Huh?

Senior Year - Semester 2

2006-01-31T10:17:12Z

So began 2005...

As the huge Broadway Revue we were doing in Ambassador Auditorium neared, we would start have 8-hour rehearsals. Which I enjoyed, learning some tap, working on our songs, what not... in Ambassador Auditorium! Where Frank Sinatra, Pavarotti, Ashkenazy, some Russian ballet dancers,... all used this stage... fantastic! Gold plated acoustic bouncers, Onyx Marbled walls, velvet carpets,...the whole deal! It'd been closed for 10 years prior to MHS and HRC acquiring the campus.... and now we were one of the first ones to use it. Since I was also in theater II, I got to work with the other techies and help open the huge orchestra shell they installed, rig some of the trusses with lights, and help the Disney light designer that came to help our show... without pay... for the sake of the arts... and to use Ambassador Auditorium...

At the rehearsals, Colleen, a friend of Chessum's was choreographing. Nice lady... I felt bad, she put up with 40 of us, and she had her moments, but kept calm most of the time.

Jan. 10 - MHS v. La Salle baskbetball game @ La Salle. WOW! It was one of those games... not really. There never had been one of those games... not often anyway. But yes, pretty much, the score was neck and neck, I was filming with my spankin' new Canon GL2! As the fourth quarter ended, it was tied and pushed it OT... it was then that we were down a point, but suddenly, before the buzzer sounded, someone made a 3-pointer to win the game! Our whole school rushed their court and put them in humliiating shame! WOW... they were pissed off. But remember, it's better to be pissed off than to be pissed on.

So between the dress rehearsals, and the actual Broadway Revue show, I got to help work in the auditorium... the orchestra lift was simply amazing. Four-level elevator: Stage, Orchestra(main seats), dressing room, and the prop-storage room! Walking down to the carpetted dressing room level, there were wood-paneled walls with those classic looking lamps lining the whole hallway. Amazing. Then came the show, put on our make-up(whoopdeedoo) and wardrobe, did our thang... had Sarah Joy Herema from Broadway sing, Harold Clousing from APU, and several lady teachers perform too! It was great fun, but at intermission, while the curtains were closed, the orchestra would play the whole Phantom of the Opera Suite. It was a sweet suite. For sure. Most definitely. Oh yes. As the curtains stayed closed, we all lined up in one line across the front edge of the stage, preparing for the Seasons of Love number. Our friend, the techie manning the "Open Curtain" button... got a little trigger happy! With 10 minutes still left in the Phantom of the Opera Suite, he tapped it, and the curtains flew open, with us, thinking, oh crap what do we do?! JUST SMILE. JUST SMILE AND ... SMILE. The cello player chuckled from the pit below,... the audience just stared. We waited. and SMILED. So that was that. We finished with a bang... numbers including 42nd Street, Seasons of Love(Rent), Can't Stop the Motion(Hairspray), a few good ones from Wicked,... etc, etc... What a night :)

Amidst the Musical we did, I would go down to USC and meet with my pianist, Kelly, to work on my viola auditions for college... yikes!

Jan. 23 - JP at church had a pass through JBL but he wasn't going that day, so I got to go with Robben and Sean to NAMM!!!!!!! aaaaaah........ it was amazing. I saw so much.....including tommy walker at the Roland booth, and Apple's booth, and got some free stuff.... i'm blown away!

Jan. 29 - Whitney invited me to South Pasadena High School's winter formal. It was at a huge mall in the middle of downtown L.A... Since it was at night, getting inside required huge black men as bouncers patting everyone single person down. Yikes... he reached... EVERYWHERE. It was amazing inside, decked out, DJ, lights, it was inside a mall... a fun time was had by all.

Guys bible study is growing each and every week, and it's been such a great privilege to be an upperclassman, to lead the guys through example...

Feb. 18-21 - Spiritual Life Retreat. We had Mike Schoonover, a great speaker, very passionate. Funny... I had my GL2 and Dave brought his new Sony camcorder also... lots of fun taping all the stuff happening. Unfortunately we were locked in the lodge most of the weekend because it was sleeting. One night, after everyone had left the lodge, the guys found a mouse running around evading capture,... it was hilarious. Caught on tape... the mouse finally hid behind Jesus... a portrait of Jesus... thus was never found again. Last day, Sunday, it finally stopped sleeting, snowed a bit, and lightened up. We went out, had the biggest fricken snowball fight all over the whole camp... naive me and my camcorder, went out warning people don't touch my equipment, though I grabbed some great footage... somebody threw a snowball... more like iceballs... at...well...my nuts. twice. i was on the floor. there's footage. don't watch it. anyway... i banded with some guys afterwards, got pelted, all wet haha... yes yes. Oh, and I missed the PYMO tour to go on SLR... so... no regrets.

Feb. 24 - I think this was the day we had a choir festival at The Master's College. We saw Paul there and sang... other high school choirs were there. But we held up nicely...

March. 4-7 - Here it was... the weekend we'd all been waiting for. Choir tour... in Orlando, Florida. So here's a little background:

During the Broadway Revue, which was intended to raise support money to send us there and perform and such... the Admin decided, rather than have free tickets and have suggested donations for the Revue, they jacked up prices to $40 and $100 tickets. This of course drove everyone away, barely filled half of the first floor of the auditorium that night. Sad, I know. So as a result, we not only failed to raise money, but cost the school thousands in funds for doing the revue. After the parents almost went rioting on the Admin, they had a big fat chat... parents and admin congregating for a fiesty heart-to-heart....yep. So we were on our way to Florida eventually, but parent chaperones were replaced with school administrators. I think we drove them a bit nuts by the 2nd day or so, and had our share of fun.

Back to Florida, so kinda of the senior guys in our group... Kev, Titus, Daniel, me... stuck together a bit. It was great fun... but the first day, our flight was a red-eye... and we got to Florida at 5am, got to the resort, put down our luggage, didn't even see our rooms, and went straight to Epcot! By golly... flew on a red-eye, got to Epcot by 8am for its opening,... and were expected to have fun. I'm sure my diminished expectations of this Epcot I'd always heard about weren't so accurate, unfortunately. You could've walked around the park that day and saw teenagers lying flat on the floor asleep in the sun outside a ride or by a bench. That was us. :) Then the next day we went to Disneyworld, the park. Performed for an audience of 2 or 3... yea... empty rows of seats since people were probably at a parade or something outside the amphitheater, and did our thing, left. Went on rides, the whole deal. Sunday was fun... MGM Studios, I believe. My kinda place... it's almost like Universal Studios anyway. We got to go into one of their TV-taping studios, met with a cast member who could really sing. He taught us some stuff, and we proceeded to sing to a video track from the Hunchback of Notre Dame, after a few tries, he recorded us and we watched it back... I little recording studio session for us to experience. That was pretty cool indeed. Then that night we went to Fantasmic. Nothing overwhelmingly great, infact, the original one in Anaheim was way better. Tons better. Tons and a few pounds better.

