Tuesday!

It's Tuesday already. After a great weekend and an inservice yesterday the week has begun again. Today is Al's 23rd birthday! We are looking forward to celebrating tonight with everyone! so HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALLISON!!!!! =)

So now about the weekend---this weekend I headed into Bethel for the Camai festival, which is a cultural dance festival. Villages and people from all over Alaska perform and do a variety of different acts. After what felt like forever, I finally made it to Bethel. Friday night was spent making pizza and hanging out.

Saturday we headed up to Camai. My favorite part of Camai was the crafts. In the lobby there was hundreds and hundreds of hand made crafts. It was interesting to see all the different things that can be made from using the resources around us. I know at least in Ohio I never realized the value of things and how something small can be turned into something quite practical. I got two beautiful pairs of ivory earrings and I really like them!

Sunday morning I had an homemade omelet and watched basketball. After breakfast, we headed to the grocery store. Shopping in Bethel is somewhat fun because the grocery store is bigger and there is more to chose from. I personally enjoy walking up and down every single isle. I felt like I got to treat myself at the store I picked up things such as real milk and orange juice. I still don't think I will get used to the prices---just for a gallon of milk and a thing of orange juice it costs around $20.00. Sometimes though it just makes it feel more like home if I get to treat myself to some good snacks.

In other news---since Ohio state lost on Friday, my race to beat everyone in the March madness brackets have ended. I did however do pretty well and end the event with 65 points. My goal was to beat one person and my goal I met!

That's all from Quinhagak for now!

yes it's friday

Woo the week is over. As of now I am just sitting here reading a book and waiting on the plane from Bethel! I am very excited to be headed in for the Camai festival and some quality time.

The week ended well. We are having an inservice on Monday, so I am looking forward to getting some work done.

Have a good weekend everybody!

HAPPPY 29TH BIRTHDAY TO MISS STEPHANIE B.

Al's birthday is also coming up, so we have that to look forward to next week!

Happenings in Quin

It is midweek already. I am sitting on the couch sipping on some tea after a long day of work. It has been quite an enjoyable week to say the least. Besides fighting this cold, things are going well. Being sick here kinda stinks because it is somewhat of a challenge to get medicine. Luckily between all of us here, we have enough medicine to make it work. I am feeling slightly better today, so hopefully the worst is over.

This week has been going pretty well in the classroom. I finished up a chapter on fractions and am now teaching multiplication. Monday there was a funeral and memorial in the village. When there is a funeral people from the entire village gather to celebrate the person's life. The memorial was lots of singing and talking about the person. It was a neat experience to be a part of.

Tuesday my Bethel visitor and I went on a walk to the beach. A lot of the snow has melted so it was pretty nice and I didn't have to worry about falling....BUT WAIT even I can still find a way to fall when it's not that icy out. I was walking home from the beach and got excited and whoops my foot got caught in deep snow and I just kinda toppled over. I think it was a funny sight to watch. It was nice to get a bit of cold air and enjoy the nice weather. On the way home we decided to cut across the tundra---it was hilarious as we were just falling into the snow and into the tundra. At one point I thought I was just going to get stuck. At last I just decided to go for it and run across.

After the walk I worked up quite the appetite. Back in Ohio there is this special dish that I love to eat. It is called SOS. I always talk about it and no one has ever heard of it, but I just googled it my friends and it is real. Here is what I found: Chipped beef on toast (or creamed chipped beef on toast) is a culinary dish comprising a white sauce and rehydrated slivers of dried beef, served on toasted bread. According to google, it was often served in the military.

So I decided to make my special dish. It consists of hamburger, cream cheese, cream of mushroom soup, and onions. You put it on top of toast or noodles. It doesn't always have the best look, but my friends it is GOOD! Allison declined to try it, others were not a fan of it either, but they do not know what they are missing!!

This weekend we (the new teachers) are heading into Bethel for the Camai festival. The Camai festival is a cultural event with showcases different Yupik dancers and many other cultural pieces. I am excited to see some of the new teachers I have not seen in a while and just relax in Bethel.

Shout out to Stephanie B! She is celebrating her birthday on Friday. I will def. have more details about that later =)

The final semester

The final semester has begun! Quarter 4 began on Friday and we only have 9 more weeks left of this school year. Things have been moving along. State testing is in about 2 weeks so the students and teachers have been preparing for that. I am fighting a cold currently-I was last went as well--it went away but I think it is here to stay now -so that is always fun.

This weekend was a typical weekend of relaxing filled with sleeping, food, and friends. Friday night we had a movie night over at Steph and Jim's. Not the best movie ever, but I didn't hate it. Saturday was pretty relaxing, I slept in late and didn't really do much of anything. Started to read my new book and just hang out. A trip to the post office and store also happened, and then just a lot of laying around. Saturday night Al and Jon had us over for dinner and we watched The Newsies.

