BSSD In-service

We flew into Unalakleet this past Monday and will be here until Thursday afternoon. Bering Strait School District is having in-service this week. I thought it was cold in Nome when we left, but it is freezing here! The breeze is what really makes it cold. I was glad I had pulled out and wore my winter coat, snowpants, and boots. BSSD has fifteen different schools, plus us at NACTEC. There are a lot of people! The school is full of air mattresses, pillows, sleeping bags, and suitcases. I am in a workshop on blogging. Today is the second day and it has been a great learning experience! I am working on setting up a blog for NACTEC. I hope to have students write about their experiences at NACTEC on the website. After it is all set up, I will add the link to my blog. Monday evening we had a BSSD first. A friend of mine, Lisie, and her fiance, Ben, decided to get married at the in-service. So, we had a wedding! Lisie and I both moved to Alaska and started working for BSSD at the same time. She was my first BSSD friend. She had a special seat for me during the wedding, right up front. They both listed people out they would like to have sitting up front, and I was the only one on her list, made me feel very special and important! After the wedding, there was wedding cake and ice cream. They both teach in Savoonga, which is located on St. Lawrence Island. Last night I went with some friends to Peace on Earth, a local pizza place. We had ice cream while we were waiting on our pizza. It was pretty good. They also have a ping pong table there, so we enjoyed challenging each other in that. Most villages do not have a restaurant, but Unalakleet is a larger village which houses the BSSD district office, so there are a few more things here than you would find in the other villages. There was also a group here last night, Pamyua. They are a Yupik musical group. They describe their music as tribal funk and world music. They were fun to listen to and watch. Well, I had better start paying attention here.