Look - a - likes...

My whole life I have always had random people come up to me and always claim they know me. 100% of the time I have never known who they are. Half of the time they tell me who I remind them of or who I look like, but they never say if it's good or bad. The conversation always goes like this:

Random Stranger - "Hey! Have we met before? You look so familiar?"

Me - "Nope, I am pretty sure we have never met."

Random Stranger - "Are you sure we have never met? I swear I have seen you before."

Me - "Yup, we have never met. I just have one of those familiar faces. People think they know me all the time."


Random Stranger - "You look exactly like (fill in the blank).


Me - "Oh ok... cool, is that good?"


Random Stranger - "Yeah of course!"


But who is really ever going to say no?? So who knows if they are telling the truth.


Well, today I was walking into Walmart and the greeter said hello like always. I see the same greeter every time I go to Walmart. I live on an island, of course I am going to see the same people over and over again. I did my shopping and leave going through the same door as I came in. As I am leaving, I start to hand my receipt to the same greeter that said hello earlier and she does a double take and starts staring at me. Her eyes get huge and her jaw drops. Of course I turn around to look behind me because I think she is staring at something interesting. However, there is nothing there, so I continue to leave while she stares. She snaps her self out of it when I got closer and apologized. She said that I looked exactly like Britney Spears and she thought I was her. I didn't even know what to say. Was she kidding? Did she mean the crazy Britney Spears who shaves her head or Britney Spears the teen pop star? She didn't specify. Was that a compliment? We don't look anything a like.

Comparisons:
Anna - Brown Hair, Britney - Blonde Hair
Anna - Blue Eyes, Britney - Brown Eyes
Anna - Wearing shoes, Britney - Barefoot and pregnant walking in a gas station

I think there are some obvious differences.. Did she mean it in a good way or bad way? Why didn't I ask?

I did an uncomfortable laugh because I couldn't figure out how to respond and just walked out the door.
The whole way to my car I thought did she mean that in a good way or bad way.... I guess I will never know...

After The Rain...

Ok some of you have seen my apartment and others haven't. My apartment does not have central air therefore I do not have "real" windows. They are called jalousie windows (I googled it). They are the one with the slants that you have to roll open and then roll close that way the breeze can flow through your apartment. 

Anyways, I walked into my bathroom (where I leave my windows open) the other night and it smelled just like it smells right after it rains. I love that smell and was really excited but I didn't remember it ever raining earlier that night. I didn't think twice about it and just decided to go to bed. The next morning I got up to take a shower and as soon as I stepped in my bathroom, it smelled just like it does right after the rain again. I was pleased because I love that smell, but I thought that it was kind of odd because I could clearly see the sun shining through my window. But I do live on a tropical island and the rain comes and goes. I just figured it had rained before I got up and I never realized it. I continued on with my day and never thought about it again. After I came home from work I walked into my bathroom and sure enough it smelled like it had just rained. At this moment, I realized that this was weird. The windows are above my shower and about a head taller than me, so I can't really get that close to them, but I was going to try. I walked towards my windows and started to see if the smell was coming from there (that was the most logical idea since it did smell like it had been raining and because that was the only source in my bathroom that has access to the outside). I couldn't really tell a difference and just thought to myself this is so strange. However I wasn't going to complain because I enjoyed the smell and didn't really think the situation was that big of a deal, I mean it is only a smell. The next morning, same thing. This was no coincidence.  At that moment, I decided that I probably needed to investigate where this smell was coming from. I walked into my shower and started jumping up to my windows to see if I could smell it coming from there. But my bathroom is small and my whole bathroom smelled that way, so then I realized that the jumping was pointless and it got me nowhere. I then decided that I would go smell all my other windows to figure out if it had the after the rain smell radiating from it. Of course, none of them did. Next, I decided to stand in front of my bathroom door and walk slowly until I smelled it. Standing outside my bathroom door I couldn't smell it, however when I took one step in my bathroom, I smelled it. I took a step back, no smell. Step forward, after the rain smell again. You get the picture. I looked around my bathroom and didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. I was baffled. But as they say, "The show must go on" so I went to work. 

