Tales of roller derby tournaments, my first full time and in field job, and as a bonus, whatever happens this weekend between my birthday, a pumpkin party, and Halloween.
Talk soon.
Coming soon…
October 23, 2013
Quick Quip
September 12, 2013
Sorry I have been so absent in my blogging. I have been very busy with two jobs, graduate school applications, roller derby, and arranging volunteer experience that I haven’t had a lot of time to blog!
I’ll give you a quick update:
Physical therapy schools have the most frustrating application system. They are trying to move towards a universal application system, called PTCAS (Physical Therapy Centralized Application System). The frustrating part is that even the schools that use this online system also require a secondary and even tertiary applications to the physical therapy department directly and the graduate school directly. It makes me think, “What is the point of having a centralized application system that allows each school to add their own questions and information gathering devices?” If I ever help run a PT school, that will be eliminated. Redundancy is frustrating for everyone.
My job at the coffee shop rocks. I work with some really amazing and fun people. I get to make art in drinks all day. I also get way more hugs per day that I was getting previously. I happened to point out one day that research has suggested that a person participate in at least one hug per hour of work per day to improve mental health and stress levels significantly. After that, I work at hug-central. I love my co-workers.
Joe has been gone on a business trip since Saturday morning. It has been both lonely and beneficial. It’s allowed me some more free time to do what I want without compromise. It’s also made me appreciate all the things I’ve come to love having him around for, like hugs, jokes, bug removal, dinner assistance, back rubs, foot rubs, water our (poor, recently neglected) plants, and everything else. He’s a pretty awesome roommate and boyfriend.
I’ve been watching a lot of Star Trek, the original series, and it is truly an amazing show. Despite Shatner’s deteriorating ability to act throughout the series, I am fascinated by how progressive the show was for it’s time. I also really love the special effects, make-up, and costumes for how wonderfully hokey they are. I have also relatively recently become much more of a fan of Patrick Stewart for recent recognition for supporting women’s rights and speaking out against domestic violence against women. If you haven’t seen some of the PSAs and speeches he’s give, you should look them up on YouTube when you get a chance.
I went to the Kona Farmers’ Fair recently, which is a lot like the Indiana State fair, but with slightly better rides, and a LOT less vendors and activities. It’s pretty much all rides, games, and a few vendors. There is really no 4-H or competitions there to speak of. It was about the size of the county fair in Tipton, plus about 500 more people there and a roller coaster ride that involved one loop.
That’s about all the break I have for now. I’m going to get back to work on my PT applications. Any support and encouragement at random intervals by text or phone calls are greatly supported. I miss my family at times like these for how supportive they’ve always been.
As featured on one of Discovery Channels “Top 10 Deadliest Animals” shows, this snail is unfortunately not commonly heard of and causes several tourists to go to the hospital because they want to pick up the pretty shell. They’re not uncommon here, but they’re also not overly abundant.
Hawaiian Cultural Note: Instead of saying “No, Thank you,” people in Hawaii commonly say “No need.” Often times it’s said and immediately followed by the noun or verb being referred to, such as “No need receipt” or “No need wash.”
Time for a Tide Pool
August 9, 2013
So at work, this is the first latte art I have gotten a chance to take a picture of. I have been working on my latte pours, but the still come out as blobs. This is one of my blobs, turned art:
These are pictures from the coffee shop where I work. 🙂
I got to go down to my favorite beach in the morning and saw the really low tide pools full of life. Check out my videos. 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-25YugmkVQ
Big Little Island
August 2, 2013
So far i am enjoying both of my jobs. I like the creativity of making coffee a little bit more, so soon should be getting more hours there. When my coffee pours start to become artistic and neat looking, I will try to post pictures. Until then, there’s no need to show off my amorphous blobs.
This is what we found after we passed the “Road Closed” sign by nearly a mile of winding road.
This is Huli chicken. It’s Filipino, I think. It’s delicious and you buy it by the “half chicken.” I’m not actually sure how it’s spelled because they give it to you in a plastic food bag and then a plastic grocery bag.
