Rainbows Are Squishy: Adventures again!

Aloha from the first weekend where Stephen didn't have to work! -- at the marina! Yep, he ended up with drill today, but yesterday was so much fun that I could accept the lonely day.

As you may remember, Stephen's last day at the marina was a week ago today. During that time, we also purchased a co-worker's old Nissan Maxima, so now we have a retro-luxury car with which to haul around Stephen's surf board.

He ended up doing a lot of surfing because this last week turned out to be frustrating. On one hand, he had to do the regional high school band auditions on Monday as part of drill, and while he was there, he met the director at Leilehua High School. It sounds like they really hit it off, so the director talked to the principal about seeing if Stephen was hire-able.

Turns out he was not. He has to complete an interview with an approved administrator (in other words, they've received training on how to interview someone) in order to be on the Hawai'i DoE's hiring list. The next interview day isn't until March. When he asked if he was eligible to sub, it turns out he was not because the DoE hadn't even looked at his application yet, and when they did, it turns out he needed a tuberculosis test first.

So when he was done making those phone calls, he went surfing.

On Tuesday, he was talking to a retired principal, and he found out that if the principal at Leilehua is trained, he can just do the interview whenever, or he can seek out a principal within the cluster. The school is in Wahiawa, which is probably one of the most difficult towns to get to from Kailua, and I don't know what cluster it's in, but they do.

So then on Wednesday, he went to the school to observe a class and talk with the director. He came home with a score to work on, and was told that they would try to get him on as a part-time teacher (less loopholes), or they would look around for a principal to do the interview, or they would just wait until March. As of now, we have no news on which path they're actually going to take, but I think they don't just give you a score to learn to conduct the kids if the director doesn't mean to work with you. We'll see.

And as for the results of the tb test? Yep, he's clear. He didn't get the results back until Friday afternoon, so he wasn't able to turn in the paperwork. That's why there is no real news since Wednesday.

As for me, I work in the band's supply room, and these next two weeks are going to be our annual inventory. Well, quasi-annual inventory. I guess they did inventory last year for the first time in ten years. We're still trying to clean up the mess, and as I organize hard cards (you know, binders so we can physically sign with a signature via pen and paper), I'm amazed at the laziness. It's not incompetency. It's not hard. You put things in numerical order. The sheer lack of that astounds me. As of this weekend, those binders look very pretty and organized, though, and I lay claim to at least half of it.

I worked late on Friday to get those stupid binders in order, but I knew it was okay because Saturday was an awesome day! Stephen got to play racquetball for the first time in months, and I went out to lunch on the North Shore with a bunch of girls from work to celebrate a friend's upcoming wedding. Since almost all of us don't have family on the island, the girls have tried to build a community of their own. We ate at Opal Thai, which is on the list of places we will take everybody when they visit because it is food on a completely different level.

We all carpooled, so when we were done, the girls left and I guess hit up the Dole Plantation for ice cream on the way home. I stayed in Hale'iwa and checked out the small shops. I was really excited to find a place that sold a whole selection of swimsuits that are meant for actually sporting around, not just laying on the beach! My bright pink one that I bought when we just got here is already faded and nasty from the sun!

Stephen says fortunately, since I found another one, I won't need a new swimsuit for at LEAST 3 months.

Hey, a girl has to be prepared for all the beach fun!

Stephen took the car for an oil change after racquetball, and then he drove out to meet me in Hale'iwa. The waves weren't nearly as epic there as they were predicting, so we just checked out the shops and bought a cute beachy sign for just outside our front door. Then we stopped at a food truck and got fish tacos. They were super-tasty! There are some shrimp farms along the North Shore, so all the shrimp is fresh, and ahi tuna is easy to come by. I don't remember what tacos Stephen got, but I got just one little ahi tuna taco, since I was so full from lunch. The salsas were all fresh, and one of them was made with pineapple. I would eat there again.

We decided to drive to Waimea Beach Park since it's on the way of the scenic drive home (there are two drives -- the long scenic one, and the highway). We ended up staying through sunset because the waves were enormous! The lifeguards made an announcement about a "double-black diamond undertow" and we were like, oooooooh! We didn't know they used skiing terms for undertow!

They don't. A quick Google search indicated to me that it was a joke. The undertow, however, was not. I got knocked over more than once by the waves and the undertow -- it was more intense than the day we posted pictures from Sunset Beach. So, let's share the pictures!