When I last posted (Feb. 10 or so) I had left off with the week of Social Studies Curriculum and Teacher In-Service that was directly following the road trip. The Social Studies Curriculum work went pretty well; it's getting to be a little easier now that I've actually figured out what I'm doing (course syllabus writing is harder than I thought). The Teacher In-Service was also a pretty positive experience; it was following up on the PEAK Learning Styles In-Service that we had earlier in the school year. On the Thursday night of the in-service the first ever Yukon-Koyukuk Dinner Theater was held; this turned out to be the highlight of the week. A few of the other teachers were looking for people to get in on a skit for the theater portion of the evening, and Pete (The Finnish Warrior) and I were eager to jump on board. Our parts in the skit were to be two of the back-up dancers for the "YKSD" (which is different lyrics set to the tune of the "YMCA"). We didn't do a whole lot of practicing, but I would dare to say that we still put on a spetacular performance (that's my modesty shining through). I'd like to leave out the part about us having to stop the first time through because we lost our place.........but I shouldn't be spreading around anything but the truth. Derek video taped us in action which means that I might post it sometime, but it was fairly ridiculous looking, so I think I'll make you wait a while to see the music video (actually the ridiculousness of it doesn't bother me, I just already have a video for this post). That week finished quickly and on Sunday (the 15th) I arrived back in Allakaket, ready for another solid week of educational excitment.
A major part of that week was the enormous amount of snow that was dumped on us. A lot of places in the interior have been getting a large amount of snow for the last few weeks or so. On Thursday night, I decided to bust out the old meter stick and go out to the measuring spot behind the school; this trip wasn't strictly pleasure, the internet had been slow all day and this was directly caused by the large amount of snow pasted on the receiving part of the dish. A big thanks to Nancy for shooting this video for me. It is followed up by a few pictures of the actual measurement. Give it a few seconds after you hit play, but if it doesn't work at all, please leave a comment and let me know.
I had a feeling that I was going to need two meter sticks for this measurement, and that feeling was correct; the first one sank right in without a problem. I had to dust the snow around it to see it in the picture.
It was hard to get an accurate measurement with the dual meter sticks, but including the snow that was pushed out from around it, the grand total was around 46-48 inches!!! We also received a little bit more while I was gone this weekend. My pinkie marks where the snow should be.
The snow-filled week moved swiftly like always (with a few speed bumps of course) and this past Friday (the 20th) was slappin' me in the face in no time. Friday was exciting because I left for Anchorage to go to the ASTE Educational Technology Conference. Before this last weekend (20th-22nd) I had never gotten to spend anytime in Anchorage, lucky for me, I finally got my first crack at it. My judgment of the city holds it in high regards as far as good-sized cities go. We stayed downtown at the rather nice, Captain Cook Hotel, which is also where the conference was held. Here is the view from our room, the scenery is one thing that Anchorage definitely has going for it.
We rolled into Anchortown on Friday at about 8:00 and went out to eat at a tasty eating establishment called The Brewhouse. The conference was really good and I picked up a lot of useful information about what other educators are doing with techology in the classroom. There were also a variety of vendors at the conference that were working the floors and peddling their educational wares. I'm somewhat of a talker, so I engaged a number of these salesmen and saleswomen (have to be fair to the ladies) in some good old fashioned, BS conversation. The only reason I would consider it BS is because as a teacher, I have absolutely no purchasing power. Most of them were polite throughout the convo, but I could tell some lost interest when the dollar signs were seemingly swiped away by the revelation of my job title.I also got to meet a number of cool people in the educational business in Anchorage. It was nice to get to a chance to talk with other educators to see what was working for them, and maybe even share a few tales of adventure in the classroom. Another good part of the weekend was that I got a little taste of the Anchorage night life; we went out a few nights and I'd have to say that it was nice to go out and relax, which is something I don't get much of a chance to do these days. We left Anchorage last night (Tuesday the 24th) at 8:30 and I checked into the Extended Stay in Fairbanks around ten oclock (at that point I was rather exhausted). I had a few things to do before I could go to bed so I conjoured up as much energy as possible and threw my laundry in the washer before I sprinted over to Fred Meyer (grocery store). By the time I got everything taken care of, it was 1:00 am and I was ready to catch some shut eye since I had to get on the morning bush flight at 8:00 am (7:00 am check-in). The flight was delayed by weather issues for about three hours, but I finally made it back to home base (olli olli oxen free) around 11:30 this morning and was happy to be with my students for the afternoon. Unfortuneatly, I leave again tomorrow morning (Thursday the 25th) at 9:15 for a basketball tournament in Tanana. I know my boys will have a great time, but the travel schedule is starting to wear on me a little......ahh who am I kidding??? I'm just a little bit tired and it's really not a big deal. I just don't like not being with my students for extended periods of time, they never work as well when I'm gone as they do when I'm here. This is expeceted since I'm rather vigilant about them staying on task, but I just don't like to hear bad reports when I come back from traveling.
So that brings you up to date with what's going on...a special thanks to anyone who is still reading at this point!! I forgot to mention a couple of quick stories from the past few weeks. I'll try to keep them brief (sometimes I'm not ever sure why I say I'm going to try and be short-winded). The first one happened on the field trip of one of the ASTE sessions. We were learning how to input information from our GPS units to Google Earth; it was a great learning session and the best part was the afternoon trip to the mild wilderness for some GeoCaching. GeoCaching is where you go out and look for some sort of container that someone has placed at a specific location. You type the location into your GPS and you're on your way. So there were about ten of us out and I was walking next to this lady that was in the group. She was extremely nice and friendly and she told me that she is prone to passing out. At first I thought she was joking, but she assured me that sometimes she just has trouble getting enough oxygen and just blacks out for a short period of time. A little farther down the trail she told me she was feeling light headed and wanted to move a little quicker to get the blood flowing again. About ten steps later she put her hand on my shoulder and crumpled into me! I caught her and waited for a few other people to help me lay her down. She was up in a few minutes and back to hiking in no time, the whole incident was no big deal, but I've noticed that these kinds of happenings occur around me quite a bit.....coincidence....I don't think so.
The second story happened two weeks ago at one of my tutoring sessions for my Junior High group. It goes along with this sticky note that was secretly placed on my laptop by one of my Junior High girls (they have a great sense of humor).
It reads (in sloppy 7th grade cursive paired with a total lack of grammar and conventions),"your fired im sorry it is not working out go home to your real town." HAHAHAHAHAHAHA I couldn't stop laughting about it after I first read it. Those kind of moments always remind me of the great little things that happen in my career. Well I should probably get off here and start packing for the basketball trip. Make sure to check out all the new photos at the bottom of the page. I hope everyone is happy and healthy and remembering to enjoy all those things in life that sometimes slip by unnonticed.
Peace and Love,
Nicholas
4 comments:
You should've seen the view from our room: Cook Inlet and Mt. Susitna (aka "The Sleeping Lady") at sunset were amazing!
Nice little "pink slip" Nick!
Hey turd, you're doing a bush league job of imitating Bill Shakespeare with the big words and what not. I had to look up the meaning of your title word. Ha ha ha!
What's up with the title? You think smart people read your blog or something? HA!
Anyway...good post...seriously.
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