I am now "that neighbor"

Oh well this is just peachy.

Gateway House (the name of my dorm that sounds not at all unlike the name of a halfway house or a rehab center) has a little bee problem. I've heard there are always bees in the lounges and earlier this week I had to kill one that was in my room. I was never afraid of bees or wasps until I got stung by one after it flew into my hair and my hand felt like it was being stabbed for two days solid. Then I learned that bees can call other bees to attack if you threaten them. LOVELY. The whole building is apparently covered in beeeees so tonight there was another bee bonking itself on my overhead light.

Now the last time there was a bee in here, after I ran shrieking, I got my sponge mop and smushed him when he landed on the floor. Then I dragged the thing all the way out the front door and threw him out as quickly as possible since he was actually still alive. This time the bee wouldn't stop moving long enough for me to swat him and I couldn't reach him on the ceiling, so after twenty minutes of trying to trick him into going outside by playing an elaborate prank with the lights I went downstairs to elicit help. It was 12:30am.

So I'm standing in the lobby with wet hair in a sweatshirt and baggy pants waiting for someone to come in. After a couple minutes some guy comes in with groceries and I ask if he can help me reach a bee on the ceiling. The guy is obviously pretty confused but says he'll come help me after he puts his groceries away. So I go to my room and the bee is still there, smacking the light. I open the door and wait and at some point the bugger disappears. He doesn't fly past me to go out, he just disappears. So then the guy gets there and there's no bee. We look around for a minute and I swear that there WAS a bee, it's just not here now. Eventually I thank him and he goes back to his room upstairs.

Ten minutes later I notice the little bastard crawling around on my desk and I NAIL HIM WITH MY NOTEBOOK.

So now I'm trying to figure out if leaving a note in the elevator addressed to "the nice guy who tried to help me kill the bee" letting him know that I found it and killed it after he left won't actually seem crazy by comparison to me standing around in my pajamas asking strange men to help me kill things in my bedroom.

We got that boom boom pow

One really weird/cool thing about UHM is that there's constantly music everywhere. This is good because in NJ I would ask people "hey have you heard the new Radiohead yet?" and they'd be all "lol who." Usually I answer the blank stares I sometimes get when Radiohead comes up by going, you know, I'm a creeeeep, I'm a weirdo... but that didn't work there as apparently none of them had ever heard it. What the crap, even my mom knows the words to that song (hi mom, sorry mom).

Anywhoo there's been a DJ booth outside Campus Center all week for some reason and tonight there was a live band in the little square between the four Hale Aloha towers next to my dorm. I get woken up every morning by people driving around playing loud music starting at 5am which, while annoying, is still cool because at least the people out here are alive.

The downside is that living in a dorm and not having a car means there is NOWHERE I can play loud music and sing without anyone hearing me. Yes the no one hearing me part is important. It's not fun if you know your neighbor is sitting in their room griping about your bad taste in music.

This is unrelated to anything else but I just have a love affair with this video and I would like to pimp it as much as possible:

Owww, my tendons...

SHIN SPLINTS. I HAS THEM.

This is like the lamest thing ever what the crap why is it that my feet/legs are so damn delicate. I love using public transportation but clearly I am not built for it, what with the constant blisters in New York and the muscles separating from the bone here. I wore flip flops almost every day all summer, only after I got here I was suddenly walking long distances. First the tops of my feet got sore, and gradually it moved upwards. Eventually my shins started to get sore when I picked up my feet. I figured it was just muscle soreness in general but after a few days of it I asked beauty_101 and they were all IT'S SHIN SPLINTS WOMAN GET BETTER SHOES BEFORE YOUR LEGS BREAK OFF. So tomorrow morning I have to get up at 7:30am to make an EMERGENCY SHOE SHOPPING TRIP to Sketchers before my big long day of classes. I find this to be lulzy. It'd be a lot more lulzy if shin splints didn't hurt to make and/or didn't make it so easy for you to get stress fractures in your leg bones.

