Ping Pong

One minute:

The next:

And so begins the Nunap version of the ping pong game- should we stay and hope that it lifts in time for the 6:00 flight? Or accept the very generous offer that some of the other teachers made to join their caravan to Bethel via snow-go?


I was a little nervous to give up the possible flight out, but listening to another teacher that actually spent time working with one of the nearby airlines over the summer, it just seemed wise to forget the flight out. Fog rolls in, and no one rolls out on a plane.

So- off for my first snow- go experience ever.


7 teachers. One dog. One cat.

And after 20+ miles of traveling on the tundra in the evening turn night, we made it and thankfully just in the nick of time. Our flight was originally scheduled to go out at 7:10, and we arrived at another airline at 7:00- so with 10 minutes to spare, we called and found that our flight was 40 minutes delayed.

So we said our goodbyes and thank your to the other teachers, and off to ERA for our Anchorage flight. When we arrived in the airport, there were fewer people than expected, all due to the grounding of the flights. But I was grateful, most def. grateful to be one of the few to actually be on the flight out.

And so, many thanks again to those that lifted me up, and many thanks to those that offered the ride out!

Merry Christmas!

It is done.

Yesterday I :

-passed out Christmas goodies with Amy to the other teachers

Last night I:

-put more of these puppies together.

and loaded the sled

Today I:

-sent more kids home with strep

-corraled students back into the gym during the Winter Program, only to then have the music not play right (beats came out but no words) for our performance and my students were exhibiting major stage fright.

-handled yet another breakdown

This afternoon I:

-watched my students enjoy the Christmas tradition of making gingerbread houses.

-played the games that I use to play in youth group with the 4/5 class coming in at the end. I haven't heard my kids laugh so hard & laugh as a class, not laugh to bully one another.

And so, it is done. The kids are done, I am done. And off we go...leaving one winter wonderland for another:)

If I ever need a good laugh,

I just head on down to Amy's class.

Just make sure that if you are ever willing to "mess" with any of them, be ready for a sit-off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-prsMwwCZY&feature=youtu.be

The life of a teacher right before Winter Break.

Amy shared this with me this morning and I was cracking up.

Apparently there are movies coming out soon that have titles that really have captured and will continue to capture our lives with our students.







Movie numero uno:

No explanation necessary.












Movie numero dos:

We are going to hold our ground this week, and hope for the best.












Movie Numero tres:

Let's not fool ourselves. You can plan the heck out of a week, and yet the unexpected always happens.










Movie numero cuatro:

Wednesday 1:04 p.m.- there will be some noise of the jubilant kind:)

As Maria once sang,

Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver white winters that melt into springs
These are a few of my favorite things

Well, right now..here are a few of my favorite sights/ goodies, that is, until I am home in a couple of days:

Fun treats.

Playful puppies. They always catch my eye when I am doing the dishes, running to and fro in the snow.

And of course- vacation.

Two days, twenty-three hours...and forget the seconds.

We stylin'

Hard. Cheap. Man.

These are the three most used words across all the grade levels on the elementary side. I normally cringe when I hear these words simply b/c once I hear one of these words come out of a student's mouth, the assignment is done before it has even been attempted.

BUT- today was different. I heard all of them, and I just busted up.

Subject: Math
The Content Objective: Take the following image and either translate it, rotate it, or reflect it.

Here is the example:

I handed out the assignment and all of a sudden I heard, "Hard."

Lots of whispers, and then again, "Hard."

"Already admitting defeat, huh?" I asked my kids.

Again, "Hard."

Me: Just try it.

And this is what I saw:

Hard. Cheap. MAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNN. And yet they did it. Pretty happy about it.

Over Winter Break I will...

I just wanted to see what my students are looking forward to doing over Winter Break, and so I assigned them to write about it for their writing period.

All I can say is that great minds think alike.

What did I see on almost everyone's paper? A little about Slaviq- it takes place the week following our traditional Christmas. I know very little about this holiday, so I can't wait to have my students write about when we return, but all I saw in their writing pieces was that candy was involved. And I also read a lot about...


Sleep, rest, and my favorite answer...I will not work- at all!


