Day 45

More bad news, Sirius radio doesn't get a signal up here. For real. What the heck. We're way the heck out here with no radio and we can't even get SATELLITE radio. Another reaffirmation that I really am at the end of the world, in case somehow I was starting to think I was still connected to the world in any way. What a silly idea. So, I guess radio will just be added to the list of things that I will live without. I am roughing it, I'm telling you. No car, no coffee shops, no book stores, no sidewalks, no tv, no radio, no restaurants, no movie theaters (though I just found out we can rent movies at the store, which is pretty cool!), no alcohol, no TREES, and pretty soon no daylight! But, instead of having all of that, we have lots of tundra, berries, 4-wheelers, dirt roads, ponds, little houses, steam shacks, and stray dogs. Not to mention the huge bay and the awesome river, FULL of salmon. And supposedly moose and bears, though I haven't seen any yet. So whatever, I guess it balances out.

I didn't do much this week besides work. Lots of work. Physics is killing me. There's no books, no curriculum, no materials to do all these "awesome" labs with, nothing. So, you tell me what I'm supposed to do... I've asked some of my colleagues and mentors and stuff, the first thing they always say is, "dude, just wing it" I love it. To which I reply "well, if I knew enough about physics I would, but I don't, so what's the next solution?" Whatever, something will be decided.

My biology class spent the week trying to learn the organelles, so they made these sweet models from clay, they were totally into it. Here's Damien's model.

My family is all having their annual family reunion in Michigan right now. Makes me sad that I can't be there. Why can't it still be in July? Hm? It's a load, that's what I say.

Last night we had homemade pizza and watched the movie 21, great movie. It made me want to go to Vegas.

I ran all the way to the village today. It's like 4 miles. I didn't know I could run that far, but turns out it's not that hard.

Oh, so I got in my first (and hopefully last) 4-wheel "accident" today. Jon Sharp was at the post office when got there and he let me drive his 4-wheeler back because he felt like walking it. Then I ran into the apartment building because his breaks don't work. Yep. I was screaming and Theo was outside with her cat watching me and Dale came running outside asking if everything was ok. I was going pretty slow by the time I hit the building, maybe 5 mph, I don't know, Jon's 4-wheel doesn't have a speedometer. It dented the metal siding. Whoops. The 4-wheeler wasn't hurt and I was fine, didn't even budge. The main result was me feeling like a ding bat for not down shifting when the breaks obviously weren't going to work. Instead I put my foot on the ground trying to slow down like that. Yeah, pretty awesome, I know.

After all that, Andrea and Brenda called me up and asked if I wanted to go to 2nd creek with them, so we drove out there, pretty fun. Did you know that beach grass grows in Alaska?

Then on the way back, instead of going down the beach and back up in the road, we went through the tundra, which was really fun! It was all muddy and we were sinking in everywhere, I think we were pretty lucky not to get stuck. Supposedly there's mud around here that just sucks things in like quick sand. There have been at least a couple 4-wheelers completely eaten by the mud here. But not today! Woo!

Well, I hope you've all enjoyed this installment of "well, I've got a 4-wheeler, what kinds of stupid crap can I do?"

Day 39

It's been a while, let me tell you, not a lot has happened. Ha. Well, ok, that's not entirely true. But I am enjoying the slower pace of life. Not always having to rush around everywhere.

I guess I can start by telling you about the steaming experience last weekend. Steaming is pretty crazy up here, people have these little shacks for steaming. There are two rooms, one is really hot and small where the stove is, the other is cooler, there's more room to sit and relax. In Togiak the men and women go at separate times, I heard that in other places they have co-ed steaming, no thanks. The hot room is really hot, they really cook you in there, I heard that sometimes they get it up to 350 degrees. When I went we had it at about 260, not too bad. But then they splash water on the rocks-wooo! Hot! Anyway, it's a cleansing thing, it's also very social. You hang out for a couple hours, at least. Good time.

So, this week went by pretty good. I did lots of teaching. The kids did a little learning. Fun times. It's been raining A LOT, so I haven't gotten out a ton. Let me just tell you, it sucks riding a 4-wheeler in the rain without sunglasses. Your eye balls feel like they're going to burn right out of your head. Unless you just close them. which is always exciting too. Went to a teacher's house down in the village last night for some cajun food, that was fun. I also convinced Jon Sharp to help me make a mancala board.

I spent a lot of time sanding yesterday.

Also, in my spare time, I learned how to juggle scarves. Except my scarves are too heavy, so I'm not very good at it. Whatever. In Alaska you gotta have hobbies.

In tribute to the hurricane season, my current issues class made some models of cities which have been hit by different level hurricanes. This was a really fun project that got all the kids involved. Here they are, in order from 1 to 5





Hit by category 1 hurricane, this is supposedly somewhere in Africa?








