The Meat Tragedy

Recently, a teacher friend, Josh, got his first moose and gave us a slab of ribs and back to cut up. Leah and I spent about 4 hours one afternoon cutting and packaging moose meat. Stocked with moose roast for the winter, we felt we were pretty set, and were just waiting on our SPAN food order to come in.

Howie and Josh work on dividing the moose.

It's Yup'ik tradition that when a boy gets his first moose, he doesn't eat any of it, but instead distributes it to the community as a way of thanking the animal for giving its life so that we poor hairless and defenseless little humans may survive in the winter conditions. It also shows that he knows the honorable way to handle a hunt, and is growing into a man who can help provide for his people. Josh gave the grand majority of Mortimer here to the community as well.

To the left: The moose ribs before the packaging session. Our refrigerator-freezer does not have the space for such a cut, so I brushed up on my dissecting skills to make it more manageable.











We cleaned them to the best of our ability. I don't have a shot of the amount of meat we took off of there, but it was a good 25 pounds or so. To give you an idea of the size of these things, if I laid my elbow next to the spine there, the ribs would be longer than my whole forearm, hand included.









Imagine my dismay when, during lunch one day, I went into our back room and noticed a funny smell. I opened the freezer door, noticing with a nagging feeling that the door was pretty easy to open. Normally, I about have to throw my shoulder out in order to open the thing. As the door opened, a wave of freshly thawed fish and blood odor smacked me in the face. I looked down and apparently the packaging job we did on the moose meat wasn't so stellar, because there was a nice little pool of moose blood laying in the bottom of the freezer. A king salmon, gutted and gifted to us by our principal, was nicely thawed and luckily laying on top, away from the blood pool.

The saddest part? The $20 gallon of ice cream was completely melted. Leah and I took it as a sign that maybe we should limit the sweets. Bummer. That's one of our only vices here!

My lunch period quickly dwindling, I had no idea what to do. I checked the temperature setting, which was fine, and felt for blowing air. Hmm. I felt cold air blowing, but not cold enough air. I checked in with Josh's wife Shelly, who stays at home with her three boys, and she looked into it for me while I was at school. Three hours later, she told me that cold air was blowing but everything was still completely melted, even with the temperature cranked as low as it could go.

Well, luckily our SPAN food order hadn't come in yet. Otherwise, that would be close to $700 melted down the drain. Or, more correctly, it did come in that day but due to our situation, it's living in the school's freezer for now.

Thanks to my parents and grandparents, I know not to waste anything, so I started about 3 moose roasts and cooked the fish Monday night. We held a huge teacher dinner to attempt to use up all that food. Some of the meat was still frozen, and some had been prepackaged, so since some of it was still cool, I waited until this weekend to cook it all up into soups, other roasts, and casseroles. The upside to the (near) meat tragedy is that I now have all sorts of meals precooked and frozen to last at least until Thanksgiving. Woo-hoo!

As for the freezer, it's working for now, but I'm hesitant to put our whole food order in there until the maintenance guy has time to look at it. Interestingly, the water main break occurred just days after the year warranty walk-through of our buildings, and the freezer fiasco took place just about a week later. Something fishy is certainly going on. Hopefully no more issues arise as we approach winter.

Speaking of winter, no snow yet! I'll let ya know when the snow finally sticks.

Happy Sunday!

Water Main Break!

I woke up Tuesday morning this week and went to the bathroom to get ready for the day. I turned on the faucet to brush my teeth, but, alas, the faucet just shuddered and no water was to be had.

Bummer. I usually shower at night, moreso out of morning laziness than anything else, but in the back of my mind I guess there is always the nagging possibility of waking to no water. Of course, the one night that I decided to wait until morning, a water main breaks. I'm pretty sure this would only happen to me! Such is my luck.

So...fantastic! "This will be interesting, but will surely make a great blog post," I thought. I really was more bothered by a lack of working toilets than the lack of a shower or faucets. The break caused a pressure drop in the system, so water was also out at school until about 10:30 am, when some of the city workers engineered a patch to get us through the day. That certainly wasn't the most fun morning, because no water = grumpy kids. Thank goodness water was restored to the school, because it would still be a while before it would return to the teacher housing.

