unexpected day home

So, I'm not supposed to be home today. In fact, I was at work a bit early, tracked down some information I needed to resolve an important question, met with another faculty member and fixed a technology issues I've been having, and began prepping my classes. I was getting ready to pull down a tenor sax and start figuring out how to fix its poorly-sealing octave key when I got the text messages from the kids' babysitter saying that Porter had not only had a blowout diaper this morning, but he'd also thrown up twice within an hour.

I quickly checked with JoElle and we determined that I could get out of work easier than she could (she's hourly, whereas I have a few days of leave built up already). I then hurried over to the office, where it was determined that one of our AmeriCorps volunteers would be able to cover things for me today (fortunately, he was once the drum major of his high school band, so he has a musical background and won't be completely lost). Following that, I rushed out a set of sub plans and got on the road. Both kids are now home with me (turns out that Porter had puked a third time before I got there) and Seren's working her way through a bowl of the soup that I made for Porter (chicken broth with brown rice, carrots, and celery, of which he ate about six spoonfuls) while Porter naps in her bed because his room needs fumigated from the aforementioned blowout.

So, since I'm home and have some time on my hands with the sick one napping and the other watching Toy Story, here's a bit of an update on what I've been doing these past two weeks.

Last Monday, I got to meet the MEHS students for the first time. We have students from as far away as the International Date Line and Barrow, so Sitka is an experience for some of them. There are also some locals and a good number from the Anchorage area.

We spent the first two and a half days of last week doing an activity known as Edgecamp. This is intended as a combination of orientation, icebreaker for new students (and faculty), and pep rally for the school year. It succeeded to some degree on all of those counts. I was heading up one of the hikes that half of the students did (in 50-student groups), hoping to be able to meet a bunch of kids and convince them to join my music classes. I don't know how many were converted by our conversations, but I had a great time hiking about ten miles in two days and seeing some awesome sights (everything from starfish to hermit crabs to spawning salmon).

I've been riding my bike to work every day, which means that I cross the O'Connell Bridge (right) twice each day. It's a lot taller than it looks in that picture, which is nice for my thighs.

I love working where I do. I'm only teaching three classes right now due to scheduling arrangements (and I want to move one of those classes to a different period next semester). We're on a semesterly block schedule, so most teachers only teach four classes and most students only take four classes (much like being in college). I have 19 kids in the choir, 6 in my general music class, and 6 in the pep band. If I can resolve the scheduling issue for the pep band, that number should double at least.

The priorities of the faculty and administration are in the right place. I don't know how many times my principal has told me so far that "family comes first." I really appreciate knowing that he means that (in fact, he repeated it to me again this morning when I was requesting time to take care of the sick kid). He expanded on that thought once by explaining that "if your family isn't happy, you won't stay here, and we want you to stay." If all administrators learned that on the first day of their Educational Administration MA, 80% of faculty problems would disappear. As far as the teachers go, there's a small amount of cynicism (you always have that when you ask a bunch of intelligent and highly-trained people to work together and follow one or two people's leadership), but a remarkable amount of energy and enthusiasm for each other and for the kids. I look forward to working with my colleagues and to being on teams with them because I know that I'm going to come away charged up.

Sitka is still treating us and the kids well. Seren loves going to the babysitter and getting out around town. Porter is still at the heavy lump of constant trouble stage of development, but enjoying himself a lot as well. JoElle is tired of working (retail is rough on her), but is still seeming happier and healthier than I've seen her in a while. It may be that having somewhat regular hours and needing to put on work clothes helps (those of you familiar with depression will know that such things help). The stupid dog has learned a new trick, too. Porter loves to throw his food when he's full, bored, overwhelmed by the amount of food in front of him, feeling contrary, awake, etc. Invariably, we yell at him and usually give him a slap on the hand, which is followed by him hollering for a few seconds. Nika has learned that this combination of noises ("Porter!!" *slap* "AAAAAA") means that she needs to come over and clean up the noodles or carrots or kale or meat that has been thrown on the floor. As long as it came from him, she'll eat anything except cabbage.

Later today, we'll be going to the school (if the kids aren't too sick) to have dinner with our "extended family," which is somewhat like the advisee group that we had at Orme. I'll be working this Saturday, because MEHS does Saturday school once a month in an effort to both speed the school year and increase the number of class meeting times.

We'll try to not wait so long before posting again, but it's really easy to get into a routine and forget that there's a lot of stuff we're doing that might be interesting to family and friends.

part 2

Thanks for hanging there, guys! Here are the rest of the updates, just like I promised.

Last weekend we attended the first ever Sitka Seafood Festival, where we enjoyed a community free-for-all parade; community vendors, displays, and booths; live entertainment; fresh seafood; games, such as fish-head toss (like egg toss, but with fish heads); face painting; and just a great show of support and enthusiasm from the entire community. One of the performances we saw was a group called NANDA, which did a sort of rock & roll-circus-ninja-action-comedy-dance-movie thing they call "The Jacket" performed live on stage, but synchronized to an audio recording for the narration, music, and special effects. They are four pretty awesome guys and very talented acrobats based out of Washington (state). If you ever have the opportunity to see them perform, DO IT. You will not regret it. The highlight of the show, though, was when they had just completed a particularly intense fighting scene and amidst the silence of the audience and pause in the audio from the show, Seren piped up very matter-of-factly and said, "Silly boys!" Our entire section was laughing and agreeing with her!

