How to Survive: Develop Hobbies

One of the keys to surviving in Shishmaref is to develop hobbies. Without movie theaters, malls, restaurants, and family around, Steve and I have a lot of available time. One of the hobbies I recently started pursuing to fill my evening hours is photography. I bought a Nikon D80 and a couple of sweet lenses last year (Hey Steve! Thanks for letting me make a major purchase!).




After fiddling around and perusing Flickr and some photography blogs, I started to be able to take some pretty decent pictures. I got to practice this summer when my little sister Lisa married Jason Davenport of Pocatello.




Now, I'm not pretending to be a wedding photographer. I'm not nearly as talented as my amazing sister-in-law, and I'm not planning on quitting my day job. I just like to have fun taking and sharing pictures.





But... pictures like this? They inflate my ego.





So, excuse me if I show off a little.





I'm actually quite proud of some of these shots.





I may not have been able to replace the real photographer, but I'd like to think that only a sister could could capture a few of these moments.





Because only a sister can inspire true silliness.





And the professional photographer's not always there when Mom and Dad are late picking us up.





And you never act more like yourself than when you're around family.





Since we're talking about family, I might as well show you this picture of me with my brothers and sisters. (I'm third from the left. Just in case you're from Alaska, and you've only ever seen me with my hair in a ponytail.)





We more typically look like this... I may be the loudest and spazziest Busch child, but all of us are pretty silly.





I originally titled this photo "Busch Babes." Then I realized that wasn't exactly accurate. One of these babes is a Busch, but one is an Alston. And one is a Davenport. And one is a Winterbottom. Weird.

Thanks for getting married Lisa and Jason!!! It was a great chance for me to practice my new hobby.

Social Studies Rocks: Inupiaq Dictionary

Many of my social studies classes have been consumed by our most recent project: the Inupiaq Dictionary.

Several forces combined to make the Inupiaq Dictionary a reality:

-my desire to learn the local Inupiaq language

-my first year teaching Alaska Studies Levels 3-5

-Ginger, one of my teaching idols, showing me a cool project that a school in Marshall, Alaska did using the Yup'ik language



Ginger and I put our digital heads together and we came up with the Inupiaq Dictionary project.


Here's how it worked:




I sent my fourth hour class out into the village to take pictures with digital cameras.





Taking pictures of Eskimo food was pretty popular.





This was my favorite picture of the activity. (This is a caribou head f.y.i.) I love how the tongue is hanging out. I'm not sure if that's natural or if it's the result of high school boys combined with a digital camera.





Some of the pictures turned out to be pretty good quality. I was impressed.





Some were kind of silly. This is a bellybutton. The group who took this picture refuses to reveal who the bellybutton belongs to. I have my suspicions...



Once my little photographers had completed taking pictures, one of our bilingual instructors came in and taught the kids (and their teacher!) how to write and pronounce the Inupiaq words.





It was fascinating!!! I learned that my favorite picture is tuttum niaqua.

tuttum = caribou (possessive)
niaqua= head





My kids took a picture of this four-wheeler (referred to generically as "Honda" - think kleenex, sneakers, xerox, etc.) to be funny. Hondas are a recent addition to the Inupiaq way of life, so they thought that there would be no Inupiaq word. They were wrong.

Turns out that if there's no Inupiaq translation, you add a 'q' to the end of the word. Honda becomes hondaq.


Once we mastered the pronunciations, the kids recorded their voices saying the words. Then they added a page to our School District Wiki and uploaded their sound file, picture, etc.

Our school district wiki is powered by MediaWiki. Editing requires a very rudimentary knowledge of computer code. Now, I know some of my readers have been coding since birth (you know who you are...), but imagine trying to teach a crew of junior high and high school students how to code.


It was at times painful. Coding is an exact art. One missed slash, and your page looks like this. It took some time for the kids to get used to making everything perfect, but we persevered. Ginger and some other tech savvy teachers helped us implement a template, and that made things easier.

The kids who had the easiest time with the coding were the kids who are super into MySpace. All the time they spent tweaking their profiles came in handy. (Hey MySpace! Thanks for actually teaching my kids something!)



I made the above page. I'm quite proud of it. If you click here you can actually play the mp3 file and hear my very white voice pronouncing the word. One of my boys (who is quite skilled at speaking Inupiaq) said my pronunciation was perfect. I beamed. (He was probably just being nice, but I'll take what I can get.)

My fourth hour class was championriffic as we refined the process. Now a few other Social Studies classes in Shishmaref are contributing. Last week I flew to Unalakleet and helped teach students and teachers from other schools how to contribute. Next week Ginger and I will help teach an inservice workshop on the same subject. We're hoping the project continues to grow. Meanwhile, be prepared to learn a little Inupiaq...

VFN's Big Announcement

Okay, okay, so this announcement isn't really all that big a deal in the grand scheme of things, but it is a big deal in the world of VFN.

I was granted a Fulbright Teaching Exchange in Morocco. I will be spending six weeks in Tahanaoute, Morocco, 20 kilometers south of Marrakech. I will be team teaching in a high school English classroom.




For those of you who need help locating Morocco (don't feel bad, you probably just had bad social studies teachers), I have conveniently provided this satellite image thanks to Google Maps (Hey Google! You rock!). The little pinkish bubble with the letter "A" marks the location of the town where I will be staying.




This image shows Tahanaoute relative to the rest of Morocco.





This is as close a look at Tahanoute as your going to get until I get there. Notice that Tahanoute is at the foot of the High Atlas Mountains.





