Halloween Should Be Fun (October 31, 2007)

Halloween is a fun time for kids.  They can dress up and pretend to be anything they want.  Even adults like to dress up.  In America, children will knock on doors and say “trick or treat?”  It is a question that means “would you like me to trick you or would you rather give me a treat?”  A treat is something nice and usually adults will give children some candies.  Some kids have made up rhymes to make it even more fun.  One of them goes like this:

Trick or treat/Smell my feet/Give me something good to eat/If you don’t, I don’t care/I will take off your underwear!

Halloween is especially fun for kindergarten kids.  Sometimes, kindergarten teachers will decorate the classroom with spider webs, skeletons, and Jack O’Lanterns.  Jack O’Lanterns are pumpkin shells with a candle inside.  Americans like to carve out eyes, a nose, and a mouth on the pumpkin shell so the Jack O’Lantern can be either scary or funny.  Kids can go to school wearing their costumes and eat candies and other sweets.

Jordon Lock is 5 years old.  He went to school dressed like a firefighter.  He also brought a plastic axe with him.  His teacher told the school principal about the toy axe.  The principal called Jordon’s mother saying that the toy axe could be considered as a weapon.  The principal explained that weapons are not allowed in school.  So, he had to suspend Jordon from school for one day.

When other parents found out, they were angry with the principal for not being able to tell the difference between a toy axe and a real weapon.  They think the principal should be suspended, not Jordon.  What do you think?

Snakes Bite (October 24, 2007)

Matt is 26 years old and he lives in America. Matt loves snakes. Some people have hamsters as pets. Some have parrots. Some have turtles and some have fish.  Matt has snakes as pets. He has a tank at home with all his pet snakes. Every other day, he buys live mice to feed his snakes. When the snakes are full, he will take them out and play with them. Snakes usually don't bite if they’re full.

On his birthday in September, his friends organized a barbecue party at the country park to celebrate. They ate a lot of food and drank many bottles of beer. They had chicken wings, sausages, and burgers. Everyone had a great time. One of his friends asked Matt to get some sausages out. When Matt put his hand in the sausage bag, he picked up a snake instead.  Remember that any park with lots of grass and bushes could have snakes.

All his friends screamed but Matt told them that the snake was not dangerous. He said "Look at me." He put the snake's head in his mouth. The snake bit his tongue and the poison from the bite made his face turn bright red. His friends took him to the hospital immediately. Fortunately, the doctors were able to save him and Matt is doing okay now.

He is telling everyone what happened and he wants everyone to know that drinking too much beer will make people do silly things. He also wants everyone to know that snakes can be very dangerous. Don't touch them or play with them and NEVER put a snake's head in your mouth.  Snakes will bite if they think they are in danger.

Miley Cyrus (October 17, 2007)

Miley Cyrus is 14 years old. She is the star of Disney's TV show Hannah Montana.  In the show, she is a student during the day but at night she is a famous pop singer.  It is hard to believe that her friends at school don't recognize her as the pop singer but sometimes viewers have to use their imagination.  The show is really popular among tweens and teens.

Anyway, Miley is a great singer in real life. Kids love her concerts.  This autumn, she is going on tour so she will be singing at many cities around the country and her concert is the hottest show in America.  Tickets for her concert sold out in 4 to 8 minutes!  This concert tour is proof that kids love Miley Cyrus.

Scalpers are people who buy tickets and sell them again at a higher price. They are the ones who bought most of the tickets. They bought the tickets for $70 USD each but now they are reselling each ticket for $210 USD.  Parents are really angry at the scalpers because they have to pay so much more for the tickets. A family of four would have to pay $840 USD to see the show.  That's a lot of money.

It is important to remember that it is not the end of the world if you don't have tickets to her show.  Wait for the DVD. It will be cheaper than going to the concert and you can watch it over and over again. Parents should also teach their children that sometimes they can’t have want they want. 

Don't let scalpers make so much money because they will do this for other popular concerts again and again.

Britney Spears (October 10, 2007)

Britney Spears is a very popular singer.  Her fans love her songs and she has made a lot of money.  She is ranked 8^th in the money-making list of all female singers. 

Unfortunately, even superstars fall.  When someone is famous, everybody knows him or her in a good way.  When someone is infamous, everybody knows him or her in a bad way.  Britney was famous and now she is infamous.

She is infamous because she got married in Las Vegas three years ago.  Her marriage to Jason lasted fifty hours.  After two days, Britney and Jason decided to get a divorce. 

That same year, she married Kevin.  At first, everything was good and they had two children.  Sadly, after her second child was born, Britney and Kevin got a divorce.

