The Adventures Continue

This is my friend Kristen. We are standing at a place called Pali Lookout that overlooks the city of Kailua and some other cities right on the coast. It is too dark to see in this picture, but the lights of the city were beautiful behind us. You can see all the way out into the bay and up the coastline. It is an awesome sight! Kristen is also the courageous one who took me out surfing, with some of her friends, on Monday! It was a blast! I mostly came back with alot of scrapes, bumps, and bruises, but we had a great time and I'm getting a little bit better.
On Friday, we had a retreat for the Counseling Center staff. This is Leilani. She is in charge off all the special needs resources in the center. She's hillarious! We had a lot of fun in the car as we drove to and from Waikiki to go to the aquarium and to lunch, before we had our training/planning meeting. The aquarium was awesome! It had a lot of animals and information, but it wasn't a huge aquarium. My favorite part was this gigantic cylindrical tank full of moonjelly jellyfish. They were in dark corner and you could see the light glowing off of their gelatin bodies. You could stand right next to the tank and it almost felt like you were in the water with them (without the fear of getting stung! :) ). It was really cool. It was also fun to see creatures that I saw for the first time last summer while snorkeling in the Philippines, when David and Annette Wells and their family and I joined Grant and Susan's family on a boat trip there. It was weird to think that my first experience with many of these animals had been in the water a few feet away from them! Pretty cool!
The weather was beautiful and windy Saturday morning, as we joined our Elders' Quorum for an activity in the park by Kekela beach. We grilled hamburgers and hotdogs and enjoyed the sun. The sand on this beach was really fine and soft. That made it really nice to walk on and play in but when the wind picked up the fine granules swirled in the air sandblasting anything or anyone in their path! :)
This is Vickie. She is a friend from the ward. She's really funny and fun to talk to.
This is the view from Kekela beach. The waves are much smaller and gentler here than the waves along the north shore, partially due to a large stretch of reef several hundred feet off-shore. It is a peaceful and lazy place to play along the shore or in the water. This same afternoon, I went up to Waimea beach with my friend, Steph. Waimea is a large beach up on the north shore. The waves were huge and the view is beautiful. My friend Teresa (who lived here for a few years) told me Waimea was her favorite beach to go to when whe lived here. I didn't get any pictures of it, but I'm sure we will be going back there soon.
This was a busy week that really flew by, but I had a lot of fun with new friends. It has been great to find some "real" friends and connect with them in meaningful ways.
Oh, I also was given two callings in the ward this past week. They asked me to be the activities committee co-chair (this is new for me but ought to be fun) and a sunday school teacher for our gospel doctrine class (woohoo! this would be the calling I'd choose if I got to pick). I'm excited to makes some waves and meet some new people! :)
This week is super full and busy at work, and I have some hikes and other activities planned with my friend Steph. So hopefully, it will be full of adventures and fun!

Settling in

This week has been a total whirlwind! So many things have happened. Let's start with the best news...I'm officially done with internship interviews! Woohoo!! I did my last one on friday. So now I have to figure out how I am going to rank the sites I interviewed with. Rankings are supposed to be submitted in early february and then we get matched later that month...I think. I'm not positive on the exacty dates (probably should figure that out, eh? :) ). Anyway, so I kind of just wait to see what (and where) next year will bring. Now that interviews are done, I need to get focused back on dissertation stuff. I'm hoping to complete it and defend during the spring when I am back in Provo taking my last class. So that's the word on the school pressures.

As far as work at BYU-H, things are going much much better. I am really busy, but it is very familiar and settling to have clients again. I never have two clients in a row that are from the same place, have the same cultural background, or even speak the same native tongue. That has been fascinating and really challenging. It makes appropriately administering and interpreting assessments pretty tricky. The classes I am teaching are great. I totally love teaching! I've been learning a lot of new things as the sole teacher and the only one responsible to make sure we cover everything, get grades in, and influence the kind of experience my students have in class. I can totally see more teaching, of some sort, in the future.

