Wittle Melody

Bad day.

2012-01-27T14:17:00.003-06:00

Today reminds me of a time mid-way through my undergraduate degree when something really bad happened to me, scholastically, I had a massive panic attack, drove to my mom's house and stayed there for a solid week not talking to anyone. Except this time I'm in Hawaii, my mom is in Africa, my husband is in Texas and I can't just put my life on hold while I fix myself.

Love Affairs

2011-09-27T03:21:00.003-05:00

I have been trying to trace my long and neverending devotion to the idea of language lately and have encountered a few wonderful memories. This is not a coherent post (what's new?) but it might be a fun retrospective.

The first non-English words I ever learned were from Lakota Sioux at age 4, from what would be my favorite movie for many, many years- Dances with Wolves. I can still feel the magic in the moment when Shumani Tutonka Owachi and Kicking Bird have their first linguistic breakthrough with the term for buffalo (tatanka, as we all know). I watched, rapt, as Stands With a Fist tearfully struggled to revive a language that was dead in her and wondered, "How? How can a language just die in you?" I fell in love with the idea that someone could give you a new name and it transformed you into a new person. I would watch that movie over and over and repeat to the television the words I thought I could understand- Pilama yelo! Wasichu, wasichu! A baby linguist was born- I had a taste, and I was hooked.

Then in kindergarten I was actually in the same class as someone who spoke a language other than English. Our language lessons began immediately upon my bullying demand with lunchroom foods and quickly progressed to other pressing topics such as clothing, animals, colors and numbers. It was Spanish, and I was in love.

In elementary school, my grandparents moved to Kenya and learned Swahili. I didn't want to go to Africa, but I felt that it was unfair of them to learn Swahili while I still had to speak plain English. When they returned a few years later, I spent hours laying on the floor in the music room (yes, my grandparents have a huge room dedicated to music) listening to their Swahili tapes and reading the accompanying manual. I don't remember this, but my mother swears that soon after this, a missionary from Kenya came to our small-town Texas church and I walked up to him and started chattering at him in Swahili (thanks mom!).

Fast forward to today- my entire life revolves around language; thinking about it, sharing it, recording it, learning about it, playing with it, listening to it, loving it. This semester is already shaping up to be the hardest thing that I have ever done, but I think I'm doing it right.

(P.S. Special thanks to my parents and siblings for either teaching me to read REALLY early, or reading the subtitles to Dances With Wolves to me until I had them memorized, and for covering my eyes during the violent/scary/sexy parts. I was four for crying out loud.)

Oregon and Washington

2011-09-07T00:52:00.002-05:00

I'm not sure if I've made this clear enough by my annual summer visits, but I really love the Pacific Northwest. I visited Portland last summer and didn't have a great time, so I went up there this year determined to change that. Here are some scenes from around town:

Ira Keller Water Garden

(this sign combines both my love of lighthouses AND retro neon signs!)

Chinatown

Latourelle Falls

Vista Head Lookout

Multnomah Falls

Random Fishery

Seaside, Oregon

Driving to Seattle

In Seattle!

The golfball! What is it doing in Seattle??

Mt. Baker, WA

Coming up next or as soon as I have time, Yellowstone! (and woe to you if you thought THIS was a photo-heavy post...)

Texas Summer Re-cap.

2011-08-23T14:08:00.002-05:00

As many people have gathered at this point, my summer was absolutely wonderful.

I spent some time enjoying my city and my friends:

I went to East Texas:

I went to my Grandma's house:

I went to the DMoA:

I went to the SAMoA:

I went to the San Antonio Zoo:

Then I got on a plane and went to the Pacific Northwest and Yellowstone! Coming soon....

The CSA and me.

2011-07-16T20:33:00.004-05:00

One of many challenging aspects of my hometime this summer has been dealing with my husband's new diet and his bi-monthly CSA haul. For those who don't know, CSA stand for Community Supported Agriculture and means that every other week we get a bag of produce from a local farm. The challenge (and adventure) has been that I can't hardly identify half of these vegetables, and I don't even like the other half.

I get a great deal of satisfaction from my housewife duties, I really do. There's a certain pride that comes from a mending job well done, an empty laundry hamper and an organized, fresh-smelling closet, from looking around at a clean house and then collapsing on the couch with a cup of coffee and a crossword or a thick book, but nothing satisfies me more than dealing with these alien vegetables.

This summer I have spent most of my time talking with my husband, cleaning and keeping his house, and creating appetizing dishes for him to enjoy when he gets home from work. I feel every bit the dutiful wife, and I really like it. Were I doomed to a life of this same repetitive subservience I would likely go insane, but for a summer (and because it is my choice) I find it more fulfilling than I would have ever guessed.

Edit: I should also mention that I made a commitment some weeks ago not to let so much as a bean pod go unused after I read an article about how much food Americans throw out per year (as much as 40%!). After looking at the fresh and delicious bounty that we were so lucky to have, I vowed not to let any of it go to waste. It has tested the limits of my culinary ability, but I am definitely better for it!

Ka'ena Point

2011-04-23T15:33:00.005-05:00

Yesterday I went with my friends and neighbors to do a little hiking around the North Shore. It was my first trip to the North Shore, and the furthest I've been away from my very small bubble in Honolulu, so naturally I was really really excited :D

It was a really nice drive through what almost felt like real country, and before we started our hike, we fueled up on what were actually decent tacos!! It was the first time I've had Mexican food here that was almost passable- if the salsa had actually had any heat to it, it would have been perfect! Anyway, the restaurant was really great and reminded me a lot of San Antonio.

Ka'ena point is the westernmost point of O'ahu, where the Wai'anae mountain range meets both the windward and leeward coasts.

Ka'ena means 'the heat' and pi'i ka'ena means 'to feel anger', so I have a suspicion that this place name has something to do with Pele...

The trail is cliffs on one side...

Ocean on the other...

I love Hawai'i. I love the ocean. I'm so glad I live here, but times like this really make me miss my husband even more. He would have loved this.

6 miles was plenty, so maybe I'll try this hike next time...

Aloha!

Winter Wrap-Up

2011-04-03T15:56:00.002-05:00

January!

Getting to know the ocean...

February!

Getting to know my school...

March!

And now it's spring!

What a difference a day makes.

2011-01-04T15:19:00.002-06:00

Well, I said goodbye to the Big Island on Sunday, and it was certainly bittersweet.

On one hand I was ready to go- ready to get settled on Oahu, ready to buckle down and study for my exams, ready to get away from the vog, ready to start exploring a new island, ready to be busy doing new things so that I wasn't thinking about Nae'ole every waking moment, ready to leave all the places that reminded me of him.

On the other hand, I wanted to stay there forever. I'd really grown to love the pace of life in Volcano and Hilo- it reminded me a lot of the good things about Tyler and Whitehouse. I didn't want to leave my in-laws, my support system, my only familiarity. I didn't want to leave the volcano and the clear night skies and the roads I had started to learn.

Anyway, here I am now on Oahu, in a suburb of Honolulu called Mililani. I'm staying with my Aunty Cherie and her family in their garage office-turned-apartment. It's comfortable, and they are so nice and helpful. Yesterday the kids took me to the Bishop Museum, which was great. This family is dripping with aloha and I am so happy to be here with them :)

Today will likely be mostly study time for me. I've got three exams and orientation at the end of this week. If I pass all my exams I'll be exempted from 3 courses (a whole semester of grad work!!), so I am working really hard to get ready for those. I found a Starbucks that's not too far of a walk, which is where I spent the morning, and this afternoon I will likely be visiting the Mililani Public Library- also within walking distance.

Lava and Surfers

2011-01-02T00:42:00.003-06:00

This is my last night on the Big Island before I move on to new adventures on Oahu, so it feels like I ought to round up the last of my day posts, as well as re-pack all my stuff!

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This day was really mixed. I still had a wicked sunburn and the beginnings of this persistent chest cold, but we did a lot of neat things. Probably if I'd brought along more food and water, everything would have been great. Anyway, my father-in-law took us out on a tour of some of his old stomping grounds at Kalapana, which got covered in lava in the late 80s and early 90s.

We stopped at the Star of the Sea painted church- a catholic church built in the late 1920s.

When the lava started flowing toward the church in 1990, they picked it up and moved it!

The Hawaiian Islands and Mother Marrianne.

Father Damien. I think there's a movie about him.

The creepiest stained glass ever.

THE COOLEST PLANT EVER! It's called Sleeping Grass!

Nae'ole was looking for this fern everywhere we went and he was so happy when he found it outside the church.

Then we went to the lava floe at Kalapana. I love lava! These look like braids.

There were a surprising amount of houses on the fresh lava...

Flip flops on fresh lava.

And suddenly, lava!

It was really, really neat. We looked at it for about 30 minutes from a distance when suddenly we heard sirens. The park officials had come out to round us up and get us off the lava. Turns out we were standing on a floe that was less than a month old, and it was extremely dangerous. I, being an incurable worrier, was perfectly aware that it was dangerous, but it was actually comforting that they came out to escort us off the lava.

Next we went right over a ways to the old black sand beach, which got covered in lava in the 80s.

Where the treeline is was once the beach, and all the lava we were walking on was the bay. The whole bay was filled in with lava, and when we got to the edge, we found the new beach!

I got a lot of pictures of surfers, but this one is the image of the day:

Then we drove over to MacKenzie State Park and I watched the huge swells come in.

50 foot spray.

The end. I'm not going to talk about the rest of it because it mostly is about how Nae'ole left and now I'm super sad. Saying goodbye is the worst thing, ever.

Adventure Days

2010-12-28T11:21:00.002-06:00

I promised my parents a blog post to read for this morning, but my sunburn and swollen tonsils got in the way last night and I pretty much passed out at 8pm.

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Christmas came and went as it always does, with stockings and Santa and incredibly large family gatherings containing overly-sufficient supplies of food. I met a LOT of relatives, mostly because Nae'ole was sick and left me alone with them.

