along for the ride

life

2011-05-08T23:32:00.000-07:00

recently the city & county of honolulu added some new busses to their fleet. i would not know this except that they are a different style from the old ones, and they look like the busses in qingdao. something about the shape and the fact that the windows are bigger.

i learned a lot about chinese life in chinese busses.

for the first half of my time in china i had a second job tutoring a boy who lived on the other side of town. it would take me an hour to walk from my apartment to the bus stop, catch a bus, transfer in front of the enormous, intimidating, well-guarded government building by 五四广场, then ride to the western side of qingdao where we would meet.

after our lesson, i would walk back to the bus stop and try to get on the bus before all the school children, their grandparents, and those who had just finished work. because if i didn’t i would be standing all the way back to downtown in rush hour traffic.

never have i been so physically close to so many people, some of which have been either playing a sport that causes profuse sweating or not bathed in days. or eaten lots of raw garlic. these three people will be pressing themselves against you and screaming into their cellphones. there is really no way i can accurately explain the tight togetherness of the bus. it’s so bad that when it stops at the bus stop, it is virtually impossible to get on or off- there are so many people crammed into the door-well that the doors cannot open. forget about even attempting to find a seat; you’ll be lucky to find a pocket of air to breathe and get off without loosing anything. i once almost lost a flip flop in the shuffle. i ended up throwing myself out of the bus with my shoes in my hands. which is not something you do in china.

also they have these fun televisions on the buses that showcase a variety of entertaining and educational programming, including but certainly not limited to: how to make your own snuggie (which you are encouraged to wear to the post office and bank), america’s funniest home videos, recent news, olympic highlights and the chinese version of south park.

all the chinese busses are all simultaneously aiming to break a land speed record. should a pedestrian conveniently not look (and thus not see) the oncoming bus, the driver will have to slam on the breaks (although i heard of many accidents concerning pedestrians who “didn’t see” the bus, or breaks that weren't slammed fast enough) which may or may not send cell phone/ipod/shopping bag wielding passengers and their valuable possessions flying. my roommate once told me that a bus she was riding braked so hard that an elderly passanger banged his head on the window and it started to bleed. the bus is a very dangerous place indeed.

but as i would stand at the bus stop so far away from home, in this unfamiliar part of the city, freezing cold in the twilight it would hit me. i was doing this. i was in china, working two jobs, grocery shopping, going out with friends from around the world and walking home to my lack-luster apartment, making a life for myself in china. i was learning where every bus went, memorizing the stops and what they meant in chinese. i was learning how to read all the road signs and even understand the programming on the televisions in the bus.

i was slowly becoming accustomed to the plucked chickens in shopping bags with their feet sticking out, the ticket lady on the bus yelling out the next stop, the driver encouraging us to all cram in there so that he could fit a few more passengers, make a few more yuan. i had become accustomed to the walk home, past the same road-side food vendors, the strawberry lady, over those same tiled sidewalks, to our large green metal door with no knobs.

on the occasion i could grab a seat, i would sit next there and watch the city slide by and realize that this place had become familiar, had become home. it was so far from where i’d started, and it was just kind of random that i’d even ended up there, although i couldn’t really imagine being anywhere else.

i guess sometimes it’s a little crazy for me to look back and remember that was my home. i laughed there and cried there and survived winter there and met people who will forever change my life. i dived into a profession i never thought i’d be good at and made friends with many, many people from all walks of life and countries i’d never visited, who taught me more than they will ever know.

and the sight of these new busses here in hawaii brings all these thoughts back.

moment

2011-03-25T22:17:00.000-07:00

once upon a time someone asked me what the best moment of my life had been.

he told me that his had been on the streets of some city in europe at night and the lights were shining off the rain on the cobblestones and music was playing like that in movies, or something beautiful and rich and poetic like that. the kind of place i’d never been able to afford or had the opportunity to visit.

and his question, followed by that answer, stumped me. i didn’t know what my moment was.

recently i was on the other side of the island with my friend jaime. it was almost sunset and we decided to pull over at a beach and wait for it, because we had nowhere better to be, or anything else to do. and we ended up at this beach that i used to visit when i lived there.

it’s not the kind of beach they make post cards out of. there’s a big parking lot and a wall and no sand, just some rocks that the water laps up against. there’s a little dock area where rowing teams meet and set up their canoes. the waves aren’t big or scary so many people kayak or paddle surf there.

i lived in an apartment close to this beach for about a month when i first moved to hawaii. i wasn’t working yet, so i’d spend my morning walking to the library or the bank or the grocery store. i’d come home and make banana pancakes for lunch and spend the afternoon at the pool reading books and cooling off by swimming laps. in the evening i’d often walk to the beach.

and somehow, at that beach, God told me i would be just fine. somehow the mixture of sunset and the sea and the breeze blowing through my hair convinced me that i wasn’t as alone as it sometimes seemed, that i was meant to be and to be here. and it wasn’t a singular event, but every time i went there, this peace would fill me and i’d go home and make pasta for dinner and ice cream for dessert and go to bed and sleep without all the frenetic worrying and what-if’s that will and have and do keep me awake.

so jaime and i went to this beach and as i pulled the car into a parking spot right next to the wall by the ocean, it caught me off guard. it took me back to a simpler time and place when this whole island was new and unknown and i knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Someone was taking care of me and i should not fret, everything would work out just fine.

all of a sudden i couldn’t speak, there was no way to explain to her what this place is to me. how deeply this singular spot on the globe means to me.

if you ask me tomorrow what the best moment of my life has been, where that place is that has changed me, i will tell you. it’s that beach in hawaii kai that isn’t really a beach. it’s that place where i can stand with my feet in the water and know deeply, beyond all shadow of a doubt, that i should not worry, all will be well.

wo jiao automan

2011-03-03T23:41:00.000-08:00

(four years ago today we met trace for the first time)

when we received my brother trace he came with a shopping bag full of things: a fast-food sandwich, a boiled egg, some clothes, dried seaweed and his favorite toys. he clung to his toy gun for days. he even slept with it (and me. i had never slept with a gun before.)

by day two we knew that his guns weren’t just any guns. they were automan guns. everyday we learned more about automan. we bought automan dvds and we watched them together for comfort when he remembered that his foster mama and baba were gone. when he forgot that he missed them, he would shoot us as we cowered behind beds, chairs and suitcases and he would act out all of automan’s moves. when trace came to us, he was wearing a blue automan shirt. several months after he came home, he showed us how in his referral picture, he was wearing his favorite automan outfit.

when we got to guangzhou trace would run around the island with his gun or his sword- or a chopstick, or a water bottle, or a tree branch- anything that could be a weapon. all the parents of docile infant girls would look on in awe as he ran around wearing his automan mask, combating the grim forces of evil that were sure to be lurking behind every tree or stroller, my mom and i four steps behind, chatting like this was perfectly normal.

it was a chilly march morning. a pollution filled haze mixed with a thick, cool fog enveloped shamian island. the keepers of the big trinket tables were out, enjoying a quiet morning under the palm trees, basking in the smell radiating from the 7-11 food warmers. one of the women called out to trace: “ni hao! ta jiao shenme?” (hello, what’s your name).

