Entrepreneurship Final Project

I swear, this wasn't even my idea. I cannot express how happy I was when we decided to do this. We shared it with the entire community this evening at the "Black and Gold" awards ceremony. I was really proud.

working it

You know, I've never tried to claim that my life is hard, because it isn't, in fact I live a pretty blessed life, but GD, sometimes, I just don't know. If you're wondering why you haven't seen a blog post in over a month, it's because I've been working my ass off. I cannot find words (believe me I've tried) to quantify exactly how much work I have to do between planning for 7 classes and working on my teaching portfolio, just trust, that's it more work than anyone person should be asked to do. I could quite literally spend all of my waking hours at school working on these two things and never finish. I'm getting sick of feeling like this, like there is never an end. The good news is that there is an end, my teaching portfolio is due May 31 and the last day of school is June 5. 

This is good news, but it's not all good news, I still don't have a contract, and I was just informed that if I don't have one by June 31, I will not be getting my teaching certificate renewed, which means that I cannot teach next year. This is devastating to me. Because I've been so overwhelmed just trying to keep my head above water, I've had no time to look for new employment. I have completely dicked myself. If I was smart, I would have quit lesson planning last month and made it my full time job to find a new job, but I didn't want to do that. First, it would be really unfair to the children here, second, I don't want to leave. I have been going a million miles an hour for over a year. I've lived at four different addresses in two states over the last 13 months. My life has been filled with uncertainty. Four days after school gets out I'm suppose to be in Gustavus starting my kayaking gig and I'm contracted to do that until August 18th. I don't think that I can emotionally, or physically for that matter start in a new district in the fall. There are limits to what I can do and I think that would be pushing it. For the first time in my entire life, I'm just too tired.

The good news is that I might have a part-time school librarian/teacher/counselor gig here in Thorne Bay which will fulfill the requirements of my program. The job has yet to be posted, and I will of course have to apply for it, but I'm confident that I will get it. 

It's really weird, I normally feed on uncertainty (point-in-case: moving to Anchorage last  year without a job prospect) but I'm sick of it. I don't know if I'm finally growing up (at the ripe age of 28) and experiencing something that normal be people feel all time that prevents them from living a nomadic lifestyle with no attachments and no possessions but something is changing or maybe I'm just exhausted. 

 Earth Day 2012

 Trash Art Competition

 Dance Party

Yoga

Please, if you're reading this, send me a positive employment thought. It would one less thing to worry about.

Channelling Marian Ladenburg-McGlone

Pack of hungry Stellar Sea Lions

This post was almost the third in my “This is NOT my Life” series, but I thought Marian deserved a post in her honor. So here’s the scene: Saturday morning, 6am, I get up, really tired, and admittedly a little spent from a park service party the night before. The weather outside is my absolute unfavorite: the snow-rain mix. I’m suppose to go whale watching or whaling* in Craig (an hour away). I don’t want to go, but as I was staring out the window I thought of my dear cousin Marian and how much she loves whales and said, f-it, I’m going. So I drank some coffee put on all of my rain gear and made the lonesome journey to Craig (I borrowed a car from the nice lady whose apartment I live in). By the time I got to Craig it was sunny! The water was still pretty choppy but the group (about five of us) decided we were going whale hunting, I mean watching, whatever, in kayaks. Within about two minutes of being on the water I saw a whale breaching, it was F-ING awesome. We paddled for another three hours or so and I managed to have one of the most amazing Southeast Alaskan experiences. At one point we were paddling, there were whales in the distance, eagles soaring overheard (a lot of them), and I was dangerously close to a pack of sea lions. The sea lions were absolutely following or chasing our boats and barking at us. And let me tell you, they had terrible breath. 
 

Dead Seal

Other exciting happs included finding a dead seal. We couldn’t identify the cause of death but it was really cool to see a seal that close, it was simultaneously sad.

The whole experience made me even more excited about kayak guiding in Gustavus this summer! Have you guys checked this place our yet or what!?! http://www.seakayakalaska.com/guides.htm#gpm1_4

Okay, it’s exactly 20 days until Earth Day, GET EXCITED!

* The people that I was with didn’t really appreciate me referring to what we were doing as “whaling” apparently that has some negative connotations. They didn’t appreciate “whale hunting” either. Hippies, they’re everywhere.

 

Woofer

Brain Awareness Week Project (BAW)

I passed my Wilderness First Responder test, so it’s official, I’m a “woofer.”  It’s basically just advanced First Aid for wilderness settings. The class was really informative and I feel  more confident about guiding so I would say as a whole, the class was a huge success.

I was disappointed that I was in the class with a bunch of douche bags, but what are you going to do? If you’re me, you would just practice a lot of yoga, which is exactly what I did. Juneau is home to two (2) yoga studios. One is an Ashtanga studio and the other practices a mix of yoga styles. I really enjoyed practicing at both places. I’ve said it before, the thing I miss most about civilization is the ability to practice yoga with other people. I miss coffee, bars, and good restaurants too but not as much as I miss my yoga community. This will inevitably force me back to a urban setting…eventually.

While in Juneau I managed to use public transportation (bus) a fare amount. Nothing unusual to report here, Juneau’s buses, like apparently every where else in this country, are full of crazies and drunks. In a weird way, it’s really comforting. I truly miss taking the bus.

