I got to her house yesterday to hang out for a few days before heading to WVA for work. Today she asked me to help my niece, who is 8, put together a display board for the state of Hawaii. This is a project that my niece got over Thanksgiving that is due on Tuesday (she, of course, hadn't started it yet). My task was to ensure that, by the time my sister got home from work, the board was done.
I should mention that there is a guy at work my sister really dislikes, and she was at her office today because she took a new job and has to move to a different floor of her building. So she left a box of tampons in the guy's desk. Hee.
Anyway, I was given NO CONTEXT for the project. My niece provided NO insight other than one page of directions given to her by her teacher. So, I did the best I could.
When I think of Hawaii, I think of sharks, then climbing, then diving, then surfing, then lava, then pineapples. I thought it would be best to proceed in that order to design the board. So, in between the cut out map of the islands that my niece made, I pasted pictures of tiger sharks, hammerheads and a whale shark. We picked out some pictures of lava spewing onto a highway on the main land and people rock climbing and surfing. I should have paused for consideration when my niece commented "Wow, the poster they did last year was just an island with products glued on it. But we have cool pictures!"
Under the required "fun facts" section I put the highest point of the island (Mauna Kea, 13,796 feet), that there are 40 species of sharks, that the state fish used to be the humuhumunukunukuapuaa, but was dethroned in 1984. The humu was originally picked because it's cute, it squeals like a pig, and no one eats it. But, it's not unique to Hawaii and lawmakers questioned the polling done to anoint the humu Hawaii's official fish. Also, one of the state legislators pointed out the humu is used to make fires, not dinner (it must taste really bad, like something I would cook). It's been replaced by the oopu, which is a brownish gobie unique to Hawaii that people like to eat ("Welcome to our kitchen. May I interest you in a piece of oopu?").
To Canadian readers, sorry for the confusion. I know you think gobies are injuries you get on your hands from climbing.
I also included the fact that Del Monte is no longer producing pineapples in Hawaii because it's cheaper to produce them elsewhere. 700 pineapple workers lost their job. And that there is no official insect for the state.
And the words to the official state song:"Hawaii's own true sons, be loyal to your chief
your country's liege and lord, the Alii
father above us all, Kamehameha,
who guarded in the war with his ihe" (ihe is a sword)
We put some other pictures on the board. I thought it looking good, except for where we had to rip off all the islands that Nat pasted in the wrong place, and the part where she drew hearts in the ocean. She's reading this over my shoulder, and wanted me to mention that she drew the hearts "with a blue marker!" so theoretically "no one can see them!" (you can make out the hearts at the bottom of the display board between the two big shark pictures).
We did everything that was required for the assignment according to the one page description provided by the teacher, including pasting little pictures of all the products made on each island (pineapples, sugar, petroleum, etc.). I thought the finished product was great, especially given my age and the age the assignment was geared towards. I was thinking Nat would get an A for sure.
So when my sister got home my niece and I showed her the board. She, in a word, freaked.
"What the fuck ARE ALL THESE SHARK PICTURES FOR???? Why are there THREE FUCKING PICTURES OF LAVA???" "Why are there FUCKING BLUE HEARTS where the Pacific Ocean is supposed to be???" Etc., ending with her storming upstairs while yelling "GOD FUCKING DAMN IT!"
The purpose, it turns out, of the assignment, is to create these boards to use in some international fair thing my niece's school is doing. The products, which I made really small so that they could fit on the islands, so they wouldn't take up the room that we were leaving for shark pictures, are supposed to be visible by people without a microscope because the whole purpose of the assignment was to learn about the products your assigned state produces. And my sister claims that no one will be able to even see where the islands are because of all the sharks and stuff we put around them.
To make matters worse, most of the students use the whole display board for the map of their state (we, and by we I mean Nat and I, decided to make the island map kind of small so we could put cool things on the board instead of just doing a map showing the products of each state like everyone else, again, because I DID NOT KNOW that was the purpose of the assignment).
My niece will probably get a bad grade. My sister is pissed. My feelings are, to be honest, a little bit hurt that my sister said my project, I mean, my niece's project "looks like fucking shit".
I knew I should have just stuck to helping her with her math homework.
hmmmm you had more excitement than I did, I spent the day in front of the TV and met with Jim Williams to discuss the artwork for the cover of my book.
ReplyDeleteI feel very lucky that when I grew up school was easy, life was fun it was before cell phones, starbucks and kids with debit cards.
Frankie:
ReplyDeleteI was looking through my Internet Explorer "favorites" and ran across the URL for your blog. We worked together for a few months in early 2000. I held my breath for a couple of brief seconds while reading your "just like a woman" post until I realized that it couldn't be about me. I have always been a Software Development manager and the last time a woman looked at me was some time in the last quarter of the twentieth century.
In relation to your Hawaii homework story, your sister seemed a little up-tight about the whole incident. I was in Honolulu before Christmas and I can confirm that there were few if any pineapple plantations either in or around Waikiki. She has a point about the sharks. We surfed some but never encountered any sharks. I did however purchase a ukulele and I have been driving my family crazy playing "White Sandy Beaches."
Feel free not to post this to your blog. I just wanted to say hello and find out how you are doing.