New email address all set up. Instead of a childhood nickname containing three consecutive e's (which reminded me of Kim Zmeskal's three consecutive whipbacks, but gave others quite a headache), my address now pays homage to one of my favorite literary heroes.

However, Google won't allow Gmail users to import contacts/mail from another Gmail account. Thanksssss. The last time I switched email addresses (from AOL to Gmail) the business of manually letting everyone know took YEARS. People don't want to dig old addresses out of their address books, cell phones, etc., and change them, and I can't say I blame them. But having to log into AOL mail once a month three years ex post facto, to harvest random newsletters and community service notifications (club stuff, I haven't been arrested for anything thanks)? Argh.

third time around

Done with a good hike and ready to start laundry on this third Furlough Friday. We're in the he-said-she-said, don't-look-at-me, finger-pointing stage of things. It doesn't help to listen to all the bitching and moaning (oh, sorry, "discussion") on Perry and Price. I've already had one person ask me if our school is going to do the "work for free" thing - as in, come to school and hold classes on Fridays, as if furloughs were not taking place. Except for the not getting paid part. My response: We already work for free. When I get to work by 6:30 a.m. to start the school day at 8, I'm working for free. The days I stay till 5, 6 or later, especially now that we're short one day a week, I'm working for free. When I go to the store to get supplies, when I do research or grade papers from home, when I spend time with kids during lunch, when I come in on Saturdays to catch up and get ahead, I am working for free.

So on Furlough Fridays, I am going to do the things I don't have time to do during the week (what with the working for free and all), and at the top of the list is taking care of my family, my home and myself. I'm cleaning, hiking, scheduling doctor appointments, visiting my mom, cooking, and getting a little more sleep.

It's hard on all of us - the kids, most of all, whether or not they realize it yet - to miss these days of school. But until there's a deal on the table where we are paid equitably (we'll never be paid enough, but I'm sure a lot of people feel that way about their jobs no matter the profession), we'll have four-day schoolweeks and different lifestyles. Some of the most important learning should always take place at home, and now there are increased opportunities for this to take place.

From 11/2 - Liking this new(-to-me) blog, Donna in Mililani. Running, studying, traveling ... life is good. The latest entry made me think of Saturday's hike, and how I am paying for it now - the hard run up, and the exhilarating skip-run-trip-fly-nearly-fall down. As I hauled my expanding @ss up the mountain, cursing the switchbacks and grabbing one tiny shortcut (which may have piled seconds on instead of shaving them off, actually), I asked myself for the thousandth time why I do this. Why do I forsake a solid weekend morning's sleep for this pain? Why do I give up a quiet morning at home for the sound of my own blood rushing in my ears? Why do I forgo the treadmill (or even a decent neighborhood sidewalk) for loose gravel, protruding tree roots, surprise new holes in the ground? And why can't I just walk nicely, the way I was taught - why do we have to dart and weave around the civilized hikers and their well-behaved dogs on their way to the same endpoint?

The answer comes in two parts. 1) I won't always be able to do this. I won't always have the ability, or even the desire, to push myself physically and mentally up the mountain. I look at my aunts, still admirably active in the community, and see how they've aged gradually over the years and in some cases so quickly, it seems, in a short span of time. Sometimes, they struggle just to walk. And I can only pray that I'll live life as well as they have, to get to the point where it's a pain to walk - yet you still want to. So while my body allows me to run up Kuliouou Ridge, and then fly back down so fast that every step is a gamble, I'm going to do it. And 2) the life span of a dog is such that no matter how boundless his energy seems now, Kona will not be like this forever, either. The trail is the only place we are ever not locked in a power struggle. We are a perfect match for the short hour and a half or so that it takes us to drive out to HK, scramble up, skip down, and drive home. There is rarely peace between us, but during our hikes, we're pals.