Hit but category 2 hurricane, those are the twin towers, I think this group was a little confused.








Hit by category 3 hurricane, I think they named it hurricane Ling Ling







Hit by category 4 hurricane, they named it hurricane katrina, even though katrina was actually level 5.










Hit by category 5 hurricane, named hurricane Yo Momma (the blue stuff is water.)



Yep, this was a good project.

Thanks for tuning in to this week's edition of, "Well I'm out in the middle of nowhere Alaska... what am I going to do now?" Have a good day!

Day 31

I've been in Alaska for a month! And I'm still alive! I would say that's quite the accomplishment. So I've taught another week, it was a long week, even though it was actually only 4 days. I won't go into detail about my students and so forth, but I'll just tell you it's different from Michigan.

My physics curriculum finally came (2 and a half weeks into school) so it's going to be fun trying to find all the materials that I will need for all the freaking labs. But I guess the kids will like it because of how labby it is. I haven't looked at it closely enough to figure out if these labs are actually going to teach them anything about physics. We'll see.

Other exciting news, we just had a Step Up marathon, consisting of Step Up on Thursday night, and Step Up Two, The Streets, Friday night. Both excellent movies, I recommend them to anyone.

Oh, Thursday was also Parent night at school, so several of the families came to the school to meet teachers and stuff. It was sweet because these cool Yupik dancers played and danced a few traditional songs, that was awesome. Sorry I didn't have my camera with me, but I can tell you that it was neat.

Today I hiked out past the dump up Two Hill with Mark Snell, middle and high school special ed teacher, and Maddy, an energetic dalmatian. My feet are pretty tired, but my new hiking boots worked great and my feet don't feel as bad as they could after hiking about 8 miles. In this picture you can kind of see the village, waaaaay out there, then the bay just past it. So, the first row of buildings is the school, my apartment and some other newer housing, that's called Togiak Heights, then all the way down to the water is where Togiak proper is.

Look at all those lakes! If you like lakes, Togiak might be the place for you! It was very windy on top of the hill. You could see pretty far, even though it was kind of cloudy.

Well, um, still haven't decided to buy sirius. I got a gas can. I'm about to go steam for the first time. I'll let you guys know how it goes!

Chow!

Day 25

Hello all, great news! I haven't died yet! Yep, still alive. That's pretty much all the news I have. So, I thought I would tell you about some of the mundane things, like berry picking. You're probably wondering, who cares about some berry picking? Well, I'm here in Togiak to inform you that berry picking is the be-all end-all. You pick berries or go home! Ok, maybe I'm just being silly.

Anyway, picking berries here is not like picking berries in Michigan.

First off, you have to wear rubber boots. Because there is standing water in the tundra.

Second, berry bushes are actually little tiny plants that grow close to the ground. So you can either bend over, or you can crawl to pick them. Exhibit A:

Third, these are wild berries, not commercial, so these blue berries are about half the size of the ones you're used to. If you're lucky. Here's what I got after picking for 45 min. Exhibit B:

Fourth, people eat berries on everything. It's just how it's done. You pick gallons of berries, freeze them, then eat them on everything all winter long. Don't argue with the conventions! You fill your freezer with fish and berries! Exhibit C:

Now you know everything there is to know about berry picking in Togiak. Hope you're happy.

Also, it's about time I put a picture up here of the mystical, magical, expensive, and source of all joy and light: the 4-wheeler. I found out that it has an automatic transmission switch. This means I can perpetuate my laziness to yet another venue in my life. Not bad. It's kind of rainy today, sorry there's no sunshine in this photo.
Yep, it looks just like everybody else's. I haven't named it yet. I was thinking either:

-Burton, the dusty road I grew up on
-Flash, in memory of my pony
-Herman, in memory of my first cat
-Daffy, in memory of one of our crazy goats
-Stubby, in memory of that one chicken that lost it's feet to frostbite
-Chief, because it's fun to say chief

So far Stubby is winning. Cast your vote now!

Day 22

I'm sad to report some unhappy news, the shortwave radio is not strong enough to work out here. All I get on it is static. I feel incredibly isolated. Civilization is merely a foggy memory, full of exhaust fumes and busy people.

Also disappointing, my speakers that I sent to myself are busted. So I have no way of listening to good quality music.

On a more exciting note, my 4-wheeler finally came! I drove it to get the mail and go berry picking today.

A bunch of teachers left for the weekend to get a moose or a bear. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with a three-day weekend. I suppose can get some work done for school. Yippy.