I’m pretty sure I have an addiction to mango, if that’s possible. It’s mango season right now and I’ve been buying them four or five at a time. They are probably my favorite fruit, and I want to take advantage of having the freshest, local mangos I can while I live here in Hawaii.
- Lychee is a sweet fruit grown here in Hawaii and it is really popular is deserts, sweet drinks, and by itself.
There is a lot of Hawaiian pride here. Not just from the local Hawaiian ethnicity, but from anyone that lives here. Often times this ‘pride,’ goes a bit too far and comes across as racism against non-native Hawaiians or against off-islanders and tourists. I think it goes along with the small town nature of the island. Everybody know everybody, and if you’re new in town or not from town, everyone knows.
Hopefully I’ll be growing a beautiful and tasty garden soon.
Busy Bee
July 24, 2013
I’ll post an update soon, everyone! I’ve just been in a really busy place right now. Life is going well, although I am currently working two jobs, one of which desperately needs me to work more hours.
In the mean time, feel free to drop me a message, email, or phone call.
House with a View
July 12, 2013
Joe and I are now moved into our new house. It’s a 3 bedroom house, with two bathrooms and a huge living room area. My favorite room in the house is the living room. It has hardwood floors, with four large widows that face south and west. Looking out of the western facing three windows, you can see the ocean on a clear day, and the late afternoon and evening just before sunset are amazing. If you look out of the front door, which faces east, you can see Mauna Kea (the large mountain near us). There is so much sun in our house, it makes it so inviting! Hopefully soon, we’ll have all of our stuff arranged and totally unpacked so that I can post pictures. The only downside to our new place is that the last tenants had some pretty serious flea and cockroach problems, which our landlords are continuing to pay a terminator to come fix. We have no fleas inside and there are boric acid and roach traps all over the house. I think we’ve seen a total of maybe four cockroaches in almost 3 weeks, and most of them were dead. Even so, Joe had to come to my rescue last night as I was surprised by a speedy little cockroach in my bathroom drawer. I will get used to them eventually, but right now I’m glad that Joe will come to take care of them. On a braver note, I’ve come to appreciate the three or four web building spiders that have taken up residence in small corners of our house. Apart from two spider bites after not looking before I sat down, they don’t ever bother us and probably eat a few pests. We them outside when they get too big… and by we, I really mean Joe.
The first night we spent in our new place was interesting. We were going to bed and I got up to turn out the light, and had to pause because there was absolutely no light in our room at all. This is very different to our old place because there was a street lamp not too far away. We quickly got used to the darkness and crawled into bed. Then we start to hear creaking sounds. I ask Joe if he thinks there is an animal in our ceiling, since we know there is a small bird family living in part of our eves. Joe says that he doesn’t think it’s an animal. Then I wonder out loud, “Do you think our new place is haunted?” We both freeze completely for a moment and listen. Even never having had any proof that ghosts exist, the thought is still creepy in a completely dark, new house. My wild imagination waiting for whatever transparent, sheet covered, being to come warn us away from our beloved, new place. After a few moments, Joe realizes that the creaking sound is from the ice maker in the freezer. We both sort of accept that and feel better, but neither of us fell asleep for a while. I feel bad that I had Joe to snuggle me and make me feel better, but as the protective snuggler, Joe had to wait until I was asleep to start nodding off himself.
Right now, the trade winds are blowing particularly hard and low on the island. This means that it is super windy most places, but it also blows the clouds off of the mountains so you can see them the most clearly. I also found out that it means spectacular star gazing from one of the nearby mountain roads. Joe pulled over so we could stop and watch them. It was great! I could see the Milky Way very clearly, but I couldn’t identify that many constellations. Joe said it’s even better on top of Mauna Kea. Besides the wind, the star gazing here is spectacular because of the lack of light pollution. Since there are two different telescopes on top of the mountain, billboards are illegal and all the road lights are an reddish-orange color, or an orangey-yellow color that don’t produce a lot of extra light. They’re kind of eerie to drive through sometimes, but if it means awesome star gazing, I’m all for it.
