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!

Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus

If I want to party with the penguins in the Galapagos I have to learn how to scuba dive. Fortunately I know how to snorkle so I have the first few steps of learning to scuba covered. I know how to use the flippers, dive, and interact with the ocean floor to cause minnimum damage. Learning to breathe can't be that hard, right? I guess I don't really know but I did some research about scuba diving, which I am going to post *now*


1. there are tons of bad things that can happen if you go too deep including too much pressure, a seizure causing you to drown, and a bad case of hiccups causing you to spit out the air piece (I made that up but I am sure that could be quite disastrous)
2. when you swim up you have to do so s-l-o-w-l-y if not, the nitrogen in your bloodstream will expand too fast causing the diver extreme pain
3. a diving suit is important for keeping the diver's body heat and preventing physical injury
4. for beginning divers, breathing under three feet is a bit difficult and will need some practice. the mouthpiece is also a challenge to use at first but many experienced divers say that it does not take much time before it becomes second nature.


That's pretty much it. There are more details about the type of air system that is used, and of course, more ways you can hurt yourself underwater... like your flipper falling off, stepping on a sea urchin (which can be helped with some vinegar) and realizing that your tour group took the boat back to shore and left you behind.. but I really do not think I have to worry about that right now.

second quest bar

Well, here is my second quest bar. I have made a little progress, but getting started is not easy.


The flea market was fun. If I got as many sales as I did compliments ... I got a pretty bad sunburn on my back, however, so that was not good.

As for the whole tutoring concept, Fishfulthinking and I decided that we would charge 10 dollars per half hour lesson and cover subjects such as French, Spanish and math. We had a great plan until the library told us that we are not allowed to advertise there. Now, we have to think of other places to advertise.

Tutoring

Tommorow me and fishfulthinking are going to get together and try to organize our thoughts on what to do about tutoring, so i will make a post soon and update on what we decided.

Also the Flea Market that I am going to to sell the stuff that I made is at 140 Washington Valley road, Warren.

Less than a week!

Ahoy! less than a week until the art show thing! i decided pretty recently that I am going to add wire bookmarks to my inventory of art stuff. (that is what the picture is of) Also, I was told that i need a name for my table so i decided that my "mini business" is named Galapagart. (Galapagos -os +art) I am pretty pumped for this whole thing, and i made french display boards (I think that is what they are called) to display my stuff.

Also, I found a book that my mom bought me when I was two that is "My First 100 Words in Spanish" I think it is pathetic that i don't know many of the words in that book but i am now using it to learn some nouns.

Learning Spanish

Im going to take this whole learning Spanish thing pretty slow because whenever i teach myself some new words i end up mixing them up with french words to create a bilingual sentence that makes absolutely no sense to anyone. I have decided to first teach myself phrases that I may or may not need and then come back to them an learn what the individual words mean at a later time. Right now I am teaching myself to say:
1.¿dónde están los pingüinos? (where are the penguins?)
2.Me gusta el pescado. (I like fish)
3. Yo no hablo español bien ( I do not speak Spanish well)
4. ¿Dónde está...? ( where is...)
5.Mi perro morado es más fuerte que su gato verde. (My purple dog is stronger than your green cat) - this one is for just in case I need a come-back that is in Spanish.
6.A la brasa: grilled
7.Al vapor: steamed
8.Apanado: batter-fried/breaded
9.Brosterizado: deep-fried
10.Encocado: stewed in coconut
11. Frito: pan-fried
12.Hornado: roasted
13.Reventado: skillet-fried
14. Seco: stewed meat plate

I also learned a little about the local cuisine and I have decided that if I am ever faced with this choice I would not eat:
1.roasted cuy (guinea pig)
2.tronquito
3. caldo de pata
4. yaguarlocro

but I could see myself eating:
1.Locro soup
2.Chupe de pescado
3. seco de pollo ( except for the fact that I am Pechetarian, which seems not to be a problem because seafood is big there.
4. ceviche


On the topic of food I have also found that for health reasons, I only want to drink bottled water, and if I get a drink, I always want it to be "sin hielo" or without ice because the ice made is often from the tap.

Pictures!

