The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Well, I received my contract for next year yesterday.  I suppose that’s a good thing.  I have a job in Alaska if I want it.  However, I’m having a lot of doubts of what I should do next year.  Might as well explain it all, since I don’t talk to most of you often...

The Good

The students here are awesome.  They have a lot of potential.  If you can reach them, appeal to their better nature, and build a good rapport with them, then you can truly tell that I picked a wonderful village to work in.  Maybe I got lucky because there’s two of us new teachers here.  Maybe I’m just a lesser of the two evils.  Who knows.  But it seems like they enjoy having me as a teacher.

The staff I work with is pretty cohesive.  Well...for the most part.  There’s 5 teachers, a special ed teacher, and the principal.  In a small school like ours, it’s important that everyone gets along for the most part.  Half of us live in very close proximity to each other, so it makes for pretty good friendships if you get along with them.

I make about $15,000 more up here in Alaska than I do in Colorado as a teacher.  That’s pretty awesome.  Who wouldn’t want to make more money?  Cha-ching!

It’s beautiful up here.  The weather hasn’t been “typical” Alaskan weather.  It’s been pretty warm.  All of our snow has melted and is just a thick layer of ice.  Even so, it’s still pretty.

We do have a bush airline that travels straight from Koliganek to Anchorage.  That makes things much cheaper in the long run, so I don’t have to fly through Dillingham.

The Bad

There’s not a lot to do here.  The village is VERY small.  I’m not sure anyone really understands how small it is here.  Less than 200 people in the village, and about 60 of those people are kids at school.  There’s not a lot of socialization opportunities here.  Very few people my age that aren’t already married with kids.

The economy here is pretty poor, much like most Alaskan bush villages.  In such a small village, jobs are hard to come by.  This puts a stress on the community as a whole.  Luckily, alcoholism isn’t very high here, however it can be a problem for some.  One of the jobs here is the dog-catcher.  Stray dogs are a problem for a couple of reasons.  They get into the trash, and when they can’t find food, they get violent.  They’ve attacked kids in the past.  So, they round up the stray dogs, take them to the dump, and shoot them.  Pretty crazy, right?  Guess who has that job...a high school student.  Other jobs include the trash man, the post office lady, the store cashiers, and a handful of village council jobs.

I’m the only teacher here that is single.  That’s pretty frustrating sometimes.  Being the only one without a family is sometimes hard.  It’s especially hard since I’m pretty close with my family in Colorado.  It can also be tough, since most of my friends are also in Colorado.  I truly miss going out for pizza and a beer after work with some friends.

Although I make more money up here, it also costs more money up here.  For example, a gallon of gas is $6.25 in the village.  Everything at our store is very pricey.  I have to ship everything in.  Transportation in and out is pretty crazy too.  The only way to come or go is via plane.  It cost me about $1400 to come home for Christmas (just for flights and hotels in Anchorage between flights).  So even if I am making more money, there’s a lot more expenses.

I’m still paying on my mortgage in Colorado.  Although I have a roommate now that helps with the cost of that, it’s still an added expense.  Everyone that wants me to stay here simply says “sell it!”  Easier said than done in a crappy, military-based economy.  Besides, I really enjoy having a place of my own to come home to when I’m not in Alaska.

The Ugly

The living conditions are decent.  But they’re not great.  I’ve gotten my rent knocked down quite a bit due to the condition of the housing here.  There’s an issue with mice where I live, which is disgusting.  They’re weird little mice too.  They don’t just eat things, they hoard it.  The mouse poison I put out, for example.  They started hoarding it under a blanket of mine and in a pair of jeans I had laying out.  Their trying to poison me back I guess.

In such a small school, if there’s anyone that you don’t get along with, it makes things very very difficult.  It’s hard to avoid people if you don’t see eye-to-eye.  And, at the end of the day, it’s not like you can go very far to escape the troubles of the day.

The Conclusion

Umm...I have no conclusion.  I have no idea what my plans are for next school year.  I’ve applied to all 11 Colorado Springs school districts, however, a lot of the districts are down-sizing.  Should I sign this Alaska contract?  Or not, and hope for a job in Colorado?  I have 30 days to decide.  Ultimately, it’s my decision, I’m aware.  I’m not sure if the good things outweigh the bad.  It’s just a shame more school districts won’t have jobs posted by then...

Superstitions and Other Weird Things

This blog would’ve probably been better if I posted it closer to Halloween.  But, what can ya do?  I’ve discovered life up here is a bit different.  They have different superstitions and beliefs up here.  Some sound familiar to things I’ve heard about before, others are a little more strange to me.

Hairy Man

We’ve all heard about Big Foot, right?  I suppose every place has some sort of large, hairy creature.  Down in Colorado, we call it Big Foot.  We don’t usually pay any mind to the idea of such a creature.  It’s not real, right?  Who knows.  Apparently there was a special on the Discovery Channel or something about Big Foot eating all the elk in Manitou Springs.  Well, I know all those Manitou people are slightly crazy, and usually pretty high...but why it made it on the Discovery Channel, I have no idea.  Anyway, up here, they call him “the Hairy Man.”  I suppose it falls into the same category as Big Foot.  Extra-large, extra-hairy creature that eats the animals.  The people up here will swear to you that they’ve seen the hairy man.  And, they run away from him, because he’s scary.

Northern Lights

This one is pretty basic I suppose.  All the kids have told me that if you whistle at the Northern Lights, the lights will snatch you up.  They’ve told me about a kid they knew that disappeared.  Good thing I can’t whistle very well!  Ha!

“Little People”

This one has a whole day devoted to them.  January 18 is “Day of the Little People.”  Around here, they call them “Sintheaqs” (I’m not sure if that’s spelled correctly, as it’s a Yup’ik word, and I don’t speak Yup’ik).  It’s pronounced “sin-the-ucks.”  I’m pretty sure that different areas have different names for them.  They’re little, gremlin-like creatures that come out and cause havoc.  Everyone’s afraid of them, like they fear the Hairy Man.  They don’t talk about them much, other than their devilish creatures and no one likes them.  When things go wrong, and no one can explain it, they always blame the “little people.”

Bad Bread

How many of us has tried to bake something and it’s gone terribly wrong and tasted awful?  Apparently, when that happens, you should throw it away immediately, otherwise someone in your family will die.  eekk!

Spiders

Only males can kill spiders.  If females kill spiders, it will rain for days.  Females must trap the spiders and put them back outside.

Hunting Customs

When someone gets their first moose up here, it is customary to give it all away to the community.  Because subsistence is the way of life up here, almost everyone who is old enough will have a moose tag during moose season.  So, when the young kids shoot their first moose and give it away, the older family members will also be able to get moose to stock their freezers for the winter.