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Nonacademic Highlights
Fiction Literature and Poetry
I have been writing since I was in elementary school. What I wrote in my developing years were novellas, and only in the last four years have I begun writing novels. Writing the first draft of a novel was one of the things that inspired me to pursue the English Master's program and helped bring confidence back to my pen.
Ever since grade school, I have also been a poet and I do know it. At first, it started with writing song lyrics with guitar chords. I have written lyrics ever since. Lyrics are just pieces of poetry with singing and instruments.
In high school, I started to write poetry without music and after a hiatus, I am now writing this form of poetry once again.
1
Videography and Journalism
While doing my undergraduate degree, I worked for the local school newspaper Ke Alaka'i as a videographer and journalist. In ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian), "ke alak'i" means the leader. As a team, we took the lead during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic to help inspire a safe and healthy community.
This is manifest in a couple of the videos which I produced as the videographer for the Ke Alaka'i during the worldwide emergency.
Producing these videos and writing for the magazine helped improve my already proficient deadline accuracy and taught me more about public-facing writing helping me gauge how to write for different audiences.
TEDxLaie
When I was living in the town of Lāʻie, I realized that there are many ideas there that could change the world for the better. I decided to take the leadership role into my hands to make sure these ideas were broadcast worldwide. Of course, as always, things went wrong (something always goes wrong). The issue here was with the sound and video tech. Despite this, we were determined to have another TEDxLaie event where we would make right what went wrong the first time. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic ensured this did not happen and by the time the pandemic ended, we had all moved away from Lāʻie. Regardless, putting on this event improved my leadership skills and helped me learn better resilience.
Please feel free to hear some of the wonderful talks we helped bring to the world. My favourites are "I am the Land and the Land is Me" and "The Most Dangerous Move." Please excuse the sound.
Design
One of my other hobbies is design. I actually had attempted to do an architecture program before I pursued English. In this program, I learned that I am not an architect, but I am a designer whether that be a designer of buildings or of worlds.
This bump in the road was not a failure, but a realization of my true goals. It helped lead me to where I am truly meant to be and that is the field of the humanities.
This does not mean that I will stay away from design. I will continue to create art, because I am an artist. I need to create art because it provides the very breath to my soul.
1. In reference to the popular response to random rhyming in everyday life "I'm a poet and didn't know it."
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