I'm a transplant from Hawai'i. I moved to Washington partly for school and partly to get off the sinking island before it takes me under with it. I've been involved with music for going on 19 years. I started when I was seven with the violin which I absolutely hated (too squeaky) but stuck it out for six long, grueling years before discovering the viola which I play now and adore. I've been involved in symphonies and chamber orchestras for just about my entire musical life. Quartets are my favorite form of ensemble. I have been lucky to be in two, the first lasting for four years and the most recent lasting for nearly seven. (I became my own Yoko Ono and broke up the "band" when I up and left for Washington.) I first became interested in Taiko when I was but a young lass at a festival in Hawai'i (because there's such a shortage of Asian cultural expression...sarcasm). I remember being completely amazed and thinking "Dude! I gotta try dat!" Since then I've tried to attend the Hawai'i Matsuri Taiko Festival every year and even managed to drag a couple of friends along...one of them being Jina who coincidentally happens to also be an apprentice member. Unfortunately scheduling conflicts kept me from participating. I've managed to see a couple of Taiko groups in Seattle at events such as WOMAD and Folklife and they rekindled my interest. Lo and behold at a phone booth in downtown Uwajimaya there was a flyer advertising a workshop sponsored by SKT. The rest, as you can see, is history. Yay!