Back In The Wolverine State...

It was a secret for about three weeks, but the cat is officially out of the bag, so I can share at last.

Last Saturday, after much anticipation on our part, we left Napaskiak on the way to Bethel. Eric and Sara Jung were nice enough to give us a lift in their new pickup truck. Definitely a much more comfortable way to travel than snowmachine. The outside temperature at noon was -20, so we were very grateful to be inside of a heated vehicle. The river was well-frozen after several days of renewed sub-zero temperatures. In fact, the previous melt and rain had combined with the subsequent cold to produce a very smooth ice surface (in relative terms). Our ride was uneventful, and we quickly found ourselves going through the process of checking dogs in at the Alaska Airlines counter at the airport. Off to Anchorage for a six-hour layover. We hung out at the airport version of Humpy's, a popular Anchorage restaurant, with a couple of teachers that were also headed back east for the holiday break. Afterward, we picked up the dogs from baggage check and found a quiet corner of the airport to sit with them until it was time to check them back in for the flight to Chicago.

We had the aid of a friendly tailwind, and the flight took only about 5 1/2 hours. As the sun rose over Chicago on Christmas morning, we descended for our landing at O'Hare airport. My wife and I have become pretty practiced at our routine on landing. She gets the bag and the dogs. I take the little dog and pick up the rental car. I then meet her at the curb outside the terminal, quickly lift the dog kennels into the back of the vehicle, and we are off. It went like clockwork-there were very few folks flying on the holiday-and we were off shortly to my sister's house in Arlington Heights, where we spent two very pleasant days.

On the Tuesday after Christmas, we headed north to Michigan, where we spent the next several days surprising friends and family. It was a joyful reunion with our Michigan home. We are fortunate to have my wife's parents staying here at the house for the holidays, and we got a visit from our friend Adam Bode, who came all the way from Ohio to spend a few hours yakking about things in Napaskiak and his home.

We are hosting family and friends for New Year's Eve, and plan to go downstate and visit my parents tomorrow. Those plans might be complicated somewhat by a winter storm that is being predicted for New Year's day, but we will roll with whatever the situation brings.

We return to Alaska on January 14. In the meantime, we will bask in the warmth of our family and friends and recharge ourselves for the semester to come...

Vacation May Officially Commence...

My lesson plans for my return have been prepared and mailed off. I am now set for a departure from school and related activities for the next three plus weeks. Fantastic.

It is cold here, but I took a walk to the post office at the behest of my life partner and boss (according to her students). At least it is relatively still. However, the forecast suggests that the wind is about to pick up over the next several hours, as there is a windchill advisory for values in the -25 to -45 range. Brrr...We actually get pretty used to it, but it does warrant care when traveling out of doors.

Speaking of travel, we got to be decadent and stay out late on a school night last night. The fact that it wasn't really a school night did not really detract from the wonderfulness of being out socializing with adults on a Thursday. We did not get to bed until midnight, and we did not get up until after 8 am this morning. How much fun is that?

We took a ride up to Bethel in our neighbors' very nice new truck. Much warmer than the sno-go route. I can see why people make the choice despite some limitation in utility. It was very comfy indeed. Tonight I believe that we will be having a little dessert with them. My wife has concocted some pear ice cream, if you can imagine such a thing. My in-laws were kind enough to buy us an ice cream maker, and it comes in pretty handy for this sort of thing.

Enough for now. I am going to copy lesson plans and place them on my desk. Then I am going to go home and goof around for the next three weeks...

Done! (for now...)

The kiddies left at lunch time, and the boss and family left a little while ago for points east. Now it is mostly a few stragglers in the building, and I think that there may be some more basketball practices coming up yet to come. I have got much of my gradebook up to date, and I will work on it more tomorrow. I also want to get lesson planning done for January before the end of the week, because I don't want to think about it for the next three weeks.

Confirmation-the junior high kids have started showing up for practice.

Anyway, the holidays are upon us for certain, and that means long-due rest and relaxation. Time for a deep breath and some long naps. More to follow....

This Afternoon...

This is the end of the effort for the semester-mostly catch-up from the motivated souls...their self-control and my patience are running out at about the same time...

The Last Monday of 2011...

For us at the school, that is...Wednesday we are done, and that will be that. A few days to catch up on grading and prepare lesson plans for our return, and then we can engage in some deep relaxation. We have a staff party tonight and the Christmas pageant tomorrow, which is always cute and fun. I think that I safely speak for everyone when I say that we are all ready for a break. It will be nice...

Thursday...

Another week nearing completion. The kids are getting flakier by the day, which does not surprise me under the circumstances. Christmas is nigh, and Christmas break is nigh-er. Nothing like a good post-class wrestling match with four kids to put ya in a good frame of mind. Of course, it was all in fun. I don't want there to be any worried minds out there. Ah, the good life....

A Little Haggard...

Lesson plans for a one-hour sub for my liveliest class...how to keep them all busy without burning the place down...a balancing act for me when I am there...how to design the perfect alternative when I am gone...sometimes it is much more stressful to be gone than to be there...

Quiet Times in The Multi-Purpose Room...

Prep time is as good a time to write as any, and better than most. I have just graded the quiz that my kiddies took for reading yesterday, and I am making a good effort to get current on grades and stay that way through the end of the semester, which comes in eight days. There are still kids that need to get make-up stuff done, and I am pondering the best way to do that in the next few days. I suspect that I can come up with some sort of extra credit assignment for the students that have kept up with their work.

Part of the reason for my solicitude is that we switched from a much different curriculum system at the beginning of the year. The old way allowed students to progress at their own pace, which may have been better suited to ESL students in some ways. We are now on a traditional system of pacing and grading, although "Ds" have been eliminated. A student with a 69% now has an "F." The kids here have always been on the old system, and some of them clearly have not adjusted to the new way of doing things. For now, I will try to cushion that shock a little bit. My concern is that the new way simply makes it too easy to fail. They may ultimately need to get toughened up to the new way of doing business, but they may also need a bit of a hand up in the process...

800...

This is the eight hundredth post on this space since it came into existence in July of 2009. The frequency has been diminished of late, but I find myself drawn back to type in these little boxes from time to time, even if the time for typing is kind of restricted these days. It is nice to have an outlet for my musings, and I can occasionally show it to students to show that they can keep a journal of their thoughts.

I would not pretend to think that this is the home of thoughts profound and portentous, and I never intended it as that. It does stand for me as a record of sorts of this directional shift that I have undergone in my life, and some of the struggles associated with that shift. I have purposely done some censoring of entries since those from my first year out here-I am now aware that more people read this thing, or have in the past, than I ever thought would happen when I started it as a sort of record for family and friends as I prepared to come to Alaska.

Things have gotten better since then, with time, experience, and perhaps some wisdom. But it is still a struggle-the stresses are significant, and they continue even up to these last days of the semester. So much is behind, but there is still so much to do, and that often weighs heavily on my mind, usually at 3 am. For some reason, I have the affliction of insomnia, as does my wife. The fortunate part is that we often get the chance to have conversations about the challenges that we face in the middle of the night, rather than tossing and turning alone. The bad part is the lost opportunities for a decent night's sleep. I strongly suspect that we will be sleeping long and hard come December 21, our last day of the semester. We will have a couple of days to catch up after it is all over, but I am reasonably certain that it will not involve an alarm clock...

Monday's Over...

Yes, it is...and there are only two left now before the end of the 2011 semester. I would consider a retrospective, but I am not sure that it is time yet. This group is a pretty nice bunch of kids, even when they are very silly. And they can be very silly indeed. Of course, they are junior high kids, and I have seen it suggested that they are all that way to some extent or another.

I am sitting in my classroom with my bride as she takes one of her classes toward her master's degree. It is a long process, but I trust that it will ultimately be worth it. This class runs until 8 pm, so it makes Monday a long day for her. I am usually disposed to hang out with her and keep her company, so we do not usually get home to have dinner until then. I should probably get going, though, because I remember that I have some dishes to catch up on, and the dogs could stand feeding.

Just another romantic, exciting day in the life of a Bush teacher...wrestle a bear, shoot a moose, and set up 19 student computers for tomorrow's bubble test. Yep, it surely is a life of adventure...

Short Timer...

The penultimate full week of classes in 2011 begins today. My kids seem a little buggy. We will see how they fare as the morning progresses...many interesting days ahead for the holidays...more as it transpires...

Saturday at The School...

We had breakfast with our very nice neighbor (her husband is stuck in Dillingham coaching wrestling), and eventually floated over here where I spent some time in an executive board meeting for the local teacher's union. I entertained myself afterwards with some extensive grading and grade entering, followed by preliminary lesson planning, accompanied by the first Big Ten Championship game on the radio. Unfortunately, the Michigan State Spartans (not my alma mater) was not successful in its effort. Now it is ten pm and I am watching my wife shop online for Xmas gifts. Kind of a lost day, but not bad overall. At least I am nearly caught up on grading. That stuff is a bear.

