A Christmas in Review

A quick jaunt through the memories of the most recent Christmas holiday, told through pictures.  (It's 2:00 a.m. and I'm sitting in an airport.  Pictures are the best my sleep-deprived mind can do at the moment.) 

Even after the classroom tree is undecorated and taken outside, the memory (and a little more) still remains.

It seems we've had this problem before.  Something about small, old mixers and 5 cups of flour just don't mix well.

Awww.  A clean table! Not for long! (Insert evil cackle here.)

We used every plate she owns and then some.

Note the matching pajama pants.  A Christmas tradition!

This is quite possibly our finest moment. :-)

Apparently, the trend this year was tormenting the dog by tying ribbons to her collar.

This has nothing to do with Christmas, but I found 22 year old pickles in the back corner of a cupboard in the kitchen while I was looking for mint extract.  (I swear my mom has every spice/flavoring/scent/baking whatever known to man, but no mint extract.  How is that even possible?!)

Winding down break by going to lunch with a good friend!

It's Field Trip Time Again!

Every year, I take my kids on a completely uneducational field trip.  We take a sled and a saw, and go cut down a Christmas tree for our classroom, just because we can.  It's grown into somewhat of a tradition for me, and students come back to my room every year to see the new tree and reminisce about their own trip. 

I run up against this thought every year, even though it never ends up mattering: This has absolutely nothing to do with anything we're learning.  There is no redeeming educational value to this excursion.  And I think that's okay.  I think we get so caught up in standards, achievement, and testing sometimes that we forget that we are not dealing with little adults.  These are not just really short 18-year-olds.  They're little kids, and they need the chance to be kids once in a while.  They need to roll around in snow banks, make snow angels, and wonder about the dogs tied up by the side of the road.  They need to expend some of that energy that gets built up during long winter days and weeks inside.  If that means taking them on a walk and hauling back a tree without once mentioning science or math or reading, or turning it into a writing assignment when we get back, then I am totally on board with that.  School should not be solely drudgery, but rather should include fond memories that hopefully involve some learning.  

This year's trip actually started better than previous years, mainly due to the weather.  It was mostly cloudy, but no gale force winds.  A little breeze was picking up, but we decided to walk towards Tank Farm - the "gas station" for the village.  The road up there is lined with trees and willows, which provided a bit of a wind break. 

The kindergarten class had come with us, so we were actually looking for two trees.  We found a decent-looking tree for our room, and I managed to saw it down without hitting anyone in the head as it fell.  The trunk was pretty small, so it wasn't as bad as I had anticipated.  It was a little tall, maybe about 6 feet, but it wasn't super-bushy, so it wasn't too heavy.  The kids helped me carry it down to the road and got it situated on the plastic sled we had brought for that very purpose.  We found a tree for the kindergarten, and Wanda and I eventually got it hacked down.

The trip back was a little slower.  We were pulling two trees, the kindergarten tree kept falling off the sled, and the little ones were getting tired.  At one point, though, I was walking down the road, holding hands with a kid on each side, pulling the sled behind us.  Walking in a winter wonderland, completely content.  I honestly wondered if life could get any better than that. 

These kids are such troopers!

The real adventure started when we got back to the classroom.  We got the tree in the stand and started to screw in the screws that are supposed to hold the tree in place.  Remember how I mentioned that the trunk wasn't too too big around?  Well, the only problem with that is the trunk of the tree wasn't quite big enough around.  Even with the screws all the way in, the tree was wobbly and threatening to fall over.  I leaned it towards the TV stand, praying it would hold, while we went next door for hot chocolate and Rice Krispy treats with the kindergarteners. 

Just looking at it makes me chuckle, even now!

Then came the challenge of stabilizing the darn tree enough to put some sort of decorations on it.  Stringing lights was a challenge, as I needed about four hands to hold the tree and the lights.  After getting the lights on it, I leaned the tree against the whiteboard and gave the kids little ornaments, with instructions to put theirs on a branch that had no other decorations.  That kept them occupied for about 5 minutes. :-)

After school, I was working with some older students in my room to complete an assignment for the course that I'm taking right now.  Without warning, the tree tipped all the way over, crashing into some tubs of books and spilling water everywhere.  Between the 5 of us in there, we got the tree set back up and scrunched into a corner to keep it from tipping again.  Wanda came in not long after that, and as I shared our latest incident, she said she had some wood blocks that we might be able to jam into the stand to stabilize the trunk.  I got the older students involved in an activity, and then Wanda held the tree steady while I took the screws out enough to jam blocks into the stand.

Thanks to her, the tree is now standing straight and proud, a paragon of beauty, filling the room with the delicious piney scent that is synonymous with the holiday season.

