Here I Go Again...

It's Angry Blog Post Time!  Remember my post back in May about the overwhelming amount of "Single Saints" articles on my now-former ward's website?  Go back and refresh, I'll wait.

I thought they'd died down, but then this happened:

Single Saints:  The Talk

I know, I could just stop following the page and take myself off the list, but I'm a masochist and like to see all the Boston things I'm missing while I'm in my Hawaii apartment studying for the GRE on a weekend because I have no friends in my singles' branch here.  

My online written response was a simple, "oh, good grief," but my actual response was a little bit more wordy.  This "advice" (and I use the quotes because this is advice in the most loose sense, so much so that it's not actually advice at all, come to think of it) basically assumes that all LDS Single Adults have the emotional maturity of nineteen-year-old BYU freshmen.  Ooh, and stereotypes!  Did you know that, after being rejected, all single LDS women binge-eat and watch six-hour-long Jane Austen movies?  Yes, it's true!  Gag me.

While I'd love to go on about how dumb this all is, I'll instead move on to my larger point, which is the following:  IT'S NOT THAT FREAKING BIG OF A DEAL!!!!!  All these articles and stories about the talk just reinforce this idea that dating is this huge, scary, overwhelming thing where you have the potential to  have your heart completely destroyed beyond repair, and this idea is the reason nobody dates!

I dated* a guy one time.  Do you want to know how our "talk" went?  Him:  "I really like you."  Me:  "I really like you, too."  Both of us:  "Cool, now let's proceed to the snogging**."  That was it.  Done.  You know why?  Because there were enough unspoken indicators that we were already on the same page and we weren't all "high stress" about it!  

My advice (for what it's worth):  Date people that you like.  If you like them, show them.  If you don't like people, don't date them.  Girls, don't keep saying "yes" to a guy if you don't like him, no matter how good the free meals are.  Also everyone, if you're holding hands/snuggling/snogging, at least one of you is going to get the idea that something more than friendship is brewing, so don't be slutty.  Let's get the dark, looming cloud away from dating, shall we?

*Note the past tense.  Take that, all you "Not everyone is in a relationship, you know" commenters.  Not that being in one should sway one's opinions at all.  Want proof?  Check out this post, written pre-relationship.

**Kidding...sort of.

My Actual "To-Do" List

I'm determined to stop hating Hawaii.  It's the only way I'll survive, because I've heard from more than one source that trudging through and counting weeks is not going to do any good.  So because I like making lists for everyone to read, here is my checklist for how to start tolerating this place:

• Go to the beach at least once a month.  My old roommate Chris had this poster in her room saying that the cure for everything was salt water:  sweat, tears, and the sea.  I've had enough sweat (it's hot here, okay?) and tears in the past few weeks; it's time for some sea.
• Go to the Laie Temple at least once a month.  The temple is already one of my happiest places, and having it be a beautiful temple like this one can only be happier.

And I'm not even going to make a comment on how it's not the Boston Temple!

• Climb a Banyan tree.  These are the coolest things ever and as soon as I can find a good one that's not next to where I work with a bunch of really well-paid forensic anthropologists who will judge me, Imma climb that bad boy.

This is one right outside of one of the CIL labs.  So tempting to climb it on my lunch break!

• Get brave enough to jump off the rock at Waimea Beach.  Google Image search that one if you want to see it (I don't have to do everything, you know).  It's this really big rock that kind of looks like Jabba the Hut, and people jump off of it into the ocean.  There's a high part and a low part, but if I can jump off the low part, I'll feel pretty triumphant.
• Go on ≥ 3 dates with ≤ 3 people.  This one probably won't happen for a reasonable/appropriate amount of time, but I do want to date a bit, if for nothing more than some free Hawaiian dinners.
• Buy and learn to play a ukulele.  It's the only musical instrument I can purchase here that will travel well.  And then I can finally compose the mash-up of "Mele Kalikimaka" and "Blue Christmas" I've got going in my head and play it at a Christmas party!
• Meet Daniel Dae Kim.  I know he's married and too old for me, but he's so darn attractive and he lives here somewhere!  I've never celebrity-stalked before, and I figure it's a female rite-of-passage.
• Get a little bit tan.  This is a thing that I have mixed feelings about.  On the one hand, I don't want to get skin cancer, and I don't want to alter my pale skin/dark hair/green eyes combination, which I think is one of my favorite things about my appearance.  On the other hand, I hear sunlight is a good remedy for depression and it would be sort of nice to no longer be the pastiest haole (pronounced "howlie") on this island.  So we'll see...maybe I'll tan...or just get more freckles.

So there's my list.  I think I can manage to do all of these things and still go to work, right?  At any rate, I'm turning over a new leaf (or palm frond) and maybe, just maybe, I'll learn to like it here!

"Cooking Is a Pleasant Diversion"

(Quote by Fawn M. Brodie)

Unrelated to any of this, when I was looking for the quote for the title and came across this one from Harriet Van Horne:

"Cooking is like love.  It should be entered into with abandon or not at all."

I'm not certain I agree, but more on this later, maybe.

At any rate, I've decided that if I can like nothing else about Hawaii, I can come to appreciate the cuisine, and as I don't do well with private lists as they are usually tiny pieces of paper that get lost somewhere with nobody to follow up on my progress, I'm making this blog post my "to-cook" list.  Here are the Hawaiian things I'm going to learn to make while I'm here (with pictures from the internet):

• Chocolate Haupia Pie:  Imagine a coconut cream pie with chocolate mousse topped in whipped cream.  So good.

This is one from a place called Ted's.  It's really good, but if I can make it for less than $12, I will.

