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...