End of the Quarter

So, I’m pretty sure winter just showed up. We’ve had snow on the ground for over 24 hours and it’s snowing as I type. Nice, big snow flakes. The good thing is that I was able to toss a few snowballs at some students. The bad thing is that, well, it’s winter. So, let’s see….what exciting things have gone on since last I wrote. I’m not actually online at the moment (just typing this up in Word), so I can’t really remember what I last wrote. So….what has happened this week? I bought (another) plane ticket. Actually I bought 2, because it made sense to buy 2 One Way tickets. One to Anchorage, and then one back to Bethel over Thanksgiving break. REALLY looking forward to that trip. Get into the big city again, go to the Bear’s Tooth, and just REALLY get away from the school for a few days.

I recently had the distinction of (indirectly) causing a student to be removed from the school in handcuffs. Let me explain: I have a fairly strict policy of no bathroom use during my class. My students still ask sometimes, so when I’m in a good mood I’ll let them if they’ve can show me that they’ve done some work. Well, one particular student decided that this wasn’t good enough & got up and went to the bathroom anyway. So, I informed this student that an after school detention was now in order. When the student came back I insisted that work be done. The student didn’t particularly care for this either. So, the student left once again. I called the principal, informed her that a student left my room and was potentially leaving school altogether. My principal was able to intercept the student. Again, this displeased the student who made threatening gestures toward the principal. Such behavior being completely unacceptable the authorities were informed. Though they took quite some time getting there, the misbehaving student failed to take the opportunity to simply leave. As luck would have it, right when the rest of the students were getting out for the end of the day, the police showed and handcuffed my entirely unhappy student in front of much of the school. It’s time like these that I don’t know whether to happy or sad. I guess I’ll know for sure when this student comes back.

Oh yeah, I also bought a boat…or at least committed to buying a boat. Cindy purchased one this fall, and after a while thought better of it. So now I’m gonna buy it from her. I hope it’s a good investment. At the very least it sounds like it’ll be pretty easy to sell. Better yet, it sounds like I’d be able to do it for a profit. So we’ll see how this whole thing goes. I won’t know until spring because, well, the river is freezing over. So, I’ll let you know after the big thaw whether it was a good purchase. I think it is, though…

What else…. Oh yes. We had a Halloween Carnival at the school today. The student council put up some carnival type games and kids (and community members as well) could come in and buy tickets that they then used to play the games for little prizes. It was a lot of fun, and the kids really seemed to enjoy it. Next week is a haunted house. I’m pretty excited for that one. There’s also some Rocky Horror Picture Show thing going on in Bethel that weekend, that I’m very tempted to check out. So, I’ve got some things to think about.

On another exciting note, We are officially ¼ of the way through the school year. The end of the quarter was Friday, and I have all my grades ready. Some of them are pretty abysmal, but hopefully it’ll make those kids realize that they actually have to do stuff in class in order to pass. Or maybe it’ll get their parents a little more involved. Anyway, I hope it does something for the better, because right now it’s just kind of depressing.

Hmmm…I’m also trying to figure out my summer plans. Looks like Lane is gonna come up this summer J Just in case anyone else is interested, you can currently get a RT ticket from Chicago to Anchorage for only $430. Pretty good price, especially when I think about how my RT flight home at Christmas cost me $1800 (and that doesn’t include getting to/from the village). So, something to think about for those of you who have always wanted to go to Alaska ;) So, I’m thinking that I want to go to Denali and Fairbanks over the summer when my visitor(s) arrive. Maybe try to squeeze in something else as well (Wrangell-St. Elias, maybe).  But I was also thinking I could try to see Barrow, AK (the northernmost city in the USA). I looked it up, and I can use my Alaska Airlines Frequent Flyer miles to pay for a ticket from Bethel è Barrow è Anchorage. There are also a couple of Couch Surfing people in Barrow. So, if everything works out, I’ll get a few days up there for next to nothing. And that’s in Polar Bear and whale territory! So, just some things that I’m trying to figure out.

