I (Tim) am so glad to be home!  Kaitlyn mentioned a bit on last weeks post that I was gone traveling with wrestling.  I’ll spare you the details and simply direct you to read her post for them.  A quick summary though, I took my wrestling team to the regional tournament in Dillingham, Ak the first weekend in December and we got stuck there an extra day because of poor weather.  When we did get back I wasn’t home for more than 24 hours before I was back out on a plane traveling to the state tournament.  This wouldn’t have normally been the case, however, bad weather keeps planes on the ground, so it’s wise to travel before bad weather can ground you.  The state tournament was great.  I only had one wrestler qualify to wrestle at it, however, he is the first in many years.  He lost both of his matches there, but it was still good for him to go and compete.  On our way back on Sunday, we encountered another storm and were unable to make it back home.  Instead, our pilot rerouted our plane to Anchorage.  We overnighted there and tried again the next day.  Around noon on Monday we took off and headed for home.  Unfortunately, we didn’t make it before another storm moved in and we go stuck for most of the day in a small village called New Halen near Iliamna Lake.  Near the end of the day we were able to get the other wrestling team who we were traveling home with back to their village.  Because my village is further out, we needed to wait till morning to go.  Pilots don’t fly in the dark here.  When there is only 6-8 hours of flyable daylight, you don’t have much time. Long story short, my wrestler and I overnighted again Monday night in Dillingham and made it home around 12:30 on Tuesday, 13 days after we had originally left for the regional tournament.  Being gone from your bed for that long is one thing, being gone from your classroom is another.  I just want to reiterate what I already said, “I’m glad to be home”!

     This past week has been finals week for our high school.  I actually missed some by being gone.  Luckily, the sub I had was great and helped out a bunch.  As soon as I returned I had to jump straight into finals and getting all that rolling.  I didn’t really have much of a chance to sit and relax.  Christmas vacation was well earned this year.  :)  

     Kaitlyn definitely keeps herself busy.  Everyday she does some sort of activity.  Recently, she has been crocheting and quilting.  She just finished her first quilt yesterday.  It’s pretty neat.  I told her that she needs to make a “real” quilt next time, because it’s only big enough to cover our feet.  :)  She said okay.   She is currently working on an afghan. (the blanket, not the person)  

    This week has been anything but dull.  Be prepared for a long blog post.  I don’t even know where to start: perhaps with an explanation of the title.  I have been spouseless for the past 10 days.  Tim left for wrestling regionals a week ago Thursday.  Because of weather, he didn’t return home until last Sunday, which was the same day that I was leaving to chaperone a trip in Manokotak.  Tim got off the plane and I got on the plane.  (Too bad Tim wasn’t wearing more cologne.  That way I could have at least smelled him on the plane as I flew to Manokotak.)  Happily, one of Tim’s wrestlers qualified for state.  This meant that Tim and his wrestler would have to leave on Wednesday to travel to the tournament.  (No problem, I would be back Tuesday and get to see him before he left.)  However, Monday morning Tim was unexpectedly informed that the weather was supposed to get bad so he would be leaving in a couple of hours.  Poor Tim had to have a substitute Thursday and Friday of last week for wrestling regionals and then again for this entire week and with no prior notice that he needed to have sub plans ready.  I did not envy his position.

Manokotak

    I spent last Sunday evening, Monday, and Tuesday at the Manokotak school.  I was chaperoning three girls from our student council at the district’s first student council retreat.  I would chaperone those three girls anywhere.  It was probably the easiest chaperoning job I ever had to do.  I tried to stay active and involved in the activities they were doing, while at the same time writing finals and reviews for my classes.  Drew, one of my students, asked me why I was ALWAYS on my computer.  I just told her it takes a lot of work to keep up with all the questions she asks me every day.  It was fun to see another village in our district and to see another student council at work.  The only thing I would have changed about the trip was the air mattress.  Tim had our good one at wrestling regionals.  Since he returned a day late he never had a chance to hand it off to me.  This left me with the old air mattress that had a couple holes in it.  I brought along some packing tape, thinking I could just tape them up really well . . . that doesn’t work.  One night I went to bed at 11:00 pm and was on the floor by 11:15 pm.  In case you didn’t know, the floors in Manokotak school are pretty hard.

Tim students must think he abandoned them. Am I doing the same?

