I hope everyone had a spectacular Thanksgiving! Mine went well; I had Thanksgiving supper with my principal Nancy and I ate myself silly like I always do. We had all of the Thanksgiving regulars and it was a pretty good holiday.
The best part of it was that I got to go to my first dogsled races. On Thanksgiving Day was the men's race and the women's race was today. Each one of them was an awesome experience and I even got to be timekeeper for the mens and race marshal for the womens. Race marshal just means that I had to tell them when to start and yell "over" when the first dog's nose touched the finish line. I have to say that it was a really cool experience and some of the men even said that they would probably let me run some dogs for the rookie race at Christmas. I'm going to keep my fingers crossed until then.
My holiday weekend is being spent doing a little bit of work and a lot of relaxing. I went and played Bingo at the Town Hall on Wednesday night and had a lot of luck. I Bingoed five times in a row and a sixth time on the final round. Everyone was telling me to go home, but I think it was just a good natured ribbing.
There are some pictures below of the dog races, I would have liked to have taken more, but it was really cold out.
Peace and Love
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
Gobble Gobble
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! WOOOOOHOOOOOO! What a great holiday; a celebration that involves being thankful (something everyone should be), eating, and watching football. I'm somewhat saddened that this will be my first Turkey Day not spent with my family, but that is just how things play out. I'm actually going to get the chance to eat three...yes three...Thanksgiving Meals this week. One at the school tomorrow, one at the town hall on Wednesday, and then my own on Thursday....I'm going to have to sleep all day on Friday : ). Tomorrow I am getting up at 6:00 am to put one of the turkeys in for the school's Thanksgiving feast. I'm making my own garlic butter and slathering it inside the skin before I cook it. I've never tried this before, but I think it will turn out to be savory and delightful.
Last week was a good week. School went well and then I left for town on Thursday afternoon (when someone up here says town, they mean Fairbanks). I arrived on Thursday around 4:00 and was picked up by my friend Derek form Nulato. Right when I got to town I felt uncomfortable; I'm already adjusting to and liking being out in the middle of nowhere. I didn't like being around so many people as well as the noise, traffic, and general hurry that I felt everyone was in. After a while I was fine with it, but it really made me feel like I've made a great career choice for myself. We stopped at the gas station right away so I could buy my favorite energy drink and some jalapeno Cheetos. After the gas station run and dropping my stuff off at the hotel, we went to pick up Pete from the airport. After this stop we went directly to Taco Bell where we all three ate waaaaaay too much. Pete ate the most, he's about 260 and a lot taller than I am (doesn't take much HA). He cleaned up on a crazy amount of food in no time, he generally spends around $25 at Taco Bell. Then the shopping started; when we go to town we usually spend most of the time going grocery shopping. The tricky part is that we not only have to grocery shop, but then we package our food in Rubbermaid totes and mail it to ourselves. There are other ways to get it out, but this is the cheapest and also rather reliable. I also bought some other awesome stuff, like my Bunny Boots. They are military issue snow boots that are the cat's pajamas according to everyone up here (don't you just love the saying "cat's pajamas?") They are huge and white and pictured below.
This weekend is going to be awesome! There is a dog mushing race in Allakaket on Saturday, and I will definitely take a lot of pictures and get them on here ASAP. I'm looking forward to the long weekend even though I plan on doing quite a bit of work. I'm going to start cleaning out a storage shed at our school site; it's nothing short of a disaster and I will take some before and after photos to prove it.
I hope everyone has a spectacular Thanksgiving Holiday and remember to be honestly thankful for the great things that you have in your life....especially the things that you probably overlook on a daily basis. To you readers out there, shoot me a comment and let me know how everything is going in your lives or don't be afraid to fire off a question if you have one.
I almost forgot to mention how cold it was last week. One night we hit -46 degrees. It was awesome! On Thursday when I left it was -36 and there was actually a layer of ice fog around town (that is where I guess the air is so cold that it's simply frozen).
