That's Just Gross

So I thought that because I teach older students I wouldn't have to deal with things like puke and kids peeing in their pants.....  Well, apparently that is not necessarily the case, even with 6th graders.  I definitely had to deal with some gross bodily secretions today.  And I didn't just have to deal with them......no, no, no.  I had to deal with them ON me!  Let me explain....

During my second period class today I was up in front of the class getting ready to go over a worksheet with my students.  I was standing in front of the desk of one of my students waiting for everyone to be ready.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him fling something to the ground.  I thought it was just a spit wad or a piece of crumpled up paper.  Regardless, he threw something on my floor, so I gave him "the look" so he knew he'd been caught.  He said he was sorry and then looked down, somewhat embarrassed.  This student can tend to be chatty, but he doesn't purposefully cause mischief on a regular basis, so I figured a stern look was good enough for the first offense. 

I began walking around the room and happened to look down at my leg.  Guess what he had flung?  I'll give you a hint, it definitely WASN'T a spit wad!  I wish it had just been a spit wad.  Stuck to the leg of my pants was a big, giant, nasty, juicy, slimy BOOGER!!!  It was seriously DIS-GUS-TING!  The thing was like an inch long.  It would have been one thing if it was just a dry crusty booger, but this was no dry booger, I assure you....otherwise it wouldn't have stuck so firmly to my pants!  I immediately began yelling about the booger on my leg.  I wasn't yelling in a mean way though because I knew he hadn't done it on purpose, it was more like in an "Oh my gosh there's a booger on my leg!" kind of way.  Clearly, I wasn't being that mean, because all of my students were laughing at the situation. 

I told the student that he needed to come here right away.  I asked him why in the world he had been flinging a booger on the floor, because even if it hadn't landed on my leg, he shouldn't have been flinging boogers!  His response was: "It was hard to get off my finger."  (This student can be a bit aloof at times.)  I told him that boogers should go in tissues.

After my brief clarification of the situation, I held my leg out and told the student that he needed to get a paper towel or a tissue right away to wipe the booger off my leg, because I sure as heck wasn't going to touch it.  He did as he was told, but after he wiped my leg off, there was still some leftover booger residue.  So I promptly proceeded to the classroom sink where some of the girls helped me to get a wet paper towel and soap and more thoroughly clean off my pants.  After I was done scrubbing, they held out the hand sanitizer for me to disinfect my hands.  It was actually very sweet of them. 

After the booger was removed from my leg and my pants were as clean as I was going to get them without a washing machine, I returned to the front of the classroom.  Before proceeding to the lesson that we were about to begin before this whole ordeal had happened, I got up on my soap box and gave a little lecture about the proper place for boogers and what a tissue is for.  I repeated multiple times that when you have a booger to get rid of it should go in a tissue, NOT on the floor.  I purposefully directed this lecture at the student who had done the booger flinging.  It wasn't like the whole class didn't know he had done it anyways, so he really wasn't that embarrassed by it.  (I have been discovering that the kids in Chevak don't have the same embarrassment level about bodily functions as other kids I have met.)  Plus, he was laughing along with the rest of the class, because, let's face it.....if you think about it, it was pretty funny.  I can't say that I want it to happen again, but it certainly gave me something good to put in my blog :)  I guess it's good to be able to laugh about these situations.

Oh, and those pants went straight into the laundry basket when I came home.          

A Handful of What?

So I am sitting in my classroom waiting for parents to come in to talk to me, and my student that is often goofy and says silly things walks in.  She asks me when parent-teacher conferences start, and I tell her that they are going on right now.  So she walks over and sits down in the chair across from me and says, "I'm here to talk about my student.  How is she doing?"  And I say to her, "You are so funny, but sometimes you can be a real handful."  Then she says, "A handful of what?  Candies?!"  I didn't even try to hide my laughter this time.  I didn't have any parents in my room or waiting outside my door, so I had to do a blog post quick before I forgot exactly what she said.  She seriously cracks me up....when she's not being a grump, that is :) 

Tentacles

Today, one of my second period students got kicked in the boy parts during recess.  I don't know exactly what happened, but he needed some time to recover, and ended up not returning to class.  Since he had been in class previous to that incident, my second period students asked where he was.  I responded that he had gotten hurt on the playground.  The same student that calls the bathroom the "potty station" shouted out, "He got kicked in the tentacles!"  I couldn't help but laugh.

