Breaking Up, Breaking Out

Here I am in Bethel on the eve of my last day of work for the 09-10 school year. Every year of life comes with it's ups and downs but overall I'd give this one high marks. AND HOW FAST!! We always say how fast a year has been but this truly was light speed most of the time. It seems like I just came to Bethel to start work a month ago. Now it's in the books.

Things wrapped up in Tuntutuliak peacefully and quietly. Attendance started to get a little touch and go towards the end as the waterfowl started showing up, but some dedicated students had a very positive experience in class with me.

After that I worked here in Bethel, teaching at the Bethel Youth Facility. This is a youth detention center for people who have made a bad decision and are paying the price for it and trying to get things going in the right direction. I taught a drivers ed class there to a group of young men and it was a good experience for all of us. My hope is that I have set a good example for them, and that they are able to utilize some of what I have taught them to open some doors later on. Class concluded today and the boys were appreciative of my efforts on their behalf, and as a teacher, that's about as good as it gets.

Monday the lower Kuskokwim broke up and we said bye bye to the ice. I was starting to wonder if it was going to happen before I left. Here are a few photos of what a May 17th river breakup might look like.




We've been getting some dandy weather here in Bethel this week. Warm temps, sunshine, nice bike rides to work. Yet part of me misses the nice cool bite of the crisp morning air.

Saturday afternoon I'll begin the long journey home. I'm looking forward to being there, and seeing all of you family and friends who may be reading this. Not looking forward to the hours I'll be spending in close quarters breathing re-breathed air, but worthwhile of course. Looking forward to seeing the sun set over Wisconsin waters this summer. Will it be as pretty as Alaskan sunsets such as this one late last night?


I don't know. These are hard to beat.

Home Stretch

Time is running out on this school year. Monday of last week I flew out here to Tuntutuliak (Home of the Bluejays) for my final village assignment of the year. I got classes started here and then Thursday after school flew in to Bethel to help out with the Robotics Tech Challenge organized by a co-worker in our department. There were 8 teams from throughout the district competing. Each had designed, built and programmed a robot to compete in the challenge. This year's challenge involved a playing field with hoppers full of wiffle-balls, and different goals with different scoring possibilities. The idea was to create a robot that could release the balls from the hoppers, and then pick them up and place or launch balls into the goals for a score. I got to be a judge and referee for the competition and was quite pleased to see the maturity, teamwork and enthusiasm of our students at work. Unfortunately I did have to give the referee shirt back after the competition ended on Saturday.

Things in Tunt are going fine. My students are doing good work and staying relatively enthusiastic considering that it is springtime. It probably helps that the weather hasn't been particularly springlike. Temps have been in the teens and twenties for the past few days. As it warms up and more migratory waterfowl begin to arrive, things could become more challenging. Right about at that time, though, I should be finishing up here in Tunt. At that point, I'll be heading back to Bethel, and will finish up the year teaching in the Bethel Youth Facility, our local juvenile detention center. I'm looking forward to working there, and note that no matter what the weather, I shouldn't be having any issues with class attendance.

The school year has flown right by and I'm sure the next 3 1/2 weeks will continue that trend. I'm looking forward to seeing the family and friends back home, and enjoying some nice r and r in Wisconsin. Brewer games, cookouts, lakes and rivers beckon!!

Back to Bethel, First Catch, Spring Break, Go Brewers!!

Last Friday I packed up and left Nightmute and headed back to town. I enjoyed Nightmute, but at the same time was happy to get back home. You can see the immediate difference it made here:

Some bum in Nightmute.

Me in Bethel.

I went out for a long ride and hunt with a Marc, a coworker in the CTE department this week and finally connected with some birds. Tonight there will be ptarmigan tacos for dinner.

This coming week I'll be on spring break. I'm hoping to get in another few good rides while we still have snow, and hopefully bag a few more of these tasty critters.

The Brew Crew is off to a good start and begins a series against the rival Cardinals this weekend. I'm so excited for baseball I went and bought a pack of brats this week at the AC store. Even though it was 0 degrees on the walk to work this morning, spring is in the air and the days are getting quite long. That's an indication that for folks back in Wisconsin, I'll be seeing you soon.

Good Morning, Negtimiut

I flew out here to Negtimiut (Nightmute, home of the NightHawks) on a crisp clear Monday afternoon. Thus far things here are going ok. Staff and students both are quite friendly, and the people I've met in the community have been very nice as well.

The village/site is neat looking with big hills or small mountains next to it. (I'm not sure what the distinction is) It's pretty close to Toksook Bay, with somewhat similar topography.

Tuesday we had a really nice afternoon...sunny, no wind, and 10-15 degrees. So I decided to get out for a hike on top of the mounthills nearby. It was a nice hike, though the climb was a little tougher than I expected. There was more elevation than it looked like...







Up at the top is one place some people could theorize was the location of the Apollo Moon landing...

All I found up there were some piles of muskox scat. This weekend if the weather is good for it I'll go a ways further and see if I can find some ptarmigan to cook up.

There's plenty of daylight after school now that we're in daylight savings time. Twilight lasts well past 9:00 and we're gaining nearly 5 minutes of sun per day. Of course the downside to this is that students are beginning the yearly trend towards less and less sleep. With daily activities in the school lasting til 10 or later, I am having that trend cast upon me as well.

