Update

Sorry, I haven't posted anything on my blog in the past couple of days but as you can guess I have been pretty busy. Technically today was the first day we had to be at school and we spent most of the day in a video conference with the district. Remember the school district is about the size of Ohio and we have 23 schools in about 20 different villages so our district meeting are usually held via Polycom. A number of classes particularly Math and Science are taught via polycom through the district head quarters -thus not every school has a "Highly Qualified" Math and/or Science teacher - we have two different Polycom channels and thus the district can offer a variety of HS Classes.
I have been at school quite a lot since arriving trying to organize my room and figure out what I am teaching. I know the classes 7th/8th Grade Math, US History, Algebra 1, HS Math, 6/7/8th Grade PE and 7/8th Grade Social Studies. By the way they use the "phase" system for Math, Reading, and Writing so that means between my "three" Math classes I actually have 10 different lessons going on - The concept is great the organization of it still has me confused but I think I am getting there. As some of you know I have sent out a cry for help with the Social Studies looking for lesson plans or anything - I guess I am going to have to do a lot of Internet research. US History - I sent an e-mail to the teacher who taught the class a couple of years ago to see if he remembers what books he used and any other materials. PE is temporally on the bottom of my concern list - I will probably be pulling some of my old YMCA stuff or making my YMCA friends send it to me - RUTHIE, remember that math test!!! Did I mention that school starts MONDAY.

Alaska is totally awesome!!! Very hard to describe - SUPER VAST - doesn't even come close.



This picture was taken standing on the board walk in the village. and is one out of 3-4 pictures I did trying to get a panoramic view. Even though we are 2-3 miles up in land from the ocean we still can see the effects of the tides on the river - the river rises and falls a good 10-20feet. In this shot it is just starting to go out.

I went Blue Berrie picking yesterday and was able to get enough to fill two quart size freezer bags. These are some pictures I took out on the tundra. It was a 15 min walk from my house to the area that I picked berries. I hope to go out again tomorrow evening and pick some more. In talking to one of the villagers I found out that I can also pick what they call Black Berries, they look like Blue Berries but are black and the red berries should be ripe by the end of the month.







Well beleive it or not it is 9pm even though it looks like about 5pm the sun is shinning and although I would love to go for a walk or something I think I will head home (a whole 100 yards away from the front door of the school). First I will use the restroom, wash my hands and brush my teeth, I try to do this before heading home for the night since running water makes all of these task a little easier.

Feel free to comment on the blogs - I do apologize if I am not answering e-mail as often as I should.