Things We Learned This Week....

I spent the last week watching Rick's kids while he was in Anchorage at a conference.  Although the week was stressful on multiple levels, we learned a lot...including why I'm not ready for parenthood.  Here goes a top-ten list (in third-person, because the girls did some learning to.  HaHa):

1. Don't eat Cheetos and play the Wii - Sandra hates Cheeto cheese because it gets everywhere.
2. Bouncing on the couch when you sit down will drive Sandra crazy.
3. Sandra's house is not big enough and not child-proof - especially the coffee table.
4. Sandra will make you eat your dinner, even if you don't like it.  You will put it in the fridge and keep eating it until it's gone, or you will not get dessert.
5. It irritates Sandra when she has to continuously tell you to "Take a bite.  Take a bite."  Don't try to mush your food either, because you'll still have to eat it.
6. When it's bedtime, you get to pick one movie - then it's Sandra's choice because at that point, you're just refusing to sleep and it's making her cranky.
7. No video games, tv, etc. until homework is done.  Period.
8. Sandra must know things...like how to spell their middle names, apparently.
9. Elbows, knees, and fists in the middle of the night reminded me of why I don't like sharing my bed with small children.  It made for a long week of very little sleep.
10. Doling out punishment sucks when their not your kids.

Yep.  Not ready to be a parent...at least not a parent of partially-grown kids.

It's the little things in life...

When you live in the bush, it's the little things in life that become important.

Last night, Lindsey invited me over for dinner.  She had gotten a head of cabbage, and made corned beef and cabbage.  It's amazing how tasty that cabbage was!  And cabbage is one of those veggies that doesn't have a lot of nutrients or flavor.  But...oh man...was that a gourmet meal!

The ability to go to the store and get something as silly as birthday candles is also something that you don't think about.  For Rick's and Lindsey's daughter's birthday, we didn't have any candles.  So what do you do?  There's no Wal-Mart.  There's no Walgreens.  Well...there is, it's just a $500 flight away for a $3 pack of birthday candles.  So, what do you do?  You light a lighter and have her blow it out...11 times, once for each year she is old and one more time for good luck!  Yes...that's how we roll in da bush!

Internet also is very important when you live up here.  It's a life-line to everyone from back home, all the news in the world, etc.  When the internet goes out...bad things happen.  A couple of weeks ago, the internet went out for a week.  We were pretty sure the village was going to riot if the company didn't get up here and fix the internet issues.

You don't realize how important the little things are (like cabbage) until they're gone.

More Tobacco Awareness

So, today I made my health class (all 6 of them) go present their videos and posters they had made to the grade 3-6 classroom.  I was highly impressed by the effort and presentation.  It started out a little slow, with mostly me talking to the kids, but the high schoolers started to pick it up and took over.  One of my star athletes talked about how smoking really effects how you play sports.  A couple of my girls talked about how smoking effects pregnant women and their babies.  They also helped the kids come up with a list of terms to use when they search on the internet for pictures (we have internet filters that block students from certain sites).


Here's two more videos they made.  Enjoy!

What Snuff Can Do to You

Stop Smoking

Tobacco Use

So, tobacco use among students is a pretty big issue here.  We have a Tobacco-Alcohol-Drug (TAD) policy for the student athletes, which means they are not allowed to use those things during sports seasons.  We've actually had quite a few students get kicked off of the teams for violating the TAD policy, mostly for tobacco products.  We've got students as young as 3rd graders being caught with tobacco.  The most common form among students is snuff (a form of smokeless tobacco).


Because tobacco (and even drugs and alcohol among some students) is such an issue, we started a Natural High Challenge.  A natural high is an activity, art form, or sport that you LOVE to do and makes you feel good inside.  It doesn't involve any drugs or alcohol.  The idea is that everyone has a natural high.  The students all made posters, depicting their natural highs, and could enter a contest for money if they wrote an essay to go along with their poster.


Also in response to the use among students, I've had my high school health class make anti-tobacco videos.  Here's two of them.  Hopefully I'll have more to post soon.

Facts About Smoking

Deadly Tobacco

And so begins February...

So, our internet has been out for a week in the village.  Which doesn’t seem like a big deal, until you realize how much you use it.  I’ve been utterly bored!  And the internet company was not helpful about getting it up and running again.  Luckily I noticed tonight, as I was doing my dishes, the pretty lights on my internet box (which sits in my window, next to the sink).  It’s funny how excited we all got when it came back on!  It’s ridiculously slow though.

It’s also been ridiculously cold up here.  Pretty sure it hasn’t been above zero all week.  The moisture from my breath freezes on my coat as I walk to work.  Sometimes it makes me wonder...

(I love postsecret.com)

Anyway, I’ve got a killer tax refund coming back to me.  Pretty excited.  Last year, I went to Oahu on my tax refund.  This year, I’m going some place warm and sunny.  I just want to lay in the sun in a bikini and thaw.

Other news in the bush:  Basketball season is in full force.  Last week both our girls and boys basketball teams went down to New Stuyahok (also known as just Stu) last week.  They left Wednesday after school.  Now, you have to realize, when there’s only 21 high schoolers in the whole school, and 15 of them are on the basketball teams, that really leaves your lesson plans in a lurch.  Especially when two of the five students that are left haven’t really attended school since January.  It also means that when 75% of your high school leaves for sports, so does 75% of the village (if not more).  This week is the Elks tourney in Naknek, which means they’ll all leave again on Wednesday.  AND, if that doesn’t draw enough of our students away, there’s also carnival in Stu starting on Tuesday.  For all of you crazy Colorado folk, it’s not like the flashing lights and fast rides carnival.  It’s more like a festival;  cultural events take place, sometimes dog-sled racing, and other fun stuff.  Anyway, anyone who doesn’t leave for basketball will probably go down to Stu for the week for carnival.  Just another week in...paradise?

And I’m going to leave you by dispelling a few myths that seem to be in everyone’s head:  

1. Alaska is not always dark in the winter.  Even on the shortest day of winter, I had 6 hours of daylight.  Right now, the sun is coming up sometime between 8 and 9ish (not sure when exactly because I'm teaching) and setting around 7pm or so.
2. Alaska does not always have snow.  This is unfortunate right now, and apparently rare.  Recently, it’s been bitter cold (think -20) and very windy.  Not the best conditions for snow.  But very good conditions to keep our 2 or 3 inch layer of deadly ice in tact.  Currently, the lower-48 has more snow than my village.  It’s irritating.
3. There’s a significant difference between “Alaska” and the “Lower-48.”  They might as well be two different countries.  It’s not something you truly understand until you live here though.

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.