Pardon me while I get a little meta.

I never kept a diary while I lived in Hilo. But a lot of life-altering, unforgettable things happened to me there. It was my first time away from home and I met a lot of cool people, not the least of whom is my husband. The memory of those times is still there somewhat, and I think it's important that I write all this stuff down now before it's all gone. The timeline might not make any sense to you, which is why I briefly considered using a regular paper journal (what a concept, huh?). But some things that happened are funny and interesting. At least to me. So I'm going to just lay all this stuff out in nothing even approaching chronological order. Bear with me if you can, and if you can't, just read the stuff in tiny little print like this, which will kind of tell you what's going on with me now.

I don't think I've ever told the story of how Ryan and I met. It was February, 1994. I had started school at UH-Hilo the semester before. I had already made friends, who, luckily, all kind of liked each other and all hung around in a big group. There was Sherry, from Alaska; Heather, from Seattle; Jaimee, from 'Aiea; and one guy, Jon, from somewhere--nobody was really sure from where, but it later turned out that he lived about a block from where Ryan and I live now. Jon was somewhat antisocial but strangely gregarious at the same time, so he knew all kinds of people.

He brought two of those people, a guy and a girl, to our table at dinner in the cafeteria one day. Everyone, including me, assumed this guy and this girl were a couple, because she was clearly completely smitten with him. Right away, I could tell he was very smart and very sarcastic. Sort of cute, too. He looked like a computer geek but was obviously athletic, with a broad chest and nice legs. The girl's name was Angelica and the guy's name was Ryan.

Ryan had lots of female friends and nobody really knew which one was his girlfriend. Sherry said Angelica was his girlfriend; someone else said it was a redhead named Jamie. It was even suggested by Jon that he was dating our friend Jaimee (no relation to the redhead). He had to have a girlfriend; what girl would let a cute, smart, older guy like him get away? He was with a different girl every time I saw him, so even though he seemed interesting and maybe like someone I could want to get to know, I never made more than idle, friendly chitchat with him. I found my interest in Nick waning (more on him later) and it was time to meet someone who wasn't dumber than a bag of hammers.

One day, I overheard someone asking Ryan if he could drop something off at his room, and Ryan said yes, did he know which one it was, it was the one on the first floor of Kehau with the green stickers on the door.

For two weeks, as I came and went from classes, I would take the long way around on purpose to see if I could find his room. We often passed each other in hallways and smiled and I wanted to talk to him at greater length, if only to find out if he was taken or not. I had found out that he was not, in fact, older, but a nineteen-year-old sophomore. That made him even more intriguing because he was so mature and so smart. I figured if I could catch him going to his room, maybe I could engage him in conversation.

Hilo had one three-room movie theater. So it was kind of a big deal when Schindler's List was playing because nobody expected it to last long. Ryan told us at dinner that he wanted to see it.

The next day, I saw Ryan in the cafeteria with Angelica. I had to say something. I wanted to get to know him, and if I didn't do it now...

I asked him if I could meet him at his room later. He gave me his room number and half an hour later, I went over and asked him if he still wanted to catch Schindler's List. He accepted.

Posted by: Dreama at November 9, 2002 02:59 AM

Posted by: Susan at November 11, 2002 11:09 PM

Posted by: Ryan at November 19, 2002 01:55 PM

Posted by: ali at December 5, 2002 07:43 AM

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