Big Island Trip - Part I

Friday.

It was about midnight when I decided to close my eyes just for a little bit. In about six hours I would be on a flight to the Big Island with my friends. I’d be at the airport in five hours, and leaving Waikiki in four. That meant that I had to be ready in three. Unfortunately, because I did close my eyes - even for a second - I sealed my fate to wake up two minutes before our airport transfer was supposed to leave Waikiki. Having not washed the dishes, cleaned my room, or (most importantly) packed for the trip, I was in a mad rush to get ready and shove whatever clothes I could into my bag. There was one important thing that I could not go to Big Island without: T.K.

Mixed feelings

Aloha!


I'm currently experiencing a ton (notice that I avoided saying "heaps") of different and weird emotions that seem to be having somewhat of a negative impact on my studies. For example, I feel:


Relieved after completing the paper for Hawaiian Studies that I had left until, quite literally, the last minute.

[A bit too] relaxed about the assignment for Filipino that I was supposed to submit yesterday, but didn't.

Stressed about the poster draft due tomorrow for Geology, which I haven't thought about.

Unenthused by the class in which I am currently sitting.

And those are just my feelings about classes at the moment.

Procrasting procrastination

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I have a midterm tomorrow morning for Hawaiian Environmental Science, as well as some work to do for Filipino. I need, however, to do my laundry (i.e. procrastinate). And yet I find myself sitting on my bed, doing absolutely nothing productive, while my textbooks sit in my backpack and my dirty clothes rot in a pile in the corner. And on my chair. And on my bed.

PUMPKINS

Aloha!


On my way over to Boring 101 yesterday, after finally exchanging digits with GG101L Guy, I came across an army of carved pumpkins in the lobby of the Architecture Building. There were plenty of them - maybe 20 in total - but I left my memory card at home and could only take five photos using the built-in memory. These are my favourites:

Hula

Aloha!


This morning in my Hawaiian Studies class we learned a little about hula kahiko - the traditional hula dance. It was first performed by men for religious purposes - each movement told a story, may have had a hidden meaning, and was often accompanied by chants. Later on, women started to participate in hula dances. Nowadays the stereotypical image of hula is of a woman wearing a lei, a coconut bra and a grass skirt, strumming her ukelele and dancing with flowing movements on the beach with a palm tree in the background.

The Rock

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It's been a week since I bought myself a MacBook Pro. I have christened it "The Rock" (with the help of My Swedish Friend) because, quite frankly, it rocks. I admit that I haven't fully explored the inner workings of The Rock, but am proud to say that I have taken it to school every day and actually sat down and studied on it. Absolutely nothing has gone wrong with it so far...

I need coffee

...or just anything to keep me awake during class.


Aloha!


My uni friends back home would know that I tend to fall asleep a lot during lectures. I know I'm not the only person in the world who does so, but I wanted my time in Hawai`i to be well-spent and because I do tend to enjoy sleeping in general (my Kaua`i car buddies can attest to this), I would much prefer to use the times allocated to lectures actually learning something.

You're Jeremy?

Yep, that's me.

Aloha!


Yesterday I mentioned briefly that I wasn't looking forward to getting my geology midterm results. I seriously did not expect to get 94% for it, but I'm pretty stoked about that! Maybe Hawaiian geology is my calling?

I love my Kumu. Part II

Aloha!


You might remember from a previous post that I have a pretty awesome Hawaiian Studies teacher. Today her awesomeness struck again.

Walang internet!

Aloha!

I need to practice my Filipino as much as humanly possible because FIL101 is - without a doubt - my hardest subject this semester. I'm so glad I'm only doing 100-level classes because I often hear from my friends in the MIX, who are taking 200, 300 even 400-level classes, about how much work they need to do every night. Screw that, man, I'm in Hawai`i - I'm gonna take it easy as!

Now to address the title of this post. It is generally agreed upon that within the building in which I live, the internet connection sucks. It is about as unreliable as an unsecured wireless network, and almost as slow. Having said that, I was able to submit some homework for my Filipino class that involved uploading a recorded monologue for the teacher to listen to. Here's how it went down:

"Magandang hapon! Kumusta kayo klase? Ako si Jeremy. Malaihollo ang apelyido ko, Jerry ang palayaw ko. Galing ako sa eskuwela. O, sige, diyan ka na. Pupunta ako sa kaarawan partido ng kaibigan. Adyos!"

