Kupu Trip

So upon getting back from my vacation at home, I immediately went straight into my Kupu service trip. What's Kupu you ask? Well, Kupu is a non profit based here in Hawaii that manages the environmental Americorp interns for the state. There are about 60 of us across the state, some working for the State such as myself, others working for other non profits. Kupu requires us to do things such as journal updates occasionally, two conferences with all the interns, and hosts a couple of service project. Unfortunately I missed getting on one of the two trips that went to Kalapapa on Molokai (where the lepers used to reside). So I got stuck going on the Oahu trip, which meant no island hopping for me.

To say I was dreading this trip would be an understatement. As I've gotten older, I have started to loathe these internship requirement things. They are almost always boring, and I find that most of the time I end up being treated like a child, something I absolutely despise. It wasn't starting out well either. We had to be dropped off at the office since our cars could be towed, I missed my first bus, caught a 2nd one that got me there a bit late, and then spent the next 20 minutes walking in the pouring rain and fussing about how late I was. Once I got there, looking like I had just dove into the ocean with my backpacking backpack on, we ended up waiting another hour and half waiting for the outer island people to get there. I was not looking forward to 4 more days of this.

But everything changed once we actually got to the location we were staying. HELLO BEACH HOUSE! We were literally staying right on the ocean. Us girls ran up the stairs, snagged the room with an ocean view and then we were all off to go work in a loi at Ka Papa Lo'i O Punalu'u. A loi is where you grow taro, which is a plant in which the root is beaten to make poi. This involved us getting down and muddy as we waded around knee deep water and built up mud mounds near the plants and planting hull. It was surprisingly fun getting to see the entire process of how you plant them, weed, and harvest, and how the water moves through the system.

The next day we went to Moku'auia or Goat island, off shore of Malaekahana beach park. To get to the island, did we take the dingy you see in the picture, why no, no we did not. What we did do is put our belongings in the dingy and then all 15 of us walked across the reef holding on to the dingy. Getting there wasn't too difficult, but on the return trip we almost got swept away. Once we got to the island we were rewarded with beautiful views and then began removing ironwoods. This island is a bird sanctuary and too many birds were flying into these invasive trees. While I wish I had been the one using the chainsaw, my role was mostly just passing wood all day.

Next up was James Campbell Wildlife refuge. This place was incredibly awesome. Its a huge property that is currently not open to the public but has a great wetland system for birds, a beautiful beach that is known to have monk seals, a great dune system, and a large amount of open land that they can manage to make a better place for native species. However after 2 days of field work and early mornings with no coffee, I was running a bit low on energy. We were assigned to pull fence and while most of us girls got to work cutting the saplings growing through the fence, the boys decided they didn't really need us. Most of my job that day was getting out of the way in time for the guys to go "MOVE" and rip the whole fence out. Later I recommitted to my work by using a hand saw to cut some large invasive haole koa, until my wrist started hurting. Then we all turned to having tree fights with whatever we cut down. Who said field work couldn't be fun?




Overall, it was a really fun trip. I got to know a lot of the girls a lot better, and the young guys that I expected to be a pain were either at the other house and were not nearly as annoying as expected. I pretty much spent the entire weekend in my swim suit so all free time was spent laying out and swimming in the ocean, and the evening resulted in hawaiian music jam sessions. I also had the opportunity to hear what everyone was doing for their internships and it was great to know that all of us had the same goal in mind; to protect this incredible ecosystem this beautiful island has provided us. 

Busiest Month Ever

So after getting back from Maui, I immediately left for the Big Island for some Forest Stewardship and CREP site visits, followed by the Forest Stewardship Advisory Committee meeting. The site visits were crazy because we only had one day, and a lot of places to go. We started out with a property that was currently applying for Forest Stewardship. Once we finally made it to the top of the longggg road, we got out and I saw an I'o adolescent (Hawaiian Hawk). It was just sitting there as we walked around the property.







Next up we went to a property that had been in the stewardship for 10 years. It was amazing to see so many Ohia and Koa growing on a property and surviving. We also visited some properties that used the funding we provided to plant trees to harvest in the future. It was a great opportunity for me to practice testing myself on species here. The hard part is that you have to learn the common name, hawaiian name, and the scientific name. Definitely have a long way to go before I have the native plants memorized.

