Volleyball opener

Hello again! It has been an eventful week for me in Alaska.  I am up at the school right now putting together my lessons and finishing up grades from last week, but figured I could spare a few minutes to share my newest adventures with you.

After a productive 3rd week of practice, the Kwethluk Kings Mixed 6 volleyball team traveled to their first games in Aniak, AK.  You can see where Aniak (green B marker) is in comparison to Kwethluk (green A marker) on the map below.

The 7 players and 4 adults flew out of Kwethluk at about 4:30pm on Friday.  The eleven of us fit into two 6-seaters for the 45 minute flight to Aniak.

I snapped a few photos on the way.

 

Loading up the first of our two planes.

Above you can see the girls were all smiles as we started out.  Unfortunately the 45 minute flight was a little bumpy and none of us felt well when we arrived.

Below, you can see some of the landscape we saw on the way.  On the left are mountains that you can see from Kwethluk, not sure what they are called.  The picture on the right is of a huge lake(Whitefish lake I think) we flew over shortly before we landed in Aniak.  You can see that ice is forming on the edges of the lake.  The great thing about bush planes is that they fly low enough for you to see the ripples on the water.
 








The scenery in Aniak is much different from Kwethluk.  It is surrounded by mountains and they have many many more large trees.  You can see the village in the picture below.

 Shortly after we arrived in Aniak, their volleyball coach picked us up from the airport.  Aniak is in a different school district than Kwethluk. They are in the Kuspuk district.  There were two other teams that played in the tournament, Tuluksak and Akiachak.  Those schools are both in the Yupiit school district.  We were the last team to arrive in Aniak, and as soon as we had eaten supper provided by the school we suited up for our first volleyball match!

The gym in Aniak (and school in general) is much newer and bigger than ours.  You can also see that the Aniak high school mascot is the Halfbreeds.  I didn't believe my volleyball players at first when they mentioned that to me last week, so I decided to google it.  Here is an article that I found: Aniak Halfbreeds

Our first match was against Aniak, which we lost in 2 games(we played best out of 3).  Garret(my co-coach) and I could tell that the kids were nervous for their first game, but saw some glimpses of success throughout the match.  We played Tuluksak right after that and the kids tried again to shake the nerves of their first games.  Unfortunately, we didn't play to our potential and lost to Tuluksak in two games.  The tournament was double elimination, so we were done the first night with games.  Although the kids seemed a little frustrated(as were the coaches) we felt that it was a good beginning to the season and gave us a list of things to improve upon. :)

After the last match of the night, the kids played some basketball and volleyball in the gym.  The night became much more exciting when the Akiachak coach came and told us that the Northern Lights were out that night! It was incredibly cold outside, but the view was worth standing in the frigid temperatures.  Seeing the green lights dance across the sky was an unforgettable moment and allowed me some time to reflect on all that I have been able to experience in these short two months since I've been in Alaska.  

I tried to take pictures and video of the Northern Lights, but it didn't turn out so I found some pictures of them online.  Here is a link to some pictures of the lights from that night from other towns in Alaska.

We woke up Saturday to a clear sunny day and planned to watch volleyball rather than play because we had been eliminated from the tournament.  However, the one team we hadn't played yet wanted to play after they won the championship, so our kids suited up for one more match.  Our third match started off a little shaky, but by the end of the 2nd game(which we ended up losing) the kids had gotten over all their nerves. After our last match, we packed up to fly home.  Our plane left at 1pm and we enjoyed our less turbulent ride home to Kwethluk.  

The ride home was much nicer and some of the kids even slept!

Here are a couple of pictures of the scenery on the way home.

 
We arrived in Kwethluk around 1:45 and were shuttled from the airport to the school.  After an exciting weekend of firsts, I was exhausted and went home to take a nap and watched a couple movies last night.  

Today is another chilly, but beautiful day in Kwethluk and I hope to get my lessons and grading done so I can head home for the night and relax with Raisin. He has been up at the school with me patiently waiting (and napping) while I work.  

Hope you all have had a great weekend and are ready for Monday! :)

New friend!

Happy Saturday! Hope you are all enjoying a lovely fall weekend.  I had been scheduled to travel to Bethel for a New Teacher Inservice, but due to weather I was lucky enough to stay in Kwethluk for volleyball practice yesterday and attend the inservice via VTC.  This week has been another crazy one.  The biggest news though is my newest friend!

