One door closes, another opens

Today I attended my first class as a teaching assistant (TA). It was interesting, I think it will be a great refresher for me on the basics of Public Relations. To start off class I spoke to Penny (the instructor) and she gave me a list of the things I will be doing in the class. Attendance, collection of assignments, help her with setup or additional needs, I will create and grade two quizzes for the class to take, and I will lead two lectures the first lecture being next Monday. Nothing like being thrown into the situation.
As for the rest of my week....busy. Lots to do and little time to do it. Aside from having an assignment due in each of my classes, I also have to attend my TA class, start formulating my thesis, I am a officer in two different clubs on campus, and we are hosting a major event Friday night for one of them. I am a member of both IABC, International Association of Business Communicators, and MA/COM gso, a communication graduate student organization. This Friday is club carnival where we decorate a booth and sit on Fort Street Mall for 5 hours trying to recruit new members and pass out information all while having the best looking table which could win our club money. It is a crazy day followed by a MA/COM evening of pizza, prizes and the art walk. Unfortunately the President of the MA/COM club is out of town so I have to throw all of this together this week, that's right, we didn't start anything for it last week.
Once I make it through this week I will be so happy!!

Has everyone tried Netflix yet? I think it is one of the greatest inventions. My friend Heidi gave me a one month membership with two rentals at a time for my birthday (she only gave it to me in December). Since I was off of school most of this month I decided to take advantage of it. It is a mail in DVD rental place where I pick what I want to see online and they mail it to me with a return mailer. So I literally can watch a movie Monday night, mail it Tuesday and have a new movie by Thursday...it is really quick and they have every title you can imagine. So I tried to see as many movies as I could this month... here is my list so far (with my opinion of the movie), plus I have about 1 week left....

Crank - not good
Step Up - I liked it a lot
You Me & Dupree - soso
Employee of the Month - funny at times
Miami Vice - took me two days to watch it *Yawn*
The Devil Wears Prada - kinda like Ugly Betty
Cars - cute
My Super ex-Girlfriend - soso
Eight Below - liked it
The Last Kiss - not bad
Jackass 2 - funny

The semester has begun and things seem to be looking pretty good. If you would have asked me last week I would have been freaking out about my courses but after the first meetings it seems like it will be an enjoyable semester.

I will be taking 3 courses plus I will be working as a teaching assistant in an undergraduate course in public relations. I will be taking Teaching Techniques, Health care Communication, and Professional paper 1 (thesis). My thesis will take the next year (2 semesters) to complete but it will be well worth it. I am pretty happy to say I have a topic for my thesis which could help direct my career path in a very good way. I'm excited!

Sunday night Ben arrived for a layover in Hawaii on his way back to Japan. He was here from about 6:30pm Sunday until noon on Tuesday. I tried to show him a bunch of the island while he was also able to relax. We toured Waikiki, went to a driving range, drove around the island, ate shrimp on the North Shore, went to Pearl Harbor plus a few other random things. It was a nice visit.

Yep, we went to a driving range in Hawaii Kai yesterday to hit some balls. It was pretty fun, we were able to buy a bag of 60 balls for $3 and they even lent us clubs to use. I think I would like to learn more about it and try out some of these beautiful golf courses on the island. Plus I will be receiving a year subscription to Golf Magazine free from my trip to the Sony Open so maybe I can learn a bit more. I am close to being all set, I even went and bought cute pink Puma's for my "golfing" shoes and I bought a golf glove to help protect my hand. There are actually city/county golf courses, six of them around the island, that only charge like $10 for a twilight round or 9 holes. I think that is pretty good.
Aside from golfing we went to the beach after church today...it was a beautiful day. We frolicked in the ocean and I gotta little pink in the face. I was actually talking to Mom at the beach... I think she said it was still snowing in Wisconsin... hmm me on a sunny beach or me in cold Wisconsin, I think I made a good decision.

This week has been a tough one on me with a lot of tough decisions to either make or start thinking about. With one year of school left I have to start thinking about what I am going to write my thesis on and if I have enough time to take a class I really want to take without running myself into the ground with school and work. I also have to start thinking about where the heck I am going and what type of job I want, basically where my life will be in one year hinges on my actions now.

Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of ideas but still it is hard. I have another few days to enjoy winter break before classes resume and I plan on doing my best to put decisions aside for the weekend.

It was game night with the twenty something group. We drove out to Makakilo to Kate's house for dinner followed by a wonderful new game called Mafia. Yes, its like being in the mafia. You get one card which means you are either a villager or in the mafia where you actually kill people. It is a very interesting game of solving the mystery. There is also a doctor and a sheriff to help and the entire game is overseen by a moderator that tells funny stories of how the villagers are killed off. Ask me sometime how to play it.... you wont regret it. It was a fun night but we barely got back by 11:20pm...that's a bit late for me on a weeknight...