Now, this had happened once last year, but it only lasted about 8 hours. We now live in brand new teacher housing, so I really hadn't thought of this as a likely problem. Turns out there are some structural issues with the new housing; my building is literally floating on the east side. Building on tundra is tricky business, and my whole 4-plex unit needs to be re-leveled, lest the building snap in two (or two hundred) pieces. The water main under the other unit is where it busted, likely due to the sinking and settling of that building.

We got word that at least three days would pass before it could be fixed. My new roommate, Leah, and I had just started the Insanity workout program and were only 3 days into it. This little problem has paused it for us for a while for obvious reasons. (Between you and me? I'm not sad about having to pause that program. It truly is insane.)

Adding to our stress? In another moment of insanity, we decided to take in a little puppy for a while, as its owner informed us that her mother would "rip its head off if she didn't find a home for it." This comment did not sit well with Leah, and so, puppy parents we became! It really is no fun to manage puppy poo without flushing toilets or water to clean up messes.

Here is a shot of the lil lady. We are sending her to Anchorage
as soon as she is big enough. A few of her names include
Pooh Bear, Bessie, and Jackie. About 6 weeks old, we think she's
 part husky, mutt, and possibly wolf. Most village dogs are
mixes. If being a teacher hasn't already inspired me to put
 off having kids, then caring for her may have pushed that
ordeal even further into the future. I just really enjoy sleeping
through the night, and with her, I don't get to do that. 

My biggest fear, however, was none of the above, but the potential of having to go without my morning coffee. That scared me. I just don't have the gusto to face my students without my morning cup o' joe. I didn't know if I would have enough water to get me through Wednesday. Luckily, I wouldn't have to do such a thing.

To deal in the meantime, I showered at the school and we hauled totes of water from the school. Leah kept saying, "This isn't real life. But this is our life right now. It's like we're camping in our houses." I had only one response as I drove the huge school truck over to fill our totes:

"Just think of all the bar stories you can tell already! You've been dumped into the Yukon River while camping with kids, visited three other villages, rescued a puppy, and now we get to haul our own water! And this is only the first month of school!"

Thank goodness we have just a few 18-gal
totes lying around collecting dust! We
filled two and also had a gatorade cooler
to use in the kitchen.

Leah is a trooper. She's from Pittsburgh and does a great job with her students. She reminds me a lot of myself at her age, so we have fun!

Thankfully, the water got turned back on Thursday night. I really was settling in for a longer haul; I've heard that other villages have been without water for as long as three months. YIKES. I don't know how I'd be coping at that point.

Well, we survived and the good news is that the water is on for now. From what I hear, it's a temporary fix, so I expect outages in the future, but hopefully we will be forewarned. If not, oh well...

Here is a shot of the morning sky from my front door. This was a couple weeks ago, and I no longer enjoy such perks, as the sunrise is already pushed back to about 9:10 am. Some of you have wondered about the cold, and it's still in the low 40s, getting to about 35 degrees at night. Last year at this point, I'm pretty sure we had snow, but maybe not. It's set to snow next week. 6-month long winter, here we come!

FAQs

Frequently, I get asked similar questions about living here, and the conversation generally has the same elements. So, I thought I'd make a FAQ page or post. Clever, eh? It would be even more clever if I could figure out how to add a separate page or link on the home page for easy referral. I'll take any advice on how to do that! If you have any other questions, please let me know in the comments or by emailing me at sestotz@gmail.com.

What does [insert name of food item] cost?
This is a fun one. There is a co-op here as well as a gas station. Goods and prices are similar at the two places; generally speaking, the co-op has a better selection for food while the gas station has more supply-type things, such as toys, Carhartt clothing, muck boots, etc.

Here are a few examples to give you an idea:
1 gallon ice cream - $18.00-20.00
1 green or red pepper - $4.00
Red Delicious apples - $2.29 per pound
Oranges - $2.50 per pound (at least, maybe more)
Green Grapes - $5.59 per pound
Small salsa - $5.00 - 7.00
1 box (6) Nature Valley Granola bars - $6.00
1 doz. eggs - $3.50 (Availability can be very rare.)
1 12-pack pop - $10.00-12.00, depending on the time of year.
1 bag chips - $8.00
18 oz peanut butter - $6.20
1 quart milk - $6.00 (Good thing I don't drink the stuff!)

