2010!!!!!!!

Wow, this past week has been really busy for me!!


Since I am playing the tenor saxophone for band, we had to buy a saxophone for myself. Last weekend, we looked around at every music store, trying to find a tenor saxophone, but they were all out of stock!!! There won't be saxophones until the end of January, and band class starts on January 4th! I'm really worrying about what to do...


On Wednesday, Frances, Katy, mommy, daddy, Samantha and I all hiked the Twin Peaks! It was a lot of fun. The total amount of steps in the Twin Peaks is 1,200! But surprisingly, I still find Mt.  Butler more tiring than the Twins. The Twins actually isn't as bad as I expected! But, since on Wednesday, it was really foggy, wet and drizzling, there was a point in the hike that was very, very slippery and dangerous. Part of the second peak has lots of rocks, and on Wednesday, it was especially slippery. We all slipped at least once, but it actually made the hike more interesting, not just step after step after step.
After the long hike, mommy, daddy and I were invited to go to a party. The kids there were all boys, so I spent the night watching wrestling and things like that... not very fun for me. But towards the end of the party, I sang karaoke, which was quite fun :)


Last night, it was New Year's Eve!!! For dinner, Frances, Katy, mommy, daddy, and I ate a buffet together. I was really full after that. Frances and Katy then invited me to sleep over and count down to 2010. We baked fudge brownies and watched the movie 'Anne of Green Gables'. It's a really good movie and I enjoyed watching it. Then we counted down to New Years. We slept really late (or, technically, really early), so now I'm really tired. 

Mount Butler

Yesterday morning, mommy and I went down to a place called Causeway Bay, because we needed to buy some presents for Frances, Katy and Rachel, because they bought presents for me. Katy wanted nail polish, so mommy and I went into a huge nail and hair store, and the store sold all sorts of nail polish. I bought her a neon pink colored nail polish. For Frances, I bought her the album 'Echo' by Leona Lewis. I may want to get that album myself; it's really good! I bought Rachel 'Echo' as well, because she really likes Leona Lewis. I hope they like the presents!!


After buying all the presents, mommy and I went back home. We then went hiking with Frances, Katy and Samantha. There is a really hard hiking trail called Mount Butler, which is the trail that we hiked yesterday. It was quite tiring, but I still enjoyed it :)


After the long, tiring hike, Frances and Katy stayed over for dinner (pizza, yum!). 


When we were done eating dinner, we watched 'Pride and Prejudice' on the TV. But soon, they had to go back home because it was beginning to get quite late. 


Then, Sophia's dad called, inviting us over for dinner for Christmas Eve. I can't waittt!! 

When I woke up this morning, it happened to be another boiling hot and sunny day... so once again tennis became very tiring very quickly. But I still enjoyed playing :)


After tennis, mommy and I ate lunch in the Aberdeen, and when we finished lunch, we looked in a sports store. One of my tennis coaches at Wong Nai Chung says that I should get a jump rope for my foot work for tennis, so I bought a sports jump rope in the sports store. I haven't yet tried out the jump rope, but I really do wanna try it! I also bought a Babolat tennis bag. It can hold 2 tennis racquets and has loads of pockets to put stuff inside. 


When we got back home, Frances and Katy came over to my house to play. We took Samantha out for a walk to the reservoir. I was really tired after having such a tiring tennis lesson this morning. 


After hiking with Samantha, Frances, Katy and I all planned about what we should do during the Christmas holidays.

After school today, there was a mixed rehearsal for clarinet today. The whole band came and we all played together. There were trombones, trumpets, flutes, french horns, and others that I can't name. I had to leave the rehearsal early because at 4:00 I had a piano lesson. So when the time came for me to leave, I quickly rushed out to the entrance and mommy took me directly to piano. 


Turns out, we got to piano half an hour late, so there was only 30 more minutes left for the lesson. We only got to work on one piece.


After piano, I took Samantha out and played fetch with her again. But I threw the ball over the fence and lost the ball, so we only got to play for about half an hour.


For homework, I mostly did my writing homework. I've been working on a really long fantasy story called 'Once Upon a Golden Wheel' and I just finished it today! 

Sorry I couldn't write these past days... I've had really late nights. On Friday night, friends invited us to eat at the FCC (Foreign Correspondent Club) for dinner and we came back home extremely late, and on Saturday night, after playing about 3 hours of tennis at Wong Nai Chung, mommy, daddy and I went to the Chili Club for dinner and came home really late as well. 


Today was the Sedan Chair Race and Bazaar at the Matilda Hospital. Island Dance (the dance company where I take dance class) was invited to perform there. So this morning, I went over to Katy's house and we got ready together, then her mom took us to the hospital which was where we were performing. I only performed my disco dance, "Low". It was really windy up at the Peak which is where the Matilda Hospital is. It was freezing and the costumes were really thin so we were all freezing!! 


After the performance, Katy, her mom, mommy, daddy, and I all shared a taxi to go back home. 


