FoleyFunctional

Finally, the post where I write about my presidency. Here’s the first impressions my officers got of me. Because elections was close to finals there was not a lot of options for an officers meeting before everyone left for the summer. I decided that we would have an officers meeting the morning after formal…like 9AM. Did I mention there was a formal after party? Yeah…well, everyone made it on time anyways, and they all hold it against me!

We also had the usual ASU suborg new officers meeting at Lake Wauberg. The goals we came up with for this year were…

With the help of all the officers, I believed we achieved these goals and some!

Also, one of our Historians, Robert Fung loves video. Between him and I we made tons of video for CASA and you will see a handful in this posts.

For the reaching out, one of the events we had in the summer was a tubing trip to Apopka Park in Orlando with the Chinese organization there. It was for the dragon boat festival. The only problem is that the park had a cap in the number of people going in and we were too late! I think we went somewhere else for lunch and by the time we got back everyone was gone. But we still went tubing and had fun.

We had gotten rid of the community service officer position, but that didn’t stop us from doing community service. One new service we did was Trick Or Treat with the Homeless with Circle K. We got all dressed up and we trick or treating for canned and nonperishable goods for the St. Francis house.

We relived some childhood fun with our CASA members and helped the needy! I even made a commercial to advertise during a meeting.

I was pretty notorious for self humiliation in the name of CASA.

We had two car washes that year. It wasn’t something CASA really did before, but it was fun and brought in some money.

Summer Carwash

Fall Carwash

Another new fundraiser that we did that was successful was holding Chinese Brush Painting Class. Our adviser, and the Chinese teacher of some of the officers, Sheng Lao Shi was nice enough to hold brush painting class and provide all the materials. Both times we reached the max capacity.

We got some good paintings!

Collaborating with other Chinese organizations

I think the biggest improvement as far as outreach is of course to the other Chinese organizations at UF and Gainesville. That year we had more communication and a tighter bond with FACSS and the Gainesville Chinese School than any other year. Fei Long was the president of FACSS and him and I collaborated often. FACSS prior to this year was more focused on helping international students become adjusted to their new life at UF.

FACSS started a karaoke competition for their members and CASA sent several people.

Like all the years prior they held their own Chinese New Year and it was on a scale smaller than CASA’s. But Fei had big dreams. He wanted it held at the Philips Center of Performance Arts, and hire some professional performers from Orlando. They didn’t have a lot of experience dealing with SG. I remember we had a meeting one day with FACSS’s officers and some of my officers and we discussed how they could do it. We helped him meet some people in SG that could help him make it happened, and he took it all from there. From all the SG funding and outside sponsorships they eventually received tens of thousands of dollars. I believe they still have the grand performance every year, but it all started then!

We tried to do more with the Chinese School as well. We had one or two volunteer sessions at their school, but they weren’t that successful because they basically had everything under control and didn’t need our help so that was eventually stopped. The Chinese School and their principal, Michi Yang, were always good to CASA and we just wanted to give something back. Michi’s request every year was that whenever they performed, that they perform first so the kids can go home early and not be out late. This year she also requested for food since the performance was a bit late. We were having food for Mid Autumn anyways, but we needed a bit more, get their batch earlier and serve it to the kids before the performance. We were catering the food from a local Chinese restaurant (UF doesn’t allow this anymore, bastards!). Michi hooked us up with a deal through someone she knew. When we picked up the food Michi had paid for their portion already, but I insisted that CASA foots the bill. I wrote her a check, but she never cashed it (or maybe she lost it? hah).

For me, there were many proud moments this year. One of them was when we put together a end of the year picnic/field day with FACSS and the local Chinese School. I’m very grateful that my officers were not only open with trying so many new things this year, but were so actively involved with working with FACSS and the local Chinese School. The events coordinator, MIchael Wong, volunteered his grill for the picnic, Chinese School bought pizza, and FACSS and CASA split the bill for supplies and food.

In addition to a picnic and field day that day, it was also the finale to my tennis tournament! Yep, that spring semester I put together a tennis tournament for ASU. And of course, we had a few entries from FACSS. My opponent that day was actually someone from FACSS. I pitched the idea to ASU. They had some extra funding for trophies and I directed all the logistics.

Van didn’t win, or play, but sure knows how to pose!

Looking back at the sports team names, for volleyball we had: CASA Spikerz, and G’s Unit (the captain’s name was G). G’s Unit actually made it all the way to 3rd round playoff that semester.

Just for kicks we made a video for a meeting to promote sports

Strangely enough, I don’t have much records on sports for this semester.

My 21st birthday happened to fall into the summer shortly after being elected president. Since CASA was essentially my family away from family, I celebrated that event with a fairly big party.

Special Events

Well, I forgot to write about ASA so this would be a good time to put it in. If you remember from my previous posts, I was never really involved with CASA dance. It’s one of the things I don’t know much about, so throughout the summer I was a bit hesitant on ASA. G Mac, the external VP was in charge of dance. I unknowingly pestered her fairly often throughout the summer asking about updates, but since most people were out of town for the summer there was not much. But I still pestered!

G had a friend in Iota Phi Theta named Trent, who was what I think they called a step master. Trent helped out CASA a lot with producing the show. Since I pestered so much, they decided to give me a role in the show. I’m the fool on stage that doesn’t know what he’s doing. I also helped Andre, another one of the dance coordinators to mix together the music.

Our dance would have been unique, except, Pi Delta Psi decided to do a step routine as well. Arg! It was our idea first.

In the past I’ve worked closely with special events, but this is, I think the first time I wrote the skit. I worked with Linda, the cultural director on writing the skit for the moon cake festival.

