Winter's Here (For the next 8 months!)

As I write to you, I am looking out a window across a frozen pond and the road covered with snow and ice. Winter is here! It has been snowing almost every day (at least a little bit) for a week now. I am only exaggerating a little bit when I say that I think we might have more snow right now than we did all of last year! I am so excited. Once everything becomes frozen over, it feels like Bethel is back to being how it is meant to be. Winter is definitely Bethel's season. It just fits.

Now, this doesn't mean that Bethel winters are a total walk in the park. There are plenty of hassles that come with the cold weather. For example, starting on October 1st, on all airplane school trips (i.e. volleyball trips), all participants must wear full winter gear. So, last weekend, as I headed to Nome with 17 girls, we all had to be wearing snow pants (or Carharts), winter jackets, snow boots, gloves, and hats. The coldest it got all that trip was like 25 degrees (above zero) so we were all sweating like crazy on the airplane.

But, once we got to Nome, we didn't have to wear the winter gear (which was a relief) and we had a great time. It was me with 10 8th grade girls, 7 of my JV girls and another chaperone. Because I was the only coach, that meant I was crazy busy during volleyball time, coaching teams back to back, but after that was over, we had plenty of time to just relax and have some fun in a different place. We went shopping (for food... they don't really have clothing stores in Nome either) and we took tons of pictures. The girls were hilarious and so wonderful. I'm lucky to be coaching them. On the court, I am pretty intense and I expect them to act like serious athletes, but off the court, I enjoy sleeping bag races, dance parties, gossiping about boys and all those other great teenage girl things. I don't necessarily enjoy the accompanying drama and the serious babysitting that 8th grade girls need, but it all balanced out to be a pretty fun weekend.

This week has also been pretty good. We got our actual reading program (finally!) and that has been really nice. We finally know what we should be doing during our Book Club time! High school volleyball has been a bit of a challenge, but it is almost over, so that is exciting. The varsity team (and I, as their female chaperone) go to Dillingham next weekend for Regions to determine whether they go to state. I am happy to be going with them and hope that their coach and I will be able to figure out some winning strategies for the weekend.

I also help organize a volleyball booth at the annual BRHS carnival last night. I got a bunch of the 7th and 8th grade girls to run a face painting booth and a balloon popping booth. They are a hardworking bunch of girls and I think we probably ended up raising about $300, which is awesome.

Oh! Speaking of Halloween. I dressed up for costume day on Wednesday as a grape! It was hilarious. I taped big purple balloons all over my upper body and wore a purple long underwear shirt and pants with green shorts. I couldn't walk through doors without rotating to the side, and I couldn't see my feet or clap my hands, but it was a fun costume.

Ok, that is all I can think of right now. I'm going to go head home and do a yoga class that I downloaded offline. (Since the roads are pretty icy, I don't really feel like going for a run and after all the candy I ate at the Halloween Carnival... I feel like I could use some exercise, haha)

Love you and miss you all lots and lots!

I'm good. I'm great. I'm Jill.

Yes. I do realize that I have been a terrible blogger recently. Life has just been super busy. First of all, volleyball eats my weekends (That is a way better excuse than my dog ate my homework, huh?). But seriously. I have traveled to Cordova, Seward, Nikiski, Nome and Dillingham since the end of August. I also have recently started helping coach the Junior High volleyball team. So, instead of working 8:15-4:15 and coaching 4:30-6:30... I now work 8:15-4:15, coach Junior High 4:30-6 and High School 6:30-8:30. That is a lot of volleyball. Now, in general, I love volleyball. But recently, coaching has been the bane of my existence. I have some serious ideological differences with the head coach (i.e. I disagree with just about every third word that he says) and it stresses me out so much that just thinking about it now gives me a headache. I just really wish I could get back to loving volleyball and loving coaching. I have been on the verge of quitting almost constantly since around the middle of September. But, I keep telling myself that quitting won't help anyone. So, I have been concentrating more and more on the individual players, trying to help them as much as possible and that seems to be helping me.

What has also helped me is being gone for 2 weeks. Let me explain. I got back from a volleyball tournament in Dillingham to news that my family was trying to get a hold of me. When I called my parents, I found out that my grandmother was very sick and my whole family was flying to New Jersey to be with her. I flew out of Bethel the next morning. Unfortunately, getting to the east coast from Bethel took me almost a full 24 hours, and she had passed on 14 hours before I arrived. I was sad that I missed saying goodbye, it had been years since the last time I had actually seen her, but it was also good to see all of my aunts that were there. I hadn't seen them in years either. So, I spent two days with my family and got to know my grandmother better. Is that weird to say? Probably. I just mean, I got to learn a lot more about her, see more pictures, hear more about her life than I think I ever had before. It was definitely an eye-opening experience. After New Jersey, I flew back to Seattle. It was a Thursday and I had actually be planning on being in Seattle that following Sunday for Christina and Josh's wedding, so I had three extra days in Seattle.

For the next week an a half, I relaxed, I did wedding things (learned how to tie/do/make/whatever-you-call-it a bustle, went to Christina's hair and makeup trial, ect), I saw some friends, got my teeth cleaned, got new contacts, got my hair cut and dyed, hung out with my family, took a Zumba class (so fun!), basically, I did all sorts of Bethel things.

