NACTEC

I'm in Nome now, at NACTEC house. With 9 of the 7th graders. The other two are: 1) Moved to Buckland with the family, over the weekend. and 2) Burned out on traveling after being in Kotzebue for six days playing middle school basketball.

So far, we've only had one break down and cry because of homesickness. The battery in the van is dead, so only half the kids got to go to the rec center, and the rest got to hang out around here. Between now and Friday morning, we have 8 field trips lined up to teach us about different careers.

I will accept all luck, prayers, and well wishes.

Paper Crafts

Inupiaq days are coming up. In April. On the middle/high school side, this means inviting elders, setting up times with the military and dentist, thinking up service projects, and talking to elders about them sharing stories or helping us butcher an animal.

On the elementary side, it means finding the tagboard. The little kids need to do more hands-on crafts, which means preparing more hands-on crafts. The actual elementary teachers are full to capacity this week. Since we're pretty empty over here on the high school side, I agreed to help trace and cut out a few projects.

Project One:

Traditional Eskimo Sunglasses. They used to be made out of wood, and were used like all sunglasses: to block the sun. Currently, we use tagboard, and string. And of course, what good is a piece of paper without some markers, glitter, rhinestones, or paint.

However, these paper pieces don't just come that way. First, a pattern must be procured. We asked the bilingual teachers to sketch one for us, and it turned out very nicely.

After it was traced 106 times, the individual units were cut apart from each other, then trimmed to the right size. Then the eyes were cut out, and finally, two holes for the thread were punched on the edges. Of course, for an authentic look, we'd make the kids bore holes in it, but that could be tedious, especially with the kindergardeners.

Here are the ones we have done as of right now, in the four stages of done-ness.

Project Two:

Little Eskimo people. These little guys work pretty much the same way as the glasses, except that they're bigger. We can only make 9 little guys per piece of tagboard. Understandably, we don't yet have 100 of them done. Not even close. Maybe 40, and those aren't even all cut apart yet.

It's hard to see the pencil marks with this picture, but that second to the right pile is actually little paper dolls I've cut out, except for the tricky part under their arm, in their necks, and between the legs. One of the kids is willing to do it.

These little guys are going to get felt or fabric kuspuks, followed by fir trim. I'm going to guess this is more for the little kids than the bigger ones. (Bigger being 5th or 6th grade).



I was cutting today while my kids worked on their research papers. I'm only needed for clarification while they gather resources, so it worked out well for everyone. One of my girls asked if she could help, instead of working on her writing assignments. I told her that if she studied hard, stayed focused during college, and came back with a bachelors degree, then she too could cut.

Yeah, I'm not laughing either.

And for those of you who think that my life is all fairies and roses, here is my cutting injury:

And that's not a "I just pulled the scissors off" sort of mark. It's still on me, and I've taken pictures, done a job search, and written this whole post since I took the scissors off, and it's still on me. No wonder people like my mom get arthritis in their hands first.  I'm not even thirty yet, and I have caught myself rubbing the joints on my hand like I used to see my grandmother do when she was SEVENTY.

And on that note, I just realized that my other gramma's birthday is today. Which means that my parents' anniversary is also today. And I spaced until just now, at quarter after nine at night, Alaska time. There is a special room in hell for people who forget their parents' anniversary. It's right next to the one for people who leave their cell phones on during class.

State Testing

Hello Everyone!  For those of you not in the know, this week was testing week here in Alaska. Most states have some sort of test that proves students are bright enough to graduate. Here in AK, we call it the HSGQE. High School Graduation Qualifying Exam.

In a school this small, we have a shortage of places to put kids. Every grade needs to have at least two places for testing. Those with accommodations, those without. Students with accommodations run the gambit from just needing extra time, to needing the entire test read to them because English isn't their first language. Some of these accommodations can be upheld with others in the same room. Others can't.  Every possible room is used. Offices, the storage room the seniors keep pop in, one of the teacher's living rooms, and some other, unsavory places.

