Obey Zolac!

Life is good because:

-It's Friday!

-I spent all day listening to rock music learning about math earning real wages!

-My team DESTROYED the other team during Friday Lunch Hour Bocce. I mean, granted, I was on Leroy's team (the IT tech, not the hawk) and he is generally acknowledged to be the best bocce player in USGS, but... dude, I was on FIRE today, I think I scored most of the points! ...I think I must have some sort of natural bocce talent? I'm really a novice, I can count the number of times I've played on one hand, but since the first game I've kind of been consistently kicking ass and taking names. :DDD

-There are plum trees in the front yard. This is kind of a big deal, because things like plums and apples and pears and cherries just do not grow well at lower elevations in Hawai‘i; they need a bit of cold. But I live in Volcano, and it is cold here, and there are plum trees in the front yard, and the plums are coming ripe, and I picked a few, and they are DELICIOUS.

AVATAR MARATHON BIRTHDAY PARTY IS BEST BIRTHDAY PARTY. regonym, shichahn, platoapproved, and Eric, you guys are the best!!

Oh god. I have consumed soooo much beer. XDDD

Okay, so in case anyone hadn't already figured it out, my internet presence is going to be somewhat diminished for the next several months. I will only have the possibility of internet when I'm not in the field, which, as I go further into my internship, will not be a lot of the time; when I'm not in the field I will only really have internet when I make the time and effort to go seek it out (only one of the volunteer houses has wireless, and it's not mine), or when I come down to Hilo for a bit. I will have internet on my Droid when I'm not in the field, so emails and LJ comment alerts will still get to me on weekends and office days, and who knows, I may even have time to respond. :P

I am going to give up all attempts at actually keeping up with my Friends list. I'll check in occasionally but I'm realistically only going to catch like 10% of what goes on there. I'll make posts when I can to keep you guys abreast (haha I said breast) of what I'm up to, and I'll really make an effort to post pictures occasionally, so you guys can see my beautiful forest and gorgeous adorable birdies.

...So yeah, anyway, this is me just squeezing in a quick update while I devour some breakfast. First week of the internship is going great. The other intern is this guy named Sean from North Carolina; he's quiet and somewhat shy and totally pleasant and amiable and we're getting along great. We live with Matt from Ohio who does insect stuff, and he's cool and friendly and we like him and I think we're all going to be great housemates. I think there's supposed to be a couple of Eban's bird demography volunteers moving in with us this weekend, but there's this whole big drama right now with Eban's crew and who's going to live where and whether or not his techs will get housing even though it's against the rules and blah blah blah, so I don't really know what the situation will be like when I get back on Monday.

Matt and Sean and I usually all start work at the same time in the morning, except for when Sean and I are going into the field and therefore have to wake up at ass o'clock (we have to be at the office at six a.m. on Tuesday. SIX A.M.), so most mornings we walk to work together. Guys, this is fantastic; I've gone from a 45-minutes-by-car one-way commute, to a 15-minutes-by-foot one-way commute. And also it's the nicest commute ever, a pleasant stroll on a path through the rainforest with the birds waking up all around us. T_T It's a great way to start the morning.

We spent a few days doing office stuff, thrilling work like disentangling mist nets and checking them for holes, and disinfecting mist nets and bird bags, and aliquoting lysis buffer into tiny vials, and getting First Aid/CPR/AED certified. We did go up to Hakalau on Wednesday to check out Nauhi Cabin, which is where we'll be staying when we're in the field for the next... a lot of time, and set up a bunch of poles and played tour guide for a visiting malaria expert from Penn State, a dude named Andrew with an awesome New Zealand accent.

