Storms, Speech's, puppies and black friday

It has been a while since I blogged, so I thought I should get down to business.  The last couple weeks have been crazy busy and, on top of that, we have had storms upon storms upon storms. The first storm we had was just a crazy wind storm.  I heard from someone that the winds at one point were 89mph.  The second storm (mind you these were blizzard warnings), occured the day the wrestling team was suppose to have a home meet.  Unfortunately we suffer from the Quinhagak curse.  Every time a sports team wants to host something, there is a storm or a death or something that gets in the way.  That night (the second storm), Connie (the sped teacher that works with Felicia) called and told us that we might want to get up to the school as the old part of the village was flooding.  We got Sheri's attention as she was trying to figure out what to do, and apparently none of the guys were concerned.  Apparently because of the way the town was built, the school would have been flooded before us since we are on the other side of town.  Yes that's right folks, both ends of the town flooded.  Boats were literally moved, huge chunks of ice were next to houses.  Really it was a miracle there wasn't more damage done than their was.

   The high school students went to Bethel for their speech competition.  I had 5 students total who made the trek to Bethel with me.  At one point I was driving the students in one of the schools suburbans to a store, and one student made the comment....SEAT BELTS CHANEY'S DRIVING! yea I guess it's safe to say they don't have confidence in my driving.  It's ok thought I don't really either, it was the first time I drove in Bethel and there was lots of snow and ice on the road.  We made it to the store and back to the school though, so it was a successful trip.  I had one student make it to the finals and this student gets to represent Quinhagak in anchorage at the states speech contest.  I am so proud of ALL my speech students!  They have made leaps and bounds in improvements this semester.  Speech class has been improving as well.  I actually had students debating! I gave them the topic of Should students have to wear school uniforms.  I assigned the groupings, and the class was split into two.  I had the principal and the special ed teacher sit in to judge the debate.  It went well, and next time I expect much better :).
  
      Eric and Sheri's dog Jet had 8 puppies!!  I have become attached to one that is a mini seeker (seeker is another one of their dogs).  The puppies are just so cute!  I'm thinking about taking one, but I just don't know how logistics will work and when I take the puppy home for the summer if s/he does not get along with Sophie and Hercules that will be an issue.  It is husky, so it would be able to be outside during the day and I could just take it into my bedroom at night, but still i duno.  
  
       I spent Black Friday in anchorage/Wasilla this year with Amy, Jill and Felicia, almost Heather but she came down with the stomach flu :( .  I managed to snag an ipod (8 gb) with a gift card deal and a camera (packaged with an sd card, extra battery, hard case, and free picture book deal.  I also got a couple christmas present for other people, neck gaitors to keep my neck nice and warm, yaktracks, Christmas decorations for my classroom, candy land for our house when little kids come over, and party favors as mystery motivators for my classroom.  All in all, it was a good day.  Tomorrow (saturday), we are shopping in Wasilla for groceries to put in our bins to take back to Quinhagak with us.  The place we ate lunch at today had an AMAZING view!  oh and, the ice spa at the sharitan had an amazing view as well.  Don't worry I got pictures on my new camera that are below. 

Felicia (the first one to get her picture taken with my new camera = ) ).

All four of us girls out to lunch at Simon & Seaforts in Anchorage AK :)

Our view from the table (don't worry those things in the sky are not UFO's, just the reflection of the lights)

This is Jill, an Amazing person and teacher

Another Amazing person and teacher Amy (also expert Alaskan driver!)

So the coffee drinkers had to hit several starbucks on our black friday shopping spree, That's Felicia ordering and Jill and Amy checking out the merchandise!

The Ice spa had a great relaxation room, fireplace and fur on the couches to sit on, under i suppose if you wanted or just near.

View from the Ice Spa's relaxation room, I just kept staring out the window thinking this is amazing

Our fearless driver for the weekend Amy!!

At the end of the black friday shopping, we had to stop here so they could get directions to the nearest star bucks

On the right is all of our stuff from black friday, on the left is my bed, yes this is the living room!! it's ok i have a fireplace hahahaha

Speech's, costume contests and trick or treaters oh my!

