#158 - expectations

okay so i have a feeling that this will be an excessively wordy post... so i'm gonna insert some random pictures from our makapu'u lighthouse trail hike last friday for the extra ADD-ness. it was a cool trail, really easy, great views, lots of things to see. on the way up we got ambushed by about 18 million kids on a summer school fieldtrip, they were so dorky. like nicole said, "a blast from the past," haha, we could relate. anyway, add this one on the list of "trails that are good."

but let's get on to the real part of the post... today was a great day. why? because i felt no stress from myself. i'd say that in general i probably put a lot of pressure on myself because of the expectations that i have for how i want my life to be lived. today, for whatever reason, i felt no internal pressure to do the things that i (perhaps erroneously) believe would bring immediate or even delayed progress toward those expecations. or, if i did, those thoughts were quickly quelled by some other force outside of myself (re: the big man upstairs).

so, this morning i went to work, which was not bad because i only had to go in at 8:30 to test, do a quick therapy session and write a report, so i got up at 7:30 very nicely, had time to make breakfast and felt absolutely no pressure driving in to work (usually i'd be pressured because i was running late, or i didn't have enough time to get a nutritious breakfast in, or i was dreading something, or more frequently, someone, i had to confront at work). so i did my job, got paid for it, saw some friends and talked for a little while, then was off to buy lunch and eat it at home. so i got a subway (no guilt there on my wallet or my diet) and then contemplated the rest of my day.

north shore has been absolutely flat for the past weeks so i haven't been surfing (i can't go to white plains anymore... too ugly, i'm spoiled already), but there was the beginnings of a bump today so that made my decision very easy. i was contemplating either surfing or going to the gym, and usually i would feel very compelled (almost guilting myself) into going to the gym to stay fit (because i feel like i'm finally starting to feel a little bit older... sometime things hurt... and tiredness creeps in a little too soon), but that feeling really didn't last long today. it didn't feel like i was shorting myself out on time or progress by NOT going to the gym (when usually it really might), i was absolutely fine with it. excited even because that meant that i got to go to the beach.

and, of course, the beach was the beach. and surfing was sweet. waves were tiny, but it wasn't crowded and i even made some conversation with some surfers out there (which i didn't even feel pressured or awkward to do, how's that?). but on the sets they were clean and smooth, making for some real nice rides. then after i went to killer tacos to buy dinner, but they were closed for some meeting, and that got me a little upset just because i had made mental plans (and when i say "plans," i really mean it, sometimes my food decisions are influenced by daily plans that extend days beyond the present), but then i quickly got over it again, probably because i was in a good mood from just having gone surfing. and so i had the other half of my subway for dinner while watching wimbledon and sat there eating and watching in contentment. cool.

anyway, i think the point of all of this is that not being a slave to all these expectations (and not guilting myself into making progress towards these expectations using methods of my own creation that may not even be effective) puts me in a good mood, which, in turn, improves total quality of life. this is something that i should be mindful of, to NOT pressure and guilt myself, but to let living flow more freely. concentrate on the things that really matter and let the other things fall how they will. take a tip from my namesake and be vigilant in this:

matthew 6:25-34
therefore i tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. are you not much more valuable than they? who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? and why do you worry about clothes? see how the lilies of the field grow. they do not labor or spin. yet i tell you that not even solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. if that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will He not much more clothe you, o you of little faith? so do not worry, saying, 'what shall we eat?' or 'what shall we drink?' or 'what shall we wear?' for the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. but seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. each day has enough trouble of its own.