I had to record it several times because I kept stuffing up certain words and having to start over again. I hope what I submitted makes sense. Click here to see what Google Translate thinks I said. I just got off the phone with my mum. Both she and one of my work friends said that I should remove "partido" from the last sentence. Oh well, it's too late now. Looks like I failed again.

It's pretty late. I'm going to eat the chicken that I took from the party this afternoon. It's okay, I'm an international student.

A hui hou kakou!

Black Smoke!

I had to share this one, for the Losties. This is a hydrothermal vent, where ultra-heated water seeps through the oceanic crust creating plumes of black smoke. The image popped up in my geology class this morning.

Did anyone else see the face?

Yogurtland again

Aloha!


Last night we had yet another meeting of the MIXers. This one was at the Varsity which about as dirty and sticky as the reviews on Google had warned me. But I'm not complaining - it's nice to hang out with familiar faces and even get to know more... while sipping on some PEAR CIDER! *slurrrrrrrrp*

I learned from a couple of girls in the MIX that a certain Daniel Dae Kim was at Yogurtland the other day. My reaction:

Literally.

So I went with a couple of friends to Yogurtland today after class. While I ate my ice cream - a mix of chocolate and vanilla ice cream topped with strawberries, blueberries, banana and chocolate sauce - I kept my eyes peeled for the ex-Lost (now Hawaii Five-0) star. Nothing. Just a bunch of children rolling around on the wheels embedded into their shoes.

Anyway, I had Geology and Filipino today. I feel like I can ace Geology because I've done it before (although not in a Hawaiian context) but Filipino - oh my gash! Looking at the syllabus for that class was like...

Literally.

Anyway, that's about it for today. I suppose I should do some readings etc. Maybe do a couple of extra readings. Maybe plan my semester in terms of assessments, field trips and other activities. Yeah, I'll do all of that...

While watching Glee.

Mahalo!

I love my Kumu. Just saying.

Aloha!

This morning I was kinda freaking out about my Hawaiian Studies class. Mostly because I hadn't done all of the readings, since I spent a lot of time last night Skyping my family and friends. Which became advantageous to me in hindsight, because I actually read one of the articles out loud to a friend and was able to understand it more clearly. She, on the other hand, had no idea what I was talking about.

At the start of each class, Kumu (instructor) picks a handful of students to give a summary on the readings. Today, being the first of these summary presentation days, she gave us the opportunity to volunteer our summaries rather than picking names at random. This was a chance to study the readings well, offer our answers, and get 15 points out of the way from the beginning. So when nobody volunteered to be the first speaker, my shaky hand seemed to slowly raise itself into the air.

I gave my summary and understanding of the article, trying as hard as I could not to say "um" too much. She then proceeded to ask some questions about the article - some which I knew the answers to, and some which I had to bluff - and within a few minutes it was over. At the end of the class I received my mark and was over the moon! Maybe she was being nice because I was the first to volunteer, or maybe I explained it better than I thought I did.

Either way, it doesn't matter. I just earned 15 marks towards this class.

That's an entire three percent.

Heck yeah.

Mahalo!

My other two classes

Aloha!

I know you guys are just dying to find out which one I dropped out of, but first I have to tell you about Geology of the Hawaiian Islands. I'm gonna get this out of the way now:

I GET TO MAKE A POSTER FOR THIS SUBJECT!

All my insides burst out in a pyroclastic eruption of joy the moment I heard that.

The subject itself sounds really interesting, although the first few classes will basically be a revision of geology. Yawn. I'd already planned my poster in my head.

Oh, who am I kidding? I drafted a PowerPoint slide with customised backgrounds and transparent text boxes with a gradient fill and line, and researched potential topics for my poster as soon as I got home. I just love making posters. Too bad it's not due until December 2.

I can't say much about Beginning Filipino because today's class was cancelled. The instructor for that class, Imelda Gasmen or "Tita Ime" was sick, but hopefully will be better by Thursday. She's got some really good reviews on ratemyprofessors.com.

So which course am I dropping? Finally, you get some answers!

67% of you said Filipino, and I had a feeling you would say that. I was a little reluctant to take this class to begin with, and initially it was only because I couldn't find anything else to do. But I hate to break it to you - this is not the class I'll be dropping. In the words of my Hawaiian Environmental Sciences professor, "If you don't know the language, you don't have culture." In the words of my mother, "I hope you'll be okay with all of the subjects especially Filipino so I can talk to you in Tagalog when you come back here."

