Hawaii 2003

Megan’s dad moved to Hawaii with his new family and she was invited to go in May.  She came into my room at one point in March to hang out.  She told me she was going to Hawaii to visit her dad, step mom and half brothers.  I told her that was cool and that she would have fun.  She suggested that I come along too.  I checked to see how much money I had in my bank account.  I had plenty.  I called my mom and asked if I could go to Hawaii with Megan for summer break.  She said yes as long as I paid for it.  I told her I would but I would have to use her credit card.  I booked my flight and I was well on my way to Hawaii.   Before we left for Hawaii, I went to my high school to a fastpitch practice to help them out.  We were practicing where everyone needs to go during a pickle and I was the base runner.  During one of the pickles, I turned to run the other way when one of the girls went to fake throw it but accidentally let go of it into my face.  I instantly had a swollen right eye socket and I knew it would be a black eye soon.  Yay a black eye, just in time for Hawaii! 

Megan’s mom, Jean, took us to the Sea-Tac airport around 10 a.m. that day.  We got our boarding passes, checked our bags, went through security and waited in the lobby for our noon flight.  We got onto the plane and found our seats.  It was going to be a six hour flight.  We listened to music, doodled, talked to each other and even talked to the guy beside us.  He looked just like Stephen King but sadly, he wasn’t.  He was a literature professor from the University of Hawaii and he was going back to teach summer classes.

When we got to Honolulu, Megan’s dad and step mom were there waiting for us in the baggage claim area.  Her dad had Hawaiian lei’s ready for each of us and slid them around our necks and told us he was glad we were there to visit.  He also made a remark about my black eye.  We got our luggage and went to the house.  When we got there, we took our luggage to the room Megan and I were going to share and she gave me the grand tour of the house.  Megan’s dad made us steaks on the grill.  We watched a little TV, got tired because of the time difference and went to bed.

Sunday we got up, ate some food, and drove to K-Mart with Megan’s uncle Steve.  We then drove down to the beach and got a lot of sun.  My body was not prepared for it one bit.  I slathered so much sun screen on me and I still got fried.  We stopped at a mini mart and got some drinks and popsicles.  We went home ate some dinner and went to bed.  Sun makes me tired.  Found out that I caught a cold.  It wasn’t pleasant.  I didn’t let it ruin my trip to Hawaii.  I think I got it from going to a hot environment from a very cold environment and it probably didn’t help being on an air recycled airplane.

We went to the beach again the next day and got more sun.  I bought one of those floatie mat things and laid on that as I floated through the ocean.  We had a good time.  We went with Megan’s dad and step mom to Costco.  We came home and watched some TV while Megan’s dad made dinner.  We had shrimp scampi, watched Fear Factor and went to bed.

Tuesday we did not go to the beach at all.  It was a good thing because I needed to let my burns heal up.  We went to Honolulu with Megan’s dad and step mom and had a late lunch early dinner at Bubba Gumps.  I had the fish and chips.  We walked around the mall, which most of the stores were outside and birds flew in and out of them…it was weird to get use to.  We drove home, watched JAG with Megan and went to bed.

Wednesday we got up, went to the swap meet at the Aloha Bowl in Honolulu.  We were practically there all day long.  I ended up buying some shorts and some t-shirts and some other little knick knacks for my family.  We had iced lemonade, came home, watched some TV ate dinner of fish and noodles and went to bed.   Megan stayed up until 3 a.m. playing a video game.

On Thursday we went to Hanauma Bay.  This time you had to do an orientation before you went down to the bay.  Last time I was there, in 1998, you didn’t have to do it.  We went snorkeling and took pictures of the fish with the underwater camera.  We went home after a while, ate some pizza, watched the season finale of CSI and ER and went to bed.

Friday and Saturday were catch up/lazy days.  We stayed at home and did some laundry.  We played catch in the back yard, watched some movies and took the dog to the park.  I also called my mom to tell her all the stuff that we’ve done so far.  She was glad to hear from me.