This continued for about one more day, until that next night when I was getting ready for bed. The after the rain smell still lingered as I washed my face and started to brush my teeth. As exciting as watching myself brush my teeth in the mirror is, I started looking at my shelf in my bathroom that has some pictures on it. Then something on my shelf caught my eye. A light bulb went off in my head when I read the words "After the Rain." I had recently purchased a Renuzit air freshener. It isn't the kind that you plug in the wall, it is the air freshener that just sits out. I always purchased the raspberry scent, but last time I was at walmart I decided I was going to try a new scent. Guess what the new scent is called... "After the Rain" So of course, sitting on the shelf was my newly purchased air freshener "After the Rain." I felt like the biggest idiot. I couldn't believe that I had forgotten that I bought the scent. I shook my head in disbelief at myself, but was pleased that my $1.55 purchase worked so well. 

Yeah... So...

Do you ever listen to yourself when you are talking and wonder, why did I just say that?

Growing up I had the bad habit of saying "umm..." in just about every sentence, before answering a question, or giving an answer. Needless to say my mom found this very annoying and corrected me often trying to break that habit. I have realized this week, after maturing over the years, that I have up graded from saying "umm" to "yeah... so..." in about every other sentence.

I was on the phone with one of my best friends tonight and I realized that I would finish every other sentence with "yeah... so..." After every time I would say it, I would get frustrated at myself because I found it to be very annoying.  However, I continued to say it and it's like I couldn't stop. Stupid habits. I wonder if anyone else realizes I say?

Yeah... So... have a good day!

The Gecko Saga Continues...

* Warning Stop Reading Now if you are in favor for the gecko*

Well well well, Just when I thought luck was on my side, the gecko decided to show back up. I will pick up from where I left off from my last email about the gecko. Last time I informed you the gecko was trapped in my nightstand. 

I just knew when I woke up the next morning that the gecko would be stuck to the sticky contact paper, because I knew that I had out smarted the gecko. The alarm went of the next morning and no gecko. I thought to myself, I am sure the gecko is just hiding behind the books, but I still wasn't going to touch it because David was flying in that day and I knew he would handle it. ( I mean what's the point of having a man in your life if they won't take care of unwelcome animals in your house?) I picked David up from the airport and informed him of the gecko that was trapped in my nightstand and he was more than willing to conquer the task, I think he was even excited. He asked how large it was (he was wondering if he was going to have to wrestle to the ground...oh david) and what color it was. I don't know if I stated that in my last email, but the gecko was a cream color... the same color as my floors...the same color as my walls.. AND the same color of my ceiling. Talk about finding a needle in a haystack. I told him that it was only about 4 to 5 inches long (so no need for wrestling), cream colored, and fast. He was confident in being able to catch it and my only request was for him to do it when I was at work or else I would be screaming and jumping around if I was there. After work I picked him up and he said that the gecko was NOT in the nightstand. He said that he searched everywhere in my apartment for the gecko and couldn't find it. He was confident that gecko was not in my apartment. I was still a little iffy because I felt like the gecko was hiding (I mean the sneaky sucker got out of my highly intelligent trap,at least I thought so, last time). I never saw the gecko the whole week David was here. I kept my air conditioning on at night to try to "freeze" the gecko out. I hadn't see the gecko all this week either, so I was in high spirits. I need to mention, that I am still a little iffy to open my night stand. I mean, I do open it to get my chap stick out every night, but I always bang on the nightstand before I open it. In my mind, banging on it will scare the gecko away from the opening (I know it sounds weird, but just go with it). 

This now brings us to today. You know when you are talking about someone and then they walk in and you say "Well speaking of the devil." I talked about the gecko twice today with Katie and Mamabill. Alas, I should have known better. I was out of milk and some other things and decided this was a great time to go do my shopping. After running my errands, I pulled into my apartment and decided that I could carry everything up in one load, two bags for each hand, while carrying a big purse, and holding my keeps to get into my gate and door. (Side note: A month or two after I moved here, I came home one night, unlocked my door as usual and saw a gecko scurry in my apartment when I opened the door. I screamed and closed the door and the gecko came back out once I closed the door. Because of this incident I was always check around my door to make sure that no geckos are chilling my door waiting to sneak in.) I walked to my door, did a quick glance because the bags were heavy, didn't see anything and I opened my door. Low and behold sitting on the wood frame in the small space between the door and the frame was that cream gecko. I froze not really sure what to do, but instinct/ adrenaline, or both kicked in and I was not going to let that gecko back into my house, I didn't know if it was trying to get in or if it was trying to get out, it didn't matter to me. Still holding everything in my hands and still grasping the door handle, I put my foot between the gecko and my apartment and kicked it behind me. I checked to make sure that it had been moved and as I turned my head I saw something go flying between the bars off the second floor balcony. I quickly entered my apartment, closed and locked the doors. I checked to make sure no gecko came in with me and then took a deep breathe as a sign for victory. Which I followed with the comment "Yeah.. and tell that to your friends too!" 

