my pop punk life

As many of you know, I am a significant member of my local improv troupe, the Seaside Jesters . (Go click on the link to like our Facebook page!!!) This is my third semester being a part of it, and my first semester finally performing. The road to get to here was long, and I made lots of fantastically amazing friends along the way. It's also one of my favorite stories to tell, so here we are. It all started last Fall semester. I was working late one Wednesday evening in the Reading Writing Center, where I tutor students on the papers they write for class. I wasn't alone, I had Peter and Melly and Adam (yes, that Adam) keeping me company. Somehow the subject of dating and relationships came up (Peter and Melly were recently engaged) and one thing led to another and I found myself in the perfect situation to ask Adam out on a date. So I did. (Ladies, note. Adam is amenable to being asked out on dates. Go for it.) Adam, as was his custom, agreed, and we set a date for two we...

Last night, in an attempt to preserve what little is left of my social life with most of my friends gone for the summer break, I rounded up a few people and we all went to go watch the sequel to How to Train Your Dragon. All in all, it was a wildly successful night, as the movie was FANTASTIC and we also learned that marshmallows are some of the best treats you can bring to a movie theater. Combined with popcorn and something cool to drink, if you stuff as much as you can in your face before the movie starts, you are so pumped up! when the movie starts. It was rad. However, not only were the company and the snacks top notch, but the movie was pretty good overall. If I used a rating system (which would be highly subjective and full of flaws as I am but a human being and not an algorithm [although those are created by humans and also subject to humans flaws and biases]) I would give it a 4/5 stars. And now, this would be the part where those of you who do not wish to read spoiler...

During one of my church meetings today, I had an epiphany. We don't have enough time to discuss important things. Now, this makes slightly more sense with context. I'm a Mormon, a feminist, a political science student, social media aficionado, and generally all-around trying to be a good person. None of those things have come easy, as a matter of fact a goodly part of me has come with a lot of struggle and thought and trying to understand other people. So, in my church meeting, we were having a discussion on same-sex marriage, and it was going far more civilly than I usually feel it goes, when someone in a corner raised their hand. And, unlike the rest of us, this person didn't want to comment. They had a question, and they wanted to understand one of the finer details of what we were talking about. And, I wanted to explain it. I knew how to explain it. But before anyone could answer, the teacher said "I would love to get more into that, but we don't have tim...

So, in the course of my daily activities, I spend about four hours of my day on The Bus commuting to and from town (for those of you not familiar with Hawaii vernacular, The Bus is the major, surprisingly efficient mass transit system that goes through most of the island. Town is Honolulu.) Now, I spend a lot of time on the bus. I see a lot of different people. But the other day, one man in particular caught my eye. He wasn't doing anything with any of the other passengers, but he was sitting off in a corner, headphones covering his head, and when he tilted his phone screen I could see that a music video was playing on his phone. But none of those are markedly different from many of the other Bus passengers. No, what made this man different and caught my eye was the fact that this man was dancing . Picture it now. A tall man, with a square jaw and hooked nose, long brown curly hair caught in a ponytail at the nape of his neck. He had bushy eyebrows and his skin was a gol...