Chinese New Year

CASA Flyer created by June

We were approached by the Reitz Union Board to hold Chinese New Year with them. They had a budget of like $10,000. Yes, you read that right…$10,000. What they wanted to do was rent out the Philips Center and hire some acrobats and other professional performers. We had several meetings and did the paperwork, but in the end, the Philips Center could not accommodate the performers. The entire time we were still planning on doing it ourselves in the Grand Ballroom, so we did not lose much preparation time.

The cultural directory, Linda had gone to South Korea for study abroad. That position was never filled. We still maintained the cultural presentations though. What we did was have a volunteer member present the cultural presentation at each meeting. I ended up putting together the skit production. I had asked the former president, Kim, to help me with it as well.

I went all out with props and turned my apartment into a studio.

I had found a fable online about why Chinese babies wear tiger shoes, and the skit retells the story. June is playing the mother – a lady in the portrait. Peter (right) is the evil local politician and Nick and Wei are his evil henchmen trying to steal the portrait (that June is in).

Vince climbs a mountain and travels through bad weather to find his mother (June)

Vince’s tiger shoes come to life and Liz (bottom) comes out as a Tiger to help Vince defeat the evil people. The portrait is rescued and the family is reunited! (I played the father!)

The whole skit was suppose to have music in the background that matched the current scene. But my laptop actually shut off in the middle of the skit because it was in power save mode, but I don’t think anyone noticed the silent for a minute or two haha. Kim actually asked me while I was on stage what the password was to log back in.

Pi Delta Psi borrowed the boat for their skit.

We had done a fashion show, and a local Gainesville resident ‘volunteered’ to help. She owns a dance studio in downtown, but she turned out to be a lot of hassle. She was pretty demanding with the ladies and even wanted payment for her volunteer work. In the end we gave her some money to get her off of our backs.

Wah Lum Kung Fu did a pretty good performance this year. They even did the act where the lion eats a lettuce. And unlike last year, it wasn’t 20 minutes long! I think we requested for a shorter performance.

UF Kung Fu Club

The performer this year from FACSS was the Paipa.  She had studied Chinese music in college in China and she was pretty darn good!

CASA had their own Chinese instrument player though. My dad, actually!

CASA Modern Dance

CASA Traditional Dance

The officers! And me being FOB.

I actually have a copy of the entire performance and created a copy of it on DVD for all the performers. I don’t have individual clips I can put on YouTube.

Speaking of which…the CASA website, as of this post, was originally designed by my webmaster, Peter Ma. He’s a pretty good web designer and put together the CASA site pretty quickly. It looks like the webmasters after him didn’t do much maintenance work, because the photo gallery still has pics from my year! We also had an online forum that was somewhat active. The website has a contact form, and a log in system for CASA officers to update the front page. I registered the domain ufcasa.org. Also, for that year, I created business cards for the officers. Boy, were we professional! On the forum the officers voted on a card template. I forgot which one won, but here is a blank example.

One event we had to show our appreciation was an End of the Semester dinner/potluck at the University Commons clubhouse. In hindsight, I’m pretty surprised my officers were all for it and happy to do it, because the food came out of our own individual pocket. Basically, the officers cooked food for all the members. We had some pretty good food. Michael Wong brought seafood. June brought Chinese pastries. We didn’t have a invitation online system…whoever came, ate. The majority of the attendees were active CASA members, but you always have those that just come for the food. I had made a poor attempt of some stew chicken. But I guess this really showed how much we appreciated each other.

Before I left Gainesville, CASA held something similar. Each officer cooked something, but it was an invitation only event where active members who contributed were invited. I don’t know if the officers were reimbursed, but since CASA does concessions now (which brings in a significant amount of money) it’s possible. But if CASA doesn’t, then maybe you should .

It was a pretty packed house.

You don’t normally see this in Gainesville!

Mikes mom working the kitchen. The lady to the left is Dawn…She’s an older lady and is very interested in Asian culture. She decided to go back to school to get a degree for it!

Now that I think about it…Mike was really into food. He came up with an idea to Iron Chef fundraiser, where people cook something, then participants pay a fee to eat and vote. The top 3 winners win a cash prize, with the rest of the money going towards CASA as a fundraiser. I believe we did it twice, the second time wasn’t as successful and we actually barely had enough money to pay the prize. I think two of the winners were officers…Annie and June?… and actually didn’t accept the prize so that CASA can have the money. What a great group officers.

We also gave out superlatives. G and Weiyi did an awesome job coming up with the quirky awards.

Van & I cutest couple

Daniel and Wei got most improved football. Daniel was a Swedish foreign exchange student and a pretty chill guy. He played badminton really well and was part of the badminton club, which Weiyi (on the left) was the president of. He was actually pretty involved in CASA.

George…gotta call him out and say yeah, he really deserved Most Supportive. That boy did everything for CASA as well. And he later became president! He usually looks more excited than what the picture shows.

Weiyi & Liz, Best Kiss…Like I said..quirky superlatives.

Speaking of Weiyi, I just need to put in historical record a little story about her house. You know how there are frat houses on college campuses. Well, her house was basically the CASA version. It was right across the street from UF, on the corner of 13th & Archer. All the years Weiyi was involved with CASA, probably half the events were housed there. Game night, potluck, parties. Weiyi & G put together an officers retreat, and that was there too. I don’t have any pictures from there, so I grabbed a few from the CASA website. Here is game night/potluck.

Gamblers!

Elections

If you’ve noticed in my previous posts, I’ve made comments about how ’straight forward’ or ’simple’ the elections were. Well, I say that because this one was complicated, and I’d say I was partly to blame for it.

During the last few meetings, in order to give my officers some presidential experience I let them run the general meetings. Also, to give members some officers experience, they were allowed to sit in on officers meeting. If they wished to obtain some responsibilities, they were able to volunteer to present the culture session for a meeting. The last meeting, elections, was run by I believe two of my officers.