The meeting provided me with some great opportunities to network with people from other agencies, and also to learn more about the process of the forest stewardship program. But after a weekend of meetings and site visits, I was excited to go home. Home was filled with catching up with friends, an amazing trip up to Santa Cruz to hang out with my girls, a couple of shopping trips, Disneyland with my family and friend before she left for NZ, wine tasting with my mom, and finally ended the 2 week trip home with the Surf City Huntington Beach Half marathon. While I didn't get to run with all of girls on the run, we were all doing it together. I had signed up for 1:40 pace and then realized how fast it was and decided maybe that was just a bit too fast. I went out with my group anyway and actually finished within 1:42. I was super excited to try my first asphalt half marathon. Then I hopped on a plane back to Hawaii.

But the adventures didn't stop there, I went straight into a service trip for my internship...

Maui vacation!

So I haven't updated in a really long time, mostly because I was running around crazy busy! So the holidays came and went, I was able to experience a hawaiian christmas which was quite warm, and explored some of my japanese culture for New Years. Apparently its a bigger holiday in Hawaii than anything else, meaning lots of fireworks and eating. I ate the day before, the day of, and the morning of the 1st. It was a lot of japanese food, definitely not complaining. Started out the year doing a fantastic hike called Kuliouou Ridge Trail which was a nice 3 hour hike with a great view. Then all my energy was channeled into preparing for my friend Alex's visit to Hawaii for the first time, our trip to Maui, a meeting on the Big Island, and then a trip home.
The trip to Maui was definitely the highlight. We began the trip staying at the summit of Haleakala where it was absolutely colder than I have been moving to Hawaii. We did a hike into the crater which had crazy wind blowing down and where I got to see a silversword, an endangered plant in Hawaii. We also did a hike lower in the crater as well as a native bird hike.





The next day we did the road to Hana, filled with switchbacks and waterfalls at every turn. It was beautiful, but almost made me carsick. We ended up doing a coastal hike in Waianapanapa State Park before heading to Kipahulu camp ground where we had a campsite looking out over the ocean and a rainforest behind us. I don't think I could find a more incredible place to call home for the night. 


The next day we hiked to the Waimoku Falls which was gorgeous and so tempting to hop in, until we saw rocks falling from the top of the falls! Next up was the south coast drive of Maui, which was quite bumpy before we met up my old freshman floor mate Chelsea in Paia for awesome mexican food and happy hour. Then we spent the night at her place in Kihei. The next day we fit one more hike at Waihee Ridge Trail and found a weird asian park before returning home. 


The trip was just what I needed to start the new year. I had been missing home so it was great to have a friend come visit and to take vacation and explore my new state. Most of the hikes included me with a giant smile on my face because I had missed adventure so much! But once the vacation was over, it was time for the meeting we had been planning for months. 

Molokai, Big Trees, and Xmas Boat shows

I went from a girl with nothing to do this weekend, to a girl with too much to do! So in a quick decision from my boss, we decided to miss our work holiday party, (which is notoriously awesome!!!) for a day trip over to Molokai. Which meant this island hopper got to check one more island off my list!

We began our day dark and early at 6:21 exactly (my boss and I like to be precise) and I scored major intern points for bringing her a white chocolate peppermint mocha. Then we went to the tiny inter island terminal at HNL, boarded our tiny plane and took of to one island over, Molokai. My first impression; this island is small and flat! Second impression, look at all those gullies, we could totally use CREP to reforest those. What can I say, 2.5 months on the job and I'm fully immersed in my work. The airport at Molokai was no bigger than one of my classrooms in college with a staff of about 7, and thats including the rental car employee! Then we were off on a full day of work!

But not before doing a short stop to see Kalaupapa. Kalaupapa is where the lepers or Hansen's disease people were sent during the late 1800s and early 1900s. These people were arrested and separated from their families and sent to this isolated area with very little medical, housing, and food. There are still a few people left and they have their own rules to protect their privacy and the history. If this interests you, theres a really good book called Molokai you should check out.

 Kalaupapa

We then too a short walk to go see the "phallic rock". We weren't sure if we were seeing a rock that looked phallic or was supposed to grant fertility. It turned out that is just looked like a penis. But I avoided touching it, just in case it did in fact, grant fertility...

Next up, we went to a site visit. Molokai has quite a few issues a conservationist must face. It is dry, windy, and infested with deer. This project wanted to have trees on their property, but to get anything to grow, it needed to be protected from the wind. So first a constructed wind break was made with kukui trees planted behind them. Four of these were made, but 3 years later, only one windbreak had a grove of trees planted behind it. Turns out the deer were sneaking in and either eating the seedlings, or rubbing them to the point where they were knocked over. Then theres the issues of getting irrigation out to the trees and making sure all the piping didn't clog. To say it was a big undertaking would be an understatement. However, it was a good learning experience to see what works and what doesn't, and that Molokai needs more deer hunters.

