The story of a guy who moved to Alaska to teach a few kids in a small Yup'ik community. Turns out, I'm learning a lot. Here's a few things about my adventure:
I'm planning on doing a lot of reflection over the summer about this whole experience and an experience it has been. But I will save that for a later post. I'm going to keep this one brief with a few videos and a recommendation to view some pics on my facebook page.
First, I took a stroll through the abandoned mining town for the first time. I posted some pics on my facebook, so check em out! Here's a video too:
On the way back I took a ride along the beach. It was super beautiful out. Steam was rising off the beach with a nice cool breeze blowing, pretty ideal. Come and take a ride with me:
Video taken while I was in Goodnews Bay (12 miles inland).
Wow, I've really neglected this blog the past two months. I could try to write it off and say that "time escaped me" but the truth is I just chose other things to do, like watch TV shows, read books and attempt to hunt.
Wow, its hard to fill in this large gap of time which has flown by. Lets see, the big things would be coaching NYO, summer/next year plans and being a complete bum over spring break.
Going chronologically since the last post, the weeks have zipped by. It is unreal, I don't feel like I've been here for months after Christmas break but maybe the days have been plain. School days seem to move much faster, maybe its due to the longer hours of sunlight. Nothing too eventful happened those last weeks of February and beginning of March. My spring break began on March 10th and lasted for the week. I decided not to travel anywhere due to the unknown weather and the cost of travel is high ($380 round trip to Bethel!) Unfortunately the weather was pretty crummy too and I didn't do much hunting or exploring. Definitely got my money's worth of Amazon Prime though. I decided to delve into some sci-fi and watched all 3 seasons of Falling Skies. I wasn't too sure about it at first but got hooked. I also caught up on some of the popular movies from the fall that were releasing on to DVD: 12 Years a Slave, Gravity, Thor, Catching Fire and Frozen. I wasn't a complete TV/Movie couch potato, I also did some reading too: Maniac McGee, The Fault in Our Stars, Narrative of a Slave (Frederick Douglass) and a book titled "Camelot's Cousin" written by my pastor David Stokes. All great reads and highly recommended.
After break I had 9 weeks until the end of year. I didn't really start counting down the weeks quite at that point but over break I spent a lot of time thinking about what to do over the summer and next year. I'll go ahead and spill the beans: I am planning on returning to Platinum next fall and continue teaching the secondary group. This has been a tough decision to arrive at. Both the principal and elementary teacher are retiring and moving on. I feel like if I were to leave and the kids getting a whole new staff would continue the cycle of uncertainty and everyone is at square one. (This also means that I declare myself the "senior" faculty member, a feat not many first year teachers can claim!)
As for the summer, I will be spending it once again in the woods of Northern Michigan at Camp Barakel. This was also a challenging choice, but at the same time, it isn't. The big fear/concern is/was getting enough time to relax and not do "teacher stuff" over the summer, take a break. However, with this career and stage of life, working at Camp also just seems so right. My desire to serve and love kids doesn't really take a break and Barakel has such a special place in my life and its hard to turn down any opportunity to be there.
I will be the Men's head counselor again, training, mentoring and encouraging guy counselors through the summer. I plan on being there Memorial Day through most of July.
Shoot, totally disregarded the whole timeline approach. Lastly, NYO happened. It was an amazing experience and I'm excited to take another shot at it next year. Here's a link to some videos I captured: NYO VideosI also uploaded a bunch of pics to Facebook so you can check there.
While there I judged a few events (that was nerve-wracking: judging events when I had no clue what to look for going into it, but it turned out ok). I also tried to spend a lot of time with other coaches and observed skillful competitors. The great thing was that all 3 students placed in an event. One student got 2nd in the wrist carry, another 2nd in the Eskimo stick pull and another got 4th in Eskimo stick pull and Seal Hop.Overall, I think my students and I are much more prepared to compete next year.
Ok, its now past 11pm and I've got a whole week of school ahead of me (4 weeks left, 19 school days; I'm counting now). Can't promise when the next update will be but I'm hoping to get out and shoot some waterfowl out of the sky, I can always write about or take pictures of that.
Hello from Platinum again! The absence from blogging has been multi-fold. First, the business of wrapping up a semester of school consumed a bunch of time. Tack on some testing and that was quite the icing on the cake.
Once the semester finished I was dead set on making it home to Michigan. Remarkably, traveling went VERY smoothly. I got out of the village (first hurdle) on time. I allowed a day and a half to leave before my connecting flight to Anchorage from Bethel. I was able to fly out of Bethel early and booked a hotel in Anchorage for some relaxin'. Then it was a not so bright but very early flight from Anchorage to Minneapolis. I had a 1.5 hour layover and then flew into Grand Rapids around 5pm. It was so good to see family waiting for me at baggage claim.
My time in Michigan was just the right amount of down time with family and traveling around to visit friends all over. Here is a map of my travels:
1. I went to a wedding at Camp Barakel (shout out to Mr. and Mrs. Pierpont, Doug Daveless, Keith "The Cook" Boeve and Randy Harris among many, many, many others)
2. I met up with some friends at Barakel again to do some shooting and broomball (Titus, Tyler and Eric)
3. I then shot up to the Yoop for a weekend. (Holla at my boys Dan, Ben, Steve, Aaron and Matt)
4. I then met up with some friends in the Lake Orion area. (Cletus and Kay-Kay, the Moosetons and Bam)
5. My sister and I spent my remaining days down in the Kalamazoo area. (Grandma, The Kents, Dave, Jenn, Justin and Skittles the cat)
6. I shot up to Grand Rapids on New Years day to meet up with some more peeps. (Dilly's!)
7. Lastly, was the the trip to the Grand Rapids airport (after hitting Cabela's for some fine hunting equipment) (None other than Teriyaki Trent)
A total of almost 1400 miles travelled just within Michigan!