Potty Station

In my classroom, when a student needs to go to the bathroom they are supposed to show me the sign language for bathroom, and when I nod at them they can get the bathroom tag and put it on their desk until they come back.  It is supposed to be a quick and quiet procedure, but it doesn't always go that way. 

I have learned that the students here share more information than necessary about using the restroom.  Many times they will tell me EXACTLY what it is they need to do in the bathroom.  I always answer with, "Thanks for sharing." 

One student in particular, though, asks if she can use the "potty station".  Today I asked her when she started calling it that, and she said she didn't know.  I was hoping that there was some kind of interesting back story for how that name came about. 

This particular student has long hair that is always in a pony tail and pink glasses with a strong prescription.  Sometimes she reminds me of an old woman the way she acts, because she can get pretty crabby at times.  The teacher who had her last year called her grumpy.  When she needs to go to the restroom, she will look down her glasses at me and say, "Miss Rockey, I need to use the potty station!"  I guess you would have to know this student, but every time she says potty station, it just makes me giggle.

Tundra Fest

Every year around the beginning of the school year, Chevak hosts what is called Tundra Fest.  It is a weekend full of cultural and community events.  People from neighboring villages come to Chevak to celebrate and join in the festivities.  This year, the first day of school was on Friday, August 19th and Tundra Fest began shortly after school was over and lasted until Sunday evening.  Some of the events this year included native dancing (called yuraq, which happened every night until around midnight and all of the different villages took turns doing their dances), potlucks, cooking contests, a bird plucking competition (which Falon and Stephanie both participated in and the prize was a sewing machine and kuspuk fabric), a harpoon throwing competition (the prizes were cases of shotgun shells), races (running, biking, and canoeing), and various other activities.

During the weekend of Tundra Fest I ate seal, raw beluga, aqutaq (eskimo ice cream), fish prepared in different ways, and moose soup.  I hadn't even been in Chevak for 2 weeks and I was already able to learn and experience so much!  The people were so friendly and welcoming.  They were so gracious and very willing to share their culture with the new teachers.  It was absolutely amazing and fascinating!    

 Here's a plate of food that I ate at one of the potlucks.  That white piece of meat on the edge of my plate is raw beluga....very chewy :)

 That pink stuff is aqutaq (eskimo ice cream).  There are many different ways to make it, but I think that it is typically made here with crisco, instant mashed potatoes, sugar, oil, and berries (of course!).  It is my students' favorite dessert.  This one was made with black berries, and I think they must have put some jello mix or something in it to make it that pink color.  This was actually my favorite aqutaq recipe that I tasted.

 The black berries in the aqutaq turned my tongue purple.

 Yuraq (native dancing).  The men sitting in the back are beating on drums and singing.

 This little girl was too cute!  She had her own little fans and walked up in front with the people dancing.  She even bounced up and down a little bit with the beat.  It was adorable.

 The things that the women are holding in their hands are called fans.  They are handmade with caribou hair/fur (I'm not sure what the proper name is).  They are beautiful.  I plan to buy a set for myself before the native heritage week in April :)

 Some of the other teachers got up and participated in the yuraq.  They tried to encourage us to get up and try it too, but we were all too scared except for Stephanie.  One of the other teachers lent her the fans she had and Stephanie got up there and followed along.  She did an excellent job!  Hopefully we'll all be up there dancing together come spring time! :D

 All of the songs and dances have a story that goes with them, and the dance movements go along with the story they are trying to tell.  It was just fascinating to watch.  I seriously could have sat and watched for hours.  We tried to guess what some of the songs were about, and I think we were pretty close with a couple.  I actually asked our school security guy what some of the songs were about, and he said that there were some about seal hunting, there was one about a tundra owl, and there was one about an engine that won't start, among others.  

 The kids and the adults both participated.  It was so neat!

Below are some videos of the yuraq.  Some of the guys in these videos were especially fun to watch dance.  They really got into it and were very expressive.

The guy in the video above was really entertaining to watch.  He definitely got into it and told the story well :)  He had everyone laughing.

