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This report is entirely based on my point
of view. Please do not ask me to take off any remarks
on here. Where I live, we have first amendment rights,
meaning that we have the freedom of religion and freedom of the
press. In my case, it's the freedom of speech, which goes
under the first amendment rights. If you don't like the comments
I made on this page, sorry, but this is my page.
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Day One (Friday, June 30, 2000) San Francisco, CA (5:00 am) Weather: 50º F (cold and foggy) "Reunion/ Newcomers" I woke up and still had a few things to pack. Notice a trend here? I tend to pack things at the last minute. :p Well, going to summer school and working kind of puts a little strain on your schedule. Oh, well. I brought the rice cooker again, just in case we would be needing some extra food rations, so to speak. Mom and Dad asked me if I was ready to go. I was all packed and everything at around 6:00 am. :) Will paged me and told me that he will wait for me at the Chevron stage on 19th Avenue near the starting of the freeway (not a good area, now that I look back at it). I had a hard time tracking Will because he was still in his friend's car. :p I started getting panicky because I was worried about taking a plane without my parents. I've never done that before. As soon as Will got into our truck, we headed off to the airport. As we pulled into the terminal, it was at that point where Dad asked us what airline we were taking. I told him United Airlines. Of course we had a heck of a time getting there, due to the traffic. :p Mom and Dad hugged me and kissed me goodbye as we entered the sliding doors. When I saw the line, I couldn't believe it. It was so long. :( I knew at this point we would miss our flight for sure. It was at this point where a guy came out and asked, "if there is anyone who has a flight before 8 am, please come to this line." I jumped at the opportunity. "Oh, God. That was TOO close," I thought to myself. When I got in line, the guy asked me, "what time does your flight leave?" and I said, "7:54 am", he's all, "okay, you should be in this line then." I checked in one bag hoping that all will be fine. The lady told me that my flight was on time and ready and told me to go to gate 73. Will was set, too. :) The checkpoint. Oh, yes, who could ever forget the checkpoint. When I walked in, the alarm went off. The lady asked me if I had any metal on me. It automatically clicked that I had my cellphone charger in my pocket. :p I took it out and placed it onto the conveyer belt. When I walked through this time, the alarm didn't go off. Quick thinking, eh? I couldn't believe both Will and I made it to the gate on time. :) All was well. When I went to the front desk at the gate and showed them my tickets, I asked her, "do I check in here?" She's all, "well, from the looks of it, you're all set. Oh, are you two together?" Both Will and I answered, "yes, we are", and she was nice enough to give us seats next to each other. :) Our flight was about an hour and a half. To tell you the truth, I'm very edgy about traveling by plane, mainly because of plane crashes. That is one of my huge fears... kind of like Jupiter, the only thing is, I take my chances. Not bad, the flight attendants were nice and everything. :) Didn't have a soft landing. It got kind of bumpy. I hate bumpy landings. Oh, well, at least we're alive. As Will and I got our bags from the overhead bin and headed into the gate 4, we were greeted by Kathy. Kathy ran up to me and hugged me and hugged Will. He was like, "is this the same person I've been talking to on-line"? because he never met Kathy before. I told him, "prepare to be surprised." Anyway, she drove us from the airport to the West Coast Anaheim Hotel and let me tell you, "we had a heck of a ride on the freeway. Kowai! No joke; Kathy was constantly changing lanes and stuff. I'm all, "Uh... Kathy, can you slow down a bit here? This isn't funny." Once we arrived at the hotel, I called home to let them know that I was alive and safe. *whew!