Happy Halloween!

"I'm dreaming of a white ?HALLOWEEN?" Well, it's snowing on halloween. It just doesn't seem right. Snow is NOT scary.

I love halloween, so whose evil joke was it that i be sick on Halloween? yes, that's right...i'm sick...again. It started with a soar throat on Monday evening, then yesterday at school I felt terrible the whole day. I woke up this morning feeling like i had 100 pounds of pressure inside of my head, but really wanting to go to school and see all my kids dressed up. Not to mention that I had my own costume all ready to go. So, I took a shower hoping to feel better, BUT NOOOOOO! The longer I was up, the worse I felt. Finally, I broke down and called for a sub. What a crappy day to be sick. I went out at about 3:00 to go get some cold medicine and OJ. I also had to drop off my rent check (due today) and pick up my veggies (the furniture store is closed now and they sent an email that said the veggies HAD to be picked up today). I was out for about an hour and by the time I got home I felt like I had been beat up or something. I was tired and aching all over. I made some chicken noodle soup and now I am going to lay back down and sleep while Avery goes Trick or Treating with his friends.

Happy Halloween anyway!

My first salmon!

I cooked my first salmon dinner last week. I was given this salmon fillet by my kind neighbor at school, the other JH science teacher. She is a native woman and she also told me the native way of cooking it. Lay the fillet out in a baking pan. Cover it with a layer of mayo(not miracle whip). Sprinkle it with season salt. Bake 40 minutes.

I'm not a big salmon fan. It's a bit too fishy for my tastes. I prefer mild white fish. BUT MAN...was this good. I was scared that my first try wouldn't come out too well, but it did! And what a HUGE fillet. I never realized salmon where so big. Native people eat alot of salmon. It is a big part of their subsistent lifestyle. They eat it so many ways...baked, canned, dried. They love it! The lady that gave the fish to me was telling me that she sometimes eats salmon for breakfast.

1st place

Avery took his first 1st place medal at the tournament in Kwethluk this weekend. He has earned many 2nds and 3rds along the way, but never a 1st. We always knew he'd get over that hump eventually, but we didn't think it would happen in his first season in Alaska. These kids are tough wrestlers. He was excited about it, but I was bummed that I couldn't be there to see it. He called using his friends calling card on Friday night and when I got home from the carnival, he had left a message. He said that Friday night, he lost his first match and won his second. Then when he called from the airport on Saturday for me to pick him up, he said, "Do you want to know how I did?" I said, " Yeah, how'd you do?" He said, "Oh, nothing much, just first!"

Halloween party!

We were invited to a Halloween party last night at my principals house. There were many teachers there, among others. There were lots of kids all dressed up running around, some of them were even students from the high school. It was a good time and almost everyone was dressed up. There were pirates, draculas, a crayon, miss wisconsin, miss minnesota, miss disfunctional, sleepy the dwarf, a mad scientist, elvis(what's halloween without elvis?), and a couple of germans. Avery was a hippy and I was TigerLily, an indian girl.

What a night...

You know you've got a good haunted house when...

10...you have to explain that they cannot exit the same way the entered
9...the line is halfway across the gym
8...kids trip over each other to get out the door
7...some people skip parts just to get out sooner
6...adults come out wide eyed
5...people scream for their mommies
4...mothers are shielding their kids eyes
3...kids come out clutching on to any random member of their group
2...teenagers are scared to go in
1...kids come out crying (real tears)

Adventure for Avery

Avery will be going to Kwethluk this weekend for wrestling. Kwethluk is a village about 30miles up river from us. He flies out Friday at 1pm and flies back Saturday at 3pm. He's pretty pumped. How exciting!

Treats from Anchorage

Ok, so I know it's been awhile since I went to Anchorage, but I just had to share these pics. Bethel is a damp community, that means you can possess and drink alcohol, but cannot buy or sell it. So, if you want to have alcohol, you have to bring it in to Bethel from somewhere else...like Anchorage. So, we stopped at the liquor store and stocked up.
I also bought dog food when I was in Anchorage. Here it is coming over the conveyor belt at baggage claim. It's really interesting to watch the kinds of things that come through the baggage claim in Bethel. Behind my dog food is a huge bag of rice. Everything is so expensive in Bethel, so when you go to Anchorage, you always make sure to bring back as much stuff as possible. You can carry three checked bags, one carry on, and one personal item if your flight is only within the state(usually you're only allowed two checked bags).
It was so funny/strange to see this package marked "ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE" come out of the baggage claim. I wasn't the only one with alcohol by any means either. there were probably about ten or so other people who were bringing in alcohol from anchorage. Now, it's not like I drink very often, but it's just the idea of being able to when you want to and since you can't stop by the store for a six pack, you have to keep it on hand. I think I'm pretty well stocked now.

