I'm glad you're not dead

Last Wednesday I had two new experiences. Now I like new experiences, but I didn't like needing these new experiences.
I woke up last Wednesday at 5:33 am, 12 minutes before my alarm. I didn't notice anything unusual until I went to pull my hair in a ponytail. I realized that my arm hurt way too much to have just pulled my hair up, but I didn't think much of it and headed to the pool. After I got to the pool I changed and showered. I realized while I was showering that my right arm REALLY hurt. As I walked to the pool deck I reached across my body to start the swimming app on my phone and realized my hand and arm were swollen and purple. I stopped one of my coworkers who is also the lifeguard and we discussed potential allergy related causes, but found nothing that made sense. I swam one lap and felt the pain all the way to my arm pit. I still swam (although not nearly as far as usual), but I stopped a bit early and showered. Then with my coworker advising me to call the emergency number for the clinic I did and made an 8 am appointment.
After taking my stuff to school and speaking to my principal (my workday begins at 8 am, but classes don't start until 9 am) I went over to the clinic. While I was waiting to be seen (they usually don't start seeing patients before 9 unless its urgent), the power went off. Thankfully the clinic had an emergency generator that kicked in (the power was only off for about 15 minutes so it was back on before I left). The doctor was concerned that I had a blood clot in my arm , but we don't have the imaging equipment for her to check. Additionally, there were no seats available on the commercial flights (I live in community that has no roads connecting it to anywhere else. In the summer there's a barge bringing vehicles and supplies, but otherwise everything pretty much come via air). Luckily I have medevac insurance. For $49 a year I got a membership with a medevac company. Then, if I need to be medevaced they will accept my insurance company's payment as payment in full with my having no out-of-pocket expenses. Best $50 I ever spent.I left the clinic around 9:15 am. I had given the doctor my cell phone number and she was going to call the medevac company and then let me know when they were arriving. I went back to school, filled in a few people (I had already called my principal and so he had gotten a sub). My principal drove me home and later arranged transportation of my four-wheeler home. I packed a bag and laid down. After a while, the doctor called and told me the plane was scheduled to land at 11:07. I called the school and left word so that my principal would pick me up. He picked me up a little after 10:30 for the 10 minute drive to the airport. We parked on the side of the apron and waited for the plane to arrive. Around the time the runway lights came on (which happens when the plane is, I believe, 5 miles out), the doctor arrived and parked beside us. The plane landed and drove onto the apron. The doctor then drove out to the plane and we followed. My principal carried my backpack and the three of us met two flight nurses on the ground outside the plane.

Not the plane I flew in because I was too busy to think to take a picture, but a similar one.

 There was also more snow on the ground than this picture shows.

Since the problem was with my right side the nurses shook my right hand and confirmed with me and the doctor what was going on (They also asked my principal if he was going with me. I replied, "No, he's my boss." He then asked them which one was going to stay and sub for me). One of the nurses got on the plane and adjusted the stretcher. Then I climbed on. They put the stretcher in as upright of a position as it would go and strapped me in around my lab and on two spots on  my legs. All in all two pilots, two flight nurses and a plane all came out to pick up little ole me.
Taking off felt weird. I have flown a lot, but I've never faced backward nor been reclined during take-off. After we were airborne and the plane had warmed up, I took off my coat and they hooked me up to a blood pressure machine and a pulse ox. Unfortunately, my good side was against the window and so this made it a bit difficult, but we made it work. At some point something got messed up with the blood pressure cuff and it got a really low reading. As a result the next time it tightened up so much that it hurt. The results were still wonky so they switched to a cuff on my forearm.
A little less than an hour later after we landed, one of the nurses grabbed my bag and we walked into a garage with several vehicles. I climbed in the back of an ambulance with one of the nurses while the other one drove. She told me I could sit anywhere so I sat on the chair (NOT the stretcher) and she sat on the bench. After the ambulance warmed up (it is winter in Alaska after all), I took off my coat so that she could get my blood pressure. (By the way, if you didn't figure it out the ambulance ride was the second new experience).
We arrived at the emergency department of Fairbanks Memorial Hospital where they were expecting me. I walked in with both nurses and they told the staff who I was and why I was there. There was a room waiting for me. One nurse walked my backpack there while I signed paperwork authorizing the flight I had just taken (and the billing of my insurance company). They had to wait until I was hooked up and my vitals were taken before leaving.
It was determined that I don't have a blood clot and then I was discharged from the emergency room. A friend of mine picked me up and I stayed with her and her family through the weekend. I went to another doctor on Friday and have had many tests done. Everything looks good except for the pain, redness and swelling of my hand and arm (which have gone down greatly by this point).
On Sunday, I flew back to Galena (yes, I had to buy a plane ticket to get back home) and a friend of mine picked me up (along with the two totes of stuff I bought while I was in town) at the airport and drove me home. You might be interested to know that in Galena the person picking you up can wait in their car and see you get off the plane. Then you can get in the car and wait until the baggage comes out. It comes out on a cart that they push up to fence and then you pick up your belongings.
Galena is a small community and when you are medevaced word travels. On Monday, I returned to school and my students' reactions were quite interesting. All of them expressed they were glad I was back, but some of the said things like, "Oh you're back from the dead!" One student stood in my doorway (I don't have him this semester) and said, "Welcome back. I heard you almost died. I'm glad you're not dead" Seeing as I received no actual medical interventions I clearly did not almost die, but it was nice to have people express their concern (and the fact that they were glad I didn't die). However, the questions about what happened were so many (not just from students) that one student suggest I make a PowerPoint slide to show whenever someone asked me about it.

We don't cancel school, but sometimes things do go a little wonky.

My first period class should have 20 students. Today, I have three. I teach at a school that is a combination of the city school (Sidney Huntington School) and a boarding school (Galena Interior Learning Academy, or GILA). SHS is a k-12 school serving the students of Galena (a town of less than 500 people). GILA is a 9-12 boarding school for student from all over the state of Alaska. We hold classes on two campuses: the SHS campus (where the k-8 classes are also held) and the GILA campus which is a former Air Force Base. The two campuses are about 3 miles apart with SHS often being called the city school because, among other things, it is located inside the town of Galena while the Air Force Base is (sort of) outside the town (officially it's in, but it definitely feels out).
 In the evenings and on the weekends the dorm staff takes care of the GILA students, but during the school day they are in classes that are mixed together with the SHS students. This means that we can't cancel school because during the scheduled school day the dorm staff are sleeping. However, sometimes situations arise that require flexibility. For example last fall we had no water at the SHS building. The elementary classes were canceled, but the high school still had classes. All of the SHS teachers had to travel to the GILA campus and find locations to work. I and two other teachers were working in the dining hall. Obviously, it's not the best situation, but we make it work. It has happened this year, but sometimes the roads are too icy to transport the students. In these cases the teachers travel to GILA (if they can't make it the school provides transportation) and classes are held wherever we can find space like the day we were out of water.
 Most of the time, weather that would cause other places to cancel we consider normal. We don't blink at -20 and -30 degree  (Fahrenheit) temperatures. When it starts getting to -45 or so transportation is provided for teachers whose vehicles won't start. At -50 the local kids aren't required to go to school, but most do.
Today, however falls into the category of unusual. I woke up this morning to the sound of snow hitting the windows and the wind howling. I could feel the house shaking (granted our buildings shake a lot more because everything except the Air Force base, which is protected by dikes, is on stilts because of flooding). I wondered if this would affect school. It did. Shortly after arriving at school I heard the rumor that one of the buses had gotten caught in a snow drift. Meanwhile stories start coming in on cars being blown across the road. Most of the trouble was between the former air force base nd town because this is a wide open area (and also the location of the airport). The first bus that should have dropped off local kids ay 7:45 am arrived about 8:10 which was the same time the first bus of GILA kids arrived. The drivers said it wasn't safe to drive the route with kids, especially for the new bus (we have two buses one is new this year) and that driver was hanging around school. Meanwhile, we have an issue. It's not safe to run the buses, but we have kids on both sides who should be on the other (city kids who need to go to GILA, GILA kids who came over for swimming or other things and then GILA kids who need to go to SHS). It was announced that students would go to classes if they were on the correct side and that students on the wrong campus would find a teacher's room to go work in. Seeing as we have about 30 city kids and 230 boarding students, I know the other campus must be pretty crazy today. Life on this side is pretty easy. Most classes are averaging 3-4 students. One of the lunch ladies came into my first period class for lunch count. She told me, "It's pizza day and we have enough pizza for the whole high school and most of them aren't here." They make the pizza from scratch and its pretty good. I'm guessing there will be a lot of leftovers.
We're waiting to see if/when the weather improves and just playing the day by ear.

