Weeks 28-30 - It's been an interesting month

It is the end of March.  Finally.  All those crazy things I was writing about are finally done, and there were even extra events that I didn't mention since they were a last minute sort of deal. My SMARTboard training and first aid training were pretty straight forward, but as usual it was quite a bit of information to take in.  As one of my colleagues said, "now I know how the kids feel every day!"  The best part of my training days is the fact that I got a free 4GB USB drive.  It might not sound exciting to you, but my last two 16 GB drives died and all I had was a 256MB one, and let me tell you, that doesn't get you very far.

On March 18 I began my stint of sleepovers.  I volunteered to take several people over the next few weeks so that they would have somewhere to stay.  It was kind of weird having people in the house with me again, but the pay is quite good (it's more than my actual salary).  So on March 18th I had the arrival of Tatiana Garakani and Emilie Peter, two researchers from ENAP.  They were wonderful guests and we had some very good conversations.  For one, in a long time, I actually spent my dinner in engaging conversation rather than in front of the television.  These two ladies were researchers that were working with staff and students at the school in an attempt to create ideal pedagogical practices for Northern communities.  I rather enjoyed our research session and I look forward to being a part of the research (at least for the next 3 months).  Tatiana and Emilie sadly left on March 21.  On March 22, I had two pilots stay here that were spending the night since they were flying a charter out the next day.  Finally, on March 26, Danny Fafard from the NYHDP for the Bantam hockey tournament that is going on as I write this. He is a nice fellow and will be staying until April 2.

One of the events that occurred that wasn't on my original calendar was the Nunavik International Adventure Challenge.  There was a student race that was 10Km on March 25, and an International race that was 60Km and started on March 26 and went until March 28.  The race was on foot with the challengers skiing or snowshoeing.  There were contestants from Quebec, USA, Italy, Germany, Australia and others.  It was interesting to see so many people from different places come all the way out here.  One of the funny things that happened was that the team that is from George River actually took a wrong turn that set them back.  We're not sure how they managed that since they LIVE here.

One of the exciting things that happened this past week was that someone was out Ptarmigan hunting and actually managed to shoot a polar bear instead.  They brought it back to the school for everyone to see before they butchered it down at the beach.  It is too bad that it was dead, but it was interesting to actually get a chance to have a very close look at a polar bear.  He was very skinny and they saw him eating garbage at the dump.  I think they decided to shoot him since it is a safety concern having him there since the dump is only a few kilometers outside of town.  I took a lot of photos of it, but I'm only going to show the mild ones on here.

Next week is our Math Teamathalon.  Joetta and Heather have been spending an immense amount of time developing and organizing this event.  I have helped whenever I can, but between my normal prep, working on stuff for my Bantam tournament fund raiser and finishing my AQ work, it hasn't been a substantial amount.  Although, we have actually taken on the job of the snack committee  teachers who thought it was 'too much work' to do it and just wanted to throw money (that we do not have) at it as a solution.  So Joetta, Kirsten, Vicky and some of the students worked away this weekend to bake 250+ cookies and rice krispie squares. In addition to that, I made 50+ ham sandwiches and Joetta and I made 176 cookies last weekend for the tournament.  It has been a good fund raiser, so far I have made $537 and I still have today to sell the rest of my stuff.

Last, but not least, I have less than a week to go before I can come home and see Ashley!!! I only have to get through another 5 days and then I will be leaving early on Friday morning for a very full day of travel!  can't wait!

Week 27 - Ivakkak Race

I haven't have a chance to post lately since these last couple of weeks have been extremely busy for me.  Our end of term was March 2 so I had to finish up all my marking so I would have grades for all my classes.  In addition to this I had to create some extra lessons since some of my students were taking off on March 1 to go to the Arctic Winter Games until March 11.  Finally, The AQ I'm working on only had a 2 week period for the module instead of 3 weeks (because of March Break) which made all of that work due on March 9.  Lets just say I've definitely been working my 60 hour week lately.

That is all in the past now! Next week should be much more simple for me and the rest of the teachers.  On Monday we have the 2012 Ivakkak Dog Race departing from here on their way up the coast to Kangirsuk.  Tuesday all Secondary teachers have Smartboard training, Thursday we all have First Aid training and Friday is a holiday.  I'm thankful for the break since it will let me plan some advanced lessons.  Since I'm getting very close to the end of my material for one of my math classes I am really looking forward to teaching whatever I want! I find it very interesting as I sit back and reflect on all the knowledge I have on different subjects.  Given the chance I could probably design several math and science courses based on topics that I find interesting and useful.  Too bad that's not the way things work.

