Ho'omaluhia Botanical Garden

My mom always say looking at green things is good for you, so take a break from symposium prepping and look at plants growing in Hawaii.  No guarantees about them being native though...

A couple of weeks ago, I went to Ho'omaluhia Botanical Garden with my cousins.  It was the first time this trip for me to go to the windward side, so I was excited (and bundled up.)

The garden is basically a buffer zone built by the Army Corps of Engineers to provide flood protection for the people downslope of the place.  Aww how nice.  They also have hikes there, nature talks, a bunch of little kids fishing with twigs.  I'm still convinced that volunteers are sticking fish onto their hooks when the kids aren't looking.  The lake there is disgusting.  

The visitors center had some kind of watercolor gallery that week.  My cousin enthusiastically took my camera and meticulously (well, as meticulous a 12 year old can be) took pictures of "his favorite paintings" (in other words....all of them.  I ran out of memory before we even got out the visitors center!)

Cousin likes his flowers. 

Grandma walking around confused.  Behind her is a Florida Thatch Palm.  I would never know this in real life. 

Hi, I'm a mountain, and I'm really pretty. Look at my clouds.  Tee hee.  I'll rainshadow you, leeward side!

Here's a shorter palm tree.  It's called the Arikury Palm.  It looks just like that other palm tree.   

I don't know what this is, but it's pretty!

That's a mountain.  

This is called Panama-Hat Plant.  I'm just going to hazard a guess and say that their leaves are used to make hats...in Panama.  The little sign says it's from South Mexico, but eh, same thing. They're right next to each other anyways...right?  (How did I get into a Geography program??)  

This one I actually know.  Sealing wax palm, or lipstick palm.  It's an ornamental  brought in from Malaysia.  It doesn't make lipstick, or wax.  Boo. 

I think this is the poisonous bulb plant...or something like that.  One thing I learned in Tropical Ecology - don't eat anything you didn't see someone else eat first.  Plants make some crazy stuff.

...Or maybe it's just guava.  Let's just say I should never be a guide in the wild.  Or anywhere. 

"walk to your doom!!"

Those giant things are Imperial Bromeliads.   They're from the mountains of Brazil, and will make a giant stalk when it's 20.  And they're AWESOME looking.  And probably host hoards of mosquitoes. 

This is the fruit of the lipstick plant, which actually makes lipstick.  Or the red dye, at least.  I don't really know what goes into lipstick.  Pig fat?  


Pig fat. Wikipedia confirms.  

The rubber tree.  Fun fact - the ball in that one Disney movie about the Aztecs is made from rubber from that tree.  The one movie where those two friends have a ship and are looking for gold...


Anyways, here's a cool website where you can adopt a rubber tree. Super cute.

Here's a cocao tree. MMM.  Too bad there are signs everywhere telling us not to pick one (or touch one!  My hand's there for...scale.)  Not that I'd have any idea how to process it.  Apparently the leaves are poisonous, so stay away from that. -___-  According to wikipedia, cocao beans were used as currency as late as the 1840's.  Love it. 

I just love how big the plants are here.  Hi giant leaf!  My cousin cut out his brother.  I lack basic photo cropping skills.

This is the needle flower tree.  They say they're looking for the AIDS vaccine in it's bark, but I even tried google scholaring it and couldn't come up with anything.  For reference, the scientific name is Posoqueria latifolia.  Weird.

Here's a plant. I don't know what this is. 

This has got to be my favorite tree: the cannonball tree.  When the fruits matures, they falls to the ground, making a super loud noise, and then 'exploding.'  Then they sit around smelling bad.  

They're EVERYWHERE!

That's it for now.  For the people presenting, ROCK IT.  It's going to be awesome.

Ancestor Praying Month

So I'm sure there is a way better translation out there, but this will do for now, since it reminds me of that scene from Mulan.

My fundamental religious views and values are pretty much shaped by Disney. 

Last week we went to the Manoa Chinese Cemetery. It's a ridiculously gorgeous site with the ultimate feng shui, according to the giant monument erected to honor all the ancestors (in other words, the one for the lazy people who don't want to pray for every single one, hehe.)  I didn't bring my camera though, but it's surrounded by three mountains, North, East, and West, which represents one of those Chinese guardians thing (I know there's a Dragon and a Tiger or something somewhere), and then the South is opened to the ocean.  Back in the day when Chinese immigrants first came to Hawaii, they didn't have a site for a cemetery so they hired some feng shui expert to wander around the island for the perfect spot.  He declared this place was and all the immigrants pooled their money and bought it.  AWww teamwork.  Except now I think they're selling away plots since land is scarce and lots of money is to be made. 

