http://flickr.com/photos/libperalta/sets/72157604723013727/

Also, turns out I’m heading back to the Bay Area! Apparently, Apple sends one Genius and one Creative from each store for training at their headquarters (a.k.a. the mothership) in Cupertino. Just when I was bummed out that last week’s trip went by too quickly! My manager told me earlier this week that they’re planning on sending me there in June. Yay! =)

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!

HPU’s representatives include team leader Christina Failma, HPU Akamai Advertising Club president Liberty Peralta and senior advertising majors Karen Joy Gaspar and Cassie Johnston.

The entire campaign development team includes Keisuke Takahashi, Kuo-Ping Huang, Make [sic] Ueda and Tsung Yang Hsu.

HPU will compete against teams from:
- California State University at Chico
- California State University at Fresno
- San Jose State University
- University of California at Berkeley
- University of Nevada at Reno
- University of San Francisco

The winner of the district competition advances to the AAF NSAC Nationals held in Atlanta, Georgia in June.

The American Advertising Federation headquartered in Washington D.C., acts as the “Unifying Voice for Advertising.” The AAF is the oldest national advertising trade association, representing 50,000 professionals in the advertising industry. The AAF has a national network of 200 ad clubs located in ad communities across the country. Through its 215 college chapters, the AAF provides 6,500 advertising students with real-world case studies and recruitment connections to corporate America. The AAF also has 130 blue-chip corporate members that are advertisers, agencies and media companies, comprising the nation’s leading brands and corporations.

Posted 04.07.2008

I’ve always been uncomfortable with public speaking, especially in high school, where I would shiver like crazy whenever I presented in front of my classmates. It got much better after I took courses in acting and public speaking at HPU; I took both intentionally last spring so I could improve on my speaking skills. After all, I’m a communication student.

I still have a problem with those crutch words, though, and I really need to hone in on minimizing that for our advertising team’s presentation at the National Student Advertising Competition next month in San Francisco. If I had known about Toastmasters earlier in my college career and had shown initiative earlier to improving my public speaking skills, perhaps I would have joined the club. I’m thinking the intense practice our team will go through during the couple of weeks after spring break should be of significant help, though. And it turns out Wai‘anae has a Toastmasters chapter that meets at the Wai‘anae Coast Comprehensive Health Center twice a month, so I could join that club, since it’s closer to home. I wonder if I know anyone in that club.

For my advertising seminar class, we’ll be planning a campaign for the annual National Student Advertising Competition. I ended up being team captain, which works out, since I’m also president of HPU’s American Advertising Federation chapter. Since we’re the only Hawaii university participating this year, we’ll be competing as a wild card team in the District 14 (Northern California/Northern Nevada) competition in San Francisco in April.

I’m also in the running for a communications fellowship in New York City. My interview is next week, so wish me luck with that.

For photography class, I’ll have to build a camera to demonstrate the basic inner workings of one. That’s due in March. I also have to present a case study on Apple’s “Get a Mac” ad campaign for that advertising seminar class in late February. For anthro, I’m presenting the book Things Fall Apart next week. And I have to build a PowerPoint on a new technology for my online Communication Futures class.

Outside of school, I attended the annual Hawaii Advertising Federation Conference last Thursday. Interesting stuff, but it sucked waking up so early. I was supposed to wake up at 4:30 am but I ended up waking up at 5:30 am, so I had to rush to get ready. Of course, I missed my bus, so my mom drove me to Nanakuli to catch up with it. Yeah, unfair, I know. =P

I also went to Goodwill’s annual silent auction last night with most of the Olomana crew. My feet were sore by the end of the evening because of the setup. There were food stands all over the place, and several rooms with the silent auction items. Seating was all over the place, but they were mostly taken. Other than that, I had a good time. I had a glass of red wine—not a big fan of wine—and watched the “Signing Stars.” That was cool. A group of people with developmental disabilities went up on stage and did sign language along with a Leann Rimes song.

So as you can see, I’ve been and will be pretty busy. Not sure if this is a good or bad thing. I just hate being stressed out.

Tasi and I made the hour-and-a-half commute via bus and BART from San Jose to UC Berkeley, where the BBoys were playing. After enjoying burritos at a nearby taqueria, Tasi and I made the 20-minute uphill walk to the university’s Greek Theatre. We got there early enough; there were only 20 or so people in front of us in line. For the next two hours, we sat/stood in line as we perused through Tasi’s iPod contents, including the “Ask A Ninja” podcast videos he got from iTunes. A group of girls in front of us had what they called a domino tournament going on.

When the gates finally opened at 6:45 pm (15 minutes late), Tasi and I got great seats: the front of the seated section, on the right side of the amphitheatre (or the left side if you were on the stage). Then there was more waiting until the show started at 8 pm. Opening act Peanut Butter Wolf came on with his 45-minute set, then more waiting as the crew did a final line check. Then the moment finally arrived… Beasties!

For the first couple of songs, I was trembling with excitement. I loved the set list, which contained a lot of their popular hip-hop songs, as well as a few instrumentals and punk stuff. They played quite a few songs that I was a little surprised to see them perform live, like “Live at PJ’s” and “The Maestro” (from their Check Your Head album).

A few memorable moments:

As soon as the Boys finished “Sabotage,” Tasi and I rushed past the exiting crowd to the BART station down the hill. We needed to make it to the BART station in time to catch the San Jose bus in Fremont, and we were cutting it close. Miraculously, we made it, even when Tasi needed to take a quick pee break in the trees, lol. Our legs are still sore from the downhill run.

Set List (from Mic to Mic fan blog):
Mix Master Mike Intro
Time for Livin’
Gratitude
Live at PJ’s
Sabrosa
Root Down
Super Disco Breakin’
Sure Shot
An Open Letter to NYC
Shake Your Rump
Heart Attack Man
Remote Control
Electric Worm
Lighten Up
Brass Monkey
Pass the Mic
Skills to Pay the Bills
Posse in Effect
Time to Get Ill
The Maestro
The Gala Event
Tough Guy
Egg Raid on Mojo
Alright Hear This
Ch-Check It Out
Paul Revere
Body Movin’
Three MCs and One DJ
So What’cha Want
–Encore–
Mix Master Mike Interlude
Intergalactic
No Sleep Till Brooklyn
Sabotage