I've Got Troubled Thoughts

And the self-esteem to match, what a catch,
What a catch. (Fall Out Boy)


Well, it's Wednesday, and these past two weekends have really just whizzed by. The first half of this week itself just whizzed by. Certainly, there has been a load of troubled thoughts related to college (in relation to both academics and people related to it), so since I have a little break, I'm just going to take the time to catch up on some of the events of the past few weeks.

Friday, 10.8.10

There was a stain, was a stain, was a stain on the floor
(or rather, Jessica spilled water outside of their room and then got herself locked out =/)

Purple feathery pillowcase from Katherine!

The MOB is on my closet. Your smiles and craziness float above my head as I sleep at night.
I wake up and absorb your radiance.

I headed up to the roof on Friday afternoon with Annie and Megan (after being bored and unproductive in our respective rooms, anyway). Ran into an otter who asked if we wanted to practice kicking with them (the noises echoed up the staircase afterward). The sun was setting and made everything so nice and warm, in temperature and in color. It was just nice.

Megan found a not-so-good way into the lounge through the window. (: After we ate dinner that evening we watched Salt (which was pretty WOW), and went crazy over the prospect of spies. I folded paper cranes and we melted in the heat of Megan's room. Nice, laid back Friday.

Saturday, 10.9.10

Woke up around 9  to head with some of the floormates to Lyon Arboretum up by Manoa Falls. While we were up in the lounge, Megan found herself a cool perch, haha.

Scot, Kayani, Matt (RA) / Sam / Annie, Megan

We spent a long time at the bus stops waiting, but we heard a lot about Matt's adventures regarding hiking and lava. I'm kind of jealous of all his experiences out in nature. He knows a lot about Hawaiian plants, too. People know so much! I have no experiences to really recount or any knowledge to share! Everything in my brain is all book knowledge! But nevermind that...

At some point around here, Alyssa had called and I had to tell her that I was out in nature and not being a blob of fat in the dorms (exaggeration). =P

Arboretums specialize in woody plants!

In the picture above, this is us going onto the undeveloped/paved forest trail (admittedly under my encouragement). I was towards the end of the group, so I don't know what decision making occurred in the deciding of the path we would take (though Matt thankfully plowed through a lot of things for us), but we eventually got out, after climbing through little meadows and through skinny wooden plants, and over some slippery mud.

Do you see that part where the trees are? To the left? That is where we climbed up from. XD From there, we made it back to the main trail, and went to look at the other marked off areas of Hawaiian plants (and smell some hibiscus!).

Touristy!

Scot had this cool camera that still used normal film. Kayani seemed like he knew what he was doing. Matt doubted the accuracy of the map he had gotten when we signed in before we entered the arboretum. He pointed out plants and told us lots of things.

After we climbed up the hill in order to get better views of the land around us, we followed things we assumed were "trails" headed back to the main trail. However... long story short, we got lost. Dead ends, steep-like slopes, lots and lots of nature and mud! We did, miraculously, end up at the end of a dead end we had seen before (thus making a full loop) and simply backtracked down the hill, to the main trail. By then we were all hungry (hardly anyone had taken thought to bring something to drink or had eaten anything prior to leaving), and kind of fed up with walking aimlessly in nature, anyway. We didn't making it past the 2nd valley (there are 6), and so we didn't get to see the waterfall (which would be in the last valley) or the haunted shed a few valleys before that. Oh well. It was an adventure, none-the-less.

We ate lunch at Manoa Shopping Center, buying food from different places before all parking down together in McDonalds, where the cashier guy looked like the Mark photographer guy, but wasn't, and where we occupied ourselves looking at the Monopoly peel-off game piece things that is now running. I was pretty wiped when we got back... So much physical exercise! Somehow the afternoon passed away... and soon it was interesting experimentation time with Megan and Annie:

Suffice to say, we made use of the test-tube shooters and Hello Kitty playing cards that happen to be sitting in my room. Don't worry, we're good children; the things going into those tubes were relatively normal.

Included:

• liquids: pineapple Crush, Lipton green tea, Kool-Aid-like strawberry lemonade
• chips: sour cream and onion Lays, cool ranch Doritos, Cheez-Its
• sweets: sour gummy watermelons, mini M&Ms, assorted rock candy, bits of roll cake (from Annie and Megan!)
• grains: Pretz (roast and garden flavors), Ritz whole wheat crackers, Diamond Head Bakery cream crackers, Fruity Pebbles
• misc: bacon and cheddar flavored Easy Cheese, Heinz tomato ketchup

It was slightly disgusting, but definitely enjoyable. I got some chem work done. And our "research" was conducted. Only Annie's mixture (one that she drank, that is) fully showed some sort of... reaction. Foam formed. We're not sure why. Things were floating around, as in, from the bottom of the tube to the top. We let it sit and ferment for a while. That stuff goes in our stomach when you eat all that junk food at once. That was the primary thought. I kept losing at blackjack, so they kept mixing stuff up for me to drink. Then we started sticking those cards to our heads.... Trust me, we weren't drunk. Maybe just sugar-high. =P

See that hole? I woke up the next morning and it was there. I was just wondering how that could have happened. I mean, I didn't take it out of there!

Thankfully, none of the three of us had sore stomachs the morning after, so the crazy experimentation was safe. It was even fun washing those shooters out in the roof kitchen (with Megan sticking her head through windows again, hehe).

I think this is enough remembering for now. It was a great Friday/Saturday at the dorms that weekend =D.

Purple

Worn against domestic violence and teen bullying,
and in memory of the homosexuals who committed suicide.

World, be more reasonable. It's getting harder and harder to tolerate you.
(P.S. I also love purple. And this jacket. And people. To an extent.)