Almost.

It's hitting that point in the semester again where I have an easily quantifiable list of things I need to get done before finals, and there really aren't that many things, but what is left is BIG. And it might be just a teeny-tiny bit stressful. And I may have been walking down the hallway on my way home while thinking about things that still need to get done and haven't been going as well as I would have hoped when I fell and hurt my knee and it just topped everything off and I might have been very grateful to have a good friend with me who didn't mind that it took twenty minutes to walk home when it usually takes five. And it may be one in the morning and I am still up because my knee hurts and I want to get a paper written before I go to class tomorrow.

Thank goodness that there are only three weeks left and then I can finally breath again.

 

Right now I want nothing more than to sit and watch the waves at Pupukea, and I'd totally take a trip down Kam Highway this weekend to do it, except I have a meeting all of Saturday morning and a couple more papers due next week that need to get written. Someday. 

Tsunami Tsaturday

Goodness gracious, what a day. I got home from adventures Friday night at a none-too-early time, having heard a little bit about the earthquake in Chile and the chance of a tsunami coming our way. No big deal, right? Au contraire. One of my housemates was still up at one-thirty/two-ish as I was on my way to bed and she was super worried, so I stopped and talked to her for a bit. Remember the tsunami in September that hit Samoa really hard? That hit her hometown super hard and so anxiety was completely understandable. I ended up going to bed at 2ish and being woken up by a text/phone call at 3:45 saying that the on campus kids were going to be evacuating to the second story at six and that we should probably pack up and head to higher ground. Naturally, the news was a little alarming, so I wake up my roommates and we all pack up and head to campus to wait out the seven hours until this monster is supposed to hit. In the mean time, I call family to let them know what's going on and to spread some love in case I drown or am attacked by the mutant huge crabs that certainly will overtake Laie when the waves come this far in.

In case you were ever searching for a way to wake up a whole dorm of college kids, a tsunami tscare is a very effective means of doing so. This is six am on a Saturday morning. This was not fun.

The following few hours were spent seeing how many people we could fit into Rachel's room before we would get yelled at for fire code violations (eight, in case you were wondering), snacking on whatever food we had stashed away and watching the news. The last hour or so before the tsunami was supposed to hit we were glued to the live coverage that mostly showed the waves at Hilo Bay going in and out and in and out, and it was incredibly exciting. Not. Eventually, the fact that I was on my second day of approximately two hours of sleep a night caught up with me and I crashed before our fair city was destroyed. ...That didn't happen. Apparently they never really called off the warning, they just switched over to the Olympics. Also, I apparently answered a phone call from my mother that I don't remember in the least. What can I say, I was tired.

I have to admit, I was a little bugged that with all the hoopla, nothing happened, but then I think about how terribly things could have turned out and I couldn't be happier. It also makes me realize how completely unprepared I am in case anything does happen, which is a little scary. As a college kid, there really isn't a huge amount of food storage or such that I can accumulate, but the fact that the only things I grabbed were my camera, laptop, a couple of changes of clothes, my old journals, an apple and a jar of peanut butter... that's a little ridiculous. We'll see what all I can figure out so that should we actually have something happen, my arrangements are not such that I will have to eat pages out of my journals to survive.

Mini-Muffins at Midnight

Some days, you wake up and go to class even though you really don't want to because it's a bit of a joke and you know you're only watching a movie because the teacher hasn't really planned the semester but you get up and go anyways because you've already missed two classes and missing class is a dumb reason to get your grade lowered.

Some days, you make an appointment to see your academic advisor after having made one the day before and been told that she was going to lunch and you'll have to come back some other time so you're back and she's in her office with another student for an hour and you have to make another appointment to come back later because class starts in ten minutes.

Some days, you hope that you'll be able to make a trip to town to work on a project that you're really looking forward to even though you know it probably won't happen and when it doesn't you're still disappointed.

