Humpday Umpdate: Man...Who said the end was easy?

Well, officially 21 days till I'm outta here. With the internet gone, two full time house guests, a semi-surprise visit from my mentor teacher (thanks for the pizza!) and a scheduled visit from my special Education itinerant as well as dog to watch over the weekend and a student who comes over for an hour of tutoring after school, I have been running around like a complete nutbar. Things have settled down, the internet is back on, and I think I might have enough time to sneak in a proper Wednesday update...if only I had more to say.

Music Update: I just want to re suggest the band "My Morning Jacket" for consideration. They're stylish mix of heartfelt songs and straight out old fashioned rock music has been a major player in the salvation of this last week. Late at night when everyone goes to bed I put one of their spacey albums and follow it to the end of th galaxy.

Things I'm Loving: Our underdeveloped and utilized school library with treasure from the 70's a plenty. The lady who is staying with me (Mrs. Stillwell) cooking (she's a mom!). My $12 south American woolen booties (see ridiculous photo!) Bananas and Nutella for breakfast an Ethiopian delicacy. Checking off another day on any of the 6 calendars I am using to track the ending of the year. Tazo "Calm" tea. Lists of things not to forget when I go home. Reimbursment checks from SPED conference classes. A+ grades and praise from SPED class instructors.

Things I'm Hating: The no gum/hats/soda/ipods rules at school. The LKSD Phase System. Still not knowing who my principal for next year is. Holes in the snow where someone fell through that have since been covered over by a treacherous thin layer of snow causing said hole to act as a wicked knee breaking trap. Soar backs from roller blading in the gym. Internet Malfunctions. White board markers that nun out of marker.

Cool Podcast to Check out: WNYC's RadioLab. Thank for introducing me to this cool free podcast Katie. This program basically takes anything you can think of and goes into a deep exploration of every facet and angle of the topic. Whether its pop music, the fate of modern space exploration of what have you, they can make anything interesting and informative. Check it out.

Well I wish I had more exciting things to share with you all but to tell you the truth I'm absolutely exhausted from all the guests, all the no internet have to totally think on my feet and pull lessons out of ass, and all the stressin about leaving for the summer.

I'm going to do my very best to keep up the quality content you all seem to be enjoying (anonymously or openly) over the next few weeks. Lets all start to get used to the fact that the blog is going to go through a change in the next few weeks as we transition from a situation where I am in isolation on an island in the Bering Sea to a situation surrounded by friends, family and activity. I'm not saying Radiate Warmth will end, I'm saying that its going to change. And, we all know how people deal with change, we fear it, and often strike out in anger. So just chill and ride the wave of change ok?

Internet Issues

Well the internet has been pretty sporadic this week. I finally got on long enough to let you all know I probably won't get any solid posts in until its back to full strength. Hope all is well with everyone this week and keep chuggin' we're soooo close to summer!

Weekly Update

After a rough week last week I woke up today and realized April is almost over. Holy SHAT! What a speedy little bugger he was (is April a he, seems like a she oh well). Here's the update!

Musical Artist of the Week: The band's name is My Morning Jacket. They are an amazing indy turned psychedelic jam rock band that I have somehow decided not to get int until now. Now I have to push the live album "Okonokos" because it is like falling through space on a pillow of joy. But I have also heard a ton of tracks from their upcoming album "Evil Urges" and when it comes out on June 10th you must go out and get it! If you like Coldplay, Radiohead, The Flaming Lips or Beck and would like to see them rolled into one with a little something extra then you'll really enjoy this band.

Old School Phrase of the Week: Thanks to Gary the traveling drivers education and welding teacher and his wife Pam that are staying with me (from Texas) I have enough old school phrases written down to last me a long time. My favorite from this weekend has been "Knocked the Soup out of him." You can use this phrase when someone "Gets their Bell rung" or the "Clock Cleaned." Crap! I just used up three in one Update I better stop before I slip out any more!