**update**
i also watched true life: i'm breaking up (and making up). i love watching true life because it's very inspirational, in two ways. one, the kind where someone very real actually achieves something pretty great in their personal lives. and two, the kind where the people are so messed up that you feel great about your own life that you're not so screwed up. so this episode was basically about a couple who just need to not be a couple. they fight and play head games with each other, called the cops on each other, their parents filed restraining orders against the other person, etc. but both of them are so messed up in their addiction to each other already that they keep going back to each other. for one, i don't think either the girl or the boy are any more guilty than the other for the completely unhealthy relationship that they're in, they're both two fine pieces of work. but it's just amazing to see how they rationalize their own actions to the camera during this documentary. it's amazing because it's completely realistic and i'm sure everyone here can say that they've probably heard the exact same words coming from their ex or at least has heard some form of this from their friends. it's kind of enlightening to see this girl's process of rationalization for the way she keeps going back to this douche-bag and watch her thoughts morph from reality to fantasy to insanity. unfortunately, for me, some of it hit a little too close to home, although, by reflecting some aspects of my own personal past experiences, it kind of validated some things that maybe i had dismissed as being completely nuts. i mean, as i watched this couple document their failing relationship, i noticed quite a bit of similarities (especially in break-up fights and confessions) in some reactions that i had in some of my experiences. but... the point is that it's kinda weird to see such similarities in human behavior, but also oddly comforting to think that the experience may actually be so much more common that you had previously thought (even though you probably thought that your experience was so singular). things to think about eh? but it kinda made me really glad that i've endeavored to keep my standards high as far as potential girlfriends and getting into (or, more appropriately, continuing) a relationship with them goes, even though it can be tough at times to stay single, and resist the quick fixes (or at least quickly correct my path when i fall for those quick fixes, haha). definately watching a documentary like this would make any single guy or girl feel pretty great about themselves, but, like i said, it's inspiration... perhaps in the negative way of striving to NOT live your life a certain way, but most likely better than the alternative huh?

#157 - mutants!

today i watched a documentary about mutants. well, they didn't say "mutants," but they were people with genetically induced superhuman abilities. one guy seemingly had immunity to the cold (he could consciously increase his body temperature to the point where he could run barefoot in only shorts across like barren icy tundra), a lady was had synesthesia (where her senses of taste, sight, and hearing merged so she could taste like sourness in a 2nd minor, bitterness in a 2nd major, and creaminess in a 6th minor), an autistic man who could do tremendous calculations in his head (not just based on rote memorization), and a blind painter.

these are the coolest parts of science to me. geophysics, quantum physics, human anatomy, neuroscience and evolutionary genetics are entirely fascinating to me. i think i could be a complete science nerd if i had found these subjects earlier in my education (which is why i'm so drawn to the neurological aspects of speech pathology). i love documentaries on string/membrane theory, genetic coding, etc, and HD discovery channel and HD science channel have been obliging me greatly these past few months.

anyway, the show was called "the real superhumans and the quest for the future fantastic" and it was completely about mutants. they even used some comic book-like visual inserts to move the storyline (a la "kill bill," pretty cool). so these are the real life x-men, which was by the way, my favorite comic book, and really the only comic book that i really took to as a kid (repeat... as a KID). and i think the reason why i liked that series so much was because it was completely plausible. evolution continues one person at a time so of course eventually we'd get mutants, and then what do we do about them? all those storylines about mutant control government programs and mutant genome experiments are entirely likely. okay, maybe the "powers" wouldn't be as fantastical as in the comic books, but eventually some weird ones would pop up right? and what do we do with those people? and will we find those genes that have mutated and further be able to manipulate them?

but... here are my questions:

1. the cold guy - even if he is able to resist the pain of cold, how do his individual cells resist cellular damage caused by freezing? wouldn't the water in his cells freeze and rupture cellular structures? so if he is able to increase his body temperature to the point where the water in his cells do not freeze, then what's to say he can't raise his body temperature beyond normal 98 degrees? he also said that he started craving the cold, almost like an addiction, weird huh?

2. the lady with synesthesia - this is probably the most believable of the powers, because neuro-imaging showed extra activity in areas connecting the brain lobes responsible for sight/hearing/taste. they've already documented cases of right-hemisphere dominant brained people who can do some tremendous things (a lady who can sculpt 3-dimensional objects to perfection just by looking at a 2-dimensional picture of it).

