Here is a list of 30 things that are on my mind.

1. Have you ever had that feeling where you need to sneeze, but you cant?
2. FACT: December 26 is the worst day of the year. You have to wait a whole year before Christmas comes around again.
3. I wish my birthday was in the summer so the presents would balance out through the year.
4. What if the colleges I apply to dont accept me except for my fall back colleges? What if my fall back colleges dont accept me??
5. Haha I just used the 'except' and 'accept' rule.
6. Smurfs are green?
7. Wow I look stupid in my friend's video. Why is this on youtube?
8. Why does everyone have a boyfriend in band? I want a boyfriend in band. I had two boyfriends in band. I wish I still had a boyfriend in band. He made me sad.
9. Psh. I'm OVER IT.
10. Actually, that might be a lie. But dont tell anyone. Maybe I AM over it?
11. I have a secret.
12. I played gunbound this weekend. Thats a secret too. But thats not the secret I was refering to in 11.
13. Why cant I be one of those good kids that study and do their homework and get good grades?
14. Refer to #4
15. I agree. I dont like my writing. It's cliche; nothing new. I hate those who write well. It's not fair.
16. I've noticed girls (most girls at least) have a harder time moving on. I wish I could be like a boy. They seem to have no trouble. They move on easily.
17. Or maybe they're like a creme brulee with a thin crust sitting on top of a whole bowl of emotional baggage. Maybe theyre really sensitive deep down.
18. I'm running out of Halls and I dont want to suck on Ricola.
19. I wish I was a witty writer, but so far all I spit out is sarcasm. I'm a sarcasm machine.
20. If I were to turn witty, I'd have to become like an emo child. You know, the ones that run out of toothpaste, get a B+, trip on their shoe, & then declare their lives suck? I think... I just described a Punahou emo kid.
21. I hate her. I hate her too. And her too. I'm dumb. Maybe its because they have things I dont have and want.
22. Like boyfriends in band.
23. Maybe I dont really want one. Maybe I just want it because its trendy. Trendy like that fur hooded jacket I want.
24. Maybe I got hit with the biological sexual selection stick. That's the only reason to explain why I'm not good looking, smart, funny, or witty enough. Not good enough.
25. Haha my sister won this thing from 24 hour fitness and now she has a trainer named Antonio. What a name for a trainer. Maybe it's not his real name. I want her to ask him. She wont. She says I'm stupid.
26. HAHA I get to go with her and share him. I'll ask him when we go work out.
27. I have a math test tomorrow and I need to do well
28. Refer to #4 yet again.
29. Xanga. Remember Xanga? Before facebook and myspace came along?
30. I felt I needed to end on an even number.

Sleep is for the Weak... end.

It is 2:00 in the a.m. 2:14 to be exact. I crave teddy grahams now, but before it was Cooler Ranch Doritos. Who in the right mind craves teddy grahams? OK. I must not be in the right mind.

Right now I am seriously doubting anyone but one person has read this blog, so I might as well tell you about the past month and two big fat mistakes I made. I've got time and alertness. 2:19.


Mistake number one. Never ever ever ever EVER take two caffeine pills in a row. Especially when you dont usually consume caffeine on a familiar basis. It'll give you quite the shock. Yours truly here made that mistake in attempts to stay awake for the math test I had to take that day. The first hour after consuming the pills, I thought "huh. i shouldve taken 3. its not working." By the second hour, I couldnt breathe normally and my hands were shaking, but I couldnt tell because my whole body was shaking. I couldnt walk straight and my heart was out of control. I thought i seriously was going to die. On top of that, I had eaten very little that morning, so you could say I took those pills on something similar to an empty stomach. By the time the math test rolled around, I couldnt think straight, my heart was going to fly out of my chest, and I couldnt even hold the pencil still. I did poorly on that test. It was expected.

Mistake number two. On Saturday, I was supposed to meet my friend at the movies in town by the piers. I ended up driving all the way to the stadium. I'm not sure how I got lost. But I definately got there through the back roads. I dont know how I did that. And to top it off, I had 1/4 tank of gas when I started out, and by the time I spotted the Stadium, I was down to 1/8 tank. And I had never filled gas in my life. So my first time filling gas was quite the experience.

