11-27-2011

            Thanksgiving has come and gone and that once again reminds me how much I loathe shopping.  We have chosen to live in a place so far removed from shopping that we don’t even have a store in our village.  We are 500 miles away from the nearest Wal-Mart or Costco.  Being this far away one could rest assured that the crazy ‘black Friday’ thing could go unnoticed here.  But no, we had to watch it on the news, over and over.  This has become an event, with people choreographing their moves from store to store.  Some people wait in line for days in order to get in the door first.  This is the equivalent of me camping out in front of my dentist’s office so I can be the first root canal of the day.  People do this willfully, without getting paid.

           

            If it seems like I’m cantankerous about this, there is a perfectly good reason: I am.  I don’t understand it.  I must be in the minority, because after watching two days worth of news coverage, I see that most of the country is willing to stand in line in order to spend their hard earned money.  Additionally, holiday cheer is abundant.  Nothing says Merry Christmas like shoving an old woman to the ground in order to get the last 22” flat screen TV.

Thanksgiving with the gang.

            Ok, I’ll quit being so negative.  We did have a very nice Thanksgiving Day.  We spent the morning on the computer, talking with family on Skype.  Skype allows us to see and hear what others are doing without us.  What we’ve found is that they’re all having lots of fun and food without us.  After we spent some time on Skype with our families, we went back home to have our dinner.  We had all the fixens, cranberries included.  We also had very good company.  Essie, Brittnay, and Grover came over for the afternoon.  They are all teachers here too, so they did know us and willingly came over.  We all contributed to the menu and had way more than we needed.  I ate until I couldn’t eat any more, then I had pie.  I did wait for a few hours until I ate my second piece of pie.  Out of consideration to our guests, I had to try both the apple and pumpkin pies.  Also out of consideration to our guests, I kept my pants on after the meal even though both me and my pants agreed it would have been much more comfortable to shed them.

Sunset

             We did have a very nice and relaxing break from work.  Monica has been working much more than we had anticipated.  She also will be teaching the preschool after the first of the year.  It has just been funded through a grant and we have been without a preschool for a few years here.  She will be setting it up also so that will keep her busy.  That and going to college full time.  She barely has time to wait on me hand and foot.  We have three more weeks of school until winter break begins.  We are staying here for Christmas, as it is so expensive to fly south for the two and a half weeks.  Hopefully we’ll have our snowmobile so we’ll have plenty to do.  Now, I have to get ready for ‘cyber Monday’.  I really hope it’s about shopping. 

           

           

           

 

11-20-2011

Well, the announcement came and once again I’ve been snubbed by People magazine.  The sexiest man alive was given to one of the ‘Hollywood elite’, ignoring the popularity of overweight, unkempt gentlemen.  Bradley Cooper may have some primal appeal to the American women, but the ‘Scraggly Beard’ look has become vogue for the fashion enlightened.  People was on the right track but they picked the wrong guy from The Hangover.  

The banks of the Yukon River.

Last week we had a pretty big storm, even for up here.  What made it so bad was the high winds caused a big surge in the tide.  There was no coastal freezing of the Bering Sea yet, so the tide was pushed up into the villages situated on the coast.  Winter storms normally occur later in the winter and the sea ice protects coastal villages from flooding.  We are about a mile from the sea, so we were spared major flooding.  We had water up to our house, but we’re on 4ft stilts, so no flooding damages to homes in Nunam Iqua.  But this does cause other problems.  We are on the banks of the Yukon River, and when you have flooding in 20-degree temperatures, it leaves an ice sheet behind.  Also, the Yukon already had a two-foot layer of ice on it.  The sea surge buckled and broke the river ice, pushing some of that close to houses.  A few years ago the floating chunks of ice, some as large as cars, knocked a few houses off their pylons.  People were nervous about that last week.  But we couldn’t just pack our valuables in the pickup and drive to higher ground.  (no roads) (or pickups) The Yukon Delta sits at sea level and the nearest hill is 15 miles away.

The weather had all of the airplanes grounded in Western Alaska, so we had no choice but to sit it out.  As it turned out it was not as bad as feared.  But what got me thinking was, what if something happened and someone needed medical attention?  I’m at the age where sharp pains occur suddenly and for no apparent reason.  Maybe they did when I was younger and I just ignored them.  But now, I fear them.  Any pain that happens in my chest area convinces me I may be having a heart attack.  I don’t know what a heart attack feels like, but I’ve been certain a hundred times that I was having one.  Or a headache reminds me of tumors.  But so far, no medical emergencies.  Even on a clear day, it would take at least an hour for a plane to get here and then another hour to get to a hospital.  So if I do have a heart attack, I hope it’s one of those slow moving ones. 

