Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days

This book was ok I guess, No wait actually I think it's terrible. This book is really easy and it's supposed to be funny. I've really forgotten why me and other kids read this. On the picture on the right it shows the the author and the book. This book isn't even about a problem or anything, it's just a kid who blabbers about how he hates his life and how his summer sucks.

I don't really have a favorite part of the book seeing that I now despise the whole thing. This book just seemed like a good way to kill a few hours of a plane ride. I was wrong seeing that I finished the 217 page book in 45 minutes. This preposterous lump of paper and scribbles that doesn't deserve to call itself a book receives 1.5 stars from me.

The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey

The sequel to the amazing book, The Mysterious Benedict Society, was spectacular!!(Notice: 2 exclamation marks) This book takes 1.5 years after The Mysterious Benedict Societies first mission.

The children were supposed to go on an adventure lead by clues set all over the world by

Mr. Benedict, Until Mr. Benedict was captured by Mr. Curtain while setting the clues. The children sneak out and follow the clues that Mr. Benedict was able to set and improvise when the clues come to an end.

My favorite part of the book was when the children were in a hotel because the clues lead them there. It was really suspenseful because a Ten Man showed up at the door. Ten Men work for Mr. Curtain and they're called Ten Men because they have 10 ways of hurting you that wouldn't suspect that are weapons. Ten Men are supposed to blend in with other people. They all dress like business men and carry briefcases.

Here are the weapons Ten Men carry:

1. Shock Watches (When the time changer is plugged into you, you receive a violent shock)
2. Neck Ties (Used as a whip)
3. Pocket Handkerchiefs (Soaked in Chloroform)
4. Pencils (Razor sharp)
5. Chewing Gum (Poisonous)
6. Laser Pointer (Real Laser)

And so on...

The point is these people are not good. This book was just awesome, even better than awesome! 5 stars, 34 stars if possible!

5 water questions pg.229

1. List the main reasons for water scarcity. Much of the water is lost by run-off and floods.

2.What is a drought?What type of hardships do you think that a drought could cause if you were living in a village in a poor country such as Ethiopia? A drought is a period of time when it doesn't rain and much life can die. In Ethiopia people can die of thirst, also probably people's animals would die because they need a lot of water.

3.How does land degradation affect the supply of fresh water? When land degradation happens it decreases the ability for the land to store water. When land degradation happens people can not take water from the ground anymore making droughts an even worse time!

4.

(a) What is El Nino? El Nino is when the temperature rises the temperature decreases the chance or rain, starting major droughts.

(b) Why does El Nino often cause drought in Australia? Australia is on the equator so it's really hot. When El Nino occurs the temperature can become unbearable.

5.Observe the map showing the global affects of El Nino in 1982-83.

(a) What effects does El Nino have on the availability of fresh water? El Nino causes serious drought because the temperature is so hot.

(b) Name the countries and describe the problems that arose from decreased rainfall caused by El Nino. Countries that were affected by El Nino are Indonesia, Australia, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Colombia, USA, China, Africa and the Philippines. Problems that arose from El Nino in these places include Famine, Serious air pollution, Droughts and Rainfall above normal levels.

The Mysterious Benedict Society

Like the last review this is a little late. The Mysterious Benedict Society is about 4 remarkably gifted children, something that brings them together is the fact they each have no family. Sticky ran away from home under enormous amounts of pressure. Reynie is an orphan. Kate’s mother died and her father disappeared when she was 2. None of the 3 knew what was wrong with Constance but something told them she never knew a family either. The 4 children meet by taking a test that was advertised in the newspaper. They all pass the test hidden within the test and meet Mr. Benedict and name themselves the Mysterious benedict Society.

My favorite part of the book is when the Mysterious Benedict Society is sent to the Institute and they thought Mr. Benedict was the evil headmaster, Mr. Curtain. It turns out that Mr. Benedict and Mr. Curtain were twin brothers separated at birth because like the children Mr. Benedict did not have a family.

I didn’t think this book would be very good. Something just told me it would be boring and you had to have known a lot to understand it or something. I only read it because I can’t stand to see unread books on the shelf but when I started reading I went WOW!! I thought to myself, “Now I’m certain you can’t judge a book by its cover.” You can already tell I loved this book but just for the record, this book rates 5 stars with me.

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

This book review is a little late. The Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy starts with Arthur Dent having an argument with the demolishers. He is arguing about why they have to demolish his humble home. What he didn't know was that 20 minutes later whether he won the argument or not his entire planet would be demolished. Arthur narrowly escapes thanks to his best friend, Ford Prefect, who secretly hitches a ride with the aliens that are destroying earth.

My favorite segments of the book was when Ford's copy of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy was explaining the 3 worst pieces of poetry in the universe and the argument between god and man about the babble fish. Both of these parts were hilarious. Especially the 3 worst poems in the universe. This is a very challenging book and when I tried to look up some of the words in the dictionary I couldn't find it! I rate this book 3.75 stars cause even though it's a great book, I don't think I understood it enough to enjoy it.

AETRA Water Treatment Plant

Last Thursday Q-2 homeroom visited the AETRA water treatment plant. There we saw the 5 different steps the water went through to become potable and 2 other stations. They even showed us an animation at the end about water treatment. After the animation they asked 2 people quiz questions and I was lucky enough to get picked. My prize was an AETRA made raindrop plush toy. For a random reason Amalia and Saige named it Muffin Cheeks. The photo is of Muffin Cheeks. It was amazing the way they took fetid water from the local river and resurrected it.

First AETRA would run the river water through a series of what looked like large metal grates. The point of this was so large enough pieces of garbage would be trapped and not able to go through. To cleanse the grates of the trash every few minutes a gargantuan metal claw would lower down into the water. Then the claw would drag itself up against the grate taking any trash with it.

