The Boston Aquarium

Last weekend my family and I went to the Boston Aquarium. It's a very nice place and has all sea creatures imaginable, from penguins to sea lions to tiny little fish that look almost invisible! One thing that I really like is that in the center of the aquarium, there is a humongous tank filled with water and many types of fish like sharks, manta ray's and turtles. But the best part is that it's on a spiral walkway that goes around the tube so you can see what fish live at different depths and see things from different angles and around the tube are little (sort of) enclosed areas that you let you lean on something and look at the fish go by without being part of the crowd. This aquarium is extremely clean, extremely informative and extremely fun to explore.

You've got to be joking! #1

Some lame jokes that hopefully will keep you entertained for a while
~Beautician: Did that mud pack I gave you for your wife improve her appearance?
Man: It did for a while- then it fell off.
~My sister is so dumb she thinks that a cartoon is a song you sing in the car.
That's nothing, my sister thinks that a juggernaut is an empty beer mug.
~Boy: What's the biggest any in the world?
Girl: My Aunt Fatima
Boy: No, it's an elephant
Girl: You obviously haven't met my Aunt Fatima

~Witch: Have you ever seen someone who looked like me before?
Girl: yes, but I had to pay admission
~A man walked into a police station and said, "I've got 3 big brothers and we all live in the same room. My eldest brother has 7 cats. Another has 3 dogs, and the 3rd has a goat. I want to do something about the smell."
"Are there any windows in your room" asked the officer.
"Yes of course there are!" said the man.
"Have you tried opening them?"
"What, and lose all my pigeons?"

~"Doctor, doctor, I've just swallowed the film from my camera."
"Well, let's hope nothing develops."

Notes on Learning Japanese

Here are some notes that will help you learn Japanese that you might find interesting (even if your not learning Japanese or even if you can't understand them)

~Japanese uses 4 alphabets, Romaji which is the English alphabet and used for mainly pronunciation (like on the words of the week), Hiragana which is used to write native words such as "sushi" and has 46 characters that aren't letters, but sounds like "ka", "ki", or "ku" except for the 5 vowels and the letter "n", Katakana which are the same sounds as the Hiragana but look different and are used for cognates such as "terebi" (television) and are more angular than Hiragana characters, and Kanji which are from Chinese origin and are used to tell apart words that are the same.

~There are believed to be over 50,000 Kanji but they only teach 2,500 in school because that's how much you need to know to read a newspaper

~The word "desu" goes at the end of a sentence and can mean either "is", "am" or "are" ~The Japanese have no different words for present and future tense- ex. 私は食べる can either mean "I eat" or "I will eat"

~"desu" can be changed to "masu" if there is a verb at the end of a sentence ~Japanese don't use spaces

~The word order in Japanese is SVO (English is SOV)

Japanese Word of the Week- March 23- 30, 2009

This Week's Word- design
Pronunciation- dezain
Kana- デザイン
Kanji- (no kanji)

My New Cell Phone!

Just the other day I got a new cell phone. It has a camera! That is pretty much how much I need to say about my new cell phone but if I ended the blog post here, that would result in a very short and boring blog post so I'll tell you about why I got my cell phone. So, last summer my grandparents came out (like any other summer) but this time they decided they wanted to get a cell phone that works in America. The next day they went to the store and got a very infancy, inexpensive, pay as you go cell phone which actually looked pretty cool. When they went back to Wales, they left the cell phone here (because it doesn't work in the U.K.) and instead of just letting it sit around for 11 months of the year, they gave it to me but a few weeks ago I destroyed it. I'd accidentally left it in my jean pocket and the jeans got washed. So, since this wasn't my phone I had to replace it so I thought "If I have to get a new phone, I might as well get a cooler one", so I did! It looks like this (see picture).

Poll Results- How many continents have you steped foot on?

3 continents- 2 people (33%)
4 continents- 4 people (66%)

*Remember to keep voting on the new polls and tell your friends :-)

Step Two of the Braces Procedure

Today I went to the orthodontist (yet again) and got spacers! For those of you who don't know what they are, they are little blue rubber bands that go in between your teeth and are supposed to widen the gap so that braces can fit nicely. Anyway, I thought they were going to be some really painful metal things but it turns out that there only little blue rubber bands that go around your teeth. They don't really hurt which is good because people have told me that they're the most painful part of the entire procedure. But before they could put the spacers in they had to take some molds of my teeth which were disgusting. They had to hold a bunch of bright blue slime in my mouth and wait for it to harden. Yuk! But at least step two in my braces procedure is complete.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

As you all know today is Saint Patrick's Day (unless you have to cross the international date line to get to me) so I've decided to share with you some Irish facts. Even though I'm not Irish, I like to celebrate Saint Patrick's Day because I live in America and that's what Americans do. We celebrate every holiday for every religion so that we can go to Godiva and buy ourselves a box of chocolates and sit there eating them, not feeling guilty because we know that it's for good reason. Any way onto the facts.

