Category Archives: Event Recaps

Dolphin Day!

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Today, I had the opportunity to go to Laguna Hills Beach and swim with dolphins! It was an incredible experience I could never forget!

I swim competitively for a team called Evolution, and every Saturday, our team picks a specific beach to swim at and have fun. Usually, I hate morning practice because I have to wake up early, but today, my sister convinced me to go saying, “it will be a fun experience!”.

At first, I thought “yeah, sure it will”, but as soon as we started warming up I couldn’t help but keep staring at the sea and seeing fins pop up and out of the water and quickly go back under the waves. I was startled, because at first I thought it was a shark, but I soon realized sharks don’t surface to breathe very often, and soon came to a conclusion that they were dolphins!

Everyone on my swim team was talking and were excited to see the dolphins, but not me. They were swimming awfully close to the beach, and I heard from someone once that dolphins liked to swim near people, and could bite you. Because of this, I was thinking about not swimming at all. But my coach kept telling me that dolphins won’t bother you unless you bother them. I started calming down, so I ran into the waves and started swimming.

We had to swim past 3 buoys in the water, which was around 1000 yards, since we also had to swim back to the sand. Just my luck that I went in late that day, and I was the last person swimming, trying to catch up with the group. I was swimming for a good 5 minutes when suddenly, a huge figure popped out of the water and I was on the verge of screaming. It was a dolphin, and as soon as it appeared, it disappeared under the waves. That dolphin was HUGE! It was so close I could almost touch it! I was fearful, and started sprinting to catch up with the group. My heart beat was extremely high, and every thought in my head was “catch up with the group, get back to shore”. After about 5 minutes, I was so close to catching up with the group, almost 20 meters, until I took a breath and looked down. Something was moving below me and I was so terrified! I finally managed to catch up with the group, dead last and shaking.

Today was a day I definitely wouldn’t forget!

-Alia Charles, 8th grade

Angels VS Orioles

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On September 5th, we went to an Angels game with me, mom, and my baby sister. This was our 10th baseball game we have been gone to. I went to my usual spot, the corner of the seats in left field near the bullpen, where we could get autographs and baseballs at the Trout Farm.

Baltimore Orioles Starting Lineup:

  1. A. Rutschman: Catcher
  2. R. Mountcastle: Firstbase
  3. A. Santander: Designated Hitter
  4. A. Hays: Left Field
  5. G. Henderson: Thirdbase
  6. J. Westburg: Secondbase
  7. A. Hicks: Right Field
  8. R. McKenna: Center Field
  9. J. Mateo: Short Stop

Game Results:

Baltimore Orioles vs. Los Angeles Angels

5-4

Balls and Autographs from players and Coaches:

  • A ball from Reid Detmers that he was playing catch with.
  • An autograph on my baseball glove by the Orioles Pitching Coach, Chris Holt.
  • An autograph on my baseball by the Angels Pitcher, José Soriano
  • Three autograph on my baseball, my glove, and my sister’s headphones by the Angels Second Basemen, Brandon Drury.
  • An autogrpah on my baseball glove by the Angels Pitching Coach, Matt Wise.
  • A foul ball cought at my seat from Brandon Drury.

My favorite player on the Angels is Shohei Ohtani the reason that he is my favorite baseball player is because he can pitch and hit really good. This gives an advantage of playing time because pitchers have to rest for three to four days after pitching in a game but Shohei Ohtani can hit after pitching as a designated hitter because hit can hit good also. And my favorite player on the Orioles is Adley Rutschman this is because he is really good at catching and he can hit from both sides. Hitting from both sides is a really good advantage as a baseball player because he can hit depending on the situation, many situation can be a runner on first and want the runner to score from first by hitting to right field instead of left field.

My Visit to San Diego Comic-Con 2023

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In July, I had the pleasure of attending Comic-Con at the San Diego Convention Center. For those who don’t know, the event, which is officially listed as Comic-Con International: San Diego on its website, is an annual convention that was first established in 1970 and is held for comic book fans (and really fans of anything in pop culture) to come together to share their interests.

