20 Apr 2008 No Comments
Lost in San Francisco
So HPU isn’t going on to the NSAC nationals in Atlanta. We were the wild card team, so we needed to place in the top three to advance. University of Nevada-Reno took first place, followed by Berkeley and San Jose State. It’s tough competing against big dogs like them. Though we didn’t place in the top three, I’m thankful for the experience… and that the competition is over. San Francisco was fun; I wish we could’ve stayed longer than three days.
Thursday, April 17
None of us got any adequate sleep during the red-eye flight out of Honolulu. Funny, considering we went sight-seeing right after we dropped off our things and had a complementary breakfast at our hotel, the Embassy Suites in South San Francisco. The hotel shuttle took us back to the airport, where we caught the BART up to the Embarcadero. From there, we walked through Union Square and caught a cable car to Fisherman’s Wharf, where we had lunch. I had clam chowder in a bread bowl, of course. Right across from the restaurant was a Steve and Barry’s, which I learned was a warehouse clothing store. (There’s a Steve and Barry’s that just opened in Waikele, where the CompUSA used to be. I had no idea what kind of store it was before then.)
When we got back from Fisherman’s Wharf, we scoped out the South San Francisco Convention Center for the competition the following day. The place was a lot smaller than I expected. There were a few of the other schools there, also checking out the venue. The Chico students came off pretty arrogant. The Fresno and Reno students, in contrast, were pleasant and welcoming. After going on stage to determine blocking, we chilled out at the hotel, had dinner at Houlihan’s, and rehearsed our presentation.
Friday, April 18
The next day was Game Day. We were the second school presenting. After breakfast, we went to the convention center, where we were welcomed warmly (not) by our district coordinator. After tackling the projector issues (just like our rehearsals, we ended up having to use the S-Video output on my PowerBook), we squeezed in one final rehearsal. Our presentation went off without a hitch… except for the fact that the District 14 coordinator accidentally introduced us as University of Hawaii. She got a prompt correction from our advisers.
One of our team members brought up a good point afterwards: unlike the other schools, our entire team couldn’t attend, so when we were presenting, only our two advisers were in the audience, watching and supporting us. We did the very best we could, with the little resources and support we had.
After watching CSU-Fresno’s presentation, we returned to Houlihan’s for lunch, where we talked about a lot of things, serious and not-so-serious. After going back to watch presentations from USF (boring) and CSU-Chico (great but a little cheesy), we jetted off to the hotel to get some rest and discuss our presentation and the others we saw. Our team leader was pretty confident we had a fighting chance; I can’t say I had the same feeling, though I know we all did our very best. We returned to the convention center for the awards ceremony, where we learned who placed in the top three. Ironically, we didn’t see any of the winning presentations (we were setting up for our presentation while San Jose State presented, and took our break during the presentations from Berkeley and Reno). Chico left the ceremony early; we always sensed some pompousness coming from those guys. It was nice of a few of the students, namely from Berkeley and Reno, to tell us how great of a job we did. Some people from Hawaii Advertising Federation also came up to us after the ceremony to tell us what a great job we did, though I don’t know if they would have done so if our adviser hadn’t chewed out their president for ignoring us at the airport and not acknowledging us appropriately. Oh, and their president was wearing a UH football shirt. *scoff*
We went to a place in Burlingame called Broadway Grill to celebrate our hard work throughout the year. We were originally planning to go to another restaurant down the street (one of our team members had a list of recommended eateries), but they were super busy. Turns out Broadway Grill was a better choice, anyways. The vibe was way more relaxed, the menu had a cute Broadway theme going on, and the service was, in our team leader’s words, phenomenal. The server, originally from Russia, and the manager, Art, kept checking up on how we were doing. But it was a hilarious, colorful evening, too, watching our team leader and one of our advisers talk to the manager and staff about visiting Hawaii; the two of them were clearly tipsy. Plus, some weird, drunk guy kept hitting on our two advisers (funny!). The guy, who claimed to be Kai Kalihiki, sang “Tiny Bubbles” for us and bought us a bottle of wine. After he left, the staff told us they had never seen him before. But hey, if you’re ever in Burlingame, go check out Broadway Grill!
Saturday, April 19
The following morning, we got up at 5:30, had another complementary breakfast at the hotel, and made our journey to the Golden Gate Bridge. One BART ride, a streetcar, some walking, and two buses later, we were there. We took some photos and got on the bus to the Daly City BART. (We talked about walking/running across the bridge but it didn’t happen… we had to be back at the hotel by 1 pm.) We had lunch at the hotel, got our luggage, and took the shuttle to the airport.
When we were getting off the shuttle, one of our team members stumbled and sprained her ankle. Then while we were checking in, all five of the Northwest counter employees made themselves preoccupied with a man in a wheelchair. After making our way past the TSA checkpoint, we met up with our two advisers, who had arrived at the airport before we did, and we put ice on our team member’s ankle. We happened to sit across from a doctor at the gate, who told our injured team member to take Motrin or ibuprofen every eight hours to decrease the swelling.
Once we took off from San Francisco, I was out. I woke up near the end of National Treasure: Book of Secrets and had a short conversation with the woman who was sitting next to me; her military daughter was taking her to visit Oahu (she thought she was going to the Big Island—common geographical mistake). When we landed we saw a rainbow framing the view of Diamond Head—very picturesque and welcoming. My mom picked me up and we got some malasadas at Waikele. Ahh, home sweet home.
I miss the Bay Area, though. I wanna go back and visit Tasi and Angie! Plus, there’s so much more to see there that I want to see!