I must seem greatly intriguing

We skyped! It was 1:45 pm her time, 1:45 am my time. I needed to sleep before class, she needed to go eat lunch. (Hence the rarity of communication). I slept. I woke up and went to Maori to give my foreign presentation on my non foreign family. We ran out of time. I went home to watch Psych.

[Title from Uninvited by Alanis Morsiette]

I'm outta time and all I got is four minutes

It is full on raining for the first time since I've been in Hawaii. I want to be out playing in the rain. But instead I am writing a paper on the methods and success/failure of Reconstruction. Funnnnnn.

I miss Tuesday. Tuesdays are becoming a favorite. Real classes too early in the morning, volleyball at ten, devotional at eleven, beach at noon! I am getting more tan. Which is a good thing because an asian told me at work that I looked pale. That's like getting called fat by someone on the Biggest Loser. Ouch.

Last night I should have been watching Toku Reo but instead I watched Hannah Montana. Good thing I'm super productive now that I'm in college. Then again, last night I was getting off the computer when I saw that Princess and the Frog was available for streaming on Netflix. Trust me, it took a lot of self control to got to bed and not watch it.

Yesterday I met a girl named Rhonda Crowther. She is from Sanford. SANFORD. You have to understand, Sanford is SMALL. The 2000 census reports 817 people. Everyone their is either related to me or married to one of my relatives. It was ridiculous. Just thought I'd share that. I don't know how I didn't know her, from the summers and Christmases I've spent there. But she went to school with my cousin and knows everyone in my family. My mind was blown, as was hers since no one has ever even heard of Sanford. Just thought I'd share that.

Another thing worth sharing-- this quote from Jeffrey R. Holland:

"Dont you quit. You keep walking. You keep trying. There is help and happiness ahead."

Another thought...why do people feel the need to hit their cups with their silverware when they're around newlyweds? It just seems futile. I mean come on, they just got married. They don't need YOU to tell them to kiss. Seriously.

Despite the recent events, I still was allowed to help the runners. My idea of helping the past couple days has been riding in the truck and honking the horn at random passerbys. The pedestrians appreciate it...the runners, not so much. I have nothing else to say. Back to Reconstruction. Blah.

[Title from Four Minutes by Madonna]

Utan Stjärnorna

Work last night was a disaster. Here's the story. The night was good, there weren't a lot of people that came, and we finished almost an hour early due to Haunted Lagoon (which I am SO excited for!). But then I decided to help the runner load the cups back onto the truck to take back to the luau from the kitchen. So the glass cups are put into racks like these:

and then stacked about five high on these metal carts:

On top of the cups goes three racks of plastic decanters like these:

The decanters are lighter, so they go on top, preventing the cart from being top heavy and falling over. Well someone in the kitchen stacked them backwards, putting the glass cups on top. I did not notice this, unfortunately. I went to put them onto the truck and THE WHOLE THING FELL OVER. So all the glass cups fell out, and about 200 of them broke. It was terrible. All the warehouse people came out, including the boss who asked the runner what happened. He looked at me, hesitated, then looked at me again. And he said "Well...she was...it was going...I was pushing the other one and....". The supervisor got the gist of what had happened, and we started cleaning up. I was amazed how many of the cups didn't break. I was also amazed at how quickly my co-workers decided it was quittin' time and went home. The whole time I was cleaning up I was torn between laughing and crying. It was bad, really really bad, but I was trying to see the humour in the situation. This kind of stuff definitely doesn't happen every day. Then I had to call MY boss and explain to her why the truck wasn't back yet and why we were a few racks short of cups. It didn't go as bad as I expected it to, to be honest. Then I clocked out and went home with two huge bruises on both my knees where the rack had hit me. That was last night.

Today I went to work relieved to still have my job. I got to work and found out my job for the day was being controller. Which means that I had two jobs. The first was to set up the lei stands. Which means taking 55 leis out of 14 boxes and hanging them on stands. It was less difficult then it sounds.





As I was set up people walked by the luau and took pictures of me setting up. It's something I'm going to have to get used to. People ask to take pictures with me all the time and I really want to say no because I'm wearing a stupid unflattering dress and my hair is required to be in a bun with my bangs pulled back so I feel really weird. Then I remember that they are not trying to take a picture of me in particular. I am just a prop; merely part of the PCC experience. Huzzah.

