genius!

So someone introduced me the other day to an awesome website: www.pandora.com
On the website you are able to create your own "radio stations, " and how it works is that you type in an artist (up to 100 of them, apparently) of your interest, and from there the website picks and plays different songs from various artists like the one you picked. For each song played, you give it a thumbs up or down, and therefore they can better pick what you want to hear. AWESOME! whoever made this website is a genius.
Long live good music.

This is what a REAL lab looks like

Ever since I changed to my bio major, I have been blessed with amazing biology labs that don't stay in the boring lab classroom, but actually go out in the field. This semester I'm taking "Pacific Natural History," and this was our first lab last Saturday:



Long live awesome bio labs.

I guess I can make time for cake...

Here's some pics from our RS enrichment activity a little over a week ago(old post, now a few weeks old); we had a cake competition, and of course in the church, "everyone is a winner," so I think our sweet castle got most creative, or something like that. I can't remember the exact name, but ours was a chocolate cake, with a cherry middle layer(first picture)...Mmm mm good. The others were really yummy and creative too:

For a quick little update, here are a few of the things that I have been enjoying since I've been back in Hawaii. #1: My apt.



I love love love my apartment. It's nice and clean (which can kind of be foreign here in Laie) and and the most perfect location, I couldn't ask for anything better. The ocean is...well, almost my backyard. In fact from my front door, it takes approximately a whole...20 seconds to get to the beach, it's wonderful. Having the breathtaking scenery right in my "backyard" keeps me sane after a long day of school and homework.



I think one of the best parts about it, is that every night, I fall asleep to crashing waves. People pay money for things like that. I definitely consider myself lucky and blessed.

#2: FINALLY buying fresh fruit from one of the roadside fruit stands.




I was somewhat skeptical at first to get fruit at the stand, just because I thought it was going to be super expensive, but it actually ended up being a few cents cheaper than Foodland. (whoop dee doo!) I'm actually just a little bitter about Foodland because it is kinda expensive, but they can get away with it because it's the only place nearby to go.

The fruits that my roommate and I got include dragon fruit, mango, star fruit, guava, and a few veggies. After trying all the fruits, my favorite by far was the star fruit. It's delicious AND fun to eat because of it's shape.

#3: My sweet new bike

It's a cute little somewhat psuedo cruiser! I got it from Wal-Mart fall apart, which is shameful, but I'm poor, so what can you do? It doesn't have any gears, and it's the old school brakes where you have to petal backwards to stop; it's a lot of fun! I love how fast I can get to and from campus now.

So, that's the scoop on life in Hawaii. I'm now currently in the process of finding a cake pan so I can make my birthday cake for tomorrow :) I'll give an update of what we end up doing to celebrate.

"...but I don't want THAT present..."

There's nothing like giving yourself a little special somethin-somethin for your birthday, like...

ANOTHER student loan!!

This shows how much I love myself. Happy Birthday to me...

Biology is cool, even if you aren't a nerd

Ok, so maybe I am a nerd anyways because I like biology. A LOT. Even though choosing this major and sticking to it currently is stressing me out to the max and causing me to want to pull my hair out, I still think it is fascinating. For instance, "DID YOU KNOW?!" (thanks Bill Nye the Science Guy)...

There is a type of beetle in Hawaii, that freezes, yes, FREEZES every night, then unfreezes during the day, and goes about doing whatever a beetle does. Isn't that insane? Don't ask me how to explain it, I can't remember all the specifics, but it's kind of the same idea as when you get frost bite, but not, but it has to do with its cytoplasm, but unlike frost bite, the cells don't rupture and die...something like that. (I know that sentence didn't sound intelligent at all, but that's why I'm in school, right?) Anyway, I learned that in my Pacific Natural History (bio) class today.

Oh, and did I mention that for this class, one of our "labs" is to go to Maui for 4 days, and backpacking the whole time?

Things like that are what give me the drive I need to keep going in my seemingly impossible major.

I see you

It makes me smile to see that on my "site meter"(yes, I can see you!) that it says that I am from Ka'a'awa, HI. I definitely think that it is the most fun Hawaiian word/city to say, and I would love to claim it if I could. Seriously though, think about it,
"yeah, I'm from Ka'a'awa, Hawaii..."
ok, so it potentially makes you sound like you have a stuttering problem, but I still think it's great.

show and tell

Wow, it's been a while since I've written last, hasn't it? Oh well, so maybe I'm not the best blogger. I'd like to blame it on the fact that in the last couple weeks or so I have been busy, with things such as work, packing,...playing with Wolfgang in Page and moving back to Hawaii.

Having Wolfgang come visit me in Page for the last week and a half or so while I was there was a blast. Even though we all know that Page is tiny and has no night life, we still found things to do, and still didn't even get to do all that we wanted to.

The entertainment consisted of playing on the lake (the best part of it all, and thanks to ARAMARK and our kind neighbor Steve!),

visiting the lower Antelope Slot Canyon,



eating sushi, and cruising around on "Uncle" Bill's 4-wheeler.



I am also happy to report that Wolfgang (and I) survived the "meeting the family" also.


(ok, so clearly this picture of my dad wasn't taken in the same trip, but I didn't have one of him, so I had to find the next best thing)

It was a lot of fun having Wolfgang come to my house, and it couldn't of been any better, although I'm a little bummed that we didn't go see Horseshoe Bend. Next time, right? Being able to play a little "show and tell" of my hometown reminded me again of what a beautiful place and nice little community that I grew up in. As my mom would say, "We are so blessed to live here!"

Wolfgang's visit ended by eating great Thai food with Jess in Flagstaff and flying out of Phoenix the next morning together back to Hawaii...it can't get any better than that.

Goodbye Mainland, and Aloha Hawaii!