Snorkeling in Hawaii

This past weekend, George and I, along with our friend Jason went snorkeling in two different coral reef areas surrounding Oahu. While I had been snorkeling once before - very briefly in Jamaica - this was my first full-fledged snorkeling experience. It was awesome! Once I got used to it, I totally forgot I was breathing through a little tube and really started to enjoy being like the fish under the water's surface.

According to George and Jason, we didn't have the best conditions for snorkeling on either day. On Saturday, the sky was cloudy and we actually had a little rain so the visibility into the water was limited somewhat. On Sunday, the surf was a bit high and kicking the sand around in the water enough to partially obscure the water. Nonetheless, we still saw some really neat stuff on both days. We snorkeled at two different sites. The first was on the Ewa side of the island, at a place known as "Electric Beach" because of its proximity to the Hawaiian Power generating facility. The other place was near Waimea Bay on the North Shore near the surfing-reknowned Banzai Pipeline. We saw a lot of awesome fish including the one pictured here called a Surge Wrasse. No, I didn't take this picture, but the colors really were that bright! Maybe sometime I'll head out with one of those disposable underwater cameras and try to capture my own shots. With any luck, we'll have even better conditions for the trip we are planning this weekend to Hanauma Bay on the southeast corner of the island. Everyone who I've spoken with who has been there says it is absolutely amazing there. Stay tuned... :-)

Aliamanu Elementary School

I have now completed two weeks of my student teaching at Aliamanu Elementary School in Honolulu, Hawaii. I am having a wonderful experience! It is hard but rewarding work every day to keep the kids challenged and focused on learning, but I am lucky to have a wonderful mentor teacher and a wonderful group of students.

So far, I have been working with a second-grade class as well as with a fourth-grader one-on-one who is newly arrived from China. The second graders come from diverse linguistic backgrounds. My second graders speak Spanish, Vietnamese, Japanese, Marshallese, and Samoan. They all amaze me with how quickly they have picked up English! I am lucky to be working with very small groups of students. While this is common in ELL (English Language-Learner) classrooms, there are still many schools that have ELL classrooms with so many students at so many levels that the instruction necessarily suffers.

In addition to getting to know the students, I am still getting to know about public schools in Hawaii. The physical environment is the most noticeable. Very few schools have indoor hallways. They almost all have classrooms that open directly to the outdoors with sidewalks and covered breezeways that connect them. Air conditioning is also rare. Despite Hawaii's tropical location, the heat here does not usually compare to the heat and humidity of the mainland East Coast or Midwest that I am accustomed to. I guess we can thank the ocean tradewinds for that. For that reason, classrooms rarely have windows or screens for that matter. They have "jalousies," which are similar to shutters or window-blinds that can be opened or closed to allow air to flow. The nearly daily rainbows, the intermittent rain showers, the relaxed attitude that pervades is making for a very unique experience.

Because a picture is worth a thousand words, check out a few of the pictures I took of my school here.

More Wedding Pictures

I have just posted an additional 80 or so pictures from our little wedding ceremony on Waikiki Beach. Thanks to EmilieAn for taking pictures on her camera as well and getting them to me so quickly! You can see them here.

In Our Backyard

I've mentioned to some of you that George and I have seen a family of green parrots regularly in our backyard. Here are a few pictures I took of them. While beautiful and interesting birds, they are not birds native to Hawaii. They raise the question of an persistant issue here in Hawaii: the presence of non-native plant and animal species. In some cases, non-native species have the potential to severely upset the ecosystem here. Luckily, I don't think these parrots are causing any problems here, so we can enjoy them and their squeek-toy-like bird calls without worrying about their impact.

We're Married!

I can't believe I am now writing one week after George and I had a little wedding ceremony on Waikiki Beach. It was really lovely and dreamy in every way. The only thing missing was our friends and family. We are greatly looking forward to celebrating with friends and family when we have a formal ceremony in October 2007.

As for the ceremony here, we timed it so we were married right at sunset on a beautiful evening on Waikiki beach. After a very short and casual ceremony, we hung out in our new favorite resaurant, The Shorebird, and had cheeseburgers and yummy drinks. While most of our friends are back on the mainland, we were lucky to have a few of our Army friends close by. Thanks to Jason and EmilieAn for taking lovely pictures! Hopefully you can see how happy we are. We both feel blessed to have this wonderful relationship that has added so much joy to our lives.

As for married life, we are settling into our new townhouse in Mililani, Hawaii and we will have it ready for visitors very soon. We are both SO relieved to be finished with all the packing and moving. Of course, there is still more to unpack, but that should be a lot more fun than the packing. No matter, please start looking on orbitz or travelocity for good deals on your Hawaii airfare as we are looking forward to our first visitors!