That Was Quick...

Wednesday already. The weekend was pretty uneventful, although it is nice when we have two days to recover from the work week. That is a pretty relative statement, as I understand that many people have to work seven days a week, and it should also be understood that we work on weekends even when there is no scheduled presence required in the building.

Our reality is that even the stress-free (?) days are busy. I teach an after-school program three days a week with bunches of kids and a fair amount of management involved. By five o' clock, I am ready for a breather, and my day is not generally finished yet. It is just plain nice to sleep in a little bit and to be able to get things done on my own schedule on the weekends. It will be a welcome change of pace to have that choice available this weekend.

I am starting a diet competition with some friends this week. Heavens knows it is overdue. The program is called "Game On," and it involves a competition. The focus is on behavioral changes as opposed to simple weight loss. That sounds like a good idea. We will see how it works.

Parent conferences begin today. I am pretty blocked out for the next two days, as I think that I have the largest class in the school. We encourage the kids to come in to present their own work and discuss their progress with their parents. It has been pretty successful, and we have gotten pretty good participation in the junior high. I will be curious to see how the turnout goes this time.

Now, for math class...

Thursday Morning...

It is my prep period, which comes first thing in the morning, Monday through Thursday. Because Fridays are half-day sessions with students, I do not have a prep on those days.

There are a group of junior high girls sitting on the floor with three elders teaching them a project. It is funny to see the enthusiasm, patience and persistence...on the part of the elders. The girls are slowly awakening, which seems to be the pattern in the early mornings here. I still see the personalities of the girls emerge, although the conversations are in Yup'ik. The curious and investigative ones are the same here as in the rest of their classes. The ones that are content to sit on the sidelines and watch, for whatever reason, are the same as well.

I did have to laugh when one of the elders told the girls that the morning was the time to smile, and that they should not be going to bed late at night. I tend to see the opposite pattern on most mornings. I think that I am going to borrow that concept for myself tomorrow.

We are starting to get into the second semester maelstrom of testing. We can start either this week or next. There are at least three rounds of testing that I can think of between now and the end of the school year, and I am pretty sure that I am missing one. The big one in April essentially eats up most of a week. Even the minor ones take a big chunk of two or three days. They have a way of blasting very big holes in the schedule.

This is one of the reasons why continuity becomes a major challenge after the beginning of the New Year. We spend a lot of time running in multiple directions simultaneously...

Tomorrow is Friday. We have a long pair of inservices Friday night and Saturday, interspersed with basketball games happening here at the same time. Thank heaven for no distractions...

Enough of That...

Ok, done whining. New day, new possibilities. Time to get after things and get them done.

Fun After School....

All the joy of a union meeting to discuss a tentative agreement...this is my evening until 9 pm. Last night was more fun. I got a call summoning me for a steam. It had been too long since the last event, and this one was sublime. That great feeling when the steam hits your skin. The aroma of the wormwood in the steam water. The feeling of relaxation after a good wash and shave. The stroll home in the crisp winter air. Wonderful...

Slept like a log...

But tonight-not so much fun...I wanna go home.

Saturday...

...and it's a work day. An assigned one. It is strange...when we are discussing working outside of our designated hours, we are supposed to act as professionals, who are paid a salary, but then we have designated weekend hours that we are supposed to fulfill. No great big deal, but a little contradictory.

I got my spouse back from Anchorage last night, and we were both happy about that. Her flight back was moved from noon until 6:45 or so, and we had to figure out how to get her back here after the planes were done flying to the village for the day. We were lucky in that the river has refrozen after the rain/melt event of last weekend, and it provided a surface for vehicles to transit. The trick was to find a vehicle (we do not currently own one).

I managed to cajole my neighbor into going to Bethel. He wanted to go to the grocery store and see the Bethel high school basketball game against Barrow. It all worked out well, and we saw a number of local folks as we ran errands around town and hung out at the airport. All chores were completed, and the wifely person was safely in her warm cozy bed at the end of the evening. A good nights sleep was had by both.

There is snow blowing outside the window right now, and it is kind of gray. We are getting almost 5 additional minutes of daylight each day, which means that the darkness of the winter solstice is becoming a fading memory. I should copy stuff and sub plans, but the day is about over, and I will happily return tomorrow to take care of that stuff. Because I am tired of hanging around here working for the moment....

Hot Damn, It's Friday!