The highlight of my Seattle time, though, was definitely Christina and Josh's wedding. This was only my second wedding, but I don't know how the two weddings I have seen can possibly topped. My cousin Amy's wedding in January was beautiful and touching and individual. Christina and Josh's was all the same things, in incredibly different ways. I don't know how to explain it. Ugh. It was great. Being the Maid of Shame (you know, the person who is on the other end of the Maid of Honor and the one who walks out with the Worst Man, haha) was a wonderful honor. I just have some awesome friends who had an awesome wedding and who are so ridiculously in love that it kind of makes me gag.

So, after all of that, I headed back to Bethel. I have only been back like 2.5 days and I can already tell that going home was sooooo good for me. Honestly, I have been regretting my decision to stay in Bethel ever since August. I have been unhappy, depressed and downright cranky about my situation since then. But, for the first time since August, I am so happy to be here. I really feel like this is where I should be right now. Basically, I hopped back into Bethel life just while it was becoming a complete shitshow (excuse my french). It is PFD time (you know, the check that people who live in Alaska get because they live in Alaska) and it just screws everything up. Suddenly people have more money and therefore they have more access to alcohol, drugs, and other awesomely healthy things. Domestic violence, suicide, and public drunkenness rates all skyrocket during this time. As I'm sure you can guess, this has a really great effect on my students. Their often shaky home lives become straight up disasters. One of my students came to me on Monday stressed because her brother was missing and the last time anyone had seen him, he was really drunk. Later that day, she came to me in tears saying that her brother had passed away. In fact, there has been so much drama recently, my coworker (and twin separated at birth- where I was then frozen for a few years) Adrian and I have joked that we should just put a sign on our door that says, "the doctor is in."

During all of this turmoil, however, I have found more peace than I have felt in months. First of all, I finally know what I want to do and it is all thanks to a conversation that I had with Matt Salazar when I was home. For years I have said that I want to work with students in an academic setting, but I don't want to be teacher. I enjoy working with student through emotional turmoil, I love making them successful humans first and then successful students second. I could never put a title to what I wanted to do, until my conversation with Matt. He asked me why I had never considered being a therapist. I immediately rejected the idea, I hate therapists (I've had some terrible therapy sessions in my life. Ok, 2. 2 out of 2. But whatever, I still think the profession sucks.) But, now that Matt planted that seed, I can't get it out of my head. I have now decided that I want to be a school counselor. Man, that just feels right. So now I'm looking at different schools and I am going to figure out how to make all that happen. But for right now, I should take this time to thank Matt Salazar for quite possibly changing the trajectory of my life. Sweet. I'm so excited.

I'm also excited because I am feeling way more healthy, happy and settled in my own skin than ever before. I know what I want to do with my life, I'm getting lots of practice with therapy (but still praying that the drama dies down soon, for everyone's sake), and I finally feel happy with myself. For those of you who know the constant drama that accompanies my personal life most of the time, you will be happy to know that for the first time in a long time, I am single, fully single, with no attachments to a guy, no drama (shocking! I know!), just me. And god does it feel good. I have never had a minute of my life since high school where I wasn't convinced that I needed to be with someone (someone specific or some shadowy future someone), until now. Right now, the thought of dating someone makes me kind of want to gag. Seriously. I'm sure eventually I'm going to change my mind and want to date again, but for right now, I am so thrilled with the knowledge that I finally realize that I am enough. I am enough for myself. That realization was a long time coming.

So anyway, I'm good (with volleyball). I'm great (because I finally know what I want to be when I grow up). I'm Jill (you know, the girl who finally understands who she is, even without a significant other). And I love you a lot.

I'm a big kid now!

That's right, folks. I have a real job. I have a real apartment. A real paycheck. Real bills. And I'm real busy. But, let's back up a little bit. I finished JVC on August 2nd. Actually it kind of felt like I finished a week before that because that was when all of my roommates left. I was all alone in my big house for almost a full week and that was sad. But then, August 3rd rolled around and I flew home.

Man, it was so good to be back in Seattle. I got to see lots of people I love, eat delicious food, pack up stuff for my new apartment and stress out about whether or not I was making the right decision to stay in Bethel for another year. But, all too soon, my time in Seattle was over and it was time to head back to Bethel for the first day of volleyball practice and of work. I wish I could say that I jumped into my life back here in Bethel as easily as I did the first time around, a year ago, but that would be a total lie. To be honest, I am not sure I made the right decision to come back. It just didn't feel as right as it did the first time. But, I had made the commitment to be here and so here I am.

Anyway, musings aside, lets talk about my life recently. I have been crazy busy. Basically, I work from 8:15-4:15 at the high school, working with 7th and 8th graders who need some extra help with their reading. Then, at 4:30, I transition to being the JV volleyball coach until 7ish. Then I walk home. Yay, 11 hour days! Also, up until last week, I didn't have a phone at all. So, for those of you who are missing me, that is my explanation. But good news, now I have a phone AND a P.O. Box. My phone number is 907-543-5113 and my address is P.O. Box 3522 Bethel, AK 99559.