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Nae'ole was still sick, but that didn't stop me from having fun. We went down to Hilo town and met up with some cousins and Aunties at Reed's Beach, where Aunty Rocky had brought her 2 kayaks. I have a fair amount of experience in ocean kayaks, but not on the ocean. What I had no experience whatsoever on was what I was goaded into trying.

A racing outrigger. The actual boat that I was on was probably 15 years older than this one and not nearly as fancy. One big rule of outriggers- you can NOT lean to the right. Not even a little bit, not even at all. I flipped myself off while I was still being instructed, so I thought, ok, no big deal, now I probably won't do it again.

Wrong.

I got out into the bay and looked around, watching as a large wave came at me sidelong and thought, this is going to flip my boat. Yep. That happened. I panicked so hard that I think I actually jumped out of the water back onto the boat, never letting go of my paddle.

One of the cousins swam out on a boogie board to check on me and asked if I had been using the peddles... Excuse me? The what?? Turns out, when Aunty Rocky had been saying peddle, I was hearing paddle, and that the whole time there was a rudder under the boat that I could have been steering with!!

Anyway, Ka'eo towed me away from the rocks (Aunty's one rule- don't hit any rocks!) but I had had enough and went back in, this time steering nicely. After I recovered a little bit, I went back out, this time in an ocean kayak that I actually know how to use. I picked a few hibiscus blossoms out of the water and brought them back for the little girls.

For some strange reason I neglected to photograph any of this...

That same day we also went to Richardson beach, another black sand beach, this one in Hilo. It was SO crowded.

It was good snorkeling though, and I actually did a little bit of that.

The waves were pretty big and there were a lot of surfers.

I really liked Richardson Beach a lot.

Eventually some of our family showed up! This is Kepa- a cousin- jumping off the rocks.

When you are the photographer, you don't have to jump...

Or climb back up...

All told, it was a really fun day. I did a lot of scary things and lived through them, I swam out into deep water and I took a boat out alone into open ocean (sort of).

Every single person in this photo except the kid under the shower is family.

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I was not really looking forward to this day. Nae'ole was still feeling a bit sick, and I was sore from the terrors of the day before, but we piled in the vans all the same and headed down to Ka Lae, the southernmost point in Hawai'i and the US.

Along the way we pulled over to look around.

Looking right.

Looking left.

We also stopped at the Punalu'u Bake Shop, which boasts such treats as taro sweet bread and lilikoi and guava malasadas. Delicious.

Ka Lae is basically a giant cliff in the middle of the ocean. The water is really deep and there's supposed to be pretty good deep sea fishing, right off the coast. We saw some spearfishers swimming around, and there were lots of guys with their lines out. The reason that I basically only took one photo is because there were FLIES ALL OVER US.

That platform is where you JUMP OFF THE CLIFF. Seriously. No one did it while we were there, but it's pretty popular.

Also there's a hole that you can jump into, and you have to swim to another hole to get out.

See the ladder in the bottom right?

We didn't stay at Ka Lae very long, and the only reason we stayed as long as we did was because of this:

DOLPHINS.

Then we drove over to Green Sand Beach Park, where I finally saw some decent art.

It's a 2.5 mile hike to Green Sands through fairly rough terrain (if you don't go the easy way), but when you see this you immediately know that it's worth it.

Looks like Ireland.

My mother-in-law made the hike with me and she was a champ at getting up and down that hill, even with her torn meniscus. Way to go Cheryl!

We did a LOT of body surfing. Add that to the list of personal accomplishments, because body surfing obviously it requires swimming out in to deeper water, submerging your head, and trusting that after the waves roll you around, you will eventually come to the surface. It was scary, but it was SO. MUCH. FUN.

We walked back the easy way, which was beautiful.

Sorry this took so long to post- I have got a wicked throat infection and head cold, as well as a sunburn from Green Sands. By now I'm mostly recovered, but I've been sleeping a lot the last couple of days.

Next update will have LAVA and SURFERS.

Boring Vacation Slideshow II

2010-12-25T15:56:00.004-06:00

First of all, Nae'ole and I would like to wish everyone, in all the languages we have any knowledge of:

I realized after making this that I left off the ENGLISH. So, ummm, Merry Christmas, folks.

Moving right along...

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On this day we drove around the entire island, which was pretty cool. There are lots and lots of different climates (11 of the world's 13) and we got to see quite a few of them.

On a hill, overlooking the north shore of the island.

This is a place called Pololu Lookout. One of these valleys is where Chief Nae'ole raised the king Kamehameha for the first 5 years of his life.

You can just barely see some people walking around on the far end of the shore. Looks a lot like the Oregon coast to me.

A little further down the road is Pu'ukohola Heiau. A heaiu is an important cultural location, like a temple/sacrificial mound. Pu'ukohola means Hill of the Whale. This heiau is one of a complex containing 3, one of which is submerged at high tide so that a victim can be tied to it and sacrificed to the shark god.

Here is Nae'ole trying to look royal standing next to Kamehameha the Great- the ward of his namesake. There was a neat video about chief Nae'ole at the heiau visitor center. He had a pretty sweet mustache.

Finally we made it to Kailua-Kona, on the far side of the island. We made a much needed stop at the Kona Brewing Company, and walked down along Ali'i drive where we bought wedding rings, ate haupia sorbet, and watched the tide come in. The steeple in the background of this picture sits atop the oldest church in Hawaii.

In Kailua I also went swimming in the ocean at La'aloa Bay Beach, after sundown, which is not only the first time I've ever done that, but possibly the single bravest thing I have ever done.

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It rained all day. We didn't leave the house, and watched all the Bourne movies.

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In the morning we went to Volcanoes again to go do the Kilauea Iki trail. Look at all the smoke coming out of Halema'uma'u... yikes.

All my in-laws crossing the crater. It was a long way across.

Here is a lovely photo of a bee, which moments later stung me on the arm.

It really does feel like being on another planet. Here is some sulphurous steam coming out of a pile of hardened a'a.

Life... finds a way.

In front of the giant devastation mound!

We made it across all of that! It's a lot different from the bottom than it is from the top...

Just in case you forgot, we are on a volcano. In the middle of the ocean.

Sheesh... clean your lens, Melody.

Almost as soon as we got back, it started raining buckets again, so we watched more movies.

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This day we drove down to Holei Sea Arch at the end of Chain of Craters Road.

This is the part of the park where the lava flows into the sea. Unfortunately for us, the lava is currently inactive, but we still got to see some neat stuff.

Yeah... definitely...

I've never seen anything so incredible as the colors and textures of hardened lava.

But the best part of this little jaunt is by far the Holei sea arch itself.

Also, hello ocean, you are utterly terrifying.

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The only photo I have is from the tree outside our window. Every day the dew collects all over, and we watch it as the sun comes up and makes the whole tree glitter like diamonds.

Recap of the last few days (boring vacation slideshow).

2010-12-19T22:46:00.005-06:00

I've really made a commitment to keep my photos organized on this trip and so far so good. Not only is it easier in the long run, it's also easier in the short run because I honestly have no other way to keep track of what day it is. I usually have a pretty good guess of what day of the month it is (today is the 19th!), but Monday... Friday... who even knows?

Those of you thinking, "Eh, you're in Hawai'i, what's the big deal?" need to understand that I NEVER know what day it is anymore, and pretty much haven't paid attention to it for the last 6 months. It's just really not all that important any more. So anyway, here a a few highlights from the 17th-19th.

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We took the kids to a place called Bird Park that's really a nature walk about a mile long. They really enjoyed getting out and running around, although, as you can imagine, we didn't see many birds. It doesn't really matter though, cause they had fun.

It was still pretty early (why do kids get up so early??), and it really warmed up quick in the jungle...

Later that day, after a lot of dealing with "Island Time", we loaded up into the car to go do something... and ended up back at the steam vents...

My eyes are closed and I'm pretty sure that thing I'm doing with my mouth probably made a baby cry, but look at how sad Nae'ole is, he hates those steam vents, ahhah haaaahaha.

Next we hiked the grueling 0.7 mile Kilauea Iki Trail. Kilauea erupted in this place in 1959, when my father-in-law was in his early 20s, and he told us how the lava fountain shot 1900 feet into the air (higher than the Burj Dubai, or whatever it's called now), and the entire floor of the crater was a molten lake of lava. The resulting cinder cone in the center is called Pu'u Pua'i (gushing hill).

You can see a pretty clear trail through the center of the crater- it's about a mile long. In the background is the smoke from Halema'uma'u. I really want to do this hike- they say that the ground is still warm to the touch, and we saw steam coming out from the morning's dew seeping into the cracks. This is less than 10 miles from our house, so I'm sure we'll get a chance.

Halfway around Kilauea Iki Crater trail is Thurston Lava Tube. Lava tubes are basically underground lava rivers that empty of lava and fill up with enough moisture to sustain root systems. When you see a line of vegetation growing out of an old lava floe, this is usually why- lava tubes are essential for new growth (that and incredibly tenacious tropical plants).

Looks pretty ominous, huh!

Don't be scared, Nae'ole, there are lights inside. My father-in-law said that he used to come here for school trips as a kid, BEFORE they installed the lights... scary.

Welcome to the jungle!

One of the trees that is really common up here is the 'ohi'a lehua. Legend goes that 'Ohi'a and Lehua were beautiful, devoted lovers, and that when Pele saw how beautiful 'Ohi'a was, she tried to seduce him away from Lehua. He spurned her advances, and in a fiery rage she turned him into the 'Ohi'a tree and hid him far away up the mountain away from Lehua. Pele's sister Hi'iaka saw how devastated Lehua was at the loss of her lover, so she turned her into the lehua blossom so that 'Ohi'a and Lehua would always be together. If you pick a lehua blossom, the lovers will begin to cry (and you will get rained on).

Believe it or not, this is the opposite side of the crater from the previous crater photo, at the start of Devastation Trail, which leads behind the cinder cone of volcanic accumulate, and yes I just used 'accumulate' as a noun.