The week is sort of done. It's Friday afternoon, at least, and we are officially shorn of any reason to be here. I am here nonetheless, for reasons that escape me. I have to be back in the morning, so the only reason that I can comprehend is that I am typing this drivel. Well, that and the fact that it is cold outside and I don't feel like going home and letting the dogs out.

My wife is still in Anchorage, as her flight home scheduled for noon was canceled by Alaska Airlines. No reason that I know of. Doctors' appointments went well, and this is the last time we have to go through this waiting game. The next time that she leaves, we are not coming back without our new baby. That might take a little longer, although the due date is looking a lot like March 7, or close to that.

Now, all that I have to do is persuade someone to drive to Bethel tonight to pick up my wife from the airport. That, or steal someone's keys...

Good Morning Post...

I often do these at the end of the day, but the morning's events are unfolding slowly, so now is as good a time as any.

We are nearly at the end of our first week of school after break. Fridays are a half day with students, even though we spend the afternoon in improvement activities. This weekend will be a little different, as we have a scheduled work day on Saturday. This is for the express purpose of giving us time to finish grades for the last semester. Mine are done for the most part, so I will focus on lesson planning. I figure this week I am getting paid for aspects of my job that I perform on my own time other weeks.

I also have some time to prepare sub plans for the person who will replace me next week while I take two high school students to Bethel for a student leadership conference of some type. This would ordinarily be my wife's thing, but she has sworn off sleeping in classrooms on air mattresses for the duration of her pregnancy. That leaves me, I suppose.

As for the pregnancy front, my bride is in Anchorage today for the monthly doctors' consultations. We may actually have a scheduled birth event by the end of the day. We have a scheduled pregnancy, if you will. Not our choice, but that is ok, too. We are just waiting for the little fella or girl to get out and start disrupting our sleep from this side of the womb. She/he has already been doing a fairly good job of that from his/her current location. More on this later.

And now the day begins in earnest. Time to prepare for the day. Here's hoping it will be a good one...

Annoyance...

Mostly with Blogger and this poky Internet service tonight. It has been pretty good for the first couple of nights, but now is at a crawl. Maybe there are just too many of us on it at once, and everyone else is watching a movie...

We are back at it and things are going generally well. The first day back was more raggedy, but tolerable. Today, we all flowed more smoothly. Heck, the time seemed to flow more smoothly.

Not much else to report. I am apparently taking a couple of the high school kids to Bethel to participate in a student leadership conference next, in place of my bride. It will make for an interesting week, added to the in service day that we have on Monday. Quick week, that one-I won't see my students until Thursday!

The dog is snoring and everyone else has gone to bed. Maybe that is a clue...

Approaching Normal (slowly)

At long last, I am composing and typing from the recliner in my living room. It is a dream I have had...

We made it through the great power outage of 2013 (at least I hope that this is it...). We have attended various Slaaviq celebrations around the village. Staff members have been sifting in, some delayed by weather in their travels around the country. Our union has negotiated a tentative agreement with the school district that will cover the next two years.

My poor wife is getting more uncomfortable as the birth of our little one approaches. Yesterday, I gave up on sleep at about 3 am and decided to start doing dishes and the laundry after the coffee kicked in. Their is a lot of insomnia in these here parts. Everyone has been staying pretty cheerful, though. I was actually pretty excited about getting all that work done. I had chores done by 7 am!

There was a union executive board meeting at noon in Bethel, so after my weekly chat with my folks, it was out to start up the snow machine and hitch up the sled. The ride to Bethel featured rain and slushy snow. Kind of a slog. After our meeting, I went outside to see that it was now raining even harder. I got over to the AC store and did some very rapid shopping, and headed for the river as quickly as possible. By the time I got to the front door here, I was pretty soggy all over. I was very grateful for my seal hat and mittens. Nice and waterproof. My box full of groceries...not so waterproof. I was lucky, though, and made it up the stairs without having the bottom let go.

Many empty boxes were at the top of the stairs. The mail that had been "piling up" somewhere out in the universe had nearly all arrived. There were all kinds of baby things, some from Nana, and some from Aunty Amazon. There was even a radio so that we could listen to A Prairie Home Companion on a Saturday afternoon.

