New Chapter

I’ve left the paradise islands and headed inland. Far inland. To Dallas, Texas.

When I first moved to Hawaii, I was told people tend to only stay for two years. I found this statement insanely ironic because, as a born Alaskan, the time frame for people who move there is exactly the same. Two winters of below freezing and daily darkness seem to be about all the average person could last. And here, that was all people could take of utopia also.

I appear to be no exception. It was two years ago that I, and two bags of all my belongings, arrived on the sandy beaches of Oahu. Now, a bit more tan and full of Spam, I’m changing course.

And what is a nice liberal Jewish girl doing in the heart of Texas, you might ask? Besides canceling out one republican vote, I’m off to grad school!

One of my bestfriends, Bekah, from college just had a baby & moved her with her husband Matthew. They got themselves a real nice place here and have so gracely offered to let me stay while I take the GRE’s and apply to schools.

I’ll be filling you in with my attempts to fit into midwest culture, adventures in baby land, and how the grad school application process goes. Stay tuned!

Senior Frogs: It's More Mexico Than You'd Think

Sometimes I neglect my inner gut feeling, especially when my friend says she has a gift certificate at senior frogs & my gut says senior frogs will probably suck. 

So pushing nagging doubt deep inside we walked through a mass of dayglo signs encouraging overconsumption of alcohol and a sweet sixteen birthday party; to arrive at our table. 

Cleverly avoiding the souvenir glass beer for economic reasons, we settled on some beverages and nachos. And the moment that they arrived a man showed up at our table introducing himself as "our magician for the evening".

Continued...

He didn't seem to notice we said we weren't interested in magic and proceeded to do the worst magic tricks ever. I could plainly see the vile he shoved the scarf into in his hand when it "disappeared". I felt the magnetic pull of the coin he places on my hand when it "disappeared"

As the delicious nachos began to solidify into a soggy cheesy unit, the man did not tire. I even mentioned I was more interest in nachos and wish to not see any more magic, but he continued. He asked for an ID. I said no & he kept asking, then switched to a room key. Like I would give this creeper a key to my room if I had one. I finally gave him a student ID to shut him up. A series of asinine tricks later he finally wraps up and concludes with: "just to let you know, I don't get paid, I work on tips only"

Ooop, I think, guess he probably shouldn't have waisted so much time at this table. I stare down his blatantly expectant stare. 

"Any amount is fine. You can just set it down right here"

"I'm not going to tip you, I didn't even want or enjoy the show"

He then ignores and restates "no amount is too small, I'll just wait here while you put something down"

And literally this guys just keeps asking and waiting for money. WAY too long. On principle I stare back, eyebrows raised. After a good five minutes he makes an angry face, then quickly flips back to fake smile, hug pats us both with one quick motion and says something like our company was tip enough. Man, wish I could take THAT back, because I REALLY didn't want to tip this guy.

He leaves after the creeper hug & our waiter comes over. I asked him how the guy was affiliated with the restaurant and to let the manger know how disrespectful and obnoxious it was to have someone interrupting dinner begging for tips.

I would not have been surprised after that if a small child had come up to us selling chiclets. 

Suddenly the manager is at the table giving me a senior frogs letterhead paper and asks me if I wouldn't mind documenting exactly what happen. Hey, that's my favorite thing to do!

I scribble down all the tidbits of how he touched us with out asking and demanded our room keys. And of course the continued requesting for tips. Later the manager came back & explained he'd been trying to get rid of him for a while, but didn't have proper documentation. 

Now I get to spend the rest of the week saying "I got a magician fired. What did you do?”

Scuba Day

I haven’t given my flippers a good workout in years. For my level of rescue certified diver, my dive log is embarrassingly under used and pretty dusty as it hasn’t been touched in a few (okay like, eek, maybe 4?) years. So today was a big day. I met a new dive buddy and plotted a course for China Wall, on the east side of the island.

Continued...

The dive was an easy one, disregarding that crafty current. We went down just around 40ft at the deepest, mainly poking around 20ish checking out little fishes and underwater items. I saw this crazy orange eel and some halibut like fish. They were cute.

The harrowing part was the entry and exit points. They were kinda on a cliff. A cliff of steep edges and slippery mossy parts. For those of you who don’t scuba, the gear is really not meant for land. You’re carrying compressed air and your life support system, plus salt water wants to float you up so there is some added weights. I must have had a good fifty pounds as I scampered down the jagged rocks. Getting out was also fun. We had to wait for a good wave to push us up as high as we could get and then sorta roll/drag our tired bodied up the slippery rocks.

