Hey Guys! This is Matt from the Awesome cluster #33 (pre-health). I hope everyone’s Halloween weekend was full of fun and exciting moments. I cant believe that it is November already and we only have ONE CAS110 class left! I guess time just flies by when you’re having fun. My last class with my Awesome cluster is tomorrow,  and I just can’t believe that it came so fast!

Let me just tell you guys about our cluster. We have 11 students in our cluster and you can see them all in the picture with Prof. Kaiser at Yogurtland. Not all of them are pre-med, but they are going into a science related field. At first no one in the class wanted to talk, but now I have to get some of them from not talking too much. I could see how the class had grown over time and they just keep getting better and better. We seem to have an adventurous group here, cause for their extra curricular activity, they decided to go kayaking as a class. Sadly I wasn’t able to go, but from all the stories I’ve heard, they seemed to have a really good time.

Even though the time has come where we wont be having any more CAS 110 classes anymore, hopefully cluster #33 will stay in contact and be good friends. If anyone else wants to join us, we’re having a cluster outing at leaping lizards, which if you guys do not know what it is, its pretty much a huge bouncy playground for adults and kids.

I hope everyone enjoys the rest of the semester and stays stress free.You guys should watch this funny vid <http://www.pp2g.tv/va3t4YHM_.aspx>

Cluster 33 chilling with Professor Kaiser at Yogurtland

Hey everyone! I am Awesome Serina Pasion and my cluster is#40. We are a COP cluster meaning we are one of the College Opportunities Program cluster. Students from COP can sign up for my kinda cluster. Anyways, my cluster is Awesome because we have a lot of fun in class. We do icebreakers before every lesson starts to pump our blood. A different student every week picks what the ice breaker will be. I feel that I have good relationships with my students because we write letters to each other every week. The letters can be about anything they feel like talking about; academics, family, friends, relationships, something funny, a story, ANYTHING! This has helped me get to know my students much better, vice versa for them. Although my students may sometimes give me a headache, I still love helping them out in any way I can. I believe they all have potential to become whatever they want to be. They make me smile. Another person who really brightens up my day is my niece. Check out the video and she if she can brighten up yours as well!

(Yup, I taught her that!)

Hey Everyone,

Posted are videos of our career skits. Since our cluster is a pre-nursing class all of the skits pertain to nursing scenarios. Students were broken up into three groups and were told to create a skit that pertains to the nursing career. Props were given to spice things up just a bit

Group 1: Their skit was based on a mother bringing her children to get their flu shots from a pediatric nurse. Check it out at… http://s619.photobucket.com/albums/tt279/ace_cluster22/?action=view&current=PA060125.flv

Group 2: Do you love watching CSI? Well this group showed us what its like to be a forensic nurse. Check it out at… http://s619.photobucket.com/albums/tt279/ace_cluster22/?action=view&current=PA060126.flv

Group 3: Everyone starts of life from the same place, the womb! Here’s a video of a cute baby being delivered by a mid-wife. Warning if you are not comfortable with pain and screaming please do not watch this video. haha. Check it out at… http://s619.photobucket.com/albums/tt279/ace_cluster22/?action=view&current=PA060127.flv

We hope everyone has enjoyed our classic career skits I apologize for not having the best quality videos.

Ivan here from the life-sciences cluster 31!  This group has a busy schedule with their cluster courses (BIOL 171 w/ lab, CHEM 161 2 w/lab) along with their own tough classes and busy lives.  Our group is composed of students from all over the place.  We have undergraduates coming from  places like Kauai, Big Island and California making it a great chance to meet new people.  Many are interested in becoming our future doctors, optometrists, marine biologist, and pharmacists. All very awesome.

The dynamics in cluster 31 is great and perhaps one of things that got the wheels rolling was our memorable ice-breakers. I think we all remember “what our least favorite chore was…” – If you’re curious, ask around .  I still have a vivid image of a headless chicken in my memory.  We found out from our “6 degrees of separation” ice-breaker that we actually have a lot in common.  From another ice-breaker, I realized that I draw pretty badly on people’s back; what I thought was a nice house turned out to feel more like a sunrise with beaming rays to others.  I am a biology major – not an art major!

The big thing with our cluster so far was perhaps our outing to a wahine volleyball game which happened to land on Dave Shoji’s 1000^th win!  Unfortunately, not everyone could make it but we were all there in spirit!  With play by play narration from Kao and some weird kid that heckled the players…. it was a pretty memorable night.  I think we all know our fight song a little better so we can sing loud and proud the next time it comes up .