Life at 50 below

First, let me start that saying, yes the temperature can get to -50 degrees Fahrenheit (-45.6 C). The coldest temperature I have ever personally experienced was -65 (or so because most thermometers stop working at these temperatures).
I didn't realize how shocking this was to people until I talked to my mother today. Matter of fact, I didn't realize our temperature was quite so low. My parents were apparently out shopping today and my dad kept showing people how cold it was in Galena on his weather app. Seeing as how my parents live in North Carolina this sparked a lot of interest even from people who just overheard what he was saying. My mom texted me in the middle of class saying, "-51 brrrrrrrrr." Last time I had looked it was only -47.
At these temperatures there are a number of challenges. First, the boiling point of propane is -43.6 F (-42C). This means that at these temperatures propane is no longer a gas, but rather a liquid. Matter of fact propane pretty much stops flowing at -40 (by the way -40 F = -40C). Many of the stoves here in Galena are propane (including our school ovens) so you have to have a back-up plan. For example, school lunch was baked in the former home ec classroom ovens (we don't have home ec classes, but call the room the community kitchen and use it for a variety of purposes) which are electric.
Another issue at these temperatures is many vehicles won't start. We have engine block heaters, battery heaters, and oil pan heaters (one time in the summer I heard a couple of tourists say, "wow, so many of the cars in Alaska are electric" while pointing at the car I was traveling in. I replied, "that's not an electric car." "Why does it have a plug then?" I explained that the plug was for the engine clock heater. Here in Galena, because it gets so cold the school has plugs so that people can plug in while they're at work so that their cars will start after work. Nonetheless, at 50 below or so some cars simply won't start. Yesterday, I got a text from one of my bosses which read, "-47 but we will run a van for teacher pickup for those who need it. Otherwise school as usual. Please text if you need a ride." I didn't go to work yesterday because I was sick, but I rode the school bus to school today.
Besides propane being a liquid and vehicles not starting we have a few other interesting challenges at these temperatures. As a fly-in only community we are reliant on planes for everything. Of course these planes are affected by the usual weather conditions like visibility and winds, but they are affected by the cold. We have three types of planes that fly into Galena: Navajos, Caravans and 1900s. All three are prop planes, but they have different temperature tolerances. Navajos can only fly to -40, while Caravans and 1900s can only go to -50 (Navajos and Caravans are a lot "leakier" than 1900s so you definitely want your cold weather gear on those flights).
In Galena we also have a lot of houses (including one I'm moving into soon) that are not on piped water and sewer. The water is delivered and the sewer is a holding tank that the city will pump out. The city (we're classified as a first-class-city although with a population under 500 we think of ourselves as a village) this week posted reminders that the don't deliver water or do sewer pick-ups at temperatures lower than -40. It's supposed to be warmer tomorrow (-30 or so) and they've announced that if it in fact is warmer they will run tomorrow (Saturday) which is not a usual day for delivery without a $100 weekend surcharge.
Finally, its also too cold for garbage pickup. Here in Galena we have dumpsters around town and everyone puts their garbage in these. The city empties the dumpsters and takes the refuse to the dump, but alas it is also too cold for this equipment. Therefore, they have sent a message asking people to please hold onto their refuse until it warms up and they can empty the dumpsters. Right now the birds and animals are picking open the garbage and making a big mess of it (the dumpsters close, but as they get too full people usually stack the garbage next to the dumpsters).

So, as you can see life at -50 has some unusual challenges. There are also some interesting observations. At about -30 you can feel your nose hairs sticking together, but at -50 the air just burns. At these temperatures plastic cables and other things that are usually soft can snap and fabric becomes stiff and crinkly. While most of you are probably thinking "ugh, why do you live in a place like this?" Despite the challenges I really like it here in Galena and I invite anyone to come and visit (although I won't be offended if you chose to come at a warmer time). It's supposed to really warm up on Sunday and into the early part of next week. Sunday has a forecast high of 0F, Monday 6F and Tuesday 9F. I don't trust forecasts more than a day out (and I'm not even sure I trust them that far out here because the temperatures and the forecast simply don't appear to align), but if we really do get to +9F it will feel truly warm.

Lost in the dark

I'm going to start this post off by reassuring you that I was not lost in the dark. We just started having yoga classes at my school. The yoga classes are for anyone in the community, but they are held in my school building (actually starting tomorrow they will meet in my classroom). It's a small community )not counting the 230 or so boarding students, it's a town of less than 500 people, accessible only by bush plane) and so like any small community (at least in rural Alaska) the school is the lifeblood of the community. I had only done yoga once before, a little more than 13 years ago and it was in Chinese. I'm not the biggest fan of yoga (although actually I did rather enjoy it last night), but this is the only group exercise class here in Galena (we do have a swimming pool though so I do lap swims Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings and now Yoga Tuesday and Thursday evenings).
By the time yoga ended we were approaching dark (next week when we are no longer on daylight saving time it will definitely be dark before yoga ends at 6 pm) and I needed to talk to the custodian and gather up my things before starting home on my four-wheeler. I put on my winter gear (coat and rain paints - because it isn't cold enough for my snow pants yet) since the temperature was somewhere in the teens and then went outside to start my four-wheeler and get it warming up while I finished putting on my gear (hat, gloves, scarves). I then drove about 2-3 miles home.
When I got home I reached in my pocket for my keys and they weren't there. Panic set in. I raced back to school thinking I had probably dropped them in the parking lot when I pulled my gloves out of my pocket. Unfortunately, it was mostly dark by the time I got back to school. I looked through the parking lot, but couldn't find them. I went back into the building (which was still open because there was middle school basketball practice going on in the gym). The custodian had closed my door when he finished so I couldn't get into my classroom, but I share a back porch with two other classrooms. One has the entrance directly across from mine and was clearly locked so I went to the other on. That teacher had a post-it note on the door which said not to disturb him unless you were his wife. Obviously, I'm not his wife, but I walked in anyway. He was apparently taking part in a webinar or something. I simply told him, "I know I'm not your wife, but I can't find my keys" as I walked though his classroom, through the porch and then into my classroom. I checked my desk (hoping I'd simply forgotten to pick them up) and the drawer where my four-wheeler key had been (hoping I'd dropped them when I picked it up, but no luck.
I then started driving slowly back toward home checking for my keys. Part-way there I had some other thoughts of where they might be at school (I really couldn't figure out how they could have fallen out mid-route). I went back to school, looking once more in the parking lot before going back into my classroom (I had left the door cracked open just in case) and checked on the floor around my desk. I thought, "maybe I missed my pocket altogether." Still, no keys. I pulled the door shut and drove home at 10 mph searching the ground the whole way. The further I got the larger the pit in my stomach grew. I got home and knew I had to find our how to get a new key because I couldn't get into my apartment. I live in a building that use to be the officers' quarters when it was an air force base and the students from the boarding school live in the next building in what used to be the enlisted mens' quarters. I walked over the student dorms and explained what happened to the front desk and asked the lady working there if she knew who I needed to talk to. She did and his office was just down the hall (the answer was the director of residence life). By this point it has been more than an hour since I left school the first time. I'm cold, hungry (it's 7:20 pm), frustrated and depressed. Luckily, the director was able to find another set of keys (both front door and my suite), but he did have to walk over there with me (not that he complained a bit).
After I got into my apartment, I sent my principal a text message telling him that I had lost my keys. My heart was in my stomach. He never answered and I don't think I slept too well last night. This morning while I was swimming I could feel the tension in my shoulders. After getting to work I went to talk to my principal. He was really cool about it and really calmed me down. He asked me what keys they were and what they looked like and then told me we'd try to find my keys and if we didn't we'd get me some more keys. I still wasn't happy about losing my keys, but at least the panic subsided.
My principal asked me where I thought I had lost them and I told him that I thought they had probably fallen out of my pocket in the parking lot when I took my gloves off, but in the dark I couldn't find them. He said what I'd been thinking which was to check the parking lot once it got light again. Unfortunately, school starts at 9 am (I start work at 8 am) and this time of year it isn't light yet by 9 am. However, partway through first period he came into my classroom and tossed me my keys. I started to ask where he found them, but then I realized there was still snow and water on them.
I was so happy to have my keys back! What had started as a rough day became a good day. We had an early dismissal (at 2 pm) and then a community Halloween Carnival (in the school gym) from 3-5. I don't live in an area where people can go trick-or-treating, but apparently all the local kids go. One of my friends had invited me over to pass out candy at her place, but after yesterday I was too tired and so I didn't go (plus I'm presenting about China tomorrow night and so I will have a really long day tomorrow and still have to finish preparing my presentation).