My second job was to stand at the entrance and say "Aloha! How many people in your party?" and hand them off to someone else to seat them. I took the opportunity to use as many different accents as I could come up with. It got pretty hectic, since we have a 500+ count, including three cruises and seven tours. People in tour groups inevitably never know what is going on. They always get lost and they seem to rely on the leader to be the brains of the group. It's pretty humourous how lost they get without the tour guide next to their side. And then there are the occasional small groups that think they're part of the tour and just walk in and then have nowhere to sit. I also got to use my spanish today! I think it may have been awful because it's not used very often in a land of Polynesians and Asians, but it worked. After everyone was seated I just hung out the rest of the night. Later, despite the previous night's trauma, I decided to help the runner again. This time I let him push the cups and just moved the lift up and down. So I put my hand on the lift to jump up and a tiny piece of glass that was stuck in the crevices got stuck in my finger and made it bleed like crazy. That, my friends, is called consequences. Luckily the runner was a boy scout and carried a band-aid in his wallet. Ha. Then as we were walking back from the garage where we park the truck for the night I accidentally stepped in a frog. Goodbye white keds. I loved you when you were fresh and crisp and white. I am glad you cost $1, and I got my moneys worth.


Today was a pretty chill Saturday. I went to the beach-- which reminds me. Everyone at work today asked me if I went to the beach/how the beach was. My favorite response is to feign ignorance. "Huh? I didn't go to the beach today..." even though I currently look like this:


When I got back I cleaned my room and helped a blond turn her hair brown. And now I will either be good and go to sleep or be fun and go to a party. We shall see.

[Title from Utan Stjärnorna by Basshunter]

Ever been misunderstood, misued, or misled?

Lately I've been missing my family. I keep having flashbacks of random memories from my childhood and they're all associated with country music. Growing up I tried to hate country music. My parents would listen to it and I would tell myself that I didn't like it. Today I went through and looked up every phrase of every song that was in my head. Hello 40+ country songs by Trace Adkins, Kenny Chesney, Diamond Rio, Rascal Flatts and others. It actually reminded me of the one vacation we took to Orlando with my mom's side of the family plus Curtis and CMT was playing the whole time. Yeah. I'm now back into country. The weirdest part is that I still know all the words to the songs even though I haven't heard these songs in years. It's amazing how much they stick in your mind.

As much as I've tried to spend all my spare time re-discovering country music, school as started again. Ahhhhh. It's actually not dreadful yet since the novelty is still there. It's ridiculous how many people are here now. I think the number of students tripled with the start of fall semester. The classes are packed now...you know, a full thirty people instead of fifteen :) My favorite class is a tie right now between Māori and hula. Māori because I embarrass myself trying to speak and hula because I get to watch girls from Utah embarrass themselves by trying to dance. It is going to be a good semester.

UPDATE: Today we had two new additions to our hula class...Sister Wheelright and Sister Checketts! [President Wheelwright is the president of the school and Brother Checketts is the vice president]. This class just got a lot more entertaining!

How could I write a post without a shoutout to my momma? The title today is from Don't Worry 'Bout A Thing by SheDaisy, and my mom was notorious for playing the music video over and over as she danced around her room singing. Just listening to the first three seconds of this song literally relieves stress because it reminds me of my mom and how she taught me, by example, how to choose to be happy. Thanks mom!



Also I really wanted to be the black haired girl when I grew up. Then I realized the blonde one was much, much prettier :)

Work today was quite a series of unfortunate events. Today was my first day working my new longer hours at work. New hours are a good thing because A. instead of coming in right before the luau starts I get to come in early and help set up. It's cool to see everything before it's all pretty and perfect. and B. more hours = more $$$ and let's face it...I'm a college student and therefore I'm perpetually broke. So I was excited to work today and I was happy at the beginning. Actually I wasn't ever unhappy, it was just not ideal. I tripped up the stairs, broke my only pair of work shoes [we're required to wear sandals with a heel strap and I only own flip flops], had unpleasant customers, spilled two pitchers of juice and water, etc. But it is over and I'm going to be rich. Okay not really but whatever.

Annnnd I was reminded of how much I hate hate hate bad grammar. I mean sometimes I use it when writing or speaking in a casual situation. But I got an email from the Diving Club [so excited about that!]. Aren't I lucky to be "apart" of this club? There "is a lot of divers", and "sense when do we have meetings without food" ???? Yeah, this is gonna be good.

And I couldn't end the day without a good ol' "Only In Hawaii" picture.



