Honolulu AIDS Walk

April 17th is the 20th annual Honolulu AIDS Walk!

This event benefitsThe Life Foundation is a local organization that does amazing things. They're the state's oldest and largest AIDS-related organization and, as such, serve over 75% of the state's people, providing rapid HIV testing, education and prevention programs, and support services for patients of HIV/AIDS. This doesn't just include counseling and medical care, but home care, groceries, and a wide variety of other essential services. They currently serve over 60% of all HIV/AIDS patients in the state including men, women, and children from every income level and ethnic group. They operate an extensive peer-to-peer prevention effort that targets people at the most risk for contracting HIV, offering support and education. They go out of their way to reach people in the community; if you need an HIV test but can't or don't want to go to their office, they will send an inconspicuous employee to meet you anywhere on island for your cheek swab.

I've volunteered for them in the past, and this is really amazing considering that they operate out of one tiny office the size of a small apartment in Honolulu. Now I'm the captain of team Psychic Unity of Anthropology. We're the UH anthropology department's team and, the event being so far in advance, we are woefully short on people and donations.

You can help by spreading the word about the event or donating directly to our team page. I don't receive any compensation for bringing in donations, this money goes directly to Life Foundation programs.

Thank you very much for anything you can give and any efforts to help us reach more people. You are helping us create a safer, healthier Hawaii and for that you have our great appreciation.

Hawaii: Where Every Day Is Opposite Day

I'm beginning to think that people here actually do make an effort to figure out what the best plan of action is, then they willfully do the exact fucking opposite.

I've been suspicious of this for a while now, but this week I really think I've come across irrefutable proof. Monday, January 10th, was the first day of class for all the schools in the University of Hawaii system. The first week to two weeks of every semester is marked by extremely heavy traffic around campus, impossible parking, and lines with waits of twenty to forty five minutes at pretty much every office on campus. The longest and most annoying lines are for student ID validations, textbook purchases, and financial aid office help.

Those first two things are located in the Campus Center building, which is also the student union. The book store is here, along with the ID/bus pass office, student government, university credit union, a major computer lab, all the meeting and conference rooms, the campus copy center, and most of the eateries available on campus. It's a lot of things in a large building.

UH decided that the weekend before class started was the best time to start massive expansion project on Campus Center. They also decided that walkways are for chumps and completely blocked off the entire center of campus, AKA the place with the heaviest foot traffic and the intersection of every path necessary to get from one building to another. For good measure, they also repaved the second busiest walkway on the other side of campus and blocked it off entirely, too.

So now to get anywhere, we have to make massive detours that don't make any sense, and you have to stalk in circles around Campus Center before you can find a way in. There is only one way in now, by the way.

And just in case no one cared that foot traffic was an ordeal, the city also decided to repave the major road that runs alongside campus and in front of all the dorms on the first two days of school, shutting it down. And because they also hate pedestrians, they made it impossible to cross without walking for two blocks in either direction of the major intersection at which we all normally cross.

Hawaii: You Will Run On Island Time Or We Will Fucking Make You Run On Island Time.

Spring is so last season

...


*ssssiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiipp*


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Was it an African octopus or a European octopus?

Look at this. This shit is bananas.

Octopi have been found to carry around coconuts to hide inside them. Apparently that's part of how they used to catch them around here-- coconut shell on a string.

I should be studying

I SHOULD, but it's so nice today. I think I will go get Chinese foods. Mmmmm.

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The moth that time forgot

This five inch wide moth (yes u measured it) has been starring in the window at me for the better part if two hours, so naturally I tried to feed it a sugar cube.

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Things Hawai'i Needs, Part 726

Okay guys, fun fact. I love nail polish. LOVES IT. But apparently nail polish is very hard to ship since it gives off fumes and is flammable and whatnots. For this reason most e-tailers only ship within the continental US. This makes me the sadness. Zoya had a holiday promo where if you bought two polishes they would send you five for free. I was soooo excited and I had picked them all out and everything before I realized they don't ship here. BLAST. Same for Urban Decay's holiday polish set.

So then I should just go to a store, right? WRONG. There are no Ulta, CVS, Duane Reade, or Sally Beauty Supply in HI. The only store I've found here that sells any pro brands is Trade Secret, and they only have a teeny tiny display of OPI and Essie with only reds and pinks. I want China Glaze and CND, damn it! And I want blues and purples, too!

I mean Sephora has their OPI collection but it's pretty boring, honestly. I only like a few colors and I already own most of them. Meh.

I did manage to snag Midnight in Moscow and Smitten with Mittens at Trade Secret, though. So I have cool black/maroon fingers right now. Still though, frowny face :(


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Photos from my classroom window

It's raining so hard in the valley today that you can't even see the mountains, but it's sunny on campus.



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Our biggest import is fat white tourists

This makes the smiles.

ATTN: Single ladies

Ladies I have fabulous news for you. Local guys here will not only ask to go shopping with you but they will help you find what you're looking for AND THEN offer to hold your purse when it looks like you need both hands to dig through a rack.

