My morning started with a call from Ann. She was at home today per doctor's orders. I went in at 7:30 instead of 7 so I could enjoy a bit of the morning coolness. Though there were no tsunami sirens this morning I did have a bit of a surprise waiting for me. A little green visitor had taken up a position on my shoe and wasn't the least bit inclined to vacate. We had a bit of a discussion on who got to utilize my shoe for the day and I eventually won. He was a persistent little guy (or gal) which does not bode well for his continued lifespan should he meet someone other than me.
At the office I had my morning cup of Almond coffee milk and woke up a bit. I'm getting old. These nights of being out and not getting to bed till midnight and up at 6 are wearing me out. Not to mention my muscles were still tired from last night's hula class. I wasn't sore (surprisingly) but the muscles were tired. Susan brought int he paper and showed me this add for a Ballet Hawaii performance. It is an Alice in Wonderland ballet! It opens the 11th of August, the day I am supposed to leave my room I don't know if I can manage to see it but I'll see what I can do. There are tickets for sale but I don't know that I can spend that much on a ticket after the expenses of this trip. I'll have to keep an eye on it between now and then.
So I spent the morning finishing an working on a project for Noella. She is the Adolescent Health person. This is for her abstinence education. Most of the educational part is don't use drugs or alcohol, use protection, don't let people bully you into sex. That I am all for. The no sex till marriage and the only ok sex is between a man and woman in marriage I just try to not get in a tizzy about. Regardless of my personal choices and lifestyle I try to respect diversity and choices in relationships. So, I spent the morning finalizing the Parent/Guardian survey. That just gathers some basic demographic information on the family and some beliefs information regarding sex ed. Questions like, "I feel comfortable talking to my child about sex." etc. The questions on this are already made, I am mostly working on formatting the layout to be visually pleasing. We had to adapt the demographics to be culturally specific to Hawaii. Also, the target area for this program is high poverty, high teen pregnancy and high homelessness so we asked some demographics to determine if the program was reaching children of high risk families. I am pleased with the result so far.
I wanted a bit of a walk, so I went with Susan and Connie to lunch at the cafeteria at KCC. I had nothing special, just a chicken sandwich and curly fries. No need to include a picture of that. However, there was a nice little screen at the entrance to the food area that I thought was neat so I took a photo.Also, on the way back we passed a tree which I think is Hawaiian tangerine. They are still green but very fragrant. I am looking forward to seeing them ripen.
After lunch I again worked on the project for Noella. I was taking the pre- and post-tests and adding the questions written into the grant and required. Then I worked on general layout and appearances of those. There are two age groups, 10-12 years and 13-15. Each one has a pre- and post-test. So it was quite a bit of formatting and organization. Then I met with Noella and we worked on some questions to add to those pre-and post tests which was required by the grant but the questions were not specified. I am getting quite a bit of experience with surveys! Towards the end there was a bit of an office issue revolving around communication between groups and directors and the project survey. I am not going to get sucked into it and deferred all those issues to be taken up with Ann, since I'm just the intern. There are some things that I don't have authority or responsibility for, and this falls into that realm. I am starting to think working for government is a scrambled mess of never knowing if you'll have a job. It is pretty scary since I will be job searching in my field before long. I am back to the snail in a vortex issue. I do wonder where I will land when the swirling settles.
Today Lisa gave me a little snack bag. They were a variety which included these weird little dried tiny fish. I really struggled with trying those. I finally worked my courage up by the end of the day. I had just had a cup of fresh made chai tea Susan made and I was feeling brave. I really liked the crackers and nibblies. The little silver dried fish were coated with something that made them sweet.Overall the little fish weren't bad but I still prefer not to eat them and just enjoy the rest of the snack bag. You can see the little silver fish on the upper left of my pile and also on the package. Lisa gave me a ride home and her Father gave me a HUGE squash. I need to find recipes and cook that this weekend.
After work I came home shortly and found a package waiting! Jeff had sent me a package of goodies. A bag of homemade buffalo jerky, a dark chocolate bar, a box of chocolates (from Old Kentucky Chocolates), a horsey postcard, a keychain, magnets, a notepad, a bag of my favorite dried tart cherries (I always eat all his when I am over at his place visiting), and 2 mini bottles of bourbon. There were 3 but 1 didn't survive the trip. Luckily it only damaged the wrapper on the chocolate bar, so of course I HAD to take that off and eat the chocolate. HEHEHE. Thank you SO MUCH for the gift box :)
After opening my package I had a call from Lisa. She came to get me for dinner. I had a wonderfully delicious dinner with Lisa, her boyfriend Wayne and her Father. There were these neat boxes on the tables with toothpicks on one end and wrapped disposable chopsticks in the other end. I was fascinated although they are apparently very common in noodle restaurants. Since we don't have those all over like they have here, this was unique for me and I took a picture.
We went to Ramen Ya, a noodle restaurant. Saimin is what they call the ramen type noodles here. Let me just say, they are delicious in the restaurants. Here is the menu. We each had an order of 4 gyoza, which are fried dumplings. Those are eaten with a dipping sauce. You mix your own in little bowls based on personal taste. On the table are bottles of shoyu (soy sauce), chili oil, vinegar, and what I think is called gyoza sauce.
Wayne and I ordered the Big Bowl Ramen ($9.50): A pork-chicken-miso broth. Topped w/chicken katsu, char siu, menma & seaweed. I got the chicken katsu on the side so it wasn't soggy. They serve that with a delicious sauce. Chicken katsu is a chicken breast coated in panko and deep fried, then sliced into strips. They serve that with a delicious sauce.Some people have the chicken katsu in the bowl but everyone suggested I have it on the side so it didn't get the crust soggy. It was great. The chicken katsu is the first picture. The second is my bowl of noodles. The char siu is a roasted sliced pork which is delicious. Menma is a fermented bamboo shoot. There are also been sprouts, corn, seaweed (which has a light flavor, very good, different from the nori used to wrap sushi), and even an egg sliced in half. The swirl of pink and white is kamaboko, called a fish cake, which is made from pollock. It tastes a lot like the imitation crab, very mild and not "fishy" tasting. There were a lot ramen style noodles, tasty broth and a sprinkling of scallions. You can get this with udon (the wide noodles) instead. This was a HUGE bowl but this way I could try many different things and flavors so I will know which ones I like. I have LOTS of leftovers!
Lisa's Father got Combination B which was a beef curry, char siu wonton soup and 4 gyoza. He is such a generous and nice man and let me have a taste of the curry :) It was sweet, not spicy, and very flavorful!
Lisa got the Seafood Ramen. She let me taste the broth which was a shoyu style broth ad very good. I tried a piece of the calamari dipped in the gyozo dipping sauce mixture (at Lisa's recommendation) and it was tasty.
I am now incredibly full and had a wonderful evening. My work week is over and I'm ready for a bit of relaxation. What a nice pau hana (after work time). I think a bit of "Pride and Prejudice" on Netflix will wind me down a bit so I can get to sleep.
Aloha,
~Melissa
That looks so yummy!
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