Okay, I admit it. I'm a LOST addict. And I just watched the season 5 premier. I just want to make sure I've got it all straightened out in my mind (relatively). Here's what I think:

When Ben turned that wheel thing, he released that pocket of special energy that the Dharma guy was talking about at the beginning. That unstuck the island in time. It's like when Desmond was unstuck in time and kept going back and forth. The island is going back and forth, but it's not necessarily going back and forth to the same times, like Desmond was. It's going back and forth to random times in the past and then the future. The only way to get Desmond back was for him to find a "constant," in his case, Penny. I think maybe that's why Jack and everyone else has to go back - they are the "constant" for the island, or the other people on the island.

I don't know why Desmond has to go to Oxford and find Daniel Faraday's mother, but I suppose it has to do something with Desmond being Daniel's constant or with Charlotte's strange malady. And that headache has something to do with the nosebleed, which I'm sure has something to do with being unstuck in time.

I don't know who the strange people were at the "safe house," I don't know who is trying to establish Kate's maternal link to Aaron (or lack thereof), and I don't know why that woman at the end - the one talking to Ben about only having 70 hours - looks so familiar. I can't place it. Is she the woman who talked Desmond into breaking up with Penny that one time? Or is she from the island? I also find myself distrusting Sun. I pretty sure she holds her father and Benjamin Linus responsible for the death of her husband because of what she said to Charles Widmore in that room at the airport. I just don't know who she's working for, and I can't figure out how to interpret her meeting with Kate.

I'm sure it'll all come clear in due time. I'm just not a very patient person. . . .

Today was 100th Day at school. I don't remember ever celebrating the 100th day of school when I was growing up, but now it's a big thing. Just about everything we did was connected to the number 100 or counting to 100. For example, in math, I gave each kid a pile of Cheerios and a piece of string, and they made necklaces with 100 Cheerios each. It was pretty sweet. Anyway, one of the students made a comment, as we were sitting there chatting and stringing Cheerios, about 100 Christmas carols. I replied that I didn't think I knew 100 Christmas carols. But it got me thinking. Do I know 100 Christmas carols? Not a chance. Do I know 100 Christmas songs? Probably not, but that's not going to stop me from trying. . .

1. Jingle Bells
2. Joy to the World
3. Silent Night
4. Away in a Manger
5. Oh, Come All Ye Faithful
6. O Come, O Come, Emmanual
7. Up On The Housetop
8. Santa Claus is Coming to Town
9. All I Want for Christmas is You (Mariah Carey)
10. Silver Bells
11. It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas
12. Suzy Snowflake
13. Mele Kalikimaka
14. Sleigh Ride
14. Blue Christmas
15. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
16. Angels We Have Heard On High
17. I Saw Three Ships
18. Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus
19. We Wish You a Merry Christmas
20. That one about Christmas in Africa that they play on the radio every year. . .
21. Santa Baby
22. Where Are You, Christmas (Faith Hill)
23. You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch
24. I Want A Hippopotamus for Christmas
25. All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth
26. I'm Getting Nothing For Christmas
27. Frosty the Snowman
28. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
29. Silver and Gold
30. It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year
31. I Celebrate the Day (Relient K)
(I'm peeking at my iPod right now. . . but 31 off the top of my head is pretty good.)
32. What Child Is This?
33. Little Drummer Boy
34. Linus and Lucy
35. Hark! The Herald Angel Sings
36. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
37. The First Noel
38. O Christmas Tree
39. Little Town of Bethlehem
40. We Three Kings
41. Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!
42. Do You Hear What I Hear?
43. O Holy Night
44. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
45. Deck the Halls
46. The 12 Days of Christmas
47. We Wish You a Merry Christmas
48. I Hate Christmas Parties (Relient K)
49. Rocking Around the Christmas Tree
50. Rusty Chevrolet
51. Jingle Bell Rock
52. Feliz Navidad
53. What Child is This?
54. Children God Where I Send Thee
55. Good King Wenceslas
56. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
57. A Strange Way to Save the World (4Him)
58. Welcome To Our World (Michael W. Smith)
59. Gloria (Michael W. Smith)
60. Could He Be the Messiah (Michael W. Smith)
61. It Wasn't His Child (Trisha Yearwood)
(Time to start getting obscure. . . )
62. Beautiful - Christmas Version (Jim Brickman)
63. Starbright (Jim Brickman)
64. Angels (Jim Brickman)
65. We Three Kings
66. Early Snowfall (Jim Brickman)
67. Sending You a Little Christmas (Jim Brickman)
68. Peace (Jim Brickman)
69. Fireside (Jim Brickman)
70. Hope is Born Again (Jim Brickman)
71. Winter Peace (Jim Brickman)
72. Dreams Come True (Jim Brickman)
73. The Gift (Jim Brickman
74. Bring a Torch, Jeannette Isabella
75. Coventry Carol
76. Pat-a-Pan
77. White Christmas
78. Winter Wonderland
79. Santa Claus is Thumbing to Town (Relient K)
80. Merry Christmas, Here's to Many More (Relient K)
81. In Like a Lion (Relient K)
82. Christmas in the Northwest
83. Christmas Eve - Sarajevo 12/24 (Trans-Siberian Orchestra)
84. Star to Follow (Trans-Siberian Orchestra)
85. First Snow (Trans-Siberian Orchestra)
86. Wish Listz (Trans-Siberian Orchestra)
87. Mad Russian's Christmas (Trans-Siberian Orchestra)
88. Ornament (Trans-Siberian Orchestra)
89. Promises to Keep (Trans-Siberian Orchestra)
90. This Christmas Day (Trans-Siberian Orchestra)
91. The Ghosts of Christmas Eve (Trans-Siberian Orchestra)
92. Boughs of Holly (Trans-Siberian Orchestra)
93. The World That She Sees (Trans-Siberian Orchestra)
94. The World That He Sees (Trans-Siberian Orchestra)
95. Midnight Christmas Eve (Trans-Siberian Orchestra)
96. Christmas Canon (Trans-Siberian Orchestra)
97. Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring
98. Appalachian Snowfall (Trans-Siberian Orchestra)
99. The Snow Came Down (Trans-Siberian Orchestra)
100. Christmas in the Air (Trans-Siberian Orchestra)