Thought about starting to run Aiea Loop, as it's somewhat flatter (plus the change of scenery might be nice) ... throw me hikey/fitness ideas, please - much as I love the hike, I am in a bit of a rut, and the weather has turned with too much of a chill for swimming.

from HSTA e-newsletter

GOVERNOR’S ATTEMPT TO DISOWN FURLOUGHS IS DISINGENUOUS

Blaming the Department of Education Ignores Her Control of HGEA Contract

Posted October 24, 2009 - HSTA Member Website

Honolulu—HSTA President Wil Okabe responded to Governor Lingle’s remarks to the news media on October 23, the first furlough day for HSTA members, along with DOE employees in five HGEA bargaining units who are essential to operating the state’s public schools.

Okabe stated, “In her press conference on the first furlough day, Governor Lingle has attempted to re-write history. As the saying goes, success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan. And apparently the governor wants to disown the furloughs she once championed and deny responsibility for them, now that they have turned out to be unpopular and the entire state realizes how detrimental they are to our children and our entire K-12 educational system.

“The state’s teachers would like to remind the governor of several things:
• Governor, you were the one who originally called for furloughs. It was you who initially said you wanted all state workers to be furloughed three days a month or 36 days for a year.
• When you were not able to get the DOE employees furloughed, you restricted the DOE funding by 14 percent, as was noted at the time, the same amount that would have been cut through a three-days-a-month furlough.
• After you refused to bargain on teacher pay, HSTA began negotiating with the DOE and BOE. When the BOE and DOE reached an agreement with HSTA, calling for an eight percent pay cut in the form of two furlough days a month, you and your team reviewed the agreement in great detail. And while you asked for changes to the agreement, you never raised any objections to the furlough days.”

Okabe continued, “On the first furlough day, after angry parents, students and community members marched on the Capitol and rallied at Noelani School, criticizing the governor’s furloughs, she said, ‘Looking back on it now, I assumed that they would do what was in the best interest of the students, and I don’t think they did. I don’t think their decision was in the best interest of the students.’

“Governor, it wasn’t ‘their decision.’ It was always your decision. Your decision to call for furloughs. Your decision to cut the school budget 14 percent and force the DOE to furlough teachers and students. Your decision to sign the contract that implemented the furlough days. No one forced you to sign it.”

HGEA contract also shuts down schools
Okabe added, “The governor’s actions before and after the HSTA contract ratification belie her claims that she had second thoughts, especially her contention that things would have been different had she controlled the DOE. Neither the DOE nor the Board of Education was involved in the HGEA negotiation. Yet that contract, which she just signed, has exactly the same effect as the HSTA contract when it comes to closing schools.

“The HGEA contract was negotiated by the governor, her cabinet officials, and her negotiations team. In that contract, the governor agreed to furlough cafeteria and custodial supervisors, school and departmental office clerks and their supervisors, all of the principals and vice-principals, as well as all of the social workers, occupational therapists and other professionals who work with the special needs children in our schools.

“Our schools cannot operate without any of these employees,” Okabe noted. “Yet, just a few days ago, the governor signed the contract that furloughs all of them, just like the teachers. But now, she would like the parents and voters of Hawaii to think the HSTA contract was an oversight and not the end result of the furlough plan she designed and part of a pattern that she set in motion when she announced her plan in June.

“Let’s be honest. The governor got the furloughs and layoffs she asked for. And now that the community is angry, she wants to point the finger at others. Unfortunately for the governor, everything she has said and done regarding furloughs is public record. The facts speak for themselves.”

OK, someone just asked me if I was pregnant. It was in the context of a discussion we were having on whether or not to get the H1N1 vaccine, but still, that made me suck my gut in pretty hard.

Happy Wednesday!

P.S. Dan - NO.

pet rules/pets rule, noisy, inconsiderate neighbors drool*

Yesterday I walked by the bulletin board downstairs where they usually post announcements, ads, notifications of totally inconvenient water shut-offs, etc. and noticed that a fresh copy of the Condo Rules had been posted sometime in my weeklong absence. I skimmed them (nothing new) and noticed that someone had taped to the protective glass a note that said, in an angry red scrawl, WHAT ABOUT PET RULES?

