"Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it." ~ Greg Anderson

So this will most likely be my last post from Kwethluk. Garrett, Raisin and I are flying out on Saturday morning and will get to Anchorage that afternoon. I can't believe how quickly the year has gone. But I am very excited for a restful summer in the Midwest! :)

It was quite an eventful last weekend in Kwethluk. Graduation was on Friday. We had just one graduate this year, but what a special one she was. I was very honored when she asked if I would speak at her graduation along with the high school social studies teacher(who is basically my idol!) It was a very emotional ceremony like many graduations are. Sadness that one stage of life is over, and excitement for the unknown ahead. Below, is a picture of the social studies teacher, the graduate, and myself after graduation.

For those of you interested in my speech, I based part of my message on what this man had to say. It's definitely worth the watch. Josh Shipp - To the Class of 2013 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8jWUSaz4m4

The rest of the weekend was spent cleaning, cleaning and cleaning some more. This was the first year in quite a long time that the principal of our school decided to do housing inspections for cleanliness. So my roommate and I spent the afternoons on Saturday and Sunday preparing for that. Also, to help keep the house clean after all that work we put in, Raisin got not one, but two baths!! :) I originally intended for him to have one bath, but the mud outside was just too exciting for Raisin to avoid. On the bright side, the bathroom, kitchen floor, front of the refrigerator and my bedding also received a second cleaning. The best news is that Raisin is finally warming up to my blow dryer! To the right you can see the motivation I used to get myself in the right state of mind to clean this weekend. It is crescent roll crust filled with an amaretto vanilla cream cheese filling. Super delicious! It kind of tastes like a cream cheese danish. Below, you will see Raisin receiving the superstar treatment after his bath.

After such a thrilling weekend, we are headed into the last three days of school. My math classes are taking finals and the health class is watching a movie about abusive relationships. Today was our last Monday of the year and man does it feel great to be done with that! It was a rather dreary, but warm day. The warmth is finally beginning to melt the ice and you can see that the large ice chunks are floating down the river on the sides. This week feels much more like spring than the last couple. Everyone at the school is anxiously awaiting 4pm on Wednesday, including me. I am more excited for the trip to Anchorage on Saturday and seeing my college friend for a few days while we take in the sights and sounds of the largest city in Alaska. I am most excited though to be heading back to the Midwest for the summer and finally seeing the family and friends that I've only been able to text, email, call, and Skype with since January. With that, I'll sign off from Kwethluk. I hope you all have a wonderful week and hope to catch up with you all soon.

"One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time." ~ Andre Gide

Hello again old friends.
I must apologize once again. I couldn't believe it had been almost 3 months since I've posted. After many attempts of persuasion by my mother I am finally posting again. :) So make sure to thank her if you see her! 
I must also tell you the reasons why I didn't feel the need to post for so long. My dad and I were discussing the blog a couple of weeks ago, I believe while we were Skyping and watching an NCAA game. I told him that I didn't feel like I had anything new and exciting in life to post. Sure, sure I talk to my parents at least once every couple of weeks and I tell them at least one new thing that has happened. But after living up here for over half a year, I'm finding my life is very routine. Albeit, not routine compared to living in South Dakota, but the things that I used to think were new and exciting have become exciting and everyday for me.

Here's a bit of my routine:
Monday through Friday I am at school from 8:00am to 5:00pm. I usually take a snowmachine to work, whether that is my own or a ride from my roommate. The great thing now is that the sun is coming up before 8 so I get to watch the sun rise on the way to work.

I still love teaching every day although it is frustrating when students don't complete homework or are tardy for school. We just completed SBA testing(standardized state testing) three weeks ago. There are only 3 full weeks of school left! It is pretty incredible to think how quickly my year has gone by!

My spring semester has been filled with basketball tournaments and snowmachine trips. Yes, I did get back on the court to play in women's basketball tournaments. I played in a town that is about a half an hour snowmachine trip away called Akiachak. Basketball is definitely a lifeline during the long winter months and I had a great time making friends with women I played with.

The river is beginning to melt, but it is still safe to travel by river. Along with the melting snow comes a new hunting season. Ptarmigans, which I was told were similar to pheasants, are being hunted. Garrett took me out hunting and I caught 2! They are similar to pheasants in how lazy they are to fly, but they really don't look a whole lot like pheasants. 

Raisin is still doing well and I think he's grown even this last month. He has a few girlfriends he likes to run around with outside. It will be interesting to see how he deals with hot SD summers.