Score: Gecko 1, Anna 1

The Gecko Saga..

I came home tonight and found a GECKO IN MY APARTMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

So after I freaked out/hyperventilated/almost cried/talked to myself/tried to catch it with a cup/prayed it would leave/ I decided to eat because I was hungry. But I could not sit still knowing that it was in my apartment. I went to look for it again, trying to catch it with a HUGE cup and it went in between the books on the bottom portion of my night stand. I had NO idea what I was going to do. I was thinking if only I had duck tape I would tape this whole night stand. I thought about it and I remembered that I had shelving paper (you know the sticky clear contact paper you put on the bottom of your shelf). So I covered the ENTIRE opening of my night stand with the sticky side of the shelving paper facing the books! Then I taped down the edges with packaging tape. I also taped the drawer shut (I don't know why, it seemed like a good idea at the time). I have no idea what I am going to do now, but I am just going to wait. Thankfully, David will be here tomorrow and I plan on him taking care of it. This all happened within 5 minutes of my walking through the door. 

I googled how to get geckos out of your house and the best solution was to freeze them out...I live in Hawaii...when will it ever be freezing? My air conditioning has been on, but we will see how it goes.. Future apology to my parents- I am sorry for the high electricity bill for May, blame the gecko. I will keep you updated on the status on Anna vs the gecko..

(This is the first story that I ever wrote. This began the discussion of me starting a blog)

Part 2 of "It's not about Da money or Da crowns, it's about Da scholarships.." - Contestant # 4

     After the shrimp episode I had enough of the food and couldn't imagine ever eating again. I was ready for the rest of the night to begin. I was still uncertain of exactly what I was doing because no one really gave me directions. How hard are you supposed to judge 9 to 11 year olds? What if I accidently put the scores on the wrong score sheet? (with my luck that would happen) Do these parents know I don't know anything? I wouldn't be happy if the person judging my daughter didn't know anything. I decided I would just wait and ask my new found judge friend all these questions when moved to the judges table for the pageant.

      However, when we were moved I realized the word 'table' was incorrect and the word was really 'tables.' I was moved to my own table where me, myself, and I were going to have to figure out how to judge this pageant. I forgot to mention that there were only 5 girls in the pageant... with only a mere 400 people there to watch!! I was sitting so close to the family members that I could literally hear them whisper...a.k.a they can see and read everything I am writing. The pressure was on. If you know me I do not handle pressure well. Let me clarify - when I say I don't handle pressure well, I mean I become frantic. I was already feeling self conscious because I felt like I looked 40 years old with my sleeveless long floral print dress, being the tallest person in the room, people were eating shrimp heads, I had only watched one full pageant in my whole life, a photographer that wouldn't stop taking pictures of us, and now parents were close enough to read my score /comments... who wouldn't be frantic? 

      Before the pageant one judge told me that things moved pretty fast, in other words stay on top of things. Did I mention I am ADD? (Well...self-diagnosed that is) The announcer, 5 little girls moving around, loud music playing, people speaking a language I didn't understand, while simultaneously trying to concentrate to write comments/score was going to be a struggle for this self-diagnosed ADD judge.            

     The pageant started and they began with a traditional Filipino dance. The clothing they wore was Filipino, but the clothing reminded me a lot of the Hispanic Culture clothing. I wish I could have taken pictures, but I wasn't allowed because I was a judge. They were very cute and you could tell they were as nervous as could be. I thought, there is no way I can give these little girls low scores. I've seen the TLC show 'Toddlers and Tiaras', I saw how low scores devastated them. The girls finished their dance and went to go change into their play wear. While they were getting ready for the next portion, they had an act prepared to keep the audience entertained. They accomplished their goal. A 40 year old Filipino man walked on stage and dedicated his song performance to everyone under 16. The music started and I thought surely this is a mistake.. he isn't going to be singing this song? Sure enough the 40 year old man starting singing The Climb by Miley Cyrus. This was the highlight of my evening.  Let me repeat: a 40 year old man wearing a see-through shirt was singing Miley Cyrus....enough said. 

