Hello all! This will be my last post of the year, seeing as how a week from today I will be heading to the lower 48 to visit my lovely family for the holiday season. There isn't a whole lot to blog about this week. I think everyone is getting very anxious for break time. We did, however get to go and have another tour of the new school. It was a lot of fun and they have done a lot of progress since Labor Day, which is the last time we went to check it out. There were a few new things that we noticed now that they are actually getting walls up.
Time Out Rooms: There will be two very small rooms with windows into the principal and assistant principal's offices that will be very helpful. A lot of the time kids may need to just get away and out of the room for a while and these are perfect little rooms for that.
Library and Computer Room: From the looks of things, the library will be nice and big! It will give us a lot of room to move around and fit classes into.
A view from the top looking down at the gym
Teacher Break Room: Since our current facility is so close to teacher housing, having a break room wasn't necessary. But now the school is a lot farther away, which means we can't just walk home for lunch. Because of this, we will have a break room. I think this will be very interesting and I'm excited to get to use it.
Gym: Above the gym will be a little open area where people can stand and watch games and things. After seeing the NYO events here last week, this seems like a really smart idea because more people will be able to watch our events.
One thing that happened this week was that the heat went out in our classroom. Fortunately, it was found before everything frozen and it was just for my classroom since it's out in a portable building. My kids and I had class in the library in the morning and then worked with the other classes during the afternoon. By 3:30 the room was all heated up again and the next morning the smell was gone too, so it only lasted one day like that, thankfully. Our maintenance guys did an awesome job of getting out there quickly and fixing the problem for us. I appreciated it a lot.
Well, that's it for this semester. Next time I write it will be a New Year. Hopefully next year will be just as amazing as this year has been. Have a wonderful Christmas and a prosperous New Year.
Here is the library and computer rooms
P.S. If anyone would like to see more pictures of the new school, feel free to check out some of the other teachers' blogs: http://sammyjotakesalaska.blogspot.com
Every two years I watch the Olympics on television. It's amazing to watch so many talented people do what they are so great at. In the Winter Games, you have people who have mastered the ski slopes, or can spin a million times in a minute while balancing on a small blade and manage not to fall on the ice and break their faces. In the Summer Games you have athletes who are masters of the pool, or do tons of hops, skips, and flips, landing perfectly in a small amount of space. So much talent in one place is inspiring. Well, if you enjoy watching the Olympics, then I strongly encourage you to look into the Native Youth Olympics (NYO). In my village, we have gathered all of our school district's downriver NYO competitors for a three day competition not only of the body, but also the mind. Six schools, fourth through eighth grades, all competing for the glory. Students competed against each other on an intellectual level, testing what they had learned about each of the school's core subjects as well as their knowledge of their own culture. They also competed on a physical level doing events that have been in their culture for centuries. It was said that these events were done during fierce winter storms to help the hunters keep in shape and keeping their abilities that would be used during hunts sharp. These events were mind blowing to watch, some of them I even think could give our World Olympics a run for their money.
Stick Pull
Since most of my readers are interested in the culture of the people out here, the focus of this blog is to tell you of the awesome and unique events these children have competed in the past few days. For the safety of the children in photos, names and villages will be left out. There will be eight athletic events that I will try to explain to you in this blog. I must warn you that these are dangerous and I suggest that you do not try them on your own without some sort of guidance.
Seal Hop: Unfortunately I wasn't able to get any pictures of this event because I was judging at another thing during the same time. My students, however, have described for me how it works. Each competitor starts out at the top of a push up. Then, thrusting themselves forward with their feet, they begin hopping down the court, racing against the other students and trying to be the first one across the finish line. This exercises arm strength and balance.
One Arm Reach
Stick Pull: In this event, two students sit across from each other with the bottom of their feet touching each other. Then a stick is held in the middle. A coin toss determines which competitor gets to have their hands in the middle of the stick and which competitor has their hands on the outside of the stick. They are given a countdown and each competitor begins to try to pull the stick away from the person on the other end. The compete three times, whoever wins two rounds is the winner of the match. To make sure it is fair, the competitors switch hand placement each round.