            I was tired when I came back from Manokotak, but happy to get back to my classroom.  Having a substitute is so much harder than just teaching class yourself.  I went straight to the school on Tuesday afternoon to see what got accomplished when the sub was there and to set up for class the next day.  Wednesday morning I woke up to a VERY dark room.  You never realize how many little lights are on in your house until the power goes out.  I was a bit confused when I woke up.  I wasn’t sure if I was in Manokotak or at home.  It finally hit me that I was at home and my power was out.  I got up and realized that I had slept in an hour (no power, no alarm).  I quickly went to the shower but found that we also had no water.  Wonderful.  When you sleep at someone else’s school for two nights, you don’t get to take a shower.  I was overdue!  I grabbed my towel and bathroom bag, shoved it in my backpack, and headed to the school, hoping that I would have enough time to shower there and prepare for class even with my sleeping in. 

            The school also had no water or power.  After about an hour of no success getting the power back on, my principal informed us we were on an hour delay.  We teachers couldn’t do anything but wait.  It’s hard to work in your rooms with no power, especially when the sun doesn’t rise until after 10:00 am.  Finally at 9:40 am, we got an official word that school was cancelled.  I couldn’t have been happier.  I really didn’t want to see my students with 3 days of grease built up on my body.  To make it even better, my friend Heather told me her water was working and it was hot!  To Heather's house I went.

            Day 3 of the week had come and gone and I had yet to see my students.  Thursday came and, because of icy roads, school started an hour late.  I was able to teach a couple classes and then had to have a substitute again because I had a meeting to attend over distant delivery with all the science teachers in the district.  (My students were quickly getting untrained with all these substitutes!)  Finally, by Friday I got to teach my own classes.  I swore to myself that I’m never having a substitute again . . . until January 13th when I have my next science teacher meeting.

Lock-In

            I guess I made up for the all the time I was away from the school at the beginning of the week.  On Friday, the student council hosted an all night lock-in.  The doors were locked at 11:00 pm and the students were not released until 6:00 am on Saturday.  This means that I arrived at school on Friday morning at 7:00 am and, with the exception of an hour and a half to get dinner, I didn’t leave the school until Saturday morning at 7:00 am.  22.5 hours at the school in a 24 hour time period: that was a long day!  The lock-in went fairly well.  We had a lot of support and help from the teachers and the students were well behaved.  I hope they all had fun.  Activities included movies, video games, board games, food relays, basketball tournaments, and open gym time.  We also had a great concessions stand and some free food.  My body is still trying to recover from staying up all night long.  Maybe by Monday I’ll be back to normal.

 Wrestling

            State wrestling was held in Nikiski, near Kenai.  Unfortunately, I can’t report much on how it went and what’s been going on with Tim the last week . . . as mentioned before, I haven’t seen him for 10 days.  I do know that his wrestler is spending every spare minute in the hotel pool.  (There are no pools in Togiak.)  I also know that he didn’t win his matches.  Tim was supposed to start flying home today and make it as far as Dillingham, but bad weather rerouted them to Anchorage.  I hope they get home tomorrow, but you never know in bush Alaska.  At least he gets to see roads and big stores while he’s out.  That’s always a treat for us.

 Dangers of “Warm” Weather

            I used to think that the weather here was not that bad because it really didn’t get that cold.  We had way colder winters in Rexburg.  I’m learning though that sometimes cold is better than warm.  The last couple of weeks here have been in the low 30’s.  This means freezing rain.  The roads have been so icy that many days you can’t go anywhere and if you do, you have to drive extremely slowly.  Last week I went down the hill at about 10-15 mph and was still fishtailing on my 4-wheeler.  On Saturday afternoon I went to the school.  (Yes, right after I had spent the entire night there; you’d think I can’t get enough of that place.)  It was really icy and really windy.  As I stepped off my 4-wheeler, the wind starting blowing me across the parking lot.  Because it was so icy I had no traction to keep me in place.  I grabbed for my 4-wheeler to anchor myself and it just blew across the parking lot with me.  I quickly let go and struggled in an attempt to get back to it to retrieve my bag.  Finally I realized the only way I was moving anywhere was to crawl.  So here is Mrs. Phillips on a Saturday afternoon crawling across the empty school parking lot.  I made it back to the 4-wheeler, retrieved my bag, and stood up to head toward the front doors of the school, but it was hopeless.  The wind just kept blowing me away from the front doors.  It was too icy for me to try to walk against the wind.  So I finally just concentrated on keeping my balance.  The wind blew me about 50 feet away to a patch of snow where I could finally get some traction.  As soon as I made it into the building I texted Heather (who lives in the school parking lot) and warned her that she had to wear her ice cleats to make it the 100 feet from her doorstep to the school.  Maybe -20 F wouldn’t be that bad.

