Christmas in SMK

Christmas is starting early here this year!  This is the last day of school for the calendar year, but we wrapped up the semester last Saturday with a faculty work day.

Monday of this week was mostly dedicated to practicing for the Christmas program.  My seventh-graders sang "Silent Night" in both English and Yup'ik.  I was very pleased that all of my students participated, despite some last-minute cold feet (so to speak).  Before practice, my reading class watched The Outsiders, which we had just finished reading.  They enjoyed seeing it, and wanted to watch it again Tuesday, which we did.

Besides rewatching the movie, Tuesday was spent reviewing our astronomy unit, having a guest speaker to finish up our unit about Japan and the samurai--one of our teachers went to a school where Japanese was taught, so he qualifies as an expert here--and the Christmas performance itself.  My favorite was probably the preschoolers, who said the Pledge of Allegiance in Yup'ik and sang "Must be Santa."

For the linguists in my audience, this is not a village where Yup'ik is alive and healthy.  All the students use a few Yup'ik words, and "village English" is highly influenced by Yup'ik syntax, but only a very few elders actually speak Yup'ik conversationally these days.  (Disappointingly for me, I haven't been able to find someone fluent enough to really begin my research for my thesis, but I haven't given up hope.)  There are villages where Yup'ik is healthier, but like most minority languages, it probably won't last much longer.

Today we're having our Christmas party (see pictures below)--Coke, "juice" (the local word for Gatorade, Kool-aid, or anything of the kind), cookies, A Charlie Brown Christmas, the newest Ice Age movie, and computer time (especially valued since very few have Internet connections at home here).  I wasn't able to do as much in the way of Christmas presents for the kids as I would have been able to where I had access to a Walmart or something like it, but they each got a candy cane and a toy nutcracker, which they seemed to enjoy more than I expected.

Before our party, though, we had an experience unique to Alaska--stargazing during school!  Since it was still dark at 9:00, 15 min. after school began, we were able to cement our study of constellations by going outside of school and identifying them in real life.  We found Gemini, the Great Bear (of course--it's in our state song!), Leo, and Canis Minor.  We had learned more, but they weren't up.  The kids and I were both fascinated by the Skywalk app on my iPad that let us make positive id on the constellations we saw.

At church, the tree (plastic, of course, since the nearest live Christmas tree is probably at least 50 miles away), the Advent wreath, and tinsel are all up and decorated now, but Father hasn't been able to be here for Mass during Advent, since he had knee surgery a couple of weeks ago.  At midnight on Christmas the church will either have Mass or a Communion service, depending on whether a priest is available.  Fr. Mariusz will be here for New Year's, though, and I'm hoping he'll be here for Epiphany when I'm back.

Some of the houses have Christmas lights up, and some have Christmas trees (again, plastic, of course) in the windows--and the AC has Christmas items for sale and had a "Midnight Madness" sale until 9 p.m. the other evening (normal closing time is 7 p.m.).

Most of the teachers, myself included, will be leaving for Southern vistas (looking forward to more sunshine!) in the next few days, and then will be back in 2013, when winter is expected to really set in. So far, it hasn't been colder than -20 (air temp--wind chills have occasionally been down around -50), but we do have about a foot and a half of snow now, and temps should drop as the New Year begins.

I leave for my Christmas vacation tomorrow, first to Anchorage until Sunday, then home to Oklahoma; Perry leaves for his Christmas vacation tonight.  He's staying with a co-worker in Stebbins, and they get along well, so his weeks away should be relatively calm.  We'll see.

It's almost lunchtime here, so I need to start getting the kids ready--Merry Christmas to everyone out there in the other imagined corners!

Sunrise (around 10:00) from the windows in my classroom on Monday.  Can you see the snow gathered between the screen and the window on the left?

St. Michael's three-year-olds singing "This Little Light of Mine."

Two of my students enjoying their computer time

Some of the boys enjoying the movie

Most of the rest of the class enjoying their party.  The remains of the food are on the desk in the background.

Spelling Bee

A pic of the school in action.  Photos taken by Jodi Grewe, one of my colleagues.  The collage was put together by Jessie Peterson, another colleague and the announcer of the Bee.

Apologies

Yes, I'm still alive, and yes, I'm still in St. Michael.  I've never been very good about keeping up with correspondence, and the busy-ness of the school year has, typically, consumed most of my time.

Having said that, it should be noted that the past couple of months have been quite ordinary, and not really blog-worthy at all.  Every day in teaching has its joys and frustrations, and the first year in a new position is usually more frustrating than joy-filled.  This is a typical first year in a new position.  Each day I learn more about how to teach seventh-graders, and in particular, how to teach seventh-graders in rural Alaska, but to describe it would be to describe my day, or any teacher's day, in any classroom.  Many of you can imagine that quite well without my help.

Halloween was a high point, with all the kids in the village coming to each teacher's house to get their share of candy (which I suspect, but can't prove, some of them are still hiding in their backpacks and munching on surreptitiously during class), as was the volleyball tournament we hosted for a couple of schools from St. Lawrence Island, even more remote than we are.