“wo jiao automan,” (my name is automan) he answered without skipping a beat.

i smiled as she laughed. this was trace. wherever these two american women took him, he would be just fine. he was automan, and he could- and would- overcome anything that came his way.

glorious

2011-02-16T13:01:00.000-08:00

glorious.

it’s a pretty loaded word. a lot of pressure. there are very few moments in life, very few things you come across, that really deserve the title. but for one evening at sunset at kailua beach i think we found it.

the weather was chilly and the wind was blowing (it was december afterall) so we wore our sweaters and wrapped up in our beach towels and danced in the waves and rapidly realized that towels were meant to be capes. and capes, much like your hair, will float in the wind.

and you will dance and jump and do karate in the waves because that, my friends, is what life is about.

coming back

2011-01-30T20:50:00.001-08:00

i got out of the habit of blogging. big time.

it’s not that nothing note-worthy has happened- many things have. it’s not that i don’t have any stories to share from the past year-plus- there are oh so many. sometimes it’s just difficult to rediscover your voice.

and where do you start, how do you relate, 10 months of china, 2 months of home, 7 months back in hawaii, trying to re-start this life you had when every single thing that you thought you knew is different now?

because nothing, not one single thing, has turned out the way you thought it would.

but somehow i can’t help but know that everything will be ok. and someday, i’ll find the words to tell these stories. and i think that day is coming very soon.

stay tuned.

it was a dark & stormy night

2011-01-12T23:40:00.000-08:00

it's raining outside.

thundering and lightningning and the wind is blowing.

it doesn’t do that too much here.

i love it when it does.

storms are awesome. not just their display of the strength of God and the beauty of the lightning and the way they make all things new, but there’s this kind a feeling of togetherness or strength or comfort. what is more comforting than laying in your warm bed as the storm rages outside?

i think sometimes i need to know that i will be safe, that i will survive and conquer and be better, and a storm does this. i will take comfort in the simple things i have and ride it out, and when it’s over there will be this new beauty and appreciation.

and when the storm is over, we will emerge, battered (maybe) but better, knowing that if we can face life during the storm, we can thrive even more so under clear skies.

waves

2010-07-16T00:20:00.000-07:00

you know how when you were four, you went to the beach and played in the waves for hours and hours until the sun set and your parents dragged your sand-covered self home, wrapped an a brightly colored beach towel. you fell asleep in the car, and when you woke up your sheets were all gritty and morning light was coming through the curtains.

it didn't matter that you couldn't swim and the current could pull you out and eat you alive. the fact is that water is the most beautiful element in all time and you had to be there, in it. and it was such joy that you lost all sense of time and place and you laughed harder than you had all year.

and then you learned how to swim and make ornate sandcastles and decided that playing in the waves had an age limit, and you, in your great maturity had passed that limit.

so now you lay there like a beached whale and try to read a romance novel while simultaneously contracting skin cancer. i know, i've seen you. you've seen me.

i relived that childhood joy of playing in the waves this week with some friends. days later i still have water (and probably sand) in my left ear and after i take a shower it sloshes around and is all weird, but the reminder is good. a reminder that you are never too old to be pummeled in the sand, never to old to compete with the waves to see who is stronger, never too old to find such simple joy.

home

2010-06-30T15:38:00.000-07:00

when i was in the burg, i made a discovery.

long ago, before i even decided to move away, i had boxed up all of my artwork and random creations from birth until high school. i’d put them in this large cardboard box, labeled it ‘kelsey’s art and etc’ and put it out in the granary, where it has sat ever since. when i was home, i was going through some other boxes of my stuff in the granary, and happened upon this box. and i opened it.

it was fascinating.

i found the notebooks my friend alicia and i kept. alicia is my second cousin, is 350 days older than me and during middle and high school we were inseparable. infact, we called ourselves disjoined siamese twins. for a while, we were disjoined siamese triplets because we found a way to put a basketball in a hoodie and suspend it between the two of us.

when i was in 8th grade, the cool thing was to have a notebook with your best friends. you would write a note in it, and give it to your friend during passing period, and then she’d do the same. we have 2 notebooks and literally hundreds of pages of correspondence. it is so crazy to read what you wrote when you were 14.

but you want to know what was the strangest thing? we put this questionnaire thing in there, which we both answered. and one of the questions was ‘future residence’. and you know what i wrote? hawaii.

someone please tell me how i knew as a 14 year old that in 6 years i’d move to the other side of the country. how did i know even then that this place would become my home?

i remember when i was in china i’d see my friends’ pictures and they’d email me and tell me about life and i remember missing being here so bad it hurt. and i’d never had that feeling before. i was familiar with the longing to go, but never the longing to come back.

and it’s not just that there’s beautiful beaches everywhere and lush tropical foliage and jamba juice every 10 feet and long hawaiian words for street names (although i love all of these things). it’s that there are people here with whom i feel totally and completely at home. there’s a lot to it, many reasons why, many rants i have, and i’m going to spare you. but suffice to say, i have found people in a place where it feels like home.

and if you feel like supporting the cause, send up a prayer that the job i really want will work out. because living in paradise is not cheap.

vfw

2010-06-22T12:13:00.000-07:00

there is a tank parked in front of the e-burg vfw.

when i was a kid, it freaked me out. i’m not sure that i really knew what exactly a tank was as a 4 year old, but i knew it was scary. i probably asked one of my parents who told me about them and what they do. they probably also mentioned that the tank parked there wasn’t a threat to my safety, it was merely a lawn ornament.

i do not frequent the vfw. actually, i’ve never been there before, period. for one, i am not a veteran, so i’m not really sure i’m allowed inside. also i am not male, and i’m younger than 40. fourth, i don’t frequent many of the burg’s hottest attractions- mostly because they, infact, scare me. the lack of windows and general (lack of) upkeep give me a pretty decent idea what’s inside. now i could be surprised, but i’m thinking it might not be up to my high standards of cleanliness and breathability. but the vfw is on a well-driven road “into village” (i would say “into town” but the burg is not big enough to be called one of those quite yet) and you really can’t miss it. and despite the fact that the tank is surrounded by shrubbery, covered in lights, and has not carried a single soldier or weapon since long before my birth, it still struck fear into my little heart.

frankly, i’ve always wondered how it got there. did they drive it there from some port (down the toll road or us12)? did it come by truck? who had the honor of parking it there? how did the e-burg vfw get it, as apposed to a larger, more illustrious vfw elsewhere in the state or country? and most importantly: could it be hijacked and driven menacingly through our village (think tiananmen square minus the communism part with emphasis on running people down)?

and i wondered if, as an adult, having been away for some time, the tank would still strike terror into my heart.

it does.

in the month i’ve been home i’ve had to drive past the vfw 3+ times a week. and every time i pass i can’t help myself. i have to look. and shudder. and drive faster.

jade

2010-06-19T17:38:00.000-07:00

storm

2010-06-19T16:47:00.000-07:00

yesterday a huge wind storm blew in with winds up to 100mph. i took some pictures to document the damage here at our house: mostly giant limbs from giant trees getting blown all over. needless to say, portions of today were spent picking up big sticks.

what made me laugh is that since the power got blown out, we spent the evening in front of our respective pre-charged screens: nintendo ds, laptop, ipod touch... even with no power, we stare at screens - yay technology!

one of the shutters blew off the side of the house- we found pieces out by the road

this fern lived in a cement planter that got blown into what before wasn't a space between the fence and the steps. also there are some shutter pieces.

not sure what you use to light candles at your house, but we prefer using the blow torch.

(the power went out - it finally came on at midnight which was good because no one in this house can sleep without a fan and/or music playing)

the fence did not remain unscathed, but fortunately the playhouse and playset did.

the family 2010

2010-06-08T18:10:00.000-07:00

i'm back :)

2010-06-03T08:57:00.000-07:00

so i’ve been back for a while now. couple weeks i think. and only now am i finding the time, energy and most importantly, motivation to write something.

so last you heard from me i was on my way into china. come to find out they have this nifty block on blogger there, so no contact with the blogging world for me. sadness.

my plan going to china was to stay until january. well, weeks turned into months which turned into more months… before i knew it i was signing a new contract for a few extra months. i ended up staying until the middle of may.

it was an experience. i think (and hope) i’ve got china out of my system for a while. you see and hear and eat and experience a lot in a foreign country in 9 months. it’s so weird now for me to go to a store where i can actually talk to the cashier. well, more accurately, talk about more than “do you want a bag? （你要不要袋子？）” and “your total is 9.50 (九筷五十).” and to have a car at my disposal, to drive down roads where i don’t feel like death is waiting for me around every turn, on my way to the library that has lots of english books, or the stores that sell clothes i like and food i recognize.

before i came home i read up on re-entry shock and was preparing myself for being unable to re-adapt to life. for me, it’s been a non-issue. maybe it’s because i’m not jumping right back into the working world, but i’m actually really enjoying being back in my country.

over time i’ll try to post stories about some of my experiences in china. and present life, because sometimes present life is also quite fascinating…

japan

2009-08-25T02:06:00.000-07:00

lets start from the beginning:

yesterday : i finished my cleaning and packing madness, and a friend came by to take my couch, other (generous) friends came and took all my boxes 'o-crap that they are storing in their garage for me while i'm away. so all that was left was what i was taking. the downside was that i had no bed to sleep in last night (my couch folded out into my bed) so i spent the night on the (the actual living room) couch.

