Where the Heck is Matt?!

Where the Heck is Matt is a hard question to answer. He could be in England or Africa, Panama or India. With this guy he could be i the South Pole for all we know!

We are all the same and different at the same time. It is a contradictory that is very true. We humans want to be loved and heard and that is what we seek in others. Though some people don't care of others or what they need or want. These are the people who make us different, these are the people who make us unique.

In Matt's essay he describes himself as a caveman and that he has changed but his brain stayed the same. He says that his brain was designed to inhabit a network of about a dozen people, yet he lives in a world of over six billion people. I think that this is a funny thing to say yet it is very true. Usually you can only remember people who are important to you, but no more than that.

What I noticed in Matt's video is that when people joined him and danced they were all smiling. It made the people laugh and laughing is good and what I think gives meaning to life.

I hope that someday everybody will put down their differences and live in one caring community!

Com+pli+ment

On the blog Breaking the Frozen Seas Within there is a video. It is about two men who compliment people to make them feel good since the financial crisis. It is really nice to see what people do for peace. I think it was really nice of these guys to compliment people because it was a small sacrifice they did to make others feel good. Hopefuly people will see these two guys and think of them as roll models and follow what they did. This way mybe someday there will be world peace. So anybody who believes that mybe, just maybe someday there will be world peace, just start with a compliment! It could change someone's life.

Alexandra, That's My Name!

I don't like my name that much, Alexandra, it is long, bold and a very common name. My name has always been the longest in the class. Well who would have a name with more than 9 letters! In English everyone says my name as if they were walking on fire. But in Spanish it sounds different, softer and mellow, like when a river collides with the ocean. My name comes from Greek. It means conqueror or protector of humankind. It came from Alexander the Great. He was a young King of Macedonia and conquered Greece and Persia. I really don't think I can conquer anything like Alexander the Great did. Well for starters I'm not even royalty!
I was named after my grandfather who passed away. He was a very talented man. I wish I were more like him, but really, I'm very different. Well that's what I think. My grandfather did a lot of different things that I'm not very good at, for example he wrote poetry and sang! I don't think I can do any of that. Although even though I cant do as many things as my grandfather could I can still do other things that maybe my grandfather couldn't do! For example, can do gymnastics and I can play the piano and the guitar.

Even though my name comes from a long time ago it is still quite a popular up to today, and it is pronounced the same way in almost every language. But since my name is so long I have a lot of nicknames for example, Alex, Ale, Alexa and rarely Lexi. Even if my name is long maybe it isn't that bad. Maybe someday I will grow into it, maybe I will become Alexandra a female conqueror!

“Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.”

"Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home" Quote by: Matsuo Basho

I chose this quote as my title because it really inspired me. I think that this quote can show people that no matter where you go everything starts at home. Even if this quote isn't very long it is still inspiring and meaningful. Though there are still some people who might not understand this quote or won't take it seriously. But I think it is very important for people to understand that manners start at home and just because those people are at home, they can't treat their family different from others.

~Alex~

Malaysia Week!

