I have always been a pretty observant person. I like to stay back and assess situations before I jump into them so it gives me a chance to notice the way people act. Recently I noticed that people, especially kids, do a lot of things in circles. Kids talk in a circle. They dance at parties in a circle. Even people eating at a table are often in a circle shape.

I was recently at a Halloween birthday party. To no surprise, everyone danced in circles. There were small circles of four to five kids and also larger circles. Finally, the birthday girl got everyone together in one big circle to dance, which was really different since so much of our activities are done separately.

My mom and dad just don’t understand why kids dance in a circle because they are used to people dancing with just one other person at a time. I guess kids today like the feeling and security of groups.

You can tell a lot about people by the choices they make. I have divided them into three circle types:

1. The Embracer – The person who leaves a circle open so more people can join (Caring, inviting, friendly – someone that people want to be around).
2. The Closer – The person who closes the circle so if someone else wants to join, they have to push their way in (Selfish, rude, insecure – most common but least admitted).
3. The Protector – The person who temporarily closes the circle but when someone else wants to join, they let them (Cautious, neutral, accepting – takes care of themselves but is willing to help others too).

People do things subconsciously.  Their actions and choices tell a lot about them. Not everyone’s life revolves around circles, but try and figure out which type of person you are. Remember, if you don’t like who you are, you can change it.

Life is a little like a maze. There are many different paths that to take to get to the end result but the big difference is, life has unlimited options at the end.

Last month I spoke at the TEDxRedmond Conference held at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington. I called my talk, “Take Off Your Blinders” or as they titled it “Goals vs. Plans.” While I wasn’t talking about mazes, it does have some connection. If you go through life or the maze with your eyes closed or get so focused on one path, you may miss other opportunities that might pop up right beside you and are even better than your original path.

When I created Pencil Bugs in 2005 at nine years old, I never ever imagined that I would be where I am today. If someone would have said I’d be named on a Forbes Top 10 List of Role Models 18 & Under or would be a published author or any of the other things that have happened, I probably would have just laughed. But with the help of my parents, I went through the maze in the last five years and found new paths as I went. I don’t know where it will lead from here. I am almost 15 so I don’t feel I have to have my whole life planned out at this point. That’s the fun of keeping your eyes open, seeing what opportunities might pop up, and making the most of this maze of life. You never know what can happen.

It’s now been a month and school is going great! I have a lot of new friends and some great teachers. I realize the importance of teachers assigning homework but I have never understood why teachers assign busy work. Well, I’m glad to say that these teachers agree. They teach in class, assign work to make sure we understand the material, and sometimes even give us time at the end of class to start on homework. That makes sense! It’s no surprise that people, including kids, are overscheduled these days. Giving busy work is just plain unproductive.

After this short month of adjusting to high school life, I am now ending my hiatus from my blog. I will be writing weekly posts again (usually on Sundays) and if an idea strikes me during the week, I will post then also.

Thanks to my followers for hanging in there with me. I hope that you will share my blog with your friends and family. If you subscribe, you’ll get an email notification when I post something new.

If you haven’t checked out my Christmas fundraiser to donate teddy bears to kids at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, please visit Pencil Bugs and consider making a donation. Every little bit helps. You would be surprised what a soft, teddy bear can do for a kid while they are in the hospital.

Just like most things, this ship had its pros and cons. Depending on how you are and what you like to do is whether you would think each feature was a positive or negative.

It had seven separate neighborhoods to simulate things you might find if you were visiting major cities like New York. It had a boardwalk, complete with a full-size merry-go-round and a Zoltar machine like the one in the movie “Big.” A scaled-down version of Central Park which was open air and had lots of different trees, plants, and flowers so you can imagine how humid that section was. A Royal Promenade for shopping and specialty restaurants. If you liked different types of entertainment, there was a comedy club, a karaoke bar, a full featured casino, an ice skating rink, a theatre for Broadway shows, a night club with resident DJ, an Aqua theatre which had water and light shows, a surfing simulator, rock climbing wall, zipline, and much more. The Broadway play during our week was Hairspray. They also have special programs for kids from six months to seventeen years old. For the teenagers, we even had our own night club and hang out room.

The maximum double occupancy is 5400, but our week has 6200 guests. There was also 2200 staff. That’s a LOT of people in one place. The thing is, with so many people you hardly ran into them more than a few times.

For people that want variety, there are twenty-one dining options and over twenty bars but some of the restaurants cost extra.

There are a lot of activities and entertainment options but many times they overlap, so you might not be able to do some things that you want. Because they had multiple entertainment areas you had to reserve your seat for shows which wasn’t always a good thing.