Things that are so rare that we have our mentor teacher bring them in on her monthly visit to the village: cream, cheese, cream cheese, and spinach.

And the number one reason I will NOT be purchasing a snow-go or a 4-wheeler:
1 gallon gas - $6.50
That, and I'm lazy. I do not want to maintain a vehicle during a 6-month long winter.

Oh my GOSH! That's so expensive!!
Yes, it is. It has to be a really rough day for me to fork over $8 for a bag of chips. But those days do happen now and then. Sometimes I just want the experience of handing over cash so I'll go buy a can of pop, a pepper, and a $1.50 candy bar.

What about soap and stuff?
For toiletry-type things, I usually order bulk off of Amazon or cram a 2-month supply of toothpaste/shampoo/conditioner into my luggage during a visit to Anchorage.

Oh, my! I couldn't live without [insert a food here - pop, cheese, milk, etc...].
Really, you could. You just have to get creative. The truth is, when you have fresh game and are fully aware that there is no place to eat but Casa de Susana, you just deal. I am not ashamed to admit that when I am whipping together a soup or a stir-fry with a hodge-podge of ingredients, I grab random spices and start yelling, "BAM!" like Emeril when I'm really hoping that it will turn out well. (Or I call Mom/Dad/Grandma.) I've only had to choke down a couple meals that tanked in terms of texture or taste, so I think I have inherited my family's ability to improvise meals on the fly.

We do get together for some teacher dinners where everyone brings a dish. I recently attended a birthday dinner for a village friend's daughter, which was neat. She made a huge feast and a priest blessed the meal before we ate. We had moose soup, rice, spaghetti, chicken wings, three kinds of jello, and cupcakes.

How do you afford to eat, then? What do you eat?
I generally order bulk quantities of certain things off of Amazon or through the grocery stores in Anchorage. We teachers just did a huge food order with meat and frozen produce that will last us the year. My roommate and I are splitting the cost, so we will each pay about $350 for chicken, ground beef, frozen vegetables and fruits, and some random cuts of pork. Not too bad really, and we don't need to focus on these other meats with so much moose, fish, and birds to be had.

I also receive plentiful care packages from friends and family that are filled with my precious dark chocolate, gum, and various other goodies, so I'm not deprived at all. I do miss the fresh produce. We can go weeks without seeing lettuce, broccoli, or apples, and when those do arrive they are often browning already. I practically squeal if there is an avocado to be had for $4.50. When I get to Anchorage, I salivate at the thought of being able to order a salad that isn't made of iceberg lettuce.

We still have fish from last year and will get more in the coming months; another teacher just got his first moose, so we recently spent an afternoon cutting and packaging moose meat for the freezer. A week later, a student of mine got his first moose and showed up at my door holding 3 steaks' worth of fresh meat in his bare hand. We will be berry-picking as well and freezing those for the winter. Really, I get away with eating quite cheaply, supplementing with bulk dry goods like rice, beans, and oatmeal.

Hmm, moose meat. What's that like?
Moose is one of my favorite meals. It tastes just like beef but is much leaner - not gamey at all, very chewy. The crockpot and I are becoming good friends because it's one of the only ways I've found to make it tender. Potatoes are plentiful, so moose roast or stew is a common dish.

It's fly-in, fly-out, huh? What about if you get really sick or need emergency care?
Well, luckily I haven't had to deal with this problem yet, but there is a clinic here with two health aides who can usually identify the problem and provide painkillers or cough medicine. If greater attention is needed, you can get on the morning or afternoon flights to Bethel, where there is a hospital. In the worst case scenario, we have medevac insurance that can get us to Anchorage.

Really, this means that we have to be extra careful to take care of ourselves. I try to get enough sleep, drink water, take my vitamins, wear my snow cleats, and take my time in doing things so I don't inadvertently break an ankle. (But then I do stupid things like play full court basketball after a 7-year absence. I don't recommend it because last January I almost fell down my stairs the next morning. Woops.) I've said before on here that the townspeople absolutely do not mess around with survival or safety, and I meant it. However, accidents and illness do happen of course.

What size planes land there? How big is the airport?
We generally have either a Cessna 6-seater or a caravan, which seats 9 or so. The airport basically amounts to a gravel clearing; while there is a big red shed there for tools and for what I assume would be a hangar only in case of a breakdown or emergency, I have never seen the inside of it. When we leave or return, a school vehicle is always used so we can wait in warmth or hop right in when the plane lands. "Security" consists of telling them your name and possibly your weight. It's really nice to just hop in and avoid that whole fiasco.