I figured that there would be a decent turnout, since there was no shoe in for any positions. Even for presidency, two people ran: Mike, and G. But what happened, was unexpected. The room was packed. There were people I’ve seen around, but I wouldn’t really define them as active members. They may have come to one or two meetings, and one or two events. What’s worst, is that some of the voters came just to vote for their friends. Once their friend’s position was done with, they got up and left. This wasn’t just one or two people, it was several cliques.

It was rather rude and once voting was done with and we realized what happened, many of us were mad that these people had the audacity to do this. To come into a club, vote for their friends, and leave. We knew who they were and could make a pretty good guess at who they voted for. When confronted they all made it seem like it was innocent.

Well, it later caused great controversy. Later on, there was an anonymous member, who’s Internet alias was Brickwallz, caused quite a store. All the current and new officers received an e-mail highliting how the elections violated the constitution. The member had requested a reelection or else the the details of the violation will be brought up to the Dean of Students Office, all other members notified, etc etc…Not fun stuff. We held a meeting at the New Engineering Building one night to discuss how will we respond to this. We decided to write an apology and outline how things will change in the future.

The draft of the apology is located here

Brickwallz did not escalate the issue. There were several meetings in the summer to discuss changes in the constitution, to update the positions and specify the election process. So, when you see a CASA election and a list is sent out with eligible voters, and rules stating you can’t leave after the elections are over, you now know why!

Oh, and BTW, the presidency we decided by one single vote.

Formal

Formal was held at the Paramount Plaza Hotel on 13th. We started slightly late because we didn’t have speakers for the projector, hah. The opening scene was produced by Me, George, G and Robert. It was a remake of the Weapons of Choice music video. Youtube has threatened to take it down because of music infringement, but hopefully it will stay up! It was filmed in the middle of the night in the New Engineering Building.

One of my most favorite videos is this one…It recaps a lot of the highlites of CASA for the past several years…I will go ahead and explain the major points.

0:00 Ryan holds 5 jacks. This setting was inspired by CASA’s poker nights.

0:10 Van free loaded a lot from CASA…left over burgers ad such.

0:33 Late night trip to Krispy Kreme, we decided to put in this shot.

0:48 Maggie, an active but quite member with a sense of humor Billy her boyfriend

1:03 I told lots of dirty jokes…especially, at parties after a few drinks.

1:15 Attributed to all my pimp awards

1:39 Random…

1:55 Dissing VSO! YEah!

2:15 “Did you see who she took to formal”…yeah…joke on him, because I took his ex to the formal

2:30 Joke on her…she didn’t know we were going to use the scene like that. She’s kinda known for not cooking well

2:55 Running joke that Van is old, although he really is just a year or so older than the rest of us

3:25 Attribute to the election, losing to Mike by 1 vote

Throughout the video..Scott is passively in the entire video. He was kind of randomly here and there in CASA.

Then here is a slide show of pictures. Some of these pictures were old..say, 2002.

Formal was done Oscar style this year. The historian, Robert, put together a series of slide shows/video to introduce the superlative winners. They are a bit random.

And…for some formal pictures

The old officers

The new officers, inducted like they are being inducted to the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

We held a formal after party at no other than Weiyi’s house of fun! To end the presidency post, I leave you with this. Horray!

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[At this time, I had purchased a digital camera, so you will be seeing a lot more pictures and videos]

There is an ASU figure named Roach. I’m not sure if this was the first time he appeared, but at least this is one of his earliest appearance. Roach is an exaggeration of a nerdy, geeky looking Asian kid with a high pitch voice, lack of self confidence and always in the dead end with the ladies.

Roach trying to get his mack on

Roach is featured in the next few Asian American events at UF telling his story of how he became educated on Asian America history, and Asian American involvement on campus. I think he even gets a few dates with the ladies – to an ASU social at least.

Also it is around this time that the Asian American community became more united towards a cause of Asian American education. Dr. Mary Kay, Mark Villegas and other Asian American leaders became really involved on this cause.

I believe when we went to the East Coast Asian American Student Union (ECAASU)conference we were the largest group to travel to the University of Virginia. There were talks of trying to bring ECASSU to UF, but Florida as a state, was not ready. Since ECASSU could not be brought down, and we wanted to educate Florida, South East Regional Conference for Asian American Leaders (SERCAAL) was created.

Coincidentally at this time, the movie Better Luck Tomorrow was released. For those not familiar with BTL, it was the first movie created with an entire crew of Asian Americans to be released widely. ASU was able to grab Perry Shen, the main star of the movie to come speak at ASA. He spoke about the sacrifices the director had to make to obtain funding for the movie and the hardship of getting theatres to show the movie. I did my part of contributing by getting my roommates to go see it. Now they fear quiet Asian kids.

Perry & I after ASA

Tabling after ASA

(note the tabling board to the right, it’s the holey heavy duty cardboard!) The ladies with the white tops and red bottoms were CASA dancers. Bottom right is CASA president Tyna, with Van in the middle. The top left in black is Scott, dubbed the CASA Lackey.

Halloween Horror Nights

Van, or as he calls himself, the “Friendly Neighborhood Events Coordinator” put together a trip to Orlando for Halloween Horror Nights, with Dim Sum afterwards. Oddly, the trip turned out to be a cock fest, but it’s all good.

Ryan, Le, Van, John, Angelo, Ruben, Tony, Cole, Andy, Me, Scott, Tevin, Owen outside of HHN

We fit ourselves into a Troi’s house (whom couldn’t make it, I think because of an exam?). With so many guys in one house, there’s bound to be stories.