LOOK HOW DEVASTATING.

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In the morning, a few of us piled into the car to go see a group of keiki (kids), perform a hula for Madam Pele on the kahua (stage) facing Halema'uma'u crater in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. This is a very sacred place to dance hula, and his hula halau (hula school) practices hula kahiko, which is the traditional style of hula. First they did a mele (song) introducing themselves to Pele, and telling her why they were here.

This lady was the main speaker/singer/chanter. Usually the kumu hula (hula teacher) will be the one to sit off to the side and play the ipu (gourd instrument), but the kumu of this halau no longer performs, only writes the mele for the keiki. (Did I lose anyone?)

There would be more of these pictures, and they might even be better, but honestly, I was too happy to sit in the sunshine and enjoy the show to worry about it. It was a really nice way to spend the morning.

That afternoon, what was supposed to be a quick trip into Hilo for a few necessities and then a nice afternoon at the beach turned into... staying in Hilo all day and not doing really much of anything. Hilo is nice though, so I don't feel like I really missed much. I don't remember anything else.

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This morning all 15 of us piled into 2 vans and went to make an offering to Madam Pele. It's important to do this whenever you are on her mountain to ask her to keep you out of harm, and to watch over the family. It's an important family tradition- every family has certain amakua (ancestral gods), and one of the Nathaniel's is Pele. Madam Pele has a fondness for gin, so we wrapped some up for her in ti leaf and threw it into the crater. I didn't bring my camera on this outing.

Later we went to Punalu'u Black Sand Beach and one of the little ones found a coconut.

The sun didn't quite come out but it was still a nice afternoon.

Ok, Real Talk. If you ever find yourself in a position that puts you in close physical proximity to an endangered animal, BACK THE EFF AWAY.

Was that clear enough?
STAY THE EFF AWAY FROM THE TURTLES.

I saw so many idiots walk right over to them and sit right down like they were old pals (see the footprints?). There are signs EVERYWHERE that say to keep away. They are protected under state and federal law. Ignorance is NOT an excuse, and I told off more than one person who got too close. BACK. AWAY. FROM. THE. TURTLES.

Finally, tonight we went to Halema'uma'u yet again to see the glow from the crater. Unreal.

Very hard to capture, but hopefully you get the idea.

Big Island Adventures

2010-12-17T00:48:00.002-06:00

Warning: this is a photo-heavy post!

A lot of things were done today. We are staying next door to Nae'ole's parent's house (Hale Mahina- House of the Moon) in a house called Pukeawe Cottage. We woke up at about 6am to a freezing cold bedroom and stayed under the covers, willing the sun to please come up and peek into our second-story, east-facing window. Eventually the sun did come out, we braved the cold and went next door to have breakfast, which was Hawaiian sweet bread and strawberry papaya. Nae'ole's parents told us where to find the space heaters in Pukeawe, so we went back over and turned them all on, which (of course), blew a fuse. Nae'ole built us a fire, found the fuse box, fixed it, and life was happy again.

We spent a long time on the front deck feeding the Kalij chickens, doves, myna birds, and other various wildlife. I didn't get any pictures of this, but I think it's pretty much going to be a daily occurrence, so one will surface eventually.

I got pretty antsy pretty early, (and the vog started to roll in at the houses) so we all piled in the car...

and went off to see the steam vents in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park! You have to drive through the park just to get to our house, so we are really close.

The little girls love their Uncle Nae'ole and it's the cutest to hear them call me Auntie.

Steam vents- it just comes out of cracks in the ground.

Da Fada.

Nae'ole was NOT happy to be standing in the steam, which is why I am grinning so much. It is not easy to find something that I'll do, but he won't. I am the reluctant adventurer in this relationship.

Kilauea crater. If the picture doesn't work, check out the link to the larger image: link!

What you're looking at is Halema'uma'u crater within the caldera of Kilauea (where the center column of smoke is rising). That's where the lovely vog comes from. The dark rock was once a lake of lava (more or less). Imagine looking over this cliff and seeing a two-mile section of this crater covered in molten, bubbling lava. The historical descriptions are just incredible.

Mark Twain:
...gorgeous sprays of lava-gouts and gem spangles, some white, some red and some golden--a ceaseless bombardment, and one that fascinated the eye with its unapproachable splendor.

While in the park, we also saw some nene, the state bird of Hawai'i and the rarest goose on earth- only a couple thousand exist today, and they only live on 3 of the Hawaiian islands. Nae'ole got me a plant guide and got himself a new (better) bird book. We are quite the naturalists :)

After that, we drove into Hilo town and picked up a picnic lunch from Cafe 100, the original home of the Loco Moco- any various kind of savory meat on a bed of white rice, topped with a fried egg and brown gravy- and took them to Moku Ola (Coconut Island) in Lili'uokalani Park. I had breaded mahi mahi, and Nae'ole had the Super Loco Moco, which is fried SPAM, portagee (Portuguese) sausage, and hamburger patty, 2 fried eggs, and brown gravy, all over rice, and he didn't give me even a single bite. Jerk.

While at the park, the little girls hunted for shells with their uncle and we watched some guys jump off a platform into the water. The sun was warm, the water was perfect, the breeze was nice and I could have stayed here all day.

Walking across the bridge, we saw two honu (Hawaiian sea turtles) swimming around in Hilo Bay. Honu are the unofficial state animal of Hawai'i and are not all that common- in most places in the world they're on the endangered list but the Hawaiian variety has been promoted to threatened.

After this, we stopped by the Hilo Farmer's Market, which apparently runs every day, but is bigger on Saturday and Wednesday. We found fresh papayas 7 for $1, so naturally we bought 14, and I was pleased to discover that my husband (who sometimes has trouble distinguishing French from Italian) can identify Tagalog in a crowd. Impressive! (Still haven't heard anyone speaking Hawaiian, but I caught some pretty good pidgin at Cafe 100). I really liked the farmer's market and REALLY hope we go back so I can get some pictures of the incredible flowers and the unbelievably gorgeous produce.

We stopped afterward to visit Auntie Violet and Uncle Conrad, who fed me a fresh, sweet guava, which was delicious. Uncle also showed me around his garden a little, taught me a few plants, how to make viable cuttings from rare trees, and gave me a flower for my hair. I took the little girls around piggy back looking for lizards in the trees and listened to them tell me all about geckos and chameleons. I forget how little kids absorb knowledge like sponges and like to tell you all about it- very fun.

We made another stop at a playground to let the little girls burn off some energy before going back home. Also Nae'ole and I climbed on stuff.

Home meant naps and showers, and then Brad and Auli'i arrived with poke, my absolute favorite Hawaiian food (so far).

I don't really have an agenda for this trip other than enjoy myself and try to relax (HAHA), but I think tomorrow we may be spending some quality time at the beach. Aloha!

Texas Countdown

2010-12-10T17:09:00.002-06:00

I promised my grandma I would do a better job about blogging, so here is a quick post!

As of right now, I've had 4 tacos and 3 Dr. Peppers today. Trying to cram in all my Texas love before I leave Wednesday morning. Only 5 more days :(

On the upside though, I'm officially debt-free as of yesterday! No more CC bills or loan payments- yay! Also, I got word this morning that UH is going to go ahead and pay ALL my tuition for the spring, AND give me some 'cost of attendance' money, so I won't have to take out any loans for school either.

Wow, just wow.

Retail: It's not for everyone, and definitely not for me.

2010-11-23T23:38:00.003-06:00

I got a job at World Market at my husband's urging, and because I like World Market and thought it might be fun. I was very, very wrong.

One of the things that I struggle with most in life is disappointing other people- strangers, friends and family alike. It doesn't matter if I know for a fact that I will never see a person again in my life, I take it very personally if they are disappointed in a situation and I can't do anything about it. I definitely know a thing or two about disappointing people, since I used to do it professionally at UT. I have told people that they are not going to graduate college because they didn't pass their last class, or because they didn't pay a stupid $25 fee, or because they took the wrong course. I have watched students struggle for years to finish one last degree requirement as life throws roadblock after roadblock in their way. I've had to tell people to their face that the thing they just spent the last few years of their life on doesn't amount to anything because they waited too long to take a state examination and are now ineligible. In doing all that I was often questioned and sometimes treated badly, but I was never personally attacked, belittled, or bullied, and the students largely handled these massive disappointments with grace and poise.

I think this is why I have such a problem working retail. I have seen customers go absolutely ballistic because they need 25 of a particular place setting, and we only have 24. To date, I've been called a stupid kid, an idiot, and a liar (yes, really), over what I consider to be very, very trivial issues. People ask for discounts because it's inconvenient for them to come to my store and buy something (yes, really). I've been yelled at on the phone more times than I care to remember. Do you have any idea how jarring it is to answer a phone and be the recipient of a carefully planned and mentally rehearsed tirade, and how frustrating it is to then try everything you can to fix the situation knowing that nothing you do is going to make the person on the other end any happier? I once had a man on the phone demand that I give him free floor cushions because he couldn't put his table together correctly and had to sit on the floor to eat (yes, really).

And this doesn't even begin to cover what a poisonous atmosphere the corporate world condones and even facilitates. I've had an employee with a notorious disdain for authority tell me that I was stupid, that I didn't know how to do my job, and that she wasn't going to do what I asked her to do, which was sweep the floor. She then gave me the silent treatment for a week, never did a thing that she was asked to do, talked about what a horrible manager I was to other employees, all because I asked her to sweep the floor at the end of the night. A series of phone calls with HR ensued, I was "coached" on how to deal with rebellious employees, her hand was slapped, and she was required to write an apology (not to me) for not "voicing her conservations appropriately" (yes, really). The best part of all this is that she has done this exact same thing to other people, the only difference in my case was that she never made me cry. One of my favorite employees, someone who has worked at this store for longer than the general manager, was fired for "negligence and insubordination", which means that he didn't get enough email sign-ups from customers. Yes, really. My boss once called me and gave me a list of things to do 2 hours before closing (because she had forgotten to tell me earlier in the day), and asked me the next day why I "chose to ignore what she asked me to do" when I didn't finish it all. I use words like 'focus' and 'drive' and concoct disgusting statements that don't actually say anything like, "Thank you for your continued focus on this critical initiative" and, "We are bases loaded and ready for a GRAND SLAM weekend".

