Let Summer Vacation Begin!

Being a teacher is hard, hard work. I won't even pretend to imply that teachers don't earn every minute of every break they get. I have to say, though, when those breaks come, it's like a sweet breath of fresh air. I'm definitely on vacation now. I have an awkward looking sunburn and I'm living out of a suitcase/backpack. And I love it. :)

Last week was CASC week. I don’t remember what CASC stands for, but basically we got into groups based on content area and looked back over the standards and curriculum, making any necessary changes and updates. I was in the Writing CASC, and I had a great group. We had lots of fun. I learned a lot, and I feel like I contributed at least a little. It was kind of cool having that kind of influence. Decisions that I made actually affect the entire district… I like it. Well, I like it if they were good decisions. (It's weird to think that just last week I was at work in Unalakleet, and now I'm sitting in an international hostel in Venice, CA. Quite a change!)

There was one major event last week that has absolutely nothing to do with school. On Tuesday night my dog was howling, which rarely happens, so I went out and gave her some hay. The next morning as I left for school I found my dog not running out excited to see me, like she usually does. I looked in her box, as I had been doing for the whole week previous (just in case), and there she was, puppy and all.


Proud Mama Star taking care of her baby. She's a good mom. :)

She had a little girl, and so far it’s just the one. I checked every day after, but no change. This is good – the one puppy came right on time. The last litter came 2 weeks early because there were too many, which is why they didn’t make it. This time it was just the one, and she seems to be very healthy. She’s very vocal, and very cute. I haven’t picked a name for her yet, and I haven’t decided if I’m going to keep her or not. We’ll just see how things go. I am tempted, and I am currently on the hunt for a good name, preferably Yupiq. One of my students, Yosty, is watching over my dogs while I’m away.


Puppy hasn't quite opened her eyes yet, at least when I had left. But she looks a lot like her mother - black with white tips on her paws and a white stripe down her belly. I'm anxious to see how she changes.

Speaking of being away, I’m sitting in a hostel in Venice, CA, just outside of Los Angeles. School is over, and I probably couldn’t do much with it even if I wanted to, which I don’t. On Monday, Adrianna and I, and Jake and Janelle, flew out to Anchorage for the beginning of our journeys. It was all very exciting. We rented a car together and made our way to town. Town!! We tried to go to Pete’s Sushi, but alas, it was closed for Memorial Day. Ah well. We got a nice bagel sandwich, then headed over to REI where we picked up a few essentials. After a few more errands, the four of us met back at Humpey’s for dinner. I took Adrianna to the airport, then met up with Alec, a friend in Anchorage. We hung out, had some laughs, took a walk, etc. It was good. :)

My flight to Los Angeles left at 12:40AM that night, and I arrived at around 7:00AM. It was fantastic… psych. My plan was to store my luggage at the airport so I would only have to carry my backpack. Not so – LAX no longer stores luggage. Big bummer. I took a taxi to my hostel, which was a deadly ride. I thought I was going to die. And looking around, everything is made of cement, everything is commercialized, and whatever is or once was naturally beautiful has been overrun by the city. Oh well, I got to my hostel alive, where I guess I really didn’t have a reservation. But the lady was very, very nice, and she let me sleep in an empty bed for the morning and prepared a bed for me to have for the night. Anyway, my hostel overlooks the beach - not a bad little spot.


This is the window in the lounge of my hostel. It looks right out to the beach. Pretty sweet.

I rented a bike yesterday and rode up the trail along the beach. I found a nice spot where there weren’t very many people and just hung out, walked along the beach in the water, enjoyed the warmth, enjoyed the solitude. It’s one thing to go from the bush to Anchorage. It’s another to come straight into L.A. It’s not so big a deal, I mean, I’ve lived in the city before, I can handle it, I’m not worried about it. But it’s definitely a lot different. And I definitely appreciate where I live. I’m also extremely anxious to get to New Zealand, so that also contributes to my poor attitude towards L.A. Oh well. I don’t care. I just want to get to where I’m supposed to be. This is not it. It's not terrible, and I know I'm just being grumpy about it. There are a few redeeming qualities, like all the gardens and flowers everywhere, which makes it smell good in some neighborhoods. I still don't want to live here.


I biked up a ways out of town where there was a little solitude, less people, more open beach. This is the view from where I was. It's so big, so busy. I was glad to be out of that for a few minutes.

Today I packed my things up and checked out, but the hostel is letting me store my things and hang out here for the day since my flight leaves so late tonight. I rented a bike and rode around town for a couple of hours. I went over to Marina del Rey, saw some of the boats, biked on the bike trail up that way, etc.


