3 Exams down, 1 to go!

Sorry for not writing here in a while. There's been a lot going on in the past few weeks. The biggest news I have is that I have studied for and taken Microsoft Office Specialist Certification Exams (whew.. long name!) for Word and Excel as well as the Adobe Photoshop ACE exam... and I passed all of them!! It really was a miracle that I could pass the Photoshop one as it was beyond my knowledge of the software.
Now I'm studying for the Powerpoint exam which I will be taking on Monday next week.


Here are a couple of drawings that I made during my art class. This class is a lot of fun, but I feel somewhat out of place because I draw better than the other students! No I'm not being cocky, it's just a fact that everyone knows. It makes me feel bad sometimes because my teacher has to come up with new challenges for me when I finish my drawing far ahead of everyone else.


In case you're wondering, this is a cow's skull.














Ooooh scary!! I drew this during the 30 extra minutes I had after finishing the first drawing.

Mondays are busy days!

Long time no post! I actually got sick last week, for the first time since coming to Hawaii. It felt really strange to feel so sick with sinus congestion and fever when I am not in a cold place. So I had to skip my drawing class last Wednesday.

So this morning I was determined to catch up with the rest of my drawing class for what I missed the other day. We spent the whole time drawing a teddy bear, to study texture and overlapping techniques. I'm a little proud of what I drew today, because I managed to complete two drawings in the time it took everyone else to draw one.




The drawing on the left is the dynamic one while the other one is more realistic. The realistic one took about an hour, and the dynamic one took about 30 minutes to draw.






After this class was over, I went back home, studied a little, ate lunch, then went to my second class, which is interface programming and starts at 1:45pm. I love that class but the classroom is really cold!! brrr...

Finally, I had the stagecraft course from 5:00pm, which as usual went overtime. It finished at about 6:30pm, and Erin came by car to take me home just in time for me to get ready and go to the New Hope young adult meeting with Priscilla. I like going to the New Hope thing because I get to be with other Christians who are college students. We finished and got back home after 8:30pm and then had dinner.

So that's what my Mondays are usually like. There's a lot to do but I enjoy everything! :)

A very eventful day

I did many things today, but it didn't seem like a very long day because I enjoyed everything I did. At 8:00am in the morning, I went to my usual drawing class. I'm still probably the best student in that class because I am so ahead of the others that the teacher doesn't call me anymore when he calls the rest of the students to watch him draw demos (I still watch with the rest of them though). There's another girl who is pretty good at drawing, and she and I are the only lefties in the class. Yay lefties rule!! :)

I usually go home after that class, which ends at 10:30am, but I stayed on campus today and helped the Koa Gallery set up their next show. This show is for the works of an artist couple: the husband does photography and the wife does ceramics. According to my gallery teacher they are pretty well known artists in Hawaii. Both of them used to live in Japan, so I could talk with them in Japan. The coolest thing happened during lunch break when my gallery instructor asked me to take the two artists to Subway to have lunch. They gave me money for lunch and we actually ate together! Only after I said good-bye to them did I realize that I'd just had lunch with two real professional artists! Wow...

After that I went straight off to the interface programming class, then to the stagecraft class. By the time we were finished, it was already 6:30pm. Can't believe I was on campus all day from 8:00am to 6:30pm... it didn't seem that long. After getting back home, Priscilla and I soon left to go to the New Hope young adult ministry, where we got together with other young Christians and had a small service and discussion. We finished and came back home at around 8:30pm.

So that's what my busy, eventful day was like.

Tomorrow I have another driving practice in the morning, then off to class. :) I need to be awake and alert when I drive so I'd better go to bed soon. G'night!

Sunday at the Beach

Last weekend was quite eventful. On Saturday I went on another driving practice with my instructor from 7:00am. After practice I was dropped off in front of a building downtown, where I helped set up an art gallery as a volunteer, with my gallery class instructor. The gallery had over 200 artworks, but we were very efficient and finished setting up everything by 3:00pm. I heard from my teacher afterwards that when the gallery opened on Sunday, over 500 people came to see it! And because they couldn't let everyone in at once, some people had to wait an hour to get in!

On Sunday, we went to the 8:00am service at New Hope Diamond Head. After that, we had our own worship time at home.

Then, at around 11:00am the four of us went over to Magic Island, where some of our friends from Kaimuki church and Naomi's Bible study group were holding a barbeque. It was a beautiful day but not too hot, so many of us played volleyball nearby (and thanks to that, I now have muscle pain!!). Others went to bask in the sun at the beach or have a swim. Well I'll let the pictures do the talking instead of me:



Volleyball!























The thing behind the clouds is actually the sun, not the moon.







We had a nice, relaxing time there.