This turned into a lot more of a rant than I meant for it to be, but I can summarize it in a few words: people are basically all jerks.

Unexpectedly Emotional

2010-10-17T10:09:00.002-05:00

This morning has been... kinda rough. My cats decided to torture me by waking me up at 5am, and I'm now getting to the point where my sleep deficit is moving from 'worrisome' to 'frightening'.

My friend Lea over at Ivy Lea(gue) is in town because her mother had to have a serious surgery, and I offered to take her to breakfast and then to the airport this morning. On the way I decided to turn in the last of my (overdue) library books and to be honest, it was really really hard. Other than the $12.60 I owe in library fines, I now no longer have any official relationship with my alma mater.

There I was, standing at the book drop before the library opened, unwilling to part with my precious books, and I couldn't help but compare the situation to a breakup- sneaking over to the ex's place when you hope he isn't home to leave his things on the front porch, avoiding painful confrontation, and walking away feeling like you just left a piece of your soul exposed on a door mat. I stared at my books for a moment, teared up, dropped them in the repository, and just felt profoundly empty.

Maybe it's the lack of sleep, maybe it's that I haven't really prepared to start saying goodbye to things, but as I was digesting these thoughts on the way to get Lea, I hadn't really thought about how much harder it would be to say goodbye to actual people. The reality hit me as we were standing in line to get tacos, and it felt like getting hit by a truck. I managed not to cry until after I dropped her off, but it was definitely hard.

The good news is this: I've got a couple of hours of research to work on this morning before Nae'ole gets up, and once he does we're going on a mini vacation in the hill country for a couple of days. If I can get over the "wow, I'm probably never going to get to do this again" thoughts, then I think it will cheer me up considerably!

Busy busy busy

2010-10-05T09:58:00.003-05:00

Dear blog,

Sorry I've been neglecting you. I've had a lot going on. I somehow accidentally re-entered The Working World, and in case my idle hands weren't busy enough, I re-enlisted in my research class. Of course, you know that I am very happy to be working on research, especially since this semester we have taken a new direction and are working on grammatical typology. I am learning new things every week, I am constantly behind, but I am working really hard whenever I can to catch up and do my professor proud.

I think I partially succeeded at this when I got accepted to the Language Documentation and Conservation Master's program at the University of Hawai'i. She offered her congratulations and sent me a really really nice email, and announced it to the class, much to my feigned embarrassment. Truthfully, I am very proud of myself. I have been working really hard the last two years to make my plans for grad school and beyond a reality, and I am finally seeing the results of the countless hours of classes, papers, projects, research and presentations that I've put in.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about Hawai'i. First, it is very likely that I will be alone for my first semester. So far, we are tentatively planning for Nae'ole to stay here while I go to school, so he can take some more time to job hunt, and so I can try to find us a place to live. Since school starts in 97 days (and I leave permanently in 71 days), we don't really have enough time to accomplish these two very important tasks. While I am so sad about this that it makes me physically sick to think about it, the silver lining is that I do my best work when he's not around, which bodes well for my first semester's grades at UH. Another positive is that there is a conference coming up in February that looks to be mostly peopled by the wonderful folks that I met this summer at InField. It will be great to see some familiar faces, and to personally thank some of them for influencing my decision to stop stalling and apply to grad school.

The second incident of mixed feelings regards my research. Over the last 2 years I've gotten very attached to it, and it makes me very sad to abandon my language family and start on something new and unfamiliar. And of course, there's the slight feelings of possessiveness, knowing that someone else will likely take over where I leave off. I didn't I think I'd feel like this, but I ought to have guessed, looking at past semesters when I was determined to stay on the project even though I probably had too many other things going on to be able to make a dedicated commitment.

Finally, and unbelievably, I still have two very important things to wrap up from the wedding: vendor reviews and thank-yous. Believe me when I say that I WILL get the thank-you's done by the 15th of this month, and I will hopefully finish all my reviews today. I'm trying to get all these lingering projects completed, because I now have an entire apartment full of the accumulated detritus of the last three years of our life together to empty, and it's a shockingly large undertaking.

I love you blog, I promise to do a better job.

Love, me.

2010-09-28T10:29:00.001-05:00

Sick, writhing, eaten alive with worry. My home, my beloved home and all my friends... may this be over quickly and may everyone remain safe.

Substance

2010-09-05T12:44:00.004-05:00

Today I am cleaning my ridiculous house (how, HOW, does it get like this??), and working on my research. It feels really good to ease back into my Spanish after a couple months break. It feels like the beginning of a new season- exciting, thrilling even, but familiar and comfortable.

I started recording some music last night. It was really... interesting. Singing with myself is certainly something. The whole thing is very time consuming and makes me wish I played the guitar, or had a small keyboard with a USB output.

I've made two trips totaling over three hours spent at the DMV this week. I only cried once, and now I have a new name! I like my new hyphen.

I'm working on a quilt that is made out of cloth napkins that I got at work. Patterned cotton with seashells and seahorses for the top, a soft polyblend for the underside. It's actually been going pretty well.

I've been thinking a lot about UH, with great anxiety. I should hear back very soon.

2010-09-03T22:10:00.003-05:00

http://pre.cloudfront.goodinc.com/posts/post_full_128354694218.jpg

Have been doing my best to stay in the sun when I can, and to enjoy all this leftover champagne every. single. night. Being married is pretty cool. I hate having a job.

The Final Countdown

2010-08-10T12:21:00.002-05:00

I've been doing a lot of Feeling Overwhelmed lately. Today marks the last Tuesday of my life as an unmarried person. I don't really know how I feel about that, since it's just a Tuesday, and it's not really like I'm going to be missing out on a lot next Tuesday once I'm married.

Most of the Important Wedding Stuff is pretty much taken care of. There are still seating charts and escort cards and table decorations and favors to be sussed and sorted, but it'll all happen in time... I hope.

Everyone keeps telling me to make sure and let friends/family do things too, and I have been somewhat, but in a lot of cases it seems like more trouble to direct the choir than to just sing the stupid song myself.

Life Lessons from Last Night

2010-07-26T18:21:00.004-05:00

Some of these things I already knew, some I need to be reminded of, they all would have come in handy last night...

1. If you're going to drink a lot and be silly, do it with people you know and trust. If you find yourself drinking with a stranger or two, find out what their tolerance is. If they don't know or won't tell you, keep an eye on them.

2. Don't float the river at night. It is not a smart thing to do, no matter how fun it may sound.

3. ALWAYS use the buddy system.

4. Be nice to cops. For the most part, they are nice people and they are just trying to help you.

4a. If you can't bring yourself to be nice to cops, make sure you have someone with you who is, and knows how to talk to People In Authority, and how to deal with Situations.

5. Never pull over on a dirt road to talk to anyone, for any reason at 2am in the middle of nowhere. That's how horror movies start.

and lastly,

6. Sometimes you have to cut your losses and accept that the best you can do is Damage Control.

2010-07-16T10:39:00.001-05:00

The Cult of Done Manifesto

What I've been up to!

2010-06-25T13:56:00.002-05:00

InField Week One Workshops:

Models and Steps in Language Revitalization
Data Management & Archiving
(Lunch)
Survey Methods
Strategies for reintroducing languages no longer spoken by children and adults

SILS (Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Symposium) day one (today) workshops:
The Consortium on Training in Language Documentation and Conservation
The Endangered Language Fund
(Lunch)
Online Dictionary-making and Ontology Building
Administration for Native Americans
National Science Foundation

Number of people met so far that make me stutter and laugh nervously when I realized who they were: 4

Number of University Presidents chased down to introduce myself to because they were my dean in undergrad: 1

Number of times I have (blessedly) felt like an outsider because of my ethnicity: constant

Number of times I've been grateful for my straight black hair and light Texas tan: see above

This place is the best. This experience is the best. I'm already planning for the next conference (International Conference in Language Documentation & Conservation, University of Hawai'i, February 2011).

2,614 miles

2010-06-19T01:39:00.003-05:00

That's how far I've gone since Wednesday.

If you're wondering, yes. I do miss Texas already.

Things that are stressing me out right now:

2010-06-13T18:19:00.002-05:00

I am taking the GRE tomorrow morning at 8am.
I do not know anything about Math.
I've been horribly failing all my math practice tests.
If I don't get a good score on this test my life is basically ruined.

I'm leaving for Oregon in 3 days.
I'm driving several thousand miles.
I need an oil change and a state inspection.
I've never driven this far before.
I haven't packed.
I haven't heard from the girl who is supposed to give me a key to my apartment.
I've never been to Oregon.

I'm going to two weeks of workshops and conferences.
I don't know anyone there.
If I don't do well on the GRE then this entire trip is wasted.

I'M GETTING MARRIED IN 62 DAYS AND MY INVITATIONS ARE STILL NOT IN THE MAIL.
I don't have all the addresses I need.
I don't have stamps.
I don't have nice handwriting.
I don't have time.
I don't think I have enough invitations.
I don't have any spare envelopes so I can't screw any up.

My brother is coming to Austin tonight.
I don't know if he needs to stay with me or not.
I don't know if I'll have time to see him tonight.
I feel like a bad sister for not making him top priority.
My house is a disaster.
My stomach hurts.

Summer Plans

2010-06-06T13:34:00.005-05:00

The other day my mom asked me what I was doing about grad school, and I kind of laughed and said "Everything!"

My entire summer (and the last year for that matter), has been entirely devoted to making me a better and more prepared candidate for the graduate program that I want to do in Hawaii.