Boats, boats, and more boats. Quite a different look from village fishing boats. :)

I went back over to Venice around where my hostel is and hung out in the grass by the beach, just reading. There's so little to do when you're on your own here, without spending a lot of money. There's just too many people for my taste, I don't really know what to do with myself. I'm almost forgetting how to interact with people normally because I am completely out of my element. This is good for me, of course. I am definitely ready to be in New Zealand with Bec, though! I'll be glad when I don't have to worry as much about getting around on my own, not really knowing where I'm going, etc. Plus, New Zealand is just a cooler place to be. I'll be glad to be in a less crowded place with one of the coolest people in the world!!

The End. Finis. Etc.

I realize that it's been a while, although looking at the dates it's really only been 2 weeks since my last post. It doesn't sound like very long when I say it out loud, but it's felt like an eternity. So much has been going on, I feel like everything outside of myself has been nonstop, so really, I had no time for myself and such things like blogging.

The year is winding down. Students and teachers alike checked out last week - mentally, it is a very difficult time of year. The sun is out for about 21-22 hours a day, it's warm, we all want to be outside, and school is became less of a priority for everyone. Frankly, I'd rather be camping. Fortunately, tomorrow is the official last day of school. The rest of the week will be a work week for me. I'm looking forward to it, collaborating with other teachers, cleaning my classroom, kind of planning for next year, etc.

The past few weeks have been, mildly putting it, busy, as I mentioned before. On Saturday May 3 the Junior class hosted prom. I was a chaperone from 11-12. It was beautiful. :) They did a fantastic job of decorating, everyone looked great, and even I got a little dressed up for the occassion. Adrianna curled my hair, I put make-up on... no dress. It was quite an ordeal - dress or no dress? Whatever. I'm not a dress person. But it was a good time.


Adrianna and I dressed up for prom. This is the first prom I've ever been to, since I didn't go to either of my high school proms. I'm totally okay with that.

(In internet land, there is a picture of Carrie and I - she made me wait after my chaperone hour was done just to have it taken together. :) It was very cute, and I was happy to wait - especially since there was yummy Carrie-made cake involved - I don't really like the picture of me, so I'm not posting it.)

The following week was the acme of all that the senior class had been working for, going crazy for, waiting for, the big event of the year: graduation! Twelve seniors graduated from Frank A. Degnan High School this year. Getting the caps and gowns turned out to be a bit of drama, but we got what we needed, and the ceremony was beautiful. In the midst of planning and trying to figure out this position of senior class advisor, I didn't realize that I was required to give a small speech at graduation, in front of about 300 people. This is officially the biggest crowd I've ever spoken in front of, I'm pretty sure. I wrote a speech at the last minute, and I'm told it went pretty well. All I had to do was explain the financial aid that each student received. I think I was in a daze the entire time. Oddly, I was less nervous at the actual ceremony than I was during the dress rehearsal. Anyway, they are fantastic kids, and I am so happy for all of them! They did a great job planning and decorating, everything ran smoothly, and they looked awesome. I am lucky to have had this chance to work so closely with them this year, and I will miss them!


This is the senior graduating class - they are great, and they definitely earned it!

Side Note: There's a guy in the village, Gary, who got a bear a few weeks ago. I went over with Mark to see his collection. Bear, muscox, caribou - all kinds of stuff. Pretty cool. :)


Gary's Bear - pretty big animal. It's better to get them in the spring because there is more actual fur on the hide, whereas by the summer and fall they have itched and rubbed a lot of fur off. Here, hunting for bears is not considered poaching at all. I mentioned to a woman that someone had got a bear, and the first thing she said was, "Good; one less."


Muscox fur. Very hairy animals.

Since graduationg, things began to lull - just finishing up, which is still kind of a big deal, and busy in a totally different way. Also kind of depressing in some ways, despite the end-of-the-year anticipation... but then...

Friday morning was pretty freakin' sweet. Two people came in from Nome to do a Cold Water Survival class for the middle school kids, and they stayed to do a session with a group of high school students. Since I organized the list of students interested and eligible, I got to be the lucky chaperone. It was so much fun! I can't even tell you how much I enjoyed it. We did activities in the gym, learned some valuable lessons about surviving in emergency situations, and then put on some survival suits, the kind you wear in extremely cold water. Also, in case you were wondering, in the Seven Steps of Survival, water is not first. It goes:

1. Recognition: Recognize your situation and evaluate your danger. What's the problem, and how should we solve it?


Students practice tossing the rescue line and pulling in drowning victims.