Kneel Jump: Competitors sit on their knees with the tops of their feet flat on the ground. From here, the competitor uses as much strength as they can to heave their body up and land on their feet. Once here, the judges measure how far from the beginning position to the landing position. Whoever jumps the farthest, wins. I wasn't able to get a picture of this event either.
One Arm Reach: This one is one of my favorites and very impressive. There is a ball hanging from a mechanism in front of each competitor. The better they do, the higher it goes. Putting all their body weight on one hand, with the elbow of that hand in their stomach, the competitor attempts to touch a ball in the air with their free hand. This takes a lot of strength and balance and is very dangerous looking. The competitor who can touch the ball higher than the others, is the winner.
Scissor Broad Jump: In this jump, a competitor starts with their weaker foot and steps forward. Then, like scissors, the competitor swings their other foot behind that leg. The competitor then steps forward with the same foot they began with. They kick their other foot in front and then begin their final jump as far as they can forward. Here, their jump is measured and the person who jumps the farthest after three attempts... well, you get the idea. This is very similar to the long jump we all know so well. I have included a video of this jump, seeing as how you need to see it to understand a little better.
Two Foot High Kick
Two Foot High Kick: A ball is hung from a string in this event much like in the One Arm Reach. Then, the competitor attempts to jump up and kick the ball with both feet. I missed most of this competition, but I think this picture captures the essence of the event. The competitor who can kick the ball with both feet at the highest point is the winner.
One Foot High Kick
Alaskan High Kick: I very much wish I could have watched this event. Each competitor, again, has a ball hanging from a mechanism in front of them. The competitor then grabs their less dominant ankle in their hand. Putting all their weight on the hand that aligned with their less dominant foot holds all the body weight as they kick up with their dominant foot and kick the ball. The leg that is being held up cannot touch the ground until the judge says so. The competitor who kicks the ball at the highest point, wins. This is hard to describe. For example. If I am kicking with my right foot, I would hold my left ankle in my right hand. This cannot be let go until the judge says I have succeeded. Then, I will put all of my bodyweight on my left hand and attempt to kick the ball with my right hand. Hopefully that makes sense, because I didn't get any pictures of this event either.
One Foot High Kick: This event was very similar to the Two Foot High Kick. The same ball is hanging again as before. This time, however, the competitor only kicks with one foot. Their other foot has to be suspended in air. The competitor may take a running start if they need to. They must kick with one foot and land on that same foot. I have not only a picture of students doing this, but I also have a video of the highest kick from the competition. This young man was able to kick the ball at 92 inches, which is just four short inches away from nine feet tall! Like before, the competitor who kicks the highest ball, wins.
I thoroughly enjoyed all of these events. It was amazing to get to see so many students enjoying themselves, getting to know other people their age from different villages, and being in touch with their heritage. If it were up to me, I think we would do this a lot more often. I loved the atmosphere and the entertainment value of it all. I hope you all enjoy looking at pictures and videos and really do get an idea of how impressive this culture is. Their activities and athleticism is outstanding. These kids really are talented.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Sorry I'm a little bit late on posting this week, but it was a crazy week! Three days of school, a nice holiday with friends, my brother visiting, and another old friend in town. I had an excellent week!
My brother and I at Thanksgiving lunch
It all started on Monday when my little brother flew into town. He got into Anchorage on Sunday evening and called me to tell me he had landed and he had seen a moose already! I've lived here for three months now and haven't seen any moose, but he was here for an hour and saw his first one. I was a bit jealous at that point.
When my brother got into the village, his first order of business was to challenge one of my very talented students to a basketball game. He barely beat him and if I hadn't known any better, I would have thought he was going to die! The air is a bit thinner and different up here, which he wasn't used to, so when he was playing ball he wasn't getting as much oxygen as his body wanted. We did many fun things such as eat at the cafe, go down to the docks, have a movie night and game night, go to an Eskimo dance, and, of course, eat Thanksgiving lunch with the other teachers-my Bush family.
Sunset at the dock
Our Thanksgiving lunch was a lot of fun. Most of the teachers who had stayed in town came over to the school, where we all brought a potluck dish. We had turkey and stuffing and green bean casserole and cornbread pudding and pumpkin pie and many other dishes that all tasted delicious. After eating, we all enjoyed playing basketball with the babies or watching those who were playing. We hung out for a while before everyone began heading home for their Thanksgiving naps. It was a very successful day, I would say, for it being my first Thanksgiving away from home. I'm very thankful for my brother being up here with me so I had a little part of home.