I've started back up on the Amazonian research project that I did last spring and fall in the hopes that I will finally get to move from lexical to grammatical data collection, as well as any other odd jobs that need to be done on the database. Not only do I really enjoy it (I can't even tell you how exhilarating it is to finally find the exact source that you've needed and searched for for weeks), but it's also really good practice for the future. Plus, I get course credit on my UT transcript, which will be handy when I have to start sending those out.

This is what my house looks like right now.

In just over a week I'm leaving to go and live in Oregon for a month or so for a conference/workshop and some vacation time. And I'm driving there. The event is called InField 2010 and will take place at the University of Oregon over two weeks, followed by a week of labs (time to work on your own projects, hopefully using the University's resources...). The housing provided was obscenely expensive so I opted to put a call out for housing on Craigslist, which was answered by a nice undergrad looking to sublease. I now have an apartment in Oregon for a month, at less than half the cost of the housing at UO for 2-3 weeks.

The website bills InField 2010 as "an opportunity for linguists, language activists, language teachers and members of minority language communities to receive linguistics field training on a variety of topics that are relevant to language documentation, maintenance, and revitalization", featuring workshops with such titles as Orthography, Lexicography, Transcription, Life in the Field, Ethnobiology, Language Activism, Pedagogical Grammar Development, etc. - basically everything I wanted to learn to do in college condensed into a few weeks time.

Not only are the classes interesting, but the instructors are a large part of the draw for me. The organizer of the whole thing, Spike Gildea, basically wrote the book (Comparative Cariban Morphosyntax) on the Carib languages that I study. I use his bibliography... well, a lot. Nick Thieberger, Fellow of the University of Melbourne and Assistant Professor at the University of Hawaii, who once gave a talk at UT that made me want to chase the linguists of the world to the far corners of the globe screaming "GIVE ME YOUR DATA AND LET ME ARCHIVE IT FOR YOOOUUUUUUUUUUU". Sergio Meira, who's staggeringly thorough doctoral thesis, A Grammar of Tiriyo, is over 700 pages long will be teaching during the Field Training week (which I will unfortunately not be attending). There will also be dozens of other hard-working and respected linguists who work to revitalize and renew American Indian languages, particularly in California and the Pacific Northwest teaching and sharing their experiences in the field.

My linguistic heroes.

There couldn't be a more perfect opportunity for me to learn and get myself ready for graduate school. I'm confident that I'm absolutely going to love it and I can't wait to leave!!

< 3

2010-05-27T19:20:00.000-05:00

I'm just saying...

2010-05-22T13:48:00.001-05:00

I make a pretty killer sangria and I'm mostly nice... is that a reasonable trade for an afternoon on a boat?

And here are my mutant tomatoes...

2010-05-21T19:26:00.003-05:00

By 'determinate', you of course mean 'determinated to be mutants', right?*

The following are not mutant tomatoes, just regular ones. I took these pictures to show off the fact that I am going to eat lots of cherry tomatoes pretty soon.

*I actually kinda suspect that these recent mutations are due to over-watering... can anyone out there confirm? -Thanks!

I just found this picture on my computer.

2010-05-21T19:20:00.002-05:00

There are like 5 of my favorite things in it! See if you can name them all...

My weekend project palette

2010-05-14T16:02:00.002-05:00

Hoping that it's going to be rainy and yuck, because I have some serious Making to do this weekend.

From Design*Sponge

From the long thread

From Little Birdie Secrets

tutorial!

Time to Vote!

2010-05-14T10:31:00.003-05:00

I have created the following announcements for my farewell happy hour.

Would you like to vote on them?

Sound off in the comments!

Number One:

Number Two:

Number Three:

Number Four:
Warning! Mild language and not-so-mild honesty.

The state of my mind...

2010-05-12T08:41:00.002-05:00

This morning I had a very nice conversation with an elevator repair man in the very elevator I once got trapped in. That time it was pretty awful- it was the end of the day and very hot outside and the elevator had no A/C so I pretty much immediately panicked and cried. But this morning all I was thinking was 'Man, I would get so much work done today if I got trapped in the elevator again'. Ha!

A Few of My Favorite Things

2010-05-08T13:33:00.002-05:00

I'm doing some of my favorite things today: cleaning, cooking, crafting and throwing crap away.

It's funny seeing 'cleaning' on that list- the other day someone described me as have a "type A personality", which I vehemently denied until I realized that I had spent about 3 hours making a spreadsheet to help me decide which workshops to attend at my upcoming conference (squee!), and that I had alphabetized the list of instructors... and then googled each of them... and then wrote a not-short bio of each of them...

Yeah. That shut me up pretty quick.

So yes, today I am cleaning my house, and I am enjoying it.

I stumbled upon a cache of old National Geographic maps in a box and am thinking about decoupaging the backs of my bookshelves today. I listed most of them on Freecycle, in case and teachers or homeschoolers in the Austin area have a young budding geographer at home like I was.

I'm probably going to cook about 4 things today in my lovely clean kitchen, but my favorite (and the one I started working on hours ago) is Naeole's dad's chouk.

This is his recipe: Boil a chicken or turkey carcass all day. Pick out the bones. Put in 'some ginger' and 'some garlic'. Put in 'some rice' just before you're ready to eat it. Serve with shoyu (soy sauce) and green onions.

My kinda recipe :)

On Time; or: Why I Have To Quit My Job

2010-05-04T16:32:00.003-05:00

No matter what time of year it was when you were a kid, Christmas was never any less than one million years away. It could have been November 30th and if your mom responded to your completely reasonable request for All The Legos with 'maybe for Christmas, honey' you knew that it was never, ever going to happen. Because Christmas was forever away.

Similarly, my birthday always seemed to be at least 5-10 solar years from any given point in time. All year your favorite tv channels taunt you with energetic scenes of happy, stylish, shiny-haired tweens dancing away with their Skip-Its and Ribbon Dancers that you will never ever have (thanks Mom!). But more than that, a birthday means something. A birthday means you are officially older and can put away your childish things (or get newer, better childish things). But they always creep and creep.

I still clearly remember sitting in the backseat of my mom's car as my brother learned to drive and thinking, "I will literally never be 16. It's just not going to happen." Then, when my sister learned to drive a year later and I realized that I was a year older, it still seemed too far away to ever be a reality.

I told you all that so that I could tell you this: I am quitting my job.

Somehow I've allowed the last eight or so years of my life to just... disappear. The end of high school and the entirety of college would barely be a wildfire scorch mark on my ringed cross-section. The last three years wouldn't have a ring at all.

The last three I'm actually ashamed of. I've sat here at this desk, slowly allowing myself to physically and mentally degrade for 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year. FOR THREE YEARS. 156 weeks. 6,240 hours.

The older I get, the faster the time seems to pass. This is especially alarming considering that this job is pretty much the definition of misery. If my life slips by so fast when I'm miserable, what's it going to be like when I'm actually happy?

I don't know, but I'm going to find out.

Early Childhood Language Acquisition

2010-04-24T17:53:00.003-05:00

Sometimes I find myself really cursing the American education system where foreign language is involved. I am living proof of the language learning curve. I can remember nearly every verb ending in Spanish and translate goofy pop songs on Spanish radio for Naeole even though the last time I took a Spanish class that actually taught me anything was in the 11th grade (I took an advanced class in college for fun, but didn't actually learn anything new). I discovered today that I can't read Castellano very well, but I've never had a problem reading most books in Spanish.

But in the very recent past I took 4 semesters of Italian, made straight As and found myself tutoring, reviewing and being generally helpful and encouraging for my other classmates. And yet, when I try to put together sentences in Italian, I almost always accidentally spit out some Spanish. It's very frustrating.

It is entirely true that foreign languages really ought to be learned at a young age if you actually want to retain and use it as an adult.

Direction.

2010-04-22T08:27:00.003-05:00

Something really funny happened yesterday morning. We are out of coffee so I left super early to go hit my favorite drive-thru coffee place and when I pulled up to the window, the woman behind the glass goes, "Melody??"

It was the little sister of someone that I was very good friends with in high school. It was so nice to see a familiar face in a city that sometimes feels so large and impersonal. I friended her on facebook just to tell her that.

She asked how I what I was up to and I wrote: I'm applying to do a workshop/conference/training thing in Oregon this summer, then coming back to Austin to get married, then at the end of the year we're moving to Hawaii for grad school! 2010 is/has been a very good year for me.

Looking at that made me realize just how amazing this summer is going to be. A timeline:

June
5- Austin Pride 5k
13- GRE
19- birthday
20- InField starts (more on this later)

July
9- InField ends

August
15- GET MARRIED!!!!

At some point in there I also need to try to get a job, but I'm definitely going to try and stretch my unemployment as far as it will go :)

Yay!

EDIT: Here is a pretty picture that I took yesterday morning from my balcony.

Taking the Plunge

2010-04-19T08:46:00.004-05:00

I did something this weekend that completely terrified me. I jumped off a waterfall into Mystery Water. Let me explain...

I was itching to go outside on Sunday, so we rounded up a group and took off for the Greenbelt. Exploring the greenbelt is one of my favorite things to do because you just never know where you're going to end up, but you're guaranteed to be filthy and soaking wet by the end of it if you're doing it right. This was definitely the case yesterday. After hiking for an hour or two, we made our way back to the falls that are near the head of the trail.

I kept looking at the water thinking, I want to get in that. Apparently my Gentleman Adventurer was thinking the same thing and he gave me his pack, stripped off his shirt and just dove right in. He was joined by another brave soul and after they jumped a few times, I had mustered up the courage to try it myself.

I'm trying not to be such a scaredy cat all the time. I feel like I miss out on a lot of fun because I get so nervous about stuff. I asked Naeole if he would jump first and wait for me in the water and he obligingly agreed. I stood on that rock, terrified and trying to will myself to jump.

Are there rocks?

Are there monsters?

Is the current going to suck me down and never let me back up?

Am I going to panic when I hit the freezing cold water and suck in a lungful of water? (yes)

And then I saw how hard Naeole was working to be able to stay in that spot waiting for me, so I jumped.

