Inside the mouth of a silver salmon
I know I wrote last week, but I’m going to go out of turn and take this week too.
Wow, I keep thinking, next week will be more under control . . . but it hasn’t happened yet. We are still really busy with lesson planning and spending ridiculous amounts of time at the school. Although, we have noticed we’re running low on steam, and sometimes the lessons are less planned than we’d like because we just have to go home.
This week was spirit week. I was so excited. Spirit week gives you such a good excuse to dress up and be a bit goofy. Plus, it’s amazing to see the difference in how the kids view you when they realize that you like to have fun too and that you can out-costume them. Yet, I have to admit, this spirit week was a huge let down. Tim and I dressed up every day and a few other teachers did as well. However, throughout the entire week I had only 3 students dress up on one occasion. I was sorely disappointed and there was a lot of potential fun missed out on. Well, even if the kids didn’t get into it, Tim and I did. Tuesday was Hippie Day, Wednesday was Twin Day, Thursday was “Dress Nice” Day, and Friday was School Colors Day. I must admit that living in bush Alaska does make it difficult to dress up. Some of the stuff you just don’t have and you can’t make a quick trip to Wal-Mart and pick something up. Tim and I had to order Hippie clothes online two weeks in advance . . . and they weren’t cheap.
The weather in Togiak has been really nice this week. It has been sunny with a light breeze. What more can you ask for? Maybe, some time to spend outside to enjoy the weather. We’ll take what we can get though.
I saw my first Togiak bear this week. Tim missed it because he was in the teacher’s lounge. The bear was just running right behind the school. He looked like he was having a grand time. Unfortunately, he wasn’t close enough to get a very good picture.
One of Tim’s students came by this week with a fresh silver salmon. It was the biggest fish I’ve ever handled before. He gave us the entire fish and took off. Tim and I looked at each other thinking, what are we supposed to do with this. Luckily Sam, our vice principal, had showed Tim how to fillet a salmon, but he had already cut off the head and gutted the fish. We called up one of our coworkers who is “married” to an Alaskan Native to get some step by step instructions. Our house smelled pretty fishy, but Tim successfully beheaded, gutted, and filleted that salmon.
One of Tim’s students came by this week with a fresh silver salmon. It was the biggest fish I’ve ever handled before. He gave us the entire fish and took off. Tim and I looked at each other thinking, what are we supposed to do with this. Luckily Sam, our vice principal, had showed Tim how to fillet a salmon, but he had already cut off the head and gutted the fish. We called up one of our coworkers who is “married” to an Alaskan Native to get some step by step instructions. Our house smelled pretty fishy, but Tim successfully beheaded, gutted, and filleted that salmon.
We are starting to see the effect of native culture in our classrooms. The parenting here is so much different than what we’re used to. It is very common to see kids outside playing at 9:00, 10:00, or 11:00 at night. When I say kids, I don’t just mean teenagers, but 5 or 6 year olds too. School doesn’t start until 9:00 am, but daily we have several students come in an hour or more late because they slept in. I haven’t had a day of class without students falling asleep and I definitely haven’t had a day that I’ve had 100% attendance. Students will be gone for 1 or 2 weeks at a time to go hunting, fishing, or to the state fair. If parents leave town for awhile their kids will just stay home from school because they can. Parents will allow their kids to check out of school whenever they like. The educational value here is very low. It’s amazing what this does to the dynamics of my classroom. It is crippling. Kids are constantly lost and behind. Only 1/3 of my class knows what’s going on, because the others don’t come to school and they definitely don’t do any make up work. It is a huge obstacle that I’m not quite sure how to handle yet. It just seems to be an accepted fact here that attendance is bad and lots of kids flunk. I don’t know if we can influence that or not, but we’ll see what we can do.
Tim and I spoke in church today. It’s the first time we’ve been asked to speak in 3 years. Last time, like this time, we were the only two speakers, meaning together we needed to fill about 40 minutes of time. 3 years ago when we spoke, I, tragically for Tim, only spoke for roughly 4.13 minutes and Tim was left to fill up all the rest of the time. Oops. It was my goal this time to actually take my full half. A couple years ago I was asked to speak at my college graduation, which completely scared me out of my wits. I had to speak for 5 minutes . . . that was it. But what was I supposed to say for 5 whole minutes? I spent hours and days working on what to say. It turned out pretty well; at least I thought so. It was from this experience that I learned in order to speak in sacrament meeting for longer then 4 minutes you have to invest some time and effort. So I did just that. I am proud to report that I was successful in speaking for an entire 15 minutes and I had a much happier husband compared to last time we spoke. However, it was not entirely uneventful: right as sacrament meeting was starting, our neighbor decided to vacuum/shampoo the carpet on the landing right outside our door. You see, last week during our power outage, the water heater overflowed, soaking the landing between our two apartments. Apparently this triggered some mold or something else rank smelling in the carpet. The smell started to seep into our apartments. Under normal conditions, a neighbor shampooing the landing carpet would not in any way affect a sacrament meeting talk, but when you attend sacrament meeting in your own living room it can be quite distracting. So during my talk, we had lovely background sounds of a carpet shampooer. However, I don’t think those sounds were much compared to the sounds from other’s living rooms that forgot to put their phones on mute. I must admit that the smell of our hallway and our apartment has greatly improved.
Tim and I spoke in church today. It’s the first time we’ve been asked to speak in 3 years. Last time, like this time, we were the only two speakers, meaning together we needed to fill about 40 minutes of time. 3 years ago when we spoke, I, tragically for Tim, only spoke for roughly 4.13 minutes and Tim was left to fill up all the rest of the time. Oops. It was my goal this time to actually take my full half. A couple years ago I was asked to speak at my college graduation, which completely scared me out of my wits. I had to speak for 5 minutes . . . that was it. But what was I supposed to say for 5 whole minutes? I spent hours and days working on what to say. It turned out pretty well; at least I thought so. It was from this experience that I learned in order to speak in sacrament meeting for longer then 4 minutes you have to invest some time and effort. So I did just that. I am proud to report that I was successful in speaking for an entire 15 minutes and I had a much happier husband compared to last time we spoke. However, it was not entirely uneventful: right as sacrament meeting was starting, our neighbor decided to vacuum/shampoo the carpet on the landing right outside our door. You see, last week during our power outage, the water heater overflowed, soaking the landing between our two apartments. Apparently this triggered some mold or something else rank smelling in the carpet. The smell started to seep into our apartments. Under normal conditions, a neighbor shampooing the landing carpet would not in any way affect a sacrament meeting talk, but when you attend sacrament meeting in your own living room it can be quite distracting. So during my talk, we had lovely background sounds of a carpet shampooer. However, I don’t think those sounds were much compared to the sounds from other’s living rooms that forgot to put their phones on mute. I must admit that the smell of our hallway and our apartment has greatly improved.