Some days, you get papers back that you really didn't do that well on and even though you knew it really wasn't a good paper you're still a little disappointed that you didn't spend more time on it until you realize that it was due that one week that you also had a unit exam, two other papers and a hundred plus pages of reading due on top of class and work time.

Some days, you come home and take a two hour nap even though you really didn't mean to and you spend the rest of the night vegging out until you realize that you have no food and a trip to the grocery store is necessary unless you plan on eating instant potatoes for the next three days.

Some days, at those trips you're really hoping that by some miracle the soy milk will be on sale enough for it not to be absolutely ridiculous and out of budget to buy enough to make this recipe for vegan muffins that you just found and really want to try out.

Some days just don't go like you'd hoped they would.

Those are the days that mini-muffins at midnight are a good idea.

Those are the times that a little bit of goodness might remind you that things don't have to go like you'd hoped they would for them to be good.

And those mini-muffins just might help you remember that it's okay to veg out on a Friday night, and that spending a little time looking at recipes online will probably help you make healthier choices when you're at the grocery store.

They might help you remember that it's okay to use milk in a recipe that calls for soy milk if it means you're being a little more responsible and sticking to that budget you laid out titled "Because I am attempting to be a responsible adult."

They might help you remember that it's okay to not get As or even Bs on everything and that you still have time to bring that grade up and do well in the class and now you know what the expectations are and can better plan for the next paper.

They might help you remember that even though you didn't get to town, you still got that proposal in that really needed to be submitted so that the ball can start rolling on bringing speakers to campus for a project that you think is really important and worthwhile and that if you'd gone to town, that probably wouldn't have happened.

They might help you remember that even if it was a pain to actually go see the academic advisor, once you were there you finally got some questions taken care of and now you have officially postponed graduation which means you're actually doing that peace building certificate you were so excited about and that you will actually have all summer off to go do your own research and that the academic advisor who may or may not be notoriously grouchy seemed a little less grouchy when you were leaving than when you walked in and that you like it when people aren't grouchy.

They might help you remember that professors are people too and that sometimes they get caught up in other things and are busy and might not like planning quite as much as you do and that they have get to up and deal with a bunch of kids who pretty obviously don't want to be there and that probably isn't very fun for them either.

They also might make you write in incredibly long run on sentences and wonder if it's entirely insane or only kind of crazy to blame everything on mini-muffins at midnight.

Recipe found here. Obviously with milk instead of soy milk, and made in mini-muffin form (which probably made all the difference).

First, agitate in developer for two minutes.

All through high school and out in Washington, I took as many photo classes as I could and would spend hours in the darkroom, rolling film, developing it, then going through the printing process- adjusting the enlarger, testing exposure time, developing the test strips, readjusting everything a couple of times and then putting the picture through all the chemicals- first the developer, then rinse, the stop bath, another rinse, stick it in the fixer, then the last rinse before you squeegee and set it out to dry. If I was lucky, I'd only go through that a couple of times before I got a print I was happy with, but there were many occasions where that wasn't the case and I would leave the dark room after three, four, maybe five hours unhappy with what I'd gotten done during that time. It happens. Often. As long as I stuck with it long enough, I'd end up with a print I was happy with turning in to my teacher or showing off to friends.

Even though it was time consuming and frustrating at times, I loved it. There was something incredible about being able to look at a picture and say I made that, all by myself. The smell of the darkroom, at first strange and unpleasant became an aroma I looked forward to encountering again because it meant that for the next how ever many hours, I could focus on the enlarger, the film, the paper, the chemicals and nothing else. I knew the processes to go through to reach that final product.

Now, I'm at school and I would kill to have a set process to go through again. I know some of the steps- sleep, classes, work, study, trips to town to visit the mosque for projects, practices for Culture Night, eat- but how to fit them all together is a little befuddling at times. It would be wonderful to have a step-by-step guide for all of this, set timings and adjustments to make for the correct outcome.

There isn't.