OH YEAH, that afternoon though, somehow I got split into a group with Chessum, Amanda, and Merrilee... what happens next, actually happened! So we decide to go on their backlot tour, and the first exhibit they have is where you sit in stands and watch a live stage taping... action taping that is... there's a director, and they do a little 'lights, camera, action' type of thing for each piece of the short clip they're making. They finish that and piece it all together for the audience to see it all come together. Little did we know... since were the last four of the whole group entering, a cast member popped out from a side door and pulled the four of us aside, asking, "You want to do something? It'll be fun!" So of course we said yea... few minutes later, we found ourselves in blue deck-swabbing raincoats and waterproof boots behind what was a water-dock stage. They said, just follow the instructions, and specifically to me: "When she says action, talk into the phone, yell like mad, and DON'T look to your right!" So I said ok... as they called all of us out, there were hundreds of people watching! They put Chessum at the top of a warship with binoculars; Amanda and Mer on the deck swabbing with towels on their knees(told to just act like what you will when they see what's going to happen...); Director pulls me aside into a room, looks like the navigator's room. So I sit in this chair, she yells action. Phone rings, pick it up, I yell something like, "No, I didn't order that pizza!" Next thing I know, a few hundred, maybe thousand gallons of water comes crushing through an open porthole hitting me on the right side! "CUT!" So that was my little debut. The two girls on the deck and Chessum... well she had to point across the sky as sounds of an overhead skyplane crossed from left to right, right to left, and look silly as a captain. The two girls below were barraged with explosions, real fire popping from the side of the ship, and gun fire with pellets going into the water, splashing all around them! Barrels blowing up 20 feet in the air, and they basically jumped into each other's arms, threw up the towels, quite literally! And there's the whole thing. Made quite the film.

I think that night we went to Downtown Disney, it's a party there! I traveled the night away with Erica, Linda, and I forget... but we had good food, saw some shops, and made our way through "Pleasure Island" (ref. to Pinocchio)... wow... strip clubs, drinks, DJs, dance floors, crazy people smoking crazy stuff. Downtown Disney. Yep...

Monday was rather long... spent the day at Animal Kingdom. I enjoyed it, but it got quite monotonous. And thus ended our journey in Florida. Good weather by the way.

March - Biggest thing probably was play rehearsals. I got to help with tech again for this play: Much Ado About Nothing. I love the movie! Kenneth Branagh... I got to play Denzel's character, the 'Prince'... except our play was set in the Vietnam War era... in San Francisco of course. Yes, WOW. It was lots of fun, being on stage, I'm pretty sure I suck at acting, but it was fine while I was doing it... got to know the cast PRETTY well...

Of course April... Tennis season! Woohoo... juggling the play, rehearsal, performance, PYMO orchestra, even doing the chamber orchestra in Altadena at the same time! and I had decided to start raising support to get me to Brazil for a mission trip in August with the church college group... so much, and on top of all this... College decisions, which I'll post in a separate blog entry. Oh yeah, and AP tests! Holy moly.....

Oh wait, tennis. This season was... a bit disappointing, happy that there were lots of talent and depth, especially in the new freshman, three of them all my freshman buddies! Joel, Erik, and Ian... so proud of them! haha... so it was particular dissapointing, I didn't get to play that much, and at that, the other doubles teams were doing much better, but I was getting to be a very solid player. In many aspects. We did ok as a team, we got very close with Valley this year, and beat out the other teams in our league position.

So in May, PYMO got to do a special thing. Alexander Xu, a composer working out of UCLA, with a cultural dance team there,... composed a show ... a little like Joy Luck Club... with a part of our orchestra, in the pit of Royce Hall... with what I remember as the Los Angeles Children's Chorale... and the UCLA dance club or something. It was fun playing different music like that. So we did that and they came to our spring concert also. Of course, I also took the AP Calc and AP Music Theory exams. I came out of both exceedingly confident. Not sure why. But Calc actually made sense. Thanks Mrs. Pelletier for working us extra hard so the exam wouldn't be. and after taking all those Theory lessons on my own.... with Whitney... I was waaaay prepared for the school AP exam.... it was easy actually. Well... July came, and I passed with flying colors! Calc - a 4, and music theory, aural: 5, non-aural: 5...so yea...5! fricken 5!

April 18 - Mark, Pahl, Geoff, and Matt went to the sequoias to film for CORE week... so to help them out, the one day I could make it on Sunday, I drove myself for two hours up to the Sequoias... t'was a fun drive. Then we came back down by night after finding some rivers and places to film.

May 17 - Star Wars opens tomorrow on the 18th! Episode III: Revenge of the Sith! aaaaahhhhhh..... Tonight... Fenderson's home, we had a little star wars marathon, and on the 18th, Brian, Ryan, Matt, Jordan, Fletcher, and myself went to the Arcadia mall and....even made our own character t-shirts! lined up for the movie.....and it was incredible! What we've all been waiting for!

High school, senior year - Semester One

2006-01-28T11:44:01Z

So the end of August, wow... couldn't believe it was happening. ASB President, meetings, volunteering at school registration, and putting BBQ's on. Another easy week, working on Senior buddy stuff, hoping it goes well. Rehearse for worship band here and there, work at Mac7 Graphics, and then the weekend before school starts, Mark asks me to go down to San Diego with him on those weekend jobs!

Guess what it was? You know the 40-foot semi/18-wheeler/trailers you see on the road? Yes like those COORS or BUDWEISER ones? Yea....those. For two days straight we worked in 90 degree weather, putting up the graphics on the side of the truck. It was cool, 12 sheets all taller than me(obviously) on each side of the trailer, with all the tools etc... so then, there's lots of rivets. We needed to take a squeegee and flatten the areas to stick tightly around each rivet. I think I counted about 4,166 rivets at one point. bleh...

We also started Monday Night Football with the church guys, each week going to Gino's Pizza, it was great.

Sept. 10 - Uprising, again at C.O.D. went well, it was a long day. But worship band did well, but everyone was a bit confused at the video we made about someone being chased, and a secret agent headquarter, what-not.

This year, I joined choir, and there's quite a few people. Just a handful of seniors though. by Sept. 17, we were going on our choir retreat to the cliffs of San Onofre Beach. It was darn cool: camping out on the cliffs, hearing the waves break, seagulls flying overhead, surfers doing their thing, and of course the nuclear power plant down the coast line visible to all. Got to know Kevin, it was a fun time. So there's this 'leadership' in choir, a.k.a. prefects(Harry Potter reference), so Kevin, Amanda, Merrilee, and Searcy (later replaced by Kimmy) who kind of look after all of us, I suppose. Or....the inner circle might I add. So the great thing is, we spend all of Friday there, sleep, spend Saturday morning in the water once again, and get home by 2:30. I head straight to church in my board shorts, and then go to the church beach trip to Huntington Beach! Alrighty then... we had a bonfire and worship there until 10pm... relaxing weekend eh?