Hanging out at the Eskimo Dance on Thanksgiving night
Another wonderful thing that happened was a friend from another village coming into town to spend time with us. We had a great time playing Settlers of Catan, watching football, and just hanging out eating so much food we couldn't stand up! She was another teacher, so we were able to discuss differences in the villages we lived in. I liked that because this place is still new to me and to hear about things in other villages is very interesting because even though we all live close together, we are all very different.
Rub a dub dub, three women in a tub-- with our friend from another village
My Alaska family is wonderful. We have many fascinating stories together, fun memories together, and I believe, no matter what, we will always be family. Years from now, when some of us have left and others have replaced them, they will always have a special place in our hearts. We are a family, and just like any other family, moving away doesn't mean you aren't one of us anymore, you just live in a new place now. If you need something, we will be there for each other. Always. I am thankful for my family back home. I am thankful for my class of wonderful students. I am thankful for my Alaska family. Forever and always, my first Thanksgiving out here will be one I remember.
We finally got some snow here! It came down all day and by the time it stopped, we had some snow drifts that were close to four feet tall! Of course, other places hardly had any snow on the ground, it's kind of funny like that. The wind blowing and the snow piling made it quite a funny picture out there. I guess I thought that when it finally snowed it would be an even mound all along everything, but I was very much wrong.
Yukon Cafe sign buried in snow
There was enough snow that finally everyone could get their snow machines out again. It seems like all I ever here now is people riding by on their skidoos. I like the sound of them. Some of the other teachers got their machines out and decided that a trip to the cafe was just what we needed. As our food cook, we drove the skidoos out to the airport to see more of the snow drifts, but then on our way we began to notice how the road out there hadn't been covered by snow at all. We decided the best thing would be to get off the road so that the machine wouldn't get hurt. That was our mistake. We ended up getting the snow machine stuck in the snow because of how deep it was on the sides. The hills of the road were too steep as well to get it out. It took a lot of work, but the three teachers who had experience with this kind of thing dug the machine out. One of the other new teachers out here and I weren't exactly sure how to help, so we stood by and watched. Unfortunately, our journey was not over. After we had an amazing meal at the cafe, we went out to find that one of the two skidoos we had wouldn't start. We weren't exactly sure what was wrong with it, but since there were five of us, we needed to come up with a plan. Since one teacher had ridden in a sled on the back of the working skidoo to the restaurant without any problems, we decided to have three of us try and hop on the sled, while two people rode the actual snow machine. It was actually really fun. The sun had completely set, so all the stars were shining magnificently and even though it was cold we thoroughly enjoyed the beauty of the night sky.
skidoos!
One other fun event that happened this week was a birthday party for one of my students. She turned fourteen and had a big celebration at her house. It was a really good time. One of my coworkers and I sat for quite a while talking to the student's mother about a lot of things going on in the village. There house was so welcoming and beautiful and inviting. It felt like being at family's house. When we departed to go back home, we had to give our machine a little time to warm up, which gave us time to have a small snowball fight with a bunch of the children from the village. It was so much fun, it was all of them against us! We were outnumbered and inexperienced, but it was definitely a fun night!
Icy afternoon
Of all the experiences I've had, places I've been, things I've seen, I don't think anything compares to this place when the snow finally comes. People's eyes light up more. Unlike other places in the world, there are more things to do when the snow comes than when there is no snow. They all are so much more used to the snow that it's like they feel complete. I love this village and its snow.
I tried to capture the sparkling sun on this, but didn't quite get it
I've said before that I love this village, but now there is snow on the ground. Snow on the ground! It's not going anywhere for at least 6 months, and it makes me so happy! You know what snow means: hot cocoa, warm layers, snowball fights and snow angels. What a wonderful time of the year in the Great White North. Everything is so pure and clean and white. Even the air smells and feels fresh and clean and cold. The snow being here changes so very much.
It changes the kids. Now they can do more and play more, which is kind of funny, because anywhere else I've been the colder it gets outside the less time you spend outdoors. However, here the colder it gets means there are more opportunities to do different things.