It looks a little scraggly, but it works for us.  I must say, though, you can tell we're all short because most of the decorations are down at the bottom. :-)

Autumn in Alaska

John, another teacher, took Richelle (my new roommate) and I out for a ride on his four-wheeler yesterday.  I had declined a trip out to the hot springs last weekend and begged out of a picnic on Friday citing asthma concerns, so I figured taking a break from my mile-long homework list couldn't be all bad.  I'm so glad I did!  The sore muscles from hanging on to the back of the four-wheeler, and asthma and allergy problems from goodness knows what are definitely worth the beauty of autumn in Alaska!

The farthest shade of blue is the Norton Sound.

So much color!

Autumn snuck up on me!  I hadn't expected to see the foliage changing colors yet!

This is where we stopped for a blueberry snack break.  That's what happens when the driver stops and announces, "I want to eat blueberries."

End of the line.  The trail ends here.  We were about 15 miles out of the village at this point.

This is quite possibly my most favoritest view ever.  As you crest the top of a hill, this is the view that suddenly comes into view.  It takes my breath away every time.

A vicious branch reached out and bit my arm.  I'm uninjured, but my coat definitely isn't waterproof anymore!

A picture is worth a thousand words.  So, I'll summarize this summer with a few illustrations of the highlights.

Oops.

This is the story of an egg.

An egg left in a bowl of vinegar until the shell dissolved.  Information courtesy of Jeopardy.

That's what the inside of an egg looks like.

Vicki and I rode to Lucky Peak and back.  Twice.  Once in June and once in July.

We hiked into Boulder Lake in July.

The trail ended and we had a choice - hike up the rock face. . .

. . . or cross this river.  Guess which one we chose.

There's a gangsta in our midst.

We hung the hobo on the sign.  Bonus point if you can spot the grammar mistake.

Decorating cars is somewhat of an art in the Brewer family.

Mary now has an as yet unnamed little lamb.

God's Take

Due to all the hype surrounding the death of Osama bin Laden, this might be beating a dead horse, but it has been weighing on my mind all day.  I journaled about it last night, and my mind can't seem to let it go.

I'm not going to lie: when I heard the news that Osama bin Laden had been killed, my reaction was elation.  I was excited that they finally got him.  I found a live news feed on the internet and watched President Obama's address to the nation.  When he made the official announcement, I wanted to get up and do a happy dance.  Call me a sweaty heathen and lay on the guilt as heavy as you want, but I was (and still am) happy about it and I'm not going to be apologetic about it.

Then I started thinking.  I'm still excited about it; I'm still glad he's finally dead.  But what is God's take on this?  I fear my excitement and elation over a death might be a sin (at which point my unapologetic attitude is going to get me in trouble).  This man masterminded a plot that killed thousands of Americans on US soil.  He has killed scores of others from all different walks of life around the world.  His hate seemed to consume him.  (I read an article today that said he hated the Soviets and communism almost as much as he hated America.)  Yet, God does not wish any of His creations to be lost.  Evil or not, this man was created by God for a special purpose.  Granted, he wasn't interested in fulfilling that purpose and had clearly joined the dark side, but that's what redemption is all about.  What does God think about this death?  I honestly don't know.  If bin Laden's heart and soul were evil, is it good that he's gone?  Does God rejoice when evil is removed from the world?  Or is He grieving the loss of a child?  Justice?  Redemption?  Forgiveness?  Grace?  I don't know.  I would love to hear other thoughts about this.  (But please, be nice.) 

A few final thoughts: What makes a man hate the world so much that he is bent on destroying it?  What drives a man to harbor that much anger?  How could he be so lost?  I know these questions don't really have an answer.  I guess it's just the nature of evil, and it had such a strong hold on him. 

Seek Ye First

Awhile ago I wrote about seeking answers to certain prayers that I have been praying for years.  My conclusion was that God's word says to ask, seek, knock, and ye will find.  By the time I finally reasoned it through, it seemed so clear.

But here I am, months later, with the same prayers, questions, and desires on my heart.  The words of an old song stopped me in my tracks this afternoon.  I'm sure you know it: Seek ye first the kingdom of God / And His righteousness / And all these things will be added unto you / Allelu, Alleluia.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God.

It's right there in the Bible, in Matthew 6:33, but that was not what I had previously concluded.  Somehow I'd missed that verse.  I had been thinking that asking, seeking, and knocking was about seeking the answers to my prayers.  Have I been seeking the wrong thing all this time?  Maybe, instead of prayers for answers, I should be praying for the kingdom of God.  You know, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done."

What does that mean, though?  What does seeking the kingdom of God look like?  I don't have answers for those questions.  I'm almost afraid to find the answers.  I'm afraid that it'll be like the love conundrum: God says to love Him, loving Him means obeying His commands, His commands are to love Him.  A wonderful, never-ending circle that I don't understand.  Is seeking God's kingdom like that?  I don't even know where to start.