I was right, I did panic, but only for a second. I kicked up to the top and found Naeole and we swam/floated to the shore. It was sort of shocking that I lived. Honestly. The current was strong and the water was really really cold, but if I'm ever going to learn to swim in the ocean I'm going to have to get over these things.

The best part was when Naeole gave me a hug and a kiss and said he was proud of me. I love that man :)

P.S. If anyone is reading this who was with us, yes I am aware that this is not exactly the same spot where we were. Thank you flickr creative commons!

2010-04-11T16:47:00.003-05:00

The first of my three research related presentations was yesterday, and I'd say it went well.

The first hiccup what when I realized that I basically had no idea how to explain the project in under a minute so I ended up standing awkwardly next to my giant research poster and just sort of smiling blankly and trying not to make eye contact with anyone.

The second hiccup was the politely obnoxious doctoral candidate in linguistics. He was a jerk. I really can't stand people who ask questions just to sound smart and then don't listen to the answers.

The third thing that went wrong was my choice of footwear. I forgot what it's like to stand in heels for three full hours.

Anyway, my speech and powerpoint are due tomorrow morning... so I guess I ought to begin.

Meltdown.

2010-03-24T10:19:00.004-05:00

I have so much to do in the next three weeks that I might actually have a meltdown.

Today I need to sign my wedding venue and photographer contracts and mail the checks and after that, all wedding planning is on hold until Research Week is over. I have to compile data from seven other people and create a professional research showcase poster, and prepare a talk, handouts and presentation for the oral symposium next month.

Anyone want to come watch me barely hold it together at the symposium on April 15 at noon in GEB 3.312? Anyone?

Also in the mean time I've got to continue training my replacements (more on that another time), create a definitive guide on how to do everything at my job, create and program new audits, and somehow finish processing May graduates.

May 28th cannot get here fast enough.

Storytelling.

2010-03-14T09:21:00.002-05:00

You're just a storyteller

You're not trying to escape responsibility

If we believe you then you're successful

But you don't make claims of verity.

Busy

2010-03-12T11:01:00.002-06:00

Too busy to blog, but some day, maybe.

I was completely overwhelmed this morning by my love for this town.

I made this today!

2010-02-27T18:13:00.002-06:00

I should have been working on research, but instead I spent about 5 hours making this stupid video.

Big plans

2010-02-26T16:01:00.003-06:00

I am having one of those days where I say to myself, "You started at a tier-one university at the age of seventeen with 32 college hours under your belt, graduated in less than 3 years, and now you're 23 and your life is going nowhere."

As depressing as that sounds, it's actually a pretty powerful motivator. I have got really big plans for the next year of my life.

In which I talk about how much I love my ring.

2010-02-26T09:02:00.004-06:00

Three stones set in a white gold maile leaf band.

First of all, I have to confess that I picked out my ring. I didn't really know that I was picking it out, we were just talking about rings and he was asking what kinds I liked, and what kinds I didn't like. We were looking websites and ooohing and ewwwing and I stopped on one and knew pretty instantly that it was the one. I saved the link (unbeknownst to Naeole), and would go back and look at it and sigh, and I showed it to a couple of people and said, this is the ring I want. Besides, it fit the budget.

I gave Naeole a pretty conservative spending limit because a.) we're poor and b.) we have the rest of our lives to embellish our rings, which is something his parents and grandparents did and I think it's just natural. Our rings will grow with us.

The other reason I liked that ring so much is that I thought it would go well with our wedding bands. Naeole wants to do traditional Hawaiian bands which are etched with a pattern and have your name enameled on them in Old English lettering. They're gorgeous, and I couldn't be more excited about that. I love the maile leaf pattern a lot.

This is the picture from the website.

But I don't just love it because it's beautiful and unique and shiny, I love it because it was a gift. Naeole picked out a gift for me, knowing that I would wear it for the rest of my life and tried to find something exactly perfect that I would love. I love it anyway, but I love it especially because of that. I didn't really explain that very well, but it made sense in my head!

Sometimes when we're out together he'll catch my hand and fiddle with my ring and grin and that means more to me than anything in the entire world.

The man I'm marrying.

2010-02-26T09:01:00.001-06:00

Look at him. LOOK at him.

Marriage: A Rant

2010-02-15T16:04:00.004-06:00

A few months ago I generated a firestorm of comments on facebook and in real life with the following status update: Melody Ann Ross managed to look at theknot.com for a whole half hour today without panicking or crying!

Suddenly on the internet and everywhere else, everyone I knew would ask me (1) ARE YOU GETTING MARRIED?!!?!??! and (2) LET'S SEE THE RING!!!!!!111!!

This is what I could not say to those people: Hey, get a grip. I don't understand why you think that talking about marriage must needs involve an engagement. I was under the impression that marriage was something you and your potential spouse talked about (extensively) until you come to an agreement (or disagreement, as the case may be), not some secret taboo topic that you only discuss after he's picked out the perfect *ring* and, like totally popped the question, lol omg.

People who know Naeole and me know that we've been talking about it for some time and trying to figure out what is best for our future together and were not surprised by my expressing it on facebook. People who barely know me anymore could perhaps be forgiven for their comments on the grounds of ignorance and genuine curiosity, but I was more than a little offended by the assumption that I was engaged just because I was looking at a stupid wedding website.

Now that that's out of my system, time for the gushy stuff.

I was so proud of Naeole when he manned up and informed my father that he planned on marrying me and asked for his consent. This tradition has always seemed a little bit anti-feminist to me, but I preferred to look at it in 2 ways: 1.) There is a man in my parent's garage who loves me enough to ask my dad if he's good enough to marry me and 2.) I love my dad enough to insist that any potential spouse of mine face him and ask him directly if he thinks he's good enough for me because I respect his opinion.

Naeole told me years ago that he was already anxious about that conversation, and I was so thrilled when he had the courage to do it :)

That was at Christmas. A few short weeks later my grandfather was killed in a car wreck and I headed home again to be with my family.

Somehow everyone already knew that I was set to get married, and I hadn't made any secret of it since the next time I would see them I was to be engaged (or already Mrs. Ross-Nathaniel [yes, I am hyphenating]). Suddenly I had to start using words like 'fiance' and talking about wedding plans (there weren't/aren't any) and showing off the ring that didn't exist and making up excuses as to why I didn't have it yet. It was uncomfortably hard to know how much to tell and how much to keep to myself, compounded by my sadness at losing Tracy. I was confused and unhappy but trying not to let it bother me because really in the grand scheme I had more to deal with than the technicalities of my engagement.

Eventually I came back to the safe-haven of our home where everything makes sense and feels right all the time and quit thinking about it altogether.

Friday I met Naeole and co. at a bar to watch the opening ceremony of the Olympics, which was a ton of fun. Saturday I cleaned house and hung out with my cousin and his girlfriend who were staying with us this weekend because they ran the Austin Half-Marathon yesterday. Sunday we met them and some more friends at the best place in the entire world, Juan In A Million, for post-race breakfast tacos. The sun came out for a few brief hours so we decided to go out and enjoy it. We picked up some coffee and headed out to my favorite park, Mayfield Park, to enjoy the sunshine.

Well, of course, as soon as we got there the wind kicked up and the temperature dropped about 15 degrees and everyone that was there left, so it ended up being just the two of us. We wandered over to my favorite part of the park, an archway that leads into a small courtyard that looks out over a creek.

He got down on his knee, magicked a little white box into his hand and said, "I love you a whole lot and I want to spend my whole life with you. Will you marry me?"

2010-02-14T20:43:00.001-06:00

One of the witnesses to my engagement earlier today.

2010-02-14T18:21:00.001-06:00

2010-02-14T15:02:00.001-06:00

Life Goals

2010-02-09T19:01:00.002-06:00

In the next 6 months:
-take the GRE
-apply to grad school
-pay off student loans and credit card

In the next 12 months:
-get married
-save money
-quit my job

I had a really great year last year. If I'm going to keep it up, I've got some goals to accomplish.

2010-02-06T23:26:00.001-06:00

Bokeh

2010-02-06T23:03:00.001-06:00

I'm trying to learn to do this thing called bokeh. It's basically when you take a picture of something and end up with pretty colored lights in the background. Please enjoy this artful picture of my chapstick (I didn't have anything else in my pockets to use as a subject).

Before:

After:

Super-interesting plant update.

2010-02-06T11:34:00.004-06:00

I had intended to wait until ten more days had passed to blog about my seedlings, but the light was so good this morning that I just had to photograph them. It's so good to see the sun. It made me so happy that I decided to go to the Zilker Botanical Garden again this morning. I'll share some of those photos later.

Okras getting tall:

Tomatoes and peppers shooting up too:

I finally got one lonely aubrieta to come up, but I don't expect it to make it (left), and I have a mutant three-leafed marigold that I particularly like (middle):

It's sort of fascinating to me that seedlings send out these wide, long leaves first and then, when they've gotten big enough, they send out tiny prototypes of their adult leaves. It's like when mammals lose their milk teeth, I guess:

I'm pretty excited about how well the okra is coming up. I've got about six pots with beautifully healthy plants:

This little guy was left out, covered, to freeze (at least three times) and seems to be doing just fine:

This is a Ti plant, which has been grown from a larger plant that was once Naeole's father's father's. They're popular throughout Polynesia and are thought to bring good luck and I hoping I will be lucky enough not to kill it:

A Farmer's Life for Me.

2010-01-28T14:24:00.003-06:00

I decided last week that I really wanted to plant some seeds and grow some plants. I love plants, and now I have a big bright patio to put them on. I went to Home Depot and spent about 15 dollars on a project that has easily already brought me hours of enjoyment. Here is what I got:

Little seed pod trays for my seeds! They come with a hard disk of smooshed up dirt in each hole, you fill them with warm water, and voila! Potting soil! You can see the difference between the disks and the risen soil here.

I won't say what it looks like, but I think you can guess...