At the second station AETRA added alum a chemical that makes dirt particles stick together. When all the dirt coagulated it created foam called floc. The thing I thought that was cool about the first 2 steps was that there was no need to go scouring for trash or leaves. They just ran the water through grates and added alum.

The third station, I think was pretty boring. They just waited for the floc to the bottom of the water. But what they did with the floc was pretty cool. All the floc was recycled and turned into other objects such as tiles and bricks.

At the fourth station the water was ran through 1 meter of sand. It was like a giant sand filter, like the one in Bintato Lama. The sand they used though was not regular sand though. AETRA used a custom made sand that I believe to was made out of floc. What I couldn’t believe was that all the grains of sand were the same size and shape. They had to be! If the sand was just like regular sand you find on a beach the water would not be able to filter properly.

Then to finally make the water potable, and especially after sand filtering, chemicals were added. What I don’t get is why did they run the water through the sand? Why didn’t AETRA just add the chemicals? And 1 of the chemicals added to make the water potable is chlorine. Isn’t it bad for humans to drink chlorine?

The last stage that wasn’t really a stage was testing. Testing had to be done to make sure all the other steps had gone fine and the water was potable. When we entered the lab where testing was done the lab struck me as weird. It was full of test tubes and beakers filled with strange colored goop. It was like one of those old mad scientist labs on TV. Except it wasn’t place in a dungeon.

6 water questions pg.227

1. What percentage of the world's supply of water is fresh water? Answer: Only 2.5 percent of the worlds water is fresh water.
2. Where is the world's supply of fresh water found? Answer: The worlds fresh water comes from lakes, rivers, the atmosphere, the ground and some water is frozen.
3. Even though the world's supply of fresh water is abundant it is still a problem. Why? Answer: Water availability is a problem because many places have more water than other places. For example Greenland has a large water availability per person because there is probably a lot of frozen water there.
4. Observe the map of world average annual precipitation (Opposite).

(a) Describe the changes in rainfall that occur as you move from the southern to the northern tip of Africa. Answer: When you begin there is a large assortment of rainfall amounts. As you start to move north all of the dryer ratings start to disappear but as you keep moving up ward there is steep plunge and Africa doesn't seem so lush anymore.
(b) Describe the changes in rainfall that occur as you move from the western eastern tip of Australia along the Tropic of Capricorn. Answer: At the western tip it's pretty dry. As you start to move eastern it's still pretty dry but after a while it gradually starts to rain more. Until when your at the end where it rains day and night.

5. Observe the map above of water availability per person.

(a) Which parts of the world appear to have a large amount of water available per person? Answer: The places on earth which receive quite a bit of rain are Brazil, Indonesia, Southern China and a small part of Africa.
(b) Which parts of the world appear to have a small amount of water available per person? Answer: The places on earth that don't receive much rain are Greenland, Northern Africa and an area of Russia.

6. Observe the diagram of water use.

(a) What are the main uses of water? Answer: During the 20th century the main use of water was for Agricultural needs.
(b) Which uses have increased the most over the last century? Answer: There was a steep ascend in the 20th century for Reservoir losses from evaporation and seepage.

Bintaro Lama Video

For once on a video I did not use my beloved iMovie HD. Instead this video was edited by the not-as-great-as-iMovie HD, Pinnacle 12. iMovie HD was not used due to technical difficulties.

(I plan to smash the laptop with a sledgehammer)

Bintaro Lama Field Trip

On Thursday Q2 and Q4 homerooms went to Bintaro Lama. Bintaro Lama is a small kampung being aided in water needs by Watsan. In Bintaro Lama each group visited 3 stations.
At my first station a Watsan member showed us how they found out if the water was clean. They especially reminded us even though the water was clean it did not mean it was drinkable. Water like this was used for washing clothes and such. The way we found out if it was clean or not is they would poor water into a tube and we would look inside through the top. If we could see the little X at the bottom it was clean.
At the second station they taught us how they cleaned the water. The water was ran through several layers consisting of gravel and sand, removing all of the BIG bacteria. The process is ran several times over and over again and then bacteria remover is added to make the water potable.
My final station was probably the most important. This was for people who didn't have bacteria remover. First you fill a container with CLEAN water. After the you put the container on the roof so it can boil for a few hours. During the boiling all the bacteria and germs in the water are killed and the water becomes potable.
We weren't gone from the school for long on the trip. But I bet that even if we were only there a few minutes we'd still see the circumstances some people have to live through. It just goes to prove that everyone who can go to school, have 3 square meals a day and have fresh water at any time should be very thankful.

Library Rules

This movie was done by me saying one line in a different place every time. The place gradually getting closer to the library every time. Then I got rid of all extra time possible because the poem is meant to be quickly. The camera filming was done by Nicolas. Once again this video was edited on the amazing iMovie HD!
The following is entitled to Mr.Hughes:
Dear Mr. Hughes,
This video format is still QuickTime but in the lowest format. I believe there is a higher format possible but still meets your needs. If you want me to try the next highest format, please tell me.

Condensation, Evaporation, Precipitation and Infiltration

The image on the right represents precipitation. In my opinion it is good because it's simple but clearly shows where precipitation comes from and ends. After its done it shows a little infiltration.

The below diagram shows infiltration. It shows how the water, after precipitation seeps into the soil until it reaches the saturated zone. I think this diagram is providing a little unnecessary info.







The picture below shows condensation. This photo is cut out from a bigger and much more complicated diagram. This photo shows after the sun is done evaporating water it forms clouds. When the cloud has enough water vapor in it, it will precipitate.







The diagram on the right represents evaporation. It shows the sun's rays evaporating the ocean transforming it into clouds. This diagram has just the right amount of info. It is also quite simple.