I also am thinking about thinking about heading into Anchorage to check out the start of the Iditarod. Apparently we’ve got a 4 day weekend then, so that’s a very tempting possibility. The only problem I see w/ all this is that I need to make sure I actually save some money this year. But I think I’ve been doing a pretty good job.

And finally….Dorothy got herself  a puppy. She’s been wanting one since she got here, and today she snagged up a little stray puppy that has been terribly neglected and has been hanging around teacher housing for a few days. So that’s nice. Anyway…I’m sick of writing, and you’re probably sick of reading. Wish me luck and pray for me and I head into the 2^nd quarter. I hope you’ve been enjoying my posts, and I wish you all the best. Take care, and God bless!

Winter Is On Its Way....

So....it's getting a bit chilly now. I think we've broken 40 once or twice over he past week, and aside from the mornings it's been raining I've walked to school through frost. And today, as I mentioned on my facebook status, there was frost still on the ground (albeit in the shade) at about 4:30 this afternoon. Oh yeah, and around noon the puddles were iced over. I think winter is near. I know that I'm not quite ready for it. I don't like there's been a summer up here. I'm not sure it's been over 70 since I've been here. And I'm pretty sure I could count the times it's been over 60 on my two hands. So, I kinda wish I had had some more nice days before winter started to kick in. On the positive side the days have been pretty nice, just a bit chilly.

The really noticeable thing however, is the daylight. When I flew into Anchorage on July 25 sunrise was 6:06am, and sunset was 11:47pm. Fast forward to today (less than 3 months later) and sunrise was 9:19am and sunset will be at 7:54pm. That's a lot of sunlight that is no longer with us.

What big events have happened since the cross country meet? I really should keep up with this thing a little better.

Anyways...tried to do a little hunting this weekend. Didn't work out so well. We boated around looking for birds, but didn't see many. The ones we did see we weren't able to get. And my shotgun decided not to fire any of the 3" shells I bought. So that was fun. We also shot at a beaver for a while, but we weren't able to get him either. Then we were going to go the next day, but Tim had his gas stolen, so that put a pretty quick halt to those plans.

Which reminds me...a fun little "adventure" I had somewhat recently was wiring up teaching housing for satellite TV. Tim asked me to help lay some cable for just this reason a couple weeks ago. Thinking it would just be a few hours, I agreed. Well, it turned into 5 or 6 hours one night, and then another 6 hours (ish) the following morning. The really funny thing is that I'm not even going to have TV...sometimes I wonder how I made it this far in life. I'm hoping, however, that my good deeds will pay off when there's a program I greatly desire to see (i.e. Wings' game).

Hmmm...I'm doing Fantasy Hockey again, which is nice. I got off to a great start, but my team kinda tanked today, which ticks me off. Also, in even more exciting news, I just got 80 lbs of cat litter in the mail today. So now Squeaks can poop in comfort for the rest of the year.

Getting really excited about Thanksgiving & Christmas. Sounds like I'm gonna be heading into Anchorage w/ a handful of the new teachers for Thanksgiving. That'll be nice to get into a real city, see some of my older (in years of friendship terms) friends, and hang out with some of the new ones. Christmas will just be nice in general. See the family, the friends. Do a little skiing, drive my car, go to Short's, eat at a restaurant, go to a movie. Except it'll go by like nothing. Oh well, it'll be a lot of fun. I think Lane said we're in the 60s for # of days left until I come home.

I really love this place at night. I love it when I'm at the school late or watching a movie at Dorothy's and I have to walk home. It's so quiet, and still. And the lighting gives a really, really nice atmosphere. Almost spooky But I love it. I usually just stop and look around for a few minutes. Maybe having very little sunlight in winter won't be so bad, because it really fantastic here at night time. Anyways...should probably get to some lesson planning done. Hope you guys are enjoying my blog, and hopefully I'll get posts up more frequently. Take care, and God bless!