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6/1/02 I took the SAT test for the 2nd time today. Hope all is well. I mean, it should be, since this time I didn't skip any sections. Hehe. After that finished, I walked over to my Grandma's house today, and slept for three hours! We picked up dinner from Golden Duck, and hurried over to the Graduation Ceremony at Blaisdell Arena. Wow. I know about a total of 5 seniors...although it seems like that number should be higher...hm. Oh well. Congrats ya'll. 6/2/02 My Mom's old boss, Ralph, invited us to stay at the Ihilani on friday night. It was pretty cool. The room was nice. And in the morning, I got to eat at a mini-buffet. Yogurt! Yay! After that, I convinced my parents to drop me off at Jeff's house. We ended up seeing a movie...I forget which (at the moment) I'll tell ya later. And Jeff let me borrow his Warhammer paints. He says I can paint his Wraithlord. 6/3/02 Wake up late. (11:30 AM) Get driver's certificate. Go shopping with my mom at Times and Longs. Walked up my hill. 6/4/02 Cleaned room. Sorted papers. Painted Jeff's Wraithlord. (It looks pretty! I chose a fire theme) Slept. Cleaned again. Watched La Femme Nikita on TNT in the original french version. It was very cool. It had the same guy who was the bad dude on Jet Li's "Kiss of the Dragon". 6/5/02 Walked down my hill to see Mikey. (He's taking Korean classes at UH.) I met up with him at a local fast food restraunt across the street, and he gave me some of his french fries. Yum. It was funny, I'm so 'Chang' that I refused to throw away the ketchup and fries even though I was full. Haha. It's okay though. We ended up walking from there to Kahala Mall. (Yeah, long walk) And because I thought that Jeff didn't want to see Undercover Brother, I figured I go and see it then. The orignal plan was to go to the theatres and buy tickets for The Sum of all Fears. Since we thought the movie was rated "R" and Mikey couldn't buy them on his own, I was supposed to buy it. Turns out, the movie is PG-13. Yay. So, we both go an see Undercover Brother. Man, that is one hella funny show. "SOLID!" LoL. Er, after that, I came home, played FFX, and rode a Shoopuf! Haha...those things are wonderful. Also, I saw another TNT classic, "Once Upon a Time in America". I liked this movie much more than La Femme Nikita, especially since it deals with gangs and the mafia. Check it out if you haven't already. 6/6/02 Worked on webdesign for a little while, but ended up finishing Jeff's Wraithlord all friggin day long. Jeff came back from ROTC camp today, but we probably won't do anything till tomorrow. Oh well. Anyway. I'm working on improving my physical condition, so to start, I'm going swimming at Manoa every week. Today, I ran into Kimin! LoL. Turns out she's taking classes. Arrgh, no, I am not that dedicated. 6/7/02 Got permit renewed today. Worked on the website. Re-discovered the joys of E-Bay. Swam at Manoa again. Talked to Jeff on the phone for a while, and chatted with Ashten on AiM about Counter Strike. Yes, believe it or not, I am familiar with that game. I'm not that sharp at it, but I am still armed and dangerous. Anyone who wants to take me on better be prepared. Hahaha. 6/8/02 ACT testing at Iolani. (I ran into Esther there. She's always so nice to me.) Met up with Jeff, where we then walked to Fun Factory and played a few games. Painted more Warhammer models. Ate burritos at home. Played basketball. Watched Enemy At The Gates on DVD, starring Jude Law. Same guy who was in A.I. He's a really good actor. I actually liked this war flick. Amazing. 6/9/02 Created my first fan art in years of FFX character, Lulu. Went swimming at Manoa with the family. Viewed the Okinawan parade/festival in Waikiki and ate dinner at Sumo Ramen. Dessert was a really yummy hot fudge sundae from Ghiradelli. 6/10/02 First day at my job. Meet and greet new people. Keith taught us how to make ethernet cables. This is how our school makes them: the wire order from left to right is--Striped Brown, Brown, Green, Striped Blue, Blue, Striped Green, Orange, and Striped Orange. Reconfigured iBooks. Watched bootleg version of Spiderman on Divx. Bought Valkyrie Profile for 30 dollars or so at Software Etc. using money from my first day at work. 6/11/02 Dad gave me a ride to Mililani this morning at 8:30 to see Jeff. I guess you could say that this marked our 11 month anniversary. Err...watched T.V, walked to the mall, looked at all the stores, and bought a bag of fluffy Cheetos that had starwars puzzle piece inside. (Yay! I got Yoda!) Saw Insomnia starring Al Pachino an Robbin Williams. That movie was cool, but sick and twisted at the same time. I'm sure many of you would love that. 6/12/02 2nd day of job. Mission: locate Venus's lost "Basketball I" file on one of the G-3's. Success! We have found it. However, extracting it proved to be a much difficult task. Gotta get this firewire hard drive to work. Made more ethernet cables. Played more Valkyrie Profile. (It's a real lovely RPG game by the same people who made Star Ocean.) 6/13/02 Woke up late. Swam at Manoa. Ate a Waffle Dog and Ono Ono Shake. Yum. I really shouldn't have, considering I had a doctor's appointment right afterwards to check up on my health. Gah...got two test tubes of blood drained from my arm. I tell you, it's an indescribable feeling--watching the blood flow. Almost freakish. 