I live in Portugal. Portugal is an amazing place filled with many hills and valleys. It is a very old country, which means that it has very old buildings. Let us explore a few of them.

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Torre de Belem- Translated, this means Tower of Bethlehem. King Manuel I, of Portugal, had Francisco Arruda start construction on the tower in 1514. When built, this tower was completely surrounded by water. Now sand has built up, and the tower rests on the beach.

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Built in 1493 by King John II, the Palacio de Pena (or Pena Palace) is an amazing sight. This vibrant palace was also a monastery. This palace was built on the top of a hill, making itch nearly impossible to attack. This palace is surrounded by over 200 hectares of gardens.

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Obidos is a town surrounded by walls. Inside it are held many festivals including a chocolate and a medieval festival. This town is full of shops. You can purchase many tourist trinkets. If you are courageous enough, then you can walk around the walls that have no guard rails!

It was my birthday on Tuesday, March 22. ! I turned 14. It was a wonderful day.

I got to celebrate my special day with my mom, dad, and my oldest sister. I started the day with breakfast at McDonalds. Then after we finished eating, we went bike riding on the coast. At lunchtime we parked our bikes on the beach and ate our picnic lunch. Then we rode back to the car and drove to the best ice cream place in town. I got caramel and wild berry ice cream. As soon as we finished our ice cream, I picked up my basketball cake. When I got home, I opened gifts from my parents. I went out for pizza with my friends for dinner. After dinner, we returned home and ate cake and ice cream.

I received wonderful gifts from my friends and family. I received clothes, a personal blender, fun things for school lunches, school supplies, stuff for my locker, a heart necklace, and candy.

I am so thankful for my friends and family that helped make this day special. I have a feeling that with with these guys by my side, I am going to have a wonderful year of being fourteen.

#16stubc

Are you unsure how to write a quality comment? Do you need to brush up on your commenting skills? Well, than this is the post for you.

1. The first step in writing a quality comment is finding a quality post. I think that if you are to write a quality comment, than you should find a post about something you care about. If you are not interested in the post, than do not comment.
2. The next step is to be positive. Even if you do not agree with a post, still be positive. You can applaud the carefully crafted post while politely disagreeing with the content. Always compliment the author on the aspect of his or her post that you enjoyed. 
3. The third step is to write a well thought out comment.  If your comment is going to be read by many  people, than you had better make sure that it is an educated response. You do not want to look like a fool online. Take your time thinking about the ideas that you want to come across  in your comment. Then carefully take your time putting those thoughts into words. 
4. When you finish your comment, revise and proofread. Make sure that your grammar, punctuation, spelling, and usage of words is correct. Use a thesaurus and/or a dictionary to find exact and vivid nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives.
5. The last step is to write your name. Writing your name at the end of your comment transforms your comment into a personal conversation with the author. It allows you to show the author that you are more than an avatar, you are a person. You can connect even more if you write something about yourself. You could write about interests that you and the author share, a similar story that happened to you, or even a similar post that you wrote about the same topic.

I am…

Only a young girl who

Loves to play basketball, bake, and have

Incredibly fun times with her friends. I enjoy going on

Voyages across the world.

I can speak two languages,

And I live in Portugal.

I made my avatar at http://www.weeworld.com/. I am a girl who loves to curl her brown hair. I have somewhat of a green color of eyes. I love wearing simple outfits like jeans and a t-shirt. My favorite pair of shoes is my navy blue sneakers. You will almost always catch me with a smile on my face. I get excited over small little things, and my eyes light up. My avatar is a little glimpse of who I am.

This week, in school, we had Spiritual Emphasis Week. A Pastor came all of the way from Canada to teach us more about God and His word. We went over the book of Ecclesiastes. The Pastor illustrated the book of Ecclesiastes as us being in a snow globe. Life has no purpose when God is out of the picture. We work hard for success, fame, education, a great family and in the end we die and none of that stuff matters. It really opened my eyes to the importance of God. I never really saw how much disaster exists in this world. People need God, and without Him there is no hope.

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Eureka! This picture and word are a perfect description of this semester. I feel that I have learned and understood so much in this short amount of time. My favorite way of learning, so far, has been through projects. Projects allow us to learn the information whilst teaching it to each

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other. Projects also test our people skills, tech skills, and our ability to make learning fun. As I went through trying to remember names and dates, places and events, and how they all fit together; it was helpful to have the different mediums of teaching that came through projects. Our projects provided variety so as to not get bored. We had to draw, act things out, find pictures, and write about our topics to show our understanding. Having one project right after another made us have to think about ways to improve. If we did not make each project better then they started to get boring. So our creativity was pushed to the max. I enjoyed the support of my classmates to aid in learning. I cannot wait to start another semester!

My attitude going into the next semester ->

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As a little eight year old girl, I was truly scared today! I had just fallen asleep when a little sparkle of light hit my eye. Well, then I was up and I was not able to fall asleep again. So I went outside to get some fresh air. Unlike I had expected it was pitch black, except for  two little rays of light shining from down the street out of the church window. As I watched from behind a stump (the one in the picture), I saw a blur of a figure on a horse race by. You will never guess who it was! It was Mr. Paul, the guy who makes horseshoes for my horse. I decided to follow him, so I got on my little pony and followed him all the way to the edge of the water. I stopped there wondering why he was in a boat going across the water. I went home after deciding it was to dangerous to follow Paul any further. In the morning I woke up, wondering what exactly had happened. I stepped outside and heard people discussing about a brave man who warned the colonists about the British attack. Oh! It was Mr. Paul.

Yesterday during history class, we decided to spruce up the school. All of the junior high- high school decorated the teachers’ doors. We enjoyed looking at the Biblical and today’s view of Christmas. Everyone is making snowflakes, bows, and nativity scenes. Then last night the elementary, along with the high school sign language class,  performed in a Christmas program. I enjoyed the jolly voices of the young girls and boy singing Christmas carols. I also enjoyed the comical guest performance of  “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.” The kids did such a great job singing, that my friends and I made cookies for them. They enjoyed the cookies then ran to play a nice game of four-square. What a joyous day of celebrations!

This week, in class, we have been reading about the events leading up to the Revolutionary War. Our assignment was to take notes while we were reading. The next day we would discuss the different subjects  with our group. Then as a group we would write one sentence describing our topic (for instance: “Governing an Empire”). This helped me learn because as I read I had to pay attention to find the main ideas. I also enjoyed discussing my doubts with my group.