Anywho, this weekend I decided to go for a nice walk out onto the bay to check out the doggies that will be participating in the race.  I think it's interesting that there is such a variety of different looking dogs on all of the teams.  It's a good thing I wore my snowboarding gloves since it let me take pictures with my hands covered.  Let's just say that even though winter is gone, it is still extremely cold.  Here's a picture I took of myself.  It was cold enough that the moisture from my breath was frosting up on the fur ruff of my parka.

I find that the best way to make your way out onto the ice is to just follow the snowmobile trails.  In this case, you definitely want to follow the well beaten path.  Stepping off that path can be hazardous as you can easily step into a soft snow covering and end up hip deep in snow.

I made my way to the dogs and got some interesting shots.  I feel bad for them though being tied up on the snow on such a cold day.  Windchill was -32 yesterday.

As I made my way back I saw these interesting areas that looked like they had actually melted.  Considering the fact that it was still -20C outside I knew that was impossible so I decided to check it out.  As I got closer I noticed that there were these fragile looking formations on the ice.  They sort of looked like very large snowflakes but I'm fairly certain they were made of ice, so I shall call them ice flakes!

The North is a wondrous place! some people may think of it as just cold and desolate, but if you take the time to explore on a cold sunny day you can see that there is beauty everywhere.

Week 24 - Goodbye Winter

A funny thing happened the other day.  I was going through my profile pictures on facebook and I found one that I had of an Environment Canada weather report.  This was in early December and I was showing that it was cold here, which I guess it was since the average temperature was -16C while everyone back home was getting temperatures of 5C.  It was just ironic seeing it since the first couple weeks of January had an average temperature of -28C and a windchill of -45C.  The truly funny part is actually the fact that right now it is only -12C outside and I'm sitting here thinking that Spring has arrived.  It's funny how your perceptions change.

This was an odd sort of week.  As it ended up, we had a 4 day weekend of a sort.  Friday was a PED day so we had no class, but still went to school to get stuff done.  Monday was a snowday, the first one of the year!  Sadly no one told me so I went to school anyway, which was fine since I was able to get some extra work done.  The snow and wind were pretty high, but fully equipped I had no trouble getting to school.  All I have to say is I'm very glad I have a balaclava and snowboard goggles!

It's actually kind of interesting the way the daylight has been changing.  It is getting lighter out for longer, but not in the way that I'm used to.  In December, during the solstice, it didn't get light out until about 8 or 8:30am and the sun would set around 2:30 or 3pm.  Now the sun rises around 6:40am and sets around 4:30.  I did a little calculation that showed me we gain 2min of daylight each day.  I guess one minute is in the morning and 1 minute is in the evening.  I've been told that once June gets here, it is light out until 11pm and it just gets dusky until the sun rises again around 5.

So this week we had glorious weather.  Friday was -10C and sunny.  It was a beautiful day and the kids were completely unfocused.  This was fine though since we had saved up a reward day and they wanted to go for a walk.  So we did go for a walk, up the side of the mountain..haha.  One of the great things about the geography of this area is that there are a lot of great places to go for a walk.  Mind you, I almost died as we were walking up the side, but I got to the top just a little bit after my students.  Nothing like a physical challenge to confirm that you are old.  We hung around at the top and took some pictures and collected some rocks for the tumbler.

As we made our way down the mountain the edge was very smooth, steep and snow covered.  As a result of all these facts we decided that the best course of action would be to slide down the side! lol.  That was a lot of fun, although I think I hit a rather thick section of powder and got completely covered with snow in the front.  All in all, Friday was a great day!

Last but not least, This week Ashley and I booked our trip over Spring Break.  We are going to be going to Aria Resort and Casino in Las Vegas from April 8-12.  The hotel was very cheap and we are both extremely excited to finally get away on our first real vacation! Only 7 more weeks to go!!

Week 23 - Me and my Kindle

So not much really happened this week.  Well...last week.  I picked up a pair of mitts for Elaine's husbands birthday.  He is apparently one of those gentlemen that are fairly difficult to shop for, but really enjoys home made crafts.  I am happy to help out a friend in need, and also the sales will help out the community.  I went to the municipal office to see what they had in stock and all I have to say is holy crap! Everyone was scrounging for mitts before Christmas and there was nothing! I go now and there's mitts coming out the butt.  There were some truly interesting ones as well.  Too bad they weren't there when I was shopping otherwise I would have gotten them instead.

These were the ones that she decided on.  Quite nice I must add.

