Makapu'u

Yesterday I went to Makapu'u tide pools with my friend's oceanography class that she teaches. It was quite an adventure and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. The trip to the tide pools involves a deceptively easy walk along a man-made trail and then a treacherous climb/slide down a seep cliff--yet another instance of channeling my inner mountain goat! We all made it without any serious injuries, and what was waiting for us made the trip well worth it. The pools were teeming with creatures both spineless (my fav) and bony. They were deep enough to snorkel in and explore. We clearly invaded a few couples who were trying to have a romantic moment in the tide pools. Our giant group of undergraduate students chased them off though and we had the place mostly to ourselves. There were two blow hole areas where the water would jet up through the rocks on occasion. I took some pictures to illustrate the steepness of the cliff and beauty of the surroundings:








Then, last night, I went out with some of my friends and saw a side of Waikiki I haven't seen yet. Apparently, my friend and I chose to go to the main bar frequented by aggressive, horny, marines. Thankfully, we were able to fend for ourselves until our male friend arrived and was able to deter and further unwanted attention. The evening ended with a walk to the beach and a lovely, refreshing swim. Then we topped it all off with a trip to Denny's, which reminded me of nights in Costa Rica. Here are some pictures that were taken during a frenetic ten minute period when we remembered I had my camera.







I'm currently reading through some rough drafts of papers my students had to turn in last week. It is excruciating! I don't understand what passes as the English language these days. I have one paper that is a strange amalgamation of words placed haphazardly next to each other with no regard for meaning. This student juxtaposed opposing ideas and vocabulary in such a way that makes it almost impossible to derive sense from it. I wouldn't even characterize it as "fluff" or "padding" either because it is mostly bizarre word usage--usually sesquipedalian terms that she clearly has no understanding of. But she tried...so I give her credit for that. I'm a pushover.

I'm just frustrated that I've spent a lot of time recently doing things for everyone else and not the work I need to do for myself. I have been xeroxing books and entering data and grading papers and setting up labs--all things that need to be done, but things that keep me from progressing on my own research. We had our weekly Friday meeting with faculty and they kept reminding us that we need to start research now, publish now, distinguish ourselves now, and I'm feeling like I need to run to catch up! It's hard to have direction when I don't have someone telling me where I need to be right now. I am good at self motivating, but I need to know what my goals should be, where I should be realistically at this point in my grad career. I'm grateful to have such a laid back advisor, but it would be nice to have a bit more direction. Now I feel like I've fallen behind so much I'm not sure how I'll ever catch up within the next month, especially given the demands and requirements of classes, labs and professors.

Well, back to work! I want to get it all done, but I also want it all to be perfect--two things that don't necessarily work together in the most efficient way...

Oh, somehow, my drawing that I did on my iPod Touch finally downloaded on my computer--so here it is. This is a bus buddy whom I saw a while ago. She was a small, leathery, Asian woman with giant red glasses. I'm actually pretty proud that I was able to draw anything at all on my Touch--maybe I will get better...