We sailed from Fort Lauderdale, FL and stopped in Labadee, Haiti which is a private island owned by Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, Costa Maya, Mexico and Cozumel, Mexico. We had planned on parasailing in Labadee but the reservations were full so we just hung out on the beach for the day. In Costa Maya we did our own touring and bought souvenirs and did a snorkeling excursion in Cozumel. They took us from the beach and swam out a ways so we saw some cool fish and coral. About the time we were almost done, a big rain storm hit so the guide took us back to shore but told us not to panic as we felt the cold raindrops on our backs. It was definitely a weird sensation.

Oasis of the Seas is definitely a beautiful ship and we were anxious to try it  because it was so different from the other ship’s designs. But we will probably not take another cruise on a ship this large as we liked the smaller ships better for lots of reasons.

Getting back home from Fort Lauderdale to California was a long process. We had to disembark the ship by 9:00 a.m. because by noon, they are already letting the new passengers board so the workers have a lot of cleaning to do in a very short period of time. Our flight didn’t leave until 4:15 p.m. so Dad asked a taxi guy to drive us around for about an hour to see some of the sights. Unfortunately, by the time we got to the airport around 10:00 a.m., there were so many people in the same situation so the airlines wouldn’t let people check in their luggage until four hours prior to their flights. We ended up sitting on the floor in the terminal along with several hundred other people just waiting and trying to kill time. After playing on my iPod for awhile, I decided to walk around and show people card tricks. One couple I asked didn’t speak English but the guy nodded his head “yes” so I showed them one card trick. That was a little awkward. We were sitting beside a family who was going home to Michigan so I ended up talking with the two high school girls and teaching them my card tricks which was lots of fun.

Of course we had a plane delay so on our layover in Atlanta, which was more like a “run-over”, we had to run from Gate B7 to B32 in less than 4 minutes. We made it just in time but then the plane still left late because they had to call electricians on board to fix a couple of the TV screens. So we ended up leaving 40 minutes late and getting home about 11 p.m. (2 a.m. Eastern time). I couldn’t wait to get into my own bed but the house was 98 degrees so the A/C had to work overtime all night to get it to a comfortable sleeping temperature.

Jet lag hit the next day but now everything is back to normal. My dog is home from the kennel, all the clothes are washed, and I’m having some friends over this week. I have a lot to be thankful for.

Mouse over each photo to see the caption and click on each one to see it full size.

Their goal is to teach their kids to be self sufficient and not rely them for every little thing.  This doesn’t mean that kids don’t need their parents anymore or won’t want their help for lots of things as they get older. My mom still calls her mom all the time with questions or just to talk.  Parents should always be a part of their kid’s life, but the kids should be able to survive if/when the parents are no longer around.

People change constantly, especially kids.  Ironically though,  at my 8th grade graduation, the speaker said that “From this point forward, your [the parents] job is done.” Even as a kid, I couldn’t believe what he said because I know how much my parents still do with and for me. Then he added that at this age, kids are pretty much the way they will be for the rest of their life. Not only is that ridiculous, but it is not true. I have heard lots of adults say they changed even after they grew up.

As kids grow up, we won’t “need” our parents in the same way as we did when we were little but that doesn’t mean that parents won’t continue to help or teach their kids.

My grandma, who is 77, is still learning new things each day. Life is about changing and improving. If we didn’t change after 14 years old, well who knows how we would be?

A 60-something woman with sky-high red, bushy hair, painted-on black eyebrows, dark red lipstick that went way beyond her mouth “attempted” to sing and play the keyboard. She was horrible from the start and the audience immediately starting giving the X sign to cancel her. Piers was the first judge to X her but the other two just let her continue. Then when her time was up (they actually let her finish), Howie and Sharon voted her through to Las Vegas commenting that they thought she was interesting. Did they forget the show is not called “America’s Got Interesting People” but “America’s Got Talent?”

The show went from bad to worse when a 10-year-old girl, Nina Waga Mojares, with four back-up singers/dancers was amazing and DID have talent but yet all three judges voted NO on her saying she just wasn’t ready for Vegas. They agreed she was talented but had other specific, nit-picky comments about her performance. Watch her performance and I think you’ll agree that she was amazing!

What were they thinking?

If the show starts to go away from the main purpose of the show, which is talent, and borders on weird stuff  just for ratings, they will lose in the end.

Say you were in a park and someone walks up to the crowd and yells, “Everyone look at pictures of my cat” and holds up photographs.  That would seem weird, right?  People are ok with saying those things over the Internet though.  Let’s take another example. You are in a store and someone says outloud, “The baby cried all night…didn’t get any sleep.”  It’s a bit random, but if you think about it, when someone say whatever is on their mind on Twitter, people think nothing of it.  It seems like it is kind of expected on Twitter but frowned upon in real life.