Phew! I guess when I don't put any restraints on what kind of Christmas songs, I can come up with quite a list!

Wind

I was woken up this morning by the sound of wind. I had heard it several times in the night, increasing in intensity. By 5:00, it was rattling the windows and shaking my bed. I gave up on sleeping and got up about 6. I checked the weather, and the winds were 45 mph (sustained) with gusts of 60-70 mph. Never have I experienced winds that strong. I looked out the window and I couldn't see anything. The blowing snow made it look like a complete white-out. The windows and doors were rattling, and I was seriously concerned about the windows holding up. One of the windows in my bedroom is severely cracked, and I didn't know if it could hold up with the wind blowing against it. Our door to the outside doesn't seal tightly - when it is closed tightly, we can see daylight around 3 of the sides. Not very energy efficient. Anyway, it was distinctly warmer in the kitchen than it was in the living room. I could feel the difference in temperature walking between the two rooms. I turned my iPod up real loud so that I couldn't hear the wind, and read for a couple of hours. By the middle of the morning, it had died down to about 40 mph, and around 3 this afternoon, I realized that I couldn't hear it anymore. It's still blowing, but it's down to a manageable 10-15 mph now.

The girls' basketball team from Koyuk is here to play our girls' team. Our boys' team was supposed to fly to Teller to play on Friday, but their game was canceled because our weather was bad and Teller was even worse. All flights were on hold until well into the afternoon on Friday. The girls got in that evening, though. They were supposed to leave this afternoon, but I doubt they got out. I guess that's the hazard of having to travel in the winter.

Long Days

So, it goes like this. Our school has never met AYP. AYP stands for Adequate Yearly Progress, and is the indicator that a school is educating kids properly, according to No Child Left Behind. Like I said before, our school has never met AYP. Ever. That means that we are considered a "level 5" school. We could be next in line for governmental take-over. Because we are such a low-performing school, we are required to offer students extracurricular tutoring and such, if they so choose to partake. One of the after-school tutoring programs needed an elementary school tutor for the 3rd quarter. The e-mail from the coordinator, coupled with what I know about the elementary staff, made the situation seem pretty desperate. I felt sorry for the coordinator so I volunteered to be an after-school tutor for two of the four days each week. That means that I tutor for two hours a day, two days a week.

That doesn't sound horrible. It's only 4 hours a week and I do get paid a generous amount. The downside is that I am at school for 11 1/2 hours on those two days. 6:30 in the morning until 6 at night. I am usually beat by the time school gets out. Teaching wears me out, and then I have to stick around for two more hours. The tutoring isn't too intensive, but I do have to be coherent and patient. I help kids with their homework and other work from their teachers, and then get them interested in learning games or educational websites. (I only have two computers, so if I ever have all 10 kids show up, I'm in trouble.)

