Ender

While I was at camp this year, I read a ton of good books! The last assigned book we had for L.A. class this year at school was Ender's Game by Orson Scott card, and I was beyond excited. My dad had read the book to Ezra and I a few years ago, and we both loved it. So, I read it at school, and decided it was the best book I'd ever read. I then read the parallel novel, Ender's Shadow, which was almost as good, and ten times more interesting. At camp, I reread Ender's Game, then read Shadow of the Hegemon and Shadow Puppets, sequels to Ender's Shadow. I tried reading the final book in the Shadow quartet, but it seemed really boring (and the book got destroyed by water damage!).

For those who don't know, Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow revolve around an International Fleet military school in outer space, dedicated to turning the most brilliant young minds on Earth into military geniuses, for one purpose: Defending the Earth from the Third Invasion of the Buggers. And their sole hope is Ender Wiggin, a Third child. Both of his siblings were deemed wrong for Battle School, Peter for his ruthlessness, Valentine for her compassion, but Ender, his birth requested by the government, is the perfect mix. But the hand that is Graff, the "principal" of Battle School, can not overwork or underuse this tool that is Ender. If he breaks him, the human race is doomed. Ender's Game follows Ender, while Ender's Shadow follows his right hand man, Bean: a genetically altered boy, the smallest, smartest kid in Battle School fights the system, determined not to become a tool, for fear of being broken.

The remainder of the Shadow series follows the Battle School students after the end of the Bugger Wars, as the take their places in Earths new government, working toward the end of the wars following the Hegemony's fall from power. Bean also tries to survive many attempts at his friends' and his own lives.

Catching up

Crap!!! Sorry I wasn't able to write another post the night of my last one. After I got off the computer, my brothers claimed it for the rest of the night, and have since then. The only reason I can write now is because Jordan is still asleep, and Ezra flew to Virginia the other day to visit a friend. Jordan and I are still in Savannah for another week, until this Friday, though.

Yesterday, my Grandmama took Jordan and I to a family reunion, where I was able to meet a bunch of the family that I'd done research on for my family tree, and those I hadn't known existed.

Over the last week, I've seen a ton of new movies. I saw Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and I've gotta say, it sucked. My dad said he felt nauseous afterward, and there weren't even many disgusting scenes.

We also saw Ice Age III: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, and it wasn't half bad for an Ice Age movie. A bit silly of course, but it was way better than Transformers II.

And last, but certainly not least, the best movie of the series so far in my families opinion (Tilly, Jordan, and Ezra), HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE!!! Sadly, we weren't able to see it the day it came out. We had to wait until Thursday. The movie was terrific!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They did skip a couple of scenes, but what they didn't skip, they did really well. Especially the Weasly's Wizard Wheezes! Awesome place! Oh yeah, and the Felix Felicis scene was hilarious!!!

I'll probably have more time to write now that Ezra isn't going to be hogging the computer, so I'll write later, although I may not get a chance until tomorrow. I've found a lot of really good TV shows. Maybe I'll write about them.

I'm back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm finally back from camp, and I've got a lot to talk about. My brother is nagging me to go on the computer right now (I'm in Savannah, at my grandpa's and I don't have my laptop), but I promise that I'll write about camp, DC, and whatever I meant to talk about before I left ASAP. I'll write a post later tonight.

I'm so glad to be back on Blogger!

Happy birthday, Ezra and Jordan!

Whoa. Sorry I haven't posted in so long. I've been really busy with end of the year projects and such. I've got a lot to talk about over the next few days before I leave for camp for a month and a half.

But for now, I'd like to say Happy Birthday to my brothers, Ezra and Jordan. Ezra's is today, and Jordan's was on May 26. Happy Birthday!!!!!!!

San Diego - The Rest

Well, here's the outline of the rest of my trip. I just got back yesterday:

Seaworld - Day 2: We spent that morning at the beach, and hung out with Dan again until about 2:00, when we went back to Seaworld. We rode the Atlantis rollarcoaster (Ok), went to a Pet's Rule show (Ok, sorta lame. The animals were cool though), The Sesame Street/ Elmo 4D show (I can't believe they made me go to that. It was beyond lame.), Rode some Raging Rapids ride twice. You're sorta in a raft, and go through a bunch of water things, like waterfalls, water guns, and waves. You get soaked. The first time we went, I got a little wet, but not too badly, while 3 of the 6 in our raft got wet. The three that didn't, including me and Ezra, wanted to go again. The other's including Jordan, reluctanly agreed. Those three were nice and dry afterward... I wasn't. Ezra was though. We were going to go to another Shamu show that night, but we were too cold and wet, so we went home. I spent the rest of the night watching Batman Begins on TV. It was a pretty boring day. Better than Day 1 though.

