1/31: Day 8 of the Mayan Trip 馬雅探索: 令人眼界大開的豪華遊艇

Hello KCBS,

Finally, today was the day for us to go on the cruise ship.  The kids were very excited; I am not sure whether it was because they were looking forward to visiting the Mayan ruins or because they were psyched about the cruise.  We did our usual routine,the morning dance, the journal reporting, and then we were given some time to pack up.  Almost all the suitcases have gotten"fatter" since their first arrival almost a week ago.  I am not really sure where and how did these kids have gotten souvenirs when we only had about 1 hour of shopping.  I suppose purchasing souvenirs without being noticed goes right up there with the ability to capture a picture moment as the two essential elements of being an Asian tourist!

We had our lunch in our classroom in Houston before departing for the port at Galveston.  We lost our translator Jessica, but got many more adult chaperons.  We have a new translator, Eva, who joined us from the space camp.  We also got Kerry, Allen, and Mars.  The organization, apparently, are worried that the kids would be tempted to re-enact the scene from Titanic and wanted to keep a close eye on them!  Haha! Actually, it's in accordance to the cruise regulation; each room must have an adult.  So, the students were divided into groups of 3, and there are 2 male chaperons for the 6 boys and 4 female chaperons for the remaining 12 girls.  I get Penny and Arielle from KCBS, and another girl named Phoebe whom later was referred to as the "aiya" girl.  I believe she gets nervous around me, especially when I speak English to her. So, whenever she sees me, she will smile and say "aiya"!

The checking-in process took a while because it was everybody's first time.  Overall, it was not too bad, and we boarded the cruise ship named Carnival Ecstasy as quickly as possible.  The first view of the ship was extravagant; I thought we were transformed to Las Vegas.  Everything was colorful and shining!  I was already dizzy before the ship even took off.  Is this why the ship is called Ecstasy? We had some time to find our cabin.  The cabin is quite small for four people.  There are two retractable beds in the upper walls above the original lower beds.  The bathroom is slightly larger than the airport lavatory.  When you put 4 people, 3 suitcases that are almost the same size as the girls' there is barely any room for my tiny suitcase.  So, I resorted to owning a personal space of 30cm x 30cm where I put my closed suitcase there.

After getting our suitcases and sorting out everything, we met up by the upper deck for some food.  Oh, I have to dedicate a paragraph to the food~ Oh, my god!  If I don't do it now, I will be talking about food all the time!  There is constantly free food at anytime in a lot of different locations.  There is hot food, cold cuts, fruits, desserts, ice cream, bread, cookies, and drinks.  I thought I had died and gone to heaven!  There is a designated restaurant for the regular meals, but at other times, you can get anything to eat/drink and it's all free.  Alcohol is the only thing that one has to purchase.  Considering my pathetic almost zero alcohol tolerance, I'd save a lot of money.  The meals are excellent!  You can order anything and everything at the restaurant,eggs made in any way you like, sausages, bacon, potatoes, all kinds of fruits, cereals, and drinks, waffles, pancakes, bread, croissant...etc.  Dinner is the same, we can order different entrees each time, or order two if your stomach can store two!  Yay~

We couldn't do much on the first day because we didn'?t have a classroom to have lectures and everybody was pretty distracted and/or tired after the initial "wow" and "ooo" so we planned some free time for the kids to explore around the cruise ship and to take the kids to watch the welcoming show.  That was pretty nice!  Dinnertime was at 8:15pm, and by the time we finished, there was some free time for the kids to burn off the calories by roaming around the ship!  That was it for our 1st day on the ship!

Frankie

休士頓高階太空學校營隊MBA for Youth 相簿連結

5位代表康橋參加高階太空學校的優秀學生，
從休士頓傳回熱騰騰的遊記囉，請為他們加油!
Have a giant goal and believe it!

http://www.spaceschool.us/enterprise/

馬雅探索相簿網址

更多精采片段，請連結馬雅探索相簿喔~
http://www.spaceschool.us/mayan/

1/30: Day 7 of the Mayan Trip 馬雅探索:萊斯大學與馬雅考古專家-巴赫德博士

Hello KCBS,

Finally, the kids went shopping today!  It has been on their mind since day one,many of them have complained about it.  I guess all the praying and hoping has worked, all right!

