Sick and tired of being. . .

Today, for the first time in three days, I've woken up without wanting to throw up. It's been a glorious feeling.

I've skipped around all day, been overly chatty, nice, kind, and sweet. I find myself getting up to get my own scissors, instead of asking a kid to pass them to me.

I know this happens to me every time I get sick. While I'm sick, I can't even imagine ever not being sick. My memories are tainted by my current feelings. I think about the time we went sledding, and I thought: How did I have the energy to do that? And of course, I wasn't sick when that happened. I'm sick now.

Also, now that I'm better, I quickly find myself wondering what the big deal was when I was sick. Why did I have to stop and rest on the couch just from the effort of getting up and getting dressed?

There was a kid in the gym today who threw himself on the floor in a dramatic gesture. I laughed at him, (which was his plan, I think) and I thought about the energy associated with youth. But it's not just youth. We live our lives, and have our battles, our loves, our hopes and our despairs. It's part of being human. It's a great part, to be sure. But without the emotions, even the overwhelming ones, this trip through life just wouldn't be worth it.

And in the words of Forest Gump: And that's all I have to say about that.

WHERE ARE YOU SUNSHINE?!?

Yesterday, during 2nd hour, I looked out the window and saw the pink blush behind the city office that meant the sun was starting to come up. I was so excited that it was coming up so early, as 2nd period is pretty early in the day.

Then I remembered that we were having a late start, and it was already 11:30.

*sigh*

The bright blue square is the reflection of the laptop screen in the window. 

Coincidence

As Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory would say: "People without a grasp of large numbers would call this a coincidence."

I was playing around on Facebook a couple days ago, and came across two friends who had each posted some pictures. I found the juxtaposition to be so funny that I took a picture.

Here are two of my friends: Bob Plumber from Skagit County in Washington State, and Harley Huntington, currently of Shaktoolik, Alaska.  Unknown to each other, they both posted at the same time two pictures. While these may not look related at all, this is what I took from it: On the left-dietary staple. On the right- how he got it.

Sure, for some it's about driving a car to the store and buying some graham crackers. For others, it's hooking a sled up to a snow-machine, heading out to the tundra, and shooting an animal.

I'm not saying one is better than the other, I just found the difference between how life is lived back home and how life is sometimes lived up here to be funny. Personally, I do most of my grocery shopping online, and then go to the post office to pick it up, so I don't have to drive or hunt for my food.

I'm just grateful that we live in a country of riches, where many different ways of life are accepted, and we have the natural resources to both drive to the store and hunt.

New Year

Well, we're six days into the new year. Since I made no resolutions, I have none to break. Way to go me.

Here is the upcoming list of things I have to do:

-Work on my masters.
     Taking HUMN 520: Medieval literature. This class started on Monday, and will go for 4 months.
     Taking HUMN 541: The Enlightenment. This class will start Feb 7th, and run for 4 months.

-Teaching Classes.
     Two reading classes, three writing classes, one Life Skills/Career Skills class.

-After school program.
     The woman who ran the after school program is no longer doing it, along with two of the tutors. Kiley and Kevin stepped up to take over the tutoring spots, and I've decided to take over the coordinator job. This mostly involves me passing out snacks, doing paperwork, and ordering supplies for future use. I officially got the job yesterday, so I still have a lot to learn, but I think I'll be okay. It's 10 hours a week.

-Senior Class
    Ball games, valentine day cookies, and planning the senior trip. Some weeks are much more labor intensive than others.

This should be an interesting semester. Who needs sleep?

Some rules, some thoughts.

My sister once came home with rules given to her by her bishop (I think, that part's not important) in the yearly chastity talk given to Young Single Adult wards of The Church. She was told that there were rules about being with boys, and they went like this:

Three things to look for:

-Alone

-After midnight

-No plan

While on a date with a boy, only one of these things should be happening at a time. It's when a boy and girl are alone after midnight that problems occur. Or alone with no plan. Or. . . you get the idea.

I found this to be an interesting piece of information, and and decided on a rule for my own life: No e-mails after midnight. Things that seem like a REALLY BIG DEAL at one in the morning are not nearly such a big deal by the light of day. This is why I sometimes write an e-mail, and hold off on sending it until after sleep. 

This may be why college was such a drama-fest. We did most of our plotting, planning, and gossiping after midnight. I deconstruction of a date at eight in the morning isn't nearly as satisfying as looking for signs of true love at 2 am.