Legoland - Day 1: Terrible. Not even gonna talk about it. Lame coasters, long lines. Terrible. The only semi-good thing about it was miniworld. They had lego sculptures of cities around the world, like DC, New Orleans, Vegas, New York, and a few others. Not too bad.

Pool - Day 1: We spent our last day there at the pool of the hotel we were in. It was ok. My eyes were sore after a while, I got a bit sunburned, I played some pingpong. It was pretty fun playing with my brothers. That night we watched one of the funniest movies ever, A Knight's Tale, starring Heath Ledger. Hilarious. I'll talk about that later.

We came home afterward. The first half of the trip was by far the best. Second half was really boring. Since I missed two days of school for the trip, I now have a ton of work to make up. We started reading Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie, we started two big projects, and we started a really important unit in Math that I need to learn.  Great.

San Diego, so far.

So far, I have mixed feelings about this vacation. The weather has been on and off. It was nice the day we got here, so we went to the beach, it was nice the next day, so we went to the San Diego Zoo, it was supposed to be nice on Thursday, so we went to Seaworld... wasn't so nice, and it was very nice yesterday, so we hung out at the beach again.

Beach - Day 1: We splashed around in the water, chased eachother around, and lay around in the sand. It was okay.

San Diego Zoo - Day 1: Amazing!!!! The Zoo here is huge, and has such amazing animals. They have about 5 Aviaries to go into (lots of birds), Giant Pandas, A really lame Sea Lion show, Giant Tortises, Komodo Dragons, lots of snakes, including a two headed one, an awesome Gharial, or something, and some nonexistant Polar Bears. It was a ton of fun!

Seaworld - Day 1: We spent the morning watching a load of shows. First was the Dolphin show, which was really amazing!!!! We sat in the Soak Zone, so of course, we got soaked. They had 4 dolphins and some wierd whale, that looked like a giant black Beluga. Next, we saw Shamu! We sat in the Soak Zone, (with ponchos this time), and only got splashed once. I'd already seen the show in Orlando anyway, so I wasn't too disappointed. Finally, we went to see the sea lion show. It was a dress rehearsal for a brand new show that was officially opening today, so we got to watch a few scenes over again, due to the messups. It was hilarious! It included two sea lions, Seamore and Clyde, a sea otter, whose name I can't remember, and a huge manatee. It was called Sea Lions LIVE! and was the sea lions and their tamers making fun of a bunch of TV shows. They made fun of Superman, American Idol, Iron Chef, Dancing with the Stars, and Survivor. It was so funny! Sadly, we left right afterward. It was freezing all day, with overcast skies.

Beach - Day 2: There are two beaches. One across the road, which is the Pacific Ocean, and one right by our house, which is a little bay. We went to the bay first, to play frizbee, then we went across the road to boogie board and Skim Board. Ezra and I spent the whole time boogie boarding with a kid from Colorado that we met, Dan. He's Ezra's age. It was a ton of fun boogie boarding. We're planning on going back to boogie board with Dan again today. 

Jordan wants me to take him down to the beach for now though, so I'll write about the rest of my trip in a few days.

Spring Break, San Diego, and reads

Finally!!!!! Today is the first day of Spring Break for me!!!! Wow. There's only a few weeks left of school. Then it's off to camp, then just a few weeks of Summer left, then High School... Wow. Everything is passing so quickly.

I got off really lucky. No homework for my vacation except for setting up a Science Project, which I can't do quite yet. On Tuesday, I'm gonna go to California for the first time with my brothers, My dad, his girlfriend, Jackie, and two of Jackie's kids, Emmy and Caroline, both of which are older than my brothers and I. My friend Marek got unlucky. He's going on a roadtrip with his family for 8 days into the middle of nowhere with his hyperactive little brother and no computer. Kathryn is even luckier than me. She's going on her annual trip to Hawaii. Lucky her. So many kids at my school are going there. I've never been to Hawaii, and I want to soooo badly. 