Ryan is posing in front of Tevin…Tevin is beneath that pile of blankets, pillows,  and clothes. Tevin is a deep sleeper (and sometimes sleeps with his eyes open!) and when we all woke up, Tevin was still in deep sleep, so we decided to bury him.

Someone also spooned another guy while sleeping, and at the same time, got karate chopped while asleep by the ‘partner’. Lets just say they didn’t speak to each other much afterwards.

Wing Eating Contest @ Ale house

Mid Autumn Moon Festival

I think it was this Mid Autumn that started a tradition that lasted several special events. One was that the local Chinese School was invited to perform, then Select Start, a video game music band played, and finally, a running series playing off of the Back Street Boys, is the Lo Mein boys.

Chinese School Kids performing the Chinese Yo Yo

 

CASA Members performing the Chinese Yo Yo

I think the Chinese School kids were a little better

 

CASA Modern Dancers performing with Chinese jump rope

Maggie performing a traditional ribbon dance

Although Maggie Lee performs very often like it’s nothing, she is actually shy. Maggie Lee is someone, I don’t think many CASA members got to know personally, but I was fairly close with her and her boyfriend, BIlly Hsu (CASA external VP for this year) of many years. I’m happy to report that the two of them are engaged and getting married (2009). Maggie contributed greatly to the traditional dances of CASA not only by performing but also coordinating. She was the face of CASA whenever Chinese traditional dancing was performed outside of ASU events. She is a very graceful dancer. In a conversation with a modern dancer, she said she couldn’t do modern dancing because it’s difficult, and the modern dancer said she couldn’t do traditional because it’s difficult. Well, to me, they are both difficult! Congrats to Maggie & Billy, and though I can never thank her enough for her dedication, add this one to the count.

Lo Mein Boys in an on stage interview

The Lo Mein Boys featured five CASA members parodying the Back Street Boys. They sung, danced, performed interviews and had groupies. The interviewer, Thuan has a very good sense of humor and created several skits. The ones he wrote for Pi Delta Psi were hilarious.

Traditional Dance: Chop Sticks Dance

Nick didn’t make the cut for the Chop Sticks dance

 

Moon for the Mid Autumn backdrop

I made the Moon for Mid Autumn. According to Weiyi, the special events coordinator, “It’s the bestest best moon I’ve ever seen”. Thanks Weiyi.

Chinese New Year

New Years Flyer

Stage Decorations

Wah Lum Kung Fu Students

We use to hire Wah Lum Kung Fu to do a performance & dragon dance for New Years. The joke for this year was that we got our moneys worth, because their performance was reaaaaaaaally looooooooooong.

Most of the pictures I have are really dark, so I won’t bother putting them up. Here’s a list of the events for the night, though.

Lion Dance

Gainesville Chinese School

Wah Lum Demonstration

Traditional 1 (Fan Dance)

Violin Instrumental (Angelo Wan)

Lo Mein Boys

Capeiora

Select Start

HSA’s Sabor Latino

UF Kung Fu

Dramagators

Belly dancing (Stephanie Litka)

Singing (Esther Ko and Ren Peir)

Traditional 2 (Maggie Lee)

Mongolian Dance (FACSS)

We thought we were going to be a little short on performances this year, so I invited the Capeiora group to perform (2 of my friends were in it). We also had a Belly Dancer (friend of one of the members) and Dramagators. I forgot who the dramagators were.

Additionally, this year we reached out to the FACSS (Friendship Association of Chinese Students and Scholars) and invited one of their performers to come for our Chinese New Year. They have their own performance too, and I think we sent one over there, I want to say it was Maggie.

Some of the officers

Sports

I helped Troi sign up for the teams, and thus I had a say in the team names. I found a list of names, and I think two that we used were Weapons of Mass Intoxication, and Beast from the East. I forgot which teams we used them for.

All the ASU suborgs have learned that we’re not as good as the intramural teams. Additionally, for a sense of unity, we decided to create an ‘Asian league’. Basically all the sports coordinators (or anyone foolish enough to sign up) got together very early in the morning and decided what day to hold the ‘league’. We had a pretty good football record, 3-1, or heck, maybe even 4 – 0! But it doesn’t matter…what matter was our last game of the season.

I forgot who we were playing…but it was a close score the entire game. At the last several seconds we were down and had probably 20 yards to go. Roger Tsia, the QB, launched the football into the end zone. Lee was swarmed by like 4 other opponents. All of the jumped in the air, but only one caught the ball. Lee emerged from the chaos of football players clutching the football in his hand. We had won the game.

Football team

Cheerleaders

The team I was on was called Weapons of Mass Intoxication. I don’t believe I have a picture of the team I was on for this year. I thought we took one. I had played in the JV team ASU league for basketball. An intramural league is suppose to have 5 teams, and you play 4 other teams. Well this season, our league had only 4 teams. i think it was us, VSO and FSA. The last team is an all white team. An all white team, and at least feet tall! They happened to be on of the winners of the summer intramural leagues. They could all dunk. As a matter of fact they can perform ‘ally hoops’ and shoot three pointers like they were just two feet away.

To make matters worst, since there were 4 teams, to get 4 games in, we need to play one of them twice. We had to play that white team twice – the first game, and the last game. Needless to say, we were quickly demoralized after the first game. In both games, they scored over 100 points on us. I remember in one of the games I made the very first point, and us, the bench, and the onlookers cheered for us. By that time it was probably like 60-2. We were just happy we exceeded double digits. The mercy rule in basketball is that you can’t do a full court press, meaning, when the ‘losing’ team has the ball they are free to dribble down to half court without a defender. Since we were losing any ways, we decided to attempt a few half court shots. We figured we’d have a better chance of making those than to go against the giants.