3. the human calculator - this one was kinda cool because people have always heard about savants, but this guy (instead of using rote memory to solve complicated calculations) used reasoning and created his own algorithms to solve problems (like calculate 83 to the power of 1 thru 10 instantly in his head or determine during which years nov. 29th fell on a thursday from 1960-2030).

4. the blind painter - this guy was born without eyes (makes more sense now right) but paints pretty accurate pictures by feeling objects. this makes sense to me because if you're born without one sense, then obviously your brain is gonna use those "unused" cells to do something else right? except in this case, they did an fMRI on the guy while he was drawing and found that his visual cortex was lighting up like crazy! weird huh? gotta question what really goes on in each "cortex."

i also saw another program awhile ago about a blind boy who actually make clicking sounds with his tongue and used echolocation to be able to pretty accurately navigate in space. see what kinds of things the brain can do? there are mutants among us!!!

#156 - research

damn right i do my research.

after having such a crappy time trying to go out and buy stuff in person, i decided to try some online shopping. i like online shopping because you can get SO much information about stuff without feeling pressured to buy or walk between stores to compare, it's all right in front of you. however, i really do like making actual purchases in person, it's just the natural thing to do, and online shopping seems so much like i'm gonna sit here behind my computer all day and not go outside into the sun and be a total loser for the rest of my life.

but... since i was unsuccessful buying my wii games this past wednesday, i wanted to do some online pre-ordering. see, i didn't preorder wii fit or even mariokart because i figured that if there's such a low supply of wii systems, then there'd be lots of extra games out there to buy huh? but i guess those guys at nintendo were paying attention in economics class when they were talking about supply and demand (i actually only took an econ class for about a week, then switched out to FSHN, one of the best moves of my life, in retrospect, because it got me on the right track in terms of eating well and keeping fit, but i remember my econ prof. talking about ACTUAL apples vs. oranges in some supply and demand model and i couldn't take it anymore). anyway, i still can't find wii fit or mariokart anywhere (for regular price anyway, those jerks at that other store jacked up the priced like $40 more) in person or online. so i guess you really do have to preorder these things huh?

so i picked up guitar hero aerosmith, but i did my research, and lucky thing i did because i was gonna buy the whole pack, with the game plus guitar. and i had been wanting to get another guitar, i've only got one and that's no fun when people come over, but as i was shopping around, i found this:

that's the drum set for guitar hero world tour for wii! it's gonna be like rock band with two guitars, drum set, and a mic. so good thing i didn't buy rock band for wii and good thing i didn't buy the aerosmith guitar because this one's gonna come with an updated guitar too. sweet. october.

i also found that samba de amigo is coming for wii in september, woo hoo! although dang that monkey is ugly. but i remember this being a really fun game, and no extra equipment needed so i'll pick this one up definately. but i guess this is how it's gonna be now, gotta preorder all my wii games. too bad, that's extra shipping, but i can't stand that gamestop store so maybe it's worth a little extra to have to not deal with their incompetence. plus, then i can do all my research and make myself some smart decisions. go me.

#155 - what, i don't look like i have money to spend?

originally this post was entitled "shopping discrimination," but i hate the word "discrimination" because it's such a victimizing word. and one of my biggest pet peeves is this culture of victimization that america is very noted for (i'm sure other nations embrace this kind of culture as much as americans do, but i'm using it as an example because that seems to be a very prominent criticism of americans by foreigners). so, i changed it to avoid bringing up that negative connotation when really i just want to talk about some crappy stuff that happened to me.

so i went to pearlridge today (well, that was probably my first mistake). i don't go shopping very often, so when i go it's usually very purposeful, i devote a day to it and i intend to get a lot done. so i've got a list of wii games that i've been wanting to get and one of them just came out yesterday so i wanted to get that, also, it's summer so i wanted to find some boardshorts or something, plus i just haven't been to pearlridge in awhile so i wanted to check what was new at the shops and i wanted to go pricing some pianos too. on the way i got stuck in a huge mess of traffic, some semi truck got into an accident or something and they fully closed like 3-4 lanes of traffic right at the H1/H2 merge. it took me like an hour to get to pearl city. i wanted to get mad at that, but then i thought, how much crappier would it be to be that semi truck driver right? so i'm in good shape.