Back to the good old days.  Because their families were still in China and sometimes they would die here, the Chinese decided to form associations, usually encompassing a hometown, where they would prey for each other until their families come to Hawaii (and some usually don't.)  The event I went to last week was for the people of Lung Doo, which is where my po po is from.  There's a bunch of us here - I think everyone from my great grandfather and down managed to find their way here.  

This was a while back, but they had a reunion and we took over an entire banquet restaurant.  Insane.   Mayors and government officials were all there.  Even those beauty queens paid us a visit. 

The whole event ended up being a family reunion for me, which is cool.  I never realized I had so many second cousins!  Apparently one of my mom's cousin is an art professor at UH Hilo (really....we have that and they give me smack about soil science??), and from a lot of difference marriage links we have Senator Akaka.  We're everywhere. 

The part of the mob willing to wake up super early.                              

Gorgeous!

Yesterday we prayed for the people in our immediate family, so it was a smaller event, though there were still tons of people I don't really know.  I'm going to have to make a family tree diagram to help me navigate future awkward encounters. 

I think our great grandpa is here.  Physically he's buried in China, but when my family came, they immigrated the little plaque with his name on it to some Buddhist temple.  Apparently it's around 8k to put your plaque here. Crazy. 

So instead of Picnic Day at Davis, we had a picnic...at a cemetery instead!  Great fun. Miss you all. <3

I'm in Hawaii.

In case people don't know. Haha.  I kept trying to make a post about this, but then I would get distracted by way cooler events like tsunamis and receiving new packages.

But yes.  After I graduated in December, I decided it was way too cold in California, packed a carry on worth of clothes and books, and bought a one way ticket to Oahu.  I was not going to leave until I got into a grad school with an advisor I liked.

Good bye cold world! HAHA. 

Luckily for me I got into grad schools, like all of my prospective advisors, and picked one that would let me work in Hawaii (UCSB).  It's going to be awesome.

I'm thinking about going back to Davis by graduation.  People from semester schools, message me if you're going to graduate!  I want to see y'all graduate.  I'll (most likely, still need to work it out with my advisor) be taking SSC 205 - the soil science field course, SoCal version. So expect me to be back in Davis in the summer!  And I hope people are still there when I'm there..haha.


So what am I doing here in the meantime?


Pretty much...hanging out.  Haha.  I'm volunteering at the University of Hawaii Manoa.  The people there are super nice and I'm learning a lot.  Currently I'm working on three different projects.  There's a wildlife lab there, and I'm working on making a cat diet database.  Lots of reading the literature, which is actually kind of fun.  It's nice to have time allotted where I have to sit down and just read.  And I pretty much hate felis catus now.  There's also a soils lab where I help out on various projects. Hawaiian soils is really different from mainland soil, so it's nice to get a feel of them before starting my PhD project. And then there's a fire ecology project I'm helping a grad student on.

Here's one of the views of the field site: 

So pretty!  I also try to attend seminars, but I always hear of them after the fact.  Boo.  Apparently Holly Doremus was here a couple of days ago!  Drats!

UC Davis, You're Adorable.

Look what I found waiting for me when I came home from a weekend of fun and adventure (and a crazy taekwondo tournament!) with my cousin. 

Yay, I love boxes.
When I was a kid, that would be my favorite present.  I'd hoard them like a crazy mofo.  We had a little area underneath our stairs (kind of life Harry Potter's room, but way more badass) behind the TV and that would be where I would store them.  I don't think I did anything with them.  I just liked collecting them and trying to fit in them. 

 A box from the Evolution and Ecology department?? What?


And inside the box is a super cute bag.  I think it's hilarious how many packages are needed for their graduation gift.  And then I think about someone actually going out and getting the little colored tissue paper, scrunching them up all nice, and then putting it in a bag.  Then I imagine them meticulously cushioning this bag with tons of those little bubble things (the ones that little kids like to pop and stuff...packaging goodness.  I gave it to my cousins, even though you're never too old to stomp on things that makes loud noises).

I've always wondered who would have so much pride that they would go out and buy a Davis license plate cover cause I would see them everywhere!  Now I know.  (Not that I'm complaining.  It's going to be the first thing I do to my future car! HEHE.)  