Well, we're going to San Diego. A huge zoo, Seaworld, and best of all, the beach!!!! Warmth!!!! It's been freezing for weeks here on Mercer Island. It's torture. And it's been raining. If it's going to be cold, it should at least snow instead of rain.

I've also got a mission over spring break. Kathryn wants me to read a book called The Shack that she's been going on and on about, saying somthing about it "strengthening her relationship with God." We had a long argument, or well, you can't really call it an argument. It was more like a discussion about religion. I told her I'd read it if I could start it before the end of break. I had already been planning to read The 13th Reality 2 over spring break (finally!) and before that, I have to finish rereading Brisingr. I'm probably gonna finish Brisingr tonight, so I'll be done with 13th Reality in a few days. Does anyone else know about this book, The Shack? It was a New York Times Best Seller.

Work, work, and, uh, more work

Whew.... I've had so much homework this weekend. I missed most of last week, and had to make up all of the work this weekend. The flu has been going around Mercer Island, and my family caught it. My mom's boyfriend gave it to my mom, who gave it to Jordan, who gave it to Ezra and I. Luckily for me, most of the school was sick too. Over 200 kids were out on Tuesday and Wednesday!!! Even a lot of the teachers were sick.

Well, I just finished (sorta) my massive load of homework. I had 4 math assignments (I only finished 1. My math teacher is very lax on all of that, and said I had a while to do it all,) 2 science assignments, 4 history assignments, 3 language arts assignments, and a spanish assignment. What a load! And even worse, the trimester ends at the end of the week, so I need to make sure everything is in by then! I've also got a huge test on Friday on To Kill a Mockingbird. I'll write about To Kill a Mockingbird once I've watched the movie. I finished the book a while ago, but I havn't seen the whole movie yet.

Sorry I havn't posted in a while. It's not that I've been busy, but I havn't had anything to write about. I havn't seen a movie in ages. No new books to talk about, other than To Kill a Mockingbird. Hmm.... Oh! I do have a book to talk about soon. I read The Underneath by Kathi Appelt a few weeks ago, and participated in an author chat on this chat website. I'll talk about that one soon, too. Hmm... I havn't gotten much work done on The Necromancer Apprentice. Yeah, nothing new has really happened. I'm seeing two Shakespeare plays soon, The Merchant of Venice and The Tempest. I tried reading The Merchant of Venice, but I gave up pretty quickly. It took me 10 minutes to even vaguely get the first page. And these are small pages.

Well, that's all really. I'll post soon. Oh, and to Bettina (and Jacoby. You havn't really talked 'bout them) good luck on the SATs!

Full Day of Writing: Day 1: Part 1

Well, I'm all set to write all day long. The only things that will probably stop my writing today is breakfast, lunch, dinner, and whatever my brothers will need while I'm babysitting them. (Hopefully they'll still be in a good mood after Sunday School at the synagogue.) I slept in a good long time, which is great. (Last night was a good night to watch Saturday Night Live.) So, now I can get to writing. (Wow. Short post.) I may post later in the day, not including night, to say how it's going.

Hannukah in Savannah

Sorry it took me so long to write this post. When I wrote the title down, I was sitting in an airport trying to access my blog from my new iPod Touch. (Sorry if I start to brag a little. I can't brag in real life without getting punched or countered by my brother, but I can't be punched here. (Maybe countered though.))

Right now, I am on vacation for winter break in Savannah, Georgia. I flew to Atlanta on Monday, and spent the night there. Then we drove most of the next day to Savannah. I spent the first night in Savannah with my friend, Jeremy. He had to leave to go to New York yesterday, though. Today, we went to see Marley & Me in theaters. It was terrific, yet sad. I'll talk about the movie later. We spent the rest of the day cooking, arguing with Jordan, watching an Ice Age 2 marathon, and playing around with my iPod. Tomorrow is my Grandma's birthday, so we are going to a reunion like thing at one of the family farms. I miss all of my friends and family at home though, so I want to go home soon.