On Sunday, we got together with our neighbors for some brunch. I believe that this is going to replace our Friday night pizza deal for the next little while. It might make sense on several levels. And it is a yummy way to start Sunday. After that, Eric decided that we would take a go at hooking up the new wi-fi router that we got over the holidays. Voila! Instant Internet! Talk about a welcome improvement! I would prattle on more about this, but my dog is staring at me, which means that it is nearly 9 pm, and time for his dinner, an event which he takes very seriously. Tomorrow is back to school day, and everyone is seriously confused about that...we shall see how it goes. It should be good for a few laughs, if nothing else...

Back to Normal...

We have had a very active last several days here. Understatement.

As I suggested in my last post, all power/heat/water to the teacher apartment units here in Napaskiak went out on Tuesday the 8th of January at about 4:30 pm. The school generators were up and running the next morning, providing us with a place to work or do anything else in a warm location. It also gave us a place to cook. Very important.

By Wednesday, the houses had gotten significantly colder at the end of the day. We spent the night huddled under down comforters that we placed atop the usual bedding. I tried to sleep with a bunch of clothing on in the belief that it would keep me warmer, a belief that proved to be misplaced. I ended up stripping it all off and just using body heat and the insulation power of the bedding. I slept like a rock, despite the fact that the temperatures in the bedroom were very chilly. I didn't get up until nearly 10 am on Thursday.

Thursday morning found us back at the school, doing the breakfast and coffee thing again. I got in contact with our union president about the housing conditions, which are covered by our contract, and also learned that negotiations had produced a tentative agreement with the school district for the new contract to come into effect retroactive to July, 2012. There were a lot of emails to send to different folks, as I am both a site rep for the union and an area director as well. It was actually fun to be busy, and we broke up the day with a couple of Slaaviq visits.

Later Thursday, some of the staff members began to trickle into town. Our neighbors and their nearly one-year-old daughter came back late in the day, and our temporary dean of students came in at some point as well. The big event of the afternoon, however, was the return of power to our buildings!

It was tentative at first, but as the day went on, it became clearer that the needed part had been located, brought to town, and installed. By this morning, everyone in Napaskiak was back on the local power grid. It brings us to a warmer, happier weekend for everyone, and I can get my laundry done, too! Hooray!

My lesson plans are done and emailed in to the boss (who got here at some point today, I believe), and I am planning to spend the weekend at home (except for my trip to Bethel for the union meeting and some grocery shopping). Time to relax before we get back to the swing of things on Monday...

Brrr...

The lights went out yesterday, and they have been out since. Over 24 hours for us. That means no light and no heat. Last night, it meant no water pressure, either. We were trying to play dominoes by candlelight, which is a pretty tricky endeavor. Each of us ended up using small flashlights to actually see which domino we were trying to play off. We finally gave up and went to bed for a while.

I awoke sometime in the night with my mind racing about what needed to be done today in order to deal with conditions in the building. It served mostly to disturb my sleep. I was damned if I could actually come up with any intelligent ideas about what to do. I finally gave up on being smart and thought about how proud I was of my 8th graders back at the Halloween carnival when they had to run the show mostly themselves because I was helping out with concessions and got stuck there. Then I thought about what a good group of kids I have in the junior high this year and how much I am looking forward to getting back in the classroom on Monday. Then I thought about what an old grouch I am a lot of the time and that I need to loosen up a little and laugh at life. Finally, it occurred to me that this was the perfect opportunity to practice a little bit of that right then and there. I went back to sleep.

I woke up to a still dark, rather colder house. I looked out the front window of our bedroom. Light was streaming from the direction of the school, but there was no light to be seen anywhere else. The generator! Our maintenance man must have started up the generator! Why, that would mean that there might be water pressure! Off to the bathroom...yes! The faucet was flowing, which meant that we could FLUSH THE TOILET! Victory! I managed to rouse my sleeping sweetie, and checked the time...9 am. Maybe Paul (maintenance guy) had even MADE COFFEE!!!! We thought about it and decided to get up and get the dogs out and fed. That involved flashlights and even a head-mounted light. Very technical...then we filled a bag with breakfast stuff and headed to the school. There was light and heat and running water and a kitchen that worked and COFFEE!!!! Paul was here, along with one of the fellas from the power plant and a young mechanic. My wife made breakfast for us and the guys as well. And I got to have a cup of fresh, hot, strong COFFEE!!!! (Does anyone sense a theme here?)