Morning coffee without heat.

So we’ve survived the storm without incident.  Well, we did lose power for two separate nights.  We realized how unprepared we are for that, since we had only two candles.  My mom did send up a flashlight that has a crank to recharge the battery, so that gave me light to read.  The real bad part was that we don’t have heat without electricity.  We don’t have a wood-burning stove, but it wouldn’t matter if we did since there are no trees here on the Tundra.  The school has a generator, so if it got too bad we could always head up there. 

I guess I’ll have to wait until next year to see if People Magazine has changed its biased and uneducated views on the definition of the word ‘sexiest’.  Or ‘man’.  Or ‘alive’.  I should qualify for at least one of their antiquated stipulations on their competition.  It would sure enhance my career.  

10-30-2011

This past week was a busy one for us.  It began like all Monday mornings for me.  The alarm starts squealing at 5am.  I shut the alarm clock up and fumble for my glasses.  I check the bed to make sure it is still dry.  I should say I check my side; Monica can check her own.  I sit up and take off my Breathe Right strips.  I’m not sure if they help with my snoring but I have stopped waking up in a panic with a pillow pressed to my face.  I then shuffle off to the bathroom to shower and get ready for the day. 

We had a teacher in-service on Monday, so we had no students.  A quiet day and we were able to get a lot done.  We also had our parent/teacher conferences last week.  The turnout was larger than I had anticipated.  I enjoy talking to parents about their kids and showing them what we are doing in class.  There seems to be a disconnect between some parents and their kid’s school career.  Formal education isn’t very high on some people’s priority list, mainly because knowing how to solve an algebraic problem doesn’t have much to do with hunting moose and catching salmon.  We are only two generations removed from everyone living a total subsistence lifestyle here.  This culture did not have a monetary economy; it was based on being able to gather resources to survive.  If you had more than you needed, you shared it with those who didn’t.  Their language was a verbal communication, not written.  Education was not done in classrooms formally but taught out in the tundra, learning by doing.  So I completely understand why some parents don’t feel that writing book reports are very important in their child’s life.  My job is to stand in front of their children and convince them that it is important. 

Friday night was our Halloween Carnival at school.  We had face painting, ring toss, a fishing booth, and Monica and I set up our X-Box with the Kinect.  We had it hooked up to a Smart Board, which is equivalent to a 60-inch screen.  Two hours of carnival time equals about ten hours of regular time.  We had a full house at the gym and a great staff who worked their butts off to make the carnival happen. 

I also have a birthday tomorrow.  According to my driver’s license and every mirror I happen to look at, I’m reminded that I’ve made it half way to 90.  I can’t imagine what 90 will feel like.  Friday night I sprained my ankle sitting in a chair.  Not while actively taking a seat, but while I was already sitting down.  No weight on my feet.  I pivoted my foot and felt a sharp pain.  You’d think with all of the practice I’ve had, sitting on my ass doing nothing, that I could sit safely.  Guess not.

Now, we have to get ready for trick-or-treaters.  I wonder where we are as a society when we encourage children to dress as monsters and demand candy from strangers.  And if the candy is not awarded to the little extortionists, they threaten to do harm to our dwelling.  And while they’re doing this, their parents stand behind them, quietly encouraging them.  Luckily, eggs are a very expensive commodity up here so we don’t have to worry about getting egged.  Unfortunately, rocks are free.

10-22-2011

Fall is my favorite season.  The cooler air feels better in the lungs.  The leaves turn to colors that make even a drab countryside look spectacular.  We celebrate two holidays that require us to eat until we are ashamed of ourselves. We sneak up on unsuspecting animals, shoot them, have our pictures taken with them, and put that picture on Facebook, smiling with pride about how we outsmarted an animal that is still confused by headlights. Football starts Friday night and ends on Sunday night.  Fall is a grand three months. 

Here in Nunam, fall lasts for about 7 minutes.  The grass turns from green to brown overnight.  Since we don’t have any trees here on the Tundra, there are no leaves to turn color and drop.   Just one day it snows and winter is here, no fanfare.  It’s like when you are out with a bunch of friends and the weird guy just kind of appears.  Or how most people describe it: “Crap, Clay found us.” 

We finished our first quarter last week.  I’m looking at this school year like a football game.  It’s time to take stock in what we’ve done so far and make adjustments accordingly. I am seriously thinking about wearing a helmet and a cup next quarter.  Report cards are done and parent/teacher conferences are next week.  The time has gone by quickly and it has been a good quarter. 

