Almost Christmas!

Hello everyone,

   Well where to start. So much has been going on around here but never enough time to sit down and write. Unfortunately last week I dropped my laptop and broke it so I have been borrowing a school laptop to get me by until I get home for Christmas. Luckily I was planning on buying myself a new computer for Christmas but of course with my luck it couldn't of waited to break until after I got home.
   The mouse adventures continued as well. The little bugger came back and Danielle and I chased it around the school for a good half hour trying to capture it. Me, being the brave one that I am, took a tin can and tried to capture it. Unfortunately for our fury little friend I accidentally squashed it. He/she was very quick and I caught half of him under the can while the rest of him/she was hanging outside of it. Ooops! Anyway, after that we discovered it was a vole and I have seen quite a few outside since. There was one hanging out around my apartment and I am happy to report that it has not found a way inside or else I would not be happy.
   The students, as well as the teachers are getting a bit restless for the holidays to arrive. I am counting down the days till we leave the village. Tomorrow marks one week till we are to arrive in Anchorage. I am so excited. I miss civilization! We are planning on meeting up with other LPSD teachers for dinner on the 22nd. It will be nice to see everyone again and relax a bit before we have our very long flights home.
   I'm not sure if I will be able to jump on and make any more posts before I return home for the holidays but I just wanted everyone to know that everything is going well. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and New Years! May the coming year be full of blessings for you and your family/friends. I can't wait to see you all!!
  Thanks for keeping up with my Alaska Adventure!

Much love,
Kaitlin

Hello December!

So another week has come and gone. In the beginning of the week it seemed to go by super slow but now that the week is over it seems to have gone by pretty fast. It’s funny how that works out.

I saw my first bunny yesterday evening on our way home from school. It was so beautiful. Its fur turns white in the winter to help hide it from predators. I’ve never seen anything like it. I finally found out the names of the fish we have in our fresh water lake here. The few that I know of so far are: Rainbow Trout, Grayling, and Salmon. Grayling supposedly tastes horrible but they still catch them often. Go online sometime and see what they look like. They have a dorsal fin which makes them unique out here because they’re the only ones that have it. In Lake Iliamna which we feed off of, they have the only fresh water seals. I hope one day I can go there and see a few.

There have been a few wolves spotted in the village over the past few weeks. From what I have heard through the grapevine they have caught one or two already. Yesterday morning as I was leaving my apartment at 6:30am (keeping in mind its pitch black out) I see what appears to be a wolf about 30 feet away from me staring at me from the shadows. I slightly panic thinking Oh crap! It moves forward a bit and I see that it is only my neighbor’s dog Yukon. I was very happy to realize that it was Yukon and not a wolf. I have not seen any wolves in the village; they stay just outside the houses in the woods and at the airport.

One of our kindergarten students, Tava, came into the classroom yesterday morning and went into the classroom library to find a book to read and came out holding a tiny mouse in her hand. At first I thought it was one of the puppets that the kids play with all the time. Danielle goes “is that real?” and Tava goes “uh huh”. Danielle jumps back a few feet and I tell Tava to put the dead mouse in the trash and wash her hands. Danielle brings the trashcan up to Ron’s room and asks him if he would like to use if for a science experiment and he willingly accepts. Then today Danielle and I come into the classroom, get all set up on our computers and I look over to where she’s sitting at her desk and see another tiny mouse or a vole as they call it, running underneath her feet. I say “oh my gosh!” and Danielle sees where I am looking and without a hesitation starts screaming and running to jump on a table several feet away. All of Danielle’s screaming alerted Regina upstairs that something was wrong so she comes downstairs to find Danielle on a table and me trying to see where the little guy ran off too. Regina and I start moving things around to find our fury little friend trying to make a fast getaway out the classroom door. We corner it in a hallway and let it go free outside. After all was said and done I couldn’t help but laugh seeing Danielle’s face and hearing her screams. It was hilarious!

The boy I work with gave us quite a scare on Wednesday morning. He came in fine but within minutes took a turn for the worse. He did not look good at all. He was sweating and looked like he was going to pass out. I was very worried because his sugars were dropping (he has diabetes). I gave him a juice box hoping that would help bring his sugars up a bit. He seemed ok for a few minutes until he threw up all the juice all over the table. Danielle stops what she’s doing to come over and help me with him. I get Regina to help out as well. We try giving him some sugars but he’s not keeping anything down. We called his mom to come in to school and she took him to the village clinic and then to rest at home. He luckily only had a little bug and after taking 2 days off was back to school and looking great today. I was very thankful that it all turned out ok. It can be very scary for me sometimes to have this little boy’s life in my hands. I just want him to live a long life and be able to experience everything it has to offer. He has captured my heart and I would do almost anything for him. He’s such a sweetheart.

Next year I will be moving in with Danielle in her apartment starting shortly after getting back in January. We have a male tutor coming out here to work with the students and he needs a place to stay. So, I will be moving out and he will be moving in. It should all work out ok. I’m hoping to get a phone line while I’m staying with Danielle so that people can call me. Danielle has much better internet in her place so that’ll be a big plus. Also, it will be nice to have the company. She has her little dog Rorie too so that’ll be nice to have a dog around again. I’ll have to make sure I have all my allergy meds with me when I get back since I am allergic to the little bugger.

The weather lately has been warming up. It’s been in the 30’s-40’s range during the day. I walk outside and I’m like wow its warm outside. Ha-ha! Crazy I know but it’s so much warmer then when we were in the negative numbers. I’m curious what my reaction will be when I get home and the weather will be warmer. The staff members here joke and say that they all go home and are in t-shirts and shorts while everyone else is in sweats. I doubt I’ll be in shorts but I’m sure I’ll be warmer then others.

Well other then that I can’t really think of anything else to report. We will be leaving the village in 21 days! I am so excited to get a taste of civilization again.

xoxo