Did a dumb thing...

So, I just had two days off... nice relaxing (relatively so) and then I had to work today. I made the silly assumption that I had to work at 7am. I thought it was pretty fair since I'd worked those hours last week. Too bad I didn't call work yesterday to check... I actually don't have to work until 3:00 this afternoon. Eeeek!! If I had just called, I would have known. Oh well... that happens sometimes. Grrrr...

Hope you're having a good day. I get to go through stuff in the garage today! Wheeee!!

ttfn

Back in Alaska!

So, I've neglected my blog as of late...

I was in Michigan right after school ended for a vacation/family reunion. I was freezing when I arrived there... but by the time I left I was more than ready. The 90+ degrees and 80%+ humidity made that completely clear.

When I arrived back home in Alaska last Wednesday I was in for a rude awakening. It was on 60 degrees!! And what's worse is that two days ago it snowed and it's been in the low 30s every morning when I drove to work. Eeeeek!! This is NOT June weather in Alaska. I promise.

I've been working since Friday. And on Saturday I started working 7-4. Argh!! I hate mornings. Needless to say, I am more than ready for the two days off than ever before. And I've only been working for the last 5 days. How is the rest of the summer going to go?? Don't want to even think about that!

Anyway... there's the general overview of things. I'll get back in the swing of my blog soon... I promise!

Hey all!

Things have been a bit crazy around here lately. Last week I went to Michigan for a few days to attend my grandma's funeral. I'm back and haven't had time to take a breath since I got back on Monday. I have a presentation today... two finals on Monday and Tuesday and then I'm done! This weekend should be TONS of fun. Haha... I will be able to go to kendo though!

Hope everyone else is doing well... I know I'm just trying to survive for now!

Take care.

A xx

This week....

Is going to be crazy hectic! Eeek! I have to meet with my research seminar professor to discuss things with my research paper tomorrow. I have to make some serious changes to the paper... but that's what happens after the initial rough draft.

Then I have to get to the airport by 5 on Wednesday to head to Michigan for my Grandma's funeral. On the way there I have to work on what I'm going to say at her funeral. It'll be nice to be around my immediate family... the extended portion... hmmm... not sure what to say about them. They are the epitome of dysfunctional and that's the just the tip of the iceberg! Lord give me patience.

That's what the week looks like for me... hope yours is a bit less crazy!

sad

I just wanted to let people know that my Grandma died yesterday. She was 89 and led a very long life, but it was very sudden and it's hitting my family pretty hard. So, if you would keep us in your prayers that would be great.

The birthday report...

Holy cow!! My birthday last week was great. I actually had more fun at my party the night before than on the actual day... but whatever that doesn't matter.

Thursday night a bunch of my friends came out for dinner at one of my favorite Japanese restaurants. Where we ate great food... drank far too much and just had a generally good time. And I got some great presents... not that that's what birthdays are all about, but that is a nice bonus!

From Yo I got some awesome Victoria's Secret perfume, bath gel, etc. He was on the mainland over Spring Break (we have no VS here!!) and brought it back. It's awesome and all smells good!!! I got cute earrings from Ji yon and some Hi-Chews (Japanese candy). I got a new Nike sports bra from Kenzo (weird coming from a guy, but whatever!?!).

Friday I got up and went to watch gymnastics with Nicole, which was awesome. Then I got back to the apartment and got a cool green Nike bag from Nicole!! Got a cute tank top from Mimmi and Emily that says "Miso Hot." And opened the package from my parents that had an awesome Patagonia capilene sports top, chocolate truffles and awesome eye shadow. It was GREAT!!!

Then we went to Tiki's for dinner (shhh... I had a better time on Thursday night!!)...

Also, big shout ot to Em and Jason who called on my birthday... it was GREAT to talk to them!

Hope you are all having a great week. :-)

One day and counting...

So tomorrow I officially turn the big 26!!! Eeeek.... I'll be on the older side of my twenties. Funny thing is... I don't feel that old at all. In fact I feel like I only graduated high school a few years ago... and that university was just last year. But... we all know how time flies while life is happening. Haha...

