Fire Alarms at 1030 PM

Well Ladies and Gentlemen, we had the school fire alarm go off and wakeup the entire village. Turns out one of the boilers really started smoking pretty bad and it was hard to get rid of all the smoke. Tonight was one of the rare nights I am appreciative of the distance of my house form the school because the volume was not nearly as bad as my previous residence which is only fifty meters away form the school. I was going to call it an early night, yet this has severly put a bump into my groove. I haven't posted in while so i have decided to take this opportunity to give a heads up. Life is looking on the up and up out here. My kids are getting a little squirrely but nonetheless no worse for wear. Things are shaping up here, although I am still waiting for the barge to bring my 1000lbs of lumber so I can build my water storage facility. We just had a week of five rainy days and each drop that falls I stare remorsefully at its descent. One more drop which I wil not be able to harvest... But eventually it should arrive and once it is constructed I will let you all in on how my water purification system is going. My plans this year are pretty big, if this water goes through, I will be helping my father present it to the village and we will see if we can equip the every house in the village with a system. My friendship with the other teachers has grown immensly and we have begun taking excursions out into the tundra. These tundra walks have turned into quite the bonding experience, especially after we all got stuck in the mud on Friday. Some teachers were knee to thigh deep in mud, and another sacrificed her clothes to lay in the mud and dig out another teachers book which was about 18in deep in the mud. Using physics rules we thought we had forgotten we were able to pull ourselves literally by our bootstraps out of the muck and returned home. We were mired in muck for about an hour. We must have look ridiculous to the hunters passing by, four kossaqs laughing and falling over. However when I related the tale in the Maqii I was given two methods for how to walk in the mud. The first was to walk and become pigeon-toed when you hit the mud, this helps compress the mud and distribute your weight. The second is to walk springly popping your heels out first, almost like an over eager aerobics instructor. I have yet to test out these methods but I am trusting that they will definitly come in handy the next time we attempt to make another excursion. Well folks thought I would shoot a little something your way, til next time!

Out of Order 8-19-08

Well Ladies and Gentlemen this one was on my first day but due to internet difficulties i have been unable to post it...here it goes

Blog

Well I stayed up too late once again the evening before the first day of school. After worrying about what could go wrong after last years fiasco I was trying to set everything to rights so I would have any firedrills or kids passing out during the school day. As I walked home at one in the mornign I saw a shooting star and wondered if it perhaps boded well for tomorrow. I was hoping anyway… Actually my first day was only mediocre, however it was 1000x better than last years first day. Not only did I survivie it but I am pretty optimistic about how this year is going to turn out. I am enjoying my classes and my students, and it doesn’t look like I am having anywhere near as many conflicts as I was expecting. Overall I am pretty pumped about this year.

I told myself I was going to hit the hay early today, but I could never pass up the chance to “maqiiq” or steam. After talking and cleaning I headed to the house where I had Akutaq and dried salmon strips, man alive was it tasty. While eating it we began watching an old collection of pictures that were put ona video. 2 and half huors later this video is going on and it looks like my idea of turnign in early for the night is shot to pieces. I was able to learn quite a bit about relations in the village and was able to discover how certain families are related. It was great six of us sat on a bed watching this old tv and it was explained who everybody was, it made feel like I was making another link into the village, watching family videos where everybody knows everybody else. It was a pretty intriguing experience. However it did push back my bed time and I am going to have cash in my chips for the night. Till next time guyos…

Getting old...

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have been playing PE with my students and let me tell you, and I am maybe getting into a little bit shape. I am throwing a medicine ball around with my students and man it is hard keeping up with these fishermen, their forearms are killer from pulling in nets. But I have found my one true strength in basketball in the game of 21. It is mainly rebounding and defense, and with my long arms and odd height out here I am actually competitive with the game. At the end of the day I am reminded just how unfit I am, shin splints and back pains keep me relishing the experience of finally sitting down at the end of the day. Things are looking on the up an up this year I don't knwo what got into the water but it is like night and dayout here. I have kids voluntarily staying after to work on homework before they go play out even on Fridays! I have found myself becoming oddly more social, I end up talking to people most of day nowadays and my days seem to fly by. I go from homework to dinner to Church next door for a little socialization to steaming then to home. My steaming has improved and the other day I was able to cook some of my students, they were convinced that I took notes and studied over the summer. And Ladies and Gentlemen the food has been simply amazing! I can't believe it, I was not a fan of fish before but I can just pound this food down it is so delicious, salmon coooked abunch of different ways, and now I have even dabbled in a little clam eating. I have been incredibly impressed so far and am looking forward to more delicacies in the future. The first three weeks are down and I am pumped about the rest of the semester. I have already signed up for graduate courses so I will be working on my masters as well as teaching this year. I tell you folks I am getting my ducks in a row. Until nesxt time ladies and gentlemen...

Exercises in futility...

Ladies and Gentlemen, some of you had the pleasure of partaking with me various meetings "prepping" us for teaching out here over this last week. Alright although I felt the structure planned was pretty useless, I decided to start talking people. I have always envisioned myself as somewhat reclusive and relatively passive about problems, but I decided to try and hop on the ball and become a little more active about trying to solve my problems. First on the list was working on how to get more textbooks for my classroom. After talking with the head of SS department I was able to make some headway in ensuring that I will have enough books for my students. I decided to sit with some of the newguys and give them a crash course in the education system out here because the presentations were sadly lacking and half of the room was composed of people like myself who had a year to internalize this system for ourselves and the other half was being overwhelmed by the slough of information and jargon being dumped upon them. I was able to help the people around me get alittle firmer hold on a jumping off point and they got a little more comfortable with their situation. I feel I made some headway in being productive which helped me find some value in these meetings, and with a little help from my friends out here we made it passable. I am anxious to get everything up and running out in my room and it is looking like I may have a small mountain to tackle. Til next time...