    The pageant continued with play wear, formal wear, question, and talent. By the way, is lip-singing really a talent? I find this very hard to believe. Any ways, formal wear was very interesting. I do not even know where people would get dresses like that. Next the contestants had to come out and introduce themselves. They all said various things, but my favorite was contestant #4. She said her name, school, hobbies, and finished her introduction with,"It's not about Da money or Da crowns, it's about Da scholarships." Nothing else was out of the ordinary, the little girl that over half the crowd was there to see ended up winning. This was definitely an experience to remember.  Not that I will ever be asked to judge again because who in their right mind would ask me to judge in the first place. But if I ever go, watch, or judge another pageant I will always compare it to Little Miss Philippine Hawaii and hope they don't serve shrimp. 

"It's not about Da money or Da crowns, it's about Da scholarships.." - Contestant # 4

     As stated in a previous post I do not really know anything about beauty pageants. I really didn't know what to expect. The only thing I thought going into this was that it was going to be a cultural experience. I thought it might be like the TLC show Toddlers and Tiara's except with teenagers. There are so many stories from this that I do not even know where to begin...

     Little Miss Philippine Hawaii was held at a chinese restaurant. Do people normally hold beauty pageants at restaurants? My guess would be no, but this restaurant was extremely large so I guess it would fit the bill. I also found it odd that a Filipino pageant wasn't held at a Filipino restaurant, but I am not complaining because I can at least recognize chinese food or I thought I could. As my assumptions were correct, when I first arrived I was the only non Filipino person there. However, I was excited to see how other people live from a completely different culture than my own. While standing in line to enter, I realized I was the tallest person there. I was at least a head above everyone else. I wish someone would have been there to take a picture. Just imagine seeing a group of people standing in line against a wall and everyone is the same height and same nationality expect the tall Caucasian girl in the center and she is the only person not speaking Filipino. I literally had no idea what anyone was saying around me. I couldn't understand one word. I began to worry that I wouldn't be able to understand anything for the rest of the night.

     Once I entered they gave me a beautiful lei and sat me down at the judges table for dinner. I befriend another judge who thankfully gave me tips and pointers to what I need to do with the judging. She had only judged one other pageant, which calmed my nerves to realize that I wasn't the only newbie. (Side note: This judge is the Dean of Students at another college here. While explaining that her main job was to deal with discipline when it comes to students getting into trouble by their RA's and RD's, I thought she would have hated my friends and I at college. I kinda of felt sorry for her because she said her job was hard, but then I remembered our RA's and RD's and didn't feel that bad anymore.) The other judge owned her own dance studio and was very involved in the pageant world.

     They started out with dinner which was served family style. Everything was normally until the shrimp came along. I have never enjoyed seafood. I don't like the texture of it, everything is always mushy or slimy. I also don't like that you have to work to get your food. Call my prissy all you want, but I don't want to have to crack, peal, de-leg, de-claw, or take an outer layer shell off my food in order eat it. I think food should be served ready to eat with no extra work. Plus I don't like my fingers being covered with food, like I said, call me prissy all you want but I don't care because it won't change my opinion.*Warning: If you don't have a strong stomach don't read anymore of today's post - a.k.a - my sister* Anyways, the shrimp was served whole. By whole I mean, if it hadn't been cooked it would still have all of it parts in order to continue to be living. The shrimp plate was set down and 100 little black eyes were staring at me.  I had a problem with this, but the judge, that owned her own dance studio, had a bigger problem with it than me. She had brought her boyfriend and he started to make jokes about the eyes on the shrimp.
Her boyfriend picks up shrimp and faces the eyes in front of his girlfriend and the following conversation took place:

Boyfriend - "Don't I look good, you can eat me eyes and all!"


Girlfriend - "Put that down, you are going to make me sick, you can't eat the eyes."


Filipino woman #1 - "No you can eat the eyes! They have been cooked, they will be all mushy now. You won't be able to taste them now."


