3-24-2012

Our new parking lot in town.

Spring arrived and greeted us with a -23 degree knee to the groin.  Well, not a knee, but a huge chunk of snow; covered in ice, frozen again, and then shaped like a knee.  Either way we’re not enjoying warm temperatures like others are bragging about on the Facebook.  The good news is that we are seeing our old friend lots more.  He awakens at about 8:30 and I don’t know when he goes to bed because it’s after I’m in bed.  I probably won’t see a sunset until I get down south because it’s still light at 10pm and I’m in bed by then.

We had parent/teacher conferences last week, so on Thursday, we made moose-meat chili up at the school for dinner.  It turned out pretty good and most of the staff helped themselves to a bowl or two.  Monica still has some troubles eating the moose meat.  I guess she sees visions of Bullwinkle when she eats.  I don’t have a vision, but I can hear his voice in my head singing songs.  But I eaten rabbit before and never thought about rabbits.  Or when I eat Peeps, I don’t visualize baby chickens.  Although I did find a feather in a Peep once.  Weird.

One reason I didn’t blog last weekend was because we had company.  We don’t get company often, so it was a big deal.  What with the wearing pants thing and all.  Our village had its Potlatch last weekend, sharing with our neighboring village Scammon Bay.  Scammon Bay is about 50 miles down the coast from us, so it is a bit of a trip on snowmachines.  Our guests were the family of one of the teachers from Scammon Bay, who is married to a local man. They are involved with their village’s Eskimo Dance.  The Potlatch includes dancing, honoring members who have passed away, and sharing the past year’s bounty. We had a nice visit with our guests and they said they would stay with us next year too.  We did feed them well.

Eskimo Dance

Sharing things from my past with my students is always fun for me and for them.  They enjoy hearing about all the dumb things I’ve done in the past.  They particularly like the part where they can point their fingers at me and laugh loudly.  I think they can get carried away with that.  The other day I was explaining about corporal punishment and how it was carried out when I was a kid.  They all agreed that it’s best that we don’t do that anymore.  Some more than others I’m sure.  When I explained that if we said something inappropriate, we would get our mouths washed out with soap.  I said, “It tastes terrible.”  Oops.  The room got quiet and they all looked at me.  Then one asked, “Did you have your mouth washed out with soap?”  I couldn’t think fast enough.  We all knew the answer.  So I said, “I don’t want to answer that right now.”  This is when I saw all sorts of fingers pointed at me.  I heard several accusations that by not answering the question, it proves that I indeed did have my mouth washed out with soap at school.    Ironically, they did this with no fear of corporal punishment.  I did use the opportunity to introduce the reading strategy of inference. 

We have 8 weeks until we head south for the summer.  Monica and I are going to spend a few days in Vegas before heading to Oklahoma.  I think I’ll forgo any wagering down there after watching my NCAA bracket this March.  But I can say with certainty that I will watch a sunset when I get down there.  Maybe even a sunrise too.