For a science project for school, I had to get a water sample at the reservoir. So mommy, daddy and I walked with Samantha down to the reservoir. We scooped up some water and surprisingly, the water looked so clean!! I could barely tell the difference between purified water and water straight from the ocean!


We were walking back home with Samantha, and we decided to take her off the leash and play fetch with her. As we threw the ball and Samantha ran to catch it, she disappeared into the bushes. We couldn't see her anywhere. It was beginning to pour with rain and we had to hurry home to get dry, so we couldn't stay long to look for her; Samantha had run away loads of times before and we knew that she wouldn't come back just from a simple call of her name.


I was so sad. I kept worrying that she wouldn't come back and she would be stuck out in the pouring cold rain. But when we just got back home, Sophia's mom called us. She had found Samantha!! So daddy and I went back down to the Country Park where Sophia, Rogan and her mom waited for us with a very guilty Samantha. Apparently, Sophia had found Samantha in the barbecue pit and Sophia cornered Samantha and managed to catch her! I have no idea how she did it because Samantha is one fast dog, but I'm so glad that she's back!!! 

When I woke up this morning, I had to do my chinese book report which is due tomorrow. I spent a lot of time doing that. Practically the whole morning!


Mommy and I were planning to go shopping for things this afternoon, but then Grayce's mom called us, reminding us that it was Sydney's birthday party this afternoon... we had completely forgotten about it!! I quickly rushed to get a present and made a quick card. Soon, after practicing a bit of piano, the time to leave for Sydney's birthday came.


Grayce and her family came to take me to school, where Sydney's birthday took place at. 


At the birthday party, we did all sorts of fun activities, races, and games. The whole class was at the party and it was really fun! At the end of the party, we ate pizza for dinner, and we all started to have pizza eating contests... of course, I won (I ate 9 slices of pizza!). But I was really full afterwards... still, I really enjoyed it :D


Sadly, the party had to end, and mommy took Grayce and I back home. 


When I got back home, Samantha hadn't gone out yet, so I took her out and played with a tennis ball with her.

It was really windy this morning, so it was quite difficult to play properly at tennis today. But I still got really tired and sweaty after the lesson. 


When my tennis lesson was over, mommy and I once again went to my violin lesson. 


There is the sandwich shop called 'Subway' that is really close to where I take my violin lessons, so I ate lunch there. I even got 2 free chocolate chip cookies and a free can of soda!!! 


Mommy didn't want to eat a sandwich, so we also went to a noodle shop for mommy to eat her lunch. I just read my book which is called 'Cirque Du Freak' in the Darren Shan series. 


Mommy finished really quickly, and when she was done with her lunch, we walked around and looked inside some malls. There weren't any stores for children and everything there was extremely expensive, so we didn't buy anything.


When I got back home and quickly finished practicing piano,  Niki called and we played together. 


Before, I used to always say to mommy, "I really want this is my room.... I really want that in my room...." so mommy asked me to design my dream room and she will try her best to change my original room to the dream room. So when Niki came over, we got a cardboard box and began designing my dream room. We kept it realistic but I still think it looks really cool :D
So I gave the design to mommy and now she's gonna try to change it... I can't wait! If my room really does change, I'll make sure to take a picture of it and try to post it here!!


After all our hard work in designing my room (trust me, it was really hard), mommy, Niki and I took Samantha out for a short walk. We played fetch with her, but the ball when into the bushes and we couldn't find it anymore, so we just walked. It got really dark sooner than we expected, so we only really got to walk no more than half an hour.


When we got back home, Niki could stay for dinner!! We ordered pizza and we watched 'America's Funniest Home Videos' and 'America's Got Talent' on the TV. 

The Sunniest Day Yet

I don't remember Hong Kong getting this sunny before. Yesterday, I practically died out in the sun playing tennis!! It was so extremely hot! It felt so good to enter my air-conditioned room and take a freezing cold shower. After all that air con and cold showers, I became cold and I wanted to be hot again...


After my violin lesson, I had french fries from Mac-Donald's. 


When I got back home, I called Rachel to see if she could play. We went swimming together and we made posters to advertise about the Charity Bazaar. Hopefully more people will come this year!! 


After taking showers in the clubhouse, I had to go back home to practice my clarinet and piano. In the middle of clarinet, Rachel called to invite me to dinner, asking me to go to her house. So I didn't get a chance to start piano.


Rachel's two friends, Michelle and Kenny, came for dinner as well. We played on the computer, and Kenny brought his iPod Touch with him, so we played with that as well. Kenny really likes dogs, so Michelle, Kenny, Rachel and I went up to my house and looked at Samantha. We dressed her up with hair bands, necklaces, bracelets, sunglasses, and other stuff like that :)


Soon it got really late, so everyone had to go back home. 

I miss the buzz of voices all around the room. I miss the teacher talking. I miss the pencils scratching against paper. I miss the occasional crumple of paper as someone erases their writing. I miss school! I really wish school could start again... I have nothing to do without fun, exciting school, even if I have virtual homework to do on the computer.

So, like I said, I didn't do much today, since I didn't have school. But I woke up at around 10:45 A.M. today, so waking up later took some boredom away from my day.

