this years trip to Ashokan we black smithed, went on a rope course, canoed, hiked, and took a survival course. In black smithing we made a fire place poker. We bent metal with a big hammer.Truly I didn’t really know how black smithing worked I leaned that metal has to get up to 2,000 degrees just to bend a little. In the rope course we drove into the woods and maneuvered are way through a popes course. It was like an optical course that is a few inches above the ground. When we canoed we had 2 other partners. It was much harder than I thought.

Je m’appelle Liam. J’ai 11 ans. Je suis américain. Je suis blond. J’ai les cheveux courts. J’ai les pieds larges et sales. J’ai les mains maigres. J’ai les petites dents. J’ai les petites oreilles. J’ai une voix moyenne. Je suis calme, je suis sportif, et je suis amusant. J’ai une rhume et j’ai mal à la gorge.

Reflection.

assignment? The assignment was to write a series of sentences about your self in french

What did you learn? I learned all the describing words about yourself in french.

It was so interesting to have the ability to have a short conversation and be able to meet somebody in French.

This week I went to a cool book camp. I know when you think book camp you think,”Sitting around reading all day.” Well, before the camp starts it’s like that because you have to read 4 books, but once the camp starts there is actually no reading. For every day of the week we study 1 of the books, and on Friday we just hang out and play games. When we are studying we get to meet the author of the book. On monday we studied the book Curiosity House. It’s a book that will come out in a few months, and the author is already writing the second book. Curiostiy House is about a NY dime museum in the early 19 hundreds. A dime museum is basically a museum and a circuse combined. The protagonists are 13 years old and they have lived and worked in a NYC dime museum since they where small. Their is Pippa a mind reading geniuse, Sam the sternest boy on earth, Thomas a contortionist who can fit into an area as big as a book bag, and Max a tough knife throwing girl who joins the dime museum early in the book. The owner of the museum is named Mr. Dumfry. He is a sweet middle aged man who nureshis the kids all the time. The museum receives a package with a shrunken head. It is said that the head is ancient and magical. The first time they show the head an old woman dies immediately. The news papers decide to jump on this strange happening and the head becomes famous. Deaths keep happening and the head gets more popular. When somebody steals the head the kids go on a mission to find it. It’s a mystery slash action book, and it is a great read. On tuseday we studied a book called the school for good and evil. It is a book about 2 girls who live in a town that receives a fairy tale once a year.  One of the girls is named Sofie and the Other is Agatha. Agatha is Like the goth, rude, dark, gruesome girl. And Sofie is like the happy nice goody to shoes. The thing about this town is that when ever the books get dropped off the person who brings the books takes two children to put in a new fairy tale. Sofie dreams of being kidnapped while agatha doesn’t believe in it. But one night both sofie and agatha are kidnapped and get taken to the fairy tail training school. Exepte sofie is dropped into the school that trains for the evil ones and Agatha is dropped into the school for the good ones,  and no matter how hard they try they cant switch schools. The book is about them working together and seeing two true sides of who they are. On Wednesday we studied a book called Loot. It’s a book about a boy who lives the life of a jewel thief. His dad Alfred introduced him into the subject when he started stealing. Both of them have worked together their whole life until Alfred dies and the boy has to go to an orfanage where he runs into his long lost sister and a little girl thats a master hacker and a thug boy who is actually nice. Together they have to steal four magic stones and give them to a crazy old woman for 7 million dollars. And lastly on thursday we studied a book called Missing on superstition mountain. It’s a story about three brothers.  One at the age of 6 10 and 11. The plot starts with the kids moving to a house in superstition mountain Arizona. Their parents warn them to not go up the mountain. but the kids cat goes up the mountain and the kids follow the cat up and find three sculls. they go back home and decide to not tell the parents about what happened.  they research the sculls and find out  that their has been multiple reports of murder in the mountain and a big treasure somewhere on the mountain. the kids are curiose so they decide to go again. Whale they are going on their second trip to the mountain they run into a red head 10 year old girl who convinces the boys to take her with them. On the mountain they get stuck and they have to save them before dark. The camp was great.

.

