Sunday, August 28, 2011

Habitat for Humanity/ Diamond Head Hike

Saturday turned out to be pretty awesome.  Kelsey was going to volunteer at Habitat for Humanity.  She had done projects for them in the past.  I had always wanted to, so I signed up the day before and we both trekked out to the build site Saturday morning at 8 am.  I have no building experience whatsoever, but the other people there were really nice and were patient (Thank God!)

We worked 8 hours and had about a half hour lunch in the middle.  Most of the day Kelsey and I were painting boards that were going to turn into the front and back porch.  But we also nailed some wood to other wood (I don't really know the terminology used for carpentry).

I didn't know how Habitat for Humanity worked before the build, so Kelsey explained that the person/family whose house is being build helps build the house along side us, and then after that house is complete, said person/family helps Habitat build for the next family in need.  I thought that was pretty awesome.

We got to know a little about the man we were building for.  Turns out he is an army veteran and went to Vietnam and did all that jazz.  He talked to us a lot about music and how he plays the bass guitar and how many songs he knows how to play because he buys the sheet music for them.  He also mentioned how the seventies were awesome and he went to a lot of concerts on the beach here in Hawaii and all the drugs that were there and everything, which I found to be humerous.

I also got to know a little about myself, and no matter how much hand-eye coordination needed to be a skilled athlete, I cannot hammer a nail into wood to save my life.  It's tougher than it looks.  Men just whack the damn thing like three times and the nail is in all snug and pretty-looking.  If I managed to hammer the nail into the wood (and that didn't happen a lot because I always managed to bend the nail and mess everything up), it would end up looking all crappy like a blind ape went at it.  Good thing my major is animal sciences, and not skilled carpentry/craftsmanship.

After volunteering for Habitat, all my roommates, some kids from the ASH program, and myself just hung out for the rest of the night.

My father scared the absolute $#!% out of my that night.  He called at about 10:30 my time, which would have been 3:30 in the morning back home.  I thought someone had died or some other tragic event just happened.  I freaked out too much to answer the phone, and waited until he left a voicemail.  When I listened to it, he said he was just calling since he was at work (working midnights) and thought the time difference would make things easier just to talk and catch up.

Welp, Dad, you scared the absolute piss out of me, so thanks for that.

Love you.

I called him back and we chatted for a bit until things got busy then he left me to the rest of my night, which was pretty uneventful but fun all the same.

Sunday (today) we met up with the other kids in our program to hike up Diamond Head, a famous climb in Oahu that has an amazing view at the top.  It was crazy cool.  I would recommend hiking it.  It wasn't as high and didn't take as long as I thought it would, and it cost like $5 a car to do it.  It was an actual path that had guardrails and whatnot, and parts were going up stairs, through a cave, and a sprial staircase.  After realizing just how out of shape I was from climbing those effing stairs, I was at the top with a fabulous view and breeze.  It makes you realize just how beautiful Hawaii actually is.

The rest of the day I lounged around, nothing special.  Caught up on some homework (or started to), then wrote thigs blog.  Should probably be reading for my microbiology class right now.  I guess I'll end this post.

Aloha!

Saturday, August 27, 2011

First Week of Classes

My first weekend in Hawaii went by in a flash.  Shane and his roommates are super nice and told us like everything there is to do on the island (which is a lot).  We went to the beach and downtown Honolulu and had a good time.

I met my roommates and they're all really nice!  We've done a bunch of stuff together and want to do a lot more!  I'm sharing my room with Kelsey, and Janelle and Esther are in the other room in our apartment.

As for our apartment.... I don't know what to say about that.  It's not like Bromley Hall at Illinois, that's for sure.  It's an older building and everything's not perfect, but I don't plan on spending that much time in here anyway.

Sunday, we had our orientation for our ASH program.  Our director, Anna, is really nice.  I think she'll work out well.  We met the other students in the program, and then we went on a tour of the island with this crazy tour guide lady who told a few good jokes.  We saw different beaches, coves, a cemetery, a great reef for snorkling, and learned a lot about the island in general.

Fun fact:  Did you know there are no bilboards on the island?  They were all taken down a long time ago because they wanted everyone to look at the beautiful view instead of the ads.

