Querida

Soda Pong Tournament in honor of National Collegiate Alcohol Awareness Week!

The event kicked off with light refreshments such as chips and dip, pretzels, and soda being served. Programming Board hosted the Soda Pong Tournament in honor of National Collegiate Alcohol Awareness Week in order to promote fun activities without any use of alcohol. Of course we are college students, so Programming board knew that realistically, students do want to have a little fun. So Programming board made sure to post safe drinking tips if students ever decide to drink on an occasion. All around the event, there were helpful tips for drinking responsibly: One of which I leaned about is spacing. There were little riddles and activities on the side to keep the audience entertained while the Soda Pong Tournament teams played throughout the event. There were phone numbers for taxi services that students could use when going out to town. There were also phone numbers and websites made available for students who wanted to stop drinking all together.

There eight teams were:
- Team BP
- Team Shana and Sabrina
- Team Glacen and Kayla
- Team FSU
- Team Regulators
- Team Victory
- Team X
- Team Last Minute

Soda Pong!

The winning team won two iPod shuffles, one for each team member. The winning team was TEAM FSU! Paul Ota and Scott Taylor.

Eating out at Sweet E’s Café

Sweet E’s Checklist:
- Laughs are loud
- Friends are close
- Opus are full
- Eyes are sleepy

What a great way to start a week with Sweet E’s Café breakfast. As long as I’ve been here on Ohau, I have never heard of this place. One reason why I probably never heard of it, is because it’s hidden in a small plaza area on Kapahulu. The restaurant is a nice place to relax at and get a good meal. Eating there, I have learned that it is owned by a fairly young woman and is helped out by her close friends.

We found this café through yelp.com, which gave good ratings for Sweet E’s Café breakfast:

http://www.yelp.com/biz/sweet-es-cafe-honolulu-2

Open seven days a week: 7:00 am – 3:00pm

Location:
1016 Kapahulu Ave
Ste 185
Honolulu, HI 96816

One of the dishes that I can definitely vouch for is the Corned Beef Eggs Benedict. It is amazing with the pouched egg topped off with seasonings and the layer of tasty home-made corned beef. To balance my meal, I had my meal with extra crispy hash browns. It may not be the healthiest of meals, but it is breakfast and breakfast is meant to be big and hardy. Ryan on the other hand had something on the lighter and healthier side: the mushroom, spinach and tomato stuffed omelet with lightly salted sautéed potatoes. Either dish, healthy or on the heavy side, was a scrumptious meal and great way to start a week off.

(Corned beef Eggs Benedict with extra crispy hash browns)

Next time I come back, because I will, I’m definitely going to try the Blueberry Cream-cheese stuffed French toast. All in all, Sweet E’s checklist was definitely fulfilled from our experience:
- Laughs were loud
- Friends were present and close
- Opus were definitely full
- Eyes were ready for a kanak-attack (Hawaiian slang for “when you eat too much and fall asleep”)

Ryan Santos

Friday Night Live

Open Mic Winners!

Friday Night Live has come to an end with an awesome trio of winners: Lei’ui K./ Joanna C./ Teuila T. It was a great night when all the contestants united together to entertain the audience for fun.

1st Place: Lei’ui Kaholokula, Teuila Tauaese and Joanna Chang
2nd Place: Baron Kaholokula and Band (Kalei D./ Colin/ Mike P./ Jonny A.)
3rd Place: Chardonnay Pao

The first place winners will now move on to perform at the PIR (Pacific Island Revue), which is an evening event held for Chaminade student clubs from the Pacific islands to showcase their cultural dances and legends. There is always a great turn out for an audience, so the winners of Friday Night Live are very excited to perform.

Understanding that students love to hang out and jam out together, Programming Board decided to purchase instruments for students to use and check-out whenever they would like to. The brand new instruments include:
- Keyboard
- Acoustic Guitar
- Ukulele
- Bongos
- Egg Shaker

The idea of Friday Night Live stemmed from Programming board deciding to purchase instruments to use on their free time and from Nadia Fale, a student employee of OSAL (Office of Student Activities and Leadership) who had a great idea to start Friday Night Live with Programming board. Although the competition has come to an end, the good vibes have just begun!

Free Hotdogs!

Supporting Chaminade soccer teams!

Wednesday was Chaminade’s soccer game against Hawaii Pacific University. Programming board gave out free hotdogs and drinks during the game. Although there were not as many students as we would have liked to show up to the game, we did get to feed the hungry soccer guys during the women’s soccer game.

