LEAN ON ME

Wow. It’s over! My article, my multimedia, our dance, the special secret for the editors!

Today was a busy day of cramming cramming cramming to finish everything. I didn’t think I would be able to do it, but success!

I’m really going to go miss going on adventurous news reports and getting in people’s faces to take pictures. I’m going to miss eating everyday at the City Eats and making fun of the foreign kids and watching people drink their water. I’m going to miss running up the stairs to the newsroom racing the elevator. I’m going to miss each and everyone of the editors and their amazing personalities. I’m going to miss freezing my butt off while wearing shorts in the San Francisco weather. I’m going to miss the amazing dorms of SFSU and running on the track. I’m going to miss laughing my guts out from the inside jokes that these two weeks have brought. I’m going to miss talking to all my sisters in the showers.

Thank you all editors.

I want to write about each and everyone of you but everyone is waiting for me, so sorry! I’ll do it later!

And most of all I’m going to miss each and every member of BAMMA 2010.

Tony, thank you making me laugh from just being who you are. Please don’t change.
Xavier, thank you for openness and friendliness.
Anita, thank you for being always cheery and greeting me in the mornings.
Tiffany, thank you for being the bestest computer buddy and helping me SO MUCH along the way and making me laugh with all your blog posts.
Beatrice, thank you for being the first to reach out and show your real self and making everyone comfortable and energized.
Valeria, thank you for being my mommy, keeping me warm always, dancing with me, loving me, being so CHILL and CUTE.
Emma, I love you so much dormie, talking with you until midnight everyday, running with you, washing up with you, waking up with you, reading the Bible with you, opening up to you. I am so blessed to have met you girlie.

EVERYONE, I hope to talk to you and see you even after this camp is over. If you don’t call me, I will call you first!

When I leave this university tomorrow, a piece of my heart will stay here and with each and everyone of you.

I know now that I want to be a journalist.

I love BAMMA!

Hannah Hyun Kim

AWW I AM SO HAPPY, AND SAD!!

I finally finished with everything, yay!! I can’t believe that this is over tomorrow; I am going to miss everybody here at BAMMA!! We rule; our dance was the bomb diggity!! My group was tight; we had the best performance in BAMMA history. Year 2010 rocks your sox!! I am going to miss Pearl and my Hannah banana so much!

My editor, La Toya was really hard on me, but for good reasons. I couldn’t do this if it wasn’t for her. She made me get out of my shell and take risks!! Joining BAMMA was the greatest experience that I have had so far. Xavier was cool too, another Salvadorian to hang with. All the editors and RA’s were great. I am very sad that this is our last time together. The Eric’s were awesome as well; you can ever get bored when you’re around them.

Tomorrow is the graduation. I am so glad I went through all this with everyone here. Ronnie was also great; she taught me so much and made me the greatest journalist that I can be. These people here tired me out completely; I am ready to go home and sleep whenever I want and wake up whenever I want. I miss my mom, dad, brother, and friends. These people that I met are not my friends they are my family that I support and they support me. I love everyone here and I am going to miss everyone like crazy!!!

Angela is also awesome. She helped me all day yesterday to write my story and she has a cute puppy; going to miss Charlie. Suzy also rocks. She helped me every time I needed it, and I appreciate it. BAMMA 2010 kicked major butt. No one can top BAMMA CLASS 2010!! YAY, love you all!!

The last full day of BAMMA 2010.

It’s a little sad to think that in less than 24 hours, I will no longer be on the SFSU campus at all. I’ve forged some really great friendships with the people here, especially Tiffany and Tony. Everyone had their faults in some way or another, but it was a pleasure being on the BAMMA staff with all of them.