In the morning, we had the pleasure of having a professor who came to talk to the kids about the Mayan civilization.  The lecture was quite interesting with a lot of useful background.  The KCBS students asked questions, which was very impressive.

After the lecture, we had lunch first before heading out to Rice University.  According to the counselor's information, Rice University is the Harvard of the South.  Unfortunately, we were not able to go inside many of the buildings.  So, we walked around while Rebecca told us a bit about the school.  It was a nice walk!

Rebecca surprised the kids about the trip to the shopping mall when we finished taking a group photo, and the news sent all the kids, especially the girls, screaming and jumping for joy.  Everybody stayed focused and together as we quickly returned to the hotel so that people could get ready for the modern battle named "shopping".  We took the bus to the Galleria.  The kids had an hour,and when Rebecca dismissed them, they went scattering like the Exodus!

We made it back to the hotel without losing anybody or any purchases.  The kids did pretty well.  We had dinner while watching a history channel video done by Professor Ed. Barnhart, the teacher who will guide us through the Mayan ruins.  Most kids were into their own conversation, but a few other students were very into the video.  After the video, the kids learned to auction for important things.  It was fun to watch them because they interacted well with the presenter and each other.

At the end of one week here in Houston, the kids have finally adjusted into the swing of things.  They have realized that the camp is not all fun, but rigorous with lessons and projects.  Most importantly, the KCBS students have developed friendship with the kids from other schools.  Since the start, they were all in their separate groups.  Now, today, I saw them talking, joking, laughing, and laughing with each other.  It was very hear-warming to see that these kids getting along.  Way to go, guys!

Frankie

1/29- Day 6 of the Mayan Trip馬雅探索:參觀海軍戰艦德克薩斯號

Hello KCBS,

We experienced a very interesting part of Texan history today when we went to visit the USS Texas and the exact location of a pivotal battle between the Texans and the Mexicans.  It was a good day because it was a day about history, my favorite subject.  Unfortunately, I had a slight headache because my nose was all stuffed up.  So, this journal entry is not going to be very exciting, and I apologize for that!

OK, a little bit on the history about USS Texas:It is the last of the world's big-gun battleships designed and built at the beginning of the 20th century.  She is also now the only surviving US naval ship that served in both World Wars.  In World War I, she participated with the American squadron in maneuvers in the North Sea against threats from the German High Seas Fleet.  In World War II, she provided support for the landing at Iwo Jima and also took part in the invasion of Okinawa later.

The tour guide for the group, Tim, was an awesome guide.  He first took the kids down to a classroom inside the battleship for a game of "battleship".  Using that game, he talked to the kids about the role of USS Texas during World War I.  The kids enjoyed the game and of course, the students who represented the US won collectively as a group.  After the game, the tour began.  Tim took us through the upper deck and explained the different offensive and defensive weapons the Texas battleship had.  The amazing part was when Tim took us below the deck to the different levels. Through the different sections, he took us through the lives of the sailors, the officers, the marines, and their daily routine involving eating, entertaining, and playing practical jokes on each other.  We really got a very thorough tour of the battleship as Tim made history come alive!

The tour took longer than it should, so we had to have lunch before moving onto the next part.  After lunch, the tour continued with the students learning how to send messages to each other using flags.  Our kids did a wonderful job~ every word was correctly flagged and received by the other team.  Awesome, kids!  I thought the flagging was the last part, but Tim took us on a short hike to the battleground.  He talked us through the history with the clothing from the time, and explained the weapons used during that time.  The kids had a lot of fun posing for pictures with the different weapons.  That was hilarious!

By the time we were finished, it was time for dinner.  We went to Johnson Space Center to pick up the space camp kids before heading over to a Chinese/Japanese buffet restaurant.  The kids were too tired, but they were very into the food.  We had a whole section to ourselves and we hoarded a lot of food.  We ate so much that the bus almost couldn't bring us back to the hotel and everybody's pants zippers and buttons popped.

If you think that was the end of the day, you would be wrong,the students still had to present their art project, and we still had a lesson on Mayan mathematics theory based on 20.  I could not believe that the kids could keep going with the amount of sleep they had the night before.  Under the circumstances, the kids did a good job!  With that,good night!