Yes, I now have a puppy! Raisin(not sure about the name yet) was outside the school all day on Tuesday and one of the other high school teachers brought him in at the end of the day.  She planned to find him a home.  I held him for 10 minutes and decided that I couldn't let him go. Rachel took him to the vet for me and we found out that he was born in the middle of August.  He has been wonderful so far and was very quick to find out where the food is! He chows down and licks the bowl and follows me around the house. 

Other than that big news, we completed our 2nd week of volleyball practice and I am already starting to see big improvements in our players! The kids are getting excited for our first matches next weekend in Aniak! :)

After an exciting and busy week I am ready for a weekend off. So I am going to head home for the night! Have a great weekend!

 

FIRST Snow!

Hello again to all my faithful followers! I have been crazy busy in the great north with volleyball starting last week as well as trying to get all the other day-to-day stuff done. I'm sure you're all busy as well.

I wanted to share with you the excitement that I woke up to on Saturday the 29th of September! SNOW!!!

 Although the snow is gone already it stayed around for a good part of the day on Saturday. I was told that the snow won't really stay until the end of October.  But it was pretty exciting thinking about being able to ride my snowmachine!

In other news, our school did a Community Mentor Day on Friday at school.  The high school and junior high students were asked to invite a community member that they admire to shadow them at school on Friday. The turn out was great and it was so nice to meet the adults that support our kids. We also celebrated that night with a party for the students and their mentors. We played basketball, video games and volleyball until 11pm at the school.  The kids had a great time and it was nice to see the students in a fun atmosphere without the pressures of homework and other classroom standards.

My first week of volleyball practice went well and I have a wonderful co-coach that knows the kids and volleyball even better than I do! I think the kids are enjoying practices and are really looking forward to our first games in Aniak the weekend of the 12th.

I will leave you with some more pictures of the snowy day and a quote from a Dove chocolate wrapper I found on Friday.

 

"Open your eyes to all the love around you."

I hope you are all enjoying the fall season and beautiful colors and take time to appreciate the sights and sounds around you where ever you are.

Bye for now! :)

Short days and volleyball..

I apologize that this has taken me quite awhile. I hope life has treated you well the last couple of weeks. The weather is changing here in Kwethluk! It is getting much cooler and the days are getting amazingly shorter. I didn't realize the difference until I was walking to school yesterday morning. Here is a picture  I took at about 7:15am on Monday.

Along with the increasingly short days, my days have become much busier. This week also marks the beginning of our Mixed 6 volleyball season.  I am so thrilled to be coaching! We have 6 girls and 2 boys signed up to play so far. I had originally signed up to assist the returning coach, but she has decided to "retire" for the last time so I am working with a gentleman who is an RTI specialist to coach. We have practices at 7:30 as the other two sports (wrestling and Native Youth Olympics) need the gym earlier.  The season is young, but I can already see improvement. We are hoping to travel to Aniak, Akiachak and Tuluksak this season and the kids are thrilled to have a volleyball team after not having one last year.

Things are still great here in Kwethluk and I am becoming more involved in the community. It reminds me of Redfield when I walk down the street and so many students and community members say "Hello Miss Paulson!" I hope your lives are going just as well! 

Inservice and Big Purchases

Hello again!

I hope you have all had a great couple of weeks. It has been busy around here and I haven't had a chance to post, so this one might be a little on the long side.

My last post was completed right before I flew off to Bethel for a week of inservice. Below are a couple of pictures of the nearly 500 teachers and administrators in the Bethel High School gym.  It was pretty inspiring to see all of the teachers who are here to make a difference in the lives of our students.

I attended sessions on integrating technology, foldables, Kagan interactions, the grading system, and many more over the 4 full days in Bethel.  I also learned more about our health and math curriculum.  It was also interesting to be on the student side of learning again.  The whole week helped me to realize how important it is to make the learning worthwhile for our students.  Especially when they have to sit in class for the entire year as opposed to 4 days! :)

It was also nice to catch up with some other new teachers and see how their year was going.  Every one that I talked to is enjoying their school, colleagues, and students, which affirms for me that we are all in it for the best reason, to help our students.

