Wake me up when September is over...

Hello fine people of the internet.......over the past month a lot has happened in Sitka, Alaska.....rain not being one of them. Which is only one of the unusual things that happened during my time here. First things first, these events actually happened and yes.....I had to live through them. Getting left at the supermarket

It was the night before camping at Samsing and Julia and I figured that at 9 o'clock at night it would be a good time to go to the supermarket and get groceries for the camping trip so we did not starve. Rebecca, one of Julia's roommates offered to drive us so I did not have to lug groceries a mile and a half home. (no car probs) After we got to SeaMart we all split up so we could all find out what we needed. Julia and I sticking together to get fruit. Maybe 10 minutes later we were walking all the aisles of the supermarket looking for Rebecca, who we also assumed was getting food for the weekend. After about 5 minutes of walking around the supermarket and the parking lot we realized that she must have left us there. It only took a quick phone call to her for us to confirm that we were walking with all of our things. Just your average 10pm night walk home. With potatoes.

Getting stuck on the top of Harbor Mtn.

My third day in beautiful Sitka and some AmeriCorps decided that it would be cool to go see the sunset from the top of Harbor Mountain. At 6pm we all piled into one one the cars that an AmericCorps member bought here and drove the 20 minutes to the top of the mountain. On the way up we just talked about random things and how Will drove the car up the mountain it was quickly getting colder outside the car with the altitude change. When we came to the clearing, we all quickly piled out of the clown car and 30 seconds later we hear only what I can compare to as the sound a bottle makes when you put dry ice into it and it explodes. So its not a good sound to hear, especially when it comes to cars. Good thing there were at least 15 dads at the top who sprung into action when they saw that all the kids had no clue what to do. After assessing the exploded tube in the car, we all realized that driving the car back home was not going to be an option. So what do we do when its getting dark, we have no car to get home, and little to no cell signal.....we take photos for Instagram of course. And we got some good ones. Finally after watching the sunset we were able to call one of the AmeriCorps landlords to retrieve us in his truck so we could all get home. Keep in mind, we started the adventure at 6pm, and were were not home until at least 9:30pm. But it was for the experience and we all learned that Sitkans are the people you want around in an emergency.

My Roommates Jose who is a former marine, lived everywhere, and likes to rent movies from the library and works at Keet Gooshi Heen Elementary School and Colin, who is also 22, likes Chicago pizza better than New York pizza, has a fascination with root beer and works at Mt. Edgecumbe High School on the other island. After living with 5 girls in college I must say that the guys are 10 times better and 10 times cleaner. They also both have cars. Jose who bought a car when he got to Sitka and Colin who drove across the country from Chicago to have his car here. But he will argue that he started in Maine..... which is nice because as much as I love walking everywhere having a ride to the grocery store in the rain is a big help...and home from work at 10pm. We are just your average roommates who have Tuesday game night when I bring board games home from my classroom and we will sit and play games until there is a winner. Currently the standings are Colin winning monopoly twice and Jose winning Scrabble once. But just wait until I make them play backgammon, chess or rummikub...then I will be the sole survivor. Overall it is a nice and organic dynamic in the house.

Students Bringing me a cake because I gave them homework and instead of doing homework that make a cake instead On a random Thursday after a rough Wednesday in the tutoring center, one of my students and their friend who were less than productive the day prior, showed up to my classroom at 7 in the morning and handed me a cake...out of the blue. So of course I was like WTF kid. The students then proceeded to inform me that the homework I assigned her and her friend(for not being productive the day before) was pointless so they decided to to go Sea Mart and bake a cake with their time instead to show how to measure and follow directions. Honestly it was kinda funny as I gave them math homework and they picked to measure ingredients and do math to figure out how much of ingredients to add and how long to cook the cake. The not funny part was how bad the cake was. Oh it was gross and now I know what it is like when the people on the food network do not deliver and the judges have to smile through the pain of an overly floured and over sugared cake. The gesture was nice....but I hope these girls do not pursue baking careers.

Room 221

Is my classroom number in Sitka high school. It is also a room I never thought in a million years I would be in, given the fact that I made a pact with myself that I would never go back to a high school after living my own high school experience. High school for me was not terribly shitty, but we certainly had our highs and lows. I would say catholic school was the low and public high school was a high. But in Sitka, high school is much different. At least half of the teachers have kids that also attend the high school, and since Sitka is only 9000 people strong....all the teachers personally know every students mom, dad, athletic schedule and how their second cousin is doing. I am also convinced that everyone is Sitka just sends Christmas cards to every house. But my classroom is definitely interesting. I share it with another AmeriCorps member who is under STA, the Sitka Tribe of Alaska. So he is in the classroom to lend support to the tribal students. Mt. Edgecumbe has the most tribal students but Sitka HS definitely has a good amount as well. My days typicality range from 8-10 hour days as I elect to offer morning tutoring hours along with after school to accommodate students who are athletes or on academic teams(Like DDF, which is huge in Alaska, it is Debate, Drama and Forensics and is it similar to Speech and Debate but much harder) so they too, can excel in class. SHS also does eligibility checks every 2 weeks to make sure that students are eligible to travel with teams. Since Sitka is an island, all teams fly to compete, something I am hoping to experience when I help with mock trial. The room is not set up like a typical classroom either. Which is something I wanted to do. And went into school a week before school started and worked all day to make sure the classroom was perfect. From adding decorations to just cleaning things. As an adult with ADHD, who had to go through most of my school life on meds after meds and teachers who did not understand that I learned a little differently, I made sure to research the best environment and classroom set up for students with different learning methods. I also made sure to ask for board game donations, coloring books and colored pencils for all over the room as a place for students to de-stress. I see the purpose of the room to not only me me to be the tutor, but to be the one for the students to listen and understand their life, as no teacher really did for me. So the long days suck in the moment, but when students then tell me that I can't leave Sitka to be there when they gradate, and that I am the first person who has cared about their grades and life....it is a little humbling. Running of the Boots This is an event that is a fundraiser for Youth Advocacy Services in Sitka where kids and parents, but mostly kids will decorate their XtraTuff Boots and run a mile in a crazy outfit. To all my East Coaster friends who are like, what is an XtraTuff.....they are winter boots very similar to Hunter boots, but they are lighter and meant for the fishermen on on boats. They are also a symbol of Alaska. It is a big event which means they needed a lot of help. So mom, I can now add tent rigging to my resume. The morning was rainy and I was the one New Yorker who wore her Hunter boots since I did not have Xtra Tuffs at the time to the race. Only a couple of people asked me what Hunter boots were. It was a fun day getting to meet more people in the community, which is easy to do since they say that all AmeriCoprs member just have a look about them so we are easy to spot in a crowd....whatever that means.

That is all for now!  I plan on writing and vlogging a day in my life pretty soon! Leave things that you all want to know more about!!! Have a lit day, Ash