Saturday night there were winds up to 80 mph--it literally sounded like our house was going to be blown away. It was super loud and horrible to sleep. There was a boat up against our house and the wind was getting underneath of it. It kept slamming into the side of the house where my room is--all night. I spent a good quarter of the night trying to figure out what the noise was. It continued to do this throughout the entire night. The funny thing about our houses are that when the wind is super bad, they just shake and shake. Sometimes you start to feel a little sick when you are laying in your bed. This doesn't happen all the time, but it def is a feeling to get used to at first.

Sunday was spent watching basketball games and just hanging out.I slept in until noon which doesn't happen often, but was a special treat to myself. My bethel visitor and I got to hang out (apparently some planes will still fly in 50 mph wind gusts) and I beat him in basketball so it was a nice Sunday before heading back to school today.

The winds have stopped now, and things are starting to melt. It is getting warmer now (around 30) and all the snow is turning into water. It has been nice walking to the beach a few times last week and just enjoying the Alaskan scenery. The days are getting longer now as it stays light until around 9pm now. The sun has been rising between 8:30-9:00 am. The whole daylight/dark aspect of living here was def. not what I thought it was going to be---much better actually.

Shout-out to my baby brother in Ohio who turned 24 yesterday! =)

That's about it for now---

A weekend of experiences

THis was a good good weekend. Friday night after a great nap--we headed over to Alison Z's for dinner. She made us baked Ziti (Yum). After Ziti Karen came over and invited us to take a steam. You see after my first experience, I have not tried steaming again. Friday though I decided to give it a try--and this time it was very enjoyable. In Yupik it is called Maqi. I am starting to enjoy it because it a something that is commonly done around here. I like the opportunity to be able to try new things while I am here.

On Saturday I decided to try skiing for the first time. I gave up after an hour due to be lonely and also being hungry. I did have a good time though and I am proud to announce that I only fell twice.

Saturday night was a typical family night in the village. This time though we watched the movie 127 days. it was rather gory and I could not watch the bloody part at all.

Lots of people have been asking about my summer plans. This summer I am leaving Alaska around the end of May. I will be in Ohio for about 3 weeks and then heading to New York for the summer. I will be an assistant group leader, and I am pretty excited for that. I will be leaving camp around the 1st and headed back to Ohio before I come back to Alaska.

Northern Lights

Just a quick blog to say that I hope everyone enjoys their Friday. I am so happy for Friday night nap tonight and to just relax and not do too much this weekend.

On Thursday night, we heard that we may be able to see the Northern Lights. Around 10 pm we took a little family four wheeler ride down by the river to see if we could see them. It was beautiful. There was a greenish haze in the sky. Although the activity level was only a 3 or a 4 it was still pretty neat to see the lights.

While out there, I learned about the different stars in the sky and was able to see different groupings I never was able to before. It was super cool!

Thats all for now. I think a nap is in order for this girl.

top shooter

As you can tell from the title, yesterday was quite the exciting day in Quinhagak. You see I have never shot a gun before in my life. Yesterday Jim asked us if we wanted to all go out and shoot in the tundra, so we all gladly said yes. I'm not going to lie, I was pretty nervous about it all, but all in all it went pretty well. We set out three different boxes with little orange targets on them and begin taking turns. I was third up in the group and did not know what to expect. I was confused because I was not able to see anything out of the vision thing and just had to keep moving it until I could. Jim was a good teacher explaining everything and I was able to hit some boxes.

It has been Allison's idea to have a Top Shot Quinhagak, although I do not think this will be happening, I will have to admit we all look pretty good firing away.

Alicia

Allison

Alison

Jon

Jim

Steph

After shooting at the boxes, we found other items to shoot at for target practice--And we all were quite successful!

On another note---I am officially staying in LKSD another year! Signed my contract yesterday for the upcoming 2011-2012 school year!

That's all for now =)

spring break continued

Well we are back at it---school is going strong and all of us arrived safely back into the village last night. I def need to take the next few days to catch up on some sleep and unpack my things still.

Last blog mentioned our trip to Fairbanks, that ended on Tuesday and we flew back into Anchorage. In Anchorage we went shopping at two different malls as well as went out to eat a few times and just explored. It was nice to be out of the village with friends just doing things at our own pace. Before leaving Anchorage, I finally got to eat at the Moose's Tooth which everyone talks about when mentioning Anchorage, so I was pretty excited. It's a pizza place in Anchorage that is pretty nice---quite enjoyable.

After Anchorage, it was to Bethel for some quality time and relaxation. The senior high basketball team was in Bethel for the district tournament. There were 8 boys teams and 8 girls team there and a 3 day tournament. It was very exciting to watch the team-On Friday I watched Quin v. Kong. This was a very exciting game and good for the boys because they had played them earlier in the season and only lost by one point, so winning this time, was big. On Saturday we headed back to the gym to watch Quin v. Tununak. This game also was very exciting and went into overtime!--basketball is big around here and there were people from all different villages there to support the different teams.

It's hard to believe that it is already March---soon our contracts will be due for next year, the state testing, prom, graduation----and it will be time to end this chapter of my first year of teaching.

That's all for now---

downtown Anchorage I think

another new animal for me to see on the trip