Last but certainly not least, yesterday was my Dad's birthday!

I love that guy. I'd like to thank him for bringing me drinks at night so that I didn't die and for letting me help him with the yard work and for letting helping me and Lys dump detergent into the Sunrise Lakes fountain and coaching my soccer team and helping us toilet paper houses and chasing the bus when I missed it and picking me up from school and not getting too mad when I hit him with the truck and making waffles at game night and teaching me to chew up sunflower seeds and for, most importantly, never saying yes when I asked him if he only wanted two daughters instead of three. I miss him very very much and I want him to come to Hawaii. [mom can you make sure he reads that! maybe he'll have a free day sometime soon?]





[Title from Don't Worry 'Bout a Thing by SheDaisy]

:)

Your sleeplessness makes you a liar

I am sick. I wish that it were something rare or even uncureable, but I'm afraid it's just a nasty combination of flu/cold/fever. I don't get sick very often, but when I do it is bad. I decided it'd be a good idea to do laundry....when I pulled the batch out of the dryer I found a stick, a pillow, and a waterbottle. There is also a pricey charge on my card from iTunes for a variety of obscure country songs. I didn't even take any drugs today....

I am starting to recover, thanks in large part to a saintly spirit bringing me gifts from Foodland.



In other news, I found out that there is a Target on this island. This brightened my day and is probably the only reason my body has decided to start getting better. I love Target, and will probably spend lots of time there in the near future.

Netflix is the best for when you're sick. I've watched lots of reality TV lately. I'd like to thank Cake Boss for helping me plan my wedding. I'd also like to thank Hoarders. I was disgusted by the things I saw and then I looked around at my own room and was...disappointed to say the least. Then my mental instability kicked in and I decided to clean up and throw things away (as well as put my collection of sticks in the washing machine, apparently). I also watched The Cove which changed my life. Which, in this case, equates to finding over a hundred websites that I signed up to volunteer for to help save the oceans. Checking my email was fun this morning. I'm going to have to disappoint some people who are expecting me to help in Japan. This must be how it feels to wake up after a night of being drunk.

Another shoutout to my mom who always gave me an Emergency Dollar to keep in my backpack. You know, 'cause you never know when you might need to get a little carton of milk. Or something. Anyway. With inflation and cost of living in Hawai'i I figured an Emergency $5 might be good. So I keep it in my PCC id which is the only thing that is never lost. (Cell phone included).



Speaking of mothers, there are tons of new kids here! I hate it. It makes it feel like a real college. Weird! It is really quite unfair to have all these new people coming with their parents and their new school supplies. I think my parents should have to fly out here at the start of every term, just to make sure I have a good first day of school. I miss my family a lot :( . How many days til the next break??

[Title from The Lighthouse by The Hush Sound]

What's somebody like you doin' in a place like this?

These beaches are nicer.



They go to foreign countries without me.



Okay sometimes with me.



She watches Hulu while folding laundry and dances to Brandtson and teaches me about Yaoundé. She made me get on the plane and I both love and hate her for it.

[Title from If We Ever Meet Again by Timbaland ft. Katy Perry]

If this isn't love, this is the closest I've ever been

Well I finally got off this little island. I left Sunday, got to the airport three hours too early, and somehow didn't miss a single flight the entire trip. The overnight flights were pretty killer, but I'm very, very glad I got there safely! I'm also glad that the intoxicated, obnoxious drunk guys sitting by me left me alone and preferred to talk about football the whole way.

When I actually got to Portland I was pleasantly surprised at how cold it was. I loved it! It was about sixty degrees the whole time I was there, and it was heaven! The dryness was another story. Anyway. I flew out there because my friend Roth was getting married. Roth is from Cambodia..how cool is that! So I got to the airport and was greeted by Roth, her fiance Micheal, his three sisters, one of the sisters' husbands, and my boss from work (??) They picked me up and told me we were going to get doughnuts. I'm not really a fan of them, but of course I wasn't going to object. As it turns out, we were going to Voodoo Doughnuts which they saw on the Food Network.





Don't worry, it took us two hours of waiting in line to get the doughnuts. And to be honest, they did not disappoint.






This is Carl [one of the husbands] eating the famous Voodoo Doughnut.



Uhh this one was called the Old Dirty Bastard. I personally would have named it Oreo Delight, but that's probably why I don't work at Voodoo Doughnut.



The famous pink boxes.



