sometimes i stammer and mix up my grammar.

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19 may 1997

11:52 p.m.

Dear diary, Someone get the number of that week. One minute I'm trying to get the sound emulation on Frogger to work while downloading garish GUI schemes, and the next minute the Hawaiian paper I'd been spending three days tinkering with my computer to avoid was suddenly due. Turns out I do have a bit of student left in me. I know, because I was actually disappointed with the disjointed, pathetically short essay I came up with. We had to review an art exhibit on campus -- "Ho`oku`e," or "To Resist" -- and the remarkable pieces deserved much better than the monotonous "I liked {x} because {y}" exercise I eventually turned in. The theme of the exhibit was how resisting the unjust has been a long-standing theme in Hawaiian culture -- one that was prevalent well before the modern sovereignty flap, and one that once targeted fellow Hawaiians just as easily as haole people. When I toured the exhibit, thoughts roared through my head faster than I could jot them down. Most of them were notes of compassion, of making connections. I was struck by the irony (though it may be Alanis, rather than literary, irony) of how I empathize with the native Hawaiian movement -- right down to e-mailing local sites to remind them there's an `okina in "lu`au -- despite being about as Hawaiian as Don Ho's shirt. "Opponents of the freeway... say its route runs through heiau and burial sites on both the Windward and the Halawa Valley sides. They say Hawaiian religion regards Halawa Valley as the sacred site of Papahanamoku, Mother Earth, who gave birth to the Hawaiian Islands." -- Honolulu Star-Bulletin Or how I found myself aligned against the Mother's Day fun run on the H-3 freeway, when two years ago I would have sneered at any Hawaiian activist, dismissing them as troublemakers refusing to accept "progress." Walking out of the gallery, I had a thesis I was sure I could eventually parlay into a graduate degree in Hawaiian Studies. Something unavoidably cheesy, like how being Hawaiian can be a state of mind if not lineage. Instead, I remained true to my academic faith and procrastinated until the last minute -- until the morning it was due, in fact -- my heartfelt tale of enlightenment having long since fermented into something resembling a sixth-grade book report. Nope. Not even a hotel-issue Hoover could have sucked more than the disjointed, pathetically short essay I eventually turned in... but something was turned in. And in the grand scheme of assignment logs, little boxes and penciled "X" marks, I guess that's what counts. To redeem myself, though, I'm pretty sure I aced the oral portion of the final. Chance alone dictated whether I'd be "on" or "off" when my number came up, but fortunately the fates were smiling upon me. I sat and rambled at my kumu until she had to stop me (others, by contrast, were struggling to fill the time allotted). While I couldn't well express my thoughts about being a non-Hawaiian with a Hawaiian heart, I found enough to say about various pieces to demonstrate a good grasp of pronunciation and various sentence structures. Overall, it smells like a "B," which can only help my GPA... Actually, grades have never been a priority for me. What has always mattered to me is how a class -- and college in general -- improves my understanding of something. Thus, I am most definitely basking in a sense of accomplishment and success for this class. I can't remember the last time I've left a course with so much tangible, interesting knowledge. Frankly, Hawaiian 201 is the only class I'm really looking forward to come Fall.