Last week I took the Junior High Speech Team into Bethel for their speech competition.  We left on Tuesday morning (after the weather delay) and finally arrived at the D.O. around 1250.  It was a long day of travel, but it was not over yet!!  The girls I took had speech's that day at 2pm!!  They were troopers though and both made it into the second round of speech's for that night.  One even improved her score 40 points! :)  The other one made it to the third round and beyond!!  She got two third place wins for her speech's out of the whole district (16 schools total and 83 kids total in all categories)! I was so proud of both of them!!  The weird thing though, while they were giving their speech's I was so freaking nervous for them!  I'm not sure I could have been any more nervous than I was during the second round though, maybe that's because both my girls were the most nervous I've seen them.  Oh there was also a dance on Wednesday night (the night before we went back to Quin).  That was fun, I even had the girls do the friday morning dance to record on my phone and sadly forgot to show Eric.......I'll get right on that!  I mean it's not everyday that the friday morning dance makes it to Bethel.

It was also the carnival week.  On friday of last week we held the carnival to raise money for our classrooms.  I was in charge of blongo ball or ladder toss if you prefer to call it.  It was a jolly good time and I collected 305 tickets for my efforts :)  Got to meet alot of the community and spend time with students I don't normally see in a given day (I.E. the lower grades).  It was just a blast.  At any given time during the carnival, I had little kids coming up wanted to help out in my booth (and how could I say no?!).

The costume contest was the following Monday (yesterday), and believe you me, you have not seen a costume contest until you have come to Quinhagak AK!!!  Let me tell you though, the pumpkin contest (although has to be rigged) is a real serious competition!  My 8th graders decided to carve a puking pumpkin.  I thought it was hilarious.  I even had them use the juice jug as the toilet so people could see the puke.  It was definetly disgusting, but apparently not disgusting enough.  You just wait till next year though, it is so on!  :) :) :) I joke!!  It was all in good fun :).

Trick or Treating is a HUGE deal here too.  I mean at a quarter to 10 there was people knocking on the door for trick or treating!  We ignored that one as I had turned out our light around 9pm.  Thank goodness I had candy sent up from my family!!!  :).  Don't worry I got to eat some of it too.  Every time I would come back into the house after passing out candy, I would steal a piece.  No wonder I woke up with a headache this morning.

I had my first evaluation too.  Not so sure how that went.  Totally did not get done what I had hoped, and on top of that it was a last minute plan!!  I had the plan made this weekend, then I had to switch it to make it more of a co-teaching plan, well I didn't have to, but the other teacher had some great information I felt needed to be heard so I made it a co-teaching lesson.  Only problem was, I sacraficed some things I wanted to get done today.  Don't worry I mean I'll get to them tomorrow, I duno it just didn't feel like it went as well as it could have.  I mean after it was done I was left with this feeling of, well I just flunked that evaluation! ugh.  But I always feel like the lessons could go better.  I am definetly in the survival mode right now.  Living day to day lesson to lesson.  It does get better right?  Logically I know it does, but sometimes I just wonder.

OK well I think it's time for bed and I think it's probably time I stop rambling.  Just wanted to update everyone out there since I hadn't written in well has it even been a week??????

Manic Monday

Newsflash!!  Alot of my students were absent today due to a funeral in Eek.  What's that like?  well it goes something like this:  "If you were here last week and your group is here today, find them and move your desks together."  "Kristen, my group is missing!" "If you were absent last week, or ALL members of your group are missing, then come to the front of the room."  "But Kristen! My group is ALL gone! What do I do?"  "If your group is missing, come to the front of the room" "But my group is missing!" ugh!!!!

I would love to tell you that today was a great day, it wasn't bad, in fact it was a good day.  However, it was not a great day.  Those are few and far between.  I did look at my gradebook, again.  Though I have to say, Heather Diamond, I am jealous of you that you had an animal related delay.  Where else could you have a delay because of brown bear sightings?!?!?!  ok probably other places, but seriously, a delay until it's daylight...no where else could get away with having things that vague. 

