Thursday, April 16, 2015

Big Island Adventures!

So a recent Hawaii Bucket List item: Going to the Big Island! Devin and I spent Easter weekend on the Big Island, and it was great!

Aside from the weather. It was pretty rainy the whole time... Womp. But it was still pretty! You can drive around a lot on the Big Island (it's so big!) and there's hardly any traffic (unlike Oahu...), so it was nice just to enjoy the drive!

We got there Thursday night and just checked into our cottage at Volcano National Park. Friday morning, we got up early to start the day! In the morning, we went to Volcano Winery, which was just a 10 minute drive from where we stayed. I love wine, so it was a great little stop. We did the wine tasting and bought a few bottles... They have a really delicious tea-infused wine, a guava wine, and a macadamia nut honey wine. All of them were so unique and yummy, mmm. 

That afternoon, we went on a "Star Tour" through the place we stayed.... Let me just tell you all that it's NOT worth your time or money to do that! At least the tour we did wasn't. It started at 2 PM (that should have been our sign...) and they took us to a planetarium in Hilo. It was okay... We saw a movie there and spent some time in their museum, but you don't miss out on anything amazing if you don't go there, in my opinion. Then we drove up to the Visitor's Center at 9000 feet on Mauna Kea. We were served a very bad plate lunch, and left to wander around in the cloudy twilight. It was cold, but I expected that. A while later, it finally got dark, but stayed cloudy. We bought a few things at the gift shop. Eventually, it cleared up enough to see about three stars, and then it was time for us to go because the tour ended at 8 PM. Just when it was clearing up and the visitor's center people dragged out their telescopes. So, if you want to see Mauna Kea, just drive up there yourself. It's not worth the price of the tour, and then you can stay however long you want. If you want to drive all the way to the summit, you are allowed, but you need to have a four-wheel-drive vehicle and check with your rental company. So that's my advice about that.**
 

Our breakfast view. Not bad, right?
We were supposed to go on a volcano tour Saturday, but after Friday's failure we cancelled it to do things on our own. We had breakfast with a great view of the Kilauea Crater, and then drove to the Kona side of the island. It's a pretty drive and the weather was actually nice!

When we got to the other side of the island, we took a tour of the Kona brewery. Now in my opinion, if you've toured one brewery you've kind of seen the basics and there's that much else to see... But Kona was actually really cool! They do a lot to make their beer brewing practices super sustainable, like using recycled materials, reusing things, and even using special beer bottles that are 11% lighter to reduce fuel loads. Just hearing about that stuff made the tour worth it. After, we stayed for lunch at their brewery restaurant and the food was so yummy! 

 After the brewery we went to a coffee plantation called Mountain Thunder, which grows organic coffee. We took a tour, and that was pretty cool too. I learned a lot about coffee! They also had some tasty teas (I'm more of a tea girl, personally.) Oh, and they had cats. So I loved that, because obviously my mission in life is to find cats everywhere I go.

We stopped for a late lunch at a place called the Coffee Shack, which had a really beautiful view. By then, however, it was pouring down rain, so the view was a bit hazy. After that, we drove down to South Point, which is the southernmost point in the United States! (Yes, it's farther south than Key West!) There, we took a long and beautiful drive through cow country until we reached a parking lot where we paid some Hawaiians with four wheel drive to take us in the back of their pickup to the famous Green Sand Beach. I'm not joking. It was a very Hawaii experience. The drive out to the beach was gorgeous, although honestly the sand is NOT that green.


After the beach, we stopped at the southernmost bar in the U.S. for dinner with some friends who were also visiting the Big Island before driving back to Volcano National Park. Before heading to bed for the night, we drove up to the Jaggar Museum lookout to see the glow from the volcano. It was raining, but we still got to see a pretty good glow!


The lava is actually pretty far down, but it sure looked like it was about to erupt, didn't it?

The next day was our flight home, but we had the morning free. We went for a hike called Kilauea Iki, which is in an old crater. It honestly felt like we were hiking on the moon or something. The lava landscape is so cool.


After the hike, we got to see one of the lava tubes (no lava runs through it anymore, thankfully!). It's a basically a big tunnel. It was nice and cool after getting all sweaty hiking!
 


After that, we just drove up to the airport and came home. It was a short trip, but it was fun! It was so nice to just spend some time together and to have a break from "real life" -- neither one of us wanted to come back!