OK, I editorialize - I don't know that the scrawl was angry or that the person didn't have anything other than a red Sharpie to write with, and for all I know he/she was genuinely curious about the house rules concerning pets. (Sure.)

I went upstairs and wrote on a pink post-it: And rules concerning noisy, inconsiderate people and their noisy, inconsiderate guests who loiter in guest parking late at night/early in the morning, disturbing sleeping residents?

Went back downstairs and stuck that on top of the other note as an addendum. Then I untaped the whole thing and moved it a little nearer to the bottom of the glass, since I didn't think it was cool of the original poster to cover the House Rules with his/her note.

This morning the pet rules note was gone and my note was stuck smack in the middle of the glass.

Uh. Keep you posted?
____________________________________________________
*6:41 p.m. edit: Just got back from a mild run. My note is gone and in its place is a new post-it that says (this time in black Sharpie): Pet Rules?

On our way to dinner tonight I'm posting a more concise version of my discarded note: Noisy Resident/Guest Rules?

f minus 17 days

Because I'm pressed for time, my e-mail response to my friend B's query: How do you feel about the 17 furlough day proposal?

Hey B!

Well, the contract's been ratified. Furloughs it is.

I was playing designated driver in Mililani, but my mental vote was a reserved yes. On the one hand, I am disappointed of course - that it's come to this, that our students will lose out, that we will lose out, that we are all stuck between a rock and a really hard place - but the flailing economy has hit so many others even harder than this ... this is in fact the first direct hit that I personally am taking. S and I are beyond blessed to have a home + secure employment, so I cannot complain about this. I can feel sad, tighten the household budget, start feeding the kids the WalMart CheapAss pet food specials, and put off our honeymoon for yet another eternity ... but I can't complain.

Incidentally, it amounts to a 7.9 percent pay cut. S may have to let me get that Barnes & Noble job after all. (There a silver lining to EVERY cloud!)

Frankly, I just wanted the contract to go through - I think so many teachers are sick of waiting for a decision to be made. In light of all the other "options" (like layoffs), this one is best. Some teachers, myself included, wanted to take unpaid holidays instead, which still amounts to a pay cut. I am probably very naive in my rationale, but I hate the thought of the kids losing 17 instructional days. However, HSTA explained that doing unpaid holidays would mean the union statutes would have to be rewritten. Also, the majority of teachers would not get on board with that because paid holidays are an "earned privilege."

I think in the public eye this may make teachers seem like we place the privilege of paid holidays over the welfare of our kids but in any other sector, people would riot over losing paid holidays or any other privilege written into the statutes, and the indignant public would riot along with them. Only educators come under such scrutiny because people know the profession is not the fattest cash cow on the farm, and people expect us to do it for love, which we do, but we also need to be considered, and paid, fairly. It is a PROFESSION built on love, not a hobby built on love.

Personally I believe that we should keep our instructional days and do unpaid holidays, but I would have voted to ratify the contract w/furloughs because something needed to be done already and going back to the tables would have been building toward disaster.

Hope your job and company are holding heads above water! HHKK to little Gato Pants.

<3 kreeesty

for pete's sake

One quick question before opening for the day: No matter how much scorn you may have for the president's agenda (for personal, political or purely bandwagon reasons), who actually takes pleasure in his perceived shortcomings? In the time it took to make those signs and stand in the rain to wave them outside Wakefield High, isn't there something else these people could have done to better serve their children or improve the things they're complaining about?

As I understand it, the original speech called for students to think about ways they could help the president. Um, when I was in elementary school, such an assignment would have been called "Social Studies," "patriotic," "civics," "creative." He wasn't drafting them to be mindless little soldiers, he was asking them to think about leadership and community.

And by the way, if you put the technical definition of "socialism" in front of elementary school students - a society characterized by ownership, control and equal access to resources for all individuals - they'd think it sounds pretty damn good. Because in the classroom we call that "fairness" and "cooperation."

And you know what I mean by that, so don't get your panties in a bunch and start picketing outside my classroom.