Qunbuk (Kun-guk)!!

Well, I managed to find a kitten!! My Mom went and picked him up for me this morning, and now has the dreadful job of babysitting him for the next week! I'm sure she will manage. I guess he isn't too fond of the dog yet, and Maude hasn't woken up from her slumber under the Christmas tree to find out what she is in store for, yet, but he is adjusting to the move. I hate not being able to see him yet- but at least I get pictures. I am really glad I found an orange one! Who would have ever thought that there would be a shortage of kittens! But apparently, Christmas time is a hard time to find them! I think this one was meant to be mine, though, because he was posted for about a week before we found him, and as soon as we said we would take him, the lady had three more calls of people wanting him. I haven't completely decided on a name, yet, but I am thinking about calling him Qunbuk (pronounced Kung-uk)- an Inupiaq word meaning brightness on horizon, indicating the presence of ice on the ocean.....his nicknames can be Kung and Guk then... He was born on September 24, Gary's birthday.....that will be easy to remember. I think it will be good for me to have something nice to think about on that day, rather than just what is missing. I am not looking forward to that time of year next year.
I will post more pictures of Qunbuk as I get them!....I think I will spell it Qunguk to avoid confusion! Hmm...my second orange cat, starting with a "Q"!

life...

I had my first crab of the year the other day, John invited me over for supper. It was a lot better than the nachos I had after school....which was going to be my supper! I am trying to eat my cheese and empty out a little freezer space! I still have a ton of food left- and I am supposed to be half way through my years supply!!
I overslept for work yesterday- it is completely dark out when I wake up and my alarm clocks do not light up, so I just hit snooze....and don't know what time it is. Last night I slept with my Christmas lights on, and then I could see my clock in the morning- guess I need to get a real alarm clock over Christmas. It is hard to wake up when it is really dark out!
School is going good- and the kids are learning a lot- we just started adding and subtracting this week....after working on it just a little bit as a class for the last month each day. They are doing really well with it- and we made abacuses on Monday to use for it (popsicle sticks, pipe-cleaners and pony beads). The Christmas Bazaar will be tomorrow! I have quite a bit to do to get ready for that yet.....and my Research Proposal is due soon....so that is keeping me busy. I found out that I have one more class yet to take- I want to take it next quarter and just be done, but I think it might burn me out....I am having motivation issues lately. Plus, I start coaching that quarter-but I was planning to quit tutoring for that time- and that will free up two more evenings each week, which would help a lot. Other than that- I am just trying to gt ready for Christmas!

Finally- some mukluks!

I have been wanting a pair of mukluks for a long time...and I finally got some yesterday! This now means I have very little money to spend over Christmas break- as my extra tutoring money is all gone now- but I don't care. I don't need much money over break anyways. I am pretty happy with my mukluks, and even wear them around the house. The bottoms are made out of oogruk (bearded seal), and were traditionally chewed on to crimp and make them turn in. Some women still do this, but they have also designed a spring loaded pliers to do the same sort of thing. My last year in Shishmaref they let me start making some baby mukluk bottoms. Not too many people make them anymore, so I was pretty happy to have the chance to buy some again. I know the person who made the bottoms (in Shish), and the seal fur is also from Shish, but they were put together here. Notice the beaded stars on top....the Shishmaref star, or so they are called. I was planning on wearing them around MN, until Christopher mentioned that all the salt on the roads might be bad for them....

sunset-walk part 2

More pictures from my hike.



Another hairy tree.....

sunset walk

a mouse hole....




My pictures get a little fuzzy when the light starts to fade.


On Friday, as soon as school was out I rushed outside to go for a walk....at this time of year I need to start right away, unless I take a headlamp for the way back! The wind was blowing pretty good, but it was pretty nice out- and the colors in the sky were nice to look at. I borrowed Sadie and headed up to the other side of Baldhead. We had gotten a little bit of fresh snow that day, so it made for a nice walk!

Thanksgiving Feast!

Here are some pictures from the community Thanksgiving Feast, held in the school gym. It is a potluck, and the city buys some reindeer and turkey for it. In Shishmaref we always had caribou stew...here we had actual hunks of reindeer meat- it was pretty good! On Friday I cooked a dinner at my house and had a few people over.
With such a late Thanksgiving this year- Christmas is sneaking up fast! Our Christmas Bazzar will be next week, and the Christmas program the week after- then we will be on break already! I am excited to be able to go home this year for Christmas.

Getting ready for Thanksgiving

Here are some pictures I took that half day of school we had before Thanksgiving. The kids helped me make turkeys to put up in the gym. The feathers had their names and things that they are thankful for. Some of the things that kids wrote: snow, my mom, the sun, spring, candy.....
They are doing a really good job sounding out words and attempting to write on their own. It is fun to see!

Music

A couple weeks ago I had the musical instruments out for labs and the students were learning about keeping a beat, etc. I had to close the door so we didn't disturb the other classrooms, but they had a terrific time!
John has begun coming into my classroom to help the kids learn a song for the Christmas program in 3 weeks. I am SOOO glad he is helping me out with this- as then it won't be mostly my voice that the entire community hears that night! He brings in his guitar, and the kids are just enthralled by it. They scoot up as close as they can get to him, and some kids can barely keep their hands off his guitar. It is really cute. After playing for a few minutes and practicing our song, he lets them take turns strumming the guitar, which they really enjoy. I took a few pictures of the kids all crowded around him. I have written out the lyrics to our song, and we practice it during other parts of the day, also. The kids are learning to recognize more of the words as we sound them out together, and there are qite a few of their sight words on there as well. So- it is not a waste of our educational time- the kids really are learning from it as well- and they are really excited about the song.....much more so than if I was teaching it to them by myself. I think I owe John a Christmas present for taking this big amount of stress of me!! =)

Sunrise/Sunset

The sun is rising later......I woke up at 10:45 this morning to a great sunrise.....and I see colors starting to form for sunset when I leave school at 4. This month will see a lot of changes in light- but the prolonged sunrises and sunsets we get around here are really nice- nothing like the 10 minutes of glory in Minnesota where you can almost see the sun moving. Here everything is a little more gradual.....and the late sunrise gives even non-morning people like me a chance to enjoy it! We had a volleyball tournament here this weekend. Two teams came from out of town, and I was able to see one of my friends from a different village. The kids had a dance that went about as I expected with very few people dancing, but they had fun- and the kids really enjoyed the glowsticks that Mom brought up for them!

Disgusting!

Obviously, I am not grossed out by too much....as evidenced by my large collection of bones, some rather ripe still when I collected them. Surprisingly that didn't gross me out at all, however, the other day when I decided I needed to declog my bathtub as it was barely draining at all, I was a little grossed out. I was pretty amazed by what I could pull out with a clothes hanger....and even more amazed afterwards that I had had a tub that drained at all! Unfortunately, my tub does not have anything to block things that go down, so I will eventually have to do this task again.