Going "Shopping"

I went to the Kokhanok store yesterday just to see what they had.  Well my friends guess what they have at the general store!

Well you could spend $5 on a jar of peanut butter.

You could spend $16 on beef jerkey.

OOOOOOORRRRRRRRR.....

And for the small price of $8.40, I can own those doritos!

If you think I'm not seriously considering it, you would be mistaken.

Suicidal Muffins and Doritos Funeral

How do you make muffins when you don't have a measuring cup?  You just go for it and you hope for the best.

I bought this special muffin mix that only requires water to make (although I think that it's really strange that the brand is called Krusteaz.  Someone in marketing couldn't have come up with a more delicious sounding name for these muffins?  Seriously?  Get on that VP Marketing).  And I was super excited because it didn't involve eggs or flour (which I don't have).  So I really wanted muffins yesterday and I decided it was the ideal time to try and make them!

I started putting water in.  I mixed it up and it looked like sludge.  So I put some more water in and it still resembled sludge.  So I put even more water in and it was now too runny.  Oh well.  Nothing I can do now, I have no flour to thicken it up.  So I pour it in to the muffin tins and made my six muffins.

When they came out of the over they were delicious.  I was super excited.

Cut to the next day, when my muffins were suddenly hard as rocks.  Seriously.  They are like lead bombs.  I cannot even get the paper off them.  Plus one of my muffins just gave up the will to live and has collapsed in on itself.  (Hence the suicidal muffins title).

So I don't know what to do with these muffins now.  It seems so criminal to throw out food in Alaska.  But I don't want to put it outside because I don't want the animals to start hanging around my house.  I might just have to throw them out.


Today was also a very sad day because I ran out of Doritos.

This video may seem dramatic to you, but you can have Dorito's whenever you darn well please now can't you!  Sarah cannot.  She is stuck in a Dorito-less life for the next two months.

Do you think Amazon ships Doritos....?

I keep losing my ice creepers

So I went and took another walk after school today because it's just so beautiful here, I would feel guilty for staying inside.

So here are more beautiful Alaska photos.  A day may come when I stop posting landscape photos, but right now I just can't help myself.

In other news my ice creepers keep getting stuck on things.  So with all this walking around I've been doing, I've had to back track several times to go find them.  It's been rather annoying.  Ice creepers, I'm disappointed in you.


So my clubs have been going very well.  Radio Journalism was interesting.  This week we talked about who we would like to interview for the video and what questions we're going to ask them.  Then we practiced interviewing each other.  Then the students wanted to interview me.  So here's a YouTube recording of them interviewing me with photos of my time here (it needed to have pictures).  Keep in mind that the interview process is totally new to them.  So, they mumble and you can't always hear them and they got distracted towards the end.  Here's the link to the interview.


I even was able to take that clip and put it on the radio.  In Radio on Thursday we also worked on making little radio jingles in Garage Band.  I'm really proud of the radio station :)  I even have it constantly repeating the playlist so there is always something playing on 88.5 KROK.

Here's a jingle I did.

Today I was driving my students home and my school bus got stuck on the ice.  Thank goodness there was no students in there, but I was freaking out.  I had a radio in the car so I got on the air to try and tell someone that I was stuck and ask what I should do but no one answered back.  Cue more freaking out. After much alternation between drive and 2 and reversing and going forward again, I was able to get the school bus unstuck and get back to the school.

This weekend will be spent doing some reading, planning for the week, I have some letters to write and maybe some pilates if I can get up the energy!

Why I am always walking after school

So I was driving my students home after music lessons today and it was just so beautiful (Did I mention that I have 1/4 of the school involved in music lessons?  :).  Like, unbelievably beautiful.  After I had dropped them off, I hurried home to get changed and I walked as fast as I could around town to try and capture the beauty before the sun went down.  Unfortunately it really is not as beautiful as when I was driving, I was just a little too late.  Here are some photos anyway.

That's my school building on the left.

This is down by my principal's house.

Essentially right in front of my principals house.

I started walking towards the airport, also called 'down the line.'

Also 'down the line.'


Finally, I have more additions to

SARAH'S RULES FOR LIVING IN ALASKA:

1. always have food on your person.  always.
2. always have a flashlight
3. always have a book/magazine/entertainment
4. always wear your 'ice creepers'

What are ice creepers you may be asking yourself.

The picture is not the best, but a rubber/metal contraption that goes on the bottom of your shoes that helps you walk on the ice.  And we have a lot of ice in Kokhanok.  Everywhere.  It doesn't matter that there's no ice by your house, there could be ice anywhere.  Don't take any chances.

That's all for tonight.  I have to head across the street and figure out how a radio station works before tomorrow after school!

Reading teacher, math teacher, music teacher, DJ and school bus driver

I know when I first started telling people that I got this job, there was some confusion about what I would be doing.  I've attached a copy of my schedule and hopefully my job here will start to make some more sense.

