…nā manaʻo ulu wale…

how i miss you so. i shall see you soon

i don’t know what happened to you the last couple of weeks–you may have been sick or away, but it was nice and quiet for a while. your car was properly parked in its space (which is why i think you didn’t go away, but might’ve been sick), and the walls didn’t thump as they usually did. it was quite nice.

today, you seem to have returned–whether from a vacation or from illness? for again, the walls thump. again, you park your car OVER the line into my space. uhhh…what happened here?

i’m glad you’re feeling better but please have some consideration. you do not live in a house. you live in close quarters where there are people living beneath you and to the side of you. you may enjoy playing your music very loudly, but that cause the walls to vibrate, making our pictures rattle. you may thump along as you walk, but remember, there are people beneath you who can hear that thump-thump-thump as you trudge down the hallway. the sound you make as you throw things around carries! please realize that although you may live alone in your unit, you do not live alone in this building. what you do you may think only affects yourself, but it actually affects all of us around you.

and that’s not even including the parking lot! why don’t people understand that the lines are there for a reason?!?! when you park over the line, that causes the person who parks in that space to have less room. what’s so hard about parking in between lines? i take the time to make sure i’m parked perfectly between lines, and yes, that may be a bit obsessive, but at least i’m being considerate to the people who have to park around me. when you just sling your huge suv into the parking space, not minding that you are way over the line and into my stall, you are showing me that you don’t even care that i have to park next to you and i don’t have enough room. will hitting your car with my car as i try to open my door make you think again? i doubt it–you’d probably bash my head in.

all i ask is that you be aware that you share this living space with a few other families and to be considerate to everyone here. thank you.

MAHALO!

he aha lā ka pilikia? ʻo ia nō ke anilā? ʻaʻole maopopo ke kumu no ka ʻeha. nui ka haʻalulu? ʻo ia nō ka puʻuwai? he aha lā ia? ʻano paʻakikī ka hana ʻana inā nui ka ʻeha o ke poʻo. ʻaʻole hiki iaʻu ke hoʻopau i nā hana he nui ma muli o ia. a nui nō ka hana! loaʻa nā pepa kaha, nā helu o nā puke (nā pahuhopu), a me ka hoʻomākaukau ʻana i nā keiki no ka hōʻike nui. akā ʻaʻole i hiki iaʻu ke hoʻomaka i kekahi hana! hoʻi wale au i ka hale ma hope pono o ka pau ʻana o ke kula! ma hope pono! ʻaʻole maikaʻi kela.

e ʻoluʻolu, e hōʻike mai i ka pilikia i hiki iaʻu ke hoʻopololei i ia ʻeha a e hoʻomau me kaʻu mau hana he nui. mahalo nui.

ugh. you have took over my body. my head is especially feeling the brunt of it. ugh. please leave. i had a lot to do today, but all i’ve been doing is sleeping, trying to get rid of you. i need to do stuff for school. please.

i’m sorry i didn’t stay too long today. the family next to me was talking to the person they were visiting and it just felt uncomfortable, so i just left the flowers and left. just wanted to let you know that we miss you. hope you & aunty e are kicking it up up there and keeping each other company. will go visit k & doogie soon.

we really miss you. but your son seems to be doing good, which i know is what you’d be worry about. he’s such a nice guy; you did a great job with him!

lots of love!

yeah, you know who you are. i don’t know why you made it, honestly. can you tell me that every single child is going to meet every single standard? honestly? have you ever worked with kids before? do you know that each and every single child has different needs? each and every child works at different paces? each and every child is INDIVIDUAL? obviously not.

you have made schools jump through all sorts of hoops to comply. what happens when no one can comply? even the best schools won’t get 100%. is it to get sanction $? to fund the war? it just seems so harsh and doesn’t take into consideration each and every child. the benchmarks keeps going up and more and more keep failing. doesn’t that tell you something?

you put the pressure solely on the schools, which in turns comes down on their teachers. but nothing on the parents. nothing on the community. doesn’t that have something to do with the decline in education, respect, and social skills? do the parents get sanctioned for not supporting their kids? i think that’s a big difference between then and now. then, teachers had respect and if something was wrong, the parents came down on their kids and forced them to reform. now, parents excuse their kids for every single thing. kids learn not to respect their authority figures because parents will always come to bail them out. and then teachers get criticized for not getting the kids in line and learning. but how, when education is not as valued in the homes?