okay so as i'm walking through the stores and whatever, i start noticing that i walk in and out of a lot of stores without seeing or talking to anyone. i was thinking, "wow, it's so empty on a wednesday afternoon," but i looked around and it really wasn't that empty. so i go into more stores and no one greets me or asks if i need help or anything. which usually i don't mind because i don't feeling that they're always watching me (like when you go in hollister and it's super dark and i swear there's someone in every room saying hi and scaring the crap outta me, it's like a haunted house, like they're all hiding behind the fake palm trees folding clothes and waiting for people to walk by, and sometimes i jump because i don't expect a new person saying hi to me in every single room). but man, i had to work HARD to flag down some help when i actually needed it. then the guy at the piano store, i could totally tell that he was not gonna take me seriously when i asked about the pianos. he was probably thinking, "yeah right kid, quit messing around and get outta my store." then later on he admitted he thought i was a high school student. man. i thought i had outgrown that already. at least bump me up to college people, geez.something else i realized... my style is not the style of america because i couldn't find anything i wanted to buy. it was so hard. and i really wanted to be a consumer today. this is all i found. topspin 3 for wii, just in time for wimbledon (i tried it for just a bit, but it's pretty hard, i hate using that nunchuck, but i guess you have to huh?), and some jeans, but those were on sale for like $20 at pacsun so i'm happy with that. but, i was looking at the bag i got from pacsun, and man if they made that bag into a shirt, i'd buy it. but i could hardly find anything in that store that i'd buy. and it used to be all my clothes were from that store. am i getting too old for the store? scary thought. where do i graduate to? so sad, i'm getting old.

anyway... the search continues for wii fit. i must've been to like 5 different stores today. one of them actually had it (toys n joys in that place across circuit city), but they jacked the price up to $129. what's up with that? like we all don't know wii games are all the same price everywhere, you can't just bump it up $40 bucks and think you're the shizz, what's up with that? no sale for you!

and really, they should all want my money right? you got the money, you got the power right? why am i bending over backwards for these stores, obeying their sales days and running all over the place trying to give them my money. what? i don't look like i've got enough money to spend in your store? respect fools!

#154 - dance again

everytime i go to one of my cousin's 24/7 danceforce concerts i always come home busting with things to say. it's like mystery science theater 3000 with dancing. well, i guess i've been watching a lot of dance stuff recently, with so you think you can dance replacing my american idol fix and that dance crew show on mtv. plus my cousins (actually, there's only one of them now, the other one's off to college) have been dancing practically forever and they're pretty cool so i like to support them. but... their dance concerts are totally gay! haha. well, to give them credit, it's one heck of a production, lighting, video, sound, music mixing, special guests, plus the dancing on top of that, and (also to their credit) their dancing is more than just dancing in a line or group, they do (for the lack of a better term) formations that change rapidly and dynamically, with people coming in and out of their little dancing groups and innovative ways of incorporating people and using the space to create very well crafted performances. so as you can see, as much fun as i will make about them, they are actually very good at what they do.

that being said... it was so gay. the thing that i hate most about it is when i'm watching a performance and i can't tell if there are guys or girls dancing on stage. i think girls should dance like girls and guys should dance like guys. guys don't need to be able to dance like girls in order to be a good dancer, because a few of the guys really do look like guy dancers even when they're all doing the same motions as the girls (okay, i don't know but maybe professional dance types would say that's a bad thing, like they all need to look the same or something, but i disagree, i think it's perfectly fine that they don't all look exactly alike). so in this concert there was a lot more hip-hop and b-boy/girl kinda numbers, which i liked so much more than the lyrical/jazz kind of things (even though, i admit, they're pretty good at that). but what gets me everytime i go to one of these things is how intricate and well-planned all the stage movement is... not the dancing itself, but they way they coordinate everyone to make "formations" and how fast their groups morph and evolve during the dancing (okay, that's residual marching band geek coming out, but stick with me here...), that really makes for interesting things to watch, something to keep all the dads and male cousins (like me) in the audience awake (because we can't think about the skimpy costumes for fear that we might be looking at someone's 15 year old daughter or possibly a guy).

