Last Day of School!

Today was the last day of school! Tomorrow we have a teacher in-service day. This is just were we help our teachers clean up their room and hang out! I am looking forward to being home and sleeping in my bed in the darkness! I am also excited to meet my new puppy well half mine! But most importantly I know buster dog is wondering where I have been! 

Today we had a dodge-ball tournament at school! I get real into these events. 

 

Yep that is me in my atigluk telling my teammate good job for knocking the pin down! 

After playing dodge-ball we launched rockets. This was a great and so much fun. However it was very cold outside. The wind was at about 20 MPH so kids were freezing along with me. We were all huddling in the corner to stay warm. Due to the wind most of the rockets were launch and not found because the wind carried them along ways. Only 2-3 students got their rockets back. Here is a picture of a proud student who got his back! 

Lastly we took a picture after school with all the students students and their CTs. 

Happy Saturday:)

Happy Saturday to everyone! Lets see last night Bethany and I tin foiled the rest of our windows so we could sleep in, but instead of sleeping in the construction crew decided to work on the bathroom right next to us instead. Needless to say I'm not bitter about it:) Those of you who have woken me up from a heavy sleep know how I reacted to this, cranky!
Friday was my last full day of teaching and it went well. The kiddos are ready to be done with school just as much as I am! We have now entered single digits til I am home 9 days. Yahoo!!!

Looking forward to being able to sleep in, have my own vehicle, seeing my loved ones, and everything else I miss about home!

Tonight we are going to a couples house that we met here for supper and a movie! That will be fun!

Bethany and I have also realized we have bought 65 pounds of book while being in Barrow. There were a few really good sales up here. Last night we carried a big scale from the gym to our room to figure out luggage, no worries we got it covered!

Lastly- I would like to take this time to wish my mother a Happy Mothers Day! Thanks for always being there for me whether its staying up with me while I am sick all night at age 21 or simply just laying on deck with me! Your a wonderful mother and I couldn't be more blessed to have you as mine! Happy Early Mothers Day! Love you!

Whats up Wednesday!

This week has been a wonderful one! We got Monday off and that was a very nice surprise to wake up to! Things have been going smooth in my classroom which is wonderful! This week our professor arrived. It has been wonderful having her here and supporting us in the classroom. She is wonderful and loves it up here. It is hard to believe that the end of journey is just around the corner. However I will say it has been hard being away from the new puppy "Ellie" when I receive pictures from mom, dad, or Jon daily but I love them! 

I look forward to continue to search for a polar bear this week and weekend I will not give up until all options are exhausted! 

Been awhile:)

Sorry it has been awhile since I have blogged. We have been busy. Last I posted was about the whales and David. Here is a picture of David aka Masak. 

David left today for Washington D.C. to go with his father who is being honored. David has made this experience one I will never forget. 

On Saturday we went to a cooking class. It was a Mexican class we made barrita y frijolos (sorry about the spelling). 

They were very good and yummy!!

Saturday Night:

Some of us went along to see the search and rescue crew to see the planes and helicopter that they use. The two gentlemen that showed us around both were in the Vietnam War. They had amazing things to say about their experience. 

The north slope covers a large range. He covers basically the range that you see on the map. 

Here is me in the first plane. The space up front was pretty open however in the next plane it was very compacted. 

Here is the rest of it. 

Sunday:

On Sunday some of us went to church with Masak aka David. He took us to the Presbyterian in town. This church has been around for over 100 years. 

After church we came back and ate brunch. Sunday brunch is always my favorite it is all you can eat and has a wide range of foods. 

I spent the most of Sunday working in the classroom with Jen who is another 4th grade teacher. After picking up our professor from the airport we came back to the college ate supper. After having a meeting with our professor we heard there was a polar bear in the area. So I called David and he came and picked us out. However we didn't see it, well it was laying down but I couldn't see it with my poor vision. 

Boat hanging on the side of the ocean. 

Baleen from the whale.

Today we got a wonderful snow/wind day! Today I have slept in til 10:30 then watched The Big Bang Theory for while. Now I finished my blog then going to watch movie and lay down! Tonight we are watching the Big Miracle because we heard there are inaccurate information in the movie and now I want to see for myself the inaccurate part. 

