That time of the year, again.

Well, as I type this, at 10:30 at night, it is still light out. It'll be light out until almost 11. I won't see that, since I'm already in bed (more because Amy is gone, and there's internet in here, but let's all pretend it's because I'm concerned with my sleep habits.) When I woke up this morning at 7:30, it was light outside.

And what does this mean? Pretty soon is will be light until midnight. And starting on that day, it will be light from before I wake up until after I go to sleep. Good-bye darkness. It is always best, when flying from Nome to Anchorage, to be sitting near someone else whose been living up here as long as I have. The day trippers don't realize how living with no darkness can mess with one. When the phone rings at three in the morning, but it's light outside, I get all sorts of discombobulated, and fear that I've slept into the school day.

I know that I've probably talked about this before, but it's the time of the year when this affects everyone up here. When I was locking the door for the night a while ago, I saw a bunch of 10-13 year old girls walking around outside. Since it was still light outside, their internal clocks had not yet told them to go to bed.

And, because I haven't posted many pictures lately, here's one of a couple girls trying on prom dresses at my house today:

Adventures

I occasionally walk into the neighboring classroom and announce to Bob, "You will not believe this adventure I just had." And he sort of sighs and asks, "What happened this time?" So then I spew my craziness all over the room with my ranting and tearing up and wild hand gestures.

Today, to save Bob from this little slice of crazy, I'm going to share my Alaska adventure with you. Besides, isn't that the point of this blog? To let everyone down there feel better about not living up here. So here goes:

Because I like shopping for pretty things, and because I feel bad for my girls when they buy clothes online that are the wrong size and too long, I have started hitting thrift stores in the summer and buying prom dresses. Then I ship them up here, and sell them to the girls, pretty much at cost.

I have no real reason to keep these dresses in my house all year. Instead, they got boxed up and put in an external storage shed when we moved into the house, and they've sat there quietly for the last six months. Yesterday I decided it was time to dig them out. Prom is in 6 weeks, and if girls are going to try on dresses and buy one instead of ordering, it needs to happen soon.

When I went outside to open the door, I found a snow drift blocking my way, which, while anticipated, was less than thrilling. As I dug out the snow, some of which had frozen into chunks of ice, I realized that the job wasn't going to be as hard as I had first assumed. The actual door to the shed is built off the ground a bit. Under the snow there are actually two steps going up to the opening. This allowed me to get the door open without having to dig down to the ground, which saved a TON of time.

I got the first tup out just fine. Then I took a break, went to a birthday party, watched an episode of Bones, and waited for Amy to come home. She told me that while she showered, I should go get the rest. I told her I'd rather sit on my aekucq and play video games. (You can translate that one all on your own.) She reminded me that I'd have to do it sooner or later, so I gave in.

Tubs two, three, and four had no problems at all. However, when I went back to close the door, my foot hit a soft spot. I'd broken through the top layer of ice, and hit the powder below. I sunk in to at least my knee, and I was only wearing a skirt, so it was bare skin on snow.

I gave a pretty primitive howl, and the began to assess the situation. I was able to scoot my other foot back under me, get it on some solid ground, and pull myself out of the hole. My boot even came up with me. Not like the time my foot fell in a hole and my boot stayed behind and I had to have a kid run to my house and get my shovel and did my boot out because it WOULD. NOT. BUDGE. Nope, not this time, the boot came out too.

Unfortunately, I hadn't actually laced my boot up as tight as I could have. Mostly because I hate tying them, and this way I can slip them on and off like big comfy slippers. That big comfy slipper theory also means that when I sink my foot into three feet of snow, some of that snow is going to get in the boot. Also, some of the chunks of ice that I fell through.

I got my foot and boot out, locked the shed door, grabbed the tubs, and made a break for the house. (Okay, the front door was only like 15 feet away, but I had snow in my boot!) As soon as I got into the arctic entry, that boot came off. Once I got into my house proper the other boot came off, and I went to sit in my chair with my feet tucked under me.

Once I'd warmed up, I thought I was able to put the whole thing behind me. And I was, until this morning. I got up, got dressed, and was putting my first boot on when I remembered that I'd left my other boot out in the kunituq (arctic entry). When I went to get it, I was rather bluntly reminded that the temperatures in the arctic entry reflect the external temperature of the world, and not the internal temperature of the house, and to make a really long story short: There was snow in my boot when I tried to put it on this morning.

I scraped out all I could, but it was still a pretty wet, cold walk to school. As soon as I got into the building, I pulled that boot off, and walked to my classroom with a boot in my hand, and one on my foot. It's nice to know that I switch into my sandals every day while I'm at school. If I had to wear that wet boot all day, I'd be rather sad and grumpy.