    I think the most exciting part about this week is that we can finally play Christmas music!  Thanksgiving is over so it is officially time to start the Christmas season. 
    Tim left on Thursday for Dillingham for wrestling regionals.  The tournament took place on Friday.  I was planning on meeting them in Dillingham right after school on Friday.  Unfortunately, the weather was bad and I was worried about getting stuck, so I stayed in Togiak.  I haven't had a chance to get all the details on the tournament.  However, one of Tim's wrestlers did make it to state.  They will be headed to Nikiski next Wednesday.

    Indeed, the wrestling team did get stuck.  They were supposed to return Saturday morning but didn't make it back until this afternoon.  Tim and I were able to exchange a kiss at the airport as he got off the plane returning to Togiak and I got on the plane to leave Togiak.  I am chaperoning a student council retreat in Manokotak until Tuesday.  We were laughing about being picked up by a moving van at the Manokotak airport.  Where else do you get such service?
    I'm not really sure what to share about this week.  The house got cleaned.  The Christmas tree is up.  I made fajitas and chicken alfredo . . . yum.  Tim and I went to work, as always.  We hope you all had a good week as well!

     This week started with the last one never ending.  Last week we wrote that I (Tim) was at a wrestling tournament in Bethel, Ak.  My team did okay.  Overall we won about 50% of our matches.  However, we did have one guy make it to the finals, which is always fun.  The tournament was half-day on Friday and all day on Saturday.  We were scheduled to leave at noon on Sunday.  However, a storm rolled in and we were delayed for about two to three hours.  No big deal.  Whenever you travel by small plane in rural Alaska it's always best to prepare for anything.  For that reason, we always pack extra clothes, money, and travel in our winter gear (in case the plane goes down in the middle of no where). Because there are no direct flights between our school and Bethel, and since we had two extra seats, we shared the plane with another team, two people (a coach and wrestler) from Manokotak.  They live about 45 miles East of us.  On our way home we (Manokotak coach and me) were informed that since the plane charter originated from Togiak, the plane would only go as far as Togiak, which meant that the Manokotak team needed to find another way home from Togiak.  Once we all go to Togiak, we found out that nobody was flying.  The winds were a little high and it was Sunday (which means no one wanted to work).  This meant that they were stuck in Togiak for the night.  Luckily, Kaitlyn was a good sport when I told her that we were going to have guests stay the night and were hungry and we were going to be home in 5 minutes.  We entertained them for the night and they went home on Monday morning.  Really, it wasn't too bad.  The downside with not having a weekend is that there's no time to recuperate and plan for the upcoming week.  It really sets the pace for the rest of the week.  I ended up taking Tuesday off and just trying to catch up with sleep and lesson plans.  I never really felt like I was back up to 100%.  I ended up just sleeping on Saturday and Sunday to catch up.
     Kaitlyn went to the store last week (some time in the middle of the week) and was approached by a woman who asked if she knew how to play the piano.  She answered that she did and the woman than pleaded with her to teach her daughter how to play the piano.  Kaitlyn, being the nicest person in the world, agreed (however, never having experience teaching).  So, Kaitlyn got a hold of her friends who have taught lessons before and asked them how to do it and set it up.  Kaitlyn had her first lesson this week and she said it went well.  I'll let you hear about it from her more next week.
     Let's talk Super Storm!  The Super Storm really didn't hit us.  Sorry to say, but we were not anywhere near the center of this storm.  However, we were in the path of the end of the storm.  Starting Thursday or Friday the wind picked up.  We had blizzard conditions all Friday at school.  It was kind of fun.  Friday and Saturday Togiak was under a "Winter" and a "Severe" Storm watch.  A Winter Watch because of the blizzard whiteout conditions and a Severe Watch because of a predicted storm surge and flooding for lower Togiak.  During the storm we endured 45-65 mph winds with gusts up to 80 mph.  Togiak suffered some downed power lines and some homes lost some of their roofing.  Also, some sheds and steam houses got flipped over.  The storm surge was almost bad enough that the local officials were thinking of evacuating the town near the bay.  Luckily, the wind switched directions and no one needed to be evacuated.  All in all, it was an eventful weekend.  