What I liked best about today was that this dive was the first I’ve down without the constraints of a guided tour. Lacking cranky heavy breathers on vacation really brought the best out of the dive experience. It was so freeing to just drive up and hop in the water. Also, that I remained still alive and here to blog another day was a plus!

Blind Date = FAIL

I haven’t been on many first dates, let alone a blind date. It just doesn’t seem like my generation is into that sorta thing, dating that is. So when a coworker told me he had someone he wanted to set me up with, you can imagine I felt kinda weird. Through out the week I got more tidbits of his fabulousness, and likeness to myself. In fact, it was reviled to me that this was the “male version of Jess”. The perfect match right?

However, the side effect of this positive pumping up, was some high expectations and pressure. Not to mention the fact that once a few other coworkers caught wind of this date business, my entire place of employment was going “Ooooo. Jess has a date tonight… Oooo!”

Continued...
To make matters increasingly awkward, the store had a boozing get together planned and this “date” of mine was invited. The blind date was to occur with the accompaniment of my work buddies! The theory behind this was to create a “no pressure hang out time”, but I’m not sure that’s exactly how things resulted.

9:30pm I begin to gussy myself up.

9:40pm I’m pretty.

10:00pm I arrive the store and walk to bar, nerves a little a flutter. This is my perfect match after all.

10:05pm Don’t see this date of mine. Decide on a Coors Light. Good job Jess.

10:10pm Talk about coworker’s back hair. Wondering where the date is.

10:20pm Bring up the fact that my date has yet to arrive, and was told “Oh, he just said he had gotten his car towed last night, and so his roommate is going to drive him into town. That’s why he’s not here yet.”

Hmmm. I could give you the rest of the play by play, but it degraded fast into talk of appletinis and Apple TVs, and I knew then and there he wasn’t showing up.

And I have a theory of this FAIL. I have no proof of this young gentleman’s personality, however I do love to assume, and for now I am going to place him in the “nice guy” category. I have found nice guys come bundled with a passive type personality when it comes to the ladies. When things happen randomly or organically, they are for it, but the classic pursue? They don’t have the buy in. Now an asshole is cocky, and therefore “knows” he can get whatever he wants. He sees a babe at a bar and thinks “I can have that, I’ll make it happen.” He goes over and chats her up and well, girls enjoy flattery and attention just as much as the next person so the formula works.

The build up to the date on my end involved a lot of “you guys are so perfect for each other” that I can only imagine, if he was getting an iota of this talk, rather then making him feel good, it was probably making him feel awkward pressured too. Combine this with the passiveness and he probably just wanted to bail. Hell I did too. The only successful dating experiences I’ve ever had where super random with a twist of being at the right place at the right time. There is nothing natural about a blind date. It went against every ‘this feels normal’ sense in my body. I think if I ever try this again it’ll be when I accidently turn 40 and realize I’m desperate.

HA HA! j/k… like I’ll ever age. That’s for suckers.

UPDATE 1.29.09:
Turns out my assumption was a bit out of place. The Date was under the impression I was unaware he was attending the shindig and had a long bad day, so bailed thinking I wouldn't be the wiser. SO, I was a dear and forgave him. Date take 2 was much more successful :). However, I still believe my theory for the majority of "nice guys".

Lights Out!

During dinner the lights flickered for a second. I was immediately flooded with exciting thoughts of - oh, what if the power goes out??. It’s probably been 10 years since that was even a possibility. I glanced at my dinner companions, Joe & Lindsea, who where sporting the same glimmer in their eyes. We made a quick few musings over the idea of a power outage and then went back to discussing the internet or something.

Then 10 minutes later there was a subtle click and we were cloaked dark silence. It really went out. Now I couldn’t even see the spicy things in my curry. And, my rice to curry ratio was getting all askew. Joe scurried outside and it appeared the whole block was out. Phones begin to light up the tables. Candles were slowly distributed by the wait staff. We giggle with excitement about iPhone/candle lit dinner and how this should happen more frequently. I guess at this time we hadn’t considered the possibility this blackout might stick around longer than was cute.