The kukui trees with one of the windbreaks in the background

We then followed the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS, the same people I interned with for 6 months in college) to a pollinator lecture. It was interesting to learn the different research and techniques are going into bees and other pollinators to help with crops. I also learned that I either was required to learn the life cycle of a bee in elementary school or from Miss Frizzle from the Magic School Bus. I'm thinking it was the latter. Then we quickly took off to go measure some big coconuts. 

So I know I have touched on this before, but I am working on this Big Trees competition run by American Forest. It is to find the biggest tree of various species based on their height, diameter, and crown spread. We have 5 species that we decided to try to go for in Hawaii, because we didn't want to represent invasive or introduced species. One of those is Coconut. Turns out theres a rather large coconut grove planted in Molokai that is really old. We figured we may be able to find a champion tree there, so we searched out the biggest tree we could find and go to work on measuring it. It was really awesome to be learning the technical terms and using the real forester tools. So we used a clinometer to measure the height, then measured the diameter and crown spread using a tape measurer. So far, no one has entered a coconut tree so its looking like we may have a winner. Heres our champion tree!

Then we ended our day with my boss discussing the CREP program. The meeting was at a retreat center and we met in a yurt! It was a gorgeous place!

Then next night I went over to Hawaii Kai to visit my aunt and uncle and there invited guests for the Hawaii Kai boat parade. It was really great because they live right on the water so we had chili and wine while sitting on the couch and watching the decorated boats go by. Some were cute and small, while others were large and extravagant! Here was the biggest one, playing Zumba Around the World the entire time. I guess the husband was a dock builder and the wife was a Zumba instructor so they combined both of their jobs and came out with this!

It definitely helped to get into the Christmas spirit. Its been a bit difficult being away from home for the holidays, plus theres been very little weather change so it doesn't really feel Christmasy. Plus, its my first time since I was 4 that I haven't had a winter break. I'm pretty sure its the only perk of being in school! Until the next time, happy holidays!

Holidays and Xterra World Championships

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and I survived. It was a bit rough there being a big family holiday and not being at home. There are certain things I missed (like that green bean dish I have every holiday) but fortunately I was not without family. I had lunch at a Japanese buffet with my grandma and 2 of her sisters and 2 of my cousins, which is always entertaining. I always feel a bit sorry for the waiters and waitresses as my various relations play tug of war over the bill. I managed to control myself as I walked past the various sushi goodies to hold off for dinner. I had a nice quiet thanksgiving dinner with my family here, complete with my favorite, cranberry sauce from the can.

Works been pretty quiet lately, with the holidays coming up, everyone is trying to not add too much to their plate before taking vacation time. The thing I have noticed from working here is how much into the future I have to think. My calendar has things all the way in March already. I am really excited about a couple of things I am working on though. One is a rule change, which sounds awfully dull to most of you I am sure. But for me it's an opportunity to apply some of my law background and get experience in the procedures required to change statutes. Another is this Big Trees competition run by American Forests. I wrote a press release last month and it received a lot of response. These next few months will require going out to where ever these big trees are that people submitted, measuring them, and then submitting them to these national competition. Hopefully we will have some "big trees" and make the national register. I also will be speaking about how I am applying online mapping to integrate with this competition at a conference in March (which I am really nervous about). I have also made it my goal to start a statewide big tree competition just for Hawaii by the end of my internship.

In non work news, I ran my 2nd trail half marathon on Sunday, and boy, did I pick the right race. It was the Xterra Trail World Championship at Kualoa Ranch which is this absolutely gorgeous location where they filmed LOST, Jurassic Park, Pearl Harbor, and various other movies. It was a race of about 700 people and we started off on with some nice rolling hills. I moved up passing people on the hills (my specialty) before we headed to a single track that had been cut into the hillside. It was pretty incredible to turn a corner and see sets from movies, especially things LOST related, not to mention the green cliff sides and the beach you could see for most of the race. Then things got difficult. Mile 8-10 was straight up hill which led to all the contestants to resort to walking and few expletives. Once up the giant mountain, we turned a corner and found...MUD! We then had to slip and slide down the mountain holding on to ropes tied to trees for mile 11 and 12, not exactly what you would call a fast course. Once that was out of the way, it was only another mile and a half to the finish (our race turned out to be 13.5 instead of the usual 13.1 half marathon). Once I was less than a mile out, I knew I wanted to kick it into gear and finish hard, which meant I passed 3 people in the last 800 and 3 more in my sprint finish, which felt pretty good. I had forgotten how much fun racing can be, since its been almost a year since my last race. Once the results were posted I had found out I ran 13.5 miles in 2:17:03, was in 239 place out of 687, was the 35th female and had one 2nd in my age bracket (20-24)! I was really excited, especially since it had been such a difficult course and I had only been training for a month and hadn't run a trail since I got here. I got a nice little swag bag, a lei, another medal, and a chance to go on stage and take a picture. It felt pretty damn good! 

