End of the Year

The end of the school year is upon us. And, because everything is more fun in an educational setting than a business setting, we got to have an assembly today.

Lani and Erick were recognized for their year of service.

John Bruce was recognized for his time in Shishmaref.

John Sinnok, who has just finished his 40th year got a movie about him, a plaque, and a brand new sled. It's a pretty awesome sled. It was made by the shop classes, and is large, wooden, and made to pull behind his snow machine.

Also, since this is my last year in Shishmaref, I received a little recognition. And something to commemorate my time. I'm sure you've all realized by now that I'm not the plaque kind of girl. In fact, when I was asked by a friend a while ago what I wanted, I told her and she laughed at me.

But that didn't stop them from getting it for me. Behold:

ISN'T SHE PRETTY!?

The circle says "Excellence in Teaching" and the bottom plaque says: 

SHISHMAREF NORTHERN LIGHTS

In Recognition of Your Excellence in Teaching

COLLEEN DEIGHTON

2004-2012

And it is awesome.

Oh, so true.

I was going to start this blog off with "Several years ago, when I was in high school," but had to stop and make sure that was accurate. For the last fifteen years, I've been referring to my high school years as "a couple years ago, when I was in high school." The phrase "a couple years ago," has become more and more inaccurate. But today, I automatically started with "several." Maybe I'm growing up. Huh.


Several years ago, I was talking to Mr. Evangelista, a biology teacher at my high school. (I was his T.A. at the time, and worked for him while he was teaching freshman science, and that creepy freshman boy would whisper my name, and then give me a finger wave when I looked. Ugh, gross.)


I was discussing my future employment goals with Mr, E, and he asked what I wanted to do. I suggested that I was well suited for a job that required long hours, low pay, and little respect. He asked if I was going into teaching. Nope, nursing, because I wanted to work nights and holidays too.


Well, I started getting my nursing pre-reqs done at college, and I worked at nursing homes in the summer. I got tired of my friends dying, of having no control over my residents, and the amount of math required for nursing was above me. So I went to education, and I haven't looked back. (And somehow, I still work nights and holidays.)


I recently came across this newspaper clipping for a trip to Antarctica. I think, with few changes, we could make this be applicable for my current job, which I am vacating at the end of this school year. For starters, it would have to be for Men or Women, and also, there is no honor and recognition in case of success.

You can find out more about Ernest Shackleton here:  www.south-pole.com/p0000097.htm

I'm not an addict, it's cool. I can stop anytime.

There's a problem with some satellite somewhere, so right now, our internet is pretty sketchy. Hopefully this will post today.

It is on days like this that I realize just how much the internet has played into my life. I realized that tomorrow is a work day for teachers at the school, and if I can't get online to use our electronic gradebook, I'll just work on y forums for my online class. . . Oh, wait. No, that won't work. Oh well, at least there's Facebook to . . . Oh, right. Not that either. Skype? Blog posts? Comics? Lesson planning? Nope, no, nada, hunt-uh.

Turns out that I use the internet a lot more than I thought I did. And when I realized that I might not be able to upload my paper, I realized I could have my buddy in the class tell the teacher. Until I realized that I'm only friends with this woman through the class, and on Facebook, and we've never met in real life, and I have no idea how to get ahold of her otherwise. I guess I could look up her phone number, but since she doesn't live in western Alaska, I'd have to use the internet to look her up anyway.

There's some irony for you.

Signs of the Times

When I was young, a woman from the church complemented my sisters' eyes. She said they were gorgeous blue eyes. Then she looked at me, and said, "Not you, Colleen, you have poopy brown eyes." And it hurt. I don't know why. She was a silly woman who wasn't thinking. When I got home, my mother reminded me that I had her eyes, and while I knew that was true, it didn't make me feel any better at the time.

Now I am older, and as I smiled at myself in the mirror tonight, my eyes crinkled in the exact same way my mom's always have. Mom, I wouldn't trade my eyes for all the blue eyes in the world. Thank you for giving them to me, I cherish them.

That's my mom with her first grand-daughter, Kendall. And the crinkles around her eyes make me feel loved, and connected. I didn't like them when they first started to show up, but I've grown up a bit since then, and I even sort of like them now.

The simple things in life

Hello devoted fans. We just finished our first week back from Christmas break. We started school on Wednesday, but had Saturday school, so we still got in 4 days. Not me, I took a sick day because I was sick. We're passing a cold around, and it's taken me this long to realize that the school will function without me for a day, and I can be off if I'm sick. I mostly rested, and called my mom. That's what one does when they're sick, right?

Also, I took a shower. Now, this may not seem like such a big accomplishment, but it really is. Especially now. As some of you may know, our water is stored in a giant tank at the other end of the village. Twice a year, a hose is run to the school/city, and our tanks there are filled up. When we need water at the house, we run a hose to our own tank, in a little side-room off the arctic entry:

This is one of the biggest tanks I've seen. It's 500 gallons, and will last us quite a while. You may remember the day someone else overflowed the tank, and I had to stand there with my hand over that hole in the side, to keep the water from all spilling out, while little kids ran around with buckets and pitchers to collect the overflow.

Normally, this water pump keeps the pressure in our house up. It just hangs out there behind the tank, kicking on whenever we need more water. But now it's broken. It had been dying since October, when they ordered us a new one, but it has finally given up the ghost, and we can't even use it a little. 

Also, that is a window on the left, which used to go from the bathroom to the outside world, but now goes from the bathroom to the storage shed, and actually has been blocked by the walls of a shower. This house was built in bits and pieces. I have a similar window in my bedroom, which looks out into a storage space. 

Since the pump died, we were trying to figure out how to scoop or syphon water out of the tank, so we could function. Denis Davis, a man in the village, was over getting some eggs, and he noticed that there was a spigot on the bottom of the tank. We were able to attach a short hose (10 feet) to the spigot, and can now pull water out whenever we need it. However, it is cold out in those sheds, and I don't want to have to put on shoes every time I need water. We were going to fill up our big pot, some of the larger bowls, and all the water pitchers in the house, when Denis pointed out that we had two coolers, and they hold water very well. So we filled those up instead.

The water coming out of this hose is pretty clean right now. The big tank has been sitting, undisturbed, for about a week, and all the particulates have fallen to the very bottom. From here, we can scoop out of these coolers and get water for our day to day needs.

The distiller heats water up in its internal tank, and the steam collects on the top, condenses, and drips clean water into containers, so we can pour it into our 5 gallon tank, and have clean water for drinking, and cooking with.

Here it is, being heated on the stove in our biggest pot. I'm so glad we have this giant pot. It's enough water for one quick wash-down, or a sinkload of dishes. 

And then I get to take a shower. Or, more appropriately, a sponge bath. Also, if anyone remembers what it was like to wash our hair on pioneer trek, they'll understand what I'm going through. Also, I don't know where those yellow lines came from, there wasn't anything wrong with the iPad I was using to take pictures, or the tub itself. Huh, weird.

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.