Sometimes you just have to be flexible

This morning I went into work and was expecting it to be business as usual. I had my mind on what we were going to do in my chemistry class, but when I walked into my classroom I saw a couple of test papers sitting on my desk. The tests were for a World Geography class and one of my academic support students had taken them yesterday. I decided I should immediately get them into the interdepartmental mail (World Geography is taught on our other campus) and so I went to the office to do that. I'd never sent anything via interdepartmental mail before so I asked the principal how to do so. He was speaking with the assistant principal, but that isn't an unusual thing so I didn't think anything of it. He told me the drop box was in the district office so after I filled out the envelope (I did know how to do that it was more that I didn't know where the envelopes or the drop box were), I headed to the district office. I asked the ladies there where the box was a popped it into the bin. Then my day began to change.
One of the ladies, C, told me that we had no water and wouldn't for at least six hours. I replied that I'd been at the doctor's office one time when they lost water and had to shut down. Surely, as a school we couldn't, by law, have school without water. I, then told me that in the past when we were notified in advance school was canceled. C and I told me that they would still have to work, but they thought school would probably be canceled. I went back to my classroom to work because no matter what happened, I had plenty of work to do.
As I was working I got an alert of my watch. It was through my app for the local radio station and it said, "No school at SHS in Galena today due to water issues." At first this excited me because I could really use an extra day off. Then I went to talk to my coworker, K. We hadn't heard anything official yet, but she suspected we would have to go over to the other campus and hold classes there. That didn't seem possible to me, but I started think we might still have to do something on the other side (that's how the campuses are always referred to as this side and the other side, depending on where you are when you say it).
I went back to my classroom to continue working and then a few minutes later the principal came in to officially tell me the plan. We would go over to the other campus and basically babysit the kids when they didn't have classes for the other side. He asked me if I had any educational movies that would still hold the students' interest and I said I had The Boy in the Plastic Bubble. So I was going to head over there soon and pick up the movie on the way (I actually live in an apartment on "that" side).
Now you might be wondering, "didn't she post about a message saying school was canceled?" Well, I did, but it isn't that simple. The elementary school (prek-8)was canceled. The high school is actually two schools run sort of like they are two schools, but at the same time run like they are one school. Officially in Galena we have two schools (the Galena City School District also runs a boarding school and some of those kids live in Galena as well): Sidney Huntington School (the aforementioned SHS) and Galena Interior Learning Academy, better known as GILA. SHS is a prek-12 school for kids who live in Galena. GILA is a public boarding high school for students from anywhere in the state of Alaska. While the campus in town gets called SHS and the campus that was made from an old Air Force base gets called GILA the reality is the high school students enrolled in SHS and the high school students enrolled in GILA attend classes together and on both campuses. Thus, there are two issues with canceling the high school classes: 1) Only part of their classes are without water and 2) 230 of our 265 students live in a dorm. When they are not in class they have resident advisors and dorm aides who look after them. However, since this was a scheduled school day they are almost all off duty (there's one who runs the wellness room for sick kids and someone who runs the front desk, but otherwise it's an empty building during the school day). There's nowhere we can send them "home" to if we cancel school.
Thus, I took my papers and my computer to the other campus. I had just arrived and was about to head to my apartment to get my DVD when my principal stopped me. Change in plan. He'd had students asking about where I was because they wanted to ask questions on how to do academic things. He decided he was going to set me up in the dining hall and have me help students during the periods that they had me. Unfortunately, I had brought no books nor whiteboards (I have individual whiteboards that I use a lot during academic support since in academic support I am helping individual kids with whatever they need help on, mostly math). The dining hall director had a big easel pad of paper (because the GILA side is an old Air Force base the buildings are all separate buildings so the dining hall isn't next to any classrooms) and the art teacher was going to be working in the dining hall as well having the kids were on some art projects. She had some markers.
As the day progressed it eventually morphed into the kids attending their regularly scheduled classes in a variety of different locations. For the classes we made due with what we had available (Which was sometimes difficult because often the kids don't carry books around. For example the have a copy of their math textbook in their dorm room and then use another copy in class. I have additional copies in my classroom that they use when they come to academic support). Sometimes we had to get creative. For example, I had a student who needed to work on Algebra II. He didn't have a book, but one student had a book. So he used his phone and took pictures of the problems that he needed so he could work (actually several students did this). In another case a student needed to study for a trigonometry quiz (I was helping her). We started with practicing the problems on a worksheet she had previously done, but had with her and then I googled worksheets on the material she was studying and we used those problems to help her study.
Lunch was a bit challenging. Normally only about half of the students eat lunch on each side. Today all the students and staff ate lunch in the GILA dining hall. We started lunch ten minutes early serving the kids who were already in the dining hall first. Then the kids were dismissed to lunch by building to stagger their arrival in the dining hall. The food was a wider variety of items because more people had to be fed then were planned on. The dining hall manager kept encouraging people to leave the dining hall as soon as they finished eating. Before long we ran out of trays and people had to just balance their food in their hands (they were served in disposable serving dishes, but the individual items had to be balanced). Then, we ran out of seats and people were told to take plastic cutlery and eat outside in the grass (thankfully it was a sunny warm day, although warm is relative. The high today was about 55 F which for Alaska in October is quite warm). After a while she was kicking everyone out because they had to get the tables cleaned off to turn the dining hall back into classrooms (there were three classes, including mine, using the dining hall as their classrooms).
By the end of the day I had filled pages and pages (front and back) of the easel pad with lots of math and a decent amount of chemistry. Sometimes I had two or more students working simultaneously on different parts of the page (and on different subjects), but overall it worked.
After school was over I had a student asking me if first period academic support would be in the dining hall tomorrow morning. I told him the water was supposed to be back on by 2 pm (school ends at 3:55) so hopefully everything would be back to normal tomorrow. When I went to the SHS campus at 4:30, there it was still without water. I do hope everything will be back to normal tomorrow, but if not, I now know what I need to make the day more successful. I think everyone has learned enough that tomorrow will be an educational day even if we still have no water.

So many boxes

I received a box with a six-month supply of contacts (I wear daily lenses so this is 320 lenses), but when I went to put the away in the bathroom I ran into a problem. When I got home, I opened the box while sitting at the table. However, the first box I found on the table contained light bulbs. The next box contained garbage bags and a third box contained canned lychees. I finally found the contacts on the floor beside the table. However on the floor was also a box of picture frames. By this point you are probably wondering, "what in the world? Why does she have so many boxes and why hasn't she put anything away?" Let me explain. First of all, as my fellow Bush residing friends can attest I can't just go out to the store and buy things.  Here in Galena we have two general stores and hardware store. The stores do a really good job trying to keep things stocked, but it's neither easy nor cheap. For examples eggs cost $10 for 18 (I think it's $8 for 12). Milk is somewhere around $10-12 a gallon (I don't drink milk so I don't know) and a loaf of bread is $10. Additionally, one store sells gasoline for $6.95 a gallon while the other is $7.50 per gallon. Thus, while I buy gas and some other things, I try to buy as much as possible when I'm in Anchorage (or if I go to Fairbanks, Fairbanks; it's closer to here) and otherwise I order things.

 I order a box of veggies every other week that arrives on Friday or Saturday depending on when the cargo plane gets here (its supposed to be Friday, but it often isn't). When I lived in Kobuk I used Full Circle Farms which is out of Seattle, but now I'm using the Alaska Food Network (AFN) which is based in Anchorage. I like AFN better because not only can I customize the size of each box I can include things like eggs, tortillas, and other things (depending on what they have available that week) as part of my standard order (with Full Circle Farms I could only add it on top of my order, thus adding to the cost). I also like the fact that AFN has (at least this time of year) Alaska Grown produce. I'm still shipping my vegetables a long way, but not all of them are coming from out of state. 

Most of the rest of the items I buy I order online. Walmart charges a HUGE shipping fee to Alaska and a lot of staples of Amazon only ship prime pantry which doesn't ship to Alaska. Thus, I order things as a combination of Amazon and Target (who does ship free to Alaska, even rural Alaska). However, each of these choices comes with some trade-offs. Target often has better prices, but they only ship UPS. You might be wondering, "how is that a negative?" The problem is UPS only goes as far as Fairbanks. Once it gets to Fairbanks it is transferred to Ravn (a bush airline) and marked as delivered. However, it's not really delivered. Now it is simply sitting in Fairbanks. Ravn throws everything in a pile and they carry out the UPS delivery at the lowest priority (their own cargo shipping and all postal service shipping are higher priority). This means that your boxes may sit in Fairbanks for weeks. Ravn is also the airline that transports all 260 of our boarding school students so when the students arrived in town a few weeks ago that backed all the cargo up and I have a pile of boxes that say they've been delivered, but as far as I know they are sitting in Fairbanks. I say "as far as I know", because Target doesn't always put a phone number on the box and so I won't necessarily get notification (although last week they tracked me down through the school to let me know). Unfortunately, once the package arrives in Galena, I still don't have it. I have to go to Ravn and pick it up, but Ravn is open 10 am - 4 pm. I work a couple miles away from Ravn and I work 8-4. This means I can only pick packages up on Saturdays and Sundays (if it was really important I sure I could go during my planning, but I only have one every other day).