What a weirdly wonderful morning...breakfast and coffee and the internet...I worked a little on my last lesson plan for next week, and answered some emails. At about noon, we got a call summoning us to a Slaaviq celebration that was to happen at 1pm. We ran home and got out of our PJs and into other clothes and walked through the snow to the celebration. The house that we went to had a generator and a wood stove going. It had light and heat in abundance. Maybe even too much. We were hot. It actually felt better on the porch. But the company was good and the food was better-I had a bowl of moose soup and some akutaq (our friend Michelle makes the best akutaq...)After that we headed home to the refrigerator that we call home for a little nap, and headed back to school with my little dog (he gets cold easily) and some dinner supplies.

We have been here for the most part since then. It is nearly 10 pm, and I suspect that we will go home when we get sleepy. Some houses have power, and some do not. It is not clear when we will get power back in the teacher housing, or in the village as a whole. The one good thing in this (other than coffee at the school when I get there) is that the weather has been warm today. The temperature has stayed pretty steady around the freezing mark. Last year at this time, nighttime temperatures were 50-60 degrees colder. I feel very fortunate when I think of that...

Gray and Chilly...

Not a felicitous combination. It isn't really all that cold as things sometimes go around here, but it sure is gray. Kind of reminds me of Michigan winters, and those don't appeal that strongly to me. It is often much colder at this time of year, but that is in turn accompanied by beautiful and brilliant sunshine. This stuff looks like a faded bruise.

On a plus note, it isn't -30 every night. That gets to be harsh after a while.

I have checked out the weather forecast for the next week or so, and it appears that it is going to be warmer than usual. I suspect that a grocery store run is going to be in order by Friday. Warm temps. low chance of precipitation. We shall see how well that holds.

Lesson plans are nearly complete for next week's return to school. Two days of social studies is all that stands between me and completion. This is going to be the longest break available for a while, so I might as well enjoy it, although writing lesson plans is not the same drudge that it once was. I type faster and understand what I am trying to accomplish better. It still is not what I would call fun, but I can deal with it.

My wife is lurking somewhere in the building. Once it gets to be one o'clock in the afternoon, I suppose it will be time for a trip to the post office. Last I heard, there were still no stamps in town, even though the postmaster ordered them in November. Some days...

At My Desk...

That is a little bit of a misnomer, seeing as all the other posts in the last few days have been made from the same place. Our "smartphones" support actual internet usage in only the most tangential and sporadic sense. In order to have actual access, we usually have to come over to the school. We are working on a change to that situation, but it is still going to be a while before we are operational in the teacher housing buildings. The other question at that time will be one of speed and capacity. The local phone/cable company has supposedly completed access to high speed internet service that does not depend upon satellite service, which is not high speed by its nature.

Anyway, I am downloading some information so that I can do some revised lesson plans for next week before we get to the weekend. I am trying to gradually get back on the daily schedule that we will have for the next semester and get off of the vacation pace. I made it up by 8 am today, which represents progress. The usual alarm time is 6:30 am, which some folks likely think to be quite decadent in and of itself. It is what we work with, however, and I still need to get adjusted to that, and I prefer to do it gradually rather than dramatically. Same for lesson planning. Most of my stuff is already ready, but I would like to have the rest of it done so that I am not spending quality time working at it on my last weekend of "freedom" for a while.

Word has it that a friend of the family just had a baby, which prompted my darling wife to message me the news here at the school. She is, needless to say, very interested in all events baby these days. We spent some quiet time last night chatting about our plans for our/the baby's future. It seems right and kind of exciting at the same time.

Now I am off to preview the online content for the health lessons that I plan on presenting next week...

More Leisure...

Vacation continues. Coffee. Breakfast. Read the "paper" (NY Times on my iPhone). Just realized that I should have brought my iPad over to download the New Yorker from two weeks ago. So funny that I read New York stuff from the Y-K Delta.

I did read what I thought was an inspirational article in one of our local papers recently. It has to do with a young woman from out on the coast who is trying to speak to the kids in our villages about trying to succeed in the world and being afraid to try. She can speak to it better than I can: http://www.deltadiscovery.com/story/2012/12/26/village-telegraph/bailey-village-youth-can-overcome-fear/745.html  ...just copy and paste the link into your browser. She strikes me as a good example of what our kids can do. Too many teachers make the mistake of looking at our students and seeing limitations instead of possibilities.

Enough of my soapbox. It is Sunday night, and the menu apparently will consist of spaghetti squash and salad. Remember, no canned spaghetti sauce in my house. It simply isn't done. My wife cooks from scratch, and she is reasonably good at it. That is one of the reasons that my friends that I get the best of the arrangement when I do the dishes and the laundry, because she does the cooking. I suspect that they are correct.

