well, that was fruitless

seeing as how i'm going to be handed upward of 100 kids to teach in less than two weeks, i went in to the school today to try to find out as much as i could. i have next week to shadow/volunteer, but i was hoping to scope out my classroom, decide how i want to set it up, find out what supplies i'll get through the school and what i need to buy for myself, and (very important) whether it was air conditioned. i was at the school for 20 minutes, and met two office personnel (whose names i just barely remember) who said that the person that had all my orientation info wouldn't be in till monday. hm, good to know it's all together in a packet, bad to know i can't start looking at it now, but that's just the perfectionist control freak in me. they do payroll stuff, and were able to answer only 2 of the dozens of questions i have (not their fault, just the way it goes.) one, was that each teacher gets their own key and the rooms open directly to the outdoors, meaning if i want/need to stay and work late, i can, and don't ahve to be out to let security lock up behind me. the second (which i was pretty sure about anyway) was that there is no air conditioning in the classrooms. this is important, because i still need to buy some work clothes, and there are two states of work environments in hawaii: hot as hell or painfully cold; not air conditioned or cranked up to arctic levels. it's not the news i was hoping for, but at least it lets me know to shop light.

that being said, i wasted 2 hours shopping for lightweight, casual-professional, non-slutty clothes which you'd think would be in abundance in HAWAII but apparently not, at least not where i was shopping. i know i'm not alone here, and i don't entirely buy in to the 'fashion industry ruled by horny men' theory, so i really don't understand why it's SO HARD to find normal clothes. i don't want to dress like i'm 86 and mostly blind, i don't want to dress like i'm trying to pick up my students, and i don't want to pay a fortune. i guess it's made more difficult by the fact that despite what i had imagined, the major stores don't stay stocked in summer clothes just because it's hawaii. you can still buy bikinis year round in bikini boutiques, and you can still find more asian cooking goods in the 7-11 than you could in my grocery store in kirksville, but the stores here were stocking winter coats, sweaters, and mittens like the ice age was coming. at least i didn't see any sleds.