* As we headed into the lobby, we met a guy who was totally into Sera Myu -- Randy Adkins. He told us that he traveled all the way from Glenwood, Iowa, which just touches the border of Nebraska and was meeting a few friends of his. Kathy was all, "okay, why not hang out with us until you see your friends. We're staying here for the whole weekend." He's all, "oh, what a coincidence. So are we." We went into our room and unpacked our stuff. At around 2 p.m. or so, I got into my Sailor Mars costume and Will got into his Brock costume and we headed off to the con. When Will and I went to get our badges, there was no line at all. I couldn't believe it. Last year it was crazy. I had to wait 2 1/2 hours for my badge. :( Afterwards, Kathy, Will, Randy dressed as Haruka, and I head into the halls to get our pictures taken and everything. We still had yet to check in for the masquerade, but we didn't have everyone in our group with us. :p As we looked for everyone, Randy ran into his friends, Zoey Hayes and Ambre Poda. Kathy decided to call Sandra Diaz (one of our members) to see if she had any idea on where Autumn Gerfen was. Sandra wasn't feeling good, so that leaves her out of our skit. :( Another one of our members was sick as well, which meant we were two people short for our skit. :( On the other hand, we asked both Ambre and Randy if they would like to help us out in our skit, and they both accepted. :) At around 5 p.m. or so, we found Autumn who was dressed as Viluy from the Witches 5. Okay, the skit would consist of these characters: Kathy: Princess Serenity Randy: Tuxedo Kamen Ambre: Sailor Neptune Claudine: Sailor Mars Will: Seiya Kou Autumn: Yaten Kou We decided to rehearse for our skit before having dinner and then head off to the dealer's room and see if we can get some stuff. I wasn't at all satisfied with the plan because we had originally decided to perform the Sailor Wars song (I don't know; I'm not a Sera Myu fan) and Kathy suddenly changed everything at the last minute. Oh, that's one word of advice. Never change a skit or dance around unless it's absolutely 100% necessary. Kathy told us that our skit was going to be a Tribute to Shiho Niiyama. I thought, oh, how sweet... that is, until I noticed that the song was more than 2 minutes. I'm all, "Uh... Kathy. The rules strictly stated that skits and dances can't be longer than 2 minutes." She's all, "but it's 2 minutes and 58 seconds", and I would say, "they're not going to allow that. I know these people. When they say 2 minutes, they MEAN two minutes." She's all, "I'll see to it that we can bend this rule a bit." I gave up and said, "oh... okay..." We practiced for about an hour and a half or so and then we headed off to Denny's for dinner. After dinner, Ambre and I were acting like little kids as we ran through the whole open areas throughout the convention. We were just too excited. Hey, this isn't the kind of stuff I can do everyday, so I thought, "Oh, what the heck. You only live once." *laughs* As we ran into the dealer's room too look for anime merchandise, someone came up to us and said, "go to the dance", so we went. It wasn't what we expected. I get up close to the DJ and I noticed it wasn't SNM Productions playing any music. I see Al Flores and I'm all, "why aren't you playing any music?" He's all, "we're not welcome to play any music." I'm like, "what the hell? That's stupid." Kathy finds both me and Ambre at the dance and tells us that Diana Kou is a finalist in the karaoke contest. Both of us are jumping and we're like, "yeah, let's go." So we head on down. At around 8 pm or so, we arrived at the karaoke room and see Diana singing. It was pretty hot in that room and I remembered getting a headache and feeling dizzy. After the karaoke contest was over, Diana was just completely disappointed about the whole thing. Poor girl. :( As we headed out of the room, I saw the room spinning in a swirl of colors. I heard Kathy's voice asking me, "if I was okay." I said, "I'm not sure", and that was the last thing I remember. * * * When I came to, I found myself on the ground just outside the hotel and restaurant area. I asked, "what happened?" Kathy's all, "you passed out." I'm all, "what?!" I didn't think that I would pass out from anemia. Talk about weird. Day Two (Saturday, July 1, 2000) West Coast Anaheim Hotel/ Anaheim, CA (9:00 am) Weather: 80º F (hot and sunny) "Flashback/ Showtime" I was the first one to wake up. What happened? I don't remember a thing. As I got out of bed, I woke Kathy up. Kathy said, "good morning" and asked me if I was okay. I went to her and said, "I just want to know what the hell happened last night." She told me that I started off with a dizzy spell, and she made me lean on her as she was helping me out of the room and by the time we got in the elevator, I passed out. She told me that she had a heck of a time carrying me because she had so many things in