This year, it was held July 20-23, and to get into the convention center, participants must either purchase a badge in advance through the group’s website (https://ww.comic-con.org/cci) months in advance or apply for the free badges that are set aside for professionals who work in the comic book or other related industries.

Since the badges that are available to the general public usually sell out, it can be challenging to get into Comic-Con, but if you’re lucky enough to get in, there is a lot to see and do, including hundreds of informative panel discussions, industry parties (although these are usually only available by advance reservation or special invitation), and sneak-peek showing of upcoming movies, shows, games, and toys.

One of the most popular features is the massive exhibitor area where companies like Disney, Blizzard, and Funko host booths where they showcase their latest offerings. There are also a large number of smaller companies and individuals who come to display their handmade art, fandom apparel, and other related merchandise.

Personally, I enjoyed the panels I attended. I went to one about makeup artistry, where Brenda O’Brien, a veteran makeup artist who has worked on the Lion King musical on Broadway, Saturday Night Live, and many other shows, demonstrated how she creates characters and explained how she had to adapt her skills to work in incredibly fast-paced backstage environments.

I also attended the “How to Make a Minicomic from One Sheet of Paper” with veteran comic book creator Zander Cannon, and another panel that celebrated the 35th anniversary of the Studio Ghibli movie My Neighbor Totoro, which was led by the movie’s original production coordinator, Hirokatsu Kihara, and his interpreter. He presented the original drawing Hayao Miyazaki made of the character that became Totoro, as well as many original, hand-painted animation cels used to create the iconic movie. It was amazing to learn from him that the studio considered these cels to be trash once they were used to make the film. Each one was so beautiful, it was stunning to think that anyone could have considered them rubbish.

In addition to the panels, I also got to see many cool booths, such as the Studio Ghibli booth, where my family and I took our photo in a re-created Cat Bus, which is a character from My Neighbor Totoro, the Marvel booth, where we saw costumes worn by the actors in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and an animatronics company’s booth that featured an animatronic Baby Yoda.

Another highlight on the exhibitor floor was an entire area dedicated to books. There were authors showcasing their own books, and booksellers selling all sorts of science fiction and fantasy. I even spotted a Little Golden Book biography of Taylor Swift, which I personally thought was pretty funny.

I also heard there was going to be a cosplay wrestling match, where people who dressed up as various characters from pop culture would wrestle another cosplayer in an actual ring. I’m a little sad that I didn’t get to see that because it sounded super funny.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to buy any books while I was at Comic-Con, but there were many graphic novels and such that caught my eye and I’m hoping to get some or all of them eventually.

If you can, I definitely recommend going to Comic-Con at least once if you are a fan of comics or anything nerdy. There are so many things to do, things to see, and people to meet. It was a wonderful experience, and I hope I’ll be able to go back

League Prelims and Finals for High School Swim Season

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league champs 10 year streak

The swim season is coming to an end, and league prelims and finals competition just ended. I had the best high school swim experience as a freshman on the varsity team at Tesoro High School. Not only was it enjoyable, but I also gained new friends with whom I can now talk with at school!

There were five schools competing at leagues: San Juan HS, Capo Valley HS, San Clemente HS, Aliso Viejo HS, and Tesoro HS.

I saw some of my club friends from Aliso and Capo as well. After I moved club teams I was not able to see my closest friends, but with HS swim, I was able to reunite with one of my best friends from Aliso.

Unfortunately, our coach made us wear tech suits for prelims (which for those of you who don’t know, they are tight full body swimsuits that take around 30 minutes to put on). None of the other schools required their swimmers to wear tech suits, just ours. It was really stressful too because we were the second warm up session and I thought I had enough time to put on a tech suit (p.s I didn’t).

Anyway, the goal was to swim fast enough to get into the top eight for finals. I swam the one breast and two hundred freestyle. For the hundred breaststroke I placed top eight and my 200 fr I placed ninth in the top 16.