**If you have been keeping an eye on the news here in Hawaii (and maybe outside of Hawaii?) you might have seen something about Mauna Kea recently. They are building a big telescope, the "Thirty Meter Telescope" (TMT), and a lot of people are upset about it because they feel that it's a threat to sacred Hawaiian land. It's an interesting debate, and certainly not something I'm qualified to speak about, but if you want to know more you should look it up! Apparently it has attracted some celebrity attention, even!

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

More Hawaii Bucket list stuff... and some more BIG NEWS.

So, last weekend was a pretty good one for the Hawaii Bucket List. Saturday morning, we went to Wet N Wild Hawaii, which is a big water park. Now, I know, the ocean is right there. But water parks are different! And so fun! We got a GroupOn and went for the day and it was a blast! 

That night we had another Bucket List item... horseback riding on the beach! We went up to the North Shore and booked a ride with the polo club there. It was an hour ride at sunset, and you get to ride right on the beach. It was so pretty and a really cool experience.

Please ignore my weird facial expression and check out that sunset.
My horse was an active polo horse! Quite an athlete, haha.
Right there on the beach! Also, check out our super cool helmets!

 Very cool!! Horses are so cool, aren't they? Devin's tried to bite mine.

After the ride, Devin suggested we go back down to the beach to take some pictures. He set up the tripod and all (he has a very fancy camera that I have no idea how to use) and set a timer and we posed for a picture.... but then nothing happened. He has a little clicker for his camera (I told you it's fancy!) so he said "Hang on, let me see if I have the thingie," and started looking around in his bag... But he didn't pull out the camera clicker. 

Instead, he pulled out a ring box and got down on one knee! So right there on the beach, at sunset, he proposed to me :) And, of course, I said yes! And the fun part? The camera was on video the whole time, so we have the whole thing recorded!



So, that one might not be on YOUR Hawaii Bucket List, but I think it's a pretty good one to check off ;)



Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Spring Semester Update

Whew, what a busy time! If you took a look at my April calendar right now, you'd probably cry. I know I want to! Spring semester is rapidly coming to a close, so here's a peek at some of the things that have been going on here at HPU.

Student teaching is almost over! I only have one more class to teach to complete my hours. It has been such a wonderful experience, honestly -- such a valuable part of the TESOL program here! I have been incredibly lucky to have not one but two wonderful mentor teachers this semester in Spanish and in Writing. Getting to see a beginning language class and a second language writing class has given me two really different perspectives and experiences and I have learned so, so much. Getting to practice being in front of a whole class has made me feel a lot more comfortable teaching, and I'm starting to get the hang of this whole lesson planning thing, maybe! Obviously, I still make mistakes, but that's what feedback and practice are for, right? I feel much better about teaching next year after this semester of practicum.

Basically what people think about teaching.


My portfolio is coming along as well! There are only 2 pieces of it I haven't started yet, and I plan to knock at least one of those out tonight! Everything else has been drafted and revised at least once, and several bits have been approved. Monday the 20th is the final deadline, so things are getting intense! This weekend, that's pretty much the only thing I'll be doing. It'll all be online once I'm finished, so I'll be sure to share the link here! (Now that I wrote this whole paragraph I am looking at my calendar and thinking SIX DAYS?!?!??!)

Who's starting to feel the pressure?!
 I've also been accepted to present at the Capstone Symposium on the 23rd, which is exciting! Students from a bunch of different departments are getting together to present posters or oral presentations on something they've worked on. I chose (of course!) my paper on language policy in Catalonia. Quite a few of my fellow tutors are presenting as well, so I can't wait to see what they'll have to say. If you're around on April 23, be sure to check it out!

My other two classes, Teaching Second Language Writing and History of the English Language, are going well! We have a big research paper in HoE coming up, so I checked out half the library yesterday in anticipation. I'm writing about the fate of the Celtic languages in the UK... I think it'll be pretty interesting! Certainly it'll get me pumped up to visit Ireland next spring!

In the meantime, I'm working on my Andorra paperwork. I need to book my flight in the next week or so, which will make it seem a little more real!

Hard to believe that just a month from today, I'll be walking across the stage at graduation. Right now, it seems like there is an awful lot left to do!! Deep breath. It'll all get done, right? And in just five weeks, I'll be landing in Maryland and my Hawaii adventure will be over. Speaking of which... I have a few more Hawaii Bucket List things to post about, so keep an eye out for those!