So...where was I? To help me organize my thoughts, I suppose I'll give you folks a list of significant events since last I posted. Then I'll expound on a few of the more interesting stuff. So, significant events:
Failed fishing trip w/ Tim; Fiddle Dance; District Wide Inservice; My classroom; More Plans affected by Weather; Moravian Church; Other teachers; Exploring the village; and I think that's about it.
I guess I'll start w/ what came first - the Fiddle Dance. There was a "Blueberry Festival" last Friday/Saturday, the primary reason for it, from what I've gathered was to raise money for Search & Rescue. There were some vendors selling food, and other stuff, some carnival type games, and then some other games. I just kind of checked this stuff out (walked by, watched for a while, etc.). However, I did go to the Fiddle Dance. I didn't do any dancing, although most of you probably assumed as much. I did, however, meet a lot of local kids and was the focus of a lot of their attention. They found it incredibly entertaining to poke me, and then pretend as though they hadn't. I must admit, their fascination w/ it lasted a lot longer than mine, but oh well. They had fun, and I suppose that's the important thing.
I don't really know why they call it a Fiddle Dance, however. There was no fiddle. It was really just a Dance. There was a live band (didn't catch the name of it) comprised of a handful of guys from the area. They played mostly country, and then some oldies. Not a whole lot of people did any dancing, really. There were a couple of songs that got some people on the dance floor, but in general, people were socializing on the edges of the dance floor (the following night, from what I hear, was a lot more "hopping," but I did not go that night). There was one cool part where they recognized a couple that has been married for 50 years, and then did the whole "dollar dance" thing w/ the two of them. So, that was neat.
There was also my failed fishing trip w/ Tim. We were gonna do some subsistence dip netting (I believe that's the correct term), w/ one of his buddies, but the weather decided it didn't want us to. We made it to the fishing spot, but the water was quite rough & Tim decided it wasn't worth trying to do any fishing in those kind of conditions. Unlike my previous boating experience, however, Tim has a canopy on his boat, so I stayed fairly dry and warm. That was nice. It was also nice to see a little more of the area, although, to be completely honest, it all looks pretty much the same.
I also went to a Moravian Church last Sunday. I went w/ Dorothy to the 10am service. It was nice. I haven't been to church in a while, so it was good. Most of it was in Yup'ik, so I didn't understand much of it, but the preacher (not sure what the correct term is) read all the scriptures in both English & Yup'ik, and spoke in English here and there besides. It was a little sad because there were only 5 people in the audience. Then there was the preacher and his "assistant" (rang the bell, carried the collection plate, etc.). I gathered, however, that more people attend in the winter because they spend a lot of time w/ their subsistence living activities in the summer. I certainly hope this is true. They, apparently, also get a "special" preacher-guy to come during the fall/winter. Sounds like someone a little more "official" in the Moravian church. So, I'm excited to see how things go this fall and winter.
A few days ago I also go to see a little more of the village. Dorothy, Cindy (another teacher), and I took a pretty decent stroll around the village. We tried going off-boardwalk, but the ground around here isn't the best for hiking (again, very muddy and lots of "sink" potential). So we stayed to the boardwalk mostly. We wandered around the village, saw the "Honey Bucket" hoppers (look it up if you don't know what a "Honey Bucket" is), picked a few blueberries when we saw some "high" ground that provided better footing, and walked all the way out to the villages Sewage Lagoon - I'm assuming you can figure out what this is. On the way back from the lagoon, I even found $10 on the ground. That was a pleasant surprise.
The District Wide Inservice was pretty good. A lot of information. But I got a water bottle & a USB drive, along w/ some mechanical pencils. I learned a lot about what I have to teach, so that was very nice. I would have liked to have had some more time to learn about my Social Studies Curriculum (I learned only about my 7th/8th grade reading classes), and my other Writing/Reading classes, but so it goes. I also learned a little bit about my SMART Board, so I hope to be putting that to use this school year. I got to meet some other teachers in the district, and re-connected with the new teachers I met at the New Teacher Orientation, so that was really nice. We stayed in a dorm again, and it was a lot of fun. We had a pool tournament (it was pretty pathetic), and stayed up later than we should have hanging out. The second night was a lot of fun because I started playing all of my 80s/90s music, which everyone seemed to get a kick out of. Some of the other new teachers probably would have liked us to go to bed a little sooner, because we did get a little loud from time to time, but I don't think there were any hard feelings after the fact. It'll be nice to see those guys/girls again at our various New Teacher events this school year. Some of them live in nearby villages as well, so I hope to get over and see some of them. If our schedules work out, there is a group of us that are hoping to get together at the airport in Anchorage and grab a beer when we head back to our hometowns around Christmas. That should be a lot of fun if it works out. I was able to meet most of the other teachers at my school (Bruce, Mary-Alice, Betsy, & Suzie; I think there are 1 or 2 more that I haven't yet met), and the teacher that I replaced (she moved to another village). She's been pretty helpful this summer giving me an idea of what I'm getting into. So it was nice to finally meet her face-to-face.
Another couple things about the inservice... I had another nice bit of standing around in the rain waiting for an airplane. I'm becoming pretty good at this. Our plane to Bethel was about an hour and a half late. I also picked up my Swan Stamp for hunting while in Bethel, so I now have permission to shoot three of those. Tim says they're fun to hunt, because they're tough to bring down & crash pretty hard when you're able to. And finally, I was able to find some semi-affordable ammo in Bethel. Back home (and even in Anchorage) I can get a box (25 rounds) of shotgun shells for about $12. In the village, the price is around $30. But, I found a place in Bethel that sells 'em for about $22 a box. So that's really nice.
I've also got a classroom now! My original classroom was re-allocated to one of the returning teachers. The funny thing is that she was in that classroom last year, but had to move all of her stuff out of it because it was supposed to be MY room. Today she had the opportunity to move all her junk back into it. Fun! Until last night, my room was the library. I've been waiting a week or so for it to get emptied, staring sadly at the other teachers who have been able to work on their rooms this whole time. But, the room was emptied, and I have all my desks and books, and it's just been a matter of sorting through things and getting everything all situated. I'm hoping that by the end of tonight (I plan on it being a late night) I'll have all my textbooks put away and my desks arranged. Then I should be able to really hit the lesson planning. I'm still waiting on my SMART Board & one of my 2 white-boards, but that's a not a huge deal right. When they're ready they'll just get hung up where I indicate.
Sorry I've been so slow getting photos up, but I've got a bunch of older pictures that I've been putting on facebook, so I'm working my way to the pictures from up here. I'm hoping to have them up by the end of the weekend. Then you'll be able to see my housing, classroom, the village, and some of the area in general. Anyways, time for me to take a little break, grab something to eat, and do a little reading (I've been cruising through Patrick McManus since I've been up here - very funny!) before I come back and get cranking on this classroom. Hope you've all enjoyed this entry and I'll be writing more in the near future. God Bless!
No comments:
Post a Comment