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!

Just Say "No"

...to drugs, of course, but I'm thinking of something else that also has bad consequences.

Blue painting tape! I wouldn't recommend it to anyone I love. At first it seems like a good idea, but after a long project of painting walls in your house and you go to pull off the tape, I garantee you will be very disappointed and you'll even catch yourself murmuring under your breath when you see that the paint in fact did manage to seep under the tape, and the tape strips never come off in one piece, and you are left with wasted time of picking and scraping.

Learn from mine and my parents mistakes, and don't use the blue tape! Blue tape= 100% dissatisfation garanteed. I'll consider this as another "learning from my mistakes" experience. Just like how "friends don't let friends drive drunk," bff's don't let bffff's use blue tape.

Don't say that I didn't warn you.

A different kind of beauty

As all of you have heard me say at one point or another, Hawaii is absolutely gorgeous. I remember the first time I flew in and was taking the "coconut express" to the university, I was completely in awe of the beautiful lush mountains, and breathtaking beaches. Never had I experienced anything so...green!

Even though it is obvious that Hawaii is completely aesthetically pleasing to the eye, I have personally been so lucky and blessed to have grown up in an area that is also breath taking and beautiful-Lake Powell/Page, AZ. Everytime I come home, I am reminded of how beautiful this area is. Literally millions of people every year come to experience Lake Powell.

This past week was a particularily good week having my sister in town. Last Monday we went to Antelope Point Marina and launched two kayaks that Jess brought down, and we kayaked into Antelope Canyon.

It was great that we did this by kayak instead of a boat or jet ski, because we were able to go all the way up the canyon until it became very narrow, and ended with a very small beach which was only wide enough for our two kayaks.

As you can tell from the pics, it was also very dirty/'twigy'/silty the further up the canyon we went.

After we reached the pseudo"beach," we hiked a little and came upon the end of the Antelope Slot Canyon which was beautiful and fun to explore. We didn't even have the pay the Navajo Nation $18 bucks for a tour! :)

Jessie and I started to have a little too much fun creating photos imitating "The Lion King," "The Little Mermaid" and other random stuff...

I guess Jessie found it funny watching me struggle to get back down...

We knew that it was about time to turn back around when we came across the gate keeper..

Needless to say, we had a great time paddling around and discovering new things. I love how many different things that this area has to offer, and I just wished that I would taken advantage of it more when I actually lived here for more than just a couple of weeks at a time, but I'm grateful that I still can come home and enjoy "Page America," as Bubba on the local radio station would put it.

undecisive

So I finally just barely discovered a cute website (www.thecutestblogontheblock.com) with free blog backgrounds, and it even has easy instructions! The problem is, is that there are several designs that I like. Therefore, if you have been checking my blog within the last week, it has already changed about 3 times.

I hope you like variety. enjoy :)

"Do as I say, not as I do"

Coming home for a short summer= crunch time to find a job and make money for college. Luckily within a little over a week, I was able to find work through Aramark, which is one the concessionaires at Lake Powell. I have worked for them in the past, and knew it would be easy to find work through them. So the job that I landed was being a boat instructor! hah! I won't mention the last time I drove a boat before I got the job...

I was a little nervous and intimidated to start the job (as I usually am with new jobs) but it has been going really well so far. It can be pretty rough at times, because the shifts are 12 hours long all day and in the sun, but that means that I work only 4 days, then I'm off 3 days, which I definitely can't complain about. I even got lucky enough to get Saturday, Sunday, Mondays off! It couldn't get any better than that.

I find it funny and ironic how at work, we are trained really well and do a good job at teaching our guests the parts of the power boats that they are renting, where things are at, the rules of the lake, and how to drive a boat, but when it comes to us, there are many of us who are still a little timid in driving them ourselves. Now don't get me wrong, we aren't these crazy drivers that don't know what we are doing, but it's just funny to me how several of us kind of lack some confidence in our abilities, but we do just fine instructing.

Besides having to clean a ton of power boats every day in the hot sun and long days, my job is pretty great. I also work with a lot of nice people, some of which come from all over the world-several from England, one from Jamaica, Australia, etc, etc. One of my supervisors tells me that after I "pass off" the instruction all the different sized power boats and PWC's, that he wants to move me up to the houseboats.

Mmm... I don't think so.

P.S., the picture I have to the right is one of the type of boats that we rent out...soon I hope to pass it off so that I can start giving instructions on it =)