One quibble - I've been getting so many (well, like...1) offers on stoles and medals for graduation, but it's so after the fact that buying one is kind of petty, unless I want a new paperweight, or some shiny fabric to use later on. If you want to wear fancy graduation things, graduate in the Spring.  (I did get to take home the Major Leader badge, but that was because I was the only Soils Science major graduating.  Shhh.)

There's magic in the air

Or, at the very least, a magical invisible dragon blowing gust of winds at up to 30MPH.

After the tsunami, I've decided to give my grandparents more credit, and when they told me not to go out for a nightly jog, I've decided not to do it. Good thing.

From our lovely weather.gov:

A WIND ADVISORY MEANS THAT WINDS OF 30 MPH AND GUSTS OF 50 MPH
ARE EXPECTED. WINDS THIS STRONG CAN MAKE DRIVING DIFFICULT...
ESPECIALLY FOR HIGH PROFILE VEHICLES. USE EXTRA CAUTION. BE
PREPARED FOR FALLING TREE BRANCHES AND LOCAL POWER OUTAGES.

My cousin: "It's strong enough to blow away a small baby."

This picture was taken at Nu'uana Pali Lookout, an area famous for it's high winds.  Clinton told me it's usually 15MPH.

Anyways, I decided to tell Dr. Anderson, the professor at Wake Forest I applied to, that today was a day as good as any to talk.  Everything went well, but man, was the wind super strong!  Halfway through he has to ask if I was in a wind tunnel.  Actually, maybe I was.  Wind and courtyards baffle me.  He also recommended me a super cool site on African soils.   I can't wait to intersperse reading cat papers by browsing through this. :D  I think I've read every technique available on stomach and scat content analysis by now.  

Back to the wind.  I'm not sure how 30MPH compare to Davis winds, since I checked the Davis weather station, and it said at maximum it gets to 31.  Is that still bikeable wind?  I remember one time I actually got blown over while biking on the sidewalk.  Super awkward. 

Blow away your finals!  HAHA.  Three more days left!  <3

Tsunami Week

tsunami (tsʊˈnæmɪ) — n , pl -mis , -mi

1. a large, often destructive, sea wave produced by a submarinenearthquake, subsidence, or volcanic eruption. Sometimes incorrectly called a tidal wave

2. a sudden increase in or overwhelming number or volume of: the tsunami of Olympic visitors


--dictionary.com

First off, my heart goes out to the people of Japan, and anyone with loved ones in Japan.  Google has a person finder for the people affected by the tsunami.  Hopefully that helps.  And mad props to Japan's strict building codes and level of preparedness.  It could have been a lot worse, and all of us living in areas vulnerable to natural disasters should look to Japan as an example.  

Hawaii is fine.  I'm old and go to bed super early now, but was woken up by the most obnoxious, high pitched sound I've ever heard in my life.  After sleepily glaring at the general direction, I was told by my grandparents that it was the tsunami warning.  

Boo for being ridiculously hard to find.  Apparently the map is in the yellow pages, but who keeps those nowadays?

Luckily we're not in the inundation zone.  I do live within running distance (and for me, that's probably...2 miles) to the airport, which is.  I don't think it suffered from water damage - the reason why the airports in Hawaii were closed was because they didn't want to clog up the roads leading up to the airports.  

Waikiki was definitely evacuated and I think a lot of tourists had to go up passed the 4th story of their hotels.  I think parts of Hawaii Kai was also evacuated, and most of the schools were closed Friday.  (Although the lovely public school systems already had Friday as a furlough day, so who knows.)

I didn't have an ocean view, so I decided to not stay up until 3, which is when the tsunami was going to hit.  I think there were some damage the next morning, but luckily no one was hurt.  The buses didn't run early morning because the tsunami warning was still in effect.  On the news there were tapes of people waiting forlornly at a bus station for a bus that wouldn't come.  It was sad, yet kind of funny to watch.  

Anyways, I decided to call it a day off, and went jogging to see if I could see any tsunami related events at the airport.  Nothing spectacular.  Of course, as soon as I come back, they removed the tsunami advisory but by then I had made plans. :)

The UH campus was also closed (and I wish I had taken a screenshot of their website!), saying that non essential employees should stay home.  I wonder how many grad students went?