Thus, if Amazon will ship the item to a P.O. box in Alaska, that's the best choice (some things only ship to physical addresses which means it come UPS), but we're still not home-free. Best case scenario, the post office is open Monday-Friday 2-5 pm. Last week however, the post office was closed Tuesday-Friday. Monday was Labor Day so it was closed Monday as well. By the time it opened on Tuesday I had a HUGE pile of boxes (which I have then been too busy to entirely unpack and put away). Next week the post office will be open on Monday (and I think Friday), but then it will closed until the following Friday. There's a part-time opening at the post office. If anyone wants to move to Galena and work part-time at the post office many of us would be eternally grateful.

Now before you think, "she's crazy for living there," I should say there are a lot of positives including a really great community. On Monday we had an awesome Ag Fair which I hope to write a post about soon and on Sundays we have a potluck lunch after the church service each week. Also people share with each other. Many people have gardens and they share their bounty and others share their fish and hunted meat. Despite all the negative things mentioned it does seem to be a really nice place to live.

A hilarious series of errors

So if you read my last post you probably realize that by now I have arrived in Galena. I haven't made any posts on Galena itself and I will later, but I want to share a hilarious series of events that had me in stitches today.
On Wednesday we started new teacher in-service and this afternoon while I was in the meetings one of the administrators came and told me that the business office didn't have my direct deposit information which is super important because we get our first paycheck (plus our signing bonuses on the 15th). It's also super important because Galena doesn't have any banks (although remote deposit on my phone does make that a lot better than when I lived in a village prior to remote deposit and mobile banking apps). We called the business office and it was discovered that they did have my direct deposit form, but I had made a mistake on my health insurance form and needed to fix that. One of my colleagues was in fact missing her direct deposit form and so our supervisor wanted us to go to the business office to correct these issues right away. The only problem was that our school is on two campuses that are about three miles apart (for a town of less than 500 people Galena is incredibly spread out) and the business office was of course located on the opposite campus from where our training was being held. Neither my colleague nor I have had our vehicles arrive and so since we didn't have our own transportation our supervisor pointed out the window and said, "see that Toyota? Why don't you two take that and go together. The keys are in the car." Our supervisor went back into the training, we picked up some things from our seats and then headed out to the car. When we got out there we realized there were two Toyotas side by side and we each thought he had been pointing to a different car. I said, "well, he said the keys were in the car..." and proceeded to look for keys hanging from the ignition. The left car had keys in the ignition and the right one didn't. So we got into the left car. My co-worker just didn't feel it looked right and we were a bit afraid we were going to take off in the wrong car so we looked around and I found a piece of mail laying face down on the console. I picked it up, turned it over and discovered it was addressed to another district employee (at least it was one we knew). We laughed and climbed out of the car. At this point my coworker wanted me to drive (originally she had wanted to drive) and I replied, "no way, I'm not driving now." We went back to the car on the right and I discovered there was a set of keys in the cupholder. We started toward the new part of town where the other school is located, but I still felt a bit nervous. I looked through the glove compartment and breathed a sigh of relief when I discovered the insurance car which said that the car was insured by the Galena City School District.
We got to the new part of town and discovered another problem. Neither of us had done any driving and we didn't actually know how to get to the school. I thought we should turn right on the road that went past one of the local stores that I recognized, but after we turned I thought we were wrong so we went back the other way. After a while we're both going, "I've never seen this before" and decide we've gone the wrong way. We go back to the original road and in fact find the school.
We take care of our business and head back to the car. I don't know what was going through our minds, but I suspect it was my fault. In the district office we had picked up a medium sized flat rate box (not a very big box if you're not familiar with U.S. priority mail boxes) that I had shipped. The box weighs a very surprising 47 pounds 6.2 ounces and is not easy to carry. I think because I was struggling with the box I walked to the first car, put the box in the back seat and climbed in the passenger seat. My coworker followed (if this isn't how it actually transpired, I'll still accept the responsibility). We started driving back to the GILA campus and my coworker is like, "is this the right car?" Then the seat belt alarms started chiming (no one in Galena wears a seat belt) and my coworker said, "It didn't do this on the way." I look in the glove compartment and don't see the insurance card where I left it. Finally I found it, but it was buried under other documents. I was starting to worry we were in the wrong car, but after finding an insurance card registered again to the Galena City School District I reassured myself. Right after I finished reassuring myself, my coworker tells me she had to move the seat when she got in. At that point, I exclaim, "We are in the wrong car!" I remembered that we got into a car parked near the stairs leading into the school, but when we had arrived two other employees and been parked over there in a truck and I had watched them get out. The view was wrong to have been parked anywhere near where we grabbed this car from. My coworker also pointed out that the keychain was bit different. We drive back to school and I'm dying from laughter and embarrassment, park the car where we found it and walk over to the correct car. As we approach I notice the window is rolled down and remember I that I had left the window rolled down. My coworker found jacket on the seat. Laughing all the way we drove the correct car back to campus stopping at my apartment to drop off the really heavy box. We got back just after the training session wrapped up for the day.

Final countdown

Tonight at dinner my aunt asked me if I was packed [for Galena]. I just looked at her. She then said, "What am I talking about you still have..." "3 days I replied." She counted them out and determined I had three more days and four more nights before I depart. My flight is on Monday at 6:00 am.
I have actually achieved quite a lot, but it feels like a never-ending list. I have had a physical, filled out a million new-hire documents, ordered transcripts, and requested a new copy of my teacher certification (I have to give the district an original copy and my previous district kept my original district copy of my certification). Last Saturday I shipped nine Rubbermaid Roughneck totes and this week on bought a Yamaha Kodiak 450. I pretty excited about the machine. I arranged shipping through the Yamaha dealer. They have a contract with Everets Air Cargo which supposedly gives me a better rate and they will deliver the four-wheeler to Everets, fill out the Hazmat form as well as the waybill. I was pleased with the shipping rate. The total to ship (by air) was $766.79. I was figuring it would be somewhere well over a $1000 so this was a nice surprise (The total to ship my totes was about $285; a decent price in my opinion as well). I still have a number of things to do, including, but not limited to: shopping for groceries, packing said groceries and changing my cell phone provider. When I lived in the bush before (if you go to my earliest blog posts they are about living in the village of Kobuk in the Northwest Arctic Borough) I had GCI as my cell phone provider. GCI is by far the best provider for Bush Alaska (matter of fact in many villages it is the only provider), but it's an Alaskan cell phone (and cable and Internet) provider and so when I was living in Los Angeles I switched to AT&T. From what I've been told AT&T has voice service in Galena, but not data. GCI has 3G.
 For those of you who are accustomed to always having 4G or LTE this probably doesn't sound good, but it makes me quite happy. When I lived in Kobuk the service was only GPRS. I would click on a page and then go brush my teeth or do other chores before coming back to check and see if the page had loaded. Internet service in Kobuk was also really slow (and rather expensive) so I didn't bother to get Internet (I just used the school's Internet - the school was about 40 yards from my house) and my GPRS connection. When I moved to Nome the wireless and Internet service both improved, but neither was what you would consider good. When I arrived in Nome GCI wireless has Edge service. I also paid $70 a month for 1 Mbps Internet with a data cap of 10 GB per month. While I was in Nome the Internet improved. I still paid $70/month, but my speed increased to 3 Mbps. My data connection also improved. Nome upgraded to 3G (at the time AT&T still only had Edge so it was nice to be able to access the Internet better than my friends on AT&T). I'll have to see what I can get for Internet, but it seems that the possibilities are better in Galena today then they were in Nome a few years ago. Data is without a doubt better (and cheaper) so I'm not worried about that. Also, I should be able to port my number since it was originally a GCI number, if I can't things will be tough because my phone number is on so many things...
The other big thing I need to do is go grocery shopping. One of the things everyone who lives in the Bush does when they come into town is go grocery shopping (matter of fact it isn't unusual for high school students coming for sports and other reasons to shop for their families). I will stock up on meat, veggies and other perishable items which will undoubtedly be really expensive. Here is a link to my blog on prices in Kotzebue (back in 2011). I will pack the items into Rubbermaid totes because among other things they weigh only three pounds, much less than a suitcase. They are also easier to handle and tend to fit better on bush planes as well. I meant to take a picture of my totes as we took them to the airport last Saturday, but I forgot. Nonetheless, you can read about (and see pictures) of when I shipped to Kobuk. Looking back on my shipping to Kobuk post I see that 1) I packed things other than totes 2) it was raining when we went to the airport and 3) there were lots of people. I must say this year I shipped only totes (I've learned they are much, much better) and the day I shipped my totes this year was a sunny day. Also, I guess since it was still July at the time the post office wasn't crowded at all. Anchorage requires you to take shipments of boxes greater than two to the airport post office. The airport post office has a hand truck customers can use, but it can also get really busy. We went shortly after the post office opened and there was no one there. It was easy and quick to ship everything.
I'll get to Galena on Monday and start settling in. Hopefully, by the end of next week, I will be more settled and can start focusing on the start of the school year.