Me - don't gag, don't gag, don't gag. I repeated this to myself several times...

Filipino woman #2 - "You can eat the whole shrimp because it's been fried! You can eat da head, da shell, da legs, and all. It will be nice and crunchy!"  (Then proceeds to bite the WHOLE shrimp, head first including eyes, shell, and legs)

Me - think happy thoughts, don't gag, think happy thoughts, don't gag, think happy thoughts, don't gag...


"It's not about Da money or Da crowns, it's about Da scholarships" Part 2 will be continued tomorrow... hope you all enjoy your lunch today :)

When did they get wings?

           When I originally moved into my apartment complex I lived on the top floor. They had just changed the building from a hotel to an apartment, so this was a brand new clean room. Except it had one problem: it was extremely hot! For a girl that was use to the joys of air conditioning, moving into an apartment building that had no central air conditioning was a crude joke. However, my generous landlords offered me an apartment on a lower floor because it would be cooler. They mentioned that the tenant would be moving out in two weeks and I could have her apartment by then.
           Within those two weeks I had never perspired so much in my life. When my landlords handed me the keys to my new apartment I was more than ready to start moving my things in. However, this apartment had been lived in before and it was evident. As I started to clean my new apartment, every time I would move a piece of furniture I kept finding these small round black things everywhere. I found them behind the beds, behind the dresser, in the cabinets, and behind the toilet. I had no idea what they were. As I looked closer on the round black things, it had the words "combat" on the top. Since I never owned my own place before and never really did any house repairs before I didn't know what these were. I remember calling my parents and explaining to them how I found all these little black round things everywhere. They proceeded to explain to me how these were to kill roaches.
          I would have been fine if I had found one or two of these combat roach killers, but everywhere I looked I kept finding more. I began to wish that I was back sitting in my first apartment perspiring my life away. However, I had already moved all of my extremely heavy luggage down the steps and there was no way I was taking it back up the steps, so this was the apartment that I was going to live in. By the way, my apartment complex doesn't have an elevator either. No central AC, no elevator,  and no dishwasher in my apartment building... How much more "roughing it" could it get or could I take? Anyways, I figured the tenant before me must have kept the apartment dirty which I wasn't going to do, so I figured I wouldn't have a roach problem. I swept all of the combat circles up and went on my merry way. I mean how many roaches could survive with all of those combat roach killer things laying around?
         I didn't see any roaches for a long time and I was very pleased with myself. When I came back from Christmas I was unpacking my bags and saw a roach. I hadn't been there in a long time and there was no food laying around, so where in the world did this roach come from? I killed it and said to myself, "I am not having roaches in here, this stops today." I went to walmart and you can guess what I purchased: Combat roach killer things. (I still don't know the exact name for them) I never saw another roach again. I figured the combat was working or that roach was just a wonderer and was the only one there.
         7 months had passed since I had seen a roach and I was cleaning my apartment because one of my friends, Laura, was coming to visit me. I didn't want to her to think my apartment was infested with roaches when she showed up and it would have been hard to believe with the combat everywhere. Since I hadn't seen a roach in months, I decided to sweep up all of the combat things I had behind some furniture. The visit with Laura went fine and there were no signs of any roaches, but I was expecting any either, so there was nothing out of the ordinary for about 2 weeks. That is, until last night.
         Being from the South I was used to seeing roaches. They don't scare me. When you see a roach, you get a shoe and kill it. Simple problem, simple solution. Roaches go away during the winter months in the South because they don't enjoy the cold. However, living on an island where there is sun 365 days  a year, this is a roaches play ground. Seriously, I have never seen so many roaches in my whole life until I moved to an island. Anyways, I was brushing my teeth last night when I saw something out of the corner of my eye scurry across the wall. It startled me because you never expect to see something crawl across your wall. It ended up be a roach. I thought "Oh it's just a roach, I need to go get a shoe." I went to grab my flip flop to go kill it. I swung my flip flop against the wall where the roach was. However, when I swung my flip flop something flew to the toilet. I move my flip flop and the roach was gone. I was in shock.. was that the roach that flew to the toilet?? I thought, "When did they get wings?" I put the toilet lid down to kill the roach, I swung again and the roach disappeared. This sucker was fast. I slowly moved stuff off the top of my toilet and swung again. I not only hit the roach, but I also hit my basket full of hair rubber-bands and bobby pins. Things went flying everywhere. Simultaneously, the roach went flying to the floor, where it would be defeated, while I was being showered in hair rubber bands and bobby pins. I was out of breath when it was all done and over with.. I have never met a roach that was so fast. Needless to say, I will be making a stop at walmart and I am sure you know what I will be buying... combat

3 inches short..

