Blog Archives

XCIII: A Love-Hate Relationship with the Sun

4/29/2012

This is the shipping container Kaitlyn dug down to see the top

We’ve almost reached the finish line. This past week seemed to progress very slowly, however, nothing really significant happened. Kaitlyn and I are both in “end of school year” mode. This is the time of year where we become very busy preparing for finals, checking out of our classrooms, as well as our apartment. I presume that these next two weeks will go much faster than the previous one.

Recently, Kaitlyn and I have formed a “Love-Hate” relationship with the closest star to our planet. There are a lot of wonderful things the sun does for us. For instance, we are starting to enjoy warmer temperatures. This past week, instead of turning on the lights in my room, I have just been pulling up the blinds and opening the windows to let the sun fill my room with light. It’s been so nice. In contrast, -30°F winters are just not that enjoyable. Because of these warmer temperatures, the snow has begun melting. Last year at this time the streets down town were flooded with 18 to 24 inches of water. Big pickup trucks were avoiding the waters because of its depths. This year, the snow is has been melting at a more constant rate, preventing big flood-like conditions on the roads. Nice. However, it seems to be melting pretty quickly all the same. Each day we are starting to see more and more dirt appear. We’ve definitely still got a lot of way to go. Because of the many storms this past winter we still have feet and feet of snowdrifts left to melt. For all of these reasons, we LOVE the sun. However, did you know the sun has a dark side?

Over the past few weeks the sun has begun to emerge from its winter slumber. We were without it for so long that we just got about our days unknowing that the sun is creeping up on us ever so gently. Then, one day, out of nowhere you realize that it’s 7:00 am and the sun is up in its full glory beaming into your window. That sun is tricky. Kaitlyn and I are very much creatures of habit. We get up at the same time, we leave school at the same time, and we go to bed at the same time. However, with the sun deciding to stay out later it unknowingly tricks us to do the same. We stay at school, a friends' house, or stay up later because that sun makes us think it’s earlier in the day. Now, you might be thinking, “Hey…this isn’t your first rodeo, you knew the sun was going to do this, shouldn’t you be happy?” To answer your hypothetical question, yes, we are happy and yes, we knew this was going to happen. That still doesn’t change the fact that it surprised us. We are fully aware that we live in the land of the “Midnight Sun”, but man does it sneak up you. I guess we’ll be going through this same change come October when we transition back from beautiful sun light to darkness.

This is our backyard view at the ocean. The snow is melting.

XCII: A Punch to the Gut

4/22/2012

Don't you wish your staff loved you this much?

    I think it is officially okay to count down the days until the end of the school year now. We have 15 school days left. The end is in sight! It's a good thing too, because I'm not sure how much longer I could last. I am feeling a bit stressed about my last few weeks of lesson planning, grading, and preparing final exams. I just keep telling myself that I have to work really hard for 3 more weeks and then I'll get a break.   Anybody can survive anything for 3 weeks right?
    Monday morning Tim and I went to school a little bit early. I needed some extra time in my classroom, since I had an substitute from the previous Wednesday afternoon through Friday. I hadn't seen my classroom since I had gone to Kodiak. I felt like I had a lot to accomplish before the bell rang at 9:00 am. Luckily, I was working pretty productively and was able to accomplish all the necessary things by 8:30 am. It was then that I got an awful email.
    If you've been keeping up with our blog, I'm sure that you're aware that Tim and I really like our administrator. I am convinced that there has never been a better principal. We couldn't be happier with that part of our job here. Jason and his family have expressed how much they like living in rural Alaska. His kids have fit in well and made a lot of friends. He and his wife are well liked in the school and the community. They have been planning on staying in Togiak for a long time. This year (probably for the first time in history) the entire Togiak staff has signed their contracts to return next year. Many of us attribute this to Jason and the great leader he has been. However, about one month ago, Jason's son became very sick and wasn't getting better. I won't go into too many details here, but it turns out that his son will need medical care for the rest of his life and living in a rural area of Alaska would be putting his life in danger. Monday morning, we received the news that the Mabry's could not return to Togiak for next school year. The staff was very subdued for the rest of the day. We were all speechless and shocked. We literally felt like we had been punched in the gut. Now I realize what a selfish reaction I had. My first reaction should have been concern and sadness for his family and their situation. They will be sad to leave. I am confident that they will be happy and successful in their more urban setting wherever it may be.
    Monday directly after school I flew to Dillingham. I don't think my students were exactly thrilled to learn that I was leaving again after being back for one day. (Well, I'm sure some of them were thrilled, but I'll pretend like they were heart broken.) I had to go into district office for a science curriculum meeting. I have been part of the science committee this year that is revamping the science curriculum and courses. It has been a big, overwhelming job and I don't feel like we are even close to finishing. Tuesday I spent the day at district office working on writing the scope and sequence for science courses and selecting the new textbooks. I still have some "homework" I need to do to finish up some write-ups for our new Chemistry course.
    The remainder of the week seemed fairly normal. Some of the students are hard to handle. I think the nicer weather has been making it hard to behave and focus on school work.

