Dissections are we were doing this week. Seriously. We started with a frog dissection This took two days to complete but went rally smoothly since we had done so much preparation for the task. For example, we had done a frog diagram packet, a work sheet that goes wityh a virtual dissection, and then the dissection itself. It wasn't that gross. The grossest part was wrench the poor frogs mouth open to get a good look at its vomerine teeth, and maxillary teeth, esophagus, and of course the front-hinged tongue. Then yesterday we were working with intestines. Our frog that I had was a female. We found and removed the sromach, liver, ovary, oviduct, small intestine, large intestine, heart, fat bodies, and some unknown objects that we couldn't put a name to.
   Today it was squid. Yes, they decided to to another dissection on squid. We were prepared for this one, too because we had some packets to work on in class. It was fun opening up the squid to look at the inside. After we had finished with the dissection and found all the parts, my teacher had us prepare the squid for eating. She had a fryer out and we all got a piece of calamari. It was chewy, but very delicious.

 I know that I have already talked about this subject before but I will go more in to detail. Today, like most Friday's I will be going to ACT an animal shelter. It is a beige building with only a couple signs announcing the center. There are two play yards for dogs on the outside, that are heavily gated. Inside the center you come upon the front desk where if you are a volunteer you will sign in. If you are not a volunteer you will need to get the papers and fill them out unless you are going to adopt a new pet. You could find those papers by asking a lady a the front desk to get papers. When you sign in or go to adopt one animal through the door you will see three cat rooms they probably have about fifty cats in all. Many still need homes so go and get them. Most of the cats are friendly, but some like to hang out where they are away from people under neath the table in the cracks. Of course, they do sometimes come out it is hard to persuade them. If cats are not your thing they have dogs outside.
  Volunteers will walk and play with the dogs. Sometimes you are given treats to hand out. There is one dog there that his last owners cut her legs off and left ear. She gets around fine, but has a little aggressiveness with people. She is super energetic though and my friends and I play with her a lot.

  I did fairly well Saturday, in Sacramento at the baton twirling competition. If you don't know what twirling is look it up or read other blog posts. I have new vocabulary for you guys though. Foundation events are stuff like marching, presentation, and other really short stuff. Solo, two-baton and three baton are not foundation events and that will be in the second half of the competition. I competed in both categories. So, my foundation events I won one time in military marching, the one I am good at at. What surprised me but I won the first presentation I had that day. Now if you knew that I have been twirling for six years, and had almost 15 competitions, and I have only won two, that it is  a really big deal.
   In my next events, the non-foundation events, I didn't place so well. Normally I do so horribly in these that I just hope I don't get last. My first event was two-baton. I tried, but as you know from last week, I haven't done my routine before. So, I got last. My solos, weren't much better. In fact, I got last at those, too. I would say the most important thing that I did that day, was that I tried my hardest to win.

  Tomorrow I am going to word thinking day for girl scouts. World Thinking day is an event for thinking about what happens around the world. Each year they have a theme. This year, don't know what the the theme is, but themes in the past have been on energy-saving, malaria, and more that I can't remember. Then a bunch of troops get together and create stands. The stands represent countries. So there is Canada, Japan, Zimbabwe, and yes even the United States. There are whole lot more, so don't just think that there will be four stands in a huge auditorium, because that is not the case. There is practically every country there. Plus, as a bonus there are other stands.
  So I can get my passport and learn all about the other countries, and other things, all the while creating crafts to go with it or tasting food from that country. So there is many things you can do there.

   Tomorrow I have another baton competition. This one is in Sacramento, and we will be driving there tonight. I am really nervous, because I have to do my two baton routine. It is where you have two batons and you have to twirl with them doing tricks. There is one tiny problem. Both batons must be moving at the same time, same pace, and can never stop. So this creates a whole other anxiety problem for me, because I did not want to do it. My mom forced me to twirl with the two batons for this competition. It was that, or go and do compulsories. I have a strong dislike for them, because all you do is stand in front of a judge and do tricks for them. This is boring that I don't like to do them. So  went with the two baton and now I am stuck on doing this. My routine is good though. There is one thing that got added to the routine that I don't like. Me. I mean I can do the work, I just do it sloppy. And that will dock off so many points off my score. See whenever you drop you have points docked off. If you have a completely flawless routine and the judge thinks so too, the highest amount of points you could get are 10.00. So far my highest is a 4.05. I am getting closer. The score for my two baton I don't have yet, because this my first time doing it ever. So I am really excited and nervous. One thing does give me an advantage though. I have been put in with other twelve year olds. So I am in the right category. Sometimes they don't put you in the right one and they have to make it bigger, because less people want to do it.
    I talked about my team earlier in weeks past, and now for the first time we are getting practice logs. My coach didn't think that we were practicing enough, so she is going to give us logs with the hours we need to practice. Then we practice and turn them in to her. We haven't gotten the logs yet but next Thursday we will get them. I hope that I practice enough hours. She already knew that two of us practice outside of class. We have been going to competition so you would think that you would practice. Some of my teammates though don't go to competitions and don't practice at home. We go and do our first competition in a couple months so we need to practice the most now. I can't wait until we go to competition for team, because I know we are really good. I just hope that we are so good that we win state and western regionals like we did last year. Those competitions are longer away then my first meeting for team, which is the Fresno competition on April 9, I think. Of course twirlers don't get any recognition at all. Although some colleges will give scholarships for twirling so that is a definite plus.

