Baojia Chen Duong

 I hope everyone has been having a safe time being at home with family. It's been snowing lately for the past few days. I got the privilege to view both Stone Tower Seventh Day and Lents Seventh Day churches and comparing them on Zoom. I was listening to both churches on Zoom. It's a lot to listen because one ears go in and the other ear goes out. I learned that as an idiom. 

During the bible schools, Stone Tower had gone longer than Lents. They are just discussing without sharing screen based on a SDA Sabbath School book. They are just taking turns and talking to each other on zoom. While Lents has a sabbath school book online that they are relying the bible study to go through. Lents finished a couple minutes before Stone Tower, Stone Tower finished later. 

Lents is recording the service whereas Stone Tower is not. Stone Tower is just talking about testimonies from their church members. They are just communicating with each other. Lents starts out with singing songs and praying with each other. 

Lents finished their song service and started to talk about children story. A church member tells the story about bananas. 

Then the Pastor of Lents starts talking. I think it's just going to start listening to Lents more often. 

 So this year I've decided to be subbing for districts all around Portland, Clackamas, Hillsboro, etc. It's been a long journey that I've subbed for these districts. The reason being is that I am still going to school just to practice to become a teacher. I went and taught at Sunnyside Elementary at a first grade classroom. Let me tell you, they have a lot of energy. It was hard to get them to pay attention. I wanted to tweak some of the lesson plans, but it was already made for me to sub for and follow along so couldn't change it since it was the teachers. 

It was fun to be with the students and most of them were listening and following along. Most needed redirecting. I think going back to my next teaching experience, I need to work on more classroom management skills on how to manage behavior on my own because I can't just depend on others teacher to help me out since they have their own class to deal with. 

I am going to be teaching kinders at Bilquist Elementary in a couple weeks. So I need to figure out how to get those students to at least listen and not run away from my teaching. At least I kept these kids safe and sound. Everyone was at the classroom without anyone missing. That's the most important in teaching. 

I got to say this is my furthest school I've been to now since Hillsboro. It's in the middle of nowhere, but at least you get a school, few people live there around 25000 people living there. It's home to Pacific University. I liked the school since it's small with some teachers and assistants. I will probably be back at the school district again. It was fun to meet everyone. 

 I am starting a somewhat new program. I am technically finishing my teaching license classes because I had some complications with PSU. PSU didn't end well with me and I hope GFU is a better school for me. The students seem chill as well as the teacher. I have a few years (I wish and hope). I am also starting an educator's blog which I will link soon once I am done with it on here to talk about GFU. 

https://bduongmat2023.blogspot.com/

I finally got a teaching license, but it's restricted. This means that I can only sub up to 10 days straight for a teacher who needs to miss work for personal reasons. This is the first time I will be subbing as a teacher or working as a part/full time teacher. Please wish me luck as I don't have that much experience even if I am going to school to become a teacher. Thank you. 

I really need to keep on with my blogging since it's been a year since I've uploaded. I've been through a lot this whole year. I recently got my special education master degree at Portland State and it's been a long journey. I am on my way to getting a teaching license at George Fox and I hope things go way smoother there than PSU since there were skills I was lacking into that program. 

I went to Kiwanis this month. It's a camp in Mt. Hood National Forest and it's been a wonderful time meeting new staff and campers. I would like to do it again in the future. Kiwanis is a camp mainly for campers with disabilities to help them maintain independent life skills in the woods and having fun like everyone else. I got to be part of two different groups. One group was more of the ability to be at the main campsite and do arts, crafts, ride horses, fish, etc. It was mainly for campers who were non verbal and have mobility issues. The other group I was in the more active group where it was mostly walking, bowling, and white water rafting. It was amazing, but hard work though. 

 Today is my first time going into this church. It’s a brand new experience for my family and I. For myself I am not an seventh day Adventist member so I only go when family goes. My brother Baoheng will be going to LLU soon. We’re just going here once. 

When we got here. I saw a dark room with LED lights with a preacher talking about faces around the table. I was surprised there was a drum set on the stage. There were no seats until towards the end of one part of the preaching. We didn’t realize it was communion until there was a song about it. 

It seems like this church is like Lents where it’s relaxed and liberal. I thought I was under dressed, but I see other people wearing jeans and tennis shoes thank goodness. The service was pretty short. It was as long as Lents about an hour long which was great. 

I guess my first impression here is pretty good. They’re really relaxed and had donuts and root beer for all the dads. Happy Fathers Day 2022 everyone! The pastor and youth pastor seems to be very welcoming. I wish there were greeters to welcome us like other churches. 

 I got my booster shot by being dragged. There was a covid vaccine event and the Moda Center was giving away free tickets to a Blazer game to anyone who gets vaccinated…

My mom and bro dragged me despite my fear of needles. Thanks…

 Sometimes, it's so hard for me to make friends and keep a consistent connection with them. Sometimes, I don't know what's going on or what's wrong with me. I am just a really shy person who can't bring myself out in public. It takes me way longer than others to talk to people. I always tend to see people talking to others while I just feel left out and not included. 

I wish I was part of the group, but no one wants me part of their group because I never speak up or do anything to impress them. I hope someday I can join a group and be consistent with them. 

 So something happened today that I was both proud and not proud of. I did the Paqui one chip challenge. Let me tell you how this challenge works. Paqui has one chip that is filled with a lot of spices, chili, peppers, etc. You are suppose to have no drink with you and eat that chip to see how long you can last. 

For me, I didn't last too long. At least I swallowed the chip and the spices started hitting around a minute or two. This challenge was no joke. I don't understand how people can do that with more than a minute. I could only last a minute. Some people were hardcore. Anyways I would describe this challenge to be extremely hard (10 2x spicy noodle challenges) in one bowl. It was hot. It's a good thing I didn't spit out the chip as soon as I ate it. It was very powdery so I chewed really fast. 

At the beginning, I was eating and walking around to tolerate a little bit of the spice. I only had one minute. Then, I drank milk, cheese, etc. Let me say, I was dying. 

I didn't have a tummy ache until 10-15 mins after. It felt I was pregnant, but less painful. It was still painful, but not as much as pregnancy. The tummy pain was on and off so I had to sit in the bathroom for 5 minutes and had to lay on my side for an hour. It was intense. I just got better.

I am never doing this again. It was a once in a lifetime challenge. 

Day 1

 2:00pm- I get my vaccine and I still feel the needle going inside me even though the pharmacist was talking about my plans for Independence Day tomorrow to distract me. That still didn't work. I don't understand how others cannot feel the needle going in even with or without distraction.

2:15- This is when I have to wait 15 minutes just to be safe from any effects that may be bothering me. 

8:00pm- A few hours later, arm starts to get sore a bit. 

DAY 1

 10:45 I went to check in with pharmacist at the pharmacy on Powell. The pharmacist was Vietnamese and was very nice to me about it. 

10:50-  I signed some papers pre vaccination forms. 

11:00- gets vaccinated. It was a life changing moment. I was so stressed out so had my mom hold my hand and the pharmacist has to calm me by asking me questions about my relaxation technique. I talked about the beach and being with dolphins. Then the poke was done. I was crying the whole time and hyperventilating, but it was done. I did something that I didn’t think I would get done. 