Michael and Leslie cooking burgers

Saturday we had our staff Easter potluck. The weather was too bad on Easter to actually have our potluck, so we had to postpone it. We actually had a cookout. Michael cooked hamburgers on our "grill". It is made out of two 55 gallon drums welded together. One has a stand and one as the grill.
We took the opportunity of this gathering to present Jason with an appreciation gift. Heather and I had organized the pooling of staff funds to get him a new Ipad. We all felt really awkward making an official scene to give him the gift, but really wanted to let him know how much we appreciate him. I like to think he's been sitting at home ever since playing with it.

63 finished squares for my sampler afghan

I had such lofty plans for this weekend. This has been the first Saturday in a month that I have actually been at home. (It is quite obvious when you look at the condition of my house too. It's getting kind of gross.) I was going to create full lesson plans for the rest of the week and finish writing up the chemistry course for next year. None of that happened. It seems like my body and mind just shut down when I make it to the weekend. I think I ran out of gas. Maybe taking a little break will help me be more productive during the week.
I've been working on a new afghan since November. It is called the sampler afghan. It is made up of 63 unique crocheted squares. It's been kind of fun to learn so many different patterns and designs. This weekend I finally finished the last square. All that is left is assembly. I feel like I'll be finished in no time!

Week XCI: AASG Conference in Kodiak

4/15/2012

Kaitlyn in Kodiak

    This week was definitely unique for me. I think other than having me out of town it was fairly normal week for Tim. I was a bit worried about this week starting, because we had Saturday school last week. I was bracing myself to feel really behind, unprepared, and exhausted. But, surprisingly, school went really well on Monday. My lesson plans were ready to go, the students were there, and we accomplished something. I know that doesn’t sound like much of a feat. Isn’t that what is supposed to happen on any old day of school? If you’ve been keeping up with our blog, you’ll know that a normal day of school is turning out to be quite unique.
            On Wednesday, I left after lunch for Kodiak. I was chaperoning two students on a trip to the spring AASG conference. AASG stands for Alaska Association of Student Governments. I was glad for the senior that was traveling with us, because she knew way more about what was going on than I did and she was patient with me and willing to offer help. I am completely new to student government this year and I had never traveled to Kodiak before. I had one senior and one freshman with me. Both girls were totally great. I would chaperone them again anytime. I hardly had to worry a bit.
            Wednesday afternoon we flew into Dillingham and had about 4 hours to wait before leaving for Anchorage. We had flown over on a little Cessna plane (maximum capacity 7, including the pilot). It was nice that it was just the 3 of us flying over with the pilot. Normally, I get stuffed in the middle because I am the smallest out of the people I’m flying with. Last time I flew I was wedged in between two other adults, one of which was a state trooper and whose gun was pressing into my side, and the other who had her snow-suited baby with her and asked me to hold him. I myself was in my winter gear (you don’t travel in bush Alaska in the winter without boats, snow pants, coat, hat, and gloves). There wasn’t even room for my feet in the plane. I had them stacked up one on top of the other at a funny angle. Moral of the story is that I really appreciated having breathing room on the flight over to Dillingham.
            I was a bit worried about keeping Sandi and Chelsey entertained for 4 hours in Dillingham. We ended up walking to the beach (which is currently covered in icebergs) and just watching the water and the icebergs for a couple hours. The girls were completely content and I was too. We talked and laughed and threw snowballs at different targets. Sandi discovered that my lack of ability to shoot a basket extends to my snowball throwing skills as well.
            We finally left Dillingham, flew to King Salmon, then to Anchorage, and finally landed in Kodiak just before 11:00 pm. On our flight from King Salmon to Anchorage Pat Manning was on the plane. He is a member of our branch. Tim serves with him in the Elder’s quorum presidency and I serve with his wife in the primary presidency. It’s really fun when we get an opportunity to see a fellow branch member in person and get to visit with them. Normally, I wouldn’t even recognize a branch member by looking at them, but I had met Pat last summer in Anchorage.
            We stayed in the school while we were in Kodiak. I had never heard of doing such a thing until coming to Alaska, but it is completely commonplace for traveling students to sleep in the school that they are visiting.
            Thursday and Friday were packed full of meetings and workshops. Thursday morning Sandi, Chelsey and I went hiking before our meetings started at 10:30 am. The meetings continued until 10:00 pm that night. Friday we were scheduled from 7:00 am-10:30 pm and then had a dance after all those meetings. I’m not sure how the kids kept it up. As an advisor, I was asked to take a back seat. I was to be there in case I was needed, but I was pretty much to stay out of things and let the kids run the show. By the end of the day I was exhausted. I’m sure all the students were even more exhausted.