also, i've been watching all the olympics trials on tv (i love the olympics), this weekend they had diving and gymnastics. both of which i do not consider sports. they are "performing arts," just like dance (because "winners" are not determined by objective means, they're all judged, which is subjective which means it is not a sport). anyway, specifically in the gymnastics they do their routines and it's kinda cool, but some of the stuff they do (and people rave and cheer about) are so weak compared to what some of the b-boys/girls can do. example, the pommel horse. so boring right? but think about a b-boy does, kinda like the pommel horse and so much cooler huh? and one thing i really can't stand about gymnastics is when they do the dance-y stuff, like that floor routine, if you're gonna tumble, just tumble, don't try and be a lame-ass white dancer and do your tumbling in between, that's weak. in fact, i think some of those gymnasts should go take some b-boy/girl lessons, i bet they'd pick some stuff up pretty nicely and could actually do some cool stuff perhaps. right? like all those one-arm handstands, those are cool, i'd like to learn how to do those kinda tricks. anyway, i can't wait for olympics this summer... i'm gonna have lots to write about!

#153 - Mokulua Kayak Guides Tour

on thursday we went to kailua for a guided kayak tour. i've never been kayaking before but i definately want to do it again! it was awesome, i felt like i could paddle anywhere in it, haha, well plus it was in kailua bay so way calmer than the shark tours off north shore the day before. i was in a two-person kayak and we went from kailua beach to a "turtle cleaning station" and then to lanikai beach to snorkel. it was cool, but i guess i'm a little jaded from living here because i see turtles all the time on the north shore and the snorkeling off lanikai was much more murky and shallow than like shark's cove or somewhere, so i couldn't done without that, but it was cool anyway.after snorkeling, the really neat part was paddling out to the mokulua islands, one of them has a little beach and even though the whole place was a bird nesting sanctuary (eww... birds... poop...), it was a nice beach with some cool reef and tidepool areas.this tidepool was really deep so you could jump in and go swimming, it was a lot saltier too (because of evaporation) so you float really high, but i didn't go in because it was all stagnant and gross (but very appealing to tourists, haha).it was really cool being on that little island, and our guide was a geomorphologist (i really like geophysics) and he was telling us that like just in the past 10 years they discovered that the entire east coast of oahu was a giant volcano that plunged into the ocean like 1.2 million years ago, the ko'olaus were the western edge of the crater and the mokulua islands were actually part of the volcano's core (the waianaes were another volcano, so long ago oahu kinda looked like maui), and the volcano slid into the ocean in one of those ancient landslides creating a mega-tsunami (like the one in the medditerrainian, santorini, the one that they think destroyed atlantis, and like the volcano in the canary islands that's gonna collapse soon that they think would create a mega-tsunami big enough to destroy the entire eastern seaboard of the US and put all of manhattan underwater all the way up to the empire state building). cool huh? i've been watching a lot of the history channel, and the discovery channel, and the science channel, and the national geographic channel... they're all in HD.so that was my kayak adventure, man, i've been doing things in the past week that i haven't done in my entire life of living here on the island, ha. the kayaks were really cool though, i'm pretty sure you can just rent them from kailua beach and it wouldn't be that hard to paddle out to these islands again... i'm itching to do it again...


oh, p.s. - those pics were taken with a rental digital camera, which was sweet because it was $25 for like 123 pictures that they downloaded and burned onto a cd at the end of the tour so you go home with the pictures instantly. only thing, it was really hard to see because the screen wasn't good with all the glare out at sea so i couldn't really tell what kind of pictures i took, and the lens glass got water spots and smearing so the pictures weren't the best... but still cool. then today in the paper i saw an ad for a REAL digital underwater camera:
it's an olympus, so that's a decent brand... still, the camera i used for the kayak tours was an olympus (in a waterproof housing) and i thought it was pretty sucky compared to my maria sharapova canon powershot, but canon doesn't make waterproof cameras so you've gotta buy a housing which costs almost as much as the camera itself. i really love canon and i don't think i would buy any other brand of camera... but i loves me the waterproofness of it all... i'd be picture-taking like a madman.