Now, on to Hannukah. On the first night, I got an iPod touch (it is awesome!!!) and it is awesome!!! I've been going crazy with getting apps, music, and videos for it. I've realized, that it is much better to have an iPod with a screen, than a shuffle. I've only ever had really bad shuffles, so I'm glad for a change. On the second night, my Uncle Aaron and my Aunt Jenny got us a video game, and a pellet rifle for us to shoot airsoft pellets at the beach. (Don't worry, we won't shoot anyone. And if we did, the airsoft pellets aren't that dangerous. They would sting, but not injure.) Last night, no prestents, but tonight, we got a really old board game that we haven't used yet. 4 more nights to go, and 6 more days until New Years Eve.

Well, that's all I have to talk about for now. I'll write about Marley and Me, and the two Batman movies, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, which I saw recently, soon.

Ezra

My brothers are beyond annoying. However, Ezra is the one that can be truly evil. He starts fights with Jordan and I, and sometimes even doesn't listen to my mom when she is trying to break up a fight or get ready for something.

He loves doing stuff just so that my brother and I can't. Here is an example: He is playing his Nintendo DS. Jordan walks up to a toy of some kind. Ezra quickly closes his DS, and picks up the toy Jordan was going to play with. He is pure evil.

One time, I was playing a computer game... in a corner... behind the couch. My brother says he wants to do his homework down there. He sat down next to me. I was being sort of noisy, and he kept telling me to shut up. I got my mom, who told him, "This is a public room. They can be noisy if they want. Go to your room to do your homework or something." You want to know what he replied...

"NO."

My mom was furious. He does stuff like this a lot. However, sometimes he can be a good brother. Usually it's when my other brother, Jordan is being a brat. We usually are on the same page when that happens. Life with siblings is topsy turvy.

Oops.

Sorry about those two posts disappearing. I moved them to June 20 so that my brothers wouldn't see it until I'm at camp. Check back then to see the post.

Random Stuff: June

Sorry I posted this late. I've been very busy.

1. I have decided on my list of camp books. Check back on June 16th for my list.

2. My Culture Project on James Fontaine is finally done. I know that I got at least an A- on it. My presentation was supposed to be at least 10-15 minutes. Instead, it was 19 minutes long.

3. Hooray!!! School ends one week from today. And the last day is only 20 minutes per period. The second to last day is field day.

4. Hooray!!! Again! Next Saturday, the 14th is the day when I go to sleep-away camp. Sadly, starting then, I wont be able to post until early July. :(

5. I will soon be posting on two movies I've seen recently: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls and The Princess Bride. Both are great movies!

6. My brothers have both gotten new video games. It is very distracting when your working on school projects.

7. Speaking of school projects, I have another big project for school. It is a Baseball Statistics Project for school. We were supposed to pick a player and I chose Chipper Jones from the Atlanta Braves.

8. I can't think of any thing else to say.

9. Wait, one last thing. I'm going to have my contest to win a copy of Farworld: Water Keep by J Scott Savage soon, before I go to camp. I'll announce the winner when I get back from camp. Bye!

Happy Birthday, Ezra!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EZRA!

My little brother Ezra is turning 10 today.
Double digits. Congratulations Ezra!!!

Also, Hooray!!! It is June.

Percy Jackson and The Olympians: Battle of the Labyrinth

1. Sorry I haven't posted in the last week. I've been really busy with stuff. I have a culture project to do. I have Karate lessons. I have bar-mitzvah lessons. My Grandma Alice is visiting. Plus all of my normal homework.

2. Today was amazing!!!

We went to see Cirque du Soleil: Corteo. For those who don't know what Cirque is, it is a huge French circus group that does amazing stunts in a very theatrical way. It was so cool! My favorite acts were thier trapoline act, thier person in a wheel act (I don't know what it was called,) thier human trapeze act, and their juggling act. The rest of the show was still amazing!

3. Finally, today I finished Battle of the Labyrinth, by Rick Riordan. It was great! Now, there is only one more book in the Percy Jackson series, which started with The Lighting Theif, which I read again 3 days ago. 2 days ago, I finished it. Yesterday, I got Battle of the Labyrinth. It was a great book, but had a really twisted ending. I don't want to give away any spoilers, but I'll give a little synopsis. In the 4th book, after being chased by deamon cheerleaders, meeting an old human aquantince, and finding out that not only the lost god Pan, but the key to Kronoses victory over the gods might be hidden in the labyrinth, Percy is thrown back into the war, fighting for his life through an unsolvable maze. The gods face more betrayal and need Percy, Annabeth, Tyson, and Grover to find Deadalus, the inventor of the labyrinth before Luke does. Also, Annabeth is given a mysterious prophecy about the quest and Percy is having more dreams, about Luke and Kronos, Nico, son of Hades, and Deadalus and the truth of his past. This book is even more exciting then the other books. I can't wait for the next book!

