Cold Hands, Warm Heart

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Nome, Alaska, United States
After getting burned out teaching high school in a tiny Alaskan town, I have moved on to being a child advocate in a small Alaskan town. The struggles are similar, but now I can buy milk at the store.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

I'm melting... MELTING!!

Well, devoted fans, I recently had the opportunity to go swimming in my very own lake. Let me tell you this: It's not as fun as one would initially think. When I was younger, I thought it would be fun to live a block from the ocean, and on a private lake. I have since changed my toon.

Along with my lake, please notice that my pole is almost uncovered again. It was almost completely covered last month. You may also have noticed that there's not a lot of places to walk between my house and my lake. Going home is a bit of a balancing act. You may have also noticed the sand on the ground. What it means now is that instead of tracking snow into my house, to melt and evaporate, I now have sand on my kitchen floor. Which needs to be swept.




Here is the snow pile behind my house. I'm not sure how long that's going to take to melt. I was talking to a woman from North Pole, Alaska, and she said they had rain, and that their snow was almost gone. Must be nice to be them.


Once again, the view down the side of the school. there is actually dry sand over there! The rest of the town is covered in these puddles, or else snow drifts, like the one on the right. And if you will continue to notice: above the red storage area is a glimpse of the sea, still frozen.


Monday, May 11, 2009

Crazy, crazy time

Okay, my devoted fans. Be aware that coming up are some wonderful pictures from Prom, and graduation. Prom was on Saturday, and Graduation is tonight. I slept through mothers day, but did manage to call my mom after I'd gotten home from decorating cakes at the school.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

View From the North

For those of you in the know, you'll realize today's post name is actually the name of a blog of another teacher up here.
While reading my comments to a previous post, I realized that most of you are unaware of just how close most of the places I go are to each other.  Standing on the front porch of my school, because I took these pictures during break, here is the view of most of my world:
That's my house on the left, the puddle in the middle, and Ken the science teacher's house on the right. Last night, a large piece of equipment came through and made our three foot deep trench go away. I was really excited about it, even if it got a little too close to my house. I can now walk to and from my house without trudging through four feet of snow, or a foot of water on top of ice.  If you've noticed the pole by the side of my house, be aware that that was completely covered with snow a two weeks ago.

Looking to the left of my house, you see the tracks made by the tractor, and also the building our phone lines all connect through.

Traveling farther to the left, you see my closest neighbor on that side, followed by a couple more neighbors, the school's truck, and that bright spot way off in the distance: The still frozen ocean.


Off to the right of my house is Ken's house. Behind him is some storage, and on the other side of a small road from that is the city water tank (blue) and to the left of the tank the city building (green). In the city building is the post office, police station, city council rooms, Shishmaref Dog Mushers Association, Pull Tabs, and another Pull Tabs place. Behind them is the SES, Shishmaref Emergency Services, because they need a warehouse for their equipment.  No, we do not have a red firetruck.

Friday, May 1, 2009


Okay, my devoted fans, I have taken another picture for you. First, for clarification, I labeled a bunch of objects. Thank you Photoshop.  I was standing on the front porch of the school, and once again used my laptop to take the picture, explaining all those really bright spots.

Right now, Lake Deighton is navigatable. There's also room to walk around it. Soon, we shall hit phase III, where I will have to climb over the railings of my house, because the whole distance between will be filled with water. 

On a similar note, the school is out of water. Out. The bathrooms have been locked, and several people have been running to my house to use the facilities. Just remember that the next time you have to go to a different floor to use the restroom.