Holly [Micheal's sister] eating a Portland Cream...again, I'm pretty sure it's called a Boston Cream. But that's just me.



This is Micheal, and I have no idea what he's eating.






These are some of the leftovers. They were ridiculously filling and we bought way too many. I still can't believe we waited in line TWO HOURS for these. Especially since I don't like doughnuts. But they weren't bad. And we were entertained by an...outgoing homeless person who was thinking of creative ways to convince people to give him money. Okay, I was probably the only one who was entertained. Everyone else in line was annoyed, including the Hindu family who he [unintentionally, I'm sure] offended.




This is Regina Valentine, my boss at work, standing under a Valentine sign that we passed while waiting in line. We're clever, I know.

After that we went to the Nike Outlet (real stores!!! ahhhhhh) and then we split up, since the girls needed manicures/pedicures. I was meant to participate but...I was tired.



I'm sure I made a great first impression on these people, especially my boss. Ha. Granted, it was about four in the morning Hawaiian time. And I wasn't the only one who was tired.



[This is Roth, the bride.]



Holly was just excited.



This is Mandy, who everyone said I looked like.




This is ridiculous. These are Roth's REAL nails, just with polish on them. This picture is going on my wall to motivate me to stop biting mine all the time.

After the manicures/naptime we went to get Roth's haircut. She has SUCH long, pretty hair! The lady cut quite a few inches off and it still went all the way down her back. Then we headed to the church to set up for the reception. This included hanging lights, folding napkins, setting up tables, all that jazz. It was nice to have a chance to earn my keep :)



After hours of being at the church we headed back to the house, which was actually in Washington. I love love love their house! It's a quaint little house that looks like it's out in the middle of the country, even though it's not too far from civilization.



We prepared chocolate covered strawberries for the reception, made last minute trips to Albertson's for essentials (including pimento cheese...what?), put together a throw-away bouquet, and FINALLY got to sleep!



The next day was the day of the wedding. So of course, this involved getting the bride ready. I left the task to Holly and Regina, while I sat in the bathtub taking pictures. Amy [the Mom] was in there getting ready, and various girls in the family came in and took showers while we were in there. It's amazing how strangers can be so comfortable with each other.





This is Grandma, who probably spent a good 24 hours ironing literally everything. Tablecloths, napkins, people's clothes, you name it she ironed it.



This is Roth and I. She was ready...and I wasn't. Ha. But they all left earlier than me and Marcy [another sister]. We went to pick up flowers/corsages, etc. And of course I took pictures of the drive over. I don't know why, but I was really fascinated by the fact that within the twenty minutes it took to drive from the house to the temple we changed states.


Then came the wedding




And a crazy good luncheon with way too much Thai food



And the reception where I caught the bouquet...oops.




And evidently I was the only one not too concerned about the wedding to worry about doing some damage to the car. We didn't really have anything to use, so we tied some ginger ale bottles to the back with wire and used cake frosting to write on the windows. Then I had to move the car around to the door and while trying not to get cake frosting on the steering wheel I accidentally turned on the windshield wipers and smeared the front pretty badly. Well actually I guess the whole thing was pretty much a disaster because we ended up tagging the wrong car. We first decorated the blue car, but they weren't actually driving that car. So they got into it (out of pity) to drive home and get their suitcase. Then we decorated the white car for their second departure.








Then there was the typical after-wedding events...give the leftover food to the bishop and run around with the three year old while everyone else cleans up. It took us a while to unload everything when we got home, and we had SO much food. Seriously, SO much.



I kept repeatedly thinking of that part from the Incredibles when Edna Mode looks at Mr. Incredible and goes "My God, you've gotten fat".

Anyway. We all sat around and ate for a while. Then they busted out the cards and I went to sleep. I felt bad sleeping but I literally fell asleep in a chair. The next morning I went home at six in the morning. I have no idea how I woke up for the fight, but it all turned out okay. I had the entire row to myself on the six hour flight home and so I took the four pillows and blankets and laid down and slept, much to the resentment of other passengers.

This is probably my all-time favorite picture:



These are the Binghams. They were mission presidents when Roth was on her mission and they drove all the way from Idaho for the wedding. Brother Bingham probably didn't make this face on purpose, but I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't. He's such a character. Between him and Chad, who was Michael's dad, I was laughing the entire trip. Though it's always nice to come home to Hawaii, I really enjoyed being around families, good food, civilization, and the strange city of Portland.



[Title from Audrey, Start the Revolution! by Anberlin]