#152 - SHARKS!

duh dun.... duh dun.... duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duhduhduh... SHARKS!

haha, on wednesday i went with my co-worker and her two friends from ohio on North Shore Shark Adventures shark cage tour! it was wild. i was nervous at first, but not really about the sharks. maybe because after years and years of watching "shark week" on the discovery channel i know that 1) sharks don't like to eat people, 2) the sharks that we were gonna see were bottom-feeders so they wouldn't jump in the cage with us, and 3) they do these tours all the time. but my conscience was okay because these guys that we went with started the tour because the site they go to is an crab-fishing site, so the sharks are already there and they know the sounds of the boats (so you don't need to chum the water to draw them in, they're already there). my biggest fear was just being out there in the open ocean and in deep water where you can't see what's coming up underneath you, i kept thinking, what if a tiger or a great white comes strolling along! but they told us that if a big shark came along they'd reel the cage back in (plus, they'd have to charge us way extra if a great white came along, haha)anyway, so we get on this boat, they take us out 3 miles outside of haleiwa (it looked way farther than that though!) and drop this cage in the water. then like 60 seconds later they were like, now let's jump in! whoa! slow down a bit, we just got here, let me gather my courage or whatever. but i think it worked out because there were 10 of us and my group was first so i didn't have time to look it the water, see ALL the sharks and freak out. still, it was so scary getting in the water for the first time, even though we were in the cage, it's still a whole lot of blank blue water down there. but we had a snorkel and mask and dove right in. good thing i went first otherwise i'd have been even more freaked out.the cage was good though. bars on the long sides and plexiglass on the short sides, so that was awesome (and freaky, cause the sharks swim straight for you and don't turn until the last second). the holes between the bars freaked me out though, i kept thinking my hands or legs were gonna go through the bars and get bitten off. it was really rough that day and we were getting slammed around in the cage. i didn't want to hold on to any of the bars but when i let go i got slammed into other people and into the sides so i had to hold on. man after only 20 minutes we were all pretty beat up. but man, check out all those sharks! there were already 10-15 as soon we got in the water. all galapagos sharks, they said we might see those or sandbars or hammerheads or gray reef shars, but all we say were these galapagos, they were big though, most of them were bigger than people. they were pretty calm though, once in a while the crew threw fish outta the boat so we could see them eating, but they didn't get all crazy about it.
all in all it was pretty awesome. all i gotta say is thank the good lord for dramamine because two people on the boat were heaving their guts out it was so rough out there. i took dramamine and i was still kinda feeling it so imagine if i didn't take it. but it was a super cool tour and here's my proof that i WAS actually there. i gotta go develop the underwater camera film now so stay tuned for more!

