It's Aloha, Not Goodbye

Well here it is... the day I have been dreading for the last few weeks, wait since I arrived; the day I leave to go back home. My time here has been packed with an occasional late night at the office or in my room working on things for Friend's of Hawai'i Robotics, filled with lots of good food (love the delicious pineapple, macadamia nuts, Yogurtland, Jamba Juice, and so much more), wonderful challenges at work, great learning opportunities, beautiful scenery, laying on the beach occasionally, but most of all wonderful people.

Life here in Honolulu was way too short. I could have stayed the whole summer (if the funds would have allowed)! Too bad I have to go back and finish up school, because otherwise I think I would have tried to find a job out here! Seriously one of the most amazing mentorships I have ever had. Corrie, you are an amazing woman and I am ever so thankful to have worked alongside of, and become one of your friends. Thank you also for introducing me to Lisa, your amazing housemate and best friend! Lisa and Corrie you both have impacted my life in more ways than ever thought possible. You both have made me feel at home here in Hawai'i and have really shown me the island of Oahu. I love and will miss you both dearly! Dont worry we will plan our trip together for the near future!

As for my future, I am still unsure about what to do after graduation next May. Do I want to pursue a degree in higher education/student affairs, work for a non-profit, find a job in human resources, or join AMERICORE for a year or two? These things I do not know. What I do know though is that God has been working at my heart for the last 8 weeks, and has given me calm over the upcoming decisions that I will have to make in the near future. I will be sure to let you know though where He continues to lead me in life. Until then Mahalo and Aloha Honolulu!

Weekend Fun & Beginnings of My Final Week

Well waking up last Saturday morning at 4am to go hike Stairway to Heaven was not fun; especially when we got to the place and was not able to climb due some crazy being outside threatening to call the cops on us. Oh well instead we went over to Lanikai and climbed up to the Pillboxes for sunrise. Absolutely beautiful and crossed off one watching a sunrise from my list of things to do while here. Lisa and I took some goofy pictures and then went to one of my favorite food places, Jamba Juice! I am in love with all the healthy fruit drink/food choices you can find here in Hawaii; trying to figure out a way to get them back in Illinois…






Then I came back and joined Shalea, Riana, and one of her Auntie Lynn for a hike back to Manoa Waterfall. To get there we had to hike through a rainforest . It reminded me of Costa Rica! Following the waterfall, we caught lunch before heading to the beach. The waves were huge on Saturday, about 5 feet or maybe a little bigger. This meant it was so much fun to ride them! After swimming, we took naps before sunset on the beach happened. So I guess at least once a month sunset on the beach happens. This entails a band singing some great songs starting around 5pm through 7:30pm, some recognition of public figures (sports teams this time) and then a movie on the beach (Field of Dreams)! To top off the evening we were able to get one of the amazing shaved ices with ice-cream while watching the movie under a full moon and star lit sky and hearing the waves roll in on the shore! Truly an amazing experience!






Sunday, I went to church with Lisa. Service was really good and inspiring, but saying goodbye to all the amazing people there was not fun. These wonderful people at church have made me feel so welcome and apart of Hope Chapel Church, and words cannot express how much they mean to me. Thank you so much, you all will always have a place in my heart! Following church I went with Lisa to the North Shore where we met up with some of her friends. What a great time we had. The guys grilled meat on the beach for us, we played some botchie ball, swam out into the water along with about 20 sea turtles, and then stayed for one of the best sunsets I have ever seen. The colors that God painted in the sky that night were some of the prettiest colors I have ever seen! My last weekend in Hawaii was one of the best ones I could have ever hoped for!