This leads us to the point of the post: On Wednesday, from the hours of 9:30-2:00, I was given four kids, in the absolutely worst place in the whole school. . . 

Actually, that's not entirely true. There is one place worse. The boys locker room. To get to the girls locker room, one must walk through the girls bathroom, and past the tampon machine. Here is a thought for you: I tested one girl, and three boys. If you think the average 14 year old boy can't handle walking through the underwear aisle at the store, just imagine what it was like for them to walk past that small white box.

Here is the girls' locker room. One table is still in there, but the other one has been taken back to the room we "acquired" it from. It's a pretty tight squeeze with two tables and five people in there. The bench couldn't be moved, as it is bolted to the floor, so one of the kids didn't even get the benefit of a lumbar supporting chair. 

For lunch on this magical day, they had burritos. Yup. Stuck in a small room with a bunch of boys on burrito day. When they felt the need to pass gas, they came here, the shower. As if, somehow, we wouldn't be able to smell them from this far away. 

The silver lining of this whole event was that I didn't have to call in to the office to get a chaperone to walk my kids to the bathroom like everyone else did. Maybe I'll talk that aspect up next year, and see if I can't convince someone else that they REALLY want to hang out in a locker room for 5 hours. 

Friday is the last day, and then we're done for another six months, when the retakes start.

Ode to a Maintenance Man

While some of you may think you have good maintenance at your place of employment, that is only because you have never know the joy of having John  and Warren as your maintenance men.

So today, in honor of them, I've created this little list:

-When pop came in for the senior store late on Monday night, John was out there hauling NINETY cases up the stairs so we could use the dollies to get them into the storage room.

-When I locked myself on the elementary side 

of the building, with no shoes and no keys, right before everyone left for Stebbins, and I was about to be left behind, Warren came and found me.

-When my house was colder inside than outside, and I was sitting in front of the oven, which was turned all the way up, in my sleeping bag, over Christmas break, John came and made the heat work again. Then he sat in the basement with a blowtorch to thaw the pipes, so I could function.

-This morning, when I opened my front do

or, and found 30 inches of snow on my porch, I just sort of froze. I couldn't imagine digging my way out through that drift. Then I saw Warren shoveling one of the portable steps.  I whistled at him, and showed him how deep my porch was. I figured he'd laugh, and that would make it all better, and I'd dig my way out. Well, I was wrong, he came over and started shoveling. So I did  too, and we met in the middle, and I was able to leave my house in a lot less time, and a lot warmer, than I had figured. 

-When the class I sponsor got to be seniors, we needed another chaperone. If it was a man, then we wouldn't have to pay for a second advisor and a chaperone, we could just do with just the one. Enter John. Cool like a kid, responsible like a grown up. And, since he has no immediate ties anyone on the trip, I can trust him to be impartial during arguments. 

-Monday, I stumbled to school, already tired, and took a shower. Then I realized that my keys were still at my house, and I didn't want to go outside with wet hair. Just then, Warren came around the corner, and let me in. Very nice. Very, very nice.  Any time I don't have to tell the principal about my incompetence is a good time. 

-They put a new water pump in my house when mine broke, so I could stop scooping water out of the reservoir, and just turn on the sink like a regular person. They also took the frozen pipes out from under my sink so I could catch my drainage in a bucket and take it out, instead of backing up a bunch of pipes which would start to smell.

In addition to all these specific moments, they also keep the school running, and the heaters at our houses supplied with oil. They bring in the mail, bring in the visiting teams, and bring in the clean water when the school is out. When their hands get cold from working outside so much, and their fingers crack open, they just wrap them with electrical tape, and keep going. 

I don't care if they can't fly, and I don't even care when they make fun of me for being dumb, they are my heroes. 

I was just reading over this post again, fixing some tense mistakes. I almost make my self look like an idiot. Well, maybe I am, but these are instances from the last four years, and like Jessica Simpson says: "I'm not really that dumb. Tape anyone long enough, and they're bound to make some mistakes."