Funny that I see sleep, simply b/c my kids on average roll into my classroom anywhere between 30 minutes to 2 hours late daily. But lately I have been hearing that there have been a lot of rowdy neighbors causing these kids to have a rough night sleeping.

Anyways- I am right there with them. Sleep is on my schedule, too. But before that happens, we are going to keep on plugging along.

*** And I know that there have been some prayers made b/c it's eerie right now. The strange yet amazing thing right now is that after a huge incident on Monday, my students are putting effort in and doing their thing, and all within respectful parameters. It's nice, and I hope it lasts.

So here's to another couple of days teaching. May the wind calm down, may my students calm down, and perhaps I should calm down a little, too, and not rush into vacation time. Or maybe just a little- it can't happen soon enough;)

Classroom Catastrophe

I am just going to put it out there and ask for some prayers.

It went down yesterday at 3:41 in my classroom and I went down with it. Can't say much except for the fact that I saw real rage and I witnessed real fear. There is a lot to take into consideration when coming out here to work in the bush, but I wasn't expecting to have to protect my students inside my classroom. It is supposed to be a safe place to learn...and I think it is for the moment b/c all has calmed down now. Just hoping to hold it together for one more week, and then I can process...that is my prayer and hope, to keep it together long enough.

This weekend...

was good in that a lot of prep work was completed for the last week and a half of the school year.

Saturday was a work day. Well, work in that I got a lot of grading done, and perhaps a little bit of daydreaming, too. Every couple of minutes of so, I would look to my right and see the snowflakes on my window and let my mind drift to the ski resorts in Idaho. It's so hard to be in the moment and not want to be there right now.

But back to reality.

And b/c I was at school working on Saturday, that meant Sunday was a stay at home day!

Both Amy and myself went to town getting ready for the upcoming events (staff party, student parties, packing and pre-planning since we both have to figure out how not to freeze when coming back from Hawaii over break. My suitcase is going to look like a little strange if TSA opens it up and sees shorts, flip flops, and a parka.

And every once in awhile I would peer out and see kids playing on the river.

This takes skills. Riding a bike on the river.

And what looks like a clubhouse meeting w/out the clubhouse.

And while they were playing, we were baking. And baking, And....yes, baking .

It was our mission to create the perfect gingerbread man. And after many batches of GM's w/ so many imperfections, we finally did it- The Perfect Gingerbread Man!

What to do?

Walking over to the school this morning I remembered that I wanted to get a shot of this just because I like the font of the shortened village name. So I grabbed my camera, headed out, noted that it was warming up again, and that there was a lot of water droplets being blown in my direction, so I decided to get low to take the shot.

And while doing so , I heard this yelp, and as I peered over the sled that I was taking a picture of, I see this:

Hmmm....what in the world do I do with a shivering, soaked to the bone puppy?

Bring it in and show Amy, that's what I do!

Tiny, white ball of fur was too cute to turn away so I brought it into the school and opened Amy's classroom and showed her the cuteness that is this puppy.

Just call me a softy.

And while sitting on the ground just watching this pup go explorin' we shook our heads. There are no animal shelters out here, & dogs are pretty much left outside to fend for themselves unless they are attached to a chain, and most importantly, we are all heading out in about 11 days for break.

Thankfully, a few minutes later we heard a pounding on the door and I knew instantly that it was the owner. Relief flooded over me as the problem had resolve itself. I could hand the dog over, return back to my classroom and not fret over a lost puppy.

Alls well that ends well.

Can I come along, too?

I walked out the door for a five minute breather after school ended only to see this little one whoop and holler while being whisked away from school.


Today was testing day.
Great for me cause I get to supervise instead of teach for a couple of hours.
Sad times for my students cause they get to sit and answer 104 questions on the computer for three hours.

Can we say physically and emotionally whacked-out?

And just to make sure that I wasn't the only one with students who were a little out of it today, I walked into Amy's classroom and she just pointed to her wall.

Not seeing a lot of greens today, huh?










Well, I am happy to say that at least my students aren't hating me just yet...our relationship is a work in progress...

It's a good thing...

that in exactly two weeks I will be able to get some desperately needed rest for a full three weeks.

I can now say that I am not firing on all four cylinders.