Speaking of Seren, she and Porter are doing very well. We were in a crunch for a while there, trying to find care for the two of them while we were both working, but it seemed every option in town was far more expensive than we could reasonably afford. However, just this Friday, we found a full-time sitter who will take them both into her home where she lives with her husband, two teenage children, and a 5-year-old son, whom Seren has already gotten to know a little bit and play with. We really think it's a good match for our kids and for our situation and are very thankful that we are able to afford this solution. We have also decided not to put Seren in preschool yet because the rates are so prohibitive. Instead, I will continue to provide basic education for her at home. We looked at the state standards for Kindergarten in Alaska, and found that she's halfway there already! She's well on her way to reading, she counts and does simple addition and subtraction in her head, she's getting really good at character recognition and she's starting phonic recognition, she understands chronology and has relative spacial awareness, and she's even learning how to draw pictures and letters of the alphabet without any assistance from us! We are very proud of her and know that once we are able to put her in school, she will be just fine. Porter is also advancing nicely. He has a few phrases he uses in repetition now. "Peek-a-boo!" and "tickle-tickle-tickle" are frequently heard when we are playing with him. He's still not walking, but he's purposefully letting go of whatever he's hanging on to while standing to balance now and his efforts get recognized with tons of praise and applause. His appetite has only become bigger since we moved out here... he even eats more than Seren at just about every meal! As he gets taller, he's beginning to become a little leaner, but he's still a solid kid, and very strong. He has gained a few new teeth since we left Arizona, too. This puts the the tally up to 10: four on the top front, plus two top molars, and four on the bottom front.

Stephen had two classroom days last week and has in-service all this week to prepare for school to start next Monday. He's excited to get back in the saddle and he seems to (still) have great support from the school for his program, so he's really enjoying getting everything set up.

We will continue to try to post updates to the blog as often as possible, but please be patient while we adjust to our new schedules. We want to share all we can with all of you, but if waiting an extra day or two to post here means an extra hour in the evening to cuddle with the kids, or take a walk, or take the kids to the library, you can bet that's probably what we're up to.

updates (pt.1 of 2) & apologies

I'm going to start by apologizing to all of our dear readers who have missed us for the last... how long has it been? Almost two weeks? REALLY??? OK, I'm so very sorry for making all of you wait that long to hear from us. It is entirely my fault because Stephen (and a few others, you know who you are) has been after me to post to the blog for almost that long and I really dropped the ball.

So without further ado, UPDATES!

I'm working now, as you should all know from Stephen's last post. Random House is treating me as well as can be expected in the retail world. The owners are good people and shrewd businesspeople. I handle the front sales floor on most days, which keeps me running around quite a bit, but I've learned a lot of interesting things about Russian fairy tales and traditions and Native Alaskan artists and their works. I've talked to Olga Borland (the owner, who is in the store on most days) recently about my employment and she says she's very impressed with my work ethic and that she intends to keep me past September, which was originally my seasonal cut-off date, as off-season pick-up help during inventories and store re-organization before the next tourist season rolls around. Until then, I'll continue to work about 35 hours per week in the store, as I have been for the last 2½ weeks.

Some of you might not yet know that we received our shipment from Arizona, which means that we now have a house full of boxes, packing material, and household items we don't need, in general. It's amazing that we purged so much stuff before we left and, after having lived out of three suitcases for 6 weeks, we realize now that we didn't need about a third of what we packed up to go with us. Lesson learned, we're slowly putting our home together the way we want it and getting rid of everything else. The good news in this is that there is a consignment clothing store nearby for nicer items and two donation centers in town for everything else, one of which is a Salvation Army store attached to a real Salvation Army church. The only significance in that is that neither Stephen nor I could ever remember having seen a Salvation Army church before, but both knew they existed somewhere.

There are plenty more things for me to write about, but rather than make this post too long and difficult to read, I'm going to invite you to stayed tuned to the blog and join me again either tomorrow or Tuesday for the rest of the updates. :)

four weeks

Today marks our fourth week in Sitka. In some ways, it feels like we've always been here. In others, well, there's a lot still sinking in.

JoElle has gone off to work for the first time since before Seren was born. She worked largely out of the home where we last were, but now she's in a job where she's being paid an hourly wage to work somewhere that has a dress code and everything. She's working for the Russian America Company at Random House downtown here, and seems to really enjoy the work and her bosses (although adapting to the hours has been tough on all of us).

Porter seems to be really settling in and enjoying himself. We set his crib up as a daybed, which he hated for one night and then realized that he could roll himself out whenever he gets bored with napping. This has resulted in FAR shorter naps. He's also getting around well enough that he is being a real pain to his sister.