But anyway, back to my busy schedule, I also have volleyball on the weekends. Last weekend I had a grand adventure with the Bethel Warriors Varsity volleyball team. This season, I will be traveling with the varsity team because the varsity coach is a man and they need a female chaperone. But, this past weekend, the varsity coach had to fly to Florida for a funeral, so I was in charge of the girls. The other chaperone was a teacher from the high school who had never played volleyball before, so not only was I put in charge of the girls, but I was also put in charge of all the coaching. Talk about some pressure. But it was a great weekend. Thursday morning, we all met at the airport and flew into Anchorage. Then, I went to go get the rental van. That was a funny experience, the woman checking out the van says to me, "it is strange that they sent a player to pick up the van.... don't they usually send coaches?" Thanks lady. I'm 23. Anyway, I drive the 15 passenger van back to the airport, and we loaded up all of our gear, and then went on a harrowing quest for Sport Authority and Taco Bell. I say harrowing because it was, in every way, a dramatic quest. I was weaving in and out of traffic, girls were yelling (incorrect) directions, and the chaperone was practicing her deep breathing in order to stay calm. Eventually, we did make it to Sports Authority, the girls bought volleyball socks, and then we went to Taco Bell and ate some delicious "authentic" Mexican food.

Then, we hopped back into the van and I drove to Seward. It was a beautiful drive that kind of reminded me of driving I-90 from Seattle. When we got to Seward, 2.5 hours later, we went to Seward High School and got everything settled where we were going to spend the night. The high school was kind enough to let us use their school to sleep in, and guess what? We stayed on the stage! That was pretty cool. Later that night, we played our first game of the season, against Seward. My girls played with a lot of heart. They tried really hard. (We got stomped. Something that would become a bit of a theme that weekend.) After that, we went to a great Chinese restaurant, then went to bed on the sweet stage.

The next morning, we woke up nice and early (we had to be out of the school by the time school started at 7:45) and drove to Nikiski. The drive took about 3 hours, including a stop at the Kenai Walmart, just for fun. Once we got to Nikiski high school, we checked in for the tournament. There were five other teams there, Nikiski, Seward, Kenai, Kodiak and Soldotna. On Friday afternoon, we played Kenai and Nikiski (stomp, stomp) and then watched some other teams play. On Saturday, we played Seward and Nikiski again (stomp and finally not a stomp). After we played our last game, we didn't stay for the championship game, we drove the 5ish hours back to Anchorage so we could check into our hotel and then go to the Anchorage Walmart and then to the movie theatre. Both times we went to Walmart, I gave the girls a talk about Walmart's cheap prices and the ways that Walmart gets those cheap prices (at the price of humans), but we all enjoyed the shopping nonetheless. I bought sheets, ketchup, mustard, ranch dressing, mayo, a water filter, sugar, ect. (Things that are ridiculously expensive in Bethel.) Then we went and watched a movie. Half saw Vampires Suck and half saw The Takers (I saw the Takers... ok movie, but it was just cool to be in a movie theatre!) After the movie, we went back to the hotel where a couple of girls decided to dye all or part of their hair blonde (all Native girls... I was pretty worried) We all decided to stay up until it was done, so we were up until like 3am.

The next morning, Sunday, we got up and went to the airport and flew back to Bethel. Then I worked all week, 8:15-7. Yep, I'm a busy girl. I get this weekend off from traveling, but then the next three weekends I will be gone, in Cordova, Nome and Dillingham respectively. Then I have a weekend off until I fly home to Seattle for Christina's wedding! I'm going to be racking up airline miles like crazy!

But, now it is time to head home. Our washer and dryer was just delivered this morning so I am hoping it will be set up soon so I can do my laundry for the first time in like 2 weeks. Yuck. Oh, but on a side note, you will all be proud to know that I shower every day again, all that volleyball practicing... I can't get away with not showering anymore. Haha. I will try and do better with my updating, and once I fully unpack and find my phone card, I will do better with my calling. I love you and miss you all!

The Human Roller Coaster!

It has been quite a while since my last blog and a lot has happened in my life. I guess it is time for another list, this is a list of all the things in my life that have made me the human roller coaster of emotions!

