This post will be the second (and last) post about my trip to Pittsburgh. Enjoy!

The last time you were reading the first part of my trip to Pittsburgh I left off at the part where we drove 2 hours to my grandmother’s house. So to continue the story this is what happened next.

So, we finally got into the town where my Grandmother lives and we have nothing to bring. It’s such a small town that there were hardly any places to get something at. But then my parents looked up the nearest shopping places and they found this plant shop. So we went to the plant shop and we got my grandparents some strawberries and tulips. We saw so many tulips in the mainland it was crazy. Anyhow, back to the story. Well, had different we went to my grandparent’s house and when we got into their community all of the houses looked exactly the same. I mean they may have been different colors but other than that they were exactly the same. SO we go inside the house and their dog, daisy-may, comes up to us and she was just so cute.  She looked like she was having the time of her life because so many people were in that small house.

Now we go and hug people and this and that, the usual when you visit family. And then my stomach starts to feel weird. Now just saying I did not throw up I just did not feel good at all. I felt like I just wanted to lay down and go to sleep but I had to interact with my aunt and uncle. So I just sat down on the couch and relaxed while they would talk to my sister and parents. None of my family really talks about me because I am the youngest other than my cousin that is a year old. We eat and finish up and have some dessert and I barely ate anything. Then we drive back to Pittsburgh.

When we get back to Pittsburgh we just eat the leftovers from the other day. Then we go to sleep. I still felt awful and didn’t want to go anywhere but I had to go to places. Then the next day it was the time when my mom and sister went to California and then back to Hawaii. They left a couple of hours earlier than us but we still went the same day. We still had a few hours that we had until we left for Seattle. My dad and I went to Seattle before we went back to Hawaii. But before that, we tried to go to a museum but they were only closed on Monday. Which I thought was very odd and that the mainland had some weird things. Then my sister told us to go to this garden and so we did. It was a very beautiful garden and it was also very big. We went to the airport and then we left Pittsburgh. I’ll have to say it was not my favorite place in the world.

Thank you for reading! I did not put my trip to Seattle in here because it was supposed to be only about Pittsburgh.-hmsjojo

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This post will be about what I have done in trimester 3. I hope you enjoy!

The first thing that I am writing about is when we learned about algae and did OPIHI. We learned about algae for surprisingly not that long. I was shocked when OPIHI came up. OPIHI is this thing we do in science and it is where we go to the beach and do tests. During our preparation for OPIHI, we learned how to use quadrats and we also learned about watersheds. It is a citizen program and they have been doing research for over 15 years in sand island beach park. It was a really fun experience and we learned a lot more about algae and what was in our ocean.

The second thing I am writing about is the Pre-algebra project that we are currently doing. We are doing a project where we can either go in groups or alone and we create a presentation on Geometric Translations. I chose to be with a partner so, my partner is Mari. There are four sections that we need to explain how to do. We had hardly learned about it so we had to rely on our textbooks to help us understand. She also gave us some IXL’s to do so that we can understand a little better. We needed to get to 80 or higher to start the project. So far we are almost done and the project is due on the 17th.

The last thing I will be talking about is our debate. The debate is apart of our language arts class and we have two groups of nine. My group is Mari, Leilani, Chloe, Vienne, Aiden, Ino, Nikko, Ryden, and myself. At first, we had a very rough start but we are doing a bit better than before. The debate is going to be on Monday and it is currently Thursday (as I am writing this). Our debate is on space exploration and it is a little bit hard to research. We have been given the whole week plus a day to work on this but our teacher is helping us a little to make sure that we are cached up with the other group.

Thank you for reading! -hmsjojo

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This post will be about my time and experiences in Pittsburgh, they may not be the same to yours. Please enjoy!

When I got to Pittsburg I got off at the airport. The Airport was pretty nice, the only thing was that it was in Pensylvania. Also, it is like a 20-30 minute drive from the Airport to the heart of Pittsburgh. Then we went to the inn. The inn was on a street called the Mexican war streets. (There seems to be a lot of history in Pittsburgh right?) So the people who led the soldiers when there was a war or something didn’t have any money to give to the soldiers, so they gave them land in Pittsburgh to move them and their families there. So when you first hear about this you think “Oh! this is actually a really cool place where a lot of things happen!” well, I mean yeah but like once you do all of that stuff there really isn’t a lot to do.