"Hi... This is going to sound really stupid. I've never filled gas in my life and I'm not sure what to do. Oh and I'm also lost."
"(Snicker) Ok. So first you prepay us and then go back out there and press the grey button labeled 'Start'. Then you can fill your tank until you here the thing click. That means its done."
"Oh ok. Will $10 be enough to get my back into town?"
"Ya. That should be enough. Now where were you going?"
"Movies. By the pier."
"How did you get out here? You mustve been really lost."
"Ya. So how do I get back into town?"
"Ok go through this parkinglot, take a left at the stop light and go until you see the highway."
"Out through the parking lot... take a left... up the... wait. What?"
"Out the parking lot. Kay, then take a left at the light. Keep going straight"
"Till I hit the highway. Okay."

And when I got out of the parkinglot, what do I do? I get into the wrong lane. But I eventually get to the freeway somehow. I dont really know how I did it. But I was flipping out. I spent 2 hours in a car that night. It was the not-funnest experience EVER. And by the way, we didnt see the movie in the end. I tried to meet my friend at 3 different other places and ended up getting lost on the way 3 different times. I am hopeless with directions. Dont give me a map, no, a map will do me no good. Get me a GPS tracker and one of those things that tell me where to turn. The ones with the voice. Pathetic.... Dont judge me.


2:34. My eating and sleeping cycles are all wrong. I hate this. I guess I'll sleep now for 4 hours. My friend once told me that I was the kind of person that needed a continous sleep in order to function. Some people can go with 2 hours and be fine. I cant apparently. Oh boy. Tomorrow is not going to be fun for me. 2:38.

Social Ladders? What madness is this?!

Over these somewhat 3 wonderful years at this school, I have lived under the impression that a social scale did not exist. I don't know if I just chose to ignore it, noticed but refused to believe it, or... maybe now I am just seeing things that don't exist. Ever since freshman year, I came to a conclusion that the school had too many different social groups to determine who held dominance. But whatever the case, my views on my school’s social community has been thrown into question and a reevaluation all because of one conversation with a friend.

I didn’t always go to this school believe it or not. Once upon a time I actually attended a school where a social scale existed, and let me tell you, it was quite brutal, do I dare say, scarring. Well, it really depended where you were placed. It’s a known trend that schools small in population size usually have a social ladder- small population means everyone knows each other which mean everyone judges each other which means you know what everyone thinks of you and others which means eventually you place yourselves accordingly. At a school that has a social ladder, everyone has a reputation, an invisible file, filled with memorable events that people pull up when discussing who you are.

“She went out with Philip in 8^th grade but they broke up.”

“In 2^nd grade he drew on all the desks and got detention.”

“Last year when we had prayer in morning homeroom, she would pray for her pet chickens.”

“I think he liked me in 7^th grade. He’s kind of weird…”

You get my point? If you do one little thing, stupid, smart, or whatever, it sticks with you till you leave the school. And probably even after at your reunions. But when you are judged and determined by your peers where you fall on the ladder, it’s difficult to fluctuate after that, unless you’re a rare case.

The school I went to had the kids at the top- the volleyball/basketball/paddling kids, (throughout high school, those are the “it” sports, not football,) the kids that went to the beach often, the cool rebels, and the some what rich kids. You know, the kids who roll their uniform skirts up because it’s “too long” or never tuck their shirts in. After that are the kids who have similar qualities to the kids at the top, but didn’t quite make it because of a flaw in their reputation or personality, or the cool FOB kids. After that the gamers, drama club, the paleweirdstringyhaired kids, artists, skateboarders, and quiet acne cursed kids fall onto the ladder respectively, judged on their history. If I still had gone there, rewind my personality back to freshman year, I would probably fall between the second and third group I had described. I was kind of weird, had a reputation, and was somewhat emotionally damaged from the eight previous years I had spent there. In fact, after looking at pictures, my hair looked kind of stringy back then.

So there’s the crash course to a local school with a social ladder. When I left that school to attend my present one, I had another chance to start over, and managed to grow a tremendous amount in the past 3 years. The pressure of being judged was lifted, 90% of the student drama gone, and changed significantly in character for the good. I did all of this living under the impression I wasn’t getting judged.