1. Back on May 15th, I watched as 6 of my students received their high school diploma. That was an awesome experience. Because we are such a small school, every student had the opportunity (whether they wanted it or not… they didn’t have a choice) to give a graduation speech. In their speeches, these students recognized the people who had helped them get to graduation, the obstacles that almost prevented them and the hope that they had for the future, theirs and all other BABS students’. The ceremony was beautiful, full of tears, laughter, jokes and heartfelt thanks. I was the punch line of quite a few of the graduate’s speeches, somehow, once again, I earned the nickname “The Enforcer.” (For those of you who don’t know, when I was an Orientation Coordinator, that is what many Orientation Advisors called me.) I choose to believe that this nickname is always bestowed affectionately, in a “Wow, I really wish that you’d leave me alone so that I can take my nap in peace, I really don’t care about my Alaska Studies worksheet… but when I look back on this, I will be glad that I passed the class.” So anyway, graduation was awesome, I felt like a mother hen, walking around, so proud of my little chicks (and gents). The ceremony, however, wasn’t always upbeat. BABS is a zero tolerance school and so our students are dismissed if they have used drugs or alcohol. In the 6 weeks before graduation, 5 students were dismissed and 2 of them were students who were supposed to graduate. Their absence was felt by everyone. The two that didn’t make it to the stage were also two students who were very close to my heart. BABS is a small school, so I had the opportunity to get to know every student pretty well, but these two were two of the students that I had spent the most time with over the year. I had spent time with both of them outside of school, I had spent countless hours with them working one-on-one, I had even edited their graduation speeches. It is hard for me to think about how close they both were, how excited they both were, and how disappointed in themselves they both were when they screwed it up. But of course, everything in life can be a learning experience and I truly believe that both of these students will be successful, they will earn their diplomas and they will do great things for the world. Roller coaster number 1.
2. After graduation, we had three more days with the rest of the students and then school was out for the summer! That didn’t mean that my work was finished, however. I believe that I have mentioned before that BABS is moving. We are moving out of our converted house and into a real school building. But, first, we had to get all of our stuff out of the house. 13 years worth of stuff. On the last day of school with the students, we all worked together to pack everything into boxes and move it down into the classrooms so that a moving company could pick it up the next day. I am not exaggerating when I say that the piles of boxes went almost to the ceiling and created a maze that you had to navigate to get from one side of the room to the other. Now, it would have been nice if we could have packed up all of the stuff and then had the movers move it into the new school and then I could have spent the summer unpacking it, but, that would be too easy! Instead, we packed it all up, the movers moved it to a gym and it will sit there until the beginning of August because the school isn’t done with its renovations yet. So anyway, it takes a ton of work to move all of the stuff out of the school, then Starr and I start moving all of the stuff out of the girls dorm. You know, dressers, bunk beds, mattresses, lamps, boxes of food, ect. All that light, easy to move stuff. Thankfully, we didn’t have to do it alone. Some volunteers for Fordham came to Bethel on a service trip and they were awesome and helped a ton. Then we got some men from the Tundra Center, a jail alternative, aka jail with a little bit more freedom, to help us move the super heavy stuff. They were also incredible and I can’t imagine having to do all that without our awesome volunteers. After we got all the stuff out of the school and dorm, the fun part was just beginning. Then, I got to spend the next week scrubbing, scraping, vacuuming, dusting, spackling, cursing, and developing sweet arm muscles. Yippee! You have no idea how relieved I was when I finally finished cleaning. Roller coaster number 2.
3. So, the kids are gone, the school is clean, what do I do for the rest of the summer? Good question! I am now working out of the old boy’s dorm, basically just hanging out all day in the living room of the dorm parents. Thanks Cory and Angie! My job this summer is to try and get our school full for next year. Unfortunately, that is turning out to be harder that I expected, no one wants to think about school yet! It is summer. All of my potential students are out at fish camp or visiting family or sleeping all day, basically what I would be doing if I were them. So, I do a lot of sitting at work. I do a lot of wishing the internet would work. I do a lot of wishing I still had students to hang out with. Yep, it is a very exciting life. So, it is nice to have little to do, but it also drive me nuts. Roller coaster number 3.
4. In order to keep my sanity, I have depended on my after work activities. I have done some pretty cool things recently. I mentioned fish camp earlier. Fish camps are basically like shacks on the side of the river that families inherit and go to during the summer during fish season to fish, to cut fish, to hang fish, to dry fish, and to relax. I have not been to a fish camp this summer, but I have gone fishing and I have learned how to cut and dry fish. The other day I went out on the river with a former JV and friend and we went drift netting. I had never done that before and apparently we didn’t do very well but I was still impressed with the 3 King salmon and 5 chum that we caught. Then, we went back to shore and cut them. O’Hara Corporation family and friends, you will be very disappointed in me. I am not a natural fish fillet-er. I get the job done but it is definitely not pretty. So, that was my fishing experience. I also had a fish cutting and drying lesson from our support person, Sally Russell. Basically, what people do up here is get a ton of fish and then cut them in strips or in fillets and hang them to dry for about a week, then you smoke them for another week or so. Then, you will have fish to eat for the entire year! Ariel and I are doing our best to help people who are fishing or drying the fish as much as possible so that we will have fish for next year. This isn't a roller coaster at all, it is just cool.
5. Next year?!?!?! What is she talking about, next year? Who is this Ariel girl? I bet you probably have some questions. Well, I have made the decision to stay in Bethel for another year. Actually, I made the decision to stay, then made the decision to move back to Seattle, then Bethel, then anywhere but Bethel, then Bethel, then Seattle, and now I am back on the Bethel train. Goodness. Aren’t you glad that I haven’t written a blog recently? Haha. Well, so anyway, I am planning on living with my roommate Ariel, who is staying and working at TWC, the local women’s shelter. I have a job, I will be working as a reading tutor for 7th and 8th graders and coaching JV volleyball. Sweet! We don’t know where we are going to be living yet, we are still working on that. But yea, that is definitely a roller coaster of emotion for me. I feel bad for Ariel, who has to put up with my constant second-guessing and mind-changing. Roller coaster number 4.
6. In other news, the play that I was going to be in was cancelled. Sad day. Only, it wasn’t so sad at all. It was a lot of work and it just wasn’t coming together. It may happen another time, but so far, Bethel is spared a Jill Bruton version of No Exit. Another non-roller coaster. No big deal, just interesting news!
7. Unfortunately, Bethel has not been spared another episode of Jill Bruton’s relationship drama. As some of you know, I was dating someone. He is an awesome person and I was very lucky to be with him. He was very good for me, he challenged me to be a better person and a better softball player, yes that is right, he even convinced me to play softball. I have discovered recently that I am kind of an athlete (I wish I had known that when I was younger!), but softball is not my thing. I was very blessed to have someone like him to challenge me and help me improve. Unfortunately, I screwed it all up. Big time. I am so used to being the one who gets hurt in relationships, it is weird to be in the opposite position. It sucks. To make this blog entry go in a full circle, I can see many parallels between the students who ruined their chance at graduation and me. I couldn’t understand how they would risk losing their chance at a successful graduation just for a couple of drinks but I can’t see how I could risk losing a wonderful guy by making a stupid decision. At times like this I realize, I am not as mature, as loving, as kind, or as smart as I would like to think. I have a lot to learn. Big time roller coaster. Number 6.