11:15- I waited at the front for about 15 mins just to make sure I’m good. I feel a little light headed and a sore arm. Overall so far so good. Then I left the office with my family. 

11:45- So far so good with the vaccine. Still a little dizzy, but I am fighting through the pain. 

3:00pm- I am starting to feel a little more stiffness and soreness on my arm. I am also feeling more of a lightheaded and warm inside my body. I am so extremely scared of needles and it's feeling discomforting right now. I got this and need to toughen up. Nothing major right now. I am nervous about the next few hours. 

8:00pm- My arm is still sore. My headache and dizzyness went away about 2 hours ago, but so far so good. Trying to keep it up. 

11:00- I get ready for bed and it’s so hard for me to turn to the right so I just plopped myself to the right. That’s all for day 1.

Day 2

8:30am- I wake up the next day feeling lightheaded and small headache. My arm is still sore. 

Overall, throughout the day, it got better but sore.

Day 3

It's 90% gone now. :D 

 I really enjoyed working at Oliver Elementary with Gorans. I also found out my old principal Barger works there as a instructional coach. It's a small world and I am glad she is able to remember me after all these years. I will miss everyone and hope to come and visit soon. Go Otters and thank you Oliver! 

Fall term has been one of the easiest terms so far. I had Borgmier and Morningstar for classes and they were one of the easiest professors out there. I had so much redos (ok well at least one) to make sure I had a decent grade in class. 

I am just very nervous starting out my grad school journey as a teacher. I was planning on doing general education program, but I am doing Special Education. I hope I can pass all my classes.

Dear Kairos PDX Staff,

I would like to say how happy I am to work with each one of you. It's been an awesome month working at the school. I apologize for leaving your school very short, but I extremely love this school so much that I plan to apply for a position in the future.

Mr. U and Ms. Sam, you have taught me so much about Collaborative Problem Solving. I would like to take that skill and bring it to my current work. I promise I will come and visit and work with the school as much as I could. You've taught me to be more calm and confident about my role as an EA and to myself because coming in as a EA, I would always rush things and be extremely overwhelmed when kids didn't listen to me or whatever. You've both helped me to realize that it's hard, but I can always ask for help when things get out of hand. Thank you both so much with everything. Mr. U, you've dealt with a lot of students who are unsafe and not listening. I am glad you found a school as great as Kairos to work at where everyone else is on the same team and could help you.I am also glad I got to see you again. What a small world. Ms. Sam you're awesome as always for doing your best to help me with situations that I wouldn't understand to do with kids. Thank you! Thank you both!

I've never found a school that has so much love and support from all teachers, and staff. Mr. Goss, you especially blow my mind with your recess duty attention grabber. You have such a strong personality. Your brother Montrell is very talented at writing his book. I cannot wait to meet you and him again. It was awesome seeing him read with Bijal's class in June. I hope he can come in and read to Woodland kids. I think that would be such a wonderful idea. Kairos is so lucky to have a strong and kind gentleman like you. Thank you for letting me work along side with you at recess.

Lastly to all the teachers, you were amazing at what you do. I understand things can get challenging at times with other students and staff, but we are all in this together. You are all great. Keep it up. I thank you for all that you do. You're lucky that you got to work at a school that Zalika, Kali, and Marsha have founded together. Kairos is an awesome place to work for.

Thank you everyone for having me and it was so nice to meet each one of you. I look forward working with you again soon!

-Baojia C. Duong

Since I started driving in 2013, I was fine with no accidents. When my father and grandma passed away in 2017, everything changed especially my luck. I had my first accident on New Years Day 2018 and my second accident September 2018. My mom also had some bad luck with accidents with hit and runs in 2018 as well.

Since we had these accidents, our premium was raised extremely high. We wonder why they would raise the price even though the accidents weren't totally our fault. We never wanted an accident in the first place. We know accidents are very unpredictable and unknown sometimes. We didn't start claiming until 2018. Our insurance company had to put the claim for us from other parties claiming it was our fault when it wasn't. Our insurance had to raise the price and eventually cancel our policy for good.

Our car had some dents that we haven't claimed until 2018 because the insurance company won't fix for us until we claimed. It was just a tiny spot and they didn't give us a forgiveness. We didn't get an excuse for that first accident that I did. Is it my fault to claim all these accidents due to bad luck? Our insurance was fed up with all the accidents we had and canceled our police without a good reason. We had Allstate. Any recommendations on a new insurance where we would get a decent price with first accident forgiveness?

I've been working for Reynolds for about a year now. I just got hired not too long about. It was about 4 months since I got hired in October. The process took a while but I eventually got the job.

Let's just say the job is pretty tough, but I managed to deal with the stress and like what I do.

There are a lot of responsibilities that I gotta do such as

Diaper changing
Feeding protocols
Medical and data taking protocols
and more

It's a lot.

Let me tell you about the process.

I started out as a Sub in the beginning of February 2018 right after leaving my NWRESD (Northwest Regional Ed School District) job for 5 months. I've been working at Woodland since then. I loved it. I worked with 3-5th grade life skill SPED students who need support. I've been subbing every month since Reynolds won't put me as a permanent sub. So I've been extended many times every 30 days until the end of the school year.

Right when school ended, the staff that I worked with and Sophie who was the teacher suggested I applied for a job that just opened up at Woodland. At first I was pretty unsure whether to do SPED EA since I had a really hard time doing my other job with my conditions. The staff told me not to worry and loved working with me. I've never had that big of a compliment before. So I decided to apply. I applied in June of 2018 right when school ended for summer. It took me about a month to get everything submitted (resume, cover letters, application, etc.). I didn't get a call back from Reynolds until August of 2018. I thought I wasn't getting an interview since I waited 2 months for the district. My job coach was helping me apply for the job at the time.

August 2018 showed up and I got an interview at the Reynolds School District office. Rob who is the principal at Woodland was also there at the interview. I was pretty nervous and shy. There were a group of few staff who were also there as well. I was looking at Rob the whole time since I knew him better than any other staff there. Everyone took turns asking questions. It took me about a minute or longer to answer each question. I was stuttering, biting my nail, finger, etc. I wanted to get out of that conference room. I realized that I couldn't just go because Woodland was counting on me to get the job. I was blank and looking at Rob the whole time not knowing what to say. I knew I had an interview days before. I was practicing with friends, family, job coach. I lost everything that day and mind went blank. I didn't know what to do and almost cried. After the interview was done, I had to type a scenerio about SPED daily school life. It was a situation about what would you do if this happened. So I just wrote whatever came to my mind. It was pretty long because I literally just wrote random things that came on top of my head. I had 20 mins to write everything which was very nerve racking for me and stressful. I had a lot of anxiety in me, but I got it through. After that was done, the staff told me I would hear back within a week. A week never happened. The hiring process continues on.

Months passed by. I decided that I wanted to sub again for Woodland in September. So apparently another teacher (Nina) saw me in the hallways and told me I was going to be with her. I was like ok! So I tried something new and went with the flow. It's sad that I didn't get to be with Sophie, but at least I got to be with her last year. Nina's class was K-2 graders who are the same as the 3-5, but younger. I was subbing for a month. My co workers kept asking me if I got hired, I said no for about a month. After a month of working, Reynolds decided to hire me. FINALLY!!!!

