What's a Croatian Girl Have in Common with her Father?

A beard and mustache!! Well, now I don't know if that's true of all Croatian girls, but I do know that it takes a lot of tweezing, waxing and bleaching to create the illusion that this Croat doesn't have a thick layer of facial hair extending from her hairline to her neck. It's not always pretty, and it's not something I'm proud of, but it's just my cross to bear.


I've been thinking a lot, recently, about the time my sister (I won't name names, just in case Robyn is embarrassed...oopie poo) waxed her legs. For those of you who don't know, in order to properly wax your body, you need to let the hair grow a bit. So that's what this sister did. She actually did that kind of frequently, let her leg hair grow out, that is. This particular brand of wax strips was clear and covered a three inch wide section, that could reach all the way from the knee to the ankle. It's been my experience that waxing products, often warn you to test the product on a small section of skin, to ensure your skin doesn't react to the wax, and maybe, just maybe to let yourself see how painful it will be. But this anonymous sister said "caution be damned", she "threw caution to the wind". Is that really what that saying is? Or is it "throwing caush into the wind"? The world may never know. Anyway, she applied every last one of those wax strips, covering both legs completely. She then began to RIP them off. She got about half way through one, and nearly passed out from the pain. Incapacitated, she called for me and Emily. We rushed to her room, only to find her holding her right shin, writhing in pain. Between gasps and choking sobs, Emily and I were able to ascertain that Robyn (oops, again!) wanted us each to grab a strip and RIP it off at the same time. So, the wax-covered sister sat on the ground, and 0n the count of three we yanked off three strips. Hairy sister cradled her legs up to her chest, and rolled from side to side howling in pain (don't think just because you've seen that scene from "40 Year Old Virgin", you know what this is like. You have NO idea that pain involved). After a few minutes she came to enough to let us have another go at it. She didn't count to three quite as fast this time. Her reaction was the same, and we were only about half way through. It didn't get easier, but we kept at it until we were done. And it was all worth it when Robyn (or whoever) didn't have to shave from the next 9 days.

Glimpse of Island Life

I was writing an e-mail to my friend, and thought I should post it over here. It's just a quick snapshot of what's been going on since I've moved to Maui, some 6 odd weeks ago. ENJOY!

Well, anyway, I moved to Hawaii. Yup, I've been living on Maui since November 6th. I bought a one way ticket, booked myself a hostel for 2 weeks, about a month before I left, and just jumped in with both feet. It's pretty awesome, and God and the Universe are taking GREAT care of me. I found a place to live my first week here. I live with a 20/21 year old couple. And let me tell you, it makes me grateful that I will never be 20 or 21 again in this lifetime! The boy (Sunny) is from the big island, but moved here with his mom when he lost his basketball scholarship/flunked out of U of Mass. The girl (Pauline) is from the Philippines, but moved here with her grandparents when she was 12 because her parents got divorced. I really should write a book! The month and a half I've lived with them have been non-stop hilarity! They eat my food and apparently have never been made to clean-up after themselves. I give them lots of slack, though, because they are just tiny little idiot children. The perfect anecdote that sums them up, is as follows:

I came home one day, and the living room was full of Sunny's friends. But Sunny was in the kitchen, and the ENTIRE KITCHEN FLOOR WAS COVERED IN BUBBLES! Sunny was using a shoe box to scoop up the suds and throw them out the window. "I think Pauline put in too much soap" he said. "What kind of soap did she use?" know full well that she did NOT use dishwashing liquid. "Dish soap" "Dish soap, or dish washer soap?" again, knowing what the answer was going to be "Uh... the orange soap." God bless him he didn't even know there was such a thing as dishwasher detergent. So, the next time all three of us were at the apartment I gave them a quick lesson on how to properly use the dishwasher. However, neither have run the dishes through yet. But that may be because the detergent has a child-proof lid.

I'm working on getting my certification transferred, but honestly not really working that hard at it. I will in the new year, though. In the mean time I'm a sub at St. Anthony's Catholic School. It's a great little community, and so long as I sub 6-7 times a month I make enough money to support my two-steps-away-from-abject-poverty-lifestyle, to which I've become so used to. When I'm not subbing I help out in the 5th grade classroom twice a week. Apparently there are some "high needs" kids in there. But they can all read and speak English fluently, and are able to sit and listen for 20 minutes or more, so I don't know what they're worried about. But I could see why not every student would thrive with this teacher. She's a big fan of, "let's all sit down and read from this textbook, then fill out this worksheet". It drives me nuts!! Aside from that, I swim in the ocean most everyday! I found that I LOVE snorkeling. I always see something cool! I don't really have any friends yet. I mean there is this one lady who I met at church, but she's like 60, and likes me because I remind her of her daughters who live in Florida. I don't hold it against her though, I probably like her because she reminds me of my mom a little bit.

As you can see, there's plenty of fodder for blog posts, but I'm just too busy looking as fish to write them down. I'll work harder to do better, because you guys deserve it!! Also, I kinda want to make this blog private... God forbid the idiot children find it!!

Aloha!!!!
Kate