    This week flew by.  It so weird to me that every week in the year is 7 days long, each day 24 hours, and each hour 60 minutes, yet some weeks drag on and on and some weeks fly by.  It seemed liked everyone this week thought it went by quickly including my students and the other teachers.  How does that happen?
    Halloween was pretty simple this year.  Tim and I dressed up and a few other teachers and students dressed up as well, but, just like any other dress up day, participation was sparse.  I went as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and Tim went as Ceasar.  Most of the adults knew who he was, but the students ideas were quite comical.  Several of them asked if he was Zeus; several others asked if he was Jesus.  Whatever he dressed up like, he was feeling pretty divine by the end of the day.

        I got a bit of a break from teaching this week.  We had a visitor come in to teach my PE classes Jiu Jitsu.  For those of you who aren't familiar with Jiu Jitsu, it is like a form of agressive wrestling.  It involves a lot of close body contact and awkward positions. I was a little nervous that the kids would have a rebellion, but it actually went pretty well.   I loved having someone teach my first two class periods.  I wish he could stay for a few more weeks!
    Tuesday through Thursday this week were pretty typical.  On Friday, Tim took his wrestling team to Bethel.  They were gone until this afternoon.

    I spent the weekend taking an soapstone carving class from the same guy I took an ivory carving class from last year.  (I guess ivory was too hard to come by this year.)  We had class Thursday night, Friday night, and all day Saturday.  It always stresses me out to dedicate that much time to something, but I was really glad that I did it.  I like being able to get to know some of the villagers better and to do something hands on and crafty.  I carved whatever Twilly told me I was carving.  By the end of class Saturday I had a seal, a whale, and a walrus.  Although, I'm not sure anyone would be able to tell what the walrus was.  I think my seal and my whale turned out pretty good though.

    The last few days we have gotten a ton of snow.  Yesterday it snowed all day long, but it warmed up in the evening and a lot of it melted.  Today it snowed a lot as well, but once again warmed up and melted.  The ground is definitely still covered in snow, but it is hard to tell how much snow we really have gotten, since so much of the top layer melts away.

I keep trying to think of something exciting that happened this week, but life was just pretty normal. 
    The end of the quarter was on Wednesday.  I can't believe that the school year is already 1/4 over.  It has been going by so quickly.  (This caused me to have a slight panic when I realized we only have 9 more weeks of my health class to cover the circulatory, muscular, skeletal, respiratory, reproductive, endocrine, and nervous systems . . . man, what have we been doing the past 9 weeks?)
    Tim took his first sick day on Monday.  He was the last high school teacher to miss a day of school.  I must say though that my missed days were for professional leave and student travel, so I don't think they should count.  Sometimes our teacher attendance is pretty horrific.  I think the students are rubbing off on some of us.
    Tim went to Dillingham with the wrestling team on Friday.  They had their first tournament Friday and Saturday.  When I spoke with time on Friday night all he said was "we've lost more than we won".  They ended up losing 8 and winning 5. 
    Tim's weekend was pretty busy and probably the opposite of relaxing, but I quite enjoyed mine.  I spent Friday evening at my friend Heather's house.  She made me burgers, we played Killer Bunnies, and just chatted.  Saturday morning was spent cleaning the house and listening to general conference talks.  By 1:30 pm I finally made it to the school.  I was planning on playing volleyball with a group of teachers and students, but had to lesson plan instead.  (It just took me too long to do the household chores.)  At 3:30 we had a Togiak Teacher BBQ.  I'm really glad that we have such a great staff that gets along so well.  Who doesn't love potlucks?  It was my first experience having a BBQ with a grill made of two 55 gallon drums.  I was glad I wasn't the cook.  Saturday evening Tim and I went over to the Cejka's for a movie/crocheting party.  The men didn't crochet, but we did force them to watch Pride and Prejudice. :)

I've been trying to think of funny little habits or sayings that we see here in Togiak to share on the blog.  It's hard to pick them out now because I'm getting so used to them.  However, I did think of one today.  If someone says to you "You're so dingy" (said slowly and quietly with inflection and emphasis on the ding), it is not a compliment.  To the kids in Togiak this saying is synonymous to "You're so stupid or you're such a dork".  One of the middle schoolers took to following me around after school about a month or so ago.  He would just talk and talk and just wanted to hang out.  He would ask me if I would run gym night or share my food with him.  When I told him that I wasn't going to gym night or I wasn't going to give him my dinner, he would say "You're so dingy".  I finally had to have a talk with him about not calling people names or saying negative things.   