Sunday we went to an all you can eat brunch at a military base/country club (Megan’s dad and step mom are part of the military).  After we went to the Honolulu Zoo with the family, saw lots of animals and exhibits.  We drove down to Waikiki to people watch and to see some of the attractions ate some pizza and went home.

On Monday we went to the North Shore with Megan’s uncle Steve.  We drove through the Dole Pineapple fields, at the time I had no idea what was sticking up out of the ground…so I asked.  “Megan, what are those things sticking up out of the ground?”  “They’re pineapples.” “Really?  I thought pineapples grew in trees.”  I guess not.  North Shore was pretty powerful.  That is where they do most of the surfing competitions because the waves are so strong.  We didn’t realize just how strong they were.  At one point we did not get out of the way of the ten foot wave and it hit us and drug us twenty feet onto the shore.  I was glad it did not rip off my bathing suit.  I stood up and had a pound of sand in my bottoms.  Not the best feeling in the world.  That happened to us twice before we figured it out.

Tuesday we went on a five mile hike to the most western point of Oahu.  The walk was hot and sticky.  When we got to the location, there was tons of Albatross’s nesting on their eggs.  I did not realize how big those birds were until you were right next to one.  I made sure to stay as far away as I could.  When we got back I jumped into the ocean, sure felt good to cool off.  Uncle Steve then drove us to a private lagoon near a hotel.  It was very nice and relaxing.  We went to the movies and saw The Matrix Reloaded.

It was our last day and we had to go back to Washington.  Megan’s dad took us to the airport and dropped us off at the terminal.  We got our boarding passes, checked in our luggage and waited for our flight.  I believe our flight was around 1:00 p.m.  We got on and got back to SeaTac around 9:00 p.m. (five hour flight plus the three hour difference).  Megan’s mom, Megan Champion and my brother were there to take us home.

“You’ve Got 10 Minutes!"

On February 2, 2003 (Ground Hogs Day) I woke up to the sound of the fire alarm.  I heard that the campus sometimes does random fire drills just to make sure that they obey the rules and regulations.  I remember looking at the clock just to see how early it was…it wasn’t that early, only 10 a.m.  It was like my brain shut off and I really didn’t think clearly on what I should grab just in case we were not allowed to return to the dorms right away.  I grabbed my phone, keys, my cougar card and my sweatshirt.  I went down the four flights of stairs because we were not allowed to even touch the elevator and went outside.  I remember looking for the familiar people like Megan, Angela, Izzy and Amber.  At this point Lauren was with Johannes and not around a lot.  I found Amber and decided to walk to wherever we were supposed to go with her.  

 Looking back at this, lots of people were half naked.  Many people were in their bathrobes, shorts, t-shirts and I believe there was even a kid in a towel.  That would suck to be in the middle of a shower or on the toilet when the alarm went off.  We were instructed to walk to the REC center; once we were there we would receive more instructions.  Volunteers were handing out blankets for the people who weren’t fully clothed.  We got to the REC center and put us all in the extra gym.  There, they told us that there was a bomb threat in the Streit-Perham dorm.  They did not know who called it in or if it was a hoax.  They were going to take three days to check every nook and cranny of each room until they declare it safe to enter.  Starting with 6^th floor of Streit, they let a group of people in to gather enough things for three days.  “You’ve got ten minutes!”  Literally.  I was the ninth group of people to go and gather things. 

It was an experience.  They provided food, beverages, t-shirts, bedding, internet, showers and entertainment while we lived in the REC center for three days.  Once every dorm room was gone through and declared safe we were allowed to go back and continue like nothing had happened.   Luckily, nothing bomb related was found.  However, some marijuana plants, tons of alcohol bottles and some interesting sex toys were found in the hunt…

 

None of us could really get our school work done.  This was the era of everything had to be typed out on the computer and we really did not have enough time to spend on going back and forth to the library to type out papers.  Our Gen Ed 111 professor (Amber, Lauren and I shared this class) allowed us to turn in our research assignment late if we could prove we were bomb threat victims.  He told us to write our dorm addresses on the cover sheet while we turned it in.  He was cool with it and we all did pretty well on the assignment even though we turned it in a week later than the rest of the class.