Monday was a bit hectic at work. We were trying to prepare for our board of directors meetings that we had today. Our goal was to get about 50 purchase orders ready so that we can move forward with our spending plan from the government along with some other forms that needed to be done. Let’s just say that things didn’t go as smooth as we wanted, and we ended up leaving the office around 10:20pm. This morning I arrived at the office before 8am so we could get everything ready and together by 11:15am because we were heading up for the meeting at 11:45am. Everything got done in time and then I met Friends of Hawaii board of directors. They all complimented on the article that was in the paper in Friday and gave me thanks of appreciation. Following that I spent the day drafting invoices and making a In-Kind-Donation form before I met Governor Lingle. She is such a down to earth woman and very personable. She also complimented me on my article! Following the meeting, I was done for the day.




Tomorrow I get to take Corrie out for a thank you dinner, so it should be a great time! I will to have one more post before I head home on Friday evening. If not I just want to say that this mentorship has been absolutely a blessing and I will never forget what an amazing opportunity I have been given!

Robots: One Goal, Many Paths

Well it’s Friday June 25, which means that the article I have been working on ran in the Honolulu Star Advertiser! After lots of hard work and long hours, the article that I put together with Corrie’s help looks fantastic. Especially in the hands of thousands of people! I really love the way the article came together. It was not easy though! I was working with Bill Mossman from the paper, and he kept pushing back his deadline, even though we did our absolutely best to meet his of Monday morning. We were supposed to receive a soft copy of our article by Tuesday morning, turned into Tuesday night, turned into Wednesday at 10am, and finally arrived at 12:45pm. Therefore we had to have it back to him by 5pm so that it could be ready for print at 6pm! After a first proofing, we submitted it back to him for edits, and then received a final soft copy to review and make edits to. Submitting that final soft copy was scary but also exciting at the same time. Exciting because I was done writing and I thought it looked great! Scary in the sense that perhaps I still had mistakes that needed to be fixed and that thousands of people would have a copy of it in their hands today!

But the day went well, and the ROC office did not have thousands of angry people pounding on our doors to inform me that the article was crap… maybe they are just waiting for Monday though! (I hope not!) So since Wednesday I have been working on getting things ready for Friends of Hawaii Robotics board of Directors meeting that we have coming up at 12pm on Tuesday. We have quite the work load cut out for us: about 62 purchase orders to make, things to be filed, lots of other things I can’t remember at the moment, and our office needs to be decorated.

As for this weekend though, I am going to try to enjoy it since it is my last weekend here before I come home. Riana and I are going to go get some Greek food, catch up with Shalea, and then probably go for a walk in Waikiki and on the beach. Tomorrow Lisa is picking me up at 4:30am and we are going to go do the “Stairway to Heaven” hike. Should be really good! Afterwards I think I will meet up with Riana and Shalea and perhaps take a bus over to Kailua and hit up one of the nicer beaches on the North-East side of the Island. Sunday, going to church and going to perhaps spend the afternoon at the beach for the my last time before I leave. It’s not fun thinking about leaving, but I will be excited to spend some good quality time with my family. Especially before Alyssa head’s of to UNCW for the start of her grad school program!

HECTIC ! ! ! ! !

Yes, I know I am long over-due for an update… Last week was one of the most insane weeks though in all my defense! We had Nancy McIntyre and her robotics team from Chaminade High School come in from California. This meant that I played travel agent. Now for those of you who know me, I love being an travel agent, well when it’s a trip for me! Last week was my time to step away from being selfish and focus on planning a great trip for 12 other people.




Using all my past experience with planning trips, I really did not have a hard time planning their trip and figuring out details, best prices, calling different car rentals and hotels, remember little details, and et al. One problem that I encountered was that I was informed of booking the final details of their trip on Monday (June 14) and they left for Hawaii on Wednesday (June 16). Yikes, crunch time it was! By Wednesday evening I had their trip completely finalized and everything booked.

While being travel agent, figuring out office details, helping Shalea Otto get familiarized with Honolulu (she was hired to work on the International Woman’s Leadership Conference), and I was also learning how to be a night-time journalist. Let me say not easy to do when you come home after being worn out by people on the phones all day demanding that you not be the middle man! I succeeded in turning a draft of my paper to Corrie on Friday night around 11:30pm.