Ok, now for the fun activities of the week! I was in charge of the activity at Family Home Evening, for our ward, on monday night. So I decided that they needed to learn to play dip-dip-dip. A classic game that everyone should know (and love!). It was hilarious to watch everyone play! Different levels of understanding, competitiveness, and humor made for some interesting dynamics. Everyone seemed to enjoy it though. Then tuesday was basketball. We had a ton of people but it ended up being pretty good ball (well...you know...as far as church ball goes) and fun. Wednesday we had a game night at my place with 7 or 8 friends from the ward. That went well and people just stayed around and talked for several hours...everyone probably took off a little after 11pm. Thursday was Institute (which is good and frustrating...more on that later...maybe). Then Friday hung out with a friend from the ward. We were planning to have a movie night, but we never got to the movie. Just spent several hours "talking story" as she like to call it. Then Saturday, I headed to the swap meet with a couple people. I had actually never been to a swap meet before. This place was about an hour away from Laie and it reminded me of the markets in Cambodia...only cleaner and more expensive. But it was a really fun place! And I bought a cool Hawaii visor for $5. Can't beat that! So we just spent a lot of time driving that morning. The weather was fantastic and the drive along the coast was gorgeous! It was a perfect day to just get to know some different parts of the island. When we got back into town, I went to the women's and men's basketball games. They both won and played really well (games worth watching).
Then this morning, we had a breakfast. Our ward doesn't meet until 2pm so we have a lot of time in the morning. About 6 of us gathered at my apartment and I introduced them to the deliciousness of Norweigan pancakes (I highly recommend them to those of you who have never had them), and our friend Sina made a corned-beef hash with tomatoes to put over rice. It was an excellent breakfast (if I do say so myself! :) ) and we just hung-out and talked for a few hours. It was really fun! We swapped stories about our favorite games (such as mafia, ulitimate red-light green-light, and smash 'em!), accidents and injuries we've had, music interests, hobbies, and anything else that came to our minds! I have met some pretty cool people here so far. Her are some more pictures of our breakfast activity (and my little studio apartment).


This has been a very exciting week for me because I have been learning so much and have had many opportunities to do fun new things. I'm grateful to be making some interesting and good friends. Next week we have a holiday (Martin Luther King, Jr. Day) and a training retreat for the counseling center. So it promises to be a busy week, but I'm feeling a lot more adjusted and happy to be here. I'm even going to (hopefully...cross your fingers for me) start working on my surfing skills tomorrow morning, with a new friend who has graciously agreed to help me learn (she probably has no idea what she is getting herself into!)!
Thanks for all your interest, love, and support! It is great to hear what is going on in your lives, so anytime you have a minute give me a call or send an email. I hope things are going well for you too!

Childhood Friends...

Luiza and I met when we were in Ms. Nellie Green's ESL class. Although I only vaguely remember meeting Luiza in the first grade, she always reminds me that when she first moved to Academia Cotopaxi (the international school we both attended) she didn't speak English so she would ask me (in Portuguese) to ask Ms. Nellie if she could go to the bathroom (in English). So, Luiza and I met in the first grade and remained friends through out high school (we both did pretty much ALL of our schooling at Cotopaxi which is REALLY unusual for people attending international schools). After graduating from high school Luiza went to college in Boston and I went to college in Idaho.  I couldn't find a picture of us in the first grade but here's one of us when we were in the 3rd grade.

On Thursday I got an e-mail from Luiza, who now lives in LA and works for a company that produces movies, letting me know that she was going to be in Park City for the Sundance Film Festival and was wondering if there was any chance that I'd be able to make it out to Park City during the short time she'd be there. I could not pass up the chance to get together, so tonight I drove up to Park City and we went out to dinner. SO FUN!!!! You'd think the last time we'd seen each other was last weekend! We had a great time catching up on each other's lives and updating each other on what we knew about some of the other people we went to school with (not gossiping... just catching up... honestly we were just catching up). 