Frankie

1/28: Day 4 of the Mayan Trip 馬雅探索:"歌舞青春"音樂劇表演與當代手工藝博物館

Hello KCBS,

The highlights of today were the musical dancing training and the dinner!  No,it is not because of my impeccable attention to food.  It was seriously the look on the kids' face,and it was not a direct projection of my state of mind.

Let us start from the beginning!  The day actually started on a seriously negative note.  More than half of the students were late showing up for class at 7:30am, so we missed the lesson on the 7 habits.  After breakfast, we quickly met up and left for the Hobby Center,where the kids were going to be STARS of the High School Musical.  The instructor simplified a number from the musical titled "Together"down to several routines and taught the students the basics to dancing.  Although the students didn't get to do all three elements of a musical, which I learned, involves dancing, singing, and acting, they still got to experience the learning process of a dance routine.  They also learned a few moves, which was way cool~ I didn't want to embarrass the kids by joining in because they all know that once Ms. Frankie gets out there the spotlight will be on her!  Haha, yeah, not!  Learning to dance is very much like teaching.always through repetition and scaffolding on what the kids already know.  In the end, the kids did pretty well and the instructor complimented on our effort to cooperate!  After we did our number, we received a private inside tour around the back of the theater.  That was cool, especially when we got to see the dressing room and the mechanics behind the staging area.

After that, we took a short break and went back to the hotel for lunch.  If dancing was not enough of an artistic stimulation, we went to the Contemporary Crafts Museum/Workshop for more artistic influence.  We were honored enough to have a local artist that worked with the medium of glass teaching the kids how to make their own glass magnets.  All the kids were fairly excited to work the difficult medium.  The process involves cutting up different pieces of colored glass and making a composition juxtaposing the different colors and the play on positive and negative space.  The kids were very quickly to finish their pieces to place in the kiln.  While we wait, we got a professional tour of the museum by a very experience tour guide.  I took some time away from the tour to wander around the gift shop and to visit"Sleeping Land".  The students started on their first project, which was to interview a local artist and to create a presentation that ,sells,the artist.  The kids took the project pretty seriously, coming up with questions, rehearsing the interviewing, and assigning roles to people.  That was very rewarding to watch.

By the time we went back to the hotel, the dinner that was waiting for us lifted everyone's spirit!  When we were doing the cow drive the other day, the guide spent a lot of time talking about the importance of food.  I don't think the kids understood what he was trying to get at, but they experienced it when they saw the dinner.  Since we have been here, the kids have experienced all the typical American food.  Some of them were missing rice and basic Chinese food.  So,someone must have read our minds, because we got Chinese take-out for dinner!  I wanted to take pictures of the kids sticking their faces into the dinner box, but I was too busy devouring the delicious rice that brought tears to my eyes!

The tears of joy continued when I found out that we had an early night!  I quickly retreated to my room and relaxed.  I picked out my laundry, took a long shower, and hung out in my pajamas.  Unfortunately, the kids had to work on their project.  Poor kids!

All right...Frankie is going to join the simple pleasure of life...TV and crawling in bed...Later!

PS: the video will be supplied later! I did my job!

Frankie

馬雅日誌:North-Xaman-White 李軒欣 Jerry

    今天是來到休士頓的第三天，7:30我一如往常的到會議室集合，不過有隊員遲到了，所以早上就沒有跳太空舞了，而且因為晚了大概半個小時，所以老師讓我們先吃東西，在進行日誌PK，看著大家的日誌都講得那麼好 ，我的心裡開始緊張了起來，真希望明天我不要出錯……。

    今天早上我們到了百老匯劇的練習場練習，看似簡單的舞步跳起來卻很費力，跳完之後大家都氣喘吁吁，然後我們去參觀百老匯劇院，裡面的設備很高階，而且曾經有很多有名的團體在這表演過。

    下午我們到了手工藝術中心學習如何切割玻璃，看似簡單的切割動作做起來卻一點都不輕鬆，切割時若不用力割的話就割不出痕跡，而且就算再用力割也只割得出淺淺的一痕，所以我割了好多次都失敗了，但我從中學到了很多。

    割完玻璃後我才知道原來一個簡單的切割動作存在著很多我們尚未發現的學問，跳完一齣百老匯劇真的很累。

    在團隊裡我可以幫助我的團隊完成我們每份作業，減輕團隊負擔，最後我要感謝我的隊友，幫助我完成作業。