The sunrise at 10:15 am this morning.
One thing we are blessed with in Togiak is beautiful sunrises. I feel like we may overdue the number of sunrise pictures we post, but I couldn't help myself. I sat down on the coach this morning to listen to church and this was the view I had while I listened. You can't complain about that.
This week went really well. Monday was the last day of break, so we saw all the staff returning that hadn't made it back yet. Tim and I spent most of the day at the school lesson planning and preparing for the new semester to begin. It is always a bit overwhelming to consider the huge responsibility we have of educating kids and also how time consuming it is going to be to fulfill that responsibility. On the other hand, it is always exciting to have a fresh straight. None of the students are behind. We don't have any grading to do. Policies can be changed or adjusted. Expectations are reset. I always have loved that about starting new semesters.
Tuesday was an official workday. We all had to work, but we didn't have students. I definitely accomplished more on Monday than Tuesday. On Tuesday all the rest of the staff was there and I just wanted to chat with them and find out how their breaks were. I managed to focus enough to get my work finished though. Tuesday was also the day that our heat finally got fixed. When we woke up on Tuesday morning, our room was 46 degrees. It was day 5 of our heater being broken. In those 5 days the outside temperature had ranged from -30 and -20 degrees Fahrenheit. Needless to say, we were grateful when our principal told us there were two men on a plane headed to Togiak to fix our heater.
Wednesday was the first day of our new semester. It was a pretty uneventful week from there on out. Unfortunately our attendance was very poor. I have to brace myself. I know that about 50% of my class is starting out behind because they missed the first 3 days of the semester. This is likely going to cause them to have poor attitudes toward class which will negatively affect my class as a whole. Unfortunately, there's not much I can do but move forward with those students who are showing the initiative to come. I just hope all of those absent students decide that they want to come to school on Monday and have perfect attendance from here on out. (I know that's a lofty hope.)
One of Tim's classes changed this semester. He is now teaching computer applications instead of US history. He now teaches 8th grade history, 7th grade history, computer applications, Alaska History, Civics, and Weight Training. I got new students in half my classes and changed a PE class to a health class. I am very spoiled when it comes to my schedule. I don't think any other teacher in our district has as nice of a schedule as I do: Health, PE, Biology, Biology, Biology, and Health. I'm going to enjoy it while I can.
This weekend was uneventful and relaxing. I spent most the day at home. I told myself that the housework was coming before schoolwork. I haven't been brave enough to do that for a long time. My house ended up getting clean and I only worked on lesson plans and grading for an hour or two.
Saturday evening we invited our neighbor, Mike, up for dinner. I made potato soup. Then we headed to Heather's house to play the new game we got for Christmas: Qwirkle. I would describe it as a shape and color version of scrabble. The rules are simple and straightforward which I'm excited about. It's nice for those learning new games when the rules are simple. However, it is still a challenging game. Thanks Marshall and Jani for the great gift.
This week went really well. Monday was the last day of break, so we saw all the staff returning that hadn't made it back yet. Tim and I spent most of the day at the school lesson planning and preparing for the new semester to begin. It is always a bit overwhelming to consider the huge responsibility we have of educating kids and also how time consuming it is going to be to fulfill that responsibility. On the other hand, it is always exciting to have a fresh straight. None of the students are behind. We don't have any grading to do. Policies can be changed or adjusted. Expectations are reset. I always have loved that about starting new semesters.
Tuesday was an official workday. We all had to work, but we didn't have students. I definitely accomplished more on Monday than Tuesday. On Tuesday all the rest of the staff was there and I just wanted to chat with them and find out how their breaks were. I managed to focus enough to get my work finished though. Tuesday was also the day that our heat finally got fixed. When we woke up on Tuesday morning, our room was 46 degrees. It was day 5 of our heater being broken. In those 5 days the outside temperature had ranged from -30 and -20 degrees Fahrenheit. Needless to say, we were grateful when our principal told us there were two men on a plane headed to Togiak to fix our heater.
Wednesday was the first day of our new semester. It was a pretty uneventful week from there on out. Unfortunately our attendance was very poor. I have to brace myself. I know that about 50% of my class is starting out behind because they missed the first 3 days of the semester. This is likely going to cause them to have poor attitudes toward class which will negatively affect my class as a whole. Unfortunately, there's not much I can do but move forward with those students who are showing the initiative to come. I just hope all of those absent students decide that they want to come to school on Monday and have perfect attendance from here on out. (I know that's a lofty hope.)
One of Tim's classes changed this semester. He is now teaching computer applications instead of US history. He now teaches 8th grade history, 7th grade history, computer applications, Alaska History, Civics, and Weight Training. I got new students in half my classes and changed a PE class to a health class. I am very spoiled when it comes to my schedule. I don't think any other teacher in our district has as nice of a schedule as I do: Health, PE, Biology, Biology, Biology, and Health. I'm going to enjoy it while I can.
This weekend was uneventful and relaxing. I spent most the day at home. I told myself that the housework was coming before schoolwork. I haven't been brave enough to do that for a long time. My house ended up getting clean and I only worked on lesson plans and grading for an hour or two.
Saturday evening we invited our neighbor, Mike, up for dinner. I made potato soup. Then we headed to Heather's house to play the new game we got for Christmas: Qwirkle. I would describe it as a shape and color version of scrabble. The rules are simple and straightforward which I'm excited about. It's nice for those learning new games when the rules are simple. However, it is still a challenging game. Thanks Marshall and Jani for the great gift.
Moose hoof ring
Tim had one of the carvers in Togiak make me some ivory crochet hooks for Christmas. The carver had to rush to get them done and didn't do as much detail work as he would have liked. Because of this, he asked if he could have the hooks back for a few days so he could make them a little fancier. I was definitely okay with that. When he returned them to me he also included a moose-hoof ring . . . pretty cool. I hadn't even seen a moose-hoof ring before and now I own one.
Kaitlyn's ivory & moose bracelets
Before Christmas, I had asked this same carver to make me a bracelet. He does really great detail work on ivory. He has created an alphabet in which he draws a scene to represent each letter of the alphabet. There is also a culturally-relevant story that accompanies each picture. I think that his work is beautiful, so I finally decided that it was worth the money to get a bracelet for myself. When he called to tell me he finished, he said that he had ended up needing to make 2 bracelets to properly do my name, so I was getting two bracelets for the price of one. I'm not going to complain about that. The white parts of the bracelet are ivory. The darkest parts are moose hoof. The skinner, lighter brown parts are caribou antler. I'm realizing that for not being into jewelry I'm sure starting to collect a lot of jewelry.