#151 - family reunion

just went to a family reunion this past weekend, the first one i've ever been to, it was family from my mom's side, from maui. i wasn't really expecting anything because i don't really know my relatives very well, i'm one of the youngest so i'm kind of out of the loop knowing who's who. but anyway, mostly it was for my mom's generation, for them to get together again because they spent a lot of time together when they were young, so it really wasn't for the young people. but... we got to stay at the kea lani hotel in wailea which was way sweet. i mean, this was the view from our balcony, cool huh? plus they were having the maui international film festival that weekend so there were a lot of hoity-toity people and celebrity hunters around for that...the first night they were having this after dinner event out in the courtyard, i was looking for celebrities, but couldn't tell. so i was amped about the hotel, but unfortunately i had to share a room with my parents and my oldest sister, and after living on my own since october, having to share again was pretty crappy. luckily it was sweet room too so there was a bedroom section and a living room section (i slept on the sofa bed so i kinda had the living room part to myself) and this was the bathroom:how awesome is that? i love the walk-in shower type of thing going with the stone tiling and everything. that was cool, plus there were huge mirrors everywhere which i like because no one ever gets to see the back of their head and you could see the back of your head from pretty much anywhere in this bathroom which was cool.the rest of the reunion was pretty painful, pretty lame as you'd probably suspect, the first night was an ice cream sundae buffet (which, on maui, means vanilla ice cream with your choice of m&m's, nuts, brownie, hot fudge, pineapple or strawberry sauce and whipped cream for $35 per person), but i just flew in and had to go straight there so i was starving for real dinner food. we played lame name bingo and torturous get-to-know-you games, ugh. the second day was free so mostly that meant watching the little nephews and such in the hotel pool (which was pretty decent) and going to the beach (polo beach is right off the property so that was pretty cool). there was some south shorebreak going on with some bodysurfers and bodyboarders out there, but, as with all maui beaches, it was mad windy and the silty sand made the water kinda gross and murky, but good enough to sit and look at to chill out for awhile. that night we had formal dinner, pretty tame, except for more lame games (luckily the "volunteers" for those games were the older generation so i was off the hook). on sunday we had a "picnic" at kalama park in kihei, i think they were going for the "back in the day" kind of feel, so it probably worked for them, i was bored out of my mind but whatever, i guess it was kinda neat. plus, it gave me time to take some of these cool pictures. something i learned though... my family (my immediate family, in comparison to most of my more distant relatives) is not a easy-going group of people. uptight. control-oriented. nit-picky and excessively talky about minute, unimportant matters. they don't get the gist of things, can't generalize. "we" were in charge of planning the picnic on the last day, and they were stressing about it the whole time. they'd talk and discuss and ask for opinions, then decide, then 10 minutes later bring up the same arguments and rehash the entire discussion and then make the same decision again. then my mom will write the decision down and forget it later. sigh. i guess i always knew they did that, but it just became so much more apparent after being stuck with them for a whole weekend. all i'm saying is i'm loving having my own place right now, haha.

#150 - first day of summer

hooray summer vacation is finally here! the theme of this year's summer break is gonna be rejuvenation. i'm thinking rest and recovery from the past year and time to get the little things done that i've been pushing back throughout the year. it won't really be that long anyway, 7 weeks of summer until work starts back up again. but that's better than most people get so i'm gonna cherish it.

today was the first day so i kept it pretty simple. woke up around 9:00am, had some breakfast, read the newspaper, went north shore (it was super FLAT like a lake, but i found some tiny bumps at chun's and it was a super clear day so, yeah, pretty sweet), lunch at killer tacos, then a couple episodes of "bones" from netflix, i even cooked some shoyu chicken for dinner (thanks for the garlic, i ran out) and i'm gonna make it an early night. early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.

hopefully i'm have lots of days like this before work starts up again, but i've got some other things to do too:

- family reunion on maui this weekend (don't know how that's gonna go... weird)
- work only one or two days a week, it's a sweet summertime schedule, and it's extra pay, ca-ching!
- re-painting my place, gonna extend the gray color in the living room and probably change up the greens in the bedrooms
- north shore shark adventures!! i'm nervous... but i'm gonna do it
- possible kayaking off kailua?
- tennis
- restart my workout schedules at 24 hr.
- shop around for an acoustic upright piano

hmm... what else?