It changes travel through the villages. I had a few students who were supposed to go to a wrestling tournament in another village, but because of the snow falling they were unable to do so. This is the time of year you can literally begin to feel trapped like you can't escape, because the weather will trap you here.
It changes our mailing system. Two days without getting any mail, not because nothing was being sent, but because the planes couldn't bring in the plane due to the weather. Now is when you really have to worry about how long things are going to take to arrive at our site.
It changes my mood. I've always loved snow, despite the popular opinion amongst my family that snow = awfulness. However I love cold, crisp air. It gets under my skin and makes me want to dance. I can't help it. When the weather is cold, I just smile. I love the cold weather. I always have.
Beauty that is ice
The last thing the weather changes is the functions within our houses. Now that the weather is cold, it is more likely that we will lose water or have power outages. Fortunately we have ways of keeping the school up and running, but I have heard of several instances throughout the villages of school being cancelled due to no water or electricity. hopefully, we won't have many problems like that.
I love the snow, the cold, and the people and feel of this village. I can't help but feel at home here, like I've been trying to make it here for years and have finally succeeded. I'm thankful for this wonderful place I can call home, and although I don't think I will stay here forever, I know that this is the place I want to be right now.
I think it is officially beginning to feel like winter here. The river is freezing over quite nicely. The temperatures hover right around 32 (for now). The sun doesn't rise until close to 10 am or later. Yup, feels like winter is coming on.
I was afraid I wouldn't have anything really interesting to write about this week, but then I realized my birthday and parent-teacher conferences were both this week along with the village Halloween Carnival at the school. It was a very fun week with lots of successful events, I would say.
Our packed gym
Parent-Teacher conferences: In an earlier blog, I told you that expectations are different for parents here than they are in the lower 48. School is not seen as important here and therefore parents don't necessarily NEED to come to things like parent-teacher conferences. Normally, half or less of the student's parents show up. For my very first parent-teacher conferences, eight of my ten students had a parent show up to discuss their students progress! I was amazed, astonished, and stoked that so many came out. I even had one suggesting ways they could help their child improve at home! It was amazing and I was so happy with the results. Since the beginning of the semester I have believed that I have the best group of students in the school, and because so many of their parents showed up, I was able to brag to almost all of their parents about how great their students are. As a first year teacher to have so much success, that was definitely a self-esteem booster as well.
box full of birthday goodies!
Birthday: I loved getting packages from home for my birthday. They were awesome. It was also really neat to celebrate my birthday in such a small place. Literally everyone knew I was turning twenty-three. Every single kid came up to me at school and told me happy birthday. It made the day even a little bit more special because so many people cared. Not only that, but all of the teachers become like a second family out here. Our bush family celebrated my birthday with cake and a movie. It was just a little simple get together at a teacher's house. But to me, it was perfect. We couldn't go out to the mall, or to a restaurant, or do anything you may have done living with the normal conveniences of civilizational surroundings, but we had each other and it made my birthday the most perfect day this year.
Escaping the Haunted House at the back
Halloween Carnival: Last night was the Halloween Carnival held at the school. They had booths for games set up all around the gym, a prize room for winners, and even a haunted house in the hallways of the school. When things like that are open to the community, everyone in the village comes out to celebrate. The gym was PACKED with people! There was no entry fee, just a sweet little ticket booth selling tickets to win prizes with. I worked the free throw shot. Students would pay two tickets to get four shots on the free throw line. If they made a shot, they won a prize ticket. I picked this event because basketball is a big deal here. I figured a lot of the students would enjoy this game. I was right. Especially one of the seventh graders who isn't in my class. He kept coming back over and over again. He wasn't bad, either. Several times he made all four shots. I was impressed.
Pond frozen over
It has been a great week, but it isn't quite over. Today we are celebrating a two year old's birthday. Then, next week is Halloween. That is a big deal around here. I would appreciate prayers for next week because Wednesday and Thursday will be pretty crazy days because of Halloween. I am excited to celebrate my first holiday with these people in this village that I love so very much.
Last week was a dreadful week! Being a teacher is hardest just a few times a year, and when report cards are due is one of those times. Fortunately, I finished all of my grading and what not, but it is a lot of extra stress and worry for one solid week.