Isn't she beautiful?

Here are a few other pictures from this summer...

Anchorage is home to Lake Hood the world's largest seaplane base.

This picture was taken at 11:17 pm.

Obtaining a Chinese Work Visa part II

I returned from my trip to Europe last Tuesday (I will try to write up more on my European adventures and my trip this past weekend to North Pole later) and immediately began working on my Z visa again. While I had been overseas the Chinese State Administration for Expert Affairs had granted my working permit and my school had created my Invitation of Duly Authorized Unit. The school said that copies of these documents would be sufficient, but from what I read I needed the originals and since I was in Europe anyway and couldn't do anything with the documents I requested that they ship me the originals and so they did. Thus, when I arrived home last Tuesday my documents were waiting for me and I immediately began to complete the paperwork for my z visa application.
The paperwork for the application is rather complicated and when you have just gotten off a major international flight lack of sleep makes it even more difficult! It took me two hours to complete paperwork that I imagine if I was thinking straight I could have completed in half an hour. While I was working on the application forms my aunt texted me and asked if I wanted to join the family for dinner. I replied that I was hungry, but I couldn't because I was working on my application form. She read between the lines that this meant that I was struggling and called. I lost it. I was so tired I simply couldn't think straight and felt like I was losing my mind.
My aunt came over and helped me work my way through the forms (I had actually just completed them before she arrived, but she helped me go through them and make sure everything was correct). Then she drove me all around town. First to the bank to get a cashier's check (to pay for the visa and the visa processing center) then to the UPS store because I thought that I could get the passport photo I needed there and then immediately ship it out. Turns out UPS stores in Alaska no longer do passport photos (I had gotten the picture and shipped it out directly from a UPS store the last time I applied for a Chinese visa). So then we are googling places that make passport photos. I don't even remember where we went (everything is a bit of blur), but I do know that it was a really awful photo (not only was I not allowed to smile, but after traveling for 3.5 weeks and then being up for over 24 hours I looked beat). We got to the UPS store (again) and it turns out that the deadline for shipping was 2:30 in the afternoon (because everything from Alaska has to go by plane) and seeing as how my plane had landed at 2:30 I couldn't have completed everything in time. Perhaps I should have just completed everything the next morning.
As a result, my documents did not make it to the visa processing center until Thursday morning. Just after I woke up I received an email telling me that my application was on hold! I had a couple of problems with my application. On problem was the processing company said that I needed a third document from the school. I emailed the school thinking that there was no way I would even hear from them because it was 11:30 pm in China. I did hear back from the school who insisted I had all the documents I needed while the visa processing company said I didn't. I didn't know what to do so I decided to take the processing company's suggestion of applying at a different consulate. I was really concerned though because my documents said which consulate I was supposed to submit to (if I hadn't agreed the agency would have probably simply shipped my documents back to me because they will not submit the documents if you do not meet what they consider the requirements. At this point I would have then had to fly to Los Angeles and submit my application myself) and now I was submitting them to another consulate. The visa processing company said they had had this exact situation before and it had been fine, but I held me breath for the next five days.
On Friday, they submitted my documents to the Chinese Consulate and then today (Tuesday) when I woke up I saw through the online check that my visa had been granted. Later, I received an email with the FedEx shipping information. My passport should be here by 10:30 am tomorrow. I will feel much better when I have it in my hand.
Meanwhile, I found the flights that I want to take to Beijing and submitted the information to the school. They submitted it to the travel agency (they are booking our tickets through a travel agency for us so that we don't have to front that much cash - last minute tickets to China are rather expensive). Hopefully, if everything works out I will be flying to Beijing next Monday to start my next adventure.

Update: my visa arrived! Here's a redacted photo of it.

Becoming an elite traveler

On Monday I completed the steps to receive Global Entry for the next five years. After I returned from my interview my grandmother told me that I had entered the ranks of being an elite traveler and thus why I named this blog post what I did.
When I originally started this blog I was writing about teaching in a village in the arctic. I posted about daily life and also things about packing because I knew that one of the things I had done was read as many blogs about this as I could as I was deciding to go. Now I read blogs on a lot of topics related to living abroad and so I am writing today's post because one of the things I couldn't find much about was the global entry program.
The global entry program is for people who enter the United States frequently and allows them to bypass the lines and go to a special kiosk to do their processing. One of the things I learned in my interview was that when I enter using global entry I do not have to fill out the card on the plane. There are four questions I will answer on the kiosk and then it will print out everything I need. The fee for applying is $100 regardless of whether your application is approved and before I spent $100 applying I wanted to know that it was worth it. So I spoke to my brother-in-law and also a student (this one actually came about because I was asking a co-worker and he was nearby), both of whom have global entry. It seemed worth it, especially because for that same 5 year period I also get TSA precheck. Thus, I applied.
The whole process was really quite simple. The first step was an online application that you could save and come back to finish as you had time. The only difficulty here was as a teacher my contracts have expired usually in May (my most recent one was in June) and my new contracts (when I switched jobs) didn't start until August. The system would not allow you to leave any type of gap and so for each of those, I had to put down unemployed (really irking because I wasn't REALLY unemployed). The other catch was similar with addresses. I left each of the schools in the bush in May but didn't move to the new location until August. This meant that I did not have an address for June and July of those years. Thankfully, I had mostly stayed with my grandmother and I put her address down. It probably wasn't a big deal, but I was concerned about my application being rejected if I wasn't completely and utterly honest, but at the same time some of my situations are shall we say, unique.
I'm not completely sure how long it took, but I think about a week later I received notification that my application had been conditionally accepted. Now I needed to schedule an interview to finish the process. Unfortunately, there was nothing available in Los Angeles until after I departed for Anchorage. I had wanted to have the process finished before I left for Anchorage so that I would have TSA pre-check. There were openings as early as the next day for Anchorage and so I scheduled my interview for a day when I would be in Anchorage and I thought it would be convenient.
 My interview was scheduled for this past Monday at 10:30 am. On Sunday evening I was reading over the list of what to bring and I got rather concerned. I was supposed to bring proof of address. I had filled out my address correctly, but I had moved since then. Therefore, I put together a collection of documents to demonstrate my residency at both locations. I even added a bank address change notification to the pile. All because I was concerned they would reject my application.
The next morning I woke up hours early and tried googling this process and found very little information.
Thus, I left early, quite nervous. There was no need to be nervous.
I arrived at the office about 20 minutes early. I checked in and was directed to wait. I waited 5-10 minutes and then was called back into an office. She asked for my notification letter if I had it. She said if I hadn't printed it, it would be okay, my passport and my driver's license. I gave her all three documents and then I told her that I wasn't sure what to do because my address had changed from when I filled out the application and I wasn't sure what needed to be done about that. She told me it was no problem. It did cause here a little bit of trouble in some extra steps to change my address, but otherwise no issue. She asked me some pretty standard questions about any convictions, and other mundane questions (sorry I don't remember). Then she took my fingerprints using a small fingerprint scanner connected to her computer. The fingerprints were easier than most I've had because I only had to do four fingers of 1 hand together, then four fingers of the other hand and finally my two thumbs together. Next, my fingerprints were sent to the FBI somewhere on the east coast (my how technology has changed things) for approval while she explained how the program worked. I was approved a few minutes later and finished. I will receive in the mail a card to use if I cross into the U.S. on foot (not very likely people don't usually cross the Alaska/Canada border on foot and I don't see myself crossing the border from Mexico, but you never know..) and when I renew my passport, since it will expire before my global entry does, I will have to go to a processing center and have them scan my new passport. I won't need an appointment and it should only take about a minute. I received a number to use as a known traveler number for getting TSA pre-check and I was finished. My worry, concern and inability to sleep had all been for naught.