     Thanksgiving: This past week was Thanksgiving.  We worked full days on Monday and Tuesday, and a “minimum” day on Wednesday (which means we got to leave 1 hour early).   Both Kaitlyn and I were really excited for this week.  I wish I could be 100% truthful to say that we were truly thankful for the blessings we’ve received, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say we were excited for school to have a break.  
     On Thursday, most of the teachers (at least the ones not from Togiak) got together to have a little Thanksgiving.  There were about 20 of us in total.  We all volunteered to bring items to our Turkey-day potluck.  Kaitlyn volunteered to bring rolls and I volunteered to bring a turkey.  Kaitlyn made some awesome layered rolls, which were gone very quickly.  I was excited for the challenge to cook the turkey.  Last year was the first time I’d ever attempted cooking a turkey and I did it with the help of both of my parents.  It turned out really good.  This year I had to do it by myself.  I had read over a bunch of recipes and watched a bunch of foodnetwork.comvideos to prep myself.  I felt relatively confident in my game plan.  I decided that I wanted to brine my turkey first.  This is a salt water bath the turkey takes overnight before it goes in the oven.  The brine replaces the water already in the meat with salted, flavored water.  As a positive side note, the salt in the brine helps increase retention of the replaced water in the meat, which helps keep the meat from becoming too dry while cooking, and the flavor helps the meat taste good.  As I saw it, it was a good choice.
     I brined the turkey at my apartment, then took it to the school to cook it. (If you’ll indulge me for a few min, I like to say how I cooked the turkey.)  I first coated the turkey in some oil and then put it in a 500° F oven for 30 min.  The high temperature helps develop a deep color on the skin. After 30 min, I dropped the temperature to 350° F  and put a probe thermometer in the breast meat. I had calculated that if I covered the breast meat with aluminum foil and waited until the meat reached 161° F the breast meat would be done when the dark meat reached about 180° F.  It seamed to work well.  The white meat was flavorful, juicy, and cooked just right.  The dark meat cooked just right as well.  The turkey turned out great.  I always appreciate comments about how good my cooking is, but the best comments are always when people are “wowed” and just can’t get enough of the food and continue to go back for more.  This was one of those times.

  After our school Thanksgiving get together, the 5 high school teachers was invited to another Thanksgiving dinner at a locals house.  We all were invited to Ester Thompson’s house, she is the special ed aide at the school for my down syndrome wrestler.  She had a two-part meal.  A traditional Thanksgiving according to white people and a traditional Thanksgiving according to Native Alaskans.  I’ll focus on the Native Alaskan food.  She served us sweet and sour walrus, agutak (berries, sugar, & crisco), green agutak (berries in some green paste), dried salmon, and salty fish heads.  Oh yeah, quite the experience.  We all used the excuse that we were full from the previous meal, (which was mostly true, we just made sure that we made it known.) 
    Kaitlyn and Basketball: Each year during the thanksgiving weekend, here in Togiak, there is a community basketball tournament.  (Nothing gets this town going like basketball.)  Kaitlyn decided to play with a team of other teachers and aides.  She hadn’t played basket ball since she was 12.  As you could imagine, she was the less experienced out there.   None the less, I think she was in the best shape.  Her team went 0-2.  There first game went into overtime; they lost by 4.  Her second game was a blow out where the other team scored more than 20 points than Kaitlyn’s team.  