Being sluggish of brain after a truncated night's sleep, I guess I'll wrap the post up with a GO BADGERS and leave it at that.

Kuinnerarmiut Elitnaurviat, etc.

Things here in Seahawk territory are winding down, and I'll be flying back to Bethel Monday night, weather permitting. (those are two dirty filthy words, yes they are) There isn't really much to tell of the things I've done here in Quinhagak. (Gwin-a-hawk, for those of you non LKSDers) The classes have had the usual ups and downs. I already told the story of Strep 2010. Never did get out fishing here which admittedly was a big letdown.
But today I did get to use a truck and took a little cruise. See, they actually have gravel roads here in Quinhagak. I took a drive out to this dead-end road that leads to, I'm told, some good summertime fishing. I snapped some photos, so I'll share a few that turned out. You'll probably need to click to enlarge them in order to make out much...









Stay tuned and take care out there.

Not Your Typical HMO

So back last Monday I had a pretty busy day. I rode the SkiDoo from Bethel to Napaskiak and Oscarville and back to Bethel, proctoring tests that had just arrived. Then I hauled gear out to the airport and flew out here to Quinhagak (home of the Seahawks). It's a friendly school atmosphere. Nice students and staff. The site administrator is from Ladysmith and is a big Brewers fan, so we're getting along well. It's a beautiful site out here.

Over the weekend the Seahawks hosted a basketball tournament. Three of the teams were from schools where I've taught, so it was nice to get to say hi and cheer for my former students. The fourth was a school I'll be at in a couple months, and I got to meet several of their students as well. It was, however, alot of people to share living quarters (the school) with. Wouldn't ya know, Sunday I was not feeling so wonderful after living in the germ pod. Great, I thought, another cold...that's three now.

Monday was worse and Tuesday was the same. By Tuesday I was figuring it was above and beyond any cold I'd had, and was going to have to relent and seek medical advice. The two options were: go to the village clinic, or fly to Bethel and go to the clinic there. The village seemed like the faster way to get treated for what I was pretty sure (correctly) was a bad case of the strep.

Getting treated at the village clinic was an experience all on its own. It's in a building that is also the washeteria and what-not. There are only a couple of people on staff to deal with a village of about 800 people, so they are pretty busy. When situations and emergencies arise, you get rescheduled, which happened to me a couple of times. Yesterday I squeaked in to get tested quick, but they couldn't treat me, so I had another appointment for this afternoon. That got bumped back to later because of an emergency. When I went in, the emergency was still on. If my ears don't decieve, the emergency was a bad case of the stomach flu, or something to that effect. But...haha...they found time to stick me in the backside with some antibiotics so I should be good to go now. They were very friendly and treated me well.

Being sick and quarantined in the upstairs of a school for a few days is about as much fun as being restrained and forced to watch a marathon of Paris Hilton's My New BFF. Or a loop of the yankees' champagne celebration.

Better times await. It feels good to say that I'm really looking forward to teaching tomorrow.

Hopefully I get some more good days and clear skies so I can click the digital shutter and show you how cool looking this place is.

In the meantime, stay healthy out there.

Napaskerville Checkout

So it's been awhile. I haven't been mauled by any more bears as of late, nor lost any more personal belongings to the gnashing teeth of my studded snow-go track. Relatively smooth sailing, although my daily triangle commute from Bethel to Napaskiak to Oscarville to Bethel was starting to wear me down a bit. Speaking of the commute, here's a couple peeks of what my morning commute might look like:

My river commute would start at the Lomack building, which would be just off the left edge of the above photo. Then you can see the ice road heading down the center. Then it's about a 10 minute (or less) ride down thissa way...

You can see just a little overflow at the edge on this particular morning. Crossing overflow is not the time to back off the throttle, unless cold and wet is your thing.

Back to what I was saying though...of course, at this time of year, wearing down=getting a cold, which I realized was destined weeks ago. So, although I've enjoyed being able to commute from home, I look forward to moving on, feeling better, and not putting in quite as many hours.

One pretty cool thing happened this past Thursday. I was in Napaskiak, working after school with some students on this project, a rack for their new dumb bells in the weight room.

My students were working away, about to put in another weld when I noticed some people approaching, so I told them to hold off and let these people pass so they wouldn't be flashed by the arc light. Seconds later this man approaches and greets me with a handshake saying "Hi my name is Sean Parnell." It's kind of an odd feeling when your state governor comes up and greets you unexpectedly. We chatted a bit about the project and our program. Nice guy. He was out visiting sites that are perspectives for getting new schools built. I wonder if having the governor encounter a welding class being taught outdoors in February helped Napaskiak's chances....couldn't hurt I suppose.

Monday, weather permitting, I'll be flying out to Quinhagak for a few weeks. I'm looking forward to working with the friendly folks I've met who work at that site. As well, I'm looking forward to being near the mountains again, and being able to hopefully feel the pull of a fish on a line again. The world famous Kanektok River flows nearby and I'd like to get some more fish for the freezer.

That's about it for now. Pitchers report for spring training in 7 days. GO BREWERS!!