Ya'Shalan Nelson: June 2008 Archives

My BAMMA experience was great. I had fun meeting everyone and getting to know them. I broke down in the shadows a couple of times. But one time wasn't in the shadows and Aaron and Ramon were the to comfort me. It was nice of them. And I bet you want to know why I broke down, but truth is: I don't even know why. But it happens, I'm a girl and most of us are sensitive.

It was rooming with Goldie. I'm glad that she took all of my noise and me bothering her. I'm sorry GoldieLocks. But it was fun. And this week was fun too. Seeing our faces in newspapers and stuff, it gives a rush. And visiting the Chronicle was cool. The computer lab thing was alright. But I had fun overall visiting places. I enjoyed the Pier. I loved the Murals. I liked going to City Hall. I sorta kinda liked Juneteeth. I didn't like the Tenderloin. And I like San Francisco State. It's pretty sexy.

It was nice meeting all of you: Goldie, Edgar, CharlestinaCiCi, Justin, Oscar, Ramon, Monica, Joel, Jamari, and Brenda. As well as Jesse, Michelle, Craig, Aaron, Dolissa, Mary Ann Hogan, Dr. Azocar, Eric, Molly, Christine, Ryan, Kory, La Toya, and that one guy with the mustache, Scott Fong. You all were very helpful and gave me useful information. Sorry, if I forgot anyone.

I had a great time, all of you are beasty and have a nice summer.

Yes indeed, BAMMA was BEASTY.

My 5 friends.

I miss my friends. I like the ones I made here at BAMMA, but I miss the ones back at home. One moved in March and now she's moving again. Karenlove. Well, her name is Karen, but I call her "Karenlove" and so does some of my other friends. I actually started calling her "Karenlove" because of them. And this Saturday, June 28th, she moving again, to Guatemala. She not even gone yet, and I'm already sick. Literally my stomach trns at the fact she's leaving. I love her too much to let her leave. I think I'm going to work up a kidnapping plan. Karenlove, if you ever read this: I love you always and forever.

And then there's 4.

Next up, Roselove. Guess what... she has dimples. Well, one. I stare at it all day and she always covers it because she knows what I'm staring at, and she gets mad. What can I say? I love them. Dimples are the best features people could have. Something else about her is Roselove is a little(short) and so is Karenlove. Oh yeah, and Roselove's real name is Rose. Rose is a little lady who was born way past her time, but I'm glad she was because she a great friend and I get to stare at her dimple all day. Roselove is great but her dimple is greater. The only other thing about Roselove that I think of to say is that she loves the color purple. Not the move, just the color. ;)

The three amigos.

There's Kevin, Lawrence, and Jonathan. My brothers for life. Though they get on my nerves A LOT, they're still the best. But what they don't know is that I objectify them. This past school year, Kevin and Jonathan were in two of my classes and Lawrence was in one. Kevin is the "Smart Guy", so I used him for homework help and he was a walking thesaurus. Jonathan is the "Tagger Guy", so I make him draw me stuff, which he barely does, but I make him or at least I try to. Last but not least there's Lawrence, he is the "Physical Comedian Guy", so I use him for comic relief. All three of the guy are hilarious. I talk to Kevin the most, so he might be the funniest. Plus he plays off of what I say most of the time, which means he thinks of jokes fast and it's hilarious.

I like working with video.

If you didn't know: I want to be a film director.

So editing any type of video can be good practice and I think that this will be great practice. Today I'm going to edit video for my BAMMA Multimedia project.

Brenda and I will be creating a multimedia project together, and I look forward to working with her. I want to see what kind of ideas she has. We both took photographs that will be included in the multimedia piece, as well as some other BAMMA-Teers. You know, like "Mousketeers". Does that work? Probably not. Anyway, some of their pictures we'll include in our project too.

The video/still/audio piece will be on Same Sex Marriage. I'm sort of nervous about what I'm going to do, I know that sounds weird, but I have weird feelings. I want to use everything, like stills audio and video. The variety catches attention, plus everything is good. What I mean by that is, we have god audio, video, and pictures, so it'll be all good. Hopefully we wont use too much though. I think what we'll use the most is audio though.

The length. It has to be shorter than three minutes. Hopefully we can crunch all we need into that time frame, it seems reasonable. Aaron, said that it would be great if we can get it in two minutes. When he said that my stomach turned. But I'll even try for that. But three minutes sounds better, there's more stills to be seen also more video and audio to be heard. But it's all good. We'll come up with something good.

The journalism lab has this really cool computers.

I'm glad I'm came because I got to try out the new version of Photoshop. I'm used to CS2, but now I know CS3, and it's great. I love everything about it. I also like the way the icons look. They all have strong solid colors and then to the two letters for you to quickly identify the software. It's nice. The macs here are nice.

City Eats' food is not so good.

Sometimes it's good, but not really, more acceptable than good.