I got to go to a math workshop in Palmer (a suburb of Anchorage, about 45 min north of town and just east of Sarah Palin's famous Wasilla) right before Thanksgiving; the workshop was good, but the most exciting parts were shopping and eating at restaurants (it was good to see my friends, too, but when you've been eating only your own cooking for months, and that almost exclusively what you can order from amazon.com...Safeway was a beautiful sight!)

Thanksgiving itself consisted of a colleague's wedding; she and her new husband hosted Thanksgiving dinner the evening after the wedding.  All of the normal Thanksgiving classics were there, except, I think, for pumpkin pie--I did make my pecan pie, though, and it turned out as good as i ever has--but including the Yup'ik delicacy of agoudak (sp?), known as "Eskimo ice cream," but made from shortening and fish of some kind.  I wasn't (no surprise) brave enough to try it, but that's probably just as well, since it was gone before anything else.  The day before Thanksgiving was festive, too, with the school cook preparing a Thanksgiving dinner for anyone who wanted to come.  It was quite well attended.

Our Christmas program (which we can actually call a Christmas program) comes up on the 18th.  My class is working on singing "Silent Night" in English and Yup'ik.  The bicultural teacher wanted a class to do that, and I volunteered mine.  Considering they're seventh-graders, there's been remarkably little complaining about the notion of getting up and singing in front of the community.  They don't sound bad, either, especially for a school with no music program.

The weather has finally gotten cold.  Until about a week ago, it was fairly mild, getting no lower than 0 at night and up into the teens most days.  Over the past week, though, it hasn't gotten above zero, and lows have been down near -20 (though I don't think we've actually gotten quite that cold).  Surprisingly, it hasn't been that hard to handle, with two exceptions:  being raised in the South, I don't know enough to keep all my faucets running in this weather, and the drain to my shower froze Wednesday night.  Since then, I've been showering at a neighbor's while they've been working on it.  They (the school custodial staff, that is) worked on it a bit on Thursday and a bit more on Friday, but it wasn't until about 8 a.m. this morning that the drain cleared.  No clue why it cleared almost 24 hours after they finished working on it, but I appear to have a shower again.  The other time the weather has been challenging was today, when the wind came up (30 mph, maybe).  Walking to school in subzero weather with a stiff breeze isn't particularly comfortable.  My Catholic friends will understand me when I say that it was a great opportunity to "offer it up!"

I'm going to close now after I post a few pictures that may or may not be really informative--I'm not a great photographer.  We're having a Communion service tonight for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception,  I haven't utilized my newly thawed shower yet (though you can be sure I left some water running in the bathtub this time!), and I still have some papers to grade.  No promises about when I'll write again, but I'm sure Mom will bug me about it if I eave it for too long--which is what got this post finally up.  Thanks, Mom.

Norton Sound from Unalakleet on my way to Anchorage.  This was three weeks ago, so sunset was probably 5 or 5:30.  Now the sun looks like it's setting all day--rises in the south about 10:00, sets in the south about 4:30.  That's Alaska for you.

I took this because of the mountains in the background.  Doesn't look as impressive as it did from the plane.  I'll spare you the other pictures of the same "phenomenon."  By the way: if you can avoid it, don't fly when you have a cold.  My ears are still unclogging, I think.

Looking down on snow-covered mountains.  Probably halfway between ANC and UNK.  Here in SMK, we have no such mountains, nor as much snow--about 2 in., I'd guess, not enough to cover all the prairie grass.

Termination Dust

It's definitely fall in St. Michael, Alaska.  Yesterday, from the windows of the church, we noticed what we would have called "termination dust"--the earliest snowfall--on the low mountains just south of us.  Yesterday evening, it snowed in an almost blizzard-like fashion for about half an hour, though it melted very quickly, and this morning, there was snow on the ground!  It was a very sunny day today, so that, too, is all gone, except for near buildings where the sun never reached.

The tundra does have fall colors, and I got a couple of pictures yesterday of the tail-end of them:

Of course, the pictures aren't the best, but you can see the red in with the yellow and brown, I think--the colors were more vivid a week ago, but I was sick and not thinking about pictures for my blog.  I didn't get pictures of the snow, as it wasn't light enough when I left for school for them to turn out.  We are so far west of our time zone that although the evenings are still long (light until close to 9), the mornings have already closed in, with sunrise not until after 8 and full light not until closer to 9.

Fortunately, I wasn't seriously ill at all--just a cold--but laryngitis with it, so Wednesday and Thursday I couldn't really talk at all.  There really aren't subs readily available here, but I was able to take Wednesday off to go to the clinic and rest my throat.  Thursday (and Friday, even though my voice was returning by then) I connected my computer to the projector and typed anything I needed to tell the kids.  They were very cooperative with the circumstances, I think.  I had recovered enough by Sunday to lead the Liturgy of the Word, and today, my voice is fully functional, even if raspy.

I promised some information on the curriculum here at St. Michael: I'll wait one more post for that, as I hope to grade some papers (which, you can imagine, I'm significantly behind on) before I need to leave to get to the store before it closes.  Some of you reading this will remember a time--as I just barely do-- when the store closing at 7 wasn't unusual; but coming from a culture of 24/7 big box stores, it does take some getting used to.