For a good part of last week I was actually quite ill.  I'm uncertain exactly what it was, but I was sick from Tuesday to Thursday.  Of course I did try and brave out school on both Tuesday and Thursday.  Being sick put a bit of a damper on my attempts to mail these mitts to Elaine, but it did give me a chance to do some reading on my Kindle.  The thing I love about Kindles is the large amount of free books! I downloaded a bunch of them over Christmas and I'm just getting around to reading them all now.  So far I finished two books: The Wizard of Time by GL Breedon.  It was a fun little book.  Something I would put under teen fantasy.  Not literature by any means, but it was fairly entertaining.

The second book I finished off was The Time Machine by H.G Wells.  This was an interesting sort of book with an introduction style that is unlike the authors that I have read so far.  He does a good job of describing his surrounding and the story is pretty good.

My problems with the book like in a couple of areas.  First is that the story itself is fairly boring for the first 40% of the book.  Not much really happens, other than the main character hanging out eating fruit.  I will admit though that the latter parts of the book do have some excitement, but nothing that compares to modern fantasy.  My second problem is his projections based on his understanding of Biology and Evolution.  The dichotomous evolution that occurs in this novel and the subsequent characteristics of the species don't correspond to evolutionarily stable strategies.  I guess it can be excused though since at his time evolution was still a very new concept.

I am now reading the Island of Dr.Moreau by H.G. Wells.  Now I'm starting to get a feeling for his style as he tends to begin his stories in a similar fashion.

Week 22 - Consolidation Time

Well, I missed a significant amount of time for blogging for two reasons.
1. It was so busy over Christmas that I hardly had a chance to sit still much less make a post
2. My computer died a week after I came back to George River so that made things a little difficult.

But now I have a new computer ( A Sony Vaio E-Series, 6 gigs of RAM and a 2.4GHZ dual core processor :D)

I was originally going to put of some posts of what I did over Christmas since I was pretty busy and all over the place, but seeing as how it is February 5, I'm just going to scrap that and move on!

So what have I been up to since I returned?
Not much, everyone got back into the same routine as before we all left.  There were a couple of brutally cold weeks where the average temperature was around -30C and the windchill was -40 to -45.  There was one awesome snowstorm one weekend where I could barely see across the road.  Here's a picture I took of a statue that we have by the entrance of the school after the storm.

This weekend was actually the most busy one so far.  Friday night we decided to have a belated Chinese New Year celebration dinner.  We had Ants Crawling up the Hill, Vegetarian Spring Rolls, Tofu and Vegetables wrapped in rice paper, BBQ Pork, Egg Foo Young, Fried Rice, Steamed Rice and Soup.  We also had some Aloe Vera Juice, Jasmine Tea and Tikuanyin.  All in all it was a good time.  Too bad I couldn't get my hands on a duck!

Saturday was also an interesting day.  I finally got to go dog sledding for the first time!  Mark, my principal, has a dog sled team and he was taking them out of a training run to their tent out in the woods.  It's about a 18-20Km run so I thought I would tag along.  It was a pretty nice day outside (Sunny and around -20) so I thought I would be good with my normal gear.  I was wrong about that one.  Snow boarding gloves do nothing for warmth out here and normal hiking boots suck too.  I went most of the way on a skidoo and by the end I could barely feel my toes or my fingers.
One of the cool things about being out here is that you actually hang out with your students.  On this ride, one of my students was driving the Skidoo.  Fortunately we didn't die or crash which is always a plus!

Now the sledding part was pretty interesting.  Mark let me go at it alone for a little bit since it was a straight path and it was very difficult for the dogs to get lost.  Before we go out they actually make trails in the snow with snowmobiles so that the dogs have something to follow, although sometimes they remember the trail from last year and follow that instead of the new one.  You have to fight with them sometimes to actually get them to listen, but for the most part they are pretty co-operative.  The hard part was also watching Mark go up a hill.  When that happens you actually have to get off of the sled and run with it so that its easier on the dogs.  Overall they don't run as fast as I had thought.  They definitely go faster than I could jog, but they only run around 10-12Km/h.  I can imagine that it would take people quite some time to get anywhere back in the day.  Here's the view I got from the front of the sled.

Next week promises to be a normal week, although the administration will be gone for meetings.  Too bad, it's never the same without them.  In 9 weeks Ashley and I are going to go on a vacation to Cuba! That will be fun, now we just have to keep an eye out for deals!

Weeks 14 & 15 - The Countdown is on!

So here I am.  Three days from now I'll be arriving in Montreal, the halfway point on my journey back home for the holidays.  Before we get to that though let's see what's been going on for the last two weeks!

