Monday May 3, 2010

I will be setting a new time line today for my school work. The time line will include all my projects until graduation in August 2011.

My mentor, the amazing Dr. Peter Hanohano, Educational Director at OHA (Office of Hawaiian Affairs) just approved my ILA-A proposal! Hooray!!! It is quite lengthy, and will include 3 online Hawaiiana courses, 3 papers, this daily blog, weekly dialogue with mentor and bi-weekly phone calls.

Today I started my first online class. Our kumu's name is Tiare Ahu. She was born in Kapuhulu, and now lives in Kaneohe with her husband and two sons. She taught 9th grade English at KSBE, and now works as an Academic Specialist that helps acclimate new 9th graders to KS. Including me, there are 15 students in our class. Most live in Hawaii, but there are several that live on the mainland - in Colorado, Washington, MD, CA. In this course there are 4 major lessons, one per week, and each lesson has several modules. I will be online quite a bit. Here is my 1st post:

Aloha classmates,
My name is Cami. I graduated from KSBE in 1983. It seems like a long time ago.
I am married to Dave; we live in Santa Barbara, CA. Although we have no children of our own, we actually have 28 nieces and nephews... they are a lot of fun. Most of them live in Hawaii, and we enjoy visiting them in the summer and during the Christmas holiday break.

I work as a career counselor at Santa Barbara City college. The campus is beautiful - it sits on a hill and overlooks the beach which is about 50 yards away. I also teach psychology at the University.
I am in graduate school and am taking this 'olelo class to reconnect with my native roots. It's exciting. I am grateful for this opportunity to learn Hawaiian language long-distance. In a way, it's amazing that we can live so far away and still be connected and learn online. It was nice to read everyone's bio. I look forward to our future discussions and posts.
Aloha, Cami