The Schwester Comes to Hawaii!

This past week, George and I had our first visitor from the mainland: my sister, Susan! Although our visit got off to a rough start with me being horribly ill and Susan accidentally leaving her ID on the airplane, we still had a great time. While I recovered from somach flu, Susan and George went hiking in the Waianae Mountains. The next day, we were joined by two more Washington, D.C. friends, Esther and Hyong. We hiked, went to Waikiki, had a mini-BBQ at our place, climbed to the top of Diamond Head, danced, went to the zoo, and ate lots of yummy food. From the peak of Diamond Head we saw a picture-perfect rainbow over the city of Honolulu.
It was really great to see my sister, but the visit was over too soon. I hope she can come out to Hawaii again for a longer visit some time. After all, she still needs to hit the Big Island and Volcano National Park! Susan and I shared my camera for the week and you can see all our pictures here. We're looking forward to hosting more guests at the "Hotel Lisa & George!"

Holidays 2006

The holidays were unique and very special this year. This was George and I's first Christmas and New Year together. AND they were in Hawaii. As I mentioned previously, it felt a little strange at first to be in a tropical climate for the season. Luckily, it didn't take long to get used to the idea of a palm tree for a Christmas tree and sandals for church on Christmas Eve. In fact, I think we both liked it a lot. Who knew that Christmas carols could sound so lovely on the Ukulele?

I also made a rather short trip to St.Louis between Christmas and New Year to visit with my family. (Click here for the pics.) I admit it felt rather rushed, but I still had a nice time seeing with my parents, sister, and brothers. It was especially nice to get to see my brother Joe before he heads off to Thailand for a 27-month placement with the Peace Corps.

Also during my trip, my Mom and Dad and I made some headway with the initial planning for George and I's upcoming wedding celebration. We also had some time to visit a cool exhibit of South Pacific art at the St.Louis Art Museum with long-time family friends Cathy and Jerry Willie. Overall, it was a very nice, but all too short visit.

I flew back to Hawaii just in time to celebrate New Year's Eve with George. On my flight back, I took some neat aerial photos of both Santa Rosa Island off the southern California Coast as well as some shots of O'ahu. You can check them out here. After my return, George and I went to a New Year's Eve party with some of George's Army pals and then came home and watched the fireworks from our front porch. For the record, fireworks seem to be the one and only activity that people do here in Hawaii on NYE. It was really amazing and also trippy to see and hear fireworks constantly for several hours leading up to and following midnight. It literally sounded like rain with all the small explosions and at midnight the sound resembled a torrential downpour! I took some video of the post-midnight fireworks that you can see here.

Well, that's the news from my neck of the woods. I hope to see many of you in Hawaii or St.Louis in the coming year. But whether or not I see you in person, best wishes for peace, health, and prosperity, in the New Year.

A Christmas Eve Hike

Yesterday, George and I took a really cool hike up one of the highest peaks on Oahu: Pu'uhapapa. It required some serious climbing! Thank goodness for our new hiking boots (a Christmas present to each other) or we probably wouldn't have even attempted a lot of the steep spots on the trail. Next time, we need to take some serious climbing equipment, ropes, etc. so we can go even higher. The pics are here, a video from the top can be found here.

Christmas in Mililani

I have to admit that as much as I am loving life in Hawaii, getting into the Christmas mood has been a little hard this year. With friends and family all so far away, not to mention that we're still wearing flip-flops and the trees are green and showing no signs of winter, its just a little
. . . different.

All the same, George and I have tried very hard to let the holiday spirit find us. We found a lovely little thatch palm tree and decorated it with little ornaments and lights. We put lights up around the house and out on the front balcony. The gifts are accumulating under our tree and we are settling into a new and special flavor of Christmas. Here are the first batch of pictures. More coming soon!

Farewell to Aiea Intermediate School

Words will never capture all of the feelings of joy that my student teaching at Aiea Intermediate School brought to me. There are so many reasons that I just loved the experience and the students that I worked with. I thinking teaching may be the best job in the world. You get to be everything: scientist, historian, writer, teacher, artist, performer, dancer, comedian, and friend. Its all wrapped up into one fabulous job. Its a perfect fit for someone like me who thinks of herself as a jack-of-all-trades, master of none.

The students at Aiea really proved to me that middle school students are the coolest and most fun to be with. We had a lot of great times together, not the least of which was the holiday party we had on the last day of classes for the fall semester. Check out pics from the holiday party here and a few more here.