Tundra Fest was such an incredible experience!  I am SO glad that I got to be a part of it!  I have learned and experienced so much already, and am excited to learn and experience even more to come.  I am really looking forward to the next cultural heritage week in April!  I am so excited to learn some of the native dances this year with some of the other new teachers and hopefully participate in the yuraq in April!

Berry Picking

The week before school started was just insane.  Trying to get my classroom ready and prepare myself for the first day of school was an overwhelming task.  My classroom had previously been a social studies room and was filled with TONS of history, geography, and general social studies books.  There was a very minuscule amount of language arts materials, and there was no classroom library or resources for one (in my room at least).  So I didn't just have to organize and arrange my classroom the way I wanted it, I had to change my entire room over from social studies to language arts.  I literally had to empty out the whole classroom, putting all of the books, posters, furniture, supplies, etc. that I did not need/want into the hallway for the maintenance men to pick up.  (Thank the Lord for the maintenance men!)  I was at the school working late into the night (usually somewhere between 10pm and 12:30am) almost every night trying to get ready, and then I would have to be up early again the next morning for more training.  It was EXHAUSTING!  And that was just my classroom, that didn't even include getting prepared to actually TEACH!  Needless to say, in the middle of this week of insanity I needed a break!

From the first day we had arrived in Chevak, it had pretty much been raining or cloudy every day.  Thankfully, in the middle of our teacher work week we had a respite from the rain and there was a gloriously sunny, warm, and beautiful day.  We did not need convincing to take advantage of the nice weather and take a break to do some berry picking.  Falon, Stephanie's daughter Zoe, and I went together.  Falon and I had not been yet, but Zoe had, so she was our little guide :)  It was just what we needed!

 The tundra behind our apartments

 These are the plumbing pipes that run throughout the whole village.  You can hear it when water (and other things) go whooshing through them.  Crossing our fingers that they don't freeze up (at least not for TOO long) this winter.  Then we'll be on honey buckets.  It will definitely be an adventure! :D
But we'll just wait and see what happens.

 The lake and the village.

 A picture at the end of the lake.

 A picture across the lake to the village houses.

 Looking back at the school and the edge of teacher housing.

 Making our way out to pick berries with Zoe leading the way.

 The tundra had a few ponds and marshy areas hidden throughout.

 The mountains in the distance.

 The tundra and some water in the distance.  Those buildings off to the left are at the airport runway.

 Tundra

 You can literally look out over the tundra and see for miles.  It's so weird, and so not what I am used to.  I am used to looking out and seeing mountains surrounding me on every side.  I actually had a really interesting conversation with one of the school board members about the tundra.  He said that he has driven through Palmer and on the Alaskan Highway and he felt suffocated and claustrophobic because there were mountains and trees everywhere and he couldn't see over them like he can on the tundra.  I had not thought about it that way until I talked to him.  It was really interesting to hear his perspective.  I love and miss my mountains, but the tundra is beautiful too, just in a different way.

One of the little pond areas.

 Mountains in the distance.

 Looking back at the lake and the village after walking a ways.

 That thing that looks like a grassy mound inside the fenced area is actually a sod house.  It is built the way they used to build shelters a long time ago.  Sometimes they have native dancing or story telling inside.  I have not been in it yet, but I hope to get a chance soon.

 Berries!

 The old airport.

 The backside of teaching housing and the school.

 The tundra and the mountains.

 Tundra.

 Zoe leading the way.  We let her walk across the marshy part 

first to make sure there were no sink holes before we followed :)

 That pinkish looking berry near the ground is a salmon berry.

 Pop a squat and start picking!

 Zoe and Falon scoping out the berries.

 Falon working on filling up her bowl.

 Trying to pick the good ones :)

 I'm pretty sure we picked salmon berries, black berries, and bear berries (not as good as black berries).

 Cheese!

 Falon found a comfortable spot to pick berries from.  The tundra is actually very soft and springy, so it was pretty comfy to plop down and pick some berries, however, it was a tad bit damp....oh well :)

 Zoe's a goofball.

 Looking back towards the school and teacher housing.

 Woohoo!  I got 1/4 of a sandwich bag full! ;-)

 I didn't actually pick that many, but we didn't go with the purpose of picking a lot of berries, we just went for the sake of getting outside in the sunshine and having some fun!

 Falon showing off her pickin's.

 I think Zoe stole some from Falon :)

 Making our way back.

Teacher housing lane! :)