As the year is coming to a close I'm finding myself getting more excited to head south for the summer! Today's count is 15 days left of school. The last part of the year is quickly flying by and graduation is on May 17th. I was incredibly honored when our one (yes one) graduating senior asked me to be one of the speakers for her graduation ceremony. So I'm busy brainstorming for that as we wind down the year.  I will try to update again before the end of the year, but if I don't I hope that I will catch up with many of you while I'm home for the summer! Enjoy as the spring moves your way!

Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory." ~Dr. Suess

Hello friends!

Sorry for the extremely long delay in posting. I cannot even say I had an excuse except maybe that I've been living! :)

I hope all is well with you and that you survived the holiday season. My vacation was incredible and it felt so great to be back. I was lucky enough to see almost all of my family and friends over the three week break and it was so exciting to see familiar faces that are so important to me.

I arrived back in Anchorage on the 11th and got home to Kwethluk on the 12th. I have to say that feeling of coming home to a familiar place hit me when we were in the river cab from Bethel to Kwethluk.  As completely different as life is up here, I missed it so much!

We didn't start back at school until the 16th of January, so I was lucky to get in on the end of the Slavic. Slavic is the Russian Orthodox Christmas celebration. It is celebrated with feasts at houses all across the community and continues for a week. I got to eat moose soup and my favorite akutaq! I also tried whale which is a delicacy around here and eaten on special occassions like Slavic.
If you'd like to see my reaction to that experience here's a video. Hopefully you can see it!
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=4199325390332&set=vb.1500690010&type=2&theater

It was also great to see the students around the village before school started. I couldn't determine who was more excited them or me. The first weekend back our school hosted a basketball tournament for all three of our basketball teams. Basketball is extremely important here and it was exciting to watch everyone on the court.

The first couple of weeks of the semester have started off quite well and I'm starting to feel that I'm getting better at this teaching thing. I am not spending nearly as much time at school during the week and I am much more energized during the day because of that. My classes have changed a little bit, so now I'm teaching three math classes along with two PE classes and one health class. School is still chaos, but it is a thrilling chaos that I wouldn't give up. :)

One more exciting first for me was last Sunday(a little over a week ago) when I went to Bethel for the first time on a snowmachine! It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day and we even saw a moose on the way. The landscape here is something unimaginable and so incredibly beautiful! I am definitely looking forward to more of that.

The weather here has been quite a bit colder. We had -60 degree wind chills yesterday with blowing snow, but we are so tough in Alaska that we don't let that stop us from going to school. Today was a little warmer and we had fresh snow so the snowmachine ride to school was quite nice.

Lastly, I want to end with the reason I chose this quote. I have a huge pinterest wall with inspirational messages that I like to look at every day to keep my spirits up and for some reason today the Dr. Suess quote caught my eye. I am thinking now about how this incredible experience in Alaska is more than I ever could have dreamed of and that all of these little things that I am learning are all becoming some of the best memories that I will ever have and I don't even know it yet. I just think it's nice to remember that even when things aren't seeming to move in the directions we expect or want, we will still cherish all of these moments in life.

Well tomorrow will come sooner than I'd like, so good night! :)

"Where we love is home - home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts." Oliver Wendell Holmes

Hello again! I decided that my prep time would be a great time to post :) I do have a long to-do list, but my mind is already thinking about tomorrow and my first trip home!

The last couple of weeks at school have been busy, but good. My classes are winding down and students are taking semester finals.  I've done quite a bit of reflecting on how so many many things have gone differently than I expected first coming to Alaska. I've done so many incredible things and met so many incredible people. I could not have asked for a better first semester of teaching!

My mom said that many people have been asking when I am coming home and how Raisin is doing. So here are answers. :)
I am flying out of Kwethluk tomorrow and then heading to Anchorage tomorrow night. Jeff and Terry Wilson are letting me stay with them tomorrow night before I fly to Minneapolis Saturday morning. I hope to be home some time Saturday night as long as the weather it good.
Raisin is still doing well. I cannot believe how quickly he has grown up! Raisin will also be making the trip home to South Dakota with me! So you may be lucky enough to meet him! :)
Raisin was going to ride in the plane with me, but unfortunately he already outgrew the carry-on bag I bought for him, so I had to take a trip to Bethel yesterday to get a travel kennel for him.

I am so excited to see everyone again and can't wait to spend the holidays with family. Hope everything is well where ever you are! :)

I will try to post pictures later when I can upload them!

Christmastime is......near

Hello again!

I am trying to be more diligent in December to keep this updated. Hope you are all enjoying the beginning of the month...I am already beginning to count down the days until I get to travel home and see my family and friends. :)

This last weekend was nice and relaxing. I really did nothing and I enjoyed it. I actually did not even venture to school on Saturday and only went on Sunday to quickly lesson plan, enter grades, host the study hall for high school and junior high and help our neighbor's son's with some college homework.

