Friday, December 02, 2005

Aloha!

I'm in Hawaii!! And while I definitely used two exclamation points in that first sentence, think of them as weary, exhausted exclamation points.
I am SO tired after my first day of work (which was not even a full day because it's only 1:30 here) which I guess means that I have to do some more work after this.
Anyway. This place is amazing. It's definitely a farm, but also so tropical that it's a really interesting mix. I hope I'll be able to post some pictures soon, but as I don't see any place on this computer to plug my camera in, I'm not sure yet.

I don't really know where to start, so this is going to be pretty ramble-y... the pace is so different here, everything just flows in such a different way. In NYC, I always feel like such a Californian, but being here makes me feel like a New Yorker. We wake up really early, usually with the sunrise (about 6) and sort of do our own thing until breakfast at 8:30. Lunch is on our own, and dinner is at 6:30. The rest of the time you work for about our hours a day, however you want to break it up, and do your own thing.

This morning I woke up at about 6:30, got up, got dressed, made my bed and read for a little while. Then I went to breakfast and we had a meeting detailing what we'd be doing for the next week. I'm going to be pulling weeds and making compost. I pulled weeds for so long today already that I can't even move. I want to take a picture of myself doing it (especially for Iesha); I look crazy. I was having such a hard time with them but Lew told me to commune with them and explain what I was doing so that they would let go of the ground. And I swear to god, it got a lot easier after that. The really stubborn ones need a lot of talking to, but then they relent.

Oh, the other people here are: Brian, who taught me how to ride a bike yesterday (I'm a bruised-up bitten-up mess) and Liu Zhi, who is a Katrina survivor and only speaks Chinese. He's learning though.

There's also this Chinese temple here where you can do yoga or meditate or whatever you want and I had a great yoga session there last night. I don't know that this body will allow that again tonight, sheesh.

There are so many bugs and geckos and birds and butterflies and frogs, it blows this city girl's mind. I'm keeping it cool, though. No one even suspects my fear. In fact, I've ad to change alot already to deal with this plae, and I mean that in the bst possible way. I'm learning to let go of time and schedules, goals and deadlines. It's all new...

Tomorrow Brian and I are getting up early to join friends of Lew and Karin's to go to Volcano National Park and see the active volcano. We're going to sleep there and come back on Sunday. I can't wait!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I'm not going to pull a DB and crack some jokes about you talking to the weeds. I'm a little concerned, but as long as you don't think they're talking back, I'll let it slide.

I'm glad you're learning to ride a bike.