I muddle through as best I can, fitting in homework where I can, getting home before eleven at night if I'm lucky, working, and trying to stay sane by going to basketball games or watching Moulin Rouge at a study party. I guesstimate the amount of time I'll need for various assignments, and have gotten up at five more than a few times recently to get things done in time for class (or speaking assignments for church, which are a whole 'nother post). Even though it's not the easiest right now, I am loving it, even though there isn't a set procedure to tell me how and what to do, I'm making it, and I'm going to stick with it, until I have my diploma, or a published article, or a grad school acceptance later to share with teachers or show off to friends. There are doubtlessly dozens more papers to barely get in before the deadline, and countless late nights and early mornings, and grades that I won't be thrilled with, but in the end, it will be good, and I will be able to look back and say I did it.

Sadly, I don't have any of my old prints with me anywhere, but this is a shot taken with my trusty ol' totally-manual Pentax K1000 for a photo assignment back when my darling little sister was just a baby. 

Nerd to the nth degree.

I adventured up to the Punahou Carnival today.

I enjoyed some delicious carnival food.

I filled up a bag with all sorts of fantastic books like Pippi Longstocking, Ruth Benedict, Jonathan Swift, Freud and some others. This is the nerdy part. There are no pictures to explain it. 

Rather serendipitously, as I was trying to find the bus stop to return home, I caught the tail end of a Chinese New Year parade. 

(Tail end. Get it? Ahaha. I am so punny.)

I also ran and caught the head of that particular dragon. Apparently it is a tradition to stuff the dragon's mouth with money. I think I'll volunteer to be the dragon next year.

That was pretty much it for adventures today. There is an excess of pictures today to make up for the lack of posting last week, due to junky internet access, a silly computer and being busy beyond belief. 

Life is good. 

Weekends?

I thought I would get a break. Hah. Definitely not the case.

Instead of relaxing a bit, I talked to a couple of professors, went to the Anatomy of Peace workshop here on conference for four hours each Friday and Saturday, had some of the African Club over to cook for the opening social, went to the opening social, wrote my response paper to the workshop and then decided not to work on homework anymore. Instead of continuing to be responsible, I watched a movie and ate half of an extra large pizza.

Also, my current irritation is that the school isn't offering classes during spring and summer that are supposed to be available, so I have to rework my map. Admittedly, I spend more time than the average student looking at my map and moving classes around, so it isn't tooooo terrible, but unless I can rearrange everything just within the terms, my semesters are going to be crazier than they were going to be already. We'll see how this goes.

Lessons from EXS 177

My required gym class was definitely not one of my favorite classes, but I did pick up a couple of useful things from it. Throughout the six weeks of the term, I went to the gym at least four times a week, making me spend more time specifically on exercise than I have since I graduated high school. (I keep planning on starting that up again, but I have to find my expired student ID in order to get a new one in order to go to the gym. It'll happen some time.)

The thing I'm thinking more about in terms of helping me survive this semester is the principle of spending at least half an hour a day doing something I enjoy, as a stress reliever and a break from work and school. Yesterday, that extended a little beyond a half hour, into say... eight hours, but holidays are meant for breaks, right? Besides, those eight hours of fun will neutralize the eight hours I'll be spending at work tomorrow.

A few friends and I headed up to Waimea and spent a lovely couple of hours watching the waves pound, listening to the lifeguards tell unexperienced surfers, body surfers and bodyboarders to get out of the water at least every ten minutes and trying to still get some school work done. Reading Tolstoy has never been more enjoyable than it was there. After a while, we headed back down the shore a bit to grab acai bowls in a little place that used to be a secret little hole in the wall, but is now frequented by every BYUH student and their mother.

Our last stop before hopping back on da bus was Pupukea, which may be one of my favorite beaches now. Observe:

White sandy beaches and palm trees get a little old after a while, it's nice to have some variety.

And there was a pretty little garden just up a little bit.