Next Friday night is our Halloween carnival at the school.  Last year I ran the bowling booth, with me being the pin-monkey.  (Insert your own cruel joke here.)  This year Monica and I will set up our Xbox with the Kinect to the Smartboard.  This will give the kids something new and will keep me from injury.  Last year with so much bending and squatting picking up those bowling pins, I was gimping around for days after that.  It’s like I aged a year overnight.

We had a Saturday Fun Day with my class this Saturday.  With the help of Monica and two other teachers here, Brittnay and Essie, we showed a movie, made spider hats, and served lunch.  It was a good time for the kids by all accounts.  At least nobody cried.  This was the second Fun Day we had this year and I’m trying to do one a month.  This gives the kids a few hours of activities on a Saturday.  There is no other place in town for the kids to go to.  They literally have no place to go other than their house or play outside.  As I’ve said on here before, we don’t even have a store in the village.  Now that it is below freezing in both the day and night, being inside where it’s warm is nice for the kids. 

Monica and my spider hats.

Now that we won’t see many days with the temperature above freezing, it might be time to drag out the cold weather parka.  I’m waiting for someone else to use theirs first so I won’t look like a wimp.  Nothing will put your manhood into question quicker than overdressing for the weather.  Or wearing white after Labor Day.  At least I can put my shorts away now and wear my Levis.  

10-8-2011

October is here and cooler weather came with it.  We’ve had some hard frosts and we had snowflakes yesterday.  Nothing stuck, but it was still snow.  It isn’t light outside till 9am, so we get to see some nice sunrises during school; those never get tiresome to watch. 

I spent part of last week in Hooper Bay, which is a larger school in our district.  Half of the district’s teachers met there for our in-service.  We flew out of here on Wed. and came home Friday night.  We were accommodated the floor of a third grade classroom.  I did have an air mattress, so at least I didn’t have to touch the floor with my head or side of my face.  Third graders are not discriminate about where they step so I can’t imagine good things being in the carpet.  Well, gummi worms are good, but not to sleep on.  Dog poop is not good for anything, especially not to sleep on.  Now I have to take another shower.

We talked about curriculum and classroom management.  Talking about curriculum is usually coma inducing and this time it was no different.  When talking about classroom management, it became teachers trying to out-story each other.  Everyone’s anecdote was worse than the others.  It seems that vampires and werewolves are alive and well up here too.

Anytime teachers clump together, a single phrase seems to always come up: teachable moments.  In college, they told us ‘teachable moments’ were times when something unexpected happens and you use that situation to teach something important to the student blah, blah, blah.  I have found that when something unexpected happens that is a good time to yell at students.  Last week I came upon an unexpected situation and I decided to leave what was said alone.

I was showing the class some pictures I took during a vacation to Washington DC a few years ago.  When the Lincoln Memorial picture came up, one of my 4^th graders started to tell the rest of the class about the Memorial.  He pointed out that it is huge and that Lincoln’s hands are positioned so one shows strength and one shows compassion.  (I did not know that.)  The rest of the class was listening attentively as the student talked about Lincoln’s life as a lawyer and then as President.  He told the class solemnly that President Lincoln was shot in a theater while watching a play.  One of the students asked why he was killed.  The student calmly explained that Lincoln wore a tall hat and the guy behind him couldn’t see the play so he shot him.

I know, I should have corrected him and explained how Castro plotted with the CIA to kill Lincoln because of his views on Israel.  Wait, that was Garfield.  Anyways, I didn’t correct him because I saw the way the kids were listening to him.  They will learn soon enough why and how he died, but they will always remember that he was shot in a theater.  Another reason I didn’t correct him was because I was laughing so hard.  Quietly.

It is always fun to listen to what the kids infer or make up on their own.  But I guess they’re learning something, I know I am.  Transferring knowledge is important.  I for one will never wear a stovepipe hat where it can obscure the view of another patron in the theater.  Lesson learned Mr. Booth.

9-25-2011

The days are getting shorter. Well not the hours in a day, it’s still 24 hours, just the daylight. We are losing about 6 minutes of daylight each day so it adds up fast. It’s not getting light until after 8:30, so when I sleep in on the weekends it feels like I’m getting up real early because it is still dark outside. The problem is that I get real sleepy when it gets dark. Like going to bed sleepy. Which is fine now, but in a month, it will be dark by five, so I’ll be getting plenty of sleep this winter.

I teach three separate grades: 3rd, 4th, and 5th. The great thing about that is that I get about two-thirds of the same kids back the next year. The bad thing about that is that I get about two-thirds of the same kids back the next year. Really, it is a good thing. It’s nice to know the kids and what they are like in the classroom. It also really helps me because they know me and how I rule my classroom. They know how much they can get away with and how much they can’t. They also know what it means when my left eye starts twitching.