4. Tomorrow, I am going to see The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.

5. I hope my brother Ezra is having a great trip! He is taking a trip to Virginia to visit his best friend, Brett.

Farworld: Water Keep by J Scott Savage

Author J Scott Savage has just released the cover and 1st 2 chapters of his new book, Farworld: Water Keep on his website. Click here to visit his post. His book will be released this September. I am so excited to read the 2 chapters. Don't forget to sign up for the Farworld Blog Tour to win an ARC of Farworld: Water Keep.

Lastly, Ezra (and I) are still sick from Saturday. It's probably the Stomach Flu. That's going around here on Mercer Island. I hope we get better soon. I'm missing so much school. Catching up is going to be almost impossible.

Random Stuff: May

Sorry I'm 2 days late with this. I'll get the hang of it in a while. Either way, even though I'm having a bad day, here is this months random stuff floating around in my head.

1.) Crud. My brother just threw-up again. This time it was on the carpet. Poor Ezra! At least my dad's pulling into the driveway now. Now my mom won't have to help Ezra alone.

2.) I hope we can go and see "Iron Man" next week. We had just gotten to the big, intense scene at the end when Ezra started barfing up his Icee. (Sorry. I've been repeating my earlier post all over again.)

3.) I have finished Warriors: The Power of Three: Outcast by Erin Hunter and I'm back into The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien, both of which I've/I'm enjoyed/enjoying.

4.) I need to delete my 2 polls. Then I'll need to think of a new poll to make. Do you guys think I should use Vizu polls? I hear they're pretty good.

5.) My culture project is going great! I completed the outline Thursday night. It is 2 1/2 pages long, which is way longer than anyone else's outline.

6.) OUCH!!! My cat just cut my finger. That hurt!

7.) Crud. AGAIN! Ezra threw-up again, this time in his closet. Mom and Dad are angry that they'll have to pay to replace that carpet now too. That's pretty much every carpet in the house.

8.) I can't wait for J Scott Savage, Author of the upcoming Farworld series to post the cover of Book 1: Water Keep. I especially can't wait for him to send out the ARCs.

9.) I am tired. It's been a long, bad day. I think I'll go upstairs with dad to watch a movie.

If anything else random pops into my mind, I'll post it here, but I'm to darn tired right now to continue. Good Night! Crud. I think Ezra's throwing up again. I hope he gets better.

Iron Man: Part 1

This kinda stinks. Here was my schedule for today:
1. Jon and Ben's Bar-Mitzvah
2. Go and See "Iron Man"
3. Jon and Ben's Bar-Mitzvah Party
4. Go to Bed

Now, here was how my day turned out:
1. Jon and Ben's Bar-Mitzvah
2. Go and See "Iron Man"
3. Watch my brother Ezra throw-up during the movie
4. Come home.
5. Start to feel sick.
6. Not go to Ben and Jon's Bar-Mitzvah party

I was going to post a review of Iron Man, but since I didn't see the whole think, I can't. However, my dad got passes from the manager to come and see the movie again. I think we're going next week. I'll post a review then. This stinks.

The Icebound Land + My Annoying Little Brothers

First of all, I am almost done with Ranger's Apprentice: The Icebound Land. I have about 30 pages left. Then I can begin book four, The Battle for Skandia. There are actually 7 books, but only books 1-4 are released here in the U.S. yet. The rest are all released in Australia though, so if you ever take a trip there, take your chance and get books 5, 6, and 7.

Next, MY BROTHERS ARE SO ANNOYING. They woke me up at 6:57 AM... ON A SATURDAY!!! SO THAT THEY COULD WATCH SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS LOUD ENOUGH! Tomorrow, we're going skiing, so I won't get to in then! Now I have to wait another whole week! They are in for a rough day... and I'm in for a rougher week. WASLs!!! Oh well, at least Ezra has them too.