Every time I stop to think about it, it amazes me how fast the school year is flying by. In just three short weeks I will be home for the holidays! I have a really great schedule and class list this year, along with a new house and roommate which has really helped the speediness.
Like the semester, the cold came on all of a sudden. We woke up one morning and it was 20 degrees, and it has steadily declined. It took a while to get snow, and for a couple of days the village was completely covered in ice. Brandi called me one morning and warned me about the conditions, because it was absurd how slippery it was. Every surface you touched - the handrails, the boardwalks, the steps, the ramps - had a half-inch of frozen ice. You couldn’t walk without sliding on it! It reminded me of Home Alone, when the kid hoses down the steps and the intruders slip on them. I met Paula half way to school and it took us a good 10 minutes just to climb up the ramp, it was that ridiculous! Too bad I don’t have ice skates. Alaska’s weather... it’s completely unpredictable. You know you live in a crazy place when you and your coworkers gather to tell their survival stories of getting to and from work. I can’t wait until blizzard season arrives!
Kevin’s birthday was in early November and he keeps track of the weather pretty earnestly; but Newtok, as small and isolated as it is, is not on weather.com. So Paula got him a weather kit, to track the snowfall, temperature, windchill, etc. We put it together, then Kevin and I went outside to nail it to the house. I was holding the ladder while he was attaching the device to the house, and we were saying it felt pretty darn cold. So when we went got it hooked up and checked the correct temperature, we weren’t surprised that it was negative 8.
Thanksgiving break was blissful. We got off Thursday and Friday, and we didn’t even have Saturday school. We always spend Thanksgiving day at Paula’s, Brandi’s and Kevin’s house.. we bring a dish over, eat, watch football, and play some poker. There is a guy that is working on the water tanks over the holiday and he is sleeping at the school, so he came over and hung out a while. It was great, and I must tell you a bit about the poker game. The pot, during one game, got up to over $600! When you bet the pot, depending on the next cards laid down, you could either win it, lose the amount in the pot, or pay double what’s in the pot. Sometimes the game gets really crazy and the odds are simply overwhelming to your advantage, but it goes against you anyway. I won the pot miraculously but I couldn’t take all that money, so we decided we wouldn’t play for real money this time. I know I would hate to lose that much money!
The tribal council hosted a basketball tournament over the weekend and it was fun cheering on Kevin and Boo. The Yupiks always give the gusuqs (white people) a really hard time, so me and Betsy decided to make posters and go all out cheering for them.
I’m looking forward to coming back to Texas and seeing everyone. I just have three more weeks, and thankfully most of my lesson plans are done. I’m teaching a computer applications course to the juniors and seniors, and there is no set curriculum for that, so that’s my biggest concern at the moment. Everything else is going very smooth, and we are all ready for Christmas vacation.