On Friday, we swam League Finals. My first relay was the 200 IM relay and I went personal best in the 50 breastroke.

However, I did not estimate my timing well and didn’t realize that my 200 fr final was only three minutes after the relay. After I went to grab a quick sip of water and cooled down, they called my name on the blocks. I immediately ran over, however, I was too late, they already called alternates.

I had a good cry over it, but I focused on my last relay and my 100 br. I ended up going a personal best for the 100 br and went in the fastest leg in the 200 fr relay.

After they announced the points, we realized we won, and everyone jumped into the pool (along with our two coaches)! Our coaches were pushing us into the water while we were trying to the same like sumo wrestlers. It was a really fun experience! I can’t wait for next year!

My Time in Pasadena

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Last weekend, I went to a major swimming event called the Spring Junior Olympics. The event was located in Pasadena, so it was a long drive from our home. It was very exciting! It was my first time attending, and it was a lot of fun! My mom, sister and I stayed  at a Marriott hotel called Springhill.

Although I didn’t make it back to the finals, I enjoyed swimming there because it gave me a chance to compete against the best swimmers from around the state. Sure, there were some bumps along the way, such as when my coach (Coach Cho) took us to the hottest lanes for warm up. I thought I was going to have a heat-stroke! It was worse than a sauna turned up at full heat! But overall, it was pretty enjoyable.

One of my favorite parts of this experience was going to the mall and the food we ate there. Our hotel was close to many food places, so every day after we finished swimming our events, we would go to different restaurants to try out different types of cuisine. My all-time favorite place was Ramen Nagi. It was a Japanese noodle restaurant. It was SO good! I ordered the “Luscious Signature Tonkusu Pork Broth”. It had a rich taste of sesame and seaweed, and needless to say, I finished that entire bowl of soup and ramen. So good that I actually asked my mom for another bowl(she said no). After we ate out, we would then walk around the mall. I was awed by the sights around me. My mom did get pretty upset at the fact that I stopped to go into every single toy store I could find, but that wasn’t the point. My mom stopped by a couple of stores to see what type of items they sold. She is really into Chinese and Japanese Ramen, so we bought a couple of instant ramen for her. To wrap it all together in one day, my mom decided to buy my sister and I each a boba. Without a doubt, it was delicious. The point is, I really enjoyed my time at Pasadena and swimming at the Rose Bowl Aquatics.

Shakespeare by the Sea: Romeo and Juliet Review

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This is my first time seeing something by Shakespeare by the Sea, and my first time actually seeing a show of the famous Romeo and Juliet play. Despite how famous the story of Romeo and Juliet is, I have never actually seen a live performance of it, until Shakespeare by the Sea came around. Shakespeare by the Sea is a nonprofit organization that performs theatrical plays for free in communities around California. Last year, they were not able to tour and perform and they have just started again this summer. I was really lucky in catching this show, as it was part of the 25th anniversary and the last tour with the original founder of Shakespeare by the Sea.

I hadn’t been interested in Shakespeare and had just come along to watch the play because my mom asked if I wanted to. There was nothing I had to do that day, and I had never actually seen Romeo and Juliet yet, so I had no reason not to go see it. I was not disappointed. It was your usual Romeo and Juliet play, following the original story, but I had plenty of laughs and it was a lot of fun. There were a lot of moments, especially in the beginning of the play, that made me laugh out loud and smile. They spoke in the old, english dialect, but I understood it just fine. The actors did an amazing job, in portraying their character, the emotion, and making it fun for everyone. The actors help set up the stage, perform the entire thing, and take it down afterwards. The entire venue is outside and they work and perform for over an hour. The actors and people who work with Shakespeare by the Sea are honestly so amazing and put in so much time and effort in it. 

