Hawaiʻi Day 65: Some Good Things

I just finished writing my final feedback form on my internship in Honolulu. As many of you may or may not know (or, I suppose, all of you do or do not know, either way), my time in Honolulu has not been the greatest two months of my life. But I will not go into that here. No need to dwell on the negative on the internet for all to see!!! At least, I don’t feel like doing that now. I'll just leave it at this:

When you think of Hawaiʻi:

When I think of Hawaiʻi:

I want to write a post sharing Some Good Things from my time here, ending my last week in Hawaiʻi on a good note and with gratitude. Here are Some Good Things:

My roommates. Turned out to be pretty lovely people. I went to the beach with Amy (roommate) and Claire (supervisor) this past weekend. Afterward we went to the Okinawan Festival, where they had food and a Bon dance. Amy told me about the Bon dances she used to go to at home in California, and we laughed about Paul Hollywood. Speaking of baking, today I made banana bread and butter mochi with my roommate Mokha. Both turned out to be really good!! Yesterday Amy, Mokha, and I went out for hot pot and shaved ice, and had some good laughs and a bit of a heart to heart. They're also both in medicine so they told me about doing autopsies and gross stuff like that.
Amy with a shave ice! I can't get rid of the number 2 over there to the left because the formatting on blogger is atrocious.
My first impression of Mokha was coming across this mug in the kitchen.
Speaking of Bon dance, I also went to a Bon dance with Paisley from Talisman and her very nice friends.
Before my previous roommate Haowen left, we broke our unspoken truce of near silence to go to dinner. I found she was a lovely and soft-spoken person. We decided to take a trip together across the island to Byodo-in. It was not to be compared with the temples I visited in Japan, but I enjoyed spending the day with her, and the ice cream we got afterward.
A little gecko friend
Before Mokha moved in, the master bedroom (primary bedroom?) was briefly inhabited by the Airbnb host René and her husband Dave. They were super lovely people to cohabitate with (I keep saying lovely but they were) and I’m glad I got to meet them. Dave was watching the Tour de France throughout the week and I enjoyed making comments about biking while René kindly shared her peanut butter mochi with me.
friends!
My “climbing friends.” I met Lex and Luca pretty early on here. Mostly we saw each other at HiClimb, the climbing gym. They’re both really lovely, silly, and open people, and our conversations always feel real. I told them I was having a bit of a hard time and they vowed to make my last week memorable, so we went to Waimea Bay this past weekend and swam, climbed (mostly them), and jumped! I wanted to try my backflip but didn’t quite work up to it. We hiked today (I think it was Kalawahine Trail but I’m not sure). Climbed a cool tree and they gave me a manta ray squishmallow that was in their cute house. I’m very grateful that I met them and got to spend time with them here!
squish
I also met Anna at the climbing gym and we did a hike this week as well. That was also super lovely, we had really interesting conversation, and I’m grateful that I got to spend time with them too.
this is not Anna this is Luca but isn't it a good photo
I was also really happy with the extent to which I was able to stay in contact with my friends from school :,) Many voice messages a day really helped me feel like I wasn’t alone out here in the middle of the sea. Thank you friends <3
I’ve been going to cycling classes at BodyBalance. The teachers are so kind and really care about the people who come to their classes. They knew me by name after maybe three classes. I always felt I was entering into a warm and welcoming environment when I went to class, and I’m really grateful that I found that studio.
This snorkel was actually leaking so I just put it in my mouth for the photo
My supervisor Claire and my week-10-supervisor-number-two Kelli Ann made a real effort for me this week by planning a field work day in Pūpūkea. I didn’t realize we were snorkeling, so I swam in my climbing clothes and saw lots of fish, corals, and some urchins. Afterward we got the only Mexican food I’ve had in months (it wasn’t half bad).
I’ve been attending weekly a Capella rehearsals with the Honolulu Blend Chorus, which is a chapter of Sweet Adelines. I’d never heard of Sweet Adelines before but apparently it’s a massive worldwide chorus organization. The median age of people in the group hovered somewhere between 60 and 70, but that didn’t stop me from making a few light friendships and having some interesting conversations. Some of the ladies rallied to make a karaoke night happen before I left, and we went to a carpeted dive bar in Pearl City and sang the night (evening—I appreciate the bedtime schedules of these people) away.

