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. 

Community

Something that I have really grown to love here is how amazing the community is. Today my teacher took us around to look for caribou. Marks teacher wants to have us over. People go out of their way to make us feel welcomed! 
It also is amazing to see that a community still uses traditional things in their community.  For example whaling in the spring people still use hand crafted boats that are cover with skin from an animal. It is amazing to see the traditions stay alive. Women still sew quite a bit of clothing for their families.
Then when some gets a whale everyone comes to help clean the whale and that whale feeds the community even though one group got the whale theu share it with everyone.

The time here is only at half way and although I get homesick and dealing with my class. I am so happy to be here and enjoy so much!  This has been such a great experience and I look forward to the last of it! My class may be a challenge but it is such a positive challenge to me!

Weekend Adventures

This weekend was a fun filled one! We try to stay busy to help with the homesickness. On Friday I did my first day of full day teaching. I really had a great first day! Students responded to me and listen it was great feeling. 

On Friday during school we had a dodgeball tournament at school. 3rd grade classes played against each other. Then the winning 3rd grade class plays the staff. The staff won against the 3rd grade and 4th grade. My class was a the class that beat every other 4th grade class but then could defeat the staff. 

We were lucky enough to get to see the college kids graduate on Friday. 

We have meet some really great students that attend the college here. The dorms are pretty bare now that students have left to go back home or vacation for a while. We(I) also have been spending our nights practicing interviewing Bethany and Sam. Both got offered the job on their first interview! It was also their first pick of job to! Bethany is taking a job GHEC and Sam took a job at Fairmont Elementary. Both will be teaching 2nd grade and soo excited. I am very excited for them as well. 

Saturday: 

We tried to sleep in on Saturday however we only made it til 9:30 and that was a push. The sunlight is almost 20 hours here. However the sun makes getting up early. 

After lunch we worked a guy named Rob who runs simple machines in the school. Rob gave us tons of lesson plans and things to use in our classroom. Here are some pictures: 

Bethany and I created a few sweat things! The first one we created a car that picks up things. The second we created a car and lift in one! It was a really fun day and felt like we were kids again.

We then went a little kids birthday party after this which was at the college. We actually went for the food because Simon (RA here at the college) made us go to check out the food! Im glad we went the food was amazing! We then worked with Ruth (the housemother) to finish our dress. I will attach pictures on Tuesday with the finish project! I'm pretty proud of the creation I made. 

We then hung out the rest of the night lesson planned some and watched Magic Mike. 

Sunday

Today I was able to sleep in til 10 am! Whoa! It felt amazing! We went to brunch here at the college and it was amazing.The pancakes are very good here but the waffles on the other hand are not my favorite. After we ate breakfast my teacher offered to take us hunting or looking for Caribou. We were lucky enough to see some! 

Here are some pictures of the Caribou we saw today. 

After driving around looking for Caribou we decided to go shoot a gun. My teacher has a Springfield 30-06. It was a gun that his father use in World War 2 and passed it down to him. 

Here is the picture of the gun. 

We then had target practice. 

Bethany hit the target. However when we expected the boxes there were 9 shots through them so I am claiming one of them as mine own. 

After shooting practice. We went to a restaurant in town to eat. I had the best bowl of chicken noodle soup ever! 

Then after eating and talking about Sushi. My teacher decided to order a platter of Sushi since most of us hadn't had it before. 

At first I was really hesitate to try it at first but then made myself do it! 

It was really good! I ate three pieces of it! 

One last detail:

I bought a piece of Baleen from a local artist. I am so excited about it. It has carving on it. 

Front

Back

There usually carve the story of how they hunted the whale. One the front their is a whale. On the back there is a dog sled going to get a polar bear. The detail is amazing on the baleen. Baleen is the "jawbone" of the whale. 

Update on life

Well this week and last weekend has been really hard- I got extremely homesick. Which is unfortunate because it usually doesnt happen to me but when we are busy 24/7 I start to miss home!

On Tuesday Bethany and I started sewing with Ruth who is the housemother of the college!  We are sewing atigluk which is like a dress! We are going to the college graduation tomorrow and the students of the college will leave on saturday for home most of which is cali or stay here.

I start my full time teaching tomorrow in the classroom! Which is exciting!

A wonderful fun Saturday and Sunday!

Today was a grand day! We got out and did things and it was awesome! First in the morning- Bethany, Mark and I (all student teachers from GAC) played basketball with the college team.  To say the least basketball has been a great way to work out and make new friends! 

We are hoping to keep the uniforms! 

Next we came back to the college to shower and lay down for a bit. After that we thought we would run and get an $8.00 milkshake! It was amazing! Then decided to go sledding! 

Bethany, Mark and Sam getting major air!

If the video works- This is Sam (front) Sasha (2nd front) me (second from the back) Bethany (last) going off the jump. We landed on our butt and it hurt really bad and some of us have a bruises. 

Here are more photos: 

We went sledding at a gravel pit which was nice and steep. 

The plane comes in right by us! It was so cool to see come close to us, this last picture I barely used any zoom to get the picture. 

Sam, Bethany, and Myself! 

After ice skating we went to Sam and Lees. A restaurant that has a little bit of everything for food. It is very good and pretty reasonable price as well. It also is the only restaurant that got approved by the US health inspection. 

Then After we ate Mark, Bethany and I took a tour of Barrow with one of the college students here named Erica. She has been so welcoming, nice, and helpful to us. She is getting us involved things and we are meeting other people in the community. Attached are pictures of our tour. The sun is starting to set in some keep in mind it is around 10:30 pm when taking these pictures. 

Here is us with the famous Barrow marking! It has how many miles it is to Seattle or Paris! It is very cool! 

out on the ice! 

Sunday-Today we went to Catholic Church for Easter service. It is very full church compared to last week. The rest of the plans for today is to watch a movie, lesson plan, and relax! 

Today temp: 10 degrees and snowing.