I was finally happy and got to actually have benefits and work full time until......

Jan 2019- NO LEAVE OF ABSENCE! I guess Reynolds is still playing that waiting game with me for another few months. I didn't get to put in a snow personal day in the system because I didn't have any hours. The secretary of Woodland was pretty confused why I didn't get any hours. They called a few times and finally some stuff is being put in, but they're still working on it. I hope they are still working on hours.

This hiring process journey was a really long one, but eventually I actually like my job and everyone was fighting for me to get this job. I cannot wait to work with my current co workers and get to know them better. I am glad to be with people who actually care about what I do and can't do. They are also there to support and help me on things I need!

I just wish I could be a teacher already, but no one would be hiring me. Finding a Teacher Assistant job isn't very easy for me because not many people hire. I really enjoyed working at Woodland. Even the principal emailed me back saying I did well. I want to be working there again, but the school district is taking their sweet time and not getting back to me. Ugh! It's okay. I am sure he will give me a good recommendations :D. I am glad I got a sub job that actually want me back working for them. They appreciate how much I care for kids even if they can be hard at times. I wish I could get a job already to start grad school. Well, better get started! :D

I remember the day that I got dismissed from the job that I enjoyed. It was nearly the end of January.

I remember coming to my supervisors desk and having one last meeting with her and HR. It was an intense meeting. They talked about how I did which wasn't great. I didn't hear back till the next day and I got terminated that day. I loved that job since it paid so well, but there were some staff who were pretty strict. I had fun with that job. I will miss being a Instructional Assistant through BECC (Beaverton Early Childhood Center). It was an awesome 5 months!

After getting laid off from a job that was part of my field of studies from Beaverton (NWRESD), I went through subbing full time as a teacher assistant. I looked up online to see what subbing job I should do next. I didn't want to keep going to different schools each day. I saw one post that listed for about a month and ended up in Troutdale in the Reynolds school district. They were in need of help.

It's been over a year since I've been blogging! I think I will start to be blogging again! I am excited to share what's new with me! 

Once we got to the airport, we had to wait for my cousins friend (who was actually her boyfriend) to get to Orlando and meet us. It was a long wait for about 5 hours. After waiting we went to a rental car (Gray Toyota Sienna) and it was somewhat still brand new. David, the boyfriend of my cousin didn't like how the car looked, but still looked decent. Once we got done with renting the car, we looked for a place to eat. At first, we didn't know what to eat since our family was up for anything. My cousin suggested we have Lebanese Food. I thought to myself.... HMMM!!! I haven't had Middle Eastern food in such a long time. It was called Habibi. We got a lot of hummus and pita bread to share. I, of course had a Sharwama mixed beef and chicken platter. It was a lot of food. I wanted to finish all the food, but it was a lot so I shared with my brother. He had a chicken kabob plate. It was very tasty. I loved the food there. When we got done with the restaurant, it was time to head to the hotel. We stayed at the Holiday Inn across from the Universal Studios.


The hotel room was alright. It was pretty decent. My family had separated the rooms by gender. The girls obviously had the bigger room. Haha! The view was alright just the parking lot. Nothing big. These hotel rooms were paid by (David) since he had a deal with Timeshare. I will explain the reactions from him in the next blog in a few days.



Next, we went to Universal. Let me tell you it's big. We got a three day pass. Two days, third day free. 200 bucks. I guess it was worth it. Every ride was very packed. They ranged wait times from 30 mins to 110+ minutes. OMG. I have never waited that long for rides before. I wonder how long my wait times for rides at DisneyLand was a while back. It was very long. The days got hotter and hotter every time. I can tell you my five favorite rides were Harry Potter, Minions, Terminator, Transformers, Mummy. There were other rides like The Simpsons. These rides were really thrilling and scary.


Let me tell you, I spent a lot of money. Over 100 dollars, but it was worth it. I got to experience different foods and drinks such as the giant donut from Simpsons, butter beer from Harry Potter and Flaming Moe from Moes (Simpsons). I've tried different restaurants that don't exist where I lived and they were great.

Don't care if you have a boyfriend or girlfriend right now.
I don't care if you are a guy or a girl
Just read this, it will make a difference.
If only everyone could see this and understand it.
When she stares at your mouth
Kiss her
When she pushes you or hits you like a dummie cause she thinks shes stronger than you
Grab her and dont let go
When she starts cursing at you trying to act all tough
Kiss her and tell her you love her
When she's quiet
Ask her whats wrong
When she ignores you
Give her your attention
When she pulls away
Pull her back
When you see her at her worst
Tell her she's beautiful
When you see her start crying
Just hold her and don't say a word
When you see her walking
Sneak up and hug her waist from behind
When she's scared
Protect her
When she steals your favorite hoodie
Let her keep it and sleep with it for a night
When she teases you
Tease her back and make her laugh
When she doesn't answer for a long time
reassure her that everything is okay
When she looks at you with doubt
Back yourself up
When she says that she loves you
she really does more than you can understand
When she grabs at your hands
Hold her's and play with her fingers
When she bumps into you;
bump into her back and make her laugh
When she tells you a secret
keep it safe and untold
When she looks at you in your eyes
dont look away until she does
When she says it's over
she still wants you to be hers
When she reposts this bulletin
she wants you to read it
- Stay on the phone with her even if she's not saying anything
- When she's mad hug her tight and don't let go
- When she says she's ok don't believe it, talk with her because 10 yrs later she'll remember you
- Call her at 12:00am on her birthday to tell her you love her
-Treat her like she's all that matters to you
- Stay up all night with her when she's sick
- Watch her favorite movie with her or her favorite show even if you think it's stupid
- Give her the world.
- Let her wear your clothes
-When she's bored and sad, hang out with her
-Let her know she's important.
- Don't talk about other girls around her
- Kiss her in the pouring rain
- When she runs up to you crying, the first thing you say is:
"Whose ass am i kicking baby?"
If you do post this in the next four minutes the one you love will :
Call you
Kiss you
Love you
Text you
Guys post as: "I'd be this Boyfriend.
Girls post as: "A real boyfriend"
and if you do not re-post this within 4 minutes.
you'll have bad luck
with the one

Hahaha! I cannot believe another trip has approached. I was just in Korea 7-8 months ago and this time it's another trip. At least this trip was in the US. It was my first time going to Orlando florida. I'm pretty excited. I left yesterday in the afternoon and so far I've missed home. I got to Salt Lake City's airport and let me tell you it was like LAs airport but salt lake had a smoking room. I was pretty surprised. I am pumped to know what's gonna go on later today. We just got to Orlando and waiting for my cousins friend. Woo!!!!

Today is the last day of being in Korea. I had a great one month vacation, working as a teacher for Korean children who want to speak English. This was a fun experience for me.

I want to thank all the coordinators, teachers, staffs, etc. for helping me for achieving my dream as a teacher. I cannot wait till I become a teacher myself. I might want to teach in US or overseas. I will miss all the staff that has helped me build my dream. I might be able to come back next year or maybe after graduating. I miss the kids already and I want to see them again.