Weather on Nunivak: I think you all have figured from the recent posts we had some spring weather and are now back in the deep freeze again. Today is a beautiful sunny Sunday and a beautifully crisp 19 degrees F. The wind is still whippin outta the dead North at 15 mph and that drops the windchill to 5 deg F. Spring My ASS! Kusko.net said things are gonna be getting nicer for a couple of days and we might break 40 by mid week...yipee.

WebLinks of the Week: I'm just totally amazed that with a few clicks of the mouse I can save one person's life (www.nothingbutnets.net, feed a person a meal (www.thehungersite.com) and save 11.4 square feet of rainforest (www.therainforestsite.com). Please take the time everyday or once in a while to click these banners in the toolbar to the right and do some good today!

ART UPDATE OF THE WEEK: Well I've recorded two songs this week "Its Been a Long Time" and "Souls Will Find a Release" both about spring and both about so much more. I've also been doing quite a bit of writing on the blog. Please give these songs a listen and give me some feedback! I love to hear what people think about music and as I continue to zero into a sort of groove or genre or type of music I always appreciate criticism so I can improve. Thanks!

READERSHIP/ClustR map Update: After some big days we've settled back into our 20-30 people a day pattern, I think the steady nature of these numbers makes me happy to know that there about 25 people that check this blog everyday and some times 3 times as many! Side note: I have 4 songs in the top 100 of the Folk Rock Genre Charts on the IAC database!

Days till Washington: Officially, I will be off this rock in 25 days! I can't believe life is so fast! I STILL HAVE SOOOOO LONG TO GO!

BIG UPS! This weeks big ups goes to Matt Senechal from Seattle Washington for turning me on to the band, My Morning Jacket. I have had such an epic space cookie of a weekend listening to these guys late at night contemplating the meaning of it all. If you hook me up with music you will get a big ups...unfortunately I don't even know if he reads this blog!

Song of the Weekend:

"Souls Will Find a Release" click HERE to listen.

Walkin’ through the opening in the center of town
And I can feel something comin’ on, comin’ on
It’s another day and I will find a place to rest my eyes
Its another day in paradise

Souls will find a release
Or at least a way to get away
Souls will find a release
Or at least a way to get away

Oh…

Clouds are rollin’ in I think its time
For spring to roll on by one more time
There’s nothing better than seeing something grow
Through the last remaining remnants of time

Souls will find a release
Or at least a way to get away
Souls will find a release
Or at least a way to get away

Last thoughts: Sorry for no pictures, the internet has been really bad this week!

Sleepy Saturday's Eve

I'm enjoying a slow, sedated, sunsetting evening. I spent all day in school watching a new teacher inservice that had such a nominal effect on me intellectually and spiritually and rationally that I can't even muster a comment.

I sit here now in my little home listening to Neil Young, Loretta Lynn, Leo Kottke and the Louvin Brothers. Sleepy twanging tones of the fading elders of American music slowly lull me into a trance. I miss America. I miss the smell of cut grass and barbeque's. I miss the crack of a baseball bat and the twittering of continental song birds in the morning. The snow birds sound similar but foreign here to me. I miss fireworks and the Shriners weaving back an forth on skooters across the pavement during a parade on mainstreet in Anytown, USA. I miss the burn of ice cold Coca-Cola on a hot afternoon. I miss staring up at the stars through the tops of green needled trees in my parents yard, our land. I love so many things about this bizarre arctic Eskimo world, but this is not the America I've ever known. This is a different world, and it is not my own. This will never be my land.

I peeked my head into a town meeting in the gym today. The town corporation was having their annual meeting. I've never seen so many Mekoryuk residents in force intently concentrated on a serious matter. I was fascinated and blown away. A scraggily man that I've never seen on the island approached me, drew close into my personal space, and asked me very stearnly who I was. I said simply I was a teacher.

He returned "This is a shareholders meeting."