The end of the first half

What’s more amazing is that we actually ended the season 2-2, meaning, we beat VSO and FSA. I remember one of those games vividly – except I forgot who we played. Anyways, we were down by one point and the other team had the ball. The point guard was dribbling down court with 20 seconds left or so. I was guarding the point guard. They were trying to buy time. I watched the point guard closely as he dribbled. As he bounced the ball, I darted for it and knocked it out of his hands. The ball gets pushed back. Using my momentum I follow the ball and grab it. I rush down the court, not knowing how much time was left. I do a quick and safe layup and score two points. The opponents come running down to try to pass the ball inbound to score, but alas, too late. We won! The final moments is actually caught on tape by Robert Fung, but, it is probably piled deep somewhere along with his other hundreds of tapes.

ECAASU

I had always wanted to go to ECAASU but somehow i always had some excuse to not go. This year, ASU was renting a charter bus to drive up to the University of Virginia and the bus was nearly full! As I mentioned earlier, I believe UF was the largest group to have traveled to the conference.

The Guys

The Gals

We were a rowdy group and represented UF pretty well. The school had a Bhangra dance performance and those moves are pretty impressive.

While on the topic of Asian organizations, several students at UF tried to start TASA – Taiwanese American Student Association. Not surprisingly most of the founding officers were members in CASA. This had caused some controversy because it would divide CASA and spread the resources that are barely available to Chinese Americans. I remember one night there was a meeting between the TASA officers and CASA officers where we would to try come to an understanding as to why their club should exist and would not cause a negative impact. We felt that there was not enough cultural difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’ that TASA should be started. During that meeting, they did not have much why the club should be started to serve the Taiwanese Americans. All I really remember is that they tried to tout their slight cultural differences like Night Markets.

I was glad that Billy and Maggie, who were born and raised in Taiwan, were present at the meeting because they brought up many good points as to why TASA would not be a good idea at UF. Personally, if we were in California or NYC and there was enough resources to go around and there were even strong political opinions amongst the members then maybe they could have merit. But, a few weeks later, TASA was no more.

Fundraisers

There was a series of fundraisers to help our beloved president, Tyna. If I remember correctly, the food for Chinese New Year cost more than anticipated and she had to pay out of pocket for it. Our “Friendly neighborhood events coordinator” decided to play off of the recent poker craze, and we held several poker tournaments.

If you want to count t-shirts as fundraisers, here was the design for that year. It was designed by the Lackey, Scott.

Elections

Well, this election was pretty straight forward, just like the last one. The officers for next year were as follows.

Foley Ma	President
Annie Ly	Int. Vice President
G Mac	Ext. Vice President
Weiyi Chen	Ext. Vice President
Maggie Lee	Treasurer
George Liu	Secretary
June Wong	Special Events
Wand Gan	Special Events
Mike Wong	Events Coordinator
Deborah Wang	Events Coordinator
Linda Chou	Culture Director
Robert Fung	Historian
Sandi Leung	Historian
Nick Leung	Sports Coordinator
Wei Chen	Sports Coordinator
Peter Ma	Webmaster

Yours truly, was elected president. There was an inside joke that Peter Ma & I were brothers. Some people believed it, for quite while…We are not related.

Formal

Formal was held at the Grand Western this year. A few weeks before formal we were under the quota to break even. I remember, we had an officers meeting at the Reitz Union food court where we all sat there and called our friends to exceed the quota.

I got 2 superlatives this year…”Great Guy All Around” and “Pimp of the Year”. Tyna & G were the female winners of the superlatives. Well, for Tyna, I guess it was Greatest Girl…

Greatest all around

Pimp Of the Year

 

One of the induction games that year was to blindfold the new officers, walk them around the hotel, and then secretly bring them back inside, but tell them they are in a different room. Then Simon Says was played and we had to do what was told.

 

Nick Dancing

Troi…molesting me I guess

Prior & New Officers

We even had an after party, I believe it was at Lee’s apartment. That night a cop actually came in because we were a little too loud.

Lee (in the middle) loves to throw a party…and he’s a DJ.

Last but not least, Ryan, the prior webmaster, made a Slideshow for formal. Don’t be surprised if you’ve seen some of the pictures before.

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My first duties as Sports Coordinator for CASA was to make decorations for the formal. As a team building exercise, the newly elected officers were tasked to do some preparations for the formal. Looking back, I think that the old officers just didn’t want to do work, because every year after that it was the outgoing officers who did all the preparations for formal.

Formal was held at the University Centre Hotel. Don’t bother looking up. It’s demolished now. In its place is the new Shands building on Archer, the one that is south of the main Shands hospital. The theme for the night was Black and White formal.

Somehow the Sports Coordinator got put in charge of creating the tickets and superlative certificate.

Formal tickets. I don’t think we actually used them.

Superlative Template 2002 Formal

 

I’ve seen pictures of that night floating around, but sadly, I have none and you won’t get to see any pictures until a few paragraphs down (during this time, cameras were not as ubiquitous and we just discovered electricity!). The introduction for that night was played to the Rocky theme, Eye of the Tiger, with one of the officers coming out in whitey tighties pretending to box and knocking down a few people. I forgot why, but I guess at the time it was a good idea. I was just a spectator, I swear. Though as a forewarning, a few years later, I will have my moments of half nakedness – with pictures to boot.

The upcoming summer was filled with tabling. One day Kim Cabrera, the president, had to carry the display board from her apartment at the Courtyards to the Reitz Union. She had a pretty hard time doing so. Unfortunately for me, I was scheduled to table with her that day, and got quite an earful about how heavy the wooden display board was. I found the perfect excuse to break apart something, and put it back together. I decided we could replace the wooden board with some lighter material – some heavy, porous cardboard, which, was still in use when I left UF.

