On a Tropical Island...

A British girl living on the friendliest island in the world.

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google is now a fully functioning pokedex. what a time to be alive

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This makes me so happy!

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Tiny Bones to Pick

So many pros to life on this Island: the weather, the people, the amazing customs that penetrate wealth, race and gender, the science and the scientists, the sea turtles... and I’ve only been here a week.

But I am British, so if I did not complain, what would I have??

1) The Extra gum. Sort it out America. These giant packets of gum with strips in. In England we have small, almost pastels, of Extra gum with a hard coating which softens when bitten. This achieves your gum staying fresher for longer, being easily stored, and reducing the waste of having each piece of gum individually wrapped. If there must be both kinds of gum then surely the other way round would work better. The strips just get all melty and stuck together in the hot weather, and considering this island has no plastic bags in the shops, why encourage a mint flavoured breath freshener which accumulates so much excess waste!

2) Milk. The milk has opposite coloured tops to in the UK so I keep buying white milk flavoured water instead of whole milk, and because of the lack of cows it is ludicrously expensive. Why can’t we have a few cows?

3) Money. Why have a dollar as a bill instead of a coin! My wallet is full but I am in no way rich... where is the fairness there? Also, notes surely deteriorate quicker, meaning more money spent to produce them? STOP MAKING ME FEEL RICH. Also poor Lincoln is on smaller denominations that Washington... what’s the story there?

5) Tumblr’s American spell check. Seriously Tumblr. Just because my laptop may identify as being in this time zone does not mean my language skills have changed.

On a good note though. I wear flip-flops in the office. And that’s okay.

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Only in Hawaii would a Ukulele be on a tenancy agreement...

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The Friendship Wall

Since arriving in Hilo I haven’t felt homesick, until today. This tropical island is beautiful, the people are lovely, the work is great and there is more fruit than I can eat, and I actually have time to read books! But I can’t stop missing my friends and family today!

None of this is making me sad, just thoughtful, and looking at the wall of photos in my apartment just reminds me how unique and amazing every single one of my friends and family are and how lucky I am to have every single one!

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It’s too perfect.

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So as is well known, roundabouts are fairly new to the states in general.

I went to the University Campus for a meeting and there was a general air of excitement about the campus “roundabout” - the first on the island apparently, although this is hear-say, I don’t actually know.

So I went to see this roundabout on the way back to my hotel and found this... It’s a turning circle...

That’s it...

There is only one entrance and exit...

so that’s a turning circle right? I mean how many entrances/exits do you need to have to constitute a roundabout?

Also there is parking actually on this concrete circle of madness. I kinda like it. Added some rays of “god-light” to this image to show my appreciation for this feet of engineering.

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Taken in Honolulu on an 8 mile round trip walk to the University Campus. Note: Everyone I told seemed super shocked and concerned, not only that I would walk, but that I enjoyed it... I was sweating out my kneecaps by the end though to be fair.

I like this sign, it gets to the point, they seem to genuinely want to help! Kind of want a break-up just so I can solicit their use and then write a frank Yelp review.

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I moved to a tropical island to study Astrophysics for a year at the Institute for Astronomy. This is a blog of stuff from this year that are cool, or rubbish, or thoughts, I take no responsibility for boredom of others. The point of this blog is more so that I can satisfy the internet “like-hungry” narcissist in me without destroying everyone’s Facebook feeds.

In a perfect world I would make a crazy multimedia, multi-texture sketch book of awesomeness just for me to look at and punch people in the face with when I return, but crafts are expensive, and video embedding in a sketch book is like impossible? hard? involves sticking an iPhone to every page? ... Ideas welcome.

Today I realised that having had the nickname Jesstella, from when I was 15 and enjoyed Stella, has turned out pretty good because change the spelling somewhat and I can be ‘JesSteller’... because I like stars and stuff... ahhh the little things.