Journal 82: My Last Journal Entry

Every things come to an end some day, and today, it is the last day of our journal entry for eighth Grade. I still remembered when I was first in the grade eight class, our teacher, Mr. McCool assigned our first journal entry, which was Journal Entry 1: Introduction to me. I remembered that he wanted us to write at least two hundred words for this journal entry and every journal entry we will write in the following year. Although I've been assigned two hundred words, I always wrote only about one hundred fifty words. This dropped my grades a lot, because our journal entry was a huge part of our English grade. I always thought journal entry was easy and a fun thing to do, because I had a lot of time to do it and other homework. After the first quarter passed, I began to play basketball and stay after school more often. This caused me to lose time and do my homework for school. I began to fall behind in the journal entries and I lost a lot of credit because of late journal entries. I think that I've learned my lessons by not getting a very good grade and I will organize my time better and not waste anytime. After all, homework comes before basketball and every other activity.

Journal 81: In Defense of My Treasure

Treasures are valuable things that are important to us. People would do anything to protect their treasure. Some treasure are solid, which means they are objects that we can touch or see. Sometimes treasures are invisible. Invisible treasures are those memories and relations we have with other people. In the story "Lemon of Lemon Brown", the narrator, Lemon Brown's treasures are the newspapers that talks about his achievements in music. Although he was once a wonderful and brilliant music player, time passes by, he turns old and he becomes old and people forget about him. Even though people forget about him, his memories of the great time he had when he was a wonderful musician will always be in his mind. This is why he tried so hard to protect his treasure. If I were to protect my treasure, I would do anything. My treasures are the memories and times I had with my family and my friends. I will do anything and help as hard as I could to protect my family and my friends. I would make sure my treasures were safe and protected all the time. This is how I would protect my treasure and make sure they will last forever.

Journal 80: My Treasure

What does treasure mean? Treasures are valuable things that are important to us. People would do anything to protect their treasure. Some treasure are solid, which means they are objects that we can touch or see. Sometimes treasures are invisible. For example, sometimes memories or lessons can be treasures to people. Just like their backgrounds, everybody has something to protect and something that they care a lot about. These things are their treasure. For example, the president of a country's treasure may be his country. He would do anything to protect it. I have a lot of treasures myself too. My treasures are the memories and times I had with my family and my friends. I will do anything and help as hard as I could to protect my family and my friends. I might be able to protect my family and my friends, but one day, they will have to leave me and from that day on, I will have to be on my own. Although they may have to leave me, all the memories and times I had with them will stay in my mind for ever and I will never forget them. This is my treasure that I will never forget.

Journal 79: My Background

Everyone has a unique background. I believe that my background is kind of special in a way too. My name is Hank Chau, I am 14 years-old, and my birthday is March 25. I was born in a hospital in Taipei. When I was very young, my parents used to take me around Taiwan on field trips. Although I had forgotten most of them, I still remember some really good things that happened in my childhood and good memories that I had. For example, one time when I was about 3 years-old, my parents brought me to Tai-Chung to watch a dinosaur exhibition. It was fun and very interesting to look at the robotic models of dinosaurs moving around. I remembered that I loved dinosaurs when I was young. I used to collect dinosaur cards when I was young and put them in a box where I kept them very safe. When I grew up, I gave those cards to my best friend's little brother. He liked it a lot too. When I was a little bit older, I began going to elementary school and I learned Mandarin Chinese and English. I loved Chinese classes because my teacher would talk about ancient China. I loved the stories that were from ancient China, especially "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. "

Journal 78: Style

There are a lots of different styles. Styles are the way that the author presents his or her story or writing. For example, the authors style can be nerdy which he or she uses words that we don't usually use today. An author's style can be like a gangster, which is very informal and sometimes bad-ass. These styles can tell us about the author sometimes. If he or she is polite or what he or she is like. The styles of a story can sometimes help us identify the author too. For example, if the author always uses a specific style in his stories, we can figure out who the author is just by reading his or her writing. The style the author used in "Raymond's Run" was a lot more informal and easy compared to the style of the author in "The Treasure of Lemon Brown". In "Raymond's Run", the author uses a tone in which kids like the narrator's age would use. On the other hand, the narrator in "The Treasure of Lemon Brown" was depressed and angry at the beginning of the story. This is why the author used a more serious tone instead of a informal and easy tone.

Journal 77: Slang

Slangs are words that are said but not written. These words are used by people talking to each other instead of in essays or articles. They are usually used informally or in informal essays. There are a lot of slangs. People use them when they are talking to someone they know. For example, 24/7 means all the time; always available; without a break. There are also other slangs to describe other things. For example, some slangs that describe cool or good are bad-ass, 133t ,  5 by 5 ,  A-1 ,  ace ,  active ,  aight ,  ain't no thing but a chicken wing ,  a kick ,  all good, all that , all that and a bag of chips ,  all that and a bag of Fritos ,  alrighty ,  alvo ,  amped ,  A-Ok ,  awesome , awesome possum ,  awesome sauce ,  B.A ,  bad ,  bad-ass ,  badassical ,  badonkadonk ,  ball ,  bang ,  bang on , bang up job ,  beast ,  beastly ,  bee's knees, the ,  bitchin' ,  blast ,  bodacious ,  bomb ,  bomb-ass , bomb diggidy, the ,  bomb diggity ,  bomb, the ,  bonkers ,  bonzer ,  book ,  boomtown ,  boss ,  bostin ,  broken , bullet, the ,  bumping ,  burger ,  butter ,  CAH ,  capitol ,  checkin' ,  cheez whiz ,  chicky ,  chill ,  chilling ,  chim , choice ,  classic ,  clean ,  clutch ,  colp. These are all slang words that describe cool or bad.

Journal 76: Analogy

Analogies are comparisons between two things to show how they are alike. I think that analogies are very good in conversations because it is a good way to tell the other person what you are meaning and what you are thinking. Although it is a good way, the person you are talking to must be able to understand it. In order to understand it, the person saying it and the person listening to it must understand the thing that is being compared to understand what the speaker is trying to tell. For example, if I want to make a analogy of someone's heart and rock, I could say "His heart is as hard as a rock." For the person who I am speaking to to understand, he has to know the person I am talking to and what he has in common. For example, I may be describing that the person has no feelings, because a rock is hard and if a person's heart is as hard as a rock, it can mean that the person has no feelings. Another example can be if I want to say that a person is very fast, I could say "He is as fast as a leopard." I can do this because everyone know's that a leopard can run very fast. This is why I can use this analogy to describe a person that runs very fast.