Coming soon:

Okay, here's a better picture of my new nephew, Diego:




Yes, the cutest kid currently a newborn. I just love looking at pictures of him, and I can't wait to meet him. I hope it's not too long. We shall have to do some conniving to get time and money to work out properly. Oh, it will happen.

In other news, school starts in three days. I have really enjoyed having this summer "off". Despite the six weeks of busy work, far from house and husband, I actually had a very restful summer. I got to read dozens of books, watch dozens of movies, and dozens of tv shows. And even during busy work stuffs while I was on practicum, I also got to do fun things like see a volcano in action, climb the technically tallest mountain in the world (if you're into technicalities, and view them similarly on this point), went horseback riding, swam in oceans (it was really just one ocean), and well, had a good time. And Michael and I have just been great. Before I left, after I returned. I can't get enough of hanging out with this boy-- reading on the couch or lanai, planting things, feeding worms, even boring things like grocery shopping have a decidedly relaxed and happy feel because I get to do them with my boy. I love being married.

Also lately this summer, I got to discussing my thesis with my adviser. I'm in the process of writing up a proper proposal. I feel... really close to getting this going. I got rather discouraged in the spring because I just kept working at it and working at it and getting nowhere it seemed. But now I'm getting somewhere. And I'm really excited about it. If all goes well, this should happen soon. Very soon. I feel all professional now. I hope all goes well. I'm ready.

And the latest good news is that I've got a new job. I was a Graduate Assistant last year with the department chair, and that was pretty cool because Ashley is a very laid back boss. The schedule was loose; she never asked too much; she always said thank you. Plus, I have mad respect for this woman. She does research in Chiapas. She's pragmatic and brilliant and has a very broad understanding of the social changes happening in Mexican villages in that area. So my job didn't have anything to do with that research. Who cares? I still got to work with her.

But this job I just got! I get to do research. And I'm starting right at the beginning of this new grant. We're going to be developing and implementing intervention strategies for Hawaiian schools to help keep Native Hawaiian teens from being tracked into special education classes when they don't have learning disabilities. There are a lot of reasons that kids have trouble learning. We're going to look at reasons that affect this particular population, and see what can be done. If I stay with this job, over three years I'll get to do research, development, implementation, and analysis! A whole bunch of boring words that excite me to no end! I'll get to do this stuff. And plus, parts of the job will be on the Big Island, so I'll get to go back now and again. I start next week. I can't wait.

So yeah. Classes. Thesis. Job. I'd be lying if I said wasn't nervous about the scope of what I'll be doing in these next months. But I'm excited as well. I'm settling into this whole "professional Kati" role.

But don't worry about it going to my head and changing me. I still have that same ripped up blue corduroy bag that I made when I was sixteen. I still don't match my socks. I still love a good fantasy novel. And I still cut my own hair. Because why mess with perfection?

I'm an aunty!

Here's a picture of my nephew, Diego Hernan Delgado. 8 lbs. 9 oz. Born on this, the eleventh of August, 2008.





Isn't he a cutie? I'll upload a better picture when I get one. But for now, I'm assured this is what he looks like.

Yay!!!!

The funny thing about going away...

No, no pictures just yet. Mostly, I just haven't bothered to sit down at my computer for a long enough time period to figure out what all I'm going to post, and where. It's not that I've been so crazy busy since I've returned (although I have somehow managed to get quite a lot done). It's mostly that I just... haven't... bothered yet.

I went to Honoka'a in March for a two day trip to have a good look-see around the town, meet some people I'd be working with, etc. Honoka'a didn't seem like such a small town to me then. And it didn't seem like such a small town when I went this summer. It didn't seem like such a small town during any of the six weeks that I was there. You know when it began to seem like a small town? When I got in a taxi cab at the Honolulu airport and told the driver to go to my place. And off we drove through the city.

Honolulu is a huge friggin' city!!!

I don't say this as someone who has lived in Chicago. When I moved here from Chicago, I was unmoved as to Honolulu's largeness. I say this as someone who spent the summer living in a town that you could walk from end to end in ten minutes. The contrast of Honolulu to Honoka'a didn't make much of an impression on me. But the contrast of Honoka'a to Honolulu most certainly did.

I spent the cab ride home with my face plastered to the window. Buildings. Huge buildings, towering up into the sky. In six weeks on the Big Island, even in Kona and Hilo, I don't think I saw a building taller than four floors. And I didn't even notice until I got back and saw these concrete leviathans marring the landscape, coiling out their monstrous reaches over near-infinity-long stretches of city streets, popping up in rectangular bulges of cinder block, glass and steel.

Seriously, there are roads here that are over TWO LANES WIDE!!! More than FOUR, even! And cars! Cars like you've never seen, all filled with people. And people on the streets, and in the buildings. Busy people rushing around or lounging about with their shopping bags and their designer drinks in paper cups and plastic bottles. Neighborhoods of houses spread far and wide.

I remember laughing once at this kid from deep Mississippi for moving back to his hometown because Southaven was too big for him. Dude, whatever your name was, I totally get it now.

The thing about going away and experiencing something completely new and different is that when you come home, there's this reverse culture shock. I feel it every time I go back to Tennessee. As much as we talk about TN, reminisce fondly or not-so-fondly, as much as I tell people about what it is like there, how they would love or hate certain things about it, as much as it is on my mind... it still surprises me to actually be there as opposed to not-there. So it is with city life. Five years now I've lived in one city or other. And before that a rather large town. And before that, yup, city! I'm a city person. But six weeks in this quiet country town and I'm struggling to adjust back to the noise, and the population level, and the lack of nature (compared to Honoka'a, not compared to Chicago where they have banned all nature).

It's weird here in the city. And loud. And tall. But the city has in it the boy I love, and that means that it's not all bad.