This little guy got turned over and didn't make it.

So here is what I planted- we'll start with flowers.

Phlox!

And here is their progress as of this morning (ten days after planting):

Next we have the Aubrieta.

I have yet to figure out why these haven't sprouted at all, but I maybe I got a dud. Who knows, maybe it will surprise me yet!

I also got some of those standard throwbacks, Marigolds!

Ten days later, they're looking pretty good. You can see the empty Aubrieta pods next door:

Now on to the vegetables. I got two varieties of tomatoes (big boy and cherry), but only planted the cherry so far.

They're looking ok:

Next up, the cayenne! I felt cheated when I saw the seeds because they look exactly like the pepper seeds I've been throwing out for years!

If these go well, I might try to dry some other seeds and plant them later:

And now, the crowning jewel, my babies, the okra:

To say that these plants are 'robust' is an understatement.

Not shown: the other two plants I left out on the patio (to test their cold-hardiness). I couldn't believe that after only ten days, I've already had to re-pot these. I've already got my 5 gallon buckets ready because these suckers are growing.

And these two little guys, who aren't quite big enough to be moved:

So here is my entire greenhouse hack:

I taped a bunch of plastic wrap on some hangers and hung it around the okra to keep their warmth and moisture in as best as I can. The seed pod things come with plastic covers for the same reason. Exciting times.

Oh yeah, obligatory basil:

Sea life.

2010-01-20T20:15:00.004-06:00

I am working on some homework and other things and watching Blue Planet: Coral Seas. After this I'm going to watch a NatGeo special on the Galapagos Islands. I love the ocean, and all the weird, creepy, crawly creatures that live there. I daydream all day about moving to Hawai'i and being close to the ocean, the wind, the sand and, most of all, the warm sun. I even promised Naeole that I would learn to snorkel.

I think I can pinpoint the beginning of my obsession with the ocean to a single incident in the 1st grade- I had to write a book report about an animal, and I chose the Lionfish. At the time, the lionfish was the strangest, most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and I wanted so badly to portray how wonderful and amazing it made me feel to read that little square shaped book about this creature I had never heard of, from an environment I knew nothing about. I read and re-read that little book, trying to figure out how to get every bit of information onto my wide-lined first grade paper, but in the end I failed. I didn't get it done on time because I just couldn't get it right, a habit that plagued me for the next 10 years or so.

Now I know better. No one expects you to turn in perfect work, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try anyway. And now that I don't have any pesky things like bed times to hinder me, I'm free to be an irresponsible, procrastinating perfectionist for as long as I like.

I had a dream the other night that I was in 6th grade and was on a field trip to an aquarium theme park. It was amazing.

I got this picture from a Flickr user called Willy Volk who has amazing underwater shots of all kinds of animals, which I love, of course.

Big Bend

2010-01-08T09:43:00.002-06:00

I took this at Big Bend over Christmas and did some fun post-processing. It really gives you a feel for just how big the place was.

Stay Up Late And Make Something.

2010-01-08T08:56:00.002-06:00

Mission accomplished.

2010-01-08T08:22:00.001-06:00

Early SXSW planning.

2009-12-10T12:22:00.003-06:00

Today I applied to be a SXSW volunteer! I really hope I get to go, even though I don't live downtown anymore, which is going to be a significant disadvantage. I try to look at all the good things about my new, HUGE, apartment, but sometimes I really, really miss my downtown place. It was so full of happiness and cozy cheer, and great memories. I don't know if I'll ever get over it.

Anyway, SXSW wooooo!!! I volunteered to be on a Music crew, so I'm hopefully going to work for 4 nights and then me and my badge are free to roam about SXSW unhindered... not really, but I hopefully get access to lots of cool stuff after I do all my volunteer hours. I. AM. SO. EXCITED.

2009-12-03T09:24:00.001-06:00

This is where my soul feels its worth.

2009-12-03T08:41:00.002-06:00

On October 29th 2009 I had a bad morning. I was moving that day, and everything was going wrong. Everyone was running late. I was fined for not being able to let the gas man in to turn on the gas because he arrived before the front office opened and I had no key to the apartment. The movers took two hours longer than we had budgeted, which meant they ended up costing twice as much. The day was a disaster from the beginning.

Then I went to get breakfast.

I went to my favorite breakfast taco place, which was entirely deserted except for me, the cook and cashier. The cashier, it turned out, was having a similarly awful day. He started his day with a dead car battery. After getting a jump and getting to work, he discovered that his headlights would not turn off (probably the reason for the dead battery). He made a days worth of salsa, picked up the container to go put it in the refrigerator, fell, and dropped it on the floor. Then he had to clean up gallons worth of salsa AND make a whole new batch.

Then he did something completely extraordinary. He gave me a free, extra-large coffee, and said, "There. Now you're happier and I'm happier because you are."

He gave me a free coffee because he was having a bad day.

This is how human beings ought to treat each other.

I've started trying this out, and oh my goodness does it work. When I'm having a bad day, or am in a bad mood, it really makes me feel better to do something nice for someone. Something that lends itself particularly well to this kind of thing is traffic. I looooooove being that guy who finally lets you in when all those other jerks sped up so you couldn't get over. I love being the guy that stops the oncoming traffic so that you can make that left (hey, we're not really getting anywhere anyway, everyone just chill out).

Basically, I love being a courteous driver. It makes my day better.

(People probably don't really like driving behind me all that much, but seriously, if a delay of 15 seconds is going to ruin your day, you really need to re-evaluate your relationship with Time.)

Naeole and his mama

2009-12-02T08:53:00.002-06:00

Peter

2009-11-23T09:44:00.004-06:00

This weekend I worked on my portrait skills with someone who knows a thing or two about photography. He gave me some good tips and advice, and was gracious enough to let me take pictures of him. 98% of my problem is that I am just not comfortable taking pictures of people. I'm going to get over it, I swear!

I know this won't be terribly interesting for anyone but myself, but here are the results:

Lesson One: Shooting into the sun

ISO is up as high as it goes (3200), and this photo is grainy and unusable.

ISO is down at 400, and this one looks a little better. I'm such a sucker for lens flares!

And then I discover that you can make halos around people if you block the sun out just right and doesn't that look so cool!? Wait... focus, Melody. We're not really going for artsy here, this is supposed to be a teaching moment... right?

Lesson Two: Shooting not into the sun

Still a little grainy. I hate that so much!!

Better.

Pretty background!

Sigh... there I go getting distracted and having fun. See my shadow there? I took at least 4 like this....

And then I found a pretty tree and was just totally done for.

The end!

P.S. All these photos are 100% unedited except for the very last one. I might do a bit of touching up later today.

Wallpaper

2009-11-13T12:41:00.002-06:00

Yesterday the sunset was just gorgeous, so I tried to get some good shots of it from my new apartment, but I was foiled by trees! Lots and lots of them! I was really annoyed for a little while, until I realized how pretty the trees looked silhouetted against the sky. Now I wish I could make wallpaper that looked like this and put it in my bathroom. Enjoy!

Portraits

2009-11-09T14:18:00.001-06:00

Father and Child

Fish

Use Your Imagination

Challenges

2009-11-05T15:49:00.002-06:00

A very dear friend of mine asked me recently to take her wedding photos in December.

In case you've never noticed... I don't really do portraits all that often.

I tend to take pictures of spaces:

patterns:

inanimate objects:

strange juxtapositions:

and trains:

When I DO take portraits... they tend to look like this:

I swear, I could publish a photo book 100 volumes long and call it 'Naeole Driving My Car'.

Or they look like this:

"Ummm.... Mel... could you please cut it out with the flash and let me relax... PLEASE?""

Or I take them on the sly when no one is looking:

Or when no one cares:

I told her that I would try my best, but that I would need to practice a lot in the meantime... Here goes!

26 flights of stairs...

2009-10-21T16:54:00.001-05:00

The view from the top:

The view from nearer the middle:

The view from the bottom:

All told, I climbed over 30 flights of stairs for these silly pictures... My legs are KILLING me!

Weekend Projects!

2009-10-05T09:33:00.004-05:00

I was quite serious about not leaving the house this weekend because of ACL. Fortunately I made a trip to Hobby Lobby and HEB earlier in the week, so I was all set!

Weekend Project #1: Festive Fall Wreath

Ribbon was on sale at HL, so I got about 30 yards... which turned out to not be quite as much as I needed and I was forced to scrounge around in my wrapping paper bin to try and find some extra ribbon. I'm happy with the finished product!

Weekend Project #2: Festive Fall Napkins

Once upon a time, I harbored a delusion that I would make myself a white skirt, so I went out and got some basic white fabric and a pattern. Then I remembered that white skirts are a disaster and gave up on that plan, which left me with several yards of white fabric that then sat untouched for months. Fast forward to this weekend, when I spent hours cutting 17"x17" squares folding, ironing, sewing and folding, ironing, sewing some more, until I had 12 perfectly hemmed (cough cough) and square (*twitch) napkins.

After that ordeal, I got to do the fun part! Observe:

Fun!

2009-09-30T09:29:00.003-05:00

My research project is going really well. I didn't even realize how well until this week. Let me give you a brief overview of just what it is that we're working on:

The project is called The Dynamics of Hunter-Gatherer Language Change; the research spans three continents; some collaborating universities include Yale, Rice, University of New Mexico, University or Arizona, University of Alberta, University of Auckland, and others. At the University of Texas, there are about 15 students and grad students working under the direction of our professor. We're divided into sub-groups of two undergrads and one grad student, so I have a 'partner', a mentor, and an advising professor.

Basically what we are trying to do is collect as much linguistic data as we can from as many languages as we can within our focal areas, and then see what kinds of similarities and differences we come across within areas, and worldwide.

My focal region is Amazonia, and my language family is Carib. Carib has an estimated 20-40 languages, with 23-30 still spoken today. There are several words from Carib languages that have been borrowed into English, including Caribbean, barracuda, mangrove, chigger, manatee, plantain, and potato. Before you say to yourself, "But Melody, plantain comes from the Spanish 'plátano' meaning banana, and potato comes from the Spanish 'patata'...", first ask yourself where Spanish got those words. Congratulations, you're a historical linguist!