Apparently as they progress they get more and more painful until it's constant and/or your leg breaks. At the level mine are at now it doesn't need medical attention, just better shoes and rest. Possibly some ice packs. My problem now is that to keep flip flops (oh I'm sorry, slippers) on you have to constantly bee raising your foot such that your toes are up and the heel is down. The muscle that does that is precisely the one that gets them shin splints. So wee. Another girl on B101 said that she got them when she first moved to Hawai'i, too.

Move in partaaay

So with the upperclassmen move in starting yesterday, this is campus now a combination of this:



This:



And this:



I would like to let it be known that my original choice of example was the Beastie Boys going FIGHT. FOR YOUR RIGHT. TO PAAAAAAARTY in the lamest way possible. No embed allowed. Then I moved on to Prince, who I forgot is a jerk and has a team of lawyers keeping his stuff off YouTube, and eventually I got all the way down to Risky business before I finally found a video they would let me embed. Extra fail, guys. Extra fail.

Campus

Here's the sort of front entrance, if you can call it that.




The walk I make down Hollaback Dole St.




Some nice plumeria trees :)

Om nom snail?

After the four inch slugs that came out after the rain I knew I was in for some weird bugs. That did not prepare me for the giant African land snail I saw zipping along a manhole cover a few days ago. Look at the size of these things. The one I saw was probably about that big, only way longer because he was all stretched out as he oozed along. I mean his head was at one end of this manhole and his tail was at the other. Again, I didn't know they were here because they're another purposefully introduced invasive species. The story behind these is that they were kept in the Pacific as possible reserve food for US military. Who the crap gets these half baked ideas? Mongoose eat rats and soldiers eat giant snails? Really guys?

For extra fun, one place I looked said that their mucous can transmit meningitis. DIG IN BOYS.

Hollaback Lane

That's it, Dole Street needs an official name change to HOLLABACK LANE. Literally every time I walk along there I get at least one whistle/honk/"heeeyy baby we're going to the beach you should come with usss" from a passing car.

This is weird to me because there is no shortage of other Fun Size™ girls walking around there, and most of them are of the well-dressed Japanese variety. What gives?

I go to school with Rikki Tikki Tavi

If you want a closer look, just skip to 2:19.

I had no idea some clown had introduced the Indian mongoose to Hawaii. Apparently he wanted to get rid of the rats in his cane fields. Long story short they ended up with both rats and mongooses. If you want to see more of these anerable little badasses, check out this one taking down a cobra in India. They're so cool cats don't even mess with them. In fact, here's a group of them chasing a lion. Here's a less badass vid of one attempting to steal someone's lunch.

First day and half done

Did I die and go to some parallel universe where everything's the opposite of New Jersey?

First off, when I started to make a wrong turn in the airport the flight crew from my plane (who were walking behind me) recognized me from the flight and called out to tell me the right direction, and when I dropped my phone and the battery popped out they stopped to make sure it was okay. Then the cab service at the airport pulled up a limo for me. Turns out it's the same price as a regular cab-- $30 to go the necessary 10 miles. Sweet. Then for extra funsies, the super sweet driver carried my bags up the stairs to Frear Hall for me and then tried to help me find out what doors to go in (two entrances were closed for some reason).

Second, the various offices are painless and easy to work with. When I went to Dining Services earlier one of the ladies actually left the office to go find the woman I needed to talk to for me. Whenever I asked anyone a question (including the other students) they would go find out the answer for me if they didn't actually know. I got in touch with the office that advises people on finding careers in the healthcare industry (yes there's a whole office for that) and not only were they sweet and helpful, the lady at the desk is going to put me in touch with the grad student she knows that's doing what I want to do-- an MPH with a focus in preventative medicine.

There's also a bunch of tasty local eateries within walking distance. There's also a Japanese grocery store, a health food store, and a regular grocery store all next to each other right down the road. So far I have only seen one national chain business around here, and it's a Burger King... But that's not including the Pizza Hut/Subway/Jamba Juice in the student center. Going the other way is the CVS where I have sent my allergy prescription to be filled-- I'm all stuffy from the long flight still :X

In other words, pretty freaking sweet.

I was still apprehensive about adapting until I walked down to the store and as I came back I saw a rainbow coming up out of lower campus, right where my dorm is!! I am now sure I am really supposed to be here... :D