Peace & Love
Last week was a good week. School went well and then I left for town on Thursday afternoon (when someone up here says town, they mean Fairbanks). I arrived on Thursday around 4:00 and was picked up by my friend Derek form Nulato. Right when I got to town I felt uncomfortable; I'm already adjusting to and liking being out in the middle of nowhere. I didn't like being around so many people as well as the noise, traffic, and general hurry that I felt everyone was in. After a while I was fine with it, but it really made me feel like I've made a great career choice for myself. We stopped at the gas station right away so I could buy my favorite energy drink and some jalapeno Cheetos. After the gas station run and dropping my stuff off at the hotel, we went to pick up Pete from the airport. After this stop we went directly to Taco Bell where we all three ate waaaaaay too much. Pete ate the most, he's about 260 and a lot taller than I am (doesn't take much HA). He cleaned up on a crazy amount of food in no time, he generally spends around $25 at Taco Bell. Then the shopping started; when we go to town we usually spend most of the time going grocery shopping. The tricky part is that we not only have to grocery shop, but then we package our food in Rubbermaid totes and mail it to ourselves. There are other ways to get it out, but this is the cheapest and also rather reliable. I also bought some other awesome stuff, like my Bunny Boots. They are military issue snow boots that are the cat's pajamas according to everyone up here (don't you just love the saying "cat's pajamas?") They are huge and white and pictured below.
This weekend is going to be awesome! There is a dog mushing race in Allakaket on Saturday, and I will definitely take a lot of pictures and get them on here ASAP. I'm looking forward to the long weekend even though I plan on doing quite a bit of work. I'm going to start cleaning out a storage shed at our school site; it's nothing short of a disaster and I will take some before and after photos to prove it.
I hope everyone has a spectacular Thanksgiving Holiday and remember to be honestly thankful for the great things that you have in your life....especially the things that you probably overlook on a daily basis. To you readers out there, shoot me a comment and let me know how everything is going in your lives or don't be afraid to fire off a question if you have one.
I almost forgot to mention how cold it was last week. One night we hit -46 degrees. It was awesome! On Thursday when I left it was -36 and there was actually a layer of ice fog around town (that is where I guess the air is so cold that it's simply frozen).
Peace & Love
Monday, November 17, 2008
Exhausted but ecstatic...
Oh what a tiring weekend. In case you didn't read the last post, I went to a Junior High Basketball Tournament in Huslia this weekend. It was a lot of fun, but I'm definitely worn out. Being in charge of seven adolescents all weekend is in some ways a daunting task. Despite being a little drained right now, I'm still glowing a little bit because we won our last game of the season. We hadn't won a game yet and to be honest it didn't look like we were going to. We played Kaltag in the very first game of the tournament and they beat us by three, luckily we ended up playing them for the 5th and 6th place game at the end of the tournament. My players finally started working together as a team and they couldn't have made me happier. I can't describe how happy I felt when I saw them all smiling because of their accomplishment. Our goal was to improve enough over the season and win one game, and we conquered our goal.
The funniest (and most disgusting) part of the weekend came at about 1:00 in the morning last night. Along with my two boys, I was chaperoning for two boys from the Nulato team. For some reason, they started having a dirty sock fight which involved smelly, filthy socks flying mainly at me. It was nothing short of gross, but all I could do was defend myself and wop some middle schoolers with their own foul smelling footwear. I couldn't help but notice that the whole room ended up smelling like a foot for the rest of the night (ewwwwwwwwwww).