Finally some fun in the sun

So Friday was the most beautiful day we've had since I have arrived here. I was only at work, on campus, for a little while, and the sunshine and warmth was a clear invitation to finally get down to the beach. On Friday, I went to a beach that is right here in Laie, called Hukilau Beach. There were quite a few people there playing in the waves and just hanging out on the beach. I mostly spent my time relaxing, reading, and soaking up the sun. There's nothing quite as soothing as feeling the breeze off the ocean, smelling the salty air, and taking in the warmth of the afternoon sun on your skin. Even the smell of sunscreen can't be replaced! Everyone said that the nice weather wouldn't last through Saturday. So when I woke up and saw the bright rays of sunshine through my window I knew I needed to get down the beach before the clouds rolled in and hid the sun again. So I went to a beach down the road called Castle beach. Lots of surfers like this beach. There are cool areas out off-shore that have waves breaking in lots of different directions. It was fun to watch the surfers popping up out of the water and gliding different directions with the waves curling at their heels. It was a great place to do some boogie boarding, which I happily did for a couple of hours. It was beautiful and warm. Then as predicted, the sky grew dark and the clouds demanded their turn in the sky.


Here are a few more pictures of campus. This is the main road going into campus...the only road actually. As you drive in you see about 60 or so flag poles proudly displaying the flags of many of the nations that the students here call home. It is a pretty cool sight and represents and even cooler multicultural dynamic on campus. A friend here told me that BYU-Hawaii is currently recognized as the most diverse university in the United States (haven't seen any solid statistics, but that's pretty amazing!).


So in general, the weekend was productive and fun (figured out laundry, advertised some more for a roommate, and got a promise that a shower rod will arrive by Monday!). However, Sunday has been really hard. I was very homesick today. Sunday always leaves alot of time, free from too many distractions and responsibilities, to think about things. I miss everyone alot and am still in the process of getting settled and trying to remember why it was I decided to come out here alone. I have met some really cool people already and tonight I had dinner with a really good family friend and her family. That was really fun and I felt very welcome and loved AND it still hurts to be away from the people I care so much about. I hope all of you do still feel how much I think about and love you. Thanks for being an important part of my life and for caring about me.

Color Me Mine

Saturday afternoon Debbie, Dani, and I decided to go over to Borders (Dani's all time favorite store) to purchase a book on marathon training that Debbie had seen the day before. Yes, a book on marathon training... Debbie and I are shooting for a half marathon this summer. This will be interesting since neither one of us are really runners but... :). Anyway, while we were over at the Riverwoods we decided to go over to Color Me Mine and get our creative juices flowing or if you are me get the OCD going...  So here are some shots of our afternoon at Color Me Mine... 

Debbie picked out a little lady bug ceramic box for her and Dani to work on. Dani really enjoyed it and did surprisingly well. We had to remind her a few times that putting paint on the brush and then soaking the brush in water kind of defeats the purpose. There were also a few times when we had to get new paint after Dani experimented with mixing the colors on the pallet. Debbie is incredibly patient and, lucky for her, the OCD doesn't seem to run as deep for her as it does for me :).  

Debbie worked on the details of the lady bug while I distracted Dani with the more basic elements of the piece.

Most of us like to work with one brush at a time but Dani decided to be innovative and discovered that you can do the work in half the time if you have on brush in each hand. 

Of course working on the same basic elements of a piece gets boring after a while so she decided to try a more interesting and challenging technique with a sponge on the table. 

Check out the amount of concentration that goes into initialing the bottom of the piece. I love her face in this picture, this is SERIOUS work! So anyway, the pieces we worked on will be ready on Wednesday. If I remember I'll take some pictures so you can see the final products...

A whole new world

He's my little green car. Very grateful I have it!

My apartment building...mine's the one straight ahead.

The view from my front door. Isn't it majestic...well, minus the cars.