This is a random picture of the mail pickup truck.  I thought it was interesting to see the little modification to the tires so that there is a little bit more traction.  There is a massive amount of ice on the roads right now so this is probably a very good idea.

Last Saturday was our school Christmas party at Omerone's house.  It was an interesting evening.  The food was pretty good (Omerine and Raymond are an older french couple and definitely know how to cook!).  I'm glad that some of the younger people were there so that I had some people to talk to.  It gets a little awkward for me sometimes when I'm surrounded by older people and little children.  At one point though someone busted out their accordion and people started singing Christmas carols. This was my cue to hit the dusty trail...  Anyway, I had been warned that there would be massive amounts of food so I decided that I would make some Ciabatta as an accompaniment to the main course.  Everyone seemed to enjoy them and Omerine was quite happy to have the extras.

I think they turned out reasonably well considering I haven't made these in over 2 years.  Although they weren't as airy as I wanted.  Next time I'll have to let them rise more.

One of the interesting additions to our school was a new ornament designed by the art teacher called the Northern Lights.

It's a fairly interesting construct made from pieces of green and purple glass wired together.  It's quite nice when the light illuminates the glass.

Over the last couple weekends (last weekend and this weekend) I have been working on making Christmas cookies for all the students.  I thought it would be nice to have the teachers come down on the last day of class and get some for all their students.  I made them some sugar cookies, belgium cookies and mexican wedding cakes.  I think in total there was around 200-250 made.  This week Nancy came in and lent me a hand!  It was nice having her there since decorating the sugar cookies on my own generally becomes very tedious and makes me question my 'good ideas.'

Here is the Maestro in the middle of decorating some cookies.  She brought some of the kids in too and they have fun decorating too. :)

Finally, here are some of the interesting things I have bought while I've been here.  Some of these are made from soap stone, others are made from bone or some other type of stone.  It seems a little strange to me that no one carves things out of wood, but it kinda makes sense though since there aren't that many trees around here, and the ones we have are soft wood.

Anyway, this is it! The next time I post I will most likely be sitting in Delhi with a nice mug of hot chocolate and a cookie!

Weeks 12 & 13 - It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Well, just like most of my favorite television shows, I decided to take last week off of posting.  Unlike the mass media, my inactivity was not due to the American Thanksgiving weekend, but rather the complete lack of anything of note happening!  Over the period of two weeks though, I actually did some stuff that was interesting.

On a personal note, I am quite happy that Movember is over since now I am able to shave off my ridiculous looking mustache. Although as my mom would point out, all I need is a sombrero, a poncho and a sash of bullets and I'll be ready for an old school Mexican standoff.

But allow me to back things up a bit.  November 26th was Heather's birthday.  We had a small gathering at Gillians house and made pizza for dinner.  Nancy also brought over the stuff to make Sushi and I made a tray of Eclairs.  Fortunately eclairs are very easy to make and really aren't too time consuming. 

 Everyone had a good time and a few people had a little too much to drink.  I hadn't thought that they had drank too much more than me, but they were in pretty rough shape the next day and I was fine (I actually went to school and did some work).  The highlight was definitely when Gillian spit her drink across the room.  I was watching her as she did it and I really wasn't sure what was going on.  Apparently she heard someone say something funny and she couldn't help it.  I also learned that some of my fellows have interesting talents.

Recently I have been going to the gym trying to get into better shape.  I usually go around 3-4 times a week although some times it is hard since it's so bloody cold outside.  Last Wednesday when I came home I looked up and noticed that the Northern lights were out.  It was pretty neat! I got a picture of it, but sadly I didn't have any sort of tripod and it was exceedingly cold outside making it hard to sit still and take the picture.

When I go home for Christmas I'll grab one of my SD cards for my other camera.  I bought an 8gig SD card from amazon for $15 but apparently my camera is too old to recognize the chip and I haven't been able to use it!  On a positive note though, it's only a little bit over two weeks until I jump on a plane and come home!! It's all very exciting.  I have seen a few people around here hanging Christmas lights on their houses as well.

This is one of the houses across the street from me.  It's nice to see everyone getting into the holiday spirit!  I'm thinking next week I will get started on my Christmas cookie workshop.  I discovered that on December 20th it is a day when classes have activities or Christmas parties so I thought it would be fun if we had cookies available that we could take around to all the kids!  Since there's around 200 students I think I'm going to have to get started early! I think 2 weeks should do it no problem though since I will have some helpers as well!  That fact is probably a good thing since decorating can get tedious and makes me want to shoot myself sometimes..haha