So, the inn was called  The Inn On The Mexican War Streets. And it was a very nice place with very nice innkeepers. The rooms were also nice. We got the biggest rooms, the Emma room (the daughter of the owners of the house) and Mr. and Mrs. Boggs room. ( The owners died a long time ago). The stay was very nice and there was also free breakfast. So then that night when we went to go meet up with my sister and her friend for dinner. Wanted to go to a place called The Porch, but it was a 45min wait. So we tried another place but it was also packed. And those were about the only good places. So there were only 2 more choices, a place that serves all types of grilled cheese sandwiches or a meh Indian place. So we went to the sandwich place and… it took an hour to get our food. Also, it was cold.

Then the next morning my parents got some Thai food. All of the rest of the food was good but, the only thing that my mom and sister (Bella) didn’t eat was the rangoons. My dad and I were the only ones to eat the rangoons. And the next couple of hours my dad and I were throwing up. And the bad thing was that we were watching End Game when I through up in the bathroom at the movie theater. So I missed like 5min of the movie. Then for the next couple of days, I was sick. I was not feeling good. I lost so much weight from throwing up. And we had to drive 2hrs from Pittsburgh to Pensylvania to go and see my grandmother.

Thank you for reading! See Part 2 to see what happens next! -hmsjojo

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This post will be about summer. I hope you enjoy!

Do you have any plans for this summer? Are you planning to go to the beach? If you are then lucky you. Since my parents don’t trust me enough t0 not watch T.V all day they are planning to put me in summer school. I feel like its too much of a hassle to wake up every morning and go to school like I do on the regular days. And can I just say I am exhausted every day from school and ballet?

I’m not complaining about going to school. I know that it is a privilege to go to school and I know that some kids can’t go to school. But all I’m saying is that I wish I could do something else. But the problem is that I don’t like to do anything other than ballet and T.V. Some may call it a problem, some may not but I think it is a perfectly good excuse to not do anything in the summertime.

This summer I already have 3 days of ballet every week and I don’t like to do anything else. Though I am only doing until like 11 something. Also, I can’t do any work for my mom or dad because they both do confidential stuff. So really my only option is to do summer school. But the one plus about this is that we get air conditioning in the classrooms. Oh, and another reason why summer school is boring is that when all of your friends are going to have fun and go out you are stuck in summer school.

Thank you for reading! -hmsjojo

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This post will be about Pointe shoes and ballet. I hope you enjoy!

I do ballet. I have since I was about 3 and I now have pointe shoes. If you do not know what pointe shoes are, they are shoes that are hard where your toes and the bottom of your feet are. They allow you to dance on your toes. You have to take all of that technique and skills that you learned a while ago and work 10x harder than you have ever done. After you are done dancing with them your feet are extremely tired and they hurt so much.

When you start dancing on them a lot you start to get blisters on your feet, and there’s nothing you can do about it other than quit. Also, pointe shoes are kind of expensive. They are about $100 every time you get new ones. But when you start the total cost is more because you need the toe pads and the string. I have recently just found out that one of my feet is bigger than the other so I just bought another pair of pointe shoes.

The first time you dance in pointe shoes you feel like you haven’t learned anything. It’s like doing ballet for the first time. You have to relearn so many things that are so easy on flat. Also, pointe shoes are very dangerous. If you fall while you are dancing on your toes you can break your ankle. Some people quit after that and some people heal and start doing ballet again.

Thank you for reading! -hmsjojo

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This post will be about traveling. I hope you enjoy!

My family likes to travel. I wouldn’t say we travel a lot but we travel more than some people. We don’t travel every couple of months but we try to travel every year. Though I have only been to another country since I was very little I like to travel. When my grandmother was still alive my mom and I used to go to California once a year, maybe two. But sadly she passed away and I haven’t been to California in a while.

Although I haven’t traveled in a little while doesn’t mean my other family hasn’t. There have already been a couple of trips this year and it’s only April. This year my sister (Olivia) came home for Christmas. Technically that still kind of counts because she left in 2019. Then my whole family is going to Pittsburg for my sister (Olivia)’s graduation. Before that, though, my dad and I are going to Seattle for a couple of days. Then once the graduation is over we are going back to Seattle.

There are even more trips happening like, for my other sister (Bella)’s graduation my sister (Olivia) is coming here to come to the graduation. There is also the Graduation trip. The graduation trip is for my sister Bella’s graduation. Her and my dad are going to Europe to celebrate her graduating high school. Then in November for Thanksgiving, my parents and I are going to The Big Island. Also, Bella is probably going to Olivia’s place in Bostin for Thanksgiving.