Anyways, it's finals week and I know you guys are busy so just know - I'm alive and well.  Didn't get into Stanford, btw, but I'll feel like a douchebag complaining about that in light of these events.  

Good lucks with finals!

UC Stanford Barbara Trip

Ok, I'm a day late from my self imposed deadline, and I actually feel really bad about it.  Not going to lie, it was kind of a crazy trip though, and I was exhausted by the end of it.  (And had super fast onset of SAD. HAHA)

To bring everyone up to speed: Stanford invited me to visit their campus back in January for this weekend.  Then UCSB invited me to their campus on the same weekend.  After a lot of emails, I decided the best plan of action was to take a red eye out Monday, arrive Tuesday at SFO, Amtrak bus it down to SB, spend a night there, take the train back up, interview at Stanford, go back down to SB for a BBQ (SO WORTH IT.)

Sunday I rested (heh) and Monday morning I flew back to Hawaii.  Just another week in the life of Ann Tan. No big deal.  I do owe the planet a gazillion trees now though. 

Anyways, I don't think I should have even unpacked from Wake Forest.  I brought pretty much the same things, but with macademia nuts:

So colorful!  MMmm chocolate covered macademia nuts.  Originally I was going to buy one for Dennis for letting me stay in UCSB, but then they found me a grad student to stay with.  Luckily the only way to buy the boxes from Costco is in 6's.  So I had enough for my sponsor and for my host!  And since I was already accepted and got a fellowhip, it was not bribery.

I was totally knocked out during the red eye, which was glorious.  I think the secret is to just wake up hella early and be sleep deprived beforehand.  Me gusta.  

Some pretty pictures early in the morning.  The Amtrak bus is surprisingly comfy.  Fun fact: according to the person I ordered my tickets from, Amtrak lawyers found a loophole for train companies that allows them to provide bus services as long as part of the trip involves a train.  So one way down was by bus, and I had to take the train back up. 

I got picked up by my sponsor, Oliver, and pretty much hung out with him the whole day.  I got to see one of the job talks (and apparently, one of his former students is trying to get a faculty position at UCD!), some biogeosciences lunch thing, and eat dinner at a very cool beachy restaurant.  Kind of funky because the faculty candidate from the job talk was seated right behind us.  Apparently that's where all the faculty hang out.  

No pictures of SB though, because I wanted to seem cool in front of a prospective advisor.  :(  And cause the weather wasn't all that great when I visited.

Anyways, there's some pictures from Stanford, when I was away from judging eyes. 

Fancy!  I like the name tag.  Teehee. And the pen!  It's a really nice, rolly one.  Doesn't get stuck like mine does.

I must have crossed this bridge over 20 times.  Wearing heels was definitely painful, and coupled with this, kind of an adventure.  It's one of those metal mesh bridges with holes everywhere for your heels to get stuck on.

That's the building where the Stanford Prison Experiment took place!

These have to be the most glorious pillows I've ever slept on.  First purchase once I get my stipend.

Stanford interviews were a lot of fun.  A bit intense because I think I did my homework a bit too well, and regarded all the professors as these mystical academic beasts with awesome papers. We were scheduled to interview with 5 professors for 30 min each over the course of two days.  That gave us a lot of free time, and after exploring a narcolepsy lab (So cool!  Apparently only people of a certain type of tissue can get it, and they think it's autoimmune.), I decided to go rogue and visit the earth sciences people.  They were on the other side of campus so it was a lot of walking, but worth it!  The Stanford biology program is definitely molecular based, which is cool, but I'm not. :)

Some home sweet home pictures.

Bookcase!  I miss you.  I'm slowly packing parts of it to my carry on. I got my environmental law book in Hawaii now - can't wait to start reading it!

And a new car!  This is actually kind of a depressing story.  My beloved car (17+ years) got smashed from behind by some truck when my mom stopped the car to let some guy in a wheelchair cross the street. She's ok (thankfully!) but my car isn't.  Don't tailgate, y'all.  Well...not when you're...driving...

To end this post on a happier note, here's some fun coincidences:

• I'm reading Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card, who lives in Greensboro NC! What!  That's where Wake Forest University is! (Or uh, in 1992 he did)
• There's a building called Y2E2 on the Stanford campus.  It's short for Yang and Yamazaki Environment and Energy building.  The Yang = Jerry Yang, alumnus of both my middle and high school, and co-founder of Yahoo!   And I think the lab I might get into is in there too!