I immediately got an eerie felling that I wasn't welcome. Even though it was a meeting about money, my community and the grocery business that runs everything (that I have a random vast knowledge about and could be of use) I was totally and completely and outsider. It just hit home. I don't belong here. Ralph the maintenance man is marrying one of our white teachers this summer and commented that even after ten years of marriage she may never be a shareholder. This is not my land. I know that now and it shattered a great divide in my heart.

I just feel like so much has happened since August. Spring is supposed to be a time of change, and birth, and cleaning house and new fresh starts. But spring for an educator in the arctic, an outsider, is a time of reflection like that of the fall in the white man's world of the lower 48. I can't stop thinking about how many unknowns and possibilities and opportunities there were in August. Now after only one year, of intense reflection and desperation trying to comprehend this foreign world all I have to show is the simple, humble, modest realization that these people don't want or need me here. How do you come back to that? How do you return in the face of all that we've been through.

Maybe its the fact that I know the futility of it all. It like a firefighter that runs into a burning building even though everyone else is running out. If you can only get in and find the helpless child hiding under their bed on the 34th floor and also make it out with out losing your life. I get so scared that this experience will change me too far, stretch me too much and leave me worn out like a Vietnam Veteran or a recovered heroine addict.

I have so much love to give, so much sharing and learning to do and no matter how much positivity I seem to put into the equation the only product I get is a sad picture of the last dying people of the old way. Sometimes at night the cold reality of the hopelessness of it all keeps me awake. I think its so dangerous to dip my toe in this water. But I need to test it so that I can feel the temperature of living a life defined by accepting the chaotic hopelessness of humanity. Its a real feeling. Its a moment I don't like to live. But possibly, its a moment I need. I need to feel the complete tragedy of it all so that I can once again, rise from the bottom, broken down to my elements to start the cycle again.

The cycle of Hope. The cycle of believing in good again. The cycle of faith in the minute possibility that life means something in spite of all my logical, rational observations and deductions about the pointlessness of life. Even though every sign, everything I have experienced seems to scientifically point to the fact that nothing we've done, are doing or will ever do means anything at all, I still, illogically press on believing in goodness, hope, meaning, dreams and love. This is what defines the darker sides of Radiating Warmth. People want to know where faith lies in a person who doesn't believe in God. Well, the faith basically boils down to the fact that despite and endless string of evidence pointing toward the nothingness void of life around us, I still choose to live and love and make everyday count for myself and for what I can do for others. I search for so that I can ignore the why to survive.

Please don't give up out there. Please don't let me give up. Please, please, please don't forget about your heart.

I love you all so much goodnight and have a restful, reflective Sunday with those you love. I know I will be thinking of those people tomorrow.

An Arctic Home Supplement: The News From Nunivak Island.

April 25, 2008: The Fear of Falling Through

Well its been a quiet day on Nunivak, my island in the Bering Sea. Spring is a strange time for the residents of Mekoryuk. Ruby and Duggan, two elementary school boys around town, have had a wonderful time enjoying the meteorological confusion that is break up season here in Alaska. The snow nearly completely melted last week on the island leaving massive deepened puddles of flooding runoff, but in the confusion of the season, the weather has reverted back to the cold grip of winter once again.

With temperatures plummeting and snow falling again, all of said puddles have become tiny opportunities for adolescent adventure. Ruby can be seen egging Duggan on all over town as they tromp around testing out the structural integrity of the ice puddles around the village. A small Indiana Jones climactic drama plays out over and over again. Ruby dares Duggan to test out the ice of doom, Duggan tells him to go first, a punch on the arm and a purple nurple follow until one of the boys tentatively ventures into the puddle. Due to a fairly accurately placed painful ear flick by Duggan, Ruby is forced to attempt the treacherous crossing in shame. As if life itself depends on a successful crossing, Ruby slowly inches across the cracking brown ice, the ultimate goal to reach the other side in safety. This frozen abyss is a particularly deep and nasty puddle and Ruby, with and almost paraperceptual understanding of the physics of ice cracking, senses that catastrophe is soon at hand and decides to make a sprint for the edge. The added sudden instant pressure and movement causes the entire puddle to crumble before him as he dashes for the other side, as if going faster would make the ice crack less quickly. He leaps for the edge and lands in the hard snow and panting and soaked from the waste down.