her hands. She laid me on the ground and I came to. She asked security if I could be examined by the nurse and the nurse. Weird, isn't it. At around 10 am or so, we called Ambre and Randy to come to the hotel lobby and practice our Shiho Niiyama tribute. At around noon, we had lunch at Denny's. We had no idea how many cosplayers we'd run into. Man! The place was packed with cosplayers. What happened next was just completely out of the ordinary. Kathy was laughing and smiling one second. The next second, she started bawling. I was like, "what's the matter? Are you okay?" She's all, "I have a feeling that something bad is about to happen to us." I asked, "like what?" and she responded, "something really bad." It was odd because I didn't sense anything. I even used my third eye to see if there was any negativity, but I didn't see anything (I'm a witch, remember?). I thought to myself, "why is she so sad? I don't see anything. Something must be bugging her." After a few hours in the dealer's room, we checked in with the masquerade coordinator. We were seated and given cups of water while we waited. At that point, the J.A.S.P.E.R. Cosplay Closet was judging us on our costume craftsmanship, but that's about it. Afterwards, the masquerade coordinator comes up to us and tells us that our music is too long and we needed to find a way to shorten the song AND dance. Of course, the whole group was upset and everything. Somehow, I knew that was gonna happen. The rules strictly stated that the music couldn't be longer than 2 minutes. Even 2:01 gets you disqualified. :( I went up to the sound engineer and told him where and when to fade the music. All was fine there. When I came back to our seats, Kathy started crying again. She kept insisting that something bad would happen, but I kept assuring her that nothing would happen. It took about 10 minutes or so for me to calm her down. I've never seen anyone who would break down so suddenly like that. There wasn't really much to do except hang around the area. As I walked around, I noticed a girl dressed up as Queen Neherenia (very good costume, might I add). She was Emily from Sailor JAM-Boree. We talked for about a while or so about costuming in general. I do recall her complaining how she burned her finger while using a hot glue gun. I noticed it was a second degree burn and I suggested that she should use a needle to get the fluid out, but she told me that she would rather leave it alone. Otherwise, we talked about costumes and stuff in general. I can't really recall any main issues or comments that much. :( Oh, well. Two hours went by and the masquerade started. When we were called, we performed our skit -- our skit was a huge disappointment. We were performing something serious, and the audience started laughing. We were all pretty upset about the whole thing, but we still had our picture taken after the skit. Everything was practically changed at the last minute, not to mention that we didn't really put much thought on how we performed. At the beginning, I didn't expect our group to win anything because it was a Tribute skit... but then again, who would give us and award for that performance we made. :p Maybe, this is what Kathy meant when she said something bad would happen. But then again, this is just a stage performance. From the way she sounded, it seemed as though as she feared something worse than this. I never looked at our skit as something that was severely bad. After the skit, we went back to the hotel and went to bed. Day Three (Sunday, July 2, 2000) West Coast Anaheim Hotel/ Anaheim, CA (8:00 am) Weather: 80º F (hot and sunny) "Love Story" Okay, so I'm an early bird, so sue me. *laughs* I get up at around 5 am each day. Yeah, I know, even the sound of it scares me at some points. Anyway, everyone was asleep and I started getting bored. I got into my Ukyo costume and decided to write a message telling the rest of the group that I was headed off to the con and if they needed to get a hold of me, they could reach me on my cellphone. As I waited for the shuttle bus to take me to the Disneyland theme park, I met a girl, who was more or less my age who was an attendee for AX. She traveled all the way from New York. "Wow! That's a long way," I told her. Fifteen minutes later, I arrived at the Disneyland Hotel, had a few photo ops and everything. It was great! I bumped into Al Flores from SNM Productions and he noticed that I was alone. He brought me into the staff room of the Disneyland Hotel and we got some