Life at housing is neat. Thursday was pizza night, so we all went over to where Caitlin and Keola are living and contributed pizza ingredients. We had a vegetarian pizza with white sauce (spinach and mushrooms and garlic and onions), and a pepperoni, spaghetti squash, garlic, onions, and basil pizza with red sauce (I contributed the spaghetti squash and the Italian-style stewed tomatoes for the sauce), and I brought tortilla chips and Matt brought salsa and Caitlin busted out the SCARY INTENSE hot sauce Laurèen sent from Réunion and Brent brought cheesy bread (AMAZING) and Keola made some intensely delicious shoyu chicken and Caitilin busted out the kim chee and someone brought wine and Matt brought spiced rum and there was a lot of beer floating around. It was super fun. And I had a lot of stuff to take care of that evening, but I had a beer and some wine and a swig of the rum and then I took a hot shower and all of a sudden my head was REALLY HEAVY, so I went to sleep at like 9 and woke up early to do stuff instead. XD;

I am at home in Hilo at the moment, and for at least like another couple of hours, and then Don and Mom and I are headed up to Kapa‘a, which is a beach campground in Kohala, a little ways north of Kawaihae. We're getting together with a bunch of friends for the weekend and there will be music and singing and whale-watching and soooooo much potluck food and I had planned to invite Alex but he broke up with me so he doesn't get to come, nyahh~. And it's a three-day weekend in this great nation, so Sunday night we're sneaking away and going to the Blue Dragon and the Olliephonics are playing and like at least fifteen Hepcats are showing up and we're basically going to take over the whole place and dance dance dance.

And then on Tuesday it's out to the field for a couple of days, catching birdies whee~!

So yeah. I'll, uh. Be in touch when I can.

I LOVE YOU ALL!! ♥♥♥

Mom and I just had our floorwarming party, to properly break in our shiny new hardwood floor. A whole crowd of our favorite swing friends came over and there was wine and pupus and lindy and blues for four and a half hours straight.

SO TIRED. SO SORE.

^______________^

It's Labor Day weekend, when we Americans celebrate our right as laborers to be treated fairly by our employers... appropriately enough, by taking a holiday. Although really it's just a last-ditch opportunity for summer partying.

Mom and I planned to hike Napau Trail and camp at the Napau Crater campsite for a couple of nights. I've never been on this trail, and Mom hasn't been in years. It's a cool one because it's as close as you can get to the active Puʻu ʻŌʻō vent short of working for USGS/HVO/the Park's fire team, or spending money on a helicopter tour. Buuuuuuut it turns out it's not open for camping, just day hikes, due to the recent unpredictable volcanic activity.

So we're thinking we're maybe going to do the other active volcano, up Mauna Loa Observatory trail and staying Saturday and Sunday night at the Mauna Loa summit cabin. This is another one we've been meaning to do for years. Trail starts at 11,146 feet; it's a 6-mile hike climbing up to the summit at 13,680 feet. I've done this trail as a day hike up to North Pit (a large crater partially fused with Mokuʻāweoweo, the summit caldera) and back down again; this trail is... phenomenal. Like being on another planet. Bare lava (in fantastic colors, we found cobalt blue cinder) and empty sky and you, and nothing else, the whole island (and Maui) below your feet.

I haven't been to the cabin or the summit proper, or slept at the summit. Or gone up with full pack, oh god. For those of you who've never hiked at this elevation (I'm going to guess: none of you), um, it's hard. The air's pretty damn thin up there, and even with a day pack you have to take it slow and easy on the way up.

And the location's pretty intimidating. This is me really really hoping for no blizzards or whiteouts. Or volcanic eruptions. (I am seriously considering bringing an offering for Pele, but I'm conflicted with the desire to not litter in a National Park... especially at that elevation, where shit won't break down.) I imagine evacuations are pretty difficult up there. (Do helicopters even fly that high...?) ...But the summit weather report claims clear weather for the next five days, and if the magma chamber is inflating it's doing so so slowly it's immeasurable. So I think we'll probably be fine. And, again, never spent more than a few hours at a time at that elevation, never stayed overnight, but I've never had anything in the way of Acute Mountain Sickness, much less anything ridiculous like High Altitude Pulmonary Edema or High Altitude Cerebral Edema.