Thanksgiving in Hawaii

Thanksgiving weekend was a lovely and relaxing weekend for George and I. We had Thanksgiving dinner with our friends, the Kempers. EmilieAn is a great cook and we left very well fed and enjoyed nice company. Jason doesn't know what he missed! Check out some pics from the dinner here. After the big day, we did some general relaxing, but the highlight of the weekend was a hike up the Kolekole Pass trail. The trail is of one of many in the Waianae Mountain Range with breathtaking views. At times, the trail becomes very steep and you must climb on all fours rather than walk. The views, however, are well worth the work needed to get to them. There were places you could see both the Windward and Leeward coasts at the same time. From our mountain perch, we could see all of Schofield Barracks and the town of Wahiawa. We could also see towns along the Waianae Coast and the road that leads to Hale'iwa on the North Shore. Check out the pics from our hike here. Next time, we want to take a tent and camp out so we can see all the stars from up there. We will also gladly make the hike again if any of our visitors would like to take in those amazing views!

Valley of the Temples

Yesterday, George and I took an adventure to a cool place I'd found in my guidebook to Hawaii. Usually, I wouldn't think of a cemetery as a place to go sight-seeing, but of course there are exceptions. Valley of the Temples Memorial Park is a inter-denominational cemetery with a unique cross-cultural mix of East and West. The main "attraction" at the cemetary is the beautiful Byodo-in Buddhist temple at the back of the park. It is a scale replica of a 900-year-old temple located in Uji, Japan. It is a peaceful and contemplative place complete with wild swans and peacocks and large carp swimming in the man-made ponds. The temple houses an enormous gold-leaf Buddha. Adjecent to the temple is large bell that guests to the temple can ring using a large log. The whole park is situated in a lush valley surrounded by large volcanic mountains and facing a bay out to sea. A gem of a place indeed! More pictures here.

George's Graduation from NCO Academy

After a month of rigorous, sleep-deprived, out-in-the-field, covered-in-mud training, George at last completed the Warrior Leadership Course, also known as NCO Academy. The Army held a nice ceremony for the graduates at Schofield Barracks. George graduated with academic honors, showing me again that he is a smarty pants! :-) If you look carefully at the pictures you can tell that George and the rest of the graduates are completely exhausted, but they all seem happy to be returning to their normal lives. I am as happy as anyone to have my sweetie back at home! See pictures from the graduation here. A couple short video clips click are here.

A Window into Aiea Intermediate School

I'm mostly blogging because I have uploaded some new pictures I took at the school where I am now student-teaching. Click here to see pictures of the school building, the volleyball circles that are a staple at lunchtime and recess at Aiea Intermediate, and pictures of my students, my mentor teacher, and her instructional assistant. Like I said below, I'm having a great experience and I love working with middle-schoolers.

The Melting Pot of the Pacific

I have now begun my second student-teaching placement at Aiea Intermediate School. There is no other word to describe my experience except amazing! In typical Hawaiian style, the school is an open-air structure, with classrooms built around an open courtyard adorned with palm trees and tropical plants. If you are standing in the right place, you can see Pearl Harbor through a window-opening in the stairwell in one corner of the school's main two-story building. If you look to the right, you can see the top of the Waianae mountain range just above the roof. (I promise pictures soon!) While the views and the atmosphere are great, the best part of my experience so far is the students. The students at Aiea are diverse and lively and lovely. They love football and volleyball and can be seen throwing one or both in the courtyard after lunch and during their morning "Wiki." (short recess).

The students in my ELL class are especially awesome. They come from a number of different backgrounds and they have diverse language backgrounds. Ilocano (a Filipino language) and Marshallese speakers (language of the Marshall Islands) make up the largest part of my class. There are also Samoan and Korean speakers and a lone Spanish speaker from Puerto Rico. Along with these unusual languages, students also bring unique cultural identities. While I wasn't terribly thrown off when I noticed some students taking off their shoes after entering the classroom, for example, belief in supernatural demons was one cultural trait I wasn't expecting. . .

On Halloween, my mentor teacher prepared a lesson in which students would read ghost stories from several different cultures. One story we read was a Marshallese folktale in which a pregnant woman, after being left alone by her husband for months on end, turned into a mejenkwaad, (Mejenkwaad is a Marshallese word meaning "demon.") It was an eerie story to be sure. Upon the husband's return from his long trip to find congratulatory presents for his wife, he discovers his wife's transformation. He quickly deduces that she has eaten everyone on the island, as mejenkwaads usually do. Students were asked to write responses and reflections about the folktale and the response of one Marshallese girl stood out. My mentor teacher asked her to share her reflection with the class.