Last night I was talking about popcorn and kept calling it candy corn.
This morning I sprayed my hair with perfume instead of a gloss spray.
Later this morning I unplugged something in order to turn it on and pressed the start button, instead of plugging it in and pressing the start button.
To get into my classroom, I kept forcing the wrong key into the lock, blaming the cold weather for making it too cold for the key to go in all the way.
And last but not least, I walked into the library, paused, turned around looking confused, b/c I didn't see Amy teaching. SO not with it, since she was in her classroom, next door.

All I can say is that this will be a much needed vacation where my brain can finally reset itself, and I won't be doing too many stupid things all in a 24 hour period.

You know that scene in

The Wizard of Oz, the one where the house drops on top on the Witch and kills her?

I had a stranger version of that today.

I have one of these in my class:

The top drawer AKA- the Marker Drawer got stuck shut---it ALWAYS gets stuck shut b/c a student will forget to make sure none of the markers are situated in such a way that causes a sort of jam since the drawers are so narrow.

Well, we use our markers ALL the time. We use them for highlighting, outlining, decorating, etc. and the kids have gone without them for almost a week b/c the maintenance workers are working on keeping the water pipes and other important things running smoothly.

So today, while getting my students ready for PE, I noticed most of my boys quickly crowding around this beast of a organizer. I walk over, and I see half of them tilting this heavy object in their direction, and I then look down and see a pair of legs underneath. I instantly freaked out- but quietly so, so as to NOT freak them out, causing them to drop it on this student.

"Gentlemen, thank you for wanting to help, but this is not the safest way to fix the marker drawer. I wish to see all of my students walking and not in a wheelchair b/c of some crazy stunt."

Students: But it's almost fixed, almost, we can hold it- we are strong.

Me: Trying not to panic...__________ , please come out, now!!!...as it is PE time and we are holding up the girls.

Student crawls out and then I hear them chatting it up in Yupik- and I then hear the words screw driver, hammer, and stick.

Me: I got this- I can get it fixed. Please don't worry, I will find someone.

So, thinking that this is now a done deal and I have nothing to worry about, I go through the day, dismiss my students, start cleaning up my desk and then see a group of my 6th grade boys walk in again.

I walked across the classroom thinking they wanted to ask me something, and they walked right past me to the beast.

Me: Guys- leave it alone.

Students: We got this, we figured this out.

All of a sudden they ripped the front part off with the handle, grabbed a ruler and somehow got the drawer opened.

They all turned to me and this is what I hear after I whooped and hollered "FREEDOM!"- not realizing that this drawer has just been destroyed.

Student: So, you are going to borrow a screw driver to fix this.
Me: I don't have one.
Another student: Well, we don't have one.
Me: I didn't break this off.
Another student: What do we get for fixing this.
Me: Are you serious???? You scared me half to death this morning, disregarded me a few moments ago, and then broke the drawer and I have to explain this to Mr. F____________, do you want to explain this to him???

All of a sudden they just walked out.

Good to know I have fixer-uppers in the classroom. Bad to know that if there is anything that needs to be fixed in the classroom, I'll have to watch it like a hawk until maintenance fixes it.

For those of you who hate doing laundry...

imagine this.

Putting your laundry into a suitcase and stepping outside into the cold wind/ slushy snow on a Sunday morning- 9 a.m.

Shoving suitcase full of laundry down the stairs (cause it's going down before I am ) and looking sadly ahead at the path one must take to complete the laundry process.

Moving forward, admiring the Christmas lights, wishing I could go home and admire my own with a cup of hot chocolate (salted caramel by Starbucks, of course) - gotta do things the right way!

And finally arrive at the laundromat. Thankfully this one comes with free Wi-fi.

I am just grateful that staff here are kind enough to share, as ours is still broken. If only there was a craigslist for this area.

Oh the weather outside is frightful...

but this post office is sooo delightful. Until the walking gets slow,
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow







Here is Amy dragging the sled to the post office.

It should probably be me dragging it since my stuff is in the sled.

So I will carry it up the stairs instead.

Christine, the official "Makes Jill's Day" manager. Without her, life would be a little duller. I appreciate her welcoming smile every time I walk into the post office!