Tomorrow I will get my first real paycheck. I should be excited. I'm not really sure how I feel about it. I don't know if I'm mentally prepared to be a part of the working world. I guess it doesn't really matter if I am or not because I'm definitely a part of it now. It is what it is.

I'll leave you with a couple pictures from when we went out to second creek last Sunday. A bunch of people went, Andrea, Justin and Joel, Brenda, Lisa, Melissa, Dennis, Michelle and myself. Here's one of my roommate, Melissa, fishing:


And one just to prove again that I am in Alaska. For real.One last note: I'm beginning to discover that I'm a little bit of workaholic. Maybe it's just because there really isn't anything else to do. Yeah, that's probably got something to do with it. Man, when the corporate world hears of this it will be huge for the business sector, I can just see it now. "Want to boost productivity in your company? Well, just send everyone to bush Alaska where there's not really a whole lot else to do besides work!" Yeah, you can't even listen to the radio!

Whoa, I just got a great idea.

Dude, why didn't I think of this earlier, I should get sirius radio! I bet that would work here because it's satellite! I'm so looking into that...

Ok, well that's all I have for now. Peace!

Day 18

I'm recovering from a big day yesterday. We went up Togiak river and caught a bunch of salmon, made a fire and cooked some salmon, caught some more salmon, then came back. Then we cleaned all the salmon and filleted it for the freezer. We have 10 salmon in our freezer!

Here's the crew before we set out, minus Melissa and Sam. So there's Ellen (she didn't go), Lisa Wicke (new elementary teacher), Tricia Wick (principal's wife and middle school math teacher), me, Jeremiah Steck, and David Wick (the principal).


Sam is the best fish cleaner in the whole world! He's also very good at convincing people to eat things like fish nose, cheek and eyeball, he made it sound like such a delicious snack! I think he's holding a bunch of fish eggs in this one.

This picture is a little misleading, I didn't really catch this trout, it was caught on the net. But it definitely made a good dinner! I did do some pole fishing, I caught 2 great big silvers.

Here I'm holding a beating heart from a salmon, it was so freaking sweet! Cool science fact: if you squeeze a heart right after it stops beating it will start beating again!

Here's Jeremiah Steck the shop teacher pulling in a silver salmon off the net. I think this is the owner of the fish heart in the previous picture.
When we were eating we found some gigantic bear tracks... we were all glad that Sam brought a gun. We also saw moose tracks, which got everybody excited because moose season opens in a couple days or something. Yeah, that's my foot.


So, I think it was a pretty great day all in all. Still haven't seen any bears, but I did see some tracks. I learned how to clean and fillet a fish, which is awesome. I also developed a deep deep appreciation of rubber boots, rubber gloves, and rain gear.

We went shooting at the dump the night before, that was interesting because we ended up having some issues with the 4-wheeler starting. Only to find out an hour later it was because the kill switch had gotten hit. Yep. I suck at shooting nazi shotguns.

So, what's the vote, should I buy a gun?

Day 16

I did it! I haven't died yet! I finished my first week (well, it was only 3 days) of teaching in Togiak. It's a pretty sweet deal, I'm telling you. Highlight of the week: the lunch is FREE!!! I'm so excited! Not only is it free, but it's ok to get seconds! Even thirds if you are that hungry! I was informed that it would make me fat, but I don't know if that's really possible. We'll put it to the test. A very cheap, tasty test. :)

At least I know I'll get one good meal a day.

My students are pretty sweet. I feel lame because I still don't know all their names. My class sizes are perfect: 10, 6, 17, 6, 8, 9. That's right. My biggest class has 17 kids. You have time to be jealous later. My 4-wheeler still isn't here, they keep telling me "tomorrow!" but I know better. So for now I don't really have a way to pick up all the stuff that is probably sitting at the post office for me. I'm going net fishing with the vice principal tomorrow, which is freaking sweet. I might go shooting this evening. We're either going to the dump or to the beach. The dump is funny, lots of stuff from a long time ago, just sitting in a big pile. I haven't been to the beach yet, so I hope that's where we're going.

My tea came! I almost died without it.

I ran out of milk and cereal. Now having to eat oatmeal. Bleh.

I got pretty home-sick last night, I couldn't fall asleep because I just kept thinking about everybody in Michigan that I wished I could see. I hope you are all doing good.


Stray dogs outside the apartment? Sure why not. There are 6 more where this came from.



Oh, I took a couple pictures of my room at school so you could see how sweet it is. I like bragging.


It's pretty well stocked... tho the microscopes only go up to 400x. Whatever. It has a fume hood. That I probably won't use. Bam. They also don't have the gas hooked up. Great.

The view out the window shows the tundra and the bay, pretty much the same thing you see from my apartment.

I can't wait til I get my shortwave radio. Should be here soon!

Stay alive!