Tomorrow will be another (at least partial) working day-I need to get some stuff finished, and there is still some grading left to do. Of course, there is always stuff left to do, at least up to the end of the semester. Coming soon....

A Lazy Schmoo...

I just don't keep up on this as I should...no excuses any more. The holidays approach, and good times and rest. I have said enough on the subject of exhaustion, and don't want to read it any more. Suffice to say, being out here involves a lot of work, and even the simple stuff gets complicated quickly. It is expensive, and difficult, even when it comes to something as seemingly simple as buying a carton of milk.

It will get a lot more complicated if the Post Office "reforms" go through, and the mail system out here becomes more expensive. It is currently a life line of sorts for rural Alaska. You can probably find a lot of people (especially in the cities) who think that this is an unsupportable lifestyle that has been too long subsidized by the federal government and oil money and that it just has to end. They will write long and hard in the comments section of the Anchorage Daily News to that effect with some frequency.

They may have a point. I don't feel qualified to comment. Times are tough everywhere, and it is hard to argue that there should be some sort of accommodation here not available to others elsewhere. I suspect that life is going to continue to get harder for most people in this country for the foreseeable future, and that little in the political arena is likely to change that. Our system is pretty clearly in thrall to the interests of those with enough financial power to manipulate it.

It is, however, nice in some ways to be out beyond the direct grasp of the advertiser and the huckster, the baying hounds of the "news' media, and the general Great American Bullshit Machine that runs the conversation back in the world. We are not so very far, in many ways, but it is easy out here to step off from that platform. I am not sure that I like all of the things about civilization, as comfortable as they are.

There is a real push and pull that is hard to know how to resolve. Fortunately for me, there is no hurry...

Three Weeks...

That's all, folks...the semester is nearly done, and not soon enough, perhaps. There is much exhaustion in the eyes and bearing of my co-workers. Demands are higher this year than before, and yet another curriculum mandate is being implemented. In all reality, there is probably more than one, as there is some confusion about how to resolve conflicts in different educational mandates. Many of us find that very little time is available for private life outside of school, and the rush to catch up and complete work by our students will likely obliterate that entirely. We all need the break...

Back Again...

We are sitting here with sleepy eyes in the Yute Air terminal in Bethel, waiting for the plane that will carry us back to home, family, and work. The tough thing about these gigs is sleeping two nights in a row on a classroom floor and then getting up early, flying back, and going straight to work for the rest of the day. What I would like is a nap at some time, and probably sooner than it is scheduled today.

On the other hand, there are certainly tougher jobs, and I was tired enough last night that I slept pretty well on the air mattress. I always see lots of people from around the district at these affairs, and this time was no different. In fact, another group from another school just walked in and up to the counter. It is fun, even when it is tiring.

Since the last paragraph, I have gone to the plane, taken the five-mile flight home, walked to the school in the -10 degree temperatures, and am in my classroom listening to the kids tell me how much more they learned from the sub than from me. Who knows, they might be right. The sub did mention how wild they are in the afternoon after math class. Same thing I have been noticing all year. Hmm...

Boppin' "Round Bethel...

I have been doing a little chauffeuring around for some of the speech kids that have specific appointments that need to be attended to while they are in town. It strikes me that this is a better reflection of my talents in some ways. It is a little easier to see results, anyway. The other thing is kind of abstract. I appreciate finality and clarity more as I age. Of course, I suspect that some finality is more welcome with age than others.

Speech finals are this afternoon, and the awards tonight. None of our kids made the finals. Oh, well. They seem to be enjoying themselves ok anyway. We fly back in the morning.

I need to get observed for evalutaion before the end of the month. Oh, joy. Can't be avoided, so there is no reason to try. I look forward to Thanksgiving, and sleep. And maybe some football...

But I Write a Nice Narrative...

Sorry, kids-it's an inside joke, and I am not sharing. Well, not widely. It does occur to me that I am a narrative guy in a bullet-point world, but I don't know what real importance that has. It just sounds like a funny line, and that may be the problem. I may be more concerned with being funny than with being an educator. It may be important. Or not.

I think that I liked sleeping on the floor in the science lab room better than this classroom. I have been here before. The carpet has a lot of dust. I tend to wake up congested and sneezy.

One more night here and then back to PKA. We will see what the week brings. The holidays approach, and the prospect of rest. Welcome. But first, fun at the speech contest. More to come...

Traveling

I am over in Bethel again, for high school speech. We are rehearsing and rewriting as I type. The coaches meeting will begin in a few minutes, as will lunch. Fun stuff for the next two days, and time to write. I hope to get a chance to update later on today.

It Was Stormy...

It was not the storm of the last thirty-five years, but the one several days later that really impacted here. I decided to take a stroll with my camera (heading back to work), on Saturday afternoon, and I hope that this gives some feel for the wind speed. The snow was harder to get an image of, as it was way too busy flying off to the east...

Saturday Afternoon...

A pleasant, semi-lazy morning with my wife (I did fold the laundry), and now I am listening to the Michigan football game on the internet. Tomorrow, we are planning to watch the Detroit Lions over Skype. What a pleasant prospect. I just need to focus on some catch-up work today and tomorrow. The snow and wind are swirling outside and it is just nice to be cozy inside. I hear rumors of flooding out by the coast, so I hope that all are safe out there...

Inservice...

Yep, that time again...all day today. But it is a good day, the end of the week, and the kiddies are enjoying a long weekend. We will, too, just in a different way. Some of them apparently got my phone number last night and engaged in a playful round of teasing text messages.

The weather is holding for the moment, and that is good news for several of my students, who are heading to Anchorage this weekend for conflict resolution training. They are on the afternoon flight out of Bethel, and I hope that the blizzard forecast for tonight and tomorrow will hold off long enough for them to get out. The forecast is impressive, calling for one to two-foot snowdrifts before all is said and done, but it remains to be seen how much of it will materialize...word is that the kids are on the other side of the river, so we just have to get the jet out from ANC and back.

Now it is time to write magic lesson plans that will make all of our children, in the words of Garrison Keillor, "above average." I had no idea that a Word document could be so powerful...

Tuesday...

As in the day before Wednesday. Not much to report. The blizzard watch for the thirty-year storm that was forecast last night has been canceled. Of course, that doesn't mean that the weather won't get funky here in the recent future, but perhaps the touch of the apocalypse that characterized yesterday's reporting may have been premature.

We have an odd week of sorts. There will be an assembly and early release on Thursday and no school for kids on Friday. We have our penultimate local inservice that day, and that is a good thing to be getting through. They are not events of which we are fond as a whole group, and the thought of a winter semester blissfully free of them is pleasant indeed. Now to wrap it up for this semester and the year.

We continue to hope for the slack in the schedule that will allow the staff here time for a semblance of a home life. It is a recurring theme in conversation and on Facebook posts. The loss of down time makes it hard to recuperate. I know that it sounds whiny when we have our summers off, but the intensity and scope of the time commitment out here is hard to underestimate.

All the same, the weeks flow on. The time goes faster than it did my first year, and even faster than last year. The holidays are here soon...

Slogging On...

Just waiting for Thanksgiving and a couple of days worth of break...this week, next week, and then...it can't come soon enough. I feel very crispy around the edges. I hope that a break in the routine will help. Maybe I will make a break myself and not wait for the calendar...

Word...

This is for the folks out there who look for me on Facebook. The district has figured out a blocking mechanism that keeps us out until about 5 pm our time. I am often busy at that time, and not necessarily interested in hanging out after then. All is well here. We are almost finished with the end of the grind. Our last day of parent conferences is today. The Halloween carnival has been accomplished, the wrestling tournament has taken place, and we have only a couple of weeks until the Thanksgiving break. My wife is supposed to be traveling to Bethel for a couple of days, although it is unclear to what extent the weather will cooperate with those plans this evening. It is snowing madly here this morning, with great clouds of the stuff flying in the wind. It reminds me a little of the snowstorms back home. It is not yet clear if we will get any of the accumulations that we used to see in Michigan. By and large, we do not get that kind of snow out here, at least not in my experience. Winter is here in a serious way today. It may stay that way, or we might get five days of rain. Hard to say. We are all waiting and hoping for freeze-up to finish happening so that we can go tearing around on the river. Not yet. Soon, we hope...

Another Sunday of Football...

I am here at the school watching the Lions (!) pasting the Broncos 45-10 at this point. We have hit on the strategy of pointing the webcam on the other end of the Skype connection at the television set. It isn't perfect, but it is pretty darn good. We may get TV at some point, as there is apparently a hookup to a satellite dish coming to our housing building, but that is still speculative at this point.