Hello friends...I have survived another crazy day. I taught my first class (Psych 11) this morning. I went really well. I think that I will really enjoy teaching if I can keep up with my own reading assignments! :) So today's new shock to deal with was finding out for the first time that I have another class to teach...that it starts tomorrow morning and I have no book or syllabus. Evidently, I'm supposed to be teaching a student development class. So I will be teaching every morning at 7:30am (ugh...so much for sleeping in ever). Fortunately, I found the right book and an old syllabus and put something together so I can look competent for the kids tomorrow! That's what it's all about right? As long as you look competent you are! I do think this class will be fun to teach if I can get some lesson plans together. So after dealing with that crisis, I had my first client. I will be doing some assessments for this client, which are probably one of my least favorite things to do but this is also one of the reasons I wanted to do this clerkship. I knew I would be forced to get some good assessment experience. So I will administer my first assessment tomorrow afternoon.

I got to go watch both the men's and women's teams play last night. It was fun. Pretty well coached teams and very fast-paced styles. One of the women who works in our office has a daughter on the team. It was fun to sit with her and her family.

Here are some shots of the campus. The building in the picture immediately below is the building where my office is...in the Student Development Center.

Ok, a couple of random things about the weather here....it reminds me of Cambodia alot (although it is a bit colder than Cambodia). It is pretty humid...so much that any paper here seems wet. Toilet paper and tissues always feel a little damp (and stick to your shoes more readily if you don't watch out!), cardboard boxes get all soft and mushed, and any hope of your hair staying straight and manageable fly away. The other crazy thing, that I actually really love, is that the weather can significantly change in less than a minute. One moment is pretty sunny and clear and the next it is pouring rain...not just sprinkling, total downpour and you see all these students running frantically for cover! Ha ha! It is so fun. Like today, I went to walk someplace on campus to take care of getting access to my classrooms and when I left it was really nice out. Before I got to my destination (about 150 yards away) the storm began. I was dripping before I entered the building. So then as I came back I got even more drenched and my supervisor asked, "Is it raining? Why didn't you take an umbrella?"... "I didn't know it was going to rain when I left like five minutes ago!" Anyway, so it is kind of fun...even if you do get a bit wet and cold.

Here's a little glimpse of my office. It's not big but it has plenty of room to do testing and meet with clients and work. My couch even has a cushion!

I had an interview with the University of Utah this morning, which went much better than I had expected. Still have a few more to do, but it feels like the worst is over. It will be a day worth celebrating when all of that is done. It has been an incredibly long week already but at least I feel like I have accomplished a lot and am getting more adjusted to being here. I am definitely looking forward to doing something fun this weekend...if I can make it through the remainder of the week! :)