Sept. 30 - Gabrielino had their homecoming, at Mark Keppel HS' field. Weird. Anyway, it was fun seeing Lindsay cheer and get homecoming queen. Lots of familiar faces in the bleachers.

Oct. 1 - Royal Ball for the Rose Queen competition! It was kinda fun too... Nicole asked me to go with her, the place was pumpin'! We go to the Pasadena Civic Center on Green St. only to find the line wrapping around the block because of security checks. So that was fun, towards the end of the night, apparently a girl had to get taken away on a stretcher, maybe alcohol poisoning. Turns out we used to go to school together. Well enough of that...

Oct. 15 - Our worship band was asked to lead at the ACSI Jr. Hi Student Council Convention! Exciting! So our band went to Lake Ave. and of course, I fiddled :) and we played for the jumpin' junior highers... a fun day off of school. That night, was the performing arts department Wake-A-thon. We get sponsors to fundraise for us to stay up all night to do activities, learn drama stuff, etc. Being part of choir, we worked on songs for a good part of the night, played improv games, and the rest.

Oct. 23 - Alicia asked me to her high school's homecoming dance! Monrovia HS held it at the Almansor Park banquet room. It was a lot of fun actually, just, bump n' grind. pretty much the whole night. WHAT?! no, not me. what are you talking about?! haha... anyway, it was a lot of fun going with Alicia! It was us, Richard and Aaron too.

Oct. 24 through Oct. 26 - ACSI ASB Leadership Retreat!!! Last year's retreat got cancelled at Forest Home because of the forest fires. But here we were! Basically, about 10 Christian high schools, of which MHS and Whittier Christian were the big two, spend three days on leadership activities, seminars, and bonding time in the mountains. It was great deals of fun with our group. Especially with our group. So another school up there was Mr. Northrop's dad's group! Mr. Northrop senior led a group from Arizona, it was great seeing them together up here. So Whittier Christian's band was supposed to do worship all weekend, but somehow we ended getting to split the time between MHS and WCHS... it was great, we played our hearts out and just rocked the house! People were seriously so pumped up for the music too. So this one high school.....Hillcrest Christian from Agoura Hills... hehe I'll explain once we get to college *wink*...
We had a good time getting away from the hustle and bustle, and added some more resources to my leadership folder.
As soon as we came back, it was float building for homecoming! I spent most of my time working on a single soundtrack to carry through our whole presentation. We worked at Brittany's house and created a little Peter Pan adventure. Good fun was had by all, including dave orme dancing!!! Need I say more?

So Homecoming day arrives, we setup at San Marino High, setup the dance at Monrovia Recreation Center, homecoming happens, we do our thang....I sing the national anthem with the seniors in choir, in my pirate outfit of course. If I remember right, we won the football game, and the Homecoming court's idea to announce the winner was a cell phone call, each one had a phone, but who would get the ring?! Then the after-party/dance went on, I basically worked and cleaned up. No biggie.

Nov. 5 - Took the SATs for the first time....eh.....it was ok.

Nov. 14 - We tried to get Our Hearts Hero to perform at MHS, but to no avail, somehow we got them at SGUC. So I spent all morning setting up the stage, and the band came, soundchecked, of course monitor problems. Inevitable. Great, great concert... band members were pretty nice. That week I proceeded to work on the fall play... A Midsummer Night's Dream, set in 19th century India! I got to be a light designer, patching things in, programming controls, working out ways to use all those colors for Puck and the fairies, and get settings and time scenes established, and.... it was hard, but turned out great. We got canvas to paint a huge moon backdrop. Threw a floodlight and faded it in, it was PHENOMENAL! I will never forget that... as the music builds the moon turns on amidst the dark stage, silhouetting our main character. Ms. Chessum played the fairy... and the cast was just hilarious! I love theater stuff...

December - Took my SAT II's... had a low key birthday... it was fine. Here's where we started rehearsing for the huge musical! This was our chance! We were going to do it in Ambassador Auditorium, how grand! But much less sing in a choir, we had to learn dance moves, and I was having the time of my life, regardless of a 5+ hour rehearsal on a weekend. I don't know if people got the concept that we were performing in Ambassador, where Sinatra, Pavarotti, among others used that stage. Gold and Onyx Marble, "Carnegie Hall of the West", top 10 acoustic venue in the world... WOW!

I went to winter formal with Tracy. Christina, Aaron, Shelby, Fletcher. They did a great job planning it at Castle Greens south of Old Town Pasadena. Good food, but couldn't finish it before the waiter took it away.

Christmas vacation came, and one of the days, I went with Habitat for Humanity and helped work on a house. Having Mr. Martin come with us was awesome. That man is awesome.

One of the Sundays after church, bunch of us went to the Fenderson's to test out their new home theater! Small, but a powerhouse set of speakers mounted, internally wired, Dolby 5.1 surround, no screen, but a projector! We watched the first two Lord of the Rings movies, and Tuesday we went back for the third movie. the sound was incredible! Scared us half to death most times!

January comes, and we have full day rehearsals for the big Broadway Revue... doin 42nd Street, song from Hairspray, Rent, it's amazing. I'm learning so much, but there's so many people still unappreciative of the historic opportunity they'll have to perform here! ARGH. Makes me mad.

Catching Up - Part 1

2005-12-21T07:02:02Z

Sorry-got really busy with school, but here we go!

August 5, 2004 - What a nice relaxing day! Beach trip with Steffi, Jessica, and Erica :-). Man... perfect day, couple clouds, sunny, Huntington beach...

August 7, 2004 - Another day at the beach! With church this time, good fun with another small group of people.

August 13, 2004 - Since I'm working for Mac7 Graphics, Mark's invited me to go to, pretty amazing. Learned a lot, saw the trade and the different aspects of it.

Aug. 15 - Aug. 21: Hume Lake! Wow,... it's my last year being there as a high school senior!!! This year Dino came with us too, it was a lotta fun. This year, the SGUC group got really familiar with the nursing station...hahaha we kept getting scraped up and Dave kept bringing new kids in from our group. I jumped off a huge rock probably 20-some feet up and into the lake. So much fun :-p. It was awesome having Nicole with our group too... This year though, we didn't get the big lakeview chapel for our whole group. But it was still fun, few nights in the hallway eating trays of cookies... It was still a big summer for me. Made lots of decisions involving college career choices, and family, and what God had in mind for me. Conor and I even talked a lot about stuff, it was cool. Helped me really figure out my priorities. I did make the decision that I would take the leap and do what I had a passion for.. and now I've learned; film and music. If conflict came between my family and God, however hard it is, God does come first. So... some late night talks about that, and through lots of prayer, came lots of resolve.
Oh and Our Hearts Hero was kinda a neat band.
Thursday night-Talent night on the patio by the lake; can't forget that! I borrowed Gabby's cowboy hat(albeit there was a pink ribbon around it) and whipped out my violin. Daniel Flores backed me up on guitar, I walked up with Robben. He introduced me, saying, "This is my friend, he will play a song for you, he doesn't speak much English though..." and BOOM Copland's Hoe Down! The Ruffin bros. started square dancing in the middle of the stage!!!! AWESOME... I think at one point I missed a page, but i said SOR REE SORRY....haha.... at the end of it... just a few words: "Beef, it's what's for dinner!" Oh, and Richard ordered a side-order of bacon. We played a bit of Frisbee golf...I think jess got 78 over par and i was around 52. Neat-o.