#149 - 2 1/2 hours

so i've been having weird sleeping issues for maybe about a month now, from that eerie sunday when i missed like the entire day sleeping to now way too frequent afternoons that i come home from work and crash without doing anything the rest of the day. i've been attributing it to burnt-outedness from work and from working out too. i guess i've gotten kinda bored with my workout routine, which is a good and bad thing, meaning, i've gotten a little too complacent because i've reached a lot of my goals that i had for working out and exercise in general, including sports and stuff, so i've been letting things lapse a bit, but i thought that was related to my seemingly consistent tiredness. but since it's almost summer vacation and i'll have tons of free time during the summer to workout and exercise and play tennis and go surfing and yoga, etc., i've been skipping my workouts and taking naps when i come home from work. today i slept for 2 1/2 hours. i don't know how that happens, i don't mean to, it just happens. i wonder if there's something medically wrong with me, but my instinct is that it's burn out from daily routine and maybe i just need a vacation... which luckily i'll get in a couple of days so maybe i'll just hold out for that.

in the meantime... NOT working out has given me SO much free time lately. i've had time to cook and read the newspaper, and write on this blog. so here's me, after a 2 1/2 hour nap this afternoon watching the french open women's semifinal (see above: ana ivanovic, looking very hot, and her game's pretty hot too, vs. jelena jankovic with the winner to become the new #1 in the world and a place in the final vs. dinara safina, marat safin's sister) writing this post. next up, so you think you can dance at 7pm. i just had some soup for the first half of dinner (i love soup now by the way, progresso is awesome, i've been looking for ways to get my vegetables because it's hard to keep fresh ones on hand with just me eating them, and soup has turned out to be a great way) and during so you think you can dance i'll have my leftover curry and rice.

not having to go to the gym or yoga everyday or every other day has made life kinda peaceful the last few weeks, even though i like going to workout, it does take up a ton of time. i never really noticed much because i had been going so consistently that it became routine, but now that i'm not doing it, it seems like there's time for everything. but... i can definately tell the difference in not exercising consistently for about 3 weeks. i can't go too much longer like this with reversing a lot of the goals that i've worked so hard to attain, so it's a good thing vacation is next week already because i can already feel the out-of-shapedness creeping in...

ps - sad news... my watch died. remember this watch? it was a valentine's day present to myself. but it stopped ticking, i kinda want to wear it still, but that might be silly. so i'll take it to fossil and maybe they can fix it (or maybe it just needs a new battery), so maybe not so sad. still, broken watch, bad haircut, out-of-shapedness, not doing a whole lot for my confidence right now, which is why i'm at home waiting out the end of this week until vacation starts...

#148 - the haircut does not make the man

well, i knew it would come to this. after maybe a year of relatively pain-free haircuts i'm back to the random cross-your-fingers-and-hope-for-the-best approach to getting my haircut. too bad too because i actually found a pretty normal hairstylist the past two times i went to cut my hair but when i called today they said she don't work there no more so i was stuck with random stylist. sigh. and while it's not as bad as this:

it's still not something was comfortable with. i asked for a fauxhawk but it came out more like one of those mushrooms growing in my yard, a pokey mushroom. she cut my bangs supershort so they're sticking up like a little carpet brush, then the top and sides are kinda smooth like a mushroom until it gets down to the side where there's like a ruffled halo around the crown of my head. but i'm trying to stay positive, because at least it's not like this:

HAHAHA! dude, i crack myself up, i hope you're laughing at this post because i'm sitting here alone at my computer laughing my guts out. but, i'm trying to get myself in the mindset that "the haircut does not make the man." i am not my haircut. my haircut does not define me." believe. trust in that.

besides, there are a lot of people who have bad haircuts who don't let it get them down. take a look at david cook...

he's got a ginormous head and puts that crazy mop on top of it and still people think he's alright. and he's got professional stylists to do that to him. and even archuleta at the end of the season started to look like kind of a girly porcupine with his pokey head and perplexing bangs... yet he's still alright.

so i guess it's up to me to forget trying to get the perfect haircut everytime out and not get disappointed when it comes out looking funny. just gotta live with it and do it. besides, change is good right? don't want to have the same haircut for your whole lifetime, how boring. just make what you can out of each trip to the haircutters. maybe if i look at it from a positive angle, that it's good to update and change your style every now and then, just look at it like that, a change, not necessarily for the worse. turn it into something better. otherwise i'll think of them all like this:

and that's not good. think positive!