It was back to Bethel today for more inservice meetings-that is a total of five in the past two weeks. We will be working in the school tomorrow, and holding various meetings among ourselves in order to prepare for the students that will descend upon us on Monday. The sessions today included suggestions for lesson plan outlines, one on blogging in the classroom (I have been designated as the site expert based on this paltry effort), and some more of the mysterious and sinister SIOP training.
We finished the afternoon, and the two-day session, with a nice talk from Alaska's Commissioner of Education, who tried to inspire us all. Oh, and by the way, the Governor (no, not that one-she quit, remember??) came by to visit after lunch. We didn't get the Secretary of Education after all, as the Secret Service apparently decided that 400+ teachers in one spot was too much of a security risk. (Maybe I'm being a little bit snarky here...)
The real fun came when we tried to catch the boat for Napaskiak. Several of us came upriver in the morning with Father Victor (see yesterday's post). We were going to come back down at 5:oo with him, but the connection failed somehow. My cell phone battery decided to fail at about the same time (for you English majors, and my masters at the EED-see the personification??). Fortunately, there were LKSD (my school district) types crawling all over the waterfront, which consists of a gravel road, and a muddy river bank. We were able to catch another ride from there with one of them, and set about formulating Plan B.
Remember the title of this little blog. It's either water, ice, or air. There isn't a 4th alternative. There isn't a bridge. There isn't a tunnel. We would be stranded without Plan B, and my puppy dog would have to go to bed hungry. As it turns out, there were additional seats on the Yute Air plane to Napaskiak. Two seats. But things weren't that simple. Some folks decided to bring their antique anvil collections with them. Therefore, we needed two planes to get everyone back, because otherwise the single plane would have been about 500 pounds too heavy.
For those of you who are white knuckle fliers, I heartily recommend the flight from Bethel to Napaskiak. It takes about five minutes, and doesn't get much more than 300 or so feet off of the ground. It is, however, a little bumpy when the wind is kicking up, as it was today.
All went well, and all of us got back, as did the pizzas that the District Office sent home as dinner for all of the sites. Yummy, and we start earnest preparation tomorrow. Meanwhile, it's chilly and blustery tonight. Time to close the windows and turn up the heat.
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