The seventh-grade girl, who is one of the brightest in the class and a natural leader, proceeded to tell her classmates about the time her aunt turned into a mejenkwaad. Without hesitation and maintaining full seriousness, she described how her uncle found his demonized wife in the middle of the night preparing to eat one of their children! Luckily, the student explained, her uncle had Holy Water in the house and was able to splash his wife back to her normal self. Another Marshallese student added that the moral of the folktale must be to keep Holy Water handy if your wife is pregnant!

After class, I respectfully inquired more from the girl. I was genuinely curious, and I wasn't about to voice my disbelief skepticism, even though I felt it through and through. After all, I am still a rookie in my new Pacific home. The last thing I want to do is alienate my students by telling them their beliefs are somehow wrong or erroneous. In their own time, they can re-examine and challenge and decide for themselves. That's what a good teacher lets students do, right? Besides, I am a student in my new world, too. Maybe I ought to re-examine and challenge my own beliefs in order to better understand my student's odd and implausible story.

Earth(quake) Day

I was just barely awake when my cat Quincy and I felt our bed shaking this morning. (For those of you wondering, George is away at a month-long training program, so he experienced this lovely earthquake up near Schofield Barracks.) Both the Q-man and I had the same reaction: this bed is shaking, so we'd better get out of it! Ummmm....yeah. Of course as soon as I stood up I realized the whole house was shaking. In fact, the whole ISLAND and the whole ISLAND CHAIN were shaking! Wierd to think about, huh? So there was my first earthquake. And about 20 minutes later came my first aftershock. A few neighbors were out in the street checking to see if everyone was ok and verifying that yes, indeed, it was an earthquake. Overall, it wasn't that bad, though I admit it rattled my nerves. And while phone service was tricky today, I spoke with George and he is doing fine, too.

The quake caused an island-wide blackout, so after several hours of sitting around the house reading, I started to go stir-crazy with boredom. So, I trekked up to Schofield Barracks. Surely the Army Post would have back-up power, right? While they do have it, they weren't using it. Maybe to conserve their supply should there be prolonged outages? Not really sure. Anyway, my hopes of watching the Cards vs. Mets game or doing anything else to fill the boredom were dashed.

Later in the afternoon, my boredom sent me venturing out again, this time to the North Shore. I really like it there. I had a hunch there would be nutty surfers undeterred by the possibility of dangerous waves or a tsunami. I was right. I watched with envy and admiration as surfers traversed some rather large waves. I am vowing to take lessons as soon as I have some extra cash.

The whole day was a reminder of the immense power of nature. Did I mention the part of the island where I live has had virtually non-stop rain for about three days now? The rain, the earthquake, and the powerful waves are all far, far beyond human control. As mere humans, all we can do is stand and watch and maybe take some measures for safety. But, we can't lock ourselves in the basement, crawl under rocks, and hide from everything. Mother nature is still right there with us.

As I stood on the North Shore, looking out to the Pacific Ocean, I couldn't help but feel dwarfed by the vastness and deepness of the ocean. It is hard to comprehend just how far away land beyond the islands is. I felt like I was on the edge of the world. Frightening and awe-inspiring and comforting all at the same time. An amazing, nerve-rattling, boring, and exhilerating day.

Note: I took a few more pictures that may convey the feelings I've had all day. You can see them here. Be sure to view the slideshow, as the thumbnail versions just don't do justice to the scenes.

Fear the Gecko! (Ok, not really)

Geckos are a common sight in Hawaii. In fact, they are even somewhat common indoors. Luckily, they are completely harmless creatures and they actually eat some of the more pesky insects. They even chirp! Their sound is akin to the clicking noise you'd make with your teeth and tongue to call a horse. Quincy (my cat) is very familiar with this sound now and he is often eager locate and catch the gecko when he hears it. Luckily for the geckos, he is not usually successful.

I have seen quite a few since I've been here, but they can be elusive to photograph. They move very quickly, especially when they sense motion, so by the time you have your camera handy they are usually gone. Sorta like trying to photograph the Loch Ness Monster. Well, maybe not that hard. Anyway, I'd been trying to catch on one film and I finally got a good snapshot! I had to zoom way in since he was high on the wall and then still I had to massively crop and enlarge, but I thought it wasn't too bad for the first one captured on film. The gecko pictured here is approximately 4 inches long. Most of the ones I've seen indoors are smaller: maybe 1-3 inches in length. The little ones are so cute! Click here for the larger version of the photo.

