High school graduation time in Hawaii. It is supposed to be one of the most important moments in a Hawaii kid's life, and yet...I remember so little of mine. (Interestingly, I do have the entire ceremony on tape so I could watch it that way if I chose.) I suppose I remember enough about it to write a memoir about it someday (and I probably will), but for now this page is more than enough. This page contains photos of the Aiea High School's Class of 2005's Project Graduation. Photos of our actual graduation will follow, I promise, but for now these are the only photos that I have on my computer.
Our graduation ceremony took place on May 27, 2005. Project Grad took place over the evening of May 27 into the early morning hours of May 28.
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Let me apologize here. The first photos taken here were taken about an hour into Project Grad, after we had left Aloha Stadium and had been carted off into buses and shipped off to Scholfield Barracks. A lot of interesting and funny things happened during this time, but unfortunately we were not allowed to bring our own cameras to Project Grad. I'm not sure what the reasoning was behind this, but it was incredibly irritating and frustrating. In any case, after we arrived at Scholfield, we were given a crappy, one-time use disposable camera. I really was not happy about this but I figured I might as well live with it since Project Grad was a once in a lifetime thing.
In any case, this was the first photo I took in the banquet room at Scholfield after receiving my camera. Top row: Konae, Faye, Grace. Bottom row: Andrea, Nicole, Carin, and Jill. |
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Konae and Benwin at the banquet room. |
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Clockwise from top: Steven, Grace, and Jill. |
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One of the best parts about Project Grad is that the parents who organize the event contract lots and lots of fun stuff for us to do. One of the fun things was this little thing: racing toilets. Here's Jill racing a toilet around the track, haha. |
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Another fun thing that they had was this inflatable sumo thing. Basically, you step into this suit and then the guys inflate the suit with air and then you sumo wrestle the other person to the ground! |
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A few seconds after photo #5 was taken, Kristine somehow managed to wrestle (or push/shove) Steven to the ground. She completed the job with this body slam! |
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In one room at our Project Grad, there were a group of people doing things like terot cards, palm readings, and things of the sort. Waiting for their turn at a reading here were three of the smartest students in Aiea's class (left to right): Grace Kwan (co-valedictorian, UH Regent Scholar), Amanda (saludictorian, student body president, later a UC-Davis student), and Diana (debate team captain, student body officer, later a USC student). |
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Amanda getting her palms read. I'm sure it said something like, "She's gonna be rich and successful someday" or something. |
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Diana (lying down), trying to stay awake no doubt, and Amanda, keeping Diana awake by liberally applying pressure to her legs. Thus far, their Project Grad t-shirts have been left untouched by the mass signings that would eventually take place... |
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I guess racing toilets was the in thing to do that night. Here, Kristine is beating Zac quite handily. |
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One of the most interesting part of Project Graduation was when they brought out a hypnotist to hypnotize some of our fellow classmates. Granted, they do this at practically every Project Graduation in the state, but that doesn't make it any less amusing. Here are the students that were selected for the hypnosis, after our hypnotist hypnotized them. |
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One of the first things our hypnotist did was make our classmates believe that it was freezing cold. Here, everyone is cuddling up because they think it's 50 below zero! Our hypnotist is at right. |
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The next thing our hypnotist did was make the volunteers believe it was exceedingly hot. Here, everyone is rolling up their sleeves trying to cool down! |
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I'm not sure exactly what this is. I think they're strapping themselves into an imaginary roller coaster or something. |
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The next thing the hypnotist did was make everyone believe that the person sitting next to them smelled so good that you couldn't get enough of the wonderful smell. The highlight of this photo is Moku at far right, trying to grab David so he can hog the wonderful smell! |
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Same as above, just further down the line. The hypnotist (holding the microphone) is at right. |
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A couple of things to note in this photo. First, at center, note C.J. and the girl who is in his lap (I'm assuming that is Tehane). When this happened, our hypnotist kind of looked at him and said, "Wow, that guy owes me big time." Also note the second guy from the left, Oliver, with the personal duck flotation device. The hypnotist made him the designated lifeguard who had the unfortunate duty of cleaning up the pool everytime someone peed in it. Several times during the performance, he was made to stand up, blow his whistle, and yell at us to stop peeing in the pool. Haha, that was hilarious. |
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One of the most amusing points of the night was when the hypnotist pulled out a plastic human brain and handed it to Moku while he was "asleep," and told him that when he woke up, he'd believe that his brain had magically fallen out of his head and into his hands, and that when his mother found out that he let his brain fall out of his head, she'd be very, very angry. As soon as our hypnotist woke up Moku, an incredibly freaked out look appeared on Moku's face as he stared at his brain. After messing with him a few seconds, our hypnotist told him that if he holds the brain on top of head for about five minutes, it would just pop right back in. So, for the next five minutes, Moku held his "brain" on top of his head, waiting for it to pop back in. |
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I don't exactly remember what was happenning here, but it looks like Oliver and Kaimi were fighting over the personal flotation device for some reason. |
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In the last part of the hypnotist's show, the hypnotist pulled up Aiea's own diva and local actress, Shawna Masuda, and made her to believe that she Britney Spears. Here she is dancing to, "Oops!...I Did It Again." |
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The next act was that the hypnotist made Ryan to believe that he was none other than...Michael Jackson! He put on a great show for us, even doing the Moonwalk! |
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Shawna and Ryan were made to become singers whose personalities sort of matched theirs. So for the final, final act, our hypnotist pulled Moku aside and made him believe that he was none other than...Shania Twain?! Trust me, it was GREAT. |
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Same as above. |
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Kristine and Krystal after the hypnotists' show. |
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Marc and Faye, like close brother and sister, have one of their little life story talks. |
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Jessica, just before we left Scholfield Barracks back to Aiea. |
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If you choose to listen and/or believe the popular opinion, this was probably stupidest part of Project Grad. Upon returning to school, we were led on a "last walk" through Aiea High School. The entire time, almost everyone around me was grumbling. I was grumbling too. Hey, it was 6:30 in the morning and most of us had been awake for almost 24 hours straight. Plus, some of us didn't have a particularly high opinion of Aiea (haha). In anyway case, in retrospect, I think it was a pretty nice thing to do and I'm glad the chaperones added this in. After this, the door prizes were handed out and a very fun night of Project Grad came to an end. |
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| More Pictures Coming To This Album Soon! (last update 7/24/07; created on 7/24/07) |
Photos, text, and HTML Copyright © 2005-2007 Jordon Higa. All rights reserved.