I am also very lucky because, just like Truman, University of Hawaii gives us a long weekend over Easter... SO... I get my birthday off!! That doesn't mean that I'm going to go crazy with the partying tonight or anything...

Hope you're all having a great day!

Once again I failed!!

After great intentions for my blog, I still managed to fail!! It's been a week since I updated it... :-(

What happened last week... It flew by!! Seriously, it went from Monday to Friday in about .5 seconds... I could hardly believe it! I got a lot of work done on my research paper and will continue working on it until it's due on Wednesday... whee! Gotta love papers... why am I in school again??
At least this semester I'm working on a paper that interests me... last semester was excrutiating.

This past weekend was my roommate Mimmi's birthday. So on Saturday we had a party and at precisely 12am Nicole and I started a rousing, slightly off-key, round of "Happy Birthday." It was a good night and the even better thing... when Mimmi and Emily came home... I kept right on sleeping... no 4am waking up or anything!!

So, Honolulu turns 100 this year. Last weekend there was supposed to be a festival helping to celebrate this landmark occasion... but due to the rain, it was postponed to this weekend. Nicole and I decided a few days ago that it would be fun if we went... and she wanted to go on the Zipper. Now, I foolishly said that I'd go on it with her... heehee... As a kid, I was never that adventurous... I only went on the egg roll ride at the fair once and that's because I was forced. Well, the Zipper was crazy... I just closed my eyes and went with it... Nicole and I both screamed like crazy and when we got off the whole thing had made our day.

So, if there's anyone in Fairbanks who rides the Zipper... take me too!!

The sun will come out.....

TODAY!!! Forget about tomorrow... the sun is actually out today! I went running this morning and it was GREAT!! Sun and everything. People were even at the beach in Waikiki!! Yay for sunshine!

And a BIG shout out to my runner girls!! I hope the half marathon went/is going well... I'm so jealous... maybe someday I'll live in the continental US and can join in the festivities. Wheee!! Here's to hoping anyway. ;-)

I'm going to do a bit of work on my research paper (rough draft... 11 pages and going strong!!). Wish me luck... I start back to classes tomorrow! Boo... spring break was such a bust because of the rain... but I'll try not to be too much of a downer... afterall I only have 5 weeks of classes left!

Have a BEAUTIFUL Sunday!!

Rain rain go away...

This morning...

I woke up at a little bit after 8am... got up to work on the rough draft of my research paper. Got up, fiddled around... looked out the window and saw it was still raining. Blah! Around 9:40 the rain was only barely coming down... so I thought, maybe I should go and mail my letters at the post office... then I thought, nah I can get more done on my paper...

So... round about 30 minutes later when I went to leave... it was pouring!! Within the first few minutes I was completely drenched... and a little over half an hour after that... I was looking like a wet rag and becoming very cold. Yes, cold... in Hawaii!!

If only the rain would stop... I'd be a MUCH happier person! And I'd look a lot drier while being that happy person! ;-)

Pray for SUN!!!

what a night!!

Ok... so Sunday nights tend to be pretty quiet... sit around at home... watch a little tv. You know... nothing much. Well... this past Sunday was a bit different...

Nicole and I are sitting on the couch... waiting for Grey's anatomy to start... at which point... she says "wanna go out??" and for once I couldn't think of a reason not to. So... we got up and got ready to go out.

We ended up at Duke's... started off on Corona's... we ended up talking to all sorts of people while we were there. John from Long Island... Ford from California... because we talked to all these guys... and I was able to talk to them all pretty easily... Nicole kept yelling at me every time we went to the bathroom "guys LOVE you!!!" Which was really funny... because I don't think that's really the case...

In any case, we ended up at the bar on two stools... and this is when things got even funnier. Nicole started talking to this older guy who wanted to talk to her about beauty and youth... or something like that. I got to talking to Colm. A guy from BC. What did we end up talking about? Hockey! And once we got to talking about it we just hit it off... and about 5 minutes into the conversation he's like... "will you marry me?? you're a girl and you can talk hockey... what more do I need?" Yeah... funny funny...