The weather here right now is unbelievable. While the midwest is having a Snowpocalypse, it's currently raining outside. There is no longer any snow and most of the ice is now melting. Freezing temps seem to be on the horizon and are forecasted to drop quickly but it sure is odd weather around here.
Anyways, here's a video wrap up with a tour around the newly arranged classroom and some random talking. Oh, I'll also throw in the family holiday video we made in an attempt to win free stuff from Bubba Watson, the pro golfer. I guess our moves were just not good enough.
Hasn't been that long since I last posted. A few things have happened:
I turned 24 (Jack Bauer)
I'm now the official Site Tech and Study Hall Fun Coordinator (the last one I made up, but it's true! Its my job to tell the kids how they will have fun after study hall. Typically it involves me dancing to Moves Like Jagger on Just Dance 4 on the Wii.)
I spent an hour changing the oil in the four-wheeler (those hidden, enclosed oil filters...)
I finally got out hike Red Mountain and rode to the southern tip of the mine
Birthday Pics
Linae is on the left, she is the Site Administrator and Henri, the elementary teacher, on the right
Ham, homemade applesauce, corn pudding, scalloped potatoes and a cake that my mom shipped! Yum!
I was able to pull the ATV into our shop. ALOT better than lying out on the frozen ground.
So, the drain plug and dipstick were easy to find in their normal places, but that elusive oil filter? Its not like your typical car one, its enclosed in the engine block. I had to watch a few YouTube videos and do some picture searches to find it. It is so great having a mode of transportation!
This is around 1pm. The sun is so low in the sky!
Part of the way up (I stopped to catch my breath, a bit out of shape). Looks like they mined or did something on this part of the mountain
Sorry about all the wind noise
Right at the end I was about to say, "That's Goodnews Bay village in the center."
Ever heard of Khan Academy? It started out with a guy taking a video of him solving math problems to help his cousins. His videos have exploded in viewer-ship and his site is now a full-blown educational resource. Since I'm teaching 3 math levels at one time I thought I'd try my hand at it, do some instruction on the SmartBoard and record it on video. Here's the result: (Don't feel compelled to watch the whole thing unless you want to take notes too)
Time is flying by up here. I don't just mean that the days are getting shorter but that it's hard to believe I've been here for 3 months! I've got a few pics and videos for you all from the past week or so.
My part of a catch of ptarmigan (a close relative of the grouse). Two students took me on a spur of the moment hunt just a few hundred yards outside of town. It was a blast, to say the least.
Got the kids hooked on Bill Nye while learning about cells. Definitely brought me back to my childhood.
Coming up next is my adventure to Bethel last weekend. I was scheduled to fly in the early afternoon but the plane landed with no seats available, so I was bumped to the later flight. Bush planes are much more like a taxi service than your normal air travel. I was hoping to go in early, get a hair cut and get some shopping out of the way. But, I will be coming home looking like I walked off the set of Duck Dynasty.
I fell asleep after this picture.
When we fly in to Bethel for new teacher in-service on Fridays, we stay the night in the district office. Last time I stayed at someone's house on a nice comfy couch. This time, it didn't work out that way and I wanted to spend some time with the other new teachers. While packing, I remembered that there were these awkward poles in the middle of one of the conference rooms. Now, I knew that there weren't any tress up here but I still brought my hammock anyways (telephone poles? volleyball poles?) It beat sleeping on the floor.
A bigger picture of the dredge at the platinum mine. The maintenance man and I got an ATV started up that has been sitting in front of our house. The owner said we could use it if we could get it started. This allowed me and the other teacher the opportunity to drive up to the mine. She hadn't seen it yet and we finally got the chance the other day after school when the weather was decent. But, once we got behind the mountain without the sun, it was a bitter cold ride back to town.
Finally got some colder weather. It didn't stick around for long. Being on the coast is delaying the lasting cold temperatures but they will come and stay soon enough.
Instead of sitting here and writing something I thought I'd try a new medium, vlogging (video+blogging).
Here are some pics over the past few weeks:
The old dredge used for mining platinum. Hasn't been used in about 30+ years. Really reminds me of the Copper Country in the UP. This was a part of a trip looking for an animal that two of my students shot the previous day.
Oreo Math- building a tower, recording data and then finding the mean, median and mode
Examining owl pellets as a part of learning about food chains and food webs
Fall on the tundra- compare it to how it was just a month ago!
My highlight of last weekend- a church service! The staff and I were out walking around in the great weather after a week long of rain and heard the church bell ringing. A bunch of Hondas (four-wheelers, called "Honda" because its the most common brand) were parked outside. I went inside and sat down. The church is Moravian, which is similar to Lutheran. About 70% of the service was in Yugtun, the Yup'ik language. Scripture and hymns were sung in both Yugtun and English. It was quite amazing to sit and listen and hear God's word spoken in a language I don't understand, but He does. My favorite part of the service was "How Great Thou Art" sung by the choir in Yugtun, I recorded it below. I was singing in English in my mind :)
Yugtun is a guttural language which makes it very challenging to learn for me and "gusaks- outsiders". I'm trying to learn my students' Yup'ik names, which is a lot of fun for them because I'm quite awful at it.
(I didn't feel like it was appropriate for me to hold up my camera to capture video, I was more interested in capturing the song.)
Sing to the LORD, all the earth! Proclaim his salvation day after day. Declare his glory among the NATIONS, his marvelous deeds among all PEOPLES.
