Classy Connie

Jordan's mother Connie is visiting from Maui. She came yesterday and is staying until Tuesday. I know that a lot of you are thinking "Yikes, mother in law staying at you place. We feel sorry for ya sistah!" Those of you thinking that clearly don't know Connie.

We spent the afternoon checking out art galleries in Chinatown. Connie's an artist and she used to live on Oahu so these are her old quarters. Lots has changed since she lived here though and we were not able to find the one art gallery that we were originally there to see. Nevertheless it was nice and Connie showed me an awesome restaurant called Indigo. Walking into Indigo is like walking into another world. Maybe I'll have my graduation dinner there, who knows.

Tomorrow we're going to Kailua. I've been planning to go there for so long but I never got around to do it, mostly due to lazyness. With Connie here though there ain't no such thing so tomorrow I'll be hanging out at my beloved Kailua Beach again.

Tom's Up To No Good

I was doing laundry but when I went to get the basket I found that it was already occupied.

On My Way Home From Class

This is the view from the car as we go back home from physical oceanography at the Oceanic Institute. It's hard to see but you can kind of see part of the coast and the Pacific Ocean.

Whale Valentine

Today of all days I had to forget my camera at home. I would have loved to show you my favorite spot on campus, which is where I am right now. It is on the windward side of the island and so it is lush and green. I am sitting on a stone bench by a stone table underneath a tree that shades me from the sun. I am facing a valley and the mountains on the other side high, steep, and covered with short tough vegetation that makes them look prehistoric. I understand why Hawaii was chosen to film Jurassic Park.

Today is Valentine's day and I had promised Jordan to spend my morning with him. However, a bottlenose dolphin stranded in Kauai yesterday and today was the necropsy. Since that rarely happens, in addition to the fact that they rarely call newbies like me in when it does, I really wanted to attend it. So I did.

It was awesome, even the part when I got to take care of the intestines for measuring and samples. It might sound grose, and it was a bit smelly, but it was really cool to see what a dolphin looks like inside. They couldn't determine a certain cause of death but a guess was that she (it was a female) had died of an infection caused by decreased immune system capacity due to emminciation. Basically, the poor thing was malnourished.

After the necropsy I had to take the shuttle to class and I didn't have time to go home and shower so I smelled like... well like dead dolphin. Coincidentally, the song playing on the shuttle stereo was "that Smell."

"Ooh ooh, that smell
Can't you smell that smell?
Ooh ooh, that smell
The smell of death surrounds you"

I hope my classmates forgive me. I am still not sure if Jordan is mad at me for leaving him alone on Valentine's Day. ”It's fine, go to the necropsy” can mean so many different things and I'm not good at reading people.

Home Sweet Home

I finally got home around 1am this morning. The buses had stopped going so I had to take a cab from the airport. I got into one cab but got told by some organizer that I had to get into another cab instead, so I did. Not until we had started driving did I see the sign saying "Cash Only". I had no cash, only plastic, so we had to go back so I could take another cab. The driver got pissed off but after having traveled for practically two and a half days I could not care less. If anything, he could have told me before I got into the cab or at least before we took off. What kind of taxi does not accept credit cards? Anyhow, I hope that Delta will pay the taxi ride home for me although I do doubt it.

I Have Spring But I Want Summer

The plane is currently nine hours late and I won't be home until after midnight. Spring has come to Utah and the snow is melting down the mountain sides. See for yourselves!

Stuck in Utah

The airplane that is supposed to take me back to Hawaii is delayed due to technical problems, which is always encouraging... The mountains here are pretty cool though, they are the whitest mountains that I have ever seen; they look like the mountains in commercials for caugh drops.

So far the plane is delayed for two hours but I think that we will have to wait for at least another couple of hours. They gave us $6 to eat for, which is basically nothing and definately not enough to make up for a several hour delay. This sucks!

However I did promise you a photo from the airport and here it is:

The Only Thing I Did in DC