How cold does it get? How much snow falls?
The coldest I recall experiencing in my village was about -52 degrees F. If that happens on a weekend, I don't even leave the apartment. Some of the elders said that -52 is a normal low temperature, but that this last winter was the longest period of time that they've ever experienced at such a low temp - about 3-4 weeks. Usually it gets there for about a week (two maximum) and comes back up to -30, or so they say.

While traveling for Academic Decathlon in February, I did experience -62 degrees while being routed through another village, which is significant because planes do not fly at -70 degrees. That story is ridiculous and I will recount it soon. Long story short, I thought my nose fell off after being outside for about 20 seconds at that temperature.

As for snow, I'm not sure. I could google it, but it's sort of trivial because the roads don't need to be cleared. The lighter stuff blows away and then snow machines pack down the rest, so it never really feels like I have to wade through too much. Only once did we have whiteout conditions. The kids love it because they live for the cold.

How do you deal with the cold? Are you just chilled all the time?
No, not really because, hey, I'm from the midwest and went to school in Minnesota. However, the kids generally want it much cooler in my room than I do, so from October to March last year, I wore long johns every day. The cold really isn't so bad as long as you're dressed for it. Up here, fashion is function, so my typical gear for a school day is long underwear, tall thermal socks, and one or two long-sleeved shirts topped off with a fleece or a sweatshirt. You have no idea the freedom the month of April brought with it, when I could go without the minimum of 3 layers! As a rule, I drink a lot of tea to avoid being chilled. Thanks to Stacie at Halo Soap for keeping me stocked with that!

So, if fashion is function, do you even wear makeup or jewelry?
Yes, every day I do. For one, the fun earrings or necklaces or bracelets are my one way to feel jazzed up about my appearance some days. One needs a bit of frivolity daily, and this is mine. I wear minimal makeup, sometimes just to say that I at least made an attempt to put on my face for the day, but I don't know that it does any good. Students often tell me that they can see the "bloodveins" around my eyes and ask one of two questions:

"Who wrote on you?" or "Why so tired/stressed?" Yes, they often leave out the verb and subject of "are you."

I usually answer that I'm just pale and that's how I am. During a school trip, a girl saw my little makeup bag and asked whose it was. Another girl answered that it was mine. The first girl responded, "I didn't even know she WORE makeup!"

OK, Laura and Kat, I finally get the message. I could stand to wear a bit more makeup, and for heaven's sake, I don't want to scare the children. You've been telling me this for years and now my students have confirmed it. I will take this into consideration when I am outside the village. However, I make no promises.

How long do you go without light? How do you deal with that?
I vividly remember a friend calling me at 11:00 am one Saturday and the sun was just rising. By 4:00, it's dark again. During this December period, it doesn't really get that sunny but resembles dusk more closely during "daytime." I believe we lose about 6 minutes per day. Right now, at the end of September, the sun rises about 8:30 am and sets about 8:50 pm.

This light loss mostly affected me in two ways last year: I fatigued fairly easily and my attitude absolutely tanked. The name of the game was "make it to 3:30." To deal with that, taking Vitamin D is crucial as well as scheduling time to work out and hang out with friends. Just trying to live by the clock helped too. It's hard to not want to go to bed by 7:00 pm because at that point, it's been dark for 3 hours already. The absolute hardest part is getting up when it is pitch black, getting ready while it's pitch black, and walking to work while the beautiful stars are out. Walking home in the same darkness, it can almost feel like I'm on different planet.

And therein lies the only noticeable bonus to the lack of light - I never knew how many stars could be seen. In such a rural place, the lack of city lights (light pollution) makes the night sky appear almost speckled, as though you could not even measure a distance between two stars in some spots.

Wow. What are the northern lights like?
Unfortunately, I've seen them faintly only once. It was a very faint grayish blue haze. We don't get the bright colors here, though just downriver, they see brighter blue ones.

What do people do for industry?
Many work at the school or for the city, do commercial fishing, or firefight in the summers, but it's mainly a subsistence community, meaning that people fish, hunt, and berry-pick to prepare for the winters. There are a few jobs at the Tribal Council, clinic, post office, and gas station as well. Some of the ladies make beautiful beaded jewelry to sell.