Music and Lyrics

I'm a sucker for a good romantic comedy, which is what Netflix is good for.  That and wiling away the long winter weekends that we are still afflicted with, even though we're halfway through April.  I think Mother Nature missed that memo.  Anyway, I recently watched Music and Lyrics, a delightfully breezy comedy starring Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore.  There's a song that Hugh Grant sings that caught my attention.  I'm not sure why, but these lyrics really resonate with me.

"It's never been easy for me
To find words to go along with a melody.
But this time there's actually something on my mind,
So please forgive these few brief awkward lines.

Since I met you, my whole life has changed.
It's not just my furniture you've rearranged.
I was living in the past
But somehow, you've brought me back,
And I haven't felt like this
Since before Frankie said, 'Relax."
And though I know,
Based on my track record,
I might not seem like the safest bet.
All I'm asking you
Is don't write me off just yet.

For years I've been telling myself the same old story,
That I was happy to live off my so-called former glory.
But you've given me a reason
To take another chance.
Now I need you,
Despite the fact that you've killed all my plants.
And though I know
I've already blown more chances
Than anyone should ever get,
All I'm asking you
Is don't write me off just yet."

King Island Dancers

Last fall, our school staff had some grant money to play around with.  We decided to use it to fund an artist-in-residence for our students.  That set off an almost year-long process that culminated this past week with 6 members of the King Island dance group coming to Elim and spending 4 days teaching our kids to dance.  The 4 men drummed and danced, the 1 female of the group did a lot of the dancing, and the little 7-year old switched back and forth between drumming and dancing. 

Elim does not have a strong dance tradition.  When the missionaries first moved through, they discouraged/banned dancing because of ignorance - they feared a link between native dancing and pagan spirit worship.  The missionaries were also enamored with white indoctrination, which is why the native language started to disappear.  As a school, we would love to see the students learn the language, learn the dancing, learn the native ways of their ancestors, but that push has to come from the community.  They have to initiate it.  That is why the community outpouring of support for this group was so encouraging.  If adults start to bring back these ways, the kids will pick it up and run with it.

The present state of King Island is sad.  It is uninhabited by humans.  For some reason, all natives were relocated to the mainland (Nome area) in 1964 and have since scattered across Alaska.  The highest concentration is in Nome, which is where the dance group is based.

The students were split up by ages and each group had a set time during the day to learn how to dance.  The kindergarten/first-grade group was in the middle of the morning - during our 90-minute reading block.  That was nice.  It shortened the long reading time into a more manageable 45 minutes, which I used for review before we start the next level of the reading curriculum this coming week.  I took a lot of pictures, but they all have kids in them so I can't post them. :-(  On day 1, the girls learned the rabbit dance and the boys learned the walrus dance.  The best part was listening to the boys grunt like walruses at the end of their dance. :-)  On day 2, we reviewed the dances from the previous day, and learned the green-picking dance.  The dances tell stories.  For example, the rabbit dance mimics some of the movements of rabbits; the walrus dance mimics a walrus.  The green-picking dance is about picking fresh greens, piling them up, showing them off.  Day 3 was a resting day.  The dancers did not want to wear out their voices, so they showed the students part of a video from a 1979 potluck/celebration that they danced at in Nome.  Day 4 was reviewing the dances we had learned in preparation for the evening performance.

Before the performance Thursday night,  we had a community potluck.  Only in Alaska would a potluck look like this: sloppy joes, several king crabs, turkey, ham, pasta salads, baked beans, rice, muktuk (whale blubber), berries, agutuq (Eskimo ice cream), and fudge. 

At the performance, the first 45 minutes was showing off the dances we had spent the week learning.  My fear going in was that students would get stage fright and not want to dance in front of such a large audience.  I shouldn't have worried.  Most of the kids were so excited to get up there, even if they had no idea what they were doing.  That was so encouraging.  Even the adults were excited.  The first and last dances were invitational dances - anyone could get up and dance.  Some of the adults were old enough to remember the dancing they had done as children and got up to dance.  If we can find a way to capitalize on that excitement and enthusiasm, there is hope that native dancing will find its way back to Elim.

The second half of the performance was the dance group doing its thing.  That was cool.  The first dance Butch and Jessica did was part of the Wolf Dance - a traditional dance/celebration that usually lasts about 3 days.

The headgear the Butch is wearing is made out of eagle feathers.  His mitts are made out of sealskin, with the little jangling tokens made out of puffin beak or ivory. 

This is the Raven dance.  I could see the mannerisms of ravens in the movements they were doing.  The little boy, Martin, was so intense.  He's been dancing since he was about 4, and totally knows what he's doing.  He was so cute to watch.



After that, they stopped introducing the dances.  Sometimes I could figure out what they were depicting and sometimes not. 

 

I'm not sure what these masks were supposed to depict, but I know I wouldn't want to meet on in a dark alley late at night.

