Light, Part 2

Here we are, sitting in the classroom at the tail end of lunch, and the sun has made an appearance. This photo was taken at 1:05 p.m. As you can't tell, because I used PhotoBooth, which is for taking pictures of your own face, the sun is actually visible above the horizon:

Why have my last two blog posts been about light levels? Because it's dark most of the time. The sun sets, and two hours later I'm ready for bed. Except that it gets dark up here around 4, which means I'm ready for sleep at 6 p.m., and that's really not good for my social life, or sleep patterns.

Oh, darkness induced hibernation. It's a fun game.

Light

We have reached that point in the year where the light is pretty much gone. Don't get me wrong, there is still some, in fact, outside it looks like this:

But this is about as light as it gets. We've had dense cloud cover for most of the week, and while the sun comes up and goes down, I don't see it, buried under all these clouds. At least it's stopped snowing.

According to the internet, the sun rose today at 12:23 in the AFTERNOON!!, and will set at 3:30, also this afternoon. That gives us a total of 3 hours, 7 minutes of sunlight. Except, of course, we haven't seen the sun in a week.

Trudging to and from school has become just that: trudging. There is a lot of new, fluffy snow that must be navigated. My boots are more than adequate, but I continue to wear skirts to school, and sometimes the snow gets higher than the tops of my boots. Or else my skirt is too long, and drags in the snow, and then I have a wet skirt slapping against my ankles when I get to school and put on my sandals. 

Soon, Christmas will be here, and I won't have to leave my house for days on end. Don't mock, it's a beautiful thing.

Update on Life

I'm working on my online class right now, and am doing this as a break between writing my personal opinions on the forums. So, to relax from that, I'm going to... ummm... post my personal opinions on this web log.

Oh, I see the irony there.

My class is asking me to give my opinion on war, gays, Market-Capitalism, and philosophy. I find that as I get writing on these topics, that I am a lot better at telling stories about my ideas than actually telling my opinion. And for those of you that know me, you'll understand that I don't often have a problem sharing my opinions.

So here, in my blog, I will share some straight up opinions about my life:

-I don't care that I'm not the favorite teacher. I just care about that moment when the light goes on in a kid's eyes, and I realize that they suddenly understand what I'm talking about. It's glorious.

-I don't understand how a flight to Nome can cost $340 round trip, but a trip to Brevig can cost as little as $200, even though they're ridiculously close together.

-The older I get, the less my eyes, ears, and joints work. I've got three fingers now that make clicks or stall when I try to bend them. I don't know who said 40 was the new 30, because 30 is starting to feel significantly older than 20 did.

-I finished my Christmas shopping, but am concerned that I spent a lot more on some of my siblings than others. I find myself worrying that I should buy more presents for these people, so they don't feel left out, even though they don't really know what their presents cost.

-Sleeping in a room that is too cold is easier than a room that is too hot. One can always pile on more blankets. One cannot always take more off.

-Some authors seem to write more to show off how smart they are than to share information. (Stephanie Meyer is not one of these authors.)

-While movies labeled "Adult" are inappropriate for everyone, movies labeled "Children" are good for everyone.

Okay, I'll go back to my class now.

Not another apology

I feel like I've started every post lately with an apology about not posting often enough. So here it is: sorry.

I've been reading the blogs of some of the new teachers in the district: Stacey from Wales, and Mike and Lisa here in Shishmaref. Their posts are adorable, and funny. The thing is, I've already posted on the topics they're posting on.

I've talked about visitors to my house,
Walking with kids
Halloween traditions
Cheerleaders
Snow
Snow
Snow
Melting Snow
Blowing Snow
The joy of produce,
and countless other things.

We had a woman come up here in the fall of '04, and long-term sub for five months. She still occasionally e-mails, looking for information on some of the kids. And I've been known to say this: I know that we were the most exciting thing to ever happen to her, but for us, she was a blip on the radar, and has been gone so long we sometimes forget about her entirely.

I've also heard that when ones goes on a foreign mission, they should take pictures of all the weird and wonderful things when they first get there, because after six months, none of it will seem that odd. I've become this way about Shishmaref. I was talking to someone this morning about whether the coffin got here on the plane today, so we can have a funeral this afternoon. I'm sure that for most of you, the idea of holding a funeral because the coffin hasn't made it from Anchorage yet is shocking and unique. But for me it's become old hat.

Well, it's time for me to go get my sex-ed unit lined up for health class. The kids are pretending they're not excited about it. Uh huh. Sure.

You're from Shishmaref if. . .

Hello devoted fans. I would start this post out with an apology for not writing more often, but that is a slippery slope of turning every post into a list of apologies. 

There is a new Facebook group, entitled "You know you're from Shishmaref if. . ." and there are some funny ones, and some that I just look at and say, "Huh?" 

I recently returned from three days in Anchorage, and there's nothing like ANC to show me just how different living out here really is. So I thought I'd share a couple things I remembered during that trip.

You know you're from Shishmaref if:

-you write town names as their airport codes instead of names. SHH, WBB, KTS, UNK, OME, etc.

-you don't think it's weird to try to play with random kids at Wal-Mart, because you're allowed to play with all the kids at the stores at home.

-you can't go through the Anchorage Airport without seeing someone you know. 

-you walk up to a stranger at McDonalds, and ask: "Can I sit with you?" because you're not used to eating alone.

-you gripe that someone bought out all the 12 inch tortillas, and then buy all the 9 inch.

-you take a quick shower at the hotel, then remember that they're not rationing their water, and take another one.

-you find that you've forgotten you ATM PIN number, because you never need it.

-you forget that people need to see I.D. (I don't think I've ever been asked for ID in SHH. Not for check cashing, not for voting, not when giving my statement to the police.)

-you see a hotel clerk help carry a woman's tiny carry-on while you shoulder your own 45 lb bag. 

Okay, that's about all I've got for now. I might add more later if I think of anything. Thanks for your patience between posts.

Time just keeps flying

The school attendance doc tells me that today is Friday. Who knows where the time goes.

There is no point to this posting except to say that I can't believe that today is the last day of the month already, and I'm confused about where the time went. Also that it's time to wash my sheets again.

We got snow last night. There's still some on my porch, which has been in the shade all day. Maybe I should stop wearing knee-length skirts outside. . .

First School Day of Fall

I'm not sure if this has been going on for a could days now or not. I just know that today was the first day since Thursday that I've walked to school in the early morning. (We've been in Stebbins for training.)

On the walk over this morning, I noticed that we had frost on the ground. FROST. This is, as usual, the beginning of the end. Wish me luck folks, it's all downhill from here.