November looms over the horizon, and the weather is following. Chilly and ice/snow. We await the freezing of the river. Tomorrow is Halloween, and we will have the necessary silliness to go along with the day. I am not sure whether or not to post pictures, as I am not into an excessive amount of self-humiliation. There will be trick or treating tomorrow, and a carnival Tuesday night. I am not expecting lots of concentration from students this week. We shall see if I am correct in my prediction...

The Rest Of It...

The speech contest was a success, at least as far as spending some time with some of my students was concerned. We got through two nights of sleeping on classroom floors without too much incident (I borrowed an air mattress from the District Office), except for the sleepwalking situation that took place on our second night there. One of our guests in the room apparently got up, rolled up his sleeping bag, and proceeded to leave the room. He went, fortunately, to his sponsor's room, and they must have directed him back to us, because he was there in the morning. I was so tired at that point that I slept through the entire thing. Some chaperone.

I took my kids to lunch at our favorite Korean restaurant in Bethel, and they got to learn the use of chopsticks. One practiced on french fries, which strikes me as truly international in nature. She described that later as one of her favorite moments. I like that.

The kids did well, especially considering that at least two of them had never done such a thing before. I thought it gave all of us a nice break and a chance to do something different. I may be taking high school kids to the competition in November, which will be interesting and different.

Now we are ready for yet another shortened weekend, as we have a contracted work day tomorrow. It often feels as if we have no time that is not work time, and a number of people are beginning to show the strain. I like this job, but it is hard to do it and maintain a personal life, considering the number of side projects that both my wife and I have going at any given time. Oh well, there is always Christmas.

Halloween is next week, and we have a number of festivities planned. Our carnival will take place Tuesday night, and we will have a costume judging on Monday. Then there are parent-teacher conferences on Wednesday and Thursday. The following week is shortened by a Friday inservice, and the week after that is high school speech, which has the capacity to take another Tuesday and Wednesday out of the week. Thanksgiving is the following week. We will be hurtling towards the holidays very soon, and I am beginning to wonder where the time went.

The weather has turned towards winter, and the river was clearly beginning to freeze when we viewed it from the air yesterday morning. Soon we will get out the snowmachines, and we will begin to have several months of mobility. These are exciting times to be sure.

I Have The Keys...

It has been a long time since I had the time available to do a long piece here. I have explained our internet situation, and we spend so much time at the school that I am often loath to stay there longer just to write. At the same time, this feels so nice as a change of pace. It makes me anxious for the advent of true broadband in these parts, which is supposed to be approaching soon.

I am sitting in the lobby of Bethel Regional High School, and it is a little after 9 pm. We have concluded the second round of the junior high school speech competition for this school year. We have another day of competition tomorrow, and a dance here tomorrow night. I got to do some judging tonight, and thought that was pretty pleasant. My kids are wandering around the school somewhere, but I can summon them with a text message, and they have open time right now. We will start getting them ready for bed at about 10 pm.

We were chartered to come over here at 9 am, but the weather out here can be very tricky at this time of year. Our site secretary is also the agent for the small airline that we use for school travel. When he hadn't come for us by about 9:30, I went over to his office. He informed me that there was a weather hold in place for Bethel. No surprise, really. There was a fair amount of fog about, and that is often a complicating factor in Delta air travel. What it meant from a practical standpoint was that I ended up teaching my reading class while wearing insulated bib overalls. It was a little warm, but not bad overall. I also had on a pair of Swedish running shoes with carbide spikes in the soles. They come in handy for the ice that has already formed on the boardwalks, but they are not gym floor friendly. I was looking in at my PE class when Joe came down and said that the plane was coming.

I took three of my students over here. I am not sure why more of them don't want to come. It is a pretty low-pressure contest as these things go, and the kids seem to be having a ball over here. The four of us piled our bags into a trailer, and we hopped into the trailer or on to the four-wheeler and rode out to the airport with Joe. It was an adventurous ride-I knocked over one of those orange construction cones with my foot on the way. I have always wanted to do that. We loaded into the plane, and the pilot told us as we got under way that the ceilings were tricky still at Bethel. We apparently were cleared to take off, but we might have to fly around a little before they would let us land. No problem.

The plane took off into a bracing wind. We got a little sideways, but not bad for out here. The crosswinds can be a bear in SW Alaska. As had been suggested, we headed upriver, and pretty quickly banked off to the right and back over the tundra "behind" Napaskiak. As we flew over the myriad sloughs, creeks, and pothole lakes that are typical features of this area, I thought of what a shame it is that my job and probably my own laziness keep me from seeing more of this. I resolved to begin doing things differently. Who knows, maybe I could get an invitation from someone to go out to the tundra sometime. It occurred to me that we would need to take the snowmachine out this winter and explore more-gas prices be damned! Meanwhile, we came back around and saw our village from the air. Several times. Several more times. I seriously began to lose track of how many more times. The glory of the tundra was beginning to fade with repetition. Still we flew onward.

Onward in a circle, that is. Sometimes, I would think that we were on a tantalizingly different heading, and that this would be the time that...but, no, that was not to be. I kept looking to the back seats to see how my students were faring. At first, I thought that we were going to have a need for multiple airsickness bags. Although I did pass them back as a precaution, they were not ultimately employed.

The flight from Napaskiak to Bethel is a short one. We can see the control tower of their airport from the runway of ours. We can stand there and watch planes take off and land. The trip usually takes about five minutes.

One hour and fifteen minutes after takeoff, we ultimately landed at Bethel.The longest five-mile flight that I ever took. There was such a backup that it took us close to ten minutes to cross the main runway to come to the terminal. But when we did, there was good old Ross waiting to pick us up. He was helpful like he always is, and reminded me again of what an asset he is to the Lower Kuskokwim School District. We made it over to the District Office, and we have been hanging out ever since. I have gotten to see some familiar faces that I have not seen in a while, and even munched pizza with our superintendent in a judges meeting. Two of my kids have made it into the third round for tomorrow, and for some reason, they entrusted me with the keys to the place. I locked up the high school tonight. I just hope that no one gets sick in the middle of the night, because I have the keys to the van as well.

I am laying on an air mattress in a science lab classroom as I finish this piece. We have another full day tomorrow, including a dance, and then we return to PKA on Thursday morning. It is a nice break, and a chance to spend some time doing something a little different. Just what the doctor ordered. That, and maybe another steam this weekend. A guy can dream....

And Grades, Too...

One more item to the list for the weekend...our grades are due Tuesday morning. That is the same day that I am scheduled to fly to Bethel for the speech tournament. This weekend is gonna be a doozy...I am sitting in my classroom, which has been appropriated as a team room for this weekend's wrestling tournament, which begins in approximately 75 minutes. It will be unavailable for me until the teams leave tomorrow afternoon, and that puts a further crimp into my weekend of work. Oh, well, no point in complaining. This is the lot in life of a teacher in the Bush. Our time is not generally our own. Nothing, or very few things, happen here unless we put them on. My biggest adjustment in this regard has been the very long weekend nights that are spent staging the events. We have only started this process because basketball, the Holy Grail of Delta sports, has not begun yet. This is just the warm-up...

It Is Sticking (a little bit)...

The snow has stayed this time. We were discussing cultural context in reading class this morning, and I contrasted my old feelings about snow when I had to drive in it (fear and loathing), and my feelings about it out here (fun! freezing rivers! freedom to travel!!!).

We have crossed the hump of another week, although I did get a little testy with the kiddies in writing class. They seem to go into stall mode in that class more than any other. I need to come up with some better ideas for organization in there. Maybe some spiffy technology can help...there are some cool things out there.

This will be one of those weekends without a lot of rest available. Our local wrestling tournament is Friday night and Saturday. I need to get sub plans ready in addition to our usual thing, because I am taking some kids to the speech tournament for junior high next week. I will be gone Tuesday and Wednesday, and will not get back until some time Thursday. Lots to get in order. Lots of fun to look forward to at the same time.

And that is that for the time being. I am going to split and go home to put the roast into the oven. I suspect that tonight we may go visiting after dinner. Something about baby clothes that need to be delivered...

Snow Is Here

We have been getting little snowfalls on and off for about the last week. They do not generally last out the day. Last night, I was up at about one a.m. for the usual pushing-sixty reasons, and I noticed that it was extremely foggy outside. The fog was actually thick snow, and this time it stuck. We shall see how long it lasts today, but there was some speculation between my wife and I about how long it will take before the first snowmachine makes its appearance. The daylight is shrinking by the day, and soon the darkness will be the predominant theme of the day. Of course, for those that know this area, the darkness will never rule completely here. At the winter solstice, there will still be about five hours of daylight. We do not have the long spell of complete darkness that characterizes places like Barrow. It also makes it easier to sleep in on the weekends.