Also:  There are no seagulls on the island, either.  The water is too warm for them.

Monday was my first day of class.  Syllabus day - my favorite day of the year!  I don't think HAW 100 will be what I was originally expecting.  I thought it was going t obe more of a language course to get me around the island, but it might turn out to be more about the island in general and it's culture and history, which will be interesting all the same.

MICR 130 might be my hardest class of the semester, going off my first impression.  The professor only took 5 minutes of the class to explain the syllabus and that this course was going to go at a pretty decent speed.  I don't think he was kidding.  At least he doesn't have an accent.

ANSC 200 might be my favorite class.  The professor is pretty cool.  We watched a youtube video of a kitten frightened by two apples the first day.  It was adorable.

I went to the gym that day.  It may have been the dumbest place to ever come to existence and still be a place of business.  The only perk about the place was that students got in free.  First of all, you walk in and it's like a little dump.  The gym at the Community Center in Geneseo was 10x better.  Even the basement of Bromley hall blew it out of the water.

It was janky too.  There were like 20 small lockers, all without locks, and the employees make you put your bags in there.  There are also signs saying that the gym is not responsible for lost or stolen items.  Great, right?

Second of all, you need to bring your own towel.  We went to sign in and the guy asked to see our towels.  Kelsey and I looked at eachother like wtf.  Apparently, if you don't have a towel, you can't work out.  But there was a promotion going on and we signed up and receieved a free towel.  I think they do that because 1) who the hell brings their own towel without prior knowledge and 2) he didn't want to send us back home sullen, downtrodden, and bad-mouthing the gym.  Which I'm doing anyways.  Sucks to suck. 

Third of all, you couldn't use the cardio machines without signing up to use them at the front desk.  If I was on the treadmill and wanted to transfer to the empty stationary bike right beside me, I had to make a detour to the front desk so they could check me into the machine.  And here's the kicker: you can only be on the cardio machine for 1/2 hour.  Max.

I also heard through the grapevine that cut-off t-shirts are not allowed.  Pardon my language, but that's the douche-iest place ever.

Tuesday (or Syllabus Day Part II) was decent.  I only had two classes, so I thought I was going to get done super early.  It felt a little longer than I thought it would, considering both classes are longer than an hour.  But I still got done before noon.

I was the first of my roommates to get done with class, so I basically lounged around and waited til they got out of class.  Then we went to the beach for a solid twenty minutes.  I'm really starting to dislike the bus system around here.  We went back and ate dinner, and then strolled around campus and towards downtown Honolulu just for something to do.  Kelsey introduced me to Mochi, a Japanese (I believe) dessert consisting of a ball of tasteless dough with ice cream in the middle.  It was heavenly.  It combined two of my favorite things of food: ice cream and the texture of bread.  Deliciousness all up in my mouth.  Then we came back and hit the sack.

Wednesday wasn't too bad.  In two of my classes it was like student introduction day, AKA lame icebreakers from middle school to ease the tension.  Nobody wants to do them, but we'd rather do them instead of homework so I'm not complaining.

I don't really want to talk about school-related stories on this blog because, let's be honest, who even wants to hear about them?  We all go to school, and school is school whether you're in Illinois or Hawaii.  Unless I have something truly amusing to say about school, I'm going to use this blog to pretend like I don't go to school.

But I wouldn't pass up saying that right now U of I is being dearly missed.

After class Wednesday I ran around town by myself doing some errands.  I stopped at the humane society because it's really close to my building and I wanted to look around and stuff.  I asked about volunteer opportunities assisting with surgeries or even walking the dogs or something.  They seemed super nice there and in need of volunteers, so I hope I get a call back!

Then I went to a publishing place to pick up a book I needed for one of my classes.  Found it easily and life was good.

Right by the publishing place was a little market which was perfect because I needed to fill out a paper for one of my classes on prices of animal meats and their byproducts.  I didn't find absolutely everything, but most of it I did.  When I needed to know where something was, I conveniently asked the cute employee.  Bonus.

Thursday was great.  I got out of class before noon so my roommate Esther and I went to the beach for a few hours.  I was even productive and took some notes for my bio lab.  Studying and sunbathing you could call it.

