Homework

As some of you already know I am taking some college courses this semester. 12 credits to be exact. Yeah, that's a lot to take in one semester while working full time during the day and being a mom and what not. I decided to pursue an Associates in Science in Disability Services. It is a program offered through Prince William Sound Community College's distance Education Program. I can basically do the whole degree without stepping into a classroom. PWSCC is part of the University of Alaska system so I can mix and match required degree courses offered by any of the state system college such as Chukchi College, University of Alaska Fairbanks, PWSCC or University of Alaska Anchorage and PWCC will accept the credits and give me the degree.


So now I am constantly lugging around this backpack full of books. I figure that in my spare time here and there I will hit the books. I think I need to get a bit more disciplined about that.


Here's the books for three of the four courses that I am taking. The first is Native Cultures of Alaska. It is a paper based course. It's basically a course in a box. You get a box of books and a syllabus and you are on your own. I am also taking Managing Behaviors and Intro to the Special education system. The SpEd class doesn't start until the end of this month so I don't have the books yet. And finally we have......the horror of my existance......DEVM-050.....aka IdiotMath-050.


Witness my nightmare. I am traumatized just looking at it. I have spent my entire life avoiding as much math as I possibly can. In high school I took the lowest possible math classes just so I could graduate. I don't know if I can adequately express in words how much I DESPISE math. In order to get this degree I have to be able to pass DEVM-105, Intermediate Algebra. INTERMEDIATE ALGEBRA!!!!!! Just the words make my flesh crawl. I don't even know how to multiply FRACTIONS! I have to take probably two remedial math classes just to pass the required one. Good greif. So anyway, this is a year long course. I have exactly one year to finish it and truth be told I have only opened the book long enough to hyperventilate and then slam it shut. Just taking that picture made me sweat. Lots of luck. Well, I'm off to spend the next 8 hours or so doing homework. Hope you all had a great weekend.

Poor Doggy

Yesterday Kaija got spayed. A special thanks to Dr. Phil Meyer of Wasilla Veterinary Clinic in Wasilla, Alaska. He comes to Kotzebue 4 times a year to provide us with quality health care for our pets. Without him we would have to send our pets out to Anchorage or Nome for spay and neuter surgery. He said that Kaija came through with flyying colors........


....but try tell that to Kaija. She doesn't look like she is feeling too colorful. We brought her home around 6pm yesterday and she was truly pathetic for the next 16 hours.


Doesn't she look pathetic?? Poor baby. at about noon today she brightened up a bit and ate a little bit of watery canned food and then went back in her kennel to hide. I truly feel sorry for her but I know that spaying her was the right decision for her health and safety.

Today the Boys and Girls club of Kotzebue is sponsoring a carnival at the elementary school. Kids games and food all for free. Uyaana is lookung forward to going. Maybe I will take my camera.

Berry Picking

We went berry picking yesterday evening. The low bush cranberries are just about ripe. Technically they are lingonberries....but around here we call them cranberries. I picked about 3 quarts.





Aren't those berries pretty. I like picking cranberries. You can pick them by the handful and fill up your bucket quickly.



Kaija had a great time digging for mice. Lucky for the mice she didn't find any.

Then I made her pose for pictures. She wasn't real thrilled about having to sit in one place for too long so her tail is down instead of all curly.





There were other people off in the distance also picking berries. She really wanted to go see them.





Ooh! What's that?!



It was raining over there but thankfully not on us.

Birthday Boy

Uyaana's birthday was September 7th. He is eight years old.

Cemetary Hill

For Kaija's evening run we went to Cemetary Hill overlooking Kotzebue. Here are a few pics that I took.

KOTZ Radio

Hey, I just wanted to mention that if anyone is ever bored consider tuning in to out Local radio station KOTZ. You can listen to it online HERE .

The most interesting time to listen is at 4pm Alaska time which would be 8pm eastern time. That's the "request hour" with birthday messages and requests. Give it a listen sometime.

Junk

I brought my camera with me while I took Kaija for her nightly run. I figured I would take some pictures of the beautiful sunset. The problem is that it was about the 10th beautiful sunset we have had in a row (not that I am complaining) so the pictures I was taking were looking like all the others I have already taken. Then it occured to me that maybe I needed to change my subject matter. I am always taking pictures of sunsets and water and mountains and flowers.....all things cute and pretty. I figured, heck, why not take some pictures of...........

JUNK! Sure, why not. It's not like it's your average run of the mill junk. It's ARCTIC JUNK! We have all kinds of junk in the arctic. Things cost so much to get up here that when your done with it....it, well......sticks around. I mean what exactly are you supposed to do with a big junked up plane?


This beauty has seen better days. It has been sitting here for as long as I can remember. And it will probably be sitting there at the return of Christ.

Then there's the big spooky barge.....


This thing is U-G-L-Y and has probably been sitting right where it is on the beach by the old dump for at leat 30 years. I think it is a secret government experiment to see exactly how long it take 20 tons of steel to turn to dust.


This here fella is a new edition to the Junk Collection. This thing showed up on the side of the Base road a few weeks ago. It hasn't moved since. It could be temporary junk, but you never know around here.


I thought I would end the Junk Collection with this...even though it's not junk. This is just ewww.

Sunset

Went out at about 11:30pm last night to take a few pics of the sunset. It wasn't as nice as I thought it was going to be but here is is anyway.

First Day of School

Today is Uyaana's first day of second grade. He was really looking forward it......that is until I had to wake him up this morning at 7:15am. As you can see he doesn't look quite as enthuastic as he did yesterday.

Summer's Last Hurrah.

This weekend may very well be summer's last hurrah. What a better place to spend it than out at camp. It was about 70 degrees.


Could it get any more beautiful out than this.......


or this....


or this.

Since it was so hot out we decided to set the net and go swimming.


There was a lot of clay on the beach and Uyaana had a great time playing in it......



....he smeared it all over himself and then as the clay started to dry on him he said...."hey my face is getting tight".



Even Kaija couldn't resist digging holes in the clay and smearing it all over herself.


After we set the net we decided to head to the other side of the river and swim at the sandbar and have a snack. Since this sandbar is on an island, with hopefully no porcupines, I decided to let Kaija run loose.


Kaija ran.....



and ran.......



and ran.



Meanwhile Uyaana found more mud.



He said that this was his "warm water hole". He spent a lot of time excavating it and building up the walls.



And then when he was done he sat in it.


After swimming we went back and checked out net. We caught two salmon and one itty bitty trout. We cooked salmon and trout on the campfire for dinner and then roasted marshmellows. It was a fun day.