Saturday, I went to St. Louis High School to learn about VEX robots and meet the Chaminade High School Robotics Team. Let me tell you these students blew me away with their presentations on their robots and what they are doing with technology! (I felt so dumb, but then again everyone has their area of expertise!) It was lots of fun to talk to the kids and become more educated in the field of what I have been trying to learn at the office. At the end of the workshop I got to drive one of the robots and play one of the games! The game they had us play was there were rings that we had to pick up and then place on a stand. Sounds easy, but actually harder than you would expect! The robots movements are very sensitive and so you end up moving far past the destination point than you actually want. Any who, not trying to brag at all, but I did amazing! I started about 10 minutes after several other people did because I was talking to a couple of students and in about 6 minutes, I had two rings on the stand! Whereas only one other person only had a ring on his stand! Yeah, go me! I loved my first robotics experience! Oh and watch out Illinois, Nancy is trying to get me to start my own robotics team…






Sunday, I went to church again with Lisa. I have to say I have grown to love this incredible Godly woman. She is going to be irreplaceable once I leave. Every week I look forward to Sunday because it means that I usually get to spend it with her company, and that time is always so much fun! Unfortunately, I did not get to spend it with her all day though because I had an article that needed to get submitted to the guy at the paper by midnight. Therefore, the rest of my Sunday was spent working on my article.





Today, I received some more feedback on my article, talked with the guy from the paper, was a travel agent again, worked on starting a proposal for our board of directors, and oh yeah finished the final draft! I can’t believe how many different “hats” I have gotten to put on over the last 4 weeks or so, but it has been a journey that is definitely been fun and kept me enjoying my experience so much! There is so much more I would love to share, but since it is now technically Tuesday and I have to be up in a couple of hours I am going to leave you hanging until later this week.
*****Article goes to press on Wednesday and is in the hands of people on Friday, June 25th, pray that it is good!*****

Week 3

Due to Corrie having to fly to New Hampshire for work and then to Illinois for a family wedding, this week work was different from the past two weeks. I was at the ROC office with Lee all week working on getting the rest of the office put together, figuring out suppliers for upcoming ROC events, contacting Lowes and Home Depot to see if they were interested in setting up a line of credit for the schools here in Hawaii to spend money on robotic equipment, writing drafts of stories for the paper, running some errands, making purchase orders, and whatever else came my way. It was a good week at the office, but I am looking forward to Corrie being back, so that we can really make way on these stories for the paper, and also finish up getting details sorted for the Robotics team coming in from California this next week. Therefore, this upcoming week might be a bit hectic (which I will love)!




Friday, June 11th, was King Kamehameha Day. Let me give you a bit of background. King Kamehameha the Great was the monarch of Hawaii between 1782 and 1819. He is known and respected for uniting and establishing the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1810 and therefore the day is held in his honor each year. On this day each year the fire department put huge long leis on his statue that is located downtown in honor of him and then practically the entire state has the day off. Well I worked the first part of the day and then Zach picked me up and we went to Kailua and spent the afternoon on the beach. The drive there was fantastic and it always takes my breath away. So in order to get there we have to drive through the mountain ridges to get to the Northeast part of the island and the view once you come through to the other side is amazing! My pictures do not do it justice; therefore, everyone should come and see this beautiful creation of God’s. While out in the water, a sea turtle came up and started swimming with me! So awesome!







Saturday, I did some adventurous things on my own. First off, I went and tackled Koko Head. Koko Head is small mountain that was used during World War II. Basically, what happened is that at the top, there is a small little fort, and a rail-line was used to transfer information and down from the fort about possible upcoming attacks on Oahu. Let me tell you though, it was not an easy hike! To climb it, one must go straight the old rail line for probably ¾ a mile. Definitely, a little tiring, but the view from the top was well worth the sweat and soreness in my legs. After that hike, I traveled a little more around the east side of the island, stopped at some lookout points and climbed a few spots before heading more northeast. The next major hike I did was Makapu‘u Lighthouse Point. This hike wrapped around the coastline and ended upon the top of a mountain, so you could look down and see the lighthouse below on the cliff. From this point, I could see some of the smaller towns that lay nearby, Rabbit Island, and just more beautiful shoreline. Then to cool off and enjoy a little bit of the beach I headed to Kailua and enjoyed the ocean while watching canoe rowing teams practice.