So in the morning I help in the elementary reading classroom.  Every group of students is constantly rotating through different stations.  I will have a station, their teacher has a station and usually the other group will be on the computer.  The other day I helped first grade learn about words that end with s and m, as well as the short a sound.  Then I helped second grade with their journal entries about what they did this past weekend.  Then I helped kindergarteners trace their letters on the SmartBoard.  And that's just one day for one class period.

Then I go into math class which also has multiple grades contained in one class period.  So I pulled out a student who is learning different material from the rest of the kids and we learned (well, he learned, I taught) about fractions and decimals and today we learned how fractions and decimals can be applied to money.

Then I have lunch.

After lunch, I either tutor some students with their reading fluency or I go to high school and help those students.  After that, most days, I have a student who comes in and we work on her reading and writing.

The PEP time is a really cool time where I get to teach music during the school day.  It's a half-hour and I have five students who range from grades 3-5.  What PEP stands for is Personalized Education Plan.  Basically, the students come up with some project that they're going to complete based on the standards they need to accomplish.  So we took all the students who need to do PEP projects during this time and we split them up.  There was no way one teacher could monitor 13 students who are each doing individual projects.  So those 13 students are split up between PEP with their teacher, music with me, or net repairs with another teacher.  I will have the same students 4 days a week for the next 4 weeks.  It's a really cool opportunity for me to teach music to students who are maybe too intimidated to come to lessons after school (or think that they're too cool for music....)

Then after school you can see I am hosting a variety of after school activities.  On Monday, Wednesday and Friday I teach music lessons (piano, guitar and voice).  I've had a pretty good turn-out so far, so I'm pretty excited.  Then on Tuesday I am pioneering the Video Journalism club.  What do I know about videography or journalism you may be asking.... Nothing.  I know essentially nothing on either of those topics, but I'm excited.  We're going to be making a video about what it's like to live in Kokhanok.  Then on Thursday I'm the new advisor for the Radio Club.  We're going to make playlists and play music and host a radio show on our school radio station 88.5 KROK.  What do I know about hosting a radio show or the technology that goes into such a thing?  Once again, nothing.  But I'm not going to let that stop me.  I'm smart and capable and you can look up just about anything on the internet.  So never anyone fear, I'm going to make this work!

Oh, and did I mention that I'm also the bus driver at the end of the day (see the title of this post)?  Whenever students are done with me  and they need a ride home, I get the key to the ENORMOUS Ford Expedition and I drive my kids home after lessons and clubs.  This is how small town living works.  I actually really enjoy it at the end of the day.

Well, it's time to go for today.  I'm starving.

Welcome to Kokhanok!

I took a walk around the village today.  There's a small loop that goes around the whole village and so I just walked around that.  It wasn't too cold today, so I was fine.

Here's the post office:

Here's the Russian Orthodox Church (I'm told they only have service about once a month):

Here's the VPSO (Village Public Safety Office):

And here's Kokhanok General Store:

That's pretty much the town.  There's also a clinic, and I can't tell if it's a people clinic or a veterinary clinic.  I'm pretty sure it's a people clinic.

Reasons why Friday was the best day ever.  

I got all my totes and a package from my mom!!!

Now, remember how stressed I was about packing these totes?  It all went away when I remembered everything that was in them.  It was like Christmas times 5!  There was so much stuff in these totes.

There was Snapple, which I was excited about because I had been drinking nothing but water.

I also had some clothes in my totes, so now my wardrobe is more expansive.

And if you're wondering about the kitchen knife in the top left corner, that was the only way to get my totes open because they were zip tied shut.

I now have a pitcher to make my powdered lemonade.  It was filled with mac and cheese powdered cheese as well as some mac and cheese bags.

I wish I had more pictures of the unpacking process but my camera's dying, so I don't.

After I had at least put everything on the counter, I had to clean up the living room.

After unpacking everything, here's what my freezer looks like now:

I now have three drawers full of cereal:

A drawer full of macaroni and cheese:

Shelves filled with mac and cheese and soup:

Shelves full of Ramen (which I don't have a picture of because my camera died by then).

Oatmeal, sauce and shacks:

More snacks and my army of milk:

Sauces, powdered cocoa and sugar:

I also have enough toilet paper for a small army.

Here's some food questions that I need answers to:

1.  You're supposed to freeze butter, right? (same with bread)

2.  My cream cheese is separating, there's watery stuff on the bottom and curds towards the top, does this mean it's gone bad?  I put it in the freezer, is this bad?  Am I going to get e. coli from eating spoiled cream cheese (because I've definitely been eating it)?

I'll end this post with a humorous story.   I got a coffee pot from one of the other apartments that isn't being used right now.  So I bring this coffee pot home along with some filters I found and me, being not an idiot, decide I'm going to make coffee.  So I put the filter in, put the coffee in, measure the water, and assume that all will be well.  Well I come back a few minutes later and there's not as much coffee in the pot as I feel like there should be.  So I decide to give it a few more minutes.  Well when I come back my coffee pot has exploded.  Not like, the glass part, that was still intact.  But the part where the filter is isn't letting the water come down into the pot so instead it bubbled over onto everywhere.  It made the biggest mess.  Coffee grounds and coffee and water everywhere.  It was horrible.  So I'm going to try a different coffee filter and see if that solves it, otherwise I'm going to assume that my coffee pot has just had enough and it's time to bite the dust.

