Tuesday, February 8, 2011

A Not-so-friendly Reminder

Sometimes it's good to remember that when you assume, you'll eventually end up making an "ass" out of "u" and "me." Words of wisdom from yours truly. Mais c'est la vie, quel dommage, and life must go on!

Monday, January 31, 2011

Chinese New Year

Well, it's that time again...much has changed in the past year.

Honolulu had it's last celebration on Saturday, so I went with a haole boy and some of my other friends. It was a much different experience this way. I knew so much more (and my knowledge really is pathetic) of the food, the activities, the clothing, just everything than the guy I was with. It really made me realize how deeply connected I feel to the Chinese culture.

I mentioned this excursion to my dad. He laughed out loud and remarked that if I did indeed end up marrying a white boy, it would be an interracial marriage. I think he meant intercultural, but then again, he probably meant precisely what he said.

And in case you were wondering, I did let the white boy hold my hand. I'm also a creeper and happen to know his personal blog (which he may or may not know that I have access to), and yes, he did mention me...bwahahaha.

The funny part? Originally my housemate S was invited by Will (the one with the car) to go out for a night in Chinatown. So she asked that me, Emily, and haole boy would get to come too because she didn't wanna go on a date with Will. Will agreed, but said we'd have to squish in the back since he was bringing his Chinese friend, Song. That's right, we fit 6 into a four-person car. And drove for an hour. Beat that.

Well, S and Song really hit it off (poor Will). After Chinatown, we were all dropped off. 5 mins later, S lets us all know that Song has invited her to get something to eat. He picks her up in his convertible and they drive away.

And the kicker? Apparently while finishing their icecream outside the local grocery store, they saw Will. Oops.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Busy Bee

I am a masochist.

I perform much better when I am ridiculously busy. Currently, I am in either in class or at work from 8am until 8pm every day. Then I cram homework until midnight or later, then get up somewhere between 6-7am. I am super tired, my mood swings from super happy to despondent, to verge of anger every few hours. I love work, I love school, I almost love homework, 40 min lunch and dinner breaks are heaven, and I CANNOT wait until the weekend.

And yet, I did the same thing last semester and received the best grades I've gotten since 4th grade. Go figure.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Beach and Breakups

So Christmas Break was amazing. I wish I could have spent more time with my Utah friends, but being in Vegas with my fam was also priceless. The Pitbull concert for New Years wasn't half bad either. ;)

Anyway, the moment I arrive in Hawaii, all the drama I'd left behind is once again unleashed...

One of my best friends here broke up with his girl of nearly two years over the holiday. I had assumed he wanted a listening, commiserating ear, but no. He wanted to date me. I tried to explain that it was way to weird to go from just close friends to lovers in a matter of minutes, but he wasn't having any of that. It's been two weeks since he confessed his love for me and his desire to take me to the temple. School started barely two weeks ago. So, I have a new ruined friendship on my hands.

My first weekend back, two of my girls got a surfboard. So we tried to paddle from Bikini Beach to Pounders with all three of us on top of it. Needless to say, it didn't go very well. But it was a ton of fun.

The long weekend was spent at Sunset Beach, seeing The Green Hornet (hilarious), church, weekly phone-call home, homework, Surfin' Tacos, Walmart run, and work. My new job requires that I Skype with international students for 10 hours every week. It's a real pain for me to try and reschedule, especially since most of my students are in Mongolia. So I went in on Monday and spent three hours in the office alone. Of course almost half of my students didn't even show up for their appointed time...but that's okay. I sat and watched netflix during the time I had no one to talk to--don't tell the boss! haha.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Roof over our heads

My roomie and I were really bored. So we decided to make a quick trick to Foodland. It was grey outside, but it had been all day. We began our ten-minute walk with high spirits--excited to finally have escaped from our a/c-less dorm room.

It wasn't until we were about 1/3 into our journey that it began to sprinkle. As most know, Hawaiian rain is nothing to worry about. It rains for awhile and then stops. We continued walking. About two steps later, it was pouring. It is important to remember when traveling that when it rains in Hawaii, it is buckets for five minutes, and then sun. Usually. Probably about 99% of the time. Generally. Yeah.

Roomie and I were nonplussed. We quickly slipped under a palm tree and remained predominately dry. Just as suspected, the rain stopped approximately 2 minutes later.

We continued our journey, walking a bit faster than before--just in case. We turned the corner down another street and were rewarded with another torrent of rain. And of course, this was the one street without palm trees of any kind.

After shrieking with laughter and running a few yards down the street, I had the brilliant idea that we take refuge under the eaves of someone's house. So we did.

