Working Hard or Hardly Working?

Well the month of March has just flown by!! I can't believe April starts next week. With April comes testing, Natural Helper retreat, and the process of moving. That's right, folks, the new school we were supposed to move into at the beginning of this present school year is just about ready to be moved into. It isn't official or anything. We still haven't been told that we will move, but there are whispers through the ranks that the day is coming when they tell us to pack it all up and be ready for a longer walk to work.

Tattoos and bracelets for St. Patrick's Day

I don't have much to report on the school front, except that we had a fun celebration of St. Patrick's Day. I normally don't get that excited about holidays, but for some reason this year, it sounded like a blast! We got tattoos, heard a story about a leprechaun, learned the history of St. Patrick's day, and made Shamrock bracelets. The kids seemed to really enjoy it, and I know I did!

Playing some Wahoo with friends.

Even though not much happened on the school front this past month, but I did accomplish quite a few things in my spare time like game nights with coworkers, learning to make coffee cozies, and making myself a quspaq to wear for the Natural Helpers' Retreat at the end of this coming month.

Some of the other teachers and I have started having a few game nights. It's a lot of fun. We've been doing a sort of tournament style Wahoo series. Each week we get a different partner and keep track of how many wins we have each week. I have the lowest count of wins, but it isn't really about who wins or loses to me, it's about the quality time spent with friends. Most people don't build strong relationships with their coworkers, but out here it is kind of necessary to survive and these game nights help a lot. Wahoo is sort of a mix of Sorry and Farkle in my opinion. It's a fun game, I would recommend anyone to play.

The first three coffee cozies I made

I also began making coffee cozies. My first one was the hardest, not only because I was learning something different, but because it had buttons and I had to sew them on plus knit button holes for it, but it turned out alright. I also made some with no buttons. The ones with buttons are good for your own mugs that you have at home, the others I thought would be good for say if you go to Starbucks and want to use your own cozy. I know that I don't really need that many of them, but honestly, I need something to help past the time every now and then, and I think being able to knit is a good skill to have. I wonder how many I can make by the end of the school year... we shall see :)

Learning the correct process of cutting material for making a quspaq

The very first quspaq I made :) Turned out swell!

Lastly, I made a quspaq this weekend. In case I haven't said this before, a quspaq is a fancy shirt type deal that people wear on fancy occasions. Since I am the Natural Helper sponsor, part of my responsibility was to make sure all the students had a matching quspaq. We ordered material (WAY more than we actually needed seeing as how I had no idea how much we needed!) Then, one of the school secretaries showed us the proper way to set up the material to cut it for our quspaq. It was really nice of her, because she has been very busy as of late. Anyway, I took the material home and asked my roommate for help. She made me a quspaq for Christmas, so I knew she would know how to make it. We spent all day yesterday cutting and sewing and hemming and I finally finished about six hours later. Although the hood isn't quite right and I had to redo a few parts, it turned out really well for one of the biggest projects I've done. I'm very excited to show it off at the retreat. 

I didn't have much to write about work at the school. But I think I did a lot of work in my personal time this month. Now I know that even when things may seem slow, I have some good friends to play games with and a few projects that can make the time pass a lot faster than they would otherwise. 

The Longest and Shortest Months

For my loyal readers I would just like to apologize for the long absence. The title of this blog should give you some indication as to what the last two months have been like. January always feels so long out here. I'm not quite sure why, especially when it is followed by such a short month. There has been a lot going on out here, whether it is severe weather changes or constant activities going on in the school gym, there hasn't been a lot of time to take pictures and write about it. But I have taken this opportunity to go through a few of the things that have happened this year. 

One of the Science Fair projects
had to do with finger prints

Playing in the snow

The month of January consisted of ball games every weekend and when I did go, it always seemed that for some reason I had left my camera at home or something of the sort. I did however remember my camera on the 100th day of school. My students and I did a few fun activities. First, we wrote 100 words that we learned over the course of the first 100 days of school. We also made necklaces with 100 Fruit Loops. The kids loved this and enjoyed the process of eating their necklaces even more than making them. 