Friends from back home often ask us how we tolerate the darkness. I find the long hours of daylight that come with spring more of a challenge to deal with on the whole.

I am sitting here listening to a Yup'ik lesson being run during my prep period. It is focused on the qasgiq, or men's house, where all of the men in the villages used to live in the old days. I have a student that just showed up after a long absence. The year flows on...

Inserviced Again...

We did it again today, but this one was much more productive...I got some grading done. Not much more to say on that subject. We are making some fitful efforts to figure out when it is that we want to go to Anchorage over the holidays, so that we can take advantage of the discounted fares during the PFD sales run by Alaska Airlines. Time is getting short...we need to buy before next Monday. I would also like to get our accommodations set at the earliest opportunity.

It was a beautiful, sunny day today, and the frost was determined to stick around, and it was doing so even when we went home for lunch at noon. There was ice on the boardwalk in the shade as late as this evening. Winter is showing signs of creeping over the horizon.

We are at the school watching the Monday night football game over Skype. It is a pretty good solution, and we are even able to project it on to the smart board with the overhead projector. Heck of a deal that is...

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the week in earnest. It is a short week, and a number of them are going to be in the next month. It is a weird schedule, and it will break up the month of October and some of November as well. We will finish the first quarter of the school year for all intents and purposes at the end of the week. Tempus fugit...

Glad That That Is Over (for now)...

All done with inservices, at least for nearly 48 hours. My lesson plans are nearly done. I have been trying to find a college football game to listen to on the iTunes radio, but it will take a little more dedication to get there.

The good news about today's session is that there are only two more such sessions to endure, and then we are done for the year with the local inservice phenomenon. We front-loaded them on purpose, so that we would not have any to deal with during winter semester, when things tend to be frantically busy anyway, and we are getting kind of crispy. They do make the fall semester kind of an endurance contest, though. They are just no fun. No other way to describe it.

My mood improved after lunch, and now I can relax here on the internets for a little while. Monday's session will probably give me some time to catch up on grading and grade entry, which is important with the end of the first nine of weeks of school coming up a week from Tuesday. We have another Saturday work day in three weeks, but that will mark the end of October, and Christmas will be on its way. Of course, Thanksgiving will provide a welcome interlude as well.

The kiddies seem to be coming along promisingly, although some days they are just unfocused as hell. What am I expecting from junior high kids, right? I plan on taking three of them to the junior high speech contest in two weeks. That will provide a nice break from the routine.

All else is well-the weather is showing definite signs of trending toward the wintry-snow is in the forecast for the week, and I have pulled a heavier coat out for the chillier conditions. I wonder when we will be able to get the snowmachine out and head out on the frozen Kusko...

Inserviced...

Another weekend, another inservice...another one on Monday...eight hours in a room with a computer. I think that people who read this blog with projected dreams of Alaskan adventure do not realize how many of our waking hours are spent in this building, doing "activities" of various sorts. The child-centered ones make sense. The adult-designed ones sometimes leave most of us wondering who came up with this idea.

My suspicion is that much of what goes on these days is dictated to our supervisors from very far away. It often seems to be possessed of no idea whatsoever of the realities of this place. It seems very detached indeed.

We are here for a half day of paid attendance. The rest of the day's work activities, lesson planning and the like, will come on our own, "free" time. My wife is back from Bethel. I am glad that she is here to share, and the boss is making breakfast for us. Some creature comforts await us, and I am grateful for that...

I Miss Autumn...

I make no bones about the fact that this is the toughest time of the year for me to be separated from the place that I grew up. The fall colors, especially in Northern Michigan, where I have lived for 25 years, are spectacular. The football games are dramatic, even when the teams have been kind of stinky. I miss tailgating at U-M stadium with my friends and siblings in the crisp air. The fall traditions are harder to part with for some reason, and there is nothing that is remotely like that here. I find myself feeling very alien, for some reason.

On the bright side, we did Skype with the kids, and they turned the webcam towards the TV set and we watched the formerly sad-sack Detroit Lions beat the Dallas Cowboys at the end of a dramatic comeback. It was fun, and we are planning to do it on a more ambitious basis next Monday night, when they play the Chicago Bears. We may even put it up on the projector in my classroom. The Tigers managed to hold off the Yankees in New York, and have the series tied coming back to Detroit. So that is a positive.

Still, this is when homesickness bites the hardest. We are not planning to return to the Midwest at Christmas time due to the serious expense of the trip. It will be nice to stay in the village with friends, but it will be a long time before I see Cadillac again. The funny thing is that it took a long time for me to adopt Cadillac as my hometown, despite the length of time that I lived there. Sometimes it takes absence to make the heart grow fonder...

Saturday...

No scheduled work this week (that is next week), but we are over here doing lesson plans and stuff. The truth of it is that I did some of my plans the other day, and I finished them off today while listening to a football game from back home. It was a pleasant respite, and my lesson plans are done for the week now. I am just hanging around waiting for my wife to get done, and playing on the internet while that happens. I am making some lazy inquiries about getting a satellite dish, but there doesn't seem to be much interest in the group effort, so we may decide to simply go it alone. I am still slightly intrigued by the idea of NFL football at 9 a.m.

I think that dinner approacheth, and guacamole is on the horizon. If you have ever had my wife's guacamole, you will understand what a treat that is. The whole steam thing is still hovering around out there somewhere, but I kind of feel like spending some time with my bride, given the fact that she is taking off for across the river in a few days.

The temps are chilly and brisk, but the sunrise this morning was spectacular. I need to get home to see the sun shine off the fresh snow on the mountains to the east. I love the view from our living room. Very pretty, indeed.

Miscellaneous...

It is the end of the work week, but the school is still busy. I hear the voices and footfalls of the young wrestlers flocking into the gym for this afternoon's practice. There will be two more in the next two days, as they prepare for their first tournament of the season next Friday. I know there are open gym sessions scheduled as well. It gets more quiet on the weekend, but the school never stops being a community center. It has a life of its own.

We will be out of here as soon as my bride finishes something she is working on. She said five minutes. It has been longer. I may buy her a stopwatch. I am sure that she will read these words with pleasure. We are going to take off shortly, but we will be back in the morning.

I expect to go to Joe's house to steam tonight. He and I discussed it yesterday. If nothing intervenes, I expect to be very clean in a few hours. A good night's sleep usually ensues.

School seems to be going well enough, but there are always frustrations and regrets. I did stop to realize that the solo act in junior high has not been the total disaster that I feared. It has not been a total success, but a new challenge always presents difficulties. At least I can say that all have survived up to this point.

Snow is in the weather forecast with some frequency in the next several days. I will keep a lookout for any signs. I thought that there was some mixed in with the rain the other day.

The sun is shining, and that bodes well for a walk later today. We will have to see how that works. We have taken walks on all but one night this week, and we have had a couple of invitations for tea and baby visits. Much more civilized than sitting home and watching TV or playing video games. It makes a nice break at the end of the work day.

We are on to the month of October as of tomorrow. Baseball playoffs are starting. Go Tigers!

We Need Wi-FI in The House Already...

This blog is suffering from the absence of effective internet service at the house, no mistake about that. We can only be on the internet at the school, and that means that a lot of the time it is taking place at the end of the work day. That, in turn, tends to make this blog a low priority. By the time that I get around to this project, my energy levels tend to be low, and my desire to get out the door for the evening tends to be high. On a more selfless note, my bride is taking classes for her masters' degree on Monday and Tuesday nights, and it might be nice if she were able to sit on the couch at home and do her studies. We need to get internet at the house.

Not as simple as it seems...the biggest disincentive at the moment is the fact that high-speed service is on the verge of arrival in Southwest Alaska. A project called TERRA-SW is bringing next-generation broadband service to this area. The project uses a combination of fiber-optic cable and microwave transmission to carry the information. The only question at this point is when it will all take place. My understanding is that the project is actually running ahead of schedule. It will make the decision about internet a no-brainer, because we will have service that is worth having. So, although we want wi-fi at the house, we are just going to have to wait a little while...

This is definitely a nice problem over which to fret. In other news, we are having a nice run of pleasant fall weather lately. There have been multiple opportunities to get out and explore the new boardwalk running around the village. In fact, it is very relaxing and pleasant, and it also gives us the chance to get out for impromptu visits. I am hopeful that we can get a little more of this before winter starts to get serious.

The school year is running along at a seriously fast clip. We are almost to the end of the first card marking period. The first nine weeks of school will be over soon. Fall sports practices have started, and speech competitions will begin taking place in about a month. Halloween cannot be far behind. Momentum is building, and it will be a mad dash to the holidays...weird how quickly it seems to go sometimes...