Too bad that ACE has only a few classes left.  I always look forward to kicking off Fridays in the dungeon with all of us and that same monotonous playlist of mines. Luckily, we have our in-class DJ’s Matt & JP playing some tunes to give us something new to listen to.

I see great qualities in our class from people taking the initiative to form study groups, utilizing help sessions as well as everyone making friends with each other. I know these valuable skills will extend past fall semester and be an integral part of everyone’s success in college.

Below are pictures of cluster 31 as well as YouTube clips of some choice songs!

Welcome to Clusterrr 23!!  It is I, Shantal aka “ShAn”, peer mentor of this fab-u-lous team!  I have 14 wonderful freshmen who share an interest in pre-nursing (just like me!)  So here’s the hullabaloo of our cluster ohana.  Together they are taking Physiology 141 with the lab, FAMR 230 (Dr. Caulfield is awesome!) and MATH 100.  About 80% of my students reside on Oahu, and I was even lucky enough to have 2 students that are also from my home of Kauai-represent!  Oh and did I mention that I have two twin girls from Las Angeles?  Yup I do, and it’s so funny as to how we figured them two apart; it was the mole!  You see, one girl has one on her nose so we gave her the nickname “Moley”. 

Some of the highlights of the semester so far was the learning while you learn lesson.  My cluster really enjoy moving out and about and with the lesson plan I was doing, it was basically all games=super fun!  There was this memory game where one person does a move then the next person mimics it and adds on.  Well, after a while that game ended up to a huge dance off with the class!  I even joined in but got served by one of the students.  Darn, if only I had a video recorder; it was hilarious!  And as people might know, I enjoy baking yummy goodies and we were fortunate enough to have a birthday (the twins) to fall on a Monday which is the day we meet for CAS 110.  I baked my chocolate mud cake and I was so glad it was a hit.  (We couldn’t cake them though because we were in the room).  We also decided to do our community service menu item as a cluster by joining Team Sunshine for the Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk.  It was a great turnout and when many of my students did their reflection, they responded that they were happy to be making a difference even though they claimed they weren’t in the best of shape.  But they’re so young! 

As far as future plans, I have so many things I wish we could do!  After reading over their Star Profiles, I noticed nearly of my students love Chinese and sushi!  Genki anyone? Many of the students also dream of traveling to Europe.  If only traveling across the world was cheap!  That would be so awesome though to travel as a cluster! Ok, now back to reality Shan.  I also want to have a potluck get- together and just go around the class to reflect upon the semester and you can’t go wrong with food! 

I can say without a doubt I enjoy meeting with my cluster helping them out in any way I can while talking story at the same time.  It makes me kind of sad that I will only have 3 more classes with them as a peer mentor, but it makes me so happy to see all of us, especially my students, become an ACE ohana and closer as a class.  We LOVE Bananas!!! Now that’s wussup!

So here’s some pictures from the Megan & Tessa’s (da twins) Birthday and the Breast Cancer Walk!

Extra bonus!  I love Wong Fu Productions and this video is so cute I had to throw it in the mix! It’s a remake of Jason Mraz “I’m Yours”.  Just open and enjoy! 

-ShAn

Hey guys this is Micah from Ace Cluster number 6 pre-law. Anyway this week/weekend I’ve been a bit out of it, probably from this stomach flu thing I got, hence why my blog is a little late and the fact that my computer has been a bit on the fritz. Anyway cluster 6 has been super fun even throughout my hectic 19 credit week, plus being a section leader in marching band , and is also one of the few classes i happen to look forward to. I’m learning so many different ways to cope with certain personalities and how to deal with random problems that arise. However me and my partner had a nice surprise visit from Lei last week and it was actually really fun, unfortunately I got so nervous from her being there I totally forgot she was sitting a few seats away from me and forgot to add her into our activities, so lei if you’re reading this I’m SO sorry once again. This past week was exploring majors and careers, and so we played the game that the team that made the lesson plan. It was really funny because in this weeks class I was the only male since the one other guy didn’t come. Anyway we got to one of the last sheets of paper and the girl who started naming three descriptions of the dream job written on the paper said, “well.. I guess this girl.. she likes sanrio things.. She likes pink.. and she wants to design things.” and the rest of the class finally made the conclusion that this person wanted to be a hello kitty designer.  It was pretty funny cause when she realized that all the other girls in the class had been called on she looked up and looked at me in the eyes and said.. wait.. you’re the only one that hasn’t been called on. Everyone started to laugh cause for our cass 110 class i decided to be unrealistic, and the out come was what I hoped for. The students in my class seem to be getting along very well, plus they are all pretty stoked to getting to meet with their professor out side of class for some yogurt land.