This is a picture of some of the beaded origami things I made, and am still making. I am also making keychains and bracelets which I might post pictures of later. I plan to sell all this stuff in two weeks from today.

Facts

i started some work on my last goal- learning about the place and found..
1. the time zone is an hour behind eastern time
2.the climate ranged from 65-85 degrees farenheit
3. the warm season ids around March/April
4.it is the home to the spiky marine iguana- the only aquatic lizard on the planet
5. there are 17 main islands that are part of the Galapagos chain

Art

OK, I have been working on some origami/beading art and it actually looks pretty cool. I found a little flea market that i am going to try to sell it at in a few weeks after I build up my inventory of stuff. I also plan on making friendship bracelets, so it should be fun. I plan on posting some pictures in the near future of the things I am making and I will post more information on where the flea market is at a later date.

Also, after many hours of trial and error, I got AdSense to work...well my mom got it to work. It's a good thing she is so good with html codes...we could easily say that web design is not a likely career path for me.

*drum roll* The First Quest Bar

ok, here we go..this is the quest bar where every thing looks half empty..well way more than half empty...but thats OK! it will fill up as time passes until I get to go on my trip. To clear up any questions, This represents the money i have for this trip compared to the money i need for it.

A bit of work on goal 1

OK, in my first description of this goal, i was pretty brief so right now i am going to go into more detail about the money. The tuition fee is 6,990 American dollars, however this is not including airfare to and from Ecuador, so i have asked around and done some research on the airfare and came to the conclusion that i should assume that the combined total for the entire trip will be around 10,000 USD....That's a lot of money (for me) For the past few days i have been brainstorming with the help of a few friends and came up with some options to help me along my way. ...i will list them below( you will find that i like making lists when i am trying to figure things out)

1. I will install 'AdSense" into this blog ...if i am lucky i will get around 1,200 from that per year if enough people click on the ads i put up (i shall put these up as soon as possible).

2.Tutor people in languages- me and fishfulthinking are toying around with tutoring people in languages because she can teach Chinese and Spanish, and i can teach French and Hebrew (which includes Bar/Bat Mitzvah tutoring) being that we have not started this yet, I cannot predict whether or not i can make any money from this.

3. Art- i love making arts such as origami, beading, and painting (but mostly the former) so i am building up an inventory to sell at a flea market or art fair. Again, i cannot factor in any profit because this is just an idea.

4. Instead of any holiday or birthday gifts, i am going to ask my family to help fund my international voyage.

5.I am going to be a super-saver~ I am actually already pretty good at this. I tend to be a money stasher, but i am going to cut the number of movies I see in the next few years because i spend around two hundred dollars on movie tickets per year, and if I plan to do this, I'm going to need that money.
6. I am going to have to think up new ideas- this would be much easier if I had a job, also, if you have any good ideas, i would love to hear them

Getting Started

I have officially decided that i am going to Equador and the Galapagos Islands on a National Geographics trip. I am uncontrollably excited because i adore penguins and this trip would give me the oppurtunity to swim, or more specifically SCUBA dive with penguins in their natural habitat! Unfortunately, going on this trip is not as easy as I wish it could be, hence all the preparations i need to make and the reason i made this blog to begin with. This blog is going to be the documentation of me working towards one of my dreams, and completing a few goals that i will list shortly. My goals for going on this trip are:

1. raising the money-nothing in life is free (hmph) and if I want to go on this trip, I need to sponser it myself. I plan to keep an updated questbar on this topic.

2. learning some Spanish- i take French and school and have no intentions of quitting, so i need to find time to learn some beginner Spanish. Also, although it is not required to go on the trip, i feel that this skill is nescessary to get as much as I can out of the trip. Finally, what would I do if I got separated from the group or lost? I'm sure that there would be SOMEBODY around who can speak English, but frankly, I like to look as least touristy as possible, and i would feel incredibly insecure having no idea where i was going, which leads us into goal number 3.

3. Learn the geography-this is rather simple. I intend to look at maps and flight diagrams so I know exactly where I will be going. This also ties in with knowing what the time zone difference will be, and being prepared with the right types of shoes for the terrain.