Seren has been loving it here. Whether she's going for short walks to the store or the mail or whether she's heading out to pick salmonberries or play with the daughter of our landlords, she loves where we live. Every couple of days, she begs us to go to the library, which is her favorite spot in town! She also loves the Whale Park.

I've been working on setting up our house since Thursday, when all of our worldly goods were delivered in brown paper wrapping. Almost everything arrived undamaged, and I've been going around seeking out places to store things and trying to figure out where all of our things are (not all of the packing was done in the most logical manner). I've also been working on figuring out a day care/preschool solution for the kids, as Seren is of preschool age (although the cost of sending her may be an issue - is it really $250-$300 a month everywhere for only 10 hours a week?). Since our household showed up, my work getting my classroom and office inventoried and set up has taken a back seat, but I'm glad to have my bike back so that I can start commuting.

Music teachers: Alaska has some of the simplest standards I've ever seen. On the one hand, this is awesome because it means that the bar is set low. On the other hand, there are detailed standards for math, science, social studies, and English. I guess at least I know what the priorities are here?

I know that it's going to sink in at some point that we actually live in Alaska, and the huge distances are going to become a reality instead of just something that I understand intellectually. For now, every time I open up a library book or get a piece of mail and see "Sitka, AK" written, it throws me for a little bit of a loop. In a good way.

Baseball Pizza

This is going to be a very short post, but I have to do it because I'm really proud of my latest creation!

Beer-dough pizza crust (yay for the end of a growler of Baranof Brown Ale!), covered in beer/mustard marinated cabbage (unfortunately, no sauerkraut was immediately available for sauce), covered in sliced hot dog and green onions and cheddar cheese.

I AM A GENIUS IN POSSESSION OF A CAST IRON SKILLET

Incidentally, nobody would fault you for cutting the middle out of this pizza and just eating the crust because OH MAN was it delicious.

Politics? On THIS blog??

JoElle's given me a one-time dispensation to talk politics on this blog. If you want to know more about my political thoughts, there are other places that you can find them.

The reason I've been authorized to talk politics is because we were listening to Raven Radio on the way home from being Out And About today and got to hear part of the Sitka Assembly meeting, and the proceedings illustrate how great the difference is between our new home and our old home. Specifically, when we were almost home, the seven voting members of the Assembly (including Mayor Scott McAdams, who is running for Senate) took up the issue of altering the Sitka Code to allow for revised opening and closing hours on Sunday for businesses licensed to sell alcohol.

Discussion of the issue revolved primarily around whether there was any reason not to let businesses open earlier in the day. A mention was made of church attendance and whether employees would be able to work out the conflict there, and mention was also made of the desire of some community members to watch Sunday games on the big screens in the bars (remember, we're four hours behind EST here). One Assembly member even said that she saw no reason not to let them watch the game on the big screen and "they can have a beer if they want while they're at it, gosh darn it!" The police chief was asked for his comment, and he stated that the police department was really ambivalent about the whole idea, but that he could think of no reason to object to letting alcohol-serving establishments open earlier.

After discussion ended, a quick roll call resulted in the measure passing 6-1, allowing these businesses to open earlier on Sundays. At this point, JoElle looked at me almost incredulously and pointed out the brouhaha that would result from such a resolution even being proposed in Arizona, much less adopted. In Sitka, it was adopted in a very nonchalant, let-them-do-what-they-want-if-it-ain't-bugging-anyone-else manner. In Arizona, well, it's Arizona. I'll let you find my other political rants elsewhere to know what I think of Arizona politicians.

On Inventorying A Music Room

Some quick thoughts, after inventorying the musical instruments in my new office:

• This band must have had some unusual instrumentation in the past. We counted
• three trombones
• two baritones
• two bass clarinets
• a sousaphone (an ANCIENT Martin sousaphone)
• a tenor sax
• an alto sax
• two partial clarinets
• several cornets
• one concert bass drum
• one pair of cymbals
• some auxiliary percussion
• and the toms and bass drums from two and a half different drum sets.
For those playing along at home, this means a complete lack of snare drums, flutes, and very little in the way of treble instruments at all (alto saxes, clarinets, trumpets, flutes, etc.).
• Where did all of the music stands go?
• There are two different marching band uniforms and majorette uniforms to go with them, but where are the rest of both sets? There are shakos aplenty (yuck).

JoElle helped me out a lot by putting together a database in OpenOffice.org, but it unfortunately won't save to any other format and we can't find any database software that can be shared freely without making PDFs. We've looked at Google Docs, but they don't have that software at all, and also at Grubba, but they require all users to register, so I can't exactly share this file easily. My goal is to have a file that I can share with administrators and other local teachers so that everyone knows what I do and don't have available, and to do the same for my sheet music. Ideally, this would make sharing with colleagues far more easy and would make repairing and replacing instruments easier, too. Any thoughts would be very appreciated.