Hope all is well in your imagined corner of the Earth!

AMDG

Tim

Anthony A. Andrews School

I haven't yet gotten around to showing off my new school!  It's a beautiful facility, built just a couple of years ago.  The front of the school you've already seen.  Here's the inside:

Looking back at the school's entrance

The mural in the main hallway.  Haven't seen any of these in real life yet.

The school cafeteria

The gym.  It gets a LOT of use.

Some of the students' work, made in Cultural Awareness classes

The seventh-grade lockers, with the welcome sign only a little the worse for wear

The door of my classroom

My classroom, as seen from the entrance

My classroom, as seen from the back (notice the laptop provided for teacher use :) !)

In my next post, I'll give some details about what happens in a typical school day here and how it compares to other places I've been.

I'm off to lead the Rosary at church--the other Catholic teacher and I proposed beginning that as a Friday evening devotion.  Attendance has been limited so far, but we'll see how things progress.

But before I leave, a couple of shots of a very important building--the village post office:

The view as you approach the post office from the road.  The sign says "Alaska Army National Guard."  The flag is up when the post office is open--6 days a week.

Another view.  The gray skies have been typical of my time here, as have the puddles on the roads.

Perry's Adventures in the Air

One more day in my first week of school at SMK!  It's been rough at times, but overall, I think the week has gone fairly well.

Perry has been here about a week now.  I left him with friends in Anchorage so he wouldn't need to be cared for by strangers here, in a new place, while I was in UNK for a week.  While I was in UNK, my good friend who was taking care of Perry, Rich Shaut, became rather seriously ill--he's still in the hospital, in fact, and would appreciate being on people's prayer lists, I'm sure.  So getting Perry transported up here had to be delegated to another good friend of mine, Steve Vrabel.

To ship a dog from Anchorage to SMK is no easy feat.  It's impossible to reserve a space ahead of time, since dogs fly as cargo, both passengers and mail rate ahead of cargo, and there's no telling how many passengers and how much mail will come through on any given day.  So to transport a dog, it's necessary to call the airline the day of the flight, and if they say space is available, to get the dog to the airport before space becomes unavailable again.  You also have to, by the way, check with the airport in UNK to make sure there's room on the UNK-SMK leg of the flight.

So Steve called on Saturday the 18th, the day I returned from UNK, to see if Perry could go on the plane.  There was--until the time Perry got to the airport, when mail, I presume, had taken his spot.  Steve couldn't take him for the Sunday flight, since he had church, and the Monday flight was full.  On Tuesday, all flights into SMK were cancelled on account of weather.  Which reminds me--the few packages that did come in on Monday came in in the middle of a steady rain--and sat on the runway for an hour or so before someone was able to go out and pick them up.  The moral of this story is--if you're sending things to bush Alaska in the spring, summer, or fall, wrap them in plastic, if possible, since the cardboard box they're shipped in may fall apart before it gets to the post office here.  In winter, of course, we don't have to worry about things getting wet.

So Perry was finally able to come in, if I have my days right, last Wednesday.  He was apparently a good dog on the flight--a colleague who came in on the same small plane from UNK said she hadn't even known there had been a dog on the plane, he was so quiet.  While being unloaded, though, he was far from quiet--the handlers got worried about their fingers.  Of course, Perry didn't bite anyone.

He seems to be adapting well enough to life as a country dog--though it's not safe for dogs to run around free out here, so in many ways, his life is much like it was in ANC--in the bathroom during the day, going for walks morning, afternoon, and night, playing in the house until bedtime, then sleeping in the bedroom.  He has, unfortunately, discovered that the bathroom door doesn't latch well, which gives him full access to the bedroom during the day.  Fortunately, he hasn't yet torn anything up in there.

My house is the next in line for repairs in SMK--new carpet, new doors and windows, new front porch--so maybe Perry's bedroom access can be curtailed once again.  Until then, I'm hiding my socks!

AMDG

Tim

Perry in the bedroom.  He seems rather unconcerned that he's out of his appointed place.

Perry says hi! (but with his characteristic suspicion)

News from St. Michael's Parish

I'm low on pictures these days, but a quick parish update...

Two Sundays ago, Rita asked me to lead Liturgy of the Word; last week, she asked me to lead the entire service.  It went well both times.   Both times, I led one or two hymns in English, and one of the local teachers led the rest in Yup'ik.  The only time so far I've heard the language used.  We had 16 each Sunday, and a nice coffee hour afterwards each time.  Church has been a very positive place for me here, which I wasn't sure would be a possibility.

On Friday, the other Catholic teacher and I said the Rosary at church in the evening.  This Sunday, we publicized it and there was a lot of interest, so we'll do it again this week.

I have to get to the post office before it closes, so I'l sign off now.

I will say, though, that the first two days of school have gone fairly well, and that today was an improvement over yesterday.

I'll work on getting some pictures taken of the school soon so I can show off my new place!

AMDG

Tim