Breakfast, "the most important meal of the deal", is usually the nastiest meal of the day. Usually, pancakes, waffles, and French toasts, are really hard on the outside for some reason. If there is potatoes I eat them regardless of what form of potatoes they are. Lunch at Rosso's is good, I get pizza everyday, which isn't good for me. But it's not like I care, I'm going to die one day anyway. Then there's dinner at City Eats. Geez, I'd rather starve. But I'M STARVING. The meat is either tough or salty. Not Good. And the pasta is usually nasty. The only good is the drinks and the cookies. But I can't eat those all night because those are bad for me too. Why are all the good things bad for me?

Then we go to dorms.

Some of us shower, some of us talk, and some of us sleep.

I talk and then go to sleep. I don't skip showers! Don't get the wrong idea. : (
I shower in the morning. So fresh and so clean clean.

I got nothing else to blog about so here's the part where I say goodbye.

Good Morning and Good Luck.

Degrassi: The Next Generation.

Is probably the best show ever invented. Why? Because I said it is.

Just Kidding.

It really is a good show though. If you never heard pf the show, it's probably because it's Canadian. But if you have digital cable, you probably can find it. If not, you can watch it online. You got love new age technology you can connect with people all over the world, even CANADA!

I love Jonathan Taylor Thomas. He's beautiful in the face. il est beau et tres tres tres jolie!

He has nothing to do with the show.

;)

But back to the show, D:TNG (Degrassi: The Next Generation) is the perfect show for teenagers. The characters deal with issues that teens/adults deal with in real life. If you watch the show you'd see that they go through a lot of crazy things. It's anticipating and very interesting. I love it. And now as the cast is getting older in real life, on the show they do more risky things. They are promiscuous people. But I still love it, but not the whole promiscuity thing.

D:TNG is awesome and I love everything about it, except the promiscuity, and if there are any teenagers out there who have no lives, I have advice: Watch DEGRASSI!

Seriously, watch it. It's the best thing ever invented.

Almost everyone knows who Ellen Page is, she played Juno. As a matter of fact she played it so well that she almost won an Academy Award... which is one of my dreams.

But Ellen Page is the like... the best. If we went to school together, I'd be her best friend. And if she didn't like me, I'd stalk her. No, I wouldn't. Yes, I would. But seriously, I like her. I like her movies, her humor and her style. She seems fun in real life.

Now the "shoes" part. I was looking for pictures for her to make a photoshop banner for a friend of mine.
Then I came across some pictures of her from the MTV Movie Awards 2008, and she had on these shoes that were the nicest shoes I've ever seen. They were beautiful. And when school starts this year, those are what I'll be wearing. I guess she advertised them well. Though I don't know if she intended to, but if she did, she did a good job.

It was a shoe with a white base, plaid stripes and a mint green swoosh. The had a black bottom and black shoe strings. Tres jolie! C'est vrai mon copain et ma copine. Oui! Ellen Page is a boss. Now, to Ellen Page's movies. She's a great actress, like really great. I wonder how she does it so well, my observation are clicking. I don't see how, but she does it well. Comprehend?

I've never seen the whole thing, but she's in this movie called "Hard Candy" ... that's some crazy stuff.
I won't spoil the movie for you, but basically an her and this guy meet, they know each other from a chat room, and things don't turn out they way you though it might. In shorter words: It's a great film that you need to see. I want her to be in one of my movies too.

Good Morning And Good Luck.

Savor the flavor.

I don't drink much soda, but when I do drink soda, I only drink Jones' Berry Lemonade.
I used to love Sprite Remix, regular Sprite, and Pepsi, but I gave the amateur competition up. Berry Lemonade is the best tasting thing you can ever taste with your face and with the taste buds within your face, in your mouth on your tongue which is commonly used organ. I love it a lot and I think I'm going to base a short film off the flavor's name.

I shall call it: Berry Lemonade. It won't be about soda though. It'll probably be about teenagers in high school. You know it seems what I title my movies, it's usually insignificant to what my movie is about. Like my movies isn't going to be about berry lemonade, but a character might make berry lemonade, but it's not necessarily soda. It's probably literally lemonade... with berries mixed in it.

The soda itself is in a beer bottle with a wrapper that's black with "JONES" written in white at the top. Each time I buy the soda, the wrapper always has a different picture, but the soda flavor and color is always the same. And I don't know why the picture was is always different, but it is. It's fun to look at too, they are always different. And every time I look forward to buying a soda, I always look forward to what the picture will be. And the last thing I look forward, besides the picture and flavor, is to what the cap will say.

All the memories of what my caps said are vague. But all of them were funny or inspirational. Jones is the best soda I ever bought.

Hello reader, how was your day?

I haven't had my day yet, it's only 8:53 AM. I don't expect much, I just hope it's good.