Glad For The Weather...

By the way, it has been beautiful this weekend. The days have the feel of crisp fall Saturdays. The only element missing is tailgating and football. I get the scores from the internet, but feel largely detached from something that I used to consider an essential part of the weekend. This is the third year of that phenomenon, and it surprises me that I am more interested in internet service for the house than I am in satellite TV. When we do have time, we prefer to spend it reading, walking around the village, and visiting. It is a flashback to a different time, before the tube ruled our lives. I like it, and it may account for my lack of urgency in the television department. That, and Fox News...

The Grind...

It is beginning...that long slog that spans the time between the wearing off of the novelty of a new school year and the long breath at Christmas. There are not many breaks in between. Thanksgiving is one, but it is two months away. It is the time that we all must endure.

We have deliberately front-loaded our schedule with required two-day local inservices, and there is one coming this next weekend. We are working at the school at 7:32 PM on a Sunday night, and we will likely be working next Sunday at this time. My wife is taking two classes each week, which puts her home at 7:45 or 8:30, and we had parent-teacher conferences last week that went until 6PM. We cannot get internet at the house. If we want to pay bills or surf the net, or write on this blog, we need to come to/stay at the school. It feels as if we are always here.

We did have an excuse not to be here yesterday. We intended to work on lesson plans then. However, a local group staged a carnival in the gym for the local kids. It looked like fun, but there was no way to concentrate enough to get work done. We accordingly took advantage of one of the beautiful days of the waning autumn. We walked, we napped, we went to church. It was a nice break. Today, we pay the piper.

But there is no reason to despair. My lesson plans are done and mailed to the boss. I have much of my grading done, and I can finish it with a sustained effort over the next couple of days. The laundry got done yesterday, so that chore is out of the way, and my beloved just finished her homework. And, we laminated our voter registration cards!

It is time to depart for the home front and spend some time with our dogs and each other. A new grind starts tomorrow.

Sunday and a Day of Rest (sort of)...

Yesterday was the day that I got work done despite the situation. The power went out, I couldn't concentrate very well after the sad news, and I sat through a 2 1/2 hour meeting on Skype in the middle of the day. I managed to volunteer myself for union newsletter duty in the middle of that somehow. Oh well, I enjoy writing.

I actually got more done than I expected to, and we took a nap in the middle of the day to catch up on a little lost sleep. However, by 8:20 or so last evening, I was not done with my work, but I was done with my brain's ability to function. We began to head out of the building and home for the evening. As we stopped to visit with a couple of staff members that were still working, I got a phone call from Joe summoning me to steam. I begged off, citing the strains of the day and the fact that we were just leaving work for the day. Joe accepted graciously, but my wife, clearly the wiser of the two of us, insisted that I go. Sara, our next door neighbor, echoed the sentiments. I was clearly outnumbered, and neither of them would take "no" for an answer. I texted a message to Joe telling him that there was a change of plans, and that I would be there shortly.

Of course, the women were smarter. It turned out to be exactly what I needed under the circumstances. I got relaxed and refocused. I came in this morning and got my plans finished, and I am now ready for a little birthday party action this afternoon...time for a little relaxation before what will be a busy week...

Another Week...

And a quick one at that. Here and gone. Time to prepare for the next. This one includes both standardized testing (a new one this year) and parent-teacher-student conferences. I find it very hard to plan for weeks like this one. The days are very broken up, and the lack of continuity is a challenge, especially for junior high kids, who I think do better with a higher level of uniform structure in the school day. It cannot be helped, however, and we will just have to get through it.

My step son lost his father suddenly this morning. I got a call from his mother, and the day has been sad and tiring since then. I think that he is learning how much people care about him, and that is a bright light in a difficult time. His mom is back in Michigan tonight, and she will be able to spend a few days helping him to get a little bit of balance as he struggles to deal with his loss.

We had pretty much decided to stay here in Alaska for the Christmas holidays. This changes that equation, pretty much for good at this time. I guess that it is time to look at Plan B....

Short Week...

This post comes from the front lines...I am sitting in my classroom during my prep period, while the kids are in their Yup'ik class...we are making the transition to a dual-immersion language program in this school over the next few years. At this point, we use alternative languages in the common areas during alternate days. I must admit that my Yup'ik is minimal, and I need to work on it, but I am really self-conscious when I pronounce a word and the class laughs in unison. I will need to take some classes to renew my professional license after I get it, and I know that there are Yup'ik language classes offered at the college extension in Bethel. That is that plan at this time. I just need to work on my vocab and pronunciation.

This is a very short week, with the holiday and an inservice on Tuesday. It is already over tomorrow. The weekend is going to be busy. Lesson plans and e-board meetings for the union. Next week will mark the first round of parent-teacher-student conferences. The year is moving into higher gear...

Fish Heads and Housing...a Photo Study...

Our new houses from the outside...two buildings with four apartments each...I call it the "Octoplex"


















Big Tanks...














The commute is a short one...






















Guests are now welcome....

































Spiffy laundry-much easier than hauling it to the school....














The King surveys his kingdom...














Fish heads, fish heads, roly-poly fish heads....

A Long Pause...

The holiday weekend is upon us, but we are at school for the moment. We have this idea about getting our work done today, but there is a kids' birthday party raging in the halls as I type, and I have yet to stop surfing the net and start working at nearly 1:30 in the afternoon.

Part of this is due to the fact that the only internet service that we currently have available is at the school, and part is due to the fact that the school provides the largest gathering spot available in the village. Lots of competing usages, none of which are necessarily school related in the traditional sense. The school is a much different creature in the rural areas of Alaska, serving as a sort of community center as well.

Some of that is gone this weekend, as the Labor Day holiday has scattered some of us to Anchorage for weekend trips, or to the woods for moose hunting. We have no specific plans, and that feels nice for a change. We have been running at full speed for a month now, and a deep breath opportunity seems welcome, to be sure.

Tuesday will be marked by another district wide inservice day, which gives the kids four days off and us a bit of a breather. I kind of miss the time that I have away from them, because I feel as if there is a lot to get done. Next week will be very short, and the following week will be broken up by two days of parent-teacher conferences. My afternoon classes will suffer especially.

We will have some more exposure to the new reading curriculum, and to the district's ideas about how to teach it, on Tuesday. I suspect that the conversation will be interesting.

I hope that everyone has a happy Labor Day weekend-enjoy the football and class reunions (Centerville 1971), and enjoys the slide into autumn!

Holy Crap, Time is Flying!

I can't believe the speed with which the weeks are passing already. I jut posted on Saturday, got busy, and it is Thursday tomorrow. My life is passing by at a tremendous rate of speed, and at my age that is not the most welcome news. On the other hand, things are mostly well. The kids fluctuate from day to day, but I think that is to be expected. None of us are the same person on a daily basis. I am not sure why they should be any different. I may have mentioned before that I like this group pretty well as a whole. If I haven't, I should mention it now, and if I have, I will say it again. I plan on taking over the speech program from my wife, who has a master's to work on, and that includes the junior high speech group as well. I did a chaperone gig at the high school speech competition last year, and I guess I will actually be coaching at both this year. It will give me a chance to bond better with the kids, and I am looking forward to it.

In other important news, happy anniversary to my Mom and Dad tomorrow. On September 1, they will have been married for sixty-one years. Not bad. I will be excited to make the sixty-first anniversary of my birth. Marriage is a different creature entirely. I am enjoying it quite a bit at this time, I must say. (That is to keep me out of trouble with the little woman!)

The rain continues, and I am hoping that the trend will not continue for the long holiday weekend. My review of the weather forecast does not cause optimism. It will be nice to have a few quiet days nonetheless. And the thought of no alarm clock for a couple of days doesn't exactly break my heart. A little rest will be a nice thing.

Off to home, dogs, and hearth...another day in the record books.

Peaceful Nighttime...

The day was productive...in some direct ways and some that were more subtle. I can feel change coming on, and it feels like the right thing. I can't point to one thing, but more the combination of a lot of small things at the same time. It is a good thing, and feels very natural. I have been waiting for this for a while. We will see how it goes from here...

Saturday Work Day

Here again on the weekend...the week was a good, and busy one. I like this year's crop of kiddies pretty much, even if they have noticed some impatience on my part. They still want to come and hang around at the end of the day despite their immense suffering at my hands during the school day. How resilient!

We are doing another two-day inservice thing. We are committed to a certain number of them by contract. The idea that we are trying this year is to front-load them in the school year so as to have them finished well in advance of the late winter-early spring blues. I think that we do not have much of anything of that sort after February. It makes it nicer then, but it makes the first part of the school year pretty tiring.

