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| Alaskan flamingos! |
It’s all over.
This year I’ve taught 333 students from 20 different villages across
Northwestern Alaska. I’ve helped these
students earn 91 American Red Cross certifications, 74 food worker cards, 17 driver’s
permits, 5 driver’s licenses, and over 130 college credits. I’ve written 17 newsletters, taken over
2,000 pictures, and taught three courses as a college professor. I’ve experienced my highest highs and
my lowest lows. All in all, I know
that I’ve made a difference in the lives of these kids, however small and seemingly insignificant.
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| Printing off the finalized yearbook! |
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| Pushing the shed to its final location |
This week marked my final week at NACTEC. It was surreal as I counted down my
final days. It went from being my
last Saturday shift (a true celebration) to my very last day, which was quite
bittersweet. During my last lunch
with students, I shared a tofu dish with them (faux tacos!) at their
request. They often see me eating
tofu soup, and one students exclaimed, “If you tried muktuk, I want to try
tofu!”. I made two dishes; one
with beef and one with TVP, and had the students guess which was which. Believe it or not, it was a toss up and
many students went back for seconds and thirds of my dish. It was fun to share something like this
with them.
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| TVP delight! |
During the last day of Money Management, as students were
frantically printing off the yearbook, I got the chance to supervise the
students in that class. To help
keep up morale, I played the songs I had created last year for my 7th
graders with them, as one of them was about money management. It was too funny; they kept asking if
it was my real voice, and wanting me to replay it again. This experience made me miss teaching
in the traditional sense, and reinforced the fact that I’ve still got it as a
teacher.
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| Final projects, thank yous, and some tunes |
This whole week was plagued by crazy fog; I watched it roll
in to engulf us each day. Most
days it was blue skies out at the Nome-Beltz campus, while downtown was totally
enveloped in gray, misty fog. All
of us were biting our nails, anxious if the decreased visibility would impact
our travel plans for Friday.
Fortunately, Friday was free and clear, and all of the students were
able to fly away home after spending a full month here. This year was filled with challenges, growth,
and the accomplishment of things I never thought I could do. I will never regret my time spent at
this job, but it is a relief to be finished.
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| Fast moving fog engulfing us |
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| Standing on the road - my view to the north |
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| Standing on the same road, turned 180 degrees - my view to the south |
That being said, this is the first time in all of my 26
years that I have no idea what I will be doing in the coming year. I have worked tirelessly over the past
8 years, with all of my efforts pushing towards the goal of becoming a teacher
and obtaining permanent certification.
Now that I've earned a bachelor's, master's and now have three years of full-time teaching experience, the world is now my oyster. All of my job applications and interviews (most schools would not agree to a phone or skype interview) have
fallen unanswered, and I find myself
with nothing to do next year. It’s
both incredibly scary and an opportunity to stop and smell the flowers. I’m looking to make the most of this
time of my life, as it may not come again.
But enough with the dramatics! I will spend another two weeks here in Nome, and I aim to
enjoy every last minute. This year
has been a trip, in every sense of the word. For now, it’s relax-o time!