Now Lemme give you guys some clips from Youtube to pass the time.

Micah B.

FYI this is the song i chose for our assignment .

Happy Monday Everyone (Stay positive!)
The following is a poem I wrote when I hit a writer’s block recently while writing essays for my application to medical school… (for entertainment purposes only )

Writing Passion (A poem that doesn’t rhyme about my experience writing for medical school applications.)

Sometimes I wish I could see things just a little more clearly,
To be able to put into words my own feelings,
Express the passion I have for something – transform it into a medium readily transferred and understood by others as clearly and as deeply as I feel it inside of me.

I’ve tried to put into words, with a pen, just WHY this passion exists within me.

I’ve seen its variations in other people:
It was his calling, his fate, destiny; It was what God put her on this earth to do.

And I can see it so clearly in their eyes, it gleams,
Hear it like a symphony in their tone of voice as they speak their passion.

I know this is my passion because my heart races faster experiencing this than…
… than any boy ever could.

It is as exhilarating as my first roller coaster ride,
More rewarding than… if my dad bought me a new car,
And as beautiful as the art of Canaletto.

I’ve written it down twice, thrice, ten times, you see…
But only bits and pieces ever get seen by those who read them.

Maybe I’m just a really crappy writer.

But,

If I could sing a song, play a tune, paint a picture to convey it I would.

If I could go over there, embrace each admissions director in as tight a hug as my tiny arms would allow, and through it transfer all that’s in my heart – I would.

If I could do an interpretive dance in lieu of writing this personal statement, Oh, you know I would (son).

But I can’t.

All I have are these ten versions of me trying to represent my passion in writing…
And I hope (I’m crossing my fingers) that they will see I’m so much more than what I can write with my verbal ability.

—

I hope that you find your passion in life as well.

Hey guys, this is Duane and I’m the peer mentor for Cluster 29.  We are already past the halfway point for CAS so hopefully everyone has great memories so far and will make some new ones in the few more weeks we have left.  Cluster 29 is the first of the Pre-Health clusters and I have to say that I have some pretty smart and funny students.  They are currently taking BIOL 171+lab and CHEM 161+lab so they have a full schedule ahead of them.  My students are diversely made up of pre-med students, pre-pharm students and pre-physical therapy students, all coming from different places around Hawai’i and the mainland.  I have 15 students and a little less than half came from across the mainland, places like California, Washington, Colorado, New York and Pennsylvania.  The rest come from different parts of the Big Island and Oahu. 

The class is so fun.  They love to play the games and participate in the activities during the lesson.  I can tell, starting from the 3rd week, that we are getting really close (since they have the same lab and they like to compare their lab reports ) Before class, they love to watch a youtube video or talk stories about what goes on on-campus.  They are all going to ACE Bash together and soon I plan on having a get together so we can do more bonding.  Some of them actually watch the football and/or volleyball games together so they really are liking each other.  So pretty soon, I’m gonna take some pictures of us and post it on the blog. 

Sadly, the semester is almost coming to an end so we have to make sure that we stay close with each other and keep in touch.  Below is the first youtube I played for my class and others from my favorite tv show, Family Guy!

Enjoy!

Duane D.

Alooooha everyone! This is Nohea, peer mentor from Cluster #8.

Cluster 8 is a general ed. cluster taking BIO101, BIO101L, and ANTH151. Our cluster is only 6 people (plus me), but I like it that way! We have closer discussions and for a lot of activities we get to work together rather than splitting into a bunch of different groups. My favorite so far was our budgeting activity. We split into two groups and I assigned each group a “person” to budget for. Group 1 had Mokihana, a recently-turned-21 year old, UH-Manoa student and O’ahu local with a slight drinking problem. Group 2 had Diana, a 18 year old materialistic UH-Manoa freshman from Malibu, CA. Both groups became so creative with coming up with each students’ back story that their budgeting became of dramatic mix of acoholism, starving pets, new friends and Wal-Mart shopping (among other things). In the end Diana and Mokihana became new best friends and worked to help save each other money! It was a great activity and I was really entertained by how creative all my students were.

Overall I think we are having a great year so far. I’m really enjoying my time in class with Paula, German, Grant, Giani, Brent and Bianca, and I hope they are enjoying CAS110 as a part of their first semester at UH-Manoa. Good luck to everyone! The more we get into October, the more exams and papers come at us left and right. Remember to take a step back, take a deep breath, and remember all the good things in life among all the craziness! (ok cheesey switch: off)

Shoooots

PICTURES COMING SOON