today (24th) : i woke up and ate a HUGE bowl of rice chex with LOTS of milk. it is going to be a long 5 months without homogenized american 2% bovine goodness. sigh. then i started to try to cram my pillow in my suitcase. hmmm. failure. plan b, try to zip carryon bag closed. (note: carryon bag was purchased for under $10 in urumqi street market in 2007. it made the following trip sequence: urumqi-beijing-tokyo-mineapolis-ohare-kelsey's house-florida-return from florida-beijing-hefei-guangzhou-hong kong-ohare-kelsey's house-florida-return from florida-hawaii move #1-hawaii move #2-hawaii move #3.) so i was trying to squeeze one more trip out of it, and it just wouldn't squeeze. instead it ripped.

so i called heather & petey g (ride to airport) and suggested we leave a tad bit early and stop by the outlet mall and find me a new carryon. i also requested petey g's assistance in zipping my bag, which he accomplished with great skill and agility. so then we visited the outlet mall, where i spent $35 (really breaking the bank since i could have got a suitcase 6 times that size for half the price in the mother country...) on a new carryon. it is actually quite slick and i like it alot. at the same time it had better last me YEARS of international travel, though, just saying. but all my stuff fit and it actually zipped up pretty easily.

luggage crisis solved, we were airport bound. i knew we had reached the airport when the throngs of japanese tourists became visible. it didn't help that i flew japan airlines. i could count the number of non-asians on that flight with my one hand. needless to say, some flight updates were given without translations to any other language. BUT somehow i managed to be sitting next to a chinese family. finally someone i could eavesdrop on... because let me tell you, i cannot even tell where japanese words/sentences start and stop. it's yamayamayama to me :).

(somewhere in here we crossed the international dateline into the 25th of august) : before today, i had never flown japan airlines. i really doubt if i'll ever fly another airline. jal rocks. first, they have the sweetest flight crew ever. no overweight middle-aged fake-blonde woman barking at you to get your toddler OUT OF BUSINESS CLASS NOW OR ELSE. jal attendants walked around periodically handing out hot towels, random beverages, etc. and, although the japanese are not known for their physical largeness, they have the most space for economy passengers i've experienced recently (perhaps you remember my rant from our to-china-for-aurora trip?) but you want to know the kicker? the aspect that wins my loyalty probably forever?

they. served. us. ice cream.

and my little heart melted.

jal has this amazing feature: they have a little camera in the cockpit area (maybe it's on top of the plane?) and one underneath the plane. so they "televise" the take off and landing which is really, really cool. then, every passenger (even those of us in economy!) gets their own tv screen on the seat back in front of them, with their own handy dandy remote, and they can watch the "action" from these cameras between showings of their favorite movies :).

i managed to watch 2 movies, take a nap, eat, read 'confessions of a counterfeit farm girl' which you've gotta read if you are from the midwest and/or pity those of us who live(d) there. it is an absolutely hilarious work of genius, i couldn't stop smiling and snickering (and yes i was in public!) it was all so true!

ok, and here's one last nice thing. the flight was just under 8 hours. EIGHT. this is a plus of living on the tiny tropical island in the middle of the pacific ocean. travel to asia just got a lot faster. no more 15 hours of hell between hong kong and ohare! i got off the 7 hour 45 minute flight and i wasn't a complete zombie. i'm blaming my feeling of bliss on the ice cream for sure.

so i got off the plane, got through customs and stuff and the helpful girl at the info desk managed to direct me (and my complete lack of direction self) to the appropriate bus (33) to get to my hotel.

when i dreamed of my ventures into japan i thought "oooohhhh a hotel in an urban area where i can poke around and buy something very "japanese" that i will treasure and use to wow my friends for years to come. so when we started driving through this bamboo forest i was like "what?"

sure enough, the nikko narita is in the middle of a forest. not even a mcdonalds or sushi joint around. so, instead of throwing down thousands of japanese yen (i exchanged for some japanese and chinese money at the honolulu airport) on one of their nice asian restaurants (which is what i will be eating for the next 5 months) i went to the convienience store and for a mere 600 yen (no idea how many american dollars that is, but i'm betting $7-10) i acquired:

-a carton of grapefruit juice
-cheap japanese version of pringles
-one individually packaged banana
-2 string cheeses
-a blueberry yogurt with mystery chewy pieces in it. it was the only one of the "yogurt-looking-ish" containers with any english on it. so of course i bought it.

i suppose soon i'll be heading off to bed. i have no idea what time it is here (it is dark, though), but i'm going to call down for a wake up call in the morning so that i am not late for my flight to the motherland. it is almost midnight in hawaii which means kelsey's body is about ready to crash. (another plus about living in hawaii is that it's actually only 4 hours ahead of japan, 6 for china i think, and technically one day :)... but it makes the jet lag transition a ton easier going this way!)

stay tuned & aloha.

15 things

2009-08-23T18:38:00.000-07:00

things i love about living alone:

a while back, i heard someone say that living alone is one of the most dangerous things you will do. not in the sense of physical danger: i live in a gated complex and lock my doors; but more of the effects of not having to deal with people. i have lived alone since june 15. and i have loved every minute. here’s the list of some of my favorite features of the last few months:

1. not feeling bad when it’s late at night and i get home and want to cook food and watch tv. there’s no one to wake up!
2. leaving random stuff all over the house (purses, books, dirty laundry, dishes, grapes, papers…)
3. breaking out into song. whatever i want, whenever i want.
4. watching whatever i want on tv whenever i want to, at any volume.
5. getting dressed in any room, at any time.
6. letting the dirty dishes pile up until there are no clean dishes. same goes for piles of laundry until i have no clean clothes left.
7. the only stuff on the counter/couch/floor is my stuff and it is there because i want it there.
8. as soon as my most recent roommate left, the obnoxious knick knacks were gone and the loud wind chime put away.
9. 5 words : because. i. feel. like. it.
10. peace and quiet. all the time.
11. i am in charge of getting the mail! every time i go to the box, i say, today could be the day when i receive the envelope that will change my life. hasn’t happened yet, but it has compelled me to go get the mail when i got home really late and didn’t really want to walk all the way to the mailbox.
12. when preparing to move again, you can throw half full boxes/suitcases all over the place.
13. i put only stuff i deemed worthy (trace & jade’s artwork) on the refrigerator.
14. no one tempts me by buying ice cream and putting it in the freezer.
15. i don’t have to be nice to my roommate’s cat if she is not here to protect it.

tomorrow i will depart from this glorious bubble of aloneness and go to china, where i will be introduced to a new roommate. and we will have to share a bathroom. wish her luck…

3-5 months

2009-08-19T20:50:00.000-07:00

so i'm one of those junkies who needs some new life change every 3-5 months.

i moved here in january.

within 3 weeks i'd moved across the island and started a new job.

4 months after that, i moved to a new house, got a new roommate.

and now, 3 months later, having lived on the same island for 8 months, it's past time for a change.

so i am moving to china.

on monday.

news from the family

2009-08-19T19:50:00.000-07:00

first, we have some newer pictures of trace with some of his favorite people (today mama told me that both trace and trent have grown 2 inches since june). a week or so ago, trace lost his first tooth: middle of the bottom row. the new tooth is down there, waiting to come in. jade doesn't have any loose teeth yet, and her physical growth has been proportional :).

next, a few new videos from trevor:

(pulling his truck in the cass county fair)

(riding his snowmobile across a pond)

waterfalls

2009-08-04T23:17:00.000-07:00

last weekend, a few friends and i hiked up the side of a mountain to see waterfalls. it was muddy so we hiked the 2 miles barefoot. once we got up to the waterfalls (there were two, only one is pictured) we jumped off the sides and into the water below.