A sun-BEAM, a sun-BEAM!

During Primary (Sunday School for four to twelve year olds) singing time every week, the three most energetic songs were always "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree," the Snowman song, and "Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam." All three usually involved lots of jumping around and more yelling than singing, which probably explains why they were, and still are, so well loved among Mormon youngsters.

A day or two before the semester started, I woke up at o'dark thirty to go watch the sunrise at the point with a friend and took a series of pictures of the sun moving up in the sky. It was slow, and I was cold and tired but still so glad I decided to get up. It felt like it took forever and a day for the sun to come over the horizon, but once that giant ball of gas was up, it sure moved quickly.

I've been trying to put into words what looking back at these pictures made me feel, but after having this post sit as a draft for several days, I don't think that's really going to happen as well as I would like it to.
Basically, we all have the opportunity to bring light into the lives of others, through big ways, but I think, more importantly through small ways. A smile goes a long way, a genuine caring conversation to see how someone is doing, spending a few minutes helping out by reading over a paper or saying I love you are all easy things to do, but I know personally that I spend far too little time doing those things than I should.

Chances are...

...the dang kid won't even see this, but I wanted to let the world (or at least the three people that read this blog) know how awesome I think my little brother is. He found out yesterday that he'll be spending the next year as a Rotary Youth Exchange student in Taiwan. To do that, he's graduating high school a year early and already went through a series of club and district interviews. On top of taking advantage of one of the coolest opportunities presented to a high schooler, he has his black belt in kung fu, is almost done his Eagle Scout (okay, so maybe he's been "almost done" his Eagle for like a year...) and is an all around incredible person. Generally, I'm pretty happy living on this lovely rock in the middle of the Pacific, but if there were one thing I would go back to the mainland for, it'd be this dude and the rest of my family.

My year as an exchange student in Hungary has had a huge impact on my life. If we're looking at it realistically, I probably wouldn't have been accepted here without it and who knows where in the world I would be right now. The things I learned through the application process and the year itself, as well as the time since then have taught me so much about myself, the world and what I want to do to make this a better place in whatever way I can. It was definitely one of the first really pivotal decisions I made in my life and I am forever grateful to my families, Rotary clubs and everyone else who made it possible.

I'm excited to hear about Samuel's adventures over there and hope he does a better job of keeping in touch than I did.

Love you bunches.

I've been less than diligent.

And for that, I extend lots of apologies.

I had two and a half beautiful weeks of break, filled with work and adventures galore, and experienced living all by my lonesome for that short time. I can't lie, I liked it a lot- the house stayed clean and I could curl up in my bed and watch movies until two or three in the morning without disturbing anyone, but having the roomies back is delightful, even if the counters are dirty and I have people around to remind me that consistent sleep patterns are a good idea. We laugh and make fun of each other and watch movies that I always fall asleep during.

Now the semester has started up again, and it's going to be wonderful, yet incredibly busy. I'm taking eighteen credits and working as many hours a week as I can. My classes are going to be awesome and I'm going to in talk to one of my professors about a student research associateship when I have time this week. This semester, along with the necessaries, I'm taking classes for the teachers, and think those will be well worth the extra hours and inevitable stress come finals time.

While I was enjoying some balmy seventy degree weather, Maryland was experiencing quite the snow storm, and so keeping them in my thoughts, I built this one day at the beach:

That's the closest I can get to a snowman right now, sorry folks. Hope you had fun shoveling! (You might be able to tell, but one arm is significantly more tan than the other, she forgot to sunscreen, whoops!)

Also, I got to shoot real engagements for some friends. (Why do I clarify real, you ask? Because last year I shot some fake ones, for an April Fool's joke of epic proportions.) We caught a gorgeous sunset up at the point and got some shots that they're happy with, so we'll call that a productive shoot.

I would make a promise to post daily again, but that may be less than realistic, so we'll go for weekly at this point.