With this small rule at the forefront of my mind, I'm going to write this post right now anyway.

Officially, it's daytime. Actually, it's quarter after 7. But to truly understand the level of crazy I'm coming from, here's my sleep schedule for the last couple days:

Friday: Worked at the school until 2 a.m. Went to sleep at 5 a.m. Slept until 4 p.m. Got up and went back to the school.

Saturday: In a failed attempt to stay up all day to restart my regular sleep schedule, I didn't go to bed until noon, and only slept until 5. Got up with the plan to go to bed again at midnight.  At 6:30, I got a call from the popo, as he needed a babysitter at the jail.

Sunday: Haven't slept yet. And with the exception of one bathroom break, I haven't left this room.

While it is "morning," I'm still working on the five hours of sleep I got yesterday. My job is to write, and your job is to excuse anything dumb I say as the rantings of a very, very tired girl. (Case in point: why didn't I think to pack the string-cheese from the house when I agreed to come over here?!)

The year 2010:

-Favorite places:

     Sedro-Woolley, Wa

     Blue Fox Drive In

     Provo, Utah

     The Guy House, Anchorage

     Anchorage Temple

     My pickup truck

-Least Favorite Places:

     The Canadian border

     The school kitchen at 2 in the morning

     Most airplanes

-Favorite things:

     Mountain Dew (but really, when is that not a favorite thing?)

     Seeing friends and family

     Tribal Journeys

     Watching some of my favorite kids graduate, get married, have kids, go off to school, and succeed in life. I sure love my babies.

The year 2011:

-I think we're going to have a lot of people freak out about the Mayan calendar. To those people I would like to mention a couple things: Y2K, Swine Flu, Avatar. It's always a lot more hype than anything else.

-Things I'm looking forward to:

     Getting paid for this little stint as a member of Shishmaref's Finest.

     Going on the senior trip with "ma boyze"

     Seeing Kendall for the first time!!

-I would like to eat more fruit in the upcoming year.

How to take a shower in bush Alaska, in 84 steps or less. . .

While this post has a title implying it is about showering, it is about so much more. So let’s get started, shall we?

Step 1. Go to Drugstore.com and order hair dye.

Step 2. Wait two to four weeks. (Take other showers in the meantime.)

Step 3. Be totally psyched about arrival of previously purchased hair dye.

Step 4. Wait for half an inch of roots show. Also, wait until after the portrait is taken for Mom for Christmas.

Step 5. Laugh when Mom says it’s a good picture because she can’t tell my hair is purple.

Step 6. Open package. Remember the chemical burns from last time. Find gloves.

Step 7. Mix blue powder and clear liquid, apply to brown parts of hair.

Step 8. Freak out a little big, because even though you have put gloves on, you still spilled bleach on your ear, and it burns a little.

Step 9. Take pictures of hair as it lightens.

Step 10. Take a shower, wash out bleach gunk.

Step 11. Take pictures of hair with blonde roots, and purple ends.

Step 12. Prepare purple dye.

Step 13. Answer door at 12:30 in the morning, to find two frozen little girls on your porch. Invite them in.

Step 14. Go back to preparations for applying dye.

Step 15. Get fed up of them begging for purple streaks, and tell them you have to hear the words from their mothers’ lips: "She can have a purple streak."

Step 16. Apply purple dye to all the new blonde parts.

Step 17. Listen to little girl ask permission, then hang up the phone before mom can tell me.

Step 18. Make girl call mom back.

Step 19. Tell small girls that if they can’t pick a spot, they can’t have any.

Step 20. Watch them both decide on bangs, which was your first suggestion.

Step 21. Finish dying your own hair.

Step 22. Make them get foil so it seems like they’re in the movies.

Step 23. Apply dye to two sets of bangs.

Step 24. Wait.

Step 25. Wait some more. Let girls play with iTunes.

Step 26. Take pictures of our hair.

Step 26.B: Realize the camera is dirty. It's not just a lack of glasses that's causing the soft glow.

Step 27. Give the girls the face cleanser that you shipped up to get the dye off their foreheads.

Step 28. Let girls put on mud masks. Laugh at the faces they make as it cracks.

Step 29. Agree to let girls eat BRAND NEW Chicken in a Biskit crackers that were a Christmas present.

Step 30. Tell little girls I will NOT ask my mother to send them each a box.

Step 31. Tell them to stop pigging down my crackers.

