Community Classes

I decided that I needed to get out more in 2010 and what better way to do that than to take some classes in the community. I looked through the adult ed classes offered through some of the nearby schools as well as activities offered through the City and County of Honolulu Parks and Recreations and decided on ukulele lessons.

I'm borrowing my sister-in-law's ukulele for the classes. I cannot believe she gave me her Kamaka! I don't think it'll help improve my playing though LOL I have also shanghaied my friend Elle into coming along with me so this should be pretty fun. There may be up to 20 students in the class, but I hope it's smaller. We need to register tomorrow for the class.

I am also considering a self-defense class for women. I figure it might come in handy one day, right? You never know what kind of creep is lurking in the shadows. I'm not sure what they'll teach in this class though so I plan to ask about it when we register for the ukulele class.

Since I may be doing these two classes I decided to cut back on my hours at JCCH. I'll need the time to practice the ukulele, watch movies and update my movie blog and try to update this blog.

He Ain't Got No Respect

I just got back from what was supposed to be a tutoring lesson. My student didn't show up . . . again! He didn't even call to cancel.

To this I say, EFF THIS!

Shortly after I post this update I will be emailing the volunteer coordinator to let her know I would like to take her up on the offer to get a new student. Obviously this jerk off doesn't give a rat's ass about anything but himself.

Sure, there are tons of people in the world that are like this you might say. The true irony is that this guy is supposed to be a minister/reverend/man of faith. Psh, anyway. Apparently that doesn't make a difference.

Oh, and I just wanted to add that a less secure person would take this as a slight against them. However, I figure it's his loss and not mine. You can only help someone who wants to be helped.

Being an Educator Sucks

I'm getting a bit disenchanted with this whole tutoring business. I've met my student once in a get-to-know-you sit down and once for an official "tutoring" sesssion. You can't even consider it tutoring because of how he wants to learn. It's basically memorization on his part and human dictionary on mine.

The last three scheduled sessions didn't happen at all, and I'm about to end this relationship if nothing changes. The first time he skipped out was because he got a job for the day. This is an acceptable excuse in my opinion.

The next time he missed our tutoring day was because he had to help his cousin. I have no clue what they were doing and didn't ask. This was a less acceptable but still legit excuse for missing the session.

The most recent time he failed to even call to let me know he couldn't make it. I waited at our meeting location for about half an hour before giving up. I called and left him a message informing him I was leaving and to call and confirm if he would make the following session.

Shortly thereafter, he called me and mumbled something. I have no idea what he said and asked him to repeat it. On the second go-round, I think I caught something about marital problems. Before I could process it, the line went dead. I called back thinking we just got cut off, but he didn't answer. WTF?!?!

I expressed my concerns today when I spoke to the volunteer cooridnator. She said to give it one more try and report back to her whether or not he showed. She also encouraged me to tell him to use the workbook rather than just memorizing his material. If he didn't want to use the workbook, she thought it was of no use for him to be in the program. Should he decide not to use the book, she would probably need to talk to him again. She said she would also try to find another student for me as it is not fulfilling on my end if all I am was a human dictionary.

I'm supposed to meet him tonight so we'll see if he even shows up. The coordinator talked to him and he said he was supposed to meet me tonight. At least he knows the schedule.

The New Girl - Part 2

I've been working with the new girl and slowly trying to transition some of my job duties to her. However, it is clear at this point that this will definitely be a challenge. I hope it isn't insurmountable, but I'm not even sure what the odds are at this point.

Is it a generation gap or just a personality flaw? The newbie is unable to focus on simple things, and in my opinion, has some form of ADHD. Either that or I have a walking, talking Valley girl on my hands. Thought that was just a Hollywood stereotype, did ya? So did I. The newbie just loves to talk and talk about all kinds of random crap. This is what a fricken liberal arts education does to people. They know a lot of useless facts but are uncapable of dealing in a work environment. Suuuure, they bullshit with the best of them but are completely incapable of getting work done . . . correctly I might add. Done correctly.