--------------------------

And that was the summer before senior year...

Here it comes

2005-10-09T09:39:04Z

It's been over a year. Surely, I do see the value in even doing any of this, and it's there, yes it is. Well, I'm back, and I'm about to unleash in the next few days to catch up on the last year and a half, don't be obliged to read, it's for my own sake, unless you do decide it yours as well... I'll pick up where I left off, but be rest-assured, I could not even imagine where I am today. Not even a thought of it. But I'm here, and follow along and you'll find out.

SOO much going on!

2004-07-26T06:48:59Z

ahhhhh...... so many things happening... gotta catch up:

So ASB retreat at Big Bear was July 10. Fun, night sky, saw every star visible, on the lake, clean air.

Came back and kicked off CORE week at church. 616....it was a great week. I actually shared my testimony on video for everyone. First time I ever did in such a big way. Some great things happened, some dramatic things happened throughout the week.

Then that weekend I got to perform at the Colorado Street Bridge Festival, aka suicide bridge. Each summer they have huge throngs of people go there for music, food, booths and such. It was fun playing 10 variations of Mozart's Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and some other pieces. Just a small ensemble of us.
Funny thing was the group we shared the stage with for a bit was called FUNdamentals. They go around to daycares and stuff to teach young kids how to sing and dance and 'groove'. So these are all 20-ish people, a guy on guitar, jamaican lookin guy, and a gal that was singing. After a song about being giraffes and animals and stuff with little kids, all the music groups went on a dinner break. Walking by the thai food, right next to that booth, people were in line at the kegs for some beer, and guess who we saw? haha.....drunken singers with little 4 year olds. hrm.....

Then next week, Thursday the 22, was really awesome. Dreamworks teamed up with Tremor, which I'm a part of. So since Dreamworks HQ was in Burbank, about 70 people like 15-20 yrs old were invited to go down there and catch a screening of a movie coming out in October called Shark Tales. It was pretty funny, but like Osmosis Jones mixed with Finding Nemo. Anyway, in the theater, apparently were some execs from MTV, one from BET, and like some other channels, NBC or something rather. But got to see a movie, got $100, a shirt, badge, and some other stuff. Not bad.

Saturday, Beach trip with church. Waves were great. Went out like sooo far, but luckily a sandbar was there and we were standing in the middle of well.....near the beach but nonetheless, far out in the ocean haha. Swells were huge, but we started wave-surfing, except by just swimming haha. Good fun. Then....

Today was a first. It was awesome. Thanks Dino, for inviting me. We went to the Home Depot Center to see the Finals of the WTA's JP Morgan Chase Tournament. Serena Williams v. Lindsay Davenport. Davenport beat the crap out of Serena, well she wasn't playing well at all. Anyway, it was cool, got all this free stuff, saw my first pro tennis event live. Took some cool pictures, and then we saw the doubles finals right after. Petrova/Shaugnessy v. Pascual/Martinez. Good first set I saw. I wanna go play tennis now.

Well, that's it for now.

Church Picnic

2004-07-05T15:53:15Z

Well yesterday afternoon was the church bbq for the 4th of july. I stayed from 3-6, well a bit after that. But it was good fun, good fun. Pinewood derby, pie and watermelon eating contest, potluck, face-painting, even a Chili cook-off! Felt like a midwestern town celebrating... on the grass, with little kids running around, it was fun hehe, cuz in SoCal, at least I don't get to see much of that.

Speaking of which, I'm being bogged down incredibly once again. Church CORE week is coming up next week, this is 'hell-week', so to speak... at church haha....we're preparing and constructing for the next week. And then music, I'm being pushed really hard to advance on a lot of my violin stuff, as well as theory. And then Summer school, which I have to catch up from my week gone in Sacramento. Phew......

And about Sacramento... be prepared. Because I'm going to try to go in full detail soon about my incredible week there! Now you can complain :-) about it being too long, but don't read it. I'm writing it for the sake of keeping it since they might ask, or the school might ask for me to speak on it, and I wanna keep a good memory of it. Well... you'll see. So it's going to be long... long... long... long... long....

I'm actually feeling really mad right now. Nobody's home that I called to go play tennis this morning. I'm dying to play right now, watching too much Wimbledon...

Cool-o job

2004-06-16T06:09:24Z

Ok, so for those who want to know of my new job... hehe

Mac7Graphics. My church(San Gabriel Union) youth group leader, crazy dude... Mark. It's awesome. Flexible times for the most part, work out of his place, with his kids running around the house haha... I get to learn more on designing graphics and stuff, print and cut vinyl and stuff, and he even builds the whole sign in his yard so I get to use all the stuff. Like woodshop. Anyway, it's awesome, just to start with a concept, an idea, and draw it out, play around with fonts and colors and stuff. Then print, cut, or stick vinyl around somewhere, cut lots of wood, trace it, paint it, play around with materials to bend, cut, raise, all sorts of creative things. It's so cool seeing the whole process. And I get to take part in it.

Then sometimes we will go out on jobs, maybe in Old Town Pasadena, or in San Diego. Long trips, it's good food since it's the whole day. And fun part... creativity is a big positive working with that stuff, so even when we go to the Getty Museum, he might clock me in... just for looking at the photography exhibit this summer. Can't wait. So if you need a banner, graphic design, signage, decals, all the rest... you know where to go!

Lakers... *sigh*... they didn't even try. Goodness, nothing went in, kind of troubling. Like 30 points ahead... whatever.

Forgot about GradNite last week. Pretty crazy, by 3am, I was just dozing off in line, getting my fix of rides, doze a bit again in line... you get it. Morning came, got back to school about an hour to two later. 8am. Saw some people getting ready for finals mwuahaha.... I went to IHOP with some people. Fun. Next time, it will be potato pancakes or something.

I tried the Led Zeppelin DVD on our home theater system outside. SO GREAT.

Dang it, wanna go to the beach or see a movie or just somewhere far...

what a bore

2004-06-15T04:40:11Z

Ok this sucks. I think it's just me though. Seriously. Nobody wants to do anything. At one point I'm criticized for not asking too. Well I doubt there will be any objections concerning my full summer schedule... so if there's nothing going on, er... if nothing's goin down... if nothing's up this summer... I guess I'll put down in stone my work days. 5 days a week most likely so that's my summer. School in the morning. work all afternoon. Thanks.
I don't feel like seeing any people anymore. I'll just work more hours, and I'm waiting for Saturday. I can leave to Sacramento for a week with strangers. Won't see anyone for a week and a half. Get back.... when are those ASB meetings anyway...