My rather tired passport. It will be getting quite a workout soon!

When life gives you lemons...

When life gives your lemons... you watch hockey. Okay, Okay, I know that's not how the saying goes. A couple of week's ago one of my students excitedly found me at school and told me he was going to Alaska for a hockey tournament (he is on the same team as 3 other students of mine). I asked him for details, and while he didn't know a lot of the details he knew the dates of the tournament and I realized that while I would be in Alaska during the tournament, I would be in Nome. I told him it was too bad that I couldn't be there, but I already had tickets to Nome.
After my flight to Nome was canceled for a second time thanks to Mt. Pavlof, I decided it would be better to cancel my trip altogether. Tuesday's morning and afternoon flights were both canceled and I was rescheduled for Wednesday evening. Unfortunately, this flight would put me into Nome basically three days later than I planned. With the danger of the eruptions continuing and my having to be back at work in Los Angeles on Monday, I thought it was a better idea to just cancel altogether (Alaska refunded me the Nome portion of my plane fare). Of course, this meant I now was in Anchorage during the hockey tournament, but I didn't know anything about it. Google to the rescue. I found out the National 14U hockey championships were in Anchorage. I didn't know which team my students played for, but there was only one Los Angeles team on the schedule - LA jr Kings. So I went to the game today.

Not sure why I thought I should take a picture of the welcome to Anchorage sign. I've never in my life been able to truthfully say I've never been to Anchorage.

I quickly figured out which players were my students (with all that gear on it's not as easy as it might seem), but the first period was really sad. Thankfully the second period was better and in the third period, they tied the score at 1-1. Regulation time ended with a tied score and so the game went into a five-minute overtime. After overtime, the score was still tied so the game went to a best of five shoot-out. The first player from the LA jr Kings to shoot was my student and he score a great goal. They won during the shoot-out. It was great fun to watch my students win the game!
After the game, I wanted to see them (among other things so that they would know that I had come) so I went down to the area where they would come out when they left the locker room to wait. As I was waiting I overheard comments at the table run by the Anchorage visitors' center. Being me I chimed into a conversation about Alyeska (a ski resort in Girdwood). The hockey mom in the conversation mentioned the time of her children's game tomorrow and I realized she must be a Kings' mom. I told her who I was and she was super excited. It was kind of funny of the four students (2 are twins) I had only met 1 of the 6 parents (although I had emailed with some of the others). She introduced me to the parents, including one who was one of the coaches. They were all really excited that I was there (not to mentioned puzzled). After explaining that I was from Alaska and what happened with my trip to Nome one of the mom's commented that her son had told her about a teacher from Alaska. I replied, "that's me."
They took pictures of me with the boys and I had them use my phone too, but I'm not going to post that picture on here because it too clearly identifies my students.
I also met with one of my friends from Nome today as she was going through Anchorage on her way to Nome. Thus, while I was sad my trip to Nome didn't work out I have had some good times and neat opportunities (after all it's not every day a teacher in California watches her students play hockey in Alaska).

It's rather difficult to take a clear photo with the speed at which they move.

Preparing to shoot - that's my student

Celebrating after they won!

Nomeward Bound... Not so fast!

I woke up this morning thinking I was going to Nome. I received a text message around 7 am telling me that my flight had been delayed 5 minutes. I thought a 5-minute delay several hours before the flight was scheduled to depart was odd, but what could I do about it? Then, at about 7:30 I received an email from Alaska Airlines telling me that Mt. Pavlof erupted yesterday and to watch the flight status. I continued to get ready while watching the flight status. Everything appeared to be fine. Grandma took me to the airport, I checked in and made it through security without a problem. About the time my flight should have started boarding they announced that the flight had been canceled due to weather. I thought the weather in Nome must have been bad because the weather in Anchorage was just fine. The announcement told us to see either a gate agent or a customer service agent (there is a customer service desk right beside the gate we were scheduled to depart from) in order to rebook our flights.
While I was waiting to rebook my flight the pilot came on the intercom and told us that the problem was the ash cloud from Mt. Palvof. She said that the ash cloud was traveling at 50 mph and that they had been told we could probably fly around the cloud and land in Nome, but the plane wouldn't be able to take off again. For those of you not familiar with flying in bush Alaska the planes turn around in towns like Nome and come back to Anchorage. There are no mechanics in Nome or other services (they do of course have a de-icer). When I got to the front of the line, the customer service agent asked me if I wanted to rebook for this afternoon or tomorrow morning. I didn't want to go through the airport mess again this afternoon and I thought if the ash cloud was headed toward Nome, but hadn't yet gotten there, there was a good chance this afternoon's flight would be canceled as well. I made the right choice. This afternoon's flight was in fact canceled.
I'm a little concerned about tomorrow's flight. On Tuesday's flight 151 (the first flight of 2 flights each day to Nome) is much earlier than it is other days. On the news tonight, they were talking about all the flights canceled (43, I believe. Not a lot for other places, but a lot for Alaska. There are 6 communities that currently are not being served) and said that the decision about whether or not tomorrow's flights would be canceled couldn't be made until after sunrise. My flight is scheduled to leave before sunrise. Tomorrow may be an interesting day. We'll have to wait and see.
I talked to my mom today after my flight was canceled, and we were talking about how it was better that I got stuck in Anchorage rather than in Nome. We were both thinking about how my colleagues in California would probably laugh if I got stuck and say something along the lines of, "Of course Kristin is the one to get stuck because of a volcano."
I'll have to wait and see whether I go to Nome at all. Mt. Pavlof is still erupting.

These photos are from ktuu.com

More of the happenings in Kobuk

Things have been so busy that I haven't really gotten around to posting much, for that I apologize.  I must admit though that during our recent spring break (2 days long) I could have come to school and posted then, but I spent much of the time just relaxing.  It was so nice to just sit back and read and so forth.  I realized on Sunday afternoon that I had ready 7 books on my Kindle!
Today was the first day of spring.  Iw as talking to my parents this afternoon and it was 80 degrees there.  We had a high of 1 degree Fahrenheit here.  As cold as that my sound that is actually in some respects a warming.  We have had warmer weather just over spring break even.  On Thursday we reached about 14 degrees above and two teachers from Shungnak walked to Kobuk.  Katie and I walked about 1.5 miles or so back with one of them (the other got a ride back on a snow machine) and then turned around and walked that far back to Kobuk.  To give you an idea of how I have acclimated, I was plenty comfortable on our walk wearing only a sweatshirt and tennis shoes.  The walk was on the Kobuk river and by this point the snow is so hard packed that I could just walk on top of it and thus how I could wear tennis shoes.
Anyway, as to some of the happenings here in Kobuk.  Several weeks ago no I had the joy of traveling 15 miles outside of Kobuk to the camp of a copule that live literally out in the middle of nowhere all year.  It was quite a fun trip. I road in a basket sled that Erin pulled behind her snow machine on the way there and in Corrine's dog sled on the way back.  The couple who have the camp have a really interesting set up.  They have electricity via solar panels.  I asked Erin, but never had a chance to askt hem about how much electricity they are able to generate in the darkest parts of the winter (after all in December the sun never fully).   They also have a satellite dish for television and one for Internet.  They don't have any running water (they use a honey bucket in the bathroom), but they do have drains and stuff in the sink.  It was really quite an interesting set up.  Quite nice too.  During the trip we also so saw so many caribou.  It was awesome.
Another neat thing that has been going on is my middle school students created a video demonstrating a video they designed to be played in space.  It was very challenging figuring out a way to demonstrate, on Earth, a game that is truly designed to be played in space.  One of my students had the fantastic idea to string things up from the ceiling.  Still, it was hilarious watching the students try to pretend they were swimming through space.  The students loved the video so much that they wanted to keep watching and watching it.  The top three games will be played on the International Space Station.  I would be so amazed if we won!  The winning team is supposed to receive a school-wide NASA party.  I don't know what that would entail, but it would be really cool to win.  I do have to wonder though because the rules specifically say that only US-based teams can win the party.  we are, of course, in the US, but we are harder to get to than most countries!  After all it takes two planes just to get to Anchorage!
Right now, as a I write I am sitting in the school "gym" (we don't really have a gym) watching videos from the National Park Service.  We have a really neat opportunity this week, we have three rangers from the National Park Service visiting us.  There is one ranger based out of Kotzebue who regularly travels to the villages in our region doing special guest classes, but we got two more: Another out of Kotzebue and one out of Fairbanks.  My high schoolers started a lesson today on medical plants and will finish tomorrow.  They are making ointments out of local plants (picked back before freeze-up and dried).  Then on Thursday they will do a neat GPS lesson as well.  I have one GPS units for the kids to use, but she was able to bring enough for each of them.  The middle schoolers had a lesson on the gold rush today and are study the auroras tomorrow and caribou on Thursday.  Additionally, they brought some films from the collection that are usually shown in Kotzebue.  The neat thing though is that Darren, who organizes the films brought us 4 films, three of which have not yet been shown in Kotzebue.  The significance of that statement might be missed by many, but you have to remember we don't usually get things first here.
Finally, now that we have past the vernal equinox we now have more daylight than anyone south of us (which of couse is most people). Already the sun doesn't set until nearly 9.  Sunrise today was at 8:23 am and sunset will be at 8:43 pm.  Add to that the fact that we have an extended twilight and we are already quite light.  In April we will gain 3 hours and 45 minutes of daylight and in May over 5 hours!

