Oscarville Teaching...lifejacket required

Seriously? A life jacket on my teacher's chair? Yepper. Here in Oscarville the only way to travel before the river freezes is by boat, so having a life jacket available is always necessary. Actually, if you would to look around my desk you would find a coat, a pair of gloves, two hats, a face mask, two clean pairs of socks, a pair of boots, a pair of Birkenstocks, and a pair of tennis shoes. By mid August I rarely wear the shoes I wore TO school AT school. The feet must be happy.

I like being prepared and since I do go out at lunch recess I want to be properly dressed for the occasion. We go out when it rains, snows, and even when it is cold (but not too cold: -20 degrees is what we consider too cold). Yes seriously!

Oscarville doesn't have an airport, so even when we do travel by plane we first must take a boat to get to a plane. We are unusual in this scenario because all other villages in our district have airports. Simply put, Oscarville is special.

First Snow

September 28, 2010
Oscarville Slough





CranB enjoying the weather change. Her winter fur is starting to return.


Such a wild beast she is...Alaska born and loving it!
She really comes alive with the cold weather.

Cross Country

Our XC schedule
Sept 4th: Akiachak (overnight)
Sept. 11th: Kwethluk (day trip)
Sept. 18th: Bethel (overnight) Personal best for Trevor (4th grade)
Sept. 25th: Chevak (Regionals-only Jackie, my senior went. I didn't even go,)
Personal best for Jackie Joekay!!!

This year cross country was much better than last year. I was the only coach which made practices much smoother. I had a core 4 students who were my team. Of course, there were close to a dozen students on my cross country roster, but they were hit and miss for practices.

In order to travel students have to be academically eligible, have a physical, and have 10 practices under their belt. This year we are also allowing students to start traveling at 4th grade. So, at the beginning of our cross country season I told the students the criteria and said that we may only have so many spots on a plane for travelers, so spots would be picked based on participation, attitude, and performance. When the week of our first meet arrived their was some surprise when the only 2 students who qualified for competition were 4th graders. No one else had enough practices to qualify. I had four available seats, so I took those 2 and 2 high schoolers who were only missing a few practices because they started late in the season.

Those are the 4 students that traveled the entire season. I have to say that my little elementary students held their own. Only one of the four meets we went to actually had an elementary race, so they had to run in the junior high category at all the other meets. From the start to the end of the season they made great improvements.


XC is also the start of my traveling season. Who wouldn't look forward to traveling with students, spending the night on classroom floors, eating school food, and whittling away the weekend going and coming by boat and plane? I'll let you know. So XC may be over, but NYO (Native Youth Olympics) just started this week and I am usually the lucky chaperone for NYO.

Year Two

Well, I am back in Oscarville for Year Two. I have been back since the second week in August and am only now getting around to writing a new post. Naughty naughty me.

Coming back this year was wonderful. As soon as I hit our slough, I felt as though I was home. There are some changes this year, new principal, new junior high teacher, no roommate, and many other changes along the way. So far so good. No complaints on this end.

I will say that as soon as CranBerry hit Oscarville soil she forgot all her training and went to her village roots of being a wild child. She has calmed down a bit over the last month or so, but she certainly knows she is home here and acts accordingly.

This year I have 8 high school students. I do not teach any junior high classes this year (Yippee); however, I am coaching junior high robotics (FLL). Robotics is all new to me. I have high school and junior high for some sort of Robotics, so I definitely have to step up my game and accept the challenge of learning about the technology behind robotics. Yepper, I am not the same tech-shy gal I once was. Thank goodness. LKSD is a tech-savy district which constantly pushes me to learn more. The students are in the know when it comes to technology, so they are an incredible resource for me.

Friday 6 of my students and I are going to another school district to demonstrate FLL (J.H. Robotics). It should be fun and motivating.

Steam Spots

When I first wrote about steaming I didn't say much because at the time I intended to go back and add more, you can see how that worked out. Hmm...
Well, I have gone several times since I've been here and it is an incredible experience. As much as I enjoy my baths, steaming kicks baths to the curb (there are still moments which require a nice long bath, but I digress).

What is a steam? A steam is a cleansing method. Steaming is an alternative to taking a shower or a bath. In my village the community doesn't have running water so showering and bathing isn't really an option so people steam.

The setup:
Steam houses are small stand alone building built for the sole purpose of steaming. There is usually a small door to enter from the outside. The door is small because the entire building is small. I am not quite 5" and I have to duck to enter the steam house. There is an inner room and an outer room. The outer room is where you dress, undress, cool off between steam sets (a term I just made up to better explain the process), and store all your belongings. There are usually a small bench on either side of the room to sit. The inner room is where the steam actually takes place. However, I would consider the entire process "taking a steam".

There is a small door connecting the inner and outer room. The inner room is also divided: the section closest to the door is where people sit to steam. There is a bucket of cold water. The far side of the inner room is where the wood stove sits below floor level. The wood stove is covered with rocks to hold the heat. There is also a bucket of water on/near the stove to heat for hot water.

Supplies:
1 rubber mat (to sit on in the inner room while steaming)
1 basin (to have cold water while steaming to keep cool and to add hot water once it is time to clean)
1 scrub (a special steam scrub that really does the job)
1 wash cloth (to use to keep cool during steaming, to cover the mouth to not get so hot, and to use to rinse during the cleaning process)
1 cotton mat (to sit on in the outer room between steam sets and after the steam)
towel, shampoo, soap, etc.
(I stress the supplies because I certainly did NOT have the proper supplies at the start of the year. Thankfully people loaned me what I needed so I could steam. The rubber mat is important for two main reasons 1)not to burn your bottom and 2)as a barrier. Steam houses are a very warm environment and sometimes can be a hot house for bacteria. ***They don't have to be, but can be so having your own supplies is ideal.

The process:
Men and women steam separately; however, women steam together and men steam together. Once you undress, and undressing is essential. No clothing/ no towel allowed in the inner room. N-A-K-E-D is the only way to go. So in you go with your naked self, a basin, a rubber mat, and a wash cloth. Then you sit on the rubber mat and fill your basin with the cold water. You then stay in the inner room and steam until you cannot tolerate the heat anymore and go and cool off in the outer room. This is repeated several times. For those with more tolerance, you can "splash" the stove for an even more intense experience. After the final steam set and cooling period you go back into the inner room and wash, first your hair and then your body.

Wow! After a steam you know you are clean and so relaxed. It takes about two hours (give or take). It is more than just a way to clean up; it is also very social. I sleep so well on the nights I steam. In fact, they really wipe me out so I have made a policy of only going on weekends because of how wiped out I still am the following morning.

The last day of school before Christmas break was our community gift exchange and for I was given everything I needed to steam. I am so set! That night I was invited to steam with Daphne and so I suited up with my steam gear and off I went. Below are some pictures of my steam spots (or burns as I was told). No lasting scars.

Back to the Blog

My big plan was to come back from Christmas break and write weekly posts on my blog. Oh, that was 2 months ago and this is my first post since returning to Alaska. What happened? Do I really need to spell out the obvious? Segue + technology = questionable outcomes. Seriously though, it was a scheduling conflict initially and then I have had numerous technical challenges like connecting or getting disconnected before the post was published as if it was just too much for the computer. Plus there is also the issue of proper usage. Since the internet I use is provided by the school district apparently there is appropriate and inappropriate usage. The clarity of that line was momentarily blurred for me, so I wanted to stay clear of any ambiguous situation. I now feel more confident on the issue at hand and am compelled to begin posting once again. There is so much to share about my Alaskan experience so here I am to do exactly that...