After closing down the bar... we headed to the Dawg House (I wish it weren't spelled that way!)... and the music was good and the company was good... we ended up closing that place down too. Then we said bye to the guys we met... all of them! And headed home... with a detour to Jack in the Box.

On the way home (see this is a LONG story...) we ran into some guys who were from Washington and Oregon and got to talking to them for ages... we only went home when it started raining too hard to stay outside... they walked us to our apartment at around 5...

And THAT was finally the end of our night! We slept out in the living room and woke up at 11... we made the greasiest, bad for you breakfast ever (hash browns and pancakes) and had a great day after that!!

;-)

More pictures!!

So... today is the first day of Spring Break!! Yay!! I have to say... it's kind of cloudy and not that nice, but hey... I still don't have to go to school on Monday... and that's what counts!! ;-)

The other day I was told I need to put more pictures up on my blog... apparently it's a bit bland. Well, I don't have that many pictures actually, but I found a few that a friend sent to me a couple weeks ago... this was just us goofing around in the cafeteria at school...

And here's a random picture of me... I didn't necessarily endorse this picture... it was either smile or frown... ;-)


This is a good picture of Kenzo and me... on the camera he looked like he was making a goofy face, but now that I see the picture bigger... I like it!

Anyway... I hope this is suitable for those of you wanting more pics... I'll try to start taking more pictures of things and people around here!

A xx

T minus 1 day...

Now, Hawaii is a great place most of the time. Recently the weather has been a cit inclimate, but whatever... it's still a pretty nice place. Then there's the university. I personally think that the chancellor's office has some seriously evil people working there. For example... the semester here is 16 weeks. Any smart person would think that Spring Break would be somewhere between weeks 8 and 9. That's what a smart university would do. Not UH... oh, no... we saw weeks 8 and 9 pass already and we're working on week 11. Oh yes... after this week we will finally get a spring break, but I've been ready for AGES!!!

Ok... got that off my chest!

This morning I got up and went running. It was a BLAST!!! It had been raining, so the likelihood that it would rain while I was running was pretty high. And it did... and not just sprinkles, but nice hard rain. The kind that makes people look at people running in it and they say "wow! you're nuts!" But man it felt really good! Yay for the rain!!

Anyway... I hope that your week has been cheerful and nice. Talk to you soon!!

A

HAPPY ST. PAT'S!!!

Hello!! Well... I hope everyone is having an enjoyable St. Patrick's Day! I will soon be enjoying the many pleasant things about St. Pat's... corned beef and cabbage (tonight!), green... everything, and of course a Guinness!! :-) Gotta have that on St. Pat's no matter what!

Have a great day and enjoy being Irish!! Or pretending you are... ;-)

So... apparently my posting skills are lacking... but in my defense... it's because things aren't that interesting around here. Sure, I'm in Hawaii... but on the other hand... it's not been very nice lately. We've had day after day after day of rain. Ick! I hate that.

Also... I've got nothing terribly exciting going on in my life. I've got school. School is good. I like my classes and I think I'm doing alright in those classes. I have to start writing my research paper this weekend. I've got an outline to follow that was approved by my professor, but I've got to do an awful lot of reading before I can fill out that outline. Luckily I've got a lot of books and have really begun hardcore in phase 2 of reading.

I'm being shamed into working out. Which is good since I'm a lazy girl and haven't worked out regularly in awhile. It started about 3 weeks ago I think and I've been going at least once a week, sometimes twice, since then.

The only really exciting news is that Jeff King has won his fourth Iditarod sled dog race in Nome, Alaska!! He won early this morning around 1 am. How cool is that?? AND... he's from Alaska! :-)

Anyway... hope this is a sufficient posting... I'll try to do better... and I'll try to have something good to talk about in my posts.

Great night!!