Another thing, if we “LOL’ed” as much in real life as we do online, we would be a much happier society.  Think about it.  The Internet allows us to be anybody without ever having any human interaction.  We do and say what we do online because we can but that doesn’t make it right.

Point?  Does everyone in the world really need to know what people are doing every second?  I’m not the first, by far, to point this out either.  Before you tweet just think, would I say that outloud to someone in person?

I was watching an episode of “Tech Now!” and they were talking about how employment, jobs, and companies aren’t what they used to be in the Silicon Valley. One of the problems they said is that in the past, those companies used to have their pick of talented techie people to hire from all over the world, especially India and China. Apparently they were better educated and companies loved hiring them.

In recent years as the economies and opportunities have gotten better in their own countries, fewer and fewer tech people are coming to the US to work. So on the TV show, the discussion got around to asking the question, [paraphrased]“What can we do about attracting qualified people from other countries?” The guest said that companies would have to make it more appealing for foreigners to come here and gave a few options.

Wouldn’t it make more sense for US colleges to educate Americans better so that companies would want to hire Americans?

I will be starting high school this fall so I still have awhile until college. Everyone complains about American education and how far behind we are compared to other countries. Instead of trying to figure out how to entice foreigners to work here, we should focus on our own education first.

The system doesn’t make sense. My parents and grandparents have said that college used to be the ticket for success, security and stability. Not so much anymore. So what are we doing about it?

Tech Now! has limited coverage on TV but you can see it online at www.technowtv.com. It’s pretty cool.

When you don’t have to work for money, you have less attachment to it.  Free money promotes free spending and less reasons to save it.  When you actually have to work for the money, you don’t want to spend it as easily because you know how hard it was to earn it.  Money does not grow on trees but I have seen a lot of kids that think it must because of how much “stuff” they seem to have.   When you think about it, it’s not really the kid’s fault they have that concept. It’s the parent’s fault for buying them everything they want without teaching them the value of money. According to Webster’s dictionary, the first definition of an allowance is “a share or portion allotted or granted.” The very definition of the word says that there is nothing that has to be given in return.

Kids will be more likely to take things for granted if they are always handed stuff for free.  Everyone knows a spoiled kid with all the latest and greatest toys and gadgets.  When they get everything they want, what’s left?  Sometimes, it is good to want for things because when you finally earn them, you will probably be more appreciative.

If a child receives everything they could ever ask for while they are young, they are more likely to mismanage their finances later in life.  The won’t understand the connection between money and saving or spending.  That’s why so many adults end up in debt — they think their money will never run out.

Some of you reading this are probably thinking, “What does this kid know about money and financial responsibilities?”  Well, I know that at 14, I have never received an allowance.  I have saved practically every Christmas and birthday money gift I have received for years.  And I think long and hard before I spend any of my money.  Having my Pencil Bugs business since I was nine has also taught me the value of money, what it means to work for it, and how to be financially smart which will make me better prepared when I’m an adult.

My parents never received an allowance when they were kids and they didn’t give me one.  I probably won’t give my kids an allowance either.  Even though I’m still like most kids and I like the thought of ‘something for nothing’, I know that philosophy doesn’t do any good in the long run.

This year, my goal was to give 250 bears to Rady Children’s Hospital.  With the help of generous people on Twitter, Facebook, and also family and friends, to date we have received almost $750 which along with my own money is enough to buy 300 bears so far.  With the deadline of December 1 approaching, I hope to be able to buy even more.

We hear lots of negative things about teens today but there are also many who are making a difference in a positive way.  Here is a perfect example.

This past Friday, I received a very generous donation from a group of eighth graders at Detroit Country Day School in Beverly Hills, Michigan.    Their teacher, Kathleen Mencotti, sent an email explaining she taught a Service Learning Class.  A group of three students, Adrienne Yu, Sarah Matthews, and Maggie Pyett held a bake sale to raise money to buy bears for their local hospital.  As they were running out of time to complete their project, the students took it upon themselves to search Internet to find someone who was already doing the same thing they were to see about contributing the money they raised.  They found me and read about my hospital bears project for Rady.  They generously donated their bake sale money of $119.

Young adults have many opportunities to do amazing things.  They just need to have the drive and the heart to do it like these students in Michigan.  I am so grateful for everyone who continues to support me, my business, and my charity work but I especially get excited when other kids want to help also.

Thank you very much!