 "It's shorter by 3 inches! A dress Especially Proportioned for the Shorter Woman." - the tag on my formal Hawaiian dress that I had to buy to judge the beauty pageant.

There is only one problem...it's 3 inches short.

I am not a tall person, but I am not short either. However, EVERY dress had the "its 3 inches shorter" tag on it. As soon as I stepped into the dress section my first reaction was, "Is it to late to call and cancel.. I don't know if I can wear this.."

   

I just stared at the clothing racks trying to find something that I remotely liked. I shortly gave up on that idea and just started grabbing dresses with colors that I liked. As I was trying these dresses on it hit me that I was probably going to be the tallest person there. (Hence the phrase on my dress tag and the fact that most Filipino and Hawaiian women are short) 

Basically, I will be the only non Filipino there with her ankles showing because her dress is 3 inches to short... 

My Tutu..

My tutu (means grandmother in Hawaiian) has read the whole Bible more times than anyone else I know. She ends every card that she sends with "May God Bless You" and ends every phone call with "Don't do anything I wouldn't do." She never meets a stranger and will welcome anyone into her house, that is of course after they have washed their hands. She loves to have everything clean and I swear she keeps the Bounty paper towel company in business with how many rolls she goes through in a week. However, my grandmother is infamous for one thing in particular.

                      "Her children grew up thinking that all food tasted better burnt"

I found this magnet the other day and couldn't resist not buying it for my grandmother (It is in the mail being sent to her as you read this). Don't get me wrong, my grandmother is a good cook. However, when it comes to cooking anything in the oven she tends to cook it longer than it necessarily needs to be cooked... a.k.a - burnt. She doesn't believe in pre-heating her oven. After much grief from her grandchildren and only being able to eat the top part of the rolls because the other half was burnt to the pan, she will now pre-heat her oven. I can distinctly remember when I was growing up how my younger cousin and I would drop her rolls on the table and would wait to hear a big thud. 

As I was taking pictures of this magnet and chuckling to myself because I was imagining my grandmothers reaction for when she saw this magnet, karma decided to strike. I was cooking dinner at the same time while taking pictures and forgot that I had rolls in the oven... I burnt them. Looks like the apple doesn't fall to far from the tree...

Beach Barbie...

        Beach Barbie... that is exactly what I thought when I first met Laura almost 5 years ago. I met her on move in day my freshman year of college. She is apart of some of my very first and fond memories of college. Most people say that you make friends your freshmen year of college and then lose touch as you meet new people. Obviously, we beat the odds. In those first few moments I would have never guessed that she would still be one of my best friends 5 years later. (Along with our 10 other best girl friends - 12 total.. but I will save that for another post)
       We have seen each other through relationships, horrible caf food, dress malfunctions at formals, classes that make you want to shoot yourself, being constantly threatened to be written up for being to loud by the RA and RD but never were because they were scared of us (correction: scared of Laura because she stood up to them while the rest of us would hide in the closest or under the beds), and some of the best years of our lives.
       When Laura told me that her and her family would be visiting in July, I was more than excited! They visited a few other islands and mine was their last stop. I always get really excited when people come visit me. Every time someone comes and visits me I always feel I might cry when I first see them, but I hadn't yet. Well.. I hadn't until I saw Laura.  I hadn't seen her since New Year's Eve, 7 months ago. 7 months is the longest amount of time we had spent apart in 4 years. When Laura and I first saw each other we both started crying because we were so happy to see one another. I can't put into words how close our group of girl friends are, but it feels like you are coming home to family when we are together. (I have no idea if that makes sense to anyone else but me... oh well) We picked up right where we had left off and it felt like the 7 months never existed.