100th Day of School Fruit Loop Necklace

100 Words we've learned to read and write

February did genuinely fly by. There were so many things going on. We had Spirit Week. The days were as follows:

Monday- Nerd Day

My Nerd Outfit

Tuesday- Crazy Hair Day

My Crazy Hair with a cup to make it stand up

Wednesday- Pajama Day

Tweety bird pajamas

Thursday- Superhero Day 

(no picture available)

Friday- Brave Day (Wear purple and white)

Pumped up for Brave Day

I always loved Spirit Week, but unfortunately it didn't seem like the kids got into it as much as I would have liked, so I only have the pictures of me dressed up to share. February also brought the Science Fair, but I was detained from going and seeing the experiments. I do know that one of my previous students got first place and another student got second place. We also had a fun filled day playing in the snow although there is much more ice and it did rain on us while we were doing that. Finally, February ended with Potlatch. It wasn't as crowded and packed as it had been last year I believe because our high school boys basketball team was playing in the championship game during that time. But it was a lot of fun to see everyone together and I got a few good pictures of the event.

A teacher's son "looking for treasure" in the snow

In my opinion, January is always the longest month of the school year and February is always the shortest month, so now that they are both out of the way, the rest of the school year should have some very interesting things happening that I will be glad to share. Here's to another eventful month, this time with my camera close at hand!

Walking to Potlatch, beautiful sunset

Some people found a cozy place to
sleep during the festivities

During one of the dances

December-Wrapping up 2013

Ending the year 2013 in the village is a fun time. This time, we got to visit our new school and have the annual Christmas Program.

Sunset/Sunrise on my way home from school

At the beginning of the year, teachers moved things that they wouldn't need for the year to a connex outside the school. At the beginning of December, the maintenance men began moving these boxes over to the new school. The principal arranged for each teacher to get to go over with a load of boxes to check out the new school. It is looking very good, but I don't think we are going to be moving in any time soon. Here are a few pictures from the new school.

My students' performance at the Christmas Program

Our elf for Natural Helper dance

Also, we have our annual Christmas Program. This year, the first graders did a poem about snowman and we made snowmen costumes at school. The students did a really great job, I was very proud of them. The Natural Helpers also performed a "Reindeer Pokey"and dressed up as reindeer, with one brave soul dressed as an elf. They did an amazing job.

We got to tour the new school, these are some pictures from that day

new school library

our brightly painted stairwell

I think this is the elementary hallway

There were a couple other highlights from the month of December. The Natural Helpers made cookies to bring to the elders houses when they did elder service. We also had an Elementary Wrestling match. It was a lot of fun because I had never been to a wrestling match before. And of course, there was the trip to Anchorage to fly home for Christmas. The lights around town were beautiful. 

Elementary NYO Meet

Natural Helpers made cookies
for the elders in our village

My roommate made me my very own quspaq

Christmas in Anchorage

Now that 2013 is over, I'm sure we have lots more excellent adventures in store for us in 2014.

Holiday Season- Anything Can Happen in The Village

My kids with their Halloween masks

I haven't blogged in a while, so I felt like taking this opportunity to talk about how we spend the holidays in the village. Halloween is a big deal to most of the kiddos. We spent the day in my class making masks and learning about where Halloween comes from. The Saturday after, there was a nice Halloween Carnival at the school, where the Natural Helpers and I set up a Haunted House for everyone to enjoy. It was a lot of fun. I found these really cool posters where elders had described Halloween when they were young. I thought that was really interesting! The first poster pictured below describes a traditional kind of mix of Halloween and Thanksgiving. The second poster pictured below explains how they received very little candy like we do now. 

My favorite part is the "Halloween Spirit" licking 

the ashes off of the person's face as they sleep.  

Halloween Carnival

Halloween Carnival

Halloween Carnvial

"Qaariitaarvik" is Yup'ik for Halloween- explaining the traditions from an elder

Flooded river

It's been an interesting few weeks. The river should normally freeze up sometime in October, but by the time November had begun, it still hadn't even started to freeze. One night, our assistant principal knocked on our door to let my roommate and I know that there was flooding happening, that we might loose water and electricity. Immediately we filled up water buckets and anything else we could find. We were getting  so much rain and snow and the water wasn't frozen yet, that it was flooding like it does in the spring when the snow and river melt. It caused quite a bit of problems. We've had to get a new water pump because of it and had a few days where the water has been turned off for a while so that they could try to fix the problems. Hopefully, they've gotten everything fixed. 