Or learned and burned.

Friday was the best day on the island yet.  All of my roommates were out of class relatively early, so we navigated to Hanauma Bay which is famous for its reefs and sea life.  We bought snorkeling gear and spent like an hour and a half searching the reefs.  We found all kinds of fish, some were huge and were colored like a rainbow.  It was amazing.  But no turtles =[  Then we hung out on the beach for a while.  I even opted to be buried in the sand, just for funsies.

On the walk back to the bus stop, I found a coconut hanging out on the side of the road.  Another fun fact: Did you know you can mail coconuts?  Like straight-up write the address right on the coconut and ship it away.  Parents:  you shall be receiving my fine find once I figure out where a post office is.

We came back and there was a bunch of stuff we could do, including a foam party somewhere, we were were kind of exhausted so we all just ordered pizza and hung out, planning the rest of the weekend.

Post on that soon!!

Aloha!

Monday, August 22, 2011

Upon Arrival

My mom, dad, and I left our house a little after five in the morning, just to give us ample time so I wouldn't freak out about being late.  Our flight was at eleven so we made it in plenty of time.  We waited for Tawni and her parents to get there, then we said our goodbyes at security, and left our parents for FOUR MONTHS.  I was a little sad, but more wanting to make sure we found our gate and thinking about the long flight ahead of us.  I didn't even cry when I left my parents.  Sorry, guys =[

We got into Phoenix around 12:30-ish maybe.  We had an hour before our next flight so we found our gate (rather easily) and got some food before we boarded.

So the flight was really long.  Like REALLY long.  It wasn't too bad going from O'Hare to Phoenix, but from there to Honolulu was incredibly long and would have been dull if it weren't for meeting a super nice girl in my program on the flight and befriending her and the two guys she sat next to.  It was like a 6+ hour flight with not too much to do.  Tawni couldn't even paint her nails.  Sorry, flight attendant.

The flight was also really cold.  I guess that's what I get for boarding wearing shorts and a tank top without a sweatshirt in my carry-on.  That sucked a bit.

Flying over the ocean wasn't as bad or scary as I thought it was going to be.  With my mind on the final destination slash my frostbitten toes I almost  forgot about the vast water beneath us.

Arriving in Honolulu was really cool.  One of the guys said the view wasn't going to be very spectacular - but he was wrong.  You could see the mountains and the beaches and everything.  Incredible.

We got there around 5:30-ish Hawaii time.  Once we got off the airplane, there wasn't a lady in a hula skirt handing out leis to everyone like I sort of expected there to be.  I saw a few people with leis but nobody passing them out, which was kind of lame.

The wonderful Shane met Tawni and I at baggage claim and drove us back to his house in Trixie the tahoe.  He even brought both of us our very own leis!  It was super cute.  No matter where you drive on the island,  you always get a beautiful view.  Tawni and I were completely amazed at how  gorgeous everything was.  We stopped at the beach for a few minutes just because we could.  I don't think going to the beach will ever get old.

We got to his house and met his roommates Nick and Zach.  Then we went for a nice 2-mile night run just because.  We came back and made spaghetti and had a nice family meal.  We finally crashed around midnight (Hawaii time).

And that was day one.  I can't wait to see what all these four months are going to bring.

Aloha!

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Last Night at Home

This is it.  I'm all packed, bags in the car, the whole sha-bang.  In less than 12 hours I will be on my way to the airport.  I'm both thrilled and nervous.  Mostly nervous for the flight.  I don't like driving over bridges, so there's no way I'm going to handle flying over the ocean for 5+ hours well.  Of course I'll miss my parents and everyone from home and school.  But in a way it's kind of like the night before Christmas, and I feel like a little kid who still believes in Santa Claus.

Anyway.  I should probably quadruple check everything and see if there's anything else left in my room to clean.

Wanna know how I packed?  Course you do. Well here is the Before picture:
Notice the different bags everywhere, and especially the blank sheets of paper and red Sharpie in the bottom-right corner.