On Being an Army Wife

"Army Wife" is a role I never saw myself filling. Until recently, I subconsciously viewed the "Army wife" as the antithesis to the modern, independent woman. I never envisioned myself being an Army wife or finding Army wives to be the kind of women I admired.

Once again in life, I am finding myself looking a little closer. Of course there are many kinds of Army wives. Maybe there are some Army wives who fit the stereotype, but many do not. Many are educated with their own career paths, others are devoted mothers who have made sacrifices for the sake of their families. A quick look at the blogs of Army wives indicate that many of them, like me, oppose the war in Iraq itself. For some of them, it is because they are Army wives that they oppose the war.

I certainly hope that no one will judge me narrowly because I am an "Army wife." While I very much support my new husband in his work, that doesn't necessarily mean that that is my only role in life and it certainly doesn't mean that I always support the actions of his employer and his ultimate boss, President Bush.

Still, as much as I can, I support George (my husband, not the President!) at work and at home. Since we've been married, I have been the one with more free time for a change. I've been cooking for him a lot, folding laundry, and working to keeping the house organized and clean. I don't do these things because it is my role as an Army wife, I do them because I love George and I know he would - and has - given me the same kind of support when I was the busier one. I never would have survived without George's support through my crazy schedule of full-time work and full-time graduate school this past spring! Now it is my turn to return the favor. It is this kind of give-and-take that I hope will make our marriage a strong and lasting one.

* * *

There are lots of funny and quirky things about the Army. Everything has an acronym. Sometimes when I'm around two or more Army personnel who are talking shop, I feel like they are speaking code! Luckily, I've managed to get good translations for a lot of the acronyms so I don't feel so ignorant when they talk. I love shopping at the PX and the commissary, especially since there is no Target in Hawaii. It is funny, however, to see parking spaces reserved at those places though for high-ranking officers. I really appreciate how courteous people are on post. People follow the rules of the road very carefully and politeness abounds among Army folks and their families. There is a real sense of family (or "ohana" as they say in Hawaii). When George and I first arrived, none of our household goods had arrived from the mainland. We were very appreciative that the wife of one of George's colleagues lent us pots and pans, bed linens, and even a little table until our belongings started arriving.

I am also becoming aware of how lucky I am right now that my spouse is still here with me. A large number of soldiers from Schofield Barracks are deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan right now. Most of the deployed soldiers are infantry, which means that they are in some of the most dangerous places with the most dangerous duties. As a result, there are many families who are here without one of their loved ones and know that their loved ones are living in dangerous conditions. I cannot take for granted that George is here and I need to be respectful and aware that the spouses of many people I meet here may be on the front lines.

Being a military spouse in Hawaii in particular has some unique features. First off, as a white person - or black person for that matter, it is not difficult for locals to guess that you are associated with the military. While not all white and black people are military here, a large number are. By contrast, a large percentage of the local life-long residents have Asian or Pacific roots. In other words, I stand out. Add to that a sometimes tenuous relationship between some life-long residents and the military operations here and you begin to understand. There is a strong sentiment among some locals that Hawaii should return to being an independent and sovereign nation and the U.S. military should leave. While this sentiment is rarely expressed towards military people individually, there are occasional flare-ups. For that reason, I try to tread lightly in my new home and be respectful and receptive to the local culture. As a female who does not have to sport a buzz-cut, it is a little easier for me than actual soldiers to blend in. Maybe it even helps that I'm a brunette and getting more tan by the day! Overall, though, I've received far more "aloha" and genuine warmth from locals than anything else. My sponsor teacher, for example, brings me goodies to snack on nearly every day!

* * *

WOW. I had no idea I would have so much to say on this topic, but I guess it is something that has been on my mind! While its required some self-examination, I think I'm adjusting rather smoothly to my new role as an "Army Wife." In the end, the introspection required for this adjustment will help me strengthen my core beliefs or re-evaluate them in light of my new insights. For that, I am thankful for the opportunity and experiences I am having here in Hawaii as a new Army Wife.