So, I have been through a lot in the past few months since my last blog. I have felt a lot of happiness and joy, sadness and despair, I have felt ready to stick around Bethel for another year, I have felt trapped in Bethel and needed to get out. I am a human rollercoaster of emotions. But, I’m riding it. What can I say? I am a 22 (almost 23) year old woman with lots of potential and lots to learn.

Anyway, time to get back to work, expect another blog soon with everything I have left out of this blog. And, as usual, I love you and miss you all lots!

Easter, Ptarmigan Plucking and More Ridiculous Bethel Stories!

I have more crazy Bethel stories and since I want to get to my now weekly Star Trek marathon, I am going to use another list:

1. I spent 2 hours at the DMV the other day with one of my students. She needed to get a state id card so she could fly to Juneau for a visit to the state capital. We were there for a long time waiting in line but it was totally worth it because I learned something really interesting. They don’t have addresses in the villages! So, the section of the forms where it asks for a physical address causes a bit of a problem. A woman came in to get her driver’s license and was obviously confused when she tried to fill in that box. After a brief conversation with the woman behind the counter, however, the problem was resolved. In the space she wrote, “red house across from the church.” Welcome to the Alaska Bush!

2. There were 7 JVs in Bethel last year. Currently, there are 5 of them here. Three never left Bethel, one moved up a few weeks ago and one is visiting. People weren’t joking when they said that Bethel keeps JVs for years! Anyway, because so many of them were in town this weekend, my house decided to have a JV dinner with last years JVs and us. It was really funny, I don’t think you could find two communities that are more different, but it was awesome to get an almost complete picture of the JVs we have heard about all year.

3. Then, later that night, I went to the first (hopefully) annual Easter beer hunt. Half of us were on cross country skis, half were on foot and all of us had the same goal. Find as many spray-painted beer cans as possible. The twist: it was getting dark and you had to chug your first two beers before you could continue hunting. Basically, it was one of the best Easter “egg” hunts I have ever been on.

4. But the Easter egg hunt the next day was a pretty close runner up. My roommates and I went over to the Klejka’s house for Easter dinner and then a unique Klejka family egg hunt. The actual hunting was your typical, look for the brightly colored eggs all over the backyard, but inside the eggs were tasks. After opening my eggs, I found that I had to do the hokey pokey, sing old MacDonald had a farm, high five someone and have a pillow fight with 5 other people, just to name a few.

5. (Warning: this story is not for the faint of heart)To end my Easter adventures, I did something that I had never done. Plucked a bird. No joke. One of my students called me Sunday night and asked me if I wanted some ptarmigan. Of course I said yes, and about an hour later, she stopped by with a trash bag with 5 cute white birds, that just happened to be bloody and dead. My roommate Joe had plucked a ptarmigan before so we all followed his directions. We set up a plucking station on our dining room table and got down to business. First, we all grabbed an empty priority mail box (thanks again for all the care packages, family, the boxes totally came in handy!), then grabbed a ptarmigan and got to work. Well, I didn’t really get straight to work. I tried to grab one, but when I touched blood, I freaked out. It took me probably five minutes to work up the nerve to grab one and throw it on my box. Then, once I did that, it was probably another 5 minutes, filled with outbursts like “Oh my GOD!” “Ewwww. Ewww. I can’t do this.” “Oh good lord. This is terrible,” before I could actually start ripping off its feathers. Once I did, however, it started getting easier, until I turned it over and saw that it was covered in blood. COVERED. Then, there was a lot more screaming. After a while, I named my bird Fred. Somehow it made it easier to snap his head, wings and legs off if I could tell a story about how he died. See, Fred was valiant ptarmigan. He was a great bird with an awesome girlfriend. They loved to fly from tundra bush to tundra bush together, until one day an evil BABS student came to kill his girlfriend. Fred got in the way, saving his girlfriend’s life, but ensuring himself a very bloody death. Oh the perils of true love! Anyway, Fred was dead, and now de-feathered and de-limbed. Next was the fun part, cutting open his butt, scooping out his organs and then cutting open and emptying out his stomach. Yum yum. I can’t wait to eat Fred.

6. Also, I have some exciting news. I’m going to be a famous actress. Ok, that is a total lie. But, in a few weeks, I will be up on stage making a big fool of myself as I pretend that I can act. I will be in the one act “No Exit.” If you feel so inclined, Wikipedia it. I am going to be Estelle. We are going to be starting rehearsals soon, so I’m sure I will soon have some great stories about how awful I am.