So just to end with some Christmas spirit, here's a picture of my cousins dog Chutney :)

A week of Conferences

The title pretty much says it all. I was in my office one day this week, the rest of it was spent at conferences. First up, the KUPU Conference. So in case you aren't aware of how my internship works, heres the low down. So I am technically an Americorp Intern, which is a federal program to send interns to different locations to assist with environmental, health, education, etc issues. Its basically Peace Corp for the US only. How I got this internship is through this group called KUPU that is in charge of us Americorp interns focused strictly in Hawaiian environmental issues. Up first was a meeting with all the KUPU interns in Hawaii. It was really interesting to see the mix of the people; there were a lot more out of state people like me than I originally thought there would be. There were people from 17 up to 34 so the age range was actually quite broad, though it seems most people were around my age, looking for some work experience after college. It was also really interesting to hear all the different things everyone is doing. I think most people were out in the field a lot more than I am, doing things like removing invasive algae from coral reefs by snorkeling all day, or doing natural area reserves systems (NARS) which basically means they are putting fences up, rat traps and more invasive control. There were people from all the islands and with completely different majors as well so it really just varied a lot. This day was spent bonding doing ice breakers and such, and figuring out our menu for our service trips in a few months. I missed out on the awesome Kalapapa trip to Molokai (where the lepers were sent) and am going to a beach house on Oahu's North Shore and helping with seabirds. I guess when you are in Hawaii, you can never really lose :)

The next day was a meeting with all the Americorp people in Hawaii. This meant there were people from Legal Aid, Teach for America, Affordable Homeless and Housing Alliance, and us KUPU kids. There was an uplifting speech from the Mayor on the Big Island reminding us that we are doing something incredible for doing community service. I had forgotten that is what I was actually doing. Mostly I was focusing on the fact that I was bettering my career through more experience and networking, but I am supplying services for much cheaper than my education and experience deserves. And I seem to forget sometimes that there are people out there who don't think environmental issues should be something we give money to. Basically it was nice to be reminded of the role we are playing as Americorp interns and our duty

The next day was one of the most boring days ever. We were getting certified by Red Cross in shelter training so that in case of emergencies that required shelters we would be able to voluteer and help. The first hour wasn't too bad because it was good things to know in case we get called to come help out. Then we were working in groups to do scenarios and thats when the stupid questions began. I don't know if people don't have common sense or thought they were being funny, but honestly I don't think we need to know exactly what to do if Genghis Khan shows up to our shelter. I think the adrenaline will kick in and you will know what to do if the time comes and if you use common sense its not difficult to know what to do. Fortunately, the benefit is that I am not certified to assist in case of emergencies. I also got CPR and first aid certified last week so now I can help in all different types of emergencies!

I was also irritated at the training because I knew I had to go to work after to pack up and prepare to leave for the Big Island for a conference the next day and thought my time would be better used doing that then listening to silly questions. I left the next day at 5am (which meant I was up at 3:30 to be at the airport at 4) which is never how I want to start my day. Getting up before the sun, let alone starting work before the sun, should just be a sin in my universe. I think I had about 7 cups of coffee before noon and the conference went till 5. It was a cattlemens ranchers conference, probably the only place in the world where you see men with hatboxes (for their cowboy hats) and their cowboy boots clip clop louder than any woman's heels. It was an interesting experience, there were mostly vendors selling cattle vaccines, calfcandy?, and other weird cattle things that I had absolutely no idea about. Then there was us (DOFAW and USDA) and NRCS; the state and federal agencies. We were ignored a bit more than the others despite our many swag items. I had been so nervous about memorizing what I needed to know and it turned out to be a bit unnessary since no one really asked me any questions.

