I read somewhere that in the galapagos when you swim with the penguins they sometimes corner their food on you :) thats pretty exciting. So is the fact that i am now officially going to be tutoring some one :) yay for that. Also, if I can get my act together, I with be selling some of the things I make on Sunday. School has eaten all of my time. yay penguins :)

summer time in the galapagos

you would think summer on the equator would be really hot....but no. Summer is the cool season in this part of the world ( i would say cold but, in fact, it's not cold) because of antarctic currents. It is recommended that when you scuba or snorkle you wear body suits to keep your temperature up. wow.

Also, I am going to try to sell bookmarks at a bookfair (woah) but the details on that are not worked out.

yay for swimming

Currently, I have swimming during my gym block. ew. Surprisingly, however, i learned something useful that i didn't already know about.....airplanes!...haha, no. I did learn something new about scuba diving, though! So the deal is, you have this giant tank of air on your back (I already knew this) and there are gauges on it to tell you how much air you have left, and are breathing in. OK, here's where the new stuff starts... you can control where you are underwater(on the floor, near the surface, or in the in between area) with this air tank...this fact may have been obvious, but I certainly did not know it.

Also, I am trying to work out my bookmark selling thing with my religious school holiday book sale. Not much to say about this until I get it approved or denied, so I will discuss this more in the future.

Finally, I am now 5% on my way to the Galapagos. yay! that's improvement!

Happy Me

How busy am I? .... very very very busy. However, I am still very interested in going to swim with the penguins in the Galapagos. My interests have even expanded beyond penguins to the Galapagos turtle. I am really happy about how many people are supporting me in my efforts. The art sales went really well this summer (next one will be in November when soccer is over)and a lot of people have been visiting my website and clicking on ads. I have had over 1,300 page views so far.

I received a brochure from WWF and learned that there are other trips to the Galapagos that look interesting. Now my family is talking about joining me on a trip (they would be too jealous if i went without them)

On the tutoring front, it looks like i will have to do some volunteer work before getting paid. I may volunteer at one of the schools later in the year with fishful thinking.

Last Day of Summer

Oh No! Summer is over in a mere 16 hours! It's time for another quest bar! Since the last quest bar i have progressed by 2%. yay! i am now 4% of the way there!

The second flea market sale was a success! One pretty cool thing that happened was this lady who we talked to last time and said she would come back later but never did (as far as we knew) came back on Sunday and bought some stuff. Also, I was told by someone that they tried to find stuff like I was making on the Internet, but was unsuccessful, so that made me feel pretty good.

The Galapagos Penguin

Being that one of the main reasons I want to go on this trip is because of the penguins, I thought it might be a good idea to blog about them and how they are different from other penguins.

Galapagos penguins are the only penguins that live on the equator.

To cool off from the intense sun, these penguins either pant or spread out their wings and hunch over their feet( to prevent their feet from getting sunburned).

They are only about 14-20 inches tall, making them one of the smaller penguins.

They are an endangered species and the rarest species of penguin. ( there are about 1,500 individuals)

Their diet mainly consists of small fish like sardines.

The main predators of the Galapagos penguin are humans, sharks, crabs, sea lions, snakes, owls and hawks.

facts, info, etc.

Hola! sorry I haven't posted in a while...I've been de vacaciones. Anyway... I will be doing another flea market on August 31st..30th? whichever one is the last Sunday in August is the one I'm doing.

Also... I'VE (sorta) LEARNED MORE SPANISH! yay! the "my first 100 words" book helped a lot and now i can identify several foods. For example, yesterday i was looking for the tomatoes in the frig, but I could not find them so I asked my mom "?Donde estas las tomates?" and then she pointed to the bag that was right in front of my face...but that's not the point...
now for some new Spanish that i think I should learn (dun dun Dunn)

OK... so i decided to learn this like i learned french...starting with the verb "to be" except in Spanish both "estar" and "ser" mean to be so i need to learn the difference.

the conjugations of Estar are:
yo estoy (I am)
tú estás (you are)
usted/él/ella está ( you/he/she is)
estamos, vosotros estáis ( we are/you are)
ustedes/ellos/ellas están (you/they/ they are)

so with the knowledge i hope to gain by learning the above, i will be able to say things like...
yo estoy un pingüino!
tú estás mi amigo!
ella está un gato verde!