Shakespeare by the Sea has sparked my own interest in Shakespeare and his works and I am so happy to have been able to see them perform. If you ever get the chance to see one of their performances, I highly recommend going because they work super hard for their productions, and it is completely free to watch them. It is super fun to watch them perform and if you do ever end up going to a performance, make sure to give them a donation for their dedication to performing!

-Nicole R.

Review of Hamilton: Live at Segerstrom

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Recently, Hamilton came and performed at Segerstrom Center for the Arts. My parents got my brother, themselves and me tickets to the last show on the final day of their tour. I’ve been a fan of Hamilton ever since my friends and cousins got me into it a few years ago. Ever since then, I’ve listened to the soundtrack, watched the animatics on YouTube, and even got Disney+ just to watch it. But nothing I’ve watched could beat seeing the show live. Seeing the full show in person was a completely different experience than from seeing it through a screen. 

For those who don’t know, Hamilton is a musical based around the life of Alexander Hamilton, who was one of the founding fathers of America. It goes through all his accomplishments and everything he took part in, such as the Revolutionary War and the makings of the financial system in America. However, the musical also shows everything that happened in his personal life, and everything he had done or failed to do. If you haven’t taken a look at Hamilton (the songs or the story or both) I would highly recommend you do.

Despite how many times I listen to the songs, none of the recordings will blow me away in the same way hearing and seeing it live will. All the visual effects and sound effects within the songs created a whole new sense and feeling. You could feel the vibrations of the effects throughout the theater allowing shivers to run through my body. Being able to see and hear all the effects and visuals in person made everything more intense. The actors did a great job, and for the most part, I could understand what they said (probably because I’ve listened to it so many times). The choreography was stunning, the different kinds of lighting was awesome and connected well with the scenes, and the acting was phenomenal. The actors really did an amazing job, and they were very fun to watch. What’s even more exciting when seeing something live, is the fact that no show is going to be the same. The night my family and I went, the cast was different from any of the other days they showed. I won’t ever get to know what the other shows were like, how the characters sounded or anything. I am only going to know what my show was like, which makes the experience feel even more special. 

Hamilton was great to listen to and watch through a screen, but seeing it live was a completely new and amazing experience and I couldn’t be happier to have been there to see it. Once again, if you haven’t taken a look at any of the songs or anything even pertaining to Hamilton, then I would highly recommend you do. It has an impressive soundtrack that somehow manages to tell the entire story, even without hearing the parts in between (especially since the story is told through the music). Even if the music isn’t your cup of tea, just try listening to it at least once. Now, if you do find interest in the musical and end up liking it, I would definitely recommend you to watch the next showing of it whenever they come to your area. Seeing this show live is something you wouldn’t regret if you already like the music.

-Nicole R.

Halloween Escape Room at the Mission Viejo Library

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The escape room was on a Saturday afternoon in the Mission Viejo Library’s Heritage Room. The people overseeing the event had set up random images all over the place, some of which were clues that we could use in the escape room. It had an eerie feel to the air, there was haunting music playing in the background and the lights were dimmed to a point where it felt like evening in the middle of the day.

Soon after our group of four people (including myself) had walked in, a man with a British accent started talking, laying down what we were supposed to do: open a box with four locks on it–and we had to do it within the time limit of about thirty minutes. Immediately after he’d stopped talking, everyone began searching for clues. The first thing I ran for was the box with locks. One needed a direction code, one needed a letter code, one needed a number code, and the last required a key. For the lock with a key, there was another box that we had to unlock before we could access the key, so that was one of the trickier parts of the escape room. But then after we figured out the combination, the key didn’t fit in the lock on the box. We had to use the key to unlock a safe that led us to the right key.

The hard part about this escape room was that there were random things scattered all over the place, but we couldn’t tell which ones were clues, or which ones were red herrings, which is a “clue” that’s meant to distract you from what’s actually important. Also, when we asked for hints, they gave their help in terms of rhyming poems, so we sometimes couldn’t figure out what they meant. (And we couldn’t always tell which direction the lock was supposed to go or what order to put the letters or directions in.)

