Just Another Day in Paradise

Well, the good news is that I'm eating sesame chicken that was delivered.


The bad news is that is that I'm weathered into Bethel for overnight. Everything looked smooth coming in- we even arrived from Anchorage a little early.

The first bad sign was that the Grant Air car that was supposed to pick me up was 40 minutes after the flight- I was waiting outside by myself for at least 20 minutes. While I was waiting, there was a couple there who'd been on the same flight. "Did you sit by the crying baby?" I asked, mainly to be conversational. "Yes!" the woman said. "I wanted to tell the dad to make that baby shut the f---up!". I was thinking, "It was a baby!" but I said, "I thought that the parents should maybe pick him up and hold him". "Well!" she said. "The flight attendant was going to move them to the back of the plane but didn't." Pregnant pause. I should have let it go there.

"Where are you coming from?", I asked. "We were in Las Vegas. It got really cold here, like -36 and I called to check on the house. The guy who was house-sitting didn't answer the phone so the next day when I called him at work, he said that he thought the call might be personal so he didn't answer the phone. I told him, get the h--- out then. What good was he!" You know I wanted to hear more, but I went in to check on the Grant driver.

I waited around Grant's for about 75 minutes before they cancelled. Everyone was good-natured and friendly and I even got free ride into town. When the guy dropped me off at the loading dock, he helped me move my attractive luggage (see above) and asked me if I would be able to get in. Yes, I had the code.


But no, I didn't have the RIGHT code, so I put my grippers on and walked over to the high school. I used the phone and called someone who left the football game on TV to come and let me in. Thanks, Gary! My grippers need to be upgraded. They sense when I want to hurry and the ice is bad and drop off.

So, I'm hunkered down for the night prepared to work on math assessments (since I don't have a key to get back in so I can't go shop at the Bethel AC Store or Swansons. But before I do that, I want to tell you that this blog can annoy people like I never thought of. Last night I told a friend that I had a story, but then I said, "No, I won't tell it..you can just read it on my blog!" She told me it was as annoying as cell phones when someone says that they can't decide, they'll just call later on their cell phone. And then I thought, how annoying would it be to blog about blogging, which is what I'm doing now. Is it annoying? Don't forget- I only take written comments now- don't bother telling me in person or on the phone.

Seriously though, one more thing before I dig into the math assessments. Mentoring is all about professional development. This is the time of year when the emergency relief needed to get going is already satisfied. This is when mentoring is more about looking at student work to guide lesson design, to self-assess this year's goals and modify, expand or change them and to look at the professional standards to see where you are and where you need to go. So, the food is good, the company is good, but the work is not done! My fortune cookie says, " You will be traveling and coming into a fortune". Sounds good.