One more week until classes recommence. We would be back earlier, but we have found that classes during Slaaviq week do not work that well. This gives us a longer holiday break, but we do not do spring break. I suppose I will have a break of sorts when the baby is born, but I think that it might not be that restful. It may be a lot of fun, however.


I do think that I will take our new junior high Health textbook home, though, and start going through it. We start with that class new in the second semester. It is time to begin getting ready for the second half of the year. Much is in store...

Lazy...

We didn't get up until 9 am this morning. Of course, we didn't go to bed until 1 am. I am afraid that we are going to have to get back into playing shape for the normal work day in a big hurry this week.

It was mostly one of our traditional Saturday mornings-phone calls back home to loved ones in Michigan, and we recognized at one point that it is just hard to get us to do much of anything on a Saturday before noon. Something tells me that that is going to change, and soon....

I got a new camera so that I can take an endless number of adorable baby pictures that I can then bedevil our friends with. I can hardly to join the multitudes on Facebook. Of course, I am going to have the cutest kid in the world...

I am excited to see a couple of responses to the last couple of posts. I am gratified to see someone out there taking a moment to read these musings.

As for Slaaviq related news, I did copy some song sheets at the request of our local choir director today, so the preparations are getting underway in earnest. I believe that festivities begin here Monday night. More as it develops...

Water? Power? Who Needs it??

The pump at the school, which also supplies our water at the apartment, is down. The parts to fix it apparently have to be ordered from Anchorage, and it is not clear when they will arrive. The lights went out tonight. Another typical day. When things can go wrong, they will. Oh, well...yesterday that stuff made me cranky, but today is Deal With It Friday.

I got the chance to go riding on the river today, and that proved to be a nice alternative to boredom. The trail was a little tough to pick up at first because it was snowing pretty steadily, but it all sorted out as I went up the river towards Bethel. I picked up our veggie box, and 18 eggs at my wife's request, and headed back.  A pleasant outing. I actually had some pleasant thoughts about teaching my impending young one his or her way around the river highway...

We actually had enough water pressure tonight to wash dishes, and the kitchen is clean. I guess that the fellas over here are manually pumping the reserve tanks full or something of that nature. Kudos, guys!

We are hanging out at the school doing the net surf thing because we haven't gotten our wi-fi set up in the building. That will be a project to come after the neighbors return. It will be nice to have reliable Internet service at the house for the first time in nearly two years. Life's little luxuries...

Everyone here is getting excited about Slaaviq, which is coming up next week. I am working on getting our apartment building cleaned up so that people can come over and celebrate. We need to get on the official list. There seems to be surprise and happiness that we are here for this. This will be our first Slaaviq, and I am looking forward to it.

Happy New Year

Back in PKA for 2013, although we actually rung in the year in Bethel (in our sleep, thank you). We had flown up from Anchorage, where we spent Christmas and a few more days, on New Year's Eve. When all the bags came out, we had two dog kennels, five totes (loaded to the max and maybe a little beyond), two backpacks, one small dog bag (Buddha), one duffel-type suitcase, and something else that I may have forgotten.

What we lacked was a ride down the river. No fault. We had ridden up with Joe, who was in Anchorage. Alex had his truck, but had to be at his VPSO job at 8 pm. He hoped for a quiet night so that he could get some sleep and come and get us around noon. Our delightful friend Sandy graciously lent us the use of her apartment so that the five of us had a roof over our heads and a warm place to pee (well, at least the humans did).

We looked out the window at the fireworks being shot off to celebrate the new year, and felt fortunate to be together. The new arrival is scheduled for March, and we will have six to keep track of at that time. I have this vision that we will end up doing the Mary and Joseph routine..."I thought he/she was with you..." Kind of unnerving, when you figure that Mary and Joseph were SELECTED specifically for that job. What chance do we have?

Alex didn't get his wish for a slow New Year's Eve. He was kind enough to come and get us the next afternoon, however, and we were back in our little home by five in the afternoon. It feels good to be back, and we will get ready for the second semester, which is bound to be eventful, what with childbirth and long-term substitute teachers. And then, of course, we will try to get the mess that is us when we travel through the busiest airport in the world with one more member of our little traveling circus. It will be...bliss.