So, that's it for now. I hope I've given you a slightly better picture of living off the grid. Let me know if I can clarify anything or if this brings something else to mind. This was a fun one to write!

Quyana [goy-ah-nuh] (thank you) for reading!

From the Mouths of Babes

Friday, as I was wrapping up class with my 10-12 graders, I told them that the assignment we were working on would be due Monday. I don't often give homework for various reasons but recently have started to do so more often. The top student (I'll call him Joe), who has a scholarship to any UA school he wishes to attend, said he'd be willing to do the work but that he had a problem.

"Um, Stotz, I don't have anything to write on."

I paused, confused. "You can do the work on the sheet I've provided; the data table is on there for you." Plus, he has a notebook, so I still couldn't quite compute his problem clearly.

Joe says, "No, I mean nothing to write on like a desk."

Well, that changes things. I am well aware that some of the housing here is, shall we say, not quite at the same standard that I was used to seeing in homes while growing up, but the thought never crossed my mind that a home could totally lack a writing surface that could suffice for a wee bit of homework. Those of you who know me probably guessed that my reaction to his statement was written all over my face. I'm a terrible liar in this respect, but am improving out of necessity, mostly from situations like this one.

Not really knowing what to say, I offered to hold a study hall over the weekend in my room. I never would have believed that 10/11 students would raise their hands earnestly indicating that they would come for such an event.

Say it with me now, "are you kidding me?!"

But back to the more important matter at hand: First, how is there no space on which to do homework? More importantly, how common is this problem within the village? Secondly, how does a kid without a desk receive a top scholarship? I would say that he manages his time well, except that the other day he told me that he was reading until 5:00 am. Now, I'm not one to tell a kid not to read, but I did use that little tidbit of information to make a pitch for a better bedtime. "Err closer to midnight than to dawn," I told him.

Well, I didn't end up holding a study hall today (though I am seriously considering it for the future), but as I came to the school this evening (Sunday), I bumped into Joe. He was near the school downloading something onto his iPod, probably another book that he will read tonight until 5 am. He ended up coming to the classroom with me so that he could finish his work from Friday. After that, Joe stayed and chatted, telling me about some of his closest friends, how he has dealt with bullying, his family, and how he remembers, in 2nd grade, being told the difference between being native and being white, and how he thought, "but we're all born the same way, we all die the same way, and we all need the same things to live. What does it matter what our race is?" Hmm. No wonder he's the scholarship winner.

Joe inquired about his younger brother's status in school, who struggles behaviorally at times.  He said, grinning mischievously, "I told him if I ever catch him getting into smoking that I'll beat him up!"

Oh, brotherly love. So mushy.

He then speculated on why his brother might be struggling - his best friend had died in a hunting accident a few years ago, and Joe has tried to look out for him ever since then. This information was completely new to me, and will obviously give me some insight to helping out his younger brother in the future. You just never quite know why someone may be struggling.

It's times like these that the fact that some of my students do as well as they do just absolutely floors me. I knew teaching out here would be a challenge, but not for some of the reasons that I'm confronting, or, more correctly, that my students confront. Lord knows I probably wouldn't have lasted a week, let alone accomplished anything!

And to think, I almost didn't even come over to the school tonight! I would have missed out on this great conversation with an amazingly kind and considerate kid. When people ask me why I came back, or how I "stand it,' --I"ll assume people mean life in a dry, fly-in, fly-out village--I guess it's little encounters like these that help me to answer those questions. Teachers often say that the students teach them more than they ever teach the kids, and I'm no different.

Our staff sometimes jokes that a year of teaching in the tundra is equal to about 5-7 years of teaching elsewhere, similar to "dog years." At this point, I can't argue with that idea. If I get to experience more gems like I did tonight, I might well just be here long enough to retire in terms of "teacher/dog years."

Well, there's a beautiful sunset and it's finally stopped raining for a while, so I'm out! Adios!

Seward Camp and Other Musings

Whew! Survived the first day.

As promised, here are a few pictures from the Seward camp.

The girls cored trees with help from one of the camp
directors. This tree was diseased and was only about
38 years old or so.

