Getting Back to Nature

Last weekend I hiked with my dad up a muddy, windy trail to a peak on the Ko'o'lau Range, one of the highest points on Oahu. A downpour drenched us within minutes of entering the trail and we chuckled to ourselves when hikers around us slipped into swan dives and back slides on the slick path. Then I got to enjoy a laugh all to myself when my dad tripped onto his belly and did his best mud angel impression. At the summit we could see miles of beaches and bright turquoise waters and the dark purple ocean beyond the reefs. We were up high enough that the clouds raced by above our heads like giant tumbleweeds made of grey, bushy pubic hair.

My family used to be quite familiar with nature. I've seen photographs of me and my brother enjoying the Yosemite camping grounds from inside our strollers while my mother hulked over our little bodies like a 4'11" mama bear. I remember going on regular hikes with my brother, my dad, and our uncles and cousins. My brother frequently displayed a divining rod-like ability to locate any body of water on a trail, be it a puddle or a lake, and then fall into it. I can also recall at least two occasions I thought I poisoned myself when I tried to sample a plant and instead tasted a flavor that belongs on a spice rack under the label "Nature's Ass."

I have a lot of fond memories of the Great Outdoors, but, like a friend who drifted apart after high school, we haven't seen too much of each other lately. It's been years, actually. When my family left California, we felt like we'd left all the best hiking trails behind. Then we hooked up our internet connection and later came our plasma screen television, and by then nature had become one more channel amongst hundreds of others featuring better car chases and more gratuitous head explosions.

My dad rediscovered his love for photography a few years ago and -- who'd of thought? -- Hawaii has been a great place to find breathtaking vistas. He began taking trips to outer islands like Maui, Kauai, and the Big Island. Then I started joining him to see what he'd been seeing.

A couple months ago I hiked with the family up into a bamboo forest on Maui. The trail is dry and dusty for a couple of miles before a bridge delivers you smack dab into a peaceful green forest that belongs in one of those inspiration posters. A path takes people deep inside the bamboo until the sun is almost blocked out overhead, even at noon on a clear, bright day. The wind is constant up there and everything sways back and forth with a soft "whooshing" sound. It's very peaceful and hearing and feeling that place is worth a couple of days without my computer.

My Modeling Days are Over

Several weeks ago I banged the ring finger on my right hand playing basketball and it swelled until it felt like a cold baby carrot jammed into my finger socket. I didn't let that stop me from grabbing, touching, and rubbing things willy-nilly but when I examined my still-throbbing finger yesterday, I noticed that it was still red and swollen and now also crooked enough to perform the "Smooth Criminal" dance in Michael Jackson's Moonwalker video.

When I was in college, a friend claimed that his mom hand modeled part-time and that he was an over-sized cuticle away from being a hand model himself. I put my mitts in his and asked for his honest evaluation. (Keep in mind this was before America's Got Talent when fewer opportunities existed to simultaneously display and humiliate oneself). My friend gave me the once over, nodding. He pronounced my paws well-proportioned and suitably delicate with the caveat that they were likely too small to get work in the industry.

I didn't pursue any hand-modeling work, but I always kept the possibility in the back of my mind in case things didn't work out relying on my brain for a living. But that opportunity may have galloped into the sunset now that I'm damaged goods.

I chalk this experience up to one more sign that age and decrepit-ness are catching up to me. I recently turned twenty-five -- thank you, thank you -- and signs of my advancing years are becoming harder to ignore. The lone white hair on my body, curiously placed on the second toe of my right foot, is growing at an alarming rate. My thighs and buttocks become inflamed after a few hours throwing bowling balls on the Wii (not to mention the Wii Fitness regiment says my athletic age is forty-four).

Perhaps the most dramatic sign that I'm getting older is my recent attempt to watch what I eat. My months in New York helped me slim down thanks to my soup-and-crackers diet, and I've tried to limit my meal portions to keep those few extra pounds off. The process reeks of the long-term thinking which I've long avoided, but my speedos have never hugged me so gently in all the right places. (kidding)

I may have subjected my finger to irreversible damage by avoiding a doctor for the last few weeks and the constant rubbing and grabbing probably hasn't helped either. I suppose it's time to admit that I'm getting older and my hand-modeling days are behind me, if they ever existed in the first place. Heaven help me, I may have to rely on my brain after all.

The Write Stuff

It's said that you don't fully understand something until you can teach it to another person. If that's true, then I'm about to learn if all my years of reading guides and pounding keyboards have imbued me with a deeper understanding of the writing craft when I begin tutoring my cousin in preparation for his SATs and college application essays.

I've read plenty of books on writing and the two most commonly stated prerequisites for strong prose are 1) reading everything you can get your hands on and 2) writing frequently and in large quantities. Apparently there are no shortcuts.

My cousin is a smart enough guy but he doesn't like to read and he certainly doesn't like to write. He's planning to become an engineer; a profession, which, until recently, he didn't think required any writing skills. Fortunately, my cousin realized that everybody benefits from an improved ability to communicate, especially when that ability grants access to an institution of higher learning.

My plan is to attack my cousin's reluctance with a two-pronged campaign by forcing him to read and write every day. The initial goal is to make writing approachable, so I'll be assigning him free-writing exercises. Later on, we'll work on improving the clarity, brevity, and energy of his pieces but he must become comfortable putting pencil to paper (or finger to keyboard) first.