6/14/02 Today, I woke up, and went back to sleep....again. *Sigh* No, dun worry, I woke up again after that to come to work today. They say that because I made cables, I'm automatically on their "good" list. Whatever. While Dane, Rayn, Andrew, and Brenton go to set up laptops at Castle, Max and Matt get to go and hook up air-ports around campus. And me? Well...I get to "guard the fort". I guess that's a good thing right? I mean, they said I could do whatever the hell I wanted. Surf the internet. Make cables. Answer the phone...Hm. I wonder if that's all they think I'm good for--because I'm a girl. Man, if I ever find out that's the case...I'm gonna be super pissed off. But hopefully that's not the case. Burned Inspiration CD's for Royce and Keith. Also, I tried to burn my PAI account, but that didn't necessarily work out too well. Um, I inspected more iBooks, and had a BBQ potluck at lunchtime. More golfcart joyriding. Saw Windtalkers. (My dad designed the original logo for the movie..too bad they ended up screwing the idea of having a logo in the first place. It was nice.) 6/15/02 Woke up. Went to the new costco. Ended up forgetting change at the register after purchasing a hot dog. Man, am I out of it today. Dun worry, I remembered. Uh. Went to Mary's graduation party, and chatted on AiM. 6/16/02 Happy Father's Day! I made blueberry cobbler for my dad. (With real blueberries!) Had Dim Sum at Legend's for brunch. Swam at Manoa. Updated website stuff again. Finished LuLu CG fan art. Aunty Al visited our house and showed us Karisa's Luau video. Funny. Some peeps actually performed River Dance. *shudders* Bought FlyToTheSky's "Sea of Love" CD. It was super cheap! Just as much as US CDs, or less. I'm so happy right now! Today was a nice day. 6/17/02 Summer school has officially begun. I had to get to school early because of the traffic. However, I think I got up a little too early. I ended up surfing the net for 45 minutes, and Max showed me how to use the Trading Post and Battledome functions on Neopets. Hehe. I plan on making a lot of neopoints and ripping unsuspecting children off. J/K. Right now, I'm in the ETS , and we're all just cruising here. Andrew is playing pool and listening to Puff Daddy's new CD. The rest of the idiots are playing pool online. Haha...oops! Okay, gotta go before I get in trouble. (Back!) Well, today I got to eat at the senior dining room for the first time. It's really nice up there! You can make your own sandwich. There were three different bread types, five or six selections of meat, veggies, and condiments. Oh, and don't forget the pickles. ^_^ Also, they serve iced tea free! Now, as for my job...I got to do inventory at Winnie with Brenton, Rayn and Dane. Fun! Fun! Fun! And, Royce was nice enough to let me borrow one of the iBooks. Hehe. I can't wait to play around with one of those. 6/18/02 Take inventory (again) this time, at Wilcox with Matt, Max and Andrew. Driving the golf cart was a very new experience for all of us at the time, so we thought that it would be wise if we were to...uh...become more fammiliar with it. Royce said we could, so Max, Matt and I went joyriding. Hehe. It was very, very cool. However, you know the ramp that leads from the health center to the track? Well, we had a bit of difficulty getting around the curves. On our second run, Max became over-confident, and ended up accelerating full speed into the wall. At the time, it was quite scary. Now that I think about it, it's quite hillarious. We left a giant black smear on the concrete. I think it's still there. Anyway, if you see it, now you know how it happened, and who was responsible. LoL. Yeah. Well, during one of our down-times, I thought I ought to customize one of the iBooks by downloading AiM and LimeWire. I mean, there's only so many things you can possibly consider looking up on the web that is actually of any interest. For example, I think the most outrageous and random things I've looked up are Lemmings. Yes. You heard me. LEMMINGS. Why? Because the thought suddenly flashed in my mind, and I sincerely wanted to know if they ran off cliffs and killed themselves. Well, the sites I encountered said that Lemmings tend not to do that because most of them don't live near cliffs, but in open prairies. Go figure. Also, I was able to obscure a photograph of one. They're so cute! They're like, little rat-mice-gophers. I wish I could have one for a pet. Err..going back to what I was saying before. I was customizing my iBook, and I added AiM. To see if it worked, I did a test run, and ended up chatting with Connie. Turns out she moved to California! Well, that was fun to say the least. Since I'm leaving for a college trip to Cali, and Art Center is one of my stops, I tried to arrange something with her. It might be a bit difficult, but it would be really nice to see her. *Sigh* Anyway, got to go back and do more research on colleges. Bai! 6/21/02: San Fransisco, Academy of Arts
After landing, we stepped out of the plane and into freezing cold temperatures. I was shocked. My mom told me that the trip would be relatively hot, because after all...it is summer...and Aunty Bren told her so. Thus, I only brought clothes for temperatures as low as 75 degrees...THIS, was like, 60 and below. I was freezing my ass off. It didn't take us long to realize that we needed another layer of clothing, and we ran into the nearest clothing shop and bought the cheapest, but sufficiently warm jackets we could find...the dark navy blue fleece with an embroidered picture of the Golden Gate Bridge and 'SAN FRANSISCO'in big, bold font. Haha. I didn't care what it looked like after I walked outside.