I never knew before today just how great and awesome traits like efficiency and common sense are. I've never really worked with anyone lacking these traits and don't really know how to deal with it. Sure, the new girl is a recent college graduate with limited work experience, but seriously? Seriously? How much brain power does it take to count a bunch of things and put them nicely back into a box? It would seem self-explanatory to me that if you're doing inventory you'd want to keep things nice and tidy for when you need to pull the items out in a pinch. What's the sense of counting thousands of items when you're just going to dump them back in a box and not keep track of them?

Another example of the idiocy I have to deal with ( just so you don't think I'm being unbelievably harsh) is the fact that it doesn't even dawn on her that when you're placing address labels onto an envelope, the labels should probably be straight and not tilted in a 45 degree angle. I mean, must something like this be part of the instructions given to her? "Attach one label to the envelope by placing it in the exact center of the envelope. Make sure it is parallel with the bottom edge of the envelope. Then insert a newsletter into the envelope and stack them all nicely in a box so you can take it to the mailroom." Is this the intelligence coming out of colleges these days? Seriously?

I had to talk to our manager today and bring up these and many other issues. The guy himself is a fool so I'm not sure how he is going to approach this. I plan on being very direct with the new girl from now on. I don't care if I come across as condescending. You need to prove to me that you're not an idiot before I talk to you as an adult and use words with more than two syllables.

Having to deal with this girl on a daily basis as well as our big, fat dummy of a boss might just be my undoing. I better concentrate and do this JET application to the best of my abilities. I don't think I can handle much more of anything in the current work environment.

Livemocha - The Java of Languages

I found a cool website called Livemocha that is half social networking and half language acquisition. Basically, it's a MySpace or Facebook for those trying to learn a foreign langauge.

Since my plan is to travel to Europe (Italy being highly favored) in 2010, I figured I'd try to learn some Italian. I'm sure I won't become an expert, but if I can get a couple of common phrases down I'm sure it'd help a great deal.

At the same time, I figured I might as well spruce up my Japanese as well. I mean, I took nihongo in high school and made it through Japanese 302 in college, but it's been a while since college and I haven't had to use any of it. At this point, I'd have to say that I've forgotten most of it.

So, the other day I signed up for beginning Italian and Japanese. The program is pretty interesting. And, the best part is that it's free. It's very interactive (other community members reply to your lessons) and there are parts of each lesson where you're asked to write or speak. I find this really helpful.

So far, so good. My suspicions about my deteriorating Japanese ability were confirmed. The worst part of all is that I can't read any of it. All the kanji look foreign. Also, since I've never taken any Latin-based languages, I'm learing Italian from scratch. It's a challenge but I'll keep at it and see if I can learn a thing or two.

Hola, Que Tal?

I've been meaning to learn another language for a long time, especially with all the resources you can find online these days. I took Japanese in high school and college and actually completed through Japanese 302 (quite a feat in my book), but not having used it since that last class and never having lived in Japan, all that I learned has slowly slipped away. Replacing that useful piece of linguistic knowledge are a bunch of pop culture do-dads that couldn't help me to save my life.

But, yesterday I was talking to a co-worker who speaks Spanish, English, French and Italian and I was inspired. So tonight I subscribed to Coffee Break Spanish on iTunes. The first podcast wasn't too bad, considering I've never studied any Latin languages before. We'll see how it goes though. I wanted to do Italian or French, but I thought Spanish might be a bit easier to start with. It seems to have the same rolling Rs that's in Japanese so I'll be able to pronouce at least that much. I also listened to one of the French podcasts but I think the rounded sounds will give me a problem before I even start, so I'd better save that for another time.

After just one podcast, I gotta say that the best part is that the instructor and the student both have Scottish accent. For some reason Scottish, Irish and British accents are just sexy (and I can totally understand them without learning a new language)!