I'm going to have to dust more often!

Everything has a layer of dirt/dust/sand on it. I think the sand is one of the hardest things to get used to. It blows, it floats, it gets on everything...even up your nose and in your sinuses. I have even heard several people talk about "brown outs"! My truck is covered in a layer of dirt and there is sand everywhere on the inside. If you put together all of the dirt my truck has had on it for the last year, it probably wouldn't be as much as is on it now. I have been working nonstop to get my classroom clean for weeks now(apparently the last guy didn't like dusting either). Even though I have wiped everything down in my classroom, it is still all covered with dust. I (or Avery) could sweep the kitchen floor everyday and it would still be covered with sand. Erosion is a big problem here because everything is built on sand. All of the building are built up off the ground on pilings because the permafrost freezing and unfreezing causes the land the shift dramatically.

Today was a teacher workday. New teachers had a meeting on school procedures that took most of the morning. Then the teachers union fed us pizza for lunch in an attempt to recruit new members. Apparrently only about 60% of teachers are members, but it's no wonder... union dues are about$890 per year. OUCH! I did sign up though. I enjoy being a union member and this year is a negotiations year. After lunch I got a brief tutorial on the smartboard. Yay! After that, I almost got my room completely finished. I still need to hang posters, but mostly it's done. My room needed so much work that I haven't even gotten to the part where I figure out what I'm going to teach. I'll be working this weekend...School starts MONDAY!

Tonight I hung out with one of the other new teachers. She's a first year art teacher. I cooked stirfry for dinner. Then we sat around and had a few drinks. First drinks I've had since arriving in Bethel. Bethel is a "damp" community. That means you can't buy or sell alcohol, but you can drink it and pocess it. All of the villages around Bethel are dry. They have real big problems with alcoholism here. More stories on that later!!! You'll have to keep reading my blog! So anyway...we sat around having drinks and trying to order sheets online because we both need new ones and we thought we'd save on shipping by ordering together, but the computer or internet site or powers that be wouldn't let the order go through. So we sat around making jokes and laughing our asses off because all we want is new sheets and we can't even get them. Guess you had to be there!