Yeah. I think we'll be okay.

I AM EXCITE.

Today was PERFECT. The weather was glorious even in Hilo, and the whole drive up the Hamakua coast was stunning, sun shining and ocean the deepest, bluest blue. Hapuna was, predictably, hella crowded, but not to a bothersome degree aside from the parking. I ate a gigantic motherfucking plate of food, poke and bbq chicken and vegetable shishkabob and coleslaw and green papaya salad and sushi and watermelon and lychee and banana, and then I was full to bursting with food and then I ate a steak. And then I got in the water that was glass-clear and as warm as my skin, and I horsed around with family and friends and played keepaway and bodysurfed even though the surf was pathetic and I didn't come out again for two and a half hours and ohmigod I was so relaaaaaaaxed~!

And then, since we were already in South Kohala and it was a first Sunday, we abducted half the party and went to the Blue Dragon to hear The Olliephonics and dance. I had myself a drink called the Tequila Dragon which had tequila and Grand Marnier and lime juice and mango puree in it; it was basically a mango smoothie with tequila in and it was DELICIOUS. Since I still felt full from the gigantic motherfucking plate of food + steak from three and a half hours earlier I avoided the entrees and ordered the seared ahi and spinach salad, which was also delicious; these little batter-fried slices of eggplant were especially amazing. And as usual The Olliephonics were motherfucking spectacular, and as usual we had a freaking amazing good time dancing, and as usual members of the band and random other patrons came up to our table to tell us how amazing we look on the dance floor, and I think we hooked someone for the blues dance workshop in August, so that's cool. And I danced with my brother to "A-Train", which is his favorite ever swing song (he used to play it when he played alto saxophone for a couple of big band/swing/jazz bands back in high school), and I led sister-to-be Nova more-or-less successfully in a cha-cha to "Oye Como Va", which was hilarious but hella fun, and they played "Mack the Knife" and "Jump Jive and Wail" and "In The Mood" and ALL OF THE GOOD SONGS, ALL OF THEM, and it was sooooooooo fun. ^_^

And my friend Eric (from high school... and middle school... and elementary school) somehow discovered that I was on the island and texted me, so I'm going to have to find time to hang out with him, yaaaaaaaaay Eric! I don't know WHEN, because my schedule for the next MONTH looks like this: wedding prep, partying, working full-time, folk dance, partying, working full-time, wedding prep, WEDDING, wedding clean-up, working full-time, traveling to O‘ahu, traveling to Kaua‘i, working full-time, blues workshop. @_@ But I dunno, fuck it, maybe sometime next week after the WEDDING is over with we can meet up after work for dinner and/or a movie or something.

What is my liiiiiiiiife. ...It is wonderful, that's what.

So, I meant to do this days ago, fffff.

( Under the cut: My Chemical Romance, Bad Rabbits, Black Cards, and Travie McCoy are AWESOME, teenaged fans of Gerard Way/Pete Wentz are largely ANNOYING, hanging out with said teenaged fans is AWKWARD AND EMBARRASSING, Tyler Glenn is a DOUCHEBAG, PB&J French Fries are DELICIOUS, my friends are FANTASTIC, and I think my feet may have finally stopped HURTING. )

...So at the end of the weekend I was way way underslept, and my feet hurt like a bitch, and I felt like an 80 year old cripple with a sore throat who had been beaten by sticks, but it was FUN. And I got to see regonym, which was supremely excellent since I don't know when the next time is that I will see her again (;_;), and I threw comics at her, and I got her into "Hawaii Five-0", we watched five episodes, bwaha~. So that was awesome.

Bright Eyes concert this weekend, whoo!

NAPOLEON CAUGHT A SHREW! His second ever vertebrate catch! YAAAAAAAY!