21st bday : north shore (sunset)

2009-07-24T20:55:00.000-07:00

21st bday : north shore (random things)

2009-07-24T20:51:00.000-07:00

21st bday : north shore (temple/cliff)

2009-07-24T20:48:00.000-07:00

21st bday : north shore (personal island)

2009-07-24T20:44:00.000-07:00

21st bday : north shore (turtles)

2009-07-24T20:40:00.000-07:00

twister

2009-07-16T23:25:00.000-07:00

i’ve always kinda had this thing for tornadoes. maybe it’s part of growing up in the midwest, where we actually have them. it seemed like at least once every summer we’d get the eagerly anticipated tornado warning (best if heard via radio). the wind would pick up (or die down and give us the eery calm) and it would rain or hail or just remain eerily still. and we would go to the basement.

my friend natalie and i went to the central library (in downtown honolulu) and we were browsing the new books. there was this particular book that was basically all tornado shots taken by storm chasers. and it reminded me of all those storms i’d seen, running around outside, putting the bikes and four-wheelers and floaty noodles and cars away as my dad and brother turned off the irrigations. although the rain may or may not come, the lightening would.

i remember the way the wind whipped the dirt from the field up and around one summer where a stranger ended up in our basement because he didn’t want to be outside in it. or the time we could barely see the driveway, except that my dad and his employee were in his big white truck, out there on it, and were convinced that the only way they weren’t blowing away was that the employee was quite… well rounded.

within the first week of 7^th grade we were in the hallway, only this time it wasn’t a drill: it was real. of course, we were no more serious than we were during the drills. we knelt there, math books (biggest book we had in our repertoires) over our heads, waiting for the ceilings to collapse. and we laughed, “we are going to die!” after a while, realizing that to kneel with a math textbook over your head for long periods of time is dreadfully uncomfortable, the teachers (who had been walking around monitoring and critiquing our kneeling- closer to the wall!; surely not letting any bare small of the back show- why isn’t your undershirt tucked in?) allowed us to sit, in a row, against the wall, in the hallways. it is actually one of my more fond memories of my scholastic experience.

today i was sitting , reading a book, at the kapolei transit center, awaiting the bus to target. and i looked up and noticed that there is something different in the sky. there was this odd brown streak. now, if i had been in china, there would be no reason for alarm, as the air quality is generally quite poor and the atmosphere is usually brown and/or gray. but this is hawaii, renown for it’s blue skies (and bluer water). so the fact that there is brown in our air is unusual at best. then i really start to see it: a dust-devil. the biggest dust devil i have ever seen. it went all the way to the sky (most dust devils i’ve seen are rather short). but it was very faint, very loose.

we had a big black lab named harley. i remember seeing him get trapped in dust devils. his tail would be twisted around and he’d get this look like, “what?!”

i love the dust devils: they remind me of tornadoes. i used to have (haven’t had in a long while) dreams about tornadoes. they usually hit our house; i would watch them approach. i was never really scared: just intrigued. i didn’t care that the tornado was going to rip our house and all our possession up, mix them around in the sky, and drop them back down a few miles away. all i wanted to do was see the tornado. don’t know why this was such a deep desire, but it was and is.

i suppose unless i move back to the midwest or to texas, my chances of seeing a tornado are rather slim.

but you can always dream.

dreams

2009-07-05T23:26:00.001-07:00

i had a scary dream the other night.

it wasn't like a nightmare. no one was chasing me, nor did it involve fire, eggplant, death, spiders, lack of good reading material, spooky lighting or any other terrifying phenomenon.

my mom was pregnant.

with another! boy.

and we had to find another tr- name.

i woke up in a cold sweat.

growth

2009-06-23T17:33:00.000-07:00

i started a garden.

i figured it was as little commitment as possible, while still supporting something living (the other options were acquiring a pet and/or child- neither of these options sounded particularly attractive). i have no idea why i decided i needed to support something living, except to keep myself from turning into a totally-self-serving jerk while living alone (my roommate and i have very different schedules, so we actually don’t see each other very often).

when i moved to my current residence, i noticed that there was a garden area in front of the apartment. my roommate (and probably her prior roommate) had tried their hand at gardening; i felt the call and challenge to give it a try myself.

i grew up on a corn-and-bean farm. farming has been the profession of choice on both sides of my family. hypothetically, the skills are in my blood.

in the same strip mall as my old navy is a lowe’s. so one day after work i went to lowe’s, threw down $3, and left with corn and green bean seeds as well as a pepper plant.

that very night, i put some dirt (i dug it out of the garden with a spoon) in some tupperware containers and planted my seeds. a few days later, when i had time, i cultivated (proper farming terminology) a swath of ground and planted my seedlings.

and they grew. i am quite certain i am the only resident of my apartment complex to have corn growing in their patch-‘o-ground.

and for the record, it is not field corn or seed corn, it is sweet corn. i decided that (a) delay planting male rows wasn’t exactly going to fit into my work schedule and (b) i really had no desire to go out trying to find illegal immigrants to do my detasseling. thus, sweet corn was deemed best option. and i can eat it myself, as apposed to feeding it to a cow. i don’t think we are allowed farm animals in this gated community.

the most recent newsflash in kelsey’s garden world is that i have constructed bean poles out of cheap chopsticks and busted hair ties. innovation at it’s best. the beans are starting to flower, as is the pepper plant, which means that soon, i should be harvesting the fruits of my labor.

summer

2009-06-17T21:15:00.000-07:00

the sound of my childhood summers is, without question, the irrigation pump. because rains were always few and far between during the heat of the summer, the time when corn grows the most, water was always being pumped to some irrigation, somewhere on our land.

you knew it was summer when to my father’s dinner-time prayer the phrase, “and God please bring the rains” was added. he never prayed for any other weather phenomenon that i remember (although in the middle of february, in a seasonal-depression induced slump my mother and i prayed fervently for a variety of weather phenomenon and i knew my brother prayed for snow so he could snowmobile. i wondered how God handled it when He was getting conflicting prayers from under the same roof).

the irrigation pump was at the end of our long driveway. once someone told me that i lived “in the house with the leaky irrigation pump at the end of the dirt driveway.” yes, that was it. forget all the trees or the windmill or any other landmarks, the leaky irrigation was forever the marker of our residence. although the pump never broke, it always leaked, so we always had a puddle in the grassy (or it would have been grassy had it not been so perpetually wet) space between the driveway and the next field. in the heat and humidity of july and august, this pool of water became a stagnant breeding ground for all types of algae, slime and scum.

it didn’t matter where you were in the house, as long as a window somewhere was open, you could hear the pump’s constant whirr. it never wavered, never clicked, never squeaked, never changed. twenty years i listened to the pump and nothing about it ever faltered. the same parts were always rusted (nothing new or different decided it needed to rust, too) it never faded or a new leak never came to be. whatever leaked had simply leaked since the beginning of time.

i wonder how many hours of his life my dad spent at that pump: turning it on and off, using the water from it to fill his sprayer, turning a knob to change the water’s flow. it was his home office, the place where he took a lot of cell phone calls and helped his assets- his corn- to grow.

summer was over when the pump turned off for the last time. when its whirr wasn’t in the air, it was deathly quiet- the quiet of fall and winter. it always astonished me how silent winter was outside if you just stood there. then i realized that if you just stood there in summer you would hear birds, frogs, insects and a steady irrigation pump that never slept.

one year ago today

2009-06-09T22:30:00.000-07:00

we met aurora for the first time.