One event we had that summer was a BBQ at Sunbay Apartments. Several members, and Van, the Events Coordinator, lived at Sunbay, and with their large patio and grills it was a good place to have it. Too bad there wasn’t a large turnout. They may have heard that Kim was serving undercooked hamburger – but either way, the ones that were there had a good time, and Van ate hamburgers everyday until the Asian Student Assembly.

The Asian Student Assembly took place right after my Differential Equation class. I remember this because I brought my book bag with me. And it was this book bag, along with my Differential Equation, and graphing calculator, that was stolen at that night. I had left it unattended while I was helping, and when I came back, it was gone. Even with an e-mail on the ASU mailing list, it never turned up. As a gesture, Angela, the ASU secretary offered to pay for the book. I don’t know why, but I thought it was nice. I politely declined her offer, and managed to get through the class without the book.

Finally, sports.

With the Fall semester started, it was finally ready to get my hands dirty with intramural sports. At the first meeting, a questionnaire was passed out, along with which people were asked what sports they wanted to participate in. The year before, it was just mens flag football and mens basketball. But we got a wide range of responses back! So I added volleyball and soccer to the itinerary. In total, we had

1. Mens flag football,
2. 2x Indoor volleyball
3. Coed outdoor soccer
4. Mens basketball
5. Coed basketball

If you remember from my previous post…there was another sports coordinator so I shouldn’t take all the credit. However, he did take a leave of absence right after fall semester started and I was left to run all the sports, so I can only take the majority of the credit. As you can imagine, almost every night was filled up with either a game, or a practice.

Now, there was a reason why CASA didn’t have coed teams before…not too many girls participate. The coed basketball and soccer program was salvaged by four female foreign exchange students from Singapore, no joke. The four of them squeezed into a two bedroom apartment and got rides from other CASA members to and from the game. It would drive me crazy, because basically, if they didn’t show up our coed team would have to forfeit and they’d usually show up at the very last minute.

Our volleyball teams were split into 2 teams. A good team, and a not good team. Somehow, in all my years in volleyball , I found myself always on the not good team. Even my very last year, I was put in charge of the beginner team. I was told that it’s because the team needs a good player and I’m one of the few that wouldn’t complain. Who knows.

Volleyball team + Cheerleaders

The good team is standing in the back. the other team were cheerleaders and are spelling out CASA. FSA that year actually had a very good volleyball team and were rivals with CASA during the regular season. CASA beat them in the regular season, and we played them again In the playoffs. We had barely lost to them in the playoffs

Our team would cringe when someone spiked the ball and not block, or dig. Gabe (the one making the muscles) said not to be afraid of the ball. to prove the point, he told John Khuu (the guy in red) to stand there as he spiked, and John better not flinch. Well, John stood there, and someone set Gabe. Gabe spiked the ball…and John didn’t flinch. Though, I think for that example he should have flinched, because Gabe hit him square in the face, pretty hard.

There was one time there was a potluck after a football game. I didn’t have much time to prepare for food and shower, so I did both at the same time, but not at the same place! I boiled some water and tossed spaghetti in there. Then I hopped in the shower. Well the spaghetti didn’t come out too good, but oh well.

The potluck was held at Lexington Crossing.

The Fine Ladies of CASA

Everyone’s happy after eating

 

The referees gave us a hard time during football season about shirt colors mismatching. To save myself the hassle, for the Spring semester, I bought shirts for the team…all the teams..as in, 1 set for all the teams. Worst, the shirts came from Goodwill. Hey, the money came out of my pocket! I picked a color that Spring season, that I knew no one else would pick. Purple. I went out to Goodwill and got about 10 shirts. I brought them to each game and gave them to the players. I brought them back and washed them (or so I claimed) for the next game.

Our non-victorious year. We’re smiling though!

From top left: Me, Landry, van, Corey, Will, Brian, John, Angelo

Landry (top) and John (bottom) are holding up their fingers, a 5, and a 0. Meaning, we were 5-0 for that year! Oh well, we had fun though.

Coed soccer, Yeah!

From top left: Aaron, Justin, Sean, Lee, Me, Troy, someone, someone, Liz, Annie.

Yes, those shirts…are purple! For soccer, we won only 1 game, and it was playoffs. Another friend of mine was captain of another team, and they won 0 games during the regular season. We decided to play each other in the playoffs, so that one of us would have a win. Luckily for us, we won. I actually scored a goal that game! Aaron (red shorts) made a shot and the keeper came out to try to stop it. Well, the shot hit the top of the goal post. It bounced back to me, and I kicked it in to get a goooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaalll!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I really apologize for forgetting the name of the two girls at the bottom left. The first girl is part of the Cuban American Student Association. We’ve done events with them in the past, since we’re both CASA. I actually think the team name was CASA2. They were suppose to supply some players…but that usually didn’t work out too well.

For this year, and all the other years, I was able to attend the special events. Actually, I didn’t really attend them, I worked them . Oh well, I always enjoyed it.

2002 Officers after Mid-Autumn

From Top left: Tyna, Van, Kim, Tevin, Lee, Annie, Troy, Andrew, me, Debbie, Juan, John

Attack the Mongol!

We retold the story of the moon cakes. Van was the main Mongol. He’s the guy with the thick eyebrows in the previous pictures. He’s really not that angry looking in real life. Those are actually props.It was a fun skit, and I was forever hooked in doing skits for CASA, as I can’t dance!

Traditional Fan Dance

 

Free Ice Cream!

