New village, new school, new class, new addition to my family. :)

I can officially say I survived my first week of teaching. I can also say that I absolutely love my job. It is the most chaotic, stressful, time consuming, sometimes down right crazy job but it is also the most rewarding and I can say there is nothing else I would want to do. I'm very, very thankful for my class of 14 energetic, outgoing, silly 5th and 6th grade kids because they keep me on my toes and smiling - most of the time. ;) Let me just add that 10 of those 14 are boys.... so let's just think about that for a second! But I honestly wouldn't want it any other way! 

My first week in Manokotak has been great. I honestly couldn't have asked for a better week. I'm exhausted, ready for a few days of not setting my alarm and have some free time but it really was a great week. My class is awesome and so much fun... makes me very excited to see what this school year has in store. Everyone in this school, well even this village, has been nothing but welcoming and the staff has been so much fun to work with. 

I do have to update you all that my desk that was so nice and organized and uncovered is now, after only one week, covered with papers, book orders, post its, etc. All neatly labeled but covered none the less. Post its have become my best friend... if I do not write it down right when I'm thinking of it or right when a kid asks me to check on something or right when I need to remember something after school - forget it, it's gone and I won't remember. By the end of each day, I have about 15 post its on my desk to help me remember things and I'm perfectly fine with that! And lucky for me, my kids, like most kids do not forget anything... they'll remind me if it benefits them. ;)

I've had quite a few visitors this week... the students like to come visit me. I haven't let them past my doorway in fear that if I do, I won't ever get my space back again! So for now, my apartment remains my apartment and they can visit me at school or in my doorway. Not that I don't love them but I need some me time of course! 

Yesterday after school was a day to just relax... I did cut my hair short. Time for a change and I figured, it's just hair, it'll grow back and I'm in a village so it's okay, haha. Then I heard a large amount of students outside my door and reluctantly I opened it to find at least 12 kids standing there holding a puppy up to my face. My kids knew I wanted a puppy so a few of them found one down in the village (which is 5 miles away keep in mind) and brought it to me! They're all sweethearts, I'll tell ya.

Today started with an early morning wake up call from my new roommate :) But she's completely worth it and then we went back to bed for a few hours. A bunch of us teachers took a five mile drive down to the post office, store and to see the village for the first time - at least for me and two of the other teachers it was the first time. We spent some time down there and then made our way back up here... Macy and I then went on a walk with Kelli the opposite way of town where there are some houses... I'm not sure how far it was but it felt pretty far and it was hot out!

I still haven't unpacked all my totes but I'm working on it today, as well as laundry and cleaning. Miss Macy has been napping all day --- what a rough life. ;)

 Macy Nunaniq :) Nunaniq is the name of the school and in Yupik it means merry, joyous and it's often used to describe a beautiful day. She stole my heart from the beginning!

 The white tanks on the left is where you get gas from.

 Absolutely gorgeous day down by the river!

The clinic in the village.

 The church.

The store, where I spent too much money - not that anyone is surprised ;)

Time to finish laundry and odds and ends around here. Salmon for dinner!

Busy and exhausted... two of the biggest understatements recently.

Wow, where to begin? The past week has been a whirlwind to say the least. I'm sorry that I haven't posted in quite a few days, I know some of you have been looking every single day and waiting patiently so since I have down time tonight, I figured I'd update you all! 

Well after our day off on Sunday that was filled with sleeping in, soaking up some vitamin D, grocery shopping and dinner at Robin's, the special education director, house, we were back at it bright and early Monday morning for more inservice. The first couple days that I was in Dillingham was because of new teacher training and then Monday through Wednesday was inservice for all the teachers in the district. And let me say, although I learned a lot, it was a LONG couple days. We spent all day long in meetings and presentations with some snack breaks and lunch breaks (along with breakfast every morning) - they fed us well. : ) It was also nice to get to meet some of the other staff members from around the district and talk to them! 

It was a little surreal to be sitting in teacher inservice. I've had that feeling quite a few times since I've been back to Alaska... I guess that just comes along with being a first year teacher. You spend all these years preparing and if you're like me, pinning ideas on pinterest for things you could do in your classroom when you get one or buying school supplies and things for your future classroom and then finally it's here and you can use all those things (well unless you move across the entire country and some stuff is just too expensive to ship ;) ) and you can do all those ideas that you've been thinking about and planning for! It's a great feeling. :)

On Wednesday afternoon after inservice, myself and five other staff members from Manokotak piled into a VERY small plane and took our 8 minute flight into the village. It wasn't the nicest day but since our ride was so quick we were able to make it. Most of the other villages weren't able to fly out and had to stay in Dillingham another night. When we got here, they took me on a tour of the school and showed me my classroom for the first time! Then it was off to my apartment so I could begin the unpacking process....

