Aloha...my name is Jolene, and I've been married for 14 years to my husband Rich, a nurse (no one looks cuter in a little white hat and dress than him)! We have a 3-year old son named Ryan who is pretty much the center of our world. Here are a few other scintilating fun facts about me-
- I still sport the exact same haircut I've had since kindergarten (the original ricebowl haircut...it never goes out of style, so why change?).
- I might be the only Asian on the planet who is neither musically inclined or good at math, however, I did play golf for almost 20 years...so I think that's enough to hold onto my Asian membership card.
- In addition to the Big Island, I've also lived in Honolulu (6 yrs), Kyoto, Japan (3 yrs), and California (6 yrs). However, it is my life's dream to also live in San Francisco, NYC and London.
- For the past 10 years, I've worked in Human Resources, most recently as the Director of HR for a medium-sized company with about 1,000 employees in Southern CA. However, after the birth of our son, I decided to work part-time as an HR consultant, which means that if our fianancial livelihood were up to me, we'd be living in our car eating Spam and drinking free powdered milk from the government.
- Even though I wasn't a good golfer, it: paid my way through school, introduced me to some of the best friends/team mates ever, and took me all over the United States for free!
- I loooooove to travel. I've been to parts of Asia, Europe, Africa and 49 states in the US. I wisely left Maine as the last state to hit since it's in such close proximity to Hawaii. Brilliant planning.
- My top 3 places on Earth are:
- Venice, Italy (it's very surreal walking along the waterways)
- Cairo, Egypt (I loved finding little kushari shops and eating about 30 bowls of them in 3 weeks)
- New York City, NY or San Francisco, CA. (close tie, but I'm leaning toward the latter since the weather is better, and my brother lives there)
- After growing up here, I swore I would *never, ever, eveeeeer* live in boring, isolated Hawaii again. Then a few years ago I had a son, and decided I would rather worry about falling coconuts than gang fights. So here we are. Aren't I clairvoyant? :-)
- The next places I dream of visiting are:
- Morocco
- Kenya & Tanzania
- Bora Bora
- Saudi Arabia
- Peru
- A few of the things I am passionate about (but not necessarily good at):
- Eating fresh, organic, locally grown produce
- Being a flexitarian (meat consists of roughly 10-15% of my diet). I don't like the idea of raising/killing animals for food, but I also know I'd eat a live badger with my bare hands if I didn't get to indulge in the occasional bacon-wrapped sirloin. I would love to be vegan...but everything in moderation works best for me.
- Cake decorating. I got hooked after watching Cake Boss!
- Vermi-composting. I'm a newbie at it, but so far, so good! I'm hooked.
- Distance running. I'm super, duper slow, and only manage to get out there once a week, but I still love running half marathons (13.1 miles) and the occasional full (26.2).
- Gay rights. I am heartbroken that our country legally discriminates against LGBT by preventing them from being able to legally wed. I praise the Obama Administration for the progress toward eliminating DADT and refusing to defend the DOM Act, but we have SO MUCH more to go.
- I love to read & write, and am a regular patron of the library.
- I'm super, duper anal retentive. I love cleaning, list making, Excel spreadsheets, calendars...you name it! As you can imagine, this makes me REALLY fun to be married to.
- My husband is the most committed father/husband on Earth, and he's also smart, hard working and funny as hell once you get to know him. He likes playing the guitar, stand up paddle boarding, is an amazing writer, and in the process of obtaining his Masters in Nursing Administration. We're still all going to call him Nurse Focker though.
- Ryan loves playing with cars, trains, singing and dancing. Every child has a true gift, and my son's appears to be vocabulary. He uses words like: convoy, actually and herbivore. But he also can't figure out how to pull up his underpants yet, so I wouldn't use the word 'genius' juuust yet. :-)
- I have three brothers that I do my best to try and boss around. I succeed about half the time. The other time they ignore me, which is the polite Asian way of saying eff off. ;-)
- I almost became a professional surfer. The only thing that stopped me was that I didn't actually know how to surf, and no one would agree to my request to 'kill all the sharks' so I could learn.