L to R: Billy, Tuyen, Andy, Jeannie, Van, Randy

We had a webmaster named Ryan. He was the R.A. for Hume hall. For as long as I’ve known him, he’s scheming something. That may explain why he’s a lawyer now. As an R.A. he has a budget for his residents. CASA didn’t have much money…so, he dipped into the funds to hold an ice cream social for his residents and called it a cultural exchange and CASA invited our members. Hey, it was free ice cream, I couldn’t complain.

CASA Drama

Though I’m sure there was a lot of drama going around, I never found myself immersed in any. Though I think it’s important to point out that before Fall semester was over, two of the officers resigned: secretary, and external officer. The secretary, I believe, was in CASA over a girl and left CASA because of the same reason. The external officer also ran for a position in another AASU suborg, and I think had his heart more in that club then CASA. Though I wouldn’t categorize this as drama, the other sports coordinator left UF because of family matters.

I ended up doing a lot of the secretary work, and Tyna did a heck of a job as the external VP!

Who will lead us??

Typically, a good amount of officers from the previous year carry over to the next, and the next president was a former officer. Kim, our president, though just a sophomore actually had a position as a freshman. I believe she was Freshman representative and helped coordinate Mid Autumn.

Not many officers from this year will carry over, and the candidates for president was fairly limited. There’s only one person I actually believed could have been a good president, and I think everyone felt the same. There were some hiccups this year that gave me the impression that next year needed to be a lot better, or else CASA would be in a state of decline and we needed someone everyone was willing to support.

I was actually worried for some time, because she never hinted whether or not she would accept the position. If she didn’t accept, I believed there would have been a possibility I would have been thrust into the position and at that point I certainly was not confident, or ready enough to fill those shoes.

Prior to the election we were receiving nominations for positions. I wanted to select a position that gave me more executive experience in CASA. I got wind of who was running for what, and the way I picked my position for next year, was fairly easy. I picked the position with no nominations.

I did not want to win an election and have the other person not be an officer – thus one less much needed helping hand. The position I ran for…was secretary, a job I was already doing. I ran for a position knowing that I’m going to do everything that I can contribute to.

I remember in the elections (which was in the Reitz Union basement) Will Miller asked me during my Q&A, why I did not run for a higher officer position even though I am so involved with CASA…All I did was state a known fact. My answer was, because I want to run for secretary.

I didn’t want my real reason to be revealed. But I feared it may have seemed cocky, or revealed some pessimism. Maybe if I was WIlliam Wallace, and I could rally the troops like he did in Brave Heart, I could have turned it into a good thing. But I reveal my answer here where it doesn’t matter.

Also, I’d like to point out that this year, there were 3 Sports Coordinator…Troi, Will, and Lee. No, I’m not bragging *grin*. And though there were 17 officers for this year (that’s a lot!) I believe only 4 are returning from last year: Tyna, Van, Troi and myself. The officers for this year were…

Tyna Yuan: President

Roger Tsai: Internal VP

Billy Hsu: External VP

Jeanie Chen: External VP

Annie Ly: Treasurer

Foley Ma: Secretary

Weiyi Chen: Special Events Coordinator

Wand Gan: Special Events Coordinator

Van Hoang: Events Coordinator

Jon Tenbrook: Cultural Directory

Caroline Chen: Historian

Will Miller: Sports Coordinaotr

Troi Tran: Sports Coordinator

Ho Chia Lee: Sports Coordinator

Ryan Rhyce: Webmaster

Xuan Gu: ASU Rep

Le Tsang: ASU Rep

Formal & Beyond

I don’t remember much from formal and I can’t dig up any pictures except this one. If I find or can find things to jot my memory I’ll update. I probably won one or more superlatives this year, and from that hat, I’m going to guess I got CASA pimp. Don’t ask my why, because I don’t know how…but somehow, from 2002 onwards, I am somehow regarded as CASA pimp.

During the summer, a lot of officers were out of town so we were short handed. I remember during officer meetings, Tyna would toss the dreaded open ended question out there…”Who is available for tabling”.

Looking at some old files, I also made a tutorial on using the PINE e-mail system. It may still be hanging up on the ASU office.

And that was my summer.

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Freshman year did it for me. Several combination of things hooked me onto CASA. Without each one, my experience at UF/CASA would have been different. Much of my experience in CASA influences my outlook and perspective in life. It has been very positive learning experience, and I would not be the person I am without them.

I lived in the Jennings Dorm in a sardine can like temporary triple my freshman year. One of my roommates was Andrew Liu. Andrew was a fellow high school classmate and like me, is Chinese American. We were both drawn onto the Asian American campus community through the flyering the organizations do at Turlington Plaza, shortly before the Asian Student Assembly.

We both attended the Asian Student Assembly at the Music Auditorium. I remember only two details from the assembly. First, was the CASA president, Alan Hsu, for whatever reason, rode down the aisle joyfully on a bicycle. Second was, damn, that’s a lot of Asian kids.

From Alan’s bicycle riding, I felt CASA was an easy going and fun club. Andrew and I attended the first meeting. I remember the officers introduction. Typically during the introductions, the officers would say if you’re new to UF they’d help you with whatever to get you accustomed.

I remember an officer named Tony. He was a computer engineering major and also a break dancer.I said to myself, he’s in the same major as I am, and man I wish I knew how to dance, maybe he’d help me out. I didn’t interact with Tony much, and looking back, dancing was probably the *only* thing I was not involved with in CASA.

Then, the sports coordinator was introduced. I want to say it was Hochia Lee (a.k.a Lee) that was the sports coordinator, but I could be wrong. From his introduction, I learned about the fantastic world of intramural sports. He invited all members to the first football practice, which was right after the meeting, and at Norman field.