I am working feverishly to get ready. The above picture shows the reading material I've been working through (please excuse my dreadful appearance. Our heater isn't working. That fact is made even more traumatic by the recent weather. I've spent the last eighteen hours wrapped up in multiple layers of clothing and cocooned in my down comforter. I haven't felt my toes and nose for hours (Hi Mom! I generally brush my hair every day! I promise!)). The books on the left are the ones I've already read. The books on the right are the ones I still need to read.

It appears that I only have four books left. That is woefully misleading. There are about three books that you can't see in the picture because the little blue book is blocking them. Turns out it's kind of hard to hold lots of books upright with one hand.





These are the books I am currently reading. I had hoped to be able to hold all of my Morocco books in the same picture, but I'm too uncoordinated (and cold). (VFN would like to sincerely thank our backup photographer Steve for taking the time out of his busy Saturday to take the above pictures. Your willingness to pause old episodes of Stargate on behalf of this blog with only minimal grumbling is truly inspiring.)




In a pale and feeble imitation of American Dresdner's hilarious and witty interviews, I present the first VFN exclusive interview:

View From the North: Why Morocco?

Angela Busch Alston: Because it's so different from Shishmaref.

VFN: Aren't most places on earth different from Shishmaref?

ABA: Well, yeah, but Morocco is super different from Shishmaref.

VFN: Super different? Wow. What an outstanding command of the English language you have. You'll be a great teacher.

ABA: (Fidgets uncomfortably)

VFN: So, is Steve going with you?

ABA: No, Steve will be staying in Shishmaref.

VFN: How long will you be gone?

ABA: Um, six weeks.

VFN: Weren't you already apart from Steve six weeks this summer?

ABA: Um, yes.

VFN: So, do you guys still like each other or what?

ABA: Actually, Steve is my most favoritest person in the universe, thank you for asking.

VFN: You just happen to be spending significant amounts of time on a different continent than your husband?

ABA: Exactly.

VFN: I see. How come Steve is staying in Shishmaref?

ABA: It's hard enough to find one long-term sub. We didn't want the school to have to find two.

VFN: What is Steve going to do with himself while you are away?

ABA: Probably watch movies and eat lots of Chili Mac.

VFN: Does this concern you.

ABA: Nah. He did it for seven years before we got married, and he survived.

VFN: When do you leave?

ABA: October 27th.

VFN: Are you ready?

ABA: Not even close. I still have to finish my lesson plans for my substitute, pack, collect all of the materials I want to take to Morocco, order Christmas presents and cards...

VFN: Wait, order Christmas presents and cards?

ABA: Well, let's just say certain members of the Alston household are less than reliable about selecting and ordering gifts in time for important holidays. If it doesn't happen before I leave, it probably won't happen at all.

VFN: What will happen to your blogging while you're traipsing around Northern Africa?

ABA: I'm going to start a Morocco-experiences only blog so that my students can follow all of my adventures.

VFN: Will you keep VFN readers posted of the new blog address.

ABA: Absolutely.



If you having any follow-up questions to submit to VFN, leave them in the comments. I think I'm going to go read another book about Morocco.

Field Trip: Church Conference

When I was in Teller, I attended the semi-annual Lutheran Church conference. The conference is a gathering of Lutheran congregations across the Seward Peninsula. The 2008 Fall Conference was hosted in Teller.





Part of the conference was dedicated to groups of people getting up and singing. The lady in the reddish (mauve? magenta? dark fuschia?) shirt is the math teacher in Shishmaref. She sang some hymns in Inupiaq. It was very cool. She was accompanied by the pastor from Brevig Mission. In addition to being cool enough to play the guitar, he also sang the songs in Inupiaq (what a guy!).

The math teacher convinced me to sing a few hymns with her and her mom. We sang "I Need Thee Every Hour" and "Come Thou Fount." It was scary.




My favorite part of our songs was when this little guy (the offspring of the woman in the above picture singing Inupiaq songs) spilled his sippy cup of water all over the floor. I had no idea that the volume of sippy cups is deceivingly large.





I spent some of the time looking for familiar hymns in the Lutheran hymn books.





One of my all time favorites...





One of the first songs I sang in a stake choir. (Shout out to Sister Hunt who was the director! Shout out to Teira who was her daughter and my classmate at Cannon Middle School!)





One of my favorites from a Mormon Tabernacle Choir CD.





Two ones I knew on one page! Bonus!





Some songs I also recognized from hours of road trips with my grandparents.





Thanks Grandma and Grandpa...





my musical horizons were broadened because of you...





Thanks also to Celine Dion for her rendition of this song that seems to get trapped in my head.







I also spent some of the time looking at songs I wish I knew. Like the above song.






And this one...





This is the conference theme verse translated into Inupiaq. Cool, huh?

Attending and singing in an Inupiaq Lutheran Conference. Another one of the many things I never considered doing before moving to Alaska...

Pro: More Adorable Eskimo Kids

Last week Steve and I went to this little guy's first birthday party.





He was having a great time with Steve.





He was really snuggling up to Steve-O, so I decided to get in on the action. After all, kids always like me more than they like Steve.





Unfortunately, this was the best I could do. Sigh...




Oh well, at least I got this adorable picture of the big sister eating his birthday cake.

Hello Snow

Hello Snow. Welcome to Shishmaref. You came a little early this year.





Hello icicles on my neighbor's roof.





Goodbye wearing my Chacos to class. Goodbye cuffing my pants because they're too long with sandals.





Hello big clunky winter boots.






Goodbye sand that tracks in on our shoes and gathers in piles throughout the house.





Hello snow that tracks in on our boots and makes wet puddles on our floor.





Goodbye frolicking on the beach.






Hello beach covered in snow.





Goodbye hours of watching temperate sunsets over water.





Hello watching seconds of freezing sunsets over snow.



The seasons have changed...