(Above) Vanessa He (second row, far left) with her squadron Charlie Company at dawn, at the U.S. Naval Academy Summer Seminar in Annapolis, Maryland. Photo courtesy of Vanessa He (’26).
While August 4, 2025, marked the beginning of the new school year, it also meant the end of summer adventures for a handful of HBA students who kept themselves busy with a variety of activities in and out of state.
Photograph courtesy of Olivia Kim (’26).
In the summer, Olivia Kim, a senior, worked at HBA’s elementary summer program. Jonathan Wynes, high school band teacher, recommended the job to Kim because of her prior babysitting experience. Her job as a summer program leader entails watching over an assigned group students while planning out fun activities for them to do. “[We did] activities like crafts, cooking, baking, different sorts of tag games, and science,” she said. “One time we made dirt pudding cups, and then another time we made marshmallow slime, which was just marshmallows melted with cornstarch. A lot of my inspiration came from Pinterest.” Kim also accompanied the students on field trips to places such as the Pearl Harbor Memorial, Honolulu Zoo, the movie theater, and Dave & Buster’s. Kim enjoys the time she gets to spend with the students. “They’re very adorable and funny to be around, so even though it was like eight hours a day, I had a lot of fun talking and getting to know the kids there. Definitely one of the highlights of my summer,” she said. Kim continues to work for the Supplemental Program in the new school year as an After School Enrichment Program (ASEP) leader. She hopes to work again during the summer before she goes to college. She highly recommends the position to students looking for their first job because “it’s a good work experience, environment, and is flexible.”
Vanessa He, a senior, spent a week of her summer attending the U.S. Naval Academy Summer Seminar in Annapolis, Maryland. With high school graduation just around the corner, she’s considering a career in the military and wanted to get a feel for military life and culture. “[I saw] videos where it’s super intense and all that stuff. I wanted to see if I was willing to spend four years of my life there and commit five years after that to the Navy. I applied to the U.S. Naval Academy specifically because it was one of the colleges on my list. The military gives you free college tuition in exchange for your service, so I’m planning to do that while majoring in electrical engineering. I’m also considering a graduate degree in Neuroscience,” she said. Throughout the week at the academy, she had to wake up at five in the morning for physical training with her company. “I was in Charlie Company. All of us would gather around outside our dorms and then run down together and do our physical training. After that, we would have classes and then squadron time. If you were on the Super Platoon, which I was not, you would have to rehearse and do the cadence stuff where you turn and practice saluting while shouting phrases of attention on top of those,” she said. He hopes to participate in another U.S. Military Summer Seminar next year before she begins her first year in college.
Photo courtesy of Lauren Espiritu (’26).
Lauren Espiritu, a senior, participated in the Academy for Hawaii Intelligence Studies (AHIS) Summer Program at UH Mānoa. The program is a free, two-week course on world politics and Espiritu earned three college credits from it. Last school year, the course was highlighted in an HBA Weekly Bulletin and Espiritu decided to sign up so that she had something productive to do over the summer. “The first week was asynchronous, so we got assigned homework to do on our own time. Then the second week we dormed in person at UH Mānoa,” she said. During the second week, the students met for in-person sessions and ended their days playing games, watching spy movies, and doing other team-bonding activities. “For the actual class when we weren’t learning content, our professor, Jaris Grove, would sometimes do college or future questionnaires to give us advice because he’s had 33 jobs, lived in multiple countries, and worked for the president,” she said. Espiritu’s favorite part of the program was going to the Pearl Harbor National Memorial because the professor tasked the group with figuring out questions like how the attack could have been prevented. “It was very interesting, and we had to present it like we were presenting it to some evildoer in that time period,” she explained. For students interested in the program, she cautioned that it is very fast-paced. “The course was so quick that you had to grasp the concepts really fast, which I kind of had a hard time doing. Other than that, I think it’s a really good experience because we met students from outer islands like Kauai, Big Island, and Maui too. If you’re really into history and want to learn more about political science or going into anything government related, you should definitely take the course,” she said.
May Shiraishi, a sophomore, traveled across Europe with her father this past summer. Over 38 days, the duo visited 11 countries, including England, Spain, France, Latvia, Lithuania, Iceland, Ireland, Finland, Norway, Poland, and Estonia. “We mostly went on tours and sightseeing in the cities. Of all the countries, my favorites were Spain, England, and especially Iceland. [We saw] waterfalls and glaciers, and it was really cool.” Shiraishi was impressed by the hospitality they experienced from the locals. “The people throughout Europe were really welcoming and shocked that my dad and I came all the way from Hawaii. I learned a lot about the different cities I visited from the locals because they taught us a lot of facts,” she said. As she looks back on her trip, Shiraishi hopes to return to Europe again soon with her family.
Austin Faildo, a junior, spent most of his summer working at Flexx Fitness Hawaii near Costco in Honolulu. “My uncle and aunt own it, and I wanted to earn some extra cash. I worked for about four days a week and four hours each day, from eight to noon. My job was to help wash and wipe down machines that people used, re-racking weights that people may have left on the ground, vacuuming the floors, restocking the drinks, and washing the towels.” Faildo said that he enjoyed interacting with the gym members and also the overall gym atmosphere. “I felt like we were all one big family. I feel like our gym is special in that aspect, and I really enjoy the positive environment,” he said. Faildo highly recommends this job to other students if they want to make friends while working out and plans to work again next summer.