Ruby gets up and snaps ashamed at his friend, "Duggan, I dare you to cross the pit of doom now you buttface!"

Buttface has a sting to it. Luckily, the consequences of hurting those you love as a small child are usually forgotten by the next frozen puddle.

Duggan obviously wouldn't attempt a suicide mission and takes the complimentary charley-horse without protest. Bygons are left to be bygons.

I myself am watching these action sequences and an epic sunset tonight at 11pm or so out my window. It is 3 deg. F. outside with the windchill, everything has frozen back to solid ice, the new galoshes I bought yesterday are useless and have been shelved in lieu of the Sorel Caribou boots once again. I put my parka back on, winter is back here in Mekoryuk. With that a slight sigh of dismay, dissapointment and sometimes relief is collectively breathed by the kids at the teen game room across from the school house. They pace back and forth smoking cigarettes with a troubled look on their face in front of a game room that is almost maniacally placed directly across from the large barn red aluminum sided school house that taunts them day in and day out.

You see, some of the older students have subconsciously slipped back into their own internal winters at the Nuniwarmiut School. If nature can change its mind back why can't a teen ager? A good student who was once a trouble maker considers and possibly acts on returning to their winter of poor choices. A bad student who was once good, witnesses the see sawing of possibilities of meteorology and un-purposefully decides to leave the dark side once again. Teenagers live in an uncertain world and when the world is crumbling around them or at least having a hard time deciding what it is, a teen's decision to choose an image, personality, character or way of life is crucial. When every thing is changing possibly for the worse, or even more worse, possibly for the better, the fear of the cracking sound of the looming future beneath the feet of a teenager can cause panic and sudden movements and motions and outbursts of butt-faced anger.

And so it went this week at school, choices and decisions and erratic destructive behavior of students like panicked dashes and sprints for the safety and comfort of being their old "Bad" selves. Little did Ruby Icewalker, or the older Darth students know that if they would have remained calm, acted cautiously, and moved slowly they could have possibly made it to the other side dry and warm. The scary uncertainty of a soggy fall to the depths of happiness and success can be horrifying for teenager. To think that the cold, dark, depressing teen world of misguided choices, misunderstanding and unfairness, drama and tragedy might someday give way to a life where they will be responsible for their own happiness and well being is too horrifying to bare. Better make a leap for it I guess. Or, maybe get better at picking which puddles to walk across.

Well that's the news from my Island in the Bering Sea, where the sky gray, the snow is white (again) and the air and life usually have a bite.

Overalls Friday

I feel like I've been hit with a mac truck. I wore my overalls today...but I didn't really mean it. I got home and made brownies for some pot luck. David Bowie was not played. I didn't really mean it. I'm writing this post right now, and I am just too tired to really give up much in the way of spiritual or emotional or humorous insights on life. I think I'm totally wiped out. I'm going to go deliver these loveless brownies, choke down some odd colored stew, various salads, and some sort of wild game dish and sit with a bunch of people who won't really talk to me, then I'm going to come home and lie on the couch like a vegetable and fall asleep quickly if I'm lucky. I rented a awful movie in case I'm too tire to sleep. I really hope you all are having a fun and exciting Friday night...maybe I'll post later after a nap...

Thursday From Hell Update

My students have dissapointed me greatly. I don't even know how to express my feelings right now. I hope they know how unbelievably immature and childish they are being. I can't believe the complete inability to see the forest from the trees. I guess I'm supposed to be understanding but maybe I just refuse to accept that this behavior lately is normal. I can't even go into it, but all I know is that if they don't watch it they are going to step in a pile of shit that they may never clean from their boots. Heed Warning you little buggers. That being said, Heres some positive updates.

