A trip out of the village and the first snow

Phew! It has been an exciting three weeks!

Firstly, as some of you might have noticed, I got the opportunity to leave the village for a few days for a training. The training was at the Mat-su district (just outside of Anchorage) headquarters in Palmer, AK. The district put us up in a nice hotel in Wasilla for two nights, then gave us a night in Anchorage before flying us out. The flight out of the village was gorgeous. It was a clear sunny day and I got to see some amazing sights. The little Era plane that picked me up had to stop over in two other villages to pick up more teachers, so I got a little tour of the north country.

The shoreline near Stebbins:

 A random jut of Alaska:

 Over near Shaktoolik:

 The village of Koyk. They have TREES! I was jealous.

 The view from my hotel room in Wasilla. It is pretty there:

 I really enjoyed the training, it had useful strategies that I'll definitely be using in my classroom. The Mat-su teachers and trainers were all very friendly and sweet, and the food they served us delicious! But beyond that, I really appreciated the time to get to know the para-pro that came with me from Stebbins (she is an AWESOME person) and the folks from other village schools that I car pooled with. The training was in Palmer but our hotel was in Wasilla, so we had a little bit of a commute to chat during.* One of my companions was a super-cool native from Wales, AK. Look it up. It is on the very western tip of the middle chunk of AK. The natives from there hunt musk ox, caribou, reindeer, whales and bears, both the grizzly and polar kind.** You have to be incredibly hard core to make your life there. He told us amazing stories about his life and shared crazy videos of him and his family chasing bears on snow machines. It was awesome. And now I kinda want to teach in Wales. My favorite moment of the training came when Mr. Wales used one of the conceptual mapping techniques we were learning to map out a lesson on properly killing, harvesting and eating a Musk Ox. Apparently two had wandered into his village that week and the staff took advantage of the moment to bring the kids out and give an impromptu cultural studies lesson***.
After our final session on Saturday, we got to spend a night in Anchorage before flying out. I took advantage of the time to do some shopping and a healthy amount of beer-drinking. I'm not gonna lie, those beers tasted wonderful. :) I haven't missed them as much as I thought I might, but that doesn't mean I didn't appreciate the crap out of them when I got them.

The trip back from Anchorage was full of awful. We got to the airport at 9:30am, but didn't board a plane until around 5:30pm. All of Era's planes were grounded due to an outdated flight recorder system. All other flights were cancleed, but because we were a BSSD charter, they managed to find a plane from a subsidiary airline (Hageland, the Tweeto-owned arm of Era) and send it down to get us. Still, I didn't get home until almost 10pm that night. Not fun, especially considering I had to go right back to teaching the next morning.
All in all, by the end of this week I'd managed to work two full weeks of 12ish hour days with no days off. Turns out, that's about how much I can take before I start to break. By friday, I was a hot mess. But hey, this is what I signed up for, and at the end of the day, I do still love the job.

Friday night the community organized a "disco dance" for the kids in the village. Mike and I had a great time showing up and dancing with our students. It was really wonderful to relax with them in a non-school setting, and they were all happy to see us there. I hope we impressed them with our leet dancing skillz :P

This weekend we spent our time relaxing and playing Ikuza, a Japanese-themed risk-style game. Mike is way too good at it, of course. It also snowed for the first time today, though it didn't come anywhere near sticking and occasionally switched over to hail. Still, I guess this is how it starts.

And now, I leave you all with some fun Stebbins slang that I've learned:

"I jokes"- used instead of "just kidding"
"Arah!" - basically the village version of "oh man!" or "awww!" or "harrumph!" It is my favorite, but I fear not for long, because I hear it ALL the time:
Me:"Yes, you DO have to do all the problems on the quiz." 
Kids:"Arahhh!"




*No, I did not see Russia or a single Palin, in case you were wondering.
**Natives in this area get hunting licenses for all of these animals. They use every part of everything they kill and are fined heavily if they don't. From what I understand, Alaska Fish and Game comes down really hard on anyone who abuses the system.
***and by "cultural studies lesson" I mean they KILLED AND HARVESTED A MUSK OX. FOR SCHOOL. I f*cking love Alaska.

more Firsts!

This last week has marked a series of firsts: First week of school, first ATV ride and Mike's first (potential) job in education.
So first things first...er, so to speak:                                

Last week was our opening week at school. There are a thousand things I could say about how it went- the good, the bad, the amazing, the hilarious....etc. But in order to protect my school, myself and my students, I'll be keeping those stories to a minimum. If you're interested, you can always call, skype or email me, or wait until winter break, and I'll regail you with stories.
All things considered, our first week went fairly well. There were the typical ups and downs and 13 hour days, but none of that is new to me. The students are different in many ways from any I've worked with in Seattle, but not in ways that seem insurmountable. The culture is  very different from ones I have known and worked with, but the kids are much like any who live on the edges of our world.  They all have huge challenges outside of the classroom that they deal with every day....challenges most of us can only begin to imagine or relate to. It is my own challenge to keep that in mind and teach with an open heart and with as much love, support and consistancy as I can. That said, these kids are some of the toughest and most resilient I've ever met. They play outside in any wheather, they rarely cry for more than a few moments after getting hurt, they are lightning-quick with forgiveness. I feel truly lucky that I'll get to know them over the year.

Some of you may be wondering what Mike's been doing this whole time. Don't worry, he has been far from idle. Nothing is official yet, but it looks as though he may be getting a part time job at school as an aide/ librarian. He's pretty excited about it, but it is a totally different work enviornment than he's used to. Mostly, it's a very good change. Other than that, he'll be starting online classes with Bellevue College in about two weeks.
We've also both started doing the p90x workout program. It's hard to find excersize options out here, but there is a small gym available to us. It's nice to be doing something together. It helps keep us both motivated.

Last but not least, in our week of firsts.......our first ATV ride!
Yesterday we borrowed a shiny yellow ATV and went exploring.
This is the aptly named "driftwood beach."

There was a lot of friggin' driftwood. 

But also lots of picturesque views:

We had some fun on the rocks.....

And then went to a different beach, where we discovered birds and more fun rocks:

Also, target practice:

And that about sums up where we live. Birds. Rocks. Water. There are bears and wolves and foxes too, but we didn't see any on our trip. 

And with that, I'll leave you with my favorite piece of driftwood: a huge tree stump that looks like a creepy spider. 

Happy Labor day, y'all. 

P.S. If we're FB friends, I finally posted wedding, beerfest and Stebbins albums. Enjoy.