Pure Manaʻo

The older the kids get, the busier we are. Some nights, there are at least three of us on separate computers - but there's one conversation that always takes place on Monday, Wednesday and Friday: "Have you read the latest Nemu?" We are all in love with the local web comic Nemu Nemu about two magical plushie pups Anpan (like the bread with bean paste) and Nemu (like nemutai - sleepy). Anpan is the more kolohe one and Nemu is the sweeter one. Anpan loves pizza and Nemu loves cookies and grill'd cheese sammich and PB&J. They are totemo kawaii (too cute)!

I'm not very good at producing readers, except for my youngest who had a goal to read a million words by the end of his school year and he made that amount by the end of September. Hey, he's a 5th grader, not much social life at that age. Still, even if the other two aren't reading for lifers, it seems writing and poetry run in the family. Ahi participated in a local event called 16 Bars (he tells me that's a typical length of a freestyle rap). He's not a rapper, but he likes to write slam poems which could sound like rap, but they aren't restricted by a certain beat and they don't necessarily rhyme as much. Long story short, there were 4 boys from Kamehameha in this round and they were all poets (boys + poets = one happy English teacher - even if I only taught 3 out of 4 of them). The guys were judged by the emcee and one mystery judge, and audience response was factored in. Ahi was one of the two that moved on, but the other two have a chance to battle o...

Our family is on the Wii Fit train, which just means that we found an excuse to play the Wii on school days. Basically, the Wii Fit is a plank or board that you stand on and it weighs you, tracks your BMI and basically tells you that you're either obese, overweight, normal or underweight. Warning, if you have a large TV (ours is pretty decent), in large letters, this machine will show your weight and BMI. If you're like the majority of my family, it will also tell you "that's obese!" in a cutesy, irritating, little girl voice. Not only that, but indignity upon indignity, your mii (your character on the game) will turn fat!! Once you are done yelling at the tv ( "no S&%#, you think I do know I fat?!") it encourages you to train by choosing exercises like yoga, strength, aerobics and balance "games." The only person that is normal in our family is Ahi, and lazy buggah actually figures out how to cheat so that he is the only one not breaking...