Musical Artist Update: Neil Young's newish album "Prairie Wind" is really rather spectacular. I feel like I can hear the closing of a life in his every word and its not a sad thing. Each song carefully crafts a memory about "A Painter" or a dream or "This old Guitar." This album gives me hope that I can still turn out substantial music when I am nearing the sunset of life. I have been waking up to this wonderful album everyday with my coffee and classroom work before the devil freak babies arrive.

NEW BLOG FEATURES!!!!! So I added some new banners to the side bar. The www.nothingbutnets.net banner allows you to play a quick game and by doing so donates a malaria net to children in Africa. TheHungerSite.com A Click a Day donates food enough for one meal by simply clicking on it every day you could feed a lot of people in no time at all. The last one is a Kiva.org International loan website banner that shows third world people looking for loans that you can help sponsor to get out of poverty through honest hard work (they have 99% pay back rate). So check out all these cool visual links that really could do some good in no time at all!

Things I'm loving: My brand new galoshes! I just bought a pair of shiny black rainboots and they rule! Also, phone calls from best friends! So uplifting to hear from them. I'm also loving and embracing my "Native" accent. I can't help it, it just bubbles up constantly. Loving my bright white freaky sunglasses. I used to have a pair just like them and it is so damn bright here that I just love to put them on and hide behind them. I also love the Aminor chord in the Key of C. It has changed my world. I'm also loving my Ringing Cedars pendant! It makes me feel better for some reason knowing that its collecting all my cosmic goodness and giving it back to me in times of need. I'm also loving the blog love! 80 hits yesterday you hard core mother SHUT your mouth, you're all some bad mamma jammas. Also, I've renewed my love for Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Ginger Ale.


Things I despise: Walking on the snow then amazingly breaking through down to my knees. Nothing frustrates me more than my inability to step 2 feet down into slush (thus boots). I also have major problem with the idiotic and ignorant language of my students i.e. "Fag" "Homo" "Retarded" and "Gay." I had one student call the internet connection "Lesbian" today. I was shocked and felt sorry for the lack of awareness that he had. I also despise thievery. I hate people who steal, it is farking deplorable. I also hate not knowing who my principal is going to be next year.
Music Update: Will Pearson's poem "Fragile Things" turned into song has gotten almost 2000 plays on my music website! Oh my god! It in the top 50 of the Folk Rock genre charts and in the top 1000 for the whole site thanks to everyone! Way to go y'all. I'm also soooo pleased with a new song I just wrote called "Its been a long time" all about the coming spring.

I don't have much else to update. I needed to blog to some good music and be centered because days like today have deeply saddened me about the progress that can be wiped out in education by student's self destructive and moronic choices. I will just try to go back tomorrow and start all over. I don't think students read this much anymore but if you are one right now, and you made some decisions lately that didn't feel good afterward, you need to know that you are out of control and you need to take some time to reflect on what you're doing to those around you. I hope the best for all my students, but even I have to draw the line at plain wrong sometimes, youth aside. Get it together already.

Humpday Umpdate put on hold.

I got some house guests today. Gary and Pam will be staying with me for a couple of weeks teaching welding and drivers education here in Mekoryuk. I've spent most of the night just chit chatting away with these warm hearted Texans. I love them! They are a cute and quirky couple and don't mind them a bit. We've been talkin' up a storm and they talk in the familiar old school language of my youth. I'll double up tomorrow hopefully and give everyone out there in Radiation World a quality post. Have a wonderful weeks close my friends. Do I say that I love you all ever? Well I think now might be the time. I do. I love each and every one of you out there. I'm filled with good feelings and I'm radiating them out your way!

An Arctic Home Supplement: The News from Nunivak Island

April 22nd, 2008: "Spring Mud Love"

It was another quiet day here in Mekoryuk, my island in the Sea. I saw a small arctic song bird perched on a railing outside my window last night. His tiny sweet chirping calls officially announced the arrival of spring in my book. His neighbor the arctic fox has stripped down to his summer fur already and walks the morning dawn with the scraggle and scrap of a gnarly beach bum. Its not the beautiful flower filled fragrant spring of my youth but a clouded, muddy disaster of melting snow and tundra fudge. But the little guys keep chirping along happily and beachtown combing in the 11pm sun, at least the birds and foxes here seem to be optimists.

