It was a normal day when suddenly I heard news about a tornado coming our way. I turned on the TV in our class and went to the news that said, “The tornado will be around for about 5 days’’. I had seven friends and three teachers with me. Jake, Kyle, Anna, Cody, Emily, Beth, Nate, Mrs. Gabe, Mr. Steve, and Ms. Carly. When we were going to a safe place, the lights turned off so it was hard to see.

On the first day, we went to the canteen to gather food and save some for later. All of us went around school to barricade the doors and windows. Mr. Steve checked around to see if there were any other people in school but we found only the janitor in the grade 3 room and two other students, Larry and Amanda but they were injured. Therefore, we took them to the nurse’s room and we did not find anything there only bandages and alcohol. We tried everything we can to help them, but they were injured badly. We tried to call an ambulance and the police but there was not any signal.

On the second day, we checked the news again and they said the storm got worse and was heading towards the school. We were scared and worried but we just prepared ourselves. We went around school looking for supplies, food, and water. When we were done, we lost Kyle, Anna, and Nate. We tried looking for them but we could not find them anywhere.  We searched for them in the toilets, classrooms, offices, storage room, etc. but we could not find them. We had no time to go around and look for them so we went to the camera room and searched for them but there were no signs of them. We went to classrooms finding notebooks and made a fire to see well.

On the third day, the tornado was like 45km away from us. We still panicked and still found no signs of Kyle, Anna, and Nate. We had little amount of food left and water too so it was hard to work things out for the food arrangements but I wonder how Kyle, Anna, and Nate were doing. We were so worried about them. It was a scary time for the teachers and us as well. By the way, we had some home works to do! No!

On the fourth day, we had only one day left until the tornado would reach us and kill us all! We had only half a drawer of food left for all of us but we saved some for the next day. There were so many problems. Three people are lost, the tornado is coming towards us, we have less food, we cannot contact anyone, and homework. Everyone was panicking and scared so I told them to calm down and come up with a plan. Jake, Cody, Emily, and Mrs. Gabe went out to find Kyle, Anna, and Nate. We were so happy that they finally found them inside grade 3 classroom.  They were locked inside, but luckily, Jake figured out how to open the door.  On the other hand, Ms. Carly, Mr. Steve, Beth and I stayed together and prepared ourselves for anything that would happen.  We told everyone to stay together.

On the fifth day, we were all panicking as we felt that tornado was near our school.  We heard crashing noises, trees falling down and howling wind.  We went to the school basement and hid there.  We were all so stressed, tired and scared with less food to eat.  We were shouting.  The basement door broke and the tornado pulled Beth and Mrs. Carly.  We tried to pull them back.  Suddenly, a huge truck fell and covered the door.  We were all inside.  Everyone was happy that we were still together.  When tornado finally stopped, we joined forces to get out.  Rescuers were outside.  They provided us first aid and food.  Our parents came.  They were worried and crying, but thankful that we were all alive.   That was the scariest and most terrifying time I had in my school ever… but luckily we were all fine.  We went home with our parents and shared with them the unforgettable experience we had for few days with tornado.

​ This summer my family and I planned to go to the Philippines. We booked our flight and packed our stuff. I packed my yoyo, flashlight, lamp, clothes, skateboard, etc. We finally landed in Philippines and headed to our home.
 
We stayed there for 2 weeks and had time to swim, eat, and go around.
 
One day when I was at home, crouching in my bed and using my phone to research some weird stuff, I found information about flashlight and yoyo, some of my treasures that I brought with me. I was so amazed to know that there is a flashlight that produces light by using body-heat. I also collected some information about yoyo.
 
Next day my dad and I went to the beach where we could ride these cars that could run on water and land, which was so cool! Was it a car or a boat, well apparently it’s both. My father told me that the inventor of this car/boat was Llave, a Filipino, who partnered with a company called H20 Technologies and made it.
 
While having fun at beach, I talked to my father about the information that I got about flashlight and yoyo. I was so surprised to know that yoyo that nowadays people think  as a fun kid toy that just spins around and you can do cool tricks with it, actually was invented 400 years ago and was used for combat against intruders and Spaniards by native Filipinos.
 
I also came to know that the flashlight that uses body heat to generate light was invented by a Filipino-Canadian 15 year old student, Ann Makosinsk. It took her several months to build it. I was surprised to know that her friend’s family could not afford electricity and she was unable to study for a whole school year. And Ann invented this flashlight for her.
 
When we returned home I had to use my salt water generating lamp because for some reason there was no electricity. I was again amazed to learn from my father that this lamp was created by a Filipina named Aisa Mijeno and she was awarded for inventing it by many organizations in the Philippines, Singapore, Japan, and North Korea. This isn’t an ordinary lamp because it is a salt water lamp and is non-toxic. It runs on salt water. Just put water inside with two tablespoons of salt and mix it. And there you go, it lasts for 8 hours.
 
Sadly our vacation ended and it was time to come back to Thailand, but with a proud feeling that my treasures were actually an invention of my own Filipino community.

Credits for images: 
http://ipfactly.com/ancient-filipinos-used-the-yoyo-as-a-weapon/
http://filipinoinventionsanddiscoveries.blogspot.com/
​http://definitelyfilipino.com/blog/top-12-filipino-inventions-you-might-not-know/