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!