This week was our first week of the quarter. I had 5 kids show up Monday and it was the longest two hours of my life. I felt like a glorified baby-sitter. Two of the kids who came were surly older elementary boys who clearly do not like me. They spent the two hours complaining about how bored they were and trying to convince me to let them go on YouTube. I spent at least an hour the next morning trying to find games and websites and multiplication work for them (they requested it). Neither of them showed up on Tuesday. Well, no, I take that back. One of them came in about 3:30 and asked if this other student could wait for him. Until 6? No. They both left my room, but went to do their homework at Power Hour in the cafeteria (Boys and Girls Club coordinator comes up and supervises kids in the cafeteria so they have a quiet place to get their homework done). The other boy came in about 3:45 and asked if he could go on YouTube during tutoring. No. The first boy wandered in and joined the argument. The answer was still no. 4:00 rolled around and both of the boys had left school grounds. Whatever. Their loss. I wasn't going to worry about it. Tuesday was bliss. The 4 kids I had show up were sweet kids and 3 of them entertained themselves with the games I had out. That other 1 spent an hour and a half doing two math assignments and I had to sit beside her and prompt her to do every single problem. That pretty much meant me doing the math, too, and then we would compare answers and argue about who was right.

Definitely a reminder about why I teach the little kids. Older elementary kids have too much attitude and are way too defiant. I've always said that it takes a special kind of person to teach middle-school kids and I think that applies to 4th and 5th grade kids, too.

Depending on how burned-out I am by the end of February, I am contemplating volunteering to do all 4 nights for 4th quarter. Am I crazy? Yes. Is it worth it? Definitely.

Christmas Vacation!

So, I had great intentions of posting about my Christmas break as it occurred, but my parents still have dial-up (sloooow) and it only works on one computer and there were 6 people sharing that one computer. Needless to say, my great intentions were shot down.

So, here is the abbreviated Christmas break. If you want details, let me know :-)

The trip down to Boise was uneventful. I was a tad concerned about the weather (on the verge of a panic attack for the better part of 3 days), but all of my flights were on-time or early. Even my Seattle flight. I flew into, and then out of, Seattle on Saturday morning (the 20th). That afternoon, Alaska Airlines started to cancel just about all of their flights in Seattle and Portland. God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good. The craziest part was that it got colder as I got farther south. It was 32 degrees and raining when I left Elim, and it was around 20 and on the verge of snow when I finally got to Boise.

Vicki and I started baking that day. We made a few messes, made some good cookies, and mostly just had fun. We also went out and had some fun in the snow. We made a snow-woman and had a couple of snowball fights. The week continued on. Vicki and I found the raddest matching pajama pants ever and wore them on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I got to hang out with a couple of good friends that I hadn't seen recently.

In the week after Christmas, we took a family trip to Oregon - staying in Baker and skiing at Anthony Lakes for a couple of days. The first day was a bust. We got up the mountain, but the wind was blowing snow so hard at the base that visibility was close to zero. I don't even want to imagine what it was like at the top of the mountain! We turned around and went back to Baker. We spent the day playing Yahtzee, reading, and trying to stay warm. The second day was beautiful. I was miserable. I think I must be getting old or something. Going down the ski hill was torture on my ankles, and I couldn't figure out why. I tried tightening my boots; I tried loosening my boots; nothing worked. And then my knees started aching and my toes went completely numb. At that point, I decided it wasn't worth it. Well, after lunch, my dad (he's not real into the whole skiing thing, either) and I decided to walk over to the Nordic Center (cross-country skiing), just to check it out. I ended up renting cross-country skis and skied 4 miles in a couple of hours. I'm not a downhill skier, but I love cross-country skiing.

The trip back up to Alaska was about as uneventful as coming down. I had the pleasure of a 10 hour layover in Anchorage. That meant I had 10 hours of downtime. I was so bored. So very bored. I was very glad when we finally loaded up for the trip to Nome. All flights were "on-time" (but I don't think any of them actually loaded or left on-time). I'm just thankful I didn't get stuck somewhere. I was hearing horror stories about people spending days in Sea-Tac. God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good.

If you want to see the pictures from the break, let me know and I'll send you a link.