I did leave the house on Saturday to FINALLY go check on my snowmachine! It is a Polaris RMK 550 that I am buying from the former math teacher. Here is a picture of it (especially for Sarah!) :)

 

With the help of Garrett, we (actually Garrett) got it started and checked the chain case oil. The oil needs to be changed, but everything else seems good. I'm obviously no expert, but Garrett made it seem like everything is fine. As you can see from the picture, we don't have much for snow. We did get a small dusting Saturday evening though. The forecast looks good for snow this weekend, so hopefully I'll actually get to use it before I head home on the 21st.

This week in school we are doing MAP testing, which is a benchmark test similar to the annual state testing.  MAP testing helps us see where students are in learning achievement currently.  Along with MAP testing comes modified schedules so students can be tested in grade levels.  My 3rd hour Health class on Monday consisted of one student, so instead of doing bookwork, we decorated my room for Christmas! I also had some string lights sent to me, so the kids decided to put those up also! The tree came from a teacher who went to Anchorage this weekend. The decorations she picked out are in our school colors!

Putting up the decorations has started me thinking more about my trip home for Christmas. Although I really do feel at home here in Kwethluk, I am missing my family more each day and can't wait to see them over the holidays!  Raisin will also (hopefully) be making his first trip to Redfield, provided he fits in the travel bag I got him. The way he has been growing makes me feel a little skeptical.  Before he can travel Raisin needs another check-up, so I am taking him in to Bethel tomorrow after school for an appointment. Tomorrow will also be my first trip in a river cab, I am nervous and excited!

A couple last bits of information you might find interesting:  I finally got my Carhartts in the mail today and boy do I love them already! I can actually enjoy the -11 degree walk home in the evenings.  Speaking of the walk home, you may like to know that we are currently experiencing 6 hours of sunlight a day. I am not having any issues adjusting to it, but find it weird the angle of the sun when it is up. It shines in my classroom window(south-facing) staring during 3rd hour(around 10:30) and sets by 4:30. We end the school day at 4:10, so that leaves about 20 minutes of daylight after school ends. Finally, I am writing this post sitting in my kitchen at home. YES, I finally have internet access at home. This is the second day I've been able to use it, and I can't believe how great it is to be able to lesson plans at home using the internet access!!

I don't know exactly how many people are still checking in on my blog, especially after my month hiatus! But if you are, I want to thank you for your interest in me and what's going on up here in rural Alaska.  I am still having the experience of a lifetime and love every minute! Have a great Wednesday and rest of your week!

Naomi

  

 

One month later...I'm still alive up here :)

I am finally posting on the blog again....so sorry for the entire month MIA. I hope you all have had a wonderfully exciting last month and didn't waste too much time checking here for updates. My last month has been incredibly busy and filled with new adventures! 


When I last posted it was almost Halloween. I did celebrate by dressing up as a nerd! Many of the kids and teachers also dressed up for the occasion. I will try to put up a picture of that when I find one. The first weekend in November was my last New Teacher in service in Bethel. I flew out Friday afternoon at 4:30 and got to Bethel in time to watch our Kwethluk wrestlers that night! I was excited to watch one of my 7th graders win a match on Friday and they were excited that a teacher came to watch them. I spent my entire day on Saturday in training on our Instructional Method SIOP. I was supposed to fly out late afternoon to come back to Kwethluk and had some time after meetings to catch a couple of our wrestlers that afternoon before I left.  The flight back was nice, but flying on the weekends really wears you out. Above are some pictures of the changing landscape in early November. You can see that there is a lot of ice on the river.


After a busy weekend,I found out on Tuesday that our school would be hosting volleyball matches that weekend! For those of you who know my Type A (planning/controlling personality), having something like this come up a couple of days before the event got me a little nervous.  We were originally planning to host two teams, but on Friday afternoon, were informed that we would be hosting four volleyball teams! A few deep breaths and cups of coffee helped us survive the weekend. In all honesty, I couldn't have expected the tournament to go any better than it did. It is amazing what can happen when people work together! The Kings volleyball team played 3 matches and finally won our first match against the Akiuk Grizzlies!! Garrett(the other coach) and I were so excited to finally have a win. :)