Today was a holiday so I took the time to enjoy the island and boy was it a beautiful day. Alexis and I had a random day of fun playing tourist. We started by heading down to Fort DeRussey in Waikiki to take some pictures. My goal was to get a great picture of me in front of Diamond Head wearing my Red Shed t-shirt. Then I will mail the picture, an 8x10 framed to the bar where they hopefully will hang it on the wall with all of the others. After the beach we headed out of Waikiki and drove past Leonard's Bakery, only the most famous bakery of Malasadas. So we turned around a got some..yummy. Next we headed to the Hawaii Kai/Sandy Beach area to a botanical garden hidden in Koko Head Crater. It was pretty neat but we were not prepared for the 2 mile loop in our slippahs so we walked a bit then headed back to the car. Onward we went to the new Maakapu lookout for a few pictures and into Kailua to vacuum out the car.

Upon arrival at home we made homemade calzones (thanks for the idea Beth) and watched The Illusionist and Troy.

Yes the Sony Open is a PGA (golf) event with the best in the world attending. Well not all of the best this year, Mr. Woods was not present at the event this year. Yet, we arrived at the Waialae Country Club around 10:30am and found our way to the first whole to see people tee off. We watched last years winner, David Toms tee off then a short while later the local 16 year old boy, Tadd Fujikawa. Tadd had an enormous following with him so we decided to track down Vijay Singh, he teed off a few minutes before Tadd so we had to hustle to catch up to him on the 5th hole. The whole thing was very interesting. We stuck with Vijay most of the time we were there up until about the 11th hole. We decided to head to spectator village and then leave. It was a beautiful day and well worth the $10 admission to see what the PGA is all about.

On another note... even though people were worried, there was no Tsunami from the earthquake off the Kuril Islands. Whew...another natural disaster avoided.

Today I volunteered at graduation. It was actually pretty interesting and I can't wait until it is me on that stage. Every commencement ceremony is held at the Waikiki Shell, an outdoor venue with Diamond Head in the back, beautiful.

I was in chage of distributing name cards to graduates, not too exciting but I did get to see everyone. I love that family and friends give Lei's to graduates before the ceremony, it really livens up the event. I also had to work 'crowd control' keeping the graduates in line. They did feed us and I wasn't in the office all day so that was a plus.

Its fun to stay at the YMCA..... today was the first day of working out at the Y. It was pretty cool. The facilities are pretty nice and they there is air conditioning... tonight we rode the bike and did some arm work. Hopefully I will be making frequent trips to the Y.

I had a very busy weekend. Friday night we went to Safeway to pick up a few groceries we missed while at Costco and we cleaned/organized some of the apartment. Saturday we fogged our apartment for bugs (we try to do it every 6 months) so we had to be out of the apartment for 4 hours. We went to Kailua to the post office and to the Salvation army. I actually donated some clothes a shoes. We were looking for a new piece of furniture for the living room since the Christmas tree came down on Friday night. No such luck. It was also overcast so we didn't hit the beach but instead with Heidi in tow... we went to rummage sales. We had a good time... found some good things. But no furniture for the living room. However Alexis did find some wonderful red decorations....

In the afternoon we joined the YMCA and found a small bookshelf at Walmart. For my birthday Heidi had given me a month membership to Netflex so my first movies came... the rest of Saturday was spent watching Eight Below and Jackass 2. Netflix is a pretty cool thing....

Today was more low key... church followed by shopping. I only bought 1 pair of shoes and the are flip flops that I absolutely love, I had a pair in the past but after years they wore out so I finally replaced them.

I am very happy to say that I will be taking a little vacation in April. Mom and Bob are heading out here to see me in late April and while they are here we will be heading off this island to one a bit larger. Yep, they just booked a trip to Australia. It will be an early graduation present for me. I can't wait... it is going to be beautiful, wonderful, glorious....

This trip will help fulfill part of one of my life goals, visiting all seven continents. After this trip I will only have 3 left... If anyone is up for a trip to South America, Africa, or Antarctica please let me know :-) But for now I will be anxiously awaiting our trip Down Under.

I did indeed go out last night with Talsha and a few friends. We didn't make it into the club before midnight but that allowed us to see parts of the huge fireworks display at midnight. I was a bit tired but I am glad I went out. Today was fairly productive, I unpacked, got our mail from the neighbor and relaxed. However I don't think I am ready to go back to work tomorrow. In a little while Alexis should be arriving so I need to pick her up at the airport and then I am going to bed early.

Here are a few pictures from my trip home...

Well I made it back to Hawaii safely and so did my luggage! My bags were actually some of the first to come off the conveyor belt, so I was stoked. Plus I actually landed about 40 minutes early into Honolulu so that was nice. I got home... unpacked a bit (mainly the food mom and Bob sent with me *thanks*) and I decided I need to go out even though I am very tired but it is an odd thing here in Hawaii. People love fireworks...I could see them all over the place on my ride from the airport, and now I can most certainly hear people lighting them and partying. Thankfully Talsha is on her way and I am going to do my best to stay up to celebrate tonight.

Have a wonderful New Year!! Thanks to everyone for a wonderful visit in Wisconsin!