Snorkeling in Hawaii

This past weekend, George and I, along with our friend Jason went snorkeling in two different coral reef areas surrounding Oahu. While I had been snorkeling once before - very briefly in Jamaica - this was my first full-fledged snorkeling experience. It was awesome! Once I got used to it, I totally forgot I was breathing through a little tube and really started to enjoy being like the fish under the water's surface.

According to George and Jason, we didn't have the best conditions for snorkeling on either day. On Saturday, the sky was cloudy and we actually had a little rain so the visibility into the water was limited somewhat. On Sunday, the surf was a bit high and kicking the sand around in the water enough to partially obscure the water. Nonetheless, we still saw some really neat stuff on both days. We snorkeled at two different sites. The first was on the Ewa side of the island, at a place known as "Electric Beach" because of its proximity to the Hawaiian Power generating facility. The other place was near Waimea Bay on the North Shore near the surfing-reknowned Banzai Pipeline. We saw a lot of awesome fish including the one pictured here called a Surge Wrasse. No, I didn't take this picture, but the colors really were that bright! Maybe sometime I'll head out with one of those disposable underwater cameras and try to capture my own shots. With any luck, we'll have even better conditions for the trip we are planning this weekend to Hanauma Bay on the southeast corner of the island. Everyone who I've spoken with who has been there says it is absolutely amazing there. Stay tuned... :-)

Aliamanu Elementary School

I have now completed two weeks of my student teaching at Aliamanu Elementary School in Honolulu, Hawaii. I am having a wonderful experience! It is hard but rewarding work every day to keep the kids challenged and focused on learning, but I am lucky to have a wonderful mentor teacher and a wonderful group of students.

So far, I have been working with a second-grade class as well as with a fourth-grader one-on-one who is newly arrived from China. The second graders come from diverse linguistic backgrounds. My second graders speak Spanish, Vietnamese, Japanese, Marshallese, and Samoan. They all amaze me with how quickly they have picked up English! I am lucky to be working with very small groups of students. While this is common in ELL (English Language-Learner) classrooms, there are still many schools that have ELL classrooms with so many students at so many levels that the instruction necessarily suffers.

In addition to getting to know the students, I am still getting to know about public schools in Hawaii. The physical environment is the most noticeable. Very few schools have indoor hallways. They almost all have classrooms that open directly to the outdoors with sidewalks and covered breezeways that connect them. Air conditioning is also rare. Despite Hawaii's tropical location, the heat here does not usually compare to the heat and humidity of the mainland East Coast or Midwest that I am accustomed to. I guess we can thank the ocean tradewinds for that. For that reason, classrooms rarely have windows or screens for that matter. They have "jalousies," which are similar to shutters or window-blinds that can be opened or closed to allow air to flow. The nearly daily rainbows, the intermittent rain showers, the relaxed attitude that pervades is making for a very unique experience.

Because a picture is worth a thousand words, check out a few of the pictures I took of my school here.

More Wedding Pictures

I have just posted an additional 80 or so pictures from our little wedding ceremony on Waikiki Beach. Thanks to EmilieAn for taking pictures on her camera as well and getting them to me so quickly! You can see them here.

In Our Backyard

I've mentioned to some of you that George and I have seen a family of green parrots regularly in our backyard. Here are a few pictures I took of them. While beautiful and interesting birds, they are not birds native to Hawaii. They raise the question of an persistant issue here in Hawaii: the presence of non-native plant and animal species. In some cases, non-native species have the potential to severely upset the ecosystem here. Luckily, I don't think these parrots are causing any problems here, so we can enjoy them and their squeek-toy-like bird calls without worrying about their impact.

We're Married!

I can't believe I am now writing one week after George and I had a little wedding ceremony on Waikiki Beach. It was really lovely and dreamy in every way. The only thing missing was our friends and family. We are greatly looking forward to celebrating with friends and family when we have a formal ceremony in October 2007.

As for the ceremony here, we timed it so we were married right at sunset on a beautiful evening on Waikiki beach. After a very short and casual ceremony, we hung out in our new favorite resaurant, The Shorebird, and had cheeseburgers and yummy drinks. While most of our friends are back on the mainland, we were lucky to have a few of our Army friends close by. Thanks to Jason and EmilieAn for taking lovely pictures! Hopefully you can see how happy we are. We both feel blessed to have this wonderful relationship that has added so much joy to our lives.

As for married life, we are settling into our new townhouse in Mililani, Hawaii and we will have it ready for visitors very soon. We are both SO relieved to be finished with all the packing and moving. Of course, there is still more to unpack, but that should be a lot more fun than the packing. No matter, please start looking on orbitz or travelocity for good deals on your Hawaii airfare as we are looking forward to our first visitors!