I think this is the perfect picture for capturing the phrase, "can't see the
forest for the trees." We cut our own trail this day, and of course I
tripped trying to take a photo of  this endeavor. Kinda cool, though, eh?

Cottonwoods and Devil's Claw and brush,
oh my! 

Serving as a desk for my student, Ms. Hunger Games, as she marks her map.

Waiting for the boat to take us to Tonsina Point, where we would use
our GPS systems to take data points. In the meantime, we suffered
with this view and this awful weather. 

My roommate for the week, a chemistry teacher
in Anchorage. She's a doll, and she's already
helped me with new resources for this year! It
must have been meant to be - we have the same
exact raincoat.

I  must say that this camp was not only beautiful, but, getting to focus on only two students, I was able to learn so much more about their train of thought and their prior knowledge. Ms. Hunger Games was mumbling answers all day long to the camp guide's questions, things that we never got to in the curriculum last year. Both girls blew me away with their skill sets and knowledge of the outside world. I don't know why I continue to be surprised at these things. Maybe one of these days I'll learn. These two will be key in teaching their peers this year as we try to include the whole class in the online course.

So at this point I was just taking pictures of our
beautiful hike back to Seward. It was maybe
two miles or so.

View from the bridge.

I sorta look Oompa-Loompa-ish and my eyes resemble possessed Marlena's
from Days of Our Lives, but the light is different here. That, and I might still
 be trying to figure out my new camera. So nice to have some color!
It was such a gorgeous day.

Moss growing on the Dr. Seuss branches, as I've termed them. 

Another poor picture of the perfect reflections in the water. 

Exit Glacier. We used our GPS handheld units to find the rendezvous point below.

This geologist showed us how they mark spots for
aerial photography to be taken. Apparently bears
often tear apart these X markers,  costing
much time and money for these researchers as
 they track the movement of glaciers and landforms
over time.

My two girls really bonded with a few girls from the bigger cities. This
was so sad to watch them say goodbye!

The following shots are from the train that took us from Seward back to Anchorage. It was absolutely beautiful, and should be on your to-do list if you ever visit this huge state. They serve refreshments and everything, and the scenery of the Chugach Mountains is unreal. I did my best to capture a few of the best views, but it's tricky when you're on a moving train:

Upon my return to the village, it was 75 degrees, so I went canoeing with the new teachers and Michael the Medicine Man, who cured me with chaithluck last fall.

At the Bethel airport, I bumped into Colleen, the public health nurse who visited us in the spring, and her husband Rob. They are moving to California and I thought I'd missed them, but I got to see them one last time and meet their new little addition, baby Robert!

After just one week in the village, my color is
nearly gone! So pale I will be soon. I apologize
ahead of time for the ghostly version of me that
will return at Christmas.

As I said, we survived the first day and I think this will be a good year, or at least an improvement on last year. I'm hoping, anyway. It's no fun to get one's hopes up only to get them dashed to pieces, and I have plenty of experience with that, but what else can you do? Toiling towards something with hope is obviously preferential to just plodding through from day to day without even a sliver of it.

It reminds me of Dad's Zig Ziglar spiel, that your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude. It's funny how we need reminding of that from time to time, or at least I do. I know it factually but fail in the implementation here and there.

And that's a huge reason behind my posting these pictures and stories. They serve as a reminder to me of past good experiences but also to focus on their creation for the future. Plans are usually quite loose around here, and that leads to some of the best stories, but intention is also crucial.

I might be posting more frequently, as I have recently cut ties with the all-seeing Facebook. (Really, it's kinda creepy how all-seeing it is.) The last time I signed in I was congratulated that I now have Timeline! Or, as I see it, that I have no choice in the matter. Now, I'm stubborn with a German heritage, so this change was just never going to go over well for me. I don't like such things being decided on my behalf, trivial though it may be. (Can you tell I was a bit of a pill growing up? Sorry Mom and Dad!)

After avoiding their guilt-trip (they posted pictures of friends, saying "Julie will miss you! TJ will miss you!") I cut it off. Here's what I discovered: FREEDOM! I no longer am inundated with ridiculous statements about one's Diet Coke consumption, bad haircut, crappy job, or traffic situation. Seeing such comments while living out here and seeing that many do not live even close to the American dream (or even have their own dream) just angers me to no end. This is not to say that I won't miss pictures of my beautiful niece and nephew and friends, or the many hilarious and thoughtful things that some people do post, but I don't have time or energy to be annoyed by the inane.

