Sky High

Saw a plane from the mountain.

They waved to us.  :)

Aiea Ridge summit hike

Today I had to go on a BIOL 204 class trip to the Aiea Ridge summit hike to learn about plants and birds unique to Hawaii and about the geology of the land and rock formations. It was a long day: 7am-7pm of hiking and learning! 

The Aiea Ridge starts in Aiea, and leads you all the way to the Ko'olau mountains, where you can see Kaneohe, Kailua, etc. We hiked mostly along the ridge that is above the H3 on the right side when you're heading to town.

The views were amazing; on the right you could see the tiny H3, and on the left you could see vast valleys of untouched Hawaiian land.

My friend Mel and the rest of the class hiking along the ridge:

The hike itself probably would take about 5 hours or so, but it took us so long because we were constantly stopping and learning a ton of stuff from Brother Bruner. 

Like, the Ohia lehua flower:

and the I'e I'e plant:

 My horrible point-and-shoot died on cue at this point, so I didn't get all of the pictures that I would have liked.

The whole trip we had to carry plant and bird books, and take notes on all of the names and info we were given. I felt like an incredibly lame tourist everytime other hikers walked by....carrying books and taking a bunch of notes with people in a group! But I had to, since after the incredibly long hike, we got to take a quiz on all that stuff! Sunburned and all!

The quiz was alright...just a bunch of leaves that all looked the same that we had to identify and know its classification. I'm just happy to be home now, even though I am pretty sunburned and completely worn out!

Rants and Rambles

It's been a long day today, and when I thought I didn't have the energy to blog, I drank my beloved Diet Coke and ate a Snicker's bar...and all is well!

So now that I am improperly energized and ignoring my sleep deprivation, I thought that I would blog before I have a sugar crash.

Oh the life of a biology college student! I swear I'm going to have permanent hallucinations of molecules and amino acid structures floating around soon.

Anyway, I realize that my blogs have been pretty boring. Sorry. My point-and-shoot Olympus is on the fritz, and this time I don't feel like reviving it. I am somewhat closer to getting my baby:

Once that happens I can revive my blog with some amazing pictures!

Oh and don't ever get one of these:

This is my third one...after returning two other broken ones from... "ahem"... WATER DAMAGE!! (**It's a water-proof camera!)

And another note: I haven't seen Seth for days! I don't really even get to see him for more than an hour tonight before he has to go back to work. Could our schedules have any more conflict? And the day he gets off, is the day I have a trip scheduled for my BIO 204 class. We're both pretty bummed about it. Sometimes I have to remind myself that another person lives in the apartment with me! But no worries, it will all be over soon.

I had a total freak out this morning. I'm the kind of person that needs to have food in my stomach all the time. I'm always hungry! So eating breakfast is the first thing that I do in the morning. With my eyes still half closed, I poured a bowl of cereal and got an apple out of the fridge; the usual. As I was raising the spoon up to take my first bite, I BARELY, and I mean barely, noticed a little roach chilling on my spoon, eating my breakfast! I swear I was so close to eating it. I totally freaked out, spilling my cereal and everything. Stupid roach! I swear it was smirking at me because he got to enjoy my breakfast and I didn't. I am SO TIRED of bugs chilling in my food. So I didn't eat breakfast this morning and have been grumpy all day.

Things that I looked forward to, to get me through the day are:
-Diet Coke in my fridge
-Whole wheat pasta for dinner
-Canon EOS Rebel T1i (Save save save!)
-A friend who stores her mountain dew in the science department ice machine
-This video I watched over and over at work today:

The amateur sketch kills me.

-And this picture my mom sent me of my dog eating Lima beans:


This post is so random. Can you tell I'm hyped up on caffeine and sugar? Not recommended, but you gotta do what you gotta do when a roach steals your breakfast and you have 2 exams today.

Heart murmur...??

I went to the doctor today because I've been really tired lately and he told me I have a systolic heart murmur.

Not that that's the cause of me being tired...just something that he found.

What?!

I know what it is, but I'm just unsure what to think about it. Scared? Nervous? Don't know. I get an echocardiogram next Friday to check it out.


Now I'm just sitting at work; not really sure what to think. Or write.

Maybe I'll just eat some banana bread.

Conference Weekend

We had a good weekend!

Every Saturday I leave Laie at 6 am and volunteer at the Honolulu Zoo vet clinic until noon. Every Saturday when I wake up, its still dark out and I try to come up with a reason to not go to the zoo...but evenutally I end up going, and I'm always glad that I did. This Saturday I was particularly happy because I was able to participate in a surgery on a spoonbill! Afterwards I went and visited my grandma, and then went to pick up Seth. It was rainy, so we weren't able to go to the beach, but we still had a nice night out; we went and saw The Invention of Lying. It was pretty good! We grabbed some dinner at one of our favorite places and then went and enjoyed the rest of our night at home.

Some other things that happened:

-We watched conference on Sunday and heard some amazing things from our Church Leaders.

-Victoria's Secret opened at Ala Moana! I can't believe I've lived to see the day! Unfortunately there was a gigantic line all the way down the mall....yeah right like I was going to wait in that!

- I was actually the winner of LeeYen's photoshoot! I'm sooooo excited to have an excellent photographer take some nice pictures of Seth and I in the place where we started out lives.

-I found out that Baloo eats Lima beans....gross.

Have a great week!!