If I could do it all over again...

I often have little moments of regret.  Maybe not 'regret' in the purest sense, but more in the "here's what I would do differently if I could start over again" sense.  So on this day, for no specific reason (even though this very day, the sixth of June, has rightfully earned reasons for me to want to look back and reassess), I present a list of things I would do differently if I had to start the whole Hawaii thing from scratch.

• Don't ship all of my books to Hawaii.  I mean, I would have taken some books (how could I survive without a copy of East of Eden at my side?), but not all of my enormous heavy ones.  I thought, "oh, I'll need all these textbooks!" but I didn't realize that the lab would include a giant library that would have all of the same books and I wouldn't need to touch the ones in my personal library.  I could have stored them and saved the hassle of shipping them back and forth.
• Live somewhere different.  Like in my current building which is so much more awesome than my old building.  Maybe this one couldn't have been helped, as I moved out here the weekend before starting my job and I just took the first place that was offered me.
• Buy a pedometer.  I walked so freaking much this year; it would have been nice to keep track of exactly how much.  I'll walk a lot in Boston, though, so maybe I'll get one there.
• Become friends with this awesome couple in my branch sooner.  Normally I don't hang out with couples because most couples are lame, but then quite recently I spent time with these two, both separately and together, and I was like, why haven't I been hanging out with you guys this whole time?  They're really cool, and, unlike 99% of people in Hawaii, they like some of the same music that I do!
• Go kayaking earlier, because I like kayaking!  Actually, I'm okay with just going kayaking the one time.  I got a pretty bad sunburn from the kayaking trip, but it's only the second bad burn I've had here.  More kayaking would have probably meant more sunburns and a higher risk of melanoma.  So never mind on this one.  And there's a river in Boston; I can totally kayak there maybe.

I know I could think of more things, but I'm pretty sure that they're little things, like knowing where to buy the good curry paste and stuff.  But did you notice how not one of these things was "don't move to Hawaii"? Even though I shattered various aspects of my world by moving here, and even though there was much about this year that sucked beyond the telling of it, if I had to do it all again, I would.  This year has been very good for me.