what’s amazing about lake michigan is that, from standing IN chicago, it looks like an ocean.

it’s amazing to hear about the saami people. these would be a group of people that most americans probably don’t even know exist. i sure did not. i guess most countries have some form of indigenous group and yet most of these countries are built and named by the people who just kinda ran in and took over. the wounds are still very fresh in the hearts of the hawaiians. i am now totally interested in learning about the saami people of finland. :) part of my family is taino, the indigenous peoples of puerto rico. so we, too, have a similar story shared by many indigenous cultures.

well, i no longer live in hawai’i. i actually just moved back to the mainland last week. i kept it up there for a few reasons though. first of all, i’m still so attached to hawai’i. i haven’t even changed the time on my computer yet. it’s 7:39 AM here and my clock still says 1:39 AM. hah! but for a few months i’m sorta living in house-purgatory until i finally move to california. i’ll be in pennsylvania for less than a month, then rhode island for less than a month and then back in PA and then in new york and then in baltimore… haha… so i’m sortta homeless right now.

but i am always ready to talk about hawai’i. BEAUTIFUL. the people make all the hate in the world seem nonexistent. the landscape of hawai’i is so various that sometimes you wonder if you are on the same island when you are driving around the big island. desert, beaches, grasslands, hills, mountains, jungles, forests.. windy places, rainy places, dry places, volcanic places, snowy places… ALL ON ONE ISLAND! if you go on oahu, though, you can REALLY see what colonization and industrialization has done to the heart of hawai’i. rich, economically driven people and companies are all destroying the beauty of this place and weakening the heart’s of the locals. discrimination and homelessness are plenty. but the diversity is unmatched. i went to the university of hawai’i at hilo and walking through campus and walking through hilo itself, you see the many colors of human skin, the countless shapes of every eye and the individual beauty of every smile. the languages and the accents all become music in the market places and hallways. some people don’t like it, though. my mom didn’t. but from what little i know of you, i think you’d love it. there is so much to learn about the strength of the people who live there. not just hawaiians, but marshallese, micronesian, samoan, yap, chuuk, well, pretty much all the pacific islands have people in hawai’i. but chinese, japanese, taiwanese, korean, filipino, some indian, lots of portuguese and puerto ricans. russians, some black people (there need to be more black people), some people from south america… what’s great is that in the end, there are so many mixes of people that there IS NO MAJORITY. everyone is a minority. which either leads to total exceptance or everyone has their share of discrimination experiences. i was lucky enough to experience no discrimination. but i am multiracial, so no race probably knew what to consider me. hahaha!