Hawaii: A Year in Review

We arrived in Honolulu in August of 2011, tired and hungry. My brother carted us back to his apartment and we fell asleep.

Since then it has been a wild ride full of ups and downs and being thrown for lots of loops. The beginning was hard. I tried to keep a good face on it all for the internet, but internet, you should know: life sucked. School was not what we wanted it to be; life was not what we wanted it to be. Thank God, Hawaii is pretty.

We went from living like this:

We use boxes as furniture for a few weeks

Sleeping on the floor!

To living like this:

Kaneohe!

We miss this house...

In October things got busy.

Shawn and Kris are engaged

I turn a year older and celebrate with new friends

I stage manage the first show in the season for UH Manoa: Oklahoma!

The first five months here are rough, but by January we had a routine and I was starting to pull myself back up.

Joe and I threw ourselves into school projects and rehearsals for the randai show. Just as things seemed calm, Shawn and Kris had to move back to Florida. Two days before opening two shows (they opened the same night, back to back) we found ourselves moving everything we own into a very tiny apartment.

After that, we went through the agonizing process of deciding whether we wanted to stay in Hawaii, while waiting to find out if our tuition waiver applications had been accepted. When we moved here we agreed to give it one year and then reevaluate. Luckily we were both granted waivers and I was hired as the House Manager for the theatre.

Life has continued to change on us, over and over again. We've done tons of hiking, but thanks to a knee injury I am in physical therapy and unable to hike (or do anything fun) until further notice. We've mostly given up caffeine (gasp!!). Joe has withdrawn from UH but is still studying Asian acting styles. We are still doing yoga with Cher (thanks, Cher!). We've made some great new friends, and recently reconnected with some old-new friends as everyone has returned from their summer adventures.

I'm very excited to be off on this next leg of the journey, knowing that I have an amazing network of family, friends and colleagues to support me. Yes, the workload is stressful. Yes, I was crazy to take the particular combination of classes that I've chosen. Yes, I am unreasonably excited about my thesis project (and yes, it will be unreasonable in scope).

The past year was incredibly, horribly, awfully, terrible; I can't lie about that. It was also wondrous and made us both grow so much as people and has strengthened us as a couple. Looking back on the past year as our anniversary weekend comes to a close, I am sure for the first time that I am where I need to be right now.