~Saint Patrick was actually Welsh (like me) and Saint David was believed to be Irish
~Saint Patrick was kidnapped by the Irish and enslaved for 6 years!
~After 6 years he escaped and moved back to Wales
~Later in his life he moved to Ireland again (Which was probably pretty stupid considering he was enslaved there)
~The color of Saint Patrick's Day used to be blue but green is the color mostly associated with Ireland so they changed it over time

Braces are a pain in the Neck!

This Saturday I went to the orthodontist to get my teeth checked out before i get my braces (April 2nd). I had been through it all before so I knew what to do. They had to stick a piece of wax in your mouth that makes you gag, take some photos of you and take some X- rays. While they were doing the X- rays I had to put on a really heavy vest to protect against the harmful rays (hence the name "X- ray"). I had to do this one X- ray where some plugs go into your ears and the plugs are on a piece of plastic that is attached to this machine. I think they were just there to keep me still. Anyway, the machine was a little low so i asked the lady that was taking the X- rays to higher the machine a little. When she did higher it, it really hurt because it was too high but before I could say anything she scurried out of the room and I was left there for about 2 minutes with my head feeling like it was being pulled out of it's socket. When I got home I started to notice my neck hurt. The pain just kept growing and growing and growing! It's been like this for 3 days now (including today). I've even had to skip school today because of my neck injury and all day I've constantly had to have a hot buckwheat pillow (a pillow thing that you heat up in the microwave) up to my neck to keep the muscles relaxed. Isn't getting braces fun?

Wow!

What is the only place in Massachusetts that you can watch a chef cook your teriyaki chicken on a grill in front of you with 4 foot flames, and an onion volcano? It's Marlborough's very own Fuji Steakhouse. As you sit in the row of chairs with your chopsticks in hand you see your very own Master Chef come to your grill with his spatula and ready to amaze you. He then starts banging his spatula against the grill and flipping it around, making you think that it's got to be an illusion... but it's not. You then realize that this is not your ordinary Japanese restaurant. The chef next spills oil on the grill, lights a match and before you know it, 4 foot flames appear on the grill. A bright orange light fills the room and the intense heat covers your face but before you know it the flames are gone. You now wonder how the chef keeps the flames so under control. Now is when the chef starts cooking. He spins and raw egg on the grill and bounces it around on his spatula and after he shows off a little he gives it a toss and cracks it on the side on his spatula. After he has thrown some fried rice on your plate he takes the rings of onions and stacks them like a volcano. You start to imagine what kind of trick he'll do now, when 1... 2... 3... he pours oil into the center and lets it on fire making an onion volcano! The chef has now left you with a full plate of food, an empty stomach and very enjoyable experience.

Japanese Word of the Week- March 15- 22, 2009

This Week's Word: to hear, to listen, to ask
Pronunciation: kiku
Kana: きく
Kanji: 聞く

Word of the... week?

Yes, you people who have been following my blog must know that I (used to) do the "Japanese Word of the day", But frankly everyday, that's pretty hard. From now on I'm going to do the "Japanese Word of the Week" (because that's much easier to handle). And anyway, unless your a freak-a-zoid, geeky, "still lives with his mother" kind of guy your probably not going to go to my blog everyday to see the word of the day. So overall this is better for me, because I can easily find time once a week to do a "Japanese Word of the Week" and it's better for you because you can probably find time once a week to catch up on my blog and extend your knowledge with another Japanese vocabulary word... (especially if your a geeky, "still lives with his mother" kind of guy).

Sorry :-(

Sorry, followers of this blog (if there are any left). I've been very busy with things over the past few weeks that I've forgotten about the blog. How could I forget about my fellow bloggers? I can't even use words to describe how ashamed of myself I'm feeling (so I'll use a picture)


Any way, I'm going to start trying to put in more blog entries soon so look out for them.......... coming soon