You want to know what I think about all day? Movies. Motion Pictures. Film. I mainly think about independent films. And actors. The actors that I like and love, the ones that I want to have in my movies one day. Here are some: Michelle Rodriguez, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Scarlett Johansson, James Franco, Chris Evans, Evan Rachel Wood, and Chase Crawford; those are just some. The people in the previous sentence are inspirations, that are help molding what I want to be in life. One day, or days, if I ever get to meet them I'll let them know that. The very first person I want to meet is Michelle Rodriguez. Why? Because she's the best! She started it all, really. It all started during Christmas break of 2005, I was watching the Lifetime network and I cam across a movie called "Girlfight". The title was vaguely familiar, so I I started watching the movie. I loved it. And the end, I pressed the information button on my remote and found out her name, it read "Michelle Rodriguez", I said to myself "Michelle Rodriguez? I've heard her name somewhere before." And then it all came to me, I was naming all of her movies out loud to myself, and I never realized how much I watched movies until I start thinking of all the movies I seen.

Slowly but surely I ended buying all of her movies, an being a member on her fan forum. I am a fan indeed.
My family and friends always ask me, "Why do you like her so much?", and I never know what to say. I like her because she's a good actress and she inspired my filming aspirations. I just told you that. I think it's hard to tell people that because even though they ask, I can see in their face that they truly don't care. But that's what I have her fan forum for. I know they care.

The directors I look up to are: Michael Bay, Lee Daniels, Catherine Hardwicke and Karyn
Kusama. Michael Bay directed "Transformers" and "The Island". Michael Bay is just greatness. As for the rest: Lee Daniels, Catherine Hardwicke, and Karyn Kusama are independent directors. I want to work in the independent field. Usually, independent directors get creative differences. Creative differences means that they can write their own stories and add or take away from it, and they can still be supported big budget companies. Like "Juno" or "Lords of Dogtown" But directors that work with big budgets, like Michael Bay, have to stick to the script and he usually directs what someone else writes. Their movies come in al different shapes and sizes and I admire all of them truly.

Currently I'm working on projects. I'm working on something called "Seventeen", which is a story that takes place in one week and these 5 seventeen-year-olds as well as some of their parents, are all affected by this "six degrees of separation" type thing. I'd give you spoilers but my story/screenplay is rough. And what I mean by rough is: it's barely written. I love movies and everything about them, from the music score, which is the music that occasionally plays during the film. And I love choosing the actors. I also love the whole process, "Lights! Camera! Action!... Cut!" The whole thing. I love it. Look forward to seeing "Seventeen".

Do you think love is acceptable, no matter what form in comes in? I can tell you people who accept it, like the city of San Francisco. Mayor Gavin Newsom and supporters came out and encouraged the same-sex unions. The BAMMA crew and I went to City Hall in the Civic Center. We witnessed historic events, the official marriages of some same-sex couples.

I was proud to be apart of this event, which was a historic event. I was also proud to be a Californian and represent San Francisco and the great things they're doing for same-sex couples who came out. I’m proud of San Francisco because they respect the true meaning of love and the feelings of human beings. Personally, I respect all of this. "Congratulations" I said so many times, I even lost count.

And truthfully, I’m so for this that this is what my BAMMA article is going to be about. Same sex relationships are intriguing in so many ways. For one, in my article I want to profile a couple who are high school sweethearts, if not, college sweethearts. Why? Because it’s hard to find people who came out in high school, according to some statistics and films. People are timid towards their peers because they are afraid of rejection. I had made it my mission to find high school sweethearts. I even called my cousin, who is gay, to see if he had any friends, and he told me that high school sweethearts would be hard to find. So I decided to look for a young couple to profile that probably has been together since college. And during the ceremonies, I found a young couple that were married earlier this evening, Tyler and Spencer. I’m profiling them in my article, along with other interesting same sex marriage facts and quotes.

BAM! I'm in San Francisco. And what am I doing in San Francisco? A journalism program called BAMMA. Was I anxious? Extremely. I've been to San Francisco before but never to stay, especially for two weeks. I'm from Hayward and anywhere but there is a strange place to be, particularly overnight. This teen was expecting so much and this is what I got. The Bay Area Multi Media Academy, also known as BAMMA, takes place at San Francisco State University.

I arrived here yesterday and was introduced to 10 other people. At first I was nervous about meeting these new people, but as of right now I'm very comfortable with everyone and we all barely met yesterday. I feel that I was nervous because we all were going to have completely different personalities, which we do, but I thought we weren't going to connect. And though all of us do have very different personalities, we tend to laugh at the same things. Like random moments or phrases that sound funny.

The people here are interesting and funny, and I think we could get along very well over the next two weeks. And the person I was most nervous about meeting was my roommate. I didn't know what she looked like or her ethnic background, which are insignificant features, but we're all curious, right? It turns out she a little shorter than me and she's of Chinese descent. I like her already and she's funny in her own way.

After one day, you want to know how I feel? I feel great.

I'm looking forward to spending 12 more days here. And I think I know everyone's names. There's Brenda, Goldie, who's my roommate, Jamari, Oscar, Joel, Monica, Edgar, Ramon, Justin, and Cici. There's also our dorm advisers and chaperones, Aaron and Dolisa. These people seem reasonable and I feel that I can tolerate them, and hopefully they can tolerate me. And I got what I expected and actually a little more. It's good, everything, from the people to the dorms to the food to the classes, is good.

I'm excited.