This week is going pretty normal, except that Naomi will be leaving for Japan tomorrow morning, and there will be only three of us here for a few weeks.
That's about it for now. I will put up more pics next time I post (if I have any)! ;)

Driving for the first time!

Unlike last week, this week seemed to go by pretty quickly. It must be a sign that I am starting to get used to this new semester. All the classes are still great, especially the stagecraft course. My instructor told me that I will get to control either the lighting or sound for the musical Evita, and I am probably going to choose sound (which means that I'll be able to play around with cool speakers and microphones). Another girl in the class, who is from Malaysia, will most likely take over the lighting. I'm so happy about that!

My drawing class is almost too easy at the moment. It's very fun but basic, and although I do not want to sound big-headed I can safely say that I am the best at drawing in that class.


But the biggest thing that happened this week was that I got to drive a car this morning!! :D Well, only a little bit, during the driving practice, but still it felt great to be behind the wheel. Earlier this week on Tuesday, Naomi took me to the driver licensing place at Dillingham and helped me get a permit. This permit allows me to drive and practice as long as there's a driver over 21 years of age riding with me. So now I have to prepare and schedule practices before I take the driver exam!

In the afternoon today, we went to an open house at Matt's new house, where he now lives with three roommates. The house is a long way up on a hill so it's not so easy to reach, but the view was excellent from up there! I only managed to take this bad picture of the scenery (look at those ugly wires!!) so it doesn't look that great, but wow it looked really nice when we were there.

Diamond Head hiking

This week is finally drawing to a close, and I must say that it was a very eventful and seemingly long week.

Today, I went hiking on Diamond Head for the very first time with Erin and a friend of hers (whose name is also Maki!). Well it can't be helped as it is a rather common name... but we don't really have the same name because mine is Makiko not Maki.
The hike was not very long or hard: it took maybe 40 minutes to climb and even less to come down. What was really impressive was the scenery. There were a few stop points on the way where we could stop and admire the gorgeous view. As can be expected, there were many tourists too. Some seemed to think that the hike was easy while others sat at the corners and rested, obviously too tired to go on.

So here are few of the pictures I managed to take of the beautiful scenery. They're not nearly as great as they look when you see them with your own eyes, but they still look pretty nice.


The entrance to the hiking course.










This is the inside of the Diamond Head crater. That pointy top on the left is where we climb to (I think).









Beeaaauuutiful view! But still only halfway up the hill.









The side of the hill. If you look closely you can see tiny people walking on the course.








Shadows! Left to write: Erin, Maki (the friend), and me









Ok, now we are at the top! I love this view of the sea...









Waikiki beach looks so tiny from up here!









Waves and palm trees at the bottom.

First Week of School

Whew... Wednesday is finally over! This week seems really long, and it's not at all surprising since Priscilla and I have been going to our new classes since Monday. So far all of my classes seem great, and though there will be a lot of work to do I'm sure I'll learn lots of valuable things this semester.

So my classes this semester are:

Introduction to Drawing: This one's a fairly easy and fun class because I'm not new to the kinds of activity we do in it. The teacher is the same as the one who taught my painting class over a year ago, and still remembers me ("Maki, you never missed one class in that painting class, yah?")

Interface Programming: I get to learn how to use HTML, XHTML and CSS in this class to make websites. I've always wanted to learn this kind of thing so it's really cool that I get to take this course!

Intro to Visual Arts: Okay so class mainly covers really basic art stuff, but it's writing intensive, and I need one more writing intensive class in order to graduate with my degree. So this seemed like my best choice. :) I'm sure I'll learn some new things from it.

Gallery and Exhibit Design: Wow... the number of students in this class is no more than 4 (including myself)! It's a tiny class but we get to work on the art gallery on campus and will get to see and know lots of renowned Hawaiian artists. Putting up and taking down exhibitions will require a lot of effort, but I'm excited about it.

Basic Stagecraft: This is the class I am most excited about!! In this class there are 5 students including myself, and we do all the backstage work for the upcoming musical "Evita" (in which Priscilla will be performing) including lighting, sounds, and backdrops. There'll be a lot of construction stuff and I'll be hammering, screwing, sawing, welding, etc. The instructor is a cool, experienced guy who was in the marines for 17 years. I can't wait to get started!



I had one more class, which was voice class, but I decided to drop it since it seemed a bit pointless to me and also because I thought that having six classes is a bit too much for me.

Anyways, enough about my classes... here are a couple of pictures I took on campus today. Unfortunately it was very cloudy (though not very rainy), so it doesn't look much like Hawaii.


This is Maile, the theatre building where the musical "Evita" will be played. Of course, it's also where I have my stagecraft class and Priscilla practices for the actual musical.








Another view, which shows how cloudy it was.














Random pic of the day: my Boingers! It's my Christmas gift from Priscilla. I love this little guy so much.. it makes a boinging noise when I drop it, and is so soft and cuddly.