The editors and directors have been amazing.  Eric Gneckow and I formed a good relationship because he’s this tall, slightly dorky but incredibly funny white guy that knows a lot about Filipino culture. Eric Lawson has what I would consider my dream job, and even though he’s jokingly mean to us a lot, he’s done so much for us. La Toya is certainly a character, but she’s sweet and really intelligent – definitely a respectable person. Zoneil is Big Bear, and I want to give him a huge hug for being a wonderful Editor-in-Chief. Angela was very patient with me and I am very grateful for her help. Ali is so funny, and honestly I think he’s one of the editors that helped me the most throughout BAMMA, so I feel this gratitude for him that is different from what I feel for the others. Tom brought us donuts and told funny stories, and I love his Ray-Bans. And finally, there is Cristina, who took so much time, effort, and money to ensure that our time at BAMMA was both productive on the weekdays and fun on the weekends.

I haven’t really had anything to do today, so I’ve been sitting at my computer playing Flash games and listening to Playlist. Lawson told me that Grooveshark is a better music site, so I checked that out and I agree. The last supper was like Thanksgiving dinner: turkey and stuffing. Too bad the turkey was pretty much Salty McSaltsalt.

Although I’ve enjoyed my time here and it feels weird to think that we’ll be gone tomorrow, I am looking forward to returning to Union City. There’s nothing to do there, but the lack of parental guidance and presence is a strange feeling for me. Oddly enough, I’ve craved my mother’s attention nearly the entire time I’ve been here, even though I am usually very independent of my parents.

The paper is done – all the final drafts have checklists on top of them, completed and everything. I’m excited to see how it all comes out tomorrow because I love print newspapers.

Not much else to say. I just called Zoneil by Ali’s name… WHOOPS. HERE IS AN OFFICIAL, ONLINE APOLOGY: I APOLOGIZE FOR CALLING YOU ALI, YOU ARE NOT ALI. AND SORRY ALI. <3

I suppose this is the last blog of BAMMA. It’s been a good run, but I’m done. (Hey, it rhymes!) Bye, guys.

Last full day at BAMMA!

The paper went to the printers this evening. Tiffany and I just finished our multimedia; it feels great to have everything complete. I can’t believe tomorrow is graduation day; Pearl Khuu was chosen to give a two minute speech. Pearl prepared her speech tonight, after she was finished with her multimedia.

I can’t wait to see everyone’s multimedia. The paper is going to be a good one, pages one, six, and seven will be with color. BAMMA idol will be happening when all the multimedias are done. Hannah put together little clips of songs for our dance tonight. We also have something special prepared for our leaders and editors. Tonight will be a late night, just like the past two.

I can’t wait to see my family and church family. I miss them and especially miss going to church. BAMMA defined journalism for me. BAMMA is a great program for youth around the Bay Area who have not been exposed to journalism or writing. BAMMA is all about diversity, this is important in journalism and in the Bay Area.

I am immensely grateful to be a part of BAMMA 2010. I am now interested in studying journalism as one of my majors in college. I am also compelled to start a newspaper at my school and write my own stories. Now that I have the basic knowledge and skills in journalism I can write my own stories and create multimedias with the pictures I take. Thank you so much staff of BAMMA 2010. I know you are all tired and maybe sick of us. I really appreciate all the time and efforts you have put into BAMMA, helping us become journalists in 11 days. I have enjoyed every minute of my time in BAMMA and I will definitely refer BAMMA to others. Thanks editors for going with us to report and for sitting with us through all our edits.

It’s almost over.

Final official day of BAMMA! It’s been a long and short two weeks at the same time.

Emma and I just finished our multimedia! I think we did pretty well on it. It took the whole day to put together.

Since today is BAMMA Idol, we spent our lunch going over the dance. Thank goodness it isn’t a serious event because we are bound to mess up! It should be a really fun and hilarious dance. We all put some pretty decent effort in it! I’m going to love the ending. I’m actually quite excited to perform it in less than half an hour.

I’m going to miss BAMMA so much. It was so much fun! It might even be the highlight of my summer. (Is that sad?) I’ve made some great friends, both older and younger than me. It’s going to be so very odd waking up in the morning alone in a spacious room, not having meals with a group of my peers, not seeing all the editors and fellow BAMMA members. I wish it were a full two-week program instead of the ten days. Everything would have probably not been so rushed. I hope we all keep in touch after this. We should all have a get together sometime!

