Changes ladies and gentlemen...

Man alive, ladies and gentlemen, life has moved in incredible directions. I find myself currently an uncle again with a new nephew, a basketball coach, as well as part of a spearhead movement to improve the water quality of the village out here. I got to see my family, have my water system completely installed and I am able to filter the water at an incredible rate cleaning it of microbes to a log12 factor. My mondays and wednesdays have turned into 13 hour days with only a lunch break with coaching and tutoring, and i am oddly surprised I would have expected me to be exhausted, but i am finding myself with time on my hands to write and update my blog. I dont know where this time came from, but i am reasonably planned up for the end of the year until break and I just have to get over my wednesday hump before i feel the week is over. I am looking forward to break with reckless abandon, I cant hardly wait, after getting a taste of my dad and sister it reminded me of what i am missing back home. Not to mention it was cool to meet Bob, the CEO of fourth largest communications company in the world! He was the most eccentric man I have ever met. Immensly interested in everything, honeybuckets, steaming, and chipping ice, I have never met a more humble man who was so giving. My little sister described it the best although the man isimmensley weathly he isnt really concerned with acquiring more of it, he is more focused on what good he can do with it. He has provided financial support to what he terms "world changing ideas" and tries to bring great minds together. I was blown away by the man and am incredibly grateful that he decided to take an interest in my little village out here. Guys the course of events that led up to this was incredible, seredipitious is only the beginning, and slowly I find myself becomin more religious. The chances of everything arejust too outrageous, I feel I have found reaffirmation that I should be out here, and I didnt even know I was looking for it. In retrospect this whole scheme came to be because I had no idea that AK stood for alaska. It is ridiculous guys I have no other explanation for it. As this project unfolds I think I am going to begin compiling my blogging and journaling and start laying this out in a book. I always wanted to be an author, I thought by choosing teaching I was giving up o nthat path, but it looks like there may stil be an avenue open. I don't know folks, i just dont know, I am simply amazed by what has occurred...til next time

Project done!

Well ladies and Gentlemen my video is complete!!!! It is up and running and you can check it out at http://eimakeover.shycast.com/contestant/582/ There are only about fifty other highschools competing feel free to check out how we measure up. Please take the time to log in and register an email account. I know it is signing a bit of your soul away but what is one more piece of spam in comparison to the billions flying around the ethernet currently. We put a lot of time and effort into and I hope you folks will support our effort.

I have to admit that while I am happy that the submission went through I have to admit this is one of the first major projects I have stuck through until completion. I am notorious for starting things and then just letting them wither away. There was a small amount of elation that coursed through me as I finally got it up and now it is a little odd to ask people I haven't talked to in a while to come and support me, however the nice part is that over this past weekend I was able to get a couple of friendships that had been lying dormant to become reconnected and I am definitly looking forward to coming home over winter break and keeping those connections going.

Musically, if I ever hear Nickelback's "Rockstar" song again it will be too soon. Generally i can do the one song on repeat ad nauseum, however the amount of stress that get associated with song is something i would like to distance myself from. Leaving the world of pop, I have finally had time to delve into some music my brother hooked me up with last christmas and due to my disorganization of moving place to place I have finally gotten around to it. Right now Charles Mingus " My Jelly Roll Soul" is just rubbing me the right way. I am just unwinding and relaxing, I have a notch in my belt of project completions and I hope to double it by finishing the water project next saturday. I tell you ladies and gentlemen if I can ride this wave I will be ecstatic come november.

My two other goals are to purchase a Yamaha PSR-900 to start an after school club, and to by 20 basketballs, one for each of the guys who are eligible for basketball this year. I want to buy sharpees too so they can design their ball and make it their own and practice with it all the time. Something they can envision going through the air and landing in the hoop. M reasons for this are twofold, One most of my students have never owned their own basketball, and two there are not enough basketballs in the school for each memeber of my team to have one. Two people can not dribble with the same ball at the same time. I think Newton has a law about that...

Overall folks life's looking on the up and up. Things were kind of getting away from me for a while but I feel I got the horses back under the reign. Please help my kids out by checking out our music video again. Here's the link http://eimakeover.shycast.com/contestant/582/

Til next time ladies and gentlemen...

Projects abound!!!!

Alright Ladies and Gentlemen, I have been neglectful true, but I am coming out of slump, this is awesome I am about 80% done with water project creating my aformention system that will purify and cleanse all of my water no matter what the source or pollutants out here. And I would be 100% but I adopted another project one that I just kind fo fell onto while searching for funding for a smart board for my classroom. It is to enter a contest and make a music video and you get the change to win a $25,000 Classroom Technology makeover. Well this thing looks pretty sweet and only 200 some people entered it last year. Well right now there are only 6 highschools involved and their videos are pretty shoddy. So I have worked with my students and we have come up with some lyrics to parody Nickelback's Rockstar song and we are going to be putting it to video over the next three days as the video is due to be uploaded on friday. I swear to post this as soon as it is completed, I took one of my classes, my Consumer Life Skills class and just told it for the next two weeks this is all we are working on. We got pretty pumped about it and we are going to see what develops. I am pretty hopeful that we have a good chance, the website to check out is eimakeover.com . Hang in there with me for a little long folks and I will have something phenomenal to show you... on that note, til next time.

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...