Mornings

Last night I made sure to take my camera to bed with me, just to share my mornings with you guys:

7:00 Alarm rings, go back to sleep. 

7:20 wake up, realize that all my clothes are in the dryer or in a pile on the floor. Whoops.

At least here, we have a washer and dryer in our house, so I can throw stuff in the dryer before I go to bed, and pick it up dry the next morning. That's pretty awesome.

Then it's off to the bathroom. Wait, is that a floor that slopes so far to the left I'm afraid that I'm going to fall over when I stumble in there in the morning? Yes, yes it is. (Cute rug and shower curtain are Mandii's.)

Time to get dressed. What's that, wool socks and a pair of pants under a skirt? Yup, that's how I roll in the winter in Alaska.

 To the untrained eye, this shelving may seem overloaded with cereal and tomato sauce. It's not true. I've simply bought enough to get me through the rest of the year.

 Oh, look! All of my meals for the day. Breakfast in my snowman bowl, (Thanks Gramma!) crackers and cheese for lunch, and porkchops in the crockpot for dinner. And yes, that milk comes in a box, and has a shelf life of almost a year, before it's opened.

The view out of my front door  at 8am. Yup, snow and darkness, sounds about right.

Here is me trying to lock my front door. Of course, it only works if I can close the door all the way, otherwise the key won't turn, and then our house is left unlocked during the day.

And here I am, with my facemask on, and my parka (pronounced par-kee). The wolverine keeps me from getting snow in my eyes, and it's awesome.

Front stairs. When the new broom gets here, we'll be able to clear these off a little better. I like the grating, because it keeps the snow from building up too much.

Snow drift along the side of the house. Someone walked over it earlier, but I chose to go around instead.

On the way to school. I like to follow the snow-machine tracks, as it gives me an idea of how deep the snow is. Those lights way in the distance are the school. This picture is about halfway between my house and the school, which is so much closer than my first house.

School was not a normal day today, since we had an educational conference for parents instead of normal school. Tomorrow we fly to Akiak for inservices, and we're back to regular schedule on Wednesday.

Pictures

I was talking to my brother a couple of days ago, and he said my blog would be a lot more fun it I put more pictures on it. So I walked around with my brain turned on for three days, thinking of things that I could take pictures of for you, my dedicated reader.

And I've got nothing. Seriously, nothing.

Here's my day:

7:00 Alarm goes off. Hit snooze, don't remember.
7:09 Alarm goes off. Hit snooze, realize I did it.
7:18 Alarm goes off. Hit snooze, rationalize that I don't need "that much time" to get ready.
7:27 Alarm goes off. Freak out about how late it got. Vow to get up earlier tomorrow.

7:27-7:50  Dress, pour bowl of cereal and milk, cut two pieces of summer sausage off the block and quarter, slice cheese, count 8 crackers, read book while eating cereal, put lunch in coat pocket, put on boots.

7:50 Leave the house, locking the padlock, as apparently some kids have a copy of the key to the knob.

7:50-7:58 Walk to school in the dark. Thanks for the flashlight, Dad!

7:58 Arrive at school. Check Facebook and Pinterest. Maybe talk to the teacher across the hall. Sit at my desk with a glazed look on my face.

8:30 Kids show up.
8:31 Pledge of allegiance.

8:33-11:59 Teach morning classes. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd period are on the same reading program. It's a reading program, they're all the same; you don't want to hear about it. 4th hour is awesome. Good kids, good literature, just all around awesome. They even got to skype with Dad one day about his job, and what training he needed for it.

12:00-12:35 Lunch. Eat my crackers and cheese by myself. Have an orange. Watch Scrubs on Netflix. (Or Doctor Who, or Hulu shows.)

12:35-2:18 More classes. Same material as 4th hour, completely different kids. Maybe look out the tiny window once. Sigh because of the cold, dark, and snowy conditions.

2:21-3:11 Prep. Watch more Hulu/Netflix. Work on the Romeo and Juliet vocab and review questions for the next unit.

3:15-4:00 HSGQE (like the WASL) prep class. We're working on grammar, and mechanics. Ahh, good times.

4:00 Kids leave. Either get ready for study hall, or get back to work on Romeo and Juliet. Watch TV, play on Pinterest/Facebook.

7:30 Realize what time it is, and promise to go home earlier tomorrow.

7:45 Walk home in the dark. Thanks for the flashlight, Dad!

8:00 Eat dinner. Wash dishes. Watch a little TV.

10:00 Crawl in bed, read for a while, go to sleep.

Do it all again the next day (including the parts where I swear I'll do it sooner the next day, then don't).

There just really isn't a lot worth taking pictures of there. I have no children of my own, I have no dog. Half the time, when I get home, Mandii is already in bed, and most of the time, when I wake up, she's already gone.