32 steps

2009-06-03T00:12:00.000-07:00

32 simple steps to a fabulous day off:

1. awaken without the aid of alarm clock.
2. eat a large breakfast of cornflakes, banana and ½ a chocolate chip cookie.
3. prepare self for entry into public (fashion hair, put on clothes, etc)
4. realize the medicated shampoo you ordered arrived!!
5. walk to bus stop, stopping to gaze in wonder at the hibiscus along the sidewalk.
6. board the e bus.
7. ride e bus for a while.
8. disembark e bus.
9. find public restroom (macy’s).
10. find self in chinatown.
11. locate chinese bookstore. get discount because you are buying for your sister, adopted from china.
12. find chinese veggie sellers.
13. realize that produce is so much cheaper in chinatown: must come more often! find green beans, broccoli and papaya all very affordably priced. also locate fresh sweet cherries for the can’t-beat-it- price of $1.79/lb.
14. catch bus to ala moana shopping center.
15. enter ala moana shopping center and manage not to get lost immediately.
16. find that aeropostale has opened. score affordably priced shorts that fit (not expensive and they fit? must be dreaming!)
17. walk across the street from ala moana shopping center to ala moana beach park.
18. find slighty (but not overwhelmingly) fragrant beach restroom. change into new shorts.
19. find shade under palm tree with nice view of the ocean.
20. eat cherries, read highly amusing j. maarten troost travelogue.
21. realize the sun is moving so the shade has moved: now the shady spot offers no view of the ocean.
22. realize if you stay here all afternoon you will fry to a crisp.
23. dip toes, feet and ankles in ocean.
24. grab belongings (produce, clothes and purse, together weighing no less than 20 lbs), walk to foot-rinsing-shower-thingie, rinse feet.
25. walk to bus stop.
26. catch e bus home.
27. arrive home, eat another cookie and a papaya, have roommate tell you that she has killed lots of spiders residing in our garden (what?!) with this amazing spray. this spray will forever be on hand in residence. it kills bugs, of which we are both terrified. the garden is looking lovely.
28. take leisurely bike ride around neighborhood. bike pedal looses a screw and falls off.
29. refrain from using improper language- the bike is inanimate anyways- and survey bike pedal situation.
30. put bike pedal in purse. one good thing about working next door to lowe’s… the availability of such necessary nuts and bolts. hopefully this can be fixed with limited fix-it abilities.
31. consume evening meal.
32. retire for the evening.

5-30

2009-05-30T23:11:00.000-07:00

today i went to the beach with some friends. the water was finally warm enough for me to venture out and see if i remembered how to surf... unfortunately the water was really choppy and the wind was blowing the wrong way, so i only really caught 2 waves :(. and now i am sore and tired... BUT my sinuses have been thoroughly cleansed by the salt water.

on another note, today was old navy's $3 graphic tshirt sale. add in my fabulous employee discounts, and that's 5 shirts for under $12. guess who's a happy camper?

plans for this week? work and a trip down to chinatown on my day off :).

t&j in trevor's truck

2009-05-24T16:34:00.000-07:00

beware : wild animals

2009-05-21T11:39:00.001-07:00

waipahu transit center

2009-05-18T12:46:00.000-07:00

mornings

2009-05-16T02:46:00.000-07:00

i do not wake up happy. ever.

it’s not that i hate my life, i just do not enjoy being awakened in after a long (or too short) sleep. especially if you are a telemarketer calling from the mainland. because it’s 4am here. and i don’t even own a car, so don’t call to tell me my warranty has expired.

but there is one thing that will give me some desire to arise from the warmth of my air mattress.

it is square.

crisp.

especially tasty when paired with fresh, sliced fruit and 2% milk.

rice chex.

one facet of my current financial situation is the inability to afford cereals that are not on sale. hence, i do not get rice chex every week. a few weeks ago, i got three huge boxes of corn flakes for $10, then a gallon of milk for a mere $.99. so i have been eating corn flakes every morning for some time.

corn flakes are fine, right up my alley actually. they’re bland and mix pretty well with bananas and milk. but they are not rice chex.

last week i went to long’s before church because when i arrived i promptly realized that i never ate lunch (details!). not only were craisins on sale (craisins and sermons mix nicely) but rice chex were on sale! and better yet, i had a coupon for rice chex in my purse.

jade has become my source: since my parents get the weekly paper (and i don’t), she clips the coupons and sends them to me.

finally, the other day i finished my last box of corn flakes. the bliss i have felt the last few mornings has been beyond explanation. it has been almost enough to wake up smiling and bound into the kitchen for.

almost.

camera's back

2009-05-10T23:55:00.000-07:00

newsflash

2009-05-09T20:02:00.001-07:00

1. i moved (again). fourth address of the year; i'm getting the "change of address" process down to an exact science.

2. i found my camera battery charger during the move :).

3. happy mother's day!

pix from home

2009-04-25T16:24:00.000-07:00

after some pretty intense pestering on my part, trent has started sending me random pictures from home. enjoy!

trace & jade and a tasty-looking strawberry cake.

i am really surprised that the pic of trent (above) was not caught/denied by my virus

protection software.

trent (on the dirt bike) and his friend patrick (on the ground).

trevor and jade before the prom.

aurora :)

trace

2009-04-23T12:40:00.000-07:00

trent sent me this picture of trace on his dirtbike. they are all pretty excited that trace is riding now. i guess they have jade on a 4-wheeler as well. (gotta get them riding something before they start kindergarden!)

camera

2009-04-18T13:37:00.001-07:00

i am not intentionally abandoning this blog.

i am just busy.

and my camera battery died. plus, i lost my charger. so i ordered a new one, which i left charging away when i went to bed, and it fried my battery. so i returned it. so now i need a new charger AND a new battery. or i just need to get a really nice, new camera :).

oh guess what! i get to move again. the house we are renting is being foreclosed, so i get to move again around june 1. the adventure continues.

aloha.

more 中国

2009-04-09T23:40:00.000-07:00

中国，安徽省 2008年6月

2009-04-09T18:42:00.000-07:00

中国 pic of the day

2009-03-31T23:32:00.000-07:00

this is the way i live

2009-03-23T21:47:00.000-07:00

i was riding my bike today (camera in hand) and decided you all deserve an insider's peek into the way i live. so i somewhat informally photo-documented some random (but vitally important) aspects of my life.

first (because it's necessary for life) is my choice of food:

in this picture we can see what's left of the 8 1-pound packages of spaghetti noodles i bought at cotsco back in january. we also have my stockpile of granola bars that i got for basically nothing at target. and of course, my jar of alfredo sauce. i boil some noodles, cook some broccoli, pour the sauce over everything and indulge at least a few times a month.
on this shelf, we see the super-sized jar of prego. i eat spaghetti at least once a week. then we have the on-sale cereals i've purchased recently: cherrios, kix and crispex. there's also some pancake mix, popcorn, instant rice, cheese-its and canned peaches (one of the few canned things that i love) plus some green tea.
of vital importance (but not as important eating) is footwear:

i have labeled the shoes- as you can see, the slippers in my possession (blue) clearly outnumber rosa's (pink). you will also notice that the ones worn most frequently are not put away. rosa tends to use the other door :). also, it is hawaiian tradition that you leave all your shoes out by the door. no one ever, under any condition, wears them inside. (fact is: you're not going to die of cold and your shoes won't be filled with snow if you take them off outside! worst that will happen is for a gecko to crawl in.)
views are nice:

if i ride my bike down the street a ways, this is my view:
and this is my view of the mountains from the backyard:
it is always good to have some transportation to get you from point a to point b:

here is a picture i stole from google showing thebus. what's great about thebus is that i don't have to drive! i can read, listen to my ipod, sleep, whatever... and someone else will drive (and pay for gas, insurance, etc)! all for $40 a month. you really can't beat it.

when you fly into honolulu international airport and you are landing, look down. if you see row upon row of houses, chances are, you are flying over my neighborhood! fortunately, some smart person somewhere mandated that the jets don't fly over at night. but seriously, after a few days, you don't hear the planes anymore.
my $70 craig's list bike. it takes me to the grocery store, library, basically anywhere close and not eastward down the dreaded ft. weaver road :).
i have some great friends who have helped me build my giraffe collection:

this is craig, jr (who i mentioned in my previous post) from heather g:
and this is kamehameha who hether g (yep, i have two friends named he(a)ther g, but you will observe the spelling differences) sent to me:
and, because i totally believe in saving the best for last:

here's a picture with me and my beloved container of raisins. rosa is in awe of how many raisins i eat. truthfully, raisins are one of the few foods i crave. literally on a daily basis, infact...

so there you have it. the small aspects of my hawaiian life that make me tick.

craig jr. & target

2009-03-23T12:02:00.000-07:00

for my 19th birthday i received a 6'4" wooden giraffe, who i named craig. because of his great height and lack of flexibility, i was unable to bring him with me to hawaii. yesterday, my friend heather gave me this smaller version- is it not perfect?! his name is craig, jr. he is just tall enough to peek over the top of my computer screen as i am typing away.