Yesterday was my roommate Emily's birthday... she turned the ripe old age of 23! Haha. We managed to celebrate her birthday in proper birthday style...
We went over to a friends for a bbbq... I made Japanese style bbq beef... with yakiniku tare and everything! And then we were heading home... and made a detour to Duke's. It's this really nice, but cool, beach bar. None of us really felt like drinking at first, but decided that we should order something as we were at a table.
So we ordered the Tropical "Itch." This is a cocktail that comes with a bamboo back scratcher stuck in it!! Yep, that's right! We had SO much fun with the back scratchers!!
And since no birthday is complete with a little Happy Birthday singing... we got the nice man singing in the bar to do Happy Birthday. It was so fun!!! From that, some nice random stranger brought us all leis and we felt super special!! ;-)

And the thing is... it's just after 8am... and I'm not feeling bad at all! That's what I call the perfect night out! :-)

Been awhile... again!

Hey there!

So, it's been awhile... again. I've been really busy with school. Argh!! Why did I decide that I wanted to do school again? I don't know!!!!!! ;-)

This past weekend was a really good one. Ended up having a nice Saturday night... just chilling with friends, eating okonomiyaki, watching the Olympics, and playing Winning Eleven. I've decided that playing video soccer is never going to be something I'm good at... but that's something that I can live with. :-)

I'm going to have a very busy week again... but I'll definitely be going to kendo on Wednesday. :-) YAY!! It'll be so good...

Hope you are all doing well. I'll try to do better with the blog!! Promise!!!

Morning!!

So... This week has been a WHIRLWIND!!! I have been reading my research stuff non-stop and locking myself away into my room in order to get more stuff read. ARGH!! This must be what grad school's all about, eh?

What do I get to do to de-stress? I take a break from reading my research stuff and switch to my class reading or translation. Heehee! Don't I sound like a sad case.

Anyway... forgot to send out an email... but if you read this regularly could you send me your phone number. My mobile phone drowned in orange juice last week and I lost all my phone numbers... so if anyone reading this ever wants a call from me... PLEASE send me your number.


Later... hope the end of the week is good to you all!

lish

ARGH!!!

Argh!! I am being irrational I'm sure. And I could possibly be accused of being a silly cow... but I am so irritated with two of my roommates.

This morning, in the middle of studying, my best friend Melissa called. So, rather than being courteous and soft-spoken they talked loudly in Swedish to each other and basically forced me out to the lanai. Then when I come in... all of my studying stuff had been "tidied" while I'd been in the middle of studying. VERY ANNOYING!!

Then I came home to get some stuff to study at Starbucks during the Super Bowl (had no vested interest, so therefore didn't find a need to watch) and our apartment is full of people watching the game. Apparently they invited people over to watch, thus the cleaning (can't call it that because it was such a half-assed effort) blitz this morning.

Now, I know this is silly, but I don't mind tidying up my stuff if people are coming over. In fact I'd be happy to... if I knew that people were coming over. And I get highly annoyed when my stuff gets moved without asking because no one decides to tell me that they're having people over. (Very circular logic, but that's how I'm feeing right now.)

What's even more annoying is that I am constantly cleaning up after them in the kitchen and doing the same things over and over again (is it that HARD to put the toilet paper ON the holder??)... and neither of them seems to realize that it's annoying! ARGH!!

Yeah, so there's my big, long winge about roommates. The only good thing... they didn't touch my kendo stuff! Haha... Anyway... needed a vent!

alisha xx

ps Guess this is what happens when you live alone for three years!

Kind of serious stuff...

Last night I had a long, tear-filled conversation with a friend. Tear-filled because ever since I lived in Japan, my tear ducts tend to get a great workout. Not sure why, but they just do.

This particular friend told me something that made me cry... not because it hurt my feelings, but because it is true. And only once he said it outloud did I realize how true it is.

He said to me that I have self-esteem when it comes to academics and friendship and work, but in the area of relationships I have a very low self-esteem. I'd basically poured out my heart to him (it was kathartic actually...) and so he heard the pain in my voice and face when I was talking.

And the things is, he's right. I have self-esteem to spare when I'm doing sports or studying, but when it comes to dating I feel hopelessly lost. And to make matters worse, I have few close friends who are in the same situation as I am. My close friends are all in stable relationships or are married. I know there are a few who aren't, but overall that's the picture I see.

So, that was the heavy conversation that I had last night... until the wee hours of the morning actually. And now I'm off to do something with self-esteem intact... KENDO!!

Talk to you later!