I'm sorry my blog is boring, but right now, so is my life. The best thing that's happened to me this week is a mysterious Amazon package with Carcassonne in it. Maybe I'll try to set up a game night, and then I'll have something worth taking pictures of. In the meantime, he's a photo of Akiachak from 1999:

Because the kids asked how it works...

Today, a student asked about some of the pictures on my bulletin board. I have one of my siblings from 1998 up, and one of my living grandparents. The picture I had of my parents at my college graduation got lost during the move. I found the broken frame, but no picture.

To rectify this situation, I tried to go online and show them some pictures, but since Facebook is blocked during school hours, we ended up looking at some blogs, especially Matt and Heather's, as they have adorable children to look at.

Then my new class came in, and asked how I did blog posts. So now we're sitting here, and I'm typing this while they watch me on the Smart Board. Whooo.

Limited sunlight

Now that I've moved farther south, I have the joy of having more sunlight. Even now, in the darkest week of the year, I still have a fair amount of sunlight. Of course, it's a bit hard to see, since I have one 2x2 classroom window that looks into the kindergarden room unless you're hanging out of it.

Up north, in Shishmaref, they're down to about two hours of direct sunlight right now.

My friend, Lisa Ripper, stepped outside of her door every hour for 12 hours, and took a picture of the world around her. Please go look at her fantastic pictures here:

http://ontheroadwiththerippers.blogspot.com/2012/12/12-hours-in-shishmaref.html

It is amazing to see just how little light they have. Since I live up here, I don't notice the change from day to day.

Talking to Students

This morning, during class, I was giving a student some direct instruction on his persuasive essay. He'd been gone for a while, so we were trying to catch him up quickly.

In an attempt to get him done faster, I was being very specific about what he should write down. The following conversation was so funny to me at the time that I decided to share with all of you:

"Write down, 'Credit cards are bad for teens.' ”

“Credit cards are bad 14.”

"Why did you write 14?"

"You said fourteen."

"No. For teens." 

Ahh, and suddenly it all made sense. 

November Wrap-up

For the first time in seven weeks, I was able to stay up as late as I wanted on Friday, and sleep as late as I wanted on Saturday. So, of course, I was asleep by midnight, and awake before my alarm went off at 10.

Later in the day, I found out that our wrestling coach had committed suicide. Mandii and I made some food to take to the family, and I realized that nothing in my life is ever going to be as bad as what his mother is going through. Bad haircuts, storm-bound planes, and an inability to sleep in late on a weekend is never going to be as bad as having back surgery then losing your son in a three month period of time.

I am so thankful for my life, family, friends, and health. I'm grateful that I get to spend Thanksgiving with the Hatch Family, and that I have a job and the funds to do so. Life is pretty good for me.

Akiachak House

When I first moved to Akiachak, I was put in a two bedroom duplex by myself. It was empty of personal stuff, (it had beds and couches and things, but no art, tv, dishes, etc) and lonely. Also, every window looked out at either another teacher house or the district office.

After two weeks of that, I got lonely. Okay, to be honest, I was lonely the second day. I would have just sucked it up and dealt with the loneliness through a regime of Netflix and iPad games, until everything changed.

My first real friend, Mandii, was not getting along with her roommate. Also, both halves of the neighbors came to me about living with them instead of them living with their roommate. However, one has three dogs, (not housebroken) and one is a smoker. I turned them both down.  As time progressed, and their lives became more difficult, we got together and decided on a switch.

The lady with the dogs moved to my house, I moved in with Mandii, and her roommate moved in with the smoker, who has promised to not smoke inside.

Moving in with Mandii has been the best thing that has happened to me in this village. We have the same taste in movies and music. We have the same opinions about a lot of the people we both know. We have similar backgrounds and family values. Also, she's from Port Angeles, which means I can say things like: "The brass gorilla at Woodland Park" and she completely knows what I'm talking about!

The house we live in is still called: "The brown house behind the green duplex." It is currently being re-insulated, (additionally insulated? insulationally upgraded?) and has had silver insulation put over the entire outside. This has cut down on the heat loss and external noise, but one piece is not as secure as it should be, and it makes monster groaning noises outside Mandii's window. Hopefully when they put the plywood and paneling on, that will go away.

With no further ado, my house: "The silver house that used to be brown behind the silver duplex which used to be green."

Behind the house, off to the left are trees, and the old school, which is now boarded up. Off to the right are neighbors, and Mandii took this picture while she stood on the porch of the green building. Also, please not the box pipe on the right hand side of the picture. That is our water coming in! WHOO HOOO. Showers and dishes and all sorts of wonderful things. And I didn't even have to haul it in myself.

This house is also a short distance from the school, instead of the 3/4 miles the last house was. It now puts me at a greater distance from the store (which used to be on my walk home). However, when I went to the store today, I bought ice cream, butter, two potatoes, and a Cadburry egg. So it's not like being away from the store is that bad for me.