I can’t seem to get online on my phone to myspace anymore, so I am commandeering this PC at UH Manoa, since I still have a valid student username and password! Heh heh!

So…I’m back in Hawaii and the feelings are very strange. Things are so different now that it’s hard to imagine living here again. Things look so dilapidated in the spots I have driven through so far. We got off on Kinau street, near my old stomping grounds when I lived on Young Street here in Honolulu. The dairy building that was on the corner of Beretania and Keeaumoku is gone. Just a dirty lot now. Weird. And there’s an entire Sam’s club and Wal Mart right on Keeaumoku…I never would have thought that would all fit there…and there it is, in spitting distance from Ala Moana! As if the intersection at Keeaumoku and Kapiolani needed more traffic, right?

This place really looks like it took a huge beating! But that’s just my initial reaction. I still have a few more days to let this all soak in and to see the other parts of Honolulu and O’ahu that have inproved somehow over the time.

So far we have driven to 7-11 and had manapua! And a diet coke, of course, and the requisite 7-11 tuna sandwich I used to get all the time in my college days before my 7 am Spanish class at UH Manoa. Still tastes the same! But it’s over 3 bucks for the small sandwich! AIYA!

We drive by where I was born, the old Kaiser hospital site, where the Hawaii Prince hotel now stands. That changed a long time ago when I was still here in Hawaii. They used the explosion of the building (demolition) as footage in a Magnum PI episode. I tell that to fricken everybody I know for some reason, heh heh. I even made a memory in that new hotel once. I was on a date with Marie Badger, to see a movie at the Marina Twins (that’s gone now too…it’s an Outback…sigh). We sat in the lobby of the hotel hanging out and waiting for the movie time, and we got waited on and she got an orange juice. I don’t remember if I got anything. What I do remember is that when I put down the 10 dollar bill to pay for it, she told me to just leave the money and go, not wait for change. In other words, tip pretty well. That was an interesting lesson. That, and the way she told me she HAD to have her own package of red vines at the movie! My kinda girl.

So then we drove to Ala Wai boat harbor and I pointed out where Shannon Phelps (another girl a dated long ago) used to live…and then Trish was all like..”uh, pretty cool to bring me all the way over to Hawaii for a second honeymoon just to show me where you spent time with all your girlfriends!” HA HA HA HA! She was messing with me, it’s all good.

Then we drove through Waikiki, Kapiolani park, and up and around Diamond Head, up Kapahulu, left on Waialae, and then onto H1 in morning traffic (lame) and right back off onto University Ave. We went up to the Institute of Religion, where we went to church as students. We met up with Sister Navas, who was there back in the day and we chatted for over an hour about all the changes that have occured and so on. She’s really nice.

Now we are on campus at University of Hawaii at Manoa, from whence I shall graduate this Sunday! I am waiting in a waiting area for students who need academic counseling. Jeanne Oka is my advisor and we dropped by to give her a gift and to say thank you. She stuck with me these past 9 to 10 years on making sure I could finish my degree and not just let is slide. I would not have been able to know what to do if it wasn’t for her, really.

I sent her an email and am hoping she comes out sometime soon. But for now, this room is very well air conditioned, and has internet access, so that’s just peachy with me!

More later, if I can get another chance to use a PC online!

Josh