Let's look at the plantain/plátano thing. Plátano comes from the Carib platana which was borrowed even earlier from Arawakan pratane (another Amazonian language family that stretches all the way to the Andes). So many questions! First, why did Spanish borrow from Carib and not Arawakan? Would that give us some insight into what groups were where when the Spanish were in contact with them? Why did Carib borrow from Arawakan? Were they conquered? Were they friendly trade neighbors?

Welcome to my brain. When I'm not thinking about jellyfish and miscellaneous sea creatures, I'm wondering about these kinds of things. I enjoy this project. Anything that adds to the depth of human knowledge about ourselves and our past is a worthy use of time.

Good Morning

2009-09-29T14:39:00.001-05:00

Dallas World Aquarium

2009-09-28T10:51:00.001-05:00

Charts.

2009-09-23T09:52:00.002-05:00

I was thinking this morning about how many pictures I've taken in the last 2 years, so I made some charts.

Personally, I prefer the pie charts:

Great Minds....

2009-09-16T09:00:00.002-05:00

Saturdays and Sundays have been interesting for me this summer. I'm always trying to find ways to entertain myself when Naeole is at work that don't involve cleaning the house, doing the laundry, or any other domestic chores (even though this is usually what I end up doing anyway, and when I don't do it, I go to work on Monday feeling guilty and stressed so the first thing I do when I get home is mega-clean my house). Usually I try to go outside and find something to take pictures of, but some days are just a complete lost cause. This weekend was not one of those lost causes.

I was coming home from my weekly Saturday latte run, when I noticed this train stopping and starting right next to my house. I have never seen a train behave this way, so I assumed something was wrong- I saw an inspector wandering around the tracks and this suspicion was confirmed.

But wait, what is that thing down in the corner? That's not a train inspector. Can't quite see it? This is what I saw:

And then he saw me!

Great minds DO think alike! ...or something.

Before and After

2009-09-12T19:46:00.001-05:00

Before...

After!

Happiness

2009-09-10T08:44:00.003-05:00

or,

How I Know I'm Doing What I'm Supposed To Be Doing

I am exhausted this morning. Everything hurts. I wrote a paper last night.

Despite my perfect post-baccalaureate studiousness, I'm happy to report that I'm still the same procrastinating person I've always been.

So, these are the reasons I know that I'm going in the right directions. The things I was afraid of have (as usual) proved unfounded and irrational.

1. I don't remember the phonetic alphabet and I'm probably going to have to use it a lot.

The seminar class I'm enrolled in, How To Describe A Language, is geared toward majors and non-majors, and my professor has spent the last two lectures teaching the phonetic alphabet, which has been a perfect refresher for me. Turns out that yes, I had forgotten a lot of it, but that I'm also still good at it. In my research class, I haven't even had to use it yet.

2. I'm never going to be able to figure out how to even get started with grad school.

When I met with professor who is directing the research project I'm working on, one of the first things we talked about was graduate school. She unintentionally told me several things that I didn't know, and even accidentally suggested a topic that I ought to start getting familiar with. I sometimes forget that I'm surrounded by countless people who have done this exact thing.

3. I have absolutely no idea how to even begin doing linguistic research which means that whatever area I end up studying in school will probably result in a failure even if I figure out what that area is and I'm probably going to royally mess this project up with my ineptness.

All I can say to this is,
Dear Melody,
Please get a hold of yourself because you aren't actually this insecure. Oh, you are? Well cut it out, moron.
Love,
Yourself.
Really though, this research project is totally awesome. First she taught us how to do it, and then gave us a priority list, and deadlines. So, it's all the best parts of scholarship, without having to write a giant paper at the end!

this semester is going to be
awesome

Weird Weather

2009-09-09T08:49:00.002-05:00

I woke up to some strange weather today. The sunrise was just gorgeous, and as I walked out to the bus stop, I caught sight of a giant rainbow to the south. It was so strange. I was standing on 5th, and to the south and south west it was dark gray and threatening, to the north and east, the sky was glowing golden. The gray seems to have won out for now, and everyone is anxiously awaiting the real rain.

I spent WAY too much time on this...

2009-09-03T09:28:00.003-05:00

Research Update!

2009-08-31T13:39:00.001-05:00

I am a research assistant! Today is our first group meeting and I haven't had time to do all the readings... awesome.

How to make muffins

2009-08-28T21:56:00.002-05:00

Ahhhh, that's better!

How not to make muffins

2009-08-28T20:42:00.000-05:00

Mimi asked if I've been cooking lately... and the answer is yes... sortof...

All Neon Like

2009-08-27T09:00:00.002-05:00

I've been waiting for an excuse to use this action for a while, but one never comes, so I am posting it anyway.

French update.

2009-08-26T20:34:00.002-05:00

I was right, I hate it and it's awful.

I'm stubborn enough to look at it as an exercise in perseverance though, as in, if I can get through this, miserable though I may be, and still do well, then I can do anything. My mother kindly reminded me that I took accelerated Latin and have already proven that point. Thanks mom!

At least I got into the linguistics class I wanted. I'm waiting now to hear back from a professor about being her research assistant for a different class/project. It would be kinda nice if I could start gearing more towards linguistics courses instead of language courses.

terror taking hold.

2009-08-25T14:37:00.002-05:00

I have studied, in depth, the following Romance languages:

Latin - horrible, horrible Latin, the language that taught me to speak English.

Spanish - something I've heard my entire life, and when I started to study it, it was like I already knew it.

Romanian - a beautiful Slavic romance, the language that piqued my interest in linguistics.

Italian - lovely, fluid and graceful, it feels good in my mouth.

Tomorrow I begin my first class in French.

And I am terrified like I never have been before. What's wrong with me? I've started looking at the materials and (don't laugh) it's like looking at another language. With Spanish and Italian, I just always knew what I was looking at- obviously foreign, but not that hard to figure out. With Latin, things made sense. The more I look at this French textbook, the more I start to panic.

I need to go to the store and get a new notebook, or go home and clean my house so that I'll feel ready, but I have too many meetings and back-to-school events to attend.

STAY CALM.

windows down, music up

2009-08-11T09:30:00.002-05:00

Sunday seemed like the perfect night for an adventure. Naeole and I went up to Mt. Bonnell to watch the sunset because I thought the rain earlier in the evening might make for a good light show. I was wrong, it was perfectly clear by the time we got there. Here is the picture that started the adventuring. You can just make out the first evening star by the tallest tower:

Have you ever noticed that no matter where in Austin you are, you can pretty much always see the radio towers? Do you know where exactly they are? Neither did we. No matter where they are, they're always just off in the distance. So we decided to go find them. We got slightly distracted along the way:

Eventually, we found them! This is as close as we could get though because we went down a private road and there was a big scary dog, so I decided to turn around. This photo is humongous because I wanted you to be able to see the details. I put my tripod on top of my car and set the exposure to 16 seconds. Those little white things in the background? STARS!!

Aperture Adventures.

2009-08-08T17:52:00.004-05:00

In an attempt to reduce the likelihood of my being locked away forever for manslaughter, I've been getting out of the house fairly early on Saturdays and Sundays and staying out as long as possible. When I am home, I try to make as much noise as possible with the washer/dryer, TV, dishwasher, music, etc. You see, I am on the verge of murdering my upstairs neighbor. I know that sounds a little harsh, but I'm pretty much at my breaking point. He's broken out two of my kitchen lights with his constant stomping, my fans and fixtures rattle every time he walks near them, and now even the AC vents are starting to make noise.

That's right. The power of his stomping pops light bulbs, and loosens things that are bolted to the ceiling.

Every day he gets up at 7:09am (I suspect he hits the snooze once after his alarm goes off at 7:00), he takes 7 steps to the bathroom, 7 steps back to his room, and 12 or so steps to the kitchen, where he walks in circles for 10 or 20 minutes. I know where he is at every moment of every day. This morning he woke up at about 9:30, and judging by his running instead of walking, he must have overslept for something. Thankfully, he was gone in about 10 minutes.

I've complained to the front office over a dozen times about his behavior. I've confronted him personally several times. He takes it with grace, and I think I'm nice enough, but nothing helps. I was willing to give him the benefit of believing maybe that our ceiling is just especially thin, but then I found out that he has another roommate, who lives above the living room, that I have never ever heard. After speaking with the light-foot, we have agreed that he is 'an aggressive walker', and neither of us know what to do about it.

The best I can do is just not kill him. It would probably stain my ceilings anyway.

2009-08-04T21:00:00.005-05:00

How did I get so lucky?

2009-08-03T10:25:00.001-05:00

This is what I did this weekend

2009-08-02T21:41:00.003-05:00

Drama

2009-07-30T21:01:00.002-05:00

The ridiculous beauty of Texas skies can never be overstated.

Lonely Arts

2009-07-28T10:43:00.001-05:00

is what I'll be
And no one cares for me
Let me show you now
The way that it would be if you were with me

My favorite thing about Austin...

2009-07-23T09:01:00.003-05:00

Everything is a canvas!

This is what I did today.

2009-07-18T21:49:00.002-05:00

Boring Friday afternoons...

2009-07-18T17:14:00.002-05:00

2009-07-17T09:27:00.003-05:00

This happens a lot...

2009-07-17T09:26:00.001-05:00

2009-07-13T00:01:00.000-05:00

2009-07-07T15:48:00.000-05:00

Train kind of a day

2009-07-03T09:01:00.003-05:00

I don't really know much about photography but something about the things in this picture, where they lead the eye, the lines... the composition? I don't know. Either way, it is food for my mind.

I've been reading up on some night photography tips lately. Hopefully soon I can go out and practice with the new gorillapod Naeole got my for my birthday! I'm also really looking forward to the fireworks shows this weekend!!