I leave you with some more pictures from around here.  Enjoy!

Me on a snow go

In the dog sled.  That's actually Rob behind it, but when we left it was Corrine driving.

You can't really see me, but I'm in the sled.

On the way home.

The surprisingly warm February (but boy was it busy!)

So it is now March first!  I can't believe it is already March first.  After an incredibly long time with cold weather that was just hovering around -50 to -60 degrees Fahrenheit sometime in February we warmed up dramatically.  We had a temperature increase of almost 90 degrees in about 24 hours!  That of course was from -60 to +30.  I don't think there are too many places where the temperature can increase by 90 degrees and still be below freezing! The warm up was so dramatic that we were all expecting the temperature to drop spectacularly again at any moment, but it held for weeks!  It was amazing.  Unfortunately, I think it also unconditioned us a bit.  As it has gotten colder it feels colder than it did before.  As I left my house this evening to come back to school it was -12 and falling.  Since midnight we have gon from -39 to +18 and are working our way back down again.
On a related but somewhat different note, the sun is definitely back.  We're approaching the equinox, something I am looking forward to because after the equinox we will have MORE daylight than most everyone else (except the few people who in fact live further north) rather than less.
So now to give a brief synopsis of all that occurred in the brief (albeit one day longer than 3/4 of the months of February) month of February.  I traveled to Kiana with my middle school basketball team for four very long and tiring days.  We were scheduled to leave Kobuk at 12:20, but left around 1:50.  That meant a lot of waiting around.  Matter of fact it started with a rush because we were in my room and heard a plane land at the airport.  The kids went hurrying out only to learn that rather than being our charter flight, it was a cargo plane (not a big Everret's one, but a smaller one from Ryan Air - these are the two companies that fly cargo out to Kobuk).  We waited outside for a while, then left our stuff at the airport and went back into the school until I talked to the Bering Air Agent and learned our plane was 14 minutes out.  At that point we went out and stayed out until the plane arrived.  We got to Kiana and had to chill in the school library because there was still about an hour left to the school day.  After that we got our room assignments (for things like this you sleep in the classrooms, usually two schools in one room with the boys on one hall and the girls on another).  The nice thing in Kiana, was they had beds for the coaches and chaperones - either chairs that folded out into beds -what I had - or air mattresses).  I always take an air mat that actually fits into my sleeping bag, but the chair/bed was much better so I let one of my players use it instead.  That afternoon at 4 the games began.  We had our first game against Kiana at 6 and it was a slaughter!  These kids were bigger, faster and just totally out-gunned my students (it didn't help that we lost three of our players in the last week before the tournament for behavior issues).  We lost 67-8!  The kids were okay out it though.
The next day we had to wait around all day while the Kiana kids were in school.  I had brought math work and we also got permission to use their computer lab so the kids did math and keyboarding in the morning.  We challenged the Selawik team to a math competition and were crushing them (my students really were the better math students), but the last question was a wager question and my students got it wrong and Selawik managed to pull out a win.  It was so sad!  In the afternoon we went around town and having seen how outclassed we were I bought some ice cream at the store for my students for after the tournament ended to cheer them up.
In the afternoon we teamed up with the Selawik kids to play an exhibition game against the Kiana girls team (the was the co-ed league tournament and neither the Selawik coach nor I wanted our kids too worn out from an exhibition game).  We lost (somewhere in the neighborhood of 38-20), but the kids had a fantastic time and really loved teaming up.  It worked well too because both schools jerseys were blue and white so we just meshed them together.  Heather (the Selawik coach and also a friend from new teacher orientation) and I also worked well together.
That evening we played Kivalina.  That was a shocking game.  Remember, this is middle school basketball.  They had girls on the team who had to be taller than me and at LEAST 50 pounds heavier than me, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that it was more.  They crushed us.  The final score was 90-6.  One of my players got injured in the game and I had to put my sub into the game.  She was 10 and in fifth grade.  She also had started playing basketball on Wednesday (remember it is Friday).  She was trying so hard, but the player she was playing defense against could simply shoot straight over her outstretched arms like she wasn't even there!  I'm afraid that defeat hurt me more than the kids.
By this point it was obvious that the two worst teams at this event were Kobuk and Selawik.  The tournament was scheduled as a round-robin followed by the top 4 (of 5) teams playing in the championship round.  I knew that the next morning's game between Kobuk and Selawik would determine which team played and which team was out.  I went to Heather and suggested that we team up for that game.  Whichever team won the Kobuk-Selawik game that coach would get to coach, but we would play both sets of players.  She agreed.  We spoke to the head of the tournament and he spoke to the Kivalina coach (because they were clearly going to be in first and first would play 4th).  I hyped up the Selawik game because I knew this was the one game that even if we lost it would be a close game and I wanted the kids to be really into it (and I wanted to win).  It was a great game.  Much more along the lines of what I was expecting for middle school basketball.  We won 24-19 and the kids were so psyched.  The game had been at 9 am with breakfast not being served until after the game, so at breakfast we call our principal and put him on speaker phone.  He went tot he school and made an announcement on the radio.  The kids all called their parents.  It was great.
Around noon we played Deering and they were great.  My team was very much outclassed, but Deering let them play.  They lost, but they came out feeling good.
At 4 the championship round began.  Heather and I told the kids there was no way they would win (if they did Kivalina would have been mad, but we all new it was impossible) and to go out and have fun.  They tried there three-pointers and any moves they wanted.  We were crushed, but they had fun and that's what counts.  After it was all over we had our ice cream and I think the kids had a very positive experience.
Since getting back there have been many other things going on as well.   Last week when we still had some warmer weather and so on Monday I road in Corrine's dog sled and on Tuesday we played Muk Ball out on the lake.  It was so much fun!  Muk ball is kind of like soccer.  Everyone is supposed to wear mukluks, but a lot of people don't have them so many people (including myself) played in boots.  The problem with that is bruised shins.  There were goals set up on either end and everyone from young children to elders played.  The game starts (and after each goal) with one person from each team holding onto each other and picking the ball up and kicking off.  Then the teams run from near their goals and start trying to kick the ball into the other goal.  There are no out-of-bounds nor any fouls.  Pretty much anything goes.  People slip (the ice was covered in many feet of snow), especially where the snow is looser and fall.  They also kick each other.  I fell at one point near the end of the game and hit my head REALLY hard!  I ended up with a headache for about 36 hours and I think I had a mild concussion, but nonetheless after sitting out for a short while I got back into the game at the last point and kicked the winning goal!  It was so much fun.
Well. my battery is about dead.  I have many other stories including some that I can post the pictures of (you may remember I don't post any pictures that have student in them), and I will try to post again soon.

Trip to the Doctor and the Practically Desperate Attempts to Prevent Freeze-up at 60 Below

NOTE: This was written Saturday January 29th even though I'm just getting it posted on March 1st.

This winter has been much colder than any winter in a long time.  I was in the school office the other morning getting things ready for class and I was listening to the VHF radio there (the communities communicate within in the communities and to a degree between communities via VHF radio.  In Kobuk we can talk with Shungnak and Shungnak can talk to both Kobuk and Ambler).  While I was listening to the radio, the friends pastor in Shungnak was doing his morning talk and prayer and he was mentioning how it was cold like it used to be in the old days, but hadn’t been so cold in a long time.  This cold has made it tough. In addition to that, everyone is so on top of each other in the winter that illnesses just spread like wildfire and so many people have been sick.  And thus, we get to the stories I’m going to tell in today’s blog.