Before we left Dillingham, we had to get our picture with Kutztown Bear's alaskan brother. ;)

Next to the Nushagak Bay! 

Our tiny, tiny plane.... Tinier than any one that I've been on in the past.

 The runway!

The seats were literally on the floor and guess where I got to sit?

 The very back of the plane surrounded by our boxes of groceries. 

Deb, my principal took my picture at my first desk. : )

Lucky for me, the awesome maintenance men moved all my totes from the school to outside my apartment so that I didn't have to do it! Very thankful for that. 

 My bedroom!

 The kitchen

Living room

 Bathroom

Laundry room with a big chest freezer - very convenient! 

I haven't done too much to my house at all. In fact, I have a second bedroom that is a disaster area because it has my empty totes and about 8 that haven't unpacked yet... along with odds and ends thrown everywhere. My house has been low on my priority list so hopefully as the year goes, I'll have more time to make it look a little more cozy! It's a very nice place though, I really love it!

Now, as soon as Thursday morning rolled around, we had a full day of at site inservice which was another day of meetings and trainings. By this point, you can imagine that I can't sit still at all. I can't sit still to begin with, especially after already sitting for multiple days in a row but my principal is pretty awesome and made the day go pretty quickly. Then it was the start of a mad rush to get my classroom ready by Monday. I spent a few hours Thursday night working on it. Friday and today were teacher work days which required us to be at school for a normal scheduled day - 8:00 to 3:30 so I spent the last two days there until about 7 trying to get things done and it's still not all finished. Looks like I'll be heading back in tomorrow to do some last minute things to my room and then continue working on some curriculum things. Here are the pictures of my huge, first classroom. : )

 This is out my classroom window.... my apartment building is the one on the left hand side and my apartment is on the bottom left. Very close walk to work. ;)

 Notice how organized my desk is now? Let's see how long this lasts! 

Here it is, my first classroom! 

 This is the amazing view out my back windows.... I can not wait until we all have some free time and I can get out and explore!

The view from the front of my apartment... the building in front is obviously the school and we sit at the base of a huge mountain! I know the mountain has a name but I honestly am not sure what it is... I'll find out. :)

And this would be the reason I have three candles burning in my apartment right now! Very thankful for my awesome neighbors who supplied me with King Salmon to last me for a long time.

PS. I don't know if everyone knows this but if not, if you click on the pictures it'll make them bigger! Just thought I'd throw that out there incase not everyone knew that. 

Everyone is so sweet here. From the staff to the students to even some of the parents that I've gotten to meet. I'm looking forward to a good year here in Manokotak. :)

That's all for now... it'll be another early night for me. I've been going to bed between 8:30 and 9:30... still bright and sunny out there but I'm so exhausted that it doesn't even bother me. I hope to have more to blog about after the first day of school on Monday...... I'll keep you all posted.

The salmon capital of the world!

So lucky for all of you, I have the evening free and the day off tomorrow so I'm able to do another blog post in a short amount of time! Don't get too used to this though - I have a feeling that my posts will not ever be this frequent because I can already tell I'm going to be one busy person!

But I had an exciting day! Today's inservice was focusing on living and teaching in bush Alaska and the natives that are in the villages. Which, in this case, they are Yupik. So we started out the day with breakfast like normal and then four of the natives that work for the district in four different villages spent the morning telling us about themselves, their families and their culture and background. I heard so many great stories and they are wonderful people. The three ladies are older and have been in the villages for many, many years. In most of their cases, their fathers/grandfathers/relatives were the ones that founded the village. The village that I will be going to was actually "founded" by one of the ladies father who was a reindeer herder. After a flu epidemic wiped out a lot of the villages in Alaska, they had to find new places to go. She said this was about the 1930s! 

Before we heard the stories, we were greeted by them coming in doing a traditional Yupik dance and song. They sing in Yupik language and have specific moves that tell a story throughout the dance. They have props that are used for many dances but in this case they used decorative dance fans! 

The long part is caribou fur and the inside of the fan with the red beads is seal fur! They're so neat looking!

After we learned more about the culture and listened to them talk in Yupik (which apparently I will have numerous students speaking) we took a fun field trip!