Our plane left Huslia today (Sunday) at about 1:00 pm. I was very excited to be coming home and even more excited when I found out that OUR WATER WAS BACK ON!!!!!! Before I go on with this I'm going to backtrack to Wednesday night. Our water was obviously still out and it had been 6 days since I had taken a shower. I couldn't stand it anymore and there was basically no chance that our water was going to be back on anytime soon, so I decided to try out what I soon realized is the greatest invention of all time............the camp shower (see picture below). I never in my life imagined that a cold shower from a plastic bag could be so exhilerating, but believe me it was nothing short of euphoric. I took one more camp shower on Friday morning before I left for Huslia, and it was just as good the second time. Okay, back to today. Our water was back on when I got home. As soon as I got in the door I went into the bathroom and turned the faucet on and then something amazing happened.....WATER CAME OUT!!!! It was a really good feeling, I actually just started laughing a little bit because I had simply become used to not having it.
This week is going to be a short and delightful week for me. I'm leaving on Thursday afternoon and going to Fairbanks to spend the weekend in town. Pete from Ruby and Derek from Nulato are meeting me and we're all going to get our fast food fix for the next couple months. We are also going in for one of the best holidays of the year.....the Ohio State/Michigan game WOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOO O H I O!!!! Derek and I are big Ohio State fans and Pete is from Michigan, so the game is going to be fun. We wanted to go to a sports bar for the festivities but quickly realized that the game is on at 8:00 am our time. Not a problem, we just decided to have McDonalds breakfast and watch the game. I'm going to try not to overdo it with the fastfood while I'm in town because it's been great to not even has it as an option. I'll try to post again this week and I will get out and take some more pictures before then.
Hope everyone is doing well. Peace & Love
The funniest (and most disgusting) part of the weekend came at about 1:00 in the morning last night. Along with my two boys, I was chaperoning for two boys from the Nulato team. For some reason, they started having a dirty sock fight which involved smelly, filthy socks flying mainly at me. It was nothing short of gross, but all I could do was defend myself and wop some middle schoolers with their own foul smelling footwear. I couldn't help but notice that the whole room ended up smelling like a foot for the rest of the night (ewwwwwwwwwww).
Our plane left Huslia today (Sunday) at about 1:00 pm. I was very excited to be coming home and even more excited when I found out that OUR WATER WAS BACK ON!!!!!! Before I go on with this I'm going to backtrack to Wednesday night. Our water was obviously still out and it had been 6 days since I had taken a shower. I couldn't stand it anymore and there was basically no chance that our water was going to be back on anytime soon, so I decided to try out what I soon realized is the greatest invention of all time............the camp shower (see picture below). I never in my life imagined that a cold shower from a plastic bag could be so exhilerating, but believe me it was nothing short of euphoric. I took one more camp shower on Friday morning before I left for Huslia, and it was just as good the second time. Okay, back to today. Our water was back on when I got home. As soon as I got in the door I went into the bathroom and turned the faucet on and then something amazing happened.....WATER CAME OUT!!!! It was a really good feeling, I actually just started laughing a little bit because I had simply become used to not having it.
This week is going to be a short and delightful week for me. I'm leaving on Thursday afternoon and going to Fairbanks to spend the weekend in town. Pete from Ruby and Derek from Nulato are meeting me and we're all going to get our fast food fix for the next couple months. We are also going in for one of the best holidays of the year.....the Ohio State/Michigan game WOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOO O H I O!!!! Derek and I are big Ohio State fans and Pete is from Michigan, so the game is going to be fun. We wanted to go to a sports bar for the festivities but quickly realized that the game is on at 8:00 am our time. Not a problem, we just decided to have McDonalds breakfast and watch the game. I'm going to try not to overdo it with the fastfood while I'm in town because it's been great to not even has it as an option. I'll try to post again this week and I will get out and take some more pictures before then.
Hope everyone is doing well. Peace & Love
Monday, November 10, 2008
Oh the things we take for granted...
Well hello to all! Another week has gone by and it's been another week of.....shall I say.....semi-craziness. The school week went off without a hitch, we're slowly moving through our curriculum in most of our classes and inevitably falling behind in a few.