7. I also have so sad news. I was supposed to be going to Juneau for a big music festival with all the other Alaska JVs this weekend, but life has conspired against me. This week is testing week here at BABS so I am needed here and it would cost too much to change my ticket anyway. So, I hope to find some fun adventures to go on this weekend to forget about all the fun my housemates are having without me. Actually, my roommate Justin will be here too, but he is planning on sitting in a chair without moving for 24 hours this weekend as a spiritual exercise… soooo I’m not sure if I want to be around for that. Haha.

8. Ok, the last thing I have to say. It is still cold here. This morning it was -15 with windchill. It has been snowing off and on for the past week and it is supposed to continue. But, it is also super nice and sunny all the time. It is light when I walk to school in the morning and it stays light until past 9. Ridiculous Bethel.

Anyway, I love you and miss you all!

Oh.My.Gosh. I just posted this and then started packing up all of my stuff to leave work, then I found a little sheet of paper that I had written on at preschool bible school last week. I have to share it with you. We were talking about how God made each one of us special and how we should take care of ourselves because we are a gift from God. So anyway, I had them draw a picture of themselves. Easily the best idea of my life. When we were discussing hair color one of my students says, "If I let my hair grow long, it would turn light, like yours. That is why I keep mine short."
"You know, Jaiden, I don't think you have to worry about your black hair turning blonde like mine, no matter how long it gets... but ok."
Then, this other little boy turns to me, very seriously, and says, "Some people are white. You don't even know."
I wasn't quite sure how to respond to that... do I tell him that I am one of those white people? I decided to keep it simple, wait for someone else to rock his world with that statement and ended up saying something like, "Yep, there are white people, in Bethel and all over the world." Oh, preschoolers! Gotta love them!

Beautiful not Pretty

I have the coolest job. I seriously wouldn't trade it for anything. Some days, I seriously consider doing a second year of JVC just to keep working at BABS. But, not even my awesome job could convince me that I should be doing a second year of JVC. I am very happy that I chose to do it, but it is not something that I think I should repeat. I just hope that I will find something as fulfilling as the work I do now.

I feel like I haven't mentioned my job much in my blog, but there have been a lot of heart-wrenching, reflection-requiring moments at BABS recently that sort of overshadow everything else that has been going on with me. I am familiar with kids with tough home lives, I am familiar with kids with learning disabilities, I am familiar with kids with alcohol and drug issues. Heck, I worked with foster kids for two years! But, just because I have encountered some of these issues before, that doesn't make it easier to deal with. It still breaks my heart to hear stories of abuse, suicide and rape. And unfortunately, I have heard all of these stories in the past two weeks.

I know I have mentioned before that I see many of my students after school hours, at events, in the dorms, ect., so I wasn't at all curious when one of the girls invited me to hang out up at the girl's dorm one day after school. But, it wasn't long before I realized that this student had some things that she wanted to talk about. She ended up sharing with me about her abusive boyfriend and how he started hitting her a few months ago and how she knew she shouldn't want to be with him, but she did. To be completely honest, I'm pretty sure that if this guy had walked in just then, I would have been very tempted to show him a good dose of abuse myself. But, my student wasn't sharing this with me because she wanted to see me try (and probably fail miserably) to beat up her boyfriend. She just wanted someone to talk to, someone that could help her put things in perspective. And, it was kind of funny to talk to her about it because I could totally see parts of myself in her. If good relationships are like a train chugging along smoothly, I seem to always hop on the trains headed straight for the big sign that says "Danger! Track stops here." I seem to enjoy ignoring the warning signs and would rather tell myself that someone probably finished the track already but just forgot to move the sign. Unfortunately, that pretty much always ends up with my train running off the cliff with me looking around going, "Oh. S**t." It was very clear that my student didn't want to hop off the train, she wanted to believe that this guy was her frog that was going to turn into a prince. I do not know what my student will end up doing with her icky frog, but I am happy that my crappy relationship experience could come in handy. If nothing else, I think she was relieved to talk to someone who knew what it was like to be holding onto the slightest glimmer of hope and I just hope our conversation will help her throw out her old playbook for one with some winning plays.

The next intense conversation I had with a student started in a very different way. My kids have a ridiculously inconvenient way of sharing issues. I will be driving 7 students to school in the morning and a student will drop a bomb like, "yea, my dad was drunk and upset last night so I couldn't sleep in the house" or "today is the 3 year anniversary of my best friend's suicide." It is always hard to judge the best way to deal with those comments. I want to acknowledge them, obviously, but I don't want to slip into therapist mode in front of everyone else. I often just come up with some (probably stupid) response and try to talk to the student later, when they are alone. And on this day in particular, I was in a group reading session with some kids when one of them starting looking almost sick and asked to go to the bathroom. When she came back, she looked worse. When I asked her if she was ok, she said no. So, I left the rest of the kids to keep reading and talked to the student about what was going on. After a little bit of prompting, she told me that she was suicidal and she had been trying to tell everyone, even me, for days and no one was getting it. I ended up making sure she had someone (professional) to talk to after school, but it was frustrating because I felt so guilty for missing it earlier. Some staff thought that she was doing it for attention, but in my opinion, I don't care if she was doing it just for kicks, I was not going to take a chance, I was going to make sure she got more help than she could stand, just so she knew that I cared and I took her seriously. But, like my conversation with the student I was mentioned earlier, I don't know where this is going to end. I hope that they are both able to find and accept the help they need, but I hate feeling like I can't fix everything for them. I can only do so much for them and it is ridiculously frustrating.