 After a long weekend of volleyball here, three of the teams visiting ended up being weathered here. Two of them (Akula and Akiachak) left on Sunday afternoon and one team (Akiuk) didn't get home until Monday morning. I'm sure the weekend was much longer for those coaches than for Garrett and myself.  The next week was all about preparation for the regional tournament in Tuluksak.  Thirteen teams attended the tournament and lived in the school for 4 days! We left on Thursday at noon and came home on Sunday at noon. The picture above is from the regional tournament. We were seeded #11 and played the Aniak Halfbreeds (the first team we played this season). Unfortunately we came up short against the Halfbreeds.  It was a single elimination tournament, so that loss put us out of the running for a state tournament spot. We did get to play a consolation match against the Kwigillingok Eagles. We lost the first set, but came back to win two sets and ended the season with a win! Not only did our players end on a high note with a victory, but we also were given the Sportsmanship Award for the tournament. The award was voted on by the coaches! We also had one representative on the All-Tournament Team. That is voted on by the coaches as well and is the top ten players in the tournament out of the nearly 100 students! I couldn't have asked for a better first time coaching experience! :)

After all the craziness of the volleyball season, I was more than ready for a long Thanksgiving weekend. I have to say that although this was the first Thanksgiving I haven't been with family, I had a wonderful weekend. I watched the village basketball tournament, ate pie, and relaxed. Going into the last month before Christmas break I'm feeling refreshed and ready!

Some of you may also be curious about Raisin. He's doing just fine. Growing like crazy and still has a huge appetite! He has almost passed Cooper in size(definitely in weight!) and has lost his puppy fur. 

The temperature continues to drop and we still don't have snow, but I'm told that the river has almost 2 feet of ice on it. My roommate is actually on her way back from Bethel tonight in a river cab, so I should probably get home and feed the dogs. Hope you are all doing well. I hope to update this again with more information about my last month, but you have the highlights reel so far! Have a great week! :)


 

  

How Time Flies..

Hello again! I apologize for not posting last week. Our first quarter ended last week and I was finalizing my grades all day last Sunday which left only enough time to plan for the upcoming week.  It is amazing to think that I am one fourth complete with my year. And how the time has flown!!

The last two weeks have been filled with volleyball practices and lots of time in the classroom.   Unfortunately I haven't been spending as much time as I would like with Raisin, but luckily he has a best friend to play with at home!

With all of the time I've spent at the school, I decided to take a day completely away from the school last Saturday. I was very productive at home! I vacuumed, did laundry, and baked an apple crisp :) I can't say it was as good as my Grandma Ila Mae's, but I was pretty impressed with it. I got to share my apple crisp with two of my volleyball players on Saturday night when they stopped over to say hi.  We had some tortilla soup and apple crisp! It is so amazing to make the connections with students and see how incredible they are both in and out of school.

This last week was quite busy with Parent-Teacher Conferences on Wednesday and Thursday nights.  It was also spirit week! We ended the week with Kings Day on Friday. The social studies teacher and I dressed up in black and blue volleyball knee pads and wigs! Kwethluk also hosted a wrestling match on Friday and Saturday.  There were three teams that came:  Nunapitchuk, Napaskiak, and Bethel Gladys Jung.  Kwethluk placed 2nd and had 3(I believe) 1st place individuals. I got to help out by running the scoreboard and was so incredibly proud of our students who wrestled!

Four of our high school students traveled to Wasilla this past week to attend AASG convention for student government.  Our student council president and I were talking about what she would get to do on the trip and she was very excited to go to Starbucks. I jokingly said she should bring back a drink for me.  She laughed and said she wasn't sure she'd be able to get the drink through airport security.  I was pleasantly surprised when I answered a knock at my door this afternoon and saw the student standing with a Starbucks cup in hand for me! :) I guess it will be my turn to bring Starbucks back for her over Christmas!

I feel like this blog has been a little random, so I'll finish with the weather! It has been much cooler this past month.  The Kwethluk river (which runs in front of my house) is beginning to freeze up and I was surprised to see how much ice is on the river.  Many people have begun to talk about snomachines and getting excited for the snow! Considering it is almost November, I'm sure the flakes will soon be flying.

I would like to add in a quick thank you to Bev and Lyle and Patrice for the packages I've received in the mail the last couple weeks. The tortillas are much appreciated and Raisin loves his new toys and treats!

Today I glanced at the calendar and realized how quickly my first year is going. I feel like the first quarter is a blur and cannot imagine how soon it will be Thanksgiving (in 3.5 short weeks!) and Christmas! Before I know it, I'll be flying home for the break. I will say that my first 3 months in Alaska have been an unforgettable adventure that has opened my eyes to a completely new and exciting part of the world.  I have learned so much about my students and their culture as well as myself. I can't wait to see what the future holds for me here up north!

Bye for now :)