breakfast -- the meal was free, too. :). Finally, something other than Denny's for a change. *laughs* Don't get me wrong. I like Denny's and all, but not for the entire trip. :p Afterwards, he told me that he was willing to give me the CD I had requested a few months ago. We head into his hotel room and he hands me two CDs. One was the one I had asked for, and the other was a bonus CD. Al took me to the dealer's room and we were at Howie's Hi-Tech Games and he gave me his discman so I could hear the CD. What happened next was the unexpected. I don't know what I was thinking of that day, but something came over me. I had this weird warm feeling that I haven't felt in 7 years. I don't remember what I said to Al specifically. I believe it was something like, "a girl would have to be a fool if they wouldn't choose someone as sweet as you." At the same time, I thought to myself, "Claudine?! What the hell are you saying?! You can't do this! He's 10 1/2 years older than you. What'll Mom and Dad think?" He returned the response (I don't remember what he said specifically), but it was really sweet. He then kissed me on the cheek and I said, "Come on, boy. You can do better than that", and we kissed... on the lips this time. I kept thinking to myself, "You better be sure about this." Before I knew it, we started acting like boyfriend and girlfriend before we even dated. It was so sweet. We hung out with each other until about noon or so. I told him that I promised a friend of mine that I would hang out with him. At that point, Autumn called me asking me if she can wear my "You're Under Arrest" costume. And I said, "If it fits you, then sure, you can borrow it." About 10 minutes later, I ran into my buddy Ward Totten and his brother, Dave and we had lunch together. While we were on our way to Denny's we ran into Cambria Jenkins (our Sailor Saturn from our Fanime Con 2000 skit) and she joined us. :) I showed both Ward and Dave my "Key The Porno Idol" CD. They were laughing so hard and told me, "Claudine, we just have to get a copy of that CD." I told them that they'd have to talk to Al Flores on that. Before Al gave me the CD, he specifically told me not to distribute it to anyone. After lunch, Cambria went her separate way, while Ward, Dave, and I headed into the art gallery. Ward was so happy to find out that a cel he drew, made it to the live auction. :) Before he went to the live auction, I introduced him to Al and they were talking about T-shirts and CDs for about 20 minutes or so. Ward left the room and headed to the live auction. Al and I hung out for most of the day. We talked, we kissed, and spent time together, which was really nice. He told me that he heard what happened to me on Friday night, and he couldn't believe it. He said that he was heading back to his hotel room and overheard a few people talking about me as they walked right past him. I didn't even put much thought to what happened on Friday night. I don't even remember too much much of it anyway. He told me that he wants to see to it that I don't have to experience anything even close to that again. That's really sweet. As I headed back to my hotel room, Kathy and the rest of the group went to me and said, "Claudine, where were you?" I'm all, "I left my cellphone number for you guys just in case needed to get ahold of me. Why didn't you call me? Autumn did." Kathy told me that she never saw the note or anything, and I specifically told her where I was and everything. Heck, I will admit myself that I called Kathy a few times, but her cellphone was turned off. What could I do? How could I reach her? Oh, well. Al and I said our goodbyes and went our separate ways. :) Back in our hotel room, we watched some anime such as Sera Myu Musicals, Ranma 1/2, and Special Duty Combat Unit: Shinesman. :) Afterwards, we headed off to dinner at Denny's (yeah, again :p). There wasn't really much to do at the convention, considering that most of the exhibits were closed. I guess it's lights out then. Day Four (Monday, July 3, 2000) West Coast Anaheim Hotel/ Anaheim, CA (9:00 am) Weather: 80º F (hot and sunny) "Departure" Well, what can I say? The fun times can't last forever (although in some ways, I wish it did). Anyway, I woke up a little later than usual. I was really tired from the whole trip, and I had the voice to prove it. Most of my voice was lost from all the cheering our group did when we were on the trams going back and forth. :p I packed my stuff and called the Bell Captain to take my bags to Kathy's