brutal violence against Christians in india

details in one of my favorite blogs

pray for them if you're so inclined.


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first day of instruction...

and so it starts...

university of hawaii, as well as other colleges on the semester system around the area started their first day of instruction.

all my classes are on tue, wed, and thu, so i didn't go to class;

however, i did attend the lecture of the pre-calculus class of the professor i will be assisting, and in addition, i conducted one of my two sections of the follow up lectures;

usually, there are about 20 students in a section, but
this class was oddly few in numbers, namely, 8 students.

the class was completely manageable, and i believe it went pretty well;
praise/thank God with me, if you're so inclined.



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trip to north shore

this is another one of those series of pics that i have had lacking motivation to sort and post.

as the title indicates, this is the trip to north shore:

the first leg of the trip there was to the kualoa regional park:


the road on the way reminded me of the roads in hokkaido japan with the green mountains and hills...










the kualoa regional park has one feature, which is the mokolii island,
also known as the china man's hat:






the next leg of the trip is to the crouching lion inn:



there is a shape of a crouching lion in the rock formation;
can you see it?
if not, see the next picture for the answer...




answer:




note immaculate upkeep of the sign...




here is a different angle of the thing.






next destination was laie point,
mainly known for the small islet kukuihoolua:




below is a picture of the kukuihoolua islet:




a close up, at the sacrifice of resolution...




details, if you're interested...





here is a picture of the waimea bay, taken about here
the north shore surf contests are held in the winter when the waves get huge





we had burgers at kua aina




the fame of its location was apparent
by the number of tourists taking photos of the place (including myself)





we had dessert at matsumoto shaved ice,
another tourist attraction:




i ordered the flavor called "matsumoto's" (with ice cream on bottom)
featured on the lower left on the menu
(lemon, pineapple, coconut)




you wait here...




it looks like this:




the ice cream on the bottom is totally the way to go;
highly recommended, if you ever get shaved ice.

however, according to my tour guide,
there are better shaved ice in the honolulu area with softer ice.
if/when i go, i'll try to post about it.




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snorkling...

we went in the water around here

this happened a couple of weeks ago,
but my motivation was lacking...

the pictures were taken by travis
(roommate keanu's best friend from the md)


the quality is not so good, but you can get an idea of what's going on

here we go:


tropical yellow and black fish




fish that's camouflaged...




patterned fish




big coral with sunlight




grey fish with florescent orange tail




grey fish with blue and purple trimmings




black fish with orange and white




me with snorkle on
(the color is off because it's in "water mode" whatever that is...)




spikey sea creatures and tiny little striped fish





it was good times.
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my office at the university

after getting my tb clearance, i got my office keys at the department.

let me give you a tour...


this is the entrance.


you can see the computer and the phone that comes standard with every room. (they use linux in their computers- for those of you that are computer challenged, it's neither a pc, nor a mac)

the painted solid brick wall and the high windows really gives it that county facilities feel that makes you long for home...the chalk board adds that extra touch of torture, if you hated being a student.

you can see my little high-powered fan on the floor,
which is always turned on.




turning to the right from the entrance:



the mini-fridge belonged to peter (cf.prev. entry),
who moved back to illinois.

the buzz lightyear figure on the bookshelf is supposedly an article of legacy that's been passed down, so it's just chilling there...



for the sake of completion, if you were to further turn right twice,
you would see something like the following:








it's pretty plain now, but with all my books,
it's sure to have that reeeeally, really, super-duper ultra smart guy feel
that'll have all the party girls doing a double take, rushing up in this place to chillax... that will be sahweeeeet!


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pictures of the beeea(*)ch!

a couple of people wanted to see the beach...

ask an ye shall receive...







these were taken at the ala moana beach.



next to it is ala wai boat harbor, where you can park your boat, if you're into that sort of thing...



the thing i found interesting is that there isn't any salty sea water smell around the beach and around the harbor... i guess it's a good thing...


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along beretania street...

in order to get all signed up at school, they required a tuberculosis testing. since i didn't have my records handy, the test required me to get an x-ray.

the x-ray facilities isn't located on campus, and it required me to take the bus there.

a couple of days later, i needed to go back to the facility to pick up the documents. since the bus ride took forever, i decided to ride my bike there.


it was my longest bike ride thus far in hawaii. (9+ miles round trip)

along the way was the state captital building
(yes, it could have been taken better...)




a close up of the entrance...




there's an eternal fire type of thing across the street from the building...



the inscription below:





there was a japanese bakery where i got breakfast:



i got a curry donut, corn and bacon roll, and melon pan:



it was ok, but not spectacular; i prolly won't make any effort in going back...


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