Fall 2014 Recap 6: The Final One!

So by now, you're probably sick of reading about my fall semester, and we're starting the spring semester! Time flies, doesn't it? Here is my very LAST post about Fall 2014, I promise. Anyway, I ran out of themes for my posts, so here is an assortment of photos of the random things I did this semester.

I saw the cast of Hawaii Five-0!!!! They were filming right here on Fort Street Mall. I walked out of class and BAM - celebrities. Pretty cool! That was one of my goals for my time here.

 I ate my first fresh coconut! We have coconut trees in our yard, and you have to cut the coconuts down or they can actually be very dangerous! They're huge - that box is really big!

I survived a "hurricane." Everyone FREAKED OUT and bought all the food & water on the island. It all amounted to a rainy, windy day off. The boys decided that buying enough pizza to feed the entire army was the best (and most economically practical) way to prepare for a hurricane. We had pizza for days!

 I went to a luau and ate delicious food. So much food. We went to the luau at the Hale Koa Hotel in Waikiki. "Hale Koa" means "house of the warrior" in Hawaiian. It's the military hotel here.

My pictures are awful but the luau was SO. COOL.They performed dances from all over the Polynesian world. I was amazed, honestly. It was so much fun.

We went to the luau for my 24th birthday. Not a bad way to ring in a new year of life! Obviously, for a luau, we had to wear our best Aloha gear!

We had dinner at the Oceanarium, which is this restaurant/aquarium where you get to eat with the fish! While eating... fish... They also have a mermaid! Our waiter was from Mexico and we became best friends once I told him I spoke Spanish. 

I gave my first "AL Talk." Applied Linguistics (AL) Talks are professional development events from the department. They happen every other Friday. Sometimes professors give them, sometimes guests give them, and sometimes students give them. I got to give this one, along with 2 of my classmates, about the language teaching jobs we had this summer.

I rescued a cat! Jack here was a neighborhood stray who was always very friendly. One day I came home to find him limping. We took him to the vet and got him fixed up, and it turned out he had a microchip. His mama was tracked down and we discovered that Jack had been missing for almost TWO YEARS (pretty crazy for a 3 year old cat!). His mama had moved to Virginia in that time. She was so grateful he was found, and he flew home to her that weekend. After so long, they got their happy reunion just in time for a Christmas - how's that for a miracle?