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Our voices will be heard!

Registered Voters

With the help of Chaminade Programming Board and the Hogan Entrepreneur Program, over 50 people registered to vote for this year’s 2012 Election! Programming Board provided the stamps and envelopes, and Hogan Program provided the copies of registration forms.

We had a booth set-up in the student center at Chaminade for three days on Monday, Wednesday and Friday during the week of October 1-5, 2012 during the lunch hour. Students lined-up to register to vote. All they did was fill out the form, put the form in the envelope and seal it. With the helping hands of the Programming Board, Devan Rostorfer and me (Querida Dydasco), we had to promote to others to register and to mail the forms out.

A nice surprise was that professors and staff came out to register as well. We had students from all over the country and even students from the islands of Hawaii come out to register to vote. If students chose to vote in another state, we provided the students with tips on how to register online for an absentee ballot. Students were able to during our mock election. The poll came out to be President Barack Obama as the leading vote for the students at Chaminade University. Other helpful tips were posted up by the booth to teach students the proper procedures during Election Day here in Hawaii.

I registered to vote and my voice will be heard!

Spirit Week at Chaminade!

It was an eventful Spirit Week last week with students dressing up to show some school spirit and to have a little fun! Each day was different with all kinds of great costumes. Spirit Week was set-up to have four days of fun which woudl lead to the fifth day on October 17, 2012 for the Chaminade Silverswords Spirit Day to support our Soccer Athletes at their game! Each day had a set of first place, second place and thrid place winners.

PJs Tuesday winners:October 9, 2012
1st Place: Nadia Fale
2nd Place: Natasha Enos
3rd Place: Joanna Chang

Save the Day Wednesday winners: October 10, 2012
1st Place: Ashley Mae Augustin as Batman
2nd Place: Adam Brewer as Dr. Who
3rd Place: Natasha Enos as Spider-Girl

Nerd Day Thursday winners: October 11, 2012
1st Place: Treston Silva
2nd Place: Gwen Geronimo
3rd Place: Bri Winn

Pink It Out Friday (Breast Cancer Awareness) winners: October 12, 2012
1st Place: Martin Morre (Most energetic and enthusiastic)
2nd Place: Kaloke Canady (Best dressed)
3rd Place: Valerie Jesus (Great participation)

A special thanks to our Zumba Instructor and student at Chaminade, Ms. Suse Simoes! We had an awesome night dedicated to a three hour work out for a cause for Breast Cancer Awareness.

Thanks goes out to all the students who participated in the Spirit Week events. We are all winners for spreading the spirit and Aloha throughout the campus!

Brunch with Brother Bernard Ploeger, The President of Chaminade University of Honolulu:

I am constantly surrounded by leaders who care about the welfare and community of the students. About a week ago, the executive board of the student government and the Resident Hall Association student president were invited for brunch with Brother Bernard “Brother Bernie” Ploeger, President of Chaminade University of Honolulu and Dean Grissel “Dean G.” Benitez-Hodge, Dean of Students. We also had the pleasure of being joined with the new Campus Ministry Director, Daniel “Danny” O’Regan.

I have to say, it was a productive and intuitive brunch with our student body leaders.

Chaminade Student Government Association:

President: Kaipo Leopoldino
Executive Vice President: Caitlin Dinneen
Vice President of Programming: Querida Dydasco (Me )
Vice President of Finance: Kristen Rothermel
Vice President of Internal Affairs: Caitlyn Miyamoto
Vice President of Communications: Desiree’ Cabinatan
House of Representatives Chair: Genevieve Krier

Resident Hall Association:

President of R.H.A.: Amber Alvarez

Brother Bernie and Dean G. picked at our minds a little to get ask us what we have in set-up for the year to come. Some of us have relayed some concerns to our administrators about the school that students have brought to us. Concerns such as: the new parking structure to tuition increases.
Our administrators were so kind to listen what we had to say, and addressed exactly what we would have liked to hear. If a question was unclear, the administrators took note of that concern and immediately contacted us that same week after the brunch.

It is a great feeling to know that there are administrators who care just as much about the student body and student advocacy as the actual students, and are making the effort to hear us out.

Ono Kine Grindz

Ono Kine Grindz as the locals would call “really good food.” A few weeks ago, Programming Board and Student Government held an event with free food just to promote the senate, Programming Board, Communications Board, Allocations Board and Executive Board in the student government. During the event we had informational poster up of the different boards. Surveys and forms were passed out to the students to get feedback of how CSGA is doing and what we can do to make the Chaminade experince a better one!