The way that we do the two-day thing is to stay until 6:30 on Friday nights and then come in from 8-12:30 on Saturday. Breakfast is included, and you have to like a boss who will come in early to cook for his employees. This week we are kind of short on staff for various reasons, so we are concentrating on getting a number of necessary things done in the classroom. My problem at this particular moment is that I stayed up a little too late last night after a steam at Joe's, and I am not really feeling the motivation that I need to get things done. On top of that, my wife is in Anchorage for the next day or so, and I suspect that I am moping around feeling sorry for myself. I should get at it so that I can get all of my stuff done today and relax tomorrow. I just need to get convinced of that fact, and all will be well.

I feel that I am off to a good start this year with classes. I am really trying to focus on getting a routine set with the kids. I think that they are getting it for the most part, too. Of course, there is some goofiness, but that is to be expected, even if it has to be dealt with. Kids, after all, are kids, and will always be on some level. I doubt that all of the behavior programs in the world will change that. It still is nice to get some basic perimeters established for acceptable behavior.

In more real-world news, there are reports of moose sightings in the neighborhood recently, which is cause for much excitement. Hunting season for moose begins on the first of September, and anticipation is beginning to build. The opener will dovetail nicely with the Labor Day weekend for our kids, but I do have to remind them about getting their pass requests filled out. The district has a permission arrangement for traditional subsistence activities, but the request needs to be submitted in advance. A word to the wise is in order.

The weekend awaits, which means that I need to get busy here right now and get my work done...wish me luck!

Stuff!

Exciting news reached my ears at the end of the day-three totes have arrived from the East, and some swag got here from Amazon. Our neighbors took delivery on a new 40-inch flat screen TV last night. Yes, it is horrible to be so materialistic, but when you live this far out, new arrivals are fun things. It means that I may have fresh razor blades, and other good stuff that we shipped out to ourselves. It is hard to avoid the Amazon/Home Shopping Network mindset sometimes. I found myself thinking idly about a 4-wheeler the other day. If you had asked me about that one a year ago, I would have offered consoling remarks about your sanity. Things change.

The second straight day of girls' open gym is going on, with musical accompaniment, in the background. I hear laughing, and it is clear that the role of the school as a beating central heart in the lives of its kids and the community is fully operational at this point. It will get busier from here...

Starting to Pick Up Momentum...

The week is beginning to pick up speed...I was just thinking how much I hate Mondays, and it is nearly Wednesday already. Before you know it, Friday will be on our doorstep. Of course, this is a long week due to inservices on Friday and Saturday, but the next week will take us into the Labor Day weekend.

My kidlets are kinda ok and kinda flaky by turns, and I associate that with junior high generally. I would like to get them into some kind of working order in the next couple of weeks, just the same. It would be nice to see some actual work getting done.

The rain has come back a little off and on, but on the whole the weather is much better than it was when we first arrived. Last night, it was windy and a little chilly, but the sun was shining and it was a great evening for a walk. It almost made up for the tub full of dishes that was waiting for me when I returned. Of course, that was the product of delicious cookies and wonderful dinners, so I can't really complain, even if I want to.

More tomorrow-sounds as if the rain is returning here to stay for a few days...

Monday, Monday...

Much as is often the case, Monday was a little ragged on the student front, especially in the afternoon. I suspect that there were a number of sleepy/silly heads in the group, and it did them no real good. They were good-natured about it, even though they clearly did not care for their punishment. Not to worry, we will start over all nice and clean in the morning.

Of course, I might have been in kind of a raggedy mood myself, too. I had some weird dreams, and I apparently was not the only one. I am not sure that Monday is my best day of the week, either. Somehow we all got through, and we will now move on to Tuesday. Hope that things go better. I still kinda like them, though...

One Down, Several To Go...

We are done with the first week of school already, and it seemed to go quickly. Many of us were here working at 11 p.m. on the night before classes started, and some were still here when we left. For my own part, I still feel as if there are some organizational bridges that I have left to cross, but many fewer than I have had in years past. I suspect that part of it can be attributed to a greater level of experience on my part. I hope that while I was learning things the hard way that I actually learned something permanently.

My kids are a combination of new and old, and I think that I am fortunate to have a pretty good bunch on the whole this year. We have spent the first several days focusing a lot on my expectations for their behavior and class organization, and I am still learning a few new wrinkles as I attempt to make 23 kids in a small room work out as a practical proposition on a daily basis.

This year marks the implementation of yet another major curriculum introduction. That means that those of us who are implementing are feeling our way around another machine with a lot of moving parts. Some of the parts work better than others, and the purpose of some of the parts is not at all clear. We are scheduled for an inservice on the subject right after the Labor Day weekend, so it is hoped that we will all have some hands-on experience with the materials and can ask intelligent questions that will help to address our needs as the year goes on. All that in mind, the system will likely take a while to work out.

I am doing my best to impress on the kids that we are taking conduct very seriously this year. There is no way to tolerate a lot of screwing around in a room this small, and we have already had a chance to learn that Mr. Hicok is real serious about this point this year. The nice thing is that my little ducklings seem to be picking up that point quickly. I know that there will be days where the focus gets fuzzy, but I think that we can actually have some fun this year with a little imagination and effort on my part. I have to say that this is the most positive frame of mind with which I have started the school year so far.

The one gray cloud on the horizon (aside from those in the consistently overcast skies) is that my smart board and my computer do not seem to be able to talk to one another. That is not going to work for me at all, and I am beseeching help this weekend in addressing the problem. I suspect in part that it may be a connection issue, so I will try a little experiment to check that question out. This classroom has become smart board-dependent in the year since it was installed. There is no going back at this point.

On the domestic front, the laundry is progressing nicely, and the breakfast dishes are done. The house is straightened up, and I can tell that we are going to enjoy the comforts of the new home. Now, all that I have to do is stop goofing around and get some grading and lesson plans done. Time to get after it...

Our Travels (cont.)

While I was getting the Boo and myself to our new home, my bride had been detoured across the country. In fact, although the counter agent at O'Hare airport said she was scheduling her on the flight to Seattle, a subsequent phone call to the Alaska Airlines reservation line showed that nothing of the kind had happened. It was a good thing that she called, and a big shame on you for the AA folks at O'Hare! Alaska Airlines apparently had a record of my wife's call to confirm our reservations, and the reservations agent immediately gave her a discount on her next airfare. Not good all around. (Except for the discount part).

She made the flights without problem, but she got into Anchorage at about 2 am, and did not get to Napaskiak until 9 am Monday morning. I urged her to get a little sleep, but she was too wired up on insomnia and caffeine to do so. So we started unpacking more totes, and eventually some fellas showed up to deliver our furniture (in unassembled states). We did get our bed delivered, so we left in the afternoon for Bethel secure in the notion that we had a place for both of us (and the dog) to sleep upon our return on Wednesday.

Off we went, back across the river for the second time in less than 24 hours. We delivered our dogs to the sitter, and I was a little worried about my little dog in a garage with a bunch of other dogs in the cold. Of course, I was being silly, and he apparently charmed both the pet sitters and their mom. He does that sort of thing frequently.

We got through two days of inservices that I actually found to be pretty useful, and returned on Wednesday night to a nice house, but no heat. That issue was sorted out in short order on Thursday, and we were able to get on with the task of setting up house in relative comfort. More inservices were in store for Thursday and Friday here in PKA, and the weekend was divided between assembling furniture and unpacking furniture, with a little work at the school thrown in for good measure.

Now, it is the night before school begins for the 2011-2012 school year. Most of us have worked long and hard today to get ready for tomorrow, and it still doesn't seem as if I am ready. I suspect that many of my compatriots feel the same way. All over the nation, beleaguered teachers are getting ready for a new group of students descending upon them. I wish them luck. We will all need it.

What Home Looks Like These Days...

I am taking a break from the travel update to post a few photos showing what our new apartments look like. Pretty nice, eh? They are a far cry from the old digs, that is for certain. Most of the boxes and totes have been emptied and put away, and the furniture has been assembled. There was a little glitch with the heat for the first few days, but it was quickly repaired. It was fortunate that the weather has been cool, but not cold.

We will be working for the next two days to get classrooms in order and lesson plans completed for the first week of school. Another year is upon us, and it will be interesting to see how things go. I hope that I have matured as a teacher, but that will not be immediately clear. The new group of kids will be interesting to work with, and I hope to get the new 7th graders on board with the program soon.

The Odyssey...

Ok, it wasn't that dramatic. I got back to Anchorage and Bethel without incident. I took the layover time in Anchorage to hit the closest Fred Meyer and stock up on a few groceries, with the help of a list that my wife thoughtfully texted me. It was a little tense, but my faithful dog accompanied me and helped me maintain composure.