also yesterday i got to visit the newly opened kapolei target. the target-sized hole in my heart has been filled! i was able to score numerous bargains, which pleased me greatly. i had been receiving mixed reactions from people concerning the "hawaiian target" but i found it quite satisfactory. why anyone still goes to wal*mart or k*mart still has me baffled.

mudboots

2009-03-10T01:22:00.000-07:00

misty rain was trying to fall through thick, humid air.

we were comfortable beneath raincoats, each several sizes to big for the wearer, as were the mudboots. really the mudboots were winterboots. winterboots with rubber outsides and liners. we took the liners out to make instant mudboots.

the corn was taller than we. if a bird were to look down upon the fields, he would see circles through the crops. each circle was perfect, save a long, silver radius. this radius was the irrigation. it pivoted around the aptly named pivot through which was pumped the water that the irrigation- a series of sprinklers on a long metal pipe, suspended above the corn on sets of wheel axels- watered the crop. the corn.

the tire tracks were the perfect width for us to walk single file. we tried to ignore the fact that we would just go in a circle and arrive at the next field lane, and think that we were going on a grand adventure.

soft thunder sounded above. there was hardly any wind. the sky was grey. the mud was thick.

we plodded along; the rough corn leaves brushing our faces.

at puddles we would stop and look for frogs. the mud was too dark, when the frogs jumped in they were gone. we could comb our hands through the muddy water as much as we wanted to, always to no avail.

i have always found beauty in water. water falling, water moving, water collecting. there is a place between two out buildings on the farm, where the water drips off several roofs into one puddle. the rocks have surfaced there, keeping the water clear.

but the water on our trek today is muddy. everything is thick: the mud, the air, the mist.

we don’t talk much. what is there to talk about? we are on one trail; there aren’t any options for other places to go. maybe we could have gone down a cornrow, but they were narrow and long and straight. the rutted irrigation wheel mark was more mysterious, winding in a perfect arc.

march 4, 2007

2009-03-02T22:38:00.000-08:00

i have no idea what today's date is. i know that it is monday night, and that tomorrow is tuesday (because i have to work on tuesday aka tomorrow). so i am posting this today, because i don't want to be late!

- on saturday, march 2, mother and i flew to china.

- on sunday, march 3, late at night after 20-something hours of travel, we arrived in china. we had slept on granite floors, carried carryons weighing half our body weight half way 'round the world and somehow mother had endured my snuffly nose the whole way. we crashed into bed upon arrival in the lakeside hotel.

-on monday, march 4, we started the day by walking around a local park and doing some last minute gift shopping. that afternoon, we met trace for the first time. although not thrilled with us at first, he came around :).

cold?

2009-03-01T16:07:00.000-08:00

it has been quite cool here the last week or so. such as: i am wearing a sweater right now and it rained a little bit yesterday. temperatures are in the 70’s with lows as low as (gasp) 57, with quite a bit of wind whirling around. rosa calls it “icy” and i laugh.

so the other night i worked till close and was sitting at the bus stop awaiting my bus home. it was dark and with the dark comes the dreaded “low” temperatures. three teenage girls descended upon the bus stop. between their three minds, it was decided that it was freezing cold and death was most certainly on the horizon for all of us should be bus not approach immediately. i was the only one wearing long sleeves.

the girls, all of hawaiian decent, talked about how the white kids (undoubtedly military kids coming from the mainland) talked about being cold- how they made this odd “brrrr” sound and shivered. they talked about these things the way that one talks about another country’s customs: “who in their right mind shivers?” “what kind of torture must it be to shiver!” “is there any way to prevent a shiver?”

it was fascinating to hear them discuss it. obviously they have never been really cold. the cold that gets down in your bones (this occurs right around november 1) and stays there for a long time (until about may 1 if you are lucky).

the hawaiians i talk to are in awe of the fact that i survived living in michigan for 20 years. i tell them about how i wore knee-high fleece lined, waterproof boots plus men’s knee high hiking socks everyday for 6+ months of the year. how i would wear three layers of shirts and sweaters, plus my sub-zero approved coat inside buildings, with the harf on top of that when i had the misfortune of venturing out of doors.

sometimes i see girls wearing fashionable, fur-lined boots and it just makes me smile.

apple pie

2009-02-28T11:39:00.000-08:00

apples were on sale this week at foodland. so i got in tuned with my domestic side (which doesn't see the light of day all that frequently) and made some pies. then i cleaned my bathroom and made my bed and put domestic back in the closet and settled down to eat pie and read a book :).

pearl harbor

2009-02-22T22:54:00.000-08:00

(sorry the order is weird)

hawaiian rainbow

2009-02-19T16:48:00.000-08:00

the first time i ever heard of hawaii was second grade music class with mrs. zimmerman. i remember flipping through my music book (to be left in the music room. not to be taken from the music classroom. ever. under any condition.) every week, looking at the pictures. the hawaiian rainbows song was towards the middle-end of the book. i was thrilled the day we finally got to sing:

hawaiian rainbows

great clouds roll by

they fall from heaven

down through the sky.

i see a hawaiian rainbow at least once a week- sometimes twice or three times. and every single time, this song comes to mind.

fire!

2009-02-17T19:01:00.000-08:00

here is a clip of the best-ever-so-far scene from the office: check it out! i have watched this scene three times and laughed out loud every time. it's classic.

happy valentine's day!

2009-02-14T17:53:00.000-08:00

i’ve never been a big fan of valentine’s day.

i don’t remember celebrating it before i entered kindergarten. so that first valentine’s day party was very exciting. i carefully prepared my valentines, and arrived to find a variety of sugary treats eagerly awaiting my arrival.

i don’t remember much about the party, but i do know that valentines were exchanged, and the consumption of unhealthy quantities of sugar occurred. i may even remember one of my parents cautioning me about the downfall of ingesting too much sweetness in one sitting once the remnants of my cardboard and construction paper mail box and i arrived home.

my mom got a degree in health and nutrition in college. as the first child, my sugary choices were limited. the only cookies i knew were oatmeal raisin and the russian tea-cakes my dad made once a year. (by the time number six came along, many of these healthy eating principals had gone out the window, except we all harbored an open disdain for store bought baked goods because the home made variety were so much better.) so needless to say, the aura of all the store-bought goodness was crippling. i didn’t have the willpower to muster up a “no” in the face of a new, different heart shaped confection.

my next memory is of the blue carpet in our ranch-style home. my bedroom was about ten 6-year old steps from the bathroom. that was approximately seven steps too many. before i knew it, the contents of my valentine’s day binge were all over the carpet.

needless to say, any valentine’s days that followed were eyed with suspicion. every school year after that, i would dutifully hand out my valentines and nibble on a brownie, but i would never party with the abandon that i’d had fateful first valentine’s day.

so what did i do today? made a half batch of oatmeal raisin cookies. they were quite tasty, still warm out of the oven.

composed in china (june, 2008)

2009-02-13T20:13:00.000-08:00

smoke falls to the ground
life ignites, burns, smothers
falls to the ground
vanishes
once and for all
because one chance is all you get.

(and this came together because i watched the smoke from a cigarette literally fall through the fog to the sidewalk. as much as i detest smoking, it was beautiful.)

apple cinnamon

2009-02-10T14:47:00.000-08:00

do any of you remember dannon apple cinnamon yogurt? it was available for purchase at your local martin's supermarket in the mid-1990's. it was my favorite. the only flavor worth buying in my humble opinion. but then some high-powered, over-paid, under-educated, unknowledgeable dannon executive decided to cut the production of the flavor. i was crushed. i had to make do with mediocre peach and blueberry and raspberry flavors.

until today.

i visited our local foodland grocery store with a coupon for yoplait yogurt in hand the other day. i parked myself and my shopping basket in front of the display and read through the flavors: which fortunate canisters of yogurt would be coming home with me?

then i saw it.

apple turnover.

hmmm... turnovers are apple-y and cinnoman-y, are they not? i thought to myself.

i was not disappointed. it's just as good as i remember the dannon yogurt being. i am pleased beyond all reason.

this morning, i read through the foodland ad for this week. yoplait's on sale this week: 10/$6 and i have another coupon besides that. i am thinking of abandoning all second-rate flavors in persuit of the only one worth my consumption: apple turnover.