Step 32. Decide that whether the dye is set or not, it’s time for little girls to leave.

Step 33. Take them into the bathroom and rinse their hair.

 Step 34. Attempt to rinse my own hair. Hear the sputtering that means we’re out of water. And not eventually, but NOW.

Step 35. Wrap hair in a knot, and put on more clothes.

Step 36. Drag beautifully wrapped hose out into the blizzard that has kept me in the house all day.

Step 36 a. Use old coat, as new coat is too pretty to get hair dye on.

Step 37. Drag hose to school.

Step 38. Realize that someone URINATED on the side of the school.

Step 39. Use key to open door to water faucet.

Step 40. Hook up hose with less trouble than normal.

Step 41. Remember that the hose isn’t in the tank on the other end.

Step 42. Go back to house. Put hose in tank.

Step 43. Yell at girls about knocking over brand new Christmas presents, and throwing hair dye covered paper-towels on brand new WHITE toys.

Step 44. Try and use key to turn on water.

Step 45. Make it three rotations before the key refuses to move.

Step 46. Say something appropriate. (or inappropriate, depending on your point of view)

Step 47. Go home, kick girls out for serious this time.

Step 48. Realize school keys are no where to be seen.

Step 49. Borrow keys from neighbors, who are also still up at 1:45 am.

Step 50.Use keys to get into school to get heat gun.

Step 51. Find out the doors to the high school side are bolted shut. Go the long way around.

Step 52. Be unable to find heat gun, go to classroom, and call maintenance man.

Step 53. Be told he is asleep, and get reminded that this is the THIRD time I've asked him for help after 7pm in a week.

Step 54. Give the supply closet a closer look for heat gun.

Step 55. Decide on Monkey wrench when the heat gun can't be found.

Step 56. Try and use wrench to force key to turn. 

Step 57. Stop when the wrench starts to torque, instead of the key.

Step 58. Put everything back in the school.

Step 59. Go outside and realize that whatever moisture was in the hose has now puddled in the dips, and has frozen solid.

Step 60. Give neighbors keys back.

Step 61. Haul hose home. Stuff it in storage room because it's too frozen to roll. Kick it once for good measure.

Step 62. Write a blog post about how it's now 2:30 in the morning, my hair has finally thawed, and I am no closer to taking my shower than I was two hours ago.

Step 63. Wrap my head in saran wrap, and go to bed.

Step 64. Deal with this tomorrow.

UPDATE: Even though the Saran Wrap came off my head, my ivory colored sheets have retained their original color, because I laid a towel down over my pillows.

Also, it's now 6:30 at night, and I just found out it's Sunday. So that sort of sucks. Sorry church.

I took a shower at the school this afternoon, then came in to work on the senior store, which will be opening up in about an hour, I think. And then, because it's me, I took a picture:

A Couple Letters

I posted a letter on Facebook the other day, which garnered some random responses, so I thought I'd post it again here, along with a couple other ones I was thinking of. Warning: I was watching daytime television.


Dear Nebraska,
     If the best your tourism board can do is show people floating down a river in a used cattle trough, and then show people floating down the same river in rubber rafts, and then show people floating down the same river in a boat, you need to give up. That ad is not going to draw anyone to your state. Especially if you show this commercial in ALASKA. We have rivers. Tons of rivers. Please use your tourism dollars for a better purpose. Like letting the company making the commercial travel somewhere besides one boat dock.
-Colleen, Confused

Dear Humane Society,
    While I am not normally against you, I do have a bone I'd like to pick with you: Do not come into my house asking for $19 a month to sponsor a pet. 18 months ago, I TRIED to give you a hundred dollars for a pet, which I would then spend WAY MORE than $19 a month on. (School requires $20 a month for pets in the housing.) But you wouldn't give him to me. Because you said my Alaska job and money and love weren't good enough for you. So you don't get any of it now.
-Colleen, Irked

Dear Dreyer's,
    Your Drumstick ice cream may be the best ice cream I've ever had. It has real pieces of cone, dipped in chocolate in it. That way, they stay crunchy. Awesome.
-Colleen, Satisfied

Dear Whoever Felt the Need to Use My Classroom,
    Why is it that when I came home from being in Nome for a week, I found my classroom open, and people in it? Do you not have your own classroom? Table? Hallway? Why were there unsupervised teenagers in my room? Seriously?
-Colleen, Angry

Dear Microwave,
   I love you. Seriously man, L.O.V.E. love.
-Colleen