I saw a number of familiar faces on the trip to Bethel, including our superintendent of schools. I felt the pull of the delta as we got closer to landing. Joe Bavilla was waiting for me at the river with his boat. Buddha and I huddled in the boat against the wind as we flew down the river towards Napaskiak. I actually made a windscreen for the little guy with a piece of luggage, as he had recently had a haircut and didn't have a bunch of insulation against the wind and rain.

Eric and Sara Jung had thoughtfully provided me with a twin mattress so that I would have a place to sleep. Not all of the furniture had been delivered, and that which had had not been unpacked or assembled. I was excited to get into our new place, and set about to unpacking and storing some of our personal items. The apartment was cold, and I turned up the thermostat, but did not notice any change in the temperature. This was to have unintended consequences for the neighbors as the evening went on.

After a couple of hours of unpacking, I finally unboxed a recliner so that I could sit down and balance my dog on my lap. It felt good to leave the chair and crawl under some warm covers atop the mattress on the floor...

We're Back...

Although there was a fair amount of complexity involved...we began preparations for our annual migration to LKSD in the week before our actual departure. They consisted mostly of a series of trips to the post office, so that we could mail as much as possible up here. I haven't assured myself that it is cheaper than taking totes on the plane, but, given the fact that we travel with three dogs, it is likely much less stressful. The process took us until Saturday to complete, the day that we left to see my sister in Chicago.

We had a wonderful summer, getting to spend some time with family and friends. We celebrated the entry into the world of three new babies, and I got to see one of them before my wife did, which aggravated her to no end, and entertained me to no end. We rode our bikes, and I got to ride my new bike, although probably not as much as we should have.

Saturday, August 6 was the day that we set for our exodus into the wilds of Chicago. In a former life, the challenges of the city did not require the adjustments that they do now after twenty-five years of rural life. Keep in mind that the rural life that I have been living for the past two years is especially rural by comparison with the setting in Cadillac Michigan. Our drive to Arlington Heights, Il was smooth and without incident. We got to see my sister Liz, and her new house, which is really nice. It has a park where we could walk dogs and do keen stuff like that. Our visit was very pleasant, and we look forward to future visits.

On Sunday, we made the 20-minute ride to the airport without incident. It was to be the last thing to go that smoothly for the entire day. I returned our rental car, and went to the terminal, only to find my wife still in line with a look of consternation on her face. She was being told that we did not have reservations on the airplane for the two of our dogs that travel in the cargo hold. She had previously made such a reservation, and had confirmed that a week or so before we traveled. Nonetheless, we were told that it was a no-go. She would have to take the dogs on a later flight that would take her through Seattle and into Anchorage at 2 a.m. As far as Bethel was concerned, she would not arrive there until Monday morning.

There had apparently been space reserved for Buddha, our little guy, to fly inside the cabin. We decided that I would take him, head for Anchorage, get some groceries, get to Napaskiak, get into the new house, and try to start making some headway on moving in before she got back. I managed to contact Liz, who was able to come over and pick up Chelsea before she went to work, and said that she could take her to the airport before her evening flight. Would it all work? What fate awaited the travelers on their way home? More clues will follow...

Preparations Continue...

We continue to get ready for our semi-annual sojourn back to Alaska. Packing and shipping continue, although we are mostly looking at small items, as the big stuff is gone. Word is that our apartments are ready for occupancy, with furniture assembly to be completed (we hope) by the time that we arrive Sunday night.

These last days find us focused mostly on trying to make sure that we do not forget any necessary steps in the process of closing up the house, and making sure that we see as many friends and family as is possible before we step onto the plane on Sunday morning.

As I look around town on these last few days, I am struck by how much it has become a part of my life. I came here as an adult, and have ended up living here longer than any other place during my lifetime. I will miss it, but I am looking forward to returning with cautious optimism. A new set of challenges await us, and I expect that we will be up to them. Life will take on a few more changes this year, but change in life is something that I am getting more used to...

Thunder and Lightning...

...and poor Dan is cowering in the corner. He doesn't much care for storms, and is getting to the point that he is very reluctant to even go out in the rain. I feel bad for him, as I understand that it has been raining consistently back home. He won't have much choice.

Word is that housing has been approved by the district, with a few minor corrections to be made tomorrow. Furniture will then be assembled and installed in the units, and our stored belongings will be moved in. With any luck, this can be done by Sunday, when we return. The irony of it is that we will be there less than 24 hours, and then we will return to Bethel.

At least we will have a roof over our heads that is something other than our classrooms...

The Summer Moves Towards Completion...

We have made it through another wonderful Traverse City Film Festival, which also means that our summer in Northern Michigan is nearly at an end. We saw eight movies, including the usual number of thought-provoking (and occasionally hilarious) documentaries. There was a focus this year on the challenges faced by working people in the face of continuing income centralization and inequality. It is clear to me that the world in which I lived as a child, marked by the existence of a solid American middle class, is no more. Those in this country who have the money have the power in a way that resembles most closely the Gilded Age of the late 19th century, and they are determined to use it to their maximum advantage. They no longer need American consumer spending in a "world economy," so their only concern is to make certain that the walls outside their gated compounds are high enough to keep out the troublemakers. Of course, this has been the truth for most of the rest of the world throughout the formerly halcyon age of the American middle class, so in some ways we are just catching up with the rest of the world.

Enough of my rants. We had a wonderful week between films, and managed to spend some more time with friends and family. We will keep working on that this week as we take care of the busy work that must be done to prepare for the trip to Alaska that starts on Sunday morning. There are totes to buy and pack, and some last minute dental work to get accomplished. We will be busy, but I think that we somehow enjoy being busy, even when we bitch about it. It is probably good to feel useful, and happily engaged in the world.

Looking back on the summer, I feel that I accomplished a few things that were important. I finished the classes that I need to get my professional license in Alaska, and I finished my AKT2 program, at least as I understand it. I am informed that we need to make mileage pledges for next summer's biking season, but that will take care of itself in due time. After all, vacation should include some serious leisure time in my estimation.

On to the new week and the renewed grapple with the challenges of life in the Bush...

Movies!

Today starts the film festival in beautiful Traverse City. We had breakfast with my wife's groovy grandpa, and we will begin the process of filling totes for shipping to Alaska. There is apparently a concert at the bookstore in Traverse City featuring (to me at least) my grandson, tickets to pick up, and movies at 3, 6, and 9 p.m.

Lotsa fun and hectic activity as we wind down vacation-but we are getting to spend quality time with important people. I got to see my parents and several of my siblings again last weekend, and we are catching up on seeing as many friends and family as possible in the days remaining...

Summer Summary...

(In no especial order of importance).

1. We rode our bikes-this takes on many forms. Last night, we rode out to Pleasant Lake. Today, we rode around Berry Lake. I dropped my chain on a front derailleur shift, and got all greasy getting it back on. This Saturday, we are planning on the White Pine Trail from here to a town called Leroy and back. We will apparently have company for that trip.

2. We went to the beach-today it was the beach at Lake Missaukee. Last week, it was the beach on Lake Michigan at the small town of Elberta. There maybe a beach trip on Friday as well, perhaps in the Leelanau Peninsula. Lots of beach time lately, and, from the sounds of it, we are well advised to take advantage of warm weather and sunshine, as there is likely to be little of either to be found upon our return to Napaskiak.

3. We entertained/were entertained by friends in the evening. Tonight it was Steve and Lorri King, as well as our friend Johanna Carey. Sunday night, we had the O'Hagan girls over for cooking lessons, and then we ate the results.

4. Starting tomorrow, we will be heading to Traverse City for the film festival. We have spent lots of time there this summer for various reasons. This week, it will be mostly movies (with one root canal thrown in for good measure). Saturday is our "day off" from the film fest, and that will be spent either on a bike, watching a triathlon, or hanging out with Steve and Lorri.

5. We take care of stuff that needs to be taken care of while we are here. In the past week, we have had dental trips (which triggered the recommendation for the aforementioned root canal), electrician visits (to fix a faulty circuit), and my wife made her pilgrimage to Sam's Club to buy stuff that we need to stock the new house.

That kind of sums it up. The same stuff over and over. It has been very pleasant, so don't take this as a complaint. It is just kind of boring to write about. It probably is kind of boring to read about. But it is how we are spending our summer vacation, and it is really nice.

Still Waiting...

There are no postings as yet suggesting the existence of a finished TC Lip Dub product on youtube. I will follow up when it is available.

Tomorrow may be the hottest day of the year, and my wife thinks that a trip to the beach is in order. She may have a point. There are several lovely sites available along Lake Michigan, and we have not been to any of them in a while. I may ask for nominations on Facebook to see what kind of results I get. I think that Lake Michigan makes the most sense as the water there will be the coolest available, and we are definitely going to want a refreshing dip if the thermometer hits 100 degrees, as is being suggested. Of course, a trip in the middle of the day may not make the most sense.