The next few days I collected newspapers of the incident and now every Ground Hogs Day I remember how weird this situation was and how funny it is now.

Freshman Seminar

When it was time to register for classes, I had no idea on how the procedure worked.  It was so different from how I did it in high school.  Before the actual sit down with an advisor, I talked to my mom about what I should take for my first semester of college.  She said I should take the freshman seminar because it would benefit me in the long run and she said it looked like a fun class to take since it was a pretty small class.  I took her up on that and when it was time to register I signed up for the class.

When I walked into the SALC (Student Academic Learning Center) area of the building, it looked like a friendly place to be.  I get to meet some new people, share some stories with them and even get to learn something new with a group of people.  The first assignment that we had was the first threaded discussion on the bridge.  I grew to hate the bridge as the year went on.  It was a great activity to do to on the first day to learn about the other people in class.  I enjoyed learning about the other people and what their favorite things were.  The other one I enjoyed also was when we found a picture and posted it, then someone would have to tell you what they think of the picture, then you would have to go back and tell them what the picture meant to you and why.  That activity also gave the opportunity to learn more about your classmates.    

When we got into choosing our research topic, it became a little scary.  I honestly didn’t care what we did as long as we picked it soon.  We finally got down to two controversial topics to do our research on:  body modification and feng shui.  There was a girl who would drop the class if her topic didn’t get picked.  We talked and argued about the two topics for about two classes.  You could feel the tension in the room.  I really didn’t want to be in there when all of the arguing and yelling.  We voted twice and we still couldn’t get a definite answer.  Karen and Francine, our peer facilitators, told us that we’ve better come up with a way to settle this dispute over the topics or we would do a coin flip.  When they left the room, we all looked at each other.  Hey, the coin flip idea doesn’t sound that bad.  So we did it.  It all came down to the coin flip to decide once and for all, body modification or feng shui.  Body modification won and the girl still dropped the class even though her topic was picked…how lame.

Once we found out what our topic was, we were assigned groups to be in.  I was in the body shaping group with Casey and Erin.  We all got along with each other and we all contributed information equally.  We took the time to get to know each other and where we came from.  There weren’t any huge problems, but some of our research was questionable, and we fixed it.  Our communication worked well, we got to where we needed to be and we got our work done on time.

From being in this group, I learned how to work with people I really don’t know that well and learning about them, how to communicate and arrange meetings to get our work done on time when it’s due and learning the whole process on how to create a web page.  I’m glad I took this class.  I learned so many useful things for my future classes such as looking on the internet library for books to do research on and learning how to use our huge Holland library.

The whole process with getting your work done and put into the web site did stress me out along with my group.  I was very relieved when the presentation finally came and we got to see all of the other groups’ projects being presented plus our own.  It was great to finally get it out of the way.  No more stress about it getting done.  That was the first time I ever had to dress up for a presentation.  We got an A on our project.

Overall I thought this class was very helpful.  All of the peer facilitators were friendly and if you needed help they were there to help no questions asked.  They made sure we understood what was asked of us.  I really liked it when they would write the up-coming information down on the white board to make sure everyone was up to date about everything that was due.  The other activity I thought was fun was every time at the beginning of class, our peer facilitators would think of a topic, tell a story about their experience, then ask us and we would tell the whole class.  It was a great way to start class.  Some of the stuff people said were hilarious.  I couldn’t believe some of the stuff people actually said or did.  It was very entertaining.  If I were to do it all again, I would have not taken this class.  I really did not get that much out of it but I did make some friends and learned a little bit about how to use the technology and information that was there for us to utilize.