100% of you were correct in NOT voting against Hawaii: Center of the Pacific :)

So that leaves Science of the Sea, Hawaiian Environmental Sciences and Geology of the Hawaiian Islands. I got one vote against each of these. To the person that voted against Geology - how dare you! I'm really looking forward to making that poster! And Hawaiian Environmental Sciences - I intentionally painted that class in a not-so positive light, but it's actually really interesting. Side note: I've got to find another word for "interesting". I'm not dropping either of those classes.

Science of the Sea. Have you seen those i-clickers!? THEY ARE COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY AWESOME... Unfortunately that's the only cool thing (to me) about this class. I've covered the content already, and the classroom is such a trek away from my previous room. Plus there is no way in hell that I'm gonna let myself suffer through chemistry and physics all over again.

One person got it right in my poll. Congratulations, Nicole - you've won yourself an i-clicker!

I'll try to do more polls in the future. This was fun :)

Mahalo!

I totally forgot to put a title here

Aloha!


My semester began at 9am this morning, but it was from 8.23am that I found out exactly how widespread this campus is. Here's a summary of my classes so far:

Hawaiian Studies 107 - Hawaii: Center of the Pacific
This class is great. It's only a small one - about 35 students, of which I was the lucky last to register into - and one extremely enthusiastic Hawaiian teacher. You get that vibe off of her, that she knows what she's talking about and she really wants you to understand what she's saying. Because it's a small class, she gets to know us individually (me in particular because I'm from Australia) and encourages us to participate in discussion.

Topics to be covered include the history, traditions, culture and environment of Hawaii.

Oceanography 201 - Science of the Sea
This class is huge. I think there are about 200 students doing it (although that might be a vast exaggeration), mostly freshmen. It sounds like the main professor is Australian. He knows about the trek from Hawaiian Studies to the other side of campus for this class, and sympathises. Now, the coolest thing about this class is that student participation comes in the form of an i-clicker. The i-clicker encourages blind participation, meaning students don't have to worry about making an idiot of themselves when answering the teacher's questions. It looks like a remote control but with buttons lettered from A-E, and when the professor asks a multiple-choice question you just press whichever you think is the correct response, and immediately a column graph pops up on the screen with all the responses. It's really quite cool.

End sales pitch.

Biology 123 - Hawaiian Environmental Science
This class is small but held in a large room. The first few classes will discuss what science is all about, after which we will take this knowledge and apply it to the isolated environment of Hawaii. The professor is a bit of an oddball, and hopefully from now on he'll stand on the lower level of the auditorium instead of looking down at us like today. One of my Japanese friends is doing this also doing this class.

So those were the three classes I had today. Tomorrow I've got Geology of the Hawaiian Islands and Beginning Filipino. That makes five classes altogether; 15 credit hours out of a minimum 12. I know that by the end of the week I will drop out of one of them, and I've pretty much made my mind already.

Can you guess which one? Vote in the poll below:

What class will I drop out of?
	Hawaii: Center of the Pacific
	Science of the Sea
	Hawaiian Environmental Science
	Geology of the Hawaiian Islands
	Beginning Filipino
pollcode.com free polls

I'll let you know the answer in the next post. For now, I've got some readings to do.

Mahalo!

The good news is I don't have tuberculosis!

The bad news is that after I had my first dose of MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine as an infant, we moved away from Holland and I never got the second one. So today, after twenty years without it, the fatty deposits in my right arm were once again subjected to the prick of the needle. I guess it's not that bad, I mean what if I never even received the first vaccination?

Also today I enrolled into my classes for the semester, which are as follows:

• Science of the Sea
• Hawaiian Environmental Sciences
• Geology of the Hawaiian Islands
• Beginning Filipino

I know what you're thinking - why, Jerry, are you taking four classes when you only need three before you graduate?

I'm wondering the same as well. And I'll probably drop one of the subjects soon anyway. But when I spoke to the exchange officer (Mr. MIX) on Friday, he said that I may as well do four seeing as though I'm allowed to - and how often do you get to do a subject for free? His words, not mine. The idea wouldn't sound so insanely ridiculous if I could participate in sport and/or leisure classes such as SCUBA diving, tennis, badminton or aqua-aerobics, but the only "sport" offered this semester is weight-training (which is full anyway). So yeah, I'll see how that goes. Enrolling into that fourth subject was hard enough - not only deciding what to take, but what time my classes should be (I would have opted for an earlier class but 7.30am is pushing it just a bit).

I mentioned on Facebook yesterday that I'd take a photo of my bear-shaped honey container. HE'S SO KYOTO. 

Also - organic pop tarts! nom nom nom nom nom!

New video tomorrow :)

Mahalo!