What we have in store for this semester:

Rock the Vote:
We just had our Rock the Vote campaign to help people to register to vote for this year’s election. Programming Board with the help of Hogan Entrepreneur Program was able to help over 50 people to register for this election.

Movie Night:
Movie Night was a blast with a movie on the lawn watching the Amazing Spider-Man Movie. We had free pizza, drinks and popcorn.

Friday Night Live:
Friday Night Live has also been a highlight at Chaminade. We already had two of the three show days. This last day, we will announce the winners of the Friday Night Live event. The winners get the chance to perform during the PIR.

What else we have store:

Spirit Week:

Zumba Party:

Silversword Spirit Day:

As much as we love to have fun, we are also holding awareness events throughout the semester as well. Some of which include: Drug Awareness, Alcohol Awareness, etc. We want to make students aware of the society around us in hopes of providing some type of awareness on campus. Soda Pong Tournament in honor of National Collegiate Alcohol Awareness week, Halloween Party, another Movie Night and much more!

Marianas Club Barbeque

Last Saturday was the Marianas Club’s kick-off barbeque. Surrounded by great people, we had great weather and great food. The Marianas Club is a club that represents the Mariana Islands in the Pacific Ocean, and I am proud to say that I am a native of Guam. In the Marianas there are four major islands and a chain of small islands. The major islands include: Guam (Guahan), Saipan (Saipan), Rota (Luta) and Tinian.

Often times, people refer to the natives as Guamanian if we are from Guam and Saipanese if we are from Saipan. However, we, the natives of the islands are called “Chamorro.” Our native language is Chamorro as well.

In the Chamorro culture there are three main valuesthat I have been raised to understand: One of the values that we pride ourselves in is respect, especially for our elders. Our elders are considered to be our roots of our family, and family is another value that we cherish. Family always comes first, even before school and friends. Of course in the modern days, our families understand that we must strive to provide for our future families by getting an education, so there are exceptions. The last value I recall is that we stay close to church, which brings me to my next point about the Chamorro culture.

In the Marianas, we are mostly of Catholic faith. With this religion, we hold celebrations for our village saints. These celebrations are called “Fiestas.” We take pride in these celebrations and consider it to be the face of the village faith. Another thing Chamorro people are known for is our pride in our culture and our home. So every village competes to see who hosts the biggest fiestas with the best food. Which is why, here at Chaminade and throughout the US, the Chamorro culture is known for hosting good parties and great food. We hosts a Chamorro day on campus as well as a Chamorro Mass with songs sung in Chamorro.

Some foods that we are known for:

- Red rice (seasoned dyed red rice)
- Kelaguin (meat or chicken mixed with lemon, onions and chili peppers)
- Latiya for desert(sweet Chamorro bread with a layer of custard like sauce topped with cinnamon)

Today’s barbeque had a great turnout with awesome food and good company. Yes, we had red rice and Latiya, but no kelaguin that day. We sat around the table talking about home and playing songs from local artists in the Marianas. Some guys even rounded up and sang songs while playing with guitars.

It is nice knowing that there is a Chamorro presence on the Chaminade campus. I feel more at home.

Friday Night Live!

Chaminade’s very own open mic! Thanks to the Office of Student Activities and Leadership Office and Student Government Programming boarding, Chaminade students were able to share their talents with all of their peers. Students gathered in the courtyard of Chaminade campus to enjoy the good vibes by our very own. It’s about time we had an open mic. There are so many talented students in Chaminade who specialize in singing, rapping and poetry recital. Our students are not only intelligent, but also very talented. We heard covers by Vistoso Bosses “Delirious” and Adele “Someone Like You”.

Delirious Cover By: Vistoso Bosses
Cover By: Lei Ui K./ Joanna C./ Teuila T.

Someone Like You Cover By: Adele
Cover By: Chardonnay P.

I’m so glad that I had the chance to witness all the gifted students there are in this school, and I’m even more thrilled to know that it is not the last time we’ll see them. Friday Night Live is a talent contest which will be held every other Friday until November 2, 2012. The winner of the talent show will perform for our Pacific Island Revue here on campus.

Dates for Friday Night Live: Oct. 5 and Oct. 19
Time: 6PM-9PM
Where: Chaminade Courtyard