Irish Hawaiians in Chinatown

OMG, I love being a teacher...wait, I mean I love the perks of having a week off for spring break!! We made it to Hawaii on Sunday after 17.5 hours of traveling. We had to get up at 1:30 a.m. to drive to Memphis to catch our flight...however, it was 2:30 p.m. and sunny when we arrived in Honolulu. Basically, I love this place...I love that fact that I am seeing the REAL Hawaii staying with my friend versus being in a resort or hotel. Mind you...this post will ONLY be about my vacay, and mostly just so I can remember what I did each day...if you know me at all you'll know I'm mildly loosing my mind this year ;)

Sunday: picked up at the airport...went straight to pick up one of Maggie's friend and then down to Waikiki. We did some shopping, had a couple of lava flow drinks at a pink hotel on the beach and ate puka dogs (the greatest/strangest fashion of making a hotdog but so wonderful). The best part? It was the Honolulu Festival and I SAW A PARADE. Love.it! After a long day downtown and other random errands, I showered and was in bed around 10...25 hours after I got up (with the time change it was 3 a.m. in MN).

Monday: woke up bright and early at 7 a.m. Hawaii time (noon in Minnesota). Maggie was at school...so went for a jog (and heard goats in the mountain I was running along), checked out the pools at her apartment complex, ate some breakfast and plopped my butt on the beach a mile down the road for 3+ hours. I came back, took a dip in the pool and had a sun-successful first day in Hawaii! Maggie took me to a little cove in her town that is notorious for having sea turtles. It didn't disappoint, there were 3 HUGE sea turtles just hanging out on shore. You can get as close as you want (without touching them--it's illegal, they are protected by Hawaiian law) and they don't even move. Then we went for a hike on the very west-edge of the island almost to Mokuleia. We saw whales within 10 minutes of our hike. We also found one lone seal trying to maneuver through the rocks, he was sooo cute. A little further down, we saw more whales just having a DAY. They were flapping their tails over and over and we even watched one jump half way out of the water and splash himself down sideways. You DON'T get this in Ruleville. WOW! To end the day, Maggie and I went to Ko Olina resort (the place where pro bowl football players stay...wicked amazing) and went hot tubing and swimming...sssshhhh, no one knew we weren't staying there!

Tuesday: Maggie took the day off so we headed across the island to Kailua, particularly the BEAUTIFUL beach called Lanikai. My friend Ambjor is also in Hawaii this week and she "attempted" figuring out the bus system and after a couple of tries, got on a bus to meet us in Kailua. Thank goodness for the GPS on her blackberry, which told her when she should get off! The drive to the east edge of the island was INCREDIBLE. The mountains are jagged and the jungle covers EVERYTHING. Besides the road, there is no sign of human life within the greenery. We spent the day on a WICKED gorgeous beach with white sand, clear blue water, and many asian tourists. Although it was semi-overcast we got plenty of sun! Don't worry Grandma, Maggie is a nag about making sure we all wear sunscreen! Then we headed into "town" (Honolulu) and met Ambjor's friend Beth who we stayed with. We got ready, made dinner, had some drinks and headed down for a St. Patty's Day block party a couple of blocks away. I can now cross off: partying on St. Patrick's Day in Chinatown with a bunch of Irish Hawaiians from my to-do list of life. It was pure madness and LOTS of people (even met up with Tony Roeloffs briefly!). Lucky for us, we were late getting down there and the block party cleared out at 10. We were able to hang out with Cody (also from the Delta) and his friends for a bit before crashing like old/lame people. Saw some "interesting" people on our walk back to the hotel though!

Wednesday: Today we took our time getting up (go fig) and finally made our way toward the North Shore to be beached for the day. The North Shore is where professional surfing competitions are held, Lost is filmed, wealth ensues, you know...we went to a GREAT beach and parked it for 4 hours. My friend Brianne from summer institute also took the day off and we had a great girls-day at Waialua. It was also my first experience with shave ice...holy amazing. Although we each got smalls, I'd be a little nervous to see what a large might be! Tonight, our crispy-selves ate dinner in a COLD restaurant in Beth's building and are laying low for the rest of the night. Those teacher-folk headed back to Waianae because they are actually teaching tomorrow ;)

Now I'm caught up, phew. I'm sure you're bored, but it's good for me to remember what we actually did. The scenery is A-MAZING and changes drastically as you cross to different parts of the island. The traffic is mildly out of control...too many people in a little space will do that. I'm staying with Ambjor and Beth again tonight and tomorrow we're headed to Pearl Harbor, Waikiki and some shopping. AHHHH, I LOVE it here...so natural and full of culture. About to pass out down with sun burnt eyelids....

Aloha.

"Spring Break" = 3 blends...what are they?

So, I was thinking that I should write up some notes of things I wanted to post...but of course I didn't do that because that would have made sense.