PS - Love my new job. so awesome.

Movie night

2004-06-13T02:24:28Z

ok whoever said Matrix revolutions was horrible? Well, alright, there are better movies out there(no kidding), but I'll admit I was on the edge of my seat. Next is Last Samurai, and then Command and Conquer. I wanna go see Day After Tomorrow and Chronicles of Riddick. Anybody up for it? I'm so bored and so free...

Goodbye Mr. Reagan

2004-06-12T03:20:34Z

Oh my gosh. Just watching the funeral for Reagan...That was amazing. The Eulogy by Michael the eldest son... was simply amazing. The greatest gift from a father to a son, from his father to him? God's love. God the Father's gift to us, well there ya go. My goodness, couldn't have said it better. But what does the media do? Highlight his rebellious son's message. I mean it was beautiful and great, but wow, the message of eternal salvation, that part. They don't even hint at it now after he's said it.

And Nancy Reagan with the final goodbye at the casket... who can bear that. She just... I'm sure she gets the sympathy of everyone who could even watch. And Margaret Thatcher...wow incredible that she came.

He truly went from sea to shining see. Wow. Can you believe that? At the National Cathedral in Washington... Thatcher, Krushchev, five presidents, Bush, W. Bush, Carter, Ford, Clinton. My goodness. With Mikhail Gorbachev was up with Reagan at the casket..... can you imagine? In the words of another, only God could have made that happen.

Wow. I'm speechless.

Sorry another ginormous update... BYE SENIORS...

2004-06-08T08:32:38Z

Well, I'm at school right now. Last week and I'm done! Fourth period AP History, so nothing to do really. Kinda creepy. We watched the History channel's documentary on Ronald Reagan and we finished on Friday. He died on Saturday.

Ok back from Graduation. Now it's like 1am.

Well last week was ASB's Mexico trip and it was a blast. This year we built two houses in three days. Drove there without a hitch, Rockman's van with Josh and me, and the rest were girls. So we get there and start building, Freshmen and Seniors against, I mean, and on the other house, Juniors and Sophomores. By the end of the second day, we were farther on both houses than one one house the year before! Kind of had a nail gun accident though, poor Suzanne. Took a tough hit for the team. Gave Rockman my camera for the weekend and we got about 300 pics. About 30 were my artistic photos of the area.

Lunch time on the last day was the greatest. Rachel, Rockman and I were serving food, and a nice gust of wind blows a plastic plate straight onto the right side of my face. I though someone slapped me big time too... Danielle and her fly-paper haha. So I got my pictures loaded up, and it was pretty much the Pahl and Tyler show! Yes, so many poses. Anyway, our house was green, and it was better than theirs. Roofing we nailed(haha get it?), i mean we got it right on, like it was good, but we also got it right on the....nevermind.

I'm so glad, this year, after AP Spanish, I got to have so many conversations with the locals down there. I'm convinced that I should have done better on my AP test this year, but it's too late for that now. Talked to the family of our house, and their little kids, and their neighbors. Some random locals too, while I was out perusing the streets for photo ops. When we were finished with the house, our translator was busy elsewhere for the moment, and Mr. Northrop gave me the privilege of doing some easy translating for the group! So I told them, we wanted to give the keys to them and dedicate the house for them. The mother was in tears, and after we handed the keys over and prayed for them, the four kids ran inside shouting and screaming ecstatically, yelling back at us occasionally with a big ¡Gracias! ¡Gracias!
Thanks for all those who helped donate money so that I could go on this trip. Ah, won't forget all the ASB members old and new on the trip.

Came back, and it was powderpuff. We didn't win, but it's all good. Rachel had some nice runs in there. Our class was so dumb. Nobody even wanted to cheer. Mellow under the shade. Ugh, makes me sick. The seniors... couldn't have asked for a better group of kids. Sorry but it's the truth.

Here we go... so this year we started the first of, hopefully many, downrisings, aka: Overtime 6.4.04.
We filled about 1,500 water balloons the day before. About half of which popped throughout the night. Nice...
The next day, Victory Park(who jipped us comletely), got my act together(really.) and we did a bit of worship on the flatbed truck. Did some class competition games, and bam... we go into American Idol. Aaron starts of singing as Clay Aiken or something rather, then they announce Mr. William Hung. Can I just say? As the only fully asian person on ASB next year, people knew exactly what was coming when they announced it! So I've heard that MHS seldom has such a reaction. Which is a good thing I guess. Got the hawaiian shirt, the hair slicked to one side, and of course, the hip movement and the hong kong accent! YES. Sorry, seniors on the rafting trip missed it. Crap, I wasn't even as worried as getting shot in victory park for doing that, more than getting shot on video. haha... so 'Overtime' ended pretty well.

Ugh... Saturday. This has been quite a long weekend. Tiring-ly long. Took three SAT II's. Horrendous. Long. Proctor at Blair was late, and just, wow. It was horrible. Waaay different than San Marino. Spent the afternoon trying to see how much of the Senior video I could get done. Not much. Proceeded to Encore, but was detoured by Pahl's call for help on his spankin' new iBook! SOOO nice. Went to his house for a bit, borrowed the Led Zep DVD(so great) and then went to Church for the concert. Helped with taking pictures for the website, then went home around 12. Then went right back out to Applebee's to hang out with the college people, Conor invited me so why not. got home around 1:30 and put on Kill Bill Vol. 1. Wow, I liked it. Did some senior video while the movie was on. Movie finished, swapped in the Led Zep DVD. Finished both discs around 8 in the morning. Missed church for the first time in....who knows how long since the senior video was due this afternoon. That's another story...

So I finish way late(sorry) around 2-ish. Missed band practice for Baccalaureate, so I'm asked not to play and instead to finish the more-important video, showing in about an hour(which I'm still finishing and getting on tape.) I floor it at about 70 down Sierra Madre to Paz Naz, make it there by 3:30, run up stairs with tape in hand and boom... video is up on screen. People somewhat enjoyed I hope, and I vow never to make another video that has nothing to do with me, especially for school. Ugh...horrible.

Best part of that day... Baccalaureate is done, but Manny, Rachel, David, insist that I go with them to the post-semi-parties. Well, get-togethers. Funny thing is, so many people were throwing one at their own house that few people showed up to any really... well I think. Went to Tyler's house first, grabbed some grub, talked, proceeded in our three-car caravan to Josh Aaron's house. REALLY GOOD grub. Wow...talked, watched a slideshow. Then I'm off to violin and finish the day dead-tired.

Now, today, I had to go to "school". Right after, went straight to Paz Naz at 3:30 and this time, I got to play! So happy. Be Thou My Vision. During Graduation, just seeing my senior class, all grown up and leaving... sob. So many good times this year. The people, the jokes, the ridicule, the only non-senior in there. Anyway, they didn't let Manny where the converses up there! So upset. Goodness.