Last week I went to writopia. Writopia is a writing camp. In the morning you write for a few hours, and in the afternoon you pick an elective. The topics where play writing, screen writing, world building, film making, song writing, and graphic novelizing. I picked film making, because I really like making films. The same thing kept happening every day until wednesday. On wednesday I was walking back to the camp from central park when I tripped. As soon as I hit the ground I felt an exrutiating pain in my left elbow. I immediately thought”tick.”  I rushed back to the campus. When I got there I told them what had happened and they called my parents. My dad picked me up and said it was probably best if we go to the doctor. Just in case the tick had lime desise. So we went to the doctor and at this point my arm was very swollen. The doctor concluded that it was not a tick bite and just a strong bug. He said to ice it and take a benadadril. He did note that the swelling was quite big for a bug bite. Later that night I took the benadril and I fell asleep emediatly. In the morning the bug bite wasn’t much better. But I coincidentally had a yearly annual at the doctor. After camp the bite was much more swollen and we swiftly moved to the doctors. As soon as we got in the doctors room he said I would have to go to the hospital, and we could re schedule the annual. While we where going to the hospital I assumed this whole thing was a waist of time, and the doctor could have just subscribed me some antibiotics. When we got into the hospital the doctor immediately said that I would have to stay the night. I was in the emergency room for 4 hours, and then they admitted me to my own room. In the emergency room they gave me antibiotics through the arm. the antibiotics were beginning to put into me for 10 hours. I watched a lot of TV and movies and it was actually very fun. after I got out of the hospital I listened and read my work from writopia at barnes and noble. The whole experience was wonderful.

here is my story from the camp.

PS its a short story, and not that good.

                                                              The Nimbles

I’m running down an echoey hall I can hear the shouts of people getting slaughtered by the gruesome Nimble. Their attacks have been getting worse. In the olden days there would be one or two attacks every few  years. But thanks to my dad, the Nimbles had been increasing.My dad had been killed by the Nmbles 2 years ago.He was a hunter, and as he stepped over the borders following a deer they killed him. Let me explain what’s going on. I live in the one and only town that has been hidden from the rest of the world for over 2 thousand years. The town is called Snowy Banks. It’s never been put on a map and it’s impossible to find.If you’re wondering how my family found it, we were planning to go on a road trip from Idaho to NYC. I was 6 years old when we went. We lost our way at 2 am and decided to spend the night in the car. While we were sleeping my baby sister, Ann got kidnapped. As soon as we woke up we followed the mud prints to a beautiful waterfall, and swimming in the water was Ann.We thought it was weird that she was swimming since she had never been in any big body of water in her life. But my parents overlooked it, just happy to see their daughter alive. We ran to the lake and my father picked her up. As soon as he picked her up she started crying. My dad was startled at this because she always was calm when he held her. As soon as he picked her up I felt a overwhelming pain in my heart.

My mother saw a town a little bit away. So we slowly walked there. We asked an old man if they had a doctor,he replied in a shaky voice, “we don’t have a doctor, but we have a healer a few blocks away.” We didn’t know what a healer was but we didn’t think their was any harm in seeing.We walked into a dim lit room with shiny gadgets strewn around the small room. I  smelled strong incense. a woman in a silk white nightgown voluptuously drifted into the room. She immediately started talking in a poem like rhythm. She said, “please come closer, oh please. Come see my collection of beads. All heal your soul from the nimble trolls so please come closer oh please.”She broke out of her strange toon and pointed towards my sister. She said, “you are the one who needs to be healed.” My father opened his mouth to protest that I was the one with the heart problem, but the woman quickly sat Ann down in the big fur chair. She sat across from her and just stared at her for a long time. Ann stopped crying and the woman finally concluded that anns soul had been captured by a nimble. Obviously she was insane so my mother picked up ann and we quickly left the small store.

It was starting to get late so my parents decided to to spend the night at a hotel. We walked into a fluorescently lit old motel with old crippled wallpaper and a rough frayed carpet. We walked down a small claustrophobic corridor to are small dingy room, with 2 small beds and dirty yellow sheets struined neatly on the half deflated mattress. We all hadn’t washed in a few days so we all took showers.  The shower seemed normal but who knows if it was actually water we were bathing in.That night I slept restlessly. Mostly because I had to sleep with my sister, and she cried all night. In the morning I woke to a loud banging at the door. I looked in the peephole and saw a short asian lady wearing a white costume, next to her was a big cart stacked with toilet paper, towels, and cleaning spray. I yelled at my parents to ask if I could answer the door. They were in the shower and I heard a muffled reply. “Yes”

I slowly opened the door to the lady who pushed past me immediately cleaning our room. We quickly got out of the room to let her clean.