Marylin, our SPED teacher that has my high school students for the first two hours of the morning, was gone until Thursday. This meant that I took the highschoolers for the whole day.....and they couldn't have been more excited about it (big exaggeration). Don't get me wrong, me and my students coexist nicely, but I don't think they can handle my energy right away in the morning. For those of you that don't know me but read this, I'm a rather energetic person and I usually go full speed all day long. It was sort of funny to see the annoying looks that I received when I would cheerfully spout out things like, "Top of the morning to ya!" or "Good morning merry sunshine!" at 8:30 in the morning. The best part was stealing a line from the great John Wayne and telling the sluggish ones that they were "Burnin' daylight."
The crazy part of the week started happening on Thursday when we realized that we were running out of water. Seems like the permafrost is catching up to our well a little quicker than we anticipated, so we've been without water since Friday. It's been a pretty enlightening experience for me, I've gotten do to a lot of firsts. I made my first trip to the village well hose to fill up my water supply for my housing and it's also been the first time I've had to manually fill my toilet tank in order to flush. I also did my dishes a little bit ago without running water (which is what inspired the title of this post). Let me tell ya, it's a lot harder when you're using a little spigot and heating up your water on the stove. Let me back track a little; when I woke up on Saturday, I went over to the pumphouse to try the well pump to see if we were going to get lucky on the water situation. I wandered to the breaker box and flipped ths switch and began waiting with anticipation. As I was waiting, I decided to turn the booster pumps (what provides water pressure) back on to ensure that they would be fine if water did in fact flow into the tanks. One of them came on and then the other fired up quickly and went "!!!BOOM!!!!" right underneath me. It didn't break, but let me tell you, that is the closest I've been in my rather short lifetime to having a massive heart attack. It was similar to a 40. caliber pistol going off, and I honestly thought for a split second that that was it for me. Anyway, after that happened and no water came from the well, I went home and got rather angry and frustrated. I had no running water, I just had the **** scared out of me, and I had a filthy house and a boat-load of dishes. Then I thought about it and reminded myself of something that everyone should remember in their lives. That is, you can only get upset about the things that you can truly control. I then reassessed the situation and decided the only thing I could control was my nasty apartment, so I did the right thing and cleaned it up and have been happy and in good spirits ever since. If anyone takes anything from reading my blog, try to remember that you really should only get upset about the things in life that you can truly control. Well, that's enough of me telling people what to do. I'll throw down another post sometime this week to update the water situation.
Check out the pictures below (as always) in order to see my new style of plumbing and I've got some that give you an idea about the sunlight levels we're getting.
Peace and Love
Marylin, our SPED teacher that has my high school students for the first two hours of the morning, was gone until Thursday. This meant that I took the highschoolers for the whole day.....and they couldn't have been more excited about it (big exaggeration). Don't get me wrong, me and my students coexist nicely, but I don't think they can handle my energy right away in the morning. For those of you that don't know me but read this, I'm a rather energetic person and I usually go full speed all day long. It was sort of funny to see the annoying looks that I received when I would cheerfully spout out things like, "Top of the morning to ya!" or "Good morning merry sunshine!" at 8:30 in the morning. The best part was stealing a line from the great John Wayne and telling the sluggish ones that they were "Burnin' daylight."