Totally have the student council involved in my baby project!!  If the kids leave their babies unattended, they will get "snatched" and they will be brought up on charges by the student council.  The student council teacher sponsor is going to be our judge while the student council is our jury.  They will have guidelines to follow and will actually affect the grades of my PLS students.  This project is going to be so much fun!  :)  Students and Teachers are all excited for this to happen :).

Oh and classical music in the mornings is making a comeback!  Student cries to turn it of to be ignored! :) hehe I am an awful teacher :).  But seriously, I do add some other music in too. 

Oh I know what was bugging me and made me write this.  To set the record straight (family) I am not looking for a job back home!  I do not know who is telling everyone that I have applied for jobs and that I am looking for a job at Christmas, but I am not.  The last time I put an application in to a business back in Illinois was before I moved to Alaska.  So no, I AM NOT LOOKING FOR A JOB BACK IN ILLINOIS/INDIANA!  I know that the person saying this might just hope I get back home, but it is not good to go around telling lies and quite frankly it is annoying having to tell everyone that calls me because they are concerned I am giving up to soon that no it's not me.  K thanks.

And with that note maybe I should sign off before I get to angry about the situation.

Of Mice and Babies

I thought I would write this because well let's be honest I have a lot to say, again.

First the babies.  I broke the news to the class today bout the babies by writing on the smart board that they are ALL pregnant.  Yes even the guys.  That definitely shocked some students.  and who knew it was the talk of having to take a baby home that would get the class interested in actually paying attention?!  So a little information, the baby is American Indian because obviously we live in Alaska and the students are native.  The question I get from the students (almost every single one of them at a seperate time), "Why is the baby black?"  Apparently the baby is more dark than anything. 

Anyways, I could go forever on that class but, I have to get to the mice part of this post.  I was watching the Gilmore Girls dvd and kinda paying attention to my computer at the same time when I noticed a movement from the corner of my eye.  I looked over at the trash can and had thoroughly convinced myself it was just the piece of paper on the floor (totally not realizing that the paper shouldn't move on it's own) when out of no where there was a mouse!!!!  I just start screaming ew ew ew ew ew ew!! and of course felicia seemed concerned, though still totally sitting in our recliner only looking concerned or should I say confused?  Well anyways, the hilarious part is that she thought I would protect her from the mouse by standing in front of her as we lightly, slowly and carefully made our way into the kitchen for her empty coffee can to trap the mouse in.  Of course the mouse had already vanished behind the cabinets by that time.  Rats, I guess it will have to wait until next time.

Salmon Run and Bethel

I RAN MY FIRST 5K AND IT WAS THE SALMON RUN IN QUINHAGAK AK!

So I totally ran/walked but I think it was about even and let's be honest I havn't actually ran in how long?  Yea we wont talk about it and then to top it off I've NEVER ran a 5k.  I ran with a couple of my students.  They were perty good motivators and good sports too.  One of them ran ahead of us and took off, but the other one stuck with me till the end (then sprinted to beat me!).  Of course when I made it to the water station, I could hardly talk so when they asked if I wanted water I gave a thumbs up and when they asked if I wanted two i shook my head no.  Oh and let's not even mention how red my face was!  I'm sure I scared some villagers.  The kids just liked to laugh about it. You can bet I was sore the next day though!  Just had to keep my legs moving or they would hurt.

After the Salmon Run I had to go to Bethel for the Saturday training for Reality Works.   We had to go through a demonstration of the babies so that we knew what we were asking our kids to do.  At first we knew what it was we were going to have to do (i.e. feed, burb, rock and diaper).  However, right before lunch we had to guess which one of the four it was we needed to do.  Some of the other teachers had a difficult time cuz there were 9 babies crying at once and it was hard to tell if your was the one still crying or if your's was making the sounds it needed to to tell you had found the right activity to make your baby happy.  Especially when the cry's are so loud but the sounds so soft.  Anyways, I figured all four out in good time.