2. Inventory: Know what you have, and put everything to use.


A compact life jacket that airs up when activated by water - pretty handy if you ever pass out in a sinking boat...

3. Signals: The magic number is three. Do what you need to do to get someone's attention if you can.


In a survival suit, in the chain position, ready to swim to shore together from the dangers of the gym floor.

4. Shelter: Protect yourself from the weather and natural conditions.


If ever someone is hypothermic, make them into a hypothermia burrito!

5. Water: You can only survive about a day without water.


We got to race for the fastest time of putting on a survival suit. In reality, you only have about 60 seconds or less to put one of these on if you need to in an emergency situation. The best time from our group: 27 seconds. That was not me.

6. Food: Supposedly, you can survive about 3 or 4 days without food.

7. Play: If you are in a long-term situation, you will need to find ways to entertain yourself for your emotional and mental well-being.


A student and I practice our chain position. Aren't we cute in our little gumby suits? :)

The students were great, as always, and we all had a good time. Heidi and Jason, the two people who facilitated the class, were really cool. Heidi does lots of classes like this through UAF, so hopefully this is a window for more opportunities in the future! I may not be the science teacher, but I don't mind learning sweet stuff in the field. :)

Saturday was productive, but relaxing, although at the end of the day I had a hard time remembering anything that I had really accomplished. I cleaned my kitchen, only to mess it up again with bread making. Adrianna is working on becoming a domestic goddess in the kitchen, so I am teaching her the ways of bread making. Well, really, we only made cinnamon bread, which happens to be the yummiest bread I had ever made. Although this time around, it didn't turn out as well as before. It was still pretty tasty, but not the best. Oh well.

Anyway, I'm pretty much almost completely done with most of my teaching duties for this year, which is kind of a sweet feeling, though I know there is much more that I have to do that I don't even realize. That's the nature of a first year. The whole, "Wait, I have to do that, too? What does that mean?" It happens regularly. I'm glad it's almost summer time.

A Festival, a Job, and a Summer Vacation

I suppose I have a few updates to comment on. Mostly I will refer to that which affords me the most happiness right now. The first thing I think of: SUMMER!!! I am finalizing summer plans, and things are looking up. I do have my passport, and my tickets to New Zealand are booked and paid for. I'll be there for 34 days with my good friend Bec - I'll even get to see my other friend, Ants! We will be biking, siteseeing, cooking, and mostly just hanging out together, something we very rarely get to do! It will be nice to be with such a good friend for so long. She is fantastic, and I am so lucky to have her as a friend - and not just because it gives me an excuse to visit New Zealand, although that is certainly a perk!


I am flying into Auckland, but Bec lives down towards Wellington in Palmerston North. That will be my home for over a month! The plan: she'll pick me up on Friday morning from the airport, and we'll take a sweet 4-day road trip down to her place, since Monday is a holiday.

I did screw up my plane ticket plans, however - even though I made a sweet Excel chart of my flight times and expenses - and instead of being in L.A. for just one day, I'll be there for two days before flying out to Aukland. I was a little bummed at this discovery at first, feeling as though my plans had been foiled. But I'm sure I will make the best of it, regardless. I'm pretty independent, so I'm sure I'll have a good time regardless. I'm looking forward to biking the beach bike path and sea kayaking in the Pacific!

My post-NZ travel is not quite finalized, but I believe I will be in L.A. for a day with Bec, who is flying back to the states to visit camp (where we met and became friends). After, I will fly to NYC to visit my big brother and hoof it around the city for about a week (he won't need to entertain me the whole time, but it will definitely be good to spend some time with him). I can usually find my way around pretty well, although I have been known to find myself in downtown Manhattan instead of where I was supposed to be... wherever that was... haha. Woops. Anyway, I believe will see Father Dear for an overlap of Karl visits at this time, perhaps even Mother Dear. Then it's time for a road trip up to New Hampshire for Amanda and Andrew's wedding!! Christine will hopefully (HOPEfully) pick me up on the way and we will have a sweet college reunion at a sweet wedding, and my hope is to drive back down to Philly and Pittsburgh to visit with Kamorin and Christine. From Pittsburgh, I will then fly back to Anchorage and Unalakleet, where I will proceed to fish and pick berries and move into our new apartment and enjoy my Alaska life.

So basically, 2 weeks until school is over, and I am both terrified of not finishing what needs to be done, and stoked for it to just be OVER. And for summer to be started. It's pretty much all I think about. That and lesson planning. At least I should be thinking about lesson planning.