The crazy part of the week started happening on Thursday when we realized that we were running out of water. Seems like the permafrost is catching up to our well a little quicker than we anticipated, so we've been without water since Friday. It's been a pretty enlightening experience for me, I've gotten do to a lot of firsts. I made my first trip to the village well hose to fill up my water supply for my housing and it's also been the first time I've had to manually fill my toilet tank in order to flush. I also did my dishes a little bit ago without running water (which is what inspired the title of this post). Let me tell ya, it's a lot harder when you're using a little spigot and heating up your water on the stove. Let me back track a little; when I woke up on Saturday, I went over to the pumphouse to try the well pump to see if we were going to get lucky on the water situation. I wandered to the breaker box and flipped ths switch and began waiting with anticipation. As I was waiting, I decided to turn the booster pumps (what provides water pressure) back on to ensure that they would be fine if water did in fact flow into the tanks. One of them came on and then the other fired up quickly and went "!!!BOOM!!!!" right underneath me. It didn't break, but let me tell you, that is the closest I've been in my rather short lifetime to having a massive heart attack. It was similar to a 40. caliber pistol going off, and I honestly thought for a split second that that was it for me. Anyway, after that happened and no water came from the well, I went home and got rather angry and frustrated. I had no running water, I just had the **** scared out of me, and I had a filthy house and a boat-load of dishes. Then I thought about it and reminded myself of something that everyone should remember in their lives. That is, you can only get upset about the things that you can truly control. I then reassessed the situation and decided the only thing I could control was my nasty apartment, so I did the right thing and cleaned it up and have been happy and in good spirits ever since. If anyone takes anything from reading my blog, try to remember that you really should only get upset about the things in life that you can truly control. Well, that's enough of me telling people what to do. I'll throw down another post sometime this week to update the water situation.
Check out the pictures below (as always) in order to see my new style of plumbing and I've got some that give you an idea about the sunlight levels we're getting.
Peace and Love
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Halloween was a lot more fun when I was a kid...
Well, here I am moving right along through the second quarter of my first school year as a teacher. I still can't believe how fast it's going and the other teachers tell me that between now and Christmas Break will go the fastest.
My days have been continuing to be busy and the schedule doesn't look like it's going to open up anytime soon. Junior High Basketball has their last tournament on the 14th and 15th, but High School Basketball conditioning practice starts next week already. I'm looking forward to the conditioning, as it will be good for me as well as my players. I've been trying to keep exercising throughout my time up here and have been doing a pretty good job.
Last week was an incredibly fast week. Monday and Tuesday consisted of early let-outs for conferences and Thursday was Halloween Carnival Set-up and Friday was the Halloween Carnival. The carnival ended up going really really well, but it was a lot of work to pull-off. The high-schoolers and I did a great job with decorating the gym (see photos below). By the end of decorating we were all impressed with what we could do when we all (by all I mean some) pitched in. There were a lot of good costumes, including mine, and everyone had a blast. I had a lot of trick-or-treaters on Frday night and not one egg thrown at my house (I think this had more to do with eggs being a hot commodity in the village rather than the students liking me enough not to throw eggs at my house).
This week has been good so far, my state teaching mentor was out on his first visit today and that went great. He is going to be a real help to me throughout this first year and into next year.
Well, I'm off too bed, lots of things to do in the morning before school starts.
Hope all is well with everyone that reads my blog.
Peace & Love
My days have been continuing to be busy and the schedule doesn't look like it's going to open up anytime soon. Junior High Basketball has their last tournament on the 14th and 15th, but High School Basketball conditioning practice starts next week already. I'm looking forward to the conditioning, as it will be good for me as well as my players. I've been trying to keep exercising throughout my time up here and have been doing a pretty good job.
Last week was an incredibly fast week. Monday and Tuesday consisted of early let-outs for conferences and Thursday was Halloween Carnival Set-up and Friday was the Halloween Carnival. The carnival ended up going really really well, but it was a lot of work to pull-off. The high-schoolers and I did a great job with decorating the gym (see photos below). By the end of decorating we were all impressed with what we could do when we all (by all I mean some) pitched in. There were a lot of good costumes, including mine, and everyone had a blast. I had a lot of trick-or-treaters on Frday night and not one egg thrown at my house (I think this had more to do with eggs being a hot commodity in the village rather than the students liking me enough not to throw eggs at my house).
This week has been good so far, my state teaching mentor was out on his first visit today and that went great. He is going to be a real help to me throughout this first year and into next year.
Well, I'm off too bed, lots of things to do in the morning before school starts.
Hope all is well with everyone that reads my blog.
Peace & Love
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