To all the editors and adult staff members: it has been so amazingly great getting to know you all. We’ve had some awesome laughs and I’ve learned so much from all of you. Thank you so very much.

The Last Day

Today, we all experienced our last complete day together here at San Francisco State. The whole day, I’ve been thinking about how much I’m going to be missing this camp. It was the first camp that I’ve been to without my sister, or any one else I know. It was a nice experience. I got to meet new people, and have a sense of communication, without going through anyone else. I made these friends, and they’ll stay with me as long as I live. There are so many people here that I’ll never forget. So many people that have changed me for life. And I’ll never forget them.

In our last morning class with Ronnie Lovler, we talked about ethics and diversity. In the afternoon and evening, all of us worked on our multimedia, which will be up by tomorrow-late afternoon, hopefully.

I’m glad that I finally finished it, in the end; it got really annoying because Garage Band just kept quitting on me, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I just wanted to get it over with. I wanted to end this so badly that I’ve barely touched the Internet the past few days.

So many days here that I’ll never forget.

Be right back, stair race with Eric Gneckow. (: I just remembered that.

HAI.(: We raced from the first floor all the way to the fifth floor, and guess who won? PEARL! ME! It’s settled, I’m better at stairs than he is. Proven, with witnesses. That was fun and tiring. Now, I’m huffing and puffing.

I had a wonderful experience here at BAMMA. I’ve learned so many things about photography, multimedia and journalism. I learned that I’m good at editing stories. I felt like I was good before, but not as good. I’ve had a great time here and if I could come back next year, I would. But I can’t.

Tomorrow is graduation day, and I have to give a speech tomorrow at the graduation. I’m excited for that, and I still don’t know what I’m going to say then, but I’ll write it tonight, and have great help from our wonderfully amazing editors.

BAMMA Idol is next (talent show), and we’re all doing a dance together, it’ll be great, I wish all you readers could watch it.

Thanks for a wonderful experience: Anita Tam, Beatrice Estaban, Emma Chiang, Hannah Kim, Tiffany Do, Tony Lau, Valeria Carias and Xaiver Corena.

I want to thank all the editors, designers, teachers, etc. here: Angela Hart, my editor, for having the best talks with me and teaching me so many new things. Ali Thanawalla for teaching and helping me live through life on Garage Band and iMovie. Cristina Azocar for making this wonderfully fantastic program happen, with help from Eric Lawson. Thanks Eric Lawson for saving my butt on Garage Band and always looking out for us nine kids. Eric Gneckow and Zoneil Maharaj for helping me realize my editing skills and filling the silent night with laughter. La Toya Tooles for always making me laugh and dinner conversation, for all the supportive advice she’s given me. Ronnie Lovler for teaching all of us interviewing skills and lecturing us with helpful advice. Suzy Salazar for helping with toning pictures and entertaining car drives around the city. Tom Guffey for designing our newspaper pages on InDesign. Great thanks to all of the BAMMA staff, it couldn’t have been any better.

~I’ll be sure to come back next year for a visit. Just tell me when, and I’ll try my best to make it. Thanks BAMMA staff. –The 14-year-old girl, Pearl Khuu, who beat Zoneil at a staring contest and editing his editing, and who beat Eric Gneckow at a five flight stair race.

BAMMA Last Day :(

Today is the last day of BAMMA. So sad. I am glad to say that I have now made 8 new friends. I had the opportunity to spend quality time with some very creative and intelligent people, mostly girls.

I finished the story and my multimedia in time.  Although we are not going to the KQED tour, I had a lot of fun. Editing the multimedia was a great experience. But personally I would not have done what they told me to do. I felt that it would have been faster if I started with the title and moved on with the video or pictures. Then when I got to a person who I did an interview, I can go back and see which one relates to the topic at hand, and the next one that would relate to the first one.

