Parent-Teacher Conferences

Today is the first day of parent-teacher conferences for the 3rd quarter of the year.

Let's keep track of the project as time goes on today:

2:20: School lets the kids out.

2:30: Parent Teacher conferences official start.

2:40: MY DOOR OPENS! Oh, it's just a kid, bringing back a broom. No parents yet. I wonder what's on Youtube?

2:43: PARENTS! The parents of one of my favorite kids (Oh, wait, are we not allowed to have favorites? Whoops.) came in and we talked about their son, and waving at strangers, because you never know who they'll be. We talked about how the husband waves at planes, in case they're looking, and how the wife is afraid of moose on the path. We talked about my new ice cleats, and the mittens Diana made me back in '04. All in all, it was a fantastic conversation.

3:00: More parents! Not quite as fun, but really, what do you expect?

3:10-3:50: Proofread a persuasive essay for the parent of two of my kids. Seriously. For 40 minutes. It was a good paper, it just needed proofreading, which is what we're working on in class too. Her husband seemed a bit grumpy about it, but I showed her how to track changes, and how to insert page breaks. She was impressed.

3:55: The mother of one of my students talks to me about her son's missing assignments. I discuss his ongoing stomach problems. Both issues are assigned to the suicide of his brother from November. We are both fine with this.

4:00: Watching Youtube videos.

4:15: Parents!

4:19: Youtube.

4:45: I've talked to two other teachers, and I've watched Youtube videos since my last check-in.

5:15:  I think we're done here.

And we have them again tomorrow.

Spring

Spring is coming. I think. No, no, it's coming. I'm pretty sure. And here is the proof:

I haven't seen those fuzzy nubs on the trees before, so that must mean it's spring, right? Either that, or it's warm enough to walk around with my hood off, so I can see them for the first time.

 While getting ready to take the previous picture, I stumbled across some rabbit tracks. There they are, hopping through the snow.

 The top crust is strong enough that I could lean on it to take the picture, but not to step on, or I'd fall through.

And these are my footsteps, forwards and backwards. There's a pretty thick crust, followed by a lot of fluff. 

 Standing on the school porch, this is a view of the cemetery. It's up there on the hill. You can just make out the white crosses on the ridge.

And for those of you (Matthew) who think that the amount of snow I'm working with her is the same as the amount of snow you have down there, this is the snowdrift that the maintenance men had to dig through to clear our path. In real life, the path is a wooden sidewalk, and the pile of snow is actually a hill sloping DOWNHILL towards those basketball hoops.

So yes, this is spring, kind of, sort of. The main noticeable difference is the amount of sunlight we are getting now. There are days when I walk to school in the semi-light, and walking home in the light. It is awesome!

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.