It started snowing!
On top of that, there was a volleyball tournament hosted here this weekend. It was a lot of fun, but the teachers have to do a lot of work for these things such as line judging and officiating, and score keeping. I like doing score keeping, so I did that for all the games. By yesterday afternoon when I came home I just passed out for a while, because I was so exhausted.
Ice floating down the river
I woke up from my nap and decided to go get some things from my classroom so I could get some stuff done and ran into two of the other teachers heading to the store. I caught a ride with them since it seemed like the thing to do. On our way we drove down beside the slough, and looked over to see ice chunks heading down the slough. It was beautiful. It was the real first sign of winter coming. Soon the river will be frozen over, snow will completely cover the ground, and everyone will get their snowmobiles out to play.
Soon it will be completely frozen over
I'm looking forward to it because there are many other things to do once the snow settles in. It opens a whole new world of adventures for me.
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Sorry that this post isn't very long, like I said it was a very busy week. If I wasn't in my classroom, I was in my bed asleep! Hope you enjoy seeing the fun pictures from a great weekend!
It snowed today. Twice actually, although the first time isn't really what a lot of people would consider snow. Me, being from the southwest thought it was beautiful. Then, when I saw the real snow, I realized that the first snow was dull. This was majestic. I made myself a nice cup of hot cocoa just for the occasion, even though it isn't that cold out here yet. I also took some pictures just for my wonderful readers. Ah, what a wonderful place it is out here!
This week felt so very long! By Wednesday I was ready for the weekend. Of course, each weekend seems to become shorter and shorter. Or maybe that is just the days. My roommate told me that daily we are losing five minutes of sunlight, two and a half in the morning, and two and a half in the evening. It is extremely noticeable. Back home you didn't start noticing the night getting darker until daylight savings time. I wasn't expecting it to be so much darker already in the mornings.
But it is beautiful. Every morning as I leave my house to go to work I take a moment on my steps to look at the stars. They are magnificent! I can see so many more than I could even from our farm back home. The big dipper is right above us right now, making me feel like I could be scooped up into the sky any morning. It really cheers me up when I can wake up and look at the stars and the moon. It reminds me that I woke up for a reason this morning.
Mom's famous chili... yum!
I'm not a very good cook. That is probably one of the hardest things so far about living on my own in the remote Alaskan bush. If I screw up dinner, there is only one restaurant to go and solve my problems at. Unfortunately, the restaurant closes at seven so if I make dinner after then I can't very well do anything except try again. My mom is an excellent cook. You would think I would get some of those genes, but they skipped right over me and went to my younger siblings. My mom is great, though. She sent a care package with all the things (except meat) to make her famous chili. It was the highlight of my week when I got that package. I followed her recipe to the tee and my chili turned out fabulous! I even had the other new teachers over to try some and they loved it. If I keep following my mom's recipes so well, people are going to get the wrong idea!
Probably the worst thing that happened this week was something I put a lot of effort into. My kids made awesome dioramas of things we had been learning about. I was so impressed that I decided the kids should get to show off to their parents. I made cookies and invited all the parents to come to the classroom for just a half hour one day this week. I stayed until almost 5:30, an hour after I was supposed to be done, and no one showed up. Not one parent. They didn't want to come see the miraculous things their child had done. The other teachers told me not to take it personally, and I don't. They worked so hard on those things. That is the norm here, though. We have parent-teacher conferences coming up and the other teachers have said not to hold my breath, that the parents won't show up for that, either. It's just the way of the people here. I don't understand it, but that is the culture, I guess.
Big snowflakes!
The best thing that happened this week was moving my classroom around. I don't have any pictures to put up on here. I didn't take any to show you, but let's just say it is completely reversed. I moved my desk to the opposite side of the classroom and it looks really different that way. It was a lot of fun, though. I also did a lot of reorganizing, so hopefully those two things don't add up and haunt me this next week, especially since report card info is due at the end of the week. I'm not looking forward to that, by any means!
I'll be teaching on weather, the thirteen original colonies, Alaska's original Natives, metacognition, short stories, and fractions. Maybe this last week of the quarter will be the most productive.