chun wah kam noodle factory

2009-02-05T12:22:00.000-08:00

i think it's pretty safe to assume that the majority of my readers have never visited kapolei, hawaii. infact, up till a few weeks ago, i hadn't been there myself.

the town kapolei is brand new. so new, that the two-lane roads that for so long worked just fine in connecting kapolei with the rest of oahu are congested like you wouldn't believe. most of kapolei is (a) newly built or (b) being built.

so on tuesday evening rosa announced that we were going to eat dinner in kapolei at this new chinese place. ok whatever, as long as they have white rice and chicken something, i will be a happy camper.

then we pulled into this place: the chun wah kam noodle factory. we walked in and my jaw promptly hit the floor. the place is fabulously decorated: minimalist and modern, asian, red and white. cement and stainless steel and glass. the bathroom was even fabulous.

so what you do is go up to this counter and stare at all the food options. at some point, an attentive employee will ask "may i help you" and you will nod (because by this point you are speechless) and they will ask if you want a "small or big box". a small box is $6.75. you can have either one starch (noodle or rice- and not just regular, plain, white rice- we're talking 8 different kinds of fried rices and 8 more kinds of noodles to choose from) or you can split that one starch into two smaller servings of different starches. by the time the guy on the other side of the counter had scooped in my rice and noodle choices, i thought he was going to have to get a second box for my two choices of entrees.

but he had been well trained. he knew to keep shoveling it in. when i left, i had dinner for that night, and lunch for the next day. all in one small foam container.

now that we know what we're doing, we've decided that next time we (rosa and i) are going to get the big box (AKA 2 meals for 2 people), for $10, and then we'll have 4 choices for starches and 4 choices for entrees. we can share these, getting to enjoy more different dishes and save money at the same time.

so next time you are wandering, starved, through kapolei stop in and check it out :).

trabajo

2009-02-02T17:40:00.000-08:00

today was my first day of trabajo (that's spanish for "work". the girl who sat next to me on the bus today was doing her spanish homework... brought back fond memories).

it went really well.

i did all our family's laundry for 4 years. i usually had 2-3 loads a day except that i took a rest on sunday, so on monday i had double. the most we did in one day was 17 loads if i remember correctly.

since i've been here in hawaii (and washing only my own clothes and towels) i've done maybe 5 loads. i think i'm going through folding withdrawal. so today they had me folding/organizing a giant wall-o-denim. and i loved it :). i actually can't wait to go back on wednesday!

and by the way, old navy's spring stuff is out and it is fabulous! it's going to be hard not to go wild and buy basically every item in the girls section for jade...

neighbors

2009-02-01T22:37:00.000-08:00

there are many things i am finding fascinating about living here. some of these things are new to me not necessarily because of the state i have chosen in which to live, but because they are completely new life experiences for me.

such as the existence of neighbors.

it’s not like i’ve never had them. from birth until the age of 8, we had neighbors. granted, we couldn’t see in each others windows, but our lawns touched, so you could see when the neighbor had mowed their grass and we had not. but i don’t remember feeling especially physically close to them, probably because our lots were several acres each.

when i was 8 years old, we moved to the farm. there were neighbors within walking distance, but we couldn’t see them when the corn (found on three sides of our lot and across the road) got too tall or the rain/snow came down to hard and too fast. we were free to scream, run around naked, start fires and be basically uncivilized: no one would really ever know, it wouldn’t wake anyone up from their afternoon nap. it really was a fabulous arrangement.

and so i move to a townhouse. we only share one of our walls (i think that means this is a duplex, but i’m not really up on my terminology, except that everything’s called “a unit”). it is very obvious what wall this is: it’s the wall without lots of windows everywhere. (we do not lack natural light in this unit, which i think is amazing. even our backsplash has little holes cut into the wall with frosted glass windows inset.)

and suddenly, i know when my neighbor comes home from work every evening because i can hear his motorcycle- it sounds just like trevor’s- pull in. if kids are out playing in the street i can hear them. currently, i smell someone grilling. i knew the superbowl was on because i could hear cheering coming of one of the houses down the street.

it is the strangest thing, this living with other people near you.

and to think that the majority of the world lives like this (or in even more condensed!). makes me go “huh”.

new house

2009-01-31T12:03:00.000-08:00

view over the golf course (straight out back)

looking down the row of houses

a brand new kitchen!

the living room area (still kind of unfinished)

view from the backyard

having my own bathroom is one of the best things

that's ever happened to me :)

large walk-in closet: look at all the space

i'm not using!

the desk- including my beloved camping stool that i

hauled here in my suitcase. at some point the calendar

will get hung on the wall... just hasn't happened yet

my bed (with my beloved shanghai blanket that i bought in urumqi

and brought here. it has many, many miles on it!)

moving...

2009-01-27T23:21:00.000-08:00

before january 8, i had moved once in my life: around the corner.

i just did a google search to see how far away edwardsburg actually is from honolulu. the only way i could think to do this was get a google map. so here, incase you are interested, are the exact directions. including kayaking across the pacific:

1. Head southwest on M 62 toward Maple St
Entering Indiana - 2.5 mi
2. Continue on Birch Rd/IN-23/State Rd 23
Continue to follow IN-23/State Rd 23 -4.1 mi
3. Turn left at Capital Ave/IN-331 - 0.3 mi
4. Turn left - 52 ft
5. Take the ramp to I-80 W/I-90 W Toll road -0.2 mi
6. Keep right at the fork, follow signs for I-80 W/I-90 W/Chicago and merge onto I-80 W/I-90 W
Continue to follow I-90 W
Partial toll road
Passing through Illinois
Entering Wisconsin - 332 mi
7. Continue on I-94 W (signs for Eau Claire/I-94/St Paul)
Entering Minnesota -156 mi
8. Take exit 249 for I-694 N - 0.8 mi
9. Merge onto I-694 W - 29.8 mi
10. Slight right at I-94 W (signs for I-94)
Passing through North Dakota
Entering Montana - 818 mi
11. Merge onto I-90 W
Passing through Idaho
Entering Washington - 815 mi
12. Take exit 10 to merge onto I-405 N toward Everett/Bellevue - 3.6 mi
13. Take exit 14 to merge onto WA-520 W toward Seattle - 6.0 mi
14. Take the Montlake Blvd exit - 0.5 mi
15. Merge onto Montlake Blvd E/WA-513 - 0.3 mi
16. Turn left at NE Pacific St - 0.7 mi
17. Continue on NE Northlake Way - 0.2 mi
18. Turn left to stay on NE Northlake Way - 1.0 mi
19. Kayak across the Pacific Ocean
Entering Hawaii - 2,756 mi
20. Slight right at Turtle Bay Hilton - 0.1 mi
21. Turn left at Kuilima Dr - 0.5 mi
22. Turn right at HI-83 - 10.5 mi
23. Continue on Joseph P Leong Hwy - 1.9 mi
24. Slight right at HI-99/N Kamehameha Hwy
Continue to follow N Kamehameha Hwy - 8.6 mi
25. Merge onto I-H2 S via the ramp to Honolulu - 8.2 mi
26. Merge onto I-H1 E - 4.5 mi
27. Take exit 13B to merge onto I-H201 E - 4.7 mi
28. Continue on I-H1 E - 5.2 mi
29. Take exit 25A for King St - 0.2 mi
30. Turn right at Waialae Ave - 98 ft
31. Continue on S King St - 0.2 mi
32. Continue on S Beretania St - 20 ft

total: 4,972 mi – about 15 days 14 hours

so anyways, i moved here on january 8 (only took me about 20 hours start to finish, though, because i cheated and flew!) and am moving again in the morning. rosa found a place about 30 miles west of where we are living now (so that brings our trip up to about 5,000 miles). today was the first time i got to see inside, and fell instantly in love. not only will i have my own bathroom attached to my bedroom (with a big- almost rain- showerhead) i have two closets: a walk-in and one with shelves. this is very thrilling. also- the place is brand new, including the appliances in the kitchen (chocolate chip cookies and blueberry muffins are planned... today i told rosa she'd better up her work out routine- i don't cook low-fat anything). we also have a nice little yard and the location is nice: a mile to the grocery store, about the same distance to the beach. i will take some pictures once we get things settled a bit.