Lazy Days...

Well ladies and gentlemen it is a little disappointing I have spent a little too much time on my duff watching game shows and not really too much time on actually having productive experiences in the village or making large headways with my lessonplanniong. I kind of reread my blog posts and I have to admit I think I might have lost my direction for this blog, I liked how my posts started out in the beginning, yet somehow I have lost my rhythm for posting, please bear with me folks and I will try to bring it all back on track. I just need to find a little umpf somewhere...

Well folks here is the craziest thing, five minutes after writing this post I decided to call my unproductive day quits and I decided to head homeward. I saw four my students on a four wheel one male and three females and he was driving backwards down the boardwalk doing a little showing off. He ended up going half off the boardwalk almost dumping two of his passengers into a rather deep puddle,(close to two feet) I helped him out and one of my other students joined in and we were able to haul the fourwheeler free. I was about to call the day a wash, however it turned out to have some interesting stuff stored up for the very end.

New Faces!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am getting pretty pumped these last couple of days. Things are coming together and I feel a ton more prepared this year than last. One of the advantage of teaching highschool is that I know my students already give or take a couple new names and faces. As for new faces we have gotten four new teachers up here and I have met three so far and if their enthusiasm is any harbringer for what the year might bring we are in for a great year. Last year we just missed AYP by a handful of scores, but it was the closest we've come in eight years, (ever since No CHild Left Behind was enstated). The teachers up here have been doing some good, and I think this next wave will be able to continue it. I helped them settle in and I was trying to give them some helpful advice when I tried to think of my initial impressions of the village. Coming into the village I remember being kind of shocked how everything was laid out. My initial preconceptions of what life would be like in Alaska was shattered and it took me a couple of weeks to actually try and wrap my head around the idea that I was going to be out here for a year. The new residents of my apartment are facing similar challenges oddly enough that I faced, the hot water doesn't work, even after I showed them the trick of turning a knob or two on the pipes. This is Alaska for you a couple of kinks in all plans yet somehow there's a way to make do. This year the water challenge seems to be kind of intriguing, right now I have dumped my honeybucket a couple of times, but I generally visit Paula and Kris throughout the day and we swap chores with each other. I currently have a pretty sweet deal going, I go into thirds on the groceries and pick up a couple of nights of dishwwashing a week and I can come over for dinner every evening. Then I can also bring my laundry over and they will do it for me if I get their mail every week. Sounds pretty good, although The last time I went I carried back 80lbs of mail so maybe they got the wool over my eyes for that one :).

So there has been a revamping of the Social Studies curriculum in our district and we are getting new next textbooks. Now I thought this was pretty good our old books some of you might recall stopped after 1920. But true to Alaska form there has to be a kink somewhere in the works. This monkey turns out to come in the form of quantity, I only recieved five new text books for each subject that I teach. Currently I am at a loss asto how I am supposed to begin teaching class in a week without the books but who knows something will hopefully shake out.

Admidst all of the hurdles I am still oddly optimistic, I am not sure where this is coming from, I was struck with a bug to get everything unpacked yesterday and I even tried my hand at a little decorating/ trying to put away my juggling stuff even though there is a lack of shelving. Ladies and gentlemen let me stress the number of things you can do with some strings and couple of nails and a hammer. I was able to hang 9 clubs all with a nail and a piece of string, and the rings, devil sticks, diabolos, and balls were all interwoven into an interesting piece of work that looks almost like the head of a giant mosquito. In a rush with all of this hammering I nailed up a calendar to my wall however my nail had a flat head and I am not sure what I going to do when the month changes. i think I have about three weeks to come up with a solution. As for problems I am facing, does anyone have a solution for dealing with black houseflies, they are every where. I shut the doors trying to trap them in the rooms but somehow even without food they seem to be thriving. Any fixes would be welcome!

Homecoming...

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It has been an intense week. My first sleep in my new house sans water was interrupted at about 3 in the morning when I awoke to find myself incredibly cold and seeing my breath in front of my face. My boiler went out and there wasn't too much to do about it other than grab a few more blankets and try to go bakck to sleep while I waited for the rest of the village to wake up. The following day I visited with the maintence man and tried to figure out how one goes about repairing a glycol boiler that looks older than I am. I got my fingers crossed that it will only happen once this year. While I was in the boiler room I got to see some of the leavings left by the previous owners and there is an interesting collection of albums, cassettes, and ammunition. I think I have to find a way to acquire a record player and maybe sample some of these obscure hits. I will be sure to keep you all posted with some reviews of the tunes throughout the year. Some other teachers have started to turn up by the end of the week and I have been spending quite a bit of time with them helping them move in and get settled in themselves. We have been catching up on what we did over our summers and what the upcoming year holds for us. We had a sunday school class and meal sessions, and I was able to work on perfecting my chocolate chip pancakes, luckily for me the kids were pretty nondiscriminating about shape because it took me a while to get the hang of flipping them. Which brings me to today and the conversations I have had with numerous Dell employees about how I can get a new computer to replace my old one that did not survive the transition over the summer. I have been able to already enjoy the pleasure of a Maqii, and also the not so pleasant experience of dumping a honey bucket. I am getting pretty pumped about this upcoming year and have many days of planning ahead of me to round out my summer vacation. Until next time ladies gentlemen...