Kodiak on Thursday morning

Sea lion in Kodiak

    Thursday there was a bit of excitement in Kodiak. Two coast guard members were found shot and killed. The school was put in lock-in mode, which means no one was allowed to leave the building, but we could carry on with our regular activities inside the school. Everyone remained pretty calm and the lock-in situation only lasted a few hours until the police knew they had the situation under control enough that we were all safe. To my knowledge they still are not aware of who did the killing or where that person is, but there is some speculation that it may have been a homicide/suicide. They were bringing the FBI in to investigate. We were instructed to call our schools and let them know we were safe since the information had become public and we didn’t want anyone panicking back home.
            Friday night the girls from my district wanted to go to Subway instead of going to the dance. They were dropping hints and asking if I would take them to Subway, but their voices didn’t really sound too hopeful. (Subway is a big deal to those of us who live in the bush. There is no such thing as fast food or any restaurants of any sort in Togiak.) To their knowledge, I wasn’t really paying much attention to their pleas because I kept right on working on my computer. In reality, I was looking up the address and phone number of Subway to find out where it was and when they closed. Finally, I looked up and said, “well they close in 20 minutes and it’s a ½ mile walk so we better hurry.” Off we went, running through the night to Subway. This earned me the “coolest chaperone ever” designation from Sandi. I guess that’s good since she was informing me earlier that day about what a boring life I led because I don’t drink energy drinks and wasn’t aware of most the songs she liked to listen to. (I will admit I am extremely media illiterate and sometimes I shock myself at how much I don’t know.)
            The conference and meetings continued on Saturday until 5:00 pm. However, we had to catch our plane at 11:10 am, so we missed most of the meetings. I was sorry we had to leave early, but I was excited to be going home. I learned a lot by watching the conference. The students wrote resolutions, discussed and debated them, amended them, and voted on them. The resolutions that passed will be sent to the appropriate place for further consideration or implementation such as specific school boards or the state legislator. I don’t know how many other states have something like this, but the students in Alaska really do have an opportunity to voice their opinions.
            Saturday we had a 5-hour layover in Anchorage so I rented a car. I knew that Sandi and Chelsey would like to go shopping, and frankly, I wanted to go shopping too. We went to two malls, Wal-mart, and a Chinese buffet before heading back to the airport. We then flew to Dillingham and then into Togiak before 7:00 pm. I was extremely grateful that we were able to fly home on Saturday and not Sunday. I needed a day before starting the new week.

Week XC: State Testing and Spring Storms

4/8/2012

We found a note coming home one day

Hello everyone. Kaitlyn and I have made it through…testing week that is. You see, every year each state has a mandated state test they have to give to measure their students’ annual yearly progress they’ve made in learning achievement. It’s one of those assignments given us as part of the No Child Left Behind Act. So, this week our school did ours. The test comprises Reading, Writing, & Math and spans three days. Each test has about 60-70 questions. All grades 3-9 take these tests, which in Alaska is officially called the State Based Assessment (SBA). Grade 10 has their own test called the High School Grade Qualification Exam (HSGQE), which covers the same subjects and days as the grades 3-9 tests. The HSGQE is an “exit” exam that all students need to pass before they can be awarded a high school diploma. These students, including grade 8 & 4 take an additional science test on Friday of the same length, which doesn’t count toward our schools score, just informational. Each teacher has a job to do during testing week. Kaitlyn was assigned all the 10th graders who are doing their HSGQE. If they pass their tests they don’t ever have to take them again, which is a big incentive to take the tests seriously. For all the other grades, it’s a different story. I (Tim) was assigned the 9th graders who are doing their SBA’s. SBA’s are not required for graduation and have no tie to individual student grades. This makes it incredibly difficult to persuade students to stay and do well on them. Most of the students don’t see any value in them and would rather stay home. We pretty much beg and plead students to come to school and take their exams. However, at the end of the day, you do the best you can and hope your students did the same. At the end of the week both teachers and students are exhausted and need a little down time to recuperate. Unfortunately, we weren’t really given any down time.