We went to the lobby and read the hotel pamphlet.  It showed a beautiful hotel with shiny wood floors and a beautiful clear pool. having zero resemblance to the old ratty hotel that we had been stayed in  as soon as Ann saw the pool she started yelling, “,can we go to the pool. PLEASE!!!!!”

she swiftly spinned her head around searching for a hotel employee to ask if they still had the pool. Her eyes locked with an old large woman with lipstick smeared over her face and too much eyeliner. she was wearing a similar costume as the cleaning lady except she had a small badge that said, Hotel Manager. Ann quickly yelled out, “do you have a pool miss hotel manager”.

The woman rolled her eyes and replied gloomily “yes. Go straight outside to our court yard and turn left.”

We all followed her directions and found ourselves staring at a old blow up pool riddled with moss and vermin. We all just stared at it for a moment and then walked back to the lobby. Stunned at how effortless that pool was.  

We decided to see if the lady was done cleaning are room. We opened the door and she seemed to be gone. The room didn’t look much different than it did when we left but we didn’t really care. We were just glad that we could leave that weird place. We packed up our bags and left the hotel.

I think all of us were relieved when we got out of that place. It was one of the strangest places I had ever been I thought to myself at the time. Little did I know that that would be the most normal day I would ever have again.

We walked in excruciating heat out of the town and headed towards the big waterfall. As soon as we got back there I felt that exact same pain in my heart that I had felt before, also Ann started crying again. My mother said it was just heartburn and Ann just couldn’t handle the loud sounds of the water hitting the rocks at the waterfall. We all kept walking towards our car in extreme hell!! We went to the exact place where our car was only yesterday and it was gone. We started looking for the car and it was nowhere. My parents thought it would be good to split up. I was with dad and Ann was with mom. We went right and Ann and mom went left as we walked ahead I could see the two silhouette of my mom and Ann both drift away.

 

 

                                               The Circle Of Snowy Banks

As my dad was complaining about how this was the worst road trip of his life. I started to space out and go in my own world I imagined myself swimming in the cool hudson river. Evan though the Hudson river is known for being dirty I once fell into it and It was great. The warm water rushing against my body. The rug like moss spilling over the rocks, and the  Now every time i go to NY I swim in the Hudson river. As I slowly came back to my senses I saw a waterfall ahead. I saw 2 silhouettes staring at something in the distance. I pointed it out to my dad and we started walking towards them. As we got closer I saw Ann and mom staring at the waterfall I yelled to them and they turned their heads to face us. I jogged towards them. wondering how we both went in different directions still met up. Also I thought it was weird that we ended up at the same waterfall. We all discussed this and they agreed with me. As we were debating how this could have happened I noticed that it was already getting dark. It seemed weird since we had just left the hotel an hour or two ago. I commented on this and we all had a vote to see if we stay back in snowy banks or look for the car all night. We decided to go back to snowy falls and see if they had another hotel. The same old man was standing in the same place and again we asked him if he knew any other hotels he replied,” ask the healer, she will know.” As we were very reluctant to go to the healer again we thought she could tell us i snowy banks had another hotel. We entered the same dim room with the same strong incense and the same old woman sitting at the table. As soon as we came in she she gave an exuberant cry of joy joy started her rittle immediately.” I see you have come back for me. You have found the circle and you will never be free. When you try to leave the waterfall it brings you back like an invisible wall.” She broke out of her lyrical rhythm and started talking normally. “ What i’m saying is the only way out of snowy banks is through the stone arch that attaches snowy banks to the outside world. everywhere around the stone arch has a magical border that will circle you back to the place you started.” As crazy as this woman sounded, we decided to listen to her because we had experienced what she had just said. We started asking her questions and she yelled,” shut up. You dont talk. I talk. The arch is 2 miles long it is guarded by the nimbles. The nimbles are creatures that guard the arch. They will kill you if you try to leave snowy banks. The first nimble was named gunther snow. He found snowy banks 2 thousand years ago. He was searching for any inhabitants of life when something attacked him. He died and became a nimble. For many hundreds of years he would kill anybody who entered snowy banks. After 1 thousand years of the nimbles increasing there were over 400 nimbles. Finally a man called Robert hills came to snowy banks. He found the nimbles hiding spot and was able to track where they where. Whenever the nimbles tried to attack Robert he was able to escape right in time. He eventually decided to build the arch and trap the nimbles inside of it. It took him 3 years to build the arch. He built it with a magical stone that acts as a barrier when constructed. he loored all of the nimbles inside and trapped them in the wall. The nimbles can leave the wall when ever they want but they can never kill. The nimbles lure you into the town. Thats what they did to your daughter, and sometimes they steal part of your soul. they also did that to her. The nimbles feed off soles but they can only take the full sole if you deliberately walk into the border. Once they steal your soul you turn into a nimble and you have to guard the border for ever.” This was a lot to take in, and I think we all kind of half believed what she said. We all were silent for a moment and then my mom said in a stuttered voice, uh, ok, well thank you.

