Arctic Adventures

I've been hearing "alapaa!" a lot lately.  It roughly translates to..."holy crap it's cold!" Thursday I checked the weather at lunch-- it was 28 degrees and, of course, snowing :)   The juniors were "sponsoring" open gym this week, and they arranged a mini-tournament.  We played 4-on-4.  I got home from the Post Office and Store at about 4, then at about 4:30 there was an announcement over the VHF Radio that anyone making a team for the tournament should meet at the school at 5.  I caught a ride up to the school for 5:00, but no one was there yet!  I went to my classroom for a bit and checked at 5:15--the juniors were setting up, but they still didn't have a schedule... making a long story short--we didn't start playing until quarter to 7!  That is definitely village time.   Tomorrow I am having a "movie night" with the kids at the school.  I invited them to just come and hang out, because they always ask to visit my house, but it...

So, I was innocently teaching math this morning to half-sleeping 5th graders, when one of the girls in the back sat up a little taller.  "Is it snowing?" she asked. I looked outside, but I didn't see any flurries, "No, I don't think so, let's focus on math."  A couple of minutes later, another girls pipes up (obviously not focused on math), "It IS snowing!  Look!"  Sure enough, snowflakes were swirling around.  Of course, we all had to go over to the window and look, "teachable moments."  It snowed the whole morning, but by the time I walked home all the snow was melted.  I think it's safe to say this is the earliest I have ever seen snow! My students are convinced that I have eyes in the back of my head.  One day, when I was teaching a boy got out of his seat, "Sit down, please."   He couldn't believe it, "You can't see me!" "Don't you know that all teachers have eyes in the back of their head...

Finally, I got to play basketball tonight and it felt awesome!  The seniors "sponsor" open gym on the weekends and kids/adults can pay to play.  It's one of their big fundraisers for their senior trip.  Women can play at 9 against the high school girls.  A lot of my kids were there playing in between and on breaks.  The biggest surprise came when we started playing and both teams were in a zone, at open gym! I was laughing in my head thinking "What would Russ say?" We beat the high schoolers by just a few points.  It was a good game and fun, but it turns out I am pretty out of shape :)

It's FRIDAY!! So that means I got to leave the school at 3:40 to make it to the Post Office before it closed :)  and I am glad that I made it there!  I have the best family and friends in the WORLD!  I had to get my boxes carried by a 4-wheeler there were so many!  It feels like Christmas in September!  My mom and dad have been awesome sending me the boxes I left at home and stocking extra goodies in them.  My mom even went to the dollar store and bought some water bottles for my kids (because their "Can I take drink, please"s are driving me crazy!) and stocked it with chocolate, flavored syrups and cream for coffee :)  I got 2 boxes from mom and dad, one from Grandma, one from Patty and Faren, one from Ingrid, then I got my coat that I ordered, my snow pants, gloves, hats, boots, and scarves--all on the same day! Ingrid sent me  pictures of bright, colorful flowers that I can decorate my bland white walls with :)   I'm modeling my new coat in this picture.   Uncle Ca...

Today was a great day in school.  By Wednesday and Thursday, the kids remember how they are supposed to behave in school and life is good!  I've even stepped up and made some positive calls home :)  Mondays and Tuesdays are still a struggle with behavior, but we are working on it.  I've received a lot of help from my mentor and our SpEd teacher, and I think that has really made a difference.   Tomorrow is my day to leave early and go to the Post Office and store.  The new school is in the new part of town (the kids call it "Beverly Hills"), but the Post Office and store are still with the teacher housing in the older part of town, by the river.  Apparently, the river is eroding and before long this whole part of town will be the river.  I have heard rumors that they are trying to move everything up the the other part of town.  Noatak is split by a lake, so the road from the old part of town to the new part of town swerves around.  It's about a 20 minute walk.   Ho...