A week ago we were unable to have school because of weather…again. We were informed that our school year was not going to be extended in order to fulfill these missed days which is good, however, this means that we had to complete it on a Saturday. Just like the previous Saturday sessions of school we had this year (three and counting), very few students show up and actual class work isn’t really accomplished. That’s okay, because we were very tired. A few of the students asked if we were going to have a “play day” in the gym. They said they used to do that before previous principal came to Togiak. I guess since now he is gone they thought they could have it again. We were unaware of this tradition, but we thought it would be a good idea to let the kids run off some steam. The frightful thing about this is it can get very out of control very fast or kids just wont participate. Luckily, Kaitlyn is AMAZING. She single handedly organized and orchestrated two successful games of human foosball and Go-for-20. I wish we had taken a picture or video of the kids playing because just about everyone in the middle & high school participated. She deserves all the credit.

One of the reasons this post is late is because we had another storm on Sunday…a big storm. This storm came from the south. Storms with winds blowing from the south a very intense and usually bring a lot of snow and high winds which cause very deep snowdrifts. We had planned on attending an Easter-Sunday potluck at the school among friends, however, because of the storm it was agreed upon that it was too dangerous to navigate outside and the potluck was cancelled. The storm knocked out all satellite TV and Internet service and phone service for a while. Neither Kaitlyn nor I wanted to spend Easter Sunday alone, if we didn’t have to, so we decided to brave the storm and walk to our friend’s house near the school. The wind was still blowing hard, so we bundled up well and put all our food in a backpack and began our trek. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as bad as we were originally thinking. Firstly, as a disclaimer, we kept to the roads and followed the road to the school. We had to climb over drifts anywhere from 12 inches to 5 feet, but we got there. We enjoyed a great fish dinner with our dear friend Heather Jeffers and then returned home. It was really fun to go out in the storm. This is one thing that really has been surprising this year. The weather has seemed to be a little more extreme this year than last, actually a lot more extreme. It’s been fun.

Week LXXXIX: Wanna Go Sliding?

4/1/2012

SWRSD Student Council

    On Monday of this week all of the city’s snow removal equipment had broken down by midday. We already had students at school, but the roads needed to be plowed before the buses could get to the school to pick up the students at the end of the day. With no working snowplows, there were no buses. An announcement was made over the VHF, that parents should come get their kids by snow-go or 4-wheeler if they could. By the time lunch ended we were probably missing about half the students who had been at school earlier. At the end of the day students had to walk home or find a friend to take them home.
    By Tuesday morning the plows weren’t repaired yet, so our school day got turned into an in-service day. That means another Saturday school. I think my principal is starting to get really nervous that our only working bus will break down or that we will have bad weather days during testing week. We’re running out of possible Saturdays to make up missed days as well. Luckily, by midday on Tuesday we received word that one of the snowplows was back up and running, so we would be able to continue school on Wednesday.
     The rest of the week was really warm. We had temperatures in the high 30s (finally!) during the day. We’ve had rain and the snow has melted quite a bit. It’s pretty nice to be able to go outside without getting completely bundled up.
     Tim and I have both been feeling a little “under the weather” this week. Two of our other high school teachers were out sick at the end of the week, so we couldn’t really afford to be sick enough to stay home also. We just had to tough it out.

Student Council Retreat
    This weekend we held the Southwest Region School District Student Council Retreat in Togiak. Our theme was “Brighten Up”. We had members of student councils from each of the schools in our district fly in and we also had a guest come in from Sitka: Tessa Baldwin. The retreat started on Thursday evening and went until Saturday afternoon. We had a suicide prevention theme. Tessa is a senior at Mt. Edgecumbe. She has known 4 people that have committed suicide, including a family member and a boyfriend. She decided to start a campaign in Alaska called Hope4Alaska, which promotes suicide awareness and prevention. She travels around the state every weekend presenting at schools.
     Thursday night, all of the students arrived. We had dinner and played a get to know you game and then had some food relay games. Afterward we took a trip to AC, the grocery store. Togiak has the largest grocery store of all the villages in our district, so we knew that the visitors would want a chance to go there. By 9:00 pm, I put a movie on in the school and told everyone to have a good night and I headed home.
    Friday Mike Tozzo, the other student council advisor, and myself had substitutes so we could be with the student council all day. The students alternated from doing workshops and trainings with Tessa to working on video about suicide prevention. At the end of the school day, Tessa did an assembly for all the middle and high school students in our school. It was a busy day, but a nice change to the regular school day. It was kind of nice to take the back seat and let someone else stand up in front of the students for a change. I just ran around behind scenes all day.
    Friday afternoon we took everyone sledding. The locals don’t call it sledding; they call it sliding. I kept hearing kids saying things like, “You want to go sliding?” or “I haven’t been sliding forever.” It was a totally warm day and mostly people were sledding without coats, gloves, or hats. After sledding (or should I say sliding) we had dinner and then started tie dying t-shirts. I have never tie dyed before, but it was pretty fun. The only unfortunate part to the evening was when we opened the first package of white t-shirts to hand out and they were teeny. I mean teeny-tiny. It was then I realized I had purchased boys t-shirts, focusing on the fact they weren’t FEMALE-CUT t-shirts, but totally overlooking the fact that they also weren’t ADULT t-shirts. We just mentioned to everyone that they could make a shirt for a family member and “brighten up” their day. The students were all good sports about it and had a good time. I shared with them that they should “never suppress a generous thought”.
    Saturday morning was dedicated to finishing the videos. It was kind of a big undertaking to ask the students to brainstorm, film, edit, and post a video so quickly. In all, they had only about 4 hours to work on it. I was really happy that both videos got posted before the day was over. Students started leaving around noon, but our final video was posted by 3:00 pm. Check them out.