Partially because I wasn’t doing toooo many things outside of work, I was able to get into a groove with meal prepping, cooking for myself, and making some fun desserts. I love food, so I’m glad I got the opportunity to have time to dedicate to it.

you know, groceries

One of my less complex but more beautiful concoctions, incl: strawberry guava jam (you can find strawberry guavas everywhere on hikes here! Bad because invasive but good because delicious), pita crackers, honey goat cheese, sliced peach

Three weeks ago I realized that my climbing membership also gave me access to the yoga classes taught at the gym. Exciting! I dropped in on an Ashtanga class on a whim, having no real sense of what it was or how it differed from any other yoga I’d done. The instructor Sarah was super kind, and the class was energizing. We moved through vinyasa flows quickly, only to hold each subsequent pose for five breaths. The sequence is the same every class, so students learn and improve on their Ashtanga sequence over time. I will certainly be seeking out Ashtanga classes in the future, and particularly looking for Mysore classes, where instructors help you build up and learn the sequence one pose at a time. Maybe I’ll be able to do a headstand one day!
me loving my rental car
Being here without a car has been tough, but I was able to rent a car through Hui Car Share a couple of times, and I had fun adventures on those days. The first time I drove north to Hoʻomaluhia Botanical Garden, which is more like a state park than a botanical garden as the home to tons of trails, mountains, and a whole lake. From there I went to Kailua to get boba, because one needs a little treat on one’s little trip. I headed to Makapu‘u seeking tide pools, and instead found myself climbing the Makapu‘u Point Lighthouse Trail, a short but somewhat steep paved path to view the lighthouse. I was perplexed to see people walking down in their bathing suits with wet hair, only to learn that the tide pools could be found down below, past a sign stating unequivocally that the “area beyond this sign” was most certainly closed. I decided to skip out on that adventure, but appreciated the top-down view of the pools which collected beautiful turquoise water in dishes of dark lava rock. From there I drove back to Honolulu down the coast, hitting the Koko Head Crater Botanical Garden very briefly (no bathroom), as well as Punchbowl Crater (a military cemetery - very near to my home here but never quite made it to the top on foot), and a sunset drive up into the hills where I sat looking out at the city next to some folks smoking weed.
at the top of the Makapu'u Lighthouse hike
Second car day: I set out to explore the west side of the island this time, first heading to Ka’ena Point for some tide pools. I skipped the hike due to reviews of “hot” and “miserable” on AllTrails, but did enjoy seeing a cool dead crab (rest in peace) and peeing on the sand (out of sight, of course). The rest of the journey was mostly driving, always along the coast and with the enjoyment of singing to First Aid Kit and other nice bands.
dead crab
pretty!

I feel so grateful for this next one: the view out of our condo. Though we live in a not-so-cute neighborhood, we happen to live right next to the Liliʻuokalani Botanical Garden. The view is absolutely beautiful and really helped alleviate the feeling of living in a city.
yellow tang
As much as my internship itself has had ups and downs, there have certainly been some good aspects. For one, I designed a bunch of finger puppets, and I think Claire is going to make a little booklet out of them. It was really cool to use my drawing skills (which have certainly not been put to use in quite awhile) for my job. Paid for art (technically)!!!
I also made focaccia for the first time! It turned out pretty well but I think my stomach is averse to yeasted bread ;(
Though many of the planned field work days were cancelled, I was still able to get out of the office a few times. All were highly memorable. The first time was interviewing Kawika Winter on Coconut Island, the island that houses the Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology. The island was beautiful and cute, and Kawika gave an engaging interview about his work as a biocultural ecologist (and was highly complementary of the questions we’d written!).
Coconut Island! This is the bay where we snorked
The second “field trip” was also to Coconut Island. Claire and I accompanied some badass ladies from the coral team to take photos of them monitoring a coral they’d outplanted in the bay. (I’ve also learned a lot about how coral restoration works!). It felt very cool to be on a very cool all-women mini scientific expedition! Who would’ve thought I’d be out there doing science. Or… taking photos of someone else doing science, at least.
Some corals being grown in the coral nursery at AFRC
This is kind of a weird one to put on the list but I went to the Ānuenue Fisheries Research Center to help them out with sorting barbless hooks (fish hooks with the barb smashed down so it’s easier to release animals caught by accident - or at least I think that’s why they're smashed). They’d had some high school students sort the hooks into bags but they’d done it all wrong, so I spent the day listening to podcasts and fixing them. Even though it was repetitive I found it very satisfying and it was one of my favorite days at work.
botanical
Therapy! After the therapist that I’d found prior to coming here fell through, I found a truly wonderful therapist on-island named Shion. She really helped me throughout the summer and I’m so grateful that the first person flaked so that I could work with Shion.
ice cream banana (actually not the blue kind sorry for whoever I sent that misinformation to but the blue ones do exist)
This man named John has too many bananas at his house and so he brought them to work. They are fat little ice cream bananas and they are SO good. Thank you, John. Pretty sure that’s his name.
I also got dinner with Maya’s aunt Jill and that was an evening very well spent! Never underestimate the power of a good aunt.
making a call
And my parents came to visit! Hi parents!
sharky
I almost forgot! I dove with sharks with Olivia! That was awesome. After the initial shock I actually felt very calm.