Wrestling: This past week was tough for my team.  We went to a real tournament in Bethel (where there are brackets and consequences for losing).  Most tournaments at small just match up wrestlers and let them wrestle.  This is great for wrestlers who aren’t really very good, because they can get 4+ matches even if they lose them all.  At real bracket tournaments if you lose twice you’re out.  So, right off the bat, the stakes were higher for my guys.  The first two rounds were going well, then one of my best wrestlers broke his collar bone.  He was thrown in a lateral and landed on his shoulder instead of his back.  There was nothing he could do differently.  I was surprised to see that move at the tournament, it’s a pretty technical move.  Anyway, I spent the next 5 hours in the ER with my guy.  We got home around 3:00 a.m. The collar bone break took the wind out of our sails and the tournament went down hill from there.  
     When we came back I was informed that my senior wanted to quit and start with basketball.  This left me in a predicament.  I have been taking 5 guys to all my matches.  4 high school and 1 middle school.  The only match we have left is Regionals in Bethel, which will happen next week.  Middle school doesn’t wrestle post-season, so he’s out.  One of my high school guys is a high functioning down syndrome guy.  Post-season isn’t a place for him, so he’s out.  Collar bone break guy is out for the next 4-6 weeks, so he’s out.  My senior just quit, so he’s out.  Which leaves one guy left, a freshman first year wrestler.  This was tough.  I only have one guy left on my team.  It’s going to cost $2,300 to charter a plane to go to Bethel.  The school doesn’t want to pay that much money for one wrestler, especially if he isn’t going to be a big contender.  Long story short, wrestling is over.  It’s been quite the trip, although, I am very excited to have my planning time back for school.  I was hired to teach, and that’s what I really want to do.

     I guess Tim and I have been slacking just a bit.  The last couple of weeks have been busy and the weekends have been too.  I know you’ve all been sitting on the edge of your seats waiting for our weekly post and have been extremely disappointed two weeks in a row when there hasn’t been one.
     A couple of weeks ago, Tim left for a social studies conference in Denver.  He was amazed at the cheeseburgers and the amount of people “outside”.  He did take the cell phone with him that we had activated for a few days, but unfortunately it broke the first day he was gone.  Luckily we did cross paths on skype on a few occasions, so we did get to talk.  He came home with loads of books, DVDs, and other resources.
     These past couple weeks of school have been hectic to say the least.  Usually by this time of year you would expect the kids to settle down a little and have finished “exploring their boundaries”, but rebellion has sky rocketed.  It doesn’t matter how big or small the rule: it gets broken.  Cell phones are being used, ipods are out, hats are on, kids are running through the halls, kids are leaving class without permission, and fights are happening.  We’re not quite sure what to do.  On Thursday at our meeting one of the older teacher’s warned us that after Thanksgiving their behavior gets worse.  How can it get worse?  Pray for us is all I can say!
     Tim went to Bethel this weekend for a wrestling tournament.  Unfortunately, one of his wrestlers came home with a broken collarbone.  Tim said they were at the hospital until 3:30 am Saturday morning.  The good news is that wrestling is almost over.  He probably has just one tournament left to go to.  
     This weekend I took an ivory carving class in the village. It was pretty cool.  I got to use a sander, a band saw, and a dremel.  I didn’t even know what a dremel was before.  I made some pretty good pieces I think.  Too bad I’m not big into wearing jewelry.  Our instructor told me that I could sell a couple of my pieces for $150-300.  That surprised me.  Maybe I should take up carving.  I guess I would have to find buyers though . . . and fossilized ivory.  Side note:  Unless you’re at least 1/8th Alaska Native it is illegal for you to carve white ivory or bone.  You can buy carved ivory from a native, but they must have signed their work and you have to have proper paperwork proving that it’s legal.  Us white guys can, however, carve fossilized ivory, but it doesn’t sell for as high of a price.  The picture at the top of the post is the things I carved this weekend.  Not too bad for my first time. 
     I got to teach Relief Society today.  It was my first time teaching a lesson over the phone.  The dynamics are definitely different, but it went well.  Everyone was very willing to participate, which always helps.

     It’s been really cold and snowy the last couple of weeks.  Today, however, it is rainy and foggy.  Tim was barely able to make it home because of the ice on the runway.  It looks like we may have some guests at our house tonight because some of the wrestlers from Manokotak shared a plane with our wrestlers, but they haven’t been able to fly out yet.  The picture above is from our living room window.  Most of the snow has melted today and the visibility is pretty poor.
     I wish I had some more exciting things to write about, but mostly we’ve just been working and working more.  We’re looking forward to Thanksgiving break.  Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!

