Was that sarcasm?

Where should I begin? Why, at the beginning of course! I’ve had crummy internet here in Nome so I haven’t been able to update the online world lately.

Sunday:
I had the pleasure of being able to sleep in. Although I didn’t have to be anywhere in the morning, I was still up at a decent hour. I hadn’t yet packed for Nome and didn’t know how I was getting to the airport. I packed (lighter than the trip to Unalkleet/Stebbins) for Nome and then went to find out how I was getting to the airport. I searched for my principal at the school and when he wasn’t there, I went to his house (this is okay to do here). I found him, not! I then ran into the former ECE teacher on the way back to my house and she told me that I probably wouldn’t be flying out due to weather. Hearing this made me feel a little more comfortable and less rushed. I went to a friend’s place and searched for the phone number to see if the flight was still going as planned. Apparently, the BSSD flight number isn’t available, I however, have Sammy!!! I sent a text to the lovely lady and she was actually landing at that time. She asked the pilot (Aiden) if I was still flying. The message I received was that I was and I needed to be at the airport in 45 minutes. Well, a relief that I was still going came over me, but not as powering as the frazzled feeling I had. I headed back to my principal’s house but got no answer again. I decided to take one last look at the school; it’s a good thing I did because that’s where he was. I asked him who was taking me to the airport and he told me that he was, which is why he was there. I headed back to my house and gathered my things.  About 10 minutes later we headed to the airport.

I only had to wait about 3 minutes until I got on the plane and was off! I didn’t get to go right to Nome, first I got to pick up 3 other people, one in Brevig Misson, one in Whales, and one in Teller. Each of these flights were more turbulent than the last. Whales can be known to have the worst weather; at the time I flew however, Shishmaref was undergoing worse weather. After the long haul I safely ended up in Nome. I was hungry at this point and guess what?! The first place that looked familiar is where I ate, Subway!!!! After dinner Sammy and I came back to the hotel to relax. Don’t get too excited, the hotel I’m at is your basic hotel: cable TV, crummy internet, no breakfast, empty vending machines, dishes, a mini fridge, and microwave in the room, and the most uncomfortable beds I’ve slept in, ever. I would rather be sleeping on the ground, in the rain (as long as I had my sleeping bag of course). For dinner, we had ‘Milano’s’. Sammy and I each got a medium pizza so we would have leftovers for breakfast. As we walked back to the hotel, I proceeded to almost drop the left over pizza on the ground, then ran into a wall, that was fun. Both of us zonked fairly quickly that night.

Monday:
Bright and early, I had to wake up more my favorite thing, other than using fluoride, inservice. I hope you can read sarcasm, if not, that was my attempt. Getting ready was the easy part. What about pineapple pizza for breakfast is difficult? Everyone (all of the ECE teachers) walked down to the mini convention center together. When we got there, we got a big surprise! Balloons were everywhere! They were all over the floor and confetti was on the tables; one would have thought a birthday party was going on! Alright, so that didn’t really happen. We did get to choose from teas, coffee, and hot cocoa to indulge in though. Breakfast choices were also provided: oatmeal and fresh fruit. What did I take? Come on, you know me, well, maybe. I took the fruit. I won’t be able to have fresh items in my village often so I figured I might as well get it while I can. Once I got breakfast, there was another surprise waiting for me. There were toys on my table – stickers, markers, crayons, blocks, play-doh, and a puzzle eraser. No, really, this is the truth!! By the way, a puzzle eraser is 6 separate erasers that are 4×4 puzzle piece squares that all fit together to make a cube. This toy was by far the most distracting. Other than playing with the toys, I learned about Teaching Strategies Gold (assessment) as well as the domains I will be working with and how they will align with one another.

Personally, (as well as with others) I believe this inservice could have been done in much less time. Everything seemed to be repetitive. Our speaker was knowledgeable but seemed to be filling time often. How many times can a group of about 60 people hear everyone’s answers to questions? The answer: not even one. Although we could have settled for less than one, the actual result was closer to 4. For those of you who have a hard time with math, that’s 5 (questions) x 60 (people) x 4 (times/rotations) = 1,200 (moments of ridiculousness). Yep, that’s right, I enjoyed doing this math just to see how much time was wasted. Some of you may be thinking, “This time may have seem to be wasted because you thought the topic was boring, but wasn’t it beneficial?” My answer, no.

Anyway, after inservice, Sammy and I hit up a store on the way back to the hotel. This place was one of the cutest little shops I’ve seen in a while. It reminded me of ‘grandma’s secret closet’ which had all of the fun stuff in it that she wouldn’t let you see unless it was a special occasion. I ended up getting a deck of cards (go figure) as well as two puppets. I was once told that as an ECE teacher, I can never have too many puppets. I have now added a dolphin to my puppet collection as well as a glove. The glove puppet has an animal on each fingertip: brown bear, moose, puffin, polar bear, and husky. This might be one of the coolest puppets I’ve ever seen!

Would you like to take a guess as to what I had for dinner? I’ll give you a hint, I had Chinese for lunch and I didn’t have the same thing for dinner. Give up? I had ‘Milano’s’ again. This time, I had a cheeseburger. Here’s the most irritating thing I have encountered while eating out in Alaska, barbecue sauce seems to be a foreign term. I can’t seem to get my desirable addition to a meal. I suppose I will have to bring my own condiment selection next time I come to Nome. The rest of the evening wasn’t too thrilling, I attempted to update everyone on my newest endeavors, but like I stated earlier, the internet here is crummy. In the end, I went to bed.

Tuesday:
Look outside what do you see? Sunny skies, grass growing, or children playing? I wish I could see that. What’s my view you may ask? Let’s peek out the window and see – dark skies, rain drenching the ground, wind so strong it’s blowing Sammy over, waves crashing so loudly one can hear them without seeing them. That’s actually what the whole day was like. I’m not laying in bed, going over my entire day, which by the way I’m not going to go into great detail about, it would bore you. I promise, it’s exactly like yesterday, only crummy weather. My day was filled with inservice, yes, same topics, and walking back to the hotel was the same as well.

The only difference was that today, we stopped at GCI (my new cell phone company) because my phone isn’t working properly. I intend on getting a new one very soon. Like I said, not very thrilling. The exciting part of the day was dinnertime. I had ‘Airport Pizza’. No, I didn’t have pizza, or a burger, I had a BARBECUE chicken wrap!!!! Yes, I really was that thrilled when I learned they had this on menu. Here’s the twist though. Sammy and I didn’t feel like walking across town in the crummy weather so we decided to have the food delivered. Try to guess what our total came out to be: I had a barbecue chicken wrap and an unsweetened iced tea and Sammy had a small cheese pizza, breadsticks, and a soda. Now, think about this: 2 people and delivered. Do you give up? And the grand total came to……..$64.23 (okay the cents might be off) but the whole dollar amount is actual!! No sarcasm intended! Isn’t that crazy?!?!? Apparently, just to deliver the food was $10.00 because a cab driver had to deliver it. I tell ‘ya, we’re not ordering from there again.

The rest of the evening is kind of a blur. Sammy and I spent the evening in our beds, wishing we could dream of sugar plums dancing in our heads. Instead, we spent the evening wishing we didn’t have to get up early and go to inservice again. We’ve come to an agreement that we both want to go home, too bad home isn’t the same place for both of us.
Well, it’s about time the sandman has come to visit me, I hope you all enjoyed my update and I’ll keep them coming the best I can.


Sweet dreams <3

(copied from original blog - aug 22)