Thank you for reading!-hmsjojo

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This post will be about the differences between public and private schools. This is based on my own experiences so some of this post may not be exactly what others have experienced.

Have you ever been to a public school? Well, I have and I was in this public school from Kindergarten through 6th grade. Honestly, I kind of enjoyed my old school. We had a mayday performance every year and the people there were nice enough. But the one thing that was not good about my old school was that I was barely learning. My grades were not good, I needed help with all of the math problems, and I was just not understanding anything. I also had to go to the teacher after school to learn a little more in math. Heres an example, in 5th grade we were supposed to learn how to do long division but, I couldn’t remember how to do it because we barely used it.

At the end of 6th grade, we had our graduation ceremony and then it was done. It was the last day of school and I wasn’t ready to leave. Before the end of school, I came to visit this school, Hongwanji Mission School. In pre-school, I came here and I have been coming to summer school ever since. My parents had decided that I should go to a private school for a year and see how it went. So, I came to visit Hongwanji in 6th grade 2018 and it went pretty OK.

Well, now that I actually go to a private school and have learned what I have learned, I think that private school has taught me a lot more than what I used to know. Here are the up’s and downs of a private school. Up’s, you get to experience different things. 2. you can get a better education. 3. individual attention. 4. safety. 5. resources. 6. smaller class sizes. And more! But here are some downs about private school. 1. (depending on the school you go to) some times you don’t get a better education. 2. Parents may expect you to do well in school causing stress. And more.

Thank you for reading. -hmsjojo

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This post will be about the construction in my house. I hope you enjoy!

This year my family has decided that we are going to re-do the floor, carpets, and the kitchen. We decided this because the house had a leak. It was going under the floor, so we had to do something. We had to do so much work to get everything off of the downstairs floor and outside. Also, it was hard because we did it really last minute. Once all of that cleaning was done the floor guys came to demolish the floor. It took about 3-4 days. it was super dusty and we had no floor. It was literally just concrete.

Then once the floor people were done taking all of the floorings out the kitchen had to be demolished. That kind of took a while. one the guys were done taking out the kitchen the whole downstairs was so empty. There was nothing downstairs. We had to cook outside, sometimes eat outside, and wash the dishes outside. We also had bins that had all of our food things inside of it. But those bins were filled because my family cooks a lot.

Finally, we were getting to the part where the guys put the new kitchen in. They built all of the cabinets, did the sink, moved the fridge. All of that was getting done. Then they were putting the granite for the counters in. It was all going pretty well until they were drilling the hole through the granite for the sink. They didn’t drill the hole in the correct place so there was a metal rod where the sink faucet was supposed to be. So then we had to get a steel cutter and they had to cut the rod to get the sink working. It was so stressful. But they fixed it and we got our floor did which is nice.

Thanks for reading -hmsjojo

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This post will be about the first day when our sister school from Japan, Keiai, came to Hawaii. I hope you enjoy!

The day the Keiai students came it was kind of scary for some reason. This was the first time I’ve ever had anyone from a different country come and stay at my house. When they came on their bus they were all in a pod and it was like we just invaded them. They had a uniform and it made me want to not wear a uniform at all. It looked really uncomfortable. I was trying to find my penpal but it was so confusing until my penpal found me. She was much shorter than I had expected. Then after that, we put their luggage down and we went to have a temple service in the temple. We also needed to wear our polo shirt so that way the teachers knew who we were (I think).

After they went to perform for us. They had like a little movie about their school. Some of them danced and did skits too. Then there was a taiko performance.  It was on the school side. The rest of the school went to watch it too. All of that took a long time surprisingly and it was already lunch recess. And that was really hectic because there were so many people and it was hard to get through them to go grab our lunches. Then the lunch room was crazy. There were so many people there that we had to sit on both sides of the cafe. Then the rest of the day we had to go into our groups and we first went to the gym. In the gym, we did some basketball. The second class we went to was Mrs. Young’s classroom where we made a pen holder. Also through all of that, I found out that my pen pal is pretty good at speaking English and understanding it.

Then it was the end of the school day and we went to the social hall to get picked up. When my mom picked us up we decided to go home then go to the beach. It was a pretty gloomy and cold day so we didn’t go in the water we just walked on the beach. After we were done walking on the beach we went to island snow and got some shave ice.  Then my mom dropped us off and she went to go get us pizza while we relaxed for a little bit. My sister’s friend came over and she speaks fluent Japanese so it was easier to communicate. We watched a movie and played a Japanese card game. Then it was time to go to sleep.

Thank you for reading -hmsjojo