 

 

                                                So Thats What A Nimble Looks Like.

 

 

As my family and I were wandering around trying to find another hotel I was thinking about what the healer had just said. When I saw a tall blurry figure run into a nearby tree patch. I pointed the figure out to my parents and they remarked at it. My dad said, “yeah I think I saw it.” my mom agreed to. My dad offered to follow it and my mom said,”no!” My dad ignored her and said,” it’s fine. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” I let him go. Knowing that he would go even if I protested. I watched him sprint into the patch of trees. After a few minutes my mom complained,”why isn’t he back.” How could it take him so long.” right that second my dad ran up to us out of breath and said,”I found something. Come on.” As Ann tried to wiggle out of my mother’s arms I was following my dad, and my mom was trying to hold everybody back. Finally she gave in and we all followed my dad into the tree group of trees. we followed my dad for a few minutes and then saw a tall skinny white creature.” So thats what a nimble looks like.” I said. All of us looked at it for a while and then it started to scream. It was a high pitch scream and the whole family basically had a coronary. It screamed for about 30 seconds and then just stopped. My and my dad dragged it onto a rock.

“so what should we do with it.” My dad said

“ are you crazy,” my mom yelled. “We are not going to do anything with this thing.”

“but it’s a nimble.” My dad pleaded

“No” my mom snaped.

Ann finally squirmed out moms arms a grabbed a sharp rock. She quickly plunged it into the nimble’s heart. The Nimble started spewing blood.

“What did you just do?!”yelled mom.

Ann started to cry and ran behind me. I just looked at the blood spurting from the dead nimble. Finally I started yelling at Ann “Why did you kill it?”

While all this havoc was going on there was a half dead skinny creature spilling blood out of it’s heart. My dad quickly dragged the dead creature out a little further through the trees, and then buried it. He called all of us over to have a quick ceremony. He took a stick and engraved the world ‘Nimble’ in the wet dirt Then we all left in silence. Surprised at how much stuff had happened in the past 4 days.

 

Ann Frank. The Diary Of A Young Girl. By Ann Frank

The School For Good And Evil. By Soman Chainani.

