Life Goes On

Saturday, 5 November 2005

On Wednesday, I met Nina and her family and friends for dim sum to celebrate her 30th birthday (which again means that mine is just around the corner). Nina and I have been friends since the third grade, so it always fun to get together with her and the family.

Thursday night, I went to on a dinner date with Chris, and was about 20 minutes late as I messed up the time (oops!), but for being a Midwestern farm boy and all, he was forgiving; we had a nice conversation about the truant teens he works with and the Twelve Girls Band that just played here this week over pupus, drinks, and steak (had to have the steak, after all he grew up on an Angus beef farm, and I'm a true carnivore so...).

Friday morning, I led a meeting for the ESLL parents. We have to hold two meetings a year, one in the fall and one in the spring. This one was an orientation to introduce myself to the parents, talk about standards based report cards and give them practical resources on how to help their children at home. It was good to meet the parents...about 20 of them came, and I had whipped up a power point presentation the night before, so all went well. Our principal even gave me and Nicole these beautiful tuberose leis, which was a pleasant surprise. The standards based report cards have been in the news lately here in Hawai'i, as many teachers are now complaining to the union that they are too confusing and not enough training was given on how to complete them. As a result, they may scrap the standards based report card system, but it's just another frustrating thing in the way Hawai'i's public school system works.

But, with my report cards and my meeting done, everything's going well. I just do my job.

Helped Miya the rest of the afternoon to run errands and take her shopping for baby stuff (and hoping that her water didn't break, after all the walking we did since she's on bedrest).

Today, Saturday, after yoga wiped me out, I picked Miya up to get saimin at Zippy's, since the preggie dictates random cravings, and I'm always willing and eager for an excuse to go and eat! I met my visiting relatives, Uncle Roger and Uncle Harry (great uncles on my mom's side from California) for Korean food dinner at Sorabol, one of those cook-your-own barbeque places...It was good to see them and hear about their recent Hawaiian cruise and places they'll travel to next (Uncle Roger to Hong Kong and Uncle Harry to India).

On a sad note, got home from yoga this morning, and two more koi fish bit the dust. One died last weekend, and two more were floating belly up in the murky water of our 50 gallon tank. In the past few months, one fish committed suicide (by jumping out of the tank in the middle of the night) and three have died this past week. We're bad pet owners I'm afraid. Either that, or they were depressed.

Ah, sometimes people see the end of their 20's, sometimes people are late for dates, sometimes friends need a little helping hand, sometimes people aren't happy with the way systems work, and sometimes fishies simply aren't happy either...But, oh well, life goes on.