A lot of the kids have added me on Facebook, which was awesome. Only one has contacted me and told me that they have missed me and the camp. I cried when I left and cannot wait return.

Korea it has been fun, and hope to see you again soon! Thank you for all the fun adventures, dreams, support, and experiences.

The days are almost coming to an end. My journey has been really fun and exciting. I don't want to leave this place but I must because I don't have an extension. I should have bought a extension on this trip, but next time I will. 

It was a warm sunny day. I woke up from the Saillas Hotel in Gusan. Let me recap you what we did last night. The hotel room we were at was gorgeous. It was pretty decent. They had English labelled toilets which were awesome. I'm sure these hotels were expensive. 

Oh man. I haven't blogged in forever. I cannot believe that it's already August 13. Just a few more days before departing this pretty and adventurous country. Yesterday August 12th. It was our last day of the second camp. We had our closing ceremony. Every time at the camp when we have ceremonies, we would stand up for the national anthem. Then pay tribute to the Korean solidiers who fought for the country. By the time it was time to say good bye, the head teacher handed all the certificates to the kids and we teachers would give a final speech. When I came up, I started balling my eyes out and just smiled. I had to be skipped till the end, but I got to speak. I already miss the kids and it's been a really fun time hanging with the middle and elementary school kids. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!!

I AM FINALLY A YEAR OLDER!

I GET TO FINALLY TRAVEL ON MY BDAY AFTER 5 years of not going anywhere. I AM STOKED. I had a lot of people hang out with me and celebrated with me. It was a lot of fun. We ate lots of Korean food, such as kimchi, bulgogi, noodles, and more things. The food was great. There was also pizza and chicken! Yummy. A lot of people drank soju and beer. I didn't drink. They were noisy, but still had fun.

THANK YOU FOR THE PARTY!!!!

As you all know, I will be teaching Food and Restaurants during the second camp. I have never taught one on one before, so I am extremely nervous. The first lesson went really well. My home room class named their team Mickey Mouse. Our camp decided on the theme of Disney or any other kids movies.

When we were doing posters preparations, the girls drew pictures of Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, Donald, and Daisy. They were drawing these characters until the naughty boys decided to mess up their drawings by making some of the characters look ugly like zombies and creepy. Should I show a picture yes or no?

These kids are quiet, naughty, and still are very fun to work with. It's now my turn to teach these kids. I wonder how they will act by the end of the camp. I am very excited to work with them!

My activities for my first lesson is

GoFish with food cards
ice breakers
vocabulary slideshow
and asking questions about food.

In this camp, we are trying to limit reading in and writing in the books as little as possible.

This morning, I woke up and just felt so tired that I wanted to sleep all day. I did lesson planning with the leader of our school. I did not go out and explore for the last time till a week later. This is the day we head to the next camp. The tour was really fun and I am very excited to see what the camp is like.

By the time we arrived at the camp, the hills were really steep. We were warned not to run down the hill or we would get hurt. The walk was really brutal. Plus it was warm and humid outside making the walk worse. The classrooms were decent and had TV's to plug in our computers and white boards. The lounge area for Korean and American teachers was pretty nice too. There is a place to drink tea and relax with couches.

The dorms were a bit better than the other dorms we were at. There were bugs and spiders, but I had someone kill them for me since I am such a scaredy cat haha. I got my own room and had more space to myself. There was only one bathrooms and a couple of showers. There were not a lot but still enough for people to use.

Honestly, when we had a welcome party, I liked the party at Naju better. We got to go out and eat at a traditional restaurant instead of chicken and pizza. We can have pizza and chicken in the middle of camp, but beginning, shouldn't that be a bit more better? It's okay, it's still food. I  enjoyed it! Thank you Muan for the food. I cannot wait when the kids come tomorrow!

The first thing I did when I woke up was to do laundry. I did laundry by washing my clothes by hand. After that, it was time to head down and continue the tour. The first place we went to was a green tea field in Boseong, down south of Korea. It was an awesome place. I got to taste some of the leaves that were growing. Some of the leaves were great tasting, some were bitter. The fields were all green leaves and seeds. There was a tour guide who showed us around. We did not get a chance to go up to the top where there was a observatory, so we just took a loop around the fields from the bottom to the middle of the place. At the end of the tour, our group got some time to shop around the gift shop and ice cream shop. I never got any ice cream, but I tried a bite of my friends ice cream and it was great. I bought a box of green tea cookies for America. I was tempted to open these, but I knew I couldn't because the airport security would take these cookies away if I opened the box. I want to keep it secure and make sure the cookies don't melt. I am sure they won't. 

Today is the first day I get a break after 10 days with the middle school kids. Let's just say, I miss them a lot. I've only taught one class everyday, but I still miss them. Today, my group and I met up with the other schools and went on a couple of different places. The first place we went was to a festival in Gangjin. It is down south in Korea. It's in the middle of nowhere. When we got there, there were lots of shops to look at from painting to food. It was an alright festival, nothing big.

After going to the Gangjin festival, we went out to eat at a traditional Korean restaurant a couple of blocks away from the festival area. There we had a lot of seafood, and other traditional Korean food. This was the same restaurant our leader of our group got sick from last year when he was here. I just hope I do not get sick. I've eaten raw seafood before and never gotten sick. When we got to the seafood restaurant, I saw a palace looking gazebo that was near there. It was awesome and big. Anyways the food was great and hope to go back again. The seafood pancake was great including the bugolgi, kimchi, and obviously their seafood. We had to take off our shoes and eat sitting on the floor. Don't worry, I've done this traditional stuff many times already. I've been to Korea twice already! Lucky me!  Though the weather was warm and sunny, the atmosphere was great.

After the seafood restaurant, we went down further south near where the ocean was and went to the water festival. When we got there, it was a really big festival. There were water flying everywhere. Kids and adults were playing in the fountains, pools, and shooting water guns. In Korea, they notice you, but don't care. I've gotten hit by water a couple times by a couple of people. Luckily, I dried up and everything went well. There was a water fight at the pool and fountain area. It was insanely crazy because water was everywhere. I got to go explore for about an hour and then went and relaxed in a trailer that our group rented. There was also a place for fishing near the ocean. I didn't get to go, but I've heard that some people got fishes with their hands.

When our group was done with the water festival, we went to a pizza place called Mr. Pizza. What a unique name for a pizza place. The toppings on the pizza were good, except they had sweet potato in the crust. I am not a big fan of sweet potato so I didn't really eat the crust. I ate outside of the crust which was great. After eating, me and my friend decided to walk around the downtown area and go shopping. She didn't want to go herself, so she asked me to go. We just bought stickers for the next camp. Then we went back home and relaxed and got ready for the next day.

This camp was an awesome one. The kids were really fun to work with and were also entertaining. I will be missing these kids. I started to laugh when people asked for teachers fb. Hope to see them soon. Time for the next camp!