          Anyways, Laura and I went all over the island. Seriously... She saw every coast that I was able to show her. We got to swim with sea turtles. Literally, we were so close I thought one was going to bite Laura's finger. We went to Pearl Harbor, searched for Dog the Bounty Hunter, and saw the Black Pearl ship. (They are filming the next movie out here) I introduced her my new obsession, The Pioneer Woman. You can view her blog here. Basically, we were beach bums that had in-depth discussions, laughed still our stomachs hurt, and had the best time. There are so many stories that I could write, but they probably wouldn't funny to anyone but us. Needless to say, I didn't want her to go back. Here are a few pictures of her trip here. I am convincing her to come back again!! Love you Laura

Last Night here

      

Just Call Me Queen Anna...

Beauty Pageants...

I have never been one to watch or be apart of any type of beauty pageant. Beauty pageants were not popular where I grew up and no one really participated in them. I never watched the Miss America pageant and even to this day I still couldn't tell you when it comes on. I really thought beauty pageants were a thing of the past and didn't know anyone that participated in them... that is until I went to college. I went to college in a different state than I grew up in and I was in shock at how many pageants were held there. Everywhere I went people had the big pageant hair and there were dress shops everywhere you looked. Did you know you can rent dresses?? Yeah.. I didn't know either until I was looking for a formal dress my freshman year of college and the owner of the dress shop told me I couldn't buy a dress. Did you also know there is a difference between a pageant dress and a formal dress?? Yeah.. I didn't know that either until the owner took the dress out of my hand and told me, "That is a pageant dress and you can't wear that to a formal." In my opinion, I was paying money for the dress so I didn't really see a difference in what I was wearing it for. Needless to no money was spent from me in that store.

This brings me to today. I was at work and got a phone call from a gentleman that works for The Philippine Cultural  Foundation. He introduced himself and told me that they were a non profit organization and had a fundraiser coming up. I was assuming he was going to ask some of the youth from my program to appear at his event. (I am the youth services coordinator and plan all of our events) Well you know where assuming gets you... Anyways he continued his conversation and explained that they were having a beauty pageant coming up in the next couple of days. At this point, I was 100% sure that I was going to say "no" to whatever he asked me because there would be no reason why my youth would be involved in this. He continued to tell me this story how two of the judges knew some of the girls that were in the pageant ( I was having a hard time following the conversation because I couldn't figure out what he was going to ask me) and that they needed new judges. My response, "Oookaaayyy" He then proceeded to tell me that they would be honored to have me as a judge at the beauty pageant, to which I responded with "Wait... What?" I am not sure he heard me because he continued on with his conversation telling me that "you" will have to judge them on talent (I honestly don't remember what else  he said after talent because I was still concentrating on the fact that he said the word "you", implying me, a.k.a Anna would be "judging") I didn't remember saying yes to this... I am pretty sure the word "yes" would never come out of my mouth when put in the same sentence as the words "beauty pageant." Don't get me wrong.. there is nothing wrong with beauty pageants, I am just not interested in things like that. The next thing I know, I am giving him my email address while he is explaining how I need to send a picture of myself and a short bio.

How did I get to this point?

I received the email and the attire for the event is: Filipino/Business or Formal Hawaiian...
I have no idea what type of clothing that is.. I don't even know how I got to the point where I would have to worry about what type of clothing that is.

Do they know I don't know anything about pageants? They never asked me if I had experience..

Better question: Do they know I am not Filipino??

Oh goodness...

The Noise...

I will be updating my blog with stories that I have written through out the year. Enjoy!

It was either late September or early October, about a month or two after I moved to Hawaii. I was living an extremely demanding lifestyle of going to the beach everyday, sleeping in late, and doing my homework to turn in at the end of the week. Living in Hawaii has it perks, but it also has its disadvantages; for instance not living in the 21st century. For example, no dishwasher, no central air conditioning, a 1970's refrigerator, and no real windows. From a girl that enjoyed living a 21st century lifestyle, I was suddenly thrown into this caveman century and trying to figure out how everything worked. I was still trying to figure out the best way to hand wash dishes without getting soap and hot water all over myself, my walls, counters, and floors. (There are several ways to hand wash a dish, if you didn't know..) I was still figuring out how to use a coin operated clothes washer and dryer, they can be tricky. Then trying to decide if I should pay the extra $1.25 to dry my towels again, because the dryer isn't up to par and my towels would still come out wet. Even though I had a plethora of dimes and nickels, unfortunately the coin operated dryer wasn't like a vending machine and I could only use quarters, which I was quickly running low on. I decided to concede to this caveman lifestyle and use a dryer rack( the apartment came with one) to dry my towels. I kept the dryer rack on my lanai (back porch) and would let my towels air dry. 