• Poi Malasadas:  When I first saw this purple starchy thing, I thought of another purple starchy thing--Chicha Morada, this disgusting South American purple corn drink that tastes like bubblegum.  Malasadas, however, are not like that.  Instead, they're like a perfectly soft taro doughnut.

Okay, so my "to-cook" list is more of a "to-bake" list and it's not so much of a list as me writing down two things I want to bake, but I will learn to bake them and update with pictures and the recipes!

A Thing I Just Realized

When I left Boston, I thought that I thought of all the things that I was leaving and that I would miss out on while I was here, but all of a sudden, I realized I forgot one:  I can no longer easily go to Europe.

I have never been to Europe, and I never had any concrete plans to go there, but I took it for granted that Europe was so close and so accessible to New England.  I could have easily hopped on a plane to Iceland (as it seems everyone does, these days) and done my own tour of the Great World, but I never did.

Sure, I'm a bit closer to Asia at present, but between my work schedule and my fear of going to a place where I don't even know a tiny bit of the language, I doubt I'll be taking any holidays in Vietnam or Japan this year.

Upon my return to Boston (which is going to happen in fewer than 50 weeks), I am going to make concrete plans to go to Europe.  I finally have a passport and I can stock up on all my vaccinations (free of charge--this place does have its perks) on base before I leave here.  Then, it's off to the British Isles, Spain, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Italy, and Greece!

Or, at the very least, Iceland.

Oh, Heart...

Does anybody remember the song "All I Want to Do Is Make Love to You" by the group Heart?  I had forgotten all about it, having not heard it in fifteen years or so until quite recently.  Strangely, next to the reggae remix of Gotye's "Somebody That I Used to Know," it seems to be the favorite song of Hawaii radio stations.  Take a moment to refresh with the music video, and really listen to the words:

Just so we're on the same page here, this is a song about having unprotected sex with hitchhikers to conceive the child that your husband couldn't give you.  Everyone got that?  Good.  Here are some other thoughts:

• All of the YouTube commenters were like, "oh, her poor cuckolded husband!"  Do you really not think the husband was in on it?  I think that if you've exhausted all of your baby-making options to the point where you're like, "Drifter?", a husband should be wise enough to know that any baby that comes out of his wife is not his. 
• On that note, I know it's the eighties and therefore not as medically-advanced, but were there really no other baby-making options?  Adoption?  Sperm donor?  Maybe it was like in LOST where Sun finds out that Jin is the infertile one but he's so prideful that he'll get super angry and start beating her, in which case, she should just leave him and run off with drifter-man permanently.
• I like how at the end of the video when the woman runs into the guy again (who is now wearing glasses, which means that he's gone legit) he seems all surprised that she has his baby.  Really?  Not only did you have unprotected sex with this strange woman, but the note she left didn't tip you off at all?  "You are the seed?" "We planted a tree?" Come on, guy.  
• If this woman knew anything about statistics, she'd know that 84% of hitchhikers are serial killers.  Maybe she got off scot-free, but that kid of hers probably has some latent serial killer genes, and we all know how much serial killers love their mothers.

Dear Heart, thank you for this life-changing piece of music with all of its clever (and not at all overt) euphemisms.  This is sarcastic, of course.  Next time you get the "inspiration" to write a song like this, just leave it Alone (get it?  Alone?).  

Restaurant Review: Teddy's Bigger Burgers

I always forget to take pictures of my food until I'm four bites in.  But this way you can see the inside of the burger better, right?

My quest continues!  While I've temporarily closed the book on Boston, I'm now out to find the Best Burger in Honolulu.  Yelp.com listed this place at the top of the list, and my roommate said she'd been there and liked it as well.  Teddy's is a chain with multiple locations (see their website for a list), but we went to the one in Kailua.  It was a nice sixties-esque atmosphere, though very "no shirt, no shoes, no problem."  It's the kind of place where you order at the counter and they give you a pager when your food is ready.  I ordered the cheeseburger combo which came with fries and a drink and it came to about $9.50.  It took a little longer than I would have liked to get my food, but I think it was worth the wait.

In my burger quest, I've decided I need to be a little more objective with my scoring system, so here's me being as objective about food as I can be, using the A-F letter grade system.

• Structural Integrity (does the thing fall apart and drip everywhere?):  A-.  It was a little bit drippy, but the thing stayed together.  Not messy at all.
• Burger-to-Bun ratio (are you left with one thing but not the other at the end?):  A.  The last bite contained not only both burger and bun, but also part of a pickle.
• Topping Quality (what toppings are there?  are they good?):  A-.  Lettuce, Tomato, Pickles, and Onions.  All tasted good, and one thing I liked was that the onions were really thinly sliced so it wasn't overwhelmingly oniony.  It was also topped with "super sauce" which was a zingy and slightly spicy topping.  It was interesting, but I think I prefer Thousand Island or Russian dressing.
• Topping Distribution (are the toppings evenly distributed?):  B-.  There was only one tomato and it was off to the side.  The pickles were also kind of localized to one side.  Normally this isn't an issue, but they were stuck to the cheese and couldn't be moved.
• Burger Patty (a more subjective thing):  B.  It was decent, cooked medium, and flat and thin.  It tasted fine, but I've had better.
• Fries (an integral part of the burger experience):  A.  Thick-cut and non-greasy.  They were well seasoned but not too salty.  They had a nice stand-alone quality, but there were way too many and I couldn't finish.
• Overall:  A-.  It's kind of rough to grade the first one, because I don't know what else is out there.  I'll definitely go here again, though!

Cool Things That Only Forensic Anthropologists Say (Part 1 of ?)

To all you lawyers and philosophers and biologists and whomever else reads this, here are the beginnings of a list of things that you'll never get to say in your jobs:

1. "Post-traumatic subarticular necrotic lesion"
2. "I just have to color in my homunculus." 

More to come!