On the 20th of December I entered in a chess tournament, except this time in a slightly lower division (800-1099) and I won the first three games. The next game took a long time and lots of people were watching. I was losing, but my opponent made a mistake under time pressure, so soon after we drew by agreement. I beat slightly better people when the tournament director calculated the tiebreaks, so I won the tournament. My rating went up to 1161, and now I'm in the division up, and it's going to be much harder.

Yesterday we went bowling at the Palo Alto Bowl. I was in a group with : Micah, Peter, and Andrew. The first time I got 81, Peter got 96, Micah got 103, and Andrew got 111. The second time, I got 81 (again) Peter got 94, Andrew got 104, and Micah got 124 (his new record)! Micah's Mom also taught me how to bowl a bit better, and right after that I got 2 strikes in a row!!

Poem

I wrote an interesting poem today. Here it goes:

I loaded up my truck on a cold winter night, but, oh, then, what a plight.
The gusty wind blew the presents away, and to gather them all would take many a day.
I started to say,"How could I have let the presents blow away?"
I pounded my knees once, twice, then some more.
I pounded the ground and I pounded the floor. I pounded my head, but then, instead, I thought, what's just as good as the presents I'd recently bought?
A jet with a phone and a black-headset? Too much money.
How 'bout a visit from me? No, I'm much too funny.
With a feeling of despair on my inside, I sat down and cried.
But then I thought, I'm not the dullest blade of grass in the yard, so I'll give you this handwritten birthday card.

Monterey Bay Aquarium

Today all of the 5th graders at Palo Verde Elementary School got on two buses and went to Monterey, A 90-minute drive. When we were settled in the Aquarium, we saw some animals, such as:

• the leaping blemmy, an animal that eats algae off rocks and spends some of its time above the water.
  
• We saw the sea otters, who have the thickest fur, which is 1,000,000 hairs per square inch.
  
• We saw the penguins, who can survive cold waters. We saw the Ocean Sunfish, which can weigh up to 5,000 pounds.
• We saw a decorater crab, called that because they decorate themselves with seaweed so their predators don't eat them.
• We touched the bat ray, and it felt like like rubbery, like macaroni.
• We also touched the carpet shark, which uses the opposite technique of the decorater crab and camoflagues with the sand, where it waits for his prey.
  The we went back to school and went home.
  

Chess Tournament

A few weeks ago I entered a chess tournament in Milpitas, California with chess players who mostly exceeded my skill level, or if you want to be technical, a rating.

A rating is a number of points based on how good you are. If you lose games to people higher than you your rating will go down, but not very much. If you lose to lower rated people, your rating will go down as well. If you win, to either higher or lower rated people, your rating will go up. If you tie, it depends on your opponent's rating. In a tournament you play some number of games.

But, unfortunately, I won only one game and tied one, giving me a score of 1.5 points. That's pretty bad , I know, but when I looked back later, I found out that I placed 9th out of 17. My rating didn't go down too much, because everyone I played had at least a slightly higher rating than me. But next time I enter the tournament, I will have more knowledge of how to defend myself and what to play. Ultimately, I will come back better and more prepared.

Hello

Welcome to the official blogging website of Hunter. In the past few days I have been watching YouTube videos such as I am a gummy bear, and The Obama Llama Song.