For the past 2 weeks I have been going to to Fi.Af. alliance francese. Its a french school in the upper east side. The first day I got there I was sent to the intermediate class and I should not have been in that class. As soon as I got their I new it, because everybody around me had been going to the school for three years, and this was my first day. So I asked the teacher if I could switch to the beginners camp. After a few minutes their it seemed much more fit for me. So for the first 3 hours we did intense french, and it increased and got harder bye the days. Bye the 4th day the teacher was only talking in french, and we had to reply with the little we new. One thing I really loved about the camp was that they expected more from us than we new. It feels impowering to get responsibilities. So we did all the intense learning in the morning and in the after noon we would go on field trips and get a more cultural experience. We only went to places where the employees spoke french. So if we went to an art gallery in Brooklyn are guide would only speak french to us. The first day we actually did go to an art gallery. It was a very small gallery with hardly anybody in it. The artist was very into mashups. Mashups are basically two characters that would never be put in the same story. The artist choose boota and a snow man. Their where about 95 boots and 95 snow men all paired up to look like they where talking to each other. The tour guide said he made each of the pairs to complement each other, so like I saw a skinny bota waving his hands around like he was telling a joke, and the snow man across from him was chubby and smiling, like the joke had a reaction to him. The next day we went to moma with the thearte teacher. we looked at the Yoko Uno exhibit. The teacher said Yoko Uno was known for so many things like being John Lenans wife, and being an amazing writer, but not many people no she was skilled in freformance art. One of the pieces was a granny smith apple sitting on a small pedestal. The back story on that was that for one of Yoko Unos first exibets she was showing this apple. and John Lennon apparently picked up the apple and took a bite out of it. Yoko was furious and kicked John Lennon out of the museum. Thats how they met. The third day we had baking. We went to a french bakery in soho, and made tarts. Theirs not much more to say about that. The fourth day we had music. I want to be completely honest in this log. It was so boring. I mean 5 hours of my life sitting at a table listening to a guy speak a language I don’t understand, and playing old french music. I have witnesses to. The next day I heard people complaining about how bad the class was, and I saw one of the teacher hear them. She said she has sat in on one of the classes and said it was one of the most offel experiences of her life. And lastly Friday or Vendredi as they say in French. We had fashion. Lets just say it was slightly better than music. I’m sorry I’m being so negative but I really want to be truthful. We went to a fashion museum in times square. On monday we had art again. it was fun. We did are own mashups. I did Jack Skelington and spung bob. It turned out ok, and I will show you a picture at the end. On tusday we had effects. It was super fun,1 because I love special effects, and 2 it was a great class. First we all got an app called split pic. We cropped the table and are heads together to make a severed head on a table. Then we used a DSLR camera and filmed all of us moving a light around. Theirs  a setting on a DSLR that can make a video a photo. Basically what you do is you video tape something, and then it makes it 1 shot. Its pretty cool. Then on Wednestday we had cooking again. This time we went to the top floor which is all glass and 10 flites up. You can see everything around you. We made a baguette with stuff inside like camemel and  chocolate, and the other one was with tomatoes and cheese. I made 2 small ones one with cheese, and tomatoes, and one with caramel, and chocolate. They where both pretty good. On Thursday we whent to a really cool museum for sound. But it was really more a museum for the entire making of a film. I saw the original animatronic spinning head from the exesist, misses dout fires fat sit, and dress, and choobackas mask. It was amazing. on Friday the very last day of camp we went to the roof again and played acting games for 4 hours. I likes the games and the location I just didn’t like the teacher. When ever I was called on to have an idea he would say he completely disagree with me and ask somebody else. The entire camp was amazing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This summer I went to Italy! After my flight landed me and my mom when through rome before decending into are hotel in Tuskany. Rome is an interesting city its so amazing to see all the sights like the colosseum, Vatican city, and Piazza Navona. But Its also very tore sty and there are aspects that are good about behing a city that hasn’t moved on from 1 AD and their are bad things. Espesialy since rome is such a lage city. It feels a little like disney land I wouldn’t want to live their. Whene we got to the hotel i emediatly started exploring. They had 2 pools, a tramples a soccer field and a donkey! it was pretty cool. I stayed their for 3 days and then moved into a big villa where my mom taught a writers workshop for a film festival called Sundance.. For example a few days ago I when to a a dinnerevent that was supposed to be a surprised So i new nothing about the place we where going to if it would be indoor, outdoors, if their would be other kids their if it would go late in the night or end quickly. I new nothing. So me, my mom, and a few other people that where part of thewriting work shop my mom was teaching all got into the car for about 20 minutes. We got out on a small doc next to an abandoned where house. Then we got on a small rickety boat that led us to a middvil castil with preped catered food. Their where steep steps leading us up to a circular tower where the guessest off the the of the king waited. Above that room their was an open tares and holes on the walls for the nights to shoot through. Only a few steps above that was a smaller tares for the king to shout orders to his nights. I sat on the top of that tetras for a while looking at the meddateranian sea. It was beautiful. The next day i woke up and went to the town near where i was staying. It is called Capalbio. Capalbio is an ancient ancient town almost 2 thousand years old. Its cobble stone streets its crumbling stone building and its small population make it seem like your in 15 AD..

 

(Loot. How To Steal A Fortune. By Jude Watson)