Anyway, I couldn't get over the fact they started a new award this year. The Mark Sakanashi christian character/athletic award or something. Steve got the first one ever. His dad... what a year for Steve. That guy has been such an encouragement. He has taught me so much through being in Bible Study, morning devotion, just being who he is at school. What an awesome guy. Got a standing ovation from the whole place today. Amazing.

We played our song somewhere in the service, pretty sure I messed up in few spots. Kinda bad. Really bad. But I guess they said it went well. It was fun wearing semi-formal while the rest of the band was in their gowns, graduating.

Took like 100 pics with all the seniors, hunting them down after the commencement service. Can't wait until grad-nite! After I take my wonderful two finals.

Until next time to you faithful ones.

PS - Got some more converts to the Mac. Thank you GarageBand :-)

Good night, bad night

2004-05-28T06:56:46Z

Well, came home from sports banquet. Got to dress up semi-nice, get a few words of praise, give a few words of praise. Went well, I didn't even expect to get a scholar athlete award. I was about to cower in shame in the corner as they skipped over me in the Guys Tennis part of it... but lo and behold my dear friends! With the stinkin' AP's and the unweighed 5.0 scale, they gave me a 3.93. I was shocked. I was awed. I was confused as to how I got that.

The coolest thing though, was getting, not only another chevron pin for varsity, but the STAR pin! Talk about team captain perks eh? I should get my letterman jacket after summer i guess. I hope I fit into it. Probably this summer, I'm gonna work my butt off in tennis to get better. Something along the lines of waking up at 5 every morning, swim, then jog the 3 miles. then do the jump roping until I'm tired. Watch the food intake. Leave the nights for um.... well I've been told to start using those weights. Well... I'm still counting on that jump rope. I don't wanna stay 5'7" forever you know...

So much talk about the beach this summer. Can't wait. I might join choir next year. Can't wait.

Ugh...I come home from sports banquet. bomBARDED by stuff. stuff like chem. and chem. and um........chem. even though we had 2 months to do all the homework of 2months worth we have to catch up tonight...I'd still say...thanks Rockman. for making this all due tomorrow. Six labs, 3 chapter homeworks, and yeah. AP. I still need to pack for Mexico. and do all this. I should start around 2am. yea. anyway, i made copies, lots of em for somebody who came by nice and late.....ahem.... and been helpin people around. I haven't even gotten outta my banquet clothes yet. I need to just sit down. breath. yes. now out. yes. good. we're getting there. ah.

I get to wake up at 4:45 tomorrow. Yippee. Mainly to get ready, get to school by 5:45 or 6. Hopefully some guys will meet up for morning devotions. then i get the pleasure of helpin out with sound for chapel. I'll do my best. If we get feedback, expect my finger to be directed at the guy next to me.

Peace out, don't do drugs, read the Bible, and always, stay cool.

Beach and thumbs

2004-05-25T04:26:48Z

Hrm... got some thumbnails of the beach trip up at http://webpages.charter.net/iceburner

Enjoy, while I try to get some real web-hosting up and running around here...

Phenomally Insanely Fantasmatistic Day

2004-05-23T08:35:21Z

My, my, my. This has been the best day ever.

Well, kinda started yesterday. So Friday, last day of the last full week for the seniors, and... boy, what will I do without them next year. Senior chapel was insane. Pahl and Christian's little song had me in tears... "why me!"....haha

AP Spanish, we had a little pizza fiesta and of course, through Friday, I had my camera everywhere and in everyone's faces, going trigger happy. Tried making killer-straight faces, Leo, Tyler and I... ah. Rachel called me the antichrist 'again' too.

So Friday was good, it was good. BUT... this morning, at 9, went to Maranatha's....yes.......NEW CAMPUS. It's SWEET. Holy crap(...where?), pictures don't do a justice, people! I walked on there, it was peaceful, huge grass lawns, many fountains, koi ponds... the big dolphin fountain in front of the Ambassador Auditorium. Shoot... the pool, gym, field, and the auditorium! The fricken front edge of the stage elevates up and down to make an orchestra pit! The acoustics were so good, I went up to the podium on stage and heard myself reverb from the walls.

Proceeded to good ol' William Carey... school, in my uniform. My first official duty as ASB President was today at Freshmen registration/orientation. It was fun. Sean and I were MC-ing the whole program up on 'stage'. Got to talk, introduce, pray, welcome, you know. Then after the whole ordeal, we cleaned up. I admit, I took the easy way out in the end. Titus drove his (I guess, new) F-150 in and we made rounds to load and unload chairs at ends of the campus. So Caleb, Aaron, Titus, and I hopped on the truckbed, well Titus drove. haha, going back to get more chairs, he drove off... so I ran after it and jumped on back. after a bit, he stopped. I sat nicely on the tailgate, and caleb ran after it this time, but when his truck took off,.....I fricken fell off the truck! I still ran back on, give me credit for that.

Then everyone started coming to school around 2 for the beach trip. I didn't find out until this week, that in additino to the 50 or so people from school who signed up, there were about 50 more from the INCOMING freshmen class! dang... weird.

Here comes the fun part:(sorry it's so long but it's good, to me anyway)
Our buses get off at Huntington Beach, south side, with all the fire pits. After Ryan Johnson and I wrestled a bit(I need to, need to get back in Jujitsu. It's been too long I tell ya) jumped in the water. Crud.....it's been so long I didn't remember the waves were so strong and so nastily salty. water was great. Salt wasn't. Anyway, got sucked in quite a few times, didn't know what hit me. Jenn and I were ocean buddies. haha there were so many couples that we were just ..... eh.... there. so it was fun. Got back on the beach, so hungry. the lunch was good. just hung out with pahl, ty, ryan and steve and ryan... got a tan and took more pics of the beach and people anywhere. Did some crazy stuff and then people were like mass wrestling. I think they saw Troy one too many times.

Around sunset, at 8, we all got together.... probably about 100 of us from MHS, and Tyler and Manny played guitar and we all sat around the "bonfire". It was a puny flame. I was freezing in the wind. But no matter, the Spirit warmed me up heh. Oh my gosh it was so phenomal. Just awesome. I mean, the fact that we were in a public place, and a hundred of us worshipping God, and standing, and lifting our hands. It was unreal, I'd never done that before, but what the heck, just go for it. With the beach behind us, a fire in front, and people everywhere, that first Night of Worship at the beach is the first of many I hope. Undescribably awesome. What's even cooler? Some group heard us like several fire pits away, and decided to join us! It was so cool. We finished and then went home. Got to go on the runner's bus and stuff. David and JJ...you need to definitely cool down on the music and the moves man. I could barely sleep, keep it down people haha... And well, now I'm home and uploaded my pics. I think I took about 200 pictures with 7 movies! DANG. 200 pics in an afternoon/evening. Think I should post them up somewhere, sometime.