The last story I have is from another student whose story came to me in little pieces. First, I heard that he had to go to court to testify. Then, he told me that the guy he was testifying against was a "bad man." Turns out, my student had been raped when he was young by an older man and the perpetrator was just now being prosecuted. This student, however, knew exactly what he needed and who he needed help from. He told me because he wanted me to know why he was going to miss school and also why he was a little freaked out the day before. But he had a staff member go with him to court, he had a meeting the day before with his therapist, he was talking about it when he needed to, and journaling about things that were stressing him out. I know that he was a bit of a wreck, but he pulled through it all like a serious champ. I admire his strength so much.

In fact, I admire all of my students to an insane degree. Yea, I have been with guys that have treated me like crap, but they have never been violent, I have been depressed and felt worthless, but I have never thought that I needed to end my life, I have been betrayed, but no one has ever crossed the line that far. I have carried my share of burdens in my life, but my students carry so much and still find joy and love everyday. How could I not love my job? I have the opportunity to work with and care for some of the most amazing young people in the world. Life at BABS might not always be pretty, but it is always beautiful.

I have mentioned this to many of you before, but my decision to come to Bethel was made in a very similar way to how I decided to go to Seattle University. I tried to convince myself to go somewhere less expensive, but not-so-deep-down I knew that SU was where I belonged. Then, when I was applying for JVC, I knew I wanted to be in Bethel, even though that kind of terrified me. Looking back on the past few months, on my job, on my friendships, my roommates, my life, it is immediately clear that I made another great decision. Now, I just need to wait for my gut to tell me what I need to do about next year! (Unfortunately, my gut is being stubbornly quiet these days, I will let you know when I find out more.)

Anyway, I still love you. I still miss you. And I am still very grateful for all of you, the wonderful people in my life. Thank you!

Broomball, Babes, Basketball and BABS in Bethel!

I guess I like lists. I mean, I hate organization. But I always find myself writing my blogs as lists. Well, enjoy my list of recent interesting activities!

1. I have started accompanying my roommate Ariel on her visits to the “kiddie jail.” It is actually called the Bethel Youth Facility (or BYF), but nothing in Bethel is really called it’s real name. BYF is divided into two parts, short term and long term. The short term kids are there on a monthly basis, the long term kids are there for years, or until they turn 18 and move to the real jail. When we go and visit them, we all sing religious songs (with hand motions!), pray and just sit around and talk. I have spent more time with the kids on the short term side and they are great. They are young kids who have gotten themselves in quite a bit of trouble, obviously, but they are such a joy to be around. I feel blessed to spend time with them. I have only visited the long term side once and we played volleyball! That is actually the reason I went, Ariel told me that they liked playing volleyball and so I jumped on the chance to get back on a volleyball court. Playing volleyball with them was hilarious. First of all, the court was tiny. I kept hitting everything off the walls instead of getting it into the court. Secondly, they do not really know how to play volleyball, it was full of blocked serves (illegal to block a serve), carries, backwards serves (where you face the wall and serve it over your head), and other ridiculous things. After we had played for a while, we went back into the main area and prayed. It was actually really awesome. To my parent and grandparent’s chagrin, I am questionably religious these days. I mean, I am a confirmed Catholic, I actually enjoy going to Church (most of the time…) and I believe in a higher power. But, I do not agree with many Catholic teachings, I hate the hypocrisy of many organized religions and I find myself flip-flopping a lot when it comes to making serious choices about religion and how it influences my life. Anyway, even me, in my messy religious state, saw the power or prayer for these boys. Ariel asked them to pray for each other, so A would pray for B, B would pray for C, ect. It made them obviously uncomfortable, but they came out with some really profound prayers for each other, it was beautiful.

2. Unfortunately, I do not go to BYF as much as I would like, because there is another activity that I (usually) enjoy at the same time. Broomball! Playing broomball is a ridiculous experience. First of all, it is freezing outside, literally. Last week, one of the guys came over to me about an hour into the game so that I could check his nose for frostbite. It was like -35 that day with wind chill, so it would have been completely feasible for him to be getting frostbite. I’m sure you think that I am nuts for enjoying this sport, spending 3 hours every Saturday freezing my butt off just to hit a little orange ball around on a frozen pond… and I think I might be a nuts. In fact, everyone that plays is a little off their rocker. Every week you can find 40/50 year old men who still think they are the hot shot 20 somethings that they used to be, so they are all intense and yelling and mean. Then you have the 12 year old boy who likes to beat me up. No joke. I am one of the two or three women who usually play, I am not very good and not very intense. It seems like a totally waste of energy to get intense about something I kind of suck at and so for the most part, the guys leave me alone. They play rough with each other but not with me. I get lots of positive feedback, “good job Jill! That was awesome!” (I just passed the puck to a teammate who was like two feet from me… thanks guys) I feel like I should be upset about this unfair treatment, but lets be honest. I am too much of a wimp and if they treated me like one of the guys, I wouldn’t last. There is one glaring exception to the “be nice to Jill” rule, however. The little boy. He is constantly pushing me around, getting in my way and stealing the ball from me (well, everyone does that, but he is more of a jerk about it). Last week, he even wacked my hand with his stick. Now, I realize he does it to everyone else and I am being a total wimp, but it is a pretty humbling experience. Every week, I get owned by a pre-teen. (Sidenote: I wrote this part before I went to broomball on Saturday, and I have great news to report. I figured out how to beat the pre-teen! Be on his team. Haha)