In other news, I may or may not have a mailing address soon. I have to work with the post office to get our address cleared up. If our house indeed is visited by the USPS, then I will have one soon. If we have to get a PO Box, it may take some time before we have mail sent somewhere besides Joe’s work.
Hawaiian Cultural Note: Pauhana, often shortened to Pau, means “quitting time” or “after work.” Used in a sentence, “It’s almost pau for us!” or “We’re going to have a pauhana party on the beach.”
Hawaiian Cultural Note: Most Hawaiian food that you get at farmer’s market or take home from a restaurant comes with white rice and mac salad, which is a cross between macaroni salad and tuna salad.
Hawaiian Cultural Note: Most people know that “aloha” means hello in Hawaiian, but the most common greeting among people that were born and raised on the island is “Hauzit?” It’s the phrase “How is it?” all mashed together.
Hawaiian Cultural Note: It is usually perfectly acceptable for patrons of most businesses to be shirtless, bikini clad, and sometimes even barefoot. Nice places and places far away from the beach and tourism are less likely to be ok with this, but there are a lot of restaurants near the beach that are cool with shirtless, barefoot beach bums.
Hawaiian Cultural Note: Flip flops are called slippers.
Hawaiian Cultural Note: There is no racial majority in the state of Hawaii. This is the only state that every race is in the minority. This differs from island to island, but across the whole state, no race occupies more than half of the population.
Joe and I have officially signed a lease! We are working on cleaning the place a bit more before we move all our stuff over. I will post pictures soon!
Other than that, I don’t have much going on. Still trying to find another/better job and going to roller derby practice when I don’t have to work.
Also, check out my instagram! I post several pictures with instagram, and you can click on the picture to the right of my posts to see them all!
My packages of stuff finally arrived! It took them 30 days, but they are here!
The Octopus Occurance
June 19, 2013
Good news, everyone!
I officially went to my first practice and I am pretty certain roller derby is for me. It’s a nice combination of sports I’ve already done (fighting, soccer, skiing) and sports I’ve never really tried (Anything with more than 2 wheels). I will hopefully be getting more pictures of that soon!
In other news, work is pretty great. It’s a lot like the health food store I worked at in college. It’s locally owned and there’s a lot of very friendly regulars. I am hoping that they will move me up to full time since the full time cashier just quit, but they hired another part time girl. We’ll see, but right now I’m still looking for another position.
My bike is now mostly ride-able! It would be completely ride-able, except that I need my female specific seat from my packages, and my blinking lights for night riding. Other than that, here she is!
Joe and I went snorkeling at our favorite beach yesterday. He let me borrow his fins, but I ended up preferring no fins. I found a day octopus and a yellow and white striped eel! There were so many cool fish! The tide was really low so everything was really close to the surface. The following link is a video of the octopus!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9R1MwXxx-8
In our apartment hunt, Joe and I have decided on renting a 3 bedroom house. It’s actually the first one we saw, but has since been renovated and thoroughly cleaned. More on that later! 🙂
This weekend was a blast. I just wanted to share a few pictures.
Roller Derby is exciting!
I know one of the girls that plays on the local roller derby team, so I might start going to practices to learn how to be a roller derby girl. I would need a roller derby name. Any suggestions? Leave them in the comments!
Sunday volley ball
This Sunday, I again went sailing, but my sea sickness finally got the upper hand on me, even after taking 2 doeses of Bonine…
Instead, I might start playing beach volleyball with a group that comes ever Sunday to a nearby beach. Included in the group is the physical therapist who runs the clinic I’ll be working at. Afterwards, Joe and I got to watch an amazing sunset. I took a video and posted it on my Facebook if you’re interested. I cannot unfortunately post videos here.
Later this week will be work and getting my bike in working order. It only needs a few more adjustments. Hopefully my packages of stuff will be arriving soon as well! They are almost a week overdue.
Sunset at Hapuna Beach
Paper Cranes in Hawaii 
Written
on June 27, 2013