My internet is soooo slow on my laptop. I downloaded Mozilla to see if it was an explorer thing but its still slow. Could it be my laptop? Ugh...I wish I worked at a company with an IT person!

OMG, I'm so happy! Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States!!! I sure hope he lives up to the hype...goodluck Barack!

Yup, I suck...at updating LJ. So much for my New Years Reso of being better about it.

So I passed out last night around 7-8pm and just woke up an hour ago (1:30am). I have a busy Jr. YBA weekend starting in a few hours so I guess I'll be staying up from now. In fact I'm going to be leaving soon to go to school to print out some stuff and pick up my fan.

In another thought, I hope our friend Jessica is doing ok on the east coast...I see that Tropical Storm Hanna is moving up through her area.

This past weekend was our cousin Greg Hamai's wedding. It was on Maui so many of our extended relatives flew over and stayed in condos in the Kaanapali area. The weather was great and the scenery was beautiful! We stayed at the Mahana hotel/condo. It was quite beautiful and the condo amenities were great. On Saturday morning John and I went snorkeling at Honolua Bay (north of Kapalua). It was so awesome!! Only thing is we didn't have any flippers so it got a little tiring after a couple hours. It was clear 30-40 feet and there were many fish. But we didn't see anything out of the ordinary this time, e.g. turtles, eels, etc. It's cool...we'll just have to go again. I'm still scared of deep water, and drowning, and all that good stuff, but somehow seeing how beautiful it is underwater, and seeing all the marine life calms my nerves down and I'm able to enjoy myself for the most part. The consequence of all this snorkeling fun was massive sunburn for both me and John. It was quite uncomfortable for the rest of our Maui stay...especially sleeping. Thank goodness AUnty Ruby had aloe! Now I am peeling like a monster!

Poor John couldn't take off this past Sunday/Monday because of MDA telethon so he had to go back to Oahu a few hours before Greg's wedding on Sunday. (So he told people he was going to Maui for a wedding, but couldn't actually go to the wedding! haha!) Greg's wedding was totally outdoors at the Sheraton Kaanapali. It was very beautiful...and once the sun went down it was nice and cool. I had a beer and then took a shot of whiskey (or something) with the boys of the wedding. Alicia took the shot with me too...it burned all the way down! It was nice being with my family. We were quite rambunctious that night...tinkling our glasses all night, terrorizing the bride and groom. Go Tashiros!

I got to hang out with Alicia on the last day we were there...we had some great conversation time. I miss having Alicia around here...I can't wait until they move back to Oahu (crossing fingers!). My nearest best gf is in Florida so I miss having a female friend around to share stuff with. Thanks Alicia!!

I made my family eat at Sam Sato's as soon as we arrived last Friday. I don't know if they were as impressed with Dry Noodles as I was but oh well! I miss dry noodles! I miss going to Maui for engineering work...mostly cause of all the food we used to eat, all on the business tab! I even got to eat at Sam Satos again with Alicia on the last day! Love it!

As an example of how small Hawaii is...when we were at Sam Sato's last Friday I saw an old Jr. YBA friend from Maui, Elise Fujimoto, who is now a senior at SCU. I hadn't seen her since 2004 or so! Then last night (Friday) John and I went to eat at Asahi Grill on Ward Avenue and ran into Elise again!! Turns out her bf lives on Oahu so she was visiting him before going to back to SCU for the year. Small world!

Ugh, I better leave now...don't want to be at school when the sun comes up. Bye!

We just went to see Mamma Mia (movie) and LOVED it! It was very entertaining! The only weird thing was seeing Pierce Brosnan singing! Meryl Streep was so great...it's nice to see her perform in a fun role! Also, I loved Julie Walters (who plays Mrs. Weasley in Harry Potter)!! Great physical comedy. This is a must-see for those who enjoy/appreciate music and comedies.

Our awesome two week trip is coming to an end tomorrow. We leave for Hawaii in the morning. It's been quite a whirlwind trip...so much to share...not enough time right now tho. Suffice to say I'm not ready to leave the mainland. I love the dry weather up here. Ok, I don't love the 105 degrees in Vegas, but the temperature has been great in the other states. Anyways, today I hope we can get back to the Wynn where John had some great luck last week, maybe stop by the Circus Circus Adventuredome, and have a great dinner buffet. We'll see how the day goes. Wish me luck!

A cute transformer cartoon I found...

http://fc02.deviantart.com/fs14/f/2007/064/1/2/Lil_Formers___Spacebridge_by_MattMoylan.jpg

My dear cat Brownie is in the hospital tonight. Last night he had been crying in more agony than usual so we took him into the hospital. The doctor felt his abdomen and said he had a blocked (and distended) bladder. They started the procedure immediately. The doctor said it can be fatal for male cats. If we had waited a few more hours he could have died!!

Today Tam and I visited him. He still had the catheter in him, and so he was peeing whenever he wanted to on a diaper...but the urine was bloody...that made me feel queasy. He had on one of those plastic pet collar things that stop him from licking himself. I think he was most upset with that. When we were there he started purring but we could tell he was still uncomfortable. Poor guy...I'm sitting here at my mom's working and there is no Brownie...I miss him.

Hopefully he can be released by Wednesday. By then the cost will be around $1500. Crazy huh? Wish there was something called animal health insurance. Anyways, mom said it right..."Brownie gives us a lot of happiness so he deserves to be given the best treatment." He'll have to have a special diet for the rest of his life and we may have to train him to be an indoor cat (yikes...he'll have to relearn how to use a cat litter). Bad part is that there is a chance he could reblock again. They'll charge half the price for the second time but the third occurence will be at full price. I think at that point we may have to consider putting him to sleep. Argh. I don't want to think about that for now. I'll just look forward to him coming home on Wednesday.

I know, I know...it's been a million years since I've last posted. I'm sorry for neglecting you, LJ. These past few months have been super crazy. I think now I know why Neil hardly posted while he was teaching. After the entire day you just don't have any energy to even turn on your laptop...let alone surfing the internet. On average I experience at least 2 nights/week of working until 1am, taking a two hour nap, and waking up at 3am to continue working. This of course means that the next couple nights I have major "sleep make up" time which includes crashing around 8 or 9pm and not waking up till 6am the next day! This is terrible. At this rate I'll feel like a 70-year-old when I am 30! Oh well...so far this teaching shindig still feels right. I just gotta hang in there. The first years are always tough.

Tonight is Cabaret performance #8 out of 14 or so. I'm not the greatest double reed player, so I am extremely grateful that the band teacher asked me to play in the orchestra pit. I get to play with professional musicians...something that I have always loved. Too bad I can't get more talent via osmosis.

Those of you on Oahu come see Cabaret at Castle High School. Only two more weekends of performances. Don't just come for the half-naked teen girls in garter belts...come for the great acting and singing. =P (Oh, and the music!)

Holy crap...check this out!!

http://www.kilian-nakamura.com/catalog/usb-air-conditioned-shirt-kuchofuku-p-51.html

Don't have much time to talk...at an internet cafe in Nara. Loving Japan...kinda wish I could stay here longer...but not too long. These japanese keyboards are funny...certain english punctuations are in weird places like apostrophe (shift 7) and quotation mark (shift 2) but I do like that the @ symbol has its own base key...esp during this computer/internet age. I keep accidentally hitting the key that converts the keys to hiragana/kanji. That's a bit annoying.....

Anyways, I love the weather and sights here. Don't want to leave but kinda miss the luxuries of being at home. Jaa, oyasuminasai!