Yukai Daiko at UCLA

Peter is a third year Electrical Engineering major at UCLA. This is his first year playing taiko after being closely aquainted with the group for two years. He loves the convienience of living in the dorms, especially when it comes to not having to cook food. He has a strong appreciation for the visual and musical arts that matches his passion for his major. In his free time, Peter likes to play video games, learn new things, excercise, and hang out with friends! He looks forward to learning how to play a percussion instrument for the first time as a new member of Yukai Daiko.

Jaclyn loves to play taiko and is a proud member of Generation 5 of Yukai. She can be quiet, but she enjoys the company of others and likes meeting new people. She is terrible at time management, but that's okay because Danny has promised to build her a time machine. She loves animals and even thinks alligators and lemurs are cute. She is fascinated by different languages, and hopes to one day be multilingual. Even though life can be tough and she is often stressed, Jaclyn is a determined and hard-working individual who constantly strives to make her parents, Alex and Mike, proud. In her dreams she likes to imagine that she is taller than Kevin, owns a domesticated Velociraptor, and can freeze time.

Danny is a firm believer in the power of the drum to unite a motley crew of vagabonds and wayward souls, and is proud to count himself among their ranks. Now enjoying his fifth year with Yukai, he finds himself amazed at all the little things he continues to learn every time he picks up a pair of bachi. The following statements about Danny may or may not be true:

1. One of his greatest joys comes from watching newbies grow up.
2. The alumni he has known throughout his Yukai career outnumber the group's current members.
3. He enjoys writing about himself in the third person.

Steve is a third year ChemE major and a level 2 Taiko Ranger. Besides defeating the forces of evil with his taiko playing, Steve likes to play boardgames, watch football, and calculate energy balances. He is a man of few words.

Marty is a returning Yukai member from G-dale (Glendale), California! He thanks the Lord for bringing him into the amazing world of taiko alongside such an awesome and fun-loving team of individuals that is Yukai. Though a fairly mellow personality on average, Marty has been acclaimed as a "ball of energy" when he performs taiko, suggesting that he will continue playing taiko for many years to come. Aside from "taiko-ing", Marty also likes to sing and to play clarinet, piano, and guitar (but he sucks at Guitar Hero), and has even written and performed a few original tunes. (Check his music out on MySpace and leave a comment so he knows you did! www.myspace.com/martinthurman) He also enjoys studying the Bible and playing volleyball. After watching the movie Cloverfield in theaters, Marty made up this quote, which is completely random and irrelevant, but because he wants to end this biography with a cool, somewhat profound, original quote, here it is: "Better to die in love than to live in regret." Ah-ha! The end.

Tiffany is a senior Political Science major living up her 3rd year of taiko in Yukai. Possible topics to talk about with Tiffany that will make her crazily excited enough that it will make you wish you hadn't brought it up: Political Science Game Theory, Coffee Prince, Food, and of course Taiko.... However, the highest quality time spent with her consists of falling asleep and taking a nap during one on one time. ZzzzZzzzzz.....mmmmmmm.

Oddly enough, Stephanie is a 3rd year Biochemistry major as well as 3rd year Yukai member (G4 alert!) who has been thoroughly enjoying her life as a percussionist-of-sorts for a number of years. As always, she is very thankful for all her fellow Yukai members who never cease to teach her something new about taiko and about the lil' crazy random happenstances of life. When not in class, doing homework, or playing taiko, she can be found napping, snacking, reading manga, drinking copious amounts of hot tea, and getting hooked on great shows like Doctor Who and Psych (despite the deleterious effects it has on her sleeping habits).

Amy's a 3rd year transfer WAC Dance major. For the people out there who don't know WAC it's "World Arts and Culture". She's been dancing ever since she was five years old and has done so many different styles of dance she can't even begin to name them all! She loves to perform which is one reason why she loves being in Yukai. If Amy can't dance away her stress she can just bang a drum. . .so to speak. When she has free time, key word "when", she can be found doing a number of thing: eating (a lot), sleeping, watching movies and tv, playing a couple video games here and there, and hanging out with friends when she can. She loves to laugh and happens to be very fond of jokes of the dirty nature. (Just saying!) Two of her favorite quotes at the moment are:

"A woman is like a tea bag - you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water."
"Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon."

Michael is a second year law student who is glad that Yukai Daiko doesn't discriminate against graduate students. He has been involved with the art of taiko for an embarrassingly long time, including a four-year tenure with UCSD's Asayake Taiko, and is currently enjoying his second year with Yukai. His interests include playing games of all sorts and dabbling in moviemaking, and he has been known to drive far and wide in pursuit of delicious food. Mike's closet currently contains, among other things, two suits, one sportcoat, six dress shirts, two lightsabers, eight masks, and five capes. He may or may not be a superhero, and the answer to this question is possibly a matter of national security. Maybe.

When Kevin isn't playing Taiko or videogames, he's...oh wait, he's always playing Taiko or videogames. He has, however, recently expanded his interests to include D&D, Magic, and generally anything that will give him nerd points. He tries not to let trivial things like homework and studying get in the way of his well-being, and has been known to treat people to dorm food from time to time. He is unhealthily fond of puns, and it's his big secret that he's really only taking Japanese to learn more of them.