Preparing for the flood

Some of the flooding

Preparing for the flood

Snowstorm after the flooding

A beautiful sky on a nice day

Watching the volleyball team
in the Championship game

The snow has finally settled in and now the rivers are frozen enough that people are venturing out on their snow machines. I haven't gotten mine out yet, and don't really know if I will or not until after we come back from Christmas. The ice isn't as thick as it normally gets yet, and locals have said if you go out, to stick to the paths others have already made. There are quite a few spots with some overflow, which isn't too dangerous, but I would rather avoid it all together!

This week, being Thanksgiving, we had a little event called Little Dribblers for those students who are too young to play school sports. The preschool age students through third graders played ball against each other Wednesday afternoon. It was lots of fun and a lot of parents showed up. It was standing room only. I had a lot of fun talking with my kids and playing while we watched the other groups play. Now that Christmas is coming up, the Natural Helpers are planning some events and we have the school Christmas Program to prepare for. We won't be moving into the new school over Christmas break, so we won't be packing up, which is a little bit of a blessing, since I've already arranged to go to Arkansas for the break. But we still have three weeks until then and if the month of November has proven anything to me as of late, it's that anything can happen in the village!

The gym packed for Little Dribblers

Naturally, We Help!

This year I have been blessed with the opportunity to be a sponsor for an organization in our school known as Natural Helpers. Growing up in an area where Natural Helpers is not widely known, I wasn't really sure what I was signing up to do exactly. I knew that the Natural Helpers had organized the pep rallies and had also somehow been involved in the Haunted House at our annual Halloween Carnival, but really wasn't sure what else needed to be done. That is, until last week when all Natural Helper sponsors and student leaders met up for some training.

1st and 2nd graders wrote us welcome notes

Beautiful sunset

Natural Helpers is an organization to help prevent suicide in schools. Out here in our villages, it is a little more than that, delving into continuing to remember our culture and who we are. Many of our students speak very little Yup'ik language and can make very few traditional items. Hence, alongside bullying and suicide preventions, we are working on remembering who we are as Yup'ik peoples.

It was too rainy for a campfire, so we improvised

Having sat down with other Natural Helper sponsors, I feel much more prepared and am excited about the different things we have planned for this year! We will, like I mentioned earlier, be doing a Haunted House at the Halloween Carnival next week. However, we will also be doing many classroom presentations on safety and other important factors, such as bullying, depression, and suicide. Also, we will do monthly visits with elders in our village and at least one semi- cultural activity each month. These will include making dance fans, beading for the girls, and making manaqing poles for the boys and many other things. I am really looking forward to this opportunity to learn more about the culture.

I was given wings!  

Snow shoes on the side of a house

Thor and Superman stopped by to tell us we are all heroes

While we were doing our training, we did a practice run of visiting elders. I was a little nervous because, although I love being around my grandparents and other elderly relatives, old people have always scared me. I worry that I will hurt them or that something will happen and I won't be able to help them with it. However, the lady we visited was an absolute doll!! She had some hearing loss and some short term memory loss, but she was very sweet. She told us a little about her childhood and told us several times, to not forget our visit with "Winnie, not the Pooh!" (Her name was Winnie).

With no fire, we had to come up with a new way to make s'mores

Lastly, a lady from our village came with us to share some very interesting things with us. You see, in our village, about eleven or twelve years ago, there were a bunch of suicides. The speaker told us about how many organizations came out to help, and things would get better for a while, but then the organization would leave and everything would go downhill again. So, the people in our village took matters into their own hands. They went back to their ancestry and began to implement ideas and activities from their culture in the area. They taught the children by being involved in their lives and showing them that there were things to live for. They showed the children in the village who they were by showing them what their culture was all about. It was quite an interesting story. The speaker went on to say that our village wants to make this plan- the one that the people in our village created- a practice that doesn't just fix the problem and leave. They want it to be something that continues on forever. So, we will be working along side the people in our village to make sure that students are finding a way to deal with their problems other than committing suicide. I look forward to working with them and seeing how their ideas impact the students' school work and behaviors.

Our theme= "Hope On";
We learned in the newest Superman movie that
this is a symbol of hope on Krypton, hence our theme for the weekend.

It was most definitely one of my favorite learning experiences since I've been here. I look forward to the fun times we will have this year with the Natural Helpers and the wonderful things we will accomplish and learn from each other.