About the journey....!

So it’s January again (2012 edition) and I’m back once more to tell you all about my annual pilgrimage back home to see family and friends.  

My high school class met up at held an unofficial “ten-year reunion” at Kochi’s this year and while I didn’t go (it was scheduled for a few days before I went back), I got to hear from a few of my friends who did what everyone’s been up to. 

LONG STORY SHORT - A lot of us are still in school (as teachers or students). 

Hearing about everyone this year showed me how “grown-up” we’re all becoming; several of my friends have already bought their own houses.  It makes me feel like I should start looking into that too.  But I can’t picture myself living in Hawaii (or LA) long enough to do something like that yet. 

It’s like that movie, “Big Fish,” where the young Edward Bloom, played by Ewan McGregor, finds the perfect town of Spectre.  It’s a wonderful town where the grass is always green, you never need to wear shoes, and everyone is really relaxed and happy all the time.  

And while everybody likes him and wants him to stay in Spectre, he says he can’t because he “arrived there too soon.”  To him, it was a place you “end up at, not pass through” and if he stayed there for a while, he knew he’d never leave. 

That’s how I feel – if I ever move back to Hawaii, I know it’ll be for good, so I don’t want to until I’ve had my fill of the rest of the world. 

PS – Big Fish is a good movie; if you haven’t seen it yet, I suggest you do.  Don’t worry, I haven’t spoiled the plot for you. 

OTHER THINGS I LEARNED IN HAWAII THIS YEAR: 

• There’s a secret ingredient to Zippy’s Chili; it’s either mayonnaise or peanut butter. 
• Hawaii has way too many geckos. 
• Television is my Kryptonite; it makes me lazy and gives me an amazingly short attention span
• Some of my friends from high school are now amazingly racist against Filipinos. 
• Generally speaking, people in Hawaii are short.  I’m only 5 ft, 6 and I felt tall there. 

"Stay in School, kids"

HEY KIDS - STAY IN SCHOOL

....OR WIND UP LOOKING LIKE A MORON ON THE INTERNET. 



When Friends Meet Friends

So here’s something I noticed a while ago that I noticed again (re-noticed?) when I went back home for the Holidays….!

I have several different groups of friends that don’t like each other.

“I don’t know why you hang out with them.”
“Really? You still keep in touch with him?”
“I don’t care for [that person] Maybe later.”

So when I went back home, I found myself hanging out with everyone in shifts.

It seems very fitting to me that this happened with the people that I knew from high school because this all seems very “high school” to me. (All those cliques, etc.)

The MPSA theatre crowd still hang only with each other
High school grudges still linger (fester?) from when we were sixteen
Old bf/gfs still don’t want to see each other
And some old classmates still think of themselves as “too cool” for the rest of the school.

This was a common occurrence whenever a group of my friends met with another ~ they immediately dislike each other. There were all these dividing factors amongst everyone:

IB honors vs. AP Honors
Chemistry vs. Physics
Band vs. Theatre vs. Yearbook vs. Visual Arts

Even the friends I made during boy scouts couldn’t get along with my friends from school….and it strikes me as weird how some things never change.

I’m sure I’m guilty of this too ~ my ten year high school reunion is coming up next year and I’m pretty sure I’m not going to go. There are a ton of people from school that I just don’t really care to keep up with and I’m not that curious about everyone else. So why bother, amIrite?

But if one of those people were to call me up and ask to hang out, I wouldn’t say no.

I gotta find out how they got my number, don’t I?

P.S. - did you see my New years resolution list? I hope by having one written down in a place where I can see it constantly, I'll work harder to accomplish all that.