Keep Your Composure, it's Time For Closure

Closure is a good thing. Seeing as I am home in Boston, it seems appropriate that I give an accounting of my tenure at BYU-Hawai'i. Let me sum it up with nine words: "Working hard or hardly working, but mostly the latter." Hawai'i was an absolute blast. I skydove, cliff-jumped, hiked, surfed, beached, stargazed, boogie-boarded yurt...-ed, and flipped into various pools of water. I travelled by beater car, fancy car, road bike, Chaos bike (the most exciting, by far), Chaos pegs, longboard, pie (Spanish for feet; I try to accomadate my multilingual audience as much as I can), TheBus (Hawai'ian for "The Bus"), canoe, and homemade airplane (at least that's how it felt on the skydiving plane). I got stung by a jellyfish and scarred by a cockroach. I swam in waves taller than me, and saw a man doing fire poi balls on the beach. I ate Kailua island pig, a clam I found on the beach and immediately boiled upon returning home, threw a SPAM jam, had pineapple ice cream and fresh pineapple at the Dole Plantation, and drank lots of sea water (not recommeded; and be careful, my experience has been that if you find a coconut floating in the ocean the liquid inside is not coconut milk, it's sea water). I went octopus hunting, watched the sunset at Sunset beach, watched the Sunrise on Stairway to Heaven, and biked to Ted's Bakery from Laie. I touched sea turtles, had a bonfire on the beach, made many, many, great friends, and bonded with my brother. Oh yea, I also went to classes. I aced them both.

Michael Phelps

My favorite event to watch in the 2008 Beijing Olympics? Hands and flippers down, it's Michael Phelps. Can I give that Man-Fish a Holla? In the short span of eight days I have been captivated by his swimming and all of its intensities. The two Olympic events that stick out the most in my mind, like two sharks in a sea of fish, are Hermann Maier (Austria) at the 1998 Nagano (Japan) Olympics performing candidly an unbelievable crash, and the American relay team win the 2008 Beijing (China, in case you live in a hole) Olympics 4x100 Freestyle Relay. If you have not seen the 4x100 Freestyle Relay, you had better have a good excuse; the only appropriate one that comes to mind is if while trying to get to a comfortable standing postion in front of the television (you can't sit through something like that), you got attacked by a pack of javolinas with leprosy and you tripped over the TV and bent the electric plug. I would relate my feelings of that night and watching that victory to the feelings I had watching the Red Sox win the 2007 World Series. I had shortness of breath, a tingly feeling in my spine and left arm, and it felt like an elephant was standing on my chest. When Lezak jumped into the pool and swam the first fifty meters well behind our friends in France, I was worried. Even the announcers, who were screaming, spoke askance about America's chances at catching the wine-and-cheese swim club: "I just don't think they can do it, Dan" [NBC announcers as soon as Lezak jumped in the pool]. But then, out of the misty water and halfway through his leg of the relay, Lezak opened up a can of something and just let loose! (I really wanted to use some stronger words there but I think it would have detracted from the overall feeling of the blog.) BAM! Lezak stormed through the water like a bat out of Hades and caught and then surpassed the French! It was incredible! By less than .1 of a second he turned up the heat, overcame the defecit and won the GOLD MEDAL! It was the greatest Olympic moment in at least ten years, easily.

And then, when I thought I had seen enough swimming, Phelps brought me back to my senses. "Shame on you David" he said via satellite phone from the Olympic Village. How sweet was his gold medal in the 100 meter Butterfly? When he overcame Cavic in the last 5 meters my mom called him a tiger and my dad called him a geneticaly-engineered-wonder-fish-man (or some variation of adjectives similar to those). That was nuts! How does he do it?! He is a Tiger! His last stroke in the fly race-while Cavic kept his arms extended-was a true showing of Man verse nature and for once, Man won. Michael Phelps, I take my hat of to you. You are an inconceivably brilliant swimmer and a fierce competitor. I would not want to be in a dark pool with you though.

Skydiving Anyone?

With so many working, capable planes in the skies today, why, you might ask, would I board one with the intention of jumping out of it? And to throw another wrench in the wheel, why would I pay for it? The answer is easily found: I have an indefatigable desire for lightening speeds. My good mother approved my skydiving (and by approved what I mean is she realizes I am 22 and mostly capable of my own actions, except for some basic fundamentals like reading, tying both shoes [I just get so tired after one!] and walking the dog after dark), but after I landed she said "Oh Dang! I forgot you have absolutely no common sense when it comes to going fast! I never would have allowed you to go had I remembered!" How proud I was that she offered such a grand compliment! It came to me like a drop of fresh water on a salty lip. Skydiving was incredible. I would say it was indescribable, but that would be lying, as you shall soon see. First off, we boarded this itsy-bitsy plane with two long benches for seats and a pulldown door. Let me rephrase that, with a door. (Apparently the pulldown function was broken that day because the door remained open the entire ascent to 1400 ft, even through the jumper closest to it was not buckled in. He would stick his hand out the doorframe and let it glide in the wind). The plane took us over the deep blue and then, after watching one closely knit couple leap, it was my tandem's turn (it was not my turn, I had no control over when we went). We walked to the edge and before I could clap my hands we dove out of the plane, headfirst. We did flips and spins and twirls (manly twirls, not the ones ballerinas do); we went headfirst and pouting-chest first. We sped at 120mph straight down and watched as the ground got more and more decipherable. Mind you, we were over the ocean. I had my mouth open screaming with delight the whole time but I couldn't hear myself at all and my cheeks were blown up like a pufferfish. Maybe Evan-my instructor-went deaf from my screaming but I didn't even remember I was yelling until he pulled the chute. Once the chute was pulled we glided towards land, admiring the Bonzai Pipeline, Susnset Beach and other noteworthy North Shore allurements. Evan let me control the parachute, but only for one turn because in that half a second I was able to put a hole in the chute and somehow call a hoard of sharks to gather below us, swimming between spiky rocks. The whole experience was short and incredible. The plane ride was thrilling, the jump was spontaneous and the fall was riveting and titillating. That, my friend, is why I voluntarily leapt out of a working plane at 1400 ft. over the shark invested waters of Hawai'i. Oh yea, the goggles were pretty sweet too, that's probably what finally sealed the deal for me.