Malaysia Week was really fun. It is about all the Middle School students go to different places in Malaysia. You can either go to Coastal or Rain forest. This year I went to Coastal. I went to Pulau Tioman an island located at the East Coast of Malaysia.
When we arrived there the first day we were there it was raining. So we rested in our rooms. It felt good after traveling on a bus for 7 hours and on a boat for 2 hours. That night I couldn't sleep. As it got later and later I started to hear little paws and screeching. I turned on the lights and saw a long pink tail go under the furniture. It was a rat! Apparently it was in the trash.
The next day we hiked for 5-4 hours across the mountain. There were many leeches and mosquitoes. It was very tiring but when we got to the top it really paid off. We got to swim in a waterfall! It was really cold but it was nice at the end. When we got to the bottom where the beach was we had to walk in the rain until we got to our camping site. When we got there we had to put up our tents.
That night we cooked our own dinner. That night our site leader told us there was a big boa constrictor near to out campsite, and three girls left their tent open. Luckily the snake didn't go in. It rained in the night and all our things were wet.
In the morning we walked for 1 hour to a turtle sanctuary. There we learnt about a turtle called Jo who was naturally blind, so she had no eyeballs. She was a green sea turtle but even though she can't see she has really strong sense of smell. After that we went on a boat for 2 hours and went to snorkel at this place called Soya. There we saw baby sharks and a variety of different fish. After that we went to the other side of the island on boat and went back to the hotel. We rested until it was time to go to dinner. That night we were exhausted so we fell asleep right away.
In the morning we went to snorkel to 3 different places, one of them being Coral Island. When we got to Coral Island the water was so clear we could see the bottom and the sand at shore was white and soft. We snorkeled there for about an hour. We went to this other place after that, it was a Marine Park. The water there was so deep I couldn't see the bottom. We didn't stay there for very long because most of the people weren't snorkeling.
The next morning we were rushed because we didn't want to miss the boat back to the main land, and if we did then we would've had to wait until the other boat comes at 4:00. We didn't have much to eat that morning. Luckily we were allowed to stop and buy a few snacks for the long way back home. Then when we entered Melacca we had lunch. The last day of Malaysia Week was sad, none of us wanted to leave this beautiful Island.

Australia!

Many people went out of Malaysia to visit family or friends or just because its a vacation they wanted to go out of the country. For my Christmas break I went to Australia! I've never gone before so I was very excited to go for the very first time! We went to Cairns, Gold Coast and Sydney.

Cairns was the first place we went to there I went to Port Douglas. We were planing on going to the beach but it was Christmas day so everything was closed so we had lunch at Rattle 'n' Hum and had desert at an ice cream shop called Wiked Ice. The second day we were in Cairns we went on a train to a little village not far away. There we went to a Australian zoo that only had Australian animals. So I had a picture taken with a Koala and a Kangaroo. Then we took a tram back to the city. We left the day after that and flew to Brisbane and from there we drove to Gold Coast.

The first day we were in gold coast we went to Sea World and went on some fun rides but you always got wet no matter what. The ride I liked the most was called Jet Rescue, you see every ride has a story to it. In Jet Rescue you have to save the Sea Lions. The ride goes really fast you can't even open your eyes to see whats happening which makes it fun. There is this other ride called the Bermuda Triangle. It is about a boat going into the Bermuda Triangle and finds aliens and it is in water and the thing starts to sink and you get wet but the boat doesn't go under water but the room does which makes it fun. At night we saw Kailee and her family in a strip mall so we had dinner with them. The strip mall was big and nice but it wasn't covered, and in the restaurant we were eating at wasn't covered it only had a little porch that was covered but not many tables could fit there and my sister, Kailee and I were siting outside and it started to rain! We tried to move the table in and luckily it fit. But then there were some umbrellas outside and they started to fall on us and the tables and plates were falling over too. We managed to get through it and fortunately we didn't get hurt, and Kailee and I called it The Natural Disaster.

The day after that Kailee and her family went to Warner Bro.'s Movie World. IT was so much fun! The first ride we went to was called Rio Bravo, it was very fun! We went up about 10 meters off the ground and went backwards for 5 minutes. Then we turned and went down this really steep hill and got very wet. Then we went on roller coasters and went to some other things they had there. After that we went to our hotels to dry off and go to dinner together. This night we decided to go to a covered restaurant so we went to Hard Rock.

On New Year's Eve I went with Kailee's family to Wet 'n' Wild, a theme park which is obviously filled with water slides. We went on many water slides and then went to the beach together. After that we went to a Mexican restaurant called Sayas. After we went down by the beach to see the fireworks at midnight. After that day we drove back to Brisbane and took a flight to Sydney.

The first day we were in Sydney we walked around the city. The next day we went to the Sydney museum and then went back to the hotel. The fourth day we were there we went to The Rock which is the old part of Sydney that hasn't changed since the 1800's. There we bought a lot of stuff. The nest day we went to the Australian museum and to the Sydney Zoo. The last day we were in Australia we went to the art museum and then left to Singapore.

We arrived a Singapore at 10:00pm. So we went to the hotel in the airport and went to bed. the next morning we took a plane at 6:00am to Malaysia and my adventure in Australia had finished.