on the job front, training was this past sunday, and i will be getting a call about my work schedule for this coming week on thursday. having income will be a pleasant change from the past few weeks. shelling out isn't very fun when nothing's coming in!

i will probably be without internet for a few days (the internet and cable guy is scheduled to come on saturday morning) but i will get some pictures of the new abode posted asap!

la palma

2009-01-26T22:47:00.000-08:00

i love palm trees. what more is there to say?

looking back : winter re-roofing project

2009-01-23T23:13:00.000-08:00

i am a project oriented person. driven. for all of my school years, the first day of christmas break, spring break and summer break were sacred. they had one focus: the cleaning of my closet.

but closet cleaning was not my only passion, no, many other projects would be undertaken during these breaks from educational routine.

i was 10 or 11 years old. these years of living with my parents had already molded me into the fore-mentioned driven individual. my brother, trevor, is three years younger, and quite driven as well. he, too, enjoys projects.

so, naturally, over christmas break we decided that we needed to re-roof an old outbuilding that we’d turned into a 19th-century play house. i kid you not, we called it “playing 1812”. at any rate, part of this building’s roof had blown away. we needed to reroof it in order to facilitate quality play-time within.

with this in mind, we donned our winter wear. we convinced trent (6 years younger than i, so age 4 or 5 at the time) that he wanted to join us (whether of not he really wanted to join us was not up for debate).

it was a sunny, though windy, december day. there was a nice layer of sparkling snow on the ground. we collected hammers and our bucket-o-nails, then went out to our beloved 1812 playfort where the scrap plywood we’d found at our grandpa’s and the pile of shingles where.

sometime shortly after we’d hoisted all the supplies up on the roof and commenced in our project, trent decided he was cold.

now keep in mind trevor and i are driven. we are going to work and work until this project is finished- hypothermia or no hypothermia. and today we have this perfect (although chilly) day in which to complete our project! and we have also made the managerial decision that this is to be a group project. a groupie cannot just walk away and forget the project!

so, trevor and i, keeping the budget in mind, hatch an idea. “trent!” trevor yells. “we we’re going to pay you for working with us on this roof!” trent turned around. trevor and i exchanged knowing glances.

trent helped us finish the roof that day. and we did pay him.

a dime.

planes

2009-01-21T16:51:00.000-08:00

so yesterday i went over to my new town to talk with my new manager at my new job. after the meeting i got a jamba juice for lunch and walked around a bookstore. then i hopped on another bus to go back towards home.

i guess every other time i’ve been over that way i’ve been on the wrong side of the bus or just not paying attention, because i never noticed that the airport is right there on the one side of the highway.

every time i’ve ever traveled anywhere, it’s been on a two-way ticket. regardless of whether i wanted to leave or not, there was always that ticket in my pocket forcing me to go. so on these trips, i was always counting down. planes were a reminder that in a few days or weeks i’d be leaving.

for many years, i’ve slept with the blinds in my windows rolled all the way up, so i could look out into the sky as i lay in bed. i would watch the planes blink-blink-blink across the sky, wondering where they’d come from and where they were going. sometimes i was envious- they were going and coming and i was laying still.

so when i saw the planes at the airport i instinctively thought, i need to count down and figure out how much time i have left here.

and then it hit me.

i bought a one-way ticket.

and i sighed this sigh of relief. because i’m not very sure that i want to leave any time soon.

sunset

2009-01-21T13:30:00.000-08:00

ko'olina/ewa beach

2009-01-19T11:38:00.000-08:00

on saturday we went to ko'olina's lagoons with some friends, and later to a beach in ewa beach. the waves were impressive and the weather was perfect which equates to gorgeous pictures- no editing required!

eerie

2009-01-19T11:31:00.000-08:00

weather phenomenon are treated differently here. for example: friday we had very high winds. and it was going to be COLD*.the weather man made it sound like we were all most definitely going to die. all schools were cancelled. but at the end of the day, all we had were these amazing clouds falling down the mountains.

*hawaiian definition of cold: you would be cold if the wind was blowing and you were soaking wet.

aloha

2009-01-18T10:46:00.000-08:00

9 days

2009-01-18T10:42:00.000-08:00

between the 8 members of my family, it wasn't hard to down 2 gallons of milk in a day. so when i came here alone, i was interested to see how long it would take me to finish one gallon of milk. 9 days.

public transportation

2009-01-14T19:39:00.000-08:00

hawaii is great for a variety of reasons. one is public transportation.

growing up where i did, we had to drive miles and miles to find any semblance to civilization. upon arriving at the age of 16 there was no question, you were going to acquire a car- this was vital to survival. here in the islands of aloha, this is not necessarily true. one can be fully mobile and not own a vehicle.

because of my penny-pinching and commitment-phobic tendencies, public transportation has been an easy choice. easy except that i’ve never done it before.

there is a very steep learning curve when one decides to learn the bus system. one must determine where to get on and off, and how to connect to other busses going other places. it is utterly confusing to me. i really only know two things: bus 23 stops across from the safeway and goes to ala moana, and bus 1l loads at my corner and goes downtown to a variety of places like chinatown and the art museum.

although it takes twice as long to get places, i am learning to love public transportation. you see, i enjoy listening and observing. this is why i read nonfiction- i must know what other people are thinking (who cares what some fictional character thinks or says- they are not real!). my agreeing with them is not the point, hearing their stories and thoughts and ideas is. so i sit there on the bus and traverse oahu, watching the scenery roll by and listening.

today there was a 20 year old guy on the bus who is working a landscaping job (he loves it), spent half of his life in new york, and had some pretty distinct opinions regarding each and every war the united states has every been involved in. i think actually talking to him would drive me up the wall. but listening to him carry on with the dear soul he was sharing a seat with, was fascinating.

there was a girl with thick, black hair down to her knees.

and tourists, who generally have no idea where they are going. they all wear very overtly hawaiian clothing and travel in herds. they have children- too young to endure flying all the way to hawaii with in my humble opinion- in tow.

today i happened to be on the right bus at the right time for all the high and middle school students to be going home. middle school boys are the same no matter where you go. this one boy was carrying around this large metal pole (read: potential weapon) that was bent at both ends (i think it may be a skateboard jump of some sort). their laughter and body language reminded me distinctly of many middle school boys from the burg.

the busses are a favorite for the elderly. i have decided that i would like to age into an old asian woman. they are just so tiny and thin but sturdy and most caucasian women don’t stand a chance at ever being that put together in old age. i estimate that these women are no less than 10 years older than they look. the fact that they run to catch the bus is very admirable as well, something to strive for, should i not come down with alzheimer’s by age 50.

someday, when i win the lottery that i don’t play, i’ll buy a car. until then, i’ll just sit and listen and watch oahu roll by, thanking God for this beautiful, rectangular creation: the bus.

job

2009-01-12T23:22:00.000-08:00

guess who is employed?

i should start training within 10 days, which is great timing considering our move coming up on the 27-28th. (i would be starting training sooner, except that i will not be training at our local store, instead at the store closer to the new place, where i will be working- but is farther away right now.)

question

2009-01-11T20:10:00.000-08:00

from lesa: "why are you in hawaii?"

answer: because this is where i want to be. i finished school and decided that i had no desire to endure another winter in the midwest. i came to hawaii in 2007 on my way to urumqi, and i am living with a friend from that trip. right now i am looking out at a gorgeous sunset over the pacific with a fabulous breeze blowing in through the windows and there's no where else i'd rather be!

as for a job, i interviewed on friday and saturday and am just waiting for The Call. hopefully i will have a good answer on that front tomorrow :). what complicates my job search is that we are moving to the other side of the city/island on the 28th, so if i get the aforementioned job, i will have to transfer to a different store which shouldn't be a big deal with this company.

if anyone else has a question, feel free to comment :).

last night's sunset

2009-01-11T20:05:00.001-08:00

i made it

2009-01-09T08:04:00.001-08:00

it is currently just after 6:30am here in oahu, which makes it 11:30am back home, which makes me wide awake. i took the pictures as our plane was descending into honolulu yesterday. yes, the water is really that blue :).

post #1

2009-01-03T17:16:00.001-08:00

i am moving to hawaii in 5 days.

'nough said.