This is why I should never be left in a kitchen by myself.

Last Night's Dinner, Today's Sunset

As I mentioned earlier, I had dinner with my principal and his wife last night.  They are such lovely people and I ended up staying there for several hours just talking to them and watching YouTube videos and just generally having a great time.

Here's what we had for dinner.

Stir-fry green beans

Quinoa

There was also a salad which I forget to take a picture of...

And the best part!!!!

I got to try Alaskan salmon!!  It was so good.  I mean, just incredible.  The top piece was just a simple lemon pepper salmon, which was delicious. The bottom one was a pinapple glazed salmon, which was also delicious.  I can't explain why Alaskan salmon is so good, but it really is.  It tastes fresh and clean and has a beautiful mild flavor.  

Then when I got home from school today I decided to do a little bit of exploring since the weather was pretty mild and I still had some daylight left.  I climbed up this huge hill behind my house and it looks out on to the lake.

Then I took some other pictures from on top of the hill.

Then I walked down to Iliamna lake, near where my principal lives and took some pictures down by the lake.

It's really beautiful here, in case you didn't get that from the pictures. :)

Waqaa, cangacit?

When we last left off, I was staying at the Holiday Inn because my flight had been cancelled.  Well I am pleased to report that my flight went through and I am safely in Kokhanok.

We took the Polatis PC 12 and I am told that my pilot has logged more hours in this type of plan than any other pilot in the country, if not the world.

It was very strange walking to the plane because we essentially had to walk through the airplane hangar and we couldn't take any carry-ons, everything had to be checked.  So we get on this plane and there were 10 seats.  It was the smallest plane I had ever ridden in.  The turbulence was just horrible.  It was the scariest flight I have ever been on.  I was clutching the arm rest with everything I had.  The flight from Anchorage was just over an hour and we didn't land in Kokhanok, we landed in Iliamna, which is just across the lake.

[Funny story, if you put those two places into Google maps, it won't calculate the directions because the only way to go is by plane or by boat (if the lake's not frozen) or four wheeler (if the lake's frozen)]

So we land in Iliamna and I was never so thankful for a flight to end as I was at that moment.  It wasn't all bad, though.  I was able to get some awesome pics from that flight.

And my personal favorite:

I don't know that I could ever tire of looking at these mountains.  They are just breathtaking.

We waited in Iliamna airport for at least two hours to wait for the winds to calm and the weather in general to improve.  During these two hours I started compiling 

SARAH'S RULES FOR LIVING IN ALASKA:

1. always have food on your person.  always.
2. always have a flashlight
3. always have a book/magazine/entertainment

I found myself in Iliamna airport, starving once again.  I had eaten a bagel at the hotel at 9:30 and we didn't leave Iliamna airport until about 3.  That might be the most hungry I have ever been in my life.  The pilot decided we were okay to take off and it's just a 15 minute flight across the lake to Kokhanok!  Here's some pictures from that flight and you'll notice some terrain differences (less mountain-y, more forest-y).

And my principal was there to meet me at the airport.  He has been great and I'm having dinner at his house tonight (don't worry, they'll be a post tomorrow about it.)  He dropped me off at my house/apartment!

I am super impressed with this place.  It's big, it's in really great condition.  I love it.

I started unpacking which took hours to put everything away.  I had to start by cracking open my tote full of frozen stuff.  Here's all the food that made it to Kokhanok with me one way or the other (i.e. in my pockets)

(And just to clarify, that is non-alcoholic Bailey's coffee creamer)

(bagels, butter, frozen veggies, frozen fruit, chicken breasts, ground beef)

(cheese, bagels, shredded cheese)

Once I had gotten home I was just so happy to be there and caught up in the unpacking process that I momentarily forgot how hungry I was.  Then I remembered. I found these beef sticks in my carry on luggage and I'm pretty sure that they are left-over from Christmas.  (Do beef sticks go bad, because I'm operating under the assumption that they don't.  And since I ate them one day ago and I'm still fine, it would seem that my assumptions are correct.)

I also made myself mac and cheese for dinner, but I didn't have any milk (it's in the mail.)  Did you know you can make mac and cheese without milk and it's not the worst thing ever?  Because I know that.

After I had made dinner, I still had all this stuff to put away.

I got it all put away and rearranged the furniture a little, and then...

You get to see me give a virtual tour of my new house!  Lucky you!!!

Before I forget, if you're wondering about the title of this post, I went to Yupik class with my kids today and this is what they learned.  "Waqaa, cangacit?" is essentially "How are you?"  and the response they learned was "Kaigtua" which means "I'm hungry."

And with that....

kaigtau