Our Satellite equipment came in 3 boxes, two of which came in with the plane that was sent to pick the wrestlers up.  However the last box was too big to fit on the plane.  I tried to check it on Saturday when I was headed back to Quinhagak, but again it was too big for the kind of plane they sent (they like to send the 207's).  They said if they took it out of the box it would fit, but there would be a chance that it would get damaged.  We just payed like 600 bucks for this thing, there was no way we wanted a damaged satellite.  So it still sits in Bethel until we can figure out how to get it to Quinhagak.  In other words, we are so close to having satellite, but so far away at the same time.

Oh and one last thing before I shut up and go away.  We had a bonfire down at the beach Saturday night.  That was interesting because it was already starting to get dark as we went down and then the tide was starting to come in  (but didn't come in all the way).  Steph and Jim, Allison and Joe and Felicia and I were down at the beach for hours.  It was kinda cold, but It was good to hang out with everyone :).  It's like we are one big happy family.  Though I have to say that the bratwurst they were trying to cook did not go very well at first.

Pictures still on the way...I have a few more but I'm too lazy today to post them.  I'll work on finding my camera chord later and maybe the next post will just be pictures and no explanations.  You'll have to figure out what the pictures go to :).

Travel

Well Well Well, Funny seeing you here :).  Ok, so yea I can't see you, but you know you were thinking how did she know I was reading this! 

The title gives away what I'm going to write about.  Last weekend I was in Bethel for New Teacher Training.  We all know how that went, good but obviously not what it could have been.  This weekend I go into Bethel for the Reality Works Training.  I am so going to be bored!!!  I keep trying to talk people into flying in to Bethel because lets face it I'll have an actual hotel room instead of staying in the DO, but it's been a no go.  People like their weekends.  I mean really, what could be more fun then hanging out with me in Bethel until I have to go to training and then hanging out with me some more till I leave?  Nothing, that's what. 

Anywho, that's not the last of my travel this month.  Towards the end of the month I get to travel for the speech team, yet again.  That should be interesting 2 and half days in Bethel with 3 junior high students.  Actually, it may be getting hectic, but I love it!  Keeps me on my toes and keeps me from obsessing over things that are out of my control. 

OH and I suppose I broke my rule yet again.  Third post this week!!!!!Guess I had a lot to say this week :)

New Teacher Inservice

First off, what a week!  Actually, what a month!  It seems like it was just September first, then I blink and now it's October 2nd.  How did that happen?  Only 2 months and 23 days until Christmas, I'm not sure that I'm happy with that though because I have bought absolutely NO Christmas presents as of yet, or a plane ticket (sorry mom, I'm on it though!).

So, this weekend we had another new teacher training.  Yes that certain mysterious someone was there.  Yes I acted like a total nerd that I am.  Yes he totally acted like a nerd as well. In fact, the amazing Heather has nicknamed him Urkel and you guessed it, I'm Myra (I think that's how her name was spelled).  I need guts, I have none (let me clarify...I have not guts because i think he's amazingly cute and I just don't know what to say).  And for those that have mentioned that he might read this, I doubt it.  Only a few people know the link (unless someone has shared it with the other new teachers?).  Anyway, if it does get shared I wouldn't mind.  So back to the extreme awkwardness.  Here I am trying to teach my kids to be more confident when talking to each other, and I have no confidence to talk to one person.  Wow, thank goodness none of the kids saw that.  And to mom, it looks like you don't have to worry.  I am the same person as I was there.  That means I would totally mess it up before it started by being the dork that I am.



On another note, I did learn some new strategies to take back to the kiddies.  Well, if they will buy into them that is.  AND, i got to talk to the other awesomely fantastic new teachers :).  Oh, and I'm proud of my roommate, she totally got her Alaska License!

The mountains have snow on them, that means it wont be long before it snows here in the village.  I really hope those gloves I ordered from Sierratradingpost.com make it in the mail soon.  I promise pictures when it does snow :).  Until then.