Learning a Stenciling Technique

People like me ought to stay away from craft classes...I learn new techniques and then I want to buy all the stuff so I can do it again. I haven't been taking classes a lot here in Hilo because 1) I'm sort of busy (less so than last year), 2) I'm poor (Thanks to Gov. Abercrombie and my incredible shrinking paycheck and limited opportunities for a 2nd job) and 3) the pickings in Hilo are SLIM.

I recently took a Dreamweaver stencil class at the nearby scrapbooking store on the strength of a really cool display board with the samples that we'd be making. There were 3 technique classes, but I took one that involved using oil paint sticks. The instructor was a guest instructor from California. There were a bunch of us ladies in the 2 hour Saturday class and it was the best class I have taken yet in Hilo. I only have one halfway decent picture - but here's what we made:


Since I have the time and don't want to be cleaning the kitchen I decided to blog about the pictures because I really like them. Hopefully when I can get my photo editing software installed again, I'll crop the picture so it looks nicer. I also put the cards together so the look a little nicer, so more photos to come!

Dragging Chris Around the Island

(My blog posts are going to be terribly out of order until I get more caught up.)

On August 13th Chris and I drove up to the Kohala Coast for the day. Our destination was Pu'ukohola Heiau National Park for Ho'oku'ikahi Establishment Day Hawaiian Cultural Festival. If this sounds like something Chris would want to do, than you don't know him very well :) But he's an awesome boyfriend, so he volunteered to come with me.

Pu'ukohola was built from 1790-91 by Kamehameha I himself. The kahuna said that if he should build this heiau than he could conquer all of the Hawaiian islands. Well, Kamehameha built it and the rest is history!

PU'UKOHOLA HEIAU

At the festival they had several stations for display (e.g. war weapons, traditional lures for fishing, etc) and stations for you to try things (e.g. traditional Hawaiian foods, lei-making, ride in a wa'a or canoe, etc)

Chris and I decided to try our hand at making ipu, the traditional way. Ipu are gourds that are hollowed out and then used in a variety of ways but I've seen it most commonly as a hula implement (kinda like a drum). We had to take our ipu down to the water and get it wet. The water was really gross and muddy. When you walked out, it was soft like aerated mud and you sank in. Needless to say, I only did it once and then Chris was on water duty for the rest of the time!

MINE ON THE LEFT AND CHRIS WITH HIS IPU

Next we had to use sand and a coconut husk to sand away the exterior. If you look in the picture above, you can see how mine still has all the outside and Chris has started to scrape his away so you can see the prettier warm brown underneath. You might also note that I foolishly picked a much larger one than Chris (how like me) and would soon come to regret this as I had to put in a lot of elbow grease to get it finished. See the picture below for an example of how an ipu looks when pau (finished).

After a long time of scrubbing and some good teamwork, we both finished our ipu! (Another reason why Chris is awesome...he helped me scrub my silly oversized gourd that I picked without me even having to ask!) Chris seems to really enjoy his ipu and randomly drums on it at home. (I need to take a picture of our completed ipu) Soon after he found this REALLY neat website of carved gourds that are used as lamps. They are SO gorgeous:

I tried a few of other things while Chris wandered around sipping on his coconut:

LAU HALA WEAVING

I wove a bracelet out of lau hala. Lau hala weaving is a very ancient Hawaiian art that entails weaving from the leaves (lau) of the hala tree. The hala tree is also commonly known as the "walking tree."

HALA TREE

It really does walk (albeit really slowly). I really enjoyed weaving and I talked story with the lady you see in the first picture to the left of me. She wove the hat that she is weaving! It was kind of funny because the dress you see me wearing is actually her design and she is a designer and owner of Hana Hou shop in Hilo. Of course I've already managed to lose track of my bracelet, but if I should find it, I'll tack on the picture of the completed project. She had me do a simple basket weave, but apparently it can get much more complicated

HAWAIIAN QUILTING

I also tried my hand at Hawaiian quilting. I suppose on some level I wanted to try to understand what Barbara (Chris' mother) does as a hobby. Unfortunately, I don't think I have the patience for this at all! I do love the look of Hawaiian quilts though and would love to have one some day.

We didn't spend as long as I'd like because first, the Kohala side is VERY hot and soon we were both tired of being in the sun, but also Chris can only take so much crafting (haha)... so we headed home. I was still really happy since we got out of the house, went on a mini road trip, I got to play with crafts and it was free!

Oh those Puna Parents

It's been some time since I've posted. School started and once again work life consumes my whole life.

Typically I dread the call or the announcement, "Kristen I have a parent in the office for you." This means that some parent wants to refer their child for testing. The year has only just begun and already I'm in double-digits for parents and physicians referring kids for special education eligibility testing. A lot of the parents are coming in for kids that are more rascal than disabled...which is kind of annoying, but it keeps me very busy.

Yesterday my clerk came in and said she had parents in the office. I got down to the office and asked the parents how I could help them. The following is the actual exchange I had with them:

Woman: We want to know how to make his son sped. He's got behavior problems.

Me: What's your son's name?

Father: Noah Fence (name's changed for obvious confidentiality reasons)

Me: Um, Noah Fence IS in special education already. Let me get the file to show you.

I arrive back with the file and announce, "Yup, Noah was made eligible just last year. Perhaps you weren't at the meeting."

(I flip through the file thinking perhaps the bio mother had attended instead)

Me: Uh, sir, you WERE at the meeting. (As I show the father his signature on the meeting sign-in sheet)

Father: Oh, I guess I forgot all that.

Woman: So he's in sped?

Me: Yes.

I then walked them through their child's individualized education program (the IEP meeting that the father had also attended and evidently forgot). Of course the child's special education teacher is one of those that actually avoids contacting parents...I don't understand that and in this case there's clearly a miscommunication issue.

How on earth do you forget that your child is already in special education....especially when they were just found eligible within the last 6 months is beyond me. But needless to say, it was the easiest referral I've had yet - no meetings, no testing...not bad! :)

It almost beats the parent I had who came in and told me she wanted her kid tested for special ed because she took him to get a hearing test and the lady told her that "half his brain don't work." (This kid turned out to be one of the best students in his class and was student of the week the week his mother came to me.)

I had a meeting for another kid the other day and his foster mother was telling me (this is a true story) about how his brother's eyeball popped out the other day during bedtime. Ugh, can you IMAGINE? This lady is like super foster mom and just calmly popped it back in and then took him to the emergency room where they sewed the corners of his eyes closed to keep his eyeballs in. Yikes! This kid only has speech delays thank goodness!

I had another child walk into my office that was very visibly delayed (i.e. likely some genetic disorder). The parents just moved here from the Philippines and the step-father was treating this child like she was a circus sideshow in our meeting. Normally we ask the parents what their concerns are and they just tell us. This meeting was very bizarre because he kept having the child make weird faces at us, roll her eyes back in her head, show us atypical body parts (e.g. she has some physical deformities on her fingers) etc. He seemed to have no shame in the fact that he was showcasing her like some freakish specimen. To make it worse, I didn't understand most of what he was saying. That was definitely a strange one.

But so far the year is starting out better than last year since I now know what the heck I'm doing. I haven't had any parents call me up to cuss at me for 20 minutes like I did last year :)

With all these parents, I'm not sure I could ever work with a population of parents that actually know what's up - I don't think I'd enjoy my job half as much!