This week wasn't super eventful, but the students started a project last week and finished it up on Wednesday that made me think of a topic for this blog. It is something that I have been realizing more and more since being here, but never thought about before. It answers the question, "How do we know the things we know?" If all you had ever known was a small town, with a couple tiny stores, no bowling alleys or movie theaters or anything less than a plane ride away, how much would you really be able to relate to the outside world?
Here are most of the students' projects. As you can see, most of them are on white or blue paper, representing snow
In social studies we studied the different groups of Early Americans, including the original people of this area, my students' ancestors. We learned a lot about these people. As a culminating activity, I had the students choose any of these groups of Native Americans and create a diorama of the culture. All but two of my students chose the Early Americans in the north-- Their ancestors. It got me to thinking about how they really have no way to relate to any of the other cultures we discussed, even though they learned so much about them for the two weeks before we began the project. All most of these kids have ever known is hunting moose and seal and super cold winters. They've never been to the deserts of Arizona or into caves. They've never been in the woods where tall trees reach to the heavens or the plains where buffalo can roam wild with nothing holding them back. All they know is the marshy land and ice they see every year. It was a wonderful thing to realize.
This is one of two projects on a different area than North Native Americans
Even though I have been directing my lessons as much as I can to their culture, it really opened my eyes to how important it is to relate to their culture. They don't know the outside world. They've never been to a museum, a movie theater, or a Wal-mart. These things that I've taken for granted throughout my life are things that these kids have never seen. I can't just assume that because students in any other town in the lower 48 may have been to a fair or carnival, these students have only heard of them or seen them on movies. They don't know the atmosphere of a fair or carnival or the smells.
Our bonfire started off cold and rainy
One of the Black Fish caught
In other news, we had a play day at the school for the students who have been well behaved in the halls. It was a lot of fun and we had a pretty good turnout. We also had a bonfire down by the dock, which was loads of fun, even though the weather was a bit rainy and cold. We shot the guns, cooked s'mores and hot dogs, and on our way back, found a puddle with black fish. Black fish is translated into Yup'ik as emmonak, or emoniq (?). It was very interesting finding fish in a puddle. We caught two of the bigger ones, and there were tons of baby ones, too. It was a catch and release, though, they were small, even for bigger fish. One of the teacher's husbands told us the people here catch them to eat. He also said you can catch them, put them in the freezer for a few days, and then take them out and put them in water and they will come back to life. Crazy!
This is the puddle the Black Fish call home
The highlight of my week was learning how important relating to the culture is in this community. It is the best way to reach the students with information, because they don't relate to the same things you or I would. The students worked really hard on their projects, and I am so proud of the great work they did!
Thursday and Friday of this week we had district wide in-services, which means that every teacher from every school got together depending on if they were high school or elementary to learn something new. The high school people (which is the group I am in) went to Mountain Village, where the District Office is and where we learned a lot about something called Constructing Meaning. I learned a lot, and it was great to reconnect with some of the other teachers I met at New Teacher Orientation, but I think the best thing about the in-service was getting to go to a new village. It was vastly different than my own village.
If you look closely, you can see their cemetery on the side of the hill
By the water's edge, lots of boats, pretty hill
Probably the biggest difference between their village and my village was the mountains. I wouldn't, under normal circumstances, call them mountains, but that was the difference. If you haven't noticed from my pictures in the previous blog, the land here is very flat. However, Mountain had massive hills. I heard one of the other teachers say that when she was walking back to the school from the store she thought she was going to pass out because of how steep the hill was. I didn't think it was really that steep, but after walking on extremely flat ground for such a long period of time, it did make my legs a little sore. I grew up in the Ozark Mountains, so I wasn't expecting that to be difficult at all.
A view from the hill- The tall building is the church
Another pretty big difference was their store. We have three stores, and they are all very nice. However, in Mountain Village, they have two stores, one of which was extremely nice! They had couches and movies and cook ware. I was even able to buy sleeping bag straps there. Plus, they have a whole long wall full of freezers stuffed to the brim with frozen dinners and such. They had fresh vegetables and even store bought cakes and donuts! It was like a dream compared to our stores. I felt like I was in a Wal-Mart.