My Lovely Engagement Ring

George and I picked this ring out together and I love it because it is so unique. I love that it has rubies in it and I especially love the flower-shape. I just got it back from being sized at the jeweler today. I feel like I am wearing a big hug from my sweetheart on my ring finger!

We're Engaged!

Well - everybody else is doing it! But seriously, George and I are really happy together and things just click. So this past weekend, we got engaged! We got engaged at sunset on Waikiki Beach after eating yummylicious cheeseburgers at our new favorite seaside restaurant. The ring is really purdy and I will post pictures of it as soon as possible. Its at the jeweler being sized right now, but I should get it back today. I can't wait!

We are going to get married legally on Saturday, but we will have a formal ceremony in a year or so because our marriage won't really be official until we celebrate with and receive the blessing of our friends and families. Location and date, TBA. Anyway, I hope you can see just how happy we are together. While these pics are not from our engagement evening, we went back to the same restaurant/locale with our friend, Jason, another Army fellow who is stationed in Hawaii in George's same unit who also just arrived in Hawaii. We got him to take some pictures of us and we got some others as well. To see them click here. In particular, check out the album entitled "Cheeseburgers in Paradise."

Some Quick Observations about Oahu

Rather than going into detail, I'm just giving little thoughts/observations I've had in the last few days on Oahu. If you want to know more, just ask!

• Little sprinkles of rain that come out of nowhere, last for 5 to 10 minutes, and then disappear.
• The reality of traffic on the H1 and in Waikiki
• Seeing four or five rainbows in a day
• The excitement of finding a gallon of milk that cost only $5 in the PX!
• All the crazy and beautiful Hawaiian streetnames
• The way everything looks like it could be a postcard
• Being caucasian and being a minority
• Hawaiian music everywhere: in the airport, in the shopping mall, in restaurants
• The stunning beauty of the beaches and water and mountains
• Ukeleles for sale in the grocery store
• The value of a lanai
• My willingness to be super-clean out of fear of the so-called B-52 Bomber flying cockroaches
• Missing my friends and family
• The way days seem to last for such a long time and don't just fly by in a rush
• The serious intensity of the midday sunshine
• The clarity of the sky
• Fish!
• Exploring it all with my sweetheart

A Waikiki Morning

I just posted some pics I took this morning. Check out my new picasa album called a Waikiki Morning.

Day One: Venturing Out and Quincy's "Hotel"

Its about 5am local time and I'm blogging. I would say I've still not recovered from the jetlag.

Anyway, my first day here was quite full. By the time I got back to my hotel last evening, I was ready for some serious sleep. I had started the day around 6am by heading out to find a grocery store. It was an absolutely gorgeous morning. Flowers and birds everywhere, the mountains in the distance, and a blue sky I haven't seen in a long long time. I found a grocery store and got a bunch of things to stock my kitchenette. Boy, they aren't kidding about the price of groceries here! I saw my first-ever $7 gallon of milk! As much as I love milk, I didn't buy any. Many of you may realize what a sacrifice with was for me. I'm sure I'll treat myself at some point, but considering my budget, I have to be really careful. What I did get a lot of was fresh fruits and vegetables. I can honestly say that I ate the best bananas of my life yesterday. WOW. Smaller than the ones I'm used to, but sweetness packed in.

After venturing out for groceries, I came back to the hotel and crashed for a few more hours. After lunch, I made the loooooong trek by foot and bus and foot again to see Quincy at the Animal Quarantine Station. He will be there until next Wednesday - the 23rd. He seems to be healthy, though the vets there were not able to give him a proper exam because he was "vicous"! That was actually written on his chart! I hung out with him for an hour or so, though he really didn't seem happy to see me. I think he is still mad at me for the plane trip. I spoke with the animal caretaker and the vet and they both said that cats are often moody for the first few days they arrive. Hopefully Quincy will mellow out. He was gladly eating treats out of my hand one minute, but then hissing and growling at me trying to gently pet him the next. Anyway, If you'd like to see Quincy's accommodations, visit my photo album of the outing.

I promise I will take pictures of other stuff today. Honestly, the main reason I didn't take more pictures of the scenery is that it is so beautiful pictures just wouldn't do it justice. As I was walking down the main street of Waikiki yesterday looking for breakfast and groceries, I was nearly in tears the place is so beautiful. Still, I'll take my camera out today and capture some stuff on film. :-)

I made it!