Loraine is thoroughly enjoying her first year at UCLA, mainly because the food is so ridiculously good. In addition to stealing nap time inbetween classes, she enjoys exploring the wide world of Hulu, one episode at a time. She is ecstatic to join taiko this year for the hip crowd, fierce ninja pants, and sick beats.

Erik is a 4th year Atmospheric Science major. Throughout college he has been powered quite oftentimes by energy drinks and has accumulated something of a collection of various ones within his bloodstream. On his spare time he enjoys listening to music, doing magic tricks and eating ice cream on his bed. As of now, he is very fond of music in motion: "Distortion is the necessary polar of order. To express distortion is to imply order and to express order is to acknowledge disorder."

Florence is a first year majoring in Mathematics/Applied Science. This is her first year joining Yukai Daiko. There are three facts about her:

1. She likes to make weird noises, such as *RAWR* *AGH* *ey*... etc because she is abnormal...
2. She listens to any kind of music and sings with it. She believes some day she will compose her own masterpiece on piano.
3. She is a cheerful and loud person who likes to make a LOT of friends.

The last thing she wants to say here is... "She loves her ordinary life!" =)

Is currently working with Erik on their song, Infection, and thus is reluctant to spend any of his scarce supply of creative juices on writing a Bio.

Kristin is extremely grateful to have found this loving family called yukai and to be part of an active, united, innovative, patient, forward-bound generation 5, hollaaaa!!!!! She is the reigning huggie bear champion as well as part of the dynamic duo of shake 'n bake. Outside of taiko, she likes to sing in the shower, take a lot of jumping pictures, and laugh really loud. Kristin's childhood dream was to be an ice cream taste tester. It could still happen.

As a newbie in Yukai (woot G6!), Hotaru's super excited to learn more about the music, the culture, the rhythm, the team: everything that Taiko has to offer her. Other than a taiko player, Hotaru's also a lab assistant, employee of ASUCLA, and a Student Leader for Sproul Hall (yes...she likes to be busy). If you have any questions about anything, don't hesistate to talk to me! I'm an open book and love talking about myself :D
In the little spare time that she has, she likes to watch ridiculous Japanese TV shows on Youtube, eat lots and lots of sweets, catch up with her friends, read blogs, and study for her Physics, Chem, and LS courses (In the last year and a half, she's only taken 2 non-math/science courses....*sigh* South Campus)

Isabella Niu is a fourth year Physiological Science major, and a 4th year Yukai 'oldie' of Generation 3. She is currently the director of this wonderful percussion group with her co, Jess Yun (4 down), and is learning what it truly means to be a leader through trial and error. When she finds time to think about things outside of taiko, her mind often dwells on: 1) food, 2) sleep, 3) Offee her coffee plant (or what's left of it), 4) fluffy hamsters named Chibi, and eventually 5) schoolwork. Next year, she is planning on attending Medical School - location still TBA, but hopefully somewhere with a taiko group close by. Recently, tabloids suggest that Isabella is also the president of the Yukai Snail Dating Service that known for its "snail-rageously" slow pace of business. But, hey, it's just gossip right? Who believes that!

Alex is a 4th year bioengineer. If he were a computer, he'd have a decent hard drive, a quick single core processor (he can't multi-task), and a really old stick of RAM, i.e. he can't remember more than 3 things without writing it down or putting it on his calendar and his processor slows down dramatically without consistent reboots (sleep and food). He's good for many things as long as you reboot him before use. Full technical specs of the Alex-computer: 2.4 GHz Intel Celeron Processor, 640 GB Hard Drive, and 512 MB RAM.

Ms. Jana Yokoyama makes her return to academia *Bing!* She continues to study the inter workings of the universe and all the peeps that bounce about inside. UCLA has welcomed Jana back by hella hiking up tuition fees and canceling her major:(- But fear not! For in tandem with rekindling her love affair with taiko, Jana is determined to take advantage of resources, her youth, and her idealism to transform situations. This year Jana aims to... learn how to express herself via spoken-word, grow as a taiko player in ALL directions,and to work on strengthening her relationships with friends and family. Jana is also trying VERY HARD to no longer eats COWS, so if you catch her consuming a beef taco you have the blessing of this bio to smack the sacrilege from hands- she has loved meat since birth and often retrogresses back to instinct. Jana will forever love taiko's ability to... and the people it brings together <3.

Jessica is a 4th year Design|Media Arts major and a 3rd year Yukai oldie of generation 4~ As a current director of this group with her supah-co. Invisabella (aka Isa) she is learning many things such as how to balance her life among taiko time, personal time, friend(s outside of yukai) time, and school time. She feels that the latter three may be suffering a bit. She also has learned that she has a difficult time verbalizing many things due to her overuse of emoticons and thus ends up explaining herself often in made up words and sound effects :D In her "free time" Jessica likes to draw... menial chores like eating and sleeping can be done at later times.... but if she could have magical powers, one of them would be the ability to not have to sleep. It'd make life much easier. But hey, as they say~ that's life, and that's the way she's gonna live it.