Let me just tell you that I am a fabulous packer.  Between inheriting my mother's organizational traits and my father's anal traits, I had this down to a T.  I had a pile for things that could not be a carry-on item, and then everything else.  Then I  separated every single thing that I was bringing to Hawaii into four bags.  I bought vacuum bags, which were a lifesaver.  If it hadn't have been for them, I'd be wasting more money to fly more bags to Honolulu.

Here come in my fantastical organization skills.  I had my master list of everything I was bringing, and I color-coded each bag with a different colored pencil to cross off on my master list.  I also wrote each item on different pieces of paper with the Sharpie for each bag.  There's no way I forgot anything.

I probably just jinxed myself.

I may be a freak of nature.

Okay.  So after getting everything out of my room, I went on a cleaning frenzy.  I mean I cleaned out my closet washed my sheets, used Windex and Pledge, the whole nine yards.  I vacuumed every visible square inch of carpet.  I even cleaned out every single solitary hair out of my three brushes.

I really am a freak.  Here's the After picture:

If I'm not yet mentally ready, at least my room and bags are.

Aloha =]

Monday, August 15, 2011

All registered!

And it wasn't even that complicated!  Compared to registering at Illinois, at least.  There was only one animal sciences class that was restricted and needed consent but I got that taken care of and I'm good to go!  I'm taking 14 hours, which isn't bad, and everything's going to transfer back.  This is what I'm taking:

ANSC 200 Humans, Animals, and Agriculture (3) (2 Lec, 1 3-hr Lab) Introduction to animal agriculture, animal science, and the use of animals by humans. Ethics and importance of human use of animals in agriculture are emphasized. DB

ANSC 446 Genes and Animal Biology (3) An understanding of animal biology at the level of genes and their regulations; emphasis on gene structure, recombinant DNA, transgenic animals and functional genomics being used for agricultural, nutritional and biomedical sciences. Open to nonmajors. A-F only. Pre: 301, BIOL 171 or ZOOL 101; or consent.

MICR 130 General Microbiology (3) Role of microorganisms; how they affect people, property, and the environment. A basic survey course covering broad aspects of biochemistry, genetics, molecular biology, and physiology; host-parasite relationships, public health, bacterial, mycotic and viral diseases; epidemiology; ecology of soils and water; environmental pollution; food microbiology; industrial applications at an introductory level. Not open to those with credit in 351 or equivalent. DB

MICR 140L Microbiology Laboratory (2) (2 2-hr Lab) Primarily for students in nursing and dental hygiene. Pre: 130 (or concurrent). DY

HAW 100 Language in Hawai'i: A Survival Kit for Life in Hawai'i (3) Introduction to Hawaiian language and language related issues to enhance communicative experience in Hawai'i, including an examination of place names, pronunciation, common expressions, relation to Pidgin, Polynesian and Asian languages, political issues and intercultural conflict. DS

Now I guess I should drop my classes that I signed up to take at Illinois this fall.  It's starting to sink in that I'm actually leaving and studying in Hawaii.  Holy moses.  Gotta pack!

Aloha!

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Roommate Crisis

I may look back on this a few weeks from now and laugh at the silliness and level of which I'm currently freaking out at right now, but there's been a bit of a problem... Tawni and I are not roommates.

You'd think when you requested a person to be your roommate, they'd follow through with your desires.  Guess not.

We perfectly coordinated our housing applications, and after an INTENSE session of freaking out when neither of us got the dorm we both applied for, we calmed down to see that we had both been put in the same building.  If they put us both in the same building we're for sure roommates.

Sanity restored.

JUST KIDDING.

I looked this morning and saw that Tawni Lynn Ricketts is, in fact, NOT my roommate.  You'd think Hawaii could it together and cooperate with roommate requests.  Is it really that big of an issue?  We're in the same building for Lord's Sake.  If I wasn't about to be living in paradise, I'd be absolutely livid.  Fortunately, one of the girls in my ASH program who I semi-know is one of my roommates, and that makes life a little better.

I believe there's a period of time where if students are unhappy with their living situations, they may request a room change.  I feel this needs to be done, I was so stoked to actually be living with @ShakeUrTawnTawn.  Let's make this happen.

Aloha. Grrrrrr.