I plan on making another trip downstate this weekend to visit my parents one more time before we go back to Alaska. We are hosting a cooking class/tasting event on Friday night, which means that Saturday is the most likely option for departure. I also recall a dentist appointment scheduled for Monday morning, so my thought of staying over Sunday night is not likely to make sense.

Tonight we attend a wine tasting fundraiser at one of our local restaurants. The week is beginning to fill with engagements. Time runs short...

The Heat Has Arrived...

When we first arrived, my wife had me hauling up the air conditioning unit from the basement in short order. It had gotten hot quickly. After several days, however, things cooled back down, and have more or less stayed that way since. Not as of yesterday. The thermometers were hitting 90 degrees all over Northern Michigan. We, of course, chose that day to spend outside, in our first attempt at being movie extras.

The Traverse City Film Festival, occasionally mentioned in these pages, decided to create a Lip Dub event in Traverse City. I believe, although I do not know, that it was inspired by a recent event in Grand Rapids, MI (see youtube-Grand Rapids Lip Dub for details). As we walked down Front Street towards the area where extras were gathering, we could see that the streets had been closed down for filming, and clusters of folks were either ready to participate or watch. Extras were directed to assemble on an open area on Grand Traverse Bay called, appropriately enough, The Open Space. We dutifully walked there and stationed ourselves in the most reasonable looking shady area.

For the next several hours, my wife and I, our friend Ann and her daughter Nikki alternated between hot shade and hotter sunshine when it was time to do another take. We were reasonably well provisioned with juicy nectarines and water, so we kept reasonably well hydrated. Several takes were shot, and we were waiting for one last go-around, when word came that it was all going to be done. I suspect that time for the street closings had expired, or something of that nature.

It was good silly fun, and we are now awaiting the final results of the filming, which should be available in the next day or two. Details about viewing will be forthcoming...

Will We Ever Get Out Of Here?

Unfortunately, the news was no better down the street and around the corner. But there was a mall. Close by. So, we at least had someplace better to sit and kill time than the waiting room at the tire store. Just a couple of hours, and we would be on our way.

False. We finally left at nearly three o' clock in the afternoon, with a nine-plus hour ride home in front of us. To make matters more fun, there was a hellacious storm at the WV-Ohio state line that stuck us on the side of the road and peppered our car with hail. There were many challenges in the course of that weekend. Despite them all, we all seemed to have a great time. I got to see my parents and family, Diego got to spend some time with my nephew and certainly enjoyed rafting, we both got to see Adam, and everyone enjoyed the West Virginia hospitality. I have been going to that part of the country since 1980, and it has changed considerably. The town of Fayetteville is truly a pleasant surprise, with many shops and a couple of really cool restaurants that we got to sample. The river trip was immense fun, and I got to spend some quality time with a neat kid.

We have all retreated back to our neutral corners for the moment, but the summer goes on unabated. We have spent a bunch more time with my wife's family, including my new nephew, who just got here on July 12. We are ready to hit the Traverse City Film Festival yet again, and we got into a film that they were shooting in TC on July 17. The results should be available on the internet in a few days. The weather has gotten very hot, and we spent some quality time at our friend Ann's swimming pool.

One of the best events of this past week was my exit interview from the AKT2 program. It was nice to hear some of the familiar voices again, and it was really nice to realize that I was done. There will always be more challenges, but it is nice to have this chapter of my life drawing to a close.

We have solemnly resolved to make this week a little quieter. I wonder whether that will work out...

More West Virginia Adventures...

So, we had encountered some tire issues with our rental vehicle previously this summer. There was a flat tire on the left rear, apparently attributable to not one, but two nail punctures, which we got repaired. On the day that we left the Detroit area for WV, we had another alert that the tire pressure was low on that particular side. A refill seemed to do the trick, at least until Sunday night. On Monday, as we began to travel back, the light went off again.

In the meantime, our friend Adam had pulled apart the front end of his motorcycle to see what the problem was. The front bearings had literally disintegrated...explains the clunking sound that he reported quite nicely. He was not going anywhere except to a repair shop, and there were none open until Monday morning. So, we got an unexpected, but not unwelcome, guest on Sunday night, and we both had vehicle challenges to deal with on Monday morning. Bode was able to get the bike together enough to ride down to Beckley and get the parts that he needed.

Our options were not quite as simple. The rental company had instructed us to take the tire to either a Goodyear or Firestone dealer for repair. By the time we got out of the mountains and down to Charleston, the light had come on again, despite the fact that we had filled the tire not long before. It was clearly not holding air. Thanks to the wonders of the 3g iPad, we knew the location of a dealer in Charleston and how to get there. Unfortunately, they were looking at at least a 1.5 hour wait to get the tire looked at. They were kind enough to direct us to another dealer only a couple of blocks away...

It Got More Complex (part II)...

So, there I was, realizing that a large raft, full of eight people, was sitting on top of me in the middle of a rapids. Actually, I don't remember it being all that distinct. I did realize where I was, and the fact that I needed to be elsewhere in a hurry. Either the boat moved or I did, or maybe a little of both. I popped up to the surface, and heard our guide calling to direct me. I followed the suggestion with alacrity. About the time that I got back to the boat, I realized that the middle finger of my left hand was really smarty. Not OMIGOD-I can't take it-I'm going to pass out pain, but definitely the kind that made me wonder how I was going to grab anything to pull myself back in.

Not to worry. The guide grabbed my life jacket, I kicked, and out I came. I immediately resolved to stay in the boat for the rest of the day. My hand still hurt a lot, and I had a sneaking suspicion that I had broken what my wife's cousin now refers to as my "communication finger." I continued to paddle as we went down the river, and at lunch, I got together with the trip leader and fashioned a splint out of tape and q-tips. It would do for the afternoon. The rest of the trip was a ball, and I was very happy to see that Diego was clearly enjoying himself a lot. I think that we won a new convert to the world of whitewater.

At the end of the day, we worked together to load the rafts on a trailer, and hiked up a hill to the pick-up location. There was cold beer and pop, and the cans made a lovely ice pack as we rode back to the company headquarters. I sat down with the trip leader and went through the ritual of filing an injury report as my companions changed into dry clothes...(more to follow...)

It Got More Complex...

We made it to the rafting rendezvous on time Sunday morning...but Bode was nowhere to be found...the time was ticking away, and we had not heard from him. We went to the final staging area to get our gear, such as life jackets, paddles, and helmets...no Bode. The crowd of people who were going on the trip continued to grow, but no Bode. Sunscreen was being rubbed into skin all around...no Bode.

Finally, we heard the trip leader refer to "some guy coming in on a motorcycle," and we knew that our friend had checked in and was going to make it, even if a little on the tardy side. I have taken to teasing Adam in slightly profane terms about his "abandonment" of the survivors in Napaskiak in favor of a job that actually employs his training directly. He is teaching agricultural ed and shop, which is what he is best qualified to do. Those opportunities were not so available in our school, with the exception of a wood shop class that appears to be a thing of the past now. Anyway, in keeping with my standard greeting of him as "You S.O.B," I extended a single finger salute to him when he finally ambled towards us. With my left hand. It has been suggested that I may be overly fond of the gesture, but I feel that I mostly reserve it as a deterrent to photographs that I do not wish to have taken.

All was well, and we loaded onto the bus that would take us to our put-in site on the river. As we rode, Mr. B explained that his motorcycle had suddenly developed a clunk in the front wheel which hindered his progress for the last 45 minutes of his ride into Oak Hill, where the rafting company headquarters are located. He thought that it might have something to do with his speedometer cable, but it would require disassembling the front wheel to find out for sure. That would come later. We had rapids to run first.

The trip started a little farther down the river than it has in the past. The trips that I have taken in the past have tended to start in the metropolis of Thurmond, WV, population 5 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thurmond,_West_Virginia). This entailed a fair amount of long paddles down flat pools of water, with a couple of preliminary rapids thrown in along the way for practice. The new route puts in at Cunard, where there is a very nicely prepared site, including a boat slide down to the river. This, in turn, positions the boaters just above Upper and Lower Railroad rapids, two of the first more difficult rapids on the Lower New.

We ran the top, and decided to go play around in Lower Railroad for a while. This involved paddling back upstream into the hole at the bottom of the rapids. It is a good surfing site for kayakers. We settled mostly for sticking the nose of the boat into the mess, and flying around afterwards. On the second or third of these, I lost my thirty-year record of successfully staying in the boat. I could see my companions receding as I fell overboard. I quickly found myself under the boat...(stay tuned for Part II)...