He was so good, too! He performed beautifully in the face of a whole pile of new situations: new location, new people, more people than he's hunted with before, new hunting style. He started on the fist while we flipped over boards and sheet metal, and he figured out pretty quick what was going on. When we finally flipped a board with a nest full of mice, we got carried away with the yelling and Poly freaked out and flew away in the other direction and into a tree and wouldn't come down again. After he calmed down a bit (and made a try at one of the escaped mice), shichahn started flipping boards again, and again he clued in immediately, following along from his treetop like a hawk hunting bunnies. ...Napoleon, I'm sorry, I will never call you dumb again. (Ok, that's a lie, I probably will.) shichahn exposed a shrew and he dropped like a guided missile. I heard the impact from thirty yards away. He flew with it into a tree, but it was a low branch and he went right back to the glove without too much trouble at all. HE'S SUCH A GOOD BOY. <3

shichahn hooded him and we had a bit of fun trying to catch rodents by hand. shichahn's sponsor Ben the Kestrel did succeed in catching a vole, and we all succeeded in getting our hands and knees muddy.

After a spot of lunch we had a very successful afternoon with the bunny hawkers. Parker the redtail hawk caught a packrat in a tree (to the chagrin of his falconer, who had trouble getting him down again), and Ruby, another redtail, caught a garter snake. True to form, our favorite mass murderer, Harlot the goshawk, ended the lives of four cottontail rabbits. <3 <3 <3

It was a gorgeous day, and I spent a fair amount of it scrambling through the underbrush and getting my skin ripped apart by blackberry brambles, and I am now very tired and very happy. I can't think of any way I could have spent my Saturday more enjoyably.

Lauren came over today and we had our Cooking Awesome Food and Listening to Awesome Music party. We enjoyed the musical talent of such artists as Arcade Fire, Dr. Dog, Girl Talk, The New Pornographers, Sea of Bees, Mersault, Menomena, Mumford and Sons, The Decemberists, Patrick Stump, Kristeen Young, and Trampled By Turtles. We also enjoyed listening the sweet sweet voice of Stephen Fry, watching The Big Fat Quiz of the Year, and playing biology-themed Bananagrams ('dissection' for the motherfucking win!).

Foodwise, we made Pumpkin Halwa: kabocha, almonds, cashews, craisins, saffron, condensed milk, etc, rolled into little gooey balls of tasty. We also made– and omg_alchemist veterans will appreciate this– orange zest brownies. Or, Three-Orange Super-Special Brownies, using orange zest, orange essence, and some chocolate-dipped candied orange peel we just happened to have lying around. They are just as amazingly delicious as Clara and I always thought they would be. T_T We also tossed together a pretty amazing soup at the last minute when we realized halwa and brownies did not a dinner make, comprising a whole pile of random things in the kitchen, including turkey broth, chicken, kabocha, two kinds of potatoes, a turnip, a leek, mushrooms, celery, parsley, garlic, ginger, shoyu, oyster sauce, sesame oil, and hot peppers. It was meant to be stew, but I'm not complaining.

Basically, for a rainy January Saturday... pretty freaking perfect.

I will never- NEVER- see Vienna Teng live, FML. Apparently she was playing in Seattle over Labor Day weekend. You know, THAT WEEKEND I WAS TOTALLY IN SEATTLE. AAAAAAAAAHHHH!!

...The light in the darkness is that SHE GOES TO SCHOOL WITH CHRIS. Like, not in the, "Ha ha, isn't it cool that Vienna Teng goes to the same university as me?" way. Actually in the, "We have classes together and study together and she's really cool and maybe we're sort of friends and her name is Cynthia," way. SURREAL, Y/N?

I have informed Chris that her mission is to become BEST FRIENDS with Vienna Teng and get her to do a concert for my birthday or something. Chris laughed and told me, no, she will not stalk Vienna Teng for me, but she will tell her that I asked her to stalk her, and she will probably think it's funny. *headdesk*

Goddammit I really need to figure out a way to go visit Chris now. Argh.

In other news... deathscytheheck and bluerose16, thanks for last night, bb's~! It was AMAZING~!! xoxo <3 <3 <3