Piece by piece

Aloha everyone! Sorry I don't have any pictures for this blog...I know those are what make the blog most fun to look at. However, I have barely had time and space to breathe this week so pictures will have to be in the next blog! :) So this week has been an experience in putting the pieces together. There are so many little things to take care of and think about that if feels overwhelming, but the puzzle is slowly starting to take shape.
Ok, here is the update for all of you who are on the edge of your seats (haha!). I started taking care of stuff on campus starting at 8am monday morning. I have met everyone in our office and they are fantastic! I can't wait to get to know them better. Everyone just loves to laugh and play... a perfect environment for me! I have had about a million and one things to get done to actually get hire and get all the little details settled. I am now officially hired which is good news since school starts tomorrow and I am teaching my first class at 7:30 tomorrow morning.
I am teaching a general psychology (Psych 111) class. I was supposed to have the textbook a few months ago, but having never received it I have been frantically throwing a syllabus together. Thankfully, I've had some help from the student who worked here before me (Thanks Russ!). I think I will really like teaching. The class is only an hour long... and how fiercesome can freshman be at that hour of the morning? I will be lucky if they are even awake!
The most stressful thing complicating my already high-stressed adjustment are my internship interviews. I have done 4 in the last two days (5 1/2 hours of them! ugh!). I am really glad they are over and they have been going really well. At least much better than I expected. I even had one today that I actually enjoyed (that is so sick, but it's true!)! Fortunately, I have been learning alot about myself and what I want in my internship as these interviews have gone on. I have 5 more to do, and needless to say that light at the end of the tunnel is a very welcome sight!
In less "professional" areanas...I am no longer homeless. I have moved into the studio apartment and still need to find a roommate but I'm actually enjoying being here by myself for right now. The process of figuring out housing was a total mess and if you want to know the whole story I might tell you if you ask...depending on my mood! :) Anyway, so the apartment is fine minus a few kind of annoying things, like no shower rod or curtain. Making due for now but that is something on the top of the shopping list along with salt and dish soap. The cost of food here is incredible! I've been working on choosing the most nutritionally dense things to spend money on...maybe I will get used to it? and maybe it won't seem as bad once I actually have an income? who knows...I'll keep you updated on that fascinating portion of my life! :) The one advantage to missing important and simple things like a shower curtain is that, as a dear friend of mine informed me, I can use it go gain a little empathy and compassion... "What do you want from me?! I don't even have a shower curtain!" That is about how things have felt with all the little details to be settled. People have been very understanding even if they aren't as pro-active or involved as might be helpful.
My ward also seems very good...time will tell, I suppose. The community culture here kind of eliminates some of the really irriating and difficult things I experience in the church culture in utah. Church culture here is not like it is there and I really like that so far. And we have a fitness coordinator person...she puts together activities to play sports together! What more important calling could exist?! :) We played basketball as a ward for the first time. It was really fun. I'm gonna be really sore probably but that is usually worth it. I never can understand though why co-ed groups of ward members think that they will have more fun or play better if they play full-court. That is never the case...never! Half-court basketball in those groups can be decent...or at least almost decent...but full-court is terrible! It can no long be called basketball really. Anyway, even with the breakdown of the game we still had alot of fun. And I even attended the byu-hawaii men's and women's basketball games tonight. A healthy dose of basketball never hurts!
I'm really grateful for all your support and encouragement. Things have been hard and area getting better, but I know there will still be ups and downs. So thank you for expressing your concern and offering your support, no matter the miles that separate us! It really does mean alot and is extremely appreciated. Ok...I promise to have pictures next time and hopefully something fun to report on! :)

The beginning of a new adventure

Ok, well I am now in Hawaii. I arrived yesterday afternoon in the Honolulu airport. As we flew in and as I got off the plane it felt kind of like Cambodia with the green and the humidity, so it was weird to see houses that were actually pretty nice and more modern civilization. The drive from honolulu to laie is beautiful. Most of it is right along the coast.
My supervisor, Eric, picked me up from the airport. I had dinner with his family last night. They have 6 kids (they are all really cute and bright). I picked up my car and saw the places i might be staying. There is still some confusion about the housing situation, especially after all the flooding that happened here a few weeks ago. So I haven't been able to move in anywhere yet, but I think I will be renting a room from my friend's aunt and uncle. I will be living in their home which is much nicer than the studio apartment that I would otherwise be renting, although it will be a bit more expensive. Hopefully, I will get all of that settled in the next couple days.
On my way here, I was able to spend a day in California with a friend (Meagan) from my mission and her husband (Mario). We had a blast! I stayed with them and we went to the Universal Studio City Walk and to Hollywood. Mario also work for the LA police department and he showed me the areas of LA that he works in. It was really fun. Here are a few pictures from that adventure.

So this morning, I went for a walk around Laie. The campus is only a few minutes walk from where I will be living. Then I walked down to the beach. It was really windy and a bit overcast today but it was beautiful. It was refreshing to hear the waves and smell the salty air. I'm excited about being so close to the ocean here.

Here's the neighborhood near the school where I will be living. You can see how windy it is...I don't know enough to know if that is typical local weather or not.

BYU-Hawaii campus
It is super small... I love that!

And here is the beach just on the other side of the highway.

So I have lots of hiring paperwork to get done tomorrow and the first of several internship interviews start as well. Wish me luck 'cause I'm going to need it!