Let's see to make this short. Just a couple more days till we take a break from teaching kids. It has been a great camp so far here in Asia. The camp has been really busy for the past few days. The teachers had to grade journals. They had to review with kids for the final. They had to conduct a final. Today we had a talent show where the kids from every class got to perform. Apparently class 4,  one of my friends class got first. They performed a K pop song from A Pink. I have never heard of them. Anyways, second place goes to my other friends class who sang a Frozen song. They were really great and had a great voice. I was chosen to judge, but I chose not so I told the Koreans teacher to do it. It was awesome. The Science class (4) got first. Art (11) second and third comics class (5) who danced to Bruno Mars and Pharrell Williams. They were awesome.

Anyways time for a couple more days before leaving. We have a golden bell competition, that will be explained later. We also have a mini olympics which is field day for the kids. That will be explained as well. See you in my next blog.

I started subbing for classes on Day 10 July 25. I got to teach Cooking, Art, and Shopping with the kids. I got to teach one class all day long with these classes. I know, I am a stalker, but it's how the schedule worked out at this camp. So far, the kids seem to not have a problem while I am their teacher. They are really respectful, other than messing around from time to time. This class isn't as bad as other classes I've heard from other teachers. I feel sorry for them.

First Day starts today! YAY! Today is the day where the teachers will instruct their classes from periods one to six. It was a very long and humid day. It was pouring down rain. I had to walk from the dorms to the classroom while it was raining holding my friend's laptop. At least she had a case for her laptop. That way the water doesn't ruin the laptop.

Anyways while the teachers were teaching their classes, me and the rest of the activities coordinator had to figure out a way to play the word Kaboom. This is like jeopardy, but a bit more rules. There are chances to steal other people's points, and win/lose points. The activities coordinators had to put on a powerpoint to show the kids.

We came up with some few great ways to make this quiz game fun. There will be 36 questions that the students will be choosing from. These questions will range from different categories such as animals and sports. Different teams will be able to steal if the designated team cannot figure out what the answer is before the time runs out. The team with the most points gets a free pass to dinner early.

There were some fun ways to play. We did a pirates, super hero theme for our Kaboom game. We used Captain America's shield, Pirates of the Caribbean for the game. So here were things set up

Missile- The team chosen to answer will get to choose one other team mate to get rid of their points.

Bomb, the team who is answering will lose their turn and points.

Shield- The team who is answering is safe from one round from any attacks.

Fight (Not Literally)- This got messed up on the powerpoint. I will explain later, but this is where if the students from the current answer the question correctly, they will choose a team to steal 1/2 point from them.

Game Over Mushroom- If your team lands on this, everyone loses a point.

1000- This is not 1000 won. The team gets 1000 points.

Jump/Skip- The current team loses a turn.

This is the best part of the game. Team 11, which is class 11 was going to win with 1000 points until the team next to them landed on a missile which wiped out the whole team 11 points. Everyone in the audience was cheering and was happy. Eventually team 4, class 4 won and got the ticket to leave to dinner early.

During lunch today, me and another Korean teacher decided to stay behind because it was raining. We both ordered food from a Korean bento place. It was good. The Korean teacher got ramen noodles. The food tasted great.

Lastly, time to rest up and get ready for the next day.

Today is the day we meet kid. I woke up today and was excited to meet the kids. After breakfast, we were assigned to go outside and welcome the kids. When the kids came from the buses, we teachers all clapped our hands welcoming them. Some of the kids were happy and some were not. I think some of them were force to be here, but we teachers will make things entertaining and fun.

Once the kids were settled in, we went down for an orientation at the library of the campus. The library was big and had seats there. Once the orientation started, we foreign teachers introduced ourselves and included our Korean co teachers. The Korean staff explained English is the only language that every kid and adults need to speak while in Camp. During the orientation, there was a cute video on the safety rules in the camp to make sure everyone is safe.

After the orientation was over, the teachers got to meet with their homeroom students where they would come up with a team name, poster, and chant. Some of them were really well drawn. The kids presented their poster and chants. There were some posters on super hereos, and some cute anime drawings. These kids have some great creativity going on their minds. Anyways after the posters and chants were presented, we played some games.

One of the games was SCREAM OUT LOUD! This game has at least two people. The student who screamed louder than the other student wins. Eventually we had to end the game early because it was short in time. A lot of students screamed really loudly. It was loud that some ears were hurt.

Another game we played was To Ma To. The students had to be in pairs and say the word Tomato with each other. Each student will take turns saying part of the word. For example, a student will say To, the other student will say Ma, and the first student will say To. The process repeats faster and faster. The goal for this game is to make the other student mess up. When they mess up, they lose.

After the games and presentations were over, it was time to head back to the dorms. The kids had to go shower up or downstairs from us. In addition, when the kids came back from the shower, they kept talking until it was around 10:30 at night. They are really noisy and some of us need sleep. Well, I can stay up late at night and wake up early the next day without over sleeping.

Anyways First day of coordinating/teaching tomorrow.

I cannot believe, after days of long lectures and sitting down at the auditorium we are finally done with the orientations. Let me tell you, these four days were intense and there were lots of information to get in my head. We just have one more lecture that is about an hour and half long and we start packing. This will be a very short post. After breakfast and the lecture, we will be packing and be on our ways to the camps.

I am very excited to be part of the camps :). I wonder what these camps are like.

I wanted to say thank you to all the Mokpo Soccer Stadium staff for hosting us for the four days we were here.

Anyways time to be off to the camps!

By the time we got to camp, we had a welcome dinner. This welcome dinner wasn't like other camps that I've heard. We all decided to go out and eat traditional Korean food. OMG it was so good. The fish, kimchi, soup, squid were awesome. I could not stop eating. It was that great. We were sitting down on the floor with mats like traditional Koreans. I will be posting pictures up at the end of the whole camp so make sure to look out for them.

Today marks the second part of the orientation. Yay more lecturing. This time we will be meeting our co teachers. The same food items were for breakfast, lunch and dinner. After breakfast, we sat back down at the auditorium. This is the day we picked our booth. I didn't choose a booth so I chose to do activities coordinator.

The activities coordinator has a lot to do such as taking pictures, subbing, planning activities for the whole camps. I am just doing the coordinating job for the first camp which is the middle school camp. I am very pumped and excited for this 10 days together with the kids. I want to see how people teach so that way I can learn to teach on my own.

Once we picked our booths, it was the Korean teachers turn to choose. So it was me and Erica from PSU along with a girl named Bomi and a boy who came in late named Joy Young. They are both from the same town but different universities. Next we came back to the auditorium and met up with the other activities coordinators from all over the six camps. We had to plan for our big presentation tomorrow. We decided on a murder game.

What is the Murder Game?

So the activity goes like this.

First the group of students come together.
Next they close their eyes.
The teacher will pick one student to be the murderer.
After the teacher picks the one person everyone opens their eyes.
They all start to walk around and shake people's hands.
(The murderer shakes and wiggles another person's hand and kills them)
The students know they are dead if the murderer comes in contact with them and shakes their hands.
After getting contact with the murderer, they have about 5 seconds to count down before dying.
After the 5 seconds are up, students dramatically fall to the ground.
It is the remaining students job to find the murderer.
If the murderer is found before more people die, the game is over.
If there is one more person alive, that person is a very lucky person to be survived.

This game is going to be played for about 5 mins in front of the whole auditorium tomorrow with the whole staff and camp coordinators with the whole activities coordinators. It's going to be very fun! I am excited and nervous.

