The Journey Begins

One week and two days have passed since the beginning of nursing school. It's not joke when it comes to long, full days of lectures, group work, and quizzes. The 6 days in total (I have classes from M-TR) have been packed with information. And ever since school began, I've just been trying to keep up or catch up. I should actually be reading a chapter about inflammation right now so I can take another quiz (my second one for the class thus far). We just got our quizzes back for another class and I've really been cutting it close getting 90% on the quizzes we've had so far.

But rewinding about a little less than two weeks ago, we had our nursing orientation and induction. To make it short and sweet, we sat for hours on end, listening to people talk about what we'll be "looking forward to" in the next 3 years. Quite possibly, the most interesting thing during that orientation was listening to nurses in the field share with us their experiences with patients. I wasn't able to take any pictures during the orientation, but here are a few that were taken of the whole class:


I'm somewhere in the middle.

My parents caught a bit of traffic on their way to the ceremony, so they got there pretty late. They weren't able to get any pictures of the ceremony's process, but we were able to get some pictures, albeit the blurryness, this was the only picture of me, my mom, and my dad. My brother was taking the picture:

We headed back to the west side of the island to find a place to eat and "celebrate".

We ate at Phuket Thai to celebrate. After that dinner, I've kind of deduced Thai food has instantly become one of my favorites. :) Sadly, I wasn't able to get any pictures, one: because I didn't have my camera on hand, and two: because my phone camera was not working at that time.

I might be able to post something tomorrow, but I'm making no promises. Until next time...

Da Kitchen

For our lunch/dinner, we headed to "Da Kitchen" for a really great meal. It was the first time for all of us, and we all didn't know what to expect. We placed our orders, and waited. My fries came first, which looked delicious, then my burger. The burger was massive, and about three of my fists put together. That huge. The picture does not do it justice.

My brother got a Katsu Moco, which was a mix of eggs, fried rice, a burger patty, chicken katsu, and topped with gravy. Basically, a three course meal. My brother has as appetite, and even he was surprised at the size of the bowl.

The three others ordered a Hawaiian Plate. If you were to attend a Luau here, the Hawaiian Plate was about 2.5 times what you would normally get.

I wish we compared the size of our meals to something 'normal sized' so you'd get the idea of the meal we had. By the end of the meal, we were all under Food Coma. They had a full menu of some great desserts, but we had no room for it whatsoever. I didn't even finish my meal, and ended up taking some of it home.

On our way home we were talking about Shark Week and the awesomeness of it. We mentioned stories of seals getting mauled and stories of people surviving shark attacks and just the bad-assness of a shark in general. As a complete coincidence, we came across a truck with a huge catch in it's truck bed. It's fin and head were sticking out on both ends because it couldn't fit in the bed of the truck.

It's a bit hard to see in the picture, but it's there. Luckily, a friend of ours is the catcher's neighbor, so he was able to get a picture of the catch from his facebook.

The whole day was spent and I came home, took a long and cold shower, and went straight to bed to rest up for a while before watching Jersey Shore. I'm not a fan of the whole GTL lifestyle, I just watch it for laughs, and the drama, and trust me, there were lots of it, haha. And now I'm here, and about to lay on my bed. See you tomorrow.

Kuli'ou'ou Ridge Trail

This hike came unexpectedly with my mom knocking on the door of my room telling me my brother was leaving to go hiking with his friends and a few of our cousins. I thought to myself, is he serious?! He didn't even care to invite me! With that aside, I quickly packed up a few necessities and we were on our way. I live in the middle of the island and the hike was on the south side of the island. With picking up a few cousins and waiting for a couple of people, we didn't start the hike until around 10:30. The hike was fairly easy, with a few tough spots.

There were shortcuts everywhere. Although not advised, we took a few.

At the halfway point, a green shack is conveniently located for you to rest up for the rest of the hike. It seems like a nice place to camp as well. I didn't quite get a view of the shack, just the view from the table.

Hawaii is known for it's different climates. The area we were in would be considered the desert side of the island, whereas I live in a more year-round rainy area. At the beginning of the hike, the view is filled with a lot of beach trees, but as you venture further up the mountain, you come in contact with a lot of evergreens.

We finally reached the top, and the view was a spectacular 360.

We did the hike mainly for my cousin who came from England (far left), my cousin from the Philippines (red), and my cousin who'll be leaving to Nebraska for college on Monday (white tank).

The trek down was a lot easier than it was up. We came to a steep hill that was pretty challenging to get down from. Me and my cousin took a simple route and slid down. I slid down on my feet whereas my cousin took his butt down.

Afterward, we headed down to Alan Davis beach in Makapu'u near the lighthouse.

A log is conveniently placed for you to jump off of and dive into the clear water.

The location is also home to Hawaii's volcano god, Pele, and her 'chair'.

By the time we finished all of the above it was about 4:00 and we were all very hungry. We headed to "Da Kitchen" for an unbelievable meal that is mentioned in the next post...

Summer Sunsets

I love sunsets/sunrises. They were a lot more enjoyable at home before my parents decided to plant a few palm trees and other plants in the backyard, and during my freshman year in college when my dorm was situated in the perfect spot for sunset viewing. This past year (school year), my dorm was located in a corner, and nowhere near an area to see the sun. But this year, I made sure to get a dorm where the sun and my alarm clock are the only thing waking me up and not the garbage truck on its morning run.

A couple nights ago, one of the better sunsets graced us with its presence, and I decided to capture the moment for myself. As I said, my parents have planted a bunch of palm trees, and they have gotten pretty big over the years. This is the view from the ground.

It was a complete fail, and I was running out of time. I looked over to my neighbors backyard, who has absolutely no plants (other than grass), and he had the perfect view. We have a pretty solid wall between us, so the only thing I could do was set up an old kitchen stool on some unsteady rocks under the laundry line, and snap a picture of the sunset that he can see, but coming from a different angle and a few feet higher. I can be pretty clumsy, so I took a couple pictures as fast as I could, and wa-la, hawaii sunset magic.

When I do move, and I sure as hell plan to, this is one of the things I'll miss...

Music Monday: All Summer

With summer coming to an end and school coming to a start in a mere two weeks, all I can look forward to is fall/winter. But that's not what this post is about, it's about summer! Earlier this summer, three great artists, Kid Cudi, Rostam Batmanglij from Vampire Weekend, and Bethany Cosentino from Best Coast, came together and put down a track exclusively for Converse's project "Three Artists, One Song". All Summer brings along a great, nostalgic, feel good, let loose feeling of freedom that comes along with Summer.

Listen to the track, download it for free, or watch the accompanying music video all at the website HERE. You can also watch how great these three artists flow together in the video below.