Kenneth Cheung's Alpha Phi Omega Universe
Reverent Family Dinner
Report
President's Theme
February 20, 2004
Based on the last family dinner,
it was not as good as we had hoped. The planner, Andrea Paquia, was quite
disappointed at the outcome. It is safe to assume that people did have fun at
Barney’s apartment, so it was not bad at all. It was just the food that people
brought or did not bring that irked me and some other people. So in the
aftermath of the Christmas dinner, I decided to take over completely the
planning for the next family dinner, so I set out on a quest early in January to
lay the plans and posted it on my website. Personally, I do not think we need
these gatherings very often, though Andrea
Richwood and
Julie discussed about having another dinner one night at the 7th
Heaven apartment. They decided to have a “soul food” night in honor of Black
History Month. It sounded like a good idea so Julie made post using Richwood’s
username in the forum about it. I took that idea into consideration and applied
it to the dinner plan. However, I came up with another idea before: sushi night.
The energetic Carol actually deserves the credit for that idea (ironically, she
wanted to bring green beans but later could not attend the dinner). After I
posted a message in the forum, the planners awaited for a response as to what
kind of food we wanted at the dinner. After a while, we still waited for a
response. Eventually Andrea gave us her two cents and liked the sushi. To the
other people, it did not really matter what kind of food was brought. Julie then
met some members in person asked for their opinions and eventually came to the
consensus of Asian food.
I spun the theme can called it “Tastes of the Orient.” With this in
mind, I asked people to bring oriental food. I called a few people and talked to
them to ask if they could come to the dinner, and based the guest list on that.
I created a separate page dedicated to the preparation of sushi. I wanted to
invite a pledge to the dinner, but no, Barney said that we would discuss
pledge-related activities. I thought that we were also going to discuss the
Reverent t-shirt.
I was hoping
that we would have a lot of support for making sushi and asked for an emissary
to go shopping. No one came forward, so I did it myself. I went to shop at 99
Ranch Market. Anna and others call it Ranch 99, but that is the incorrect name.
There are also 99 Ranch Markets in Los Angeles, and I go shopping with my mom to
buy Chinese food there. It was the first time that I went shopping alone to 99
Ranch Market. On my way, Julie called me and wanted me to buy streamers to
decorate her house. My first though was: is this necessary? I really did not
think extra money should be spent on decorations. Then I remembered how special
Julie was, so I agreed to buy it. At the store, I bought all the necessary
ingredients to make sushi (except rice, for Andrea agreed to bring it). I even
bought the Filipino purple ube ice cream. I never even knew that purple ice
cream existed until I saw it in the grocer’s freezer. Originally, Anna was going
to buy the dessert, but I did not want her to spend so much money on drinks and
dessert, so I wanted someone else to bring the dessert, namely Ben. However, Ben
was broke so he could not afford anything. Thus, I decided to foot the bill
along with the sushi ingredients. The reason why we chose purple ice cream was
because it was Oriental food and that Anna knew that Julie liked that flavor.
Julie called me later to cancel her streamers order, as she did not have the
time to decorate her house. Twenty dollars later, I drove back to my dorm with a
bag of groceries.
I did not go to Julie’s house until 4:30pm, for she was busy
working. By that that time, I gathered all the food I had with the plates and
plastic ware and drove to her house. I was greeted by a mid-sized dog named
after a king (Georgia). Julie welcomed me and we prepared the house for the
upcoming event. We moved a sofa from the dining room to the living room.
However, we later had to move it back and get another sofa because one of the
residents wanted use it for his girlfriend. I did some Geology homework on the
sofa and petted the Georgia for a while. Then, Julie’s parents came to see their
wonderful daughter. They also brought food for us. It was rather unfortunate
that they could not stay long enough to see our fraternity.
Richwood’s little dude, R.J. came and we played safari together. The
child did not like the little cheetah figurine and made it the antagonist in his
little animal fantasy. It was fun to see him scare Georgia away. Rich was good
enough to cook a delicious stir-fry dish in the kitchen. Eventually, more people
showed up, including Curtis, Michelle E. and Katrina. A lot of sushi was
brought, which surprised me. I especially liked Kyla’s American-sized spamwabi.
It took her two hours to make it, too. Ben came not with food, but a video game,
Soul Caliber 2. Soul Caliber 2 is a cool game with cool weapons
and fighting. However, it does not make sense to me how a person can swing a big
sword though another person and that person still remain in one piece.
Throughout the whole night, R.J. was vying for attention. Even Julie’s sister
came (she needed to attend a workshop the next day) and as usual with all the
new maidens, Richwood hit on her.
Our webmaster Cheryl could not attend because of a RICA examination.
Barney was absent throughout the event due to car troubles, so there was no
discussion about the future littles of the family. I did inform some people
regarding plans for BSR. The t-shirt was never brought up, either. We took some
pictures together. Finally came sushi time, Andrea, Reed, Anna, Cathy, and I
partook the task of learning how to make sushi. We gathered on the kitchen
table. We made a bunch of sushi. Cathy made some to take home and I made some to
use up the ingredients. Long collected Stephanie and she came with a wooden
roller and it made my sushi much easier to make. It was an excellent time.
Afterwards, the rest of the gang watched Jackass: The Movie. Since I did not
want to turn into a jackass, I did not want to see it. The minor paid no
attention to the TV, either. Thus, I was busy making more sushi while R.J. was
being his own playful self. Since it was getting late, people left before the
end of the movie (it was that bad). Brian Smith and I were the last to leave the
house, as I was finishing the rice and Brian had nothing else to do. I took the
remaining supplies left and said my farewell to the house with the untrimmed
rose bushes.
Then I came back to pick up Andrea’s rice cooker. The roommates
were having a drink as I got the cooker out. Then I drove back to the dorm. It
was a long night, but I am very glad that we all had a great time. I would like
to thank everyone who attended for participating in this successful event, and
especially Julie, for being the best hostess and her roommates for tolerating
the Reverent family’s presence.
02.29.2004