I have a concert in a matter of... 10-15 hours. Haven't touched the violin in a week, and well, it'll be fun. John Williams stuff, Peter and the Wolf. I'm expecting people there. Possibly my second grade teacher, Mrs. Blosser! wow, ok. See ya there, if you're still here. well, you're here now, but later you'll be there watching me up there. right? still here?

been a long long long long......

2004-05-15T10:06:19Z

My my, it's been a while. I know you don't like reading those long long updates, so basically, I've gotten through academic hell week with 3 APs, now over, I'm so glad and thankful.

Meanwhile, as tennis finished, (made it into quarter finals for doubles and then we were finished off)... I went to this "Lead Like Jesus" seminar on leadership. It was pretty cool, took like 10 pages of notes and learned a lot. Went to a track meet, dinner for Boys' State and saw some old pals...William, Derek...

Went to see MHS' school musical. Good show, very good. Some talent in our school, always amazes me at these events. Into the woods...

AP History - study sessions make students delusional. Seriously, at some point in the studying, we practically were reading from some imaginary book in our heads. Good times. After our AP test, bunch of us headed to Islands. While waiting for our seats, a bum sat with us and told us his life story of how he worked in a tall building across the street, contemplating jumping(yep...), and then said they couldn't fire him because he quit, soon after drinking himself out of the job. And this all started after he heard us say something about Murphy's Law. Creepy.

Gabrielino's musical... it was good stuff. The technical crew had well....nothing down, but otherwise, good show. There were some talented people in there that I know...

Been stressing about getting my tux and all this prom crap. Been takin' a lot of crap everywhere about prom too, in fact. I'm so tired of it, wanna get it over with. And tonight....tonight it's done! After this, my life-business just took a cliff-drop. Basically, I decided, after going to Irvine to do some job, took a detour before going home and took a sunset drive down Newport Beach with some music blasting on. Nice.

As for today, yep today...... it's about 3am. Just got home not too long ago. This night was fun, haven't had this much fun in a long time. Went to the Pasadena ice rink for Aaron's surprise party. Got the hang of skating again, been so many years. And after, Caleb and I decided to catch a movie. TROY. For the 10:20pm showing. Arriving to find out there's a 10:40 showing only. Buying the ticket, just to find out they're all sold out and we bought 11:30 ones. Anyway, saw Titus in there, but other than some long talking scenes, I was awa.........i mean, it was good. Maybe it was just the typical 12am doze off.

Well prom is tonight... nervous but it's ok. Things better go well.

She said yea

2004-04-18T20:25:02Z

I can't believe it! Man, I'm speechless in a way.Well, that's why I'm typing. To be honest, the funny thing is I was more afraid if the answer was yes... what am I gonna do now?! haha, yea weird.

My iBook went in for repairs this past week, I'm reverting to pen and paper ladies and gentlemen, yes, pen and paper. Juggling my schedule has been crazy, getting out of the whole vacation week.

Went to get my soft contacts finally yesterday, funny, as I was trying them on, this chick walks up to me and starts talking to me. I was like, "hrm... ok", so struck a conversation and so on. Didn't find out where she was from though, oh well, that was the highlight of my day since some people who were supposed to go somewhere with me dropped out, even though we planned it weeks ago...

Before that though, spent Friday night to Saturday at the church Jr. Hi Lock-in, spent all night doing video and shooting stuff. Pretty fun, went by fast though, but shot and finished the video for them to see by morning. Much more video projects coming up this next week.

Tune in next time, I may have some shockers soon.

gosh darn it

2004-04-13T02:19:19Z

Toldya it wouldn't be long for another post....

I just found out that because I procrastinated, something I'm not unfamiliar to, and this time it sucks big time, I can't get a refund for my hard contact lenses that I tried, and things didn't work out. But since it's been over 3-4 months, they won't give any money back. And I was looking forward to just getting soft lenses, and now, psht.... I suppose I need to work for the money twice as much now. Stinks, parents came down hard, and this comes after I get my report card,... that stunk too. and this was after my SAT scores were emailed. that .... was also pretty....malodorous.

And now, I have to worry about finding somebody to go to prom with. Why's it so stinkin hard? not to ask someone, but torn between who. I just want to go to sleep instead of thinking about this, again, because I didn't think earlier, and now it's a month away, and everybody's telling me it's late, it's late. Goodness,... I don't know how to explain it. Too many circumstances, good or bad. It's just weird right now. So weird it's dumb if you think about it.

Well, goodnight, keep the peace, read your Bible, be the goods, stay cool, er..... don't do drugs.

Oh yes, and Brad, thanks for reminding me:
30-hour famine. Two white guys, a violin hoe-down, and some excellent dancing hahaha

Fine fine finally

2004-04-12T05:01:16Z

Good heavens, yes I'm finally back. I was kidnapped by a Mr. homework, tortured by señor tennis, then rescued by the Easter bunny. Let's see what's happened in the meanwhile...

So I got ASB President elect for next year, actually got detention from some stinkin tardies, well, a Saturday school also, which no teacher showed up so we just up and left. March 18th proved to be a fiery Night of Worship at Paz Naz. It was amazing, I mean it was worship until you sweat, and then worship more. Then we spent the night in the High School room, about 50 of us, for the 30-hour famine, which was pretty cool. Watched 'Nemo', took lots of pictures(one day I need to get a site up for all these pics since I got my camera), and the morning after, we headed to the beach. Originally, we were going to clean up and stuff for a project, but turned out it was more of a hassle, that and there was a huge paintball street fair going on at Huntington Beach. So we just hung out, the senior guys and I went to Wahoo's fish taco, and then, THEN, we saw the skateboarding bulldog(www.skateboardingbulldog.com)... anyway, the Egyptian sand pyramid and sphynx was cool.

I spent that Saturday, just about the whole day doing sound for the Gabrielino talent show. Gotta say, it was fun. Sunday, after church, played a game of wiffleball at Wiffleball Ravine(Mark's backyard), and I wasn't bad, I must say. Good pitching, nominal hitting.

That next week was pretty hellish, as I tried to coordinate and prepare for Northrop's wedding, we lost our violist and desperately tried to find one UP TO THE NIGHT BEFORE! No worries Evan, though it caused me despair and grief for the moment, the trio we ended up with went well, so I hear. Our AP Chem lab also, was insane. What other class has a 4-hour lab all while eating brownies over boiling some anhydrides and playing with lots of fire? Unfortunately, the fire blanket was not put to any use. Maybe next time. Movie night at church, watched The Princess Bride.

Which brings us to last week. wow. Tyler calls me up and I get to go play violin for Lake Ave. high school group. It was fun, first time there. But spiritual emphasis week at school, amazing, amazing. I got to play 4 days in a row, and John Cox, guy from Extreme Makeover: Home Ediiton, was our speaker. He was the most animated speaker I have ever heard, or seen for that matter. All I can say is CAAAAKKE! hehehe...