La Toya and Eric were pretty good counselors. They made sure that we went to sleep on time and woke up on time. The food was very all pretty good. It was not great but at least I didn’t have to cook it. I think I definitely gained some weight from this program.

The only thing wasn’t so good was the showers. I waited 10 minutes for the showers to heat but they won’t heat up. And the day the shower finally heated up, I had to go. But I still took a cold shower every single morning.

The field trips on Saturday and Sunday were great. I definitely recommend a field trip before Monday. I thought that those were the times we actually got to bond as a group and learn a little about each other.

Overall I really enjoyed BAMMA and would recommend it to everyone.

Last full day of BAMMA

I feel so sad that BAMMA is coming to an end. Today in class we talked about ethics and Ronnie gave us an example of a CNN employer being fired over a personal Twitter comment. I felt that was sad because journalists are humans as well. After lunch, I finished tweaking my multimedia and exported it. Then I played games and chilled for the rest of the time until we had to blog. We also watched Eric Gneckow and Pearl race up 5 flights of stairs. Pearl won the race. BAMMA Idol will be going on later on tonight. We are going to dance as a group.

I think that my experience in BAMMA was really special because it taught me a lot of program skills, as well as reporting skills. I never expected that I would be more open to people and not be as shy as before when talking to strangers and that piecing together the multimedia was actually easier than piecing together the written story.  La Toya was a great editor and taught me how to write a news story piece by piece. Ali and Eric Lawson taught me how to piece together the multimedia part of my story in iMovie, which was totally awesome. I will be sad when the time comes for us to graduate and go back home, which is tomorrow morning.

the end

We’re done. I came here reluctant of how it was going to be and had a mindset that I was going to hate every bit of it. I loved it. Every second and every minute here was worth it. I met some great minds and great people. I could never finish telling you how great this was. Eric G was a funny character, full of spirit and full of spirit. Eric L is just crazy, but he’s cool. Latoya…at the risk this might be the last thing I ever write, scares me D: she’s still koo…Ali is a pretty good photographer and got some great shots of us. Nice. Angela is pretty cool too and her dog, man! I have to figure out how to get my dog to follow me. Zoneil is pretty cool. I thought I had hairy arms…but damn O: Suzy’s photo class was interesting and Ronnie Lovler was awesome. Cristina’s cool. I still can’t believe she can speak fluent Spanish…it’s weird, But, then again, a lot of Asian kids here speak Spanish. Pretty new to me, and I’m glad I could keep my French in use here with Tiffany; merci beaucoup Tiffany! This past week and a half was great. I can leave BAMMA knowing I will become a photographer, and knowing that anywhere you go, you set your own limits.

Bye!

First day of MultiMedia

This morning, I skipped running because I was really sore and wanted some more sleep. So I took a long hot shower instead. We went to breakfast and walked over to the newsroom. All day long, I worked on my multimedia video. I edited audio and video, and sorted through pictures that I wanted to use.

While editing audio, Garage Band wasn’t working, so I had to switch accounts from “journalism” to “jour.” Saving the edited audio wasn’t working in the beginning, so I had to edit a whole interview again and it finally saved.

While people were trying to work out the program on my computer, I edited some more stories that were on the lay out board. We also had some more photo shoots today as a group. The first time wasn’t that great because we had to do it again. The second time was a success because we finally got a good picture. That is now on the lay out board as well.

Angela’s dog came in today. His name is Charlie and he is really cute!

Today wasn’t that exciting, because we were basically working all day long and didn’t do anything. In the morning, we had a morning meeting to discuss who gets the front page story. And honestly, I don’t know who is getting the front page story, it’s not me though, because I’m apparently page three. Interesting, right?

So many news articles are coming out, so many things happening here right now.

One more day until everything has to be completed, but add a couple hours to that. I can’t wait to see the final touch. I’m glad that everyone finished their story today, because it really needed to be done.