I've started shoveling the snowbank outside my home onto the path into our arctic entry to try and discourage large quantities of mischievous mud from creeping its way inside, freeloading a ride on the treads of my boots. Time to bust out the old rubber boots again. Nothing instills a sense of the oncoming spring mess in a Nunivak local like the smell of wet rubber in the morning.

April's almost over already, this baffles the locals over at the US Postal Service trailer. They speak of ice break up and early or late seal hunting. April. Always an oddly looking thing. Awkward, stuttering and stopping, unsure of its identity. Am I Winter? Am I Summer? Oh I can't make up my mind. Whoa is me the Spring.

Snow machine enthusiast are out getting their last heart pounding throttle junky rides of the year in, skipping and weaving through the last patches of decaying snow. Like wise, the snow has melted and sprung four-wheelers and trucks from their winter prison sentence and a few of those have been squirting and sliding around town. Their time to shine is only months away and Nunivak locals are out in the fading evening hours tinkering and tooling up their chariots of the tundra.

A Nunivak mud puddle is a marvelous thing. Half mud, one quarter puddle, and twenty-five percent tundra flavored slush puppy. Upon walking across a seemingly innocent mud patch an unsuspecting person could suddenly find themselves shin deep in a pool of frozen earthen Slurpee delight.

The kids in The Nuniwarmiut School have crawled to a standstill. The overwhelming burden of extra light and looming summer fun have occupied such major percentages of their brain space that several of the more rambunctious students have even conceded to a simple mulling about in mindless contemplation of freedom.

Spring is a time of change, and students know change better than most, although they deal with it as poorly as the rest of us. Every year around this time they have to say goodbye to another chapter of their lives. As adults it all seems to mesh together. But as students we had clear markers of our time on earth. 4th grade. 7th Grade. Sophomore. Senior. Every year a new title. A new position. A new challenge. A new song. A new fad. A new slang word. A new love.

The young spring love is a powerful thing. Spring is an important time for love. The rest of the animal kingdom is preparing to breed and young Nunivak teens are positioning and promenading for their summer romances. There is a sense of desperation in the air as the final month of the year comes to a close. One last chance to impress that potential summer love before the final bell sounds for the year.

Of course in the Nuniwarmiut School there are no bells, only the final slamming metal doors of another year spent trying to survive an encounter with the dangerous educators of American bullshit.

The locals are talking about it too. The amount of conversation at the Nima Corporation town General Store usually revolves around fish camp, berry picking, boat engine repair, bird hunting and halibut fishing. These activities hold meaning, this is where the Nunivak residents shine. Their natural habitat is the cool outdoor air of the sea. Their natural mindset is the earnest effort of survival and hard work doing worthwhile tasks. We should all be so lucky.

Thats the news from Nunivak Island, my village in the Bering Sea, where the snow is gray, the sky is white and the day is slowly winning over the night.

Monday Chillage In the Village

I wrote a song today called "Its Been A Long Time." Instead of sharing my Normal Monday thoughts I'll just let you guess how it went from the lyrics. Click the hyperlinked titled above to listen.

There's spring around
And I don't feel the cold anymore (anymore)
I think I just heard
The chirp of a bird outside my window (my window)

And its been a long time
Since I felt alive
And its been a long way
Since I've felt this way
I'm gonna have a good day today

Time will tell
How long the ice will last (its going fast)
I might as well
Say goodbye to the past (Its kickin my ass)

And its been a long time
Since I felt alive
And its been a long way
Since I've felt this way
I'm gonna have a good day today
I'm gonna have a wonderful day today

I hope you all had a good day today. Much love and send me some poems quick I'm feeling creative!!!