Monday night Bible study took a turn last week. Since it was the championship game, lots showed up at Caleb's house, but later on in the night, after the attempts at the unicycle, and the basketball landing on the car, we sat down, talked. Somehow we got to the decision, thanks Ryan, to get up and be at school by 6am, and we'd all do our individual devotions, then at the end of the hour, get together, share what we learned or read, then pray a bit. Especially before morning rehearsal in the auditorium, it was so cool. I'd been praying for help on my devotions, for God to really push me to do it, since last summer! It's been answered thankfully, this is it. So we've been doing that since that Monday.
The last day of spiritual emphasis week, Blake took over worship that day, I don't know what else to say about that, but man... it was really, really awesome. "Blessed Be Your Name"... such a good song.

Hrm, I think we're all caught up, right?

aah... prom. I feel like it's so early, but people are bickering me to ask somebody. I think I have somebody in mind, but I'm just not sure. Why does it have to be so stinkin hard. eh...whatever. Anyway, first time I had nothing to do yesterday, so I spent my day watching all eight hours of Band of Brothers again. Goodness, such a well-made piece of work.

Ah, that took a lot out of me just to get back on this journal. Oh yeah, I took my SATs and stinkin' flubbed on my scores. Didn't come out too good. I hate dumb asian expectations for all that stuff. hehe,... yes yes, and I got Boys' State California. Guess I'm going on an all-paid trip to Sacramento for a little over a week to play in some huge mock-government process and learn a thing or two. That'll be at the start of summer.

Well, don't worry because I WILL post again soon, this is a catching-up one, look out for more.

Waiting, like someone stuck between the realms of the earth and a moon of jupiter

2004-03-10T06:42:56Z

Wow, it's over. Now I wait for election results tomorrow at break. Said my speech today in front of all 415 people of our wonderful school, stumbled on one sentence, with my mouth sucked dry of all liquids, but it's ok because everyone said my voice wasn't as shaky as I imagined.

After practice, go to Baja Fresh to support my own fundraiser, then my first time to an MHS baseball game. Saw Pastor Dave there, and it was so cool. Tyler in the dugout kept yelling stuff like those classic baseball movies with the old man on the field..... things coach says on the tennis court, just not like that way.

"Good eye! Good eye!"
"One nine, one nine, step it up, let's go [name]!"
Etc...

Tennis needs a revolution. More shouting, more cheering, more soccer, I mean tennis moms.

Ryan+balloons=more dead brain cells
Singing songs one balloon after another makes great entertainment for others, just .... well that's just it.

Touching Commercial

2004-03-07T07:48:15Z

Swamped...not a minute free on the weekend.

Just saw an awesome commercial by Nike. The one where they get all these athletes and put them into another sport. Agassi with a homerun, Lance Armstrong knock out... Serena serving, volleyball, who else? Randy Johnson bowling a strike...

Just awesome, very deep...

Nike.com - Commercial's on there

Slap in the face

2004-03-06T03:10:50Z

Wow, seriously, talk about a slap in the face. After yesterday's horrendous practice, I come home, find a new issue of Tennis magazine sitting on my desk. Flip through it to the tips page, and whaddaya know? Article:
Mind Game, tennis match turned grudge match, impossible to play your best.
AKA... losing mental concentration=losing match when aggravation peaks. Yep, after some things I said and did, that was probably a slap in the face from God. Boy that set me straight.

I made a soccer video late last night into the wee hours of the morning only to have it stay in the camera bag the whole day. Yep, happened 4th time in a row now. I think I'm used to it, who knew they had four other videos in chapel today? I thought we set on paper four weeks ago that Soccer video would be shown today! I guess it's partly my fault. No time to add the better footage from another soccer game, so I'm going back to the timeline and edit away I go.

Poor poor Martha. Indicted and guilty on four charges, poor woman is gonna serve some time.....

Like the clouds...

2004-03-05T02:28:08Z

Like the sunny bright day of a mid-spring's dawn, then slowly creeps up the heavy clouds of dusk, pouring into a upheaval of!........... um......yea

So today started kind of nice, bringing donuts to my class since I was late again. I've cumulated 4 days worth of breakfast for my AP chem class now that I've been late much more times. And apparently the teachers spread the word like wildfire. Everyone's(OK, just Newkirk) that I bring donuts when I'm late. Funny it's the teachers that I'm late to, who's asking. There goes my money....

Lunch - Went to Mr. Cuxil's room, and had the weekly prayer meeting. It was really cool this time too.

Tennis practice after school was absolutely horrible. I don't know what happened. I got so irritated by some people who were completely doing jack that by the time we played a match against them, we lost 1-6. How sad is that. I'm not even going to say on here what I did after that.

By the way, dude, it's all about the Soul Plane.....
http://www.apple.com/trailers/mgm/soul_plane/

Tennis and Campaign in full speed

2004-03-04T05:25:01Z

Is everyone watching the OC now? OC parties, get-togethers, tapings, WOW. I mean....the parties are a little overboard, especially when it's a bunch of sophomore guys. Please people... it may be a good show but it's getting a bit pathetic. Good grief.

Well, tennis season is well underway and I've been eating, sleeping, drinking tennis. I'm aching. Soon I will have fallen and won't be able to get up. I never want to sit alone in a bus with sophomores. Sorry but dude..... I thought each class at MHS started to get more stupid, more pathetic, and well...you get the idea, but I was wrong. It took a big drop for that class apparently. Not all sophomores, some are cool. Many are not.

My campaign trail is digging deep into the golden sands of MHS school politics. My wonderful campaign manager, Manny, and my awesome, catchy posters. Tuesday is the big day I go for el grande queso. We'll see how it goes.

Oh, and why the heck is PETA, stinkin' PETA, blasphemously using the name of Christ in their lowly ad-campaigns! How wrong is this... http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=37301

It hit me

2004-02-28T06:32:17Z

Dear God(and I use this phrase in every intent of the words), that was arguably the best movie I have ever seen. I'm almost speechless. It was horrendous, the reality of it. Not even about the movie, but beyond that. But it really didn't hit me until... he fell halfway carrying the cross, and flashbacks.... I am the Way, the Truth, and the Light. My gosh...... and also, it completely overwhelmed me at the crucifixion. Just unbearable at that point. That just did it. I don't believe that a single person in the room did not turn their faces away at some point of His suffering. It was really hard seeing the things happening to Him on the screen.

I don't think I will or can ever hear or read a worship song in the same way again, nor will the words in the Bible ever be anything less than words. One that I look to, Romans 6, now completely has a new meaning. COMPLETELY changed perspective. Not really new meaning, it's meaning has always been the same but now I really see it for what it is. Read it.

Anyway, went with Brad and Felix, and to my surprise, a few persons before us in line, was Mr. Christensen himself. Mark, youth group leader, was there at Hastings in line for the same showing! How cool was that.

Critics of the Passion

2004-02-23T07:31:38Z

Wow..... can you even believe this guy? New York Daily News critic Jack Matthews on The Passion of the Christ...

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/166887p-145572c.html

Yeesh... how can they assertively take that position when even their article does not show their full understanding and insight into the motives of the filmmaker in conjunction with his faith?