  The dream I had last night had two parts. Even though many people don't remember their dreams,I still remember it pretty well. The first half was where I was picking up my friend to go to a carnival for my little brother's school. She lived in a one roomed shack at the end of the road. In fact, she was the only house on the road. It was basically in the middle of no where. There was no street sign saying where it was. Just the shack. Then my brain just skipped over the carnival and me dropping off my friend, to go to the second half of the dream.
   Then, everything turned evil, and I ended up staying in my friend's house that had surprisingly enough space for both of us, and her family. We had to stay there, before the evil monsters, who were aliens that looked like humans, took over the house and ripped it to shreds. So, I had to run away from the area. I could find nowhere to hide, but behind a  rock. I hide while the aliens scanned and scoured the area. Then they started to use lasers against me. I eventually figured out how to beat them. They were allergic to carrots, so I just tossed carrots at the aliens and the evaporated in to mist.

  Last week I was talking about going up to a gym to see an instructor who will give us the coreography for the last half of our baton routine, and all about baton. This week I am going to tell you about what happened and what I am doing tomorrow. So we went to Rockland and to a gym with soccer games and other things going on so it could be that we had a very large audience watching us drop unsophisticated. Either way the music was fast and hard to keep up with. Especially some parts. We do things like one-spine catch left hand in to a straddle roll. Or a sashet  with a small thumb-flip in to a jump in to a reverse elbow roll, then an arm roll a pass and finally a whip up. That is the really fast part. Our instructor, the wife of a baton judge, taught us about the effort we need to put in to it. I try but I am really really really bad at it.
    So tomorrow I have a baton competition in Newark. There I will compete in marching(both beginning and military), and other foundation events. So, the best I can do is hope that I win. Marching in a way, is really hard. I mean it, too. You have to stay in the beat and you can't bounce. Plus, your arm needs to be straight and your legs have to be high.

           I read an article on teaching students math problems and other things and t improve on it. Two scientists came to a couple places to see what happened. In a Japenese classroom, the teacher was teaching how to draw a three dimensional cube. One boy couldn't figure out how to do it. So the teacher asked him to go up to the board and draw it. Normally, in America the teacher would pick the best student to go up to the bored and draw it. The bow drew the cube on the board and the teacher kept asking tthe class if it was right or not. Each time they mainly said no, and as the period wore on the boy kept drawing lopsided cubes, when as the period ended he finally got it right. The class applauded him for drawing the cube right. Another idea is that they gave kindergardeners  an impossible problem. One set were from America and they looked at the paper for thirty seconds and said we haven't learned this yet.

                 Tommorrow I have to audition for the Fresno and Madera county honor band. We have to play hard music and for my instrument it is extremely hard. I pla flute in band which is different from orchestra, since orchestra has many sharps whereas band has flats. Flats aare easier than sharps, in my opinion, since I have learned them mainly when I started playing. I hope I do well tommorow, but today I am as nervouse as a bee.

        Christmas is almost here and I am excited to get out of school with almost no homework for three whole weeks! There are so many things that I am excited about. My family is going to take trips exchange gifts on three different days, and just spend time with each other. I already know that my family is going to Monteray, since my mom told me that yesterday. This is going to be a lot more fun now, since I said I'm going to have little homework. That means more time to do stuff out there. My parents are also planning a trip to Los Angeles I think. Possibly a snow trip too. This Sunday I am going to be going to my grandma's house and then exchange gifts. We will have a Russian dinner and then talk until about two million hours later, we finally go home. That will be Christmas Eve Eve. The next day Christmas Eve we will have a nice dinner at home and then open presents. On Cristmas day we will go to church and go to my other grandparents house for a celebration day there. Another reason why I am so excited for Christmas is that my fast will break. That fast is called lent. Lent is where you fast from meat forty days before Christmas, and again before Easter. It is going to break next Tuesday, unless the world ends today like the Myan calender says.