     This week we started out a bit cautiously.  One of our students died in a 4-wheeler accident a week ago yesterday.  We weren’t sure what to expect at school.  I was amazed at how un-phased the students seemed.  There were a little more subdued than normal and you could tell that a few were deeply affected, but I felt as if they just wanted us to carry on and give them their work.  The two boys that survived the accident didn’t show up for the entire week, understandably so.  I’m always worried about how I should best handle situations like this, but it seemed to go okay.
     We had our first snowfall Wednesday night or Thursday morning.  I am always excited when it first snows. It was gone by the end of the day though.  We are supposed to have some snow later into next week though.  We’ll see if it happens.
     Tim’s wrestling tournament got cancelled this weekend, which turned out to be a blessing.  The tournament had caught everyone off guard and a lot of his wrestlers were discouraged that they were not eligible due to grades.  Several had decided just to quit.  Luckily, after the tournament got cancelled, most of these wrestlers came back.
      We had stake conference this weekend.  It was very good.  There was a lot of focus on the temple, missionary work, teaching our families, and listening to the spirit.  I was amazed throughout the conference how much our stake takes care of us.  Our branch doesn’t contribute much to stake callings or even to our own branch presidency, but our stake is very mindful of us and makes sure we’re taken care of.
     Yesterday I played volleyball with the school team again.  I think it will be a tradition from now on to have a faculty team play against the volleyball team each Saturday.  We played for 2 hours.  I’m starting to rather enjoy volleyball.  
     Unfortunately, we don’t have too many exciting things to report this week.  It was rather normal.  I hope all of you reading this are doing well.  Have a good week.

     This week was pretty normal.  It was Tim’s 2nd week of wrestling practice.  I think practice is going pretty well for him.  He’s had about 12-14 kids interested, which for Togiak, is quite a lot.  The first wrestling match is next Friday in a village called Koliganek. 

     We had retakes for the state test Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday this week.  It made my biology class kind of interesting since half my students were gone testing.  There was a bear that was hanging outside the back of the school all day Thursday, so I let my students watch the bear for a little while.  Later that evening, Jeremy, another teacher, shot the bear.  I guess it was wounded because it was barely moving.  I did take a look at the bear’s hide after they cleaned it up a bit.  It was pretty big.

     Friday afternoon I agreed to help out the school volleyball team.  They don’t have enough players to actually play a game, so they asked the faculty to come play against them.  It was actually fun and I was much less embarrassed than last time I played volleyball.  We decided to play again on Saturday.  This time Tim came and played with us.  We played for 2 hours and then I played some 2 on 2 basketball with a few of the teachers.  I forgot how much endurance basketball takes.  I was more tired from 10 minutes of basketball than from the 2 hours of volleyball.
     Saturday evening, our neighbor, Eve, invited the entire staff over for lasagna.  I made a bunch of breadsticks to take over.  (I was disappointed though, because they did not turn out very well).  I’m glad that we have some activities like that to look forward to on the weekend.
     I came to a realization this weekend.  Every week I plan on getting so many lesson plans done on Saturday and to get ahead.  By the time Saturday comes around, I am too exhausted to lesson plan and then I beat myself up for not getting enough work done.  So I decided yesterday, I’m no longer going to expect to get planning done on the weekend.  I will relax so I can survive the next week.  It might mean that I’m still at the school until 8:00 every night, but at least my weekends will be more relaxing.
     I had the pleasure of trying some herring eggs earlier this week.  I went to the 2nd grade classroom to ask the teacher a question.  She is a native from Togiak.  She was just having a snack and offered to share with me.  She told me that the herring eggs were from last year.  She had a quart size bag full of them.  It looked as if they were stuck to seaweed.  She  put some seal oil and soy sauce in a bowl, grabbed a handful of eggs, smothered them in seal oil and soy sauce, and ate them with her fingers.  She then told me to help myself.  I took a much smaller handful.  I managed to swallow it all, but the seal oil was very potent and the eggs were very crunchy.  I don’t particularly want to try it again.
     Tim and I haven’t been too surprised by the sunlight here, because we knew what to expect.  When we first arrived in July, we had about 15 or 16 hours of daylight. Now we’re down to about 11 or 12 hours of daylight.  The thing that surprised me most is the time of day that we have our daylight.  Right now it is getting light around 9:00 am, but doesn’t get dark until about 8:30 pm.  It’s like living in Idaho, but being on the eastern time zone.  We are so far west that we get our daylight later in the day.  Alaska time zone works great for those in Juneau and even those in Anchorage, but it has been a little weird out here in southwest Alaska.