We boarded the rental shuttle, and on the way to the parking structure, I got to talk to a nice couple from the Big Island. Turns out they know 3 peeps from my school, including a nice boy named "Josh Yee". I know him, or at least I think that's what his name is. I said that he was in my grade, but they said they knew 'for a fact' that he was one year younger. Go figure. I still think they're wrong.
Well, the plane ride was interesting. I didn't really do much on the plane besides sleeping, eating, and watching part of the flight movie, "Crossroads" featuring Britney Spears. Yeah. I know what you're thinking. Well, she wasn't too bad of an actress. But, I must admit the story was a bit tacky. *Sad* I left my little sandwich pack they gave me on the airplane. :( It had a deluxe size twix bar!!!
No crash recovery for me. It's up and running to visit my first school, The Academy of Arts. In this college, there is no real campus. The buildings are spread out in a 7x7 block area. Shuttle buses are provided by the school for students to transport from building to building. The atmosphere is urban. Almost like downtown, but with taller buildings. I'm a weakling when it comes to handling the cold, so it takes me 3 layers to survive outside. The real challenge comes when you enter and exit buildings constantly. The temperature changes are so dramatic, that you have to pile on the clothes and peel of layers over and over again. *Sigh* This is getting a bit annoying.
There are a bunch of nice restraunts, one major shopping complex, a comic museum, a movie theatre, and Sony HQ. I checked out the comic museum. It's totally awesome. They had original comic panels of Spiderman...both the really old and the really new. They also had stuff from other cartoonists all over the world. Disney, Hayao Miyazaki, Calvin and Hobbes...etc. (including French stuff!)
Once we checked in at the admissions office, we met with a guy named Jack who showed us around. We saw the fashion, film, and 3-D animation department. I think the fashion department was awesome. They had a super machine that could make any knitted garment you designed if you plugged in the right commands. Also of interest is their annual fashion show. ^_^ The film deparment was neat. We got to see a bluescreen stage. It's soo pretty. Uniform blue...everywhere...no edges at all. Their 3-D animation department is the largest department in the Academy, with an outstanding number of appox. 2,000 enrolled students. The 3-D department uses the 'latest' technological advancements, mostly focusing on PC platforms. Things such as Maya, Octane, and Fire. (I think that's it) Lotsa computers everywhere. The environment is gloomy, and dark, especially the 3-D department, so their students can focus. (A little too dark for my tastes). People are friendly. Ethnicity is diverse.
After the tour, we met with my assigned admissions director, Mike. And he answered our questions about the college process. Turns out, their admission policy is fairly lenient. All they require for entering freshmen is a high-school diploma or GED. No portfolio. No SATs. No ACTs. Can you believe it? It's based off of a European thinking principle, that everyone who is willing to work hard to learn should be given equal opportunity to excel. But despite this easy-access ability, the curriculum is very challenging. And upon graduation, appox. 85% of the students are given jobs. In fact, Pixar recruits often here. The Academy offers a program that is taught by people working at Pixar. But it's exclusive only to a lucky 40 students who are chosen from a portfolio competition.
And now, for some factual information!: At the Academy of Arts, one is able to earn their BFA or a 2 year Associates Degree. The Teacher Student Ratio is appox. 1:25. Tuition is $550 per credit, with 4 full years at the Academy requiring a total of 152 credits, which equals roughly around $35,000. Curriculum is based off of declared major. (You must declare upon entering) Financial Aid offers are somewhat limited because it is a private school, but the best way of getting money is to get a Portfolio Grant, which is only offered in the summertime and to first time students. Housing is in seperate buildings spread out around the area, featuring a shared dorm situation. Living conditions are nice. Drafting tables, beds, and dressers are provided. Each place has a kitchen, refrigerator, bathroom, pooltable, and living room. If you are under 21, you are not permitted to live in co-ed housing.
After the visit, we went to visit The Wans and got to play with Katie, Jessica, and see the new baby, Sydney. Also, I got to take a nap on their couch. :)
Yadda yadda...everyone talks, and then we leave for the hotel. Take a shower. Watch X-files. And then what do you know--here I am typing this...and blowing my nose like crazy. Damn, I'm tired. Well, get back to y'all tomorrow. I'm sleeping. Haha. Buh-bai!
SEARCHING FOR FILES... UNABLE TO LOCATE.
7/1/02~NOW Uh...I just added like, 3 weeks tonight, I think I'm gonna take a break from editing. I mean, if I could do that tonight, I imagine I could do the same tomorrow if I had to. So, we shall see. Check again in the next few days.
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Part II:Summer Fun 2002