In other news...it has snowed a little each night for this week. Having snow on the ground really does a good job of keeping the mud in check. It's pretty too...nice white powdery flakes.

I dropped my truck off this morning to get it's engine block heater installed. We will all be plugging in our trucks soon. I'd say about 75% of vehicles in town are trucks. hardly anyone drives a car, except the taxi drivers. I took my first taxi this morning to school after I dropped the truck off.

The carnival/haunted house is Friday. I'm really looking forward to it. It will be fun and I will be glad when it's over. I have taken on too much lately and I need to focus back on my teaching and not so much on all this other stuff.

Avery has been better this last week or so. His attitude is back to normal and he's staying out of trouble at school. He finds out today if he will get to travel to Nunapachuk this weekend for wrestling. He got his eligibility form in and did some fund raising, so that means he should be going! I wish I could go too, but i've got to be here running the carnival games with my 8th grade robotics kids and the haunted house with the 10th grade class. I came in this morning and had a huge grim reaper, lying on my desk!

Wrestling pics

See the previous blog post to watch a video of Avery pinning one of his opponents. I had a few more pics from the tournament, so I thought I'd go ahead and post them.

In this pic, Avery is wrestling the kid from Kotzebue that he lost to. Avery is on top.

Break for a bloody nose. Avery got a major gusher during he first round. It took along time to get the bleeding under control. Surprisingly, he wrestled better when they resumed the match. The guy in the whitish shirt is one of the coaches.

Here he is after he came back from the bloody nose, trying to get that kid down, to no avail. He lost this match.

Here he is wrestling one of his team members. He eventually pinned this kid (see video). The other coach is the guy in the bright yellow shirt sitting on the sidelines.

Here is Avery with a couple of his buddies after the tournament was over. The kid on the left spent the night last night and we're going to take him home right now.

First Tourny of the Season

Avery's first wrestling tournament was this weekend at home in Bethel. The gym had two full size wrestling mats laid down and the whole school was full of kids. We had teams in from all over western Alaska. The teams that come from out of town stay at the high school and sleep on the classroom floors. The principal told us at the beginning of the year that BRHS is the biggest bed and breakfast in Bethel. The tournament ran ALL night Friday night and most of the day today. Last night they started wrestling at about 6pm and ran until about 10:45 at night. Avery wrestled his last round last night at about 10:30pm. We got home at about 11:15pm last night. I ran the concession stand with the 8th grade robotics team, so I was exhausted when I got home. I was at school yesterday from 8am until 11pm. Long day! Avery lost his first match last night and won his second.

This morning we were up at 6:45am and at school by 7:30am. I ran the concession stand all day again with the robotics team and Avery wrestled two more rounds. He won the first one with a pin and lost the second one to the same kid he lost to on Friday night. The kid was really tough and Avery almost had him the second time. He was from Kotzebue which is WAY up north. The tournament was over today at about 1pm. Avery didn't place, but lost to the kid that placed third in his weight class...that means he got 4th. I think he did awesome for his first tournament in Alaska. These kids are tough and wrestling is their thing.

In the video...This is Avery's third round and he pinned the kid. He is wrestling one of his teammates, another Kilbuck wrestler. The ref is Avery's teacher.


One more interesting thing...I was amazed by how busy the concession stand was. We earned a TON of money! I mentioned to another teacher how surprised I was that the concession stand was so busy during a wrestling tournament because back home hardly anyone ate at the concession stand during wrestling tournaments. He made a good point...back home we could go out to eat before or after or in between rounds, but here, there is no other place to go eat. Eating at the concession stand IS like eating out for the people here!

A quarter of the way there!

Today is the end of the first quarter! It's hard to believe nine weeks of school is over. A quarter of the way there. Time flys! Pretty soon Thanksgiving break, then Christmas, then spring break, then summer. Amazing!



Here are some pics of some of my classes. You can see the pics bigger/better if you click on them. you should notice that they are mostly Yu'pik native, about 60%, with a spattering of white, black and asian mixed in. I really like my kids! they are hard workers...most of them.