After planning, there wasn't anything to do after except listened to a couple of more lectures and watched some examples of kid's talent shows in past. Also there was this one video on how to make Kimchi. We were laughing so hard because of how the lady was speaking. It was an awesome video.

When the orientation was over for the day, everyone ate dinner and then went back to the rooms and did last minute planning for the big presentation tomorrow.

Yay today is the first day of orientation. I woke up around 6am just to get ready for breakfast. For breakfast, I ate eggs, ham, cheese sandwich, kimchi, and rice.  I was surprised that Koreans eat kimchi for breakfast. I thought it was just a lunch thing. Apparently not. I enjoyed the meal though. After breakfast, we had a couple of hours to spend freely around the stadium. A couple of PSU groups did their own thing. I joined one of the groups. We walked to the gazebo where it had a lot of spiders. There was a pretty view of the soccer fields where the players were playing. The gazebo was decent. We wanted to sit, but there was spiders, bugs, and bird poop everywhere. After the gazebo, my group decided to go around the soccer stadium. There were kids playing soccer. While we were going through the field, one kid came up and said...

Hello!
My name is Cristiano Ronaldo
I am very good soccer player!

We just started laughing with him. It was cute that the kid loved Ronaldo, a famous soccer player for Spain. Another kid came up to us and told us that the boy was crazy. We just said aww because it was cute. The boy told the other boy who came up to us that he was st*******. We told him that was a very mean thing to say and that we had to head back. He said sorry eventually and went back to play. By the time we got back, we started the orientation. We went to the auditorium and sat with our camp groups from 11-5pm. We were suppose to go till 6pm, but the Canadian director for the program didn't come back like he promised so we got to explore town a little bit. During the orientation we talked about what it's expected in the classroom, how to handle little situations, and other ground rules. Let me give you a little gist of what's going on.

So each camp will have 12 teachers with 12 booths (classes) ranging from sports to music. It will be a very long day everyday from 8am to around 10pm at night. So much work and so busy, but I got it. I hope to get my fear of talking to people and in front of them out of my system. Also in the camps ther will be four activities coordinators. Two Americans and two Koreans. I will be at two camps. One near the coast of Muan and one in the city of Naju.

After the orientation, we got to explore Mokpo near the Lotte Mart. It seemed like a big town with a port of the Bohai Sea. We got to go shopping at the Lotte Mart. Omg the place was like a shopping mall. The escalators were shaped weirdly. People could actually take their carts up with them. It was awesome. My group shopped for of course soju, shower shoes, and other supplies. I didn't buy anything until we got to a restaurant called Coffee Frame, I think. I got a bowl of noodles. I was awesome. The right of flavor and great taste. There were also shaved ice cream, coffee, and ice cream. If I find the name, I will let you all know.

When we were finished eating, we walked back to the port/harbor called the BoardWalk at the waterfront near Shangria Hotel. There we watched a water show. This consists of different water patterns and laser lightning with the water. The show started with the song "Let it Go" from Frozen. The laser patterns showed the animations from the movie. It was awesome. I will be showing a video very soon. The show lasted about an hour which was awesome. It ended with a love song in Korean. My group and I ended up staying till around 11pm and came back and ended our day.

Stay tune for Day 3

July 16-17 Day one

I woke up in the morning, getting ready for this big day. I got a really bad allergy attack when I woke up. I got really nervous and was really excited to finally travel on my own. A Korean family friend called and asked if we could take her to the airport. By the time we got to the airport, I did not know what I was doing so I just waited in line. My Family Korean friend told me to stay in line and not out because it's gonna take a while. While waiting in line, I somewhat messed up on the baggage check process. I accidentally put my baggage claim only all the way to Seattle. My family friend helped me and told me to just go all the way. I learned a very good lesson that day, do not check in online when flying internationally. It will mess things up. Luckily I got to get here safely. I transferred flight from PDX to SEA. On the flight, there weren't meals. I sat next to an old lady because apparently I changed the seating for that flight. I didn't realize that my seats were gonna be next to someone from the program before changing it. My bad. At least I got to go out first? :D.

When we got to Sea Tac, the airport was really awesome transferring flights. We got to go on a subway train going from one place at the airport to the next. There were a lot of people getting on and off. Each train came around 2 mins. By the time I got to the gate, it was time to go find food. I got a big bowl of Chicken Teriyaki and mmm it was good. I was so hungry because I didn't bring any food. After a few hours in Seattle, we were ready to board. I rode on Asiana and the seats were comfy. I slept almost 6 hours during the flight. There were TV's so people could watch movies. The meal was great. I had bibimbap for lunch and dinner I had cod and rice. The meal was small but it was great.

Day 2 July 17

After a 10 hour flight, we finally made it to Seoul (Incheon Airport). Man I have not been to this airport for over 5 years now. It still looks about the same when I was here. I got through security and met up with the rest of the group. When I was about to exchange money, I thought I forgot my debit card, so I just rushed to the counter and put in money. Luckily I found the card inside my bag. Phew! I exchanged about 50 dollars worth of $$ and got 55k of Korean $$. After exchanging money, it was time to board the buses. The buses were really nice and decent. I got to sit all alone and charged my phone. Halfway through the bus ride, we went to a resting area where we got to eat sandwiches. Our sandwiches consists of chicken, mayo and raisins. I liked everything except for the raisins. I don't really like the raisins, but the sandwiches overall were great. When we went on the bus, the leader from my school came and sat next to me. I warned them that I didn't want to get them sick, but they still sat next to me anyways. They gave me medications and it put me to sleep. Thank you leader.

About 2 hours later, Portland, Arizona and Michigan all came together and arrived at the football stadium called Mokpo International Football Stadium. I got to room with someone I know. That's a great relieve for me. In addition, when we got into the rooms, it was hard to set up the air conditioner so we had the manager come and set things up for us. He was extremely nice and told us how to set up. We arrived around 1am in the morning which is 10pm the day before in the USA. I rushed to use the bathroom. The moment I was done using the restroom, I didn't know what to do when flushing so I just pushed the buttons on the toilet and water splattered all over the floor. Well just a bit. I saw a stop sign, pressed it and  it stopped. My friend, also my roomie, who isn't Korean, but could speak Korean told me I press the buttons on the side. I was like ohhhhh. That's a start. I have not been to Korea since 2010. I cannot wait till I start teaching and exploring.

Stay tune for Day 3

July 16 I am ready to go out and explore Korea for a month. I am extremely nervous and excited. This will be my first time traveling alone with friends and other co teachers! Woo! 

Every year my school has this thing called the Shield Games. 

This is how I know if I found him. 

Yes. I'm watching a robin Williams movie. This movie reminds me when I thought I wasn't worth it. I had no one to be with. I'm had a few friends. Sometimes I thought they weren't my friends and pretended to be one. I have had depression my whole life due to bullying. The character in this movie reminds so much about me. Kyle. He had one great friend who cares about him the most. Everyone didn't like him at first. Everyone hated me. He had a talent. I had a talent. He was picked on. Same goes with me. But the number one thing that we had similarities were the suicidal thoughts. He's dead and I'm not. After his death everyone liked him. I'm worried my life will be like his being liked after death. Me and Kyle had wished we had more support around people and didn't have to be a loner all the time. This is just a very sad movie. I really enjoyed watching this and hope my life will become better and people will actually like me now instead of after. 

