

(The kid who gave answers was yours truly)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I wrote this report in July 2007, as soon as I read "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows".

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
J.K. Rowling started writing the Harry Potter series of books in 1998. The hero of the series is a boy named Harry Potter, who goes to study wizardry at a magic school. All the books in the series have become very popular. The seventh book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released in July 2007.

J.K Rowling has written 6 other books about Harry before Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I have enjoyed reading all of them. They all lead up to the final confrontation against the Wizard Voldemort. Harry goes to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry when he is eleven years old (first year), gets rid of Voldemort pretending to be a teacher,and gets rid of the powerful Sorcerer's Stone which could make anybody rich and immortal. Harry kills the Basilisk, the evil monster in the Chamber Of Secrets, destroys a diary that he doesn't know about. He learnt that he could speak parseltounge (language of snakes), learnt where the Chamber of Secrets was,and learnt about Voldemort's past when he was twelve (second year).Harry learns who really betrayed his parents when he was thirteen (third year).Harry learned what really happened to Barty Crouch Jr. and gets entered in the Triwizard tournament by accident and brings Voldemort back alive when he was fourteen (fourth year).Harry learned about the Order of the Phoenix a defensive group against Voldemort, stops Voldemort from gettting the Phrophecy that was supposed to tell what would happen between Voldemort and Harry. Finally he gets the Ministry of Magic knowing that Voldemort was back (they had been discrediting Harry for a long time and said Voldemort wasn't back) when he was fifteen (fifth year). He learn't about the Horcruxes ,saw Voldemort’s past,and learned what he had to do when he was sixteen (sixth year).


The book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" is the story of Harry's seventh, and very last year at Hogwart’s. Harry, however has quit the 7th year since his favorite and only headmaster had died during the previous year. In this book, Harry gets rid of Voldemort, to free the world from evil. This year Harry goes camping, infliltrates the ministry of magic, steals something from the wizard bank, finds the sword of Griffindore (one of the school houses at Hogwarts), finds the horcruxes (worst kind of magic) that Voldemort needs to survive. He destroys them and finally kills Voldemort. The seventh book is the best but scariest book. I think it’s the best book of all time.

This book is famous. It’s more famous than the rest. It has absolutely horrible things, but still extremely mysterious. It is also scarier than the rest of the books in the Harry Potter series. There are hundreds of murders, but it’s still a classic. It will be famous for years to come. Almost everything is explained in the end. Harry finds out everything he has to do in the very end, when a teacher Harry hated dies. He learnt what everything meant in the very end.

The end is quite different from what the rumors said before the book was released. Harry doesn’t die. It has a very good ending. The story ends at a time after 19 years after Harry finishes his stay at Hogwarts. Harry and his friends Ron and Hermione are sending their children to Hogwarts too. Harry's son Albus told Harry that he didn't want to be in Slytherin (one of the houses at Hogwarts). Harry told him about the mean teacher Snape, who was dead for 19 years. After Harry told him that, Albus wasn't scared of being in Slytherin.They said good bye to each other .Harry's lightning scar hadn't hurt for 19 years. All was well.

Overall, J.K. Rowling has done great work on this book. I’d give her the best rate there is. I say these books are the best this century, millennium, and the best for all times. You should read it and treasure it

I really liked reading the Harry Potter books. It took me 4 days to read this one. I've convinced my parents to read these books. I encourage you to read too.

Wednesday’s Eclipse

On Wednesday, February 20, 2008, there was a lunar eclipse. Me and my dad had been waiting for it ever since we saw the newspaper on Monday, February 18,08 It started at 5:30 P.M. I started looking at the moon when half of the full moon was gone. I hadn't known it had started until then. I looked at it through binoculars. Slowly, the moon was disappearing. We were the only people outside.

My dad told me that an eclipse happens when the shadow of the earth covers the moon and he illustrated it with my sister by using the shadow of his hand. He slowly moved his hand across the light of a streetlamp.A shadow formed on my sister's face.Then the shadow left when he moved his hand away from my sister's face.

When the moon was almost completely gone, mist started to gather around it. After it was gone, we waited for about an hour inside. My dad told me about lunar and solar eclipses while we waited for the moon to be seen again . When we saw the moon reappear, we saw it reappear after half of it was already back.

It was the first eclipse I saw!

Sankethi get-together 2008 sankranthi habba

Yesterday I went to Sankethi Koota. It was at Sanathana Dharma Kendra. This was our Sankranti meeting.

I was in the art contest. I drew the Ganesha Yantram. The Ganesha Yantram is a geometrical figure that has religious significance. It represents the power of Lord Ganesha. Next year, I will draw it again on Ganesha Haba {festival}. I practiced drawing the picture a number of times. I didn’t want to be in the art contest at first, but after that I started to like drawing. I only had help once. We had 1 hour to draw our picture. Swathi did a Sankranti village scene. Sanjana, Sanjana, and Sanjana (threesome!) were also in the art contest. I didn’t think I was good at art until now. I finished with ten minutes to spare. Aditi, Aditi, and Ananya were some of the people I knew that were in the art contest. My drawing was the neatest, but I didn’t get a prize. Swathi won second place in her division.



Then I played with my friends. Soon after, I had to do a play. It was the Kannada version of “The Emperors New Clothes”. I had to practice the play every day for 2 weeks. When we started practicing, it was a bit difficult, but the more we practiced, the better I got. My dad made a English script for us. I was the raja{king}, Swathi was the darji{dressmaker}, and our younger cousin, Aditi, was the innocent child. Everyone thought I was a laugh riot. I had to come out in biking shorts and an undershirt in the last act. I also got chocolate.

Then I played army freeze tag with my friends for a long time. Then I served food in the cafeteria. Finally, after talking with my friends for a while, I left. I enjoyed the day a lot.

Song of Milpitas

Oh, you may think I am small
But don't judge on what you see
I'll change my name if you can find
A better city than me

You can live in giant cities and tiny towns
But I'm the proudest of'em all
You can live in California Landing
Where the houses are really cool

You may live in the north
Where the very smart live
You can move to the south
Where the very kind an loyal live

I've parks, schools and a library
Something for everyone
You are in a good town
For I am the perfect one!

*************************************

(I am a Harry Potter fan. So I wrote this poem on the same lines as from a Harry Potter novel. I wrote it sometime ago, probably in February 2007, for my class project on the city of Milpitas, where I live, and where my school is located. Incidentally, this was published in Swarnasetu - KKNC magazine for the year 2007)