Spring Backpack Camping Trip

  Pete Seeger said, “Do you know the difference between education and experience? Education is when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don't.” I went on a backpack camping trip with Mr. Mahon and Mr. Vail who are my teachers from OVS. I learned a lot of things that I did not know before. I believe the things I experienced during this trip are worthy and useful for me for the future. Because of these reasons, I do not agree with the decision which is to cancel the Spring Backpack Camping Trip because we will lose a great chance to experience some worthy things.
    At first, I had never been backpack camping before. This was the first time I went camping. On the first night, as soon as we got to the camp site, we started to set-up our tent. However, I totally did not know how to set up a tent. Luckily, my tent group taught me how it works. They were really patient to help me understand. Maybe I will not set up anymore tent in the rest of my life, but I still think setting up a tent was a great experience for me. It is because I will never know what is going to happen in future. I also learned how to pump the water, and start a fire without a lighter. Most people in the world do not know how to set up a tent, pump water with a pumper, and how to start the fire even they have a lighter, so at least these skills make me different from other people.
    Secondly, we had so much great time during the camping trip, and some of the places are really enjoyable. For example, the swimming pools and the beautiful views, gave us a lot of pleasant times. I really love the natural swimming pools because some of them are very deep, so you can jump in them from about five feet high. It was really cool to jump in natural swimming pool because it is totally different from the swimming pool in our campus. On the third day, we went to a camp site which is in the fog. It made us feel scary because we could not see very far, then we were not very sure what was in front of us. We slept in the fog because the fog surrounded the whole camp site. All of those things you can only experience when you go camping, you cannot feel them in the classrooms. I think all of the things that we did are very mysterious because those things are a kind of feeling, they are a kind of things you can never forget.
    At last, we also learned some survival skills. Mr. Mahon showed us about edible plant and how to get away from a bear. For example, you should put your food away from your tent when you sleep, then the bears will go to your food not you. Also, we learned how to know the direction without the tools. I think the most useful skill is how to get clean water because water is one of the most important things for a human. You should find a small bag, if you don’t have one, you can even cut your pocket, and then put some sand in the bag. Then pour the water into the bag, then you let the water come out from the bottom. Of course the water cannot be very clean, but at least it can help you to survive in emergency.
    We can see, I tried a lot of things that I cannot experiment in classroom. Let us think this way; the things we can only experience by ourselves when we go camping, or the things we can learn in class anytime we want. These two choices which one is more worthy for a person? I think most of people’s answer is the first choice. In China, we have an old saying, “Life is short for everyone, so experimenting more things is the same thing as making your life longer.”

How to Make Chinese Tea

  

How to Make Chinese Tea

There are a lot of kinds of tea in China. Nobody can ever know every kinds of tea very well. I am going to introduce how to make a “Tie GuanYin” Tea, which is my favorite tea. “Tie GuanYin” is really bitter, but it is good for your healthy, so you can learn to enjoy it. Trust me, it is amazing.

There are a lot of differences between making tea in China, and making tea in America. In China, if you want to make a real Chinese tea, you need to have a tea set. Usually, a normal tea set is not very expensive.

If you already have a tea set, then you can make a tea if you follow the directions.
1. Boil some hot water
2. Put some dry tea in a small pot
3. Put the boiled water in the small pot, and place the cover on for three mins.
4. Pour all the water out, but keep the tea. This is an important point, you never drink the first batch. We call that "Wash the Tea".
5. Then, do the same thing again. Pour the water in pot, and wait three mins.
6. Lastly, enjoy your tea.

Poetry Lessons

                                          Poetry Classes

    We just finished our poetry lessons. I learned a lot of things from the lessons,
and we had a lot of fun too. This is the first time I learned about the poetry. In China and Singapore, we thought poetry is not formal enough, so the teachers do not teach you about this special type of writing. However, I think the informal style is really fun to write poetry. It is because we don’t need to worry about the format, or other things which we should be careful about when we write an essay. I learned there are a lot of other styles of poetry, for example “Haiku”, “Cinquain”, and “Diamantes”. They also have their own format to write. I think poetry also can be very literal. Some poetry is really hard to understand because they are just the writer’s thinking. It means poetry is really free, it can be just your ideas and thinking. I glad I learned a lot of useful things from the lessons. I like poetry. This is my favorite poem which is I wrote.  





                           Seasons
Summer

hot and boiling sun

people putting sun blocks on

ice creams and ice blocks

Fall

Summer is over

animals preparing for hibernation

old leaves falling down

Winter

Soft blankets of ivory

people wearing scarfs and gloves

The cycle is done

Spring

Butterflies flying around

Gorgeous flowers blossoming

The cycle begins