Weirder Than Hell...

Maybe not these days...one of my teacher friends just told me about her "instructional leader," a term that is apparently popular in ed circles these days. Makes me look for Kim Jong-Il...nothing like the infantile worship of those who occupy some sort of mamagement title. Anyway, this cretin is apparently demanding 3-5 hours a night outside of contract time plus eight hours on Saturday and Sunday. Sounds like someone should be paying overtime...on the uncompensated work time front, we spent nine hours in the school last night. Finally got home a little after 11pm. Midnight supper, after the dishes got done. We finally got our sort of day of rest today.

The weather was great today (for early October), so we went strolling along the airport with the dogs. Sunny and just a bit nippy, but warm enough that my cool new wool sweater was warm enough for the walk.

It's time for another week. We are coming into the season of the PFD, which means that there are going to be some people out here partying too hard, and some kids coming to school in no state to function. Not the most fun time of our year.

We will be going off to Bethel for the AASG meeting on Thursday. AASG is the association for student governments in Alaska, and they are coming here. I get to hang around and chaperone, and wander over to the District Office for an inservice on Friday. For me, it mostly represents a change of scenery, plus the chance to sleep on the floor for a couple of nights. Maybe I will go to AC for a real thrill. The funny thing is that I will be back in Bethel a week from Friday for yet another inservice. When it rains...

The morning awaits with laundry and new advenures...

Man, Are We Lazy Today...

And I am loving it...it may be partially because I realize that I have to reset all of my passwords after my recent re-imaging, and I don't feel like doing the work. I have to plan for four days and include one day of lesson plans. I am going to Bethel this weekend and next. This weekend, it will be for AASG, the student government organization for the state of Alaska, which will be meeting in Bethel. I will be a humble chaperone. Next weekend, I will be a humble second-year teacher going for (you guessed it) yet another inservice. The second in two weeks, to be quite specific. Lotsa travel for me coming up.

However, it is after 2pm, and I need to get some work done if ever I am going to get it done and still have some kind of weekend between me and Monday...

Fun In PKA

Thursday night was lively and eventful. We thought we were going to get a little nap after our after school program sessions. Were we ever wrong. A shipment of veggies and groceries for the concessions stands got here about 15 minutes earlier than we had expected, and pretty well shot the nap idea square in the head. Word was that we would need a 4-wheeler and a trailer to get it unloaded from the river bank. I ran over to the school and got the keys, while my bride organized the student loading crew.

The 4-wheeler seemed to be just fine, except for the fact that it had been a while and I couldn't for the life of me remember the procedure for starting it. The trailer, on the other hand, definitely left something to be desired. I recalled as I headed out to the shop where it was stored that the trailer had had a flat tire. By the time of my arrival, I learned the current situation. One side was resting on a block, wheeless. It was clearly not going to be of very much help in our project.

My next thought, although not a happy one, was that I would have to get the wagon that we use at the school for hauling trash. I didn't want to haul groceries in that wagon, but couldn't see any real alternative to that. After throwing a few bags out, I saw my buddy Joe, who had brought the stores down by boat, heading toward home on his own 4-wheeler. This was puzzling indeed. After a few puzzled thoughts, I hopped on the machine that I was using, and headed toward the river bank to see what was going on. No one around! No boat full of supplies! No group of expectant students looking for me to show up! What is going on here???? Where am I supposed to be??? I headed down the river bank into the old part of the village, looking for some signs of life. Nothing.

Confused beyond reason, I turned back toward the school. I looked away from the river, and saw a group of kids unloading a trailer at the storage facility. I had just been running around in what amounted to a circle looking for all of this. Jeez...

A quick trip to the storage building indeed confirmed that a group of happy students were tossing packs of pizza into freezers. So as not to feel entirely useless, I decided to deliver veggie boxes to teacher housing. One of the elementary kids had kind of attached himself to me, and I took him along for the ride. We had a great time tooling around, with him holding onto the boxes, and helping me to carry them to the houses.

Next, we entered the school, and hung around with Gabe, one of the crack computer guys, while he fiddled around with the aluminum brick that is my MacBook pro. We told funny stories about his dad, who is kind of a legendary guy in these parts, and watched him chase his little boy around my wife's classroom. The best part of that was when the little fella apparently felt the call of nature, and headed toward the gym with his pants around his ankles. There is no way in hell that I would have the energy to chase that little dynamo around all day at my age...

Next, we decided to head down to deliver a baby blanket to another of our staff. This turned into an hour-plus extravaganza of location, conversation and baby-dandlinification. I finally had to beg to get home so that we could get something for dinner before 9:30. Having said that, it was a lot of fun. See-we don't need restaurants or movies, or bars to keep ourselves entertained out here in PKA-we have 4-wheelers and veggie boxes....

Busy, Busy...

A couple of good days...will update later as time presents itelf, but it is 4 am, for god's sake...we are fine, and busy as hell...

5:30...

Up again with the same headache and churning in my guts as nearly every morning...a lot of staff people are turning up sick lately...are we all catching anxiety??

How Do I Love Thee?

My kidlets did six good hours out of seven today. I told them that at the end of the day, which they did not handle as well. But six good hours is...six good hours, and they need to know it. I don't know what to do with them and science. They are having a hard time with the unit, and it is an awful lot like starting them in the middle. The curriculum is set up differently, but the books didn't get ordered properly, and we started with cells. I may start them in a different direction, but they will have to come back here eventually. It's got me scratching my head.

I love my job, but some of the trappings leave something to be desired. I never have been a good one for hierarchies, and this time is no different. Self-employment has its unique pressures and deprivations, but it also provides independence, and that is nothing to sneeze at. Having said that, let me assure my blessed readers that I would change nothing about my life, regardless of the things that I may bitch about.

Tomorrow is Wednesday, and that is the hump over which I fly every week. It will be good to get over it this time.

Over Again, or...Only 11 Mondays Until Xmas Break...

Yet another casualty-free Monday. A couple of the darlings were especially darling, and they disappeared for the rest of the day. That was followed shortly thereafter by a missive from on high questioning what changes would be required by the number of referrals coming out of my classroom. I don't remember making a whole lot of referrals, because I don't find them to be all that useful myself. I guess that I could be enlightened, but I have made a point of trying to avoid them entirely as much as possible. My partner might have made them. I don't know. I will have to have this proven to me. I am also not in much a mood for the obligatory self flagellation session that says that crappy kid behavior is a priori evidence that I am to blame. Sometimes a jerk is a jerk. No rush to mea culpa for me.

On a lighter note, I was able to have some fun with our new smart board today. It worked for a while, until I tried to use it with the fifth grade EDM kids. I would have thought it a natural, but they seemed totally distracted. I found out later that the situation in their other classroom got a little out of hand today, and this apparently came walking down the hall in my direction. Such is fate. Perhaps tomorrow will be better. It had damn well better be, because I had had enough of kids and bureaucrats and vacuum cleaners in the middle of the after-school program by the end of the day. So my lovely bride put up with my shitty mood (sorry darling!) and cooked some yummy steak and eggs anyway, and we got the dishes done and the laundry folded and put away.

We got over here kind of late, but it is one of those evenings where ya don't want to go to bed because ya want a few peaceful hours not lost to sleep. When ya go to sleep, the next thing is the next day's work, and that will come soon enough. Weird, I know. But sometimes I just need time away from the blue building that sits a couple of hundred feet away from my chair. It takes enough of it as it is...