Since I didn't have a job at the time, I needed to go observe in the schools for one of my classes. Even though I had a demanding lifestyle at the time, I wasn't accustomed to waking up early. Side note: You know when you were growing up and you had a curfew. Your parents would always say, "Nothing good happens after 12, so there is no need to be out that late." (Of course, I don't remember my parents saying this to me, since I was such a responsibly and trustworthy teenager.) I feel like this saying could be equivalent to morning hours; "Nothing good happens before 9 a.m., so there is no reason to have to wake up so early." Waking up at 6am.. how does this benefit anyone? You are still tired and delirious until 9 am, so why not just start the day at 9am? I do not know what individual in history decided that a working day should begin before 9am, but I think society should really rethink working hours. Anyways, back to the story. I had to be at the school at 7:30, which meant waking up at 6am. Since my usual days consisted waking myself up at 10 am or later, 6am was going to be a struggle. 

My alarm went off at 6am, which I immediately pushed snooze, wishing for more sleep until the alarm went off again. However, having the caring mom that I have, she called to make sure that I was awake. Once she calls, you might as well wake up because she will call in incessantly if she thinks you might fall back asleep. ( However, I am not complaining. Because of her I have made it to several meetings and to work on time due to her calling system.) So I decided to get out of bed because I didn't want to be late. I opened my blinds to let the blinding light into my room to make sure that I stayed awake. Normally, I would turn the TV on too, for some noise to wake me up, but this morning I was to delirious to think, so I left it off. I walked into my bathroom to shower and realized I had no towels and couldn't remember if they were all dirty or clean, because I am delirious this early in the morning.  Then I remembered that they were on my lanai, so I opened my back door threw a towel over my right shoulder and started to walk to the shower. As I was walking to my bathroom I was right in front of my refrigerator and then all of a sudden I heard something. Being delirious, I couldn't make out what the noise was. I turned around and walked to see if the noise was coming from the TV, but the TV was off and the noise had stopped. I thought I might have just been hearing things because I was so tired. I wasn't really concerned with the noise, so I turned back around to walk to the bathroom. I walked in front of the refrigerator again and all of a sudden I heard the noise again. I concentrated really hard and realized that it was light soft music. I turned around to go look at my cell phone, even though I knew that it wasn't my ringtone, and all of sudden the music stopped again. I turned back around towards the bathroom and sure enough the music started again when I was by the refrigerator. I stood there trying to figure out what was going on. I then proceeded to look on top of my refrigerator for a cell phone. I didn't know whose cell phone it would be since no one else had been in my apartment. I then thought that maybe it was my new neighbors cell phone that I could hear through the wall. I thought for a second and realized it couldn't be that because I couldn't hear anything else my neighbors did through the walls, so why would I be able to hear a cell phone. I turned around towards the TV again and the music stopped. I turned back around towards the bathroom and it started. I started to think that I was going crazy, but I was going to figure this out. Still facing the bathroom, I took a step backwards and the music stopped. I then took a step forward and the music started again. Took a step back, no music. Took a step forward, music. At this point in time, I really thought I was going crazy. I realized that the music would start every time I took a step forward by the refrigerator. I figured I might be stepping on something, so I looked down under my foot but nothing was there. However, I realized where the music was coming from. 

Since I had been living in Hawaii, I had several sweet cards sent to me. I love getting mail and cards, so I decided to put my cards on display. I have pictures on top of my refrigerator door and I decided to put the cards on the bottom of my refrigerator door. If you know anything about my sister, you know she loves to buy cute and nice music cards. I suddenly realized that towel that I had innocently draped over my right shoulder was hitting the music card my sister had sent me. Every time I took a step forward the edge of the towel would open the card and would make the music start. Then every time I turned around to look behind me or take a step back the card would close and the music would stop. I was relieved that I wasn't going crazy and then continued on with my day. 

Welcome

Welcome to my blog!

I decided to cave in and begin a blog to keep my family and friends updated on my life. I do not think my life it is necessarily interesting, but somehow random things always happen to me. Hopefully you will enjoy these stories and if not, just pretend you do!