Sylvester, on the left, has got to be at least 60, but he was able to dance with the same range of movement as the younger men.  He does not show his age. 

Another walrus dance, but these two had masks for this one.

In case you were wondering, the clothing they are wearing are called kuspuks.  It is a traditional clothing garment that both men and women can wear.  Women's kuspuks are longer and look more like dresses, while men's kuspuks have a shorter hem and look more like shirts.  The drums they are using are made out of walrus stomach, stretched on an oak frame.  Trees are scarce on King Island, so traditionally, the frames were made of spruce gathered from the driftwood washed up on the beaches.  The handle could be made from either wood or ivory.

Wow

I am a big fan of patterns that occur in daily life.  I make it a point to mention it to my kids when I see them, such as when the date does something cool.  Today, the date was 4/11/11.  Nothing too spectacular.  There are two elevens, which I knew my kids noticed.  I heard little giggles and whispers when I wrote it down during our calendar time today.  I figured that was enough and didn't mention it or elaborate on it.  I moved on.  I could tell one student wasn't totally with me, but he is usually too tired in the morning to function so it was normal for him.  Less than 3 minutes later, he raised his hand and told us that "On November 11, it will be three elevens."  Wow.  My mind was officially blown.

Iditarod

The Iditarod this year turned out to be an exciting race with an ending that no one saw coming.  Lance Mackey was the reigning champion; he had won an unprecedented four in a row.  Everyone was watching to see if he could pull off number five and become the second man to win the race five times (Rick Swenson is the other one), and the only man to ever win five in a row. 

As the racers left Anchorage, everything looked to be going well for all the racers.  Then, within the first day of actual racing, Mackey had to drop a bunch of dogs.  Without the power of a full team, he fell in the standings.  It was a crazy race, with unknown mushers coming out of nowhere to claim the lead and then fall back.  Beautiful weather all along the route led to fast times between checkpoints.  It was clear that this was going to be a race to keep an eye on. 

As racer approached Elim, John Baker was in the lead, with Ramey Smyth right on his heels.  Baker is an Inupiat Eskimo from the village on Kotzebue, on the north side of the Seward Peninsula.  No one really saw him coming.  He took his time for the majority of the race, but when he hit the Yukon River and then the coast, he took off.  I had been watching the Iditarod website all weekend and knew that he was getting close.  An announcement was made Monday morning at 8:35 that he was three miles out.  So, we rounded up whatever kids we could find and headed down to cheer him in. 

He stopped long enough to snack his dogs and let the vets check them out.  He didn't even park his team.

He was passing out what looked to be frozen pieces of fish, but the bag said turkey, so I'm assuming that's what it was. 

Yummy.  The dogs loved it.  They ate while the vets did their work, and then he was off again.  Ramey Smyth was close behind, coming through less than an hour later. 

I went down to the checkpoint after school.  It was a beautiful day - clear blue skies, bright sun that actually felt warm on my face in spite of the frigid wind.  There were a couple of teams there, resting in the warmth.

Hugh Neff's team.

I was keeping an eye on the website for the rest of the afternoon.  I knew DeeDee Jonrowe was coming fast, and I wanted to see her come in.  Right around 6:30, I headed down to the checkpoint, and was just in time to see her come in.  

Her team came in pulling strong and looking healthy.  She quickly got them bedded down while the vets went about their business quickly and efficiently.

Note the bright pink harnesses.  Jonrowe is a breast cancer survivor.  She started running dogs 30 years ago, fought and beat breast cancer about 5 years ago (running the Iditarod 4 weeks after her last chemo treatment), and came back to doing what she loves.  It didn't even slow her down.  She has run the Iditarod something like 27 times, finishing in the top 10 half of those times.  That is what I call an inspirational woman!

I continued to watch the race closely, knowing that the two mushers in the lead were less than an hour apart.  Mackey was way back; it was looking doubtful that he was even going to place in the top 20.  He only had 8 dogs left and was moving pretty slowly.

As Tuesday dawned, Nome was ready to crown a new Iditarod champion.  John Baker crossed the finish line early that morning, shattering the previously held record for fastest Iditarod time ever.  As disappointing as it was to the old champion fall, the new champion couldn't be more worthy.  He is the first native Eskimo to win the Iditarod since the 1970's.  He is the first Inupiat Eskimo to win the Iditarod ever.  Native drummers were on hand at the finish line to welcome him in.  Ray Redington started the Iditarod so many years ago to bring attention to the fact that dog-sledding was becoming lost in the native villages.  It was losing status as a vital part of life, and Mr. Redington wanted to preserve it.  Having an Eskimo from a native village come from behind and take top honors - well, Mr. Redington would have been proud.  The Iditarod was coming back to its roots, in a way.  It's a proud moment for Kotzebue, and for Eskimos everywhere, really.