Shipping

I have gotten care packages from family and I am thankful all of it.  I was amused with one of the packages, Wal-Mart packing guy must have been at the end of his shift or something. 

Here is what I was thinking when I opened it.  A good sized box, what could it be?  I open it.

 Anticipation building.  Is it brownie mix?  Summer sausage and ritz?

 Not even close. 

Keep 'um coming family and friends!

Power

Over last weekend St. Michael was subject to a few power outrages.  The longest of these was at the school.  We were told that the school would be without power and more importantly internet for most of the weekend.  The teachers frantically raced to get everything done Friday evening.  This is because all of our record keeping is done online and all of the curriculum we are provided depends on an electronic component, e-ponent?.  No internet equals no grades.  I got what I could done and then went home.

A little history on why this power outage had to occur.  Anthony A. Andrews school is a FEMA disaster shelter.  For example if a tsunami were on the way everyone would pile into the school (don't know why because the place is 100 yards from the beach) and would ride it out.  The school district gets a certain amount of money each year to maintain this and other schools disaster readiness.  When the school was built three years ago they installed huge generators that could power everything electrical in the school.  Unfortunately the installation was botched and all they could do was keep the emergency lights on.  The school district knew about this problem as soon as they turned the generators on and nothing in the school worked.  Flash forward three years and they decide it is time to fix the problem.  A problem that could have been fixed over any of the three previous summers and they choose a weekend when I am working here, I bet the odds!  On Sunday night I was hoping that the district workmen would be wrapping their job up, I asked one of them when they would be done.  He listed off all things that needed to be fixed and told me the would be done when it was done.  At that news I went home and went to bed.

I asked my co-workers if school would canceled if they did not get everything turned back on by the morning.  Apparently we go to school no matter what, no running water, no heat, and no electricity.  This is because we would have make up those days at the end of the school year and NO one wants to do that.  I went to school Monday morning and the workman had gotten the job done, hazzah I could use the online component for my lessons.  Interesting foibles of working in the bush.  Here are some fishing pictures that go with my UNK post.

Super big thank you to the Martins and the Thomases for having me along. 

Training in UNK

Before starting out any school year there is training.  Some of it is for the stuff you get every year like mandatory reporter and blood born pathogens training.  Others are for super duper curriculum that will cure everything your student has problems with.  We were going to spend five days in Unalakleet for training on everything.

First we had to fly from St. Michael to the district office in Unalakleet or UNK.  In the bush, villages are often called by their airport code, example: "I am leaving SMK for UNK."  We were told to get to the school at 8 a.m.. We were told that we would be flying out at 10.  That is more of a suggested time, in reality it is possible to fly out give or take 4 hours.  On days that we are going to fly out we are asked to have our bags packed and ready to go just in case a flight is available earlier...also being prepared to wait and wait...and wait.  So our plane lands on time (rare), it is a TP tube with wings.

Beechcraft 1900

I was reading about this plane and it seems in the early 1990s Beechcraft made a model of this plane that allowed passengers to able to stand up straight.  We did not have that model.                                        

All staff plane ride

I was way too tall for the plane

We piled everything on the plane including ourselves for a brief flight to Unalakleet.  It was the most cramped trip I have ever taken on a plane. 

Upon landing in UNK we grabbed our stuff and headed to our temporary home at the high school.  We were placed in classrooms with inflatable beds.  Then we were fed lunch...all the food we could eat.  The Unalakleet High School kitchen staff outdid themselves everyday feeding over 150 teachers pretty tasty stuff.  I was trained in the districts reading curriculum.  Success for All, it is metered out to the minute and very scripted method to teach reading.  While this does not allow for much freedom of choice for the teacher (even the books we read are preselected), it does work for a school district that has huge amounts of turnover like the Bering Strait School District.  I got to explore UNK with my fellow teachers.  The weather was amazing that week.  So good in fact I realized that the school really was not built to keep cool,  its silly to buy a air conditioning unit for a place that would never need it.  The school had no AC.  It was hot.

Fireweed is blooming.  When it wilts it means fall is coming.

Wandering around town

We were going to the town store, every town you visit you have to check out the store to compare which store has a better selection.  My friend Tim is the 7th grade teacher at SMK on the left was trying to use his smart phone to navigate around town.  There are street names, which he had, but there are no street signs in towns.  We were lost. As you can see there is not really anyplace we could go, we followed the main drag (the one with a stop sign on it) and we found the store.

Unalakleet

Fish drying shack at the beach

I got the unique opportunity to fish with an administrator in UNK and my future in-laws the Martins. 

Setting off to the fishing hole

Jim, Jay, and Jim. Got a keeper.

I was successful

Silver Salmon were running and it was unbelievable how fast we were catching fish.  There was a person baiting, a person fishing, and a person netting and we were rotating as fast as we could get hooks in the water.  I now have enough fish to last a while.

All I could pack into the box I took with me

 The trouble that I was worried about before flying out was weight.  The airline that the BSSD had chartered from had complained that the teachers had packed too much stuff in.  There was a limit of 40 pounds per teacher on the way out...I was over that.  I asked the veteran teachers what I should do, they said ignore it, happens every year.  I taped up my box and put it in the pile going to St. Michael.  I watched them put it on the plane, my worries were unfounded.  Then we killed time before our flight.

Play cards, kill time

The training was helpful and I got to meet a lot of the district personnel.  I also have the freshest salmon I will ever get to enjoy.  Now if only I could cook it...

Now some random pictures.  The principal of the high school get to spend 1% of his budget on art installations, he spent his money well.  They are the Wolf Pack.

 Can't miss with the wolf motif.

The puppy is Jay's.  He is as adorable in real life as he looks in the pictures.  I forgot the name.

Bloodhound puppy

Bloodhound puppy

Downtime

There is not really that much to do in St. Michael.  For example the big event was the trip everyone took today to the post office before coming back to the school and getting back to work.  We have to find ways to amuse ourselves.  I am attempting to cook once and a while, see amusing.  I have managed to make food items that people will actually eat.  Never fear, I now have hot sauce so any future culinary disasters will be cleansed of with fire.

I have made tasty biscuits.

Tasty chicken casserole

Very tasty baked oatmeal 

 We teachers are all trapped together in our dorm.  We end up hanging out and figuring out which one of us is the best card player.  We end up playing for hours until we are too tired to continue.  We can't get sick of each other yet because it too early in the year.  Never know who you will need as a friend when your water pipes have frozen.

Rummy.  I am losing.

Really I think it is the person with the killer instincts who is best.  That person is named Ariél and she is sitting to my right.  Don't let that smile fool you, she will mercilessly take you apart at any card game you decide to play with her.  Luckily for comic relief there is a dorm dog named Boo-boo.  He is a giant dope.  I had to take 10 pictures of him and this is the best one I could manage.

Alaskan Coastal Breed i.e. mutt

Boo-boo Blooper

He gets a bath a day because he enjoys rolling in carcass and other very stinky items around the village.  Someday he will find a use, but so far he is a stinky, barky, shedding machine.  I leave you with a picture of an oncoming front and the rising sun, taking pictures of the sky is something I like to do in my spare time.  Red sky in the morning...

Shade is an option

Excellent walk to work