Continued...
We get word from the other tables that this outage is island wide. Which isn’t that surprising because I’m sure the whole island is one grid, but we do realize it’s probably time to leave the restaurant. They figure out how to charge my credit card and we’re out off into the world. We step out to a cityscape that is completely black. Buildings outlined by moon and a few emergence backup lights, there is an eerie quality to the town. And that’s when I remember another thing that stops functions during an outage - traffic lights!

Yet, the people of Oahu seemed to be doing a very good job of self-managing the intersections. What was nice about this little emergency was it really brought out the best in people. Everyone we talked to was sparked with excitement combined with a we’ll get through this just fine attitude. Twitter was a flutter with updates and already there was a hashtag (#hipower) about the incident. Its a good thing we didn’t have to see if that attitude would last longer than the night.

The night’s next thing on the agenda was beer. But everything was closed! 7-11 wouldn’t even open the doors for cash. We were outside and the clerks were in there with the lights on pretending they couldn’t see us clamoring for beer. And, I know when people do this at my store I ignore them and wonder why they can’t figured we’re closed. But now this is different. I mean I need beer!

Thankfully the amazing 24hr Safeway was open. We got our own personal employee escort to direct us to the beer aisle and headed back to my place. Joe’s computer had a few hours of battery and the remainder of the night was spent with Flight of the Concords, beer, and late night quesadillas (thankyouverymuch gas stove!).

Class Registration, Or Time To Evaluate All Life Choices Again

It’s time to register for classes again. I’ve been learning Java. And as it turns out, Java is bit archaic. I’m getting the impression I’m learning the dewy decimal system, while everyone is using google. Before tackling this latest life endeavor of mine, I was aware of different programing languages and that some where trendier than others. I most certainly wasn’t aware of the epic social implications of simply saying:

“Oh, I’m into programing. I’m learning Java.”
Continued...

Responses are in two categories:

The first (and of course my personal favorite) -
“What?? Really? Oh wow. That’s awesome. You go girl” or something to that effect. Obviously, I’m gonna like something that strokes my ego. But on a deeper level, I’m really proud of myself for jumping into this. It was drastically different then anything I’ve ever studied so it was hard to make the plunge and hand over my credit card for the class, but nothing I’ve ever studied had felt so spot on. And validation mixed with being impressed with me for my choices. Well, that feels great.

Less favorable response (and most commonly one as of late) -
“Java? What the fuck are you doing with Java? Are you in junior high? Please, I program in Ruby and so does anyone who’s anybody.”
So I wrote that in the most condescending way because that’s how I hear this comment. It most likely isn’t meant like that. But I hear this and it throws off my little world. This comment comes from people who probably know what they are talking about. I assume this because I’ve been hanging out with a geekier crowd who seems to live and breath programing. And while I should be view this a an awesome networking connection I can’t shake these two horrendous facts:

A) I’m wrong and B) I don’t know how to get things right.

And I of course don’t react maturely to any of these. My personality is very argumentative. Even when I’m not sure what I’m talking about (shhh… don’t tell). So to hear I’m wrong starts me off on a long winded defense, where I won’t stop until I’ve proven the point correct, even if it’s wrong. I know I do this, and later when I reflect back I just feel like a jerk. It’s my own internal insecurities with my life choices that make me blurt out opposition and get all pissy over a good point that I really should listen too. And now that I am reflecting, I could spend a lot more time and money and energy one next term with Java. Or maybe I shouldn’t. Which brings up today’s blog thesis and point B: What am I doing with my life? So should I learn Ruby? How? I can’t even understand the installation process. I’m not stupid. I just don’t have the tools. Where do I get this information? I’m at a total loss. This seems like a perfectly logical reason for another mini life crisis. At least Intro to Comp Science II isn’t filling up that fast.

What’s also scary is I’m about the reach the six month bail point. As I’ve been hearing from EVERYONE, six months is the first marker for people moving off the Island. Then it’s a year or two after that (Don’t worry, I’m not bailing, I still love it here). On a side note, I find this really ironic because the two year mark is how long people make it in Alaska. Because two freaking cold miserable winters is all a normal person can handle. So, I guess the same is true for paradise?

Hawaiian’s call the lampshade iMac the Manapua Mac.


That's because this is a Manapua.




A fluffy ball of bread that surrounds a cluster of brightly shaded red meat. I swear it tastes amazing.

Isn’t that cute?