Dear 6 year old Baojia,

Youtube has this thing called #DearMe where you say a letter to younger self, but I might be on camera later. Anyways where to start.

This was a true story. You may not believe it but it was actually true. You were 6 years old starting to be in first grade. You wake up all ready for school. You were very happy to meet new faces and make new friends. You were the happy child that everyone loved to see.  You could make friends easily and had the time of your life. Then things started changing during the middle of the school year. A group of boys in your class and started making fun of you. They started teasing you, joking around with you. You didn't care at first, but then it got worse. The boys started to push you around during recess, called you names. Everyone who were your friends began to lose you as a friend. The teachers didn't do anything. You kept this all a secret and never told anyone including your own first grade teacher nor parents. You began to cry like there was an ending to your life. Luckily, you didn't think negative thoughts during that time. As you grew older, more and more pain started to get to you thinking about the past. These boys went to elementary school, middle, and high school with you. They were the ones who started to bully you as a youngster. It was a bad decision for you to keep this all a secret. You lost a lot of friends, you didn't have anyone to talk to since you started being bullied. Things got a lot worst after that happened. You started thinking negative about yourself. You didn't think positive. You cared what everyone thought about you. You put yourself down instead of feeling up. Bullying can be very challenging. It still impacts me as an adult. I am still bullied now by people in college. I understand things can be challenging when you are always lonely. You and I are the same person inside and out. I will be bullied for the rest of my life. After high school, your bullies will be moving to a different school and will never see them again. You will never be contacted again and made fun from them. You will be bullied by new people. Everyone will hate you. You will be starting college in the next 12 years. Bullying starts at a young age and will never leave you. You can cry all you want. You can hit the wall, break a book, yell, etc. That feeling of being made fun of, judged, or being negative can never leave. It's always going to be there. I am in college right now going to Portland State University and I am still having trouble making new friends. You were lucky at age 6 when you were more outgoing and wanted to play with people. I wish I was like you right now being more outgoing especially when I want to be a teacher. In the future, when you are feeling this pain, I encourage you not to kill yourself or commit suicide. Sometimes, it is hard to let pain go, but it will take a while to. I always thought of negative things when I felt the pain from bullying my whole life. I wanted to kill myself, no one was there to help me, and I had low self esteem. Yes, you and I hate everyone who has judged us. We can't put an end to it, but just ignore the fact we get judged and try to move on. That is my biggest advice to you. Please make sure your mommy and daddy read this out to you when you get home. They will be proud of what their daughter will become in the future. ALL STRONG AND BOLD!

Sincerely,

Your Future Self.

P.S.

Feel free to continue talking to them or hate them and ignore them. You have the choice.

I love my long hair. I donated my hair 5 years ago in 2010. It changed my life. Now 5 years have passed and I get to decide whether I want to cut it or not. It's so hard to decide when you love your long hair. I get to do a lot with my hair. Smack people twirl it have people play with it etc. I do and don't want to go and get rid of my hair. Any suggestions? Let me know thanks. 

Alright. Yesterday I got to encounter a new experience in life. I got to travel with friends for the first time. We were on winger break and wanted to do something so we decided to travel somewhere. We didn't travel anywhere far. We just went to the town of Seattle. I've never experienced this so I decided to go. At first I thought I was busy but I got my errands done before the trip. I know it was last minute but my friend still let me go. We went around where university of Washington was located. I left in the afternoon. My friend Joanna Young her bf Ronald and I went in one car. When we got to Seattle we decided on Korean food. We had pancakes kebabs and ramen. It was good. Then we had sushi. Of course I didn't eat anything there because I was too full. At the sushi place I got to meet a couple of new people from a friend who came with us. After the sushi dinner, we went back to the apartment where my friends friend lived. We just parked hard. Since I was21 already I had a couple of drinks. Some of the drinks were alright and some are ugh. We played a couple of games and hamper drinks. People got drunk fast for some reason. There were disgusting things that happened. There was lots of things to do and see in Seattle. One was the games that the city had to offer. There was an arcade place called GameWorks. It was so much fun. After the arcades, my group decided to head home. The other group of friends stayed till around 12 to go shopping. Overall the trip was great. One night and two days.

Happy late Thanksgiving. Hope everyone enjoyed their time with their families eating lots of food and having fun. I didn't do much, but at least I had fun. I did homework and ate pie. A lot of my family don't like pie, so I ate just with sadness and loneliness because no one would eat pie with me. That was just sad. At least they all ate turkey and ham with me. I still love you family. I am thankful for a great family, friend, and other nice people in the world.

It's time that I let out what I've been hiding for the past 15 years in my life. It started when I was in first grade. I was playing with my friend from kindergarten. A couple months before school was over if I recall, she moved away and I never saw her again. I felt lonely and sad and No one to talk to. I wouldn't play with anything for a couple days. Then a couple of days later during recess, a couple of boys in my class came up to me and called me really rude names such as cry baby retard stupid etc. It just hurt my feelings even when you lost a friend. They would push me grab me. No one would notice me or ask me anything. I went back to class and I pretended nothing happened. I wouldn't tell the teachers. I didn't do anything. I would just go home and cry everyday. The guys would pick on me , but there  was only one person who kept on bullying me till the end of high school. The rest just gave up. It's disturbing to have someone bully you. I should have stood up for myself. Instead I was scared. I thought if I told someone they would hurt me. I didn't want to get hurt even more. 

Today, I wrote a letter to the guy who bullied me till after high school. His name was Thomas. His friends were Kyle and Nick. I cried and cried. I had to talk to a counselor at my college to get rid of this dark secret that I have been hiding for so long from everyone. I pretended to be happy. I did everything I could to make friends. It didn't work. I thought no one liked me, thought everyone disliked me. Etc. I still feel a sense of that today.  In addition, the letter shows how I feel today and will feel for the rest of my life. 

During the time Thomas and his friends were bullying me, I had lost my confidence in talking to people, making new friends, I avoided people. I became shy. Sometimes I had to fake talk. I lost the ability to make friends. Since I talked to a couple of people about it, I am regaining all these skills.


Here it is. 

Thomas, you were my bully once and will always be a bully to me. Thank you for ruining my life. I've lost my confidence in making friends and reaching out to people. You are mean, cruel, and other mean things. I lost my talkative self. I am starting to gain back those skills. I will never forget what you did to me. I had a lot of bruises, and a lot of name calling. Because of you, I've decided to stay shy. Because of you, I have a hard time making friends. Because of you, I've been depressed. Sky who was a friend of mine may have moved away, but she was my first friend. My life will never be the same again. 

UGH I hate itchy eyes lol. That's all lol

I know I am two days late. It is finally my last day at ACAP for this summer. I had a fun time at the camp. I learned a lot about kids with autism and how to better handle them. It was pretty hard, with all the yelling, hitting, and helping, but it was worth it. I am going to be a teacher someday and I need to know how to handle these types of kids before teaching because I know that I will have these kids in my class someday. I cannot wait till next summer :) I hope its greater and better than before :D

Haha, just another ordinary day at ACAP. The teacher was planning ahead on what we should do. He decided to do Chucky Cheese. At first the teacher didn't want to go there because of sensory issues and other problems that the kids might encounter. The teacher kept the activity on the schedule.

