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!

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