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.

Plans Change

The initial plan was to finish out my 8 years in Shishmaref, and move back to Washington to continue my life. After four months in Washington, I started getting homesick for Alaska, and I was also discouraged with the lack of job opportunities in Washington.

On the 5th of September, two weeks after the school year started, I received a phone call from the principal of Akiachak School, in Akiachak, Alaska. The call came in at 2:15. She called back at 3 for the interview, and at 5 I received a call offering me the job.

Early on the morning of the 6th, I flew back to Alaska. It's been a bit of a whirlwind, and I'm still receiving some of my grocery orders from my first week.

Enough talk, onto the pictures!

Akiachak is a Yupiik Eskimo village in south-west Alaska. There's about 750 people here, and the school has about 180 kids. This makes it pretty much exactly the same size as Shishmaref. The biggest difference is that while Shishmaref was on an island, we here are on a river, and there is plenty of room to spread out, so we did.

 This is the school. The gym, offices, and Hall of Elders (cafeteria) are in the big round side, and you can see the high school on the left there. The elementary side is on the right, behind the dome.

That tiny window on the right is the one in my room that I can open. I also have a row of windows up high, which are covered in blue curtains. The other window that opens is the Social Studies room, and farther down is the mechanics room and the wood shop.

 This is the old high school, which is now used for storage, and is next to my current house.

I took this picture of the mud pit I walk through on my way home, not realizing that my new house is a tiny slice of brown on the left there, behind the trailer. See how spread out everyone is? That's nice.

 This is the washeteria, which I don't have to use, as I am on running water, and have a washer and dryer in my own house.

The river, from the road. It actually has flooded in the last couple days, and is much, MUCH higher right now.

 Cop truck. Not broken, but they needed the wheels for the SUV they also drive around.

Native store. It's pretty much like every native store.

 Yup, $6 for a box of HoHos and I think that's $8 for some cinnamon rolls. They've been there since I got here. I'm not trusting them.

Just a sign on the cash register.

Okay, I'll post more later.