car. As Kathy, Autumn, Will, and I put our bags in the trunk, we noticed Zoey, Randy, and Ambre were putting their things in the trunk of their car. I went up to Zoey and said, "You mean to tell me that you drove all the way from Colorado to come here?" She nodded and said, "yes". I was like, "man! That's a long way. How long did it take for you guys to get here?" Zoey said that it took 3 days tops (including rest periods and everything). Wow! I don't think I can do that, even if I wanted to. But then again, I don't drive, so who am I to talk? After we packed our things, we (minus Zoey, Ambre, and Randy) waited for the shuttle to take us to the Disneyland parking lot (or Legoland as we called it *laughs*). As we waited for the tram, we bumped into Diana Kou, Eiko and Joe. Diana told us that she would only be around for a short time, so we figured that we should get at least one photo op with her and most of us out of costume. Once Diana and Eiko went their separate ways, we decided to go into the dealer's room one last time before we leave AX 2000. We ran into Zoey, Randy, Ambre, and Christophe Tang and decided to get a group photo... not to mention our last photo for our Senshi Mysterious portfolio. We said our good-byes to Randy, Zoey, and Ambre. They told us beforehand that they will be attending Nan Desu Kan and they asked us if we were going. I told them I would, as for Kathy... that con was still questionable for her. Kathy drove Autumn, Will, and I to her house. She wanted to introduce us to her mom and grandmother. As we entered her doorway, her two Chihuahuas didn't really give us a proper greeting as they were barking and snarling at us. Kathy showed us to her room, and... oh, my God. It's a complete Sailor Moon Shrine in there. No joke. There's practically Sailor Moon everywhere in her room. Her alarm clock, her bed spread... everything. Never seen anything like that before. We stayed for about 15 minutes or so. Next stop was the John Wayne Airport for both Will and I. We managed to make it to the airport on time... and somewhat safely might I add. Thank God. *whew!* When we handed our tickets to the lady at the front desk, she seemed kind of snooty. Well, excuse us for living. :p Will and I got some food from McDonald's. As we waited for our flight, we saw two people wearing AX badges. I asked them if they lived somewhere in the Bay Area, and they said no. They told me that their first stop was San Francisco and they would transfer to another plane bound for Seattle. The lady called us for our flight. It was a good hour and a half... experienced a little turbulence. As Will and I disembarked, we didn't see my mom at the gate, so we decided to get our bags. We bumped into these two girls who recognized me as the Sailor Mars from Fanime Con 2000. They had told me that their friend, Jessica was looking for me or trying to get ahold of me. I gave the girls my e-mail address and they gave me hers. So, that's her name -- Jessica. :) At least I know how to get ahold of her again. Not all is lost. :) The next thing we did was absolutely stupid. We waited for mom at the departure area instead of the arrival area. Mom told me that she circled around three times looking for us. Oops! Our bad. We didn't know. We do now. Aftermath A few weeks after AX, Al and I went out on our first date to Raging Waters and had dinner at Mil's Diner (not Mel's) in Milpitas. After the first date, I said that I really enjoyed being with him and I would be happy to date him again. :) My buddy, Albert Ng made a video of the AX 2000 skit performance. When I asked the group if they wanted a copy of the skit, they said no. Up to this day, no one even wants to remember that skit. Our Yahoo! Club grew after we came back from AX 2000. Zoey, Randy, Ambre, and Jessica joined our Yahoo! Club. :) Within a month, our Yahoo! Club became a private message board. We simply had too many outsiders reading our information and joining our group only to defend themselves. We simply had no privacy when we were open to the public. We couldn't say what we wanted without people coming up to us feeling upset about what we said. Yo, people! Ever heard of freedom of speech? This is OUR group and OUR club! You have the nerve to say what you want in YOUR group posts, why can't we do the same thing without any problems? In September, Kathy decided to go to Nan Desu Kan 2000 in October and join Zoey, Ambre, Randy, and me in a skit performance. :) 
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