This is amazing and I cannot get over it.

Also ATTN: Standup comedians, you now have one less piece of ammo for your bits about relationships. Hah hah.

Alright gang, let's split up

I think Hawai'i is officially the most haunted place in the freaking world. Apparently no one here has ever seen a horror movie because they just will not stop building stuff over ancient burial sites. They don't even excavate and re-bury the remains, they just screw it all up. They were gonna put the new Whole Foods in one place but people got mad because there was a burial ground there so they moved it to Kahala where they moved a cemetery so they could put it in that spot. THAT'S NOT ANY BETTER, GUYS. Seriously I looked at a list of haunted places on this island and all but like three of them were build on burial grounds. Whyyyyy.

This came up in the debate over whether or not to go see Paranormal Activity with my buddy Ikemen (names changed to protect the innocent whatever and to also make him incredibly awesome) when he also suggested we go to Morgan's Corner. This, I think, is the worst idea in the history of all bad ideas. For those of you not in the know (i.e. everyone) that's a now closed-off road, at the end of which a girl hung herself some years back. It's popularly known as being Super Crazy Haunted and if you go there you will see her and then she will freaking kill you. If you're in a car, supposedly it will stall at a certain point in the road and everything. You know what I don't want, guys? I don't want to invoke a goddam Ju-on style haunting that will kill me in the same manner as my nightmares, thereby manifesting my darkest fears into flesh. That does not sound like a fun weekend.

What I DO want to do, however, is walk over the bridges in the Manoa Valley hiking trail. It's a long trail with a dead end and apparently when you walk down it there are seven bridges to cross but when you walk back there are only six. I have GOT to see if this is for real. Some of Ikemen's friends did and it and swore there were only six coming back but I'm not buying that. I gotta actually go and get to the end with one bridge missing before I'll believe it, but this is such a common story (and it's so easily verifiable) that it just has to be true. The case is probably that, when you walk back, the lay of the land is such that when you walk over one of the bridges you don't notice it. But I want to find out now!

Luckily one of the biggest hauntings here, the night marchers, cannot be seen by haole so at least I'm off the hook for that one. I don't know if they're supposed to still be able to take your soul but as long as I don't see them I think I'm good.


Anyone wondering what "ikemen" is, basically it's someone who would fit in this photo.

Sleepy sleepy sleepy

The flu has been going around here and, while I don't feel like I have the flu, I am tired all the time. I have been for a week running now and it's getting old FAST. Time for 500% RDA doses of vitamin C.

I bought an epilator. In other news, MY LEGS ARE ON FIRE.

I also applied for a job as a medical office assistant at a pediatrician's office. Sent in the resume tonight-- I plan on calling tomorrow to see if they got it / see if they want me to come in for an interview. I am scared like WOAH. I really want this job and I think I'd be good at it so I'm going to be really upset if I don't get it. There aren't any other similar jobs around at the moment, either.

I haven't been taking pictures because I've mostly been in my dorm reading. The readings for my Pacific Island Cultures class are getting old FAST. The one that finally tipped me over to the "to hell with you and your damn islands" was the chapter mocking microloans and the efforts by nonprofits from Australia, America, and Japan to create jobs and industry by helping people start businesses. I don't just mean in Melanesia (where honestly it's not needed a lot of the time) but everywhere. Alright you ethnocentric rubes. Go throw your satire at Myanmar and see if they laugh.

Anyway, in place of photos here's a doll:



Yep.

An open letter to locals

Not all locals. A very particular handful of locals that one of my friends has the misfortune of having to work with.

If someone moves to your hometown and brings a different culture with them and you get an attitude with them because they're too different and haven't already seamlessly assimilated into the Borg local scene, they're not the racist/xenophobic one. That title can fall squarely on your sheltered (and yet somehow still perfectly tanned) behind.

Furthermore, if you know someone here who moved from another country entirely and they say "wow things in America sure are different from back home," you have no right to get offended. I'm still not sure why you got offended, but somewhere between "YOU'RE PREJUDICED AGAINST OTHER CULTURES" and "AMERICAN CULTURE SUCKS HOW DARE YOU COMPARE US TO THEM" we surmised that this was projection of your own problems onto us.

So basically, you're racist and xenophobic. You hate my friend because she's different from you and you honestly believe that your inability to deal with her due to her being different makes her racist and xenophobic. You've never been to the mainland but you're entirely positive that the locals here are absolutely nothing like Americans on the mainland and should not be grouped in with them. At the same time you don't recognize me as being from the mainland because the culture I grew up in on the mainland is so similar to the one out here. You only recognize my friend as being different because she's actually from a different country altogether and isn't familiar with American culture or laws.

In summary: sit down and shut up, you clearly have no effing idea what you're talking about.

In case of emergency...

... You better hope I like you! :D

Because I am, as they so delightfully phrased it in The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao, a disasterist. I am determined to learn things that will allow me to function in case of a city/state/country-wide disaster and potentially be self-sufficient thereafter. I can build fires, build shelters, forage for food, and help treat injuries, and so on. I intend to be able to field dress game, drive 18-wheeler trucks and boats, repair necessary electronics, etc.

