I am supposed to be doing homework right now but instead I am looking for whales in our ocean view and wondering if I have to go pee. So here is a time-lapse video that B shot of the sun setting a couple nights ago. The island you see in the distance is Molokai and that bright thing on the left is called a “sun.”

Also, yesterday we drove down the famous Hana highway where we saw two mongooses (mongeese?), pretty scenery, lots of banana bread stands and an incredible number of ridiculously annoying drivers who decided that the speed limit was 10 MPH (not on the hairpin turns) and that slowing down to look at EVERY SINGLE waterfall was a must-do on their bucket list. I hate them.

I’m home! And I already forgot almost everything I learned and I am already behind on my homework. But this semester is going to be GREAT. I am going to do GREAT work and LOTS of it and MAKE PROGRESS and BE SMARTER with my time and STOP PROCRASTINATING and probably CRY A LOT in the meantime.

The most upsetting thing about leaving the world-as-I-know-it for 10 days is missing out on some really big things. Like, really big things. Like, things I wished the rest of the world-as-I-know-it would wait until I got home to enjoy it. So I made myself a list to feel better.

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And here’s the obligatory “happy new year” blog post. Yay for 2012! Actually, whatever 2012. Am I the only one not really that excited about this coming year? I’m excited about certain things that are planned to happen in the coming months but with all the other annual stuff, the thought of facing another 365 days is a little tiring. 2011 was good. 2010 was good, too. So was 2009. So I expected 2012 will be equally good.

(As my luck has it, my house will explode and/or all my limbs will fall off as soon as this post goes up.)

I’m also catching up from the previous year by finally uploading my photos from our trip to Mammoth Lakes this past summer. Yes, summer. I’m so lazy. Here we are at the top of Mammoth mountain, over 11,000 feet above sea level! This was a couple days after I got altitude sickness and puked in a flower patch after a not-so-rigorous hike. Check out what happened on top of the mountain below!

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Okay, so I saw a picture of my butt recently and it made me really sad. I mean, I think I look fine sideways but when it comes to a full frontal (or full butt view), my heart fills with despair knowing how much food I’ve consumed over the past holiday (starting with right after Thanksgiving because on the actual Thanksgiving day, I was hanging out in the ER while NOT eating food). Things I’ve eaten in the past week for Christmas include: pasta, pumpkin bread, cinnamon buns, turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, chocolate, licorice, cookies, cookies, cookies, pickles, hamburgers and way too many burritos.

So here’s my first New Year’s Resolution: climb the Prospect Walk stairs (or whatever they’re called) in our neighborhood at least once a week. There are at least 3 sets of them up and down Franklin Hills, which means the neighborhood has given me my very own (free) gym.

They remind me of those super steep and narrow stairs they have in almost every temple in Japan. Maybe that’s how monks stay in shape. Are there monks in temples? I don’t know.

I’ve been noticing a strange thing happening this past year: the tenuous relationship between memory and friendship.

I like to think I have a relatively good memory, both short term and long term. I can recall birthdays, conversations, stories and people. I always forget where I left my keys but I can tell you which rides we rode and in what order on our last trip to Disneyland. I remember who said what, not in the sense of being anal and tracking down everything that happened in my life so far, but just a distinct understanding of what happened when. It’s not that hard. I thought most people, including friends, were like this. But there’s been a recent occurrence–or perhaps I’ve only recently come across it–where what I thought (and knew) what happened is not what other people remember. And it drives me insane.

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