I got home from the school at about 5:00 pm on Saturday night, feeling sick, tired, and drained of energy. Unfortunately, the dishes, 5 loads of laundry, the housecleaning, and my lesson plans for Monday still awaited me. Needless to say, all of those things did not happen. I did some of them and then gave in to sitting on the couch and watching a movie. I will have to get up really early on Monday morning.
I was really happy with how the weekend turned out. It was refreshing to interact with students who were eager to work and wanted to be there. I had forgotten what that felt like. It also made me really miss coaching the Proform Airborne Jump Rope Team. What a good bunch of kids, working hard and making a positive difference in the world. I wish that I still felt like I got to be a part of something like that every day.

General Conference
    Many of you may be aware that this weekend was the General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The prophets and leaders of our church addressed us about spiritual things and gave us guidance in today’s world. Much of what was said included things that are stressed in the scriptures and that we already know we should be doing but sometimes don’t. These things are so important that they are repeated over and over in the scriptures and in our Sunday school lessons, things like praying consistently and sincerely, studying the scriptures, utilizing the atonement of our Savior by repenting of our sins, and loving others. I wanted to share some of the things that stood out to me from the sessions today.
     President Dieter F. Uchtdorf spoke about contention. He asked us to remove the contention in our lives and heal relationships that may have been filled with contention. He pointed out that we often judge other’s motives, prejudices, and actions and then justify our own. He reminded us that none of us are perfect and we should not judge others for their imperfections. “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone . . . ” (John 8:7) He gave a simple two-word phrase to help us deal with ourselves when we are ridiculing or judging others. Stop it. I love its simplicity. This is something that has been on my mind the last few months. I have caught myself ridiculing and judging others and later in the day I just want to kick myself for it. I will be using this two-word phrase to help myself.
     Elder Ronald A. Rasband spoke about the worth of souls. “Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God.” (Doctrine and Covenants 18:10) He urged us to serve and help others. Oftentimes we ask others if they need help and when they reply no or that they are fine, we go about our day. But then Elder Rasband asked, “If you saw someone drowning would you stop to ask them if they need help or would you just jump in?” Many times we make the mistake of stopping and asking if someone needs help instead of just jumping in. I know that there have been times in my life that I would have greatly benefited from help, but still would verbally turn it down if someone offered. I’m not sure why I do this, but I think it’s something that is common among humans. At times like these, we are grateful for the people who just help, instead of simply offering to help.
     Elder M. Russell Ballard gave a powerful talk on the importance of family. He talked about how critical the family is. He mentioned that if we nurture our families that our church and society will flourish.   The best service we do is the service we do in our own home, within our own families. Elder Ballard used a quote from President David O. McKay that I have always loved: “No other success can compensate for failure in the home.” May we all realize the importance of our families, fostering healthy family relationships, loving our spouses, and teaching, really teaching, our children.
     There were many other good talks given. Please feel free to listen to, watch, or read these talks for yourself at www.lds.org. These men are called of God to teach us things that God wants us to know. They are prophets, like Moses, Abraham, and Noah, but specifically for our day and our situations. I know that if we learn their teachings and follow them that we will feel closer to God and grow closer to our divine potential.

XCIII: A Love-Hate Relationship with the Sun

XCII: A Punch to the Gut

Week XCI: AASG Conference in Kodiak

Week XC: State Testing and Spring Storms

Week LXXXIX: Wanna Go Sliding?

Tim & Kaitlyn

Friends & Family

Archives

Categories