I also thought it was interesting to see the Bethel High School which is a little bigger than Redfield.  Here are some more pictures of their gym.

 






Bethel does not compete against the other villages in the district in most sports.  The picture on the left shows banners for each of the schools that Bethel plays. 

Another interesting aspect of the district-wide inservice is that it was scheduled during moose season in this area.  I am not completely positive on the season length, but I understand that it lasts for approximately 10 days, depending on when the moose harvest reaches 75.  One of the teachers explained to me that this week normally has the lowest attendance during the year because so many students are out hunting with their families! It reminds me a little bit of deer season in South Dakota.  I was told that killing a moose can save a family $2000 on groceries! Thinking about the economic situation here, it is understandable that subsistence sometimes outweighs schooling in this area of the world.

My last inservice day was Saturday.  After we finished, Jeff(our English teacher) and I flew back to Kwethluk.  I must say I missed my home here a little bit.
Our plane for this flight was the smallest I've been in (only 4 seats)!  But for some reason, I felt much safer in this one than the first one in to Kwethluk.  Here are some pictures from the flight.  You can see how the tundra is starting to change colors, like the leaves on the trees.

 

 

 My last piece of news for this post is that I finally got my first paycheck! It is so exciting to see my bank account grow rather than shrink :)  I also feel that my hard work in the classroom the last month has paid off.  So, for my first big purchases, I have bought tickets home for Christmas and a snogo!

Yes, I am in the process of buying a snowmobile from the last math teacher.  I thought that the long winter might feel a little bit shorter if I could get out and enjoy the snow.

 It's the blue Polaris with the cover. I was too lazy to hop the chain fence to uncover it for the picture, so I will keep you checking the blog for a better picture. :)

I was told that winter is on it's way by a gentleman I spoke to at the store yesterday.  The temperatures here have begun to drop and the boardwalks are covered with frost in the morning.  Hopefully I won't have to wait to long to take the snogo for a ride!

I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend and a great week to come!

  

Quyana

Just wanted to post a quick "Quyana" (thank you) for those who have sent me cards and packages.  I came back from the post office today with 3 more cards and 4 packages!!

Special shout outs to the Smith family (Jay, Sherry, Sydney, Chelsea, Annie, and Kinley), Lois Stemper, Mikki Permann, my aunt Rita Lunney and my Grandma Ila Mae. Thank you all so much!

You have no idea how incredible my day is knowing that people are thinking about and praying for me! Thank you thank you thank you!! :)

For those of you who have had my grandma's homemade cookies (ginger snaps and chocolate chip), they taste even more delicious after you've been waiting for them for a couple of weeks!  I've had special requests for her recipes also.

We will be off to Bethel for in-service in the next hour.  Hopefully the rain and wind let up a little so it's an easy trip! 

Have a great rest of your Tuesday!! :)

What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Happy Labor Day!

I hope you are all enjoying a day off. I have been working on lesson plans up in my classroom and thought I could put together a quick post.

The title for my post today is in reference to one of the most important things I have learned while teaching here - facial expressions.  As I was talking to my parents on Saturday night (via Skype because I am not currently in possession of my cell phone), I was explaining to them the huge differences between my student teaching experience and my first-year of teaching experience.  One of the topics we discussed was the eye contact and facial expressions I have noticed.  Below is an excerpt of an article written by a teacher who taught in Tununak, AK a few years ago.

  

I would not have guessed reading that article before I began teaching here would be one of the smartest things I did! This describes exactly my experiences in the classroom with my students.  I also have noticed that I look more at my students' faces trying to recognize their eyebrow lifts.  

The students here are very good about verbally answering yes because they are used to new teachers, and especially new teachers who do not look for their eyebrow lifts.  But, I also think that this difference I am adjusting to is proving helpful in me getting to really see my students.  I am becoming more adept at recognizing confusion and understanding simply through facial expressions like furrowed brows and wide-eyed looks.  It is incredible how much I relied on verbal clues before this point.  This difference in my classroom is something I hope all new teachers would have the opportunity to experience because so much of the communication in the classroom is non-verbal.  Now that I think about it, this could be useful to non-teachers as well! Recognizing facial expressions is something that everyone could use a little practice in! :)  It is especially interesting that I am also finding myself raising my eyebrows more often when I say "yes" to someone.

Have a great rest of your weekend! :)