This means that the third graders are the newbies in the class. They sit in their cluster and watch me with curiosity and skepticism. They are not sure if they should fear me or laugh at me. The other two grades already know that answer: they laugh nervously. One of my new students reported to me that she needed a drink because her “lungs are dry.” I told Auquawoman to wait until our next break, promising her that she would not die of thirst.

I use a graphic organizer for writing in my class and it is labeled ‘THEMATIC WEB’. Last week I had my class write about their favorite movie and we used the graphic organizer to help organize our writing. (I’m thinking you wish I was using one for my writing.) The organizer has a main topic box and six ‘detail’ boxes that connect to the main topic box. The students were to put the title of their favorite movie in the ‘main topic’ box and then add six details in each of the ‘detail boxes’. One student’s favorite movie was “The Matic Web”. Apparently it was a story about a spider, named Matic, who weaves webs and talks with pigs.

I had my hair cut today. Since there isn’t a barber for a couple hundred miles, we ordered clippers from Amazon.com and Monica cuts my hair. She’s done this for years because I don’t like other people standing that close to me, touching my head. I’m not really fond of her touching my head, but since she said I looked like Friar Tuck, I knew I needed to get it cut. I also decided to trim my beard right after my haircut. You know, the whole package. I hadn’t had my hair cut since May. It is depressing to see that the amount of beard trimmings was more than my hair trimmings. It is bizarre to have hair disappearing from my head and migrating to my shoulders, sprouting in places they hadn’t been before. I even found one growing inside of my ear. How can that be useful to our species?

Not only is it getting darker, it is getting colder. I saw the weather forecast for next week and we may get snow by the end of the week. I don’t have to shovel it or drive in it, so I say bring it on. It’ll be nice to see the snow falling while I’m reading my new book about Matic and her friends.

9-19-2011

Week four is done and I don’t have much to whine about.  Last year it was nice to write my blog and bellyache, since Monica wasn’t hear to suffer my babbling.  But she is able to hear it firsthand this year.  Since writing is similar to work, and I’m lazy, I tend to whine more with my face-hole than with writing.  That’s my pseudo-attempt at making an excuse as to why I didn’t write a blog last week.

I was in Anchorage last week, receiving training for a tutoring program I will be helping with this year.  Our school offers an after school program for up to 15 kids three days a week.  It is administered by an outside group, which sets up the curriculum and even provides snacks.   Another teacher and I will be sharing the duties of managing the program from our end.  This will give us a few extra bucks to go towards our next purchase: a snowmobile.

Well, it’s called a snowmachine up here but I’ll stick with using my southern accent.  Having a snowmobile would give us something to do while it’s frozen outside, besides just watching TV.  Not that TV is all bad, but getting cabin fever may be dangerous this year.  I don’t know how Monica will handle being up here all winter, knowing there are sharp objects in the kitchen drawers.  Plus, when I’m asleep I snore.  Loudly.  And I have no way to defend myself while sleeping.  So this snowmobile purchase just may save my life.  It would also allow us to do some shopping at an actual store.  Emmonak is about 20 miles away on the Yukon River and has two stores.  Once the river freezes by the first part of Dec., it is used like a road for people riding snowmobiles. 

It will be expensive to shop there.  Just the gas will be a big part of the cost.  It is about $6 a gallon and may go up during the winter.  Food is pretty outrageously priced; eggs are about $5 a dozen. Crappy, small red delicious apples are $13.29 for 5lbs.  Monica went up there yesterday on a boat with some friends and bought a few things for us.  Eggs, not apples. 

Monica has been working more than we had anticipated.  Way more.  In 19 school days, she has worked as a substitute in 14 of them.  She has subbed as a special ed teacher, special ed aide, general ed class aide, and a math/science HS/MS teacher.  She has not subbed in my class yet, but maybe someday.  She will be starting her college career next month, so she’ll really be busy, with subbing and doing her own homework.  I’m not sure how the laundry will get done, but maybe the Laundry Fairy will show up.  I was the Laundry Fairy one year for Halloween.  Ok, it wasn’t Halloween, but it sure makes a Tuesday go much faster.

With nothing to whine about, I have to look for a new hobby.  The snowmobile will give me something to do once it gets cold.  Until then, I can try out the Xbox.  Monica and a couple of other teachers have already started by playing some Kinect games (dancing and jumping around).  I have yet to succumb to the urge to dance to Lady GaGa.  Maybe the Laundry Fairy will help me with that.