hello, i'm here, i'm waiting.

< back | up | next >

last seen: cursing disney

19 december 1996 7:13 p.m.

It's been a surreal week. With one final left for 9:45 a.m. tomorrow, only the desperate scrambling of my mind to do anything but study draws me to meddle online. I had two finals on Monday, and I think I might have pulled fairly solid Bs in both. If they lead to Bs in the classes overall, this'll be one of my better semesters. I fantasize that I got an A for the Hawaiian final, actually, but deep in my heart I know I'm too un-local for that. I didn't swallow my tongue during the oral portion like I'd feared, but I don't think I quite wrapped my mouth around pronouncing kahako right, either. My other test was disturbingly swift going, consisting of review sheet questions and coloring in bubbles. Though my preference is for essay-based tests -- have I mentioned my stellar ability to BS? -- it wasn't difficult at all. I got out of the 120-minute exam period with just over an hour to spare. Since then, it's just been work. It feels weird, today, to be thinking of school one last time after three days in the full-time workforce. I really wish they'd make final exams part of the "instructional period" -- as it is, when you end up with tests toward the end of finals week, you lose your intellectual momentum. I feel like a skipping stone that barely had one skip in it. I'm not sure if I'll bounce off my final tomorrow, to soar into the winter break, or land dead in the water with a big painful plonk. Tuition is due tomorrow, and I am still technically only registered for Hawaiian. Even for those four credits, the bill isn't anything to sneeze at. $431.20, according to the icy cold recorded voice of PA`E, due by 4 p.m. tomorrow if I expect to hold on to the one class through January. Ill-advised as it is, I think I'll forego my mom's loan until January, locking in my four credits with my own money now and then carefully adding the other classes I want during the first week of school. At least one of the dippy core courses I need is full as it is, so I'd have a better chance sneaking in after classes start anyway. That is, if classes start. The UH faculty have been threatening to strike for weeks now, and I think they were aiming to throw off the beginning of next semester specifically... just to make their point clear. Unions. Gotta love 'em. Anyway, to keep `olelo Hawai`i on my tongue for the next few weeks, I think I'll practice a bit with some basic vocab words (and drag you along in the meantime). Word of the Day: "diary" puke ho`omana`o (pu- keh ho`o- ma- na`o) Heluhelu au i keia puke ho`omana`o. "I read this diary." (Read I [dative marker] this diary.) Working during the day is a completely different world. There are only a few old faces I remember from the summer, and I've fallen into a vast, vast new swamp of office gossip, politics and workplace incest. Though they were happy to schedule me in for eight-hour shifts, I don't think they were really prepared to have an extra pair of hands around looking for something to do. Occasionally I was loaned out to a different office, but otherwise a good deal of my wages were earned at the desk listening to the twisted soap operas that were my coworkers lives. I could not have known how soundly I was to be sucked in. The gossip cliffhanger this season -- at least among the clerical set in the towers -- seems to be the teetering near romance of two "administrative assistants," who I used to see around years ago when I was a yellow-vested volunteer in maternity. Now, my all-too-detailed understanding of the plot comes only from one side. Walt (as I'll call him), an immensely gifted and eager storyteller, latched onto me before I'd even realized he worked there. After explaining in grand fashion his theory on women and love -- following me as I tried to reorder some bizarrely sorted files -- he joyfully joined me for lunch to lay down the details. The very forward and bright Walt was apparently new to the office, transferring down from another floor a few months ago. While he admitted the move was prompted by his attraction to another woman in the office (no longer there, apparently), he has found the "windchimes of his soul" are now ringing to the gentle breeze that is Kellie. Now, I've barely exchanged two words with Kellie all week, but my impression of her is no different than it was before -- small, meek and easily flustered. That is to say, I could barely keep from laughing, given the immense difference in personalities involved. Walt, in essense, is a stand-up comedian. Kellie is... well, a bit like a small white mouse on uppers. (I'm not sure if its cultural or genetic, but Kellie is among the examples of why -- if you're Asian -- I say it's best to stay away from names containing "ie" for your child.) They're as mismatched as pinstripes and plaid, but for whatever reason, he's picked her as the apple of his eye, and has been courting her -- with little subtlety -- ever since. Actually, the two spend a considerable amount of time together (from what I've seen), and there are no others in either's life. But to Walt's great frustration, Kellie rebuffed an earlier request for an "official" relationship. That is to say they date, but don't call it that. Or, in Walt's words, he is her boyfriend, but she isn't his girlfriend. (It's strange to hear some twenty-somethings use those terms...) Walt recounted in perfect, yet flowery detail, various instances where Kellie and he practically acted like a married couple, and others where she'd likely treat a rabid mole with better courtesy. He also confessed, after we'd eaten, that he'd followed me to lunch simply to stir the gossip mill -- in the clever hopes of planting some jealousy in the heart of his "girlfriend-elect." Surprise. I was a plot thickener. As apalling as it was to be used as some peg in a complex machine of courtship, I somehow found myself intrigued. It was overwhelming to be at the listening end of such a richly-told tale. While I got the idea that everyone else at the office had heard his story a few hundred times before, it was new to me -- and the wannabe therapist within sprung to life. Suddenly, I have a new friend, and I've become a fully involved relationship counselor. My mind is buzzing with the mysteries behind another couple's budding romance, while my ego is getting a boost from being looked to as a font of wisdom. I was so very sucked in. So much so that I spent last night with Walt and one of his friends at Ala Moana, shopping for a Christmas gift for Kellie. It's absurd. I hate to be anywhere near a mall, especially in December. I have yet to do my own Christmas shopping. Yet there I was, wandering the aisles of Shirokiya (and a dozen other stores) with two men I don't really know helping them shop for a present for a woman, who I also don't know. There I was, weighing the possible interpretations and misinterpretations of a hundred possible gifts. Looking over calendars, sweaters, earrings and CDs, I said a hundred times, "If it were me, I'd think..." There I was, trying to keep from strangling knee-high brats running circles around me in the Disney store, my brain on the verge of a seizure due to extended exposure to a Donald Duck Christmas album. We settled on a Mickey watch, a nice card and a box of Japanese candies. A sincere letter, in part a request for more clarity in the status of their relationship, will accompany the gifts. I'm coaching him in writing it. I can't believe I'm actually anxious to find out how its all received. There's no real way to explain it. I like to think myself as beyond getting involved in other people's lives, but I guess I haven't matured that far yet. I'm out of practice when it comes to meddling, but frankly, I fancy I'm still pretty good at it. I guess I'll find out next week.