After her divorce with Kevin, she was not happy.  She drank a lot of alcohol.   In February, 2007, she decided to shave her head.  She also attacked a photographer with an umbrella.  Her ex-husband Kevin decided to take care of their children because he believed that Britney was not a good mother. She had to go to the hospital many times to stop her drinking problem.

Because of her mistakes in life, photographers follow her wherever she goes, waiting for her to make another mistake.  In August, she made a huge mistake.  She was parking her car at the mall when she accidentally hit a parked car.  The photographers recorded her accident and she may have to go to jail because she did not call the police.

Recently, her life has turned around and she is heading in the right direction. She is making a comeback with new hit songs and music videos.

High School Musical (October 3, 2007)

Ask your parents if they saw Grease when they were young and they will probably tell you they loved John Travolta and Olivia Newton John in that movie.  When you grow up and have kids, you will probably tell them that you loved Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens in HSM. 

Zac and Vanessa play the roles of Troy and Gabriella.  Troy is a basketball star in school and Gabriella is a math genius.  They meet and fall in love.  Don’t worry, they don’t kiss in HSM 1.  Tweens hate kissing.  Troy and Gabriella have one thing in common: they like to sing.  However, Troy doesn’t want his basketball teammates to know that he’s a singer while Gabriella hates singing in front of people.  They secretly audition for their school’s musical production and the whole school finds out. 

The movie is about students who want to do things they love even if their friends don’t approve.  Eventually, their friends support their dreams because friends should be supportive all the time.

Do you know what is a tween?  A tween is a kid who is between 10 years old and 14 years old.  Are you a tween?  It is tough being a tween because you are old enough to make your own decisions but there are still things you want to do but can’t.  HSM is really popular among tweens.

HSM1 was a Disney Channel movie.  It was made in 2006.  It was so popular that Disney decided to make HSM2.  This summer, HSM2 was the most popular TV movie in America.  Kids are learning the songs and dance moves.  Disney's HSM3 came out in 2008 as feature length film. Disney will make HSM4 in the near future so look out for it.

Rhain Davis (Sept 19, 2007) *with video

Rhain Davis is 9 years old.  He lives in Brisbane, Australia with his grandfather.  He loves to play football and he’s really good.  He can dance around players and nobody can catch him.  When he falls, he gets up and chases the ball.  He can score and he can pass the ball.  Everybody thinks he’s a special football player. Rhain started playing football when he was 3 years old.  His grandfather taught him how to kick the ball and run with the ball.  By the way, Americans use the word soccer instead of football. 

A few months ago, his grandfather made a DVD of Rhain playing football.  He sent the DVD to a very famous football club called Manchester United (Man. U).  The coaches at Manchester United thought Rhain Davis was special too.  They invited Rhain Davis to practice with thirty other 9 year old boys at the Manchester United Football Center.  They hope Rhain will get better and better.

Rhain’s grandfather also put the video on youtube.com.  More than 3 million people have seen the video.  You can see it too.  This boy is truly amazing and you will enjoy it.  The song is pretty cool too.

People say that he will be a great football player when he grows up.  The coaches don’t know what will happen in the next ten years because some special football players don’t become great players when they grow up.  Some boys decide to go back to school.

Although we don’t know what will happen, Rhain’s dream of playing football with the best players has come true.  His story reminds us that we should follow our dreams because sometimes they do come true. 

Check out his skills in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hG47FDenyXw

Dirty Ticket (June 13, 2007)

Jimmy is 23 years old.  He lives in America and he loves to watch TV.  He watches TV after work and he watches TV all day on Sundays.  He eats in front of the TV and sometimes he falls asleep watching TV.  His favorite shows are Prison Break, CSI, and 24.

Last week, he decided to buy a new flat-screen TV.  He drove to the mall and found a parking space right in front of the TV store.  He ran into the store and saw hundreds of TVs.  There were so many TVs that he had a hard time choosing one.  There were large ones, small ones, plasma TVs and LCD TVs.  After an hour, he chose one and paid for it.  He walked back to his car and saw a parking ticket on his car’s windshield.  He was very upset.  He had to pay $320 because he forgot to put money in the parking meter.

When he got home, he wrote a check for $320.  Then his dog came up to him and urinated on the floor.  He was so angry.  He used the parking ticket and the check to wipe the urine away and he put both the ticket and the check in an envelope.  He sent it to the police station.  A police officer opened the envelope and she had urine on her hands.  She had a headache and she vomited. 

Jimmy is now in big trouble.  The police may arrest him and send him to jail. Jimmy is very sorry for what he did and he has apologized many times.  The police are wondering if he is really sorry or pretending to be sorry because he doesn’t want to go to jail.

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