It started with football

Luckily for Andrew and I, Jennings Hall is very close to Norman. We went home, changed, and went to practice. After standing on the side lines for a little bit, we were noticed and someone invited us onto the field. We played some scrimmage games, and Andrew was immediately known…as the guy who had his shorts ripped when someone went for his flag. After the practice, we were asked to go to the first game, which was at McGuire field.

Andrew and I arrived late for the first game, so we sat at the sidelines for a little bit. Then Alan, the president, egged me to go into the game. Someone came out, and I went in, as a corner on the defense. On the first play, the opposing team threw a short ball on my side. I immediately ran up, and grabbed the man’s flag. Alan applauded and praised me, something along the lines of “Yeah! That’s why you’re in there”. I don’t know what the score was, or whether we won or lost Needless to say, I felt good, and naturally, is a moment I remember. I also remember, approaching the ref after the game and asking him if I needed to sign in. I was an uneducated freshman at the time. Usually, our team would have gotten a penalty…but the ref probably knew, I was an uneducated freshman.

Andrew didn’t very involved with playing flag football and never went back. I didn’t have a car and he was my ride to the games. Luckily, Lee, was willing to pick me up to all the games. The football season ended, and I continued with CASA sports with the basketball season. We went 0-4 that season, and I want to say we lost the first round playoffs too. We almost were 1-3, except, the opposing team short a 3 point shot at the buzzer and made it. Bastard!

I love playing sports. It was a big part of my life growing up, and was a huge part of my life in CASA. Without the CASA sports program, I would have just been another passive member.

Lasting Impressions

I remember while attending the CASA meeting shortly before Mid Autumn, I saw a classmate, Frank Huynh talking to several officers after the meeting. The next time I had Chinese Literature, I inquired Frank “I didn’t know you were part of CASA”. He replied with, “Yeah, I am, I was the president”. I was awestruck, that I knew a ‘president’ of a club. I helped him pass the class (and hence, graduate! )  , and helped me with the ins and out of UF.

My conversations with him let me gave me more information about the Asian American community on campus. One day, when we both had time to kill, he brought me up to the ASU office. The ASU office was across from where it is now, and actually had a futon. He introduced me to the ASU treasurer and we chatted some more about ASU.

The events I attended left me with a positive impression of the friendliness, and openness of the Asian American community at UF. I attended the CASA paintballing at Waynes World, and the ASU Woodser. The ASU Wooder was the first time I drank ‘water’ in college. A park ranger actually came by because we were causing too much commotion. I was a bit worried. She probably knew what was going on, but luckily, didn’t want to cause trouble for us, or for her, and just told us to keep quiet. Throughout the night, the members of all organizations were friendly and welcoming.

I never made it to the Mid Autumn, or Chinese New Year festival my Freshman year. I did not participate in the preparation either. That would be the last time that would happen…

Elected by Chance…kind of.

As the Spring semester was ending, CASA elections was starting. Now, elections are strict. They’ve become more political, and with people scheming and pulling strings (this is Florida, after all!). Back then, elections were straight forward. You arrived, stated what you were running for, and the election process began, from the top position to the bottom.

The elections took place in the Reitz Union meeting room – the one where the student senators have their meeting. I sat on the right hand side, several rows up. I was not planning on running for a position, and Andrew actually did. He stated he was running for Historian. However, people pointed out he wasn’t that active in CASA and he lost for that position.

The position of sports coordinator was last, but eventually came up. There was one person running, Nick Eng. Naturally, without opposition, he got elected and that was that. However, Alan raised the point that we needed two sports coordinator because it was a very time consuming job. After several seconds with no response, Alan voiced his concern again. At that point, I gathered up the courage, and forced myself to raise my hand. I said I’d do it. I walked down to the floor and made a brief introduction – but with my soft voice, and the fact elections were over, no one listened. But that’s ok. That minute, was just another minute in their lives. But for mine, it was the minute that led to years of dedication.

Had Alan not voiced his concern not once, but twice…had someone else volunteer for the task, had I not raised my hand, my career at UF would have been drastically different.

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One day, I received a phone call after work from an unidentified 954 area code. I picked up the phone thinking it may have been a family member calling me, but no, it was Susan, a freshman, from the University of Florida. She is part of the Freshman Leadership Program and is working on a project to trace the history of the Chinese American Student Association (CASA). I was referred to her by my friend, Philip Cheng, a current student at UF, as someone who may know some history of CASA.

During my presidency of CASA, I too had sought to learn the history of CASA. Myself and several officers looked through the archives at the Reitz Union and reported the findings during a meeting. Philip actually called me the other day when he too found out from the Reitz Union archives that CASA was founded in 1941 as the Chinese Club.

I am excited to hear the Susan and her peers will take the task to a more grand scale by having an exhibition. I may not be able to provided insight from back in 1941, but i will do my best! I agreed to provided some information about my experience with CASA, and decided to do it in a narrative blog format.

To start…

I graduated from Boyd Anderson High School in Fort Lauderdale in 2001 and arrived at UF in the fall of 2001. I was a member of CASA starting in 2001, then became sports coordinator, then secretary, then finally president of CASA. After my presidency I was still very involved in CASA and even coordinated the Mid Autumn Moon Festival skit in the fall of 2007. Upon receiving my Masters degree in December 2007, I finally left Gainesville in January, 2008 and moved to Georgia to work where I am presently an Electronics Engineer for the Department of Defense.

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It’s funny…I guess when you help people they remember you. Or people just remember me easily?

I just an an IM from a friend who now lives in Seattle. It turns out, he met Frank, a former CASA president, and a guy who knew me my freshman year at UF. I had helped him through Chinese Literature. I think he had a case of senioritis, but I kinda pulled him through.

Hard to imagine that someone I knew for one semester would remember me 7 years later.

And while I’m at it, I think I’ve helped a butt load of people graduate UF…

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