Legislature Saturday

After the recess (or right before), I noticed June was sketching stuff so I decided to do a quick one of a couple of the senators. Only ones I was able to sketch were Will Espero (Vice chair) and Carol Fukunaga (Chair).

I had the opportunity to go to the Legislature on Saturday to check out what was going on. What's happening is (if I'm not totally stupid) that the faculty and head guys for the ACM (and it looks like not just them) are trying to get bills passed so that the ACM has a facility where students and anyone into this new kind of media can come together and work in a close environment I guess where we can interact with each other as far as getting input and being able to hang out and work. I just thought I would write about it and what I thought since I never really went to this sort of thing before. I'm not really good at explaining stuff, so bear with me while I puke out what I can remember and what I think in this entry. :)

Saturday morning: I caught the bus with fellow classmate, Nathan Britton, which was quite an adventure in itself since there was a bunch of things that happened during that bus ride that made me feel really sorry for people who had to get off at places where the Express didn't stop. (A man tried to get out at this one stop and he asked the bus driver to open the door and she said it wasn't where she stopped so he had to wait till the bus next stopped, which apparently was really far from where he wanted to get off.) It was kind of my first time riding a bus somewhere on my own.. which is why I'm writing about it. I actually had looked online to make sure I knew what time the bus was coming and where I had to get off. Good thing I wasn't totally alone this time! There was also something going on, a police investigation or something, and the bus driver was instructed by radio to not stop at that bus stop that was in front of it. So we passed right by the people waiting there. The look on their faces said, "WTF, why isn't the bus stopping?" I felt so bad ><

ANYWAY, we caught the bus to the State Capitol and walked over to the Legislature building. The place is huge. I've been there once before for work, so it was really nice getting to go there again. After waiting for other classmates, we made our way to the conference room and got to sit down for a good couple of hours listening to testimonies and what other people had to say about the bills and trying to get new facilities and such.

The part that sort of blew me away was the amount of testimonies that were submitted. As one of the Senators, Carol Fukunaga, was reading off the names off all the students who submitted testimonies. (One of my friends even did one! That was interesting to hear) I, myself, didn't write a testimony but I kind of did want to get up and say something. It was in the back of my mind, but I didn't. I'm shy like that.. and maybe I should have. It goes against my whole zodiac sign personality as an Aries~ haha.

I honestly was afraid it would be boring as hell. I mean, I've been to meetings like that where they'd just go on and on, but I guess since it pertained to something that involved all of us, as students, I was interested in what they had to say and I didn't get bored as easily (or as fast). The senators weren't totally as I expected them to be either. I mean, they were pretty cool. I'm sorry but a lot of higher-up kind of people have this stereotypical persona that puts me to sleep. They are super formal, they don't seem to have a sense of humor, and are in this "I don't want to be here, but I have to get this done" vibe. But, even though they all might have been that way to an extent, they also had this laid back vibe. For example, one of the other Senators, Norman Sakamoto, related making a surfboard to something one of the other people from the Mele project was trying to say. I think that's one reason why I almost went up to testify. It made me feel comfortable to be there.

Getting back on topic, it didn't seem like we were getting ANY opposition from them. As it was discussed after the meeting with my classmates, they were asking for specifics: how many acres do you think it'll take, how many years do you forsee this or that, if we gave you money, what would you do with it? That's how it felt and it was really kinda like whoa, you know? (If I could say it better, I would.)

After that, we were all hanging out outside and decided to go to lunch with Kaveh, Linda and her husband, Bob, and [will insert name here when I remember]. Ended up going to Chinatown where they were partying hard for the Chinese New year (yay party!). Let's see, it was me, Art, Nathan, June, and Christie. We must've sat at that restraunt talking story for so long, I wonder if the owners and waitresses were getting irritated that we weren't leaving haha. Taking about everything from video games, ACM homework, jobs, natural disaster stories, comics... lots of stuff. That was really cool. I never had a time where I went out with my classmates and thought "Do the teachers want to come to lunch with us?" Hahaha that was great! I guess in college, if the teacher is open enough to their students, it makes it easier to feel like they aren't totally this higher up figure who's there to dicate what to do for homework and what we learn in the classroom, but someone who can get down to their student's level and be cool with just hanging and talking about stuff that both can relate to... like video games and comics.

I thought that was the best Saturday I've had in a long time. It wasn't only business and work, but it was a lot of fun, too. Hope a bunch of us can do that again sometime~!