So today rolls by. I had a camper today who loved playing with a tent and laying on the floor. It's just so funny on how he loved these things and how he communicates with his camper mates. He's such a great camper to work with and fun as well.

By the time we got to Chucky Cheese, we sat for a bit and ate pizza and our lunches. My buddy had a peanut jelly sandwich. He took off the crust and ate some of the bread. He put back the leftovers back on to his lunch box. After that we had pizza. My didn't want pizza which was odd. Usually he would want a slice, but I guess he was full. I got to eat a piece and it was delicious.  Once we got our food, it was time for the games and arcades. My buddy was really excited. We got our tokens.

The first thing he tried was the jumping game. The purpose of the game is that there is a line of squares going around and we can't hit it. My buddy loved that game a lot that he tried again for about 15 times. Then I asked him to do something else. He insisted. We then decided to do the rolling the balls into the holes. I don't know what to name this game, but basically you roll the balls into the holes and score points. This was the cutest thing. My buddy climbed up to try to throw the ball in the hole, but it was unsafe so we had to ask him to get down. He did it a few time and then realized that we didn't want him up there. It was just cute.

After doing the ball in the hole for a couple of times, he wanted to do something different. He was walking around and saw a person having their picture taken at a sketch photo booth. He loved art so he wanted to try it out. It was also cute. He would take one picture and the computer would sketch his picture. He loved that machine so he did like a billion more and put it in his bag when he was done. He smiled and did a lot of poses. He held up his fingers. He just was a great guy during my time at the arcade. He showed the pics to me, the supervisor, the teacher, and everyone else. We were just saying aww a bunch of time because it was  one of the cutest thing that an autistic kid could do at Chucky Cheese.

Then when Chucky Cheese started walking around the place, my buddy wanted to join. Chucky was holding a sign for free tickets. A couple of kids were also following. My buddy loved Chucky and gave him lots of hugs. So when the walking was done, everyone got to do the dance of Head Shoulders Knees and Toes. I had to help my buddy do the body parts. My buddy wanted to keep hugging Chucky but we needed to help him get through the song. After that Chucky threw tickets around us and we got a bunch of them. Then my buddy hugged Chucky again.

Chucky looked different compared to many years ago when I last visited. The place got remodeled. It looked brighter, but smaller in my perspective. Chucky looked thinner. Maybe he wants everyone to live a healthy life.

On the ride back to ACAP, everyone was talking about how much fun we had. I can't wait to come back to Chucky Cheese with kids especially the special ones.

So this is week two of this summer job at ACAP. Let me tell you, there were some good times and there were some bad times. So let me tell you about this day today.

I got to work with one of the kids today. This time it was one of the harder kids. For the past week, I have been working with the easier kids. I wanted to try something different so I went with one kid in particular. He is only around middle school age. Let me tell you... He's only been here at the camp for 2 weeks and OMG!!!!

He would be very energetic and jump around and run. He loves playing with doors. He loved going in and out of the doors. He just didn't want to sit still. Today at the park, he was running around and didn't stop. He would take balls, frisbees, hoola hoops from the people at the park. They were having their own lunch and the kid I was working with messed a lot of things up. He would go to bathrooms and play with water. He would go in and out wet.

We were eating at a restaurant for lunch. The kid loved his gluten free burger without the buns. He just loved the meat and cheese. Haha. I just thought it was the cutest thing ever. Me and another staff member had to get two burgers because he got a bit angry and wanted to walk around but couldn't. He wasn't too patient with the lights when crossing the street. By the time the go sign was up, me and him just started dodging.

I had to chase him down a couple of times because he kept running.He ran around the ball field at the far end of the park. I had to knock him over just to try to get him back to where we were. I knew it was an accident. I felt so bad knocking the kid over, but the teacher said that she has experienced it many times so I am good. After quite some times, I was able to get him to where the group was. It was a long time before he could calm down, but I got it under control.

Later in the day, the kid was playing calmed down and got me playing with him. We played with frisbees, basketballs, soccer balls, hoola hoops as I mentioned earlier. We threw the sporting items to each other. He had a lot of fun. Then we played with bubbles that the other people provided. I remembered the formula. 1 cup of Karo syrup, 3 cups of dish soap (Joy), and 6 cups of water. They used Glysson for the color. The kid loved popping and making bubbles. He loved how the bubbles sparkled through the sunny sky. I loved the colors of the bubbles.

As we were walking, we went into a little room at the park. We sat down just hanging out seeing what people were doing. They were cutting cake for a party. By the time we got there, it was time to go so we tried to get the kid to go with us. He grabbed my hand and pulled me to where he wanted to go. The teacher said not to let him pull me like that. I had to fight for it and pull back. He got really mad at me and pushed me, hit me, shoved, grabbed me. He almost bit me, but didn't. He would also scratch me. I had a couple of scratch marks from him. He held my hand one more time and tried to head butt me. The teacher had to break me and him up and asked me to go the bus stop. I agreed and walked to the bus stop. As I walked the kid started coming after me. This was gonna be bad.

When I got to the bus stop, the rest of the group asked me if I was alright. I said  I was fine and had some scratch marks. The marks didn't look too bad at all. Some were not that visible to see. So I waited for the bus with the group. I didn't know what to do so I asked if I should wait or go. A couple staff members told me to just head back with the group because there's already someone with him along with the teacher.

While heading back on the bus, I was afraid about what happened. I thought to myself, everything was gonna be alright. By the time we got back, the kid was already there because he got picked up by my supervisor. I just sat in the room while the teacher was watching the kid. He ran around opening doors and running. I had to calm him down with balls. We did the same thing at  the park where we threw to each other. Sometimes he would throw to places that I wouldn't know, but I outsmarted him. I had to know where he was gonna throw next since we were playing inside another classroom. We didn't want to hurt anything at the place.

After a couple of mins later, his mom comes and picks him up. I got to tell her how the day was. Then the kid just sprint passed her. She goes after him without a proper goodbye to any of the staffs. The project director was ready to talk to her, but she didn't give contact. One of the staff members watched the whole thing and it was ugh. In addition, we were talking about the kid continuing or not. We decided that we could no longer try to control this behavior because we've tried everything we could, but it's just not working. His behavior was getting worse so it was best for him to be at home or a different place. We didn't want to do this, but it was the best choice to make. We felt bad to lose a camper this summer.

After work, I got to stay for an extra 15 minute (overtime). It was because to talk about what happened with the project director and supervisor. I had to write a incident report. That was fun. -_-. We talked how awesome I was with him playing with him and making sure that he's safe.

Lastly before I close, today was a stressful day, but I had fun exercising a lot. When I got home, I was too tired to do anything. My legs started to get sore. My back hurt, everything. I couldn't even massage myself which was a bummer. I took a two hour nap which was awesome, but my body still hurt. This day dang, I learned a lot through this experience. Let's see what my next adventures with kids with autism will be like.