U-15 Girls Basketball- Sara

This week were the tryouts for the U-15 girl’s basketball team. Every year, there are a bunch of sports you can try out for and try to get into either the U-15 or U-13 teams. Tryouts were held on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday this week. The reason why the U-15 girls tryouts were this week and not next was because Mrs.Rockey, who is going to be the coach, is going to go on Operation Starship so that is why she need to make up the teams so that there is time for the girls to practice and get better before she leaves. Throughout the couple of months that Basketball is going to be held, there will be games between other schools. Schools that participate are International School Bangkok (ISB), Bangkok Patana School (BPS), New International School Thailand (NIST), Harrow International School (HIS) and Ruamrudee International School (RIS). There are a couple more teams which I’m not sure of, but all the teams are well experienced and up for a challenge. Practice for the teams is always after school to 3:15P.M. During practices, the girls practice doing lay-ups, learning new skills and different plays they can do during the games. At the end of the end of the BISAC Basketball Season, there is a tournament. This year it is going to be held at ISB. There will be different foods and drinks there which you can buy from like Starbucks and Subway. The girls’ tournament lasts for three days. There will be a couple of games each day. Be sure that when the tournament is going on, you come to watch and cheer on the ISB team!

Thunderstorm By: Afek & Robbie

Rain; lightening, and flooding, those are the factors that we dealt with last night.

There was a huge storm and power outage. The streets were flooded and people’s trashcans were floating in the street. We saw people driving golf-carts with people dragging behind on knee boards.

Tommy said, “When I was driving my motorcycle through Natakorn, my bike barely made it. The water was up to my waist.”

Tim said, “When I went home yesterday, the water in Natakorn Park was up to my knees, and I was on my bike. I took off my shoes and put them in my bag. It was horrible, the fear of being swept away by a single wave.”

Nolan said, “My power did not come back on until 8pm. It was so hot and boring.”

Matt said, “Well, I just had a power outage for a moment and then my whole compound got power, internet and reception.”

(Robbie said) “I was driving in my car to school because I forgot something, and I saw a car stall as it was exiting Natakorn. People were pushing the car to where it would not block the intersection. I was hoping there wouldn’t be any school.”

(Afek said,) “It was crazy off the chain. I arrived home at the nick of time. I was walking home and I was telling my friend Alex to go home already, I finally hitched a ride and bam it was pouring all over him. So I was lucky but no power until 8:30 and we were forced to eat at Que Pasa for dinner.”

Apparently lightening hit the school pool and we could see the actually lightening much more than usual. Many kids rode around on their bikes to check out the floods.

In conclusion, the storm was deadly but luckily no one was injured.

The London Olympics Stadium by Margaret

The Beijing Olympics just finished on Friday and most people said the Olympics and the end was fabulous with all these fireworks. So, aren’t you concerned about the next 2012 London Olympics stadium and how it will look? I think everyone will be interested in it.

As you can see, the second picture is how they say it will look. They have already started building the stadium. The first picture is a picture of how they are trying to build it.

The stadium is going to be more than 100 enormous columns, each more than 5 meters, and will also form the lower ground floor which includes the changing rooms and the facilities. Also, the foundations are almost complete.

I think the new Olympics Stadium will be awesome and it might be better than the Beijing Olympics.

Information from: http://www.london2012.com/ and http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5gYcTUdf2Z0IWExatOzykUHKDmtXA

PAD Protest - Toey

The People’s Alliance for Democracy is protesting again. On Tuesday, August 26, 2008, about 80 PAD members went over the gate and broke into the state-owned NBT premises on Vibhavadhi Rangsit Road and destroyed some of their property. If you were watching TV, you would’ve definitely seen some footage of the takeover. When they got in, they demanded the NBT staff and newscasters stop broadcasting. Somkiat Pongpaiboon was one of the 5 People’s Alliance for Democracy leaders and he said that the TV station was only being used as a mouthpiece for the government though being funded by taxpayers’ money so he was motivated by anger. At about 8.55 am, police escorted a number of NBT staff out of the premises in fear of being attacked by the demonstrators. The police found, after a brief search through the protesters, 11 handguns, 1 shotgun, golf clubs, and several knives of various kinds. It would be reasonable to say that the People’s Alliance for Democracy break-in at the NBT station was not successful, and it gave the people watching TV a very negative impression of them. However, this made the NBT look like heroes because they kept on broadcasting from various locations at the protest. The adults can be fined up to 10,000 baht. If this keeps on going and the demonstrations become violent, ISB will probably have a day off to protect the students, teachers, and staff. However, this has already affected some schools. A Thai school called Mater Dei already had a day off on Wednesday for its students because the school was on the same road that the demonstrations were at, which would cause even worse traffic. Luckily it hasn’t reached ISB yet.