3. Also, this past week from Tuesday until Friday afternoon, I was the girls dorm parent. Basically, that meant, I spent the nights at the dorm with the girls, helped them with their homework, helped them do their homework, hung out and just joked around with them for three nights straight. Well, it was supposed to be three nights, but it was actually only 2. The third night, the girls were out at a basketball game until late so I was by myself for most of the night, and then one of the girls didn’t come home at all. Great. I was responsible for them for three nights and I lost one?!!?! Turns out, she was safe, but she had forgotten to check out with me before she left. That was a little bit stressful. But, it was a really fun experience. I love those girls. (these are the babes my title referred to, just so you know, haha)

4. I am dog sitting for the terrifyingly huge dog again. He still weighs 120 lbs. He could still kill a bear. He still needs pills shoved down his throat every night. But, now he also needs ointment put on his nose twice a day. It is an antibiotic cream for a scab he got by getting his nose stuck in the fence. The scab is starting to heal but it still looks painful. I’m sure you can guess how happy Lucas is when I start rubbing the lotion into his nose. Yikes. Well, so far, so good. I still have all 10 fingers! (Dog sitting ended last night and I am still all in one piece. Thank goodness!)

5. We didn’t have school on Friday because it was “spring break.” Guess what I did? I went over to a friend’s house and spent 6 hours watching Star Trek. No joke. There were 6 of us that gathered to finish season 1. I am not a huge Star Trek fan, I remember watching some episodes with my dad when I was younger but that was about it. And surprisingly (or not that surprisingly, if you know me at all), I really enjoyed watching the show. Oh and guess what adventure earned me? I have officially been elevated from "nerd-friendly" status to "a nerd’s dream girl" status. Sweet. Haha.

6. On Saturday, my roommates and I all went to the girl’s championship village basketball game. All of the local village teams came to Bethel this weekend to compete for a place at the state tournament and I am excited to say that the Kwethluk Lady Kings will be heading to Anchorage to represent this area. Kwethluk is a village close to Bethel that is home to a few of my students. Actually, the Chefornak Lady Shamans represented some of my other students, so I would have been happy no matter who won. Now, I haven’t played basketball since 8th grade and haven’t really spent a whole lot of time watching it, but this was a weird game to watch. My roommate PJ found the word that describes it perfectly, frantic. I felt almost stressed watching them play. Or maybe I was stressed because I was crammed in the BRHS gym that was packed way over capacity and filled with tons of intense fans. Whichever it was, it was definitely an interesting experience.

7. On Sunday I got a frantic phone call from one of the girl’s dorm parents. Apparently, one of the pipes in the dorm had burst and it was leaking water all over the floor. I rushed over there and luckily my roommate Justin joined me because I had no idea what to do. By the time we got there, Starr was just arriving and the construction teacher was on his way too. It didn’t take long for them to figure out how to turn the water off and to fix the pipe. But, the fun part was cleaning up afterwards. It has been super cold here the past few weeks and the water was actually starting to freeze in the entryway. But, we got it all cleaned up and everything turned out just fine.

8. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only BABS drama this week. As I walked into school Monday morning, I was greeted with, “Don’t touch anything, this is a crime scene.” Sometime between when the pipes burst and when Starr got to school the next morning, someone broke into BABS, stole $1700 in cash from our safe (which they seriously battered) and broke one of our doors. It is pretty upsetting to know that someone would steal from a school and I really hope that they find the jerk who did it.

9. On a brighter note, Ariel, Joe and I have started a new tradition! Joe has started reading Ariel and I a bedtime story every night. Oh, first of all, fun fact. Ariel and I share a bed now. Well, technically we don’t. We pushed our beds together, so now we have a double wide Queen size bed. It is pretty fun. But anyway, Joe comes in every night and reads us a chapter or two from Northern Lights, a Nora Roberts romance novel based in Alaska. It is actually surprisingly accurate, so if you want a more professionally written version of life in Alaska, you might pick it up! On second thought, since we are only on chapter 5 and haven’t gotten to any of the juicy parts yet, maybe I shouldn’t be encouraging anyone to read it yet… I should also make it clear that the setting is the surprisingly accurate part, not the romance part. (But, like I just said, we haven’t read any real romance novel-y parts yet, so maybe it will be accurate too, *wink wink*) ((Just kidding! No exciting Bethel romance for me to report, sorry!))

Ok, time to walk home. OH! But first, another exciting thing. I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT. Like, actually the light. I can watch the sun start to rise on my walk to work and then the sun doesn’t set until like 6:30/7. Amazing. So, I guess now it is time to enjoy the -10 degree (-30 with wind chill) weather and the sunlight.

Love and miss you all!