After having brunch, I got an email from school saying that I would have virtual homework. So although I didn't really want to do homework, I went onto the computer anyway. I didn't have anything else to do right?

After some math problem solving, some current events and some writing, I practiced my 3 piano exam pieces. Although the exam is still a month away, I'm already really nervous about it!! I even have to sing!!

When I finished piano, I continued reading my book, 'New Moon', the 2nd book of the 'Twilight' saga.

Before I knew it, 2 hours had already passed! I rushed to the phone, eager to find someone to play with. Niki was the only one who was free to play because she is also in my school, so she doesn't have school, either, and all my other friends had school. Although Sophia is in my school as well, she couldn't play because she had gone out.

I had to leave Niki's house soon because I had to come home earlier to take Samantha out for a short walk. I couldn't take Samantha out later because I had tennis from 6:00 - 7:00.

When I was walking Samantha, I passed by loads of dogs, but surprisingly, Samantha didn't pull at all to play with the dogs. Before, Samantha would always pull and jump whenever she saw a dog. Well, I guess it's a good thing that Sammy doesn't pull when she sees dogs anymore... it's now easier to control her!!

After walking Samantha for a little bit, I immediately had to rush to go to my tennis group lesson. I'm glad that my tennis lesson is at night, because during the summertime, it really is too hot to play tennis during the day!!!

Although there was no school today, today was much more fun than I expected!! This morning, when I was still sleeping, Sophia called me asking if I could go swimming with her and have a picnic with her for lunch. I immediately replied yes, because without swimming and lunch with Sophia, I would be sooo bored!

I had brought my phone to the pool, so after an hour of swimming, we took pictures and videos. It was quite fun! But the water was quite cold, since it was still morning and the hot sun hadn't come out yet.

After swimming, Sophia's helper brought food to the pool side, and we had a picnic there for lunch. We had hamburgers and dumplings! Yum :)

When we finished lunch, we swam some more, playing games and talking. When we were starting to get sort of cold, we went indoors to take a shower in the club house.

After our showers, we went to my house and we picked out a movie together and watched it on the big-screen Macintosh in my room on my bed. We watched the movie 'Holes'. Our 2nd grade teacher read the book to us, and we really liked the book, so we watched the movie. The movie was really good as well!

Then it was time to take Samantha, my dog, out for a walk. Sophia and I took Sammy out together. Mommy came along as well. When we were on our way back home, we met many, many dogs. We also met a dog called Alex. She is 95% German Shepherd and she belongs to the Hong Kong Dog Rescue. Alex is 9 months old. Alex had a big sign saying: Adopt Me for Free! As soon as I saw that sign, I kept begging to get her.

Alex can sit, lie down, roll over, etc... Also, if you take Alex off the leash, if you call Alex's name, she will come right back, unlike Samantha. If we take Samantha off the leash, she would run off looking for food and never come back, even if we have treats in our hand. We also met a Yellow Lab called Simon. Simon is 3 years old and really well trained. We threw tennis balls for Simon to retrieve, and once, by accident, I threw the tennis ball into the bushes. Simon ran after it, and I thought Simon wouldn't come back, because that's what Samantha would do. She wouldn't come back at all. But after a minute or so, Simon came back... with the ball in his mouth!! I wish Samantha could be like Simon and Alex, so we could take Samantha off the leash and play ball with her, but we wouldn't do it now... not if there is a risk of losing her.

After a very fun but tiring walk with Samantha, Sophia and I went back to her house, because I was invited to another picnic with Sophia and her other friends. It was really fun as well. We played with hula-hoops and other things. The dinner was really nice as well; chicken wings, pasta, chicken, pizza and lots of other food.

Although mommy told me to go back home right after dinner, Sophia asked me to play at her house for an hour or so -- it was still really early! So mommy let me play with Sophia for a little bit, but I soon came back home because I have to go to bed soon.

I can't wait for tomorrow even though I don't know what I'm even gonna do tomorrow! But I bet tomorrow will have something to do with Sophia, and so will the next day... and the next... and the next... :D

Brunch

Today I went over to a place with mommy and daddy for a brunch. We went there because mommy's friend moved there, so we went to have brunch with her.

Mommy's friend has 2 sons called Cheng Wok and Christopher. I showed them my new iTouch and we played some games on it -- this morning I downloaded loads of applications!! They are sooo cool :)

We also went to see their apartment. It's quite big! It looks just like my friend Gina's apartment. Gina used to live there, too.

Once we got back home, I started working on my homework that is due tomorrow at school. It was very fun -- I had to do a collage for my writing journal, so in my collage, I put photos of me and my friends and pictures of my dog, Samantha. Now my writing journal looks great!!

When I finished my homework, I called Sophia, asking if she could go night swimming with me, since it was already quite late. But, nobody answered the phone!! So I called Frances and Katy, but they couldn't go because they already went swimming. I called a few other friends, but they were either busy with homework or they just couldn't go. So I ended up not going swimming at all today :(

Gotta get ready for tomorrow's school now!