In the end, we unlocked all four locks with two minutes to spare and what was inside the locked box was kind of ridiculous. In the beginning, they said a talisman was supposed to be in the box, so nobody had any idea what to expect. I was just glad that we had managed to open the box at all within the time limit, because I’d never really done an escape room with a time limit before.

Overall, it was a great experience and the clues were very creative. It’s an awesome event for anyone who enjoys puzzles, games, and just a little bit of trickery.

Review of San Francisco Conservatory of Music – Harp Camp

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I recently attended the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s harp camp, and it was absolutely delightful. Given that I don’t live in San Francisco, my family and I flew up for a week, and my brother attended a Golden State Warriors Basketball Academy camp. My harp camp was only for five days, and we met from 12:30-4:30 for five days straight. On the last day, we held a concert.

I have been playing harp for a little while now, and I have played both pedal and lever harps. In my camp, there were a total of nine other people. 7 were on pedal, and 2 on lever, so we had both types. The conservatory provided the harps, which was good, because I didn’t have to bring my harp all the way up there. There was also a wide span of proficiency, but I was happy to note that everyone was very welcoming and supportive. Our program director, Dr. Jennifer Ellis, was also a great teacher, and she hosted a master class with us too, where we would play a solo piece for her and she would critique us.

In terms of the ensemble pieces, we were given them a few weeks before in order to practice. That was one of my only complaints, because the pieces weren’t given very far in advance, and so there wasn’t much time to practice. Additionally, because I didn’t have a harp at the hotel, I couldn’t practice after camp hours, but Dr. Ellis was willing to let me enter an hour before to get some practice in. Of the three ensemble pieces that we were given, there was one piece with three movements, one irish piece, and one classic harp ensemble piece. All pieces had multiple parts, and every person had at least one other person with the same part, so they weren’t playing alone.

Additionally, everyone had the option of playing a solo piece during their concert. Around five people decided to play, and five people opted out, so it was a balanced decision. When the concert came around, everyone played their solo pieces beautifully. There was a bit of time, so Dr. Ellis sat down and played some pieces, which was met with lots of applause, and then we all went on stage and played our ensemble pieces.

In addition to regular playing, we also had fun activities. Every day we would have a workshop after lunch, with different topics. These topics include performance techniques, history of harp, sight-reading practice, and sound effects (my personal favorite). We would also have a eurythmics break for around ten minutes.

Overall, I had a lot of fun at camp. I met 10 other harpists, played in a harp ensemble for the first time, and took a master class for the first time. It was a very positive experience. I only had two complaints – I didn’t have enough time to practice the ensemble pieces before the camp, and my fingers were hurting a lot because of the constant practice that I was doing.

I would definitely recommend this camp to anyone who plays the harp.
~ Kailyn L.

Mission Viejo Library 25th anniversary

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Last Sunday, Mission Viejo Library celebrated its 25th anniversary since its opening date in 1997. They decided to host a grand event in honor of its 25th year of opening.

When you first walk in the front doors of the library, they had two tables, one to the right, and one to the left of the double doors. The two tables included many foods, snacks, drinks, and candy for the patrons to enjoy. Many kids were crowded around the delectable treats!

As you continue to walk in, you are able to see a room in which they set aside for board games and puzzles, mostly for adults. As you get into the main hallways in the library, to the left, there is a photo booth where you can snap pictures of this memorable event. They also had super cute props next to the printing paper you can hold up and the background was also pretty, with a ’90s touch to it. My sister and I definitely took more than a couple photos there!

As you exit the photo booth and continue walking, you will see the many craft tables and stations set up for little kids. They had coloring stations and little fortune tellers you could create with the help of a few library volunteers. The bracelets and necklaces were also very cute! Not to mention, they also had a Kona Ice truck outside (one of my personal favorites).

Later on in the afternoon, they had a little karoke/dance in one of the rooms in which all of the hit ’90s songs were playing. Overall, it was a great event that our whole family enjoyed!