Arctic Adventures

Today in middle of class a fox wandered past the school and one of my very observant students saw it.  "Look! Fox!  Bad!"  (bad=sweet, awesome. . . )  In an instant all of the kids were at the window. Here's a good quote for your book: I was running with the Middle School girls before practice today and one of the girls asked, "Where does the fat go when you run?" I asked her what she meant and she said, "Everyone always says fat goes away when you run, but where does it go?"  Coming in for the landing Our road. . . . nicknamed Riverview Drive if we need a street address for UPS.  (We only have PO Box addresses, but everyone knows where everyone lives.  There is one family who does UPS for the village, but many websites that ship by UPS won't ship here anyway). Snow-gos and Hondas..... the preferred modes of transportation.

I apologize for neglecting my blog lately.  It has been so crazy busy lately, but today made up for it.  I went out ice- fishing on the Noatak River with Tina.  It was a beautiful day!  16 degrees and bright and sunny...gorgeous!  Here we are setting up. She's all set!  Notice the couch cushion she is sitting on. Tina with her Salmon egg bait that she would shave into the holes.  Notice the "rod." Herbert was pulling up fish all day!  As soon as they stop catch fish from one hole, they just move to a new hole and try there.  Its seems that about 15 minutes is the longest waiting time. This lady was pulling up fish every few minutes it seemed! I did catch my first arctic fish (a little whitefish) and I was quite excited about it.  Tina took a picture of the event and is going to email it to me, so I will be sure to post it then :) Looking back up river. This fox kept creeping closer.   It snuck up right in the middle of the whole group! You can kind of see Noatak nestled a...

Shishmaref was here playing ball this weekend and the back of their warm-ups read:  "Got Seal Oil?"  I wanted to get a picture, but felt a little weird :)  The Middle School boys challenged the Staff to a ball game before the girls' game and we accepted. . . but LOST in OT! haha It was fun and the boys really enjoyed beating their teachers! Valentine's Day is a pretty big celebration here.  We make Valentine pockets for the lockers and the kids deliver Valentine's to other students of all ages.  Even the High Schoolers come down to deliver Valentines :)

This weekend I took my middle school basketball team to Kotzebue for a couple of basketball games.    It was fun--the girls were SUPER excited.  In fact, we were picked up in a tiny little plane (called a Navajo) and all of our bags did not even fit!  They had to be sent on the next scheduled flight (the school charters planes for sporting events). We didn't do well in the actual games, losing by 20 or more, but the girls' spirits were still high all weekend.  Barrow high school was playing Kotzebue high school and they were quite good.  The girls kept saying, "They're ballers Man!"  Their coach came to visit for a little bit Saturday night, and he was telling me he could never do my job (haha-yeah right...he took his team to state the last four years or something).  Then, he was asking the girls what the most important thing was in basketball, and they replies, "TEAMWORK!" I was so proud, but that wasn't what he was looking for, "Yeah that'...

Man, this week is BUSY!!!  I am taking the middle school girls to Kotzebue on Friday for basketball games.  Yes, we travel in a tiny little plane-9 seats, so I take 8 players and myself.  We will not return to Noatak until Sunday.  Also this week, our 5th and 6th graders have their District Battle of the Books Battle.  One night a week I stay after school to read from a list of books and quiz the kids about their books.  Then we call in for the "battle" via phone conference.  The host asks questions about a book and the kids have 30 seconds to reply with the book title and author.  Tomorrow we are dismissing school at 1:30 for technology training. The kids were excited about the census starting in Noorvik.  Noorvik is another village in the Northwest Arctic District, so many people have family members there.

Basketball is turning into a large commitment :) Imagine that.  Next weekend we are flying to Kotzebue to play.  We sponsored open gym this weekend on Friday and Saturday nights from 6:00-11:00.  The kids pay $1 to come in a watch/play and adults pay $2.  Most people were gone to the "Husky Shootout" a high school basketball tournament in Kotzebue, so the gym wasn't as packed as it usually is, but we did have enough for 4 games. In between one of the games, I was talking to one of the older ladies there from the school.  She told me, "You better start making babies as soon as you're married."   That threw me for a loop a little bit, "What?" "Yeah make babies.  If you don't want them, we will adopt them.  We've been waiting for a girl and we would love a blue-eyed one." haha!!! It must be on everyone's mind (it's such a big part of the culture) that even my students always ask, "How come you didn't make babies yet?...

News from this week:  On Monday I was hired as the girls' middle school basketball coach.  In typical arctic fashion, we began practice on Tuesday, and had our first game on Friday.  Talk about a whirlwind!  We lost 36-6 on Friday to an outstanding team, so of course the girls were quite discouraged.  However they bounced back on Saturday--we still lost 34-24--but it was quite an improvement!   One thing that is pretty cool up here is that during the game the fans cheer (politely) for both teams.  Obviously, the home team cheering is much more enthusiastic, but they still cheer on the other team.  This happens in high school games as well.  It's fun!