Why?

Because if anything crazy happens you're really going to wish you knew how to do a lot of things you don't know now. I'm not gonna say that I'm planning on a zombie apocalypse or anything, but I am gonna say that if that ever happens I am going to rock because I am scrappy lady. I will ninja in your damn window armed with a fire poker and a really heavy lamp base and be like COME ON THE BUS IS WAITING and then you will pile in with the other survivors and then I will drive you all to a heavily fortified hiding place up in the mountains. THIS IS THE APOCALYPSE OF MY DREAMS, GUYS. I'm not gonna say I want a zombie apocalypse, I'm just saying that if there was a zombie apocalypse I wouldn't be all that upset.

Of course it might not turn out that way, but this is my fantasy world and I choose to believe that I will be a badass. So there.

Fun fact: While looking for that comic in the archive, I ctrl+f-ed for "side" and when I found "The Tasty Side" as the name of a comic I knew that must be it. looool forever.

Since there will never be a zombie apocalypse (QUESTION MARK) I guess I will just learn that stuff to be a bigger badass in the real (read: boring) world. Although actually that may all come in handy if I really do decide to go to some insane place to do public health (I'm looking at yoooou Myanmar) or in the entirely likely event of World War III. And it would definitely be handy in case of a natural disaster like a hurricane or earthquake.

Now you all think I'm insane, I'm sure, but I'm really just an ESFJ. Or, more appropriately for this scenario, an ENTJ. I tend to get one or the other when tested depending on how excited I am about a zombie apocalypse. I guess I'm walking the line somewhere between "Do you folks want some homemade cookies?" and "TUCK IN THAT SHIRT, SOLDIER."


P.S.
There's still hope!
A small warning about A Softer World: Most of the comics are either funny or just plainly poignant, but some of them can be downright upsetting. Each one tells a whole story and sometimes those stories are very dark. It may not always be for the faint of heart. Just a note.

Makapu'u tide pools

How was my day, you ask?










How was yours?

Haole is the new gringo

To everyone who told me that I would not be a minority here: YOU WERE WRONG. I am the only white person around like 90% of the time and it is extremely awesome.

To everyone who told me that I cannot use the word "haole" casually: YOU WERE ALSO WRONG. All the haole do it and it's awesome. We're bringing haole back (YEAH) them other gaijin don't know how to act (YEAH) TAKE IT TO THE BEEEAAACH.

That was Justin Timberlake, guys. Honky Extraordinaire.

This is awesome because it means that I now have the perfect replacement in other songs words I am not allowed to say. Case in point, Black Eyed Peas:

Haole gon hate on us (WHO)
Haole be en-vi-ous (WHO)
I know why they hate on us (WHY)
'Cause we so fab-u-lous (WHAT)
Imma be real on us (C'MON)
Nobody got nothin on us (NO)
Girls be all on us
From the mainland back down to the US(S ARIZONA)

Okay maybe that was a little much, but you get the idea. Kudos to the one person who may or may not actually get these stupid pop music jokes.

Yes. Skin cancer.

I also have a master plan for not getting skin cancer. It involves daily doses of a multivitamin high in vitamins A, C, and E plus at least one food or drink every day that is high in similar antioxidants, mainly green tea. I am also using a fruit juice-based antioxidant serum on my face (as well as a juice-based antioxidant cleanser and an antioxidant eye cream with SPF) and a vitamin E-based lotion on the rest of me. As soon as I can find a neat electric kettle I will also be spraying straight up green tea all over. Why? Because we have a shower stall so I can't bathe in it.

I honestly haven't been wearing sun screen every day and before anyone gets on me for this I should explain. Recent studies on lab created skin have shown that skin treated with the sun-blocking ingredients in sun screen had less sun damage but had more cancer-causing free radicals than the unprotected skin. The medical community at large is claiming that this doesn't mean bupkis and that we should all keep wearing sunscreen, but I think they're full of it and just don't want to admit they're wrong. The trend in skin care and makeup for the last couple of years has been NO SUN. SPF in everything, self-tanners, everyone wearing hats and long sleeves to keep out of the sun. The rate of vitamin D deficiency has gone up steeply which would indicate that people are getting much less sun exposure... But the rates of skin cancer have still been increasing.

That, paired with the other study, are telling me that sun screen is not your best friend all by itself. What you need mostly is a great deal of antioxidants to help specifically prevent against cancer, otherwise you could be doing just as much harm as good. You know why no one gets cancer in Japan despite that fact that it's polluted as hell and they all smoke like chimneys? Freaking green tea guys, seriously. I am not a crunchy granola hippie, I want to prove this with science. So I am going to do this totally uncontrolled and not entirely scientific experiment and get back to you in a few biopsies.

This is by far the most delicious experiment I have ever participated in. I just realized that's not true because I once found out how many licks it takes to get to the Tootsie-Roll center of a Tootsie Pop for science fair. But this is a close second.

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.