Around 25 minutes later (apparently this was the other 1% of Hawiian rain trends) the rain had almost stopped. Just a tiny bit of sprinkling. We edged from under the roof, only to be met with the tenants of the home who had been sitting in their open garage.

Roomie exclaimed, "Thanks for letting us use your house!!" She was met with stifled laughter. My response was somewhat less controlled as I doubled over in near hysterics.

Giggling, we dashed down the street, partly to avoid any more rain and partly to remove ourselves from the awkward situation. We got some pizza, browsed the one clothing store in our small town, and checked out the supermarket for the 3rd time that week.

The walk home was uneventful. No rain, no random nice people offered us a ride home, just me and Roomie dragging our feet back to our stuffy room.

Funny thing is, this happened again yesterday. Only this time, I was walking home with several house mates and I had a date in 30 mins. We took shelter for about 10 mins under a different house, but when the rain didn't seem to be stopping, we decided to run home.

Luckily, someone did take pity on us--but not until we were 3/4 of the way there. We were drenched. And yet, I changed my outfit, dried my hair, reapplied makeup, and was completely ready for my date with time to spare. I'm just that awesome.


The funny thing is, I have 4 umbrellas. Two super huge ones, and two mini ones. Now if only I could remember to use them...

But if you were thinking about a Christmas gift, this would be great:

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Hello World

I have recently inspired by one of the blogs I follow to "jump start" my blogging. Or in my case, restart it. I looked at the suggestions, and have decided to disregard all of them because they seem boring. BUT I will be posting more often. Hopefully. For sure. Yeah, for sure.

So...in April I went to graduation. Lot's of my other friends were there. I went home in June, helped my fam move to Vegas, and got back to School in mid-July. Fall semester has just begun. I"m taking 18 credits. Actually, that has a kind of funny story.

I have been going back and forth on getting a PSYC minor and I keep deciding against it and then thinking about it again. So, in a mad rush on Thursday, I decided to add Developmental Psyc. On friday I begged the teacher, and SUCCESS! I'm in. I had to have my adviser approve it though. She counted up my credits and remarked that 18 was a very full load. I gave her one of those two-thumbs-up-smiling-I-can-do it grins and exclaimed, "I'm excited!!" She laughed. So 18 credits and 19-hour work week. I really am stoked.

I have a new roommate. She's from Washington. I really, really, really like her. I just joined TESOL Society, Mongolian, and Tahitian Club (I will learn that dance, dang it!).

Now I'm going to the beach. It's only just above 70 outside, so it's a bit chilly. Hopefully it warms up. To the last day of relaxation!! :)

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Winter Semester

Fall semester went well, it was pretty stressful near the end as I had 5 finals on the same day and left for the airport an hour after my last final. Still I managed to get the grades I was hoping for except in Chinese. However, I am determined to get the best grade ever in Chinese this semester--we'll see how that goes.

Christmas break was spectacular, I got to do all of the things that I had hoped to accomplish and more. Clubbing, modeling, shopping and sledding were some of the highlights. Although I'll admit that Utah is just too cold for me now.

So far for this semester, work is pretty good. Everything seems to be flowing quite nicely--so far we haven't had any major problems unlike last semester where it seemed like anything that could go wrong, did.

I guess I should mention that my old roommate, Emma, applied for an internship in Florida working at Disney World. Luckily she was accepted, so she'll be spending the next 9 months working in the hotels as she is a Tourism Management Major. So for this semester I have a new roommate, Kiki, who is a freshman from Hong Kong. I'm really excited to become better acquainted with her.

It's a little sad walking around campus and realizing that many of my friends either graduated or left for their missions or simply ran out of money and won't be returning, if at all, for a few more years. However, the people that remain have been overjoyed to see me and I've had plenty of activities to keep me busy.

The beginning of the work was mostly just work and getting ready for school. On saturday, however, I went to the beach with a bunch of girls from Mongolia and a recent transfer student from Denver. I definitely got sunburnt around my eyes, so I looked like I'd been crying or something, but it was still a lot of fun.

Directly after this, I went out to dinner with some friends from Hong Kong. We went to a local restaurant, Chop Suey, and afterward had a sweet red bean soup that Yoko made for us. To everyone's surprise, I thought it was pretty good. After such a full day (spent mostly at the beach which is enough to drain anyone's energy) I got home around 7 and was asleep by 8:30pm.

Today was church as usual and afterward I went to choir as most of my friends are in it. But I spent the rest of the day just lazing around and talking to friends/family back on the mainland.

It was nice being in Utah for awhile, but I must admit that I cm glad to be back "home" now. Of course, I've scheduled another mainland visit this summer, but until then I'll be working on my tan. :)