Last night, around 9:45pm local time, I took my first steps on the island of Oahu! I feel like I haven't seen much yet as it was dark when I arrived and it is still dark now. Still, everything is exciting to me. It is about 5am local time as I type. Quincy and I survived the flights, although I am eager to check in on him at the Quarantine station, where he will be until next Wednesday. He cried a lot during the second flight (understandably), but the airline personnel whisked him away before I have a chance to check him over properly.

Despite my worries over Quincy, I am very excited to be here. For one, this is as far to the West as I have ever been in my whole life! And even though I am still in the U.S., I definitely feel I am in a different culture. Instead of signs being written in English and Spanish (as I am accustomed to in D.C.) they are in English and Hawaiian or Japanese or Korean. The airport and lots of other buildings from what I can tell, are largely open-air structures. I've already heard lots of Hawaiian music: in the airport and on the bus ride to Waikiki.

Speaking of the bus ride, because I am staying in a super-budget hotel, I needed the help of the driver to get my heavy bags to my third floor room. The driver gladly helped me, but as a courtesy to the other passengers, I had to be the last of his drop-offs. As a result, I got to ride all over Waikiki and see all the fancy and not-so-fancy hotels. I am already putting in a vote for the Hawaiian Hilton Village. It looked cool, though expensive I'm sure!

Well, I'm sure I will have a lot more to report once the sun comes up and and I can walk around and see everything in the daylight. That said, my new island home looks very promising and I can hardly wait to explore it! I will report more and post pictures as soon as possible. Thank goodness for internet connection here at my hotel! Aloha.

The U-City Loop

Last night, my mom and I went down to an area of St. Louis called "The Loop." It is a funky-cool little part of town with one-of-a-kind shops, a vintage movie house, an array of local restaurants and artisan shops alongside the occasional chain outfit. It is a great little neighborhood where people from throughout the city mix: locals out for a night on the town, funky young folks with crazy-colored hair, city-dwellers and suburbanites, and college students from nearby Washington University. For those of you familiar with D.C., imagine a less pretentious, less overpriced version of Georgetown without the traffic jams. One charming little feature of the neighborhood is the Hollywood-style stars which are embedded in the sidewalk featuring names and bios of famous St. Louisans. To see more pics from our excursion, click here.

The Jeff Smith Movie

We made the trip the old movie house in the Loop (see above entry) called "The Tivoli" to see a movie that documented the recent experience of one of my high school classmates, Jeff Smith. In 2004, Jeff made a bid to win the Democratic nomination for the Congressional seat opened up by the recently retired Richard Gephardt. Watching the movie and seeing all of Jeff's hard work made me so proud of my old school and my graduating class which yielded a diverse collection of people who are engaged in wide range of worthwhile pursuits. I remember Jeff as a kind person (whom I had a crush on in 6th grade!!), who everyone got along with. He was (is) a unique guy: a 5'6" basketball player who was the only white guy on our school's varsity basketball team. In college, he majored in African American studies and eventually earned a Ph.D. in political science. He has been a strong proponent of education and has helped start several St.Louis-area charter schools with rigorous math and science curricula. He ran his Congressional campaign on a platform of equity in public education. As a future teacher myself, his campaign focus captured my attention and support. While he lost the nomination in a close race to a member of a well-known Missouri political family (the Carnahans), he went on to win a State Senate seat in the most recent election. It was an inspiring story about a person who is really attempting to use his life to make a difference in the world around him. I have no doubt that he will do great things in service of my home state and hopefully in service of the country someday.

Esteban

If I had to identify the biggest change in myself in my past ten years in the Washington, D.C. area, it has been learning about and becoming completely comfortable with myself. The most notable result of this is that I feel comfortable speaking with just about anyone. Combine this result with a naturally out-going personality and I was bound to meet make casual friendships with many of the people in the path of my daily routine. That is how I came to meet Esteban.

About a year ago, I started riding the 3T bus from my house to the West Falls Church Metro Station. On many mornings, I would be waiting at the same bus-stop as a middle-aged gentleman with a dark complexion, wearing his green Giant-Supermarket uniform shirt. At some point, I overheard him speaking Spanish and eventually I imposed my unrefined Spanish skills on him to start a conversation. He was immediately friendly and kind, although still somewhat soft-spoken. We talked about his job at the supermarket and his family in Mexico. I told him about my school program and my job and a little about my family and my boyfriend, George. That is how I got to know Esteban.