One of the other teachers here, John, went out caribou hunting last night.  He ended up seeing a moose instead of caribou and shot at it 8 times-and got it.  It was across the river, so they had to use a boat to get it back (apparently, it was quite an adventure).  When I got back from school today John, Darlene (Middle School teacher), and Dave (my mentor teacher) were butchering the moose.   I was walking home and there were just caribou head sitting on the side of the road. Alaska has a state mentoring program.  Dave is my mentor, and he is in charge of 15 other 1st and 2nd year teachers.  He travels around to the different villages and meets with us and helps us out.  It was nice, he helped me with some discipline/management issues I've been having.

Well, here I am at the end of our 4th week of school.  I can't believe that it has been that long, but it sure isn't getting any easier!  I am glad that there is only ONE first year of teaching.  Turns out, this is ALOT of work.  There have been a few rewarding moments, those times when the "lightbulb" turns on, but mainly a lot of testing me and complaining.  The rewarding moments definitely make up for any of the in between hours :) I ordered all of my winter gear.  I am super excited to get it in.  Lori helped me pick out a coat--I ordered an Air Force imitation coat, it's supposed to be warm and tough--perfect.  I did learn something about myself.  Mark informed us that only "manly men" and "hard women" can live in Bush Alaska, so apparently I fit into that category :)

I didn't realize how long it has been since I have written.  I guess it got super busy again! The caribou are close so all of my kids have been hunting and camping.  We were supposed to go "up-river" last weekend, but Lori and Mark's boat broke the day before.  They went hunting and on the way back, the lower unit seized up and they had to float back down the river!  They did get a caribou out of the deal, though.  Everyone here goes out in the boat and shoot the caribou when they are swimming across the river, so they tried it too!  Mark cooked us a couple of amazing caribou steak/burger dinners afterward.  Caribou is like venison....only way better :) One of the boys in my class was out for the end of last week.  When he came back in on Tuesday, I asked him how hunting was.  "It was bad (sweet).  We CAUGHT a huge moose and five caribou."  Everyone here says caught instead of killed.  They don't "kill" the animals, they "catch" them....

Three more kids were out today for subsistence leave.  I was talking to some people about the weekend and they were all going hunting and were putting away the trampolines so they have a place to clean the caribou!  The kids LOVE the trampolines.  I don't know what they would do without it, because that is all they do after school.   (This is a picture of Alision and I--the 5th/6th grade teachers) I was showing the kids some pictures from the San Diego Zoo (from when I went with the Seniors this summer), because we were talking about vertebrates in science and reading about pandas in reading.  Part of the way through my little presentation, one of the quiet boys raises his hand, "I sure wish I lived in your and Alision's country." "What do you mean?  We live in the same country." "No we don't.  It's way different."

I just wanted to post a few of these pictures.  I don't have much to say, but there has been some BEAUTIFUL sun rises here.  OH! I had two kids out on subsidence leave today.  They were going caribou hunting "up river."  We had our New School Year Open House at the school tonight.  It was nice to meet some of the families and elders from the village.  We ate caribou soup :) My kids took 150 pictures with my camera there, so I will try to post some later.  I just want to show you some of these other pictures.  The light blue building is the post office. The store is the big tan building with the sign on it, and the church is the other yellowish building.  The picture with the actual sun rising above the mountains is taken from the deck of the school overlooking the playground.  The other sunrise was right outside our apartments.

I finally got the importance of "getting out" into the village today.   The day did not start well.  The kids were pills this morning, and after lunch I had them practicing how to walk in the hallways.  The afternoon improved a little.  In science, we were making models of backbones with wagon wheel pasta, lifesavers, and pipe cleaners.  The kids really enjoyed it, and when I asked the kids how our models were like our backbones and how it helps us move, one boy (who usually isn't 'with' us) raised his hand and said, "the lifeavers FLEX so we can move!"  YAY!!! Then, Doris and Stan (high school teacher originally from MI has lived up here forever...all his kids have been raised in Noatak) invited me and Alision over to their house for dinner.  We left at 5:00 from the school and started to walk.  They live all the way at the end of town (like a 30 minute walk).  On the way from the school a guy with a truck offered us a ride, so we jumped in :) Then we h...