Another bonus: I'm not as judgmental. In terms of karma, this has to be a good move.

We'll see how long it lasts.

Ciao!

I'm Baaack!

Hello, all!

First off, let me apologize for not closing out the end of the school year on here. It was too much of a whirlwind, quite emotional, and, as you may know by now, schedules here are really just suggestions and sometimes change so dramatically that it's hard to keep my own head on straight, let alone communicate with others. This summer, I just couldn't bring myself to process the end of the year in print, so I will do that here, where the feelings are fresh and I have time to reflect. Eventually, I will go back and fill in those holes as well as I can, complete with pictures.

Well, I'm back in Marshall for a second year. I just couldn't imagine leaving after one year, having just established some great relationships with the kids, the community, and the district. It will be quite a different year, as there are only four returning staff. As stated in the spring, I am officially the "Senior Secondary Teacher," which feels laughable, but should make for an interesting year; indeed, it already has in some ways. In the past three weeks alone, I've spent a week in Portland, OR, being trained in an exciting district initiative that will enable us to better teach our English language learning (ELL) students, taken students to a summer science camp in beautiful Seward, AK, and have started the process of breaking in the new hires. For the past week I've been slowly getting my room back in order, canoeing with the new teachers, briefing said new teachers in certain policies and general 'good-to-know' things, and sleeping when I get a chance...all this time-zone hopping is tiring!

So, here's the recap...

I've been chosen as tribute from Marshall to be trained for a district ELL initiative, called Constructing Meaning (CM). For our own amusement, we often speak of our job in terms of the Hunger Games, so you'll have to bear with me at times. If you haven't read them, you simply don't know what you're missing, but let this serve as fair warning that I may reference this phenomenal book series in the future.

My role as a CM trainer basically means that I, along with tributes from the other villages, will be in charge of training the other secondary teachers at the district-wide inservice in September, as well as be the on-call CM site facilitator to my 7-12 grade colleagues.

Slightly tall order for a second-year teacher, no? Many days I don't think I can handle it, or, handle it well, but don't worry, there's more...

Immediately after my week in Portland (which was a blast, and a huge THANK YOU to Aunt Sue for the fantastic accommodations), I flew to Anchorage to meet two of my students, a junior and a sophomore. We hung out in Anchorage for the night, and I had the pleasure of taking the girls to see a movie, which just so happened to be the Hunger Games. (No joke.) One of the girls had never been to a movie theater before; actually, she hadn't been to Anchorage since she was three years old, so we did the whole shebang -- pop, popcorn, candy, and everything. She went through the book series this spring in a matter of weeks and was thrilled when we found it at one of the discount theaters. I was tired from my own travel and the previous week in Portland, but seeing her face throughout the movie experience was pretty priceless.

The next morning, we joined other students traveling to Seward on a yellow school bus. There were 9 teams from around the state, and we learned about Geographical Information Systems, used GPS technology to map certain areas around Seward and our home sites, and had the chance to use some pretty cool software. Well, the girls did. They ran circles around me with the cool maps that we are going to be using this semester. We also took tree cores - one of the girls took a beautiful core of a tree that was 142 years old.

The really cool thing about this camp, which we attended via a state grant, was that it is the pilot group for a class to eventually be offered online to all Alaskan students. Cool, right? The girls will receive half a credit in Environmental Science for completing the online curriculum. I also get to pillage the online curriculum - yay for teachers graciously sharing their awesome ideas! The girls met some great kids from around the state, and I met some amazing teachers as well. The teams came from Anchorage, other rural villages, Sitka, Gustavus, and Kodiak. It was really touching to see all these groups interact. We ended up taking the scenic train back from Seward to Anchorage, which was absolutely beautiful. One of the girls' mothers even commented that she'd never had that opportunity, to which the girls grinned and giggled.

For not having a clue as to what I was doing when I applied for this camp, I think we came out remarkably well. We will be presenting our project to the school board in the near future and will try to link what we learned with geocaching, which is a pretty cool worldwide treasure hunt. Again, no idea what I'm doing here, but a wise teacher I had once told me, "If you're going to do something, do it with gusto!" She might have phrased it this way, in reference to performing onstage: "If you're going to mess up, mess up with gusto!" but since I usually screw something up, doing all things with gusto generally works out for the good for me. Thanks, Ms. Miner!