Over the past few weeks, as my move to Hawaii gets closer, I have had to start the difficult process of saying my goodbyes. The goodbyes to my friends, both my close friends and more casual friends, I had anticipated. I am still working through the separation anxiety and I'm sure I will continue to feel the heartache over it when I arrive in Hawaii. The goodbyes I had not prepared for, however, were the ones like the one I had yesterday with Esteban.

I haven't take the bus since I moved closer to the Metro Station in April, but I still see Esteban all the time. I run into him nearly every time I go to the grocery store and I see him several times a week on my short walk to the metro station. Yesterday, we ran into each other and realized after our short conversation that we weren't going to see each other again. We might not ever see each other again. While I'm not headed out of D.C. for another couple weeks, Esteban is leaving D.C. for a month-long vacation to visit his family in Mexico. We talked a few moments about our respective upcoming travels: his to Mexico and mine to Hawaii. Of course there was the silent realization that our occasional encounters may never happen again. As we concluded our conversation, we exchanged the greeting "Peace." Receiving that greeting from my unlikely acquaintance actually gave me a bit of needed peace. And I truly hope Esteban will have the same for himself and his family.

Simplify.

In preparation for my move to Hawaii, I have been paring down everything I own. I have already sold a number of large items, I have a dozen or so boxes filled with items to be sold at a yard sale, and I've put a ton of other things I own in storage. My room looks really funny and it first it felt wierd, but now I am starting to like it. I think I'll like it even better when the yard sale boxes are gone. I definitely had accumulated more stuff than any human being needs. Moreover, I'd accumulated more stuff than I really even wanted.

I was walking though Tyson's Corner Mall on Friday on the way to meet some friends for dinner. All the stores filled with things to buy - things that persuade us we might look better or prettier, things that will make our lives easier or more comfortable or more efficient. As it has been a while since I've been in a mall and I've been going through this paring-down, at first I felt disgusted by all the stuff everywhere and all the people buying everything, walking with two and three large shopping bags of new clothes, gadgets, housewares, etc. Then some adorable dress caught my eye. My mind rapidly changed gears and I wanted the dress. Somehow, just by looking at all the things in the windows, I became caught up in the shopping world and the promise of these tangible, material goods. Quickly, though, I remembered how good it has felt to pare down my belongings and how I want to keep it that way and most importantly, how I don't really need anything new at all.

There are so many wonderful things in life that don't come with a pricetag at all: the love of friends and family, music and harmony, sunsets, a walk in the woods, jumping into the ocean or a lake, fresh snowfall, and all the gifts of nature.

'Tis the gift to be simple,
'tis the gift to be free,
'tis the gift to come down
where we ought to be,
and when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gained
to bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed,
to turn, turn, will be our delight
till by turning, turning we come round right.

-Eighteenth Century Shaker Song

Don't Worry, Be Happy.

That really should be my motto. Permanently.

I had a decent-sized wrench tossed into my Hawaii plans this week, but it is certainly not an undefeatable wrench. I can still go through with my adventure as planned, albeit with some minor and temporary adjustments. Nonetheless, I have been incredibly stressed over it. The bottom line is - I need to CHILL! Things will work themselves out. I have two choices: I can either spend my time fretting the unknown details of my upcoming move, or I can relish my final days here in Washington and daydream about the wonderful parts of the adventure I have coming. The beaches, the sunset, the new culture and people, the new job, being with my sweetheart in paradise, visits old from friends, birthdays on the beach, fresh pineapple, open-toed shoes, sunshine, windows, rainbows, learning to surf, learning to hula, and learning a new way of thinking that DOES NOT resemble the high pace of my life here in Washington.

And Steve Winwood with this closing thought that I will try to keep in my head as I go to sleep:

And I'll drink and dance with one hand free
Let the world back into me
And oh I'll be a sight to see
Back in the high life again

Shelly & Andrew's Wedding

I didn't have a ton of photos from Shelly & Andrew's wedding as I was running around quite a bit myself that day, but I do have a few. Check them out here. It really was a very special celebration and I'm honored to have been chosen to stand in Shelly's bridal party. The planning and preparation of the bachelorette weekend and bridal shower as well as the events themselves brought close friends even closer together.
For a lovely slideshow of the event, see Lawrence and Pam's photos on their business website.