then, too, i think that education was more valued by the government. money has been taken away from education to fund other areas (WAR, payoffs, etc.). no one seems to get that we couldn’t do it with the $ we had before, how can we do it now with even LESS $? because we are miracle workers! right!

all the pressure that the teachers are going through is taking its toll. you have reports of teachers caught trying to prep their kids to exactly what’s on the test. you have states lowering their standards to ensure that kids are going to pass. you have all the important arts and music going out the door as studies are focused only on language arts and math. it is so sad to be going to school right now!

i don’t know how it is you kept getting elected but i sure do hope that whoever’s next is going to repeal the whole thing. but even if it’s repealed, the damage has been done. teachers are burnt out. they are leaving in droves. the community has a bad opinion of public education. there is hardly any support. but they’re all quick to point the fingers for all the failures. and it’s not to themselves. i think this did so much more harm to the morale of public education. that is a sad, sad thing.

i think that your next job should be an elementary teacher in an inner-city area, or a rural area, with half or your crowded class drug babies, and most of the other half with parents who are quick to blame you but when you ask for help, they are nowhere to be found. you can see for yourself how much you really, really didn’t know what you were talking about. but hopefully, when you DO know, you will know how to change it then.

they are delicious. they made me feel better today. thank you!

heeheehee–remember when you wanted us to call you daisy? because you loved daisy’s hair in mystic pizza and you wanted your hair to be like hers so when you permed it and got it all bouncy and curly you would answer to nothing but “daisy”? heeheehee.

hey, it’s been a long time. i really miss your long, nosey letters! i thought of you today because of april fool’s day. remember that joke i played on you? you kept going on and on and on in one of your letters about me & m and you kept trying to push us together even though you knew what a *ahem* “manslut” he was, as you called him, and i would be hurt that you’d think i should be with him even knowing his reputation, but you kept going on about how we could be known as “m&m” and how cute that would be and what gorgeous babies we’d have and all and i was reading that in math 101 one day not knowing he was READING OVER MY SHOULDER and i was so embarrassed that i wrote a letter to you apologizing for not answering you sooner but i was busy with the new baby and all, and m & i were just exhausted, and you were SOOOO livid at me that you quickly wrote me a letter scolding me for having a baby so soon out of high school and with m, of all people, and how you wanted proof, with a picture of me, m, and the baby, with the baby’s birth certificate in the “lower right hand corner and no thumbs blocking out any info!!!” and i then realized that you never got to the last line of my letter — “happy april fool’s day” followed by my signature smiley face doodle with a tongue sticking out — before writing and sending out that letter to me. remember that?

but i knew it was because you cared. the letter that came the next day (these were the days before email, huh?) was another letter scolding me for being so evil, when you finally saw that it was all an april fool’s joke. but then you went back to your chatty self, letting me know what happened, since that letter before was totally just scoldings! i just wanted to let you know that i cherished your letters. they always made me laugh. you have such great voice, that i could always just imagine you standing in front of me, yapping away. i could hear you speak in your letters. i couldn’t wait to get the next one.

but of course, as always, we got wrapped up in our own lives and our letters to each other became further and further apart. i’m still curious about what happened to you after college. did you go on to be a dentist? or did you switch? are you married, and do you have children? (for me, the answer is no, and one–and NOT by m!!!) are you still in california, or have you gone to new york, as you always dreamed? or did you make it back here? there are so many questions i have for you, but i don’t know where you are to ask them. but i do still think of you now and then, and it always makes me smile.

i still remember your eye rolls as we talked about classes. i remember your giggly voice whenever we talked about who was hot. i remember your squeals and running down the hall to hyperventilate by my locker when your crush said hi to you. i remember your grumbling about homework, as we sat down to finish it during free period, because you had to work after school. i remember your dreamy sighs as we’d fantasize about what we’d do after high school, how you’d be a famous dentist, and i’d be a dancer, and how we’d both make a lot of money and be able to sail anywhere we wanted to, with our handsome husbands by our sides. i remember you, miss outgoing chatterbox, taking pity on this silent old soul, and how you helped to push me out there, to get more involved. you were a great friend, and i thank you for that.

so just a “short note” (ha, ha *wink*) to tell you that i miss your letters–but most of all, i miss you. i hope life gave you all you ever hoped for, because that’s truly what you deserve.

until next time, miss daisy…