As for the right-now life in my world... Skiing is pretty much over, but we did have one last go around: Heidi, Adrianna, Nancy, and I all decided that it was too beautiful to NOT ski, so we went out together in the beautiful weather one Saturday afternoon. Nancy is basically a professional, and she became my personal ski coach for the day. I'm thinking of hiring her (for free...) next season to help me continue improving my new skate ski skills, which is pretty much the funnest new thing I've learned lately besides ski jouring. :)


My soon-to-be roommate - isn't she cute?


Nancy, professional ski coach :)


Heidi having a good time

Last week was very, very good. When it was Jake's birthday, he referred to it as "The Festival of Jake." Well, welcome to The Festival of Karis. On Tuesday April 22, 2008, I turned the ripe age of 24 years. I don't really know what to say about that. I think it's too big for me to think about. But I do love my birthday, although I've heard that this narcissistic tendency is supposed to end around age 11. Ach so. I love the 22nd of April, which is also Earth Day! So I hope you all loved your planet last Tuesday. :)

Anyway, Monday was good. I hung out a bit with Carrie, which always a positive ordeal. But Tuesday was quite a day - it was my day. I took my time in the morning, which I really enjoy doing. When I entered my classroom I was welcomed by happy balloons and a Happy Birthday message on my board for everyone to see. I wish I had walked in on Carrie as she sneakily taped balloons around my desk. She's pretty swell. :) Three of my classes sang to me, although my favorite was my class of 5 boys who pretty much yelled as loud as they could the Happy Birthday song. It was great. That evening Dan, Adrianna, and Carrie made me my birthday dinner, the meal of my choice, which was cheeseburgers, french fries, and a salad. It was basically amazing, and my belly was full for two days. Totally worth it. It was a grand birthday party eating and chatting and enjoying good company. Afterwards we all went back to the school for the talent show, which was really good. After only a year of music class, students have learned to read music, gone to contest, competed in solos, and our choir qualified for state. They are pretty impressive. Well done, Janelle. Seriously. :)

The weather has been beautiful. That Wednesday afternoon I hung out with Rita, who is awesome. We went on a long walk because it was gorgeous out. The sun was warm, the wind was light - it was heavenly. Friday was kind of a switch in that. It started out snowing. There was some sun there in the middle, so after school Carrie and I decided to go for a nice LONG walk, which was great. Up the hill, getting in shape for the summer type walk, it was nice. On the way back?? Blizzard. What the heck??? White out, wintery windy walk backwards to save the face from the cold weather blizzard. Crazy!

On Saturday afternoon I got a knock on my door from the Assistant Principal Conrad, who was selling King Crabs for his buddy in Shaktoolik. I decided to buy a couple - $10 each is pretty good. I open the door, and there he was, holding two giant aracnid-type shelled creatures. It scared the crap out of me. I put them in a box and stuffed that in the fridge to deal with later. I was planning for that evening - baking cinnamon bread to be exact. For the final Festival of Karis event, we had desserts and drinks at Dan and Adrianna's. It was kind of last minute planning, but we wanted to do it, so we did. And it was nice. :) Good people, good food, good times. After the crowds dispersed, A, D, and I all made our way over to Jamie's for another night of fun. It was a good evening of heart to hearts. I am learning so much, and finding a good family of friends here.


Rolling Sushi for my birthday - fun new skill taught by Adrianna, the master Sushi roller.


And this is our plate of amazing Asian food. We also had Wakame and Miso soup, and Chicken Lo Mein - pretty freakin' amazing dinner! I think we'll be making lots of this next year. :)

On Sunday, my kitchen smelled like Alaska. It smells like home. I had crab steaming on my stove, my first time cooking it ever. It was a little nerve racking at first, but I am okay with it. It tastes too good to not get over the grossness. Although the crab was freaking HUGE.


This is the 2nd and smaller of the 2 crabs that I made. It was also the better looking one when it was finished cooking. This is after I cut off the weird underbelly with all the juices inside. But it has a nice color, doesn't it?


My awesome plate of crab legs - yummy!! Dan, Adrianna, and I shared the joy.

After enjoying some crab legs, I took on the daunting task of taking out all of the meat, bagging it, and freezing it. My finger tips are officially vandalized - crabs are sharp. But I felt very Alaskan/domestic

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This past week has been pretty lame. The kids are checking out, I'm checking out, and also it's about time for graduation. Graduation!!! Drama, drama, but it should all work out in the end. Anyway, I'm trying to stay focused on the school that I have left to do. Although I've been wicked tired this week. It'll all be good. :)

2weeks2weeks
summersummersummerfun!
summersummersummercome!!