Thought I Was Going To Maui, Ended Up On The Sun

Holy Crap it's hot here! Yeah, yeah...they say it's 87 every day in Maui...and the paper said that's what it's supposed to be...the thermometer in my car said 95...and it ain't no dry heat.

But so far, it freakin rocks! I have a lot of catching up to do...a lot of pictures to post and I'll get to all that in time. First of all, I left the USB cord for my camera in Portland, so I'll have to get another one. I'll have pictures of Niagara Falls, Portland & Maui. So for now, I'll just focus on my first day on the island.

Hawaiian Airlines is pretty cool. Probably the best flight I've had. We landed at the exact time they said we would. I have my rental car - I thought I was going to be tooling around in a Ford Focus, but I have a Pontiac cocktostensen or whatever it is. They actually had a special where I could have upgraded to a convertable Mustang for $40, but come on...my bald spot would burn and all the driving directions I've printed out would fly out of the car.

So I'm tooling down the "highway" listening to the Dollyrots (the only CD I have). I let myself get a little bit lost, just to look around. It wasn't tough to find the house. I like it. It's a one bedroom cottage...not a shed. I have a carport and a little porch-like thing in the back which will be where my next attempt at growing something will take place. There's a few plants already there - Bea (the landlords are Lee & Bea) asked if I would water them. I did warn her about my success with plants but she was fine with it. So as I went to take pictures of the back...uh...yard, something moved and scared the crap out of me...something in the lizard family. Don't know what it was, but I got a picture of it. Stay tuned.

Bea & Lee seem pretty cool. An older couple from Seattle. They actually found a bed for me! All my bitching about sheets, now I probably have to go for the non-organic as it's a "full size". I wouldn't be surprised if I eventually get something bigger, but for now I can focus on other things like...oh, I don't know...something to sit on. Bea has a workshop in their garage where she does ceramics. Some cool, Corn Hill kind of stuff. They let me in on a little secret...if you thought The Man is bad in Rochester, you ain't seen nuthin like Maui. People who work at places like DMV tend to charge people who aren't in the know extra to pocket the money. I did get some confirmation on this...

They also told me that the neighbor who is right behind me tends to raise roosters for cockfighting. How ironic. We just talked about that on the podcast a couple of weeks ago.

L & B also gave me the 411 on the mail...or from the mainland anyway. The post office told my Mom 3-4 weeks on the boxes she shipped for me. They told me it's more like 4-6 weeks. I may need to get a few things in the meantime.

So yesterday, when I was in Portland, I got a call from my boss at the new school. He wants to take me out for a drink on my first night here. Wonderful...my first time meeting my new boss in person and it's happy hour. So I changed clothes and met him at the school. That's where I found out an important nugget of information...my class won't be at that building...you know...the one I told everyone that's 3 blocks from my house. Nope...my class will be a few miles up the highway. I guess I'll be getting a car.

Now, as for a car. I've revised the plan with that. Yes, I want to be greenman, but I just came back from the grocery store...after a $150 shopping spree. Granted, that included stuff I'm not going to buy again - a colander, kitchen knife, etc...but yeah, it's going to be pretty expensive to live here. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go with a used car.

But as for the school. Everything's going to be just fine. Mark, the director of the school, showed me the main school, where I won't be. Then, with the main teacher I will be working with, we went up to the building where I will be working which was a 5 minute drive up the road. There's still wires hanging from the ceiling and they just got the permit to do what's needed today. I'll go more into the specifics later. This floor is a pain to type on and I want to get to the highlights of the day.

So, me, Mark and Dan (the main science teacher) went to this touristy bar on the beach. We had a margarita (while in Rome) while talking about the program, my family, the state of education in general and in Hawaii. Eventually, I just asked straight out what they thought my role would be - if they wanted all the science stuff the kids are going to do to end up in activism. When Mark said yes, that's when I hit him with my idea about having a 3-pronged attack: a low-power FM radio station, a cable access TV show, and have the kids work on a book that would be published. I was worried that he was going to escort me to the first canoe off the island...he loved it. Dan smiled. I'm in. He also asked if I'd be interested in teaching sign language to 1st graders in the other part of the school. Yeah...this is going to be OK.

Tomorrow, I'm out to buy a bowl to eat my $5+ box of cereal. Oh, I'll need a spoon, too. Maybe a chair to sit in... Open up a checking account. And I'm probably going to visit Jill's store - a MySpace buddy from the podcast. I've only been here a few hours and I've already started working on my base sunburn. Aloha, Boyeeee!