Anyway, THANK.GOODNESS.FOR.SPRING.BREAK. When I thought I couldn't yell any louder, well, then I went to school this week and lord knows it was the loudest week yet. Apparently it's all down hill from here. The weeks leading up to spring break are known for being dreadful. Then by the time you get back it's warming up outside, then it's nearing the end of the school year...oh.mah.gosh. The other day I was walking down the hallway at school and I kind of laughed to myself thinking, "oh.cripes, I am a teacher." I know, I know, it has set in earlier, but for some reason I still think it's kind of funny that I am capable of teaching 24 children. I have to admit, it is amazing to watch my kids learn how to read. The more blends we know, the more doors that are opened to being able to read. We learned 'er' in the last two weeks and some of my top kids are totally reading words like "sister" "brother" "grandfather" it's incredible. Then I have kids that just totally make up words that are NOT on the page. ahhhh...I wish I knew how to differentiate.


Last Monday we celebrated Dr. Seuss' birthday. I painted my kid's faces with whiskers and a white dot on their nose to look like cat and the hat. It was wicked cute until they all picked it off. We also wore pictures of shirts that gave us a new name, since Dr. Seuss is so good at making up words that rhyme with things we know. Wocket in my Pocket is one of my favorite books, so each of my kids were things like vug under the rug, Zelf upon the shelf, etc. Plus, that was the first day that I had an alternative spring break'er in my room. He was there from a college in Texas and helped us that week....it was crazy because my kids LITERALLY thought they were invincible because he was in there. UGH.....they.were.so.bad.

My problem child has been much less of a problem lately. Although on Tuesday, he gave my assistant SOOOO much grief, throwing pencils, raging around the room, disturbing EVERYONE in their centers, etc...that she went over to his one-of-a-kind marble jar and took a whole HANDFUL of marbles and put them in the sad jar. Normally he gets one at a time and I don't think he's had more than 5 a day all year...haha, that day he had half the cup full. Don't worry, he was kicked out of the classroom twice and finally sent home from school after punching and kicking me in the hallway. Don't feel bad for me, I asked for it...I heard him sitting outside of the office playing with another kid so I went down there and got in his face. Hey, if you're sitting outside of the office waiting for the principal to come back so she can send you home, you had better NOT be playing with the other naughty kid who is going home for a three day suspension vacay. My principal and a few others in the school think I have a wealth of patience, little do they know that my patience is on the shortest string I've got...they are fooled.

Today, the day before spring break...we spent the afternoon having an activity/health fair type of thing. We went to different rooms and did exercises, tried healthy foods, etc. Let me tell you, the healthy foods we tried were a cup of ranch with a piece of carrot in it and another cup with raspberries and blueberries. Then, 1/2 hour later we got to use our tickets to go buy hot cheetos, fruit snacks, juice, nachos, fruit rollups, etc. The kids could bring $2 for snacks, which equals FOUR snacks. OMG...what a joke. Oh well...we survived the hectic afternoon in a more mild manner than previous days. During the first 15 minutes I was supposed to be teaching a health lesson that was handed to me at the start of that lesson...well, I skimmed the page, we talked about fruit, exercise, drinking water and tumbling. I don't know why tumbling was on this sheet, but whatever. I showed the kids how to do a somersault and they FLIPPED out. I didn't know if my feet would go over my head the way they were supposed to, but they did!

Today was also the first day I have ever watched a kid get "paddled" in the office. One of my students got her clip moved from blue to green for not following directions in the hallway, this is surprising in itself because she usually spends the entire day hanging out on red (TERRIBLE). But, yesterday and today she has talked back when I moved her clip. Both days I sent her into the room by herself to put her head down while we were in the hallway finishing our bathroom break. BOTH days she went in the room and screamed bloody murder. Literally, you would have thought someone was whooping her right there. Today, it was absurd (my kids love that work). I went in the room, took her arm and led her down the hall, which of course made the screaming worse but whatever...I'm not dealing with crap like that from a child who already spends the majority of the day talking back to me. If you're going to add screaming to that, I'm done. She got three "licks" from the paddle and my principal made her apologize to me and we left. I'm not sure how to feel about it. She needed it...but then again, she could have gone back to the office 2 more times that afternoon for just being such a punk that I want to scream. Her mouth drives me nuts AND her and her twin have the nerve to talk back to kids in 4th and 5th grade. Little do they know, one of these days one of those older kids will backhand them and they'll learn. My kids' parents tell their kids, 'if someone hits you, you hit them back.' It's such a great parenting strategy, I can't even get over it.

Okay, getting long winded....today marks the end of our 3rd quarter...holy bologna, one more quarter to get these kids ready for first grade....eeeek. We did master addition and subtraction in the last month though, that makes me feel better! Anyway...it's Friday night...I'm 30+ hours away from my flight to HAWAII!!! SOOOO....FREAKING....EXCITED. Spending the week on the beach and getting a wicked tan and I will come back the happiest kindergarten teacher alive! The only downside...we have to get up at 2 a.m. on Sunday morning to make it to Memphis to catch our 6 a.m. flight! I'm staying up LATE tonight so I can fall asleep tomorrow at 9 p.m.!! Random fact of the day...I learned that I have enough space (and ceiling height) to complete a full golf swing in my bedroom...now I just need a rug so I don't scrape up the brick floor!

Miss you all...but not the ice storms you're getting up there! Last week was 70 and even 83 one day. This week has been 30-40 and rainy...blah...ALOHA!