Goodbye Geocities

Yesterday xkcd redid their webpage as an old Yahoo Geocities page in recognition of the fact that Yahoo was going to shut down the service. I admit I felt a pretty big wave of nostalgia for the giddy youthful days of the intertubes, tempered by a sadness at the thought that a Hawaiian language site that I enjoyed would be disappearing forever. Aunty D's ʻōlelo site hadn't been updated since 2003, but I still would poke around it from time to time. I will certainly miss it.

Hawaiian language on the internet may be getting some more bad news. ʻAha Pūnana Leo is rolling out a fabulous new option to take their Niuolahiki ʻōlelo classes as single chapter units at a self-directed pace www.ahapunanaleo.org/eng/learnhawaiian/learn_niuolahiki.html. Since I had to drop out of the program several years ago after falling behind due to a prolonged illness, I think this is a great way to go and I hope it is as wildly successful as it deserves to be. Unfortunately, if they don't get a strong response to the program, they may have to discontinue all of their online language course offerings. The Hawaiian language has been gaining strength for quite a while now, after coming dangerously close to being lost forever. While I hardly think this will be a death blow for the language, it will certainly make language studies much more difficult for folks outside of Hawaiʻi. Luckily, the Aʻo Makua classes offered by Kamehameha Schools Distance Learning Program ksdl.ksbe.edu/adult/ are still available and Liana Honda has been updating her lovely He Momi blog hemomi.blogspot.com/ on a very reliable basis.

Cannonball!

So it appears I will finally be entering the Blogosphere, courtesy of Pajiba and the Cannonball Read. I haven't read an entire book in months, so I have my doubts about the feasibility of this venture. However, I really miss reading and this may be the kick in the pants necessary to get me to ignore my other responsibilities in favor of curling up with some of the books I have sitting on my shelves, mocking me.

UPDATE:
To my one follower, Alli: I am going to be using a different blog for my Cannonball read entries. Please head over to http://cannonballboo.blogspot.com/ to follow my progress. Thanks!