About 3 weeks ago, I got quite sick.  I took a day off and then I felt a little better and came back to school.  I really shouldn’t have.  That afternoon, I left school early to get to the clinic before they stopped seeing patients.  Unfortunately, there was such a back-up that I didn’t get seen until 5 pm.  My ears were full of fluid, the throat was inflamed and my lungs were congested.  I was supposed to go to Shungnak that weekend, but didn’t because I was too sick.  The next week, I felt better, but my breathing became worse and worse.  Early in the week, I tried to play with my students while I was coaching them in basketball and after about 30 seconds I was having an asthma attack and my students were wondering if they needed to call the clinic.  Later in the week, I was having a meeting with the principal, a student and a parent and I couldn’t breathe.  Rob sent me to the clinic (which was bad timing because Katie was out sick and we couldn’t find a sub so I was teaching all the students 6-12.  When Rob sent me to the clinic he had to take on all of my students and was then teaching grades 3-12!).  At the clinic the health aide said my lungs hadn’t improved at all.  They sounded just like they had 5 days earlier.  She wanted to get me breathing meds, but the nurse practitioner in Kotzebue (who has never actually seen me) simply prescribed the same antibiotic that I had just finished taking that day.  The next day, Rob and I had a conversation where we had both thought, separately, that I should fly to Anchorage to see a doctor.  I began making arrangements. 

Unfortunately, with it being Thursday morning it wasn’t very practical for me to make it all the way to Anchorage in time to see a doctor before the weekend.  So I left Kobuk Friday afternoon, spent the night with friends in Kotz and flew to Anchorage Saturday morning.  The weather was bad in Nome so the plane didn’t land in Nome, but if it had, it would have taken me 6 take-offs and landings to get to Anchorage.  My bush flight flew to Shungnak then came to Kobuk to pick me and another man up.  Next, we went to Ambler.  From Ambler to Kiana, Kiana to Norvik, Norvik to Kotzebue.  The jet was supposed to go from Kotzebue to Nome, Nome to Anchorage.  We circled east of Kotzebue until we were out of fuel for that purpose, but the weather in Nome didn’t clear and so the passengers who were flying to Nome ended up back in Anchorage and were put on the next flight (which was boarding when we landed) to try getting to Nome again.

Before, I made it to Anchorage though I had two more breathing episodes.  Thursday afternoon while I was teaching I had another.  One of my students asked me a math question and when I went to answer I suddenly couldn’t breathe.  I sat down and put my head between my knees.  One of my students got really worried and tried calling the office.  He tried and tried, but couldn’t get through.  When he couldn’t get an answer he decided he was running to the main building to get the principal (who also teaches).  A few minutes later, I heard Rob come pounding up the stairs.  I was okay by that point and talking again.  Rob came in and said that the student had run in and said, “Cannon’s on the floor dying.” I had already decided to make the trip to Anchorage, but that was confirmation to both Rob and myself that it was warranted.  The second, episode occurred while I was in Kotz at my friends’ house.  They worried that maybe they should take me to the emergency room, but I really didn’t want to go and recovered okay,

At the doctor’s office several things were discovered including that despite taking vitamin D I was vitamin deficient.  Also, my asthma had apparently been far worse than I realized for months.  My blood tests showed that I haven’t been getting enough oxygen for over 2 months.  My guess is since I was diagnosed in the fall with bronchitis.  I was diagnosed with having both a virus, which was made worse by several vitamin deficiencies and bronchitis.  I’m doing better, but my breathing still has a long way to go (I was, however, able to run and play with my students at practice this afternoon).

My return on Wednesday almost stalled.  It was +5F in Anchorage.  We got to Kotzebue where it was -18F, but while I was waiting in Kotz for my flight the pilot came out to talk to the Kobuk bound passengers.  At that point Kobuk was only a few degrees above the minimums for the plane to land (the problem being that if it is too cold the plane’s engines won’t re-start after landing).  She warned us that that morning the plane had had to abort landing in Kobuk and that if we chose to go we may very well end up back in Kotzebue. The other Kobuk passenger was a young lady who lives in Kobuk and we both wanted to try it (after all, we could either try going to Kobuk and risk getting stuck in Kotz or not try and for sure end up stuck in Kotz).  About 30 minutes later, we were ready to depart.  For Bush flights the pilot comes out to the terminal announces which villages he/she is flying to and the passengers get up and follow the pilot out to the plane.  There is no security check.  When our flight was announced we got up (along with passengers bound for Shungnak and Ambler), and walked over near the door to gather.  The pilot asked the other Kobuk bound and me if someone was meeting us at the airport.  We were like “no, we can walk.”  It quickly became apparent that she didn’t know we lived in Kobuk.  We reassured her that we would be fine.  She had told us at -40 she had had a couple of passengers who got to a village and no one was there to pick them up and they didn’t know where they were going (Kobuk is fortunate.  The airstrip is right adjacent to town, but in many villages the airport can be as far as 2-3 miles outside of town).  She explained how she couldn’t just leave them (when the weather is warm I think they in fact do just leave passengers even if there is no one there to meet them).  She didn’t explain what happened in the end though and I wish now that I had asked.

Thursday was warm enough that the planes came, but yesterday and today there have been no flights because it has been too cold.  Additionally, there is a thermometer, set up by a hydrologist, at the greenhouse that we built that broadcast the temperature to the Internet (http://www.cosmoshydro.org/stations/Greenhouse/current.shtml), but we have learned this week that it won’t broadcast when the temperature drops below -59 F. It will still record the temperature and when it returns to -59 F or above it puts up all the data.  We have been below that threshold for large portions of the last few days. 

It is at these temperatures that my heat went out.  Friday I came home for lunch to find my heat out and the temperature had already dropped significantly.  We found the school maintenance man and he got it working again.  However, about 12 hours later (around 1 am) it went out again.  I woke up to an alarm and a rapidly cooling house.  I couldn’t get it re-started and so I plugged in some electric space heaters (which won’t do much, but was the best I had) and left for the school.  We have what we call the VIP room, which is a small bedroom like bed with a nice bed in it.  It is right off of the school office where the staff bathroom is, which has a shower, and the staff kitchen.  We usually use this room for people visiting (counselors, mentors, district office people etc.), but it comes in handy for teachers who suddenly find themselves without any heat.

In the morning I called Rob who called the maintenance man and the head of maintenance at the district.  By this point our school maintenance man had already cleaned the ignition (he did that a couple of weeks ago when my heat went out) and changed the filter (yesterday) and of course checked the flue.  He may have also done some other things, but those are the ones I know of. When Rob called the head of maintenance he was not happy to learn that it was only 44 degrees in my house because he said inside the walls are usually a good 10 degrees colder and that was too close to the freezing point for comfort.  At this point, we had the water running in both sinks and the tub and the space heaters in the kitchen and the bathroom.  Unfortunately, there wasn’t much the district could do because there are no planes flying because its too cold (great time to have the heat go out, isn’t it?)!  Rob and our school maintenance man then went to my house to talk with the district plumber, who knows the set-up in Kobuk better than anyone else, to try to get things working.  I actually have two oil monitors.  The first one went out a while ago and the district sent a new one, but then Katie’s heat went out and since her place only has one (mine is the only one with two) it was installed in her place instead.  They managed to jimmy-rig both oil monitors and get them working for the time being.  In the last few hours, the one in the bedroom has gone out a few times, but is currently still restarting.  The other one is still running and I pray it continues through tonight (I will post this tomorrow.  I am typing from home and I don’t have Internet at home) and until the planes start flying again (the district has sent one to Bering Air and it’ll come out as soon as the planes can fly again).  For now though, thanks to an incredible effort by several people, I have heat and my water is frozen.

Not freezing the pipes is a really critical issue and why the district is so concerned with the heat in my house not working.  I of course am fine staying in the school.  It is quite comfortable and a nice fall-back (my own home is of course preferred, but still it’s good to have a comfortable fall-back option), but if my pipes freeze up too badly then there is no unfreezing them until spring (think May).  Also, Rob and I both live in the old clinic which was converted into essentially a duplex.  The water and sewer both enter and exit from my side.  If I lose water and Sewer, so does Rob.  During today’s fun my tub drain did freeze-up.  This however, is not a big freeze-up and by opening up the venting under the tub (it’s built on platform) and blowing one of the electric heaters right into we were able to thaw it out (especially important because it was full of water because the water had been running to try to prevent it from freezing – up).

I’m attaching some photos taken at the Alaska Airlines Terminal in Kotzebue on my most recent trip to Anchorage.  They are scarily relevant to today’s blog post.  Enjoy!

 This photo was the Alaska Terminal in Kotzebue on my way to Anchorage on Saturday January 21st.

This was on the way back the following Wednesday.  They had gotten the lines defrosted and running again...