12 Days til I am home!:) 

Massak

One thing I love about Barrow is the amount of respect people have for the elders. People look up to their elders and value everything they do. Its amazing to see how big of an impact they are here in Barrow.
One elder I have gotten to know really well is David aka Masak or Massak. (Unsure on spelling) He is 60 or older not quite sure. He was the van driver when we first got here. He was so welcoming and amazing. He showed us around the community and took the time to explain the history of Barrow to us.
David is also someone who is extremely important in the community but not a ton of people know this. For example he is an elder. He was one of the kids that got shipped off for school and wasnt aloud to speak his native language. He is determined to find a polar bear for us. He also is one who when they crews got a whale made sure we got to see and found us so we could help pull it in.
Tonight I called him to see how he was feeling because he has been dealing with health problems and talked about taking us to church in the morning. He asked if we wanted to go driving. So Sam, Mark, Sasha, Sagen (art teachers son) and myself went with him to drive. I sat in the front seat as I always try to when David drives because I love learning about his life and I'm a sponge who wants to soaks up everything! Tonight it was foggy but he still took us driving around. He told us about whaling and answered my 3 million questions but then he started talking about his wife who lefted him. I was so honored that he told me his personal story that at the end of all I wanted to do was cry and hug him.
The thing I love about the elders in Barrow is they all have a great story that is waiting to be told.

The thing I like about Massak or David is he reminds me of my own dad who is named David as well. They both will do anything for their families, or anyone and dont want to make a big deal out of it.  They both are activity involved in their communities. They do great things and dont expect any reward they just do it out of the kindness of their hearts.

Sorry for the long sappy post. Just had such a great day and am so blessed to be here and to learn about this amazing culture. 

Although the classroom is a challenge I am in love with the community and place we call the "top of the world" :) I couldnt of picked a better student teaching placement!

Whaling!!

Whales Whales they got 3 whales!!!!
Yesterday we were on our way home from school and we saw a bunch of people gathered around the edge of the lake. We wondered what they were doing. When we got back we heard they got a whale. I went and told someone who works at the college and asked if he would take us out there in a few hours. He told he was taking us out and we were going to help. The thing about whaling is once as they get a whale the process takes a little time but not a ton. Here are the pictures your all dying to see!

Eventful Day!

First Monday night we got invited to go help butcher a seal.. I know a seal and they asked if we wanted to help! My jaw hit the ground to! Mark, Sasha and me (Kayla) went with Erica (college student) went to a local house to help with the butchering of the seal. The experience was an amazing one. The blubber is full of oil. They use the blubber to make oil for cooking. Under the blubber is the meat.
Here are pictures:

Eating Seal

After butchering the seal we got to eat it. It was pretty good!

Me and the heart! 

Today

Bethany and I didn't have to go to school because we have another Gustavus Student Teacher coming up today. We went to pick her up today from the airport. The weather this morning was terrible blizzard and very windy. I was surprised that the plane flew in. Here is a picture of Kiersten rolling off the plane. 

She is so happy to be in Barrow here. We looked forward to her coming as well because she is coming into our classrooms to teach art and because she is a mommy! Some of us really were looking forward to a new familiar face who is also a mommy! We are so excited to show her around, we tried to do this but the weather was just way to nasty out! On our way back to the college with Kiersten we say cars lined up looking out at the Arctic. We pulled up because we wanted to know what was going on. We didn't see anything so we continued to campus. Later David (bus driver) tells us two POLAR BEARS were out on the ice. We just missed them!!!!

Here is what is looked like. Around 2:20 we had to go get the student teachers from school because the college was closing and our transportation wasn't going to run anymore. So we picked the students up on the way David the bus driver was telling us that a whaling crew got stuck on the ice then the ice broke away from the wind and the were floating at 1.5 mph. The search and rescue crew finally tonight was flying and picking them up. If they were picked up by helicopter which is what we heard there whaling camp which includes boats snow machines etc gets left. That can be up to 30,000-40,000 dollars per crew. It is good to know they were safe. Everyone in the community knew about this whaling crew who floated off to which I think is pretty amazing. 

We got back to the college and Bethany wasn't feeling well. I mean really wasn't feeling well so we took a trip to the hospital. For a girl who has a high pain tolerance she was in a great deal of pain. She is now back in the campus and sleeping! Huge improvement! However we got to the see the new hospital. On the way back to campus the weather had past and we now can see open water! And a crew out whaling!

Also to add one more detail last night Mark was locked out his room so he got a ladder and climbed in through his window to get into his room. His reasoning he didn't want to wake anyone up because that is the Minnesota nice in him.