So, in addition to the CM training, the online course and geocaching, I will also be the Academic Decathlon coach this year. It sounds as though people want me to be the head volleyball coach, but right now I'm hiding behind the fact that I have no coaching endorsement to avoid it. I will gladly help out again, but being in the head coaching position just isn't something I've ever wanted. I will probably end up doing it anyway because that's just the way things work here. Also, I might be doing Battle of the Books. We'll see about that one; it's scary because our school has won districts for the past 8 years. I might put that one on one of the newbies, the reading/language arts teacher specifically. Is that mean?

With all that going on, I decided against taking one of two remaining classes to finish up my Master's. I have plenty of time to do that, and I'd like to sleep sometime in the next 4 months. Maybe I'll start that up in the spring. We shall see.

Sorry, no pictures this time, as I have misplaced my brand-new camera, bought the day my brand-new nephew and godson was born this summer. I believe it's at my apartment. Look for pictures and an updated post in the next week.

Thanks to all for all of your support and interest in the last year! Here we go again!

Spring Adventures

With spring finally here, I actually have an excuse for my late posts. The weather has been so warm and beautiful that I just have to be outside, moving and doing and going and seeing instead of holed up inside, finagling different ways to devour chocolate, at which I have become quite adept.

Hunting with students a few weeks ago wasn't fruitful, though I did end up going on a lovely three-hour walk carrying a gun, so even though I'm not, I felt like I was a true huntress for a wee bit of time. Mary and I went with two students, a brother-sister duo who are generally joys in the classroom, but are even more so outdoors. Eventually we split up to walk different sides of an open field, and Mary told Goose (yes, the same Goose who brought me birds when my food had yet to arrive last fall) to take care of me, and he did. Every few steps he checked on me to see if I'd sunken into the snow, or, if there was a dip coming up, he'd turn to warn me before he staked out a better route. Despite his best efforts, the trek proved to be a bit too much for my (sadly) poorly aging knees. Crimeny, I'm not even 30 and I'm falling apart!

Goose, his sister, and myself on the easiest part of the trip: the frozen river.

A hoppin' Saturday evening as I soothe my knees.

In the above picture, you can see the book The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I've been reading a lot lately. I read the first in the Games trilogy in about a day and a half. I tried to restrain myself from plowing through the next two simply because 3rd quarter grades were going to be due. I ended up going ahead and reading the whole series anyway within a week or a week and a half. The only reason it took me that long is because I had to work! Mary mocked me because I would shuffle from the couch to the kitchen and find things to eat without even taking my eyes from the page. So addicting this trilogy is! (In case you are wondering, village speech is very Yoda-like, and I find myself speaking it nearly daily without intention.) Others lately: the Wake trilogy by Lisa McMann, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, and The Kids from Nowhere by George Guthridge. These last two excellently depict some of the struggles these kids face living where they do, and also eerily similar struggles that I've had teaching here so far.


This spring has been a beautiful one and ideal for skiing. Mary and I took full advantage of that fact. There's been no shortage of beautiful days:

This cemetery shot I find quite beautiful. I'm not a great photographer, but it's fairly easy to work with this type of
scenery.

Eventually we ventured past the old airport road and found a shortcut down to the slough that cuts south of town. It took a few falls to get there, but the snow was powdery and perfect:

When the public health nurse, Colleen, came from Bethel for the weekend, she, her husband, Mary, and I took this same route and ended up playing some tundra badminton out on the slough pictured above. We then had a picnic to celebrate Colleen's birthday. We're getting pretty good at creating our own fun here. Our skis served as the net. 

I named this dog Wolfie. He liked to greet me at the school's door at lunch and walk me back and forth between the school and my apartment. The first day, he freaked me out, but he was a sweetheart and only was looking for a friend, I do believe. The poor thing actually had an injured paw and limped as he accompanied me. I haven't seen him in a while. I don't think about it beyond that.

So these are just some of my excuses for not posting more frequently. If you need more, I'll be happy to provide them. Nine days remain in the school year. In under two weeks I will be in Anchorage taking courses for next year. The next week and a half will be a whirlwind - wish me luck!