Today's dose of crazy is brought to you by the Cabela's, snow, and Mountain Dew.

Scared there for a minute.

When I logged on to the internet this morning, I got the black screen of death. The one that says the content I am trying to access has been blocked.

This has happened before here in the district. I go every day to to thehungersite.com every day and click the button to help feed the poor, provide mammograms for women, and books for children. Sometimes I even visit the sponsors and buy things. Last year, when the district decided it was time to reset the parent controls, that site became blocked, because one of the tabs is the breast cancer site. I had to go to the library and see if they would un-block it. It's not like I'm a 17 year old boy looking up pictures. I'm trying to do a slightly good deed for women in need. (And since that rhymes, it must be true.)

When I got the black screen on blogger this morning, I was sad. Today is my 147th post. I had plans to keep this thing going for a while. Luckily (and obviously) when I checked it just now, I was able to get in. Crisis averted.

You may be asking yourself: But Colleen, if you're writing about not being able to get on, what were you trying to get on for?!  And the very simple answer: umm, pictures of poorly decorated cakes.  Yup, that's my level of humor right now.

Break is over, back to work.

Parka

Okay, so my Parka (pronounced par-kee) is almost done!!  I bought the velvet, trim, lining, and wolverine pelt, and Ruby Jones put most of it together, but wasn't up to piecing the ruff together out of the pelt I had.

So one Mrs. Bessi Sinnok took on the challenge. She pieced it together like a pro, and now when I walk outside, my face stays toasty warm.

She's going to put a layer of trim on the bottom, so I can be a true Inupiaq, and I'm pretty excited about that.

Here's a bad picture of me with my hood up:

Last One, I Promise

This will NOT become a "whine, whine, whine, I'm old" blog. It will continue to be about my adventures in Alaska, and my students, roommate, night time phone stalker, the dude that brings our Snack Shack food, pilots,  fellow teachers, and Northern Lights.

So this is the last post about my birthday, and how the media hates me. (See previous post) I was on The New York Times, finding out if a man was REALLY dead at his desk for 5 days before anyone noticed. (Answer: no, that's a hoax), when I saw this ad:

Now, I happen to have a birthday that falls between 1920 and 1990, in fact most of the people I know do. As long as one is over 21, (and under 90) they fall into this category. There are 22-YEAR-OLD GIRLS who fit into this category. And yet, look at that picture. Do they think they're going to lure me away from my old car insurance (which I don't even have, because I live in Alaska, where I don't drive) with pictures of a 60-YEAR-OLD MAN?!? And no, I don't believe that man is 55. He is obviously significantly older than my parents, and they're not anywhere near 60 yet.

Okay, enough ranting. I had a lovely birthday weekend, even though one of my hours was stolen via daylight savings. Amy made me a cake, we ordered chinese food, played games at the pastor's house, and generally hung out. It wasn't the labor intensive and hectic weekend it could have been if we'd thrown a traditional Shishmaref birthday, with 6 cakes, 5 pies, three bowls of jello, cinnamon rolls, and juice, but a girl doesn't need that every year.

Amy, Kiley, and Kevin all have summer birthdays. We're thinking about throwing them a party after school gets out for the year. It's also a good way to get rid of all the rest of the eggs before we leave.

29, part 2

Okay, so my birthday is Sunday. And, just to rub it in, the pop-up ads are making fun of me.

I don't care if I am turning 30, that boy just looks a little too responsible and grown up for my taste.

Cookies

There are many things I miss about the general United States when I live in Alaska. Radio stations, driving my car, fast food, not carrying my laundry to another building to wash it, drive-in theaters, getting items the same day I pay for them, comparison shopping, buying shoes for their cuteness, and not just their cold weather rating, etc. etc. etc.

Today a small piece of the lower 48 came up to Shishmaref. A piece that I hold very dear. Now, when Amy's cousin's cousin brought us oranges and crescent roll dough, we were pretty stoked. These are items that we can't just buy at the local store. We could buy them in Nome, though. But that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm discussing is something that one can not simply pick up. It requires planning, forethought, and patience (things I don't currently have).

What came was this:

That's right, devoted fans. Mr. Dennis Davis, the biggest Eskimo I've ever seen, brought us Girl Scout Cookies. The kids tried to tell me I should share, because they were "hungry." Puh-lease. One does not eat Girl Scout Cookies out of hunger. One eats them because they are a little bit of American culture, and are slightly magical. 

The kids don't understand. They can't. It's not their fault, but I'm not going to give up my box of Samoas to teach them.