Part of our village, very spread out housing
The last difference I will talk about today is the set up of the village. I wish I had my camera out when we were flying over the village. I was able to get pictures coming back into our village, but not of Mountain. Our village is a total of three miles wide. It is all spread out along that three miles. Their village is all compacted together. The school is at the center. The houses and stores and everything is all wrapped around the school like a tight little ball.
View of the water
Furs they sell in their stores
Seeing the differences between my village and someone else's made a huge impact. I'm excited to see the other villages, like Kotlik, where they don't have any roads, just board walks. We also got our first sticking snow, although it didn't last long. I woke up yesterday morning to see snow clinging to the board walks. By the time I left the house a few hours later to get work done, it was all melted. Life sure has been different out here in the bush. Lots of thing have changed my viewpoint of life from living out here. I have learned so many things and I hope that my students have learned as much from me as I have from them. Life in the bush has definitely been interesting for me, a small town girl from Northwest Arkansas. I hope those of you reading this have enjoyed hearing about it as much as I have enjoyed living it.
Here I am sitting with my new friends watching the game as the men finish cutting up the moose they caught this week and I can count the ways in which my life has changed.
Akutaq, Eskimo Ice Cream. Not as bad as I was told it was, but I was told this was more fishy than normal. It usually has more crisco flavor.
1) My diet. I used to HATE fish. I mean, I really didn't like the texture, the smell, or even the look of fish meat. Now, here I am, eating akutaq (a-goo-tuck) and baked salmon and everything! I don't all of a sudden like eating fish, but my stomach handles that food better now. I also never liked tea, and last night sitting in the living room watching television drinking a cup of hot tea and actually enjoying it.
2) Hobbies. I always loved reading, but now I do a lot more of it than I used to. I also can't go bowling or hang out at the shopping areas, go get coffee, or really anything that I used to do. We don't have places to go hang out except for our houses. I enjoy reading, playing games, and watching television shows with my co-workers more than I have ever done before. It is nice, in a way, to not have places to go and be able to spend quality time with the people around me. They are pretty interesting people.
3) New Respect For Meat. We spent most of today processing the meat from the moose one of the other teachers caught. I didn't ever think about how the meat was processed. I just went to the store, or waited for my parents to take the cow down to have it cut up. Today, I helped do all the work. We even had a meat grinder and made ground moose meat. CRAZY! I never realized how much work it was. And when you take the cow to a processing plant or pick up a pound of meat from the store, it probably hasn't been done the same way as we did it today. We did everything by hand. The meat grinder wasn't electronic, the guys had to use their muscles and pump the grinder. It was a lot of work, but I'm glad I was part of it, now I'll have more knowledge of the whole thing than I did before.
Moose head from the moose we processed
4) Speeds higher than 15 MPH scare me. I am not going to lie, I have a little bit of a lead foot, but since being here, the only vehicle I have ridden on is the four-wheeler. All we have are dirt roads, so there isn't really a reason you would go much faster than that. I was thinking about how I used to drive 50 MPH coming home from college, and now that just seems way too fast.
Me eating the akutaq
5) Saying Hello to Everyone. I walked home from the restaurant the other night and almost everyone I walked past I knew and said hello to. Back home when you walk down the street or even through the store, you ignore everyone or just smile. Here, you know everyone in town, so you say hello to everyone. It is cool, and it sometimes makes me feel like a superstar. I like the community feeling here.
Despite the fact that my students have been frustrated by my lack of knowledge of the Yup'ik language (that is the traditional language of the people) and the Yup'ik teacher said that the dogs crying at night means something bad is going to happen, I'm truly enjoying it out here. It has been a great experience. I love everyone out here. I love everything I have done. And I love the lifestyle I'm living out here. I know that I am truly blessed.
Time Out Rooms: There will be two very small rooms with windows into the principal and assistant principal's offices that will be very helpful. A lot of the time kids may need to just get away and out of the room for a while and these are perfect little rooms for that.
One thing that happened this week was that the heat went out in our classroom. Fortunately, it was found before everything frozen and it was just for my classroom since it's out in a portable building. My kids and I had class in the library in the morning and then worked with the other classes during the afternoon. By 3:30 the room was all heated up again and the next morning the smell was gone too, so it only lasted one day like that, thankfully. Our maintenance guys did an awesome job of getting out there quickly and fixing the problem for us. I appreciated it a lot.