The second prong of my tutoring offensive will focus on reading critically. I'll be assigning On Writing Well by William Zinsser and I'll also require my cousin to read his choice of material with the idea that he examine the author's organization and stylistic choices.

I'm looking forward to working with my cousin and in the process I expect to learn a thing or two myself.

Photography One-Doh-One

Jeff Jarvis once told a crowd of prospective CUNY Journalism students (including me) that the best preparation for graduate studies in journalism is to read actively, write frequently, and develop the technological skills that all reporters are expected to know. Since I'm currently unencumbered with employment, I decided to follow his advice and learn how to take pictures.

My dad is an avid photographer so it wasn't long before I was armed and outfitted with thousands of dollars worth of equipment that I was hopeless unqualified to use. Still, I shambled my way through some beaches and awkwardly pushed some buttons and it soon dawned on me that golfing and photograph-ing have a lot in common.

I didn't take this picture, but I do tie it together (that's me in the center)

Both activities make me very uncomfortable; in golf, trailing teams like to enjoy the spectacle of me hacking at my ball like a butcher cutting up a slab of meat. When I pretend to be a photographer, I can feel passer-bys's eyes measuring my dad's huge camera clutched in my hands, then judging my pained expression, and finally concluding that I am waiting in the bushes because I'm trying to snap a primo shot of twelve-year-old flanking.

The biggest similarity, however, lies in the aching promise of semi-adequacy. Whacking your way through a golf course and snapping a photo that doesn't incorporate your thumb requires suffering through a hundred bad shots before a hint of mediocrity will excite you beyond rational thought and convince you that your next photo of a perfectly composed sparkling landscape, or primo twelve-year-old flanking, is one more button click away.

The one photo without my thumb

Fortunately, my dad has enough toys to make even the most amateur photographer (me) look like I know what I'm doing, so roughly one photo turned out okay. Here it is. And before you ask, Hawaii does not normally look like Mars except when viewed through an infrared lens.

Job Hunting in Hawaii

Now that I'm back in Hawaii and free of the drudgery that is paying rent and wearing pants around the house, I can instead focus on preparing myself for a journalism career by reading a lot, writing a lot, and (failing at) job hunting a lot.

I nabbed my New York job and apartment through Craigslist, but so far locating a decent paying job that's tangentially related to writing has been more painful than that time in elementary school when some guy parked his 20 lbs. backpack atop my gonads. At least I've unearthed a few chuckles from the steamy crapshoot of Craigslist job listings.

Here are some of my favorites:

• Get in Now or Slap Yourself Later! $1000 Daily - As far as I know, slapping myself shouldn't cost me a thousand bucks.
  
  
• Don't not try this unless you need money! - I need money... so I shouldn't try this?
  
  
• My 8 year old daughter makes more money than you! - The sad thing about this ad is that it's probably true.
  
  
• Lazy guy makes $1500 a day. He'll show you how - I found this listing tempting, but I couldn't muster the energy to investigate further. I'm holding out for $2000 daily.
  
  
• It's literally raining money at my house! Want some? - This actually sounds legitimate. Literally.

So which listing do you think I should look into?

Things I Learned in New York

I lived in New York for nearly seven months. Here are a few things I learned during that time.

• New Yorkers follow the Yankees and Knicks no matter their respective levels of douchebaggery
  
  
• People dress much better on the East Coast than the West Coast
  
  
• I still can't dance
  
  
• Alcohol does not make me a better dancer

• Plenty of jobs exist in NY if you're not afraid to be creative and/or freaky
  
  
• Finding a good apartment and reasonable roommates is a lifetime goal
  
  
• Subways are awesome
  
  
• Always have a plan for yourself. Don't just live for the weekends
  
  
• Nobody can support you like family

Good lessons all.

The Journey Continues

In the last two weeks, I've mailed my $500 check to Medill to reserve my enrollment, turned down the other programs I was considering, and, oh yeah, quit my job and moved back to Hawaii.

It's been a busy two weeks.

I debated for a long, long time between staying in New York and studying at CUNY versus moving to Chicago and attending Medill at Northwestern. I've seen CUNY up close and their program would have given me the training, connections, and support to get into a journalism career but, despite not having visited Medill, my research convinced me their program would give me a better edge in the long run thanks to their established network and first-rate faculty.

Both programs offered me full tuition scholarships, so even though I didn't have to weigh costs when comparing the programs, financial considerations still played a major role in my return to Hawaii.

Staying in New York was a no-brainer if I planned to attend CUNY, but when I decided to attend Medill I realized I had a new option. When I first moved out to New York I purchased a round trip ticket that included an April 29th return flight that made me look damn near prescient.

I don't recommend quitting your job and moving across the country in less than two weeks but I'm living proof that it's possible.

I gave my bosses a five-day notice and spent my last week in NY packing and giving away my belongings. Fortunately, my brother, my landlord, and a very generous friend in Chicago were on-board with my efforts and played huge roles in my not breaking down into a whimpering ball of tears.

Yesterday I went to the beach and found myself more than little surprised at my sudden change in surroundings. I'm here in Hawaii to save money and half of that plan is getting rent-free accommodations from my folks and the other half involves actually making more money. I haven't quite figured out how to do that yet.

However, I will be writing and updating this site more frequently, which is ironic since the next few months will most likely be less interesting than the previous seven. Classes don't start until the end of September but I'm planning to use the intervening months to hone my writing and practice this thing called "reporting."

I think this summer will be fun and busy. Just not as busy as the last two weeks.