Today, I went to church with Lisa again at Hope Chapel. Service was great and I really have learned a lot from God lately in my life and the work He is beginning in my life is so uplifting and is bringing a calm to my life that is indescribable. Following church, Lisa and I grabbed lunch at this amazing crepe restaurant in Kailua. My crepe had sliced strawberries, bananas, some granola, honey, and light plain yogurt in it. It was scrumptious! Once back, Zach picked me up and we went to Makapu‘u beach where I spent the remainder of my day.




In sum, I have realized a that I can honestly see myself doing non-profit work and would love to find a job for an organization that makes a positive impact on kids life, can pay enough to support me, and hopefully live somewhere as beautiful as this place is! I am absolutely in love with Hawaii and would love to stay here for more than just the 6 weeks. If you do not believe me ask my family, who I have barely been able to talk to since I have been out here; they can tell you that I am loving my time here. Therefore, I am so thankful for this wonderful opportunity I have been given.

Address

So my sister was asking if I had an address for while I am here; therefore, I decided to post it incase anyone else was wanting it.

Natalie Wetterauer
East-West Center Housing
Hale Kuahine #435D
1811 East-West Road
Honolulu, Hawaii 96848-1811

Remembering the Past

Well this past weekend was another good one for the book. Saturday Riana and I got up at 5:30am to get ready and catch the 6:15am bus to Pearl Harbor. An hour later we arrived at the Pearl Harbor Memorial, got our tickets, and was so thankful that we showed up when we did. The tickets we got were for the 8:40am boat ride over to the Arizona Memorial. Those tickets go fast and to think that if we arrived maybe 30 minutes later our tickets would have only been good for the earliest of 10:30 probably. So other than just going out to the memorial the only other thing to do is pay for the submarine, or pay to go out to the U.S.S. Missouri is to watch the video they show. The video was good and following; we just kind of walked around and wasted time until our tickets were called.




The Arizona Memorial is more or less a huge open platform placed above the ship with names of the men engraved in the walls. Looking out through the walls, one can see parts of the ship above and below water. The whole time I was out there, I could hear the footsteps of others around me, the breeze blowing into my ears, and a faint few whispers of people. For the most part though, people are respectful and are giving tribute to all those who served and continue to serve our country. Thank you to all of those who do.




After visiting the memorial, we walked a couple of blocks to Aloha Stadium and hit the market for few. Of all places to go to, I really did not need to hit up a place like this but I could not resist! I got some things for my family, told myself that I could not buy some things, and got a good tan before heading back. We got back and then went to the beach to catch the still hot afternoon rays! What a great afternoon it was on the beach! That evening Zach, Riana, and I went out to dinner at Hard Rock Café, walked around Waikiki, and sat on the beach for a while before calling it a night.





Sunday, Riana and I went to church with Lisa (Corrie’s roommate). She attends Hope Chapel in Kaneohe Bay. The Church sat at the base of the mountain ridges and had a beautiful view overlooking the town and bay below it. Wow, to think that I can go to a church in such an amazing location is incredibly hard to grasp! Service was great and the message was something that was so fitting for where I am at in my life. We hung out with Lisa for a bit, and then in the afternoon I made my way back down to the beach to work on my news article, do some reading, and catching up with friends and family on the phone.





Today, I reported to the office to try to get more things set up in the office, worked on my news articles, and figured out some other things for ROC’s upcoming events. I have to say it is different though not working in the governor’s office, definitely less of a busy feel to the place. My goal is to look over my drafts tonight that I have written so that this paper starts really coming together. Well I know I have not even begun to talk to everyone from home, so please send me updates on how you have been! I miss you all so much, and also think and pray about you constantly!