IMR: 1998: February: 19

IMR: 1998: February: 19 -- Thursday, 1:50 p.m.
Crawford Hall, Univ. of Hawai`i, Hawai`i

Took my Hawaiian midterm today. I actually turned in early last night and slept in -- arriving on campus 15 minutes before class -- to make sure I wasn't groggy. I didn't study, though (not that I ever do), confident I'd do well.
Turns out I didn't finish. Missed a couple questions and didn't even get to try for the extra credit (name ten classmates and their hometowns).
I'm sure I did okay, but I was still disappointed. I don't know why I only ace tests I think I'm going to fail.
Actually, walking out of Moore Hall, I was fuming. I was stricken with a momentary lapse of, "What do I need college for?" Fortunately, by the time I got to CBA I was thinking clearly again.
I jammed at work, my boss expecting me to have 80 percent of the next AIB newsletter done by tomorrow (I've got maybe 4 of 16 pages so far). My morning was cut short by a bomb threat... probably the first one of the semester.
Over lunch with William, I gave myself a pep talk. A degree is a good thing, a degree is a good thing. In addition to being my daughter's godfather, William is also my academic adviser. Bless that man, he's still deluded with the thought that I can graduate in Fall 1999.
I zoned out through my Journalism 360 class, snapping to attention only to take notes on next week's site visit to the offices of Honolulu Weekly and the upcoming midterm.
I got home to find Jen and Katie relaxing in the living room. We went upstairs and took a short, delicious nap. She's such a wonderful baby, out of her fussy phase and now often content to lie on her back, wiggle and watch the world. Last night, she held her head up and turned it around for a good twenty seconds. Amazing.
Now, mom's rocking Katie in the family room to Pachabel's Canon in D -- without a doubt my girl's favorite piece. It calms her better than Journey... it actually seems to put her in a thoughtful trance.
We play the CD -- "Pachabel's Greatest Hit," featuring more than a dozen different renditions and variations -- so much, I hear it when I go to sleep. Mom and Todd are addicted to it, too, playing it even when Katie's upstairs.
The family continues to watch the Nagano Olympics. More U.S. women taking home medals, more trouble from the goons on our men's hockey team. In women's figure skating, I was glad to see Michelle Kwan outperforming Tara "Tammy Fae" Lipinski (my nickname for the apparent media favorite) in the short program yesterday, after everyone predicted an upset.
Jen, not surprisingly, continues to wipe imaginary drool from my chin when Kwan is on. To be honest, I'm more charmed by what little I've seen of Kyoko Ina... who, by the way, was robbed in pairs competition last week.
Grandma's not home yet. She does have pneumonia, and will probably be in the hospital until Sunday. Things had apparently gotten so bad while she was at home, recovery is now going very, very slowly. She's doing as well as could be expected, happy at least that she has a TV and gets a daily bowl of poi.
Her local doctor, the one that insisted she just had a bad cold, is treating her at Pali Momi. I'm not sure what to think about that, mom having said this exact thing happened before.
With battles over the television remote temporarily on hold, Todd is less cranky about chores. He cooked dinner again last night, too -- a bizzare dish of tofu, sprouts, chopped bacon and hot dog slices.
Mom and I, meanwhile, share dog care duties. I've become a pro at getting Evita to take her pills, but on the other hand, I make myself scarce when anyone mentions picking up doggie doo.

While the car search is on hold, I got a call yesterday from my property manager. She'd gotten my letter asking about other rental units more suitable for parents.
Turns out she has a larger 1-bedroom, third-floor apartment open in Makiki, on Ke`eaumoku Street above Wilder Avenue. Water and parking included for $675 a month (discounted from $700 for being a long-time renter).
The parking would be a major improvement over our Waikiki place, let alone the increase in space. But is it worth paying $80 more a month?
Oddly enough, now that the possibility of moving is real, I've developed a bit of an attachment to our current apartment. You can't beat the location in terms of proximity to the beach, zoo and Kapi`olani Park, and it's right on five major bus lines. Close enough to UH, but still a breeze for Jen to get to Kahala.
Besides, we're still paying for the air conditioner.

Parenthood makes people do strange things.
With putting pictures of Katie up on the web second nature already, I tried to figure out how feasable it would be to put sounds of her up too.
I ended up tinkering with my ancient version of MacroMedia's SoundEdit Pro to see if it could output anything generally usable by most computers. No, was the unfortunate answer.
But then I started reading up on the RealPlayer format. While it's proprietary and requires a somewhat up-to-date system, I liked the size-to-quality ratio and the fact that it can "stream" through a basic HTTP connection (instead of requiring a file to be downloaded and messed with before playing).
Most importantly, there was a freeware version of the encoder software that fortunately spoke some of the same languages as SoundEdit. Having just upgraded the RAM in my Powerbook to 48MB, I thought it just might work.
I grabbed a Keali`i Reichel CD and in no time had it figured out. As soon as I got home, I put my computer next to Katie and waited patiently for a good cry.

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