tomorrow

i leave for india
as usual i have nothing packed and am going to yanagi sushi

kate hudson, save the children, and australian shiraz

i am currently lounging on an extremely comfy bed at the ritz carlton kapalua eating a volcano spiced (whatever the hell that means) chicken sandwhich with crispy onions and drinking a 2006 shiraz from southern australia. life is both plush and tastey. an hour ago i was on an elyptical machine in the same room in which kate hudsen was performing calestenics. my parents are at a wedding somewhere and i am sitting on my ass achieving absolutely nothing without a pinch of restlessness or guilt.


guiltless? but how, kalei, after your vast travels to some of the poorest nations in the country? don't you see begger children staring, wide-eyed and emploring, at you from your 11 dollar strawberry smoothie that you didn't really want as you lounged at the brand new pool that was designed to look exactly like the old pool?


how? because, despite how plush and fabulous sweating off chocolate lavender cookies 20 feet away from movie stars is, my day wasn't any better or worse than any of the days i had in africa.


life in africa isn't so hard when you're there. i mean, sure it is hard carrying 20 pounds of water on your head for a mile. but at the same time, college applications are just, if not more, daunting. in africa, people stress out about having enough food. in the west, people with eating disorders stress out more about eating food.

i'm not saying that i'm not grateful to be from such an amazingly privleged life. fuck, my life is awesome and i wouldn't want to change a single aspect of.

i mean that.


and maybe my experience in africa wasn't as shocking or heavy as it should have been because i realized while power-walking through the slums of accra that soon i would be back at the ritz, but honestly, poverty didn't shock me like it "should have" (according to some people).

life for people in africa go on just as life goes on for students at punahou. both worlds have things more challenging than the other and both worlds have advantages. what those save-the-children ads on lifetime doesn't show are those dirty, half-naked kids playing soccer in the street all day, every day. juxtapose that with an asian mother who forces her 7 year old kid to practice piano for 2 hours after coming home from primary school and before going off to tennis and tutoring that night.

life in africa is hard, but the people there don't nessisarily know any other way. does that vindicate injustices of the west that perpetuate this extreme poverty? does that mean that we don't have any responsibility to end the common offences on basic human rights? obviously not.

well, what does it mean? honestly, i have no idea.

india

sent in my application to study at the astanga research institute in mysore, india starting on april 1st
http://www.kpjayi.org/

working on my application to teach english to tibetan monks in dharamsala
www.volunteertibet.org

still haven't seen any of my friends who are back because i've been working/busy
blahblahblah

break?

for my christmas "break", i've been working 8 or 9 hours five days a week at Neiman Marcus. now, it really isn't that much, and i'm getting well paid for it (thank god), but i miss beeing NEET (not employed, in education or in training). basically, i've realized how great being a bum is.

eight ways to cut down on the christmas gluttony:
http://www.good.is/?p=14000


cool lemon jelly video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ch4vpSVhZBU

quebec, east coast, ghana

i'll be heading to ghana on october 29th to work at the sankofa center until christmas.

http://www.thesankofacenter.org/

basically i'll be going to schools to sing and dance about AIDS. sounds right up my alley, no?

but before that, i'm off to lanai this weekend with mams and pops. plan on hiking, atving and horseback riding by those awesome cliffs that i got to see on the boat trip. stoked.

then on the 10th i go to quebec with my nana. i'll be meeting up with the jeff dymond experience and am tingly with the anticipation of his rainbow disco aura. leave on the 14th on princess cruises' "sea princess" to begin a two week long leaf-peeping extravaganza with nana. will update regularly when my life is more interesting...

vicky christina hott mess

yeah, so i went two days on lemon juice, a record failure...

anyway, saw vicky christina barcelona and now i can say that javier bardem's character is the most attractive man i have ever seen... in a movie. whoot!

something i'm embarrased to like

http://themoment.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/19/london-fashion-week-daviddavid/#more-7525

fashion is silly

master crap

flew into hnl last night. had a great (though) tiring week with alix. highlights include a banging aesop rock concert, a pretty disasterous usc frat row on opening night with the pitzer kids (alexa, matt, sam), pitzer bff drama, fairfax highschool swap meet where i scored an amazing cashmere sweater on the cheap, the gorgeous getty villa, sneaking into disneyland for free, and some dank cali-o.

now to buisness.
i am overweight. since october of last year, i've gained a whopping 25 pounds.
i blame this on three things:
1) gross vodka consumption
2) spending lots of time alone
3) the entire state of alaska

a shot of vodka has 90 calories in it. that means getting drank adds a good 1000 calories to my diet and a bit of umph to my backside. when i'm alone (either traveling or at home) i tend to eat more. this isn't depression or the filling of some personal void with cheese, but simply the fact that i like to eat well and get enormous pleasure from it. i like to eat very well and very often...
and finally, my favorite place in the world, alaska. on my private island in alaska, we didn't always have internet or phone reception or even light, sooo when we were bored we would eat. eat crappy food that was bad for you. ergo ten pounds this summer.

in lieu of all this, i'm going on master cleanse for ten days if it kills me. i did this lemon/maple syrup diet last year for 5 days and was completely fine (though i did start watching food network like i was a 12 year old boy watching internet porn). ten days is the standard, and what i will do this time. wish me luck, i'll be crapping a lot and probably get pretty grumpy. welcome home.