Hawaiian... and other randomness

Hawaiian is really a language that confuses me. It has a lot of vowels. I vividly remember the day that I brought home the information about our band trip to Hawaii and I couldn't pronounce any of the place names! I especially had trouble with Waikiki; I kept trying to say it "wha-key-key," with evenly pronounced "ki" syllables, instead of the correct "why-key-KEY," which accentuates the last "ki" and takes into account the fact that there's an i in the syllable "wai". 

Me when I first tried to pronounce Waikiki

That night when I was explaining our sample itinerary to my parents, I am sure that my mom had to tell me 20+ times what the right way to say it was. Sometimes, when I get in a hurry to say Waikiki, she still has to tell me. 
However, all of this correction is good. It would really be a shame if I turned up in Honolulu next December after many hours of air travel and started saying, "Wha-key-key!" in the airport and on the beach and stuff where a bunch of islanders who know Hawaiian could hear me. So, fortunately, I have been saved from looking like a stupid tourist from the mainland. This is very good. Besides, I feel that it's my OWN responsibility to be respectful to the native islanders of Hawaii who STILL are Americans, and learning to say things the right way is important here. So, yeah. Pronunciation is good! I almost want to learn all of the Hawaiian language so that I can read signs and stuff in Hawaii and pronounce it right! 
But I digress. 

Oh, by the way, I have some very exciting (and unexpected) news! Today on the way to the high school for band, my clarinet-playing friend Danielle announced, much to my surprise, that she will be learning to play the trumpet (my soul instrument! [more on those later]) over our school's Thanksgiving break! I found this both exciting, satisfying, and odd, because Danielle has often said that... 

www.deviantart.com

This is never a phrase that I've liked, but it just goes to show that even the best of us must eat our words at times. It's all right. I'm looking forward to seeing how good of a brass player she'll be (probably a good one, as she's played both sax and clarinet before, despite the fact that both of those are woodwinds). I am sure it will work out wonderfully. 

Also by the way, I really hope that our school board doesn't renovate our high school like they're planning to. They want to move the football field AWAY from the high school. Like, 2 blocks away! Then we would all have to walk from the high school to the field (and past the elementary school), which causes problems. Especially at homecoming, this could never work. This year, we left pep band to get ready for our halftime field show at the beginning of 2nd quarter, and, even with the high school and the band room being only about 200 feet from the football field, we still only just had enough time to get into our uniforms, warm up, and hoof it back to the field for halftime. Now, if the football field was 2 blocks or so away from the band room... yuck. Bad things would happen. There would not be enough time to walk over there to the high school and back, so I REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY hope that the school board will slow down with their plan and listen to what the students and community wants. Otherwise they might all get fired off the board or something... but whatever they decide should work in the end.

Yeah. I guess this post was kind of random, but my week is full of both ups and downs. 
OH! By-the-way #3: Halloween is Saturday! Yay, even though I'm not too amazed with Halloween.