Our field trip was down to the beach of the Nushagak Bay. By the way, I have to clarify that the body of water in my last post that I said I wasn't sure what it was, someone told me it was a lake. I asked Bill (one of the guys that works at the district office's son) from Dillingham that we rode with what it was and he said it was Nushagak River - just to clear that up! Anyways, we drove about 7 minutes down to the beach at low tide to check one of the District office guy's nets to see if we had any salmon. Turns out, there were 15!

This one was a silver salmon and Bill said it was pretty standard size for that. The bigger ones are called King salmon and then we had a red salmon in the net and we also had a humpy! In the second picture, I was instructed to hold the fish like that because I was told that it made it look bigger and all the intense fishers do that. I'm not sure that I did it right?

 Before we headed out into the rain. Rain gear is a must! I will also tell you for those of you that don't know, this is Megan! Her and I actually went to Kutztown together believe it or not and now we're in the same school district in Alaska.... who would have thought? I think we've said that numerous times this week so far. We definitely didn't see this coming when we were sitting in class together freshman year of college! It's really nice to have someone at this inservice that I know. :)

On the beach looking down! 

This would be my new principal and the kindergarten teacher from Manokotak! 

After we got the fish out of the net - which we did not physically do because it's not allowed by Fish and Game since we don't live here technically - we spent a little bit more time out on the beach and then we decided to head back because it was raining and kind of chilly. After we got back to the DO (district office) we headed down to the shop where we got to do some really fun things.....

I've got step by step pictures too, thanks to Megan. :) Here you go.... 

 First you clean off the sand and the dirt using the knife. Which this is a knife that is very popular in AK. I had the opportunity to buy one numerous times when I was here before but never did. But now that I've gotten the chance to actually use one - I think I may just make a purchase. It's called a Ulu and it's a cresent moon shape! 

Next, it's time for the head to go! With this knife, you have to use a rocking motion with your wrist. It really doesn't work well if you try to saw through it or cut like a regular knife.

This was one of the ladies, Fanny who lives in Togiak and has her entire life. She has many, many interesting stories! She's very sweet and was helping me to use the Ulu and she was showing me exactly where to make the cut. 

Got it!

Gotta get the guts out now. Some people eat parts of them but this time we threw the guts out. We only saved the eggs from the females and the heads because those can be fermented and then eaten and from what the locals told me, it's a delicacy! 

Then you start to filet the other side and as you go along, you break the back bones and you should actually hear them crunch to know you did it right. You really do hear it!

And there's my first salmon filet! I successfully did the whole thing for the first time and I enjoyed it so much! Maybe that's odd, but knowing me, it's no surprise. :) I can't wait to do it again! I'm also happy that I now know how to do it for future reference. 

This is Steve holding the humpy and Ester getting ready to show us how to cut the fish. Nikki, Steve's daughter is standing next to him and she is absolutely amazing at it! This type of salmon gets a hump on their back after they spawned and it eventually grows bigger. This hump isn't too big! 

After that we had hot dogs on the grill along with a ton of sides and dessert. Then it was back to the training and more stories. We learned a lot of Yupik words and phrases and when I say learned, I mean I attempted to say them numerous times but it is hard and it's going to take me some time to get those words down. I think I'm going to need my kids to teach me! I'm thinking I'll work that into my schedule? We ended the day with dinner. You can guess what we had I'm sure. Fresh salmon from the grill, salad, bread and all sorts of other delicious food. Along with homemade cobblers and ice cream for dessert. We're really getting spoiled with the food here! And I have to say, that was the best salmon I've ever had, but I expect nothing less being that it was just caught hours before in the salmon capital of the world. ;) 

We did some more walking around tonight because the sun finally came out and the rain stopped for a bit. Megan and I actually ended up sitting outside on the steps using the wireless for a bit because that way I could get my home cell phone to work! Plus it was nice to just soak in some vitamin D because you never know when it'll be back! Now I'm happy in my sweatpants and sweatshirt and just relaxing. I'm still exhausted and am looking forward to our day off tomorrow. Which that means, NO alarm! However, staying in a room with this many other people, I'm sure will mean that I don't sleep in too long. We will see! 

I'm happy to be back but am looking forward to getting to Manokotak to actually get in a routine and get started in my own classroom!

One of the girls that will be my neighbor there is coming to town tomorrow and is going to bring my GCI cell phone with her. It's currently in my apartment waiting for me because they wouldn't ship to PA so I'm hoping to have that working tomorrow night or Monday. Let's keep our fingers crossed!

I hope everyone at home is having a good weekend and not having too much fun without me. ;) Miss you all!