But last night, I had a talk with one of my girlfriends, helping her pick another boy from our school to like so she could get over her current infatuation. I suggested names of boys that hung out in different groups. She rejected some of the suggestions, claiming they were “out of her league socially.” That’s when I realized that our school too had some sort of social scale. But because of our large student body, it’s impossible to know everyone, so people judge you on the group you hang out with instead.

Maybe we don’t actually have a social scale, but arrange the groups in our heads, the least approachable, but normal kids being at the top, and least approachable, but your definition of weird, kids at the bottom. You will always place your group somewhere in the middle because everyone’s biased like that.

Maybe we in fact do have a scale, and everyone is aware of it but doesn’t feel it as much because there’s no pressure hanging over you to uphold your status. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to relate to is “The Breakfast Club,” because stereotypes in my school aren’t pressured to be maintained like that in the movie.

I end this wondering to myself how I myself am viewed in other people’s eyes. How do they see me? Do larger schools with groups necessarily mean less individual judging? Or more stereotypical assumptions?

If you're really quiet, you can hear the sound of me listening

Recently my walks to the yearbook room, located in the basement of Pauahi Hall, have been quite eventful.

The highlight of last week happened on Thursday morning. I was in desperate need of a decomposer for my environmental group’s biocolumn project, and I stumbled upon an earthworm on the sidewalk near the plants. It was raining quite hard that day, and I looked quite silly, squatting on the cement, trying to stop the earthworm from getting away. I was wet, had college applications under my jacket, and had homework to do, but I was determined to find a way to capture the worm. Eventually, someone I knew walked by, starring, probably amused, and donated half a zip lock bag to my cause, which was just enough to hold the worm till I got it into a cup. I named him Benny.

Today’s walk consisted of a topic that came to me out of no where. I was just walking along, minding my own business, when the words “hearing” and “listening” popped to my head. Actually, “pop” isn’t a good word to describe how it came to me. I think it more like struck me. And then I asked myself if those two words were really the same thing. I didn’t have time to ponder the question, so I scribbled the words “hear vs listen” hastily on my arm and turned my attention to the first of eight night’s worth of homework.

But because I have to post today, I figure this would be the opportune moment to ponder and work through this idea which struck me so suddenly.

The definitions of “hear” and “listen” according to the Oxford English Dictionary follows:

To hear- To perceive, or have the sensation of, sound; to possess or exercise the faculty of audition, of which the specific organ is the ear. The proper verb to express this faculty or function.

To listen- To hear attentively; to give ear to; to pay attention to (a person speaking or what is said).

To expand those definitions, hearing is a subconscious action, as opposed to listening, which is a conscious effort to comprehend what you are hearing. For example, today when I went to Calculus class, I could hear the murmuring of others talking, but only listened to my friends, Gene and Ian, talk.

Why is this important?

It’s not.

But,

For those that don’t ponder the difference between hearing and listening you could probably use their ignorance against them. If you don’t want to pay attention to what they’re saying, just nod your head and smile, and once in a while offer a supportive “I hear you.” That way, everyone is happy- You don’t have to pay attention, you’re not lying, and your friend can vent all they want with the impression that you’re listening. And if you get caught later, you can always give the excuse “I said I HEARD you. That doesn’t mean I was LISTENING.”

Don’t do this too often as it may jeopardize you friendship. I wouldn’t recommend using it on parents because most of them are all-knowing.

I also find that hearing and listening parallel with reading and comprehending. In sophomore year, I took SAT prep, in which I discovered that reading and comprehending are in fact not the same thing. When taking the reading section of the test, I had to reread the passages twice, because my eyes were reading the words, but my brain didn’t comprehend any of it. The words were running through my head, but none of them were being transferred into information I understood. Try reading an extremely boring passage on bats and you might be able to understand what I’m saying. Maybe you're doing it right now to my writing. EARTHQUAKE GIANT MARSHMELLOW RUNAWAY CAR. That should get your attention. But do you see what I'm saying? Let me rephrase that. Do you comprehend what I'm saying? Do you really? Or maybe it’s just me.

Upon Creation

A first post. How fantabulous.