In the course of ten days I also managed to visit both thrift stores and drink coffee at every single one of their cafes, I think. I even found a place serving and selling Stumptown!! I know right!?! 

I met up with everyone single person I know in Juneau, mostly teacher friends that I've met since I've moved to Alaska, but I also met up with my friend Gordon who I worked with in Skagway four years ago. It was great, we partied, Juneau style. The highlight was definitely him singing karaoke and me doing an interpretive dance to Meatloaf's, " I would do Anything for Love." Yes, debauchery lives on.

Juneau’s airport has free Wi-Fi!?! I’m on my way back to Thorne Bay right now. Vacation is over. No part of this has seemed like a vacation but I am happy to go back. I really do love Prince of Wales Island.

Contract Update: I probably won’t know before July if I have a job next year. Awesome. I’m going to apply for a job in Haines. Positive employment thoughts my way, please.

********We ARE the people we’ve been waiting for***********

Wilderness First Responder

As previously mentioned I decided to spend my spring break in Juneau, AK to acquire my Wilderness First Responder (WFR) certification so that I can guide kayak tours for my district and Spirit Walker this summer! It was a hard decision to spend my entire spring break in school, but I thought it was necessary. I was looking forward to meeting some cool outdoors people. That hope hasn't exactly been achieved. I'm currently staying in employee housing for a wilderness school....anybody who has ever done any seasonal work should know of my living situation here...I'm probably not going to contract a disease but boys for the most part have been maintaining it, I'll leave it at that. Any who, there are 6 people taking the course, including me and they are all typical guides, ie. think they are pretty much the coolest people the Earth has ever seen and every single conversation is a pissing match to see who has done the most GD ridiculous thing and almost died but didn't. It's unbelievable, I don't know when they are going to get sick of trying to impress each other.

"It gets easier, but it never gets easy."

Me (exhausted) attempting to take a picture of myself doing a head stand.
(In the words of students everywhere, EPIC fail.)

A quote from my current principal. This is good news, because in some ways my job feels impossible. In the same conversation he also confided that he’s never worked for a district that demands more of their teachers than Southeast….so everything should be easier from here, yeah?

In a related note, I got this email from my superintendent earlier in the week:

“Nick mentioned that you did not have any correspondence students. I would sure like to see some articles getting into any media that would take them on good stuff happening in the district. Perhaps you could use that time to draft stories for web and papers."

Background: I was given fifteen minutes a day to work on this correspondence class, the student has since started attending Thorne Bay school so he is no longer in correspondence classes. When I first got this email, I literally laughed out loud. It seems like whenever I can’t possibly conceive of something else to be responsible for, somebody asks me to be responsible for something else. It’s truly unbelievable. In the same week, my principal asked me to fill out a lengthy application for a gardening grant. Both times I was just sitting there shaking my head. “Am I not working hard enough? Do they honestly think that I have spare time?” After putting some thought into, I responded to both emails with, “Yes, absolutely, I would be happy to (fill in any request).

This, to me, is the astonishing part of this profession and the people who chose to be part of it. We are constantly being asked to achieve/complete/produce things that are impossible, yet everybody tries really hard.

Contract Update: I still don't have one :(

It's not you, it's us

Beautiful Thorne Bay

I better blog quick before something else substantial happens. It seems that whenever I start to blog about anything going on, by the time I actually get around to publishing it, the story is old news or completely irrelevant.

This is what is happening for the week of March 5^th. Last Friday the superintendent informed me that as of right now, he does not have a position for me next year. Awesome. I looked at him and said, “Well, what the hell am I suppose to do in Thorne Bay next year without a job?” I didn’t really say that, but I should have. My superintendent, he is a nice guy. He wanted to give me as much warning as possible, and to “be smart” and get my shit together in case he can’t pull through. He assured me that this has nothing to do with me and that he really wants to find a way for me to stay. At first I was kind of surprised, I was aware of the fact that he has to let go of four teachers, I’m not sure why I didn’t think that I would be one of them, as I don’t have any children and no seniority. After my initial surprise, I was kind of sad. My immediate response to situations like this is one of a four year old, “F-it, I’m going home.” Then the more rational part of my brain is like, “WTF, you worked way to hard for this, make it happen.” Here’s the thing, I HAVE to teach in rural Alaska for two years to complete my program, to get a professional teaching certificate, meaning I can teach anywhere. The problem is that there are only a couple of districts in SE Alaska and I’m dedicated to living/working/being in SE Alaska. I’m not going back to the Interior, not right now anyways. I didn’t even like it during the summer.

I have to remind myself that this time last year I didn’t have teaching job either and things worked out just fine. I’m pretty confident that I’ll be working here next year. I’m just not sure if my superintendent knows that yet. If not, I’ll find somewhere else to work in SE Alaska, hopefully. I’m dedicated to teaching and I can’t let something small like losing my job slow me down.

Remember, DON’T Hurry, be HAPPY!

Quote of the Week:

Me: Does anybody want to a wager a guess as to how many thoughts the average brains has in one day?

Student A: 1 billion

Student B: 10,000

Student C: 40

Me: 40,000?

Student C: No, just 40

Me: Okay…….I think it might be a little higher than that.

Student C was dead serious. A dude by the way.