Bad Video Games by Vignesh

There are many bad video games in this world which have already been made and or are still on their way. One of them is GTA San Andreas. This world is all not bad and nasty! There are always more good things than Bad. Always! I heard my friend saying that He read in the news paper that a mental guy who played the game GTA went out to do the real thing! He stopped a cab and stabbed the driver 6 times! Well, poor cab guy. People should not play these games. Maybe about 5% percent out of a hundred do these things. There are more games which are better. I play pro soccer evolution 2007 in my play station portable. You can play sport games, racing games and many more. You can also go to miniclip.com in there are good games. When you play bad video games you get addicted to it. The latest games are very expensive, about 40-50$ each. They may also break friendships. Like First you hang out with your friends a lot, then suddenly you find a bad or cool video game. After some days, you get so addicted that when your friends come to call you to play you tell them to go away. The next day they come again to call you and you get angry and shout at them because you got killed or busted in the game. Your friends shout at you and the friendship breaks. This has happened to a lot of kids. I advise you not to get influenced by these bad games. Play other games for a while and then go out to play so you don’t break your relationship.

Two Golds and Silvers for Thailand -Win E.

Thailand added three more medals to its tally in the last few days of the Olympics to sum up a total of four medals. Thailand now moves up to 31^st, tied with Mongolia with two golds and two silvers. The first of Thailand’s medals came on the second day of the Olympics when Prapawadee Jaroenrattanatarakoon lifted a 90 kg and a 120 kg for a total of 210 kg and the gold medal in the women’s 53 kg weightlifting. Later in the Olympics, Buttree Puedpong, got the silver medal in taekwondo women’s 49 kg. She lost to China’s Wu Jingyu by 1 to -1 points.

As for Thailand’s prime sport, boxing, Thailand claimed gold and silver. It was a great final performance from both boxers in the final, but an “OK” Olympics for the Thai boxing team. Light-welterweight defending Olympics champion Manus Boonjumnong had to settle for silver after losing to Dominican Republic’s Felix Diaz. After defeating first- seeded Kazakh Serik Sapiyev in the quarterfinals, many expected that Manus would have an easy time for the gold, but things didn’t go his way and he lost 12-4. He will have to challenge for gold in London 2012. Elsewhere, flyweight veteran Somjit Jongjohor defeated Andris Laffita Hernandez of Cuba 8-2 in the final bout for his first ever Olympic gold. Prior to this he has won all major boxing competitions but the Olympics. Somjit Jongjohor has now won it in what many people presumed to b e the last fight of his career.

I think that Thailand has performed pretty well in the Olympics. Even though I’d like one or two more boxing medal; it has been a great Olympic. How do you feel about Thailand at the Olympics? What do you think that Thailand should achieve at the London 2012?

Why can’t we have an unexpected Holiday? By Benedict

Last year, a huge storm hit Nichada Thani and damaged our own school ISB. The library flooded, floor tiles broke, and the ceiling tiles fell down too. The next morning, school was canceled because of all the damage. The year before, there was a coup and people were protesting against Thaksin. We had no school that day too. Both of these days were exciting and fun because we didn’t know for sure what was happening downtown on the coup and the storm was exciting because there were broken trees everywhere. There were even electricians all over the place. This week we had a cue and a storm but no day off. A lot of kids were praying for the cue to become bigger of the storm to hit the electricity hard so we won't have school the next day.

Tim said “I want another storm”

Christian said “I want a storm big enough for the power to go out long enough for there to be no school the next day but not strong enough to destroy the power for a long time.”

With one day off we will be able to get rid of some of the frustration and just relax. We also will be really excited to come to school the next day to tell everyone about what they did. It also is fun to run around Nichada when we’re supposed to be at school doing a test. With another unexpected day off, we will be able to concentrate more hardly in school because we won’t be put on as much pressure. One day off is exactly what we need.