My booth

The hotel the conference took place, not too shabby

Overall it was a lot of fun to get to travel for work and nice to take some responsibility. It really meant a lot that my bosses trusted me after only a month to travel for work by myself and represent our office. I also got to meet up with a friend of mine living in Hilo for dinner at the Kona Brewing Co (a must when you're in Kona right?) which was really great. Now its back to the office for this week, though Thanksgiving is on Thursday so I will have a nice day off to make up for working on Saturday. I have plans to go with my Grandma's side of the family to Thanksgiving lunch BUFFET and then Thanksgiving dinner with my family I am living with. I am going to be so stuffed. We will see how two meals will go...I think my Friday will have to include a long run.

PIC and Hamakua Marsh

This week was absolutely crazy. The Pacific Island Committee Conference was finally here, after a month of planning. This was a conference with all US Pacific Islands, including Guam, Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, American Samoa, and the Marshall Islands. I had an epiphany a few days before the conference that I would be doing registration, which involved me having to hear peoples names, and mark them off on whether they paid or not. And I struggle with accents. This was going to be interesting. Fortunately once registration got into full swing, I was left doing parking validation and receipts, which suited me just fine. We were working most of the morning and therefore wasn't really able to listen to the lectures till the afternoon. The afternoon lectures were about the effects of climate change on Pacific Islands, something I am extremely interested in. I even got to see a couple of people I had met at the Hawaiian Conservation Conference I had gone to over the summer.

The next day was going to be an even longer one. Not only did we have a day at the Conference, but also an evening event we were hosting for the visiting islanders. I had been working with Kokua Kalihi Valley as our location to attempt to get some donations for the dinner. This had resulted in me making Craigslist ads for coconuts and writing interdepartment memos asking for coconuts, firewood, and ulu (breadfruit). The people at KKV had planned to do an imu (cooking in the ground) complete with salmon, kalua, venison, and some veggies. I spent the afternoon driving everyone around to get enough vehicles to drive 40 people into Kalihi Valley, and then we ended up having far too many cars. Once we arrived, we could see two tents with twinkling lights and appetizers of smoked salmon, venison, fruit, and ava. Dinner had fruit salad, hau soup, taro bread, poi, chicken, kalua, and many other delicious things! It was really great to have a traditional Hawaiian dinner with good company.

The Spread

Day 3 I helped set up for the Society of American Foresters Conference, which involved putting out displays of boxes from each of the states. Around the world, countries were partaking in this project to have a box show the best things about forests from their home to celebrate the International Year of the Forests. The other benefit was that other groups that had been setting up had left out all their give away items and while I wasnt going to the conference (far too expensive) I did get a lot of cool swag. Add in the cool stuff from the Forest Service for helping at the PIC and I have tons of cool US Forest items.

My swag!

Since everyone was at the SAF conference, I went to fill my time doing some field work at Hamakua marsh. We had been told we were going to be pulling pickleweed to help make it a better environment for the wetland birds. While previously I had been not looking forward to this, it ended up being tons of fun. I don't know why I have yet to learn that with the right crew of people and a nice steady pace, field work is actually really fun. I had been promised use of atvs, but instead got to learn how to use chainsaws. I have this tendency to agree to do things without thinking and this was definitely one of those times. I agreed to be the first one to try it without remembering how dangerous I am near deadly items. I believe my clumsiness plays a large role in my decision making, and it apparently wasn't remembered till the blade was going. Fortunately, I did not drop any branches on myself, fall on the blade, cut anyone else, and actually gained some confidence in doing some really awesome things like face cuts! No, not cutting someones face, but the legit way of cutting trees where you cut a wedge on one side and tap it on the other so you can manipulate its fall. It was really awesome. I also got to see some cool birds: stilts, coots, and moorhens.

The Marsh

Our fun crew, Katie, Arthur, and James

And to cap off my week, how about some GIS. GIS stands for Geospatial Information Systems and involved combining maps with data. The cool thing I was going to learn about, was how we could include the web in all this. ESRI, the group that releases all the main GIS programs was putting on a seminar on how to outreach your maps to the public using the internet. A few weeks before I had gone to a seminar where they discussed how to do this, and now I was going to a workshop to put it all into action. It was really fun and surprisingly easy (which is truly shocking for GIS, the last project I did took me 5 hours just to get it right), and I have already begun thinking about how we could use it in a couple of our projects! So heres a quick map I made in 5 minutes at the seminar showing a couple of locations of my favorite places.

View Larger Map